proposed legislation in scotland - licensed saunas and legalised prostitution

[weeonion]

A consultation is currently happening in Scotland to make charges to the laws around prostitution, brothel keeping and pimping. No matter what you think - it would be good to have your voice, experiences and opinions heard in this. They have just extended the deadline to the 8th December so if time has been an issue for you - you now have another week!

Responses prepared electronically should be sent by e-mail to:
[email protected]
Responses prepared in hard copy should be sent by post to:
Jean Urquhart MSP
Room M3.20
Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh
EH99 1SP
You may also contact Jean Urquart’s office by telephone on (0131) 348 5052

You pay tax - but you have clients at your house - do you have all the other insurances and assessments? Do you pay business rates? Is your landlord aware that you are conducting a business from your house? The council? In my area, if you were running a business from your home which had visiting clients you would have had to have registered, and proven that you had adequate parking etc.

Those are the realities of a legitimate business. If regulation comes, it's going to seriously affect you too you will need all these things. Until you have them, it's not a job like any other.

• can get what you're saying

Green tomato that is simply not going to help women who do this to feed their kids and are in a bad place

I am not one, but despite what others say I do care.
How can you think that's a good thing for women in poverty with a lack of options to have them further reduced?

Without errors:

Playswell I can get what you're saying regarding choice/kids going hungry. But with all these constraints you want to bring to these women without options are you leaving them with? Even less by the looks of it

I don't think women in poverty should consider prostitution their only way out - if you don't feel you have any other choice, then it's not a choice.

Just as I don't think they should sell blood, a kidney, or rent out their womb.

I think women in poverty should be helped, not encouraged to rent their bodies to men.

By that theory then green tomato any businesss that doesnt seek all that you stated (some beauticians, any job working from home) is not a legitimate business

To me, that's like saying, "surely you all accept that sweat shops are here to stay" or that racism or homophobia is here to stay.

If you think a practice or circumstance is harmful, the fact that it's been around for centuries doesn't stop you speaking out.

That's the point Green tomato, you may well feel it's not a choice if they're financially coerced, I completely agree, but that is the position they're in.
Disliking that situation and lessening options for them is not going to help them

So what can these women do then green tomato? They're obviously doing it bcos they have no choice, just like sweatshop workers, so if you take away that income how is that helping? Surely ithe needs to be a case of adding options and choices not taking whatever options thy have left away from them?

I never said it was here to stay bcos it always has been, just simply that for the foreseeable future it's clearly not going anywhere given the pornification of our society.

Anyone advocating stronger laws around prostitution also advocates financial and personal support for exiting pristitutes, AFAIK.

Also against pornification. How about you?

Funding has just been cut for women's services onemorecasuslty, can you honestly see those exiting sex work getting much help

Yes I dislike the pornification within society

My job in the way I operate (having free will/other options for work if I want them) does not mean I add to the pornification as I work behind closed doors in a way that has gone on centuries before the pornification of society

I get the theory behind whsts being said but the fact is many women need or want to be sex workers. I can't deny the fallout it has and impact on women who do not choose this. But the is the case in many industries. We need to find a solution that isn't so absolute in extremes

If you get the theory behind what is being said and you understand our concern about the impact on other women, why did you call us a load of useless fools?

Yes, there are lots of businesses running illegally - which is wrong, and eventually someone will catch up with them.

I don't support those businesses either - but at least someone cutting people's hair in their kitchen isn't supporting the objectification of women, putting them in the way of violent men, and at risk of health problems (carpel tunnel maybe?!)

Do you really think that what we should do for women in poverty is legitimise whatever they have to do to get by? Why not let them sell their kidney, or a bit of liver then? You don't go and license sweatshops because the worker have no other options, you give them other options! You shut them down and help the exploited workers find jobs!

Sex workers by choice are not encouraging trafficking anymore than a hairdresser is.
In fact quite the opposite, If us prostitutes weren't around there'd be a massive surge in demand that was being unfulfilled therefore traffickers would stand to make a far larger amount which would greatly increase trafficking.

Is that really a joke about trafficking victims getting carpal tunnel greentom?

No, that was a joke about the only injury hairdressers were at risk of was carpel tunnel.

As opposed to prostituted women who are at risk of a lot more.

Drink driving used to be no big deal

Now thanks to the law being enforced and public awareness campaigns, it's clear that it is a big deal and it's far less socially acceptable. Friends/family designate a driver or suggest a taxi way more than they did a generation ago .

Why not the same for prostitution?

Women voluntarily (and by that I mean, not forced by poverty) working as prostitutes encourage trafficking the same way that the legalised prostitution in Germany does.

By making it seem like a legitimate business, a market is encouraged, and people move in to fulfil that demand.

I want less demand for prostitution, I want the market to shrink and be acknowledged as undesirable. I do not want it made legal and acceptable for a man to rent a woman (or man) for sex.

But there's many sex workers who are not doing it out of poverty and lack of options so a blanket ban is not the way to go.

You don't abolish personal assistant's or maids/cleaners because slavery is damaging.
You recognise they're entirely different one is a job that should give its workers the same rights as anyone else, the other is a crime that destroys women's lives

You do know prostitution is legal in the UK?