A Sexual Position.

I realise my posts have been pretty heavy lately, showing videos of comedians crying, anguishing at the downfall of the American dream and the Palinbomb that threatens to scuttle my Obamadream. I guess I was scared that with the world ending and what-not, I needed to throw out some evidence that showed God, or Buddha or Captain Planet or whoever is in charge of the afterlife that I was a witty and opinionated kid that could really spruce things up around heaven. Anyway, long story short, the Large Hadron Collider is undergoing repairs (apparently some helium spilit) - so as I am freed from fearing my imminent destruction I can talk about what I've been wanting to talk about all along. Hookers.

Prostitution was legalised in New Zealand in 2003. It was pretty damn contentious when it was passed - cast, predicately, as a struggle of traditional morality against the progressive and dangerous forces of change. Arguments against the bill went something along the lines of 'It will undermine family values !! What will we legalise next- public parades with topless women in our streets! Will somebody please think of the children!!' Even in 2008, our media seems to get pretty excited everytime someone in a position of 'moral authority' is found to be moonlighting as a sex worker, and uses regulation government announcements about increased funding for tertiary education courses that reflect the job market to make banner headlines that scream 'ZOMG! THEYRE GOING TO FUND PROSTITUTE CLASS!!!1!', But to the best of my knowledge, New Zealand still exists - God has not smited us in a South-Pacific Sodom Style Smackdown. It isn't the job of the state to regulate the moral code of society and attempt to objectively determine what 'values' are good for all its citizens. The job of the state, in my view, is to ensure that all citizens are equipped with enough basic resources to be able to do what they damn well please. (or live according to their own conception of the good life, depending upon how lyrical I want to wax).

But arguments about the legality of prostitution should never be about whether it fits into an ethical or theological framework. This war over values, I think, detracted from the debate and lead to a law that is ultimately wrong and prevents our state from fufilling its other duty - to protect its members (no pun intended) from harm.

My biggest problem is that prostitution, in being legalised as a business, has been effectively lumped into the category of just another business. Therefore, as a business, prostitution is simply just a normal transaction between two fully informed fully consenting parties - just supply and demand, baby! I, a consumer, want bread -so I go to a baker and purchase bread at a price that she is willing to sell and where Im happy to buy. I, a consumer, want sex - so I go to a prostitute and purchase the use of her body at a price that she is willing to sell that I am willing to buy.

In most cases though, prostitution is not a case where both the buyer and seller in the transaction have the same level of 'choice'. While the buyer has made a decision that he/she have enough money, time and want to go out and pay money for a blowjob, the prostitute themselves is often someone who is forced into it through need to get money, often to raise a child, and has very little economic opportunites elsewhere. When kids are 5, they want to be astronauts or actors or firefighters or ponies. What they dont generally want to do is grow up and work in an industry where they, night after night, put themselves at the risk of a hideous STD and are forced to give up their bodily autonomy to some sweaty 350-pound, 44-year old Warhammer playing nymphomanic with a skin condition. People don't generally choose to be prostitutes for the lifestyle. They do it because they need the money.

Of course, the obvious response is 'well yeah, but people end up doing jobs that they dont like, or dont want to do, all the time, and the only reason they work those jobs is cos the money is so good, and they need that money to live. its called capitalism, u hippie.' Taking aside the unfairness of people like me being able to come to university cos Daddy had a bit of money stored in his mattress, and fuck around learning about Hegel's concept of geist, while people who didnt have the good fortune to have successful parents get to clean my toilet...this response just doesnt really work when it comes to prostitution. Sex is not a loaf of bread, or a sparkling toilet. (anyone who wants to make an appropriate metaphor linking all three things will be bought a beer, however.) It's different. It's different, because while all jobs require us to give up a right of freedom of movement, prostitution requires us to give up one of the most fundamental rights bestowed upon us - the right to bodily autonomy. The right that we do not allow any others to violate without our total free consent, and punish breaches of this right to bodily autonomy with our criminal justice system. I can't touch you - unless you tell me that I can. I can't kill and eat you - even if you asked me really,really nicely. And most crucially - I can't give you one of my kidneys in return for financial compensation, because we say that money is not something that can be valid consideration for the violation of this fundamental, incontestable right.

Yet, we're sweet about the routine violation of bodily autonomy the comes with the sex trade. To the point where, given that we have legitimized it as a profession, we would rather that young, vulnerable women (and men) are forced to subject themselves to the dangers of the job and the inability to choose who they give up the right of bodily autonomy too, instead of them signing onto a state-sponsored program of unemployment welfare. After all, our society looks down on the unemployed who 'bludge' off the tax dollars of hard working, employed citizens, when there is clearly work available in the labour market....

Prostitution forces the prostitute to give up the right of bodily autonomy in pursuit of the mighty dollar. Given the dangers that it subjects to the supplier, I do not believe it should be legitimized as a profession. But, that is not to say I am a fan of joining Pope-Bishop-ArchCardinal Tamaki and the loonies of Destiny Church (NZ's equivalent of the American evangelical movement) in calling for a return to the dark days of where a prostitute who was severely beaten and raped could not show up to the police station because she or he would be arrested on account of her job choice. So I'm going to suggest something quite controversial...that we recriminalise prostitution in New Zealand. BUT, when we convict people for the crime - we only convict the buyer. After all, the buyer in this transaction is the only person making a truly free and independant choice, not a choice subject to economic circumstances. So...even if there is a supply of prostitutes readily available (as there inevitably will be, no matter how many Merrill Lynch's collapse there will always be someone keen to be lynched by prostitutes, who may or may not be named Meryl - whether prostitution is legal or illegal, there are always people who will work for the money), the demander in the economic relationship knows they face criminal prosecution if they are caught. And the prostitute who is attacked by her client is able to seek appropriate justice in a court of law, without facing prosecution themselves.

This argument is probably filled with many holes, as I wrote this fairly quickly and its 2:17am. But I'd be pretty interested to get some debate going amongst both the readers of 'A word on failure' so let me know what you think.

And sorry for taking all the fun out of sex.

Alex