Legalisation of Prostitution

no, you can't. the ones who caught the guy who raped an old gf's sister were not fuckers.

yes, you can. that's what it does, always.

No idea what you mean by this. Moving on...

My position was that I don't think something (marijuana) should be legal i.e. that we shouldn't have to have the consent of a system that I and many of us consider useless and down right illegitimate, especially when it is then a licence for corporations to market it and so forth.

On the other hand, I don't think it should be made illegal because that raises lots of problems too.

And revol68, although it would be a nuisance having to go above the law to procure alcohol, I'm used to that sort of thing, and my whole point is that there shouldn't be that 'law' in the first place. What I propose is simply tacit law with anarchist/libertarian-communist principles in a society.

I say this because I think use of cannabis would continue in such a society. On the other hand, prostitution is entirely odious and everything should be done to prevent this repellent expoitation of women. Legalising it simply a passing on of one patriarchal form of control to the next.

i dont think we should be changing the actual laws on prostitution itself at all. we should be making changes in the way that we enforce them, and putting actual time and money into helping women out of prostitution.

i dont believe that women should be arrested for street prostitution. instead i would like to see extra funding going into refuges and rape crisis. i would love to see more women only hostels to house women short term until they can be rehoused more permanently, and id like to see them opened up to younger girls too, 12 upwards. i think heroin should be allowed on prescription, but under some conditions - like having to come to the prescribing centre and having to do it on premises, not take anything away, and alongside a program to ultimately get drug addicts off drugs. i would like more money put into centres for giving contraception, sexual health checks, more general health checks, and better access to everything any woman might need to get off the streets.

i would have thought if we put in the money and the effort, we would see a huge reduction in women in street prostitution.

other than that, id like to see the eyes shift to the pimps and the punters. this stuff that lazy riser is saying (cant remember which thread, i think it was this one) about disabled people etc - i believe really strongly that noone has an entitlement to sex with another person. i also believe that this entitlement myth is whats behind most (all?) rape.

Very true arf! Not everyone will end up having sex in their life.

It seems to be this notion that there is some sort of 'justice' or 'fairness' in the world that they will find someone to consent with.

The notion that 'there is someone out there for everyone' is obviously absurd. This applies to sex, love and many other things...

As someone who may well never have a sexual relationship, not through choice but because of my disability, I agree entirely with arf about noone being entitled to sex. In regards to the question of full legalisation clearly the only thing it would do is further legitimise the buyers of sex and make it more difficult for women to leave the industry (which is what the vast majority of them want to do). The Swedish approach may be a good thing to try (and only the buyers should ever be punished) although the primary concern of socialists and feminists must be to give prostituted women the resources they need to be as safe as possible, provide them with all the necessary help to get out of the industry and tackle the social factors which drove them into it in the first place. Drugs like heroin must be prescribed through the NHS for all addicts.

Arf, you say rape is all about some sort of perceived "entitlement". Call me naive, but I always thought it was about violence, power and control.

As has been said loads of times on here, talking about prostitution as "paying for rape" really devalues the issue of rape... and don't start banging on about "real rape" and all that guff, because it's just a ploy, a red herring and you know it. As has been said before, your view is tantamount to saying that a prostitute encourages rape... a new slant on the old "asking for it myth", which is basically reactionary misogynistic shite.

You seem to want to keep talking about "legalisation". But in fact, "decriminalisation" is the issue. In other words, the right (as far as bourgeois law allows it) of women to go about their business without being hassled, arrested, roughed up and raped by the cops. If the law wants to do something proactive, sure they might as well have a go at pimps and traffickers. But you do realise, hassling punters will mean that the working girls will hang around in increasingly out of the way (and even more vulnerable and dangerous) places to protect their trade.

You really do need to look beyond your narrow ideology, Arf. There's a big real world out there that doesn't always fit into your black and white rad-fem mantras. Women and men are not cardboard cut-out stereotypes, figments of a fevered rad-fem mind. They're much more complex than that.

What definition of anarchism or libertarian communism does this come under?

It would be a good thing to try in our present patriarchal capitalist society. Obviously once the state has been smashed and a libertarian society has been established (as I certainly hope it will be) the factors which coerce people into entering the sex industry will cease to exist and such measures will be unnecessary.

Right. So a draconian law which totally criminalises sex work in most forms, and criminalises people because of the job they do, is a good thing is it? Jesus shat!

The Swedish approach is to decriminalise the sale of sex while punishing the buyers.

No it isn't. Click here: http://www.petraostergren.com/content/view/44/67/

Is it me, or am I experiencing deja vu?

i can't follow whether this is correct or not (after serge's link), but i think it's a hateful idea.

Well I wasn't aware of all the concerns expressed in that article but if they are true then elements of Sweden's prostitution laws clearly need to be reconsidered so that the only people being criminalised in any way are the buyers. However there is a huge amount of evidence that the Dutch and German approach of legalisation and/or regulation does not work and simply makes it more difficult for women to leave prostitution as well as resulting in a massive growth in all aspects of the sex industry.

But as has been said again and again, you criminalise the buyers and this has a direct negative impact on the sellers. They end up more vulnerable, have to hang about in more out of the way and dangerous places, etc, etc. Nice one.

Anyway, this discussion really is going round in circles.

And besides, the sex industry isn't all bad, y'know.

That is I suppose a possible effect and would need to be taken into consideration when drafting any new laws. As I've said though the primary concern should be providing prostituted women with the resources they need either to stay as safe as possible or to leave the industry while getting to the roots of the problem by looking at why it takes place in the first place and attempting to change people's attitudes by fighting male domination wherever it manifests itself.

Sorry RedScotland, you're new on here and I don't want to give you a hard time, but this really is twaddle. You are aware that this is an anarchist forum? So why are we talking about 'drafting new laws' especially ones based on judgementalism and bourgeois morality that seek to harass and criminalise further sections of the population? And why do you say 'prostituted women' using a passive tense? Do you really think that most women who do this kind of work do it because somebody else forces them to? Also, are you aware how many male prostitutes there are in this country? Where does that social reality fit into the equation? Are you aware, that not all prostitutes are crack or smack heads standing on street corners waiting to get enough to feed their habit? Some are relatively okay with the work they do and much prefer it to other jobs.

I am aware that it is a libertarian forum and I would consider my views to be compatible with that - I do not generally support a state solution and would really like to see a society where all hierarchies and forms of coercion cease to exist. I do not believe in enforcing bourgeois morality and I do not believe those who have to sell their bodies due to various social factors should ever be criminalised.

I use the term prostituted women as, on the whole, it is not a genuinely free choice and because prostitution involves one person using their money to buy control over the body of another. A huge majority of those in the sex industry are women and an even larger majority of the buyers are male but that's obviously not to say that men can't also be coerced into it or suffer from exploitation or abuse. According to some statistics 95% of prostituted women are addicted to heroin so it's certainly one of the major factors which serve to prevent people from leaving the industry.

ok, that's better.

huh??? How did this weird box in the middle of Newyawkas post bearing my name in a thread I was NOT about to post in suddenly appear??? a techie X File perhaps..

rape is an expression of entitlement and power, with an aim of ownership and therefore control. violence is one of the tools used, but rape is not about violence.

the argument over what is considered "real rape" is right at the heart of all of this. it is not a red herring. the real red herring is the insistance that "actual" or "real" rape exists and therefore many instances that are in fact rape are dismissed as "not quite". over the years that has included marital rape, rape of prostitutes, 'date' rape, etc. insisting on the existence of "real rape" and presumably "not real rape" is an ignorant misogynist position.

and i have never, ever, said that prostitutes encourage rape. i do not believe that, i would never say that, and i would like you to withdraw that allegation.

you say potato..

first - i am well aware that some people argue for full decriminalisation - for the prostitutes that is, not for the johns. but there are also an awful lot of people calling for full legalisation, which is an incredibly scary prospect imo, and i think it is a reactionary position.

second - whilst you see decriminalisation as the right of women to sell their bodies to men for sexual use, i see it rather the other way round - the right of men to buy women's bodies for sexual use.

not if your posts are to be believed. the fact that you apparently cannot read my posts properly, and instead continue to attribute to me arguments i have not made and dont believe, and further to that you attempt to discredit my views by using very innaccurate assumptions and basic misogynist insults (fevered=hysterical; figments=i must imagine it all; etc). you have no idea who i am, how i think, and where ive come from, and the fact that your argument hangs on discrediting me in such petty ways rather than actually making your own damn argument, means that i cannot take you seriously at all.

Yes, the perceived entitlement of power over someone else.

I think arf should be congratulated for her uncompromising position that money is not valid consent for sex and is only thought of as such because of the patriarchal ideology that legitimises it. It's not devaluing rape, it's merely a more insidious kind of rape, which wears the thin veil of being okay, despite the obviously sexist nature of it. And BTW, I am sure arf does not know it and patronising rhetorical techniques that suggest she is being disingenuous are simply frustrating.

arf has not said this. Give us a quote.

Two things:

1) You seem to have a bizarre faith in the bourgeois law. I think evidently it will lead to a more permissive attitude in the police.

2) You also predicate on women 'wanting' to do their 'trade' and that prostitution isn't an intrinsically bad thing. I can't be shrugged off as simply another trade, as obviously it is gendered work that offers women as objects for men to use in whatever way they want.

If the state colludes with the pimps etc. it would simply fortify in an all encompassing universal way the complete availability of women to be fucked and in fact anything else money can buy.

lol... sounds like a patronising way of trying to make arf less radical, to placate her. It's really quite funny because it sounds like my father (a conservative) telling me how the 'real' world works. arf has managed to épater les anarchist bourgeois.

This last paragraph isn't even an argument. It's a way of saying 'calm down dear'. Saying 'big real world' is infuriatingly patronising. The really perspicacious aspect of arf and radical feminism in general is the ability to transgress fanciful and liberal notions of women and men and to basically say it how it is, without any recourse to the law, 'the man' or cop-outs like saying how 'it's a complex world out there'. I don't think anyone doubts that 'it's a complex world out there', but evidently it's a complex world out there which shows a lot of patterns.

The exigent and mandatory need for radical feminism is that it addresses issues that anarchist communism simply cannot. The patriarchy could still exist in an anarchist communist society. Just imagine if Proudhon got his way.

It was merely a coincidence that I posted that straight after arf.

quite. but i wouldnt be surprised if serge himself hadnt noticed that, or hadnt consciously intended it. i think it's probably unexamined misogyny rather than intentional nastiness. it has the same general purpose though, regardless of serge's individual intention, which is to unfairly discredit my pov and ultimately silence my voice.

Hi

Interesting axiom. Is money valid consent for anything?

Love

LR

i'd like to go further with this. i've long thought that rape is the extreme expression of any person's desire to use any other. it is different in degree, but not in kind, from any attempt - physical, emotional, verbal - by one person to force another to use his/her body in a way against his/her wishes, for the satisfaction of the first party. blaming rape on 'patriarchy' merely dilutes the responsibility.

gone now? i forgot to put the backslash at the end of rs's quote

I don't think anybody is saying that the police never do anything useful. It's not about police being bad people, it's about the various functions of the police as an organisation under capitalism.

yes i'm with that. but alot of leftists seem to have a manichean view of the world, and, oh, it wearies me.

But there are differences.

A bloke whose around the libertarian left in ireland was gotten drunk by a girl he doesn't like or have any respect for much less be attracted to and then she slept with him when she was sober and he could hardly stand. There was no consent involved and if he was sober he wouldn't have consented. So is it rape? Yeah but no-one gives a shit (in fact i've been told that some people who are very vocal about rape, sexual assault and violence agaainst women have defended the girl) and as far as i know he just wants to forget about it. Any which way it is clear that its not equatable with violent rape. Nor is it equatable with if he sold himself to her. There are differences.