Residential brothels: the hint is in the name
Auckland Councillor Cameron Brewer thinks Something Must Be Done about small owner-operated brothels in residential areas.
It’s the same old, same old. Because apparently residential brothels only exist because the operators are disgusting jezebels seeking to taint Innocent Family Suburbs with their degeneracy. It’s not because, um, men and even women from said Innocent Family Suburbs might, you know, occasionally employ the services of sex workers. No no no, it’s all gross people from [insert probably lower-class surburb of your choice here] who like to cross town to get their ends away, again because they want to ruin Cameron Brewer’s quiet, paradisaical cul-de-sac.
And it is of course appalling that brothels might be operated close to schools, because it’s not like sex workers are human beings who might have school-age kids and find it convenient to work in their own neighbourhoods with flexible hours to allow them to pick the kids up at 3 (wait, that would mean that the disgusting jezebels live in Good Family Suburbs, and we all know they live in [insert probably lower-class suburb of your choice here] in gang pads/state housing/meth labs).
And it’s not like sex workers go to community centres, or church – and hang on, it’s not like churches are a 100%-a-okay institution, because let me tell you given a choice between a small owner-operated business running itself quietly behind a quaint villa door or a branch of Destiny’s Church? I will take the hookers any fucking day.
Anyway, Cameron Brewer is concerned about serious problems, yo. Like, um, traffic (betcha some residents of Sandringham would take the “traffic” of one, two, say five small brothels over the drunken mobs of Eden fucking Park) and, um, lighting (which is just fine if you’re in a super-wealthy subdivision running obnoxious Christmas installations) and OH WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN.
Because obviously the only people who would ever use the services of sex workers must be child molesters, too. I mean, that’s why there’s not really that many brothels around, because they only cater to freaks, WAIT NO, um, there’s too many brothels because, um, disgusting jezebels are happy to run at a loss if it Damages The Foundations Of Society. And freaks have lots of money. Which means they’re kinda successful, but only, um, because they’re running brothels too! And probably selling drugs. Drug-dealing pimps are propping up the sex industry. Yeah. That makes sense.
If there’s one thing I cannot fucking stand in the discussions around sex work in this country (any country, really) it’s that fucking paradox: No Real Man Would Go To A Brothel, yet somehow They Are Everywhere And Destroying Our Families. With their low levels of patronage. Which you see every day.
Councillor Brewer, maybe you’re the one Good Decent Man who villifies sex work and can actually say he’s never paid for sex. That would be refreshing. You’d still have your head up your ass. There’s a reason it’s nicknamed the world’s oldest profession.
Ideologically Impure 
What people seem to forget is that the Prostitution Law Reform bill was all about providing legal protection to a vulnerable sector of society.
So by running a small home-based business to the ground, Mr Brewer is not just a collossal dickhead, but commits the following sins:
1) Anti-Competition
2) Anti-Small Business
3) Anti-Free Market Principles
4) Pro-Legal discrimination based entirely on one’s choice of occupation…
(I could go on, but yeah).
I lived right next door to a brothel last year, and I must say I have never had better neighbours.
The Simpsons gets it right http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeYyzoONK6U (audio only)
Great post, this is a sad national trend where councils try to edge out sex work wherever they can because they haven’t embraced the reform agenda that parliament passed.
Smacking down people who abuse their power, having equal employment opportunities for women, and having a sex-positive attitude in wider society would reduce sex work in a legal way while still allowing women who want to or need to engage in it feel less stigmatised and protecting our legal principles.
But of course, the opponents of sex workers in politics don’t really care about that. They want sex work to be something that’s discrete, and restricted to the upper classes, so that they can get their rocks off on the side while still pretending sex work doesn’t exist in public.
Gold.
And then there are street sex workers. Don’t forget, Auckland and Christchurch City Councils are trying to get their vicious and transphobic antisoliciting bill into legislation and cut back the antisoliciting clauses of the original Prostitution Law Reform Bill. It’s transphobic because transgender street sex workers aren’t covered under the Human Rights Act, which still enables cisfolk to discriminate against transwomen and transmen when it comes to employment, accomodation, goods and services provision- including brothel employment and working from council flats.
Newsflash: Transwomen sex workers are not expendable and nor are ciswomen who need to undertake the street sex work option to support their families.