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If women really choose prostitution, why is it mostly marginalized and disadvantaged women who do? If we want to discuss the issue of choice, let__ look at who is doing the actual choosing in the context of prostitution. Surely the issue is not why women allegedly choose to be in prostitution, but why men choose to buy the bodies of millions of women and children worldwide and call it sex.Philosophically, the response to the choice debate is __ot_ to deny that women are capable of choosing within contexts of powerlessness, but to question how much real value, worth, and power these so-called choices confer.Politically, the question becomes, should the state sanction the sex industry based on the claim that some women choose prostitution when most women__ choice is actually 'compliance_ to the only options available?When governments idealize women__ alleged choice to be in prostitution by legalizing, decriminalizing, or regulating the sex industry, they endorse a new range of 'conformity_ for women.Increasingly, what is defended as a choice is not a triumph over oppression but another name for it.
Janice G. Raymond Not a Choice, Not a Job: Exposing the Myths about Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade
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If women really choose prostitution, why is it mostly marginalized and disadvantaged women who do? If we want to discuss the issue of choice, let__ look at who is doing the actual choosing in the context of prostitution. Surely the issue is not why women allegedly choose to be in prostitution, but why men choose to buy the bodies of millions of women and children worldwide and call it sex.Philosophically, the response to the choice debate is __ot_ to deny that women are capable of choosing within contexts of powerlessness, but to question how much real value, worth, and power these so-called choices confer.Politically, the question becomes, should the state sanction the sex industry based on the claim that some women choose prostitution when most women__ choice is actually 'compliance_ to the only options available?When governments idealize women__ alleged choice to be in prostitution by legalizing, decriminalizing, or regulating the sex industry, they endorse a new range of 'conformity_ for women.Increasingly, what is defended as a choice is not a triumph over oppression but another name for it.
JR
Janice G. Raymond

Not a Choice, Not a Job: Exposing the Myths about Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade

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When basic human needs are ignored, rejected, or invalidated by those in roles and positions to appropriately meet them; when the means by which these needs have been previously met are no longer available: and when prior abuse has already left one vulnerable for being exploited further, the stage is set for the possibility these needs will be prostituted. This situation places a survivor who has unmet needs in an incredible dilemma. She can either do without or seek the satisfaction of mobilized needs through some "illegitimate" source that leaves her increasingly divided from herself and ostracized from others.While meeting needs in this way resolves the immediate existential experience of deprivation and abandonment. it produces numerous other dif_ulties. These include experiencing oneself as __ad_ or "weak" for having such strong needs; experiencing shame and guilt for relying on __llegitimate_ sources of satisfaction: experiencing a loss of self-respect for indulging in activities contrary to personal moral standards of conduct; risking the displeasure and misunderstanding of others important to her; and opening oneself to the continued abuse and victimization of perpetrators who are all too willing to sel_hly use others for their own pleasure and purposes under the guise of being 'helpful.