Demonizing sex workers

[CyranoJ]

Where I live prostitutes pay taxes and file VAT returns. Hasn't stopped the trafficking.

The "anti-trafficking" discourse is pretty free with statements like this, but when actual data comes into play it's the "anti-trafficking" models of legislation that fare worse, pretty much across the board.

 

[tenyari]

This one is contemporaneous with when I was in university where I was advocating for decriminalization thinking it would reduce problems and got hit with other students noting that it led to an increase in human trafficking:
https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/

• Countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited. The scale effect of legalizing prostitution, i.e. expansion of the market, outweighs the substitution effect, where legal sex workers are favored over illegal workers. On average, countries with legalized prostitution report a greater incidence of human trafficking inflows.

To note here is that legalization has a correlation to an increase in human trafficking seen more in high income democracies than elsewhere. Which makes sense even as it challenges stereotypes. Despite being from Harvard, this article is not the original study, but a law journal review of the study that I didn't see a link to the original study. The material it seems to be summarizing was something I was handed back when I was in graduate school around 2007, that at the time flipped my stance away from decriminalization.


However this more recent study (post Covid) has a more complex conclusion:
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/aclu_sex_work_decrim_research_brief.pdf

Sex Work Decriminalization Laws’ Impact OnHuman Trafficking There is a lack of consensus in the literature about the relationship between legalization or decriminalization of sex work and human trafficking, although it is important to note that laws against human trafficking still apply under sex work decriminalization or legalization. Research in Norway and Sweden links harsher legislation that regulates and/or criminalizes sex work with reducing trafficking.130 Yet, on the contrary, both Swedish government data and a study based on statistical modeling suggest that the end-demand model of decriminalization results in a decrease in trafficking rates.131 Furthermore, research in the EU more broadly suggests that decriminalization does not necessarily increase trafficking.132 In addition, according to a government study of Northern Ireland’s implementation of the end-demand model, there is Limited existing research indicates that sex workers with disabilities may be particularly negatively impacted by criminalization.14 ACLU Research Brief: Why Decriminalize Sex Work? no clear or conclusive evidence on the impact of the legislation on trafficking levels one way or the other. Specifically, in the years following implementation of this end-demand law, there were no additional prosecutions related to trafficking.133

The Dutch model — or legalized prostitution only within the bounds of certain areas — appears ineffective against curbing trafficking per research referenced previously. This model may force voluntary sex workers underground to an illegal, unregulated market, where they lose agency and their vulnerability to exploitation is increased.134 One key study suggests that legalizing sex work (specifically, prostitution) is associated with increased trafficking rates; however, the authors of this study caution against using these findings to oppose decriminalization or legalization given their model does not account for other potential positive impacts, such as improved worker safety.135 Furthermore, the study authors note the possibility of an eventual substitution effect: Once consensual prostitution is legal, we might see a shift in demand from trafficked persons to legal sex workers.

Claims linking trafficking and forms of sex work decriminalization have also been questioned as researchers have noted limitations to any such research, such as the lack of a consistent definition of prostitution, lack of a distinction between legal sex work and trafficking, and lack of accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date data, particularly on trafficking victims.136 Furthermore, the European Parliament notes several confounding variables that could account for any correlation between criminalization and trafficking, such as differing levels of economic and social welfare, unemployment rates, and gender inequality between the host and destination countries.137

When they mention 'end-demand model' that is the model where the prostitute selling is legal, but the buyer is criminalized. Elsewhere in the paper they note that the 'end-demand' model actually increases violence against prostitutes by both clients and police. Under any form of criminalization - police essentially become rape-gangs.

It is worth noting that the ACLU has a selection bias as they are one of the primary advocates of decriminalization - a point they concede at the start of the paper. However the article here appears to be rooted in fact.

So... the issue is complex.

You have dramatically horrible impacts that result from criminalization, and then you have evidence implying de-criminalization increases human trafficking. But there is a claim that this increase may be a result of decriminalization being too limited to meet demand (if you de-criminalize in a 1-block part of a city of 12 million on a continent with freedom of movement where it's illegal everywhere else... you've not only failed to meet demand, you'd made people feel like the supply should be there when they arrive, yet there's not enough legalization to meet the logical demand).

These articles actually have my swinging my stance back to decriminalization - where I was before I went to graduate school. But on the notion that it has to be wide scale enough or it just fails to do anything.

 

[djrip]

This one is contemporaneous with when I was in university where I was advocating for decriminalization thinking it would reduce problems and got hit with other students noting that it led to an increase in human trafficking:
https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/

To note here is that legalization has a correlation to an increase in human trafficking seen more in high income democracies than elsewhere. Which makes sense even as it challenges stereotypes. Despite being from Harvard, this article is not the original study, but a law journal review of the study that I didn't see a link to the original study. The material it seems to be summarizing was something I was handed back when I was in graduate school around 2007, that at the time flipped my stance away from decriminalization.


However this more recent study (post Covid) has a more complex conclusion:
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/aclu_sex_work_decrim_research_brief.pdf

When they mention 'end-demand model' that is the model where the prostitute selling is legal, but the buyer is criminalized. Elsewhere in the paper they note that the 'end-demand' model actually increases violence against prostitutes by both clients and police. Under any form of criminalization - police essentially become rape-gangs.

It is worth noting that the ACLU has a selection bias as they are one of the primary advocates of decriminalization - a point they concede at the start of the paper. However the article here appears to be rooted in fact.

So... the issue is complex.

You have dramatically horrible impacts that result from criminalization, and then you have evidence implying de-criminalization increases human trafficking. But there is a claim that this increase may be a result of decriminalization being too limited to meet demand (if you de-criminalize in a 1-block part of a city of 12 million on a continent with freedom of movement where it's illegal everywhere else... you've not only failed to meet demand, you'd made people feel like the supply should be there when they arrive, yet there's not enough legalization to meet the logical demand).

These articles actually have my swinging my stance back to decriminalization - where I was before I went to graduate school. But on the notion that it has to be wide scale enough or it just fails to do anything.

I'm glad to see this nuanced take. I always feel like prohibition makes things worse. It did with alcohol, it does with drugs. I'm sure trafficking is difficult to solve. But when I hear something like decriminalization increases trafficking, I don't think okay let's criminalize! I think, okay, why is that and how do we change the regulatory scheme to fix it?

 

[MillieDynamite]

Unfortunately, statistics can be manipulated. For example, in the early 80s, unemployment was quite high. For the first time in history, the military was used in the equations in order to lower the numbers. Since everyone in the military was employed, the unemployment numbers were reduced. In the 70s, the point for measuring those under the poverty level was decreased to show that the progressive moves by Johnson had an effect. In the 80s, the line was further reduced without explanation, nearly to the point of the 50s and 60s. Numbers don't lie; how they are used can be bald-faced lies. And the formulas can easily be manipulated to give the results you want.

This one is contemporaneous with when I was in university where I was advocating for decriminalization thinking it would reduce problems and got hit with other students noting that it led to an increase in human trafficking:
https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/

To note here is that legalization has a correlation to an increase in human trafficking seen more in high income democracies than elsewhere. Which makes sense even as it challenges stereotypes. Despite being from Harvard, this article is not the original study, but a law journal review of the study that I didn't see a link to the original study. The material it seems to be summarizing was something I was handed back when I was in graduate school around 2007, that at the time flipped my stance away from decriminalization.


However this more recent study (post Covid) has a more complex conclusion:
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/aclu_sex_work_decrim_research_brief.pdf

When they mention 'end-demand model' that is the model where the prostitute selling is legal, but the buyer is criminalized. Elsewhere in the paper they note that the 'end-demand' model actually increases violence against prostitutes by both clients and police. Under any form of criminalization - police essentially become rape-gangs.

It is worth noting that the ACLU has a selection bias as they are one of the primary advocates of decriminalization - a point they concede at the start of the paper. However the article here appears to be rooted in fact.

So... the issue is complex.

You have dramatically horrible impacts that result from criminalization, and then you have evidence implying de-criminalization increases human trafficking. But there is a claim that this increase may be a result of decriminalization being too limited to meet demand (if you de-criminalize in a 1-block part of a city of 12 million on a continent with freedom of movement where it's illegal everywhere else... you've not only failed to meet demand, you'd made people feel like the supply should be there when they arrive, yet there's not enough legalization to meet the logical demand).

These articles actually have my swinging my stance back to decriminalization - where I was before I went to graduate school. But on the notion that it has to be wide scale enough or it just fails to do anything.

 

[CyranoJ]

Unfortunately, statistics can be manipulated.

For example, a specific faction or movement could wield statistics loudly and with apparent confidence while "[lacking] a consistent definition of prostitution . . . a distinction between legal sex work and trafficking . . . [and] accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date data, particularly on trafficking victims." (Quoted from @tenyari's citation above, which was also quoted in your reply.) Which, again, there's a particular side of the debate that is more prone to this, and it's the ostensibly "anti-trafficking" faction: playing fast and loose with those sorts of "minor" details is a tried and true method of "lying with statistics" when honest appraisal of the data doesn't favor your cause.

If one is in the market for an honest and contextual approach to statistics and data, I will once again recommend Inga Thiemann's paper from 2020 which I linked earlier up-thread. Specifically about German policy but it captures the current state of the debate pretty well.

(Not meaning to sound as though I take trafficking lightly, I certainly don't. I'm just incredibly suspicious of the various political factions in and beyond Western democracies that claim to be addressing it or motivated by it. Very few of them really behave like people who are specifically interested in the actual phenomenon of trafficking, for many of them it just seems to be a word they vaguely identify with "whores" and that justifies slightly-repainted versions of whorephobia.)

 

[MillieDynamite]

While the trafficking of children is a worldwide phenomenon, not all trafficking is about sex. There are thriving black market adoptions in many countries, which may or may not included in the studies. Children brought into the country (USA) by coyotes may or may not be trafficked for sex purposes. The total amount of variables on figures when people, children included, are displaced for any of a number of reasons, can be added to the totals. But one child sold into sexual slavery is one child too many.

For example, a specific faction or movement could wield statistics loudly and with apparent confidence while "[lacking] a consistent definition of prostitution . . . a distinction between legal sex work and trafficking . . . [and] accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date data, particularly on trafficking victims." (Quoted from @tenyari's citation above, which was also quoted in your reply.) Which, again, there's a particular side of the debate that is more prone to this, and it's the ostensibly "anti-trafficking" faction: playing fast and loose with those sorts of "minor" details is a tried and true method of "lying with statistics" when honest appraisal of the data doesn't favor your cause.

If one is in the market for an honest and contextual approach to statistics and data, I will once again recommend Inga Thiemann's paper from 2020 which I linked earlier up-thread. Specifically about German policy but it captures the current state of the debate pretty well.

(Not meaning to sound as though I take trafficking lightly, I certainly don't. I'm just incredibly suspicious of the various political factions in and beyond Western democracies that claim to be addressing it or motivated by it. Very few of them really behave like people who are specifically interested in the actual phenomenon of trafficking, for many of them it just seems to be a word they vaguely identify with "whores" and that justifies slightly-repainted versions of whorephobia.)

 

[lc69hunter]

The Demonization of Humberstone Road.

My story inspired by this thread was published today. (I think a little bit of self-promotion is okay here as it's published in Letters - i.e. tumbleweed central)
It's about actual demons taking over a red-light district, but, if you look very carefully between the lines and are not too distracted by the demons with a dozen penises, you may detect a smidgen of satire in it.

(Weirdly both the longest and the easiest thing I've written this year).

Just read it. Interesting. You have a fertile mind. Gave it a 5

 

[lc69hunter]

@EmilyMiller , you may find this interesting:

So this comment just came in on my latest story, One Night Of Sindi.

My story, much like the one Emily wrote that kicked off this discussion, is also about a sex worker.

The difference is, unlike Emily's character, I didn't really give mine much of a backstory, or attach anything like a husband, or family.

Emily did so and the commenters disparaged the idea.

And yet here's the comment on mine. By Anonymous, of course:



Wait, what? Someone who thinks a sex worker could also make a great wife and mother???

Will wonders ever cease???

Ha! Your response made me chuckle. I know a brothel worker who has a 21 year old son and an 18 year old daughter. She did a good job of raising them, with no help from the ex.

 

[nice90sguy]

I demonize sex workers in my stories, but no more than I demonize every other character.

 

[tenyari]

While the trafficking of children is a worldwide phenomenon, not all trafficking is about sex.

Yes. That's how I came to this discussion back in graduate school. I was reading into trafficking of Amazon tribes. They're often used in forced labor to destroy their own homeland. From there I was in a group of people talking about something and the conversation shifted into sex workers. I defended legalization as a solution and got that older (back then current) study thrown at me, and told to look into things.

At the time, the more nuanced data did not yet exist. It's worth noting that that was only a few years out from some of the earlier legalization efforts (excluding the that one famous brothel in Nevada).

Now... again selection bias can be at play here. My old instinct was for legalization and it was 'statistics' that turned me against it. In seeing this new ACLU report... once could argue that it's statistics are skewed to favor legalization, and that I am more susceptible to believing the ACLU's stance on this as it backs the one I had before I had my moment in graduate school. 15 years on - I've just this week been handed a piece of confirmation bias.

I don't know... it bears further analysis.

 

[alohadave]

So many fictional antagonists would be walking free today if they'd only invoked their right to remain silent.

Law and Order episodes would be really short if any suspects did this.

 

[MillieDynamite]

But one cannot be a truly great villain if you don't bloviate about your superior intellect and describe your master plain in painstaking detail, even revealing, "The only way this won't work...," telling the hero exactly how to defeat them. And, of course, he does just that.

Law and Order episodes would be really short if any suspects did this.

 

[StillStunned]

But one cannot be a truly great villain if you don't bloviate about your superior intellect and describe your master plain in painstaking detail, even revealing, "The only way this won't work...," telling the hero exactly how to defeat them. And, of course, he does just that.

There's an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine that deals with this very concept. Or at least a murderer who's so proud of his plan that he blurts it all out during interrogation.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Go ahead, make my day. Try and stop it. You can't. You don't have the secret code, "Whatsitcalled," to plug into my computer to shut it down. Oops.

There's an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine that deals with this very concept. Or at least a murderer who's so proud of his plan that he blurts it all out during interrogation.

 

[tenyari]

So many fictional antagonists would be walking free today if they'd only invoked their right to remain silent.

In actual criminal justice so many people would be free if they'd just stop confessing to things they didn't do or listen to their lawyer and not take bad deals.

It's very common to come in with some dubious evidence and convince someone that no one would believe, based on your dubious evidence, that it wasn't them. And that they're not facing some massive decades long sentence due to things like tough on crime DAs and mandatory minimums. However... nobody wants to do all that paperwork - so here is this lesser charge that if they plead out to before their lawyer makes it over here from down the block where the PD's office is, they can just go home. But if they don't take it before the lawyer gets here, the local DA has a 90% conviction rate and no jury would ever believe a young black/Hispanics/indigenous man so... just sign here.

And then they get a felony record and 3 years probation. That means no right to vote, no right to a gun, and no right to privacy against searches, and the slightest violation (even jaywalking) and they've just plead guilty to doing something horrible so there won't even be a trial - just straight to sentencing. And then we get people writing about absentee fathers like our men had a choice (and yet despite this - Black men in particular are more involved in their children's lives than most other ethnic groups, except for Asian men).

 

[JJ82490]

My fiftieth story is about a sex worker. A sex worker who is married (apparently happily) and has a young child.

Now I posted it in LW. I wasn’t expecting a rating of 5 ️ and universal acclaim (as ever, the majority of people were kind, even the anon ones).

But this isn’t a whinge about this. It about comments like “no man would let his wife do that” and “no man would marry a whore” and “what do they tell the child about her disgusting work?”

There was (as maybe is to be suspected) condemnation of the woman and (as it’s LW) her husband. But none for the clients.

Is this odd on a sex site? Or are sex workers not human beings too?

Em

PS This isn’t really about my story (hence no link) it’s about attitudes to prostitution on Literotica

These are the same guys who in private pretend they are every male pornstar. The hypocrisy is amazing

 

[Duleigh]

These are the same guys who in private pretend they are every male pornstar. The hypocrisy is amazing

You know that? How did you find out? Did you blackmail it out of them? Or do they walk up to you in the street and say, "Peter North has nothing on me, wanna see?"
Tell me! this could be the basis of an amazing, award winning story!

 

[JJ82490]

You know that? How did you find out? Did you blackmail it out of them? Or do they walk up to you in the street and say, "Peter North has nothing on me, wanna see?"
Tell me! this could be the basis of an amazing, award winning story!

Did I touch a nerve?

 

[Duleigh]

Did I touch a nerve?

I think I touched a hypocrite itself

 

[JJ82490]

I think I touched a hypocrite itself

Ahh, a flip of the script...very savvy. Sadly though, far from the truth

 

[VerbalAbuse]

My fiftieth story is about a sex worker. A sex worker who is married (apparently happily) and has a young child.

Now I posted it in LW. I wasn’t expecting a rating of 5 ️ and universal acclaim (as ever, the majority of people were kind, even the anon ones).

But this isn’t a whinge about this. It about comments like “no man would let his wife do that” and “no man would marry a whore” and “what do they tell the child about her disgusting work?”

There was (as maybe is to be suspected) condemnation of the woman and (as it’s LW) her husband. But none for the clients.

Is this odd on a sex site? Or are sex workers not human beings too?

Em

PS This isn’t really about my story (hence no link) it’s about attitudes to prostitution on Literotica

The question to ask, IMO, is whether you'd recommend a prostitution career to your daughter, or say, little sister.
Whether you'd tell them that prostitution is not worse than, say, managing a fast food restaurant.

If you tell them, yes, prostitution is a fine career choice, then you may ask others why don't they think the same.
If you tell them no, prostitution is NOT a fine career choice, then you have your answer.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

My fiftieth story is about a sex worker. A sex worker who is married (apparently happily) and has a young child.

Now I posted it in LW. I wasn’t expecting a rating of 5 ️ and universal acclaim (as ever, the majority of people were kind, even the anon ones).

But this isn’t a whinge about this. It about comments like “no man would let his wife do that” and “no man would marry a whore” and “what do they tell the child about her disgusting work?”

There was (as maybe is to be suspected) condemnation of the woman and (as it’s LW) her husband. But none for the clients.

Is this odd on a sex site? Or are sex workers not human beings too?

Em

PS This isn’t really about my story (hence no link) it’s about attitudes to prostitution on Literotica

Conversely, ask the question from the POV of a parent.

You're the mother of a young man -- say, something like 18 to 22. One day he comes home with a woman saying "Mom, I am marrying this girl."

The woman is a prostitute. Say she's a bit older than him. Say she has worked the streets for many years. Say she continues to do it and plans to continue doing it.

They'll have children. Your grandchildren will be the sons and daughters of a whore. How comfortable will you be with that? What will you tell them? Especially when they'll ask about it? "Gramma, why are kids at school calling us that?"

 

[StillStunned]

The question to ask, IMO, is whether you'd recommend a prostitution career to your daughter, or say, little sister.
Whether you'd tell them that prostitution is not worse than, say, managing a fast food restaurant.

If you tell them, yes, prostitution is a fine career choice, then you may ask others why don't they think the same.
If you tell them no, prostitution is NOT a fine career choice, then you have your answer.

If I read Em's post correctly, that wasn't the issue. The question she was asking was why, in the ecosystem of sex workers, their partners and their clients, the clients seem to be given a moral carte blanche.

 

[Seadog777]

If I read Em's post correctly, that wasn't the issue. The question she was asking was why, in the ecosystem of sex workers, their partners and their clients, the clients seem to be given a moral carte blanche.

Exactly.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

If I read Em's post correctly, that wasn't the issue. The question she was asking was why, in the ecosystem of sex workers, their partners and their clients, the clients seem to be given a moral carte blanche.

No. See OP:

It about comments like “no man would let his wife do that” and “no man would marry a whore” and “what do they tell the child about her disgusting work?”

What is the title of the thread?

Demonizing sex workers​