Melissa Farely

[MsAnnTeak]

Has been a leading light for radical feminists The American clinical psychologist, researcher and feminist anti-pornography and anti-prostitution activistis best known for her studies of the effects of prostitution, trafficking, and sexual violence. Much of her reasearch has been quoted on the above issues and has been highly influential in forming policies across the globe.

Recently there has been a formal complaint lodged against her and there are moves to have the APA rescind her membership.
Canadian courts have found Dr Farley to be a less than reliable witness,
finding her evidence ?to be problematic?, believing her work is
unethical, unbecoming of a psychologist, and is in breach of at least sections 5.01 and 8.10of the APA?s Code of Ethics, perhaps more.

sex-work-2010-reference-group.googlegroups.com/attach/a3b87993a830d0da/Complaint+to+APA+_Melissa+Farley.pdf?gda=11biokcAAAAASGXV9xe26yC0z09q-oJkzQiIpGuuFVKvv_B1Trw6bJCxwZJKsAB7Jsg1500Mx6obQwFxJw55cVwemAxM-EWmeV4duv6pDMGhhhZdjQlNAw&view=1&part=4&hl=en The document is 115 Pages long.

If it's upheld and her membership is rescinded will we all have to have a rethink ?

Problem is though, that what you call pragmatic, I call inhumane.

Women are not safe in legal prostitution - they are not safe because prostitution is intrinsically violent.

"Legalization will not end abuse; it will make abuse legal."

www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/mhvlegal.htm

When prostituted women are asked what they need, they tend to answer "a route out of prostitution".

"It's simplistic to argue that anyone who does not equate all forms of prostitution with abuse and 'buying a woman' are apologists for exploitation of women." Agreed. And no-one has argued that. So it's an Aunt Sally.

Well, I think it is more likely that most people don't want to be penetrated by strangers, who may or may not be violent, for money Tchootnika.

The argument that says if only we make prostitution safer it will all be OK, ignores the fact that most women are introduced to prostitution by men. They're not looking for a safe way to do it, they're not looking to do it at all. If we stopped men being pimps, they wouldn't introduce those women to prostitution so these women would not need that safety.

That's an intersting article - but it's primarily about trafficking, which is a separate issue from prostitution itself.

It makes some well meaning, but rather glib statements ('women's bodies and emotions must belong to them alone' - well, yes, but that's not the issue, if women are not being coerced into prostitution), and it doesn't move away from perceived historical stigmatisation of women. As such, it's quite a limited article.

most people don't want to be penetrated by strangers, who may or may not be violent, for money Tchootnika

No, Beachcomber, most people probably don't.
In which case, why not argue for legalisation of brothels where women (or men) can work safely as prostitutes?

This may come as a surprise to you, but some people are prepared to exchange sexual services for money. (And I'm not talking about Dr Mantegna, or Julia Roberts in 'Pretty Woman', or whatever, I'm talking about real people with ordinary economic needs, by the way.) I believe that this exchange of sex for money is the act of prostitution, not the state of 'being a victim'.
Vulnerability to violence and abuse is a result of the circumstances under which prositutes have to work: not the act of prostitution itself.

www.prostitutionresearch.com/pdfs/Myths%20&%20Facts%20Legal%20&%20Illegal%20Prostitution%203-09.pdf

When prostituted women are asked, consistently around 90% say they want out of prostitution immediately, but the decision is out of their hands and in the hands of their pimps, their husbands, their landlords, their addictions, their children's bellies. A study of women in street prostitution in Toronto found that about 90% wanted to escape but could not and a 5-country study found that 92% of women, men and transgendered people in prostitution wanted immediate help to escape prostitution.

Research on legal brothels in Nevada shows that legalisation does not protect prostituted women from the violence, abuse and psychological and physical injury that occur in illegal prostitution. In many senses the opposite might be true. A pan-European study also found that levels of violence were high in both indoor and outdoor settings and where brothels are regulated. In the Netherlands, where prostitution has been legal since 2000, the government is rethinking its approach as it is seeing more and more signals that abuse of women is continuing. Legal prostitution in the Netherlands, Nevada, and in Australia has been connected with organized crime. Two-thirds of the legal brothels in Amsterdam?s red light district have been closed down because it was impossible to control organized crime, according to the mayor.

Legalized systems of prostitution may mandate health checks, but only for women in prostitution - not for male buyers. Health examinations for women but not for men make no sense from a public health perspective. Women are not protected from HIV contracted from johns. In one study, the longer women were in brothel prostitution, the more likely they were to be infected by HIV.

Legalization of prostitution increases the number of minors who are prostituted. Legal prostitution means that there are more locations for children to be sold for sex. And wherever there is a legal sex business, there are likely to be be 5 times as many illegal sex businesses as well. Therefore, it is good business practice for traffickers to sell children in or near a legal sex business. That?s where the buyers are.

If it is true that most women are introduced to prostitution by men - and I'd like to know what your source of that 'fact' is, Uppity, then perhaps this is because it's so difficult to work safely as a prostitute.

Arguments on this thread are becoming fairly circular, but believe me, there are many women selling sex - i.e. working as prostitutes - who were not forced into it by pimps.
Again, I am not saying there are necessarily legions of 'happy hookers' out there, but there is a lot between that stereotype and that of trafficked women - of whom, yes, there are many thousands, and certainly the UK government's failure to protect them - particularly those from newer EU nations - has been beyond shameful. But again, the key issue there is trafficking, false imprisonment, rape, assault, etc. - not prostitution per se.

AS for my 'Aunt Sally' argument, Uppity, it looked very much to me as if that sort of polarisation of viewpoints was going on in this thread.

Trafficking cannot be separated from prostitution Tchootnika.

From the same link as above.

13.MYTH: Legalization of prostitution is an entirely separate issue from human trafficking. FACT: Prostitution is the destination point for trafficking. Legalization of prostitution promotes sex trafficking. Prostitution and sex trafficking are linked. Sex trafficking happens when and where there is a demand for prostitution and a context of impunity for its customers. Legal prostitution sanitizes prostitution, making the harms of trafficking for prostitution invisible. Suddenly, dirty money becomes clean. Illegal acts become legal. Overnight, pimps are transformed into legitimate businessmen and ordinary entrepreneurs, and men who would not formerly consider buying a woman in prostitution think, ?Well, if it?s legal, now it must be O.K.? Governments that legalize prostitution as sex work tend to have an economic investment in the sex industry because they earn taxes from prostitution. This will foster governments? increased dependence on sex businesses for revenue. If women in prostitution are considered workers, then governments can abdicate responsibility for making decent and sustainable employment available to women. In Nevada, women are trafficked primarily into the state?s illegal prostitution venues: strip club prostitution, escort prostitution, and massage parlors that function as illegal brothels. But there also a number of reports of women trafficked into Nevada legal brothels.Trafficking of women into the sex industry is a direct consequence of men?s demand for sexual access to women and girls in prostitution. In countries where prostitution is legal, sex industries are larger and create a demand for more women to sell sex, attracting traffickers and others who exploit women for financial gain. The legal sex industry then acts as a magnet for traffickers, increasing the number of women who are being exploited. Legalization also results in the growth of a parallel illegal sex industry as has been extensively documented in Australia. Since 1999, there have been reports that at least 80% of women in Dutch legal prostitution had been trafficked. In 2009, the Dutch government has closed approximately 2/3 of the legal brothels in Amsterdam because of its inability to control traffickers and other organized crime. By the mid-1990s, 75% of women in legal German prostitution were from other countries, a majority trafficked from Eastern Europe. Trafficking of Asian women into Australian prostitution has been noted by the US State Department.

Beachcomber, thanks for that extract.

What I don't get, though, is this (and you may laugh out loud, I don't fucking care...):
If brothels functioned as workplaces like any other, how would it be possible for these levels of abuse to take place?
What if basic employment and anti-discrimination law applied to sex workers?
That'd be quite something, wouldn't it?

But it wouldn't stop the illegal trade.

The legalisation of prostitution in the Netherlands, has not stopped illegal prostitution.

So it would not solve the problem.

And no it wouldn't be a good thing - it's the state-sanctioned abuse of women. Women would still be abused by men, but legally.

Again, Beachcomber, thanks, but:
(a) This refers to North America. (I don't know where you are, but I'm in the UK - very different legal system).
(b) My reading of those arguments is that women trafficked/working as prostitutes are treated so badly because prostitution is still so stigmatised. Which is something that puts me off vehemently anti-prostitution arguments so much.

I also think that a better approach towards violence towards women working as prostitutes would be a more direct one - i.e. to address the source of the violence, which is of course the person perpetuating it, not the victim of the violence or the circumstances under which it takes place.

It might not stop the illegal trade, Uppity - but that argument is rather like saying that fitting cars with seatbelts doesn't prevent traffic accidents.

Prostitution would still be stigmatised if it were legal.

As long as we live in a society which says that women are the sex class and that they're not as important as men and that sex is something that women gatekeep and men want, selling sex will be stigmatised.

In the Netherlands, where it is legal, no career advisors are telling A level students to do it. It's still stigmatised.

Tchootnika I'm not laughing at the notion of brothels functioning like any other workplace - I'm despairing.

Can you imagine a restaurant where customers got to choose who waits on their table using criteria such as age, weight, race, ethnic origin, colour of skin, breast size, willingness to be verbally abused, willingness to perform painful physical acts which could result in disease and pregnancy?

14.MYTH:Even if it?s not perfect, legalizing prostitution would at least make prostitution a little bit better. FACT: Legalization of prostitution increases illegal prostitution. It does not improve the lives of women in prostitution. Prostitution can?t be made ?a little better? anymore than domestic violence can be made ?a little better.? Women in prostitution tell us that they want the same options in life that others have: a decent job, safe housing, medical care including psychological counseling. They deserve that, not just an HIV test to make sure that they are ?clean meat? for johns or a union to ensure that they get an extra dollar or two for being paid to be sexually harassed, sexually exploited and often raped.

In theory it sounds OK to state that sane, reasonable people should have the right to sell a kidney for $500 or more if they choose to. But opening the door to body organ selling would not lead to nearly as many middle class white men selling organs as other people whose social circumstances does not permit a free, uncoerced choice. Organ sales would open the door to brokers who exploit poor people. While a few body organ sellers may make a free choice to do that, prohibition of organ sales prevents widespread exploitation of less privileged people.

If you don?t want to get paid for having sex with 10-20 strangers a day that pimps send your way, why do you think anyone else does? [For men who don?t understand: the parallel for them would be having a pimp while you?re in prison] Women in prostitution do not want to be in legal brothels: 81% of the women in the Nevada legal brothels urgently want to escape prostitution.

Back in a bit...
(I don't think that has to be true, btw, Uppity - and FWIW, I think A Level students are given some bloody awful careers advice... but I'm too tired to fit these ideas to this thread right now.)
I hope to be back sometime soon, and hope it goes on in the meantime.

Can you imagine a restaurant where customers got to choose who waits on their table using criteria such as age, weight, race, ethnic origin, colour of skin, breast size, willingness to be verbally abused, willingness to perform painful physical acts which could result in disease and pregnancy?

Beachcomber - I've worked with actors and their agents, so to me what you're describing isn't actually so strange...

Acting is not the same as being penetrated and ejaculated into though.

If we were talking about men doing this en masse, this conversation simply would not be happening, because the idea of men doing this to other, similar men would be too horrific. Unless of course, you were talking about a slave class - a group of men you could pick out because of their colour, or class, or other random characteristic which would put a man in the slave class instead of the dominant one.

Did you mean that to sound so crass?

No, acting doesn't necessarily involve penetration/ejaculation... though it can do. My point was that in some 'respected' professions work is allocated in part on the basis of physicality, age, etc.

And there is, of course, a huge gay men's sex industry, so the arguments we're all making apply to a large extent to men and boys as well as women (in terms of trafficking, abuse, etc. as well as prostitution itself).

Did you mean that to sound so crass?

If that's addressed to me, Beachcomber, then no, and I don't think I did sound crass. Could you explain, please?

Here you go if you want some info about prostitution in the UK.

www.eaves4women.co.uk/Documents/Recent_Reports/Men%20Who%20Buy%20Sex.pdf

Warning - you will need a strong stomach (or a big dose of cognitive dissonance).

Comparing prostitution to acting is crass.

Beachcomber - thanks for last article - I think I've read it before, and as I understand it it's primarily concerned with trafficking - but I'll read again.

My point about acting (as I've said above) was that professionals are initially 'chosen' on the basis of physicality, age, etc.

I was actually comparing this to your hypothetical restaurant.

Acting doesn't carry the risk of STD or pregnancy.

It can do, Beachcomber... but seriously, I don't think you've read my last post, or understood why I said that. Please look again.
I shall read your links soon, I hope, and hope to resume.
Goodnight.