Proposed prostitution law change?

Laser251

There has been alot of talk lately about making it illegal for a man to buy sex but if a man went to see an escort how could the gardai prove he had sex with her? What if a man went to an escort but only gave her a spanking or watched her try on clothes? Would that be illegal too ?

Procrastastudy

Laser251 wrote: »

There has been alot of talk lately about making it illegal for a man to buy sex but if a man went to see an escort how could the gardai prove he had sex with her? What if a man went to an escort but only gave her a spanking or watched her try on clothes? Would that be illegal too ?

You're doing it wrong.

atkin

The ''turn off the redlight'' campaign seems to be getting vocal.

Dandelion6

Laser251 wrote: »

There has been alot of talk lately about making it illegal for a man to buy sex but if a man went to see an escort how could the gardai prove he had sex with her?

This is how they do it in Sweden.

SB2013

They don't have to prove you had sex, they have to prove you paid for sex. The offence is for soliciting.

atkin

Oppressing prostitution gives women more power because there are more sexually frustrated men for them to take advantage of.
Not a generalisation but an opinion .Open to debate .

Strawberry Fields

Does anyone think this sweedish legislation could be challenged as unconstitutional under equality? It's 1000 times worse than the statutory rape law. Also under ECHR?

Peregrinus

Why equality law? A law prohibiting the purchase of sex (or, for that matter, the sale of sex) would apply to everyone equally, so where's the inequality?

I think a bigger issue might be the right to privacy/family life - interfering with my right to conduct my sexual/romantic life on my own terms (and those of my partner/s, naturally) is an improper intrusion in my privacy, would be the argument. But of course that argument would apply equally to any law criminalising or restricting the sale of sex. I'm not aware of any cases in which anti-prostitution laws have been challenged on privacy grounds, but that may simply be because I've never looked for them.

Tom Young

Why is there a new thread for this?

Procrastastudy

No idea it's like a bit of the old thread has escaped (really!).

Dandelion6

SB2013 wrote: »

They don't have to prove you had sex, they have to prove you paid for sex. The offence is for soliciting.

The crime is paying for sex, but that's not the same as soliciting. Soliciting is offering to exchange sex for money or vice versa; it doesn't require that you actually have sex. The Swedish offence does - it says (according to the official translation here, Section 11) that you must "obtain a casual sexual relation in return for payment". That requires proving you had sex. Which means surveillance cameras if the police aren't around, and if they are around, watching and waiting for the action to start before going in (so to speak). Seems a bit voyeuristic, doesn't it?

Dandelion6

Peregrinus wrote: »

I'm not aware of any cases in which anti-prostitution laws have been challenged on privacy grounds, but that may simply be because I've never looked for them.

There was one in Texas a couple years ago but it failed as the court said the right of privacy didn't confer an unrestricted right to any kind of sexual activity, even between consenting adults. Can't see the courts here ruling any differently TBH.

There's a case going through the Canadian courts at the moment which is interesting, the argument essentially is that the prostitution laws put sex workers in physical danger and force them to choose between their liberty and their "security of the person" because they make the safer ways to engage in prostitution illegal. The most recent decision in the matter held the public soliciting law constitutional but struck down the laws against indoor prostitution and "living off the avails" to the extent this is done in a non-exploitative way. It's been appealed to the Supreme Court.

Strawberry Fields

Peregrinus wrote: »

Why equality law? A law prohibiting the purchase of sex (or, for that matter, the sale of sex) would apply to everyone equally, so where's the inequality?

.

As it criminalises men for purchasing sex and the womem who sell sex or offer sex have not committed a crime.

SB2013

Dandelion6 wrote: »

The crime is paying for sex, but that's not the same as soliciting. Soliciting is offering to exchange sex for money or vice versa; it doesn't require that you actually have sex. The Swedish offence does - it says (according to the official translation here, Section 11) that you must "obtain a casual sexual relation in return for payment". That requires proving you had sex. Which means surveillance cameras if the police aren't around, and if they are around, watching and waiting for the action to start before going in (so to speak). Seems a bit voyeuristic, doesn't it?

Why are you talking about Sweeden? Sweedish law doesn't apply here.

Dandelion6

SB2013 wrote: »

Why are you talking about Sweeden? Sweedish law doesn't apply here.

Because the "proposed prostitution law change" in the title of the thread is to bring the Swedish law in here.

SB2013

Dandelion6 wrote: »

Because the "proposed prostitution law change" in the title of the thread is to bring the Swedish law in here.

Swedish law isnt mentioned in the op or the title. it was you who brought it up.

Peregrinus

Strawberry Fields wrote: »

As it criminalises men for purchasing sex and the womem who sell sex or offer sex have not committed a crime.

No, it criiminalises anyone, male or female, who purchases sex, while not criminalising someone, male or female, who sells it. No discrimination on the grounds of sex there.

Strawberry Fields

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, it criiminalises anyone, male or female, who purchases sex, while not criminalising someone, male or female, who sells it. No discrimination on the grounds of sex there.

Article 40 All citizens are held equal before the law.

Cedrus

SB2013 wrote: »

Why are you talking about Sweeden? Sweedish law doesn't apply here.

SB2013 wrote: »

Swedish law isnt mentioned in the op or the title. it was you who brought it up.

Exporting the Swedish model
why-the-swedish-model-is-a-bad-ideal

The Pheasant

What I don't get is how paying a woman to have sex is illegal, but paying a woman to have sex while being filmed is perfectly fine

Peregrinus

Strawberry Fields wrote: »

Article 40 All citizens are held equal before the law.

Where's the inequality? The same law applies to everyone.

If criminalising the purchase of sex is "unequal treatment", is criminalising murder also "unequal treatment"? After all, people who commit murder are going to be treated differently from people who don't.

I understand that there's two parties to the transaction and only one gets prosecuted, but that's also the case with laws which prohibit the sale of tobacco to minors, or the sale of alchohol without a licence. Nobody suggests that those laws infringe equality principles.

(For what it's worth, if the purchase of sex is illegal then the prostitute who sells sex could be prosecuted for aiding and abetting the purchase of sex - and vice versa if it's the sale of sex that's illegal. So, in either case, both parties could be prosecuted.)

Peregrinus

The Pheasant wrote: »

What I don't get is how paying a woman to have sex is illegal, but paying a woman to have sex while being filmed is perfectly fine

Well, of course, it's not necessarily perfectly fine; it depends on the law of the place where the film is being made.

It's perfectly fine in California, which is why that state is the porn-producing capital of the US. This was established some time in the 1980s, when the authorities attempted to to prosecute a porn producer for the offence of "procuring another person for the purposes of prostitution", on the basis that he was paying porn actresses to have sex. He was convicted at first instance, but on appeal his conviction was overturned on the basis that (in California) prostitution requires paying someone for physical sexual contact for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification of the customer or the prostitute. The porn producer had in fact appeared in the film himself - one of the perks of the job, I suppose - so there was paid-for sexual contact between him and the actresses, but there was no evidence that this was for the purposes of sexually gratifying either the producer or the prostitute; the gratification they sought was financial rather than sexual in nature.

This case established that making porn films is not prostitution in California, but of course other jurisdictions may have different understandings of "prostitution", so speak to a local lawyer before you set up your production company. The fact that the porn industry is centred in California does suggest that other states in the US do not take a similar view.

And, even in Californaia, if you video your encounter with a commercial sex worker because videoing these things or watching the vidoes afterwards is what floats your boat, that is prostitution.

Dandelion6

SB2013 wrote: »

Swedish law isnt mentioned in the op or the title. it was you who brought it up.

You obviously haven't been following this debate in the media and the Oireachtas. The whole issue is whether or not Ireland should bring in the Swedish law. There is no other "proposed prostitution law change" in Ireland that I'm aware of.

Furthermore the OP specifically stated that the proposal s/he is referring to is to make it illegal to buy sex - which is the Swedish law.

Dandelion6

Peregrinus wrote: »

(For what it's worth, if the purchase of sex is illegal then the prostitute who sells sex could be prosecuted for aiding and abetting the purchase of sex - and vice versa if it's the sale of sex that's illegal. So, in either case, both parties could be prosecuted.)

That's an interesting point. The ideology of those promoting the law, though, is that the prostitute is a victim rather than an accomplice.

Of course this assumption is heavily premised on the stereotypes of prostitution where you have a socially/economically-advantaged buyer and a weak, possibly pimped or drug-addicted seller. It would be much harder to justify in cases of, eg, a severely disabled man paying a high-priced independent escort for sex, or a woman paying for a yoni massage. But they'd be caught by the law, too, if it were "equally applied".

Strawberry Fields

agree with dandelion,

I see it as two people engaging in an act, one actor is criminally liable,
one actor despite being a facilitator, co conspirator and accessory in any other crime is away scott free.

I think it wil be interesting if the first person done under the law should runs up to the HC with a constitutional challenge.

Pelegrinus you use the analogy of murder I see the analogy of selling drugs versus buying drugs. Also on the basis of gender how many women have ever been arrested for buying sex? Anywhere?