Comments

1
Ms. Matisse,
Completely agree with you & AI. I read this fine piece yesterday:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/201…

Indeed, I wonder if Mr. Holmes ever viewed a pornographic film produced under the law in the USA? For the record, that's sex work i.e. prostitution. They are paid performers. We get the word 'pornography' from the Greek word for prostitute, 'pornos'. The profession not that I endorse anybody doing it still should be legalize. Straight or gay, male or female 18 y/o and older. Regulate & tax it. Be vigilant at looking for underage (under 18 y/o) providers and coercion. The Australian model is a good example.

It's foolish and somewhat contradictory to persecute sex workers when it actually is being conducted here in the USA under the law. I hope Mr. Holmes reads this.

2
Mistress Matisse is someone I consider a credible source and has by and large conducted herself with a high degree of journalistic professionalism in her time writing for The Stranger.

However, she is writing for The Stranger, a publication which has absolutely zero ground to stand on and accuse another editorial of "passing off opinions as facts". The Stranger attempt to practice 'Advocacy Journalism', but fails even that low bar of public discourse.
3
Note: Amnesty International has admirably refused to back down due to pressure from the 21st century temperance league: http://time.com/3992788/amnesty-internat…

It is absolute fraud trying to spin sex-phobic, puritanical anti-sexworker dogma as feminist. Let's be crystal clear, there is nothing feminist in the least about slut-shaming and anti-sexwork 'activism' is nothing but thinly veiled slut-shaming.

Also absolute fraud trying to pass off your anti-prostitution crusading as anti-trafficking advocacy. If all of the organizations that are really much more interested in policing the sex lives of consenting adults than fighting trafficking were actually using their resources to fight trafficking, then perhaps some major progress in reducing human trafficking would occur.
4
It's all about class. If sex workers had more relatable, educated, white, cis female advocates, opinions would soften. Until then sex workers are lumped together and too distantly Other from those in power and their wives.

Life must be different for high-end escorts (posh Bellevue incall, white/light asian, leases a c-class, $300 hair) versus sex workers who serve the low and middle end of the sex market (poor early childhood learning, latina/black/south asian, trying to get by).
5
That Seattle Times piece is NOT an editorial, as anyone editing for the Stranger should know. It's an opinion piece signed by members of the public. Perhaps some Stranger editor could fix that.
6
What @4 says - it's just another loitering-type law. We apply it to those who "need a lesson from society"... meaning "them".
7
Matisse - Thanks for lending a balanced and experienced view to the conversation. If you happen to be inclined to reply to this comment, I'd love your thoughts.

I'm curious if you know the difference between the Aussie/Kiwi model and European models where working conditions appear to be worse. I've heard accounts of horrible working conditions in legal brothels in Germany and Italy, specifically. Am I hearing BS about Europe, or did Australia and New Zealand make better choices with their laws?
8
the times editorial board is wrong, out of date and completely ignorant?! nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo can't be true. next thing you'll tell me is they are a bunch of conservatives. no way man!
9
@8: It was written by a bunch of politicians, not the Times. Unlike the Stranger, the Times has been known to open its pages to people with a variety of opinions.
10
The piece in the the Seattle Times is a complete fraud. As Matisse rightly points out, almost every "fact" they rely on to get their point across is false, has been invalidated, or is a flat out lie. For example, the entry age of an average prostitute is 12-14. This is bogus. And even, as Matisse pointed out, Polaris -one of the largest and most influential anti-trafficking groups in the US- has retracted their support of this statement. From Polaris:

"A Note About the Age of Entry:

Many people have used a controversial statistic indicating that the average age of entry for girls into prostitution is 12-14. Based on internal and external data sources, Polaris does not believe this to accurate and encourages researchers to conduct new studies on this topic."

The fact that Dan Satterberg and Val Ritchey regurgitated this baseless claim without doing a modicum of research forces readers to take their entire piece as nothing but hubris. If they can't be bothered to do minimal fact-checking before publishing a piece in the Sunday paper, how can constituents be bothered to take them seriously?
11
@2: Nail. Hit. On head.
12
Pete Holmes, Dan Satterberg, Mayor Murray … never saw a fear they couldn't make into a mongering exercise. There is so much out there that could have been used for quality research, but "no"… grab that low road, the lowest hanging fruit. Keep the people frightened and voting. Amazing.
By the way, I hear that the Hookah Lounge that you closed for not legally paying their taxes, a $21.00 bill in arrears, was paid off this week. Amazing, just amazing.
Selective enforcement, was it?
13
Not defending the op-ed, which I didn't even read, but suggesting the issue IS extremely complex and not simply, obviously about making sex-work nice for women. This may be a necessary palliative step, but arguments about the inherent wrongness of accepting women's bodies as a commodity are strong. We should be able to hold that idea in our minds even as we might advocate for practical measure to alleviate the real-time suffering of sex-workers.
Read: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/12245…

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