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-of-property-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 which 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 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 home-ownership, 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 self-creation.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 than even the traditional hurdles of male privilege, right-wing
misogyny, and liberal smugness— has 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.
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 sex-liberal 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 a lesser extent.”70 In 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 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, sex-clubs 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 Alliance), have suggested 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 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
growth-oriented 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 energy-efficient state without breaking the bank.” Soon after his inaugural
speech, Brown released his proposed 2015-16 budget. It includes $1 billion in cap-and-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-of-
public-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 income-
tax 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-american-
primacy_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 numerous
proactive Republicans and quite a few reticent Democrats. The real divide is instead one
between realists and liberals. Students of realpolitik, which still heavily guides American foreign
policy, largely discount environmental issues as they are not seen as advancing 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 understand is that 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 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 challenge the
U.S. on a variety of fronts. 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 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 China in far-off places like Africa and Latin America. As oil is a limited natural
resource, 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 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 gold - clean, environmentally-friendly energy
like wind, solar, and hydrogen power. 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
standards for automobiles; improving public transportation networks; and expanding nuclear
and wind power sources. Others, however, have not progressed much beyond the drawing
board: 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.
 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 its own. Opponents to legalization argue that it 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 ° 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
88
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 light of reality, emerge 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 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; self-hatred 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 sexual-exploitation 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 non-profit 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 Non-
Violence”, 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, Clausewitz’s implication seems to be that 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
decision-makers 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 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 three critical and related benefits of prediction in strate- gic planning. The first
reflects Neustadt and May’s point – 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.

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 preparation and investment. In
order to navigate this complexity, strategists must return to the dis- tinction between
uncertainty and risk. 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 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 uncertain
environment. But appreciation of uncertainty carries hazards of its own. 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 strategic-
planning aperture, national-security policymakers would do well now to reinvigorate their
efforts in the messy but indispensable business of predicting the future.