Now it’s only legal if you’re paying for it
The new Coronavirus Regulations make paid sex visits the only legal way to do it
One can see why Boris Johnson would want to steer this historic change to English law.
But outside of the escort industry, who else would have voted to make all sex illegal, unless you’re paying for it (or already live in the same household).
I know, I know. Even with all the absurdities created by the State’s attempts to micro-manage your individual life, sure this can’t be correct?
Well, see for yourself:
Citation and commencement
1.—(1) These Regulations may be cited as the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020.
(2) They come into force on 1st June 2020.
“6.—(1) No person may, without reasonable excuse, stay overnight at any place other than the place where they are living.
(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1), the circumstances in which a person (“P”) has a reasonable excuse include cases where—
(d) it is reasonably necessary for P to stay elsewhere—
(i) for work purposes, or for the provision of voluntary or charitable services;
“7.—(1) During the emergency period, unless paragraph (2) applies, no person may participate in a gathering which takes place in a public or private place—
(b) indoors, and consists of two or more persons.
(2) This paragraph applies where—
(d) the gathering is reasonably necessary—
(i) for work purposes, or for the provision of voluntary or charitable services;
As a former barrister and solicitor, I recall endless discussions about seeking to make legislation clear and comprehensible, using standard words of the English language. Well, these statutory provisions tick those boxes.
And now, from 1 June 2020, so long as there is payment involved in getting your box ticked, so that it is “work”, then that’s OK too.
In fact, it’s the only legal way to do it:
if you have your relationship partner round to your house, even just to be inside together 2 metres apart or more, that is a crime
if a sex worker and client do the most Pornhub things together all night long, that is lawful.
Being a sex-worker is definitely “work”. There’s a famous old case in which an escort was nabbed for not paying VAT. She argued that it is not a “supply of services in business”. The Court decided that it was. An escort is liable not only to VAT, but to income tax on earnings.
So there is absolutely no question that undertaking paid activity as an escort is “work”, as a matter of English law.
It’s difficult to see how a court could find that a visit to a client’s home is not “reasonably necessary” for the paid sex work. After all, since Govt UK shut the hotels, you can’t do it there.
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 of 26 March 2020, defined a specific set of businesses and prohibited them from operating. Sex work is not on the list.
So now, sex is only legal if you’re paying for it.
