VENDETTA ☠ GRRRL: literally every single rebuttal to posts about research & studies done…
literally every single rebuttal to posts about research & studies done about the sex industry, johns & sex workers, is boiled down to “well YOU’RE not a sex…
Is that 95% a real stat, or would that fall under “personal views”?
There has been plenty of research showing that sex workers are happy in their profession and not the desperate, abused, drug addicted stereotype we are often portrayed as (I could link them but I’m busy levelling up my Axew and I’m sure you know how to google).
The problem is not all sex work is the same. Stripping is not the same as camming is not the same as prostitution. And even within the same type of sex work, a prostitute working in a legal brothel is not going to have the same experience as an prostitute working illegally in the streets (just two examples). Obviously privilege comes into play here, as well. As a white stripper my opportunities for where I can work and not near as limited as they are for black dancers.
Furthermore, what’s your solution? “Abolishing” sex work? Because that has time and time again shown to further marginalize sex workers and make their lives more difficult and dangerous. I’m not, and I don’t think most other sex workers here, would argue that there are people out there working in shitty and dangerous conditions. But the problem isn’t sex work itself, it’s way more complicated than that and trying to “abolish” sex work isn’t the answer.
And sex workers are naturally going to get defensive when someone who has never done sex work comes in tying to tell us our experiences aren’t valid. Most people are working off assumptions and stereotypes, and while you actually seem pretty educated on the issue that doesn’t mean your are automatically right or that your opinion is more valid.
So if you don’t like what we have to say and don’t want to hear it, as misssuzyvalentine said, get the fuck out of the sex work tag.
“In a study submitted at trial with 854 women in 9 countries, including Canada, 89% of women interviewed said they wanted out of prostitution. In another study submitted at trial conducted in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, 95% of prostituted women interviewed said they wanted out of prostitution” -(notice how in DTES has a higher number of WoC, drugs and poverty, as well as a higher amount of prostitution than else where, as well as higher % want out?)
It was clear from both the research on the trial record and the affidavits of the women that prostituted women have many things in common. Nearly all the women said poverty is the reason they entered prostitution. (aka not entirely free will)
The average age of entry into prostitution was reported as 14 and 15 by the research on the record. (but ya no coercion here, just empowering choices!!)
Aboriginal women and racialized women are overrepresented in the prostitution industry. -(but lets keep talking about how you as a white woman who is not a prostitute thinks this is empowering)
Many prostituted women have been incested, or abused as children. Many were removed from their families as children and placed in state care. Generally, they have low levels of education – many of the women who gave affidavits had not finished high school. These are just a few of the factors that maintain women’s prostitution. -(huh.. it’s like it’s not a choice?? and it targets victims of abuse)
Evidence from other countries shows that removing the deterrence of the criminal law for men leads to increased demand for prostitution and a proliferation of both legal and illegal prostitution industries. Why make law based on the 10% of women who say they want to continue in prostitution, rather than the 90% who say they want out?
The applicants claim that street prostitution is the worst form of prostitution, and that women prostituted on the street will be able to move indoors following decriminalization. However, evidence from other countries that have decriminalized brothels shows that women prostituted on the street do not move indoors.
first rule in a brothel is that you can’t be drunk or high. And the women prostituted in a legal brothel have to undergo regular screening for sexually transmitted infections. (Though no legalized regime requires johns undergo STI checks). Given that many of the women prostituted on the street struggle with addiction and illness, it’s doubtful they would even be allowed in brothels. -(huh no testing for johns, meaning that a woman working in a brothel will be kicked out for doing her job)
Arguments that women’s risk is higher on the street than indoors or that victimization is less likely to occur indoors imply that violence just sort of accidentally happens and that ‘victimization’ and ‘risk’ are things that belong to women. But women are not attacking themselves. The outdoors, the streets, the dark is not attacking women. Johns and pimps are attacking women. Since men’s behaviour is the source of violence in prostitution, if we wanted to address violence in prostitution, we would try to change men’s behaviour, not alter women’s physical location.
Women who gave affidavits of their experience in prostitution said that prostituting indoors is not safe. Some of the women said they preferred prostitution on the street because they had more control and they got to keep more of their earnings. Prostituting indoors means the brothel owner negotiates with johns. This person, whether they are called pimp, manager, or agency owner, has a vested economic interest in women pleasing johns, and is more likely to agree to johns’ demands to have sex without condoms and to engage in sexual acts women themselves wouldn’t agree to. -(huh, street workers don’t want to work in legal brothels because they earn less and they don’t get to negotiate on their boundries, and will get fired for not doing their job, aka they will get fired for refusing to have sex, or do certain sexual acts, aka no consent)
One of the applicants, Amy Lebovtich, reported in her affidavit that when she was working in a brothel a john tied her up and raped her. No one intervened and she was left tied up for nearly half an hour until someone found her. Another woman who gave an affidavit had this to say: “I have been raped and sodomized by johns while working in massage parlours, and was too scared and embarrassed to make any noise, and wouldn’t have even known who to call. Sometimes I would hear other girls screaming or crying and I didn’t know if it was part of an act or real. I never intervened…Screams in the house were frequent and no one ever got involved.” It isn’t exactly good business to report a violent “customer” to the police, even in a legalized regime.
Finally, there was ample evidence on the trial record that legal brothels in decriminalized countries serve as covers for child prostitution, trafficking in women and links to organized crime. In the Netherlands and Australia, the illegal sector comprises more than half of the prostitution industry. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women reported that in 2004 alone, 405 cases of trafficking in women were discovered in the Netherlands. The Dutch expert reported that there have been at least 50 documented murders of prostituted women in the Netherlands between 1992 and 2004 – several of these women were, “murdered in a brothel or ‘window’, and a few of them were murdered at home by their pimp.” She summarized her findings by saying, “…the new prostitution legislation of 2000 has not meant that prostitutes are now more safe. The ability to work indoors, the decriminalization of organizing prostitution and the legalization of sex work have not removed the risk of being beaten, abused or coerced…In short, the new legislation’s goals of reducing the violence against women and the exploitation of women have not been met.”
READ IT AGAIN
there was ample evidence on the trial record that legal brothels in decriminalized countries serve as covers for child prostitution, trafficking in women and links to organized crime.
The applicants relied on the argument that in an effort to avoid being arrested for communicating for the purpose of prostitution, prostituted women would hurry negotiation with a john before getting in his car. They argued that this decreases the time a woman has to screen a john to see if he will become violent.
To suggest that if a woman had an extra few minutes, or even an extra few hours to screen that she could identify men who will be violent is a ludicrously dangerous idea. It’s as ludicrous as suggesting that a woman should have known that the man she spent all night ‘screening’ on a date was going to rape her. It’s as ludicrous as suggesting that a woman should have known the boyfriend she had been ‘screening’ in a relationship for a year was going to hit her. On average, one woman a week is killed in Canada by her boyfriend or husband who she had ‘screened’, lived with, loved, and raised children with for years. If the women’s movement has revealed anything, it’s that any man can choose to be violent and the woman he exacts it on is not responsible for that violence. The idea of screening doesn’t address the violence in prostitution. In fact, it accepts that violent johns exist and will continue to exist and will continue to try to pick women up. It downloads state responsibility to stop men’s violence onto individual women.oung claimed that in countries where prostitution has been decriminalized, things are getting better and no one’s turning back the clock and saying they’ve made a mistake. That’s not true. Sweden did ‘turn back the clock’ in 1999 when they moved from a decriminalized regime to one in which johns and pimps were criminalized and prostituted women were decriminalized. The mayor of Amsterdam announced at a press conference in 2007 that the decriminalization of prostitution has failed. “Almost five years after the lifting of the brothel ban, we have to acknowledge that the aims of the law have not been reached,” said Cohen. “Lately we’ve received more and more signals that abuse still continues.” An Amsterdam police officer quoted in the media said, “we are in the midst of modern slavery”. The Dutch expert reported in her affidavit that, “the Dutch government is now planning to change the law once again. This is because the legislation of 2000 has not met some of its most important objectives – that of severing the link between prostitution and crime, improving the working conditions of all prostitutes, and to decrease trafficking in women and coerced prostitution.” Research on the trial record from Germany, Australia and New Zealand has shown that decriminalization has not improved conditions in prostitution.
Reports from these regimes consistently show that the prostitution industry – legal and illegal – expands following decriminalization. This makes sense. Removing criminal sanctions against prostitution sends a message to men that their prostitution behaviour is acceptable. In a capitalist system, increased competition between prostitution “businesses” leads to decreases in price, increased demand for riskier and more violent sex acts and increased pressure on women to tolerate the “customer’s” behaviour.
(if you’re familiar with the pickton case I recommend reading the paragraph about the women he murdered)
Decriminalization will ensure that brothels can be run, men can earn money on the prostitution of women and demand sexual access to women – all without fear of criminal sanction. If we accept men’s demand for prostitution as inevitable, we accept that there must be a group of women who will meet this demand. I think this case is really about deciding which women will bear the brunt of men’s demand for prostitution. The fact that the poor, the Aboriginal, the racialized, the addicted, and the abused are overrepresented among prostituted women is not a coincidence.
(you say that it’s a “myth” that prostitutes are usually poor, addicts, and woc, but you are wrong, these are the 3 most over-represented people in the industry, maybe try caring about people who are not white, rich & sober?)
Decriminalization will ensure that brothels can be run, men can earn money on the prostitution of women and demand sexual access to women – all without fear of criminal sanction. If we accept men’s demand for prostitution as inevitable, we accept that there must be a group of women who will meet this demand. I think this case is really about deciding which women will bear the brunt of men’s demand for prostitution. The fact that the poor, the Aboriginal, the racialized, the addicted, and the abused are overrepresented among prostituted women is not a coincidence.
Prostitution is one of the devastating impacts that colonialism has had on First Nations women. This must be forefront in any discussion on prostitution. First Nations women in prostitution bear the most violence and humiliation for the least money. Aboriginal women have come out in force to resist prostitution. I encourage you to read the statements on prostitution made by groups like the Native Women’s Association of Canadaor the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network.
research is not a bad thing, you should study the affects of laws before you support them, because they may sound like a good idea on the surface, but the effects are devastating to the most vulnerable women, and do nothing but cause harm to the majority of women. Just because I am not a prostitute (you’re not either so idk what your point is on that) does not mean I should stay silent on something that has ruined my community, and the lives of people in my family. (fyi I grew up next to pickton, so this had a huge effect on my childhood as well)
If you truly support prostitutes, you would be helping them, not working against them and supporting johns & capitalism.
VENDETTA ☠ GRRRL: misssuzyvalentine: VENDETTA ☠ GRRRL: literally every single rebuttal…
Celtyradfem 