Maidan

In my original message, I said: "Legalisation = ethical standards, workers' rights and public accountability". This was an error. They certainly do not automatically equate; but it is equally certain that, without legalisation, those objectives could not possibly be achieved.

In Talkback #15, Lisa says she researched legalisation in the Netherlands and discovered that workers' exploitation and illegal practices occur within the legal sector; and an illegal sector still exists. There is nothing remarkable about this: the same is true of every other industry. But nobody in their right mind would argue that any other legal industry should be criminalised in its entirety, in order to clamp down on the crooks and cowboys.

The success of legalisation depends on strong and active trade unions and adequate monitoring and policing of ethical rules and standards.

Research is an essential part of the monitoring process. I'll wager Lisa had a much harder time trying to get information about the illegal sector in the Netherlands than the legal sector.

And if we were being intellectually consistent with the principle of blaming the consumer, we could tell another heart-rending story. We could tell a story about an 8-year-old boy who works in a sweat shop in South-East Asia, making sex toys, mostly for the pleasure of western women. Then we could hold those women responsible for the exploitation of young children for a commercial sexual purpose.

But, don't expect intellectual consistency from the conservative-feminist orthodoxy; expect only double standards.