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Paul Cox
Seattle, WA
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Paul commented on the article |Prostitution needs to be legalized. That would be the single biggest first step to be made to ending human trafficking. Why?
Because right now, since the entire business is illegal to begin with, there's a huge disconnect between the authorities who can and should be working on the crime of human trafficking, and the people in the business who could help the authorities stop it.
What's more, empowering sex workers to take charge of their own business instead of needing "protection" from pimps would improve the situation.
All this fury aimed at Craigslist and Backpage is misplaced. Human traffickers are scumbags who deserve the full force of the law to come down on their heads. But the very business model of these web sites means that they have no effective idea of what's being advertised on their sites- and they shouldn't be held accountable for the actions of criminals.
They have tried to take actions to improve the situation, and instead continue to be raked over the coals for "not stopping it". Well, folks, human trafficking happened before the internet, and it'll happen after the internet. Quit confusing the two, and quit conflating what should be a legal business (sex work by people making a voluntary choice to do so) with an illegal action that should be stomped out (human trafficking).
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Paul commented on the article |
Interesting how it works like that. If a girl is deemed "too good" at sports, she must be a boy? And goddammit, no one will believe her until science intervenes!
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My question is - why are we so eager to find this out? Clearly if a man was competing in women's events, that might make things unfair because when it comes to physiology men and women are not equal species.</blockquote>
I think you pretty much answered your own question. Semenya is plainly WAY more masculine in appearance than the vast majority of the already buffed-out female competitors she's racing against.
I feel a lot of sympathy for her; this episode is probably the first time in her life she's had to face the reality that the physical body she's inhabiting is apparently not 100% "female" by our standard definition.
But to present this as some sort of outrage against her humanity is silly. She's a competitive athlete, voluntarily taking part in sports. To do that, a person is agreeing to compete in the appropriate category- male or female.
And if a man tries to compete with the women, it won't be allowed, for the exact reason you've laid out here, Jen; because it isn't fair to have a man running against women.
The other competitors have a right to be able to take part knowing that they're running against fellow females. While you're complaining and asking "why should she Semenya have to prove she's a girl?" you're ignoring the rights of the women she's racing against- and you're ignoring the basic point of having a male/female split in the competition.
I don't know what the solution in this case is. I'd have to say that the most reasonable thing is that so long as she's got testes cranking out testosterone, she shouldn't be allowed to compete as a female; it'd be roughly analogous to allowing women to take hormones and steroids but still compete.
Take out what appears to be the male tissues and then I think you have a reasonable argument that she should be allowed to compete. Until then, if we're going to continue having men and women compete in separate categories, I can't see how she can be allowed to race against women.
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Paul commented on the article |Jamie, your response doesn't explain WHY sex work is wrong.
See, I look at it like this: I believe that human beings, for the most part, can make their own decisions and moral choices. (Plainly you've got some exceptions- people without the requisite mental capacity, people under duress, etc.)
To me, if someone decides to sell their body for money- willingly, and knowingly- I don't really see how THEIR choice affects ME. Therefore, I have a hard time telling them "you cannot do that because *I* think it's immoral".
Apparently you don't have any problem telling people what to do with their lives! :)
Seriously... I don't think you've really answered the question of why sex work is wrong. What about it makes it so immoral? How does it harm someone else's rights? How does it harm society?
See, here's where I'm coming from on this: Whether you like it or not, sex work has been around forever. It almost certainly WILL be around forever. Plainly, as a species, reality says that sex work is something that's going to be accepted by at least a significant minority (if not a majority) of society.
I'd much rather see it legalized and handled in a sane, smart manner than driven underground. The driving it underground part helps to breed the bigger profits that are involved in human trafficking. -
Paul commented on the article |People who do or can live the way you do are a tiny fraction of a percent, and for the rest of the population, it's no dairy or dairy the inherently cruel way.
Why? I think you're presenting an either/or situation that's false. It'd be like someone saying, 40 years ago, that if we're going to have alcohol sold in bars and taverns, we must put up with drunk drivers.
But that wasn't true. We have made huge inroads towards slowing and stopping drunk driving without telling everyone "we've got to close down all the establishments that sell alcohol" by focussing on the problem behavior, drunk driving.
The notion that I, or anyone else, who likes and enjoys dairy products has to either choose to give up those dairy products or we must accept calves being killed and dumped is a silly notion.
We CAN fix the problem behaviors. We CAN make it illegal to dump calves. We CAN require dairies to behave ethically in how they deal with calves.
In doing so, we can retain milk for those of us who enjoy it and still take care of the problem that you're talking about.
Now, if you want to argue that even taking milk is unethical and should be illegal, go for it... but please don't insult our intelligence by suggesting that it's "either/or", and that if we insist on drinking milk we are agreeing to doing business in an inherently cruel manner.
The latter doesn't need to be true; we can fix that problem. It's doable. -
Paul commented on the article |
I think Anemone is on to something here, but I think her conclusion is wrong. We're not discussing the right questions.
To me, the questions of "should sex work be legal or illegal?" and "what do we do to stamp out human trafficking?" are related, but separate, questions.
It seems to me that the reason you have illegal trafficking in anything, whether drugs, pirated DVDs, or human beings, it's because even though that smuggling (or slavery) is illegal, it's profitable enough that people are willing to take the risk anyway.
For example, I just returned from a trip to Bali, Indonesia. When you enter Indonesia, on the information card you fill out for the immigrations people, there's a big warning in red letters: "DRUG TRAFFICKING SUBJECT TO THE DEATH PENALTY!!!"
Yikes. They're taking it seriously.
And yet... walking around Kuta, there were still guys offering to sell me drugs. Why? Because they're poor enough, and the money is good enough, that it's worth it to them.
This, to me, is important to keep in mind. The reason that there's as much human trafficking surrounding the sex work industry is no doubt in part due to the fact that sex work has a hugely negative stigma around it AND because it's illegal.
The negative stigma is a social thing- while we can work to change that, to some extent it's just something that people are going to think/feel if they choose.
But the illegal/legal question is different. We can easily make sex work legal if we choose.
(Whether or not decriminalization will lead to more or less human trafficking is at best unclear; personally I think it's obvious that done correctly, a legalized sex work industry will definitely lead to less human trafficking.)
So that leads us to the separate-but-related question of whether or not sex work should be legal. Is it ethical, moral?
Personally, I think the answer is clear: As long as someone isn't being forced into the work through coercion, as long as they're choosing it for themselves, sure, it's ethical. It should be legal.
I know a gal who used to work as an exotic dancer. She had absolutely no problem using her body to exploit men for their money. She never sold sex, but she was definitely selling her body. NFL players sell their bodies to the grinder that is professional football (those guys are old WAY before their time).
To those who declare that sex work should be illegal, I'd ask this: Why? What about one person voluntarily agreeing to have sex with someone else, for money, is so horrible it needs to be outlawed?
Again, I think this question needs to be separate from the human trafficking side of things. More correctly, look at it this way: If there were NO human trafficking involved, would we say that sex work should be legal? Strictly on a voluntary basis?
I think that what we need to do is legalize sex work but double or triple our efforts against human trafficking. Make sex workers feel safe and secure in their choice of profession, but also give anyone being coerced into it a VERY easy way to get out, with lots of support and heavy prosecution of those who might be trafficking in humans.
Legalize brothels, but go into them and card-check the workers to be sure that they're not smuggled humans. Talk to them, one-on-one, without the owner/manager present. Institute reasonable licensing and healthcare for the workers.
These are all things that would go a long way to making sex work safer for the workers, safer for the clients, and probably would even offer us more powerful tools to chase down, catch, and prosecute human traffickers.
Those saying sex work needs to be kept illegal because it gives us tools against human traffickers miss the fact that the "tools" are all punishment-based in nature. We can use the leverage of the work being illegal AGAINST the sex worker this way.
Well, I think we're better off with carrots, not sticks. These people- by and large women- deserve better treatment than that.
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