Men who pay for sex are the driving force behind human trafficking.
I'm all for freedom, and I will acknowledge that there are probably women in the "sex trade" who were not trafficked or coerced into it, but that number pales in comparison to the number of girls who have been stolen and forced into a horrific life, having lost all control of their future. Freedom is among the most important qualities of human life, and the horror of human trafficking and the way it completely removes all freedom from the lives of its victims trumps the freedom of choosing to sell sex.
Most places, prostitution is illegal, enforced by going after the prostitute and slapping the wrists of the men who use them. I find it immoral and reprehensible that women would be criminalized for this.
Rather, men who make use of sex workers should be ostracized from society and imprisoned as rapists. And the women should be treated with compassion and care, as victims of abuse.
Economic coercion is a problem in sex work, but it is one that cannot ever be adressed by any policy only targeting conditions around sex work, but exclusively by policies that directly remove the coercive conditions under the rule of capital. No anti-sex work law will remove the fact that people see no choice but entering survival sex work, or migrating from the periphery into the center to work as prostitutes. The only way to prevent that is to end poverty and i know i do not have to explain to you what that entails, we're in agreement on that.
This comment is also not entirely directed at your reply, it's more about the general line of thinking that started this comment chain. I'm not under the impression that most sex workers are abducted victims of human trafficking, that's a line of thinking that is always brough tup by swerfs and never backed up with any evidence, i think that your remark towards economic coercion is much closer to the core problem at play here.
We're all victims of economic coercion. Very few would willingly work service or clerical jobs if they didn't need to.
If that's your rubrik, then whatever your opinion of Johns is, it should consistently be applied to anyone who ever buys any product or uses any service.
We all work because we need to get paid to survive. Knowing that, how do you believe those who choose for that work to be sex work should be treated?
Guy who refuses to answer the first question asked continues to deflect because he knows there's no logical position he can take that isn't 'I don't like sex workers'.
You deflected first by invoking economic coercion. Unless it's your firm belief that there are zero people who would knowingly choose to fuck for money over taking a menial job.
Get better talking points than these sad little ad hominems, they aren't helping you.
Never said they were equally exploitative, just that we all suffer from some level of economic coercion.
What you are doing is what's called strawmanning. It's where you reframe an argument you are unable to counter to a slightly different one that you are able to counter.
I'd say it's beneath you, but it honestly doesn't seem to be.
Never said they were equally exploitative, just that we all suffer from some level of economic coercion.
You very strongly implied otherwise:
whatever your opinion of Johns is, it should consistently be applied to anyone who ever buys any product or uses any service.
If we play devil's advocate, the strictest denotation of what you are saying allows for the interpretation that one should consider exploitation in all cases, but you are very clearly implying that there is a comparable magnitude. I don't "apply my opinion of" John Wayne Gacy to someone was convicted of a sexual assault charge, because both people are sex criminals (and should be condemned) but the cases are clearly not comparable beyond a statement as generic as that.
Likewise, I don't "apply my opinion of Johns" to someone who bought a bundle of bananas at a grocery store because both people "contributed in some manner to exploitation" but the scale is not remotely similar and also the latter person still needs to eat!