The topic of purchasing licenses for ‘escorts’ came up on one of the chat board and wanted to share my 2 cents about why I oppose any licensing schemes that governments may want to impose on us;
1) Licenses and permits schemes are usually expensive and only some of us can afford it. This creates elitists among us. We oppose any such actions that create these kinds of tiered systems because they’re unfair-the create inequality.
2) These schemes always involve giving up some elements of our privacy and that’s a bad deal for us since we don’t have any access to equal protection. WE must have anti discrimination laws that bring us access to equal protection as a priority.
3) Since the criminalization of certain activities, we have no access to our first amendment right to negotiate for our labor, work conditions and wages. Why the FUCK would we bother waving our privacy (in the form of applications requiring real names, back ground checks, finger prints…) for nothing?
4) These schemes always bring a false sense of security when in reality they are like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Police agencies are always involved in administering the issuing of these licenses and permits and they use the information provided to them to target you-the issuee, for under cover investigations. This is to make sure you’re not violating the conditions of possessing such licenses or permits. So the idea that participating in these schemes brings us more safety or any benefit is a lie.
5) History has shown that these schemes are used as a means to manipulate and controlling our industry because they are THE way the public accesses us via regulation and legislative changes thereby effecting our wages and work conditions without our permission. I can point to countless examples of which I will only show url’s here so you can educate yourselves on the evolution of ‘taxes’ and ‘fees’.
http://www.epicweird.com/german-city-places-sex-tax-on-prostitutes
http://www.sfdph.org/dph/EH/Massage/default.asp
6) History has also shown that changes in these license and permit schemes are always done at the whim of optimistic politicians who point to our industry to score political points with the public. These changes are always brought in the name of bringing us ‘saftey’ but we always oppose them because they bring us more harm but driving us underground. They never listen to our voices-NEVER!
OUR COLLECTIVE POSITION has to be that we will NOT under any circumstance accept or be a party to any such licensing schemes without having said anti discrimination legislation (housing, education, child custody, financial institutions, employment-PRIVACY PROTECTION) in place first and be properly enforces until such time that all workers in our industry are completely enfranchises and are able to come forward and participate in any legislative process, acknowledged as primary steak-holders whereby our voices will be the primary consideration when contemplating any thing that has to do with us.
In other words, any such licensing schemes have to have been generated by us, for us to benefit all of us!
Maxine Doogan
Erotic Service Providers Union
