Every penny don't fit the slot...*

Now, your humble Devil has never used a prostitute (although he knows several people who have)—I wouldn't know where to start and, besides, I'm far too mean.

However, as he is a believer in free trade, he does believe that if a man wishes to buy sex and a woman wishes to sell it, then these too people should be allowed to fulfill the contract that they have agreed to without the state sticking its fucking oar in.

Unfortunately, our lords and masters do not appear to agree, evil little fucks that they are.

Men who buy sex from women who have been coerced into prostitution or trafficked for sexual exploitation would be prosecuted under proposals to be announced by the Home Secretary tomorrow.

Right. And how are the clients supposed to know, exactly?

Look, you can only prosecute someone for breaking the law if they know that they are breaking the law. I don't mean that ignorance of the law is a defence—it isn't. But if you allow that buying sex is legal, unless you've bought it from a certain person, then you should surely have to prove that the punter knew that that contract was illegal.

It would be totally unfair to prosecute a man from buying sex from a prostitute if he didn't know that she was trafficked, surely? So, the court is going to have to prove that the punter knew that the girl was trafficked, and I can see an awful lot of problems with that.

One of the biggest problems, of course, is that it will be almost impossible to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the punter was aware and therefore conviction rates will be derisory. And then, a whole bunch of special interest groups will start complaining about the low conviction rate—as with rape—and the laws will start becoming more draconian.

The first measure to be enacted at this stage, of course, is that the prsumption of innocence will go out of the fucking window; in other words, the punter will be presumed to be guilty unless he can prove that he didn't know that he was committing an offence.

The second measure will be yet more laws against the buying or selling of sex. And that will put people like Lara on the breadline.

It would be an offence in England and Wales to pay for sex if the woman was being controlled by a pimp, had been coerced into the sex trade or was trafficked into Britain for sexual exploitation.

As Timmy points out, that rather depends on your definition of "trafficked", doesn't it?

That there are some who are literal slaves I have no doubt. That there are some who are "trafficked" under the UN definition who are so trafficked by their own free will I also have no doubt.

The problem is that the number of the former is tiny, miniscule, while the number of the latter is large (by comparison at least).

Quite.

Now, it is wrong that women are kidnapped and brought to this country and forced into prostitution; however, the correct response in this situation would be to fucking well enforce the laws that we already have! How many times have I had to write those words over the last (nearly) four years?

We have laws: fucking well enforce them, you totalitarian cunts. If you cannot enforce the laws that we already have, then how the living fuck do think that you can enforce the thousands more that you have enacted?

Seriously, what the FUCK?

Last year Jacqui Smith said: “We recognise that there is considerable support for us to do more to tackle the demand for prostitution and to prevent the trafficking of people for sexual exploitation.”

Why don't you detect such crimes and then prosecute the perpetrators for kidnapping, slavery, violence, etc.? It's because you do not actually give a fuck, you hideous Gorgon.

And you can't tackle the "demand for prostitution" unless you fucking brainwash everyone into not desiring sex. You can criminalise acting on said "demand" but you cannot get rid of the demand, you thick cunts—although I believe that The Party of 1984 were working on abolishing the orgasm. Perhaps you should take a leaf out of that book—well, yet another leaf out of that book—and get working on that?

Oh, and while I am about it, one measure that might help these poor bitches who have been enslaved is to promise not to deport them if they come forward. Why don't you do that, Jacqui, you silly bitch?

God's balls, but I hate Jacqui cocking Smith.

Gordon Brown recently indicated his determination to legislate in this area, when his spokesman said that he believed it was wrong for men to pay for sex.

Well, I am very happy that Gordon has some morals, but that is all that they are—his personal fucking morals. And as I have argued many times before, neither the Gobblin' King nor anybody else has the right to impose his Puritanical, miserable and—I shall say this again—entirely personal morality onto everyone else.

This is why I have no time for politicians—even those who "mean well" and "genuinely want to make the country a better place" only want to do so according to their own personal morality. And what that means in practice is punishing those who do not share said politician's personal morals—or, at least, their professed morals (for we know from bitter experience that what a politicians says that he believes in is all to often rather a long way from what they actually do).

And given that, in general, every law that a politician passes makes the people of this country less free, that means that we are all forced into images of said politician on pain of state violence against us.

The Home Secretary will make clear that the measure will not affect sole traders or women selling sex of their own free will.

Oh, well that's fucking generous of them, isn't it? The state's going to let you keep your chosen livelihood: now, I hope that all of you prostitutes are going to write a nice, long thank-you letter to the government, effusively and humbly telling them how grateful you are that you will be allowed to continue living your life as you choose.

The move represents a compromise solution to demands from some senior members of the Government to criminalise the purchase of all sex.

An oblique reference to Harriet fucking Harperson, I suppose...

Police were concerned about the practicalities of a law banning any payment for sex.

Well, quite: it could be rather tricky. After all, the state taxes some bonuses and certain expenses as a "benefit in kind"—an attempt to conceal a salary boost—and certain actions might be so construed.

After all, if your humble Devil were to take a young lady out for dinner**, pay for the bill in full, then accompany her back to her flat and spend all night having wild and highly enjoyable sex with her (a situation that has occasionally happened, believe it or not), might that not be construed as "paying for sex"? I think that it could.

Exact details of the new offence and the penalties to be imposed are yet to be worked out.

What? You mean that the government has announced a new law but hasn't actually bothered to go into the details? Well, who'da thunk it?

Ministers believe that the measure will act as a deterrent to international human trafficking.

In which case, they are fucking idiots.

During a visit to Amsterdam as part of a government review of prostitution laws, Vernon Coaker, a Home Office minister, was told that the city was being used as a transit post for girls waiting to come to Britain to work as prostitutes.

Willingly or unwillingly? Perhaps Mr Coker actually undertook some scientific polling and research and would like to publish said report?

The Government has toughened its stance on prostitution in recent years, after initially considering “tolerance zones”.

The tolerance zone in Edinburgh worked rather well. Needless to say, once they abolished it, assaults on protitutes rose significantly. Nice one: way to go protecting women, you daft bastards.

Plans to permit small brothels, with two prostitutes and a maid, to operate legally remain under review.

Well, that would be a step in the right direction but, given the fact that the government "has toughened its stance on prostitution in recent years", what are the chances of that happening, eh?

In Britain, Harriet Harman, the Minister for Women and Equality, was among those in the Government pressing for tough measures to tackle the demand for paid sex and to give greater protection for women. She wanted to make it illegal to pay for all sex. Under existing laws in Britain, prostitution is not illegal but keeping a brothel is a criminal offence. Kerb crawling and soliciting for sex are also illegal.

Harriet Harperson is one of the most ignorant and poisonous evil fucks in the entire House of Commons and that is really saying something. That she is in any position of power says an awful lot, not only about the moral corruption of NuLabour but also the stupidity of the population and the flawed nature of our democracy. May she die in pain.

Why doesn't the state fuck off and stop trying to impose its morality on those who do not share said Victorian fucking values? Fuck off. Fuck off and die, you evil bastards.

* From this.

** It needn't be dinner. A couple of Bacardi Breezers might do the job.

Bob Piper: Labour Party members have never had a wank

It always amuses me when the Left paint themselves as the party of social tolerance when the vast majority of them are, in fact, as po-faced and censorious as the bloody Tories.

Let us take Bob Piper's comment on Lord Laidlaw's somewhat energetic romps.

A top Tory funder, a man who donated 25,000 pounds to Boris Johnson's Mayoral campaign, is exposed as participating in cocaine-sniffing orgies, and what does a top Tory blogger have to say about it? Well, it's all Harriet Harman's fault apparently for not opening up legal brothels to allow Laidlaw and co. to get their leg over in.

You see, this is typical of censorious little pricks like Piper: you see, much as these people tend to claim that they and they alone care about the poor and disadvantaged, they don't.

You see, if people like Bob actually gave a crap about the poor and disadvantaged then they would support the policies that best aided such people, and not those that merely fitted their own prejudices.

If, for instance, Bob Piper cared about prostitutes, the idiot would acknowledge that prohibition, of anything, doesn't work and that the reason to legalise brothels is not so that "Laidlaw and co. to get their leg over" (although, if they should wish to do so, a voluntary contract between two (or more) consenting adults is no business of the state's) but because it will protect those working in the sex industry.

I have long advocated the legalisation and regulation of brothels: the advantages are huge and most of the gains are made by those working in the sex industry.

Just think: we could have legal, licensed brothels turning over a profit (and paying tax); where the girls (and boys) are cared for, given regular medical check-ups (which are paid for by the brothel and not the taxpayer) and are protected from drug-pushing pimps and violent clients. Plus, of course, the bottom would fall out of the illegal trafficking market or, at the very least, police would be able to focus more resources on that problem.

What's not to like? Both the clients and the prostitutes themselves would be safer, healthier and happier.

Well, we know who doesn't like this: inflexible, stupid tossers like Bob Piper.

What a desparately sad attempt to deflect attention.

Coming from you, Piper, that's a bit rich, frankly. And don't tell me that you wouldn't do precisely the same thing were it a Labour apparatchik. You and Iain are both as tribal as each other.

Presumably Iain and his Tory colleagues also want to see the legalisation of hard drugs too.

No, I don't think that they do: that would require more courage than any of them have.

I, however, am a big fan of the legalisation of all drugs. Unlike with prostitutes (which I have never used ('cos I am so purdy, y'see), I have used considerable amounts of hard drugs, in both quantity and quality, and I have never lost a job, beat up my family, killed anyone, mugged anyone, etc. Nor am I a hopeless, stumbling junkie.

I summarised my experiences with drugs, and the reasons why prohibition is bad, in this post.

So, to summarise:

1. The illegality of drugs is very bad. It makes criminals of otherwise law-abiding people; it creates turf-wars and provides vast profits for crime lords; it ensures that many drugs are full of rat-poison, brinck dust and other crap which adversely harms the health of the users far more than the drug itself would do.


2. From an ideological point of view, it is none of the state's business what I ingest provided that I do not impinge on the rights of others. And most people who take drugs do not impinge on the rights of others. At all.


3. From the point of view of (2), the drugs that are legal are, in most cases, worse than those that are illegal.


4. Drugs are rarely bad and in a lot of cases they are positively good.

Most people who take drugs, even regularly, are not addicts. They do not require state support, and most would not look for it anyway. The vast majority of people who take drugs for recreation are middle-class people who have jobs that allow them to afford drugs.

Those who live off the state and are addicts are usually one and the same and I do not think that this group would substantially increase with legalisation.

However, most illegal drugs are quite powerful, and do require some caution. So...

1. Legalise drugs.


2. Educate people about the true effects of drugs (rather better than in my elementary primer above!).


3. Regulate their sale and their purity, through licensing, as we do with alcohol and cigarettes (this is one of the few areas that I can see state regulation being desirable (although there could also be private mechanisms for this)).


4. Tax them to pay for the negative externalities caused by those very few who require state help.

Legalise, educate, regulate, tax: my four point plan for dealing with drugs.

And, believe me, I think that everyone would be a lot happier...

For a really distressing, irritating yet illuminating read on why drugs are illegal (it was the bastard Americans: this may be the most damaging and hypocritical thing that they have done in their history) and just why this policy has been so appallingly damaging, then I cannot recommend enough the IEA's book, Prohibitions [free PDF download].

The book details several areas that have been banned or look to be banned—Recreational drugs, Boxing, Firearms, Advertising, Pornography, Medical drugs and devices, Prostitution, Gambling, Human body parts for transplantation and Alcohol—and then examines the lead-up to the prohibitions, the legislative process, the history and the effects of the bans. It is very accessible and informative: seriously, read it.

I read the section on how drugs were banned—in the teeth of common sense and evidence against such a measure—and nearly wept with frustration. The same applies to their examination of prostitution.

Seriously, Bob, you want a better society? Read this book and understand why bans don't work and why they harm the most vulnerable in society.

I suppose when you consider Dominic Fisher's (PragueTory) allegations that at least one Tory front bench spokesman was an alcohol, substance and self-abuser, it wouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

Oh right, Bob, because there are no such figures in the Labour Party, of course. And you note that one of the Tory front bench is a "self-abuser" in a slightly snotty tone? Are you trying to say that no one in the Labour Party has ever had a wank?

Strange really. You socialists seem so blind to the disastrous consequences of your policies that I had assumed that you were spanking the monkey at every opportunity.

I suppose that, faced with such an authoritative source, I shall have to stop calling NuLabour a bunch of wankers.

However, Lord Laidlaw does deserve condemnation but only because what he did is illegal—whether or not it should be is another matter (it shouldn't)—and he is part of the legislature.

And, Laidlaw's actions do, of course, display a certain amount of hypocrisy—although it pales into insignificance beside, say, Prescott's admission of a mental illness whilst his government cuts funding for treating such conditions—but then Laidlaw is a politician (albeit only in the second chamber): what does one expect?

P.S. Needless to say, the legalisation of prostitution and drugs are both Libertarian Party policies. And no, there'll be no compromise on these issues.

UPDATE: having read the whole article, all is not as it seems. Firstly, the orgies were in Laidlaw's Monaco home. [Emphasis mine.]

A News of the World investigation has revealed the sex-mad baron hires up to FIVE vice girls at a time for all-night orgies of spanking, bondage and lesbian lust at his Monaco tax haven.

Does anyone know what the status of prostitution is in Monaco? But prostitution is certainly not illegal in Britain; I wouldn't have though that it would be in Monaco.

Further, the coke-fuelled bit does not, it seems, apply to Laidlaw himself. [Emphasis mine.]

In the £6,000-a-night presidential suite the hookers snorted cocaine and guzzled champagne before getting down to the depraved main event.

One of Laidlaw's stunning escort girls, 22-year-old Vogue model Michelli Vignardi told us it was a "crazy" party, but added that Laidlaw DOESN'T indulge in the coke.

But brunette Michelli added: "Irvine was drinking and taking the sex drug Viagra. He f***ed me and another girl. He can still f***.

OK, so Laidlaw didn't take any cocaine, and Viagra is not illegal. And nor is fucking (although I am sure that, like Party in 1984, NuLabour would like to prohibit orgasms).

So, Laidlaw took no illegal drugs. I don't know the status of Monaco's prostitution laws, but prostitution is legal in Britain, so I'll assume that it is in Monaco.

So, actually, I was wrong: Laidlaw has done absolutely nothing illegal whatsoever.

Invasion of the body: snatches

It seems that some people are getting themselves in a tizzy about all the Olympic construction workers who will be flooding in (and, no, for once, it's not the BNP).

The imminent arrival of thousands of construction workers for the 2012 Olympics could cause a surge in prostitution and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, health experts say. Olympics chiefs are being urged to address the impact of the predominantly male construction workforce, which is likely to total more than 100,000 over the next four years.

More than 1,000 people are already working on preparing the site, with a further 2,000 scheduled to begin arriving within weeks as work starts on the stadium. Health organisations are warning that thousands of prostitutes, including trafficked women, are likely to arrive in the run-up to 2012.

Oh, noes! Doctor Crippen maintains that all of this is a filthy slur on construction workers...

This article is derogatory about construction workers. Are they any more likely than any other group of workers to require the services of sex workers?

Not necessarily; however, there may be reason to believe that itinerant workers of any trade are more likely to use prostitutes.

However, let us look at this from another perspective: if we did the sensible thing and legalised licensed brothels, we would not be looking upon all of this as a potential disaster but, rather, as a potentially good thing: a chance for the brothels to turn a healthy profit—after all, it seems quite likely that prostitutes are about the only people who are likely to make any money out of the looming disaster that is the 2012 Olympics.

Just think: we could have legal, licensed brothels turning over a profit (and paying tax); where the girls (and boys) are cared for, given regular medical check-ups (which are paid for by the brothel and not the taxpayer) and are protected from drug-pushing pimps and violent clients. Plus, of course, the bottom would fall out of the illegal trafficking market or, at the very least, police would be able to focus more resources on that problem.

What's not to like? Both the clients and the prostitutes themselves would be safer, healthier and happier.

So what does our government do?

Naturally, NuLabour is going the very opposite way, with Harriet Harman attempting to arrest anyone who's ever seen a damn prostitute, let alone used one.

When will people learn that prohibition simply doesn't work and that, as with drugs, the harm done by prostitution's illegality* does more damage than it would were we to make it legal and manage it safely?

UPDATE: Kim du Toit, coincidentally, writes about prostitution too and comes to the opposite conclusion. He writes from a moral standpoint, rather than my utilitarian one: however, I think that he is wrong.

Kim thinks that men and women who engage in such an act (and, for the record, I have never utilised the services of a prostitute) must feel crappy afterwards. But that, as far as I am concerned, is an issue for the two individuals concerned to deal with, not the state.

Prostitution happens; it has always happened. Since this is the case, we should make it as safe as possible and the best way to do this is to bring out from the underground and into the light. This ensures that both parties, but most especially the woman, are as comfortable and safe as they possibly can be.

Shouting that this offends your morals, it's a disgusting practice and that you hope it goes away isn't actually going to have any effect. It hasn't throughout the rest of human history: why should it be any different today?

The answer is, of course, that it isn't.



* Prostitution is not, technically, illegal. However, soliciting and living off immoral earnings are, thus precluding (at present) legalised brothels and ensuring that being a prostitute is, to all intents and purposes, illegal.