[tsotha]

"...an act of violence against all women"? What a load of hyperbolic crap. How does the act of two people making a mutually beneficial transaction amount to "violence" against anyone?

Of course other women don't like it, but that has nothing to do with "trafficking" or "violence". They don't like it because it reduces the amount of power they have over men.

EDIT: Incidentally, there's no reason to hold up Sweden's infantilization of women as an example for anyone else. There's no reason to believe women aren't capable of making their own decisions, but if that's the case they shouldn't be participating in public life.

[anigbrowl]

There are lots of women who are coerced into prostitution, either directly or structurally. But I agree that the existence and frequency of problems is not inherent, ie that it doesn't preclude some women from taking up such work as a free choice.

Of course other women don't like it, but that has nothing to do with "trafficking" or "violence". They don't like it because it reduces the amount of power they have over men.

That's a bunch of hyperbolic crap too, though.

[EdwardDiego]

> There are lots of women who are coerced into prostitution, either directly or structurally.

That's true, but why do you phrase it solely in terms of women? There are a lot of boys/men in the sex industry also.

My personal argument is the criminalisation of prostitution forces prostitutes to associate with criminals, which is where the abuses can happen.

In my country, where prostitution is legal, a prostitute recently took her boss (What do Americans call a man who runs a brothel?) to our Human Rights Tribunal for sexual harassment and won. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm

If you want to minimise harm, legalisation strikes me as the obvious move.

[anigbrowl]

Only because of the comment a few levels above that characterized prostitution as fundamentally violent towards women. I agree sex work as a whole is much more diverse and complex than can be summed up in a simple stereotype.

[_bfhp]

I think craigsmitham meant women as a class, not individual women. Prostitution (which includes porn) is fundamentally harmful to women as a class. I think this should be obvious, but those to whom it is not can see the work of Gail Dines and related feminists.

[anigbrowl]

Perhaps so, but I disagree with this thesis. (mainly because I don't subscribe to Marxist assumptions about the nature of class conflict and find them overly simplistic).

[_bfhp]

I don't know much about Marxism, I use "class" in the intuitive way that means a group of people with interests. I don't think anyone actually disagrees that the world has groups of people with interests. Everyone understands that blackface is detrimental to black people "as a class", and was/is symtomatic of certain things about the "class" of white people out of which blackface performers come.

[brazzy]

No, it is not in any way or shape obvious, quite the opposite. Gail Dines is a crusader with no regard for reality (or women).

[_bfhp]

Do you mean to intentionally betray a lack of an argument by restricting your comment to pure rhetoric?

[saraid216]

> That's true, but why do you phrase it solely in terms of women? There are a lot of boys/men in the sex industry also.

I have never actually heard of a male being coerced into prostitution. I know that some choose it. I've heard of plenty of females being coerced.

> What do Americans call a man who runs a brothel?

A pimp.

> If you want to minimise harm, legalisation strikes me as the obvious move.

Americans in aggregate aren't interested in minimizing harm. In aggregate, our concerns tend to be about morality, and "violence" tends to not get included as inherently immoral. We care more about the relative defenselessness of a victim than that there was a victim in the first place.

That's why we favor charity over systematic aid.

[EdwardDiego]

> I have never actually heard of a male being coerced into prostitution.

Does that mean it doesn't happen?

[saraid216]

You're welcome to provide an example, rather than trying to pit your wit against mine in an effort to get absolutely nowhere.

[tsotha]

>There are lots of women who are coerced into prostitution, either directly or structurally.

"[s]tructurally"? What does that mean? I agree forcing a woman into prostitution should be against the law, but if she see's it as the best of her options then that's her decision.

>That's a bunch of hyperbolic crap too, though.

No, not really. Almost all sex is transactional at some level. Women who don't sell it for cash don't want to compete with professionals in the same way manufacturers try to keep out low-priced imports.

[anigbrowl]

By structurally, I mean due to economic or social structures that leave some people with little alternative to this type of informal economic transaction (the downsides of informality being a lack of access to legal and financial resources that support workers in other sectors, albeit imperfectly or in untimely fashion). If it's the best option because of some lack of educational opportunities or social policy that puts people at a disadvantage (eg by creating a ghetto) then that's a problem.

No, not really. Almost all sex is transactional at some level. Women who don't sell it for cash don't want to compete with professionals in the same way manufacturers try to keep out low-priced imports.

I disagree, and think your view is overly reductionist and overly simplistic. Sex work involves a much more diverse set of situations than your stereotypical and rather cynical appraisal of gender-economic relations. It's not that the popular social structures like monogamy don't have any economic dimension, but the assumption that this is the only thing that motivates anyone is as much a denial of agency as the notion that all prostitutes are helpless victims of evil patriarchy.

[tsotha]

>If it's the best option because of some lack of educational opportunities or social policy that puts people at a disadvantage (eg by creating a ghetto) then that's a problem.

I don't accept that as some form of coercion. Why is it men seem to be able to find alternatives, but women are somehow helpless victims of circumstance? I used to play poker with prostitutes. To a woman they were simply too lazy to avail themselves of other opportunities. Hooking is easy money.

In any event if she's so desperate this is the only way she can put food on the table, state interference with her trade puts her life in jeopardy, no?

>It's not that the popular social structures like monogamy don't have any economic dimension, but the assumption that this is the only thing that motivates anyone is as much a denial of agency as the notion that all prostitutes are helpless victims of evil patriarchy.

I made no such assumption. But you don't have to talk to too many men to realize their wives and girlfriends use sex as a means to control them.

[anigbrowl]

I don't accept your premise. Men don't go into sex work to the same degree because there isn't enough economic demand for their services. On the other hand, lots of men in bad economic circumstances end working as small-time drug dealers, another line of work that involves willing economic participation (and could thus be called victimless crime), measurable social externalities (which is why it gets criminalized), the possibility of easy money but also a serious risk of violence and exploitation, and a lack of access to other work-related social institutions (labor standards authorities, financial services, dispute resolution through the legal system etc.).

Of course not all prostitutes are forced into that line of work by necessity (as I've said from the outset, and don't intend to repeat further). But it's a mistake to generalize form your experience and assume that none are. I could equally well infer that it's the sort of people who like to spend their leisure hours gambling who are lazy, since gambling by definition offers the possibility of a large quick score rather than the painstaking accumulation of wealth. Or I might infer that since poker is a game of bluffing as much as of luck, it suited at least some of your companions to present themselves to you as shiftless and lazy so as to tempt you into more reckless betting - after all, don't prostitutes specialize professionalize in pretending to be whatever others expect them to be?

Now really, I don't have any strong personal opinions about gambling, plus I for all I know you and your friends used to play for pennies and the primary payoff was the enjoyment of each others' social company; I'm just trying to point out pitfalls in generalizing too much from a limited sample. It's facile to say 'x just does y because s/he is lazy' - it might be that X has great difficulty getting any other kind of job due to having spent the last 10 years engaged in Y, which is not anything you can put on a resume.

In any event if she's so desperate this is the only way she can put food on the table, state interference with her trade puts her life in jeopardy, no?

It depends. In the case of Redbook, as discussed in the article, I think state interference is a bad thing because it seems to have functioned as a platform for women (and others, but mostly women) engaged in this line of work to organize themselves economically and reduce the harmful factors by spreading worthwhile information, from access to better STD-mitigation practices to screening out clients known to be dangerous or abusive. Indeed, one of the key features of Redbook (as I understand it) was that it reduced the traditional leverage of pimps over prostitutes.

On the other hand, if state social welfare agencies come across some cracked-out hooker turning tricks for $20 or someone who's been trafficked across borders for organized sex work and thus doesn't have any of the protections of citizenship or legal residency, it's not doing those persons any favor to say 'well, at least you're on the economic ladder, carry on I guess...' What they need is probably safe housing, maybe drug detox, counselling, education and a boatload of other resources - but that gets expensive, isn't a popular political expenditure (partly because of attitudes like yours), and involves a lot of bureaucratic/ administrative overhead both within state agencies and in the nonprofit sector.

I made no such assumption. But you don't have to talk to too many men to realize their wives and girlfriends use sex as a means to control them.

Maybe it's just that I'm confident and self-reliant enough not to feel dependent on anyone else for my sexual identity (for want of a better expression), but statements like that seem very biased to me. Men are only controlled by their sexuality to the extent that they find it burdensome to obtain consent for sexual activity, no? I mean, look at the not-inconsiderable number of married men who have affairs, long-term mistresses, or hire prostitutes; by definition they find outlets for their sexual drive outside of their marital/conjugal relationship, yet choose to remain within that relationship, so they must be motivated by other considerations besides access to sexual activity. I'm pretty skeptical whenever I hear claims about 'women having men by the balls,' so to speak.

[tsotha]

>I don't accept your premise. Men don't go into sex work to the same degree because there isn't enough economic demand for their services.

You missed my point. There isn't much demand for men as sex workers and yet they still manage to avoid starving.

>But it's a mistake to generalize form your experience and assume that none are.

How many prostitutes do you think there are as a percentage of the total population? In the US, especially, women have other options.

>Or I might infer that since poker is a game of bluffing as much as of luck, it suited at least some of your companions to present themselves to you as shiftless and lazy so as to tempt you into more reckless betting - after all, don't prostitutes specialize professionalize in pretending to be whatever others expect them to be?

They weren't working - they were playing. Not very well, either. This was a card club in an area that wasn't great, and hookers and drug dealers tend to gamble a lot because they have a lot of undeclared cash.

>What they need is probably safe housing, maybe drug detox, counselling, education and a boatload of other resources...'

Well, okay, but that's a separate issue from whether or not making her trade illegal will benefit her. It won't.

>Men are only controlled by their sexuality to the extent that they find it burdensome to obtain consent for sexual activity, no?

Oh, it's not perfect control. If a wife withholds sex from her husband for long enough he's going to get it somewhere else, and most women are more deft than that. But using sex as a reward for painting the garage isn't fundamentally different than selling it.

[makomk]

Yeah, some of these women could certainly use better options. The main problem I and sex worker activists have with the whole structural coercion argument is that the solutions to it almost always involve taking the option of sex work away from these vulnerable women and forcing them into options they consider worse, rather than opening better opportunities for them and letting them choose them freely. Whether they involve making it difficult and dangerous to earn money that way through "end demand" laws, or forcing them into re-education and labour programs through the threat of imprisonment, or outright criminalization of them and everyone around them, or literal imprisonment in sweatshops in some cases, the solutions always involve coercing them into situations that they find worse but that outsiders are more comfortable with.

[anigbrowl]

That's an excellent point - as I was arguing elsewhere in the thread, the approach you describe can end up being dismissive or even destructive of individual autonomy. I'm very struck by the collision here between colliding ideologies, with the myth of a perfectly free market and equal economic opportunity on one side and an evil patriarchy which has the socioeconomic subjugation of women as its primary goal on the other, with many people on both sides seeming to have little respect for the actual individuals in the middle.

By the way, if you're involved in activism in this area, could you drop me a line? I'm working on a somewhat related project and will be looking to get some well-informed input on the subject.

[stcredzero]

> There are lots of women who are coerced into prostitution, either directly or structurally.

Illegality can make it harder for women who are vulnerable to such coercion to seek legal help. No one entirely sane relishes tangling with the law. I remember reading about a situation in Germany, where women using unemployment job seeking services were being pressured to go to prostitution job interviews.

Would this be a problem if there was no social stigma attached to the profession? Perhaps. I'd think it would be wise for the law to treat that particular a profession a little differently, however. (As in the German example.)

>> Of course other women don't like it, but that has nothing to do with "trafficking" or "violence". They don't like it because it reduces the amount of power they have over men.

> That's a bunch of hyperbolic crap too, though.

There's a world of difference between the fluffy and cheerful young woman in suburban Arizona who was interviewed on Penn & Teller's show and an often homeless urban street walker with a dependence on drugs. (Not to mention women trafficked across national borders.) Women who have very little socio-economic power may well be coerced or feel trapped by their circumstances in any line of work. So it's no wonder that a profession of illegal status carries extra complications.

As usual, what is one "issue" in name is actually a half dozen different issues, with socio-economic status as one of a number of differentiating factors.

There is such violence. There is such trafficking. There are also matters of gender politics and the economics of social structures influencing morality. The only hyperbola here is claiming each part is the whole. Blind men...elephant...blah de blah...

[brazzy]

> I remember reading about a situation in Germany, where women using unemployment job seeking services were being pressured to go to prostitution job interviews.

Except that's complete bullshit. There was one case where a job seeker got a suggestion to apply for a job serving drinks in a brothel and one where an escort job got into their database of open jobs. Both were considered a mistake and against policy which says that sex-related work is only to be offered on the initiative of the job seeker.

[_bfhp]

There is no "social stigma" to prostitution afaik. I keep seeing people (mostly men) assert this as gospel truth, but it's an extremely common phenomenon around the world. I'm going to need sources on the claim that there is some stigma.

[stcredzero]

There is no "social stigma" to prostitution afaik.

https://www.google.com/search?q=social+stigma+prostution+nor...

EDIT: "Social stigma" that looks like, sounds like, and feels like social stigma passes the "duck test." It essentially is social stigma. It doesn't matter so much for the question of its existence who in particular it originates with.

[_bfhp]

You could also say that adultery has a social stigma, but you see it everywhere, even from the most conservative of men. I would argue that this is not "social stigma", but rather a different conception of controlling women. To the aging, minority group of conservative men who are supposedly "against" prostitution, women are supposed to be private property, not public property.

[stcredzero]

"Social stigma" that looks like, sounds like, and feels like social stigma passes the "duck test." It essentially is social stigma. It doesn't matter so much for the question of its existence who in particular it originates with. I've met way too many young people who have strong feelings against prostitution to think you are correct, however.

[anigbrowl]

If you're not trolling then you're painfully naive. I find it impossible to reconcile this with your other comment elsewhere in this subthread.

[_bfhp]

What makes you say this? Did you read my comment to stcredzero below?

[anigbrowl]

I did, and your comment referencing Gail Dines. It seems to me that you're way over-reliant on theory to the point that you're missing the forest for the trees. Try pretending to to people outside your social circle that you are engaged in prostitution, or dating a prostitute, or variations on that fictional theme.

[plikan13]

The problem is that when you hire the services of a prostitute, you will probably have no idea about the situation of that person. Maybe this person is in charge of his/her life and is making a well-informed choice. But maybe this person is coerced into prostitution. In that case you will be financially supporting a very wrong thing, and you have no way of knowing. I think the question whether prostitution should be legal is much less important than the conclusion that being a customer is morally indefensible.

[_bfhp]

Exactly, johns should be penalized. We sanction entire countries because of the conditions of the workers in manufacturing industries, don't we? But we simply can't touch the sex industry because that would be restricting "free choice"...

[tormeh]

Farming in California is built on trafficked, essentially slave, labor, but I guess the much smaller problems in prostitution are a more romantic target.

[_bfhp]

Smaller? By what metric?

[stcredzero]

Frequency of piecework? I bet there are a lot more instances of "picking a fruit" per year by trafficked farm worker than there are instances of sex by a trafficked sex worker.

[_bfhp]

Why are you referring to rape as "sex"? Rape is a violent crime every time it happens. I think we can recognize one issue as valuable without putting down the other.

[tsotha]

By this logic prostitution is no different than any economic transaction. Goods are made by people who are virtually, if not in fact, slaves. Does that mean you refuse to buy anything you didn't make with your own hands?

[sukilot]

And indeed, consumption of sweatshop (and polluting) labor is a huge problem, and the Buy Local movement is at attempt to combat it.

[tsotha]

It's not realistic, though. You can't possibly research the povenance of every garment, food item, piece of electronics, drop of oil, shelter, and building material you buy. It's impossible.