Good piece on sex work by Laurie Penny

[SolidGoldFrankensteinandmurgh]

Here. She puts it a bit more elegantly than I usually do...

Sorry Goth I meant to go but I laughed so much I missed me bus, but going now as I am getting a lift instead, Godwin by the way is often linked with the term Nazi Sab, nothing like dictator completely different things HTH

That's why I said "very nearly" Leith. Calling someone a "dictator" in a debate is a similar silencing technique as calling them a Nazi.

Leith, I agree that first people need food and shelter, good mental health and space to really be able to engage in politics. It's fundamental and it is especially so when you consider whether women who are in the industry actually have the privilege of those things to be able to really understand their exploitation.

I think in some ways you are right, people can not engage with the political process because it doesn't seem to reflect their concerns but as I said earlier up thread there is a certain amount of cognitive dissonance or what I would refer to as alienation. people are alienated from the political process because they are alienated from themselves and their true abilities, their labour and their "ideologies" are shaped by the powerful interests of those who wish to exploit them. The working classes have yet to be conscious! I would argue that prostitutes working within the industry lack consciousness in the same way.

Of course I have always had a problem with labour because they do not represent working people but it could also be argued that unless working people wake up and gain class consciousness they are not ready to lead politically. Of course they have to do this.....I mean look at the massive mistake of the bolsheviks in thinking that elites should think for people because they were the only people capable of liberating the workers.

RadFems have been very active in local communities and in activism, in setting up refuges and in working to help women exit prostitution....is that not grass roots? (I'm not radfem but I support this whole heartedly as the way to make change happen) I also believe in collectivism over individualism so in some ways I think allowing the small percentage of "empowered" people in prostitution a voice could in fact have the unintended consequence of hiding the real abuse and harm in the industry and silencing the much larger percentage of women being abused. A stand should made somewhere!

Is it ever a human right to sell sex? it can never be a human right because the corresponding human right is the right to buy sex from people who lack socio/economic power

Leith - Something you are unable to do is not a choice.

Freed slave could not "go home" for all the practical reasons I have stated above. So it was not a choice for them. You saying that they could choose to go home is wrong.

Again, as Sabrina has already said, you completely ignore the men who demand prostitutes.

So if we women who demand an end to prostitution are such terrible "dictators" because we are (accordingly to the privileged viewpoints you favour) denying women their right to work as prostitutes...

does this men that the men who go to prostitutes are in some way liberating them and helping them?

Even though these same men rape, abuse and murder prostitutes leaving them with high rates of PTSD and other trauma?

Leithlurker it's clear to me you are the mn member who also goes by the name of OldLadyKnowsNothing. What happened did you too get locked out of your account? You need to stop exaggerating your Okaaaaaaaaays. It's a bit of a give away.

"daily risk of: Violence, Rape, STDs & HIV, humiliation, PTSD. But the problem here is legalisation of prostitution cannot protect them from those dangers"

Legislation means less stigma which means workers are more likely to go for regular STI checks and report abuse against them to the police (even with the Swedish law). Do you think sex workers who aren't forced are going to want "rescued" and have police and social work interfering with them and confiscating all their earnings and condoms (yes that's what the police do- sometimes even in the UK where they have no right to).

In the Netherlands for example it is legally mandatory for a condom to be used for both oral sex and vaginal sex. Do you think condoms are used in prostitution as much in countries where they have made it illegal?

I think it's reasonable to say a man has a higher chance of getting an STI if he has unprotected sex on a one night stand with a stranger picked up from a bar as opposed to having protected sex with a prostitute in a country where prostitution is legal.

@Pushthebutton don't make accusations unless you know for certain.

"you completely ignore the men who demand prostitutes."

So what about the men (and sometimes women and couples) who buy sexual services? Do you want to know what they eat for breakfast?

"Why is it so bad to think that men should have the right to buy women's bodies?"

Here you go again more emotive language and dysphemisms. Noone's body is being "sold". Sex workers sell a sexual service.

It's easy to get hung up on the 'high class' prostitute's experience if you're not careful - I don't believe that all prostitutes are victims, for the record. But I do think that the Belle de Jour's of this world have a disproportionate amount of 'airtime' (compared to the coerced, desperate, pimped women) in which to perpetuate the "I'm doing something that I love and am good at, and being paid for it" stories.

The problem here is that the issue of prostitution then becomes all about an individual's choice to sell sex. An individual's right to sell sex, even. This has a massive and negative effect on the group of prostitutes for which this isn't a choice. Those that are trafficked, pimped, runaways then pimped, those with a low socio-economic status, were abused in childhood, desperate for money, see no other option, the list goes on. They are all dismissed, denied or brushed under the carpet in one sweep of that prostitute's "It's my choice" statement.

Even if an individual prostitute (for example Belle de Jour) feels that she is only selling a 'sexual service' and not 'her body,' what is absolutely certain, is that women and children's bodies are bought and sold for trafficking for the sex trade. Prostitutes 'selling their bodies' has been part of the vernacular for an awfully long time, Frans - and for a reason. It's how many prostitutes actually feel about what they are doing.

I think Donna Hughes puts it really well:

"The enormity of the sex trade throughout the world is overwhelming, but the only way to proceed is to acknowledge the violence and exploitation for what it is and create remedies accordingly. Legalization will only benefit traffickers and pimps and compromise individual women and the status of women in the long run. In the words of one survivor of prostitution: "Legalization will not end abuse; it will make abuse legal."

In the words of Scot-pep from just 1 hour ago:

"when will those who claim to be looking out for the interests of women start listening to the actual lived experiences and voices of sex workers - we want RIGHTS NOT RESCUE, and this comes in the form of decriminalisation!!!"

www.facebook.com/Scotpep

Prostitutes 'selling their bodies' has been part of the vernacular for an awfully long time

For an awfully long time most people in the world thought planet earth was flat.

To assume something is true just because it's been said a lot or because a lot of people say it is a logical fallacy.

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

How? Even if prostitution itself is legal; rape, assault, trafficking and abuse would still be illegal.

But prostitutes themselves use the term 'selling their body" Franz - hardly the same as saying the earth is flat.

I'm willing to bet the majority in the UK don't.

They are all dismissed, denied or brushed under the carpet in one sweep of that prostitute's "It's my choice" statement.

Legalized prostitution doesn't mean there can't be exit programmes for those who want to leave.

As for any children involved- that isn't the fault of adults paying for sex with other adults. It's the fault of paedophiles. Hunt down pedos not what willing adults do in hotel rooms.

The questions thus become:

1. Does the individual's right override the wellbeing of the whole group?

1. Does legalisation and regulation actually work and make life better for prostitutes?

The answer to both, imo, would be No.

Research in places like Nevada, where brothels are legal and supposedly regulated, from Melissa Farley or even Louis Theroux, tells me that legalisation is not the answer.

In Nevada: For the privilege of working in a state licensed brothel, women must hand over a large percentage of their earnings to the brothel owner, she usually has to pay for any extras such as condoms, toiletries and even bed linen. She can be fined for falling asleep during her shift, or appearing late for a line-up. She's often required to live 'on site' for days or weeks at a time and is not permitted to leave the brothel grounds.

She has weekly STI testing but interestingly, the customer is not required to prove is freedom from STIs by producing a recent certificate of health. She is registered as a sex worker, which can then effect her ability to get health insurance, another job etc.

Source: It's like you sign a contract to be raped.

The abuse suffered by prostitutes is not necessarily illegal, especially not where prostitution is legalised.

Oh, and just in case anyone believes that "Legalization of prostitution doesn't mean there can't be exit programmes for those who want to leave:

In Nevada again:

Farley found a "shocking" lack of services for women in Nevada wishing to leave prostitution. "When prostitution is considered a legal job instead of a human rights violation," says Farley, "why should the state offer services for escape?" More than 80% of those interviewed told Farley they wanted to leave prostitution.

Frans @Pushthebutton don't make accusations unless you know for certain.

I am certain!

Or, if you're not happy about just talking about Nevada:

Here's Australia. In the territories where prostitution is legalised and regulated:

"The legalisation of prostitution not only fails to alleviate the harms of prostitution. It creates new and serious harms. It creates a culture of prostitution. When brothel prostitution is legalised men?s prostitution behaviour is normalised. Prostitution takes an ordinary and everyday place in the culture and girls and boys, women and men are educated that the behaviour of the buyers, in Melbourne in 1998 60,000 men per week, is acceptable."

A culture of prostitution. Does anyone really want that?

I don't get your point about Australia.

Laws are part of the super-structure not the base of society and using laws to minimise harm, either legalisation or in criminalisation of buyer/sellers is not the answer when you overlook the economic structure.

It's no use having laws and exit programmes when there is an ever increasing pool of forced labour or poverty stricken women being poured into the industry everyday.

Only educating women, ensuring access to (free) higher education, free childcare, better support for single mothers, access to affordable quality housing, forcing employers to pay a living wage, predistribution of wealth, ensuring that women on lower wages are able to take maternity leave etc & raising aspiration has any hope of freeing women.

I like what Alexandra Kollontai a real revolutionary had to say on the matter in 1922

"The hypocritical morality of bourgeois society encourages prostitution by the structure of its exploitative economy, while at the same time mercilessly covering with contempt any girl or woman who is forced to take this path"

"It is also significant that in the capitalist countries prostitution recruits its servants from the propertyless sections of the population. Low-paid work, homelessness, acute poverty and the need to support younger brothers and sisters: these are the factors that produce the largest percentage of prostitutes. If the bourgeois theories about the corrupt and criminal disposition were true, then all classes of the population ought to contribute equally to prostitution. There ought to he the same proportion of corrupt women among the rich as among the poor. [insert, if it were really a choice ???] But professional prostitutes, women who live by their bodies, are with rare exceptions recruited from the poorer classes. Poverty, hunger, deprivation and the glaring social inequalities that are the basis of the bourgeois system drive these women to prostitution"

Nothing much has changed in nearly 100 years but then we have had capitalism for some 250 yrs. Which rather makes the case that nothing can and will improve under capitalism.

"Nothing much has changed in nearly 100 years"

I disagree. 100 years ago prostitution would have been done dominantly on the streets. Now it is done mostly indoors. And if escorts today make £150 an hour (sometimes more) they can't be that poor.

Again, Frans - you're concentrating your attentions on the high class end of prostitution. You're supporting the 'rights' of the high class prostitutes at the expense of the others - the ones who are pimped, walking the streets, desperate and drug addicted. The streetwalkers, and many (if not most) of the brothelworkers are not making £150 hour. Especially not after they've paid a madam/pimp a cut of the earnings.

In fact, I remember a poster pointing out on another thread that a quick google confirmed you could get sex for £20 in London. That's a lot of clients in a hour if you're going to make £150/hour.

Like I said streetwalkers in the UK are now the minority. Escorting/call girls make up the majority of sex workers in the UK.

If you want a better idea of what they earn go look at some random profiles on adultwork.

"I remember a poster pointing out on another thread that a quick google confirmed you could get sex for £20 in London"

Not sure where exactly but from a London escort not a chance they often charge £200+ an hour.