The amount of women condoning prostitution

From the account of working in a Melbourne brothel, above:

There was at least one incident of harassment, verbal abuse, violence or rough treatment towards the women on every single shift I ever worked in the brothel. I also experienced sexual harassment and verbal abuse myself from the punters; even the phone calls were harassing. I know another receptionist who had a gun held to her head in a hold up.

There were panic alarms in every room but they were never used while I was there. It was just accepted that abuse was part of the job. If women had pressed the panic button, which they would have been justified in doing several times every night, what was I going to do? I was on my own and the brothel owner expected me to stay at the reception desk to answer phone calls and let punters in. There were no security guards, and to my knowledge, no brothels in Melbourne have them.

In GB it's also illegal for sexworkers to work together, which can lead to police raids on their homes or wherever they're working from.

This is what I mean. Tedious as fuck.

If you want to focus on the prostitutes, decriminalisation might give them more control than Nordic model but arguments can be made both ways and there is evidence to suit both.

Legalisation would be safest.

If you want to talk about reducing demand by making the p*nters think twice than nordic model is better than decriminalisation or legalisation.

In the UK prostitution isn't a crime anyway, pimping and soliciting is. So tbh I think we should leave the status quo. Definitely not be making it easier for grubby men to exploit desperate people for sexual gratification.

Or if you want to talk about it from a fact-based health perspective, here is a factsheet from STOPAIDs. They are opposed to the "Nordic Model" and advocate for complete decriminalisation of prostitution.

https://stopaids.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/STOPAIDS-factsheet-sex-work.pdf

https://stopaids.org.uk/

"STOPAIDS is a membership network with a distinguished 35-year history of advocacy on international development and HIV."

Another account by a woman working as a receptionist in a legal Melbourne brothel:

https://nordicmodelnow.org/2018/07/01/working-as-a-receptionist-in-a-legal-brothel-prostitution-is-anything-but-a-normal-job/

I wonder whether the beeb's five day silence was spent in a huddle with lawyers and crisis PR experts.

The same men who say TWAW are also saying: nothing illegal, private matter, bekind. The reputation management seems to be working well.

It doesn't give them more control; it gives them less; and that is according to the women involved in it. Read the account I posted by Michelle Mara above.

Sex worker orgs = pimps

Decrim gives sexworkers more control; and is the model advocated for by human rights orgs, health and anti-HIV orgs (any form of criminalisation for example leads to less condom use and more STDs, as condoms are used as evidence), anti-trafficking orgs and sexworkers themselves.

@AdamRyan "I am interested in the conversation about how we reduce the levels of entitlement men feel to sex. Prostitution is just one manifestation of that. Porn and rape are two others."

Indeed. Nobody ever wants to talk about the men. Oh, unless we forget to mention that men can be exploited and trafficked too.

It is an extract from the account from the woman working in prostitution in NZ, both before and after decriminalisation ( see links posted above).

Also that's another difference between toilet cleaning and prostitution. People who clean toilets get to wear appropriate PPE and use appropriate materials (chemicals etc) to protect them from exposure to other people's bodily fluids.

Again, we have cunningly been manoeuvred into discussing legalisation of prostitution and women's choices.

Where the thread started talking about how use of sex workers is being condoned.

I'm going to leave the thread now because I find the pro-decrim conversation disingenuous and boring. Why not legalisation? We all know why not - because the amount of H&S requirements to make the job comply with the law would significantly impact the p*nters enjoyment of the experience. Which tells you all you need to know.

I am interested in the conversation about how we reduce the levels of entitlement men feel to sex. Prostitution is just one manifestation of that. Porn and rape are two others.

Is this based on fact or speculation?

For starters, sexworkers in NZ won't accept a client who is drunk or under the influence of drugs, and any client who becomes violent would be arrested and charged by police (as well as having details shared amongst other sexworkers so they avoid taking a booking from him too).

In 2020 a NZ sexworker received a 6 figure sexual harassment comp payment. Sexworkers have rights in decriminalised NZ. They don't have to deal with drunks, or violent clients or sexual harassment. They can also report to the police without fear of being criminalised themselves (or being evicted or having their children taken off them).

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55298303

So are the kids being used to courier drugs and they are in danger like the prostitutes who can be women or men.

You compared prostitution and the drug trade, and seemed to be insinuating that women are the suppliers of the product and also the product itself.

Now that you're bringing some of the victims of the drug trade into the equation, I would argue that drugs are to the drug trade what misogyny is to prostitution.

So the children and addicts exploited by the drug trade would be the equivalent of the women (yes, and men) and children exploited in prostitution.

Selling used knickers online removes two of the most important parts; contact with punters and being identifiable.

And again, it's up to the women how they frame their experience. However, I know my friend who did magazines years ago feels exploited. She was young, with a shit home life and an abusive dad. Fodder essentially.

@Iwasafool Yes, prostitutes and other people in the sex industry can be men or women, although mostly women. The punters are almost exclusively male though. What's your point?

https://nordicmodelnow.org/testimonial/michelle-mara/

"NZPC is speaking for all women in prostitution, now rebranded as “sex workers.” But this also includes the “sensual masseuses,” the receptionists, the camgirls, the pole dancers who give the occasional private dance, the pimps, the BDSM mistresses, the phone-sex workers, and the madams who have never been smashed into a wall, choked in spa pool, fisted and spat on by a drunk man twice their size.

“Sex work” isn’t just a euphemism, it’s a cover-all to hide the reality that prostitution is just as violent, traumatic, and life-altering as it ever was. They call it “sex work” in order to legally support pimps, brothel owners, and all those that profit from our bodies, as though we are all in the same boat — they are us and we are them"

"Since the Prostitution Reform Act decriminalized the entire sex trade in 2003, including pimps and brothel owners, society has been conditioned not to challenge the NZPC’s authority and narrative.

The organization has positioned itself as the voice of all women (and the few men) in the sex trade. This group of vocal, government-funded, relatively privileged women and their supporters insist we “listen to sex workers” and their “lived experience,” lest we be labelled ignorant, bigoted, or “whorephobic.” But “lived experience,” in this context, is limited to a narrative claiming prostitution is a “choice” that “empowers.”........

"These are not women aiming to cheat the system by dodging tax, like businessmen with tax havens — these are women who are struggling, yet being presented as “workers” like any other, thanks to decriminalization.
But when compared with any other industry, this “work” would be classified alongside sweatshops and conditions of those in forced labour situations.

What other “independent contractor” has standard 12 hour shifts where they cannot leave or take breaks, with intense pressure to never reject a “client,” and are eventually paid under 40 (sometimes only 30) per cent of the money they earned and told they must return the next shift to collect it? Women can end up being paid nothing at all or in debt to the brothel on a quiet night, where they only get one “client.” The accumulative penalties (which are routinely over-imposed) — “shift fees,” “laundry fees,” “clothing and appearance fines,” and “late fees” — that women must agree to pay in their contract see to that"

https://www.feministcurrent.com/2020/06/03/new-zealand-is-squandering-an-opportunity-to-help-women-in-prostitution-during-covid-thanks-to-decriminalization/

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/teenagers-offer-cheap-sex/D53ZJUEEHELJUJQMQKQD3DNF2E/

That's not the only articles I've seen about things not being as wonderful in NZ as the pro- punter lobby would have us believe.

A New Zealand woman speaks:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-41349301

https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/9708103/Sex-workers-say-Mob-owned-streets