How I would stop prostitution

[soopermouse]

legislating prostitution in Holland, Australia and Germany has created an increase in trafficking and a decrease in te prostitutes' age from an avegare of 16 to an average of 13. The only model that seems to have worked s the swedish one- criminalize the johns and the pimps has dramatically reduce prostitution in sweden. I would like to state that the abolition of slavery did not create illegal slavery, so i guess this is the model we should look at instead of looking at it as the prohibition of a service.
And considering that prostitution research shows that over 90% of the prostitutes would like a chance to get out, that shows without a shadow of the doubt that prostitution can be dealt with.
Now, no on nominated me a legislator, but I will say this:
Imagine:

1. prostitution illegal- johns and pimps are criminalized.
2. safe programmes to help women "get out"
3. severe punishments for rape and any form of sexual abuse/assault/harassment
4. a social system that allows women to be able to educate and make a decent living for themselves, and social care available for those who cannot.
5. legal abortion.

I believe these would stop or severely diminish prostitution.

originally posted as comment at pandagon
http://pandagon.net/2006/07/11/free-the-bunnies/

[sam]

I've got day job work to do today so I probably won't be chiming in at Pandagon (and because I'm afraid my appearance would be more disruptive than educational given Amanda's tragic belief in men's right to demand sex from women anytime), but it would be nice if others could drop a note in suupport of the Swedish model rejecting the lazy and conservative "boys will be boys" attitude towards prostitution.

[Army Of Me]

I clicked on a link in pandagon regarding ptsd and prostitution, a subject close to my heart, the article was using a lot of NZ stats, but also other countries info collected on prostitution and other issues besides ptsd.

I read as much as I could of the article and became so triggered that I had to stop - the disassociation info will be particularly useful to the essay of my own, so will be referring back to it.

There is so much evidence that legalization just does not work, that it has the opposite effect, that I cannot believe these people still argue the toss.

Get men to change their sense of entitlement and access to women, get them to change their view of woman as fuck-holes for their gratification? Get them to change their attitude and maybe think along the lines that the world does not revolve around their dicks? Nah, it's just easier to legalize it all. Or, keep it so that the prostitute is the marginalised one who is fucked up and arrested. Sheesh. No-brainer. Never ever implicate or condemn men. Poor little dickheads.

I can state categorically that even if the whole world legalized prostitution tomorrow, and the theory of giving the same worker's rights to prostitutes as most other workers, the theory would not become practice, and most hookers would not ever tell everyone that they sold their bodies, never ever. I don't care how much these pro-sexers theorise this, it just won't happen - would they do it?

I cannot tell you how many times I had to switch off from some dirty old fucker - the worst ones were the big rich business guys, who in their little control-freak empires probably had all their minions running circles around them, and they expected the same from the women they bought - orgasm on demand, high opinions of themselves and their manhoods, their sense of power, having egos so big that they actually believed you adored sex with them - I used to write humourous stuff to help deal with this particular breed of slimy snake wanker. Little do they realise the contempt that most hookers would feel when they are using them - but then the recent theory I read, which had never occurred to me, is that some get off on knowing you are only pretending.

Thinking about the money helped a lot. Oh shit - I am really going to stop here - and if you want this post removed, I will, or will transfer into a private forum - but all the john-lurkers reading out there might get a nasty surprise reading this - oh, sorry, each and every one who might read this probably thinks they are always the one who is the exception to the rule - the one the hooker actually likes having sex with and who responds so well to his techniques - yuk - delusional assholes. Sorry, the triggers have brought this out.

[sam]

Army of Me, I'm honored that you feel you can share as much of your traumatic history on this subject as you do with us and hope the triggering that comes with bravely confronting all this passes through you quickly.

[Army Of Me]

thank you for saying that sam. I am working thru a lot of stuff, and also, starting to have a more informed perspective on what happened and why. I think this will help me work things through more quickly. I hope in the process I help others and inform too.

I'm done with so-called counsellors who told me porn's ok, and who just take your money and make you feel worse, so apologies if I am treating this as a "dear diary" type tool - I feel that if I even reach someone who reads this forum, I have helped.

The article I mentioned above, which mentioned the disassociation issue, struck a chord. There were 2 things that jumped out. One was a quote from a female pimp (I think she was a pimp - doesn't matter really), who said that many prostitutes know after their first trick if they will be able to handle the work or not - just one trick.

The reason for this is their ability or not to be able to disassociate.

The second thing, a continuation of the reasons some can immediately disassociate and some not, is because those who have never experienced disassociation, will not be able to do it at all. Others, who have, whether that be due to childhood abuse, perhaps even long-forgotten/blocked out, will still have the ability instilled in them to disassociate. What struck me is that they don't even know that's what they are doing as the reasons for the ability to do it are so much a part of them, and the circumstances which triggered this, have been long forgotten in most cases. Realising this was a revelation to me.

One woman worked for 30 years as a prostitute, did partner-swapping initialy when married etc, and did not realise until many years later, that her feeling of this all being ok, was due to this ability to switch off - the memories of childhood abuse did not start returning til after she stopped selling her body.

And therein lies the problem with the normalisation of porn and it's exposure to younger and younger girls - not only are they being desensitised to the idea of showing their bodies and genitals to men, it's perpetuating and encouraging even more, the culture that exists already that men are entitled to women. The girls are primed and ready early on, learn to disassociate, and so the cycle continues. Porn is encouraging children into accepting giving/selling their bodies, and it's also clearly creating a much bigger demand by men, all over the world, than ever in history - this is the connection I'm trying to make clear.

Also, see this link from another g-berg topic I just posted - it's related as more young women are going under the knife - disassociation from the idea that major surgery to stuff your body with silicone is dangerous, expensive and painful, but hey, don't think about it, no big deal to look like a sexy fuckable babe, just like the women in on the interntet and in the lad's mags the b/f or hubby reads.

http://genderberg.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6782#6782

The girls who are just forced into prostitution without having been exposed to porn (such as in the topic on another board on the Asian problem), but have to deal with men whose minds are porn-saturated, are even more traumatized as they are having to learn to disassociate without the "advantage" of having had their defenses somewhat lowered already.

I hope I'm making sense - I'm on a learning curve here.

I don't know, I don't remember childhood sexual abuse, but there was a lot of terrorisation by catholic nuns very early in life and the usual stuff to do with weird parents, plus the violent rape in my 20s and other sexual assaults. Somewhere along the line, I learned to seriously disassociate, and using this forum, plus my other projects, are finally hopefully going to help me work this out.

If I ever go too far in my posts, tell me.

[sam]

Turns out I found some time this afternoon to respond after all.

"Heidi Fleiss tried/is trying to open a brothel for women.”

Legalization in Nevada was sold with the line that legalization is the only way to keep convicted criminals out of the pimping business, and yet here we have a convicted pimp who served jail time legally profiting from prostitution in complete violation of the law. So much for legalization keeping the criminals out, as the increase in trafficking victims everywhere prostitution is legalized also attests.

A sociology professor who wrote a book about Playboy told me Playboy Inc. sells extreme hardcore pornography around the world that it doesn’t sell in the USA because they found that the positively sexee US girls buying millions of dollars of Playboy logo junk are turned off by the reality of pornography even as they seek to buy themselves some sexy-by-association-with-porn male approval. Playboy decided the money from porn-identified girls buying bunny logo-bearing earrings, notebooks, and doggie chew toys was greater than the money to be had competing for men’s money with other extreme pornographers and potentially turning off American female merchandise buyers with the reality of the pornography they sell elsewhere was deemed an unwise business move.

**

Any “solution” to prostitution that essentially says if prostitutes want men to stop raping, beating, pimpslapping, trafficking, enslaving and otherwise mistreating them in epidemic numbers then it’s the responsibility of the prostitutes themselves to make men stop is no solution. It’s a fancy form of victim-blaming that puts the onus for stopping men’s violence in the hands of victimized women, which goes a long way in explaining why legalization trials in the Netherlands, Germany, Australia and New Zealand trying to organize sex workers have failed miserably.

I also disagree with Amanda that men have a right to demand sex from poverty-stricken women or in any other way control women’s sexuality just because they have been doing it for so long now. The excuse of “boys will be boys” has not been acceptable for a very long time and there is no such thing as risk-free sex, no failproof perfect birth control or failproof disease-protections.

The “unionize it” line of misguided thinking is like Raul’s Wild Kingdom from the Weird Al movie <i>UHF</i>. Raul thinks he’s can teach poodles how to fly so he throws them out his apartment window one after the other only to watch them fall dead in a heap onto the pavement below. A Canadian study found prostitutes had a mortality rate 40 times that of non-prostituted women, a British study found 95% of sex workers had drug addictions, by many reports not less than millions of kids and young women are enslaved by pimps & traffickers every year, yet despite all this and much, much more there are unbelievably still people suggesting if you just keep throwing sex working women out that deadly window they’ll eventually sprout wings and learn to fly away from rapists, pimps and traffickers all on their own.

Meanwhile trafficking for prostitution is the fastest-growing international criminal activity as men’s sense of entitlement to pussy on demand far outweighs the supply of female bodies to (ab)use and the pile of bodies on the pavement grows bigger and bigger because Amanda’s bizarre logic of “if you build it they’ll come less” couldn’t be more wrong. Immediately after the Netherlands legalized prostitution the prostitution industry increased by about 25% overall, the number of brothels in New Zealand skyrocketed after they legalized prostitution, and technically-illegal sex tourism to Thailand is bigger and stronger than ever because the idea that giving men all the whores they can afford will make them voluntarily give up their desire to control women’s sexuality is absurd. Who would think giving child molestors all the child pornography they wanted could logically lead to them wanting to rape children less?

[soopermouse]

sam
one of my colleagues, a consultant psichiatrist, is writing a study that says that abuse is essential in turning a woman to prostitution, as only someone who has been through abuse and developed a distance from one's own body can allow others to use her body as they see fit. well, the theory is mine, he just said he'll look into it and see what comes out of it

[Army Of Me]

And abuse can be social and cultural grooming that we see all around now.

On another note - Heidi Fleiss is the goddess of delusional evil.

[soopermouse]

On another note - Heidi Fleiss is the goddess of delusional evil.

like that is any news

[Army Of Me]

yes - but the opportunity to reiterate this fact I couldn't resist!

[soopermouse]

now i wonder whether the whole assault on women's self esteem is just a form of abuse perpetrated by media which makes girls insensitive and loathing their bodies enough to submit to men's sexual pornified fantasies

[Army Of Me]

that's the point I have been trying to make - make them loathe themselves, then they feel pressure to try to conform to the imagery - it's cultural and social abuse by media.