Prostitution & feminism

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I was talking about this on FB the other day (and by "talking" I mean trying to educate some retards that happen to be friends with some of my friends). the one thing we all pretty much agreed on was that prostitution should be legalized and regulated.

And then I found this: http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/laws/000022.html

And now I'm not so sure about that.

That creates a lot to think about; primarily whether legalization and the accomponying protections increase or decrease illegal and exploitative practises.

[Placid Dingo]

I'm suspicious of that whole article for a lot of reasons. They make lots of argument they don't really back up. 

Reading through there's some good points but I don't feel as a whole that illegalising prostitution is the answer to any of these. 

Point one basically says 'prostitution is bad because is'.

Point two (legal prostitution encourages trafficking) could have some teeth, but I haven't looked at their sources. That said, I agree that governments generally are doing a piss weak job of combating trafficking.

Point three is that a legal sex industry is a bigger sex industry. And um, that's bad. Because it is.

Point four is that legal prostitution makes illegal prostitution more popular. They make a lot of logical sounding arguments  which they don't back up, and I haven't decked their first source but it feels a bit shifty. 

However, this is followed by this quote which does seem to depict a very legitimate concern.

The argument that legalization was supposed to take the criminal elements out of sex businesses by strict regulation of the industry has failed. The real growth in prostitution in Australia since legalization took effect has been in the illegal sector. Since the onset of legalization in Victoria, brothels have tripled in number and expanded in size; the vast majority having no licenses but advertising and operating with impunity (Sullivan and Jeffreys: 2001). In New South Wales, brothels were decriminalized in 1995. In 1999, the numbers of brothels in Sydney had increased exponentially to 400-500. The vast majority have no license to operate. To end endemic police corruption, control of illegal prostitution was taken out of the hands of the police and placed in the hands of local councils and planning regulators. The council has neither the money nor the personnel to put investigators into brothels to flush out and prosecute illegal operators.

Point five seems the most solid and best sourced and also the most concerning; legal prostitution increases child prostitution.

Another argument for legalizing prostitution in the Netherlands was that it would help end child prostitution. In reality, however, child prostitution in the Netherlands has increased dramatically during the 1990s. The Amsterdam-based ChildRight organization estimates that the number has gone from 4,000 children in 1996 to 15,000 in 2001. The group estimates that at least 5,000 of the children in prostitution are from other countries, with a large segment being Nigerian girls (Tiggeloven: 2001).

Child prostitution has dramatically risen in Victoria compared to other Australian states where prostitution has not been legalized. Of all the states and territories in Australia, the highest number of reported incidences of child prostitution came from Victoria. In a 1998 study undertaken by ECPAT (End Child Prostitution and Trafficking) who conducted research for the Australian National Inquiry on Child Prostitution, there was increased evidence of organized commercial exploitation of children.

I'm not convinced we're looking at causation here but it is a worrying scenario, and one I'd like to look into further. I am however, a little sceptical that anything like a meaningful causative relationship will be seen.

Point six is that regulation does not protect the women; I'm Suss onthis part, partially because most of their evidence comes from their own research, and they seem to have a fairly specific agenda.  Also we say here...

The violence that women were subjected to was an intrinsic part of the prostitution and sexual exploitation. Pimps used violence for many different reasons and purposes. Violence was used to initiate some women into prostitution and to break them down so that they would do the sexual acts. After initiation, at every step of the way, violence was used for sexual gratification of the pimps, as a form of punishment, to threaten and intimidate women, to exert the pimp's dominance, to exact compliance, to punish women for alleged violations, to humiliate women, and to isolate and confine women.

None if this sounds, um, legal, or even slightly similar to the stories of the sex industry I I've heard from people I've spoken to who've worked their or had friends who did.

Point seven is that legal prostitution makes prostitution and sex industry mote acceptable. And, again, this is bad, because it just is.

Point eight is that women's health is not looked after because condom policy is not always enforced well. Seems legit enough.

Point nine is that legal prostitution doesn't give women real choice. But it doesn't seem to actually make any kind of a case against legalising prostitution. It then says that basically, going into prostitution as a last resort is the same as getting beaten by your partner. I'm not convinced that that's a quality metaphor.

When a woman remains in an abusive relationship with a partner who batters her, or even when she defends his actions, concerned people don't say she is there voluntarily. They recognize the complexity of her compliance. Like battered women, women in prostitution often deny their abuse if provided with no meaningful alternatives.

BUT there is a point here I feel that it is the responsibility of a government to make sure that there are always less shit economic pathways.

Point ten is that some prostitutes think prostitution shouldn't be legal. Again it's a bit iffy to me that this is based on their own interviews.

[East Coast Hustle]

Points 2 and 3 are obviously directly related.

As for what you've heard from the people you've know that worked in the sex industry (and I hear this same argument raised nearly every time I find myself involved in this discussion with any group of people) I would point out that it's not likely that you've had much chance to hang out with the prostitutes that were trafficked, beaten, forced to become addicted to heroin, murdered, etc.

[hirley0]

3:45 http://willamettesailingclub.com/2012/01/psu-open-regatta/
3 IMIX/teal Tue{remaing 1/4's from wash to 508 @3:11
4 sopa B;ACKOUT
5 AKBAL
stargazingliveyeah maybe baby: 10:57 PM 2012 01/18 time to poke a Key
-
i'll side against the English {eaisly) & take the south American side
= =
Enought about the islands & the oil &&& (dah) | the was another point
if i rEMember? oh yeah the 24 hour web BLACk out. ha ha ha, good luck
: : :
GiRLs My point is smething like computers are for sharing | not for
rules that hamper sharing. Like the copy right caper. if it arrives
on your screen its yours to do with it as U wish. copy paste OR ignore
? ? ? ?
And to poise? PIROCY is BooAble. TainT. Move along into the future
if you dont want to share put you time on TV if you do want to be
uoted then Join the Web'sters ranks & sign on. now again about
Proliferation yES. & Prostitution Yes (compulsary} two years 20-22.
/that\
should end the Economic DULL DRUMBS tv likes to talk about
& also could end the need to send boys abroad to put boots
on the ground bo Boo Booo | changing the Millitary from guys
to gals deployed should end most of the made for TV (um} Crap
(this}
is a main plank for WEB/tv CanDates going into the upcomming
season of political posturing. 1 the WEB is yours. not theirs
2 compulsary two year service for females &#3 Lipstick OR
nail polish on your screen | so that U know how U voted & why
 

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Things seem to have drifted slightly from the OP, but my two cents on the feminism angle:

Feminism is about empowering women to make choices in their own lives. If, in some shiny fluffy world where no one ever has any problems, a woman chooses to sell sex of her own free will and enjoys it, it seems like something a feminist should be able to support. A woman choosing to date a man who has a history of hiring prostitutes is, again, exercising her ability to choose, and that should be celebrated. A woman choosing not to date men with that history is making an equally valid choice, and that, too, should be celebrated. You should have complete control over who has access to your body and the unquestionable right to deny that access to anyone at any time for any reason that floats your boat.* That shouldn't even be a sentence you have to say to a feminist, that's pretty much the core of most of their talking points.

Your friends are the anti-feminists.

*which is why I don't go in airports

[Placid Dingo]

Points two and three are linked; are you saying the industry couldn't expand without supplementing the workforce with trafficked women?

Also your point about the experience of the people I've spent time with is valid, though I'm still a bit suspect on the idea that either, A the experience of being forced into prostitution by a pimp, held there by threats of violence, being forced into drug dependency or being trafficked across borders is the typical experience inside of legal prostitution,

or B, that the incidence of the above has increased correlating with legalisation.


I'm saying I find it suspect not that I refuse to believe it. I'm reading some of the sources used by the article now, and am willing to have my mind changed.

[East Coast Hustle]

And I am also willing to have my mind changed. Actually, I'm not sure I've even made my mind up yet. If you've got any links to good sources regarding this stuff (especially hard statistics which seem to be difficult to come by; I've had to do alot of extrapolation to come to some of my tentative conclusions) please do share them!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Things seem to have drifted slightly from the OP, but my two cents on the feminism angle:

Feminism is about empowering women to make choices in their own lives. If, in some shiny fluffy world where no one ever has any problems, a woman chooses to sell sex of her own free will and enjoys it, it seems like something a feminist should be able to support. A woman choosing to date a man who has a history of hiring prostitutes is, again, exercising her ability to choose, and that should be celebrated.

Celebrated?  We should throw a party because a woman we know is dating a whore-hopper?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Things seem to have drifted slightly from the OP, but my two cents on the feminism angle:

Feminism is about empowering women to make choices in their own lives. If, in some shiny fluffy world where no one ever has any problems, a woman chooses to sell sex of her own free will and enjoys it, it seems like something a feminist should be able to support. A woman choosing to date a man who has a history of hiring prostitutes is, again, exercising her ability to choose, and that should be celebrated.

Celebrated?  We should throw a party because a woman we know is dating a whore-hopper?

Yeah, I can't really get behind that.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Okay, "celebrated" was probably the wrong word.  "Supported"? 

I dunno, the thing is that women who go on and on about a woman's right to choose should not be criticizing the choices those women make. Or at the very least they should not be criticizing any choice as "anti-feminist" because the whole damn point was to let women make those choices in the first place.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Okay, "celebrated" was probably the wrong word.  "Supported"? 

I dunno, the thing is that women who go on and on about a woman's right to choose should not be criticizing the choices those women make. Or at the very least they should not be criticizing any choice as "anti-feminist" because the whole damn point was to let women make those choices in the first place.

That's pretty much where I was at as well.

The peculiar kind of logic that seemed to be in play was "Women should be able to make their own decisions about their bodies, including prostituting themselves. Therefore, being down on johns equals being down on hookers, and if you're down on hookers you're anti-feminist"

in other words, pure idiocy.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Okay, "celebrated" was probably the wrong word.  "Supported"? 

I dunno, the thing is that women who go on and on about a woman's right to choose should not be criticizing the choices those women make. Or at the very least they should not be criticizing any choice as "anti-feminist" because the whole damn point was to let women make those choices in the first place.

Sure.  The right to choose involves the right to make really, really bad decisions.

[hirley0]

3 IMIX/teal Tue
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cox 

[hirley0]

6 KAN P&P Proliferate Prostitution

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[hirley0]

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