The greens and prostitutes

Here's an interesting article on libertarian politics:

www.alternet.org/youre-not-boss-me-why-libertarianism-childish-sham

"You're not the boss of me"

Actually I see now why Mary is sounding familiar to me. My friend couldn't understand the whole Page 3 'fuss' as she put it. She said much the same about women being able to do as they want with their bodies.
It comes down to the idea that if that is all you feel you have to offer, society has failed you. No one is looking at the person behind the tits. No one is going to want to have the person behind the tits working for their organisation in this digital age when it will be posted all over the notice board or on the company website. Not to mention that the men aren't doing it - and therefore it doesn't hold power for them. You can only do it when you are young, the right shape and colour. The 'power' the woman gets is short lived while it reinforces every aspect of male dominance and is on her record for life. Maybe we need to go over that for Mary to understand a bit better?

"Mary, oddly I understand where you're coming from saying that patriarchy can't be blamed for everything. I also agree that there are elements of feminist discussion which do come across as women can't be blamed for anything they do/ everything is stacked against us women, with which I don't agree and find quite off-putting.

However on this topic, some things are just plain wrong because they are wrong and prostitution is one of them."

I am not its greatest fan but i am a realist and that means i accept certain facts i may not actually like, unlike others who just stick their fingers in their ears and scream "patriarchy" until the annoying facts are drowned out.

It drives me nuts, after what happened to me and my forced ejection/ban from my GP's surgery due to his "and you think you did not deserve it comment" causing a loss of temper (along with some physical and property damage) i spent 8 weeks being escorted through my local hospital by 2 security guards who stood in the room where i saw my new doctor.

And once i explained the entire thing plus my ban from any local surgeries in the area due to my violent reaction to the first assholes comment he was far less of a prick and ordered the guards outside the room, to be fair to those guards they look more fucking revealed to be leaving than i was to see them go.

So after counseling and all the rest of the crap for a few years at the Orchard center im just doing my thing working and never really thinking about it other than when something really reminds me and even then its a flash more than a long drawn out affair. Then one day in town out of the blue is a person who i have not seen for years bouncing up and down in front of me raving about how i should tell my story to this group and how it will help so after a bit more pestering i said yes thinking it was a group of people who had gone through something similar recently.

I refused to do groups in the past so had no idea what to expect and as it turns out it was the local "all men are misogynists and its all patriarchy's fault" fan club who expected me to reinforce their crap with my story and how i "survived gang rape and torture etc" well they got told to fuck off and i started looking into feminism to see just how messed up they were and hell its a mainstream ideology.

I am not interested in sympathy and im certainly not a poster or banner to be waved around and im no fucking survivor either, what i am is baffled by this victim mentality i see as well as the lack of agency it assigns women.

Maybe i am missing something but so far im not impressed with the so v called empowered but victim's lot i have seen here and elsewhere.

/rant over.

thanks.

scallops Mary posted about women getting off lightly if they murder their kids before 1yr of age, so she seems to grasp that women's brains have changed significantly in that time. It's a bit like cherry picking tarot readers for her quotes.

Of course the fact men's brains don't naturally go through anywhere near the same levels of hormonal or physical change in their entire lifetimes for such a long period of time as a woman does in pregnancy and post-birth (not to mention all of the other physical changes women's bodies go through - the only part not affected being a small part of the inner ear) - men are somehow comparable in this when it comes to their sex drive being a 'need'. It is their puny natural brains that they simply can't cope with.

Is WRONG the new version of TESTIFY!
?

I saw what she said as more an issue with mutual respect and love for each other over your bizarre idea that one is constantly feeling entitled to one thing more or less than the other.

Eg: my 3yo wants to play with a toy. So does her friend. They want to stay friends, so they compromise and share and respect the fact that they are both now happy.
Ta-da! Everyone's a winner. It's something most people learn as pre-schoolers.

Right now I have listened to the podcast I see a bit more what you mean. I suppose I am seeing it as a literal problem rather than the linguistic. I admit I watched the film on Bosnia trafficking a few months ago and so hearing the term since then has bought those images to mind. I do understand a lot of women in prostitution have been coerced and conditioned, usually from a very young age, to accept their 'position'. It doesn't mean they should fade into the background in discussions by any means. However my point is that they would not starve if they got away even if they had no education as we have welfare and there are outreach programmes set up to help. Not assuming these all work or the women are all able to leave for various reasons, but if they manage they have far better chances than someone trafficked from another country. Again, not ideal, but none of the models seem to be.

I'm not the one with control issues here . I am not positing women as the gatekeepers of sex. I just think I get to say who touches my body and when. I'm funny like that.

I never said my partner can't complain or offer alternatives if our sex life isn't working for them. I haven't said anyone couldn't do that. I am just shocked that you would thing it was a reasonable course of action that a someone would seek to have sex with someone else if their partner had just given birth. Bearing in mind that women are quite vulnerable at that time there is a power differential you are choosing to ignore.

Tbh, I think we will get nowhere attempting to engage with someone who doesn't even recognise male entitlement & violence as significant to these issues. I don't think we should allow Mary to further derail the thread.

Here i am thinking women are agents of our own bodies and actions, what was i thinking suggesting such a thing...

Shira - you're right of course (I cross posted). My apologies. Will engage the imaginary "hide poster" button.

Mary, oddly I understand where you're coming from saying that patriarchy can't be blamed for everything. I also agree that there are elements of feminist discussion which do come across as women can't be blamed for anything they do/ everything is stacked against us women, with which I don't agree and find quite off-putting.

However on this topic, some things are just plain wrong because they are wrong and prostitution is one of them.

Do stop shouting. We're not (virtually) deaf. We merely thinking your views are asinine.

You really have a spectacularly low opinion of men, and spectacularly low standards for what counts as decent behaviour within a relationship.

Loving the idea of Mary's that women have the 'sexual power' when Kim has already confirmed that most of her punters have free sex at home and yet still choose to spend their family income on more sex.

WRONG as confirmed by scallopsrgreat who has even trained him to not complain or suggest alternatives...to quote:

"And no I don't have sex with my partner if I'm not up for it. Of course I don't. More importantly they don't expect me to."

Tbh, I think we will get nowhere attempting to engage with someone who doesn't even recognise male entitlement & violence as significant to these issues. I don't think we should allow Mary to further derail the thread.

"But you think it's reasonable for a woman to make a choice whether her partner is allowed to play away for a few weeks while she recovers from giving birth? You think it's reasonable that a partner would ask that of a woman who's just given birth?"

Again you with the control issues.

IT IS NOT MY PLACE TO TELL A COUPLE WHAT THEY CAN OR CANNOT DO, WHAT IS REASONABLE OR UNREASONABLE OR LIMIT THEIR CHOICES.

"And no I don't have sex with my partner if I'm not up for it. Of course I don't. More importantly they don't expect me to."

So he has to do without and not complain about it or suggest a alternative.

As i said clear cut control issues and ending or severely limiting the availability of prostitution is just another way of gaining more control.

I'm not sure I've never heard a woman make an argument that women have all the power. That's a PUA / beta male line, isn't it? Even more amazed at the concept of "equity-feminism" which seems to consist of calling out women who discuss their lived experience and try to analyse the structural factors that affect their lives. It sounds so far removed from feminism that it's certainly not "within my ideology" so for as "purity policing" might be concerned.

lion, I think it's tied up with mary's idea that men 'earn' sex from their partners. Women as the gatekeepers of sex, even in loving relationships. Not a very healthy view of relationships IMO.

Are you saying male violence isn't the problem, mary? Just because a couple of prostitutes are killed by women (if they are) it doesn't change the overall pattern. 99% of sexual violence is committed by men. 96% of murders at committed by men.

But yes let's not name the problem. Let's hide it by pointing out the odd exception. Then we won't actually have to do anything about it and the industry built on mens wants at the expense of women (as Amethyst rightly pointed out), can continue unabated.

Loving the idea of Mary's that women have the 'sexual power' when Kim has already confirmed that most of her punters have free sex at home and yet still choose to spend their family income on more sex.

"Or maybe we should look at the root of the problem? Male violence and male entitlement?"

Yea lets cos even if some of those women were iled by other women over a dispute its all cos of the "patriarchy" right, so not really there fault.....

Maybe if we got the women to take up deep sea fishing as the death rate is only about 123 per 100k for a median salary of $25,590 a year.

I wonder how that compares to the death rate in legal brothels.

Did this study mention deaths i could not find it:

feministcurrent.com/7038/new-research-shows-violence-decreases-under-nordic-model-why-the-radio-silence/

Just de-lurking to lol@ this "literal" straw man that has apparently been made. Where is it? I can't see it...

The difference, Mary, is that an entire industry hadn't been build around women's "needs", in which millions of men are exploited.

If I asked the question on the relationships board, "My partner has terrible ED and can never have sex, what about my needs?" the response I guarantee I'd get is, "You'll have to put up with it if you want to stay with him, otherwise call it a day and find someone else."

I hadn't realised that you meant the woman's choice was whether her partner had sex with someone else.

But you think it's reasonable for a woman to make a choice whether her partner is allowed to play away for a few weeks while she recovers from giving birth? You think it's reasonable that a partner would ask that of a woman who's just given birth?

You really don't have a high opinion of men do you?

And no I don't have sex with my partner if I'm not up for it. Of course I don't. More importantly they don't expect me to.

I thought you were leaving if we didn't start agreeing with you?

None of us do, and yet, you haven't gone. I'm terribly disappointed.

"And I'm so glad you think its up to the woman to choose whether she wants to have sex or not after having a baby. Even if it is for such a short period of time. In my house I get to choose every time I want to have sex, as does my partner. Weird, I know."

I created nothing i simply pointed out some simple biological facts that you and others created a literal strawman out of, if you cannot discus the sexual desires and needs of both genders without doing that then with all due respect you need to grow up.

I meant it was up to her if she was ok with him getting sex elsewhere for the duration.

But i see you decided to skip m,y other point entirely...

Do not misunderstand me it cuts both ways and as it is entirely possible that in a relationship either party could be out of commission for a period of time these things need to be addressed if you are going to start screwing around with a social engineering project relating to sex and its availability.

If your husband wanted to have sex more often than you did and mentioned it would you have sex with him when you were not interested in it or would you say tough shit pal i am not in the mood, what if the reverse is true or he has a injury?

And it's all so easy to blame the victim. Mainly because they usually haven't got a voice.

lion, what do you think of prostitution were the women involved don't really want to be prostitutes, don't enjoy it or feel it makes them happy, but make more money than they would living on welfare and so choose to do it?
Hmm, I think that as long as there is a viable option for life (or access to cash for the basics - welfare or the Green's Living Wage) and you can see the prostitutes money on top as a means for luxury (or possibly addiction) then there is more choice in that situation (and probably support from various outreach programmes) than the trafficked girl who is probably hidden away, doesn't know the language, is unsure if she will be arrested, has no where else to turn to and possibly drugged and held against her will.

Off to listen to that podcast now

Don't be silly Scallops... that would mean naming the problem, and we can't do that, because men have neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeddddddddddssssssssssssss.

And evo-psych is a pile of arse.