Official 2020 US Election: Democratic Party Discussion

[Jumpin]

the-pi-guy said:

Jaicee said:

Well..."absolute faith" is a strong term. I don't actually consider myself to necessarily be an ideological progressive, I just agree with the left the most on economics. I trust female progressives more than other candidates when it comes to the combination of economic and social issues, but that doesn't mean I actually have great faith in any particular kind of politician when it comes to women's issues. I think the left is often characterized, in part, by varying levels of left wing misogyny.

If right wing misogyny refers to a belief that women should be the private property of individual men (i.e. patriarchy) then left wing misogyny refers to the belief that women should instead be the public property of all men. For example, since 2018, the official platform of Women's March, Inc. has included a plank advocating the legalization of prostitution. A classic example of what their advocacy around that looks like was seen last year when they protested the closing of Backpage.com, the internet's leading facilitator of child sex trafficking at the time, disingenuously claiming that "The shutting of Backpage is an absolute crisis for sex workers..." Jacobin magazine, the official publication of the Democratic Socialists of America, feels much the same way about prostitution. I just highlight the intersectional left's enthusiasm for prostitution here as a particularly clear example of what I mean.

In this country, unfortunately we don't seem to recognize the existence of left wing misogyny and it's a major cultural blind spot. So to say that I have absolute faith in progressives in the area of women's interests is a stretch. I'm not a big fan of the sex industry, the beauty industry, gender identity, any of that sort of thing any more than I am the prohibition of abortion or intolerance for lesbians. Just for clarity!

>belief that women should instead be the public property of all men

You don't think it's a stretch to call "legalizing prostitution = public property of all men"?  

The latter to me implies that women would be forced to become prostitutes, the former is about giving women (and men) the agency to do what they want with their bodies.  

People could have the agency to choose, and having it be legal means that we can make protections for people.  It would mean there are legal avenues for prostitution, which takes away from the black market and all the issues that go along with it.  

The issue is prostitution as an avenue to get forced down for survival. This goes for all forms of exploitative industries (not just sex related) that become options for people to get forced into for survival.

Prostitution should be legal, but it should never be something that is expected of women who have no other means of supporting themselves. Rather it should be open for women who genuinely want to pursue this path because they want to, and they have dreams/plans of making it work out well for them.

A couple of very obvious options:

1. Licenses/regulations.

2. Provide living benefits and public employment opportunities to women who are unskilled enough for the private industry professions.

These are the options that some countries have pursued. Women in regulated countries have the absolute authority to turn anyone down they don’t wish to service. It is not public ownership of their bodies.

Interesting fact: the Netherlands has less than half the number of prostitutes per capita as the United States. I don’t think the largely Puritanical girls in the US like sex more than all those naughty Dutch girls =)

Joking aside, it is evidence the US is not doing things correctly. It is likely that many in the US’s current system are forced into sex from economic stresses.

Last edited by Jumpin - on 06 July 2019