|
Tiny Brontosaurus posted:[..] I'm pro sex-worker and anti-John.[...] Do you think that adopting a "swedish model" (criminalizing purchase of sex acts only) would be a good idea?
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 03:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 23:35 |
|
|
My sex worker friends say that decriminalization is the way to go.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 03:47
|
|
|
Dommolus Magnus posted:Do you think that adopting a "swedish model" (criminalizing purchase of sex acts only) would be a good idea? Superficially it sounds good to me but I'm too aware of how little I know about the issue and the ramifications of any way a government approaches it to really say for sure.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 03:52
|
|
|
BarbarianElephant posted:The sweetest little red text! Thanks guys I hope I can have a red text one day, it feels nice to be noticed...
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 03:56
|
|
|
Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Superficially it sounds good to me but I'm too aware of how little I know about the issue and the ramifications of any way a government approaches it to really say for sure. It's pretty controversial even in Sweden, and there's a lengthy public debate on whether it's helping or hurting. Here's a blog post listing the major criticisms with sources.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 04:00
|
|
|
Shayu posted:I hope I can have a red text one day, it feels nice to be noticed... I am no longer a dumb newbie baby 
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 04:11
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:Similarly - and less aimed at MageMage in particular - the fact remains that many feminists do not consider trans women to be women. What do you suggest we call the people who do when emphasizing their acceptance of trans women? How about TERFs get to keep their hateful terminology and we continue discussing feminism? Cause right now I feel like I am slowly being excluded from this conversation because theres "Your feminism" and "my feminism". I didn't get help from "trans feminists", I got it from feminism. Please don't invent these new terminologies. You're making it sound like feminism is for women who were lucky enough to be raised women from birth, and we have to invent a new terminology because "where do we put the trans people in all this?" I would like to be seen as equal to other men and women, I don't need new terminologies for "my equality" and "their equality". It sounds exactly what a TERF would want, is some sort of official, unchallenged exclusion. Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Having your own corner of a wider movement that focuses on the issues specific to your identity is perfectly fine and normal. Trans feminism is a thing, afro-feminism is a thing. It's all good. It's pointless to worry about what the reactionaries will think because if there was a magic combination of words that would make them act like decent people they wouldn't be reactionaries. Having my own corner? It's a good thing that you are here to dictate what is fine and normal. Trans feminism is not a thing, I don't know who invented it but please don't perpetuate it related to feminism. Just because there is an extreme going one way (TERFS) doesn't mean we have to make something up for an extreme the other way. I don't like this "same but different" attitude you have pertaining to this. I shouldn't have to put in some kind of disclaimer when discussing equality with other women. That's exactly what TERFs want us to do, is be excluded, and when you say "it's all good", I feel like your validating that exclusion and that I'm the only one with a problem. If you haven't noticed, I'm probably the only trans person who gets in a tissy on these forums over any injustice, and if more people would throw a tissy, we wouldn't make up new terminology to casually exclude people from the conversation, but I'm just one person. Cis people constantly have discussion about us and exclude us in the discussion. Same thing when men have debates about women but exclude women due to emotional bias. My opinion has value just as much as yours. If afro-feminism worked for you, great, but don't use it as a basis like "this is how it is and you need to accept it like this". Trans is not an identity. It is an experience. Trans people say that they are trans not so that you have something to identify with but because you have a way of relating to the experience. Late stage puberty, lack of a menstrual cycle, whatever empathy you need to better understand us, but to say it is an identity, and then put it into it's own separate category of feminism, just ensures that we are excluded from many conversations and discussion. All it does is exacerbate dysphoria and make us feel like we don't belong. We can barely unite as a community as it is, who is heralding this "movement"? And if that is the case, I implore you all in this thread to stop using "trans-feminism" because the topic is feminism. It's like telling us to use the "gender neutral" bathroom because why complain? You get to piss like everyone else. That is besides the point. BarbarianElephant posted:Trans friendly feminism is the norm I agree, thank you.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 04:14
|
|
|
I'm crying so bad right now. You people make me want to kill myself, I'm so upset.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 04:18
|
|
|
Rhetorical "you," sweet pea.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 04:21
|
|
|
I basically agree with what Tiny Brontosaurus said regarding sex work. I think that people tend to treat low wage work in general (not just sex work) as voluntary when, in reality, it really isn't, and I imagine that sex workers who are in the field voluntarily and because they enjoy it (or enjoy the money) are probably not even close to a majority. I also think that, generally speaking, allowing some poorer women (and men too I guess) to be driven into the profession against their will is overall a greater problem than the opposing problem of women who genuinely want to do such work being prevented from doing it. That being said, banning sex work probably causes more problems than it solves, since you can't really prevent all sex work and will just end up driving it underground and making it more unsafe. So decriminalization is probably the best route to go (at least with the workers themselves), but I'm not really sure what to think of the profession in a more general sense. edit: MageMage, regarding the use of trans-feminism, the best analogy is the one to afro-feminism that someone gave. It can be a useful term to refer to "feminism specifically related to this sub-group." It doesn't imply that transwomen aren't women, in the same way that afro-feminism doesn't imply that black women aren't women. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Jan 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 04:22
|
|
|
MageMage posted:I'm crying so bad right now. You people make me want to kill myself, I'm so upset. You may want to take a break from the thread then, if it's really that bad.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 04:31
|
|
|
Saying that sex work is involuntary, except for when it's actually forced or coerced, seems really lovely to me. Like you're denying the agency of the workers involved entirely. It's a way for us to survive, when our other options are kind of poo poo for various reasons, and it takes a loving lot of skill and effort to be good at it. You have to be able to sell it and work it, and also be able to protect yourself both physically and financially.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 04:38
|
|
|
MageMage posted:I'm crying so bad right now. You people make me want to kill myself, I'm so upset. Oh no. You should go outside and take a break from online, the Internet is much more pessimistic and angry than outside it. Clear your mind.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 04:43
|
|
|
MageMage posted:Having my own corner? It's a good thing that you are here to dictate what is fine and normal. Trans feminism is not a thing, I don't know who invented it but please don't perpetuate it related to feminism. Just because there is an extreme going one way (TERFS) doesn't mean we have to make something up for an extreme the other way. I don't like this "same but different" attitude you have pertaining to this. I shouldn't have to put in some kind of disclaimer when discussing equality with other women. That's exactly what TERFs want us to do, is be excluded, and when you say "it's all good", I feel like your validating that exclusion and that I'm the only one with a problem. Hm. So I feel like the term can be useful because there's got to be some stuff that is unique to your experience that I just really don't get, and never will get because I'm cis. And it's not like "feminism" isn't for you because you're trans, but more like "transfeminism" isn't for me because I'm cis. Feminism is the big umbrella term and then there is stuff underneath it that speaks more uniquely to female experiences. Like I don't think the misogynoir thread existing means that this thread isn't for black women, because this thread is for all women. In any case,  sorry we made you feel like you weren't welcome when I think the term got brought up specifically to make it clear that women who are trans DO belong here, and in feminism in general. I def have the opposite fear of assuming the trans experience is enough like mine that I end up dismissing your perspective.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 05:00
|
|
|
Hawkgirl posted:Hm. So I feel like the term can be useful because there's got to be some stuff that is unique to your experience that I just really don't get, and never will get because I'm cis. Think about it this way: there are things unique to the lesbian experience that I might not get because I'm straight, but lesbian women are still women and "feminism" as a whole still (obviously) covers lesbians even though there are things unique to their experience, and those things may even relate to them being women. I realize it seems like a bit of a pedantic argument, but I think it comes from the very real fear that creating the category of "transfeminism" is effectively saying "here's feminism for real women, and trans women have 'transfeminism'". Trans people are told pretty constantly we aren't real men or real women, and I think that makes us wary when people start making a big point about the distinction. I've made similar arguments about "trans woman" vs. "transwoman", for the same reason. MageMage posted:I'm crying so bad right now. You people make me want to kill myself, I'm so upset. The people saying to take a break from the internet are right. Hang in there. You aren't alone. edit for grammar DeadlyMuffin fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Jan 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 05:41
|
|
|
Gloryhold It! posted:Saying that sex work is involuntary, except for when it's actually forced or coerced, seems really lovely to me. Like you're denying the agency of the workers involved entirely. It's a way for us to survive, when our other options are kind of poo poo for various reasons, and it takes a loving lot of skill and effort to be good at it. You have to be able to sell it and work it, and also be able to protect yourself both physically and financially. I didn't mean that this is the case for everyone (I have no idea what the actual ratio would be, but there are obviously a significant number of sex workers who would prefer to do something else). I'm referring to it being effectively not a choice in many situations in the same way that any sort of low paid (or generally perceived as unpleasant) work isn't really a choice (basically the same way the word "wage slavery" is used). While some people definitely either enjoy or or don't mind it (and enjoy how lucrative it is), I feel like it's dangerous to consider this the norm since it sort of brushes aside the issues faced by people who were either literally forced or forced by circumstances into the profession.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 05:44
|
|
|
DeadlyMuffin posted:Think about it this way: there are things unique to the lesbian experience that I might not get because I'm straight, but lesbian women are still women and "feminism" as a whole still (obviously) covers lesbians even though there are things unique to their experience, and those things may even relate to them being women As a lesbian, I disagree with this pretty strongly! I think there is definitely room for "lesbian feminism", as, like you say, we have different concerns from straight women that will be addressed in different ways. I agree that in the end we should all have each others' backs, but I also think that acknowledging and making space for differences makes us stronger, not weaker.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 06:30
|
|
|
Esme posted:As a lesbian, I disagree with this pretty strongly! I think there is definitely room for "lesbian feminism", as, like you say, we have different concerns from straight women that will be addressed in different ways. I think it's pretty obvious that "lesbian feminism" would be (is?) a subset of feminism. I don't think that's true of "transfeminism". I don't think there's anyone out there arguing lesbians aren't real women. Edit: Just to point at the language again: notice that it's "transfeminism" and "lesbian feminism" we're discussing here. Just like "transwoman" becomes a way to split trans women away from the word woman. I know this seems pedantic, but when it's something you get clubbed with over and over one gets a bit hyper aware of the distinction. DeadlyMuffin fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Jan 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 07:00
|
|
|
Tiny Brontosaurus posted:So... as you can see I have no conclusion here. I'm pro sex-worker and anti-John. Agreed. My wife used to work as a sex worker, and only assholes don't realise this poo poo happens because young women are being put in poverty by global capitalism and given no way out but to provide sexual services to wealthy older men.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 07:12
|
|
|
Please don't hurt yourself over things posted on the internet. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem and your life has value. I can't speak for all feminists (nobody can) but I believe Feminism is for everyone. I believe everyone can be a feminist and call themselves a feminist. I feel that in requiring some level of ideological purity and cordoning folks off as merely "allies" based on whatever is silly. We should not be some exclusive club. We should, as feminists, care about and pursue all women's issues and social issues since our goal is equality for all people. And subsections of feminism are not inherently designed to be isolating. Merely identifying. Transfeminism is about focusing specifically on trans issues. Black feminism on black people's issues. Etc. The problem arises if we start to partition. Wherein this focuses becomes a different sect of feminism. We should all always be feminists regardless of our focus. And we should care about all issues. For what it's worth I don't think that sectioning off thing is happening yet (and I hope it never happens.) But I understand the concerns. Take care of yourself Mage Mage Anyway, TB I understand how you don't want women to become a commodity but the problem is that sex is already a commodity and thus sex workers are a commodity. It's kind of too late to change that. It's already a thing. Ultimately I think any consequences that arise from legalization and regulation of prostitution/sex work is "worth" the social cost. Just because of its potential to benefit women. I'm regards to concerns of increased trafficking to answer to demand? People are more likely to pursue legal avenues than illegal avenues. Regulations should be able to prevent trafficked/unwilling women from being "employed" by legal businesses. Though I'm sure I'm being far too idealistic and unrealistic.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 08:15
|
|
|
I think it says a lot that I've never read about lesbian feminism, queer feminism or any other term like that out in the wild, and arguing that a hypothetical category 'makes sense' is less relevant than whether people are making regular use of it. I don't think people are, to be honest.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 08:51
|
|
|
The primary criticism of the Swedish model that I've heard is that, on the pragmatic side, by criminalizing the customer you create an incentive for them to threaten legal sex workers into silence in order to cover their own asses. That sex worker then may not want to gamble their physical safety by taking the risk of reporting it. Or you'll just encourage the customer to just go straight to trafficked women who aren't going to report poo poo anyway because their Russian mafia handler will leave them dead in a ditch somewhere if they try anything. On the civil libertarian side, you're still blanket criminalizing people even when everyone involved fully consents of their own accord and any attempt to alleviate that situation with selective enforcement of the law is left up to (possibly puritanical) authorities.
DeusExMachinima fucked around with this message at 09:45 on Jan 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 09:43
|
|
This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!
|
DeadlyMuffin posted:I think it's pretty obvious that "lesbian feminism" would be (is?) a subset of feminism. I don't think that's true of "transfeminism". I don't think there's anyone out there arguing lesbians aren't real women. The people arguing that trans women aren't real women are wrong and trans feminism is a subset of feminism. There you go I solved your conundrum.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 10:03
|
|
|
DeusExMachinima posted:The primary criticism of the Swedish model that I've heard is that, on the pragmatic side, by criminalizing the customer you create an incentive for them to threaten legal sex workers into silence in order to cover their own asses. That sex worker then may not want to gamble their physical safety by taking the risk of reporting it. Or you'll just encourage the customer to just go straight to trafficked women who aren't going to report poo poo anyway because their Russian mafia handler will leave them dead in a ditch somewhere if they try anything. On the civil libertarian side, you're still blanket criminalizing people even when everyone involved fully consents of their own accord and any attempt to alleviate that situation with selective enforcement of the law is left up to (possibly puritanical) authorities. Similarly, from what I've read this approach also had the problem of filtering the clientele into a more dangerous composition. The 'ideal', safe John who just comes in, pays, and then fucks off without incident would be relatively more likely to be scared away than others. Those that remain and are willing to risk being caught would be more likely to be dangerous to the worker, particularly with the incentive you mentioned. Additionally, if a woman is driven to sex work out of economic hardship, then a policy that seeks to essentially eliminate the option of sex work doesn't do anything about the initial underlying problem of that economic hardship. For the worker in question, that's basically exchanging the problem of coercive sex work with the problem of poverty. Or, more likely, it leaves her to continue with the sex work under worse and more dangerous conditions but with less income from it, ending up with the worst of both worlds. In actuality, such a policy seems to do fairly little in terms of actually protecting the workers themselves.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 10:37
|
|
|
MageMage posted:I'm crying so bad right now. You people make me want to kill myself, I'm so upset. Try not to let the aggressive assholes in the thread make you feel that way. It's just them being incapable of being calm while talking about a subject like this.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 10:45
|
|
|
Perestroika posted:Similarly, from what I've read this approach also had the problem of filtering the clientele into a more dangerous composition. The 'ideal', safe John who just comes in, pays, and then fucks off without incident would be relatively more likely to be scared away than others. Those that remain and are willing to risk being caught would be more likely to be dangerous to the worker, particularly with the incentive you mentioned. Yeah, a well-behaved John who can't contribute to her paycheck anymore may just be replaced by a risky John. The other downside of the Swedish system is that it basically prevents the formation of any kind of brothel because ain't nobody gonna be caught dead in an establishment where the cops can roll through at any time and just arrest and be basically guaranteed of convicting anyone who isn't an employee. So it locks the workers out of the advantages a brothel setup might bring such as pooling resources, collective representation, and safety because there can be dedicated security there at all times. Each worker could share that security cost instead of paying for a bodyguard all by themselves, if that even is a practical option in the first place working solo.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 11:01
|
|
|
FactsAreUseless posted:Every single one of us can name days, probably a lot of them, when we didn't want to go to work. But we had to go, because we wanted to pay the rent. And that brings up a lot of really difficult consent questions I don't think most people know how to answer. I think this is an important point and for me it raises the question of 'workfare', i.e. forced labour for subsidy, which has been to our shame introduced in the UK (where I live). At present jobs 'of a sexual nature' are excluded from the list of work one can be forced to do here, but ancillary tasks such as cleaning and bar staff, or making or selling 'adult entertainment products' are not. Does legalizing brothels ever normalize prostitution enough for it to be seen as another job poor people should do, rather than ask for help? Oh dear me fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Jan 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 11:24
|
|
|
Thing is, 'not wanting' =/= 'not consenting'. Consenting to sex work, because you need to put food on your table, is in principle no different than any other demeaning form of labor, that you're forced into because of circumstances. You can have a debate about whether that makes that consent meaningful (and this is particularly important when your arguing about libertarianism, because libertarianism as an ideology refuses to acknowledge power differentials to justify its political-economy), but so long as you believe that people are consenting to work in walmart or whatever, you can't really use that angle when talking about sex work. If you don't think that that consent is meaningful, or is at least questionable, that puts you into 'all sex is rape' territory as well. But that's not necessarily a totally invalid line of thought, just one that then brings up a lot more philosophical questions, and answering those is not as straight-forward as you'd think.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 11:58
|
|
|
rudatron posted:If you don't think that that consent is meaningful, or is at least questionable, that puts you into 'all sex is rape' territory as well. How? I don't think the kind of 'consent' that people who are forced to do horrible work to eat give is worth a great deal, indeed it seems more like an added indignity much of the time. That makes me sceptical about many consent arguments, and leads me to support mincome, so that no one is so coerced. But how does it imply that everyone having sex is currently either coercing or being coerced?
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 12:16
|
|
|
Colin Mockery posted:Here's what I found through Google, fyi. All require archives. There was also a longer thread by an Australian female prostitute which I can't find. It's possible it wasn't A/T but GBS and got lost when GBS went from 1.0 to 2.0 to 2.1 to 4.20 to reboot.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 12:26
|
|
|
Gloryhold It! posted:My sex worker friends say that decriminalization is the way to go. It shouldn't have been criminalized in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 12:29
|
|
|
Oh dear me posted:How? I don't think the kind of 'consent' that people who are forced to do horrible work to eat give is worth a great deal, indeed it seems more like an added indignity much of the time. That makes me sceptical about many consent arguments, and leads me to support mincome, so that no one is so coerced. But how does it imply that everyone having sex is currently either coercing or being coerced?
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 12:33
|
|
|
rudatron posted:If consent is undermined by power differences/circumstances (ie - the choice is not between two ideal cases, but involves unrelated trade-offs, that is going to coerce you into the only realistic option available to you), the obvious 'extension' of that argument is from sex-work into all sex. Given that men and women are not (yet) equal, can any consent between them have any real assurance of not being undermined, for the same reasons as between sex workers and johns? This isn't so much a case of being wrong necessarily as it is being completely irrelevant until we make it mandatory for everyone to walk around with Sarif IndustriesTM cyber-arms. The average woman will usually be physically at the mercy of the average man and that colors everything, always. Or she could be socially pressured into some poo poo. I guess you could hypothetically remove that last factor by and large but there'll always be bad actors and women will always be more vulnerable to men on average, any one of whom could be that bad actor. Everyone knows that so every interaction will be affected by that knowledge and yet 99% of all people will still have sex so if all sex is rape as things stand now then it's pretty intractable and academic. DeusExMachinima fucked around with this message at 12:54 on Jan 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 12:43
|
|
|
The Swedish model also bans facilitation (driving a sex worker to work or recommending each other to a client) and certain forms of solicitation, so any time sex workers do anything to work together, they're back to breaking the law.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 13:19
|
|
|
rudatron posted:Given that men and women are not (yet) equal, can any consent between them have any real assurance of not being undermined, for the same reasons as between sex workers and johns? Yes, for the same reasons we can call some people healthy and others sick despite their all having germs.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 13:19
|
|
|
Andrea Dworkin's work covered a lot of those types of issues. She's often mischaracterized as a sex-hating puritan (at best) but she was far from it. She's definitely worth reading, because she makes some very compelling arguments, even if you don't necessarily agree with all of her positions. e: I've always liked this interview she gave to Michael Moorcock. http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/MoorcockInterview.html Rush Limbo fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Jan 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 13:25
|
|
|
Jenner posted:Anyway, TB I understand how you don't want women to become a commodity but the problem is that sex is already a commodity and thus sex workers are a commodity. It's kind of too late to change that. It's already a thing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 16:56
|
|
|
Archer666 posted:It shouldn't have been criminalized in the first place. I agree. But their rational for decrim rather than legalization is that if it were legalized, it would become regulated and saturated to the point that the workers who need it to survive would no longer have it be available to them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 19:13
|
|
|
DeusExMachinima posted:The primary criticism of the Swedish model that I've heard is that, on the pragmatic side, by criminalizing the customer you create an incentive for them to threaten legal sex workers into silence in order to cover their own asses. That sex worker then may not want to gamble their physical safety by taking the risk of reporting it. Or you'll just encourage the customer to just go straight to trafficked women who aren't going to report poo poo anyway because their Russian mafia handler will leave them dead in a ditch somewhere if they try anything. On the civil libertarian side, you're still blanket criminalizing people even when everyone involved fully consents of their own accord and any attempt to alleviate that situation with selective enforcement of the law is left up to (possibly puritanical) authorities. That's a good point! I always thought that the swedish system would give the sex worker leverage over their John, but I can see now how that is not necessarily the case. Can I just say that I am really pleasantly surprised how good this thread is. You gals really managed to turn it around from the shitshow that were the first couple of pages. Cheers!
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 19:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 23:35 |
|
|
The Swedish system makes sex worker unions illegal, for what it's worth.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2017 22:17
|
|