burn in hell

this makes me angry

Banning brothels in residential areas would be a welcome first step to curbing prostitution, though laws need to go further by making it illegal to pay for sex, Perth’s Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey says.

Why is it that prominent public figures feel the need to demonstrate their jaw-dropping stupidity to the entire world?

These.
Methods.
Do.
Not.
Work.
Douchebag.

Why do they not work? Because criminalising prostitution, whether the workers or the clients, does not address this very simple, elementary, basic fact:

Why prostitution exists in the first fucking place.

So. WHY does prostitution exist?

That is a whole other post. There is no one reason why prostitution exists; the complex interplay between sexual desire, socialisation, marginalisation and lifestyle needs are intricate and vast.

But that's not the crux of the issue.

The simple fact of the matter is, these "solutions", in not addressing the varying reasons sex work is taking place, do not stop sex work.

All they do is force sex work underground. Force sex work into operating in more clandestine, secretive ways.
This means that the people who actually work in sex work are subjected to unsafer environments and working methods and are further marginalised because they have less ability to be open about what they do and less recourse to legal protection.

This?

Just as a clue?

Does not protect sex workers.
Douchebag.

You know...

IT ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE!!!

You have to be GALACTICALLY STUPID to believe that "hey, we're making your work illegal" is GOING TO STOP SEX WORKERS FROM WORKING.

IF THEY'RE DOING SEX WORK...

THEY HAVE A FUCKING REASON.
DOUCHEBAG.

And you wanna know something?

Sometimes? That reason can be nothing more than an unwillingness to subject one's body, mind and skills to a puritanical, repressive, constrictive, hegemonic social structure that demands "good behaviour" along ridiculously constructed standards largely influenced BY FUCKING CHRISTIAN MORALITY.

THAT'S STILL A GOOD ENOUGH REASON FOR ME.

He supports the so-called Swedish model, which makes buying sex and brothel ownership illegal, rather than prostitution itself.

EVERY WHORE IN THE WORLD HATES THE SWEDISH MODEL.

Know why, douchebag?

BECAUSE CLIENTS ARE THE PEOPLE WHO GIVE US MONEY!

Yeah, you know, money... that thing that HELPS US LIVE?

Not that you need to worry about that because you're ensconced within a system that will take care of your needs.
FOREVER.
Until you are nothing more than a blotchy slab of muscle and fat on a dissection table, you will never have to worry about day-to-day realities of life.

The attitude inherent to the Swedish Model is: Hookers are all helpless little victims and clients are all evil, exploitative fuckers.

Apart from making it really hard to earn a living, it's really fucking insulting to suggest we are all dumb and helpless. We're human beings, FFS. If you can't at least consider us as smart and capable, can you consider the fact we have feelings?

And that goes for the clients, too. Where do these false dichotomies come from? How do you not constantly trip over things, seeing in black and white?

Not only that it is highly, highly sexphobic and shaming towards clients. Which I guess is at least a change from all of that being dumped on the whore's head.

Oh, except...

Archbishop Hickey said men had to be held responsible for what was effectively a form of abuse against women.

...

Archbishop Hickey is a closeted radical feminist?

You know what? I bet the radfems of WA (with whom I and friends have had an ugly run-in or two) will fucking embrace this guy, immediately forgetting that abuse against women has been Church-sanctioned - even instigated - for centuries. Women have routinely been suppressed and oppressed within the Catholic Church, a faith almost uniquely skilled at ignoring the tenets of its Messiah in its own hateful grub for power.

Why have all women in sex work been robbed immediately of agency and ability in this one short statement? That is the power he wields. In one quote, he sends a message echoing across this country that people in sex work have no free will.

The implications of that are horrendous, and yet people swallow it. In one fell swoop, he silences and diminishes the vast, complex variety of voices and wills and reasons and needs of the thousands of people who work in the sex industry of this country.

However, prostitution by private operators would have to be stemmed in other ways.

...

You have no business invading people's private lives. If a sex worker is operating privately, autonomously, then that should tell you everything you need to know: IT'S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.

The arrogance of this statement could only be handed down by the Catholic Church.

And what would these "other ways" look like. Oooh... is that the faint sound of rescuerescuerescue I hear 'pon the wind?

What's that? It IS? Well, colour me SURPRISED:

Also, there was an urgent need to boost funding for rehabilitation services for women who had escaped prostitution, he said.

REHABILITATION????

WHAT, FOR THE LOVE OF JESUS, ARE THEY REHABILITATING FROM?
Financial autonomy?
Control over their bodies?
Flexible work environment?
Independence from constrictive social norms?

This is nothing more than woman-hating, slut-shaming, sexphobic BS.

This is not about helping women.

It is about you not being able to tolerate a type of employment that, should stigma and discrimination against it be properly eliminated, liberates women (and liberates many of them even now) and gives them ownership of their bodies. That can foster sexual fulfillment and satisfaction and healing and comfort in hundreds of people. It is about you not being able to conceive of women as anything other than wives and victims, so deeply ingrained are your misogynistic opinions that women cannot choose to commercialise sexual services, or be sexual beings for any reason, or even be free of man's rule.

It is also about you ignoring the many, many men and trans-identified people who also work in the industry and the variety of clients who see them. In making this wholly about men clients and women workers, you effectively make them invisible, deny their existence and therefore deny any need and reason to address their important concerns and issues.


YOU? HICKEY? YOU ARE NOT A CATHOLIC. YOU ARE NOT. GET OUT OF MY FAITH.



(You know, I have this feeling this blog, in the future, will consist of this angry little Catholic excommunicating these fuckers at regular intervals.)

stop saying it's in His Name. you are lying. you are betraying us all.

this makes me angry.

If I begin to try and think this through, I get lost. I don't understand how people can be so evil and to claim their evil is righteous.

This is not my faith. these people, these monsters, are not of my faith. They're liars. They're all liars. they take something that was meant to be beautiful and they destroy and distort it and use it to destroy the lives of innocent people, to damage them in deeply hurtful ways.

It took me a long time to believe a person can be a Catholic beyond the Catholic Church. To be cut off from your faith is a horrible and lonely thing. To abandon a child, a child who has been assaulted and abused and violated and whose small, precious, fragile body has been subjected to so much already, including the abortion, because please don't begin to think for even a second that was fun for her, from her faith, to deny her the protection the Man who inspired the entire Church insisted was the right of all children - how can these people call themselves Men of God?

They are NOT of God. Or maybe they are, actually, of God. But there is nothing of Jesus in their words and their beliefs.

They diminish His Name.

As far as I'm concerned, they are not Catholics. I excommunicate them. They have no place in my faith. They are evil.

It's easy to say this faith is not going to do her any favours, it's better for her to be out of it. Yes, objectively, yes this is so. I no longer practice, though I wish in some way I could find my way back to it, but I think it is so corrupted and distorted it is not favourable for a child already so violated to be subjected any further to its hypocrisy and wickedness.
But you just can't excise something so intrinsic to who you are like that in a heartbeat decision and certainly not when you're a child.

I'm glad she went through with it, though unspeakably sorry and angry it was necessary due to the violation of her body by her rapist, I'm glad that her mother supported her, that the doctors supported her (please, a ceasearean? How could a nine year old's body carry two children to term? Evil, stupid, arrogant, pathetic men), and I'm glad they were brave enough and knew what was right enough to do it despite the threat of excommunication. I'm glad the world knows of this and sees the sickness of these evil men exposed and I hope, hope, hope to God she has all the support and love she needs to heal and carry on although she does not have the support of the official body of her faith.

If she wants it still, when it has so desperately and horrendously and unforgiveably betrayed her, I hope she can find it in a place beyond the Church.

But right now I just hope she is surrounded by protection and validation of her choice, the choice she had every inarguable right to make.