Jeremy Corbyn now supports the Nordic model

I look at the prostituted women of Liverpool who sell sex for £4 a pop and that un managed zone in Leeds where women and girls are prepositioned on the street going about their daily lives, and I think of how in Germany I was sexually harassed on the street more times in two weeks than I am in a year in the UK and wonder just how much the German state's approval of prostitution has endorsed the view of women as public property that underpins street harassment, and I conclude that we need to cut demand and stigmatise punters for the sake of all women and girls by whatever means works. The "happy hookers" are not the only people with skin in the game, all women and girls are affected.

Just to add, personally I am highly sceptical of any claim that more than a very small minority of prostitutes have not been coerced, traumatised, groomed or outright enslaved into the industry. But as I say, even if the vast majority had entered as a completely free choice, I still don't think people should be allowed to buy sex.

Cardsforkittens
I think decriminalisation is the 'least worst' approach. But it would need to be accompanied by broader social change that alleviates women's poverty and addresses the ubiquitous sexualisation of women by men
Absolutely! The way I've put this before amounts to "the world isn't ready for legal prostitution" but what I mean is what you said.

I too think looking at it from a perspective of individual choice is misguided. We have laws to protect everyone in society. Men purchasing the use of a woman's body for sex is one of the most vile manifestations of misogyny and patriarchy that there is, in my opinion. A society that condones this as acceptable or simply just inevitable is a society that hates women.

We have laws about minimum wage to protect workers. There are a lot of people who would be willing to work for less than minimum wage, whether that be because they are desperate, privileged enough to not need the money, have a passion for a field of work that is hard to get into, whatever. If we look at the issue on an individual basis, Jeff is willing to work for less than minimum wage and Peter is happy to employ him on those terms, so what's the problem? Jeff and Peter are happy, but the problems are pretty obvious when you zoom out just a tiny bit. Allowing Peter to pay Jeff less than minimum wage opens the door to exploitation of all workers and Peter should be prosecuted (not Jeff) because he is being an exploitative shit regardless of how much Peter wants to accept that exploitation.

People get tied up in knots over whether prostitutes are 'happy' and doing it of their own free will, as if this is the key to the whole discussion. But sometimes consent isn't the be all and end all. There are a huge number of things that I cannot legally consent to, so I don't buy the argument that as long as people are selling sex of their own free will, there's no problem.

In my view, allowing people (almost exclusively men) to buy sex from other people (the majority of whom are women) harms all women and girls. I certainly don't want prostitution to be visible in society. I don't want it to be even slightly socially acceptable to buy sex. My heart breaks when I think of my daughter finding out about prostitution, which of course one day she will. What kind of message does the entire concept of the 'industry' send to her (and me and all other females) about our value and the power dynamic between men and women in our society?

twitter.com/channel4news/status/1015232544135172097

Oh whoops missed page 2!

My comment is in response to something someone said about 80 years ago!

Oh god Keith Vaz

I tried to find it the other day for another thread

He was recorded saying of one of the young men, that he had not worked as a prostitute before, and Keith Vaz said something about "breaking him in".

That's utterly fucking disgusting. It has really violent / unpleasant undertones.

And yet our dear Labour leader said that this was his personal life, so none of anyone's business, and did not impact on his impartiality leading this committee looking into prostitution.

Ha fucking HA.

It's always the men looking out for each other isn't it.

Sorry, Brazen, but I seriously doubt that most prostitutes are doing that as a career choice. I live in Mexico and the pimps woe young girls, carry them off and a few months later they either end up dead or in New York. I do not believe in the Happy Hooker. If it is such an attractive, viable career for a woman, why the need to trick, deceive and kidnap?

There was a trial of this many moons ago in a couple of cities in the UK, and after a couple of Judges, high ranking Police etc got picked up its strangely got dropped.

No idea why!

I and sure the other posters who oppose the normalisation of prostitution have looked at reports from New Zealand, including reports from exited prostitutes which show that everything is very far from being ok there.

Yes.

Yes, decriminalisation seems to operate as a way of legitimising all sorts of organised crime (like buying real estate has been but on steroids) TBH and once it happens then the market has control, the economy comes to depend on it and taxes are made from it which means that politicians look the other way when traffickers present women for licences.

Then everybody becomes beholden to pretending that it is a wonderful success and since many of the women suffering the most are immigrants and for the rest their livelihoods depend on not speaking up, nobody cares.

Offred and Ereshkigal You make many good points. I don't really want to take (and then defend) a position on policy because I'm so very pessimistic about it. Today my position is mostly (to paraphrase another poster in another thread): Men, sort your shit out.

Thank you. Yes we can agree on that entirely. As I said I have been where you are now.

Where there are people who view a woman's body and the overriding of her consent as a commodity to be profited from it's inevitable that abuses will arise and misogynistic beliefs and practices will be perpetuated. The fact that some of these people are the women themselves doesn't alter this, regardless of the reasons for their (qualified) choices

They're also strangely resistant to looking at any reports from New Zealand, where decriminalisation has been a success

I and sure the other posters who oppose the normalisation of prostitution have looked at reports from New Zealand, including reports from exited prostitutes which show that everything is very far from being ok there.

You’ve not put forward any evidence to support a claim that the Nordic model makes things more dangerous or that decriminalisation makes things safer TBH. Obviously views of actual sex workers re this are important but they must not be coming from lobby groups if they are to be credible.

As I’ve said before, no approach to the law alone is going to be holistic.

*It’s a choice in the context of having no other option available for women that offers the combination of high pay and high degree of flexibility. Where it is a choice (and there is often some degree of choice even for trafficked women actually) then it is a choice made within the context of other options and material reality.

None of us are arguing it is as simple as ‘just get another job’ really...

I wouldn’t discount the possibility that if high pay and high degree of flexibility were available through a variety of other means then no women would choose sex work... *

Absolutely this^
Offred this is what I said (less eloquently) earlier in this thread and have been harping on about it on other threads as well.
It's what many sex workers have been saying for a long time now.

The Nordic Model doesn't fix any of the underlying problems (neither does legalisation or decriminalisation though).
The Nordic Model leaves the problems as they are but makes it more dangerous for us while we're working. We push for decriminalisation because it's the best option we have in the current situation.

The choice vs trafficked victims narrative is actually both irrelevant and full of Madonna/whore misogyny.

I’m nowhere near qualified to know model we should have, but why is prostitution so bloody dangerous? We are forever seeing prostitues being murdered and god knows what else.

Of course I know the answer must be men, but then why in the hell do they get away with it?!*?

I think though we all agree that it isn’t that simple don’t we really? It’s a glib statement. Actually the fact that sex workers feel worried about losing their income through sex work is because it is not really an actual free choice for the most part.

It’s a choice in the context of having no other option available for women that offers the combination of high pay and high degree of flexibility. Where it is a choice (and there is often some degree of choice even for trafficked women actually) then it is a choice made within the context of other options and material reality.

None of us are arguing it is as simple as ‘just get another job’ really...

I wouldn’t discount the possibility that if high pay and high degree of flexibility were available through a variety of other means then no women would choose sex work... I just don’t think ‘wanting to do sex work and sex work being a choice’ is an argument in favour of sex work, no matter how many women feel that way about it.

I don't really care about them though. They can go and get a proper job like the rest of us

This. The right of women who do have genuine choice to choose to be prostituted is less important than the right of disadvantaged women and children to not be prostituted. And the right of all the rest of us to not live in a world where men are encouraged to believe that we are commodities for their sexual use.

^^Meaning Nordic model good, Germany model bad in case that was unclear!

Nrft yet but that's good news.
Any state that de criminalises the prostitution of (mainly) women is no better than a pimp.
I have met many prostitutes. Never ever met one who hadn't been abused as a child, and most started on the game as children. It's a continuation of abuse.
Yes there may be the odd few who are from nice backgrounds and it's a real choice.
I don't really care about them though. They can go and get a proper job like the rest of us.

Ha ha! OK

Offred and Ereshkigal You make many good points. I don't really want to take (and then defend) a position on policy because I'm so very pessimistic about it. Today my position is mostly (to paraphrase another poster in another thread): Men, sort your shit out.

Nevertheless, I think the solution is to tackle poverty and sex inequality. I'm very pessimistic about the prospect that any model of prostitution policy will have the benefits that are claimed for it.

I think decriminalisation is the 'least worst' approach. But it would need to be accompanied by broader social change that alleviates women's poverty and addresses the ubiquitous sexualisation of women by men.

This was probably my exact position about 5 years ago. I now believe prostitution aka a trade in buying women for sex with all the market pressures of any product is not something which should ever exist in a civilised society.