Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Sweden and prostitution

112 replies

Aradia · 11/11/2014 09:32

Has anyone seen this article? It talks about how Sweden has decriminalised the selling of sex and criminalised the buying of sex, at the same time increasing funding for resources to support women to get out and re-educating law enforcement. This has led to a dramatic decrease in prostitution and virtually wiped out sex trafficking. The thing that stood out to me as well was that 50% of government at the time they legislated was women. How far away are we from achieving the same? Sadly I suspect we are likely to be waiting a long time before we see similar in this country.

OP posts:
OldLadyKnowsBeelzebub · 12/11/2014 01:26

I know it's not happening now, but it's not that long ago it was happening, and not only happening, but fully socially supported, with stigma-shaming of the "fallen women". People are still alive now who were incarcerated, who had their babies stolen from them. People are still alive now who did the incarcerating. Those "babies" are still alive now.

Yes, that's horrific. And yet feminists are happy to get into a metaphorical bed with these people? These people who accompany police on brothel raids, shaming and humiliating women, dragging them into the streets in their underwear, with press photographers present? That's not violence against women?

FloraFox · 12/11/2014 01:14

You do know that's not happening now. I have relatives who were in the Magdalen system. Don't use them to support the violence against women that is prostitution. That is horrific.

OldLadyKnowsBeelzebub · 12/11/2014 01:10

Really? Taking "fallen women" (often victims of incest/rape) and selling their babies, often abroad and without proper records (or indeed, checks on adoptive parents) while forcing the mothers into a lifetime of unpaid servitude is somehow better? What about the Tuam babies?

FloraFox · 12/11/2014 01:03

Nothing compared with pimps though, is it? I'd say "profiting" (by which I assume you mean receiving government grants for assisting women exiting prostitution) is quite different from pimping i.e. making your income from women being fucked by men they don't want.

OldLadyKnowsBeelzebub · 12/11/2014 01:00

Some proponents of the Nordic system have pretty dodgy connections too; Ruhama/Turn off the red light in Ireland are very closely associated with the order of nuns who ran the Magdalene Laundries. (Also aimed at "rescuing" women. Also profiting from said "rescue" work. As much as things change, they remain the same...)

FloraFox · 12/11/2014 00:03

I'm not sorry. The article posted was written by someone from ECP which is an organisation that supports pimps and lobbies for legalisations of brothels (which involve pimps). It is part of the pimp lobby, plain and simple.

Prostitution is violence against women and girls. I'm not planning to roll out the red carpet for pimp lobbyists to post on FWR, AIBU or anywhere else for that matter.

scallopsrgreat · 11/11/2014 23:42

Nobody was told it was wrong AICM.

They were called out on it. Just like they would have been in AIBU.

Sabrinnnnnnnna · 11/11/2014 23:06

The pimp lobby is powerful and well funded - and hides behind a false veneer of women's "empowerment" - when really it is all about the wanting to commoditise women for profit. There is a lot of money at stake if punters are criminalised. Demand drops, profit drops.

PuffinsAreFicticious · 11/11/2014 22:58

Sorry about that AICM. I left the thread because I know we're not allowed to disagree with anyone now. Will hide the thread now.

Not being allowed to comment about violence perpetrated against women and girls by men is going to severely limit what feminists are allowed to say though. It's a conundrum.

AICM · 11/11/2014 22:13

I don't want to derail this but also I don't want to start a TAAT.

A few weeks ago there was a lot of fuss on here and AIBU about why so few women post on this board. The comments in AIBU were scathing about FWR.

In this thread someone posted an alternative POV and was told it is wrong to post alternative PsOV and was then accused of being a pimp supporter.

AutumnMadness · 11/11/2014 21:47

Thanks, KarmaViolet. The application form for IUSW indeed makes it clear that they accept "brothel managers" or indeed just about anyone in the industry. Not great.

KarmaViolet · 11/11/2014 21:22

I don't know about the ECP specifically, but some sex worker activist groups do have a murky history of being run by / affiliated with pimps:

secretlifeofamanhattancallgirl.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/pimps-will-be-pimps-whether-male-or-female-or-posing-as-sex-worker-activists-other-conflicts-of-interest/

secretlifeofamanhattancallgirl.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/how-the-sex-industry-threatens-survivors-speaking-out-while-pimps-pose-as-sexworker-activists/

Those are American but they reference at least one Irish organisation and at least one UK one.

There's also a link here to the IUSW being populated by pimps: toomuchtosayformyself.com/2009/01/09/the-great-iusw-con/

redwarf · 11/11/2014 21:13

Hopefully the Swedish and Canadian models will be looked at when we get more women in parliament. id vote for buffy

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 11/11/2014 20:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AutumnMadness · 11/11/2014 20:07

Buffy, while I definitely do not speak for all universities, my experience with ethics committees is that they often do not know what to do with qualitative and interpretive research. Particularly the kind where it is not possible to outline all the activities in minute detail from the start or conduct them all in a controlled environment. It is of course still possible for a determined researcher to gain approval, but delays and filling out forms and revising them a million times for an audience that does not quite grasp what you are doing can be off-putting.

I like the article Flora linked though. It's of the objective kind, but the authors clearly realise the limitations of their methods and the limitations of the conclusions. It is also very carefully constructed in terms of methods.

On a different subject, could somebody please explain to me why some here consider the English Collective of Prostitutes a pimp organisation? I can't find any information about their membership rules.

FloraFox · 11/11/2014 19:25

I would be interested in your thoughts on legitimate research Buffy - maybe in Feminist Theory?

You're definitely right about the objectivist ideals. It's a pity the fedora-wearers crying out for it aren't able to figure out that the studies they use are not actually scientific in that sense.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 11/11/2014 18:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SandorClegane · 11/11/2014 17:35

I was depressed to discover that the scottish greens oppose the Nordic model and are in favour of decriminalisation. I left their womens Facebook page after a survivor was bullied and harassed for undermining women's 'freedom' to make an 'empowering' choice by framing prostitution as violence against women. Her experiences were dismissed by what to be honest seemed like a load of middle class twats who had no direct experience of what it's actually like for women and girls who are involved in prostitution. It depressed the shit out of me.

AWholeLottaNosy · 11/11/2014 17:20

I've copied and pasted Rebecca's words as they are so powerful.

Last night, Canada become another country that is making hard for men to buy the prostituted. Slowly, there is a change coming.

A change away the so-called norm of men being entitled to buy and sell the prostituted for sexual greed.

A change that it can seen as normal to say prostitution is just a nasty job, but someone has to do it.

A change that makes some women and girls, and some males so sub-human that can be sexually tortured, raped and murdered – and it framed as adult leisure.

I am thrilled that slowly, and on occasions a sudden rush – that prostitution is being seen for what it is.

Seen as a human rights emergency.

Seen as mental, physical and sexual torture.

Seen as the oldest and largest genocide this world has ever know.

I know this is a dangerous time, especially for those of us who are abolitionists and have exited the sex trade.

We are always under attack from the sex trade lobby, that is so normal to us, that we rarely make it public.

Most abolitionists survivors try to ignore the hate and terror sent to us almost every day, hoping they will slowly get bored.

We usually do not publish or acknowledge their constant war on us, we will not give them free publicity or advertisement for their profits on the bodies of the prostituted still trapped in the sex trade.

But I feel on occasions it is vital to speak out against this war on our minds and ability to keep going forward.

First I want everyone on the Left and in feminism, to start taking seriously what is happening to survivors who are now abolitionists – take serious how powerful the sex trade lobby is, and recognised the extreme hate throw at us.

Andrea Dworkin know this hate, and where and why it is targeted at exited women who dare to speak out in particular – she preach that the sex trade are furious that their goods are rebelling, for we should be dead or too damaged to speak out.

The sex trade lobby has total contempt for all the prostituted class, especially those of us who dare to be alive and to be had the strength to say where we came from.

They want us wipe from the face of the earth – preferably without getting their hands dirty by forcing us into suicide.

This is done in multiple ways, but the main weapon is that their attacks are relentless, or it never done by a single “troll” but a highly organised criminal organisations.

This means the sex trade has access to huge amounts of money and people to keep a non-stop low of hate and lies.

They invade Twitter, Facebook, our blogs, our emails, attempt to find our private addresses.

They threaten our mental and physical welfare, threaten our families, and say enough lies that our friends are made to doubt us.

They use our trauma as a weapon to destroy us – saying we were too weak to deal with the “job”, using that we have fragmented memories to “prove” we are liars.

They pretend to be caring – only to say it just a story, and most of prostitution is empowering to women.

They send us invitations to work for them in their lovely brothels – then we can see it not so violent, coz of course they are the friendly caring pimps.

They get punters to write to us to explain how ignorant we are – for we just need to meet the “good punter” to see how wrong we are.

They explain to us how men must have access to the prostituted, coz they are lonely, disabled, unattractive etc. Making out we are evil to deny men that entitlement.

Sometimes, they just lose it saying we too ugly to be a real prostitute, too weak to know our own truths, too sub-human to even be polite to and have a reasonable debate with.

It is their common weapon to tell us that we were never “real” prostitutes – so our tales should be dismissed or shown to be lies.

They say we are paid bags of money to lie about the sex trade.

It goes on an on and on – it is soul-destroying.

Of course, there are highly personal attacks as well as those politics attacks.

We are attacked for being too damaged to know the truth – never that the damage was forced into us by the constant hate and violence that is prostitution.

We are told we are murdering the prostituted by wanting abolition or the Nordic Approach.

It is a slow torture.

I want this to taken seriously, for as the progress to abolition is slowly taking hold – the sex trade lobby will get more aggressive and even less rational.

The attacks on abolitionists who are survivors will get worse – and we need support and your strength.

Thanks.

FloraFox · 11/11/2014 17:11

I agree Autumn. Also feminists don't attack "happy hookers" in the same way as men supporting prostitution attack survivors.

Exitedwoman · 11/11/2014 17:11

"the English Collective of Prostitutes, a network of women working in different areas of the sex industry"

..yes, as pimps mostly.

AutumnMadness · 11/11/2014 16:46

Flora, sorry, I did not mean that it's all plain sailing for those with traumatic experiences. I just meant that their voices are not non-existent. And yes, public talk about such experiences will attract sexist vitriol in a way that the "happy prostitute" narrative does not as the latter does not really challenge existing norms of male entitlement.

FloraFox · 11/11/2014 16:34

Autumn Rebecca Mott was in prostitution and now speaks about her experience. This is what she experiences as a result:

rebeccamott.net/2014/11/05/a-change-is-coming/

Rachel Moran and other survivors of prostitution face harassment when they try to speak about their experiences. It's not surprising then that many survivors do not want to talk about their experiences.

FloraFox · 11/11/2014 16:10

Harold that's the point. He acknowledges that a full evaluation of the costs and benefits of prohibiting prostitution is beyond the scope of the study. Authors of other studies should consider take the same approach.

The question asked by Autumn was specifically about whether there is a connection between trafficking and legalisation and this study found that there is. The fact that the author recognises there are other factors which should be considered makes his study more compelling.

AutumnMadness · 11/11/2014 16:05

Thanks for the link, Flora, I will read it.

In the answer to the question about how we listen to women with no voice - In the same way as we listed to other very vulnerable and often stigmatised people with traumatic experiences? There seems to be much out there today by survivors of childhood abuse, by victims of all kinds of discrimination, by soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress, etc. I am sure there is more that is not heard, but I don't feel it's right to say that people in these circumstances do not have a voice at all. It's also not difficult to find negative and often frankly horrid accounts of prostitution experience.

On the other hand, I am sure that the university ethics committees do not look kindly of applications for this sort of research . . .

Swipe left for the next trending thread