HAVING passed through both the Dáil and the Seanad, the new Sexual Offences Bill needs only the signature of the President Mary Robinson to become law. The bill has rightly been hailed for its enlightened approach to the decriminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adults of over 17 years of age - a subject which is more thoroughly covered in an open letter to the President in the Bootboy column this issue. However the bill has one thoroughly disconcerting aspect, and that is the way in which it imposes far more severe penalties on people of both sexes who are convicted of being involved in 'sex for sale' activities of one kind or another.
The new bill imposes fines of up to #500 or four weeks in prison for the offence of soliciting. Loitering for the purpose of prostitution after being told to move on by a garda also becomes an offence. Thus, if the law is applied with any kind of rigour, it will undoubtedly see the closure of the numerous massage parlours around Dublin - a development which is worthy of serious comment only in that it will inevitably mean that women will be forced out of this relatively safe environment and onto the streets, where they are far more vulnerable to violence and abuse, not to mention ill-health.
It is highly unlikely that the new law will effectively curb prostitution. Indeed it is doubtful that the majority of legislators see it as having any hope at all in this regard. Rather, there is a lingering feeling that it was passed as a type of sop to the moral absolutists, offering them the kind of tainted satisfaction which might make the bitter pill of homosexual freedom less difficult to swallow. And so in order to liberate one minority, we accede in the scapegoating of another. To me, it seems perverse in the extreme.
I see nothing wrong with one person offering another sexual pleasure, for financial reward. The violence and exploitation which often surrounds prostitution is clearly unpleasant and wrong, and anything which can be done to eradicate it should be - as is the case with intimidation, theft, violence and exploitation of any kind. And, of course, neither women nor men should be forced into prostitution because of economic circumstance, or in particular because of inadequacy in our social welfare system.
But it is quite possible to have a warm, decent, generous, even loving sexual exchange between people which involves payment. Certainly, there is nothing in the act of supplying a sexual service which is inherently wrong, and it can indeed fulfil needs which exist - for neither better nor worse - in a lot of people for sex which is relatively anonymous and free of the complications of romance, relationships and family which conventional attitudes to love and sex elevate, sometimes against any real sense of logic or basis in experience.
People sometimes say it's a free world. It isn't of course, but the more we can do to make it one the better, and criminalising prostitutes and sex workers is a significant step in the wrong direction. Which is why I hope that Mary Robinson will use her Presidential prerogative and find a way of having this ill-conceived and prejudicial aspect of an otherwise excellent bill excised.
I'm with the prostitutes on this one.