So The Independent recently ran a piece by Catherine Murphy of Amnesty International, explaining why the organization is calling for the decriminalization of sex work.
In the comments, someone calling themselves THEMISHMISHEH offers a unique take on the issue.
And by “unique” I mean “seemingly from another planet.”
Shades of Tom Martin, huh?
Hey, friendly reminder to not call sex workers for prostitutes: http://misandry-mermaid.tumblr.com/post/120316103133/legitimate-question-why-do-you-consider-the-term
@Tessa:
My bad. You’re right, the guys on 4chan want visiting a prostitute to be socially acceptable. I’m sure they care not at all about her being socially accepted. Probably the reverse. It’s the old “I’m a stud; she’s a whore” mentality.
This sums up how I feel about this commenter:
@ msexceptiontotherule
You put it well.
@msexceptiontotherule: the problem is that our economy doesn’t always provide better-paying safer jobs for people than sex work. That’s what we really don’t want to face as a society: the failure of our current systems to make things equitable enough that everybody can choose the job they’re satisfied with rather than whatever pays the bills that month.
Paying for sex = victim
Selling sex and then getting beaten because the client refuses to pay up or tries to get their money back = vicious harpy, only out to destroy the poor, poor man who paid to fuck her.
Kay.
Well that’s ironic. Because a lot of people are up in arms about Amnesty’s position, since not only does it decriminalise for the sex worker but also for pimps and johns. In an early draft there was mention of “johns’ right to privacy” and other rights of johns that shold be considered. That would be why Dean Esmay is getting behind Amnesty on this one
Thanks for that link, nightmarelyre.
Emma Goldman said that every worker is a prostitute: some of us only sell our bodies while others sell our minds too. For all their affectations, the folk of 4chan seem light years away from actual anarchism like Goldman’s.
As for the original post: Voltaire said it best.
Kat-
I’m pretty sure they’d prefer the sex workers to still be stigmatized as that way they can still get away with mistreating them and viewing them as a subhuman category. Sex workers genuinely supported by general culture would mean that they’d have to treat a sex worker with just as much humanity as any other person and that’s something that this type of bad john has nightmares about.
Fruitloopsie-
As best as I can figure, the way that women in sex work are “abusing” men is through that bullshit accepting my money for work is robbing me crap. So, a sex worker taking payment for the service they provide is abusing men because she actually keeps the money without paying free sex to anyone who wanders past (because clearly by being a sex worker she has consented to sex with anyone for free) and doesn’t actually think the johns are wonderful god penises.*
*Having known a fair share of sex workers at this point, I can say rather definitively that most every sex worker thinks these types of entitled johns are complete shitheels.
Guys, the proper term is “sex worker” as defined by actual sex workers. “Prostitutes”, “whores”, etc. are slurs. Please use “sex worker” when talking about sex workers please.
Yes, because prostitutes drive around and pick out men just standing on the street, to have sex with, for the men’s money, and the men are powerless to resist… oh, and it’s totally the johns who get murdered the most, in these exchanges. Nevermind that the homicide rate of sex workers in the USA is more than 20 times that of men, on average. That includes legal sex workers, and female sex workers are more likely to be homicide victims over male sex workers.
The problem comes when you start talking about trafficked women, like the girls from Tenancingo, Mexico, who are brought to brothels in New York where girls as young as 14 are forced to service as many as 60 men a day. Referring to these girls as “sex workers” would seem to be taking a euphemism and pushing it to totally ridiculous lengths. They are actually — to use appropriate words — slaves and victims of torture, and as far as I know, slavery and torture are almost universally regarded as crimes against humanity. And for many of those for whom sex work is at least some degree a choice originating in economic necessity, again referring to them as sex workers tends to euphemize and therefore legitimize their systematic exploitation. Nobody (with a heart, that is) wants to stigmatize the women who may have little or no choice about their work, or make their lives harder than they already are, but the idea of decriminalizing pimps and johns seems extremely repellent to me, and any attempt to reduce the social condemnation of pimps and johns seems like terrible policy.
Prostitution has been with us for most of recorded history, and eradicating it is a nearly impossible task. And since it probably can’t be eradicated in the foreseeable future, we need to work to improve the lives of prostituted women (and men) — this is the term preferred by those who want to see the eventual abolition of sex work, because it emphasizes that a bad thing is being done to the workers, whether by outright compulsion and trafficking or by lack of suitable economic alternatives.
Neither group — abolitionists or legalizers — believes that the term “prostitute” is acceptable. The disagreement is whether “sex worker” or “prostituted woman” is more accurate.
@Grumpy
Is that what actual sex workers say or people’s opinion who aren’t sex workers say?
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/02/11960/
The issue with the term sex worker is that is normally used to erase trafficked women, and to imply that it is a choice (which for most women it isn’t). The reality is that the terms sex worker, prostitute, prostituted woman, trafficked woman, etc, all have different continuations.
If the women is trafficked or being prostituted using the term sex worker makes her seem a willing participant and would not be accurate.
http://i.imgur.com/KPXLMM8.gif
“They pray on weak vulnerable people who need help desperately”
Uh…people who desperately need help getting off?
All this “logic” could apply equally to the porn and fleshlight industries, they “pray” on weak and vulnerable men to the exact same degree (which is none), but I have a feeling he doesn’t have such a problem with them. In fact I’d bet every cent I own that he’s a big fan.
@Fnoicby Oh exactly. It’s disturbing to see how many people, including some self-proclaimed feminists are looking at this subject as how it benefits the johns. The passage that sex -Or, you know, the right to use another human being’s body regardless of their desire to let you- was a human right is sickening. It actually makes me feel like there are some sentiments in Amnesty’s hierarchy that aren’t on board with reality.
I know we have commenters on both sides of the New Zealand vs Nordic model but when it comes to MRAs, they are certain to follow either the puritanical model to keep men in absolute power over poor and marginalized women, or some sick legally protected rape.
Whatever we do, it should be with absolute 100% consideration for the workers who are most vulnerable in all of this. Johns literally don’t matter. Their rights, their feels, their comfort is all irrelevant.
http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mby2obiCXX1rzbvsto1_500.gif
Amnesty failed to reject prostitution in all its forms.
@GOSJM:
Sex trafficking (and its converse, sex tourism) are indeed real things, and terrible things at that. However, they are different from non-sexual forced labour only in that the labour which is forced from its victims is sexual rather than, say, working in a textile sweatshop.
In Britain, many trafficked people work in agriculture. Many free people work in agriculture too; some because they enjoy it, others because it’s convenient for where they live or because they like the hours. The fact that slave labour is used at all is appalling and is an indictment of the economic system and social system in which we live; but it should not taint our opinion of free people who choose to do the same work willingly.
I think a lot of opposition to sex work comes from people pedestalising women’s sexuality and seeing it as somehow the property of her future male partners rather than something uniquely hers, to be used as she likes.
@EJ While trafficked labor is reprehensible in all of its forms, trafficked sex workers often face, along with powerlessness and poor living conditions, rape. Constant rape and torture by violent men who need to be put in prison. People who traffic women for sex are absolutely inconsiderate of the lives of the women involved. Trafficked textile workers face much less violence because serving violent and hateful fantasies is not part of their job. Managers don’t often feel the need to abuse those workers because they just want them to work, whereas the ruination of sex workers physically, mentally, and so forth are desired by their clients.
To be honest, I don’t think, for example, anyone is crticizing the porn actresses or cam models (Who, yes, are often abused, and fit the next category) for what is happening to the trafficked women on the street. For whatever strange reason, it feels we can’t have seperate conversations about women who chose and enjoy sexual labor, women who are economically, -sometimes physically and psychologically- forced into their job, and the johns/pimps who abuse the latter.
Opposition to sex work comes from religious puritans who think women should be reserved for their future husband.
HOWEVER, feminist opposition, such as to fully legalizing sexual exploitation of those working the streets, comes from a concern with those at the lowest points of power, I think. I’m sure there are very kindhearted people on both sides of the issue who think they are doing their best for everyone, but I think there is some nuance that needs to be addressed before the conversation can go forward.
Seconding Grumpy. Thank you for explaining it so well.
@xodima:
I agree with you that the situation of trafficked sex workers is deplorable. I am not aware of the rape statistics amongst trafficked agricultural or domestic workers (although I’d be surprised if it were zero); however oppression olympic events serve nobody. My apologies if I came across as setting up an oppression olympics or minimising the very real brutality of that situation.
My understanding is that the exploitation of sex workers needs to be understood as an intersection of the wider exploitation of women and the wider exploitation of workers. If one sees it purely as a unique and reprehensible thing, one cannot affect wider change.
That said, I know uncomfortably little about it except from what I’ve learned from listening to others; given my gender and economic status I am not in a position to do anything more than that, so would gladly learn from those who know more.
Yeah, I think that rape is a common experience of other trafficked people – including agricultural and textile workers and managers (overseers/ gang masters) do abuse them in other ways, too. But obviously they are not raped as frequently as trafficked sex slaves, because they have to get other stuff done…like sewing or picking. The life of a slave sucks hard no matter what industry, but there isn’t the same stigma following them if they get out.
I have very mixed feelings about legalisation of sex work. There’s a recent paper come out from Dr Catherine Hakim which basically says it will always be around because men have twice as much sexual desire as women… so might as well legalise it to make it safer for everyone. That skeeves me out a little, but I dunno… I get the harm minimisation argument, but I think that we have enough trouble properly regulating non-stigmatised ‘low-value’* work so that it’s safe and fair for workers – so I have trouble believing that stigmatised work like sex work could ever be properly regulated.
Whether they walk the track, go to a motel and get a room to set up the laptop and arrange their dates online through sites like craigslist etc, work in a brothel or do outcall ‘high class’ escorting, we should be doing more to come up with alternative work options and provide reasonable means to get whatever skills they need to get safer jobs that pay enough to keep them from going back to sex work.
I’m not opposed to well-regulated (for health, safety, and fair labor standards) legal sex work such as there is at brothels, as long as the workers want to be there – I worry that there might be an increase how many are sex trafficked in as it is to just legalize sex work without fully committing to really regulating a professional brothel-type industry properly. That and unfortunately the biggest issue is that there are a lot of people who will object most strenuously to just the idea of making sex work legal in any capacity.
If johns went to legalized sex industry workers instead of trying to solicit curbside and online I wouldn’t see a need to post their photo on the john site o-shaming when they get busted. I don’t have any sympathy for the pleading about not wanting to put the wife and kids into a bad spot because they depend on his income – if he really cared about all that then he wouldn’t be out doing something that could get him arrested like he was! If his reputation in the community was so important then maybe he shouldn’t have been trying to solicit sex from one of the ladies curbside!
Pimps are as awful as the people who run trafficking operations or have key positions within the businesses that the traffickers are supplying the workforce to. The brutal treatment they employ to control their victims would be bad enough, but keeping whatever money is earned by the victims, taking identification documents and passports, introducing drugs so they can force compliance by withholding what they need to “get well”…If the pimps, traffickers and their business affiliates could be locked up somewhere that they’d never get out of alive, I’d be ok with that. Trading their lives in order to help make changes to the current system so that their victims would have the kinds of services and opportunities in safer occupations offering wages they can support themselves and any children with…I wouldn’t have a problem making such a trade.