Where do you stand on banning the sex trade?

compares Sweden vs NZ - and safety:

www.feministcurrent.com/2015/11/03/remembering-the-murdered-women-erased-by-the-pro-sex-work-agenda/

That is because the monks are Corrupt and grew Rich selling False Relics - foreskin of the Baby Jesus, anyone?

Like... disk drives?

Men just have these drives, you know...........

It's interesting how those harking back to cave people times for a model around sex are typing on their tablets and enjoying their 80 year plus life expectancy without finding themselves internally inconsistent...

At least being a punter seems to lower men's life expectancy. So perhaps there is some consistence.
(Monks live longer than the average male, and almost or about as long as the average woman. Why the MRAs who whine about men's lower life expectancy don't take that to the logical conclusion and become monks, I have no idea.)

It's interesting how those harking back to cave people times for a model around sex are typing on their tablets and enjoying their 80 year plus life expectancy without finding themselves internally inconsistent...

Yes it is Kipling. It's also nonsense since presumanly the first punter must have caught , gathered or grown something to pay her with.

Even if that were not the case and sex was being bartered in exchange for say protection from a marauding tribe it's so completely and utterly irrelevant to any discussion now.

It's as trite and useless as Stephen Fry's "epigram"( not) about being offended.

That is awesome and should be quoted on all "prostitution is natural, innit" threads!

I would imagine that the oldest profession is probably something like flint knapping, or basket weaving or bone needle making.

Farming's a bit new fangled.

Although according to Wiki, there were some entertaining crossovers.....
"There is some evidence that unworldly speakers (e.g. of the older generation) or unsophisticated audiences (e.g. in small towns or rural areas) were not at first aware of the phrase's newly acquired meaning. Thus for some time the following could be said in English newspaper reports without apparent embarrassment: “A certain proportion of the cadets were now leaving to enter the oldest profession in the world” (1895);.[19] “This gentleman's name often figures high in local prize lists, and he is considered an enthusiast in 'the oldest profession in the world'.” (1902)[20] “Mr Petrie heard the voice of God and observed the working of His hand in ways that are denied to most of us. His speech, and especially his prayers, exhibited a rare consciousness of the beauty of holiness, and were fragrant with phrases of singular charm. As you all know, Mr Petrie followed the oldest profession in the world.” (1915)[21]"

Apparently Kipling used it in a short story and it was a tipping point. Before that it was used for all sorts of professions to suit the writer- after it generally meant prostitution.

The euphemism is from Kipling?

Interesting. Kipling.

Farming is probably the oldest profession.

Anyway it's utterly repulsive when applied to selling sex. I bet it started off as a euphemism.

FFS - stop calling paid sex a profession. It's all sorts of things, many unprintable, but profession it ain't.

This.

One could as well claim that selling organs is the oldest profession. Poor people sold their teeth so that rich people could use them. There's evidence for this going back a long time - I think Acient Egypt.
Is this considered a reason to keep the time-honoured tradition of selling organs alive?

FFS - stop calling paid sex a profession. It's all sorts of things, many unprintable, but profession it ain't.

I would bother to answer Noisy's point, but I see it's already been dealt with.

Unless of course you're suggesting that cavemen prostituted their women, in which case, can I have a go of your time machine?

Sex is the oldest profession, and to be blunt anyone can have sex and make money from it if they wanted to.
Sex sells, and as long as we have 'human nature' or our primal instincts from the caveman days, there will be sex workers.

This article clearly spells out the impact of legalisation in Germany:

www.feministcurrent.com/2016/05/09/legalization-has-turned-germany-into-the-bordello-of-europe-we-should-be-ashamed/

I fail to see one single benefit of this model to any women at all. I can't see any single benefit to society as a whole either - quite the opposite.

Someone said that brothels are safer.

Are they talking about the caravans in restplatzen so that truck drivers can use women in them? Two women to a caravan, servicing all comers because they have to pay rent for the filthy bed they're working on?

Or perhaps the megabrothels, where they have to rent a room in a place where men pay a flat fee for whatever they want, like a smorgasbord. Where the women have to service at least 4 men in order to pay for the rent of the room they are using, a room that has a bed, a bowl of condoms and a panic button. No pillow on the bed, because men use them to suffocate the women for fun.

Or even one of the smaller brothels in towns, where again, the women are self-employed and have to pay to rent a room, but are competing with women from SE Asia and Eastern Europe who are made to provide more and more dangerous services to the men who use them for less money.

Saying that prostitution will always be with us is like saying that polio would always be with us, it's not, because a group of people worked very hard in order to stop that being the case.

I have no doubt that there are happy hookers, they are few and far between, but they do exist, but, as others have said, this isn't about them. They want it to be about them, but it isn't. This is about the woman who has no viable choices, there's no lovely post-doctoral role in whatever waiting for the vast majority of women when they stop being used in this way. With benefits sanctions on the increase, the numbers of women with no choice having to turn to being prostituted will increase. Women are being adversely affected by benefit cuts and sanctions...

If you want to know who has real vitriol for prostituted women, read what johns have to say on the Invisible Men Tumbler or Twitter. Don't eat right beforehand though if you don't have a rock solid stomach.

^Yes. Exactly.

Why is buying consent seen as an undefeatable "norm" when so many such norms have fallen by the wayside? Divine right of kings. Slavery. The acceptability of drink driving. Marital rape. Smoking in pubs.

All of these things were our doing, and all of these things we have changed.

House

It's not the same people who think objectification of women is great but want prostitution or punters criminalised. People who support the Nordic Model or similar usually do so based on a fairly consistent belief that objectification and exploitation of women is wrong and should be tackled by society.