The male orgasm is unimaginably trivial in comparison to the human rights devastation that prostitution inflicts on whole swathes of the globe's female population, writes Caroline Norma.

Amnesty International ran a Stop Violence Against Women campaign between 2004 and 2010 to hold governments to account "for their failure to protect women" and urge them "to live up to their duty to stop this violence".

The organisation during this time lobbied hard for governments around the world to take a strong stand on issues like domestic violence, child marriage, reproductive rights, sexual violence in war, and the history of the Japanese military 'comfort women'.

During the same period, though, Amnesty's international secretariat was lobbied internally by some of its own branches to take a stand on issues of 'men's rights'. In particular, some of its UK members wanted the organisation to stand up for men's right to buy women for prostitution.

News of this lobbying reached members only last year when the international secretariat released a series of 'policy background' documents intended to, it retrospectively explained, invite discussion among members globally on the issue of 'prostitution and human rights'. Exactly whose human right to prostitution was at issue for the organisation was, however, made clear by the secretariat in its Decriminalization of Sex Work: Policy Background Document (2013):

Sexual desire and activity are a fundamental human need. To criminalize those who are unable or unwilling to fulfil that need through more traditionally recognized means and thus purchase sex, may amount to a violation of the right to privacy and undermine the rights to free expression and health.

The push by some Amnesty branches to recommend the organisation stand up for prostitution buyers came at a time when the 'right' to buy a human being for sex was being challenged worldwide. From 1999, a number of countries legislated against the buying of people for prostitution. Sweden, South Korea, Norway, and Iceland criminalised the activities of prostitution buyers, and it was looking likely that France and Ireland would similarly penalise sex industry customers. This criminalisation of sex industry customers was an historically unprecedented way of making policy on prostitution, known as the 'Nordic' approach. This withdrawal from men of their longstanding legal right to buy women unsurprisingly attracted resistance and criticism worldwide, including from Amnesty branches.

But not all Amnesty branches shared the secretariat's concern for the rights of prostitution buyers, and the organisation's UK Paisley branch in 2012 made a submission to a public consultation held by a Scottish parliamentarian that endorsed a proposal to introduce the Nordic Model. The Amnesty UK executive was alerted to the existence of this endorsing submission, and called for the Paisley branch to withdraw it. Branch members refused to do so. The international secretariat then weathered criticism from its Swedish branch, which rebuffed the organisation's 'consultation' on prostitution and human rights by submitting a substitute proposal that endorsed the Nordic Model. Australian branches took similar action: the state Queensland and Tasmanian branches in 2014 passed resolutions directly contradicting the proposal to support prostitution buyers, and instead resolved to endorse the Nordic Model as the organisation's official platform. Further, the Western Australian branch passed a resolution criticising the integrity of the consultation process undertaken on the issue.

But the worst blow for Amnesty's international secretariat and its campaign to stand up for prostitution buyers came in May 2014 when former US president Jimmy Carter sent a letter to the organisation's Secretary General in his own name criticising Amnesty's stance, and recommending the organisation adopt the Nordic Model, which "increase[s] penalties for pimps and consumers and ... decriminalise[s] victims and survivors ...". Carter wrote that he had "decided to raise my voice in favor of what is known as the 'Nordic model'," and that Amnesty should follow suit.

The organisation hasn't yet followed suit, and is now becoming mired in battles between branches over the issue of men's right to prostitute women. Most recently, the organisation's Northern Ireland branch began campaigning against a proposed criminal provision in that country that would criminalise prostitution buying.

Male entitlement to the prostitution of women is an idea that enjoys waning legitimacy in the 21st century industrialised world. Amnesty International was made aware of its declining currency through the backlash the organisation faced after it proposed to support the activities of prostitution buyers. As a result, the organisation is now a site of struggle for advocates of the Nordic Model in confronting the 'sex work' groups that have long infiltrated left-wing organisations like Amnesty to promote sexually liberal ideas of prostitution as an activity of female empowerment and financial gain.

While Amnesty's secretariat may regret having opened up its organisation to such struggle, the opportunity it presents to reckon over the question of male sexual rights is eminently valuable. Only through such opportunities do victims of men's sex rights and their supporters get the chance to confront men's prostitution behaviour as an historically enshrined human rights entitlement. Only in contexts of stature and gravitas like that of the world's largest human rights organisation do survivors and their supporters stand a chance of persuading the world of the unimaginable triviality of the male orgasm compared to the human rights devastation that prostitution inflicts on whole swathes of the globe's female population.

Dr Caroline Norma is a lecturer in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University, and member of Amnesty Australia. View her full profile here.