8 ms·

Glad you said this. If the 'government' wanted to protect sex workers a better strategy is what numerous other countries have done. Legalize the sex trade with

Glad you said this. If the 'government' wanted to protect sex workers a better strategy is what numerous other countries have done. Legalize the sex trade with strong provisions to protect the workers and support systems for escaping that life if they so choose. When a sex worker gets a record for being a sex worker it makes it a lot harder to escape that life. Having safe houses and required STD testing are other supportive measure for sex workers. The government does not care about the sex workers in the slightest. This is about censorship and control in the name of 'safety'. Gives them the power to take a website down in the name of safety if there's ANY questionable content on it even if there's millions of users. They will cudgel sites with it to give in to their demands for data requisition and to remove messages that they don't like...or suddenly the site will be brought down by force of law due to one person out of millions posting something questionable. Just like what Duterte did in the Philippines with his bloody drug crusade that also happened to not so coincidentally kill a bunch of his political rivals. Anytime the government tells you it's doing something for you in the name of 'safety' chances are you're about to get screwed. The average ignorant human's fear of whatever nightmare scenario the government and the media has created playing out in their head, is what ruins the world.

notsureaboutpg 6y ago
This hasn't led to a decrease in trafficking in the countries that have tried it though. Many of them in Europe have become trafficking destinations for women from other countries. There's lots and lots of studies out there that show that decriminalizing prostitution does not lead to lower trafficking or better outcomes for prostitutes. Also the rhetoric we use here (defeatist, people are going to solicit sex and break the law so let's make it easier for them, etc.) is in stark contrast to how we talk about problems we actually want to fight in our societies like obesity, racism, worker mistreatment by employers, etc. In those situations we never say that people are going to do such things anyways and criminalizing it just makes those who do those crimes more unlikely to change, more unlikely to get back into society, more distrustful of the system, etc. In those situations we spend tons and tons of money at the corporate and the government level trying to teach people these behaviors are wrong and to not engage in them. Why can't we do that with people who solicit prostitutes?
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  > obesity, racism, worker mistreatment by employers Not going to lie, but I feel most people don't care about these either. All I see are platitudes.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    It's politics. For example, the criminal justice system is all messed up. Over-criminalization, coercive plea bargains, law enforcement unaccountability etc. But we focus on police shootings of black men, which aren't actually disproportionate to the number of police encounters with black men. Because it's a thing you can put video of on the television and get people frothy about, but it's not a thing you can solve on its own because it's a consequence of all of those other things and not a cause in itself. By getting people to focus on the wrong thing, they can get votes without having to do the hard work of solving the underlying problems. Instead they give you empty symbolism -- take down statues, rename stuff -- which doesn't fix anything. More than that, because the underlying problems never get solved that way, they can keep campaigning on it forever.
    - datavirtue 6y ago
      Exactly. Just like the rise of domestic extremism is a consequence of young men being left behind by technological progress and algorithmic echo chambers. Seeing no way for themselves in the world they are easily radicalized on social media. The mentally ill carry out spectacular displays of violence once they are nurtured by these groups. "Cracking down on domestic extremism" is a convenient way to maintain favor with the upper classes who are fearful of the discontent and militant attitudes and supposed actions of these groups (people are claiming membership in movements that have no central authority). It does not address the problem though and actually "cracking down" will only further inflame it. The solution is finding a way to offer these discarded people a way forward, real opportunity where they can see themselves being somebody that matters in their community. Attaching themselves to an extreme ideology is a cheap, last ditch effort to be somebody.
- dkdk8283 6y ago
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Legalize the sex trade with strong provisions to protect the workers and support systems for escaping that life if they so choose. There’s strong indications that the immediate effect of a jurisdiction trying to do that is to make the jurisdiction a magnet for sex trafficking. Now, you can argue that the long term effects will be better, or its a matter of fine tuning protections, or that the effect is in part illusory because it makes detecting trafficking easier, or that it actually makes things net better, and that the trafficking it reduces is greater than the trafficking it diverts in from other jurisdictions; I personally think all of those arguments have truth to them. But those are things that are less apparent from the data, so its a hard sell.
- smegger001 6y ago
  however once you legalize something you can regulate it. Require all sex-workers to work with registered brothels, require government issued licensing and certification. I men it you have to get a licence to cut hair requiring a licence to sleep with clients is an easy sell. It a lot harder to traffic people when they have to go into a government office and register with government issued ID.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > however once you legalize something you can regulate it. Yes, but no one haa found a way to regulate it thst doesn’t result in an apparent increase of trafficking activity compared to prohibition. Again, I’m pro-legalization and subscribe to the whole list of reasons I cited upthread for not considering that appearance decisive. But it makes legalization a hard sell.
billhathaway 6y ago
What sex workers overwhelmingly want is decriminalization, not legalization. https://swopusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Advocacy-Agenda-2020-2022.pdf https://swopusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Advocacy-Agen... https://www.amnesty.org/en/qa-policy-to-protect-the-human-rights-of-sex-workers/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/qa-policy-to-protect-the-human-ri...
elzbardico 6y ago
America is almost alone in prosecuting sex workers and their clients in the developed world.

notsureaboutpg 6y ago

This hasn't led to a decrease in trafficking in the countries that have tried it though. Many of them in Europe have become trafficking destinations for women from other countries. There's lots and lots of studies out there that show that decriminalizing prostitution does not lead to lower trafficking or better outcomes for prostitutes. Also the rhetoric we use here (defeatist, people are going to solicit sex and break the law so let's make it easier for them, etc.) is in stark contrast to how we talk about problems we actually want to fight in our societies like obesity, racism, worker mistreatment by employers, etc. In those situations we never say that people are going to do such things anyways and criminalizing it just makes those who do those crimes more unlikely to change, more unlikely to get back into society, more distrustful of the system, etc. In those situations we spend tons and tons of money at the corporate and the government level trying to teach people these behaviors are wrong and to not engage in them. Why can't we do that with people who solicit prostitutes?

throwaway3699 6y ago
> obesity, racism, worker mistreatment by employers Not going to lie, but I feel most people don't care about these either. All I see are platitudes.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  It's politics. For example, the criminal justice system is all messed up. Over-criminalization, coercive plea bargains, law enforcement unaccountability etc. But we focus on police shootings of black men, which aren't actually disproportionate to the number of police encounters with black men. Because it's a thing you can put video of on the television and get people frothy about, but it's not a thing you can solve on its own because it's a consequence of all of those other things and not a cause in itself. By getting people to focus on the wrong thing, they can get votes without having to do the hard work of solving the underlying problems. Instead they give you empty symbolism -- take down statues, rename stuff -- which doesn't fix anything. More than that, because the underlying problems never get solved that way, they can keep campaigning on it forever.
  - datavirtue 6y ago
    Exactly. Just like the rise of domestic extremism is a consequence of young men being left behind by technological progress and algorithmic echo chambers. Seeing no way for themselves in the world they are easily radicalized on social media. The mentally ill carry out spectacular displays of violence once they are nurtured by these groups. "Cracking down on domestic extremism" is a convenient way to maintain favor with the upper classes who are fearful of the discontent and militant attitudes and supposed actions of these groups (people are claiming membership in movements that have no central authority). It does not address the problem though and actually "cracking down" will only further inflame it. The solution is finding a way to offer these discarded people a way forward, real opportunity where they can see themselves being somebody that matters in their community. Attaching themselves to an extreme ideology is a cheap, last ditch effort to be somebody.
dkdk8283 6y ago

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Legalize the sex trade with strong provisions to protect the workers and support systems for escaping that life if they so choose. There’s strong indications that the immediate effect of a jurisdiction trying to do that is to make the jurisdiction a magnet for sex trafficking. Now, you can argue that the long term effects will be better, or its a matter of fine tuning protections, or that the effect is in part illusory because it makes detecting trafficking easier, or that it actually makes things net better, and that the trafficking it reduces is greater than the trafficking it diverts in from other jurisdictions; I personally think all of those arguments have truth to them. But those are things that are less apparent from the data, so its a hard sell.

smegger001 6y ago
however once you legalize something you can regulate it. Require all sex-workers to work with registered brothels, require government issued licensing and certification. I men it you have to get a licence to cut hair requiring a licence to sleep with clients is an easy sell. It a lot harder to traffic people when they have to go into a government office and register with government issued ID.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > however once you legalize something you can regulate it. Yes, but no one haa found a way to regulate it thst doesn’t result in an apparent increase of trafficking activity compared to prohibition. Again, I’m pro-legalization and subscribe to the whole list of reasons I cited upthread for not considering that appearance decisive. But it makes legalization a hard sell.

billhathaway 6y ago

What sex workers overwhelmingly want is decriminalization, not legalization. https://swopusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Advocacy-Agenda-2020-2022.pdf https://swopusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Advocacy-Agen... https://www.amnesty.org/en/qa-policy-to-protect-the-human-rights-of-sex-workers/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/qa-policy-to-protect-the-human-ri...

elzbardico 6y ago

America is almost alone in prosecuting sex workers and their clients in the developed world.