Further Adventures in Framing

By: Kenrick Cleveland

Framing is an amazing persuasion tool which I continue to explore and in this article, I've chosen some pretty volatile topics to make a pretty powerful point.

The world's oldest profession is reputed to be ill repute. As a society we've got our fears to the licentious nature of this business. Some of you may also have your attractions to it. Regardless, it's an illegal activity, at least in forty-nine of the fifty states, and it's definitely connected to some dangerous aspects of our culture-violence, disease, abuse, illegal drugs. And now that I've set the most common frame, how about looking through this one. A friend and former student of mine sent me this link: http://www.walnet.org/csis/groups/icpr_chapter.html. His note said, "Check out this frame." And it's a link to the International Committee for Prostitute's Right.

I did a little further research and found that there's an organization called C.O.Y.O.T.E. It stands for Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics. This is a 'sex worker's' rights organization. (Notice the shift from 'prostitutes' to 'sex workers'.)

There's a pretty strong movement in the U.S. and all over Europe, to decriminalize prostitution and ensure rights and protection to the people working in the industry. To me, that's a new frame. I had never heard of such a thing and it really struck me as interesting.

Differentiating between prostitution where people are being victimized and sex workers who believe they're involved in a victimless crime, is only the surface of the debate. And as with any argument involving sexuality and politics, things can get pretty emotional and complex.

The frame gets more complex, describing sex work as an important part of the economy. With Nevada and the Netherlands as examples, proponents of decriminalizing prostitution suggest that through regulation many of the dangers associated with the industry can be lessened. With mandatory medical check ups, the health dangers are drastically cut down. And with no pimps, the violence is lessened.

The issue of sex for money has been taken out of the frame of morality (which has been the strongest frame by far) and put it in the frame of being an important part of the economy. If you look at the argument for legalizing drugs, it's very similar.

The idea of 'victimless crimes' is an appealing frame to me in that the amount of money spent each year on imprisoning pot growers/users and sex workers, is staggering. I am not advocating to 'legalize it' though I am intrigued to know that there are intelligent opponents to the cultural norm.

Again, this is just an exercise in framing and when you can reframe a very strong argument with another strong argument, whoever has the better frame, wins.

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Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent clients using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.

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