That made me immensely sad and angry at the same time. I felt a shiver down my back when she said that. There is a shocking lack of empathy and humanity in or culture.
"If you think sex workers "sell their bodies," but coal miners do not, your view of labor is clouded by your moralistic view of sexuality" -(Dr. Sprankle)
That's the thing I find it hard to say anything to people who tell me stuff like sex work is Inherently shameful and lowly. Like you might think that. But people's dignity isn't in their genetelias. How can I make someone understand that when they have conservative view already
@@sakuranovaryan9261 It's complicated by the fact that while the work itself isn't shameful and lowly, it's usually performed by people who are being exploited and abused. Of course, the same can be said of coal miners.
"If I don't help them, who will?". As a Forensic Nurse examiner: We will help. A network of social workers, trauma-informed therapists, healthcare workers, and lawyers will help people who have been sex trafficked. The paternalistic attitude of so many police, is so harmful and many people who have been trafficked are afraid to come forward due to fear of legal reprisal. It's ridiculous. They're the victims but police often treat them like criminals.
police rape us and kill us and laugh at us. for the most part they don't care. some cops seem an exception . in my experience I've encountered some decent ones. I by and large hate them all but I have been a couple times shocked by decent treatment. I am white though. privilege is real.
@@ivonnatrolue6747 Yeah I’d be cool with taxes going up if those taxes were going towards helping people who have been trafficked and raped get out of that situation and start to recover. Or we could just stop giving so much fucking money to the military when they don’t even need it all, and put that money towards social programs that help people.
It’s really concerning that the police were arguing that they should be able to have sex with sex workers during sting operations when they were ALSO claiming that most sex workers are victims of trafficking. If you think someone is currently being trafficked, *under absolutely no circumstances should you be having sex with them.*
This is great news ror the travel industry! The airports can have hotels nearby where there are clean, safe opportunities for businesemen and sex tourists. Soon there will be so many opportunities worldwide the cost will get lower and lower to get sex services for pocket change. Bonus tor the countries with low ages of consent. Mom needs life saving surgery but the family has no money? No problem, sister is turning 13 next week! Oh, we'll ask her first, we won't just force her to do it. So you want mom to live? Or do to want to know, for the rest of your life, that *you're* the reason she died? And the brothels are sure to keep things safe. Except the men who frequent them leave reviews, and Brothel X will kick you out if you're try (insert unpleasant or violent act here) but it's fine at Brothel Y. Soon, only places like Brothel Y can stay in business. And then Brothel Z opens and lets tourists do even worse (don't kink shame now!). Now, girls across the globe will know that their family's future depends on them. No daughters? That's ok, Brothel T caters to people who want what little brother has. How incredibly empowering! Truly a gift from the well to do countries to the 3rd world. Brings a tear to my eye.
@@DougBurgum4VP I'd agree some people overblow how bad it is, but most of you underestimate how bad it is. What countries make you so sure that the US isn't a dystopia, because most western countries are very much better by almost all metrics than the US. Its not even close to the worst, and it is just about free but its barely a hallmark, and the difference is many people really believe its the land of the free, which it just isn't. It has the highest incarceration rate in the world, the second highest execution rate, the worst prison conditions, and the abuses by the US police is absurd. So if you've never been to a developing dictatorship, China, or Russia, America is very much awful, these countries may be worse but Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the EU, the EEA, etc. are better, and Americans are so often taught they are the only free country and they aren't and most people I know in Britain genuinely hate the idea of moving to the State's and joke about how little they'd want to live there.
@@DougBurgum4VP I live in a tiny-ass ex-Yugoslavian European country with an economy like 1000x smaller than the US's. Almost every single person here makes jokes about how at least we aren't in the US. We have higher social mobility than the US, better education, free kindergartens, heavily government subsidized healthcare that doesn't bankrupts us when we need to go to the hospital, a year of paid maternal leave, a minute amount of police violence compared to you... I could go on for days. I'm sorry but if a random half-balkan country can beat you out there is something *deeply* wrong with your country lmao.
I got arrested for handing out condoms to prostitutes in Newark NJ. They said it was "soliciting prostitution" Luckily, the judge saw my intention and threw out the case.
@@jaybenke No one knows whether or not a wife is a victim of domestic violence- so perhaps criminalizing marriage would give them the opportunity to do so? Of course that wouldn't work, and neither does criminalizing prostitution. Being arrested is not a solution to finding out who is and isn't trafficked. Being arrested is traumatic and having a police record means it is so much more difficult to find other employment if one wants to. As someone who did sex work for years after I left a hideous job on the LAPD, I find that anyone calling all sex workers "prostituted people" highly offensive.
@@normajeanalmo1 I find anyone implying that all prostituted people are choosing is horrendous to the very real trafficking victims and children in the trade. If you prioritize the privileged choosing and ignore those enslaved, you do not care about victims. I'm glad you brought up domestic violence. Domestic violence is illegal, we don't criminalize marriage but we still criminalize beating your spouse. The victim does not get arrested, the perpetrator does. Welcome to the equality model.
@@jaybenke Legalizing sex work doesn't decriminalize sex trafficking. But it makes it much easier to report. Many sex trafficking victims are afraid to report because they know that there's a high risk that they'll get jailed for being prostitutes; and a tiny chance that their claims will be investigated. If sex work is legalized, the risk falls to ZERO - which means that a lot more sex trafficking victims will report.
It is literally the most insane thing to me to arrest and jail the _victims_ of a crime instead of the _perpetrators._ But it’s also, apparently, the most American thing too.
When a group of people is deprived of rights by being criminalized, it makes it easy to exploit them. Some bad men liked sex workers to be poor, dominated, and compliant, and subject to abuse with no recourse. America and many other nations also have "illegals" who do work that Americans won't for cheaper without rights. It's not nearly as bad as slavery, but it's on the spectrum. We blame the illegal workers for picking our strawberries at low wages no American would take, and punish and deport them. Under Drumph and Stephen Miller, ICE even kidnapped their children. Can't get much lower than that!
Worse, creating the economical fragility that often pushes people into a job you then criminalise, then arrest them and further make them unhireable. Btw I'd gladly do sex work if it wasn't so dangerous. I don't view sleeping with strangers and people I'm not attracted to as degrading, I see being able to bring someone company, pleasure and comfort, as purposeful and meaningful work. If SW wasn't so stigmatised you'd have more willing participants which would reduce human trafficking.
THANK YOU, JUST ENDLESSLY THANK YOU FOR THIS. My mother was a sex worker and was scammed by a pimp. She couldn't ever report him to the authorities because of the legal nature of the situation. She couldn't confide in anyone in the family because she was entirely disowned, especially by her own mother. The debt ruined us, she was always in the hole and once she got cancer, she couldn't work any longer. Her sense of self was even further diminished once she had to get a double mastectomy, and her identity of being the bread-winner was taken from her once again. Of course my mother is partially at fault for trusting her scammer, but you don't know what desperation does to a single mother of 3 kids. The drinking, along with the cancer, got worse and worse until she eventually died from brain cancer. I wonder how things would have gone for our family if the stigma and legality wasn't so fucking unfair.
So sorry, that’s awful. If sex workers had legal working rights, like others workers, they could report these creeping leeching pimps. Pimps are like a third leg, if sex workers had legal rights, they could learn to run their small business and book keeping among themselves, or hire a legit accountant, no need for self appointed abusive “managers”. Your mum tried her best with the hand she was dealt, so unfair. RIP to your mum, and love to you ❤️
I really wish John mentioned how often police ignore disappearance cases where the victim happens to be a sex worker. I have listened to too many true crime cases where dozens of sex workers would disappear in a certain area, and the police wouldn't do a thing until they had absolutely had to.
Our society doesn't care about sex workers, or women of colour, or other marginalised groups. So if they die or go missing it's not considered important enough.
I mean, if victims aren't sex workers the police is already about the last place many would want to go, I can only imagine how much worse it is if you're also a sex worker.
I'm an ex sex worker in Australia and when they made it legal it became so much safer. At $500 per hour- most of the guys just wanted company that was uncomplicated. There was also obviously sex. But if I didn't want to do it I would just not extend to the second hour. I was very much in control of the situation.
That sounds exactly how things should be! As someone who grew up as a homeless trans teen in Detroit, I still can't stop thinking about things I remember happening 20 years ago.. Between drug addiction and sex work, it was closer to living in a battlefield with how often friends disappeared or came into a house bloody and scared about hat they just had to do to defend themselves. The cops were worthless. I can't even imagine how much better it could make things in the city if they legalized the work and people stared letting the pay an protection deserved.
I believe most things become safer when they’re legal and regulated by law. If something is illegal, there’s no rules how it should go or what applies.
I am a massage therapist, which in my state is considered a healthcare worker (I'm in Washington where insurance has to cover it). When I was a teen, the laws in my city prohibited a woman massaging a man. That changed a long time ago, but about 5 years ago they put a new law in place prohibiting massage from being performed between 10PM and 6AM. This was openly to try to target illegitimate "massage parlors," but the problem is, the women working in those massage parlors are in fact usually the ones that are being trafficked. They don't have massage licenses, so the law that's written to target them doesn't even apply to them. I wrote a statement to be submitted at a city hall meeting saying, "Why don't you come around once a year and check that everyone working in massage businesses is licensed? We're required to post them. The fire department comes yearly to check my business. Just have the health department (who issues licenses) to do the same thing! And when you find women who are unlicensed, offer them help, don't arrest them! Arrest the owners of the "massage" parlors! They never even submitted or responded to my comment as they had promised to do. So it makes me sad, but not surprised, that they are arresting the victims and not helping them.
@@nomoremrniceguy007 I do realize not all sex workers are trafficked, but some are. From a Forbes article last year: "Amy Hsieh, the deputy director of the Anti-Trafficking Initiative, a pro bono legal service connected with nonprofit Sanctuary for Families, represents survivors of labor and sex trafficking and helps women who’ve been arrested at massage businesses. Out of more than 1,200 clients-mostly undocumented women who have emigrated from Asia-Hsieh says that 1 out of 5 says they have been trafficked or have experienced some level of coercion. While many of her clients say they chose to work at a massage business, Hsieh doesn’t really consider the decisions many immigrant women must make to be free choices. A phrase many of her Chinese clients use to describe their experience at illicit massage parlors is “沒辦法”-or “no other way.” "
@@jennw6809 I'm not denying it happens but let's discuss those groups you're talking about as just non profits. They're abolitionist groups with a new angle, human trafficking. It exists, but don't take "no other way" or some survey answer as the definitive proof. It just isn't, actually some early studies on sexual assault were misguided and later admitted so because the survey questions can be misleading. I have no other way in life either but to work a job. I have to eat and put a roof over my head. No other way. In their cases, they do have other ways, but many owe debts in their countries that they have to pay because their country has laws not unlike the IRS or student debt. The difference is that many Asian nations ALLOW travel to the US or other wealthy nations and a choice to do sex work or other types of work to pay back the debt. The family of the person in debt can be held liable unlike in America. This is NOT human trafficking any more than forcing people to pay back student loans is. However if you want to take that stance, fine, most of America are human trafficking victims in some way and the only outrage is yet again... because sex.
No one should ever arrest the people selling sex - it is the BUYERS who fuel sex trafficking, NOT the women and kids they use like public toilets. It is grotesque misogyny to decriminalize sex buyers along with those they exploit - this is NOT an even playing field.
A friend of mine got hit in the Backpage sting. She's endured awful abuse, mental health issues, and was just trying to survive. She needed help and compassion, not a criminal record to make it even harder to climb out of the hole she was in. Fucking awful how we kick people when they're down.
As I saw recently: "As a child I thought the police could do illegal things without getting punished. Then I got older and found that wasn't true. Then I got wiser are realised it was."
@@juliaconnell on the contrary, we have a competition about this every year (Bird of the Year) which gets very heated clearly showing the need for a competition ;)
The kea is clearly the best, but nothing wrong with the Kiwi being the national bird... it is the perfect cover for the kea... get people in with the cuteness, then rip their car apart
This... this is the comment I was looking for. I had to try so hard to maintain focus on John the whole time because after every joke that same guy up front kept laughing *_so_* hard, and his laugh sounds *_so_* distractingly goofy 😆🤣
John Oliver is killing it in standing up for those who seriously need to stop being demonized. I love John Oliver so much. He makes the world a better place.
Thank you. I've barely scrolled down the comments and the amount of people who are complaining there's nothing about Ukraine here is way too much. This is how the channel has worked for years people ffs
@@am53n8 What mildly annoyed me was that the top LWTw/JO algo recommendation I got today was one entitled "Putin" -- which is from four or five years ago but its placement and labeling made me think it was the new one at first...
Foreigners in the internet quite often call many of 'murica's facets distopian. Like you have so many people in prison the homicide rate in prison is lower than in the general population.
Europe isn't doing much better. Not American, dont come for me. They are clearly not wining in this area either and any dystopia like countries now are all due to European influence so let's all remember that please.
What drives me mad is the criminal record/sex offender thing! If the cops really wanted to help these supposed trafficking victims, they would set them up with job training, housing, and healthcare so that they can enter a new line of safer work, not prevent them from working for several months and then throw them back on the street with no support and a criminal record that hurts their chances of getting out on their own or get support when they're harmed by clients. Nevermind that there are people who genuinely choose sex work and wouldn't necessarily want to change careers.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! It is so good to see a mainstream person talking about this and advocating for this. Sex workers have been trying to be heard for so long. You brought tears to my eyes but also a smile to my face.
Having the option to call the police when a client rapes/abuses a sex worker is a matter of basic human decency and civilization. Instead we see the police in certain jurisdictions demanding to retain the right to sleep with sex workers before they arrest them. That is so messed up, i have no words..
Here in Pittsburgh a few years ago they raided multiple massage places and made a lot of noise about breaking up a human trafficking ring with lots of cops and politicians patting themselves on the back, but they arrested all the girls. Well if they thought they were victims of human trafficking why the hell would they put them in jail? If they rescue a kidnap victim they don’t march them off in handcuffs and throw them in a cell!
Honestly this type of stuff has happened so much here I can't even recall which case you're referring to. The police here are awful and rotten to the very core. Jagoffs, all of em.
Sounds like whenever elections are close, they just “bust” something and pat themselves and show off, then re-do this the next election. Rinse and repeat. Waste of tax paying $
As someone who has dabbled in sex work, my main reason for going into was i was a hypersexual but smart and safe person from time to time, might as well benefit from it
as a sexworker i felt so fucking seen during this episode. he touched upon every single issue I could think of to yell at my tv.....and GOT IT ALL RIGHT I was fucking FLABBERGASTED.
Yes! And he is the only one that will put this common sense out there to educate. A customer paying for a service should not be illegal it makes no sense.
It's one of those statements that when you see it in an official report the only rational course of action is to fire the guy who wrote it because it's obvious he's never has a consensual sexual encounter that didn't involve money changing hands.
"i'd call it dystopian if it weren't so fucking american" alot of people have been talking about the impact of that line. Those people are right. It is an extremely accurate summary of the state of 21st century America and it applies to most things now. But there's one thing about that sentence that people haven't noticed yet which i find a bit strange, because underneath that message is the assumption that America can't be dystopian. And _that_ attitude is perhaps the biggest reason why all these things keep happening to America. Most Americans live under the false assumption that they are immune to dystopian situations, and that complacency is exactly what allows the dystopia to grow.
Honestly, as an Australian, you couldn't pay me enough money to move to the US. I love (most) Americans, but America's extreme politics, deplorable health-care situation, bizarre religious zealots and gun violence really turn me off, among other things.
Surely the point is the opposite - calling it dystopian is redundant because the definition already overlaps so much with what America fundamentally is and apparently aspires to.
@@Josh_Quillan I agree with both you and the OP. I think both sides make sense. It hides that American can be also dystopian but it also implies that America is.
I think a key thing many people often forget regarding the law is that making something illegal doesn't mean the things you dislike don't happen, it just changes how it happens. This isn't a question of whether sex work should happen or not, but how, because continuing to criminalize it will just make it worst for those who engage in it regardless.
I feel secure in the belief that there are fewer prostitutes now than there would be if it were illegal. What's more, when people are doing illegal things willfully, the living conditions they endure as a direct result of their choices straight up don't matter. I'm absolutely happy to support social programs that pull people out of bad situations. But why should I be surprised that a union of people doing illegal things are very much for the idea of making them legal? And why should I care?
@@claiminglight how would we even know how many prostitutes there are if we make it illegal? If you do want to decrease the amount of prostitutes, then decriminalization would be the way to go, and you wouldn't have to worry about them breaking the law either
@@DuranmanX Decreasing the number of incidents of a given thing is no argument for legalizing that thing. Consider literally anything. You could go as low as jaywalking , or as high as murder. If there isn't a compelling argument for legalization, there isn't an argument at all.
@@claiminglight except that sex workers who get trafficked have an incredibly hard time getting out and away from their "owners" because they cant easily go to the police and theres many cases where trafficked sex workers are arrested, instead of the people that trafficked and exploited them, by the police and face prison time. i also just cant agree with a world view that doesnt have empathy for the people regardless of how much theyre choosing their circumstances.
@@claiminglight ah yes. The old "illegal things are illegal, and therefore bad" argument. Never mind being illegal doesn't mean it's wrong, like how cannabis, especially the kind that doesn't make you high, yet it many cases, it's the only medication that works. I do ask you don't just dismiss a group lobbying to make something lega, literally on the grounds that it's illegal.
Since I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned it and it wasn’t in the video - I wanna share that a big part of the reason NZ decriminalised sex work is that Georgia Beyer - a member of parliament in NZ who was the world’s first openly transgender member of parliament and was a sex worker before becoming a politician - stood up and gave a really amazing speech about her experience and why decriminalisation was the right move. Her speech is widely credited with convincing a few other politicians to either change their votes or abstain, allowing the law to pass by an incredibly small margin.
CZcams deletes my comments when I try to post links, but just google “Georgina Beyer Prostitution Reform Bill 2003”, there’s an article on Te Ara that has some video footage of the parliament including some clips of her speech, and you can read the full transcripts of the whole proceedings on the gov website. It literally passed 60 votes to 59.
Another great thing about Oliver is that he reports this stuff with such passion and integrity-like he gets so worked up because he feels for these people suffering not just using them for a laugh he’s educating anyone who will listen. Most people that report stories are just judgemental drones no reason behind their judgement and opinion which you can always hear thru the report. I trust John’s information. Keep fighting the good fight🫵🏼🦾I’ll keep watching
This show almost brought me to tears. The mention of sex workers who have been assaulted and afraid to go to the police really reminded me of a movie we recently watched “the frozen ground” based on a true story. It’s so incredibly sad that those victims aren’t listened to or cared for and instead treated as criminals.
The cops doing sexual things with sex workers is a *VERY REAL* issue! I was an officer at a large jail in Texas, & would often read police reports when doing intake for inmates, & holy shit those patrol officers went far! I remember 1 time it was so crazy, I showed my sergeant & lieutenant out of shock. The officer stripped her down (not the other way around), motioned for a hand job after getting her naked, then afterward motioned for her to get on top of him to straddle him. After they "messed around," & she actually got on, THEN the sting happened & arrested her & others! We were joking reading about it, like what did he tell his wife coming home from work? "Just another day keeping the city safe, one hand job at a time!"
Don't think it's possible to pretend that this is anything but illegal exploitation of prostitutes for personal gratification, somehow kept legal by dodgy-as-fuck loopholes. These people are scum.
@@Foxxil. Exactly. Given the choice between being a moral person and getting some kind of benefit (sexual, financial, or otherwise), cops will almost always choose the immoral but personally-benefitting option. It's disgusting.
@@pvic6959 That's not how jokes work. Laughing and joking is a very human response to the horrific or absurd, it's a way to cope, not a way to support the horrific act.
then there is no need for sexcrimes being crimes at all right. afterall what is happening in prostitution is normal so ofc being touched in your private place during work is the new norm then. and no I didn't come up with this crap. the johns from my country did. if prostitution is a job and prostitution can't be raped(their words), then ofc rapes in a relationship and every other sexcrime is insignifcant. and you can see it apply to women accuing men of rape. they have gone down since it got legalized really weird . . . not.
@@robelkton7800 that prostitution makes it harder for rape victims to come forward. there is even a cliche that johns say: "you can't rape a prostitute". I seriously wonder why you take this all so lightly. I think prostitution supports rightwing viewpoints towards minoritites. johns are more likely to kill the prostitute than the pimp. and with all the "arguments" I told you about it makes it very hard to not see the overlap to this ideology. there is also the issue since rape is a crime that the 100% safety in the industry is impossible to achieve as simply as the prostitute does have a bad day it is already a rape scenario. that's why the comparison between a regular job and prostitution doesn't make sense.
CORRECTION: "the Nordic model" doesn't apply to Finland. Paying and receiving payment for sex is legal here. Pimping, or buying indirectly, (and of course trafficking) is illegal.
"Only way to make sure that people have a choice in the way they earn money is to make housing affordable health care accessible and to not burden marginalized people with criminal records that lead to a cycle of joblessness homelessness and desperation" YES THIS HITS SO HARD GAWD YES PLEASE MORE
For both sex work and drugs. It's waaaaay past time to end the punishment and detention of people for things that aren't going away and certainly have NOT improved society in anyway. We just can't throw money, violence, and prison to fix social problems like these. Several places in Europe have embraced decriminalization of various drugs and have improved the lives of people who use them, made recovery available to all who want it, and the crime rates (home invasions, etc) have gone down because people don't have to commit crimes to obtain the drugs they want.
@@bryaneverett9850 No, it would just involve reworking the way we support these industries. Subsidies can be redirected from the ultra-wealthy to more than cover packages that support the overhead for healthcare and housing.
@@panpolypuff, let’s just say I’m a doctor who has spent decades building a career and private practice. Through de-privatization, how will my future salary be determined? What happens to my medical equipment in which I own?
i know this goes without saying at this point, but i just want to take a moment to appreciate how much i learn about American politics from a man who spent the first 30 years of his life and got his _entire_ formal education in the UK. politics can be overwhelming, but nothing stands as a sturdier example of how _doable_ understanding American politics can be with a little effort.
In a logical world: Sex work would be legal as long as everyone consents (Sex trafficking deserves JAIL AND HELL) All sex related products (including porn) would be kept away from non-adults (a separate Internet for porn, live newscast, UFC, ETC ) Sex education wouldn't be optional in Highschool!!! NEVER!
When I was 19 I walked into the sex workers union in my hometown Amsterdam, said: "Hi, I don't get sex, can someone help me?" and was met with the most empathetic, open people I've ever met. I was laughed out a sex toy shop when I mentioned asexuality, the sex workers were the first to bring it up to me. I am so thankful I paid for my first time, getting the chance to go about it on my own terms (within reason ofc!). Amsterdam isn't perfect for sex workers and it's changing negatively, but I'm very happy it's at least not illegal
@@baguettegott3409 That was me yes! Cozy CZcams bubble we have here :) I think it's important to think of sex workers as more than catering to "perverted middle aged men", they really provide an important service to many and I think I'm a good example of one of them
I love this. I'm a sex worker, and it's always been so important to me to meet customers with love and compassion, because the need for human contact, emotional and physical, is a real thing, and I think providing that is a crucial service which will not only be allowed someday, but be respected.
@@CatJetRat: Well put. I salute your providing of that most basic need of all social animals: contact, especially in a safe environment. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you are a bonobo amidst a sea of chimpanzees. What I mean by that is bonobos are highly sex-positive, and as such are much more relaxed and chill than their more warlike chimp cousins.
"If you think sex workers sell their bodies, but coal miners do not, your view of labor is clouded by your moralistic view of sexuality." - some clever bloke on the internet
"the model implemented by Amsterdam" It's so weird to live in a country that people only refer to as the capital city... For the record: sex work is legal in the whole Netherlands
…. and it’s content like this that’s presented in a clear manner demonstrates why John Oliver and the team at “Last Week Tonight” consistently get Emmy’s. Another insightful episode.
That last comment, about how all labor is forced labor in a system that leaves people desperately impoverished and incapable of meeting basic human needs, ought to be displayed on every corner of every street.
It is a core argument of worker's movements, socialists, communists, anti-capitalists and other ppl from the left spectrum. And I agree, it should be pointed out wwwaaaayyy more often, louder and with more force than ever.
@@JonsFrapeProductions I'm fairly certain you can get raped anywhere regardless of your occupation and even if SW are more likely to get raped, it's not on the SW, it's on the abuser. You can think whatever you want about sex work and stuff but at least try to make it look less scummy. Idk you but that comment basically read the same as "if they didn't want to get roped they shouldn't have worn that skimpy outfit". Also we're all basically selling our bodies and time to survive anyway
@@emeros8631 lols to the libertarian normalization of rape. Bottomline, sexual exploitation is not a desirable trait for any society. Sexual exploitation normalizes two things in my view, that we man are sex driven imps with no agency to repress such urges and, that women are then, naturally, bodies for our consumption -normalizes-
As a longtime sex worker I have to say that I am so touched and impressed by the care that went into this piece. It has been such a long and hard journey to get the conversations to this point in mainstream media… this genuinely brought me to tears. ONLY thing I would have added was the attack on our ability to conduct business through many financial institutions.
I don't think John Oliver counts as "mainstream media". For an American show Last Week Tonight is pure revolution. But he has a huge platform and I am so grateful that he uses it for good.
Thing about sex work is that all women are sex workers at the end of the day. If you have a gf and take her to a date that you pay for and she has sex with you, you have paid for sex. If you go to a bar and buy a woman a drink and she takes you back to her place for sex, you've paid for sex. Every marriage is a long term sex contract. An expensive one. And this can happen in reverse for guys if the girl pays for everything and they have sex. The girl has paid for sex. Every person who does porn has been paid to have sex. That includes all of those onlyfans girls, which is like 99% of all snapchat accounts. Everybody pays for sex but sex workers, those that do it for a living, are the only professionals at it and deserve the same protections as some dude or girl in a bar trying to get lucky via buying a cheap drink. People like to claim sex work is just a way to hide sex trafficking but those are two completely different things. Most women and even some men just want an easy and safe way to make some cash. Nobody is safe when sex work is made illegal and cops make it worse. Cops are already racist and sexist to begin with, but when it comes to the sex industry, they are far worse. Buyers of sex almost never get arrested, despite doing the same crime as the worker. And some cops do end up having sex with the sex workers to arrest them. Which is legalized rape. This happens in hawaii, no joke. And cops demand that they need to be able to have sex in order to investigate the crime, which is legally false. They just want to rape women and have the legal authority to do so. Its sickening.
Well said. There are also a number of reasons why people visit sex workers. For instance, after a hysterectomy a friend's wife lost all interest in sex. But as they still loved each other they agreed he could visit sex workers as that was better in her mind than getting a "mistress". And NO, it was not me.
@@albertbrammer9263 that’s a understandable situation, but also think of disabled people who can’t find a sexual partner, they have the right to intimacy too even if it’s paid for! There’s nothing wrong with prostitution, I almost consider marriage as a form of prostitution too 🤣
Gives me the impression that we criminalize largely benign activities just to make the police feel good about themselves when they don't feel like actually doing something against real organized and dangerous criminal activity.
Probably the goal is to disenfranchise minority groups since its a felony in Republican states. As John said it's selectively enforced among those groups. It's what they did with marijuana.
Unfortunately, no matter what public perception or the perception that this video gives, sex work isn't benign. Sex workers (the vast majority, 90 % in all surveys and studies of which want 𝗼𝘂𝘁 of sex work) are the victims. The average age of entry is 12 to 14 years old and most are manipulated, coerced or forced into it. Only 1 % of the 90 percent that want out actually make it out alive. Short of slavery, there has never been a situation I can think of where society has accepted a position as socially acceptable simply because a tiny, privileged minority were okay with being in that situation, while the vast majority were being harmed by it. Sex work preys upon young natal females, POCs of all types, gay men and transgendered women to an inordinate degree. People need to start looking at the safety and relative situations of sex workers in countries where sex work is already legal before they start declaring that it is safer: 'In Germany, where prostitution has been legal since 2002, incidents of attempted murder of prostituted women increased between 2002 and 2017. Women in Germany’s mega brothels, which are equipped with security cameras and personnel and panic buttons, continue to suffer violence. The legalization of prostitution did not eliminate the murders or attempted murders of women in prostitution in Germany. As the Department of Justice Technical Paper on Canada’s current prostitution laws notes, “Prostitution is an extremely dangerous activity that poses a risk of violence and psychological harm to those subjected to it, regardless of the venue or legal framework in which it takes place, both from purchasers of sexual services and from third parties.” Discussions about reducing the violence experienced by individuals in prostitution should not be centered around the prostituted making better, safer assessments of buyers or choosing safer locations. That puts the responsibility for evading or reducing the violence on the victims, and not on the perpetrators. Canada’s current laws, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA), do the logical and just thing in targeting the source of the violence experienced by women in prostitution - the buyers and pimps. In fact, the most recent Canadian data points to a significant decrease in homicide victims related to the sex trade after PCEPA came into force, despite overall homicides increasing. The perpetrators were less commonly sex buyers or gang members after PCEPA, and more likely to be strangers or acquaintances. The statistics also indicate that victims involving a sex-trade-related offence were significantly less likely to have a physical injury after PCEPA. It is worth noting that women’s groups and coalitions of former prostitutes in countries like New Zealand, where prostitution was decriminalized or legalized are beginning to call for legal reform, saying that decriminalization has failed them. They argue that their working conditions and their safety didn’t significantly improve, nor was the stigma they experienced as prostitutes reduced. Police in Christchurch, NZ have expressed concern over the “fairly common” victimization of prostituted persons in the capital. The source of violence and stigma is not the laws a given country has on paper. The source of the violence is the buyers, pimps and traffickers who prey on and abuse prostituted women. This flows out of the belief that men are entitled to paid sexual access to women’s bodies, and that this paid access entitles men to do what they want. If those beliefs are not challenged, the misogynistic attitudes and behaviours that are the source of the stigma and violence will persist.' -submission to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA), February 25, 2022
@@macdri I stopped reading this BS before I finished the first paragraph. 89% of all sex workers end up dying due to their profession? Where did you come up with those numbers?
This is important, and it's not just going to go away. It takes people like these to help start conversations that will help society to create solutions.
The only way that might help them is if they need help with addictions. Most sex workers have no health insurance and sadly jail systems are a way to deal with it. Its sad but true.
@@spooky_hausintrees yet another reason for nationalized health care. weakening the prison industrial complex and making it so that cops can't spout bullshit like "you're getting arrested for your own good"
@@spooky_hausintrees Don't let them lie to you. Jails are privately owned and get money from the government per inmate, as police get/keep jobs per arrest. To quote SOAD: "All research and successful drug policy shows that treatment should be increased, and law enforcement decreased, while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences."
Other pitfalls of "legalization" or the nordic model are loopholes that are used to still criminalize and drive sex work underground. In some countries sex work is legal, but "pimping" is a serious crime, but is defined as profiting from the labor of a sex worker in any way. This has been used to prosecute the landlords of sex workers, even if they did not work from their apartments. Which leads to sex workers being driven into homelessness. I perfectly understand the moral and ethical concerns people have around the sex industry, I even share some of them, but I've come to believe that, as a matter of harm reduction, complete decriminalization is the only way to go forward.
@@nifralo2752 It is consent by two adults. The power thing doesn't mean it's without consent. I'm sure people can find all arguments around the people in position of power thing. For instance, you can have sex with someone who is stronger than you. Technically they have more power but the fact that both agree to it means it's with consent. People always had prostitution in society. It makes no sense that porn is legal while sex work isn't.
"but "pimping" is a serious crime, but is defined as profiting from the labor of a sex worker in any way" this is a legal issue when you have to write a law that clearly defines everything. colloquial terms like "pimping" aren't very well defined, so when you get technical with it, the end result as as you described. legally speaking, a pimp could be any kind of accessory to prostitution, even if they work for the SW as an assistant or only financially connected in a tangential sense, such as a landlord.
@@JewTube001 in german law it is forbidden to create prostitution or support a growth of it. by that standard we are not abiding law since the industry is growing. and it also made pimping harder to find as now even the state has pimps. institutions that are supposed to help prostitutes don't do it. first line the agency for work. if you are a prosititute you got work so why change? your conditions are bad or you got blad clientele too bad. in fact most abusive johns just get an order to stay away from a house. there are enough redlight brothels around so they just go the next. no criminal charges. second is that noone gonna easily take you into work bc of your sexwork life prior. most bigger companies that go to events and indirectly get escort services and such usually end up bancrupt if it comes out. backdoor deals pretty much. in my city a pimp got killed by another one. don't feel about this, just that both never faced prison is the biggest issue. they are not financially hold responsible if found out. they get their rent from victim's earnt money. why we arenot removing their access to this money is beyond me. and yes profitting from prostitution is a pimp. I don't care if he is good at delivering nice lines to a girl that has issues on her own and becomes depended on such guy. loverboys hardly get punished as love isn't considered a fraud. it is pretty common to blame the victim. like ppl claiming the person chose to stay with a toxic bf. there have been women killed for saying no to a relationship. biggest point is that prostitutes that are in a room, but not a brothel don't get any benefit from proschg. and right now most sexwork is done in private areas which cooincides with the areas of most rapes happening. ofc not all of them are in redlight district and most rapist know their victim. the random guy that rapes a woman is less dominant, but considered a bigger issue.
As a sex work advocate, I appreciate how nuanced this episode was, particularly breaking down the difference between consensual work and trafficking. It’s so hard to have a conversation about the movement when there is no differentiation between the two. I also appreciated how you highlighted the ridiculous percentage brothels take. This is ubiquitous across the legally recognized sex work professions: camming, stripping, phone sex, and pornography. Because there is no useful regulation, these businesses take half or more of every dollar earned by sex workers, and sometimes also, as in the case of stripping, can say that strippers “owe the club” for not meeting quotas. Anyway, great episode!
Respectfully, I disagree with your opinion. I don't have a problem when it comes to the morality of sex work, what I do have a problem with is the actual functionality of it. If Sex-Work was to be legalized, some questions come into my mind; Who would regulate it? Would the workers be Given proper representation? and would it be voluntary? On the first question, I honestly do not know who would regulate sex work. Sexual Diseases such as STD's, STI's, and etc need to be treated for, and acknowledged before a sexual encounter. Otherwise, you will cases spreading like wildfire. Another issue I have is Sex Education within our society, it's a pretty big problem. A lot of teens and young adults do not have proper sexual education in America, My example is that my city has the highest STD/STI rate in the entire state, while also having the least amount of Sex Education. I kid you not, You aren't even given a simple reproductive organs talk until 7th grade, which is ridiculous. Having sexually uneducated people (Not saying they're stupid) have sexual encounters is... well, not the brightest Idea. That's for argument one. Second question, How would workers be given proper representation within the workplace? Now let's acknowledge something. Sex work is a complicated industry, some people go to independent hookers who charge their own fee and are pretty much third party contractors in a way. On the other hand, you have sex workers in groups or houses called "brothels" who charge a set fee and are paid an amount after the fee the brothel charges them. Both have their up's and down's of course, which is a significant problem when legalizing it. Here is a list of what I PERSONALLY think the Pros/Cons are. Brothel: Pros: - *May* have a set location or... "Shop" - Possibly benefits if it's an actual business, and not a scummy rundown whorehouse. - More regulating of Hookers and Customers, Preventing unwanted pregnancies/STD/STI's Cons: - May be more likely to be exposed to abuse or exploitation. - Unfair Wages, the "Brothel Fee" being far too high. - Harassment of workers. Independent: Pros: - Able to charge their own prices - Not being exploited via Fee's - Choice of Customers Cons: - Healthcare costs come out of pocket (although for brothels that may be true as well) - No set location - Lack of enforcement of rules, such as sexual protection. Overall, it seems that both of the options comes with issues of their own. Personally, if sex work was to be legalized... perhaps it would be better for brothels to become popular. I would hope, that it would become regulated and more... commercial than it is now. A lot of exploitation happens in brothels/pimps around the world, it's unfortunate. My overall issue again is regulating and maintaining safety within the sex workplace. Third and Final Question, Would the people performing this sex work be voluntary? Now the argument at the first part of the video that sex work is a form of labor like any other job... and to a degree, that claim is correct. However, at the same pace, those forms of "labor" are also exposed to flagrantly bad conditions or terms. Look at Amazon warehouse workers as an example, they've been treated like sh1t in some places, while in others they're treated fine. Sex work however, is another industry by itself. Unlike the listed examples, it is far from commercialized... being mostly independent or small time work. You don't see "Crackwh0re Inc." anywhere now do you? Which is a problem. Some industries are perfectly fine with being small time, like plumbers... however, the government cannot regulate everything that goes on within private businesses. Which is where the business itself comes in and makes sure everything is running in a timely manner. P0rn is an example where commercialization is good. The actors are trained (to preform unrealistically I say) to perform sex acts, regulated and health sex acts. They are tested for any diseases, and are contracted on their own terms. Now of course there have been cases of abuse within that industry (which is bad) however, it is overall safer than having thousands of independent p0rn actors. They are also given much fairer pay than what an independent p0rn actor would make, which is for the good right? If we have no one to self regulate within the sex work business, then who will? You may say "The government" however to what extent? Sex workers are a part of the category of labor I call "Forgotten Labor" where their issues are typically... sidestepped due to the manner of their work. How many people would simply ignore the abuse of prostitutes because of their "moral" values? Millions of Americans to say the least. And it's sad, they're treated unjustly similar to those formerly incarcerated. The other issue is the government itself. We don't put nearly enough money into our local/state government health facilities/programs... they already struggle with the work they do, would they have the competence or ability to support a system that regulates sex workers? That in all likelihood would not work out. Respectfully, I do not disagree with the legalization of prostitution in some places... however, I would disagree with legalization on the federal level. It would lead to a system overload causing thousands of causalities in the process.
"Sex work advocate"? Why don't you advocate on having women fill male dominated spaces instead of them being constantly objectified? There's a lot of opening that is available to anyone.
@@ficsitinc.pioneer8695 I'm not the person you asked but I feel it's probably important that advocates have more opinions on what's best than legalization so op may not even agree with legalization but rather decriminalization or some other option. they only mentioned how current legalized sex work examples screw over the workers
I had no idea people had such a hard time telling the difference between two completely different situations... The more I learn about humans, the more I don't want to be one anymore. I'm still a fan of the brothels idea however I absolutely agree that if we went with the model that restricted sex work to brothels, it needs far better regulation and more avenues for enforcement of those regulations. It's just absurd to take 50% of someone's independent income because you can. Also thank you for mentioning strip clubs and the like, those situations slipped my mind and I appreciate being reminded that these people are in the same situation.
"It's a human rights-centered approach that seems to be working" seems to cover a lot of New Zealand's policies. edit: I obviously don't know a lot. I kinda just made an assumtion. The conversations have been interesting though.
I love how John breaks this issue down, because many people just don't think about it. If someone talks about making prostitution legal, they think legal versus illegal. They don't think about regulation versus decriminalization, full criminalization versus the nortic model, etc. I of course land firmly on the side of full decriminalization.
My freshman year of college for a speech/writing class, I was placed in a group with 3 other people and we had to write up a persuasive report on any topic we wanted. We chose legalizing sex work. We spent so much time writing up laws and regulations, and finalizing the paper. We all knew it was good, but when we presented to our professor and classmates, all we got was a dead fish look right back and a low score.
I volunteer helping a lot of vulnerable people, many of whom are sex workers. It is so refreshing to hear someone publicly shine the spot light on some obvious issues with our society regarding sex workers. Thankyou. It means a lot and gives us all hope for a brighter future
I've heard a lot of different opinions from sex workers on whether or not it can be done without exploitation. But I've never heard about a sex worker having a positive experience with the police. Thus, I believe that whether or not sex work is moral, cops should leave sex workers alone.
Notable quote #1: "To those who are still uncomfortable here, out of a concern that there are people who feel economically forced into sex work, I totally agree with you. That is a huge problem, but the fact is our current laws are not addressing that. If you want to do that, that's a much bigger conversation to have because fundamentally, the only way to make sure that people have a choice in the way they earn money is to make housing affordable, health care accessible, and to not burden marginalized people with criminal records that lead to a cycle of joblessness, homelessness, and desperation. But until such time as we have that conversation (and it does not seem like something enough people are itching to have right now), we need to stop pursuing policies that harass, endanger, and occasionally refrigerate sex workers and start listening to what they actually want."
Ha, try that in the US and you'll get the biggest, most obnoxious uproar from the religious right, they'll be so relentless about it, and happily spend millions against it, they'll drag the average middle ground dumbass voter with them and nothing at all will change. This is America...
It's amazing how many social problems can be mitigated by actually creating social safety nets and addressing the causes rather than criminalising the symptoms. Add drug addiction, homelessness/vagrancy, petty larceny to the list.
America is a land of celebrated and unchecked avarice. Social safety nets cost $$$. Money these bastards don't want to spend on the 'greater good'. The only good for them is whatever lines their pockets. I can remember vividly many of the people addled with drug addiction and homelessness were often in mental hospitals getting help they needed, because a lot of these issues were offshoots of that larger problem. But Reagan said, "well, these don't makes us money, so f*ck em" and like civil rights and other things that benefitted non rich people...he got rid of them. And before the d-bag conservatives try to fact check me...I'm well aware 'budget cuts' caused this...but that was a direct result of Reagan and his conservative cronies rolling back the Mental Health Systems Act and basically starving the entire system. So you can all preemptively f*ck off.
@@manuginobilisbaldspot424 what's funnier is that oftentimes the nets benefit the economy as a whole. There was a study that showed that every dollar spent on unemployment meant two back into the economy (think this was said in a John Oliver episode), yet people on both sides seem to think that it would be an extremely harmful thing to make more accessible. More people have this incorrect preconceived notion on one side than the other, though.
@@ladynori Why not both? Btw, since when do rightwingers _actually_ support families? Instead, they’re trying to criminalize parents who support their trans children ...
@@jameswatkins7763 shh... we need to solve all these problems our laws have cause in sex work with more laws about housing, Healthcare, and wages... surely those laws won't cause any unintended consequences
I remember how those so-called journalist would often send ‘assets’ with hidden cameras to catch prostitution in the act only to see that the ‘assets’ enthusiastically participate in the sex trade, I can’t help but find it hypocritical on the federal agents part to participate and have sex to what was essentially an illegal act/felony.
That icky feeling you get when thinking about sex workers getting arrested by the very person they just pleased. That’s your mind trying to get you to realize it’s all bad. Cops break laws under cover all the time and yet we understand why they have to. In this case, there’s something particularly flawed with thinking legalization is the answer. As John said, there’s a lot to debate.
Oh and by the way something like 98% of these chargers are a misdemeanor so it’s more “illegal” to go 20+ over the speed limit. I’m not trying to be sassy I just feel like we’re not fully considering that SW’s(mostly women) have sex hundreds of times before they get caught on average. I know someone who did SW to pay for her meth addiction and the only thing that stopped her from dying was jail. Not saying every situation needs jail but some of these men and women are out of control.
Sex work and “regular” work isn’t all that different, your employer uses your body for work and your head for ideas and at the end you’re exhausted only wanting to play video games
I'm pleasantly surprised to see this topic being covered so considerately by the LWT crew. As a former sex worker myself, decriminalization is really the best way to go. In New Zealand, we even have a Prostitute's Collective that helps those doing sex work, as well as helps educate sex workers, non sex workers, and businesses about what is and isn't okay in sex work. For those that haven't done sex work, (from my experience) the information you have can really define your experience and career. I felt the need to work under the table for the most part, and I'll admit I was heavily burned by this. However, once I started consulting the NZPC for help and resources that did start to turn around. I learned about my rights, what I could and could not do, and even have access to fundamental equipment (condoms, lube, etc.) in a free 'starter pack', and then afterwards at a reduced price closer to the actual production cost. They even helped learn how to properly file my taxes as an independent contractor, so I could apply for the things I needed! It's certainly not perfect though, because you're paid by the client and service so if no one shows up during your shift or the client is a no-show you've just lost time and money. I've always wondered if there could be a guaranteed minimum pay for sex workers that show up to a brothel shift, so that if things fall through they're not completely screwed. Also, if something happens and you require police help that experience and the end result can be heavily shaped by whether or not the cops you interact with are assholes. When I once tried to report a stealthing incident to the police, the two guys who came and got my statement made me feel so embarrassed and ashamed as well as trying to implicate that I knowingly allowed what happened to happen. The SA clinic though was absolutely amazing and compassionate beyond measure. Overall, I'm really happy that this topic has been covered and I hope this has helped everyone who's watched it to come away knowing a little bit more and judging a bit less. Also, if I ever write a book I'm going to have to give John Oliver and his a team a writing credit for the phrase 'it would be dystopian if it wasn't so fucking American'. I can't remember right now if there's a way to donate to the NZPC but if there's the opportunity to I would highly encourage you to do so.
To anyone asking why they're covering this and not the invasion of Ukraine: that was the opener of the episode, and covered about 10-12 minutes, presumably they'll get a more in-depth discussion of it soon.
I am guessing in the next couple of weeks depending on the situation, although it is not their specialty like this piece. i.e. not a little paid attention to problem with American society.
And they decided to upload the sex topic instead of the Ukrainian one. It really can't get anymore American than that....you can tell John Oliver is an American citizen
I kinda assumed they wanted to cover it but had already done the research and most of the writing on this piece by the time the invasion began on Thursday. Makes sense since they taped the show yesterday afternoon and wouldn’t have had time to cover it more in depth
I’d like to have that conversation - the one addressing the underlying issues that keep us all scrambling to survive, no matter which industry we work in. Please do an episode on that
Did you see Jon Stewart's podcast discussion on MMT? Toward the end, they touch on the unemployment rate, which I found enlightening. czcams.com/video/0G6obeUKWmw/video.html
Right! It's been awfully quiet about the people killed in the Amazon warehouse in Illinois during a tornado. If we would act as decisively against Jeff Bezos as we act against sex workers, Bezos would be in jail by now.
That system that keeps us constantly scrambling to survive is called Capitalism, and John has been talking about various aspects surrounding it for years now. The best place to hear someone talk about Capitalism directly is on the CZcams channels Second Thought, Yugopnik, and Hakim.
@@troyterry6919 Human trafficking is selling people for forced labor. People voluntarily doing sex work isn’t human trafficking because it isn’t forced. Would you say that people doing physical labor like mining or construction are trafficking themselves?
@@geekgirl_luv4262 people don't really choose that lifestyle. They are forced into it by societal circumstances. It isn't like if we legalize prostitution that a bunch of financially stable people will begin doing it. We need tighter prostitution laws if anything.
@@troyterry6919 First of all, the same could be said of any job people don’t want to do but have to in order to make money. Second, there are plenty of people who would choose to do sex work because they enjoy it and not just because they need to. And third, that *still* doesn’t explain how they are illegally trafficking themselves. Human trafficking is not the same thing as doing a job you don’t want to do because you need money(don’t get me wrong, neither are good, but they’re not the same). By your logic, a coal miner who hates his job but is forced to do it because of economic reasons is the same as a person being sold for physical labor against their will. Would you arrest that coal miner for trafficking himself? No, obviously not. Because that’s not what human trafficking is.
Something about sex trafficking that really needs to be addressed, if any meaningful action is to take place to stop it, is the fact that a lot of people forced into sex work are groomed by parents and/or other relatives. It's not even as cut and dry as pay money for a single session, a lot of sex trafficking actually involves the victims being married off to their "clients". That's also one of the ways that traffickers skirt the laws, because even if there is an age difference, marriage signifies that any sexual relationship is most certainly consensual, right? Something that really shook me was when I worked as a delivery driver for a local pizza chain. I had a delivery to a hotel and when I got there, I witnessed an exchange between the clerk at the lobby desk and a guest. The clerk and other staff had learned that the guest, a man over 30 years old, was sharing his single-bed room with a 15-year old girl. The police were called, but the man was able to get the police in contact with the girl's (supposed) mother who verified the relationship was "consensual", even though the laws protected no such relationship. So the cops did nothing. That brings me to another very horrific reality: when it comes to sex trafficking, local police officers are often aware of and a party to the trafficking. That's not to say that all officers are complicit, but it's definitely something to keep in mind when some officers are fighting against laws that would make the practice of them having sex with prostitutes illegal during sting operations.
The fact that they even do sting operations for prostitutution to begin with... 😓 Like come on guys, who is this hurting besides potentially the person you're trying to arrest?
Are you aware of how few actual cases of sex trafficking there are? The FBI puts together the numbers every year. In 2020, there were 652 confirmed cases of sex trafficking of which 13 were minors. Meanwhile there were 319,950 reported cases of rape and sexual assault, and 856,750 reported cases of domestic violence. Something about marriage and non commercial relationships needs to be addressed.
"even though the laws protected no such relationship. So the cops did nothing." but wouldn't that particular scenario be one that +doesn't+ work as an example of laws needing to change if it was already illegal?
@@normajeanalmo1 It befuddles me everytime that this statistic is used to prove that there is little trafficking. 1) Notice how you yourself use two different discriptions: confirmed and reported, and precisely this perfectly describes why those aren't comparable statistics. One is based off of a guilty party being determined through the courts, and the other is based off of reported allegations. One requires a burden of proof and the other requires a claim. Other estimates claim that there are up 40,000 people in the US who are trafficked. 2) You are comparing 2 different (but overlapping) populations: total individuals in the sex trade, and the entire population (though one could also argue that the female half is important to look as they are the most likely victim). So of course the absolute values will differ largely. 3) The sex trade is part of rape culture. These 2 social phenomena are related. To be able to buy consent means that consent is not necessarily based on a willingness, but it is necessarily based on financial need. While this is not the case in every situation it is in most situations, and the idea that a one way relationship between of consent through finacial leveraging should be ok is precisely how the objectification of women and rape culture works. Marraige and monogamy often reflect this attitude as well.
One thing not really mentioned in this episode is that criminalizing a profession forces its professionals to become criminals. For instance, drug dealers very often commit a variety of other minor offenses connected to dealing drugs even if they are generally good citizens, and prostitutes often have to find other illegal ways to make money during the day like boosting or fraud. By shoving people into the "criminal" category, you not only raise the barrier for them to make money legitimately, you lower the barrier for them to make money illegitimately. So when cops arrest sex workers, they are likely to find other crimes too, and that reinforces this idea that sex workers are just fundamentally bad people and deserve what they have coming to them. Or that by locking them up for a while, we can "help" them get out of a fundamentally bad profession. But there is nothing bad about sex work except that the state assembly says there is. If sex work were as legal and normalized as road work, sex workers would be no more likely to be criminals than road workers. Or conversely, if we made it illegal to help someone else prepare their tax return, we would see a booming black market of tax professionals appear overnight. And it wouldn't be two seconds before many of them started to add on other illegal financial services.
I unfortunately think the average American has a devil may care attitude toward the laws in the country since many of them feel like they haven't broken any major laws, and thus not breaking them is easy and anyone who does so is being careless or vicious and should be punished. They can't understand there are less privileged people who's actions have systematically been turned into criminal acts and thus gives a reason for the government to treat the most marginalized harshly. Pretty soon the laws will come after even the average American, and maybe then they'll have more outrage over the legal system.
@@maryxmas9921 exactly what nordic model does, except defining pimp is easier said than done. As another SW advocate video points out, laws against pimping effectively cutoff sex workers from being able to rent space, or hire drivers. Since those now are getting a cut from sex worker's income and are effectively facilitating the work. Unfortunately common sense doesn't apply for law enforcement.
from NZ: I remember when the decriminialisation happened. So many moral guardians were like "every girl is going to be forced onto the streets! you're asking our children to be ok with this work!!" - actually it went the other way. I remember multiple different workers doing interviews afterwards talking about how reliving it was to be able to leave a bad job in a brothel that treated them like meat, and not fear that they were going to wind up in a cell. Our number of brothels dropped as the owners lost economic control of the workers. sadly in the capital there are a few strip joints that basically try and force their dancers double as workers, and get away with it, but they are being dragged more and more into the open as they turn against the exploitation I believe we've also had a small increase in our male and NB worker population, because now they have a safe harbour for their desired work. in a side story I've also dealt with some of the toy shops. One capital one was specifically started by two women to give a safer environment for people wanting to buy toys. I served one of the founders at the supermarket I worked at and noticed the business name on the account. I asked if that was the store I thought it was, and you could see her going "oh no, fundamentalist rant..." and I surprised her with "good on you, I'm glad you guys found your niche. How's that new store working out?" - had an absolutely lovely chat about what she liked about the work, and the annoyance over the new shop actually having been started basically as a scam by someone infringing on their copyright. The "new" shop changed their name about 3 weeks later, so that butt that tried to do them out of their hard work got stomped! For me that conversation was no different than asking the orthodox jewish church ladies if they needed the meat I hadn't touched yet to be kosher, or me asking what the zoo was up to with so many coconuts (making easter eggs for a bunch of different species was the answer!)
This is interesting to me as I lived next to the first legal red light district in the uk, and it ended up being recriminalised due to the increase in sexually charged assaults and kidnappings of non-sex workers by men. The women were experiencing increased levels of violence as men basically believed they owed them more due to the increase in supply. Its hard because those women benefitted from the decriminalisation, but it also made things much more dangerous for them.
@@kitsunecookie372 it's not the legalization that's the problem, it's how it's done that is. I remember watching a documentary about Perth (iirc - an Australian city, I'm 99% certain it was there) after it legalised brothels. The ladies were happy because they had protection (bouncers and panic buttons), they were actually happy to pay taxes because they felt more legitimate, have to be medically checked on a specified regular basis... It was the first place in Australia to do this and it reduced crimes related to sex work by a lot. Like I said, it's the _how,_ not the _what_ of how legalization should be done.
@@y_fam_goeglyd I wasnt saying decriminalisation was the issue, though I understand why you would think that. I was saying that it was predatory men that became more aggressive and violent as a result of legalisation. The problem is systemic misogyny and centuries of prejudice and the normalisation of violence against women, and due to the government's inaction and unwillingness to put legislation in place to protect sex workers they were treated as the problem and thus it was recriminalised. They would rather make things harder for sex workers and have them at the mercy of the Met and the men who systematically abuse them than address misogyny and violence against women.
Actually the first thought I had when John mentioned being "economically forced" to do sex work was "Wait hold on couldn't we say the same about any job?" And yep next words out of his mouth addressed that. Thanks, John. Great piece as always.
@@thomasmichael2766 Universal health care solves only one of the mentioned problems. Actually working legal system solves yet the third problem. But to solve the primary problem you need universal housing care :) That is, you need to remove capitalism from the housing market, that is you need to remove landlords (or highly limit their economic freedoms), Mao Zadong moment right there :D
@@samuelfisher5002 I'd say when governments fail to properly identify and work with the problem, people suffer. Things like abortion or prostitution, drug use, all of these things are probably going to remain a constant. The solution isn't to wage a war against the people afflicted and impacted by these situations, but to provide support and options. This is best accomplished through legalizing and regulating these things.
As ever, John smacks that nail right on the head! It's the same with any situation where laws are made to "make X situation" better, whatever it is. The powers that be need to talk to those affected by X, not just rush headlong into writing new legislation.
That last bit REALLY resonated with me. "Fundamentally, the only way to make sure that people have a choice in the way they earn money is to make housing affordable, healthcare accessable, and to NOT BURDEN MARGINALIZED PEOPLE WITH CRIMINAL RECORDS THAT CAN LEAD TO A CYCLE OF JOBLESSNESS, HOMELESSNESS, AND DESPERATION" Maybe we as a country should re-think that whole not letting British people be President thing, cuz I'm pretty sure my mans just identified what is so fundementally WRONG with this country at its core, and I bet he'd actually try and DO something about it if we put him in a position of power where he was actually capable of that
I am a mixed-race trans woman from Louisiana. I have been stopped, harassed, and even detained multiple times for the way I dress and been accused of being a hooker with zero evidence. These laws hurt us even when we don't do SW. I stand with the folks who do this work fully, of course.
I've been accused of being a sex worker for walking at night with a fucking backpack because I don't have a car and they can't wrap their heads around someone walking the long way home.
Your stories are incredible and politicians need to recognize your worth in solving the problems sex-workers are having in our world. Thank you for sharing, you made me a believer that this needs great change.
I remember reading somewhere something in the line: "We don't talk about people working in sex industries and their issues, just like we do not name animals before driving them to the slaughterhouse: it makes it harder for us to consume them as products if we do." I believe around that time I was interested in Jon Ronson's The Last Days of August, which discussed the context behind the suicide of a porn actress, August Ames, and this quote popped up somewhere I don't remember.
I remember when that happened. I'll have to read the story because that was so sad. I remember her essentially saying she didn't want to have sex with a bi sexual man and basically got cyber bullied to death.. for not wanting to have sex with someone.
@@stephengrigg5988 While I don’t agree with mobs attacking people. She was in the wrong in that situation. Many other pornstars noted this fact at the time. All pornstars go through the same testing procedures. To say a bi pornstar is more or less likely to have an STD is patently false. You’re failing to properly convey the nuance of the situation. But most importantly she is allowed to make her own choices and allowed to be wrong. But that is why the backlash was so intense. And I think she had much deeper issues at play than just the backlash.
why does the US have such a nieve childish perspective on things like sex work? refusing to have an adult conversation about things like sex workers is going to make the issue worse.
In VA there’s an ongoing case where police protected sex trafficking in exchange for free “services” and the women that were actually vulnerable couldn’t even get help from the police even if they wanted to.
To all who are asking for a Ukraine story, the invasion started the 24th. That's means they most likely didn't have enough time to thoroughly research and write a long piece about it. Best they could do was a limited piece at the start of the episode. It's very likely that they will do a longer piece next week or in the future. We all know John is positively livid because of what's happening.
@@avatarwarmech LMAO, yeah you think Russia bombing and attacking a country is less important. You're such a republican it shows so hard. You always deflect the important issues for bullshit with whataboutism.
indeed. privates are self employed, set their own services, their own schedules and their own rates. they are basically entrepreneurs, how that could be considered exploitation is beyond me.
"I'll be raped 100 times before I ever go to the cops for help," is a string of words that no one should have to utter.
It’s a failure of our laws of our police and a mass failure of our empathy and humanity…..sorry that founded self righteous
That made me feel like throwing up. The fact someone reaches that conclusion means policing is entirely broken, which was obvious before.
After she's already been jailed for trying to report that she was raped, no less.
That made me immensely sad and angry at the same time. I felt a shiver down my back when she said that. There is a shocking lack of empathy and humanity in or culture.
That's really weird that this individual prefers choosing rape over cops.
Ugh, how pitiful. 😒
"If you think sex workers "sell their bodies," but coal miners do not, your view of labor is clouded by your moralistic view of sexuality" -(Dr. Sprankle)
@@josephk4932 Really? My emotions are connected to my brain
(In obnoxious voice) Dr. Sprankle?? More like Dr. SPANKle AM I RIGHT GUYS!?”
That's the thing I find it hard to say anything to people who tell me stuff like sex work is Inherently shameful and lowly. Like you might think that. But people's dignity isn't in their genetelias. How can I make someone understand that when they have conservative view already
@@sakuranovaryan9261 It's complicated by the fact that while the work itself isn't shameful and lowly, it's usually performed by people who are being exploited and abused.
Of course, the same can be said of coal miners.
Yeah that’s not a great quote.
"If I don't help them, who will?".
As a Forensic Nurse examiner: We will help. A network of social workers, trauma-informed therapists, healthcare workers, and lawyers will help people who have been sex trafficked. The paternalistic attitude of so many police, is so harmful and many people who have been trafficked are afraid to come forward due to fear of legal reprisal. It's ridiculous. They're the victims but police often treat them like criminals.
"They're the victims but police often treat them like criminals" really just applies to pretty much any real victim at all in this country.
police rape us and kill us and laugh at us. for the most part they don't care. some cops seem an exception . in my experience I've encountered some decent ones. I by and large hate them all but I have been a couple times shocked by decent treatment. I am white though. privilege is real.
Taxes would have to go up for you as well to pay for that. Thank you for being open to it.
Bullshit. 0.07% of eligible rapists are sent to prison.
@@ivonnatrolue6747 Yeah I’d be cool with taxes going up if those taxes were going towards helping people who have been trafficked and raped get out of that situation and start to recover. Or we could just stop giving so much fucking money to the military when they don’t even need it all, and put that money towards social programs that help people.
It’s really concerning that the police were arguing that they should be able to have sex with sex workers during sting operations when they were ALSO claiming that most sex workers are victims of trafficking. If you think someone is currently being trafficked, *under absolutely no circumstances should you be having sex with them.*
☝🏻This.
I was nauseous during that part of the episode even though I was well aware of every thing in this episode. Such an important episode.
This is great news ror the travel industry! The airports can have hotels nearby where there are clean, safe opportunities for businesemen and sex tourists. Soon there will be so many opportunities worldwide the cost will get lower and lower to get sex services for pocket change. Bonus tor the countries with low ages of consent. Mom needs life saving surgery but the family has no money? No problem, sister is turning 13 next week! Oh, we'll ask her first, we won't just force her to do it. So you want mom to live? Or do to want to know, for the rest of your life, that *you're* the reason she died?
And the brothels are sure to keep things safe. Except the men who frequent them leave reviews, and Brothel X will kick you out if you're try (insert unpleasant or violent act here) but it's fine at Brothel Y. Soon, only places like Brothel Y can stay in business. And then Brothel Z opens and lets tourists do even worse (don't kink shame now!).
Now, girls across the globe will know that their family's future depends on them. No daughters? That's ok, Brothel T caters to people who want what little brother has. How incredibly empowering! Truly a gift from the well to do countries to the 3rd world. Brings a tear to my eye.
Best quote coming from this video: “I’d call it dystopian, if it wasn’t so f*cking American”
God that is so devastatingly true.
Lol, I feel like America is just a dystopia tho...
@@ErutaniaRose I think that was what he was saying? Like basically “I would be shocked, but Im so used to it” ya know?
@@DougBurgum4VP I'd agree some people overblow how bad it is, but most of you underestimate how bad it is. What countries make you so sure that the US isn't a dystopia, because most western countries are very much better by almost all metrics than the US. Its not even close to the worst, and it is just about free but its barely a hallmark, and the difference is many people really believe its the land of the free, which it just isn't. It has the highest incarceration rate in the world, the second highest execution rate, the worst prison conditions, and the abuses by the US police is absurd. So if you've never been to a developing dictatorship, China, or Russia, America is very much awful, these countries may be worse but Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the EU, the EEA, etc. are better, and Americans are so often taught they are the only free country and they aren't and most people I know in Britain genuinely hate the idea of moving to the State's and joke about how little they'd want to live there.
@@ErutaniaRose One giant corrupt coast to coast shopping mall!
@@DougBurgum4VP I live in a tiny-ass ex-Yugoslavian European country with an economy like 1000x smaller than the US's. Almost every single person here makes jokes about how at least we aren't in the US. We have higher social mobility than the US, better education, free kindergartens, heavily government subsidized healthcare that doesn't bankrupts us when we need to go to the hospital, a year of paid maternal leave, a minute amount of police violence compared to you... I could go on for days. I'm sorry but if a random half-balkan country can beat you out there is something *deeply* wrong with your country lmao.
I got arrested for handing out condoms to prostitutes in Newark NJ. They said it was "soliciting prostitution" Luckily, the judge saw my intention and threw out the case.
Holy fuck... Good that you got out but it's insane that it happened in the first place!!
Prostituted people. No one can look at a person and know if they are choosing or if they are trafficked. Prostituted people allows for both realities.
@@jaybenke No one knows whether or not a wife is a victim of domestic violence- so perhaps criminalizing marriage would give them the opportunity to do so? Of course that wouldn't work, and neither does criminalizing prostitution. Being arrested is not a solution to finding out who is and isn't trafficked. Being arrested is traumatic and having a police record means it is so much more difficult to find other employment if one wants to.
As someone who did sex work for years after I left a hideous job on the LAPD, I find that anyone calling all sex workers "prostituted people" highly offensive.
@@normajeanalmo1 I find anyone implying that all prostituted people are choosing is horrendous to the very real trafficking victims and children in the trade. If you prioritize the privileged choosing and ignore those enslaved, you do not care about victims.
I'm glad you brought up domestic violence. Domestic violence is illegal, we don't criminalize marriage but we still criminalize beating your spouse. The victim does not get arrested, the perpetrator does. Welcome to the equality model.
@@jaybenke Legalizing sex work doesn't decriminalize sex trafficking. But it makes it much easier to report.
Many sex trafficking victims are afraid to report because they know that there's a high risk that they'll get jailed for being prostitutes; and a tiny chance that their claims will be investigated. If sex work is legalized, the risk falls to ZERO - which means that a lot more sex trafficking victims will report.
It is literally the most insane thing to me to arrest and jail the _victims_ of a crime instead of the _perpetrators._ But it’s also, apparently, the most American thing too.
When a group of people is deprived of rights by being criminalized, it makes it easy to exploit them. Some bad men liked sex workers to be poor, dominated, and compliant, and subject to abuse with no recourse.
America and many other nations also have "illegals" who do work that Americans won't for cheaper without rights. It's not nearly as bad as slavery, but it's on the spectrum. We blame the illegal workers for picking our strawberries at low wages no American would take, and punish and deport them. Under Drumph and Stephen Miller, ICE even kidnapped their children. Can't get much lower than that!
Same thing with the war on drugs it’s laughable
Worse, creating the economical fragility that often pushes people into a job you then criminalise, then arrest them and further make them unhireable.
Btw I'd gladly do sex work if it wasn't so dangerous. I don't view sleeping with strangers and people I'm not attracted to as degrading, I see being able to bring someone company, pleasure and comfort, as purposeful and meaningful work. If SW wasn't so stigmatised you'd have more willing participants which would reduce human trafficking.
In Sweden they only jail the men who pay for it
SW aren't victims unless they are being trafficked
THANK YOU, JUST ENDLESSLY THANK YOU FOR THIS.
My mother was a sex worker and was scammed by a pimp. She couldn't ever report him to the authorities because of the legal nature of the situation. She couldn't confide in anyone in the family because she was entirely disowned, especially by her own mother. The debt ruined us, she was always in the hole and once she got cancer, she couldn't work any longer. Her sense of self was even further diminished once she had to get a double mastectomy, and her identity of being the bread-winner was taken from her once again. Of course my mother is partially at fault for trusting her scammer, but you don't know what desperation does to a single mother of 3 kids. The drinking, along with the cancer, got worse and worse until she eventually died from brain cancer. I wonder how things would have gone for our family if the stigma and legality wasn't so fucking unfair.
❤️❤️❤️
I am so sorry that happened. Your mother should have never had to deal with that, and neither should you have.
So sorry, that’s awful. If sex workers had legal working rights, like others workers, they could report these creeping leeching pimps. Pimps are like a third leg, if sex workers had legal rights, they could learn to run their small business and book keeping among themselves, or hire a legit accountant, no need for self appointed abusive “managers”. Your mum tried her best with the hand she was dealt, so unfair. RIP to your mum, and love to you ❤️
♥♥♥
@@bloochoob regulating sex work is like trying to regulate paedophilia. Both are enherently exploitative and non consensual.
I really wish John mentioned how often police ignore disappearance cases where the victim happens to be a sex worker. I have listened to too many true crime cases where dozens of sex workers would disappear in a certain area, and the police wouldn't do a thing until they had absolutely had to.
Our society doesn't care about sex workers, or women of colour, or other marginalised groups. So if they die or go missing it's not considered important enough.
THIS^^^^^
Good
Yup!!! Hit the nail right on the head.
You would like Philosophy Tube’s video on sex work, it’s pretty neat and much more theatrical.
Hearing anyone say "I'd get raped a 100 times before I go to the cops" is so heartbreaking
I mean, if victims aren't sex workers the police is already about the last place many would want to go, I can only imagine how much worse it is if you're also a sex worker.
Now imagine the number if she wasn't white
@@JeremyForTheWin now imagine the world without people like u
@@piotrswat169 why?
@@JeremyForTheWin sadly smh. It's hard enough for cis white women. So you know it's exceptionally hard for everyone else 😔.
I'm an ex sex worker in Australia and when they made it legal it became so much safer. At $500 per hour- most of the guys just wanted company that was uncomplicated. There was also obviously sex. But if I didn't want to do it I would just not extend to the second hour. I was very much in control of the situation.
That sounds exactly how things should be! As someone who grew up as a homeless trans teen in Detroit, I still can't stop thinking about things I remember happening 20 years ago.. Between drug addiction and sex work, it was closer to living in a battlefield with how often friends disappeared or came into a house bloody and scared about hat they just had to do to defend themselves. The cops were worthless. I can't even imagine how much better it could make things in the city if they legalized the work and people stared letting the pay an protection deserved.
I believe most things become safer when they’re legal and regulated by law. If something is illegal, there’s no rules how it should go or what applies.
@@chloewebb5526 ❤️
@@FluffyEnbyneering ABSOLUTELY. If something is illegal there is a black market and exploitation of people.
Can I just say, that's kinda badass?
Nothing will make you reconsider the statement “sex work is the most demeaning work you can do” than working for 3 hours in an Amazon warehouse
“Wait, hold on, you’re NOT his brother?!”
I laughed so damn hard at that.
I did too xD for sooo long too
He said it half a second after I thought it and my coffee came out my fookin nose
I literally said the same as the teen asked the boy like wtf lol
I just want to know when RiffTrax will cover this short
So cringe! 😬😂
I am a massage therapist, which in my state is considered a healthcare worker (I'm in Washington where insurance has to cover it). When I was a teen, the laws in my city prohibited a woman massaging a man. That changed a long time ago, but about 5 years ago they put a new law in place prohibiting massage from being performed between 10PM and 6AM. This was openly to try to target illegitimate "massage parlors," but the problem is, the women working in those massage parlors are in fact usually the ones that are being trafficked. They don't have massage licenses, so the law that's written to target them doesn't even apply to them.
I wrote a statement to be submitted at a city hall meeting saying, "Why don't you come around once a year and check that everyone working in massage businesses is licensed? We're required to post them. The fire department comes yearly to check my business. Just have the health department (who issues licenses) to do the same thing! And when you find women who are unlicensed, offer them help, don't arrest them! Arrest the owners of the "massage" parlors! They never even submitted or responded to my comment as they had promised to do. So it makes me sad, but not surprised, that they are arresting the victims and not helping them.
Where do you get that they're being trafficked?
@@nomoremrniceguy007 I do realize not all sex workers are trafficked, but some are. From a Forbes article last year: "Amy Hsieh, the deputy director of the Anti-Trafficking Initiative, a pro bono legal service connected with nonprofit Sanctuary for Families, represents survivors of labor and sex trafficking and helps women who’ve been arrested at massage businesses. Out of more than 1,200 clients-mostly undocumented women who have emigrated from Asia-Hsieh says that 1 out of 5 says they have been trafficked or have experienced some level of coercion. While many of her clients say they chose to work at a massage business, Hsieh doesn’t really consider the decisions many immigrant women must make to be free choices. A phrase many of her Chinese clients use to describe their experience at illicit massage parlors is “沒辦法”-or “no other way.” "
@@jennw6809 I'm not denying it happens but let's discuss those groups you're talking about as just non profits. They're abolitionist groups with a new angle, human trafficking. It exists, but don't take "no other way" or some survey answer as the definitive proof. It just isn't, actually some early studies on sexual assault were misguided and later admitted so because the survey questions can be misleading.
I have no other way in life either but to work a job. I have to eat and put a roof over my head. No other way.
In their cases, they do have other ways, but many owe debts in their countries that they have to pay because their country has laws not unlike the IRS or student debt. The difference is that many Asian nations ALLOW travel to the US or other wealthy nations and a choice to do sex work or other types of work to pay back the debt.
The family of the person in debt can be held liable unlike in America.
This is NOT human trafficking any more than forcing people to pay back student loans is. However if you want to take that stance, fine, most of America are human trafficking victims in some way and the only outrage is yet again... because sex.
sometimes it feels like no one in power is willing to sit down and think a little unless of course money and reputation is on the line…
No one should ever arrest the people selling sex - it is the BUYERS who fuel sex trafficking, NOT the women and kids they use like public toilets. It is grotesque misogyny to decriminalize sex buyers along with those they exploit - this is NOT an even playing field.
A friend of mine got hit in the Backpage sting. She's endured awful abuse, mental health issues, and was just trying to survive. She needed help and compassion, not a criminal record to make it even harder to climb out of the hole she was in. Fucking awful how we kick people when they're down.
As I saw recently: "As a child I thought the police could do illegal things without getting punished. Then I got older and found that wasn't true. Then I got wiser are realised it was."
I've never disagreed so much with John Oliver, Kiwis are perfectly reasonable and respectable national birds.
have you ever seen an x-ray of a kiwi about to lay an egg?
it is quite impressive to say the least
But we have the Kea. A monkey parrot that disassemble cars for a laugh. Far better.
@@integralhighspeedusb doesn't need to be a contest - BOTH kiwi and kea (& kakapo & & & & ....) are awesome birds
@@juliaconnell on the contrary, we have a competition about this every year (Bird of the Year) which gets very heated clearly showing the need for a competition ;)
The kea is clearly the best, but nothing wrong with the Kiwi being the national bird... it is the perfect cover for the kea... get people in with the cuteness, then rip their car apart
"I'd call it dystopian if it wasn't so fucking American."
This could apply to a lot of things tbh
i mean it can still be called dystopian
Yes but we’re talking about sex work right now :)
Kind of his point I think.
Looks at unrestricted drone warfare
Which is why it is so American.
The fact that Republicans would defend guns more than they defend people just trying to do their fucking job is something sensational.
Cringe comment
I live in New Zealand and have spent a decade full time in the sex industry. Decriminalisation really works
"I'd call it dystopian, if it wasn't so fu*king American..." Line of the season contender in the very 2nd episode.
It's kind of hilarious to watch this episode and see AAAAALLLLL the porn bots spamming the comments section.
@@jiukumitethink it's there way of helped the video?
Yeah
“Joke’s on you: it’s BOTH!”
@@Sapheiorus beat me to it
"I would call it Dystopian, if it wasn't so fucking American." the only sentence that needed to be said.
That really sums everything up right there
This is dogshit reporting
You know something is fucked up when you can carry a gun but not a condom.
More or less the motto of the show at this point.
It can both be dystopian and painfully American. They aren't mutually exclusive. 🥰
There’s one guy laughing hard and I love it. 😂❤
This... this is the comment I was looking for. I had to try so hard to maintain focus on John the whole time because after every joke that same guy up front kept laughing *_so_* hard, and his laugh sounds *_so_* distractingly goofy 😆🤣
John Oliver is killing it in standing up for those who seriously need to stop being demonized. I love John Oliver so much. He makes the world a better place.
For those confused. Main topics are planned long in advance. He covered Ukraine in the first 12 min. Only the main topic is release on CZcams.
Freaking thank you!
Whst about their first piece about Comey and stupid Watergate?
Most pieces are prepared in advance but not all.
Thank you. I've barely scrolled down the comments and the amount of people who are complaining there's nothing about Ukraine here is way too much. This is how the channel has worked for years people ffs
👍
@@am53n8 What mildly annoyed me was that the top LWTw/JO algo recommendation I got today was one entitled "Putin" -- which is from four or five years ago but its placement and labeling made me think it was the new one at first...
"I'd call it 'dystopian' if it were not so American." Even out of context, that phrase rings disturbingly true.
Pretty fuggin *Rotherham*
Foreigners in the internet quite often call many of 'murica's facets distopian. Like you have so many people in prison the homicide rate in prison is lower than in the general population.
Sad but true
Europe isn't doing much better. Not American, dont come for me. They are clearly not wining in this area either and any dystopia like countries now are all due to European influence so let's all remember that please.
@@0Clewi0 As a person.who had the privilege of being born aboard...they are not right, but they are not wrong either.
What drives me mad is the criminal record/sex offender thing! If the cops really wanted to help these supposed trafficking victims, they would set them up with job training, housing, and healthcare so that they can enter a new line of safer work, not prevent them from working for several months and then throw them back on the street with no support and a criminal record that hurts their chances of getting out on their own or get support when they're harmed by clients. Nevermind that there are people who genuinely choose sex work and wouldn't necessarily want to change careers.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! It is so good to see a mainstream person talking about this and advocating for this. Sex workers have been trying to be heard for so long. You brought tears to my eyes but also a smile to my face.
Having the option to call the police when a client rapes/abuses a sex worker is a matter of basic human decency and civilization. Instead we see the police in certain jurisdictions demanding to retain the right to sleep with sex workers before they arrest them. That is so messed up, i have no words..
Getting rid of sex work is a matter of basic human decency and civilization.
So they are demanding the right to rape.
What. The. Fuck.
@@marcuscaballarius2159 as long as theres a market for it sex work will always exist unfortunetly
@@alexandravalerious3274 That's not a good argument for legalization. You could say that about any crime.
@@marcuscaballarius2159 Let's for a second say this was true: How would you do this? Making it illegal hasn't worked. What is your approach?
Here in Pittsburgh a few years ago they raided multiple massage places and made a lot of noise about breaking up a human trafficking ring with lots of cops and politicians patting themselves on the back, but they arrested all the girls. Well if they thought they were victims of human trafficking why the hell would they put them in jail? If they rescue a kidnap victim they don’t march them off in handcuffs and throw them in a cell!
Exactly
"Put the fleshlights in the holding cells" /s
Honestly this type of stuff has happened so much here I can't even recall which case you're referring to. The police here are awful and rotten to the very core. Jagoffs, all of em.
Did they arrest the people who bought sex? Did they arrest the people who brought the girls in? If not, then the did not bust a sex trafficking ring.
Sounds like whenever elections are close, they just “bust” something and pat themselves and show off, then re-do this the next election. Rinse and repeat. Waste of tax paying $
As someone who has dabbled in sex work, my main reason for going into was i was a hypersexual but smart and safe person from time to time, might as well benefit from it
may as well get paid for it if you're good at it right? if i was popular sexually i'd probably make a business out of it too.
I can’t say enough great things with John’s show. He and his staff are priceless. I laugh and learn so much.
as a sexworker i felt so fucking seen during this episode. he touched upon every single issue I could think of to yell at my tv.....and GOT IT ALL RIGHT I was fucking FLABBERGASTED.
Yes! And he is the only one that will put this common sense out there to educate. A customer paying for a service should not be illegal it makes no sense.
Samezies
John's videos are always on point, He identifies the problem, points to some solution. Unfortunately it falls on deaf ears.
"A dress that exposed her buttocks and cervix". Yup, definitely a statement written by a cop.
Ahhhhhh! "America's Finest..."
A cervix can only be seen with a speculum. That's insane!
What the hell did he thought a cervix is ?
or "I've never given a woman an orgasm in my life"
It's one of those statements that when you see it in an official report the only rational course of action is to fire the guy who wrote it because it's obvious he's never has a consensual sexual encounter that didn't involve money changing hands.
"i'd call it dystopian if it weren't so fucking american"
alot of people have been talking about the impact of that line. Those people are right. It is an extremely accurate summary of the state of 21st century America and it applies to most things now. But there's one thing about that sentence that people haven't noticed yet which i find a bit strange, because underneath that message is the assumption that America can't be dystopian. And _that_ attitude is perhaps the biggest reason why all these things keep happening to America. Most Americans live under the false assumption that they are immune to dystopian situations, and that complacency is exactly what allows the dystopia to grow.
Honestly, as an Australian, you couldn't pay me enough money to move to the US. I love (most) Americans, but America's extreme politics, deplorable health-care situation, bizarre religious zealots and gun violence really turn me off, among other things.
Surely the point is the opposite - calling it dystopian is redundant because the definition already overlaps so much with what America fundamentally is and apparently aspires to.
@@Josh_Quillan I agree with both you and the OP. I think both sides make sense. It hides that American can be also dystopian but it also implies that America is.
Amerikka = Dystopia
19:15 You know it's a hard hitting truth when even his audience go past laughter and into sheer uncomfortable silence.
I think a key thing many people often forget regarding the law is that making something illegal doesn't mean the things you dislike don't happen, it just changes how it happens. This isn't a question of whether sex work should happen or not, but how, because continuing to criminalize it will just make it worst for those who engage in it regardless.
I feel secure in the belief that there are fewer prostitutes now than there would be if it were illegal. What's more, when people are doing illegal things willfully, the living conditions they endure as a direct result of their choices straight up don't matter.
I'm absolutely happy to support social programs that pull people out of bad situations. But why should I be surprised that a union of people doing illegal things are very much for the idea of making them legal? And why should I care?
@@claiminglight how would we even know how many prostitutes there are if we make it illegal? If you do want to decrease the amount of prostitutes, then decriminalization would be the way to go, and you wouldn't have to worry about them breaking the law either
@@DuranmanX Decreasing the number of incidents of a given thing is no argument for legalizing that thing. Consider literally anything. You could go as low as jaywalking , or as high as murder. If there isn't a compelling argument for legalization, there isn't an argument at all.
@@claiminglight except that sex workers who get trafficked have an incredibly hard time getting out and away from their "owners" because they cant easily go to the police and theres many cases where trafficked sex workers are arrested, instead of the people that trafficked and exploited them, by the police and face prison time. i also just cant agree with a world view that doesnt have empathy for the people regardless of how much theyre choosing their circumstances.
@@claiminglight ah yes. The old "illegal things are illegal, and therefore bad" argument. Never mind being illegal doesn't mean it's wrong, like how cannabis, especially the kind that doesn't make you high, yet it many cases, it's the only medication that works.
I do ask you don't just dismiss a group lobbying to make something lega, literally on the grounds that it's illegal.
Since I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned it and it wasn’t in the video - I wanna share that a big part of the reason NZ decriminalised sex work is that Georgia Beyer - a member of parliament in NZ who was the world’s first openly transgender member of parliament and was a sex worker before becoming a politician - stood up and gave a really amazing speech about her experience and why decriminalisation was the right move. Her speech is widely credited with convincing a few other politicians to either change their votes or abstain, allowing the law to pass by an incredibly small margin.
link ???
She convinced politicians with a speech? Hell, give her a Nobel Peace Prize!
Oh, wait, NZ politicians... still impressive.
CZcams deletes my comments when I try to post links, but just google “Georgina Beyer Prostitution Reform Bill 2003”, there’s an article on Te Ara that has some video footage of the parliament including some clips of her speech, and you can read the full transcripts of the whole proceedings on the gov website. It literally passed 60 votes to 59.
Thank you for sharing the information. I admire a lot about NZ policy-making
Too bad that'd never fly here. Maybe I should just move to NZ.
Another great thing about Oliver is that he reports this stuff with such passion and integrity-like he gets so worked up because he feels for these people suffering not just using them for a laugh he’s educating anyone who will listen. Most people that report stories are just judgemental drones no reason behind their judgement and opinion which you can always hear thru the report. I trust John’s information. Keep fighting the good fight🫵🏼🦾I’ll keep watching
This show almost brought me to tears. The mention of sex workers who have been assaulted and afraid to go to the police really reminded me of a movie we recently watched “the frozen ground” based on a true story. It’s so incredibly sad that those victims aren’t listened to or cared for and instead treated as criminals.
Life goal: To enjoy every day like that one guy enjoyed John's jokes.
He kinda sounded like Jimmy Carr
That guy's laugh was next level lmao
Meh ... biggest war in 21st century starts. John's topics for the week:
- critical race theory
- sex work
I wish that guy would be in the background of every show.
@@dennikstandard That's because this is not a news channel.
The cops doing sexual things with sex workers is a *VERY REAL* issue!
I was an officer at a large jail in Texas, & would often read police reports when doing intake for inmates, & holy shit those patrol officers went far! I remember 1 time it was so crazy, I showed my sergeant & lieutenant out of shock. The officer stripped her down (not the other way around), motioned for a hand job after getting her naked, then afterward motioned for her to get on top of him to straddle him. After they "messed around," & she actually got on, THEN the sting happened & arrested her & others!
We were joking reading about it, like what did he tell his wife coming home from work? "Just another day keeping the city safe, one hand job at a time!"
Don't think it's possible to pretend that this is anything but illegal exploitation of prostitutes for personal gratification, somehow kept legal by dodgy-as-fuck loopholes. These people are scum.
@@Juggler4071 Police reform wasn't just about the killing of brown folk.
@@Foxxil. Exactly. Given the choice between being a moral person and getting some kind of benefit (sexual, financial, or otherwise), cops will almost always choose the immoral but personally-benefitting option. It's disgusting.
anyone that joked about it and didnt find it weird and wrong are enablers
@@pvic6959 That's not how jokes work. Laughing and joking is a very human response to the horrific or absurd, it's a way to cope, not a way to support the horrific act.
This show always confronts me with issues I’d never even considered before and then has me furious and/or deeply saddened Barbour them by the very end
Please check your spelling
@@thearmchairjournalist566 how the hell did autocorrect turn by into that!?
@@jonasquinn7977 why tf do you even still have it turned on lol
@@sneedbros8347 it's auto on and also fast and convenient for autotext mang 👍😜👍
Can you please edit your post to whatever you meant to say? Lol you saw the typo but didn't fix it?
All labour is exploitation- I feel economically forced into bloody bartending! Every job deserves protections and rights
then there is no need for sexcrimes being crimes at all right. afterall what is happening in prostitution is normal so ofc being touched in your private place during work is the new norm then. and no I didn't come up with this crap. the johns from my country did. if prostitution is a job and prostitution can't be raped(their words), then ofc rapes in a relationship and every other sexcrime is insignifcant. and you can see it apply to women accuing men of rape. they have gone down since it got legalized really weird . . . not.
@@Seriousbomb54 Assaulting people non-sexually is still a crime though, what's your point?
@@robelkton7800 that prostitution makes it harder for rape victims to come forward. there is even a cliche that johns say: "you can't rape a prostitute". I seriously wonder why you take this all so lightly.
I think prostitution supports rightwing viewpoints towards minoritites. johns are more likely to kill the prostitute than the pimp. and with all the "arguments" I told you about it makes it very hard to not see the overlap to this ideology.
there is also the issue since rape is a crime that the 100% safety in the industry is impossible to achieve as simply as the prostitute does have a bad day it is already a rape scenario. that's why the comparison between a regular job and prostitution doesn't make sense.
CORRECTION: "the Nordic model" doesn't apply to Finland. Paying and receiving payment for sex is legal here. Pimping, or buying indirectly, (and of course trafficking) is illegal.
Finland for the win.
… Winland?
Finland gets so much right!
Edit: the Nordic model pertains to drugs in Finland, so in that case it applies.
"The Nordic model" also does not apply to Denmark. The legal framework here is similar to Finland's.
Norway here, receiving payment is not illegal, paying is illegal. So jupp, we use that model. And jupp, it's silly af.
"Only way to make sure that people have a choice in the way they earn money is to make housing affordable health care accessible and to not burden marginalized people with criminal records that lead to a cycle of joblessness homelessness and desperation" YES THIS HITS SO HARD GAWD YES PLEASE MORE
For both sex work and drugs. It's waaaaay past time to end the punishment and detention of people for things that aren't going away and certainly have NOT improved society in anyway. We just can't throw money, violence, and prison to fix social problems like these. Several places in Europe have embraced decriminalization of various drugs and have improved the lives of people who use them, made recovery available to all who want it, and the crime rates (home invasions, etc) have gone down because people don't have to commit crimes to obtain the drugs they want.
Wouldn’t that require removing the choice of the people who manages/builds housing and healthcare workers?
@@bryaneverett9850 No, it would just involve reworking the way we support these industries. Subsidies can be redirected from the ultra-wealthy to more than cover packages that support the overhead for healthcare and housing.
SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!
@@panpolypuff, let’s just say I’m a doctor who has spent decades building a career and private practice. Through de-privatization, how will my future salary be determined? What happens to my medical equipment in which I own?
i know this goes without saying at this point, but i just want to take a moment to appreciate how much i learn about American politics from a man who spent the first 30 years of his life and got his _entire_ formal education in the UK. politics can be overwhelming, but nothing stands as a sturdier example of how _doable_ understanding American politics can be with a little effort.
He makes massive generalization and is debunked quickly by tons immediately after.
In a logical world:
Sex work would be legal as long as everyone consents (Sex trafficking deserves JAIL AND HELL)
All sex related products (including porn) would be kept away from non-adults (a separate Internet for porn, live newscast, UFC, ETC )
Sex education wouldn't be optional in Highschool!!! NEVER!
support
When I was 19 I walked into the sex workers union in my hometown Amsterdam, said: "Hi, I don't get sex, can someone help me?" and was met with the most empathetic, open people I've ever met. I was laughed out a sex toy shop when I mentioned asexuality, the sex workers were the first to bring it up to me. I am so thankful I paid for my first time, getting the chance to go about it on my own terms (within reason ofc!). Amsterdam isn't perfect for sex workers and it's changing negatively, but I'm very happy it's at least not illegal
I think I remember you from posting that comment under the Philosophy tube video on sex work. Unless there's tons of people with this story....
@@baguettegott3409 That was me yes! Cozy CZcams bubble we have here :) I think it's important to think of sex workers as more than catering to "perverted middle aged men", they really provide an important service to many and I think I'm a good example of one of them
Nice
I love this. I'm a sex worker, and it's always been so important to me to meet customers with love and compassion, because the need for human contact, emotional and physical, is a real thing, and I think providing that is a crucial service which will not only be allowed someday, but be respected.
@@CatJetRat: Well put. I salute your providing of that most basic need of all social animals: contact, especially in a safe environment. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you are a bonobo amidst a sea of chimpanzees.
What I mean by that is bonobos are highly sex-positive, and as such are much more relaxed and chill than their more warlike chimp cousins.
"If you think sex workers sell their bodies, but coal miners do not, your view of labor is clouded by your moralistic view of sexuality." - some clever bloke on the internet
Also child labour, deep diving for pearls without equipment, homeless fighting rings…
Abigail Thorne said that in her video about Sex Work (before she transitioned)
@@fanboyistransboy5089
Was it before?,I think the video coming out was pretty late in her transition.
@@nachomanrandysandwich4330 you're really passionate about this. I see you've left 6 comments so far.
@@nachomanrandysandwich4330 See later part of OP's post
"the model implemented by Amsterdam"
It's so weird to live in a country that people only refer to as the capital city...
For the record: sex work is legal in the whole Netherlands
I think the reason he said is because that where the model was first used could be wrong though as I don't write the scripts
sometimes i forget what the netherlands even is, because almost nobody calls it that.
…. and it’s content like this that’s presented in a clear manner demonstrates why John Oliver and the team at “Last Week Tonight” consistently get Emmy’s. Another insightful episode.
That last comment, about how all labor is forced labor in a system that leaves people desperately impoverished and incapable of meeting basic human needs, ought to be displayed on every corner of every street.
It is a core argument of worker's movements, socialists, communists, anti-capitalists and other ppl from the left spectrum.
And I agree, it should be pointed out wwwaaaayyy more often, louder and with more force than ever.
Yeah all labor dont require to be raped so dont think so
coconut island analogy
@@JonsFrapeProductions I'm fairly certain you can get raped anywhere regardless of your occupation and even if SW are more likely to get raped, it's not on the SW, it's on the abuser. You can think whatever you want about sex work and stuff but at least try to make it look less scummy. Idk you but that comment basically read the same as "if they didn't want to get roped they shouldn't have worn that skimpy outfit". Also we're all basically selling our bodies and time to survive anyway
@@emeros8631 lols to the libertarian normalization of rape.
Bottomline, sexual exploitation is not a desirable trait for any society.
Sexual exploitation normalizes two things in my view, that we man are sex driven imps with no agency to repress such urges and, that women are then, naturally, bodies for our consumption
-normalizes-
As a longtime sex worker I have to say that I am so touched and impressed by the care that went into this piece. It has been such a long and hard journey to get the conversations to this point in mainstream media… this genuinely brought me to tears.
ONLY thing I would have added was the attack on our ability to conduct business through many financial institutions.
Seconding this!
I don't think John Oliver counts as "mainstream media". For an American show Last Week Tonight is pure revolution. But he has a huge platform and I am so grateful that he uses it for good.
Thing about sex work is that all women are sex workers at the end of the day. If you have a gf and take her to a date that you pay for and she has sex with you, you have paid for sex. If you go to a bar and buy a woman a drink and she takes you back to her place for sex, you've paid for sex. Every marriage is a long term sex contract. An expensive one. And this can happen in reverse for guys if the girl pays for everything and they have sex. The girl has paid for sex. Every person who does porn has been paid to have sex. That includes all of those onlyfans girls, which is like 99% of all snapchat accounts.
Everybody pays for sex but sex workers, those that do it for a living, are the only professionals at it and deserve the same protections as some dude or girl in a bar trying to get lucky via buying a cheap drink.
People like to claim sex work is just a way to hide sex trafficking but those are two completely different things. Most women and even some men just want an easy and safe way to make some cash.
Nobody is safe when sex work is made illegal and cops make it worse. Cops are already racist and sexist to begin with, but when it comes to the sex industry, they are far worse. Buyers of sex almost never get arrested, despite doing the same crime as the worker. And some cops do end up having sex with the sex workers to arrest them. Which is legalized rape. This happens in hawaii, no joke. And cops demand that they need to be able to have sex in order to investigate the crime, which is legally false. They just want to rape women and have the legal authority to do so. Its sickening.
Well said.
There are also a number of reasons why people visit sex workers. For instance, after a hysterectomy a friend's wife lost all interest in sex. But as they still loved each other they agreed he could visit sex workers as that was better in her mind than getting a "mistress". And NO, it was not me.
@@albertbrammer9263 that’s a understandable situation, but also think of disabled people who can’t find a sexual partner, they have the right to intimacy too even if it’s paid for! There’s nothing wrong with prostitution, I almost consider marriage as a form of prostitution too 🤣
Knocked it out of the park, John Oliver is one of the best voices on TV
So great the way John covers important topics like this. Sad the people who need their minds changed won't pay attention.
Gives me the impression that we criminalize largely benign activities just to make the police feel good about themselves when they don't feel like actually doing something against real organized and dangerous criminal activity.
Also to increase the number of people in private prisons
Probably the goal is to disenfranchise minority groups since its a felony in Republican states. As John said it's selectively enforced among those groups. It's what they did with marijuana.
Unfortunately, no matter what public perception or the perception that this video gives, sex work isn't benign. Sex workers (the vast majority, 90 % in all surveys and studies of which want 𝗼𝘂𝘁 of sex work) are the victims. The average age of entry is 12 to 14 years old and most are manipulated, coerced or forced into it. Only 1 % of the 90 percent that want out actually make it out alive. Short of slavery, there has never been a situation I can think of where society has accepted a position as socially acceptable simply because a tiny, privileged minority were okay with being in that situation, while the vast majority were being harmed by it. Sex work preys upon young natal females, POCs of all types, gay men and transgendered women to an inordinate degree.
People need to start looking at the safety and relative situations of sex workers in countries where sex work is already legal before they start declaring that it is safer:
'In Germany, where prostitution has been legal since 2002, incidents of attempted murder of prostituted women increased between 2002 and 2017. Women in Germany’s mega brothels, which are equipped with security cameras and personnel and panic buttons, continue to suffer violence. The legalization of prostitution did not eliminate the murders or attempted murders of women in prostitution in Germany.
As the Department of Justice Technical Paper on Canada’s current prostitution laws notes, “Prostitution is an extremely dangerous activity that poses a risk of violence and psychological harm to those subjected to it, regardless of the venue or legal framework in which it takes place, both from purchasers of sexual services and from third parties.”
Discussions about reducing the violence experienced by individuals in prostitution should not be centered around the prostituted making better, safer assessments of buyers or choosing safer locations. That puts the responsibility for evading or reducing the violence on the victims, and not on the perpetrators.
Canada’s current laws, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA), do the logical and just thing in targeting the source of the violence experienced by women in prostitution - the buyers and pimps.
In fact, the most recent Canadian data points to a significant decrease in homicide victims related to the sex trade after PCEPA came into force, despite overall homicides increasing. The perpetrators were less commonly sex buyers or gang members after PCEPA, and more likely to be strangers or acquaintances. The statistics also indicate that victims involving a sex-trade-related offence were significantly less likely to have a physical injury after PCEPA.
It is worth noting that women’s groups and coalitions of former prostitutes in countries like New Zealand, where prostitution was decriminalized or legalized are beginning to call for legal reform, saying that decriminalization has failed them. They argue that their working conditions and their safety didn’t significantly improve, nor was the stigma they experienced as prostitutes reduced. Police in Christchurch, NZ have expressed concern over the “fairly common” victimization of prostituted persons in the capital.
The source of violence and stigma is not the laws a given country has on paper. The source of the violence is the buyers, pimps and traffickers who prey on and abuse prostituted women. This flows out of the belief that men are entitled to paid sexual access to women’s bodies, and that this paid access entitles men to do what they want. If those beliefs are not challenged, the misogynistic attitudes and behaviours that are the source of the stigma and violence will persist.' -submission to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA), February 25, 2022
@@macdri I stopped reading this BS before I finished the first paragraph.
89% of all sex workers end up dying due to their profession? Where did you come up with those numbers?
It's not about the police, it's about people imposing their bizarre religious morality on society via the law.
To each person who spoke out in this video, you deserve a medal of honor. Be so strong.
This is important, and it's not just going to go away. It takes people like these to help start conversations that will help society to create solutions.
🤣🤣🤣
"Selling is legal, fucking is legal, why isnt selling fucking legal?" ~ George Carlin
As a sex worker, thank you John Oliver for putting us in a spotlight ❣️
"...at least in sex work, you actually know what the customers are eating." This is so brilliant.
It's funny because the "sex worker" is the one who almost 100% of the time performs oral and doesn't know what she is "eating"...
@@SunlessDawn Why... why wouldn't she know?
@@edwardliu111 HPV, HIV, Herpes, etc. Any More questions?
I will admit, it made me gag a bit
@@chefcc90
Relax those throat muscles!
I love when police say arresting people is "helping" them.
The only way that might help them is if they need help with addictions. Most sex workers have no health insurance and sadly jail systems are a way to deal with it. Its sad but true.
@@spooky_hausintrees yet another reason for nationalized health care. weakening the prison industrial complex and making it so that cops can't spout bullshit like "you're getting arrested for your own good"
@@spooky_hausintrees Don't let them lie to you. Jails are privately owned and get money from the government per inmate, as police get/keep jobs per arrest. To quote SOAD: "All research and successful drug policy shows that treatment should be increased, and law enforcement decreased, while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences."
Its helping not only the status quo but also those in power who benefit from that status quo
@@andrewnapier2536 ideally yes and better services for those that would like help. That system just as eff up.
John Oliver is spot on as always. With regards from Sweden.
Other pitfalls of "legalization" or the nordic model are loopholes that are used to still criminalize and drive sex work underground. In some countries sex work is legal, but "pimping" is a serious crime, but is defined as profiting from the labor of a sex worker in any way. This has been used to prosecute the landlords of sex workers, even if they did not work from their apartments. Which leads to sex workers being driven into homelessness.
I perfectly understand the moral and ethical concerns people have around the sex industry, I even share some of them, but I've come to believe that, as a matter of harm reduction, complete decriminalization is the only way to go forward.
Sex work can't be consual for the same reason paedophilia can't be consensual. Power imbalance.
@@nifralo2752 It is consent by two adults. The power thing doesn't mean it's without consent. I'm sure people can find all arguments around the people in position of power thing. For instance, you can have sex with someone who is stronger than you. Technically they have more power but the fact that both agree to it means it's with consent.
People always had prostitution in society. It makes no sense that porn is legal while sex work isn't.
@@MizuRainWitch porn is scripted and has people supervising
"but "pimping" is a serious crime, but is defined as profiting from the labor of a sex worker in any way"
this is a legal issue when you have to write a law that clearly defines everything. colloquial terms like "pimping" aren't very well defined, so when you get technical with it, the end result as as you described. legally speaking, a pimp could be any kind of accessory to prostitution, even if they work for the SW as an assistant or only financially connected in a tangential sense, such as a landlord.
@@JewTube001 in german law it is forbidden to create prostitution or support a growth of it. by that standard we are not abiding law since the industry is growing. and it also made pimping harder to find as now even the state has pimps. institutions that are supposed to help prostitutes don't do it. first line the agency for work. if you are a prosititute you got work so why change? your conditions are bad or you got blad clientele too bad. in fact most abusive johns just get an order to stay away from a house. there are enough redlight brothels around so they just go the next. no criminal charges. second is that noone gonna easily take you into work bc of your sexwork life prior. most bigger companies that go to events and indirectly get escort services and such usually end up bancrupt if it comes out. backdoor deals pretty much. in my city a pimp got killed by another one. don't feel about this, just that both never faced prison is the biggest issue. they are not financially hold responsible if found out. they get their rent from victim's earnt money. why we arenot removing their access to this money is beyond me. and yes profitting from prostitution is a pimp. I don't care if he is good at delivering nice lines to a girl that has issues on her own and becomes depended on such guy. loverboys hardly get punished as love isn't considered a fraud. it is pretty common to blame the victim. like ppl claiming the person chose to stay with a toxic bf. there have been women killed for saying no to a relationship.
biggest point is that prostitutes that are in a room, but not a brothel don't get any benefit from proschg. and right now most sexwork is done in private areas which cooincides with the areas of most rapes happening. ofc not all of them are in redlight district and most rapist know their victim. the random guy that rapes a woman is less dominant, but considered a bigger issue.
As a sex work advocate, I appreciate how nuanced this episode was, particularly breaking down the difference between consensual work and trafficking. It’s so hard to have a conversation about the movement when there is no differentiation between the two. I also appreciated how you highlighted the ridiculous percentage brothels take. This is ubiquitous across the legally recognized sex work professions: camming, stripping, phone sex, and pornography. Because there is no useful regulation, these businesses take half or more of every dollar earned by sex workers, and sometimes also, as in the case of stripping, can say that strippers “owe the club” for not meeting quotas. Anyway, great episode!
Respectfully, I disagree with your opinion. I don't have a problem when it comes to the morality of sex work, what I do have a problem with is the actual functionality of it. If Sex-Work was to be legalized, some questions come into my mind; Who would regulate it? Would the workers be Given proper representation? and would it be voluntary?
On the first question, I honestly do not know who would regulate sex work. Sexual Diseases such as STD's, STI's, and etc need to be treated for, and acknowledged before a sexual encounter. Otherwise, you will cases spreading like wildfire. Another issue I have is Sex Education within our society, it's a pretty big problem. A lot of teens and young adults do not have proper sexual education in America, My example is that my city has the highest STD/STI rate in the entire state, while also having the least amount of Sex Education. I kid you not, You aren't even given a simple reproductive organs talk until 7th grade, which is ridiculous. Having sexually uneducated people (Not saying they're stupid) have sexual encounters is... well, not the brightest Idea. That's for argument one.
Second question, How would workers be given proper representation within the workplace? Now let's acknowledge something. Sex work is a complicated industry, some people go to independent hookers who charge their own fee and are pretty much third party contractors in a way. On the other hand, you have sex workers in groups or houses called "brothels" who charge a set fee and are paid an amount after the fee the brothel charges them. Both have their up's and down's of course, which is a significant problem when legalizing it. Here is a list of what I PERSONALLY think the Pros/Cons are.
Brothel:
Pros:
- *May* have a set location or... "Shop"
- Possibly benefits if it's an actual business, and not a scummy rundown whorehouse.
- More regulating of Hookers and Customers, Preventing unwanted pregnancies/STD/STI's
Cons:
- May be more likely to be exposed to abuse or exploitation.
- Unfair Wages, the "Brothel Fee" being far too high.
- Harassment of workers.
Independent:
Pros:
- Able to charge their own prices
- Not being exploited via Fee's
- Choice of Customers
Cons:
- Healthcare costs come out of pocket (although for brothels that may be true as well)
- No set location
- Lack of enforcement of rules, such as sexual protection.
Overall, it seems that both of the options comes with issues of their own. Personally, if sex work was to be legalized... perhaps it would be better for brothels to become popular. I would hope, that it would become regulated and more... commercial than it is now. A lot of exploitation happens in brothels/pimps around the world, it's unfortunate. My overall issue again is regulating and maintaining safety within the sex workplace.
Third and Final Question, Would the people performing this sex work be voluntary? Now the argument at the first part of the video that sex work is a form of labor like any other job... and to a degree, that claim is correct. However, at the same pace, those forms of "labor" are also exposed to flagrantly bad conditions or terms. Look at Amazon warehouse workers as an example, they've been treated like sh1t in some places, while in others they're treated fine. Sex work however, is another industry by itself. Unlike the listed examples, it is far from commercialized... being mostly independent or small time work. You don't see "Crackwh0re Inc." anywhere now do you? Which is a problem. Some industries are perfectly fine with being small time, like plumbers... however, the government cannot regulate everything that goes on within private businesses. Which is where the business itself comes in and makes sure everything is running in a timely manner.
P0rn is an example where commercialization is good. The actors are trained (to preform unrealistically I say) to perform sex acts, regulated and health sex acts. They are tested for any diseases, and are contracted on their own terms. Now of course there have been cases of abuse within that industry (which is bad) however, it is overall safer than having thousands of independent p0rn actors. They are also given much fairer pay than what an independent p0rn actor would make, which is for the good right?
If we have no one to self regulate within the sex work business, then who will? You may say "The government" however to what extent? Sex workers are a part of the category of labor I call "Forgotten Labor" where their issues are typically... sidestepped due to the manner of their work. How many people would simply ignore the abuse of prostitutes because of their "moral" values? Millions of Americans to say the least. And it's sad, they're treated unjustly similar to those formerly incarcerated. The other issue is the government itself. We don't put nearly enough money into our local/state government health facilities/programs... they already struggle with the work they do, would they have the competence or ability to support a system that regulates sex workers? That in all likelihood would not work out.
Respectfully, I do not disagree with the legalization of prostitution in some places... however, I would disagree with legalization on the federal level. It would lead to a system overload causing thousands of causalities in the process.
"Sex work advocate"? Why don't you advocate on having women fill male dominated spaces instead of them being constantly objectified? There's a lot of opening that is available to anyone.
@@ficsitinc.pioneer8695 I'm not the person you asked but I feel it's probably important that advocates have more opinions on what's best than legalization so op may not even agree with legalization but rather decriminalization or some other option. they only mentioned how current legalized sex work examples screw over the workers
@@itsraysis7907 1. There are plenty of people doing that already.
2. Not all sex workers are women.
I had no idea people had such a hard time telling the difference between two completely different situations...
The more I learn about humans, the more I don't want to be one anymore.
I'm still a fan of the brothels idea however I absolutely agree that if we went with the model that restricted sex work to brothels, it needs far better regulation and more avenues for enforcement of those regulations.
It's just absurd to take 50% of someone's independent income because you can.
Also thank you for mentioning strip clubs and the like, those situations slipped my mind and I appreciate being reminded that these people are in the same situation.
"It's a human rights-centered approach that seems to be working" seems to cover a lot of New Zealand's policies.
edit: I obviously don't know a lot. I kinda just made an assumtion. The conversations have been interesting though.
As an American I fucking love New Zealand and Jacinda Ardern. They seem to get everything right and I really wish our government was like theirs.
@@svscared As a New Zealander things arent as rosy as they appear...
@@randomname9723 could you elaborate if you don't mind?
@@randomname9723 as an American i can guarantee you that your grass is a million percent greener than our cracked and broken asphalt
@@randomname9723 I'm tagging on too. What would you say is bad?
Mr. Oliver, you are an amazing human being. Keep educating people on really serious issues. Reality with a splash of humor.
I love how John breaks this issue down, because many people just don't think about it. If someone talks about making prostitution legal, they think legal versus illegal. They don't think about regulation versus decriminalization, full criminalization versus the nortic model, etc. I of course land firmly on the side of full decriminalization.
My freshman year of college for a speech/writing class, I was placed in a group with 3 other people and we had to write up a persuasive report on any topic we wanted. We chose legalizing sex work. We spent so much time writing up laws and regulations, and finalizing the paper. We all knew it was good, but when we presented to our professor and classmates, all we got was a dead fish look right back and a low score.
I’m really sorry about what happened after all the effort you put into that project. I hope something was done about it.
Is it the Nordic model?
Good. It was a dumb paper and you should feel bad
@@nachomanrandysandwich4330
Why'd you want people graded in a leaning environment beyond the effort put in and the format accomplished?
How did you all not expect that reaction? We're you hoping everyone would cheer? Sorry, didn't mean to laugh, but it's kinda funny
"Am I legally allowed to say Prince Andrew? "
THE BALLS OF STEEL ON THIS MAN
I volunteer helping a lot of vulnerable people, many of whom are sex workers. It is so refreshing to hear someone publicly shine the spot light on some obvious issues with our society regarding sex workers. Thankyou. It means a lot and gives us all hope for a brighter future
I've heard a lot of different opinions from sex workers on whether or not it can be done without exploitation. But I've never heard about a sex worker having a positive experience with the police. Thus, I believe that whether or not sex work is moral, cops should leave sex workers alone.
Notable quote #1: "To those who are still uncomfortable here, out of a concern that there are people who feel economically forced into sex work, I totally agree with you. That is a huge problem, but the fact is our current laws are not addressing that. If you want to do that, that's a much bigger conversation to have because fundamentally, the only way to make sure that people have a choice in the way they earn money is to make housing affordable, health care accessible, and to not burden marginalized people with criminal records that lead to a cycle of joblessness, homelessness, and desperation. But until such time as we have that conversation (and it does not seem like something enough people are itching to have right now), we need to stop pursuing policies that harass, endanger, and occasionally refrigerate sex workers and start listening to what they actually want."
John serving up that painful reality check about how weak the left is in this country oof
Ha, try that in the US and you'll get the biggest, most obnoxious uproar from the religious right, they'll be so relentless about it, and happily spend millions against it, they'll drag the average middle ground dumbass voter with them and nothing at all will change. This is America...
Making sure that people have a choice in the way they earn money is really the whole crux of the problem.
@@plasmakitten4261
Wtf does that have to do with "the left"?
@@beetlebob4675 the political left is essentially composed of people that want to have that conversation
It's amazing how many social problems can be mitigated by actually creating social safety nets and addressing the causes rather than criminalising the symptoms. Add drug addiction, homelessness/vagrancy, petty larceny to the list.
America is a land of celebrated and unchecked avarice. Social safety nets cost $$$. Money these bastards don't want to spend on the 'greater good'. The only good for them is whatever lines their pockets. I can remember vividly many of the people addled with drug addiction and homelessness were often in mental hospitals getting help they needed, because a lot of these issues were offshoots of that larger problem. But Reagan said, "well, these don't makes us money, so f*ck em" and like civil rights and other things that benefitted non rich people...he got rid of them. And before the d-bag conservatives try to fact check me...I'm well aware 'budget cuts' caused this...but that was a direct result of Reagan and his conservative cronies rolling back the Mental Health Systems Act and basically starving the entire system. So you can all preemptively f*ck off.
@@manuginobilisbaldspot424 what's funnier is that oftentimes the nets benefit the economy as a whole. There was a study that showed that every dollar spent on unemployment meant two back into the economy (think this was said in a John Oliver episode), yet people on both sides seem to think that it would be an extremely harmful thing to make more accessible. More people have this incorrect preconceived notion on one side than the other, though.
It’s amazing how much this can be avoided with encouraging a stable family unit, but go on commi and talk about how all you need is daddy government
@@ladynori Why not both? Btw, since when do rightwingers _actually_ support families?
Instead, they’re trying to criminalize parents who support their trans children ...
@@ladynori Smooth-brained conservative fails to understand cause and effect? What a surprise...
I feel this show is the most honest content from america about america i could find on CZcams. Greetings from germany
that one dude in the audience is really enjoying this segment. love his laugh. you go dude!
"...our collective lack of free will under capitalism. Bro, not the time!" Iconic. Simply Iconic.
based john oliver
Literally on commentary about government interfering in the free market of sex work.
Missing the forest from the trees.
Homeboy said the quiet part out loud
@@toomanycooks4526 Exactly!!! Capitalism is the greatest source of individual freedom that society has ever experienced.
@@jameswatkins7763 shh... we need to solve all these problems our laws have cause in sex work with more laws about housing, Healthcare, and wages... surely those laws won't cause any unintended consequences
I remember how those so-called journalist would often send ‘assets’ with hidden cameras to catch prostitution in the act only to see that the ‘assets’ enthusiastically participate in the sex trade, I can’t help but find it hypocritical on the federal agents part to participate and have sex to what was essentially an illegal act/felony.
Nothing to do with your comment, nice profile pic tho
What articles and what journalists? Because what you are describing doesn't sound like journalism
That icky feeling you get when thinking about sex workers getting arrested by the very person they just pleased. That’s your mind trying to get you to realize it’s all bad. Cops break laws under cover all the time and yet we understand why they have to. In this case, there’s something particularly flawed with thinking legalization is the answer. As John said, there’s a lot to debate.
MynameIsnotforsell this is just a newspaper office often common with scandals and you know sensational journalism ‘bulgar’ newspapers or something.
Oh and by the way something like 98% of these chargers are a misdemeanor so it’s more “illegal” to go 20+ over the speed limit. I’m not trying to be sassy I just feel like we’re not fully considering that SW’s(mostly women) have sex hundreds of times before they get caught on average. I know someone who did SW to pay for her meth addiction and the only thing that stopped her from dying was jail. Not saying every situation needs jail but some of these men and women are out of control.
Sex work and “regular” work isn’t all that different, your employer uses your body for work and your head for ideas and at the end you’re exhausted only wanting to play video games
I didn't know your employer was allowed to penetrate your body on the job. You learn something new everyday.
@@bouji_ Well, they find other parts of the body to effectively penetrate - just about any job that takes a physical toll on your body
I'm pleasantly surprised to see this topic being covered so considerately by the LWT crew. As a former sex worker myself, decriminalization is really the best way to go. In New Zealand, we even have a Prostitute's Collective that helps those doing sex work, as well as helps educate sex workers, non sex workers, and businesses about what is and isn't okay in sex work. For those that haven't done sex work, (from my experience) the information you have can really define your experience and career. I felt the need to work under the table for the most part, and I'll admit I was heavily burned by this. However, once I started consulting the NZPC for help and resources that did start to turn around. I learned about my rights, what I could and could not do, and even have access to fundamental equipment (condoms, lube, etc.) in a free 'starter pack', and then afterwards at a reduced price closer to the actual production cost. They even helped learn how to properly file my taxes as an independent contractor, so I could apply for the things I needed!
It's certainly not perfect though, because you're paid by the client and service so if no one shows up during your shift or the client is a no-show you've just lost time and money. I've always wondered if there could be a guaranteed minimum pay for sex workers that show up to a brothel shift, so that if things fall through they're not completely screwed. Also, if something happens and you require police help that experience and the end result can be heavily shaped by whether or not the cops you interact with are assholes. When I once tried to report a stealthing incident to the police, the two guys who came and got my statement made me feel so embarrassed and ashamed as well as trying to implicate that I knowingly allowed what happened to happen. The SA clinic though was absolutely amazing and compassionate beyond measure.
Overall, I'm really happy that this topic has been covered and I hope this has helped everyone who's watched it to come away knowing a little bit more and judging a bit less. Also, if I ever write a book I'm going to have to give John Oliver and his a team a writing credit for the phrase 'it would be dystopian if it wasn't so fucking American'. I can't remember right now if there's a way to donate to the NZPC but if there's the opportunity to I would highly encourage you to do so.
To anyone asking why they're covering this and not the invasion of Ukraine: that was the opener of the episode, and covered about 10-12 minutes, presumably they'll get a more in-depth discussion of it soon.
I figured as much, it will probably be discussed next week.
I am guessing in the next couple of weeks depending on the situation, although it is not their specialty like this piece. i.e. not a little paid attention to problem with American society.
And they decided to upload the sex topic instead of the Ukrainian one. It really can't get anymore American than that....you can tell John Oliver is an American citizen
@@pollytix7271 Someone didn't watch the video.
I kinda assumed they wanted to cover it but had already done the research and most of the writing on this piece by the time the invasion began on Thursday. Makes sense since they taped the show yesterday afternoon and wouldn’t have had time to cover it more in depth
I’d like to have that conversation - the one addressing the underlying issues that keep us all scrambling to survive, no matter which industry we work in. Please do an episode on that
Did you see Jon Stewart's podcast discussion on MMT? Toward the end, they touch on the unemployment rate, which I found enlightening. czcams.com/video/0G6obeUKWmw/video.html
Right! It's been awfully quiet about the people killed in the Amazon warehouse in Illinois during a tornado. If we would act as decisively against Jeff Bezos as we act against sex workers, Bezos would be in jail by now.
see jon really wants to talk about capitalism but HBO won't let him actually say the C word
That system that keeps us constantly scrambling to survive is called Capitalism, and John has been talking about various aspects surrounding it for years now. The best place to hear someone talk about Capitalism directly is on the CZcams channels Second Thought, Yugopnik, and Hakim.
Americans don't know the difference between "scrambling to survive" and envy.
John Oliver is the funniest by far while informing people on important issues that most have no idea even exist
I love how the people thought to be "victims" of human trafficking are prosecuted 🙄
It is because they are trafficking themselves. Matt Walsh gave a rebuttal to this piece and did an excellent job debunking it. You should watch it.
@@troyterry6919 Human trafficking is selling people for forced labor. People voluntarily doing sex work isn’t human trafficking because it isn’t forced. Would you say that people doing physical labor like mining or construction are trafficking themselves?
@@geekgirl_luv4262 people don't really choose that lifestyle. They are forced into it by societal circumstances. It isn't like if we legalize prostitution that a bunch of financially stable people will begin doing it.
We need tighter prostitution laws if anything.
@@troyterry6919 First of all, the same could be said of any job people don’t want to do but have to in order to make money. Second, there are plenty of people who would choose to do sex work because they enjoy it and not just because they need to.
And third, that *still* doesn’t explain how they are illegally trafficking themselves. Human trafficking is not the same thing as doing a job you don’t want to do because you need money(don’t get me wrong, neither are good, but they’re not the same). By your logic, a coal miner who hates his job but is forced to do it because of economic reasons is the same as a person being sold for physical labor against their will. Would you arrest that coal miner for trafficking himself? No, obviously not. Because that’s not what human trafficking is.
@@geekgirl_luv4262 the coal miner isn't selling himself as a commodity. Zip recruiter is different than a slave auction.
Something about sex trafficking that really needs to be addressed, if any meaningful action is to take place to stop it, is the fact that a lot of people forced into sex work are groomed by parents and/or other relatives. It's not even as cut and dry as pay money for a single session, a lot of sex trafficking actually involves the victims being married off to their "clients". That's also one of the ways that traffickers skirt the laws, because even if there is an age difference, marriage signifies that any sexual relationship is most certainly consensual, right?
Something that really shook me was when I worked as a delivery driver for a local pizza chain. I had a delivery to a hotel and when I got there, I witnessed an exchange between the clerk at the lobby desk and a guest. The clerk and other staff had learned that the guest, a man over 30 years old, was sharing his single-bed room with a 15-year old girl. The police were called, but the man was able to get the police in contact with the girl's (supposed) mother who verified the relationship was "consensual", even though the laws protected no such relationship. So the cops did nothing.
That brings me to another very horrific reality: when it comes to sex trafficking, local police officers are often aware of and a party to the trafficking. That's not to say that all officers are complicit, but it's definitely something to keep in mind when some officers are fighting against laws that would make the practice of them having sex with prostitutes illegal during sting operations.
The fact that they even do sting operations for prostitutution to begin with... 😓 Like come on guys, who is this hurting besides potentially the person you're trying to arrest?
Are you aware of how few actual cases of sex trafficking there are? The FBI puts together the numbers every year. In 2020, there were 652 confirmed cases of sex trafficking of which 13 were minors. Meanwhile there were 319,950 reported cases of rape and sexual assault, and 856,750 reported cases of domestic violence. Something about marriage and non commercial relationships needs to be addressed.
"even though the laws protected no such relationship. So the cops did nothing."
but wouldn't that particular scenario be one that +doesn't+ work as an example of laws needing to change if it was already illegal?
@@normajeanalmo1 It befuddles me everytime that this statistic is used to prove that there is little trafficking.
1) Notice how you yourself use two different discriptions: confirmed and reported, and precisely this perfectly describes why those aren't comparable statistics. One is based off of a guilty party being determined through the courts, and the other is based off of reported allegations. One requires a burden of proof and the other requires a claim. Other estimates claim that there are up 40,000 people in the US who are trafficked.
2) You are comparing 2 different (but overlapping) populations: total individuals in the sex trade, and the entire population (though one could also argue that the female half is important to look as they are the most likely victim). So of course the absolute values will differ largely.
3) The sex trade is part of rape culture. These 2 social phenomena are related. To be able to buy consent means that consent is not necessarily based on a willingness, but it is necessarily based on financial need. While this is not the case in every situation it is in most situations, and the idea that a one way relationship between of consent through finacial leveraging should be ok is precisely how the objectification of women and rape culture works. Marraige and monogamy often reflect this attitude as well.
@@derfriede Thank you for this comment. I was especially searching for your third point and I'm glad I've found it.
One thing not really mentioned in this episode is that criminalizing a profession forces its professionals to become criminals. For instance, drug dealers very often commit a variety of other minor offenses connected to dealing drugs even if they are generally good citizens, and prostitutes often have to find other illegal ways to make money during the day like boosting or fraud. By shoving people into the "criminal" category, you not only raise the barrier for them to make money legitimately, you lower the barrier for them to make money illegitimately.
So when cops arrest sex workers, they are likely to find other crimes too, and that reinforces this idea that sex workers are just fundamentally bad people and deserve what they have coming to them. Or that by locking them up for a while, we can "help" them get out of a fundamentally bad profession. But there is nothing bad about sex work except that the state assembly says there is. If sex work were as legal and normalized as road work, sex workers would be no more likely to be criminals than road workers. Or conversely, if we made it illegal to help someone else prepare their tax return, we would see a booming black market of tax professionals appear overnight. And it wouldn't be two seconds before many of them started to add on other illegal financial services.
the pimps and the punters should be criminalized. women should get access to exit programs.
I unfortunately think the average American has a devil may care attitude toward the laws in the country since many of them feel like they haven't broken any major laws, and thus not breaking them is easy and anyone who does so is being careless or vicious and should be punished. They can't understand there are less privileged people who's actions have systematically been turned into criminal acts and thus gives a reason for the government to treat the most marginalized harshly. Pretty soon the laws will come after even the average American, and maybe then they'll have more outrage over the legal system.
Laws against murder create hitman. We should legalize it. Do you understand how idiotic this logic is?
@@marcuscaballarius2159 Thats not the same
@@maryxmas9921 exactly what nordic model does, except defining pimp is easier said than done. As another SW advocate video points out, laws against pimping effectively cutoff sex workers from being able to rent space, or hire drivers. Since those now are getting a cut from sex worker's income and are effectively facilitating the work.
Unfortunately common sense doesn't apply for law enforcement.
I never wanted to live in USA, but after watching all these Johnolivers, I would be scared to even visit
"What about people economically forced into ssx work?"
Mate, I feel economically forced into work in general, can we talk about that?
Same
We all sell our bodies under capitalism, but only those who choose to do it directly are stigmatised and punished.
He does... all the time
from NZ: I remember when the decriminialisation happened. So many moral guardians were like "every girl is going to be forced onto the streets! you're asking our children to be ok with this work!!" - actually it went the other way. I remember multiple different workers doing interviews afterwards talking about how reliving it was to be able to leave a bad job in a brothel that treated them like meat, and not fear that they were going to wind up in a cell. Our number of brothels dropped as the owners lost economic control of the workers.
sadly in the capital there are a few strip joints that basically try and force their dancers double as workers, and get away with it, but they are being dragged more and more into the open as they turn against the exploitation
I believe we've also had a small increase in our male and NB worker population, because now they have a safe harbour for their desired work.
in a side story I've also dealt with some of the toy shops. One capital one was specifically started by two women to give a safer environment for people wanting to buy toys. I served one of the founders at the supermarket I worked at and noticed the business name on the account. I asked if that was the store I thought it was, and you could see her going "oh no, fundamentalist rant..." and I surprised her with "good on you, I'm glad you guys found your niche. How's that new store working out?" - had an absolutely lovely chat about what she liked about the work, and the annoyance over the new shop actually having been started basically as a scam by someone infringing on their copyright. The "new" shop changed their name about 3 weeks later, so that butt that tried to do them out of their hard work got stomped!
For me that conversation was no different than asking the orthodox jewish church ladies if they needed the meat I hadn't touched yet to be kosher, or me asking what the zoo was up to with so many coconuts (making easter eggs for a bunch of different species was the answer!)
Hear Hear! If I'm not mistaken, it's also helped reduce the drug issue that was ever-present in brothels
That was both fun and informative to read - thank you for sharing and for your curiosity!
This is interesting to me as I lived next to the first legal red light district in the uk, and it ended up being recriminalised due to the increase in sexually charged assaults and kidnappings of non-sex workers by men. The women were experiencing increased levels of violence as men basically believed they owed them more due to the increase in supply. Its hard because those women benefitted from the decriminalisation, but it also made things much more dangerous for them.
@@kitsunecookie372 it's not the legalization that's the problem, it's how it's done that is. I remember watching a documentary about Perth (iirc - an Australian city, I'm 99% certain it was there) after it legalised brothels. The ladies were happy because they had protection (bouncers and panic buttons), they were actually happy to pay taxes because they felt more legitimate, have to be medically checked on a specified regular basis... It was the first place in Australia to do this and it reduced crimes related to sex work by a lot.
Like I said, it's the _how,_ not the _what_ of how legalization should be done.
@@y_fam_goeglyd I wasnt saying decriminalisation was the issue, though I understand why you would think that. I was saying that it was predatory men that became more aggressive and violent as a result of legalisation. The problem is systemic misogyny and centuries of prejudice and the normalisation of violence against women, and due to the government's inaction and unwillingness to put legislation in place to protect sex workers they were treated as the problem and thus it was recriminalised. They would rather make things harder for sex workers and have them at the mercy of the Met and the men who systematically abuse them than address misogyny and violence against women.
Actually the first thought I had when John mentioned being "economically forced" to do sex work was "Wait hold on couldn't we say the same about any job?" And yep next words out of his mouth addressed that. Thanks, John. Great piece as always.
Just he didn't utter the one word which is a label for the solution to that exact problem - Communism.
@@samuelfisher5002 Lol, universal health care works, communism doesn't.
@@thomasmichael2766 Universal health care solves only one of the mentioned problems. Actually working legal system solves yet the third problem. But to solve the primary problem you need universal housing care :) That is, you need to remove capitalism from the housing market, that is you need to remove landlords (or highly limit their economic freedoms), Mao Zadong moment right there :D
@@samuelfisher5002 I'd say when governments fail to properly identify and work with the problem, people suffer. Things like abortion or prostitution, drug use, all of these things are probably going to remain a constant. The solution isn't to wage a war against the people afflicted and impacted by these situations, but to provide support and options. This is best accomplished through legalizing and regulating these things.
@@thomasmichael2766 Sure, nobody said anything about war on those things.
As ever, John smacks that nail right on the head! It's the same with any situation where laws are made to "make X situation" better, whatever it is. The powers that be need to talk to those affected by X, not just rush headlong into writing new legislation.
That last bit REALLY resonated with me.
"Fundamentally, the only way to make sure that people have a choice in the way they earn money is to make housing affordable, healthcare accessable, and to NOT BURDEN MARGINALIZED PEOPLE WITH CRIMINAL RECORDS THAT CAN LEAD TO A CYCLE OF JOBLESSNESS, HOMELESSNESS, AND DESPERATION"
Maybe we as a country should re-think that whole not letting British people be President thing, cuz I'm pretty sure my mans just identified what is so fundementally WRONG with this country at its core, and I bet he'd actually try and DO something about it if we put him in a position of power where he was actually capable of that
I am a mixed-race trans woman from Louisiana. I have been stopped, harassed, and even detained multiple times for the way I dress and been accused of being a hooker with zero evidence. These laws hurt us even when we don't do SW. I stand with the folks who do this work fully, of course.
In NY we call the soliciting change "walking while trans". I know LA is even worse, so sorry you have to deal with this harrasment
No such thing as trans
Thanks for sharing your experience
I've been accused of being a sex worker for walking at night with a fucking backpack because I don't have a car and they can't wrap their heads around someone walking the long way home.
Your stories are incredible and politicians need to recognize your worth in solving the problems sex-workers are having in our world. Thank you for sharing, you made me a believer that this needs great change.
I remember reading somewhere something in the line: "We don't talk about people working in sex industries and their issues, just like we do not name animals before driving them to the slaughterhouse: it makes it harder for us to consume them as products if we do." I believe around that time I was interested in Jon Ronson's The Last Days of August, which discussed the context behind the suicide of a porn actress, August Ames, and this quote popped up somewhere I don't remember.
I remember when that happened. I'll have to read the story because that was so sad. I remember her essentially saying she didn't want to have sex with a bi sexual man and basically got cyber bullied to death.. for not wanting to have sex with someone.
The Last Days of August is amazing!!
Thanks for bringing that up. I need to relisten to it.
@@stephengrigg5988
Just because she didn't want to have sex with a single particular person? How was that worth bullying?
@@romanski5811 The internet is fucked up. So of course, people would be mad over something stupid.
@@stephengrigg5988 While I don’t agree with mobs attacking people. She was in the wrong in that situation. Many other pornstars noted this fact at the time. All pornstars go through the same testing procedures. To say a bi pornstar is more or less likely to have an STD is patently false. You’re failing to properly convey the nuance of the situation. But most importantly she is allowed to make her own choices and allowed to be wrong. But that is why the backlash was so intense. And I think she had much deeper issues at play than just the backlash.
why does the US have such a nieve childish perspective on things like sex work? refusing to have an adult conversation about things like sex workers is going to make the issue worse.
23:02
Woman: "They consulted six workers."
Me: "Only six? That seems a bit low."
My brain: "🤔.....................accent."
In VA there’s an ongoing case where police protected sex trafficking in exchange for free “services” and the women that were actually vulnerable couldn’t even get help from the police even if they wanted to.
What the hell that's horrible. I hope karma gets those cops.
Those cops should be chargerd and convicted of rape since that’s essentially what they did by taking advantage of the victims of sex trafficking
Pigs belong on the grill.
@@UsenameTakenWasTaken It's an insult to pigs to compare them to cops.
To all who are asking for a Ukraine story, the invasion started the 24th. That's means they most likely didn't have enough time to thoroughly research and write a long piece about it. Best they could do was a limited piece at the start of the episode. It's very likely that they will do a longer piece next week or in the future. We all know John is positively livid because of what's happening.
That is exactly what they did, Ukraine was the opening. Likely next week we will get a full segment.
It will definitely be next week's show.
@@avatarwarmech Given the situation there are far more important things to be talking about in regards to Ukraine.
@@avatarwarmech LMAO, yeah you think Russia bombing and attacking a country is less important. You're such a republican it shows so hard. You always deflect the important issues for bullshit with whataboutism.
I just hope it's 40 or more minutes long the whole situation / issue really needs to be dived into, God I just wish this wasn't happening
All work is exploitation, so “sex work is exploitation” isnt valid, especially since most sex workers are self employed
indeed. privates are self employed, set their own services, their own schedules and their own rates. they are basically entrepreneurs, how that could be considered exploitation is beyond me.
I’ve been watching last week tonight for years and I’m always happy when they show a EXACT photo of what John says lmao