*stickied for easy access to the people who have asked me about it.
Through Lost Clown's Carnival of Feminists I found
this conversation at the blog Reclusive Leftist where a pro-prostitution woman is trying to debunk the successes of the Swedish model. I'm reposting here what I wrote so people can get an idea of how to confront the sex industry's campaign of misinformation. It's not an action, but I thought it belonged in a public forum so non-members could stumble upon it as well.
Because the 20 unanimous women Petra Ostergren spoke with is commonly brought up to deny
thousands of research studies done over decades in countries around the world, it would be good to familiarlize yourself with her non-study that is treated like a serious piece of research by pro-pornstitutioners.
http://www.petraostergren.com
There is a study pro-prostitutioners foolishly cite sometimes to try and prove the Swedish model doesn't work, but if they weren't so foolish they would realize that the paper, slanted as it is, actually concedes that the Swedish model is working better than the Dutch model.
I might run through this one in detail another time, but in short pro-legalization folk who put this together did not speak with one single working prostitute in Sweden. Pages 10 and 11 contain a lot of myth-debunking info about Sweden's success. Page 24 says,
"The Netherlands has around twice as many inhabitants as Sweden. The scale of prostitution is about ten times of Sweden."
Purchasing Sexual Services in Sweden and the Netherlands: Legal Regulation and Experiences
http://www.dep.no/jd/english/012101-990578/dok-bn.html
I may touch up the following at a later date, and please let me know if you think somthing is weak and needs strengthening with either more proof or more explanation.
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/?p=166
Did anyone else notice how Burrow's supportive comments on Sweden cited specific studies with specific numbers in comparison to other countries and Cicely's rebuttal contained not one concrete fact, only conjecture and hypothesis? I noticed.
"this law has been criticized by Swedish sex workers"
Which sex workers? Don't say the 20 women Petra claims to have spoken with who all unanimously agree with her that whoring is just a job and should be fully legalized. Any study where the population of 20 is unanimous should be suspect, especially when no other study done with prostitutes internationally has ever been unanimous.
the new legislation makes it harder to assess clients since “the clients are more stressed and scared, and negotiation outdoors must be done in a more rapid manner
Do rapists emit a rape-pheromone that only prostitutes can smell, and only if given enough time to adequately sniff? How did Swedish prostitutes tell the murderous clients from the non-murderous clients before 1999? Did prostitutes before the 1999 law hand out forms to prospective tricks with such questions as "Are you going to rob, rape, choke, cigarette-burn, or otherwise hurt me? Circle one: Y / N"?
there is now a greater percentage of ‘perverted’ customers and the ‘nice and kind’ customers have disappeared.
So when Swedish men rape prostitutes, the solution is not to hold those men accountable but to point the finger at
feminists and blame them for changing the law that made men "have to" ask hookers for more perverted (dangerous, painful, permanent) kinds of sex acts? That makes no sense, and neither does suggesting that when the 1999 law changed suddenly a bunch of sadistic Swedish men decided to start using prostitutes.
I'm pretty sure those men were around long before 1999 because it is these men's violent and sadistic treatment of prostitutes that brought about the need for legal changes challenging men's "right" to have sex anytime and any way they wanted. If men who used prostitutes were nonviolent gentleman there would be no need for the law.
Sex workers are now more apprehensive about seeking help from the police when they have problems with an abusive customer.
Again, I ask for quotes from sex workers, because the Swedish reports say that not only are prostitutes turning abusive men in more, but those violent men usually have criminal records beyond assaulting prostitutes so they often are brought up on those charges as well, resulting in more criminals behind bars where they belong.
prices on the streets are lower since there are fewer customers and more competition. “This means that women in more desperate need of money will engage in unsafe sex and sexual activity they usually would not perform.
Doesn't this actually mean Swedish men who use prostitutes have been shown to willingly take advantage of vulnerable women to economically coerce them into painful, degrading sex acts? Again, the notion that these Swedish men weren't asking for double-anals, vagina-tearing dry sex, “prosti-tots”, etc before 1999 is absurd.
National Police Board has observed that it is harder to prosecute sex profiteers because sex-purchasers won’t testify.
Of course tricks won't testify, and they didn't regularly before either. Quotes from tricks show that they are often afraid of violence or robbery from pimps just like prostitutes. One man who responded to a researcher's newspaper ad said, "I've never tried to rescue a girl. You can get killed doing that." You can get killed testifying against the organized criminals that lord over prostitution internationally.
Sex workers can be made to testify and have “neither the rights of the accused or the victim.
Not true, cicely. Under Swedish Criminal Procedure Law (Chapter 36, 6 Rattegangsbalken) a prostitute can refuse to give evidence that can reveal that she has undertaken a "disreputable" act. It pretty much guarantees the prosecution will have a hard time getting a conviction, but a prostitute is not forced to give evidence under Swedish law.
Driving prostitution underground, whether through moral condemnation or criminalizing purchasers, only exacerbates the most dangerous aspects of prostitution.
Actually, even groups working towards prostitution legalization have had to admit there is no evidence of an increase in underground prostitution since 1999. The best they can say is that there's not enough information, but nothing has shown numbers of underground, trafficking, or other organized criminal prostitution rising and it is clear that trafficking into Sweden has decreased dramatically.
In the real world, the demands of sex workers — better working conditions and complete de-criminalization
In the real world, 90% of prostitutes say they want out of prostitution immediately. One 5-country study of 475 prostitutes found 92% said they wanted out, and a 9-country study of 854 prostitutes found 89% wanted out immediately.
Please show where you picked up the belief that what most prostitutes demand is help staying in prostitution and complete decriminalization so they can stay prostitutes. You are demonstrably wrong about that, Cicely.
Here is what 475 prostitutes from 5 countries said:
United States: 56% don't want it legal, 88% want out now.
South Africa: 62% don't want it legal, 89% want out now
Thailand: 72% don't want it legal, 94% want out now
Turkey: 96% don't want it legal, 90% want out now
Zambia: 92% don't want it legal, 99% want out now
From
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com
I would very much like to see whatever proof you may have to support your claim that what "sex workers" are really demanding is decriminalization and better whoring conditions.
Neutral observers in Sweden have conceded that it’s impossible to measure accurately the incidence of prostitution since the legislation took effect as methods of soliciting have moved dramatically to the internet and mobile phones.
That would go against what you said earlier about an increase in underground prostitution. It has been guessed at but not proven, and recorded phone conversations with pimps and traffickers have shown the new law effectively deters them.
there is a new crime in Sweden. Women posing as sex workers rob their ‘clients’, who are unlikely to report the theft to authorities for fear of being prosecuted
I think that's woman hating, unproven bullshit that feeds off men's loathing of women as gold-digging, conniving greedy bitches. What you're saying is that there's a new crime that no one has reported yet, but you're certain it's there anyway because
women are lying bitches like that.
Sure, it's theoretically possible Swedish women might pretend to be prostitutes (who don't fear men's insane amount of violence towards whores for some strange reason) to begin robbing men, but for a long time now Swedish women could threaten to "cry rape" in order to steal from or blackmail any man, trick or not. That hasn't been happening, so saying that to give prostitutes the power to turn the men who abuse them has lead to malicious, lying Swedish women "crying rape" for an easy payday, oh but the men are too afraid to report it so there's zero proof, is misogynist bullshit.