Number 10 petition to criminalise men who buy sex

[policywonk]

Sign here if, you know, you want to

anyoldiron, i'm not sure your head is right, though. as olkn has just said, a brothel keeper (uuurgh, btw) is not interested in drug addicted women, they want workers to bring in the dough. however, most people, not even tsh or olkn would dispute that most street workers are addicted to drugs. so what happens to them? where will they go in this clean new world?

that is a very personal question, ditt

and you have never answered any of mine

In order for legalisation to be the least-worst solution, there'd have to be some solid evidence that it protects prostitutes. As far as I can see, this solid evidence just isn't there.

In the absence of a solid evidential base, why not use the law to send a strong message that women are not saleable commodities?

To repeat a point made a few times on this thread - nobody says 'there's no point criminalising GBH, it'd just drive it underground'. Women are not analogous to drugs or alcohol. They are living beings, and to support their commodification in law - in the absence of evidence that it would help to protect them - just reinforces the sense that far, far too many men have that women are nothing more than walking orifices.

btw, wonk, i can't sign the petition. i've tried repeatedly but it keeps telling me to put my email in again. which i have done, repeatedly, etc. it's a pita.

Oh really? It's not my petition

It worked when I did it. Anyone else having trouble?

lol at i know it's not yours.

Interjecting.

"Pretty Woman" Story about a beautiful and charming young lady who was a Happy Hooker. A friend of hers was found in a dumpster but it was "okay" because she was a "fuck up"

Imagine if the Julia Roberts character was mutilated, tortured and burned after the scenes showing what a sensitive human being she was at the polo and the opera.

It wouldn't have made such a good movie would it?

Aitch - I guess the answer to your question about drug addicted prostitutes is to deal with the drugs problem as well. Another near impossible task - unfortunately it is far from a perfect world.

Dittany - just wanted to make it crystal clear I wish the sex industry did not exist. I recently discovered that my Grandmother was forced into prostitution when her husband threw her out of their nice middle class home in the mid 1930s and she had no option. My mother was fathered by one of her regular clients. I genuinely believe that no law would have prevented my Grandmother turning to prostitution - out of sheer desperation.

many are drug addicted, however, to obliterate past abuse (at a base centre near us the fig for child abuse is something horrifying like ninety per cent among the women).

so again, i'm afraid, it does come back to men. yes, they are criminalised as child abusers but it would be a good message to send, i think, to say to men that no, we're not there for the taking.

wouldn't your grandmother have been illegal in the 1930s, btw? what a shocking revelation for you all, i hope your mother is coping well with it.

here's a piece that mentions a little bit of research done at base 75. www.eveningtimes.co.uk/new-face-of-vice-1.983274

this seems only to be the abstract, frustratingly but the figures are shocking for drug addiction and mental illness.

Aitch - I think my Grandmother did not operate as a 'streetwalker' but had a series of regular clients who would buy her things, pay rent etc. It was still prostitution though and had several brushes with the law for stealing from shops when she was desperate.

My mother was put in an orphanage at birth and reclaimed at 2 yrs old by my Grandmother. She has suffered all her life with depression because of it.

"Recent correspondence from Ms Lund: ?The police got an extra 7 million SKR to implement the law but there are no extra recourses to help sexworkers leave prostitution.?

isn't that the telling comment, though? i doubt anyone would be advocating the criminalisation of sex buyers without support for women whose 'living' has been removed. and tbh if there was a brothel in my apartment block i would 100 per cent not want it there, same as if there was any business that had criminals at the door. it wouldn't make me some sort of do-gooding tattletale.

the 'most vulnerable' in that system are the most vulnerable now, we need to help them NOT to be prostitutes, that's the bottom line. because men thinking that they have the divine right to fuck who they want if they've got the cash is not good for any of us.