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it isn't clear to me that mongers are any more obligated to work against the exploitation and abuse of women in the commercial sex industry than non-mongers. Do those who buy and eat chocolate have a greater obligation to fight against the child slavery and exploitation in that industry than people who don't consume chocolate?
I would say the answer is a resounding yes. If you don't eat chocolate you are not putting money directly into an industry which supports child labor. This is why people boycott things like Nike and sweatshop labor or UGGs and animal cruelty, demand free trade products, etc etc. While the fact that child labor exists somewhere because somebody eats chocolate is still bad, it's not directly YOUR fault for buying the product (creating the demand) which causes the child labor to be necessary. If nobody ate chocolate, no children would be required to work to harvest it. If everybody was getting laid freely left and right, no women would need to be sex trafficked.
It is precisely because so many people *feel* that it is wrong for consenting adults to sell sex that it is illegal, and it is precisely its illegality that encourages the involvement of criminal elements in the industry and allows their abuses to remain semi-hidden and hard to suppress legally.
While I do support legalization of most drugs and prostitution, I am not so sure. Sex trafficking still exists in ALL countries where prostitution is legal. Criminal elements will always traffick humans where there is demand for paid sex, regardless of legality. This is in stark contrast to, for example, marijuana, which grows freely like a weed wherever it is permitted. Thus, if legalized, nobody would be able to abuse or control the distribution of marijuana.
Your argument of chocolate (or anything else) vs. prostitution is somewhat compelling. For me, however it breaks down at the level of personal involvement. I do as much as I can to not buy things which I know were produced in bad conditions - sweatshops, child labor, etc. However, the fact that we don't have to look the victim in the eye does make it easier (this is not really a good thing). If I walk into a store - Armani or Lacoste, for example - and I look at their clothes, I don't SEE the child picking cotton or weaving the shirt. It's impersonal to me. I try to avoid buying it wherever I can, but I also realize its kind of a necessary evil in this day and age. If I lived right next to a sweatshop and had to look them in the eye every day I think I would fight a lot harder against child labor.
The issue I'm getting at is - when I buy a chocolate bar, I see a chocolate bar. When you buy sex, you see a woman, a human being! Do you not look directly into her eyes? Do you not feel compassion and wonder at her condition and freedom in her profession? If you are telling me that you walk into a brothel, pay a woman, look her in the eye, and do the deed without worrying about her well being and freedom in her situation, then when you are finished dust your hands off and say to yourself "Well I'm no worse than someone buying a chocolate bar"... I have to say I'm a bit shocked.
It's one thing to buy a chocolate bar and think that somewhere, someone might be getting exploited or paid less than they should be. It's another thing entirely to be in the same room as a woman who might be exploited and have the most intimate of human experiences with her. It's not Nike and politicians and supply chains and capitalists and distributors across thousands of miles. Its you in a room fucking a woman. And if you have the ability to have that experience with other women without exploitation involved - why would you not take that option? If there was a "slave labor" chocolate bar right next to a "no slave labor" chocolate bar...... why on earth would you pick the "slave labor" chocolate bar??