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While on an airplane a couple of weeks ago, Pete and I read the following in The New Zealand Herald:
“Australia’s hotel industry has been rocked by a court’s ruling that a prostitute had been illegally discriminated against by a motel owner who refused to rent her a room to work from.
The ruling has stunned hotel and motel owners, who had thought they had a right to decide what sort of businesses were operating from their premises.”
We just looked at each other and shook our heads in disbelief.
It turns out that prostitution is legal in the Australian state of Queensland* and discrimination against lawful sexual activity is prohibited by law. On a related note, prostitutes have been streaming to Outback mining towns, where they are settling temporarily in order to cash in on an Australian mining boom fueled by the Chinese demand for raw materials.
The unidentified plaintiff was seeking A$30,000 in damages. (The Australian and U.S. dollars are nearly on par, with the U.S. dollar worth a smidge less.) She was quoted as saying, “Not everyone would choose to do the job I do, but it’s not right that they can treat me like a second-class citizen…”
I’m still pondering this and trying to decide how I feel about it. What do you think?
* Author Bill Bryson talks about Queensland in his book In a Sunburned Country and how the inhabitants are an unusual breed unto themselves. He described them as “mad as cut snakes” and went on to illustrate a few of their idiosyncrasies and quirks. If you haven’t read this book, I encourage you to do so.
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Have you entered my book giveaway yet?
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Wow, that’s a tough one. I can see both sides.
Hmmm. Well, I can say that I hold the relatively unpopular opinion that prostitution should be a legal enterprise – not because I want to be one, or want my daughter to be one, or want my husband to engage the services of one, but because it is (as you stated) the oldest profession in the world, and legalization allows for the protection of the ladies who are so employed. I may not want my daughter to be a prostitute, but if something happened that she chose that path, I would damn well prefer that she be protected by law instead of having to deal with the abuse of pimps and customers that comes from illegality.
As for the issue of the hotel owner…I don’t know. On the one hand, I agree that a business owner should be able to prohibit a legal activity on his premises that might endanger the health of other patrons (smoking, for example – before Virginia’s statewide law prohibiting smoking in restaurants, restaurant owners could still decide to prohibit smoking in their establishments, even though smoking is legal). But if the legal activity doesn’t endanger anyone or even bother anyone? I’m not so sure. Maybe she was really loud and obnoxious and was bothering other guests, in which case I think he was justified in throwing her out. But if no one even noticed she existed, she seemed like just another guest and wasn’t bothering anyone, what’s the big deal?
I agree with you about legalizing prostitution, Jen_a. Legalization would bring some level of governmental regulation and oversight, which would make it a safer profession than it is now, at least to some degree. If a woman *chooses* to sell her body, that’s her business. My opinion gets sticky when coercion and force come into the picture.
As for the hotel owner, it’s his property. If I own a house or a piece of land, I have authority over it and I can choose what activities take place there, as long as they are legal. Hmmm, suddenly I’m conflicted because what if it wasn’t a hotel but an office building? If the building owner chooses not to rent space to someone because he doesn’t approve of their business, that sounds like discrimination.
It has seemed in recent years that prostitution involves young women, even minors, forced into what is a form of brutal slavery. My question is, legal or not, how is that ended?
Maybe if prostitution was a legal, regulated industry, it would be easier to prosecute those who traffic in human sex slaves?
Having known a working girl who operated out of one of the finer hotels in town without suspicion by other guests (or even most of the staff), I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that this particular lady was perhaps not as discreet as she could have been?
I agree with Jen, it should be legal and if she’s not bothering anyone, then there shouldn’t be a problem. A customer is always right and a paying guest is a paying guest.
I agree with Jen and Becky. Making prostitution legal would be a good thing, especially for those women who are working at the lower end of the economic scale. I’d prefer my daughter didn’t enter that profession, but at the same time I think we make too much of a fuss about sex in the U.S. We’re fine with all kinds of legal violence, but God forbid people should have sex for purposes other than reproduction.
I have to add a caveat: I’m talking about adults here, not underage girls.
Unless she’s being blatantly obvious, crass, disturbing the neighbors, and/or attempting to pick up customers in the lobby…who the heck cares? A paid room is a paid room. And I agree – legalize it, get rid of the abuse, and protect the women (NOT girls). Make it easier for them to protect themselves and say no to the creepies and scaries.
(Note: opinions are my own and may not be the same as my employer….better add that in since I’m “owned” by the very right wing at the top of the structure.)
I guess the position is not an unpopular as I thought. I agree that legalizing what the pros call Sex Work is fine. I would hope it helps end the slave trade and the “turning out” of minors.
Agree as ell that it is fine for a hotel to evict someone disruptive, but not because they are making money using the room. Most business people go to where the customers are, after all.