92% of women wish to leave prostitution but don't due to needing money for healthcare, food, or a house to live in. Consent cannot be bought, consent here is traded in exchange for being allowed to continue to survive.
And just to be clear here: I'm not for banning or outlawing prostitution as that wouldn't solve the issue. I'm all for giving sex workers the choice and means for leaving. This way the only people that remain in the field are those who truly do it out of their own free will, at least that is my ideal scenario.
Germany is known as the “brothel of Europe” with 400.000 prostitutes, many of which have immigrated or are children. Humans are being pushed into this work due to financial issues, and those who do it for fun, ambition, or free will, are a loud minority. Especially through the gamification of sex work through services like OnlyFans.
If 92% of women wish to leave this job, then 92% of women should be easily allowed to do so and anyone that supports this system currently is sick.
@ErikUden Quoting the thing you linked to: "From the authors' perspective, prostitution is an act of violence against women; it is an act which is intrinsically traumatizing to the person being prostituted."
Yes indeedly, this is a festering ol' pile of cherry picked stats, selected to confirm a not-even-trying-to-hide-it prejudice, in order to pursue an agenda of bigotry, flimsily diguised by the form (but not the substance) of scientific enquiry.
Pro tip: If you read something racist and find yourself agreeing you're a racist. If you read this and find yourself agreeing you're a misogynist. Hth.
@ErikUden More quoting: "We interviewed 475 people..."
Wow! What an amazingly large sample! /s
"...(including women, men and the transgendered)..."
Wow! Did you hear that? I'm a transgendered! A transgendered what exactly? Funny, they can't seem to figure that out... I'm just a nebulous object that somehow became transgendered... :blobfoxthink:
"...currently and recently prostituted..."
Ah, yes. They were prostituted. Doesn't that strike you as a weird way to phrase it? :blobfoxthinking:
@ErikUden If you didn't get it yet, this is blatant objectification. These people are objectifying women far worse than any pornography ever could. As far as these people are concerned, women are just non-human fuck dolls who get used by the almighty male. It's right there in their language. Books are read, cars are driven and women are prostituted. Non human objects are used by humans. And women are one of those non human objects to be used.
They aren't even trying to hide it. :blobfoxangry:
@ErikUden Now, perhaps you could tell me something... Why do you imagine such a blatantly misogynistic bunch would dislike a thoroughly women dominated industry like sex work, hmm? :blobfoxthinking:
@AnCuRuadh if you found out an industry was violent against women and that the majority of women wish to leave it, being against that industry existing as is and asking for systemic change is the opposite of being mysogynist.
@AnCuRuadh climate scientists that oppose climate change after doing their studies also aren't cherry picking and become climate activists. Doctors studying the effects of smoking will inevitably also become avid anti smokers. Just because the results of the study do not adhere with your beliefs doesn't mean it's wrong.
@AnCuRuadh I'm not. I'm a socialist. I oppose the capitalist system overall but understand and see the differences between a burger flipper and a sex worker, namely the fact you have a way higher likelihood to be murdered, harassed, or raped. Sure they're all working class, but one is exploited more than the other. I oppose all exploitation and wish to liberate all workers, however before we have systemic change we have to try to help people now and today.
Not anti sex work, just anti having to sell consent and your body to survive.
@ErikUden Not to be glib or make light of the situation, how would this be different from a normal soul crushing job, like NA. I'm assuming there is no external, criminal, coersion.
I, too, am unhappy with my job, but I cant leave because I would like to keep eating.
@Madagascar_Sky@ErikUden It's because your assumptions are kind of wrong here.
Just ask yourself, if it would be easier to apply for a new job, if your old old/current is prostitution. Or if you got a criminal record due to prostitution. Or if you're basically homeless, because you're hiding from your boss (or former customer), who's stalking you, or because noone is willing to give you housing, bc you might do it there.
The Barriers to get out are way higher than with any other profession.
I thought we were talking about prostitution in countries where it was legal. If not, then there are so many more problems than just the job being bad.
If we are talking about countries where this is legal, then wouldn't legal recourse and protections be extended to everyone? I agree, there would be dangers specific to the profession. Like being a criminal judge or a firefighter.
And there are also bigger debates in Germany about adopting the so-called "nordic model", which would lock women even more into a situation we supposedly "want" to get them out of in the name of "protection".
Sometimes, you have to discuss these things, even if they aren't happening yet.
@AndiPopp please show me where this paper throws ethical and scientific standards out of the window. If you dislike the outcome or result as it doesn't fit with your world view please say so, but unless you have a better, newer, or more scientific study to share, or good reasons to believe this study is incorrect, stay silent on the topic.
I am not anti-sexworker, I am anti having to sell “consent” in order to have something to eat the next day. This isn't voluntary nor something sex workers want. As stated in my own reply to this comment, I believe it is completely wrong to penalize the sex workers, which is why I think it's ideal for them to be offered ways out of this horrific work environment and job overall.
Sex workers have a way higher likelihood to be killed during their job, as well as experience sexual abuse (or worse) as stated by that same study.
I could show many other studies that replicate the same findings across a multitude of countries.
"From the authors' perspective, prostitution is an act of violence against women; it is an act which is intrinsically traumatizing to the person being prostituted."
I.e., the authors have an agenda about the researched topic. According to the standards of ethical science, those authors should not publish about this topic, because of the problem of confirmation bias, which is especially rampant in empirical work (which this is).
@ErikUden I know about other studies which show the same result, but they all suffer from low quality, especially confirmation bias. All of them are inherently anti-sexwork, which sex-worker activists themselves point out time and time again.
I do not have an issue with the results, but the fact that there are paper mills out there, which publish bad quality science (typically in fields which suffer from replication crisis) to mask anti-sexwork reactionary political agendas.
@AndiPopp you're telling me no study proves your opinion but you don't care because any study that isn't your opinion must have been made without good scientific standards? And you claim everyone else is suffering from confirmation bias?
@ErikUden I am telling you, there is no study that proves anything, because the issue is complicated, but only researched by people with political agendas whose scientific training was asking badly formulated questions to university students on their way to lunch and drawing wild conclusions from it even their data does not support.
@AndiPopp climate scientists who find out that our planet is dying after making a study / doing research and then oppose fossil etc. would you call them people with political agendas?
The scientists / doctors who found out that smoking kills you and then tried to stop people from smoking, would you say they had a political agenda?
You mean to tell me that scientists who perform studies and figure out that something is going wrong are all just doing confirmation bias and are merely politically motivated? Okay, then trust no study regarding climate change or how healthy smoking is. Weirdly those scientists began having a “political agenda” afterwards too.
@AndiPopp@ErikUden And seriously, you can't use a study on prostitution from 1998(!), evaluating prostitutes from "South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, USA, Zambia"(!!) and use it to discuss issues in germany. tbh, personally i think anything pre-2016 is out of date for germany.
@AndiPopp if 97% of people wanted to leave this job if they could, what would your conclusion be? If That it's a nice job to have and something completely normal?
Here's the stats:
73% reported physical assault in prostitution
62% percent reported having been raped since entering prostitution
67% percent met criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD.
92% stated that they wanted to leave prostitution.
I'm sorry, but if your research finds that 92% of people want to leave this job due to constant abuse, tape, PTSD or other trauma, then it's your moral duty to find that job wrong, because then something is systemically wrong with it.
Again, find a study that shows something else, otherwise stay silent on the matter.
@ErikUden your mentioned study is from 25 years ago.
and albeit it's nice you care for a feministic topic, i wonder why you are not listening to the sex workers themselves and instead empower their voice.
And why not talk about working conditions and dependencies for example, instead of victimizing women.
In my opinion I am listening to sex workers as this study is representative of their voice - additionally people in my personal environment who are victims of this system whom I frequently talk to are shaping my opinions on the topic. I agree that as someone who is privileged enough to be as far away from the reality of sex workers my opinion shouldn't matter, that's why I either quote people directly involved or cite studies.
If you have a newer and similar study I urge you to send it to me, however, I highly doubt those numbers have changed.
I don't think I am victimizing women by criticizing something that actively victimizes them, I don't think the women who go into this field are at fault or should be criticized, they are forced to work in that field due to financial struggles or wanting to survive. That is the issue, not them. The capitalist system needs to be fixed, but before that can be done sex workers need to be helped as good as we can under the current system.
@bookstardust despite saying the headline is oversimplifying, both studies you cited repeat the same point.
90 percent of group A had at least one mental illness
(Group A consisted of 30 non-European women who worked in rented rooms and apartments, received little social support, were under high pressure to earn money, and often experienced violence and rape in the course of their work)
What the study doesn't say is how common each group is or out of all prostitutes how many belong to one group.
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