Bipartisan fascists go after Backpage et al

[Toni]

Anyone can quibble over assumptions and measures in any study. You have yet to actually address the point that such a study (and others) indicates the proclaimed benefits of legalizing prostitution clearly not as significant or obvious otherwise these types of "flawed" studies would not come to the opposite conclusion of the "flawless" studies.

The study you point to doesn't address most of the benefits that have been suggested for legalization. It only addresses the reported numbers of human trafficking (rather than sex trafficking specifically) victims, without accounting for visibility etc. It doesn't touch at all on rapes, murders, and other dangers prohibition exposes sex workers to or the puritan control over what women can do with their bodies.

As pointed out to you previously: the overwhelming majority of human trafficking is for the sex industry.

As has been pointed out to you previously, there is nothing--not a damn thing--that prevents police from helping to provide protection to prostitutes. Legalization does not a damn thing to prevent rapes, murders or other violence against prostitutes.

Legalization does not prevent prostitutes from contracting STIs, including HIV.

If you ever actually addressed what would happen to a prostitute who tested positive for any incurable STI, I never saw it.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I just noticed my own typo here. I understand your confusion now lol! I meant to write pimping and not pumping.

- - - Updated - - -

The claim that legal prostitution reduces human trafficking is not as strong as some proponents portray. A 2012 study found (among other things)

This study and its flaws in methods and conclusions were already discussed upthread.

From a peer reviewed source?

What from a peer reviewed source? That there are flaws in the assumptions and measures? Does that matter? Do the criticisms not stand on their own regardless of who points them out? But actually yes, and also from a US government source too.

Send your criticisms to the peer-reviewed journal that published the paper. No one is going to take your post seriously otherwise.

 

[laughing dog]

It lends more credibility to the criticism if it has been vetted.

Not if the criticism doesn't require new data or sophisticated data analysis, which much of this doesn't.

Anyone can quibble over assumptions and measures in any study. You have yet to actually address the point that such a study (and others) indicates the proclaimed benefits of legalizing prostitution clearly not as significant or obvious otherwise these types of "flawed" studies would not come to the opposite conclusion of the "flawless" studies.

The study you point to doesn't address most of the benefits that have been suggested for legalization. It only addresses the reported numbers of human trafficking (rather than sex trafficking specifically) victims, without accounting for visibility etc.

Wow. Most human trafficking is sex trafficking. If legalizing prostitution is associated with increased human trafficking that is pretty damning unless one does not mind non-sex human trafficking.

It doesn't touch at all on rapes, murders, and other dangers prohibition exposes sex workers to or the puritan control over what women can do with their bodies.

Unless the intent of the study was a comprehensive benefit-cost analysis of legalizing prostitution, so what?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

All jobs have a certain amount of risk. Note that the HIV rate in the legal brothels in Nevada is zero. (Beware of some deceptive data to the contrary that's floating around out there--HIV cases have been caught in pre-employment testing.) Condoms + not having other STDs greatly reduces the HIV risk.

Does it? Or does it merely reroute where it takes place?

It seems to increase illegal sex trade.

In any regime with a reasonable licensing system how are underage girls going to get a license?? The expected result is a lowering of underage prostitution.

And an idea comes to mind to combat trafficking: How about raising the age limit for non-citizens? That would make it very hard for pimps to get their trafficked women into the legal path and if you can put almost all the bad apples in a small segment of the market it's going to be much easier to catch them.

I think you do not understand what illicit means.


Legal prostitution seems to increase the amount of sex trafficking because it normalizes the idea that sex is a commodity that can be purchased and because it increases demand. Despite what proponents of legal sex work seem to believe, there are insufficient willing sex workers to meet demand, in this country and in any other country. This gap in numbers between demand for sex workers and supply of willing sex workers exists whether sex work is legal or illegal. Numerous sources indicate that the gap increases--more girls and women are trafficked when sex work is illegal.

Under current US federal law, a person under the age of 18 cannot be said to legally consent to sex work until they are 18 years of age. This is consistent with the age at which someone can legally vote or enlist in the military or marry without parental consent or sign a contract or obtain a loan or auto insurance independently of a parent's consent. You cannot get a tattoo or piercing, open a bank account independent of a parent, donate blood or plasma, purchase tobacco products or pornography, and a host of other things. In most places one cannot legally purchase alcohol until reaching the age of 21. Now in some places, the age at which one can purchase some types of firearms has increased to 21.

What morally acceptable reason to decrease the age of consent for prostitution below 18 years of age can there possibly be?.

When demand consistently exceeds supply that's a clear indication the price is too low.

And what legal systems do much to try to keep out the trafficked women?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

As has been pointed out to you previously, there is nothing--not a damn thing--that prevents police from helping to provide protection to prostitutes. Legalization does not a damn thing to prevent rapes, murders or other violence against prostitutes.

Legalization does not prevent prostitutes from contracting STIs, including HIV.

If you ever actually addressed what would happen to a prostitute who tested positive for any incurable STI, I never saw it.

Reality: We have a good data point from when Rhode Island inadvertently legalized indoor prostitution.

Since this was an oops it doesn't reflect an underlying social difference and thus makes a much better data point.

STDs down, female murders down.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The prostitutes who suffer the consequences of this crackdown would not suffer them if they had a legal alternative place to advertise their services. Some links were already posted here and here.

There are more links:

http://www.newsweek.com/people-are-going-die-sex-workers-devastated-after-backpage-shutdown-876486

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...re-sex-workers-so-mad-about-it/?noredirect=on
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/9/womens-march-shuttering-backpage-crisis-sex-worker/
https://thinkprogress.org/backpage-indictment-sex-worker-concerns-2b5e30a1f847/
https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/sex/a52334/backpage-shutdown-make-sex-workers-less-safe/

Backpage is suspect of taking part in sexual slavery, so punishing the guilty is a good reason to act. However, without legalization, sex workers can't just go somewhere legal to post (there are alternatives, but they're apparently more complicated, and in any event, also illegal).

It could be argued that the suppression of the sex workers' freedom to have sex with whoever they choose in exchange for whatever they choose without harming third parties - and the consequences that they suffer due to said suppression - is justified as a means of reducing sex trafficking, or for some other reason, but I think that's a heavy burden on the pro-ban side, in terms of showing that the ban will actually make things much better overall, despite all of the people it significantly harms.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I just noticed my own typo here. I understand your confusion now lol! I meant to write pimping and not pumping.

- - - Updated - - -

This study and its flaws in methods and conclusions were already discussed upthread.

From a peer reviewed source?

What from a peer reviewed source? That there are flaws in the assumptions and measures? Does that matter? Do the criticisms not stand on their own regardless of who points them out? But actually yes, and also from a US government source too.

Send your criticisms to the peer-reviewed journal that published the paper. No one is going to take your post seriously otherwise.

LOL!

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

LOL!

I guess it's funny because it's false. People actually do take seriously Internet refutations of peer-reviewed scientific papers, like anti-global warming posts on the Internets.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

LOL!

I guess it's funny because it's false. People actually do take seriously Internet refutations of peer-reviewed scientific papers, like anti-global warming posts on the Internets.

You need an expert to show a study to be faulty if it involves a complicated experiment or data analysis. You don't need an expert to point out flaws in a study such as inconsistent measuring criteria or measuring one thing and calling it another. You also wouldn't need an expert to point out a low n or a confirmation bias or restricted survey population. Any random idiot can do that and the flaw isn't diminished for it, and we can all look at the data and methods and see it to be so. To refuse to do so because the criticism isn't peer reviewed despite the flaw being so apparent no expert is needed, is what is funny.

If a study tells you that there is a higher percentage of Jews in Memphis than in Jerusalem, and you then see that they were actually counting the number of religious people and were using different criteria for what a religious person is in the two cities, would you really need a peer reviewed study to tell you that's flawed?

This is also funny because I DID point to a peer reviewed (and in fact government) study pointing out these same flaws when Toni first cited this study.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What's really going on:

https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/11/fosta-sesta-silencing-sex-workers/

Can't have those sex workers not toeing the party line!

 

[Toni]

LOL!

I guess it's funny because it's false. People actually do take seriously Internet refutations of peer-reviewed scientific papers, like anti-global warming posts on the Internets.

You need an expert to show a study to be faulty if it involves a complicated experiment or data analysis. You don't need an expert to point out flaws in a study such as inconsistent measuring criteria or measuring one thing and calling it another. You also wouldn't need an expert to point out a low n or a confirmation bias or restricted survey population. Any random idiot can do that and the flaw isn't diminished for it, and we can all look at the data and methods and see it to be so. To refuse to do so because the criticism isn't peer reviewed despite the flaw being so apparent no expert is needed, is what is funny.

If a study tells you that there is a higher percentage of Jews in Memphis than in Jerusalem, and you then see that they were actually counting the number of religious people and were using different criteria for what a religious person is in the two cities, would you really need a peer reviewed study to tell you that's flawed?

This is also funny because I DID point to a peer reviewed (and in fact government) study pointing out these same flaws when Toni first cited this study.

Not really if you mean the Weitzer piece. It's not a government study for one thing. For another, it offers no better data than the multiple studies and articles I posted did and sensationalizes its claims much more, while criticizing others for sensationalization. I'm not positive it is even peer reviewed.

Here's one response to Weitzer's work:

https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=210428

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

LOL!

I guess it's funny because it's false. People actually do take seriously Internet refutations of peer-reviewed scientific papers, like anti-global warming posts on the Internets.

You need an expert to show a study to be faulty if it involves a complicated experiment or data analysis. You don't need an expert to point out flaws in a study such as inconsistent measuring criteria or measuring one thing and calling it another. You also wouldn't need an expert to point out a low n or a confirmation bias or restricted survey population. Any random idiot can do that and the flaw isn't diminished for it, and we can all look at the data and methods and see it to be so. To refuse to do so because the criticism isn't peer reviewed despite the flaw being so apparent no expert is needed, is what is funny.

If a study tells you that there is a higher percentage of Jews in Memphis than in Jerusalem, and you then see that they were actually counting the number of religious people and were using different criteria for what a religious person is in the two cities, would you really need a peer reviewed study to tell you that's flawed?

This is also funny because I DID point to a peer reviewed (and in fact government) study pointing out these same flaws when Toni first cited this study.

Links?

 

[Derec]

Sex workers are the only way I can have sex with a woman.

Interestingly, when we discussed victims of trafficking, you had this to say:

These sob-stories are anecdotes, not data.

I am inclined now to be harsh with your response and discuss your "sob-story" and how irrationally created is the circumstance. Would you consider this to be fair or unfair based on your own minimization of other people's hurt?

I may have been overly harsh with my reply, because I was (and still am) furious at this legislation, and especially at the level of uniform support for it by Congress. The Congresscritters' idiocy on this matter makes this quote very timely indeed.


Obviously, any real victim of involuntary of underage prostitution should be helped at those responsible should be brought to justice. But consenting adults should be left alone, as well as the free and open Internet.
Furthermore, I am not sure how many of the stories pushed by the Prohibitionists are real and how many are invented or embellished. I would not put outright fabrication past the bastards!

 

[Derec]

Derec i don't think that's true.

Why do you think you know me and my circumstances better than I?

I think that's a cop out because having to make yourself desirable would be more effort than you're willing to put forth

Well that effort is staggering. It's like another full time job to make yourself "dateable", if you want to believe dating advice sites, which I do, at least partially. At the same time, worst scumbags have no problem getting girlfriends. It's really frustrating.

and the idea that you might REALLY be undesirable to scare you so much that you don't ever want to find out.

But I have tried dating when I was younger and had more hair and a smaller gut. Didn't work then either.

I think it's unfortunate that you feel that way, but I can promise that no prostitute will ever give you anything more than an ephemeral feeling of completeness.

That's ok. The entire universe is ephemeral in the end - it just depends on your timescales. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and striving after wind.

You can't fill the holes in your soul with pleasure in the hopes that it will make them any less deep and dark.

That's ok. I do not believe in "souls" anyway, and I do not have any particularly dark holes in my psyche either. But I do desire some human sexual connection, even of ephemeral.

I've spent my entire life watching people try and fail at just that and they were almost always worse off for it.

Have you? I do not think this applies to me. I am not that kind of person, but we shall see.

P.S.: What do you think is the fundamental difference between your relationship with your boyfriend and sex work? You said in that Lounge thread that you do not work and pretty much mooch off him. So isn't that also a "sex for material goods" kind of relationship? And why should an open, honest transactional relationship be criminalized when those couched in relationshipy language are given a pass? "Cast out the beam out of thine own eye" and all that.

 

[laughing dog]

P.S.: What do you think is the fundamental difference between your relationship with your boyfriend and sex work? You said in that Lounge thread that you do not work and pretty much mooch off him. So isn't that also a "sex for material goods" kind of relationship? And why should an open, honest transactional relationship be criminalized when those couched in relationshipy language are given a pass? "Cast out the beam out of thine own eye" and all that.

A trusting and loving relationship can be independent of the financial structure of the household. Which means that person A can support person B financially out of pure respect and love which means that it is not at all like a pure transactional relationship. The fact you are unable/unwilling to accept that fact and view male-female relationship mainly through a transactional lens is probably the real reason you have had no luck in the dating scene and are unlikely to have any luck in the dating scene.

 

[Derec]

Derec, I don't actually believe that.

What is with you and Kiran believing that you know me and my circumstances better than me?

I realize that YOU believe that and because you believe that, you have ruled out any other avenues for generating a relationship with a woman or women that might ultimately be more satisfying.

This belief is justified and reasonable. I also think it is true. Therefore it can be called knowledge. It is result of numerous attempts to date women normally. All failed. I have ruled out those other avenues because I have found them all impassable.
And you said "might". That is interesting. You acknowledge that a romantic relationship is not necessarily more satisfying than a relationship with sex workers. Glad to hear that.

I see this as a self fulfilling prophesy. Maybe I just think more of you than you think of yourself. I apologize if this is too personal for me to write in this thread, but I wanted you to know that no matter how much you and I disagree about virtually everything, I see you as someone who deserves a good, loving relationship.

Maybe. But I am sick to trying. When women like to go for completely different kind of guy.

As I've said before, my opinions about prostitution are colored by knowing a few girls and women who were prostituted and knowing enough about them and their lives to know how they got there.

I bet I know far more. And some I have been seeing for an extended period of time and learned a but about them. Note that you use the word "were prostituted". This use of passive voice robs these women of acknowledgement of agency. You do not think they should be able to choose this line of work.

And also reading enough to learn that legalizing prostitution does not stop but seems to increase trafficked sex workers who did not enter the business willingly but who were tricked and compelled.

I have seen zero good evidence that shows that legalizing sex work increases involuntary aspects of it. And why would that be the case anyway? Propose a plausible mechanism please. For example, when Rhode Island accidentally legalized sex work.

Honestly, when I first started reading about legalizing prostitution, I was sure I would be convinced legalization was the better way to go. But the more I read, the more that I am not.

I doubt it. You seem to have a very visceral aversion to it. And the propaganda against it is to me very reminiscent to propaganda against legalization of weed or gay sex.

I am not impressed by the so called safe guards, especially by the testing for STIs which is present to protect customers but not sex workers who are discarded if they screen positive.

Well they would be prevented from continuing the work, which is reasonable. But they should not be "discarded" per se, I agree.

I know very well what the intervals of time there are between initial infection and possibility of detection of virus: it's during that lag time that viruses such as HIV are most virulent--most transmittable.

That may be true, but testing still protects both parties. For one, it is beneficial to start treatment early rather than late.
Second, if a sex worker tests positive and that prevents her from infecting a client or two, these clients will not pass HIV to other sex workers. Thus these sex workers are protected from infection.

I think we all know that there are customers who will insist on no condom just as there are prostitutes who are so desperate for money that they are willing to forgo the condom for the cash. Legalized prostitution reduces risks to health and safety but not enough. Legalized prostitution increases the risks that vulnerable people, often too young to be legal, are forced into that life. It's extremely difficult to get out, even if you are not compelled by a pimp.

The "sex without condom" demands are more likely in a completely unregulated market which we have with illegal sex work.

 

[Derec]

P.S.: What do you think is the fundamental difference between your relationship with your boyfriend and sex work? You said in that Lounge thread that you do not work and pretty much mooch off him. So isn't that also a "sex for material goods" kind of relationship? And why should an open, honest transactional relationship be criminalized when those couched in relationshipy language are given a pass? "Cast out the beam out of thine own eye" and all that.

A trusting and loving relationship can be independent of the financial structure of the household. Which means that person A can support person B financially out of pure respect and love which means that it is not at all like a pure transactional relationship. The fact you are unable/unwilling to accept that fact and view male-female relationship mainly through a transactional lens is probably the real reason you have had no luck in the dating scene and are unlikely to have any luck in the dating scene.

Sorry, but how else would you interpret this?

 

[laughing dog]

P.S.: What do you think is the fundamental difference between your relationship with your boyfriend and sex work? You said in that Lounge thread that you do not work and pretty much mooch off him. So isn't that also a "sex for material goods" kind of relationship? And why should an open, honest transactional relationship be criminalized when those couched in relationshipy language are given a pass? "Cast out the beam out of thine own eye" and all that.

A trusting and loving relationship can be independent of the financial structure of the household. Which means that person A can support person B financially out of pure respect and love which means that it is not at all like a pure transactional relationship. The fact you are unable/unwilling to accept that fact and view male-female relationship mainly through a transactional lens is probably the real reason you have had no luck in the dating scene and are unlikely to have any luck in the dating scene.

Sorry, but how else would you interpret this?

First, I did not explicitly address a specific relationship. Second, without knowing more about the two people, I would hesitate that it was transactionally based relationship. Why would you necessarily assume that Lord Kiran and his/her partner (sorry, I do not recall Lord Kiran's gender) are not in a loving and giving relationship?

 

[Derec]

First, I did not explicitly address a specific relationship.

But I did. I did not say all relationships were transactional. But some certainly are. Are you denying that? Even for Donald and Melania?

Second, without knowing more about the two people, I would hesitate that it was transactionally based relationship.

That's why I asked Kiran, not you.

Why would you necessarily assume that Lord Kiran and his/her partner (sorry, I do not recall Lord Kiran's gender) are not in a loving and giving relationship?

It seemed that way from his description. I assumed he was a guy because of "Lord".

 

[Derec]

Nah she's saying that the people most for legalized prostitution aren't particularly interested in the well being of the prostitutes.

That is not true. I do care about well-being of sex-workers. In the case of ladies I have been seeing regularly, that concern is personal. I would hate to see anything bad happen to any of them.
However, I think people like Jarhyn who say that well being of sex workers is the only thing that should matter.

Sort of how stoners like to justify the legalization of pot by pointing out all the people it helps when by and large their motivations are far less noble and more self-centered than they let on.

Is self-interest always wrong? Does one have to be self-disintersted to be able to care about others? That's a weird position to take.

Do you think there'd be any kind of safety net for prostitutes who contract diseases due to the nature of their work put into place if we legalized prostitution?

Depends on the jurisdiction. The healthcare aspect is easier in places like Germany and Netherlands because of their healthcare system. In the US there'd have to be some sort of supplemental insurance. I wonder how industries with very dangerous professions, like commercial fishermen or underwater welders. Perhaps those things can be adapted for sex workers as well, perhaps financed by the permit fees.

Because I very much doubt it. Also good luck getting health insurance if you're a prostitute, that shit has hazardous/life threatening work written all over it.

I wonder where sex workers rank in terms of dangerous professions and also how that differs say between US and Netherlands. I bet they rank lower in Netherlands.