[RD] Prostitution

[Agent327]

I'm not sure how that in any significant way differs from the 'nordic model' (whatever that is supposed to be). Whichever way you want to look at it, at the end of the day prostitution is work. Now you can regulate such work (as all work is), or treat it with some moral attitude which at the end of the day helps nobody. Work regulations exist to protect the workers - not to absolve the consumers of responsibility.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Human's drive for domination and sex cannot be fixed, it can only be restricted.

I don't disagree.

I mean, most men are content to fill the gap between the sex they want the sex they get with a website and a box of tissues. The guys who go out and smack a hooker around have more deeply-rooted problems with women than an uneven sexual supply:demand ratio.

You're right that there's a serious point to be made here about certain gender-dynamics making prostitution, and sex work more generally, breeding-grounds for abusive behav iour, but pathologising an entire gender isn't the way to go about it.

I wold accept something like the 80/20 rule where a small portion of the male population causes the majority of the problems. But in any case, most of the problems associated with prostitution arise from the male side of the equation.

 

[Arwon]

I'm not sure how that in any significant way differs from the 'nordic model' (whatever that is supposed to be). Whichever way you want to look at it, at the end of the day prostitution is work. Now you can regulate such work (as all work is), or treat it with some moral attitude which at the end of the day helps nobody. Work regulations exist to protect the workers - not to absolve the consumers of responsibility.

The Nordic model is criminalisation of sex work via criminalising buyers. It comes with significant hardship and oppression directed at sex workers (cf this briefing paper from the Swedish Rose Alliance and Australian Scarlet Alliance).

It's quite different in form and intent from both regulation/selective legalisation approaches and genuine decriminalisation.

 

[Agent327]

In that case I'm not familiar wit the nordic model. I also don't quite see how that would do anything to protect the prostitutes or their work. Outlawing customers is simply the reverse of outlawing prostitutes - whitout actually providing any protection. (It reminds me of Victorian attitudes where 'fallen women' needed to be saved. Oddly, many didn't want saving and it affected prostitution in no significant way whatsoever.)

 

[Narz]

It makes no sense to criminalize either buyers or sellers.

 

[Arwon]

Quite so.

 

[red_elk]

I don't disagree.

The problem with abuse and attempt to control prostitution ("man problem" as you put it) is not something which should be fixed before legalization. It is what legalization may fix, or at least reduce substantially.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Now this is a topic I am not very well versed in, so you'll have to excuse the slightly lacluster first post.

I am not very good at "defending" my position on this, which is that prostitution is unethical and should be prohibited (at least prohibited to buy sex).

This has to do with my views about how the individual is driven by external factors, that it is sort of alienating, that it doesn't "create anything of value" and that it's I'd say indecent. Sex should be an activity in of itself between those who really want it, not some petty service.

but I believe I am in the minority opinion, and in this thread you can tell me how wrong I am either with counterarguements or about how weak my "arguements" are.

Those are all good arguments for why you, yourself, should not indulge in prostitution (from either side of the transaction), but very weak arguments as to why it should be prohibited for everyone else. Your argument basically boils down to "I don't like it", so by arguing for prohibition you're basically saying that you think legislation should reflect your personal opinions and tastes.

 

[innonimatu]

This is a significant problem with "regulation" and "legalisation" models. You retain the state as interfering and threatening.

It is exactly why most sex worker organisations advocate decriminalisation in the vein of New Zealand and New South Wales, where sex work is simply regarded as work and is governed by the same workplace health and safety laws, industrial relations regime, tax law and local zoning laws as other fields of work. That's rather than regulatory or special legal framework models or the "nordic model".

It is not me who sees the state as interfering and threatening. It's the prostitutes themselves. At least that is what I have observed in my country, where prostitution is legal so long as it is self-employment (brothels as enterprises are not allowed, but they do exist formally as clubs, bars, or whatever). Nor are costumers legally prosecuted either.
Prostitutes here already have the possibility of passing receipts (declaring the work as generic services if they wish), paying taxes, and contribution to social security. They just won't. Customers won't wish a receipt, and prostitutes have no desire to pay part of their income to the state. Not can the state effectively control what remains an underground activity because all parties involved prefer it that way. If some do pay taxes and social security they are a tiny minority.

I'm not arguing that prohibition is preferable to legalization, nor do I favor prohibition. I'm warning that legalization is no panacea to turn a dangerous, very often self-destructive activity into a job like any other. Beware of regarding it as a regular job and believing that its problems are solved with legalization. That kind of view also serves to absolve the people who feed this market "the customers" of feeling any moral responsibility for what they do, which I think is a bad thing because there are problems with prostitution even where it is legal. But that is not worse than, say, the people who buy stuff made with slave labour and excuse it to themselves that they are employing poor people overseas... people are good at making up excuses for their selfish behaviors that they know are possibly harmful to others: it is not their personal responsibility, if they didn't do it others would, they're following the rules, and so on.
Hell, I'm aware I've done it myself just by consuming porn, because port actors have as destructive or more destructive a job than prostitution, to which it is very much related. There are many terribly bad and a few reasonably responsible producers, now almost wholly extinct - that might be a whole discussion by itself, the porn industry.

 

[tetley]

But in any case, most of the problems associated with prostitution arise from the male side of the equation.

I would say the male side is primarily the one who gets caught. The bad female modus operandi tends to be different: they engage in sex, and then clean you out. Say with blackmail, theft, what have you. It's a cost the male did not expect.

 

[Old Hippy]

It is not me who sees the state as interfering and threatening. It's the prostitutes themselves. At least that is what I have observed in my country, where prostitution is legal so long as it is self-employment (brothels as enterprises are not allowed, but they do exist formally as clubs, bars, or whatever). Nor are costumers legally prosecuted either.
Prostitutes here already have the possibility of passing receipts (declaring the work as generic services if they wish), paying taxes, and contribution to social security. They just won't. Customers won't wish a receipt, and prostitutes have no desire to pay part of their income to the state. Not can the state effectively control what remains an underground activity because all parties involved prefer it that way. If some do pay taxes and social security they are a tiny minority.

I'm not arguing that prohibition is preferable to legalization. I'm warning that legalization is no panacea to turn a dangerous, very often self-destructive activity into a job like any other. Beware of regarding it as a regular job and believing that its problems are solved with legalization.

you are arguing that it is just to hard to regulate tho ....
no one pays taxes unless the tax collectors come looking for them and it is better to pay than get caught

it just needs to be more rewarded for being regulated than not being regulated then people will pay a small fee if it makes their lives easier and stops them being harassed by the police and tax inspectors who would still be enforcing the new regulation and this would drive unregulated prostitutes customers away making it even more important to be regulated

 

[Arwon]

It is not me who sees the state as interfering and threatening. It's the prostitutes themselves. At least that is what I have observed in my country, where prostitution is legal so long as it is self-employment (brothels as enterprises are not allowed, but they do exist formally as clubs, bars, or whatever). Nor are costumers legally prosecuted either.
Prostitutes here already have the possibility of passing receipts (declaring the work as generic services if they wish), paying taxes, and contribution to social security. They just won't. Customers won't wish a receipt, and prostitutes have no desire to pay part of their income to the state. Not can the state effectively control what remains an underground activity because all parties involved prefer it that way. If some do pay taxes and social security they are a tiny minority.

I'm not arguing that prohibition is preferable to legalization, nor do I favor prohibition. I'm warning that legalization is no panacea to turn a dangerous, very often self-destructive activity into a job like any other. Beware of regarding it as a regular job and believing that its problems are solved with legalization. That kind of view also serves to absolve the people who feed this market "the customers" of feeling any moral responsibility for what they do, which I think is a bad thing because there are problems with prostitution even where it is legal. But that is not worse than, say, the people who buy stuff made with slave labour and excuse it to themselves that they are employing poor people overseas... people are good at making up excuses for their selfish behaviors that they know are possibly harmful to others: it is not their personal responsibility, if they didn't do it others would, they're following the rules, and so on.
Hell, I'm aware I've done it myself just by consuming porn, because port actors have as destructive or more destructive a job than prostitution, to which it is very much related. There are many terribly bad and a few reasonably responsible producers, now almost wholly extinct - that might be a whole discussion by itself, the porn industry.

What you describe is a selective legalisation model - the creation of a particular regulatory framework within which certain sex work is permitted but other sex work remains illicit. Brothel licenses are another form of that. Such situations can still leave people outside the legal framework and vulnerable to abuse by criminals and by law enforcement.

Specifically to the situation you describe, that prohibition on brothels can keep people away from what is generally a safer and more preferred environment for inexperienced sex workers. It means the choice is to either go independent without being ready to, or to submit oneself to worthing in a legal grey zone or outright illicit environment.

It's the sort of needless restriction sex worker organisations tend to agitate against precisely because it remains a detriment to safety and security and to accessing social services.

I'd also suggest Portugal might have a larger untaxed and unreported shadow economy than Australia in general.

I'm not sure about the rate of tax compliance - it probably varies by State - but after consultations over the last decade with Scarlet Alliance and others, there's specific guidance on the Tax Office website about the extensive lists of workplace expenses that can be deducted as well as how to handle goods and services tax.

I'd suggest if there's enough auditing (the ATO can be quite thorough) there's probably good compliance in decriminalised NSW at least. Maybe not in the more restrictive states.

(Yay federalism?)

 

[Verbose]

The Nordic model is criminalisation of sex work via criminalising buyers. It comes with significant hardship and oppression directed at sex workers (cf this briefing paper from the Swedish Rose Alliance and Australian Scarlet Alliance).

It's quite different in form and intent from both regulation/selective legalisation approaches and genuine decriminalisation.

Well, the 2008 NIKK report give the figures of about 300 street prostitute, and 350 persons engaged in escort services, in Sweden.

That was about a decade after the introduction of the legislation. In preparation for the legislation change a govt survey (SOU 1995:15) in 1995 estimated the number of prostitutes in Sweden to be in the range of 2500-3000.

Right or wrong, prostitution is a pretty peripheral phenomenon in Swedish society.

So much so, the Swedish chapter of the Rose Alliance, Rosa alliansen, seems to be defunct since 2014. There just isn't that many prostitutes to organise, who need an organisation like that, or for that matter can provide a sufficient pool of people to draw upon to maintain a formal organisation.

Now, if one wants very large numbers of prostitutes in society, that might be troubling? Personally, I don't feel any particular freedom lost here?

The wonderful world of the internet in Sweden does provide TONS of opportunities for casual sex hook-ups — all kinds of prerefences catered to. It's just not supposed to be any money changing hands. Now, that might in the final instance turn out to be something negotiable, depending on the individuals involved. And clearly the rest of us will never know.

The thing about Sweden is that people getting it on in general is not regarded as either extraordinary or troubling. It's the involvement of money that is seen as dirtying the sex. They remuneration angle totally goes against what has been labeled "the Swedish theory of love". People can do what they like, provided individuals don't enter into relationships based on material dependency or monetary interest.

There are polls with anonymously self reported figures for paying for prostitutes' services (any time in life). According to those in the period 1996 to 2008 the number of men who reported to have done so at some point dropped from 12,7% to 7,6%. there would seem to be a rapid decrease going on.

Otoh just last week the govt issued a statement to the effect that the Swedish National Health Agency is about to be given the task of cunducting a huge survey of Swedish sexual practices. There's a fear, and anecdotal testimony, that the daily grind of modern life, general increased stress levels, might have made Swedes have less sex? That's officially a problem at government level at this point.

Nothing indicates more prostitution might come under political consideration as part of a remedy of course. But quite possibly it might be included among the things properly looked into?

 

[Arwon]

I dunno that they're *that* defunct given they were just marching in Stockholm Pride and attending the AIDS conference in Durban and mourning the third anniversary of the murder of a board member by her abusive ex-partner in a custody dispute driven by the state treating her as an unfit mother based on her profession.

I'm also not 100% convinced that heavy state repression directed at sex workers reducing the number of sex workers is much of a win. There's a reason why Amnesty International and the World Health Organisation specifically recommend decriminalisation. Not selective legalisation, not partial regulatory frameworks, not the criminalisation of parts of the transaction. Outright regarding sex work as work, in order to make people safer.

 

[Verbose]

I dunno that they're *that* defunct given they were just marching in Stockholm Pride and attending the AIDS conference in Durban and mourning the third anniversary of the murder of a board member by her abusive ex-partner in a custody dispute driven by the state treating her as an unfit mother based on her profession.

So it would seem. Well, I'm not Facebook, that's my mistake, since that's where the activists in the Rosa alliansen has clearly migrated.

It's still a matter of a small group of activists working on behalf of a group so small — as a recognisable professional group — that it constitutes a fringe phenomenon.

I'm also not 100% convinced that heavy state repression directed at sex workers reducing the number of sex workers is much of a win. There's a reason why Amnesty International and the World Health Organisation specifically recommend decriminalisation. Not selective legalisation, not partial regulatory frameworks, not the criminalisation of parts of the transaction. Outright regarding sex work as work, in order to make people safer.

What state repression do you consider there to be — unless you stretch the term to downright libertarian levels?

What's rather seems to have been going on in Sweden is a fairly radical de-professionalisation of sex-work, prostitution.

It never was very large or pronounced as a phenomenon in society. By the late 1990's there clearly was large enough a group of people engaged in this kind of work in Sweden for the kind of professionalisation of the group that has occurred elsewhere — like Australia — to be possible.

What the legislation has meant isn't that people aren't having sex, or even that monetary transactions for sex might not occur. What it has meant is that the collective identity of "sex worker" as an outcome of a professionalisation process doesn't seem to have come off in Sweden.

In that respect the trend is aganist Rosa alliansen. The mechanism seem to not be driven by the people who are, or might potentially, identify as a professional group of sex-workers, but by their customers' adaptation to the situation.

Lots of attention on the sex-workers here, and I completely endorse the findings of Amnesty or the WHO here btw. It's just that I tend to wonder if the whole thing isn't customer driven, rather than by the workforce itself? Never mind how useful professionalisation is for them as a strategy once they have adopted, or been pidgeon-holed, into that category.

 

[Arwon]

I think Amnesty about covers the state repression angle regarding the Nordic model. If targeted surveillance, harrassment and the ability of the police to force your eviction isn't direct state repression I don't know what is to be honest. It's really where the pointy end of the state ideology ends up.

Given that sex work is criminalised in Sweden it should hardly be surprising that sex workers are relatively invisible and struggling to be listened to. Don't confuse that with lack of organisation, of course. But it should hardly be surprising that a voice that is deliberately marginalised by a state ideology and legal framework that intrinsically frames all sex workers as agencyless victims is, in fact, a marginalised voice.

It's just that I tend to wonder if the whole thing isn't customer driven, rather than by the workforce itself? Never mind how useful professionalisation is for them as a strategy once they have adopted, or been pidgeon-holed, into that category.

This would appear to be a much deeper question about labour relations and exploitation under capitalism, to be honest.

 

[BvBPL]

One can imagine a set of regulatory schema that would legalize prostitution in a manner that would preserve the safety, if not the dignity, of the various stakeholders involved. However it is exceedingly difficult to imagine that many large nations have the will to engage in that regulation.

Because the harms of an unregulated prostitution industry can be severe and because many governments are unwilling or unable to regulate the practice, advocating for legalization or the removal of the stigma associated with the practice seems unwise.

 

[warpus]

Who cares about the dignity of anyone involved? Nobody seems to care about the dignity of lawyers for instance, we allow them to sell their souls to the devil for $3.50 and nobody bats an eye.

Focus on the safety and health issues and the rest will sort itself out. If someone really wants to be a lawyer or a prostitute, that's their decision to make, we shouldn't get all moral about their life choices.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Sex is very emotional for some people ( myself included, and I confess that as a dude even though it's embarrassing. ) For others, it really isn't. If sex is very unemotional to someone and he/she wants to sell it, I think it's better to err on the side of stepping aside and letting them.

 

[rah]

Just thinking of all the societies that have tried throughout history to eliminate it, WITHOUT SUCCESS. So the goal should be to make it safer. And the government could make a few bucks off of it. I doubt you'll ever be able to eliminate some of the bad aspects, but having it being illegal certainly isn't going to fix those problems.