Buenos Aires Needs A Red Light Zone

[Reneige]

I'm shocked at the opinions on this forum regarding the subject. I can't believe this is where general opinion stands in 2014 regarding an industry that has been known about and documented for millennia.

I spent 2 years volunteering for a charity in Canada, one of its mandates involved providing free medical/health services and emergency support for men and women involved in the sex trade. All your opinions are so uninformed and judgmental.

It is logically obvious that the stigma needs to be dealt with and these people need a safe place they can conduct their business with full access to public medical, emergency and police services. Then it will be off the streets, then exploitation will be more difficult, then they can do their job safely.

 

[Jaredberryman]

Dont put words in my mouth, thank you. I object quite strongly to your portayal of me as someone who sees prostitution as a mere bad habit. This is what people do when they dont want to talk facts, they start trying to smear the person they are talking to. I strongly dislike that type of argument and you know where you can stick it.

Talking factually, prohibition is not working anywhere. Sadly, due to human nature prone to addiction, desire and various needs prohibition is not possible. The most progressive result i can think of is to protect the workers, remove the pimps from the equation and move the business under the control of the state. It is not better that these men, women and whatever in between operate hidden by darkness, locked up in small rooms and controlled by criminals, there are not enough cops in south america to kick in every door to prevent this whilst also fighting a growing drug trade, whilst also fighting increasing petty crime, whilst also patrolling highways, whilst also doing the one million other jobs they need to do.

There are of course plenty of success stories with licensed trade, but you know how to use google if you want to see both sides of the argument. I do not see the benefit for the women in not protecting them from pimps by removing them from the equation and i do not see the benefit for the police in committing them to an endless unwinnable fight.

You draw paralells between prostitution and murder, thats a fairly puerile form of argument. One can be controlled and licensed, quite clearly murder cannot be controlled and license.

. I dont see the state as having a role in policing morality, i do see them having a role in improving the life of vulnerable and exposed women, men and whatever else. I would prefer that prostitution did not exist, nor heroin, paco and whatever other addicitve drugs (real addicitve ones that prey in the poor, not just the ones that wealthy people do for kicks) for that matter, but the reality is they do and we should have by now learnt that kicking in doors and other gung ho nonsense has not made a dent in the existence of these evils. Perhaps we should learn, contain and control.

I have listed facts already in this forum. I wasn't trying to offend you, but your direct words in the forum were to refer to prostitution as a vice. That sounded a bit nonchalant, almost as if you think of this issue as if it were a bad habit. But you've clarified here that you do not believe that, so apologies if I offended you. It's not my intention here to offend, but to persuade people that to deal with this issue in the way you are talking about does not work in practicality.

Some facts about prostitution here in Argentina are that the majority of women are sex slaves. If you would like me to use a better example than murder with something that hits closer, I can do that as well. In the United States we had something grossly immoral going with the issue of slavery. Slavery was not criminal and it was also regulated and limited. It was siphoned off to only one part of the country and was not permitted elsewhere. It was legislated and sometimes slaves could even have some benefits or rights under the law.

The kind of argument that you are making, that you can't legislate morality, is the same argument that slave owners would make in the United States. It's not he government's job to legislate morality, etc. etc. However, the reason that slavery should be forbidden is that it is grossly immoral and tramples on the rights of others. If there is an injustice, you do not try to "contain" the injustice and siphon it off and regulate it. You abolish slavery because it is a gross immoral thing and also unjust. It was not easy to eliminate slavery in my country. In fact, a lot of people died over it. But it was an injustice worth fighting for to get rid off, even though there was a cost.

When there is something evil happening, you do not permit it to continue. You stop it in its tracks. Here in Argentina, there is massive sex trafficking going on. You might think that can be regulated, so that prostitution doesn't include unwilling victims. Prostitution cannot be regulated, and there is no place on earth where it truly is. Northern European countries do not actually regulate prostitution, despite what they would have you believe. In fact, most of those countries have a real issue with sex trafficking. The only "supposed" exception is Switzerland, but police authorities will admit that they have no idea what goes on in red light districts due to the fact that when they enter in, everyone closes up shop and/or disappears. So stats from Switzerland have to be taken with a grain of salt, because the police there willingly admit that they do not have all prostitutes registered and don't actually know about what takes place in the red light districts. Prostitution is not something that you can just draw a line around and make sure everyone plays by the rules. Even if you could, regulating prostitution is like regulating slavery. You don't regulate evil injustices.

This line of thinking is supposedly supposed to be progressive and a good solution, or so we are told over and over. I don't buy it.

 

[Jaredberryman]

It's curious. People, sufficiently good looking, sell their appearance and that's OK. People sell their labor and that's OK. People sell their talents and mental abilities and that is OK. People sell their integrity and that's OK - not, in general, illegal, anyway. People give away use of their genitals all of the time and that's OK - these days; it used to be that you were supposed to be married. But, according to many people, it's really bad to sell the use of your genitals.

Do I have this right? You can't tell a woman that she has to have an abortion. You can't tell a woman that she can't have an abortion. You can't tell a woman that she has to have an ultrasound prior to an abortion. But you can tell a woman that she can't exchange sex for cash? But for dinner and a Broadway show that's still OK, right?

I'm sure it's true that little girls do not want to be prostitutes when they grow up. But there are a lot of people in this world who are not doing what they wanted to do as adults when they were children and who are doing really crummy jobs instead. I respect them all.

Bob

Okay, let's say you are a prostitute. Here is what your life will be like: you will get paid one dollar an hour. And you will have to have sex when your boss tells you to. Some fat guy with warts will throw himself on top of you, probably more than once per day. Oh, and you can't quit if you'd like, or you'll be killed. Welcome to prostitution in Argentina. Sound like a good line of work for you?

 

[Joe]

The only effect of criminalizing prostitution in Argentina is that the ladies would have even less money to take home because they would have to pay off the police.

 

[Reneige]

1. Human trafficking should be completely illegal obviously
2. Making the sex trade itself illegal actually puts women/men in the industry at risk.

If Argentina has an issue with human trafficking, that needs to be dealt with as a separate issue. Making prostitution illegal will make no difference, but remove an avenue for which these people can seek help.

Canada's supreme court struck down laws banning brothels etc., which were in effect created to make prostitution illegal. After weighing the facts, the courts decided that the harm it inflicts on sex workers is largely disproportionate to the effect that it has on society : http://world.time.co...stitution-laws/

These are some of societies' most vulnerable people, we should not make them more so.

 

[Jaredberryman]

I would argue that making prostitution illegal actually endangers prostitutes much more because they feel unable to seek help if they need to, and they are forced into keeping their work out of public eye where they are much more likely to be put in danger. I'm pretty sure mountains of evidence support my opinion as well.

I would also argue that consensual sex between adults is never morally reprehensible. I think maybe you should check your judgement. Some people choose to be sex workers, there is nothing wrong with that. What is morally reprehensible is the exploitation of women or men who work in the sex industry. That exploitation is made possible by the stigmatization of their industry and is obviously not prevented by making sex work illegal, otherwise it would have ended decades ago.

So I guess my conclusion can only be that the problem is not sex workers but people like you with bigoted opinions about that industry

I disagree with many of your statements. I'm shocked that you would think that two people who swore to be faithful to each other, and then one cheats on their spouse, even thought that cheating is consensual, is not morally an issue. The other spouse is usually decimated by such an act. I'm unsure how someone could view this as NOT immoral.

The problem is that most sex workers, the grand majority, are either tricked into becoming sex workers, or they are forced into it. Most people in this country have been forced into it (note: this is a statistical fact). I do not buy your argument that the stigmatization is what harms the sex workers. People are the ones who harm sex workers. In certain European countries like Austria, prostitution is legal and "regulated" (as if that were possible), but there is a massive amount of sex trafficking going on, mostly Africans. The problem is that when men begin to view women as sexual objects, abuse almost always occurs. Sex is more than just a physical act, but an emotional act as well. If there is no emotional element, sex can be boring and un-stimulating. This is why porn producers have to add either a plot to their story, or they have to add some sort of humiliation to the woman. When men begin down this path of viewing women as sex objects, in order to continue to receive stimulation, they need to have emotional stimulation. The result is usually the humiliation part. So in prostitution, the end result is that women are almost always abused or humiliated. This is the way it is in most parts of the world. Human beings are not objects, but they have intrinsic value.

You state, "Maybe you should check your judgement". I would like to note that you are making judgments as well. I respect that that is your opinion, and you believe it, I hope that you would respect that other people have an opinion as well. My opinion is also based on facts, logic, and evidence, just as you claim yours is.

 

[Jaredberryman]

Another quirkei to be added to the thread "You Know You're In Argentina When: "

They succeeded doing something remarkable (no woman work the streets .. only in private) ...
.. then turn around do the opposite (traves authorized in el bousque).

Except that is not true at all. Last week I saw tons of women on the streets selling their bodies in Flores.

 

[Joe]

What else is on your agenda? Make abortion illegal? Make gay marriage illegal? Make premarital sex illegal? Throw all the drug addicts in jail? Make homosexual acts illegal? Make sodomy illegal? Make oral sex illegal?

Where does it stop?

Make Argentina in the image of Texas? A gun in every house and the government in every bedroom.

!!! George Bush for President de la Republica !!!

!!! Osama bin Laden for Vice President !!!

!!! Support the Texas Taliban Social Agenda !!!

 

[khairyexpat]

Except that is not true at all. Last week I saw tons of women on the streets selling their bodies in Flores.

I repeat myself.

In 9 years I haven't seen ONE in MicroCentro. NOT O N E. That is what I've seen. Compare that to downTown TO.

Is it really reasonable to say that if there is a chance for abuse, let's just shut the whole system down?
Of coarse someone will misuse and abuse the system, so we take measures against that. But we don't shut down all air traffic cause there is a chance of planes falling off the skies.

Seems your posts associate the word pros********* with Argentina. As if it's an Argei thing. Why is that?

 

[Jaredberryman]

I repeat myself.

In 9 years I haven't seen ONE. NOT O N E. That is what I've seen.

Compare that to downTown TO.

There are never any downtown at night, although once I did see a couple. All the neighborhoods I have listed and other neighborhoods have them there every single night. I went to visit a friend in Flores a couple of months ago and he had 6 on both his street corners, 3 on each street corner (women, not transvestites). On the other two corners of the blocks, there were 3 and 3 as well. If you don't believe me, just go driving around those neighborhoods at night (although I don't recommend that, either).