Sounds like you have a good handle on the actual problem, so why not criminalize that rather than restricting people's agency.
> only by perpetuating sex as a product like toothpaste or a bigmac ...
I'm not sure why you think denigrating the people who don't raise sex on some pedestal is supposed to be convincing. Some people have no problem offering sex as a transactional good like selling big macs, and you haven't actually presented an argument for why that should be universally considered wrong.
Sounds like I just wrote a counter argument to your idea of "consent". Where does it stop? "I consent to be murdered an eaten alive so that family gets one million"? In an ultra-liberal society, you'll always find somebody making the argument that if people consent to that, that "business transaction" should be legal.
The fact the parent claim that forbidding prostitution is "anti-woman" is laughable at best. It's anti-ultra-liberal, sure, but it isn't "anti-woman". What is anti-woman is men thinking of women as a mere commercial product.
I didn't mention consent, I mentioned agency. We regulate behaviour where there's a power dynamic, such as between parent and child, and employer and employee. If a personal relationship changes into this power dynamic and trade becomes involved, then that arguably entails regulation and additional protections. That does not entail we need to ban it. The only reason people seem to want to ban it is because sex is raised on a pedestal above other forms of human activity.
> Where does it stop? "I consent to be murdered an eaten alive so that family gets one million"? In an ultra-liberal society, you'll always find somebody making the argument that if people consent to that, that "business transaction" should be legal.
It's funny that you try to equate "the oldest profession" with behaviour that is incredibly rare, and likely even non-existent. Maybe these things are just not equivalent?
> What is anti-woman is men thinking of women as a mere commercial product.
That's just as ridiculous a take as the parent.
The nordic model is certainly anti-john and that's probably what triggers the parent. That only the client might go to jail. That's a good compromise.
This is a failure to separate the circumstances surrounding illegal prostitution (pimping, drugs, trafficking) from the act itself.
The reason prostitution can be empowering for women is because sex is widely desired, and something that is widely desired is a great financial opportunity. There are no shortage of stories about women paying for college by escorting rather than taking on huge student debt. Taking that opportunity away from women can be seen as just another patriarchal oppression, and the excuse given is that they can't have this opportunity because some other men want to use them to exploit that same opportunity. It's patriarchy all the way down.
It would be great if people didn't have to worry about money, but that's not the world we live in. Don't take away their opportunities to better their lives, how about you go after the people actually causing harm. That is the liberal position.
> That's a good compromise.
Not really, you're just endangering women again by driving it underground where they can't protect themselves.
Not really, that's a pure invention of yours. The Nordic model does protect prostitutes from pimps and johns.
Go educate yourself:
Funny, because we had a whole debate about it here in Canada, and guess what? All of the actual sex workers came out against it and said it would endanger them. But I'm sure your propaganda is more reliable or unbiased than the testimony of the people this would most affect.
There's a concerted effort to amplify only the voices that will continue to benefit pimps and punters and other vile men.
The Nordic model does not offer any real benefits to sex workers and still leaves their job dangerous, so why would they support it?
> There's a concerted effort to amplify only the voices that will continue to benefit pimps and punters and other vile men.
It's amazing how people willfully blind themselves when it suits their prejudice. The primary organizations pushing for reform of Canada's sex work laws are led by sex workers themselves [1]. But I suppose in your mind they're just brainwashed or coerced?
Some people argue that prostitution is sickeningly anti-_women_ .
> It suggests women do not have agency and cannot make their own choices.
That's the "liberal" ideology, everything is a merchandise including people's body, as long as there is some form of "consent". Obviously consent can be fabricated (grooming, proxenetism, ...) before the prostitute realizes that they've been sexually exploited and abused. In Europe there is that grooming phenomenon where young girls, often minors are emotionally manipulated by their (older) boyfriend and then asked to prostitute themselves for "love" or just hooked to hard drugs to make them more docile. Obviously there is the question of emotional maturity when it comes to consent.
Liberals aren't concern by the psychological taul of prostitution, and its social consequences, only by perpetuating sex as a product like toothpaste or a bigmac ...