Conflicting aims re prostitution in Scotland

[ALassUnparalleled]

Just seen this on BBC

Consultation over plan to decriminalise prostitution - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-34190170

Which is only a few months after this.

Campaign calls for ban on buying sex in Scotland - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-33046501

The MAP promoting legalisation of brothels is an independent so hopefully will never get anywhere with this.

And the links don't work sorry.

Consultation over plan to decriminalise prostitution - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-34190170

Campaign calls for ban on buying sex in Scotland - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-33046501

And it's an MSP obviously, not a map.

jeanurquharthighlandsandislandsmsp.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/prostitution-law-reform-bill-consultation.pdf

That's the full consultation document, which I read earlier this evening. Seems entirely rational and evidence-based to me.

Personally i think a decriminalisation of paying for sex and legalisation of brothels is the better outcome. Women have always and will always be prostitutes. Anything that regulates this industry will, in turn, protect them in ways they have never had before.

Well we will have to disagree. I would prefer to live in a country where this " industry " did not exist. The it's always happened and always will argument is no reason to tolerate it let alone encourage it.

There is no evidence that decriminalisation protects women but there is evidence that it fuels demand and demand requires supply and increases trafficking.

There is no country where this industry doesnt exist, OP.

Where is this mythical country? Or perhaps I should ask, when is it?

Have you read the actual consultation document? Followed the links giving evidence to support her pov? Considered the questions she asks?

Or is this going to be yet another thread about why radfem ideology is more important than the lives of real women, living here and now?

I can assure you I am not a radfem.

I didn't say there was a country where prostitution didn't happen. I would prefer to live in a country which isn't treating it just as an industry to be regulated.

How would you prefer to see it?

We have had the debate on here before - the Scandinavian model. Usually Scandinavia is held up as an aspiration for Scotland.

I would not want to see brothels being legal in Scotland and Scotland being out of line on this with England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

And if you actually read the consultation document, you will see that the Nordic method doesn't actually make women - real, live women, living now - safe/r, indeed it makes sexwork much more dangerous for the most vulnerable.

I would love to see Scotland make the lives of sexworkers safer, in advance of rUK.

Again, have you actually read the consultation document? How would you respond to her questions?

How do you feel about (up to) 4 person co-ops/brothels being decriminalised, so that rather than having to work solo, sex workers could support each other - no exploitation involved?

I don't consider prostitution to be a viable career option- so no I would not be in favour of 4 person brothels.

I've already said " the it's always happened " argument isn't good enough to justify giving up and seeking to normalise prostitution.

So you'd rather continue criminalising women who work together for safety purposes? Whether that's a "career option" (which it isn't for most) or a stopgap to keep a roof over dc's head/food in their bellies?

Because it makes it really easy for women to exit sexwork with a conviction for brothel-keeping (two or more consensual/voluntary sex workers working together, no coercion involved, both/all can be convicted...) on their record, y'know?

Where is this mythical country? Or perhaps I should ask, when is it?

Where is this mythical country where there is no murder? Should that be legalised?

Have you read the actual consultation document? Followed the links giving evidence to support her pov? Considered the questions she asks?

Have you read any threads on prostitution on here before? There has been a great deal of discussion of various pieces of research on prostitution including discussions of how research papers are influenced by vested interests.

And if you actually read the consultation document, you will see that the Nordic method doesn't actually make women - real, live women, living now - safe/r, indeed it makes sexwork much more dangerous for the most vulnerable.

This document is not the final word on prostitution you know. It is a partisan document which has a selective approach to evidence. It is difficult to find evidence in relation to prostitution that does not integrally involve advocates either for or against prostitution and the evidence has to be approached carefully. The methodology of the research needs to be examined (who selected the questions? how are they formed? how are the participants selected? etc) as well as the conclusions drawn - they often over-reach the issues addressed in the evidence.

Unlike many other pieces of research, this paper bears up to academic scrutiny both in its methods and in the authors' recognition of other factors that would need to be taken into account in making a policy decision:

www.lse.ac.uk/geographyAndEnvironment/whosWho/profiles/neumayer/pdf/Article-for-World-Development-prostitution-anonymous-REVISED.pdf

A quick rule of thumb for me reading anything that claims to be a comprehensive or unbiased review of the evidence is whether this survey is included. It was ignored by Amnesty and is ignored again in this consultation paper. Frankly, that tells me all I need to know about the rigour or lack of rigour of this consultation document.

Women have always and will always be prostitutes.

I don't even know where to start with such an ignorant, offensive, and downright stupid comment.

I'd certainly enjoy watching someone attempt to prove it.

I think we should decriminalise murder.

It has been around for a very long time and exists all over the world.

Some people actually want to be die, and others should be able to have an interesting career killing them.

As long as everyone is consenting, why not just regulate it and make it respectable.

Sure, most murders aren't done with the consent of the murdered, but that is really not important.

Women have always and will always be prostitutes.

Well, that's ok then.

Children have always and always will be used as child labour.

Women have always and will always be sweat shop workers.

Migrant workers have always and always will be victims of slavery.

Men have always and always will be victims of serious assault.

So, let's legalise all those things as well, because if we regulate those things it will, in turn, protect all those people in ways they've never been before. It'll still harm those people, but fuck it, eh? They're expendable and it's never going to affect you.

Worked so well with slavery before, didn't it?

Just imagine what would happen if Scotland legalised brothels and the rest of the UK didn't.

Imagine being a young woman out for an evening in the first border town on the motorway, or at the motorway services. How do you think groups of men on the way up to a brothel are going to treat women and girls they encounter whilst on their monthly trip?

Now imagine the brothels themselves, where these groups of men are headed, and the women working shifts to meet demand, the brothel owners recruiting more vulnerable women to meet this demand (lets face it, most women doing this are only doing it because they are desperate for the money - none of them will be putting it on their CV later).

Do these situations sound like something you want to enshrine in law?

Brilliant, now we can add 'sex tourism' to all the other kinds of tourism that 'fuel' the Scottish economy.

I need to read the paper obviously, but have a real knee-jerk reaction to legalisation/decriminalisation in one part of rUK and not another. I used to live in a part of Edinburgh with tolerance zones and it did not fill me with optimism about the male of the species.

chunky I think it would be like German border towns where brothel owners bring in bus loads of men from England to go to the brothels.

m.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-902533.html

Who needs actual brothels?

In parts of Germany, they set up caravans in restplatz so that truck drivers can use a woman at the same time as stopping for a piss. Most of the women in the caravans will be very young and from outside Germany, because most German woman have been priced out of prostitution because traffickers bring in younger and younger women and girls from all over the world and charge the men less for using them than German women did.

None of this is about protecting the women. It is all about ensuring there is a steady supply of younger and younger women for the type of men who pay for it to use.

HirplesWithHaggis wrote - "you'd rather continue criminalising women who work together for safety purposes?"

The pimp/madam/punter lobby claims that every non-trafficked prostitute is already safe because she can (allegedly) refuse any customers she doesn't want, and that prostitution is (allegedly) just like cutting hair or flipping burgers. Pimps, madams and punters then use this illusion of safety of prostitutes to campaign for decriminalisation/legalisation of pimps, madams and punters. They don't care about prostitutes as people, they only care about what prostitutes can supply to pimps, madams and punters. Why are you seemingly unconvinced by the assurances of the pimp/madam/punter lobby's propaganda, which is the loudest voice in prostitution?

I think prostitution is not safe for prostitutes, but it's an uphill struggle to convince people that prostitution is unsafe, because too many people seem to accept the pimp/madam/punter opinion that prostitution is (allegedly) as safe as working in a hair salon.

The impression I get is that sex workers don't even agree among themselves on what would provide most safety for them.

There appears to be conflicting 'evidence' re the 'nordic' model and the NZ model.

I have a sneaky suspicion that's because the people asking and getting involved in the politics aren't the ones being locked up in a brothel 16 hours a day (or 24h if Der Spiegel is accurate) in a foreign country, and aren't the ones selling themselves to afford drugs/alcohol for themselves/their boyfriends..

My guess is there're asking the farmers, not the turkeys about Christmas.

What a shame your academic paper references Melissa Farley, Flora, all credence gone, just like that.