How does MeToo mesh with the legalise prostitution movement?

[Karha of Honor]

Natural allies?

MeToo would end prostitution if it could?

How does a hashtag that thinks the Aziz Ansary nontroversy needed to be talked about endlessly handle the fact that not all paid sex is straight out of a Bollywood romance?

[Darth Wedgius]

I suspect #metoo will be at odds with legalization of prostitution.

AFAIK feminism in general has always been of (at least) two minds about prostitution.
(1) Female prostitutes are victims whether they know it or not.
- or -
(2) What a woman does with her own body is her business and if she wants to have sex for pay, that's her business too, and it should be legalized.

In the age of "no means no," I think that seeing prostitutes as victims wasn't uncommon, but seeing prostitution as a form of rape was. Now that #metoo has changed some people's standards to "yes means yes" or even "only constant, enthusiastic yes means yes" then I think more people will be inclined to think that a prostitute's "yes" isn't a real yes -- after all, she is being paid for it, so she can't be just wanting sex for the sake of having sex. Even if she is the one suggesting the deal in the first place.

I'm not saying whether I think of those differing standards, only what I think I see happening around me.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Ashley Judd was in the news recently and rails against commodification of a woman's body, especially by men (pimps and brothel runners). That can start to undermine a woman's own autonomy in the matter, but she reaffirmed that she respects the autonomy, but just wants to drown out the toxic elements. She's all for penalizing men as customers but not women as workers. Such policies are coined as Scandinavian as they have gone that route with prostitution.

I don't think MeToo really has much to do with legalized prostitution movements, but Ashley Judd is big in both. I'm not sure there's going to be a big consistency throughout metoo on it, though protecting women will obviously be the principal concern.

[CharlesPhipps]

Natural allies?

MeToo would end prostitution if it could?

How does a hashtag that thinks the Aziz Ansary nontroversy needed to be talked about endlessly handle the fact that not all paid sex is straight out of a Bollywood romance?

Generally speaking, a lot of women in the pro-sex worker branch of feminism have the belief that women should be able to profit from their bodies however they wish but they should have final control over who does that.

Plenty of women for example are fine sleeping with men for money or doing porn or stripping but don't want to be pressured, blackmailed, or controlled into sex about it.

[Worffan101]

Depends entirely on who's talking, because #metoo is now a big broad-spectrum thing, and people will use that for cheap social justice points whenever they can, as shown by Alex Kurtzman talking about how he thinks an episode of Star Trek where a man rides off into the sunset with his psychopathic rapist is "our big #metoo moment!". Plus, the ORIGINAL point was just saying, "yes, I, Famous Person, have been harassed, groped, or assaulted sexually by some douchebag". Which...is like 99% of all women, they all qualify for that. Plus a good...30% of men, maybe? Depends on how you define harassment. I know some guys who've felt unclean after being groped by a woman in a club.

People of all stripes can be harassed or worse, you don't have to be a decent person to be a victim, as that one woman who first accused Harvey Weinstein of being scum showed when she went full transphobe and alienated the previously-sympathetic and supportive LGBT community. She's a bit of a judgemental prick, doesn't mean that she's less victimized by Weinstein.

so basically...meh. Some of the people who have been victimized are A-OK with sex workers and think they need more protections. Others are Andrea Dworkin-style radicals who think that even porn is inherently misogynistic (to which I'm certain that Stormy Daniels, professional porn director and manipulator of dumbass orange Presidents, would roll her eyes if she gave a rat's ass).

[CharlesPhipps]

On the male side of things, Anthony Rapp is a good example of #MeToo as he had the courage to confess his abuse by Kevin Spacey.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

On the male side of things, Anthony Rapp is a good example of #MeToo as he had the courage to confess his abuse by Kevin Spacey.

Yeah, males aren't to be excluded in this movement.

There's this big push to battle collective identities against each other, when it's not really conductive for consideration of the type of problem. Feminism and patriarchy theory will lean towards women being collectively more disenfranchised than men, but that doesn't serve to cater to respective identity.

btw when I say identity I'm saying it in the vein of identity politics, but I'm not sure if that's only a sensible concept on the right.

[clearspira]

A large proportion of modern prostitutes are just women trying to pay their student and medical bills. Maybe start doing something about that before blaming men for women's choices?

[CmdrKing]

From a strictly pragmatic standpoint anyone in the anti-assault movement is hampering themselves if they do not support sex workers and the legalization/decriminalization of prostitution and other forms of sex work. Maintaining those laws creates a class of people who have no legal recourse in event of assault (and creates a legal basis for discrimination against them in other walks of life), as well as creating legal spaces for abusers to falsely place their victims.

At a larger societal level... any anti-porn or anti-obscenity law will invariably target queer people regardless of what they’re actually doing, and from there will expand inexorably to oppress everyone except those who rarely face legal consequence for their conduct.

I’m also of the mind that deconstructing our social skittishness about sex and sexuality is a necessary part of dismantling patriarchy, objectification, and abuse in general, but that’s deep theory stuff that i’m Not as well versed in as I’d like.

[CharlesPhipps]

A large proportion of modern prostitutes are just women trying to pay their student and medical bills. Maybe start doing something about that before blaming men for women's choices?

Generally, the men I blame are the criminals involved in human trafficking and organized crime where the prostitutes are not willing participants. Mind you, there's a lot of controversy about how Germany's legalization of the trade has gone with some saying its done massive good and others saying its embolded the very elements it was meant to eliminate.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-introduce ... a-39511761

http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/proje ... -paradise/