Spare us the "People's Prostitute" routine

Blackleaf

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Littlejohn: Spare us the 'People's Prostitute' routine...

18th December 2006

Daily Mail

BRITAIN SHOULD NEVER LEGALISE PROSTITUTION THE WAY THE DUTCH AND GERMANS HAVE DONE.




Let's get the caveat out of the way from the off. The five women murdered in Ipswich were tragic, lost souls who met a grisly end. I sincerely hope whoever killed them is caught, charged and convicted.

No one with a shred of humanity would wish upon them their ghastly lives and horrible deaths. But Mother Teresa, they weren't.

And I know this might sound frightfully callous in the current hysterical, emotional climate, but we're not all guilty.

We do not share in the responsibility for either their grubby little existences or their murders. Society isn't to blame.

It might not be fashionable, or even acceptable in some quarters, to say so, but in their chosen field of "work", death by strangulation is an occupational hazard.

That doesn't make it justifiable homicide, but in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss.

They weren't going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur. The only kind of missionary position they undertook was in the back seat of a car.

Of course their friends and families are grieving. That's what friends and families do. But they should also be asking themselves if there was anything they could have done to prevent what happened.

If you discovered your daughter had gone on the game to feed her heroin habit, wouldn't you move heaven and earth to get her off it?

Frankly, I'm tired of the lame excuses about how they all fell victim to ruthless pimps who plied them with drugs. These women were on the streets because they wanted to be.

We are all capable of free will. At any time, one or all of them could have sought help from the police, or the church, or a charity, or a government agency specifically established to deal with heroin addicts. They chose not to.

The tortuous twistings of the sisterhood over the past week have been a joy to behold. The 30-year old Spare Rib T-shirts have been brought out of mothballs and we've been treated to the All Men Are Bastards/Rapists/Murderers mantra from assorted Glendas who ought to be old enough to know better.

We've heard the well-rehearsed arguments for legalised and regulated prostitution, as if we were living under the Taliban. The fact is, we've already got de facto legal brothels on every High Street.

They're call saunas or massage parlours.

As I remarked when the Labour MP Joe Ashton was once caught in a Siamese "sauna" in Northampton, he must have been the only man in Britain ever to go to a massage parlour for a massage. It doesn't get much more glamorous than that.

These five women were on the streets because even the filthiest, most disreputable back-alley "sauna" above a kebab shop wouldn't give them house room.

The men who used them were either too mean to fork out whatever a massage parlour charges, or simply weren't fussy. Some men are actually turned on by d isgusting, drug-addled street *****s. Where there's demand, there'll always be supply.

This wasn't a case of women going on the game to put bread on the table, or to look after their "babies".

That's what the welfare state is for. They did it for drugs.

The gormless Guardianistas simply refuse to confront this blindingly obvious reality. They would rather deify celebrity druggies such as Kate Moss and Will Self than face the truth that hard drugs wreck lives.

What I find most objectionable about all this is the attempt to make us all feel responsible for the murders. There is a nasty whiff of Lady Di about the enforced mood of mourning, with even the Old Bill coming across like hand-wringing archbishops.

At Ipswich Town's home game on Saturday (they beat Leeds United 1-0), there was a minute's silence. We were supposed to believe that this was a true reflection of the community's sympathy.

I don't buy it. Most people went along with it in the spirit of emotional correctness and through fear of getting their heads kicked in if they didn't.

There was only one thing missing, but don't bet against it.

When Blair gets back from saving the Middle East, don't be surprised if he turns up at the funeral of one of these unfortunate women to deliver a lip-trembling, tear-stained eulogy: "She was the People's Prostitute".
************************************************************************


Grim echo of a PD James book

14th December 2006



The Suffolk Ripper murders have an eerie resemblance to the novel Devices And Desires by P D James



There are striking similarities between the Suffolk killings and a novel by crime writer P D James, sources close to the case revealed yesterday.

Officers in the inquiry have said privately that they are STARTLED by the parallels between the five murders and her novel Devices And Desires.

Some fear the Suffolk Strangler could have been inspired by the 1989 thriller.

In the current case, all five victims have been found in remote rural areas after apparently being killed at night.

In Devices And Desires, East Anglia is haunted by a serial killer who murders five women under the cloak of night.

Their bodies are typically found in remote country areas. All have been strangled.

As a result of the reign of terror in the novel, women are increasingly confined to their homes or need to be accompanied out at night.

The fictional killer's first victim is a prostitute - but he then moves on to attack a teacher, a secretary and a schoolgirl, among others, just as police now fear the Suffolk Strangler may extend his attacks.

The killer in the novel also shaves off his victims' body hair - as did the murderer of 16-year-old Natalie Pearman, thought to be a victim of the strangler 14 years ago (the link between that unsolved case and these ones has just been established).

In the P D James book, the culprit is known as The Whistler because witnesses hear his sinister whistling at the scene, as he busies himself over the bodies of his victims.

The tune was he whistles is a Sunday School hymn - with the words 'Now the day is over/ Night is drawing nigh/ Shadows of the evening/ Fall across the sky'.

He finds his victims by parking his vehicle on remote roads, then walking in shadows.

He dresses as a woman in a long mac and wears a wig. His other special trick is to takes his dog with him. He slips off the lead at the last moment to strangle the women.

The man also mutilates his victims by cutting a letter L on to their foreheads. In the novel, a second killer copies The Whistler in a bid to evade detection.


dailymail.co.uk
 
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Sassylassie

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Jan 31, 2006
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The fella that wrote the first article was having a wee melt down. I love P.D. James books.
 

Niflmir

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Dec 18, 2006
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That article is just flagrant victim blaming. In fact due to laws in Canada, a person can legally be a prostitute, but has absolutely no protection from psychopaths. So we legally endorse prostitution, then we ensure that whatever fate befalls them is their own fault by way of our poorly thought out laws. There is a demand for this sort of transaction in society, and our laws do irreparable harm to someone who realized that there was more money to be made in prostitution than in minimum wage. We are to blame. Canadian prostitutes are regularly made victims by society, the authors rant is simply adding insult to injury.
 

DurkaDurka

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Mar 15, 2006
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In fact due to laws in Canada, a person can legally be a prostitute, but has absolutely no protection from psychopaths.

How would you suggest Canada or any country protect prostitutes from psychopaths? Have govenment sanctioned ***** houses? Or maybe government licensed pimps?
 

Niflmir

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Dec 18, 2006
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How would you suggest Canada or any country protect prostitutes from psychopaths? Have govenment sanctioned ***** houses? Or maybe government licensed pimps?

Well a lot of things need to be done. First off, a legally sanctioned place of work is a necessity. Right now the closest thing is a massage parlour where solicitation occurs in private rooms and is not officially endorsed by the management. Thus the management can provide some protection for the women and men, but not nearly enough at the economic level. Also, these sorts of establishments are often victimised by police departments with strange vendettas.

Second, a health insurance policy for women and men in this part of the sex trade needs to be established. One exists in the pornography industry and is quite successful at decreasing rates of sexually transmitted disease epidemics. I believe the Dutch and Australian systems both provide protection for their sex trade workers in this form.

Thirdly, and most importantly. Education. Our society is generally quite hostile towards prostitution, such that sexist articles such as the one above are routinely spouted and not labeled for what they are: hate mongering trash. Recently my wife was walking with some friends to downtown Bonn to play some pool, their path led them down the street that the street prostitutes habited. She asked them what they thought, they were not negative in any way, and simply stated, "I don't understand why anyone would want to see a prostitute." In Canada, our laws and our attitudes victimise prostitutes and make it more likely that people will be abducted and forced into the sex trade. If the laws and public attitude were changed, and things were registered like in Australia and elsewhere, we wouldn't have as big a problem with young people being forced into a humiliating form of slavery. When someone chooses their career to provide, they can raise their head in pride. Even against horrible vulgarities that a few bigoted people will toss their way.
 

Sassylassie

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Jan 31, 2006
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I think prostitution should be legal, it's not going to go away so regulate and tax the profession.

Quote from the article: These five women were on the streets because even the filthiest, most disreputable back-alley "sauna" above a kebab shop wouldn't give them house room.

The men who used them were either too mean to fork out whatever a massage parlour charges, or simply weren't fussy. Some men are actually turned on by d isgusting, drug-addled street *****s. Where there's demand, there'll always be supply.

The Fella who wrote the article is not a very compassionate and caring person, being a drug addict does not make a person sub-human it means they have an addiction. Nasty attitude fella.
 

DurkaDurka

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Well a lot of things need to be done. First off, a legally sanctioned place of work is a necessity. Right now the closest thing is a massage parlour where solicitation occurs in private rooms and is not officially endorsed by the management. Thus the management can provide some protection for the women and men, but not nearly enough at the economic level. Also, these sorts of establishments are often victimised by police departments with strange vendettas.

Ok, do you think these government sanctioned house would reduce the ammount of prostitutes who ply their trade on the street? I doubt it.

Second, a health insurance policy for women and men in this part of the sex trade needs to be established. One exists in the pornography industry and is quite successful at decreasing rates of sexually transmitted disease epidemics. I believe the Dutch and Australian systems both provide protection for their sex trade workers in this form.

Money wasted in my opinion, they already have a health insurance policy... "OHIP". Why should the government be responsible for buy these people condoms? [/quote]
 

Tonington

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Oct 27, 2006
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Why on Earth do you think prostitutes would subject themselves to the harsh conditions of the street when they could conduct their business indoors? Governmnet sanctioned as in they would be allowed to open businesses, LEGITIMATE businesses, where they could actually call the cops if they had a problem.

We don't have to emulate other countries, Niflmir was just showing how there are other countries which do. Maybe our brand would have the price of condoms included in your hourly rate with your sex care worker.
 

Niflmir

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Dec 18, 2006
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Ok, do you think these government sanctioned house would reduce the ammount of prostitutes who ply their trade on the street? I doubt it.

Irrelevent, in my opinion. As to whether legal brothels reduce street prostitution, it is an empirical question, which I don't know the answer to, but could look up. Regardless, I take a hands off approach to morality as it applies to sexuality: as long as no one is being exploited, its none of my business. My point is that we offer absolutely no protection for a trade which our laws sanction. For instance, if a prostitute were to hire a bodyguard, that person would be labeled a pimp and would promptly be breaking the law. Any other trade is allowed to hire bodyguards, even drug dealers can do it legally. However, prostitutes cannot. What our current laws do is create a class of citizens, prostitutes, declare that they are legally allowed to exist and ply their trade, then we tear away their right to a safe work environment and declare that they have no right to be free from hate crimes either. Our laws victimise prostitutes, a class of citizen predominantly made up of females, gays and children.

Money wasted in my opinion, they already have a health insurance policy... "OHIP". Why should the government be responsible for buy these people condoms?

I believe what I meant by health care was misinterpreted. I don't mean the right to see a doctor, everyone already has that. I don't mean providing condoms, that is even easier than seeing a doctor. What I mean is private medical insurance, the kind that nearly all Canadians purchase to supplement the governmental health care. It is this insurance which provides the expensive antibiotics to stop various forms of venereal diseases. Because prostitutes are unable to register their incomes in Canada and declare their source of income, they are forbidden from purchasing occupational health insurance. This is another form of victimisation.

I am simply saying that I think the best way to deal with the victims of prostitution is to change our laws. Being liberal minded, i.e. I believe a person's sexuality belongs to them and should never be controlled by society, I think that they should be legally sanctioned. Some may disagree with me there, but I refuse to let them say that society is the victim and that prostitutes are the problem. If some people do not think that we should legalize prostitution, that is fine, but if they think that we should protect children who are abducted and forced into prostitution, and think that we should protect them by arresting them, throwing them into prison, deporting them or further harassing them in any way, I have a problem with that. What needs to be done is to argue from the perspective that the real individual victims need to be identified and helped.
 

DurkaDurka

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Why on Earth do you think prostitutes would subject themselves to the harsh conditions of the street when they could conduct their business indoors? Governmnet sanctioned as in they would be allowed to open businesses, LEGITIMATE businesses, where they could actually call the cops if they had a problem.

Why do some homeless people choose to sleep on the street when they can sleep in a shelter?

Assuming that all prostitutes would choose to move their business into a government sanctioned house is naive. A lot of these people have serious drug/alcohol problems which any "LEGITIMATE" business would not allow.
 

tracy

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The Fella who wrote the article is not a very compassionate and caring person, being a drug addict does not make a person sub-human it means they have an addiction. Nasty attitude fella.

Amen to that. Anytime someone says a murder victim's death is really no great loss I am horrified. The best way to judge a society is how it treats its most pitiful members.
 

gc

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"That doesn't make it justifiable homicide, but in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss.

They weren't going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur. The only kind of missionary position they undertook was in the back seat of a car.
"

That's funny, I don't think the author of this article is going to discover a cure for cancer, and probably won't embark on missionary work in Darfur, I guess if he were to be murdered, it would be "no great loss".

This article is so ridiculous that I stopped reading at that point, as it seemed like a waste of my time.
 

Colpy

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"That doesn't make it justifiable homicide, but in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss.

They weren't going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur. The only kind of missionary position they undertook was in the back seat of a car."

That's funny, I don't think the author of this article is going to discover a cure for cancer, and probably won't embark on missionary work in Darfur, I guess if he were to be murdered, it would be "no great loss".

This article is so ridiculous that I stopped reading at that point, as it seemed like a waste of my time.

Well said, gc.
 

Tonington

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Oct 27, 2006
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Why do some homeless people choose to sleep on the street when they can sleep in a shelter?

Assuming that all prostitutes would choose to move their business into a government sanctioned house is naive. A lot of these people have serious drug/alcohol problems which any "LEGITIMATE" business would not allow.

Well for starters, not all homeless people have the choice to sleep in a shelter, whether it's a government funded shelter or NGO funded shelter.

I'm not assuming that all prostitutes will start businesses indoors. Why should we limit the opportunity to those who would want to legitimize themselves when you say and I agree that not all would take it inside? How about some murder rates, prostitution is by far the highest for any workers at around 200 per 100,000, the next highest rate for a profession/trade is taxicab drivers at around 24 per 100,000. Making it legal makes much more sense than the status quo, removing the criminal element and the connection to organized crime can only help these people.