Editor—Responses to the government proposals on prostitution vary from sex worker to sex worker.1 The following is the view of a Glasgow street sex worker I spoke to recently.
“I've seen the stuff in the papers about it, and I have to tell you, I'm totally pissed off about it. They're saying they're going to chase the punters, and what are we meant to do? Work in flats? Are they kidding? The lassies that work round here are only doing it because of drugs, me included, and we cannae [get a job to] work in the [commercial sex] flats, and if we work in our own flats we'll just end up getting it taken off of us. And then they'll be homeless. I don't know what it is with the high heed yins, you'd think they wanted the lot of us murdered. We've done everything they told us to. Ugly mugs, reporting, condoms, not working certain places like the lane at the drop in [specialist health service], everything. Now they're setting up the punters against us and the whole thing will fall apart.”
LC: “Does that mean you will stop working?”
“I'll still need the money, no.”
Competing interests: None declared.
References
- 1.Prostitution shake-up: one sex worker's view. BMJ 2006;332: 245. (28 January.) [Google Scholar]