The Guardian shills for prostitution

[TerfinUSA]

Based on how wonderful it is to decriminalise it, in New South Wales.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/01/the-future-of-sex-work-a-photo-essay

The sex workers profiled are as Guardian-predictable as you'd expect. There's the trafficking-denialist head of the Scarlet Alliance (theuntameableshrews.com/2018/04/11/scarlet-alliance-sex-worker-collectives-misogyny-by-lily-munroe/)

There's the 'award-winning' founder of a charity that arranges prostitutes for disabled people.

There's the 'feminist' who says that 'mainstream feminists' have committed a 'great act of violence' against her. (strangely there's no mention of actual physical violence, just imaginary feminist violence).

There's an investment banker turned male-prostitute.

There's the inevitable 'transwoman of colour'.

There's the 'geek gamer' who plays computer games before having sex.

Have we reached Peak Guardian!??!

Whenever you think you’ve reached Peak Guardian, something like this comes along and you realise that before was only a false summit.

They truly hate women at the Guardian. Which is clear when they publish articles such as this one.

Omg. What a load of bollocks.
I like the mandatory "feminists are committing great violence against us". Really don't get how having an opinion equates to violence

Terrible article all round ...

"Not much trafficking happens ..."
"I help the disabled..."
"I'm a man and I help rape victims..."

What about the research evidence showing that prostitutes exhibit similar or more severe PTSD than war veterans? Prostitutes are living a war zone. Daily.

Makes me sick when The Guardian sanitise that.

The guardian as a whole does not like women. (A couple - and I think it is only a couple - of honourable exceptions among their female columnists).

It's quite complicated because I agree completely with decriminalisation for the workers themselves.

It's abhorrent that in parts of the world a prostitute has literally no ability to find help, if they are attacked or raped without a condom, they can't go to the police because they will get arrested as soon as they say what happened. In America these women will get arrested then can't get an abortion either. They may even get arrested for showing up at the hospital if they say too much.

So criminalising the work is wrong.

In the UK the worker herself is not committing a crime but aspects that surround the work are illegal which often support her working in a safe environment, such as running a brothel. So this is not perfect either as many places will just get closed down and girls will need to work on their own at lease temporarily. When House of Divine in Milton Keynes closed, they had been running 6 seperate brothels and that was a LOT of girls left unemployed, there weren't other brothels around because HoD had a sort of hold on the market.

Full criminalisation I guess is just easier, but I wouldn't herald it as progressive, it's just lazy. And where you find it there is always a huge increase in trafficked women and the prices drop considerably.
€10 a job in Germany for some.

It's a predictable and one sided article that gives absolutely no analysis. I stopped reading the Guardian a long time ago.

The Guardian doesn’t do ‘analysis’ when it comes to women’s issues, the Guardian does ‘condescendingly correcting feminists.’

0phelia I agree that the situation in Germany isn't how I'd want to deal with things.

I thought the Nordic model would be a good solution, but apparently that hasn't worked out as well as people expected - sex workers' rights groups say it's made them less safe and more vulnerable to everything from rape to deportation.

I don't have a problem with the idea of selling/buying sex, but as usual the fundamental problem is male violence. I don't see how any social policy can actually keep women safe until male violence is addressed.

Thanks Ophelia (I take it you meant full decrim in Germany).

I totally agree that the prostitutes themselves should never be criminalised. But is there any way of drafting legislation which would make, say, three women working out of a flat together and employing a bouncer distinguishable from a pump running three women but claiming he was a bouncer? I feel very strongly that pimping and brothel keeping should remain illegal (for the reasons you mention in connection with how badly wrong full section has gone in Germany), but I can't see how you could draft a half way house law without it containing more loopholes than a Swiss cheese.

Full section? Full decrim. I hate autocorrect.

Right, that’s it, I’ve deleted the Guardian app from all my devices.

Only problem is what I do next. I’ve always used the Graun for all my news needs. I can’t afford £6/week for the Times after the discounted trial ends. Any ideas?

Potplant any students in your house? We’ve got a student pack and I think it’s about £26 a year

Pot - ring up their customer helpline. They have cheaper subscriptions available, they just don't advertise them on the web. Several people on here have rung up to cancel the intro offer, explaining they can't afford the full whack, and magically been told there's a cheaper option (laptop only? smartphone only? rather than access across all devices) which they can switch to.

Failing that the Torygraph is only 8 quid a month, and its actual news reporting is for the most part good, and it carries a wide range of commentators, not just right wing ones (for instance, Joan Smith writes for them fairly regularly).

Just for a little bit of balance - there is a Julie Bindel article on the situation in NZ and how it really isn't working and shouldn't be a standard we aspire to.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/30/new-zealand-sex-work-prostitution-migrants-julie-bindel

I agree that the guardian is losing the plot - but this seems to be offering a different viewpoint on the legalisation argument.

I am in two minds about this. In principle I don't disagree with women choosing to do with whatever they want with their bodies and I'm sex positive. However the failure to tackle pimping, trafficking and violence should be the first priority. if those issues could be dealt with more effectively, women will be more able to make the choices they want.

A zero tolerance policy to sexual violence of all kinds including that happening within the sex industry would be a good start.

What's alarming to me is that for many feminists at university 'sex-worker inclusive feminism' is the latest craze. There seems to be a concerted push to de-stigmatise prostitution. IMO this isn't about making it a respectable, safe profession but removing the stigma for the men who buy sex. Look how many strip clubs have sprung up since austerity. They were never so prominent before - now it's all out in the open. I'm not a prude (far from it) but I don't think any woman can walk past one without feeling revulsion and sadness.

If it becomes a normal thing you do at the end of a lads night out (naughty boys ;) then obviously demand will rise. With disaster that is waiting - Universal Credit, plus the two child minimum for child benefit - it's a perfect storm forcing women into sex work. If you consider how austerity has also decimated social services and removed many child safeguards - you could almost be forgiven for thinking somebody was taking advantage to recruit young teenage girls into the profession. (and my 'recruit' I mean groom.)

Is there a way to protect the women in prostitution without giving more power to the pimps and brothel owners via a veneer of respectability?

THIS article very interesting. What do you think 'youth sex work is?' Child rape? That's woke isn't it...
www.christianpost.com/news/is-there-a-secret-plan-legalize-sex-trafficking-minors-feminist-activist-tells-all-222211/page1.html

What a disturbing stance

I doubt we shall ever stop the sale of sex but future generations of men can be raised in not believing they have to have sex and they have the right to buy sex

One mentioned Kings Cross in Sydney it was there it first hit home how demeaning the work is (have since worked with ex sex workers in therapy mostly thought
it was a quick way to earn good money).
Sitting in a cafe people watching we saw a few young women going off with men and returning about 20 minutes later. One young women walked off with a man then they approached an older man he could hardly walk he must have been 80 and off she went with him. I guess it doesn’t matter who your customer is but it certainly isn’t the story they tell when glamorizing the work

On the Wright Stuff this morn one topic for discussion was 'porn in schools'. Its a normalisation of porn, prositution and linking them with children. Teenagers at first...

"What's alarming to me is that for many feminists at university 'sex-worker inclusive feminism' is the latest craze."

Oh yes, you get NUS reps who are 'transmale', 'disabled', 'sex worker' (yes, all three at once). It's like each adjective is bonus woke points to make them more electable.

"On the Wright Stuff this morn one topic for discussion was 'porn in schools'. Its a normalisation of porn, prositution and linking them with children. Teenagers at first..."

I just came downstairs and DH had this on.

The presenter and the dr christain bloke who has form for misogyny were speaking over the 2 women panellists and calling them prudes.

They said that it was not illegal to show porn to children (?) I am sure it is a grooming crime.

They were entirely coming from male perspective, neither considering or caring how this would feel to the girls, most mainstream porn in misigynistic and racist, they are from male gaze and a male gaze that wants to hurt, humiliate women at that. They are generally not about sex they are about asserting dominance through sexual abuse.

So the idea is to sit the kids down in the classroom and the boys and girls get to watch sexual dominance displays on film of males over females. Yes that sound fucking AWESOME.

The two men were also nodding away at the idea that it would be goo to address boys feelings of inadequacy re penis size. What about the girls turning up at a&e with anal damage? Nor a mention, don't matter. What is important is to focus on boys dicks and reassure them that their penises are awesome. Like, all of history always.

Fucking pair of arseholes.

I have turned into a person with zero sense of humour around this topic.

This is what freaks me out about the legalisation debate. Guys watch all this awful porn where the just treat women like a series of holes to be violently rammed. When they get a prostitute, do you think they will respect her autonomy? Even though you buy sex you can't treat the women however you like.

There already reports of young women who are having very painful sex they don't want because they think this is normal. Boys are also being groomed by the porn - thinking that girls like it when you pull their hair and finish in their face. What do you think they'd behave like if they bought the woman?

Porn is propaganda against women. What other minority group would be treated like this as 'entertainment.' No wonder men hate women so much. It's NEVER been this bad, has it? I'm only 35 but when I was young I thought equality was just around the corner. Now I wonder how long it will be until they take our vote back off us.

Because of course all johns just want to a girl to play computer games with then fuck.
I mean girls who play computer games are so rare and are put on such a big pedestal by male gamers that men are queueing up to pay to be part of it.
Men are always wanting to play with women and not just have women watch them play, you can tell by the way they actively encourage women gamers and game makers and in no way threaten to rape them or harass them.

I mean that’s definitely what sex work is like, definitely definitely.

How fucking stupid do they think we are.
Actually don’t answer that.

I have eyes.

I can see porn, I have seen it with my eyes.

This gaslighting that porn is actually lovely and all about affirming women and promotes consentual sex and mutual pleasure is ridiculous.

I see you.

QUOTE
"Often, if a sex worker gets raped or robbed, they have no recourse to legal action, as they won’t be taken seriously"

Yes because women are always taken seriously when they say they've been raped. Especially after they've just accepted money for sex...

"feminists are committing great violence against us". Really don't get how having an opinion equates to violence

I was thinking about this very thing this morning, because it is, lets face it, an odd use of the word violence... and then the mists cleared! It is tactical.

Hate speech and hate crime are all about violence and harm aren't they? 'Incitement' to 'violence' and actual 'violence' and 'harm'.

Something feminists annoyingly never seem to slip up on, is the violence thing, because we know that systemic violence is used to oppress us and we want to name it, not replicate it.

So what laws can those who want to silence and restrict women turn to, if women commit neither incitement to, or actual violence?

Er. None.

So what do you do. You make up some ludicrous accusation that 'misgendering' or whatever will actively force people to commit suicide in droves, even though this is bullshit.

Then say 'not avoiding saying or doing things that makes certain people claim they will commit suicide if it is said or done, is actually 'incitement'.

Because suicide is a violent act, they believe you can call persisting in anything which makes people threaten suicide- 'incitement to violence', 'hate' or 'hate speech', in a highly arse about face, deeply manipulative and controlling, sociopathic reasoning.

Tactical misuse of words. Feminists commit violence my arse.