Ho Hoo Hah!

I really take some exception to the term 'sex industry'.

Is it really true that anything that involves financial transaction, whether legal or illegal is worthy of the title "industry"?

While no doubt some can and, indeed, do make the case that there are the pseudo-components of industry...work venues, employees, employers, revenue, payments, clients, sales, purchases, advertising...etc....there is the question about whether sexual relationships should indeed be industrialised.

A case needs to be made for the idea of 'industry' being something that is socially beneficial.

This is more than an industrial question. There are pretty significant ethical issues. Do we feel comfortable for example talking about the drug industry, the burglary industry, the pornography industry...or (God help us) the paedophile industry.

All illegal, all profitable...but hardly socially beneficial.

This is not to say that prostitutes should not be protected. But my concern is that prostitutes should not be seeking "satisfactory working conditions", they should be seeking to be freed from prostitution.

Although those involved in the trade often declare that they are doing it by choice, and that it has no effect on them or anyone else. Both of those things would have to be seriously challenged.

Even if we were to assume that a person can be a prostitute and not be affected by it, the social consequences of allowing sexual relationships to become yet another commodity for our voracious appetites for anything would seem to me to be undesirable.

Do we really want to live in a society in which peoples' most intimate affections have actually become commodities that can be bought or sold? Is that good for us, good for them...and more importantly...good for our children?

So, let's try to support prostitutes by helping them to get out of the trade. This should be done by proper social and financial support and not by suggesting that industrial regulation would some how suffice.

Done and dusted

There is any number of comments that could be made about the recent State election I'll try and up-date some of these ad hoc remarks as the day goes on.

1. The age old dilemma about the "dodgy how to vote cards", in which Labor sympathisers obviously tried to make themselves look like Family First members, handing out cards that would give Labor a preference rather than Liberal, raises the question about the difference between legal, moral and ethical (Ethics 101). Something which may be legal is not necessarily moral.

2. The Labor campaign manager says "These questions are best left to philosophers". I want to suggest that this is equivocation of the worst kind, the 'lectorate despises this sort of casuistry and the Labor party should sack campaign managers who do not think they should act morally as well as legally.

3. Good on Premier Mike Rann for condemning this out of hand. Well done Chloe Fox for not adopting this strategy. Boo to Leon Bignell, whose victory has been tarnished even if it cannot be proved that this actually delivered the victory to him.

4. On the other hand. Let us not so be so ingenuous as to suggest that voters slavishly follow how to vote cards, and even if they do then more fool them.

We should all take responsibility for how we vote and not blame cards which short-circuit our brains.

The Legislative Council

Don't even get me started on the Legislative Council! The whole process of 'voting above the line' is in my mind an affront to our democratic rights. It suits the two major parties who want to get rid of as many independents and smaller parties as they can. Anything which impedes their open slather is a bad thing in their eyes. By voting above the line you are ceding your right to choose for yourself to these party machines.

I shall expound more about this tomorrow

Valid medical reasons

We can get ourselves into some curious ethical situations that would not have been possible fifty or even twenty years ago. We read in today's press for example that numbers of active male service personnel who have had their sperm frozen (presumably in case they are killed) unauthorised but at taxpayer's expense have had their sperm removed.
The policy is apparently that only those with genuine "assisted reproductive issues" can avail themselves of this facility. Apparently risk of death is not an "assisted reproductive issue".
One of the problems with reproductive ethics is that the issue are often resolved 'on the run', rather than dispassionately. While it is important to take context into account, it is also important that we not allow ourselves to be swayed in such sensitive areas by emotion alone.
The inevitable sadness we might feel at the death of a soldier, or at the disappointment of his parents at being denied grandchildren, or at a widow wanting a genetic reminder of her spouse are a very heavy circumstantial overlay to lay upon this debate.
I am also cautious about children being conceived with the expectation that they will not just be born into this world and (hopefully) allowed to thrive but also have to bear the added responsibility of representing a dead soldier, perhaps their father. To not just be a son or a daughter, but also have to be the constant living embodiment of a dead parent.
I am not, at this stage, I think, against the idea. I just think there is a discussion that needs to happen, which I have not particularly been aware of. And ti would be best if this was done at arm's length.
I would be interested in your comments.

I quite like gambling as fun

I like the idea of gambling as fun, the trouble is that it easily degenerates into something nasty.
It was interesting to watch Peter Newell at the National Press Club yesterday trying to justify Clubs Australia's massive ongoing investment in poker machines. As a media professional he handled himself competently and dealt with tricky questions by not answering them or by answering another question altogether.
Controversial amongst his answers was the proposed '6 Point Plan' which includes a strategy to allow family members to dob problem gamblers in. This would seem to be fraught with difficulty, and even in SA where this has had some limited testing the results have been woefully small (less than 15 people in two years).
I feel sorry for the community clubs, they are not the real villains I suspect. Casinos and other totally dedicated gambling venues are a different thing altogether; hotels who have totally redesigned their operations around cheap drinks and food designed to lure the gambler in; are these ethical.
Tim Costello asked Newell "What level of revenue is it ethical for venues to make from problem gamblers?" He had the good sense to not answer it, it is a wife-beating question. It is also like asking a publican how much money they can ethically take from alcoholics and other problem drinkers! Or supermarkets how much chocolate they can ethically sell to the obese.
In a State where a person was shot this week because they were dealt a 'lucky hand' at cards, which someone didn't like, we can indeed see that gambling is fraught with high emotions and distortions

Calling prison home

Number 3 came home today full of the case study they had done in 'extension'. It was about the Stanford Prison Experiment. Those who like me are involved in minor acadmeic research will be intrugued what you could get away with in the name of psychology in 1971.
S was fascinated by an academic experiment which had gone both horribly wrong, and intriguingly also exposed some very important truths.
I didn't really know very much about it; some volunteers are invited to play prisons. Half being the prisoners and half being the guards. It is a fascinating study of how we seem to intuitively know what to do when we imprison people...it's worth spending ten minutes to buzz through the slides. But pretty frightening really. (here)
What is of great interest to me is how my little girl is growing up!
I remember when K first started to tell jokes what a sign that was of intellectual growth, now the baby is critiquing the ethics of psychology experiments.
It's good isn't it?