Time and again the musings of “ if only the hobby was legal” come up on this board. Granted; staring a possible criminal record in the face 24/7 is unsettling to be sure. The specter though of what a bureaucratic boondoggle “licensing” would create for you gals is however worse.
  Today for the 6th time in 12 years I had to renew my particular professional license. For the fifth consecutive time what should have been a simple ho-hum procedure was turned into a Stress-A-Thon because as usual the different Government bureaucracies as well as private bonding company concerns are/were unaware of changes to policies and rules recently changed by one and all. Ultimately all concerned but I am under the belief that it is the consumer/practitioner’s responsibility to know, understand and inform each party of the changes that each has made and truthfully doesn’t yet understand themselves. As with the last five Bi-annual renewals I was forced to spend my entire day making amends for each agency’s incompetence to the other’s needs. Along with the fuel burned in my car, lost revenue and near stroke inducing stress I also had the privilege of paying $200.00 to the various agencies for a laminated license that by another administrative stroke of genius is now larger in dimensions than the prior which make the license I must carry at all times on my person too large to fit in any wallet.

Ladies; the grass might be greener if your craft was legal, but only over the septic tank.  





-- Modified on 1/14/2006 12:08:36 AM

Then we'd all be in a shambles. Literally choking others.. LOL..

We'd all have to be 100 dollar girls cause we all offer the same thing..

Maybe 105.00 if we offered greek. Cause every girl would practice greek to offer something different. Before you knew it.. a schlew of girls that do greek. Which may incur an extra dollar or five since everyone is doing that too..

Lots of divorces cause all the men would see escorts being it was reasonable prices. They'd stop being so careful ! They'd all come to Buffalo for Ciaras ad..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Come see me stand on my head and spit wooden Buffalo nickels for  30 dollars an hour. Extra hours are 15 dollars. Im running a special this week. 30% off !!! I'll even squirt milk out of my eyeballs for an extra 10 !!

Sorry to hear you're going trough that morass of bereaucratic nonsense. That sucks.

I wouldn't want what I do to be regulated, which usually means being told where and how we may ply our trade. And, we would have to register as sex workers, which I wouldn't want to do.

I suspect a lot of women wouldn't want to register, so there would still be rogue SWs who don't want to be identified and labeled, for fear of never being able to escape their past once they move on to other ventures. A lot of these women would be middle to higher end girls who are in school and/or who want to marry well.

LE probably would go after the unlicensed escorts with more zeal, so the risk would still be high. High risk = high price. But the licensed girls might charge less because their risk is low. If an unlicensed girl can't get a high enough price because she's competing with the licensed girls, then I think they would either find some other line of work or she would go to another area.

If LE simply stopped making an effort to go after SWs, then the risk for us would go down, and so might the prices.

Feel free to pick apart my theory. I like hearing other people's ideas.

One of the benefits of regulation would be that SWs would probably be required to be tested regularly, which is good for all of us.

If the biz were decriminalized, then maybe we could set up a way for us to be tested in a way that allowed us certain privacies, while some trusted entity could vouch for our clean health.

I hope that makes sense. Early morning ramblings from a now very sleepy girl who's ready to go back to bed for a while.

From http://bayswan.org :

  SWOP wants to repeal the laws criminalizing
  prostitution. Rather than the regulated
  brothels of Nevada, they instead favor the
  Australian decriminalization model, which
  allows sex workers to go into business for
  themselves.
~ http://www.sfbg.com/38/18/cover_hookers.html

-- Modified on 1/14/2006 6:31:50 AM

stupid about these issues. Look at the tax revenues that could be raised. The fed would tax both.

There are enough fakers in the hobby and too many are asking for top $ and giving a tad more than you find at Mary Palmer's. Just read the Obits as I like to call them for any given city and you get more than a few remorseful guys who will likely not venture into deeper waters to find the real sharks. When Prohibition was over, cheap booze flooded the market and persists to this day. It didn't stop however those quality "distillers" who  still make their own in certain parts of the country. If you think your area is compromised now by the fly-by-night operations, just wait til they make it legal. As far as your other concerns, everything in this life is about behavior. If you do not engage in careless acts, it's likely that you won't need more than regular doctor's visits.

Pick your battles wisely and fight those.

worried about "fakes", then you're not doing your TER homework. It is almost impossible to get ripped off if you research reviews.

and that works for you.   But equally logically, Mr FR is walking point and sounding the alarm so that these issues - hopefully - remain small stuff; and that works for him.

To each his own, and we all have our place; and perhaps your concern is also small stuff.  Mr FR's information helps you and me to pick our battles more wisely.

Now I think we should battle a beer.

Legalization seems to be a good goal, till one envisions the nightmare it can cause.  More than likely, if you had a license, ninety percent of women would run their businesses unlicensed and unregistered anyway-- just to escape the harassment of authorities.  

I would hope that legalization would be part of a larger enlightenment, where people would understand the absurdity of trying to regulate consensual sex.  

In my mind, the idea of licensing is perverse anyway in a free society.  A license is literally  "permission."  If the government issues permission to do an ordinary thing, run a business, it should be something that is otherwise illegal, a trespass, or a tort.  

Instead of a license, how about a "certificate of competence?" if that's what the concern is.

In this legal and social environment, I would be more afraid of giving people legal authority to harass women.  I'm afraid that licensing would be many times worse than simple illegality.

Ciara of Phoenix. Bi-partisans welcome but know the donation is non-negotiable. Wink!

Hugs,
Ciara

but that last promulgation is definitely Fiscally Conservative.

I absolutely would want the hobby decriminalized or legalized.  It would be a huge benefit for the mongers among us.  

However I can understand the benefit of LE cracking down on street whores.  That kind of activity is horrible for neighborhoods and wouldn't want to live where it is going on.  

However what financial transactions occur between people should be between them and escort services or brothels in certain non residential areas should be allowed.

look no further than the "legal" brothels of NV.  Women I have spoken to who have worked in them describe a situation that would shock even Charles Dickens.  Legalized sex slavery would be more like it.

Lets hear from the denizens of these fine lands as to how it is working (or not)

Wrong? I think we are saying the same thing. Wouldn't a significant increase in the numbers do exactly that; you know, supply and demand... as far as TER, it's here and it's not a guarantee to anything other than somebody's not all that factual comment on the hour or two that he had... me thinks you are nuts if you believe everything you read.

Trysters rule!  

Which industry is more full of greed, sleaze and scandal: the sex industry or the government?  The answer: the government.  

No doubt, then, about who should be regulating who.

at least 20 million more votes to be taken seriously. Hugs & winks, dear Zin!

Hugs,
Ciara

Ciara, you have my vote my dear.

If it's legalized, along with sex workers having to register to ply their trade, they would also have to maintain a bunch of records, I imagine, in order to satisfthe demands of the IRS and whatever state and local tax agenies they would fall under.  That means providers would be paying taxes on activities which now are almost all untaxed and almost all cash [certinly denting the financial incentive to enter this career].  Likeise, there would probably be some identification/receipt procedure necessary for the hobbyists using the services of the providers.  Gee, can't think of a better way to kill off the demand side than having to sign a receipt or produce ID whenever I was in the mood to hobby.  I like my anonymity, and living in NYC metro area, the chances of LE problems are almost nil as long as I don't solicit the street trade.