Sex trade - Harm Reduction
I do not have the emotional fortitude right now to delve into facts and figures on violence against women in sex industry and I am not sure when I will but I aim to try because this issue is just too important to take on face value.
By that I mean that it is theorized that legalization or decriminalization will reduce the harm inflicted on women in the industry. It sounds good in theory but I am not convinced that it makes women safer or reduces the number of women that are harmed.
Some groups are claiming that legal/decrim increases the harm suffered by women and other groups are claiming just the opposite. As there are a wide variety of examples around the world I think we should be able to collect a good mix of information on the actual as opposed to purely theoretical outcomes.
Harm reduction includes simply not getting a criminal record but the Swedish model takes care of that so neither legal nor decrim are required to attain that goal.
Sex-trafficking as in economic migration - It's philosophical, there is debate as to whether it represents freedom to choose or economic coercion so I am not sure it should be included for the purposes of this discussion. Either way there is a difference between this kind of sex-trafficking and that which is unwilling. It can't be addressed as one issue. I'm looking for solid information on whether or not what we all agree is harmful is lessened, increased, or neither.
This is the list that I consider of primary importance but please feel free to add to it.
Sex-trafficking as in women that have been tricked, forced or coerced in some manner.
Children - not older teens, children. Say 14 and under.
Teens - lured by false promises, offered drugs, alcohol, and ending up trapped by addiction or simply the belief that there is no way out for them.
Same as above only women rather than teens.
Physical attacks, anything from slapped around to murder. This includes rape.
Thats all I can really think of right now.
CLES has a committee working on analyzing and improving harm reduction theory (HRT) and practice. We look at the differences between prostitution and drug addiction, the field where HRT was developed and explore whether we can do better than merely reduce and manage the harm in prostitution.
A few key questions surfaced:
* What harm? The industry had long denied there was any. All those metaphors and clichés about "happy hookers", "the oldest profession", those women being "naturally hot"... Now it says that the harm merely comes from attempts to restrict it, that feminists are the agents of harm. So listening to women and youths and letting them define the harm they had known and were still experiencing was step 1.
* Harm to whom? We like to think that intervention is focussed against the harm experienced by the women and youths hurt in the industry. But one thing that comes through clearly in the literature and govt-funded policies is that the harm in "harm reduction" has almost always been foremost thought of and defined as the harm to the rest of society, to legitimate commercial interests, private properties, etc. The harm to the women and youths being used by prostitutors was rarely taken into account - "use condoms". Even today, most of the money goes to organizations that promise to prevent the outside spread of AIDS, hepatitis, etc. rather than johns infecting the people they hire.
* Harm by whom? Harm reduction theory was defined in the field of drug abuse, with consumers seen as harming themselves or being harmed by a chemical product or an unclean needle. So abstinence was the goal; and when that proved impossible because of addiction and despair, reducing that harm to non-abstinent users became the second best objective.
However, in prostitution, subjects are not alone with a syringe. They are in interaction, harmed by others: johns, pimps, brothels and agency owners, traffckers, complicit corporations and governments, international agencies, armed forces, etc. Its an entirely different dynamic, not one of self-abuse but one of organized oppression. The HRT model isn't designed to take this into account at the rot; it can only try to adapt with "bad trick sheets" for instance or safety advice that pales in the face of systemic oppression.
* So, with external, human and corporate agents of harm identified, one can ask whether this harm is merely to be managed, hopefully kept low, or whether we as survivors and society are entitled to and should work at eliminating the cause of this harm, the privilege that creates it -- that is abolitionist policy.
The Downstream/Upstream prevention model illustrates that vividly. Your thoughts?...
Harm redcution emerged from medicine, and in response to spread of disease (HIV+) among IV drug users. As Martin said, the goal was/is largely to reduce the harms to the non-drug-using "legitimate citizen". Like most medical interventions, also, harm reduction treats the symptom of the 'dis-ease' rather than systemic foundations of the problem. This is the case for both drug users and women in prostitution. They are the 'symptoms' of broad and deep social and political problems and are much easier to target with policies and band-aids. In relation to drug use, Harm reduction maybe saves lives, or at least prolongs life, but it does not improve the lives saved. In relation to prostitution, I think that, because the causes of the harms (the johns, the men who demand sexual access to women) are not addressed at all, the harms of prostitution continue unabated.
Is there a reason for thread proliferation (four of them now at my count)... other than the obvious one that we've already seen in several other threads?
I recommend this thread be closed.
I also agree that this is being discussed in other threads.
Unionist, please don't shadow-moderate. Sending an e-mail or flagging a post is good enough.
Actually, I change my mind. I'll reopen this one since it's more general and see what threads I can shoehorn into this one. :) Sorry, Infosaturated and Martin.
Continued from here, with a focus on harm reduction theory and how it fits in overall social justice and health issues and a focus on oppression rather than dysfunction. I think this his can proceed with a more evidence-based body&soul focus, rather than a pro/con political one.
I had written:
CLES (Concertation des luttes contre l'exploitation sexuelle) has a committee working on analyzing and improving harm reduction theory (HRT) and practice. We look at the differences between prostitution and drug addiction, the field where HRT was developed and explore whether we can do better than merely reduce and manage the harm in prostitution.
A few key questions surfaced:
* What harm? The industry had long denied there was any. All those metaphors and clichés about "happy hookers", "the oldest profession", those women being "naturally hot"... Now it says that the harm merely comes from attempts to restrict it, that feminists are the agents of harm. So listening to women and youths and letting them define the harm they had known and were still experiencing was step 1.
* Harm to whom? We like to think that intervention is focussed against the harm experienced by the women and youths hurt in the industry. But one thing that comes through clearly in the literature and govt-funded policies is that the harm in "harm reduction" has almost always been foremost thought of and defined as the harm to the rest of society, to legitimate commercial interests, private properties, etc. The harm to the women and youths being used by prostitutors was rarely taken into account - "use condoms". Even today, most of the money goes to organizations that promise to prevent the outside spread of AIDS, hepatitis, etc. rather than johns infecting the people they hire.
* Harm by whom? Harm reduction theory was defined in the field of drug abuse, with consumers seen as harming themselves or being harmed by a chemical product or an unclean needle. So abstinence was the goal; and when that proved impossible because of addiction and despair, reducing that harm to non-abstinent users became the second best objective.
However, in prostitution, subjects are not alone with a syringe. They are in interaction, harmed by others: johns, pimps, brothels and agency owners, traffckers, complicit corporations and governments, international agencies, armed forces, etc. Its an entirely different dynamic, not one of self-abuse but one of organized oppression. The HRT model isn't designed to take this into account at the rot; it can only try to adapt with "bad trick sheets" for instance or safety advice that pales in the face of systemic oppression.
* So, with external, human and corporate agents of harm identified, one can ask whether this harm is merely to be managed, hopefully kept low, or whether we as survivors and society are entitled to and should work at eliminating the cause of this harm, the privilege that creates it -- that is abolitionist policy.
The Downstream/Upstream prevention model illustrates that vividly. Your thoughts?...
peasant woman:
Harm reduction emerged from medicine, and in response to spread of disease (HIV+) among IV drug users. As Martin said, the goal was/is largely to reduce the harms to the non-drug-using "legitimate citizen". Like most medical interventions, also, harm reduction treats the symptom of the 'dis-ease' rather than systemic foundations of the problem. This is the case for both drug users and women in prostitution. They are the 'symptoms' of broad and deep social and political problems and are much easier to target with policies and band-aids. In relation to drug use, Harm reduction maybe saves lives, or at least prolongs life, but it does not improve the lives saved. In relation to prostitution, I think that, because the causes of the harms (the johns, the men who demand sexual access to women) are not addressed at all, the harms of prostitution continue unabated.
it's my belief those who wish to "end sex work" should continue. it is necessary and important work. but in the face of all of the casulaties of attempts to abolish sex work, can we not agree we need to do something pragmatic to increase safet for men,women and trans individuals working in the sex industry? we all agree some workers choose, could we not respect that choice and support safety in making that choice while still weeding out exploiters and traffickers, etc? by bringing the sex industry out into the light we will shine a beacon on bad business owners, traffickers who under our proposed ideas would be obviously outside of acceptable standards by not being active participants in industry association development or not proactively trying to improve working conditions for their employees. i just think if we drive it further under ground we will just see more violence as is proven by destabilization of our industry thus far and increasing numbers of murders and violence against sexworkers. we must be able to find common ground amongst us all which takes a step back and leaves moraity and patriarchy behind...for now.....it is an importat discussion and i respect people who work towards this goal but at what expense?how many workers will die? i am committed to trying to have 1 year without a murder of a sex worker in vancouver....could we not all agree by creating safe working conditions this dream might be achieved? 2 members of the coop development team have died since our incorporation....2 more are terminally ill with fatal diseases....i would love to able to say to them,"we did it. you did it.your life meant something. your pain meant something. we had 1 year with no murders.we created choices for people"
I appreciate your endorsement of the necessity of work to end prostitution, thank you. We are on the same page when it comes to decriminalizing soliciting by prostituted folks and offering them substantive supports and uncompromised rights and recourses.
But, respectfully, I disagree that their casualties are from attempts to abolish sex work. I see the killers are not feminists critical of the industry but johns, pimps and traffickers, and that it is somewhat of a guilt by association smear to try and attribute the calculated, willed violence of abusers - one that also occurs behind closed doors and in decriminalized contexts - to the very people who try to surface this abuse and end the abusers' privilege and support by society. The Nordic model - and conversely the escalation of prostitution in war and disaster zones - demonstrates that the sexual abuse of prostituted women and youths is not a fixed, absolute, unmodifiable quantity that can only be "driven underground" by feminist efforts, but that it can and has been reduced, in huge numbers in the case of trafficking, when prostitution is acknowledged as violence against women and buying sex is made illegal rather than legitimized.
i would like share how numders of murders are directly impacted by actions taken to "end sex work" or save sex workers from exploitation...
Year.................. Number of murders of sex workers in vancouver
n1960-1964.................. 0
n1965-1969 ....................0
n1970-1974 ...................0
n1975-1979 ...................3 beginnings of the impacts of2nd wave feminism and attempts to end sex work as well as perceptions of sex workers as all abusedsupper clubs no longer allow escorts in clubs
n1980-1984 ...................8
n1985-1989 ...................22 current legal frame work implemented based "protection" for sex workers who are perceived as all abused
n1990-1994 .....................24
n1995-1999 .....................55 sex workers no longer allowed to rent rooms to work in DTES vancouver based on perceptions that hotel owners were exploiting us
clearly, a mistake was made,numbers don't lie. we were way safer before attempts to "end sex work" began.
i will state this eveidence was complided by a civilian VPD member who is a woman. it is based on numbers from VPD, not on my assumptions etc.
i would like share how numders of murders are directly impacted by actions taken to "end sex work" or save sex workers from exploitation...
Year.................. Number of murders of sex workers in vancouver
.....
clearly, a mistake was made,numbers don't lie. we were way safer before attempts to "end sex work" began.
Numbers don't lie but conclusions drawn from them are not necessarily correct.
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Suicide and prostitution were more hidden not more legal or more respected in the sixties. Police were less likely to protect prostitutes. The idea of a wife charging her husband rape was laughable. “Date rape” meant the girl wasn’t careful enough, teased, gave the wrong idea, got drunk, didn’t really mean no. Families didn't admit it when a death was due to suicide and they certainly wouldn't want it known that a family member was killed or injured as a result of prostituting herself.
The increase in reports of domestic violence since the 1960s could be correlated to the increase in shelters for battered women but that doesn't mean feminists caused an increase in domestic abuse.
could we not at least accept the numbers increasing could in part be due to de stabilization? i don't really believe there is one all encompassing cause for the situation in the downtown east side.......and what about the marked rise in street level sex work as jobs were being eliminated and safer environments lost?
If our focus was on any other kind of working woman who earns a living doing shitty work(waiters at Pizza Hut, Casheers at Walmart) any self respecting activist in the leftist establishment would say, My God! Get those people a union Stat!
But when it comes to sexwork, the leftist establishment turns it's back and says, "we can't improve working conditions for sex workers! They fuck for a living! Get these people some demeaning charity, stat!"
It's very sad...
Isn't that a bit unfair, CMOT? Only yesterday, Unionist posted a CUPE Background document from 5 years ago: Sex Work: Why It's a Union Issue In it the authors pointed out some of the problems with such a project, e.g. identifying these workers' bosses. And there are others. I recall that ten years ago, Ontario dancers tried to oppose the generalization of lap dancing in bars: it was becoming difficult to resist bar owners pressures to that effect. Masturbating clients was becoming part of the job definition, regardless of dancers' wishes. Women tried to organize against this pattern, but the issue was decided at the Supreme Court level, in favour of bar owners, on the basis of libertarian principles. So there seems to be a disconnect between neo-liberal pressures to give in to the generalization of prostitution and Leftist politics of defending workers' rights. Exploring that may be a way to understand why it is NOT unionization that spokespersons are advocating but a lumping together of owners, pimps and "workers"' interests.
If our focus was on any other kind of working woman who earns a living doing shitty work(waiters at Pizza Hut, Casheers at Walmart) any self respecting activist in the leftist establishment would say, My God! Get those people a union Stat!
But when it comes to sexwork, the leftist establishment turns it's back and says, "we can't improve working conditions for sex workers! They fuck for a living! Get these people some demeaning charity, stat!"
It's very sad...
Supporting improving working conditions for women doing shitty work does not result in more women doing shitty work. It results, hopefully, in improving working conditions.
Supporting pimps and johns leads to greater numbers of women being abused and murdered, many of whom were also abused as children.
it's my belief those who wish to "end sex work" should continue. it is necessary and important work. but in the face of all of the casulaties of attempts to abolish sex work, ....
Sometimes Susan defends prostitution as a lovely rewarding job that most prostitutes would be delight to continue doing and the majority of harm is caused by laws that criminalize johns, pimps and brothels.
It is her contention that the violence women suffer at the hands of johns is caused by attempts to abolish prostitution through legal means.
There is no evidence at all that decriminalization of johns, pimps and brothels leads to improved outcomes for women.
What you are proposing Dibbler, is that we stop trying to prevent Walmart from dominating every market across Canada. What you are proposing is that we abolish attempts of unionization "laws at Walmart because it leads to job losses.
We do not want johns and pimps, the Walmart of sex work, to be decriminalized. This would not be a step forward for worker's rights.
Prostitution itself is not illegal. Sweden decriminalized solicitation which I also support. This way the worker is never faulted.
The people held to account are those who would exploit women. Even Susan admits that those who wish to "end sex work" should continue. it is necessary and important work. Ending prostitution is necessary and important work. Ending the exploitation of workers at Walmart is important work. Exploitation will never be beaten by giving more power to exploiters.
Suggesting that unions should back off of Walmart because you are threatening the workers with harm (job losses) increases the power of Walmart.
There is no evidence at all that decriminalization of pimps and johns reduces violence against women and there is plenty of evidence that it increases the harm.
This is not a matter of "worker rights to a safe environment". It is a matter of legalizing pimps and johns so it is easier for them to exploit women.
Janine Benedet, from UBC, who wrote about the risks of prostitution behind closed doors ("Legalization wouldn't make prostitutes safe", G&M), will be interviewed on The National Sunday evening.
Isn't that a bit unfair, CMOT?
Nope. When Jack Layton stands up and says, I want to adress this issue. I want to meet with sex worker rights organizations and work out a framework for decriminalization. The leftist establishment will have taken notice. That hasn't happened yet, because we live in the ice cold land of the covenanter and the Jansenist and any party that purposes leniancy when it comes to sex work will be destroyed on election day.What you are proposing Dibbler, is that we stop trying to prevent Walmart from dominating every market across Canada. What you are proposing is that we abolish attempts of unionization "laws at Walmart because it leads to job losses.
No, I didn't say that. Decriminalization doesn't have to equal exploitation. There are many different approaches Canada could take when it comes to dealing with prostitution. If we had more sex workers on the board, we could look at the sex trade from multitude of different angles, but we don't so we can't. Discussion can't progress on this issue, not in this fucked up virtual environment.
In whose world do you live CMOT?
Women are exploited badly already, you think things are going to change because prostitution is legalized or decriminalized and somehow it will be different and that exceptions will happen?
What needs to happen is men need to change their fucking attitudes, already there have 4 times today that have indicated here of all places no such a change.
I am pro decriminalization of prostitutes and against decriminalization of pimps, brothel owners, traffickers and johns.
Voice of a prostitute who doesn't know what she's talking about:
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
For another moment, I want you to imagine that you are a woman who is being used in prostitution. Every time a john buys your body to masturbate in, on, or around, he has pornographic vignettes running in his head, and he re-enacts these vignettes on your body.
While he is masturbating, he tells you that you are a dirty whore, or a nasty skank, or that sucking is really all you’re good for. You are nothing more than a sexualized, commodified collection of body parts to him.While he is sexually and verbally assaulting you to achieve his pleasure, you have to listen to his verbal degradation. You have to spread your legs, you have to open your arms, and you have to open your mouth. You have to seemingly invite and embrace this continuous onslaught of sexual and verbal assault. This is the so-called work of prostitution. It demeans, it humiliates, and it devastates the women in prostitution who are used this way.
http://sisyphe.org/spip.php?article1803
What prostitutes try to reserve for themselves is the right not to kiss. Pretty woman suggests it so they won't fall in love and get their feelings hurt. What do you think?
What a BS starting sentence INFO, sex workers are already "decriminalized."
Soliciting by women and youths isn't, remind. It's one of the big issues where abolitionists and pro-legalization folks and concerns are in agreement and where we could just swing it by making common cause.
Then she should have stated decriminalization of solicitation.
As sex workers in many many fields are not criminals.
And I am saying this because of her disrespectful insistance on usiing the word prostitution.
I am pro decriminalization of prostitutes and against decriminalization of pimps, brothel owners, traffickers and johns.
You can't be for sex workers while at the same time arguing that all Johns should be punished. The sex workers make money off the Johns.
Should John's be allowed to do whatever they want? Of course not, ground rules need to be established. But throwing them in jail or slapping them with huge fines for simply being a client is silly.Ground rules need to be established, eh?
Men can't stop being misogynist, sexist fuck wads, bent on doing whatever they want, here, how in hell can anything of the sort happen in real life?
*bump*
Ground rules need to be established, eh?
Men can't stop being misogynist, sexist fuck wads, bent on doing whatever they want, here, how in hell can anything of the sort happen in real life?
What can I say, I have faith...
And I am saying this because of her disrespectful insistance on usiing the word prostitution.
"Sex worker" includes pimps and traffickers and exotic dancers who I think would be offended to be thrown into the same pile as pimps.
If there is a more polite term for prostitute I think ex-prostitutes would be using it. If you know of one please tell me.
Voice of a prostitute who doesn't know what she's talking about:
If we were discussing a labor activist from the USW, would you be so quick to dismiss her contribution?Faith, ya right, I have been having faith that some men here would smarten the hell up for 7 years.
Why are leftists so immature and/or perverse about violence against women issues? I honestly don't know. I think it may have to do with the fetishizing of power. (Someone ought to write a play to explore that...)
"Sex worker" includes pimps and traffickers and exotic dancers who I think would be offended to be thrown into the same pile as pimps.
If there is a more polite term for prostitute I think ex-prostitutes would be using it. If you know of one please tell me.
personally i do not include any of those labels in my terms of reference for "sex worker" as i noted elsewhere, or maybe here there have been so many disseparate threads, I know 2 exotic dancers, who do not refer to themselves as sex workers. It is a term i use speciifcally for those who choose to work in the sex industry portion that deals with actual sex.
I can see your use of term prostitute is in reference to those who use the term in application to themselves. But I consider them sexually exploited women.
Having said that, if that is the term they choose, far be it from me to say otherwise in respect to their words, but I will use my own words when I discuss it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_worker
Although the term is sometimes viewed as a synonym or euphemism for prostitution, the term is meant as a general term for erotic labor in any of the different parts of the sex industry, hence, strippers and performers in pornography (who generally do not define themselves as prostitutes) are also considered sex workers.
Yes, I would consider them to be sex workers, and use that term when/if refering to that type o endeavour . Not so much strippers though, at least in BC, as they do not do lap dances.
Pimps and traffickers should be called what they are; slave traders and criminals.
If people want to self identify as prostitutes, or prostituted people, I will respect that, as I will with those that don't. Until such a time as the whole damn language within the industry changes.
(double post)
Did anyone catch Janine Benedet on The National tonight? I thought she kicked ass, pointing out how men's interests in protecting ever younger women's "choice" to enter prostitution had been made totally invisible in the CBC "documentary" on the controversy. And what about that eerie slug - Ron Mazell? - defending the industry...? Yuk.
Yes, I would consider them to be sex workers, and use that term when/if refering to that type o endeavour . Not so much strippers though, at least in BC, as they do not do lap dances.
Exotic dancers in Quebec and Ontario were forced into accepting it to keep their jobs. They fought it in court and lost. If prostitution is legalized they will be "offered the choice" to do that to. If they won't do it women will be imported who will. Ontario strip clubs have hired consultants to get around the change to the visa laws made by Conservatives because they can't get enough Canadian women willing to gyrate on men's laps which apparently falls under the job title of dancer in Quebec and Ontario.
Did anyone catch Janine Benedet on The National tonight? I thought she kicked ass, pointing out how men's interests in protecting ever younger women's "choice" to enter prostitution had been made totally invisible in the CBC "documentary" on the controversy. And what about that eerie slug - Ron Mazell? - defending the industry...? Yuk.
No but I'll look for it online.
Going to watch it in 8 minutes
You'll have to wait as it comes in the last section of the show.
Just got finished watching it.
All it did was make me more pissy.
Voice of a prostitute who doesn't know what she's talking about:
If we were discussing a labor activist from the USW, would you be so quick to dismiss her contribution?
I am not sure if you are responding to someone or not because I didn't see anyone dismissing anyone's contribution.
There are Army recruiters who tell young people all about the joys of being a soldier, the lifelong friendships, the opportunities for job training and for post-secondary education, not to mention travel. Some even tell young people that they won't have to go to war depending on what kind of job they choose to train for. These recruiters are soldiers themselves so they know the truth. Then there are the ex-soldiers or even worse deserters, who are a disgruntled minority. There voices don't have the same authority because they aren't soldiers anymore. Maybe they just had a bad experience.
Most of us posting here aren't even soldiers so what do we know? Shouldn't we be listening to the soldiers who can tell us of the wonderful humanitarian things they are doing for the people of Afghanistan now? Shouldn't we be listening to them tell us about how, because of their actions, little girls can go to school? Sure there is bad stuff going on. People dying. But the news focuses on all the bad stuff. They aren't showing us the roads that are being built or the happy smiles on children's faces when the soldiers give them candy. Everyone is always focusing on the bad stuff but the soldiers on the ground, the people that are there now, are the ones who know the truth, not ex-soldiers and certainly not arm-chair academic theorists and left-leaning journalists. They are are biased and they aren't there so they don't know what they are talking about.
As Canadians, we consider it our responsibility to have an opinion on the war. That we are not soldiers, that we are not there on the ground, that we are not generals, that we are not professional political analysts, even if we didn't go to college, does not mean that we cannot form an educated opinion. We do not even give the soldier or the general's opinion greater weight based on superior knowledge or understanding. We know that the soldier and the general have their own agenda. We listen, but then we ask for information to base an opinion on. How many miles of road were paved and were they to military installations or water-wells? How many schools have been build? At the cost of how many innocent lives? No matter how much the soldier loves her job, no matter how sincere she is about what she saw in Afghanistan, we want facts. We know that as Canadians we are responsible for what our country does in our name and what the outcome is even if we are not personally involved. We will listen to the soldier, we will sympathize with her and afford her every respect. But we will not agree that her opinion is more accurate than our own due to her experiences.
The views of contented sex workers should certainly be heard and given every respect as should the voice of the happy Walmart employee. But listening to them cannot substitute for taking the trouble to have an educated opinion based on facts and critical research.
The USW is a known organization that can be researched and the funding for it can be tracked. XPALSS and the Aboriginal Women's Action Network are as difficult to uncover the funding for as the pro-prostitution groups are. There is no way to see how many women actually support any of them. Who's word do you take? Which organization is more representative of the views of sex workers who are prostitutes? Do we just pick the view we like best?
The issue is not isolated to Canada although we can only affect the law here. Women and children are being trafficked around the world, including into Canada, for the purposes of sexual exploitation and even slavery. Decriminalizing prostitution and solicitation is only humane. Decriminalizing johns and brothel owners is far from being being obvious and that is what this Charter Challenge is about. Full and complete decriminalization of the entire industry which is the situation in New Zealand.
The issue does not end there. Canada is already full of brothels in the form of full service massage parlours and of escort services who offer more than dinner dates.
It's easy to sit back and be sophisticated and defend the "worker rights" of prostituted women. It's easy to say that of course no one should be forced into it. It's much more diffcult to spend hours, days, weeks, pouring through the information critically to discover the complex truths about prostitution. What it does to women, what it does to men, what it does to societies. Factual data is out there in the form of numbers. Factual data is out there in the form of workers personal experiences shared individually and through studies by those who support prostitution.
I am biased, but a progressive community has a responsibility to do diligent research on an issue of such enormous significance to the women of Canada and around the world. It is not good enough to listen to this soldier or that soldier. It's not good enough to listen to my opinion.
People might be interested to read the fisking that Antonia Z. did of an op-ed by Benedet last week, and her more general presentation of the current constitutional challenge.
I try not to interfere here too much, but I am keenly concerned with the erosion of civil liberties by the language of "values" -- as though there were some standard of "core Canadian values" apart from the basic principles and structures of democracy (see the Charter), and as though it would be a good thing to start enforcing "values" through law.
To me, there is a problem with talking about sex work as though it were all the same. It bothers me to see so many serious social crises tossed together when in fact each deserves its own particular, non-sensationalized, fact-based analysis. As I have read about it, the challenge that Alan Young is arguing is pretty specific, well defined, and a strong defence of a principle that matters to us all. I not only hope he wins but I expect him to.
I'm not saying, of course, that values don't matter. My values certainly matter to me, although I can distinguish between my commitment to the principles and structures that are necessary to preserving a democracy and my own private convictions about all kinds of things, including sex. I can appreciate those moments when another person suddenly feels a baroque aria coming upon her/him about intense life experiences -- I have those moments too, and I've written a few baroque arias of my own (usually to be embarrassed by them later). But I don't expect my arias to become the law for anyone else.
sk "478 4evR" dadl
I've been reading Antonia's commentary on BnR too, skdadl, and it's excellent.
Excellent post Skdadl and I completely agree with the entire post.
Skdadl, it has been pointed out that it was proponents of "sex work" who used that expression as if it was all the same (from receptionist all the way to trafficked sex slave, pimp and grateful johns). As for values I have some, I imagine tha you do too and that legislation supporting them is not something you entirely give up on - I like it that rape is illegal and that not everything can be bought). Indeed, values seem to also imbue the libertarian challenge against the current legislation on pimps and brothels: people's security, agency, standing up to what is described as puritanism, etc.
I generally love Zerbisias' writings but I was not impressed with her broadside against Benedet and critics of johns and pimps (I have a comment in that section of her blog). It often borders on disinformation. Has she merely drunk the neo-liberal Kool-Aid on that issue, or is there more to it? Anyone who sees pimps as hired by prostituted women - if she believes what she relays from the Alan Young team - has some serious reckoning to do. I hope she will speak to actual working women and rise to a different view, because her voice is an essential one.
Some facts that challenge the notion of prostitution's inevitability:
Why British men are rapists
Joan Smith, New Statesman, 23 January 2006
In the world of stag-night excess, lad mags and lap dancing, paying for sex is losing its stigma and more and more men do it. These "clients" are responsible for a grotesque crime, yet they get away scot-free. (...)
People might be interested to read the fisking that Antonia Z. did of an op-ed by Benedet last week, and her more general presentation of the current constitutional challenge.
I try not to interfere here too much, but I am keenly concerned with the erosion of civil liberties by the language of "values" -- as though there were some standard of "core Canadian values" apart from the basic principles and structures of democracy (see the Charter), and as though it would be a good thing to start enforcing "values" through law.
sk "478 4evR" dadl
I quite agree which is why I stay away from "values" arguments unless the "values" argument can be shown to have a specific negative effect on the population as a whole or part of it. For example moralistic judgements against gambling as the devil's vice are insufficient to justify state intervention in individual rights and freedoms.
Arguments about gambling in Canada can be based on the issue of state control versus the rights of people to have private gambling businesses and on if, as a society, we have a responsibility to protect the vunerable. We have to examine the harm done and decide if it is minimal and shouldn't interfere with the rights of the individual.
Does the state have the right to prevent the mining and use of asbestos if workers insist that they want the jobs and are willing to take the risk and Canada has customers willing to buy it?
Do we have the right to use zoning laws to decide what types of businesses should open where? Should someone who wants to open a grocery store have the right to open it where they believe it will be the most profitable or convenient for them? Or do we, as a society, have the right to say we don't want the level of traffic that would be generated to occur in a particular area?
I would say that as a society we have a responsibility to evaluate outcomes for everyone not just for the people who believe they will benefit. The worker willing to risk his lungs for a paycheck to feed their family cannot be the one to decide.
If prostitution is a victimless crime that does not result in unintended harm to other members of society beyond their moral sensitivites, then it would be interfering in the rights of the individual to ply their trade.
If, however, it can be shown that it causes a huge increase in the prostitution of minors, or places undo pressure on improverished women to accept work in the field by welfare and unemployment insurance or by their families thats a problem. If it is used as an excuse not to cover the costs of transgender surgery because after all, they have a way to earn the money, that's a problem. If causes an increase in the trafficking of women and children into Canada, that's a problem.
These are not arguments based on debatable values and morals within our society.
When we argue against the war being fought in Afghanistan we are not using the arguments of pacifists. We are arguing the validity of the justifications being used and the outcomes.
That is where this debate should stay.
Does legalization result in reduced harm to women who willingly work in the industry? There are models we can look at around the world to find the answer to that question. There are models of decriminalization, limited decriminalization and of legalization in Western nations.
This thread, along with all the others, has become useless as a venue to study any particular aspect of the business.
Faith, ya right, I have been having faith that some men here would smarten the hell up for 7 years.
Yeah my last statement was a sacren piece of fluff wasn't it? Anyone who read it would be forgiven for puking copiously all over there keyboard s. Forget the Fernie Fix, I could write for Pat Robertson. Jesus Land here we come! But seriously, I could expand on that statement, and make it a little less evangelical, but I think this thread is to far gone (and I know too little about the subject matter) for me to contribute anything of substance. Good-bye.
Gee, I arrive, and suddenly people decide that the thread has gone south, or west, or wherever threads go to die. *wink*
Martin, I wanted to respond to your use of the word "libertarian." I'm most used to seeing that word applied to a particular kind of right-winger, especially in the U.S., who is suspicious of government intervention in almost everything and keeps his gun at the ready all the time. I don't think that it's useful to smudge that by-now fairly loaded term by applying it also to people who believe that our codes of civil liberties (the U.S. Bill of Rights, the French Declaration, our Charter, etc) are foundational to democracy, and who are worried at their steady subversion over the last while, most often from the right and for sure by BushCo, but sometimes also from the left.
An American friend said the other day on another site that BushCo seem to have succeeded in convincing a lot of Americans that the Bill of Rights is some kind of left-wing fringe enthusiasm, and I feel that same kind of creep here (in Canada). I won't bore you with my full lecture about how the alternative to the Charter is some form of tyranny, but I do believe that deeply, and I don't think that that is libertarianism at all. I guess we could call it civil libertarianism, except that's kind of clunky, yes?
So then we come to the issue of what I consider to be false equivalence. You're right, I guess, to say that the defence of democracy implies that we're on the turf of "values." But here I'll take an example from the post following yours, where it's implied that there is somehow some equivalence between section 2 of the Charter and municipal zoning regulations. To me, when we start arguing at that fuzzy a level, all meaning is lost. That doesn't mean that I don't take municipal zoning regulations seriously or recognize the impact they could have on people's lives, but they are negotiable social values in the sense that I use the term. Freedom of conscience, to me, is not a negotiable social value. I won't die in the defence of zoning regulations, but I would certainly consider dying in the defence of freedom of conscience (if I didn't have six little mouths to feed).
Rape is assault. Sex trafficking is illegal on several scores. What has happened to aboriginal peoples in this country and especially to aboriginal women is a history on its own that goes much deeper than this court case.
We have police and legal and political means to address all those particular crimes, if we're serious about tackling them.
That doesn't change the fact that adult women are not only being infantilized by our current laws but put in danger by them, unnecessary danger. That's what the court challenge is about.
CASAC's Lee Lakeman answered Zerbisias critique of Benedet's Op-Ed on the Broadsides blog with additional information about Nicole Parisien's murder in a B.C. brothel:
I sat in court to observe the murder trial to which Janine Benedet refers in her op ed piece. And yes as a feminist I also observed the Pickton case from the early years of police failure to the media circus. Interestingly those promoting the decriminalization and de facto legalization of prostitution ignored the details of both Pickton and the murder of Nicole Parisiene by Andrew Evans. If they both had been more featured you might have seen things differently. Both Pickton and Andrew "hired" women for indoor prostitution. The pig farm was a brothel and so was the apartment where Nicole was murdered. Both were used quite often by numbers of men. In Nicole's case there was a security surveillance system run by an owner and on which her killer was captured. That is how the jury could see that he was not rendered incapable by his consumption of alcohol. I heard the evidence in that trial that Nicole was strangled by hand. Like many men before him, when the fantasy they paid for disappoints, Evans exploded. According to the forensics, that explosion of projected anger took somewhere between 30 seconds and 3 minutes. He hit Nicole with a shoe so hard that the sole left an impression of treads on her face and could have cut off her oxygen. Andrew says he does not know whether he strangled her or hit her first. Contrary to your imagining, no "beefy security guard" could have saved her even if he was standing outside the apartment door. What I find so horrifying in the testimony of the case is what appears in so many cases of the beating and killing of women and in every case of prostitution: an unchallenged presumption that men have a right (paid for or not) to project onto women a responsibility to satisfy the sexual needs and wants of men. Benedet gets it: the answer to tell men to grow up and stop risking women's lives.
We have police and legal and political means to address all those particular crimes, if we're serious about tackling them.
That doesn't change the fact that adult women are not only being infantilized by our current laws but put in danger by them, unnecessary danger. That's what the court challenge is about.
Your solution means more sex workers will be assaulted and that many of them will be minors.
Your claims of decreased violence are not true anywhere in the entire world. You cannot point to a single place where violence against women has decreased as a result of decriminalization or legalization of pimping.
I am not interested in bible thumpers, libertarian, liberal or feminist theory. (well I am but not in terms of practical decision making)
I have spend hours and days researching facts and I am not even close to wading through all the information. Prostitution is competely legal in all these countries (from Wiki):
Prostitution is legal [or fully decriminalized} and regulated in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Turkey, Senegal, Lebanon, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, some Australian states, New Zealand, some rural counties in the US state of Nevada, Mexico (only in some cities in "toleration zones").
These countries also have police and legal and political means to address trafficking, child prostitution, assault and murder so we can examine how that worked out for them.
Sweden revised their laws in 1999 to such success that Norway and Iceland changed their laws this year. Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, are not bastions of the Christian right.
So skdadl, Susan, anyone else pro or con or undecided I invite you to research for yourselves instead of swallowing mainstream press and sex industry propaganda without question.
skdadl, I am fine with using the words "civil libertarianism". I realize that there is a bad reputation attached to mere "libertarianism", not all of it deserved.
At the same time, I feel that libertarianism - civil or uncivil - meets its limits in issues where oppression - a substantive relationship between empowered and disempowered individuals - can (finally) be acknowledged! Consider the aspects of our legislation that would suffer from a strict application of (civil) libertarian principles. Rand formula? Shutting down sweatshops? Can't have that as this could be said to "infantilize" workers. Surrogate birthing, gun ownership, motorcycle helmets and seat belts legislation and bylaws: they all can be said to run afoul of individual freedoms. And don't even think about controlling child pornography. So, IMV, we need both individual freedoms and State legislation, in balance.
As for protection, my viewpoint of the prostitution industry is that, in almost every case, it's woefully inaccurate to describe pimps as bodyguards hired by independent assertive women. It is a reversal of a reality many formerly prostituted women have testified to, i.e. that the pimp was in control, not them. He was the threat, a least as much as the johns. Also, no child or "disabled elder" has even been charged in Canada for "living off the avails" of a prostituted women's gains, so it's another travesty to denounce the law against pimping as creating that risk, an intellectual, moot court-type hypothesis that is supported by no jurisprudence whatsoever and should not be used to terminate one of the meagre protections afforded women and youths against a rapacious industry, as if it was that feeble protection against abusers and not abusers themselves that were killing women.
So that means we can ignore what aboriginal peoples think about the issue now, in 2009?
Your claims of decreased violence are not true anywhere in the entire world. You cannot point to a single place where violence against women has decreased as a result of decriminalization or legalization of pimping.
Infosaturated, I can't point to a single place in the entire world where violence against women has been eliminated. I know that in my own country, it has mostly gone indoors. Overwhelmingly, women in danger in Canada are in danger from intimate partners.
I did not think that this was a general discussion of violence against women.
So that means we can ignore what aboriginal peoples think about the issue now, in 2009?
Oh, yes. That must be what I meant when I suggested that using this court challenge as a way to do concern trolling for aboriginal women was perhaps less than logical or helpful.
Skdadl, thanks for your insights, and you really must drop in and stay more often!
Infosaturated, I can't point to a single place in the entire world where violence against women has been eliminated. I know that in my own country, it has mostly gone indoors. Overwhelmingly, women in danger in Canada are in danger from intimate partners.
I did not think that this was a general discussion of violence against women.
I pointed you to countries with various systems so you could illustrate how willing sex workers are safer in countries using systems similar to what you are proposing.
You dismiss the trafficking of women and children as a policing issue to be dealt with as a separate matter but it is an integral part of the sex industry. In other countries with equally strict laws against trafficking it has still increased with the legalization of pimping and brothels.
As we saw on the news, brothels are operating publically and well able to pay for security etc.
It is the women on the street that are most vulnerable and legalized pimping doesn't move them inside.
That nice lady and her nice daughter we saw on the news mentioned that rooms are 100$ an hour and the girls have to negotiate their fees with the client. I bet the girls doing the work for the john aren't getting 100$ an hour.
The daughter said a pimp got a hold of her when she was only 15 years old.
Mom suggested that by running a brothel she was protecting girls like her daughter but these places don't pick-up minors, or shouldn't.
The sex industry is launching propaganda at us.
Examples across the globe show dreadful outcomes for sex workers and the general population when pimping is decriminalized. Organizations of ex-prostitutes and aboriginal groups around the world are saying decriminalizing pimps and brothels is a bad thing. You say they are wrong. Show me the facts not your theories.
"Concern trolling for aboriginal women"
Please do explain what you meant by that?
From Wikipedia
A concern troll is a false flag pseudonym created by a user whose actual point of view is opposed to the one that the user's sockpuppet claims to hold. The concern troll posts in web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group's actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals, but with professed "concerns". The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt within the group.[11]
While I may be gone more than I am present I am far from from a sock puppet. My point of view is not different then the one I am expressing.
You appear to be accusing me of not really wanting what is in the best interests of women within the sex industry or of aboriginal women. If that is true, then it should be easy to demolish my arguments and to discredit the information I am trying to bring to the discussion.
Instead you focus on morality arguments, challenging my right to speak, and my motives.
You appear to be trying to drive threads into the ditch so people can't debate the actual issue which is what system of control or lack thereof will create the safest outcome for Canadian women including but not exclusively happy sex workers.
well that definition could describe 30% of babblers, including song time ones.
CASAC's Lee Lakeman answered Zerbisias critique of Benedet's Op-Ed on the Broadsides blog with additional information about Nicole Parisien's murder in a B.C. brothel:
I sat in court to observe the murder trial to which Janine Benedet refers in her op ed piece. And yes as a feminist I also observed the Pickton case from the early years of police failure to the media circus. Interestingly those promoting the decriminalization and de facto legalization of prostitution ignored the details of both Pickton and the murder of Nicole Parisiene by Andrew Evans. If they both had been more featured you might have seen things differently. Both Pickton and Andrew "hired" women for indoor prostitution. The pig farm was a brothel and so was the apartment where Nicole was murdered. Both were used quite often by numbers of men. In Nicole's case there was a security surveillance system run by an owner and on which her killer was captured. That is how the jury could see that he was not rendered incapable by his consumption of alcohol. I heard the evidence in that trial that Nicole was strangled by hand. Like many men before him, when the fantasy they paid for disappoints, Evans exploded. According to the forensics, that explosion of projected anger took somewhere between 30 seconds and 3 minutes. He hit Nicole with a shoe so hard that the sole left an impression of treads on her face and could have cut off her oxygen. Andrew says he does not know whether he strangled her or hit her first. Contrary to your imagining, no "beefy security guard" could have saved her even if he was standing outside the apartment door. What I find so horrifying in the testimony of the case is what appears in so many cases of the beating and killing of women and in every case of prostitution: an unchallenged presumption that men have a right (paid for or not) to project onto women a responsibility to satisfy the sexual needs and wants of men. Benedet gets it: the answer to tell men to grow up and stop risking women's lives.
my "illegal" security/'pimp' would have saved her...you people are out of it quoting lakeman...he would have run!!!any man interupting an assault would have saved her.....the boy would have run...
definition of sex worker vs sex industry worker vs sex industry stakeholder...
it is generaly accepted that the sex worker rights movement is growing and with it terms and definitions related to how we as workers identify ourselves and other we interact with in a work sense...
so wikipedia'sdefinition s not really current and things are evolving daily...
sex worker generaly desribes someone who engages in full contact sex workie- sex,touching, live in person...
a sex industry worker generally describes all workers in the sex industry who do not... such as exotic dancers, adult film, web cam....
a sex industry support services worker generally describes people working in non sex work jobs in the sex industry such as booking girl, bouncer, film editor
sex industry support services generally describes agencies working with sex workers to counsel or give strength ie-ngo's in the DTES
sex industry stakeholder generally describes all people who have a stake in the sex industry such as sex consumers, business owners, police services, mainstream society....
as our movement grows these terms will change and grow to encompass what we all believe to be accurate for the time/moment...
just because wikipedia says sex consumers are sex workers doesn't mean that is current and how the sex industry community feel about definitions now....
it's time for abolitionists to grow up, to quote benedet in a reverse kinda way... and stop risking womens lives.....
"Concern trolling for aboriginal women"
Please do explain what you meant by that?
ohai, remind.
When I wrote what I did at #56 (groovy new system you have here; is there a way, though, of seeing the whole thread while writing a comment without opening two tabs?), I was reacting to what I consider an absurd reduction (#54) of one paragraph in an earlier post of mine.
I'm not sure I'd know what staying on topic in this thread would mean, but the topic of the court challenge had come up, so I figured my comment to that fairly narrow topic would be ok. The short paragraph of mine that got quoted later (at #54) was a paragraph that basically said "these are related but distinct issues that I am not writing to at the moment because they are too big."
And for that, I got dinged for dismissing the concerns of aboriginal peoples about every aspect of this very complex topic. Perhaps it is my bad writing, but I honestly don't see how my original post (#50) could have been read that way unless (1) the commenter hadn't read the full discussion; or (2) the commenter was expecting to push a babble button.
The wiki definition of concern troll looks disputable to me (and that may be why it is so garbled, because people have been disputing it). I don't know who threw in sock puppets as a distraction there. Unless you consider all online handles to be sock puppets, which obviously most of us don't, it doesn't take a sock puppet to be a concern troll. I'm not writing this out as an accusation against anyone; I'm writing it because the conversation has continued and I want to keep the facts straight.
I don't mind disagreeing with someone like Martin, although clearly we are writing to different priorities. Martin must know that I'm not letting go of mine, as I recognize he can't let go of his. Fair enough.
But otherwise, I'm kind of at sea in this conversation. I try to stay on the turf I argued in the first place (howzzat for a mixed metaphor?), and suddenly I'm a racist: I'm dismissing voices; I'm driving the thread into a ditch -- oh, and on top of that, I have assignments that I haven't turned in yet! Someone has given us wiki links to the general entries for a whole lot of countries, and I am a bad girl for not doing the homework that someone else feels s/he/it has the right to impose on everyone else.
Sheesh. Next thing you know, we'll be taking attendance.
PS: I know that my presence here is iffy, and I srsly do not want to give Michelle and oldgoat grief. I'll try to shut up for a while.
No no no. We need more people, not less, who have a similar viewpoitn. Susan and I are getting the same accusations hurled at us, then they are the victims of a "smear" job when that is pointed out. help!!!
Your presence here is not iffy as far as I'm concerned. It's more than welcome, as others have stated.
Thanks skdadl!
While this is all interesting...I think we have skidded off the rails a bit. can we bring it back to harm reduction? This is one of those phrases that has become ubiquitous, and yet there are few (if any) definitions to which everyone agrees. I'll start...I understand the concept of 'harm reduction' as emerging from western medicine to address some problems related to intravenous drug use. Specifically, IV drug use by people who are, if not homeless, pretty street-entrenched. and harm reduction is a set of tactics directed at these people to interfere with the spread of blood-borne diseases, especially HIV/AIDS. But if we can prevent overdose deaths and decrease public disorder, that's good too. In relation to prostitution, harm reduction are strategies that are supposed to reduce the harms of prostitution. These harms are things like mess and disorder in neighbourhoods, physical danger to women who are prostituting/ed in these neighbourhoods, and so on. There are free condoms, outreach workers with resource lists and bad- trick sheets, in Vancouver there's a van that goes around at night, giving some hot drinks, condoms, first aid and other comforts to women on the streets. It's staffed by medical professionals and also a peer counsellor. the aim here, at base, I think, is the same as the aim for drug users--and that is to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS, and to reduce the harms of those people who represent a 'symptom' of social dis-ease--namely, street entrenched drug-users and women in street prostitution. I am interested to learn more about what others understand about harm reduction as it relates to women in prostitution.and what's the goal of HR?
and are we directing anything that might be called 'harm reduction' toward men who are the johns or pimps?
In 1985, the Fraser report on Prostitution and Pornography in Canada stated that women in prostitution were most in danger from the johns and the pimps. Seems to me that is still the case. if we are offering 'harm reduction' to those who are harmed, but not to those DOING the harm, how can the harm be reduced?
Okay, I'm not going to hunt through the discussion because I think we can reach mutual understanding without it. The threads on this issue keep going all over the place making it impossible to discuss any one aspect. It kept returning to who should speak and who's voice was more important and accusations of being moralistic etc. So one of the conflicting arguments has been "harm reduction. Both sides claim their side will result in less harm to women. So I thought this thread could focus on that.
I'm not sure how much you have been reading but I started two threads about Aboriginal women. In one I expressed my confusion over conflicting theories and gut sense that something was wrong but without the words to know how to deconstruct the whole thing. My basic starting point is that WOC suffer disproportionately from the harms of prostitution and yet it has also been portrayed as economic opportunity, and if they choose it, that is there right, but then there is economic coercion, so how does that fit in. I was asking how to understand it within the context of racism and I hadn't found anything on the net specific to the theory aspect. Everybody here is familiar with liberalism neo-liberalism neo conservatism fascim(sp) and a gazillion other isms. No one answered so I posted again and no one answered. So then I decided to start another thread, and not say a peep in it, and just post a quote on prostitution from the Woman's Aboriginal Network. I was hoping someone else might comment but if not I would just add to it periodically when I came across aboriginal voices. Then both threads got closed because it was considered thread poliferation which I am still upset about. So when you made that comment about Aboriginal history it seemed as though you were dismissing the disproportionate harm to them based on it being historically rooted so not pertinent to the discussion. Inside I also feel that if the Aboriginal voices had been pro-decriminalization they would have stayed in place. I'm not saying it as an accusation, it is what it is. So basically, you hit a sore spot that still feels bruised.
I can see why it came across like that but I'm really really frustrated by the discussion staying on the level of personal rights and morality without going into any real depth. It felt like it was all about how many people are on each team and who gets to speak and who's right based on who they are. It's like if I post stuff about Sweden and it's discounted for no other reason than I posted it. My feeling is that yes I'm bringing a lot of information to the board but it's not my fault no one else is. So I was saying don't listen to me if you think I am biased. Explore yourselves. Don't take my word for it.
In my mind this thread was intended to show examples of how decriminalization/legalization had led to harm/less harm in other places. In my opinion it went off track long ago and the thread title no longer reflects the contents.
While this is all interesting...I think we have skidded off the rails a bit. can we bring it back to harm reduction? This is one of those phrases that has become ubiquitous, and yet there are few (if any) definitions to which everyone agrees. I'll start...I understand the concept of 'harm reduction' as emerging from western medicine to address some problems related to intravenous drug use. Specifically, IV drug use by people who are, if not homeless, pretty street-entrenched. and harm reduction is a set of tactics directed at these people to interfere with the spread of blood-borne diseases, especially HIV/AIDS. But if we can prevent overdose deaths and decrease public disorder, that's good too. In relation to prostitution, harm reduction are strategies that are supposed to reduce the harms of prostitution. These harms are things like mess and disorder in neighbourhoods, physical danger to women who are prostituting/ed in these neighbourhoods, and so on. There are free condoms, outreach workers with resource lists and bad- trick sheets, in Vancouver there's a van that goes around at night, giving some hot drinks, condoms, first aid and other comforts to women on the streets. It's staffed by medical professionals and also a peer counsellor. the aim here, at base, I think, is the same as the aim for drug users--and that is to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS, and to reduce the harms of those people who represent a 'symptom' of social dis-ease--namely, street entrenched drug-users and women in street prostitution. I am interested to learn more about what others understand about harm reduction as it relates to women in prostitution.and what's the goal of HR?
and are we directing anything that might be called 'harm reduction' toward men who are the johns or pimps?
In 1985, the Fraser report on Prostitution and Pornography in Canada stated that women in prostitution were most in danger from the johns and the pimps. Seems to me that is still the case. if we are offering 'harm reduction' to those who are harmed, but not to those DOING the harm, how can the harm be reduced?
That's really interesting. I wasn't thinking about all that when I started the thread. I was just thinking of it in the literal sense. That is, what frameworks have been used in other countries that have led to lesser or greater harm to women? I see the johns and the pimps as the pushers so no harm reduction is possible from that angle. John schools exist but I think it is going to be a long tough battle to change male attitudes towards women and indeed women's attitudes towards themselves.
The type of harm reduction you are referring to seems a little like victim support groups. The damage is already done and we need to provide supports and healing services.
Hi...I think that's what 'harm reduction' is, in general--that is, a set of responses after the damage is done. But it seems to me, no matter the good intentions and hard work of the people providing these 'healing' services, there is no will to actually repair the damage, but rather to make the conditions of life as prostituted more bearable. sigh. I think John Schools are in that realm. They do not, in the end, hold men accountable for their behaviour, or address the structural conditions of their lives which lead them to make the decision to purchase or rent parts of women's bodies. Harm reduction has gone viral as we have systematically abandoned poor women, women of colour, Aboriginal women and their children. Some strategies we now call harm reduction were developed twenty or twenty-five years ago by women in prostitution themselves. I am thinking for example, of 'bad trick sheets'--which were developed in Vancouver, anyhow, by groups of women in prostitution to warn one another, offer one another some small protection against individual especially abusive or dangerous men. This tactic has been taken up by medical and social services, and now called 'harm reduction'. It is not part of a long-term strategy of liberation, or getting women out of prostitution, or men out of demanding women's bodies. It puts the responsibility on the women themselves to watch out for particular men. This is a lot like the usual response after a woman has been raped in a public place. It is women who are warned to walk in pairs at night, carry our keys in our hands, stay inside, blahblahblah. When the state takes women's ideas for self-protection and turns it into policy, these ideas usually end up becoming constraining or victim-blaming in some way. This appears to be what has happened with 'harm reduction'. I get it, how this happens, as front-line workers, you get overwhelmed by the difficulties of women's lives, but really and truly, there is no libratory vision driving harm reduction. I've heard workers, street nurses, mental health workers, say stuff like 'we have to suspend our judgments'--and they're talking about withholding criticisms of men who buy women--they're talking about not saying to women, "you deserve better--it's not right what's happening to you.' They're talking about slapping on band-aids, not even offering stitches....
What is required, to really reduce harm, is to offer support and services to women in prostitution, but also real ways out of prostitution and ultimately, a society wherein the commodification of women is unthinkable. we can't settle for condoms and coffee to women on the various strolls late at night.
Prohibition is the problem - let the hookers set up shoppe and run it like any business. That way they can protect themselves.
Meanwhile, harm reduction is the next best thing. Using condoms is harm reduction, and it has been helpfull and it is now accepted as "standard equiptment" when paying for sex.
I want to add one thing off topic - this whole SEX thing is a little wierd isn't it? Mostly, for the men I mean - it just seems like their natural instincts are being used to control them, and to take their money from them, like hanging out a carrot that they cannot resist. I think it would be liberating for males to lose their sex addiction... but apparently then there wouldn't be much worth living for? Really?
Except for the small detail that where countries legalize or decriminalize it results in increased harm to women not decreased harm. So, if the goal is to provide greater safety full decriminalization is a mistake.
I find it more than a little insulting to men to suggest that men are "addicted" to sex and if they weren't addicted wouldn't have much to live for.
The idea that women are controlling men through their natural instincts is ridiculous. If that were so we would be living in a matriarchal society.
Again that is a shallow trivialization of what the process would actually entail...
Fingers just are not snapped, and *poof* there appears a business, in this case a industry, out of no where.
Regulations, restrictions, everything has to be be created from the ground up.
The Netherlandshad to start installling regulations after the fact, because things have gotten so bad there after the legalization, without regulations, happened.
Violence against women is up there, new laws and special programs have had to be started, to address how bad it has gotten, so much so they are compelled to give reports on status to the UN, as per this document linked to below.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2007/wom1601.doc.htm
Thre is much in there, exposing the failures and how trafficked women became the norm, with out regulations that were put in place before legalization.
It indicates that the overall status of ALL women diminished significantly in the Netherlands, after legalization of prostitution, with out regulation, occured.
That's the first time (Noah @ 72) I've seen anyone use the word "prohibition" in these discussions (I haven't been reading until the last couple of weeks, though), although it seems to me a common-sense thought and I suspect it's a thought in the back of many people's minds.
We have so much experience with prohibition in Western societies, going back centuries, and it is all bad. I'm not talking just about likker but about, eg, the current so-called war on drugs, which has made the war on drugs almost indistinguishable from the drug trade itself. This isn't the place to analyse the U.S. government as the biggest trafficker in the world, but it pretty much is that, much to the horror and tragedy of many other societies.
I've been interested to see how much practical work Susan Davis and her colleagues have done to make sex work conceivable as a safe, legal business in Canada. They aren't trying to cope with every problem at once; they're being reasonable about a trade that is there -- and by trade, I mean both the work itself and the market demand from the johns.
Their work doesn't address human trafficking, but we have other kinds of laws that can do that. It doesn't address the exploitation of minors, but we have other kinds of laws that can do that. And it doesn't address the kinds of political consciousness-raising that many people here want to do, in different ways for different reasons, but that's for debate in the agora, not for legislation. You can't make laws about how people should think, and we actually have a law that says that. Yay, section 2.
Anyway, I find it helpful to keep prohibition in the back of my mind as an instructive warning, and I thank Noah for mentioning it. I probably disagree with some of the rest of what he's written, but I amn't a man, so I wouldn't know ...
I wouldn't say it's all bad, the prohibition of murder, assault, fraud, driving without a license, etc. all work for me. Gambling is spreading and it doesn't seem to be terribly beneficial while it does seem to have caused some pretty serious social ills. I remember the days of church bingos fondly.
Well you're in luck! Susan has started multiple threads in the "Sex Workers Rights" forum detailing all kinds of proposals.
Laws, in theory, cannot be made crontrolling how people think, is a true statement.
but we can, and do, make laws all the time, that curtail, or punish, people's actions that come about because of individual thinking, which are harmful to society at large, or individually.
People are not allowed to brutalize their companion animals, just because they think can, and most certainly we can't stop them from thinking that they can, but we can and do prohibit them from acting on it.
Even if it means that they are not allowed to have companion animals at all.
We also have have labour code laws that prohibit employer exploitation of employees, some venture into the realm of criminal, while others into human rights.
As the Netherlands has found out, no regulations to prohibit and control, has been disasterous for women and the country at large, and they are backtracking big time.
Those in prostitution, are not required to make it safe...
Canadians and our governing agencies are responsible for that, just as we are for every other aspect of public health safety, business and labour laws and regulations.
the prohibition of murder, assault, fraud, driving without a license, etc. all work for me.
"Prohibition" is an ordinary English word with many meanings, but in North America for the last century and a half (at least) it has had a very specific meaning. Narrowly, it means the period from (depending on jurisdiction) the late C19 to the 1930s when attempts were made to suppress the trade in alcohol altogether. Some but not much of that happened in Canada; the Americans went to extremes (I know: you're shocked), which mainly resulted in the creation of at least one major Canadian fortune and the birth of the Mafia in the U.S.
More broadly, because of that edumacational experience, prohibition in discussions like this one is commonly used to mean attempts to control practices common among the citizenry -- any form of seeking of intoxication (a universal human urge), sex, and I guess gambling qualifies too.
The universal interdictions against murder, assault, etc, do not qualify as mere prohibition. They are there in every society for the obvious reason that no one has an interest in furthering them and everyone has an interest in stopping them. I think that was a specious and cynical misuse of ordinary language.
....anyway back on topic
First and foremost, it has been deemed by those within the lived experience community, that they first require society, to step up to the plate and fulfill their social contract obligations to protect, exactly the same way that it is done for the rest of society at large.
And they are correct to expect this and demand it. That they have to demand it from society is shame.
Thus... prohibition is not the problem, lack of societal application of universal interdictions, that apply to everyone else, is.
The term used by those wanting an end to prostitution is abolition. Probition refers often to restrictions on consumption but Abolition refers to ending abusive human relations and the use and abuse of human beings. It is used precisely to reference the continuity between the abolition of slavery and the abolition of prostitution or what some call sexual slavery. The definition of feminist abolition and the similarities and links to the discussion of the ending of race slavery in Canada and to those who called for reforms and regulation instead of abolition in that context are available at
http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/issues/feminist_definition_abolition....
Thanks Lee that is useful....and it underscores what I stated, society has failed to apply our universal interdictions to a whole segment of the population.
We have to stop failing in this respect, as repeated failure indicates significant secxist, racial and class bigotry.
Prohibition refers often to restrictions on consumption but Abolition refers to ending abusive human relations and the use and abuse of human beings.
Actually, that is a useful and correctly put distinction, Lee, and I thank you for it.
I think it begins with a correct description of what prohibition entails, although not detailed enough. Prohibition is about restricting consumption of things that have been universally attractive to human beings throughout recorded history. That's why it doesn't explain, eg, our interdictions against murder or assault.
Abolition classically refers to the abolition of slavery, and I doubt you'll meet anyone on babble who isn't an abolitionist in that sense. I doubt you'll meet anyone who isn't opposed to human trafficking, which is slavery, no doubt. I doubt you'll meet anyone who isn't opposed to the exploitation of minors. For all those situations, we have or we can write or refine our laws.
It would be egregious to prohibit prostitution abolitionists the use of the word abolition. Fortunately, I doubt you'll meet anyone on Babble who would do that.
Exactly remind. This class and race and and sex bias becomes especially clear if one takes a global perspective on the harm to be reduced.
We are in a global economy where thousands of women are in an economically forced migration from desperate reserves and desperate third world homelands and delivered into sex trafficking sex tourism and prostitution.
The demand created by men/johns who caqn and do buy sex creates the flow of women from the desperate areas to satisfy those men and the profiteers/traffickers and bawdy house owners who take advantage of both.
World-wide it is men who buy and racialized poor women who are prostituted
Yes skdadl, most people think that to buy sex from children is abhornet and to buy sex from trafficked women is also but there is no way to distinguish who is of age and who is trafficked. And there is no way to identify the women who have not freely given consent. Prostitution requires that the enslaved perform happiness for their pay.
It would be egregious to prohibit prostitution abolitionists the use of the word abolition. Fortunately, I doubt you'll meet anyone on Babble who would do that.
I doubt anyone will prohibit you (although I never like to speak for anyone else), but I suspect that many will disagree with you. I certainly do.
While sex can be classified as universally attractive to human beings throughout recorded history, prostitution can't be because there are societies in which it did not exist. In fact historically it has been a job performed by slave women, or, as it is today, by a class of women that isn't accepted in open society. Even in places where it has been legal for decades the stigma remains. The woman is not selling a service, she is selling access to her body. If she were selling a service the activity wouldn't be gendered. Certainly sodomy and oral sex could be performed by other men just as easily as by women. Descrimination based on race and sex are built into the "job" as is sexual harassment. It is virtually impossible for a woman to accuse a john of rape if she changes her mind at any point during the transaction.
That's an excellent point. However in countries where prostitution has been legalized the illegal industry grows up right next to the legal ones with the attendent increases in trafficking of women and children, which police have been helpless to prevent, along with the involvement of organized crime. That is why Amsterdam is using millions of dollars to close down large sections of the red-light district. It's uncontrollable.
Denmark too has been shocked at how women were being tortured under the system of legal oversight they created.
We know that right here in Canada exotic dancers claim that the police fail to protect them from abuse. Evidence suggests that the promotion of a legalized framework to "protect" prostitutes is nothing but a fairytale told to legitimize a system that is inherently discriminatory and harmful to women despite the female voices that claim otherwise.
All we need to do, is look at the evidence.
Maybe we should have a thread -- in some other forum; I dunno -- on the notion of "stigma."
If it were up to me, I'd just say "F**k stigma" and be done with it. I accept that I don't always recognize the stigmas (stigmata?) that others have had to cope with, but if they explain them to me and I get the logic of stimatization, then I'm there. It is just one of the stupidest things that human beings do to each other, and imho all adults should have learned how to defeat it in their everyday lives, allatime. I live with minor stigmata myself, and am mainly disappointed, sometimes disgusted by the stupidity of people who react to me that way.
One thing I will stand firm for, though. We cannot start basing human-rights law on notions as vague as stigma. No matter what you do, who you are, how you look, some people are just never going to like the cut of your jib. You want to change society at that level? You don't do that through repressive laws telling people that their gut reactions are illegal. You do that by living a life that proves them effin' wrong.
I'm not saying it's easy.
Or, instead of dumping that job on the stigmatized, you commit to dissuading the people that stigmatize some folks for their personal pleasure. They are NOT the feminists.
Or, instead of dumping that job on the stigmatized, you commit to dissuading the people that stigmatize some folks for their personal pleasure. They are NOT the feminists.
Well, sure, martin. Can't disagree with that.
And that has what to do with the law?
Yes stigma is a problem, a problem of human dignity according to the Supreme court is the subject of the Charter of Rights and Freeodms which is one of the Canadian applications of internatioanhuman rights law.
Violence against women and eating and housing and the laws and social policies that apply to them are right up there too. And just in case you have not yet seen the face of class oppression for women in urban centers check this out Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 --> http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/66692847.html
I apologize I was pasting a link to a newspaper site. Obviously not correctly
...has to do with the topic of sex trade community education to indicate that sociiety is failing to impliment universal interdictions, to specific demographics because of stigma, which is really elitist bigotry, racism and misogyny
Personally, I cannot see anyone too much here, telling lived experience prostitutes, who are abolitionists, that they can't use the word abolition, or even believing that they should have the right to do so.
That link Lee says it all...
Society has failed to apply universal interdictions to a clealy identifiable demographic
and to believe...that getting rid of part of said universal interdictions... that have already not been applied, would make the plight of those women better, is mind numblingly shallow deliberations on this.
Of course not. Stigma can be based purely on prejudice, but it can also be based on anti-social behaviors. You cannot legislate social acceptance of behaviors. We can see that in all the countries where attempts have been made to legitimize prostitution. Prostitutes remain outside of accepted society.
Venezuela ruled that "prostitution cannot be considered work because it lacks the basic elements of dignity and social justice."
Some activities or behaviors carry stigma because society views them as harmful. Bigotry is stigmatized, and I hope always will be. The act of buying access to women's bodies is stigmatized because it is harmful. Sweden is successfully fighting the stigmatization of women who have been driven to prostitution. There is wide-spread agreement that the women involved are not at fault. The stigma has been successfully shifted from the women to the men.
In countries that tolerate or legitimize prostitution the stigma stays with the women and the men are criticized but with a "boys will be boys" attitude by many although that doesn't generally include their wives.
What we seem to be grappling with here is the difference between those bad things we can legislate against and those bad things we can't.
I don't quite understand why some people can't grasp that there are some things we cannot legislate. The Supreme Court of Canada is never going to tell anyone that her thoughts are illegal. That's just the way it is, and of course, it is the way it should be and must be.
To me, stigmatizing is something that unreflecting reactionaries do. It's that endless high-school meanness that infects so much of North American culture, and that we need to counter through education.
Where it always should reside, in those cases where it is applicable.
Personally, I see much more negative stigmatizing and meaness in the adult world, than I ever did in elementary school and high school.
And I think that the state of the whole world, historically and currently, bear this out, children do not destroy countries, and peoples, adults do. And have done for 1000' s of years.
All things that harm people are legislated against, whether the laws are fairly applied once in place, is another thing. It is our job to ensure the laws are applied cevenly
All things that harm people are legistated against,
No, they aren't, nor should they be. My God: what a vision of horror.
I think I understand why the lawyers hereabouts never weigh in on these threads.
Okay, I am willing to be persuaded, give me an example of what harms people in a broad public way, and isn't legislated against?
I don't quite understand why some people can't grasp that there are some things we cannot legislate. The Supreme Court of Canada is never going to tell anyone that her thoughts are illegal. That's just the way it is, and of course, it is the way it should be and must be.
We, well some are not debating thoughts, but arguing that we can legislate that people in this case men ought not buy sex. Just like they cannot buy blood or sell blood or body parts.
If you still think that is impossible perhaps if you remember that it is only a decade since we told men they can no longer rape their wives with impunity it would help you see my point that we can do this too. And should
ach Lee, I did not even bother going there, as if prostitution is a thought.
linking of harm reduction to abstinance modelling is very light weight awareness, and it signifys there needs to be a massive educational strategy put in place.
Dealing in the mystical mythical is pissing into the wind and thinking you are having a cleansing shower. I know it well, have been there myself.
Remind wrote:
Okay, I am willing to be persuaded, give me an example of what harms people in a broad public way, and isn't legislated against?
Caisaa answers; capitalism for starters.
Caissa
This time I enjoyed your point. But I warn you, that if this is more than a game of words for you, the logic of such questioning of meagre reforms can lead to the revolutionary/transformative thinking: Abolition. Especially if you guide yourself with priniples of sex equality and anti-imperialism
Closing for length