And yet you’re still talking about it.

Sheena, below is my post from 286, which is lost somewhere way above, in answer to your question:

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There is sex slavery in Australia. There is sex trafficking, and there are women engaging in sex work to support their drug habit.

Sex slavery is a crime covered by law, sometimes engaged in by brothel owners. BEcause brothels are registered, and regularly visited by police, council inspectors and sex worker representatives, it is difficult for sex slavery or child labour to be carried out for very long, and people who do so receive heavy penalties as well as the loss of their business. You can find many examples of these prosecutions (including of politicians who also own brothels) in the newspapers.

Sex trafficking is also a crime covered by law, due to the activities of sex worker unions, who have been campaigning both to eliminate the practice and to gain foreign sex workers increased rights since the 80s. These sex worker representatives are not fond of the US view of trafficking though: you can read about it at Bay Swan, or the Scarlet Alliance, if you are interested. Sex workers in Australia oppose sex trafficking but support the right of women to come to Australia from Asia to do sex work, since the money in Australia is better and the conditions safer. Since the women coming here are poor, sometimes they need to enter a contract (like any migrant worker). i.e the sex worker unions oppose sex trafficking but support migrant sex work.

Women do sex work to support their drug habit, as do men and children. They usually do street-based sex work, sometimes to support their partners too. Sometimes they have pimps, but usually they have a dodgy boyfriend protecting them. The sex worker union deals with these women too, helps them find drug treatment and other options for their income. But this is not sex slavery - this is slavery. Other women commit crime to support their drug habit.

The majority of sex workers in Australia are non-drug-addicted brothel workers, however, and these women are not abused. They choose to enter the trade, they work for a registered, licensed and regularly checked business, they pay taxes, they get health care, they are able to always use condoms, and they have a union. I don’t choose to make it my business why they do this work, except that they do and in many cases they prefer it to other work. If you are interested in this topic, I recommend reading Lisa Maher, Roberta Perkins, or any of the scholarly work coming from the National Centre for HIV and Social Research, the Sydney Sexual Health Centre, or the Academic Unit of Sexual Health Research. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Another time maybe.

Back to collaborating with Teh Patriarchy.

(Though I should point out that, as a member of the international community who supports the position of his own govt on this issue, “I was just following orders” and “it’s just a job” aren’t excuses for war crimes, which the US military routinely commits, particularly in regards to its targetting policies in civilian areas. It is the responsibility of individual soldiers to justify how they avoid committing war crimes).

Moving on to your second paragraph…

Unfortunately to make that point I had to drag other soldiers’ good reputation through the mud. But it’s their institution which is destroying their reputation, not my repetition of the crimes of that institution. They aren’t off-limits from criticism in any circumstance, including where the instituion whose bad name is dragging them down is useful to make a rhetorical point.

By way of example, you wouldn’t let a commenter here off the hook if she was a syphilis researcher from the second wave of feminism, complaining about the ethics of sex work researchers today while justifying her own community’s natural history experiments on black women in the 50s. ginmar doesn’t get a special pass because she is a soldier, and other soldiers don’t get a free pass either.

For public record, and before going back to my previous policy of not commenting on blogs, I offer you this. From ginmar LJ’s place, talking about me:

“captainvanille: God DAMN are you a slimy, smarmy, manipulative little shit. You come in here all flowers and puppies, completely ignoring the fact that you are, behind your fuck-me red lips and pert tits, the epitome of what they mean by the word “viper” - not a snake, oh no, but a poisonous, smirking, betraying, Patriarchal collaborator.

Go rot, and take your two-faced friends with you.

ginmar: Now, now. You don’t know what color her lips are. And she’ll probably take you to task for it with all the vigor she’s got saved up from ignoring all those nice polite polite she agrees with.

captainvanille:Okay, you’re right. I hereby take back my comment about “fuck-me red lips” and replace it with “lips artfully posed in a permanent fuck-me pout”. Because that’s something that’s very nearly guaranteed with the sex poxes.

Isn’t it just so cute when they make-pretend that their buddies can do no wrong?”

Sweety (and yes, this is me deliberatly using a patronizing term of ‘endearment - because well, my patience has its own limit to - see how i own my stuff?), my lips arfully posed in a permanent fuck-me pout and my pert tits, I reserve them for cute chicks. Not for Teh Patriarchy/Teh Menz. Whether it’s projection or simply straight bias, because you fuck boys doesn’t mean I do. At least, get your shit straight when trying to insult me.

And before I go back to Collaborating with Teh Patriarchy, can I just point out again how charming it is for the True Freedom Fighter Against Teh Patriarchal Evil to use such sexist loaded imagery as ‘viper’ to describe a woman?

i’m impressed that your head hasn’t exploded yet from all your cognitive dissonance.

And if you don’t think that ginmar deserves to be given some credit or being played nice with, consider that your statements could be offensive to other soldiers who have nothing to do with this discussion. Dragging them in it to make your point is everything but fair.

If this hypocrisy is difficult for ginmar to contemplate, that’s her problem. The argument remains valid regardless, and I was well aware of its offensiveness when I wrote it. Precisely because ginmar’s position is offensive, and pointing out same seeme the best thing to do, given she had just accused me of being a rape apologist.

Tch, tch, tch - and now you think you deserve a cookie for it too…

[/ginmar]

I don’t eat cookies. But I’ll settle for a set of fake tits. I’m trying to get RevEv to hook me up with a discount. I’m happy to send you pics as soon as I get them - that way, you’ll have some nice images to ad next time you want to bitch at me on you blog.

Don’t bother coming back to my blog. It’s like talking to a fuckin’ wall.