The Parlor Problem

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think it's good to have positive examples, but there's no such thing as a workplace of any kind with 100% worker satisfaction, so that right there makes me go "hmmmm".

Also, when I worked for Lip Service, I only had positive things to say about them and the job. It was in my contract.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

(The agency actually was really great. The job was soul-draining and depressing, but the agency and people who worked there tried really hard to make up for it).

If you want to hear an accurate picture of what it's like in those upscale escort services, talk to someone who used to do it. As it happens, my friend JB in Oakland runs a promotional consultation service for high-rent hookers; I go drinking with him and his ladies while visiting, and have heard a lot of stories.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

In a lot ways this issue is similar to abortion in that it's going to happen either way. Men are going to do it, and other people are going to offer it. When you make it illegal you force people to carry it out in unsafe ways.

Yes; criminalization is a reflection of the culture of sexual subjugation of women and of sex.

WE MUST CONTROL THEM.

I am against criminalization of prostitution, I think I've mentioned that.

However, I think pimps should be run through a chipper, feet first.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

IN PRINCIPLE, if the sex worker has agency, right of refusal, isn't doing it out of a rock and a hard place situation/ Morton's Fork (the philosophical term for do this or starve type situation) and is psychologically healthy and has the capacity emotionally to deal with it and not become traumatized then I am in no opposition to it.

Personally, because of the ethical side, and it being done ethically is pretty much a unicorn, I am in favour of something called the Nordic Model, when it comes to prostitution, where the women aren't prosecuted, but it is illegal to buy sex, the prosecutions usually involve fines that are earmarked for supporting women to get out of prostitution, and has been shown in Sweden to have reduced trafficking of women.  Pimps find it hard to operate in such conditions, it becomes too financially prohibitive to exploit women, whereas legalisation has been shown in places like Amsterdam to have the opposite effect. Licensing prostitutes, because of the stigma attached to selling sex isn't an incentive to be registered. If eventually our culture and its attitudes toward sex change to a more positive dynamic, as Nigel states, then regulation and legalisation would be an option I would support.

A sexual service that comes from a compassionate or therapeutic place is something that if it meets the principles of agency, I would be all for, as long as the worker's right of refusal is the primary concern of such a business in terms of how the staff get treated. If Dingo's Herp Derp parlour is actually run on these principles, then awesome, however I am a suspicious and cynical creature, and maybe my own cognitive bias on this makes me feel that there might be a touch of the propaganda about it.

For now though, until we have achieved a shift in attitudes and conciousness, I am going to stick to the prosecute the purchaser, not the sex worker stance, or until someone can provide evidence that licencing and regulation actually can respect the agency of the sex worker.

[Sir Bearington]

I can sympathize with the means of taking up prostitution if the person hiring themselves out are in a major mess and need quick financial security but i do think there must be better more ethical ways of getting money fast.