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Prostitution: why Swedes believe they got it right (targeting the men who pay for sex)
Country held up as model for reform across Europe after targeting the men who pay for sexKajsa Wahlberg remembers well the reaction when she helped lead efforts to introduce Sweden's now-famous laws criminalising the purchase of sex. "It had enormous interest. People were laughing in 1999 at Sweden and saying it can't be done. A German police officer told me, 'You're crazy sweetie, you can't do that, you cannot prohibit men from buying sex, it's totally impossible.' But he said if you can reduce the amount of trafficking cases with your legislation I wish you good luck, because in Germany it's grown out of proportion."
Nearly 15 years on, Sweden believes it has. Police say the number of prostitutes has dropped by two-thirds. A report by a Swedish academic says that by tackling demand, Sweden provides some of the best protection to trafficking victims.
He says the number of prostitutes has dramatically decreased since the law was introduced, from 2,500 across Sweden in 1998 to about 1,000 today.
Sweden is held up as a model for European reform on prostitution law. Last week, France moved in the same direction, bringing in fines for people who pay for sex. Politicians and police officers from several countries have visited Stockholm, wanting to know what impact the law has had. But the debate is highly polarised. Many experts argue that only by regulating the sex trade and bringing it into the open, as has been done in Germany and the Netherlands, will women get the protection they need.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/dec/11/prostitution-sweden-model-reform-men-pay-sex
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dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)French Lawmakers Back New Prostitution Law .
PARIS — The French lower house of parliament passed a reform of prostitution law on Wednesday imposing fines on clients, a shift to tougher rules which has split the country and angered some sex workers.
Lawmakers voted 268 in favor and 138 against to give France some of the most restrictive legislation on prostitution in Europe - a radical switch away from the nation's traditionally tolerant attitude.
Those seeking to buy sex will now face a 1,500 euro ($2,000) fine, while the act of soliciting itself will no longer be punished.
Women's Rights Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, who has championed the reform, argued that prostitution in any form is unacceptable and said the aim of President Francois Hollande's Socialist government was to suppress the trade altogether.
http://www.voanews.com/content/french-lawmakers-back-new-prostitution-law/1803462.html
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)George Carlin (of course)
sendero
(28,552 posts)Plenty of wives see it that way 
polichick
(37,626 posts)the system doesn't work anymore.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)just as it won't work now, not that it's even an issue since the collapse of '08.
The only tangible result of the republican amnesty was a drastic and rapid collapse of wages at the lower end of the spectrum and record profits at the other.
redqueen
(115,186 posts)Really?
Really?
It's so predictable, how certain ideologies are often grouped the way they are.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)Obsess over phraseology 'cause that's the real issue.
Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)reveals an overall picture about you that perhaps you don't realize. Now, go ahead and come back with a snappy insult - I won't bother responding. Have the last word...
1000words
(7,051 posts)Prostitutes are unionized and are entitled to the same benefits and protections all workers enjoy.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)more. comparative speaking, no, it is not the answer.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)seabeyond
(110,159 posts)Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)Rather than the outcomes it promised.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)legalization. and in their experience, they see it as a fail. yet.... so many here in the u.s. are just sure that is the answer. so.... why are you not doing the research to see why germany, france, ireland, australia, and even amsterdamn see legalization as a fail? why do you think you know so much more than the people that are actually immersed in it. all the countries that have given it a go are now rejecting it, yet you and others totally ignore that and tell them that is the answer. what sense does that make?
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)The people who are "actually immersed in it" and their advocates favor legalization pretty much exclusively. So I don't think I know more than everyone, but I don't limit my sources by ideology. I've read what your side has to say about it. Have you entertained other points of view?
http://www.hivlawcommission.org/resources/report/FinalReport-Risks,Rights&Health-EN.pdf
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)major. as i said, the countries that legalized see it as a fail. that simple. whatever side you are talking is lost on that simple fact.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)I've never claimed otherwise. Just changing the laws and allowing nature to take its course is not the answer. However there is no question that illegalization efforts have been a dismal failure everywhere they have been tried to the detriment of those inside the trade. The Swedish model is no exception to this.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)same listening to both presentations.
but i also recognize that the countries that have legalized it see that as a failure too. doesnt seem to be the answer.
EOTE
(13,409 posts)Also, there are a number of countries with legalized prostitution who are happy with how it turned out. Your argument is extremely ideologically driven.
lightcameron
(224 posts)Important aspects are consent and privacy.
It shouldn't be viewed as an all-or-nothing situation.
Squinch
(59,521 posts)
lightcameron
(224 posts)But I didn't. I said, very clearly...
It shouldn't be viewed as an all-or-nothing situation.
Thanks for playing.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)richard gere scenario. reality be damn.
gotcha.
lightcameron
(224 posts)Because ultimately the discussion about my views as stated above is really about your desire to tell consenting adults what they can and can't do with their bodies.
None of your business.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)that is not the reality of prostitution.
lightcameron
(224 posts)Your position is that no woman is smart and strong enough to decide on her own to engage in prostitution. That's a very sexist view, and one that many high-priced escorts would object to. That is, if they cared enough to debate the subject with you, seeing as how you've obviously decided to form your opinion based on the worst caricature of the profession.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)argument none the less. you know. the "pretty woman" syndrome with richard gere i referred to above.
lightcameron
(224 posts)That's the first caricature you presented in defense of your position.
Now we're up to two.
Tiresome.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)lightcameron
(224 posts)Repeating the same thing doesn't make you right. It just makes you boring. Especially since you're just making stuff up.
If you manage to accidentally come up with anything even remotely substantive in this discussion, I'll be happy to see it.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)the addictions, the loss of life without a thought or care in the world. you know... the whole "But why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or that or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that,"
treestar
(82,383 posts)It's not like it's something girls want to be when they grow up. It's dangerous, for starters. Desperation is the usual reason. There ought to be a social safety net so that no woman has to make that "choice."
redqueen
(115,186 posts)Women from Amsterdam and Germany, who have more options, don't seem to want to fill that demand.
It's kinda amusing to see how hard people will work to avoid recognizing the significance of this fact. But, I suppose when you have an agenda to push, and you're getting desperate, well...
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Much as the phrase "consenting adults" in these discussions means "I have a right to pay for sex..." no more and no less; regardless of the preciousness wrapping paper it comes in.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)Financial pressures and drug addiction are not instances of "consent." Nobody enters into this existence unless there are no other avenues.
Consent has to be freely entered into. Prostitution is not consent.
If "civil libertarians" are ever right about a goddamned thing it would be a miracle.
lightcameron
(224 posts)Odd that you'd make such a sweeping statement that these arrangements are never freely entered into.
And, yes, I'm a proud civil libertarian, as I have zero interest in allowing others to interfere when consenting adults engage in behavior that is victimless. So unless we're talking about human trafficking for prostitution, you and I have no right to do anything about this, much less even know about it.
exboyfil
(18,359 posts)Including making some commerce illegal at its extreme. We can decide the particular locations for commerce and the circumstances in which the commerce occurs (food laws etc for example).
Note: I think prostitution should be legal and regulated (along with drugs).
ProudToBeBlueInRhody
(16,399 posts)Wow. Did you come in the wrong door or something?
Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)They're being forced to work at horseshit companies for horseshit pay when they can do a lot better.
See how ridiculous your "argument" is?
Response to Vashta Nerada (Reply #33)
seabeyond This message was self-deleted by its author.
Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)happy holidays to all....
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12594290
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)El_Johns
(1,805 posts)& the same pressures.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Working at McDs and prostitution are not equivalent.
Under your logic, any kind of job is no worse than consenting to be beaten or tortured for money.
Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)Many people with advanced college degrees are forced to work at McD's and Walmart for shitty wages. They deserve better, but can't get better because the job market sucks.
How is that different?
Oh. It's not.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)as letting 20 strange men ejaculate in one's throat EVERY DAY.
Anyone who does not see how prostitution harms women is choosing not to look.
Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)Every woman in prostitution is forced into it.
Maybe, just maybe, a few of them like making the $$$$, no?
Good grief.
But every person with an advanced degree is forced into working crappy retail or fast food job, if they're in one. They're not making money, but they need to have those jobs to eat, to survive.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)when they try to pursue alternative employment?
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)seabeyond
(110,159 posts)LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)full-time sex work.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)Homemakers don't get a whole whopping lot of respect, but it is more socially acceptable than giving blowjobs, and has the advantage of being legal. Employers will accept "homemaker".
(ETA I should have said making a business of giving blowjobs, presumably homemakers are doing a bit of that too. )
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)because it screams 'lack of job skills and experience.'
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)It shouldn't be, since essentially you're running your own (presumably financially successful) business, but we all know there's misogynists out there who just love to shame (female) sex workers as incompetent twits, don't we?
The kind of sex worker who makes an actual resume is generally an upper-tier escort, and they usually get to put "college" into the gap. Street workers don't make resumes, they fill out applications, and "homemaker" is an acceptable gap-filler there. Dunno what the men do, didn't really know any well enough to ask.
And yes, lie. Thanks to the misogynists who like to shame and degrade (female) sex workers as incompetent twits, this is a criminal enterprise, remember? No matter how successful you were at it, you don't tell a prospective mainstream employer that you worked as a criminal for X years if you don't have a record that you must disclose. That would be an incompetent twit move, and nobody likes to be thought of as an incompetent twit.
HTH
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)None of your arguments change the fact that the trade leaves women psychologically and physically damaged, without the skills or wherewithal to transition into the workforce.
And the rare case of the woman who decides to operate it as a small business and doesn't mind sucking 20 d!cks per day does not outweight the much more numerous women who get severely FITH by it.
It is an institution with its foundation in male supremacy and ravenous capitalism. It cannot be redeemed.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)Thus putting us wimmenz in the same category as small children who commit crimes, because wimmenz don't have agency and stuff. Funny how you keep referring only to women, over and over and over and over- males in sex work are, of course, complicit because men can consent. Actually no, that's not funny at all.
People have worked very hard for a long, long time to make sure that promiscuity, not just for money but in all situations, is as harmful as possible, mentally and physically. It's called slut-shaming. Categorizing them as incompetent children, broken, damaged, dirty, ruined, fucked in the head, and generally in need of more virtuous guidance (or appropriate punishment) from more virtuous adults is slut-shaming. Criminalizing the most egregious offenders and ensuring that they must work in highly dangerous conditions without oversight, basic safety rules or access to legal redress, with society hurling the above slut-shaming insults at them all the while, is where psychological and physical damage comes from. Criminalization advocates have created the very problems that they tout further criminalization to solve. This is rooted in male supremacy and misogyny. For a good measurement of how deep those roots run, look how many people are still pushing the Swedish model like a bad batch of synthetic heroin, in spite of the fact that the Swedish numbers, the Swedish workers, and even the UN all point directly to higher rates of risk, violence and trafficking.
If you had to go to work in those conditions every day, one of two things would happen. If your mind is strong, you'd be just as up in arms as I am; if it's not, you'd get broken and wind up FITH. The work itself, without the disapproval piled on it by social misogyny? Not a big deal.
I suppose we're all supposed to be grateful that it eliminates the jail option, though. Here, have this crumb, and forget about those basic rights, you don't need those, we'll take care of you, trust us... Yeah, that always ends well.
I'm pretty sure you know all this already. It's been said enough times. Support it if you like, that's up to you, but this pretense that it's all about saving the precious women from misogyny is ridiculous.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)and rooted in male supremacy and capitalist exploitation is a feminist cause.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)violence, rapes, deaths and untold psychological damage, rooted in male supremacy, heterocentrism, misogyny and oppression, is a feminist cause then, sir, and we'll both be happy. See how that works?
I have facts, statistics and the freakin' UN on my side. You have Sex Is Icky fundies on yours. Enjoy.
p.s. marriage is also an institution rooted in male supremacy and capitalist exploitation. Many things are. That doesn't mean they have to stay that way. This has been your Thought For The Day.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)I guess someone should tell Noam Chomsky and Catherine MacKinnon that they're sex is icky fundies.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)It's been done. Here's a fun list of other people who agree that legalization is bad:
George W Bush
Phyllis Schlafly
Stephen Harper
Melissa Farley
Somaly Mam
Julie Bindel
The LDS Church
Challenge: come up with an argument against legalized prostitution that is not based on the unsafe conditions resulting from criminalization and lack of access to worker protections, nor based in misogynist social stigma against promiscuous women (i.e. icky sex is damaging and demeaning to teh girlz). If you can, we'll discuss it and I'll make an honest attempt not to snark at you. Go.
p.s. it's not just a claim. the links have been posted repeatedly. next time, read a few.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Prostitution is an institution devoted to the notion that women exist in order to sexually service men, that money and power are an adequate substitute to being an engaged and reciprocal partner. It is capitalism at its crudest and most exploitative. It commodifies and profanes the great gift of human sexuality. Its fundmental dynamic is of the privileged exploiting the vulnerable.
Where it has been legalized, it has been legalized for the protection of MEN, not women. The johns do not get tested for diseases to protect the women--the women get disease tested to protect the men.
Legalization has never been about protecting the women. It has always been about making it easier for men to exert their privilege to have women on demand, as implemented through social and economic inequality.
In Germany and the Netherlands, legalization lead to a massive rise in sex trafficking because there were a lot more German men and Dutch men wanting to pay for sex than there were Dutch and German women willing to sell it--at any price--because they were educated, and had social equality such that they had other options.
Cf.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)Even French, even Swedes. Even DUers.
Argh. If true, it would be free and required on demand, with legal penalties for refusal. Such an institution did in fact exist, and still does in many countries: it's called marriage. We've managed to shift the balance of power in that institution and de-stigmatized divorce, remarriage, domestic violence victims, and women's rights to property, credit independent of her husband, and refusal of sexual demands: all without criminalizing husbands. I might go so far as to suggest there might be a lesson to be learned from that.
Capitalism, it is. This is not necessarily a bad thing unless (and this applies to everything from sweatshops to WalMart) that capitalism is allowed to run rampant, completely unregulated. This is what prostitution is in most of the world, due to criminalized conditions.
Incidentally, fail on #2, no misogynist social stigmas toward promiscuous women. The idea that female sexuality is a "gift" that can be "profaned" by overuse is misogynist, purity culture crap. Also, please learn to use gender-neutral terms.
Where it has been legalized, it has been legalized for the protection of MEN, not women. The johns do not get tested for diseases to protect the women--the women get disease tested to protect the men.
Thoroughly untrue on item 1; both Germany and New Zealand legalized primarily based on improving conditions for workers; unlike Sweden, which shut out input from worker's rights organizations, New Zealand's law was created with input from women's and human rights advocacy organizations.
Legal workers get tested for the exact same reason I had to have a TB test and a hep shot to get my health card in Vegas but the casino customers did not; businesses are required to take steps to prevent any preventable disease transmission by their workers, to their clientele, a process known as "regulation". Weren't you advocating in the porn threads for safety regulations in that industry? This is what it looks like. It means that the workers, for whose actions the company is responsible, have to be tested and treated to keep from exposing customers (whose actions cannot be controlled by the company) to illness, and precautions are taken to further prevent transmission in the event that the testing fails.
In a restaurant, for example, this takes the form of TB testing, proper food storage at mandated temperatures, and proper cooking to mandated temperatures. For sex workers, it's monthly tests and condoms.
Also, if conditions improve for the workers, I'd still be pretty happy even if it were just a side effect of legalized orgasms. I'm not sure why the idea of reduced harm and improved conditions would disturb you under any circumstances.
No, I lie. I know why.
Again, if true, it would be free. If you have to pay someone and they have to agree to accept your money and provide the service, it's not "on demand", it is "when resources permit and the other party consents".
#2 fail again, for assuming as usual that women (only women! only ever women!) have no capacity for consent.
Germany has not experienced a rise in trafficking; it experienced a drop. Put 10 people in a room and you'll get 15 different opinions on why the Netherlands has risen (even controlling for the numbers padding since 2005, there has been some rise) while Germany and New Zealand did not. I have my own opinion, which I won't share here.
If it was all about legalization, though, Norway and Sweden would be seeing a drop, and instead they are seeing a rise.
Here is the list of Tier 3 countries for this year (2013):
Algeria
Central African Republic
China
Cuba
Democratic Republic of Congo
Guinea-Bissau
Iran
North Korea
Kuwait
Libya
Mauritania
Papua New Guinea
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Sudan
Syria
Uzbekistan
Yemen
Zimbabwe
Out of those 19 countries, zero have legalized prostitution although 2 are decriminalized. If you're genuinely worried about trafficking problems and are not just trying to impose a moral standard on promiscuous women, I would submit that you're looking in the wrong direction.
And one more thing:
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)And, you contradict yourself by denying that dynamic has existed, and then turning around and stating that it did, but that was marriage not prostitution.
You were half-right. Patriarchal domination through marriage was the rule, and the same patriarchy also gave rise to the institution of prostitution. Why would we reject patriarchy in one context but argue for its continuance in another?
And there it is. Regulation exists to protect the men from the women, with no such measures to protect the women from the men.
That is the nature of capitalism--those with the money get protected from those without money. The privileged class--men--gets protected from the unprivileged class.
Being available on demand is not the same thing as being free. I have video on demand through the cable box. It is not free.
Very cute trick, citing a link from the pimps' lobby regarding Germany's experience with trafficking. Here's a few more credible citations:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/human-trafficking-persists-despite-legality-of-prostitution-in-germany-a-902533.html
Despite the worsening conditions, women are flocking to Germany, the largest prostitution market in the European Union -- a fact that even brothel owners confirm. Holger Rettig of the UEGD says that the influx of women from Romania and Bulgaria has increased dramatically since the two countries joined the EU. "This has led to a drop in prices," says Rettig, who notes that the prostitution business is characterized by "a radical market economy rather than a social market economy."
Munich Police Chief Wilhelm Schmidbauer deplores the "explosive increase in human trafficking from Romania and Bulgaria," but adds that he lacks access to the necessary tools to investigate. He is often prohibited from using telephone surveillance. The result, says Schmidbauer, "is that we have practically no cases involving human trafficking. We can't prove anything."
http://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/Trafficking_in_Persons_in_Europe_09.pdf
http://www.dw.de/germany-too-lax-on-human-trafficking/a-16724634
For two years, the EU has been pushing for tougher sentences and better protection for the victims. The deadline to implement EU regulations into national law was April 5 – but Germany failed to meet that deadline.
Citing TVPA tiers is not really relevant to the discussion of whether legalization increases or decreases trafficking.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)I don't know. You're the one suggesting it be continued, you'd have to tell me.
We have not rejected marriage. As I pointed out, we did not criminalize marriage or jail men for marrying women, or call women incompetent for marrying men. We gave women equal power within the institution and access to legal services, and criminalized abusive behaviors within the institution, changed the institutional power structure, in fact, without banning the institution itself or sanctioning the people who participate in it. Pretty much what I'm suggesting ought to happen with prostitution.
What do you reckon would happen if we suggested criminalizing weddings, and jailing any man who marries a woman?
Purity culture bullshit. Essential human experience, yes. "Gift" that is "profaned" when used outside your personal social norm, no. That's the ideology behind every slut-shamer in existence.
And there it is. Regulation exists to protect the men from the women, with no such measures to protect the women from the men.
JFC. The same measures that protect the customers also protect the workers. That's what condom laws are for- minimizing the risk of disease transmission, the same reason your doctor wears gloves. You insist on safety regulations for the sex industry, then you piss and moan about the regulations because they are also protecting people you don't like.
Also, you're still stuck in Heteronormativille on the planet Misogyny. Hey, guess what? Male prostitutes exist! They face the exact same health hazards that we women do, doing the same fucking job, taking the same risks for the same money. They even do that same yucky thing with the penis and the mouth that you seem to have so many issues with. If the local Firefighter's Union announced a program of special protections and concerns for male firefighters because there's more men in the industry, you'd be howling like a herd of coyotes. That's how I feel about you right now. If you're going to pretend you actually care about workers, then care about all of them. Not just the inferior wimmenz who need your superior male guidance. All of them. If you're not going to bother to do that, don't bother responding, because I actually do care about them all.
Bonus story from Sweden, where sex work is considered violence against women:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/11/12/swedish-study-male-sex-workers-twice-as-prevalent-as-female-ones/
You still have to pay for it and the cable company has to agree to provide it. If your credit's bad or you don't pay them, they won't. You can "demand" it all day long, but you won't get it without you paying them, and them agreeing to give it to you. You're not entitled to it by right. That actually is a pretty good analogy, although I doubt you meant it that way. Hopefully it hasn't "profaned" your viewing experience.
There was a direct link to the German federal police website included in the article, but the report was scrubbed. The numbers weren't made up, if that's what you're trying to imply.
The Rights Work Initiative – a project of the Program on Human Trafficking and Forced Labor at the American University Washington College of Law’s Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.
Addressing human trafficking and forced labor through independent research and debate.
This is the "pimp" in charge. Her name is Ann Jordan. She moonlights as an attorney specializing in anti-trafficking efforts, when she's not pimpin'.
I'd like to know what about that says "pimp's lobby" to you, I really would. Nice try. But as usual, a fail.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)1. Marriage is a partnership, a union. Prostitution is exploitation that depends upon gross social inequality.
2. Spare me the sanctimony on 'sl@t-shaming"--people can do orgies, swinging, water sports, BDSM, whatever they want--so long as the experience is intended to satisfy all participating, that's not degrading. Exploitation via economic, social, and gender inequality is degrading. The antonym of degrading is not misogyny.
3. That you view cable television as fundamentally the same as human sexuality is very telling.
4. Ann Jordan has argued against legislation targeting pimps. She's argued on behalf of pimps that trafficking laws are unnecessary, since forced labor etc already cover them. So, there ya go--she opposes trafficking so long as you define the term to rape at gunpoint. She's ALEC to the pimps' and sex traffickers' Koch Brothers, and a collaborator with the moneyed interests who seek to exploit women.
5. Yes, there are men in prostitution, most often being sold to other men.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)Marriage is now. It wasn't always. It used to be exploitation based on gross social inequality. We changed that. The only difference is that you participate in one but not the other, therefore you can condemn one but cannot condemn the other. It used to be completely legal for a husband to beat and rape his wife. Is that a "partnership, union" to you?
You have, or more accurately your wife has, a "partnership, union" because we changed the power structure within marriage to empower the weaker party without criminalizing the institution; an idea that did wonders for the women involved yet you completely oppose for prostitutes.
Change is possible. You just don't want it. And yes, we all do know why.
No.
Except for "wanking" to porn
Or blowjobs.
Looking at women.
Ejaculation without "intimacy", part 1, part 2
Being horny.
Consensual rape play, requested by the woman.
Sexting
Just a small random sample, since I don't have all day to sit here and argue with the broken search function. Every time the issue of sex comes up, in any context other than monogamous marriage, here comes you to explain why people shouldn't be doing that, much like every time a porn or prostitution thread comes up, here comes you to explain how women ought to behave.
I sincerely doubt, based on your post history, that you are in any way OK with people choosing "orgies, swinging, water sports, BDSM, whatever they want". Your post history reflects more of what you feel they should be doing. Nice try.
The antithesis of accepting women's choices, however, is.
Dictating women's acceptable choices and degrading them as mentally inferior if they choose otherwise is also synonymous with misogyny.
Excuse me? Which of us brought that up again?
4. Ann Jordan has argued against legislation targeting pimps.
The closest thing I could find to this was a critique of the UN trafficking protocols based on the language involved. I can see why you wouldn't like her, though.
Be that as it may, she seems to be an attorney well respected for anti-trafficking work, whereas you are a random anonymous dude on the Internet with no credibility whatsoever. Guess who I will automatically prefer?
Nice attempt to distract from the actual numbers though, which came from the German government, not the org. Cute. Very cute. But still a fail.
Only trafficking victims are "sold", and trafficking victims are not "prostitutes", they are trafficking victims. Consent, it's really a thing.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)you must think Antonin Scalia is pro-choice.
(btw, your characterization of all of those posts of mine was thoroughly dishonest)
In your world, people who object to rape porn and street harassment of women are the bad guys.
Thank god I married a feminist and don't live in your world.
And, yes, to me, sex is more than ejaculating. There's another human being involved whose feelings and emotions matter. I guess that makes me a misogynist in your view. People who are into BDSM will tell you that sex is more than ejaculation. I guess they're too vanilla and judgmental for your taste.
In short, you're effectively an enabler of the patriarchy. Your eagerness to uphold it and make sure that the whims of men are of paramount importance is breathtaking and impressive.
I'm done with you and your collaborationist nonsense. Last word is yours, so go ahead and tell us how Larry Flynt is god's gift to women.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)I really don't. I doubt you'd enjoy my sex life, I know I'd I'd loathe yours. You seem determined to tell everyone else how to run theirs though. That's one difference between us.
I don't care if you have to have love, intimacy and mutual trust to get off. I care when you insist everyone must.
Every man on the Internet who tells women what to do seems to be married to "a feminist" who totally supports him and all his views and actions. Cool story, bro.
Your buddies had a merry time shaming BDSM participants as sick and mentally ill in the rape porn threads. Go and yell at them for awhile, since you care so much about sexual freedom. I'd actually enjoy seeing that thread, yes indeed.
Says the man to the woman, after an entire conversation on what he thinks women should and should not be allowed to do. Snork.
I'll let this lady have the last word.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)Homemaker. one word twofer. fantastic. oh lord. Highlarious.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)"Maybe, just maybe, a few of them like making the $$$$, no? "
I imagine many people tell themselves that. regardless of whether they believe it or not.
treestar
(82,383 posts)They at least don't involve intimate parts of the body, the possibility of being murdered, or of getting a disease.
Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)Robberies don't happen in shopping malls? There's no mass shootings in public places? Don't retail workers have to put up with a lot of bullshit from customers for little pay? Aren't retail workers usually the first people in society to get sick from the flu or the cold?
The only problem people have with prostitution on this site is that it involves sex in exchange for money. For some f-ed up reason, they don't like the fact that many people who are prostitutes do it because they make great $$$. Apparently nobody has free will.
treestar
(82,383 posts)That much involvement of one's inner body is certainly not involved. It's a lot more dangerous to be alone having sex with a strange man than the chances of being involved in a shoot-out at the mall. STDs are not just a cold or flu.
Most prostitutes do not make good money.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Speaking of weird notions of what "consent" is or isn't.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)Especially when they can get a job wearing a paper hat for $181 per week (before deductions).
Those who think it's all about men exploiting the women don't seem to realize who is hustling whom. Pointing to the worst of the sex trade (street prostitution) and pretending it's all that way ignores the reality that the internet completely changed the sex trade just like it did pretty much everything else. Pandering and prostitution are two different things. Trying to crackdown on one in order to target the other is an exercise in futility with the net result of denying agency to women under the guise of protecting women (from themselves).
EOTE
(13,409 posts)work? After all, if they're working to provide money for their addiction or to provide financial stability, so they're obviously not consenting to do the work, and if consent isn't involved, it shouldn't be legal. You're right, you need to find all these people who are working because of financial pressures and tell them that they can't work. Hey you, trying to pay your mortgage? That sounds like a financial pressure to me, I need to protect you from yourself, I'm afraid you're no longer able to work until those financial pressures go away.
That's got to be one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard. I only work because of financial pressures. When are you going to save me?
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Just ask any loan shark... 
(Insert distinction without a difference here...)
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)And then there are prostitutes who fit your description of them.
Stop generalizing, its dishonest discourse.
I would never use a prostitute myself. But in the situation where someone WANTS to sell sex and someone WANTS to buy sex and both are adults, then they should be allowed to do so.
We should fight sex trafficking with everything we got. We should have social safety nets that ensures no one should ever have to do something they feel degrades them just because its the only way they can make ends meet. These issues are related to prostitution, but also are not issues that go away because of the banning of all prostitution.
If "civil libertarians" are ever right about a goddamned thing it would be a miracle.
Wow, I hope you are just ignorant as to what civil libertarianism means. If not, then you are posting on the wrong website. Free speech? Legalization of marijuana, medical or otherwise? Industrial hemp? Anti-government spying? Gay marriage?
Cerridwen
(13,262 posts)Planning the murder of a third: "two consenting adults in private"
Planning the theft of a third person's life savings: "two consenting adults in private"
Does your statement fit all acts of criminal conspiracy? Or are you selective in what should be acceptable for "two (or more) consenting adults in private"?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)It's libertarianism.
Cerridwen
(13,262 posts)It's time to call it what it is and leave the "kinder, gentler" libertarian fascists to suffocate in their own authoritarian, me first; fuck you toxins.
Thanks to citizens united and other "corporations are people, too" legislation and legal masturbation, corporations have taken personhood status without the death sentence but with all the civil "rights."
When "we" made corporations "human," we changed the definition of fascism.
lightcameron
(224 posts)who is undeniably a victim.
Totally different situations.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)None of those things are equal to people having sex and you know as well as I do that the poster you are responding to is not in favor of any of those things.
davidn3600
(6,342 posts)Prostitution is rampant in America, despite that law enforcement targets everyone...johns, pimps, and prostitutes.
Nevernose
(13,081 posts)In America until the very early 20th century, and is still legal in some places.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)It's now being pushed by conservatives as it suits their morality crusade.
What did these laws accomplish? They made sex work more dangerous. In recent research from the University of Leiden, Swedish sex workers report having to rely more on third parties (agents, pimps or helpers) because clients are nervous about direct contact with workers. Street-based workers report having to work in more isolated areas and to rush transactions, increasing their danger.
If Canada adopts the Swedish model, we can expect a disproportionately negative impact on street-based sex workers, the most vulnerable workers in the sex industry. Since the mid-1980s, street-based transactions have accounted for the lion’s share of prostitution-related charges in Canada. As many urban areas face the pressures of gentrification, street-based sex workers and their clients, homeless persons, and street-based drug users and sellers become common targets of police sweeps. “Not in my backyard” campaigns result in street-based sex workers and their clients being much more heavily policed than indoor sex workers. Criminalizing purchasers of sexual services would force street-based workers to continue to resort to furtive and isolated transactions with clients who are seeking to avoid arrest.
And herein lies the hypocrisy of the prohibitionist campaign. Advocates of “ending demand” claim the moral high ground by asserting that their efforts to eliminate commercial sex are motivated by a desire to end sexual exploitation and to protect women. But the evidence suggests that the Swedish approach in fact increases dangers for a significant proportion of these women.
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2011/10/19/why_antijohn_laws_dont_work.html
The false argument cited for these laws are that these women are forced against their will in trafficking operations. But that was found to be utterly false when investigated properly:
The UK's biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country.
The failure has been disclosed by a Guardian investigation which also suggests that the scale of and nature of sex trafficking into the UK has been exaggerated by politicians and media.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails
People with religious or other morality agendas need to equate prostitution with coercion and trafficking because otherwise it's just two consenting adults having sex, and that would look a bit er... prudish.
Don't take my word for it though. The UN, one of the few independent bodies without a clear agenda, has recommended prostitution be legalized and regulated. More laws just endanger women in a fruitless effort. They also found the laws in Scandinavia to funnel women into cheap exploited labor. When they are sent to "retrain" for another career it's a feeding frenzy for employers who want to pay minimum wage.
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/278931/news/nation/un-wants-prostitution-decriminalized-to-help-curb-spread-of-hiv
The commission recommends repealing all laws that prohibit “adult consensual sex work,” as well as clearly distinguishing in law and practice between sexual trafficking and prostitution.
The Nordic model will join thousands of other laws since the beginning of civilization on the scrap heap of failure. Prostitution always has and always will exist, only legalization and regulation can bring it out of the shadows and make it more safe.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)In prostitution, one person engages because they want to and the other does because they don't have a meaningful choice.
Women do not enjoy sucking the d!cks of 20+ losers per day.
Johns are pigs, they along with pimps ARE the problem, so the punishment end of the legal approach rightfully targets them and not the women.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)The claim that the alternative options available to most prostitutes are so awful that they have "no meaningful choice" is simply untrue - unemployment benefit is low, but it's not impossible to survive on.
And if it *were* true, that would be the strongest argument imaginable *against* taking the only choice available to them away.
Because it's not true, there *are* potentially valid arguments in favour of criminalising paying for sex; I don't know whether they're strong enough to justify it or not (I suspect not, but I'd have to study the comparison of data between countries that do and don't in more time than I'm willing to take to be sure). But "most prostitutes have no choice" is definitely not one of them.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)equation, but it needs to be joined with services oriented at teaching the women job skills and life skills so they can adapt to life outside 'the life'
Demand is what leads to sex trafficking. They legalized prostitution in Germany and the Netherlands, and lo and behold a bunch of women from Eastern Europe and Africa were trafficked into those countries. Why? Because Dutch and German women--who had other economic options--didn't want to be prostitutes--certainly not in sufficient numbers to keep up with demand.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)And I'm sceptical even about that.
I think that the question is probably not "should we have prostitution or not", but "should we have prostitution openly and legally, or without the protection of the law"? It's like alcohol or drugs - criminalising it probably won't make it go away.
Criminalising buying but not selling sex is an attempt to address that, but again, while I'm not convinced it won't work, I'm sceptical - it will still force prostitutes to go underground if they want to do business.
El_Johns
(1,805 posts)completely disappeared from sight during the war years.
It's now re-emerged.
That tells me all I need to know about need & prostitution.
The data say that prostitution & poverty go hand-in-hand, & now that's on a global scale.
To get "unemployment benefits" you have to have had a job, you have to have lost that job in specifically defined ways, & you only get those benefits for a limited time.
There is no benefit for the long-term unemployed without children but disability.
redqueen
(115,186 posts)When people point to places like Amsterdam and Germany as if they improve the situation for prostitutes, they don't seem to realize that many people won't just take their word for it, and will do their own reading and research. Most who do bother to do their own research find out on their own that unions are made up mostly of pimps and brothel owners, that trafficking is worse where it's legal, and that the biggest beneficiary of legalization is organized crime - not women.
I love these comments from a BBC article about the new French law.
"So is it enough for one prostitute to say she is free for the enslavement of others to be respectable and acceptable?" she asked.
"Where is the glamour in the 10 to 15 penetrations a day undergone by women compelled to be prostitutes, evidently for economic reasons, with dramatic consequences for their health?"
"To say women have the right to sell themselves is to disguise the fact that men have the right to buy them."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25118755
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)talking points.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)to help prostitutes or their clients, it was done to rid the establishment of the duty. As long as the people running a government have no responsibility beyond the narrow parameter of keeping it all going to benefit the people that do matter, nothing done by government is going to have much effect.
redqueen
(115,186 posts)It was done to reduce human trafficking, and it has been effective.
No idea where the hell you got that "duty" shit but you have fun with that.
Number23
(24,544 posts)Wow.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)Those links are a load of crap put forward by those who justify a human rights violation.
This is not about "consenting adults," because there is no real consent when financial pressures force women into prostitution.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)Because the desire for sex is just as constant through the history of life. Much more so than even the desire for narcotics (How successful have the anti-drug laws been at strangling supply? How successful was prohibition? That's what I thought)
Something that powerful will always be sold. The only strategy that will actually help sex workers is to regulate it. Laws punishing prostitutes or johns are just laws that will make you feel good, but they will ultimately join every other prostitution law in history as a failure.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)We can and must be better than that.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)EOTE
(13,409 posts)What with thinking they're incapable of making choices for themselves and all. I'm kind of guessing that most women don't enjoy being treated like an infant, but you keep on protecting them from themselves and letting them know what's best for them.
Awaiting idiotic reply that I support sex slavery in 3... 2... 1...
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)People have made the same argument against the minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, worker safety laws, etc.
And, as usual, libertarian arguments are meant to support the privileged class in their efforts to exploit the non-privileged, and discuss 'freedom' only to the extent that it brings about that result.
EOTE
(13,409 posts)A minimum wage benefits all and focuses on helping young workers. The arguments against prostitution are ridiculously stupid and incredibly offensive toward women. Let me see, what have I heard on this thread?
1) Prostitution can never be considered consent, because prostitutes are prostitutes as a result of financial hardships or drug addiction.
So, I guess we need to get all drug users and those with financial hardships out of work because they're obviously not consenting. There goes half the American workforce! Insanely stupid.
2) No woman would CHOOSE to have sex for money. EWWW, it's so gross.
Except for those women who enjoy sex and would love to get paid for it. But the radical sexists on this thread insist that all prostitutes are disgusted by what they do because women need to be protected from their own choices.
It's the same crap over and over again. You may feel nice and smug telling people what's best for them, but no one wants to hear your infantalizing paternalism. Women (and adults in general) don't need you as an enforcer as to how they live their lives, as much as you'd like that to be the case.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)can buy sex without feeling guilty about it.
You see, that woman LOVES to have 20-25 disgusting losers ejaculate in her throat EVERY DAY. Why else would she be doing this? She's just a sex maniac doing what she loves for money.
Reality, of course, is different, but wevs. You have decided to make yourself whatever you have to believe I guess.
EOTE
(13,409 posts)You just HAVE to know what's best for them, don't you? Funny how it's only prostitution that's so gross it needs to be banned. Funny how you don't seem to go around screaming to women who help give birth to farm animals. Ewwwww, so gross, you obviously can't WANT to have yourself covered in goo all day, what's wrong with you? I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave your livelihood until you can find a job that I don't consider to be gross.
Your ilk are kind of hilarious in that you treat all women as infants, yet your own arguments are incredibly infantile. So incredibly stupid, it's hardly worth addressing.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)She's had to listen to them break down and sob as they describe it.
And, of course, they wind up hooked on drugs because it helps dissociate from it.
Not just 1-2, dozens.
Your comments are equally ignorant and juvenile, and it is apparent you have nothing intelligent, mature or otherwise of merit to say on the subject.
Last word is yours.
EOTE
(13,409 posts)I mean, you having a wife who worked with "survivors" surely means that you should be able to tell all consenting adults what they can and can't do. Especially those gross women who would actually CHOOSE to have sex for money, those icky things. I'll leave it to you to tell women what's best for them in that intelligent, mature way that you are so well known for. God knows they appreciate it as they certainly have no agency of their own.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)Which is exactly what it is...
As I said in other posts, I never have nor will I ever pay for sex. I have a wife and I prefer sex with a committed relationship.
But if I were a single man and I met a woman who wanted to have sex with me, it really should be none of your or anyone else's god damn business whether or not money was exchanged.
You can fight sex trafficking and strengthen the social safety nets (so that no one has to feel desperate to survive) WITHOUT putting your nose or the governments nose in my sexual business.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)and even banning practices where appropriate.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)I just don't think you or the government has the right to set conditions on our sex lives.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)Do you also feel that women seeking abortions are incapable of consenting to the procedure due to financial pressure?
Why or why not?
polly7
(20,582 posts)but I have to wait up for this answer. Hope it's soon! 
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)assuming it gets answered at all.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)The abortion 'debate' is the flip side of the sex trade 'debate'.
polly7
(20,582 posts)I've never seen yet anyone answer that question. I believe in 100% choice of any woman to do with her own body, mind and soul as she sees fit. I also believe there are many, many women for whom working in the sex industry has provided them the opportunity to create the lives they want. I think the 'sex' IS a problem for many who criticize it, and while they try their hardest to demonize the buyers of sex as the crux of the problem, it really is about revulsion for what the woman chooses to do.
If it were, for them, really about the very real and global problems of trafficking and exploitation for which there are already laws are in place, those so opposed to it would dwell more on the conditions that allow those things and work to actually help those women. But, not a peep, really on doing a single thing to improve their lot ...
I saw this, this morning and thought it was interesting:
We have been here many times before. It was Emma Goldman who first noticed, in 1910, that: “Whenever the public mind is to be diverted from a great social wrong, a crusade is inaugurated against indecency.” The idea that the dangers and indignities of certain kinds of work can be separated from the economic circumstances of that work is a seductive one but, as Goldman reminds us, “What is really the cause of the trade in women? Not merely white women, but yellow and black women, as well. Exploitation, of course; the merciless Moloch of capitalism that fattens on underpaid labour, thus driving thousands of women and girls into prostitution.”
Most of the public conversation about the rise in sex work in Europe, particularly among poor and migrant women, assumes that it’s a consequence of immoral laws, immoral women, or both. The notion that five years of austerity, rising unemployment and wage repression across the continent might have something to do with it rarely comes up.
Separating prostitution from all other work and driving it underground does not just harm sex workers. It also allows people to imagine that just because they might be serving chips or wiping bottoms rather than having sex for a living, they are somehow preserving their dignity – they may be exhausted, alienated and miserable, but at least they’re not selling sex. Women who work as prostitutes do sometimes face abuse on the job – and so do women who choose to work as night cleaners, contracted carers and waitresses. The truly appalling choice facing millions of women and migrant workers across Europe right now is between low-waged, back-breaking work, when work is available, and destitution.
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-soho-raids-show-us-the-real-problem-with-sex-work-isn-t-the-sex-it-s-low-waged-work-itself-by-laurie-penny.html
Legalize it, provide health-care, and protection and escape for those entrapped in it illegally. Iow, put your money where your mouths are, and do something about the actual conditions that harm those who do NOT have a choice.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)I couldn't get the link to work, but here's another:
http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/12/real-problem-sex-work-is-low-waged-work-itself
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Guttmacher unequivocally states that the reasons women seek abortions are a complicated mix of many factors - money being only one factor. Not only that but this isn't a very large sample size at all. 38 women for in-depth interviews? Sorry but that's not enough imo to be able to make definitive conclusions.
A synopsis of the link:
CONTEXT:
Understanding women’s reasons for having abortions can inform public debate and policy regarding abortion and unwanted pregnancy. Demographic changes over the last two decades highlight the need for a reassessment of why women decide to have abortions.
METHODS:
In 2004, a structured survey was completed by 1,209 abortion patients at 11 large providers, and in-depth interviews were conducted with 38 women at four sites. Bivariate analyses examined differences in the reasons for abortion across subgroups, and multivariate logistic regression models assessed associations between respondent
characteristics and reported reasons.
RESULTS:
The reasons most frequently cited were that having a child would interfere with a woman’s education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. Fewer than 1% said their parents’ or partners’ desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents.
CONCLUSIONS:
The decision to have an abortion is typically motivated by multiple, diverse and interrelated reasons. The themes of responsibility to others and resource limitations, such as financial constraints and lack of partner support, recurred throughout the study.
Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2005, 37(3):110–118
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)I think I'll leave the title as it stands.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)isn't my style but have at it.
Furthermore, small sample sizes are notoriously unreliable. Just to reiterate that point again.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)Just curious.
In any case, just about all blue collar workers punch in every fucking day due to financial pressure. We're all exploited in this fucking market based system. Why is that so permissible, but yet here, you draw the line? Truth be told, those fringe jobs in the gray are sometimes damn attractive paths out of the robot, mundane, soul crushing reality we trudge through. And hell, some people even like it and they pay bank. For every real case of suppression and exploitation, ask yourself if that would exist if these women were self-employed and empowered under the full protection of the law.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)Aren't people that go into the military out of perceived economic necessity exploited or coerced? How about the artistic genius that takes a gig on Wall Street because she has to pay the bills? The electronics guy that toils making better ways to deliver death for the defense contractor he works for?
All of these people’s lives would be better spent pursuing their own goals and desires, but we live in a system that dictates to and restricts all of us. If you want to change that, sign me up, I'll do anything I can to help. But if all you want is to keep your own comfort going at the expense of others, while pretending to be concerned about some of the injustices others suffer, as long as you can keep your station in life nice, you can tell your story, walking.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)...bullshit, it's about punishing the nonconformist women:
Eva-Marree, 27, lost custody of her two children to her ex-boyfriend, 31, in a district court last year. She was stabbed when she went to see her children at an office belonging to local authorities, as her ex had brought a knife with him to the handover.
~
"Our board member, fierce activist and friend Petite Jasmine got brutually (sic) murdered yesterday," the network stated on its Facebook page, before claiming that Eva-Marree had lost her children due to her line of work and her beliefs.
"Several years ago she lost custody of her children as she was considered to be an unfit parent due to being a sex worker(...) They told her she didn't know what was good for her and that she was "romanticizing" prostitution, they said she lacked insight and didn't realize sex work was a form of self-harm," the statement read.
The victim's mother told Expressen that her daughter's ex was suspicious and had stalked Eva-Marree in the months leading up to her death. She accused him of taking note of car registration plates outside Eva-Marree's home in Västerås, central Sweden, to check up on who was visiting her.
Sweden stole her kids and handed them over to their abusive father because she wouldn't toe the official line and admit she was "abused" and "non-consenting". Abusive father finally killed her, and stabbed a social worker in the process. But it's all about protecting the women!
For some people, female agency and ability to consent is inversely proportional to the number of times our vaginas have been poked. Patriarchal thinking, condensed and repackaged as concern.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Bravo.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)A tangible example of capital-P Patriarchy, and it plays a little into your post on Dubai slaves earlier. 20% of US sex workers are male, with that number rising to 25% worldwide. Yet take a look at this thread:
Ever notice that? It's the same song in every discussion, here or elsewhere or anywhere. Men in sex work don't seem to exist! and there's an excellent reason for it. Men in sex work are ignored for the simple reason that the abolitionists, being socialized to gender roles, consider men able to consent by default and sex only damaging to women. They don't even acknowledge that men exist in the business unless directly reminded. They can barely acknowledge them even then. Cognitive dissonance won't allow it.
Men are strong, competent, consenting, need no help, don't even deserve a mention. Women are fragile, broken, forced, need careful guardianship for their own protection. The same gender stereotypes and female infantilization that feminism's been fighting since its inception are the ones embraced by what are theoretically feminists fighting against sex work. And they are so indoctrinated in those gender roles that they never even notice!
If that's not patriarchy, I don't know what is.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)Orwell called it doublethink.
Men get self-agency while women are denied it for their own good, and that's all OK because the patriarchy must be crushed. Social conservatives are making the same arguments for exactly the opposite reason, yet both seem to wind up at the same place.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Men's decisions are, by default, given the status of choices because they are strong and in command of their own actions whereas women must be victims manipulated by a system not of their making...
It is a bit sad to see the level of brainwashing and self-defeat inherent in that mindset.
Furthermore, it makes it clear why the 3 million male slaves in Dubai elicits so little reaction. They MUST have chosen it.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)"sex trafficking" has become synonymous with women and young children. Shining a light on the cockroaches that deal in human beings is a good thing; gendering the problem is not. I have suspected for a long time that the gender-specific message is deliberate, since our social conditioning already teaches that women are fragile and childlike and sex is dirty and horrible; packaging the idea of "women and children"- always together, phrased just that way- together with the horrors of sex makes it an easy sell, and "rescue" orgs have become a big moneymaker. But whatever the reason, that's the message that gets pushed, and once it takes root in the mind, it's hard to view things any other way.
Even here in the US labor trafficking for agriculture and domestic work is a big problem, but you'd never know it from the amount of interest it gets. And you don't hear calls for boycotting vegetables or arresting grocery shoppers, or criminalizing in-home domestics.
So yeah, it can be hard to process the idea that 3 million big strong men could possibly be held in slavery, because that's not been the message we've been getting. Men are supposed to be perpetrators (see: "pigs" above), not victims. That's the accepted narrative.
Everything I've heard about Dubai has painted the place as a) beautiful and b) a horrible place for people who aren't billionaires, so the video surprised me not at all. Fortunes are rarely made on the backs of happy, well-compensated workers these days.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)The Swedish law was written with zero input from the prostitutes themselves. Instead they consulted with radical feminists like Sheila Jeffreys who is the worst sort of transphobic shitbag. Not surprisingly the law resulted in driving the trade further underground which only served to worsen the conditions of the prostitutes involved (exactly as predicted). The law decreased the sex trade for a while (just like crackdowns tend to do), then it came back just as strong as before, but now instead of being conducted on the main streets and thoroughfares it's conducted in back alleys where sex workers face worsening conditions. The idea that it was universally supported by feminists has no basis in reality. There were plenty of feminists who were critical of it both before and after implementation and it turns out they were right all along as the results (or rather lack thereof) speak for themselves.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)behalf of the majority of feminists and women's rights activitists.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1114&pid=8844
Fans of Warren Farrell are not qualified to speak on the issue of feminism and women's rights.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=895231
Warren Farrell was asked by NOW to form a men's group within that organization, served on the executive board of NOW for years, and has a very long and distinguished career teaching and authoring on the subject of feminism. You'd be hard pressed to find someone with as many credentials as he has in advocating for both men and women's rights.
Warren Farrel, for those who don't know, is a pro-rape, pro-incest misogynistic scam artist.
Anyone who admires the man who writes this:
If a man ignoring a woman’s verbal ‘no’ is committing date rape, then a woman who says `no’ with her verbal language but ‘yes’ with her body language is committing date fraud. And a woman who continues to be sexual even after she says ‘no’ is committing date lying.
Do women still do this? Two feminists found the answer is yes. Nearly 40 percent of college women acknowledged they had said “no” to sex even “when they meant yes.” In my own work with over 150,000 men and women – about half of whom are single – the answer is also yes. Almost all single women acknowledge they have agreed to go back to a guy’s place “just to talk” but were nevertheless responsive to his first kiss. Almost all acknowledge they’ve recently said something like “That’s far enough for now,” even as her lips are still kissing and her tongue is still touching his.
We have forgotten that before we called this date rape and date fraud, we called it exciting. Somehow, women’s romance novels are not titled He Stopped When I Said “No”. They are, though, titled Sweet Savage Love, in which the woman rejects the hand of her gentler lover who saves her from the rapist and marries the man who repeatedly and savagely rapes her. It is this “marry the rapist” theme that not only turned Sweet Savage Love into a best-seller but also into one of women’s most enduring romance novels. And it is Rhett Butler, carrying the kicking and screaming Scarlett O’Hara to bed, who is a hero to females – not to males – in Gone With the Wind (the best selling romance novel of all time – to women). It is important that a woman’s “noes” be respected and her “yeses” be respected. And it is also important when her nonverbal “yeses” (tongues still touching) conflict with those verbal “noes” that the man not be put in jail for choosing the “yes” over the “no.”
has issues with women and is anti-feminist, not to mention at least a borderline rape apologist.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)Ad hominem gibberish is a poor substitute for an argument, but does speak volumes about your own credibility.
Just sayin'
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)nor do they advocate on behalf of an author who says it should be legal for a man to rape a woman if the woman leads him on, or who refers to rape as 'exciting' or accuses women who flirt but refuse to have sex of committing fraud.
Only woman-hating male supremacists write that or defend people who write it.
Just like sometimes people say they don't want dessert when maybe they really want some. In the view of Warren Farrell and his rape apologist supporters, if someone acts like they really want dessert even though they say no, it should be legal for the person offering dessert to hold them down and shove the dessert down their throat.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)want it.
the man also felt that sexual interaction among family members was perfectly natural and healthy.
like this would be a man i would want to quote.
that being said. it would be nice if we actually address the issue that if the YOUNG woman said no but meant yes, the man took her at her word and she learned to say yes, so she could get what she ultimately wanted. seems like a win win win to me. instead of educating a whole lot of young men in rape. i would suggest that would be dire consequences for our young man, something i would think we would not want to promote. unfortunately what i have seen with cases across the nation, it appears as if the dire consequences only fall on our young women that are raped.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)If a man thinks he's getting mixed signals, he could take the huge step of, well, talking with her and listening and stuff like that.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)I've never read any of his books and pay him little mind as opposed to others who appear to be obsessed with him. I just think it's rather interesting that someone who so many try so hard to discredit has not one blemish of critique on his wiki page (and I don't think it's because there aren't plenty who have tried), and no shortage of praise from diverse sources (albeit some on the right and left). Unless of course you count Phyllis Schlafly, who called him a "feminists apologist", but I'm not sure that counts for much.
It seems to me like a concerted effort to 'shut him up' because some don't like what he's saying. Amazing how all the efforts to paint him as a shitbag don't seem to find much traction outside of echo chambers. One has to wonder if he was such a shitbag when he served on the board of NYC's NOW chapter, or is this just a recent development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Farrell#Critical_reception
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)ago? a person changes in four decades, ya think?
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)And speaking of 4 decades ago that's when he was saying what you think he was saying which was written off as nothing more than a misquote at the time and received zero attention until decades later when radical feminists who obviously had a beef with what he was saying drug it up. Taken in context it makes zero sense and can only be reasonably interpreted as a misquote (which were very common in the age of dictaphones and typewriters). Again it amounted to nothing outside the echo chambers and still no mention of it appears on his wiki page to this day. Very telling that.
Your allegation that he "promotes rape" comes from a statement taken out of context from a book where he clearly lists his source as two prominent academic feminists who have authored studies and opinions extensively on that very subject and are widely cited as experts. So if Farrell was promoting rape, so where they. You don't get to have it one way without the other. This too never appears on his wiki page and if there was a shred of validity to it there's no doubt it would. Very telling that.
As I said I could care less what Farrell has to say. I'd just like to see some kind of support for these allegations that aren't taken out of context and are supported by those who don't have an obvious bias against him. I've done research on it and I don't see it. Neither does anyone else evidently. Very telling that.
You are always mentioning how there's no shortage of people trying to shut feminists up (which I would agree with). Do you really think this behavior doesn't also appear on the other side of the ideological spectrum?
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)first addition 1993. hardly the early 70's. and why now? i have to assume it is because we are hearing so much from the mra and they need to be addressed now.
Do women still do this? Two feminists found the answer is yes. Nearly 40 percent of college women acknowledged they had said “no” to sex even “when they meant yes.” In my own work with over 150,000 men and women – about half of whom are single – the answer is also yes. Almost all single women acknowledge they have agreed to go back to a guy’s place “just to talk” but were nevertheless responsive to his first kiss. Almost all acknowledge they’ve recently said something like “That’s far enough for now,” even as her lips are still kissing and her tongue is still touching his. (P 314)
the study said, women said no when they really wanted it. does not say the women continue to lead the guy on as she said no, like he totally fabricated. and again.
lets go on
The empowerment of women lies not in the protection of females from date rape, but in resocializing both sexes to share date initiative taking and date paying so that both date rape and date fraud are minimized. We cannot end date rape by calling men “wimps” when they don’t initiate quickly enough, “rapists” when they do it too quickly, and “jerks” when they do it badly. If we increase the performance pressure only for men, we will reinforce men’s need to objectify women – which will lead to more rape. Men will be our rapists as long as men are our initiators.…
Laws on date rape create a climate of date hate. (p.340)
Spousal rape legislation is blackmail waiting to happen. (p. 338)
upon review major. ya. huge issues if this is what men are reading and buying into. huge issues.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)Your claims are banal. All have been debunked. If you want to keep repeating them, that's on you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Warren_Farrell
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)men. sucking this shit up as the way to perceive women, dates and themselves?
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)Totally not fabricated, unless you think the two feminist fabricated their data. Had to actually bothered to take Farrell's comments in context, he is saying the exact same thing Muehlenhard and Hollabaugh are saying. He is NOT saying men should perceive women's no's as yes's. He is saying look at it from the woman's perspective when and if that does happen and understand that's not ALWAYS what it means. Token resistance has negative consequences for women and men just like Muehlenhard, Hollabaugh, and Farrell are saying. Rather than pretending it doesn't exist you might want to make a better effort at understanding it. Again there's nothing original in your arguments and they just don't float outside the echo chambers.
We investigated whether women ever engage in token resistance to sex--saying no but meaning yes--and, if they do, what their reasons are for doing so. A questionnaire administered to 610 undergraduate women asked whether they had ever engaged in token resistance and, if so, asked them to rate the importance of 26 possible reasons. We found that 39.3% of the women had engaged in token resistance at least once. Their reasons fell into three categories: practical, inhibition-related, and manipulative reasons. Women's gender role attitudes, erotophobia-erotophilia, and other attitudes and beliefs varied as a function of their experience with token resistance and their sexual experience. We argue that, given society's sexual double standard, token resistance may be a rational behavior. It could, however, have negative consequences, including discouraging honest communication, perpetuating restrictive gender stereotypes, and--if men learn to disregard women's refusals--increasing the incidence of rape.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)what the man actually wrote in his book.
these are quotes from a book. when reading your post about the no means yes. so really women are saying yes post.... it made it clear how obtuse you are to the damage that thinking does to both genders and society as a whole. it is pretty much what we are talking. why boys are having such a tough time defining rape. adn the necessity of spelling it out for the boys, that your group hates so much.
night
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)I'm all for teaching what consent is and isn't to schoolchildren at several different levels right alongside comprehensive sexual education. I've advocated for this very thing many times. I see a huge benefit to boys and girls that will pay dividends well into adulthood.
Instead you just assume what I mean and run with it. Quite often you get it wrong.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)if the woman sends mixed signals.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)Just sayin'
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Farrell is indisputably a rape apologist, and the only people who really dispute this are rape apologists who resent being called rape apologists.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)I offered it as a refutation to those who took his statements out of context. You should make more effort to actually follow the discussions you are referencing, rather than cherry picking and pretending what you posted rises above the level of gibberish.
Farrell is disputably a rape apologist. It was disputed within the neutral bounds of his wiki page which I specifically directed you to and you have made great pains to ignore at your own peril, assuming your own credibility means anything to you and I'm not convinced it does.
Calling someone a rape apologist with zero basis is defamation at worst and a useless name calling fallacy at best. Guilt by association only compounds your fallacious rhetoric. I'm not sure you understand these things, but there you have it all the same. Here's a helpful guide. Lower is worse, higher is better. I'll leave it up to you to decide where you fall.
Cheers!
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)A transparent dodge. Especially when you act all triumphalist and proclaim the matter settled that all accusations against him--based on his own words--are baseless, and then refuse to try to explain why, just link to wikipedia.
Farrell is a woman-hating, wannabe daughter-fucking rape apologist, and if he posted those exact words here he would be banned in a nanosecond, and rightly so.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)Seems like a fool's errand, especially when you refuse to accept anything that runs counter to your worldview. You are certainly free to defame anyone you like and you prove this pretty much on a daily basis. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, some are just more relevant than others. Your latest offering is the real knee slapper. First you claim I'm defending Farrell, then you get all wrapped around the axle when I won't play your game and defend Farrell. This is not surprising as your 'reasoning' has never made much sense. By your logic if you claimed Hitler was a clown sex freak, and someone else pointed out there is no evidence that Hitler ever engaged in clown sex or advocated for it, that would make them a fan of Hitler and a clown sex apologist.
Brilliant!
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)You're the one dragging in an old post and pretending it's somehow relevant to anything. Go back to the thread you linked and try actually reading it. Pretending I have some kind of obligation to convince you of something you already clearly have a closed mind about certainly does nothing for me other than wasting my time. You just aren't worth it.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)You can go to Farrell's wiki page, click on the Talk section, and find the exact same arguments you're trying to pass off which have been completely and utterly destroyed once any measure of rationality is injected. So it's not as if any of this is all that hard to debunk. That's why none of it appears on his wiki page even though better people than you have tried to put it there.
There's a good reason I haven't deleted my posts on the subject(as your allies typically do). When those like you bring them up, it just goes to show that ad hominem is the very best you have. It speaks far more about you than it ever will about me.
Cheers!
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)I'm not convinced it's working that well for you, but knock yourself out if it makes you sleep better at night. There's a good reason why you grace the ignore lists of so many.
Cheers!
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)I've been tracking it since implementation, and have yet to be surprised by the results. It's come down exactly as we all predicted, although the degree of denial on the part of the law's supporters, in the face of all evidence, has been a bit of a surprise.
Response to pampango (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Johonny
(26,178 posts)and you can see how effective that has been here in USA. In the US, Vice has stings that targets men who pay for sex. As far as I can tell these laws don't do shit. Anyone that thinks they've solved people wanting to have sex and willing to buy and sell it as a good... has probably not solved it. Why do I think that... IDK perhaps the thousands of years of recorded history of rules trying prevent from happening and the fact they never work.
Skittles
(171,707 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)And prostitution is capitalism at its worst.
Skittles
(171,707 posts)it is sleazy and sickening but I don't think it should be illegal
I don't think it should be illegal either.
I have no judgement on the morality of it for anyone else. It's just absolutely not for me.
Major Nikon
(36,925 posts)And it's not as if it hasn't been tried for thousands of years.
upi402
(16,854 posts)It has NEVER worked and NEVER will. Just tax it, make it safe, and control the area it's in.
I can just not go there.
Done.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)We're unfairly persecuting the dealers and drug gangs. We can only protect them from the consequences of their choices by prosecuting the buyers who exploit them.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Let's try it with extortion, too!
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)First, we should try it with people who serially repeat themselves!
hughee99
(16,113 posts)That the "supply" will go away? Isn't that what many DUers consider the dumbest possible solution... At least when we're talking about drugs in America anyway.
Joel thakkar
(363 posts)1) Have they really achieved decrease in prostitution? The linked article says that 1000 is the official figure. Have they done enough study to back their claim? The article just accepts one police officers saying that number decreased from 2500 to 1000. Have they done any research for estimating the number of people doing prostitution underground?
2) As a society should we accept that mentally ill, disabled and infirmity, socially awkward and ugly people should be left alone at their luck to enjoy the sexual pleasure?
3) Is Sugar Daddy-Sugar Mom etc situation included in this law? For example : seekingarrangement.com - Many young people post their profile looking for a wealthy person to "TREAT" them well and "HELP FINANCIALLY" for exchange of "having a company and relationship". It is generally known fact that majority of these so called "Relationships" have sexual activity in it.
==================
On a totally different note
Why is Sweden rape capital of Europe?
http://www.thelocal.se/20090427/19102
There was a 2009 amnesty report saying that only 5-10% of real rapes are reported in sweden. Thus, real number can be much higher.