Prostitution to be made il/legal

Laminations

I might have missed it but what's the sampling method for all of these studies being cited? Unless its probabilistic sampling you are going to have selection bias. Prostitutes coming forward are likely to be ones with the bad experiences - not that I'm doubting bad experiences aren't widespread for prostitutes. But just like if I was to run a study on recycling I might incorrectly conclude from my results that recycling is widespread where it was really a selecegion effect where only people who recycled responded to the survey, there's a social stigma around not recycling so not many black bag fillers took part.

There is a huge social stigma around prostitution so getting people to talk alone is difficult. But the social stigma for a prostitute who has chosen that life, and likes it must far outweigh that of the stereotypical abused girl, who has a warning to give and horrors to share.

Dandelion6

Laminations wrote: »

I might have missed it but what's the sampling method for all of these studies being cited? Unless its probabilistic sampling you are going to have selection bias.

From my link in post #89:

...there is a heavy selection bias in the sample. It is not clear that any of the sex workers interviewed came from the less vulnerable sectors (ie independent indoor workers, or brothel workers in countries where they have labour, health and safety rights). The large majority clearly did not. Some of them were selected from agencies that cater to people wishing to leave prostitution, which is a bit like selecting people at a jobs fair to find out if they’re looking for work. Moreover, some of them were children, although the study only reports that this was the case in six of the nine countries and does not break down the adult/child division any further.

I think that last point is particularly striking, how can you fail to distinguish between children and adults in a survey like this?

munchkin_utd

the woman who wrote that report is a self acclaimed anti prostitution activist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_Farley

The contents of the report is about as biased as it can get.
The methodology is suspect. For a proper statistical sampling you need to get as wide a variation of subjects as possible. But in Hamburg for example she only went straight to a drop out centre for drug addicts. What about all the other women working the street or establishments?

If the old biddy were to be a little more thorough and a little less biased then her argument could possibly be quite compelling.
As it stands its a quite badly written and researched rant that barely proves anything.

Even one of her scientific methods of measuring post-traumatic stress disorder amongst prostitutes (focused on drug addicts/ marginalised) which yielded an impressive 68% for her was repeated in Israel by an academic on sex workers there and yielded only 17% suffering severe mental trauma.

Now, if the lady had gone and done a proper sample and found it was 17% and argued that you cant be having a profession which leads to almost a fifth suffering such mental trauma, then you'd listen to her calls.

But to cook the books as blatantly as she does, and twist every angle to fit in to her anti prostitution/ pornography view of the world, just renders what she says irrelevant.

Laminations

The area is really lacking proper studies so. They need to employ something like stratified or cluster sampling and use explicit, implicit and behavioural measures (also using simple random sampling to get attitude of general public). Must go see if implicit attitudes towards prostitution has been looked at for males/females

Treora

In 13 days these people http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/oireachtasbusiness/committees_list/jde-committee/members/ will decide to criminalise the disabled in Ireland based on the political pressure by a few people in charge of organisations falsely claiming that their members thing likewise (SIPTU did not ballot its members).

Politicians only want to get re-elected. If one of these T.D.s are in your area then tell them your position on stigma, taboos, skewed reporting, disgust and confirmation bias. Once it was criminal to be homosexual in Ireland only because a well funded church lobbied for it.

http://vimeo.com/23523628

Danish Social Research Centre's Report

"Don't ask, don't get; the louder you ask, the more you get"

goose2005

Treora wrote: »

In 13 days these people http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/oireachtasbusiness/committees_list/jde-committee/members/ will decide to criminalise the disabled in Ireland based on the political pressure by a few people in charge of organisations falsely claiming that their members thing likewise (SIPTU did not ballot its members).

Politicians only want to get re-elected. If one of these T.D.s are in your area then tell them your position on stigma, taboos, skewed reporting, disgust and confirmation bias. Once it was criminal to be homosexual in Ireland only because a well funded church lobbied for it.

http://vimeo.com/23523628

Danish Social Research Centre's Report

"Don't ask, don't get; the louder you ask, the more you get"

What's worse is that most laws on other topics are passed in the same way, it really is a mess.

iptba

So no mention of women purchasing sex or male sex workers.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/letters/criminalisation-of-men-who-buy-sex-is-how-to-end-prostitution-217146.html

Criminalisation of men who buy sex is how to end prostitution

Monday, December 17, 2012

As someone who has studied prostitution and the harm and misery for the women involved, I think it is time that this highly lucrative industry, from which traffickers and prostitution agencies profit, was curbed.

The weight of international research evidence on the harm of all forms of prostitution is overwhelming.

A focus on the men who buy sex is needed, with a view to criminalising the purchase of sex.

Awareness campaigns alone do not work and legislation outlawing the purchase of women is needed to combat prostitution.

This is why I support the campaign against prostitution in Ireland, which is making presentations at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice (Irish Examiner, Dec 12).

Unconditional penalties for men who seek and buy people for sex is the only way to end the criminal prostitution underworld and our tolerance tor it.

Dr Patricia Kelleher
Allihies
Beara
Co Cork

rodento

At least the sex workers are having their say

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2013/0116/breaking63.html

iptba

rodento wrote: »

At least the sex workers are having their say

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2013/0116/breaking63.html

Also interesting in this piece:

Senator Mary White said she had compassion for those who had no access to “legitimate sexual relationships”. She told the committee people had an obvious psychological and physical need for sex and she asked whether selling of sex should not be legitimised to protect the buyer and the seller.

Dr Whitaker said there was a difference between trafficking, child abuse, coercion and those who chose to be sex workers. In response to Senator White she said she was aware of an Australian parliamentarian who suffered from physical disability and had become an advocate for the availability of safe, paid sex.

Dandelion6

rodento wrote: »

At least the sex workers are having their say

But not to the Committee, which refuses to hear from them. Is there any precedent for this?

Lelantos

Dandelion6 wrote: »

But not to the Committee, which refuses to hear from them. Is there any precedent for this?

Any committee ever set up in Ireland, the recently commissioned one on abortion, that will talk to certain groups, but not women who have actually left the country for medical termination

rodento

More in the indo today

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/prostitute-says-criminalisation-of-men-who-pay-for-sex-is-wrong-3357993.html

The Corinthian

Dandelion6 wrote: »

But not to the Committee, which refuses to hear from them. Is there any precedent for this?

These committees are always loaded, with the purpose of arriving at a pre-decided policy, with maybe a few minor variations tagged on. They rely upon a mixture of ignorance (no one knows they're on until they're over) and pseudo-consultation (whereby the illusion of public involvement is introduced, but never actually achieves anything).

Seriously, has there ever been a case of a committee that has concluded with a radically different recommendation from the initial, expected one it was 'given'?

Dandelion6

Lelantos wrote: »

Any committee ever set up in Ireland, the recently commissioned one on abortion, that will talk to certain groups, but not women who have actually left the country for medical termination

I did think of that but AFAIK the women who asked for a hearing were the TFMR group, whose abortions were not carried out to save their own lives - which was the type of abortion the hearings were supposed to be addressing. So I'm not sure that's exactly a comparable situation. Usually committees dealing with disability issues will talk to actual people with disabilities, gay and lesbian groups have been invited in to discuss LGBT issues etc.