can someone explain the 'harm reduction' approach to prostitution

Beachcomber: I wish to defend the right of people to earn money however they choose to do so and the rights of people who engage in sex work to be treated with respect and not exploited.

And I find the abolitionist mindset not just stupid and judgemental but actively harmful towards sex workers. It's not that dissimilar to the well-meaning stupidity of the low-level anti-choicers: these women are vulnerable and wrong so they are going to be 'rescued' whether they like it or not, and if the rescue plans make it much more dangerous for them to do what they are doing, it's their own fault if they get hurt because we told them to stop.

It comes from the same deepdown place, the idea that to have a lot of sex with a lot of different men is inherently harmful to women and 'degrading' in that it reduces their property-value. So a lot of the legislation that gets suggested or put in place to stop sex work or 'reduce harm' makes sex workers' lives harder and tries to coerce them into swapping sex work for low paid service industry work that they are told is 'better' because it doesn't involve their vaginas.

lazybookreviews.tumblr.com/post/21446918238/theres-a-big-thing-on-legalizing-sex-work

I also believe this is a very good analysis.

selling sex.

SGB the thing I don't get with your position is that it looks to me like you wish to defend the right of a very small minority of women to happily earn a living through selling sex, at the expense of a vast majority, who would be better off if society decided that the buying of sexual access to one gender by another gender, was contrary to gender equality.

Fact is where you have prostitution you have trafficking, pimping, raping, grooming, exploitation and coercion.

It would cost every policing pound we have to try to run a set up where prostitution is legal, but every effort is made to ensure that only happy hookers work. I'm a utilitarian - I don't think that is a good or justified way to spend limited resources.

I'm not anti prostitution because I'm anti freedom or even because I'm against the concept of (willingly) welling sex. I'm anti prostitution because I believe this.

And so I support the Swedish model.

"I doubt any man who buys sex wants the lives of prostituted women to get better. If their lives were better there would be no one left to give him blow jobs on his lunch break."

thanks, it's not a repeat (have changed name for a while)

OP I haven't read the whole thread yet so apologies if it's a repeat-link, but I just read this article and found it very enlightening.

apparently an evaluation of the Bengal 'teach prostitutes the Kama sutra' approach is overdue

link

Ahhhhh, so the women conditioned into accepting prostitution are choiceless, but a woman who has accepted that she's possibly been conditioned to take a viewpoint is exercising an active choice. Great enlightened view

Beachcomber: I have already stated that I do not think anyone should be forced to take a job which they would hate, or lose their benefits,whether that's sex work or (for example) a vegetarian being pressured to take a job which features the production of meat. I would find it hard to believe in a set of circumstances where the only jobs in the job centre were in the sex industry, and it;s my understanding that people only get threatened with loss of benefits if they repeatedly refuse to take or apply for a range of jobs.
I don't have a problem with jobs in the sex industry being advertised in the job centre, though.

I also suggest you read this another account of sex workers objecting to schemes to 'rescue' them and make them do low-paid domestic work instead.

Could all those who seem convinced that having sex with strangers is a career that many women choose, please answer a few of queries for me?

1. Have you tried this career yourselves? If not, why not?
2. Do you agree with the German pimps that prostitution should be advertised in the job centre and women should have their benefits withdrawn should they refuse to accept to be prostituted?
3. Do you have any actual figures which contradict those I have already supplied in a document on this thread, which show pimping and trafficking to be an enormous business?
4. Do you have any figures which contradict Farley's investigations which suggest that around 90% of women wish to exist prostitution? You seem to think that the vast majority of prostitutes are happy hookers who work independently, do not have a pimp, earn very good money and are happy with their career - do you have any evidence for this?

Please don't blame me for your choices, for the understanding you choose to have of the issue Lougie. It's not my job to take someone by the hand and gently try and change their mind. Your mind is all yours.

KRITIQ, I'm mystified. I've acknowledged that my mind isn't clear on the issue. I've made it clear that my mind isn't closed, but that I haven't got a good knowledge of the issue. Yet, instead of sharing your views in a way that would illuminate the issue, you respond in a critical and frankly snippy manner.

If you have knowledge, or even passionate opinion, why can't you share it constructively?

The only prostitutes working in Bangkok without pimps are those infected with HIV who have been kicked out of the pimp system, and pre-op ladyboys, by and large. That's because no pimp wants them.

I have never seen a prostitute either on street or in a bar/club that doesn't have a pimp or Mamasan within sight, who collects the money from the punter in most cases. And many former prostitutes move on to become Mamasans themselves after their career in bed is over.

Every single one of the prostitutes (current and former) I have met through the project had a pimp. None worked alone.

Prostitution here is v v organised - a vast network of pimps, both Thai and farang (mainly from Africa or Eastern Europe), who collude with authorities to protect their turf and keep their girls. Drugs, pros and guns - same people generally involved with all three. There's too much money to be made from it for organised crime to let go of the leash by allowing prostitutes working without pimps to get a foothold. Those that try find themselves in hospital in the best scenario and in an early grave in the worst. And no-one even seems to care.

MsAnn, delighted to see mention of The Wisdom of Whores, it's a fantastic book (and very, very easy to read) and a real eye-opener compared to the usual "all 'prostituted women' are pimped/trafficked/working against their will" stuff. Recommend it to all with a genuine interest in the subject, rather than a blindfolded political stance.

Well, if that's what you want to believe, I doubt any facts or figures I can supply will change your mind. I'll leave it there.

Kritiq, I'd beg to differ when you suggest most of the money earned by prositutes goes into the hands of pimps. I'm assuming you are conflating those who are genuinely trafficked along with those who have autonomy over how they work ?
Many accounts state they are prostitutes because they are paid way over and above the average earnings and because of this they work less hours and have more time to spend doing other things.
A recent documentary which covered the topic of Devadasi spoke to several women who stated how much they earned and what the comparison was.
Reports of students turning to prositution to pay their way through universoity doesn't suggest they are earnoing a pittance, or being pimped out.
Reading through The Wisdom of Whores, women who were forced from prostitution and trained as seamstesses to work in factories producing clothing for the west would have to sew something like 400+ Tshirts, or 200 pairs of jeans in order to make the same amount of money.
Accounts from Mexico, the women mention either work as a maid for a rich family on low pay spending hours away from their family a or choosing prostitution.
Women come from abroad to work in the UK in prostitution because of the high rates of pay, amount of money they can make before they return home.

To assume with the change in communication technology, a women would be totally incapable of working without the need of a man to pimp her out is highly insulting. If rentboys have managed to do it why would women not? Are they so lowly educated they can't manage a phone and navigate their way around a computer?

Lougle, with respect, it's naive to assume that "all these girls go to school, they shouldn't have a non-choice."

Girls and women trafficked from Eastern Europe and developing countries may not have much education. Most will have been promised jobs as dancers, nannies, waitresses or models only to find themselves in a strange part of the world, often unable to communicate very well in the language, raped, passports confiscated, told they have to "work" to pay the cost of their passage. Are you trying to say they genuinely have "choice?"

There is evidence that the majority of women in prostitution have experienced sexual abuse in the past - abuse that has eroded their sense of self-worth, their mental well-being, their capacity to make genuine, informed choices. Maybe they went to school, but in my experience, schools aren't particularly good at dealing with sexual bullying for starters. Is there supposed to be some magic pill they give in schools that mean young women will be immune from sexual exploitation? I just don't get what you mean.

MsAnn, I'm struggling with your argument. It's similar to people who complain that the NHS shouldn't provide fertility treatment when the money should be spent on hip replacements or some such. Feminists can be concerned about exploitation of migrant workers AND women in the sex industry at the same time. It doesn't have to be one or t'other. I think you'll also find you're off beam with your assumptions that prostitutes "are usually remunerated over and above any average wage." The money earned goes straight to the pimps who may pay them an allowance, or rape and beat them if they don't earn enough. For trafficked women, they often don't even get an allowance - bed and board provided and they're told everything they earn has to go back to pay their fare and fees for getting them into the country.

SGB, found a link which may interest you.
Link

Bossofme thanks for your open and honest response. I find it difficult to fathom how hard line feminists can scream and shout about prostitution, where women are usually renumerated over and above any average wage but do very little to address the plight of poor woman who find themselves becoming slaves in the households of the priviledged.

Beachcomber and SGB You'll find a document was officially launched by the UNAIDS Secretariat in Geneva, during the 29th meeting of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board, a section clearly differentiates between sex work and human trafficking with clear definitions.

I think I have a degree of cognitive dissonance, tbh. I have the book 'Faceless' by Martina Cole. Whenever I read it I find myself both fascinated and horrified by the world within it. I can totally 'get' that Marie, Tiffany and Carol exercised 'non-choices'.

Yet, when I think in wider terms I feel a bit bemused. All these girls go to school, they shouldn't have a non-choice.

No SGB.

As is usual in studies of this nature, the concept being examined is defined at the beginning. I thought the definition was interesting because I think a lot of people think of trafficking as being kidnapping women, taking their passports, transporting them across borders and imprisoning them. This form of extreme trafficking does of course exist.

However it is important to examine other less obvious forms of trafficking because I think it highlights the reality of the coercive nature of the vast vast majority of prostitution.

We throw the word 'pimp' around fairly easily but if we start calling these men what they really are i.e. traffickers, perhaps people will take the harm and abuse that is rife in prostitution more seriously.

Beachcomber: So 'trafficking' means whatever the person using the word chooses it to mean? There's useful.

SGB - I think the reality is that the pimps and the traffickers make a lot of money and our patriarchal society doesn't give a shit that that money is made from abusing women.

Have you read the report I linked to - it talks about trafficking in terms of GDP for crying out loud.

Also the definition of trafficking isn't shipping women across borders. Basically any women with a pimp or a 'boyfriend' is considered to be the victim of trafficking. That has to be most women in prostitution. Most prostitution is trafficking.

"In the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children of the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime
?trafficking in persons? is defined as follows:
(a) ?Trafficking in persons? shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, or abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments of benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs"

Thing is, no one actually knows the number of women who have been forcibly trafficked by the sex industry. Yes, people-trafficking exists and it's very wrong, but it seems at least likely that the 'big business' end of it is at least as much about supplying slave labour for agriculture, the clothing and catering industries, and the ongoing problem of domestic slavery.
As to the sex industry as a whole, the patriarchy wants it there but from the patriarchy's viewpoint it needs to be as dirty, dangerous and stigmatized as possible, because the patriarchy depends on women feeling they need to ration what sexual gratification they permit men so they don't Get Ideas about enjoying sex on their own account. The patriarchy doesn't want women to choose sex work as a way of making a good income and living independently of a man, because the spectre of the suffering, victimized, hopeless streetwalker is one of those ways of reminding women that their best option is to sell their sexuality to one man for the price of a wedding ring.