Harassment of Escorts, Exotic Dancers, and Sex Workers in SL?

Xanthia Saunders has posted "The Declaration of the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (2005)" in the "Blondin, you have some Esplanin to do" thread. Knowing that Colette will not appreciate having that thread "hijacked" by discussion of it, I thought I'd copy and paste it into a new thread, because I am curious as to what, if any, response it will provoke.

The Declaration is an enormously important document in RL, even if governments have a tendency to ignore its provisions. But in what sense does it address concerns that are relevant to SL?

I am frankly not sure why Xanthia posted this, but I assume that she is referencing the possibility of the exploitation and/or harassment of sex workers in SL. (No, I do not know Xanthia.)

Although I have counted among my good friends in SL at least two (fairly high-end) escorts, as well as the owners of a strip club, I confess I have not heard of more than one or two unsubstantiated accounts of in-world harassment by sex club owners of their employees.

So, I'll just run this up the flagpole and see what comes of it.

-- DOES anyone know of cases of harassment or exploitation of sex workers in SL?

-- Do YOU have particular policies in this regard at your club or escort service?

-- Are your employees (if any) "off bounds" to you, for instance?


The text from Xanthia's original post follows:


The Declaration of the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (2005)
========================================

The Declaration was finalised at the conference and is based on international human rights instruments. The process of establishing the Declaration was initiated by SIGN (the Sexwork Initiative Group Netherlands) and the Declaration was established based on a year long consultation with sex workers across Europe and international human rights, labour and migration experts. Based on the results of this consultation a draft Declaration was established for consideration at the conference. The Declaration highlights what the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe calls “current violations of the rights of sex workers in Europe which occure across health and social care, housing, employment, education, administrative law and criminal justice system.” Furthermore the Declaration highlights “actions required to ensure that the rights of sex workers are respected in Europe.”

According to the Declaration different approaches to the sex industry have been adopted across Europe (regarding female, male and transgender sex workers, and including migrant sex workers). These approaches range from acceptance of sex work as labour and the introduction of labour rights for sex workers to the criminalisation of a wide range of practices associated with sex work. This criminalisation may affect the sex worker, sex workers partners or their clients. The Declaration states that “legislative measures that restrict the fundamental rights and freedoms of sex workers proliferate at local, national and international levels, claiming to be in the interests of combating organised crime and promoting public health.” The Declaration argues that this contradicts advice given by UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation stating that legislation restricting the rights of sex workers undermine public health policies by driving the sex industry underground. As well as the European Parliament’s Resolution on Violence Against Women, which called for the decriminalisation of prostitution and a guarantee that prostitutes enjoy the rights of other citizens. The Declaration states that “many measures are in violation of the obligation of States under international human rights law to respect, promote and protect the human rights of all persons within their territory, without discrimination, and including the right to privacy, to a family life, to legally leave and return to one’s country, to be free from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment and from arbitrary detention, and in favour of the freedom of expression, information, freedom of association, and movement.” The Declaration notes that “there is not one country within Europe – including those with regulated sex industries – where sex workers have not reported discrimination and violations of their human rights.”

The Declaration reiterates that under international law it is “a fundamental human right that “all persons are equal before the law and are entitled without discrimination to the equal protection of the law””. The Declaration identifies human, labour and migrant rights that sex workers should be entitled to under international law, hence synthsising rights that have been agreed in international treaties and covenants for all citizens. The Declaration furthermore proposes steps and policies to ensure the protection of those rights for sex workers. The Declaration cites 17 regional or international human rights and labour rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

According to the Declaration “all individuals within Europe, including sex workers” are entitled to the following rights”, which “European governments are obliged to respect, protect and fulfil”

* the right to life, liberty and security of person
* the right to be free from arbitrary interference with one’s private and family life, home or correspondence and from attacks on honour and reputation
* the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
* the right to freedom of movement and residence
* the right to be free from slavery, forced labour and servitude
* the right to equal protection of the law and protection against discrimination and any incitement to discrimination under any of *the varied and intersecting status of gender, race, citizenship, sexual orientation etc
* the right to marry and found a family
* the right to work, to free choice of employment and to just and favourable conditions of work
* the right to peaceful assembly and association
* the right to leave any country, including one’s own, and to return to one’s own country
* the right to seek asylum and to non-refoulement
* the right to participate in the cultural and public life of society

Under the right to work, to free choice of employment and to just and favourable conditions of work the Declaration effectively calls for the decriminalisation of sex work, stating that “the lack of acknowledgement of sex work as labour or a profession has adverse consequences on the working conditions of sex workers and denies them access to protection provided by national and European labour legislation”. The Declaration also demands that “sex workers should be entitled to equitable employment and social security benefits”.

I was hired as 'security' by a (nationality deleted) club owner on the basis I would not receive any monetary remuneration, but that I could have my pick of the girls at the end of every shift I did.

Pep (Unfortunately, the club owner omitted to inform the girls of this arrangement. )

PS I later found out that the only two not to object (in principle of course; they all wanted me to partner them really) were really blokes.

PPS Security? My job was to keep people there, not throw them out; that usually involved demonstrating to the punters to what extent they *were* allowed to harass the girls!

OMG Pep, please tell me that this is you being "sarcastic" again . . .

It is, right? RIGHT?

Why would I lie?

Pep (has led a more interesting SL than Briana or Jig might imagine. )

LOL. More interesting, in fact, than ANY of us might have imagined . . .

Actually, Jumpy (Jumpman Lane) has made noises in the past (in his profile and, supposedly, in his ezine) about sex worker's rights in SL. Don't know whether he's been an activist or whether it's RP.

It's an interesting question, internet-wide. I don't know why I find it galling that people are trying to earn pennies in SL doing, basically, phone sex work for which RL compensation is orders of magnitude higher.

edit: You can't protect people from themselves, though.
.

Pep utterly pwns thread on post #2, using only four sentences. A new record.

It may now proceed on topic without further delay.

* * * * *

On topic: This is a side of SL that I just don't see, so good luck with it. Pray that nobody brings up underage typists in such roles or this will be the drama thread of the summer.

If ever my estate collapses and I am reduced to working in this industry, I shall remember the battle for my rights fondly. My stage name would be Dessie Shangalangadingdong.

It wasn't as much fun as the gig I had being the Human Resources Manager for a bordello, for which my duties included quality control and on the job training.

Pep (I had to keep the girls occupied between johns, otherwise they would wander off and find freelance work.)

PS Again unpaid! What about the rights of the non-sex workers!

Friday thread on a Wednesday?

In my endless quest to be helpful, let me share a tidbit I picked up in slate.com: all "female" sex workers' first names should end in "A". Supposedly it connotes C-cups in some corner of the American male's mind.

No, Desmond! You are supposed to create your "Escort" name by taking your first pet's name and combining it with the name of the first street where you lived.

Pep (Joey Graigyfedw - doesn't really work for us Welsh, does it!)

PS I knew the girl singer in Rocky Sharpe and the Replays who had a hit with Ramalamadingdong in the UK - her name was Helen Highwater. (not really)

Imagine if these all applied to immigrants in the United States.

Or gays.

I have to admit that I just "don't see it" either . . . but I'm not what one would call conversant in the "industry." To build on what Nika has said, I can't really imagine how one could be "compelled" to do sex work in SL (unless, I suppose, there were emotional coercion or something similar from a partner or lover?), and so it makes little sense to me that anyone WOULD work for pennies doing this stuff unless the job appealed for, um, other reasons . . .

But, hey, maybe I'm wrong?


I think I'd pay just to see that tag above your avatar.

Indeed . . .

You're being a little naive. I had a friend who was the sub in both rl and sl of a Master and she did *whatever* he told her to do.

Pep (Or doesn't that count?)

PS I initially opened this thread to reply because I thought from the title it had been mistakenly posted here rather than the "Help Wanted" forum and I was interested in the wages.

/me changes name

Perhaps because all the jobs in SL, DJ'ing, live musicians, motivational coach, diet consultant, minister, roofing contractor, architect, etc. etc. etc. etc., all pay mere pennies, while their RL counterparts pay orders of magnitude higher?

Probably her point was that it is the same thing in both cases. Hard to be a mechanic online, though.

Your parents lived on Shangalangadingdong Street when you were born???

Ah, I stand corrected. In that case, I'm Laddie Marian.

Considering your name, unless the DJ is Welsh it's probably easier to announce me before you.

~ sings ~ "You can leave your hat on..."

So how can we deal with this particular gap, whether it applies to the sex industry or other SL trades?

What would SL be like if people weren't doing these jobs? There would be no good high quality clothes to wear from places like Bare Rose, all the wonderful hair would not be there, you couldn't go to a club and hear good music but there'd probably still be people there engaging in gesture spam, all the wonderful homes and other buildings would not be there, no vehicles worth driving.....

And yet the value of such things is ridiculously low. Take my own experiences for example. I currently have my DJ rates set at L$500 per hour, two hours minimum. Plus tips. There are a large number of places that hear that 500 L$ number and show me the door immediately, because they refuse to pay any such amount. They say it's not worth paying that much money for such a thing. Christ, that's not even legal minimum wage, and I could make more than minimum wage working for an AM radio station!

Something's very wrong with this picture, and I'm not the only one dealing with this.

Yes, maybe . . . although this may be the first time in this forum that anyone has upbraided me for NOT assuming the worst about something related to gender relations.



And YOUR stage name would be . . . ? Although, arguably, what you have now might work pretty well.

A D/S relationship has to be consensual, otherwise it is not safe, no? "Safe, Sane, Consensual".

Most D/S relationships are based on an agreement on limits. I imagine that it's fairly common in RL for a sub's limits to include not being pimped out; in SL, there's always that Quit button!
.

Values are low in SL , but what do you expect? As nice as they are, the goods for sale aren't real, so most people aren't going to pay real money for them. Yes talented people spend time making them and providing other services, but for most people SL is still only entertainment, and will only spend so much. Especailly in these times. But I agree that $500L an hour is not a lot to ask if you are a good DJ, and not just a stream plyer.

Well there's a few ideas going on there, really.

June Dion (Bare Rose) makes her real world living from her SL shop. Also, graphics does translate.

But voice 'escort' and cam 'escort' are the same exact thing as happen on other sites online at a much higher rate of pay. (Everyone knows this) So I was only saying that it is a much clearer analogy than, say, auto mechanic, which can only be roleplayed in SL.

Now if you make a car in SL, that is actually computer art/graphics, which again can be done online. Whether someone makes a living in SL or on a website doing that, or computer animation companies, etc., depends on the same approximate level of skill.

DJing in a real club will bring in a lot more real money to the club than DJing in a virtual club so the pay scale is commensurate.

Has the DJ market gone bust? The SL book I read claimed it is one of the top paying 'jobs' in SL. A lot of outlay too.