Last night the City of Sydney Planning and Development Committee considered a new policy on Regulation of Sex Services - Development Control Plan (Read the report here). The former South Sydney City Council introduced an innovative Sex Industry DCP in 1999. Whilst many feel that their local Council should just simply refuse to allow brothels and other adult restricted businesses into their local government area, the fact is that Councils have few powers to refuse permission owing to over-riding state planning laws. Councils are better off establishing a rigorous planning regulatory framework to reduce the impact of the industry on residential amenity and maximise protection for workers and clients. A sound planning document gives certainty to applicants and the community.
The draft policy debated last night triggered some interesting and at times angry debate in the chamber. The anger stemmed from ACON (AIDS Council of NSW) and their sex industry outreach project called SWOP with claims of offensive content and even discrimination within the draft document and refuted allegations that Council's planning staff had failed to consult on the document before this stage.
Striptease Australia (a 'rogue' union that represents strippers) turned up to also attack the policy claiming it incorrectly defined striptease as a sex industry. In response to my question about the activities that occurred in Kings Cross strip clubs the industry representative gave a detailed and enlightening sketch of the working environment within such clubs. It appears that the strippers who perform are required to circuit between various venues and do not have the time to provide private services to audience members. These offers are made by girls working from a brothel on the floor above but connected to the strip club. Striptease Australia are arguing that the dancers are adult entertainers and not sex workers. It seemed a moot point when the businesses they perform in have linked prostitution as part of their long standing business model. I can not see how we can easily separate them, however I noted that strip dancing and lap dancing have emerged in licensed clubs, that by legal definition can not be offering sex services. Many people would ike to see a return to this more traditional Kings Cross attraction. This issue goes to the core of the sleazier clubs in Kings Cross that many residents and locals would like to see cleaned up. Striptease Australia informed Council that the notorious spruikers outside these clubs work only for commissions on the patrons they lure in with all kinds of promises, 'causing huge problems for performing artists'. If we could separate the prostitution activity from dance girls in the Cross we may discover the 'naughty but nice' Kings Cross talked about for so long. Check out my media release blogged last week)
Meanwhile I have found some Danish socialists (yes they still exits - particularly in Denmark) who seem more right wing than the usual with a call to outlaw prostitution. How do you out right wing such conservative socialists?
Socialists demand prostitution ban
Buying sex should warrant a fine or a prison term, the Socialist People's Party says. The party wants new efforts to help prostitutes out of their profession
Annett Bruhn/ ScanpixBuying sex should warrant a fine or a prison term, the Socialist People´s Party says
Denmark should follow Sweden's example and prohibit the purchase of sexual favours from prostitutes, the Socialist People's Party (SF) says.
The party's leadership decided in a meeting this weekend to change its policy on prostitution. The party now demands that sex buyers should be punished with fines or imprisonment, and that companies, newspapers, or individuals who make money on promoting or advertising prostitution should be punished as well.
SF's spokesman on equal rights, Pernille Vigsø Bagge, said the party wanted more efforts to help men and women out of prostitution.
'We don't just want to turn a large group of men into criminals,' she said. 'Our goal is to create better conditions for prostitutes. Something needs to be done to improve their economic, social, and psychological situation.'
SF said they wanted to renew the national debate on prostitution, as it entailed blatant exploitation of human beings, who had for various reasons had fewer choices in life than the rest of the population.
If the opposition party gets its way, Denmark would follow in the footsteps of Sweden, where purchasing sex was banned in 1999, and labelled as sexual violence. Buying sex carries a six-month maximum sentence, while the minimum sentence is a fine equivalent to 50 days' income. The law is gender neutral, but all cases reported so far have involved male customers and female prostitutes.
In Denmark, however, buying and selling sex is not prohibited by law. Some newspapers, especially daily tabloid Ekstra Bladet, carry extensive prostitution listings in their classified sections.
/ritzau/
13 comments:
Socialist nonsense - the prostitutes are free to provide sex, and the johns are free to buy it. If we accept adults are free to decide to engage in sexual relations, absent government interference, why are they suddenly in need of government interference when money becomes involved?
If I am free to smoke (I know - that freedom is being abolished - by things like city councils deceitfully using bylaws and zoning to erode inherent freedoms) then I am free to buy cigarettes.
Many of these people are paying for university - the others would just become dependent on the state. That of course is what the socialists want in any event - they never pass up the opportunity to ban and tax and fund and generally extend the power of the state at the expense of individidual liberty to decide one's own fate.
Andrea Dworkin is responsible for all of this nonsense about the sex industry and sex generally being degrading to women.
Now, I admit, Dworkin is a little out there (particularly with regard to her views on incest), but she's often misquoted when it comes to the subject of prostitution — even by the lunatic fringe that claims to espouse her views. However, this seems to be a common flaw of fundamentalists, be they Christian, Muslim or Feminist.
Surely, criminalising prostitution would send it further underground, minimising scrutiny and worsening the lot of prostitutes. By keeping the sex industry where we can see it, enforcing occupational health and safety regulations and allowing unions into workplaces, we can go some distance towards protecting workers (and their clientèle) from unsafe practices and working conditions.
The Socialist People's Party's stance isn't about protecting sex workers — it's about self-righteous puritanism.
As for the separation of striptease from the sex industry, how does the law currently handle bouncers, spruikers and bar staff in these establishments? None of these professions engage in the provision of sexual services, but all are necessary to the operation of these clubs. How does their plight differ to those lap- and strip-dancers who do not... ahem... service clients?
If they need money for university let them get a regular job. This "we need money for university" is an urban myth. Jake
It might be an urban myth - but I do know someone from my law school who did prostitute herself through university to pay the rent. I would obviously not publish her name here.
Yep- until you can put up you shuoldl shut up.
The prostitute who worked her way through law school is another urban myth.
Jake
Pah-lease. Are you trying to tell me that the strip club pole dancers, who wear nothing but their complexions, are NOT part of the sex industry?
That's like saying racing drivers are not part of the auto industry.
These dancers are the human bait, the lure, the "tit"-illation factor.
If they are not part of the sex service industry then, logically, if you banned the sex industry they would still be in business in their own right.
This won't happen because they are, in fact, part of it.
Let's get real here.
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