So in your view all prostitutes are victims?
And I don't like when people reword my arguments to make them easier to argue against, nor when they opt not to respond to points I have made. Many prostitutes are victims of sexual abuse before they enter the profession. Many are victims in the profession of pimps and trafickers.
What about in countries like Denmark where being a pimp is illegal but women can legally engage in sex work and even pay taxes? What about Holland where they have unions and representation?
What about them? Does my point about sexual abuse pre-prostitution still hold in these places or not? Is their a disproportionate number of women from poor and immigrant backgrounds? Do you want clerks at job centres to tell the incoming immigrant women - because they are disproportionately represented - that if they can't find other work - which they often have trouble finding - they should go into prostitution? Is this what we want? Isn't it bad enough we have immigrants with college degrees being discriminated against and cleaning toilets and driving taxis or must we add on prostitution as a profession delegated to immigrants?
What about Sweden where the prostitutes are not arrested but the johns are?
I appreciate the improvement in Denmark's system over many other countries in that it is illegal to sell other people's sex.
There is also illegal trafficking and protitution in Denmark anyway, in addition to the legal variety.
I live in Scandanavia and am pretty familiar with how the different countries approach the issue. All of them have problems. I like the Swedish approach the best and think if they actually put more energy into it it would radically cut back on prostitution.
If you read Good Girls, Bad Girls: Sex Workers and Feminists Face Off by Laurie Bell the women who attended the international conference in Canada shirked off the attitude that they were victims of men and didn't want to see the work criminalized, they believed they were victims of a system that either kept there work illegal or feminists who were patronizing.
I am aware there are sex workers (and feminists I might add) who view the issue this way. But here you have a minority opinion by people who do not want to be arrested. Some may be coming at the issue on philosophical grounds, but I will be even their minority ranks would diminish radically if prostitutes could not be arrested, which was my original proposal.
The psychological reasons for why they enter the trade is irrelevant what is relevant is that many have made a choice.
Irrelevent for you, but not for me, and ultimately not for many of the women themselves.
I think its condescending to simply say 'oh these poor women, they are perpetual victims...' etc as its dismissive and disempowering.
Because many of them are victims and were victims. I think men who batter their wives should be put in jail EVEN IF the wives do not want to press charges. These women are also making choices to stay with men who batter.
Why not suggest that it be legalized and managed then you can control the age of women entering the trade, HIV transmission, workers rights and protection from the streets etc.
1) it does not control the age of women. younger women will get fake ids etc. or be part of a continuing illegal prostitution. This happens in Denmark.
I think its interesting that in this entire discussion no one has mentioned male prostitutes as they are also members of the profession.
Who also tend to have been sexually abused. But it's good you mentioned them.
Listening to an interview with Jenna Jameson who although is not a prostitute is a 'sex worker'. She was never sexually abused, has a good relationship with her father and brother both of whom were also interviewed. She had made a choice and captalized on it, she's a smart business woman and has marketed herself into a multi-million dollar empire which she herself controls. Married and with her first child she has stopped making movies.
I'll bet she stopped making movies. So what we have here is one woman's success story, and a woman who was not a prostitute.
She certainly doesn't seem like a victim to me. Maybe if they were acknowledged, empowered and represented there would be less of this disheartening sad sack attitude surrounding them. To brand all prostitutes as suffering from some sexual abuse trauma is just another form of stigma.
Well, if anyone says ALL be sure to say this to them. To point out that statistically a high % of them have been sexually abused is not a stigma it is a fact.
Check out this video where prostitutes in Cambodia are fighting to protect what they consider a legitimate trade. When the U.S forced the country to pass a trafficking bill it was so broad it affected women who independently chose this kind of work (pays more than picking rice and working in the garment industry):
So a law attempting to stop sex slavery, torture, rape and pedophilia, caused problems for non-trafficked prostitutes.......and some prostitutes, who at this point, given OTHER problems in that society, want to continue being prostitutes, which most of them will anyway. I'm sorry but this seems not very important to me.
I am aware that there are prostitutes who want to prevent the law from stopping their work, especially when it leads to their arrest. Most of these women stop fighting the laws when they are not arrested but johns and pimps are.
