fortunateone

I love the additional comments, but I think we are all wasting our time making any suggestions to improve the site, or mentioning how it could be or is being perceived. We started out doing that, and got shot down for it. MJL, isn't it better to work towards including and getting the support from everyone, not just some? Saying that many do isn't really a recommendation, when it is being said in order to shame those who have made what they consider helpful comments. lol, at 'small minority'. lol, it is clear to me that you have spent very little time talking with abolitionists. They are very adamant that people like 'happy hookers' are clearly the very very "small minority". As they are quick to point out the majority, that 95%, are not willing, all victims, and definitely not 'happy'. So this 'small minority", which we know is actually the majority, do not count. It's funny to me that you would use that as a term to discount the ones that don't matter to you, that small minority. wtf rep comments?

I do the same thing. I've seen people's emails, they see the part where they are creating the account asking for first name and last name, and automatically put in a real name, not just initials or their fake name. They aren't receiving the emails, they have no idea what the recipient sees. Letting them know asap is the right thing to do.

and that has been my point all along. That you guys couldn't see the point of the comments that were being made. I can't be more clear than that, and I really dislike when I see someone trying to downplay the intentions of those who commented prior to the changes on the site. I guess I was expecting some kind of statement with an apology or thank you to those who pointed out the flaws in it. You need to be reminded that no one is saying your intentions weren't worthy, just the execution of it was flawed enough to create debate. That alone should have gotten y'all to sit up and look it over. There was never any need to get so defensive & you all came out offensive, that's all. The only reason I am commenting, for the most part, has nothing to do with you or MFF, it is for the other readers. Whatever the topic, I feel that what was said or done is being misrepresented by various comments, obviously i will speak up. That is what people are used to seeing when I post lol I doubt if I will change. This is cerb, we don't expect attacks when we post, btw. i thought everyone was being very reasonable when they made their comments. Clearly, the main page was changed. There must have been validity in those comments, is all I'm saying.

MJL, i wish you wouldn't misrepresent what the comments were. This was never about stopping the concept or bringing the entire site down. It was always about the front page description, which is so completely changed now that I still wonder why there was such a fight about just doing that in the first place. There wouldn't have been a message from maggies, or anyone else, if what is on it now was on it from day one. The last sentence is particularly offensive to everyone who took the time to point out the flaws and potential flaws of the site in the first place. If we didn't care, we'd never have bothered to say anything.

Your friend agrees with the over 200 legal experts who sent a letter to the MPs and Justice Committe, and who were not on the list of presenters at the recent justice committee hearings. Along with a family member of a Picton victim, who is against C36 was not invited to speak, but someone else who is pro C36 was invited to share the story.

Someone has been running around trying to spread this as fact. Consider the source, is all I can say. fyi, POWER tweeted a response to the rumour, saying it is not true.

Well that was easy.

Originally on the site, and in notices like this one: These were always the points of contention, plus for some it was the name of the organization. My point is that just because someone is 'survival' doesn't mean that they aren't consenting, or that the laws need to be different for them versus 'us'. If no one else had an issue with these specific points, we wouldn't already be on page 5, and we wouldn't have seen them brought up on at least 3 different sites so far. And that is the end of my most unwelcome contribution to this topic, as I have no more interest in having someone reply to me claiming i am talking about shutting down the whole concept of organized input from sex workers. Other than to say, where was everyone before C36 was introduced, when there were 'say no to the nordic model' polls that they could have distributed, campaigned for, and signed. Where were they in June, when the bill was presented, and the various advocacy groups were out there looking for support? Now they want to rally the troops in time for the Senate. This may be debated in Senate, and parliament, but the war is most likely to be one in the media, imo.

Scroll back to the beginning of the events to watch the (sometimes humourous) recaps of the committee meeting and C36 https://twitter.com/kady

I'm with something related to work. Or something that the kid hasn't been able to do due to the time and $ of university. Is there something he has been doing without due to finances? New cel phone, laptop, some gadget? i keep going back to modest, so am assuming that is an issue, and coming up short of ideas.

ok, everyone did notice that those who actually researched it by actually double bagging showed that the breakage rate was actually reduced, right? :)

comments from others when they were given info about HHC (from FB link) Bella Robinson Great now the anti's will also claim all sex work is survival sex....I think CA peer based organizations need to contact these people and educate them. Ironically the court have had many sex workers groups testify, so I guess these people haven't been following the hearings. Don't you love it when they jump on the band wagon at the 11th hour. Thierry Schaffauser: Sex workers' first reaction to say we are happy hookers come from the constant affirmation that we are all victims. I can understand this initial reaction but it's a trap. Because if you say you are happy then you are silenced for not being a real prostitute, and if you are not happy then you are silenced because you are only used as a sad testimony that is supposed to reinforce what the abolitionists say. If you dont say 100% what the abolitionists want you to say you are silenced. Let us not be divided with these stupid rhetoric. Bella Robinson I think many of them do have good intentions and I know when I started doing activism in 2009, I spend years playing caught up and learning which narratives were effective and which ones were problematic. I think that they have no idea how harmful it is to imply that people that engage in survival sex voices don't count. If anything these are the members of our community that are the most vulnerable. I think it is the same thing when people talk about whether we are empowered or not. I doubt Walmart workers feel empowered Thierry Schaffauser I think the best way to answer is for our movement to allow the most vulnerable among us to have a voice, to show the diversity of who we are, and instead of saying we are happy hookers Pascale Robitaille I'm paranoid but I've seen abolos all week using what we say being turned against us. It does'nt sound like our regular vocabulary and creates confusion. I was'nt sure it was a reappropriation of the abolo term for us. Maxine Doogan yeah the happy hooker/my body my right line hasn't been effective politically nor has it sufficiently motivated the public to stand up for sw. The Canadian Supreme court ruling was about safety, worker safety, worker defined safety, worker safety=public safety... Bella Robinson How did she listen to the hearings and not think they were represented, as I heard many activist speak in our behalf and I would love to ask these people why they have not bothered to reach out to sex work rights organizations with their concerns. I think this has more to do with jumping on the bandwagon at the last minute. I know the correct term is sex worker or erotic service provider but I use the word hooker and whore all the time, and I am NEVER offended at that terminology. Using the "Happy Hooker" term was a bit much. I thought the message on survival sex was much more offensive and throwing our sisters under the bus, This may be a good opportunity to educate this group of workers and get them to join one of the more established sex worker rights groups. Before 2009 I didn't even know that any peer based sex worker groups existed. I just wanted to emphasize the bolded bits: the message on survival sex was much more offensive than the use of the term Happy Hooker. Equally disturbing tho was the complete disregard for this when other sps, including very high end high rate great rep ones, found that this was the first thing they noticed on the site and pointed out that as long as it is there, their conscience wouldn't allow them to participate. The originators of the site pretty much said they didn't care, they wouldn't be changing it. . I can't even remember anyone mentioned the site name or Happy Hooker term as being the problem.

|Go look at the In the News section and click on the links to the various other articles. Make notes of the points that you want to make, and in the way you want them to come out. Make note also of the legal section thread, as knowing that certain things are already illegal, and will continue to be legal is very important when reporters are asking questions about C36. say things like "in spite of what the Rescue Industry is trying to get people to believe ..... " :)

I hope that those who see the posts that are questioning some aspects of this effort pay attention to this part. No one is saying that making an organized effort of the anecdotal experiences of many consenting adult sex workers is the problem with this particular endeavour. If you do want to know what the original concern was, ask, but i won't waste my time repeating it when i can see clearly that people are not paying attention to what is in the description on the website itself of who is welcome to comment with their letters, and who is not. If those parts were changed, excised from the site and the explanatory threads introducing the site, I guarantee no one would say anything other than 'great job, i've sent my letter'. Then, having expressed these concerns, instead of cooperation and agreement that it is problematic and exclusionary, all I've seen is dismissal of those concerns, and a basic, if you don't like it, too bad for you attitude (not necessarily from MJL, but someone willing to speak on behalf of the site, but still, not helpful at all) Post July 11, by Pascale Robitaille, who saw the site without the benefit of an introduction from a sex worker she knew I am assuming https://www.facebook.com/groups/my.favorite.abolitionist/

I hope she reports the theft directly to the ad site admin. That is enough to get some advertisers blocked from posting (the thieves, not Maraena of course)

^^^ it wasn't just the conservatives that were rude to the anti-C36 presenters. It turns out that those same victim based rescue organization presenters spent some of their time making rude remarks as well https://twitter.com/kwetoday/status/487772527213559809 Against Boivin: http://kwetoday.com/2014/07/12/we-are-persons-too-sexwork-c36-c36just/comment-page-1/#comment-1035

I found today there was far too much time taken up by rape relief centres. I fail to see the point of the one woman who says she wants C36 because she sees a future where she and her daughter can go out somewhere and men don't hit on them, il.e. view them as sexualized beings, I guess? She complains someone pinched her when she was in a bar (paraphrasing her of course), like it is a form of sexual assault to her. i can only see her thinking C36 means no more street workers, so guys who drive around will stop thinking every single woman on the sidewalk needs to be solicited for sex, which i think is pretty rare now? fwiw, as soon as Ratanak guy said 'Cambodia' i stopped listening because i knew he was going to start lying. The NGOs there put up fake stories to lure in and trick guys just like that, in order to keep the money rolling in. Any investigative reporting has shown the stories tend to be untrue, the reports of horrible things happening to children are faked, and that the majority of sex workers being 'rescued' don't want to be rescued at all. http://truth-out.org/news/item/24827-from-somaly-mam-to-eden-how-sex-trafficking-sensationalism-hurts-sex-workers

Thank you for point this out. I wanted to say 'don't feed the troll' but too many very nice and reasonable people came out before me lol

I knew if i searched long enough i would find some actual research on this (which i remember having seen): http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AIDS/SafeSex/Q86412.html

It's funding that could be used to seek out, investigate and charge actual exploiters and underage sex workers. However, according to Cassel, who works exclusively with teen street youth, you can't even stop teen sex workers from running away from 'rescue' to go back to work. because that is what they want to do/.

One thing I am not sure about is the London reference 'starting' the invisible man project. Here is some additional info, feel free to share this on other sites you are on so others will know what that project is: http://invisible-men-canada.tumblr.com/ which is a rip off of this from the UK, like not even a little bit different http://the-invisible-men.tumblr.com/ The UK site is obviously older. If the Canadian version is this new, then I wonder why is it, John #8's review is from 2006. Was it that difficult, searching thru 3 minimum sites, going over reviews of which there must be plenty of really recent ones, that the best she can do is find one 7 years old to use as an example? Plus, if you found that review, you would find a guy who pays the agreed price, and in fact was prepared to spend more, but she couldn't provide more than the bj services at the time. i don't have a problem with a guy who doesn't bicker rates, as low as they may already be.

Similar legislation was presented in France recently. It was understood and abolitionists rejoiced, France was going to use the Nordic model. Except, the senate of France today, sliced thru this fancy bill and said, no to criminalization of clients. The reason was that resources used to pursue clients would be better spent on looking for trafficking victims. Vive le France. (i can't find any links via google on this, but both Boivin and Plecet brought this up today) Plus vive le Eve Plecet. I like her :)

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/activist-toolkit/2014/07/finding-community-sex-work-organizing Finding community in sex work organizing

Interesting. I think they chose the Calgary PC because he was on record for being pro C36, i guess they are sorry now. They knew full well the Vancouver PC wouldn't be pro, and I doubt if a few other police depts have spoken up one way or the other, but what they should have done is had the head of the police chief organization that represents all of Canadian police forces to speak on behalf of the cities in the organization. It never made sense to just have one city PC speak, but I knew when i saw him listed that it was because of what he'd been quoted saying before. Also, from the prior senate committee meetings in the mid 2000s, they'd already had a Van police officer speaking who wouldn't tell them (the govt of the time) what they wanted to hear lol

So he's agreeing that C36 is a bunch of nonsense? besides, if there is no legislation, it doesn't 'decriminalize' anything more than public solicitation and incalls. He also seems to acknowledge that it will be up for another challenge immediately, which sounds like he knows it isn't SCC compliant at all. This whole bullying rushing thing is more nonsense. So what if there is nothing to replace public solicitation, it isn't like street workers and their clients are going to be able to stand in the middle of the road, or stop in no stopping zones to have a chat.