Sex Hysteria!

As some French lawmakers consider the legalization of brothels, prostitutes are rejecting the idea.  According to CBS News the sex workers union in France outlined  their perspective:

Among the reasons the union cites for opposing the government’s proposal is the fear that brothel keepers who want to receive a cut of their proceeds would exploit the workers.

So, they reject the idea that, when they conduct a profitable business on someone else’s property, the property owner should get a cut of the profits?  Or do they expect someone to donate the use of their property as charity?  Perhaps they should consider purchasing their own property.

Plus, the union argues, mandatory testing for sexually transmitted diseases could lead to discriminatory policies that might bar those infected from working.   Instances of HIV in the pornography industry has led politicians to ask if they should be doing more to police that industry — a scenario prostitutes would like to avoid.

That sounds more like an argument for why the public should be aggressively demanding legal brothels.  Even huge chemical companies don’t argue against regulation by complaining that it might impede their plans to continue polluting the environment.

They are also against a system that might divide workers into camps of regular brothel workers and others who refuse to work within that system.

Why?  Is the sex workers union only in favor of freedom if it conforms with their idea of what’s permissible and only if they stand to profit from it?  Sounds odd coming from one of the most legally restricted industries on the planet.  Of course, when was he last time you heard of a drug dealer in favor of legalizing drugs?

It’s hard to have much sympathy for their position.  In any case, the freedom to earn a living from the labor of one’s own body should not be a matter for union approval.  It’s a basic human right.

According to guardian.co.uk:

Chantal Brunel, a member of the ruling UMP, called on French authorities to study the possibility of legalising centres where sex workers could serve clients within a regulated and protected framework.

Despite all the posturing and rhetoric by the anti-prostitution crusaders, it is  blindingly obvious that laws against prostitution are the single most destructive aspect of it.

According to a CSA opinion poll, Brunel’s stance is supported by a majority of French people: 59% of respondents supported the reopening of so-called maisons closes (literally, closed houses).

France is one of those European countries where sex in exchange for some material consideration is legal as an individual right, but nearly every activity that makes prostitution a safer profession is outlawed, thus condemning prostitutes to substandard conditions relative to other types of work.

Amid the shame of wartime “horizontal” Nazi collaboration and growing concern for women’s rights, 1,400 maisons closes were shut in 1946 under what is known as the Marthe Richard law. Richard, a prostitute turned politician, fought to have brothels outlawed out of a desire to kill off the sex trade for good.

Another example of women being in the forefront of the movement to stifle women’s rights and force them to compy with their own personal idea of morality.

“The idea is not to return to the situation before 1946,” [Brunel] said. She would like to see prostitutes working in groups “like in professional offices, like accountants”. A boss figure or “landlord” to whom the workers would give part of their earnings would not be “essential”, she added.

Then there is the opposition…

Other activists, however, are outraged at the proposals irrespective of caveats. “What kind of a society is it that shuts up its women for the pleasure of its men?” said Bruno Lemettre, president of the Mouvement du Nid anti-prostitution association. “Allowing such a thing in the country of human rights would be unacceptable,” he said.

Ah, yes.  The typical claim that human rights are best advanced by denying human rights.  Or, in other words, human rights are a fine thing as long as they’re politically popular human rights.  The hypocrisy that gushes forth from the anti-prostitution crusaders is mind-numbing.

By summarily dismissing the fact that most women in the sex trades are there voluntarily, anti-prostitution activists paint any tolerance of prostitution as condoning slavery and “exploitation”.  Of course, as anyone with a brain knows, repeating the same nonsense over and over does not make it true.