Sex work in New Zealand is essentially legalized and decriminalized (with the exception of underage persons and people with temporary visas). As far as I know, the Kiwis have the most lenient laws regarding Sex Work in the world. Under this system, can sex work be integrated with other employee tasks? For example, if a New Zealander wanted to employ a personal assistant to do various administrative tasks, could they include sexual acts in the job description? I’ve looked at various websites on New Zealand’s sex work laws and heard a couple of talks on them, but I have not seen this addressed.
I’m not trying to poke any bears with this question; it’s just something I’m curious about.
I don’t know, but I really hope not. This seems like it would be insulating predators from sexual harassment complaints. I can easily imagine a desperate young person excepting a low-paying job with the understanding that she had to blow her boss on a regular basis, not because she wanted to be a prostitute but because she was desperate to feed herself.
I would rather doubt it; decriminalizing something doesn’t make it mandatory for anyone to partake in… and if you make it a job requirement that’s kind of forcing people to do it right? How would you get around all the labour laws protecting people from being forced to do unreasonable or unsafe things?
Presumably all the laws on harassment and assault are still in place, and would prevent such a thing (to whatever degree they are currently successful at least).
Many jobs have specialized requirements, some aspects of which potential employees might well find unpleasant (horse stable hand) or dangerous (salvage diver). Provided such are clearly disclosed, those who apply are saying they are willing to take on these responsibilities - force is not involved.
I think the employer could do this, assuming of course that he registered his home or business premises as a brothel, as required by the Prostitution Reform Act 2003.
There used to be employers using the BOQ loophole* to get around sex discrimination laws. Response was that the only valid BOQ jobs were wet nurse & sperm donor. This might add a 3rd category to that list.
*BOQ = Bone-fide Occupational Qualification. Like saying “we can’t hire a woman reporter since she might someday have to interview an athlete in a locker room, and obviously a woman couldn’t do that”.
…in New Zealand you can either operate as an individual sex worker, as part of a collective of no more than four sex workers (known legally as a small owner-operated brothel) or as an operator in the sex industry. Under the act:
The legislation is set up so that individual sex workers are allowed to work without having to register: it also allows groups of sex workers to work together safely without the need to register. A a New Zealander wanted to employ a personal assistant could not include sexual acts in the job description.
If they were not offering sex work themselves then they would not qualify as “a small owner-operated brothel” and even if they did offer sex work I doubt it would be seen in the courts as a legal transaction. If this New Zealander were working for a larger organization and this organization didn’t offer sex work they would have to apply for a Brothel Operator Certificate. The mere fact that the business would have to register as a brothel would be enough to put off most people from applying. The probability of getting a licence based on the scenario posted by the OP is practically zero.
I was thinking of something a little different what I saw the thread title - That would be an AWESOME employee benefit
2 weeks vacation, Health, Dental, 401K, & 2 visits a week to the sex worker of your choice
…just to add even more context: even if this person obtained an Operators licence a contract that stated that sex work (assuming the OP meant the sex worker was obliged to have sex with their employer) be integrated with other employee tasks would likely be illegal and unenforceable. Under section 16 of the act no person shall induce or compel someone else to provide commercial sexual services and section 17 explicitly states:
Part 3 hasn’t been tested in the courts, however I do not think it likely that an employer would be successful if it did make it to court by virtue of the fact they would never have been granted a brothel licence in the first place.
…the law doesn’t magically change if you flip it around. They would require a brothel licence: there would almost certainly be no grounds to grant the licence. These ridiculous hypotheticals (that always pop up in threads about sex workers) aren’t going to happen. A reminder that the reason why the laws were changed in New Zealand were because the sex worker industry lobbied for change. They gathered support from women’s groups, they managed to get bipartisan support, and they were involved in working groups that helped put the legislation together. You aren’t going to find a loophole and if you somehow managed to they would close it real quick. This is a harm-reduction model, not based on moral or ideological stances, the legislation was set up to both protect sex workers and the people that use their services.
My hypothetical was a proposed solution to Skald’s reasonable concern that someone accepting a position as a secretary could be forced into unwanted sexual activity.
Make it clear from the beginning that sex is the primary job description and administrative assistant functions are additional duties to be fulfilled when not taking dictation.
I acknowledge that this would probably not be legal under the appropriate legislation, but was asking Skald if that would alleviate his objections.
No, it would not alleviate my objections. I think it would, if legal, lead to people like Harvey Weinstein finding more ways to exploit the vulnerable.
…**I **would object because once again it removes agency from the sex worker. A contract that obligates a person to have sex with someone else would be illegal here and it should be illegal anywhere else that decriminalises sex work. What you describe isn’t sex work. Its sex slavery.
Yeah it seems like the only equitable, and frankly moral, way to handle this is if each and every act requires specific individual consent - no blanket policies, period.