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Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

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Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#61
post #51
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked with some lefty people, you wouldn't, since the worker would be too scared to possibly lose job/pay over critiquing their employer, so they would be heavily incentivized to say anything keep the status quo. So how DO you know consent was given by the sex worker?

I don't, just like with the McDonald's cashier. Do you think both of these jobs should be banned? That neither of them should be banned? Or that one should be legal and the other banned? Please explain why.

Being forced to work against your will at Mcdonalds sucks* being forced to have sex against your will is rape. Rape is considered by almost all countries to be one of the most heinous crimes imaginably.

I also don't have a source but would you agree that the amount of people being forced to work against their will at Mcdonalds is much lower than prostitution?

Your comment was trying to say "what's the line?" right? Like why should one profession be banned but another allowed if X percentage of people are forced to do Y against their will in each.

The line is rape, multiple rapes day in and day out.

*I assuming both still get paid some amount even though they are forced.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#62
post #43
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would you know consent was given by a sex worker? How would you know consent was given by a McDonald's cashier?

Last time I checked with some lefty people, you wouldn't, since the worker would be too scared to possibly lose job/pay over critiquing their employer, so they would be heavily incentivized to say anything keep the status quo. So how DO you know consent was given by the sex worker?

Last time I checked with some lefty people, you wouldn't, since the worker would be too scared to possibly lose job/pay over critiquing their employer, so they would be heavily incentivized to say anything keep the status quo.

This is about being forced against your will by another person or group of people not because you need money, a situation almost every person who works is in.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#63
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty silly, prohibition has been an obvious failure in both drugs and sex work. Firstly, it's a human rights issue, people ought to be able to engage in the commerce of their choosing with only reasonable restrictions. Prohibition is an unreasonable restriction, enforced according to a set of puritan morals that are no longer even popularly held. After all, alcohol is more addictive and more harmful than ma…

Well I quoted a Harvard review of a Swedish study, and yours is an Iranian study that seems to have no peer review. Also your metastudy uh, agrees with mine: > The last critics would be that full decriminalization has not resulted in reduced trafficking victimization, but led to growth trafficking inflows > Lastly, I'm just more inclined to listen to sex workers and trafficking victims about what they would help than…

> [Y]ours is an Iranian study that seems to have no peer review.

Fair enough. (I intend to find a good & recent survey paper still but chores have come up, so it'll have to wait a few hours.)

> Have you.. talked to any trafficking victims? Any sex workers?

Not personally no, I only know what I've learned of their positions through articles I've read and documentaries I've seen. Why, have you?

> Drug addicts would like drugs to be legal, oil barons would like there to be no natural protection laws, prostitutes would like prostitution to be legal.

Why are you equating prostitutes with oil barons of all things? This seems like a list of people whom are often viewed poorly, and I can only infer the rhetorical function here is to tar prostitutes through association. Which makes me doubt the sincerity of your concern.

> And what do you think has changed about sex trafficking and prostitution in 11 years?

I'm sure the state of those things as they relate to the internet has shifted, but not importantly what I was suggesting was the understanding of this field of research has probably changed dramatically in 11 years.

> Right because you squash the market.

What market has ever been squashed by prohibition? Alcohol wasn't. Drugs haven't been. Prostitution hasn't been.

> Arguing your trafficking victims should get better health care is worse than just having meaningfully less trafficking victims.

There won't be fewer trafficking victims, or other sex workers who are victims of abuse, we'll just have disclaimed responsibility for them by declaring that it's illegal and excluding them from polite society. The abuse we'll continue, and the comfortable can pretend it doesn't exist because it's been brushed under the rug.

Additionally, it absolutely does matter if we can provide services. For the example of drug use, the appropriate healthcare (eg Narcan, needle exchanges, treatment for addiction) can make a night and day difference for survival. Sex workers would be safer if they weren't stigmatized and so more likely to be believed if they ask for help, if they were able to operate in the open with hired security and vetting processes, etc.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Wired piece mentioned: > The government indictment that triggered Lacey and Larkin’s arrests, United States v. Lacey, et al., includes 17 “victim summaries”—stories of women who say they were sexually exploited through Backpage. Victim 5 first appeared in an ad on the platform when she was 14; her “customers” made her “perform sexual acts at gunpoint, choked her to the point of having seizures, and gang-rape…

> and legitimate consensual sex work What is legitimate consensual sex work? For those of us who don't transact with prostitutes, all we know about this is a stream of narratives we've seen on tv and in film. Julia Roberts falling for Richard Gere, or Maggie Gyllenhall refusing to have a pimp "manage" her. Yet, I remember reading one account of a porn actress, who despite signing all the paperwork, waivers and contra…

You've obviously never had so much as a single friend who was a SW.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#65
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty silly, prohibition has been an obvious failure in both drugs and sex work. Firstly, it's a human rights issue, people ought to be able to engage in the commerce of their choosing with only reasonable restrictions. Prohibition is an unreasonable restriction, enforced according to a set of puritan morals that are no longer even popularly held. After all, alcohol is more addictive and more harmful than ma…

Thirdly, you're linking to a 2014 article about a 2012 study, which is ancient as far as an academic paper goes Has there been some new release of prostitution, like a 2.0 where they updated the security to prevent abuse? Stupid joke but nothing has really changed in that realm of things where a study that isn't that old would be invalid.

> Has there been some new release of prostitution, like a 2.0 where they updated the security to prevent abuse?

This is the wrong question. A better one is, "has the way prostitution and sex trafficking relate to the internet changed?", but the correct one is "does a 2012 article reflect the current understanding in this field of research?"

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#66
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have a great study on this [1]. Decriminalization makes sex trafficking WORSE - full stop. Prostitution means more sex trafficking happens, and crackdowns on prostitution successfully reduce sex trafficking too. From the article[0] (NB: not the linked article, the actual research paper): "Among the currently available sources, the aforementioned Report on Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns (UNODC, 2006) has…

Furthermore, pretty much all of these studies avoid any quantification of the benefits. Women employed, the money that they made, the number of people that stayed out of the criminal justice systems, and even satisfied customers. Of course there will always be questions of induced demand, assuming that that's bad and may increase trafficking. That doesn't mean that there's not tools and policies that can combat traff…

I don't think making money or satisfying customers offsets the harm of kidnapping someone and selling their body.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#67
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluntly, we tried drug decriminalization in the theory that decriminalization meant people could seek help. Instead of more people getting help, fewer did because the stick had been removed. [0] We should ask, well, does sex trafficking happen more or less in areas where prostitution is legal? That'll give us a good indicator of the effects of decriminalization. We have a great study on this [1]. Decriminalization ma…

> We have a great study on this [1]. Decriminalization makes sex trafficking WORSE - full stop. Prostitution means more sex trafficking happens, and crackdowns on prostitution successfully reduce sex trafficking too. From the article[0] (NB: not the linked article, the actual research paper): "Among the currently available sources, the aforementioned Report on Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns (UNODC, 2006) has…

Except we also track the journey of sex trafficked victims.. and they mostly travel to regions with little law enforcement presence.

Unlike murder, we can just ask the victims.. which the UNODC does.

> More impunity, more victims: Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are convicting fewer traffickers and detecting fewer victims than rest of the world. At the same time, victims from these regions are identified in more destination countries than people from elsewhere

UNODC Human Trafficking report, 2022

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#68
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't, just like with the McDonald's cashier. Do you think both of these jobs should be banned? That neither of them should be banned? Or that one should be legal and the other banned? Please explain why.

Being forced to work against your will at Mcdonalds sucks* being forced to have sex against your will is rape. Rape is considered by almost all countries to be one of the most heinous crimes imaginably. I also don't have a source but would you agree that the amount of people being forced to work against their will at Mcdonalds is much lower than prostitution? Your comment was trying to say "what's the line?" right? L…

> Being forced to work against your will at Mcdonalds sucks* being forced to have sex against your will is rape.

No, being forced to work against your will at McDonald's is slavery.

> I also don't have a source but would you agree that the amount of people being forced to work against their will at Mcdonalds is much lower than prostitution?

Sorry, we've already agreed it's impossible to tell. If you'd like to admit that's a dumb belief, please proceed.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#69
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I quoted a Harvard review of a Swedish study, and yours is an Iranian study that seems to have no peer review. Also your metastudy uh, agrees with mine: > The last critics would be that full decriminalization has not resulted in reduced trafficking victimization, but led to growth trafficking inflows > Lastly, I'm just more inclined to listen to sex workers and trafficking victims about what they would help than…

> [Y]ours is an Iranian study that seems to have no peer review. Fair enough. (I intend to find a good & recent survey paper still but chores have come up, so it'll have to wait a few hours.) > Have you.. talked to any trafficking victims? Any sex workers? Not personally no, I only know what I've learned of their positions through articles I've read and documentaries I've seen. Why, have you? > Drug addicts would lik…

Good high quality research repeatedly says that cracking down on prostitution reduces sex trafficking.

Sex workers are not safer if they are less stigmatized, they are more likely to have bad outcomes. You can't make a soldier safer by hugging them, you can't remove intrinsic risk by saying nice things to someone.

And yes, the drug market did get smaller under prohibition, as did alcohol under prohibition, as does prositution. That prohibition is not fully effective doesn't mean the inverse is effective.

Oregon tried decriminalization and their OD rate has grown 4x more than everyone elses. 4x more people have died because someone didn't want to follow research.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, pretty much all of these studies avoid any quantification of the benefits. Women employed, the money that they made, the number of people that stayed out of the criminal justice systems, and even satisfied customers. Of course there will always be questions of induced demand, assuming that that's bad and may increase trafficking. That doesn't mean that there's not tools and policies that can combat traff…

I don't think making money or satisfying customers offsets the harm of kidnapping someone and selling their body.

I obviously dont either, in a 1:1 exchange. When the ratio gets sufficiently large, I think that can change, especially when the alternative also includes kidnapping and sex trafficing.
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