Should feminists support the decriminalization of sex work?

[IMPress Polly]

Standing Wolf wrote:
In a legal, regulated system, a pimp or brothel owner could no more assault, abuse or rob someone working for them with impunity than your supervisor or boss could.

Really? (And these too.) He's now the official Republican Party nominee to represent his district in the Nevada state Congress. (Because you know all those protective regulations that you're hyping here? He feels that they're too onerous and wants to get rid of them.) Of course, your boss can probably get away with it too, in all fairness.

[Standing Wolf]

Really? (And these too.) He's now the official Republican Party nominee to represent his district in the Nevada state Congress. (Because you know all those protective regulations that you're hyping here? He feels that they're too onerous and wants to get rid of them.) Of course, your boss can probably get away with it too, in all fairness.

Miscarriages of justice occur, and will continue to occur as long as fallible and corrupt human beings are part of the system. Look at everything Harvey Weinstein got away with for decades; no one is suggesting that being a movie producer should therefore be an outlawed profession. In a society in which prostitution was legal, who would, in all likelihood, be physically safer: a freelancer walking the streets, or an employee in a regulated business setting with security close at hand. Bosses and supervisors taking advantage of and even victimizing the workers is a hurdle to be overcome - not a reason to criminalize a setup with the potential to benefit the worker.

[IMPress Polly]

Standing Wolf wrote:
Miscarriages of justice occur, and will continue to occur as long as fallible and corrupt human beings are part of the system. Look at everything Harvey Weinstein got away with for decades; no one is suggesting that being a movie producer should therefore be an outlawed profession. In a society in which prostitution was legal, who would, in all likelihood, be physically safer: a freelancer walking the streets, or an employee in a regulated business setting with security close at hand. Bosses and supervisors taking advantage of and even victimizing the workers is a hurdle to be overcome - not a reason to criminalize a setup with the potential to benefit the worker.

What you're not appreciating here is that filmmaking is not exploitative by definition. The prostitution of women is. Of course you don't want to hear the ways in which that is the case, or much of anything I've said for that matter.

You're also missing a very important point that I have made repeatedly across this thread, which is that most of the sex trade takes the form of trafficking and that this problem invariably becomes worsened, not improved, with legalization. Right here in the U.S. even, we could use Nevada to demonstrate that point.

[Chris]

Miscarriages of justice occur, and will continue to occur as long as fallible and corrupt human beings are part of the system. Look at everything Harvey Weinstein got away with for decades; no one is suggesting that being a movie producer should therefore be an outlawed profession. In a society in which prostitution was legal, who would, in all likelihood, be physically safer: a freelancer walking the streets, or an employee in a regulated business setting with security close at hand. Bosses and supervisors taking advantage of and even victimizing the workers is a hurdle to be overcome - not a reason to criminalize a setup with the potential to benefit the worker.

...as long as fallible and corrupt human beings are part of the system....

Much as liberal progressives believe they can perfect man, they cannot. So fallible and corrupt human beings will always be part of the system.

What you're not appreciating here is that filmmaking is not exploitative by definition. The prostitution of women is. Of course you don't want to hear the ways in which that is the case, or much of anything I've said for that matter.

You're also missing a very important point that I have made repeatedly across this thread, which is that most of the sex trade takes the form of trafficking and that this problem invariably becomes worsened, not improved, with legalization. Right here in the U.S. even, we could use Nevada to demonstrate that point.

...not exploitative by definition. The prostitution of women is....

It is difficult to believe that even though your claim that 95% of sex workers are in an exploited, forced, non-voluntary situation was proven wrong above, that the number is 10% or less, you persist in grossly overgeneralizing based on false information. Is truth releative to agenda just as your claim to a woman's autonomy (my body, my choice) with abortion reverses itself with prostitution.

[Standing Wolf]

What you're not appreciating here is that filmmaking is not exploitative by definition. The prostitution of women is. Of course you don't want to hear the ways in which that is the case, or much of anything I've said for that matter.

Polly, that I don't agree with your conclusions doesn't mean that I "don't want to hear" what you're saying. It means that I don't agree with your conclusions.

Do you consider prostitution "exploitative by definition" because people other than the prostitute him- or herself is making money from it? At attorney who is paying a paralegal $25 an hour to prepare documents that she then charges their client several hundred dollars for is doing something similar, is she not? How about an employment firm that finds you a job and then demands a portion of your paycheck?

[Ethereal]

To be fair I didn't say that it should be criminalized or stay criminalized. I think that it is ethically wrong to arrest and penalize a woman who is selling her body out of desperation and/or because she is being forced to do it to make someone else who is pulling the strong some money. My main point is that legitimizing it isn't the answer either. 99% of prostitutes I would imagine didn't grow up wanting to trade sex for cash but got to that point because of circumstances in their lives that forced them to lower themselves to that type of act. Whether or not there are protections for that "profession" isn't really the issue in my opinion. To me it should never get to that point for a woman. I'm sure that poverty can make people do things that they never ever thought they'd do, and I know i'm not really speaking from any sort of real life experience or knowledge when it comes to living in poverty, but it seems like once you cross that line it's very very difficult to turn your life back around. I know it's not always about poverty too, it can be a method of feeding an addiction or paying off debts, but still, once they cross that line is it really voluntary anymore?

Legalizing something isn't the same as legitimizing it. I believe a person has the legal right to say racist things, but that does not mean I condone their behavior.