Power and exploitation - please check my sanity
8 watchers
Sep 2018
11:53am, 28 Sep 2018
10,099 posts
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Llamadance
G, I thought Raemond had said that prohibition doesn't work (in terms of reducing exploitation). I'm not even sure that most people agree with you, though I haven't counted the individuals concerned. It seems split roughly evenly. As I said, you're also looking at this through a single optic (albeit probably the largest), men buying sex from women, and sex work is more complicated than that. To wholesale dismiss it because it makes you uneasy or you find it distasteful seems illiberal. "Ban it and see if we can change the culture" didn't exactly work for drugs, did it? The exploitation of people is the problem here, not the method used to exploit. If a bloke wants to give £50 to another bloke for oral sex, then why not? If one of those is being somehow forced into that, or put in danger, then there's a problem. Seems to me that regulation, safe spaces and less moralising (where do these morals come from?) might help people be safer. As I mentioned earlier, social support so that people don't feel forced into taking risks would also help. |
Sep 2018
12:07pm, 28 Sep 2018
29,267 posts
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HappyG(rrr)
I have no problems with any form of sex (where no one is harmed, or at least not harmed in a way that they didn't want or intend!) My problem is money. Making it a commercial transaction means that one person is, almost by definition, coercing (persuading, enticing, incentivising...?) the other to do an act. If there was no money involved, would the person being paid want or choose to do it? Sex isn't a commodity to be bought and sold. But you're right, I didn't count either! My rose tinted specs told me that most people agreed. I'll go back and count. And then maybe slink off into a corner! I agree legislation is complex. Don't have anything I can add other than to say I wish that we could just educate away problems. But sometimes we have to legislate and even if it doesn't work 100% at least our laws reflect our principles. Then we just have to enforce better, and educate, help and support where legislation isn't solving the problem? Example - domestic abuse is wrong. There was always a law that said that actual bodily harm (or whatever it's called) was illegal. But in the home it was often not reported, covered up. But a combination (I believe) of changing attitudes and culture and *specific* legislation has helped to reduce the incidence. Surely that's a good thing?  G
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Sep 2018
12:25pm, 28 Sep 2018
10,100 posts
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Llamadance
why is sex not a commodity to be bought and sold?
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Sep 2018
12:35pm, 28 Sep 2018
10,101 posts
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Llamadance
sorry, meant to add more.....your example about domestic abuse isn't analogous. You're coming from the stand point that selling sex is always wrong - I can't see how that is the case, there isn't always a victim in sex work, whereas there is in domestic abuse. Someone always gets hurt in domestic abuse, not so in prostitution. I think the drugs analogy is better, where it seems that decriminalising, legalising, taxing and then using that money to support addicts leads to less addicts. Safe environments, support, less opportunities for abusers to abuse. Understanding rather than demonisation and sneering. That to me would be a better, more caring society - then if people want to get out of sex work or avoid falling into it, then they can. If they choose to do it, they can do it safely. Also, might help us all if we actually look at evidence (I haven't as yet) - are people safer where sex work is legal? |
Sep 2018
12:57pm, 28 Sep 2018
944 posts
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Raemond
Domestic abuse is always wrong (definitely, no debate to be had on that) - but only a few sentences earlier you took care to qualify that you had nothing against consensual BDSM type relations. The line between those could be unclear from the outside, (even from the inside if the dom is also a manipulative narcissist, but that's such a complicated and specific issue that it's not so useful to discuss it at length), why do you draw the distinction? Fwiw, I personally agree that commodifying sex is bad for the souls of all parties, but then so are an awful lot of things (like greed and pride and materialism) and you can't legislate people into better spiritual health. |
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Sep 2018
12:58pm, 28 Sep 2018
10,102 posts
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Llamadance
anti-legalisation: telegraph.co.uk pro-legalisation opendemocracy.net bmj.com article with pro/con comments prostitution.procon.org |
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Sep 2018
1:36pm, 28 Sep 2018
945 posts
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Raemond
Very difficult tell, my llamadancing friend. The collection of data on the subject is almost impossibly difficult, and usually only undertaken by people who want to prove a point. One analyisis of reported figures suggests there is a significant correlation between legal prostitution and higher rates of human trafficking for sexual exploitation. I gave the figures to someone who understands stats better than me and he said it's not, in normal statistical terms that strong - and definitely not stronger than the correlation between exploitation and representative democracy as the form of governance that the same figures also showed. Reported figures are definitely directly influenced by the priority each state puts on detection, but don't always mean the same thing - two often quoted examples are the Netherlands and Sweden. Sweden has much lower figures for known victims of exploitation than NL. NL, as previously mentioned, has had legal prostitution and an active focus on trafficking since 2000. Sweden outlawed buying in 1999, but hasn't put that much effort into anti trafficking measures. The figures they report are described by Eurostat as 'minimalist', whereas if anything NL over-reports (multiple agencies report and it's not easy to weed out the instances where the same person has been recorded by each of them). Also, there's no data for either from before 1999, so we don't know if outlawing helped or 'legalising' made it worse. Since 1999 figures for Sweden are pretty stable, NL is going down. |
Sep 2018
2:22pm, 28 Sep 2018
33,140 posts
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Nellers
People are being co-etched into doing things they don’t want to do for money all the time. I wouldn’t be hiding in a toilet cubicle avoiding underwriting if I didn’t need the money. If the marketable skill/talent/commodity that an individual has is sex then i’m Struggling to see how that’s different beyond social norms and arbitrary moral judgements, and I don’t think any of us has souls so....... I think any industry should need to have proper H&s legislation around it to protect workers from exploitation, whether that’s hard hats and working time directives or condoms and bouncers. Mental health provision should also be a given but isn’t in any industry really. If that stuff was in place then I don’t see a big issue, but it’s not and banning stuff won’t stop it happening. Also i’d Add for balance that I haven’t ever seen the inside of a strip club other than in the photos in a survey report when we’re asked to insure one a few years ago. We decided not to. Can’t remember why but it was probably more about fire risk that moral hazard. |
Sep 2018
2:45pm, 28 Sep 2018
5,664 posts
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larkim
I was trying to think up a list of jobs / roles that people voluntarily do which use (or potentially use) their bodies in ways which are outside of the norm. There's a wide spectrum! - human medical trials participant - human cosmetic trials participants - live organ donation - surrogate motherhood - test pilot - stunt performer - armed forces Where's the clear line of separation that sets those roles apart from the sex industry in terms of potential for use / abuse of your own body voluntarily? |
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Sep 2018
3:30pm, 28 Sep 2018
29,268 posts
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HappyG(rrr)
Because sex can be natural and beautiful but IT architecture (my job) and insurance underwriting (or whatever it is - your job) are neither natural nor beautiful? Nothing that is natural and vital should be bought and sold - children, sex, organs, blood, health. These are all human rights, not to be auctioned to those with money or to enslave those without. Of course, I'm horrified to be associated with the Torygraph and against the BMJ. So that might swing the argument for me. G
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