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

I knid of agree, but then very much disagree. I don't see sl as a means to make real money, but I would like to make enough sl money to pay for my sl needs (mainly land rental, but maybe the odd outfit seeing as the one I have is the first and only not freebie I've ever owned..). I recently made an item after inspiration from a friend. I won't say it's the best example of its kind on the market (it's a basic cage, for whatever needs someone has for a cage..), and I certainly am no uber skilled creator. But it did take me two or three days of intensive thinking, trying, redoing, and adjusting. In total I probably spent around 100L in upload fees before I considered it good enough to sell. And it's priced at 25L, on slx. I'll have to sell 4 (and a bit due to commission) to break even, and after that teh sales are hardly going to inflate my bank account more than reaching down the back of th sofa for loose change would.

In real world terms getting around 7 UK pence per item after that level of effort would be lunacy, but for me the satisfaction of having made something, even if that something is just some atoms organised on a hard drive somewhere, is a big part of why I do it. If people think it's good enough to pay even a tiny amount for, and if it gets used, then I guess I'm happy. Would I be happier if I could do such things and draw rl income from it? Of course. Would I be pretty happy if I could at least cover sl from this kind of thing? Definitely. But do I do it for those reasons? No, and I think only the creative genius or the idiot would even try to.

I'm not a fan of selling or buying sex (selling or buying sexual accessories or facilities is a different matter) as personally I want even a brief encounter to be based on something in me other than my ability to pay being the attractive feature to her, whoever her may be. But for those that do wish to sell or purchase sexual services, I hope all sides get something safe and satisfactory. Given even the higher prices I've seen charged for escort work in sl is still nothing in the real world for most, I would hope and imagine most who do it are in it as much for the kicks as the money, because I'm sure as hell the average text escort isn't going to be needing a Swiss bank account any time soon!

But the topic of this thread is an interesting one to me. I may not want to sell sexual services (or buy them them), but I do feel there seems to be a lack of concern for the human rights of those who do. I can only put it down to the rigid puritan roots of our societies, where anyone who does more than missionary with their spouse, lights off, is somehow subhuman. And much as I hate the current trend of (more than) equal rights for x y or z faction of society, removing the stigma surrounding sex workers and thereby giving them greater respect and rights seems no bad thing to me.

I was offered 10,000 L for an hour of my time once.

Just sayin'

*winks*

It says the "right" to marriage. Now in order to give the "right" to health care to some we take the fruits of labors from some to give to others. I was trying to point out that the word "right" has be stretched and mangled beyond any reasonable definition. So I ask again, if someone has the "right" to marriage and they cannot find anyone to voluntarily marry them, do we force someone to marry them in order to fulfill that right?


Or was this list of rights sloppily written?

Not an attack against you Scylla, but of "positive rights".

So what did you spend the money on?

If you received a weekly stipend, did you miss it?

No, Chris. The "right to marriage" means the right to get married, unless there is some just cause or impediment, if you find someone who wants to marry you. It's a right in the sense the "right to vote" is. The right to vote means just that; it doesn't mean you can make some run for office because you particularly want to vote for him or her.

Similarly, you can't present yourself your local court saying, "I have the right to a fair trial so I demand you arrest me, charge me with something and give me a fair trial" (though, if you did, they might well comply, I guess).

Not to demean your value Rizzy, but the Mistress of the Bordello I worked for was once paid 70,000 Lindens (about £270 or US$400) for an hour of her time in SL.

Pep (I got her time for free )

I have been one upped by Pep! (Vicariously no less!) *pout*

They (and the rest of we British too) still do.

Pep (We use 'em to whack little white balls around, unlike those North Americans who batter seals with them.)

Just making the point that it *is* possible to make more than pocket money in sl as an escort (she was not the highest earner there) and that there *are* idiot men with too much money willing to waste it.

Pep (Which means that there will be others who are willing to exploit weakness in both sexes.)

/me bows to Pep's superior knowledge and skill in all things escort related.

Oh don't be silly! The safeword is "Yes, Dear." Best said from behind a newspaper over brekkie.

This will immediately convey the message: "Flying cherubim are more likely to carry the family station wagon to Xanadu, singing Elvis all the way, than I am likely to perform said mentioned action."

* * * * *

As for 'lifestylers'... I'm of two minds. Some do great with it, and I am personally and truly happy for them.

I've known others that *thought* they had such a situation, only to come to me and say they were tied up, raped, and filmed... and the resultant recordings sold and distributed in the underground market for such things. This wasn't SL, this was quite real life, and happened to a friend of mine in the 1980's in Newport Beach, California.

A lot of money around there, a lot of grown up trust fund babies with money and time on their hands looking to fill an otherwise 'set for life' life, and they get up to these sorts of things with regularity. My friend was rather foolish for getting anywhere near it; he had started out with the Society of Janus and fell in with a bad crowd or something.

Picture for a moment an otherwise rather strong, independent looking 20~something guy admitting to *me* what had happened to him, when I was about the same age. And asking for advisement as he fought his pride to explain it. How does one even *start* with something like that? He didn't know everyone present when it happened, and to my knowledge it was never resolved.

This sort of thing was (is?) ridiculously common in Southern California. The odds of him going to work for a business owner or upper management type in the area that may have actually *seen* him in such a film was not insignificant.

That's one of the faces of "D/S lifestyle" I have seen personally ~ plus a few other comparable situations that I am not about to discuss in detail here. Of course I have known a number of other people who had no such issues. Though I did notice that when not physically together, both partners in more stable situations were as naturally independent as cats.

If there were a common thread throughout it all, just about all of them were either heavy drug users, or ex drug users and now vegans or some such. But that may have just come with the territory. As a wealthy harbour for small ships somewhat near the border, Newport Beach has one of the most intensive drug smuggling problems on the west coast.

Among friends I was generally known as 'normal' or 'mundane' or 'not into it'... and was in and out of the country too much to really have time to get up to any nonsense. Marriage and kids puts a huge damper on any sort of casual social activity anyway... so I've lost touch with most of the wilder friends over the years.

A lot of overlap, certainly. In 1948, it would have been hard to sell a document to UN member states that mentioned "sexual orientation"; indeed, the "right to marry" clause in the Declaration starts out: "Men and women..."

True enough, and sad. The fact is that there are predators everywhere. One reason why I much prefer SL for my more adventurous adventures.

I can't imagine what she could've done to earn it?

And here I am in both lives buying 2 pizza slices.

QFT

Pep (Can't comment on the rest; I can now remember little to nothing of my times in LA except Magic was magic. )

Well, if you *really* want to know . . . my coaching starts a long way after Lindal's stops, though.

Pep (I wouldn't have thought it was your style. )

PS A hint: the best johns wear expensive shoes.

I have had friends and collegues who were banned from clubs where they worked because they wouldn't give free rides to security or even staff members. But it's quite a while ago since I last heard such a thing.

I found most harrassment actually comes from paying customers, who somehow got it in their heads that I fell in love with them or something like that, and start IM'ing me and offering teleports the second I come online. It seems hard to grasp for them that some girls LIKE to escort in SL, and are NOT interrested in an SL relationship. There HAVE been a few hundred man (and women!) before you trying that, and I won't give you what I couldn't give them either.

Escorting is a very convenient way to make some lindens on the side, while doing something that we love to do.
Hiring an escort is a bussiness agreement:
You buy sex
You get passion thrown in as an extra
Personaly, I am open to just listen to you if you want to get something from your mind, so you get a social worker as well.
You do not get love from me I'm afraid. I love my job, not you.

Wow this is a crazy topic..lol

I think they are going to have to depend on the TOS and things to help them with their battle..

Really in the eyes of the law there is no real escorting going on or pay sex for that matter in SL...
If there were all escorts charging for sex would be able to be arrested..
What is legal in Europe is not legal in the U.S and charging for cyborz i don't think falls into real escorting where they could be arrested..it's just phone sex and you can hang up or tp or red x or whatever..


I really don't even understand what the heck they are after with those rights? they want benefits or something? like a retirement fund? Heck if this passes where do i sign up ?

Thanks Chris. I didn't take it as an attack upon me; my gasp was really a response to the notion, which struck me as (deliberate?) hyperbole, of what you call "positive rights" being taken to an absurd extreme, i.e., "drafting" marriage partners for people who wish to exercise their "right" to get married.

I don't think, however, that this is quite what the declaration is really calling for.

I'm really curious myself about that..i mean this is pretty much an RL document it sounds like..

What the heck they want Scylla?? hehehehehehe

Seriously it is confusing to me..

Well, in RL, the lives of sex workers can be utterly wretched and very very dangerous. In good ol' safe, nonviolent Canada, something like 140 women prostitutes were murdered in the 1990s alone, a stat that is particularly horrendous given our (usually) relatively low rate of violent crime here.

The Declaration is obviously "pie-in-the-sky," but the essential message is: sex workers are citizens like everyone else, and deserve all of the same basic rights and societal privileges enjoyed by white and blue collar workers, stay-at-home parents, etc., etc. The implication is that EVERYONE should be covered by these rights.

It is shooting somewhat high, admittedly. More realistically, in most parts of the world, a Declaration of Rights for Sex Workers might specify things like, the right not to have the shit kicked out of you regularly by your pimp or johns, the right to actually retain your earnings instead of being forced to hand them over, the right not to be infected with AIDS or other STDs by every asshole who decides that he's paid enough NOT to use a condom, etc., etc., etc.

Legalizing, and regulating prostitution would of course be a step in the right direction. Interestingly, when the idea of Zindra (or Ursula as it then was) was first mooted, it occurred to me that this might in fact be an opportunity for LL to regulate the adult content biz a bit against possible abuses, as they do in many officially-designated European "red light districts."

I'm sure many (most?) of you would not have welcomed such a move, for a variety of reasons, but there was never any real fear of that happening, I imagine, anyway: LL doesn't really care unless it hits the bottom line, or the front page.

Real life trafficking goes on in US cities all the time in physically set locations that take the police way too long to bust anyway...

A few years back in San Francisco the police busted up some 16 'Asian massage parlors' - most of which were using trafficked women. In the late 90s, they found a residential home in the Silicon Valley full of trafficked women, with the neighbors making comments to the news along the lines of 'I just thought they had a lot of friends dropping by...'

I've seen a case involving a wannabe pimp working through craigslist, but she was only likely caught because the officer in question had been assigned long term desk duty after being in undercover work - he was probably bored enough to be willing to get that interested in a case.

I always think to myself that if this goes on in a more liberal women friendly city like San Francisco, it must be hell in more conservative areas where they're less likely to question a man ordering women around.

(which reminds me of the most interesting case of this I ever heard of: a Buddhist monk in Korea in the early-mid 90s arrested for running an operation with over 1000 women... As a monk and somewhat beyond reproach in his society, I guess he was just able to hide in plain sight long enough to amass that absurdly large of a network. I was in Korea when it happened, but I can't say I recall the details much anymore.)

Yeah, Ceka, it is an RL document, drafted in 2005 at the European Conference on Sex Work, Human Rights, Labour and Migration. It isn't an "official" document, in the sense that it is not the work of elected legislators, nor has it ever been, in its full form, actually endorsed by any government, but it HAS been used, in part, by some European governments as a basis for a liberalization of legislation.

I have no idea why Xanthia originally posted it here, actually. I rather wish she'd show up and tell us how she thinks this is relevant.

Ummm yeah... My mute, TP and Quit button would not work until I performed as requested..... Evil basterds...