I think (after a few beers and some red wine) that being in favour of the legalisation of prostitution does not entail being in favour of having bloody spearmint rhino ( or whatever) branches, and posters advertising them, every bloody where. I think that efforts to control this part of the 'leisure industry' are most definitely not out of order.
Obviously everyone (or at least the big majority) on here recognises the sex industry to be mysgoinistic and vile in nearly all its forms (I say nearly all because I doubt anyone could say that about chippendales who have a good job all in all, which shows, on some level, that the sex industry is mysoginistic and vile because of capitalism, rather than being intrinsically the case. Who knows what kinda sex industry, if any, you'd have in a socialist society, but I wouldn't automatically say you'd have none).
But the irony of what you're saying is that spearmint rhino is the top end of the sex industry, where the women get paid the most and get the most security and even union recognition in some places. Yet you're saying you want to shut these places down and possibly drive these women into more sleazy unregulated strip bars or even prostitution. Where is the logic of this? You either support legalisation of prostitution and the sex industry or you don't. That obviously doesn't mean that communities should have to suffer a free for all of sex shops, brothels and strip bars (and that applies to many industries) but at the same time why zone in on the best bit of the sex industry in terms of women's rights, when there are so many other horrific parts of the sex industry to concentrate on. Not least the scum who are pimps who operate because of prostitution being illegal and also in non-legal strip bars.
I guess we need a revolution that smashes bourgeois sexual commodification. But in the mean time....
Don't be ridiculous, no-one is saying this and plenty of people who support the legalisation of prostitution aren't revolutionaries. But that aside I think this is another instance where RESPECT is a bit weak. It's no good quoting a single representative of RESPECT, surely RESPECT should agree an stance on something like this, espeically given you're having a campaign on it in Tower Hamlets. Surely the national committee in RESPECT should come up with some kind of RESPECT policy given that this is the case.
So I'll ask again, why do the SWP ask for a Spearmint Rhinos in Sheffield to be shut down given how many other bits of the sex industry are so much worse.
And given RESPECT, apparently, have no policy on this and are making it up as they go along in Tower Hamlets, what would the Tower Hamlets councillors who are SWP members have to say about this, have they said anything?
The fact is that you can say that you support the women who work in those industries in every sense, but the only way to give workers in the sex industry union and legal rights is to legalise the sex industry. Questions of planning issues and how many places you have per square mile or whatever are a secondary question.
I somehow doubt that if prostitution and strip bars were legalised that it would suddenly mean that every other shop down your local high street will then be a brothel or spearmint rhinos, that's certainly not the case in Holland.
In the neighbouring seat, where hindus are the largest minority, Respect had a poster outside the temple and more than a few supporters inside. So I suppose that makes it a Christian-Muslim-Atheist-Hindu alliance ... Hmmm, but where people of all faiths support a political party what do you call that? Oh yes, democracy ...
. What I object to <as do feminists> is women demeaning themselves, and for crap wages, just so some daft git with more money than sense gets to feel he 'owns' her for a while, and some other sleazy bastard makes a shed load of cash out of the desperation of others
