In the beginning, when I began puntering, I was 21 yrs old and i tought that all, or almost all, prostitutes were sex slaves. That was that media was showing everytime, and I was so innocent. I knew that they will never recognice that they were slaves, so I felt guilty each time I was with one of them like Kris2. I feel like if I were an abuser.

But I kept going with them, specially after I broke up with my gf. Then I began to lose the fear I had to this world in the beginning. I was able to speak with the girls, to go out with them (to lunch, go party, just walk with them and their children…). Ouw. I was astonished. What a kind pimp they should have that he let them to do whatever they wanted. Even they could go on Christmas or Pascua to their country to visit their relatives… really that was not as I tought. The doubt was the seed to knowledge.

So nice were SWs with me that I spent more and more time with them. First after university and then after work, I was almost daily with them. Not just fucking, but chatting and staying with them. I became not just a client but a friend. Then the surprise came.

What I know about prostitution is not ASKING prostitutes but HEARING them. If they feel comfortable with u, they will tell u things. And same comes into sex. I’m mainly with streetwalkers that many ppl speaks badly: that they fuck with apathy, rob or lie. Well, I laugh bcause this is not my case. Of course they do, but not to me. Why? Bcause they are not robots, they are nice with some johns and very bad with others. The way a SW is with u depends of how are u, If like Kris2 u look like a retarted, they will treat u like one.

Well, the surprise was that a sw told me that she couldn’t get out from one of the houses they worked to the street bcause that week she didn’t pay the police. That was a shock for me, but I found many more SWs that told me similar histories. They were not forced into prostitution, but to PAY to our authorities to let them work. That was I found in the streets, not by my imagination of readings. Btw, when I began to search about this discover in the academic studies, I found that other ppl had also found same as me. But the abolitionists and traffick myth supporters NEVER said a word about that. Then was evident for me what was the real intention of their histories: to cover the real mafias. Nowadays I don’t say that mafias are nonexistent. They are real. They are the abolitionist associations, the police and the government.

Thanks to let me give my opinion and excuse my basic english (also I’m in a hurry and I can’t check my comment, sorry).

I have read the articles Doezema, Jordan and Weitzer you referred to. I don’t agree with them.

In that case, welcome to permanent moderation. I don’t have time for someone who rejects facts and methodologically sound research because they conflict with his personal misogynistic belief in the inability of women to make valid choices.

I used the word ‘belief’ because it is very hard to research prostitutes or people in general. What people tell is nearly always unreliable and difficult to use in scientific research. I referred earlier to the research done by Ine Vanwesenbeeck. It is very interesting to see that none of the prostitutes she interviewed said that they were forced during the interview, but some admitted that they were forced in the past. If you take everything what people say literally then you must conclude that something is very fuzzy going on here. It must mean that they lie at least about something, or that the forced prostitutes simply didn’t take part in the interviews. I take the social workers who work in the red light districts seriously who say that many Eastern European prostitutes are strongly under the control of pimps, and that Dutch window prostitutes often entered prostitution because they were forced to do that. I believe the prostitutes tell things to social workers that they don’t say to researchers. But this is indeed belief.

You can’t prove anything with hundred percent certainty. You must make a choice what information you want to discard if it doesn’t fit with other information. I also used the example of the police raids in the Doubletstraat in Den Haag and the Baekelandplein in Eindhoven. None of the prostitutes who were interrogated by the police said that they were forced, they all said they worked voluntarily in prostitution. But this contradicts all other information. What must you do with it? Do you take the prostitutes seriously? Then you must conclude that at least in these areas there is no forced prostitution. But on the other hand you know that there are many Eastern European prostitutes who work in this area, many Hungarian prostitutes. And you know the bad stories from social workers regarding Eastern European and Hungarian prostitutes, and you know other research in which some prostitutes say that they are forced during the interviews. Which information must you filter out? I believe the decision what must be filtered out is very subjective. I cannot believe that absolutely none of the prostitutes in the Doubletstraat and the Baekelandplein are forced. So I filtered that out. I use other information to explain why these prostitutes all say they are working voluntarily in prostitution. It is known from police investigations that many forced prostitutes are simply afraid to tell that they are forced, because they are threatened with their lives, or their loved ones are threatened with their lives. Or they are so in love or so loyal to their pimp that they tell to the police they work voluntarily in prostitution. But indeed, this is ‘belief’.

Another thing I belief is that forced prostitutes often work in window prostitution. That’s because when I analyse all the forced prostitution cases window prostitution is often overrepresented. But this is also belief. Berhaps forced prostitutes in other sectors simply don’t reveal themselves.

And sometimes I doubt. There is a voice within me which says that forced prostitution indeed doesn’t exist. And that I can visit prostitutes without hesitation, and I do visit prostitutes without hesitation. But then I read a horror story again, and it makes me doubt again.

I have read the articles Doezema, Jordan and Weitzer you referred to. I don’t agree with them. Forced prostitution is not a myth. What is a myth is that forced prostitutes often didn’t know that they would be working in prostitution. The reality is that many forced prostitutes actually did choose to work in prostitution initially. But they ended up in bad circumstances anyway. I also know this from the verdicts on rechtspraak.nl. But this is also belief, I assume that these cases are somehow representative of all forced prostitution cases in the Netherlands. It is funny to see that Jo Doezema refers to the TAMPEP field reports to prove that the great majority of foreign prostitutes knew that they were going to work in prostitution. She sees this as proof that they work voluntarily in prostitution. But if people would read all these TAMPEP reports then I belief it would fill many with horror. It turns out that the situation of the foreign prostitutes is actually very bad if you read those reports.

I have read in one of your posts that you estimate that 1,5% of the prostitutes are forced. I think a more realistic estimate is 15%, an order of 10 higher. But this is belief. How do you know that a more realistic percentage is 1,5 percent? I believe that you took the data that fits your belief, and that you discarded the rest.

No, the two are not even close. Imagine that instead of being decriminalized, homosexuality had been legalized on the basis that gays are a problem to be controlled. Thus, we would have a central registry for gays, they would be forcibly tested and have all manner of rules placed on them; they would not be allowed to live in the same house as other gays, nor associate with friends or relatives. Finally, they would have to keep their sexuality a secret in public, lest they be arrested.

I believe there’s really something sinister going on…

Precisely. You believe, which doesn’t require evidence. People believe in all sorts of things, but those beliefs do not give them the right to control others or invalidate their decisions. I’m growing very tired of this line of attack from you; please take it someplace where your fellow true believers will pat you on the back and agree how right you are in branding yourself an evil abuser of women. You will not get it here, where we believe in facts. Please do not post again until after you read these three essays by Doezema, Jordan and Weitzer, and finish Laura Agustin’s Sex At the Margins; otherwise I’ll be forced to return your comments to moderation. You are wasting my valuable time by asking me to refute every unproven “belief” you have that I and others have refuted many, many times before, and I need that time to write articles for EVERYONE rather than serving as your unpaid therapist.

I believe there’s really something sinister going on in Dutch prostitution. Check my blog. I’ve also tried to translate some verdicts from rechtspraak.nl, so everybody can read it in English.

(There are many restaurants in Dutch city and village centres)