Legalise prostitution to counter feminism (yes really)

Are you five? Lots of things are illegal but people still do them.

Why can't they just make prostitution illegal? If it were illegal then noone would do it.

Amnesty put out a statement clarifying their position:

www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/08/sex-workers-rights-are-human-rights/

Seems reasonable to me but then what do I know?

I'm pretty sure that Amnesty's support for decriminaliztion stems from wishing to make sex workers safer and less stigmatized. I do think one of the biggest problems involved in making sex work safer and less stigmatized is the insistence that sex work in the form of undertaking paid sexual activity (as opposed to eg selling vibrators in a branch of Ann Summers) is totally unlike any other kind of job.
Other jobs involve facing danger on a daily basis, whether from clients or other hazards such as fire/water/explosives.
Other jobs are damaging, over time, to a worker's physical or mental health.
Other industries are crawling with exploitation and abuse of various kinds.
Other jobs can involve performing tasks which a worker may find distasteful and will only undertake them because s/he is getting paid - no one enjoys wiping up shit, for instance. (Well, OK, maybe there are a few poo fetishists who might consider it a dream job...)

There seems to be this lingering idea that men not only 'need' sex more than women, but that it is vitally important to restrict how much sex they can have. This may stem from a type of capitalist thinking which needs people to be in a constant state of frustration so that they will buy crap they don't actually need at all, or perhaps it has its roots in the superstitous mindset that sex is disgusting and only for procreation - or the mindset behind that one, which is that sexually-frustrated individuals are easy to manipulate in other ways.

I used to work in the gambling industry, so another vice. My company was government owned, and whilst it was initially set up partly to get organised crime out of casinos, fundamentally it was a cash cow. So much so that the revenue it brought in was equivalent to all of the corporate taxes in my province.

Should prostitution be legalised and government control of some sort, even just in a regulatory manner brought in then the temptation to take at least a cut would be enormous. A brand new previously black market industry to play in...

Although the same argument seems to mainly fail when it comes to drugs, even marijuana (although it will be interesting to see how long that continues if the US states that have legalised get the sort of revenue that they projected).

Hirples - yes that was the article, it wasn't in hindsight probably best to link the article but to me it adds to the fact that still women are under pressure to self moderate their sexuality which makes any study prone to bias.

Waking up a bit more now. Please ignore.

You know, maybe it's just my lazy-morning-after-kids'-rough-night talking, but I am smelling something of a rat here, linking back up to the op too.

^^ last post implies again a thought I've had on a number of occasions, which is that it is the existing power/ control structures that are the major threat to sex workers' safety. Male dominated of course, though the occasional female brothel owner seems to behave exactly the same.

Decriminalisation by and of itself does nothing to change those, and as far as I'm aware (which isn't very far) that idea is not part of the discussion around decriminalisation, it doesn't get mentioned. The thing is, when you want to bring something under an outside agency's control, you do usually try to keep the existing power structures: they're already there controlling the system, you just subsume them. But if those structures themselves are the problem...

Conspiracy theory of the day for breakfast time: what possible reason could the state, or certain of its representatives at least, have for wanting to bring sex work under closer state control/ monitoring beyond the health of the sex workers? We've been hearing lately about the importance of the black economy to those same representatives. Are they envisioning building up a grand sex tourist industry, and better taxation of it? And by the way, like the op, get women as a class back under control, stop them taking up the fewer and fewer jobs available (as they've already kicked the youth out), stop them whinging so much?

I honestly do not know.

I know that for myself - and the women who are similar to me in the way that they work - it would be nice if it weren't illegal to share a premises with another escort so that we could feel safer. However, in reality many of us do that anyway as law enforcement almost never bothers. The law as it is suits me pretty well. I like knowing that I am not breaking any laws as it is stressful enough to be concerned about negative stigma and potentially violent clients. Those are risks I am willing to deal with and I recognise that they are a large part of why my job pays so well.

I think that the majority of "problem situations" (I don't know what else to call it) involve women who are already vulnerable when they began sex work. To pick two commonly-cited examples: drug addicted street walkers and foreign women who are pimped.

I tend to think of the former category of sex workers as drug addicts with a prostitution problem rather than prostitutes with a drug problem and I think the issue most in need of addressing is their addiction or other problems in their lives that have destabilised them to the point of having to prostitute in the first place. Obviously, there are indoor workers with drug problems! However, there are doctors with drug problems. I'm just addressing the most commonly-victimised and most visible category of sex worker.

And the foreign women who are pimped ... gosh, I have a hard time thinking what to do about that. I'm not sure how much of that is proper trafficking in the sense of being dragged over here and forced to work and how much is down to women in poorer countries wanting to come here and willingly signing on to an arrangement where someone is facilitating their work (advertising, bookings, flats or hotels, etc.) My feelings on this issue are probably compromised by the fact that on some level I personally resent the flood of cheap immigrant workers as they have an impact on my own income and so I probably can't be unbiased. However, I think that the current laws against controlling prostitution for gain could be enforced more rigorously. Unfortunately I don't know how that could be implemented without unduly harassing perfectly legal independents. I mean, sometimes it is obvious - such as when there are raids on Days Inns at service stations where some pimps have a bunch of Romanian girls booked in and the pimps are literally loitering around the car park and generally being a nuisance. However, they are clever enough to conceal themselves if they were motivated to. And if Romanians have the right to come here and work here then it may be very hard to ferret them out.

I am not very keen on the system in Germany as I've seen it portrayed. There's nothing to stop trafficking and pimping into a licensed brothel. I also don't like the Big Brother approach of someone patronisingly inserting themselves into what I do and dictating how I must work and then taking a cut. But I am thinking of what works for me rather than what keeps other women safe.

I'm not sure how the money spent on prostitutes affects the UK economy as it is the disposable income of British men who would have presumably just spent it on something else. Well, they may have spent it on a holiday in Spain but I think you know what I mean. Some prostitutes pay income tax but I don't think the majority do, based on my totally unscientific impressions from the other escorts I know. (I pay tax because I support a family and you can't do that off the grid so my money has to be accounted for and taxed. I don't mind paying tax as I like knowing that I am not a criminal or a leach on society.)

I don't think that the average punter would rape if he couldn't buy sex because I don't think rape is really about a man's sexual "needs." I do, however, think that a lot of men would leave their marriages or have affairs if they didn't have a any other way of getting sex. I think many women really can't grasp just how important sex is to men. Even I don't quite get it in spite of being on the front lines and hearing first-hand from the men why they come to see me.

They're just normal guys and I would say that any married woman who thinks her husband would never do that is delusional. I'm not saying that every man would, but there is no way of telling which ones will.

Prostitution isn't going anywhere. I have worked in a country where it is completely illegal and I was still very busy. Perhaps society will change in some way so that nobody feels like they need to purchase sex - I believe that in a utopia that would be the case. But we don't live in a utopia and probably the best way to deal with it is to take measures that combat abusive, or criminal, or exploitative situations.

I wonder if BreakingDad was referring to an article in New Scientist, which, quite by chance, I read the other day. It's from 5 May 2012, written by Catherine de Lange, pp 31 (yes, I have the printed copy in front of me) and entitled "My two minds/Mon esprit partage" with an acute on that last e.

It's interesting stuff that suggests language and culture are connected (who would have thought?) but contains nothing specific about sexual behaviour.

But then sexual behaviour is influenced by culture, so...

What is her doctorate in?

The desire issue has been researched across many countries and Hakim is extrapolating from the various studies. The paper is in support of Amnesty and their stance on supporting sex workers.

Unfortunately DD is home from Uni and I haven't the time to discuss points that I would like because there are broader issues in the paper that I am interested in. Perhaps in September I will be able to get on her and discuss more vigorously.

I thought BreakingDad meant terminology rather than different languages.

"I would conclude therefore there is something that impedes a more natural and balancing level bieng achieved between the genders."

I agree. Not only what you said about pressures on women but also what someone up thread about women being more tired when caring for young children and not feeling like having sex with a partner who isn't pulling their weight.

I think it's also a sense of entitlement. A generalisation but women don't feel entitled to sex unless they have prepared themselves to be worthy of it whilst men do regardless of what they look like.

The knowledge that prostitutes are available for men if they want it creates a power imbalance and most affect sex drives.

BreakingDad - do you mean sexual behaviour changes according to which language a bilingual is speaking??

Do you have a link to that study?

I am bilingual. Well, multilingual, actually. I don't think my sexual behaviour changes with language! I regularly speak two languages to my dh. He uses the same two to speak to me. Neither is more sexy than the other.

Hakim writes total shite, that's for sure. Anyway prostitution is already legal.

re: male sexual desire outstripping female

I thought this was found to be a fallacy through studies comparing men and women showed that they were similar but women when questioned are seen to downplay their desire?

There was interesting study of people who were bilingual and their behaviors were seen to change depending on the language they using.

Catherine Hakim think she was on either on LBC or radio 4 cant remember yesterday, I couldn't believe crap she was coming out with. Is she here to hawk some book or present a paper?

Was very happy hookers, most of them are intelligent women, is no more demeaning than working in mcdonalds etc

Thankfully some good counter points by someone from London Feminist network(? i cant remember the groups precise name)

I think I reject the central premise re: male sexual desire outstripping female. I think it may be safe to say that perhaps the idea of sex may enter into our (men's) heads with greater frequency earlier on in our interactions with women, but I found within the context of relationships often a girlfriends desire for sex more often than not outstrips my own. Although we're not talking a large sample size by any means!

I also think it also stands to reason that given the greater pressures on women to look good we therefore live in a world where as a man I have a greater statistical chance of running into a sexually appealing woman. So naturally just living in that environment changes the landscape. If we had parity across gender lines, maybe the perceived gap would shrink so as to be non existent.

As far as I'm aware and from examining homosexual communities there doesn't seem to be a problem. Gays and Lesbians continue to find one another sexually appealing, and if the assertion that women somehow aren't that into sex then lesbian sexuality would be hugely reduced, and I'm not at all sure that is the case. In fact if anything lesbians I know seem to have comparable libidos to most men I know (including myself).

I would conclude therefore there is something that impedes a more natural and balancing level bieng achieved between the genders. As to what that is I'm unqualified to ascertain, it maybe the patriarchal landscape, the risks of pregnancy (which do not exist for our homosexual friends) or a combination of those and other factors I haven't considered.

A key objection to the sex industry is that it damages women and that the presence of pornography, lap-dancing and prostitution in a country promotes rape and other violence against women

Even if porn etc didn't promote rape and violence they are still damaging to women.

Yes Lass - her complete whitewash over what it's doing to the women actually in the industry is telling - she only thinks about the damage done to the men using, and women who aren't in the industry (ie. her), and doesn't even consider the workers as people to whom damage could be done.

It's a bit 'let them eat cake'