TEXAS 7 NEG V. HARVARD AD
NEOLIB
1NC K
Legalization relies upon a contractual paradigm of disembodied agency that posits
individuals as free to buy and sell. The illusion of choice prevents collective
resistance to market commodification
Miriam, 5 – assistant professor of philosophy at the University of New Hampshire (Kathy, “Stopping the Traffic in Women:
Power, Agency and Abolition in Feminist Debates over Sex-Trafficking” JOURNAL of SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, Vol. 36 No. 1, Spring
2005, 1–17.)
Pateman focuses particularly on the contractarian tradition of liberalism, a tradition in which the concept and practice of contracts is
central. Pateman shows that contractarian liberalism has significant political and conceptual force in
contemporary understandings of freedom, agency and power and how these understandings are
presupposed and embedded in a range of institutions, including (post)modern forms of prostitution. For this reason,
contractarian liberalism, and Pateman’s critique of it, will be central to my own criticisms of the pro-sex-work position. For
Pateman, the social/sexual contract is an organizing “principle of social association.”10 In other words,
although we think of contract as an “exchange” of pieces of (material) property between two parties, the kinds of contracts that
interest Pateman are those that “create relationships (such as that between worker and employer, or wife and husband).”11 In these
kinds of contracts (e.g., employment) what is exchanged is a special kind of property, namely, “property in the person.”12 Pateman
argues that the core liberal notion of freedom—the freedom to be left alone—is derivative of, rather
than preceding, the proprietary concept of the individual.13 In other words, freedom for the individual- as-owner-ofproperty-in-his-person includes the freedom to have this property left alone. As a principle of social association, contract structures
those relations through which the property of one person/owner can be legitimately used by other individuals/owners without
violating the individual’s basic freedom, that is, his/her freedom to own property in his person. The individual, defined as
an owner of property in his person, is constructed as “free” to trade/sell his capacities through
the contract relation in exchange for some benefit. Note that this “exchange” presupposes that a person’s
capacities are separable, like pieces of (material) property, from the “self.”14 As Pateman notes, a powerful “political
fiction” masks the fact that a person’s capacities are not separable from her self like pieces of
property.15 In the context of the employment contract, for example, this political fiction is the fiction of “labor power” and allows
for the story of employment as an “exchange”: according to this story, the worker sells her “labor power” in exchange for some
recompense. As Pateman shows, this story of the employment contract masks the real transaction at stake in the contract
is not in fact an exchange but a practice of alienation. In turn, since the worker’s capacities cannot in fact be
alienated from his person, what the worker is really offering (surrendering) to his/her employer, through
the contract, is her/his (situated, embodied) autonomy.16 That is to say, the real transaction in this
contract is defined by the worker’s freedom to be subordinated to an employer/boss.
With respect to prostitution, the central political fiction of prostitution-as-an-exchange is the story that
through the prostitution contract, a woman sells “sexual services” for money, as if sexuality were
not actually embodied, as if there existed a subject who, magically, was capable of separating
her physical/sexual capacities from her “self.” This “conjuring trick” (to use Pateman’s phrase) called
“sexual services” obscures the real meaning of prostitution as “an institution which allows
certain powers of command over one person’s body to be exercised by another .”17 Thus Julia O’Connell
which
Davidson, closely following Pateman’s analysis here, describes the transaction:
The client parts with money and/or other material benefits in order to secure powers over the prostitute’s person which he (or more
rarely she) could not otherwise exercise. He pays in order that he may command the prostitute to make body orifices available to
him, to smile, dance or dress up for him, to whip, spank, massage or masturbate him, to submit to being urinated upon, shackled or
beaten by him, or otherwise submit to his wishes and desires.18
In sum, what is really sold in the prostitution or the employment contract is not some fictional
“property,” but a relation of command: the prostitute/employee sells command over her body to
the john/pimp/employer in exchange for some recompense. It is this fundamental relation of domination and
subordination that is mystified, if not denied, by the pro-sex-work position on “free
prostitution.”
The “Agency” of “Sex Work”
The category of “free prostitution” depends on “the invention of sex work,” that is to say, it
depends on the crafting of “sex work” as a new descriptive and normative category for theorizing
prostitution as a form of “labor.”19 The pro-sex-work position is not theoretically or politically homogenous and is
defended by a range of arguments. At its most persuasive, the argument for defining prostitution as a form of labor importantly
undercuts the fallacious and misogynist notion of prostitution as either “easy money” and/or as evidence of women’s moral lassitude
and “promiscuity.” By legitimizing the “labor” of prostitution, pro-sex-work advocates aim to restore dignity to those decisions that
enable women to survive within the constraints of the current global economy.20 Given conditions of extreme poverty for women,
pro-sex-work advocates claim that women choose prostitution to survive, and that recognition of this choice as a form of labor is
essential to the goal of securing health and safety standards for women in an industry that otherwise remains unregulated and
unprotected, leaving sex workers particularly vulnerable to such “work hazards” as violent assaults, rape, and sexually transmitted
diseases. Following upon this goal, and against abolitionism, pro-sex-work activists advocate for political strategies of
decriminalization, regulation, and/or unionization of sex-work-labor.
For abolitionists, a sanitized, regulated sex industry begs the moral question of whether regulating
men’s access to women is better than not regulating it. The strategy also begs the political question of whose
interests are best or most served by such an approach.21 Since the pro-sex-work position depends on a definition of prostitution as
work, one key philosophical issue for my defense of abolitionism concerns the very intelligibility of the category “sex work”: What
assumptions are required by the argument that prostitution is a form of work? What philosophically and politically has enabled the
“invention of sex work”? While some philosophers have tackled the issue by comparing prostitution, unfavorably or favorably, to
(other forms of ) labor, my approach is somewhat different.22 My aim is limited to arguing that the category of “sex work”
depends on a contractual model of agency and its central notion of the proprietary self, and
thus a model that both presupposes and conceals the social relations of domination that obtain
for prostitution.
I see two variations of the contractual model of agency and of the proprietary notion of self that is assumed by the pro-sex-work
argument although the same prostitutes’ rights advocates often oscillate between both variations. I call these the “economist” and
“expressivist” models of agency. The economist approach to “sex work” begins from the empirically sound claim that many women
sell their bodies as a way to secure means of subsistence for themselves and their children. However, the argument then shifts from
this descriptive claim to a normative claim that therefore selling sex is or ought to be a legitimate economic choice for women. This
economist view is advanced by a major player in the trafficking debate, namely the pro-sex-work Global Alliance Against Trafficking
in Women (GAATW).23 In its description of the “causes and factors of trafficking,” GAATW lists “the desire for a better life, poverty,
gender and other forms of discrimination, family disintegration, negative cultural and religious practices, and the substantial profits
that can be made from the trade.”24 Strangely, although GAATW opposes trafficking, in this passage it fails to differentiate here
between conditions of the emergence of traffickers and the trafficked—as if both parties, for example, made “substantial profits . . .
from the trade.” The report also mutes the factor of gender, for example suggesting that “The low social value given to girls can
contribute to trafficking as girls are often educated to [a] lower level than boys and have fewer work opportunities in skilled
professions.”25 However, the gendered/sexual specificity of the “work opportunity” offered by trafficking is not given any more
ethical or political weight than any other factors in the discourse. Most importantly and strangely, men’s demand for commodified
sex is not even listed as one of the conditions of trafficking.
GAATW’s distinction between coerced and free prostitution depends on a blind spot to the
relation of demand undergirding prostitution, and seems to make the liberal assumption
that freedom is essentially a state of being “left alone”— or the state of not being forced to do something. From
this perspective, “free” prostitutes are economic agents like Kafui, a single mother and low income clerk from Togo who, according to
GAATW voluntarily migrates to Lagos, Nigeria, to increase her income through work as a prostitute: “Kafui could freely choose
her clients and where and when she wanted to work. She sent money home to her family. After one year Kafui had saved US$1000.
She returned to Togo and used this money to buy her own home there.”26 Replete with such American-dream icons as homeownership, a very Western, individualist script is super-imposed upon the practice of prostitution in this account. This script, I
suggest, assumes a notion of the proprietary individual, the sex worker as an agent who strategically and instrumentally uses
property in her person (e.g., her sexuality) to further her economic self-interest.
The pro-sex-work camp, however, often ascribes a set of values to the economic choice of sex work that exceeds a purely economist
view and aims at investing prostitution with new cultural—and feminist—meaning. One of the premises of this approach—advanced
by writers such as Wendy Chapkis, Josephine Chuen-Juei HO and Kamala Kempadoo—is that the radical feminist view of
prostitutes as victims is a distorting ideology rather than a social analysis, and as such, calls for new interpretations of the practice of
prostitution. Thus Chapkis reinterprets prostitution as “erotic labor;” and claims that “like other
forms of commodification and consumption, practices of prostitution can be seen as sites of ingenious
resistance and cultural subversion.”27 In this light, “the prostitute cannot be reduced to one of a passive object used in
male sexual practice, but instead it can be understood as a place of agency where the sex worker makes active use of the existing
sexual order.”28 An interpretation of sex work as “active use” of the existing order requires that feminists see “sex work not only as
‘work’ but maybe even as a ‘profession’ (both in appearance and spirit),” an attitude that “could prove to be most useful and
beneficial for sex workers.”29 Thus argues HO, emphasizing that the selling of sex to male customers requires enormous creativity
on the part of prostitutes who, she also claims, often feel “professional pride” in their “work.”30
Theories of sex work advanced by writers like HO, Chapkis and Kempadoo presuppose an expressivist (in
contrast to economist) model of individual freedom. I use Charles Taylor’s term “expressivist” to refer to a specific heritage of
Western Romanticist thought that
defines individual freedom in terms of a “poeisis,” an activity of selfcreation.31 For expressivist/Romanticist philosophers, individual self-definition is a process that unfolds from within the deep
interior of self, a process of both creating and discovering one’s authentic identity. Although essentially an idealist conception of
freedom (freedom is in change of consciousness) inherited from Hegel, the expressivist model of the self-ascreative- activity did
influence Marxist notions of work as (ideally) a form of self-actualization essential to human development.32 Through work, the
laborer externalizes her/his “species-being” as human; alienation refers to the way in which this process of self-externalization is
appropriated by capitalists. A similar expressivist model of work is applied by Kempadoo to sex work, although she omits the part
about alienation and appropriation. Kempadoo includes prostitution under the category of “reproductive labor”: Like “reproductive
labor,” sex
work is interpreted as “human activity,” specifically “the way in which basic needs are met and human life produced
and reproduced.”33 Sex work specifically involves “activities involving purely sexual elements of the body.” If we take out the
word “purely,” this last point is uncontroversial. And I would not object to the point that “[S]exual energy should be considered vital
to the fulfillment of basic human needs: for both procreation and bodily pleasure.”34 The leap in logic comes with the conclusion
that because (1) sex work involves sex and (2) sex is or rather ought to be a vital activity then therefore (3) sex work itself is or ought
to be considered vital to the fulfillment of human needs. But whose basic human needs are “fulfilled” by sex work? And is men’s
demand for commercial sex any more a “basic human need” than, say, Americans’ “need” for SUVs? What is omitted is any
critique of the power relations defining the practice of prostitution, in other words how women’s
“sexual energy” is appropriated by johns, pimps and traffickers for the latter’s profit and
pleasure, analogously (although not perfectly so) to the way in which (according to Marxist theory) the worker’s “energy” is
appropriated by the capitalists for the latter’s profit. Without this critique of the actual material, power
relations defining prostitution, it becomes possible to cast the “agency” of prostitution as no less
than a form of self-actualization, a space for “ingenuity” and creativity. In this vein, HO can claim that sex workers
“experiment with various cultural resources” that in turn “empowers” them as not only workers, but as sexual agents.35 The
“freedom” implied by this view of sex work is an idealist and “expressivist” notion of freedom as existing in an interior process of
self-definition and value-creation— “freedom” pictured as “in the head.”
A main political strategy that follows from this expressivist conception of sex work is one that casts sex workers’ rights in terms of a
politics of “recognition.” A politics of recognition pivots on “identity” as its moral/political fulcrum and
aims at redressing injuries to status, for example stigma and degradation, as a basic harm or
injustice inflicted on certain identity-groups—Jews, Blacks, gays and lesbians, transgendered people, etc.36
Applied to prostitution, then, the stigmatization of prostitutes—rather than the structure of the
practice itself—becomes the basic injustice to be redressed by pro-sex-work advocates who now
construe prostitutes as “sexual minorities” to use Gayle Rubin’s now widely circulated term.37 With the identity-concept of the
prostitute as a “sex minority” (as Rubin specifically argued), we have traveled full circle from the argument that as “work”
prostitution has nothing to do with the prostitute’s own sexuality but is purely a means for a woman’s economic gain, to arrive at the
notion that selling commercial sex is fundamentally an expression of an individual’s own style and desire.
The circle is logical despite an apparent dissonance between notions of embodiment underlying the two models of sex work. The
economist model assumes a starkly instrumental notion of the body and agency. To use Pateman’s
description of the proprietary individual, this version pictures a disembodied, Cartesian subject who
can stand in the same external relation to her body and capacities as she can to other (material)
objects.38 In contrast, the claim for sex work as “expression,” namely as creative expression of identity
and sexual agency, appears to affirm an embodied autonomy for the sex worker. But the contrast
is deceptive. The expressivist model of sex work affirms a contract structure of sex work and its central fiction of exchangeable
sexual services, a structure and fiction that precludes the conception it wants to affirm—of an expressive, situated, embodied subject.
This expressivist model of sex work still presupposes the proprietary individual who can stand
back, as an abstract self, from her “sexual energy” and from this abstract position alienate this
“energy” as a “service” to circulate for customers in return for payment. Thus, the expressivist
and economist models of the sex worker are two versions of the same contractual paradigm of
disembodied agency.
The convergence of the expressivist and economist models of sex work is at once perfected and perfectly concealed by a postmodern
theoretical approach to sex work that construes the latter as a purely discursive construction “produced” by modernity, and as such
an “empty symbol.” Thus Shannon Bell, taking this approach, argues that “the referent, the flesh-and-blood female body engaged in
some form of sexual interaction in exchange for some kind of payment, has no inherent meaning and is signified differently in
different discourses.”39 Seen as contingent in meaning, prostitution is illimitably open to re-interpretation, including feminist
reinterpretations of prostitution as empowering for women. Thus Bell affirms the emergence, in the United States, of new prostitute
performance artists who have reinvented “the prostitute” as a “new social identity”: the “prostitute as sexual healer, goddess,
teacher, political activist, and feminist.”40 From this vantage point, the body of the prostitute is infinitely “protean,” a text that
accommodates “endlessly shifting, seemingly inexhaustible vantage points” of interpretation, and thus exemplifying what Susan
Bordo criticizes (referring to what she considers to be a postmodern notion of the protean body) as a traditional, Cartesian “fantasy
of transcendence” in its “new, postmodern configuration.”41 Rather than owner of property, singular, in one’s person, the protean
postmodern self is owner of properties, plural, in one’s (fragmented) person.42 In this version, freedom is the ability to circulate
among multiple “identifications,” allowing then, for an interpretation of prostitution that abstracts the institution from any
particular, historical situatedness in patriarchal capitalism. However, the proprietary concept of the (unified) self, remains the
hidden precondition of this semiotic free play of interpretation. What is still presupposed is the (invisible) liberal Cartesian
standpoint of a “self” free to stand back from its determinants and thus free to pick and choose those determinants it desires to be
affected by and thus play with. But what is the real “identity” of this “double agent”? Is it coincidental that this is “a discourse about
prostitution promoted by a handful of relatively privileged white American women as though it carries a weight equal to any other
discourse” as O’Connell Davidson argues?43 The sex worker as postmodern text issues from an elite vantage point, the abstract
intellectual projecting its own version of abstract individuality onto prostitutes in general, the vast majority of whom lack a fraction
of the mobility enjoyed by the privileged group who craft the theory.
I do not deny that women make real choices in some or many of the cases in which they enter
prostitution for their economic survival. What I am contesting is a fantasy of “free” prostitution,
insofar as this freedom is inscribed within expressivist and economist models of sex worker agency. For such “freedom”
serves to mystify the actual conditions that determines this “economic” option, selling command
over their bodies, as an option for women (and children) specifically, not for “any” (abstract and/or
textual) body. The “sex work” model of agency occludes the reality that it is men’s demand that
makes prostitution intelligible and legitimate as a means of survival for women in the first place.
In my next section I turn directly to the issues of “demand,” the concept of domination at stake in the abolitionist critique of men’s
demand, and questions of women’s agency and freedom raised by this conception of (male) power.
Neoliberal’s root cause of structural violence and prostitution is the paradigmatic
case of exploited labor – without a broader challenge to commodification, their
impacts are inevitable
Clarke, 5 – radical feminist essayist and activist in the United States of America since 1980. Much of her writing addresses the
link between violence against women and market economics, (D.A., Whisnant, Rebecca, and Stark, Christine, eds. Not for Sale :
Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography. New Melbourne, AUS: Spinifex Press, 2005. ProQuest ebrary)
In these essays I will suggest that over the last three decades an
ideological barrier— perhaps a much more perdurable one
been raised with the
intent to silence discourse about social justice in general. The ideology of neoliberal economics
(also known as ‘globalisation’ or ‘global capitalism’ or the ‘New World Order’) has created a new intellectual, cultural
and media milieu in which it’s virtually impossible for feminists to create any serious social
dialogue about the meaning and implications of the traffic in women and girls. I will suggest that in
order to renew a meaningful critique of the commodification of women and girls, we must
rediscover a critique of commodification itself— of neoliberal economics in
general, of global capitalism, and of the ‘consumer model’ of politics, life, and reality
itself which is now firmly enthroned in academia, government, and business circles.
than even the traditional hurdles of male privilege, right-wing misogyny, and liberal smugness— has
II. There’s never a Leftist around when you need one Suppose I decided to rape Catharine MacKinnon before reviewing her book.
Because I’m uncertain whether she understands the difference between being raped and being exposed to pornography, I consider it
required research for my critique of her manifesto that pornography equals rape and should be banned. —Carlin Romano, in the US
Leftist journal The Nation, 15 November, 1993 In this scene, actor-director Hardcore is having rough sex with Cloey Adams, who is
pretending to be under age. ‘If you’re a good girl, I’ll take you to McDonald’s later and get you a Happy Meal’. Hardcore then
‘proceeds to piss in her mouth’. Addressing the camera, Cloey Adams says, ‘What do you think of your little princess now Daddy?’
Nor is Hardcore through with her. Turning to the crew, he calmly says, ‘I’ll need a speculum and a hose’ . . . One of Max’s favorite
tricks is to stretch a girl’s asshole with a speculum, then piss into her open gape and make her suck out his own piss with a hose.
Ain’t that romantic? —Adult Video News review of a Max Hardcore video, quoted by Martin Amis in his article ‘A Rough Trade’,
published by the UK Guardian (3/17/01) and US Talk magazine (3/01) Max Hardcore is no unpopular aberration. The Nation, a
known progressive, leftist, noncommercial magazine, ran a fluff piece by pornographer Mark Cromer (February 26, 2001) heralding
the work of Max Hardcore as a hero who works to keep porn dirty, ‘the way it should be’. —Mediawatch, Ann Simonton
The agenda of business is simple: to make a profit. Commerce, though it recognises binding legal obligation,
treaties and contracts between peers, and (sometimes) limits on the means which may be used in competition, does
not
otherwise observe the ethical boundaries of community life. One of the world’s oldest businesses
is the buying and selling of human beings— slavery— of which prostitution, sweatshop labour,
kiddie porn clubs, the coyote trade (‘people-smuggling’), and other modern exploitations are later and
somewhat moderated forms.
When we recognise that buying and selling human beings is wrong— as when we pass laws
against slavery— we contradict the fundamental agenda of business. Slave trading has always been a very
profitable undertaking, and there are still people in the world who consider it a respectable one. The (partial) abolition of slave
trading is a prime example of the defeat of purely business interests by the public or national conscience. Slave trading is good
business, in the purely business sense: it turns a handsome profit. When we claim that slave trading is in fact bad business, we
invoke standards and values from outside the marketplace.
Traditionally, the Left or progressive element in national politics has been that which counterbalances the profoundly amoral quest
for profit and promotes what we might, in today’s commercialised discourse, call ‘nonmarket values’. These are values such as
justice, the dignity of the individual, and the notion of civil (as opposed to purely property) rights. In theory, we expect to
find the Left opposed to the narrow self-interest of capital, sympathetic to the worker rather
than the boss, the exploited rather than the exploiter. We expect the Left to take a stand against
the unfettered pursuit of profit at any human cost; if the Left does not take this stand, it has
forfeited its position on the political playing field.
For all these reasons, feminists have often been frustrated and infuriated by the fond attachment of the (male) Left to prostitution
and pornography. The enthusiasm of good Leftist men for the high principles of Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité all too often peters
out before forging any genuine solidarity with the global Sororité of exploited women.
Prostitution, so the weary old cliché goes, is ‘the oldest profession’. Many feminists, decade after decade, have protested that
pimping, not prostitution, is the ‘profession’; in prostitution, the management class is made up of pimps and madams, and the ‘girls’
are lowly line workers, garnering none of the benefits we associate with ‘professional’ status. Most do not earn high wages; most
have no health benefits; as a group, prostitutes certainly do not enjoy the respect accorded to ‘professionals’ such as engineers,
doctors, lawyers. (To describe prostitution as a ‘profession’ not only obscures the class and race stratification that characterises the
sex trade; it casts an implicit slur on all legitimate professions to which women may aspire.)
The odds always favour the house. The pimps and the higher-level investors get rich; the ‘girls’ are sometimes lucky (and smart)
enough to get out while they are ahead (if they ever get ahead); but the majority of the world’s prostitutes— like the
rest of the world’s sweatshop labour— live and die poor, never collecting more than a tiny
fraction of the profits made off their own bodies. Prostitutes are also at even higher risk than female sweatshop
and field workers when we consider femicidal and misogynist violence, alcoholism, drug abuse, STDs and police harassment.
The average prostitute, world-wide, is the very paradigm of exploited labour. The barons of the sex sweatshop
trade are paradigmatic exploiters.
The international trade in women’s and children’s bodies, as a marketable commodity for the
sexual entertainment of adult men, is a staggeringly large money machine. In the US alone, demi-
respectable pornography alone is a multi-billion dollar industry; the global reach and cash-flow of the ‘sex industry’ is hard to
measure, since much of its business occurs ‘off the books’, conducted by extralegal operators with or without the connivance of
government officials. But we know enough to be sure that it is very big business indeed. And we know that very, very few of its line
workers ever escape from grinding poverty. The relationship of capital to labour in the sex industry is classically Dickensian, and we
are not— as a culture— unaware of this.
The impact is extinction
Nhanenge 7 [Jytte Masters @ U South Africa, “ECOFEMINSM: TOWARDS INTEGRATING THE CONCERNS OF WOMEN,
POOR PEOPLE AND NATURE INTO DEVELOPMENT]
There is today an increasing critique of economic development, whether it takes place in the North or in the South. Although
the world on average generates more and more wealth, the riches do not appear to "trickle down" to the
poor and improve their material well-being. Instead, poverty and economic inequality is growing. Despite the
existence of development aid for more than half a century, the Third World seems not to be "catching up" with
the First World. Instead, militarism, dictatorship and human repression is multiplied. Since the mid
1970, the critique of global economic activities has intensified due to the escalating deterioration
of the natural environment. Modernization, industrialisation and its economic activities have been
directly linked to increased scarcity of natural resources and generation of pollution, which increases
global temperatures and degrades soils, lands, water, forests and air. The latter threat is of great
significance, because without a healthy environment human beings and animals will not be able to
survive. Most people believed that modernization of the world would improve material well-being for all. However, faced with
its negative side effects and the real threat of extinction, one must conclude that somewhere
along the way "progress" went astray. Instead of material plenty, economic development generated a
violent, unhealthy and unequal world. It is a world where a small minority live in material luxury,
while millions of people live in misery. These poor people are marginalized by the global
economic system. They are forced to survive from degraded environments; they live without personal or social security; they
live in abject poverty, with hunger, malnutrition and sickness; and they have no possibility to speak up for themselves and demand a
fair share of the world's resources. The majority of these people are women, children, traditional peoples, tribal peoples, people of
colour and materially poor people (called women and Others). They are,
together with nature, dominated by the
global system of economic development imposed by the North. It is this scenario, which is the subject of the
dissertation. The overall aim is consequently to discuss the unjustified domination of women, Others and nature and to show how
the domination of women and Others is interconnected with the domination of nature. A good place
to start a discussion about domination of women, Others and nature is to disclose how they disproportionately must carry the
negative effects from global economic development. The below discussion is therefore meant to give an idea of the "flip-side" of
modernisation. It gives a gloomy picture of what "progress" and its focus on economic growth has meant for women, poor people
and the natural environment. The various complex and inter-connected, negative impacts have been ordered into four crises. The
categorization is inspired by Paul Ekins and his 1992 book "A new world order; grassroots movements for global change". In it,
Ekins argues that humanity is faced with four interlocked crises of unprecedented magnitude. These
crises have the potential to destroy whole ecosystems and to extinct the human race. The first
crisis is the spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, together with the high level of
military spending. The second crisis is the increasing number of people afflicted with hunger and
poverty. The third crisis is the environmental degradation. Pollution, destruction of ecosystems and extinction
of species are increasing at such a rate that the biosphere is under threat. The fourth crisis is
repression and denial of fundamental human rights by governments, which prevents people from developing their
potential. It is highly likely that one may add more crises to these four, or categorize them differently, however, Ekins's division is
suitable for the present purpose. (Ekins 1992: 1).
Reject the right to purchase sex – key starting point
Miriam, 5 – assistant professor of philosophy at the University of New Hampshire (Kathy, “Stopping the Traffic in Women:
Power, Agency and Abolition in Feminist Debates over Sex-Trafficking” JOURNAL of SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, Vol. 36 No. 1, Spring
2005, 1–17.)
Conclusion: Beyond a Contractual Model of Agency and Freedom
In defense of a radical feminist abolitionist position, I have argued that coercion, consent and agency are intricately bound together
in a shared paradigm of domination. Domination can be best described, not as coercion or force, but as a relation of access, a
relation that is embedded within a range of institutions that tacitly presuppose the legitimacy of this relation. I refer specifically to
men’s (and other dominant groups’) politically and tacitly legitimized demand to have physical, sexual and
emotional access to the capacities and bodies of other (e.g., gendered) groups of people. As I see it,
this legitimized and entrenched relation defined by men’s right to demand access to women is the central conception of
male power at stake for the feminist movement to abolish prostitution. Moreover, this relation of
power/access constitutes the hidden political conditions of women’s “sexual agency” as the latter is affirmed by the pro-sex-work
position. I conclude that this view of male power, rather than foreclose female sexual agency or
empowerment challenges
feminism to conceive of agency and empowerment beyond a
contractual model. Briefly, this involves, at the least, recognizing that victimization and
agency are not mutually exclusive conditions.
The pro-sex-work theory assumes that victimization and agency are mutually exclusive, and points
to prostitutes’ ability to negotiate over aspects of their work conditions as evidence that prostitutes have agency. The expressivist
version of this theory interprets prostitutes’ practice of negotiation as in and of itself constituting a creative reworking of the existing
sexual order. But from this same theoretical vantage point, one aspect of the sexual order remains
nonnegotiable and thus unworkable, namely, men’s right to be sexually serviced. There is a blind
spot in the pro-sex-work theory where this “right” remains invisible as such, partly because male
power is invisible to it as domination and only intelligible as coercive force. Thus blinkered, the
theory construes sex workers as “free” unless forcibly coerced into prostitution: the theory
argues that if prostitutes have this “freedom,” they cannot therefore be said to be “victims.” The
pro-sex-work position assumes a contractual model of freedom: it construes the consent to be
subordinated as exemplifying freedom.
The abolitionist position that prostituted women are victims is not one that denies that these
same women—any less than other victimized, oppressed, and/or enslaved peoples throughout history—have also
employed numerous stratagems of resistance to their situation.60 Even if these stratagems amount to
negotiating the terms of their unfreedom, many victims can also be said to have “agency.” Indeed, the question is not
whether sex workers have agency. The question is, what is the meaning of an agency—and indeed
“empowerment”—when these terms are defined as a capacity to negotiate within a situation that
is itself taken for granted as inevitable? It is only when we radically interrogate the
meaning of “empowerment” in a social order structured through both liberalism and male
dominance that we can conceive of power as power to, because it is only then that we can
conceive of freedom—freedom beyond the sexual contract.61
To conceptualize freedom beyond the social/sexual contract requires that feminists first,
demystify the expressivist model of sexual agency assumed by many proponents of the “sex
work” model in order to expose its fundamentally contractarian liberal conception of the self and embodiment. Secondly,
feminism should lay bare the ontological and political assumptions of contractarian liberalism that make the selling of sex legitimate
and intelligible. Finally, and most importantly, radical feminism must be expanded to theorize freedom
in terms of women’s collective political agency (power to): this task requires an understanding
that freedom is not negotiating within a situation taken as inevitable, but rather, a
capacity to radically transform and/or determine the situation itself.
LAKEMAN
It shapes the political climate surrounding legalization—link frames aff solvency
and not the other way around
Lakeman, 9 - Distinguished Visitor in Women's Studies at the University of Windsor (Lee,
“ABOLISHING PROSTITUTION THROUGH ECONOMIC, PHYSICAL AND POLITICAL
SECURITY FOR WOMEN”,
http://www.casac.ca/sites/default/files/Lee%20Lakeman%20Abolition%20Prostitution.pdf)
As a political term ‘decriminalization’ has changed meaning over the years with the growth of
neo-liberalism. In the 1970s and 1980s, those calling for decriminalization proclaimed ‘for the
prostitutes and against prostitution’. During the conditions of the 1970s welfare state, with a
women’s movement still on the rise, a strong anti-poverty movement, and with anti-racist and
anti-colonial uprisings underway, we might have seen a different outcome from decriminalizing
prostitution. Although then, unlike now, the policy framework of decriminalization presumed
that only the women would be decriminalized, not the owners of escort services, massage
parlours and bawdy-houses, not the traffickers and slave traders, not the child rapists (there
being no such thing as a child prostitute since children cannot give consent) (Lakeman 1993).
Decriminalization once implied removing, as social control agents, both the ‘hard cop’ of the
police and the ‘soft cop’ of the intrusive social worker while expanding the formal and informal
supports of a connected community of more or less equals. It implied a provisioning
government tending common resources for the common good. It presumed that even in
government policy, ‘community’ trumped ‘commerce’. It relied on the mistaken belief of the
time (of the welfare state) that we were moving steadily toward a future in which the common
ground of the commonwealth was understood to be the result of the contributions of all and
would be legally accessed and shared by each. In such circumstances decriminalization implied,
even promised women, affirmative political recognition, legal and social inclusion and
government-mandated entitlement to resources. With that assurance to the group, women
would not individually choose prostitution. Why would they?
In contrast to the ideas of the 1970s, decriminalization policy now means the absence of legal
protections against prostitution and trafficking of human beings in an economic and political
environment that promotes prostitution (Lakeman 2005). There are a couple of exceptions to
this completely laissez faire approach. For example, all proposals for decriminalization, even in
this context, allow an exception to protect children, since according to international studies 14 is
the average age for entering prostitution. (Sweden 2005). One other frequent exception allows
for the prohibition of buying and selling women who can prove they were forcibly trafficked. In
this frame, force requires not only crossing international borders but also proof of brutality (like
a gun to the head).
The swing to the right of global politics has changed the context of the discussion of prostitution
and the consequences of decriminalization as policy. The current context for decriminalization
proposals is neo-liberalism, structural adjustment programs, regressive immigration policy,
third world plague and destitution, a backlash against feminism, and a regressive approach to
economic entitlements. The economic need has grown to the extent that our borders do not hold
third world destitution beyond our shores. Abysmal conditions can be found on many reserves
in both remote communities and in many city centers. The internal migration from native
reservations, coastal communities and resource towns to city ghettos continues, interrupted only
by urban renewal programs that push those ghetto populations to bleaker suburbs. (Lakeman
2005).
One social, rather than commercial, objective claimed by supporters of both legalization and
decriminalization as public policy, is to reduce the prejudice, the stigmatization against
prostitutes and to address the situation by reducing any sense of moral superiority over
prostituted women and children, and over john’s, pimps and procurers. This position argues for
acceptance of prostitutes on the basis of diversity, welcoming them into the mainstream of
society or even to the elite. And in the situation of legalization some prostitutes are indeed
accepted into liberal elites. More often, however, what is accepted is the behaviour of the johns,
pimps and owners who are already there. It ignores or dismisses as collateral damage the
continuing or even consequent denial of human rights and freedoms for whole groups, in this
case the freedom of women as a group to ‘substantial equality’ as a basis for meaningful
individual choice.
Another social objective claimed by those calling for decriminalization and/or legalization is the
hope that either policy would increase the safety of women in the street trade by moving that
trade into the light of brothels and massage parlours. However as is evident in Australia and
Holland, not to mention the Asian markets, legalization of the indoor trade expands the illegal
outdoor trade, and legalizing the adult trade increases the trade in children.
In the name of individual choice, this policy of legitimization/decriminalization of prostitution
generally refuses to group, measure and name the gender, class or race of those who would
benefit from legalization and those who would be left with the problems it would cause. It
therefore fails to see the connections with other abuses and other possible solutions. Neither
legalization nor decriminalization as a public policy accepts the possibility of the transformative
imperative to end race, class and gender oppression. So it cannot imagine ending
prostitution. Those promoting legalization and decriminalization refuse to be scandalized by the
sexualizing and racializing anti-woman stereotypes in the everyday advertising for de facto legal
bawdy-houses and escort services. They disassociate the reality of providing women for that
domestic trade in massage parlours and bawdy-houses, advertising one race at a time, one fetish
at a time from the demand for more and more compliant, exoticized trafficked women and
children.
So far, the policies stemming from the legalization and decriminalization positions seem to
uphold the human right of men to prostitute women and for women to agree to that right of
men, but it cannot challenge the privilege of men to sexualize commerce and violence. It
cannot challenge the privilege of men to commercialize and violate girls and women sexually. It
cannot uphold the right of girls and women to refuse to be prostituted.
FW
Counter-interp—ballot should be a referendum on desirability of the whole 1ac,
plan is just 5 seconds and policy desirability can’t be assessed without
interrogating research methods and narratives that produce ideologies of
inevitability. The framework of analysis is itself a political choice and a strictly
technocratic one causes serial policy failure and bad education
Hursh and Henderson PhDs 2011
(David and Joseph, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education Vol. 32, No. 2, May
2011, 171-185 p.180-3)
Contesting neoliberalism necessitates that we situate neoliberal policies within the larger
neoliberal discourse promoting markets, competition, individualism, and privatization.
Analysing education policies in the USA, whether the push for mayoral control in Rochester, New York (see Duffy, 2010;
Hedeen, 2010; Ramos, 2010), school reform policies under Renaissance 2010 in Chicago, or Race to the Top under the Obama
administration, requires that we understand how reforms such as using standardized testing are presented
as
efficient, neutral responses to the problem of raising student achievement, rather than examining the
root causes of student failure, including lack of decent paying jobs and health care, and under-funded schools. Current policies
reinforce neoliberalism and leave the status quo intact. Similarly, if we look at education in Sub-Saharan Africa,
we must situate schools within the hollowing out of the state, and the lack of adequate funding for education and other social
services such as health care. For example, in Uganda, as in several other Sub-Saharan countries, the global recession has contributed
to drug shortages, making it impossible to treat the growing number of AIDS patients (McNeil, 2010). Yet, under more social
democratic policies the state would play a larger role in providing health care. Furthermore, education is increasingly contested, as
the plutocracy promotes education as a means of producing productive, rather than critical, employees Schools are more
often places where teachers and students learn what will be on the test rather than seeking
answers to questions that cry out for answers, such as how to develop a healthy, sustainable environment
or communities where people are actually valued for who they are rather than what they contribute to the economy. Instead, we
must ask what kinds of relations do we want to nurture, what kinds of social relations, what kind of work do we
want to do, and what kinds of culture and technologies do we want to create. These questions require that we rethink
schools so that teachers and students can engage in real questions for which the answer will make a
difference in the quality of our lives. These questions also require that we rethink our
relationship to a specific kind of ‘free’ marketplace that is not, in fact, inevitable. By
problematizing the idea of neoliberal marketization, we can begin to construct new markets that
actually value commonly held resources and local communities. In our own educational efforts, we ask just these kinds of questions.
For example, we are working with students and teachers in Africa with the goal of having them become community resources in
alternative, reliable, and healthy energy resources. We note that two billion people in the developing world still lack natural gas,
propane or other modern fuels used for cooking or heating their homes, and 1.5 billion people live entirely without electricity. Those
without modern fuels rely typically on wood or dung for fuel, which are often used for unventilated indoor cook stoves that produce
smoke and gases that result in numerous illnesses. A United Nations report notes ‘two million people die every year from causes
associated with exposures to smoke from cooking with biomass and coal’ (Legros, Havet, Bruce, & Bonjour, 2009, p. 2).
Furthermore, children and adults who rely on biomass are much more likely to die from pneumonia and chronic lung diseases. Our
hope is to work with students to provide reliable and safer energy without contributing to global climate change. At the same time we
are working with schools in the USA to develop alternatives to electricity generated by coal by working with students to conserve
energy and develop alternative energy resources. Rather than seeing themselves as individuals
responsible only to themselves, we are encouraging students to see themselves as a
community participating in determining their local and global futures. Contesting neoliberalism,
then, needs to occur at three levels, the discursive, the political, and the pedagogical . First,
we need to analyse the ways in which particular discourses have become dominant and the
interconnections between what is occurring at the local, national, and global levels.
Understanding events in Chicago, Mexico, or Uganda requires that we examine how global neoliberal
discourses and policies promote the withering away of the state except for its role in
promoting a climate conducive to capital investment through low taxes, deregulation, and the
availability of finance capital. Second, we need to examine and contest the way in which power has been
concentrated in the hands of the corporate and political elite. In Chicago, under Renaissance 2010, they have
destroyed working-class neighbourhoods and replaced them with upscale housing and boutique schools (Lipman, in press). In New
York City, the mayor has gained control over the city’s schools by secretly and unilaterally choosing Cathleen Black, CEO of a major
media corporation, as the next Chancellor, completely disempowering and disenfranchising the public (Chen & Barbaro, 2010). In
response to events in Chicago and New York, parents, community youth groups, and teachers are working, separately and together,
to resist school privatization and the destruction of neighbourhoods. Possibilities for real communitybased reform have increased
with the election of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) to the Chicago Teachers Union on a platform of democratic
unionism and opposition to privatization and Renaissance 2010. In New York City parents and community groups are organizing
against the Cathleen Black’s appointment as school Chancellor. Third, schools must engage students in raising the
essential questions of our time, whether these be about climate change, environmental sustainability, or rebuilding
communities in a socially just way. We need to develop a social democratic approach to government,
governance, and education that promotes critical analysis and active participation in creating an
alternative to neoliberalism.
LINK
The notion that prostitution is pure contingency is a proprietary model – Shrange
just says stuff is intersectional and complicated, obvi, but neolib does have
universalizing forces that they mystify
Miriam, 5 – assistant professor of philosophy at the University of New Hampshire (Kathy, “Stopping the Traffic in Women:
Power, Agency and Abolition in Feminist Debates over Sex-Trafficking” JOURNAL of SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, Vol. 36 No. 1, Spring
2005, 1–17.)
The convergence of the expressivist and economist models of sex work is at once perfected and perfectly concealed by a postmodern
theoretical approach to sex work that construes the latter as a purely discursive construction “produced” by modernity, and as such
an “empty symbol.” Thus Shannon Bell, taking this approach, argues that “the referent, the flesh-and-blood female body engaged in
some form of sexual interaction in exchange for some kind of payment, has no inherent meaning and is signified differently in
different discourses.”39 Seen as contingent in meaning, prostitution is illimitably open to re-
interpretation, including feminist reinterpretations of prostitution as empowering for women. Thus Bell affirms the
emergence, in the United States, of new prostitute performance artists who have reinvented “the
prostitute” as a “new social identity”: the “prostitute as sexual healer, goddess, teacher, political activist, and
feminist.”40 From this vantage point, the body of the prostitute is infinitely “protean,” a text that accommodates “endlessly shifting,
seemingly inexhaustible vantage points” of interpretation, and thus exemplifying what Susan Bordo criticizes (referring to what she
considers to be a postmodern notion of the protean body) as a traditional, Cartesian “fantasy of transcendence” in its “new,
postmodern configuration.”41 Rather than owner of property, singular, in one’s person, the protean postmodern self is owner of
properties, plural, in one’s (fragmented) person.42 In this version, freedom is the ability to circulate among multiple
“identifications,” allowing then, for an interpretation of prostitution that abstracts the institution from any particular, historical
situatedness in patriarchal capitalism. However, the proprietary concept of the (unified) self, remains the
hidden precondition of this semiotic free play of interpretation. What is still
presupposed is the (invisible) liberal Cartesian standpoint of a “self” free to stand back from its
determinants and thus free to pick and choose those determinants it desires to be affected by
and thus play with. But what is the real “identity” of this “double agent”? Is it coincidental that this is
“a discourse about prostitution promoted by a handful of relatively privileged white American
women as though it carries a weight equal to any other discourse” as O’Connell Davidson argues?43 The
sex worker as postmodern text issues from an elite vantage point, the abstract intellectual
projecting its own version of abstract individuality onto prostitutes in general, the vast majority
of whom lack a fraction of the mobility enjoyed by the privileged group who craft the theory.
ABOLITION FRAME KEY
Abolition is a vital challenge to neoliberalism – the CP reimagines the role of the
state in a protective role against the market
Lakeman, 9 - Distinguished Visitor in Women's Studies at the University of Windsor (Lee, “ABOLISHING PROSTITUTION
THROUGH ECONOMIC, PHYSICAL AND POLITICAL SECURITY FOR WOMEN”,
http://www.casac.ca/sites/default/files/Lee%20Lakeman%20Abolition%20Prostitution.pdf)
The Case for Abolition
According to abolitionists, nothing about prostitution makes it inevitable, necessary or worthwhile. Its
impact on individual woman and children, on women as a group and on particular groups of women is devastating. By its nature
negative, prostitution further damages the social relations between women and men. Feminist abolition calls for men to
stop buying sex and stop buying access to women and children. It envisions government policy
that moves toward an end to the trade in sex, the trade in women and children, and the end to all
violence against women. Since the abolition position frames prostitution as the sexual
enslavement of women, government policy about prostitution must not undermine the sexual
autonomy of women. The feminist abolition position endorses prostitution law reforms that affect social, economic, civil and
political policy shifts to ensure personal and economic security for all people. This is an approach that understands
prostitution as an international and a national issue, and at its heart, demands a provisioning community and
government protections against the kinds of economic and social policy that are integral to
neo-liberalism. The demand for an egalitarian, economic and social future for all is key to the
prevention of sexual exploitation in the future.
Feminism is a politic that recognizes women are largely treated in society as a group. While feminism increasingly stresses the
differences among women, it also recognizes that many issues confront women as a group and tries to advance the interests of the
group, women, so that women collectively and therefore individually are not oppressed. As part of the tilt of governments in Canada
toward the right, they have minimized their obligations to reduce oppression of women as a group. The end of the equality seeking
mandate of the department of the Status of Women and its funding toward the independent women’s movement, the cuts to the
planned child care initiative, the changes to the CAP program and the social transfer agreements which have resulted in the effective
end of the right to welfare are only a sample. The loss of the Court Challenges program also means the almost total lack of access to
the constitution’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms since women cannot fund court cases demanding the equality promises of that
Charter.
The feminist abolition of prostitution position, as represented by the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres (CASAC),
insists that since Canada has signed the Palermo Accord, it must abide by the spirit of that international agreement in protecting
women and children prostituted/trafficked between countries and within Canada.5 “Neither the young women of the small towns
and impoverished first nations communities nor the young women escaping the impoverished developing world should be left to the
rule of johns, pimps, procurers and traffickers. They should neither be criminalized nor economically abandoned by Canada”
(CASAC 2006).
‘They are us’, we repeated over and over. We recognize that we might have found ourselves with their limited choices but for some
good fortune related to privilege of birth in class, or race, or particular patriarchal protection. . Those of us working directly with
women in Vancouver who have been sexually assaulted observed and recorded the link between women exploited on the street to
girls who had been ‘apprehended’ from poor and/or Aboriginal mothers and raised in the ‘care of the state’. We also saw the link in
the male/female relations in prostitution back to incest and have challenged publicly the institutional power of men within the
private realm of family. We observed and recorded the replication in the vulnerability of girls to the surrogate fathers of priests and
teachers in residential schools (whether for the deaf or for the Aboriginal children). We noted the link of the hyper-sexualization of
girls back to the propaganda of sex role stereotyping and to the hate literature of pornography as well as to the violence against
women of incest itself. As women working with abused women, we were able to record the current incidents of sexual violence
replicating famous pornography and misogynist iconography.
No matter their form: as age-old myth, pornography, sex role stereotyping, advertising and popular culture, feminists have fought
the stories that blame prostitution on women -of money-hungry, deviant girl children and dangerous nymphomaniac adolescent
step-daughters and larcenous neighbours. We recognized and fought against the cultural relativism that claimed communities of
poor women or third world women accepted or even venerated the life of prostitution as disciplined, artful or even spiritual choice.
We fought the colonial attitudes that claimed Aboriginal women and Black women enjoyed a primitive, animalistic hyper-sexuality
that endured prostitution mindlessly. We fought the notion that disabled women were so starved for affection and sex that all
advances were welcome. These “rape myths” helped attackers and their apologists to construct the unreasonable belief that women
have consented to sex or even masochistic practices or inane brutality. We still fight the twentieth century notions of ‘the disposable
woman’ so embroiled in the endless replay of the “jack the ripper” story among the commercial media, the police and urban rapists
as described by Jane Caputi in her book The Age of Sex Crimes (Caputi 1987)
The Policies of Abolition
Legal Prosecution
Criminalizing the women and children bought and sold is neither useful nor just. The point of
abolition is to protect, not criminalize the women and children trapped, endangered and abused.
All forms of violence against women suffer for lack of long term, concerted effort on the part of the criminal justice system. The
recent research by CASAC reveals regular failure at the levels of policing, investigating, prosecuting, arguing and adjudicating and
sentencing crimes of violence against women. Never the less we persist. Some of the public compassion towards prostitutes, results,
in recent times, from more than 30 years of escalated and concentrated feminist public education and advocacy supporting
prostitutes. Canadian feminists still organize against violent predators and police neglect but also against police harassment,
gendered prosecution, fines or jail sentences for what we describe as women’s poverty crimes. CASAC 2001)
Criminal censure against prostitution should reflect censure against other forms of violence against women. Criminal law
cannot end violence against women or poverty but it can censure both the acts of sexist
exploitation in prostitution itself and the layer of exploitation heaped on top of the already unbearable inequities borne
by some women. And while law and order, even in its most progressive and democratic forms, cannot
eradicate violence against women, the protection by government and non-government players of
social, political, economic, and civil human rights might (Lakeman 2005). In a liberal democratic justice system
it should be part of the design that it happen in open courtrooms, within legal parameters and is best done with legal representation,
recorded verdicts and recorded judicial reasons including for sentencing. It should not be effectively decriminalized by diversion to
restorative justice initiatives, family courts, circle sentencing, offender- victim mediation, civil restraining orders, or john’s schools.
None of these forums are yet suitable for an equality seeking undertaking.
While anti-violence abolitionists call on men to voluntarily end the demand for prostitution, governments must also criminalize
those who continue profiteering by supplying flesh in trade. The abolition of prostitution does not entail
criminalizing women and children (or the rare man) bought and sold in prostitution; at the
same time, it does involve criminalization and prosecution for pimping, procuring, running
bawdy-houses or purchasing sex. And certainly there should be no tolerance for trafficking of people whether across
recognized national borders or within them. The definition of consent (in the international protocols like the Palermo accord) is key
and does not require proof of force but only indications of deceit, profit or coercion. These consent- destroying factors are all present
in domestic prostitution. The point of declaring prostitution as violence against women is to place the
blame on those who promote or profit from prostitution including the “johns” and to see the
connection to liberation. But it also reminds us that all violence against women is currently badly policed and badly
prosecuted in court. Improvements are needed since all forms of violence against women function as enforcers of inequality.
PERM/A2 AFF OFFENSE
The permutation is still grounded in the illusion of choice and agency – that
prostitution is still empowering for some people that choose it. The reliance on
individual autonomy prevents breaking out of the box of Market thinking
Clarke, 5 – radical feminist essayist and activist in the United States of America since 1980. Much of her writing addresses the
link between violence against women and market economics, (D.A., Whisnant, Rebecca, and Stark, Christine, eds. Not for Sale :
Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography. New Melbourne, AUS: Spinifex Press, 2005. ProQuest ebrary)
Though we know, culturally, by experience or by osmosis, that women and children are prostituted most
commonly through violence, through poverty, through deprivation or betrayal, Western
liberalism has pretended for decades that more prostitution and pornography only mean more
freedom, openness, and (just as in the case of neoliberals crowing over the ‘softening’ of Communist China) more
Democracy. The fact that real democracy plays very little part in the day-to-day experiences of the average prostitute, does not
seem to register. The ideological fanaticism with which the neoliberal theorist ignores all negative
effects of the ‘freeing’ of markets is not unlike the resolute effort with which the traditional sexliberal theorist has ignored the negative effects of the so-called ‘sexual revolution’. Inconvenient
statistics, feral facts like the average life expectancy of prostitutes, the average age of induction into
prostitution, the average income of prostitutes, and so forth— hard demographics— have never
disturbed those who defined the sex business as a force of liberation. The fact that the ‘freedom’
being realised is mostly the freedom of men to access the bodies of women and children— or of
G8 nations to access the markets and raw materials of Third World nations— is conveniently
overlooked when predation is redefined as progress. From the perspective of pure laissez-faire
capitalist theory— with its convenient intellectual mechanisms of externalised costs and discounted futures, abstract ‘rational
actors’, and other game-theory constructs— there is nothing at all wrong with prostitution. Similarly there is
nothing wrong with fixing drug prices too high for AIDS-stricken Africa (or uninsured Americans) to afford, and nothing wrong with
relocating production facilities to whatever country offers the cheapest and most docile labour pool. It’s nothing personal; it’s strictly
business. There’s a demand, so there’s a supply; prices are set by the Market, and by the demand of stockholders for high rates of
return on
investment capital. We should perhaps note that in the US, corporations are required by law to maximise return on stockholder
investment.
Most of us are by now familiar with the line taken by corporate CEOs and their apologists with regard to cheap overseas labour. If
women in the Philippines or Mexico, they say, are willing to work in FTZ factories for 60 cents (US) a day, then those women are free
agents making their individual contracts with their employer. They have chosen the best deal, as all rational actors do in a free
market; anyone who questions the terms of the deal is impugning their personhood and their rationality. Anyone who tries to get the
transnationals to pay their sweatshop workers more, or to alleviate the brutal conditions under which many labour, is merely
working against the women she is trying to help, because the corporations will simply leave if their costs rise too high, and then the
women will be jobless again.
The language of ‘feminist’ and Left-leaning apologists for prostitution eerily echoes the language
of the corporate CEOs and their apologists. Prostitutes, we are told, choose their line of work in
a free market; they are rational agents. To criticise the industry which exploits them, or even to
say that they are exploited, is to deny their agency. To attempt to regulate or restrict it is only to
deny them ‘opportunities’ and ‘choices’. The similarity of the language is no coincidence, of course: the incursion of
commercial values and beliefs into academia as well as popular culture has been gathering momentum for decades. It is
becoming increasingly difficult— and increasingly marginal or disreputable— to think outside the box of
the Market.
Popular culture reflects the Zeitgeist accurately and unflatteringly in such media excesses as the reality shows to which I alluded
earlier, in which ‘contestants’ are pitted against each other, not unlike Roman gladiators in a bitter contest for wealth. Some radio
‘talk shows’ now offer their ‘guests’ money or ‘fame’ as an incentive to submit to various public humiliations. In one notorious
incident, shock-jock Howard Stern convinced a woman to strip in the studio and to eat dog food out of a bowl on the floor, in
exchange for his giving air time to music recorded by a friend of hers. The pseudo-Smithian ideology of ‘choice’, and the rest of the
market-populist mumbo-jumbo, would of course emphasise this woman’s ‘choice’ to endure such a scene, rather than questioning
the ethics of Stern, the radio station, or its advertisers and listeners. The scene itself is paradigmatic of prostitution: a man holds out
the offer of something a woman wants or needs, in order to persuade her to do humiliating things for his amusement.
In an era dominated by neoliberal ideology, it is obviously difficult to mount a successful campaign against the sexual exploitation of
women and children. On every front, feminists meet a brick wall. First, the prevailing Market-worship mocks and devalues any
suggestion of altruism; if women fortunate enough to have escaped sexual exploitation in their own lives demonstrate concern and
caring for prostituted women, they are dismissed as naïve, unrealistic idealists and (of course) ‘ideologues’. The ‘sexual
liberation’ pseudo-progressive ideology then serves to cast women who object to exploitation,
profiteering, coercion and other routine practices of the sex industry as ‘crypto-conservatives’,
‘neo-Victorians’, ‘anti-sex’, and so forth. Should either of those barriers fail to discourage the feminist social critic, the
neoliberal dogma is trotted out to prove that, for example, the woman eating dog food on the floor of Stern’s studio is exactly where
she wants to be. Neoliberal dogma will say that any woman who expresses disgust at the men who
enacted and enjoyed this ritual of humiliation is actually an anti-feminist: she is denying the
agency and choice exercised by this ‘liberated’ female, the ‘good sport’ who is ‘tough enough to take it’ and needs
no sympathy or interference from well-meaning nannies. Just as, of course, the poor are quite capable of pulling
themselves up by their own bootstraps and need no insulting assistance from the smothering
hands of Big Government.
Their vision of prostitution as a choice is the wrong debate that obscures greater
structures of domination and prevents collective resistance – only a commitment
to abolitionism solves
Miriam, 5 – assistant professor of philosophy at the University of New Hampshire (Kathy, “Stopping the Traffic in Women:
Power, Agency and Abolition in Feminist Debates over Sex-Trafficking” JOURNAL of SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, Vol. 36 No. 1, Spring
2005, 1–17.)
The Radical Feminist Critique of Domination
The radical feminist theory of domination which underlies a feminist abolitionist stance on
prostitution has been misconstrued by critics of the theory. These critics show two main points of confusion in this
regard, namely confusion about the relation between power and domination, and confusion about the relation between domination
and coercion. For example, the pro-sex-work distinction between “coerced” and “free” prostitution
depends on a conflation of domination and coercion. Thus, pro-sex-work advocate Niki Adams, of the English
Collective of Prostitutes, objects to legal measures that criminalize pimping in and of itself when, she argues, harms against
prostitutes are already covered by laws against “rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, false imprisonment, coercion . . . theft, extortion
[etc.].”44 The argument here, however, glosses over what both abolitionists and international protocol has defined as the
inherent harms of pimping, prostitution, and trafficking—harms that are broader than coercive
force. As Liz Kelly argues, the debate over whether prostitution is “forced” or “free” is the wrong
debate. “The notion of ‘force’ being the definer of trafficking sits uneasily with the now widely accepted definition within the
[Palermo Protocol]. Along with force, coercion and threat . . . the definition of trafficking include[s] deception and human rights
abuses such as debt bondage, deprivation of liberty and lack of control over one’s labour.”45 In my view, Kelly is describing an
institution defined by relations of domination and subordination. These relations of domination and subordination
enable a range of harmful and exploitative practices in trafficking and prostitution, practices
that include but are not limited to use of coercive force.
The question remains of how radical feminists theorize domination and the relation of domination to power. Amy Allen, in her
discussion of debates over pornography, criticizes the radical feminist position as limiting its concept of power to domination and
subordination—“power-over others.”46 Allen makes the valid point that feminism needs a conception of power as
“power to,” or, in other words, the power to act with others for social change. While it is clear to
me that the radical feminist position can and ought to be expanded to include this notion of collective agency, Allen draws a different
conclusion. In her view, the radical feminist theory of power forecloses this new notion of agency, that is to say that its theory of
power-over specifically “undercuts the very aim of feminism: the empowerment of women.”47 Yet, in my view, we cannot
theorize “empowerment” without a radical critique—and demystification—of the meaning of
“agency” in a liberal social culture. Therefore, contra Allen, the radical feminist critique of power-over
is a precondition for conceiving “the empowerment of women” precisely because of its analysis
of the inextricable relationship between female agency on the one hand, and male domination,
on the other hand, in a liberal social order.
Pateman’s work, for a striking example, affords us a unique insight into the contractual, liberal model of social relations as a
structuring force of contemporary male dominance. In Pateman’s view, sex difference is a structure of modern liberal social orders,
and is necessarily also a “political difference, namely, the difference between freedom and subjection” or more specifically, the
difference between male mastery and female subjection.48 Male mastery and female subjection is a power relation structured into
liberalism, and thus also into the organization of modern patriarchy. Pateman’s critics consistently misrepresent Pateman’s model of
power in voluntarist and individualist terms, as if what Pateman was referring to was individual men’s coercive control over
individual women. In this vein, Nancy Fraser represents Pateman’s model of male power as a “dyadic model” involving “the
authoritative will of a superior,” a man, over his female subordinate(s).49 Allen applies the same argument to MacKinnon and
suggests that a “dyadic” relation of power might have been applicable in earlier periods of patriarchy—when for example practices of
coverture were pervasive, a legal doctrine that granted men control over his wife’s property and person in a myriad of ways. Today,
however, Allen argues, “domination and subordination have taken more diffuse social and cultural forms.”50 Allen argues that we
need to “broaden” our notion of domination “such that the focus of analysis shifts from the master/subject dyad to the background
social and cultural conditions that shape dyadic relations.”51 If by “master/subject dyad” Allen is referring to individual relations
between men and women then I agree that feminism needs to understand the background conditions of these relationships.
However, it appears that with the term “dyadic model” Allen is conflating “men’s power over women” on the one hand, with
individual men’s command over individual women on the other hand. If there are background conditions that “shape” relations
between women and men, men’s power over women is itself a shaping element of these same conditions. Rather than shift our
analysis away from men’s power over women we need to sharpen our focus on this relation in order to understand both new and old
forms that women’s subordination takes today.
To begin with, radical feminism emphasizes that men as a social group continue to have interests in diffuse
forms of women’s subordination. R. W. Connell has theorized men’s interests as “the patriarchal dividend,” by
which he means, the surplus that men as men continue to extract from women through a variety of modern practices of power.52
This “dividend” is tacitly legitimized by what Adrienne Rich first called “the law of male sex right over
women,” meaning men’s tacit right of access to women’s emotional and physical capacities.53
Analysis of “sex right” is not a theory of men’s individual, coercive behaviors vis-à-vis women, nor is it a theory of men’s juridical
rights to dominate women. On the contrary, sex right is part of the background understandings of gendered,
unequal social relations that make, say, an individual man’s use of coercive force over a woman
legitimate and intelligible even when explicit expressions of sex right (such as coverture) have been eliminated. “Sex
right” is the invisible precondition of a liberalism that (still) works in men’s interests , a claim which
does not preclude an analysis of how class and race interests and “rights” are also presupposed by the same political order.
Voting aff empowers some but directly harms others – prostitution may be life
affirming for some, but that reflects the privilege of a select, vocal view for whom
prostitution is one among many options
Fivek, 13 - Taryn lived and worked in Palestine 2009-2011 over the Arab Spring. She has an
academic and professional background in development and was involved in Occupy London.
She is a revolutionary anti-imperialist (Taryn, “Postfeminism”
http://dgrnewsservice.org/2013/05/22/taryn-fivek-postfeminism/)
What is postfeminism? Allegedly it is the space where we can move past feminism, where feminism no longer holds appeal to women
and where it can even be harmful to women. As Melissa Gira Grant writes:
The patriarchy’s figured out a way to outsource hatred of prostitution. They’re just going to have women do it for them.
Grant, who is a former sex worker (to be specific: not a pimp/madam) claims that patriarchy, an amorphous
“they” not rooted in material reality, has outsourced the oppression of women to women themselves. This is an argument made by
many who claim that women are the ones who cut other women in other parts of the world, who participate in forcing early marriage
or abuse other women in the family. Then Grant gets more specific:
I wouldn’t advocate for a feminism that’s buttoned-up and divorced of the messiness of our real lives. Your feelings are your feelings,
but you’re not going to litigate your feelings about my body. The feminist ethics that I signed up for were respect for my bodily
autonomy, that my experience is my experience, and that I’m an expert in my own life.
What is postfeminism? It is a desire for control over one’s destiny. It is the hope that someday, no one will call you any names or
discriminate against you based on your sex. Yet, when this individual oppression ends – the oppression against prostitutes, against
trans women, against my right to choose, against me, will this have achieved female liberation?
The postfeminism of today is deeply rooted in neoliberal atomization. A single female’s experiences
are just as valid as any other female’s experience. A
wealthy white woman who “makes the choice” to become
a prostitute – her choice is equally valid as the poor woman of color who “makes the choice” to
become a prostitute. Postfeminism promises the liberation of individual women, but not
females. These individuals are fighting against “patriarchy”, a concept that is not individualized
or even rooted in material manifestations. Rather, it is as amorphous as its own concept: a male
slapping a woman, a man cat-calling a woman, or a man who makes a sexist remark at work is patriarchy rearing its ugly head from
the aether. Yet a culture of objectification, where women are plastered up like slabs of meat for sale in phone booths,
where women dance for money, where women continue to make $.70 on the dollar; this is
not considered a war against
women. After all – a woman may now make the individual “choice” to engage in these acts, in
these careers, may make the individual “choice” not to bear children to get ahead in business. Acts of violence against my body are
crimes against women – but larger systems of oppression suddenly become more complex, more bogged down in uncertainty as we
must learn to understand that these systems are made up of individuals who have the capacity to make “choices”.
It astounds me that leftists who might otherwise deride the idea of free choice under a capitalist
system make all sorts of room for women like Grant to write privileged accounts of the system of
oppression called the “sex trade”. Broader women’s movements such as the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network might
feel as though an abolitionist stance on prostitution is right and good, but, as Grant would say, they are “privileged” in that their
voices are louder than hers – the voice that enjoys prostitution believes that sex work is feminist work.
Indeed, the other voices aren’t heard as loudly as the abolitionists “because they’re working”. This amorphous group of women who
are pleased as punch to be working as sexual objects for sale are quiet, a silent majority cowed into silence by angry groups of
feminist women who claim that 90% of women want out of prostitution.
If the voice of a “queer woman who dates women in her non-sex-work life and has sex with men
for work” is not heard as much as the loud majority of feminists who want an end to
prostitution, this is because women who “choose” sex work, who come at it from a political
perspective of “empowerment” are in the extreme minority. But the individual reigns supreme
over the masses in postfeminism just as it does in neoliberalism. When a woman demands her “right to choose”,
she is demanding her right. She is situating feminism in a sphere where she does not feel
fettered by her sex, where she personally has the ability to pursue whatever she wants.
If she is a stripper and a man touches her inappropriately, this is a battle in the war against male domination – but the very
institution that shapes his thinking is not in and of itself oppressive. Male domination is boiled down to the individual, becomes a
question of one human exerting his will over another’s in an unfair way. It is no longer about systems of oppression, cultures of
abuse, or industries of suffering. We are boiled down once again to our individual experiences.
A single person cannot change the world because change is the prerogative of the people. There
is no such thing as a mass movement of individuals – they might all be walking in the same direction,
but they are checking their smartphones and turning off onto a side street the moment they are required to check their egos at the
door.
Melissa Gira Grant’s views are not just dangerous because they blame women themselves for their
own oppression – either as angry sex-negative feminists or individuals who just make “bad
choices”. They are dangerous because they shift the blame away from male violence
and domination and continue to trump the experiences of a privileged few over the
many. Why won’t these leftist blogs and magazines run a counter article to this kind of perspective? Anything else would be
hypocritical. Perhaps it is simply not what leftist men want to hear: that their individual enjoyment is not the purpose of female
liberation.
Legalization de-legitimizes the radiacl demand of the alt
Embrechts 14 (Evie Embrechts – feminist, social activist, writer, and researcher, International
Viewpoint, “SEXUAL POLITICS: Prostitution The Swedish or the Dutch model?”, 3-27-14,
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3326) MaxL
The results are in: legalisation,
in any country it’s been implemented, ensures more money for big business,
more prostitution, and less protection for prostitutes. Legalisation is a problem precisely because it
ignores the enormous differences in power between traffickers, pimps and johns versus
prostitutes. Legalisation does indeed bring more freedom: the freedom for traffickers and pimps to
make even more profits from organised rape. The alternative attempted in Sweden has
demonstrated that actual improvements are possible. It may not be perfect, it may be only the least bad of
a series of alternatives, it’s still an enormous progress for those who risk their lives every day
trying to survive. January 1st, 1999: write it on the walls, tattoo it on your arms: it’s the beginning of the end
for the neoliberal vision that makes products of us all, products to be bought, used and discarded.
This is a new era for feminism and the struggle against exploitation of women. One day we will live in
a world where people will look back on the existence of prostitution as a societal harm almost impossible
to understand, and they will view prostitution for what it really is: a modern form of slavery.
No link to victimization—abolitionism is not a form of stigmatization, it denotes a
radical orientation towards a world where prostitution is not a required condition
for some. They simply shift these dichotomies by positing good versus bad
prostitution—we say all prostitution is problematic when the law sanctions men
getting to buy sex—ev from sex workers prove zero link to their reductionism args
Jiminez et al, no date- letter written by 17 former prostitutes (Cherie, “Open Letter from Survivors”
http://abolishprostitutionnow.wordpress.com/survivor-testimony/)
We, the sex-trade survivors who undersign this document, do so in defiance of the misled notion
that prostitution and sex-trafficking are fundamentally different. They are not, and we would
know, since some of us are survivors of prostitution, some of sex-trafficking, and some, crucially, of
both. Many of us whose experiences fit the term ‘prostitution’ were exploited alongside those of us whose experiences fit the term
‘sex-trafficking’, both on the streets and in the brothels. There are also those among us who were first exploited into prostitution via
sex-trafficking and then, afterwards, in what is commonly and erroneously known as ‘free’ prostitution.
In your position as lawmakers who are considering proposals to decriminalise prostitution, you must weigh up whether or not to
facilitate the normalisation of prostituted sex as work. We know that it is not; we know that it is compensated sexual abuse. We ask,
in this public letter, that you, in the United Nations and the Council of Europe, will first consider and then understand the true
nature of what happens to women and girls in the sex-trade. Some are prostituted directly through the tight
constraints of life circumstances, often fooled into believing the sex-trade offers some sort of
autonomy or escape. Others are duped in a much more physically coercive fashion; but a woman who has
been sex-trafficked is ultimately prostituted also, since prostitution is the end-point of sex-trafficking.
Prostitution and sex-trafficking are intrinsically linked. They always have been and as long as the world accepts
the oppression of prostitution they always will be, since sex-trafficking is simply a consequence of that system. It
is simply a
form of overt coercion that responds to the male demand for paid sex. The demand for prostitution is the
reason why sex-trafficking happens and the brothels of prostitution are the places where sex-trafficking culminates. We
prostituted and sex-trafficked women and girls exist alongside each other and are exploited
alongside each other, and we are not people who you can simply categorise into the free and the
forced. Our freedoms were curtailed differently, for sure, but please desist in the belief that our oppression itself is different. We
do not claim, as you do, that our experiences are different – we assert that, in the most important way, they are the same – and we
have the right to make that assertion since we have lived what you are discussing. When you recommend legislating in a way that
divides us, you ignore us, and we are no longer prepared to be ignored.
Some of your public statements have bought into and propped up the false assumption that those of us who’ve been prostituted
through the traditional routes of poverty and destitution cannot be compared with those of us who’ve been prostituted through the
route of sex-trafficking. You are wrong. Please accept that you have made the natural human error of being wrong; and please
remember, above all, that not all chains are visible, or tangible, and that sometimes the bonds that bind us most tightly are not
discernible to the human eye at all.
Let us assure you that the people who profit from the sex-trade do not fit into neat little boxes any more than the people they exploit,
and that many of them act both as ‘pimp’ and ‘trafficker’ at the same time. Let us assure you also that the men who pay for the sex of
prostitution use trafficked and prostituted women and girls interchangeably, and, not seeing females as fully human in the first
place, they do not care about the circumstances of the ‘bodies’ they exploit.
A second but very much related issue we want to raise here is your use of the term ‘sex work’. For a very long time, those in the
United Nations, the Council of Europe and elsewhere have heard exclusively from those who term the abuse we have lived as ‘sex
work’. We assert that there is no ‘sex work’; that sex is not work, that it never was and never will be.
Please be aware that the term ‘sex work’, which is found in your public policies and documents, came out of the US sex trade of the
1970’s. It was invented with the particular aim of normalising and sanitising prostitution for the public and for lawmakers in
particular, and you have done a great service for those who profit from prostitution by your acceptance and adoption of it.
Simultaneously you have also – inadvertently, we acknowledge – levelled a painful insult against us. We are, all of us, sex-trade
survivors; the living witnesses of a dehumanising trade, and any acceptance of our abuse as ‘work’ further dehumanises us.
Now let us tell you the truth about that term and what it is designed to conceal: What is bought in systems of prostitution is not sex;
it is the right to sexually abuse. What systems of prostitution offer is simply the commercialisation of sexual abuse. It is time that
those in positions of legislating power listened to those of us who have lived the brutal realities of prostitution and sex-trafficking,
and refer to ourselves collectively under the umbrella term ‘sex-trade survivors’.
Please listen to us as we tell you that a deliberate dichotomy has been constructed that purports to
separate us into two sets of women, living two supposedly separate types of experience; one free,
one forced; one elective, one abusive; one harmless, and the other a horror against humankind. We ask that you realise
the perception that prostituted and sex-trafficked women are different is an illogical one: It makes no sense to
distinguish between the prostituted and the sex-trafficked, when the sex-trafficked have been
trafficked for the very reason that they are to be prostituted, and that this is the reality they then
go on to live.
As well as being illogical, this falsified distinction is dangerous. It is dangerous because it offers the gift
of camouflage. It allows pimps and traffickers to conceal the true nature of their actions, which
lets them act under the cloak of secrecy, and, as a consequence, with impunity.
We ask:
That you desist from referring to the abuse of prostitution as ‘sex work’.
That you desist from separating the prostituted and the sex-trafficked in your consciousness, and that your policies and positions
here-forth reflect that shift in thinking.
SWEDISH MODEL
1NC CP
The United States should remove criminal penalties targeted towards prostitutes
but maintain criminal penalties targeted at customers of prostitutes. The United
States should require that customers convicted of non-violent prostitution charges
enter mandatory education and rehabilitation programs instead of incarceration.
The United States should expand social services to allow exit from prostitution and
train relevant law enforcement personnel to implement these changes.
2nc: The United States should remove criminal AND CIVIL penalties targeted
towards prostitutes but maintain criminal AND CIVIL penalties targeted at
customers of prostitutes. [rest of CP text is same]
CP solves best through demand reduction
Curva, 12 - Research Editor, Rutgers Law Review. Candidate for J.D., Rutgers School of Law - Newark, 2012 (Ione, “Thinking
Globally, Acting Locally: How New Jersey Prostitution Law Reform Can Reduce Sex Trafficking” 64 Rutgers L. Rev. 557, lexis)
B. Approach #2: Follow the Swedish Model - Increase Penalties for Johns
This Note's second proposed amendment to New Jersey's
prostitution laws would be to increase
prosecution of and penalties for consumers of prostitution, otherwise known as "johns." Sweden has
adopted this approach, which recognizes that prostitution could not exist without demand for it.
Although the majority of states impose the greatest penalties on pimps, only five states punish pimps most severely, followed by
johns, then prostitutes. n157 The majority of states impose equal penalties on prostitutes and johns , n158
and there are eight states that impose greater penalties on prostitutes than johns. n159
This examination of states' prostitution laws shows a tendency against punishing consumers of prostitution, and it also
demonstrates states' ignorance that demand drives prostitution and sex trafficking. n160 Prostitution and sex trafficking are so
lucrative because of the basic economic principles of supply and demand. n161 "Traffickers choose to trade in humans
... because there are low start-up costs, minimal risks, high profits, and large demand... . human
beings have one added advantage ... they can be sold [*578] repeatedly." n162 Though it may be common sense that an economic
industry could not succeed without demand, the majority of states' legislation do not target demand.
Though penalties exist in all states to punish johns, courts often avoid giving them jail time, and instead order them to go to "Johns'
School." n163 The curriculum made available to johns at these programs has the potential to be beneficial, but more often than not,
such programs are not considered seriously and are more of a slap on the wrist than serious punishment. n164
Many johns who have been arrested fail to appreciate their own responsibility in the exploitation of women, even sometimes arguing
that they themselves were victims - victims of entrapment by law enforcement. n165 Johns often deny responsibility for being part of
a system that exploits women, claiming that prostitutes chose to enter the sex industry: "They deny the fact that they should be able
to recognize forced prostitution ... and they deny the fact that they are among the forces that create a demand for trafficked
prostitution." n166 Since johns deny responsibility, and most states have failed to adequately punish johns, demand for prostitution
as well as the cycle of exploitation continue.
Sweden's laws on prostitution may be used as a model for state legislation that targets demand.
On January 1, 1999, Sweden passed a law that proscribes the purchase of sexual services. n167 The "law recognizes that it is the man
who buys women (or men) for sexual purposes who should be criminalized, and not the woman." n168 The Swedish law only
punishes consumers of prostitution and [*579] decriminalizes the provider of such services. n169
The law also provides various forms of assistance to those seeking to escape prostitution. n170
Sweden views prostitution as "male sexual violence against women and children. One of the cornerstones of Swedish
policies against prostitution and trafficking ... [is] the recognition that without men's demand
for and use of women and girls for sexual exploitation, the global prostitution industry would
not be able [to] flourish and expand." n171 Women are viewed as victims of abuse in a male-dominated society, n172
and as such, the Swedish law does not punish the women in prostitution. n173 The Swedish legislation analogizes prostitution to "a
form of rape because the women were "forced' rather than exercising free choice." n174 The law reflects the idea that those in
prostitution do not have a genuine choice in entering the profession because they live in a male-dominated world with various types
of oppressive conditions, so while women may make decisions, they do not have true choices. n175 By choosing to punish consumers
of prostitution rather than the women engaged in it, Sweden has rejected "the idea that women and children, mostly girls, are
commodities that can be bought, sold, and sexually exploited by men. To do otherwise is to allow ... a separate class of female human
beings." n176
[*580] Swedish law acknowledges the indubitable connection between prostitution and trafficking, and believes such issues
"cannot, and should not, be separated; both are harmful practices and intrinsically linked." n177 Unlike its neighbor, the
Netherlands, which has very different legislation relating to prostitution, Sweden has taken the position that
legalization of prostitution will result in a normalization of sexual violence and discrimination,
and will strengthen male domination over females. n178 "Legalization of prostitution means that
the state imposes regulations with which they can control one class of women as prostituted."
n179
Since the law was passed, there have been mixed assessments as to its effectiveness. Approximately 400 to 600 people are trafficked
into Sweden each year. n180 Since the law's passage, the number of victims has been fairly constant, with no significant increase in
the number of trafficking victims. n181
Two years following the passage of the law, "a government taskforce reported that there was a
fifty-percent decrease in the number of women prostituting and a seventy-five percent decrease
in the number [of] men who bought sex." n182 Street prostitution has decreased throughout the
country, and the majority of johns have disappeared as well. n183 Thus, while the number of people brought
into the country for trafficking has remained level, there have been reported decreases in the number of people engaged in the act
and purchase of prostitution. n184
Critics claim that since the Swedish law passed, prostitution has not decreased, but rather it has gone underground so that it has
[*581] become more difficult to regulate. n185 While it is difficult to make a finalized determination (with empirical evidence) as to
whether the decrease in prostitution is real or attributable to change in form, it is important to realize that another purpose of
Sweden's legislation is normative. n186
One of the main aims of the law is preventative - to have the police enforce the law and intervene before a john purchases someone
for sexual services rather than to wait to punish them after the sexual act has occurred. n187 Testimonies from victims
suggest that the law has had a positive impact on reduction of trafficking for two main reasons
that are closely connected: (1) buyers' fear of getting arrested, and (2) increased difficulty for
pimps in operating their businesses. n188
Since the Swedish law was passed, Swedish men who wished to purchase women for sexual services have "expressed serious fear of
being arrested and prosecuted under the Law and hence demand absolute discretion from the pimps/traffickers." n189 Research
confirms that legislation penalizing the purchase of sexual services is the number one cited form
of deterrence for men. n190 The new law makes it much "more difficult to sell women as
commodities," since the pimps must be in contact with johns, who are afraid of being arrested.
n191 Because of the fear of detection, traffickers and pimps have been forced to run brothels in
multiple locations and to avoid certain locations on a regular basis. n192 "The mode of operation
is [*582] expensive and requires that the pimp have local contacts. The necessity of several premises is confirmed in almost all
preliminary investigations ... ." n193 Furthermore, "prostituted women must be escorted to the buyers,
therefore giving less time to fewer buyers, and gaining less revenue for pimps." n194
The inconvenience to pimps and the fear of johns have been effective barriers to traffickers in
Sweden, as "Sweden is no longer an attractive market." n195 Human traffickers' goals are to make a profit, and
since demand is lessened because of consumers' fears of getting caught, traffickers have felt compelled to take their business
elsewhere. n196 Swedish police investigations both within the country and internationally confirm that traffickers have moved to
other countries. n197
Additionally, since Sweden's new legislation also mandated training for police officers, n198 there have been improvements in law
enforcement investigations. n199 One year after the law was passed, there was an increase in arrests of
johns by 300 percent, which has been attributed to police officers' increased understanding of the legislation's purposes,
improved investigation methods, and a better understanding of the plight of the victims of prostitution and trafficking. n200
There have also been beneficial prosecutorial changes due to Sweden's targeting buyers. The police and prosecution have been able
to find pimps by using information from buyers. n201 Since the law's passage, buyers are prosecuted at the same trial as the
traffickers and pimps. n202 This procedure not only helps to alleviate some pressure off of the victim, but the prosecution is also
able to cross-examine the buyers and obtain some information that the women may not have, such as the pimps' contact
information. n203 Through this trial, "police and prosecutors are making it really clear [*583] to the buyers that they are intimately
connected with organized crime." n204
While numbers of victims, johns, and traffickers in Sweden are uncertain, there have been various benefits as a result of Sweden's
passage of its legislation. Furthermore, the legislation demonstrates Sweden's firm stance that women and
children are not commodities for sale, and the law rejects "men's self-assumed right to buy
women and children for prostitution purposes and questions the idea that men should be able to
express their sexuality in any form and at any time." n205 Women who have escaped from prostitution and those
attempting currently to leave prostitution support the law, claiming the law incentivizes women who want to escape by providing
various forms of assistance. n206 Prostitution impacts all women, not just those who are engaged in
it;
Sweden's law is innovative in that it takes a strong stance against "the idea that men have the
right to buy and sexually exploit not just a particularly marginalized subclass of women, but all
of us." n207
1NR DECRIM TURN SHIELD
The Swedish model is distinct from the labor regs their evidence is about
Fleharty, 14 - J.D. candidate, 2014, University of Oregon School of Law. (Kelsey, “Targeting the “Tricks” of the Trade: A
Comparative Analysis of Prostitution Laws in Sweden and the United States” 15 OREGON REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
443)
The most prevalent criticism of the Swedish Model is that it unduly limits the autonomy of prostitutes and limits their ability to
make a conscious choice.57 Advocates of the sex worker industry claim that the Swedish Model
infantilizes women and actually perpetuates the oppression of prostitutes.58 Swedish sex worker Pye
Jacobsen asserts that, “[t]here are a lot of occupations that we take because we need to survive” and that fact alone does not warrant
labeling prostitutes as victims.59 Jacobsen claims that we allow for people to enter inherently stigmatizing careers (i.e., janitorial
services) without viewing them as victims in need of government intervention.60 However, the Swedish legislature has rejected this
argument as failing to consider societal effects of male domination of the female body.61
Though clearly other professions also disproportionately entice the socio-economically disadvantaged, they lack the sexual
subjugation element that serves as the basis for designating prostitutes as victims.62 Although other career paths similarly place a
weaker party at the subordination of a wealthier party, prostitution is unique in that it places the prostitute’s
body under the complete domination of the purchaser. After the initial price negotiation, the prostitute typically
sacrifices any control over the interaction and exists completely at the mercy and control of the john. The majority of
Swedish prostitutes reported stories of beatings and refusals to use prophylactic measures:
situations that endangered their health and safety.63 Arguments that prostitution enhances
female bodily and economic autonomy can be swiftly countered with empirical evidence of
the consistent and inescapable abuse that permeates the industry. The Swedish
Model therefore centers on the belief that even if some prostitutes enter the industry completely
of their own volition and maintain control of their client interactions, the constant victimization of the
majority of prostitutes (prior to and after becoming prostitutes) negates assertions of autonomy.64 Prostitutes
are not independent actors but rather victims of a society that forces women to submit their bodies to male domination under the
pretense of basic economic theory.
Their argument about stigmatization on this page over-essentializes prostitution
and writes out the experiences of those who would prefer the Swedish model
Embrechts 14 (Evie Embrechts – feminist, social activist, writer, and researcher, International
Viewpoint, “SEXUAL POLITICS: Prostitution The Swedish or the Dutch model?”, 3-27-14,
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3326) MaxL
No. First of all, the opinion of prostitutes is important but they too differ wildly in their opinions on
the right course to take. [32] There is not a single “opinion of prostitutes” about what to do. Secondly,
there is no research at all which backs up legalisation, which, admittedly, would seem like a good and simple idea
for many. Too bad that it hasn’t worked in one single country were it has been attempted. The results
have been uniformly disastrous so we need a different model, no matter what those that still believe in it
think. Thirdly, I would posit that by now prostitutes are used – once again – by all sides who simply trump
up prostitutes to back up their opinion. The way in which prostitutes are once again used as
instruments for politics is frankly becoming alarming. But in case someone insists, let’s take a look at
the opinions of prostitutes. [33] In any study, about 85-95% of them want to quit but see no way out. The
Swedish model helps women who want to escape. The Dutch model keeps women in
prostitution, but we can all rejoice because now it’s a job like any other. We don’t see these women in the
media very often. The media has apparently decided the real titillation is in the story of the happy
hooker. Plus, in a system that causes the death and harm of so many, do we focus on the agency of
some small percentage of privileged individuals or on a critique of the system? Any other sector
with violence has people to defend it. Not everyone wanted slavery in the US abolished: slaves
got food and a place to live from their masters, so... Labour unions in Belgium once defended the continued
existence of a weapons factory selling to dictators the world over – otherwise the workers would be out of a job. The barbaric
practice of using little people for fun and amusement in inhumane games was historically defended too, they too didn’t want to lose
their job. And so on.
PERM
It’s mutually exclusive and partial decriminalization solves better
Monasky, 11 - J.D., 2011, William Mitchell College of Law. The author will present this paper at the 2011 Interdisciplinary
Conference on Human Trafficking at University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Heather, “ON COMPREHENSIVE PROSTITUTION
REFORM: CRIMINALIZING THE TRAFFICKER AND THE TRICK, BUT NOT THE VICTIM - SWEDEN'S SEXKOPSLAGEN n1 IN
AMERICA” 37 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 1989, lexis)
From a public policy perspective, the United States must prioritize either sex workers' rights or
rights of prostituted people. Prioritizing the rights of both groups negates government's
ability to respond effectively to either. Adverse consequences stem from both: prioritizing
sex workers complicates helping those that cannot escape prostitution, while prioritizing victims
marginalizes sex workers' ability to work legally and to exercise agency. n141
Partial decriminalization properly places victims before sex workers. This system weighs the costs
and decides that the human right to live free from violence and fear trumps the privilege
of choosing one's occupation. Pimps often force, lure, and threaten individuals into prostitution. n142 The high risk
that a pimp will harm a person in prostitution implicates the sex buyer in endangering that person. n143 The sex purchaser,
by generating demand for [*2012] prostitution, contributes to the harm done to individuals by
traffickers or abusive pimps. n144 While the sex buyer does not directly inflict the harm, the sex purchaser nonetheless
sexually exploits the victim via the sex act. n145
STIGMA TURN
Swedish model empirically solves stigma
Longworth, 10 - Corinne E. Longworth received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Women’s Studies from Simon
Fraser University in 2004 and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Victoria in 2009. She wrote this paper as a second
year law student under the supervision of Professor Gillian Calder (“MALE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN PROSTITUTION:
WEIGHING FEMINIST LEGISLATIVE RESPONSES TO A TROUBLING CANADIAN PHENOMENON” 15 Appeal 58-85,
http://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/appeal/article/download/5401/2315)
Since the law was implemented in Sweden in 1999 and backed up by a well-funded law enforcement regime,144 the
country has reported excellent results and a majority of the Swedish public, approximately 80 percent, are still in
support.145 The law’s success is based on several factors. First, the law has significantly reduced prostitution: the
number of women involved in street prostitution has decreased by an estimated 30 to 50
percent, prostitution in general has dropped approximately 40 percent and recruitment has
become almost non-existent.146 Second, some suggest that men have been significantly deterred from
purchasing sexual services.147 Third, the market has become far less lucrative and, as a result,
prostitution, child sexual exploitation and trafficking have been deterred.148 Fourth, the law has
significantly reallocated stigma to the buyers of sexual services instead of prostitutes, 149
who are regarded as “victims”150 rather than criminals. Fifth, the law has given prostitutes the upper hand over
abusers since they can now report instances of violence, exploitation, or even simply prostitution to the police. Lastly, Sweden’s
regime is buttressed with social services, exit programs, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation,151 allowing prostitutes to access
support and leave prostitution if they wish.
The Swedish model has also been critiqued. Critics suggest that the decrease in prostitution, particularly street
prostitution, is
exaggerated, arguing that the sex trade has simply moved “underground” and is now
occurring primarily over the internet and indoors.152 Yet, this argument fails to recognize that
women are often involved in street prostitution precisely because they lack the economic
ability to move indoors. Furthermore, even if some street prostitutes have moved indoors, the
same critics recognize prostitution is safer there. The movement indoors and reduction in
prostitution generally both surely mean that fewer women are subject to violence. As well, the demand
and exploitative side of indoor and underground prostitution can be targeted by law enforcement. Although admittedly resource
intensive, this different approach would be more beneficial since it would target exploitation, trafficking and organized crime.
The act of passing the law itself substantially decreased demand for prostitution
and changed Swedish culture
Waltman, 11 - Max Waltman is a PhD Candidate at Stockholm University, Department of Political Science, studying legal
challenges to pornography and prostitution as practices violating equality and other human rights in democratic systems, focusing
on Canada, Sweden, and the United States (“PROHIBITING SEX PURCHASING AND ENDING TRAFFICKING: THE SWEDISH
PROSTITUTION LAW” 33 Michigan Journal of International Law 133)
Moreover, the passing of the law, in and of itself, seems to have changed public sentiment . In 1996,
only forty-five percent of women and twenty percent of men in Sweden were in favor of
criminalizing male sex purchasers.81 In 1999, eighty-one percent of women and seventy percent of men were in favor of
criminalizing the purchase of sex; in 2002, eightythree percent of women and sixty-nine percent of men were in favor; and, in
2008, seventy-nine percent of women and sixty percent of men favored the law.82 Furthermore, the
number of men who reported, in the national population samples, having purchased sex seems to have
dropped from 12.7% in 1996 83 (before the law took effect) to 7.6% in 2008.84 The method used for
approximation, self-reported anonymous crime surveys, has repeatedly been proven
reliable in a number of scientific reviews.85 Asked about the law’s effects on their own purchase of sex in
2008, respondents stated they had not increased their purchase of sex, had not started purchasing sex outside of Sweden, and had
not begun purchasing sex in “non-physical” forms.86
The changed circumstances in Sweden after the law’s enactment, especially compared to its neighbors,
highlight the strong deterrent effect of the law, even if conviction rates have not been staggering. Convictions went
from 10 in 1999 to 29 in 2000, 38 in 2001, 37 in 2002, 72 in 2003, 48 in 2004, 105 in 2005, 114 in 2006, 85 in 2007, 69 in 2008,
107 in 2009, and 326 in 2010.87 However, in 2010 there was a dramatic increase in crimes reported to the police, the customs
authority, and the prosecution service— 1251 reported sex purchases—compared with the previous highest annual number of 460,
reported in 2005.88 In 2010, there were also 231 reported “purchases of a sexual act from a child” (under age eighteen), a crime for
which the maximum penalty is two years.89 The reasons for this increase in 2010 appear to be due to particular funds allotted by the
Government’s Action Plan against “prostitution and trafficking” and one large, local case of organized pimping in Jämtland in
northern Sweden.90
Swedish model empirically works – cross-national data are overwhelming
Waltman, 11 - Max Waltman is a PhD Candidate at Stockholm University, Department of Political Science, studying legal
challenges to pornography and prostitution as practices violating equality and other human rights in democratic systems, focusing
on Canada, Sweden, and the United States (“PROHIBITING SEX PURCHASING AND ENDING TRAFFICKING: THE SWEDISH
PROSTITUTION LAW” 33 Michigan Journal of International Law 133)
In 1995, the government estimated that there were approximately 2500 to 3000 prostituted
women in Sweden, of whom 650 were on the streets.62 In contrast, a study published in 2008 estimated that
approximately 300 women were prostituted on the streets, while 300 women and fifty men were
found in prostitution being advertised online.63 Comparable methods of approximation have been used in
Denmark, where sex purchase is legal. Even though Denmark only has a population of 5.6 million64 while
Sweden has 9.4 million,65 Sweden’s prostituted population is approximately one-tenth of
Denmark’s. Approximations suggest that at least 5567 persons are visibly in prostitution in Denmark, among whom 1415 were
on the streets.66 A Danish nongovernmental organization (NGO) claimed street numbers were exaggerated, but even without street
numbers, the difference in prostitution between Sweden and Denmark is staggering.67 Using similar methods of approximation in
Norway (population 4.9 million),68 there were 2654 prostituted women, of whom 1157 were on the street in 2007 when purchasing
sex was still legal,69 which is well over eight times more per capita than in Sweden. Although the Nordic numbers are not exact, as
comparative approximations they are more than sufficient.
According to both NGOs and government agencies in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö, briefly after the law’s
enactment “the
sex trade virtually disappeared from the street,” although it did later return, “albeit to
Stockholm, the number of purchasers was reported by police to have decreased
by almost eighty percent in 2001.71 As reported in 2007, social workers in Stockholm encountered only fifteen to twenty
a lesser extent.”70 In
prostituted persons per night, whereas they encountered up to sixty per night prior to the law.72 In Malmö, social workers
encountered 200 women a year prior to the law, but a year after the law, they encountered 130, and in 2006, only sixty-six.73 In
Gothenburg, data indicate that street prostitution declined from one hundred to thirty persons a year between 2003 and 2006.74
Despite the misinformation (discussed further below) spreading what is sometimes simply rumors of how, after the
law’s enactment, there was a stronger move from street prostitution to internet or other indoor, allegedly
“hidden”
prostitution venues in Sweden as compared to elsewhere, no information, empirical evidence, or
other research suggests that this has actually occurred.75 Concurring with these observations, the National
Criminal Investigation Department states that its telephone interceptions show that
international traffickers and pimps have been disappointed with the prostitution market in
Sweden.76 Consequently, the latter’s clandestine brothels in Sweden are fairly small enterprises, with
police operations rarely finding more than three or four prostituted women at one time,77
compared to the twenty to sixty women commonly included in certain criminal activities in the
rest of Europe.78 These international traffickers and pimps avoid conducting prostitution for too long in any one apartment or
location in order to calm customers’ fears of getting caught.79 This “necessity” for “several premises” has been corroborated in
telephone interceptions, testimonies from prostituted women, police reports in the Baltic states, and in almost all preliminary
investigations of procuring or trafficking charges.80
UNDERGROUND TURN
The underground claim is based on poor studies
Capaldi, 13 - Mark Capaldi has worked directly with child-led organizations on issues such as street children and working
children, and has also implemented projects on children in conflict with the law and on violence and abuse against children. This
paper was originally presented at the Second International Conference on Human Rights and Peace and Conflict in Southeast Asia
(“Does the legalization of prostitution increase the sex trafficking of women and children?” EPCAT Journal, January)
To consider a different approach, the exceptionality of the Swedish model has provoked significant interest, as it was the first
country to decriminalise the selling of sex but criminalise purchasing or procuring. This approach is based upon the very clear
Swedish policy principle that prostitution is violence against women and a form of gender inequality (Swedish Government Office,
1998). Swedish law is also built upon the principle that, to combat sex trafficking of women and children, the state must also reduce
the demand for prostitution (Waltman, 2011). There is significant evidence to suggest that this approach has led to a notable
reduction in the number trafficked and involved in prostitution in the country. In 1995, the
Swedish government estimated that there were up to 3,000 women involved in prostitution (SOU
1995 cited in Waltman, 2011). In 2008, this figured had dropped to approximately 600 (Holmstrom, 2011) - one
tenth of the number of sex workers in Denmark (where prostitution is legal), a country with half
the population of Sweden (Waltman, 2011).
Activist Petra Ostergren has been widely quoted as being opposed to Sweden’s approach, claiming
that the number of sex workers has not decreased but has simply gone underground (Ostergren,
2007; Weitzer, 2009; Scoular, 2010). However, her study methods have been questioned (Waltman, 2011), and
telephone interceptions of international traffickers and pimps by the National Criminal
Investigation Department have reportedly confirmed that Sweden is avoided by criminal
networks due to the lack of economic return, as fear of arrest appears to deter potential
customers (NCID, 2002; SOU 2010 cited in Waltman, 2011; Ekberg, 2004). Nevertheless, NGOs such as ECPAT Sweden and the
Committee on the Rights of the Child have all expressed concern at the lack of relevant statistical data pertaining to children,
including data on child victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking (ECPAT International, 2011b). Whatever the actual efficacy of
the Swedish law, it is undeniable that the reduction in prostitution and trafficking numbers is significant when compared to
Sweden’s neighbours for the same years. As such, in 2009, Norway followed the example of Sweden. Since the adoption of the
Norwegian law, street prostitution has declined (Strom, 2009) and a longitudinal survey by Jakobsson and Kotsadam (2010) shows
an overall decrease in the quantity of prostitution; thereby they surmise that the lucrative nature of trafficking to Norway should also
have diminished.
Swedish model does not displace prostitutes underground – multiple studies
prove
CATWA 13 (Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia, “Demand Change: Understanding the Nordic Approach to
Prostitution”, 12-3-13, http://www.catwa.org.au/files/images/Nordic_Model_Pamphlet.pdf ) MaxL
Many critics of the law hold
the belief that prohibiting the purchase of sex in Sweden has pushed prostitution
‘underground’ (Jordan, 2012). This is generally taken to mean that prostitution has moved off the streets, to indoor locations, with solicitation
generally occurring online (or less commonly, through newspapers) rather than in public. As Janice Raymond, a former director of the Coalition
Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) has argued, it
is unclear why indoor forms of prostitution should be seen as
inherently worse or more ‘underground’ than street prostitution (Raymond, 2013). Indeed, the Swedish National
Police Board has stated that it is easier to track online prostitution markets with greater accuracy than
traditional forms of street prostitution (Raymond, 2013). The intimation by critics, however, is that the law has not actually
reduced the overall market for prostitution; it has simply displaced it into new locations. The official review of the ban in Sweden
explicitly sought to determine if this kind of displacement had taken place. It was noted in the final
report that while evidence of greater prostitution activities in non-street contexts (e.g. escorting, sexclubs or advertising in newspapers and online) had been sought, none had been found (Swedish Institute, 2010). While the
government admits it may be difficult to calculate exact numbers of people in prostitution, the suggestion that prostitution has
gone ‘underground’ has not found any support in existing research. As well as the external measure of the
number of people in prostitution conducted across the Nordic countries (Table 1.1), there are other pieces of evidence that support an overall reduction
in domestic prostitution and in trafficking for sexual purposes in Sweden after the introduction of the Law that Prohibits the Purchase of Sexual
Services. There
is evidence that Sweden is no longer seen as a lucrative market by sex trafficking
networks and that there has been a reduction in the number of men buying ‘sexual services’ .
Swedish police monitoring trafficking networks in the region noticed changes after the introduction of the law banning the purchase of sex.
Telephone intercepts conducted by Swedish police in the years following the introduction of the ban showed that
traffickers and pimps were ‘disappointed with Sweden’s market for prostitution’ (Waltman, 2011: 459). The official review also
outlines that many police and social workers report that criminal groups selling women for sexual purposes in the region view Sweden as a ‘poor
market’ and are discouraged
from establishing networks in Sweden because there is less demand for
prostitution. Attempting to traffic women to Sweden for prostitution was seen as being higher risk and less profitable. The
review adds that ‘[a]ccording to the Swedish Police, it is obvious that the ban against the purchase of sexual services works as a barrier for human
traffickers and procurers to establish themselves in Sweden’ (Swedish Institute, 2010: 29). In addition, there has been a drop in the number of men
purchasing sex. Research from the Nordic Institute for Women’s Studies and Gender research (NIKK) shows that since the introduction of the Law that
Prohibits the Purchase of Sexual Services, the number of respondents reporting that they have purchased sex has fallen (cited in Claude, 2011; Ekberg &
Wahlberg, 2011). In 2008, the researchers conducted a survey of 2500 individuals between the ages of 18 and 74 and found 7.9% reported buying sex.
This was compared to a similar poll in 1996, where 13.6% of repondents reported buying sex (Claude, 2011). This is consistent with international
research, which shows that legislative measures aimed at penalising buyers are reported, by buyers themselves, as the biggest deterrent (Farley et al.
2009; Macleod et al., 2008). Swedish men are also now less likely to buy sex than their counterparts in Norway and Denmark (Kotsadam & Jakobsson,
2012). Are women exposed to more dangerous conditions? Some
critics of the Swedish law, mostly from ‘sex worker rights’ groups (e.g. Rose
that banning the purchase of ‘sexual services’ has placed prostituted women
in more dangerous conditions (see also: Jordan, 2012). This is an offshoot of the argument that prostitution
has gone ‘underground’. Again, there is no evidence that prostitution has been displaced to indoor
locations and there is no evidence that indoor prostitution is more dangerous than street
prostitution. Indeed, vocal opponents of an abolitionist approach to prostitution have often claimed that ‘indoor
prostitution’ is safer than other forms (e.g. Weitzer, 2005; 2007). It is important to note, however, that the Swedish approach to
Alliance), have suggested
prostitution is profoundly different from the more traditional ‘harm minimisation’ approach taken by those promoting legalisation or
decriminalisation. The
Swedish model does not aim to make prostitution itself more comfortable or acceptable but rather to reduce
and ultimately abolish the existence of a market for prostitution; thereby, at least reducing, and
potentially eliminating, harm altogether. As legal scholar Max Waltman (2011) has argued, the traditional approach to harm
minimisation has accepted that the abuse of women in prostitution is inevitable, whereas the Swedish model questions why any level of abuse should be
acceptable at all. As the Law that Prohibits the Purchase of Sexual Services was introduced as part of the Kvinnofrid, which targets all forms of violence
against women, there
have been other measures put in place to assist women still in prostitution.
These include comprehensive exit programs and access to NGOs providing assistance in terms
of health, housing, job seeking and re-training (SMoIGE, 2009). There are also preventative measures in place to
help identify and assist those at risk of entering prostitution (Ekberg & Wahlberg, 2011). In addition, the official
review of the law recommended that those who are used in prostitution should be allowed to receive compensation through the Crime Victim
Compensation and Support Authority (Ekberg & Wahlberg, 2011).
CARCERAL FEM TURN
Criminalization doesn’t undermine feminist goals or reinforce paternalism – the
state’s monopoly on force is inevitable and the CP is substantially less
criminalization than the squo
Dempsey, 10 - Associate Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law; Research Associate, University of Oxford
Centre for Criminology (Michelle, “SEX TRAFFICKING AND CRIMINALIZATION: IN DEFENSE OF FEMINIST ABOLITIONISM”
158 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1729, May, lexis)
D. Is Criminalization Antithetical to Feminism?
Feminists have - or at least should have - a healthy skepticism about using the criminal law to achieve feminist goals. n146
Ultimately, criminalization is about the enforcement of norms under threat of force. While criminalization does not always involve
the actual use of physical violence, the threat of violence is always lurking in the background of any criminal prohibition. After all,
criminal prohibitions are not merely suggestions for good conduct being offered by the state. Rather, they are directives by which the
state claims authority over its subjects - and they are backed by the threat and often the use of violence.
There is, therefore, something ironic and troubling about feminist abolitionism's proposal to fight violence against women by using
the criminal law with its implicit threat or explicit use of violence. n147 This objection, however, ignores three crucial points
regarding the power of the state to impose criminal sanctions as it relates to the feminist-abolitionist project. First, as a general
matter, in societies where the state holds a monopoly on power and wields that power through the criminal law,
those who wish to effect positive social change disengage from the state and its criminal law at
their peril. In other words, ignoring the state's power will not make it go away. Second, it is
important to note that feminist abolitionism's call to criminalize buying sex is not, in most jurisdictions, a
call for an expansion of the criminal law. In most states throughout the United States and under federal law, it is
already a crime to buy sex. Thus, no new laws would have to be passed against buying sex.
Feminist abolitionists are simply calling upon societies and their legal officials to rethink the rationale for these
prohibitions and to enforce the laws in a way that is [*1777] consistent with the understanding that
their justification lies in the links between buying sex and harms suffered by prostituted people.
Finally, it is also the case that in most states throughout the United States and under federal law, it is already a crime not only to buy
sex but also to sell sex. Under feminist reforms, laws penalizing the sale of sex would be abolished,
thereby restricting the scope of the criminal law. Thus, at least with respect to jurisdictions in which both
sale and purchase are presently criminalized, feminist abolitionism advocates reigning in the power of the criminal law.
Claims that abolitionism is a form of carceral feminism are based on distortions of
our argument – the state can sometimes help feminist goals of ending violence
Dempsey, 10 - Associate Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law; Research Associate, University of Oxford
Centre for Criminology (Michelle, “SEX TRAFFICKING AND CRIMINALIZATION: IN DEFENSE OF FEMINIST ABOLITIONISM”
158 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1729, May, lexis)
It is an oft-heard complaint that feminist abolitionists have unwisely aligned themselves with
conservative or reactionary forces.31 There are two versions of this argument, one that questions the wisdom of
feminist abolitionists jumping into bed, so to speak, with conservative and reactionary political allies, and one that impugns the
ideological basis of feminist abolitionism as mirroring conservative and reactionary accounts of
sexual morality. The former argument, I concede, bears some force—albeit not all that its advocates suggest. The latter
argument, I contend, is grounded in an implausible distortion of feminist abolitionism and
should be rejected.
In her article, ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’? Some Problems with Feminist Abolitionist Calls to Penalise Those Who Buy Commercial
Sex, Julia O’Connell Davidson launches the “strange bedfellows” critique of feminist abolitionism.32 Citing examples of feminist
abolitionists working with “police chiefs calling for more extensive police powers and tougher sentencing policy, anti-immigration
politicians calling for tighter border controls, and moral conservatives urging a return to ‘family values,’” O’Connell Davidson
impugns feminist abolitionists for forging “alliances with those who would more usually be viewed as ‘enemies’ of feminism and
other progressive social movements.”33 The gist of O’Connell Davidson’s complaint, in other words, is that feminist abolitionists
have sold out to those who have an interest in sustaining the very sorts of structural inequalities we oppose. In our eagerness to
effect legal and political change, the argument goes, we have either endorsed policies that are antithetical to feminism more
generally, or have at the very least lent political support to conservative and reactionary politicians who endorse such policies.
I think there is some basis for the “strange bedfellows” critique, but it is not as compelling or expansive in its scope as suggested
above. To see why this is so, it is first necessary to separate directly endorsing pernicious policies from
working with those who endorse such policies. Clearly, endorsing such policies oneself is worthy of criticism. The
form of critique appropriate to such advocacy, however, is not a “strange bedfellows” critique. For example, anyone operating under
the banner of feminist abolitionism who frames arguments against prostitution based on support for traditional “family values”
would indeed be worthy of criticism—but on grounds that she has directly endorsed a pernicious tradition that reinforces patriarchy.
(It would, therefore, also raise questions as to whether that person has accurately applied the description “feminist” to her
advocacy.)
The “strange bedfellows” critique, in contrast, must be reserved for cases in which feminist abolitionists work to achieve policy and
legal reform alongside those who seek the same policy and legal reforms, but for reasons that are inconsistent with feminism. That
version of the critique hits its mark, for certainly feminist abolitionists have worked with politicians who endorse a variety of policies
that are inconsistent with feminist commitments. Yet, this critique is hardly withering to feminist abolitionism,
for while it is an unfortunate reality of political life that not everyone embraces feminism, it is
sometimes necessary in order to achieve feminist goals to work with those who reject
feminism.34 Given the deep and sustained disagreements regarding values and background reasons that form our political
landscape, if we waited until everyone agreed on every value and background reason for every
policy we hope to secure before making political alliances to actually achieve those policy ends,
social coordination around contentious issues would become impossible.35 Of course, there are limits to
this coalition-building approach: sometimes the risk of lending an air of legitimacy to bad actors by entering into alliance with them
is not worth the cost.36 But, as a general critique of political maneuvering, the “strange bedfellows” critique packs little punch in a
landscape of diverse political commitments and urgent need for policy reform.
Second, it is necessary to separate the substantive issues highlighted by O’Connell Davidson’s critique, for it is not clear that all of
them are problematic. The policies under attack include (1) endorsing more extensive police powers and tougher sentencing policies;
(2) endorsing anti-immigration policies; and (3) endorsing traditional family values.37 Taking matters in reverse order, I would
certainly agree that much of what goes under the label “traditional family values” is inconsistent with feminism and thus any
purportedly feminist abolitionist who directly endorses such policies should probably turn in her membership card at the next
meeting. Moreover, endorsing anti-immigration policies strikes me as deeply in conflict with basic feminist commitments and thus
likely to be inconsistent with feminist abolitionism.38
With regard to the first issue, however, it is unclear to me why endorsing more extensive police powers and
tougher sentencing policies is necessarily inconsistent
with feminist commitments. In a society in which
women are suffering serious harms and where perpetrators are granted de facto impunity, a
feminist use of the criminal law can achieve feminist goals.39 One need only reflect on legal reforms regarding
domestic violence to see the context in which this alliance would not necessarily be inconsistent with feminist goals.40 Of course,
such reforms run the risk of increasing the power of officials who are not committed to the feminist use of that power—but in
circumstances where the police, prosecutors, and judges (or at least some critical mass of them) are in fact committed to the feminist
use of their institutional powers, there is no inconsistency with feminist goals.41
1NC OTHER
1NC DA
Brown’s PC will get California renewables across the finish line – solves clean tech
leadership
Bruce Lieberman 2-4-2015; Bruce Lieberman is a freelance writer covering science and environmental topics. He has more
than 20 years experience in the news business. “California Governor Brown Outlines Bold New Agenda”
http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/02/california-governor-brown-outlines-bold-new-agenda/
Few who have watched Jerry Brown’s assertive climate initiatives have doubted he would go full-bore throughout this new and final term in office. He
doesn’t disappoint. They have long led the nation and the world in their strength and commitment to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but California’s
progressive and closely watched efforts are not enough. Not enough, at least for California Democratic Governor
Jerry Brown, who is
determined to make climate change among his signature legacy issues as he embarks on his
fourth and his final term as Governor. Brown says he wants more aggressive emission reductions beyond 2020, the current year
for which the state’s reduction targets are set. With California’s major energy utilities and other industrial sectors on track to meet the goal of reducing
greenhouse gases to 1990 levsels by 2020, and with gasoline prices at the pump lowered to prices not seen in a decade or more, Brown
appears
determined to keep the pedal to the floor on the climate issue. In his January inaugural address opening his
new term in office, Brown outlined three new objectives for California to reach by 2030: Increase from one-third
to 50 percent the state’s electricity derived from renewable sources (known as the “Renewables Portfolio
Standard”); Reduce current petroleum use in cars and trucks by up to 50 percent; and Double the efficiency of existing buildings and make heating
fuels cleaner. Brown: Business of Transformation ‘A Very Tall Order’ Brown also called for a reduction in methane emissions, black carbon, and other
“potent pollutants across industries,” and for better management of farm and rangelands, forests, and wetlands so they can store more carbon. “All of
this is a very tall order,” Brown acknowledged. “It means that we continue to transform our electrical grid, our transportation system, and even our
communities.” In his speech, Brown
cited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) goal of limiting global
warming to 2 degrees Celsius by the year 2050, through sweeping reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Brown accepted
that challenge on behalf of the nation’s most populous state. If we have any chance at all of
achieving that, California, as it does in many areas, must show the way. We must demonstrate that reducing
carbon is compatible with an abundant economy and human well-being. So far, we have been able to do that….But now, it is time to establish our next
set of objectives for 2030 and beyond. Business Rep Questions ‘Reality and Practicality’ Brown in advance of his inaugural speech apparently had
shared with few outside his inner circle details on his new climate agenda, and reactions followed a predictable pattern. “He took folks by surprise,” Rob
Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, told Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton. “He never talked to anyone. It’s almost as
if he were speaking to [hedge fund billionaire and climate change activist] Tom Steyer in the balcony. We can’t figure where that was coming from in
terms of reality and practicality.” Skelton’s insightful column discusses how Steyer has won over state Senate leader Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) —
through generous campaign contributions to Democrats and through his own personal commitment to the climate issue: de Leon is expected to be an
important Brown ally as the governor pushes new climate legislation. Lapsley, meanwhile, told Skelton that California businesses interests had
expected that Brown would want to move more aggressively on climate change — beyond the requirements of the state’s landmark 2006 legislation, AB
32. That law set the greenhouse gas emission goal of 1990 levels by 2020. “Our economy won’t be able to absorb” Brown’s more aggressive goals,
Lapsley told Skelton. “It’s going to drive industries out of here.” It’s a frequently heard refrain from business interests facing prospects of more
stringent California regulations. Collaboration Yes…But Only with Strong Brown Leadership Not surprisingly, Mary Nichols, Brown’s longtime adviser
who heads the California Air Resources Board, had a different take. “It’s time to move on to our next target,” and look beyond 2020, she told Skelton.
Skelton wrote that despite
the divisions, collaboration will offer the only way forward, a point Brown
too had made. “Yes, collaboration,” Skelton wrote, “but especially gubernatorial commitment and
leadership to bring business on board. Compromise will be essential if California is to be
unified in leading the country — perhaps the planet — in containing global warming.” The Natural
Resources Defense Council was among several environmental groups (see here and here) that praised Brown’s new goals. NRDC blogger Peter Miller
wrote: “This impressive agenda builds on California’s strengths of technology and innovation. More generally it provides a road map to a growthoriented economic policy by providing a path for California companies to invest in new products in a growing market that leads the world.” And the San
Jose Mercury News praised Brown in a January 6 editorial, writing: “Brown is positioning California to remain the nation’s most visionary and energyefficient state without breaking the bank.” Soon after his inaugural speech, Brown released his proposed 2015-16 budget. It includes $1 billion in capand-trade expenditures for the state’s continuing investments in low-carbon transportation, sustainable communities, energy efficiency, urban forests,
and the state’s high-speed rail project. “The successful implementation of these projects and continued and even steeper reductions in carbon
pollutants are necessary to address the ongoing threat posed by climate change,” according to a statement released by the governor’s office. Reaction to
Budget Proposal…and Competing Priorities Despite California’s national reputation as a leader in actions on climate change, and Brown’s bold new
agenda and Democratic majorities in the legislature, the road toward more cuts in emissions will be rocky, suggests a roundup by the Sacramento Bee.
State lawmakers, political appointees, educators, union leaders, trade and professional representatives, and others all offered their views of what
budget priorities the Governor should follow — and hardly any mentioned investing in climate change mitigation or adaptation. Sure there were a few.
State Senator Lois Wolk, D-Davis, a key Budget Subcommittee on Resources, Environmental Protection, Energy and Transportation, said: “I am
pleased that the Governor’s budget prioritizes significant investment in water and flood management. The current drought demonstrates the need to
invest in reliable, climate-resilient water supplies to sustain our economy, communities and ecosystems.” But most said nothing positive, if anything at
all, about the Brown climate initiatives announced just a few days earlier. To the contrary, a few Republican lawmakers chastised the governor for
earmarking funding from the state’s cap-and-trade program to a controversial high-speed rail project. “We cannot continue to invest, as the Governor
proposes, in radical environmental policies like cap-and-trade and boondoggles like High Speed Rail if we want to turn the corner on the recession,”
said Assemblyman James Gallagher, R-Yuba City. California, like other states, faces numerous competing challenges. The new budget restores few
recession-era cuts to social services, including public health care, higher education and programs to help the poor. University of California President
Janet Napolitano, for one, told the Sacramento Bee she is “disappointed” by Brown’s budget proposal. In the same story, Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los
Angeles, said it is “frankly beyond me” how Brown can propose far-reaching carbon-reduction measures “and not understand that the state can play an
equally critical and pivotal role in setting stretch goals for itself to reduce the number of kids in California who live in poverty.” Reinvigorating
Renewable Energy Industries The Los Angeles Times reported that Brown’s
initiatives “could reinvigorate the state’s
utility-scale solar and wind industries, as well as launch another land rush in the Mojave Desert.”
The reasoning: state utilities have had little incentive to invest in new wind and solar energy projects — simply because they’re already on track to meet
the state’s Renewables Portfolio Standard of 33 percent by 2020. “Without
contracts to sell power, it’s been difficult for
clean-energy developers to cobble together financing for large-scale projects,” the Times reported. “As a
result, the initial flurry of interest in permitting solar and wind projects in the state has stalled.”
“There has been a dramatic slowdown — or almost freezing out,” Jerry R. Bloom of the Los Angeles law firm Winston & Strawn, who guides renewable
energy developers through the financing and permitting processes, told the Times. “There are no utility-scale contracts. There’s no real market. The
utilities’ position is: ‘We’ve reached the 33 percent and we’re done.’” “ Fifty percent is a game-changer,” Bloom says. Governor
Brown could, if he so chooses, adopt the 50-percent standard simply by issuing an executive order. “The California Public Utilities Commission has the
authority,” The Times continued, “to compel the state’s three big utilities — Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas &
Electric — to procure 50 percent of their energy through renewables.” Such an order wouldn’t apply, however, to large municipal companies like the Los
Angeles Department of Water and Power. Even so, with Democrats controlling both the Assembly and the Senate, Brown
and his backers
in Sacramento might yet prevail on legislation to expand the reach of a 50 percent standard.
“Many thought the initial 33 percent goal was too challenging, yet California will readily surpass
that number,” Martín Múgica, president and chief executive of Iberdrola Renewables, which is developing wind and solar projects in the state,
told the Times. “The governor’s plan will spark innovation across the electricity sector and clearly
encourage large-scale renewable energy development.”
The AFF is a political nonstarter
Weitzer, 12 - Ronald Weitzer is a professor of sociology at George Washington University in
Washington, DC, and an expert on the sex industry (Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to
Lawful Business, ebrary) italics in original
Proposals for full decriminalization run up against a wall of opposition. A 1983 poll found that
only 7 percent of Americans thought that there should be “no laws against prostitution,” and in
1990, just 22 percent felt that prostitution should be “left to the individual,” while a greater
number thought that it should either be “regulated by law” (31 percent) or “forbidden by law”
(46 percent). 12 American policymakers are almost universally opposed to the idea, making it a
nonstarter in any serious discussion of policy alternatives. Advocates sometimes manage to get
it placed on the public agenda, however. In 1994, a task force in San Francisco explored
alternatives to existing prostitution policy. After months of meetings, a majority of the members
voted to recommend decriminalization, but the city’s Board of Supervisors rejected the idea. 13
In November 2008, San Francisco residents voted on a ballot measure that would have de facto
decriminalized prostitution in the city. The measure stipulated that the police would discontinue
enforcing the law against prostitution. The measure failed but was endorsed by a sizeable
minority of voters: 42 percent. Four years earlier, Berkeley, California, voters were presented
with a similar proposal, and 36 percent supported it. 14 As this chapter shows, sthe San
Francisco and Berkeley cases are exceptional in contemporary America, where liberalization is
rarely voted on by the public or even discussed by political leaders. As a task force in Buffalo,
New York, reasoned, “Since it is unlikely that city or state officials could ever be convinced to
decriminalize or legalize prostitution in Buffalo, there is nothing to be gained by debating the
merits of either.” 15 Decriminalization is thus the untouchable third rail of prostitution policy in
the United States.
Key to the Agenda
Marois, 11/9/14 (Michael B., “Jerry Brown Sets California on a Course of Public Works,”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-10/jerry-brown-sets-california-on-a-course-ofpublic-works.html, JMP)
‘Paradoxical’ Priorities
“Then the economy tanked, the budgets went haywire and he became a pariah,” Pitney said.
Brown has traded on his acumen from two terms as governor from 1975 to 1983, as well as time
as secretary of state, attorney general and mayor of Oakland, to tame some of the most vexing
issues in a state of about 38 million, more than Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio combined.
He leveraged record approval ratings to win passage of temporary sales- and incometax increases in 2012, and this year pushed through ballot measures to bolster water works and
strengthen reserves against economic downturns.
Standard & Poor’s upgraded the state’s credit rating a day later, citing passage of the rainy day
measure, the fourth increase since Brown took office.
“I’m going to try and do everything I can to keep the state in balance but I also want to build
things,” Brown told reporters in his Sacramento office after the election last week. “It’s a balance
between holding my foot on the brake while pushing my other foot on the accelerator. It’s
definitely paradoxical.”
Extinction
Klarevas 9 –Louis Klarevas, Professor for Center for Global Affairs @ New York University,
12/15, “Securing American Primacy While Tackling Climate Change: Toward a National Strategy
of Greengemony,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louis-klarevas/securing-americanprimacy_b_393223.html
As national leaders from around the world are gathering in Copenhagen, Denmark, to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference, the time is ripe to
re-assess America's current energy policies - but within the larger framework of how a new
approach on the environment will stave off global warming and shore up American primacy. By not
addressing climate change more aggressively and creatively, the United States is squandering an opportunity to secure its
global primacy for the next few generations to come. To do this, though, the U.S. must rely on innovation
to help the world escape the coming environmental meltdown. Developing the key technologies that
will save the planet from global warming will allow the U.S. to outmaneuver potential
great power rivals seeking to replace it as the international system's hegemon. But the greening of American
strategy must occur soon. The U.S., however, seems to be stuck in time, unable to move beyond oil-centric geo-politics in any meaningful way. Often, the
gridlock is portrayed as a partisan difference, with Republicans resisting action and Democrats pleading for action. This, though, is an unfair characterization as there are
Students of realpolitik, which
discount environmental issues as they are not seen as advancing
numerous proactive Republicans and quite a few reticent Democrats. The real divide is instead one between realists and liberals.
still heavily guides American foreign policy, largely
national interests in a way that generates relative power advantages vis-à-vis the other major powers in the system: Russia, China, Japan, India, and the European
Union. ¶ Liberals, on the other hand, have recognized that global warming might very well become the
greatest challenge ever faced by [hu]mankind. As such, their thinking often eschews narrowly defined national interests for
the greater global good. This, though, ruffles elected officials whose sworn obligation is, above all, to protect and promote American national interests. What both sides need to
by becoming a lean, mean, green fighting machine, the U.S. can actually bring
together liberals and realists to advance a collective interest which benefits every nation, while at the
same time, securing America's global primacy well into the future. To do so, the U.S. must re-invent itself as not just your
traditional hegemon, but as history's first ever green hegemon. Hegemons are countries that dominate the international
understand is that
system - bailing out other countries in times of global crisis, establishing and maintaining the most important international institutions, and covering the costs that result from
free-riding and cheating global obligations. Since 1945, that role has been the purview of the United States. Immediately after World War II, Europe and Asia laid in ruin, the
global economy required resuscitation, the countries of the free world needed security guarantees, and the entire system longed for a multilateral forum where global concerns
could be addressed. The U.S., emerging the least scathed by the systemic crisis of fascism's rise, stepped up to the challenge and established the postwar (and current) liberal
order. But don't let the world "liberal" fool you. While many nations benefited from America's new-found hegemony, the U.S. was driven largely by "realist" selfish national
interests. The liberal order first and foremost benefited the U.S. With the U.S. becoming bogged down in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, running a record national debt, and
failing to shore up the dollar, the future of American hegemony now seems to be facing a serious contest: potential rivals - acting like sharks smelling blood in the water - wish to
This has led numerous commentators to forecast the U.S.'s imminent fall
from grace. Not all hope is lost however. With the impending systemic crisis of global warming
on the horizon, the U.S. again finds itself in a position to address a transnational problem in a
way that will benefit both the international community collectively and the U.S. selfishly. The current
challenge the U.S. on a variety of fronts.
problem is two-fold. First, the competition for oil is fueling animosities between the major powers. The geopolitics of oil has already emboldened Russia in its 'near abroad' and
a nasty zero-sum contest could be
looming on the horizon for the U.S. and its major power rivals - a contest which threatens
American primacy and global stability. Second, converting fossil fuels like oil to run national
economies is producing irreversible harm in the form of carbon dioxide emissions . So long as the global
economy remains oil-dependent, greenhouse gases will continue to rise. Experts are predicting as much as a 60% increase in carbon
dioxide emissions in the next twenty-five years. That likely means more devastating water shortages, droughts,
forest fires, floods, and storms. In other words, if global competition for access to energy resources does
not undermine international security, global warming will. And in either case, oil will be a culprit for the
China in far-off places like Africa and Latin America. As oil is a limited natural resource,
instability. Oil arguably has been the most precious energy resource of the last half-century. But "black gold" is so 20th century. The key resource for this century will be green
Climate change leaves no alternative. And the
sooner we realize this, the better off we will be. What Washington must do in order to avoid the traps of petropolitics is to convert the U.S.
into the world's first-ever green hegemon. For starters, the federal government must drastically increase investment in
energy and environmental research and development (E&E R&D). This will require a serious sacrifice, committing upwards of $40
billion annually to E&E R&D - a far cry from the few billion dollars currently being spent. By promoting a new national project, the U.S. could develop new
technologies that will assure it does not drown in a pool of oil. Some solutions are already well known, such as raising fuel
gold - clean, environmentally-friendly energy like wind, solar, and hydrogen power.
standards for automobiles; improving public transportation networks; and expanding nuclear and wind power sources. Others, however, have not progressed much beyond the
batteries that can store massive amounts of solar (and possibly even wind) power; efficient and cost-effective
photovoltaic cells, crop-fuels, and hydrogen-based fuels; and even fusion . Such innovations will not only provide
alternatives to oil, they will also give the U.S. an edge in the global competition for
hegemony. If the U.S. is able to produce technologies that allow modern, globalized societies to escape the oil trap, those nations will eventually
have no choice but to adopt such technologies. And this will give the U.S. a tremendous
economic boom, while simultaneously providing it with means of leverage that can be employed to
keep potential foes in check. The bottom-line is that the U.S. needs to become green energy dominant
as opposed to black energy independent - and the best approach for achieving this is to promote a national strategy of greengemony.
drawing board:
1NC DECRIM CP
The United States should decriminalize voluntary adult prostitution.
It competes
Mgbako and Smith, 10 - *CLINICAL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF LAW AND DIRECTOR, WALTER LEITNER
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS CLINIC AND **DEAN’S FELLOW, LEITNER CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL LAW AND
JUSTICE (Chi and Laura, “Sex Work and Human Rights in Africa” 33 FORDHAM INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL 1178,
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1710654)
The difference between legalization and decriminalization lies in the means by which
prostitution is “made legal.” Legalization imposes more state regulations to control prostitution,
while decriminalization removes all laws that criminalize prostitution. Those who support
decriminalization over legalization argue that legalization essentially exchanges one exploitative system for another. [FN212] Under
a legalized system, women work out of government-regulated brothels, which can leave sex workers with little control over their
work conditions and which can substitute abuse and exploitation by police officers and pimps with rights violations by the state.
[FN213] Both laws which legalize and regulate prostitution and laws that criminalize prostitution
target the sex worker. [FN214] Furthermore, the main goal of regulationist policies, including legalization, is often to
keep prostitutes isolated and separate from the rest of society, which reinforces the stigma surrounding prostitution. [FN215]
Solves harms of criminalization and means prostitutes can organize and create
their own regulations
Thompson, 2k - J.D. Candidate, Capital University Law School (Susan, “Prostitution-A Choice Ignored” Women's Rights
Law Reporter, Volume 21, Number 3, Summer 2000)
The decriminalization of prostitution involves the removal of all existing criminal laws and
regulations regarding voluntary prostitution between consenting adults.5 °3 Voluntary relationships
between prostitutes and their managers (pimps) will also be free from criminal regulations and sanctions." 4 Under
decriminalization, no new legislation will be implemented specifically directed at prostitution,
instead, prostitution will be subject to the same civil, business, and professional codes of
conduct that cover all legal businesses." 5 Presently, no system of decriminalization exists anywhere in the
United States.
Unlike the United States, most European nations do not prohibit the entire practice of prostitution."' Countries such as Sweden,
France, and Belgium recognize prostitution as a legal activity.5 ' Similarly, the Netherlands has accepted prostitution as a legitimate
profession under a system of decriminalization.50 8 Known for having the least repressive laws on prostitution, the authorities in
the Netherlands tolerate the brothels and escort services. 5 9 Although the government does not actively interfere with the practice
of prostitution, per se, it does control illegal activities associated with it.510 Section 250b of the Dutch Penal Code, currently
prohibits "certain prostitution-related activities such as pimping, facilitating prostitutes, and running prostitution enterprises."51'
Under a system of decriminalization, prostitutes are given their independence to work freely in their chosen profession. 512 "Any
laws concerning prostitution focus on monitoring safe working conditions and protecting the women from abuse and crime., 51 3
The majority of prostitution activities takes place in Amsterdam and Utrecht.1 4 Amsterdam's policy tolerates existing prostitution
houses, but prevents new ones from opening.51 5 In Utrecht, a "zone of tolerance" exists where within a specified, separated area,
prostitutes solicit men under the watchful protection of plainclothes police officers and other prostitutes. 516 Under this policy,
"[w]hen a prostitute leaves with a customer, another will take note of the license plate number; if she is gone longer than usual, an
authority will be notified. 5' 17
Decriminalizing the act of prostitution and all associated activities is directly aimed at
empowering prostitutes to take control over their lives and their work conditions.518 Prostitute's
lives are dependent upon healthy, safe, and economically viable work conditions. Protection alone is meaningless if
prostitutes are continually denied the right to work, organize, and participate in social security
programs.519
Decriminalization will permit prostitutes to organize and form unions in order to voice their
needs and concerns. As a professional union, prostitutes would be better able to fight for improved
working conditions and even develop standard professional codes of ethics and behavior that
regulate their occupation.52 ° Recognition as a legal activity would permit prostitutes to demand
implementation of satisfactory health and safety standards, which would legally have to be followed by those
who employ prostitutes. 52' Prostitutes would be able to request a leave of absence for illness and vacations when the stress of the
job become too much to handle. Additionally, decriminalization would give prostitutes the opportunity to
create and operate job-related training programs publicly for new prostitutes and refresher courses for
the more experienced prostitute. Training in "selfdefense, sexual techniques, money management ... and
the creation of mutual aid and support networks" would empower prostitutes with formal
control over themselves and their environment. 522
Presently, under a system of criminalization, prostitutes are unable to gain access to adequate health care or become eligible for
workmen's compensation or disability. If prostitutes are injured or become sick on the job, they have no insurance to compensate
them while they are unable to work.52 3 However, under a model of decriminalization, recognizing prostitution as a legal profession
would alter this grim reality.
From a health perspective, many benefits would develop from decriminalizing prostitution. Firstly, decriminalization would make
private health insurance available to all prostitutes. 524 Since prostitution would no longer be illegal, private insurers would be able
to provide legal coverage to prostitutes who could afford it.5 25 Secondly, decriminalization would make employer-based health
coverage available to prostitutes who were employed in brothels. 2 6 Economic incentives or legal sanctions could mandate that
employers provide health insurance to their employees at affordable rates.5 27 Lastly, eliminating the illegality of prostitution may
allow prostitutes to have access to state sponsored health care coverage, such as Social Security Disability Insurance or worker's
compensation.128 If excess costs were a great concern, "[t]axing prostitutes' income would generate additional revenue for the state,
which may help to offset the ever-increasing cost of national health care., 529
As noted earlier, enforcing the laws against prostitution is costly and a waste of valuable resources and manpower.53 ° Increasing
technology and advanced methods of communication have made the easy arrest of the streetwalker virtually obsolete.53 " ' In order
to keep up, governments have to invest more time and money to enforce prostitution laws. According to the New York Times, "[t]he
internet, pagers, cellular phones and subterfuges like escort services have enabled more discreet forms of prostitution to thrive
beyond the reach of the streetlevel crackdown ....
A 1985 study of sixteen of the nation's largest cities, indicated that each city had spent approximately $7.5 million to enforce
prostitution laws.533 This came out to an estimated $120 million spent for all sixteen cities combined.534 The study further detailed
that police officers working in pairs, spent an average of twentyone hours per prostitution arrest.535 This included the time
necessary to,
(1) obtain a solicitation from, and make an arrest of, a suspected prostitute or customer; (2) transport the arrestee to the police
station or detention center; (3) complete fingerprinting and identification processes; (4) write and file a report; and (5) testify in
court. This fifth duty absorbs the majority of each arresting officer's twenty-one hours.536
After spending all those hours on one arrest, it is not surprising that police costs account for 40% of all public funds.537 All sixteen
of the cities studied, had spent a total of $35,627,496 to prosecute women for prostitution and an estimated $31,770,211 was spent
on incarcerating prostitutes.538 In New York, prostitutes accounted for over 50% of the population in women's jails and in
California they accounted for at least 30%. 5 3' The reasoning behind these figures, is simply that prostitutes usually serve longer
sentences than women convicted of other misdemeanors.540
It is clear that the costs and resources wasted on enforcing prostitution laws are ridiculous. The process of policing prostitution is an
inherently lengthy and tedious one.541 Decriminalization would allow costs and resources used for prostitution enforcement to be
transferred to enforce more pressing legal concerns. 54 2 Not only would this be a more efficient use of presently scarce resources
and precious police manpower, the costs to local taxpayers would decrease tremendously, saving Americans millions.543
A final argument in favor of decriminalization involves the equal protection violations against women prosecuted for solicitation.544
Prostitutes and support organizations citing an equal protection violation, address the statutory discriminatory treatment as applied
to clients, married couples, and prostitutes.545 Although many states have statutes that make illegal both the solicitation and the
procurement of commercial sex, prostitutes often face unfair treatment under the law.54 6 This selective enforcement places a
disproportionate blame on women for the problems of prostitution.547 Decriminalization would grant prostitutes a privacy right to
engage in consensual commercial sex, thereby affording them legal protection and rights. 54 8 However, the state courts have failed
to recognize a privacy interest to engage in commercial sex.54 9 Roe II v. Butterworth, ruled that although the Florida statute did not
deny adults the right to engage in consensual sex, there was no fundamentally protected right of privacy to engage in sex for
money.550
Additionally, the state courts have refused to recognize any discriminatory treatment, regarding the ways the laws treat prostitutes
as compared to married couples.55 2 When a husband offers to pay his wife for sexual services, that transaction will be afforded
constitutional protection. However, the exchange of monetary compensation for sex between unmarried, consenting adults, is
prosecuted under the laws of prostitution." 2 The court in People v. Mason ruled that states have a rational basis for discriminatory
treatment between unmarried and married adults since there exists a heightened privacy interest for all marital relationships.5 3
Theorists in favor of prostitution argue that there is essentially no difference between the exchange of money for sex in a marriage or
within a prostitute-client relationship.554 According to Simone de Beauvoir, "[f]or both [marriage and prostitution] the sexual act is
a service; the one is hired for life by one man; the other has several clients who pay her by the piece. '555
The decriminalization of voluntary prostitution is not only the best alternative, it is the only
alternative. Only within a system of decriminalization would prostitutes be free to demand the
equal justice and representation under the law they so rightly deserve. Decriminalization would
empower prostitutes with the ability to demand recognition of their work as labor worthy of
receiving all the benefits and protections afforded to any other profession. When society allows
prostitutes to organize and form support networks, it gives them a voice to shout out against any
abuse and injustice. Decriminalization acknowledges that prostitutes are not the enemies, but rather a system that
marginalizes their existence and defines them as criminals is the enemy.
To deny any individual access to satisfactory health care, fair wages, and a safe work environment is inhumane. Continued
criminalization of prostitution justifies such inhumane treatment of prostitutes, under the
pretext that "they" are different from "us." The demand for decriminalization sends out a
message that society will no longer support a system that arbitrarily selects who will be
protected from abuse under the law and who will not. Decriminalization may not be the perfect solution to all the
problems associated with prostitution, but it is the answer that makes the most sense.
Legalization expands violence
Van der Meulen, 9 – professor of criminology at Ryerson University (Emily, Public policy for women : the
state, income security, and labour market issues / edited by Marjorie Griffin Cohen and Jane Pulkingham, p. 349)
Abolition, legalization,
and criminalization are flawed legal, social, and economic models for
prostitution policy. The abolitionist Swedish system was strongly supported by feminists and policy-makers despite warnings
from police services and sex workers. As it stands now, prostitutes are working in dangerous and violent underground areas with
much less protection and even greater negative social stigma. Sex workers are forced to quickly enter sex transactions with clients in
order to protect themselves from arrest. In the legalized Netherlands, policy changes have brought about
many labour protections and health standards, but state control and regulations are often so
oppressive that working outside the system, in illegal areas, can present a better
option. Additionally, an underground sex trade is thriving in the Netherlands where undocumented
and migrant sex workers cannot report abuse out of fear of deportation. The social stigma
against sex workers perpetuates a system of discrimination and alienation. In Canada, where we
criminalize both the workers and the clients, sex workers are faced with threatening behaviour from police, clients, and the public.
As prostitutes have argued for decades, it is necessary to understand that sex work is work. It is an income-generating activity that
many women engage in for financial security. Criminalizing prostitutes only serves to increase their risk and further marginalize
their activities.
Legalization makes the state the pimp and eliminates control over decisions. The
symbolic effect turns case
Thompson, 2k - J.D. Candidate, Capital University Law School (Susan, “Prostitution-A Choice Ignored” Women's Rights
Law Reporter, Volume 21, Number 3, Summer 2000)
Although a system of legalization appears to be a viable alternative to criminalization, legalization
is very problematic on
represents the ultimate form of control over women's bodies
and sexuality.477 While the typical "pimp- prostitute" relationship is seemingly non-existent, the
government's tight control over prostitution, creates a situation where the government may
be considered the pimp.478 Similar to the traditional pimp, the government controls with
whom, when, and where the prostitute engages in prostitution through a rigid series of time,
place, and manner restrictions.479
Instead of providing women with a degree of control and personal autonomy over their lives, the system of legalization
ensures that prostitutes have no input over their lives and livelihood. This lack of choice and
control, leaves women fully dependent on the government for every aspect of their work.48
its own. Opponents to legalization argue that it
° Once a prostitute is licensed to work in the legal brothel, she automatically gives up her freedom to choose who her customers are,
when to work, and how much she will receive for her services.48' A brothel prostitute typically works fourteen hour shifts, everyday,
for a three-week period.482 During that time, a brothel prostitute may see at least ten to fifteen men a day.483 Prostitutes have no
control over the clients they see so they have no right to refuse or deny a customer service, unless the customer is aggressive and
abusive.484 Legal brothel prostitutes may generate a decent income from their work, however, they must split their earnings with
management and are expected to pay for expenses, such as room and board, condoms, maid services, and a portion of weekly
venereal disease checkups.485 Additionally, prostitutes' movements outside of the brothel are strictly controlled.486 Once licensed,
the female prostitute may not live in the same area that she works, socialize outside the brothel, or vacation in the same area.487 On
the whole, prostitutes are forbidden to leave the brothels except to go to a doctor's appointment or the beauty salon. 4 8 8
The mandatory health checks have been influential in reducing the rate of STDs and AIDS in prostitution. 48 9 However, the
mandatory health controls do little to protect the prostitute from infected clients who are either unaware they are infected or aware
and continue to visit legal brothels.49 ° Once the prostitute tests positive for a disease such as AIDS, she is forced to give up her only
means of income, with no chance of receiving disability or unemployment insurance to compensate her for her loss. 491
Additionally, mandatory health care may present some problems regarding the right to refuse medical treatment when prostitutes
are forced to undergo medical examinations. 492
Lastly, the legalization of prostitution through a system of licensing and registration stigmatizes prostitutes as a
group of women in need of regulation and control. 493 Although prostitutes are no longer stigmatized
as criminals, under a system of criminalization, they are stigmatized as "bad girls., 49 4 The system of legalization
perpetuates the ideology of the whore/ madonna dichotomy by emphasizing that whores are the
source of diseases and licensing is the only way to control their behavior. 495 Alternatively, the
madonna is the pure, good girl, who unlike the "other" woman, does not have to be controlled by
strict regulations. Arguably, there is a fine line between the whore/madonna which can easily be crossed by not only selling
sex, but by giving it away improperly through adultery or promiscuity.496 This forced stigmatization may cause
some prostitutes to work illegally, for fear that registration and licensing may make their identity known.497 Under this
scheme of control, the prostitute is not granted the same rights of privacy afforded to the clients who enter the brothels.498 Clients
who seek the service of a, brothel prostitute do not face registration or risk friends and family finding out about their activities
without their knowledge. 499 Had clients been forced to register. before visiting a brothel, one is left to wonder, how many, if any,
would continue to frequent brothels under such strict conditions?
At first glance, the system of legalization appears to be the best model of control, for allowing women the freedom to practice
prostitution if they choose. However, a closer examination shows that legalization does not promote freedom or choice in
prostitution, but rather eliminates all freedom associated with the choice of prostitution. In some ways, the legalized system
of control is more exploitative and criminal than the criminalized model of prostitution
control. Under legalization, women are not given any options. Either they work within the strict regulations
that dictate their behavior and activities, or work outside of the law and risk potential violence
and arrest. Although brothel prostitutes may make a decent living, they enjoy less freedom than the average worker at a fast-food
restaurant.5 °° In some ways, the worker at a fast-food establishment may actually fare better than the brothel prostitute because
that worker is not subjected to mandatory weekly and monthly health examinations, and is free to walk and travel where she
pleases.5 'O More importantly, if she loses her job or is unable to work, unemployment, disability insurance, and other social
benefits are available for her protection. The system of legalization is a form of modern day slavery-
created, operated, and condoned by the government, in order to control women's sexuality.502 In
essence, the legalized prostitute is the most exploited worker under a system of capitalism. She is forced to
work for the "master," with no questions asked. This legalized system of imprisonment is carefully structured
so the prostitute does all the work and receives none of the benefits. The system of legalization forces us to
question who truly benefits from the laws of legalization?
CASE
Magnitude and precautionary approach to risk key
Mark Jablonowski 10, Lecturer in Economics at the University of Hartford, “Implications of
Fuzziness for the Practical Management of High-Stakes Risks,” International Journal of
Computational Intelligence Systems, Vol.3, No. 1 (April, 2010), 1-7,
“Danger” is an inherently fuzzy concept. Considerable knowledge imperfections surround
both the probability of high-stakes exposures, and the assessment of their acceptability. This is due to the
complex and dynamic nature of risk in the modern world. ¶ Fuzzy thresholds for danger are most
effectively established based on natural risk standards. This means that risk levels are acceptable
only to the degree they blend with natural background levels. This concept reflects an evolutionary process
that has supported life on this planet for thousands of years. By adhering to these levels, we can help assure ourselves of thousands
more. While the level of such risks is yet to be determined, observation suggest that the degree of
human-made risk we routinely subject ourselves to is several orders of magnitude
higher. ¶
Due to the fuzzy nature of risk, we can not rely on statistical techniques. The fundamental
problem with catastrophe remains, in the long run, there may be no long run. That is, we
can not rely on results “averaging out” over time. With such risks, only precautionary
avoidance (based on the minimax’ing of the largest possible loss) makes sense. Combined
with reasonable natural thresholds, this view allows a very workable approach to achieving safe progress.
Legalization substantially expands the illegal market
Mackinnon, 11 – Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School (Catharine, “Trafficking,
Prostitution, and Inequality” 46 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 271)
By contrast, although it may seem counterintuitive, experience shows that when prostitution is legalized,
trafficking goes through the roof.113 This has been documented in the Netherlands, Germany,
Victoria in Australia, and elsewhere.114 As a business decision, it makes sense to traffic women and
children where business is legal because once you get them there, the risks to sellers are minimal
even if trafficking is formally a crime, and the profits to be made from operating in the open are
astronomical. Illegal prostitution more generally explodes under legalization.115 If
authorities pursue harm reduction, legal brothels require condom and other restrictions; many
johns (perhaps most, research is showing) do not want to use them,116 and they are there to do what they want. This raises
the price on sex without condoms, a potentially lethal demand satisfied by the illegal
industry, often populated largely by illegal immigrants, that springs up all around the legal ones.117 When
men’s belts and shoelaces and ties and cigarette lighters have to be confiscated at the door, when lamps and
phones can’t have cords, johns who want to use those for sex—and they do—go elsewhere. The upshot is, far
from making life safer, across-the-board decriminalization can make it even more
dangerous, and certainly no less so, for those women who have the fewest options to begin with. The German
government has concluded that legalizing the sex industry has failed to deliver any of the
promised tangible benefits to prostituted people:
The Prostitution Act has . . . up until now . . . not been able to make actual, measurable improvements
to prostitutes’ social protection. As regards improving [their] working conditions, hardly any measurable, positive impact
has been observed in practice . . . . The Prostitution Act has not recognisably improved the prostitutes’ means for leaving
prostitution. There are as yet no viable indications that [it] has reduced crime [or] contributed . . . transparency in the world of
prostitution . . . .118
In other words, legalization is a failed experiment.119 What even pimps sometimes acknowledge about prostituted sex
is exactly what is denied by those defenders of legalization who maintain that the harm of prostitution can be eliminated bit by bit
while the industry itself remains. One Dutch pimp at an indoor brothel complained about an ordinance that required brothels have
pillows in the rooms: “It’s a murder weapon.”120 So now, what about the sheets?
Most women in prostitution do not want to think that this is all their lives are ever going to be. To become legal requires disclosure
of a real name, registration, going to a hospital to get cleaned up, which in turn relies on and creates records. This in turn means
deciding that prostitution will be part of your official life story. Most prostituted women, even if they have to do this now, have
dreams.121 So also for this reason they resort to the illegal prostitution that flourishes under legalized schemes, receiving few of its
purported benefits. As the illegal market explodes, the governmental apparatus to address it erodes
because the industry is decriminalized, no one sees any harm in it, and the illegal market
intersects and overlaps the legal market. Only the stigma stays the same.122 Except for not being
arrested—in general, a real improvement, although brief jail time can, some say, be a respite from the pimps and the street123—the
promised benefits of wholesale decriminalization do not come to pass.124 And meantime the legal system tells
society what the sexually abused child is told: for some women, there is nothing wrong with
being treated this way. This is how the world, for you, is. To her, it says this is what you deserve.
This is who you are. This, for you, is the best it is ever going to be.
In light of this investigation, the moral distinctions that
organize the debate on prostitution, examined in
as ideological, functioning to make more socially tolerable an industry of
viciousness and naked exploitation. Most adult women in prostitution are first prostituted as girls and are just never
light of reality, emerge
able to escape. As they age out, they retain the adult vulnerabilities of class, sex, and often race. Traffickers are incentivized to grab
girls when they are most desirable to the market; then, with each day that passes, their exploitation is more blamed on them. When
prostituted women are used indoors, they are industrially accessible to pimps and johns and invisible to everyone else. Legal and
illegal regimes inflict the same harms and pathologies on prostituted people, many of which get
worse with across-the-board legality. The forms of force that impel entrance into the sex industry, that are endemically
visited upon those used in it, and that operate to keep them captive produce a circumstance that, once revealed, it is difficult to
believe a free person with real options would voluntarily elect. Perhaps the deepest injury of prostitution, with material basis in the
converging inequalities of which its unequal concrete harms are irrefutable evidence, is that there is no dignity in it.125
Attributing agency here as if it means freedom, ignoring the unequal and violent material
conditions of the life, can be a desperate grab toward lost dignity, as well as a cooptation of the humanity
that the exploited never lose.
Prostitution is intrinsically sexual violence and slavery that causes systematic
social death
Molisa, 13 - PhD student School of Accounting and Commercial Law Victoria University of Wellington (Pala, “ACCOUNTING
FOR PORNOGRAPHY, PROSTITUTION
AND PATRIARCHY”, http://www.apira2013.org/proceedings/pdfs/K251.pdf)
Reports like these point to the close connections between prostitution and male sexual violence. Radical feminism, however, doesn’t
stop there. One of the important arguments to come out radical feminism is that prostitution is itself a form of sexual
violence. That is, as Sheila Jeffreys explains, “Instead of just pointing out that very large percentages of prostituted women were
being seasoned by being sexually abused in childhood, that prostituted women suffer from johns a great amount of rape and
violence, including death, that is not paid for, some feminists are asserting that prostitution constitutes sexual violence against
women in and of itself” (Jeffreys, 1997/2008, p. 259). This is a very important departure form much of the work on prostitution
which highlights male violence related to prostitution but which does not depict prostitution itself as a form of male sexual violence
against women. This is a line that Cecilie Hoigard and Liv Finstad took when they concluded from their research that prostitution
constituted a “gross form of violence” (Hoigard and Finstad, 1992, p. 259): “The impoverishment and destruction of
women’s emotional lives makes it reasonable, in our eyes, to say that customers practice gross
violence against prostitutes.” Evelina Giobbe is one of the radical feminist thinkers who has most effectively argued this
line. She considers prostitution to resemble most closely marital rape. She considers prostitution to resemble marriage more closely
than employment because unlike the labour contract, traditional marriage and prostitution are both predicated on ownership and
unconditional access to a woman’s body; access to women’s bodies in the workplace, by contrast, are protected by sexual harassment
laws (Giobbe, 1991, p. 143). Giobbe defines traditional marriage as long-term private ownership by an individual man, and
prostitution as short-term public ownership of women by many men. Prostitution is a “rental” form of exploitation and abuse rather
than ownership (ibid., p. 144). Giobbe argues that, in prostitution, “crimes against women and children become a commercial
enterprise.” These crimes include child sexual abuse when a man uses a prostituted juvenile, battery when a woman is used in
sadomasochistic sex scenes, and sexual harassment and rape “[w]hen a john compels a woman to submit to his sexual demands as a
condition of ‘employment’”. Giobbe argues that the exchange of money doesn’t change the violence of the acts
into something else; it’s still male violence and sexual violence: “The fact that a john gives
money to a woman or a child for submitting to these acts does not alter the fact that he is
committing child sexual abuse, rape, and battery; it merely redefines these crimes as
prostitution” (ibid., p. 146). Prostitution, Giobbe argues, is “sexual abuse because prostitutes are subjected to any number of
sexual acts that in any other context, acted against any other woman, would be labelled assaultive or, at the very least, unwanted and
coerced” (ibid., p. 159). Kathleen Barry, whose work is central to the feminist struggle against prostitution, follows the same line in
seeing prostitution as a form of male sexual violence. She identifies the sex that men buy in prostitution as “the same sex that is
disembodied, enacted on the bodies of women who, for the men, do not exist as human beings, and the men are always in control”
(Barry, 1995, p. 36). Sheila Jeffreys has identified several forms of sexual violence that are involved in the male sexual behaviour of
using women in prostitution (Jeffreys, 1997/2008, pp. 261-268). These include what she calls “unwanted sexual intercourse,” and
sexual harassment. Unwanted sexual intercourse is those experiences of sexual intercourse in which a woman complies with a man’s
demands without being willing, but also without acknowledging to herself a lack of consent. This experience correlates quite well
with prostitution in which women have their bodies used in ways they cannot refuse since their livelihoods depend on it (ibid., p.
261). Feminist work on wife rape shows that not only are 14% of women have been raped by husbands and partners, but they women
also endure a vast amount of unwanted sex (Russell, 1990). Russell reveals that on top of this high rate of rape, there is also a
widespread submission to sexual intercourse which doesn’t fall into her category of rape, and would probably be seen as consensual
in most jurisdictions, and probably by most men and women involved (see also, Hite, 1981; Gavey, 1993; Jeffreys, 1993). The
unwanted sexual intercourse of prostitution is only different from that which takes place in
relationships because many different men are involved. Because of this, it may cause a different
level of distress and require more effective methods of dissociation (Jeffreys, 1997/2008, p. 263). This
evidence points to the fact that prostitution is a form of male sexual violence against women, consistent in its effects upon the
abused women with other forms of violence, particularly child sexual abuse (Jeffreys, 1997/2008, p. 6).
Prostitution requires a supply of women who are prostituted. Given the violence and sexual violence associated
with it, the sexual violence that constitutes, the stigma attached to it, and the degradation of
women that it entails, trafficking has historically been, and continues to be, the key means for
supplying prostitution abusers or johns vulnerable women and children to exploit and abuse.
Trafficking is a form of slavery, and sexual trafficking a form of sexual slavery that lies at the
basis of prostitution and its expansion worldwide (Barry, 1979, 1995; Jeffreys, 1997/2008, 2009). The
interconnections between prostitution and slavery do not stop there. Sheila Jeffreys, in The Idea of Prostitution, draws many
parallels between prostitution and slavery (Jeffreys, 1997/2008). She argues that although many feminist theorists would agree that
contemporary forms of prostitution do not constitute slavery, there are nonetheless significant ways in which it can be seen to
resemble the elements of slavery. Drawing on Orlando Patterson’s Slavery and Social Death (Patterson, 1982), she argue that while
prostitution does not usually conform with the extreme power and powerlessness of the master-slave relationship (although I would
also add that some forms of prostitution, particularly those in which trafficked women are involved, certainly do), even the so-
called “free” prostituted women in Western countries do seem to replicate the conditions of
slave life (Jeffreys, 1997/2008, p. 177). These conditions include: being socially isolated from wider
society – suffering a “social death” – in ways that are unprecedented compared to other forms of
work; being renamed by pimps before being “turned out” into prostitution; and being structured by a social
relationship which, like the master-slave relation, served the purpose of enhancing the status of
the owner, rather than being about the work that the enslaved or subordinated person could do
and other obvious material benefits (ibid., pp. 176, 177, 178). The function of prostitution is to establish the power of
the john, and it is this that distinguishes it from many other forms of work. In fact, as Pateman (1988) argues, this is the very essence
of prostitution. Through their use of prostituted women, men establish their difference from and their superiority to women and this
is what constitutes the excitement that prostitution holds for males when they think about and look forward to using prostituted
women (Jeffreys, 1997/2008, p. 179).
The effects of prostitution are profoundly damaging. The effects of prostitution on prostituted
women are comparable to the effects upon women of sexual violence such as rape, incest, sexual
harassment and marital rape (Jeffreys, 1997/2008, p. 268). Feminist psychologists like Judith Herman have applied the
concept of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSM), which is accepted by malestream psychologists as resulting from other forms of
torture and imprisonment, to incest and domestic violence (Herman, 1994). And Dee Graham uses the idea of
“societal Stockholm syndrome,” a concept develop analysing the phenomenon of hostages
bonding with their captors, to describe the situation of all women who live with the fear and
threat of what she calls “sexual terrorism” (Graham, 1994). Giobbe has argued that prostitution resembles rape in terms of
the shocking similarity of its effects, as revealed in the WHISPER Oral History Project. These effects include: feelings of humiliation,
degradation, defilement, and dirtiness; establishing intimate relationships with men; experiencing hatred and disdain toward men;
negative effects on their sexuality; flashbacks and nightmares; lingering fears; and deep emotional pain similar to grieving (Giobbe,
1991). Another effect she identified was suicide, reporting that figures from public hospitals show that 15% of all
suicide victims are prostitutes and one survey of call girls revealed that 75% had attempted
suicide. The prostituted women in Giobbe’s study blamed themselves for the damage they suffered, similar to the way battered
wives routinely blame themselves. Giobbe argues that they only parallel to this trauma is that found in victims of serious sexual
abuse, rape and battery (Giobbe, 1991). One of the ways in which feminists are currently seeking to demonstrate that men’s use of
women constitutes sexual violence is identifying the damage done from long-term prostitution abuse as post-traumatic stress
disorder (Jeffreys, 1997/2008, p. 269). Farley and Hotaling (1995) is one such study. Their objective was to provide evidence for the
harm intrinsic to prostitution, and they consider that prostituted women, like victims of hostage situations and torture, suffer
multiple stressors that cause PTSM. Of the 130 prostituted women that they interviewed, 57% had been sexually abused in
childhood, and 41% met the criteria for diagnosis of PTSD. This compares with an incidence of PTSD of 45% to 84% among battered
women in shelters, to 15% among Vietnam veterans. Hoigard and Finstad are able to describe the damage done to prostituted
women in considerable detail because of in-depth interviews with women over a number of years. In terms of effects, they report:
destruction of sex lives, sometimes because it simply became boring; losing the ability to orgasm; becoming hard and cold; selfhatred toward their bodies; and the inability to feel anything.
This doesn’t sound like an “empowering” “profession” that women “freely “choose.” It doesn’t even
sound like “just a job,” “a job like any other.” It sounds instead like an intrinsically abusive practice that is
“woman-hating” in its values, damaging to prostituted persons in its effects, and oppressive to
the core.
Legalization is state-sanctioned gender violence that affirms patriarchy and the
subjugation of all women
Molisa, 13 - PhD student School of Accounting and Commercial Law Victoria University of Wellington (Pala, “ACCOUNTING
FOR PORNOGRAPHY, PROSTITUTION
AND PATRIARCHY”, http://www.apira2013.org/proceedings/pdfs/K251.pdf)
The industrialization and expansion of the global sexual-exploitation industry cannot have
developed, and cannot be sustained, without the active participation of the state. While trafficking in
women and girls were becoming an increasing concern among international bodies and NGOs, some states from the 1990s
onwards were busy legalization and decriminalizing their prostitution industries. Australia too this
path in the 1990s; the Netherlands, Germany and New Zealand followed in the 21st century. States facilitate the development of
national and international sex industries in various ways. The Japanese state, for instance, acted as pimp for both its own military
and for the occupying US forces after World War II (Tanaka, 2002); the Irish, Japanese, and Canadians governments have, until
recently, had special visa categories for ‘entertainers’ which enabled trafficking in women for strip clubs and prostitution (Jeffreys,
2009, p. 173; Macklin, 2003); and states in South East Asia, such as the Philippines have special training programmes for
‘entertainers,’ although none of these states have officially legalized prostitution. States that have legalized and decriminalized
prostitution are actively creating the conditions for the rapid expansion and development of prostitution industries.
States that legalize prostitution overlook its obviously gendered nature, the fact that it is
overwhelmingly women who are prostituted for men. Legalizing states argue that they are acting in the interests
of prostituted women since those who pass through the legal sector will not be so vulnerable to severe violence, but they overlook the
fact that legalized systems affect the status of all women, not just those who are prostituted,
in negative ways (Jeffreys, 2009, p. 177). It is telling that there is no literature arguing that prostitution benefits women as a group.
And, as Sheila Jeffreys has pointed out, there is a good deal of evidence that the opposite is the case (ibid.). The harms that
prostituted women suffer in prostitution both in terms of physical violence and its psychological
effects under legalized prostitution point to it being a form of male violence against women
(Jeffreys, 1997/2008, 2009). Other social and political harms include harms to good governance, such
as the encouragement of organized crime, the undermining of local democracy, harm to the
status of all women, and harm to neighbourhoods (Jeffreys, 2009, p. 188). States purport to serve “the
public interest” but insofar as they facilitate and legalize prostitution, they are acting in the
interests of power, and they are dealing in the degradation of women.
The state’s role as pimp in facilitating the development of the prostitution industry involves different processes that accounting
could be playing a role within: state prostitution policy formulation, select committee submissions, parliamentary hearings, policy
implementation, and monitoring and review activities; financial and economic analysis of the size, worth and growth of the sector
that could be used to justify or challenge the legitimacy of the industry, amongst others.
The global sexual-exploitation industry is an area in dire need of being researched, and the previous section has sought to identify
some of the key areas in which accounting practice is playing a role within it that need to be researched. I am not interested,
however, in simply discussing new research opportunities. The women and children and the men who are being
killed, harmed and exploited within it and by it do not need “new” research; what they need is
for sexual exploitation to end. They need pornographers, prostitutors and pimps to get off them, for the global sexualexploitation industry to be rolled back, for prostitution to be made illegal, and ultimately for it to be
abolished. What they need, in other words, is not research that simply describes the global sex industry, leaving all its
inequalities and oppressions in place through their mystification, naturalization and universalization; what they need is research
that can actually help in changing the world by demystifying the global sex industry, by making its harms and inequalities visible,
and that can be put in the service of social movements aimed at bringing prostitution to an end. What would accounting research
look like if it were of this kind? To explore this question, we need to consider the theoretical underpinnings of accounting research
and its political basis – its relationship to the wider world of material practice and what this (political) practice might look like.
The impact is widespread victimization and global gender violence
Farley, 13 - Melissa Farley is a research and clinical psychologist at Prostitution Research & Education, a San Francisco nonprofit organization (“Prostitution, Liberalism, and Slavery” Logos: A Journal of Modern Society & Culture,
http://logosjournal.com/2013/farley/)
Former Swedish Minister of Gender Equality Margareta Winberg noted that in prostitution, certain women and children, often those
who are most economically and ethnically marginalized, are treated as a caste of people whose purpose is to sexually service men.
Sardonically noting the refusal to recognize prostitution as sexual violence, Andrea Dworkin said, “Hurting women is bad. Feminists
are against it, not for it.” Yet liberals, including people who describe themselves as liberal feminists, have avoided acknowledging
that prostitution hurts women. In their acceptance of the institution of prostitution, they have condoned harm against those most
vulnerable. Far from liberating women from restrictive social roles, prostitution locks them into
sexist and racist role playing that is often slavery and always a slavery-like practice. Liberals agree about the
oppression of race, class, and religious fundamentalism. But liberal men have assumed that their entitlement to sexual access should
be more protected than women’s right to survive without prostitution.
In rape cultures, the sexual terrorism of rape and prostitution are downplayed, underestimated, or
denied. A prostituted woman explained, “What rape is to others, is normal to us.” Prostitution is a cornerstone of
rape culture. Rape cultures normalize the objectification and commodification of women as sex
and blame victims for their own victimization. The global finding that women aged 15-44
are more likely to be injured or killed by male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic
accidents and war combined – only makes sense when understood as a result of cultural
acceptance of sexual violence. Prostitution is a commodified form of violence against women, a
last-ditch survival option rather than a job choice. The lies that prostitution is a victimless crime, that she chose it, or even that
prostitution isn’t really happening at all –enable people to avoid the discomfort of knowing about the brutal realities of prostitution.
And sex businesses rely on social, political and legal denial of denying the harms of prostitution.
In prostitution, johns and pimps transform certain women and girls into objects for sexual use. Many research studies provide
evidence for the harms caused by this process. The emotional consequences of prostitution are the same in widely varying cultures
whether it’s high or low class, legal or illegal, in a brothel, a strip club, a massage parlor, or the street. There is overwhelming
psychological damage from sucking ten strangers’ penises a day, from getting raped weekly, and from getting battered if you don’t do
whatever pimps or johns want. While sweatshops are exploitive and vicious, they don’t involve invasion
of all your body’s orifices on a daily basis for years or having to smile and say “I love it” when a foul-smelling man
your grandfather’s age comes on your face. Symptoms of emotional distress resulting from prostitution are off the charts:
depression, suicidality, post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociation, substance abuse, eating disorders.
Two-thirds of women, men and the transgendered in prostitution in a 9 country study met
diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This level of extreme emotional
distress is the same as that suffered by the most emotionally traumatized people ever studied by
psychologists – battered women, raped women, combat veterans, and torture survivors.
Survivors tell us about the psychological devastation caused by strip club prostitution. A woman who worked as a lap dancer at a
strip club said,
“I can no longer tolerate the touch of a man, any man. A man’s touch has come to represent labor and degradation, and a sad, sick
feeling of desperation and despair. Every sort of hateful, spiteful, rude, venomous remark, I have endured. Vile anger, vomited from
the crude, the resentful, the desperate and desolate, has been heaped upon me until I have choked on it. I have come away with, not
hate, but worse, a numb disinterest.” (Jordan, 2004)
Nuke war first and it turns structural violence
Seeley, ‘86 – central committee for conscientious objectors (Robert, “The Handbook of NonViolence”, p. 269-70)
In moral reasoning prediction of consequences is nearly always impossible. One balances the risks of an action against its benefits;
one also considers what known damage the action would do. Thus a surgeon in deciding whether to perform an operation weighs the
known effects (the loss of some nerve function, for example) and risks (death) against the benefits, and weighs also the risks and
benefits of not performing surgery. Morally, however, human extinction is unlike any other risk. No conceivable human
good could be worth the extinction of the race, for in order to be a human good it must be
experienced by human beings. Thus extinction is one result we dare not-may not-risk. Though not
conclusively established, the risk of extinction is real enough to make nuclear war utterly impermissible
under any sane moral code.
They’re wrong about predictions and voting for them makes it worse
Fitzsimmons, 7 – Ph.D. in international security policy from the University of Maryland,
Adjunct Professor of Public Policy, analyst in the Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division at the
Institute for Defense Analyses (Michael, “The Problem of Uncertainty in Strategic Planning”,
Survival, Winter 06/07)
In defence of prediction Uncertainty is not a new phenomenon for strategists. Clausewitz knew that ‘many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and
most are uncertain’. In coping with uncertainty, he believed that ‘what one can reasonably ask of an officer is that he should possess a standard of judgment, which he can gain
only from knowledge of men and affairs and from common sense. He should be guided by the laws of probability.’34 Granted, one can certainly allow for epistemological debates
about the best ways of gaining ‘a standard of judgment’ from ‘knowledge of men and affairs and from common sense’. Scientific inquiry into the ‘laws of probability’ for any given
strate- gic question may not always be possible or appropriate. Certainly, analysis cannot and should not be presumed to trump the intuition of decision-makers. Nevertheless,
the burden of proof in any debates about planning should belong to the
decision-maker who rejects formal analysis, standards of evidence and probabilistic reasoning.
Ultimately, though, the value of prediction in strategic planning does not rest primarily in getting the
correct answer, or even in the more feasible objective of bounding the range of correct answers. Rather, prediction requires decisionmakers to expose, not only to others but to themselves, the beliefs they hold regarding why a
given event is likely or unlikely and why it would be important or unimportant. Richard Neustadt and Ernest
Clausewitz’s implication seems to be that
May highlight this useful property of probabilistic reasoning in their renowned study of the use of history in decision-making, Thinking in Time. In discussing the importance of
probing presumptions, they contend: The need is for tests prompting questions, for sharp, straightforward mechanisms the decision makers and their aides might readily recall
and use to dig into their own and each others’ presumptions. And they need tests that get at basics somewhat by indirection, not by frontal inquiry: not ‘what is your inferred
causation, General?’ Above all, not, ‘what are your values, Mr. Secretary?’ ... If someone says ‘a fair chance’ ... ask, ‘if you were a betting man or woman, what odds would you put
on that?’ If others are present, ask the same of each, and of yourself, too. Then probe the differences: why? This is tantamount to seeking and then arguing assumptions
underlying different numbers placed on a subjective probability assessment. We know of no better way to force clarification of meanings while exposing hidden differences ...
Once differing odds have been quoted, the question ‘why?’ can follow any number of tracks. Argument may pit common sense against common sense or analogy against analogy.
What is important is that the expert’s basis for linking ‘if’ with ‘then’ gets exposed to the hearing of other experts before the lay official has to say yes or no.’35 There are at least
prediction enforces a certain
level of discipline in making explicit the assumptions, key variables and implied causal
relationships that constitute decision-makers’ beliefs and that might otherwise remain
implicit. Imagine, for example, if Shinseki and Wolfowitz had been made to assign probabilities to
their opposing expectations regarding post-war Iraq.
three critical and related benefits of prediction in strate- gic planning. The first reflects Neustadt and May’s point –
Not only would they have had to work harder to justify their views, they might have seen more
clearly the substantial chance that they were wrong and had to make greater efforts in their
planning to prepare for that contingency. Secondly, the very process of making the relevant
factors of a decision explicit provides a firm, or at least transparent, basis for making choices. Alternative courses of
action can be compared and assessed in like terms. Third, the transparency and discipline of the process of arriving at
the initial strategy should heighten the decision-maker’s sensitivity toward changes in the
environment that would suggest the need for adjustments to that strategy. In this way, prediction
enhances rather than under-mines strategic flexibility. This defence of prediction does not imply that great stakes should be
gambled on narrow, singular predictions of the future. On the contrary, the central problem of uncertainty in plan- ning remains that any given prediction may simply be wrong.
Preparations for those eventualities must be made. Indeed, in many cases, relatively unlikely outcomes could be enormously consequential, and therefore merit extensive
While the
complexity of the international security environment may make it somewhat resistant to the
type of probabilistic thinking associated with risk, a risk-oriented approach seems to be the only
viable model for national-security strategic planning. The alternative approach, which
categorically denies prediction, precludes strategy. As Betts argues, Any assumption that some knowledge, whether intuitive or
preparation and investment. In order to navigate this complexity, strategists must return to the dis- tinction between uncertainty and risk.
explicitly formalized, provides guidance about what should be done is a presumption that there is reason to believe the choice will produce a satisfactory outcome – that is, it is a
prediction, however rough it may be. If there is no hope of discerning and manipulating causes to produce intended effects, analysts as well as politicians and generals should all
quit and go fishing.36 Unless they are willing to quit and go fishing, then, strategists must sharpen their tools of risk assessment. Risk assessment comes in many varieties, but
identification of two key parameters is common to all of them: the consequences of a harmful event or condition; and the likelihood of that harmful event or condition occurring.
With no perspective on likelihood, a strategist can have no firm perspective on risk. With no firm perspective on risk, strategists cannot purposefully discriminate among
alternative choices. Without purposeful choice, there is no strategy. One of the most widely read books in recent years on the complicated relation- ship between strategy and
uncertainty is Peter Schwartz’s work on scenario-based planning, The Art of the Long View. Schwartz warns against the hazards faced by leaders who have deterministic habits
of mind, or who deny the difficult implications of uncertainty for strategic planning. To overcome such tenden- cies, he advocates the use of alternative future scenarios for the
purposes of examining alternative strategies. His view of scenarios is that their goal is not to predict the future, but to sensitise leaders to the highly contingent nature of their
decision-making.37 This philosophy has taken root in the strategic-planning processes in the Pentagon and other parts of the US government, and properly so. Examination of
alternative futures and the potential effects of surprise on current plans is essential. Appreciation of uncertainty also has a number of organisational impli- cations, many of
which the national-security establishment is trying to take to heart, such as encouraging multidisciplinary study and training, enhancing information sharing, rewarding
innovation, and placing a premium on speed and versatility. The arguments advanced here seek to take nothing away from these imperatives of planning and operating in an
Questioning assumptions is critical, but
assumptions must be made in the end. Clausewitz’s ‘standard of judgment’ for discriminating among alternatives must be applied. Creative,
unbounded speculation must resolve to choice or else there will be no strategy. Recent history suggests that unchecked scepticism regarding
the validity of prediction can marginalise analysis, trade significant cost for ambig- uous benefit, empower parochial
interests in decision-making, and undermine flexibility. Accordingly, having fully recognised the need to broaden their strategicuncertain environment. But appreciation of uncertainty carries hazards of its own.
planning aperture, national-security policymakers would do well now to reinvigorate their efforts in the messy but indispensable business of predicting the future.