Get body shop out of business

In the earliest days of slavery, while slaves would be toiling away in cotton fields, their owners would come and bodily pick away the females for sexual gratification. In the west, mulattos with lighter skins were preferred. In India, many an adivasi or impoverished woman has fallen prey to the lusts of their masters. They still do, mostly rented for sex in the slave market or sold into prostitution.

This history repeats in cycles. Those who support prostitution have never been prostitutes or remotely involved in that trade; so they are seldom exposed to the atrocities inflicted on the women in brothels. And prostituted women who do speak in favour of prostitution argue that it is a profession like any other, and that, it sometimes helps empower women.

But the fact is that a sex war continues to be waged against women around the world since time immemorial. To try and pass this off as the world’s so called oldest profession is to deceive people; it is no different from the most ancient form of torture; not just against an adult woman but also the girl child. The statistics are staggering.

In 2013-2014, half of India’s missing children were sold into prostitution. Forty-five per cent of the 67,000 abducted children were trafficked and sold to brothels, using every possible kind of force, ranging from violence to severe mutilation, rape and threat of execution.

To satisfy the lust of men for a few moments with their tiny bodies, these minors and young women are forced to sacrifice any hope of happiness they might ever have had. They are being stripped of dignity and denied their rights as humans.

Red light areas, as prostitute quarters are euphemistically known, continue to abound in this democracy. The most ugly, heinous, malicious, villainous, obnoxious and lowest forms of behaviour possible by men are meted out to women, making criminals out of these men. So, whoever argues for legalising prostitution is actually arguing for a legal protection for perpetuating the inhuman behaviour on sex workers.

India has about 1.5 crore sex workers – a demography which is higher than the combined population of many small nations. In several cases parents sell their daughter to escape poverty. Some others were hustled by lovers and husbands into brothels for a livelihood.

Prostitution is inextricably linked to human trafficking. They complement one another. Those who claim that all women in sex quarters are adults, and have duly come into the trade with express consent, after having considered carefully deliberated decisions, are lying through their teeth. In any such quarter, most are minors, and have been sold either by deception or by force.

Prostitution has also never emancipated women from impoverishment. No traumatised prostituted women ever earned millions from sex rackets; it’s the brothel owners who do. Every day, young women fall prey to the incessant terror of traffickers and pimps. Even those who seek to opt out are never allowed to quit.

Few women desire a life of ignominy. Men force them into the trade. Being forced into something is miles away from choosing it. Until recently, patriarchy forced women to burn on the funeral pyres of their deceased husbands as sati.

Even if we accept the argument that prostituted women want prostitution to be legalised, should civil society really let that to happen? If someone willingly wants to sell himself to slavery, should we simply sit and watch? If slavery has been abolished throughout the world, why does prostitution, the modern day slavery continue to flourish? Women do not perpetuate prostitution; evil, corrupt and powerful men do.

Buying of bodies must be banned. If there’s no one to buy a body, the ‘body shop’ will go out of business. The first step is to recognise prostitution as sexual slavery, as abuse, and infliction of bodily and mental harm and torture.

In India, men are almost never named and shamed in sex scandals. The woman is almost always harassed in public. A democracy ensures equality of rights and recognises men and women as equal citizens. Any democracy that covers up human rights violations by spouting excuses is not a civil society. Where it does, there’s a different name for it. It’s called patriarchy. And that is the true nature of a savage state.

Let’s Eroticize Equality

 

“Pornography is the theory, and rape is the practice.”  — Robin Morgan

 

I am against  pornography because it  has  many  harmful effects:   encouragement of  sex trafficking, desensitization, pedophilia, dehumanization, sexual exploitation, sexual dysfunction,  inability to maintain healthy sexual relationships. Pornography is exclusively for men’s pleasure. Women  are used as sex objects. I know some women will   say, ‘we love to be sex objects’. Millions of misogynists are out there to  support the idea of the objectification of women.  I do not have to support this.

 

I am against pornography, because I am against abuse or degradation. But I am not against erotica. The definitions of pornography and erotica come from Diana Russell.

Pornography: Material that combines sex and/or the exposure of genitals with abuse or degradation in a manner that appears to endorse, condone, or encourage such behavior.

Erotica: Sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free of sexism, racism, and homophobia, and respectful of all human beings and animals portrayed.

 

 

I like what  Gloria Steinem says, “Pornography is directly linked to sex trafficking. It normalizes degradation and violence as acceptable and even inevitable parts of sex, and it uses the bodies of real women and children as its raw material. The difference between pornography and erotica is clear in the words themselves — porne means female slaves, eros means love — and we can see that pornography, like rape, is about violence and domination, not sex. Millions of lives depend on our ability to untangle pornography from erotica, violence from sexuality.”

 

Researchers say,   “Most female performers are coerced into pornography, either by somebody else, or by an unfortunate set of circumstances.  Pornography leads to an increase in sexual violence against women through fostering  rape myths. Such rape myths include the belief that women really want to be raped and that they mean yes when they say no. Pornography desensitizes viewers to violence against women, and this leads to a progressive need to see more violence in order to become sexually aroused.”

 

“The pornography industry is a lot bigger, more powerful, more legitimate, more in everyone’s face today than it was a quarter of a century ago. To the degree that it cannot exist without doing real damage, it could still be stopped in its tracks anywhere by this  law. Sexual objectification and violation does not happen all by itself. Real social institutions drive it.”

 

“Pornography, an industry of woman-hating dehumanization,  is implicated in violence against women, both in its production  through the abuse of the women used to star in it , and in the social consequences of its consumption by encouraging men to eroticize the domination, humiliation, coercion and abuse of women.”

We should rather  Eroticize  Equality!

 

Survey says, “porn does not stimulate men’s appetites–it turns them off the real thing.  ‘Not tonight, honey, I am logging on’. Internet porn is everywhere, even ‘nice’ guys are hooked.”

A psychotherapist told us about  Myth and facts about pornography.   I find it quite interesting. Porn is fake, girls are real.

I believe Pornography and prostitution are not necessary evils, they are unnecessary crimes.

 

Look what you watch.  Porn1, Porn2, Porn3  ….. Do you want to watch more? Leave it. Let’s listen to  a song . Let’s change the world

 

 

Do women really ‘choose’ to be prostitutes

 

‘We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.’—VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables

 

I hope we all Free-thought bloggers believe in freedom of expression. My opinion on prostitution  is nothing new. Most feminists believe prostitution or sexual slavery  must end. I do not want to be misunderstood. But  it looks like a war started against me on  FTB because I said something politically incorrect.  I feel suffocated because I am opposed by a group I proudly belong to, a group of atheists, secularists, humanists, rationalists.

 

I was wondering how many people who claim that women choose to be prostitutes encourage their beloved daughters to be prostitutes. Even prostitutes do not want their daughters become prostitutes. They are desperate to send their daughters to schools, so that daughters can get an education and a decent job.

 

I just want to know whether women and girls would choose this ‘’job’’.   Please read the ad.

 

What is prostitution? Andrea Dworkin was a prostitute. She knows what prostitution is. ‘Prostitution in and of itself is an abuse of a woman’s body.’ Please read  ”Prostitution: what is it? It is the use of a woman’s body for sex by a man, he pays money, he does what he wants. The minute you move away from what it really is, you move away from prostitution into the world of ideas. You will feel better; you will have a better time; it is more fun; there is plenty to discuss, but you will be discussing ideas, not prostitution. Prostitution is not an idea. It is the mouth, the vagina, the rectum, penetrated usually by a penis, sometimes hands, sometimes objects, by one man and then another and then another and then another and then another. That’s what it is.”

”I ask you to think about your own bodies–if you can do so outside the world that the pornographers have created in your minds, the flat, dead, floating mouths and vaginas and anuses of women. I ask you to think concretely about your own bodies used that way. How sexy is it? Is it fun? The people who defend prostitution and pornography want you to feel a kinky little thrill every time you think of something being stuck in a woman. I want you to feel the delicate tissues in her body that are being misused. I want you to feel what it feels like when it happens over and over and over and over and over and over and over again: because that is what prostitution is.”

 

 

 

Somaly  Mam was a prostitute in Cambodia. She is now Human Rights  activist. She is saving children from prostitution.

 

Please read   Nicholas  Kristof ‘s story about saving  5-year-old girls from brothel.

 

Prostitution is an actively unlike any other ‘work’. Gloria Steinem said, ‘While all other occupations have physical, mental and sexual hazards and risks, prostitution is one such vocation that has an inherent risk towards violence against women as it involves penetration, which is an invasion of the human body, unlike in any other vocation. Prostitution cannot be legislated since the dignity of the body is constantly negotiated”

 

Prostitution researchers’   say,  ‘women are in   legal prostitution for the same reason they are in illegal prostitution, a lack of alternative survival options. Most women in prostitution did not make a choice to enter prostitution from among a range of other options. They did not decide they want to be prostitutes instead of doctors, engineers, lawyers, pilots. Instead their ‘options’ were more in the realm of how to get enough money to feed themselves and their children. If prostitution were really a choice it would not be those people with the fewest choices available to them who are disproportionately in prostitution. Such choices are better termed survival strategies. Prostitution is about not having a range of educational and job options to choose from. Most women in prostitution end up there only because other options are not available.’’

 

 

Researchers say, ‘Prostitution is not labor, it is paid sexual exploitation. It is often paid rape. It is intrinsically harmful and traumatic. As a society, we do not allow the sale and purchase of body parts, such as kidneys. This is because we know that it would be the poor and disadvantaged who would exercise their ‘choice’ to sell body parts for cash. Others would be likely to ‘choose’ to live a healthier and longer life.’

 

 

Researchers say, ‘When prostituted women are asked, consistently around 90% say they want out of  prostitution immediately, but the decision is out of their hands and in the hands of their pimps, their husbands, their landlords, their addictions, their children’s bellies. A study of women in street prostitution in Toronto found that about 90% wanted to escape but could not and a 5-country study found that 92% of women, men and transgendered people in prostitution wanted immediate help to escape prostitution. If they are there because they cannot leave, then prostitution is not a freely made choice.’’

 

 

Researchers say, ‘There are a few women who apparently earn large amounts of money in Prostitution, these women are in an extreme minority. Prostitution is a route into poverty for most women. Even women in legal brothels report having to pay extortionate sums for rent and food. They also pay pimps inside and outside the brothels. They are not free to come and go as they wish. Women in prostitution must continually lie about their lives, their bodies, and their sexual responses. Lying is part of the job definition when the customer asks, “did you enjoy it?” The very edifice of prostitution is built on the lie that “women like it.” Some prostitution survivors have stated that it took them years after leaving prostitution to  acknowledge that prostitution wasn’t a free choice because they had to lie to themselves in order to survive.’

 

 

Many women who wear burqa say, they choose to wear burqa. ‘When a woman remains in an abusive relationship with a partner who batters her, or even when she defends his actions, most people now understand that she is not there  voluntarily. They recognize the conditions under which she acquiesced. Like battered women, women in prostitution may deny their abuse if they are not provided with safety or  meaningful alternatives.’

 

 

A small number of women say they choose to be in prostitution, especially in public contexts orchestrated by the sex industry. I am very curious to learn why  they  like to be raped  everyday. Kate Millett, the author of ‘Sexual Politics’  said, ‘Prostitution, when unmotivated by economic need, might well be defined as a species of psychological addiction, built on self-hatred through repetitions of the act of sale by which a whore is defined.‘

 

Everyday  female children are sold to brothels by their father. Everyday   young women  are sold to brothels   by   their boyfriend, husband, neighbor, acquaintance. Everyday poor  girls and women become victims of sex traffickers. I visited brothels. I saw their terrible lives. Many organizations donate money to make prostituted women  free from diseases. ‘Health examinations for women but not for men make no sense from a public health perspective. Women are not protected from HIV contracted from clients. Clients prefer sex without  condoms. HIV test for women is  to make sure they are ‘clean meat’ for clients.’

 

‘Women in prostitution should not be punished for their own exploitation. The seller of sex should be decriminalized. But governments should not decriminalize pimps, buyers, procurers, brothels or other sex businesses.’ Swedish Law on Prostitution

 

There are hundreds  of  non-faith-based anti-prostitution organizations all over the world trying to save women and children. A very few links are here : Say NO to prostitution,  Captive daughters,   Arguments against prostitution , Coalition against trafficking in Women, Trafficking, prostitution and inequality , Protection project  Selling of innocents, End demand,  DEMAND documentary