Anna Merlan instantly believed the Rolling Stone / UVA hoax and she doesn’t know why!
mtnmule
mtnmule
I’ve been too many parts of the world to take seriously this idea that racism is the cause of poverty. Do you think everyone who’s poor in Ukraine, or North Korea, or Thailand, or Yemen, is black? Economic inequality is a global phenomenon, with processes of dispossession and exploitation always as its root cause.…
I’d rather live in a world where this isn’t treated as a serious issue (even if at some level it is) than one that treats it like it’s as serious an issue as unemployment, healthcare, war, the environment, prisons, etc.
I’d bet that for every one of these post-sexwork born-agains this group’s dug up, there are multiple women who’d rather just not talk about what they did in their youth — precisely because of the social stigma surrounding prostitution, a stigma which the nordic model helps perpetuate.
As I read this site you’ve sent me, I’m amazed by how much of its “About” write-up absolutely reeks of unabashed extremism. The existence of voluntary sex workers (which my study, remember, claimed was like 94%, a figure which strikes me as too high, but still!) is barely even acknowledged here. No views from…
The absence of views from practicing sex workers is the giveaway that this is the neovictorian equivalent of jews for jesus. Find me some practicing sex workers who say they’d like their profession to be less rather than more legal, and i might rethink my views.
Obviously my counterproposal, like that of most commenters here, is full decriminalization coupled with vigorous enforcement of antitrafficking laws. The fact that you keep forgetting that this has been my counterproposal the entire time we’ve been corresponding is weird.
“the abused millions”
I doubted the validity of your “vast majority of sex workers are trafficked slaves” statement because I know a number of people who have had sex for money, and in virtually none of the cases was there a pimp/trafficker-type figure in the person’s life. This is anecdotal, so I don’t submit it to you as “data,” but it’s…
Even if 95% of sex workers were trafficked, I am not seeing why that would make the other 5 percent, or their clients, into criminals. Your logic doesn’t make sense. If most people on the road are driving drunk, that doesn’t turn the sober drivers into criminals. If most factories are illegally dumping waste, that…
I don’t know whether they’re in the minority or not, and it doesn’t especially matter. Millions and of sex-money transactions occur which are non-violent and totally consensual, and the people engaged in those transactions have nothing to do with human trafficking. You’re grouping things together which do not belong…
Keeping things on the black market, as you advocate, isn’t a magic bullet either. Nothing is a magic bullet in life. We try to have a society which is as free as possible, while also having a legal system in place which is sufficiently equipped to mitigate the problems that inevitably arise in connection with those…
And you’ve yet to explain why it’s the fault of two people who are consensually having sex and exchanging money in the process that some sleazy mob boss somewhere is trafficking women. If you don’t think it’s their fault and agree that they’re doing nothing wrong, then I don’t see how you can hold the position that…
Comparing the Netherlands to other Western European countries is like comparing Nevada to Utah. You’re completely misunderstanding how this industry works. You think it’s fueled by trafficked women, but in fact it’s fueled by johns (mostly men) seeking out sex they can pay for. If they don’t find this in Utah, they…
Whatever, I was just going for rhetorical effect. And I don’t see how anyone even remotely familiar with the sex trade on a global scale, which necessarily includes Eastern Europe, East Asia, Latin America, American cities’ various sleazy “skid rows” and faux massage parlors and the like, the online sex industry, etc,…
What are you comparing it to? Whatever neovictorian middle American suburb you hail from? Yeah, I’m sure Amsterdam was quite shocking for you.
Uh yes I think it’s been a success? Netherlands as bastion of tolerance and all that?
The Dutch model seems pretty good. Regulation of legal prostitution gives people who want to be sex workers or johns in a consensual context the opportunity to do so; vigorous enforcement of antitrafficking laws limits trafficking to an impressive extent given the role Amsterdam plays as the sex industry hub of…
The point of my analogy is that with most industries, when industry expansion brings about an increase in crime (as usually happens), we expand law enforcement. That’s called growth. Why should the sex industry be any different?