Whose rights are we talking about: legalised prostitution

The freedom to market prostitution operations as excellent financial investments, has far-reaching implications. Indeed that the financial stability of many investors in the Australian financial market could become inherently connected with the survival of a profitable and expanding prostitution industry has not been addressed by the Victorian Government. At the time of the Daily Planet’s original float the company’s directors were reported as having suggested that the shares would be an excellent retirees’ investment because they were bank guaranteed and offered a 5 per cent fully franked dividend.

The irony is that the State’s lawmakers when formulating Victoria’s principal prostitution legislation made it an indictable offence, with a ten-year maximum sentence, for a person to “live … or derive a material benefit from, the earnings of prostitution”.

The Victorian Government too of course can be accused of pimping. It benefits financially through taxation, licensing and prostitution tourism. Financial experts estimated that an increase in licensing fees in 2004, for example, would earn the government about an extra $1 million a year.

The real boon comes, however, through the integration of prostitution into our casino culture and hospitality industry. When the Crown Casino relocated into its new premises in Melbourne’s tourist trade complex of Southgate a decade ago, a new prestigious brothel - The Boardroom - was set up adjacent to the gambling complex, the first of six brothels to do so. These are located in what was termed the City’s “new re-energised area”, part of Agenda 21, a state-sponsored strategy to revitalise Victoria’s economy.

According to IBIS Business Information 2006 report, on Sexual Services in Australia, Melbourne is now “probably considered Australia’s brothel and tabletop dancing capital”, an image which they suggest is a big drawcard for such events as the Commonwealth Games and the Formula 1 Grand Prix.

As the industry expands so does the demand for prostitution. Victoria’s legalised prostitution system guarantees male buyers a regulated system that provides a steady supply of registered, health-checked women for their sexual use. At a minimum there are at least 60,000 visits to brothels and escort prostitution businesses in Victoria every week and Victorian men spend $7 million per week on prostitution. This is in an adult male population of around 1.8 million.

The legal and commercial reality of prostitution has meant that Victorian men, who prior to its legalisation may never have considered using prostitution, are now comfortable in purchasing a woman or girl for sexual gratification.

In bleak contrast to the above gains, women in prostitution remain vulnerable to poverty, discrimination, and violence irrespective of legalisation. Despite the pro-prostitution rhetoric that women “choose” prostitution as a satisfying career option, overwhelmingly women continue to enter and be entrapped in prostitution through a lack of other viable economic options.

Women are also often seasoned into prostitution because of histories of sexual abuse (surveys suggest between 50 and 90 per cent). They also experience a higher incidence of drug addiction than women not in prostitution, although research into drug and alcohol usage reveals that drug use is initiated or intensifies as women attempt to anaesthetise the pain of physical injuries and verbal abuse inflicted on them in prostitution.

The working conditions for prostituted women in legal brothels and licensed escort agencies are largely determined by the dominant position of employers and the market place. While legalisation has seen a substantial increase in demand for prostitution and a boost in total revenue, this has coincided with an oversupply of sexual services, and so women must compete for buyers.

Women continue to be coerced either overtly (rape and assault), or through economic necessity to meet the demands of both brothel owners and buyers to provide whatever sexual acts are demanded.

Male buyers in Victoria will not use condoms, with one in five men having admitted to unsafe sex. Men have also become more demanding and violent about the type of sex they want. The demand for oral sex, for instance, has been replaced by the demand for anal sex and the market for sado-masochistic practices is expanding.