Wednesday 19 August 2009

Come Again?


Believe me, I'm not an expert on the sex trade. Fanny P is adequate for my urges, that is if they ever materialise considering an inadvertent 'playtime' knee in the nads from one of the little Ps is enough to cool the ardour created by a dozen Emma Bunton videos.

However, isn't there something very wrong-headed about this?

Mobile phone networks asked to cut off sex trade before London 2012 Olympics

Kit Malthouse, deputy mayor for policing, said the mobile phone numbers are a valuable resource for those behind the sex industry.

He said an agreement must be reached between mobile phone networks and police that sees them taken out of use as soon as they are identified.

There appears to be an almost hysterical panic about the demand for sex services in the run up to the 2012 Olympics. All that potential clandestine, consensual paid-for sex is really bothering the righteous. The emphasis is always couched as a way of shielding against trafficking, but do they seriously expect that demand will simply dematerialise with moves such as this?

As far as I am aware, prostitution itself is not illegal, merely the solicitation. Street-walkers are a constant menace to people who live in such areas and the thrust of legislation to date has always been to minimise, or extinguish, the prevalence of these girls on the streets.

All that eliminating such mobile numbers will necessarily do is to force girls back to the dangerous, and anti-social, haunts in search of their 'johns', trafficked or not.

Malthouse is rather pissed off about the existence of large numbers of prostitution adverts in telephone boxes which give a bad impression of the capital to tourists. He is correct that it is a worry. The best place for such ads would be somewhere more discreet, one would assume, such as being squirrelled away in local papers where only those who sought out such services would find them.

Shame Malthouse put the kibosh on that idea a few months ago, then.

Deputy Mayor for policing Kit Malthouse said he will include the banning of sex ads in his recommendations as part of his bid to stop trafficking.

He praised Newsquest’s stand on the issue.

The publisher of the South London Guardian series as well as the Surrey Comet and Richmond and Twickenham Times, banned the adverts from its 305 titles.

But it won't stop trafficking, and it won't stop people wanting to pay for sex, nor wanting to sell it.

How bloody naive can these people be?

Prostitution is not called the 'oldest profession' for nothing. It is even mentioned in the Bible for chrissakes (oops). The sex trade cannot be snuffed out entirely, merely pushed from one method of publicity to another. The only solution which has been consistently proven to be effective is tolerance and decriminalisation.

Yet these idiots continue to push for policies which have comprehensively failed since time immemorial, and which could result in further harming the people they are claiming to protect.

It's disastrous righteous policy writ large. The triumph of moronic hope over realistic experience.




14 comments:

RantinRab said...

Perhaps the 'trade' should have it's own section within yellow pages.

Let your fingers do the walking...

Anonymous said...

now, if only someone had invented a website where women could flog their gashes... oh wait... there is?

Oh.

Frank Davis said...

What's the sex trade got to do with the Olympics?

The only thing I can think is that this is all about 'keeping up appearances' for when the neighbours drop in. You know, collect up all the empty whisky bottles. Clean the ash trays. Stuff the porn mags under the sofa. Hoover up the the crisps and rice off the floor. So that when they park their backsides on the sofa, and start nattering about global warming, their eyes won't stray around the room and see,.. oh gawd, dog droppings under the dinner table.

Anonymous said...

Rab, it does on the continent....or so I am told.

BTS said...

I'm afraid that I'm with Malthouse on this one - ban the mobiles.

They cost a fortune to call if you're on a different network. These girls should have freephone numbers.

And more accurate descriptions of their age and 'natural' hair colour would be appreciated..

Ian B said...

Well okay, let's remind ourselves that the progressive left are puritans, not "liberals", so this is just about hating sex, that's it. They particularly hate the combination of sex and capitalism. "Trafficking", is just the rebranding of the white slavery panic which they used to get it restricted (here) and restricted/banned in much of the USA a century ago. Same people. Not liberal at all.

What may be another question though is, what particular authority does the state have to tell mobile phone companies to cut phone numbers off? Which law authorised this?

Oh yeah, in the progressive state you don't bother with laws, you just have "partnerships" and "voluntary agreements". No law required.

Yay, modernity. Totalitarianism- and nothing "soft" about it.

Anonymous said...

Maybe we should let drug dealers advertise in the boxes too! If you don't mind pimps doing it, then surely pushers are entitled to your wholehearted support as well?

Dick Puddlecote said...

Nice straw man, Anon. Must try harder.

BTS said...

Fuckin' A, Anon. I'd be most pleased with that as we've had a bit of a drought around here of late - I even had to have a spliff with an ex and everyone knows how badly wrong that one can go.

It was good shit though..

Anonymous said...

Enlighten me then!! whats the diff??

check it out:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8129067.stm

Dick Puddlecote said...

{sigh}

1) Because not all adverts placed in phone boxes are on behalf of pimps. In fact, the English Collective of Prostitutes are continually emphasising that measures such as the one by Malthouse are putting working girls in ever more danger.
2) Your link points to 7 workers who 'could' have been trafficked. Out of how many in the south east?
3) And most importantly. The straw man you posted. Who talked about drug pushers? Not I. Who talked about it being right to put adverts in phone boxes? Not I.

I was talking about the whole approach being wrong if sex workers are denied any form of advertising. In such cases, the only recourse is to walk the streets, which is more dangerous, goes entirely against moves to stop kerb-crawling, and is - as I believe I said - wrong-headed.

OK?

Anonymous said...

This is beginning to smell like a personal obsession with prostitutes for Mr Malthouse.

The Filthy Smoker said...

Fanny P is adequate for my urges

And they say romance is dead!

BTS said...

I think it's beginning to smell like a personal obsession with prostitutes for Mr Puddlecote - kerb-crawling uses up a lot of petrol..