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Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

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Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#121

Post by Ma8ee »

belorn wrote: post #86
jniedrauer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are always outliers with strange opinions in any sufficiently large movement, but a much more common feminist position is to be strongly in support of sex workers rights and safety.

I can just point to Sweden. The meaning of prostitution has change in the public discussed to be the same as rape, regardless of consent. Being pro-prostitution here is the same as being pro-rape which is very anti-feminist in eye of the Swedish public and people with such views are seen as far-right. The two arguments that people here use is that a person that do sex for money would not had done so voluntary, thus t…

> The meaning of prostitution has change in the public discussed to be the same as rape, regardless of consent.

As a Swede, I say that that is an exageration. But it is true that very few, if any, public figure dare to speak up for legalizing prostitution. On the other hand, it's not a crime that the police prioritize, and last time I heard, no one have been more than fined for paying a sex-worker.

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#122

Post by huffmsa »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #116
paulgb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was so infuriating to watch Democrats willingly get played by the religious right into supporting something that was so blatantly designed to legislate morality rather than actually help victims of trafficking. Glad that elected officials are now rethinking it, at least.

It seems to be a universal phenomenon (I see similar trends in many European countries, including mine) and I wouldn't use the word "played". The left seems to be as keen on legislating morality as the right.

Oh very much so. For different stated reasons, but "government" (sometimes wearing the mask of religion) has always wanted to control behavior, and as a subset, morality.

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#123

Post by Ma8ee »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #112
belorn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can just point to Sweden. The meaning of prostitution has change in the public discussed to be the same as rape, regardless of consent. Being pro-prostitution here is the same as being pro-rape which is very anti-feminist in eye of the Swedish public and people with such views are seen as far-right. The two arguments that people here use is that a person that do sex for money would not had done so voluntary, thus t…

> I can just point to Sweden. The meaning of prostitution has change in the public discussed to be the same as rape is this really representative of how the public thinks or just a small pocket within a pocket of politically correct snowflakes? Knowing plenty of Swedes (most are much closer to the far left than to the far right). I'm familiar with Sweden's (strange) view of what constitutes rape (see Assange), and pe…

I don't think it is representative of the public's view. See my other comment.

I think the problem with many feminists in Sweden are that they are a rather theoretical kind, centered around gender studies at the universities. And they think that they know better than the poor uneducated women who sell sex what they want and need themselves.

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#124

Post by jariel »

paulgb wrote: post #30
jrochkind1 wrote: post #22

You mean exactly how sex workers said it would, but nobody listened to them, because it was never actually about protecting sex workers or victims of sex trafficking? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sex-workers-bill-fosta-sesta_... https://medium.com/voices/while-america-gawks-at-stormy-dani...

It was so infuriating to watch Democrats willingly get played by the religious right into supporting something that was so blatantly designed to legislate morality rather than actually help victims of trafficking. Glad that elected officials are now rethinking it, at least.

First - every country legislates morality in a variety of ways, and making/keeping prostitution illegal is not merely a religious issue.

The majority of people oppose decriminalisation [1] even in fairly progressive Ontario, Canada, 6 in 10 oppose it [2]

Second - it's a very reasonable course of action to make an activity which is deemed harmful - actually illegal.

"Smoking is bad" -> "Let's make it widely available" is generally not the first order course of action.

Ergo - your assumptions about 'moralising and not caring' is starting to inch into anti-religious bigotry territory.

Now - obviously this is a nuanced issue - and it's possible more permissive laws might lessen harm, but this is by no means obvious.

We saw this with vaping: once something becomes socially normative, behaviours can grow rapidly. There is a black market for almost everything, legal or not.

A large, wide open, legalised & regulated sex trade may simply provide more customers for nefarious sex-traders who can take all the profit & provide underage girls (which will surely remain illegal).

The cigarette industry provides good parallel example, although it's surely not perfect. [3]

In short - increased taxes (i.e. supply curve shift) and overall changes in social norms away from smoking have not caused an increase in illicit consumption - just the opposite. Illicit consumption is down. This might imply that creating more barriers to the sex trade (law), and also reducing demand (social norms), would likely have the overall effect of reducing black market for sex-slavery.

Of course, it's not nearly a perfect analogy, and it's a complicated subject and of course there are individuals and groups who are probably more concerned about morality than justice, but it's still not fair to castigate a policy as being one way or the other.

Personally, I don't see how normalising the sex trade and providing vast online services decreases frequency of transactions, but I'm open minded about the right way to do this. Though I personally think it should be 'decriminalised' (not illegal, but sex workers not allowed to go to 'job fairs' at high school!), I would put the wellbeing of those being trafficked ahead of any of that.

[1] https://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID...

[2] https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-polls/LAWC-and-CATW-Prostit...

[3] https://tobaccoatlas.org/topic/illicit-trade/

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#125

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #109
paggle wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every person on earth could have swung in any direction if they had hung out with different people. If you or I hung out with Ancient Egyptians our whole lives we would have thought burying kings with living slaves was about as normal as surfing Hacker News.

which holds the implication that people as an abstract between now and ancient Egypt are not actually that different. They're just responding to different stimuli in their respective environments.

That's an implication a lot of people will do a lot of mental gymnastics to avoid because it means you can't just ignore the misadventures of various societies throughout history by saying "we're smarter now" or something like that.

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#126

Post by jariel »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #22

You mean exactly how sex workers said it would, but nobody listened to them, because it was never actually about protecting sex workers or victims of sex trafficking? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sex-workers-bill-fosta-sesta_... https://medium.com/voices/while-america-gawks-at-stormy-dani...

Stormy Daniels may have some insight, but she's not exactly a scientist.

From Harvard Law School:

"Criminalization of prostitution in Sweden resulted in the shrinking of the prostitution market and the decline of human trafficking inflows. Cross-country comparisons of Sweden with Denmark (where prostitution is decriminalized) and Germany (expanded legalization of prostitution) are consistent with the quantitative analysis, showing that trafficking inflows decreased with criminalization and increased with legalization."

It seems there's ample data indicating that increasing the market for the sex trade increases the black market for it.

FYI - smoking, same. When less people smoke, there's a smaller black market. [2]

[1] https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-...

[2] https://tobaccoatlas.org/topic/illicit-trade/

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#127

Post by golemiprague »

Noos wrote: post #108
hiram112 wrote: post #49

I think the most unmentioned facet regarding prostitution is that for many men, prostitution may be the only way for them to obtain sex, which I feel is just as much of a "right" as is the right for women to obtain an abortion. No I don't believe taxpayers should be required to pay for prostitutes, nor for abortions. But the market for both should be decriminalized. Not only is this something that is morally right, t…

No, it isn't the only way for many men to do so. The issue is that they don't want to put in the time or effort to be the kind of man that can, and they have radically unrealistic expectation of sex itself. No, you cannot bang a supermodel, but you can find a woman who loves you and will be with you. No, men don't have a right to sex, because it involves a woman surrendering herself; its not something innate to the m…

[dead]

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#128

Post by tomhoward »

DuskStar wrote: post #66
tomhoward wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner works as a government policy officer, researching and formulating sex work legislation, which means engaging with all stakeholder and advocacy groups in the community. Her experience indicates that feminist groups who oppose legalised prostitution are a very small minority, at least in our Australian state.

Australian feminism might be more than a little separated from American feminism, then.

Perhaps, or maybe the percentages are similar but the absolute numbers larger, and thus the signal generated louder.

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#129

Post by capitol_ »

Doxin wrote: post #101
Thorentis wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> designed to legislate morality Like... almost all other laws? Do you think murder is immoral? Well guess what? There's a law for that. Just because you disagree with the morality being legislated, you can't pretend that "legislating morality" is the problem.

Making murder illegal should be mainly about preventing people from being the victim of murder. Whether or not murder is moral or not shouldn't really be relevant. We've decided that people have a right to not be murdered for whatever reason. The only thing the law should then be concerned about is how to prevent murder. Using the same reasoning to outlaw prostitution is harder. Sure you could argue people have a rig…

> prevent people from being prostitutes against their will

The important part here is if you include economic factors into "against their will" or not.

Re: Stamping Out Online Sex Trafficking May Have Pushed It Underground

#130

Post by jessaustin »

apatters wrote: post #113
hiram112 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't just the religious right that pushes for backwards prostitution laws. It is also... feminists. Aren't feminists always going on about "my body, my right" when it comes to abortion and other forms of contraceptives? Of course, but when it comes to prostitution, they seem to take a 'differing' view. Why? When prostitution is decriminalized, the price of sex goes down, as would be expected in any market where t…

Why not look at numbers rather than anecdotes? A poll by YouGov in 2016 found that Republicans were 7% more likely than Democrats to believe sex work should remain illegal: https://www.vox.com/2016/3/11/11203740/prostitution-legal-me... But the real gap was between the genders. Women were 14% more likely to say sex work should be illegal than men. They were also 18% more likely to say it's immoral. Now what "feminist…

Your numbers confirm rather than refute parent's hypothesis. Prostitutes sell what men want more cheaply than other women sell it. Some other women disapprove. Some portion of those other women are feminists.
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