Wednesday, January 11, 2012

This house would criminalise the purchase of sex - rebuttal speeches

Second proposing speech
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for reading us today. I will start this rebuttal speech by rebutting the opposers’ point of view – a complete legalization of prostitution – and then explain furthermore why we should criminalize the purchase of sex.

First of all, I would like to define a little bit more clearly our position in this debate: we are abolitionists, and believe that prostitution is the issue, not the problems linked to prostitution. […] 

by GQ

Second opposing speech
Dear ladies and gents, thank you for reading this article. We will continue our debate on this hypocritical and contradictory motion that support criminalization of sex purchase.

My friends, this motion is inspired by a law that tries to impose a certain point of vu, regardless of individual freedom, and that punishes the wrong people! Let’s be clear and honest, this law is only a roundabout way to prohibit prostitution without the words. [...]

by JB

Second proposing speech
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for reading us today. I will start this rebuttal speech by rebutting the opposers’ point of view – a complete legalization of prostitution – and then explain furthermore why we should criminalize the purchase of sex.

First of all, I would like to define a little bit more clearly our position in this debate: we are abolitionists, and believe that prostitution is the issue, not the problems linked to prostitution. Our ideal would be to one day suppress prostitution. Throughout times, we made illegal the having of sex by power (such as the “droit de cuissage” or the lord raping the peasants) and by force (the rape as it is usually defined), so why should we tolerate the sex for money any longer? Some may accuse us of being moralistic puritans. I think that practicing such a depreciating activity for your body ends up depreciating your soul as well. Therefore, there is not for us anything such as a “voluntary prostitute”. If women (because most of the workers are women) do this activity (which I will not call a job), it is either because they are forced to do so by fear or by need of money, because the society doesn’t provide a job for everybody.

So please, dear opposers, stop calling this activity harmless, because it is not. It is harmful, sooner or later, deeper or not, for every prostitute.

Furthermore, the idea that “sexual urges are natural” and need a way to be expressed is absolutely revolting. In a society aiming towards equality between genders, there is no room for such speech. Why should men be allowed to treat women the way the want to? Just because they have “sexual urges”? This is ridiculous. The desires of men – and of women – need to be tempered by a better education, more open concerning sexuality, and really establishing the idea of gender equality in children and teenagers minds.

About the influence of this penalization on the economic trends of the sex market, may the opposers calm down: I am pretty sure the numbers of clients will not drastically diminish, causing the prostitutes difficulties to feed their family. We hope the numbers of clients will eventually go down, because it one of this bill’s goal. But this will also diminish the number of prostitutes, due to the law of supply and demand. From a strictly economic point of view, this bill will really change anything but the size of the market.

Some participants in class also mentioned that there was no link between morality and legality, or even worse that in some cases making something illegal actually increases its practice. The figures are not very easy to certify, but for the countries (such as Sweden) which have penalized the purchased of sex, there seems to have been a decrease in the activity, as my partner previously said. Take the exemple of road accidents: once considered unavoidable, and part of how things were, there are now pointed out and made tragedies, and the drivers are now judged as criminals in case of harmful accidents. Their responsibility has finally been recognized.

Finally, the opposers mentioned a possible rise in hidden networks. I don’t believe it will rise too much and here is why: the clients make the networks – any network, legal or illegal – work, so if there are less clients, the networks will be less numerous and powerful.

I would like to end this speech by mentioning that this bill should not been viewed as a short term bill. Of course this bill changes the status of today’s clients, but it a step on the path of abolitionism, and more generally on the path of gender equality. Hopefully it will be followed by others, such as educational and cultural changes, but right now we urge you to propose.
Thank you for reading and vote for us.

GQ
 
Second opposing speech

Dear ladies and gents, thank you for reading this article. We will continue our debate on this hypocritical and contradictory motion that support criminalization of sex purchase.

My friends, this motion is inspired by a law that tries to impose a certain point of vu, regardless of individual freedom, and that punishes the wrong people! Let’s be clear and honest, this law is only a roundabout way to prohibit prostitution without the words. This naturally brings me back to the intervention of my friend MD who ensures that the law aims to improve working conditions of prostitutes while the application of this law should lead to the disappearance of this job. I think that here is a major contradiction! And this contradiction is just the mirror of the incoherence of a law that deny itself. The reason of this deny is simple: the spirit of this law is not in accordance with the principles of individual liberty! Prostitution is the provision of sexual services for negotiated payment between CONSENTING ADULTS. Of course Non-consenting adults and all children forced into sexual activity deserve the full protection of the law, and perpetrators deserve full punishment by the law. But unfortunately this is not what our law plans. Criminalizing sex purchase is also a violation of the right of individual privacy, because it imposes penal sanctions for the private sexual conduct of consenting adults. To conclude this point, whether or not we approve of sex work or would want our daughters to be thus employed, the moral argument for condemnation starts to fall apart when we consider the conditions of abuse suffered by real women working in the industry, or when we touch a more universal morality which is freedom!!

This is why, rather than this crazy law, it would be more useful to follow the example of Germany and Switzerland and to legalize prostitution! No law has ever succeeded in stopping prostitution. An ad-hoc regulation of this activity is therefore urgent, to fight against organized crime. In fact, prostitution is like any other industry, Make it illegal, and you give criminals a monopoly! Consequently, the question we must ask is the following: When prostitutes need protection, to whom do we want them to turn, thugs and Mafiosi, or doctors and police? To sum up this proposition, sex work is here to stay, and by recognizing it as paid labor government can guarantee fair treatment as well as safe and healthy work environment, including overtime and vacation pay, control over condom use and vaccination, and the right to collective bargaining!

Moreover, this law is a real headache from a practical point of view and is full of non-senses if not preceded by a huge amount of other bans. It's all about coherence! So if I understand the law, having sex with an unknown  woman is permitted, to give money to this woman is allowed, but to do both at the same time is forbidden! What an idea!

And if it’s really a moral, ethic, deep, problem, even if everybody is consenting, everybody is adults, everybody is wearing condoms, everybody is vaccinated and everybody is happy; what about pornography?? Well know that all porn actors and producers are in jail, what about those guys  who spend weeks of courtship with fine dining and false promises only to have sex with there actually “Girlfriend”?? Is there attitude more morale? Do we send them to prison? The true is that it is again and again only a question of Money! There’s such a stigma about this topic!!...

Let’s sum up where we stand in this debate. Either individuals are responsible for their own acts –including their choices of relationships- or the government is responsible for everything you do. There is no middle ground!

JB

2 comments:

  1. @ GQ

    You said that you don't want to change the economic trends of the sex market. But if your goal is, as you've said, to abolish prostitution, it will obviously have a huge impact. For example, that will develop furthermore porn video. So don't you think that this law is too weak for your real goal?

    @ JB

    Yo said: "make it illegal and you give criminals a monopoly" but we could also say:
    "make it legal and give criminals a reason of feeling good, a declared job, a law protection and the congratulations of people."
    And encourage criminels is not the best way to improve society.

    In addition, even if you defend yourself very well, the experience has prooved that the best way to improve conditions of prostitutes is to follow the swedish example rather than the german one.

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  2. Considering the change in economic trends, there will be an obvious rise of french clients in European neighbour countries where prostitution is legal. They will always find a way to bypass these laws.

    FZ mentionned as an example porn videos : are porn actresses and actors concerned about this law? their activity is, in my opinion, linked to the purchase of sex. Eventhough some porn actresses became famous and work in "good" conditions, many other actresses suffer from their activity as much as prostitutes. Pimps in the field of pornography should be impacted by this law, don't you think?

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