@admitsWrongIfProven

I'm genuinely not sure what I should be apologizing for? She called me a pedophile out of nowhere, because she fell for the lies of stupid aggressive activists who call anyone they don't like a pedophile, so I've poked fun at her.

How would you respond to someone on the Internet you don't even know calling you a pedophile out of nowhere, because they have some kind of political hatred for you? I deal with hateful people by poking fun at them.

Sweatshops and prostitution have something very similar in common, which is that they are things a person resorts to due to a lack of alternatives, and it tends to be extremely unhealthy for them. If they genuinely had a choice, they would generally not choose it.

Also, in both cases, there is a person who's responsible for the misery, who should be held responsible: The sweatshop owner, who could pay the workers proper wages and give them humane working times, breaks, safe working conditions, sick leave, etc.; and the sex buyer, who could simply give the money to the destitute person he's paying, since he evidently doesn't need the money and would have given it away merely for some sexual pleasure i.e. entertainment. Instead chooses to compound the suffering of a destitute person by using his economically dominant position.

It's also empirically observed that places with a lax attitude on prostitution end up being a more popular destination for human trafficking, since it's very difficult to regulate prostitution, meaning the industry gets flooded by organized crime, with even some ostensibly "clean" and legally operating brothels frequently containing lots of trafficked persons and being in cahoots with mafias behind the scenes.

More info: https://nordicmodelnow.org/

Accusing those who point out these facts as being "opposed to women's agency and ability to make choices" is a tired old trope that middle class academics and pimp lobbyists came up with. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny at all, but sure makes for nice catchy slogans and "gotcha" responses.

@raccoon @vriska @adiz @Ree