Posted on 03/16/2008 7:15:48 AM PDT by NYpeanut
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Selling sex isn’t illegal in Sweden, but buying it is — a radical approach to prostitution that faced ridicule when it was introduced nine years ago.
Now, while Americans are preoccupied with the downfall of New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer in a prostitution scandal, some countries are considering emulating the Swedish model, which prosecutes the client but views the prostitute as an exploited victim.
Officials say the changed approach has reduced the demand for prostitutes and reshaped attitudes toward the sex trade.
“We don’t have a problem with prostitutes. We have a problem with men who buy sex,” said Kajsa Wahlberg, of the human trafficking unit at Sweden’s national police board.
She said foreign law enforcement officials and politicians are coming to Sweden in droves to learn more about its 1999 law.
On Friday, Wahlberg was meeting with police officials from the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal but where authorities have closed some brothels in a crackdown on organized crime in Amsterdam’s red light district.
In January, a high-level British delegation came to study the Swedish approach as Britain reviews its own prostitution laws, which prohibit soliciting and loitering for sex, but not buying sex.
Norway’s government plans to propose a Swedish-style prostitution law after Easter.
Under Sweden’s so-called “Sex Purchase Law,” paying for sex is punished by fines or up to six months in prison, plus the humiliation of public exposure.
Pimps and brothel keepers are also prosecuted, but not prostitutes, because they are viewed as victims, treated as commodities in the sex trade.
While authorities judge the new system a success, critics question whether it has really reduced prostitution or merely pushed it off the streets into more isolated surroundings. Wahlberg concedes that accurate statistics are hard to obtain, but estimates the number of prostitutes in Sweden dropped 40 percent from 2,500 in 1998 to 1,500 in 2003.
She says police know from eavesdropping on human trafficking rings that Sweden is considered bad business because of its tough stance.
“They are calculating profits, costs and marketing and the risk of getting caught,” Wahlberg said. “We’re trying to create a bad market for these activities.”
Is that you Elliot?
You are correct. Although I doubt they’ve conducted a comprehensive investigation of the hooker(s) I mistook investigate for prosecute. My apologies.
I couldn’t imagine ‘charging’ a Swedish blonde either...nope!
Poetic justice is the best kind!
Kristen has been given immunity.
Uh no...I’m female.
I don’t think you got it?
Immunity from prosecution doesn't mean, however, that the IRS won't impose civil penalties for unpaid taxes.
LOL, “Hello Mr. Sump Pump! Boy your pretty big!”
So, prostitutes can wear signs now?
Uh, you don’t have to target any such thing. You can spend your time on crimes which involve harming the person and property of other people.
Politicians just want the tax money.
I am reminded of Abraham Lincoln's quip about how many legs a dog has, if you count its tail as a leg.
-ccm
Having sex is generally legal, even if it is done often and with strangers, indicative of psychological problems, and detrimental to one’s health and well being.
Exchange small amounts money in a frivolous manner is also generally legal, even if the consideration given in exchange has little or no value. People can buy $10 sunglasses for $200 if they want to.
Prostitution is combining these two legal things in close proximity of time. So, I guess what makes it illegal is that money is given in exchange for sex within 5 minutes, instead of after waiting an hour.
55 minutes is a crime. It turns poor judgment that nobody cares about into a destructive force that threatens the very foundations of society itself. It is slavery, drug and alcohol addiction, poverty, abuse, disease and death on skid row.
My, what just 55 minutes can do.
Obviously, any prostitute with more than a room temperature IQ should figure out some means of passing these damnable 55 minutes, both to save herself and her customer, and all of western civilization itself, from downfall.
Actually, a LOT of prostitutes have figured this out, and come up with endless ways of wasting 55 minutes. So they and their clientele are almost never arrested, humiliated, condemned, or even thought of as prostitutes engaging in prostitution.
And thus, by wasting 55 minutes after sex, they are not impoverished, addicted to heroin and crack, controlled by a vicious pimp, living on skid row and a frequent flyer in a jail cell.
Instead, just by the mere act of not being paid for 55 minutes, many of them are middle class, live in the suburbs, only take drugs and alcohol for recreation, and leave prostitution whenever they feel. In exchange, they can have considerable supplemental income to spend on whatever they like, on top of their ordinary day job, they get invited out to dinner and other recreation by clients, and might even end up getting married to one, and living reasonably happily ever after.
Surely society is correct in mandating a 55 minute difference between a heinous, destructive and evil crime and a pleasant and almost respectable lifestyle.
Well, how PC of them. The drug dealer isn't the criminal, the drug PURCHASER is! Interesting take ...
“We don’t have a problem with prostitutes. We have a problem with men who buy sex,”
Why do you have more of a "problem" with the one than the other? The men couldn't buy it unless someone was offering it for sale. Nor could the women sell it unless someone was offering to buy. So why would you exempt one half of the transaction?
The only other thing I would add is that married johns should have to possess a notarized permission from their wife, giving her acquiescence to his registration, so as not to infect the innocent lady with skank bugs. No note, no party. Married men caught without spousal permission should be subject to the penalty determined by the wife; no limit.
Than that will open up a whole new industry, a black market for fake permission cards, and a whole other level of bureaucracy susceptible to corruption. More bureaucracy, more lawyers. Oh, never mind.
some crimes harm society as a whole. For example, prostitution and illegal immigration.
No, girlfriend is getting a free pass, immunity. So Ashley is off the hook. She may have an IRS problem though. Apparently, she was working in the NYC club scene as a waitress in some nightclubs where she would pull $600 or more a night. These clubs have tables only for patrons who will drop $500 or thereabouts for a bottle of champagne or vodka. Her job was to get the table to buy more bottles and thus get bigger tips.
Then the word is she would hook up with the payers at these tables and get these guys to come back. Apparently, she had a reputation for getting the customer to come back to these tables. Hmmm wonder how she did that?
Geraldo on Fox had a former pimp who ran an escort service that she worked for before Emperor. He said he tried to date her but landed up getting her to work for him. She did 80-100 jobs a month he said for 6-12 months.
By conservative estimates she made a lot of money in the trade. And she is not looking very abused in her history either. She just went from nightclub waitress to hooker, probably with a good amount of drugs along the way.
We have been to Nevada many times and LA and other places where prostitution is prominent and I have yet to experience any harm or even inconvenience. So I need some elaboration.
BTW I thinking lying generally harms society as a whole and coverage of Hollywood gossip and rap music, on and on.. Shall we outlaw such things?
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