Who's a feminist? the old question with new angles...

I'm sure there exist men and women who think that sex workers are nothing more than a "receptacle" or a "dixie cup" or a "sex doll".

I'm also sure there exist plenty of men and women who think that FNs are nothing more than "unemployable, violent drunks" and that POC are just "promiscuous criminals and thugs".

Given that I'm not FN or a POC, nor one of the virulent racists who hold these views, how often should I parrot them in my posts?  Once?  Twice?  Regularly?  Never?  Am I doing any kind of service to FN or POC if I do?  Could there be some lurker out there who's never heard of racism, and will he be enlightened by this?

And what if a babbler who's FN or a POC finds my quoting of the virulent attitudes of others to be offensive?  Should I stop, out of courtesy?  Or is repeating these ugly attitudes too important to be "silenced" by their feelings? 

i understand that perspective peasnt woman. and i respect that people want to work towards a society where prostitution is no longer necessary or seen as a choice. to see all people realize their dreams. for all people to be comfartable and happy and free to explore life.

but for, now since it does exist and we are living in it, does it not make sense to stabilize the safety of the people working in that field? people are dying, now. how can we protect people now?

we all agree that decriminalzing workers is paramount. opinions amy differ on how exactly that will look, but we do all agree.

terms being used by some posters are offensive and insulting and really do nothing except to stall the discussion on how we can move forward on what we all agree on, decriminalizing workers.

what can we do to remove systematic barriers for sex workers/prostituted people?

what can we do to educate the systems in charge of our protection?

how can we hold accountable those within the systems ment to protect us who use that power to harm us?

how can we find meangful ways for sex workers/ prostituted people to exit the sex industry?

how can we support licensing for decrimed workers? or do abolitionists support no regulation at all for workers after they are decriminalized under the swedish model?

so far we have heard suggestions of;

• mandatory STI tesing
• occupational health and safety training
• an inclusive licensing and complaints process
• mandatory STI testing for customers who would then "be allowed access to" sex workers in what i guess must be a government institution type building where sex workers are held and then customers can access them....?
• by law revisions that move towards inclusion and protection
• designing/ including sex industry workers in employee benefits programs that already exist
• including sex industry workers as workers and giving them rights under labour law.
• policy procedure mannual revisions for all areas of the government who engage with sex industry workers.

anyone else care to add anything?

time bandit...i don't understnad what ROC means....?can you clarify?

i understnad i am selling sex, but describing it as genital contact is inaccurate, as i stated before, i prefer it when reminds says selling my vagina...although renting is probable a better description....

it is the insinuation of naked genital contact that upsets me. i use condoms and accept no gential contact.

The name of this thread and the first post held out the hope of discussing things like what social policy and what personal behaviour and what political movements and political tactics might lead us to "women's liberation" (to use a fine old phrase)  And within that context what reforms we might demand/create/imagine as part of that transformative struggle to protect the most  vulnerable among us like the involuntary migrant women trafficked for sexual slavery, and the children and youth raped and seduced into prostitution and the dispossessed mostly racialized women of the ghettos in our major cities. 

There are two reasons to focus on the most disadvantaged: one is compassionate and one is strategic.  If we fight for all with the criteria that we try to satisfy the needs of the most dispossessed we are more likley to get the best most effective tactics and the most principled as well.  In this situation the plight of women, the migrant, ghettoized, racialized, colonized and the young of those prostituted should guide us in our search for the reforms that will best suit women as a whole.  The desires of those prostituted who are not in those conditions matter to me but are are simply not as weighty in my political discussion of which reforms to demand

Obviously the solidarity of men to simply stop demanding prostitution would be the best outcome and we should never stop working for it.  But voluntary self control by individual men in the name of women's liberty does not seem to be a big hit with men so far.    They have not stopped beating wives or raping wives or committing incest or harassing women on the street in vast numbers. 

Silly discussion like how much time it takes us to stand by the side of a car and determine who are the dangerous men before getting in and spreading our legs or before having them bury our heads in their laps ignores that we cannot tell and neither can anyone else which are the dangerous ones: we cannot tell even after long courtships before we marry them.  That's because they are fairly normal men behaving badly.  No one can predetermine the choices men make of how to use and abuse privileges and power over women that they simply should not have. 

And dreams of voluntary control of the multibillion dollar sex industry are mindless.

Those not as steeped in anti-violence work as I am on a daily basis, may not realize that the occurences of violence against women go up in each situation whenever the status of women in relation to men changes: in the micro women get battered in the family when he looses a job but also when she finds one, when the last kid starts school and she is less trapped or when a new baby is born and she is more trapped, on the macro level when, as at l'ecole polytechic many more women than usual got into engineering or when one woman breaks thru a glass ceiling, when either feminists or women as a group are treated contemptuously by their government or bosses, religious leaders or cultural figures and when women get a step forward like pay equity or childcare or new law that offers some substantive shift in inequality.  So we need to be very clear where we are going what constitutes a victory and what changes we want.

There are some who argue that feminists have no right to demand that the state respond to violence agaisnt women by criminalizing it.  Some of those are pregressive on other matters but they object to feminists demanding the use of police and courts to intervene on the side of women overpowered by violence.  This battle is not won.  We are still fighitng the state including the Canadian state for an adequate response to violence against women.  Cops and courts, laws and administrations of law are inadequate and as yet are not guided much less driven by a substative charter based equality analysis.  But feminists in anti-violence work on the whole demand that we move in that direction for the sake of women and for the sake of transformation of the state appparatus and control.

Most of our energey goes into direct action to save women and organize women but we demand the rule of law be accessable to women so each women is not forced to fight each mn on her own.

So far the few men who work for voluntary cooperation from other men are still having only minimal effect although this last few years there has been a plethora of excellent contributions from men like Victor Mallorek, Robert Jensen, the men who support Vancouver Rape Relief and Womens Shelter and men are organizing in Montreal to support the new burst of energy against sexist violence.  The men I met yesterday at the BC Association of Social Workers raised their hands with the majority of the women in the room when asked if they supported the decriminalization of the women and few men prostituted and if they supported the more effective criminalization of the johns who use and profit from the use of those folks. There were in agreement with the Human Rights perspective and equality arguments put forward by Shelagh Day and I.  And of course they were impressed by the exprostitutes and parents of girls and youth workers who spoke up in the room to support what we had said.  They asked pointed questions later about why the NDP has no position and why it appears to have a pro legalization/total decrim position and why the media refuses to cover the feminist opposition to decriminalizaiton of the trade.  There was absolutely no disagreement expressed that we need to criminalize the procurers, the pimps and the bawdy house owners except from BC Civil Liberties speaker on the panel to represent their position

That thread title is still what interests me not so much in the form of who is a feminist but in the form of what constitutes a feminist response to this form of our oppression.  I am less interested in who cannot/should not be heard than in what gives an argument weight.  A bevy of reforms that accomodate that oppression of women and have nothing to do with the substantive equality of women may interest others but are not only not my focus but they distract (by accident?) from the question of getting to a better world for women including a world without prostitution.  When the suggestions for reform entrench acceptance of prostitution it seems to me they entrench the oppression of those most vulenrable and sacrifice and compromise the meaning of freedom and liberty for all

The point of decriminalizing the workers, and offering comprehensive and varied exiting services is to dismantle and end systems of prostiution. So, no, actually, licensing and sti testing and any other thing that would regulate the trade in women's bodies is not helpful to anyone but the fellas buying, or renting those women's bodies. the best way to reduce the harms of prostitution is to interfere with the source of the harm, that's the men who buy and sell and rent women's bodies. Arrest the men. Even the "good guys". Even the guys who call the escorts, or who go to massage parlours, or who reply to the craigslist ads, or whatever. Stop them. If you are a 'good guy', who thinks it's terrible what some men do to women in prostitution, then stop it. Even, in fact, if you think that some women 'choose sex work' and they should be able to make a living that way, stop it. just give her the money maybe, but then, tell your friends to not buy women. in prostitution or in pornography. Not regulate, or set standards, or develop criteria for respectful relations with sex workers or whathaveyou, but stop buying or renting women's vaginas, mouths, anuses, etc for your use. that would be very pro-feminist and humane of you.

And this is what I hate about people who refuse to listen:  over and over you are told that these are real men with real feelings who, for the most part, do not treat sex workers this way.  They are polite and respectful, in fact, so much so that personally I have had a lot more respect directed my way from them than I have from remind, and similiar comments.  Still continuing to try to twist my statements, and actually to try to mislead you all by saying that only 2 active sex workers have spoken up.  For one thing, susi represents the opinions of hundreds, all with the same stories, so when she speaks up it is from a position of knowledge.  For another thing, although not alot, at least 5 people joined up and told their stories, not 2.  remind prefers to ignore them because she cannot categorize and label them.