The Sex Safety and Security Project

[SexSafetySecurity]

Good day HUBGFE community.

You may be aware of the recent successful challenge to Canadian laws relating to various aspects of prostitution. While these legal challenges have opened up a unique opportunity for important changes to be made to enhance the health and safety of ALL people involved in the industry, there are certain advocacy groups who are calling for the implementation of the "Nordic model" - a regulatory approach that effectively criminalizes the purchase of sexual services. These groups argue that people who pay for sexual services pose a "risk" to the health and safety of sex workers. One of the most prominent campaigns currently making this claim is the Salvation Army's "" which implies that people who pay for sex are responsible for the trafficking of women and children.

We believe that the generalizations that groups seeking the abolition of prostitution make about the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of ALL people who pay for sexual services in Canada are based on moral convictions and speculation as opposed to actual evidence. We also believe that these generalizations are dangerous. The reason we believe this is because of the invaluable information that almost 1000 people who paid for sexual services in Canada (many of whom are members of this forum) graciously shared with us during our 2009-2010 Johns' Voice study ().

Results from the Johns' Voice study played a central role in shaping the legal, political and social debates that surrounded the recent successful legal challenge. They also helped us make it clear to the various groups involved in ongoing legal, political and social debates about the future of Canada's prostitution law and policy that it is absolutely vital that people who pay for sexual services have an opportunity to be listened to and included. The Johns' Voice project was just the beginning.

In our ongoing effort to present a more complete and accurate picture of the diversity of attitudes, beliefs and experiences of people who have paid for sexual services in Canada we are inviting you to be a part of the largest and most ambitious study of Canada's sex industry undertaken to date. The Sex, Safety and Security Study, which is part of a larger research initiative funded the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), seeks to provide a safe, secure and non-judgmental environment for people who have purchased sexual services to have your voices heard and respected and the details of your experiences acknowledged.

If you or someone you know want to take this opportunity to have your voices, opinions and experiences included in this important project please visit our website or contact me (Chris Atchison) directly to find out more about the project.

If you have any questions or comments about the project please do not hesitate to contact me directly.


Thank-you in advance for your support.

Chris



Chris Atchison
Department of Sociology
University of Victoria
PO Box 1700 STN CSC
Victoria, BC
V8W 2Y2
email: [email protected]
web:
Facebook:
Twitter: @SexSafetySecure

 

[Beef Jerky]

Mods approved?.If so, will study it.

 

[Cooldaddy]

Hmm, quite interesting.

 

[papasmerf]

interesting

but since does not display the letters after the name.
Chris is a student doing research.

 

[Shiek]

Working on his doctorate papa..... he's been involved in past studies of the adult industry.r

 

[Art Mann]

This is the study I was referring to in this post a few days ago:


As it turns out, Chris Atchison had registered here but experienced a glitch posting this information. I'm glad to see the mods have now resolved that problem.

I believe this is an important opportunity to register some common sense opinions about "the hobby" to contrast with the negative stereotype so common in mass media.

While this study is seeking input from men, there this a "companion" study underway in which ladies can have their say.

I'll leave it to Mr Atchison to provide more details about that study, but will note you can find out more in the meantime by clicking on

 

[-b]

Working on his doctorate papa..... he's been involved in past studies of the adult industry.r

Papa is working on being Blue......

Need to think about this...

 

[Wanker]

Good info to know, thanks Chris.

 

[SexSafetySecurity]

Hey folks.

To save people the trouble of googling me and to clear up a couple of points raised here. In terms of my academic "credentials," I have a double honours degree from SFU in sociology and criminology and a MA from the School of Criminology at SFU. My PhD, which I am currently in the process of finalizing, will be from the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. I am currently a research associate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Victoria and a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University where I have been teaching courses on the commercialization of sex and sexuality, prostitution, social control, research methodology, and qualitative and quantitative data analysis since 2004.

When it comes to my work with commercial sex industry patrons and providers, for the past 18 years I have worked with individual sex workers and sex worker organizations and with various outreach and sex industry research organizations in a supportive capacity. In 1995 my research partner John Lowman and I conducted the first international study of people who pay for sexual services dubbed "Sexuality in the 1990s." Following that I went to Toronto and spent a year and a half immersed in the Toronto John School in an attempt to evaluate the "effectiveness" of the way the program was being conducted and to get a better sense of the people that found themselves having to "donate" their time and money to take part in it. In 2001 I returned to Vancouver and began to work with PACE Society (a sex worker support and outreach organization) constructing their network and communications infrastructure and advising and training experiential workers on research methodology and analysis. In 2008 I teamed up with street nurses and epidemiologists from UBC and the BCCDC to conduct the ORCHID project, my role in this was as the principal investigator on the ‘Johns’ Voice’ study. This study is the largest study of sex buyers ever conducted in Canada and the largest study of non-captive/non-coerced sex buyers ever conducted globally, it also formed the basis of my doctoral research.

 

[DonCorleo]

Hey folks.

To save people the trouble of googling me and to clear up a couple of points raised here. In terms of my academic "credentials," I have a double honours degree from SFU in sociology and criminology and a MA from the School of Criminology at SFU. My PhD, which I am currently in the process of finalizing, will be from the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. I am currently a research associate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Victoria and a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University where I have been teaching courses on the commercialization of sex and sexuality, prostitution, social control, research methodology, and qualitative and quantitative data analysis since 2004.

When it comes to my work with commercial sex industry patrons and providers, for the past 18 years I have worked with individual sex workers and sex worker organizations and with various outreach and sex industry research organizations in a supportive capacity. In 1995 my research partner John Lowman and I conducted the first international study of people who pay for sexual services dubbed "Sexuality in the 1990s." Following that I went to Toronto and spent a year and a half immersed in the Toronto John School in an attempt to evaluate the "effectiveness" of the way the program was being conducted and to get a better sense of the people that found themselves having to "donate" their time and money to take part in it. In 2001 I returned to Vancouver and began to work with PACE Society (a sex worker support and outreach organization) constructing their network and communications infrastructure and advising and training experiential workers on research methodology and analysis. In 2008 I teamed up with street nurses and epidemiologists from UBC and the BCCDC to conduct the ORCHID project, my role in this was as the principal investigator on the ‘Johns’ Voice’ study. This study is the largest study of sex buyers ever conducted in Canada and the largest study of non-captive/non-coerced sex buyers ever conducted globally, it also formed the basis of my doctoral research.

Good work, John. That is tons of hours and days you have to put on.

So what is your take here besides the study and knowledge of the sex industry?.

 

[SexSafetySecurity]

Tons of hours indeed DonCorleo. Given the new trend toward conflating 'trafficking' and prostitution and the push to simply move the social and legal stigma from one group (sex sellers/workers) to another (sex buyers), I suspect that I will have to devote a ton more hours and days.

When it comes to my take on all this, I could (and have) written a book-length response. The short answer is that over the past 18 years I have talked to hundreds and hundreds of sex sellers/workers and patrons representing every gender, sexual preference and type of commercial environment (from street-level 'survival sex' to incredibly exclusive and expensive exchanges). Some of these people have had horrible experiences in their life - some related to their involvement in the sale and purchase of sex and some related to circumstances completely unrelated to the sex industry - and some people have had wonderful lives and experiences in and out of the industry. I have spoken with some great people and I have spoken to some that I really have not liked at all. Regardless of how I may have felt about particular characters that I have had the opportunity to talk to or the stories that I have heard, I have come away with the appreciation that while there are many attitudes, beliefs and experiences that are shared among and between people who buy and sell sexual services, there is also incredible diversity.

I do not see the sale and purchase of sex as a 'good' or a 'bad' thing. Having said this, the moral position that I or anyone else takes on the act of exchanging money for sexual services or sexual services for money 'should be' irrelevant in determining how we as a society treat people involved in the industry. What 'should' motivate our actions is a desire to make sure that all people are afforded the social and legal respect and protections as any other member of society. While I am not an advocate for any particular position (decriminalization, legalization, regulation, or abolition) or group, I have always felt that social and legal prohibition through shaming, stigmatization, and criminalization only serve to make the conditions or spaces 'worse' for ALL people involved in the sex industry. I am not sure what the best 'solutions' are for ensuring that people involved in the sale and purchase of sex are respected and protected but I am pretty sure that these solutions are not going to be found by those people who don't want to be bothered to actually listen to the people that matter most.

 

[Dan]

I only see it as if a woman of legal age wants to make some extra money and a man is willing to pay for it and both are happy, then it should be no one's business. Humans all need and want sex, some aren't socially skilled enough in the dating game to achieve this or some prefer just sex with no strings attached, either way it's not the government's business unless it's a minor or someone forced into the industry.

 

[SexSafetySecurity]

I only see it as if a woman of legal age wants to make some extra money and a man is willing to pay for it and both are happy, then it should be no one's business. Humans all need and want sex, some aren't socially skilled enough in the dating game to achieve this or some prefer just sex with no strings attached, either way it's not the government's business unless it's a minor or someone forced into the industry.

Couldn't agree with you more Dan. The only thing I would add is that when someone is forced into the industry this is not prostitution it is either child sexual exploitation or 'trafficking' for sexual purposes. There is a big danger in NOT clearly distinguishing between these things. I would say that many of the current attempts to criminalize the purchase of sexual services start from the position that ALL commercial sex relationships are exploitative, violent, and damaging and that MOST people who sell sexual services are forced or coerced into doing so as minors. While these claims are based on very weak 'evidence' unless other stories about people who are involved in the sale and purchase of sex are advanced they will be accepted and used as a justification for very repressive laws. The Honest Courtesan has a very interesting blog post today discussing the implications.

 

[papasmerf]

Working on his doctorate papa..... he's been involved in past studies of the adult industry.r

was merely making an observation.
people need to be informed as to who is asking what, when and why.

 

[Art Mann]

The Honest Courtesan has a very interesting blog post today discussing the implications.

Excellent commentary by Maggie McNeill. Thanks for pointing this out Chris.

Theatrics
If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.
- William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (III,iv)

April 11, 2013 by Maggie McNeill
The moral panic over human trafficking has grown more aggressively than most; in its earlier form, the Satanic Panic, it only barely got out of the United States. But once the cultists metamorphosed into “criminal gangs”, two powerful and wealthy types of organizations recognized that the hysteria provided the perfect plot for media theatrics designed to disguise sleazy agendas which might have mobilized considerable resistance had they been openly revealed.

The anti-sex cabal of neofeminists and evangelical Christians use “trafficking” as camouflage for an anti-whore crusade, while governments use it as an excuse for tighter controls on immigration; the net result is an awful lot of money being invested into dramatic displays, and an awful lot of disinformation being spread through official channels, while real victims of exploitation are ignored.

In the US, “human trafficking” is practically synonymous with “sex trafficking”; though lip-service is paid to the existence of other forms of exploitation, virtually all of the money, manpower and press coverage is devoted to “sex trafficking”, which bogus statistics declare to be the most common form (with claims ranging from 60% to “almost all”, despite the insistence of other reports that it’s more like 10%). This is due partly to the fact that most of the money either comes from or flows through prohibitionist organizations, and partly because sex sells in the media.

But there’s another, more sinister and far dirtier reason why so much attention is paid to whores who are not “enslaved” in any reasonable sense of the word, and so little to people who are clearly coerced and exploited: modern Western economies depend upon dirt-cheap labor, so by harassing harlots they can make a great and entertaining show of “doing something” about exploitation while yet ensuring that the vegetables get picked and the garments get made.

Americans in particular leer over lurid accounts of “child sex trafficking” which is so rare as to be almost nonexistent, while ignoring widespread and pervasive sexual abuse among women who, if they were sex workers, would be called “trafficking victims”:

FULL STORY HERE

 

[oldguyzer]

I do not see the sale and purchase of sex as a 'good' or a 'bad' thing. Having said this, the moral position that I or anyone else takes on the act of exchanging money for sexual services or sexual services for money 'should be' irrelevant in determining how we as a society treat people involved in the industry. What 'should' motivate our actions is a desire to make sure that all people are afforded the social and legal respect and protections as any other member of society.

Objectivity is a crucial component of any research project. When we start making judgements our effectiveness as researchers is questionable.

 

[Prick]

Not bad at all.

 

[McGuinty]

Objectivity is a crucial component of any research project. When we start making judgements our effectiveness as researchers is questionable.

Good point but let's give him the benefit of the doubt for now.