Anti-Prostitution Voices on the Harms of Prostitution

Hi all. I have worked in front-line anti-violence work, anti-poverty and mental health for twenty years now. No longer do this full-time, as I have returned to school. I hope i will always be a feminist activist. It's a relief to see this thread on babble, i was away for a couple of weeks, and return overwhelmed by the proliferation of pro-prostitution threads. While it is quite possible to find women who are presently involved in prostitution or other aspects of the sex industry who say they enjoy what they do, it is my experience that this is a self-protective stance. The women I know who are in prostitution speak of the men who buy them with contempt, and with a kind of compassion as well. They may say now that they don't mind what they do, that they are fine, but they do not want their children doing this, they do not want this for their mothers or aunties or friends. And of the women I know who used to dance in strip clubs, work as escorts, or sell sex from street corners, not one of them says "oh yea, that was a great job. So glad I had that experience." Nope. if they talk of it at all, they talk about the harms they sustained, the damage that the men who bought them did to them. It is important that we pay attention to the research, pay attention to who is bought and sold in prostitution and continue to challenge the inequality that leaves women with the impossible choice between 'the devil and the deep blue sea.' Thank you for starting this thread, Infosaturated.

Both the article from the Uk and The posts that follow from remind and from peasant women are part of the world wide picture of the new age of prostitution harms under globalization. 

The more than a dozen women who came here last year, at the inviatation of VRRWS from around the pacific rim to talk in Vancouver about the relationship between prostitution in Vancouver and trafficking around the pacific were very clear in their indictment of the men of the first world: those women said that the call of men to buy sex on demand in Vancouver fuels a horrible machine with consequences that have been discussed in many threads. 

And I say that women who collude with them in creating that demand deserve to be corrected

Children for sale on the street and in brothels without interference both here and in Asia, knee jerk cost free "sympathy" for women facing poverty and abuse instead of aid, forced global and regional migrations of women exploited and ghettoized in the largest and richest cities of the world, willful blindness of the media and consequently of the community to the physical harms to vulnerable women and the spread of communicable diseases to them,  the raising of a generation of men who believe they have a right to sexual satisfaction in whatever form they want from whatever source they please at whatever cost to all, and quasi sympathy to men in the forms of offering up other women's lives and well being for any man deemed needy by virtue of being other than a sterotypical macho (the lonely depressed friendless alienated, disabled single dads)

The young man Andrew Evans who killed Nicole Parisiene, even in his trial this month for murder, was never told outright even in his trial even for the benefit of other young men "You are not entitled to insist on sexual satisfaction.  You could take it into your own hand or make yourself desirable but you are not entitled to use your power whether it is the power of athletic strength, a bullying tongue or a pocket full of cash to force other people, in this case women to satisfy your sexual wants".  Instead his expectation his sense of entitlement set him up for an explosion of rage that made him guilty of murder

But of course it was Nicole who paid the price and it tonite will be some other young woman because of the bankruptsy of political spirit that says we can't end sexual slavery or says we best not interfere with the entrepreneurial spirit that sells body parts, children and access to mentally handicapped girls and creates the "industrial vagina" for the mythical good guy john to buy

I too wish to praise Infosaturated for her almost relentless clarity, composure.

Rabble will regain some credibility in my eyes if and when Infosaturated if reinstated. She was bitterly insulted and suspended until further notice for simply reminding us of our obligations to abused children. A shameful call!

Hey. I see that Martin questioned your judgment, Michelle, he did not "badger" Susan Davis. I, too, question the decision to suspend Infosaturated. I note that there are several posters, including moderators who have crossed the line from disagreeing to insulting, and they have not been sanctioned. Seems to me that the abolitionist voice in these threads is the one silenced for arbitrary reasons. Info's contributions are thorough, sound, and respectful. unlike those of several others I could name. Rabble has a potential to foster an interesting, if heated debate, but this kind of moderating does not serve to encourage respectful engagement.

I have been reading Babble for many years but stopped commenting about four or five years ago. What caused me to revert to and stay in lurk mode was Michelle's (and moderator Audra's) decision to ban a prostituted woman who had been respectfully arguing against legalizing prostitution.

The woman's intelligent, passionate words seemed to send Michelle into an uncharacteristic fit of defending her right to watch porn and wear thongs, and when Michelle banned the woman for specious reasons that were never explained, I and another frequent poster to the feminism board shared a few private messages about the unfairness of the prostituted woman's banning.

I didn't remember my old password so I signed up for a new one just to say I am so, so dissappointed at the Babble leadership right now. The Susan Davis Forum is a travesty but at least by allowing others to read it people like Loretta can make up their own minds. The silencing of a prostituted woman's voice happening AGAIN here is the tipping point for me and I will no longer read these boards, one of the very first places I started reading online once I got internet access what seems like decades ago but is only really a couple of years. The internet has grown since then, and I'm genuinely saddened to see Babble is in the same censorious place they were five years ago.

Is babble a place where, like with other "givens" (no sexism, no racism, etc,), it is now a given that we must accept the paradigm that susan davis purports around sex work/prostitution? I can get behind respecting her point of view but disagreeing with it, that seems fair. It seems very inappropriate that rabble/babble would take the position to support that paradigm for a number of reasons. Those reasons include the inherent sexism in sex work/prostitution, the fact that the poor are without true choices, the fact that many of those involved in the sex trade were abused as children and the fact that to do so would be to support a "business owner" financial model.

Giving someone a safe place to discuss their point of view in this matter is one thing, it's another to ban those who don't agree and challenge it.

As the Amnesty International newsletter used to put it in talking about some prison guards - "We are gods here"

....and this goes back  to my stating in another thread about the false paradigm that moderators were "co-babblers"  they cannot be, they are the face of rabble babble and thus speak and act to the owner's viewpoints.

Just as all the employees do at other media sites, there is no democracy, it is employment parameters.

Not that I disagree with the reality of this, or anything,  just indicating it is so...

stargazer wrote:

There are two camps on the left - one who wishes to see women retain control over their bodies, and those who wish to have them criminalized, as they are now.  The people posting from both sides are feminists, and believe in feminism.

I reject this statement and the false conceptual framwork that is trying to be built by it,  and find it extremely offensive...and indeed baiting, so am not going to  say more, especially in this thread

Stargazer wrote:

I'm not kissing your ass anymore.

Wasn't aware that you ever did...LMAO...

nor that I ever expected such from anyone...

....have every right to reject your framing of who I am....especially given that it is incorrect and slanderous...don't know why you are so offended by my rejection and offense taken at being labelled  falsely

and this thread is after all for anti-prostitution voices...which makes it baiting....

remind wrote:

and this thread is after all for anti-prostitution voices...which makes it baiting....

This thread is for anti-prostitution voices?

What next... threads for pro-NDP and anti-NDP voices?

The amazing tolerance of babble is such that no one actually challenged the arrogant statement in the opening post: "Don't post in this thread if you disagree with me about prostitution!"

To Loretta: I have very conflicted views about prostitution, even though I personally decided long ago that the current criminal laws are harmful. But to suggest that babble moderators have limited the abolitionist viewpoint here is really untenable. Just check out the volume of debate over the last two months alone.

And Stargazer, kudos for your post above where you state the obvious - that feminists are not unanimous on this question, and they don't have to be, because the discussion continues. I say "the obvious", but over the weeks, it had started to get so much less obvious that differing viewpoints were acceptable. Let's hope that climate of discussion can return.