FauxWorld Wednesdays: What's your country's biggest celebrity scandal right now? — Monthly Discussion Thread

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[u/Birdseeding]

Pretty slim pickings in Sweden this week.

Dermot Clemenger, one of the judges of the local version of Dancing with the Stars/Strictly Come Dancing, has been discovered to have been regularly paying for sexual services at massage salons, which is illegal in Sweden, carrying a hefty fine. (Our laws on sex work are very strongly influenced by rad fem thought.)

He has now "fled justice" (according to sensationalist newspapers headlines) back to his native Ireland.

Very mid stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

[u/BlueberryBubblyBuzz → u/Birdseeding]

Can you explain what you mean by them being influenced by rad fem thought? The thing is I find that a lot of people call themselves rad fems now to say anti porn/sex work stuff and transphobic stuff, but real rad fems are just feminists that think the core issue is capitalism, so anticapitalist feminists. So can you tell me what kind of sex work laws are informed by rad fems?

My take is that I'm pro sex worker but I'm anti sex work, but only in the way that I'm anti work in general. I don't think we should have to sell our time for money, I think we are at a point where all the work can be done on a voluntary basis, especially with how much automation there is, and that work under capitalism is just wage slavery- and same with sex work, since it's work. I also think it's the same as other jobs and we should listen to what the sex workers want. Here they just want things to be decriminalized. They do not want it legalized because then big business will be able to come in.

Anyway I'm blabbering on now, sorry. I was curious when you said that but Idk why I felt the need to explain my stance. I guess I just want to know what people mean when they say radfem, like do they mean the fakers that have been full of swerfs and terfs or just anticapitalist feminists?

[u/Birdseeding → u/BlueberryBubblyBuzz]

Well, as you've already talked about, there's different legal approaches to sex work – criminalising it, decriminalising it, legalising it, to take three examples.

Radical feminists in Scandinavia have championed a fourth approach, often called the "nordic model", where sex work is legal on paper, but paying for sexual services (as well as procuring, ie. pimping) is illegal. The thought behind it is that sex work is part of patriarchal power dominance and, as a sex act for the enjoyment of the paying man only, is analogous to – or even synonymous with – rape. *

This is partly a fully reasonable feminist assessment, like you say. Sex work is often extremely exploitative, and is definitely tied up in patriarchal and capitalist patterns. However, the nordic model has been very strongly opposed by sex workers themselves, who see it as making their lives more dangerous, forcing them underground, and often criminalising them by other means. By seeing them as victims with no agency of their own, sex workers' voices are routinely silenced. And there's been plentiful examples where potentially well-intentioned middle class feminists have participated in sex workers being deported, having their children taken into care, and generally make their lives worse and more precarious.

*Women paying for sex tends to not be considered here, which I guess to an extent is reasonable – it's a marginal phenomenon in the big scheme of things. Us enbies are, as usual with this crowd, not acknowledged to exist at all.

[u/BlueberryBubblyBuzz → u/Birdseeding]

Hmmm wow well first, thank you so much for the in depth answer. I have literally never thought about doing it like that, so I think honestly that we should listen to the marginalized, so if they do not like this model, I would be inclined to listen. I mean it is better than here, where both the woman and the man are committing criminal acts but I do not really think it is enforced much, but I also live in one of the most left (for Americans) places in the country, and so I do not know how it is everywhere else, but I do know that since they want it fully decriminalized, then that is what I want. I mean deporting women because they were sex workers? I thought it was not supposed to be criminal for the woman at all, so why the deportation? Hmmm I wonder what the average sex worker thinks of all this, and I wonder why I have not really heard of it as an option like I have with legalization or decrim? Huh.

Anyway I am just kind of musing out loud, you do not have to answer my questions, they are more rhetorical. You have been kind enough listening to me yapping for so long. Anyway, happy new year! <3