JCC Senate Sex Work: Prostitution, Pornography, etc

Being forced to pay the bills by being a teacher in a country with regular school shootings is probably pretty crap as well.

 

@Darth Guy Your issue is with capitalism.

As you acknowledge, everything you describe applies to anyone in any job. With the exception of people in the military, we all notionally have the luxury of walking away from our job if we no longer want to do it. But the practical reality is that, because we need money to survive, the choice we have is a false one--it's do the job or starve/be homeless/not have health care/etc.

So what makes sex work so special in your mind? When I served in the military, my job was to commit horrors upon living human beings. And I didn't have the option to refuse service. A condition of my employment was that I be willing to go to prison if I refused a lawful order. An argument could be made that my situation was even more dire than the theoretical one you're ascribing to women who would willingly enter into prostitution as a profession.

I guess I'm just concerned when (usually men) choose to substitution our judgment for the judgment of the women who choose this line of work. We can't understand it (because we aren't these women) so we conclude that they must be doing it because they are coerced in some way (see yankee's post earlier about the Swedish philosophy on sex work). It's unfathomable to us that an otherwise healthy, intelligent, capable woman might elect to enter prostitution as profession of her own free will. That certainty that this can't be the case leads us to take a paternalistic approach to sex work. Whether it's an outright ban or just a series of policies aimed at discouraging the work, our focus is to protect women from doing the work itself. But our focus should instead be on creating an environment where these women can run their business the way they want to with all the protections and privileges that every other independent contractor business enjoys.

Two side notes:

• Sex is only as intimate as the people involved choose to make it.
• And I'm not so certain that his labor is unnecessary, as you claim. The human need for sex may not be critical for physical survival, but I suspect that it is essential for emotional well-being.

 

Again. It has proven quite an issue in Germany, which has as much of a safety net as any part of the industrialized world. Trying to write it off as simply being about the US is lazy.

Souderwan, many things to say, and I can’t type at length in this format. Suffice it to say though, that it is neither really presumption nor is it necessary to talk about “all women.” Data is both knowable and exists about women who participate in legalized and decriminalized sex work in many places, Nevada for one. That data suggests the picture Even is painting isn’t really abstract or hypothetical. If many feel pressured into a job by circumstance, that should weigh on us more heavily than a few who enter willingly.

 

Have you watched the first season of The Girlfriend Experience by chance, Brian? To me, it was the story of a woman's power and the ways in which she chose to use it. The writers (Amy Seimetz and Lodge Kerrigan, who also split the task of directing the episodes) created someone with a lot of privilege, education, and intelligence, maybe in part to deter criticisms of decades past. Riley Keough did a brilliant job in portraying someone who chose to use sex because of what she got out of being paid for it. Certainly an unusual situation, but not unique.

To further that line of thought, you seem to be saying that because some may be pressured into it, it shouldn't be allowed for anyone. Is that more or less an accurate reading?

 

@Souderwan Yes, you're right that my main issue is with capitalism. I haven't tried to hide that. And I meant that sex is more physically intimate that most work. Waiters don't even have to so much as touch their customers-- and service workers who do such as barbers and manicurists aren't giving their own bodies over in the same way. Of course there can be emotional detachment in sex.

And I said I was coming around to the idea that prostitution should be legal. That doesn't mean I like it or the context in which it operates at all. I don't really know how to argue against accusations of paternalism, though I am conscious of the possibility and try to evaluate my views based on that. I don't deny that some prostitutes are freely entering such work.

 

I think your concerns are very valid, Evan. There are definitely problems, even in places with legal, regulated prostitution, with some desperate people going to it not because they want to but because it's the only way to pay the bills.

But I'm just not sure that outweighs the rights of women and men to still choose to do this as a profession if they want to.

Clearly we need to develop some better mechanisms to avoid the unsavory exploitation that still happens (many prostitutes in Amsterdam, for instance, are eastern Europeans who may or may not have been helped into the jobs at least partly by traffickers). I think one thing any legalization would need is very strict anti-trafficking laws and units to try to make sure it doesn't happen mostly against people's will or with some deception. The penalties for that should be harsh, because it's modern slavery and awful.

But I acknowledge that it's harder to help people who do choose to do it but would rather not. Obviously a better welfare system is part of that, but as noted, it still hasn't solved the problem in Germany.

I guess I would say that as a woman, I don't know if I see prostition as much more of an intimate job than stripping and lap dances... And those are already legal.

On balance, I can see both sides, but given that abuses already happen and could possibly at least be cut down on, I still favor legalization. If for no other reason right now than that no prostitute should have to fear getting arrested. They are at best individuals doing what they want with their bodies, and at worst they are exploited and trafficked women and men who need help, not jail.

 

That feels like a root cause in perception too, yes.

@Jabba-wocky, that piece is from 5 years ago, and I don't want to accuse you of being lazy or selective or anything but I will. Not only did the Fair Observer note that the laws that the 2013 piece is about reduce violence against sex workers, there has been substantial regulatory reform since. I'd like you to do something atypical for you and do some research please, and tell us about the 2016/17 laws.

 

Ender Sai, I freely admit it's not a contemporary look. It's a push back against arguments--made multiple times in this short thread--that problems emerge primarily from features of American society. They do not. The problematic elements are much more broad based than that, and need to be both acknowledged and addressed.

In any case, I think sj's parallel to legal forms of sex work is instructive. After all, that is the larger context of this thread. I think it would be quite narrow and disappointing to confine ourselves solely to a discussion of legalizing prostitution or not. In that spirit, we have decades of research about "exotic dancers." The picture is pretty bleak. Despite legalization, and relatively more social acceptance than other parts of sex work, there stills seems to be extremely high levels of substance abuse, economic deprivation, and health risks. Ignoring for a moment debates about the influence of sex work on human trafficking, and similarly bypassing discussion about the relationship between legalization and abuse reporting, how should society address the considerable burden of human suffering that seems to accompany these practices? What, really, is the meaning of legalizing (and thereby monetizing) them without addressing these attendant ills?

Especially where the argument is primarily for greater social acceptance--or where solutions propose depend on greater acceptance--what is the trade-off their for risks that don't seem responsive to this approach? What comprehensive program can be made, or are we throwing up our hands to declare that sex work, like football and boxing, are at some level fundamentally unsafe but not in a sense that we care to prevent?

 

Ok so the biggest issue I think a lot of people have with you guys is you do not realise how fundamentally Americentric you actually are, and why that is problematic. I cannot fault you for not having faith in your system - as religious crusaders for the church of extremely lassiez faire economics, America has pushed a lack of regulation to the dizzying heights of the 2008 crash (and learned the lessons by adding tiny regulations but not too much ok the dollar is best). You don't support this so I'm not saying it for you to defend.

What I am saying is, whilst America had some success exporting this ideology (for domestic economic benefit), the fundamental concept most of us non-Americans have grown up with is actually faith in the system and state because we have functioning, active and at times, quite radical lefts who have legislated worker protections and appellate courts and all that into existence. You guys either have examples of systemic discrimination throughout whole lives, or for large portions of lives, that we don't. People consequently mistrust the state because it just serves the interests of the thinner end of the wedge; or because they're busily masturbating over actual guns, books about guns, magazines about guns, TV shows about guns and so on (and of course, nobody takes them seriously because they're idiots).

Where does this become relevant? In the case of the Der Spiegel expose, firstly you have a contextual analytical gap. The issue was that the regulations were not rigorously enforced enough, created a spike in demand and with Shengen movements being what they are it was easy to bring girls into Germany to meet the demand. Competition pushed prices down, etc. The answer was that better regulation and enforcement were needed; not that it inherently fails. That latter conclusion is the conclusion you make as an American, who has no reason to have faith in the state to act.

What you ignore is that in 2016, the SPD successfully legislated for coercion and trafficking to be criminalised; and in 2017, the Bundestag passed the Prostituiertenschutzgesetz - the Prostitution Protection Act. Prostitutes are now registered, given annual health checkups, and work for registered brothels where the owner must demonstrate compliance with working conditions standards and other laws before being registered. Notably, all intercourse must be done with condoms - the Mirror piece highlighted that unprotected sex was a "selling point" of a few of the new brothels.

Context, culture, and a non-normative assumption are important for understanding the world, Wocky, and Americans aren't very good at it. You took a piece which highlighted issues, but you could only apply a very limited experience set to it and you arguably didn't know you were doing that. The reason we're not viewing this in the way you do is because fundamentally, we have faith in the state based on experience and results, and you don't; and we know Germany, as a social democracy, is generally better at it than a lot of us are.

Nobody's alleging perfection, either - just that when things go wrong, and they will because people, it's the subsequent regulation and protections that you need to look out for. I understand why you don't; you just need to understand why that's the wrong approach.

 

Excuse me, Ender? Is it honestly your belief that no groups in Australia have faced a lifetime of systemic discrimination? Really?

I mean, forget that repeatedly, the problems we outlined and which also appeared in that article had nothing to do with law enforcement and are indeed incapable of being legislated. Let's just pause at your blind assertion that both "Europe" writ large and Australia are some sort of paradises free of dysfunction or discrimination.

Quite a launching point to discuss the blindness of others' perspectives.

 

I did no such thing. I said that it is "more of an issue" for countries that don't have a safety net, and it is. I didn't make any comment whatsoever about the US. I'm not aware of any country in the world that doesn't have **** working conditions and **** work environments for a large proportion of its people irrespective of of its welfare policies (perhaps excluding certain countries in Scandinavia). I worked for many years as an unskilled labourer and performed a few dangerous jobs where I was massively exploited. It happens, even in countries like Australia which have a decent safety net. I think the point is that circumstances will always exist where people are pressured into a particular job, but if that is inevitable given our current economic systems , it is better that people are pressured into working in a regulated industry rather than an unregulated industry. You can disapprove all you want, but sex workers will never disappear.

 

Apologies for misinterpreting you, if you didn't mean to imply as much as I responded to.

On the other hand, allow me to clarify my position. My "disapproval" has never really been at issue. I disapprove of a great many things which are presently both legal and celebrated. I've referenced several in this thread already.

I'd ask you to take a look at my last post. Legalization is a relatively small piece of this puzzle. I don't really find it satisfying to simply shrug away the industry's attendant problems and say "that's capitalism." Legalization, if it occurred, would be hugely profitable to a great many parties. I don't think it unreasonable to focus on how we can limit--or figuring out whether we can limit--the many negative consequences that are also sure to emerge. Equally, we could just as well examine the problems of already legalized sex work, and try to understand why these haven't been better addressed before assuming that something with which he have less experience and which is more complex would have all its problems magically rectified.

 

That's not what I said. I said this:

You guys either have examples of systemic discrimination throughout whole lives, or for large portions of lives, that we don't.

Yours is an insipid or disingenuous interpretation of what I wrote.

However, it was an excellent attempt at smoke and mirrors.

 

That strikes me as a distinction without difference.

How would you not have "examples of systemic discrimination" if they in fact exist? Given the significant gaps between Aboriginals and the general populace in things like healthcare, and a historical legacy that is as ugly and genocidal as the US's own dealings with many of its indigenous peoples, I frankly have no idea what sense you are speaking of when you make such a comment.

 

Yes I agree, legalisation is just the starting point and is not a panacea for all of the problems associated with an industry which has for centuries been dominated by scumbags. The key really is tied to proper regulation and funding to allow proper regulation and awareness among the general public of what they should expect if they decide to visit a licensed brothel or other place where sex services are regulated and controlled.

That has been a major problem in Australia where associates of outlaw motorcycle gangs who do not have criminal records are able to run legal brothels as proxies for the gangs, obtain all of the proper licences and pass all of the inspections (which they have advance notice of) but in reality they run a sex slave business which should be shut down. Punters frequent these establishments because they believe they are legitimate, but they exploit and mistreat the workers.

The issue is the political will to authorise the funding towhich will ensure the interests of sex workers are looked after. It just does not seem like a high priority for local or state government despite sex workers being the most 'at risk' and that is a problem which is perpetuated and confounded by the religious conservatives and other right wingnuts.

 

Aboriginal is an adjective, Wocky. You mean aborigine, though First Australians would be preferred.

But you've entirely missed the point in what I can only assume is part of violent subconscious reaction to being accused of innate Americentric bias. Ironically, demonstrating a basic awareness of how other cultures may think has lead you to this point.

The contention was that Europeans (and as a colony of one we're still fairly European) will always have faith in the organs of state and will defer to the state to address issues. This originated by you taking a piece from the Mirror that backed up your prudish distaste for sex work. You said that even in a state with as strong a safety net as Germany, things can go wrong.

For everyone who has that European mindset, the first reaction was "we'll get laws in to fix it". And that's what happened - your Mirror piece was from 2013, and Prostituiertenschutzgesetz was passed into law in 2017. It addressed all the areas that the Mirror article called out as problematic. So in short, the instinctive reaction for most of us non-Americans was actually realised in practice by the Germans.

Where the question of different systemic bias issues came into play was - I (and to be fair, probably others) understand why you would not default to this position. Americentrism runs deep and it's not just right wing hillbillies afflicted by it. Urbane professionals are too, because it's hard to escape indoctrination when it's reinforced everywhere, everyday. Yet when you see the kinds of systemic discrimination American does with literally no intent or interest from the state in alleviating it, you could be forgiven for not thinking the Remunerated German Sex Person situation could be fixed through law and regulation.

What frustrates me, and probably a few others, is that you cannot demonstrate the awareness of the limits of American-centric thinking and understand that the experiences of Americans are not normative experiences. You don't realise you think this way but you do.

 

This may have been what you meant. But it is certainly not what you said, which is all that I can respond to. You did not speak about the willingness of government to address problems, but the existence of those problems in the first place.

That statement is plainly untrue.

Even your modified statement doesn't strike me as very defensible. The US government has made, and even now is still making some efforts to address systemic discrimination against minorities. They are far from adequate, and the disparities are inexcusable. But what, then? Are you proposing that the disparities in your own country somehow are excusable? You are ultimately just making a value judgment that is conveniently exculpatory of your own country's racial issues, even though by some measure it is probably worse than the situation you are criticizing.

Link
Original Study

Two thirds of African-Americans don't report being spat on or physically assaulted because of their race in the past 12 months.

 

OK but you brought race into it (more Americentism, congrats mate. That's actually an impressive effort. Using Watto's scoring system it's like a +2000 at least). Systemic discrimination is not just about race, Wocky. That's you shifting the goalposts in order to make your Americentrism defensible (in the aforementioned Americentric way. And they say Yanks don't do irony...).

The UN's literally just smashed the US for its systemic economic policy failures, and the UN Special Rapporteur told the Guardian:

"This is a systematic attack on America’s welfare program that is undermining the social safety net for those who can’t cope on their own. Once you start removing any sense of government commitment, you quickly move into cruel."

From para 17 of the UN report:

VI. Problems with existing governmental policies
17. There is no magic recipe for eliminating extreme poverty, and each level of government must make its own good-faith decisions. At the end of the day, however, particularly in a rich country like the United States, the persistence of extreme poverty is a political choice made by those in power. With political will, it could readily be eliminated. What is known, from long experience and in the light of the Government’s human rights obligations, is that there are indispensable ingredients for a set of policies designed to eliminate poverty. They include: democratic decision-making, full employment policies, social protection for the vulnerable, a fair and effective justice system, gender and racial equality, respect for human dignity, responsible fiscal policies and environmental justice. As shown below, the United States falls well short on each of these measures.

Given we were specifically talking about the ability of the state to legislate around problems, using examples of how you cherry picked the Mirror article and didn't even have a flicker of an impulse to investigate state remedial activity; and the US is well known for failing under numerous administrations to tackle systemic social inequality, you can shift goalposts all you like but it doesn't actually convince anyone, yourself included, that your Americentric lense isn't problematic and/or prevailing.

You did not think to research what was done in response to the Mirror's story; the result was Prostituiertenschutzgesetz - which you still won't address. You're conditioned through bitter experience and the failures of just about every President/Congress in your lifetime to do anything about the extreme poverty and war on the poor that is America to think there is no state solution to the problems. That's ok, but you should acknowledge how you're letting a cognitive bias do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Why is so hard for you to accept your Americentric bias?

 

No, systemic discrimination is not "just about race." But it is certainly inclusive of race, and you made a global statement.

I fully accept my social context can give me analytical blindspots. But yours, as a relatively affluent white Australian, have probably offered you up a few as well. Especially when one carries on with the kind of commentary you have.

 

"I fully accept it, but let me also abrogate responsibility by attacking others".

Now that we have as close to an admission of being wrong as we'll ever get from Wocky, we can return to the debate question of "can you regulate sex work in a way that is safe for the workers and that does not perpetuate harmful views of women, unsafe conditions for women etc' and the answer is - probably, let's see how Prostituiertenschutzgesetz pans out in Germany?

 

Hopefully as well as the white utopia that is Australia where there are no racial problems as long as we ask the right people.

 

So someone who's constantly not only held is government up as a failing its indigenous population but loudly proclaimed the Stolen Generation is a genocide we avoid calling as such because we're too cowardly to pay reparations; who says multiculturalism is better than your assimilation, is in favour of a white utopia?

Ha.

Wocky I'm sure if you Googled it there will be websites with tips on how to lose gracefully.

 

You've constantly in this thread suggested that Australia doesn't have problems with systemic discrimination.

Surprisingly, issues of bias aren't zero sum. There's no single signifier that makes you above reproach. The same person can be exemplary in one sense and deeply regressive in others.

I am not challenging your recognition of a genocide. I am noting that the flattened way that you make international consequences has multiple ugly implications. If you actually care about these issues you'll likely find a way to develop some nuance in your conversation. If you don't, you'll go on crowing on a Star Wars internet message board.

EDIT: Just out of curiosity, how is it "Americanocentric" to think race might be a relevant issue in a country where two-thirds of a minority group report being spat on in the last year specifically because of their race? Are their complaints somehow illegitimate?

 

No, Wocky. I haven't done that. And this is just a smokescreen for you to avoid having to admit you have literally nothing of substance to add on the topic beyond a generally silly puritanical disdain for the concept of sex workers (hence the references to "remunerated sex persons" - if it wasn't clear I was mocking your ridiculous stance on this). The point about the unique systemic issues was very clearly made in the context of why you'd not have faith in legislation as a solution. If you want to discuss elsewhere then I would submit here's the place to do it. However, given at least 2 of the Australians here would a) know more about you (which isn't hard) about the trials facing indigenous people and have b) consistently held a dim view of the treatment of them you're going to end up with an echo chamber. But since it has just come to your attention and matters to you - we always welcome people learning more about the country, warts and all - then please do ask questions in that thread.

 

ITT Systemic discrimination can exist while also somehow not being an example of systemic discrimination.

More details forthcoming. Or perhaps just complaining about "americentrism."