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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

privilege and prostitution

282 replies

ezinma · 26/03/2014 15:15

Appearing in my social media today is one of those sharp and sassy thoughts for the day that I’m invited to approve by sharing. Where better to share it than here:

So, you are against prostitution. But you're an attractive person with a boyfriend. Who I assume you have sex with. That gives you privilege. Some people aren't so lucky. The only way they can get laid is by paying for it. Why do you think you have the right to experience one of life's fundamental experiences and others don't?

It’s from tumblr so we ought to make some allowances. Let’s, if we may, overlook the fact that I am a middle-aged frump with a civil partner; the debatable contention that sex, in and of itself, is one of life’s fundamental experiences; the erasure of women who aren’t “lucky” enough to have a boyfriend and whose right to A Fundamental Experience presumably requires them to seduce a partner using skills that cannot be withdrawn from a bank machine; and the regrettable (though now unavoidable) misuse of ‘privilege’ to refer to any old scenario where one group of people has a little bit more access to something than another group does. (Have I missed anything?)

What remains is the daring suggestion that a woman might be against prostitution because she is attractive. Since it's already well established that we fat old frumps are against prostitution — no glamorous john would waste his beer money on buying our flabby arses, and we are bitter about it! — then I’m left with only one conclusion: a woman’s attractiveness has no influence on her opinions about prostitution.

A lightbulb moment for me. Thanks, tumblr. Hmm

OP posts:
CaptChaos · 27/03/2014 18:05

Oh goodie. Another punter on here to tell us we're not doing feminism right.

You keep thinking what you like. I'm sure it helps you to not think about the reasons why someone got to the point where their only real option was to have you sticking your dick in them, having bought access to their orifices. I'm sure those tears you've seen were only crocodile tears, women are, after all, emotional and ridiculous, not actual people. Plus of course, to men like you, they are merely a selection of holes to insert your dick into, aren't they?

There has already been 1 woman, who, by your own definition is trafficked commenting on these threads. Is she lying? Is she the only one in the country? Are she and the woman in Sabrina's link one and the same? If not, that's 2, that I have found for you in a matter of moments. Just 2 then?

What kind of people run large scale trafficking operations? What do those kind of people also tend to do when it comes to the Police? Please try and think before you type.

gilogowu · 27/03/2014 18:02

"People don't usually get convicted or charged for sexual offences, doesn't mean the rapists and pimps don't exist."

Well to charge traffickers we have to find them first. And spending 6 months involving all police forces across the entire length of the UK doing a huge number of surprise raids has been a failure.

www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails

Why is this? Are the police really that incompetent or is it possible the number of sex-trafficked victims is far lower than given estimates?

gilogowu · 27/03/2014 17:58

Prostitution is legal in both UK and Holland yet despite all those raids how come we very rarely find victims of sex-trafficking despite such high estimations?

Your report uses Melissa Farley as a source btw

It's generally the assumption that prostitutes are trafficked "by default". Recently a brothel was closed in Soho was closed on this assumption but was reopened after the prostitutes managed to convince the judge they were not trafficked.

prostitutescollective.net/2014/02/24/judge-overturns-decision-to-shut-down-brothel-after-prostitutes-prove-they-were-not-being-forced-to-work-there/

itsbetterthanabox · 27/03/2014 17:18

Look at low conviction rates of sexual offences as a whole. This is no different. People don't usually get convicted or charged for sexual offences, doesn't mean the rapists and pimps don't exist.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 27/03/2014 16:38

Here's one, gilo

Thouneedsbedamned · 27/03/2014 14:57

This is an interesting report published in Forbes by the The London School of Economics and political science.

opens in pdf

Their cross section of 150 countries shows on average "countries with legalized prostitution experience a larger degree of reported human trafficking inflows"

gilogowu · 27/03/2014 14:45

"hundreds of [surprise] raids on sex workers [brothels/saunas/homes/apartments etc] in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country."

And what did we get out of it? We charge a few prostitutes with "running brothels" (ie working together) among other minor offences. But where are all these traffickers and victims we keep hearing about???

gilogowu · 27/03/2014 14:41

"This is thread about sexual trafficking so it's going to be discussing that..."

And how much sexual trafficking is actually happening?

Pentameter 1 and 2 were massive UK-wide operations to look for victims and perps of trafficking. Also pretty much failures....

www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails

gilogowu · 27/03/2014 14:40

"Even if someone is not trafficked they can still be coerced"

That doesn't make sense. If they were coerced/threatened then they would by definition be trafficked.

gilogowu · 27/03/2014 14:38

maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/dutch-threat/

in April 2011 a massive police raid in search of trafficking victims in Amsterdam was launched and found…none. Not one, despite the detention and interrogation of 157 women.

itsbetterthanabox · 27/03/2014 14:37

Even if someone is not trafficked they can still be coerced, threatened by a pimp, so out of it on drugs and driven by addiction they do anything or can't actually consent. You just don't know why a prostitute is doing that job and if you have sex with one you could very well be raping that person. How can anyone live with that?

CaptChaos · 27/03/2014 14:35

Would you like to start a thread about non sex work trafficking gilo? Just to see how much feminists care about every kind of trafficked woman? Or would that interrupt your masturbatory tirades and force you to change you thinking too much?

[westillseeyou]

LurcioLovesFrankie · 27/03/2014 14:31

(In case it wasn't obvious, that was to Gilo, not Betterthan...)

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 27/03/2014 14:30

You again

[Weseeyou] bro.

LurcioLovesFrankie · 27/03/2014 14:29

Ho hum, another opportunity to repeat "people with normal sized brains can worry about more than one thing at once."

No, I don't shop at Primark because I'm worried about sweatshops.

Yes, I buy from my local small organic farmer because I'm aware of trafficking in big agrobusiness.

Now we've cleared that up, just do one, will you?

itsbetterthanabox · 27/03/2014 14:29

Gilo feminists do care about Slave labour and all types of trafficking. I don't see why you think they don't? This is thread about sexual trafficking so it's going to be discussing that...

gilogowu · 27/03/2014 14:27

Last summer all the "saunas" in Edinburgh were raided by police. How many victims of trafficking were found? ZERO

Last Dec a load of brothels in Soho were raided by police. How many victims of trafficking were found? ZERO

gilogowu · 27/03/2014 14:26

Most trafficking is for non-sexual work eg working in factories.

Yet feminists don't care about non-sexual trafficking. They only care about trafficking which is about sex (despite the fact we never seem to find any victims despite so many brothel raids).

Feminists are also set on banning all prostitution trafficking or no trafficking.

It's clear the "trafficking" is just a front and the real reason feminists hate prostitution is because it's about sex and they find it immoral.

ezinma · 27/03/2014 09:06

Thank you Belle, and scallops, and MrsTara, and anyone I've missed Smile I'm enjoying the pithier comments (ie, everyone's but mine)!

It's remarkable how women are derided as whores and prudes simultaneously. Like 'Obama is a communist islamist'. To get away with that, you have to trust that your audience already hates the hate-figure intensely enough that they won't think too hard about the contradiction, let alone the implausibility.

OP posts:
TheDoctrineOfSnatch · 27/03/2014 08:44

By Georgina, I think she's got it!

Flowers Capt

CaptChaos · 27/03/2014 08:25

Oh my!

Let me get this straight.

Baleno has been posting for 2 days, on 3 threads, 2 of which surprise! are discussing prostitution and on the other he admits that being a basically useless dad is all to the good, so far, so MRA.

He tells a regular poster that they are a troll.

He also fails to be able to do the math, and dismisses the experience of a trafficked woman because, let's face it, she is whom even the happy hookers on the same thread agreed with, because they don't fit in with his world view.

Could this be because the women he pays to have sex on are in the same position as the woman on the other threads, and he might have to finally face up to the fact that what he does is wrong?

BelleOfTheBorstal · 27/03/2014 02:29

Ezinma, you rock! Fabulous post.

dreamin · 27/03/2014 02:03

"noone has a right to a sex life"

Says a woman who can get sex with almost zero effort (even if she is fat, ugly and no social skills).

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 26/03/2014 23:14

Thanks bif. Smile

Bifauxnen · 26/03/2014 23:12

Sabrina - that's a far better informed and more nuanced post than I could muster, thanks. I'm glad you got what I meant.