Your belief in Prop K’s goodness relies on the assumption that most prostitutes* are more afraid of police than they are afraid of the pimps 90% of US prostitutes have. That assumption is wrong.

Also, 85% of rapes aren’t reported to police and it is not because rape victims fear arrest. If you understood, really understood, what the majority of prostitutes say about sexual violence and prostitution then you wouldn’t suggest that the mere ability to report rape would address the problem any more than the mere ability of any woman to report rape addresses the problem. It doesn’t.

To see the rapes of prostitutes the same way you see the rapes of other women means you can’t rely on self-reporting by victims of the least reported, least convicted violent crime as a workable solution to reducing that violent crime. We do not place the burden for stopping rapists on their victims, so why place the burden for stopping rape on rapists’ victims who prostitute?

The way the legal system handles rapes of any person needs major fixing, but if you stop all efforts at rape prevention in prostitution (which Prop K tried to do) then you are allowing an increase in the number of men who feel entitled to prostituted bodies by shutting down the First Offenders Program and refusing to let police investigate situations before more rapes can happen. Prop K only works for a small number of non-pimped prostituting women and it only extends its invitation to the kangaroo court of a rape trial after the damage has been done.

*It is factually inaccurate to use “sex workers” because sex work isn’t illegal in San Francisco and prostitution is.

1. The somewhat arrogant crowing of Gavin Newsome in his “Like it or not” outburst really irritated a lot of “on the fence” voters.
2. The lesbians who were later married by him just before the election and inexplicably invited a first grade class to the event, calling it a “teaching moment”, created so much apprehension among the right that they mobilized for Prop. 8 even more.
No, I am not a religious zealot, in fact I am agnostic. However “Discretion is the better part of valor”…..(and politics.) I think the anti-8 forces may have “shot themselves in the foot”.
I am not arguing for the Prop., just trying to analyze the results.

m.f. one: So, out of all this hate, homophobia, and bigotry you want the queers to be nice to *you*? You want us to remember that we are “family”? That we’re obligated to love you even when you write shit like “haha! I’m not a hater, I just don’t like you, but I need you to ignore that, haha!, ’cause I’m like family and you don’t get a choice here, because if you don’t “love” me then not only are you an icky perverted “lifestyle”, but you’re an ungrateful, sinful bad child”.

Nice. Go fuck yourself *and* the donkey your godhead rode in on.

And you’re absolutely right about K, Cara. Like I said, I’ve really lost a lot of faith in my fellow “progressives”. Because a lot of them voted for 8. And almost none of them seem to support decrim.

You’re wrong if you think that decriminalizing prostitution and giving sex workers the ability to go to the police if they’ve been raped or beaten would somehow create a “safe haven” for trafficking. Trafficking would still be illegal; and if K had passed, it would mean that those who are trafficked wouldn’t be at such risk of being prosecuted themselves for repeated rape. When you prosecute sex workers, there is no way, no how that you can avoid prosecuting those who are doing the work unwillingly (though I in no way think that those who are doing it willingly should be prosecuted). I was totally not in the mood to get into this argument today, but here we are and I’m already in a royally shitty state of mind. So if you want to talk about faith in fellow progressives, the results of K are certainly something that has challenged mine.