20 ms·

The ongoing witch-hunt for sex workers in Sweden

200 points by barry-cotter 5y ago

Karsteski 5y ago
Yep, just a set of antiquated laws that punish people for using their bodies as they see fit. Worst part is that they do the exact opposite of what they are supposed to do, which is to keep citizens safe(ideally). I'm glad people are slowly coming around to the idea that victimless crimes should not be a thing, whether prostitution or drug crimes. It saddens me that there were millions of lives ruined in the process, but that can be said for so many puritanical rules that all countries still have in place.
- rerx 5y ago
  > victimless crimes I am not sure if it is really that clear cut. Germany has pretty liberal laws around prostitution and there are massive problems with human trafficking. Many women do not do the work out of their own volition.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    Clamping down on sex workers as described in the Reddit post makes human trafficking more likely, though, as victims of it can't trust the authorities will help them.
    - svieira 5y ago
      Isn't that why laws should go after the seller and the purchaser not the product (especially in humans-are-the-product situations like this)?
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        The Reddit post in question pretty clearly describes the consequences of that approach; very substantial impacts on the sex worker.
      - admax88q 5y ago
        if your manager and customer are criminals, whats are the odds youll be treated well?
    - rerx 5y ago
      Yes, I don't think the "Nordic model" is a good final answer. But I am not sure if there are more problems with human trafficking in Sweden than in Germany (of course geography plays a role, too).
    - 2rsf 5y ago
      (not an expert, just Swedish) it is not illegal to be prostitute in Sweden, you are not allowed to buy it. So I guess there is no problem for a human trafficking victim to go to the police since they don't break any law themselves
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        Read the Reddit post we're discussing. It's made quite clear that that's wonderful in theory, but not so great in practice.
        zozbot234 5y ago
        Sex workers are not made criminally liable in Sweden. All the Reddit post is saying is that outside people will not want to be associated with their business - which makes sense if every sex worker might possibly be a trafficked sex slave and no one can feasibly tell the difference beyond reasonable doubt.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        Again, that's the point - that not being criminally liable doesn't prevent the authorities from treating them like criminals and making their lives difficult.
        zozbot234 5y ago
        Ah, but are the authorities treating them like criminals or possible sex slaves? The Reddit post doesn't give any evidence for the former over the latter.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        #4 and #6 in particular sound targeted at the sex worker more than an attempt at preventing pimping/slavery.
        5y ago
    - jakelazaroff 5y ago
      According to the data we have, that is not true. From Harvard Law School [1]: > Countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited. The scale effect of legalizing prostitution, i.e. expansion of the market, outweighs the substitution effect, where legal sex workers are favored over illegal workers. On average, countries with legalized prostitution report a greater incidence of human trafficking inflows. There's a lot more nuance to it if you read the article or the actual study. I am in general for legalizing sex work, but if we want to protect sex workers we can't pretend legalization is a panacea. [1] https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/ https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-...
      - slothtrop 5y ago
        This is out of date. Working conditions are also better in Germany, and could stand to keep improving. EDIT: here are some recent improvements in Germany according to the wiki: The Criminal Code was amended in October 2016 to criminalise clients of trafficked or coerced prostitutes. This change was led by Social Democrat Eva Högl. The Prostituiertenschutzgesetz (Prostitutes Protection Act) came into force in July 2017. Amongst the provision of the Act are registration of prostitutes, annual health checks and mandatory condom use. Brothel operators also need to register and prove their 'good conduct' before registration. The legislation also places restrictions on advertising. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Germany#Legal_situation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Germany#Legal_... As patrons stick with the well-regulated outlets, they won't fund the competing mob-controlled ones, and trafficking will slow. The conditions were just too easy to exploit at the outset.
        jakelazaroff 5y ago
        Feel free to respond with a more recent study! I would be very happy to be proven wrong here. Response to edit: I’m glad Germany is making progressive changes, but I’d like to see data (or at least firsthand anecdotes) that the amended laws are working as intended.
  - jascii 5y ago
    Is there more human trafficking, or is the human trafficking more visible under the liberal laws?
  - mtnGoat 5y ago
    Many? What percentage I wonder? Through my last job for over a decade I had access to thousands of sex workers, many in Germany. I will attest, on everything I own, not a single one was doing it against her will. I do not doubt there are some being forced, but this idea that it’s a large percentage… I can not get behind. I’ve been on the inside and never saw anything remotely like it. And since I wasn’t a client I spoke openly with the girls and discussed things like this with them. Most were from Eastern Europe and we’re just stacking cash. The Philippines I came across some questionable stuff, but that was due to extreme poverty. South and Central America were not quite as above board as Europe. Frankly, America is the worst, and that’s why Americans have these strange overly negative views of sex work. Our laws make it dangerous and thus dangerous people are attracted to it.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    Human trafficking is it's own problem, it's a constant. It would be rendered a moot point if laws were permissive enough to allow sex workers to organize in such a way that they could operate under high quality conditions, e.g. reputable brothels. The foreign mob who traffics would then have to compete with institutions that have a reputation among the populace for good working conditions. The issues surrounding drugs are similar. Narco states and mob control don't disappear overnight from legalization, but the increase in legitimate avenues takes over their market share over time. Even in countries were laws are relatively more permissive, operations are relegated to the streets, and the Nordic Model has resulted in terrible working conditions.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      >The foreign mob who traffics would then have to compete with institutions that have a reputation among the populace for good working conditions. If the brothel organization or the .gov adds too much overhead cost there will be ample room for the criminals' overhead. Weed is an example of this. The .gov couldn't resist taxing the crap out of it so there's still a black market.
      - slothtrop 5y ago
        Of course there's still a black market for marijuana. There's a black market for tobacco and liquor too. But it will be reduced to a specter of what it was.
    - bart_spoon 5y ago
      > Human trafficking is it's own problem, it's a constant. This isn't necessarily true though. Research has shown that increasing legalization for sex work leads to both more "reputable" sex work and more sex trafficking.
      - slothtrop 5y ago
        The research doesn't show that it "scales" with legalization, it shows that quasi-legalization results in more increases in traffic than full prohibition. That's not surprising.
  - commandlinefan 5y ago
    > problems with human trafficking But that's different - kidnapping is not a victimless crime, and human trafficking is investigated and prosecuted entirely differently.
  - Karsteski 5y ago
    Human trafficking is an actual crime and should be worked on. Doesn't mean someone doing what they want with their own body should be criminalized.
    - GPerson 5y ago
      What if legalizing prostitution has the secondary effect of greatly increasing the amount human trafficking, which the previous poster seems to be suggesting is the case in Germany? Wouldn’t making prostitution legal be the opposite of working on human trafficking then?
      - Karsteski 5y ago
        Address the actual crime, and not the result of a part of society. Would you also like fast food and sugar-filled foods to be made illegal because they directly lead to millions of early deaths and cost large amounts of money to healthcare?
        GPerson 5y ago
        If the result of banning unhealthy fast food is the saving of millions lives and massive healthcare cost reduction then I would support it. I assume different, necessarily healthier, restaurants would fill the void, so they wouldn’t be missed. I’m not sure why you would think otherwise. You’re talking to someone who clearly prioritizes personal agency less than overall well-being or positive outcome in certain cases.
- rightbyte 5y ago
  > just a set of antiquated laws The law is from 1999 and prostitution was not illegal before it.
- Mediterraneo10 5y ago
  There is a strand of feminism that holds that women should have the right to work as sex workers, because women should have their own agency, yet at the same time men should at least be shamed – if not prosecuted – for recourse to sex workers. In this view, men’s use of sex workers is objectifying the female body, and on a societal scale that is not so straightforwardly a "victimless crime". In the modern era, libertarianism quickly breaks down when certain demographics feel grievances.
  - Flow 5y ago
    And in all that mess everyone keeps forgetting that there are plenty of men and trans persons that sell sex.
- 2rsf 5y ago
  so you are in favor of legalizing prostitution?
  - danbruc 5y ago
    Why should prostitution be illegal?
    - creamytaco 5y ago
      Human trafficking. Prostitution is a lucrative racket for organized crime groups and unlike drug legalization, making it legal makes it _easier_ for organized crime to control it. The legalization of prostitution in Austria resulted in a greater increase in illegal sex work: “It indirectly supports the spreading of the illegal market in the sex industry,” the report concluded. “Organized crime has flourished and increased its influence in the sex industry.” https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/2005/360488/IPOL-JOIN_ET(2005)360488_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/20...
      - danbruc 5y ago
        Then crack down on human trafficking. Making something illegal that should not be illegal to solve a different issue should be one of the last options, not the first one.
        creamytaco 5y ago
        Decisions should be made and laws passed based on real-world projected efficacy and data-driven feedback, not wishful thinking.
        2rsf 5y ago
        I haven't seen any data yet, what's the percentage of human trafficking prostitutes? how many prostitutes are forced to work and haven't chosen that? what's the violence rate toward prostitutes (even the linked reddit channel shows not insignificant number)? I am aware that some women are fully aware of what they are doing, and won't regret it but how many don't?
- dalbasal 5y ago
  >>antiquated laws ...Rejuvenated. These are new. There's a new common ground around puritanism. The philosophical underpinnings have changed. Women's rights are, ostensibly, protected while the client side is criminalalised. The reason for the laws is no longer "public morals," it's consent. However, we arrive at more or less the same place. Increasingly, bishops and feminists find common ground on these issues... Imo, even legalization isn't enough. We need normalisation. While prostition is marginalized and ostrecized, sex workers will be at the bottom of the pyramid.
  - 3np 5y ago
    Yup. 1999,to be precise.
  - yanderekko 5y ago
    Bravo. This is the natural product of a culture that paradoxically wants to be sex positive for women but also sex negative for men. The outcomes are surprisingly similar to what happens to a culture that's sex negative for women and sex positive for men.
    - wonderwonder 5y ago
      I wonder how much day to day violence would be reduced if prostitution was normalized. How much violence is a result of internalized sexual frustration without an outlet.
      - Y-Bopinator 5y ago
        Implying you can't just masturbate and need to use women like a toilet
      - eloff 5y ago
        I would hazard a guess that it wouldn't improve. The kinds of people involved in violence are overwhelmingly poor, young males. This is not a group that cares about laws or cultural norms. They lack the money to pay for sex workers, they don't have cultural hangups about it. They lack the money, education, and human decency to maintain a girlfriend relationship. Which is to say they're not bad people because they're sexually frustrated. They're sexually frustrated because they're bad people. Which can be a negative feedback cycle.
- temp8964 5y ago
  There is no absolute acceptance of "using their bodies as they see fit" or "my body my rules". It is just a made up rule no civil society accepts. Otherwise people can walk nakedly everywhere they want. There is simply not any constitutional right like that. What is similar is that you can't do everything you want in your own house, like experimenting on bombs or making drugs, etc. I am not totally against sex work. I am just pointing out the reasoning is flawed.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >there should still be regulations around the commercialization of a vice. Why is getting laid a vice? Or is it the "paying money to skip the BS" that's the vice?
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    It's a painfully frequent strawman/red herring, up there with "weed is just a plant", "all gun owners want to do is protect their families". I think it's useful to assume that not everyone who disagrees with you is malicious and/or insane, and hence their argument can't be condensed into something obviously false or indefensible.
    - Karsteski 5y ago
      See, the thing is, is that I do find it malicious if someone wants to tell me what to do with myself. I am very much in favour of personal autonomy above other people's morals or ethics that they feel the need to legislate onto everyone else, assuming no one is hurt in the process. As much as I don't like that people eat/smoke/work themselves to death, I don't want a government having the ability to go and criminalize such things.
      - temp8964 5y ago
        Yeah. I have the same philosophy. The thing is that, other than libertarians, nobody really agree with this philosophy. Especially the left, who loves the big government and hates libertarians to guts, sometimes suddenly pick a fundamentally libertarian position like this. This is just totally hypocrisy.
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  There's an interesting theory that opposition to prostitution by other women is partially fueled by seeing seeing sex workers as "scabs", giving a resource away too easily in a way that devalues the artificial scarcity the others think it's "supposed" to have, taking away "negotiating power" in dating.
- devmunchies 5y ago
  > victimless crimes there should still be regulations around the commercialization of a vice. sex billboards and youtube ads would definitely not be victimless.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  Nope. These particular laws are tailored to suppress coerced prostitution, which is rather the norm than the exception when prostitution is legal. Unfortunately, when prostitution is legal it is impossible to tell coercion apart from consent. Sweden errs on the side of protecting the victims. It also means that "honest, voluntary" sex-workers have a much harder time while not technically committing a crime or being exploited. But the laws are not designed to owe those prostitutes a living from sex-work, they are designed to be able to suppress exploitation, and it actually works.
  - esyir 5y ago
    >Nope. These particular laws are tailored to suppress coerced prostitution, which is rather the norm than the exception when prostitution is legal. You'd really have to give good data to support this claim. Specifically, you'll have to prove that the majority of prostitution under a legal system is coerced. And I'm adding an addendum here, a level of control equal to or lower than the standard job doesn't count. I.e. I'm not coerced in which I have to work to feed myself. That goes against what people generally define as coercion here.
    - bayesian_horse 5y ago
      You are underestimating how painful and denigrating sex work is for women, especially in the lower price segments, even without abuse, which is widespread. To believe this is a voluntary choice of work, you need to assume these women have no other options. Which is ridiculous, as both Sweden and Germany have a social welfare system that values dignity. No, you don't have to hurt yourself just to get fed. If a john visits a prostitute, and there is a chance that prostitute has been forced, at what level of chance does he become a rapist and at what level should he not be criminally liable? 90%? 50%? 1%? Point is: Neither the john nor the police can meaningfully tell the difference, and even a significant amount of forced sex labor is worse than prohibiting all prostitution.
      - esyir 5y ago
        All I'm asking you is to back up your claim that a majority of sex work in these regions is coercive.that's a huge claim to make that strongly undermines the typical counterargument that legalisation enables their protection. It is also a claim that needs to be supported.
wodenokoto 5y ago
https://Old.reddit.com/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_witchhunt_for_fssw_in_sweden_the/ https://Old.reddit.com/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongo... Should work on mobile. “Normal” Reddit restricts mobile users of a lot of features, like limiting comments you can read, and access to adult content. Sometimes they restrict the entire page. The restrictions seems to be constantly a/b tested or just applied arbitrarily. Old.Reddit.com is the old desktop site. The layout is less mobile friendly but it’s faster and not restricted.
- bovine3dom 5y ago
  i.reddit.com is the old mobile site :)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fiestaman 5y ago
  Try https://js4.red/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_witchhunt_for_fssw_in_sweden_the/ https://js4.red/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_wit... For a good mobile-friendly alt-reddit site.
screye 5y ago
This is one of the most delicate and hard to legislate for things in modern society. 'My body my rules' works well for individuals, but the govt. makes laws for various 'peoples'. It is incredibly difficult to make access to prostitution easier without causing aftershocks among other social phenomena. (Trafficking, Abuse, Laundering) If anything, this sounds like the Swedish Govt. making prostitution 'illegal', but protecting the sex workers by making it hard for them to be criminally liable. Rather, the ones associated with them, and the ones who seek it are explicitly targeted. As of this moment and a millenium preceding it, society has considered sex and all relationships involved in it to be of a special type. The standard rules of law, capitalism, trauma, romance, et al. fall apart once sex is added to the conversation. We cannot 'normalize' sex work, if sex itself is not normalized. By normalized, I mean that it occupies a space in society that is no different from any other activity. It means treating sexual assault like assault, sexual harassments like a rude remark and trafficking as Qatar style indentured labor. I know I sound a little 'satanic panic-y' in this comment, but to trivialize the sex and the difficulty of legislating for it, is a mistake mankind makes at its own peril.
- 71a54xd 5y ago
  It's interesting how more and more cases of women being kidnapped and forced to sell explicit content via OnlyFans[0] have started to surface recently. I personally don't have any objection to sex work, however it's not hard to see why sex work in certain forms poses an existential risk to a society or would be seen as such by a government. [0] - https://goodwordnews.com/florida-man-accused-of-kidnapping-woman-forcing-her-to-join-onlyfans/ https://goodwordnews.com/florida-man-accused-of-kidnapping-w...
  - screye 5y ago
    > personally don't have any objection to sex work, however it's not hard to see why sex work in certain forms poses an existential risk to a society That is pretty much my stance too.
- sidlls 5y ago
  It is incredibly difficult to make access to prostitution easier without causing aftershocks among other social phenomena. (Trafficking, Abuse, Laundering) Historically, making something legal tends to reduce illicit behaviors like trafficking, abuse, and laundering. What makes sex work different from these things? Society's "special" treatment of sex isn't uniform, nor is it that special.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
Meanwhile in Canada the concern is about some sex workers offering insurance receipts. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/massage-therapists-regulation-sexual-services-1.6066588 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/massage-therapists-regulation... AFAICT The laws in Canada are similar to that described for Sweden, but I don't think they are enforced as strongly. I could be very wrong though.
DubiousPusher 5y ago
I see a bunch of people linking legalized sex work with a rise in trafficking. Is there any quality statistical evidence for that or is this just a foregone conclusion?
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  There is plausible evidence that's the case: https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/ https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-... However, I don't think it's right to use that evidence to shut down discussion. We should use it as a data point on how to strike the best balance between protecting sex workers and preventing trafficking.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  There isn't, because there is no true legalized prostitution (Germany comes close). The "Nordic Model" only partially decriminalizes sex work (and criminalizes sale), and has resulted in raids and poor working conditions for sex workers. Full legalization, including for auxiliary services like a brothel, would allow workers to organize and improve working conditions, therefore rendering trafficking a moot point as they would have to compete with institutions with good reputation. We already reach similar conclusions with issues pertaining to hard drugs and mob control, but somehow things would be magically different with prostitution. For instance we know that legalization of certain previously prohibited substances has not eradicated mob control overnight, and in some cases they may have increased profits in the early stages as the market has not structurally changed much. As people move to govt-regulated substances, the narcos lose out.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Is your criticism on Germany that the licensed and regulated framework creates a separate illegal tier? Or that municipalities in Germany can more strictly outlaw it anyway? Something else?
    - whitexn--g28h 5y ago
yzombinator 5y ago
Interesting how a choke point is that Sweden doesn't use cash anymore: https://old.reddit.com/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_witchhunt_for_fssw_in_sweden_the/gwbhti9/ https://old.reddit.com/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongo...
ta1234567890 5y ago
Alternative link: https://teddit.net/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_witchhunt_for_fssw_in_sweden_the/ https://teddit.net/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_... The posted link, at least on mobile, will try to force you to use the Reddit app to view the content. Btw, teddit.net is a great alternative interface for Reddit.
- thih9 5y ago
  > Btw, teddit.net is a great alternative interface for Reddit. I’m surprised how well it works and how few changes were needed to provide a big improvement in UX.
- fiestaman 5y ago
  You should try https://js4.red/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_witchhunt_for_fssw_in_sweden_the/ https://js4.red/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_wit... as well. IMO it's better than teddit, as it allows commenting.
JackPoach 5y ago
This may be a stupid question, but why not move to Netherlands or Germany and work there?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- the_other 5y ago
  It's a stupid question. "Why not move away from your friends, social circles, health and legal systems you (ideally) know how to use, family, home, and professional network in order to start from scratch in one of the most physically and emotionally demanding industries, just because your customers aren't labelled criminals there?"
  - saiya-jin 5y ago
    TBH, the first part of your statement is exactly how modern brain drain from poorer -> richer countries is happening and will keep happening. Rich countries are more than happy in general, getting educated young population for free. And the second part is definitely true at least in Europe, where western part is swarmed with ladies from eastern part for many reasons, this being one of them.
  - biztos 5y ago
    If it’s a stupid question, nobody told the EU. https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=457 https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=457 “Better pay” has brought lots of computer programmers, construction workers, and yes, prostitutes from one EU country to another, consistently for a long time now. Try finding a plumber in Budapest. “My clients risk jail and I can’t rent an apartment” seems like much stronger motivation than “pays double my already pretty good wage.”
only_as_i_fall 5y ago
I think the discourse around prostitution laws sometimes gets confused. In my view, the main reason for making prostitution legal is to allow victims of trafficking and sex crimes to seek justice against their abusers without themselves being prosecuted. This doesn't mean that prostitution isn't still a negative and that we shouldn't try to eliminate it where possible. I guess to be specific I think the police trying to expand anti-pimping laws to classify anyone who does business with a prostitute as a pimp are clearly detrimental to the well being of sex workers, but I don't think laws which discourage men from buying sex to begin with are necessarily more harmful than helpful.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > In my view, the main reason for making prostitution legal is to allow victims of trafficking and sex crimes to seek justice against their abusers without themselves being prosecuted. This doesn't mean that prostitution isn't still a negative and that we shouldn't try to eliminate it where possible. And that makes the police behavior in the OP make much more sense: the goal of legalized prostitution (and criminalizing all related activities) wasn't to make sex work legal, it was only to reduce the leverage traffickers have over the trafficked.
  - only_as_i_fall 5y ago
    Right, but clearly in some cases (if this post is accurate) the police have managed to turn these laws around and still use them to terrorize sex workers which defeats the purpose as it risks pushing these women underground again. It's a tough problem...
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > the police have managed to turn these laws around and still use them to terrorize sex workers The OP isn't describing sex workers being "terrorized," it's describing people not wanting to associate with them because of the legal peril of supporting prostitution. > which defeats the purpose as it risks pushing these women underground again. I don't see any incentive for these women to go "underground" because they are in no legal peril themselves. The simple solution the ostracism is to stop being a prostitute and get a different job, which is probably what the law was intended to encourage. > It's a tough problem... The kind of strict-enforcement situation the OP describes actually seems like a tidy to solution to the problem of prohibiting prostitution without crating a trap for women in a trafficking situation. The key seems to be a broad interpretation of what "profiting from prostitution" is, so landlords, hotels, boyfriends, etc. won't want to take the risk. That replaces the legal pressure to get prostitutes to stop with social pressure.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
We expect men to pay for dates. We expect men to be the primary breadwinner in a marriage. Marriage is the only contract that can be annulled if it's not consummated with an act of sex. And then we vilify sex work and torture sex workers on the theory that sex in exchange for money is A Bad Thing. Our logic is idiotic and our world is broken.
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  > Marriage is the only contract that can be annulled if it's not consummated with an act of sex. This is no longer true. Most countries now have no fault divorce laws so withholding sex has no impact on whether or not you can divorce.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - standardUser 5y ago
    Though the fact that this was the case in recent memory tells us a lot. Rape within marriage wasn't even considered a crime in all states until 1993.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      Meta rant: Every day there's probably a few thousand morons on the internet clutching their pearls about how you theoretically don't need car insurance in a few states despite the reality that anyone who can afford to opt out is better served by buying insurance and the only people who opt out have very, very, niche use cases. You are using a a similar presentation of the truth but not the whole truth in your comment. States have widely varying laws. Just because something isn't specifically illegal doesn't mean some existing clause wasn't used to prosecute it. If a state doesn't have a lot of frequency of some event it will likely not develop specific laws, it will just use existing laws and precedents in weird ways. For example CA has all sorts of laws about wells and water in order to mediate disputes. Arkansas for example simply doesn't have those laws because those issues aren't as common and the volume is low enough for those issues to go through different parts of the legal system without causing much problem. Saying X wasn't illegal in every state until Y year is about as meaningful as saying Z is known to the state of CA to cause cancer for any value of X and Y you could pick.
mc32 5y ago
There has always been tension amongst women’s rights advocates regarding sex work. One faction held (paraphrasing) that sex work was liberating (economically), the other that sex work was denigrating and exploitative (sex objects).
- jandrese 5y ago
  This is such a well known phenomenon that there is a shorthand for it: SWERF. Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist. The core of the belief is that if there is a financial transaction taking place then it is not possible for the worker to give meaningful consent so all Johns are rapists. Thankfully I think this is a fringe viewpoint, you won't find too many people like this in the real world. They tend to stay on the Internet where they can be maximally amplified.
  - yanderekko 5y ago
    >Thankfully I think this is a fringe viewpoint, you won't find too many people like this in the real world. The main problem is not SWERFs, it's that even sex-positive feminists tend to want to "normalize sex work" only from the production angle but not the consumption angle. This means that the rebuttal to SWERFs is not "sex work isn't exploitative", but "capitalism is exploitative and sex work is often the best option given the circumstances." Which leads to passivity at best towards attempts to shame/punish men who patronize sex workers.
    - mc32 5y ago
      That’s a great point you bring up. (diff attitudes toward supply side vs demand side from advocates) I have not looked into the attitudes toward sex work on the other side of the iron curtain. That’s an interesting topic. Undoubtedly it existed, but in the absence of capitalism perhaps it could not be considered exploitative.
    - DarkWiiPlayer 5y ago
      That thought can really be generalised; the problem I tend to have with feminism is how it conveniently forgets to address the male side of many problems until it's specifically pointed out, only to be acknowledged briefly and then put on a shelf again.
doggodaddo78 5y ago
Scapegoat and crucify everyone with little or no power. If that's not a Nazi Godwin's law exception, I don't know what is.
daneel_w 5y ago
Swedish moralism in a nutshell, really. It's a different topic, but "we" apply the same counterproductive "do-gooder" moralism to drug use as well - the entire field suffers the exact same problems with and by the law, no matter what, no matter who, no matter why.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  It's never made sense to me with drugs either. Dealers are scum but recreational users are just exercising bad judgement. One side of the transaction has 100% of the culpability for a transaction that's voluntary on all sides. Chris Rock (I think) even has a bit on it "no one ever sold you drugs, you went and bought them".
  - biztos 5y ago
    What about dealers that only supply these recreational users? Is there something about this “bad” judgement that puts it in a different class than drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or supersizing your daily McMeal?
  - cylde_frog 5y ago
    "Dealers are scum" makes no sense. Is the college guy selling weed and mushrooms to his friends "scum"? Maybe the guy that gives out free samples of meth or heroin to get people addicted is bad but that sort of generalising is why drugs are illegal in the first place.
Workaccount2 5y ago
Someone recently pointed out to me the parallels between prostitution and labor. And I kind of can't shake it out of my head now, since I feel you can draw pretty straight lines from one to the other. Both are selling your body for (relatively) high pay. Both have you burn out usually by your mid-late 40's. Both are dangerous work. Both have high degree's of human trafficking*. Both subsist mostly on young naïve workers. Both have no education requirements. Both have success predicated greatly on genetics (strength vs. looks). Both are the oldest professions in the world. Really the most substantial difference I can see is in how society values men vs. women, dispensable vs. protected. Which is of course the same way humans valued men and women for pretty much all of history. *Trafficking is tricky because in the US it's basically if you do (illegal) sex work and have a boss you are being trafficked. Basically everyone in construction would be "trafficked" then, so instead I go with a high degree of desperate illegal immigrants who will do really any work (ripe for exploitation). Edit: I should note that my take is that prostitution should be legalized, regulated, unionized, and not stigmatized. It should be on the same social rung as labor.
- seph-reed 5y ago
  I think the one big emotional difference which has put prostitution in a separate category is that it kind of overlaps with drugs and addiction. Sex releases happy chemicals, just like drugs. Nobody is getting hooked on paying people to pour concrete. There's the saying "if you look for yellow cars, you'll find them." I think your assumption that the difference was gender is just a product of the times: you were looking for that answer. Even though male prostitutes are illegal too. And there's clearly an emotional difference between having sex with someone, and having them mow your lawn.
  - float4 5y ago
    > Nobody is getting hooked on paying people to pour concrete. So you think sex work is illegal / made very impractical in so many countries to protect the customers?
    - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
VYaQ5OGY2NfqnTA 5y ago
Consenting adults should have the right to exchange money for sex. Any speech or laws attacking this right is an attack against our autonomy over our own sexual preferences. I truly hope that by the time my daughter is an adult, prostitution will be legal and protected from discrimination.
jacquesm 5y ago
Sweden is regressing, they were much more progressive than this in the past. Which is really something to take note of: change doesn't necessarily mean progress, what goes up can and will go down if you don't keep fighting for it.
maverick-iceman 5y ago
I am now curious about what is so special about New Zealand. It's the only country when prostitution is completely decriminalized and there is no zoning even. What is going on in Kiwis minds? How are they such a unique exception? And is it organic or was somehow put on high priority list given all Libertarians tech people from the US moving/seeking refuge in NZ? Is there still social stigma around it even though it's completely decriminalized? Some Kiwi feel free to answer
- zhengyi13 5y ago
  Not Kiwi. Just wanted to point out that distilling at home as a hobby is also (uniquely?) legal in NZ as well. So this is not necessarily an isolated attitude on their part.
  - maverick-iceman 5y ago
    Maybe it has to do with lack of police force? So no-nonesense solution is to avoid them wasting time for useless stuff? Many useless things such as the war on drugs, alcohol and prostitution are done (in my opinion) to give the millions of cops around the world a sense of purpose and avoid a particular demographic which is prone to aggression (young males) to have a lack of purpose which will inevitably cause social tensions
  - biztos 5y ago
    I don’t know about the legality, but home distilling is the norm and not the exception in rural Hungary, Serbia, and plenty of other European countries.
- bloak 5y ago
  Is New Zealand much different from Germany in this respect? Or the Netherlands?
  - maverick-iceman 5y ago
    In NZ being a sex worker is a job like any other. Sex workers don't need a place to be affiliated with to do their job. The only extra step is that if they advertise online they must do it on one of the half dozen authorized portals which are all free . This is very important! Because in the NED and GER (at least in theory) the flow of money is client > brothel > sex worker. There is some sort of middleman As of now this is a very fringe problem even in the US and Europe because a client and a sex worker can agree to see each other informally , but if the powers that be decide to get rid of cash, then it's all the way back to barter. With bags and heels and purses which client bring as a tribute in exchange for sex, that would cause the inability for the sex worker to gather meaningful capital and get out of the trade when she reached her level of desired wealth. Heels, bags and purses are essentially worthless on secondary markets
seph-reed 5y ago
Just a semantics thing, but I do think it's important to be able to distinguish between oppression from public laws and oppression from public mobs. IMO, a "witch hunt" is denoted by the fact that everything is decided by "mob justice." No court it involved, and basically a bunch of angry people looking to take their insecurities out are the medium. On the other hand, having laws which oppress you falls much more into the "oppression" category.
- xgulfie 5y ago
  The thing that comes to mind with the phrase "witch hunt" is the Salem Witch Trials. Which absolutely did involve the courts.
bayesian_horse 5y ago
The point of these laws is to sacrifice honest, voluntary, consensual prostitution in order to be able to prosecute and suppress involuntary, exploitative prostitution. While I guess it would be preferable the prosecutors would use some more discretion to actually go after cases of clearer exploitation, I still think the situation in Sweden is preferable to that here in Germany, where forced prostitution is blooming in the shadow of a largely legalized sex trade. It is near impossible for police to tell if prostitutes are being coerced. And a large part of all prostitutes probably are coerced or exploited, to some extent, even if the situation is more complicated (like drugs, homelessness, psychiatric issues etc).
- camillomiller 5y ago
  This is a great point for fully legalized prostitution, not just half-assed solutions like “FKK spas” and such.
  - biztos 5y ago
    “FKK” is German for “nudist/naturist” and means Free Body Culture, in case anyone was wondering. Most spas in Germany expect everyone to be naked, but don’t involve anything sexual at all. Large scale brothels use the term as a transparently disingenuous way of pretending the sex isn’t part of the business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikörperkultur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikörperkultur
  - vmception 5y ago
    How are FKK spas (the ones listed as brothels on google maps) half assed solutions for legalized prostitution, they are brothels grander than anything seen on Game of Thrones Their sites are pretty clear about what they are and they are the registered institutions for that sex trade that the registered sex workers work in, if their area requires them to operate out of a brothel.
- username90 5y ago
  Can't you say that buying prostitution is illegal unless you have registered with authorities as a prostitute? That way it is really hard to force people since you'd have to force them through the entire registration process, and police can just do routine checks to see if people are properly registered.
b0rsuk 5y ago
I wonder if Swedish law affects camgirls. You can show your body from the safety of your home, and make sure only people outside Sweden can see you. Either that, or stream on twitch in a bikini.
anovikov 5y ago
On a flip side, they don't have much or any actual pimping exactly because of these (arguably excessive) policies. Which is a gateway crime because a pimp can do a lot of other things.
vmception 5y ago
The “Nordic model” is stupid and I think people are dumb for looking towards it Just expand labor protections for workers and regulated the trade so that there is consumer protection as well.
makx 5y ago
I find it a bit strange that she's decrying that the laws makes people afraid to associate with her, but she's perfectly fine with the fact that her clients/customers are criminalized. It appears to mike like some cognitive dissonance of her to think that her clients are justifiably "bad" by buying her services, but her selling these services is okay. Maybe I'm naive, but if my customers would face criminal charges for buying my products, I'd speak out on behalf of my customers or (if I really feel they should not buy such stuff) I'd stop selling it to them.

200 points by barry-cotter 5y ago

Yep, just a set of antiquated laws that punish people for using their bodies as they see fit. Worst part is that they do the exact opposite of what they are supposed to do, which is to keep citizens safe(ideally). I'm glad people are slowly coming around to the idea that victimless crimes should not be a thing, whether prostitution or drug crimes. It saddens me that there were millions of lives ruined in the process, but that can be said for so many puritanical rules that all countries still have in place.

rerx 5y ago
> victimless crimes I am not sure if it is really that clear cut. Germany has pretty liberal laws around prostitution and there are massive problems with human trafficking. Many women do not do the work out of their own volition.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Clamping down on sex workers as described in the Reddit post makes human trafficking more likely, though, as victims of it can't trust the authorities will help them.
  - svieira 5y ago
    Isn't that why laws should go after the seller and the purchaser not the product (especially in humans-are-the-product situations like this)?
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      The Reddit post in question pretty clearly describes the consequences of that approach; very substantial impacts on the sex worker.
    - admax88q 5y ago
      if your manager and customer are criminals, whats are the odds youll be treated well?
  - rerx 5y ago
    Yes, I don't think the "Nordic model" is a good final answer. But I am not sure if there are more problems with human trafficking in Sweden than in Germany (of course geography plays a role, too).
  - 2rsf 5y ago
    (not an expert, just Swedish) it is not illegal to be prostitute in Sweden, you are not allowed to buy it. So I guess there is no problem for a human trafficking victim to go to the police since they don't break any law themselves
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      Read the Reddit post we're discussing. It's made quite clear that that's wonderful in theory, but not so great in practice.
      - zozbot234 5y ago
        Sex workers are not made criminally liable in Sweden. All the Reddit post is saying is that outside people will not want to be associated with their business - which makes sense if every sex worker might possibly be a trafficked sex slave and no one can feasibly tell the difference beyond reasonable doubt.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        Again, that's the point - that not being criminally liable doesn't prevent the authorities from treating them like criminals and making their lives difficult.
        zozbot234 5y ago
        Ah, but are the authorities treating them like criminals or possible sex slaves? The Reddit post doesn't give any evidence for the former over the latter.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        #4 and #6 in particular sound targeted at the sex worker more than an attempt at preventing pimping/slavery.
        5y ago
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    According to the data we have, that is not true. From Harvard Law School [1]: > Countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited. The scale effect of legalizing prostitution, i.e. expansion of the market, outweighs the substitution effect, where legal sex workers are favored over illegal workers. On average, countries with legalized prostitution report a greater incidence of human trafficking inflows. There's a lot more nuance to it if you read the article or the actual study. I am in general for legalizing sex work, but if we want to protect sex workers we can't pretend legalization is a panacea. [1] https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/ https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-...
    - slothtrop 5y ago
      This is out of date. Working conditions are also better in Germany, and could stand to keep improving. EDIT: here are some recent improvements in Germany according to the wiki: The Criminal Code was amended in October 2016 to criminalise clients of trafficked or coerced prostitutes. This change was led by Social Democrat Eva Högl. The Prostituiertenschutzgesetz (Prostitutes Protection Act) came into force in July 2017. Amongst the provision of the Act are registration of prostitutes, annual health checks and mandatory condom use. Brothel operators also need to register and prove their 'good conduct' before registration. The legislation also places restrictions on advertising. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Germany#Legal_situation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Germany#Legal_... As patrons stick with the well-regulated outlets, they won't fund the competing mob-controlled ones, and trafficking will slow. The conditions were just too easy to exploit at the outset.
      - jakelazaroff 5y ago
        Feel free to respond with a more recent study! I would be very happy to be proven wrong here. Response to edit: I’m glad Germany is making progressive changes, but I’d like to see data (or at least firsthand anecdotes) that the amended laws are working as intended.
- jascii 5y ago
  Is there more human trafficking, or is the human trafficking more visible under the liberal laws?
- mtnGoat 5y ago
  Many? What percentage I wonder? Through my last job for over a decade I had access to thousands of sex workers, many in Germany. I will attest, on everything I own, not a single one was doing it against her will. I do not doubt there are some being forced, but this idea that it’s a large percentage… I can not get behind. I’ve been on the inside and never saw anything remotely like it. And since I wasn’t a client I spoke openly with the girls and discussed things like this with them. Most were from Eastern Europe and we’re just stacking cash. The Philippines I came across some questionable stuff, but that was due to extreme poverty. South and Central America were not quite as above board as Europe. Frankly, America is the worst, and that’s why Americans have these strange overly negative views of sex work. Our laws make it dangerous and thus dangerous people are attracted to it.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  Human trafficking is it's own problem, it's a constant. It would be rendered a moot point if laws were permissive enough to allow sex workers to organize in such a way that they could operate under high quality conditions, e.g. reputable brothels. The foreign mob who traffics would then have to compete with institutions that have a reputation among the populace for good working conditions. The issues surrounding drugs are similar. Narco states and mob control don't disappear overnight from legalization, but the increase in legitimate avenues takes over their market share over time. Even in countries were laws are relatively more permissive, operations are relegated to the streets, and the Nordic Model has resulted in terrible working conditions.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >The foreign mob who traffics would then have to compete with institutions that have a reputation among the populace for good working conditions. If the brothel organization or the .gov adds too much overhead cost there will be ample room for the criminals' overhead. Weed is an example of this. The .gov couldn't resist taxing the crap out of it so there's still a black market.
    - slothtrop 5y ago
      Of course there's still a black market for marijuana. There's a black market for tobacco and liquor too. But it will be reduced to a specter of what it was.
  - bart_spoon 5y ago
    > Human trafficking is it's own problem, it's a constant. This isn't necessarily true though. Research has shown that increasing legalization for sex work leads to both more "reputable" sex work and more sex trafficking.
    - slothtrop 5y ago
      The research doesn't show that it "scales" with legalization, it shows that quasi-legalization results in more increases in traffic than full prohibition. That's not surprising.
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  > problems with human trafficking But that's different - kidnapping is not a victimless crime, and human trafficking is investigated and prosecuted entirely differently.
- Karsteski 5y ago
  Human trafficking is an actual crime and should be worked on. Doesn't mean someone doing what they want with their own body should be criminalized.
  - GPerson 5y ago
    What if legalizing prostitution has the secondary effect of greatly increasing the amount human trafficking, which the previous poster seems to be suggesting is the case in Germany? Wouldn’t making prostitution legal be the opposite of working on human trafficking then?
    - Karsteski 5y ago
      Address the actual crime, and not the result of a part of society. Would you also like fast food and sugar-filled foods to be made illegal because they directly lead to millions of early deaths and cost large amounts of money to healthcare?
      - GPerson 5y ago
        If the result of banning unhealthy fast food is the saving of millions lives and massive healthcare cost reduction then I would support it. I assume different, necessarily healthier, restaurants would fill the void, so they wouldn’t be missed. I’m not sure why you would think otherwise. You’re talking to someone who clearly prioritizes personal agency less than overall well-being or positive outcome in certain cases.
rightbyte 5y ago
> just a set of antiquated laws The law is from 1999 and prostitution was not illegal before it.
Mediterraneo10 5y ago
There is a strand of feminism that holds that women should have the right to work as sex workers, because women should have their own agency, yet at the same time men should at least be shamed – if not prosecuted – for recourse to sex workers. In this view, men’s use of sex workers is objectifying the female body, and on a societal scale that is not so straightforwardly a "victimless crime". In the modern era, libertarianism quickly breaks down when certain demographics feel grievances.
- Flow 5y ago
  And in all that mess everyone keeps forgetting that there are plenty of men and trans persons that sell sex.
2rsf 5y ago
so you are in favor of legalizing prostitution?
- danbruc 5y ago
  Why should prostitution be illegal?
  - creamytaco 5y ago
    Human trafficking. Prostitution is a lucrative racket for organized crime groups and unlike drug legalization, making it legal makes it _easier_ for organized crime to control it. The legalization of prostitution in Austria resulted in a greater increase in illegal sex work: “It indirectly supports the spreading of the illegal market in the sex industry,” the report concluded. “Organized crime has flourished and increased its influence in the sex industry.” https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/2005/360488/IPOL-JOIN_ET(2005)360488_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/20...
    - danbruc 5y ago
      Then crack down on human trafficking. Making something illegal that should not be illegal to solve a different issue should be one of the last options, not the first one.
      - creamytaco 5y ago
        Decisions should be made and laws passed based on real-world projected efficacy and data-driven feedback, not wishful thinking.
      - 2rsf 5y ago
        I haven't seen any data yet, what's the percentage of human trafficking prostitutes? how many prostitutes are forced to work and haven't chosen that? what's the violence rate toward prostitutes (even the linked reddit channel shows not insignificant number)? I am aware that some women are fully aware of what they are doing, and won't regret it but how many don't?
dalbasal 5y ago
>>antiquated laws ...Rejuvenated. These are new. There's a new common ground around puritanism. The philosophical underpinnings have changed. Women's rights are, ostensibly, protected while the client side is criminalalised. The reason for the laws is no longer "public morals," it's consent. However, we arrive at more or less the same place. Increasingly, bishops and feminists find common ground on these issues... Imo, even legalization isn't enough. We need normalisation. While prostition is marginalized and ostrecized, sex workers will be at the bottom of the pyramid.
- 3np 5y ago
  Yup. 1999,to be precise.
- yanderekko 5y ago
  Bravo. This is the natural product of a culture that paradoxically wants to be sex positive for women but also sex negative for men. The outcomes are surprisingly similar to what happens to a culture that's sex negative for women and sex positive for men.
  - wonderwonder 5y ago
    I wonder how much day to day violence would be reduced if prostitution was normalized. How much violence is a result of internalized sexual frustration without an outlet.
    - Y-Bopinator 5y ago
      Implying you can't just masturbate and need to use women like a toilet
    - eloff 5y ago
      I would hazard a guess that it wouldn't improve. The kinds of people involved in violence are overwhelmingly poor, young males. This is not a group that cares about laws or cultural norms. They lack the money to pay for sex workers, they don't have cultural hangups about it. They lack the money, education, and human decency to maintain a girlfriend relationship. Which is to say they're not bad people because they're sexually frustrated. They're sexually frustrated because they're bad people. Which can be a negative feedback cycle.
temp8964 5y ago
There is no absolute acceptance of "using their bodies as they see fit" or "my body my rules". It is just a made up rule no civil society accepts. Otherwise people can walk nakedly everywhere they want. There is simply not any constitutional right like that. What is similar is that you can't do everything you want in your own house, like experimenting on bombs or making drugs, etc. I am not totally against sex work. I am just pointing out the reasoning is flawed.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >there should still be regulations around the commercialization of a vice. Why is getting laid a vice? Or is it the "paying money to skip the BS" that's the vice?
- Y_Y 5y ago
  It's a painfully frequent strawman/red herring, up there with "weed is just a plant", "all gun owners want to do is protect their families". I think it's useful to assume that not everyone who disagrees with you is malicious and/or insane, and hence their argument can't be condensed into something obviously false or indefensible.
  - Karsteski 5y ago
    See, the thing is, is that I do find it malicious if someone wants to tell me what to do with myself. I am very much in favour of personal autonomy above other people's morals or ethics that they feel the need to legislate onto everyone else, assuming no one is hurt in the process. As much as I don't like that people eat/smoke/work themselves to death, I don't want a government having the ability to go and criminalize such things.
    - temp8964 5y ago
      Yeah. I have the same philosophy. The thing is that, other than libertarians, nobody really agree with this philosophy. Especially the left, who loves the big government and hates libertarians to guts, sometimes suddenly pick a fundamentally libertarian position like this. This is just totally hypocrisy.
jimmaswell 5y ago
There's an interesting theory that opposition to prostitution by other women is partially fueled by seeing seeing sex workers as "scabs", giving a resource away too easily in a way that devalues the artificial scarcity the others think it's "supposed" to have, taking away "negotiating power" in dating.
devmunchies 5y ago
> victimless crimes there should still be regulations around the commercialization of a vice. sex billboards and youtube ads would definitely not be victimless.
bayesian_horse 5y ago
Nope. These particular laws are tailored to suppress coerced prostitution, which is rather the norm than the exception when prostitution is legal. Unfortunately, when prostitution is legal it is impossible to tell coercion apart from consent. Sweden errs on the side of protecting the victims. It also means that "honest, voluntary" sex-workers have a much harder time while not technically committing a crime or being exploited. But the laws are not designed to owe those prostitutes a living from sex-work, they are designed to be able to suppress exploitation, and it actually works.
- esyir 5y ago
  >Nope. These particular laws are tailored to suppress coerced prostitution, which is rather the norm than the exception when prostitution is legal. You'd really have to give good data to support this claim. Specifically, you'll have to prove that the majority of prostitution under a legal system is coerced. And I'm adding an addendum here, a level of control equal to or lower than the standard job doesn't count. I.e. I'm not coerced in which I have to work to feed myself. That goes against what people generally define as coercion here.
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    You are underestimating how painful and denigrating sex work is for women, especially in the lower price segments, even without abuse, which is widespread. To believe this is a voluntary choice of work, you need to assume these women have no other options. Which is ridiculous, as both Sweden and Germany have a social welfare system that values dignity. No, you don't have to hurt yourself just to get fed. If a john visits a prostitute, and there is a chance that prostitute has been forced, at what level of chance does he become a rapist and at what level should he not be criminally liable? 90%? 50%? 1%? Point is: Neither the john nor the police can meaningfully tell the difference, and even a significant amount of forced sex labor is worse than prohibiting all prostitution.
    - esyir 5y ago
      All I'm asking you is to back up your claim that a majority of sex work in these regions is coercive.that's a huge claim to make that strongly undermines the typical counterargument that legalisation enables their protection. It is also a claim that needs to be supported.

wodenokoto 5y ago

https://Old.reddit.com/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_witchhunt_for_fssw_in_sweden_the/ https://Old.reddit.com/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongo... Should work on mobile. “Normal” Reddit restricts mobile users of a lot of features, like limiting comments you can read, and access to adult content. Sometimes they restrict the entire page. The restrictions seems to be constantly a/b tested or just applied arbitrarily. Old.Reddit.com is the old desktop site. The layout is less mobile friendly but it’s faster and not restricted.

bovine3dom 5y ago
i.reddit.com is the old mobile site :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fiestaman 5y ago
Try https://js4.red/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_witchhunt_for_fssw_in_sweden_the/ https://js4.red/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_wit... For a good mobile-friendly alt-reddit site.

screye 5y ago

This is one of the most delicate and hard to legislate for things in modern society. 'My body my rules' works well for individuals, but the govt. makes laws for various 'peoples'. It is incredibly difficult to make access to prostitution easier without causing aftershocks among other social phenomena. (Trafficking, Abuse, Laundering) If anything, this sounds like the Swedish Govt. making prostitution 'illegal', but protecting the sex workers by making it hard for them to be criminally liable. Rather, the ones associated with them, and the ones who seek it are explicitly targeted. As of this moment and a millenium preceding it, society has considered sex and all relationships involved in it to be of a special type. The standard rules of law, capitalism, trauma, romance, et al. fall apart once sex is added to the conversation. We cannot 'normalize' sex work, if sex itself is not normalized. By normalized, I mean that it occupies a space in society that is no different from any other activity. It means treating sexual assault like assault, sexual harassments like a rude remark and trafficking as Qatar style indentured labor. I know I sound a little 'satanic panic-y' in this comment, but to trivialize the sex and the difficulty of legislating for it, is a mistake mankind makes at its own peril.

71a54xd 5y ago
It's interesting how more and more cases of women being kidnapped and forced to sell explicit content via OnlyFans[0] have started to surface recently. I personally don't have any objection to sex work, however it's not hard to see why sex work in certain forms poses an existential risk to a society or would be seen as such by a government. [0] - https://goodwordnews.com/florida-man-accused-of-kidnapping-woman-forcing-her-to-join-onlyfans/ https://goodwordnews.com/florida-man-accused-of-kidnapping-w...
- screye 5y ago
  > personally don't have any objection to sex work, however it's not hard to see why sex work in certain forms poses an existential risk to a society That is pretty much my stance too.
sidlls 5y ago
It is incredibly difficult to make access to prostitution easier without causing aftershocks among other social phenomena. (Trafficking, Abuse, Laundering) Historically, making something legal tends to reduce illicit behaviors like trafficking, abuse, and laundering. What makes sex work different from these things? Society's "special" treatment of sex isn't uniform, nor is it that special.

bryanlarsen 5y ago

Meanwhile in Canada the concern is about some sex workers offering insurance receipts. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/massage-therapists-regulation-sexual-services-1.6066588 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/massage-therapists-regulation... AFAICT The laws in Canada are similar to that described for Sweden, but I don't think they are enforced as strongly. I could be very wrong though.

DubiousPusher 5y ago

I see a bunch of people linking legalized sex work with a rise in trafficking. Is there any quality statistical evidence for that or is this just a foregone conclusion?

jakelazaroff 5y ago
There is plausible evidence that's the case: https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/ https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-... However, I don't think it's right to use that evidence to shut down discussion. We should use it as a data point on how to strike the best balance between protecting sex workers and preventing trafficking.
slothtrop 5y ago
There isn't, because there is no true legalized prostitution (Germany comes close). The "Nordic Model" only partially decriminalizes sex work (and criminalizes sale), and has resulted in raids and poor working conditions for sex workers. Full legalization, including for auxiliary services like a brothel, would allow workers to organize and improve working conditions, therefore rendering trafficking a moot point as they would have to compete with institutions with good reputation. We already reach similar conclusions with issues pertaining to hard drugs and mob control, but somehow things would be magically different with prostitution. For instance we know that legalization of certain previously prohibited substances has not eradicated mob control overnight, and in some cases they may have increased profits in the early stages as the market has not structurally changed much. As people move to govt-regulated substances, the narcos lose out.
- vmception 5y ago
  Is your criticism on Germany that the licensed and regulated framework creates a separate illegal tier? Or that municipalities in Germany can more strictly outlaw it anyway? Something else?
  - whitexn--g28h 5y ago

yzombinator 5y ago

Interesting how a choke point is that Sweden doesn't use cash anymore: https://old.reddit.com/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_witchhunt_for_fssw_in_sweden_the/gwbhti9/ https://old.reddit.com/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongo...

ta1234567890 5y ago

Alternative link: https://teddit.net/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_witchhunt_for_fssw_in_sweden_the/ https://teddit.net/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_... The posted link, at least on mobile, will try to force you to use the Reddit app to view the content. Btw, teddit.net is a great alternative interface for Reddit.

thih9 5y ago
> Btw, teddit.net is a great alternative interface for Reddit. I’m surprised how well it works and how few changes were needed to provide a big improvement in UX.
fiestaman 5y ago
You should try https://js4.red/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_witchhunt_for_fssw_in_sweden_the/ https://js4.red/r/SexWorkers/comments/n11oqk/the_ongoing_wit... as well. IMO it's better than teddit, as it allows commenting.

JackPoach 5y ago

This may be a stupid question, but why not move to Netherlands or Germany and work there?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
the_other 5y ago
It's a stupid question. "Why not move away from your friends, social circles, health and legal systems you (ideally) know how to use, family, home, and professional network in order to start from scratch in one of the most physically and emotionally demanding industries, just because your customers aren't labelled criminals there?"
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  TBH, the first part of your statement is exactly how modern brain drain from poorer -> richer countries is happening and will keep happening. Rich countries are more than happy in general, getting educated young population for free. And the second part is definitely true at least in Europe, where western part is swarmed with ladies from eastern part for many reasons, this being one of them.
- biztos 5y ago
  If it’s a stupid question, nobody told the EU. https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=457 https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=457 “Better pay” has brought lots of computer programmers, construction workers, and yes, prostitutes from one EU country to another, consistently for a long time now. Try finding a plumber in Budapest. “My clients risk jail and I can’t rent an apartment” seems like much stronger motivation than “pays double my already pretty good wage.”

only_as_i_fall 5y ago

I think the discourse around prostitution laws sometimes gets confused. In my view, the main reason for making prostitution legal is to allow victims of trafficking and sex crimes to seek justice against their abusers without themselves being prosecuted. This doesn't mean that prostitution isn't still a negative and that we shouldn't try to eliminate it where possible. I guess to be specific I think the police trying to expand anti-pimping laws to classify anyone who does business with a prostitute as a pimp are clearly detrimental to the well being of sex workers, but I don't think laws which discourage men from buying sex to begin with are necessarily more harmful than helpful.

tablespoon 5y ago
> In my view, the main reason for making prostitution legal is to allow victims of trafficking and sex crimes to seek justice against their abusers without themselves being prosecuted. This doesn't mean that prostitution isn't still a negative and that we shouldn't try to eliminate it where possible. And that makes the police behavior in the OP make much more sense: the goal of legalized prostitution (and criminalizing all related activities) wasn't to make sex work legal, it was only to reduce the leverage traffickers have over the trafficked.
- only_as_i_fall 5y ago
  Right, but clearly in some cases (if this post is accurate) the police have managed to turn these laws around and still use them to terrorize sex workers which defeats the purpose as it risks pushing these women underground again. It's a tough problem...
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > the police have managed to turn these laws around and still use them to terrorize sex workers The OP isn't describing sex workers being "terrorized," it's describing people not wanting to associate with them because of the legal peril of supporting prostitution. > which defeats the purpose as it risks pushing these women underground again. I don't see any incentive for these women to go "underground" because they are in no legal peril themselves. The simple solution the ostracism is to stop being a prostitute and get a different job, which is probably what the law was intended to encourage. > It's a tough problem... The kind of strict-enforcement situation the OP describes actually seems like a tidy to solution to the problem of prohibiting prostitution without crating a trap for women in a trafficking situation. The key seems to be a broad interpretation of what "profiting from prostitution" is, so landlords, hotels, boyfriends, etc. won't want to take the risk. That replaces the legal pressure to get prostitutes to stop with social pressure.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

We expect men to pay for dates. We expect men to be the primary breadwinner in a marriage. Marriage is the only contract that can be annulled if it's not consummated with an act of sex. And then we vilify sex work and torture sex workers on the theory that sex in exchange for money is A Bad Thing. Our logic is idiotic and our world is broken.

lalaland1125 5y ago
> Marriage is the only contract that can be annulled if it's not consummated with an act of sex. This is no longer true. Most countries now have no fault divorce laws so withholding sex has no impact on whether or not you can divorce.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- standardUser 5y ago
  Though the fact that this was the case in recent memory tells us a lot. Rape within marriage wasn't even considered a crime in all states until 1993.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Meta rant: Every day there's probably a few thousand morons on the internet clutching their pearls about how you theoretically don't need car insurance in a few states despite the reality that anyone who can afford to opt out is better served by buying insurance and the only people who opt out have very, very, niche use cases. You are using a a similar presentation of the truth but not the whole truth in your comment. States have widely varying laws. Just because something isn't specifically illegal doesn't mean some existing clause wasn't used to prosecute it. If a state doesn't have a lot of frequency of some event it will likely not develop specific laws, it will just use existing laws and precedents in weird ways. For example CA has all sorts of laws about wells and water in order to mediate disputes. Arkansas for example simply doesn't have those laws because those issues aren't as common and the volume is low enough for those issues to go through different parts of the legal system without causing much problem. Saying X wasn't illegal in every state until Y year is about as meaningful as saying Z is known to the state of CA to cause cancer for any value of X and Y you could pick.

mc32 5y ago

There has always been tension amongst women’s rights advocates regarding sex work. One faction held (paraphrasing) that sex work was liberating (economically), the other that sex work was denigrating and exploitative (sex objects).

jandrese 5y ago
This is such a well known phenomenon that there is a shorthand for it: SWERF. Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist. The core of the belief is that if there is a financial transaction taking place then it is not possible for the worker to give meaningful consent so all Johns are rapists. Thankfully I think this is a fringe viewpoint, you won't find too many people like this in the real world. They tend to stay on the Internet where they can be maximally amplified.
- yanderekko 5y ago
  >Thankfully I think this is a fringe viewpoint, you won't find too many people like this in the real world. The main problem is not SWERFs, it's that even sex-positive feminists tend to want to "normalize sex work" only from the production angle but not the consumption angle. This means that the rebuttal to SWERFs is not "sex work isn't exploitative", but "capitalism is exploitative and sex work is often the best option given the circumstances." Which leads to passivity at best towards attempts to shame/punish men who patronize sex workers.
  - mc32 5y ago
    That’s a great point you bring up. (diff attitudes toward supply side vs demand side from advocates) I have not looked into the attitudes toward sex work on the other side of the iron curtain. That’s an interesting topic. Undoubtedly it existed, but in the absence of capitalism perhaps it could not be considered exploitative.
  - DarkWiiPlayer 5y ago
    That thought can really be generalised; the problem I tend to have with feminism is how it conveniently forgets to address the male side of many problems until it's specifically pointed out, only to be acknowledged briefly and then put on a shelf again.

doggodaddo78 5y ago

Scapegoat and crucify everyone with little or no power. If that's not a Nazi Godwin's law exception, I don't know what is.

daneel_w 5y ago

Swedish moralism in a nutshell, really. It's a different topic, but "we" apply the same counterproductive "do-gooder" moralism to drug use as well - the entire field suffers the exact same problems with and by the law, no matter what, no matter who, no matter why.

LatteLazy 5y ago
It's never made sense to me with drugs either. Dealers are scum but recreational users are just exercising bad judgement. One side of the transaction has 100% of the culpability for a transaction that's voluntary on all sides. Chris Rock (I think) even has a bit on it "no one ever sold you drugs, you went and bought them".
- biztos 5y ago
  What about dealers that only supply these recreational users? Is there something about this “bad” judgement that puts it in a different class than drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or supersizing your daily McMeal?
- cylde_frog 5y ago
  "Dealers are scum" makes no sense. Is the college guy selling weed and mushrooms to his friends "scum"? Maybe the guy that gives out free samples of meth or heroin to get people addicted is bad but that sort of generalising is why drugs are illegal in the first place.

Workaccount2 5y ago

Someone recently pointed out to me the parallels between prostitution and labor. And I kind of can't shake it out of my head now, since I feel you can draw pretty straight lines from one to the other. Both are selling your body for (relatively) high pay. Both have you burn out usually by your mid-late 40's. Both are dangerous work. Both have high degree's of human trafficking*. Both subsist mostly on young naïve workers. Both have no education requirements. Both have success predicated greatly on genetics (strength vs. looks). Both are the oldest professions in the world. Really the most substantial difference I can see is in how society values men vs. women, dispensable vs. protected. Which is of course the same way humans valued men and women for pretty much all of history. *Trafficking is tricky because in the US it's basically if you do (illegal) sex work and have a boss you are being trafficked. Basically everyone in construction would be "trafficked" then, so instead I go with a high degree of desperate illegal immigrants who will do really any work (ripe for exploitation). Edit: I should note that my take is that prostitution should be legalized, regulated, unionized, and not stigmatized. It should be on the same social rung as labor.

seph-reed 5y ago
I think the one big emotional difference which has put prostitution in a separate category is that it kind of overlaps with drugs and addiction. Sex releases happy chemicals, just like drugs. Nobody is getting hooked on paying people to pour concrete. There's the saying "if you look for yellow cars, you'll find them." I think your assumption that the difference was gender is just a product of the times: you were looking for that answer. Even though male prostitutes are illegal too. And there's clearly an emotional difference between having sex with someone, and having them mow your lawn.
- float4 5y ago
  > Nobody is getting hooked on paying people to pour concrete. So you think sex work is illegal / made very impractical in so many countries to protect the customers?
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

VYaQ5OGY2NfqnTA 5y ago

Consenting adults should have the right to exchange money for sex. Any speech or laws attacking this right is an attack against our autonomy over our own sexual preferences. I truly hope that by the time my daughter is an adult, prostitution will be legal and protected from discrimination.

jacquesm 5y ago

Sweden is regressing, they were much more progressive than this in the past. Which is really something to take note of: change doesn't necessarily mean progress, what goes up can and will go down if you don't keep fighting for it.

maverick-iceman 5y ago

I am now curious about what is so special about New Zealand. It's the only country when prostitution is completely decriminalized and there is no zoning even. What is going on in Kiwis minds? How are they such a unique exception? And is it organic or was somehow put on high priority list given all Libertarians tech people from the US moving/seeking refuge in NZ? Is there still social stigma around it even though it's completely decriminalized? Some Kiwi feel free to answer

zhengyi13 5y ago
Not Kiwi. Just wanted to point out that distilling at home as a hobby is also (uniquely?) legal in NZ as well. So this is not necessarily an isolated attitude on their part.
- maverick-iceman 5y ago
  Maybe it has to do with lack of police force? So no-nonesense solution is to avoid them wasting time for useless stuff? Many useless things such as the war on drugs, alcohol and prostitution are done (in my opinion) to give the millions of cops around the world a sense of purpose and avoid a particular demographic which is prone to aggression (young males) to have a lack of purpose which will inevitably cause social tensions
- biztos 5y ago
  I don’t know about the legality, but home distilling is the norm and not the exception in rural Hungary, Serbia, and plenty of other European countries.
bloak 5y ago
Is New Zealand much different from Germany in this respect? Or the Netherlands?
- maverick-iceman 5y ago
  In NZ being a sex worker is a job like any other. Sex workers don't need a place to be affiliated with to do their job. The only extra step is that if they advertise online they must do it on one of the half dozen authorized portals which are all free . This is very important! Because in the NED and GER (at least in theory) the flow of money is client > brothel > sex worker. There is some sort of middleman As of now this is a very fringe problem even in the US and Europe because a client and a sex worker can agree to see each other informally , but if the powers that be decide to get rid of cash, then it's all the way back to barter. With bags and heels and purses which client bring as a tribute in exchange for sex, that would cause the inability for the sex worker to gather meaningful capital and get out of the trade when she reached her level of desired wealth. Heels, bags and purses are essentially worthless on secondary markets

seph-reed 5y ago

Just a semantics thing, but I do think it's important to be able to distinguish between oppression from public laws and oppression from public mobs. IMO, a "witch hunt" is denoted by the fact that everything is decided by "mob justice." No court it involved, and basically a bunch of angry people looking to take their insecurities out are the medium. On the other hand, having laws which oppress you falls much more into the "oppression" category.

xgulfie 5y ago
The thing that comes to mind with the phrase "witch hunt" is the Salem Witch Trials. Which absolutely did involve the courts.

bayesian_horse 5y ago

The point of these laws is to sacrifice honest, voluntary, consensual prostitution in order to be able to prosecute and suppress involuntary, exploitative prostitution. While I guess it would be preferable the prosecutors would use some more discretion to actually go after cases of clearer exploitation, I still think the situation in Sweden is preferable to that here in Germany, where forced prostitution is blooming in the shadow of a largely legalized sex trade. It is near impossible for police to tell if prostitutes are being coerced. And a large part of all prostitutes probably are coerced or exploited, to some extent, even if the situation is more complicated (like drugs, homelessness, psychiatric issues etc).

camillomiller 5y ago
This is a great point for fully legalized prostitution, not just half-assed solutions like “FKK spas” and such.
- biztos 5y ago
  “FKK” is German for “nudist/naturist” and means Free Body Culture, in case anyone was wondering. Most spas in Germany expect everyone to be naked, but don’t involve anything sexual at all. Large scale brothels use the term as a transparently disingenuous way of pretending the sex isn’t part of the business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikörperkultur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikörperkultur
- vmception 5y ago
  How are FKK spas (the ones listed as brothels on google maps) half assed solutions for legalized prostitution, they are brothels grander than anything seen on Game of Thrones Their sites are pretty clear about what they are and they are the registered institutions for that sex trade that the registered sex workers work in, if their area requires them to operate out of a brothel.
username90 5y ago
Can't you say that buying prostitution is illegal unless you have registered with authorities as a prostitute? That way it is really hard to force people since you'd have to force them through the entire registration process, and police can just do routine checks to see if people are properly registered.

b0rsuk 5y ago

I wonder if Swedish law affects camgirls. You can show your body from the safety of your home, and make sure only people outside Sweden can see you. Either that, or stream on twitch in a bikini.

anovikov 5y ago

On a flip side, they don't have much or any actual pimping exactly because of these (arguably excessive) policies. Which is a gateway crime because a pimp can do a lot of other things.

vmception 5y ago

The “Nordic model” is stupid and I think people are dumb for looking towards it Just expand labor protections for workers and regulated the trade so that there is consumer protection as well.

makx 5y ago

I find it a bit strange that she's decrying that the laws makes people afraid to associate with her, but she's perfectly fine with the fact that her clients/customers are criminalized. It appears to mike like some cognitive dissonance of her to think that her clients are justifiably "bad" by buying her services, but her selling these services is okay. Maybe I'm naive, but if my customers would face criminal charges for buying my products, I'd speak out on behalf of my customers or (if I really feel they should not buy such stuff) I'd stop selling it to them.