This is a comment by Maggie McNeill on the post “Is Prostitution ‘Cruel and Demeaning’?“
Americans, especially those in power, seem woefully unable to understand the simple human rights principle called NAUWU, “Nothing About Us Without Us”. What it means is that any minority group, especially a marginalized minority like sex workers, have the right to a leading role in any discussion about laws or regulations which will affect that group.
But in the Looking-Glass World of American prostitution law, actually knowing something about the topic, and even more so actual experience in it, is viewed as a disqualification. This is totally insane; in all civilized countries, sex workers have a prominent place in such discussions, with fantastic results: the decriminalized sex industries in New Zealand and New South Wales are the healthiest in the world, and exploitation and “trafficking” practically nonexistent.
But as in the “War on Drugs”, American leaders aren’t interested in what keeps women safe and healthy; they’re interested in “sending a message” about their agenda, even if that “message” is fatal to large numbers of citizens and criminally wasteful of scarce economic resources.
Photo credit: Flickr / RenderDonkey
Umm, not all prostitutes are womenl
Yeah, but no one cares about those prostitutes.
Why o why would we let women have autonomy and a say in the use and abuse of their own bodies? Like what the heck are we suggesting here? That women’s bodies aren’t public property to do with as women choose rather than as we tell them to use them? Blasphemy! Can’t have that. No siree! That way lies Sodom and Gammorah! The Wet One P.S. Not even feminists (e.g. the lot in Sweden) generally seem to believe that women’s bodies are the woman in question to with as they please. After all, some women want to use make up,… Read more »
“This is totally insane; in all civilized countries, sex workers have a prominent place in such discussions”
Sadly not even remotely true, but the few that do do it work well.
What’s Queensland’s sex industry like? Is it similar to New South Wales?
Keeping prostitution illegal is stupid, all it does is allow the criminals to run the show without mandated protections.
Archy, Queensland’s sex industry is legalized, which means licenses are required, etc. It’s still vastly better than criminalization systems (like that of the United States); legalization schemes like those of the UK and (up to now) Canada, where virtually everything ABOUT prostitution is illegal; and the monstrous “Swedish Model”, which criminalizes clients and defines women as moral imbeciles for whom the state must act as legal guardian. However, as in Nevada, any legalization scheme divides hookers into two categories, the “legal” and the “illegal”, and so doesn’t eliminate the abuses inherent to a criminalization system; it just restricts them to… Read more »