21 Comments

The neoliberal knee jerk reaction to portray any criticism of industries as a 'hatred' of the exploited individual is a testament to how successful the propaganda machine is. Imagine if, a hundred years ago, labor reformers working to abolish the practice of factories employing children were told that they just hated 'child workers.' It's an obvious ruse to silence real concerns. But for some reason, it has worked very well, probably because there is no shortage of men who believe that women exist to service them, and plenty of young women with a camera who've found a way to earn cash without placing themselves in physical danger. It's interesting to me that proponents of the sex industry and of the gender industry are the people most likely to use this form of manipulation and get away with it.

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It tells me that people really like to lie to themselves! I'm sure some people repeat these mantras unthinkingly, but I can't believe that everyone who accuses us of 'hating sex workers' or 'hating trans people' when we are clearly advocating for women really believes it... I think they don't want to consider the realities of what we are saying, lest they be forced to change their minds.

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bingo!

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You are profoundly right. Don't stop. Your concern for women's rights is clear as a bell and only a deliberate misinterpretation (or an idiot, pimp, or trans-ideologue) would conclude otherwise.

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🙏💕

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This is probably the best piece of writing I've encountered on this issue. You crystalize the issue of prostitution: "There is no ethical way to sell human bodies. And there is no ethical person willing to pay either to access the body of someone who doesn’t want them or willing to sell access to another man, for profit."

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Thank you, Susan!

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If "sex work is work" as democrats like AOC imply, then any woman who asks her boss for more work, to say, pay bills, buy Christmas presents, or just earn more money via overtime, should not be insulted if her boss says, well I don't have any extra work now, but I'll pay you for blow job. Work is work, right democrats? In what other "work" do the "employees" have to be groomed, hooked on drugs, threatened, be prior victims of abuse or poverty-stricken, to be the most qualified "candidate?" I stopped voting democrat over the "sex work is work" garbage, and the "trans" incoherent misogyny. Keep up the vital work Meghan; you were one of the 1st voices I came across way back in 2018 when my local democrat party became engulfed in this "gender identity" gobbledygook. You, Kara Dansky and Julia Beck, kept me sane, when ALL my lefty friends were gaslighting me, or insisting I "be nice."

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Great piece, Meghan. It's thought-provoking to counter the assertion by well -meaning but ignorant people that prostitution is perfectly fine with your good point that that's just a comforting thought. No one wants to think we're all just blithely ignoring the most horrific global trade in human suffering, and that's a natural impulse, but people have to face the reality.

I have never received a satisfying answer to why legalizing the industry will make it 'safer'. The danger and damage is inherent in the acts, and there is no one who can get between you and the man who has paid you. Drug addiction, trafficking and rape all occur in the 'legal' models, so what is this mythical safety that will suddenly arise?

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I feel like so much of the pro-prostitution argument ignores the wider context of the world we live in and the way girls are raised to please men. Female socialisation ignores female sexuality and creates a cultural narrative of what women want that largely relies on pandering to men. But in turn, I think a significant part of what we are led to believe is male sexuality is also built on the idea that men must be unemotional, in control and powerful. Ultimately, men and women lose out on genuine connection and real intimacy.

I think this plays out within the context of this argument: men think that women want to please them; that our personal pleasure is found in ignoring our needs and appeasing theirs. They need to see prostitutes as the pinnacle of that appeasement, and therefore choose to see the transaction as consent. The male ego insists on it. And therefore women who disagree with prostitution can only ever be perceived as jealous. It’s laughable that these men think that female sexuality doesn’t exist beyond their control, but it’s deeply sad that I think the reality is that most women don’t have a single idea what their own sexuality actually is.

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While I appreciate your view, I disagree on several points. I may have commented before on the subject elsewhere, but I find the issue is for the most part limited to younger and/or immigrant women being exploited, and the issue is exploitation of the vulnerable, not prostitution per se.

I know men who are prostitutes, men who make porn films and are in porn films , which by definition use men who perform sex for money, or prostitutes. There are definitely younger men who are vulnerable and exploited, and I knew many when I was around that age. Most gay men in my circles enjoy men who have secondary sex features - masculine personality, body hair, prominent genitals, broad shoulders, facial hair, and so on, and have no interest in younger men. I discussed this subject with friends over New Years, and some friends who are, or have been prostitutes, and none felt they were exploited or exploiting others.

I lived in Paris for some time, and not far from my office near Centre Pompidou, in the early evening there was brisk trade in middle-aged female prostitutes, which mystified me until a French friend explained that often middle-aged men liked women their age. I’m not sure these women were exploited in the sense you outline.

In Amsterdam, I lived for a while on Warmoestraat, around the corner from De Wallen, and what I saw was very few if any Dutch women, but a fair number of trans women and clearly Eastern European or women of other origins. I think it’s clear that women there could be exploited, and seemed to exist for tourists to gawk at, which generally did not go over well.

In “Freakonomics” there was much discussion over prostitutes (female) making higher wages than architects.

As with other criminalized behaviors - which is what the Nordic model around prostitution use is - you can’t make the behavior go away by jail. The death penalty for homosexuality didn’t make it go away.

You can protect the vulnerable, you can regulate a dangerous situation. I can name a dozen counties including the US where immigrant labor is routinely exposed as exploitation of the most heinous sort.

I really don’t think the broad stroke with which you paint “prostitution” is the real issue.

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I don't know that every single person selling sex is being exploited or abused, but I think most are... I also think that men are in a different situation than women in this context. I don't think paying for sex is ethical either way, but I do think adult men are significantly less vulnerable than women or girls in prostitution. Needless to say, considering that the bulk of prostitution is trafficking and involves minors, women who entered the industry as minors, victims of sexual abuse, the addicted and traumatized, there's no way to claim the industry itself can ever be ethical or safe. Because prostitution will always exist, those who truly do 'choose' it will be fine. But the best we can do and what we are I think obligated to do is to shrink demand in an effort to curb trafficking and the insentive to pimp out and traffick women. Making the industry less profitable and making it more difficult for things like brothels to operate is a good place to start.

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Fair, though I think taxing the buyer is a more effective control than jailing them, to capture the actual “negative externalities” of exploitation and use it to better support women in vulnerable situations. Making things horrendously expensive stops a lot of bad behaviors very effectively. I think we agree on the profitability issue is probably the most palatable politically.

Politics and prostitution are very entertwined in strange ways. I learned to gogo dance with strippers at 16 at gay strip clubs near McPherson square in DC (things you do after your Princeton Interview which you really don’t want to get into. I really wanted 9000 miles away at Caltech and was afraid of family nearby, we weren’t close). There was a remarkable cleanup of the area late 70’s, and surprisingly re-zoning managed to exclude the Gaiety Burlesk theatre and other sex dives, a strange street left with demolished buildings surrounded by gogo sex clubs. And completely controlled by congress.

If two people are not exploitative, or forced into sex, what remains unethical for you? I’ve been offered to be in a hot daddy in muscle bear films for decades, I always politely say no. Because I want control of my age.

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I don't want to speak to how men are impacted by selling sex, because again, I think that's different than how women are impacted. In general, men have a different experience in sex, and therefore a different view. I think, though, that paying someone to sleep with you because you know they wouldn't otherwise is an unethical thing to do, because ideally, in sex, both people want to be there. What do you mean by 'taxing the buyer'?

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The John, the buyer, the client. It’s the concept of “sin tax” like on Tobacco, Alcohol, Marijuana.

Sex can be for fun, for intimacy, to be social, for love, for power, for many things.

Desire for sex can be created by seduction, love, power, boredom... and money.

That’s where I go back to listening to men I know who are, or have been hustlers. They would never have sex that they didn’t want. Someone willing to pay them can certainly spark their desire. I don’t think that’s unethical. I think that’s the crux of our difference of view. I can imagine that there are women who also have desire sparked by many things. Men and women aren’t that different.

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Do you mean fining the john? Because that's what would happen under the Nordic model...

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I thought the Nordic model Criminalized the man.

Taxing them and criminalizing them are very different.

Marijuana was decriminalized, alcohol decriminalized (after prohibition), but the periods when it was criminal, then the only people involved in it were criminals. Criminality facilitates organized crime, and therefore I would imagine trafficking.

My POV is that homosexuality and gay bars were illegal for a long time, so the only people running them were criminals, the mafia etc. In major cities, and gays and lesbians were routinely shaken down by the police. The Advocate Magazine and Drummer sprang up on the west coast around trying to protect ordinary people from police entrapment.

The East coast was primarily Mafia run. The basis for Stonewall, not well understood, was a fight between the Mob and NYC police (who shook down the management monthly). The Mob decided they didn’t want to pay anymore and facilitated a riot.

Interracial bars were also criminalized, so who steps in to run them... the Mob.

I think Taxation would create a fund to help women leave the work, it doesn’t stigmatize them, and men having to pay very high sums would think twice about using one. Otherwise the women simply go underground and pay protection for clients?

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There's no such thing as "trans women." Those are men. Just say men.

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Thanks - I normally call them trans, but it I would have been confusing in the context, at least it was to me when I read it in notes. I’ve been trying to reread myself more lately, call me “riddled with typos”.

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Thanks MM.

As usual you filled in the blanks for me so I now have a more concise, coherent and complete understanding of why my emotional opposition to prostitution is justified and RIGHTEOUS... and which I can and will articulate to others for whom it is less obvious.

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