This is kind of misleading. I’m aware that New Zealand is considered ‘the best country in the world for sex workers’ rights’, and that’s a good thing. But it wasn’t entirely illegal even before 2003, as far as I can tell. In particular, it looks like it wasn’t illegal either to buy or sell sex, although associated activities were. So it might make sense for demand not to increase or decrease all that much in the aftermath of total legalization. In societies where it is completely illegal, I suspect there are a lot of people who would buy sexual services but refrain either because they don’t want to participate in the underground economy, or because they fear legal consequences.
You’re missing the Venn Diagram here. Yes, “Relationships” include “Sex”, except when they don’t (see thousands of years worth of sexless marriage jokes). But the entire premise of your argument is that there are those who would rather have “Just Sex” without the Relationship part. And then you act like that’s a problem for those who want Relationships as if there aren’t others who want Relationships. Does the market get a bit smaller? Sure. But the ones who are off the Relationship market are the ones who make shitty Relationship partners anyway, for as long (or short) as they don’t want to be in the Relationship market.
Do they now? Sure, people change, as do relationships. But I’m strongly in favor of anything which helps people to be honest with each other about what they’re looking for. I see less than zero benefit to forcing people to enter or stay in unhappy relationships for the sex. What you see as “more competitive”, I see as “less bullshit.”
That makes sense. Lots of other good responses upthread as well.
I still think sex work is a self-harmful choice and I wish people didn’t have to do it for rent, education, food, or housing. That’s not a real choice. Society has an interest in fixing those problems, and also in regulating sex work for safety and harm reduction. But I see now that my sexual competition theory does not justify prohibiting sex work.
How do you feel about people working at McDonald’s for rent, education, food, or housing? Or as a doctor or a plumber? Aren’t most of us “forced” to work without a real choice?
To answer your direct question, I feel like McDonald’s workers are in an exploited position, and that given all the wealth that exists in the world, I don’t understand why people still need to be exploited in a minimum-opportunity, minimum wage capacity just to cover the basics of life.
But that’s not what you were getting at, you were asking why I have a problem with anyone responding to economic pressure with sex work rather than other kinds of work, and I don’t have a good answer for you.
I’ve encountered this, and my response was “No way in hell and the door is over there” but that’s about porn, not prostitution. Sex is supposed to be fun and if it’s not you say no and chuck the guy out. I do agree that porn has distorted a lot of men’s ideas about sex; porn seems to be a male fantasy that doesn’t take women’s desires and needs into account, and heavy porn-watchers are the worst in bed.
But where is this “competition” that you speak of? Lots of other guys out there who have actually acquired real skills instead of watching porn, and why on earth would you want to compete for a loser? Women don’t need men to be happy. Men seem to need women.
There is no legitimate reason to make prostitution illegal. No one is harmed, it’s totally consensual. I do this, you give me money. End of story. If it were legal a lot of the bad things that happen to sex workers would stop.
…what did you find misleading?
Its one thing to be able to google “prostitution in New Zealand” and then guess how it worked by reading the wikipedia page. But that won’t give you an accurate picture of how things actually worked at the time.
Before decriminalization it was illegal to solicit. You could offer a sex worker $100.00 in exchange for sex but you couldn’t ask for $100.00 in exchange for sex. But regardless of the actual text of the law the industry was still “underground”. Brothels were called “Massage Palours” and both sex workers and the people who used them were regularly arrested. I’ve spoken to sex workers who back in the “bad old days” of the 70’s used to be harassed, arrested, beaten and taken advantage of by some bad members of the police force. It was never regarded by most of the general public as a “legal activity” as it was actively policed by our police forces.
Those same fears existed in New Zealand prior to decriminalization. But even if they didn’t: I very much doubt that decriminalization would have had an effect on the dating scene. But if you think that it would have please feel free to share why you think it would.
Fair enough. I concede the point. Y’all feel free to hang around and chat, but I’m taking my enlightenment and moving on to other threads.
HMS Irruncible, have you considered the Nordic model? It doesn’t fulfill your liberty mandate, but might do a better job of blending minimization of harm without the negatives of prostitution being normalized via legalization.
The effect of prostitution on non-commercial sex and its effects on society’s views of women is something to worry about, but I don’t think it’s usually seen as particularly alarming in comparison to other grotesque features of the enterprise. As you’ve noted, pornography (and other media depictions of women) already does this to a significant extent.
In the debates over abolition vs. legalization (or decriminalization) there seems to be a tension between making conditions better for sex workers now vs. the fear normalization would cement the practice and do serious harm to the feminist cause for decades to come. There was a similar tension in the debates over Uber in Saudi Arabia.
This is the anti-capitalist or “just another job” argument. It ignores any sort of gendered analysis of prostitution. Moreover, fast food workers don’t suffer risks of pregnancy, STDs, or PTSD. In most circumstances, coerced sex is called rape or sexual assault. People value their sexual autonomy and see it as an integral part of who they are and suffer negative psychological effects when it’s violated. You can reflect on this by thinking of whether you’d want to work a day as fast food worker or have strangers perform anal sex on you all day.
Usually when someone makes that argument they try to use dangerous jobs. Coal miner, electrical line installer, logger, and so on.
You’re saying you support women feeling socially pressured to perform sex acts they wouldn’t have otherwise wanted to do because you’ll be on the receiving end. Is that right?
It absolutely doesn’t *minimize *harm. It’s less harmful than the US model in some ways, absolutely no different in most.
Here’s a thought, why not let sex workers decide whether they’d rather sell sex or work in fast food? It’s not about what you would want to do.
BTW, you do realise that “having strangers perform anal sex on you all day” is not what sex work actually looks like in most cases?
No I’m NOT saying anything about specific sex acts. I’m saying that if women decide that they should have sex on the first date more often because if they don’t then men may be legally able to acquire sex from a prostitute instead of a trying for a second date that might contain sex, then yes, I’m for women making that decision.
I don’t consider that “socially pressured”
I also don’t subscribe to the “I’ve seen a lot of porn that contains anal sex, therefore I expect all my dates to have anal sex” theory either.
There are many reports that say legalized prostitution in many European and Asian countries has lead to increased human trafficking.
For that reason alone, I’d say no.
None of those reports are reliable, though. There simply isn’t any trustworthy data on human trafficking - it’s too dependent on different definitions of “trafficking” and different reporting criteria. The Netherlands, which usually comes out the worst in these reports, has the broadest definition of trafficking that I have ever seen, and its figures are not limited to confirmed cases or even cases that have been investigated; they include totally unverified cases where someone might have phoned a kind of “If you see it, say it” hotline and just reported their suspicions. So compare that to other countries that might follow a stricter Palermo Protocol-based definition, and whose figures only reflect confirmed cases - well, of course the Dutch ones are going to be higher.
There isn’t any study that compares like with like, nor is that even possible to do without a harmonisation among countries that simply doesn’t exist - so all of these reports are really quite meaningless.
…the Nordic model is, with all due respect, just plain stupid. Sex work isn’t normalized under the Nordic model. It is still illegal. It does nothing to minimize harm: sex workers still have reason to fear going to the police for help, and the “negatives of sex work” still exist.
This is what normalization looks like.
For those that don’t want to click the link: that is a government provided PDF information booklet for the sex industry on how to comply with occupational health and safety laws. It reads like any other occupational health and safety booklet except that in its list of definitions it has entries like “B&D stands for bondage and discipline.” If anyone is interested in how New Zealand has taken the opposite approach to the nordic model the booklet would provide an interesting read.
Me? I’d rather have anal sex with strangers once a week and make what I could working at McDonald’s all day.
I’m a nurse in real life. I suffer risks of AIDS, Hepatitis, Tuberculosis, MRSA, assault (regular and sexual) on a daily basis, and a near guarantee of repetitive stress injuries, including a blown back and osteoarthritis in my knees.
This is also what “normalisation” looks like in New Zealand:
Prostitute wins $25,000 damages in landmark [sexual harassment] case against brothel owner, manager
Link doesn’t work for me.
I can’t honestly tell from your headline which side of the debate you’re posing that to support. Shame about the sexual harassment, of course. Glad she has legal recourse, as she would for any other job. She wouldn’t get far suing her pimp for sexual harassment in the USA.
So what’s your threshold for acceptable human trafficking? :dubious:
…what a disingenuous question. Why don’t you prove to us first that legalized prostitution in many European and Asian countries has lead to increased human trafficking? How are you defining “legalised prostitution?”
Oh, I forgot to address this part.
In most circumstances, coerced labor is called slavery.
Part of sexual autonomy is letting people say yes, not just letting them say no. So by restricting a prostitute’s ability to legally say yes too sex for money, you are impeding their sexual autonomy.