Structural Violence
Plan
Plan: The United States should legalize nearly all prostitution in the United States.
Contention 1 Structural Violence
The zero tolerance policy of the squo creates an environment that allows for
expanded violence, marginalization and hate crimes
Thomas 09
(Ruth, has been involved in the sex industry for 29 years: 8 years as a sex worker; 2½ years as an
academic researcher at Edinburgh University looking at HIV-related risks in the sex industry; and 18
years as a sex workers’ rights advocate developing and seeking to maintain services and support for sex
workers within a human rights framework both in the UK and abroad, Professor of Young People and
Public Policy at the University of Bedfordshire. Her research interests are young people, sexual
exploitation, child protection and domestic violence, Regulating Sex for Sale: Prostitution Policy Reform
in the UK, Chapter 8: “From ‘toleration’ to zero tolerance: a view from the ground in Scotland,” Pg. 139)
/wyo-mm
My main argument is that zero
tolerance, in the context of violence against women and sex work, has become dogmatic and
unresponsive to the actual needs of sex workers. It operates at a number of levels to increase the
vulnerability of those involved in selling sex. At a conceptual level it confuses violence experienced by
women with consensual sex between adults. The approach cannot acknowledge and address the
disproportionate levels of actual violence and hate crimes experienced by sex workers – focusing as it
does on the supposed ‘violence’ of the consensual exchange of sex for money. It alienates and further
marginalises those who sell sex, and in particular brands women who choose to sell sex as colluding with
male violence and therefore of no significance. It denies women’s autonomy and agency, treating
those who sell sex as ‘legal minors’ incapable of making their own decisions about their own lives and
defining them as victims needing to be ‘rescued’ from abuse or ‘saved’ from themselves. In short, it
silences the voices of sex workers and undermines fundamental human rights.
Stigma against prostitution justifies rape, murder, endless violence, and requires
stacked bodies before the violence is acknowledged
Kuo 02
(Lenore, professor of Women’s Studies and Philosophy and Chair of the Women’s Studies Program At
California State University at Fresno, Prostitution Policy: Revolutionizing Practice Through a Gendered
Perspective, Pgs. 59-61) /wyo-mm
The modern construction of the prostitute is clearly rooted in these traditions, embodying and reflecting their contradictions.
The construc tion remains one of a woman who is diseased and dirty (the dirt magni lied if she is
nonwhite), poor or working-class, a sexual deviant, and a symbol of the disintegration of society. At the
same time, she emIodies “the mother”: warm, kind, helpful, n urrurant (remember Gwzsmoke’s “Miss Kitty”). But the prostitute is
further bifurcated—into a victim who would do anything rather than prostitute (if not for the needs of her
family, threats, drug addiction caused by another, etc.), one who awaits a savior and redemption, or into a victimizer,
a criminal, heartless, morally bereft, greedy, altogether untrustworthy thing—a dishonest se ducer. jo
Doezema notes how the traditional bifurcation of prostitutes into victim and victimizer has been given an interesting twentieth-cen tury spin.
In the current discourse, the popular “forced” versus “voluntary” prostitution distinction leads to the
bifurcation of the modern prostirLite into that of the Western woman—the guilty sexual transgres sor
who freely chooses a life of sin—and that of the non-Western (usu ally Asian), young, innocent (read “virgin”) woman
who is forced into prostitution (by poverty, trafficking, etc.) and who is or will soon be come the passive diseased voinan.25 Or, as Linda
LeMoncheck describes it,
feminists who adopt this perspective, “regard sex workers as either victims of an
overpowering patriarchy or collaborators in collective brainwashing. “2e The voluntary/forced
dichotomy reproduces the whore/madonna division within the “prostitute” category. “The distinction
between voluntary and forced prostitution, a radical and resistive attack on previous discourses that
constructed all prostitutes as victims and/or deviants, has been co-opted and inverted, and
incorporated to reinforce systems that abuse sex workers rights.” 2 Importantly, living, embodied
prostitutes continue to be reduced to mere paradigms and metaphors; a prostitute continues to be a
disem—bodied stereotype, a one-dimensional object without individual iden tity—”nothing but a
prostitute.” Hegemonic wisdom holds that her life and reality can be understood totally through “the
prostitute” construct. According to the current conceptual construct, the prostitute victimizer is an
appropriate target for violence, including, though not limited to, sexual violence, since she is pure
moral degenerare who would do practically anything for money.” Acts normally viewed as criminal
are not crimes if directed against the prostitute victimizer. Criminal behavior requires a victim, and
the prostitute victimizer cannot be a victim; vic timization requires personhood, moral status, and
identity. The prosti tute victimizer is not simply “the other of the other”—she is the end of the
continuum. She is the appropriate target of misogyny and “deserves what she gets —what else could she
expect?” That the prevailing concep tual construct of the prostitute promotes her (or him) as an acceptable target for violence is evidenced not
only in cultural artifacts but also by accepted practice. Mass
media do not see fit to cover extensively, if at all, the
assaults or even the deaths of those known to prostitute, unless the bodies are beginning to stack up
(in which case the stories are often macic lurid and salacious); as a pure sexual object, even the
prostitute’s death is “sexy”). In these cases the media rarely see fit to provide the vic tim’s name (or they wait until the end of the
article to give it). “The pros titute” ¡s faceless. Stigma, illegalit> and lack of community interest if she is
victimized ensure that she will remain so. Police and other public officials demonstrate little interest in pursuing crimes against
prostitutes, since the prostitute victimizer does nor war rant the time or the cost to the community. In 1975 this tradition sparked a twomonth-long strike and the occupation of a church in Lyon, France by prostitutes protesting the lack of concern and efforts by the Lyon police to
solve the murder of several prostitutes and to provide prostitutes with protection while the murderer was still at large and ac tive. In 1989,
Norma Jean Almodovar, a former Los Angeles police offi cer turned prostitute, maintained. “We have serial murderers, with eighty
women murdered in Seattle, around twenty-five in Portland, ten in the Oakland—San Francisco area, another sixteen in Los Angeles and nine in
San Diego. That’s just the West Coast. There’s the usual racism rand economic classisrnj because most
of the women who are
murdered are black Street prostitutes. The police and society don’t seem to care; they feel that since
these women are prostitutes, they deserve whatever they get . . . . Rather than go after the murderers,
the state spends mil lions of dollars trying to round up prostitutes and does nothing against those
who violate their rights .”28 And of course, prostitutes are not capable of being raped. I-low can sex be
forced if “she would spread her legs for anyone for the going price”? Indeed, due to her behavior,
(stress, and dealings in things sexual, a prostitute is viewed as the ultimare “woman who was asking for it.” Rape of prostitutes
cannot occur. Given how destructive the current paradigm of the prostitute is to prostitutes and to
women as a class, any prostitution policy that is ac ceptable to feminists must either alter this
construction or eradicate it al together.
This creates endless cycles of violence and magnifies every other type of oppression
McCracken 13
(Jill, Street Sex Workers’ Discourse: Realizing Material Change Through Agential Choice, Preface, Pgs.
130-131) /wyo-mm
As has been explored throughout, the material
conditions surrounding street-based sex work combine to create
increased oppression and violence . As Lerum et. al. (2012) argue “Policies that increase the already intense
criminalization of sex workers disproportionately scrutinize and punish the most disenfranchised,
increase the economic and social marginalization of both the providers and the purchasers of
commercial sex, and create new ways to pensalise men, women, and transgender people of colour
and immigrants ” (p. 88). These conditions simultaneously co-construct individuals as both victims and
those who do not matter as much as others. Based on their status as marginalized and their practices in streetbased economies, these individuals have virtually no protection against violence, rape, and even death. The
research that outlines the extreme violence people involved in street-based sex work encounter and live with
on a daily basis are too numerous to mention. As Shannon et al. (2009a) argue: the extremely high prevalence of rape
experienced by female sex workers over the 18 month follow-up period points to the immediate need to scale up violence prevention
strategies, including increasing support for female sex workers accessing legal and victim services and improving the monitoring of and legal
responses to violence against female sex workers. (p. 7) Remoero-Dazaa et al. (2005) found that victims
of rape and abuse are
seen as the ones at fault for their victimization. They include Lopez-Jones’s argument: Attacks on sex workers are
common not because prostitution is an intrinsically violent job, but because violent men are more
likely to get away with physical attacks on a woman who is a prostitute. Prostitute women . . . being
sexual outlaws have been denied many of the human, civil, and legal rights available (at least in theory) to other
women.
This lack of social power is key to understanding the violence prostitute women face and what
can and must be done to end it - . . . ] women and children who try to survive through prostitution are . . . criminalized and
accused of “attracting” violence. In this way, the victim, rather than the attacker, is blamed for the violence she suffers . . . When sex
workers report violence the police often dismiss the attack as “part of the job,” accuse the woman of
“asking for it,” or even threaten her with arrest. (qtd. In Romero-Dazaa et al. 2005, p. 158) Valera et al. (2001) cite The
Council on Prostitution as estimating that “female prostitutes are raped approximately once a week” (p. 51). They found that violence is one of
the most significant threats to their participants’ health. People
involved in street-based sex work are raped and killed
with almost no attention paid to them unless the killings amount to serial proportions . The International
Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, held annually on December 17, was created to call attention to crimes committed against sex
workers all over the globe. Originally conceptualized by Annie Sprinkle and initiated by the Sex Workers come Outreach Project USA as a
memorial and vigil for the victims of the Green River Killer in Seattle Washington, the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers
has empowered workers from cities around the world to come together and organize against discrimination and remember victims of violence.
During the week of December 17th, sex worker rights organizations and their allies stage actions and vigils to raise awareness about violence
that is commonly committed against sex workers. The assault, battery, rape and murder of sex workers must end. (SWOP-USA, “International
Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers”)
Stigma, combined with criminalization, sends a powerful message that
these individuals are “throwaways” or not worth anything anyway—a belief that is apparent in the
lack of interest in pressing charges against the extensive violence that is committed against them .
Current policies and their enforcement create the conditions that allow for this violence to occur. As
Shannon et al. (2009a) argue: “In Canada over the past two decades, urban centers have experienced epidemics of violence against street
based female sex workers that have been posited to coincide with prohibitive policy changes and enforcement based strategies, such as police
crackdowns” (p. 2). At
their best, the policies are not solving the problem of prostitution, and at their worst,
they create the conditions for violence to occur . These same conditions provide little recourse for
those individuals when this violence does occur—sending a message to perpetrators that their
actions will not be punished—further perpetuating this cycle where sex workers and people who
exchange sex do not matter because the laws that apply to citizens who do not participate in these
activities are not upheld .
You should prefer structural violence impacts:
Prioritizing everyday violence is key to avoid error replication and movement burn
out. Re-orienting away from macro-level violence produces sustainable political
coalitions
Cuomo 96
(Chris, prof of women’s studies @ UGA, War is Not Just an Event: Reflections on the Significance of
Everyday Violence, Hypatia 11:4, Women and Violence, Autumn, pp. 30-45)
Philosophical attention to war has typically appeared in the form of justifications for entering into war,
and over appropriate activities within war. The spatial metaphors used to refer to war as a separate,
bounded sphere indicate assumptions that war is a realm of human activity vastly removed from
normal life, or a sort of happening that is appropriately conceived apart from everyday events in peaceful times.
Not surprisingly, most discussions of the political and ethical dimensions of war discuss war solely as an event-an
occurrence, or collection of occurrences, having clear beginnings and endings that are typically marked by formal,
institutional declarations. As happenings, wars and military activities can be seen as motivated by identifiable, if complex, intentions,
and directly enacted by individual and collective decision-makers and agents of states. But many of the questions about war that are of
interest to feminists-including how large-scale, state-sponsored violence affects women and members of other
oppressed groups; how military violence shapes gendered, raced, and nationalistic political realities
and moral imaginations; what such violence consists of and why it persists; how it is related to other oppressive and
violent institutions and hegemonies-cannot be adequately pursued by focusing on events. These
issues are not merely a matter of good or bad intentions and identifiable decisions. In "Gender and 'Postmodern' War,"
Robin Schott introduces some of the ways in which war is currently best seen not as an event but as a presence
(Schott 1995). Schott argues that postmodern understandings of persons, states, and politics, as well as the high-tech nature of much
contemporary warfare and the preponderance of civil and nationalist wars, render an event- based conception of war inadequate, especially
insofar as gender is taken into account. In this essay, I will expand upon her argument by showing that accounts of war that only focus on
events are impoverished in a number of ways, and therefore feminist consideration of the political, ethical, and onto- logical dimensions of
war and the possibilities for resistance demand a much more complicated approach. I take Schott's characterization of war as presence as a
point of departure, though I am not committed to the idea that the constancy of militarism, the fact of its omnipresence in human experience,
Theory
that does not investigate or even notice the omnipresence of militarism cannot represent or address the depth
and specificity of the every- day effects of militarism on women, on people living in occupied territories, on
members of military institutions, and on the environment. These effects are relevant to feminists in a number of ways
and the paucity of an event-based account of war are exclusive to contemporary postmodern or postcolonial circumstances.1
because military practices and institutions help construct gendered and national identity, and because they justify the destruction of natural
nonhuman entities and communities during peacetime. Lack
of attention to these aspects of the business of making or
preventing military violence in an extremely technologized world results in theory that cannot accommodate the
connections among the constant presence of militarism, declared wars, and other closely related social phenomena, such as
nationalistic glorifications of motherhood, media violence, and current ideological gravitations to military solutions for social problems. Ethical
approaches that do not attend to the ways in which warfare and military practices are woven into the very fabric of life in twenty-first century
technological states lead to crisis-based politics and analyses. For any feminism that aims to resist oppression and create alternative social and
political options, crisis-based ethics and politics
are problematic because they distract attention from the need
for sustained resistance to the enmeshed, omnipresent systems of domination and oppression that so
often function as givens in most people's lives. Neglecting the omnipresence of militarism allows the
false belief that the absence of declared armed conflicts is peace, the polar opposite of war. It is particularly easy for
those whose lives are shaped by the safety of privilege, and who do not regularly encounter the realities of militarism, to maintain this false
belief. The belief that militarism is an ethical, political concern only regarding armed conflict, creates forms of resistance to militarism that are
merely exercises in crisis control. Antiwar resistance is then mobilized when the "real" violence finally occurs, or
when the stability of privilege is directly threatened, and at that point it is difficult not to respond in ways that make resisters drop all other
political priorities. Crisis-driven attention
to declarations of war might actually keep resisters complacent
about and complicitous in the general presence of global militarism. Seeing war as necessarily embedded in
constant military presence draws attention to the fact that horrific, state-sponsored violence is
happening nearly all over, all of the time, and that it is perpetrated by military institutions and other
militaristic agents of the state. Moving away from crisis-driven politics and ontologies concerning war and military violence
also enables consideration of relationships among seemingly disparate phenomena, and therefore can shape more nuanced
theoretical and practical forms of resistance. For example, investigating the ways in which war is part of a presence allows
consideration of the relationships among the events of war and the following: how militarism is a foundational trope in the social and political
imagination; how the pervasive presence and symbolism of soldiers/warriors/patriots shape meanings of gender; the ways in which threats of
state-sponsored violence are a sometimes invisible/sometimes bold agent of racism, nationalism, and corporate interests; the fact that vast
numbers of communities, cities, and nations are currently in the midst of excruciatingly violent circumstances. It also provides a lens for
considering the relationships among the various kinds of violence that get labeled "war." Given current American obsessions with nationalism,
guns, and militias, and growing hunger for the death penalty, prisons, and a more powerful police state, one cannot underestimate the need
for philosophical and political attention to connections among phenomena like the "war on drugs," the "war on crime," and other state-funded
militaristic campaigns. I propose that the constancy of militarism and its effects on social reality be reintroduced as a crucial locus of
contemporary feminist attentions, and that feminists emphasize how wars are eruptions and manifestations of omnipresent militarism that is
a product and tool of multiply oppressive, corporate, technocratic states.2 Feminists should be particularly interested in making this
shift
because it better
allows consideration of the effects of war and militarism on women, subjugated
peoples, and environments. While giving attention to the constancy of militarism in contemporary life we need not neglect the
importance of addressing the specific qualities of direct, large-scale, declared military conflicts. But the dramatic nature of
declared, large-scale conflicts should not obfuscate the ways in which military violence pervades most
societies in increasingly technologically sophisticated ways and the significance of military institutions and everyday practices in shaping
reality. Philosophical discussions that focus only on the ethics of declaring and fighting wars miss these
connections, and also miss the ways in which even declared military conflicts are often experienced as omnipresent horrors. These
approaches also leave unquestioned tendencies to suspend or distort moral judgment in the face of what
appears to be the inevitability of war and militarism. Just-war theory is a prominent example of a philosophical
approach that rests on the assumption that wars are isolated from everyday life and ethics. Such theory, as
developed by St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Hugo Grotius, and as articulated in contemporary dialogues by many philosophers, including
Michael Walzer (1977), Thomas Nagel (1974), and Sheldon Cohen (1989), take the primary question concerning the ethics of warfare to be
about when to enter into military conflicts against other states. They therefore take
isolated, definable event with clear
as a given the notion that war is an
boundaries. These boundaries are significant because they distinguish
the circumstances in which standard moral rules and constraints, such as rules against murder and
unprovoked violence, no longer apply. Just-war theory assumes that war is a separate sphere of
human activity having its own ethical constraints and criteria and in doing so it begs the question of
whether or not war is a special kind of event, or part of a pervasive presence in nearly all
contemporary life.
Because the application of just-war
principles is a matter of proper decision- making on the part of agents
of the state, before wars occur, and before military strikes are made, they assume that military initiatives are distinct
events. In fact, declarations of war are generally over-determined escalations of preexisting conditions. Just-war criteria cannot
help evaluate military and related institutions, including their peacetime practices and how these relate to wartime
activities, so they cannot address the ways in which armed conflicts between and among states emerge from omnipresent, often violent, state
militarism. The remarkable resemblances in some sectors between states of peace and states of war remain completely untouched by theories
Applications of justwar criteria actually help create the illusion that the "problem of war" is being addressed when the
only considerations are the ethics of declaring wars and of military violence within the boundaries of
declarations of war and peace. Though just-war considerations might theoretically help decision-makers
avoid specific gross eruptions of military violence, the aspects of war which require the underlying
presence of militarism and the direct effects of the omnipresence of militarism remain untouched. There may
that are only able to discuss the ethics of starting and ending direct military conflicts between and among states.
be important decisions to be made about when and how to fight war, but these
other aspects
of contemporary war
and nonhumans.
must be considered in terms of the many
and militarism that are significant to nonmilitary personnel, including women
Long term Predictions fail- No way to predict the interactions within the world with so
many local moving actors
Tskeris 10
[Charalambos Tsekeris, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Department of Psychology,
Pateikta spaudai: 2010 12 02, 2010/2(27), ISSN 1392-3358, “Chaos and Unpredictability in Social
Thought: General Considerations and Perspectives”, Google Scholar, \\wyo-bb]
Modernity, as a social and historical category, has been closely associated with the “old”, “received” or “conventional”
strong ambition to know, predict and manipulate (engineer) the world in toto with total certainty.
Sociology’s 19th-century founders strongly asserted that the discipline was about making long-term predictions and hence applying persuasive,
practical and universally-applicable solutions to acute and pressing (real-world) social problems. This was how social science originally invented
and justified its idiosyncratic (unique) epistemic status and role, in direct contrast to religion or metaphysics, as famously expressed by the
classical Comtean formula savoir pour prévoir et prévoir pour pouvoir, or by C. Wright Mills’s conclusion (combined with a strong critique of
bureaucratic technocracy) that the ultimate “purpose of social science is the prediction and control of human behaviour” (Mills 1970; 127).
Human life, however, is inherently dynamic: it is inescapably and ceaselessly changing and
polymorphous (kaleidoscopic). In other words, it may be simple, complicated or chaotic, easy or hard, calm or
stressful, boring or exciting, dull or colourful, regular or irregular, happy or miserable, beautiful or
evil. To put it very simply, life is never the same. Change is actually constitutive of all sorts of human
co-existence/co-operation and social living over the ages. Especially since the early 1960s, the innovative theoretical
and methodological paradigm of chaos has been increasingly simmering within the study of nature and society. The science of Chaos (Gleick
1987) is a science of change.2 It is the systematic investigation of non-linear processes within dynamic turbulent systems (human or nonhuman). Chaos
does not in principle reject the basic tenets of determinism, but it decisively shows that
there are indeed deterministic systems which are not predictable at all, since they exhibit sensitivity to initial
conditions: “there is no proportionality between causes and effects. Small causes may give rise to large effects. Nonlinearity is the rule, linearity
is the exception” (Tsoukas and Hatch 2001; 988).3 Contemporary
“networked” societies are inherently chaotic
systems – that is, both deterministic and unpredictable (this actually reconciles in a sophisticated way the aperiodicity and
unpredictability of non-linear dynamic systems with a sense of order and structure). The most characteristic exemplifications
are: the global economy and the global crisis, wars and armed conflicts, human beings and social
organisations, romantic and intimate relationships, business and the stock market, political campaigns and elections, the
Olympic Games, football games and other sporting events, weather systems, the Internet, World Wide Web, Web 2.0, journalism and
journalism 2.0, science
and technology4, etc. In other words, a chaotic system may appear completely
random, but there is always an underlying generative “real” order, deeper mechanisms and hidden
patterns, rules and norms, which patiently wait to be dis-covered and un-covered (therefore, there is no such
thing as “luck”). But even if (positivist, essentialist, realist or neo-realist) social scientists someday arrive at the very final
stage of “total” or “absolute” knowledge about these “hidden patterns, rules and norms”, they will
not be capable of accurately predicting. To put it very simply, a human complex society (as well as any other nonlinear dynamic system) can never be fully contained in any way – even by its own “creator” (in the special case of a computersimulated artificial society). So, any ambitious, long-term planning is inescapably doomed to absolute failure.
What is actually needed here, consequently, is to reflexively include ourselves, as both researchers and
social actors, within this inherent general unpredictability. A system’s esoteric interactions usually
prevail upon external control attempts. The counter-intuitive behaviours of human complex systems
generally result from often “very complicated feedback loops in the system, which cause many
management mistakes and undesired side effects. Such effects are particularly well-known from failing political attempts to
improve the social or economic conditions” (Helbing 2009; 428). As John Urry perceptively observes, many small “local actions” can
rapidly interact and surprisingly ramify to create “global waves” or “global fluids” (i.e. unstable networks such
as travelling peoples, automobility, global brands, social and political movements, environmental and health hazards), which are seen as
highly unpredictable, and as often lacking a clear starting and end point: “The ‘particles’ of people,
information, objects, money, images, risks and networks move within and across diverse regions
forming heterogeneous, uneven, unpredictable and often unplanned waves…Such waves demonstrate
no clear point of departure, deterritorialised movement, at certain speeds and at different levels of
viscosity with no necessary end state or purpose” (Urry 2003; 60).
Interdependence checks war
Deudney, Prof of Pol Sci, and Ikenberry 9, Prof of International Affairs (Daniel and John, Prof of Pol
Sci at John Hopkins and Prof of International Affairs at Princeton, “Why Liberal Democracy Will Prevail”
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/events/csf/readings/AutocraticRevival.aspx, CMR)
This bleak
outlook is based on an exaggeration of recent developments and ignores powerful countervailing factors
and forces. Indeed, contrary to what the revivalists describe, the most striking features of the contemporary international
landscape are the intensification of economic globalization, thickening institutions, and shared problems of
interdependence. The overall structure of the international system today is quite unlike that of the nineteenth century. Compared to
older orders, the contemporary liberal-centered international order provides a set of constraints and opportunities — of
pushes and pulls — that reduce the likelihood of severe conflict while creating strong imperatives for cooperative problem solving.
Those invoking the nineteenth century as a model for the twenty-first also fail to acknowledge the extent to which war as a path to conflict
resolution and great-power expansion has become largely obsolete. Most important, nuclear
weapons have transformed
great-power war from a routine feature of international politics into an exercise in national suicide . With all of the great powers
possessing nuclear weapons and ample means to rapidly expand their deterrent forces, warfare among these states has truly become
an option of last resort. The prospect of such great losses has instilled in the great powers a level of caution and restraint that effectively
precludes major revisionist efforts. Furthermore, the diffusion of small arms and the near universality of nationalism have severely limited the
ability of great powers to conquer and occupy territory inhabited by resisting populations (as Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and now Iraq have
demonstrated). Unlike during the days of empire building in the nineteenth century, states today cannot translate great asymmetries of power
into effective territorial control; at most, they can hope for loose hegemonic relationships that require them to give something in return. Also
unlike in the nineteenth century, today the density of trade, investment, and production networks across international borders raises even
more the costs of war. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan, to take one of the most plausible cases of a future interstate war, would pose for the
Chinese communist regime daunting economic costs, both domestic and international. Taken together, these
violence mean that the
changes in the economy of
international system is far more primed for peace than the autocratic revivalists acknowledge.
Contention 2 Solvency
We will defend the following regulations- This card is comparative with
decriminalization policies and should be preferred
Kuo 02
[Lenore Kuo, Professor of Women’s Studies and Philosophy and chair of the Women’s Studies Program
at California State University at Fresno, “Prostitution Policy: Revolutionizing practice through a gendered
perspective.”, Book, Pg. Access date 11/4/14, \\wyo-bb]
Although many positions
that defend decriminalization of prostitution do not discuss governance of
brothels and other organized forms of facilitation, I am convinced this is essential to any prostitution
policy. Unquestionably, most of the worst abuse suffered by prostitutes overall occurs at the hands of facilitators and their agents.
Whether the abuse is physical, psychological, or economic, the existing literature consistently cites
brothel owners, pimps, and other facilitators as the greatest source of harm to prostitutes. Systems that
criminalize prostitution encourage this tendency by making it impossible for prostitutes to seek redress. In response to my open-ended
questions during our interviews, however, even prostitutes in the legalized system in Nevada and decriminalized system in the Netherlands
universally focused their complaints on abuse by employers. Both
historical and current legal and social factors,
especially stigmatization, have given prostitute facilitators outrageous degrees of control over
prostitute workers. Given the enormous disparity in power between prostitutes and their employers, decriminalizing prostitute
facilitation would be extremely dangerous and highly unlikely to improve the lot of prostitutes. A laissez-faire approach to facilitation will, like
other such forms of capitalism, only encourage greater power disparities. Since
most prostitutes prefer to work in
organized settings and, according to Vanwesenbeeck’s study, are likely to fare better in them, brothels, massage
parlors, and the like continue to be the predominant sites of prostitution, even when prostitution is
decriminalized and facilitation is illegal (as was the case when I visited the Netherlands in 1996). Criminalized
facilitation policies only force these organized operations underground, where, uncontrolled, they
continue to engage in abusive practices. I therefore call for strictly enforced systems of legalized
facilitation that control facilitators but not prostitutes. Before describing the specifics of my proffered policy, I note what
a good example facilitation policy constitutes of the need for feminists to offer fully developed policy recommendations rather than simple
generalized stances. If
one takes the position that prostitution should be decriminalized without speaking to
the question of facilitation, one may actually worsen the situation of many women. Because
decriminalization not only removes one of the barriers to prostituting but also communicates that
prostituting is permissible, if not altogether de-stigmatized , it is likely that some women will enter
prostitution who otherwise would not have done so, and that some women will enter with less concern and caution than
they might otherwise have had . So unless one simultaneously puts in place restrictions on facilitators, one will
increase the capacity of facilitators to exploit and abuse their prostitute employees. 12 The legalized
facilitation policy I favor includes the following features: A.Legalized facilitation would be under the direct
control of the same governance boards as those overseeing decriminalized prostitution. B. Organized
facilitators, including brothels, sexclubs, massage parlors, escort services, eros centers, and agencies, as well as pimps, would be
required to register and pay licensing fees. However, fees would be kept low enough to allow
prostitutes themselves to organize such services. C.The size of these businesses would be limited to, for
example, no more than ten prostitutes per brothel. Owners could own or have an interest in only one such business. This
restriction is intended to lessen the traditional connection between sex work and organized crime, to lessen the potential for public nuisance,
and to lessen the likelihood of exploitation and trafficking. D.The
government would set in place policies and programs
that would encourage a shift from the traditional organization of facilitation to genuine self-
employment, involving, for example, having prostitutes pay set amounts for rooms, client referrals, and
supplies rather than pay a percentage of their fees to facilitators. This would both lessen economic
abuse and provide prostitutes with far greater control over the conditions of their work. This model is not
unlike the current arrangement of many hair stylists who pay a monthly fee for use of work stations, towels, and so forth and then set their
own hours, fees, and many specifics of their contracts with clients. The legal apparatus must distinguish between traditional facilitation and
worker-controlled cooperatives. For example, the Dutch homeworker arrangement described in Chapter 5, where prostitutes cooperatively
rent an apartment and hire a receptionist, would constitute self-employment, depending on such factors as who sets the rules and who
provides (what percentage of) the actual sexual services. Government support, including low-cost loans, should be provided to encourage the
development of these cooperatives. E.Conversely, traditionally
organized facilitation must comply with existing
regulations on self-employment. In legal brothels in Nevada, owners classify prostitutes as “independent
contractors” when “they are, by legal definition, ‘employees,’” 13 in order to avoid paying taxes and providing benefits for them. This
classification, furthermore, allows facilitators to charge prostitutes otherwise illegal fees. Declaring an employee
an independent contractor is an easy mechanism for worker exploitation. F. These businesses would be subject to the same
laws regarding employee rights as any other businesses, including standards for maximum lengths of
shifts, freedom of movement, and so forth. Given the history of abuse in facilitator-prostitute arrangements, fair financial
remuneration would also be required. Prostitutes would be legally ensured an appropriate percentage of the
fees charged for their services. The proper percentage would be established by the governance board by determining the actual
overhead for specific forms of facilitation and would allow facilitators a reasonable profit. Minimally, however, prostitutes should receive at
least 60 percent of the income they generate (as opposed to, for example, the 20 percent they currently receive in Nevada).
G.In addition
to the safety regulations required of all businesses, prostitution requires safety regulations specific to
the field. These must be established by the governance boards. Minimally, I would recommend that facilitators must either
require client identification or control the comings and goings of clients (but not prostitutes) so that it
is difficult for clients to escape prosecution if they engage in any abusive behavior. In addition,
brothels, massage parlors, sex clubs, and the like must provide alarm buttons, similar to those in banks, on or near beds,
stalls, and in other appropriate locations so security can be alerted to problem customers. Also escort and out-call services
must provide drivers to bring prostitutes to clients: these drivers must meet the clients for identification purposes and remain nearby to ensure
that the prostitute leaves safely after providing her (or his) services. H.In
addition to the health and hygiene standards that
apply to any business, facilitators must provide and require the use of condoms. Notice of this health regulation
must be publicly and prominently posted in the facilities. (In one rather clever campaign, the Dutch Ministry of Health distributed stickers for
the windows in the red-light district that said, in Dutch, “I do it with,” above a cartoon depicting a nearly naked woman dancing with a giant
condom. I was struck by both their understanding of the value of a bit of humor and their recognition of the need to communicate with an
international clientele.) Further,
facilitators should provide clean, structurally supportive beds and clean
showers, wherever beds and showers are used. They should also provide educational information on
STDs to prostitutes and clients. Finally, they must adhere to regulations on safe sadomasochism, including the provision of safe
devices and apparatuses. Appropriate time limitations for various forms of bondage must also be regulated. I.Specific practices that
are, in the view of the governance board, clearly misogynistic or that encourage disrespect of
prostitutes specifically or women in general may be outlawed. I would suggest that both window prostitution
and the brothel lineup are, because of their public nature and meaning, damaging to prostitutes and the class of women in
general. There is nothing subtle about their messages of objectification. In window prostitution, women are displayed in the same way as
wrenches in a plumbing store. Similarly, brothel lineups pose women as though they were mannequins or other inanimate objects. Although
there are a variety of nonstigmatized professions in which people are selected explicitly on the basis of their appearance, few involve practices
that so clearly communicate “this person is nothing but a piece of meat.” Window prostitution and lineups symbolically depersonify more
egregiously than, for example, streetwalking and bar prostitution do, because in the latter instances women both inhabit normal human
environments and interact with clients as human agents. Given the propaganda value of window prostitution and brothel lineups, which
publicly present and symbolize women as pure physical objects for the delectation of male lust, it is legitimate to oppose their permissibility.
Pornography is commonly used in prostitution. It is certainly available in most brothels. While I have already indicated the need for zoning
pornographic outlets and live sex shows, the issue of pornographic materials in brothels is somewhat complicated. Because many clients appear
to require sexually explicit materials for arousal or satisfaction, an outright ban on such materials would be problematic. Governance boards,
however, can be charged with either establishing guidelines or censoring materials that are available in facilitation establishments, in order to
eliminate the most violent or degrading imagery. Sadomasochistic and bondage and dominance practices are sufficiently common to
prostitution that many brothels have S&M rooms. Like pornography, these practices require guidelines or outright bans in order to weed out
the most misogynistic, unhealthy, and violent activities. The value of such legislation is threefold. First, it expresses a public consensus that
banned behaviors and the values they communicate are not acceptable. It also provides a kind of “legal buffer zone,” which I believe is essential
to any prostitution policy. For many clients, part of prostitution’s appeal is its taint and forbiddenness. Therefore, one
runs the risk that
by decriminalizing prostitution, one will encourage those behaviors that are not decriminalized
because they are especially problematic. This is not sufficient reason to continue a policy of criminalization that causes so much
harm. But the implications to child prostitution and similarly horrific practices is truly worrisome. I see
regulations such as those against some pornography and some S&M or practices such as the lineup as
allowing a certain “wiggle room”; they will unquestionably sometimes be violated, but their violation
is less likely to cause the same degree of hardship as the violation of many other regulations. For this
reason, governance boards may wish to draw the line on permissible materials and behaviors a bit
more strictly than otherwise, thereby sending the “right message” while providing a buffer zone of
acts that can be violated without horrendous results. But this would, correspondingly, require greater tolerance by law
enforcement than in cases of more dangerous violations. Perhaps most important, such regulations provide prostitutes with the legal recourse
essential to control more violative instances. 14 J.Public
employees would be charged with performing regular,
surprise inspections of the facilities but not of the prostitutes. Inspections must cover health code regulations and
ensure that no minor is permitted on the premises and no worker is there against her or his will. Examiners must be trained
specifically for this employment, in accordance with the requirements detailed by the governance
boards. They must be able to communicate in the languages of and, whenever possible, represent the
various diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural populations of the prostitutes being interviewed.
Inspections, however, cannot be used to justify any required governmental registration of prostitutes .
The success of enforcing regulations on legalized facilitation depends on the cooperation of prostitute workers. Given the stigma
attached to prostitution even under decriminalized systems, prostitutes will come forward to report
abuse, trafficking, and other violations only if they are assured anonymity. This requires that regulatory agencies
develop methods for identifying prostitute workers without violating their anonymity. Systems of this sort have already been developed with
regard to HIV testing, where code words or fictitious names are used to identify participants. K.If
inspections by the Immigration
and Naturalization Service are required, these inspectors, too, would be subject to the mandate of
anonymity for all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants described in paragraph J, above. Participation in
prostitution by itself must not be suff icient to justify deportation, and no mention of such
participation may appear on any documents in instances where an illegal immigrant is deported.
L. Severe penalties must be assigned and strictly enforced against any facilitator found to be using
threats, extortion, deception or violence or engaging in the prostitution of children or trafficking. M.All
forms of zoning of facilitation establishments must be avoided. As discussed above, zoning codifies
stigmatization and increases criminal activity in the area. 15
Legalization key to solve trafficking- evidence to the contrary is hype and led by moral
anti-prostitution crusaders
Weitzer and Ditmore 09
(Ronald and Melissa, Ch. 14: “Sex Trafficking: Facts and Fictions,” Regulating Sex for Sale: Prostitution
Policy Reform in the UK, Pgs. 276-277) /wyo-mm
The crusade considers legal prostitution detrimental in two respects: practically (by magnifying all the problems
associated with prostitution, and by increasing the amount of trafficking) and symbolically (by giving the state’s blessing to a
despicable institution and condoning men’s exploitation of women). Antiprostitution forces often express concern about what they perceive as
the “normalization” of prostitution in various parts of the world. Normalization is seen in the very premise behind state-regulated, legal
prostitution. CATW’s mission is broad: to “challenge acceptance of the sex industry, normalization of prostitution as work, and to de-
romanticize legalization initiatives in various countries.”70 A second assertion is that legalization causes or serves as a magnet for increased sex
trafficking. The claim is based on the notion of least resistance: legalization removes the constraints on a formerly illegal and circumscribed
enterprise and thus leads to its proliferation. CATW’s co-director declares that “legalized or decriminalized prostitution industries are one of the
root causes of sex trafficking.”71 And Linda Smith, director of Shared Hope International, testified in Congress that the government should
“consider countries with legalized or tolerated prostitution as having laws that are insufficient efforts to eliminate trafficking. … Where there is
a strong adult sex industry, the commercial sexual exploitation of children and sex slavery increases.”72 Concerned Women for America claims
that “legalizing prostitution does not remedy the problem of sex trafficking but rather increases it.”73 The causal link between legal prostitution
and trafficking has not been empirically established. In fact, the
State Department’s own assessments appear to undercut this claim:
in Persons Report, several nations where prostitution is legal (Australia, Germany, Holland,
New Zealand) were found to “fully comply with minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.”74
Moreover, the Report reveals that the Dutch authorities report a “decrease in trafficking in the legal
in its 2005 Trafficking
sector,” a finding confirmed by other analysts. 75 Rather than being a magnet attracting migrants into
a country, it appears that legal prostitution may help reduce trafficking due to enhanced government
regulation and oversight of the legal sector . And the obverse may also be true: “Traffickers take advantage of the illegality of
commercial sex work and migration, and are able to exert an undue amount of power and control over [migrants]. … In such cases, it is the laws
that prevent legal commercial sex work and immigration that form the major obstacles.”76 As Murray writes, “ It
is the prohibition of
prostitution and restrictions on travel which attract organized crime and create the possibilities for
large profits, as well as creating the prostitutes’ need for protection and assistance .”77 Research
indicates that, under the right conditions, legal prostitution can be organized in a way that enhances
workers’ safety, health, and job satisfaction. This includes studies of legal prostitution systems in Australia, Holland, Nevada,
and New Zealand.78 None of this is to suggest that these systems are problem free, but the evidence from these sites contrasts
strikingly with the image of proffered by the antiprostitution crusade. In short, the core claims of this
moral crusade are either exaggerated, unverifiable, or demonstrably false— depending on the claim in question.
Common to all of these claims are sweeping declarations that ignore counter-evidence and give
prominence to anecdotal stories describing worst cases. Crusade claims are contradicted by a large
body of social science research . This research shows that prostitution and trafficking take multiple forms and exists under varying
conditions, which translates into diverse experiences for workers—a complexity that undermines sweeping generalizations.79
Prostitution is not inherently violent, and those who report it as such look for
maximum shock value. Prostitution is a survival strategy and enables prostitutes to
exert resistance to structures of power
Weitzer 05
[Ronald Weitzer, Department of Sociology, George Washington University, “New directions in research
on prostitution”, Crime, Law & Social Change (2005) 43: 211–235,
http://bayswan.org/New_Directions_prost.pdf, \\wyo-bb]
Radical feminism sees prostitution as the quintessential form of male domination over women – the
epitome of women’s subordination, degradation, and victimization (Barry, 1995; Dworkin, 1981; 1997; Jeffreys, 1997; MacKinnon, 1987, 1989).
It has been called an essentialist perspective because its sweeping claims apply to all historical time
periods, all societies, and all types of prostitution . In this perspective, prostitution involves not only specific acts of
violence but is a form of violence by definition. Violence is depicted as “intrinsic” and “endemic” to prostitution –
categorically, universally, and trans-historically. These authors argue that any distinction between forced and voluntary
prostitution is a myth, since some coercion is claimed to always be involved, even if the worker is unaware of it. Radical feminist work on
prostitution is not limited to the abstract theorizing found in the writings of Dworkin, MacKinnon, and others. A number of empirical studies
take this perspective as well. One book-length study concluded that prostitution is an “abomination” and “brutal oppression” that “must be
opposed,” even though the authors’ findings do not justify this indictment (Hoigard and Finstad, 1992: 76, 183, 184). Similarly,
a study
of street prostitution in five countries proclaims that “prostitution is violence against women” and
that “numerous violations of human rights” are “intrinsic” to prostitution (Farley et al., 1998: 406, 421). Some
writers attempt to present their work as scientific, while others acknowledge their ideological biases. A Chicago study, for instance,
indicates that the “research project was designed within a framework of prostitution as a form of
violence against women and not prostitution as a legitimate industry ... The survey questions and administration
were likely biased to some degree by working within this framework and by employing surveyors who had left prostitution” (Raphael and
Shapiro, 2004: 132).
The interviewers “did not see their own [prior prostitution] experiences as ‘work’ or a
choice” (Raphael and Shapiro, 2002: 9). This overarching bias stacks the deck: “When researchers have
difficulty understanding rational, not to mention positive, reasons for choosing sex work and find it
easier to think of prostitutes as victims, it is understandable that the sex workers [interviewed] will
stress their victim status and negative motivations for working” (Vanwesenbeeck, 2001: 259). Authors who
adopt this perspective make claims designed for maximum shock value. Customers are labeled “prostitute users,”
“batterers,” and “sexual predators.” Farley declares that “the difference between pimps who terrorize women
on the street and pimps in business suits who terrorize women in gentlemen’s clubs is a difference in
class only, not a difference in woman hating” (Farley, 2004: 1101). All male customers and managers are motivated by
animus: “When men use women in prostitution, they are expressing a pure hatred for the female body” (Dworkin, 1997: 145). These
sweeping claims are not supported by empirical studies. Customers vary demographically,
attitudinally, and behaviorally (discussed more fully below). While there is no doubt that some are abusive and
violent, a major study of more than 2300 arrested customers found that most of the men rejected
rape myths and other rationalizations for violence against women: “there is no reason to believe that
most customers are violent” (Monto, 2004: 76), and “a relatively small proportion of clients may be responsible for most of the
violence against prostitutes” (Monto, 2000: 6). Radical feminism uses emotive language regarding the workers as
well. Instead of the term “prostitute,” these writers insist on “prostituted women,” “sex slaves,” or
“survivors.” Jeffreys (1997: 330) concedes that use of such terms is ideologically motivated: the term prostituted women “is a deliberate
political decision and is meant to symbolize the lack of choice women have over being used in prostitution.” These terms are
extremely problematic. “Prostituted” clearly indicates that prostitution is something done to women,
not something that can be chosen, and “survivor” implies someone who has escaped a harrowing
ordeal. In its central arguments and choice of terminology, the radical feminist perspective denies workers’ agency. The only time a
conscious choice is made is when women decide to leave prostitution, not when they decide to enter
or remain in prostitution. It is simply declared, by fiat, that no woman would choose this type of work: “To the extent that any
woman is assumed to have freely chosen prostitution, then it follows that enjoyment of domination and rape are in her nature” (Farley and
Kelly, 2000: 54). Underscoring
the alleged lack of consent in the sex trade, prostitution is equated with
rape, or “paid rape” (Raymond, 1995, 1998). Workers’ self-conceptions are not necessarily consistent with
these claims. Exploitation and victimization are not intrinsic to the sex trade: “Many prostitutes
emphasize that they engage in sex work not simply out of economic need but out of satisfaction with
the control it gives them over their sexual interactions, just the opposite of what the radicals argue”
(Zatz, 1997: 291). Many workers reject the attempt to strip them of agency by labeling them “prostituted”
or “sex slaves” and view themselves in more neutral terms. For example, almost all of the 294 prostitutes interviewed
in a Miami study “prefer the terms sex worker and working woman and refer to themselves as such” (Kurtz et al., 2004: 359). Central to
radical feminist theory is the contention that violence, degradation, and gender oppression are
inherent, omnipresent, and unalterable in prostitution – that it has never been and can never be
organized in a way that minimizes coercion and safeguards workers’ interests. This universalistic and
essentialist reasoning is not consistent with the canons of social science, which cautions against
ahistorical and global generalizations and predictions.
As Overall (1992: 716) points out, “It is imaginable that
prostitution could always be practiced, as it occasionally is even now, in circumstances of relative safety, security, freedom, hygiene, and
personal control.” She is not optimistic that this scenario will become the norm, but she does challenge the essentialist notion that prostitution
is intrinsically oppressive and dehumanizing. The
implication is that there is nothing inherent in prostitution that
would prevent it from being organized in terms of mutual gain to both parties – just as in other
economic transactions.
Policy reform is key to prostitution. Law is pervasive and has normative influence
Scoular 09
[Jane Scoular, Journal of Law and Society, “What’s Law Got to Do with it? How and Why Law Matters in
the Regulation of Sex Work,” March 2010, Wiley Online Library, \\wyo-bb]
This more complex process of governance offers a more nuanced account of Law’s power over subjects. This contrasts with Agustin’s account,
where she describes the issue of compliance (or lack of) as involving rational subjects deciding to deviate from the law and its norms: many of
those to be regulated avoid participating in regulatory projects (even if they know about them), rather prioritizing their personal convenience,
goals and financial advantage (apparently preferring to be marginalized, pitied, vilified and criminalized). ° As
the work on
governmentality shows this is a reductive view of the r+
elationship between law and subjectivity. Law operates through freedom as much as through
censure; through both the ‘empowering’ systems of licensing and welfare inspired interventions
designed to liberate women from the oppressive reality’ of commercial sex. The insight that power is
productive and not simply repressive makes the Liberal notion of freedom from the law naive, it also
complicates the distinction between legal/illegal and questions the presence of those ‘outside or
against’ law whom Agustin’s claims to undermine relevance of law in contemporary sex markets. These people may be outwith law’s
sovereign rule/terms but they cannot escape its normalizing influence: ’ as Tadros notes. ‘liberation from the blunt
technology of the juridical does not prevent the individual being subjected to the loving force of bio-power’.” Bio-power thus explains the
position and indeed fate for many of those who exist outside law’s formal terms yet remain subject to
its disciplining power. In previous work with Hubbard et al., we used Agamben’s” term horno sacer’ to describe these marginalized figures excluded
from the law’s protection yet subject to its power,’ 12 existing on the threshold of the sovereign state, in a state of liminal drift:”3 Stripped of workers’ rights,
dignity and adequate protection, those prostitute women excluded from political Life and state recognition appear vulnerable to exploitation and are inevitably
reduced to a form of ‘bare life’.”4 Such
exclusion, re-figured to match the contemporary situation, has always been
the destiny of those deemed prostitutes, whose identity, reductive as it is, exists to maintain the
citizenship of others, and to preserve the boundaries between the economy and sexuality, work and
affective labour. Thus, the neo-liberal techniques of control outlined above operate to augment an on
going hegemonic moral and political regulation of sex workers.”3 Yet, ironically, insights from
governmentality may also offer some hope for law’s limited potential to challenge these injustices. A
further benefit of Foucault’s work is his insights into resistance. As power is immanent in our social practices and conduct, so
too is resistance, albeit circumscribed by the Context within which it operates. As law does not
operate ideologically (as there is always resistance) or directly via consciousness (as it is more than simply what people think and do)
but through its increased governmentality in shaping the subjects, spaces, and forms of power, it is
within these spaces that some leverage could be applied to loosen the legal complex from being
welded to the power of the norm. Given there is no outside of law to effect such challenge, we must
work within its structures . Foucault’s genealogical approach shows us that while law has become increasingly
governmentalized, it has not been fully colonized; it still operates according to a sovereign model , albeit
to a much more limited extent which could be utilized as part of a strategy of resistance. As Rose and Valverde note, ‘Not all legal power is juridical and not all non-
legal power is non-juridical, thus it can be deployed both to extend and to contest normalized political strategies.” 16 Thus, the radical democratic agenda outlined
by O’Neill in this collection could feature a modest role for law. The recent
renaissance in human rights ideals and their embedding
in international and domestic systems may offer a useful vehicle for her calls for recognition,
redistribution, and rights, yet they may also provide a foil for increased normalization. In the context of neoliberalism. the legal complex tends to form a key part of wider processes that constitute social lïfe (in normalized societies) rather than working to alter or change it,
and sadly in many recent reform attempts, feminists have colluded with this wider normalizing agenda. The
balance, as ever, depends on who
utilizes law, how they do so, and in what context: whether, for example, the terms ‘sex worker’ or
‘exploitation’ are used to reify exclusionary forms of identity, and essentialist forms of citizenship
while obscuring material conditions (thus supporting law’s normalizing power) or whether these
terms can transcend binaries and give way to wider politics of resistance. In this article I have sought to
argue against an uncritical dismissal of law’s role in regulating and structuring the conditions of
contemporary sex work. Despite findings that apparently contrary legal positions produce similar results on the ground. ¡ wish to argue that this lack
of distinction is, in part, due to law’s involvement in wider forms of governmentality that operate to support a wider neo-liberal context. This means that
while it makes sense to de-centre law from our analysis, we simply cannot ignore it. Law’s increasing
hybridization with norms means that it is imbricated in the everyday world. This suggests a much
more expansive, extensive role, meaning that while Agustín is right to de-centre law, we cannot expel its relevance. Law and
society are mutually constitutive: law may occupy a more modest position and effect a less direct
power than sovereign rule, yet it may take a more potent form as it increasingly operates alongside
other normative ordering practices to shape subjects, identities, practices, and spaces. While law can
no longer be regarded as the primary source of power, there is no place outside its control. Rather
than expel law, we need a more complex analytical framework to understand its contemporary
relevance. Such a framework can be developed by applying insights from theories of governmentality
to the studies on the regulation of sex work. This offers a fuller appreciation of the wider legal complex, and its role in regulating and
authorizing the spaces, norms. and subjects of contemporary sex work. It also explains law’s role in maintaining the systems of governmentality, across legal
systems, that exacerbate these injustices and forms of bare life that have become hallmarks of late industrial capitalist societies. In
arguing for the
continued relevance of law I do not intend to reinstate an imperialist, uncritical positivist position . I
argue instead for its strategic use in order to ‘pursue a deconstructivist agenda within legal arenas
and discourses’.” 7 This requires an acute understanding of law as a mode of regulation as well as an
understanding of how it could be how harnessed as a tool of resistance. As Tadros notes: rather than the structure or
fabric which constitutes our society, the law is a machine which oils the modem structures of domination, or which, at best achieves a tinkering on the side of
justice.”
In order to tinker more on the side of justice rather than domination, one has to be critically
aware of how modern forms of governance and control operate. This article, it is hoped, begins this process as it allow us to
see that
law does matter in the regulation of sex work and could matter, albeit in a different way than was thought before.
DA Palermo
Perm, no reason legal prostitution violates Polermo because it only deals with
trafficked victims
Palermo fails—many victims fall outside the scope
Shoaps 12
[Laura L., “ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT: PALERMO PROTOCOL AND THE TRAFFICKING VICTIMS
PROTECTION ACT”, LEWIS & CLARK LAW REVIEW, Vol. 17:3, 2012 http://law.lclark.edu/live/files/15325lcb173art6shoapspdf//wyo CTL]
Despite this movement forward, there is substantial room for improvement in both the Palermo
Protocol and the TVPA. While both instruments address prosecution of traffickers and protection of
victims, they are similarly constrained within the “perfect victim” model and consequently fail to
accord human rights to a substantial number of victims that fall outside the scope of the model. The
vindication of human rights depends upon being recognized as a victim, and the slanted perspective
applied to victim identification has prevented a grave number of victims from escaping their
traffickers, let alone attaining justice. The human rights protections that the Palermo Protocol and the
TVPA do afford to victims are undercut by this restricted construction of victim identity, which not only
hinders victims’ ability to be protected but also misallocates resources. In cases where the victim is
properly identified, his or her human rights remain more or less contingent upon their willingness to
cooperate with law enforcement.
Palermo and TVPA fail—not comprehensive solutions
Shoaps 12
[Laura L., “ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT: PALERMO PROTOCOL AND THE TRAFFICKING VICTIMS
PROTECTION ACT”, LEWIS & CLARK LAW REVIEW, Vol. 17:3, 2012 http://law.lclark.edu/live/files/15325lcb173art6shoapspdf//wyo CTL]
Due to the Palermo Protocol’s lack of a proper enforcement mechanism, the TVPA has become a
standard by which the United States holds other nations fiscally accountable for their actions. While
the TVPA attempts to supplement the Palermo Protocol’s lack of enforcement, the identification and
imbalanced priorities present within the TVPA perpetuate the same problems existent within the
Palermo Protocol. The United States envisions itself as a global leader in the fight against human
trafficking,272 and yet does not take on this leadership role in a way to resolve many of the
identification and prioritization flaws within the Palermo Protocol, but rather fiscally enforces this
flawed approach both nationally and on a global scale. While the TVPA may provide human trafficking
standards with the “teeth” that the Protocol lacks, it is important that the standards the international
community is being held to are those that encourage comprehensive solutions. Ultimately, the
Palermo Protocol and the TVPA do not live up to their alleged victim-centered approach. With new
initiatives coming forward, the strengthening of measures to properly identify victims, and then
prioritize their protection is essential. In terms of identifying victims, the focus on protecting one
category of victims cannot be done at the expense of another. The imbalance and identification
concerns
Prefer whomever protects victims better—structural violence that’s Cuomo
Federal dominance in prostitution is unconstitutional and undermines trafficking
enforcement
Walsh and Grossman 2008
[Brian W is a Senior Legal Research Fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and Andrew M is
Senior Legal Policy Analyst in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
“Human Trafficking Reauthorization Would Undermine Existing Anti-Trafficking Efforts and
Constitutional Federalism,” Published as a Legal Memorandum (No. 21) by the Heritage Foundation,
accessed on amazonaws.com on 30 July 2014]cc
A broad federal role in fighting ordinary prostitution is unnecessary and likely unconstitutional. In
considering any legislation that touches upon crimes that are local in nature and subject to the police
power of the states, Congress should always remember the principles of federalism—i.e., the
Constitution’s structural division of power between the federal government and the states.
Constitutional limitations sometimes appear to be unnecessary obstacles to well-intentioned
lawmaking. But as would be true if this bill were to be enacted into law, disregarding such limitations
almost always undermines the same law-enforcement goals that the TVPRA is apparently crafted to
achieve.
THE CONSTITUTION SUPERCEDES INTERNATIONAL LAW--PLAN STILL LINKS
Kemler & Cooperstein ‘99
[Lisa, Attorney @ National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, & Theodore M., Counsel of Record,
“Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae in Support of
Respondents,” 1999 U.S. Briefs 5, December 10, LN//wdc-ajl]
The only source of power and authority for the federal government is the People of the United States, acting through the Constitution. United States v. VerdugoUrquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 270 (1992) ("The
United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its power and
authority have no other source.") (quoting Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 5-6 (1957)); 494 U.S. at 277 (Kennedy, J., concurring) ("the Government may
act only as the Constitution authorizes, whether the actions in question are foreign or domestic"). The federal government, and the Congress
specifically, can only act in accordance with the enumerated powers or prohibitions chosen by the People,
acting through the original Constitutional Convention or subsequent amendment according to [**34] the Constitution's terms. Within
the provisions of the Constitution, the federal government is given what has been called the "Treaty Power." The President is authorized to
negotiate and enter into treaties. U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 2. Those treaties do not take effect unless and until the Senate shall grant its advice and
consent by a two-thirds vote. Id. The Senate may, in consenting to a treaty, condition its advice and consent on reservations, which are specific interpretative
comments qualifying the effect of the treaty or its provisions as to the United States. This Senatorial procedure is a peculiarity of the United States Constitution,
with which other countries sometimes have difficulty. While their unitary governments consider a treaty effectively ratified upon their accession to the treaty, the
United States cannot be so bound until the Senate shall have done its part. Once
ratified and in effect, any treaty to which the
United States is a party has the effect of federal law. U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2. But like any federal statute, it has no
priority or precedence over the Constitution itself . The President and the Senate may no more alter
the provisions of the [**35] Constitution by a treaty, than the Congress in both houses may alter the
Constitution by regular [*19] federal legislation. The sole manner for amendment of the Constitution lies in the procedures set forth in
Article V. U.S. Const. art. V. The "Treaty Power" therefore refers only to the power of the federal government to negotiate and enter into treaties that should govern
the affairs of the United States as a sovereign actor among nations .
It does not confer upon the government an extraconstitutional source or method of deriving federal authority at home. Contra Brief of Amici at 29 ("it is
impermissible to read the commerce Clause to invalidate and Act of Congress that advances our treaty
and customary international commitments."). Neither the President nor the Congress can agree, by means of a treaty, to do anything that
the Constitution forbids. No agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free from the
restraints of the Constitution. ... The prohibitions of the Constitution were designed to apply to all branches of the National Government and they cannot be
nullified by the Executive or the [**36] Executive and the Senate combined. Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 16-17 (1957). Against these background principles, the
arguments of the Amici that customary international law in general, and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights n6 ("ICCPR") in particular,
mandate and authorize Section 13981 are simply not true.
Federalism is key to preventing violence, secessions, and rebellions—prefer empirical studies
Lawoti, 09- Professor of Political Science at Western Michigan University (Mahendra, “Federalism for
Nepal”, Telegraph Nepal,
3/18, http://www.telegraphnepal.com/backup/telegraph/news_det.php?news_id=5041)//MC
Cross-national studies covering over 100 countries have shown that federalism minimizes violent
conflicts whereas unitary structures are more apt to exacerbate ethnic conflicts. Frank
S. Cohen(1997) analyzed ethnic conflicts and inter-governmental organizations over nine 5-year –periods (1945-1948
and 1985-1989) among 223 ethnic groups in 100 countries. He found that federalism generates increases in the
incidence of protests (low-level ethnic conflicts) but stifles the development of rebellions (high-level conflicts). Increased
access to institutional power provided by federalism leads to more low-level conflictsbecause local groups mobilize at the
regional level to make demands on the regional governments. The perceptions that conflicts occur in federal structure is not entirely incorrect.
But the conflicts are low-level and manageable ones. Often,
these are desirable
DA TPA
Obama’s PC will be ineffective –negotiating with the GOP results in too much
blowback with Dems
Parnes 12-27 [Amie Parnes, Senior White House Correspondent @ The Hill, “'Liberated' Obama builds
momentum” 12/27/14, http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/228017-liberated-obama-buildsmomentum, wyo-sc]
Political observers caution that Obama
will face significant roadblocks in the months ahead, especially now
that all of Capitol Hill is Republican-controlled territory ¶ “It will be much, much harder,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of
history and public affairs at Princeton University.¶ Zelizer explained that Obama had a small window on the heels of the midterm elections with
Democrats still in control of the Senate. But come January, he added, Republicans
“will have much more muscle that they
can flex in response to Obama’s use of executive power or the bully pulpit.”¶ To make matters all the
more tricky, Obama will likely anger House Democrats along the way, as he did with the omnibus
earlier this month.¶ Zelizer predicted that the consternation from Democrats will “intensify once he is more
desperate for their votes.”¶ “The blowback will be much more severe,” Zelizer said, adding that a less
aggressive Obama may emerge in 2015. “More of his life will be about playing defense.”¶ Katherine Jellison,
a professor of history at Ohio University, added that Obama might have to play the role of negotiator-in-chief,
something that he’s rarely done during his presidency so far.
Obama is spending excess PC on keystone xl
Eilperin 12/3
Juliet, “Obama, looking to mend fences with Congress, is reaching out. To Democrats.”
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-looking-to-mend-fences-with-congress-is-reachingout-to-democrats/2014/12/03/3fdf9078-7a40-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html] //
President Obama and his closest aides have determined that their best
chance of success in the next two years will
depend on improved relationships on Capitol Hill, but their behind-the-scenes efforts are more focused on
Obama’s own party rather than the Republicans who are about to take full charge of Congress in January. ¶ Obama’s attention
on congressional Democrats, allies whom he once regarded as needing little attention, marks a shift
in his view on how to deal with Congress. The president now sees his path to success as running
through Hill Democrats, a group that has been disenchanted by the treatment it has received from
the White House over the years.¶ The remedial work has included frequent calls to Democratic leaders
since the midterm elections and comes as Republicans prepare to take control of both chambers for the
first time since Obama took office. While the president and GOP leaders have pledged to seek common ground, Obama’s use of
executive action to alter immigration enforcement procedures and other steps have already angered Republicans, making significant
legislative accomplishments more difficult.¶ And White
House officials are looking to Hill Democrats as a
defense against Republican efforts to undo key elements of Obama’s legislative legacy, including
the Affordable Care Act, his immigration action and climate policy.¶ The president’s ability to sustain the vetoes he
is likely to issue will depend on whether he is able to mend relations with congressional
Democrats — many of whom blame the president for the party’s large midterm losses — and persuade Republican legislators to
work with him in a way that has eluded the two parties for the past six years.¶ On Wednesday, the outreach effort began publicly as
Obama hosted Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who will lead the Senate starting in January — in the Oval Office. It was the first time
the two have met one on one for an extended period in more than four years. The most recent small gathering they had was with Vice
President Biden, nearly 3 1/2 years ago.¶ McConnell spokesman Don Stewart called the session “a good meeting” but did not release
additional details.¶ By contrast, House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) has
been in near-constant
communication with the White House since the midterm elections. He received back-to-back calls from Obama on Nov.
24 and 25, the first to discuss the administration’s handling of sanctions against Iran amid ongoing negotiations over that nation’s
nuclear program, and the second to confer on the two men’s shared opposition to a pending proposal extending a series of federal tax
breaks.¶ “In the past couple of months, I’ve seen heightened outreach,” Hoyer said in an interview Tuesday. “To some degree, we
become even more relevant than we were before. Now he needs to rely on both houses to sustain a veto.Ӧ Those are not the only
calls Hoyer has received from the White House recently. Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough — who paid
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday — called Hoyer on Nov. 13 to
a visit to
discuss an effort by lawmakers to force
federal approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline and on Nov. 25 to talk about tax policy. The White House legislative-affairs staff
also called him Nov. 6 to discuss immigration policy, a day after Obama called him at home in the evening to discuss immigration and
ongoing efforts to counter the Islamic State.¶ Hoyer, who was also part of a group of Democratic
leaders who had dinner
with the president last month in advance of his immigration announcement, said those discussions have allowed him to have
an impact on issues such as how the administration is working to fund its military strategy in Iraq and Syria.¶ “I do believe I was part of
the conversation that has hopefully focused us all on accomplishing the president’s objectives,” he said.¶ Outreach efforts¶ Sen.
Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), another White House ally, said
there have been “substantial improvements” in the
president’s legislative outreach, in large part because Obama’s director of legislative affairs, Katie Beirne Fallon, has
revived an operation that had been moribund for an extended period.¶ “Just speaking as a Democratic senator, that was not a
problem-free area,” Casey said, adding that he had this advice for the White House a few months ago: “My main suggestion is they
needed to have more ‘What do you think?’ meetings instead of ‘Here’s what we’re doing’ meetings.”¶ Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.),
who co-chairs the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, got McDonough to meet with about a dozen members of the
bipartisan group in late May. Crowley said the group pushed for more of a focus on India. “Obviously, there has been a tremendous
enhancement in that relationship,” he said.¶ The
White House has dramatically stepped up its use of perks
for lawmakers in the past year. At the president’s request, his staff is making more room for members on Air
Force One (eight lawmakers flew with him to Las Vegas for his immigration event there last month), and he now gives a
shout-out to nearly all lawmakers who attend his public speeches. This year his staff issued more
than 4,270 invitations to come to the White House, travel with the president or attend his
events, almost double the number handed out in 2012, and it is letting lawmakers use the President’s Box at the
Kennedy Center more often.¶
TPP won’t pass- cant get dems on board and lack of currency manipulation standards
Lander and Weisman 12-30 [MARK LANDLER, quals, and JONATHAN WEISMAN, quals, “Obama’s
Trade Chief, Undaunted by Odds, Pushes for Trans-Pacific Partnership” DEC. 30, 2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/business/obamas-trade-chief-undaunted-by-odds-pushes-fortrans-pacific-partnership.html?_r=0, wyo-sc]
“You’re
asking members to give away their leverage on a historic trade agreement when there are major issues
outstanding,” Mr. Levin said, suggesting that a vote on trade promotion authority before the presentation of a completed T.P.P. “would be
a donnybrook.Ӧ Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee in the coming Congress, is one of the
strongest trade advocates in Washington; he said virtually
no Democrat who had supported trade promotion
authority in the past would be left in the Senate next year.¶ “It’s going to be a big challenge,” he said.¶
Then there are the details. Environmental groups are doubtful the administration is really pressing for
binding, enforceable standards. Peru is already resisting enforcement mechanisms to rein in illegal logging.¶ Trade unions
worry that the administration is putting too much emphasis on protecting intellectual property, a boon to
pharmaceutical companies, Hollywood and rich investors, but not particularly useful to workers at home or poor consumers
abroad.¶ “The goal of trade is not to have more trade,” said Thea Lee, deputy chief of staff of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. “It should be to help our own
needs.Ӧ And skeptics
from both parties are pressing Mr. Froman to demand enforceable limits on
currency manipulation, which they say inflates the value of the dollar, making American products artificially expensive and imports
artificially cheap. The result is a wider trade deficit that costs jobs at home.¶ About 230 House members and 60 senators have
signed letters demanding enforceable sanctions on currency manipulators, the part of the
negotiations that has given the White House the most pause.¶ Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and
Policy Research and a consultant to American unions monitoring trade talks, said strong currency provisions would do more to promote middleclass manufacturing jobs than any other provisions, including lowering tariff barriers on American goods.¶ “The value of the dollar swamps
everything else,” Mr. Baker said. “The dollar is central.”¶ Administration
officials worry that any enforceable currency
regime will cut both ways. They say it could even infringe on the Federal Reserve, making it subject to
an international tribunal.
Sixth, PC theory debates are uneducational and the way we debate about politics
papers over the complexity of the events
Hirsh Feb. 7th
[Michael Hirsh, Feb. 7 There’s No Such Thing as Political Capital,
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/there-s-no-such-thing-as-political-capital-20130207]
The point is not that “political
capital” is a meaningless term. Often it is a synonym for “mandate” or “momentum”
in the aftermath of a decisive election—and just about every politician ever elected has tried to claim more of
a mandate than he actually has. Certainly, Obama can say that because he was elected and Romney wasn’t, he has a better claim on
the country’s mood and direction. Many pundits still defend political capital as a useful metaphor at least. “It’s an
unquantifiable but meaningful concept,” says Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. “You can’t really look at a president and
say he’s got 37 ounces of political capital. But the fact is, it’s a concept that matters, if you have popularity and some momentum on your side.”
The real problem is that the
idea of political capital—or mandates, or momentum—is so poorly defined that
presidents and pundits often get it wrong. “Presidents usually over-estimate it,” says George Edwards, a
presidential scholar at Texas A&M University. “The best kind of political capital—some sense of an electoral mandate to do
something—is very rare. It almost never happens. In 1964, maybe. And to some degree in 1980.” For that
reason, political capital is a concept that misleads far more than it enlightens. It is distortionary. It
conveys the idea that we know more than we really do about the ever-elusive concept of political
power, and it discounts the way unforeseen events can suddenly change everything. Instead, it suggests,
erroneously, that a political figure has a concrete amount of political capital to invest, j ust as someone might
have real investment capital—that a particular leader can bank his gains, and the size of his account determines what he can do at any given
moment in history.
Fourth Reject their disad, Ptx bad educational model- reliance on 24 hour news cycle
creates fantasy scenarios divorced from reality
Bennett 96
(Lance, Professor of Communication and Political Science, News: The Politics of Illusion, Third Edition,
Pgs 58-59)
Lifting actors out of political context and surrounding their actions with titillating but irrelevant
fantasy themes make it very hard to put together a coherent picture of “the world.” News fragments
exist in self-contained dramatic capsules, isolated from each other in time and space. The impression
given by the new is of a jigsaw puzzle that is out of focus and missing many pieces. When focus is
provided, it is on the individual pieces, not on how they fit into the overall picture. When information
is delivered in such fragments, people are invited all the more to project their own interpretations
onto the world. In place of new information about situations, is either cast adrift or assimilated intended plot
formulas. In either case, the world is reduced time and again to myriad encapsulated happenings, each with its own emotional coherence
but isolated from the others. And so the world appears fragmented and confusing, even though each of its parts
is coherent and dramatically whole. With respect to information fragmentation, the news defies the old adage that the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts. In news reality, the whole is decidedly less than the sum of its parts . Columnist
Russeell Baker once parodied the typical newscast in the following terms. Meanwhile, in Washington, the . . . Administration was reported
today as firemen still sifted through the ruins of a six-alarm blaze in Brooklyn that left two Congressmen, who were said to have accepted cash
contributions from Korean agents, despite their fifth defeat in a row at the hands of the Boston Celtics. . . . Seventeen were dead and scores
injured by the testimony that two Senators, whom he declined to name, rioted in the streets of Cairo following her son’s expulsion from school
for shooting a teacher who had referred to him in the easy-going style of the . . . White House, as exemplified by the dispute over the B-1
bomber.51
No impact to warming
Mendelsohn 9
Robert O., the Edwin Weyerhaeuser Davis Professor, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies,
Yale University, June 2009, “Climate Change and Economic Growth,” online:
http://www.growthcommission.org/storage/cgdev/documents/gcwp060web.pdf
The heart of the debate about climate change comes from a number of warnings from scientists and others that give the
impression that human-induced climate change is an immediate threat to society (IPCC 2007a,b; Stern 2006).
Millions of people might be vulnerable to health effects (IPCC 2007b), crop production might fall in the low latitudes (IPCC 2007b), water
supplies might dwindle (IPCC 2007b), precipitation might fall in arid regions (IPCC 2007b), extreme events will grow exponentially (Stern 2006),
and between 20–30 percent of species will risk extinction (IPCC 2007b). Even worse, there may be catastrophic events such as the melting of
Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets causing severe sea level rise, which would inundate hundreds of millions of people (Dasgupta et al. 2009).
Proponents argue there is no time to waste. Unless greenhouse gases are cut dramatically today, economic growth and well‐being may be at
risk (Stern 2006). These
statements are largely alarmist and misleading . Although climate change is a serious problem that
deserves attention, society’s immediate behavior has an extremely low probability of leading to
catastrophic consequences . The science and economics of climate change is quite clear that emissions over
the next few decades will lead to only mild consequences . The severe impacts predicted by alarmists require
a century (or two in the case of Stern 2006) of no mitigation . Many of the predicted impacts assume there will be
no or little adaptation. The net economic impacts from climate change over the next 50 years will be small regardless. Most of the
more severe impacts will take more than a century or even a millennium to unfold and many of these
“potential” impacts will never occur because people will adapt . It is not at all apparent that immediate
and dramatic policies need to be developed to thwart long‐range climate risks. What is needed are long‐run
balanced responses