Where do you get this stuff from, Kimmio? If you're going to make wild blanket statements about the history of prostitution world wide, some substantiation would be nice.

 

Later on, you recognize sex as a basic need (one of the three 'f's, as you point out). What do you think would happen if we tried to absolutely suppress eating and fighting? Do you think it would work, I mean, assuming that you could get around people starving to death? What is your understanding of the success of prohibition of various sorts? You're arguing for essentially a remaking of male human nature as we understand it today. Why would you, or anyone, possibly think that could work? Kimmio, there's idealistic, and there's impossible. Human sexual behaviour is very like that of our bonobo cousins, in that the offer or acceptance of coitus IN EXCHANGE FOR SOME SORT OF BENEFIT underlies a very wide variety of sociological behaviours. You make assumptions that you know what is best for everyone, in every situation, and it gets a little irritating, if you're interested in knowing that.

 

I happen to think that being forced to work at Walmart would be more soul-damaging than being a self-employed sex worker. 

Amen

Take it up with CASAC. Amen.

I read. I research. I ask why a lot.

You also make up a lot of stuff.

 

Great. Half of people under 40 seem to be unemployed these days. Should they get jobs at Wamart, or sell sex to the upper class? Ignorant idea. I'm sorry. But it's just bloody ignorant. I made the strong case about the documentation of abuse, the effects thereof, cited the source of a respected agency that works with abused women. Then I discussed the 'primitive' brain (i.e. left over- other higher parts of our brains have evolved) and why, in modern society we don't give into every impulse of the amygdala. I gave a brief synopsis- research for yourself this stuff- about prostitution throughout history. I connected the dots- which is what thinking's all about. But it's the abuse- the abuse that you'd prefer to ignore- because, y'know, wayward waifs who need to make a living, will always be there to pleasure men with money. Who's stuck up?

I'll post my sources. Connect the dots for yourself if you care to. Which I do you don't. You'd rather just give out non chalant opinions based on current popular conversation without any investigating for yourselves. Which tells me you don't really care about the problem. To me, safety extends to helping women to stay healthy, society to stay healthy, long term.

Yep, kinda like that.

 

Your just throwing around accusations and ideas. There isn't a coherent argument in any of this, Kimmio. Any reader has to slog through miltiple consecutive posts to try to figure out what you're even trying to say.

 

I have no doubt that you have more experience than I do in this area. But you're too emotional to think clearly on it. I don't trust your opinions on this topic, like I rarely trust your "facts". Slow down, compose yourself, and give us more reasons to agree with you than, "I read, I research," because it doesn't appear that you do. It just looks like you've been personally affected by this, and you're lashing out.

 

Youth unemployment is high. It's undeniably high, was my point. The boomers are retiring later and hogging the jobs. There are fewer opportunities except in narrow sectors, and entry level jobs pay squat. Unions are busting up.... It's a bigger problem in some places than others. If we follow the economic trends of parts of Europe it could end up that way.

Youth 15-25. 420,000 jobless AND not in school. That's just 15-24

http://m.huffpost.com/ca/entry/3473194

I read this thread now just to see what other inane arguments you will make Kimmio.

 

I am thrilled that you haven't disappointed me.

Research PTSD and mental health in prostitution.

Research depersonalization and dissociative personality disorder


Research statistics on abused women who end up in the sex trade.


Research the primitive brain, amygdala, and alpha male behaviour


Research sociopathy


Research feminist theories and history of prostitution

Research gender, sexuality and attraction.

Research the UN declaration of human rights, and the UN position on sex trafficking.


And yes, I looked up all of these things, read a lot in the past week, much of which I already learned, because of my experiences, more importantly because of people I've known. I've seen a lot. And I am kind of sick of the burgiousee upper middle class attitude here that doesn't give a damn enough to look into it thenselves but would rather dismiss what I have to say, on their whims. Go dump on CASAC and their position paper. Ask how they have the gall to suggest criminalizing the purchase of sex. I'm sure they could tell you plenty of stories and point you toward plenty of research.

Oh Pinga, I am so close to saying something rude to you, like 'go fly a kite'

 

yup, i don't doubt you have been googling like mad.

 

 

This thread is a bit useful to see various arguments  found on the internet against prostitution., most of which are rather bizarre or unrealistic or actually against sex trafficing which is quite different from legalized prostitution.

 

Alas, that's probably my amygdala talking. Lol.

Actually, I haven't just looked up straight up arguments against it, or for it. I have my own hunches, admittedly because I have seen and met a lot of people impacted by this stuff. I am a woman- one with a disability in fact, which has impacted me and I know discrimination. I understand the expectations of the status quo, intimately well. We're another group of women who experience abuse at higher rates than the general population. And I went with my hunches to back up my own opinions when I researched. Turns out, the position paper from CASAC presents the same opinion on what to do about prostitution. And I have no doubt they have infinitely more experience working with victims of grievous abuse. ***Add: Btw, I didn't start with the CASAC position paper first. I tripped over it last, looking up something else.

You go ahead. Google like mad, and give me a comprehensive opinion based on your hunches based on intelligent studies. Without just repeating what a few people in the news are saying word for word. At least I googled and pulled my opinion together from various disciplines. What about you? None of us are 'experts' here, with PhDs in any of these disciplines. We're all just giving our opinions.

And all of these things were things I already learned at one point or another. Just piecing it together.

If we support legalizing and taxing the purchase of sex...we're pimps. In other words. Tax dollars going into the coffers of the officials we elect and entrust tax money with, at the expense of abused women.

Most of the credible info I've seen is that the alternative is worse, but I don't pretend to be an expert on this, and you could change my mind with good arguments. You don't have any. You're just throwing out random ideas, some of them unrelated or seemingly made up, hoping something works.
.
Again, slow down. Seriously. Breathe. Read what you're writing before you post it.

Kimmio

 

I'm not surprised that people aren't interested in reading  the truth about prostitutes. They are the lowest rung on the ladder, not even worth taking the time to read about.

 

Here are some blogs written by survivors:

 

What would you like me to do? Write a proper academic paper? Because I will. Where shall I post it when it's done?

Why is it seemingly made up, or unrelated. Because I wrote it?

Kimmio, do you understand the terms correlation and causation?

Read this, people, please! Thank you stardust!

Yes. I do. Are you just being snippy to get the upper hand? So, you'll speak to me like I'm 12? You do that a lot, Pinga.

You aren't 12?

Haha.

Haha. Good for you for being a grown up and taking the high road this time.

Ok, back to seriousness.

 

Kimmio, you google like mad,looking for defenses to your propositions.  I get that.  You pull stuff that covers everything from sex slavery , human trafficing, and references to temple prostitues.

 

You throw out ideas that masturbation is equivalent to sex with an individual.

 

You dismss individuals who have a sex drive as being base animals.

 

You throw out crazy statement such as if we support legalizing prostituion that we are pimps (dang, that must mean that I am a pot grower as I support medical marijuana)

 

you throw out false information such as 50% of those under 40 are unemployed, and then wonder why we question what you write.  When questioned , you just dismiss it.

 

 

You post multiple posts without response, and with random thoughts in a few short moments (some of which appear to be pulled form other sources without references to them)

 

It would be nice if you would pick an argument or points and stick with it for a bit.

 

I feel like I am chatting with someone who is manic.... I hope that is not the case.

Seriously, read the blog stardust posted. There are stories from sex workers, everyone from survival sex to high end escorts, on there. You can read the stats, and you can actually listen and empathize with how these people feel. We owe them that much.

I said 'it seems like' 50% of adults under 40 are unemployed. Seems like...meaning, it's high and not getting better. No, I am not manic. Been home sick for a few days. Depressed if anything. This is interesting, when it's not so exasperating. And it's important to go into depth about things, look at it from various angles, various disciplines- before making big policy decisions, before any votes take place on big issues.

I care about this. This is not as simple as re-zoning laws, or other policy decisions that don't carry such a human impact.

If I sit down and take the time to pull these ideas together, in a paper- I doubt you'd read it anyway. You've taken the seemingly populist opinion of the day and you're set in it.

There's nothing wrong with having a sex drive. There is something wrong with taking advantage of a.k.a. exploiting vulnerable, weaker, abused, people, to satisfy it. If that's necessary for people, society's got problems. This is not illogical.

Masturbation is not necessarily equivalent, but if self attained orgasms are not enough to keep someone from going mad, then they are the one's with self control issues- and society doesn't owe it to them to provide a human outlet anymore than we are obliged to find lonely people a loving partner for a fee. Especially given the stats that most people who are prostitutes have been abused and this is a continuum of the damage that's been done.

Kimmio, in all of these pages of posts, you can't answer a simple question: what happens when you try to suppress or repress something? Does it go away? No. So, you propose criminalizing a need. There's a lot of history behind such attempts, and they've never been successful. This is going to work this time, when it's never worked in history, because why?

Your 'arguments' are your own personal feelings bolstered by anecdotes. Could you at least try some direct question and answer, please?

If you suppress a need- repeatedly- like for a person's self to be integrally connected with their sexuality- then you get sex workers with mental health issues. When you suppress the 'need' of johns to exploit a stranger's body, you give them options, and education instead- but at least you don't seperate them from their 'selves' by forcing them to have something done to their person by another person who frightens or repulses them.

I can't believe you people are putting the needs of women who've been abused below the need for men (mostly) to get their rocks off with anyone they want.

I can't believe you think we can solve this through making it illegal and re-educating johns.

 

You are not being convincing here, at all. This is the sort of topic I freely admit I know little about. The best arguments I've read are that decriminalizing it could help remove the criminal element from the equation, which is where a lot of the abuse and human trafficking comes from. But I haven't read a lot on this. You go on about re-educating johns, but you can't show that it works, and it goes against common sense. It sounds like conversation therapy for homosexuals.

 

You're appealing to emotion, probably because you're emotional about this. I just don't think emotion is the place from where societies make our best policy decisions.

 

I wish you would collect your thoughts before you post. I don't need a thesis, but I would like a better, more coherent argument that doesn't sound like you're making things up again.

 

It's the opposite of conversion therapy for homosexuals. Homosexuals are the abused party. Prostitutes, are the abused party. What you're suggesting is that if we legalize the purchase, because the status quo male wants it, then women will have to suppress their sexuality connected to their person, and they will like it eventually.

Kimmio....shakin' my head........I dunno....people are blind when it comes to seeing prostitutes. They can only see "you".  Its like they want to jump on you for exposing the  sheer ugliness of it all.

 

Whatever...there are a big number of lurkers on the WC  who will surely benefit and learn from reading this thread. Education in this field is surely a much needed commodity.

 

It would be great if you could manage to find a ghost writer perhaps at your church, someone who could separate the topics into chapters , help out with the format ?  There surely are intellectuals in your church.  You could print it out, print copies and distribute them  wherever possible. Also you could have a Google blog and add to it over time.

 

Of course, the question:

 

Since its about prostitution would anyone care enough to assist you?

 

You have  read Geo Fee's experience with the UC in this regard   up thread, its not very pretty. He was helping the prostitutes at his church. There were problems but after the UC closed down his operation they didn't offer him any assistance elsewhere. They booted him and the prostitutes out....." Be gone....scram.... Get....Go..."... They took his door keys away.

Chansen, you can't take the emotion out of this. When you're talking about commodifying people and the purchase of their bodies. That's emotional. You can't take the emotion out of human decisions effecting human beings without cost to society. You can't take empathy out of human issues in favour of profit. Consider civil rights, the abortion issue, LGBT rights- emotional issues, tides turned by people who were emotional about the issues that impacted them. I'm no more emotional about this than those who fought to keep bawdy houses open.

I just want to repeat/quote GeoFee and Pinga from their  writing up thread: There is a video that didn't copy.

 

Quote:

Hi Pinga...

 

 

 

 

This is what a small United Church congregation offered while I served as their minister. Working with diverse advocacy and intervention associations we did all in our power to make a positive difference for the folk who responded to our offer of unconditional affirmation of them as persons. We provided warm breakfasts, listening ears and helpful hands, along with means for harm reduction provided by the BC Centre for Disease Control through its street nurse outreach program.

 

 

 

This creative response to a major social problem was not well received by some in the neighbourhood. The Church was repeatedly graffitied with slogans demanding the sex workers leave. I was on two occasions threatened with bodily harm. Once in the sanctuary by a man who showed me a hammer and intimating that he knew how to put an end to the problem I was causing.

 

 

 

Such aggressive refusal and resistance concluded with a police action. The vulnerable persons were driven from the Church property and back into the danger of life on the street. They were threatened with arrest should they return and their belongings were tossed into a garbage truck. This at the time Robert Picton was mutilating and murdering female sex workers snatched from the streets of Vancouver.

 

 

This extreme rejection of those lost and broken persons was authorized by a lower mainland Presbytery's executive. They took my keys and ordered me to stay away from the Church property.

 

 

 

Here is a snippet of a short documentary made by a local film maker. It played on the Knowledge network for several years following. I have never seen all of it. I did record this bit after being called by a friend who told me that it was being aired.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just please read this. Chansen, if you want some insight about the abuse, here it is.

 

If you think decriminalizing prostitution will keep the criminal element out, think againl. Check out Germany's failed legal prostitution. Making it legal invites all kinds of "criminal activity". Making it legal has also lowered the price for sex because now there is too much competition. Girls are now "imported" from other countries also. Now brothels are on "safe ground" and are allowed to market these girls freely. Gang bang parties are offered on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, where you can have as many girls for sex as you want for the amazing price of $160.00 any way that your heart desires.

 

Once you open this pandoras box it will be impossible to close.

 

 

I literally cried reading that blog. stardust, waterfall, thanks for your support.

Hardly. Most of history has condemned the "whores" and pretty much left the johns alone. They're the ones buying it, and along with the pimps, they're the ones abusing women, and yet they aren't seen as the biggest problem in this equation. At best, their behaviour is seen as equal to the prostitute's behaviour. Equally 'deviant'. Or something that women have a duty to cater to. That's a lie. Considering the majority of women in prostitution have been victims of abuse by men, and that's how they ended up there. Get rid of the demand. Bring the demand down, don't open it up to significant increase. Otherwise, the 'customers' with the same mentality toward women are going to go there. You can't stop what happens when the door is closed, or after hours- the manipulation, the absence of humanness, the rapes that still happen (how is a prostitute ever going to prove that a guy took what he didn't pay for in bed? He touches something she wasn't paid to let him touch, or makes her do something? Does something to her? Or gets a little too rough? And she feels terrified- on top of all the other similar instances that she's suppressing to go through with it. That can happen pretty fast. You think the cops will all of a sudden take those 'complaints' seriously from someone who has sex for a living? You think the brothel owners will want to lose business over that if he's a regular or high paying customer? Or, will she just as likely , more than likely, have to suck it up and move on to the next trick? They are pimps!) And what about the psychological scars the work leaves on people who are already scarred going into it- if you don't try to phase out the whole thing. Starting with seeing the johns behaviour and attitudes about women as the problem to be solved. Intensive education and deterrents haven't been tried for long. And our porn culture is only goading the problem further, also, reinforcing a mentality that is not healthy for women and society. I'd like to see it all go away one day.

Please read this article from The Guardian UK titled: "It's like you sign a contract to be raped"...about legalized brothels in Nevada:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/07/usa.gender

http://www.rapeis.org/activism/prostitution/prostitutionfacts.html

ny times article written by a former sex worker

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/19/is-legalized-prostitutio...