Media from last week

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22920391-1242,00.html

Sex workers rally against law reforms

December 13, 2007 08:11pm

Article from: AAP


PROSTITUTES turned out in central Sydney today to mark the 5th International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, and also to oppose New South Wales law reforms.

Spokeswoman Janelle Fawkes said the new sex workers laws, which came into force across NSW in July, would have the effect of pushing the ages-old industry further underground.

"On the basis of a single complaint, local councils in NSW are able to seek extreme closure orders, including withholding utilities such as power and water," Ms Fawkes, chief executive of the Scarlet Alliance, said today.

"The unintended consequences include increased uncertainty in the industry, which makes compliance with its laws even more unlikely."

Ms Fawkes said Victoria was considering adopting similar laws, which hand more power to councils to regulate the industry and close down unauthorised brothels.


The laws also widen the scope for people to lodge complaints.


Ms Fawkes said the reforms signalled a collusion between government and larger brothels, while sex workers felt their rights to a safe workplace and to occupational health and safety had been stripped away.

"The NSW closure laws are simply opening more pathways for corruption, and are a revived form of sanctioned violence against sex workers," she said.

The laws also widen the scope for people to lodge complaints.

Ms Fawkes said the reforms signalled a collusion between government and larger brothels, while sex workers felt their rights to a safe workplace and to occupational health and safety had been stripped away.

"The NSW closure laws are simply opening more pathways for corruption, and are a revived form of sanctioned violence against sex workers," she said.

Some Quotes from a Pagan E-list I'm on

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant
character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust,
unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, blood-thirsty, ethnic
cleanser; a mysogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal,
filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously
malovent bully.

~Richard Dawkins

~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~

Christianity: The belief that some cosmic Jewish Zombie can
make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and
telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he
can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity
because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a
magical tree. Makes perfect sense.

~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~

Those who behave just to get into Heaven have no values

There is no ‘sex neutral’

I’m not usually a fan of the simplistic us/ them, ‘you're either with us or against us’ divides. However, while having an online chat with someone, who brought up one of my online profiles, which identifies that I wish to meet queers with sex positive values, and asked if being sex neutral is enough…I really don’t think so, actually

In a society that is so overwhelmingly sex negative, to be sex neutral is, in a sense, to support the status quo. Further into the chat, I realised that this person felt as if sex positivity implied that all sex was a good thing, all the time, was unable to distinguish between rape and consensual sex, so to be 'sex neutral' meant to have a balanced view. Quite simply, I define sex positivity as a rejection of the dominant view of sex as shameful, or harmful, and seeing any and all consensual sexual practices as not needing justification or apology. This doesn't mean that other social justice concerns (racism, sexism, ablism, peace and anti-violence work etc) are put aside in the pursuit of sex, or think all sex is amazing and fabulous all the time, but to know that sex negativity is the opposite of life affirming, that it damages the way we feel about our bodies and our ability to experience pleasure, and inhibites our ability to have joyful, negotiated, respectful sex.

Of course sex isn't always an amazing experience.... at times I have had sex that way so awful, I'd rather chew my limbs off and poke my eyes out than repeat the experience. Mostly those times have featured - in my early years of being sexual, shame and awkwardness and an inability to communicate or have any real language to communicate desires and boundaries, a lack of goodwill and respect between sexual partners - at the tail end of nasty relationshiups - of the last few tense shags before the break up, this will sometimes be the case, or sex with someone that is physically attractive or generally charming and fun, whom I am yet to discover is in fact morally incompatible. Mostly, aside from issues of incompatibility, sex can be improved via good communication, respect and good self esteem. Sex negativity eats away at the possiblity of this.

When working for a South Australian organisation, I was involved with the committee to organise the first Sexual Health Awareness Week. The theme was 'pleasure, safety, respect'. I loved that pleasure and respect were considered essential parts of sexual health. For common-sense, sex positive sexuality info, check out http://sexuality.about.com/