...by giving the #1 danger to prostituted women all the access to women's bodies their money can buy??
No - the exact opposite. As the law stands, sex workers have very limited options to protect themselves. They aren't allowed to work with other sex workers, they aren't allowed to work in a shared house with security, and they aren't able to report abusers if they have broken any of the current laws because if they do there will be negative repercussions which could endanger the safety of their colleagues.
Under our current rules, sex work is still happening. In countries where it's totally illegal, it's still happening. But where it's illegal (even where partially legal, like in the UK), it's pushed underground and women have few means of taking any steps to protect themselves.
And along side giving women the right to protect themselves without fear of repercussions we need a massive attitude change to sex workers. We need to stop stigmatising it so that women who have been sex workers and then want to stop aren't trapped in it because nobody else will consider them for employment. We need to challenge every single time the notion that paying for sex gives you any right of ownership over the sex worker's body, or that you have 'unfettered access' because you have paid for sex. We need to constantly challenge the idea that sex workers can't consent, that they aren't allowed to say no.
If you have a simple solution to ending sex work then by all means share it, but if you're just going to bury your head in the sand and try to pretend that making it illegal helps women when all the evidence is to the contrary, you're not helping sex workers.
Why do you think Mumsnetters' words have all the word power over men who (ab)use prostituted women but Punternettters words have little influence on other punters?
Where in the world did you get the idea that I think this? I haven't said anything about Punternet. I certainly haven't defended it or implied that I think it's harmless.
I'm addressing you as a mumsnet user because that's the site we are on. I'm telling you that if you insist on telling everyone that sex workers sell their bodies, you are normalising an attitude which is incredibly harmful, and you are making the men who think this way feel justified because other people also think it's true.
Go to a porn website and see how leaders of the multi-billion dollar sex industry title the videos of prostituted women being prostituted. Look at pornography titles and teaser content and explain to me how the sex INDUSTRY you're defending is making the j-jobs of being prostituted safer for their e-employees.
I'm not defending the porn industry and haven't talked about it on this thread. Are you confusing me with another poster?
How does this work when BDSM is protected sex acts? You're a fool to expect that men paying to ram a woman's vagina and/or anus with foreign objects will draw a line at choking her.
I don't know what you mean by 'BDSM is protected sex acts', sorry.
I think that it a man rapes a sex worker, she should have not only the right to report it, but the expectation that she will be taken seriously and the confidence that if she reports it, she and / or her colleagues won't be punished if they have broken any of the current laws (such as soliciting or working together).
And more importantly, I think (and evidence shows) that there would be significantly less abuse of sex workers if (i) they were allowed to work in ways which protected them, and (ii) there wasn't a widespread attitude that sex workers sell their bodies and therefore have no right to say no.
I hear your, "If you let men have easier access to prostitutes then surely they will rape them more gently" and dismiss it as naive idiocy.
This is not what I've said at all. Again, I think you're possibly confusing me with someone else.
Men already have easy access to prostitutes. Even when prostitution was completely illegal, men had easy access to them. How do you propose to stop prostitution from occurring when you know that making it illegal doesn't work? What is your solution to that?
And what do you say to the fact that all evidence shows that making sex work illegal puts sex workers in greater danger, because they have no real means of protecting themselves?