Posts by Jolisa
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OMGWTF Geoffrey Palmer: my analogy with whaling was a joke!!
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Iceland is empirically weirder than New Zealand.
They have waaaaaaay better hotpools, but.
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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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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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But, as so often happens on PAS, I think there's room for honest people to disagree.
I wanted to hug you for that. In a totally consensual fashion.
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to assume that this also applies to women who actually have majority legislative power and dare to use it.
(Paula Bennett aside, of course... there's an exception to every rule and as always I'm perfectly happy to rebut myself and save others the trouble).
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Well, as long as you’re sure.
But that was exactly my point: the data is so inherently fungible that you can take it and prove entirely opposite (and equally well-made and sincere and socialist and/or feminist) cases with it. 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?).
So Iceland has tried one approach (partial decriminalisation); now (consequent on a particular case, I think) they're trying another way. They wouldn't be the first small municipality to attempt an outright ban on industrialised sex within its borders, altho certainly one of the first where women are more or less equally represented at all levels of power. The least we can do, if it is a general principle to Take Women Seriously, is to assume that this also applies to women who actually have majority legislative power and dare to use it.
And if/when the new Icelandic policy doesn't work, then we can print out this thread and send it over with a friendly told-you-so note and a copy of our own legislation, and everyone will be happy.
and to blog for money.
Aw, bless. No, clearly we're the sort who'd do it even if we didn't get paid. Plus, we really like you.
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Anyway - gotta go and tussle with some feminists for television :-)
Now that we've got you all good and warmed up. You're welcome :-)
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Must say, the SWOP article is a really nice, and very persuasive, piece of writing.
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And in that sense, I think it's a bit more than "a giant thought experiment" as Jolisa put it. It might have real consequences.
Er... but the current situation already has real consequences; the woman who sponsored the Iceland legislation has been working in the field for fifteen years. It's so easy for us to be armchair critics from the other end of the world. If you really think their legislative decision is that terrible a step in the wrong direction, write a submission! They must be informed immediately.
Sorry, Emma, I conflated the words "study" and "article"; you linked to one article on the porn-extinguishes-rape model, and yes, that article mentioned several different studies. Is it my fault if I don't find any of them terribly convincing, and share many of the misgivings of those who commented on the article? The claims about Japan, in particular, I find risible; it doesn't match my experiences there from the late 80s to the early 90s, nor what I hear from women working against sexual violence over there, in the 90s or since. Anecdata, I know, but I'm sure we could science it up a bit and make it stick.
Even the good women at Feministing aren't totally sold on the correlation, either.
(because of course I'm okay with trafficking, that's a totally fair statement to make),
OK, sorry, what? Desperately hoping this is sarcasm or something like it.