The greens and prostitutes

[IceBeing]

Be gentle as I am new to thinking about this.

I found the Natalie Bennett's comments on decriminalising prostitution pretty persuasive - what am I missing?

She basically said that sex workers would like this policy (having contributed to it) and that research from other countries indicated it was the way forward.

Tbh, I think we will get nowhere attempting to engage with someone who doesn't even recognise male entitlement & violence as significant to these issues. I don't think we should allow Mary to further derail the thread.

Here i am thinking women are agents of our own bodies and actions, what was i thinking suggesting such a thing...

I'm not the one with control issues here . I am not positing women as the gatekeepers of sex. I just think I get to say who touches my body and when. I'm funny like that.

I never said my partner can't complain or offer alternatives if our sex life isn't working for them. I haven't said anyone couldn't do that. I am just shocked that you would thing it was a reasonable course of action that a someone would seek to have sex with someone else if their partner had just given birth. Bearing in mind that women are quite vulnerable at that time there is a power differential you are choosing to ignore.

Is WRONG the new version of TESTIFY!
?

I saw what she said as more an issue with mutual respect and love for each other over your bizarre idea that one is constantly feeling entitled to one thing more or less than the other.

Eg: my 3yo wants to play with a toy. So does her friend. They want to stay friends, so they compromise and share and respect the fact that they are both now happy.
Ta-da! Everyone's a winner. It's something most people learn as pre-schoolers.

Right now I have listened to the podcast I see a bit more what you mean. I suppose I am seeing it as a literal problem rather than the linguistic. I admit I watched the film on Bosnia trafficking a few months ago and so hearing the term since then has bought those images to mind. I do understand a lot of women in prostitution have been coerced and conditioned, usually from a very young age, to accept their 'position'. It doesn't mean they should fade into the background in discussions by any means. However my point is that they would not starve if they got away even if they had no education as we have welfare and there are outreach programmes set up to help. Not assuming these all work or the women are all able to leave for various reasons, but if they manage they have far better chances than someone trafficked from another country. Again, not ideal, but none of the models seem to be.

scallops Mary posted about women getting off lightly if they murder their kids before 1yr of age, so she seems to grasp that women's brains have changed significantly in that time. It's a bit like cherry picking tarot readers for her quotes.

Of course the fact men's brains don't naturally go through anywhere near the same levels of hormonal or physical change in their entire lifetimes for such a long period of time as a woman does in pregnancy and post-birth (not to mention all of the other physical changes women's bodies go through - the only part not affected being a small part of the inner ear) - men are somehow comparable in this when it comes to their sex drive being a 'need'. It is their puny natural brains that they simply can't cope with.

"Mary, oddly I understand where you're coming from saying that patriarchy can't be blamed for everything. I also agree that there are elements of feminist discussion which do come across as women can't be blamed for anything they do/ everything is stacked against us women, with which I don't agree and find quite off-putting.

However on this topic, some things are just plain wrong because they are wrong and prostitution is one of them."

I am not its greatest fan but i am a realist and that means i accept certain facts i may not actually like, unlike others who just stick their fingers in their ears and scream "patriarchy" until the annoying facts are drowned out.

It drives me nuts, after what happened to me and my forced ejection/ban from my GP's surgery due to his "and you think you did not deserve it comment" causing a loss of temper (along with some physical and property damage) i spent 8 weeks being escorted through my local hospital by 2 security guards who stood in the room where i saw my new doctor.

And once i explained the entire thing plus my ban from any local surgeries in the area due to my violent reaction to the first assholes comment he was far less of a prick and ordered the guards outside the room, to be fair to those guards they look more fucking revealed to be leaving than i was to see them go.

So after counseling and all the rest of the crap for a few years at the Orchard center im just doing my thing working and never really thinking about it other than when something really reminds me and even then its a flash more than a long drawn out affair. Then one day in town out of the blue is a person who i have not seen for years bouncing up and down in front of me raving about how i should tell my story to this group and how it will help so after a bit more pestering i said yes thinking it was a group of people who had gone through something similar recently.

I refused to do groups in the past so had no idea what to expect and as it turns out it was the local "all men are misogynists and its all patriarchy's fault" fan club who expected me to reinforce their crap with my story and how i "survived gang rape and torture etc" well they got told to fuck off and i started looking into feminism to see just how messed up they were and hell its a mainstream ideology.

I am not interested in sympathy and im certainly not a poster or banner to be waved around and im no fucking survivor either, what i am is baffled by this victim mentality i see as well as the lack of agency it assigns women.

Maybe i am missing something but so far im not impressed with the so v called empowered but victim's lot i have seen here and elsewhere.

/rant over.

thanks.

Actually I see now why Mary is sounding familiar to me. My friend couldn't understand the whole Page 3 'fuss' as she put it. She said much the same about women being able to do as they want with their bodies.
It comes down to the idea that if that is all you feel you have to offer, society has failed you. No one is looking at the person behind the tits. No one is going to want to have the person behind the tits working for their organisation in this digital age when it will be posted all over the notice board or on the company website. Not to mention that the men aren't doing it - and therefore it doesn't hold power for them. You can only do it when you are young, the right shape and colour. The 'power' the woman gets is short lived while it reinforces every aspect of male dominance and is on her record for life. Maybe we need to go over that for Mary to understand a bit better?

Here's an interesting article on libertarian politics:

www.alternet.org/youre-not-boss-me-why-libertarianism-childish-sham

"You're not the boss of me"

" I am just shocked that you would thing it was a reasonable course of action that a someone would seek to have sex with someone else if their partner had just given birth."

AGAIN il say it is not my place to decide for another couple what is or is not reasonable and that has been my position all along.

You however as a liar and manipulator have not only misrepresented my position as saying it is reasonable but also directly ignored my other comments regarding long term or permanent injury that puts either the man or the woman out of commission in regards to having sex.

As i pointed out already you are all about control and have no interest in helping anybody apart from yourself by controlling sex socially just like you do in your personal life.

You would make a superb male conservative.

Mary, you are clearly a survivor and had a really terrible thing happen to you.
You sound as though you have chosen not to bend over again and instead be rather aggressively strong - understandable.
However please do not feel that you need to now rip every woman who cannot be as strong to pieces by perpetuating the worst of the internet because you feel women should "man up" or whatever. Some people have had the treatment you did all of their lives, since children. They haven't had counselling or doctors. Have a thought for the people less fortunate and perhaps try to understand that not everyone has the same strength as you have managed to find.
People have usually been in worse situations than anyone on this board. Finding the humility to accept we all react differently is very important if you want to discuss something rather than come across as ranty.

You're absolutely right mary that you and your experiences should not appropriated and exploited by anyone else

I don't believe that that's what is happening here however

flora, that article perfectly expresses what I was trying to say earlier in the thread. I just don't believe that personal freedoms necessarily beat damage to society.

Wrt prostitution, I think the message that "women's bodies are commodities, consent is for sale" is very dangerous in a country where rape is so common.

"Actually I see now why Mary is sounding familiar to me. My friend couldn't understand the whole Page 3 'fuss' as she put it. She said much the same about women being able to do as they want with their bodies.
It comes down to the idea that if that is all you feel you have to offer, society has failed you. No one is looking at the person behind the tits. No one is going to want to have the person behind the tits working for their organisation in this digital age when it will be posted all over the notice board or on the company website. Not to mention that the men aren't doing it - and therefore it doesn't hold power for them. You can only do it when you are young, the right shape and colour. The 'power' the woman gets is short lived while it reinforces every aspect of male dominance and is on her record for life. Maybe we need to go over that for Mary to understand a bit better?"

Ah so i did not realize i was talking to women who were the wrong side of 35 and have had a few too many death by chocolates over the years.

But please go over why women from their teens onwards objectify themselves regardless of what men think and get offended if a man below what they consider to be good enough for them dares talk to them.

I know i did it and so did all my friends, we saw ourselves as commodities far more than men ever did and god were we offended at being addressed by a man if he were not at our level of worthiness.

Men did not make me do that i did it myself and talk about entitled damn we got pissed at men daring to look at us if they were not up to our level let alone try to chat us up.

I suppose the real difference is that i grew out of it and look back at what a preening child i was shrug and move on but for some reason your lives took another turn and you look back and only see how its all mens fault and you were just poor victims of the patriarchy right?

Get over it or learn to like cats would be my suggestion.

Wow! I haven't lied or been manipulative. I may have misunderstood you. But you were the one who stated that it is up to the woman to decide whether her partner can have sex with another woman whilst she is recovering from childbirth. You are the one putting her as the gatekeeper and ignoring the motivations behind why a man would want that. And although I maybe wrong, it is not beyond the realms of possibility for me to think that you would respond to a question with something you would consider reasonable.

Do you think it is reasonable? (A question I actually asked before you started throwing around personal insults).

Look im heading off now but just know that i get what you are saying and have no hate towards any of you even those i have bumped heads with, i can be abrasive to put it mildly and have been since i was a kid and life has done anything but soften me.

So sorry if my temper got the better of me and il try to be more clear when i post in future as well as ask any questions in a less aggressive way.

have a good night.

"Get over it or learn to like cats would be my suggestion."

Mary, I'm really sorry so much shit has happened to you, but I don't get why you are sending so much hate to posters on here?

Ah, x post.

Sleep well.

Apology not accepted.

You let your mask slip badly there.

I feel no more anger toward you than I do any other MRE, by the way. I merely pity you in your inadequacy.

mary24go I'm sorry that happened to you but really you are not demonstrating strength in your posts here, it's more like rage and denial. You can experience your rage as you see fit but please don't direct it at posters on this board.

This bit is particularly sad why women from their teens onwards objectify themselves regardless of what men think - no understanding of how conditioned we are by society to not see that it is not actually us in control here. I don't think your teenage behaviour sounds anything like mine. I was quite ridiculously flattered (blushing/shy) if any man dared to talk to me. Looking down my nose at them has come the more I have had to deal with them, sadly.

And sorry to disappoint but I am not over 35, am a size 10, 5ft 8, DD cup and frequently get whistled at and called MILF - I assume you'll understand that all as some veiled compliment

Can someone run me through how the Greens propose to get more global effect? I seem to remember something about them feeling they can influence other countries if kept in power long enough - am I incorrect in thinking there was a link to possibly being able to get more of a handle on trafficking? Sorry to sound like a stuck record but I do think they need to focus on this before introducing any policies on prostitution.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. It's really helped me clarify my thoughts on this.

So far as I can see that prostitution is / should be illegal because
a) it is harmful to many of the women involved
b) it is harmful to society as it undermines the concept of freely given consent
c) it is harmful to society as it perpetuates the idea of women's bodies being commodities

On the other hand, prostitution should be legal because
a) it would be safer for many of the women involved
b) women should be able to sell access to their bodies if they want

Obviously it's much more complex than this, but have I missed any of the main ideas?

Yep Jessica that about sums it up I think, though I would dispute the argument that legalising/decriminalising prostitution makes it safer for the women involved.

This is a great set of FAQs for anyone new to the debate...
www.genderberg.com/phpNuke/modules.php?name=FAQ&myfaq=yes&id_cat=2&categories=Prostitution+FAQ#5

And yes TBR, I was surprised by that too... not something you'd usually hear from a woman