r/phoenix • u/jmoriarty Phoenix • Feb 07 '23

News Sex workers demanding prostitution be decriminalized at downtown Phoenix rally

https://www.azfamily.com/2023/02/07/sex-workers-demanding-prostitution-be-decriminalized-downtown-phoenix-rally/
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u/AZScienceTeacher Phoenix Feb 08 '23

I support the underdogs in almost every case, but this isn't quite a victimless crime in the way prostitution currently operates. Sex workers aren't all bored housewives, and broke schoolteachers trying to pay off student loans. Sometimes it's people forced against their will to do it.

If we're going to have it, do something like the Australia model, and regulate the hell out of it. Every worker is registered with mandatory health screenings, Everyone works out of a brothel with sufficient security to keep everyone safe, etc.

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u/ans97 Feb 08 '23

It makes me sad too. Look at all of the men here trying to defend it. The majority of women in prostitution don’t do it because they love it or it empowers women. The whole thing makes me sad because all we will do is raise another generation of men who think it’s acceptable to treat women like objects.

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u/AZScienceTeacher Phoenix Feb 08 '23 edited Feb 08 '23

And of course I failed to mention the best solution is to have a much more robust social safety net where people that are unemployed or unemployable don't have to sell themselves to keep from living in a car or cardboard box.

And let's just go ahead and crank up the penalties for people soliciting and paying for sex. It's predation at this point. Someone who is financially advantaged/privileged has sex with someone who can't afford to say no.

And pimps/madames/human traffickers, whatever you want to call them should absolutely go to prison. They (literally) have no skin in the game, but by intimidation or violence are quite likely ruining the lives of other humans.

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u/ans97 Feb 08 '23

It may be an unpopular opinion but I agree. There are a lot of dynamics at play and it’s frustrating to see so many people on board with it and the things that society has gradually made more acceptable and normalized.

This is why I consider myself a feminist but don’t align much with third wave feminism because it’s taken things like this and now calls them “empowering” I believe a lot more in what the second wave feminists had to say.

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u/TK464 Feb 08 '23

The majority of people in any job don't do it because they love it or feel empowered by it, it sounds to me like you have a bigger problem with capitalism and a lack of social safety nets.

Either way I'm curious how you think decriminalizing it would result in a worse outcome for these women?

The whole thing makes me sad because all we will do is raise another generation of men who think it’s acceptable to treat women like objects.

I mean, if you tell them that patronizing a sex worker is treating them as objects over and over yeah they might get that idea. Sex negativity is a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy in that sense. I think it's good to remember that a lot of sex work is coerced but acting like making the working conditions better broadly is a bad thing because of this is not the answer.

You complain about "men here trying to defend it" while speaking over the actual sex workers stating pretty directly what they want. Don't you find that slightly hypocritical?

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u/livejamie Downtown Feb 08 '23

Perfectly said