I'm not sure how many of you have heard, but on Monday's committees meeting for City Council, the Zoning Committee has approved an ordinance that would ban massage businesses from opening in residential areas (and neighborhood business strips) and only allow them to open in commercial zone areas.
Why would the Aldermen want to pass such an ordinance/ban on massage parlors?
Because they think it's going to help fight prostitution.
And we need some help calling up the Aldermen to remind them this this is a ridiculous idea and to vote NO in tomorrow's meeting when it's scheduled to be brought up for a vote!
"Okay, Aaron. So what's really going on here? Isn't it possible that they've got a good reason to do this and you just want to rile us up?"
No, loyal reader. This is your standard City Council bullshit looking to do something ridiculous that will not fight the problem that they're looking to solve.
The beginning: Ald. Ray Suarez (31st) went to court to revoke the license of an illegal sex parlor in the 2200 block of North Cicero that he said was masquerading as a massage parlor.
So the underlying problem is that a massage parlor was also selling sexual acts.
Ald. Suarez: "The community is upset, and I don't blame them. There was prostitution going on. More of these places are popping up, and it's hard to get rid of [them]. It's becoming too easy. They're pretending to be something they're not."
Here's where I'm running into my first problems with this scenario: How did the community become upset? What happened that made them upset?
Obviously if there's a massage parlor that is selling sexual acts - it's happening IN the parlor. It's not streetwalkers selling themselves for sex in public view. Which means that unless you were BUYING a sexual act or TOLD that you could buy a sexual act - how did the community find out?
Or did they find out when, during the course of standard policework, it was revealed that there was prostitution going on in the parlor?
In which case this whole hubbub is ridiculous, since the community did NOT have a problem until they FOUND OUT there was prostitution going on!
In the meantime, what would have upsetted them about a massage parlor in their neighborhood that happened to be selling sexual acts without them knowing?
A boom in clientele as a result of the sex-selling that caused parking problems? In that case, one can argue that no popular business should operate in a residential area. And then no business would be able to survive without getting kicked out.
Was there an influx of "people who would be likely to purchase sex acts" and the socioeconomic differences of people in their residential area were upsetting the people? That's rather rude/racist/elitist of them, wouldn't you think? I'm pretty sure you can't ban "creepy-looking people" from a residential zone unless they're doing something creepy in public or where the public can see it.
But I digress. Let's assume that there's a validity to the neighborhood being upset by having a secret sex-selling massage parlor in their neighborhood.
What about the massage parlors NOT selling sex? Why should they have to suffer and be forced to only open in "areas with commercial zoning designations, like car dealers, gas stations and other heavy business uses"?
In a quick side note, I believe prostitution should be legalized. If that were the case, it wouldn't have to be done in secrecy. Sex workers could get health benefits, the industry could be regulated, and having a sex worker licensing program would help to curb underage prostitution.
Anyway, Suarez has support from 26 other aldermen who have co-signed the ordinance that passed, but there are luckily some members of City Council who can see the light.
Unfortunately, they're too afraid to speak out unless it's anonymously...
"He's probably got one place that's a front for a sex operation, and instead of going after it with law enforcement, he's trying to kill a whole industry," said one alderman, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of embarrassing Suarez.
"Just clean up the ones that need to be cleaned up and let the legitimate places operate. I have a large hairdresser that's trying to come to my area. Something like this would kill it."
Yes, and I'd believe more that your anonymity was to protect Suarez's embarrassment - if it weren't for the fact that you then follow it up with a mention of personal gain for your ward if it doesn't pass.
How about gain for society in general and for businesses in general? Isn't THAT enough to be able to speak freely and openly about how stupid of an idea it is to ban an entire industry from being located in certain zones just because random ones happen to be doing something illegal that has nothing to do with their location?
Seriously, do these 26 other aldermen think that if a massage parlor is forced to open someone more commercial where there's better parking and more businesses that are open and catering to additional potential clients that the changes of them selling sexual acts is going to be reduced?
That's like saying that because most shootings at convenience stores happen at night, all convenience stores are banned from being open after sunset and cannot open a new convenience store in a location where other businesses are open at night in order to fight illegal gun violence.
If I were Alderman (and hopefully I will be in 2011), I would be speaking out just like I am now about a dumb ban that should not be passed and I would vote NO.
But since I'm not Alderman, I need your help to make sure the current aldermen in City Council vote NO on this ordinance. Please look up the office information for your City Council representative and tell them to vote no on this ordinance that hurts small business owners who want to sell massages and don't plan on selling the "happy endings".
Maybe with some help, we'll see a real happy ending to this story tomorrow when the City Council does not pass this ordinance.
Digg this article - and spread the word!
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Showing posts with label prostitutes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prostitutes. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Addicted to Prostitutes?
On Wednesday, a study will be released that involves 200 Chicago men who have used prostitutes and were willing to answer questions about their experiences. I try to be objective when it comes to research methodology, but some things make me admittedly biased. For one thing, it's my personal belief that prostitution should be legal. There are a number of five-second arguments that one can make which would try and sway you to this point of view, but I'll try and limit myself to just one and get it out of the way early:
It shouldn't be illegal to sell something that you can legally give away for free.
That out of the way, I have to point out that this research survey "was designed by anti-prostitution activist Melissa Farley, who is controversial because academics have accused her of tilting previous research to support a political agenda. The Chicago study is part of an international project that includes surveys in Scotland, India and Cambodia. Critics of the Scotland survey called Farley's methods unscientific."
So right off the bat, not only should you take all of the results with a grain of salt, but you might want to think twice about putting that grain of salt in your mouth. I also want to add that Farley is based in San Francisco, which means that she's probably one of those misguided bleeding-heart "liberals" who really wants to take away liberties instead of protect them.
The main result of the surveys and interviews with the 200 men who frequent prostitutes is that they are conflicted about their behavior. Most of the men obviously said they believe there is nothing wrong with prostitution, but 83% of the interviewees viewed buying sex as a form of addiction. Most of the men believed that women became prostitutes of their own free will, but also acknowledged that the sex trade can be devastating to the women involved. 57% suspect that their prostitutes were abused as children. Almost a third said that they viewed prostitutes' relationships with pimps as "harmful". 40% of men said that they are usually intoxicated when they buy sex.
I'd like to discuss some of these results with my own worldviews.
You already know my stance on there being nothing wrong with prostitution - other than the fact that it's still illegal because it shouldn't be.
Believing prostitutes enter the profession of their own free will? I can side with that argument. After all, the root nature of prostitution is just payment and sex. Both of those acts have to be agreed upon in order for it to be prostitution. Without consent to be paid, it's not prostitution. Without consent to sex, it's rape.
Acknowledgment that the sex trade can be devastating to the women? Of course. I admit that it has the potential for destroying livelihood - and that it probably has. The way to stop that is by making it legal and being able to enforce safety issues and monitor things like any other business. Legalizing it as a profession would mean the possibility for health insurance and other medical benefits.
That prostitutes were abused as children? I can see that there could be a psychological standpoint of being abused as a child leading to sexual promiscuity and the possible increased risk of becoming a prostitute, but to make that assumption? I would think that there are more cases out there of other reasons to becoming a prostitute than child abuse. I would also think that prostitutes might use a sob story like one of child abuse to get more money from clients who might "want to help" and ease their possible guilt from what they've done. It can go either way.
That the relationship between prostitutes and pimps are harmful? I would have to agree, but mostly based on the fact that it's not legal, which means there's no laws protecting the girls. If you went to your office job and your boss beat you with his "boss cane" because sales projections weren't up for the quarter, there would be lawsuits and settlement money abound. A prostitute should be entitled to the same benefits if her pimp decides to beat her with his "pimp cane" because she's not pulling enough tricks or making enough cash. Imagine your job if there were no laws about what your boss could or couldn't do...
40% of men are intoxicated when they pay for sex? That's a no-brainer. Alcohol and other drugs lower inhibitions. Inhibitions are what keep you from doing things that you know you shouldn't do. Like break the law. By paying for sex. I'm shocked that this number isn't higher, but then again I'm sure that a number of these men have long since lost those inhibitions by rationalizing that 1) the law is wrong, so why worry about breaking it or 2) the need for it supercedes the reasoning against doing it.
I lastly need to touch upon that large 83% of men who said that they viewed paying for sex as an addiction. A lot of psychologists will agree that the difference between a compulsion and an addiction is that no harm is being done to the person or to a third party. Alcohol hurts the body and drugs hurt the body - so it's safe to call a compulsion to use those substances an addiction. Does a compulsion to have sex hurt people? Perhaps in an instance of rape or molestation, yes. Paedophiles and rapists would be considered, in my mind, as having deviant sexual addictions. But for run-of-the-mill sexual intercourse (or mild variations of kinkiness that may be involved in prostitution for extra fees)? I think it's a compulsion, and one that shouldn't be shunned or blocked off with laws.
Also, it's hard to define what the potential addiction is: the act of having sex, or the paying for it? Actually, it would be the act of having sex and the act of breaking the law. The rush of adrenaline that some people get when they break a law - THAT can be considered addictive. Which means that by making prostitution legal, those addicts would have to get their fix somewhere else - like robbing liquor stores and probably getting caught. Would I feel bad if making prostitution legal led to a rise in gun violence? Not really. It would take some pretty hard work to ever tie someone to gun violence as a direct result of legalizing prostitution. I mean, proving it in a court of law.
The last statistic brought up by this survey is what the anti-prostitution creator wants to tout as the best result of the survey: 90% of the men said that they would stop if they felt there was a likely chance they would be caught and prosecuted. I think that's just bad news. She wants to make it a logical reason to make the penalties harsher as a deterrent to these men. I think that the end result of that would be MORE suffering for the prostitutes that this woman is trying to "help" - as well as a potential rise in violent sex crimes.
The full results will be made public on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008. I really think that the only way to make these results valid is a complimentary study asking similar questions to the actual Chicago prostitutes. Otherwise, you're only hearing one side of the story, and that's not enough to make a fully-educated decision either way.
And I guess I should wrap up this post by saying that: Yes, I am a Chicago male. No, I have never paid for sex. Yes, I have actually known a Chicago prostitute. No, she didn't give "freebies" to friends. Yes, I still side with her anyway that it should be legal.
What do you think? Do you think that prostitution should be made legal in order to protect these girls - or do you think that prostitution should have harsher penalties in order to protect these girls?
(The article about the potentially-biased study)
Read more!
It shouldn't be illegal to sell something that you can legally give away for free.
That out of the way, I have to point out that this research survey "was designed by anti-prostitution activist Melissa Farley, who is controversial because academics have accused her of tilting previous research to support a political agenda. The Chicago study is part of an international project that includes surveys in Scotland, India and Cambodia. Critics of the Scotland survey called Farley's methods unscientific."
So right off the bat, not only should you take all of the results with a grain of salt, but you might want to think twice about putting that grain of salt in your mouth. I also want to add that Farley is based in San Francisco, which means that she's probably one of those misguided bleeding-heart "liberals" who really wants to take away liberties instead of protect them.
The main result of the surveys and interviews with the 200 men who frequent prostitutes is that they are conflicted about their behavior. Most of the men obviously said they believe there is nothing wrong with prostitution, but 83% of the interviewees viewed buying sex as a form of addiction. Most of the men believed that women became prostitutes of their own free will, but also acknowledged that the sex trade can be devastating to the women involved. 57% suspect that their prostitutes were abused as children. Almost a third said that they viewed prostitutes' relationships with pimps as "harmful". 40% of men said that they are usually intoxicated when they buy sex.
I'd like to discuss some of these results with my own worldviews.
You already know my stance on there being nothing wrong with prostitution - other than the fact that it's still illegal because it shouldn't be.
Believing prostitutes enter the profession of their own free will? I can side with that argument. After all, the root nature of prostitution is just payment and sex. Both of those acts have to be agreed upon in order for it to be prostitution. Without consent to be paid, it's not prostitution. Without consent to sex, it's rape.
Acknowledgment that the sex trade can be devastating to the women? Of course. I admit that it has the potential for destroying livelihood - and that it probably has. The way to stop that is by making it legal and being able to enforce safety issues and monitor things like any other business. Legalizing it as a profession would mean the possibility for health insurance and other medical benefits.
That prostitutes were abused as children? I can see that there could be a psychological standpoint of being abused as a child leading to sexual promiscuity and the possible increased risk of becoming a prostitute, but to make that assumption? I would think that there are more cases out there of other reasons to becoming a prostitute than child abuse. I would also think that prostitutes might use a sob story like one of child abuse to get more money from clients who might "want to help" and ease their possible guilt from what they've done. It can go either way.
That the relationship between prostitutes and pimps are harmful? I would have to agree, but mostly based on the fact that it's not legal, which means there's no laws protecting the girls. If you went to your office job and your boss beat you with his "boss cane" because sales projections weren't up for the quarter, there would be lawsuits and settlement money abound. A prostitute should be entitled to the same benefits if her pimp decides to beat her with his "pimp cane" because she's not pulling enough tricks or making enough cash. Imagine your job if there were no laws about what your boss could or couldn't do...
40% of men are intoxicated when they pay for sex? That's a no-brainer. Alcohol and other drugs lower inhibitions. Inhibitions are what keep you from doing things that you know you shouldn't do. Like break the law. By paying for sex. I'm shocked that this number isn't higher, but then again I'm sure that a number of these men have long since lost those inhibitions by rationalizing that 1) the law is wrong, so why worry about breaking it or 2) the need for it supercedes the reasoning against doing it.
I lastly need to touch upon that large 83% of men who said that they viewed paying for sex as an addiction. A lot of psychologists will agree that the difference between a compulsion and an addiction is that no harm is being done to the person or to a third party. Alcohol hurts the body and drugs hurt the body - so it's safe to call a compulsion to use those substances an addiction. Does a compulsion to have sex hurt people? Perhaps in an instance of rape or molestation, yes. Paedophiles and rapists would be considered, in my mind, as having deviant sexual addictions. But for run-of-the-mill sexual intercourse (or mild variations of kinkiness that may be involved in prostitution for extra fees)? I think it's a compulsion, and one that shouldn't be shunned or blocked off with laws.
Also, it's hard to define what the potential addiction is: the act of having sex, or the paying for it? Actually, it would be the act of having sex and the act of breaking the law. The rush of adrenaline that some people get when they break a law - THAT can be considered addictive. Which means that by making prostitution legal, those addicts would have to get their fix somewhere else - like robbing liquor stores and probably getting caught. Would I feel bad if making prostitution legal led to a rise in gun violence? Not really. It would take some pretty hard work to ever tie someone to gun violence as a direct result of legalizing prostitution. I mean, proving it in a court of law.
The last statistic brought up by this survey is what the anti-prostitution creator wants to tout as the best result of the survey: 90% of the men said that they would stop if they felt there was a likely chance they would be caught and prosecuted. I think that's just bad news. She wants to make it a logical reason to make the penalties harsher as a deterrent to these men. I think that the end result of that would be MORE suffering for the prostitutes that this woman is trying to "help" - as well as a potential rise in violent sex crimes.
The full results will be made public on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008. I really think that the only way to make these results valid is a complimentary study asking similar questions to the actual Chicago prostitutes. Otherwise, you're only hearing one side of the story, and that's not enough to make a fully-educated decision either way.
And I guess I should wrap up this post by saying that: Yes, I am a Chicago male. No, I have never paid for sex. Yes, I have actually known a Chicago prostitute. No, she didn't give "freebies" to friends. Yes, I still side with her anyway that it should be legal.
What do you think? Do you think that prostitution should be made legal in order to protect these girls - or do you think that prostitution should have harsher penalties in order to protect these girls?
(The article about the potentially-biased study)
Read more!
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