sex workers have the right to bitch about their work, their client, etc… without being psychoanalyzed by privileged class or sex work being blamed for everything.
how many women loathe men in general and talk crap about men ? many.
so basically, what you are saying is that casual sex itself is damaging to female. paying or not have not changed the fact that it’s casual sex - sex without traditionally accepted relationship baggage. I am glad that you are so seated in your privilege that you think you are the one to decide for everyone - especially women of color, women living in poverty what consent should be and look like. Is it consent if you think the partner is handsome? successful career? or you should ONLY have sex when you really wish something physical and not for boredom, money, to make other feel good, or trade ? And you know for certain that the line should be drawn by you and that you know where that line is for all women?
I’d wager that even down on the lowest streetcorner tier, there’s a pretty high level of being able to size up a john at first glance and tell whether they’re lonely, desperate, adventurous, or psychotic, and what sort of thing is going to get them taken care of and on their way the fastest.
Having worked in hotels for 15 years, I can assure you that there are indeed girls who have regular clients, both at the higher and lower end of the pay scale.
Because it’s more enjoyable than a wank? Because a professional can offer service that a partner might not choose to participate in? Because sex is not always part of an emotional relationship and one-night stands are riskier? Because trawling Craigslist for a third in a threesome is less then optimal? Because the punter may not be the sort that’s able to attract the attention of a partner and just wants a root and a cuddle? At least with a well-run brothel or regulated out-calls you know your partner is willing, able and free from disease.
OK, I’m idealising. I know a couple of people who by choice paid their way through uni as sex-workers and this does tend to colour my view. There are many, many, many problems in prostitution all over the world. But from within a first-world, progressive country, I see no reason why it should be illegal.
If a society is going to tackle those problems, an open, supportive approach where the worst of the problems can be dealt with, where the workers can get regular health-checks and screening and where the abuses of pimps can be reported is vital. A society that doesn’t stigmatise sex-work is one where those engaged in it are able to come forward.
I don’t want to get you wrong here, but it seems like your main objection to prostitution is the lack of any emotional attachment within sex, would that be right?
Really? This sounds like a prety blanket statement:
Sex workers of other countries also do not appreciate your neo colonialist western assumptions about what they do and being patronizing.
Where did I say that, again? Here’s what I said:
Prostitution is a global phenomenon, and most prostitutes do not work in the industrial West. I don’t think prostitution as practiced in most of the world follows the contours you seem to be suggesting.
I haven’t suggested that the sex trade be eliminated.
Are you talking to me? Does this have anything to do with what I said? I mean, tantalum is in every smartphone and carpets are pretty common, and both of those industries are much, much worse than garment factories are. Of course, I happen to think garment factories are good (an incidentally help open up female employment opportunities outside the sex trade, your vice video notwithstanding).
I’m neither white, American, nor Christian, if it makes you feel better.
And you have managed to pretend that an important part of this spectrum of sex trade providers and customers are “sociopathic” men who enjoy having sex with underage girls.
I suspect that I have been to more countries than you have, and watch less sensationalist TV.
I suspect that no matter how many countries you go to, you will go acting like privileged white neo colonialist insisting that your prejudices are absolutely correct. While in reality , supporting violence against sex workers.
Simply NOT highlighting the worst aspects of the spectrum in stigmatizing way - making generalization about a whole group of people by one aspect is not ignoring/condone it. You are sick as all the people trying to highlight how African americans are violent or criminals. You don’t speak for all these people and you perpetuate and uphold systematic violence.
You think that the only factor that relates to whether somebody takes a particular line of work is the money? That’s one hell of a simplistic view of human decision making you’ve got there.
Don’t disagree, in fact. I was making a case that the attitude of moralisers to prostitution should not affect public policy, if it purports to be about the safety of women.
For the record, I’ve never made use of prostitutes in any shape or form and would never do so. I just believe that on the whole social problems need social solutions, and criminalisation should be reserved for identifiable crimes - trafficking, nonconsensual violence, theft and so on.
That was an explicit assumption of the blog author, as I quoted. And yes, the assumption is stupid, which was the exact point of the comments you quoted.
Because I believe that there are real and significant problems with men paying for underage sex and being indifferent to trafficking of women, I am much like “Conservative Christian groups,” and “sick as all the people trying to highlight how African americans are violent or criminals.” OK. Since this is an acceptable form of discourse, I guess you won’t take any offense at me saying you are much like batshit-crazy birthers in your style of hyperbolic rhetoric.
Instead, you’ve made generalizations in the other direction, about how sex workers everywhere are happy with their professions and resent anti-trafficking measures and concern about this issue.
[quote=“Nada_Cat, post:65, topic:48918”]
I suspect that no matter how many countries you go to, you will go acting like privileged white neo colonialist insisting that your prejudices are absolutely correct. While in reality , supporting violence against sex workers.
[/quote] Yes, my recognition that sex slavery is a real issue must mean I am a privileged neo colonialist, and that I support violence against sex workers. I suppose your use of a smart phone says similar things about you.
I find it very interesting how believing that underage sex and sex slavery exists is the perpetuation and upholding of systematic violence, yet downplaying underage sex and forced labour is not.
yeah - exactly , sex workers actually telling truth about what needs to be done is “batshit crazy” to people like you who are much like Christian Fundy Conservatives
You are nothing more than privileged kony2012 followers that claim to “care for african children” while causing more harm and thinking that your opinion is more important than the needs of actual sex workers who are telling you differently. And indeed there are NGO’s willing to benefit from your kind of neo colonialism.
"“about how sex workers everywhere are happy with their professions and resent anti-trafficking measures and concern about this issue.”
Your complete disgusting assumptions include I said anything about anyone being happy nor not having trafficking. You are doing same thing as highlighting African American as violent criminals. You are taking the WORST of already stigmatized and marginal group and making HUGE sweeping statements that MOST are trafficked or underage. THIS IS WRONG and stigmatizing. Period. - It causes moral panic, and violent brothel raids .You are the same white dudes going around saying Muslim people are terrorist . Stop making assumptions and prejudiced comments. - oh wait - you can’t help but being your white christian fundy self.
If you don’t even care enough to actually research and look up on facts , and about what peer based sex work orgs are saying. Just shut up. You are taking up too much space with your ignorance and it’s time to acknowledge that your opinion is based on prejudice rather than facts - and more importantly, the opinions of sex workers in the industry - the peer groups/org’s informed recommendations is more important as to what they need - than your prejudiced opinions even though your privilege may blind you to think otherwise.
BATSHIT CRAZY is someone who has no experience with sex industry, going by propaganda and media fed to them and arguing with someone that actually has knowledge, experience, and have worked with international orgs around the world of peer based sex work orgs and spends countless hours doing activism fighting for rights of sex workers.
Nice point. And in some cases I do think there’s a mimicking of an emotional relationship despite the customer/seller relationship.
However, because none of us are 14, I think we can all assume that opinions expressed in this forum are generalities, and that we all recognize there are exceptions where our opinions don’t hold.
Indeed. And I suspect that at least some of that is attributable to experiences with men who treat women as sexual receptacles, whether for money or not.
Okay, I’m not certain how we get consent in here. I’m assuming that everything we’ve discussed here is consensual, with both sides having full agency, regardless of whether it’s in the context of a relationship or not.
Let’s get a few things straight.
I have repeatedly said here that I am in favor of the legalization of prostitution. In my opinion, the harms that occur through prohibition outweigh the harms caused by society accepting that is okay for men to treat certain groups of women as discardable sexual objects. But being for something does not mean that one doesn’t recognize the harms that it causes.
Our opinions are mostly based on our own cultural contexts which makes “imposing on third world cultures” assertions a little odd. The article was about Sweden prosecuting male customers. My opinion is immaterial to other countries electorate who in the end decide the laws of their country.
Actually, the only person I’ve seen here stigmatize others is you. “privileged white neo colonialist”? People have expressed opinions here, and the only person attacking the poster and not the opinion is once again… you.
I understand that you feel very strongly about this, and quite frankly, if you’re working in the field to help others, you have my admiration. But that does not invalidate arguments about whether the existence of demand for the trade is a net positive. After all, I support decriminalization of drugs, but I don’t pretend that drug use doesn’t have negative effects upon the purchasers. Discussions about that negative effect aren’t forbidden, nor do they equate to support for criminalization.
As an aside, quite frankly anyone who supports a position and yet can’t tell you what the costs are and who will be paying them is not to be trusted. They either haven’t thought the position through, or they’re willing to lie. Either makes them suspect (not evil, but not to be trusted as an informed supplier of information).
Tell me, how many forced labourers and underage prostitutes do these sex worker organizations represent? I’m curious. Are they a representative part of their constituency? Is there any reason to believe that they speak for all sex workers any more than there is reason to believe that any one organization speaks for all porn stars in the US (where many people who have worked in the industry have published very different impressions of it)?
Point me to sex worker organizations who have published empirical data on the prevalence of forced and underage labour in their industry. I looked at a 2012 Empower report that seemed to contain no statistical data at all, but which acknowledged that trafficking used to be a much bigger problem in Thailand than it currently is. They certainly weren’t denying that it is or has been an issue in to the extent that you appear to be (and I would highly doubt that the situation in Cambodia has suddenly become better than in Thailand).
That Empower report also made some interesting linguistic decisions, such as talking about “minors deciding to sell sex for the first time,” which seems like curious phrasing to a neocolonial such as myself. Stepping out of my neocolonial boots, I suppose that under cultural relativism we should accept that in Thailand this is a decision an underage girl may acceptably make, though by this measure we should also accept that Thai responses and perspectives on the status of females and prostitutes—including how to respond to them—should also be respected. But wait, they’re also talking about universal human rights, so I guess cultural relativism is also out… and yet minors have the unquestioned right to sell sex.
Heck, Empower’s takeaway message seems to be that the anti-trafficking measures are good policy executed badly. This is hardly a stirring denial that their sector has problems with forced labour and underage girls.
Also, I was criticizing your style of argument, not about “(some) sex workers actually telling truth.”
Again, show me where I said this. If you can’t, back off your personal attacks.
With advocates as persuasive as you on their side, it’s pretty amazing y’all haven’t had more success in converting those with differing opinions.
I guess you do have to be batshit crazy to disagree with an activist. Thanks for pointing that out.
and you assume that everyone is 14 ? How is this assumption MORE valid?
and this can be said that women use men for money or sex - but what are these arguments about ? it should have no consequences as to thinking about safety of the people. Which is to listen to the people in the industry about what they need rather than going by our prejudices.
Actually, you are the one that started with everyone is sociopath. Which is an attack on sex workers as it is stigmatizing and making generalizations that aren’t true.
except that it is always only the negative aspects that is paraded around in stigmatizing/patronizing/sensationalist way mostly for media clicks and/or NGO’s wanting money from you. While many sex workers and sex work orgs are completely ignored because they simply do not fit the sensationalist stereotypes.
Sex work orgs don’t parade around people’s victimhood for getting charity money. It is the orgs to make sure they get legal help , etc. Just because they don’t stick them in your face and use them for money does not mean there are no sex workers in the orgs that are trafficking victims . No organization , as I said claims to speak on behalf of ALL workers, it is up to the sex workers to organize to come with best options , best policy - and not leave it up for people with absolutely no knowledge of the industry to come up with policy that have no relevance to reality to their lives. Please DO inform me if you think that you or any anti trafficking christian orgs have BETTER idea than this about what sex workers should be doing !
Minors sell sex for all sorts of reason - again, having moral panic will lead to terrible laws that often will send them back to abusive homes or worse. It is a case of doing the best we can out of a situation. NOT about assuming sex work is at fault or is the worst scenario. Informed socialworkers obligated to report minors doing sex work might have signs that says “if you are engaged in sex work and is minor, we are obligated to report to police” so that they can still give support and service to under age workers. It is NOT “minor, minor, minor - sex sex trafficking BAD BAD BAD BAD” - we have to figure out what is the best solution, what do these people need ? Why are they engaging in sex work? How can you best support them? Often times, sex work really might be the best option for them for the time being. Shaming them, being patronizing, saying "how awful life " having these kinds of attitudes - isn’t helpful AT ALL to the situation. In fact, if you tell them any of that - they will most likely tell you to fuck off and take off without condoms.
You repeatedly claim that MOST sex workers were trafficked and under age. Which is same as claiming ANY marginalized groups is (what ever the prejudice that media portrays in sensationalist way for the profit of people making money)
Actually, privileged people never change their minds. I stopped hoping for that long ago. I have not seen - with being nice, with great arguments, with empirical data, etc… not one privileged person being called out EVER change or apologize. So now, having learnt this lesson - I cut to the chase. Which is that it’s these types of neo colonialist privileged class, spreading prejudice, ignorance, and stigma from media - that is at the heart of every violent brothel raids, every time a child is taken away from a sex worker, every time sex workers are evicted from their homes, every time sex work workers can’t report violence to the police, every time they are rounded up to "rehabilitation clinics"in guise of helping them from trafficking…
Politicians , lawmakers, NGOs, Health organizations that will actually listen to sex workers mostly already were open minded and really understand how it all works to begin with. They will consult the sex work orgs themselves for more informed and rounded position.
Sex worker organizations, like all organizations, have inherent biases. For sex workers, the bias is clearly for those already in the sex trade, and will likely skew towards the interests of those who are long-term participants in the trade (unions also display similar biases). The interests of the most marginal participants in the trade are likely to be marginalized by the organization itself (just as the interests of those with the lowest seniority or service time are likely to be marginalized by unions), while the characteristics of long-term wokers are likely to be over-represented. Sex worker organizations are unlikely to lobby for the destruction of their industry, which is straightforward enough, but they’re also unlikely to support intervention measures that significantly affect their livelihood. This is also straightforward enough, and those who believe that the market should exist are likely to be sympathetic. But there’s also a vested interest in downplaying the negative aspects of the industry unless those negative characteristics affect their core constituency: long-term workers. This is true of all constituent-based organizations.
There’s a quote button. Use it to quote me where I said this. Use it repeatedly.
I don’t think you have any idea of who I am or what I believe in, nor are you really interested. All you know is that I believe that forced labour and underage sex is a real problem, and that is enough to label me a neo colonialist who supports harming sex workers.
And yet the question remains whether forced labour and underage sex is a problem. You haven’t attempted to provide any empirical data, and Empower explicitly refused to do so in their 2012 report.
I have no doubt that’s true. It’s also true when families sell their daughters into prostitution. Does this mean we should ignore it, or pretend it doesn’t actually happen? That we should just focus on the positive aspects of the sector? That we should imbue minors with the legitimate ability to sell their bodies, even while arguing from a universal human rights perspective?
yes, so you instead believe in Christian right orgs selling stories about trafficking no matter how much fraud was uncovered or no matter how many sex workers are abused?And so your conclusion is that your prejudiced view shall prevail over peer based sex work orgs?? It’s your prejudice about sex workers that you don’t believe them and instead, keep on spewing stigmatizing views. And it’s your privilege that makes you think your opinion should count more than that of actual people that is being talked about .
yes, because you totally ignore the experiences of sex workers and brought into anti trafficking neo colonialist crusaders that wants to harm sex workers.
there can be no empirical data - in Australia, there has only been few cases of trafficking, most sex workers knew they were working in the industry and agreed to it. It’s same as anti-terrorism and bombing people . They claim there are many terrorist - no real data , no real way of knowing - making excuse to bomb people. There is no data - but there is data that brothels are being raided, sex workers are being put to jail or forced rehabilitation.
Often your kind of moral panic leads to worst kind of result for the actual minors by supporting laws BANNING OUTLAWING and making people talk shit about it all. What do we do? Have peer based orgs with sex workers experienced in doing sex work as minor - and make sure they get the support and help they need. NOT by patronizing attitude which will most likely get a royal “fuck you” by the said minor and probably run off without much needed condoms. - or the minors being put in jail or foster homes that abuses them further. Sometimes, the best thing to DO is to make sure there are proper social workers who does understand and who does know.
This is a good point. I am used to pointing out the costs of policies I support (in forums that are generally favorable to those policies) because there’s a natural enough tendency to ignore those costs.
But with this issue, even among supporters of legalization, the sellers themselves, usually financially marginalized, do not get support in their choice, only at best (as in my case) toleration.
On further thought, I think you are probably right in that it’s not possible to possible to criticize those seeking to objectify and dehumanize women without stigmatizing the sellers themselves. It’s a very complex issue, with multiple levels of harm and benefit. I’ll try to leave it at that.
blanket statements about group of people isn’t a good idea. there are all kinds of clients as much as all kinds of experiences sex workers have. When making policies - however, it is irrelevant in terms of fighting for labour rights and human rights. EX: right to report to police, right to fight against brothel owners that might take too much money, right to refuse a client , right to rent homes and keep children, e…t.c…
Where have I said I don’t believe them? What is it that they’re saying that I don’t believe? Unless they’re saying that forced labour and underage labour doesn’t exist, then I’m not really disagreeing with them.
What have I ignored? It’s possible both for there to be a real and significant problem with forced labour and underage worker and for current enforcement mechanisms to be unduly harmful.
Yes, the very definition of the white saviour complex is to believe that underage sex and forced labour is a problem. Maybe the next time I’m offered an underage boy in Cambodia I should show that I am not a white saviour by taking them up on their offer.
You do know that there are people who want to stop forced and underage labour but who do not want to harm sex workers, right?
There can be no empirical data? Is there a reason why Australian estimates of 300-1,000 trafficking victims per year are wrong?
aww- privileged people only are GOOD people and CARING - why indeed doesn’t marginalized sex workers answer to their fears rather then actually care for their own community?
You dont believe the real issues facing sex workers - most primary is that they are calling many human rights violation under the guise of saving sex workers from trafficking when it’s not even an issue that most sex workers are facing. Even if they were, none of it is actually addressed by anti trafficking orgs,
by that same stigmatizing token , you can’t object to calling all of your kind neo colonialist christian fundamentalist. Because mostly, those are the ones pushing for anti trafficking policies that negatively affects sex workers.
People like you drive the anti-trafficking orgs. OBVIOUSLY will cause harm by pushing their own ideology and beliefs onto others and cause more harm rather than being helpful by actually understanding the complex situation people get into and often one with not so easy clear answer as simply"stop forced labour and under age sex work".
