6 ms·

This is important and most people don't realize this. This is the sex work equivalent of banning drug reagent kits.

by troncjb 8y ago

koolba 8y ago
I think a better analogy is a safe injection site for heroin users.
- sli 8y ago
  Eh, that seems a little too loaded, all things considered. But definitely accurate in this case.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  I don't think that's a good analogy at all. People have been hiring prostitutes for centuries. These sites help sex workers take control of their industry and bodies, vs being depending on street walking and abusive pimps. The big danger in America is the equality between prostitute and sex trafficking. They are not the same thing, and yet we're being fed the line that they are (except in some counties in Nevada).
  - opportune 8y ago
    This is definitely true. These days it seems law enforcement and news agencies seem to use the terms synonymously. It's a very worrying trend because "sex trafficking" sounds much worse than just regular-ole prostitution.
    - kwillets 8y ago
      It's possible that moving it off the street has made it so much less visible that these kinds of myths have developed about it much more easily. When hookers were out on the street corner it was a nuisance, but people could see that it was mostly voluntary. Online anonymity has made it more frightening to some.
- oneshot908 8y ago
  Safe injection sites are only effective apparently when combined with legalization and/or decriminalization of the drugs injected, source: http://chasingthescream.com/ http://chasingthescream.com/ TLDR: the criminal lifestyle one must pursue to obtain illegal supercharged versions of the drugs is vastly more harmful than the drugs themselves when legalized. I see a lot of parallels here in equating all sex work to sex trafficking. Both sides have their points, but what is the most effective strategy to minimize sex trafficking?
wutbrodo 8y ago
I think it's probably more accurate to say most people don't care. The average person isn't approaching policy discussions thinking about real-world effects; if one can't be bothered to spend ten seconds googling the effect of a policy before they talk about or vote on it, that pretty handily crosses the line from ignorance to agency (in the form of willful ignorance). The sad fact is, the vast majority of people are far more interested in how policies look, what they signal, and how voicing support for them makes them look. The actual effects the policy may have is way, way down the list of motivating factors, if it even enters their mind at all.
- antisthenes 8y ago
  That's a bit disingenuous to say. A lot of policies are complex and a 10-second google search is unlikely to bring you anywhere near competence from willful ignorance. Consider, for example, the science on minimum wage experiments performed in different cities and at different time intervals. The outcomes are conflicting in some cases and, perhaps, are not reproducible elsewhere. How can we expect a layman to really understand the effect a policy may have, especially 20 years down the line? That's something even experts struggle with.
  - mortehu 8y ago
    The first page I get when Googling "effects of minimum wage", [1], does not take a particularly simplistic view of the issue. The first paragraph says: > Recent research shows conflicting evidence on both sides of the issue. In general, the evidence suggests that it is appropriate to weigh the cost of potential job losses from a higher minimum wage against the benefits of wage increases for other workers. 1. https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2015/december/effects-of-minimum-wage-on-employment/ https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economi...
  - wutbrodo 8y ago
    > A lot of policies are complex and a 10-second google search is unlikely to bring you anywhere near competence from willful ignorance. I'm not talking about competence. I'm talking about people not leaving or even attempting to leave the state of willful ignorance. > How can we expect a layman to really understand the effect a policy may have, especially 20 years down the line? That's something even experts struggle with. It's obvious that my comment wasn't a plea for universal omniscience. None of this is relevant to my complaint about people deprioritizing the effects of a policy, as if it's not close to the _only_ thing that's important. > Consider, for example, the science on minimum wage experiments performed in different cities and at different time intervals. The outcomes are conflicting in some cases and, perhaps, are not reproducible elsewhere. This is a perfect example, thank you. Do you know what I would say if asked what I thought the effect of min wage changes are? _I would say I have no idea_, and anyone who tells you they do for sure is lying to you. Accepting that doesn't mean throwing up your hands in hopelessness, but it does suggest a different understanding of the effects of each policy than simply what feeling you get from hearing the one-line description. Policy, and the world in general, generally isn't as simple as people would like it to be. In democracies, one's insistence on pretending that things work the oversimplified way you want them to has concrete costs to those affected by those policies and is more than a little despicable.
pasbesoin 8y ago
It's like all the hiring of illegal immigrants, and then hounding them for coming here and doing the work. I'm not trying to claim any kind of parity between the two. I am saying, it's another form of persecuting the supply -- and putting it at increased risk -- in lieu of dealing with the demand or even being honest about it. It's also another excuse -- vehicle -- for the prescriptive moralists. Who, the more they complain about something, seemingly inevitably turn out to be engaged in it themselves. "I can't control myself. But, by God, I can control you!" Sex trafficking is a horrendous circumstance. Unfortunately, I'm left with no trust in our politicians being honest brokers with respect to the laws they introduce. Even if they honestly want to address the problem, they will -- heh -- not be able to "control themselves" with respect to how they use the expanded powers, going forward.
- creaghpatr 8y ago
  Hopefully this will spur more constituencies to legalize regulated prostitution instead of having to excuse children being forced into slavery for the greater good of legitimate sex workers trying to make a living.
  - oneshot908 8y ago
    And note that nothing here is going to stop your duly elected congressperson from booking a 1st class flight to sex slave island. There are 20M+ victims of sex trafficking outside the United States. Some perspective: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worst-countries-for-modern-slavery/277037/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/a-...
- Spooky23 8y ago
  It’s actually pretty similar. It is pretty easy to find the meat processing plants, agribusinesses, construction companies, etc who demand labor at prices not possible on the legal market. Likewise, it is very easy to find the johns soliciting prostitutes, even high end ones. (Recall former governor Eliot Spitzer)
- iosDrone 8y ago
zipwitch 8y ago
Many if not most politicians (and those pulling their strings) passing the laws to enable this crackdown absolutely understand what they are doing. This is about control, at a very basic level. Access to sex and control of sex are a huge lever for shaping society. Moves like this aim to push society in a "traditional" or "reactionary" direction.
- wpietri 8y ago
  And I might be more specific and say "control of women's sexuality". A lot of traditionalist mores are much more accepting of men's sexual liberty than women's.
- shams93 8y ago
  Yes as normal relationships break down under the stress of social inequality sex becomes not a human right but something only for the wealthy. This has a huge impact on health. They're pushing the limit, once they cut off food stamps for many even food will be something only for the wealthy. But DC may have many enemies but none take more hatred from them than the very citizens they are supposedly tasked to protect and serve.
  - behringer 8y ago
    We can only hope the elite take our food and women, it's time for a good riot in the streets.

This is important and most people don't realize this. This is the sex work equivalent of banning drug reagent kits.

koolba 8y ago

I think a better analogy is a safe injection site for heroin users.

sli 8y ago
Eh, that seems a little too loaded, all things considered. But definitely accurate in this case.
djsumdog 8y ago
I don't think that's a good analogy at all. People have been hiring prostitutes for centuries. These sites help sex workers take control of their industry and bodies, vs being depending on street walking and abusive pimps. The big danger in America is the equality between prostitute and sex trafficking. They are not the same thing, and yet we're being fed the line that they are (except in some counties in Nevada).
- opportune 8y ago
  This is definitely true. These days it seems law enforcement and news agencies seem to use the terms synonymously. It's a very worrying trend because "sex trafficking" sounds much worse than just regular-ole prostitution.
  - kwillets 8y ago
    It's possible that moving it off the street has made it so much less visible that these kinds of myths have developed about it much more easily. When hookers were out on the street corner it was a nuisance, but people could see that it was mostly voluntary. Online anonymity has made it more frightening to some.
oneshot908 8y ago
Safe injection sites are only effective apparently when combined with legalization and/or decriminalization of the drugs injected, source: http://chasingthescream.com/ http://chasingthescream.com/ TLDR: the criminal lifestyle one must pursue to obtain illegal supercharged versions of the drugs is vastly more harmful than the drugs themselves when legalized. I see a lot of parallels here in equating all sex work to sex trafficking. Both sides have their points, but what is the most effective strategy to minimize sex trafficking?

wutbrodo 8y ago

I think it's probably more accurate to say most people don't care. The average person isn't approaching policy discussions thinking about real-world effects; if one can't be bothered to spend ten seconds googling the effect of a policy before they talk about or vote on it, that pretty handily crosses the line from ignorance to agency (in the form of willful ignorance). The sad fact is, the vast majority of people are far more interested in how policies look, what they signal, and how voicing support for them makes them look. The actual effects the policy may have is way, way down the list of motivating factors, if it even enters their mind at all.

antisthenes 8y ago
That's a bit disingenuous to say. A lot of policies are complex and a 10-second google search is unlikely to bring you anywhere near competence from willful ignorance. Consider, for example, the science on minimum wage experiments performed in different cities and at different time intervals. The outcomes are conflicting in some cases and, perhaps, are not reproducible elsewhere. How can we expect a layman to really understand the effect a policy may have, especially 20 years down the line? That's something even experts struggle with.
- mortehu 8y ago
  The first page I get when Googling "effects of minimum wage", [1], does not take a particularly simplistic view of the issue. The first paragraph says: > Recent research shows conflicting evidence on both sides of the issue. In general, the evidence suggests that it is appropriate to weigh the cost of potential job losses from a higher minimum wage against the benefits of wage increases for other workers. 1. https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2015/december/effects-of-minimum-wage-on-employment/ https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economi...
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  > A lot of policies are complex and a 10-second google search is unlikely to bring you anywhere near competence from willful ignorance. I'm not talking about competence. I'm talking about people not leaving or even attempting to leave the state of willful ignorance. > How can we expect a layman to really understand the effect a policy may have, especially 20 years down the line? That's something even experts struggle with. It's obvious that my comment wasn't a plea for universal omniscience. None of this is relevant to my complaint about people deprioritizing the effects of a policy, as if it's not close to the _only_ thing that's important. > Consider, for example, the science on minimum wage experiments performed in different cities and at different time intervals. The outcomes are conflicting in some cases and, perhaps, are not reproducible elsewhere. This is a perfect example, thank you. Do you know what I would say if asked what I thought the effect of min wage changes are? _I would say I have no idea_, and anyone who tells you they do for sure is lying to you. Accepting that doesn't mean throwing up your hands in hopelessness, but it does suggest a different understanding of the effects of each policy than simply what feeling you get from hearing the one-line description. Policy, and the world in general, generally isn't as simple as people would like it to be. In democracies, one's insistence on pretending that things work the oversimplified way you want them to has concrete costs to those affected by those policies and is more than a little despicable.

pasbesoin 8y ago

It's like all the hiring of illegal immigrants, and then hounding them for coming here and doing the work. I'm not trying to claim any kind of parity between the two. I am saying, it's another form of persecuting the supply -- and putting it at increased risk -- in lieu of dealing with the demand or even being honest about it. It's also another excuse -- vehicle -- for the prescriptive moralists. Who, the more they complain about something, seemingly inevitably turn out to be engaged in it themselves. "I can't control myself. But, by God, I can control you!" Sex trafficking is a horrendous circumstance. Unfortunately, I'm left with no trust in our politicians being honest brokers with respect to the laws they introduce. Even if they honestly want to address the problem, they will -- heh -- not be able to "control themselves" with respect to how they use the expanded powers, going forward.

creaghpatr 8y ago
Hopefully this will spur more constituencies to legalize regulated prostitution instead of having to excuse children being forced into slavery for the greater good of legitimate sex workers trying to make a living.
- oneshot908 8y ago
  And note that nothing here is going to stop your duly elected congressperson from booking a 1st class flight to sex slave island. There are 20M+ victims of sex trafficking outside the United States. Some perspective: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worst-countries-for-modern-slavery/277037/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/a-...
Spooky23 8y ago
It’s actually pretty similar. It is pretty easy to find the meat processing plants, agribusinesses, construction companies, etc who demand labor at prices not possible on the legal market. Likewise, it is very easy to find the johns soliciting prostitutes, even high end ones. (Recall former governor Eliot Spitzer)
iosDrone 8y ago

zipwitch 8y ago

Many if not most politicians (and those pulling their strings) passing the laws to enable this crackdown absolutely understand what they are doing. This is about control, at a very basic level. Access to sex and control of sex are a huge lever for shaping society. Moves like this aim to push society in a "traditional" or "reactionary" direction.

wpietri 8y ago
And I might be more specific and say "control of women's sexuality". A lot of traditionalist mores are much more accepting of men's sexual liberty than women's.
shams93 8y ago
Yes as normal relationships break down under the stress of social inequality sex becomes not a human right but something only for the wealthy. This has a huge impact on health. They're pushing the limit, once they cut off food stamps for many even food will be something only for the wealthy. But DC may have many enemies but none take more hatred from them than the very citizens they are supposedly tasked to protect and serve.
- behringer 8y ago
  We can only hope the elite take our food and women, it's time for a good riot in the streets.