Stressed Stressed Stressed

I haven't written much here lately, and what I have written has been basically an ongoing rant about immigration. I'm stressed about it, and I'm fed up. I'm going to stop writing about it for a while and return to other things.

Harriet Harman, nutter and leader of the commons, is back bitching about prostitution. It's not illegal to take money for sex in this country, and it's apparently not illegal to pay for sex either. Harriet wants to make it illegal to buy sex. This she claims will reduce trafficking. I still don't think trafficking is a real issue. There are a lot of Eastern European women working here as prostitutes, but they aren't brought here in cages and chained up in dungeons as is suggested by the term "trafficking". They are lured here with the false promise of bar work and waitressing, and then told the only work available is in the sex industry. It's not trafficking.

Trafficking is already outlawed anyway. Making paying for sex illegal won't change anything. Harriet's problem is that she doesn't like men who pay for it and she wants to launch a personal attack.

It seems that prostitution is in fact much more legal here than I realised. In fact it is legal to buy, or sell sex. It's also legal to work as a prostitute in "off street" premises. It is illegal to keep a brothel though, so two women selling sex in the same "off street" premises is illegal. It's also illegal to solicit, or kerb crawl.

I think the law prohibiting kerb crawling is outrageous. In fact it seems to me that all the laws are completely arse-about-face. Apparently soliciting is illegal, so a woman in the pub is technically breaking the law if she goes up to a man she likes the look of and flirts. A man can however quite legally put £20 pounds in her hands and say, "that's for sex, how about it?", because it's not illegal to buy sex. She can quite legally take the money in exchange for sex. In fact she can even take him home to do it as long as her sister doesn't have a habit of doing the same thing, because then her home would be a brothel, and that's illegal.

Incidentally, what the hell constitutes prostitution? If this fictitious woman in the pub offers to take £20 in exchange for standard, missionary-position sex, that is clearly prostitution. But what if she offers to take the money in exchange for letting him take pictures of her naked, or for spanking his naked bottom? What if this man offers her the money to buy her knickers, or to partake in some non-penetrative sex act, and she agrees, has anyone broken a law? Seems rather difficut to pin down to me.

If you make paying for sex illegal, you seem to be left with the problem of proving that sex took place if you want to prosecute. If the prostitute and the client both tell the police that they just talked and no sex took place, how can a conviction happen?

On a completely different note...

Today the govenment is announcing that drivers caught using a mobile phone while driving are to face up to 2 years in jail. Amazing isn't it, they are letting out sex offenders and violent criminals early to ease jail overcrowding, but they are threatening to put people using phones while driving in jail. It's an April Fools joke isn't it? No, that can't be right, it's December.

It was snowing when I walked to the train station this morning. I hate winter.