Tories - they never change

The BBC item states that there were 350 'sex industry' jobs advertised in job centres in the Uk in 2008. Not a big number, and assuming that these are legal jobs (how does one define a job in the 'sex industry'? The whole thing started with Ann Summers suing for the right to advertise for staff and they're not exactly a front for prostitution. What if a stripclub needs a book-keeper? Does that make the person a worker in the 'sex industry'?) then why shouldn't they be allowed?

And as for having moral objection to having to apply for such a job, what happens if the advert is for a trainee butcher or abattoir worker? Surely a policy where the job seeker must apply for such a job has to already take into account the suitability of the person for that job?
 
uk_dave said:
What if a stripclub needs a book-keeper? Does that make the person a worker in the 'sex industry'?) then why shouldn't they be allowed?
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According to the link in the OP,

BBC said:
However, adverts for vacancies such as a cleaning job in a lap dancing club would be allowed.
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And as for having moral objection to having to apply for such a job, what happens if the advert is for a trainee butcher or abattoir worker? Surely a policy where the job seeker must apply for such a job has to already take into account the suitability of the person for that job?
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On paper, if a person has been unemployed for six months, they have to take anything they're qualified for or lose benefits. It rarely happens, though, and there's always back-to-work courses you can take after six months, which would get you out of doing a job you find morally objectionable.
 
Skeptic said:
Imagine that. The government will no longer be carrying ads by pimps looking for fresh meat.

Damn Tories. So judgmental all the time.
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If you'd read Darat's post you would have realised that wasn't his concern.
 
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geni said:
The ban is a leftover of a labour proposal that didn't get sorted out before the election. No one able to create a mainstreme poltical party at this time would do otherwise.




You belive there is monitoring and oversight of jobs that are advertised at job centers?

In practice you are talking about something that impacts less than 400 jobs and sidesteps a seriously messy issue. Problem is that after 6 months of JSA you have to accept basicaly any job offer. Goverment fairly reasonably doesn't want to be forcing people into the sex industry.
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Then why not just say 'except the sex industry' (and whatever other exceptions they want to include) in the legislation that says you must accept any job?

Interesting they think its demeaning for someone with a PhD to lapdance but not to clean dirty toilets or pick fruit.
 
Hands up anyone who would like to decide the suitability of someone to work in the sex industry?
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
Then why not just say 'except the sex industry' (and whatever other exceptions they want to include) in the legislation that says you must accept any job?
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Because common law doesn't traditionaly like to go in for that level of detail and the goverment may not be planning any legistlation in that area any time soon. So either it could take years to deal with like that or it would have to be attached as a rider to an unrelated bill. Neither are ideal outcomes.
 
Darat:

To take your rant and do some out of the box thinking ...

Would state employed hookers (call it part of the civil service) make more sense to you?

Cops are state employed.

The vice squad is part of the cops.

Vice ... hell, if it's a state organ, maybe it cuts down on the cost of policing it!
 
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Undesired Walrus said:
If you'd read Darat's post you would have realised that wasn't his concern.
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Yes it was. His concern is that Tories are being judgmental towards "those they don't like". The claim that not accepting such ads will push them "deeper into the shadows" and therefore give them "less oversight" is an afterthought.

(A silly one, to boot: wife-beating exists, too, but the government doesn't subsidize standard-issue canes for wife-beating, lest the lack of a standardized method of beating "push wife-beating into the shadows" or give it "less oversight". You can legitimize government support of anything by claiming that unless you legalize X, X will be "pushed into the shadows".)
 
Skeptic said:
(A silly one, to boot: wife-beating exists, too, but the government doesn't subsidize standard-issue canes for wife-beating, lest the lack of a standardized method of beating "push wife-beating into the shadows" or give it "less oversight". You can legitimize government support of anything by claiming that unless you legalize X, X will be "pushed into the shadows".)
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That's idiotic. The harms of the sex industry come from being in an unregulated and unobserved black market where sex slavery, abusive pimping, and unsafe sex practices run unchecked.

The harms of wife beating come from the wife being beaten.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Do I have it completely wrong? - I thought (last time I heard it discussed) they were going to ban the ads because they were going to make it a condition of receiving job-seekers benefit that you apply for any job (on their books so to speak) that you were qualified for and they didn't like the headlines that might be generated by people being forced to apply for jobs in the sex industry.
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Well according to the Minister when it was announced it is about keeping adverts out of Job centres for jobs that are lawful because they are concerned it would lead to exploitation and I've not heard any official saying it is for the reason you give.

The issue for me is one of rank hypocrisy, what we have here is a government lead by someone who has been banging his "Big Society" drum for quite sometime, who says it is time government got out of people's lives, that personal responsibility and personal choice are crucial to his vision for the future of the country, yet is quite happy for the government to step in and make a moralistic "choice" for everyone. That is why it is the same old Tories, as ever they say they are about personal choice but they aren't.

And I brought up Clause 28 earlier as that was an example of the Tories doing the same type of thing - on the one had homosexuality had been decriminalised for about 20 years yet they decided it was still not "right" for people to be homosexual and made that government policy. (And it also had a lot to do with tabloid headlines at the time.)
 
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uk_dave said:
...snip....

I've always wanted to be in showbiz.......
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You've pretty much covered it with that word, in some areas it is quite legal to discriminate on the basis of sex and they are mostly to do with the "world of entertainment".
 
Darth Rotor said:
Darat:

To take your rant and do some out of the box thinking ...

Would state employed hookers (call it part of the civil service) make more sense to you?

...snip...
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That's moving to areas that would be considered illegal in the UK so of course Job Centres shouldn't accept such vacancies. However if the law was changed I don't think there is any strong "public goods" argument to be made that means selling sex should be something that is best handled by the state.
 
quixotecoyote said:
That's idiotic. The harms of the sex industry come from being in an unregulated and unobserved black market where sex slavery, abusive pimping, and unsafe sex practices run unchecked.
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the best reply to this common, if totally erroneous, view, which was originally J. S. Mill's argument, is still James Fitzjames Stephen's in Liberty, Equality, Fraternity:

There is a kind of ingenuity which carries its own refutation on its face. How can the State or the public be competent to determine any question whatever if it is not competent to decide that gross vice is a bad thing? I do not think the State ought to stand bandying compliments with pimps. ...

My feeling is that if society gets its grip on the collar of such a fellow it should say to him, "You dirty rascal, it may be a question whether you should be suffered to remain in your native filth untouched, or whether my opinion about you should be printed by the lash on your bare back. That question will be determined without the smallest reference to your wishes or feelings; but as to the nature of my opinion about you, there can be no question at all."
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Simple question, by the way.

What about those women who refuse sex work? Sure, they might consider it unpleasant, but hey, they must take many other jobs -- low-salary clerk, for instance, or worker in a factory -- if they are unemployed and qualified for it, even if they're unpleasant.

So why do people make exception for sex work? We all "know" the real damage of sex work comes only from making it illegal or unregulated. So as long as the job is in the open and regulated, it is just disgusting judgmental behavior on the part of those women to not do the job.

So, to be consistent, I suggest women who refuse a sex job should be cut off the unemployment benefits just like others who refuse a job they can do.

Why not? And don't tell me sex work is somehow bad or shameful -- that's judgmental thinking, which is, as we all know, a no-no. I fail to see how you can think it is wrong for the government to not list sex jobs while thinking it is wrong for it to threaten women who don't take those jobs with removing their benefits.
 
Skeptic said:
Simple question, by the way.

What about those women who refuse sex work? Sure, they might consider it unpleasant, but hey, they must take many other jobs -- low-salary clerk, for instance, or worker in a factory -- if they are unemployed and qualified for it, even if they're unpleasant.

So why do people make exception for sex work? We all "know" the real damage of sex work comes only from making it illegal or unregulated. So as long as the job is in the open and regulated, it is just disgusting judgmental behavior on the part of those women to not do the job.

...snip...
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Apart from yourself I doubt anyone else in this thread thinks that. You hold some very, well the only word I can think to use is, disgusting opinions.
 
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Skeptic said:
How about:



...which means that they did, until now?
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No it doesn't - there is no evidence I know of that suggests that Job Centres have ever (as a matter of policy) allowed vacancies for the type of illegal positions you think they have previously accepted.
 
Skeptic said:
Simple question, by the way.

What about those women who refuse sex work? Sure, they might consider it unpleasant, but hey, they must take many other jobs -- low-salary clerk, for instance, or worker in a factory -- if they are unemployed and qualified for it, even if they're unpleasant.

So why do people make exception for sex work? We all "know" the real damage of sex work comes only from making it illegal or unregulated. So as long as the job is in the open and regulated, it is just disgusting judgmental behavior on the part of those women to not do the job.

So, to be consistent, I suggest women who refuse a sex job should be cut off the unemployment benefits just like others who refuse a job they can do.

Why not? And don't tell me sex work is somehow bad or shameful -- that's judgmental thinking, which is, as we all know, a no-no. I fail to see how you can think it is wrong for the government to not list sex jobs while thinking it is wrong for it to threaten women who don't take those jobs with removing their benefits.
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I don't even know where to begin. But stop telling me what I think.
 
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