I have yet to wade my way through the amazing Ninth Carnival of Feminists, put together by Winter Woods at the wonderful feminist blog from Cardiff, Mind the Gap, but I wanted to draw it to people’s attention it because it is an incredible collection of posts – yet again.
My favourite, so far, is a brief post by Laurelin in the Rain entitled The Patriarchy Phrasebook. Like many of the commenters, I felt the most empathy with this particular translation:
Patriarchy: ‘Smile, love!’
Translation: ‘Why are you not deferential to my masculinity?’
I have experienced this one, or close variations on the theme, on countless occasions and it never fails to both irritate and baffle me. My irritation should be fairly self-explanatory. My confusion is based on my inability to understand how some guys appear to believe that although I have either never met them, or barely know them, my primary concern for the day is whether or not they find me attractive and pleasing. Where did this belief come from? Is this really the message that society as a whole is sending them?
Another post in the Carnival that I had actually stumbled across earlier through a link from Kate’s blog is a post from Mad Sheila Musings about Why WA shouldn’t legalise prostitution. This post was one that I wanted to write about earlier, but was sort of reluctant, because I think that the issue is really complicated. In brief, though, I have to say that I can’t agree with Alyx, over a MSM, despite my sympathy for her concerns about the messages that are being propagated about women within the sex industry.
My primary reason for disagreeing with Alyx is that I think that criminalizing prostitution will not make it go away, but will rather drive it underground – meaning that sex workers (both male and female) will be subjected to more abuse, harassment and unsafe working conditions than they would in a legal and regulated work environment. It is for this reason that I would whole-heartedly support the legalisation of prostitution. Beyond this, however, I am less confident about what I think.
Additional arguments around the issue of prostitution range from women (often sex workers) who argue that sex work is a legitimate choice that ought to be respected and even be considered liberating for women to those that argument that prostitution is never a choice that is freeing made by women, but is rather always something that is forced upon women and always exploitative.
One example of the first perspective is that of the Scarlet Alliance, an Australia organisation that
aims to achieve equality, social, legal, political, cultural and economic justice for past and present workers in the sex industry, in order for sex workers to be self-determining agents, building their own alliances and choosing where and how they work.
The Scarlet Alliance has been doing excellent work with Australian and International sex worker’s unions in promoting the rights of sex workers, and in campaigning with governments to draft legislation that strikes a good balance between balancing the rights of sex workers, while protecting vulnerable people who may be forced into sex work either through trafficking or other forms of coercion.
I have a lot of respect for the work that they do, and a lot of respect for sex workers who demand the right to safe working conditions and for people to respect their life choices and their agency in making those choices. However, I am also a little uncomfortable with the idea of sex work being considered in any way ‘liberating’, and believe that while it is necessary to respect people’s life choices, it is also important to recognise the constraints under which they made those choices and to question whether they would have made the same choices under difference circumstances.
I guess, ultimately, I feel similarly about prostitution as I do about abortion. I think that the right of women to choose what it is that they do with their bodies should always be respected. To not respect their choices is patronising and paternalistic. However, I also think that both choices have the potential to be harmful to women (and society, in some cases) and that far more effort should also be made to alter the circumstances that constrain women’s choices. In the case of prostitution, this would include better educational and training opportunities for women (and men), as well as greater access to employment (which would include employment overseas for some women who end up being trafficked while seeking out better opportunities internationally). In the case of abortion, this would include increased access to affordable childcare, more flexible work environments, paid maternity leave, greater levels of support from partners in the home, and a more supportive society (i.e., less demonisation of single mothers and welfare recipients).
That said, even with all of these changes, I would still respect the right of women to continue to make their own choices about their bodies. There are so many factors that go into determining whether something is right for you, and to assume that someone else is in a better position to make that decision on your behalf is fundamentally patronising.
Rant over.
[Cross-posted at two peas, no pod]
“I have experienced this one, or close variations on the theme, on countless occasions”
So have I Cristy but I’ve never clicked on the fact that it was about someone wanting me to be dererential to their masculinity. I just assumed they wanted me to be happier.
Scarlet Alliance does good work and, in fact, has just received AusAID funding to do some peer-ed work with sex workers in the region. It’s also important to note, I think, that they’re constituted as the professional body for Australian sex workers so their take on sex work as a legitimate – even self-empowering – occupation is understandable. The challenge for them I guess is that governments tend to approach legalisation through a fairly narrow disease prevention/health promotion portal that tends to place Rights-based legitimacy very much as a secondary consideration. The issue of sex slavery/trafficking has also exercised them significantly over recent years with Scarlet taking a somewhat oppositional approach in insisting that the more important issue is about the nature of employment contracts and migration law rather than “sex slavery” per se.
But you’re right to point to this area as one where a thousand moral agendas contend.
My discomfort with prostitution is that it perpetuates the very old idea in Western thought that sex is (a) a commodity, and (b) something that women give (or sell) and men take. It also perpetuates the conflation of ‘women’ and ’sex’ (both thought of as commodities) that’s behind the way many men depersonalise women. A quick read of recent comments on the Saturday Salon thread should confirm this.
And this is closely related to Cristy’s point about men who think one’s main concern is whether they find one attractive and pleasing. (Though one of the many compensations of the aging process is that one becomes invisible to this kind of man, who then assumes that this invisibility will make one sad.)
If they think of you as a commodity, then naturally they’re going to be concerned about whether you’re a shoddy one or not. So smile, love.
Did they use the word ‘love’ Geoff?
I agree with you thoroughly about Scarlet Alliance, they have done similar work to Project Respect on the issue of Trafficking and the Draft Criminal Code Amendment (Trafficking in Persons Offences) Bill 2004 – raising the intersecting issues of migration laws, poverty, and labour rights into a discussion that frequently focuses far too much on moral panic. I also totally understand why they use the language of empowerment and why that is appropriate for their organisation. My only reservations are on a personal level – in terms of my own individual responses to the issue of prostitution and, particularly, the content of any legislation on the issue.
P.C., I agree with you that the two issues are closely related – it actually struck me when I reread the post just after ‘publishing’ it . They are definitely two facets of the commodification of women.
My concern is that government intervention does little to stop this process of commodification and can actually do more harm to women by both sending prostitution underground (etc…) and characterising women as helpless victims who are always unable to make sensible choices for themselves.
Surely there must be other ways of empowering women than criminalising them (or, conversely, promoting sex work as a great option)?
I once had a Chinese guy move in next door while living in a block of flats in Collingwood many years ago. He was a nice bloke and occasionally popped over for a cup of coffee and a chat about his university studies.
A few months later I noticed a change in his features and some spectacular growth about his chest. I also noticed a steady stream of mostly elderly gents making their way to his flat. Eventually I happened to see my neighbour greet one of these chaps as they arrived at his door. My neighbour was dressed like a Geisha.
I later spoke to my neighbour and he candidly divulged the fact that he had given up his uni studies because he could easily make about $4,000 a week tax-free as a transexual prostitute.
He wasn’t “forced” into a choice because of “constrained circumstances”. Instead, he was an enterprising entrepeneur.
(And no, he didn’t need the money to feed a drug addiction.)
What I learnt from this story is that well meaning types need to listen to the stories of the people they want to “help” rather than construct grand theories that are based on litle more than their own prejudices.
“Did they use the word ‘love’ Geoff?”
Some did – and “darl” – and not only guys, but I am a poof
Steve raises a good point – not all sex workers are women. There are also male workers whose clientele is either female or (more usually) other males.
I think that there’s been somewhat of a shift in feminist thinking about this issue over the last decade or so. Sex work is much less likely to be exploitative of the workers if it’s legal and regulated, as well as the health conditions. I think, in this, as with other issues, choice is a relatively important consideration.
I agree that sex work should be decriminalised.
However I disagree with the brand of choice feminism that suggests it is a “positive” thing to do. The older I’m getting the less I’m won over by discussions about choice that don’t also examine the societal structures that shape choices, and recognise that choice is always circumscribed in many ways. Some choices are more circumscribed than others, and think the ‘choice’ to become a sex worker is very circumscribed one indeed for most who ‘choose’ it.
PC’s points about women = sex is the big reason why I dislike prostitution. If we lived in a world that was magically free of the patriarchy, and men and women could choose (there’s that word again) to dispose of their bodies as they saw fit, then I’d have no problems for trading sex for money. I don’t think sex work is inherently degrading, but I do think for most women who do it, it is degrading.
We live in a society where women are still often reduced to a function: that is, giving men sexual pleasure. (See advertising and magazines and many movies and popular music and so on.)
Yes, I am sure some prostitutes do it and feel great about it and in control and earn great money. But the facts are that women are the vast majority of prostitues, many women who are prostitutes were victims of sexual abuse in their childhood, they come from disadvantaged backgrounds, they develop drug habits, and so on. Not all, but many, especially outside of relatively wealthy nations like Australia and the US.
Anyway to answer your question Cristy I suppose that one way to stop women becoming sex workers without criminalising sex work is to actually broaden women’s real choices. This is particularly relevant for third world women of course in countries where sex work is one of the few ways women can support themselves and for women who are actually ’sex slaves’.
Kate, I agree with a lot of what you say. But I’m always wary of judging individuals according to structural pressures. I’m not expressing that terribly well, but it’s the same problem as Marxists talking about “false consciousness” or Clive Hamilton preaching about “what people really want is happiness not stuff”. My point is that if sex work is decriminalised, it’s much more likely to be an area where workers can exercise choice more freely.
And there’s no simple way of disrupting the equation “woman = sex”. I wish there were, and I don’t think we should stop trying, but we’ve also got to address ourselves to the world we find ourselves in.
Couldn’t agree more Kate. That was basically the point that I was trying to make in a rather long winded fashion…
Oh and as for the “smile love” comment: in my experience men are not told to “smile” or “look happy” or asked “oh, what’s wrong darl?” as women are. Believe me, it’s often said with an aggressive undertone, and done with an in-your face rudeness that is often very jarring — especially if you’re just walking along, minding your own business, and some guy just jumps in front of you and barks: “smile! You’d be so pretty if you smiled!”
I dunno. Maybe men really don’t understand why just walking up to a strange woman in the street and commanding her to “smile” is so irritating.
Perhaps it’s because men don’t (generally) suffer the low-level verbal harrassment women can do just walking down the street; cat calls and hoots and comments and so forth. Perhaps men don’t understand that we women really don’t need constant commentary on how happy, sad, pretty or otherwise we appear.
Thankfully it does seem to happen less as you get older, though it was only the other day a man hung out of his car to yell at me to “look happy!” which only caused me to scowl even more.
Sure Kim, I agree about real world solutions– there’s no escaping five thousand years of culture, at least not quickly.
I do think continuing to critique those elements of our culture which emphasise the woman = sex thing is important. Someone like Levy for instance points out the difference between doing something ’cause you think blokes will like it and doing it because you like it, and that seems to be a big distinction for me.
And while I am ambivalent about the idea of false consciousness, I do think it’s dangerous to also present to idea that all choices made by all women are good. Just because you choose to do something doesn’t make it a great choice.
I also think the experiences of a small number of women who say they find sex work a reasonable career choice can’t really be extended to the vast majority of prostitutes around the world, most of whom are desperately poor and doing so not because they make great money and love sex but because they need to survive. S
o whenever people do talk about prostitution and choice I find it somewhat frustrating because I think it misrepresents the actual lived experience of most women in sex work around the world. It makes it easy to say “well, women choose it” rather than trying to fix the structural problems which force women into it.
I doubt we’re too far apart, Kate, and in fact you can make similar criticisms around arguments that women “naturally” choose caring professions or are prepared to accept low pay because their wage is just “a second income”. But my point is that the workers who work in legal and regulated conditions are far more empowered in every way than those who do not. For instance, in Brisbane, street workers are much more likely to be heroin addicts and victims of domestic violence than those in legal brothels, who are partly employed for their “classiness” – for which read middle classiness. The latter are often uni students, or in some cases, professional women in the same low paid “caring professions” who are working in a brothel as a second job to meet financial commitments. So keeping it illegal also reinforces the differential experience of class.
Women working on the street or illegally are very likely to be the subject of assault or murder, from clients, and sometimes from puritanical loons who see themselves as God’s justice incarnate.
There’s also some crossover with the sex-affirmative feminism vs. what I see as more puritanical strands, and some of the same issues as with porn and BDSM are bandied around. Personally, I always like to stay on the sex-affirmative side of the road, which is not to say that I think that women can or should be reduced to sexuality. Just that there’s an affirmative female experience of sex and sexuality which should be voiced.
Indeed — I agree about decriminalising entirely. The safety of sex workers should be the number one concern of any laws in place about prostitution.
“whenever people do talk about prostitution and choice I find it somewhat frustrating because I think it misrepresents the actual lived experience of most women in sex work around the world. It makes it easy to say “well, women choose itâ€? rather than trying to fix the structural problems which force women into it.”
Criminalising prostitution would not help many of those who are forced into sex work it would simply make them criminals and stigmtise them. As Kim notes it is generally better to be legal and regulated.
I’m old fashioned, I daresay, but I think the best way of dealing with prostitution is by community opprobrium – not of the prostitutes, but their clients. I’m sure I’ve led a sheltered lifre: but I’ve only had one friend who has told me he visited prostitutes. He had a wife and a child. Any respect I had for the guy disappeared on the instant. I never thought the same of him again, and I’m sure he knew it.
I know there are exceptions. Sailors in port; people too shy to form relatationships; people confused about their own sexuality. No doubt prostitutes do fulfil a social function.
I knew a girl long ago who worked in a parlour (as a friend, not a client). She told me she felt empowered and in conrol. I told her that feeling would last precisely as long as it took the next john to pull a knife. She went very quiet. She knew I was right.
In Queensland, since the last legislative changes introduced by the Beattie government, it’s an offence to solicit the services of an illegal sex worker. However, in practice, the only arrests ever made are of men soliciting street workers (the most spectacular news wise was a well known Sheikh), and these are only made when policewomen pretend to be prostitutes, which is only done periodically.
“Oh and as for the “smile loveâ€? comment: in my experience men are not told to “smileâ€? or “look happyâ€? or asked “oh, what’s wrong darl?â€? as women are.”
That’s not my experience and I’ve been a man for a few decades. “cheer up”, “smile” “why the long face’ ” what’s wrong?” “what happened to the happy face?” etc, etc are among the most asked questions
in the gender-nonspecific, small talk lexicon.
I concede the possibility of a feminist politics interpretive frame here, Kate, but I think you’re over-egging it.
Me too, Geoff. I’m cursed with a lugubrious countenance. That’s the reason I wear a beard. Even so, I’ve often got the ‘It can’t be all that bad’, ‘Smile, dear’, etc. etc. just walking down the street.
So what was the reasoning behind prositution in every non-western culture throughout history? It never ceases to amaze me just how many things lefties are willing to blame on Western Culture.
Prostitution has existed in every recorded culture since the beginning of human history. It didn’t start after the battle of Hastings.
Please. We live in a society where everyone is reduced to a function. Don’t believe me? How often after meeting someone do you ask them, “So, what do you do”? Do you ask them what their hopes and dreams are, or do you find out what they do for a living.
Saying women are reduced to a function of giving sexual pleasure is like saying men are reduced to a function of fixing toilets or balancing the wheels on your car.
It’s a meaningless statement and offers nothing except the claim that women are simply victims in every situation.
I’ve met a lot of prostitutes and none of them seemed like victims to me. They were earning enough in a year to purchase a house while the non-prostitutes working in the retaurant alongside them were struggling along on the minimum wage.
Curious as whenever this has been discussed in my company before I have found it a common complaint with women and not with men.
Perhaps, respectfully, it means something different to a woman?
How about an alternative approach to the issue of love for sale? That is, licensing the customers. You get regularly tested for STDs and susceptibility to mistreating the service providers (unless you’ve paid an agreed premium), pay yer fee (by credit card billed discreetly, natch) and then you can curb crawl in peace. Just spitballin’ here (“Spitballin’! That’ll be a 30% surcharge thanks”).
Let’s face it, people will always pay for sex, regardless of prevailing laws or morality. So get pragmatic about it and treat it as a health/consumer/workplace issue – something Aus has alway done rather well.
Oh, and as I said, I’m all for decriminalising/legalising sex work, Polytickedoff, but I don’t think sex work itself is the best thing since sliced bread.
I find it annoying, surprising, gratuitous, instrusive and offensive, Kate. How do women find it?
I’d just like to register that I’m not making any of the cheap jibes that Yobbo’s comment is screaming out for. Not.a.one.
Not even – nah.
*whistles*
“Perhaps, respectfully, it means something different to a woman?”
I’m sure it could.
Pretty much the same Rob but I have the added dash of “I wonder if that guy’s a potential rapist and if he’s going to try to follow me to my car” spice that makes it heaps of fun!
Gee Zoe I dunno what you mean.
It being late in the night and that, I’m willing to bet that not one woman on this forum would consider prostitution as a career option, empowerment and all notwithstanding. Now why is that? Because I’ve seen it happen to a friend of mine, and it stinks, no matter how prettily you wrap it up.
“would consider prostitution as a career option,”
Just remind us again Rob how the bloke you’ve chosen for your gravatar rationalised his particular Faustian trade-off?
Now put on a vagina and try out the same lines here.
Well, I wouldn’t, Rob. A very good friend of mine supported herself at uni for a while whorin’, and it’s pretty grim as jobs go. The money was good, and in her case tax free, but you have to root all these strangers.
I agree with Yobbo’s second point. Sort of.
Personally, I don’t feel liberated by my job, far from it. I get paid well enough, have a fair amount of control in what activities I’ll undertake (within a limited range) in a day and rarely have my boss poking his nose into my duties.
Still, work sucks and I feel as though it always will.
Every job I’ve had, from riding a cash register, delivering pizzas, making ‘em, to reading contracts, writing letters and picking up a phone every now and again has felt like some form of punishment (and nobody ever pulled a knife on me! go figure). This is probably why I don’t ask people what their job is.
This is not to trivialise the choice made, initially and continually, by prostitutes to sell their bodies. They are not selling their minds, or souls. I reckon that it could get to the point where conditions allow for a bit more respect.
Well, I’m not trying to pretty it up, Rob — I’ve no interest in defending it as a great career choice at all.
I might add on the whole men in the street telling you to smile: it’s something that strikes a chord with lots of women. That men suffer from it too is interesting to me. It makes me wonder who all these people are randomly ordering strangers to be happy for their benefit? And why do they do it?
Like degrading, maybe, Zoe, and not empowering at all? Now imagine if it’s all you could ever do, if it was the only way to get the money for a fix, and feed your kids — the way it is for so many of them. Imagine never being able to get out of it, unlike your fortunate friend.
Um Rob perhaps you should be talking to Yobbo — he’s the one who seems to think prostitution is empowering. I don’t think Cristy, Kim, or Zoe, or Pavlov’s Cat, or any of the other ‘LP feminists’ are arguing it’s a fabbo career choice.
Yobbo said it was enriching, as it is (financially).
I think we have to accept the fact that men’s sexuality is vastly different from womens. Most men can be turned on at the drop of a hat, are aroused by visual images and can separate emotions from sexual desire. Culture may train man’s inner beast to some extent but most of us are lusty polygamists by nature.
Hence prostitution and objectifying pornography will always be with us.
Rob, it’s not a choice I would (or have) advocated for anyone. I can get my head around people doing sex work for a living and remaining unscathed, but I’ve never heard someone really heartily recommend it as a life path.
To continue from Zoe, I’d just like to register that I’m not making any of the cheap jibes that Steve Munn’s comment is screaming out for. Not.a.one.
Not even – nah.
*whistles*
I’d just like to register that Steve Munn’s comment wasn’t showing when I typed my last one.
*whistles with Liam*
*More whistling*
Well, if everyone else is just going to whistle…
Newsflash: don’t believe everything you’ve heard about women’s sexuality.
*wanders off to look at Suicide Girls*
Well Liam and Zoe, I want both of you to know that I read Beatrice Faust’s “Women, Sex and Pornography” and it only confirmed my preconceptions.
Oh well, its time I got back to the cave to light the evening fire.
Well, let me put it another way – a moral way. Is being a prostitute good, or bad?
I suspect our forebears, from at least the Elizbethans to at least the Victorians, were better equipped to answer than we are.
J S Mill, I hear you calling.
Rob, you’re a Fowles fan, yeah? Remember the bit in French Lieutenant’s Woman where it’s observed that there was 1 prostitute for every 20 adult males in London in 1860?
It wouldn’t be a thread arguing with you, Rob, without a bit of ye-olden-days nostalgia.
I’m quite glad we don’t have the Victorians’ hangups about human sexuality, even if it did help them answer the question about whether it was morally right to buy sex for money. As a matter of fact they were quite wrong to imagine the ethical centre of prostitution in individual womens’ moral ‘decline’.
You must be kidding Rob. English society reduced many women to prostitutes. It was a case of sell your body or your kids would starve. Surely you know this?
Morality only comes into it if there is genuine exploitation. I’m like Yobbo in that most of the prostitutes I have met seemed to have there heads together and were entrepeneurs as far as I am concerned.
It is an entirely different matter when women have no real alternative. Then it is clearly exploitation and immoral. However even in this case it would be wrong to ban prostitution since the women involved would end up even worse off. The best thing to do in this case is to offer the women education about STDs and give them condoms.
The show on SBS last night about AIDS illustrated this point. I was very impressed by the Thai guy (forget his name) who helped prostitutes protect themselves from AIDS. This guy has saved millions of lives.
“Most men can be turned on at the drop of a hat”
Known in the trade I believe as cappaphilia.
“Hi big boy. I bet you’re a size 42 long fitting.”
Yes, I remember the figures, Kim, but I’d like to see the science behind them. It seems unlikely somehow.
And very much a Fowles fan. Vale John.
Another of my great idols, Carl Kolchak of the Night Stalker (the actor Darren McGavin) has also died, did you know that? They’re all leaving me!
Rob, I’m sure Steve’s right – remember that there was no social security!
Steve, yes of course I knew that, but that wasn’t the issue at hand: it was how did those societies deal with the situation morally. The Victorians dealt with it very well, IMHO.
Come off it Rob. The Victorian’s attitude to sexuality and women was as sick and demented as the Islamo-fascist attitude towards women and sexuality.
What about those bizarre torture devices aimed at preventing young boys from getting erections? How warped was that?
How did they deal with it, Rob, and why was it dealt with very well?
Nabakov, you’re a hoot.
So is Yobbo, of course, but in a different way.
*whistles*
Give me a moment while I have a quick cigarette.
“The Victorians dealt with it very well, IMHO.”
By pretending it didn’t exist while eagerly making use of it, and then punishing the service providers for failing to abide by the prevailing public moralities that so many ignored in private? Can’t say that works for me. Maybe for you though.
Ronald Pearsall’s The Worm In The Bud is a brillantly written and throughly researched study of what really went down when Victorians let their hair down.
As someone who comes from Victoria I think that the State’s policy of legalised brothels, the first in Australia, has handled the issue of prostitution very well by providing a safe regulated environment, reducing police corruption and largely taking prostitution off the streets.
Orl righty.
The Victorians faced a dilemma: they believed in freedom of choice, but believed also that prostitution was morally wrong and destructive of family relationships. OK, they said, you are free beings, you are free even to make the wrong decisions. But, they said, we are going to make it very difficult for you to exercise your freedom of choice in the wrong way.
So what they did was not to criminalise prostitution as such – that is, the actual transaction, sex for money. They criminalised a range of behaviours that supported the morally wrongful choice. Living off the earnings of a prostitute; running a bawdy house; soliciting for the purposes of prostitution. All of these offences left the transaction ‘open’, i.e. not criminal. But they made it very very hard to make a legal living out of it.
They did the same thing with gambling. Again, they exhibited a very sophisticated understanding of the relationship between free choice and social cost. And if you think they got it wrong, consider the uproar that followed the Kennett government’s relaxation of all retraints oin gambling in Victoria.
“…they’re all leaving me.”
Aw, no. Not Kolchak!?! Damn!
…Well, maybe one of his old arch-enemies (zombie, vampire) bit him before he bought the farm, and he’ll be, y’know, “rejoining” us momentarily.
Kidding aside, I should add in seriousness, Rest in peace, Darren.
Man.
De mortuis nihil nisi bonum….
On the contrary, Rob. They blamed the prostitute for the act, placed all of the moral consequences with her, and nothing with the john.
Consider also the moral imperatives operating for Victorian non-prostitutes: “Don’t do X or you’ll end up on the streets”, the act of X being extended almost infinitely in tense social and domestic situations.
‘fraid so, j_p_z. And Maxwell Smart left us last October (or so).
When I was a very young man, Liam, which is longer ago than I care to admit, I worked in a government department that had to deal with this legislation, which was carried over into Victorian law. It took me a long time to understand its underlying logic.
[Sound of mental brakes screeching]
When you say the Victorians dealt with prostitution well, Rob, do you mean the Victorians who currently live south of the Murray River, or the Victorians who lived prior to the death of Queen Victoria?
The right answer may answer my total bafflement with your points of view.
The reference to Victorian law meant statutes of the State of Victoria, Australia, circa 1980. Sorry, that was not clear.
For a moment there, Rob, I thought, like C.L., you’d been around standing for “For Independence and Liberty Since 1832″…
And what Liam said.
What wonderful hand washing sophistry Rob. You’d have been right home in Victorian London, gravely pontificating on in some soapy salon about the plight of fallen women before slipping off to the Cremorne Gardens for a knee trembler on the way home.
“… But they made it very very hard to make a legal living out of it.”
At least 55,000 known prostitutes might have disagreed with you. Not to mention tens of thousands more “dressmakers”, “actresses”, “private maids” and the many other euphemisms of the time for concubines, courtesans and mistresses.
“…a very sophisticated understanding of the relationship between free choice and social cost.”
It was yer typical human botch up when male sexuality, the profit motive and hamfisted religious morality all collide after dark.
“…consider the uproar that followed the Kennett government’s relaxation of all retraints oin gambling in Victoria.”
As I recall the uproar hit when the dying Kirner Government threw the doors open to the gambling lobby in a futile attempt to fill the empty coffers of state.
Y’know Rob, it wouldn’t hurt to actually study a subject before sounding off on it.
Anyway I’m off to bed now, to browse through a few lively issues of The Pearl before Morpheus enfolds me to his gentle bosom. Um, no, I mean her bosom, of course. Her’s. Yes I did. Really.
Then please accept my apologies Rob, I assumed you were barracking for pre-1901 sexual mores. Sorry.
“I assumed you were barracking for pre-1901 sexual mores.”
He was.
Now back to the most stimulating adventures of poor Miss Emily the Governess stranded in the remote country house of the depraved Lord H- P-.
Well, I think recourse to prostitutes is immoral, Liam, so that probably positions me around 1901 or prior.
A depraved libel, Nabakov, every word of it.
What secret animus do you hold about the good people of Ballarat and Bendigo, Traralgon and Apollo Bay, not to mention of Dimboola, Mildura, and Wodonga, Manangatang and Tangambalanga and the quiet denizens of Kew, Camberwell, Sunshine, Werribee and Endeavour Hills and of Dandenong and Moe, St Arnaud and Upotipotpon (yes, mock if you will but there is such a place) that you would give the reference you have to what they do when they “let their hair down”.
Let me assure you that they do nothing of the kind.
The Victorians are a kind and decent people and the “study” you have referred to, smearing them with accusations of depravity and hypocrisy, is most unjust.
And what is this Gladstone that gets a mention in the book you refer to? It is a pub in Dookie in Northern Victoria, a small town which I know well, where such depravity as the book you refer us to describes has never occurred, largely due to the total lack of imagination of its inhabitants.
Slag off at those of us who live below the Murray if you will but have some decency and keep it clean.
If you want to make those sort of accusations Adelaide is the place to point the finger at, not Victoria.
You don’t need to test customers for “susceptibility to mistreating service providers” if the providers are providing a legal service.
You don’t need a license to go and see a chiropractor, because if you beat up or rape the chiropractor, he reports you to the police and you are arrested. If you don’t pay him for services rendered, he deals with you through the small claims tribunal.
Prostitutes can’t do these things because what they do is illegal and they will be charged as well, and their contracts are not enforceable.
Oops! I also thought Rob meant Victorian England. Nonetheless his views seem to belong to that era. Don’t be such a snob, Rob.
Why should prostitution be considered immoral when both parties to the transaction are pleased with the outcome? Please explain?
p.s As regards South of the Murray folk, it is obvious and goes without saying that we are a class above you crass Northerners. Why state the obvious?
You don’t need a license to go and see a chiropractor, because if you beat up or rape the chiropractor, he reports you to the police and you are arrested. If you don’t pay him for services rendered, he deals with you through the small claims tribunal.
But female chiropractors react quite differently.
If you want to make those sort of accusations Adelaide is the place to point the finger at, not Victoria.
In Adelaide, our hair is always down. Bwahahaha.
“But female chiropractors react quite differently.”
I don’t get your meaning, PC. Do you think everyone should have a licence before being allowed to be alone in a house with a woman?
No, although I must say it’s an interesting thought. I meant that your pronoun use indicated that you were talking about only male chiropractors.