Yeah I definitely see this side to, it’s the opinion I held before I started reading it but now I’m thinking:
– at least 90% of prostitutes are women, surely this is just another type of gender inequality, allowing men unlimited access to a woman’s body if they have the money for it. Maybe it reinforces the sense of entitlement men have?
– Some studies have shown that sexual assault increases when prostitution becomes more socially acceptable
– Amsterdam didn’t end sex trafficking, at least two thirds of prostitutes there are immigrants and if anything the criminal gangs behind brothels are stronger are wealthier
– A non-trafficked prostitute may CONSENT to sex in exchange for payment, but consent does not indicate an actual desire to have sex. Is it a type of sexual assault to have sex with someone who doesn’t actually want it, but who is vulnerable in some way and who is doing so due to financial circumstances? Consent, in legal terms, is more like a ‘not a no’ rather than a ‘yes.’ I don’t think you would have half as many (female) prostitutes if women were not more susceptible to poverty.
But yeah, lots of other studies have shown that sex workers themselves are in favour of legalisation so really I don’t know.
You should read some stuff evolvingmatter and clarawebbwillcutoffyourhead and misscherrylikesitdirty have written. They’ve written about this and have linked to content that explains how the decriminalization of sex work is 100% necessary in order for sex workers to be safe (as far as I understand).
Basically, whether or not full-service sex workers are happy with their jobs, they absolutely deserve the right to be able to report crimes against them without the fear of being sexually assaulted, stolen from, ignored, or arrested by the police or other people.
Except that decriminilization doesn’t do that. In states and countries where there is legal, or de facto legal, prostitution, there is still an appalling lack of resources for exiting women. Women are abused just as much, and the legitimate face of it provides a cover for men trafficking women into countries with ‘legal’ prostitution. It increases the demand, which in turn means that women in impoverished countries will continue to be kidnapped, tricked and otherwise forced into prostitution. The increase in demand and normalization of purchasing human beings means that western men go to countries dealing with poverty and exploit the women and children forced into sex slavery there.
There is an answer in between making prostituted women criminals, and letting men rape them at will. With a nordic model, we criminalize the johns and pimps that are benefiting from a misogynistic world where women are left with few choices besides selling access to their bodies. While a number of women in western countries might indeed be interested in legalization, or might call themselves sex workers, statistically they are an anomaly. I am not willing to throw impoverished, trafficked women to the jaws of an ever-hungry sex trade so that a few conventionally attractive in-house escorts can have a Mercedes for a few years. The women calling for legalization are public, working porn stars (who obviously cannot say anything anti-industry without getting her livelihood taken away), attractive, mostly white cam girls and strippers. These are the ‘sex workers’ who have their voices uplifted on Tumblr. They are great case studies for women happy in the industry, but they are not a good sample of the general population of prostituted women. Globally, prostituted women are economically destitute, homeless, with very little or no education, with histories of child abuse and sexual abuse. These women are not willingly entering the industry, they would not be there if there were other options. The answer to prostitution is not to just let men continue to rape women for money. The answer is to remove the circumstances that would lead a woman to need to sell her body for money. And until then, there need to be punishments to discourage the trade of female bodies worldwide like cheap cargo, and remove the purchase and sale of human beings from organized crime’s coffers.
The men that buy and sell women need to go to jail, period. Preferably get castrated and then buried alive in an unmarked grave, but I’ll settle for jail. Because make no mistake, the people buying women are overwhelmingly men, and the people getting sold to men are overwhelmingly women.
evolvingmatter Please take this one, I can’t. My will is not strong enough, I would just use too many curse words.
comrade-hannah, decriminalisation protects workers. Under criminalisation, or under the Nordic model, the potential consequences of reporting crimes against sex workers are catastrophic – so people don’t do it. It’s not something you can empathise with because it’s something you’ve never had to comprehend dealing with. You are *protecting* men who hurt sex workers by advocating against the one legal system in which sex workers have a chance of not being bastardised by police and having some trust that they won’t be the ones who wind up worse off if they report. And predators are well aware of this, even if you aren’t. They know when they won’t be reported under your system because workers are too scared of the state. There is a grassroots movement of actual current sex workers spanning every continent fighting like hell against the Nordic model, but you’ll silence all of us because our lives just aren’t worth shit to you as more than a tool in your theorywank.
This fantasy you have that either the Nordic model or criminalisation has any support at all among anyone who would be affected by it is just that – a fantasy. You’re not speaking on behalf of some silent majority, and the people advocating decriminalisation (for fucks sake, you’re so ignorant about what actual sex workers want that you don’t actually know what we want) are full service workers from as diverse places as India, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Uganda, who have been fucking vocal about what will and will not help them and what will and will not increase their chances of getting killed. I have never seen a current sex worker support either. Ever. Even abolitionists can’t produce anyone currently in the industry (and who would actually be affected) who supports these things. To most people, that they can’t find anyone who would be affected by the things they support who actually agrees with them, and an international outcry against them, might well be a warning sign that they’re harming women. But civilians never gave a shit about sex workers getting killed in the name of their ideology.
The idea that the Nordic model provides support to women who want out of the sex industry is a key selling point for its proponents to women who won’t be affected, but it doesn’t exist in reality. There is minimal evidence of real support being given in Sweden, the purported money that would be available in Canada turned out to be fucking tiny, and like most abolitionist-run attempts at “exit programs”, provide well-paying jobs for people who usually don’t have any sex work experience but do jackshit to address the often complex needs of women who really do want out of the industry. And I’d love to see that support start to exist – but it’ll never come from you, not least because you’re so fucking patronising that women who need that help tell women like you to get fucked (and I’ve literally seen this play out on multiple occasions).
If you want to help women out of the sex industry, GIVE US FUCKING OPTIONS. The Nordic model is akin to “we want you to get out of the sex industry so we will try to beat you out of it”. Alternative jobs that will allow for people to earn the same amounts of money, with remotely similar hours and flexibility, are fucking rare, and even for people who desperately want out of the industry that’s something that abolitionists are too ignorant of to even start to accommodate. You have no answers at all apart from laws that make our lives worse.
I’m fine with predators who target sex workers getting castrated and thrown into unmarked graves, strangely enough. But if my sisters are to stop getting fucking killed, then women like you need to be next up against the wall, long before the ordinary clients who mean that we get to not be homeless and not starve.
Yessss, you do this so much better than I ever could.
First against the wall when the whorolution comes.
This whorephobe’s stats suck and they don’t understand how consent works and “unlimited access” my ass. Sex workers have boundaries, where they are varies worker to worker
Thoughts From The Peacock Angel 