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Author Topic: Rachel Aimee: $pread Magazine
Cueball
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posted 02 October 2007 01:51 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:

I came to it from a perspective of being interested in feminist discussions around sex work, reading a lot of books about the implications of sex work for feminism, and then becoming involved in the industry myself and realizing that a lot of what I’d been reading and thinking about before was completely irrelevant to the lives of most sex workers.

That’s why I wanted to start a magazine by and for sex workers, because I was tired of other people talking about sex workers and I wanted to create a forum for us to speak for ourselves, about our issues, not the issues that other people create around us.


What inspired you to get involved in advocacy for sex workers’ rights?

[ 02 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 08 October 2007 09:42 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Reminds me of the story of a poor, lonely troll by a river teeming with fish, but none interested in his bait...
From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 08 October 2007 09:46 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
You seemed more than willing to give that source credibility in other threads, when what those feminists were saying happened to fall in line with what you think feminists should be saying.

Now of course you just dismiss them as irrelevant, and say snide things. How about actually commenting on what the woman said?

[ 08 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 08 October 2007 11:54 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Along came a fair minstrel who asked how he was doing.
- Not too good. No one seems interested in a happy ending. Death wish and the right to be an idiot seem in short supply.
- Really?
- Spoilt brats! Can't tell an act of empowerment when they see one. Afraid of the real world if you ask me...
- Oh, that's too bad. And what are you using for bait?
- Cartoons, caricatures, really. I dangle naughty fish pictures, throw in a few latin words - at the risk of offending some fishes' political beliefs or moral sensibilities!
- Well, that's a new twist. Do you at least get a nibble?
- Sometimes. I also use selected testimonials about great frying pans and not being abnormally sautéed... But as far as I can see, they just regurgitate that stuff.
- Aaaawww...
- Muckrakers! I could come up with numerous neo-freudian analysis to explain this behaviour, you know. From one, the other is deduced.
- Sure.
- If I was a suspicious person, I'd think they have some serious issues.
- Uh uh...
- Moral misgivings, as far as I can see. They can go fuck themselves.
- Well, uh... good luck.

From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 09 October 2007 12:42 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
That's pretty good.
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 09 October 2007 01:28 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:
Reminds me of the story of a poor, lonely troll by a river teeming with fish, but none interested in his bait...

This is rude and uncalled for. When I want you to moderate the feminism forum, I'll give you a call. And I wouldn't sit home waiting by the phone if I were you.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
minkepants
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posted 09 October 2007 07:23 AM      Profile for minkepants     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Any women in your group, Martin?
From: Scarborough | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
jas
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posted 09 October 2007 07:34 AM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:

This is rude and uncalled for. When I want you to moderate the feminism forum, I'll give you a call. ...


?

Michelle, would you have made the same comment if it was Cueball making it about an untouched OP by Martin?

I don't get the impression he was trying to moderate the ff, just commenting on the apparent unpopularity of Cueball's topic.


From: the world we want | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 09 October 2007 07:40 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
He was accusing Cueball of trolling, and it was off-topic and rude. Cueball wasn't trolling.

And Cueball can tell you that there have been lots of times when he's stepped over the line and been nagged by the moderators.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 09 October 2007 08:28 AM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Originally posted by Cueball:

quote:
That’s why I wanted to start a magazine by and for sex workers, because I was tired of other people talking about sex workers and I wanted to create a forum for us to speak for ourselves, about our issues, not the issues that other people create around us.

Thanks for this cueball, really the last part of the sentence says it all. And some people should get a grip and stop applying their own morality to sex and sex trade workers.

Sex trade workers run the spectrum of reasons why they chose to work in that field, and the trade runs throughout the socio-economic stratas.

[ 09 October 2007: Message edited by: remind ]


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
jas
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posted 09 October 2007 09:49 AM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I may be wrong, but I don't remember anyone questioning sex trade workers. We were questioning those who buy sex services.
From: the world we want | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
I AM WOMAN
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posted 09 October 2007 10:33 AM      Profile for I AM WOMAN     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Can one be both a sex worker and a feminist ? Are the two incompatible
From: tall building | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 09 October 2007 12:20 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by I AM WOMAN:
Can one be both a sex worker and a feminist ? Are the two incompatible

Yes

No


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 09 October 2007 01:50 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by jas:

?

Michelle, would you have made the same comment if it was Cueball making it about an untouched OP by Martin?


But I have't done that have I? Anyway, why is this about Martin and I?

True, I posted the topic because of the discussion we had about sex-trade work, and it is thematic, but I thought it good to make a thread that directly related to the sex-trade workers themselves, and not men and their relationship to sex-trade workers, since women, other than in their roll as agentless victims were continually getting subsumed in discussions about men.

Surely there must be some way the topic of women in the sex trade can be addressed?

[ 09 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 09 October 2007 08:02 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
There are a number of writings by women about prostitution, that go beyond the "happy hooker" discourse - and no, I am not suggesting that this what "Spread" and "Rose-Aimee" do.

But lifting the taboo and looking at men and their agency in prostitution - as a few of us tried to do in the preceding threads - does seem to tell a lot, IMO, about women's conditions and what they experience.

Isn't it clear that men are the ones who have the option to speak freely about the "trade" as their $$$ defines it - without organized crime, a pimp or a self-interested boyfriend punishing them for speaking out?

For instance:
U.K.: New research on men who buy sex: It's just like going to the supermarket.

quote:
...A focus on the demand side of prostitution is underdeveloped in the UK. Women who sell sex often have no choice, but men who buy it, always do...

[ 09 October 2007: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


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Cueball
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posted 09 October 2007 08:22 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Thanks. So what about the subject at hand?
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minkepants
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posted 09 October 2007 08:41 PM      Profile for minkepants     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Any women in your group, Martin? Or amongst your friends? Or in your life?
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jas
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posted 09 October 2007 09:48 PM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Actually, I suspect the "subject at hand", meaning the topic you want us to stick to, not the one you derailed in the other two threads, has probably been quite exhaustively covered on Babble, and if not on Babble, then in a lot of other places. Is this new information for you? It isn't for me.

What is a different angle, and one that I haven't seen covered on Babble, including in the recent two attempts, is the demand side of prostitution. So far, I haven't heard any intelligible explanations for why this side exists, beyond "it's been happening throughout history. What's your problem?", and "disabled people may need it". Did I miss something there?


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minkepants
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posted 09 October 2007 10:04 PM      Profile for minkepants     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
So far, I haven't heard any intelligible explanations for why this side exists,

I've never even thought about going to a pro, because, personally, the idea of someone pretending to like me during something so intimate just seems like the most empty, depressing experience in the world.

That being said, I dont think it takes a whole bunch of compassion or empathy or common sense to picture why someone would go. How about loneliness? Loneliness so deep for human contact that you're willing to hire someone to pretend to like you


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Cueball
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posted 09 October 2007 10:21 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by jas:
Actually, I suspect the "subject at hand", meaning the topic you want us to stick to, not the one you derailed in the other two threads, has probably been quite exhaustively covered on Babble, and if not on Babble, then in a lot of other places. Is this new information for you? It isn't for me.

What is a different angle, and one that I haven't seen covered on Babble, including in the recent two attempts, is the demand side of prostitution. So far, I haven't heard any intelligible explanations for why this side exists, beyond "it's been happening throughout history. What's your problem?", and "disabled people may need it". Did I miss something there?


More or less everything.

For instance, my point about disabled people was directed at the problems of asserting an absolute analysis of prostitution as pastiche of the powerful exerting dominance over the weak, and more pointedly at the idea, that the act of masturbation might be considered in all cases to be "sexual", in direct line with the discussion about Justice Chisvin's ruling.

The reality is that you have completely diluted what I said in the previous thread into a stereotyped rendering of what I think, as if I am some pro-prostitution retard who is lauding the obvious virtue of the "world oldest profession" simply because nothing can be done about it, or because its "sexual healing".

Whatever. That is not what I am talking about.

Could there be other angles?

Perhaps the angle that women also act as agents of prostitution as pimps? What about that angle? What about the angle that not all boyfriends of prostitutes are necessarily "pimps." As someone who has dated prostitutes, I resent the implication that if I accept lunch from my girlfriend, I am living of the avails. How about the angle where women are not just innocent victims of crime, but also active enablers of crime, and active participants in criminal networks?

There is quite a lot of analysis on some women acting as the wardens of patriarchal oppression, when they see their interests as aligned with patriarchy. Surely there is something here to be looked at?

What is really going on at "suicidegirls.com"?

To me these are not simple problems, reduced to convenient moral dualisms, but complex relationships engendered by the serious social stresses which marginalized people, both men and women, experience together as a communities of marginalized people. Certainly within the marginalized communities of the poor it is women who are the most vulnerable, but it is not as if the males are not acting in reaction to their own vulnerable economic position, and the women are merely passive objects being exploited by them. Women who are prostitutes need protection, and this is not the protection that the police are ready to provide, since their job would be to arrest the source of income. So boyfriend/pimp girlfriend/prostitute relationships often have a mutuality of purpose, and are not always a coerced impositions of male power purely for the purpose of exploitation, nor do they always fit into TV movie stereotypes.

This is not to say that there are not often extremely exploitative relationships of this kind, but to say these relationships are various and also complex, and if we get caught up in pastiche, we lose sight of the real problems, which real prostitutes face, and the roll that criminalization plays in making them that much easier to exploit because of their economic and legal vulnerability.

Or how about looking at the actual impact decriminalized prostitution, when purchasing sex is still illegal? Does that actually improve the practical position of prostitutes, or does it merely act as a sop of public opinion, while still relegating prostitutes to the dark periphery of society, where the criminality of their clients activity continues to force them into the back rooms, and alleys of the world where they are still vulnerable to predatory males, and criminal gangs?

It seems to me fairly much that some feminists are having their cake and eating it too. Expressing moral indignation at the exploitation of prostitutes by demanding that the onus of guilt be placed upon the male, but still criminalizing the act itself, in such a way that there is no net reward in terms of real security to the people who are being "helped". It it still illegal, and so must take place away from the watchful eyes of the police, even if only to protect the client from the police. To me this seems to be very much to be washing ones hands of the issue in a manner that appears to preserves moral rectitude, without doing much of anything concrete.

I should think there was quite a lot to talk about aside from the bland dichotomy, of innocent women, without agency, trapped by patriarchal oppression by men.

And still you have not answered the one sailent question which underscores this issue, why should any part of prostitution be illegal, and what good has it done making it illegal?

[ 10 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
jas
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posted 10 October 2007 08:22 AM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:
the problems of asserting an absolute analysis of prostitution as pastiche of the powerful exerting dominance over the weak

I'm not saying anything about the powerful exerting dominance over the weak, although it's an obvious observation. Yes, there are probably some different analyses in there. Who cares?

quote:
The reality is that you have completely diluted what I said in the previous thread into a stereotyped rendering of what I think, as if I am some pro-prostitution retard who is lauding the obvious virtue of the "world oldest profession" simply because nothing can be done about it, or because its "sexual healing".

LOL. My crude synopsis was not of your arguments, specifically.

quote:
Could there be other angles?

Perhaps the angle that women also act as agents of prostitution as pimps? What about that angle? What about the angle that not all boyfriends of prostitutes are necessarily "pimps." ...

There is quite a lot of analysis on some women acting as the wardens of patriarchal oppression, when they see their interests as aligned with patriarchy. Surely there is something here to be looked at?


I'm know that there is, Cueball. Why don't you start a thread about it? This is not my subject of interest here. In fact, it is you, sir, who keeps turning the focus onto the women or sex workers in this equation, when, as far as I can tell, no one has an argument with you on this matter.

quote:

And still you have not answered the one sailent question which underscores this issue, why should any part of prostitution be illegal, and what good has it done making it illegal?

I have never argued that prostitution should be illegal. This is not the subject of my concern here. Perhaps Martin has, I don't know. But I do notice that every time the focus is re-directed to the consumers of sex services, everyone starts squirming and talking about "the sex workers, what about the sex workers?!?".

We're not talking about the sex workers! Jeez!

OK, maybe YOU are, in this thread. I have nothing to add on your topic here. I've been over all this before.


From: the world we want | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
jas
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posted 10 October 2007 08:34 AM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Actually, I may have something to add somewhere down the line. To be honest, I'm processing these arguments about free agency. I have yet to hear one that is utterly convincing.

[ 10 October 2007: Message edited by: jas ]


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remind
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posted 10 October 2007 09:04 AM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
In a capitalistic world, and perhaps any type of economically driven world, the fact is the majority prostitute themselves for dollars by selling our skill(s), or indeed ourselves in order to "make" a living. And of course there are those who make a "profit" off of people selling their skills.

The difference in the sex trade skill set is the obsolete and wrongfull application of false morality applied to the action. In my view, this falsely applied morality is what is the patriarchial oppression, not the action itself. It would never do to empower women, by taking away this false morality and legitimizing the trade.


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 10 October 2007 01:27 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by jas:

I have never argued that prostitution should be illegal. This is not the subject of my concern here. Perhaps Martin has, I don't know. But I do notice that every time the focus is re-directed to the consumers of sex services, everyone starts squirming and talking about "the sex workers, what about the sex workers?!?".

We're not talking about the sex workers! Jeez!

OK, maybe YOU are, in this thread. I have nothing to add on your topic here. I've been over all this before.


Well that isn't the way I see it because the previous thread was a direct derivative (it's even linked) to a discussion that was about the agency of sex trade workers, and the dangers of legalizing prostitution and the state forcing women into the sex-trade, in the light of a recent judgment of an Ontario judge -- this is where the question is asked. This is where the discussion starts -- agency is at the heart of the issue.

In subsequent thread I not only directly answered your question, but also raised possibilities outside of the very limited set of options provided by Martin Dufresne, which were universally negative and bound within the limited scope of his preferred paradigm: "sex as increasingly being about excess, power over, transgression, constraint."

So, while it may be the case that you raised a question which might have led to a more nuanced discussion, Dufresne's comments certainly set the tone, a tone which you approved of, apparently:

"...I support Dufresne in bringing that to our attention.'

'For some reason, he's pushed a few people's buttons here. I wonder why."

I certainly did not evade when answering your question, and I note that you have not even ventured to answer it yourself, or pose any possible answers, in any form. Perhaps if you took a stab at answering the question you asked, rather than talking about other peoples evasion, you might get more helpful responses.

[ 10 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


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Saber
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posted 10 October 2007 07:46 PM      Profile for Saber     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Why do men use prostitutes? Well, I'm a woman but I certainly find women attractive. My girlfriends and I have ritual of going to The Brass Rail strip club every Christmas holiday just to "dyke out." I got a lap dance once. It was great fun. I can totally see why men would want to pay for a prostitute’s time. Christ, it would probably be a hell of a lot more fun than seeing a counselor and you get sex. I mean sex is fun and you can't always get it easily. And I mean easily, like maybe you don't want to have to go to all of the trouble of going to a bar and finding someone who clicks with you and dealing with all the emotional shit.....the conversation and yadda, yadda, and then somehow establishing the kind of rapport with this person that makes it possible for the two of you to just have sex. That's difficult. I mean for some people it's easier than others but that's a lot of time, people skill and effort just to get laid. And if you're not particularly good at it, well years could go by. I mean Jesus Christ who wants that? I can understand why men use prostitutes. I don't understand why more women don't.

And let's suppose that you are an attractive man who can get women easily. Let's suppose that you're married and you don't like your wife...Or worse, she doesn't like you. Going to be kind of hard isn’t? Do you have time for a full blown affair? Between work hours and your kids? Well how are you going to do it then? Just say no sex for the next 30 years? You're going to want to use a hooker.

Doesn't it make sense? Why is this such a mystery? You're making is sound like sex is some icky thing that nobody wants. "Yuck, who would want to buy that?" They’re all sorts of people want to have sex. Christ, who doesn't?

And what if you have weird taste? I mean what it there's something that you like to do that not just any girl in a bar is going to be willing to do? Well what then? What if you want to wear her panties? Eh? Go to your local bar and try that with some chick. Yah right, your whole neighborhood will know.

Now maybe you're into something a little kinkier than that even, or less politically correct. Maybe you like to hit girls. There’s the S&M scene but maybe you really like to hit girls. Not just a little bit. You like you like to beat them up. And you don't necessarily want them to have any power in the situation. Well, a hooker might be an attractive option, especially the way things are now. You can pretty much do anything you want to her and she can't call the cops. Well, that's why I think hookers should have unions. You see I think the gamut of reasons why men use hookers ranges from the mundane, through the kinky to the edgy, violent and into the utterly sociopathic. There are men who get sexually turned on by beating a woman to death. That's what makes them cum. Now that's not the kind of sex you can have just any old time any old where. The convenience that hookers provide currently runs right into the realm where men pay, essentially to take out their anger.

By keeping prostitutes in the underground, we as a society have assigned them two roles: They are sex trade workers and also disposable people with whom a greater license than just sexual license may be taken. Serial killers take full advantage of this societal role. By not lending the sex trade any legitimacy, we blur the boundaries of the trade. It is a trade. Like any other trade. Some things are a hooker's job and some things are not. The job is to sell sex, not to be a professional murder victim.

Now, I have tried to answer the question repeatedly posed, "Why do men use prostitutes?" and to show how the range of answers necessitate firm definitions of what a hooker's job actually is. The sex trade workers themselves have the right to establish these boundaries, professionally.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2005  |  IP: Logged
I AM WOMAN
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posted 10 October 2007 09:34 PM      Profile for I AM WOMAN     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I disagree. I think prostitution is exploitive and degrading to women. I think that women are worthy of more dignity than that.
From: tall building | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 10 October 2007 09:55 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
So therefore it should be illegal?
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
jas
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posted 10 October 2007 10:02 PM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Saber:

And let's suppose that you are an attractive man who can get women easily. Let's suppose that you're married and you don't like your wife...Or worse, she doesn't like you. Going to be kind of hard isn’t? Do you have time for a full blown affair? Between work hours and your kids? Well how are you going to do it then? Just say no sex for the next 30 years? You're going to want to use a hooker.


Really? You're going to want to use a "hooker" for
30 years, rather than deal with your really sad situation? What's wrong with you?

quote:
Doesn't it make sense? Why is this such a mystery? You're making is sound like sex is some icky thing that nobody wants. "Yuck, who would want to buy that?" They’re all sorts of people want to have sex. Christ, who doesn't?

What is it that you're seeking in "having sex"? To cum? Some kind of intimacy? If it's just to cum, why would you need to pay a stranger? And if it's for intimacy, how are you going to get that with someone you've only known for 10 minutes? Someone who's charging you money to be with them. Isn't that a little sad?

quote:
Now maybe you're into something a little kinkier than that even, or less politically correct. Maybe you like to hit girls. There’s the S&M scene but maybe you really like to hit girls. Not just a little bit. You like you like to beat them up. And you don't necessarily want them to have any power in the situation. Well, a hooker might be an attractive option, especially the way things are now. You can pretty much do anything you want to her and she can't call the cops. Well, that's why I think hookers should have unions. You see I think the gamut of reasons why men use hookers ranges from the mundane, through the kinky to the edgy, violent and into the utterly sociopathic. There are men who get sexually turned on by beating a woman to death. That's what makes them cum. Now that's not the kind of sex you can have just any old time any old where. The convenience that hookers provide currently runs right into the realm where men pay, essentially to take out their anger.

Uh, with all due respect, shouldn't you in this case be seeking out a counsellor, or some kind of help, rather than a "hooker"? Holy fuck.


From: the world we want | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 10 October 2007 10:27 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Saber offers various realistic reasons why men use prostitutes. Easy access to excitement, not bothering with communication/reciprocity, access to confidential so-called kinky sex, escaping married life while maintaining its entitlements, and violent misogyny -- ultra-thinly justified as "to take out their anger".

What remains unexamined is men's entitlement to all these perks that having disposable income bring. This seems a given in Saber's analysis.

Yet, other examples of absolute use of power come to mind, that we as a society don't accept just because money talks.

Another unexamined question is what kind of lives we and our close ones, our community, and especially the dispossessed of these communities will have in a system where sex will become just one more commodity because of traffickers, johns and pimps new-found freedom to use women and youths for fun and profit, where sex will indeed become what some people are for. The picture from countries where the market has been given free rein isn't pretty.*

Saber apparently takes for granted that unions are enough to keep clients' violence in line in a system where their interests rule. But when the overarching principle is the might of power/money, violence-happy johns will find their mark - they will simply pay more - and will do so with immunity because the principle of prostitution is basically the buying of someone's agency, her being turned over to the buyer for the time of the contract. And excesses will be merely that in a system where the exercise of power is normalized, sanctified because it's constructed as sex(y) for the man with the money.

That is the industry's offer. We don't have to buy in. Yet. A growing number of countries are even turning it down - and male scrota don't seem to be exploding...

Montréal peut et doit lutter contre la prostitution des femmes et des jeunes
*NYT: Bulgaria, joining an European trend, reverses its stand on legalization

quote:
(...)Bulgaria is only the latest European country to shift its approach to prostitution. Finland last year made it illegal to buy sex from women brought in by traffickers, and Norway is on the verge of imposing an outright ban on purchasing sex.
Even in Amsterdam, the city government has proposed shutting down more than a quarter of the famed storefront brothels in the red-light district. And in the Czech Republic and the three Baltic republics, attempts at legalization similar to the Bulgarian one have been turned back.(...)

[ 10 October 2007: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 10 October 2007 10:41 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
So your solution for workplace hazards would be to ban coal mining? You see the whole problem with your analysis Martin is that you assert that "sexuality" must remain free of capitalist imparatives. The double standard is obvious, there is special moral standard to be applied to sex work, and activity most often practiced by women. You demand that they should not be allowed to comodify their sexuality, and thus solve their economic problems, while proposing no alternate.

You accept the primacy of capitalist relations, but don't see fit, to say make a big issue of men doing degrading work such as coal mining, or oil rigging, or any number of things that are both dangerous, and damaging to the health in the long run, and also spirtually degrading, and primarily done by men.

Its obviously sexist to take a moral stand against degrading mechanisms aquiring wealth that are easily available to unskilled women, to the point where it should be made illegal, while accepting completely the "necessary evil" of degrading mechanisms of wealth creation which are available to unskilled men.

For some reason, this special category of morality reagrding degrading and dangerous work applies only to women.

If you are really concerned about the commodification of sex, then you had really better start talking about system of commodification itself, which creates the economic need in the first place.

[ 10 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 10 October 2007 10:49 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
As I wrote: "Yet, other examples of absolute use of power come to mind, that we as a society don't accept just because money talks."

Cueball apparently feels this doesn't cover the Left's and indeed society's opposition to unsafe, exploitative labor imposed by capitalist businesses. "Exotic dancers" have been waging the very same struggle against pimp bosses Cueball would have us embrace as free entrepreneurs entitled to free rein.


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 10 October 2007 10:52 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:
As I wrote: "Yet, other examples of absolute use of power come to mind, that we as a society don't accept just because money talks."

Cueball apparently feels this doesn't cover the Left's and indeed society's opposition to unsafe, exploitative labor imposed by capitalist businesses. "Exotic dancers" have been waging the very same struggle against pimp bosses Cueball would have us embrace as free entrepreneurs entitled to free rein.


That's a keeper! I post a perfectly reasonable and respectful response to yet another one of your preachy lectures, and all you can offer is more snide moralistic smears.

I think you should go fuck yourself.

quote:
Yet, other examples of absolute use of power come to mind, that we as a society don't accept just because money talks.

My point is that we do accept them, they are perfectly legal. The way coal miners and oil riggers have been protected, to the minimal extent that they are, by instituting labour codes, and safety regulations. I can see no reason why you think the same rights should not be available to women, as prostitutes.

In fact it seems to me your opposition to the legalization and regulation is the enforcement of a sexist double standard, one that not only does not afford prostitutes even the basic workplace protection given to men who do dangerous and degrading work but also adds extra-penalty to what is already embarrassing enough as it is by stygmatizing the persons who do it, by making them visit the local jail in fuck-me-boots and a miniskirt once or twice a month.

And don't blow smoke up everyones ass by trying to tell me that only prosecuting the johns changes this reality. It doesn't. Hookers doing tricks still get taken down to the police station and are still required to appear in court, do interviews with the police, and any number of inconvenient and unpleasant things in order to perform as witnesses, even if they are not on trial.

And none of this is doing anything to help them feed the kids.

[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 10 October 2007 11:59 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by jas:
What is it that you're seeking in "having sex"? To cum? Some kind of intimacy? If it's just to cum, why would you need to pay a stranger? And if it's for intimacy, how are you going to get that with someone you've only known for 10 minutes? Someone who's charging you money to be with them. Isn't that a little sad?

Right. So basicly all this comes down to what you think sex should be like, based on your moral perspective.

[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
minkepants
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posted 11 October 2007 06:41 AM      Profile for minkepants     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
They’re all sorts of people want to have sex. Christ, who doesn't?

Umm... maybe Martin?

Nobody wants to admit they have no libido or that they're just old-fashioned and feel unfomfortable with our society's recently relaxed attitudes towards sex. Nobody wants to admit that they are a bluenose. I think it was Germaine Greer(?) who said that the problem with some feminists is that they have the liberty won by teir mothers but they retain the morality of their Victorian grandmothers. I read Martin's posts and see a conservative Catholic's attitude towards sex mutated into "feminism"

[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: minkepants ]


From: Scarborough | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 11 October 2007 06:51 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I just love it when people put you on their PM ignore list, when you have never sent them a message.

Anyway, I don't think speculating on Martin's personal sexual life is a solid contribution to this thread, and also I think it is fairly well established that Dworkin was not asexual, but a Lesbian. Your post amounts to sexual hazing, really.

I say this despite the fact that I agree that much of the tenor of this particular brand of feminism is just Judeao-Christian anti-sexual morality rehashed as feminism.

I was going to send you something to that effect in a PM, in the hope that you would change it. But I guess now it has to be a matter of public record.

[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Scout
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posted 11 October 2007 07:12 AM      Profile for Scout     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Is this thread about thongs by any chance?
From: Toronto, ON Canada | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
minkepants
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posted 11 October 2007 07:25 AM      Profile for minkepants     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Yo, Cue:

I put you on ignore about 9 months ago to try and avoid escalating static when I was new and we were arguing about something or other. I dont know if there's anyway to change that back. anywho, I put you on my buddies list so maybe that means you can PM me. Yeah, I was thinking of editing that anyway.

send me a test PM then I'll know

that being said, I dropped the ref to McKinnon and Dworkin pending rereading some of their stuff.

As for Martin his whole thing is lecturing others about their sex habits, so I think being the initiator, he invites speculation relating to his motives.

[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: minkepants ]

[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: minkepants ]


From: Scarborough | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 11 October 2007 07:54 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Scout:
Is this thread about thongs by any chance?

That said, I think Cueball is right, that speculating about whether or not other people in this thread like having sex is not within bounds of reasonable debate.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 11 October 2007 08:19 AM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by I AM WOMAN:
I disagree. I think prostitution is exploitive and degrading to women. I think that women are worthy of more dignity than that.

So your questions, based upon your stated position, were purely rhetorical then?!

From that position, then you must feel that the majority of cohabiting relations between women and men must be exploitive and degrading to women? It is well studied fact that women are fulfilling an unpaid services when cohabiting with men. This lacking of a fee for services, thus means women are prostituting themselves for the "other" benefits contained with the cohabitation dynamics.


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
jas
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posted 11 October 2007 08:41 AM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:

Right. So basicly all this comes down to what you think sex should be like, based on your moral perspective.


I believe that our sexual relationships deeply inform our social relationships. I believe that sex should involve intimacy. If there is a large faction of the population renting people for sex, or sometimes just taking it, and this is considered the normal order of things, I believe there is a problem in our society that isn't being examined. I think the "new" sexual liberality (and what's new about it?) is a mask for the same old status quo. On the one hand, yes, we need to be able to talk about sex more, but we also need to grow up about it, and this "sex at any cost" morality is not the answer, imo.

And anyway, you don't have a moral perspective on sex? How do you decide which sexual relationships to have? Or did leftism get rid of all morality? How "liberating".

I think it's the people who profess to all this liberality who are the ones to react so strongly to anything they perceive as repression, which is why they are so quick to jump on others as "anti-sex".

What is anti-sex? Perhaps the people who use the term all the time can explain it to us, since they seem intimately familiar with it.


From: the world we want | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
I AM WOMAN
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posted 11 October 2007 09:27 AM      Profile for I AM WOMAN     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by remind:

So your questions, based upon your stated position, were purely rhetorical then?!

From that position, then you must feel that the majority of cohabiting relations between women and men must be exploitive and degrading to women? It is well studied fact that women are fulfilling an unpaid services when cohabiting with men. This lacking of a fee for services, thus means women are prostituting themselves for the "other" benefits contained with the cohabitation dynamics.


Equating couples that live together with a prostitute turning tricks is ridiculous. What "unpaid services" are women rendering by voluntarily living with their boyfriend or husband ?


From: tall building | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Scout
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posted 11 October 2007 09:44 AM      Profile for Scout     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I was going to write a long rebuttal to jas and I AM WOMAN but I changed my mind, not worth it. Their last two posts are so out of step with what progressives understand about feminism that I shouldn't have to be having such fucking basic conversation on babble.
From: Toronto, ON Canada | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 11 October 2007 09:53 AM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by I AM WOMAN:
Equating couples that live together with a prostitute turning tricks is ridiculous. What "unpaid services" are women rendering by voluntarily living with their boyfriend or husband ?

Are not the good portion of prostitutes voluntarily rendering their services, only they require payment? And it is not ridiculous.

Unpaid services:

1. Cook

2. Housekeeping

3. Laundry

4. Sexual

5. Personal shopper

6. Dishwasher


And many more depending upon the connectedness of the male to do "his" share.


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 11 October 2007 10:10 AM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Cueball went:
"I think you should go fuck yourself."

Hey, I thought you felt my sex life was out of bounds...;-) (How quickly they forget...)

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet, other examples of absolute use of power come to mind, that we as a society don't accept just because money talks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cueball: "My point is that we do accept them, they are perfectly legal.(...)"

Not all of them, no. Renting wombs is one example I can think of.

"And don't blow smoke up everyones ass by trying to tell me that only prosecuting the johns changes this reality. It doesn't. Hookers doing tricks still get taken down to the police station and are still required to appear in court, do interviews with the police, and any number of inconvenient and unpleasant things in order to perform as witnesses, even if they are not on trial."

No, actually they don't, in juridictions like Sweden that have taken seriously building their proof against johns without imposing on prostituted women to act as witnesses. Domestic violence is another field where the law has been forced by feminist advocates to acknowledge that they could revictimize people by asking them to beear responsibility for challenging their oppressors in a hostile system.

Indeed, I still feel *you* are the one doing just this, "putting the chicks up front" to deflect thinking and action against pimps, johns and traffickers, as you did by posting the $pread article without a word of acknowledgement of your own standpoint, the net effect being that for us to criticize prostitution was to appear to criticize the woman (?) quoted, rather than you for pulling that cheap and hackneyed trick.

How would you feel if a sweatshop owner was to publish alleged testimonials by women saying how glad they are to have a job at his place (regardless of whether they actually are, in a system that denies them better options)? How do you feel about the racist pig Southern plantation (and Northern aristocratic household) owners who based the defense of their exploitative system on how Blacks were happy in their "big family" (when the alternative was to get thrown off the boat)?

It is not "Rachel-Aimee"'s text I am challenging, but your gross use of women's words - if they are that - to defend traditional male privilege.

[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
kropotkin1951
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posted 11 October 2007 10:32 AM      Profile for kropotkin1951   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Scout:
I was going to write a long rebuttal to jas and I AM WOMAN but I changed my mind, not worth it. Their last two posts are so out of step with what progressives understand about feminism that I shouldn't have to be having such fucking basic conversation on babble.
Now Scout I AM WOMAN claims to be a feminist writer in her profile. Are you getting a little suspicious yet?

quote:
I will follow I AM Whatever's Request.

If you want to see I AM SOMETHING's profile click on here.

And she loves pink.

[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: kropotkin1951 ]

[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: kropotkin1951 ]


From: North of Manifest Destiny | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
jas
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posted 11 October 2007 10:33 AM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Scout:
I was going to write a long rebuttal to jas and I AM WOMAN but I changed my mind, not worth it.

Okey-dokey. I don't see how my posts are even remotely related to IAW's, but apparently you do.


From: the world we want | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
I AM WOMAN
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posted 11 October 2007 10:44 AM      Profile for I AM WOMAN     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
kropotkin1951,

Please delete my profile information from the message board. Thank You.


From: tall building | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Scout
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posted 11 October 2007 10:45 AM      Profile for Scout     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I still feel.

quote:
use of women's words

quote:
traditional male privilege.

I am having an irony attack.

quote:
Okey-dokey. I don't see how my posts are even remotely related to IAW's, but apparently you do.

You wouldn't, which is exactly my point.


From: Toronto, ON Canada | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
kropotkin1951
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posted 11 October 2007 12:13 PM      Profile for kropotkin1951   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by I AM WOMAN:
kropotkin1951,

Please delete my profile information from the message board. Thank You.



Why anyone can look at it?

From: North of Manifest Destiny | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 11 October 2007 01:12 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:

It is not "Rachel-Aimee"'s text I am challenging, but your gross use of women's words - if they are that - to defend traditional male privilege.

The difference is Martin, I am not pretending to be representing women. I haven't formed a "feminist" organization of males that independently pushes the line of a specific feminist analysis, outside of caucus of a duly constituted women’s organization which supervises my activities, and actively entered the debate as a full contestant, representing women.

I speak for myself as a leftish male. Rachel-Aimee speaks for herself as a feminist and a sex trade worker.

I posted her item because it specifically draws on a leftist tradition which asserts the power of the marginalized to speak from their own perspective, about themselves, as opposed to having people come along and disempower them by imposing their preferred narrative on them.

And you are in fact challenging her directly and her assertion of her right to empower herself thus, because you are in fact pushing a specific feminist line "in feminist theory" which she is objecting to, as she says "the issues that other people create around us."

The thing is Martin, in all "solidarity" work, which is the essence of what you are doing, the byword is not determining for yourself what is best for those who you want to be in solidarity with, but empowering them by accepting their definition of the problem which they face, and the solution they choose to resolve it, not the one you think is right.

If there was a consensus among sex-trade workers that sex work should be made illegal, through whatever mechanism, then you would be right to take the stand that you are, in solidarity with those people. But the fact is that no such consensus exists, and in fact it seems there is a good deal of evidence that the opposite is true.

In fact, in almost every case, where I have read the views of women in the sex-trade who have organized to deal with the issues that confront them in the day to day struggle of their lives, they clearly state that it should not be illegal, nor do they advocate for feminist organization to continue to lobby for the state to put pressure on their clients.

This has also been my experience of what women in the sex trade have told me directly. Even the ones who have an inate distaste for the whole business, still do not want the state to make it even more complicated and embarrassing than it already is, or have their source of income harrassed.

They can speak for themselves. I am speaking in line with what they are already saying. Please find for me one organization of working prostitutes that advocates your line.

quote:
No, actually they don't, in juridictions like Sweden that have taken seriously building their proof against johns without imposing on prostituted women to act as witnesses. Domestic violence is another field where the law has been forced by feminist advocates to acknowledge that they could revictimize people by asking them to beear responsibility for challenging their oppressors in a hostile system.

And you can bet that conviction rates are so low, and investigative procedures so time consuming that the police don't even bother laying charges most of the time, very similar in fact to the way that police here rarely charge anyone for domestic assault when the primary witness will not make themselves available, even though the police lay the charges themselves.

[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Saber
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posted 11 October 2007 03:35 PM      Profile for Saber     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I would like to acknowledge some merit to what Martin is saying. I agree that prosecuting Johns is superior to prosecuting prostitutes. One theoretical advantage is that prostitutes would be able to hold the threat of the law over a John's head as a weapon. If he tried to abuse her or refuse payment (depending on how payment figured in the legislation) she could threaten to turn him in to the cops. That's a fair bit of power on her side.

But how much would this improve the situation and what might be the hidden consequences? Such legislation would still not enable women to operate in the safety of a bawdy house. They would still be operating in the streets and in venues where the Johns feel safe from being caught but which are not necessarily familiar to the women.

What disturbs me about this proposal is that is keeps prostitution in the streets as opposed to in houses of business operated by women. The whole cliché of a Madam in a whorehouse exists for a reason. When women are able to work together in the same location, they are able to remain organized and protect each other. If something goes wrong with a trick, the woman next door will hear. Someone you know and work with will come to your rescue. You rarely hear of Madams operating in the street. I'm speculating, but I think that may relate to basic physical strength. It seems to me that pimps dominate the street venue of prostitution and that the women have more potential to exercise power and protect themselves in bawdy houses. For women to work indoors, in a stable location however, the profession needs to be completely legal.

[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: Saber ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2005  |  IP: Logged
Saber
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posted 11 October 2007 04:26 PM      Profile for Saber     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by I AM WOMAN:
I disagree. I think prostitution is exploitive and degrading to women. I think that women are worthy of more dignity than that.

I respect your opinion. It's a common feminist argument but I pose a question to you:

I presume that you believe a woman has the right to negotiate her own marriage. What principle grants her this right which does not also grant her the right to negotiate other more short term sexual-economic relationships?


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2005  |  IP: Logged
I AM WOMAN
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posted 11 October 2007 06:13 PM      Profile for I AM WOMAN     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Saber:

I presume that you believe a woman has the right to negotiate her own marriage. What principle grants her this right which does not also grant her the right to negotiate other more short term sexual-economic relationships?


The principal that grants a woman (or a man) the right to negotiate the terms of their marriage is not predicated on sexual exploitation. A marriage is based on mutual trust, love & commitment. Prostitution is predicated on the economic & sexual exploitation of women. The vulnerable and desperate women that find themselves in these dire situations are in need of help & support. They should not be subjected to more abuse.


From: tall building | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 11 October 2007 06:27 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Then why do people sign prenuptual agreements, if matters of economy are irrelevant?

Moreso, the tradition of marriage is far more barbaric than it would seem. Lets not forget that it is embedded in western Judeao-Christian traditions of arranged marriages, with direct economic implications, even in the paying of doweries, and the solidifying of social and economic ties between families.

Even today women are encouraged by their families to marry well into good families to men who have good prospects. Even in relationships which are founded upon the principles you are talking about, I don't know any sane woman who does not consider the economic status of their propsective mate, since quite obviously this counts when one is considering the long term costs of having children.

Certainly, this is not necessarily the most imporant factor, but it is still often a factor when women, and often their families consider prospective male partners for long term relationships.

Just look at how many marriages that end in divorce, also end in brutal financial legal disputes.

[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
minkepants
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posted 11 October 2007 09:00 PM      Profile for minkepants     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I think I AM WOMAN could try to filter her conception of marriage through what it meant, almost universally, until about, say, 1975, and what it still largely means in our society today, and universally in many socities today:

quote:
The principal that grants a woman (or a man) the right to negotiate the terms of their marriage is...predicated on sexual exploitation. A marriage is based...on the economic & sexual exploitation of women. The vulnerable and desperate women that find themselves in these dire situations are in need of help & support. They should not be subjected to more abuse.

From: Scarborough | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
jas
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posted 11 October 2007 09:39 PM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Scout:

You wouldn't, which is exactly my point.


How cryptically vague and convenient.


From: the world we want | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
Doug
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posted 11 October 2007 09:52 PM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
There is a reason that prostitution is called the world's oldest profession. It's been here forever and it's not going away so long as men want sex and women are willing to receive things in exchange for it. When it's legal and in the open, the nastier aspects of it can be regulated. That's much harder to do when it's illegal.
From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
jas
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posted 11 October 2007 10:27 PM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Doug:
There is a reason that prostitution is called the world's oldest profession. It's been here forever and it's not going away so long as men...

don't want to examine their own behaviour.


From: the world we want | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 11 October 2007 11:35 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Actually Jas, I have done quite a lot of examining my behaviour. I would in fact say that from about the age of 16 to about the age of 25 i spent 70% of my life examining my sexual behaviour. Fancy that eh? Now perhaps you might want to examine yours.

Lets say that men, as a group, feel less need to have emotional content in their sex, for whatever reason -- I don't agree necessarily, I think some do and some don't, and feel differently at different times. Now, ask yourself what is it about you that makes you think you have the right to assert the superiority of your particular sexual morality on others?

"I believe that sex should involve intimacy."

I am asking you this because the general drift of deposition here leads me to think that you feel that people (women included) shouldn't fuck just because they want to fuck, free of emotional content -- and in fact are morally deficient (variously rendered in the common language as pathologies such as: sluts, nymphos, whores, womanizers) if they do -- and it seems to me that this idea has a lot of sugar and spice in it, but not a lot of puppy dogs tails.

[ 12 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
jas
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posted 12 October 2007 06:25 AM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:
and it seems to me that this idea has a lot of sugar and spice in it, but not a lot of puppy dogs tails.

That's entirely your own perception, one which I've noticed has slanted your approach in all these threads. One which you are quick to prosecute at any available opportunity.

Will deal with the other question later. No time now.


From: the world we want | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 12 October 2007 06:37 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
"I believe that sex should involve intimacy."

Why?


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bigcitygal
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posted 12 October 2007 08:12 AM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Joining the conversation late.

First of all, Cueball, this...

quote:
in all "solidarity" work, which is the essence of what you are doing, the byword is not determining for yourself what is best for those who you want to be in solidarity with, but empowering them by accepting their definition of the problem which they face, and the solution they choose to resolve it, not the one you think is right.
...is so lovely I have to repeat it again. This is so so relevant beyond the topic of this thread. Wow. Thank you for those words, Cue.

As for the tone of the thread, here's some questions to mull:
What about men who are prostitutes (who have mostly male clients)?
Why is women's sexuality so compelling to talk about, analyze, dissect, ignore the words of, monitor, control, etc etc? Ad frikken nauseum. Sheesh.

Sex=intimacy? Are you frikking kidding me?


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spillunk
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posted 12 October 2007 12:01 PM      Profile for spillunk     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by jas:

...don't want to examine their own behaviour.

While it's fine to dissect the demand side in the sex work equation, my sense is that there will always be demand. I could be wrong, but thousands of years of history has not validated any other position.

Examining behaviour is fine to do, but we should also critically examine, as Cueball has, why we have this undercurrent that this demand is inherently sinful or bad.

The notion that (as long as all parties consent), everyone should have the right to pursue sex for whatever purpose they want is also highly controversial, and that controversy bears dissecting too. If we envision for ourselves the goal of a future where sex is not traded by anyone, then I think we're already lost in our assumptions about what sex means to different people.

There will be a supply of sex work, whether we drive it underground or not. The only question is what we do to make sex workers safer, better integrated in our culture, and with greater access to benefits.


From: cavescavescaves! | Registered: Jun 2007  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 12 October 2007 01:57 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I believe that our sexual relationships deeply inform our social relationships. I believe that sex should involve intimacy. If there is a large faction of the population renting people for sex, or sometimes just taking it, and this is considered the normal order of things, I believe there is a problem in our society that isn't being examined. I think the "new" sexual liberality (and what's new about it?) is a mask for the same old status quo. On the one hand, yes, we need to be able to talk about sex more, but we also need to grow up about it, and this "sex at any cost" morality is not the answer, imo.



Alright, how would you have society solve this problem?

Please don't provide me with theoretical answers that deal with abstracts like capitalism and patriarchy. I want actual concrete solutions.

[ 12 October 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Saber
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posted 12 October 2007 06:30 PM      Profile for Saber     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Minkepant, that's hilarious. And an excellent point too!

It's only quite recently that marriage has ceased to be an institution highly exploitative of women, made necessary for women because of a patriarchal society. Women were forced into marriage out of economic necessity. Almost every kind of abuse that can be associated with prostitution has taken place in the domestic sphere, within the protected institution of marriage, rape being the most illustrative example of this.

If you take a look at the economic and feminist principles that underlie debates relating to marriage and prostitution, they are very similar.

- Can rape occur within marriage?
- Can rape occur within prostitution?

- Is it okay to hit your wife?
- Is it okay to hit your prostitute?

- Should women have sex for money?
- Should women marry for money?

Now if you consider the last question, women who marry for money are given far more respect than women who sell sexual services for money. Why is that? The latter are more honest than the former and yet the former are often considered smart.

To ignore the economics of marriage is very naive, and doesn't make for very good feminism.

[ 12 October 2007: Message edited by: Saber ]


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jas
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posted 12 October 2007 08:12 PM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
As for the tone of the thread, here's some questions to mull:
What about men who are prostitutes (who have mostly male clients)?
Why is women's sexuality so compelling to talk about, analyze, dissect, ignore the words of, monitor, control, etc etc? Ad frikken nauseum. Sheesh.

Read the threads in question, BCG. We are talking about people (mostly men) who buy sex. That includes buying sex from women, from men, from children, whatever. As for the dissection of women's sexuality, who's doing that? Cueball, maybe. Not me.

quote:
Sex=intimacy? Are you frikking kidding me?

Yeah, intimacy. Eewwww....


From: the world we want | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 12 October 2007 08:36 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Thank you very much for your earlier comments. I found them to be forthright and honest.

You're the one demanding an exclusionary dialogue that only dissects male sexuality. You insist on it, in fact. Very odd that you should demand such a dissection, and feel that a dissection of the perspective from which you are evaluating that dissection is off limits.

You have not answered the question:

"I believe that sex should involve intimacy."

Why?

PS: No. The thread in question is directly derived from a thread specifically about womens agency in the sex trade. Both are relevant topics.

[ 12 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


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jas
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posted 12 October 2007 08:47 PM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
In response to Cueball's question, just as humans are not a commodity, life is not a commodity (I don't support the patenting of life forms or gene sequences either), sex is not a commodity.

I can see that anything else I say about this now, will be automatically construed here as an insult to sex workers everywhere, so, no, I'm not stepping in it tonight.


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Cueball
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posted 12 October 2007 08:52 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I didn't ask about comodification of sex. For instance, a person might just fuck someone else, without an exchange of money, and still not be intimate. This happens all the time.

I asked why you "believe that sex should involve intimacy"?


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jas
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posted 12 October 2007 08:55 PM      Profile for jas     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
*whistles*
From: the world we want | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
Saber
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posted 12 October 2007 09:07 PM      Profile for Saber     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Bigcitygal:
As for the tone of the thread, here's some questions to mull:
What about men who are prostitutes (who have mostly male clients)?

I think this is a really important topic to bring up. There are male prostitutes and most of them do service male clients. I'm not as informed on the issues relating to male prostitution as to female prostitution. All I have read about male prostitution has related to "The Third World". Anybody more informed on the issue? It's probably more common than we think.


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Erik Redburn
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posted 12 October 2007 09:08 PM      Profile for Erik Redburn     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
OTOH, enough said.

[ 12 October 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]


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minkepants
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posted 12 October 2007 09:39 PM      Profile for minkepants     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
thanks,saber.your bit about disposable people was devastating.
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CMOT Dibbler
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posted 13 October 2007 07:08 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Read the threads in question, BCG. We are talking about people (mostly men) who buy sex.

No we're not, at least not anymore. This thread started with Cue posting an article about spread magazine and it was quickly derailed by Martin Dufresne.
Don't worry about answering my question. It's impossible to do WITHOUT refering to at least one of the abstracts I mentioned.

[ 13 October 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


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bigcitygal
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posted 13 October 2007 07:46 AM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Okay, boys, this is getting a bit tiresome.

The notion that sex should always equal intimacy is a highly moral judgement that not everyone holds. It reminds me of the very old sexist saying "women use sex to get love and men use love to get sex". Have we not evolved socially since then? No? Please.

Women and men are capable of much intimacy, sexual or otherwise, and as much sex devoid of intimacy, as we please. An individual person's range may be narrow and fixed more on the "sex and emotional intimacy" range, but that isn't the case for all, nor would I expect that for all.

And what does all this have to do with sex workers? I've had sex workers tell me that for long-term clients there is a level of intimacy that I would not have assumed, as an outsider to both the literal buying and selling of sex. An emotional connection can develop.

Oh, one last tiny point. If no men were prepared to pay for sex, there would be no more paid sex workers. This isn't a complicated chicken and egg question.


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Cueball
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posted 13 October 2007 09:32 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Really from my perespective, I think the reason that men are slightly more lose sexually is really a result of their lack of concern over issues such as pregnancy. I think also, women are more concerned about the long term issues of child rearing. I think this has some long term attitude impacts, which make me a little more liberal in their sexual habits, and are more into the general idea of creating stable and intimate relationships.

But my experience is that women are not essentially looking for more intimate sexual experiences than men, just as sex, and often quite content with one night stands, or short affairs without any real long term emoitional attachements.


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CMOT Dibbler
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posted 13 October 2007 11:00 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post

[ 13 October 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
bliter
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posted 13 October 2007 11:00 AM      Profile for bliter   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post
I did not, and would not, say it, but came upon this very strong opinion when reading responses to a blog entry on "gold digging" - in reference to women seeking marriage/partnership.:

75.
October 11th,
2007
2:27 pm
it reaffirms what I truly believe.. ALL WOMEN ARE BASICALLY PROSTITUTES ..
— Posted by (deleted)

I immediately had to ask myself, should that be basicly or basically?

Though the latter is probably correct, I tend to favor the former since I believe something may be basic - not basical.

For what it's worth, I think the poster's opinion is incorrect.


From: delta | Registered: Sep 2007  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 13 October 2007 11:01 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Oh, one last tiny point. If no men were prepared to pay for sex, there would be no more paid sex workers. This isn't a complicated chicken and egg question.


Most of the sex work would vanish, but not all of it. Aren't there instances where women sometimes pay for sex?

[ 13 October 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
bliter
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posted 13 October 2007 11:19 AM      Profile for bliter   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post
CMOT Dibbler

That was rude.


From: delta | Registered: Sep 2007  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 13 October 2007 12:37 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
What? I felt that I was being kind of defensive, but it is a legitimate point. I'll remove the fake HTML.
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AfroHealer
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posted 13 October 2007 12:59 PM      Profile for AfroHealer   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by bigcitygal:

Oh, one last tiny point. If no men were prepared to pay for sex, there would be no more paid sex workers. This isn't a complicated chicken and egg question.


Just wanted to remind you that in resorts in the global south, there is a virtual avalanche of women buying sex, from so-called Exotic males.

Femal Sex tourism

quote:
female travel sex (involving American and English women) began in Rome in the late 1840s, at the same time as feminism's first wave, which encouraged independence and travel.

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CMOT Dibbler
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posted 14 October 2007 09:56 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Unfotunatly, even if we remove the barriers that prevent sexworkers from doing there jobs, we're still stuck with a sociey that hates prstitutes, with very few people(even on the sexually liberal left) willing to help sexworkers make their way in the world.

It's really unfair. Even those who have fought for the disposessed all their lives, won't lift a finger for those who engage in sexwork.


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
I AM WOMAN
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posted 14 October 2007 11:56 AM      Profile for I AM WOMAN     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
It's really unfair. Even those who have fought for the disposesed all their lives, won't lift a finger for those who engage in sexwork.

You can include me in that crowd. I think the progressive movement should be about ENDING sex work . Not allowing it to continue.


From: tall building | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
bigcitygal
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posted 14 October 2007 02:17 PM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
AfroHealer, yes, some privileged class white women buy sex, which is a perfect example to be against the "equality" language of feminism. But that's thread drift.

Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of sex for sale involves male customers and female sex providers.

I AM, there can be no ending of sex work until you eliminate the need for sex work, and the need for sex work comes from the customers, not the workers. So, are you advocating castration? Negative reinforcement therapy? Monasteries? Chastity belts for men? Mandatory homosexual brainwashing?

Centering women sex workers as "the problem" is exactly what progressives should NOT do.


From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 14 October 2007 02:38 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I think I would have no problem with someone having a principled stand against sex work if they were likewise saying that it should be legal, but that the primary motivating factors for women wanting to do sex work were removed that being the economic handicap that women face in their daily lives. Only when women, and people in general, are not driven to do risky and exploitative labour will it be clear that women doing sex women have a clear choice, and are not being forced into it because they need to.

Regulation could even be concieved off as part of that solution, since inevitably were the real wages of women increased over all throughout society, the cost to the consumer would increase, just through basic supply and demand prinicples, and the women who do do it would make more money, and be more likely to move from doing it to doing things that really interested them.

The rest of these issues, are really moral problems of personal choice, and I think personal choice trumps other considerations here, as these activities happen between indivduals and if there is any harm done, it happens on the personal level, just like drinking, drug addiction and numerous other things which are personally harmful, but not damaging to society at large.


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Doug
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posted 14 October 2007 03:22 PM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
[QB]
Most of the sex work would vanish, but not all of it. Aren't there instances where women sometimes pay for sex?
QB]

And for that matter there are people who have few alternatives other than paying for sex, single disabled ane elderly people, for example.


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martin dufresne
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posted 16 October 2007 06:33 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
A group of Spanish men recently published an abolitionist manifesto, supportive of presently prostituted people and inviting men to desist from using their privilege to sexually exploit them.
They offer an interesting rebuttal to the alleged 'inevitability' argument, as really unacceptable and insulting to men. (Some may disagree, of course...)

quote:
Consideramos que afirmaciones del tipo "sin la prostitución habría más violaciones", "es la profesión más antigua del mundo", "es la única manera de tener relaciones sexuales para muchas personas" son completamente inaceptables y ofensivas para los hombres. Los hombres no tenemos deseos sexuales incontrolables e incontrolados por los cuales sin prostitutas solo podemos acabar violando. Ese tipo de argumentos solo pretenden justificar la relación de poder que supone la prostitución y simplemente buscan defender los derechos de los explotadores sexuales.

Hombres por la Abolicion de la Prostitucion


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 16 October 2007 06:35 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I was rather looking for an organization of women in the sex trade that supports your views. I am fully aware that there are plenty of men out there who feel it is their right to dictate what women should and should not do with their bodies.

[ 16 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]


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minkepants
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posted 16 October 2007 07:00 PM      Profile for minkepants     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Nicely put, Cue.

Although it's hardly surprising Martin would cite another oddball fraternal feminist organization much like his own, both of which, I suspect, are remarkably devoid of women.


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martin dufresne
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posted 16 October 2007 09:07 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
"Cueball" says he is "fully aware that there are plenty of men out there who feel it is their right to dictate what women should and should not do with their bodies".

Good for him. But the Hombres por la Abolicion de la Prostitucion don't and neither do I.


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Jingles
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posted 16 October 2007 09:54 PM      Profile for Jingles     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I think the progressive movement should be about ENDING sex work . Not allowing it to continue.

That doesn't sound very progressive. That sounds positively Puritanical.

So much of the prostitution debate reeks of Victorian moral approbation. The Fallen Women syndrome, or the Pretty Woman syndrome, seems to run as an undercurrent.

Millions of women are exploited, abused, degraded, humiliated, and otherwise used by men in daily existence all without having to remove a single garment. A typical day at a McDonald's provides enough exploitation and humiliation for a lifetime. Hell, they can just go to church, since most religions consider women subhuman. But when it involves sex, suddenly concerned men and women feel they must Do Something About it.

When Martin and the Hombres get together to stop the patriarchy's exploitation of women relegated to work in the early child care industry, maybe they'll be on to something. Until then, their advocacy of anti-sex work seems more like "rescue the damsel in distress" than actual progressive work.


From: At the Delta of the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 16 October 2007 10:33 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Bigcitygal, are you really convinced of men's - or indeed consumers of any gender's - alleged "need for" the kind of sex one buys?
You wrote:
quote:
I AM, there can be no ending of sex work until you eliminate the need for sex work, and the need for sex work comes from the customers, not the workers.

Could buying sex be seen as a luxury instead, a perk of power, a reflection of what some people come to take for granted when enough people of a pilloried class lack other options? Indeed, do the privileged need sex or is it the other way around, that is does traditional sex "need" a power differential?

I agree with you that prostituted people aren't the problem, johns and a racist/sexist/imperialist culture are. And it seems to me that the research establishing that most johns *do* have at least one sex partner - and the option of negotiating a reciprocal exchange - disproves the "need" excuse

So isn't it clear that we can question johns' privilege to use women, instead of entertaining the extreme alternatives you list below (and you forgot wet dreams - ain't they great? - and self-love):

quote:
...So, are you advocating castration? Negative reinforcement therapy? Monasteries? Chastity belts for men? Mandatory homosexual brainwashing?

P.S.: Homosexuality doesn't rule out renting people for sexual use, unfortunately.

Another solution: Get a robot

[ 17 October 2007: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 17 October 2007 12:01 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Another site you might be interested in visiting Martin, would be this one: brednroses.
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
bigcitygal
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posted 17 October 2007 04:43 AM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
martin: Could buying sex be seen as a luxury instead, a perk of power, a reflection of what some people come to take for granted when enough people of a pilloried class lack other options? Indeed, do the privileged need sex or is it the other way around, that is does traditional sex "need" a power differential?

No. I believe most of this was covered in the "why do men go to prostitutes" thread.

I felt the same way about johns as you, martin, until I saw Mirha Soleil-Ross' performance at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre a few years ago. She helped me broaden my rather closed mind, and got rid of ideas like "all johns are power-hungry fuckwads who want to buy women to lord it over them for 30 or 60 minutes". Not that there aren't johns like that, but such johns quickly get a bad rep in the community (yes, there are sex worker communities) and there's even a "Bad Date book" in Toronto that circulates regarding the more violent johns, johns who won't pay, johns who are fucked up and dangerous. The book includes cops to avoid for similar reasons. And it's updated regularly.

The model "The client exploits the worker completely. The client has all the control, the worker has none" falls apart when we look at male workers, regardless of the gender of the client.

And Jingles' point about ways in which women are exploited at work in which no sex occurs is very VERY significant. Early Childhood Educators aka day care workers get pissed on, puked on, they need to feed and often bathe the numerous babies, toddlers and children in their care, they get paid crap, they clean up crap, they work in a loud and screechy environment. In the magic world of BCG they would be making tons of money, with fabulous benefits, and shorter work shifts. They sure as hell aren't. Where's your outrage at that, martin?

Sex work has been described to me as similar to other work in which you use your body. There is a built-in time constraint (you can't plan on doing this work for decades, like construction work, day care work and other manual labour), because of this you should get paid more than people who just sit at a desk all day and there are built-in physical hazards that you may not anticipate that may end your career.

I'll ask again: why the obsession with prostitution? martin, you seem to be fetishizing prostitution as THE MOST HORRIBLE work that a woman could EVER do for pay and that ALL women involved with sex work should live in a world in which they don't have to do it. There are many problems with this argument, some of which have already been pointed out to you. The most basic I will repeat: women do not need or require or want men like you to speak on our behalf. Yes some women want out of sex work. Some women do not. Yeah it can be brutal work, but so can working the fryer shift at a fast food franchise.

As for your question to me about what kind of "need" for sex leads someone to purchase sex, have you ever watched porn? A lot of porn is now free, so one could argue that anyone who consumes free porn is far far worse than someone who purchases sex, since at least that person is PAYING for it.

Sure buying sex is a luxury, but it depends where one goes. Lots of Hooters restaurants in the suburbs in my town. No sex involved there. I think you get thrown out for any groping, but I could be wrong.

Oh, and my use of "gay brainwashing" was in line with your "men having sex with women" argument, martin. Also, it was silly.


From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
bigcitygal
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posted 17 October 2007 04:50 AM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
P.S. The scuttlebutt (pun intended) I hear from sex workers and one dominatrix I've spoken to is the higher the class/status level of the client and the whiter the collar, the more likely he will want to be dominated / spanked / humiliated. I have a whole feminist analysis about why that makes complete sense to me, but sadly, that would be more thread drift.
From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 17 October 2007 03:03 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Hi BigCityGal,
You write:

"I felt the same way about johns as you, martin, until I saw Mirha Soleil-Ross' performance at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre a few years ago. She helped me broaden my rather closed mind, and got rid of ideas like "all johns are power-hungry fuckwads who want to buy women to lord it over them for 30 or 60 minutes"."

Eek, I didn't know I thought that... My words - above - are much less caricatural.


"...The model "The client exploits the worker completely. The client has all the control, the worker has none" falls apart when we look at male workers, regardless of the gender of the client."

Again, I am NOT party to that caricature. And I agree that prostituted males - youths, usually - have a somewhat different experience. They are, after all, males in a male-supremacist world.


Re: day care workers' conditions. BiCityGal asks: "Where's your outrage at that, martin?"

I am outraged at all forms of sexist exploitation, and I do advocate for day care workers to be better paid, among other struggles. Still, I make a difference between spaces where almost all workers love their job and their charges and try to improve their conditions through generally feminist political action, and those where 95% of women say they hate their jobs/johns and they want out - only to be falsely essentialized as fulfilled, funky and free "sex workers" by the sexploitation industry and its hacks and neo-lib apologists.

I think it does makes a difference whether the person pissing on you is an infant or a white adult male with too much disposable income and political might/police protection.


You also ask: "I'll ask again: why the obsession with prostitution?"

Hey, isn't it the thread theme?
Actually, prostitution comes fourth in my order of political prorities/activities. I have done more work on the male-supremacist backlash, domestic violence and family law issues.


BigCityGal: "...you seem to be fetishizing prostitution as THE MOST HORRIBLE work that a woman could EVER do for pay and that ALL women involved with sex work should live in a world in which they don't have to do it."

I am simply advocating for a world where NO ONE is allowed to use his wealth to buy someone else's sex life, or profit from that "trade" as pimps and traffickers do day in and day out. We aren't there yet, but I am hopeful that the male grip can be loosened.


BigCityGal: "...women do not need or require or want men like you to speak on our behalf."

Sorry, but I haven't done that. Contrary to the guys here, my focus has clearly been on men's choices. Many women do ask me and men in general to do their part in confronting exploitive and assaulting men - and that includes pimps, johns, traffickers and politicians.


You also ask: "As for your question to me about what kind of "need" for sex leads someone to purchase sex, have you ever watched porn? A lot of porn is now free, so one could argue that anyone who consumes free porn is far far worse than someone who purchases sex, since at least that person is PAYING for it."

Porn consumers pay too, in various ways, but I don't reaklly see how your argument addresses men's alleged "need for" sex, at their conditions.


BigCityGal: "Sure buying sex is a luxury, but it depends where one goes. Lots of Hooters restaurants in the suburbs(...)"

Colour me confused... My point is simply that prostitution happens because of the buyers' excessive wealth and power over, not because of any one's particular "need" for sex, something that is demonstrably inaccurate and would have plenty of other solutions if it weren't.


You also write: "...the higher the class/status level of the client and the whiter the collar, the more likely he will want to be dominated / spanked / humiliated. I have a whole feminist analysis about why that makes complete sense to me, but sadly, that would be more thread drift."

I don't know. Going that route can't be worse than some of the prostitution-is-great-for-you-women anonymous right-wing drivel I have read from benevolent males above.

Women in prostitution used by politicians and ambassadors in the U.S. have pointed out in a book ("City of Eros"?) that playing masochist is indeed one of power brokers' ways of reversing reality and "lording it over" to the people they dump on the rest of the year.

I guess they want to know how the other 99,9% of us live.

Thanks for replying seriously.

[ 17 October 2007: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 17 October 2007 04:13 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
World March of Women Manifesto – 17th October 200713-10-2007

We are once again mobilising on 17th October in order to denounce and demand an end to the oppression of women and to the domination, exploitation, egotism and unbridled quest for profit breeding injustice, war, conquest and violence.

Our feminist struggles and those of our foremothers on every continent have forged new freedoms for us, our daughters and sons and all the young girls and boys who will walk the earth after us. In 2000, we collected 5 million signatures demanding the end of poverty and violence against women. In 2005 we took to the streets again, inviting humanity to join us in our struggle for Equality, Freedom, Justice, Peace and Solidarity, weaving our dreams at the same time as we wove and constructed our global quilt.

Today, as before, we denounce capitalism, patriarchy and their institutions - such as transnational corporations and national oligarchies - that extract profit through: discrimination, oppression and exploitation of our peoples and especially of women; the looting of our territories, water, earth, biodiversity and sources of energy; the non-recognition of our individual and collective rights. We condemn these systems, which are sustained by the privileges held by men over women, of whites over blacks and indigenous peoples, as well as the exclusion of lesbians, immigrants, and many other life situations, by them considered “abnormal”. We denounce their repressive character and the criminalisation of our struggles.

This 17th October – the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty – we draw attention to the reality lived by us as women: our work within our families and community is not recognised and increases with every public service budget cut, we have less ownership and control of resources, we have lower salaries, our employment conditions are precarious and companies control our sexuality and bodies. We do not have the same educational opportunities and our knowledge and qualifications are less recognised. The links between poverty and violence against women manifests itself in the trafficking of women and sexual exploitation, in feminicide, in the use of women’s bodies as spoils of war.

We recognise the various forms of oppression against women in all four corners of the world. We have demonstrated many times - and we will continue to do so - against the military occupations of Palestine, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq. At this time, we particularly want to show our solidarity with women struggling against the military dictatorship in Burma, who played a central role during the initial protests against rises in fuel prices and thus ‘opened the way’ for monks, students and the general population. We support our sisters in Costa Rica in their NO vote in the national referendum on the subject of the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the USA. We commit ourselves to the struggle to overcome the terrible violence suffered by women in the armed conflicts in the regions of Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Darfur, in western Sudan.

We reaffirm our pathways in the struggle against poverty and violence against women:

Women’s economic autonomy and the redistribution of wealth: Decent employment, along with workers rights and fair remuneration; management, use and control of resources and means of life; strengthening of the solidarity economy; valorisation of women’s reproductive and productive work. Non-payment of external debts that threaten the national sovereignty of countries, and surveillance of new loans. Non-negotiation or signing of free-trade agreements, whose aim is the protection of transnational corporations’ interests.

For food sovereignty and against the privatisation of nature: self-management of our environmental resources based on a development model that respects the basic needs of present and future generations. The right to maintain our means of life, to produce our own food in the way we want to and to feed ourselves according to our own cultural traditions.

No to violence against women: Fight against sexist violence, which is the instrument of control of our lives, our bodies and our sexuality, that turns us into objects subject to the desires of others. Commitment and practical actions on the part of the State and of society – particularly social movements – in the prevention and punishment of violence against women.

Peace and demilitarisation: To put an end to impunity and the use of women’s bodies as spoils of war and of rape as a weapon of war. Participation of women in the resolution of conflicts. Policies for disarmament and against occupations and foreign military presence, including military bases and exercises.

We will march until all women are free from oppression!

Granja do Ulmeiro, Portugal, 8th October, 2007

International Committee of the World March of Women

(emphasis added)

[ 17 October 2007: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
jrose
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posted 17 October 2007 08:24 PM      Profile for jrose     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
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