in reference to tommy paines last post;
it wasn't me who made reference to tim hortons i don't think....but i understnad the reference.
i believe fortunate's point was that we all choose employment within our own physical and emotional boundaries. some people would think working as a tim hortons baker or cashier beats being a sex worker by leaps and bounds and would never imagine a situation where they would choose sex work.
on the other hand for some of us, choosing to work for minimum wage and living in poverty are unacceptable and we prefer sex work, it's income potential and the rewarding nature of the work.
as far as professionalism in BDSM, i completely agree. knowledge specific to that genre, anatomy, security strategies are all necessary. for the most part, in my experience dom's or BDSM specialists are generally very well versed in all of these things. i myself offer some all be it sexual domination services. i limit my services in that regard in particular with more complex senarious as i am not an expert. most of what i offer is verbal rather tha physical.
i'm not sure anyone is doing a victory dance. for me, it is important that we can all have a reasonable conversation abou these issues. it is paramount we reach some kind of consensus at least on points we agree on before the laws come down.
by-laws will remain even if only workers themselves are criminalized and many barriers within systematic responses will still persist. these issues are not being adressed and instead are being overshadowed by arguements on what model should be adopted by canada to adress the sex industry.
it is difficut for me to understand why so many seem so invested in the issue but yet no clear plan for decriminalizing workers has emerged from the camp supporting the swedish model.
it was stated that many of my ideas are understood and supported in terms of supports and filling the gaps in services felt by sex workers. i am sure the proposed actions here are far from complete and had hoped people would contribute knowledge, expertise and experiences to defining the things we all agree on.
for me, when a situation or discussion is degraded so far as to become what we have seen recently in the feminism forum, it is a tragedy for everyone. we need to find a way to meet in the middle. there must be common ground.
we all care about reducing violence, we all care about exiting opportunities, we all care about creating accessible supports for people. why can't we work towards that?
it is difficult to see how very far we have to go before equality for sex workers is realized.....if ever.
i will continue to work on these issues as i have for the past years and hope for a day where reason prevails.