Prostitution Consultaion Discussions on E-I

[Patricia]

I'm posting about this as some people have asked.

E-I's plan re Consultation discussions on E-I is as follows:

To create a new public forum on this board with sub-forums, specifically to discuss this consultation and all the questions in it, in an organised way. This will be available on Monday or Tuesday.

There are quite a number of people registered on these boards who are interested in taking part in this Consultation and probably none of us are experts on each question in it, but if we draw our knowledge together, by getting different feedback and information posted about each question from numerous sources, this may enable us all to better come up with our own submissions.

I considered whether E-I was an appropriate place for these things to be discussed. You could say it would be better if some independent group set up such a forum away from this website. But I don't see anyone doing that. Also although anyone who wanted to join the discussions but isn't registered here could register here and join in, some people may not wish to join an adult website. However I think it is most important escorts contribute here and the fact of the matter is many escorts visit these forums, and so it is a good place in that respect.

I considered whether it should be a private forum rather than a public forum. You could say it is not good to let the enemy see what you are doing! But if you make it private, less people get involved, and also I don't think we really have anything to hide here, maybe it is actually even better we do this in the open. We are all adults trying to come up with a response to a consultation. We are not a group of people with one agenda, who need to promote one PR image to the world etc. We don't need to agree on everything with each other, or hide what we are thinking.

Lastly, anonymous posting (meaning you can post anonymously) would be available to escorts only in these Consultation forums. This would be to enable escorts to share their opinions anonymously if they wish. This facility would be provided only for escorts because of the unique position they are in here. You have to put yourself in an escort's place, imagine you are here for business, you have an escort identity. Sometimes it is not easy for escorts to speak freely here because of their identity as an escort, it can be useful for escorts to be able to provide some feedback but do so anonymously, so they can speak freely without it possibly infringing their privacy or impacting on their business.

As a general concept this would be a serious forum of hard work. The petty spats that go on here between users sometimes would not be welcome in this forum, any anonymous posts made attacking another user would be immediately deleted as that is not what anonymous posting is for. I don't wish to say we could never have a bit of fun or a joke in this forum, but it wouldn't be for "silly fun" type posts. This is a serious consultation and many of us want to make a serious response to it, because it is important.

We are having a staff meeting to discuss this on Monday and it was my intention to announce this on Monday or Tuesday after this, but I might as well tell you all now, so you can give any feedback you want to etc.

Pat x

[LaBelleThatcher]

Brilliant

(Shit, you do realise we are making history here?)

[the traveller]

Thanks Pat! Way to go lady!

[Morpheus]

Dear Pat, I am a bit thick and even after reading your intro above, I am not quite sure what is supposed to go into this specific thread. So if this next post is out of place please send it to of of the other related threads.

My comments relate to the recently released discussion document on future direction of prostitution legislation (and not on our specific response, yet).

I am on page 22 (only 37 pages to go!!!) and am very impressed already! For those not in the know (like me) - this document is not proposing legislation change. It merely outlines where there is a review of exisiting laws governing the sex industry and sex work. It goes through the history of such legislation in Ireland and the current law as it stands (which has been hugely educational for me). It also descibes the law in various countries Sweden, U.K., Australia, Holland, N.Z. etc. amd talks about the various opinions on these systems in a non judgemental fashion.

There are hugely encouraging staements in this document which indicate that the powers that be appear to be open minded and not overly biased by any one groups dogma.

Here are few excerpts: (Form pages 4 & 5)

Firstly despite public disapproval of prostitution and substantial legal provisions criminalising prostitution related activities, individuals continue to buy and sell sex and it is an activity that has existed over the millenia. On the assumption that individuals continue to engage in prostitution consideration needs to be given to how legislation might be framed to deal with the complex issues surrounding prostitution, to protect prostitutes from exploitation and the need to have effective laws to reduce, deter and prosecute criminal acitivites.

Secondly, the law does not criminalize the exchange of sex for moeny but it does criminalize most other prostitution-related activities. The effect of this law is that there are few ways to sell sex in Ireland without risking criminal punishment.......this makes it illegal for a prostitute to pay soemone to protect her or him, or to assist in any aspect of her or his work....


Halleluyah I say!! I'm off to read it through to the end.

[Morpheus]

Here are a couple other great excerpts from the article:

(page 5 - Difficulties in analysing the issue of Prostitution)
Moreover, discussion of adult prostitution tends to incorporate other issues, including human trafficking, sex tourism, and child prostitution. While important, none of these issues are directly relevant to assesing the issues of voluntary commercial sex.

Amen!!! An acceptance that there is such a thing as "voluntary commercial sex"


(Page 6 )
In devising policy responses.......it is also crucial to clearly distinguish between human trafficking for sexual exploitation on the one hand, and prostitution on the other. While the two can sometimes overlap, human traffciking and prostitution are different phenomena requring distinct policy responses....

Oh thank you, thank you, thank you.... finally an acknowldgement of what we all know.

[Half Man and Half Dildo]

Thank's Morpheus, that's great news ! ! ! We need to have the widest possible audience for this.

When the previous report was published Ruhama voiced their disapproval of it because it didn't follow their agenda to the letter, God only knows what they make of this. Their whole campaign has been to discredit the notion of consent as much as possible.

[LaBelleThatcher]

It is the most promising thing ever...we could just get real human lives out of this.

...and they guy I spoke to at the ministry was just so nice and friendly it was unreal...I mean NO WAY would you feel demeaned or disrespected...

...even thought the promised details for submission are still not up...but that is down to IT.

[Morpheus]

This is a brief summary of what’s going on so far for people like me who haven’t got their heads around it. Apologies to those who are two steps ahead.

The government/dept of justice is reviewing the laws governing prostitution.

There will be a period of open discussion on the topic. It is unclear when the deadline for completion of the discussion will be?

The government has started the ball rolling by producing a document titled “Discussion document on future direction of prostitution legislation”. It is an excellent unbiased, well researched document – which covers possibly every angle of any debate on the topic. It doesn’t offer an opinion or decision.

Submissions from interested parties have been welcomed, but it is unclear to me to whom or how these submissions should be made. One thing is clear and that is that there will be an open conference at some date in the future for a public debate on the subject.

There is a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality and Defence, chaired by Mr. David Stanton T.D. The committee will publish its report and recommendations by the 30th November 2012 and that report will be furnished to the Minister for Justice together with any submissions received.

Following this the minister will consider all the above before framing any new legislative proposals and submitting it to the government for consideration.

Incidentally I got all this from the aforementioned document. Did I already mention how good it is??? Forgive me for my enthusiasm but I expected the document to be further anti-escorting propaganda, which it most definitely is not!! It is written by people who have actually researched the issues and posed the relevant questions.

I hope to make further short posts regarding specific issues highlighted in the document.

[Half Man and Half Dildo]

Thanks, Morpheus.

And thank God too that we have Alan Shatter in the dept of Justice rather than someone like Phil Hogan, can you imagine the mess he'd make of it.

[Morpheus]

It’s no secret that this has been driven by the anti-escorting lobby. But there are a number of valid positive reasons given in the consultation document for the review . Current legislation on prostitution is old (1993) and things have changed dramatically in the industry – with the business moving in doors and the advent of internet and mobile phone technology.

The document admits that the key objective of the 1993 legislation was to protect society from the nuisance and public order problems associated with prostitution!!.

The following two paragraphs in the reason for review (on page 4) are promising:

This paper does not take a position on what changes, if any, should be made to the criminal law. The idea is to assist public reflection on the issues and to gather views on what the approach of the criminal law should be in order to reduce, deter, detect and prosecute criminal activity and protect prostitutes from exploitation, with due regard to the principles of human rights.

While the above is what exactly what our opponents will claim they are seeking, there is a real chance for escorts to ask for their basic human rights! Namely the right to earn a living.

First, despite public disapproval of prostitution and substantial legal provisions criminalising prostitution related activities, individuals continue to sell and buy sex and it is an activity that has existed over the millennia. On the assumption that individuals will continue to engage in prostitution consideration needs to be given to how legislation might be framed to deal with the complex issues surrounding prostitution, to protect prostitutes from exploitation and the need to have effective laws to reduce, deter, detect and prosecute criminal activities.

The above is encouraging given that it accepts that sex work has existed forever and will be unlikely to stop. In contrast the TORL campaign openly admits that they want to end sex work in Ireland for good!


It also talks about protecting sex workers from exploitation, again something our ladies can comment on how they feel this will best be served.


Second, the law does not criminalise the exchange of sex for money but it does
criminalise most prostitution-related activities. The effect of this law is that there are few ways to sell sex in Ireland without risking criminal punishment

This is an excellent admission that the current laws are prejudicial to escorts!! We always talk about escorting being legal in Ireland! Well it isn’t really – and makes life a minefield for any escort trying to negotiate the legal maze.