Number 10 petition to criminalise men who buy sex

[policywonk]

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Harpy, you're not being at all fair. you acknowledge that the school fees prostitute is vastly in the minority, i think? so why are the rights of your few happy hookers so much more important than those of the majority of prostituted women who were abused as children (accepting, of course, that there will be some crossover on that venn diagram).

no, i think it's you who needs to stop trying to drag everyone's eyes to the smaller picture...

It's funny isn't it that TheShreikingHarpy and I were both interested enough in this thread to do a bit of research. I found lots of interesting research papers, including evidence from surveys of prostitutes, research on johns, police and crime statistics and reviews. All fairly conclusively saying that where prostitution had been legalised (whether totally like Germany or just the "indoors" trade ie brothels) the outcome was very poor. More trafficking, a huge growth in both the legal and illegal market, and plenty of complaints from the prostitutes themselves (esp in the brothel only version). Most also saying that the systems like the UK were also hugely problematic. The only arrangement that has any evidence for a reduction in prostitution, low levels of trafficking, no growth in the underground market and a general level of satisfaction in the arrangements is Sweden. I found this information easily accessible with a couple of simple Google searches.

ShriekingHarpy on the other hand has found none of this, but instead a few sites where you can buy sex from men, a couple of blogs from people who like buying sex from men (johns in other words, why should they be considered any differently if they are female?), and some quotes from a Swedish prostitute, claiming to be oppressed (this in a country where being a prostitute is perfectly legal).

Why should the stats for Sweden be any more iffy than those for anywhere else? In countries where prostitution is illegal surely there should be much more under reporting?

I don't dispute that there might be a small number of men and women who are prepared to accept the risks of prostitution for the cash reward. I think it is highly unlikely that is primarily because they love sex (sex not being hard to obtain in general if you are not very choosy about who you have it with). It's about cash, and people will do all sorts of things for money.

There is however a consistent picture from the research evidence that most prostitutes have experienced abuse in the past and in their working lives, a significant association with drugs, and that it is an industry largely run by organised crime (even where it has been legalised) and highly associated with trafficking and sexual slavery.

So if a small number of "happy hookers" find that they have fewer customers, I really don't see that as a major problem in comparison.

I think what needs to happen is the reason WHY some women sell their bodies for money is understood and the problems addressed.
Because I cannot believe that a woman would say to herself "hmm, I've just finished college, how shall I proceed? University? Medical school? hmmmm... do I want to be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher? I think I'll be a doctor, no, wait, I think I'll become a prostitute.

Selling your body is a desperate thing to do, not the choice of a woman with a good life and all options accessible to her.

I think you need to help women to not feel that prostitution is their best option.

TSH what is your interest in this area? are you a professional working with prostitutes?

TSH, yes I would have thought that regulating would have been effective in removing organised crime. But the evidence just doesn't show this. Where prostitution has been legalised the underground scene has been shown to grow, and the involvement of OC increase. It is a very big problem in both Nevada and Amsterdam.

You seemed to be saying that the results in Sweden should be ignored because measuring the volume of prostitutes and associated activity was too difficult there. My point is that with the possible exception of Germany where nothing to do with prostitution is illegal, and there has been a push to make it a job like any other job, taking accurate measurements is going to be very difficult everywhere, and surely more so countries where being a prostitute is illegal than a country where it is not. So the "vast under reporting" is likely to be a fairly universal problem. In Sweden when the police come across a prostitute and their john the john is liable to be arrested, the prostitute to have receive advice on where to go for help (which they can of course ignore). In the US (as an example) the prostitute would be arrested (or required to let the policeman rape her/give a free service) and the john ignored.

Oh, and all the research says that both criminalising prostitutes and legalisation do not work. Both are associated with organised crime, drugs, trafficking and unsafe working conditions for women. You are quite right that Sweden may be very unusual. It's unusual in lots of other ways too. I would never advocate a direct adoption of something that works in one country being transplanted into another without adjustment, trial etc. But then on the other hand why adopt something that we know hasn't worked in several other countries?

As for there being no difference between criminaliing johns and criminalising prostitutes I beg to differ. In one scenario we criminalise a group of people who are in general, as shown by all the research (excluding the very small number of happy hookers, paying for their advanced education or other lifestyle enhancement, who I am sure can go on operating under the law as they do now) desperate, unhappy and trapped whilst in the other we criminialise a group of people who seem to feel that they have a right to have sex on demand with people they know have no desire for them, and whose circumstances they (in the best scenario as described by TSH) don't know or care about, or where they do know and don't care (according to much of the research).

Finally so what if some of the research has been done by feminists? Is that some sort of bad word? Would you prefer it if the research was done by pimps?

but i don't understand. if you're just interested in the subject why show no interest in, for example, the julie bindel piece?