That business about haveing stalls .. to go have sex .. That is total degrading .. and I guys . are looking for that . they have no respect for these girls and you wonder why they get looked down on.. . It needs to be off the street ..
and there is no reason it can't be ... Why do you want to do it this way .. when .. you can spend your time in a nice worm place .. with all the amenities.. and enjoy your self .. and have to wallow in the gutter. I think it is the attitude of the user that is fuck up here.
And if a city proposes some crap like that . that just another put down on prostitution.
Sorry but safe sex is not just raising your self above the lowest denominator safe sex come from Giving a dam, giving respect and getting respect.
. The problem is that between the street scean .. and the agencies. thee is a revoling door. of people coming off the street .. and others going back on the street.. for ant number of reasons .. but a lot to do with drugs.
Then there is the independents .. have take charge of there lives. and offer a lot better service .. and enviorment .
I am still unclear as to what is try to be addressed by the documentary .. and debate on prostitution.
Are they trying to make sex safer for drug users .. and those that see them .. or don't want people to have sex with drug users .. or is it that drug users and street prostitutes are more at risk for abuse . and attack. Not any more then agency girls or indy's.
Once again .i don't think they even are asking the right question .. and definitely are always avoiding the answer .
People want sex .. a lot need sex. just to make life worth while and it happens to be a natural thing .. in and out of a marriage , or relationship.
And there seems to be a lot of different needs in that department.
Why then is this social disapproval .. of something that most people are part of . having sex?
Well, Da Vinci's City Hall is a work of fiction very loosely based on fact, but I did recently read a 2006 book called
Cops, Crime and Capitalism: The Law and Order Agenda in Canada by Todd Gordon in which he considers Da Vinci's Inquest (from the same creator as Da Vinci's City Hall) the most accurate television drama about police and local politics, and I don't find a flaw in that statement, especially when considering the current state of affairs with regards to people living on the fringes in Canada.
So the question is, is this the kind of Red Light District that is envisioned by local politicians? I would think so. Is it degrading to the women whose only option it is to do car dates? Yes, not to mention the men. I never understood this whole idea of the car date myself, never did it when I picked up SWs in years past, always brought them home and had some scary incidents as a result but still better than the discomfort and, your right, the self-degradation of doing a car date, for all parties involved.
But I don't think the politicians and the police really care about how degrading it is. I think they see these SWs as already degrading themselves on the streets so how much worse is a red light district in an industrial zone with makeshift dividers? At least the problem is contained in a small area out of the public's eye where if a situation should arise the police are able to respond to it right away. Like the safe injection sites, the goal is harm reduction and disguising, nothing more. It is not encouraging the sex trade, it is containing and controlling it.
However, the three levels of government don't have neither a political will, nor the budget to deal with red light districts, unless they are clandestine ones as described above. Unlike socialist countries like Germany and the Netherlands, socialism, or more specifically, the welfare state is a thing of the past in Canada. The Government operates as a business on the principles of neoliberalism, and as a result as Gordon writes in his book quoted above, people living on the margins of society are given very few if any options but to conform to a pre-defined system, a system that first and foremost benefits major corporations and, to varying degrees, those tax payers who are part of that system. Those on the margins are coerced by the police (who are little by little appearing and becoming more and more militaristic) to conform either by physical means, and/or by legislation that leaves these people with very few options. When they are ready to conform to the system and they present themselves with little or no work experience and or education, they enter a system and become part of a large pool of low skilled low educated workers with lowered expectations who are willing to work for minimum wage shit jobs and thus increase the productivity and profit margins of these mass corporations. Of course he writes from a very Marxist perspective but look around you and you'll notice Canada Inc., and not the Government of Canada. Look at the VPD uniforms after 2000 as compared to before. Look how many anti-panhandling laws have been passed in different provinces, some of them rediculous.
If the government does set up a red light district it will be one that is a quick-fix to the problem, one that is cheap to implement and keeps the sex trade away from the public eye. The social dissaproval of the sex trade in public goes way back in our history, to a very conservative Victorian-era Canada that was heavily influenced by its ties to the Commonwealth. Even today, the prostitution law's only concern is in the procuring, and living off the avails of, and the most important and easily and heavily enforced, communicating in a public place for the purpose of engaging in prostitution. That last one tells you that English-Canadian society is still very backwards when it comes to sex (in French Canada the police don't give a shit about this and have better things to do with their time). And don't get me started with the US...that's puritism taken to the extreme.
Hopefully with this leglislating out, and a possible red light district that is at best awkward, the SWs will have more motivation to leave the street scene and harmful drugs and to ply their trade from their own homes or out of an MP, where they are safer and yes, more comfortable. It's not an easy transition to make but it will soon be the only option available to them with the coming of 2010.
Panther