Feminists want to legalise child prostitution

[DJLippy]

I just read an article about how the liberal left and feminism were working towards legalising child prostitution.

If anyone wants an insight into the SWERF slur and the debate around the legalisation of prostitution this is a brilliant place to start.

I cannot believe that in 2018 progressives are arguing that anyone who is against 'youth sex work' is a zealout.

Considering Telford, Rochdale ect how can the left be considering such moves? Does anyone believe the police would take those girls claims seriously if their abusers had a 'licence?'

www.christianpost.com/news/is-there-a-secret-plan-legalize-sex-trafficking-minors-feminist-activist-tells-all-222211/page1.html

The fact that she had to publish this article in a Conservative Christian magasine should speak volumes about the state of the Left today. Why isn't anyone angry about this???

@Happystripper You can't de-stigmatise prostitution by calling it 'sex work'. Blaming feminists for the stigma around prostitution is just wrong. We want to protect the people who work in 'industry'

It sounds to me like, as well as supplying predergast/paedophilic demand, 'youth sex work' would actually function as a prostitute college.

WIth cuts to child protection services they wouldn't even need to traffic women in from elsewhere - austerity has created a prefect talent pool from which they can recruit.

Stripper - nobody on either side of this debate - in the UK, anyway - supports the criminalisation of prostitutes, underage or otherwise. You're being disingenuous. In fact, Nordic Model supporters in the UK recently won a landmark High Court judgement expunging historical convictions. Nobody from the decrim side supported the case or took part in supporting demonstrations. To my mind, this speaks volumes.

WIth cuts to child protection services they wouldn't even need to traffic women in from elsewhere - austerity has created a prefect talent pool from which they can recruit.

Precisely. Another reason I so dislike liberal/third wave/sex pos feminism and the wider social constructionist/pomo liberal left. It's so bloody classist. The most vulnerable always thrown under the bus to suit middle class wants.

Exactly this already happens, DJ. I have a friend who works in public health and liaises with the police on trafficking in our county (predominantly rural and poor - one of the lowest median wages in the UK). Most trafficking in our area is not women being brought into the country from abroad by people traffickers, it's teenage children being groomed then moved 5, 10 miles down the road to nearby towns.

And thanks to Lass for pointing out that in the UK child prostitution is illegal for the punter, not the child.

NMF

The problem is that the term prostitution has been used for so long as derogatory slang that it’s too fraught with horrendous connotations to allow for a clear discussion. There are plenty of willing sex workers, there are also trafficked and abused individuals. I also agree with the above comments about calling it child abuse over child prostitution etc, sorry for the slip.

The problem is that I understand it’s awful to see children abused but the answer isn’t to shove a blanket ban on sex work and hope that makes everything fine and dandy, it won’t. What’s needed is aid for those who are either coerced or underage (as it’s not necessarily only young girls that can be forced). Outreach programs / police safe havens etc. not criminalization that takes up police time picking up women who are just trying to work.

Again you're arguing with a straw man. I (and pretty much everyone on this thread) don't want to see women criminalised, we want to see the punters and pimps criminalised.

I think "A single batshit person who thinks they are a feminist" would be a better opener. I disagree with a lot of feminists on a lot of things but condoning child prostitution is not something I've encountered once in all my discussions.

@LangCleg

That may be more or less true but the article that the post is focused on is talking about the US issue and saying that that is somehow encouraging minors getting involved in sex work which is simply not accurate. So I was trying to contextualise that particular case since everyone seemed to be running with the idea that liberal feminists somehow love child abuse.

I do agree more or less with the uk model right now, at the very least I’d feel safer working there than in the US. There are, however, many improvements to be made and still a lot of stigma being perpetrated that does cause only more deaths.

@FermatsTheorem

Umm well I guess no need to argue that then as that’s pretty much exactly what’s in place in the UK...

Still seems to be pretty rife with child abuse and sex worker murder as you all have kindly pointed out though.

One batshit feminist - she has 40k followers and she's posting stuff like this on twitter normalising child prostitution:

@melissagira
Follow Follow @melissagira
Looking for a feminist donor to give $1 to @3Wave for each time they get bullying tweets about their support for youth in the sex trades.

America is an absolute disgrace when it comes to prostitution.
The law does indeed make it impossible for a prostitute to come forward even after she has been beaten and raped without a condom or whatever because she'll only get arrested. It needs to be at the very least decriminalised for the worker across the continent.

I'm really not getting from that article that all Liberal feminists want to legalise child prostitution.

But weirdly in America you can still marry child brides, 200,000 children have married in America in the past 15 years, so I wouldn't put it past them.

Liberal feminists here in the UK are sometimes but not always pro sex work but I think because that view is backed by the blokes it gets promoted.

The tem SWERF is just daft and is used by the exact same demographic who use terf and care about pronouns. That insane NUS guide was written by this demographic. Clueless. WTF are our universities "teaching" anymore!!

People knowledgeable about the sex trade understand it's complexity and would never ever support criminalising a 15 year old for her work in prostitution.

"Feminists" want to legalise child rape ? I know we live in an era where words are losing all meaning but this makes as much sense as "Christians who don't believe in Jesus but make ritual animal sacrifices to Odin instead". It's no basis for discussion to twist the definition in such a terrible fashion.

Her Bio

Senior reporter at @FairPunishment // Prev: @villagevoice @PacificStand // Author, Playing The Whore, @versobooks

Sounds like a well connected journalist to me....

Where are all the happy sex workers?

Plenty of people are vocal about their medical and social use of marijuana. Happy prostitutes seem to be much quieter.

www.thenation.com/article/amnesty-international-calls-for-an-end-to-the-nordic-model-of-criminalizing-sex-workers/

An article that quite detailedly explains the issues of the Nordic Model and why amnesty international has stepped up against it. Of course it’s not as bad as criminalization, nowhere near so, but it doesn’t provide the quick solution people think it does.

@merrymouse

Hey! Hi merry mouse, I’m one of those non existent happy sex workers you speak of! Sorry we’re a bit quiet when people only want to shout over us and tell us that they know better about what laws are good for us.

Words like 'youth sex work' normalise child prostitution.

Efforts to de-stigmatise sex work aren't about destigmatising the prostitutes, it's about de-stigmatising it for the clients. They don't want to feel bad for using prostitutes. Call them 'sex-workers' and they can be woke and still get their dick sucked on a Friday night,

Also there’s an entire hugely vocal community. The problem is sex workers aren’t politicians or public figures so their voices aren’t heard everywhere like some, as apparently speaking up about a profession is more obscene nowadays than backing drugs. It doesn’t mean they don’t do what they can.

I'm almost inclined to argue even the words child prostitution normalises what is actually child rape.

Amnesty was basically taken over on this issue by one of the richest pornographers and pimps in the UK who likes to pretend he's a"sex worker" - funnily enough that seems fairly characteristic of so called grass roots sex worker organisations. When you dig closely they tend to be run by and for pimps.

Actually we do want to be called sex workers over whores/prostitutes (both used extremely derogatorily). Do you also object to gay people not wanting to be called fags or homos? It’s not much of an ask.

@FermatsTheorem

Although I don’t agree with you on that point, let’s say you were even right. The vast majority of sex workers agree with roughly the exact same arguments as amnesty put forward. It’s representative of us, just because it makes you uncomfortable doesn’t make it wrong.

Why bother asking to change the name? In 10 years sex work will be just as stigmatised. You can change words but they'll still become associated with the 'shameful' thing they represent.
Why do we keep having to change the words for disabled people?

cripple - Handicapped - disabled - mobility impaired

mong - spastic - special needs - service user

I can guarantee you kids will be calling each other 'service user' in the playground in a few years.

Until we address the reasons why the thing the word represents is taboo altering language won't help.

@DJLippy

Well because despite common belief we are actually still people and we even have feelings. Prostitute still is rooted in stigma and implies coercion etc. Sex work is much more neutral and although it can still be used to describe those that are trafficked it also allows room for those who choose to work in the sex industry and don’t feel like a slur being hurled at them when someone thinks prostitute is just the standard term.