Ed: This post was originally deleted by Blogger because it "violated our Illegal activities policy", but on review it has been reinstated.
Bangkok brothels stealing groundwater for ‘soapy massages’ may be causing capital city to sink | South China Morning Post - "Environmental officers can test the water to determine whether it is from a legitimate piped source or illegally taken from the ground. Experts have warned that parts of Bangkok could be submerged by 2030, chiefly due to rising sea levels and the draining of groundwater in the capital’s swampy soil."
Police Camera in Action: Singapore’s Sex Industry - "What is perhaps most reflective of the system in which these women operate is the sign that reads “POLICE CAMERA IN ACTION” that looms over the entire scene. Prostitution itself is legal in Singapore, but its related activities are not... an informal system of legal and regulated brothels... can be found today in the designated red light areas of Geylang and Desker Road, although according to a 1996 article by Wong Yang Joel in the Singapore Law Review, there were previously others operating out of Keong Saik Street and Flanders Square as well. These brothels operate on the basis of government-issued licenses mandating compliance with conditions such as specific operating hours, the number of women they may employ, and workers’ countries of origin. In return, as two different Geylang brothel owners say, these establishments (often marked by numbered lamp posts at their gates) receive immunity from surprise police raids. Josephus Tan, a criminal lawyer in Singapore, describes the regulated system as a Machiavellian, practical approach to handling controversial issues in light of the country’s uniquely multi-racial and multi-religious population. He believes Singapore’s diversity requires policymakers to calibrate the various expectations that exists across interest groups and stakeholders, without going to extreme ends... As coordinator of Project X, a human rights group for sex workers in Singapore, Vanessa Ho estimates that there are 800 to 1,000 licensed sex workers in Singapore at any given time. Nearly 95 percent of them, she says, are migrants from other Southeast Asian countries: China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia... Police allegedly spend multiple hours asking questions that range from whether the woman has been forced into prostitution to why the woman wants to do this type of work. Women say from there they are humiliated by questions such as, “You have hands and feet; why can’t you do another job instead of selling your body?” In response, they act the part. They cry and tell the saddest stories they can concoct. Eventually, they receive their approval... Under Singapore’s Immigration Act, HIV-infected immigrants are deported immediately; sex workers say that those found to have contracted an STI twice are deported as well. In addition, licensed sex workers must comply with terms that reach beyond the scope of their work. They say they cannot drink alcohol in public, go to nightclubs, or have a Singaporean boyfriend or husband—the latter due to a purported governmental fear that these women might then seek to become naturalized Singaporean citizens. They also cannot work outside of their designated brothel, so they are often escorted and monitored whenever they leave their establishment. As some brothel owners are particularly concerned about this stipulation, some workers can’t even sit in a coffee shop after work because their brothel owners suspect them of soliciting off-the-clock. Many licensed women are also unhappy because even after their career as a sex worker in Singapore ends, the purview of the law does not. Workers say that upon completing their contracts, each is faced with a travel ban prohibiting their return to Singapore, the duration of which varies by nationality. Any licensed sex worker wishing to return to Singapore, however, must seek approval from the government. And, as workers say, this is somewhat arbitrary. Some receive approval, some do not. Vanessa Ho remembers one divorced man who approached Project X for help when his lover, a migrant sex worker from China, was faced with a lifetime travel ban after working in Singapore for two years. The worker received at least three rejection letters from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, all saying that she was barred from entering Singapore “for reasons she should know herself.” Ironically, it remains that, despite whatever regulations exist, even members of the sex industry’s regulated sector are constantly breaking the law as it is spelled out on paper... illegal, unlicensed sex workers are a definite majority in Singapore, so much so that licensed brothel owners sometimes feel economically threatened enough to report them to the authorities... the women can earn up to 80 USD per service—a payment about six times more than what they can earn in Malaysia and 16 times more than what they can earn in Vietnam. And while this is Singapore’s primary enticement, other women migrate to sightsee, gain social capital through “internationality,” or attempt to find a husband, resorting to selling their bodies once they run out of money... “Socially, it’s like a family,” says Lainez, explaining that Asian languages’ kinship terms help create a fictive familial environment. “The broker and woman in charge of the house, the same person in this case, is like the mother and the migrant sex workers are like her daughters. [Horrific stories of migrant sex work] are just for newspapers. It may happen sometimes, but not in the majority of cases.” Lainez notes that what differentiates Singapore’s sex industry within Southeast Asia is the law’s severity toward unlicensed workers... One 40-year-old Singaporean who wishes to remain anonymous says police efforts to crack down on illegal prostitutes—the license-less women on the street—have definitely increased recently... The sheer number of sex workers migrating to Singapore has come to oversaturate the industry. According to Ho, going rates for services used to be S$100 to S$200 per hour, as compared to current rates as low as S$15 to S$20 for oral sex or even full service"
From 2015
Meme - "AskReddit - mejagger4321
strippers of reddit, whats your weirdest story while working?
Escort instead of stripper. I had one guy who would take me to a restaurant once every month. he always requested there would be nothing else involved, no stripping, no touching, no sex, just sitting there for a few hours. So he also wanted me to dress like I would for a normal night out. He had a massive stutter, so much that a single sentence could take him a minute to pronounce. Normally he would always speak by writing things down, as people never had the patience to listen to him. He just wanted someone to actually talk to. He mentioned that I was his seventh escort, because the others all refused to see him multiple times. After I left the job, I kept in touch with him. We still go out every once in a while almost 10 years later and we call more often, though now he no longer has to pay and because he has someone to talk to, his stutter massively improved"
"Sexelance" Van Available in Denmark for Street-Based Sex Work - "Michael Lodberg Olsen has launched Sexelance, a project that makes street-based sex work more safe. Sexelance is an ambulance car that can be used by street-based sex workers to see clients. Inside the car there are banners saying that the volunteers will call the police if there are signs of violence. The banners also encourage sex workers to inform the authorities if they are victims of trafficking."
According to From Our Own Correspondent, they've only had to intervene once
UK news: The Gambia issues warning to UK grandmothers to find toy-boys elsewhere - "The West African country has been known in recent years for its sexed-up reputation, where older British women would typically go on holiday in search of younger men. But Gambian officials are putting a stop to this industry, having announced they want to end the habit of people heading to the country with the sole aim of ‘just sex’. The director of the Gambia Tourism Board, Abubacarr S. Camara, said: “What we want is quality tourists."... Camara explained that the former British colony aims to now move away from older female tourists in a bid to shift its reputation, which has previously been dubbed as a ‘real-life Tinder dream for geriatrics’ by some. ‘The Smiling Coast’ gained independence in 1965, with sex tourism making an increase in the 1990s after Thomas Cook launched budget tours and cheap flights to the destination. Most Gambian men who do such work with older women in this way have been reportedly enticed into the industry by the lack of jobs and low wages in the country, where they can instead earn £200 for just one day of work - which equals a month’s salary. They are said to search the white sand beaches for older women, who hail from the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany, as well as the UK. A few of the encounters are arranged online before the women’s arrival, with the sex workers collecting them from the airport. The government is also thinking of introducing laws to make it easier for police to arrest local beach boys and older women engaged in sex work, in a bid to deter prostitution. The minister of tourism and culture, Hamat Bah, echoed that The Gambia wanted to move away from nightlife to wildlife, noting that the country has more than 300 different species of tropical birds. Meanwhile, the national coordinator at the Child Protection Alliance, Lamin Fatty, said that the British government should also step in to stop Brits from exploiting young boys in the area who become involved in the industry."
She was trafficked into a giant brothel. Now she runs it - "Monowara (as she is known in the brothel) was trafficked into Kandapara as a child over 30 years ago. Since then, armed with little more than her wits, she has learned to navigate the institution’s intricate hierarchies, cruelty and violence. Today she is one of the most powerful women in the brothel... Her turf was the walled-off community of Kandapara, Bangladesh’s oldest brothel. Sitting on the edge of a textile town north-west of Dhaka, the capital, it is one of 11 such “brothel-villages” in Bangladesh, which are among the less well-known legacies of British imperialism."
I'm a male escort — my hot dad bod makes me $10K a month - "Samuel Hunter shares the glamorous reality of his life as an Australian gigolo — which makes him $10,000 a month. The Sydney-based sex worker has been put up in five-star hotels and flown out to other countries for luxury vacations. Hunter, who is in his early forties, sleeps with up to seven women a month with clients ranging from 23 to 70 years old... The majority of his clients are regulars around his age who book him for overnight stays or multiple days at a time. Nearly a quarter of Hunter’s clients are married women who book him for quick visits, but he insists that none of his clients have ever caused him trouble... “My clients get the best version of myself. They don’t get the guy that sits around drinking coffee and looking at my phone all morning. And I get the best version of them too, which you don’t see in relationships”... working with people with disabilities makes up for nearly half of his ongoing work... The silver fox admitted that his life as a male sex worker is “very different” than that of women in the same field claiming that “the biggest difference is women can see multiple clients a day” while he limits himself to one woman a day. “Women tend to get booked for shorter amounts of time, whereas most of my bookings are for a few hours or overnight”... Hunter is very open about his lifestyle and even jokes about it with his mother. “She was a bit apprehensive at first, but now she’s fine with it. She always jokes with me about getting back to the grind,” he said. “With the emphasis on grind.”"
Former escort who charged $1,500 an hour says the job is 'easy' - "Amanda Goff was perhaps one of the best-known sex workers in Australia. Having operated under the pseudonym Samantha X, she made regular TV appearances, is the author of two best-selling books and launched her own escort agency. For a period of eight years, Goff lived the high life, having been regarded as top of her field in the sex industry – and earning a paycheck reflective of this. The former escort requested $1,500 per hour for her grind, but this went up to $2,000 towards the end of her career in the industry... the author recalled the moment she laid eyes on ‘glamorous women’ in the south of France stepping into supercars with rich men, finding their lifestyle and career in escorting ‘exotic’. When Goff was in her mid 30s, she paved her way into the paid sex industry during her first encounter with a client in a penthouse in Sydney, Australia... while the job was ‘easy’, it entailed more than what was to ensue between the sheets. She admitted: "I realised this man wasn't just here for sex. I think men go into it thinking they want sex and that's what it's about, but in fact, I got his whole life story and we talked about everything. It was almost like he didn't want to go because he wanted to keep talking."... Goff decided to take the plunge into escorting, soon becoming a ‘safe space’ for her clients to open up about their innermost feelings. "I often would say 'it would be a lot cheaper to see a counsellor than me',” she quipped. “But they would say 'why would I go and see a counsellor because I would feel judged?' I think for men, they see a sex worker as a safe space – I don't know why. “The only thing I can think of is when we're naked, everyone's vulnerable." As for why she's giving up the lucrative profession, she said: "When I hear people talk about sex I wince! I don't want to shave my legs anymore. Well, I will. But I'm just sick of it. "I am so tired of, of having to be... not sexual, but sexy. I just want to be me. I just can't wait to let it all go. I'm so excited to just be Amanda.""
Local reporter digs more into massage parlours in S'pore malls that provide erotic services - "According to an investigation by a reporter from the Chinese daily, there are multiple shops all over town that offer erotic services while posing as massage parlours, nail salons and even Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) outlets. Many of these shops can be found in shopping malls, such as People's Park Centre, Parklane Shopping Mall, Far East Plaza, and Excelsior Shopping Centre, with between three to 10 of such parlours located in a single mall... According to a masseuse from Harbin, China, whom the reporter described as "plump" with a "nice face", the staff of such shops need to earn as much money as possible as they will be deported once they are caught. With regard to her background, the masseuse claimed that she had arrived in Singapore with a work permit and had to pay an agency a fee of S$10,000 in advance. She alleged that while she was frightened, she could only continue with this particular line of work, namely erotic massage. In addition, most of the customers are purportedly tipsy and business has not been bad, despite the onset of the pandemic... Another insider said a woman in this line of work purportedly only needs to serve two customers per night in order to earn hundreds of dollars. It is also supposedly possible to earn more than S$10,000 in a month if the customers are generous. As for rates, this is allegedly decided by age, with girls who are young and considered beautiful commonly charging S$500 and above, while the price falls to between S$100 and S$150 for those aged 35 and older. How do the staff solicit for business? Here, the reporter described a variety of methods relayed to him. These apparently include:
Teasing patrons by stripping after initially providing 10 minutes of massage, and proposing the price of the "special service" to the guest if they are unable to resist
In the case of bolder staff, immediately telling a patron once they enter the shop, that only "special services" are provided.
Telling a guest directly "not to waste my time", if they only consent to a massage...
The merchants also claimed that the staff now wear uniforms to reduce the risk of being targeted by the police... The reporter further noted that the number of such shops here has also been reduced to five, down from 20 a few years ago, when staff stood outside the store and beckoned to customers, following an increase in police raids and the establishment of multiple surveillance cameras...
The reporter also pointed out that such shops are largely located on the higher floors of the malls, and in more remote corners. According to the operator of an actual massage parlour at Far East Plaza, however, the presence of these shops do not affect their business as the customers are largely from different groups... Another operator at People's Park Centre claimed that he has encountered customers who arrive at his shop first for a massage, then head upstairs afterwards "seeking fun". As for the authorities, the Chinese masseuse alleged that every month, some of the staff will pay a sum of money to someone who will keep an eye out and sound an alert if anything happens. The staff will also inform one another in the spirit of watching one another's backs. In the case of one such shop which did not want to be named, it said that its staff have since installed CCTVs, which switch between different angles and will slip away the moment they observe something is wrong."
Nail salons?!
‘What I learnt working at a happy ending massage parlour’ - "As with my first customer, I gave each of the men what they asked for. They were all respectful and polite, and each kept his hands to himself. By the end of the shift I almost saw a certain gallantry in their behaviour. I wasn’t traumatised by what had gone on, and I happily took the great pay I was given at the end of my shift and headed home to my housemates, who laughed hysterically when I told them about my first day on the job... A couple of weeks later I landed a job as a waitress in a seafood restaurant. I was paid about a quarter of what the massage parlour paid me, but I was much more comfortable there."
Damn clickbait headline. She didn't say what she learnt
Meme - "What women think they'll do when the economy collapses vs what they'll actually do
*Hunger Games vs Venezuelan Streetwalkers*"
Given the popularity of OnlyFans...
Increase in number of women turning to prostitution blamed on recession - "The ongoing effects of the recession and cutbacks to student support have been cited as reasons behind a rise in the number of women turning to sex work to make ends meet."
The Oldest Profession and the New Soviet Woman: Sex Work and Ideology in the Soviet Union - "Prostitution flourished throughout the 1920s in the Soviet Union as years of revolutionary violence, political and economic instability, and civil war left women especially vulnerable to unemployment"
Macroeconomic Forces within the Market for Prostitution - "Based on the significance of our coefficients in our regression, we can confidently say that macroeconomic factors do affect the prostitution mar-ket. Forces such as the S&P 500 weekly closing prices, the unemployment rate, the average house-hold income, and the labor force participation rate all may meaningfully predict movements in the incidence of prostitution in respective Chicago PUMAs"
The ongoing witch-hunt for FSSW in Sweden - The Swedish model : SexWorkers - "Can we talk about Sweden and sexwork? I live in Sweden and I’m a full service sexworker. The law says that you are allowed to sell sex, but you’re not allowed to buy sex. But it doesn’t stop there. Pimping is by law illegal. And pimping/ profiting from Prostitution when it comes to Swedish law can be a lot. I will explain some of them for you.
1. You can’t rent an apartment, if you do so and the landlord or whoever you’re renting from knows that you’re a sexworker, they’ll have to throw you out, or they could go to jail. The Swedish law says that this is profiting from prostitution.
2. You can’t share rent with your partner, friends or family, also you can’t share money or buy them gifts, if you do so, they risk to go to jail because they see that as profiting.
3. If you have a driver or someone who takes care of calls, ads etc. They’ll go to jail, for “promoting prostitution”. Even if you’re offering duos. I recently had my friend who’s also a fssw going to court because she drove some other fsswers to another city, not even to a client, only to another city. She’s under risk of going to jail atm.
4. The police will find your address, and they will wait outside of your place to catch customers. They say they’re on a mission to save prostitutes, but all they want is to make their boss happy. They will destroy your client base and sometimes they have filming crew’s from news channels, and they expose your address, which means if you have regular clients, they won’t visit you anymore.
5. I know a girl who is banned from booking hotels worldwide almost because the police caught her working. They said everything was fine, but then they talked to the management and banned her.
6. No bank, no auditor etc wants us as customers. They’re afraid, and they see our business as illegal even though it’s by law legal. Many of us pay taxes, but the tax authorities have not given us any guidelines. They just do how they please, in many cases they have put an estimated tax income, and after that giving us a fine. Because there’s no guidelines at all.
7. They don’t se us sexworkers as adults who makes their own decisions. They se us like toddlers, who’s been abused and that we don’t know what we’re doing.
8. Having a partner is illegal, they WILL accuse your partner of pimping. That’s why many of us have to leave sexwork in the name of love.
People who don’t follow the law, and actually wants to make a profit of ✨Prostitution✨, they will take at least 3x more rent. Ex, if they would’ve rent their apartment for 1000$, to a sexworker they’ll rent it for 3000$. And many times they also wants sex when it pleases them."
So much for the Swedish model
"Human Trafficking" Has Become a Meaningless Term - ""Trafficking," in practice, is less a clear-cut crime than a call to moral panic. The vagueness of the definition allows or even encourages governments, organizations, and researchers to claim that there are tens of millions of trafficking victims worldwide on the basis of little more than hyperbolic guesses. Politicians use trafficking rhetoric to portray themselves as defenders of the downtrodden, and generate laudatory press coverage, as Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has done with his crusade against Backpage.com and other sites advertising adult services. And some high profile figures have used trafficking narratives to gain fame. Somali Mam, the celebrated Cambodian anti-trafficking advocate, was exposed for making fraudulent claims about herself and other women she helped... Donna Hughes's seminal 2000 article "The Natasha Trade" defined trafficking specifically as "any practice that involves moving people within and across local or national borders for the purpose of sexual exploitation." But anti-prostitution activists like Hughes often use “sexual exploitation” to include any kind of prostitution or sex work—in fact, Hughes insists in her article that "trafficking occurs even if the woman consents.” In other words, trafficking can include sex workers who decide to illegally or semi-legally migrate from Eastern Europe to the United States. This describes the majority of women who were said to be "trafficked," according to researchers Robert M. Fuffington and Donna J. Guy. "More often than not," they write in A Global History of Sexuality, "these women have engaged in some form of sex work in their home countries and see work abroad as a chance to improve their circumstances."... When you say “trafficking" people still think sexual slavery. The Wikipedia entry on human trafficking, for example, begins by stating, "Human trafficking is the trade of humans, most commonly for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labor, or commercial sexual exploitation"—a definition that begins and ends with sex. In reality, forced labor of other kinds—like domestic labor, construction and agriculture—is much more common, according to the ILO, which estimates that 4.5 million of 21 million people worldwide are victims of sex trafficking (though, again, all trafficking figures are notoriously slippery and poorly sourced). More, the term "trafficking" often is used to refer to cases in which there is no migration at all. For example, New York's Human Trafficking Intervention Courts are used to handle basically anyone arrested for prostitution or related charges, whether or not they have been coerced and whether or not they have come from overseas. Most people who go through sex trafficking courts have been arrested for loitering and prostitution, according to a study by Truthout. According to Bass, "trafficking has become a new name for an old problem, which is largely teenage runaways." Young people who run away from abusive situations at home, and who sell sex to survive, are considered trafficking victims by default under many federal and state laws. This, despite the fact that hardly any teen runaways have pimps or traffickers, according to a John Jay College of Criminal Justice study... most, Bass told me, do not travel out of their own town or city, much less out of the country. So, in practice, trafficking does not mean "modern-day slavery." Nor does it mean being transported across borders for purposes of sexual exploitation. Instead, it usually refers to one or more of the following: being underage and selling sex; illegally immigrating; being subjected to any kind of forced labor or abusive labor practices; engaging in consensual sex work. "The public seems to believe that sex trafficking means forced prostitution,” researcher Tara Burns told me, “but when you sit down and read charging documents for sex trafficking charges, that is very very rarely the case." Sex workers are often charged with having trafficked themselves, Burns said. "Under different state laws, sex trafficking can also mean sex workers advertising for their own services or renting their own hotel rooms, or adults abusing children well outside of the commercial sex industry." The word “trafficking,” then, becomes a way to leverage the image of young women kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. After 9/11, Bass says, the State Department was eager to embrace the language of trafficking as another way to justify immigration restrictions and surveillance inspired in the first place by anti-terrorism—which is why initiatives like the State Department "Human Smuggling and Terrorist Center" lump together "Human smuggling, trafficking in persons, and clandestine terrorist travel" as "transnational issues that threaten national security." "Trafficking" can also be used to make anti-prostitution laws seem compassionate rather than punitive, as in the New York trafficking courts, which frames those arrested as trafficking victims in need of help, even though in practice you still end up with police arresting people (especially minority women) on prostitution charges. In either case, the word is a way to target marginalized groups like immigrants and sex workers in the name of a (confused or cynical) humanitarianism."
Disabled people can be taken to prostitutes by care workers, judge rules - "Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, a care worker who "intentionally causes or incites" someone in their care with a "mental disorder" to engage in sexual activity can be jailed for a maximum of 10 years. However, in a ruling published on Thursday, Mr Justice Hayden said the Act is "structured to protect vulnerable adults from others, not from themselves"."
Modern day slavery: What drives human trafficking in Europe? - "This paper examines the determinants of human trafficking victim inflows into European countries based on identified victim numbers. We use a gravity-type model to acknowledge data reporting shortcomings. Our empirical results suggest that human trafficking occurs within well-established migrant and refugee corridors and that victims are more likely to be exploited in host countries with weak institutions. Legislation on prostitution activities does not influence victim inflows. Liberalization of border controls intensifies trafficking flows. We find no effect of host countries' acceptance rates of asylum seekers. We conclude that effective policies against human trafficking require sound institutions and a focus on the entire trafficking-chain/channel from source to host countries."
Legalized brothels ‘fantastic’ for New Zealand, prostitutes say | The Star - "The website for the Bon Ton brothel in Wellington, New Zealand, invites customers to enter a “safe and secret oasis where the outside world melts away” and “courtesans” like Victoria and Isobella are ready to fulfill your fantasies on “fresh cotton linen.” Prices vary from $228 to $304 (Cdn.), depending on which lady or “combination of ladies” you hire, and online biographical details such as age and bust size can help with those difficult decisions. Credit cards are welcome but the same can’t be said for customers who are intoxicated or refuse to wear a condom. That’s not just Bon Ton policy. Under the Prostitution Reform Act introduced by the New Zealand government in 2003, brothel operators who don’t promote safe sex face criminal charges. Prostitutes are also covered under occupational health and safety laws. “It’s been just fantastic, really,” said Catherine Healey, national coordinator for the New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective... The legislative changes introduced in New Zealand decriminalized adult prostitution and established a regime in which operators of brothels with five or more prostitutes apply to a court for certification. Those opposed to the new system warned that it could lead to a quadrupling of the number of street prostitutes and make the country a haven for human trafficking. But a report for the New Zealand ministry of justice in 2008, five years after the changes were introduced, found no incidents of trafficking and no increase in the number of sex workers. Street prostitutes, who account for about 11 per cent of those in the industry, generally haven’t moved indoors, but prostitutes are now more likely to report violence... Since the reforms were introduced, there have still been cases of prostitutes being murdered. But police have had greater success with investigations because sex workers are less inhibited about speaking with officers, said Healey. There has even been a case of a prostitute making a sexual harassment claim against a brothel operator, which was settled through arbitration"
Judge rules sections of Canada's prostitution laws are unconstitutional in landmark case - "A Kitchener judge has ruled that sections of Canada's prostitution law violates the constitution in a landmark case surrounding a London couple.The case, which was moved to Kitchener last April, surrounded Tiffany Harvey and Hamad Anwar who ran an escort agency in London... Justice Thomas McKay ruled that they were unconstitutional, a decision that is likely to be appealed by the Crown."Legislation for which the stated purposes include eliminating exploitation and reducing the risk of violence to sex workers actually has the effect of exposing sex workers to an increased risk of exploitation..."... The couple challenged the charges saying they violate a sex worker’s right to a safe work environment... The constitutional challenge was the first of its kind against Canada’s new prostitution laws brought in back in 2014 under the Harper government.The Crown argued that sex work cannot be made safe and says the legislation is constitutional.Legal analysts say that today’s decision will likely be appealed and could end up in the Supreme Court of Canada."
Ontario judge rules that Peter MacKay's sex-trade law violates Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - "When a former Conservative justice minister, Peter MacKay, introduced amendments to the Criminal Code 2014 to combat the sex trade, he claimed that his approach was "carefully tailored to address the specific vulnerability of those involved"... an Ontario judge struck down the advertising ban, concluding it wasn't a reasonable limit on the constitutional right to freedom of expression.Justice Thomas McKay also ruled the sections against procuring and obtaining material benefits weren't reasonable limits on the constitutional right to security of the person... Peter MacKay, who's now running for the Conservative party leadership, introduced these measures after the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously struck down three prostitution laws in 2013 as unconstitutional:
* keeping a common bawdy house;
* communicating in public for the purpose of selling sex;
* and living off the avails of the sex trade.
"They do not merely impose conditions on how prostitutes operate," wrote then chief justice Beverley McLachlin at the time. "They go a critical step further, by imposing dangerous conditions on prostitution; they prevent people engaged in a risky—but legal—activity from taking steps to protect themselves from the risks." Peter MacKay's subsequent amendments to the Criminal Code, then known as Bill C-36, were widely condemned by sex workers and public-health officials. Recently deceased Vancouver sex worker Jamie Lee Hamilton told the Straight in 2014 that MacKay was wrong in characterizing all sex workers as "victims".She also declared—and has now been vindicated posthumously—that the former justice minister's legislation contradicted the spirit of the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling in 2013... Some of the most scathing comments about MacKay's legislation came from Simon Fraser University sex-trade researcher John Lowman, who characterized them as the "institutionalized entrapment of men"... Dr. Kate Shannon, director of the Gender and Sexual Health Initiative as the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, told the Straight that MacKay's legislation "goes many steps further towards exacerbating the negative effects of criminalization on sex workers' health, safety, and human rights"... There were high hopes among sex workers and their allies that the Liberal government would amend the legislation after winning a majority government in 2015.But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his two justice ministers—Jody Wilson-Raybould and David Lametti—chose not to pursue this issue."
I Ditched My Banking Job to Be a Sex Worker - "a Conservative politician dismissed the idea that anyone would willingly become a sex worker.Speaking to NDP MP Laurel Collins after she urged Parliament to consider decriminalizing sex work, Conservative MP Arnold Viersen said, “I do not think any woman in this country ever chooses this as a job. This is something that they are trafficked into.”... While I craved financial stability and security, I also craved wiggle room for personal growth, creativity/expression, and self-care. As a 20-something at the beginning of my career, the two seemed mutually exclusive. If I wanted to advance in my career, I could not count on room for a fulfilling personal life... I discovered that the relationship building model I loved so much in finance, is the absolute core of sex work, but at a much deeper level. Sex workers are emotional labour chameleons. It’s our job to take nervous, vulnerable or stressed individuals and make them relaxed and comfortable. We offer friendship, support and love in a society that’s so clearly over-worked, burnt out, and in need of tenderness.Sex workers are also full-blown entrepreneurs. So many of the skills that I learned studying business and in my finance roles transferred to sex work.Many of us have created a brand, identified a niche market, designed and directed our own content creation, maintain social media presences, answer all our own emails and customize the experiences we provide to suit our clients. Additionally, many of us do our own web-design, SEO, and monitor our analytics."
