Hard News: A revolting piece of shit
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There many paths to the same goal, some of which likely work better than others for given locations and given subsets of the population (e.g. NZ-style decriminalisation hasn't diminished the rate of child prostitution yet, but maybe we should give it another 7 years?).
Okay.
The Prostitution Reform Act 2003 made it an offence to receive or facilitate paid sex from a person under 18 -- and, equally importantly, removed the existing peril of prosecution for under-age sex workers themselves.
Under-age prostitution offences had previously been prosecuted under section 149A of the Crimes Act. It had been used once between being added to the Crimes Act and the passing of the PRA. By contrast, in the first five years of the PRA, there were 92 charges brought, and 34 convictions. People went to jail.
I know this thanks to an extensive review of the PRA, at the five-year mark.
The health, safety and well-being section of the review is pretty positive too. Of particular note is the way it's allowed the NZ Prostitutes Collective to play a more active role in heath and safety promotion.
Iceland, OTOH, has had three different laws in the past five years and doesn't seem to have done a lot to measure the actual impact of its policies, or collect proper data. I honestly prefer our way of doing things, thanks.
But we started talking about this via Julie Bindel's column. I wasn't the only one to find that column unconvincing.
Tracey Clark-Flory in Salon's Broadsheet blog:
What most impresses the Guardian's Julie Bindel is that "the Nordic state is the first country in the world to ban stripping and lapdancing for feminist, rather than religious, reasons." There is no question that Iceland has impressive feminist cred -- nearly half of its lawmakers are ladies -- but, forgive me, I'm hesitant to announce it the world's most "feminist" and "female-friendly" country in response to a law prohibiting women from voluntarily taking off their clothes for money. It may not be a religiously motivated move, but it sure is a dogmatic one.
So, clearly, there is a range of feminist opinion on this one.
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Robbie - you callin' me a babe? ;-)
well ummm you do sound kinda hawt...so what ya wearing ?....must...refrain... WARNING WARNING ...danger Will Robinson !!!
But yeah shot Gemma...porn addiction ? dunno eh ? looking at porn, bores me shitless, i tend not to bother. So is it the porn or is it the sex/ masturbation that goes with it ?
Theres no real cut off age for guys 'bashing the bishop' and whipping yourself into guilt mode over having teenage daughters isn't going to break the habits of a lifetime. I suppose the big thing is to not get caught, separate your conflicting personas and play the roles straight.
Seems weird to obviously withdraw fatherly love though, but then again, maybe he felt he was overly loving and just withdrew to a safe distance and it's the daughters expectations which suffer, to which , they'll get over it.
It's the whole, ultimate aim of the kids is to resolve the conflicting philosophies of their parents, thing.
On a side note. I was discussing the woody ads with my lady and we had differing views on which was worse.
Your mate's mum giving you a woody or your mum's mate ? or how about your mate's girlfriend or your girlfriend's mate and i was wondering if it crosses the line to have one say...your daughter's mate or your mate's daughter ?
to which the answer should be, as long as she's old enough but really, nah...thats just wrong, isn't it ?
...and now i'm wondering why there's no gay marketing of alcopops, or is there and i just cant see the wood for the trees ?
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A father of teenage daughters withdraws all his usual (and safe) forms of physical warmth because said daughters have arrived at an age where they, for him, uncomfortably resemble the women in the porn that he is addicted to.
Wow, that's fucked up. How prominent is this addiction and how many people get their basic paternal instincts over ridden by pornography? I'd like to think this is an unusual case.Any studies?
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Just to be a history pedant for a moment: the Normandy battlefield was every bit as vicious as the Russian front, with or without provocation. Have a read of Antony Beevor's 'D-Day', if you're interested in the detail.
Yes, war is a shit all right, but that doesn't mean glorifying violations of the Geneva convention is a good thing to do in film, just because it's being done to Germans.
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Sweden is a deeply perplexing example. It should be a sex-crime free utopia, according to the study Emma linked to: it has classically liberal porn laws (no age limits on possession or viewing!).
That's not what Wikipedia tells me:
Film censorship
Sweden has a film censorship board (Statens Biografbyrå), founded in 1911. The board oversees censorship laws that state that films "shall not include any material that is offensive to public decency or disrespectful to the authorities or private individuals, nor pictures depicting the commission of murders, robberies or other serious crimes, and exhibitions that are open to children shall not include pictures depicting events or situations that are liable to arouse emotions of terror or horror in the audience or for other reasons be considered unsuitable for children to look at.".[4] The board also determines age limits for films. The age limits are 7, 11 or 15 years old. Generally movies where people are killed or assaulted have 15 as the age limit, and movies with acts of sex (even if not shown in detail) have 11 as the age limit. This differs significantly from the practice in the United States of rating films with sex more harshly than films with violence.
All the documents about the examination of films, including cut scenes, are available to the public. Some movies have been banned entirely and are not available for viewing. The list of the films banned includes Nosferatu (banned for excessive horror), Mad Max and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation.[5] Films on video and DVD are not censored, but publishers may send them to the board for recommendations.The last mainstream film to be cut was the 1995 film Casino.[6]
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Interesting comment from an Andrew Sullivan reader:
The commentary around strip club bans in Iceland does neglect some of the local facts. I visited in August and learned a bit about the subject from our guide.
It came up after we went out in downtown Reykjavik. Two Icelandic guys drove their black-tinted window SUV partially up onto the sidewalk, got out with beers in hand, and swaggered into a club. Naturally, we followed the mini-gangsters inside. It turned out to be a lingerie dancing club - a strip club minus the stripping. The dancers were mostly central European or other foreigners. There was no stripping, but it did seem as if there were private rooms with all that entails.
When we asked the next day we found out that strip clubs were outlawed in Reykjavik and there was only one real strip club in the country. They were allowed in Kópavogur, a town next to Reykjavik, and Goldfinger, the one strip club there, enjoyed the frequent patronage of their controversial mayor. There were investigations into nepotism that eventually forced that mayor to resign. The way our guide talked about it, the mayor hung out at the strip club passing out funds to his friends and family. Our guide didn't know if Icelandic women stripped in the club, but he had heard it was a pretty big attraction for the weekend party tours from London and other parts of northern Europe.
It seems from the reporting that the lingerie clubs will stay open and it's really only Goldfinger that's affected. So there may be underlying reasons that the bill was passed that are different from protecting the dignity of women - no matter what spin the legislation is given.
The implication of bad faith in the law change seems to be pure speculation. But it does seem that Iceland is quite a strange place.
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The list of the films banned includes Nosferatu (banned for excessive horror), Mad Max and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation.[5] Films on video and DVD are not censored, but publishers may send them to the board for recommendations.The last mainstream film to be cut was the 1995 film Casino.[6]
Amazingly enough, film fans, that was the Murnau Nosferatu.
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Concerning filmic representations of D Day, Curtis White's comments on Saving Private Ryan might be apposite:
Thus the film’s murderous thesis is fully disclosed. Self-survival, the survival of the good, requires that one always choose death. The cynicism and brutality of the first execution back on Omaha beach is excused in its fact if not in its style. Bad table manners, perhaps, but in murdering the prisoners the American soldiers did what they had to do. This is advocacy of international vigilantism and no whit more self-reflective than any Dirty Harry narrative.
The full article's here.
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So, clearly, there is a range of feminist opinion on this one.
Well, duh! And not just in the world, inside PAS too, which is why I popped my head above the parapet in the first place.
Iceland, OTOH, has had three different laws in the past five years and doesn't seem to have done a lot to measure the actual impact of its policies, or collect proper data.
I dunno. Have they or haven't they? Sounds like they know most of the people involved by name. Easier to make policy and law in a small country, I suspect.
Ta for the extra detail on Swedish censorship - it was printed porn I was talking about, but I would have to look through my cache to see where I got the sense that there was no age limit on possession or viewing thereof... Ha - oh look at that, it was Wikipedia. Snap! A Mexican standoff!
Good that the NZ law is actually jailing people for procuring minors. If the brave new brothels actually drove down demand (and supply) for underage prostitutes, that would also be a great help. Can we get some studies that promise this?
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Interesting comment from an Andrew Sullivan reader...
Ha, so is it like Tracy said all those pages ago: you get Al Capone via taxes. And you get the nepotistic mayor via strip clubs.
But it does seem that Iceland is quite a strange place.
A strange place and a wonderful place. I'm sure they say the same thing about us.
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Sweden is a deeply perplexing example. It should be a sex-crime free utopia, according to the study Emma linked to: it has classically liberal porn laws (no age limits on possession or viewing!).
That's not what Wikipedia tells me:
Well, that Wikipedia entry does not really contradict the original quote. Statens Biografbyrå only has a mandate to review and censor movies for release in cinemas. They have nothing to do with print, video, TV, or any other forms of distribution. Their censorship is mainly aimed at setting age-limits for movies. Also, they tend not to be too concerned with sex and nudity, but focus on violence.
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I wrote a long post on this and the damned thing disappeared into the aether.
So, I'll summarise.
Most men find young women attractive (Late teens/early twenties) we are built that way. Most men resist the urge to act on this attraction, this is called civilised behaviour and applies to most societies.
I once gave my Sister big emotional hug after not seeing here for years whilst I was in India, I heard later that there was a rumour that our relationship was incestuous based on this incident. A few years later I was giving my Daughter a bath with her Sister, not related to me, the girls were five and eight at the time. A friend of my partner came round to the house and told us both that this was totally unacceptable and treats me with disdain to this day. I have hardly hugged my daughter since, we are no longer that close, sad.
Oh yeah and that had nothing to do with porn. -
I have hardly hugged my daughter since,
a hug - so simple, so complex
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But it does seem that Iceland is quite a strange place.
A strange place and a wonderful place. I'm sure they say the same thing about us.I find that Icelandic films help in diminishing the mystery. Just showed Cold Fever (an Icelandic/Japanese road movie made in 1994) to my students this week.
Incidentally (it being almost Friday free-for-all), I will be in Wellington April 12-16 working with the MinofEd. Are there any Wellington PAS events/get-togethers which I might be able to sidle up to?
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Steve, I also wrote one on much the same topic, but I deliberately deleted it. You've got more guts.
The way men interact with girls is extremely problematic, and it's no surprise that a great many of them withdraw their participation where girls are concerned. Much the same, I imagine, with gays and boys. It's not that they are going to do anything, it's that even having people thinking about it and worrying about it, and talking about it, is too much for a lot of men to risk. I don't think there are almost no male kindergarten teachers entirely because men don't like children. It's also because one false accusation is the end of your life as you know it, and that's just not worth the risk.
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Back to Square One:
Derty Desh now off Youtube
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Good that the NZ law is actually jailing people for procuring minors. If the brave new brothels actually drove down demand (and supply) for underage prostitutes, that would also be a great help. Can we get some studies that promise this?
The number of underage women/girls in prostitution in New Zealand is already low -- about 200 individuals, apparently -- and some of that takes place in settings that are hard to reach (the 16 year-old who performs sexual favours for older men known to her) but the much stronger law and greater degree of enforcement that came with the PRA is certainly helping nail the people who are complicit in it.
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A strange place and a wonderful place. I'm sure they say the same thing about us.
Nah. Iceland is empirically weirder than New Zealand. Exhibit A being their headlong embrace of dubious kinds of financial services and consequent descent in flames.
Our own embrace of neoliberalism looks sedate by comparison.
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Our own embrace of neoliberalism looks sedate by comparison.
I wonder if it was all just a matter of timing. New Zealand embraced the taumaturgic powers of the financial markets just as enthusiastically in the mid-80s, but derivatives didn't exist back then.
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Timing is likely to be the difference. The '87 crash was a much smaller affair than the current one.
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Iceland is empirically weirder than New Zealand. Exhibit A being their headlong embrace of dubious kinds of financial services and consequent descent in flames.
I would have thought exhibit A would have been Bjork. Clearly several quantum states of weird removed from anything homegrown.
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Because I can't be arsed writing anything, some mocked up magazine covers to look at.
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I would have thought exhibit A would have been Bjork. Clearly several quantum states of weird removed from anything homegrown.
I met the Sugarcubes once, at a party at my friend's place, after they played a show with The Chills.
Einar was boisterous and cheerful and drinking absinthe. Bjork lingered enigmatically in the kitchen, devouring a large chocolate cake.
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Bjork lingered enigmatically in the kitchen, devouring a large chocolate cake.
That is one of the most awesome sentences I've read all year.
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