France: Just Another Regressive Left Shithole

[JonA]

Pathetic. Just pathetic. And sad.

The short experiment that was Enlightenment is drawing to an end.

Farewell sensibility; the West hardly knew thee.

 

[laughing dog]

Is there a rationale for this conclusion?

 

[whichphilosophy]

Pathetic. Just pathetic. And sad.

The short experiment that was Enlightenment is drawing to an end.

Farewell sensibility; the West hardly knew thee.

Is this addressed to those who are telepathic so as they can read you thoughts.

 

[Arctish]

The truth of French Enlightenment's downfall is spiritually discerned.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I think he's trying to say the following: France was in the news for setting up fines for clients of prostitutes under the rationale that prostitutes themselves are most often sex slaves or drug addicts who wouldn't be improved by fining. Therefore, France is a bunch of unenlightened feminazis who hate men.

 

[JonA]

I would find the Left's prudishness unbelievable given the history of Western liberalism except that I am reminded of the fact that the Left are today nothing but fascists: and prudishness is something fascists do very well.

 

[JonA]

I think he's trying to say the following: France was in the news for setting up fines for clients of prostitutes under the rationale that prostitutes themselves are most often sex slaves or drug addicts who wouldn't be improved by fining. Therefore, France is a bunch of unenlightened feminazis who hate men.

I had not read that the law made gender distinctions.

Maybe you can point this out to me?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

One can only guess at what you could have possibly meant by that op.

 

[laughing dog]

I would find the Left's prudishness unbelievable given the history of Western liberalism except that I am reminded of the fact that the Left are today nothing but fascists: and prudishness is something fascists do very well.

Spoken like a true reactionary.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Libertarian conceptual modeling of prostitution involves concepts such as worker, service, entrepreneur, and customer.

Empirical studies commissioned by the French National Assembly found significant frequency of factual events such as sex trafficking, violence from pimps, non-consent, and trauma.

When persons encounter data that contradict their models, the models need to be thrown out and/or refined.

The situation has to be analyzed sans ideological over-simplification here to reach a rational conclusion.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I am sorry for the loss of your Michelin star.

 

[Derec]

I think he's trying to say the following: France was in the news for setting up fines for clients of prostitutes under the rationale that prostitutes themselves are most often sex slaves or drug addicts who wouldn't be improved by fining. Therefore, France is a bunch of unenlightened feminazis who hate men.

If you have an illegal act both participants should be punished, as long as each freely engaged in the act. The notion that women who engage in sex work are all helpless, innocent victims is indeed feminazi ideology.
Of course the ideal would be to legalize it, leave consenting adults alone and focus law enforcement on those who are actual victims and victimizers, and not presume that everybody engaging as a provider in a particular business, frowned upon because of sex-negativity, is a victim by definition.
Why this is in any way controversial I have no idea.

 

[Derec]

Empirical studies commissioned by the French National Assembly found significant frequency of factual events such as sex trafficking, violence from pimps, non-consent, and trauma.

"Significant" is a far cry from "most", much less "all". It thus does not justify treating all sex workers as victims and punishing customers who just want to engage in some consensual sex. What it would justify is leaving consenting adults alone and focusing law enforcement efforts on actual victims and actual victimizers.

Also note that the National Assembly had an ideological ax to grind in the first place. The left-wing parliamentarians wanted their studies to come up with "significant events" because they had decided a priori that they wanted to impose the Swedish model. They have announced that intention years ago.

When persons encounter data that contradict their models, the models need to be thrown out and/or refined.

No need when they can just pass the law that paints with a broad brush and treat all sex work as trafficking.

The situation has to be analyzed sans ideological over-simplification here to reach a rational conclusion.

What France just did (and what Sweden did in the 90s) is textbook example of "ideological over-simplification". Some sex workers are victimized, therefore they treat all sex workers as victims.

 

[JonA]

Libertarian conceptual modeling of prostitution involves concepts such as worker, service, entrepreneur, and customer.

Empirical studies commissioned by the French National Assembly found significant frequency of factual events such as sex trafficking, violence from pimps, non-consent, and trauma.

Folks making dresses in Indonesia are equally if not more exploited.

Should Indonesia ban the purchasing of dresses?

 

[JonA]

Delete

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So Derec do you really have some statistics on this? Also, do you have any conflicts of interest in determining a conclusion? I don't. To both JonA and Derec, I did not say anywhere that I 100% support the conclusion. I just wrote what the facts are that break down the typical way libertarians/masculinists/wingers/whatever conceptualize the argument. Indeed it is far more complicated than that. If you're going to make threads about the issue while supporting your stance you're going to have to include such facts and show your work. Just posting "France is a shithole" isn't good enough. I'm not going to sit around playing devil's advocate or tit-for-tat all day either because it's not my onus.

 

[iolo]

What do the weirdoes mean by 'left', I always wonder. Normal or human. I suppose

 

[Tom Sawyer]

So Derec do you really have some statistics on this? Also, do you have any conflicts of interest in determining a conclusion? I don't. To both JonA and Derec, I did not say anywhere that I 100% support the conclusion. I just wrote what the facts are that break down the typical way libertarians/masculinists/wingers/whatever conceptualize the argument. Indeed it is far more complicated than that. If you're going to make threads about the issue while supporting your stance you're going to have to include such facts and show your work. Just posting "France is a shithole" isn't good enough. I'm not going to sit around playing devil's advocate or tit-for-tat all day either because it's not my onus.

What I disagree with about this law is the overgeneralization of it. While it's certainly true that a certain percentage of prostitutes are sex slaves (might be 90%, might be 10% - I have no idea), another percentage of them have chosen the profession. Arresting somebody who's not raping a sex slave just because there's another person out there who is raping a sex slave is an immoral action.

Additionally, it seems to me that it would continue to make the profession more dangerous for women because it keeps the whole thing as part of the underground economy. With the rise of online escort review boards and the like, if someone posts "I got arrested while visiting Dakota McNasty", that would drive a whole shitload of customers away from her, so it's heavily in her interest to not go to or cooperate with the cops even in situations where she really needs to. Additionally, if a customer sees evidence of coersion or abuse while visiting a prostitute, you want him to be able to report that and not put impediments in the way of his doing so because he's worried about getting a criminal record himself if he talks to the police.

Sex slavery and human trafficking are horrible problems which need to be dealt with. Laws like this, however, seem to me to be inferior to full legalization of the industry in terms of giving authorities the tools required to combat them.

 

[ronburgundy]

So Derec do you really have some statistics on this? Also, do you have any conflicts of interest in determining a conclusion? I don't. To both JonA and Derec, I did not say anywhere that I 100% support the conclusion. I just wrote what the facts are that break down the typical way libertarians/masculinists/wingers/whatever conceptualize the argument. Indeed it is far more complicated than that. If you're going to make threads about the issue while supporting your stance you're going to have to include such facts and show your work. Just posting "France is a shithole" isn't good enough. I'm not going to sit around playing devil's advocate or tit-for-tat all day either because it's not my onus.

What I disagree with about this law is the overgeneralization of it. While it's certainly true that a certain percentage of prostitutes are sex slaves (might be 90%, might be 10% - I have no idea), another percentage of them have chosen the profession. Arresting somebody who's not raping a sex slave just because there's another person out there who is raping a sex slave is an immoral action.

Additionally, it seems to me that it would continue to make the profession more dangerous for women because it keeps the whole thing as part of the underground economy. With the rise of online escort review boards and the like, if someone posts "I got arrested while visiting Dakota McNasty", that would drive a whole shitload of customers away from her, so it's heavily in her interest to not go to or cooperate with the cops even in situations where she really needs to. Additionally, if a customer sees evidence of coersion or abuse while visiting a prostitute, you want him to be able to report that and not put impediments in the way of his doing so because he's worried about getting a criminal record himself if he talks to the police.

Sex slavery and human trafficking are horrible problems which need to be dealt with. Laws like this, however, seem to me to be inferior to full legalization of the industry in terms of giving authorities the tools required to combat them.

Great post, Tom. To expand on it, whether or not its truly the "oldest profession", its damn close to it and has been pervasive in ever civilization and always will be until humans become asexual. Thus, laws like this one that pretend they can get rid of it are naive and destructive, causing way more harm than they prevent to the sex workers they pretend to care about.

If we are going to be dumb and immoral enough to make it illegal, then I do agree that prosecuting sex workers is worse and less effective than going after the customers and their "employers". OTOH, that kind of one-sided enforcement allows left-wing morons to pretend they aren't being immoral and destructive by supporting its illegality in the first place. So, I'd rather they have to choose between the putting sex slaves in prison and making the whole profession fully legal.

 

[laughing dog]

Libertarian conceptual modeling of prostitution involves concepts such as worker, service, entrepreneur, and customer.

Empirical studies commissioned by the French National Assembly found significant frequency of factual events such as sex trafficking, violence from pimps, non-consent, and trauma.

Folks making dresses in Indonesia are equally if not more exploited.

Unless you actually have data that shows dress makers in Indonesia are exploited at least as much as sex workers, this sound ridiculous.

Should Indonesia ban the purchasing of dresses?

If that is their wish, so be it.