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A NUMBER OF groups have expressed their disappointment with a new bill which criminalises the purchase of sexual services and increases penalties for aspects of the work.
Part four of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2015 has jumped its final hurdle and will be sent to President Michael D Higgins in the coming weeks to become law.
Four human rights groups said they were disappointed that their concerns were not taken into account and said the amendments to the current law make sex workers more vulnerable.
However, the groups welcomed the last-minute inclusion of a three-year review and limited decriminalisation of street sex workers, following extensive lobbying by the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) and others.
Niall Mulligan, executive director of HIV Ireland said his organisation advised strongly against this course of action, which goes against the expert opinion of the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS.
Criminalisation of the purchase of sex drives sex work further underground, forcing workers to take more risks and work less safely. This in turn risks increasing the rate of HIV transmission.
Edel McGinley of the Migrant Rights Centre of Ireland (MRCI) said the new laws will not protect the most vulnerable – migrants, asylum seekers, refugees doing survival sex work. She said: “It promotes harmful stigmatisation and obstructs access to justice. We know from our decade of work on human trafficking and forced labour that this approach will not help victims of trafficking.”
The Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) and Amnesty International Ireland echoed the views of McGinley and Mulligan.
However, Ruhama strongly welcomed the legislation. The group, which supports prostituted women, said it has long advocated for legislation to focus on the demand of sex buyers as a key measure to curb expansion of the exploitative sex trade in Ireland.
The organisation has also advocated for many years for the repealing of the offence for soliciting for prostitution to give the clear social message that no person should be criminalised for their own exploitation.
Ruhama CEO Sarah Benson said: “We commend the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald for taking landmark measures to address the demand of sex buyers as the group directly responsible for perpetuating the commercial sex trade.
“Without demand there would be no supply. We witness every day the ugly consequences of prostitution and sex trafficking, where the most vulnerable women and girls from across the globe are targeted to be used in Ireland’s brothels. At the same time, in removing the offence for soliciting, the spirit of this law is clear: those in prostitution should not be criminalised.”
Kate McGrew, coordinator of SWAI, said the group is appalled that this Government is going against international expert opinion to bring in a law which jeopardises our safety, removes our bodily autonomy, and puts us at further risk of poverty.
She added: “When we say that criminalisation increases harm and risk in the industry, we’re talking about people like Galina Sandeva, a Bulgarian worker in Norway where the purchase of sexual services is criminalised. When she went missing her friends did not contact the police until they had found her body themselves. Criminalisation clearly further damages trust in the police.””
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Ruhama was founded by the Good Shepherd Sisters and Our Lady of Charity Sisters of Madeleine Laundry fame.
They are rotten with money to fund “independent” “research” in support of their religious dogma, while claiming to have no money to compensate their victims.
Basically the child rapist and biggist human trafficing ring the irish state has ever known. Roman Catholic Churh still has a lot of power over people
@Sean Flaherty: Who cares, they help women.
This is fabulous news!!!
Yeah but they actually harm women (and men). So par for the course.
@Awkward Seal: Yes, the poor men who abuse prostituted women by paying to jizz into their bodies. Terrible news for them alright.
@Veronica: That is naive at best and wilfully ignorant at worst.
@Veronica: Utter crap as usual.
I thought you were a feminist ? Surely the whole ethos of the “Repeal” campaign is that women are the SOLE arbiters of what we do with our bodies ?
If so (and I believe we do), if subsequently a woman wishes to sell the right to have sex with her – then surely that is her choice ?
If prostitution were legalised then it would be easier to regulate and licence.
@Sean Flaherty: Naive because it looks badly on the men who pay to use women? Ignorant because it actually cares about the women involved instead of the men?
@CeannairBlue: I am a feminist, and apparently I’m the worst kind: the kind who puts women first and only first in her feminism.
> Surely the whole ethos of the “Repeal” campaign is that women are the SOLE arbiters of what we do with our bodies ?
Having access to control your reproductive rights is not the same as it being legal for men to abuse women’s bodies. I think the argument you’re trying to make is that if women should be allowed to chose what to do with their bodies, then that should also extend to prostitution. How many women across the world do you think are in prostitution out of their own free will? The answer is shockingly small. Unfortunately, because those women are tyrpically middle class, they have a very loud voice which overrides all the women who don’t even get heard.
How very middle class of you veronica
@Michael Collins:
Ah yes, wanted freedom of women, how indeed very middle class of me. How dare I try to stop men getting what they want!
@Sean Flaherty: Now Ruhama have legislation to sanction their ongoing abuse of sex workers and extra funding for their junkets to celebrate it.
I represent the reality of this twisted organisation.
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/exploiting-sex-workers-and-desperation/
They know as well as I do that this law is harmful, but the impact on their personal career goals is good, so who cares?
Yes Veronica it really looks after them by driving it underground further.
@Nucky:
Prostitution was legalised in Germany with the intention that it would reduce crime associated with prostitution, and also the women being trafficked. It failed, prostitution skyrocketed when men realised they could buy women and face no legal or social repercussions.
Nordic model: sex buyer criminalised, prostitute not criminalised: reduction in rates of rape and assault against prostituted women.
>The report stated that the law worked, and had achieved its objectives but suggested that the sentence for purchasing sex be doubled. It stated that since the introduction of the ban on buying sex, street prostitution had been halved and that: “This reduction may be considered to be a direct result of the criminalisation of sex purchases.”[129]
It was also found that there had been no overall increase in prostitution in Sweden. “People working in the field do not consider that there has been an increase in prostitution since the ban was introduced”. It also stated that the law has had a positive effect on human trafficking. “According to the National Criminal Police, it is clear that the ban on the purchase of sexual services acts as a barrier to human traffickers and procurers considering establishing themselves in Sweden”.
@Veronica: Cares? Don’t be ridiculous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ens95TwkRE
@غاي دالتون: What about trafficked women and children? Don’t they exist? Or should we allow men to continue to rape them because you have one women who says she liked being used for money?
@Veronica: Forcibly trafficked women and children are pretty rare and those that exist do not benifit in any way by being lied about and conflated with sex work to further NGO agenda.
(Voluntary trafficking is just a blatant excuse to persecute refugees and economic migrants)
Both trafficking and *any* form of child sex is already investigated punished severely under other legislation, and becomes much harder to identify when sex work is persecuted in any way (sex workers cannot afford to deal with Gardai when they know that revealing themselves obliges Gardai under Nordic model legislation to destroy their market and income, the one that pays their bills, mortgages, groceries etc)
Here is all I can tell you about the reality (as opposed to agenda driven nonsense) child sex trafficking, but it doesn’t suit Ruhama so they are left to suffer on and always will be:
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/myth-there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-child-sex-slave/
@Veronica: PS I hated sex work, but I liked having money to survive without having my mind, heart and soul raped by a twisted and abusive NGO.
@Veronica: No-one is calling for legalisation Veronica. If you knew anything about sex workers, you’d know that their call is for decriminalisation (as in New Zealand), also advocated by Amnesty, the WHO, UNAIDS and many others.
Again, you demonstrate a lack of knowledge on the ‘Nordic Model’ (not even a correct title as two of the five Nordic countries have rejected it). It doesn’t decriminalise sex workers. Are two sex workers allowed to legally work in the same building? Can a sex worker sell sex from their own rented house / apartment without fear of eviction? Do the police routinely confiscate money earned by sex workers? Answers please.
There is zero evidence that the numbers of sex workers or amount of trafficking has reduced in Sweden and again if you knew your subject, you would know this.
@غاي دالتون: I’m sorry that you hated sex work, and that you had to go through it, but I don’t think that because it enabled you to survive that women should have to rely on men f*cking them in order to survive. The demand for it needs to be eradicated, and women need to have the economic ability to not be forced into prostitution.
@Veronica: There are already laws against trafficking and rape. And sex with children under any circumstances (even when clergy are involved) is also illegal. The majority of sex workers in Ireland are neither coercively trafficked nor children, so this law is merely wasting police time and resources on consenting adults. Prohibition has been a miserable failure in the US and will be here too.
@Veronica: If you cared about the women involved, you’d listen to current sex workers, who overwhelmingly reject the criminalisation of their clients.
@David On Tour:
>gain, you demonstrate a lack of knowledge on the ‘Nordic Model’ (not even a correct title as two of the five Nordic countries have rejected it)
The common name for it is the Nordic Model, it’s universally accepted, pedantics don’t change terms.
>There is zero evidence that the numbers of sex workers or amount of trafficking has reduced in Sweden and again if you knew your subject, you would know this.
Where are the statistics to back that up? Everything I’ve ever read on the subject has said that trafficking has not increased because now men are starting to understand the impact that forcing sex on underprivelidged women has on them, and on society in general.
>If you knew anything about sex workers, you’d know that their call is for decriminalisation (as in New Zealand), also advocated by Amnesty, the WHO, UNAIDS and many others.
I’m well aware that there’s a “call” for it to be decriminalised, but like I say, I don’t think that a small group of vocal women who are happy to seel themselves and their sisters for mens’ pleasure should override the huge majority of women who do not want to be in prostitution, and those who suffer from multitudes of abuse at the hands of punters.
I just don’t understand how anybody can think that it’s good for women to be bought by men, especially considering that the huge majority of women in prostitution say they hate it and want to get out, and that psychological disorders are rampant among prostituted women, and that so many women are forced into it either physically or else through matters they can’t control, and that so many children are being raped by adults for money, and that (relatively) so many prostituted women are mudered. What kind of agenda must you have to be behind the idea that men should be allowed to buy the use of a woman’s body for sexual pleasure?
@Veronica: Tell us Veronica, which country has ever ‘eradicated’ prostitution? America with over a century of criminalisation? Iran with the death penalty? 16 years of the Swedish Model?
@Veronica: If you really cared about anyone but yourself you would want to *MAKE SURE* all women “have the economic ability to not be forced into prostitution.” before even THINKING about “eradicating” the only last resort some of them have left…
But you don’t want it that way, which proves you do not care in the slightest.
@Veronica:
“especially considering that the huge majority of women in prostitution say they hate it and want to get out,”
Taking away the income they need and overfunding a corrupt NGO that offers them nothing but psychological abuse and lies will not help one woman get out of sex work however badly they want to, in fact, as it makes it harder for them to save money for education or their own business it will make it EVEN HARDER for them to get out.
@غاي دالتون: I’m talking about criminalising the men who abuse women in prostitution, not ciminalising the victims.
>the only last resort some of them have left
I want to live in a society where men don’t take advantage of that, and don’t WANT to take advantage of that. I don’t want to hurt women, I want to help them, and I don’t think giving women the message that “if you’re poor enough, the law won’t care about your ritualised abuse, it will even practically encourage it” as opposed to setting up schemes to get women in poverty out of poverty, and to end trafficking, and child abuse.
@غاي دالتون: I don’t know why you’re angry at me instead of the men who take advantage of women’s situations (including your past situation) for their own gain.
@Veronica: ”Everything I’ve ever read on the subject has said that trafficking has not increased because now men are starting to understand the impact that forcing sex on underprivelidged women has on them, and on society in general.”
You clearly haven’t read very much then, or you’d know that Sweden had no statistics on trafficking or sex worker numbers prior to the law’s introduction in 1999.
”I don’t think that a small group of vocal women…”
Veronica there are hundreds of current sex workers groups worldwide, none of whom want the ‘Nordic Model.’ A QUB study in Northern Ireland two years ago showed that 98% of local sex workers opposed criminalisation.
”the huge majority of women in prostitution say they hate it and want to get out”
As applies to virtually any job Veronica. Very few people work for the love of it. It’s about earning a living.
”that so many women are forced into it either physically and that so many children are being raped by adults for money”
Are these things not already illegal?
”and that (relatively) so many prostituted women are murdered.”
So your answer is to drive it further underground, away from the police?
”What kind of agenda must you have to be behind the idea that men should be allowed to buy the use of a woman’s body for sexual pleasure?”
What kind of ‘feminist’ must you be to think women shouldn’t have the choice over their own bodies or who they have sex with (whether paid or not)? Tell me Veronica do you think women should have the right to have an abortion?
@Veronica:
It’s moot whether you criminalise a desperate woman when you are delighted to destroy the only source of income she has.
Her only alternative will be crime anyway.
The only “schemes” in Ireland are petty fiefdoms for huge CEO salaries, eye watering expenses, fostering dependence, gagging and imposing abusive control on their self designated “user groups” and THAT is across the board.
I don’t think I want to help anyone do that. I am scared I’d go to hell when I died if I did.
@Veronica:
I have never let any man take advantage of me or my situation in my life.
*I* am angry with the travesty of “civil society” that cornered me into having no choice but sell sex in nthe first place, lies blatantly about me, lies blatantly toome and wants to exploit me without offering me any real help of any kind. THAT is who raped me.
My clients sought and gained my consent before schtupping my body, Ruhama Turn Off the Red Light, and “civil society” never even sought my consent before schtupping my mind, emotions and life…
@Veronica: I have seen you comment on a number of womens issues here aso I can inderstand you are impassioned.
How is this wonderful news for women?
It is completely non sensical to illegalise sex work. For one, these women are now in more danger than ever because there is more on the line for the pimps who control them.
What a woman does with her body is her choice. If she chooses to use it to give sex to men or women for money its her choice and she deserves 100% control and protection under the law.
Aside from the obvious, there is a theraputic side to this too. There are many men who and women that for various reasons have sexual and social dysfunctions who could benefit greatly from access to human company like this.
Ive read a few of your comments now and I think many of them come from a place of insecurity.
@Veronica:
Then you’re the kind of feminist that wants to infantalise your sister, treating them like children because you know better and they can’t make decisions for their adult selves.
I’m supportive of a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body. I’m not sure if that makes me a feminist or a pig in Veronica’s eyes.
Jesus Veronica, a lot of women work in prostitution because it pays better than some other jobs like cleaning. It’s hardly empowering to be earning minimum wage. Others do it to fund a drug habit. Again their choice to take drugs in the first place. Stop thinking of all women as the victims & all men as the baddies.
@Michael Collins: Sometimes I think all groups that are political, religious and social, just play people and try to brainwash them into their views… I use to say jokingly, it is not illegal if you don’t get caught… But that was a philosophy joke I suppose, what is right and wrong is not the same as what is legal or not and it is not the same as getting away with it. It is about people trying to control other people and then the question is, why?
@Alois Irlmaier: Power is the most addictive drug on earth…but there is also quite a lot of funding and prestige in this type of control.
Finally, my first impressions of Ruhama et al was that they were staffed with people searching for someone to feel superior to in order to compensate for their inadequacies…nothing has every occurred to contradict that first impression.
It’s all very sick, twisted, selfish and ruthless.
@غاي دالتون: When you look at the social make up of primates, then you can see how this ties in with politics. Eveyone wants to be in control and power provides that from the Alpha male who have it to the Omega male who hsn’t but follows and seeks revenge on others who ever attack their alpha male but spents most of the time worshiping him… Power provides control and control prvides self esteem.
But yet bullies are the worst ones to have self esteem issues, they bully others to bring down others self esteem lower than their own and that boosts theirs for a bit, that is why some followers are more dangerous than their leaders and it seems more crazy?
But that explains most groups for or against anything I suppose?
@Alois Irlmaier: Too right…sadly…
It always makes me glad I am autistic and do not have those “tribal”/”herd” needs! They seem obscene from an outside perspective.
…and, for me, unlike them, control = nasty medicine called “responsibility” and lacks appeal!
The default attitude to anything outside the “tribe” often meets all criteria for psychopathy. People cannot cope with universal compassion so they are indifferent to anyone they have no group bond with.
@غاي دالتون: Too many are sociopaths and society might be helping this, with a me me me culture then the bvck rules, it gives control and power. One way to look at it from the provider and the client?
Compassion is what makes us human?
@Alois Irlmaier:
“Compassion is what makes us human?”
They uses a very different definition in the Justice Minister’s house, spun more towards obtaining support for costly and abusive therapies via preferred NGOs:
http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=165413&sid=7287505a0a32e1bd2f34d4539500c9cc
…and that goes as deep as the self serving corruption it comes bundled with…
Ah yes, the feminists are confused by this one…. My body, my rights…except when it’s about sex work…
@Emma O’Neill: Don’t you no those poor women who earn thousands a day are miss guided unfortunates under the influence Of The big bad men.
@Emma O’Neill: I’m not confused, I’m delighted by this news!
@Veronica: So, to recap:
You are delighted that:
1. Sex work will be harder and more dangerous
2. Sex workers will have too much to lose to be able to afford to report any abuses
3. Sex work will be harder to get out of
On the plus side, you are probably taking a break from pulling the wings off flies.
@غاي دالتون:
>1. Sex work will be harder and more dangerous
For the men who are paying to abuse women, yes.
>2. Sex workers will have too much to lose to be able to afford to report any abuses
Abuse of sex workers has never been taken seriously in the past, it’s not able to get worse.
>3. Sex work will be harder to get out of
How? How will having society condemn the men abusing prostituted women make it harder to get out of prostitution?
>On the plus side, you are probably taking a break from pulling the wings off flies.
I don’t work with animals, I’m taking a break from pulling the leaves off of plants though, yeah.
@Veronica:
In the real world, not your uninformed imagination:
1. Sex work will be harder and more dangerous – *FOR SEX WORKERS*
2. Sex workers will have too much to lose to be able to afford to report any abuses *ABUSE CAN GET A GREAT DEAL WORSE*
3. Sex work will be harder to get out of *BY MAKING IT HARDER FOR SEX WORKERS TO MAKE MONEY FOR EDUCATIONAL COURSES, THEIR OWN BUSINESS, OR EVEN TO CLEAR BAD DEBT*
@Veronica:
Just occurs to me, you still haven’t shown the slightest interest in the impact this legislation will have on women who sell sex.
It’s all about punishing men for something you don’t like the sound of and you couldn’t care less how many women that harms, or how much…an attitude that has typified Turn Off the Red Light and all who sail in it, every step of the way…
More government interference under the guise of helping. This will put a lot of people in danger.
@Michael Collins: Like the men who buy women to use their bodies.
No middle class woman! This like rhe drug problem will just drive the problem under ground
Talking about the women who worj in this profession
@Michael Collins: Michael there is a huge difference between being dependent on drugs, and a group of people thinking it’s ok to pay you to abuse your body. The rate of murders and rape against prostituted women is abysmally high, but forget about that, right? Trafficking of women and girls, forget about that too!
@Michael Collins: Don’t blame her, ordinary people have been coldbloodedly fed dangerous rubbish behind a mask of saccharine faux compassion for years, and, as it was an issue they knew would never affect them, they bought it wholesale. People do that, sex workers sometimes do that about other issues as spun to agenda by experts building a career on their backs:
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/email-to-ivana-bacik/
@Veronica: You can buy a woman in Ireland?
Veronica its women who make money off their own accord i deeply respect. It women like you dependant on government and welfare that are holding us back
@Michael Collins:
>Veronica its women who make money off their own accord i deeply respect
As long as it doesn’t stop you from getting to abuse women in desperate situations, of course.
>It women like you dependant on government and welfare that are holding us back
*sigh*
@Veronica:
The worst way you can abuse “women in desperate situations” is to take their income away.
@Michael Collins: Helping, nah… The banks hate all that money not being in the bank as Euros outside the bank are classed the same as debt. Do these men and women pay tax as sex workers, no.
I say what made up their minds was the politician partners lol.
@Alois Irlmaier: As a point of fact, most indoor sex workers I am aware of pay tax these days…not much choice if they want a mortgage and many of them do.
@غاي دالتون: What do they put it down as?
@Alois Irlmaier: I was raised properly, NOT to inquire about things like that. :o)
But I have heard tell of things like massage, entertainment manager, etc When I was a sex worker years ago one of them was putting it down as “social worker” on the grounds of honesty.
@غاي دالتون: Not turkey stuffing then? lol.
The group supports ‘prostituted women.’ Sounds like ruhama wrote the article, Anyway thats prostitution sorted thank god what’s next extramarital sex
Wait I think prohibition next,,
@paddy: They are prostituted women, they are prostituted by the men who buy and use them.
@Veronica: All prostitutes ? I happen to know a lovely woman who worked out of a brothel in the UK, paid for three children to go to University and then retired.
You go and tell her she was abused. Such backwards thinking from you.
@paddy: Yes. I’m a woman – and NOT a feminist as I believe in equality, not rampant “men are evil” crap.
There are feminists who won’t be happy until men are kept in a box and only brought out to have sex when women say they can.
Utterly ridiculous.
@CeannairBlue:
Yeah, the one woman you know who had the choice to be able to afford to do something else that could have paid for her children to go to university, but chose to work in prostitution, totally trumps all the women and girls who are trafficked, and those who came into prostitution through poverty and homelessness and drug issues.
Why is it so important for you to pretend those women don’t exist, and that all women in prostittution and safe and happy like your friend?
@CeannairBlue:
>Yes. I’m a woman – and NOT a feminist as I believe in equality, not rampant “men are evil” crap.
lol, you’ll get all the likes you want now that you’ve said you put men before women.
>There are feminists who won’t be happy until men are kept in a box and only brought out to have sex when women say they can.
WTF, are you saying men should be able to have sex with women even if the women don’t want it??? You’re advocating for men to be able to rape women?? Damn right I’ll only be happy when men only have sex with women who want it. WTF is wrong with you?
@Veronica: The only “prostituted women” are those prostituted by Ruhama to further an invalid agenda.
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/ruhama-conferences-1995-and-2013/
@Veronica: What you are saying is wall to wall nonsense:
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/sex-work-and-me-the-short-version/
@Veronica: If there is one thing I have learned from the past 5 years swimming in the moral sewage of Turn Off the Red Light and friends it is that I made the best possible choice when I sold sex in desperation. If I had managed to get any “help” from “civil society” I would not have survived as long as I have.
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/let-me-tell-you-about-my-life/
@Veronica: Typical, read whatever you want into whatever you see.
You are the worst kind of feminist. The one that gives normal equality advocates a bad name.
Pretend!!!!!! Why are you pretending to be Feminist call Veronica ????? Women don’t use the word ‘jizz’ so your game is up.
@Nucky: I think “Veronica” is pretending to be a woman.
Bang on the money Eamon
@Eamon Mac Gowan:
Whatever makes you feel better Eamon.
@ceannair, I’m the kind of feminist that cares about women and ending male oppression of them. I don’t want what men are selling as “equality”. I don’t want women to start paying to abuse men, I want the abuse to stop, period. I certainly won’t pander to men getting their way because I’m afraid of being called “not a woman” or “an ugly dyke” or “someone who can’t get a man, and that’s why you’re so angry” or someone who “just needs a good dicking to set her straight”. F that. I’ll continue to comment here so women reading these comments don’t need to be bullied into thinking that they need to please men in order to be acceptable to society.
It’s called radical feminism, and it’s the reason women like you and me are allowed to vote, and go to university, and have jobs even if married, and when our husbands rape us for it to LEGALLY BE DEFINED AS RAPE. I don’t care if it makes me unpopular with libfems who seem interested only in bending over backwards for men, and letting them chip away at our rights. I care about women, and the end of their subjugation.
I mean, come on, how can you even pretend to talk about equality when you can see what the men of Ireland think in these comments? I’m always so ashamed to see (most of) their comments. There are a few men online here who nice and aren’t total misogynists, but incredibly few.
@Veronica: Nonsense. Many sex workers are men. No-one is ‘bought’. They earn money by selling sexual services (sometimes not even involving actual sex) and have the right to do so as adults.
@Veronica:
Radical Feminism?
Actually they is very little difference between the psychology of Feminist and Islamist Radicalisation. Both take an ideology that is valid in a moderate form, twist it into a justification for imposing control and abuse on others and then use that combination of bullying and justification to lure vulnerable inadequate people into blind, unquestioning participation.
@David On Tour:
>Many sex workers are men.
Vast majority of whom are being used by other men.
>No-one is ‘bought’. They earn money by selling sexual services
They are the product that they are selling. They are selling themselves, and usually because they have no choice, and need to in order to survive.
> have the right to do so as adults.
You’re conflating the very few people who are chosing to go into prostitution because they enjoy being paid for sex and are happy with the risks involved, but the majority of people in prostitution want out and hate it.
@غاي دالتون: Do you know what radical feminism means? It views gender as a social construct that’s intent is to maintain a genderheirarchy with men at the top and anyone born female at the bottom. It aims to destroy the whole heirarchy (patriarchy) so that there is no top or bottom any more, and that women will not be an underclass, discriminated against because of their biology.
@Veronica: ”You’re conflating the very few people who are chosing to go into prostitution because they enjoy being paid for sex”
Do you actually know any sex workers Veronica? Come to think of it, do you know any workers of any kind? You think that a pre-requisite for paid work is ‘enjoying’ it? Sex workers are like every other type of worker — a minority enjoy it, another minority hate it and the vast majority are earning money doing something they can tolerate.
”They are the product that they are selling. They are selling themselves.”
Again, see virtually every type of work. You clearly have a problem with the sexual aspect.
@Veronica: Interesting. So women should be free to choose what to do with their own bodies when it comes to abortion, but not sex work? Is that what you believe?
@Veronica:
No
Radical Feminism aims to dominate or destroy everyone who is not a radical feminist
Radical Islam aims to dominate or destroy anyone who is not a radical islamist
The ideology of both is inconsistent and irrelevant as long as it goes on justifying the above, because the above *IS* the only point. I guess you need to have my level of experience of Feminist and Islamist “hate preachers” and recruiters to be fully aware of that?
@David On Tour:
>Sex workers are like every other type of worker
Absolutely not at all. In no other “profession” are you required to completely expose yourself to biologically hazardous fluids, in prostitution you cannot get a pension, in no other “profession” is accepted that sexual harrassment will be de rigueur and just a daily aspect of it. In no other profession are you expected to accept abuse as “part of the job”. How utterly disingenuous of you.
>>”They are the product that they are selling. They are selling themselves.”
>Again, see virtually every type of work. You clearly have a problem with the sexual aspect.
I sell my skills in my profession. If somebody sexually harrasses me it’s acted upon, in prostitution it’s not. In my job, when I’m exposed to hazardous substances it’s required that I use PPE adequately to protect myself, it’s not a requirement of my job to expose myself to hazards to my bodily health and integrity.
@Veronica: So your choice is ok, but another woman’s is not?
I remember a guy in the Salvation Army, chose a career teaching music…it killed him…residual blue asbestos in the soundproofing…*LIFE* can kill you…get over it…
@Veronica: ”in no other “profession” is accepted that sexual harrassment will be de rigueur”
The sexual aspect is kind of in the job title Veronica. And ‘abuse’ is not accepted. If a sex worker refuses a certain act, they have exactly the same rights as anyone else.
”it’s not a requirement of my job to expose myself to hazards to my bodily health and integrity.”
Interesting. Given your vast knowledge of sex work, would you say that STD rates are higher or lower for local sex workers than the general population?
@David On Tour: I wouldn’t be too keen on a job where I was expected to walk on a high wire with or without a safety net…but I won’t be campaigning for the criminalisation of circus goers any time soon…
Did anyone ever read “Millie Tant” in Viz?
I don’t know what you do for a living Veronica but it obviously affords you a lot of time.
@Michael Collins: Homebrew I bet?
There will always be a demand therefore there will always be a supply. If it’s going to happen anyway it makes sense to have as much oversight and open policing as possible. Instead the moral busybodies force it into the shadows without any real care for actual victims. This bill is a gift to criminals as it dries up open competition and legitimate avenues for the purchase of sex.
@Awkward Seal:
>If it’s going to happen anyway
How about we do away with the notion that men are entitled to women’s bodies and then the demand will go away?
@Veronica: How do you plan to make the women’s need for money to survive go away?
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/myth-women-are-forced-to-sell-sex-by-sex-buyers/
…or doesn’t their survival actually matter as long as you have a cult ideology that let’s you feel superior and in control..until you are not?
@غاي دالتون:
>How do you plan to make the women’s need for money to survive go away?
…sorry, are you suggesting that men abusing women for money somehow benefits women? Change the system, capitalism and class are at fault here, but your solution is to continue to penalise women??
>or doesn’t their survival actually matter
If you cared about their survival you would be fundraising to help home homeless women and to put food in their mouths rather than your c*ck. Don’t pretend like you care about women.
@Veronica: You are the one who is doing the pretending here.
No point raising money for charities in Ireland, it mostly goes on CEO salaries and junkets, and, BY THE WAY there are plenty of people (like, for example, me) who would rather sell sex or even die than beg for a living under the thumb of a corrupt, self serving NGO that works primarily to develop and prolong dependence to justify it’s existance, and they have the right to feel that way:
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/myth-i-fight-for-the-right-to-buy-sex/
Not something I usually mention I have given about €600 euros of the very little I have *directly* to individual woman and homeless IDP women in Idlib Syria (where I can be sure they actually get it, unlike Irish charities) since Christmas eve…how much have you given?.
@غاي دالتون:
>BY THE WAY there are plenty of people (like, for example, me) who would rather sell sex or even die than beg for a living under the thumb of a corrupt, self serving NGO that works primarily to develop and prolong dependence to justify it’s existance, and they have the right to feel that way
Cool, so your right to sell yourself overrides everyone else’s right to not be bought? What about the 80% of women who don’t want to be in prostitution, do they not count because you’re happy? What about the children involved in prostitution because they had no other choice? You’re happy, so their right to a stable life and not to be abused doesn’t count?
>how much have you given?.
It’s not a competition considering we all come from various background and earn different amounts, but I fundraise for, and give a certain amout of money every month to, the RCC in Dublin. I also donate a lot of my time to helping homeless women in the city I now live in.
@Veronica: I didn’t want to sell sex (I never met another sex worker who hated it more) but there was no alternative available, and still wouldn’t be now.
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/myth-i-was-singing-a-very-different-tune-in-2000/
Your right “not to be bought” can be enforced very easily by not offering to sell sex. Trust me, nobody is ever going to knock on your door and demand to buy sex from you if you don’t.
So you give money to RCC to tell dangerous lies and junket with…congratulations…you don’t really do anything *for* anyone do you? Except demand your *OWN WAY* online, and who cares about the harm of it as long as you get attention for you.
@Veronica: why not just help homeless people in your city as opposed to bringing gender into it?
@gjpb: Great point, now you raise it it is far harder for a homeless man to get help than a homeless woman, and men are more likely to become homeless.
@gjpb: Because homeless women are at huge risk of prostitution in comparison to men on the streets, and the question was about how I help women. Volunteering with homelessness charities obviously means I help men too. Nice that you had to bring men back into though, was getting too long before someone mentioned them.
@غاي دالتون:
>So you give money to RCC to tell dangerous lies and junket with
Yes, providing assistance to people who have been raped sure is dangerous. How terrible of me for wanting to help an organisation that has helped countless women, some of my friends included. I’m a monster!
@Veronica: ”then the demand will go away?”
Such naivety Veronica. Again, where has this happened ever?
@Veronica: I understand what your response was to now. the only reason I brought gender into it is because I thought you were bringing gender into helping homeless people for no reason…..
I still think your views are very extreme though. you seem to have a very strong belief that all women are some sort of victims as a result of mens actions.
@Veronica: It’s much harder for homeless men to sell sex so they are at greater risk of being driven to crime, sometimes for the first time, from which there is no way back
@gjpb:
That’s one of the problems though, that views like mine are still considered extreme. It’s not that long ago that the idea that husbands could rape their wives was an extreme one.
>you seem to have a very strong belief that all women are some sort of victims as a result of mens actions.
With regards to prostitution, yes I do. I can’t see how it can be taken any other way, to be honest. The majority of people in prostitution are there by circumstance, not by a genuine desire to do it, and I think it’s awful that anyone would pay somebody to have sex with a person who so clearly needs help, not to be f*cked. I say men do this because statistically men are the sex that pay for sex >99% of the time. I’m sure there are *some* women who pay young men who are extremely disadvantaged and suffering in order to use their bodies, but the numbers are so low as to be negligable.
@Veronica:
RCC telling genuinely preposterous lies about sex workers for political capital renders their services totally inaccessible to the majority of women that are aware of the truth as well as sex workers.
Fostering a distorted narrative of consent and sexuality is damaging to anyone who interacts with them.
But you like harming people so double your donations.
@Veronica: from reading other articles, your views are extreme when it comes to men v women in general, not just prostitution.
I don’t have a problem with you saying that the likes of rape is terrible and shouldn’t happen but I do have a problem with you generalizing all men to be rapists, all women to have suffered some form of sexual abuse from men, etc.
you need to change how you deliver your message as I think that is what everyone has the problem with.
@gjpb: Sadly Veronica personifies the views and supposed reasoning behind this bill rather well. It isn’t about the safety, needs or wishes of current sex workers in any way. It’s about disapproval of paid sex and women having the ‘right kind’ of sex, whether from a religious or supposedly feminist perspective.
I’ve asked Veronica twice if (as a supposed radical feminist) she reckons women should have rights over their own body when it comes to abortion but not sex work. She very pointedly hasn’t answered.
Regardless of Veronica’s views on the subject, anti-abortionists are using very similar arguments to sex work prohibitionists. Women are ‘victims’, medical staff carrying out terminations should be criminalised and the views of abortion ‘survivors’ should be the deciding factor. All this infantilises women and negates or ignores their choices. Welcome to the new feminism. Same as the old religious zealots.
@David On Tour: Not at all…it was always about money for Ruhama execs, hedgemony and power.
You have to have ethics before you can have an ethical perspective, however warped.
This legislation deliberately sells sex workers down river for personal advantage…that is all there ever was to it.
Not about feminism at all..just welfare, well-being and livelihoods.and.survival. If the bill reduces rape and abuse or the irreparable damage that can occur to prostitutes all well and good. If it is conducive to increase danger and damage..not so good. and why are there so many people here attacking one person .. is it not allowed to have opinions and info to share? It’s more like reading a sporty debate resembling a wirch hunt, than a well informed discussion and dialogue.
@Oonagh Donnelly: To answer your question Oonagh, the poster in question was very clearly rubbishing others views on this thread, including those of at least one experienced and highly knowledgeable sex worker. The poster clearly disapproves of paid sex and is entitled to that opinion, but actual facts, experience and knowledge are much more important and this subject is an extremely serious and complex one in terms of the rights and safety of sex workers.
@Oonagh Donnelly: People who attack based on invalid premise, as the poster did, annoy me…when what they attack is the reality of other people’s lives you can multiply that tenfold, and when you throw in presuming to instruct me about something she knows nothing about and I have 45 years comprehensive first and second hand experience of we move into the land of “to the power of”.
I have been involved in this legislation since before Ruhama conned the Justice Department into believing they would be representing the perspective of all sex workers back in 2011 and I can assure you it has never, for one single moment had one iota to do with “welfare, well-being and livelihoods.and.survival”, it has always been entirely about power, prestige and personal gain.
The proof is simple, if there was the slightest concern for “welfare, well-being and livelihoods.and.survival” the priorities would have been:
a) Ensuring sex workers had adequate alternatives
b) Finding out what sex workers actually want and need
As is the priority has been on making sex workers lives as difficult as possible to try and coerce a few of them into engaging with a revolting NGO they fear and abhor, while simultaneously claiming it needs years (of newly heigthened difficulty and danger)of counselling to decide to leave sex work to insure their future funding streams and shouting down, talking over, silencing any sex worker who tries to tell the truth that does not suit them.
Those are hard facts, learned the hard way. I have had several complete breakdowns and am left with ME/CFS as fallout from refusing to condone and enable these appalling facts so don’t you DARE tell me what I may and may not say to a clueless attention seeker.
@Awkward Seal: Can’t wait until the first politiciand get named and shamed on RTE?
More holes in this unenforceable law then anything. Sarah benson of ruhamna which was formed by children traffickers the nuns, who was formally CEO of the now defunct migrant rights council of ireland congratulates min who lies Catherine Fitzgerald who just happened to be former ceo of womans aid.
@Trevor Beacom: Benson can do a lot worse than that when she thinks nobody can call her to account for it (this horrified me):
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/syricide-ruhamaagency/
Exploitation between the sexes is two way traffic. It’s not a perfect world and legislating against the trading of basic human needs such as sex for men and material security for women is not the way forward in my view. The state certainly isn’t going to provide the same income for women who choose to exploit their sexuality for security
@John Mullan:
>The state certainly isn’t going to provide the same income for women who choose to exploit their sexuality for security
nor the men who now will just have to jerk off instead of paying to abuse a women.
You think it’s female empowerment to be forced into situations (because less than 1% of women go into it completely of free will, and are always middle class and white) where you have to sell your body to survive? Absolutely not.
@Veronica: Back up your crap with studies, proof, evidence. Or go away.
@CeannairBlue: It’s “go away” then I suppose.
You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.
@Sean Flaherty:
I’ve tried to post here a couple of times with links now, but they aren’t going up. Just google it.
@Veronica I guess your name means truth. That’s enough these days
@Veronica: Why the f*** should WE work to prove YOUR crackpot ideas ????!!!
@Veronica: I am not having any trouble posting links, are you sure you aren’t just having trouble finding any?
Meanwhile, perhaps you could explain, off the top of your head, what desperate survival sex workers will do for essential money if they cannot sell sex? That might be useful information (but I doubt you have any).
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/myth-turn-off-the-red-light-will-not-affect/
Blue Veronica is a bloke and a troll.
@Nucky: Is being a man the worst thing you can think of, and that’s why you keep accusing me of it?
@CeannairBlue: Because you’re the one questioning them, why do you think?
No I could think of worse but we are dealing in the truth here, at least some of us are
@Nucky: What difference would it make to you if I had a penis? Would it change anything I’m saying, or change the reasoning behind it?
@Veronica: I don’t doubt you have several penises – in sample jars of formaldehyde.
@Nucky: The Crying on the Game, then lol.
@Veronica Having read through the comments you have made on this thread, I find your stated opinions somewhat confusing. You say that you are a feminist and that you believe in equality, but even without the context of prostitution “men paying to use women’s bodies” as you say yourself, from your statements it still appears that you believe that the sexual dynamic between men and women is always one in which, men take sex and use women’s bodies and that women consent to this use of their bodies, because they choose to, or have it taken from them through rape! According to your logic, regardless of the situation, men are the takers, and women are the givers of sex. That doesn’t sound like the views of somebody that actually believes in equality to me! This doesn’t seem like equality
Kate McGrew is a complete head case
@Mike Cantwell: I’d be inclined to agree, but she is singing from the right hymn sheet on this so it doesn’t matter.
It’s worth listening to the interview with Sarah Benson of Ruhama here http://blog.hereshow.ie/2015/11/heres-how-21-sarah-benson-ceo-of-ruhama/
@William Campbell: It really isn’t.
@William Campbell: The follow up response is much better http://blog.hereshow.ie/2015/12/heres-how-24-gaye-dalton-former-sex-worker/
This law continues the criminalisation of indoor sex work. More than one sex worker working together in a building are defined as a “brothel” under the law. So sex workers are criminalised as their own pimps under this law.
This law is being brought in by the same Justice Minister that is presiding over the Gardai during the present crisis. And it really shows. The same stubborn denial of the blindingly obvious in both cases that the old failed policies and approaches have not and will not work and new ideas are required.
@Rosa Parks: I am afraid Fitzgerald is exclusively devoted to number one and the main chance for life. An approach “works” as long as it furthers her own ends, the sheer volume of long term damage she has managed to impose upon a wide variety of vulnerable and/or disadvantaged people in the course of her life is absolutely staggering.
If I had know she would be Justice Minister when this bill went through I wouldn’t even have bothered to fight it, she has too much political capital invested in it, and she genuinely couldn’t care less if real innocent people are destroyed by it. There is no better nature to appeal to.
She *IS* the spirit of politics in Ireland today. The only people who benefit are those with too much already. Everyone else can drown.
In Northern Ireland, a sex worker is challenging the anti-prostitution law passed by the Assembly in the High Court.
I wonder will there be a case taken against the legislation in the Republic after it is passed.
Fair play to the Greens, Mick Wallace, Clare Daly and Catherine Connolly TD and Senator Michael McDowell for opposing this stupid law.
Also as McDowell pointed out in the article a few days ago on his website, there is a contradiction between this law and an 1885 law (amended in 1914) called the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act, which would appear to mean streetwalkers are still criminalised. That law says:
““Every person who shall aid, abet, counsel or procure the commission of any offence which is or shall be punishable on summary conviction, shall be liable to be proceeded against and convicted for the same, either together with the principal offender, or before or after his conviction …””
(quoted from http://michaelmcdowell.ie/minister-fitzgerald-sexual-offences-bill-through-the-seanad-in-one-afternoon-is-shameful/)
The headline proposal which is criminalising the purchase of sexy time from an adult who says they consented did not appear in any of the manifestos of the four leading parties in 2016. Nor did it appear in any manifestos in 2011. Not ONE SINGLE ONE.
This means electors had no chance to quiz their candidates on their individual or collective views on this issue and consider voting accordingly.
I want representatives to be frigging connected to the people who put a mark on the ballot, not deviously avoiding stating what their intentions are when out on the stump. For this reason, I shall write to President Higgins to not sign this charade of non-accountability into law.
If its a crime to purchase sex from a women, should the Gardai now be investigating marriages of economic convenience?
For instance, if a woman is unhappy in her marriage, but remains in it due to economic necessity, shouldn’t the man be prosecuted every time they have sex?
@Garreth McDaid: Technically, yes he should, as long as he is aware that she only stays for the money.
Even some politicians are worse than wh.res that is why many are called corporate wh.res instead. When someone allows themselves to be used that way, you wonder how on earth were they elected and then realise they do the same at election time as well? All for money and all for Merkel?
Blonde one on the right looks like she has a finger up get hole
@Craig: Or the stiches went lol.
It is crazy what people will do for money but yet again when you see that rent in Dublin is at 1600 euros, it might explain why many students do it?
@Alois Irlmaier: This is the part of the sex work issue most people look away from. What ARE you suppose to do in the many situations in our society where, however hard you try, there is just no way to make the two ends meet. You can talk about students working two jobs but if they have to do that how on earth can they give a good account of themselves in their studies as well?
If a Mum is left alone through widowhood or abandonment with three small kids and a hefty mortgage she cannot pay by any conventional means why should she rip her already bereaved/abandoned children out of school, away from friends and the home they love into public housing where they will not be accepted by the other kids and may well be bullied…those kids are more important than how a few feminist fanatics feel about sex work.
@غاي دالتون: Experience, desires and beliefs shape each other and feed each other and forces change onto each other. When people disagree with something they try to connect it to disgust and negative emotions, when they are pro and for it they can excuse it through sympathy and charity but all are excuses because those 3 shape views and actions.
Sex industry is about reward and selfishness that is built on money, money for sex and that is at the core of it. How would the government do if it was sex for food or sex for a roof. I think that prostitutes are risky to go near but yet there are some in nightclubs who have a riskier sex life than someone who wants money for it, even some girls in nightclubs would do anything for a night of free drinks. So sex for drinks instead of the money spent on the drinks.
It is all down to what you believe and how you see it. It is funny to think these people can cause sexual pleasure for money while politician can cause ego pleasure for a lot more money for donators and lobbyists. So politicians are more of a prositute than some prositutes who charge a lot less.
Also when you see those who condemn prositutes, many are not nice people at all, many act moral but lack charity, compassion and understanding while many who are proprositution are ones who would love a go with one themselves but hides this with pseudo charity, pseudo compassion and pseudo understanding.
Anyone with a strong view in anything has it because of a personal interest or emotion from desire to fear but that is my vview?
@Alois Irlmaier:
Most people don’t bother about things unless they have some kind of vested interest, there is not “world enough and time” to bother about everything.
A politician picks the side he thinks will earn most votes, then learns the dogma by rote. Abolitionists want power and a sense of superiority.
A parable for you:
An influential fundamentalist Muslin cleric who believes in applying Sharia law in the most literal and medieval way jumped to the conclusion that prostitution was yet another of the trials imposed upon displaced persons for which oppression should be blamed, that needed urgent solution, and had no problem using the term “sex work”.
However misguidedly, he sees his job as making the world a better place – sex work was just another problem among many that need to be solved, not his psychological crutch, identity, career or vocation.
…and that is a true story…
@غاي دالتون: You get these people everywhere..
“Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary at the British Treasury during the years of the famine wrote:”
“The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. …The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.”
Always ready to use God as a weapon to excuse their own anger?
have your say