MacKinnon, Farley and Shalit for the NPR debate win!

[sam]

The audience voted before and after the debate on the question "It's wrong to pay for sex" which was broadcast over NPR syndicates.

Transcript here http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/Au ... _past.aspx

Debate audience vote results:
Before the debate: 20% for, 50% against, 30% undecided
After the debate: 45% for, 46% against, 9% undecided

Women in the audience voted:
Before the debate: 25% for, 41% against, 34% undecided
After the debate: 58% for, 34% against, 8% undecided

Men in the audience voted:
Before the debate: 13% for, 61% against, 26% undecided
After the debate: 27% for, 66% against, 7% undecided

Panelists for the motion

Melissa Farley is a clinical and research psychologist with San Francisco based nonprofit Prostitution Research & Education and an associate scholar with the Center for World Indigenous Studies. She wrote Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections (2007) and Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress (2003). She has published 22 peer-reviewed articles on prostitution and trafficking. An abolitionist, Farley advocates for alternatives to the institution of prostitution. She manages the Prostitution Research & Education website (prostitutionresearch.com) and cofounded the Nevada Coalition Against Sex Trafficking.

Catharine A. MacKinnon specializes in sex equality issues under international and constitutional law. She pioneered the legal claim for sexual harassment and, with Andrea Dworkin, created ordinances recognizing pornography as a civil rights violation. The Supreme Court of Canada largely accepted her approaches to equality, pornography, and hate speech. Her scholarly books include Sex Equality (2001) and Are Women Human? (2006). She is one of the most widely-cited legal scholars in English.

Wendy Shalit received her BA in philosophy from Williams College in 1997. Her first book, A Return to Modesty: Discovering The Lost Virtue (1999) argues that modesty is misunderstood as "repression"; and her followup, The Good Girl Revolution: Young Rebels With Self-Esteem and High Standards (2008) showcases a new generation of female role models. Her essays on literary and cultural topics have appeared in Commentary, Slate, the Wall Street Journal and other publications. Through her writing and mentoring, Wendy has worked closely with young women who are trying to escape prostitution.

Panelists against the motion

Sydney Biddle Barrows, perhaps better known to millions as the "Mayflower Madam," found herself moonlighting as a phone girl at an escort service after having been fired for refusing to participate in a kickback scheme. Less than a year later she opened up her own agency. Relatively small but very upscale, Cachet prospered for 5 ½ years until New York's Finest closed it down, only to later publicly concede that it was the most honest and professionally run business of its kind ever operated in New York City. Her first book, Mayflower Madam, went right to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, and her fourth will be published in January of 2009. She is now in the information marketing business.

Tyler Cowen is Holbert C. Harris Professor of Economics at George Mason University and director of the Mercatus Center. He has written numerous books on the relationship between commerce, the arts, and morality, including In Praise of Commercial Culture and most recently Discover Your Inner Economist. He co-writes a blog at http://www.marginalrevolution.com and writes frequently for the popular press.

Lionel Tiger is the Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University. Among his books are Men in Groups (1969, 1987), which introduced and developed the concept of male bonding, The Imperial Animal (1971,1989), The Pursuit of Pleasure (1992),and The Decline of Males (2000). He has lectured on all the continents, published widely in general and professional journals and is currently a columnist for Forbes.com.

[delphyne]

I'm never going to be able to see Lionel Tiger's name now without thinking of Sheila Jeffreys and "Lionel Spiders" and Mr Spiders' not so brilliant academic career.

This is the important number:

Women in the audience voted:
Before the debate: 25% for, 41% against, 34% undecided
After the debate: 58% for, 34% against, 8% undecided

And would you look at that gender gap.

[buggle]

I know, SO shocking that more men think it is ok to pay for sex. Shocking! Who ever would have thought??!!

[delphyne]

Ugh, just reading through it now and got to the bit where Lionel Spiders claims women in Bloomingdales are shopping for sex and are seeing themselves as sexual creatures as they browse the aisles. Of course they are Lionel, they wouldn't for example be looking for clothes and shoes to wear to work or to a family party. That's the sort of thoughtless stupidity that passes for insightful debate on the pro-side. If you stop and think about it for even a moment it's nonsense, but sexism frequently sounds good to audiences - let's take a completely random thing, A, that has nothing to do with thing B, and then use it to justify B and voila, you make the unacceptable acceptable. So if women shop at Bloomingdales, therefore that means it must be acceptable for the men in the audience to pay for a blow-job from the half-dead drug addicted nineteen year old they picked up in their car the other night. Everybody vote!

[AmazonLaur]

This debate actually gave me a lot of hope. I mean, a signifigant amount of women (and men) shifted to the anti-prostitution side! It shows speech on this topic really does have an effect.

[delphyne]

Me too Laur. It was quite a shift.

For all the bollocks that's talked about purity, or ideologues or dogmatism or whatever when people mention radical feminism, it's bascially common sense, logic plus, most importantly, women's *real* experiences. Let women hear the arguments and the facts and we respond to them.

[thebewilderness]

Sorry to be a downer about it, but it also demonstrates that when myth and reality collide, some people will actually continue to cling to the myth.
Which is also why there needs to be more exposure to reality. It makes it tougher to promulgate the myth.

[SaltyC]

The stark sexual difference in the outcome proves that women know what it's like to be whores, and men don't.

I just have one more thing to say: Go Melissa!!!!!

[delphyne]

I liked it when Catharine MacKinnon reminded the audience "Women vote one, men vote four".

She plays to win.

[MaggieH]

I agree that it shows some gleam of hope for the future that more women ended up being on the anti-pornstitution side, but I trust women anyway.

Catharine MacKinnon & Melissa Farley are wonderful.

[The F-Files]

I can't believe I'm just hearing about this now. I guess I've been away from Genderberg way too long. I can't seem to get this onto my computer as an mp3 so I can listen in the car. I have an apple. Any suggestions?