Dienstag, 28. April 2015

X is for XXX sex industry in Switzerland

Back when I had my hen night and (as discussed in th F post, we learned some swiss folk dances) some of my kind American friends braved the sex shop down the road from my place and bought me saucy gifts. It was....not the sex-positive (see: clean and run by cheerful and helpful women) and very different from those that these California and New York residents were used to. This sex shop has since closed and is reportedly going to be a new branch of a popular asian fusion restaurant soon.
When I returned to Switzerland from a year in San Francisco, a search to get a European adapter for a marital aid led me to a shop that is open by appointment and sweetly called "clit care." Had this shop existed or been known to me in 2007, I might have been able to show my American friends that sex-positive shops can be found here as well. Alas, that was not the case.
Another thing that happened when we returned from our year in California (and this was the night that we arrived home) we sat eating pizza and watching a political roundtable news program and there was a debate about whether or not there should be rules in place to limit cell phone use by prostitutes when they're working with a client. "Text messaging is one thing, but taking and making phone calls when they're with a client is unprofessional." It was then that I knew that I was truly home.
That year, we also got to vote for safe places for prostitutes who prefer to serve (or have customers who prefer to be served) in cars. They approved proposal was for a parking area that would be patrolled by police for the sex-worker's safety. The parking structure is constructed in a way that would make it impossible for the driver to exit the car, while providing space for the passenger's side to be opened, and hopefully create safer conditions for sex-workers. Those women who use those the "sex boxes" have to have the same permits and pay the same taxes that workers in brothels do, and they're also provided laundry facilities, showers and a café for breaks.
Sex work in Europe is of course never entirely safe. Though pimping is illegal and brothels and prostitution are legal for adults with the correct permits, there is always a risk of women being trafficked. But Switzerland has done their best to make sure that this "inevitable" service is done as safely and sanely as possible.
As far as pornography is concerned, Switzerland worked between 2006 and 2014 to fine tune their ban or hard core pornography. According to the current criminal code, they not only forbid the production of porn with children under 16, those children must also appear to be 18. The idea being that a 16 year old who still looks pubescent or pre-pubescent may not be filmed in pornography. (The age of legal poor consumption is also 16, which would play a role in any cases that may arise from adolescent "sexting") The other sorts of hard core porn have been tweaked and the presence or urine or scat is now no longer considered hard core. There are certain levels of S&M pornography that are forbidden, but the main focus of criminal code 311.0 are concerned with child pornography.


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