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Most sex workers agree that their safety is improved dramatically by having the business side of it out in the open. And, there have been studies on sex worker

Most sex workers agree that their safety is improved dramatically by having the business side of it out in the open. And, there have been studies on sex worker safety that indicate strongly that legal prostitution is safer for everyone; it also reduces coercion when it is not underground (women don't need a pimp, if law enforcement is on their side). Since I started paying attention a few years ago, I've noticed that most commentary from law enforcement and politicians on the subject of prostitution frames it as "human trafficking" or just "trafficking", even when there were no non-consenting parties involved (and nearly all prostitution is between consenting adults). It is misleading, unethical, and actively harmful to the safety of the people they're claiming to help, but, they do it anyway. The implication that someone is being forced into sexual slavery makes them seem like the good guys in the story...when, in reality, they're mostly just harassing and imprisoning poor women who are making an honest living the best way they know how. Of course no one wants to see children being sexually abused. No one wants to see children or otherwise at-risk people forced into prostitution. But, that's already illegal; they don't have to victimize all sex workers to pursue and prosecute those crimes. The kicker here is that the police found these kids who had been forced into sexual slavery because of the ads on this site. Had it been completely underground, they wouldn't have found them, wouldn't have been able to set up a sting, and wouldn't have been able to get the girls out of a dangerous and abusive situation. Now, it goes further underground, where the risk is even higher.

nickpsecurity 10y ago
"Most sex workers agree that their safety is improved dramatically by having the business side of it out in the open. And, there have been studies on sex worker safety that indicate strongly that legal prostitution is safer for everyone; it also reduces coercion when it is not underground (women don't need a pimp, if law enforcement is on their side)." I did a lot of research on that in college for some legalizing prostitution essays. The research I found, both scholarly and anecdotal, totally supported this. The worst thing I found is that there were many incidences of rape or abuse by clients, pimps, or even cops that were made easier to get away with via the stigma of prostitution. Just bringing up the details of the crime was enough to get themselves arrested. In some cases, judges tossed it out since they equated prostitution with asking for it. So, taking action like this isn't just taking a stand against the act of prostitution: it's also supporting worse crimes to happen to prostitutes and others around them. Not even necessarily people participating. It can be just a caring person that runs afoul of the pimps that want the status quo to remain for specific women.
- prostoalex 10y ago
  There was an out-pour of articles on this topic after MyRedBook closure, e.g. http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Closure-of-prostitution-website-costly-for-sex-5619118.php http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Closure-of-prostitution-...
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    Thanks for the article. This part jumped out: ""In some instances, you can only get high marks on performance if you perform" without using condoms or other protection, Graham said." Back then, I didn't think about the effect recommendation systems would have outside filtering bad clients. This negative effect on positive reviews is totally believable after all the stories I've seen about people extorting eBay or Amazon store owners for good reviews. This needs further research to figure out how to reduce its effect. It's essentially a form of subversion in practice where prostitutes get positive reviews the more dangerous (i.e. STD's) they are for their more honest clients. On top of pregnancy risks.
- mjevans 10y ago
  It also seems logical that having a market in the sunlight makes a 'black market' for the same goods much less appealing. I have to further speculate that the same type of 'impact' we see from legalizing 'recreational use' would also be mirrored with this topic; possibly to an even more positive degree.
niftich 10y ago
There's idealism on both sides of the argument. On one hand, there are those who believe that conducting these arrangements in the open is safer for all involved parties. On the other hand, there are those who believe that sex work can never truly be consensual, because even if consent is given, a sex worker may have felt pressured to seek this life because all other choices available to them to make a living and attain food and shelter were sub-par or nonexistent. This argument supposes that given a different, idealized circumstances free of such pressures, few people would choose sex work. I find this argument very similar to the idea of age of consent, in which society declares that people below a certain age are incapable of informed consent, and similarly, the widespread societal taboo against suicide, which implicitly suggests that no rational person free of undue pressures would consent to ending their own life, therefore anyone who commits suicide was pushed to do so by serious factors that impaired their ability to properly consent. Finally, there are those who just want to be 'tough on crime', and actions like this fit the bill at first blush, while letting it operate would be construed by the same population as inaction.
- tuxracer 10y ago
  > there are those who believe that sex work can never truly be consensual...idealized circumstances free of such pressures, few people would choose sex work In idealized circumstances free of economic pressures many of us would spent all day at the beach. It's great many found their dream career and are getting paid to do what they love. But for most what work is just work, a means to an end. Not sure why sex workers should be especially singled out and stigmatized. Would the janitor who cleaned the toilets in your office be doing that if they weren't getting paid to? Would you even be in said office if you weren't getting paid to be there?
  - empthought 10y ago
    No one should feel shame at having a toilet at the office and needing to pay someone to help clean it. Everyone should feel shame at coercing a person who would otherwise not have sex with them into having sex with them. Buying someone's labor is different than buying their bodily autonomy and consent to sex.
Spooky23 10y ago
I think mutual consent and money for sex are probably fine. The problem is that reality isn't black and white. Trafficking is very real, especially in Chinese communities, where victims are shuffled all over the place on cheap intercity busses. These are complex problems, and the typical HN lazze faire approach doesn't address that complexity.
- garrettgrimsley 10y ago
  Can you provide information about this? I've seen reporting about restaurant and salon workers bussing around, but it was largely voluntary.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    Voluntary in the sense that people are working off some "debt" owed to smugglers that can never be repaid. Chinatown busses are a snake pit of all sorts of crime. Here's an article that scratches the surface. There are numerous sources in the news and academic publications about the links to sex and other human trafficking to these busses. http://news.wgbh.org/post/human-trafficking-modern-day-slavery-america http://news.wgbh.org/post/human-trafficking-modern-day-slave...
- kofejnik 10y ago
  Trafficking of farm and construction workers is very real, too, and probably more prevalent.
- xixi77 10y ago
  You are right, these are indeed complex problems, however this is no directed effort against this type of activity. If anything, having a common platform would make it easier to focus on such things, and I suspect platform owners would gladly cooperate (as they probably would on weeding out underage ads, etc.) -- but in practice, the alternative we see is either going for low-hanging fruit (which these relatively complex operations aren't), or just a blanket effort, like in this case. All of these hurt legitimate workers far more than the operations you describe.

nickpsecurity 10y ago

"Most sex workers agree that their safety is improved dramatically by having the business side of it out in the open. And, there have been studies on sex worker safety that indicate strongly that legal prostitution is safer for everyone; it also reduces coercion when it is not underground (women don't need a pimp, if law enforcement is on their side)." I did a lot of research on that in college for some legalizing prostitution essays. The research I found, both scholarly and anecdotal, totally supported this. The worst thing I found is that there were many incidences of rape or abuse by clients, pimps, or even cops that were made easier to get away with via the stigma of prostitution. Just bringing up the details of the crime was enough to get themselves arrested. In some cases, judges tossed it out since they equated prostitution with asking for it. So, taking action like this isn't just taking a stand against the act of prostitution: it's also supporting worse crimes to happen to prostitutes and others around them. Not even necessarily people participating. It can be just a caring person that runs afoul of the pimps that want the status quo to remain for specific women.

prostoalex 10y ago
There was an out-pour of articles on this topic after MyRedBook closure, e.g. http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Closure-of-prostitution-website-costly-for-sex-5619118.php http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Closure-of-prostitution-...
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  Thanks for the article. This part jumped out: ""In some instances, you can only get high marks on performance if you perform" without using condoms or other protection, Graham said." Back then, I didn't think about the effect recommendation systems would have outside filtering bad clients. This negative effect on positive reviews is totally believable after all the stories I've seen about people extorting eBay or Amazon store owners for good reviews. This needs further research to figure out how to reduce its effect. It's essentially a form of subversion in practice where prostitutes get positive reviews the more dangerous (i.e. STD's) they are for their more honest clients. On top of pregnancy risks.
mjevans 10y ago
It also seems logical that having a market in the sunlight makes a 'black market' for the same goods much less appealing. I have to further speculate that the same type of 'impact' we see from legalizing 'recreational use' would also be mirrored with this topic; possibly to an even more positive degree.

niftich 10y ago

There's idealism on both sides of the argument. On one hand, there are those who believe that conducting these arrangements in the open is safer for all involved parties. On the other hand, there are those who believe that sex work can never truly be consensual, because even if consent is given, a sex worker may have felt pressured to seek this life because all other choices available to them to make a living and attain food and shelter were sub-par or nonexistent. This argument supposes that given a different, idealized circumstances free of such pressures, few people would choose sex work. I find this argument very similar to the idea of age of consent, in which society declares that people below a certain age are incapable of informed consent, and similarly, the widespread societal taboo against suicide, which implicitly suggests that no rational person free of undue pressures would consent to ending their own life, therefore anyone who commits suicide was pushed to do so by serious factors that impaired their ability to properly consent. Finally, there are those who just want to be 'tough on crime', and actions like this fit the bill at first blush, while letting it operate would be construed by the same population as inaction.

tuxracer 10y ago
> there are those who believe that sex work can never truly be consensual...idealized circumstances free of such pressures, few people would choose sex work In idealized circumstances free of economic pressures many of us would spent all day at the beach. It's great many found their dream career and are getting paid to do what they love. But for most what work is just work, a means to an end. Not sure why sex workers should be especially singled out and stigmatized. Would the janitor who cleaned the toilets in your office be doing that if they weren't getting paid to? Would you even be in said office if you weren't getting paid to be there?
- empthought 10y ago
  No one should feel shame at having a toilet at the office and needing to pay someone to help clean it. Everyone should feel shame at coercing a person who would otherwise not have sex with them into having sex with them. Buying someone's labor is different than buying their bodily autonomy and consent to sex.

Spooky23 10y ago

I think mutual consent and money for sex are probably fine. The problem is that reality isn't black and white. Trafficking is very real, especially in Chinese communities, where victims are shuffled all over the place on cheap intercity busses. These are complex problems, and the typical HN lazze faire approach doesn't address that complexity.

garrettgrimsley 10y ago
Can you provide information about this? I've seen reporting about restaurant and salon workers bussing around, but it was largely voluntary.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Voluntary in the sense that people are working off some "debt" owed to smugglers that can never be repaid. Chinatown busses are a snake pit of all sorts of crime. Here's an article that scratches the surface. There are numerous sources in the news and academic publications about the links to sex and other human trafficking to these busses. http://news.wgbh.org/post/human-trafficking-modern-day-slavery-america http://news.wgbh.org/post/human-trafficking-modern-day-slave...
kofejnik 10y ago
Trafficking of farm and construction workers is very real, too, and probably more prevalent.
xixi77 10y ago
You are right, these are indeed complex problems, however this is no directed effort against this type of activity. If anything, having a common platform would make it easier to focus on such things, and I suspect platform owners would gladly cooperate (as they probably would on weeding out underage ads, etc.) -- but in practice, the alternative we see is either going for low-hanging fruit (which these relatively complex operations aren't), or just a blanket effort, like in this case. All of these hurt legitimate workers far more than the operations you describe.