Who Are The People Buying Sex This Way?

Zorya · 23-05-2019 10:20am #1

A few articles I read recently got me thinking again about something that has long bothered me.

Laila Mickelwait is an activist against the legalisation of prostitution, and the article I came across was about a mega brothel that existed in Germany offering 'flat rate' services, ie the punters paid a set fee upon entry, showered and put on a towel, bought a drink or some food, and then had access to any available woman in the building for any service over a period of time.

Pussy Club advertised itself thus -

"Sex with all women as long as you want, as often as you want and the way you want. Sex. Anal sex. Oral sex without a condom. Three-ways. Group sex. Gang bangs." The price: €70 during the day and €100 in the evening.

1700 people queued to get in on opening night.

In 2017 Germany outlawed flat rate brothels. Mickelwait describes how things were there -

By the end of the opening day many of the women had collapsed from exhaustion, pain, injuries, and infections, including painful rashes and fungal infections that had spread from their genitals down their legs.

Over 1 million people pay for sex per day in Germany. 400,000 people at last estimate work as prostitutes there. Many are trafficked. In fact it is said that Germany has become the "center for the sexual exploitation of young women from Eastern Europe, as well as a sphere of activity for organized crime groups from around the world." (Wiki).
Spain is a centre for sex trafficking. 300,000 women, mostly trafficked, work as prostitutes since decriminalisation. Legalisation makes trafficking easier. Another article said that almost every town in Scotland has trafficked prostitutes. Sex slaves, basically. A quarter of people trafficked into sex slavery are children. Human trafficking is huge in Europe. It is the second most profitable criminal activity after drugs.

Prostitutes are now being defined as ''sex workers'', as if the term ''worker'', with its implied respectable transactional element, can somehow legitimise this. This is the modern feminist perspective - to fight for their ''rights''. This is bullsh!t. With trafficked people making up such a huge bulk of the prostitutes worker is an impossible definition.

One article I read described how a person who worked as a receptionist in a legal brothel in Australia gradually went from supporting the legalisation of ''sex work'' to realising its unrelenting brutality.

What occurs to me is who are the people who are comfortable buying sex in such situations?
How can ordinary people get off when they must suspect that the prostitutes are basically slaves?

Personally I can see a place for sexual services in society. For example, people who work offering sex to the disabled. Independent consorts who offer services to people going through a dry spell or unable to meet a sexual partner. Reasonable regulated services where people have a bit of manners and both people are voluntarily acting and protected. But this does not seem to be anywhere near the norm.

It's freaky to think that there are bad people out there who would rape or practise incest, but at least one can realise that they do not exist huge numbers. They are aberrations. But for this atrocious slave trade to be as enormously profitable as it is, it requires hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ordinary people all over the world to be prepared to pay money every day to abuse and degrade sex slaves. That is soooo much more freaky.

Who are these ordinary monsters?

Some sources -
http://lailamickelwait.com/2018/03/21/germany-europes-biggest-brothel/
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/sex-slaves-almost-every-scottish-16166552
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/may/11/prostitution-tackling-spain-sex-traffickers
https://nordicmodelnow.org/2018/07/01/working-as-a-receptionist-in-a-legal-brothel-prostitution-is-anything-but-a-normal-job/

suicide_circus · 23-05-2019 10:35am

the drive to have sex can be extremely powerful, perhaps the most powerful urge a human can experience along with the desire for food, water and air. as for mentally dissociating the act from the "service provider", we do this all the time. From our clothes made by a child chained to a loom in Bangladesh to the cheap flights we take pumping tonnes of poison into the atmosphere.

Kivaro · 23-05-2019 10:41am

On the other hand, earlier this week you have the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) actively lobbying to have prostitution decriminalised in the UK to protect the health and welfare of sex workers.

That makes much more sense to me.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 10:43am

suicide_circus wrote: »

the drive to have sex can be extremely powerful, perhaps the most powerful urge a human can experience along with the desire for food, water and air. as for mentally dissociating the act from the "service provider", we do this all the time. From our clothes made by a child chained to a loom in Bangladesh to the cheap flights we take pumping tonnes of poison into the atmosphere.

Of course it's powerful SC, but you are not comparing like with like. Disassociating from the invisible child making your clothes has got to be on a completely different level from disassociating with the enslaved person in front of one and with whom one is having sex. ?

Plus some of those articles described levels of regular and intimate violence that are horrible.

Former Observer · 23-05-2019 10:44am

Good post. There will always be many, many more men who want to pay for sex than there will be women that want to be paid for sex. Despite the trend in orthodox liberal thinking that 'sex work' is just like any other work, it is not. The amount of women who choose prostitution without coming from backgrounds of abuse, poverty, deprivation, or feelings of low self worth is vanishingly small. A lot of the defenders of 'sex work' would hate to see their own daughters selling their bodies.

Grayson · 23-05-2019 10:44am

Kivaro wrote: »

On the other hand, earlier this week you have the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) actively lobbying to have prostitution decriminalised in the UK to protect the health and welfare of sex workers.

That makes much more sense to me.

I think there's a chance for a sensible framework to exist which protects the rights of sex workers, prevent sex trafficking, etc. Sex work has always existed. It will probably always exist. Complete deregulation would lead to the worst excesses though.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 10:47am

Kivaro wrote: »

On the other hand, earlier this week you have the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) actively lobbying to have prostitution decriminalised in the UK to protect the health and welfare of sex workers.

That makes much more sense to me.

I saw that too, and I can understand the urge. Regulated protected work would be good. But I think it's impossible. In practice where there is decriminalisation there is a huge surge in sex trafficking like in Spain. Most prostitutes are sex slaves, not sex workers. It's just a fact. And it's a booming business. It has to built on regular ordinary customers willing to not give a crap who is this human being on the receiving end of their attentions.

OldGoat · 23-05-2019 10:49am

You are making the assumption that anyone who pays for sex is going to abuse and degrade the sex-worker.

Sadly the trade in sex trafficking will continue no matter what schemes are put in place to curb however one that might vastly reduce it's impact would be the decriminalisation or even the legalisation of prostitution.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 10:52am

Former Observer wrote: »

Despite the trend in orthodox liberal thinking that 'sex work' is just like any other work, it is not. The amount of women who choose prostitution without coming from backgrounds of abuse, poverty, deprivation, or feelings of low self worth is vanishingly small. A lot of the defenders of 'sex work' would hate to see their own daughters selling their bodies.

Yes. It is usually poverty or trafficking. This ''worker'' phrase is modern marxist BS being applied to make abuse seem like it can be salvaged. Like surrogates are now being called ''gestational workers''. These people are so poor that they have no choice. I know there are independent consorts and escorts who maintain good standards for themselves and they are lucky. I can understand a person, man or woman, using such services where there is dignity and manners. But it is far far from the norm.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 10:54am

OldGoat wrote: »

You are making the assumption that anyone who pays for sex is going to abuse and degrade the sex-worker.

Sadly the trade in sex trafficking will continue no matter what schemes are put in place to curb however one that might vastly reduce it's impact would be the decriminalisation or even the legalisation of prostitution.

If a person has sex with a trafficked person, who are the majority of prostitutes, the act is inherently abusive and degrading, even if they imagine they are being kind and sweet to the person who is a slave.

suicide_circus · 23-05-2019 10:56am

Zorya wrote: »

Of course it's powerful SC, but you are not comparing like with like. Disassociating from the invisible child making your clothes has got to be on a completely different level from disassociating with the enslaved person in front of one and with whom one is having sex. ?

Plus some of those articles described levels of regular and intimate violence that are horrible.

maybe a better comparison would be war. man's brutality to his fellow man (or woman). thing is, this is not a new phenomenon, it is in fact very very old. i dont have any answers by the way...other than to say that good people frequently do bad things.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 11:03am

OldGoat wrote: »

.

Sadly the trade in sex trafficking will continue no matter what schemes are put in place to curb however one that might vastly reduce it's impact would be the decriminalisation or even the legalisation of prostitution.

Most studies seem to show that legalisation increases trafficking. Customers do not choose to substitute protected prostitutes for trafficked ones...

Supporters of the Swedish model say that in countries like the Netherlands, where pimping and brothel-keeping were legalised in 2000, trafficking has increased and the welfare of prostitutes has suffered.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/08/criminsalise-buying-not-selling-sex

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/19/is-legalized-prostitution-safer/legalizing-prostitution-leads-to-more-trafficking

On average, countries where prostitution is legal experience larger reported human trafficking inflows.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X12001453

The scale effect of legalizing prostitution, i.e. expansion of the market, outweighs the substitution effect, where legal sex workers are favored over illegal workers. On average, countries with legalized prostitution report a greater incidence of human trafficking inflows.

https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/

jam_mac_jam · 23-05-2019 11:04am

I am torn on this, in one way I think that it’s wrong and dangerous so should be illegal and the legalisation of it normalises the behaviour. The windows in Amsterdam for example with women sitting there like products is disgusting. The de humanisation is horrible.

On the other hand, it’s going to happen anyway so at least if its legalised then women are in less danger and not criminalised. I don’t know, I used to be completely in favour of legalisation but looking at the countries where it is it doesn’t seem hugely successful.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 11:07am

suicide_circus wrote: »

maybe a better comparison would be war. man's brutality to his fellow man (or woman). thing is, this is not a new phenomenon, it is in fact very very old. i dont have any answers by the way...other than to say that good people frequently do bad things.

I know it is complex and all of us are dark and quite capable of bad things.

But say your regular friends were going to war, a spot of random slaughter and blood lust at the weekend, would you not raise an eyebrow?

Zorya · 23-05-2019 11:10am

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

I am torn on this, in one way I think that it’s wrong and dangerous so should be illegal and the legalisation of it normalises the behaviour. The windows in Amsterdam for example with women sitting there like products is disgusting. The de humanisation is horrible.

On the other hand, it’s going to happen anyway so at least if its legalised then women are in less danger and not criminalised. I don’t know, I used to be completely in favour of legalisation but looking at the countries where it is it doesn’t seem hugely successful.

It is a huge and booming industry - trafficking humans, and many of them children. It's so ugly to think about. I don't feel torn on it anymore, though yes like you I used to think it would be best to legalise it. But it just seems that the subterranean appetite for degradation and abuse is too great and cannot be controlled that way. Cannot understand how people fund it.

Grayson · 23-05-2019 11:15am

Zorya wrote: »

I know it is complex and all of us are dark and quite capable of bad things.

But say your regular friends were going to war, a spot of random slaughter and blood lust at the weekend, would you not raise an eyebrow?

On the flip side if you said you were getting a massage no-one would raise an eyebrow. If you said you were going to get a happy ending and have your genitals massaged people would. The only difference is the part of your body that's getting massaged.

Sex is not a simple thing for humans to navigate. It's a very complicated subject despite (Or maybe because of ) the amount of time we spend thinking about it. Throw money into the mix and it gets even more complicated.

Consent is tricky sometimes and when you bring in that people are consenting because of money it bring into question what consent really means.

Just because a sex act is transactional doesn't make it immoral despite what some people argue. However there is the possibility for coercion and other abuses.

I don't know if the perfect regulatory system exists but if it did it would protect women who want to work in the sex industry whilst penalising those who want to force women to do so and protecting the victims of that coercion.

orourkeda1977 · 23-05-2019 11:18am

I'm totally going here.

Imagine all that spicy poon for 70 blips. Thats amazing

Grayson · 23-05-2019 11:20am

Zorya wrote: »

It is a huge and booming industry - trafficking humans, and many of them children. It's so ugly to think about. I don't feel torn on it anymore, though yes like you I used to think it would be best to legalise it. But it just seems that the subterranean appetite for degradation and abuse is too great and cannot be controlled that way. Cannot understand how people fund it.

You're assuming that people who have sex with sexworkers just want to abuse and degrade them?

Zorya · 23-05-2019 11:27am

Grayson wrote: »

You're assuming that people who have sex with sexworkers just want to abuse and degrade them?

And you seem to be simplifying my assumptions.

Just so you're clear...
I think sex is yummy.
I think there are independent consorts offering sexual services in dignified circumstances and I think that is both possible and useful.
I think that with the huge and growing numbers of sex slaves involved in prostitution it means that regulation or legalisation is a very sticky problem.
I think that the act of having nice kind sex with a trafficked sex slave is an oxymoron.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 11:31am

orourkeda1977 wrote: »

I'm totally going here.

Imagine all that spicy poon for 70 blips. Thats amazing

Yeah especially when they have infected gunge rolling down their legs and have to use anaesthetic cream in their vaginas and anuses to make the prolonged and repeated and violent penetration bearable. Sexy.

ohnonotgmail · 23-05-2019 11:31am

Zorya wrote: »

And you seem to be simplifying my assumptions.

Just so you're clear...
I think sex is yummy.
I think there are independent consorts offering sexual services in dignified circumstances and I think that is both possible and useful.
I think that with the huge and growing numbers of sex slaves involved in prostitution it means that regulation or legalisation is a very sticky problem.
I think that the act of having nice kind sex with a trafficked sex slave is an oxymoron.

So your issue is with women being trafficked and not with prostitution then? do i understand you correctly? if so then tackle the trafficking. Criminalising prostitution does nothing to prevent women being trafficked and harms the women who want to do sex work.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 11:35am

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

So your issue is with women being trafficked and not with prostitution then? do i understand you correctly? if so then tackle the trafficking. Criminalising prostitution does nothing to prevent women being trafficked and harms the women who want to do sex work.

Perhaps you could take a look at the analyses I linked which find that decriminalising prostitution not only does nothing to prevent women (and children) being trafficked it INCREASES it. By rather a lot.

dotsman · 23-05-2019 11:42am

Zorya wrote: »

A few articles I read recently got me thinking again about something that has long bothered me.

...

Assume you are trolling. If not, I suggest you expand your reading beyond BS sources that have a huge agenda and history of lying.

Gimme A Pound · 23-05-2019 11:42am

orourkeda1977 wrote: »

I'm totally going here.

Imagine all that spicy poon for 70 blips. Thats amazing

So bad-ass. :rolleyes:

Gimme A Pound · 23-05-2019 11:43am

dotsman wrote: »

Assume you are trolling. If not, I suggest you expand your reading beyond BS sources that have a huge agenda and history of lying.

Ah the protesting too much - there it is.

.Charlo · 23-05-2019 11:44am

I read somewhere recently scientists were teaching monkeys the concept of money, they first started exchanging money for food, not long after that they were paying female monkeys for sex.

nozzferrahhtoo · 23-05-2019 11:45am

Zorya wrote: »

In 2017 Germany outlawed flat rate brothels.

To be honest I am not sure what exactly they made illegal or illegal. Because the kind of environment you describe still appears to be in full swing here. Perhaps what was outlawed was some particular pricing structure, but the practice appears to be continuing pretty much the same as you describe it.

The clubs for it appear to be called "FKK" here and you basically still go and pay an entrance free, shower, and then go hang out with many women any of whom you can petition for sex in any combination. There even if one of them in Frankfurt which is still known to not require the use of condoms or other protections.

So much of what you describe in the OP is still in practice. I guess just how they charge their rates is somehow different? But other than that, it sounds like what we still have over here.

TLDR: Whatever was changed in 2017, I am not sure it changed much in what actually goes on.

Zorya wrote: »

What occurs to me is who are the people who are comfortable buying sex in such situations?
How can ordinary people get off when they must suspect that the prostitutes are basically slaves?

I guess the answer to the "who are these people" is the same answer to "who are the people" who buy illegal cigarettes despite the money going to fund violent underground crime or paramilitary groups. Or the people who pirate music or other media. Or the people who buy plastic they do not need, despite knowing about environmental issues, and then waste it and buy more.

Quite often people are ignorant, or just allow themselves be ignorant, of what they see before them. Especially in the moment of a single transaction. They see the sex worker (a term I do not take issue with as you seem to) or the package of cheap cigarettes, or the cheap movie, or their Favorites shower gel in a black plastic bottle (which I am informed is the worst kind, but haven't checked the truth of that yet) and make the transaction in the moment.

How many people actively stopped going to Nail Bars when it was found people there were trafficked too? This is not a problem unique to the sex industry. As the Guardian wrote "Nail bars are havens for modern slavery.". So to use your thread in the same way on this..... who are these people comfortable getting their nails done in such situations? How can ordinary people show off their pretty nails when they must suspect that the person who did the work was basically a slave?

TLDR: People often do not see the bigger global picture, when making a single micro transaction in that realm. I do not think it makes millions of people "monsters" to use your term. I think it just means there is a failure in evolved human intuitions to effectively parse the issues.

However most people most of the time do make the moral choice when given genuine options to do so. Or at least I like to believe they do. So certainly one strong and legitimate way to attempt to undermine the problems you raise here are a well legalised and well regulated sex industry. Many countries do one but not the other. Many do neither. And that is a problem.

If I as a consumer were to go to a sex worker tonight, what options do I have to ethically source the product/service? Is there ANY methodology or standards or certification or process by which I might ascertain the likelihood I am getting legitimate above board service compared to a cajoled, blackmailed or trafficked black market one? Currently I am not aware of any such system either here (I live in Germany) or in Ireland.

TLDR: Give people the tools and the environments to source their products and services ethically and they often will. And it gives our police the tools and potentials to more effectively target the rest.

Zorya wrote: »

Of course it's powerful SC, but you are not comparing like with like. Disassociating from the invisible child making your clothes has got to be on a completely different level from disassociating with the enslaved person in front of one and with whom one is having sex. ?

Is it that different however? The person with whom one is having sex does not have "slave" written on their forehead any more than the clothing you are donning has "made in china using child labour" on it.

Sure in one the person is right in front of you, and the other is not, but that does not mean their plight..... if any.... is any more visible. If I visit a sex worker tonight I have almost no indication about how willingly, or unwillingly, she entered the trade. I am functionally and effectively just as blind as I am to the little hands that made my T-Shirt.

Zorya wrote: »

I saw that too, and I can understand the urge. Regulated protected work would be good. But I think it's impossible.

I am not so pessimistic about what is possible. But I also wonder if there is more in between illegal and legal.... regulated and unregulated.... that is possible then just those extremes.

For example some kind of periodic accreditation done by a psychologist and a medical doctor would give the chance to catch people who are not there willingly, and also give the consumer the tools to source the service ethically.

Such accreditation of course is no 100% guarantee, but does it need to be???

For example here in Germany when you are caught drink driving over a certain limit there is a process called the MPU (colloquially referred to as "The idiot test") that you must pass before receiving your license again. It involved an examination by a psychologist and a medical doctor who then certify that there is no reason to expect it likely that you will do it again.

This is no guarantee you will not do it again. But it has had an impact on incidents of re-offending. It is a useful tool.

Is something similar possible with sex work? Has it ever been tried?

Before we declare most people do not give a crap, should we not find ways to afford them the tools by which they CAN give a crap?

Zorya wrote: »

Most prostitutes are sex slaves, not sex workers.

Zorya wrote: »

Most studies seem to show that legalisation increases trafficking.

I am short on time at this exact minute so I can not read your studies until later, though I note they are news paper articles not studies. However there are TWO main concerns I would be engaging with when I do read the studies and news paper opinion pieces based on previous experience.

1) Quite often the figures given are not comparing like with like. We often see a sentence like "There are 100,000 sex workers in this countrys, and 80,000 have been trafficked" which makes it sound like 80% of the sex workers are trafficked. But ACTUALLY what they are saying is there are CURRENTLY 100,000 sex workers in this country and 80,000 sex workers have been known in the past to have been trafficked. In other words it is not AT ALL that 80,000 of the current 100,000 sex workers were trafficked. Maybe for all we know 40, 20, 4, 1 or even 0 thousand of the current workers were.

TLDR: Be sure what each count is actually a count of and watch for when one figure is current and the other figure is overall, and they are being compared as if they are alike.

2) When claiming a surge or increase how is this being ascertained. Take abortion for example. We often hear that legalising abortion increases the number of abortions. What ACTUALLY happens however is the number of abortions stays the same..... or even falls........ but the number reported that we are actually aware of increases because people are not hiding them due to their being illegal.

TLDR: Has the number of sex workers and/or trafficking actually increased or have the figures just become more accurate in the new environment?

nozzferrahhtoo · 23-05-2019 11:47am

Former Observer wrote: »

Despite the trend in orthodox liberal thinking that 'sex work' is just like any other work, it is not.

It depends what you mean by "just like" though because MOST work is not "just like" other work. The work a police officer does is hardly in any way like the work a waiter does or the work a computer programmer does or a soldier or a tax collector.

So pointing out "sex work" (SW) is not like other work says little at all really. A more useful question is.... what work IS it like and while I stole it from someone else I think the comparison to Freelance Masseurs (FMs) is useful here in that

A) Both are freelance

Both tend to have a location they go to work, or they go to the client
C) Both tend to charge hourly.
D) Both tend to use parts of their body to physically manipulate parts of the clients body, for purposes such as pleasure and relief.
E) Both can be at risk in that environment from malicious or deranged clients.

And so on. The question then being, why should one be treated legally or socially or effectively much different from the other????

Former Observer wrote: »

A lot of the defenders of 'sex work' would hate to see their own daughters selling their bodies.

You could say the same about MANY careers though if we are essentially discussing NIMBYism. There are MANY careers that people would effectively defend the existence of, but not at all want their own children to end up in. And it would be a long list.

For me I have the courage of my convictions. I would not AT ALL take issue with my son or daughter (I have one of each) going into any kind of sex work so long as I can be sure I as a parent gave them all the tools and education and facilities to make that choice, and they themselves did make that choice.

I would much prefer my children end up in a career THEY openly chose, that is distasteful to me..... than I would want them to end up in a career I am strongly proud of that was in any way foisted on them against their will.

THAT is good parenting to me and my purpose as a parent. To grow them to the point they can make their own choices, and then support them in those choices when they do.

RobertKK · 23-05-2019 11:54am

In Amsterdam's famous red light district, a number of years ago the mayor cited criminals using the red light district for trafficked women, when he closed down some establishments.
Now I read as I looked it up before posting, I see the current mayor is to ban tours of the red light district for tourists from 2020, the reason being it is disrespectful, which one would have to agree with, even if one wanted to question the profession.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 11:54am

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

To be honest I am not sure what exactly they made illegal or illegal. Because the kind of environment you describe still appears to be in full swing here. Perhaps what was outlawed was some particular pricing structure, but the practice appears to be continuing pretty much the same as you describe it.

The clubs for it appear to be called "FKK" here and you basically still go and pay an entrance free, shower, and then go hang out with many women any of whom you can petition for sex in any combination. There even if one of them in Frankfurt which is still known to not require the use of condoms or other protections.

So much of what you describe in the OP is still in practice. I guess just how they charge their rates is somehow different? But other than that, it sounds like what we still have over here.

TLDR: Whatever was changed in 2017, I am not sure it changed much in what actually goes on.

I guess the answer to the "who are these people" is the same answer to "who are the people" who buy illegal cigarettes despite the money going to fund violent underground crime or paramilitary groups. Or the people who pirate music or other media. Or the people who buy plastic they do not need, despite knowing about environmental issues, and then waste it and buy more.

Quite often people are ignorant, or just allow themselves be ignorant, of what they see before them. Especially in the moment of a single transaction. They see the sex worker (a term I do not take issue with as you seem to) or the package of cheap cigarettes, or the cheap movie, or their Favorites shower gel in a black plastic bottle (which I am informed is the worst kind, but haven't checked the truth of that yet) and make the transaction in the moment.

How many people actively stopped going to Nail Bars when it was found people there were trafficked too? This is not a problem unique to the sex industry. As the Guardian wrote "Nail bars are havens for modern slavery.". So to use your thread in the same way on this..... who are these people comfortable getting their nails done in such situations? How can ordinary people show off their pretty nails when they must suspect that the person who did the work was basically a slave?

TLDR: People often do not see the bigger global picture, when making a single micro transaction in that realm. I do not think it makes millions of people "monsters" to use your term. I think it just means there is a failure in evolved human intuitions to effectively parse the issues.

However most people most of the time do make the moral choice when given genuine options to do so. Or at least I like to believe they do. So certainly one strong and legitimate way to attempt to undermine the problems you raise here are a well legalised and well regulated sex industry. Many countries do one but not the other. Many do neither. And that is a problem.

If I as a consumer were to go to a sex worker tonight, what options do I have to ethically source the product/service? Is there ANY methodology or standards or certification or process by which I might ascertain the likelihood I am getting legitimate above board service compared to a cajoled, blackmailed or trafficked black market one? Currently I am not aware of any such system either here (I live in Germany) or in Ireland.

TLDR: Give people the tools and the environments to source their products and services ethically and they often will. And it gives our police the tools and potentials to more effectively target the rest.

Is it that different however? The person with whom one is having sex does not have "slave" written on their forehead any more than the clothing you are donning has "made in china using child labour" on it.

Sure in one the person is right in front of you, and the other is not, but that does not mean their plight..... if any.... is any more visible. If I visit a sex worker tonight I have almost no indication about how willingly, or unwillingly, she entered the trade. I am functionally and effectively just as blind as I am to the little hands that made my T-Shirt.

I am not so pessimistic about what is possible. But I also wonder if there is more in between illegal and legal.... regulated and unregulated.... that is possible then just those extremes.

For example some kind of periodic accreditation done by a psychologist and a medical doctor would give the chance to catch people who are not there willingly, and also give the consumer the tools to source the service ethically.

Such accreditation of course is no 100% guarantee, but does it need to be???

For example here in Germany when you are caught drink driving over a certain limit there is a process called the MPU (colloquially referred to as "The idiot test") that you must pass before receiving your license again. It involved an examination by a psychologist and a medical doctor who then certify that there is no reason to expect it likely that you will do it again.

This is no guarantee you will not do it again. But it has had an impact on incidents of re-offending. It is a useful tool.

Is something similar possible with sex work? Has it ever been tried?

Before we declare most people do not give a crap, should we not find ways to afford them the tools by which they CAN give a crap?

I am short on time at this exact minute so I can not read your studies until later, though I note they are news paper articles not studies. However there are TWO main concerns I would be engaging with when I do read the studies and news paper opinion pieces based on previous experience.

1) Quite often the figures given are not comparing like with like. We often see a sentence like "There are 100,000 sex workers in this countrys, and 80,000 have been trafficked" which makes it sound like 80% of the sex workers are trafficked. But ACTUALLY what they are saying is there are CURRENTLY 100,000 sex workers in this country and 80,000 sex workers have been known in the past to have been trafficked. In other words it is not AT ALL that 80,000 of the current 100,000 sex workers were trafficked. Maybe for all we know 40, 20, 4, 1 or even 0 thousand of the current workers were.

TLDR: Be sure what each count is actually a count of and watch for when one figure is current and the other figure is overall, and they are being compared as if they are alike.

2) When claiming a surge or increase how is this being ascertained. Take abortion for example. We often hear that legalising abortion increases the number of abortions. What ACTUALLY happens however is the number of abortions stays the same..... or even falls........ but the number reported that we are actually aware of increases because people are not hiding them due to their being illegal.

TLDR: Has the number of sex workers and/or trafficking actually increased or have the figures just become more accurate in the new environment?

Either you are a fast typer or you are not particularly squeezed for time.

Two of the links are studies, two are articles.

Otherwise your comment generally illustrates the cultivation of moral relativism to a extraordinarily developed degree.

nozzferrahhtoo · 23-05-2019 11:59am

Zorya wrote: »

Either you are a fast typer or you are not particularly squeezed for time.

The former. I type insanely fast. I have never entered into competitions for this because none have presented themselves. But I reckon I would shock a few people. My boss often jokes "Where is that machine gun I hear coming from". Though the humour, small as it is, is lost in translation I think.

The speed at which you read my post before replying, assuming you even did, is just as impressive to me though since we are commenting on each other capabilities. 7 minutes, if that, to read the entire thing and evaluate it's contents in a closing one liner? That is impressive.

Zorya wrote: »

Two of the links are studies, two are articles.

I will get to them for sure, all of them, but I am more pressed for time as I read slower than I type especially when I evaluate the results of scientific studies which takes more than merely reading the opening and closing paragraphs.

But the above two concerns are important. I will reject as useless ANY study that does not make it clear they accounted for those two issues, and how. And for damn good reason.

Zorya wrote: »

Otherwise your comment generally illustrates the cultivation of moral relativism to a extraordinarily developed degree.

Vague sentence you have not actually anchored in any way to anything I wrote. I suspect it is meaningless knee jerk filler. But by all means qualify it if you wish.

Thelonious Monk · 23-05-2019 12:02pm

Zorya wrote: »

If a person has sex with a trafficked person, who are the majority of prostitutes, the act is inherently abusive and degrading, even if they imagine they are being kind and sweet to the person who is a slave.

I really don't think the majority of prostitutes in Ireland are trafficked. If you look at the websites here they seem to be girls from the UK and Czech and places like that. Maybe I'm being naïve I don't know.
I wouldn't want my friends or relatives doing the job but if they're not trafficked I think you can say the women have made their own choice in getting into this line of work, and I don't think they should be punished for it, but maybe nor should the men.

ohnonotgmail · 23-05-2019 12:08pm

Zorya wrote: »

Perhaps you could take a look at the analyses I linked which find that decriminalising prostitution not only does nothing to prevent women (and children) being trafficked it INCREASES it. By rather a lot.

well then tackle the problem of trafficking.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 12:17pm

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

The former. I type insanely fast. I have never entered into competitions for this because none have presented themselves. But I reckon I would shock a few people. My boss often jokes "Where is that machine gun I hear coming from". Though the humour, small as it is, is lost in translation I think.

The speed at which you read my post before replying, assuming you even did, is just as impressive to me though since we are commenting on each other capabilities. 7 minutes, if that, to read the entire thing and evaluate it's contents in a closing one liner? That is impressive.

Vague sentence you have not actually anchored in any way to anything I wrote. I suspect it is meaningless knee jerk filler. But by all means qualify it if you wish.

Lucky you, I type slowly.

Yes, I read fast.

If I may qualify it - essentially it is the nonchalant comparing of things that are not the same, and wondering how one can condemn the doings of others - eg buying illegal fags or downloading music is not comparable to having sex with a slave. Nor is getting one's nails done. The person doing nails is not being in anyway subjected to the same level of physical possession as a person having sex. It is morally relative to draw such comparisons.
People given choice do not appear overall to ethically source their product be it cheap oil or cheap sex.
Light touch laissez faire regulation of activities that are fundamentally open, even likely, to being abused is in its very essence morally relative, but it is the liberal go to position. Who am I to judge etc?
But I feel I can judge that the kidnapping or purchase of a young Romanian or Russian person, the subsequent incarceration and subjugation of that person against their will and their sale for use by multiple persons as a sex slave is an activity that has to be approached as among the most contemptible possible for humans to do. And any action - including decriminalisation of prostitution - that fuels such crime is wrong. Just plain wrong. No big fancy arguments about it. Just wrong.

Plus to be honest this idea that you could be wholly blind to the nature of the persons wellbeing with whom you are intimately engaged is not believable. Unless you choose not to care.

Berserker · 23-05-2019 12:20pm

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

On the other hand, it’s going to happen anyway so at least if its legalised then women are in less danger and not criminalised. I don’t know, I used to be completely in favour of legalisation but looking at the countries where it is it doesn’t seem hugely successful.

Is it really going to happen, anyway? Legalisation hasn't worked in other countries, so I'm happy that Ireland has decided to try another path. The Gardai are enforcing the new laws here and a number of people have been arrested and cases have been filed against them. A number of media outlets have reported on this of late. The forum on a very well known escorting site, has a number of posts from people who have decided to stop using these services.

nozzferrahhtoo · 23-05-2019 12:25pm

Zorya wrote: »

Two of the links are studies, two are articles..

Ok well one article is an opinion piece on someones blog and the other article has no actual data in it so there is nothing there to evaluate.

In fact all the article says is that Sweden implemented a model, and other people are thinking of copying it. And it discusses some pretty awful problems with that model and it's ultimate effects.

Any other claim the article makes is not substantiated, just declared and the only link there does not even work. Which is not helpful. In fact the article itself is clear that any conclusions reached, are likely entirely subjective!

So let us turn to the studies:

STUDY 1

Your quote from this one directly parallels one of my two concerns that I listed. You quoted "On average, countries where prostitution is legal experience larger reported human trafficking inflows.". The word reported here is VERY VERY important as it is in fact core to one of the arguments pro-legal sex work people make. Which is that in a LEGAL sex work environment you will get more REPORTS of crimes. Which is what we want! This is a good thing!

However the title of that paper is not "Does it increase reporting" but "Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking" itself. And unfortunately your quoting from the report Summary at the start was rather selective in this regard. We can also quote, for example, the following from the same report:

Naturally, this qualitative evidence is also somewhat tentative as there is no “smoking gun” proving that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect and that the legalization of prostitution definitely increases inward trafficking flows. The problem here lies in the clandestine nature of both the prostitution and trafficking markets, making it difficult, perhaps impossible, to find hard evidence establishing this relationship.

In other words the papers conclusions are the opposite of what you might want them to be. The paper DOES conclude that making it legal increases REPORTS of trafficking. And I repeat: This is a good thing.

Finally I also note your selective quoting leaves out the final conclusion of the paper which I 100% agree with:

The likely negative consequences of legalized prostitution on a country’s inflows of human trafficking might be seen to support those who argue in favor of banning prostitution, thereby reducing the flows of trafficking.

However, such a line of argumentation overlooks potential benefits that the legalization of prostitution might have on those employed in the industry. Working conditions could be substantially improved for prostitutes—at least those legally employed—if prostitution is legalized. Prohibiting prostitution also raises tricky “freedom of choice” issues concerning both the potential suppliers and clients of prostitution services.

TLDR: It is not clear you read past the summary of this paper as it's conclusions do not match your own. Further the one sentence you did quote from it, I suspect you did not fully understand the implication of given it does not match your descriptions of those conclusions.

STUDY 2

Not.... actually a study at all. In fact this study is nothing more than a commentary on the previous one you linked to? Am I mixing up your links? You claimed to have linked to two studies and two articles. To which second study do you refer exactly?

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5 · 23-05-2019 12:26pm

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

well then tackle the problem of trafficking.

One way of tackling it, a very effective one, is not to increase supply by increasing demand by decriminalising or legalising the purchase of sex.

I used to be totally in favour of legalisation, consenting adults, world's oldest profession etc. It's natural to intuit that legalisation would lead to harm reduction. But much like legalising abortion or decriminalising drugs we're not whistling in the dark here, we have the data from other countries who have taken various approaches and the evidence, disappointing and counter intuitive as it is, is in, legalisation of the purchase of sex leads to increased trafficking.

When watching the happy hookers who get rolled out to advocate for legalisation we'd do well to remember that a largely criminal business with a global annual revenue of billions is quite the vested interest. These women are almost always Anglophone, got into the work as an adult and don't have a pimp, which makes them incredibly unrepresentative of sex workers world wide, why should we assume their views are representative?

There was an AMA with an Irish sex worker here recently, she was an independent operator, said as far as she could tell most of the Irish girls were the same but she's be concerned about the majority of the non-Irish ones. Apart from trafficking one of the tactics is targeting women in direct provision centres.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with transactional sex and I know there are people who do it totally willingly, love the money, enjoy the work. But they're a vanishingly small minority. In countries where it's totally prohibited, totally legalised and everywhere in between the majority of sex workers are desperate, vulnerable people. I wish it otherwise but it ain't.

Gimme A Pound · 23-05-2019 12:32pm

Grayson wrote: »

Just because a sex act is transactional doesn't make it immoral despite what some people argue.

Shur who'd say that apart from religious fundamentalists and radical feminists?

ohnonotgmail · 23-05-2019 12:34pm

Abdullah Eager Organ wrote: »

One way of tackling it, a very effective one, is not to increase supply by increasing demand by decriminalising or legalising the purchase of sex.

I used to be totally in favour of legalisation, consenting adults, world's oldest profession etc. It's natural to intuit that legalisation would lead to harm reduction. But much like legalising abortion or decriminalising drugs we're not whistling in the dark here, we have the data from other countries who have taken various approaches and the evidence, disappointing and counter intuitive as it is, is in, legalisation of the purchase of sex leads to increased trafficking.

When watching the happy hookers who get rolled out to advocate for legalisation we'd do well to remember that a largely criminal business with a global annual revenue of billions is quite the vested interest. These women are almost always Anglophone, got into the work as an adult and don't have a pimp, which makes them incredibly unrepresentative of sex workers world wide, why should we assume their views are representative?

There was an AMA with an Irish sex worker here recently, she was an independent operator, said as far as she could tell most of the Irish girls were the same but she's be concerned about the majority of the non-Irish ones. Apart from trafficking one of the tactics is targeting women in direct provision centres.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with transactional sex and I know there are people who do it totally willingly, love the money, enjoy the work. But they're a vanishingly small minority. In countries where it's totally prohibited, totally legalised and everywhere in between the majority of sex workers are desperate, vulnerable people. I wish it otherwise but it ain't.

i posted that before reading nozzs post on the studies linked to by the OP. It seems the assertion by the OP that you have repeated in bold above is not supported.

nozzferrahhtoo · 23-05-2019 12:38pm

Zorya wrote: »

If I may qualify it - essentially it is the nonchalant comparing of things that are not the same

I did not compare the things not the same though. I compared peoples REACTIONS to those very different things. Which is not the same thing at all.

If I compare your reaction to the taste of concrete to your reaction to the taste of my wonderful three alcohol Irish Car Bomb cup cakes..... I would not be comparing concrete to cupcakes. I would be comparing YOUR reaction to tasting concrete and cup cakes.

Similarly when I was discussing peoples reactions to buying sex services, and downloading music.... I was in NO WAY AT ALL comparing buying sex services, and downloading music.

So it seems the relativism you imagine I suffer from is based on my having something something you also imagined. Your relativism however....

Zorya wrote: »

Nor is getting one's nails done. The person doing nails is not being in anyway subjected to the same level of physical possession as a person having sex.

..... is problematic here. In both cases they are trafficked slaves against their will. I do not equivocate between these things as you do. A trafficked slave is a trafficked slave and the plight of one is no less a moral concern to me than the other just because one of them is making fingers nails look pretty. Either we have moral and ethical concern for trafficked slaves.... or we do not.

Zorya wrote: »

People given choice do not appear overall to ethically source their product

And yet many more people buy legitimate tobacco than not. Many more people buy DVDs than download illegally. So I am not sure you are correct here at all.

But I am open to trialing it to find out. Let us develop and implement a solution, similar to the one I described already, and see where consumer footfall goes. Has the model I propose been tried anywhere? Did it work? Or not? I am not aware of anything similar having been implemented.

Zorya wrote: »

And any action - including decriminalisation of prostitution - that fuels such crime is wrong. Just plain wrong. No big fancy arguments about it. Just wrong.

ANY arguments would be useful, big or fancy or not. Child slave labour has been used to produce clothes yet no one calls for the banning of clothes or stating that any industry of clothing is to be blamed for the crimes within it. While we recently called for the heads of the Bankers who committed fraud and crimes in our finance system, hardly anyone speaks out against the existence of the banking industry.

In fact only sex work, and perhaps to a lesser decree recreational drugs, are subject to this selectively applied standard it would seem. Only there do we find people indicting the industry with the crimes of those within it. Every where else we seem cognitively capable of separating the industry from it's criminals and acting separately and correctly in response to both.

Zorya wrote: »

Plus to be honest this idea that you could be wholly blind to the nature of the persons wellbeing with whom you are intimately engaged is not believable. Unless you choose not to care.

Alas we do it as a species all the time. We seem to be no more or less blind to the possible plight of people in other industries when we deal with them. A walk down temple bar on any night of the week affords me with almost no visions whatsoever of people being anything but blind to the well being of the bouncers or bar staff for example. And I am hard pushed to find anyone too concerned with the well being of the Garda who patrol our streets.

Thinking about the well being of others is alas not a strong point of our species in quite a number of contexts. I would be hesitant to mangle that into an anti sex work narrative therefore.

snotboogie · 23-05-2019 12:40pm

Zorya wrote: »

If a person has sex with a trafficked person, who are the majority of prostitutes, the act is inherently abusive and degrading, even if they imagine they are being kind and sweet to the person who is a slave.

Source for that?

Assetbacked · 23-05-2019 12:48pm

The money raised from taxes associated with legalisation can be used for improving the industry and welfare of the people involved. Right now there are voluntary and charitable organisations living off scraps to safeguard the women involved with the authorities focused on enforcement. The money for both of these comes from the general taxation pot. This is not sustainable and inevitably the money going to enforcement and charities will end up decreasing over time. This alone is a reason for legalising the industry.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 12:51pm

snotboogie wrote: »

Source for that?

Havocscope indicated that prostitution revenue can be estimated at around $186.00 billion per year worldwide. According to a report published in 2012 by Fondation Scelles, prostitution has a global dimension, involving around 40-42 million people worldwide, of which 90% are dependent on a procurer. 75% of them are between 13 and 25 years old.
The most conservative official statistics suggest that 1 in 7 prostitutes in Europe are victims of trafficking, while some Member States estimate that between 60% and 90% of those in their respective national prostitution markets have been trafficked. Moreover,the data available confirm that most trafficking in Europe is for the purposes ofsexual exploitation, principally of women and girls.

Dependant on a procurer means a pimp or a trafficker.
This is a quote from a 2014 EU parliament document. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/2014/493040/IPOL-FEMM_ET(2014)493040_EN.pdf

Stand by for armchair analysts to pick out ''very important'' words...... :rolleyes:

Zorya · 23-05-2019 12:54pm

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Alas we do it as a species all the time. We seem to be no more or less blind to the possible plight of people in other industries when we deal with them. A walk down temple bar on any night of the week affords me with almost no visions whatsoever of people being anything but blind to the well being of the bouncers or bar staff for example. And I am hard pushed to find anyone too concerned with the well being of the Garda who patrol our streets.

Thinking about the well being of others is alas not a strong point of our species in quite a number of contexts. I would be hesitant to mangle that into an anti sex work narrative therefore.

The generalising of the degenerate masses and the ''soft bigotry of low expectations''...

nozzferrahhtoo · 23-05-2019 12:57pm

Zorya wrote: »

Dependant on a procurer means a pimp or a trafficker.

Which does not support the claim you made, for which the user asked a source. To support the claim you made you would have to separate out the statistics on pimping and trafficking. It is the figures for the LATTER only that would support your case.

While there are many problems with sex work through a pimp, having a pimp does NOT mean you were trafficked and hence does not support the claim the majority of prostitutes are trafficked.

Also I notice you selectively bolded the bit you liked. The quote you offered discussed the upper AND lower ranges of current estimates. You contrived to only bold the upper limit because it suits you. The lower limit also mentioned of 1 in 7 is far from the "majority" you are claiming.

So your claim is still awaiting an actual source.

Zorya wrote: »

Stand by for armchair analysts to pick out ''very important'' words......

Or in other words, wait for people to parse the contents of a study correctly and not distort them with selective quoting? Yea stand by for that indeed.

As for the armchair comment, aside from being petty it is also not really representative. Reading, parsing, and understanding the methodologies and conclusions behind published works of science..... is smack bang in the middle of what I do. You are in my field there.

Zorya wrote: »

The generalising of the degenerate masses and the ''soft bigotry of low expectations''...

So no actual response to ANYTHING I wrote then huh? Clear who is using the armchairs here. And it ain't me. While I am sure your heart is in the exact right place here, the same place as mine, in your concern for the well being of trafficked slaves........ I am not sure you are doing that cause or it's credibility and good by distorting quotes, studies, and people replying to you.

sbsquarepants · 23-05-2019 1:05pm

Zorya wrote: »

If a person has sex with a trafficked person, who are the majority of prostitutes, the act is inherently abusive and degrading, even if they imagine they are being kind and sweet to the person who is a slave.

I don't know, I'm sure trafficking exists (especially at the more depraved end of the scale) but I'd be amazed if it's that's big a percentage of the overall, especially in places where it's legal. There's no way it's the majority or anything close to it.

Why take the risk of trafficking people and all the trouble that could bring if you could just stick a "hooker wanted" add somewhere?

Nobody traffics plumbers!

nozzferrahhtoo · 23-05-2019 1:11pm

A concern of mine is exactly how we are defining "trafficking". The studies being linked to do not seem to be very clear on how they define this, or how they are distinguishing from ANY kind of migration to sex work. What is the exact distinction being used between migrating, and being trafficked?

There is a legitimate concern with migration to countries where sex work is made legal. Which is that it being legal might attract immigration....... like new jobs in ANY industry....... but as Zorya's link points out there is a distinction between creating new jobs in sex work and Intel or Dell creating 2000 new jobs in tech which is that.....

"It is worth noting that in Member States in which prostitution is legalised, a residence and a work permit cannot be issued to persons entering the Member States with a view to working in prostitution. Pro-prostitution organisations are therefore advocating a system of “green cards” for prostitutes."

..... meaning in essence those that are complaining that we should not be treating sex work "like any other work" are actively creating environments that specifically MAKE it get treated not "like any other work". They are contriving to manufacture the very failings they then use against it.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 1:12pm

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Which does not support the claim you made, for which the user asked a source. To support the claim you made you would have to separate out the statistics on pimping and trafficking. It is the figures for the LATTER only that would support your case.

While there are many problems with sex work through a pimp, having a pimp does NOT mean you were trafficked and hence does not support the claim the majority of prostitutes are trafficked.

Also I notice you selectively bolded the bit you liked. The quote you offered discussed the upper AND lower ranges of current estimates. You contrived to only bold the upper limit because it suits you. The lower limit also mentioned of 1 in 7 is far from the "majority" you are claiming.

So your claim is still awaiting an actual source.

Or in other words, wait for people to parse the contents of a study correctly and not distort them with selective quoting? Yea stand by for that indeed.

As for the armchair comment, aside from being petty it is also not really representative. Reading, parsing, and understanding the methodologies and conclusions behind published works of science..... is smack bang in the middle of what I do. You are in my field there.

So no actual response to ANYTHING I wrote then huh? Clear who is using the armchairs here. And it ain't me. While I am sure your heart is in the exact right place here, the same place as mine, in your concern for the well being of trafficked slaves........ I am not sure you are doing that cause or it's credibility and good by distorting quotes, studies, and people replying to you.

EU parliament document - some Member States estimate that between 60% and 90% of those in their respective national prostitution markets have been trafficked.

No matter what way you attempt to parse and analyse, N, the fact IS that a large percentage of the prostitutes in Germany and Spain, at the very least, have been trafficked. 60 to 90 % according to official estimates.

Even if your disputation was to have any grounds in reality it would only be an attempt to whittle away at that percentage to some small degree, so what percentage starts to look like it is acceptable to you? If you discovered by your methods that ONLY 10% of prostitutes working in your country had been captured and held as sex slaves, how would you feel? And yet it is always going to be far more than that.
I am not going to link endless google results for this fact - but you actually do know in your heart that it is true. Trafficking is enormous. And growing bigger. It is vile. These are real people, adults and children. Not fags or DVDs.

We will have to agree to disagree at this stage because I am not going to wade through any more of your attempts to minimise the unconscionable.

Assetbacked · 23-05-2019 1:17pm

Zorya wrote: »

It is a huge and booming industry - trafficking humans, and many of them children. It's so ugly to think about. I don't feel torn on it anymore, though yes like you I used to think it would be best to legalise it. But it just seems that the subterranean appetite for degradation and abuse is too great and cannot be controlled that way. Cannot understand how people fund it.

I like to use the same arguments for forbidding anonymity on the internet!

nozzferrahhtoo · 23-05-2019 1:24pm

Zorya wrote: »

EU parliament document - some Member States estimate that between 60% and 90% of those in their respective national prostitution markets have been trafficked.

Again though that is ONLY the upper estimations out of a whole range of estimations. You are quoting therefore only the ones that suit you best while wholly ignoring the ones that show trafficked individuals to be the minority (1 in 7).

This does not help your case therefore as A) the data does not support you but also

your willingness to quote only the bits that suit you undermines any credibility your claims might garner. Which is not good for you or for me as we share goals here.

Zorya wrote: »

what percentage starts to look like it is acceptable to you?

Zero of course. That should be ONE of the ideals we work towards in our social response to the sex industry.

I often say on the abortion threads that no matter how extreme a pro choice or anti choice person you are..... we still nearly all share the common ground that we want ZERO abortions to actually happen. We just disagree on whether making them illegal is the right way to attain that goal.

I would say EXACTLY the same thing about sex work. Our ideal is to reduce, if possible eliminate, all trafficking. I just do not believe making it illegal as a consumer OR as a seller is the way to achieve that. Quite the opposite in fact.

But I also do not believe simply making it legal without any sensible procedures or regulation helps either. That is just as bad as making it illegal to me. Alas that IS what I see happening in countries like Germany where I now live. Tax money which proponents of a sex industry suggest would be earned and put back into that industry..... isn't for example. And useful regulations, such as the ones I proposed, are poor to non-existent.

But all that said, I ALSO say that we should not indict any industry with the crimes committed within it. Rape, slavery, kidnapping are bad things. Sex work is not. And we should not ever indict the latter with the crimes of the former.

The majority of child rape for example occurs in the family. The vast majority of children who have been raped and sexually abused, were done by a family member. I do not call for the end of the family unit or the family structure however. I realise that no matter how bad a crime is........ the environment it occurs in should rarely be indicted by proxy.

Zorya wrote: »

I am not going to link endless google results for this fact - but you actually do know in your heart that it is true. Trafficking is enormous. And growing bigger. It is vile. These are real people, adults and children. Not fags or DVDs.

We are wholly 100% in agreement here and I believe firmly your heart is 100% in the right place here on all these issues. I just think that this emotion, valid and warranted as it is, clouds your judgement on the facts and interpretation of the conclusions of studies into those facts. And I suspect that does the agenda we both share more harm than good. And I have noticed for sure in the past that if you let it, disagreements with people otherwise on your own team can get emotionally out of hand much quicker than any other.

Zorya wrote: »

We will have to agree to disagree at this stage because I am not going to wade through any more of your attempts to minimise the unconscionable.

None of which I have ever done.

Zorya · 23-05-2019 1:32pm

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Again though that is ONLY the upper estimations out of a whole range of estimations. You are quoting therefore only the ones that suit you best while wholly ignoring the ones that show trafficked individuals to be the minority (1 in 7).

This does not help your case therefore as A) the data does not support you but also your willingness to quote only the bits that suit you undermines any credibility your claims might garner. Which is not good for you or for me as we share goals here.
.

Ironically you are berating me for doing exactly what you are doing. Choosing our evidence. You choose to minimise - the 1 in 7, and I choose to maximise, 60 - 90%. But you cannot berate me for doing what you do, which is being selective about available information.

10% of all prostitutes where you live would be 40,000 people trafficked. 1 in 7 wuld be closer to 60,000. There is no way it is as low as though figures but even if it was, it is bizarre to wonder about statistics and pick apart studies when you have effectively a brutalised, imprisoned slave class in your midst.

I was just wondering who are the ordinary people who can bring themselves to screw these (at least) tens of thousands (in Germany alone) of unfortunate people for their own pleasure.

Who Are The People Buying Sex This Way?

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