Discussion re decriminalization of prostitution following murder of woman in Limerick

Sugar_Rush

https://twitter.com/griptmedia/status/1646561023892115456?s=20

Got to say, I'm typically not a fan of radical feminist organisations, and in particular NGO's that are of questionable benefit and significant toll on the Irish taxpayer, but whilst I don't agree with the entirety of the article, there's definite merit to their stance on this topic, on this particular occasion.

A little media research will quickly reveal the depth and extent of criminal practice in Irish prostitution.

Criminals that perpetrate violence and murder, facilitate extortion, and do so with apparent and relative impunity.

Police, as the name suggests, enforce policy. Policy determined by the supposed sage and forward thinking leaders of Ireland.

Decriminalization as a singular measure, is basically constraining law enforcement to stand idly by and allow this entire criminal underworld to perpetrate their practice with greater (to complete?) impunity.

However, it must also be recognized that at this point, modification of current policy may well be necessary.

I think criminalizing buyers is kind of ludicrous. Bunch of horny dudes that can't get laid I mean, their own shame at having to pay for it should be punishment enough.

Criminalizing sellers? That's been tried and didn't really work.

Would it not make more sense to simply target the criminal element directly? The pimps and extortionists that are responsible for the real malfeasance and incompetence that almost certainly (albeit indirectly) led to the tragic murder of that young woman in Limerick.

Notmything

Policy is not the same as legislation, which is what the gardai enforce (in a simplistic sense).

Xterminator

Sex Workers Alliance of Ireland is a group of current and previous sex workers formed to campaign for complete decriminalisation. They argue that women should be their own free economic agents and can use their bodies however they choose. 

The Good Shepherd Sisters and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity previously ran the Magdalene Laundries and now run Ruhama. they have nuns sitting on the board. Ruhama’s board of directors have included Sr Sheila Murphy and Sr Bernadette McNally. According to the Irish Times, the Good Shepherd Sisters received more than €14.4 million from the Health Service Executive between 2006 and 2011. More recent funding data was difficult to obtain and nowhere in their website are there any links to their levels of funding.

just a few indisputable facts to preface my observation that catholic dogma states sex is dirty. of course a foundation founded by and run by nuns are not going to endorse decriminalization of sex work, and that they have an inherent bias.

With the Swedish model (a model supported by Ruhama) sex workers are still forced underground and are then vulnerable to criminal elements. But the organization i would give credence to is Sex Workers Alliance of Ireland believe the sex workers would be safer if sex work was decriminalised.  This view is supported by Amnesty International, who in 2015 voted to “adopt a policy that seeks attainment of the highest possible protection of the human rights of sex workers, through measures that include the decriminalisation of sex work”.

Thelonious Monk

It's just ridiculous at this stage. Clearly prostitution is never going to go away. We don't need Amsterdam style sex workers but it should at least be decriminalised. Same with most drugs. People will always pay for sex and take drugs that are available. Ignoring these facts is ludicrous.

greencap

Yes OP. Its the pimps and traffickers and exploiters which should be targetted first and foremost.

No, I dont think a guy paying with cash should necessarily be ashamed, its all very dependent on individual contexts. Practically all men end up paying in one way or another eventually.

Those guys who think that theyre not paying after all the dinners and dates, all their time, all the gifts, paying her attention, all the various graft on the chance of some action, need to take stock. Nothings free.

Payment in kind. If I let you live in my mansion, take you out to 5 star dinners, help you get an easy "job", act as your guardian and advisor, drive you around in a fancy car, maybe get you items... am I not paying?

I mean gold is just another currency, if I give you gold earrings ... im basically just handing over currency. Here have a few grams of gold. May as well be a wad of cash.

Of all the types of men in the game the most pitiful are the ones who end up losing half. Thats a sucker. God bless.

And no I never have paid for it with cash.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120477101#Comment_120477101

Yeah

Women are merely chattel

Yurt2

Whatever reform of the law takes place, sex workers should have far more of a voice afforded to them in the moulding and shaping of the debate around it. Primacy needs to be given to their safety and their economic rights etc. They were (and are) deliberately excluded from every aspect of the process and silenced at every turn when the formulation of the "Swedish model" laws a number of years back.

I'm not sure how feminists can stand over such a vista of them being silenced, yet a great many still do.

Faugheen

Sex work has been around since long before baby Jesus was born.

Typical of Gript to run fearmongering porn on it though, considering the writers have a great record in women’s rights.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120477101#Comment_120477101

Ok but some of us just are on an equal footing with the other sex without any of that nonsense

victor8600

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120477101#Comment_120477101

It's not the same. I'll try to explain this in simple terms. If you are buying your girlfriend a gold ring, you are not buying x amount of sex. You are giving a gift, and your gf may consider it as a nice gesture and like you more, which may lead to sex. Or not. If you say to your gf -- I have bought you with this ring, you have to give me sex in return, she will be in her right to shove your "gift" to your nether regions. She is free to decide whether to have sex with you or not.

In prostitution, there is little freedom for the prostitute. She (or he) is given money and must provide some services in exchange. She may only chose not to perform some acts, or maybe chose some other guy, but she will have to have sex with someone even if she does not like them.

The difference is the amount of freedom.

Wezz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120477101#Comment_120477101

Relationships aren't transactional and if they are its not a relationship.

I bought tickets for a gig recently for myself, my girlfriend and my brother. It was a gift, a nice thing to do but somehow that act makes my partner akin to a prostitute in your book. Even though she is working and paying probably more into our household than I am. Tell me this, am I looking for something from my brother as well or does the view you have just apply to women?

greencap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120477675#Comment_120477675

That would be a forced prostitute.

I think if a man is knowingly using a forced prostitute then thats certainly something to be ashamed of.

There are roles in relationships, and its often the case that fulfillment of these roles are the basis of the relationship continuing.

Because these roles are sort of intangiable in nature we dont really see them as a payoff. But if we look closer at most relationships we'll see aspects of a transaction. There is value in the things men do in the role of a man in a relationship. (You might provide certain favors and gifts, share your living space and other private resources, and protect her from various threats and problems, doing so is a valuable service)

Not that the entire relationship is a transaction. But youll find it within the relationship.

Youll usually find the transactional aspect along with the human aspect.

Stop fulfilling your valuable role and she might stop fulfilling her valuable role as a woman, and youll maybe become "friends".

Value in, value out. Sound familiar.

greencap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120477733#Comment_120477733

Ok theres no transactional nature in relationships at all.

Thats why women and men are equally eager to get married. And also why both sexes are equally interested in the others salary.

hoodie6029

The problem with targeting the organisers of prostitution is that you will need statements and testimony in Court to secure convictions. Something that is very hard to come by in organised crime cases due to witness intimidation etc.

There was a Prime Time special about 10/12 years ago that exposed the most popular escort site here and how they operate. They take vulnerable women, all immigrants, and traffic them around the country. They are told that are are in England, the women aren’t allowed out of the apartment, the women aren’t allowed communicate with any other women who might be there.

The list of how they control and manipulate goes on and on.

How do you get a witness statement that will hold up in Court when that is base the Gardai are starting from? How would you able able to get them to talk to any authority figure when they fear criminal prosecution themselves, deportation and violence from the gang? The criminals know this and continue to exploit this.

Our goal here should be to protect those that go into this or are trafficked into it. I don’t know how to do that but I do know that we need to move beyond the simplistic ‘Stop sex work’ idea.

The last people we should be listening to on this topic are the remnants of a bunch of, I won’t say what’s, that enslaved women in this country up to 1996 and sold children to wealthy families.

dontmindme

Why is prostitution illegal?

This is a good movie.

TooTired123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120477048#Comment_120477048

Good article here from The Gaurdian

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/11/prostitution-legalised-sex-trade-pimps-women

Sardonicat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120477986#Comment_120477986

Do you think women don't like sex? Does it bother you to have sex with a woman whom you are assuming is hating it.

greencap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478537#Comment_120478537

No, I dont think that.

Putting the friendship/emotional/human aspect of the relationship aside I think women usually benefit from relationships with men in several ways, including sex.

For men however, the primary benefit would be sex. We generally dont need any other benefit, we're not looking to feel safe at night by dating a woman. We also probably wont care whether a woman is a law firm partner or a drive through chef. And Ive never heard a man give a shyte about her ambition levels.

lmao10

Gript shilling is still live and well I see.

I do think it should be legalised. It's just never going to happen though is it,

Larbre34

The purchase of sex was only criminalised in 2017. That was done in consultation with the sector, the advocates, the law reform lobby, everyone. They aren't going to change it back now.

Does anyone think, given all the reported circumstances, that this woman would still be alive if the purchase of sex was legal? In my opinion this is a red herring and would have changed nothing about this poor individual's fate.

greencap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120477356#Comment_120477356

Historically, yes they often were.

In certain wonderful cultures, which many feminists dont ever criticize, they still kind of are.

Here wear a big bag which hides you away. Or else.

Sugar_Rush

I think the main issue with that article and the general feminist agenda is - "men are guilty";

Instead of, "pimps, scumbag extortionists, criminals and manipulators are guilty".

Kind of bizarre as it overlooks the "madam" element that comprises a significant aspect the criminal component (i.e. women pimps and perpetrators).

Criminalizing buyers is a hateful feminist agenda, absolutely no doubt or question - the shameful part is that Francis Fitzgerald fell hook, line and sinker for that rhetoric in 2017 (or was actively complicit in that ideology).

And Helen McEntee seems resolutely determined to follow in those footsteps.

Should it not be straight forward?

Target the criminal facilitators.

Target the workers who facilitate them, (police well-fair inspections both north and south of the border in the culminating quarter of 2022 looked like a step forward, albeit waaaay to resource heavy to be sustainable).

i.e. many of these pimps have girlfriends that are active prostitutes and actively further their accomplices criminal endeavors.

Criminalizing workers inhibits reporting violence perpetrated against them and criminal activity they bear witness to.

Criminalizing clients inhibits reporting violence or malpractice they see and observe, for fear of prosecution.

Any policy (or crystallized bill in the form of legislation) that supports either simply must challenged and revised.

.........

Report report report - like any other complaints system there should be an active medium to encourage reporting criminal activity.

As the justice system operates and as another poster above outlined, there must be actionable material in writing - and that will always be stunted when either one or the other side (workers/clients), is criminalized.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478944#Comment_120478944

That was done in consultation with the sector

No it wasn't. The "sector" was pretty much entirely ignored. Hard to have a union for sex workers for obvious reasons, but I don't recall anyone purporting to speak for sex workers who was in support of the change.

Sardonicat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478897#Comment_120478897

Is every human interaction you have solely transactional?

greencap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120479228#Comment_120479228

Most of my sexual interaction has been at least partly transactional, even if it wasn't obvious up front. As it has been the case for the vast majority of men, to some extent or other, for the vast majority of human history.

I generally took on the traditional duties of a man. If something went bump in the night that would be my job. If it were Valentines it wasn't me receiving gifts and getting brought out. I paid for the meal and hotel. Bins and heavy lifting, small construction jobs. She stayed at my place (I didn't ask for any contribution). I found answers to her various small problems when I could, fixed it so the circumstances change to her benefit. Driver on call, gofor for panadols. Shoulder to cry on. Credit card. Advisor. All these small roles have a value. (they just dont get discussed in an open way).

Thats the tradition for humanity since forever. A man would build the nest and bring home the bacon and scare off whatever needed to be scared off and fix the roof. For which you could calculate the price if you wanted. Lodging+raw foods+protection+menial heavy tasks.

And that would total up to an equivalent of x dollars/pounds at the time.

And the men at the time would be considered to have certain rights to balance the books.

Because, smiles and wholesomeness aside, there was an informal transaction going on. And thats across cultures, classes, and eras to some extent or another.

Payment vs payment in kind. I hope you can grasp the concept.

newmember2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120479496#Comment_120479496

lols...yeh...and they paid us back with sex and nice feeeelings...

FintanMcluskey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478537#Comment_120478537

Do you think women don't like sex?

I wouldn't say they do tbh, certainly not when married.

They use sex for its purpose, to have kids.

In an enormous percentage of marriages both parties are essentially celibate as the lady doesn't see sex as something necessary or pleasant

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120479496#Comment_120479496

Wow what an incredibly sad way to live and view life.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478972#Comment_120478972

It was more a comment on your archaic view of women.

"Here I'll buy you that cause you're merely my property"

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120479687#Comment_120479687

Enormous percentage? Really?

Dont suppose you have a source for this? Or have you just been hanging around with the incels for too long ?

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120477986#Comment_120477986

A man has conditional value, it’s always been thus and we accept this reality , no man is valued who does nothing but look pretty, not since Elizabeth Taylor’s day and those were elite minority situations