Law Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for legal professionals, students, and others with experience or interest in law. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
There have been a number of articles about people who have been exchanging sex for rent or accommodation.
Assuming that at some interval a person provides sexual services to another and in for this they are given some where to live (could be with them or at another location) could this be considered a form of prostitution? Or does money have to be exchanged to be considered prostitution.
What test apply?
'Prostitution' is neither wholly legal nor wholly illegal in Australia. Some prostitution is legal and other prostitution is not. The rules differ from State to State.
In Victoria the relevant law is the Sex Work Act 1994 (Vic). The term 'sex work' is defined in section 3 of the Act. Note that, even then, not all sex work is necessarily legal or illegal.
In Victoria, it is generally lawful for a person to take money (or money's worth) for sex, as long as it's not as part of a business such as an 'escort agency' or 'brothel' (each term is defined in the Act). However, it is an offence to:
In conclusion, a person paying rent in the form of sex is likely to be legal, but they would have to use a condom, take steps to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, etc. Advertising 'come live here in exchange for sex' would, however, be illegal.
It would be prostitution, however, prostitution is not illegal in Australia.
Barter is a legal way to settle debts in Australia so long as all taxes are paid, for example, the tenant must pay income tax on the value of the sex provided and the landlord must pay tax on the residential rent value. Of course this hardly ever happens, so in that sense, it breaches tax law.
There are work health and safety and residential rental tenancy laws that must be observed.
Prostitution that is limited to the exchange of sexual services for money is legal (unless it involves such things as soliciting and/or persistent loitering).
Requiring tenants to have Sex for Rent, however, is unlawful. The leading (and possibly the only) example is the conviction of Christopher Cox in May 2022. As the Crown Court rarely publishes its sentencing remarks, and as this case did not go to Appeal, there is no freely available open-source caselaw for me to cite. All that's available is from media reports, such as this one that states Cox...
...was jailed for 12 months. He had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of inciting prostitution for gain and one charge of controlling prostitution for gain when he appeared at an earlier hearing in March.
...
...Cox has brazenly advertised on a classified ads website offering a room in return for sexual services
If followed through, these sexual favours would make the prospective tenant a prostitute according to section 54(2) Sexual Offences Act 2003:
..."prostitute” means a person (A) who, on at least one occasion and whether or not compelled to do so, offers or provides sexual services to another person in return for payment or a promise of payment to A...
So, by placing the adverts and demanding sex in the way he did, Cox was convicted of:
(1) A person commits an offence if—
(a) he intentionally causes or incites another person to become a prostitute in any part of the world, and
(b) he does so for or in the expectation of gain for himself or a third person.
...
(1) A person commits an offence if—
(a) he intentionally controls any of the activities of another person relating to that person’s prostitution in any part of the world, and
(b) he does so for or in the expectation of gain for himself or a third person.
...
- (a) any financial advantage, including the discharge of an obligation to pay or the provision of goods or services (including sexual services) gratuitously or at a discount...
