13 June 2010

It's all about the labeling really?

| johnboy
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The Canberra Times has a piece on calls by the Scarlet Alliance for HIV positive sex workers to be legalised.

Their view is that with appropriate precautions there’s no risk.

Simon Corbell, however, is not so keen:

In a brief statement Attorney-General Simon Corbell said the Government was not considering any changes to the Prostitution Act 1992.

So if one were to frequent such an establishment would you be happy with precautions? Or prefer some labelling?

HIV positive sex workers

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CanberraCreative6:58 pm 15 Jun 10

Skidbladnir said :

My two cents:
Really bad idea.
There are children walking around now who are evidence enough that condoms break, and the kind of person intentionally visiting HIV+ brothels, instead of the clean(er) variety, probably isn’t going to mention ‘that time one broke’ to other partners.

That’s a very good point.

It’s also interesting to note that most statistics on the effectiveness of prophylactics focus on the pregnancy aspect, there is mush less out there on the STI protection efficacy.
Figures differ, but in general the failure rate for condoms when used correctly is around 2%. For typical use though, I’ve seen figures around 15% and as high as 25%. These statistics are for failure to prevent conception though.
For HIV, the National Institutes for Health indicate a reduction in risk of 85% relative to using no protection. WHO found it was up to 95% reduction. So even using the protection, the risk of infection is not mitigated.

…is this because some prostitutes want to give back to the community what they sex-industry has given to them?

CanberraCreative said :

Prostitution (Russian Roulette) Act 2010 ?

Too right.

I don’t think that anyone with a STD should be practicing in prostitution, particularly when it’s life threatening, regardless of the precautions taken. The people that use these services often have partners of their own that don’t know what they do. If they want to play russian roulette with their lives, whatever, but they then take that “risk” back home with them. I believe it’s too risky.

I’d say HIV+ prostitutes are OK. The HIV+ clients should be encouraged to use their services primarily, which makes things safer for those HIV- clients who want HIV- prostitutes.

Skidbladnir said :

…lobby group would bother advocating a pragmatic position…

Can anyone one describe this position, I’ve never tried it….

CanberraCreative11:37 pm 13 Jun 10

Prostitution (Russian Roulette) Act 2010 ?

The scarlet alliance are f***ing nutters.

glennmatthew6:35 pm 13 Jun 10

I believe it should be legal, however there should be legislation in place for all peoples who are HIV positive to disclose pre-intercourse, not just prostitutes.

The issue would then be mute, prostitutes who are HIV positive would no longer be “outlawed”, and the community can make an informed decision as to whether they are willing to engage in that level of risk.

Let’s face it, legislation or not, HIV+ prostitutes are still going to work. At least if they’re not illegal, we have a chance of acknowledging the risk before the fact.

Labelling? Would that require a tattoo?

Pommy bastard5:07 pm 13 Jun 10

I’d want to know in advance what I was getting into

Fnaaar…. snuuuurt… titter….

Without proper inspections, who is to say this kind of thing isn’t happening already?

Simon can refuse to change whatever laws he likes, but without any form of reliable factfinding efforts to direct policy, its a bit of a quick call.
Frankly its unlikely that a lobby group would bother advocating a pragmatic position direct to the media and Government if there was no problem.

My two cents:
Really bad idea.
There are children walking around now who are evidence enough that condoms break, and the kind of person intentionally visiting HIV+ brothels, instead of the clean(er) variety, probably isn’t going to mention ‘that time one broke’ to other partners.

eyeLikeCarrots5:00 pm 13 Jun 10

Either there are 2 RA users who would never frequent such places, or there are 2 RA users that love living on the wild side.

neanderthalsis4:49 pm 13 Jun 10

”The reality is that if proper precautions are taken there is negligible risk of HIV transmission during sex.”

They also said that the Titanic was unsinkable.

As there are no inspections of ‘legal’ brothels, and no mandatory health testing, all this is just hypothetical discussion anyway.

Who are the f*cking idiots that propose this sort of thing?

Not every drunk driver has an accident and kills people. Do we let them on the road?

I think their brains are f*cked as well

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