Legalised prostitution in Germany: from "Paradise" to hell.

[Lamaha]

The prostitution thread has been deleted so, as the subject is still worth debating, I thought I'd post this link from one of my posts there. The article describes the shocking conditions and human rights violations that come as a result of liberalising the prostitution laws; what happens when prostitution is normalised, and nobody blinks except the "prudes".

Prostitution in the educational system

Pro Familia, a member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), is an organization that advises schools in their sex education materials. Among the material they recommended for teenagers is a book called, “Sexualpädagogik der Vielfalt“ (which loosely translates to “Sexual Pedagogy of Diversity”). This text includes suggestions and material for projects in which students are asked to name sex positions and to “modernize a brothel.” In small groups they are to discuss what “services” a “Freudenhaus der sexuellen Lebenslust” (which loosely translates to “pleasure house of sexual lust for life”) should offer.

Those who protested this kind of content being introduced into curriculum were accused of being “reactionary,” “conservative,” and “prudish.

Members of the teachers’ union (GEW) in the state of Hessen were offered advanced teacher training courses between 2006 and 2015, taught by a pro-decriminalization lobby group called “Dona Carmen.” Teachers could collect professional training credits by participating.

Chilling echoes of how the trans lobby works in the UK, right?

www.feministcurrent.com/2016/05/09/legalization-has-turned-germany-into-the-bordello-of-europe-we-should-be-ashamed/

The comments are also interesting.

As I have strong links to Germany and had some background information I wanted to share with her, I contacted the article's author through FB. She made me aware that there is a feminist conference in Bradford in October, sponsored by Filia, which she will be attending. I looked at the programme and see there is nothing there about the UK trans situation. I know nothing about this group of women; do you (pl.)? Why are they not addressing this important issue? Here's the link.
filia.org.uk/about-the-conference

"The FiLiA 2019 conference brings together sisters taking down patriarchy, fighting injustices across the world, fighting violence towards women, pay disparity, discrimination against refugees, racism, classism. No topic is taboo. All are welcome."

A Mumsnet posse needs to be there. A good place to inform women, if they aren't already concerned.

that education stuff is insane.

OP,
Tricky one but my instinct is that it's important for women to meet and discuss the myriad of injustices etc without constantly having to focus on the trans issue.
While I agree that this is the greatest threat to women in terms of obliterating our collective identity and allowing men to take over all women's resources, sport etc I also think we need some space to focus on all the other things that affect women. Women have set up numerous political / direct action groups but - just as the lengthy thread about the police confiscating women's phones when they report sexual assaults evidences - there's a shed load of other issues that we must also address? Just a thought.

@truth, I guess you're right! The last couple of months I've been so outraged and concerned about the trans threat I have hardly given a thought to any other topic. Oh well, I guess this thread, on prostitution, shows that I haven't quite forgotten other problems facing women! Thanks for the reminder.

Why was the prostitution thread deleted? Surely that is in the feminism remit. Was it derailed? I do't know why I am asking - before the trans issues there was porn and prostitution and EVERY. SINGLE. thread was brigaded and derailed and full of NAMLTing and 'women's choice' all over the shop. That is the story of feminism, shut up and NAMLT.

Wow, I am really kind of shocked by that article. I would not have thought it could get that bad without someone saying, this is abusive.

I think people who want to follow this model are just so naive. And they often have that approach which assumes anything that looks like sexual conservatism, or really social conservatism generally, must be about oppression or prudery. Old-fashioned. It doesn't seem to occur to them that some of those old-fashioned ideas might have been about protecting people. To me this points to an educational problem.

I'm really pleased you reposted this Lamaha, it shocked me to my core when I read it and I've been thinking about it ever since.

it's a dystopia for the women inside those mega brothels. they have to pay the same entrance fee as the punters, plus cleaning fees, and probably rent for a bed in a dorm. they have to have sex with 4 people per day just to break even against the fees. it's obscene.

I ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole on prostitution, and came across this article

www.feministcurrent.com/2018/10/16/dennis-hof-dead-legacy-lives-advocate-legalize-prostitution/

from that article

In the United States, mainstream feminism has adopted a position unequivocally in favour of legalization, evidenced by the pro-prostitution stance taken by all feminist websites, from Jezebel to Broadly to The Establishment. Feminist critiques of the sex industry and arguments in favour of the Nordic model are not permitted, and those who do engage said critiques are marginalized, smeared, and ostracized. According to American third wave “feminism,” the notion that men should not have the right to buy access to women’s bodies is much more harmful than the actual exploitation and abuse men actually perpetrate on women in the trade

^^ this

if you advocate for prostitution, you put the desire of men to have sex without the need to obtain consent above women's right to bodily autonomy.

Everywhere I look the march of the predators and sleazebags is evident. It's hard to be pragmatic about it when you know that they sit down with our elected representatives and are not only heard but funded and praised.

I was not aware of this having entered the school system in Germany. I know Germany and Austria well, and I will say developments over the past decades have been disturbing. There were always brothels, but now there are ‚Laufhäuser‘, flat rate brothels, which is like an ‚all you can eat‘ for sex. Sex is way cheaper than a generation ago.

I guess the idea of pro-Familia might be to destigmatize prostitutes? I sure wonder how such a curriculum plays in inner cities like Berlin Neukölln, with high percentages of Muslim kids. If I were an immigrant parent and heard this is what my kid learns at a state run school, I sure as hell wouldn‘t want my kid to integrate into a society that produces such a curriculum. Just sayin‘.

The Nazis ran brothels in their death camps:

"they had to provide sex to selected prisoners every evening between 8 and 10 p.m., and on Sunday afternoons."

www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-nazis-brothels/new-book-reveals-horror-of-nazi-camp-brothels-idUSTRE57G45X20090817

Sounds familiar.

I’m pretty sure Filia is GC and that GC women will be attending that.

The current situation with regards to prostitution is horrific and all tied up with the trans shit in the global assault on women’s rights.

truthisarevolutionaryact
Everywhere I look the march of the predators and sleazebags is evident

"The march of the predators and sleaze bags"
I like it, very apt.

I'll use that phrase as a rebuttal to being told we're prudes.

And they often have that approach which assumes anything that looks like sexual conservatism, or really social conservatism generally, must be about oppression or prudery. Old-fashioned. It doesn't seem to occur to them that some of those old-fashioned ideas might have been about protecting people

I think social /sexual conservatives are coming at it from a morality about the sexual act angle which is definitely not where all of the feminist objections to prostitution are based.

The "old fashioned" stance is that women are, as they have always been, the property of men. Sure the way that property is used by men might vary between times and places. And these places which keep women abused and scrabbling to earn a living at the bottom whilst providing cheap sex and fat salaries to punters and brothel owners, thus upholding the traditional imbalances of power, sound pretty old fashioned to me.

Meanwhile right here in the UK you can buy this book aimed at 4 - 8 year olds:

"Illustrating the myriad ways that mothers provide for their children - piloting airplanes, washing floors, or dancing at a strip club - this book is the first to depict a sex-worker parent in a positive light by introducing the idea of bodily labour. We're reminded that, while every mama's work looks different, every mama works to make their baby's world better."

Yay progress! Rainbows and sparkles and unicorns!

I often wonder why these "feminists" clambering so hard for sex work to be seen as a job like any other don't take it up themselves. Great career choice, right? Liberating and empowering? A good choice for their daughters and friends? Or is it perhaps only those other women - you know, the ones with significant histories of sexual abuse, drug addiction, poverty, and no access to education - who get to be "liberated" by that particular job?

It was a quote from a really shocking article on flat rate brothels in Germany in 2013 which made me rethink what liberal feminism had been telling me about "sex work". www.spiegel.de/international/germany/human-trafficking-persists-despite-legality-of-prostitution-in-germany-a-902533-4.html

In particular this quote about the differences in the way young boys grow up seeing women in countries that don't have the Swedish model

"Nowadays, a little boy in Sweden grows up with the fact that buying sex is a crime. A little boy in the Netherlands grows up with the knowledge that women sit in display windows and can be ordered like mass-produced goods."

I think social /sexual conservatives are coming at it from a morality about the sexual act angle which is definitely not where all of the feminist objections to prostitution are based

The "old fashioned" stance is that women are, as they have always been, the property of men

I think that's a rather unfair assessment. I'm not remotely religious but I have seen criticism of prostitution from religious and/or conservatives from the point of view of the damage to human dignity.

Why was the prostitution thread deleted? Surely that is in the feminism remit. Was it derailed?

The deletion message just said "goady". One of the last posts before it went was my lemon cake recipe.

Meanwhile right here in the UK you can buythis bookaimed at 4 - 8 year olds:

The reviews of that book are making me spit tin tacks. The one below is particularly vacuous.

"This is the mothering book I've always dreamed of!How Mamas Love Their Babiesshifts our narrow definition of what a mother is, what a mother does, what a mother looks like, and what caring for our babies looks like"--Sarah Sophie Flicker, activist

Women being bought by men is as old-fashioned as it gets.

And if prostitution was actually about sex for the men, they'd save themselves all that time and expense by just wanking. It's not. There have been a couple of studies (one by Melissa Farley? Not sure. Funny how there aren't many studies of the punters.) which show clearly that what the buyers want is dominance, the feeling of lording it over someone.

There's no more complete lording than forcing sex acts on someone. That's why the brainiacs in the US military used it at Abu Ghraib on men. But it has as much to do with actual sex as force-feeding has to do with a good meal.

Damn right we're going to be "prudish" about that.

I think social /sexual conservatives are coming at it from a morality about the sexual act angle which is definitely not where all of the feminist objections to prostitution are based.

But what does morality about the sex act mean? It was never a random viewpoint, og sex is immoral somehow so we will restrict it in any way we can. It has to do with beliefs about the nature of sex, about how it relates to human dignity and human freedom. Sex has to have a moral value because people have moral value. Things like prostitution were considered immoral because they reduced women to sexual servants, and the existence of prostitution was considered to reduce women's freedom, not extend it.

I would also say that the feminist argument about these things is moral, and it implies a morality of the body and person. If it didn't you could really not argue that it is wrong to impinge people's freedom or reduce them to sexual objects.

FiLiA is full of gender critical women on the board of directors. Their scope is much wider than self id, but they recognise the threat of males in women's spaces. Ant tra's who think they can harass FiLiA for being "anti-trans" won't get very far.

Please do attend their conference. It's going to be a good one!

More about the "Paradise" in the subject: s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/welcome-to-paradise/

Two paragraphs stick out here: The idea of the law, passed by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s Social Democrat-Green coalition, was to recognise prostitution as a job like any other. Sex workers could now enter into employment contracts, sue for payment and register for health insurance, pension plans and other benefits. Exploiting prostitutes was still criminal but everything else was now above board. Two female politicians and a Berlin madam were pictured clinking their champagne glasses in celebration.

Well, that worked well.

Last paragraph, about owner Rudloff, whom I met as a young man when I worked in a prison around 1982. He was sentenced to 15 years for Armed Robbery, but this fact seems unknown to German media.

Would he be happy for either of his two daughters to work at Paradise, the interviewer asks. Rudloff turns puce. “Unthinkable, unthinkable,” he says. “The question alone is brutal. I don’t mean to offend the prostitutes but I try to raise my children so that they have professional opportunities. Most prostitutes don’t have those options. That’s why they’re doing that job." He pauses and looks away.

“Unimaginable”, he repeats. “I don’t even want to think about it.”

Says it all.

I would also say that the feminist argument about these things is moral, and it implies a morality of the body and person. If it didn't you could really not argue that it is wrong to impinge people's freedom or reduce them to sexual objects

Allowing the pro- punter lobby to co-opt the word "morality" to be a synonym for "prudish" or "religious prudery" is very dangerous and exactly what they want.

That line of thinking started with Mary Whitehouse - who was the worst possible person to front an anti-porn campaign.

I also think it is very narrow minded to impute that any one opposing prostitution from a conservative and/or religious background must be doing so from questionable motives.

I've linked to that Telegraph article many many times.

I think we really need to work on turning the spotlight on the men involved.

What sort of a man has sex with a woman who wouldn't consent unless he gave her money?

What sort of a man has sex with a woman under economic duress when he could have a wank?

What sort of a man has sex with a woman under economic duress while still having sex with his wife?

What sort of a man thinks it's okay to buy a woman's body?

What sort of a man writes the vilely misogynistic reviews on Pnet and Awork (see the Invisible Men Project)?

What sort of man thinks it's okay to force financially desperate, addicted or trafficked women to be penetrated in every orifice but reacts with horror when you suggest that if he really believes it's a job like any other, maybe he should try it out for a bit to see what it feels like?

Because we all know what sort of women end up in prostitution - women just like us, barring a few quirks of fate. Women in prostitution are women, deserving of dignity, support, job opportunities, a proper welfare state that supports people not a means of the state punishing them for being poor

It's not the women we need to talk about, it's the men - pimps and punters are fucking scum and we need to keep bringing the conversation back to this.