I favor the Nordic model but I feel it is not enough and there are many variations on it that might work better (or worse). I think a variation that might work better is fines for johns ($200 or so where I am in the US) and increasing the penalties for assault/rape/trafficking that occur during the crime of purchasing or attempting to purchase sex. This would reduce retribution on the victims while still decreasing demand and preventing the independent women from “going undergroundâ€. I think the fine should increase every year until it is hefty enough to completely choke off the demand for sex. My idea is if a john pays women for sex she can turn him in if he doesn’t pay and any retribution (assault etc) would be much more severe which would help to protect her. I think these needs to go hand in hand with other measures. As you pointed out; ex-prostitutes still need money and jobs. Without additional programs this system would just (hopefully) protect prostitutes and would be the same as regulation which is not the goal. I wanted to hear details about what you thought the problems would be, and things like do you favor jail time over fines and why? This way I could refine my opinions and activism.
I think to abolish prostitution we need to act in multiple areas, legal, activism and radicalism.
Legal method includes laws like the Nordic model, adjusted by country. What works in your Brazil may not work as well in the US. Rape/trafficking laws need to be adjusted as well. Too often now they are decreased penalties when the victim is a prostitute rather than increase to protect them.
In activism I group things like education and victim rehabilitation. The implementation to Social programs like universal healthcare, jobs and education is important too and overlaps with legal methods.
Radical actions include direct action/protests against the porn industry and parts of the government that try to protect the sex industry. In this area I was thinking about things that were a little less legal like people chaining themselves to buildings to protest the sex industry. I am fairly vanilla when it comes to feminism so I wanted to meet and discuss this with people here who seem to be more experienced or just have stronger opinions.
However, I was immediately banned after the above post. (I am elbereth too btw). I am trying not to take this personally and was just going to observe the forum for other people ideas. I thought about just slinking off offended, but that seemed like just giving up.
It seems like the ideas that most people have here include putting down others who have slightly different opinions and parroting each other’s outrage back and forth without much real information/discussion. It is pretty disappointing and it seems like a central clique is dominating everything. I fully expect to get banned again for pointing this out, but I think that might be for the best as it will force me to search out better groups and forums rather than pretending this one fulfills anything. This forum is eventually just going to be Z6IIAB and Tatsuya Ishida either telling people they are stupid or calling them trolls and banning them.
