Hope Julia Roberts didn't add her name to that group of do gooders.
Sex work should be legal, adults make free choice on both sides of the transaction.

It's about time. So long as sex work is illegal we are saying as a society that abuse against women and minorities is okay if they chose to disregard our puritanical dogmas. Bringing this business above the table will add accountability and serve to fight patriarchy.

Let all members of the 'feminist', sex-phobe church lady league take note: if you are gung-ho for throwing consenting adults that buy and purchase sex into the meat grinder of the criminal justice system you are climbing into bed with great advocates for women and minorities like Seattleblues.

@ 4 - Or if they can portray it as an additional character flaw in someone who did something despicably evil, such as Luka Rocco Magnotta.

No one wants to rescue men. Because men don't fit the "feminist" narrative. They don't look good on posters.

Lol. Thank you, Mistress Matisse, for your bullshit-free style and your great work on this issue.

I stumbled upon a great story on Vice about decriminalization in Europe. The interviewees are almost all sex workers (gasp!). Paula VIP really stands out as a charismatic, intelligent, and articulate leader for the Spanish speaking wing of this movement.

I'm just saying when I pay for a male prostitute it shouldn't be entirely my responsibility to assess whether I'm feeding an abusive situation. Legalization would allow me to research that with the ease of something like yelp.

@2: It was funny at first but now it's getting old. I'm surprised the MODS haven't gotten you yet.

The Pod People have taken Seattleblues. Another thing to celebrate.

Wtf... SB is gay? And now he's owning it. Good on you, SB. Bet you feel better, living your truth publicly at last.

It is most definitely NOT getting old.

As a sex trafficking survivor I don't see how you can all talk so nonchalant about this. The comments that any job can have a bad boss please. I was raped, beaten, burned and sold by a pimp. "I've been arrested for prostitution, and I still think pimping and sex buying put people at risk and should be illegal" This will cause more harm to those you say you represent. Pimps and traffickers are predators and need to face consequences for their actions or they will continue to victimize women. I know this first hand.

Prostitution is Rape for Hire

Survivor, perhaps these proposed policies will help focus law enforcement in the traffickers, exploiters of children, rapists, and those who beat their ho's, instead of allowing law enforcement to engage in stings to pump up their arrest numbers by entrapping low the low hangin fruit of the criminal world.

@9 and 10 you may want to check the spelling on that account. It is not our favorite bigot.

@13 wow, way to insist an entire diverse group of people are all victims. I'm sure they're glad a man is here to dispel the notion that they might possess sexual agency.

@15 in my mind I'm gonna choose to believe SB has finally come out, dropped the self loathing, and apologized for his thorough wrong-headedness.

I worked as a sex worker for a time. I actually enjoyed it and the vast majority of my clients were personable, if lonely men. I was paid well, and was good at it. I had no pimp or manager and shared my earnings with no one. The only reason I stopped was because of the stigma. I know my experience isn't the same for all sex workers, but for those who categorically believe all sex workers are persecuted and raped etcetc, my story doesn't follow what they want to hear.

What a pity@15.
@12. I'm sorry you went thru that. @13. It is not rape for hire. What a stupid thing to say.
Obviously, trafficking and abuse are not going to be legalized. Read the article, read Sean's reference. The sex workers are calling out for this protection. Sex work is never going away, @13 you don't have to use the services offered..

@12 Who is being 'nonchalant' about this? Are you not the one being nonchalant about chucking people into cages? There are way too fucking many people who are nonchalantly into banning this and that, everything that might offend their morals or threaten their precious security. When you ban shit, that is - when you make it illegal, this means people get thrown into the churning gears of the criminal justice system. Are you unaware of that, or do you just not give a fuck? Criminalizing prostitution does nothing for victims of trafficking other than make it more difficult for them to seek help.

@18 I'd say the Supreme Ruler is being facetious here. Pretty ample evidence elsewhere that he would be more than happy to have prostitution decriminalized as this would likely have a positive effect on his weekly budget.

@ 19 - Though I agree with what you're arguing, I understand that it would be difficult to someone who went through sexual slavery to actually see the difference between that and sex work, and I think that person deserves a bit more sympathy and understanding on everyone's part.

for someone, no to.

this isn't getting better: "for someone, not to"

@12 I am sorry to hear that happened to you and I understand how some of these flippant comments hurt. Some people just like seeing their noise in print and mean no harm- the internet makes it easy to forget the humans on the other side of the screen. Nobody, not even the flippant ones, want your story to happen to anyone.

Does it make sense to you that if you didn't think you were already an accidental criminal, that help might have been easier to find? What could possibly have helped, do you think? I truly truly want to know.

Mistress Matisse is the best. That is all.

I worked in the brothel system in New Zealand for a while, both before and after decriminalisation. In the former time, I had to sumbit my ID for the club to make a copy, and I knew that were I to choose legal action against an abusive client, I was opening myself up to a world of hurt.
Since the decriminalisation laws were passed, I was able to school young girls better in how to care for themselves. Hidden panic buttons we weren't always told about, positioning oneself to be between the door and the client, ways to discreetly summon assistance to minimise the risk of the client taking it out on you... some of those choices might have been avalible in the criminalised time, but that fear of being brought up on charges of our own was an effective deterrent.
It is an industry where I do noy choose to make my home, but the way the brothels (my only area of expertise) changed post-decriminalisation were overwhelmingly positive.
You're still expected to clock on for 12-odd hours, and hope to attract enough men in that time to cover shift fees, bar fees, time spent in salons etc, and if fortunate, walk away from the night financially in the black . The clubs will not sell you - you are the one doing the heavy work on the lounge, trying to distinguish between the brothel rats who get a high out of wasting your time, and the genuine bookings.
Some brothel rules treat the workers like children, and carefully guide then into the beds (pvc mattresses ) with a regular but difficult client. This is where divide and conquor happen. The inexperienced workers will take the difficult client because it is intimated to than that us stropper, picky girls are just trying to cut down their earning potential. It is SO easy to make the club seem like the authority for all seasons.
I was once unfortunate enough (and beyond furious with myself) to miss a client slipping his condom off as he unloaded in me. Club's response was to set me up in a bathtub with Coca-Cola douche.
There is plenty that is unacceptable in the legal system, but the taste of the fear has changed. It is worthwhile now to be less tolerant of extremes, and so the fears settle more along the lines of self-protection from situations that look dangerous.
Call the manager on the intercom and tell them you forgot to place your dinner order? She will be at that door in 20 seconds with the security staff flanking her. These are that changes that have happened in the new system, and by removing a parlysing fear, we have more strength to handle those closer to home.

Keeping sex work illegal just means the participants can't call on law enforcement for help. That doesn't make anyone safer, just keeps the state trying to enforce our morals.

I am #12 I get that this is a heated debate. I do not believe that all sex workers are trafficking victims. I do know that some choose to be in the industry. I can not speak on that I only know my story and the trauma it has caused. I say nonchalant at the article "Bad Bosses" I do not see how it could ever compare. I think a reread of the Amnesty International policy paper is needed. Everyone seems to have missed that Pimping will be legal. It is being infiltrated by violent gang members. How will this ever make things safer? I think we need to look at the Swedish Model. I work as an advocate and can share many sad stories of how people are exploited and legalizing pimps will increase this."Dan Savage won't interview local survivors of prostitution violence because he knows their life stories don't agree with what he writes."