Not a benefit of sex work legalisation we'd thought of but still....

We’re in favour of the legalisation of sex work simply because we’re in favour of the legalisation of near all activities of consenting adults. We’re really very sure that this is what liberty means, that consenting adults, where there’s no third party harm, getting on with things as they wish to is that freedom we’re all supposed to be aspiring to.

There are side effects of course, not all of them things we’d thought of:

The week before New Zealand went into full lockdown on 26 March, Lana*, 28, had taken a break from work at the high-end Wellington brothel where, since September, she had made around NZ$2,200 a month seeing two or three clients a week.

On 23 March, her university announced courses would move online. The following day she decided to stay with her parents in Auckland, and applied for New Zealand’s emergency wage subsidy for all workers whose earnings have fallen by at least 30% due to coronavirus.

Just two days later the money – a lump sum of NZ$4,200 covering 12 weeks of lost part-time earnings – was in her account. Full-time workers, who average more than 20 hours a week, get a lump sum of $7,029.

“The form only took about three minutes to fill out and I didn’t need to disclose that I am a sex worker,” Lana said. “I only needed to disclose that I am self-employed.”

Those who pay the relevant taxes - or perhaps, when we talk of social security taxation, the correct insurance premiums - in the good times should indeed be due the payouts in the bad. Legalisation of the profession means that both those taxes are due and paid and also that the societal safety net is there too.

We still stick with our very basic analysis, if adults wish to do this then why shouldn’t they? But there are, as we say, additional points we’ve not before noted.

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