Restaurants have licences, like a ton of them. It's weird to suggest otherwise.
Is it a civil or criminal matter though?
Its a civil matter. The health inspectors, well, inspect and can levy civil fines, order improvements and closures, and such. The only way they can enforce those orders if the restaurant doesn't comply is via civil court, however. Like someone above said, if sex work is regulated, the proper way to go about it is not to have the police enforce anything, but the existing health department bureaucracy. In most jurisdictions they already are involved in many things beyond restaurants, like grocery stores, pools, tattoo and piercing shops, spas, factories, and so on. Its been my experience that they are typically terrible at regulating home-based industries though (which sex work often is).
I personally thing that sex work should be legal and should be regulated. The regulations should be aimed at protecting the public health and at preventing exploitation of sex workers.
Public Health
The main goal here is to prevent the spread of STDs. When I use sex worker below, I mean "full service".
Sex workers should be licensed. This license will act as proof that the sex worker is following appropriate guidelines and grant the worker access to certain items.
Sex workers will have to be tested for STDs at least once every three months. This testing is paid for by the government.
Sex workers will be given free condoms and are required to use them when engaged in sex work.
How about this instead:
Customers should be licensed and have to be tested for STIs at least once every three months, and the customers will be given free condoms and required to use them when soliciting (penetrative) sex work?
In other words, the laws you've proposed protect the customers much more than they do the workers, presume the workers are the primary disease vector rather than the customers, and put much more of the onus on the workers.
The reason not to do it this way is that a sex worker could contract an STI from outside of work, and it is in the public interest to know when that happens and prevent them from being a vector.
We could also test clients, and that seems like a good idea, but not testing workers seems dangerous.
Yeah from a public health standpoint I'm pretty down with everyone engaging in sex for money getting fairly regular tests, both the customers and the suppliers, and I'm ok with the government paying paying for it.
Then again I think the government paying or at least partially paying to cover semi-regular STD screenings for people should already be a thing for anyone who wants it or feels they need it.
I personally thing that sex work should be legal and should be regulated. The regulations should be aimed at protecting the public health and at preventing exploitation of sex workers.
Public Health
The main goal here is to prevent the spread of STDs. When I use sex worker below, I mean "full service".
Sex workers should be licensed. This license will act as proof that the sex worker is following appropriate guidelines and grant the worker access to certain items.
Sex workers will have to be tested for STDs at least once every three months. This testing is paid for by the government.
Sex workers will be given free condoms and are required to use them when engaged in sex work.
How about this instead:
Customers should be licensed and have to be tested for STIs at least once every three months, and the customers will be given free condoms and required to use them when soliciting (penetrative) sex work?
In other words, the laws you've proposed protect the customers much more than they do the workers, presume the workers are the primary disease vector rather than the customers, and put much more of the onus on the workers.
The onus is on the supplier.
Usually. Not always. Try renting a car without a driver's license in the US (or any other vehicle requiring a specialized permit; eg an airplane). In some jurisdictions, you have to a license or permit to use a firearms range. Some day care centers require proof of vaccination.
Basically, if an unskilled or reckless customer could put life, health, or property at serious risk, it isn't beyond the pale for the supplier to require their customers to meet a minimal safety or licensing standard.
In any case, I'm not seriously suggesting that: rather, I am emphasizing how such regulatory schemes are based in, and promote, an idea that sex work is dirty - or, more precisely, that sex workers are dangerous for their clients, when the reality is the other way around.
Is that really any different from a ton of other services though?
Even in your example, while the rentee needs a license, the car renter is also subject to a ton of regulation on the exact same grounds.
I personally thing that sex work should be legal and should be regulated. The regulations should be aimed at protecting the public health and at preventing exploitation of sex workers.
Public Health
The main goal here is to prevent the spread of STDs. When I use sex worker below, I mean "full service".
Sex workers should be licensed. This license will act as proof that the sex worker is following appropriate guidelines and grant the worker access to certain items.
Sex workers will have to be tested for STDs at least once every three months. This testing is paid for by the government.
Sex workers will be given free condoms and are required to use them when engaged in sex work.
How about this instead:
Customers should be licensed and have to be tested for STIs at least once every three months, and the customers will be given free condoms and required to use them when soliciting (penetrative) sex work?
In other words, the laws you've proposed protect the customers much more than they do the workers, presume the workers are the primary disease vector rather than the customers, and put much more of the onus on the workers.
The reason not to do it this way is that a sex worker could contract an STI from outside of work, and it is in the public interest to know when that happens and prevent them from being a vector.
We could also test clients, and that seems like a good idea, but not testing workers seems dangerous.
You could just require a license for clients too, with some sort of regular checkup required and noted on the license itself. Which would also give a framework for sex workers to reject clients based on unease about potential infection.
I personally thing that sex work should be legal and should be regulated. The regulations should be aimed at protecting the public health and at preventing exploitation of sex workers.
Public Health
The main goal here is to prevent the spread of STDs. When I use sex worker below, I mean "full service".
Sex workers should be licensed. This license will act as proof that the sex worker is following appropriate guidelines and grant the worker access to certain items.
Sex workers will have to be tested for STDs at least once every three months. This testing is paid for by the government.
Sex workers will be given free condoms and are required to use them when engaged in sex work.
How about this instead:
Customers should be licensed and have to be tested for STIs at least once every three months, and the customers will be given free condoms and required to use them when soliciting (penetrative) sex work?
In other words, the laws you've proposed protect the customers much more than they do the workers, presume the workers are the primary disease vector rather than the customers, and put much more of the onus on the workers.
The reason not to do it this way is that a sex worker could contract an STI from outside of work, and it is in the public interest to know when that happens and prevent them from being a vector.
We could also test clients, and that seems like a good idea, but not testing workers seems dangerous.
You could just require a license for clients too, with some sort of regular checkup required and noted on the license itself. Which would also give a framework for sex workers to reject clients based on unease about potential infection.
You could also require everyone fill out three 68768D forms, submit one to the government, one to the provider, and keep one for your records for at least 3 years, pass a general sex ed course, and then remit the appropriate yearly membership fee to the local licencing board. Or you could just respond to an ad off a website, hope things work out, and have sex right fucking now. Which is exactly how regulation just becomes another way to screw over sex workers.
I personally thing that sex work should be legal and should be regulated. The regulations should be aimed at protecting the public health and at preventing exploitation of sex workers.
Public Health
The main goal here is to prevent the spread of STDs. When I use sex worker below, I mean "full service".
Sex workers should be licensed. This license will act as proof that the sex worker is following appropriate guidelines and grant the worker access to certain items.
Sex workers will have to be tested for STDs at least once every three months. This testing is paid for by the government.
Sex workers will be given free condoms and are required to use them when engaged in sex work.
How about this instead:
Customers should be licensed and have to be tested for STIs at least once every three months, and the customers will be given free condoms and required to use them when soliciting (penetrative) sex work?
In other words, the laws you've proposed protect the customers much more than they do the workers, presume the workers are the primary disease vector rather than the customers, and put much more of the onus on the workers.
The reason not to do it this way is that a sex worker could contract an STI from outside of work, and it is in the public interest to know when that happens and prevent them from being a vector.
We could also test clients, and that seems like a good idea, but not testing workers seems dangerous.
You could just require a license for clients too, with some sort of regular checkup required and noted on the license itself. Which would also give a framework for sex workers to reject clients based on unease about potential infection.
You could also require everyone fill out three 68768D forms, submit one to the government, one to the provider, and keep one for your records for at least 3 years, pass a general sex ed course, and then remit the appropriate yearly membership fee to the local licencing board. Or you could just respond to an ad off a website, hope things work out, and have sex right fucking now. Which is exactly how regulation just becomes another way to screw over sex workers.
Yeah, these arguments don't fly when other industries use them either.
I don't know when so many people suddenly became libertarians, but it's strange.
Regulations have to be realistic for the industry, any industry. Sex work has social taboos around it, but that also means people have a lot of investment and practice about being discreet about it. When that starts getting pierced by regulation, the work just goes right back underground. And, if outright illegality has already done basically nothing to suppress it, regulations that don't fit the needs of the industry won't do it either.
Ideally you'd have some flexibility to the regulation and have some sort of hobbyist level option. A quick handy could just require that you use sanitizer before and after, and have an appropriate way to deal with the mess, and that you report it on your tax forms.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
Restaurants have licences, like a ton of them. It's weird to suggest otherwise.
Is it a civil or criminal matter though?
I don't fully understand this question, but licences are mostly issued by the state or city governments.
Perhaps contrary to popular belief, operating without license is often not a crime. It varies greatly by jurisdiction, but for a lot of business licenses the penalty for operating without one is civil. That is, it's a monetary fine but you're not guilty of a crime. You don't end up with a record or like in prison.
For obvious reasons the state doesn't want to prosecute every massage therapist or barber who works without a license. Even ignoring the US need to bring in a jury to convict beyond reasonable doubt.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
The solution to bad regulations isn't no regulations. There are some pretty obvious public health concerns with prostitution at the very least.
For the most part, those concerns aren't addressed by regulation, but by education and assistance. Street work zones in the Netherlands provided free medical care, free condoms and free legal assistance.
The attached images in the second tweet seem pertinent to this discussion.
A lot of industries would love to be unregulated. We have many threads about the result.
I'd be a lot more receptive to this argument if it didn't mean telling labor that it doesn't know what's best for it, again, and almost certainly maintaining the toxic relationship between sex workers and police
Yeah part of the problem is that enforcement of regulation usually falls to the police or some discount-police, and they suck. If the police are good for anything, it's catching criminals and shit, not checking if you're following all the regulations.
In order to shift regulation enforcement to bureaucracy, you'll need a whole lot of infrastructure
The cops don't check up on restaurants to see if they're following hygiene regulations. The existing bureaucratic infrastructure should be more than enough to handle whatever.
The reason why this usually falls to the police is because legalisation means sex work is a crime unless certain conditions are met. A restaurant with rats in the kitchen is not guilty of a crime, a sex worker without a license is. This is the problem with legalisation. The regulation in question isn't about hygiene standards, it's about saying when sex work is or isn't a crime.
Um, food safety violations can carry criminal penalties.
They can, but usually don't.
Beyond that, a sex worker's job requires intimate physical contact. Most jobs that involve intimate physical contact - mostly healthcare - require licensure and regulation. Massage therapists require regulation in 45 states.
When these entities violate regulatory standards, they are fined and punished according to preset guidelines. Severe noncompliance can result in criminal charges. The most heinous cases involve police.
Right and the thing is that in known systems of legalisation simple noncompliance is immediately a crime. The police are directly involved because the sex work is a crime unless certain rules are followed. In the Netherlands, for example, street prostitution is legal only in specific designated areas. Anyone caught working outside of those areas is arrested and tried by the courts. Selling sex without a license is a crime.
The solution to bad regulations isn't no regulations. There are some pretty obvious public health concerns with prostitution at the very least.
For the most part, those concerns aren't addressed by regulation, but by education and assistance. Street work zones in the Netherlands provided free medical care, free condoms and free legal assistance.
The attached images in the second tweet seem pertinent to this discussion.
A lot of industries would love to be unregulated. We have many threads about the result.
I'd be a lot more receptive to this argument if it didn't mean telling labor that it doesn't know what's best for it, again, and almost certainly maintaining the toxic relationship between sex workers and police
Yeah part of the problem is that enforcement of regulation usually falls to the police or some discount-police, and they suck. If the police are good for anything, it's catching criminals and shit, not checking if you're following all the regulations.
In order to shift regulation enforcement to bureaucracy, you'll need a whole lot of infrastructure
The cops don't check up on restaurants to see if they're following hygiene regulations. The existing bureaucratic infrastructure should be more than enough to handle whatever.
The reason why this usually falls to the police is because legalisation means sex work is a crime unless certain conditions are met. A restaurant with rats in the kitchen is not guilty of a crime, a sex worker without a license is. This is the problem with legalisation. The regulation in question isn't about hygiene standards, it's about saying when sex work is or isn't a crime.
Um, food safety violations can carry criminal penalties.
They can, but usually don't.
Beyond that, a sex worker's job requires intimate physical contact. Most jobs that involve intimate physical contact - mostly healthcare - require licensure and regulation. Massage therapists require regulation in 45 states.
When these entities violate regulatory standards, they are fined and punished according to preset guidelines. Severe noncompliance can result in criminal charges. The most heinous cases involve police.
Right and the thing is that in known systems of legalisation simple noncompliance is immediately a crime. The police are directly involved because the sex work is a crime unless certain rules are followed. In the Netherlands, for example, street prostitution is legal only in specific designated areas. Anyone caught working outside of those areas is arrested and tried by the courts. Selling sex without a license is a crime.
For most states the same is true of massages, though practicing massage without a license is a misdemeanor. It's not enforced more because it's difficult to draw the line between what is a massage and what is not. The same does not hold true for sex work.
Under the massage model, there are two tiers of punishment for noncompliance: revocation of license or police action (ticketing or arrest). This is also true of any practice or status requiring licensure. Therefore, under regulation, there will be instances where the police may not necessarily be involved in every issue of noncompliance if there is a licensing board in place.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It's not enforced more because it's difficult to draw the line between what is a massage and what is not. The same does not hold true for sex work.
Uh, it actually can be pretty hard to define sex work. Somethings may be entirely obvious (BBBJ for $100). But it can be hard to tell the difference between a massage and sex work sometimes, let alone escorts, backpage fun, or a particularly mercenary tinder hookup.
It's not enforced more because it's difficult to draw the line between what is a massage and what is not. The same does not hold true for sex work.
Uh, it actually can be pretty hard to define sex work. Somethings may be entirely obvious (BBBJ for $100). But it can be hard to tell the difference between a massage and sex work sometimes, let alone escorts, backpage fun, or a particularly mercenary tinder hookup.
It's easier than defining a massage but harder than defining firearm ownership
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_New_Zealand
New Zealand decriminalized full service sex work back in 2003. Specifically:
* It is regulated under civil laws, instead of criminal.
* Providers have the absolute right to refuse services to anyone they wish for any reason.
* Sex work may not be suggested by the government as a way to get off benefits.
* You can stop working as a sex worker and go on benefits immediately without penalty.
* Safe sex practices are enforced.
* It has not resulted in a grand expansion in the number of sex workers.
In general, this setup appears to work well, and is a good example of what decriminalization looks like in practice.
Regulations have to be realistic for the industry, any industry. Sex work has social taboos around it, but that also means people have a lot of investment and practice about being discreet about it. When that starts getting pierced by regulation, the work just goes right back underground. And, if outright illegality has already done basically nothing to suppress it, regulations that don't fit the needs of the industry won't do it either.
Do you think it's unreasonable to require "full service" sex workers to be tested for STDs quarterly? Especially if it's fully paid for by the government?
Because I think that's a realistic regulation. And, in fact, it's based on current voluntary requirements from the pornography industry.
Regulations have to be realistic for the industry, any industry. Sex work has social taboos around it, but that also means people have a lot of investment and practice about being discreet about it. When that starts getting pierced by regulation, the work just goes right back underground. And, if outright illegality has already done basically nothing to suppress it, regulations that don't fit the needs of the industry won't do it either.
Do you think it's unreasonable to require "full service" sex workers to be tested for STDs quarterly? Especially if it's fully paid for by the government?
Because I think that's a realistic regulation. And, in fact, it's based on current voluntary requirements from the pornography industry.
Even just a full disclosure rule about that status would be a step up.
Regulations have to be realistic for the industry, any industry. Sex work has social taboos around it, but that also means people have a lot of investment and practice about being discreet about it. When that starts getting pierced by regulation, the work just goes right back underground. And, if outright illegality has already done basically nothing to suppress it, regulations that don't fit the needs of the industry won't do it either.
Do you think it's unreasonable to require "full service" sex workers to be tested for STDs quarterly? Especially if it's fully paid for by the government?
Because I think that's a realistic regulation. And, in fact, it's based on current voluntary requirements from the pornography industry.
This is one of those things that sounds good, but really depends on commitment of the government to follow through. If a quarterly test is required, then:
A) the government actually needs to set aside sufficient resources to cover the costs involved (which aren't particularly cheap, especially when multiplied over a large working base), without a long wait list that can deregister someone in the meanwhile.
There has to be an effective follow up plan if a worker is diagnosed with an STI. If the result of being diagnosed with an STI is: Congratulations, here's thousands of dollars of medical bills! And you can't earn money for weeks/months/ever too!, you can guess what the end result of that would be.
C) Without knock-on effects on the larger community. When Victoria in Australia started requiring tests for sex workers, it was found that the clinics setup for this were filled with low risk sex workers (the type of sex workers who meticulously follow regulations are not the high risk ones) and that the estimated cost per prevented STI was crazy high (something like 500k+), where general education ads actually had a far better return. It also had the effect of restricting access to STI tests to the general public, since the clinics gained a reputation for being where prostitutes went, so the general population (which had much higher STI rates than the low risk sex workers) avoided going there and getting tested too. That actually created a public harm. It turns out that the recommended testing period needs to be responsive to local factors -- in the absence of a local outbreak of a specific STI, yearly testing is often sufficient, and targeted mobile testing, where support workers directly and discreetly contact high risk workers is even better.
If I had money, I'd invest in mobile STD testing centers or other contracted testing services should decriminalization happen
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_New_Zealand
New Zealand decriminalized full service sex work back in 2003. Specifically:
* It is regulated under civil laws, instead of criminal.
* Providers have the absolute right to refuse services to anyone they wish for any reason. * Sex work may not be suggested by the government as a way to get off benefits.
* You can stop working as a sex worker and go on benefits immediately without penalty.
* Safe sex practices are enforced.
* It has not resulted in a grand expansion in the number of sex workers.
In general, this setup appears to work well, and is a good example of what decriminalization looks like in practice.
I can't help but feel that the bolded was put in place so the government couldn't tell someone to "Go fuck yourself" when applying for benefits.
Regulations have to be realistic for the industry, any industry. Sex work has social taboos around it, but that also means people have a lot of investment and practice about being discreet about it. When that starts getting pierced by regulation, the work just goes right back underground. And, if outright illegality has already done basically nothing to suppress it, regulations that don't fit the needs of the industry won't do it either.
Do you think it's unreasonable to require "full service" sex workers to be tested for STDs quarterly? Especially if it's fully paid for by the government?
Because I think that's a realistic regulation. And, in fact, it's based on current voluntary requirements from the pornography industry.
This is one of those things that sounds good, but really depends on commitment of the government to follow through. If a quarterly test is required, then:
A) the government actually needs to set aside sufficient resources to cover the costs involved (which aren't particularly cheap, especially when multiplied over a large working base), without a long wait list that can deregister someone in the meanwhile.
There has to be an effective follow up plan if a worker is diagnosed with an STI. If the result of being diagnosed with an STI is: Congratulations, here's thousands of dollars of medical bills! And you can't earn money for weeks/months/ever too!, you can guess what the end result of that would be.
C) Without knock-on effects on the larger community. When Victoria in Australia started requiring tests for sex workers, it was found that the clinics setup for this were filled with low risk sex workers (the type of sex workers who meticulously follow regulations are not the high risk ones) and that the estimated cost per prevented STI was crazy high (something like 500k+), where general education ads actually had a far better return. It also had the effect of restricting access to STI tests to the general public, since the clinics gained a reputation for being where prostitutes went, so the general population (which had much higher STI rates than the low risk sex workers) avoided going there and getting tested too. That actually created a public harm. It turns out that the recommended testing period needs to be responsive to local factors -- in the absence of a local outbreak of a specific STI, yearly testing is often sufficient, and targeted mobile testing, where support workers directly and discreetly contact high risk workers is even better.
Effective prevention education, access to free and anonymous testing and the strong uptake of condom use by sex workers are identified as key factors in successful engagement of sex work communities in HIV prevention
Epidemiological evidence shows that mandatory testing is unnecessary. Sex workers already engage in safer sex practices, act as safer sex educators of our clients, peers and communities, and are experts at identifying, assessing and managing different degrees of risk.
The National STI Strategy clearly recommends voluntary, patient-initiated STI and HIV testing as the optimal approach with demonstrated success.
an Australian sex worker living with HIV was jailed in 2008 in the Australian Capital Territory....a result of this case, “many sex workers became fearful of testing for HIV” leading to a dramatic drop in sex worker attendance at outreach medical services.
The sexual health services are overloaded by a regime that must produce certificates for every sex worker, regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms or not. As concluded by Donovan and Harcourt, sex workers who experienced a condom breakage and need to access sexual health services quickly are particularly marginalised by mandatory testing
evilmrhenry on
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
I agree with all the New Zealand bullet points, but a couple would make some really interesting debate topics. Sex work is a job if you want to apply for government benefits, but not a job that can be suggested if you want to get off of government benefits. They also are allowing discrimination (racial, gender, whatever) when choosing customers.
I mean I agree with those stipulations, but there’s a lot of good stuff to unpack and argue about there.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Regulations have to be realistic for the industry, any industry. Sex work has social taboos around it, but that also means people have a lot of investment and practice about being discreet about it. When that starts getting pierced by regulation, the work just goes right back underground. And, if outright illegality has already done basically nothing to suppress it, regulations that don't fit the needs of the industry won't do it either.
Do you think it's unreasonable to require "full service" sex workers to be tested for STDs quarterly? Especially if it's fully paid for by the government?
Because I think that's a realistic regulation. And, in fact, it's based on current voluntary requirements from the pornography industry.
This is one of those things that sounds good, but really depends on commitment of the government to follow through. If a quarterly test is required, then:
A) the government actually needs to set aside sufficient resources to cover the costs involved (which aren't particularly cheap, especially when multiplied over a large working base), without a long wait list that can deregister someone in the meanwhile.
There has to be an effective follow up plan if a worker is diagnosed with an STI. If the result of being diagnosed with an STI is: Congratulations, here's thousands of dollars of medical bills! And you can't earn money for weeks/months/ever too!, you can guess what the end result of that would be.
C) Without knock-on effects on the larger community. When Victoria in Australia started requiring tests for sex workers, it was found that the clinics setup for this were filled with low risk sex workers (the type of sex workers who meticulously follow regulations are not the high risk ones) and that the estimated cost per prevented STI was crazy high (something like 500k+), where general education ads actually had a far better return. It also had the effect of restricting access to STI tests to the general public, since the clinics gained a reputation for being where prostitutes went, so the general population (which had much higher STI rates than the low risk sex workers) avoided going there and getting tested too. That actually created a public harm. It turns out that the recommended testing period needs to be responsive to local factors -- in the absence of a local outbreak of a specific STI, yearly testing is often sufficient, and targeted mobile testing, where support workers directly and discreetly contact high risk workers is even better.
Effective prevention education, access to free and anonymous testing and the strong uptake of condom use by sex workers are identified as key factors in successful engagement of sex work communities in HIV prevention
Epidemiological evidence shows that mandatory testing is unnecessary. Sex workers already engage in safer sex practices, act as safer sex educators of our clients, peers and communities, and are experts at identifying, assessing and managing different degrees of risk.
The National STI Strategy clearly recommends voluntary, patient-initiated STI and HIV testing as the optimal approach with demonstrated success.
an Australian sex worker living with HIV was jailed in 2008 in the Australian Capital Territory....a result of this case, “many sex workers became fearful of testing for HIV” leading to a dramatic drop in sex worker attendance at outreach medical services.
The sexual health services are overloaded by a regime that must produce certificates for every sex worker, regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms or not. As concluded by Donovan and Harcourt, sex workers who experienced a condom breakage and need to access sexual health services quickly are particularly marginalised by mandatory testing
Yeah, definitely agree. Thanks for posting that, -if- testing must be done to secure a better regime, it needs to be done smartly, but testing itself isn't an optimal or even particularly necessary part of regulation by any means.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
I personally thing that sex work should be legal and should be regulated. The regulations should be aimed at protecting the public health and at preventing exploitation of sex workers.
Public Health
The main goal here is to prevent the spread of STDs. When I use sex worker below, I mean "full service".
Sex workers should be licensed. This license will act as proof that the sex worker is following appropriate guidelines and grant the worker access to certain items.
Sex workers will have to be tested for STDs at least once every three months. This testing is paid for by the government.
Sex workers will be given free condoms and are required to use them when engaged in sex work.
How about this instead:
Customers should be licensed and have to be tested for STIs at least once every three months, and the customers will be given free condoms and required to use them when soliciting (penetrative) sex work?
In other words, the laws you've proposed protect the customers much more than they do the workers, presume the workers are the primary disease vector rather than the customers, and put much more of the onus on the workers.
The reason not to do it this way is that a sex worker could contract an STI from outside of work, and it is in the public interest to know when that happens and prevent them from being a vector.
We could also test clients, and that seems like a good idea, but not testing workers seems dangerous.
You could just require a license for clients too, with some sort of regular checkup required and noted on the license itself. Which would also give a framework for sex workers to reject clients based on unease about potential infection.
You could also require everyone fill out three 68768D forms, submit one to the government, one to the provider, and keep one for your records for at least 3 years, pass a general sex ed course, and then remit the appropriate yearly membership fee to the local licencing board. Or you could just respond to an ad off a website, hope things work out, and have sex right fucking now. Which is exactly how regulation just becomes another way to screw over sex workers.
Yeah, these arguments don't fly when other industries use them either.
I don't know when so many people suddenly became libertarians, but it's strange.
I'm pretty sure these arguments fly when talking about client licenses for other industries. I don't need a license to get a haircut or a massage, and I think anyone proposing such a thing would rightly be laughed out of the room.
I don't think is libertarian to oppose unnecessary bureaucracy.
I personally thing that sex work should be legal and should be regulated. The regulations should be aimed at protecting the public health and at preventing exploitation of sex workers.
Public Health
The main goal here is to prevent the spread of STDs. When I use sex worker below, I mean "full service".
Sex workers should be licensed. This license will act as proof that the sex worker is following appropriate guidelines and grant the worker access to certain items.
Sex workers will have to be tested for STDs at least once every three months. This testing is paid for by the government.
Sex workers will be given free condoms and are required to use them when engaged in sex work.
How about this instead:
Customers should be licensed and have to be tested for STIs at least once every three months, and the customers will be given free condoms and required to use them when soliciting (penetrative) sex work?
In other words, the laws you've proposed protect the customers much more than they do the workers, presume the workers are the primary disease vector rather than the customers, and put much more of the onus on the workers.
The reason not to do it this way is that a sex worker could contract an STI from outside of work, and it is in the public interest to know when that happens and prevent them from being a vector.
We could also test clients, and that seems like a good idea, but not testing workers seems dangerous.
You could just require a license for clients too, with some sort of regular checkup required and noted on the license itself. Which would also give a framework for sex workers to reject clients based on unease about potential infection.
You could also require everyone fill out three 68768D forms, submit one to the government, one to the provider, and keep one for your records for at least 3 years, pass a general sex ed course, and then remit the appropriate yearly membership fee to the local licencing board. Or you could just respond to an ad off a website, hope things work out, and have sex right fucking now. Which is exactly how regulation just becomes another way to screw over sex workers.
Yeah, these arguments don't fly when other industries use them either.
I don't know when so many people suddenly became libertarians, but it's strange.
I'm pretty sure these arguments fly when talking about client licenses for other industries. I don't need a license to get a haircut or a massage, and I think anyone proposing such a thing would rightly be laughed out of the room.
I don't think is libertarian to oppose unnecessary bureaucracy.
To be fair, Feral has admitted that his proposal to have the customers certified wasn't meant to be a serious proposal, it was just to contrast with how we treat the customer with how we treat the worker.
And I'm open to a middle ground where we don't license sex workers and make STD testing freely available rather than mandatory. I freely admit that I don't know a lot about the current state of prostitution in the US and that my views are likely tainted by misrepresentation from media.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
like, before we all start nodding our heads and going "hmm, yes, very reasonable" at shit like client licenses (!), we should first consider what the issue actually is supposed to be. like:
not testing workers seems dangerous.
You don't do that now so it's not going to be any more dangerous than whatever the situation is now. decriminalizing sex work is not suddenly going to lead to extra epidemics. I swear this is just like the cannabis legalisation debate, where people flock to a "heavily regulated and taxed" standpoint despite the lack of argument for why it needs to be heavily regulated. if criminalization is ineffective, you need to show that the problem you're talking about is present now and fixable with regulation.
I'm not super familiar with the details, so correct me if i'm wrong, but it is my understanding that testing has caught several STD outbreaks in the porn community and stopped them from spreading further.
So the goal of testing workers, like porn stars, would be to continue doing that.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
To be fair, Feral has admitted that his proposal to have the customers certified wasn't meant to be a serious proposal, it was just to contrast with how we treat the customer with how we treat the worker.
And I'm open to a middle ground where we don't license sex workers and make STD testing freely available rather than mandatory. I freely admit that I don't know a lot about the current state of prostitution in the US and that my views are likely tainted by misrepresentation from media.
Yeah but the idea of certifying customers was picked by others as possibly reasonable. yet it is clearly ridiculous.
from what I've read a lot of US sex workers get tested less than they'd like even when they can afford it out of fear of being noticed. which I understand even when health care workers are obligated to not report and generally don't want to. decriminalisation and free testing would make a huge difference. as evilmrhenry showed, sex workers tend to practice safe sex already. it is their job after all, STDs are a threat to their health and livelihood. free tests and the knowledge that they won't be caught or arrested is enough.
I'm not super familiar with the details, so correct me if i'm wrong, but it is my understanding that testing has caught several STD outbreaks in the porn community and stopped them from spreading further.
So the goal of testing workers, like porn stars, would be to continue doing that.
The thing about the porn industry is that the sex is unprotected out of need. People don't like to see condoms in their porn, so actors don't use them. Actors who only have sex with condoms don't find a lot of work. This obviously requires very strict testing standards to prevent outbreaks, especially because the industry is relatively small.
But sex work like prostitution is not the same. Customers are fine with condoms, and workers can require them without risking their income. Unprotected sex happens more due to condoms being not available and such.
Also, testing in porn is voluntary. Sex workers know they are having sex and risking STDs. You don't have to make it mandatory, you just have to make it available.
As barrier contraption is an imperfect prophylactic against STI, for liability reasons testing for the most common of these diseases will likely be the norm.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'm not super familiar with the details, so correct me if i'm wrong, but it is my understanding that testing has caught several STD outbreaks in the porn community and stopped them from spreading further.
So the goal of testing workers, like porn stars, would be to continue doing that.
STI testing in the porn industry is voluntary.
And, yes, it has prevented outbreaks.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
My understanding is that condoms in porn actually come with some health risks of their own given the erm....nature of the industry.
The usual argument is that prolonged condom use can cause "condom rash" (aka, genital abrasion injury). I haven't seen any rigorous research to back that up, but multiple industry professionals (including Nina Hartley, who is also an RN) have corroborated it.
The other problem is that proposals for mandatory condom use and/or STI testing in porn almost always come from people hostile to the industry, like the laws backed by AIDS Healthcare Foundation in California.
In this light, such laws aren't analogous to food service standards so much as they're analogous to pro-life efforts to require abortion clinics to meet the same facility standards as emergency medicine departments (eg, hallways wide enough to turn a gurney). They're intended to strangle the industry, not make it safe.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Hey guys, haven't read the whole thread, but have we touched on the potential societal benefits of decriminalization/destigmatization/regulation of sex work?
I feel as though offering a safe (for both provider and client) vector through which people of all types can have their sexual needs met could lead to other benefits outside of the immediately obvious ones. I believe there would be an absolutely therapeutic benefit for those who suffer from disabilities or social impairments to have access to sex with a consenting partner. Heck, even being able to consult with a professional sex worker about one's insecurities/misconceptions about sex, who might actually be able to demonstrate what they are talking about to their client (as an example) could provide a huge social benefit to certain segments of the population.
- People who may be struggling with their sexual identity would have access to a venue where they could explore their feelings in a safe and constructive way
- People who are struggling with a disability could have their sexual needs met without (ideally) having to deal with social stigma or judgment from their sexual partner
- Lonely People struggling with social anxiety or other disorders could have access to a means to have their own needs met in a safe environment, free from judgment
And the list goes on.
I think society needs to come to terms with the fact that there is, and has always been, a market for sex. Denying this fundamental reality of human existence is, and has always been, a logical fallacy.
In the past, it might have been argued that sexual "wantoness" was dangerous due to both STIs and pregnancy, but we understand how those work now and are better equipped than ever to defend ourselves from that without having to outright deny ourselves what I would consider has been proven to be a basic human need for many.
De-stigmatizing and subsequently regulating the sex work industry, I believe, would provide a net good for society on many fronts, if we can only excise this pervasive belief that sex work (the act, not the industry as it currently exists) is somehow immoral.
Roughly half* of human trafficking in the US is for nonsexual labor.
(* This comes from Department of Justice stats on conviction rates. If we presume that nonsexual workers are more cooperative with law enforcement officers or that LEOs take nonsexual trafficking more seriously, then we can presume some availability bias. It's safe to say that sexual trafficking is likely a larger share than is officially reported.)
Regardless of that caveat, the presence of significant nonsexual human trafficking both A) would presumably still occur even if sex work were legalized and shows that legalizing a form of labor does not (in and of itself) eliminate human trafficking for that labor.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
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Its a civil matter. The health inspectors, well, inspect and can levy civil fines, order improvements and closures, and such. The only way they can enforce those orders if the restaurant doesn't comply is via civil court, however. Like someone above said, if sex work is regulated, the proper way to go about it is not to have the police enforce anything, but the existing health department bureaucracy. In most jurisdictions they already are involved in many things beyond restaurants, like grocery stores, pools, tattoo and piercing shops, spas, factories, and so on. Its been my experience that they are typically terrible at regulating home-based industries though (which sex work often is).
The reason not to do it this way is that a sex worker could contract an STI from outside of work, and it is in the public interest to know when that happens and prevent them from being a vector.
We could also test clients, and that seems like a good idea, but not testing workers seems dangerous.
Then again I think the government paying or at least partially paying to cover semi-regular STD screenings for people should already be a thing for anyone who wants it or feels they need it.
Is that really any different from a ton of other services though?
Even in your example, while the rentee needs a license, the car renter is also subject to a ton of regulation on the exact same grounds.
You could just require a license for clients too, with some sort of regular checkup required and noted on the license itself. Which would also give a framework for sex workers to reject clients based on unease about potential infection.
You could also require everyone fill out three 68768D forms, submit one to the government, one to the provider, and keep one for your records for at least 3 years, pass a general sex ed course, and then remit the appropriate yearly membership fee to the local licencing board. Or you could just respond to an ad off a website, hope things work out, and have sex right fucking now. Which is exactly how regulation just becomes another way to screw over sex workers.
Yeah, these arguments don't fly when other industries use them either.
I don't know when so many people suddenly became libertarians, but it's strange.
Perhaps contrary to popular belief, operating without license is often not a crime. It varies greatly by jurisdiction, but for a lot of business licenses the penalty for operating without one is civil. That is, it's a monetary fine but you're not guilty of a crime. You don't end up with a record or like in prison.
For obvious reasons the state doesn't want to prosecute every massage therapist or barber who works without a license. Even ignoring the US need to bring in a jury to convict beyond reasonable doubt.
They can, but usually don't.
Right and the thing is that in known systems of legalisation simple noncompliance is immediately a crime. The police are directly involved because the sex work is a crime unless certain rules are followed. In the Netherlands, for example, street prostitution is legal only in specific designated areas. Anyone caught working outside of those areas is arrested and tried by the courts. Selling sex without a license is a crime.
For most states the same is true of massages, though practicing massage without a license is a misdemeanor. It's not enforced more because it's difficult to draw the line between what is a massage and what is not. The same does not hold true for sex work.
Under the massage model, there are two tiers of punishment for noncompliance: revocation of license or police action (ticketing or arrest). This is also true of any practice or status requiring licensure. Therefore, under regulation, there will be instances where the police may not necessarily be involved in every issue of noncompliance if there is a licensing board in place.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Uh, it actually can be pretty hard to define sex work. Somethings may be entirely obvious (BBBJ for $100). But it can be hard to tell the difference between a massage and sex work sometimes, let alone escorts, backpage fun, or a particularly mercenary tinder hookup.
It's easier than defining a massage but harder than defining firearm ownership
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
New Zealand decriminalized full service sex work back in 2003. Specifically:
* It is regulated under civil laws, instead of criminal.
* Providers have the absolute right to refuse services to anyone they wish for any reason.
* Sex work may not be suggested by the government as a way to get off benefits.
* You can stop working as a sex worker and go on benefits immediately without penalty.
* Safe sex practices are enforced.
* It has not resulted in a grand expansion in the number of sex workers.
In general, this setup appears to work well, and is a good example of what decriminalization looks like in practice.
Do you think it's unreasonable to require "full service" sex workers to be tested for STDs quarterly? Especially if it's fully paid for by the government?
Because I think that's a realistic regulation. And, in fact, it's based on current voluntary requirements from the pornography industry.
Even just a full disclosure rule about that status would be a step up.
There's also the question of pregnancy.
This is one of those things that sounds good, but really depends on commitment of the government to follow through. If a quarterly test is required, then:
A) the government actually needs to set aside sufficient resources to cover the costs involved (which aren't particularly cheap, especially when multiplied over a large working base), without a long wait list that can deregister someone in the meanwhile.
C) Without knock-on effects on the larger community. When Victoria in Australia started requiring tests for sex workers, it was found that the clinics setup for this were filled with low risk sex workers (the type of sex workers who meticulously follow regulations are not the high risk ones) and that the estimated cost per prevented STI was crazy high (something like 500k+), where general education ads actually had a far better return. It also had the effect of restricting access to STI tests to the general public, since the clinics gained a reputation for being where prostitutes went, so the general population (which had much higher STI rates than the low risk sex workers) avoided going there and getting tested too. That actually created a public harm. It turns out that the recommended testing period needs to be responsive to local factors -- in the absence of a local outbreak of a specific STI, yearly testing is often sufficient, and targeted mobile testing, where support workers directly and discreetly contact high risk workers is even better.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I can't help but feel that the bolded was put in place so the government couldn't tell someone to "Go fuck yourself" when applying for benefits.
https://nzpc.org.nz/pdfs/Jeffreys,-Fawkes-and-Stardust,-(2012)-Mandatory-testing-among-sex-workers-in-Aus-Barrier-to-HIV-prevention.pdf
I mean I agree with those stipulations, but there’s a lot of good stuff to unpack and argue about there.
Yeah, definitely agree. Thanks for posting that, -if- testing must be done to secure a better regime, it needs to be done smartly, but testing itself isn't an optimal or even particularly necessary part of regulation by any means.
I'm pretty sure these arguments fly when talking about client licenses for other industries. I don't need a license to get a haircut or a massage, and I think anyone proposing such a thing would rightly be laughed out of the room.
I don't think is libertarian to oppose unnecessary bureaucracy.
To be fair, Feral has admitted that his proposal to have the customers certified wasn't meant to be a serious proposal, it was just to contrast with how we treat the customer with how we treat the worker.
And I'm open to a middle ground where we don't license sex workers and make STD testing freely available rather than mandatory. I freely admit that I don't know a lot about the current state of prostitution in the US and that my views are likely tainted by misrepresentation from media.
You don't do that now so it's not going to be any more dangerous than whatever the situation is now. decriminalizing sex work is not suddenly going to lead to extra epidemics. I swear this is just like the cannabis legalisation debate, where people flock to a "heavily regulated and taxed" standpoint despite the lack of argument for why it needs to be heavily regulated. if criminalization is ineffective, you need to show that the problem you're talking about is present now and fixable with regulation.
So the goal of testing workers, like porn stars, would be to continue doing that.
Yeah but the idea of certifying customers was picked by others as possibly reasonable. yet it is clearly ridiculous.
from what I've read a lot of US sex workers get tested less than they'd like even when they can afford it out of fear of being noticed. which I understand even when health care workers are obligated to not report and generally don't want to. decriminalisation and free testing would make a huge difference. as evilmrhenry showed, sex workers tend to practice safe sex already. it is their job after all, STDs are a threat to their health and livelihood. free tests and the knowledge that they won't be caught or arrested is enough.
The thing about the porn industry is that the sex is unprotected out of need. People don't like to see condoms in their porn, so actors don't use them. Actors who only have sex with condoms don't find a lot of work. This obviously requires very strict testing standards to prevent outbreaks, especially because the industry is relatively small.
But sex work like prostitution is not the same. Customers are fine with condoms, and workers can require them without risking their income. Unprotected sex happens more due to condoms being not available and such.
Also, testing in porn is voluntary. Sex workers know they are having sex and risking STDs. You don't have to make it mandatory, you just have to make it available.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
STI testing in the porn industry is voluntary.
And, yes, it has prevented outbreaks.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
The usual argument is that prolonged condom use can cause "condom rash" (aka, genital abrasion injury). I haven't seen any rigorous research to back that up, but multiple industry professionals (including Nina Hartley, who is also an RN) have corroborated it.
The other problem is that proposals for mandatory condom use and/or STI testing in porn almost always come from people hostile to the industry, like the laws backed by AIDS Healthcare Foundation in California.
In this light, such laws aren't analogous to food service standards so much as they're analogous to pro-life efforts to require abortion clinics to meet the same facility standards as emergency medicine departments (eg, hallways wide enough to turn a gurney). They're intended to strangle the industry, not make it safe.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I feel as though offering a safe (for both provider and client) vector through which people of all types can have their sexual needs met could lead to other benefits outside of the immediately obvious ones. I believe there would be an absolutely therapeutic benefit for those who suffer from disabilities or social impairments to have access to sex with a consenting partner. Heck, even being able to consult with a professional sex worker about one's insecurities/misconceptions about sex, who might actually be able to demonstrate what they are talking about to their client (as an example) could provide a huge social benefit to certain segments of the population.
- People who may be struggling with their sexual identity would have access to a venue where they could explore their feelings in a safe and constructive way
- People who are struggling with a disability could have their sexual needs met without (ideally) having to deal with social stigma or judgment from their sexual partner
- Lonely People struggling with social anxiety or other disorders could have access to a means to have their own needs met in a safe environment, free from judgment
And the list goes on.
I think society needs to come to terms with the fact that there is, and has always been, a market for sex. Denying this fundamental reality of human existence is, and has always been, a logical fallacy.
In the past, it might have been argued that sexual "wantoness" was dangerous due to both STIs and pregnancy, but we understand how those work now and are better equipped than ever to defend ourselves from that without having to outright deny ourselves what I would consider has been proven to be a basic human need for many.
De-stigmatizing and subsequently regulating the sex work industry, I believe, would provide a net good for society on many fronts, if we can only excise this pervasive belief that sex work (the act, not the industry as it currently exists) is somehow immoral.
Europe too
It's very tricky, it has the potential to shatter, but also have just as much potential to give human trafficking a legal protection barrier.
(* This comes from Department of Justice stats on conviction rates. If we presume that nonsexual workers are more cooperative with law enforcement officers or that LEOs take nonsexual trafficking more seriously, then we can presume some availability bias. It's safe to say that sexual trafficking is likely a larger share than is officially reported.)
Regardless of that caveat, the presence of significant nonsexual human trafficking both A) would presumably still occur even if sex work were legalized and
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.