NUS and prostitution - confused...

[Ubik1]

They seem to haves passed a motion which holds anyone who thinks the Nordic model of managing prostitution is the preserve of right wing radical feminists.

I'm confused. I don't know much about sex work but I do know it is linked to trafficking of women and children and organised crime. I would be delighted if men were criminalised - but maybe I'm wrong?

Here's the motion but you might not be able to view it...

"What do you know about selling sex? "

I don't have any experience selling sex, and I think the people who do have experience (including both currently active and retired) are the ones we should listen to when deciding on legislation. Not radical feminsts or extremist Christians or people who know nothing other than what biased tabloids with agendas tell them.

Maybe the people who 'sell sex' aren't the people best placed to decide. Maybe it's better to have a multiagency approach and y'know make a decision based on evidence.

Radical I know.

"There will always be people poor and desperate enough to sell their bodies."

Tackling poverty would be a start. And it would help sexworkers a lot more than police breaking their doors down (with drug dogs, in the hope they could find some drugs to charge the women with to make their lives even more miserable; and like I said media photographers to take their pics as they are paraded onto the street)

Why wouldn't poverty be tackled alongside the Nordic model? I have never seen any supporter of the Nordic model argue otherwise. Why should anyone who supports the Nordic model naturally support women being publicly shamed, or having their children taken away, or being mistreated by immigration authorities? No feminist I know supports the Nordic model without also saying that there need to be improvements to other services and structures. To say they do is a lie.

there is no way that men being entitled in law to purchase access to the bodies of others do anything other than actively harm women, POC, LGBT people, disabled people, poor people, and other vulnerable groups. punters cause harm, real harm.

Anyone who supports full decriminalisation would also have to support improvements to services and poverty reduction strategies (because it sure as hell isn't good enough right now), unless they are stupid enough to believe that there is no trafficking or coercion or rape, so that is a moot point when it comes to legislation.

But I have yet to see any evidence that full decriminalisation benefits anyone other than the most "privileged" (and I use that advisedly) prostitutes, pimps, and punters

<a class="break-all" href="http://m.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-902533.html#spRedirectedFrom=www&referrrer=www.google.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here is a news story about decriminalisation of prostitution in Berlin

"I have never seen any supporter of the Nordic model argue otherwise."

Irish tabloid "The Sunday World" outed a sexworker by having a reporter make a fake booking then go in her house with a hidden camera on his clothing (which captured her face and the street she lived in). The video was put on The Sunday World's YouTube channel and lasted 3 weeks before it was finally taken down. The video also included a screengrab of her online profile.

Needless to say, that tabloid is a big supporter of the Nordic Model.

The Berlin customers paid their fee at the entrance. Many took drugs to improve sexual performance and could last all night. A line often formed outside Alina's room. She says that she eventually stopped counting how many men got into her bed. "I blocked it out," she says. "There were so many, every day."

Alina says that she and the other women were required to pay the pimps €800 a week. She shared a bed in a sleeping room with three other women. There was no other furniture. All she saw of Germany was the Esso gas station around the corner, where she was allowed to go to buy cigarettes and snacks, but only in the company of a guard. The rest of the time, says Alina, she was kept locked up in the club.

Prosecutors learned that the women in the club had to offer vaginal, oral and anal sex, and serve several men at the same time in so-called gangbang sessions. The men didn't always use condoms. "I was not allowed to say no to anything," says Alina. During menstruation, she would insert sponges into her vagina so that the customers wouldn't notice.

www.lauraagustin.com/numbers-of-trafficking-victims-fall-in-germany

Here's another link showing trafficking figures have actually fallen in Germany

The NUS has comprehensively jumped the shark.

"SWERF" is such an interesting slur. If you are OK with women being raped, beaten, exploited and killed, you are golden, and right-on. If you support the ending of an industry which facilitates the men who do that to them, you apparently "hate sex workers". In what universe does this make sense? (I'm thinking of Kate Smuthwaite here, who has been called a "SWERF" for giving her time, talent, money and professional reputation to support exited women.)

And the final bit of that motion, calling for us all to follow the lead of the English Collective of Prostitutes and the Sex Workers Open University, tell you that whoever drafted that motion is either extraordinarily gullible, or extraordinarily duplicitous. Any of us could set up an organisation and press for it to be accepted as The Authentic Voice Of Sex Workers, but that wouldn't make it so.

From my above link:

2000 – 926 victims [of trafficking]

2001 – 987 victims

2002 – 811 victims (German law regulating prostitution enacted)

2003 – 1235 victims

2004 – 972 victims

2005 – 642 victims

2006 – 775 victims

2007 – 689 victims

2008 – 676 victims

2009 – 710 victims

For some reason there was an increase the year after, but since then the stats have fallen.

"If you are OK with women being raped, beaten, exploited and killed, you are golden, and right-on."

That's bullshit and you know it. The whole idea behind decrim is to make things safer, that's why so many prostitutes advocate decrim.

I think it would be extremely difficult to link that small drop on human trafficking figures with the decriminalisation of prostitution. You've no idea what other work was going on at the time to combat the trafficking of these young men and women.

lazocutor wrote - ""The Sunday World" outed a sexworker."

Doesn't the fact that there was an "outing" show that sex work is actually not just like any other job?

I rephrase "no feminist supporter of the Nordic model". I can assure you that no feminists I know take much notice of the tabloids' opinions, or would advocate the "shaming" of any woman.

Why are you denying the harm reported by prostitutes working in areas where there is full decriminalisation? Why are you denying the harm that is done to society by supporting punters in law to purchase access to the bodies of others?

"Doesn't the fact that there was an "outing" show that sex work is actually not just like any other job?"

Do you agree with publicly shaming those who choose to sell sex?

" I can assure you that no feminists I know take much notice of the tabloids' opinions"

IMO The Sunday World's attitudes towards sexwork couldn't be any more radically feminist.

No feminists I know agree wth publicly "outing" those who sell sex with themselves. Pimps I don't care about.

Nope, lazocutor. Some prostitutes advocate decriminalisation. The ones who don't either get labelled "SWERFs", have lies told about them, or - more realistically - never get a platform in the first place.

What's your stake, here lazocutor?

You have already demonstrated that your assumptions about what radical feminists believe and do are completely wrong and you have no interest in being put right

I'm not getting offended as you put it on their behalf. It's entirely my own "being offended" I don't want to live in a society which tolerates prostitution or stripping. It offends me greatly that there are 2 strip clubs in Edinburgh city centre less than 5 minutes from the castle.

As for the "if you have no direct experience you can't express an opinion "argument, that's simply bollocks.
As it is Ms Grant consulted and researched widely before submitting her bill.

It never fails to astound me how vehement men are in defending their right to pay to rape a woman.

"Pimps I don't care about."

They didn't out a pimp. They outed a woman who sells sex and put the video on youtube, which showed her face, her address and enough info to allow people to track down her online profile. She changed her online profile name etc but I was still able to track it down. I let the agency know about the outing just to make sure they knew and in their reply they said they were very concerned about the risk to the woman's safety the Sunday World had caused.

" It offends me greatly that there are 2 strip clubs in Edinburgh city centre less than 5 minutes from the castle. "

Then don't visit them?

Not radical feminsts or extremist Christians or people who know nothing other than what biased tabloids with agendas tell them.