Legalise prostitution to counter feminism (yes really)

oh I was just about to post this!

I'm also horrified by it - not because of legalising prostitution, I actually think there are arguments for that.

But this argument, while I wouldn't necessarily use the title the OP used, seems to be "legalise prostitution because it's so difficult for men at the moment."

of all the reasons I can think of to do it, I find astonishing that 1) someone thinks "because men" is a reason and 2) I find it even worse that a woman has come up with this.

I also find it very interesting indeed - IF it is true - that women are having sex less as they get more independent.

Creditable researcher? From what I can see and from her reputation, she just decides the outcome of her research and then goes and assembles a bunch of evidence of varying degrees of quality to back it up. That is not the work of a creditable researcher: that's the work of a hack and polemicist looking to gain maximum notoriety for her ideas.

The view that there is now a sex deficit for men because of feminism is just bizarre. Women can now have as much sex as they want and there are apps like Tindr and so on. Casual sex is now more normal than ever before. So if anything men today should have less need of prostitutes than ever before.

But society has not changed its entitlement narrative towards men so there is still a proportion of men out there who feel entitled to buy access to women's bodies because they have 'needs'.

OK what she says is

In areas where men can access prostitute less rapes are reported. The natural conclusion (that she doesn't explicitly draw) is that the men are raping the prostitutes. This is not an OK price to pay for less rape of non prostituted women.

Because rape and sex are not the same thing. Does she think they are the same thing? Maybe.

She also says that sweden has a high rate of reported rape and (maybe this is to do with high levels of reporting) but NO it's really because the poor men haven't got enough prostitutes to fuck.

Then she goes on to conflate reported rape figures, with actual rape figures. So completely ignoring any cultural societal things around who reports rape and when, and whether it gets written down, and that entire huge massive area.

She doesn't mention children in the industry at all although does cite figures from areas which are known for high levels of prostituted children.

Basically if you didn't know anything about it, you read that and think that nothing bad had ever happened to do with this, EVER.

I don't think I can be bothered to read the conclusion

Her whole premise is that men want sex more than women AND SO THEY MUST HAVE IT is a non starter for me.

I don't see how increased access to prostitutes would decrease sexual assaults. Why would men start paying for something that they can currently get for free?

Something in this case being non-consensual sex with women. Introducing money into the transaction doesn't stop the sex being non-consensual imo. It's just a more dignified form of coercion than violence.

Actually I've just got to a bit which says:

" The second objection claims
to be evidence-based, with factual statements that involvement in the sex
industry damages women (but not men, strangely)"

And she's taking the piss isn't she.

I don't know anyone who has concerns about prostitution who think it's all fine and dandy for men and boys who sell sex

This doesn't read like a serious thing, it reads like someone who has a serious axe to grind.

I'm going to skip to the bit where she apparently says we need to throw prostitutes to the wolves (rapists) so they won't rape "decent" women. And see what she actually has to say on the matter.

"As economists recognise (Levitt and Dubner 2009: 54-55), the puzzle is
not why intelligent and attractive women become prostitutes, but rather
why more women are not tempted into this lucrative occupation."

...........

Not sure what to say to that one!

She goes on to say that trafficking is incredibly rare and pretty much everyone working for sex is pretty happy and doing it out of genuine choice. Then she quotes this thing which MRAs always quote:

"Campaigns to eliminate sex trafficking typically identify no more than five victims – at disproportionate public expense (Magnanti 2012: 156)."

But we've had tens (scores?) of men imprisoned in the UK in the last couple of years alone, for trafficking girls, and the numbers of victims went into the hundreds. We have ongoing enquiries about further trafficking involving people in the upper echelons of society.

People who quote this over and over.... Do they never read the newspapers? And I mean it's been all over the headlines for months, hardly hidden away on page 34. It's a national scandal, and they haven't noticed?

\Does anyone know what this means?

"Feminists, NGOs and pressure groups portray women who work in the
sex industry and other erotic entertainments as the victims of male violence,
trafficking or poverty who had no alternatives to selling commercial services.
Economic theory still underpins this assumption, through a focus on levels
of inequality in a country as a driving factor for labour supply (Della Giusta,
Di Tommaso and Strom 2009). Similarly, Edlund and Korn (2002) rely on
the assumption of a sharp distinction between sexual and marriage markets,
which no longer applies in the 21st century"

The Telegraph does actually give both sides an airing.

I'm in favour of decriminalisation as I think it will make sex work safer for sex workers - if they don't have to worry about being prosecuted themselves they will feel more able to come forward when they are being robbed/assauted/exploited. But Catherine H is talking bullshit.

She reckons that the large numbers of migrants, both legal and illegal, working in the sex trade around the world, is because they feel more comfortable engaging in this transgressive occupation away from home, much as people behave in a more spontaneous way when they go on holiday.

She (earlier on in the paper) stated IIRC that trafficking was not as common as people think it is.

sausage wtf both men and women are capable of wanking without porn

God this is horrible reading. She's trying to sound all reasonable and slip in some really atrocious statements in the hope no-one will notice

eg this one

"Men's ambivalence towards women working in the sexual entertainments industry may be because they exploit men's "weakness" so effectively"

She does not support that horrendous statement in any way at all and it's really fucking strong. She says that women (and girls?) in this industry are the ones who are exploitative, that they are exploiting the men (this is presented as a statement of fact) and that this is a valid and reasonable explanation for the fact that the men who pay them are "ambivalent" towards them aka they don't give a shit about them, who they are, whether they are happy, whether they are coerced etc is neither here nor there.

Now I would say (again unsupported) that men's ambivalence towards people who in the sex industry is because they are entitled arseholes who don't see the bodies of the people they are purchasing as attached to real actual people. They feel the same way as I do towards a prawn that I eat, for example. They just don't matter. That's a far more likely explanation than the men know they are being exploited. And she's just popped that "fact" in there, that the men, women, boys and girls in the global sex industry are exploitative, they are exploiting poor men who are slaves to their sex drives and apparently incapable of having a wank.

And on I read...

Her work seems to be an amalgam of a lot of others research.

I am sure some men go without I think in the paper the she points out the number and guessing that a lot of men are not honest in front of us. As to the wank are you encouraging the use of internet porn to stimulate this?

Some of the things referenced seem very old, 1996 was 20 years ago! With things to do with sex it's changing very fast isn't it.

Just read the opening bit. I think her description of countries that do not follow the Swedish model when it comes to prostitution as "more sex positive" is extremely telling.

Will read on.

The defecit stuff is weird as well. It doesn't seem to cross her mind that men could have a wank, or go without. Plenty do. She talks as if sex is an imperative like eating or drinking, that men "need" sex and therefore they must have it.

Has she been talking to amnesty I wonder!

here

Sorry missed a [

The link is [http://www.iea.org.uk/publications/research/supply-and-desire-sexuality-and-the-sex-industry-in-the-21st-century here]]

I don't think you can just write this off. Hakim is a creditable researcher no matter what people may think of her and the average person if they read this will take it at face value. Hakim has enough resources and citations that ignoring what she writes will only happen if your ideology is set in stone and you can't view anything objectively. I have been talking with the strip blog for over a while now and really this does not surprise me now given the things I have discussed.

Someone put this link to guardian piece about why men use prostitutes up on the AI & prostitution thread. Some of them - there were only 12 interviewees though - did indeed seem to think that if they didn't they would rape instead. Coupled with total lack of awareness that the woman exists as an independent entity with feelings at all. And normally they're just walking around the streets. Scary.

This article has gone right back to the idea that men are just animals with sexual needs which they have no control over hasn't it. As usual how flattering to men. And how odd that not all men suffer from it then.

Then to add insult to injury - men have this problem so women have to lie back and put up with it. Odd, for this mentality, that when women have problems they have to deal with them - eg they have children, so they can look after them or get pilloried for not doing so; they get pregnant, so they have to be on the pill, it's their fault if it happens. But for men, no, they have this problem (they say) and rather than eg find some kind of anti-libido pill for them, more women need to agree to be fucked for money.

And they never ever even notice their own inconsistencies.