Laws that sex workers really want - anti-Nordic-model TED talk

tango has a strange position. Because there is some disagreement with statistics, he disagrees with our posts. But his own statistics support our position (45% of prostitutes say they would leave today if they could, average age at entry is still illegal). Weird. Probably just a gish gallop as M0stly says

From some of Tango's evidence.

This was reflected in a 1982 survey of 200 current and former juvenile and adult street sex workers in the San Francisco area in which the average age of first intercourse was 13.5 years, as well as in other surveys. But entry in the sex trade is more likely to be between 15 and 16 years old.

So that's just fine then - makes all the difference.

I don't know if anyone saw this, I have to say that I didn't watch comic relief last night, but this was one of the appeals on it.

Thanks Beach, looking forward to reading that later.

sillage that sounds like a lightbulb moment. MacKinnon is very very sensible and utterly awesome with it.

www.prostitutionresearch.com/MacKinnon%20Prostitution%20and%20Civil%20Rights.pdf is the link to the article.

It is archived here prostitutionresearch.com/pub_author/catharine-mackinnon/

The job centre threatening removal of benefits is a good reply. I did meet prostitutes with audited books who paid all their tax, they said the tax man was a pimp and I suppose they had a point.

I do think all prostitutes need protection, I can't imagine a teenage boy who is straight is going to be OK about men using his body so he can get somewhere to sleep for the night or a meal. Removal of housing benefits puts alot of young people, male and female, at great risk.

I liked alot of the prostitutes I met and it is really sad. The saddest thing I remember is a little girl being interviewed to see if she had information that could help catch the man who killed her mother who was a prostitute. It was the saddest little statement. He was caught but that didn't help her much did it?

The percentages matter, though, Granny. The majority of prostitutes are women, and even more tellingly, the vast majority (I would guess well above the 95% level) of punters are male. In that respect, it is gendered - just like violent crime in general, sexual violence and domestic violence.

Totally agree about the "brothel next door" question, though. The other question I like is "If you really believe it's a job like any other, should unemployed people be threatened with having their benefits removed if they don't accept a job as a prostitute? And if you are prepared to go that far, in what respect does your proposal differ from state-sanctioned rape?"

Equally, granny, it's very rare that men who support prostitution are in favour of their mothers/sisters/wives/daughters being prostitutes. Prostitution is for a sort of non-human woman who doesn't feel anything.

I don't think it is just about male/female as there are male prostitutes as well, gay and straight. A man was telling me about someone he knew who was homeless so he was prostituting himself, he was straight but was working as a prostitute with gay men.

I hate it when people say there should be legal brothels, I always ask them if they want one next door to them. Oh no, put it in some rough area where the plebs can put up with it.

Will post it later venusinscorpio

I'm reporting your posts Tangoman. I think it is hugely out of order to cite absent posters in this way and you've done it twice now.

It was reading MacKinnon that changed my mind about pornography, and subsequently prostitution.

I was a porn user until I read a few pages of MacKinnon in a bookstore while on lunch from work. On those pages, she wrote about a porn scene where a woman asked a man to ejaculate inside her and he replied, "No, I only come on bitches, not inside them."

MacKinnon asked the utterly sensible question why, in a video with almost no dialogue, did the very few words spoken denigrate the woman? Why those words, in particular?

My life has never been the same since that lunch break.

I'd really like to read that MacKinnon piece, Beachcomber.

That's an interesting piece of writing. Thanks venusinscorpio.

It parallels with a piece MacKinnon wrote about how prostitution limits women's "security of person" - something which is limited for women anyway due to society wide VAWG, and is particularly limited for girls and women in prostitution for obvious reasons.

MacKinnon is writing about this in the context of civil rights and equality of civil rights for the sexes. Prostitution not only violates the civil right to security of person but it violates it in a particular gendered manner which is deeply anti equality.

Will link to it later.

As our male pro prostitution for women poster has pointed out (and it may be his only good point), Professor MacKinnon is a lawyer and a brilliant one. She therefore has a way of thinking about things that is very much about justice, about equality before the law and about females having equality of humanity and the role that laws, legislation and society must play if we are sincere about those things.

Hers is a searingly logical and just position and I have never seen anyone effectively argue against it. The "choice" argument when attempted against MacKinnon shows itself to be an argument for inequality of civil rights for the sexes. Which in turn shows itself to be an argument for the subordination of women, for the awarding of superior status to men, their civil rights and their humanity and therefore shows itself to be a regressive, sexist and inhumane position. (That is if one considers girls and women to be human.)

reneejg.net/2017/03/23/prostitution-less-like-a-job-more-like-the-prison-system/

I suggest (kind of what I was trying to do with your earlier post) that every time Tango posts, we just scroll back up the thread to the last interesting post and carry on discussing that.

He's going to carry on trying to bury us in a landslide of a Gish-Gallop of made up statistics and anecdata, and seriously, the only thing we can do is ignore.

So you nitpick about how I spell a name and ignore everything else I say tangoman?

Tango I cba to read a wall of text but this Nearly half the women (45 per cent) said they would change their occupation if they could doesn't sound like prostitutes love their job.

Tangoman can't you go away and write a book called Men Are Entitled To Sex or something?

Sparrow - "It's all such nonsense though. Women get raped and assaulted in their thousands upon thousands every year just going about their business. A a woman it is very dangerous to just live your life, the chances of sexual violence are very high. And yet people like tangoman will argue that prostitutes can easily deal with a man who is taller and stronger than she is, while they are alone in a room, when he is paying for and feels entitled to sex. WTF? That must be far and away the most dangerous situation a woman could ever be in. The chance of getting hurt is absolutely enormous."

Totally agree, nails it.

Sensible move Spartacus.

TBH I didn't read past Tango's first post. I am over debating with men who come here because they think we owe them debate. I've decided I am here to offer and receive support from like-minded women and I'm not going to waste my time on anti-feminist men who are only here to flaunt their boring views.

It's all such nonsense though. Women get raped and assaulted in their thousands upon thousands every year just going about their business. A a woman it is very dangerous to just live your life, the chances of sexual violence are very high. And yet people like tangoman will argue that prostitutes can easily deal with a man who is taller and stronger than she is, while they are alone in a room, when he is paying for and feels entitled to sex. WTF? That must be far and away the most dangerous situation a woman could ever be in. The chance of getting hurt is absolutely enormous.