Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

Post by empthought » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 11:24 AM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #120

empthought wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a perfectly good approach already; it's called the Nordic model. Arrest johns, not prostitutes. And there are thousands of former sex workers that will give you an earful about what you think you know about prostitution and what prostitutes think.

I know several sex workers personally, and regularly sit on the sidelines of their discussions when they talk about their work in sex-positive spaces. I can assure you that all of them would prefer that it were a lot easier to perform their job without fear of the police, or of losing their home, or of the stigma from friends and family. They also have a tendency to wish that people who didn't want to be in their lin…

Post by empthought » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 11:29 AM UTC

tuxracer wrote: post #95

empthought wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's shameful to coerce someone into having sex without their consent, not merely to coerce someone to "do something." The rest of your question is not relevant.

So if I coerce someone into cleaning my house without their consent that isn't shameful? Seems coercing someone to do anything without their consent is shameful. If someone only consents to cleaning a house if they're paid enough money to do it that isn't "without their consent" by any definition of the word I'm aware of. It's unclear to me why sex workers should be specially called out and stigmatized.

Post by empthought » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 11:30 AM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #126

empthought wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The threat of loss of home, food, or family due to insufficient means is indeed coercive. If it were about freedom, you would see people of all economic conditions choosing to prostitute themselves. But you don't.

Don't you? The past few years have seen a spate of "high-class call girl" memoirs. Unless you want to make the novel claim they're all fabricated, or try somehow to argue they are negligible, that would seem to suggest that your second claim here is not accurate.

Post by pmorici » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 11:38 AM UTC

dzdt wrote: post #91

1024core wrote: post #21

Why is it that in such cases, the government reaches for the CEO right away; but when Wells Fargo employees open millions of fraudulent accounts, it's not the CEO's fault? If I were to commit identity theft (which is basically what the WF employees did), then I would be facing jail time; why hasn't anyone in WF been charged with criminal fraud yet? Why not the CEO?

I think Matt Levine's take on this is right on: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-09/wells-far... . Senior management wanted employees to do REAL cross-selling to make money, but the metrics were set so high that employees turned to fake accounts to meet the standard. The fake accounts did not benefit the bank in any substantial way: So that's about 2.1 million fake deposit and credit-card accounts, of…

Post by empthought » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 11:44 AM UTC

Singletoned wrote: post #102

empthought wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. (Community service is an alternative to jail, for example.) Coerced sex is rape, however. It is qualitatively different from coerced labor. As Dworkin wrote a long time ago, "in prostitution, no woman stays whole. It is impossible to use a human body in the way women's bodies are used in prostitution and to have a whole human being at the end of it, or in the middle of it, or clo…

Out of interest, what about male prostitution? Is it possible for a man to be paid for sex "and to have a whole human being at the end of it"?