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If it's upheld and her membership is rescinded will we all have to have a rethink ?

But it would be offensive if it were in a restaurant setting.

In acting, where actors are wanted for certain physical characteristics, it is usually (though not always) artistically reasonable. Waiting at table has no possible reason to have a policy of choosing only blonde/ big breasted/ bearded waiters/waitresses. Unless of course, you are running some kind of sex-class related bar, like Hooters.

Thanks for the link Beachcomber
www.eaves4women.co.uk/Documents/Recent_Reports/Men%20Who%20Buy%20Sex.pdf

I see Melissa Farley's name also linked with this report.

Found this debate www.economist.com/debate/days/view/574

Note that yet again, the women stating that sex work is an acceptable career and should be legal isn't actually a sex worker herself, despite being the head of a sex workers project.

This one is appears to be a blog from a retired prostitute criticising Melissa Farley and wasn't something I picked up as being mentioned in the Bennachie complaint.

maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/a-load-of-farley/

Justice Susan Himel found her testimony highly questionable:

I found the evidence of Dr. Melissa Farley to be problematic?her advocacy appears to have permeated her opinions. For example, Dr. Farley?s unqualified assertion?that prostitution is inherently violent appears to contradict her own findings that prostitutes who work from indoor locations generally experience less violence. Furthermore?she failed to qualify her opinion?that [post-traumatic stress disorder] could be caused by events unrelated to prostitution. Dr. Farley?s choice of language is at times inflammatory and detracts from her conclusions. For example, comments such as, ?prostitution is to the community what incest is to the family,? and ?just as pedophiles justify sexual assault of children?.men who use prostitutes develop elaborate cognitive schemes to justify purchase and use of women? make her opinions less persuasive. Dr. Farley stated during cross-examination that some of her opinions on prostitution were formed prior to her research, including, ?that prostitution is a terrible harm to women, that prostitution is abusive in its very nature, and that prostitution amounts to men paying a woman for the right to rape her.? Accordingly?I assign less weight to Dr. Farley?s evidence.

Please give me some proof that what's suggested in this blog isn't true.

www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/07/23/on-the-swedish-model/

Uppity, I'm really baffled by your response to me at 18:18. I was saying that feminist analysis is crucial and valuable. That there isn't a 'neutral' position in any research, all researchers come at it from some perspective. And so trying to discredit academics for being feminists (like in the OP) is meaningless. Anyway it doesn't really matter, don't want to derail the thread for it, but just wanted you to take me off your shit list . I agree with you.

Gosh that Honest Courtesan blog is rather sad. This for example;

maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/advice-for-clients/

I don't have much to say about Ms McNeill's opinion of Ms Farley really - I couldn't get past the personal nature of the comments - accusing Farley of hating men and sex and of spreading 'mad lies'.

It is of course not surprising that people wish to attack Farley and her work. Her work threatens the staus quo. It threatens a lot of people who have a financial stake in prostitution. It also threatens a lot of people who have an emotional stake in prostitution.

This debate is really very simple.

Either one thinks that men should be provided with sexual access to women and children, by society, or one does not.

If you think men are entitled to have sexual access to women and children then you only really have one logical option - legal prostitution. The problem is that legalizing prostitution has been shown to exacerbate the problems intrinsic to commodifying sex. Trafficking increases, under-age prostitution increases, the number of street prostitutes increases, organised crime increases. This has been shown to be the case in several zones (Amsterdam, Nevada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Denmark for example). At the same time the inherent harms of having undesired sex with several strangers a day remain. So does the violent and the abusive behaviour of the johns and the pimps. Prostituted women continue to be overwhelming made up of the vulnerable, the poor and those who are racially discriminated against.

Thereby to be for legalized prostitution is to be for trafficking, rape of children, pimping, organised crime, violence against women, racism, the exploiting of the poor, the exploiting of victims of abuse.

If one does not believe that men have the right to sexual access to women and children and one accepts that prostitution is a class, gender, race, poverty, and human rights issue, there are only really two choices - criminalisation or the Swedish Model.

Criminalisation harms the women in prostitution - it makes them criminals, makes it hard for them to leave prostitution, it makes it virtually impossible for them to access legal recourse against violent johns and pimps, it makes it hard for them to access health care and other support services. Criminalisation stigmatises women and blames them for their own exploitation. Criminalisation may or may not reduce the number of trafficked women and children depending on the legislation of individual countries and how it is enforced. Criminalisation has been shown to encourage corruption however.

Then we have the Swedish Model. This model makes it a crime to buy sex but not to sell it. It declares the institution of prostitution to be violence against women and children - particularly poor women and children. It states that society's tolerance of prostitution is a barrier to that society achieving gender equality. The Swedish model is holistic - it aims to educate the public to the harms and realities of prostitution and it invests money in helping women who wish to leave prostitution to do so (by tackling poverty, housing, drug and mental health issues). This model has seen a huge reduction in the number of women and children trafficked into Sweden and there has been a shift in the public perception of the acceptability of the sexual exploitation that prostitution represents. There are fewer men choosing to use prostituted women. There are fewer women becoming prostitutes. Women who wish to exit prostitution are doing so and being properly supported in order to re-enter mainstream society.

I'm of the opinion that the Swedish Model is the only humane one we have so far. (That is if one considers women and children to be deserving of the human right to bodily autonomy.)

The principles behind the law is that, in Sweden, prostitution is regarded as violence against women and children, it is intrinsically harmful not only to the individual prostituted woman or child, but to society at large, and represents a significant barrier to the Swedish goal of full gender equality. From this premise it was necessary to implement a strategy of zero tolerance to end this intrinsically harmful behaviour in society.

Just to be clear the Swedish Model does not make it a crime for the prostitute to sell sex - pimping, brothel owning and profiting from the prostitution of another person are criminal offences.

Beachcomber have you read this? It suggests that the Swedish Model is doing more harm than good.

MsAnnTeak - can i ask why you asked the question "will we all have to have a rethink?" in your OP?

do you currently agree with Melissa Farley's views/the assertions she makes? are you going to fundamentally change your mind if she is discredited on the basis of her methodology?

if you don't currently agree why did you say we?

in the economist debate Farley said:
"The few who do choose prostitution are privileged by class or race or education. They usually have options for escape. Most women in prostitution do not have viable alternatives. They are coerced into prostitution by sex inequality, race/ethnic inequality, and economic inequality."

i don't need stats or peer-reviewed studies or independent authentication to believe that's true.

and the blog you linked to criticising the swedish model was by a sex-worker who specialises in BDSM which IMO is vastly different from being a "normal" sex worker...

"In Sweden prostitution is regarded as an aspect of male violence against women and children. It is officially acknowledged as a form of exploitation of women and children and constitutes a significant social problem... gender equality will remain unattainable so long as men buy, sell and exploit women and children by prostituting them."

Scottish opinion

A Critical Examination of Responses to Prostitution in Four Countries: Victoria, Australia; Ireland; the Netherlands; and Sweden

Norway and Iceland have also now adopted the Swedish Model.

Yes I have read it SGM.

I find the this bit of the conclusion bizarre;

Hence, as we and others have written elsewhere, we believe that it is in the ideological and cultural domains that the creation of the ?unique? Sex Purchase Act and the above mention discrepancy must be found. It has to do with a desire to create and uphold a national identity of being the moral consciousness in the world; with notions or ?good? and ?bad? sexuality; with the whore stigma; with creating new forms of sexual deviancy; with a communitarian, rather than liberal, political culture, and perhaps above all: a stereotypical and uninformed understanding of prostitution. Our stance when it comes to policy regarding prostitution is that it has to be based on knowledge rather than morality or radical feminist ideology.

Susanne Dodillet seems to be accusing the Swedish Model of being about prudishness and some sort of outdated victorian style morality rather than about the human rights of women and children not to be sexually exploited and treated as commodities..

What is your take on it?

The Scottish decision- no Scandinavian laws.

Not really OLNK.

A decision has not yet been made actually.

The article you link to describes how the Scottish parliament does not want to rush any legislation or decisions.

"Tory, SNP and Liberal Democrat committee members said they recognised the importance of the amendment but said it should not be added late to the wider overhaul of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill, currently at its second stage of parliamentary scrutiny."

I don't think reviewing prostitution laws was in the SNP Manifesto, and Trish Godman is no longer an MSP, so the subject is unlikely to arise within this Parliament.

My apologies, I was recalling the response of the Law Society of Scotland back in February and erroneously thought that was the conclusion.

Glasgow City Council seem pretty determined.

www.endprostitutionnow.org/

www.theglaswegian.co.uk/glasgow-news/news/2011/03/10/end-prostitution-now-campaign-backed-by-thousands-of-glaswegians-102692-22979667/

www.endprostitutionnow.org/time-for-change/introduction.aspx

For the last ten years Glasgow has taken a proactive stance on prostitution, working tirelessly to support the victims, their families and communities affected by this exploitative trade.

We believe that prostitution is a form of commercial sexual exploitation which disproportionately involves men using vulnerable women, children and, sometimes young men, for their own sexual gratification or financial gain. It is a clear form of violence against women, rooted in gender inequality and abuse of male power.

Our priority over the last 10 years or so has been to provide quality prevention, early intervention and exiting services for victims. However, it is now clear that unless we tackle the demand we will never see a decline in this harmful activity.

Scotland has taken some steps to tackle street prostitution through the Prostitution (Public Places) Scotland Act 2007 - which made buying sex in a public place an offence. However, whilst street prostitution has declined, indoor prostitution continues to flourish as men who buy sex in premises do so without committing an offence. Advertising for sexual services is now at an overwhelming level in newspapers, magazines, on television and through the internet.

We want to follow the example of countries like Sweden, Norway and Iceland who have introduced successful laws targeting the buyer of sex. We believe that by criminalising the purchaser we can dramatically reduce prostitution.

LOL, you've never been on my shitlist Alys. Sorry, it did look like I was responding to you didn't it, I was acknowledging that you'd bitten and so all right, I would too and then I went on to answer MsAnnTeak, but that wasn't clear, so sorry.

Why is there an insistance of discussing prostitution and for some here there always has to be a link to children and it isn't, or can't be seperated? Having sex with children is paedophilia, it's against the law. Children can't consent to sex with adults.
Scotland's mentioned. If you copy some quotes into a search it will bring up thousands of other sites all stating exactly the same and stemming from Ms Farley's research.
Our first grandchild is due shortly and yes, it matters to me if there's a person who is influencing law-makers, influencing governments who are changing policies and laws globally and they are being discredited to the extent of accusations of lying, manipulating data, cherry picking results to suit, producing papers which haven't been before an ethics committee, using questionaires which aren't open to scrutiny, not only by one, or two people but whole bodies of academics. This women is also responsible for influencing in the sexualisation of children research which has hit the headlines recently and my own personal view is, it's implications could be extremely damaging for children, especially girls.

None of my business but would be interesting to know how many of you who have such negative views have children ?

Results for Scotland are online , type in Trish Godman Consultation 2010 and you should get them.

Tried that, the only relevant thing I found was a statement from ScotPEP saying they'd had confirmation that "someone" would take on the job of representing a Bill to Parliament.

X post! I didn't try paedophilia!

Yes, because one lone feminist is a greater threat to your grand daughter then the sex industry shills who would like to make using prostitutes as acceptable renting a dvd.