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Not for Sale / framing sex buyers as oppressed people
It is astounding to me that anyone could frame the men who buy sex as oppressed people, and feminists who are trying to help the exploited people trafficked to supply demand as the oppressors.
But that's exactly what this woman seems to be doing:
Men who purchase sexual services are the spanking new category to be targeted for their sexual preferences. They are to be criminalized for what? For seeking and hopefully finding an uncomplicated and pleasurable way to satisfy their sexual hunger?
Surely by now, mature adults get what we’ve been explaining for decades. Adult, mutually consenting sexual behaviour is something personal for people to negotiate for themselves.
And that is also one of the reasons why NOW Magazine has always refused to discriminate against adult advertising. Full disclosure: in the new proposed law, advertising sex work is also criminalized. So that is my own stake in this story. But the big issues remain, and they profoundly inform why we publish this body of advertising.
The preamble of the proposed law is even more disturbing than the title, a hybrid of Victorian sensibilities and pretend-feminist jargon. Did you know that the Parliament of Canada might soon recognize the “social harm caused by the objectification of the human body?” Really? Don’t get too excited. The only skin in that game is being peeled off the backs of already marginalized sex workers.
...
https://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=198657
Surely by now, mature adults get what we’ve been explaining for decades. Adult, mutually consenting sexual behaviour is something personal for people to negotiate for themselves.
And that is also one of the reasons why NOW Magazine has always refused to discriminate against adult advertising. Full disclosure: in the new proposed law, advertising sex work is also criminalized. So that is my own stake in this story. But the big issues remain, and they profoundly inform why we publish this body of advertising.
The preamble of the proposed law is even more disturbing than the title, a hybrid of Victorian sensibilities and pretend-feminist jargon. Did you know that the Parliament of Canada might soon recognize the “social harm caused by the objectification of the human body?” Really? Don’t get too excited. The only skin in that game is being peeled off the backs of already marginalized sex workers.
...
https://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=198657
The fucking nerve of her to try to sell this swill by pretending she gives even half a shit about marginalized sex workers.
Notice - one recurring pattern is that the 'supply' for sex buyers is overwhelmingly foreign-born women. Even in these supposedly awesome freedomriffic places (
) where prostitution has become legalized, it isn't citizens with more opportunity who are flocking to these jobs.
Is this really a free choice?
Let's look at Canada, where the writer of this abhorrent piece is from:
...
And then there is the issue of race. Bridget explains that no word for prostitution exists in the First Nations language. Indigenous women, she says, were sacred water carriers and preservers of life.
Native Canadians today range between 1-7 percent of the country's total population. In one survey, of the prostituted women interviewed, 52 percent were First Nation and 90 percent of sex-trafficked teens were Aboriginal.
Canada has at its fingertips a growing survivor movement calling for the "Nordic Model." These trailblazers are courageously debunking the assertions that legalizing prostitution promises safety and empowerment for women.
Canada must also acknowledge that gender inequality, race, incest and histories of oppression are the pillars of the sex trade, including prostitution. Bridget and Natasha remind us that the multi-billion dollar industry that stole so much of their lives must not be a destiny for the vulnerable underclass: the disenfranchised, the abused, the marginalized and, in Canada, the First Nations' daughters.
"We have endured genocide and now if they legalize prostitution, they will rubber-stamp commercial rape and continued desecration," Bridget said. "As Aboriginal women and as women of color, the time is now to take our lives back from those who exploit us and colonize our bodies."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/taina-bienaime/canada-sex-trafficking_b_5232806.html
And then there is the issue of race. Bridget explains that no word for prostitution exists in the First Nations language. Indigenous women, she says, were sacred water carriers and preservers of life.
Native Canadians today range between 1-7 percent of the country's total population. In one survey, of the prostituted women interviewed, 52 percent were First Nation and 90 percent of sex-trafficked teens were Aboriginal.
Canada has at its fingertips a growing survivor movement calling for the "Nordic Model." These trailblazers are courageously debunking the assertions that legalizing prostitution promises safety and empowerment for women.
Canada must also acknowledge that gender inequality, race, incest and histories of oppression are the pillars of the sex trade, including prostitution. Bridget and Natasha remind us that the multi-billion dollar industry that stole so much of their lives must not be a destiny for the vulnerable underclass: the disenfranchised, the abused, the marginalized and, in Canada, the First Nations' daughters.
"We have endured genocide and now if they legalize prostitution, they will rubber-stamp commercial rape and continued desecration," Bridget said. "As Aboriginal women and as women of color, the time is now to take our lives back from those who exploit us and colonize our bodies."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/taina-bienaime/canada-sex-trafficking_b_5232806.html
An American researcher says First Nations women from Thunder Bay, Ont., have been sold on ships in the harbour at Duluth, Minn.
Christine Stark said the port at Duluth is notorious among First Nations people as a site for trafficking women.
The masters student at the University of Minnesota Duluth said she has anecdotal reports of women, teenage girls and boys, as well as babies being sold on ships for sex.
"The women and children — and I've even had women talk about a couple of babies brought onto the ships and sold to the men on ships — are being sold or are exchanging sex for alcohol, a place to stay, drugs, money and so forth.," Stark said. "It's quite shocking."
Stark said the sex trade on ships has been going on for generations, and includes Indigenous women from Canada.
...
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/21/native-sex-slavery-canada-us_n_3790294.html
Christine Stark said the port at Duluth is notorious among First Nations people as a site for trafficking women.
The masters student at the University of Minnesota Duluth said she has anecdotal reports of women, teenage girls and boys, as well as babies being sold on ships for sex.
"The women and children — and I've even had women talk about a couple of babies brought onto the ships and sold to the men on ships — are being sold or are exchanging sex for alcohol, a place to stay, drugs, money and so forth.," Stark said. "It's quite shocking."
Stark said the sex trade on ships has been going on for generations, and includes Indigenous women from Canada.
...
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/21/native-sex-slavery-canada-us_n_3790294.html
Portraying the men who buy sex as some oppressed group... unbelievable.
Posting this link again for anyone who hasn't seen it.
Unprotected: How Legalizing Prostitution Has Failed
