Legalisation of Prostitution

I heard Harman on the wireless the other day. She talks such utter shite. Her knowledge of the sex industry in the UK seems to be based on some crappy TV melodrama. However:

In these cases I'd say the punter has pretty clearly "paid to rape" and definitely needs hammering one way or another, while the women need lots of support rather than deportation.

But I used the word "melodrama" earlier because trafficking is actually a very small proportion of the modern UK sex industry. Politicians, dramatists and religious leaders tell us that most prostitutes are trafficked but this simply isn't true. That's not to say that there isn't bad stuff going on. Only last night I got a call from a friend who's in really bad shit with her arsehole pimp boyfriend. She's going into a refuge today, thankfully. But the boyfriend really does need his fucking legs sawing off.

um...

in certain circumstances - yes i do. in brothels full of traffiked women for example.

i want to help women get off the streets. that means providing them with help for drug addictions, with housing, and with income - they need an income to replace the one they're giving up.

if what i wanted was followed through, i cant imagine there would be many women on the streets tbh. there would be no need for them to prostitute. those who want to could operate as self employed from premises, and i wouldnt criminalise the punters of these places.

what would you like to see change revol?

but it's thousands of women being raped daily by twenty plus men, men in this country. i dont care what tiny proportion it might be - its reality for thousands of women and thats enough for me to get my knickers in a twist over it serge.

i just cant get my head round the fact that so many men here would happily pay to have sex with these women. i know that punishment isnt necessaily the best deterrant but what else can be done to persuade them that its wrong?

Actually Arf, what you're saying here makes a lot of sense. The girls out on the street are by and large the fag end of the sex rade, more often than not, sesparate and there to get enough for their crack or smack. They are also much more likely to be bullied or pressured into this by a pimp boyfriend. Problem... further criminalising of either the working girl or punter will make things more desparate and dangerous. I find it difficult to believe that the goverment will actually do anything that will positively help these women.

i answered your simple question revol - did you not read my response?

my intention is not to "put an end to the selling of sex" - it is to help women who dont want to sell it to not have to.

men here on this planet - is that better?

i have already answered that.

To be fair, revol, I didn't think Arf was talking about "men on Libcom"...

Anyway, on the subject of trafficked women, there are already in place loads and loads of laws to deal with this serious problem: laws concerning kidnap, abduction, false-imprisonment, assault, rape, ABH and GBH, murder, slavery, human trafficking, etc, etc. So why do people start talking about prostitution and the sex industry when, though in many ways they are connected, it is still really not the same thing. Moreover, we do these trafficked women no favours by equating their experiences with a few public order offenses.

Interesting how you chastise arf for this but not revol68.

I'm taking a break from that poetic afflatus I was having a few minutes ago.

so explain to me how come the punters can find these brothels easily enough (twenty plus per woman per day) and yet the police cant? (well not whilst theyre on duty anyway). and the punters dont get charged either.

the same could be asked of the whole prostitution/sex industry connection.

the sex industry consists of the following
traffiked adults and kids
pimps
prostitutes - both self employed women who chose the career, and those who are desperate and destitute
strippers, lapdancers, pole dancers
people who work on sex lines
writers
magazines
porn - directors, producers, actors

plus etc etc etc

i think we have a big problem here. the sex industry and "sex work" incorporates so much its hard to have any resourceful discussion about it. "sex workers unions" or orgs that apparently are comprised of and speak for prostitutes neednt necessarily have a single currently working prostitute within them.

i can understand that the term "sex worker" was originally an attempt to make some jobs sound more respectable, but it has been misused ('child sex worker' for example) and i think its very confusing.

also, serge, this same argument could be used against decriminalisation. and i have tried to use it earlier, when i looked at what the ECP said about decriminalisation, i posted about how the problems they mention are problems for all women that go way beyond prostitution, like police and courts that dont take rape allegations seriously for example, and that decrim will not change or address that.

That's a very good question, Arf. I wonder why as well.

revol - i have answered your question. i have been completely clear about my position on this throughout this thread.

prostitutes should not be.

clients in some cases should be (traffiked women, or children), as i have already said. i appreciate the difficulty of criminalising the clients of street prostitutes so would prefer to help women out of prostitution than to criminalise clients, as i also have already said.

however, i do personally think that men who pay to fuck destitute and desperate women are fucking arseholes and i hope all their dicks fall off.

your problem here is that you're trying so desperately to attack or discredit me that you arent paying actual attention to what is being said. its sad that you're reduced to petty vendettas but then i'm not surprised, as was said elsewhere, you are a deeply unpleasant person.

does that answer your question?

some reasons i think it might be:

a/ because who cares about hookers, right? the police have better ways to spend their resources. (note - this is obviously not how i feel, but im certain there are people within the police who do feel this way)

b/ because some police use these places, or maybe take bribes from them

c/ because they're "watching and waiting" for the "big catch", which imo is immoral (my first use of the word immoral?) because whilst police wait to catch the big fish women continue to be raped.

d/ because its hard to get a prosecution for these pimps, partly because traffiked women have plenty of incentives to stay quiet eg violence against them or their families, deportation, imprisonment etc.

what are your thoughts?

In truth, Arf, you've just made it all a lot clearer because whether you said this or not earlier, it didn't come across (not to me anyway).

Why trafficked women are easily found by punters but not by police... I'm inclined to agree with all your reasons.

i think there is a possibility that legalisation of some official (probably owned by the people with the best connections and cash) brothels could be an incentive for the police to crack down on illegal brothels of traffiked women - but unfortunately i think in reality they would prefer to crack down on brothels run by the women themselves (who would most likely not be the 'best connected'), and women working outside brothels, as 'unlicensed competition'.

thats the thing about this whole decriminalisation argument - i'm concerned that the system is so corrupt and misogynist in the first place that any sort of decrim or legalisation would naturally also be corrupt and misogynist. thats my biggest worry about it - that decrim brought in under the current system would only make things worse for most of us, and particularly for the women working at the hardest end of it.

I think that's the biggest problem with the legalisation argument, but with decriminalisation, it would mean the police not hassling or nicking women working in whatever aspect of the trade. As for traficked women and non-consensual sex work, the laws against that sort of thing are already pretty well established and are a lot more severe than getting picked up for soliciting, yet the filth do bugger all about this, for whatever reason...

Hi

A living wage, is that like a universal income? Love it. I won’t argue against the cap, but I’m interested to know if it’s used to fund the other things you want.

Fair play. It’s more cost effective too. You’ll need massive changes in the care system to implement that.

Funded no doubt by the “cap”.

To care for junkies and other people-in-crisis. At Christmas too, in the current climate it could be Street Team material.

Generosity you’d better be willing to extend to all citizens, trafficked women or not, otherwise you’ll make your problem worse.

One thing though, whilst I like the way the heroin addicts get free smack on the tax payer (and presumably a pardon for any crimes they’ve committed in pursuit of required funds), it seems a bit contradictory to nick all the punters. For the sake of consistency, we should gradually wean them off street prostitutes using free high quality sex on the NHS.

Anyway, thanks for setting that out. A genuine question; Does a Reclaim the Night March practically advance your project one iota, and, if so, how?

Love etc

LR