For f##ks sake - -
just legalise it already and move on to crimes that actually harm society.
Police DNA test plan to put off prostitutes' punters
West Yorkshire Police have sought to clarify a senior officer's remarks after she called for a database of all men who use prostitutes, irrespective of whether or not a crime has been committed. Chief Superintendent Alison Rose from Bradford South said in a report by the BBC that she wanted to set up a DNA database of men who …
-
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 14:24 GMT Graham Marsden
@For f##ks sake
Whilst I agree with your sentiments, as I've pointed out in previous posts on this subject, prostitution itself is *not* illegal, it's just so much that surrounds it that is.
The fact is, however, that kerb crawling, especially when it happens in or near residential areas, is a problem for local people, but the solution is not to criminalise the women or the punters, but to make it easier for women to be able to advertise their services via the web etc and allow them to work in premises with appropriate protection and security to ensure their safety thus making kerb crawling unnecessary in the first place.
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 15:56 GMT Annihilator
Coercion
On the face of it, prostitution doesn't do any harm. And I have no strong opinion either way, but I recall a rather brilliant line from the West Wing:
"I know of no little girl, and neither do you, who says 'I wanna be a prostitute when I grow up.' They do it because they're forced to out of economic circumstances. And dire economic need is a form of coercion"
Just floating an opposing view though... No need to flame people.
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 16:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Do kids say...
Do little kids say they want to be the garbage man? Probably not. They become garbage men because they're forced to out of economic circumstances. And dire economic need is a form of coercion.
While your argument isn't without merit I think it could be applied to anyone of any gender (you specifically cited "little girls") in any job or career they really don't want to be in.
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 16:19 GMT Sarah Bee
Re: Do kids say...
You do realise it is sometimes OK to be gender-specific without adding a disclaimer that ofcoursethiscouldbeapplied etc etc? I don't see people blustering out a list of other international conflicts of which they are mindful when making reference to the Middle East, lest they be accused of bias or bigotry.
Also, while your argument is not without merit, garbage men are not obliged to let strangers fuck them in the arse.
I'm sorry, but really, you should be more careful.
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 17:14 GMT MeRp
garbage and prostitution
Garbage men are not obliged to let strangers fuck them for a few minutes for a relatively large hourly rate.. but neither are prostitutes obliged to virtually swim in shed loads of baby diapers and used tampons for hours at a time for a much more modest hourly rate.
If the women are not being literally forced (as opposed to "coerced by economic conditions") then it is simply a career choice; there are others, but they don't pay as well.
The same arguement (about economic conditions) applies, literally, to almost all people who do some sort of work. There are those of us who enjoy our work, but, even we, ultimately, would probably do something else (even if ever so slightly different) if it were not that we needed a paycheck.
Indeed, Ms. Bee, would you be trolling these comments being forced to have your mind soiled if it were not that you would like to receive your paycheck? Wouldn't it be better if you could just read them after the most extreme comments were already eliminated?
-
Thursday 20th January 2011 01:09 GMT Heff
"garbage men are not obliged to let strangers fuck them in the arse."
and a hooker able to put down roots, pay taxes, and develop a secure business without the threat of pimping, drugs, and lunacy wouldnt necessarily be obliged to either. when you can book in advance with some confidence, be sure that you wont be busted or smacked the fuck around, you're less likely to do-anything-for-the-money.
put it like this : If you, SB, didnt know if you were working next week, and someone said "can you photocopy this bunch of bullshit for 6 hours at a demeaning rate of pay" you'd be much more inclined to do it rather than tell them to go fuck themselves. Job security is more than just demand for what you're selling.
/Sidenote : yes, legalise the hell out of it. put sex workers in positions of security rather than desperation. no, it doesnt address the oh-my-god-these-poor-women malarkey, but then, if you want to address that societal illness, why not broaden your goal to "why is this industry so stigmatised, for both supplier and consumer?"
-
Thursday 20th January 2011 00:09 GMT Annihilator
@AC - Do kids say
"Do little kids say they want to be the garbage man? Probably not. They become garbage men because they're forced to out of economic circumstances. And dire economic need is a form of coercion."
Ah, brilliantly argued.. Except to say that coercing someone into collecting the bins for a living is hardly amoral.
-
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 16:35 GMT rjmx
So?
Like a lot of pithy sayings, it's just a little *too* pat. How can the speaker presume to know whether the person he's talking to knows such a little girl?
(Note that I'm not suggesting that such a thing would be good, especially for the girl: I just don't like presumptuous twits).
But if, as you suggest, women are coerced into prostitution because of their economic situation (and I'm not sure that that's always true), what do you propose they do instead? Starve?
Would it not be better to help them find better ways to cope?
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 22:34 GMT PJ 1
Coerced
I am being economically coerced into working in my job, this job has certain requirements which I dislike (regardless of the degree of unpleasantness) but I was aware of these when I took the job. I don't see how I can complain.
1. If I was forced to do my job it would be different.
2. If I was lied to about the role it would be different.
Back to prostitution:
In case 1. you do not address this by making prostitution illegal, there are arguments that this makes it worse as the whole industry is driven underground. Nor do you address it by making using trafficed prostitutes some sort of strict liability rape offence (a vaunted Labour initiative right up there with ending boom and bust in the all time fucking stupid stakes).
In case 2. if the prositute has not been physically forced to do the job they can leave (as I can in my job when they make me get in at 0830). If not, see point 1.
Whether or not prostitutes get 'fucked in the arse' is frankly irrelevant.
-
-
Monday 24th January 2011 10:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
A finer point of UK law, for those who know such things
If the sex workers were to be collecting the 'samples' and providing them to the coppers, would that a) be legal under UK and continental privacy law, and would said sample b) be admissible before the court as evidence? After all, most encounters would seem to result in a sample inside a latex container...
-
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 11:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Another hater of men?
This argument reeks of public name & shame practices that are popular in the USoA but I personally find very questionable. Trying to use a biometric detection tool as a deterrent is highly abusive of privacy and yet another vivid illustration why the government and the ACPO must not be allowed to have the database state. And perhaps why people holding positions of public trust ought not to be allowed to keep their positions if they continue to damage and destroy the public trust this way.
-
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 12:34 GMT Loyal Commenter
Wrong target?
Why not just decriminalise prositution, licence it and go after the pimps and trafickers who are the real threat to vulnerable women?
Admitted, if legal, it raises the issue of women soliciting in inappropriate places (not that this doesn't already happen illegally). This is why we need a sensible licencing policy (licencing of the venue, or area, not necessarily of the sex workers).
Other countries can make this work perfectly well, is there any reason we need to live in the nineteenth century?
All in all, this woman sounds to me like a misandrist. In a day and age where misogeny is rightly looked down on by most people, we seem to turn a blind eye to the converse (a good example of this is the recent Boots advert where the women are carrying on as normal, but the 'poor darling' men have to stay in bed when they have a cold; swap the gender roles here and no doubt there would be outrage).
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 12:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
If only we knew that serious crooks were so easy to recognise....
So people who use Prostitutes are rapists, murderers, robbers etc?? I take it that we live in an all encompassing society that woman who use Male Escorts would also have their DNA recorded?
"This proposal follows a not entirely dissimilar proposal by Deputy Chief Constable Simon Byrne, ACPO's lead on prostitution and sexual exploitation, at the end of last year. He would like to see the police setting up a database of “ugly mugs” "
Guess he has met SuBo's ugly sister aka Chief Superintendent Alison Rose then.
Steve because you know he wants your DNA record
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 15:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
male escorts
the market for male escorts is very small, and very different to the female escort/prostitute one. don't believe most of the rubbish about websites that are seeking male escorts for their 'rapidly increasing user base', those are mainly set up to take a 50 quid starting fee from joe-easily-parted-from-his-money-blogs (and no, they have never parted me with mine ;)
I do however have a number of female friends who just so happen to be gay, and I do know that a few of those have made use of female prostitutes (you get to learn all sorts of strange things about people at late night parties). I would think that is the only female demographic that would be targeted for dna under this scheme (straight female's using male escorts, rare as it is, has other methods of 'soliciting').
Personally I find her DNA suggestion sickening and against all moral standard (unlike prostitution).
Anon, because I'm talking about friends, and while I don't mind standing behind my own assertions I believe in my friend's right to privacy.
-
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 12:49 GMT Tequila Joe
He who smelt it, dealt it.
So, "Deputy Chief Constable Simon Byrne, ACPO's lead on prostitution and sexual exploitation ... would like to see the police setting up a database of “ugly mugs” – or individuals believed to pose a risk to sex workers."
Individuals believed to pose a risk to sex workers? - Doesn't that mean all senior plod and a lot of moralising politicians?
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 13:23 GMT Graham Bartlett
Solve the problem
There's easy ways to solve the problems.
Legalise voluntary prostitution. They'd pay tax like any other self-employed person. Maybe require licensing with regular health checks - that's an occupational hazard - and you'd get a public health benefit too. And that'd largely solve the problem of trafficked women.
Legalise multiple prostitutes working out of one building. Then not only can they hire security to protect themselves against violent clients, but they're also not out on the streets offending people by their existence, which is a double win.
And get properly tough on the blokes trafficking them. Hence the grenade...
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 16:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Solve the problem
>And that'd largely solve the problem of trafficked women
I'm afraid it wouldn't. I'm not sure of the exact legal position here in Spain but at the very least it's more than tolerated. You will often find a puticlub on the outskirts of an reasonably sized town. Also there are always numerous girls plying their wares on Calle de la Montera just outside a police station almost bang in the centre of Madrid . However trafficking still exists.
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 15:56 GMT K. Adams
Expected better...
Now, now, Ms. Bee, you disappoint me; I expected better.
First of all, there's no reason to disconnect yourself from the esteemed intellectual centres of your own mind, and abase yourself by lowering your commentary standards to those of the chauvinist you are retorting against.
Secondly, as a "Reg commentard," as you put it, I am rather put off by your off-the-cuff effort to lump my brethren and me in with the likes of such rabble as Morphoyle. While my half of the species does, admittedly, have a reputation of objectifying the faire sex, as it were, the case is more often than not overblown, and seldom takes into consideration that men and women are, after all, different from each other.
And finally, being that you even deigned to post a reply, you must, of course, be including yourself as a target of your comments, are you not?
Maybe we're not so different, after all...
-
-
-
Thursday 20th January 2011 12:54 GMT Wokstation
Disappointed...
...that an El Reg'er would describe a large chunk of their customer base so?
I normally find your contribs to be quite witty, but not that one. In fact it's the sort of low standard I'd expect on an unmoderated forum, not a moderated news-site and especially not coming from a staffer.
Boo. Hiss.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 19th January 2011 15:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Prostitution isn't illegal in Britain
Nowhere on the statute books is prostitution illegal. Many of the trappings of the oldest profession are illegal. For example running a brothel, or street-walking. But selling sex from a house where no-one else does so is totally legal. Tony Blair, in a rare act of doing something sensible, actually attempting to change the law so 2 or more prostitutes could work from the same house (for safety reasons), unfortunately, it fell off the legislative radar.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
