When I was in Thailand doing research on human trafficking in the red-light district of Bangkok, a common “show” was simulated beatings of prostitutes, while men eagerly looked on. Prostitution, along with pornography, desensitizes men to violence against women, while feeding a sense of entitlement to women’s bodies. As pornography becomes increasingly extreme—often involving rape fantasies, “barely legal” teens, “pornstar punishment,” and BDSM—johns seek to act out their escalating desires with prostitutes.
Amnesty often rejoins with catchphrases: “the human rights of sex workers” or “sex worker rights are human rights.” Everyone agrees that “sex workers” have human rights, but people disagree that there is a “human right” to degrade oneself, that there is a “human right” to buy someone else for sex, and that there is a “human right” to sell someone else for sex. Amnesty’s proposal is premised on the idea that sex is an activity like any other, and has no special moral significance. But sex is not simply “work”; it is a uniquely private, personal, and intimate act.
Amnesty’s policy reflects the broad idea of “sex positivity”—the view that any restriction on “consensual” adult sex is a violation of rights. Under this view, sex should be unrestricted, even when sold as a commodity. George Soros and the Open Society Foundations (OSF) have put a great deal of money behind this view. Over the years, Soros has funded practically all of the one-sided reports and research that formed the basis of Amnesty’s final policy recommendation. And unfortunately, that campaign has worked. Amnesty is no longer an outlier in pushing to decriminalize prostitution. Some of the most influential human rights and development organizations, such as UNAIDS, UNDP, UN Women, Human Rights Watch, and ACLU, share Amnesty’s view.
