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Child Item

Sex for free rent: Why is this so wrong between consenting adults?

[Deleted User]

This story - https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/08/02/sinn-fein-publishes-bill-to-ban-seeking-sex-in-exchange-for-rent/

The key point here, as I see it, is that two consenting adults enter into, or do not enter into, an adult relationship where one gives sex in return for the other giving free accommodation. If everything is agreed clearly in advance beforehand and there is no coercion of any sort, what is the problem?

People make all sorts of "grubby" deals in order to make a living. Sex is just another commodity. Power imbalances exist in all of our relationships, and these frequently determine our rights (for instance, if you do not have the money for a protracted legal case, the person who has the money but a weaker case will usually restrict your exercise of your rights). As with the ban on prostitution, this sort of proposal reflects a certain prudishness about sex, and imposes a certain moral view of it.

Can anybody justify this proposal?

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[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931106#Comment_120931106

Whatever happened to the maxim, "it's a woman's right to choose"?

All of a sudden, that gets thrown out the window.

If a woman decides -- without any coercion whatsoever -- that they are willing to enter such an arrangement, it's the business of nobody else to interfere, nor the state to criminalise those involved.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120930991#Comment_120930991

He’s as sweet a gentleman here as he is ever over other threads.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120930830#Comment_120930830

So you're also for bringing back indentured servitude because desperate starving people with nowhere else to go "accept the arrangement"

**** hell. This is striking.

walshb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120930851#Comment_120930851

Stud

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120930935#Comment_120930935

In for a pound, not the penny.

the.red.baron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120930851#Comment_120930851

she'd need a sherpa to be able to get up on you Paddy

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120930979#Comment_120930979

Your honor my client, Officer Scofflaw, didn't seek the bribery from the criminal, it was proposed by the criminal, my client merely accepted and that should not be criminalised.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931028#Comment_120931028

I'm aware of a Russian woman who was told her rent would be reduced for sex and was actively looking to find anything to get out as soon as possible.

[Deleted User]

Imagine being in such a position of having to agree to have sex with sone lech you would not in a million years choose to have sex with in any other circumstances, just to keep a roof over your head. This would most particularly apply to foreign girls arriving in Ireland and trying to find accommodation but could apply to many others too. 🤮

the.red.baron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931152#Comment_120931152

he was Putin her in a sticky spot there

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931134#Comment_120931134

In what imagined scenario is it not coercion?

Ten of Swords

Mod

@the.red.baron do not post in this thread again

the.red.baron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931169#Comment_120931169

in the situation where well they just say no to such suggestions, like the adults they are

if they are already tenants, then good luck trying it

timmyntc

Shur I already get rode by my landlord for 1000s of pounds every month, are you telling me some people get a discount for it!

I.R.Y.E.D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120930878#Comment_120930878

A case of

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120930995#Comment_120930995

So you'd be happy to criminalise the landlord for proposing such an arrangement but if a tenant proposed it, there'd be no consequences for the tenant?? Where's your sense of justice? O'Broin is an attention seeking eejit.

timmyntc

Its already illegal though? SF bill is just adding extra laws to cover something thats already illegal.

[Deleted User]

It's grubby, opportunistic and exploitative in current market conditions.

Release the room onto the market ya creep and take a few quid for it.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931134#Comment_120931134

Who said it's only women ?

I've seen some fairly suggestive "men only" room listings in London.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931130#Comment_120931130

Not many in Ireland right now.

If all this "consenting adults" thing is okay then can I put sex with me in a by job contract I offer to staff ?

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120930821#Comment_120930821

Yep, thats enough internet for me today.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931130#Comment_120931130

Not nessecarily in the Dublin market - quiet the contrary from what I hear - and I believe it's the same all round the country.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931096#Comment_120931096

I suppose if it's in the Irish Times it's not possible that it's been exaggerated or indeed entirely fabricated.

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931337#Comment_120931337

Correct.

RTÉ, the Examiner and the Times have all carried out investigations into this practice and come to the same conclusion.

if that doesn't suit somebody's narrative. tough shyt, its still true.

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931292#Comment_120931292

He is.

Farmers would pay top top dollar for that amount of manure.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931168#Comment_120931168

I’m an heterosexual Irish lady myself, and a landlord. I’m thinking of somebody arriving by themselves on our shores, trying to seek a life, maybe escaping a what wasn’t a great situation in home country, then getting this proposal they would never entertain if they had much of a real choice. An Irish lass or young lad or whoever is more likely to have family to run back home to until they get accommodation or at least better know the ropes around here.

I’m over 60, getting decrepit with MS, what if I suggested to a nice young male student who proposed to be my tenant, who already has a lovely girlfriend or boyfriend, that I’d reduce his rent if he came to bed with me every Wednesday night? That would be every bit as lechy and coercive as a male landlord doing it on a female.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120930987#Comment_120930987

If it's not by consent, then it would be a criminal matter of some sort. If, however, it is a clear agreement from the outset between one consenting adult, a landlord, and another consenting adult, the prospective tenant, to give sexual services in return for free rent, then the State has no business in that business transaction between two consenting adults. Indeed, it's a significantly more honest arrangement than... many marriages. The idea of free sex for free rent as the basis for a tenancy between two consenting adults should be perfectly legal in Irish law. The fact that it's sex that's involved gets the puritan shackles going in all sorts of silly people. Consent should trump all.

Plenty of people engage in similarly consensual arrangements - some arrangements like marriage having plenty of cultural dressing upon the economic, sexual and social exchanges underpinning that particular legal contract. And plenty of implicit threat of frequently life-changing impact - e.g. loss of children and family home - in the event of that specific contract being broken. But because of the cultural dressing obscuring that reality, people miss the economic exchange at the heart of marriage (which is, above all else, a legal contract).

[Deleted User]

All across Ireland there are older men or older women with younger members of the opposite sex. They give them a variety of "nice" economic things and in return get sexual and other gifts. These are very ordinary relationships where that exchange is implicit, covering a wide range of things from job promotions and networks to dinners to expensive gifts, etc. Again, saying that one person is taking advantage of/exploiting a weaker person for sex is a simplistic, disengenuous interpretation of what is really happening in that consensual relationship between adults, and the many varieties of relationships we all have where we are weaker/stronger at different times. Perhaps the non-EU citizen who agrees to sex in exchange for free rent in Dublin is quite happy with that as it will allow her to have a lot of things, and help people she loves, that she otherwise would not have been able to?

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931111#Comment_120931111

No, it's not duress if it's a condition of accommodation at the outset. If sex for free rent is a condition of a contract, the agreement at the outset upon which the accommodation is rented, which is made freely between two consenting adults then it's just a contractual condition. No sex, no accommodation; no accommodation, no sex. Pretty straightforward business exchange there.

"Duress: threats, violence, constraints, or other action used to coerce someone into doing something against their will or better judgement."

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120931432#Comment_120931432

If, however, it is a clear agreement from the outset between one consenting adult, a landlord, and another consenting adult, the prospective tenant, to give sexual services in return for free rent, then the State has no business in that business transaction between two consenting adults.

Yes it does, because you are trying to argue they've entered into a contract...

some arrangements like marriage

Is also a contract...