Amazing article on abolishing prostitution

[sunlit_music]

Read this.

"Abolishing Prostitution: The Swedish Solution
An Interview with Gunilla Ekberg
by the Rain and Thunder Collective
First published in Rain and Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal of Discussion and
Activism, Issue 41, Winter Solstice 2008."

Read the whole article here:

http://action.web.ca/home/catw/attach/R%26T_Interview_with_Gunilla_Ekberg.pdf

From the article:

The other principle is that women in prostitution shouldn’t be criminalized - because
they are victims of male violence. Rather, it is the perpetrators — the pimps, traffickers,
and prostitution buyers — who should be criminalized. In Sweden, prostituted women
and children are seen as victims of male violence who do not risk legal or other penalties.

If you analyze choice you recognize that choice is only possible if you choose from equal alternatives. You have to distinguish between making a decision and having a genuine choice. We make decisions in all kinds of situations that are difficult because that’s part of everyday life. If I’m in a job I absolutely loathe, that pays badly, I may have to stay there. So I make a decision to stay there because I can’t get another job right now. That is not to have a real choice.

We’re not talking about choosing between different brands of a consumer product. We’re
talking about a situation of male domination where there are different forms of
oppression that are keeping women down. Can you make a genuine choice if you’re
living in poverty? No, probably not in a context where you have different oppressive
conditions to contend with. I’m not saying that all women living in poverty end up in
prostitution, but many of the women in prostitution come from a poor background so you
have to think about it that way.

We know from research on the demand in Sweden, and for example in Scotland and in
Chicago, that men themselves identify three measures that would make them stop buying
somebody for prostitution purposes. One is having their name and photo posted on a
public billboard. Another is to be placed on a sexual offenders register. But the most
important deterrent, they say, is legislation that penalizes the buying of a sexual act.
Educate yourself about prostitution and start discussing with friends and others

The third question is: (3) What are the effects of prostitution on the women in
prostitution as well as society at large? Prostitution doesn’t just have individual impacts
on women in prostitution. It impacts all women in that society. If you have a country that
thinks it’s appropriate and acceptable that women are to be for sale then you normalize
the idea that men have the right to buy and sexually exploit not just a particularly
marginalized subclass of women, but all of us.

Comments

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if you're for or against here, but this Swedish man has to say that I personally stand by my country's (somewhat peculiar, and very Swedish) solution to the issue. It's a deeply flawed solution, but all the others are, I feel, worse. Punishing women for something they had no choice but to do in the first place? That's worse. Legalising prostitution entirely, so that sex becomes just one more thing that rich people are entitled to demand from poor people? That's worse.

And man, I have gotten so flamed for saying that on an international message board.

[sunlit-music.livejournal.com]

Punishing women for something they had no choice but to do in the first place? That's worse. Legalising prostitution entirely, so that sex becomes just one more thing that rich people are entitled to demand from poor people? That's worse.


Thanks so much for saying this. I definitely agree with you. I think your country's solution to prositution is one that definitely works. And I'm sorry to hear that you got flamed for saying that on a message board.

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Lessons in life: never use the word "exploitation" when surrounded by libertarians who are just itching to show how "modern" and "practical" and, above all, how utterly unsentimental and not at all like the church-going crowd they are. It sends them into a rage. ^_^;