Then everyone is surprised when women from our countries turn up in the Netherlands. And then what do we do? We go ahead and blame the women. They’re “sick and dirty”, and we can afford to turn away when we dehumanize them thus.

Sex-work is tied to poverty and corruption, always has been. But other jobs get tied to it as well. There’s a reason why miners in the East of Ukraine risk their lives daily – because they too live in a corrupt, poor country where most people can only do reasonably well for themselves if they take risks. At the very least, we mourn our miners when they die in unsafe working conditions. Prostitutes do not even get any dignity in death.

I think the Swedish model is good in the short-term, but I don’t think it solves any longer term problems. Sex-work, in all of its forms, is not going away, and I think the best we can do, across countries, is to make sure that people within it have basic protection.

If law enforcement allowed sex-workers their dignity, they would not be blamed for suffering rape or abuse on the job. If you talk to most E. European law enforcement today (and I’m not talking about the people who sit up high and take bribes), most of them already agree – “these women are just trying to earn some money.” But because of the way society in general treats them, no steps can be taken to help those in need.

Prostitution itself is not a monolith. Women in extreme poverty do it to feed their children and themselves, or to feed a drug habit, or work off some sleazy guy’s “debt,” etc. A middle-class woman from the city might do it to supplement her income so she doesn’t have to take a shift at McDonald’s. Not everyone out there wants to be rescued from the trade. Some women just want to be able to earn their wages, without having to “belong” to pimps if only for a measure of protection. They deserve that right as much as the miners have rights to safer working conditions and better bosses.

Sex-work is not, I believe, just another job. There are jobs that aren’t “just other jobs.” Like the mining thing, or being a journalist in a country with crazy leaders, or a forensic pathologist, or a firefighter. There are jobs out there that few of us could take – but others do take them. And I think we need to make sure that all of these people are adequately cared for by society.

I mean, as I mentioned to someone else yesterday, a friend of mine who moonlights as a hooker (her words, not mine), recently told me:

“I’d never be a journalist. It’s too dangerous.”

She thinks I’m the crazy one for having the kind of job that I do. Who knows? Maybe she has a point.

For one, Satsuma never said any of the things you’ve spouted up here. Her comments about being ‘tainted’ by a penis were from a lesbian friend of hers, so minus points to you for reading comprehension.

Actually, Satsuma routinely lauds herself for being better than anyone who has ever slept with a guy. And talks down to poor wee wittle women who would all be lesbians if they’d just get their heads screwed on straight. So minus points to you.

It is easy for extremely intelligent and good-natured people to be socialized into believing that there is nothing insidious about pornography and prostitution, that was her point.

And she made it by employing generalized statements about both abuse victims and sex-workers. Minus points to her.

I expect that my comment will be censored or deleted anyway, something that you chastise Heart for doing. Ah well!

Assuming makes an ass out of u, me, and ing! (Ok, whatever, lame joke, but it’s late over here)

For one, Satsuma never said any of the things you’ve spouted up here. Her comments about being ‘tainted’ by a penis were from a lesbian friend of hers, so minus points to you for reading comprehension.

She also never said that ALL sex workers were abuse victims, she did however suggest that a mighty high proportion of them are. Her exact words were:

“As I said before, women who so passionately defend this trash are highly likely to have been the victims as children of childhood sexual abuse themselves.”

I think her comment is well worth examining, and it’s a shame that you would rather take it as a personal attack and as a statement that you and all other abuse victims should be ‘locked up’ and ‘protected from themselves as they do not know any better’. It is easy for extremely intelligent and good-natured people to be socialized into believing that there is nothing insidious about pornography and prostitution, that was her point.

I expect that my comment will be censored or deleted anyway, something that you chastise Heart for doing. Ah well!

I think that while there is a lot of overlap between the sex industry and the trafficking industry, I think that we can’t adequately tackle the latter while the former is severely stigmatized. As I was telling Trinity here, I think we can afford to be impractical in regards to sex-work for as long as our attitude toward it can be summed up with “DISGUSTING!”

I don’t know if that’s sufficient explanation for my position, you can tell me.

There are plenty of survivors of physical and sexual abuse during childhood who do not work as sex workers, and never have. By this argument, THESE survivors “cannot think for themselves, they cannot be responsible for themselves, and that they should not be taken seriously.”

This is a very dangerous line of thinking, because past abuse can serve as an excuse to take civil and human rights away from anyone.

These so-called radical “feminists” are nothing but useful idiot foot soldiers for totalitarianism.

I’m so fucking sick of being told that my mental illness and my past abuse have rendered me devoid of agency and incapable of making my own (healthy!) decisions.

On the contrary, those experiences have made me one strong, determined bitch.

I’m well conditioned I am :\

It bothers the hell out of me – the way that we respond, or rather not respond, to male abuse victims.

It’s really disturbing and it feeds into a cult of this fake masculinity that’s damaging to both men and women.