Laws that sex workers really want - anti-Nordic-model TED talk

[iismum]

A friend of mine just posted this video - it's a TED talk by a sex worker discussing how a NZ model is what (according to her) pretty much all sex workers want. She discredits full and partial criminalisation of sex work - which I quite agree with. She also talks about how the Nordic model is really bad for sex workers, whereas I support the Nordic model. But she made some interesting points - particularly how the Nordic model does not reduce the demand for sex work, it just makes it more dangerous and fosters more negative attitudes to sex workers. Is this really true?

I'd be really interested to hear people's thoughts about it. If you want to skip to what she says about the Nordic model, it starts at about 6 minutes in.

www.ted.com/talks/juno_mac_the_laws_that_sex_workers_really_want

Guardian - "Since I called you doughnut"

Hahahhahha

I thought you were signing off that long post with "Doughnut" - your nickname for yourself, or perhaps a previous MN name. It didn't even occur to me that you were clumsily trying to attack me by calling me "doughnut". That is such an utterly foolish sort of name-calling that I can but laugh at it, sorry

"I can and never will reconcile this notion that a human person's body is a substance for personal consumption by another person"

Are you talking about cannibalism? That is not what we are talking about here Nobody is talking about consuming a woman's body.

"And I will never reconcile that a human person's body can be bought and sold as though it is a substance"

It's not buying and selling, either. That would be slavery. At most, it is renting a body but not even that, since you can't do whatever you want to it. More realistically, we are talking about buying services (of an exceptionally intimate kind) for a short period of time, performed with one's body.

sillage - re "CoteDAzur's speculation has already been proven incorrect by the current existence of the legal multi-billion dollar pornography industry"

I haven't "speculated" nor said anything about porn at all. What are you on about?

A quick search of your posting history shows that you have a particular interest in porn, but that is not what we are talking about here.

Partial criminalisation like we have here in the UK is fine IMO.

It would be a disaster to introduce decriminalisation. The fantasy that magically all WGs would be cared for, provided with safety and still make good money is so naive when you look at Germany, A'dam and the trial zone in Leeds.

The last time this TED talk from January 2016 was discussed here (sorry can't dig out the original thread) I concluded to disagree with the speaker.

Everyone immersed in the industry whether selling or buying will obviously prefer a legalisation model, it's a no-brainer for WGs dependent on earnings, or blokes hooked on the hooker.

I wholeheartedly disagree with legalising prostitution because I would rather progess was made for girls and women in society.

It is a misconception that NM "drives prostitution underground" such as stated in this TED talk and by PPM above. Prostitution already exists underground seeing as most punters are married and do not provide their real name/number on a booking even under a legalisation model, so punters are always difficult trace in case of an incident, even with cctv and other "protections" cited above.

It's true that NM does not reduce the number of sex work transactions. A WG can earn good money with the added bonus that her clients will not piss her off so much to inform on him. NM arrests happen on informer basis. Police are not parked outside all known establishments arresting all the blokes unless the establishment is too blatant. They know who is who.

NM has significantly reduced street prostitution, which is the most dangerous and lowest paid type of sex work. It has significantly reduced trafficking because areas under NM are obviously less attractive to send WGs to work. These are benefits WGs will not find under legalisation / decriminalisation.

If you want to earn €5 a job, by all means support decriminalisation. You won't see any benefits.

buying services (of an exceptionally intimate kind) for a short period of time, performed with one's body

That made me nearly throw up

cote how does a person 'perform' an act of 'servicing' with their anus for example?

Are they not in actual fact 'allowing access' to their body to be used as a kind of convenience?

I am an anti-prostitution and gender radical feminist, which my posting history reflects. So what?

You don't recognize the sex workers in pornography as prostitutes. Okay.

You don't recognize that prostituted women and girls are treated as products on a market to be regulated like beverages, plants, and other items men consume to make themselves feel good. Whatever.

You either don't know the difference between working a job and being exploited, or it serves your interests not to care (the latter is my guess).

In a job, the more experience you have the more you're valued and can earn. Exploitation is the opposite, the more experience you have the less you're valued and the less you can earn.

13-year-olds bring pimps A LOT more money that 33-year-olds with twenty years of experience because you are very wrong about men not "consuming" women in prostitution. Exploitation consumes people's physical and mental health until there's little left of the original human being before she was turned into a thing to be raped in every hole, every day.

Guardian - Throw up? You sound like you have too delicate a disposition to talk further on this subject. Also given your odd questions ("How does one provide a service with their anus" - Really? ) I would rather you stop asking me questions and talk with people who have something to contribute. Have a nice evening.

Creepy language that minimises abuse does indeed cause a strong response in me. But I have heard a lot of stomach-turning stuff about prostitution - it comes with the territory.

your odd questions

There is nothing odd about getting to the crux of the matter. I am differentiating providing a service from allowing ones body and intimate orifices to be used as a convenience.

And because cote you use language that glosses over this important difference, it suggests you are either in denial about it, or benefit from obfuscating it in some way.

sillage - "You don't recognize the sex workers in pornography as prostitutes"

I wasn't thinking of women in porn when talking about prostitutes. I don't know if you've looked at a porn site recently, but many are not professional. Most content out there is free, done by amateurs who (difficult as it may be to believe) seem to be willing participants. When I said "prostitute", I was referring to women who have sex for money.

"prostituted women and girls are treated as products on a market to be regulated like beverages, plants, and other items men consume"

Workers are not products. They are not actually "consumed" as they work. Unless you mean being psychologically worn out and/or endangering one's health, I guess, and miners are "consumed" far more thoroughly than prostitutes in that regard.

"You either don't know the difference between working a job and being exploited, or it serves your interests not to care (the latter is my guess)."

What "interests" would those be, pray tell?

"In a job, the more experience you have the more you're valued and can earn. Exploitation is the opposite, the more experience you have the less you're valued and the less you can earn."

By that definition, models and professional sportspeople are all exploited - their "value" drops significantly beyond a certain age.

"13-year-olds bring pimps A LOT more money that 33-year-olds"

I understand that and that is partly why it is a good idea to force the industry above ground, to be regulated and controlled, and also so that pimps go the way of bootleggers.

"I wasn't thinking of women in porn when talking about prostitutes."

You're not a thoughtful person. Prostitutes are people who have sex for money. Pornography is filmed prostitution.

"Most content out there is free, done by amateurs"

You're a liar, and everybody who reads what you wrote knows it.

Most of the sex in the world is not paid, that still doesn't make BEING PAID TO HAVE SEX not prostitution. We aren't talking about people who are not paid, we're talking about prostitutes and the sex workers PAID TO HAVE SEX on camera.

Half-assed arguments that rely on willful ignorance of the realities of prostitution is why the Nordic Model is starting to be passed in country after country. You can only lie for so long until the feral facts of prostitution's many destructions to lives, families, neighborhoods, and nations outs you as a liar.

Also, there is no model or athlete in the entire world who made the biggest money of their lives on their very first day on the job.

Not a single one.

Get smarter or get out of this debate, you're doing your side no favors.

Everyone has their opinion or ideology on prostitution - but what I don't understand is clinging to an opinion that is not backed up by what happens in the real world and in real girls' and women's lives. Indulging in wishful thinking about regulations being able to magic away the harms of prostitution is misogynistic.

Decriminalization does not lead to regulation, it leads to proliferation. As pointed out upthread if prostitution was regulated by applying current standards of employment law and health and safety standards, it would be regulated out of existence. Or is the suggestion to have a whole set of different lower standards for the health and safety of prostituted people?

sillage - I'm not going to dignify your 3 AM rant with a full reply, but I thought these personal attacks need to be answered:

Most content out there is free, done by amateurs
You're a liar, and everybody who reads what you wrote knows it.... Get smarter

I don't know who you think you are, but I've been on MN under this one username since way back when it was all hills and trees. Beachcomber and many others know well that I am not in the habit of lying.

If anyone here doubts that much of online porn is free (i.e. You don't pay to watch it) and amateur rather than professional, feel free to ask on PM and I will send you the names of some websites where you can see for yourselves.

As for your accusation of stupidity: Thank you for your concern, but I have been tested (twice) and you would not believe my IQ if I told you.

"You're not a thoughtful person"

Did I forget to send you flowers on your birthday?

I wish these threads didn't descend into mutual name-calling and boasts of high IQ (!); it's such an important subject and does no one any credit.

"As pointed out upthread if prostitution was regulated by applying current standards of employment law and health and safety standards, it would be regulated out of existence."

That sounds like a win to me! Is there any way of making prostitution safe, legal and rare...? I guess not, without a massive change to social standards :(

Beachcomber - "an opinion that is not backed up by what happens in the real world"

I could have said the same thing.

Who here has visited brothels & talked to numerous prostitutes in a place where prostitution has been decriminalized and is regulated? Aside from me, that is.

"Decriminalization does not lead to regulation"

Where are you thinking of? It has certainly led to regulation in Holland, for example.

"wishful thinking about regulations being able to magic away the harms of prostitution"

I would say the realistic expectation is harm reduction, not magicking away. Prostitutes I spoke to in Amsterdam were very clear that they came to work there because they could work safely in broad daylight, in an environment where they could be independent (just paid their rent for the room & contributed for security personnel), didn't have to hide, and had frequent health checks.

If we regulate prostitution, including all the H&S regulation it requires (as mining has - both are dangerous professions - although mining is through the nature of being underground with dangerous gases/unstable surroundings, and prostitution is because of the clients - so in prostitution at least H&S could fix a lot of those risks)

I'm presuming that the next places we'll need to regulate are organ selling and commercial surrogacy?

It seems to me that there will always be rich people in need of a kidney or a chunk of liver, why are we so against them paying poor people to get it?

Sorry Cote but I see the term "harm reduction" and all I see is an admission that prostitution is harmful. And who does it overwhelmingly harm? Girls and women. And who overwhelmingly benefits from that harm? Men.

Government policy about prostitution communicates to citizens what is considered right or wrong. Decriminalization communicates the message that men are entitled to sex, that men are entitled to commodify girls' and women's sexuality and that sexism and the sexual exploitation and subordination of girls and women are not only inevitable but legitimate.

Good luck with running an equal non sexist society if that is your message. You have failed already by consigning a whole bunch of girls and women to the subclass "women to be sexually used by men".

I haven't done research in Holland but I have been to the red light district and a nasty menacing misogynistic place it was too. It was a crap advert for decriminalization. Anyway I thought there was debate in Holland over trying to backtrack as authorities have admitted that illegal prostitution and trafficking is out of their control.

www.ibtimes.co.uk/why-amsterdams-prostitution-laws-are-still-failing-protect-empower-women-1467733

www.spectator.co.uk/2013/02/flesh-for-sale/

The brothel boom is over. A third of Amsterdam’s bordellos have been closed due to the involvement of organised criminals and drug dealers and the increase in trafficking of women. Police now acknowledge that the red-light district has mutated into a global hub for human trafficking and money laundering. The streets have been infiltrated by grooming gangs seeking out young, vulnerable girls and marketing them to men as virgins who will do whatever they are told. Many of those involved in Amsterdam’s regular tourist trade — the museums and canals — fear that their visitors are vanishing along with the city’s reputation.

The day after the Amsterdam zone opened, more than a hundred residents from nearby neighbourhoods took to the streets in protest. It took six years for the mayor to admit in public that the experiment had been a disaster, a magnet for trafficked women, drug dealers and underage girls. Zones in Rotterdam, The Hague and Heerlen have shut down in similar circumstances. The direction of travel is clear: legalisation will be repealed. Legalisation has not been emancipation. It has instead resulted in the appalling, inhuman, degrading treatment of women, because it declares the buying and selling of human flesh acceptable. And as the Dutch government reforms itself from pimp to protector, it will have time to reflect on the damage done to the women caught in this calamitous social experiment.

OK Beachcomber-let’s look at what happens in the real world-using real data from real researchers and appearing in the peer reviewed literature.

You say Decriminalization does not lead to regulation, it leads to proliferation and where is your evidence?

For in New Zealand when the PRA was established there were fears that decriminalization would lead to proliferation parliament mandated that this should be examined 5 years down the line.

The result? No proliferation (GILLIAN M. ABEL, LISA J. FITZGERALD and CHERYL BRUNTON (2009). The Impact of Decriminalisation on the Number of Sex Workers in New Zealand. Journal of Social Policy, 38, pp 515-531 doi:10.1017/S0047279409003080-they concluded This study estimated the number of sex workers post-decriminalisation in five locations in New Zealand: the three main cities in which sex work takes place as well as two smaller cities. These estimations were compared to existing estimations prior to and at the time of decriminalisation. The research suggests that the Prostitution Reform Act has had little impact on the number of people working in the sex industry

Well New Zealand is a far away country about which we know little-let’s look at another case Australia. Australia is particularly interesting as different states have different policies ranging from criminalization, legalization to decriminalization-and so provides a natural laboratory to test the effects of different legal regimes on the frequency of sex purchase. And you know what? There was no difference ( Rissel C et al 2017 Decriminalization of Sex Work Is Not Associated with More Men Paying for Sex: Results from the Second Australian Study of Health and Relationships Sexuality Research and Social Policy DOI 10.1007/s13178-016-0225-1 )

The summary reads It has been claimed that the decriminalization of sex work may result in its proliferation, but there is no evidence to prove or disprove this claim. We investigated whether decriminalization was associated with the prevalence of paying for sex. A representative national sample of 8074 Australian men interviewed by telephone reported whether they had paid for sex ever and in the last 12 months. Cross-sectional associations between paying for sex in the last 12 months and their jurisdiction’s legal approach to sex work (criminalized, licensed, or decriminalized), were examined with logistic regression analysis, controlling for demographic variables and relationship status. Overall, 2.2 % of the men reported paying for sex in the past year—a proportion that was not statistically different by state or territory (P=0.26). …….

These authors go one to show that decriminalization is better for sex worker health-and they should know being epidemiologists they study this all the time.

So there you go-your unfounded claims meets real research

tangoman why are you not providing links to the stuff you quote? Is it because you haven't actually read the research but are just lifting quotes from www.menareentitledtosex.com? Or is it because you don't want us to look too closely at it, at who wrote it, who funded it, etc?

Beach - "I see the term "harm reduction" and all I see is an admission that prostitution is harmful"

I don't think anyone would argue against the fact that prostitution can be harmful - infection risks, psychological harm to those who are not equipped for it, etc. I have also seen and talked to many women who do it because they want to, for a short period of time in some cases, independently and on their own terms (no kissing, condoms always, a plastic sheet (can't remember its name) for when client wants to perform oral sex on them, client washes before sex, etc).

It is possible for the prostitute not to be harmed and imho that is what we should be aiming for. I don't believe that it is possible to completely eliminate the world's oldest profession.

As hard as it can be to believe, there are women who are willing to do it, who are not forced, who are not given a pittance while men around them grow rich, who are not beaten and abused, who are not drug addicts, who are in control of their environment, who refuse clients they are suspicious of. I have talked to many.

"And who does it overwhelmingly harm? Girls and women. And who overwhelmingly benefits from that harm? Men."

Yes I know all that, which is why I would like to see a practically beneficial approach that aims to control and regulate rather than a blanket ban that does none of the above.

"Government policy about prostitution communicates to citizens what is considered right or wrong."

Possibly but people are not really listening, much like with the failed "war against drugs", where many countries are now coming around to the practical approach that aims to reduce harm and accepts that it is possible for people not to be harmed through drug use. (Yes, I know the two things are not terribly similar, but the failed blanket ban is)

Beachcomber DOI 10.1007/s13178-016-0225-1 and DOI 10.1007/s13178-016-0225-1 are links-the DOI is a document identifier -put it in Google and up it will pop. I have read them very carefully and have full copies (courtesy of my University Library) and I can post who funded them it you wish

the world's oldest profession. tsk!

'Professions' require training by teachers, lecturers or professors in order to be qualified to carry out specialised work.

The only qualification 'prostitution' requires, is tolerating sexual subordination. The 'training' for this 'skill' is usually child sex abuse, rape, drug dependency, poverty. It is cruel to call that a profession. It is desperation and exploitation.

The question is a simple cost benefit analysis. What does prostitution contribute to society vs what does it take away? I would argue it takes away more and the only way you can make the maths work to believe it doesn't is if you really don't value women very much or to put it another way a man's orgasm has more value than a woman's life or mental state.

I can see the appeal after all sex is fun and all, but prostitution reinforces some very unhealthy attitudes towards sex as well as towards women (and actually towards men if you think about it), and whilst I am not philosophically opposed to two people exchanging money/sex I'm not going to be in favour of it until the benefits outweigh the costs. So when prostitutes stop getting murdered, suffer from ptsd, etc then fine, until then no dice.

One thing I'd like to see is that pimping/trafficking/grooming women into prostitution should be one of those decade or two in the clink crimes. It should be considered in the same light as murder and rape, because of what it robs us of.

Possibly but people are not really listening

Except that research has found that when prostitution is legalised and consequently considered more legitimate, demand goes up. There aren't enough local women who want to be prostitutes at the bottom end of the market, so trafficking in women by organised criminal gangs flourishes. As far as I am aware that's exactly what has happened in Amsterdam.