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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 sup
by 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 agoClamping 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 agoIsn't that why laws should go after the seller and the purchaser not the product (especially in humans-are-the-product situations like this)?
- rerx 5y agoYes, 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 agoRead 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 agoSex 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 agoAgain, 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 agoAh, 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 agoAccording 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 agoThis 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 agoFeel 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 agoIs there more human trafficking, or is the human trafficking more visible under the liberal laws?
- mtnGoat 5y agoMany? 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 agoHuman 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 agoOf 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 agoThe 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 agoHuman 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 agoWhat 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 agoAddress 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 agoIf 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 agoThere 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 agoAnd in all that mess everyone keeps forgetting that there are plenty of men and trans persons that sell sex.
- 2rsf 5y agoso you are in favor of legalizing prostitution?
- danbruc 5y agoWhy should prostitution be illegal?
- creamytaco 5y agoHuman 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 agoThen 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 agoDecisions should be made and laws passed based on real-world projected efficacy and data-driven feedback, not wishful thinking.
- 2rsf 5y agoI 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 agoYup. 1999,to be precise.
- yanderekko 5y agoBravo. 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 agoI 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 agoImplying you can't just masturbate and need to use women like a toilet
- eloff 5y agoI 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 agoThere 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 agoIt'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 agoSee, 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 agoYeah. 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 agoThere'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 agoNope. 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 agoYou 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 agoAll 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.