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terryfrost at 09:32am on 07/05/2007
terryfrost at 09:32am on 07/05/2007
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I'm pretty much an anthropologist on Mars on this one. Prostitution here in Victoria has been legal for well over a decade now, so watching prostitution stings and the DC Madam thing on Fox News Channel is a weird, dumb and bemusing thing to me. (I watch Fox for two reasons: Red Eye with Greg Gutman and because when I watch it, I feel saner than the propaganda-spouting pod-people I see on the tube).
I've never used a prostitute and I never will, but I have nothing against them, literally or figuratively. I know from talking with a couple of former members of the demimondaine that it can be psychologically difficult to work in the industry and sometimes physically dangerous, too. But then it is if you're a cop or a fireman too.
But here's the truth: you have as much hope of stopping this industry as you do preventing alcoholism. You can make booze with a bag of oranges, an old t-shirt, a 99c plastic bucket and a kilo of sugar. Selling sex is even easier and until they can put nanotech DNA detectors and cameras into pussies, hands and mouths, it's difficult to police.
Here's the carrot on the stick for politicians who need a reason to legalise hookers: they don't threaten to reveal their client lists if they're legal! When's the last time that Australia had a hooker scandal? Sure we've had the Kernow/Evans affair, and a drunken Liberal polly playing dodgem cars on a suburban street, Pauline Hanson slipping it around David Oldfield, but there's a reason why Fyshwick in Canberra has a lot of brothels and escort services. Everyone benefits by it being legal.
But I suppose that the USA, being a theocratic state, has to keep up the charade of outrage to keep the rotund fundies in their trailer park kennels happy.
I've never used a prostitute and I never will, but I have nothing against them, literally or figuratively. I know from talking with a couple of former members of the demimondaine that it can be psychologically difficult to work in the industry and sometimes physically dangerous, too. But then it is if you're a cop or a fireman too.
But here's the truth: you have as much hope of stopping this industry as you do preventing alcoholism. You can make booze with a bag of oranges, an old t-shirt, a 99c plastic bucket and a kilo of sugar. Selling sex is even easier and until they can put nanotech DNA detectors and cameras into pussies, hands and mouths, it's difficult to police.
Here's the carrot on the stick for politicians who need a reason to legalise hookers: they don't threaten to reveal their client lists if they're legal! When's the last time that Australia had a hooker scandal? Sure we've had the Kernow/Evans affair, and a drunken Liberal polly playing dodgem cars on a suburban street, Pauline Hanson slipping it around David Oldfield, but there's a reason why Fyshwick in Canberra has a lot of brothels and escort services. Everyone benefits by it being legal.
But I suppose that the USA, being a theocratic state, has to keep up the charade of outrage to keep the rotund fundies in their trailer park kennels happy.
okay
stressed