[lbo-talk] Gov't "recruits" man as female sex worker

Grant Lee grantlee at iinet.net.au
Tue Jul 15 23:30:53 PDT 2003



> Selling your body for sex is no more degrading than any other
> form of employment. Damn sight safer than many jobs too. Wish I could get
a job like that, but I'm
> probably too unattractive. Like many jobs, employers of prostitutes want
fresh young meat. I'm too tough > and bad-tempered.
>
> So if these young sheilas really want to work, why not force them to sell
their body for sex? I don't see the > difference between that and selling your body to make gadgets for a boss.
>
> Bill Bartlett

I don't know about the situation in Tasmania, but my partner has done some consulting work for a local sex workers' organisation. She says that, compared to other wage labour, the money is very good, but is not improving and there is a high burnout rate/staff turnover --- mostly because of authoritarian management, ambiguous legal standing and non-existent occupational health & safety standards, among other things.

On the latter point, the sex workers' organisations recently had health promotion funding withdrawn, by the State Labor govt, because they had supposedly crossed the line and were "promoting prostitution as a career". As we might expect from a "Third Way" regime --- the premier, Geoff Gallop went to Oxford with Tony Blair and they are still close --- it was a cynical public relations exercise, driven by the gutter media.

The same gutter media, BTW, romanticises and celebrates the "madams", who are, of course, no different to any other proprietor or manager (in the latter case, often a front for gangsters) who is able to operate a laissez faire workplace --- i.e. ruthless.



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