Prostitution: why Swedes believe they got it right (targeting the men who pay for sex)

[LadyHawkAZ]

163. People can be primarily liberal and still have gender biases that are extreme right-wing

Even French, even Swedes. Even DUers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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: