The greens and prostitutes

I don't think my clients are abusers. I have met some jerks, to be sure, but the majority of the men I see seem perfectly normal. I feel that many of them are nice people. This doesn't mean that all punters are nice guys - only that the ones I see seem to be. While some of you may think that any man who purchases sex from another person is automatically an abuser, much in the same way any adult who has sex with someone under age, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to purchase sex and I do think that I have the capacity to consent.

That I can choose to see only the good clients is down to two reasons that I can think of. First, I market myself to appeal to the nice gentlemen. There's a reason they choose me over the £35 parlour and the £60 attractive young Eastern European so-called independent and it's not that I'm such a stunner. The men I see often express to me that they want nothing to do with women who aren't happy to be doing it. As deluded as you may see it to be, they really want to have sex with a horny woman who loves her job. (Such women exist although in my opinion very few women are motivated primarily by a love for sex with strangers with the money being a bonus. I'm guessing most of the women in my category don't mind sex with strangers and sometimes find it enjoyable as a bonus. I have only anecdata for that.) I am privileged enough to have the education and eloquence to market myself to this sort of clientele and I have access to the Internet, computers, etc so that I can set myself up in this manner. A woman who works on the street as and when she has an immediate pressing need for cash does not have this privilege. A woman who has to work in a brothel because she can't sit back in her privately leased flat and surf the 'Net until a good client calls does not have that privilege.

Second, I screen very stringently. I will only see men who sound as if they are happy people. I will ignore any communications in text speak, that call me "babe" or "hun" or that ask silly questions (my advertising contains everything they need to know. If they obviously aren't reading that, they're not the client for me.) Even though there are days I may make literally NO money, I never waver in my screening. If I don't like the sound of someone, I won't see them.

Again, my privilege allows me to do this. I am in the position of having money in the bank, plenty of access to credit, and a stable working situation so I can look forward to tomorrow being better. I can also travel to other cities where there is better money because I am able to book a hotel online with my credit card, etc.

and port not port.

smutty not whsmithy !

Yes but doing that without adding stigma to the workers... Look back 20 years to how men buying smithy vids were see compared to port viewers today.

ps They really don't like trafficking either. policy.greenparty.org.uk/mg.html

Buffy you asked about the greens on asylum and immigration. I don't quite know what you mean by 'are they going to sort that out'. It is another complicated issue because they recognise the huge impact colonialism had on creating the global inequality we have today and suggest - daringly - that we ought to take some respnsibility for that. They further recognise that the migration problem we have now is nothing compared to what will happen when the environmental problems start to hit, and that that is also a first-world creation, and therefore we ought to take some responsibility for that too. The result is that they suggest we ought to be more open to immigration.

Ultimately the only way to stop immigration is to help make people's home countries more attractive places to live for them. The greens are aware of that: at any rate in Lucas & Woodin's book 'Green Alternatives to Globalisation' they talk about it. We are well out of the time of easy solutions. I acknowledge all the problems of colonialism too, but also that we can't have all the world living in Europe.

No I wasn't one of those. I'm not convinced either model is best or better than what we have. I sadly can't see a time where men won't buy women's bodies, much as I wish it could be different. Maybe the living wage doubled with stricter laws on trafficking and enhanced trafficking measures would be a start. I don't think having the living wage would deter Kim though and trafficked women wouldn't benefit at all. The only other idea would be to tier the workers from drug addict to independent worker but that is very open to abuse and enhances stigma.

Sorry x post Kim!
Do you think then that we have the balance as right as we can get it at the moment? It strikes me that the girls most of us worry for are not in your position but can you see any real way their lives could be improved without profiting a pimp?

If our poster Kim put it as a career on her tax returns and then had children she might be flagged purely on job description, if you see what I mean? It's partly stigma but mainly the diversity of reasons behind people doing the job.

I have done it under full criminalisation (where the women were easier targets for law enforcement and so more likely to be arrested) and I didn't see it deterring the many other women I worked with. It just made our lives that much shittier. And it compounded the problems of the most vulnerable. Having a criminal record for something so salacious doesn't help someone get a better job.

I guess the idea behind the Nordic model is that drying up demand will mean the supply just has to move elsewhere or find another means of supporting themselves. If the "supply" is women with serious mental health, addiction, or financial problems, then I don't think this is making their lives any easier unless the community is truly committed to helping them with their underlying problems.

However, if a community is seen as very tolerant of prostitution, then what trafficking there is will concentrate there. Goods will be moved to where they can be most easily sold.

I see various areas of concern that people want to address, and the means of dealing with them may be at odds with one another.

I don't have any evidence or facts but I imagine that social services get involved once the woman admits to being a prostitute - thinking it is now deemed 'acceptable'. High instances of addiction and drug use as well as strange men around regularly would be a huge red flag I should think.

In fact I wonder now if it hadn't been legal and advertised like a job if I would have ever gone down that road.

I wonder if the debate is full of happy hookers because those who are unhappy don't want people to know we have done it.
And I did sex work in a place where it is legal and you know what it doesn't really feel all that great even if I was "safe".

(Is it me, or are some people quoting others, saying they disagree and then going on to completely agree, and vice versa?).

Wackadoodle... it's to prevent anyone profiteering from prostituted women.

No, fayyive, we don't ignore... we've responded to your 'points' before, you just did't listen. That's fine though. we get it, you're all about commodifying women's bodies for men. Quite how you can be when you read about how the majority of women are treated is beyond me, but there you have it.

Are those things necessary to it though?

I mean, it ought to be possible to implement a system in which selling sex is legal and buying it illegal, WITHOUT criminalising prostitutes who work together in the same premises. It's then reasonable to say one is for such a system, regardless of whether calling it the Nordic Model is strictly accurate.

I'd be curious to know WHY they criminalise sharing premises in Sweden, when the idea behind the model is supposed to be to protect prostitutes. Does anyone know?

It's the same in N.Ireland. Before the Nordic model was implemented there women would be criminalised for working together in the same flat etc while selling sex. The Nordic model did not change that.

Everyone in favour of the Nordic model always seems to over-simplify it by saying "it's legal to sell sex and illegal to buy sex" but always miss out what I mentioned above and in my previous posts.

"the rationale for the Nordic model is that so many of the women are victims of abuse (past or continuing), addiction, coercion or extreme poverty that they should not be further criminalised by making their participation in prostitution criminal"

Women are criminalised under the Nordic model if they work together. And the law can make them homeless, or get social services involved who might remove her children. These are things that happen under the Nordic model, but not decriminalisation.

I'm also a Green member, to let them know I fully agree with their current policy on the matter :)

"A political party can talk about legalising prostitution, and a debate can be had.
If a political party talked about legalising slavery, they would be insane."

Prostitution and slavery are two different things. In GB it is legal to buy and sell sex (with restrictions) between consenting adults, but there are also laws in place against trafficking and slavery.

It's useful in that you are identifying a situation where the "seller" is not penalised but the taker is. The difference is that it's a situation where we , certainly in the UK, would not contemplate anything which facilitated what the seller wants to do except in a very controlled situation for altruistic reasons.

And of course if the seller were willing to sell it's an act which is banned.

I wasn't necessarily considering or advocating the criminalisation of the sellers of sex (although logically that is where my argument is taking me) but simply the illogicality of it being legal and acceptable to sell sex but not to buy it.

Still it does seem illogical but the rationale for the Nordic model is that so many of the women are victims of abuse (past or continuing), addiction, coercion or extreme poverty that they should not be further criminalised by making their participation in prostitution criminal. In theory, I would be fine with making it an offence to sell sex with defences available for abuse, addiction, coercion or extreme poverty however I think that could lead to vulnerable women being insecure in their position.

I think of it more like unlicensed doctors. It would be illegal for me to remove your kidneys but it would not be illegal for you to allow me to remove your kidneys. Not sure if that's a useful analogy.