Sex work debate in Dublin - 25th September

[Morpheus]

Thank you Laura! I've never had the privilege of hearing you speak. It is an honour to have watched this clip of you. You spoke beautifully and concisely. And the real power of what you've said is based on the fact that you are a sex worker (and a real human being!!) and not some outsider trying to work out what's best for sex workers. It's incredibly brave of you to fight the cause publically. Thank you.


And thank you Leather for posting the various clips.

[Jack in the Box]

Well done Laura, Rachel and Vanessa and other speakers there at the Trinity debate who spoke in favour of sex work! The three of you are a credit to us and we are very lucky to have you. You have shown tremendous bravery and commitment to what are basic freedoms for consenting adults to engage in sexual activities- freedoms which many more should be concerned about.

You showed up Pringle and the other TOTRL lemmings for their misrepresentation of facts, myths and hearsay.

People endorsing TOTRL are either deluding themselves or are like the cowered townsfolk in one of these old westerns.

Keep up the great work!

[Alhazred]

Some of the arguments against in both debates are staggering.

"How many children would say to their parents that they wish to be prostitutes when they grow up?" - few children would also consider a career as a lip reader for the New England Patriots, or a database technician. Should those also be outlawed? I look forward to a society made up entirely of doctors, spacemen, firefighters, and football players.

I have paid men to get physical with me, to sweat together, to have them push through my body's resistance into the good pain, and these personal trainers are certified and celebrated for the role they play in our society, yet there apparently needs to be a stigma against another profession that may operate on an hourly basis to perhaps teach you new physical skills, relax, and maybe for some even feel better about how they look? Some surgical splitting of hairs here, when even Jesus was willing to share his body with us once a week.

This endless quotation of statistics without any discussion how they were acquired. How exactly are they surveying the individuals who are defined by being part of a group whose activities are criminalised? No wonder the ones they have recorded are those appearing following rape reports or other arrest/hospitalisation.

This crazy concern that gangs are inevitably in control, that money is being syphoned out of economy and the temptation will always bring in criminality... did we not just have the same discussion about bouncers a few years ago, and the government was able to introduce background checks, registration, certification... I am not saying that any of that is required here, but, surely if a gangster makes money off an ice cream truck, the solution is not to criminalise ice cream, and we seem to have considered options previously.

I'd like to thank everyone who stepped up for the debates for representing sanity in our strangely repressed world - you guys are warrior scholars battling against the close-minded tide, trying to legislate its antiquated dogma to have the world shackled by it long after they are gone.