On September 29 2012 02:37 opisska wrote: I am seriously pissed with the fact that so many people even consider the regulation of things like prostitution being anobody's business. If a woman wants make money by selling sex, why not? People do all sorts of weird shit for living ... but wait, this is sex, this has to be treated differently. Bullshit! This is just the same stupid fixation on everything sex-related that plagues the mankind.
It is wrong to force women to work as prostitues, as much as it is illegal to force them to work as dish cleaners. It is simply morally wrong (and thus must be made illegal) to force anyone to do any kind of work for you. Why should be prostituion singled out? Only because it is often forced? But that is because it is illegal.
To put it simply, prostituion should not be even regulated in law (aside of practicallities, as in every field). All the crimes that are allegedly caused by prostitution can be solved by enforcing the relevant law for them, not by illegalizing prostitution.
The same holds in my opinion also for example for drug use.
I kindof agree, (but not quite as vehemently!) But the regulation issue is important.
Although prostitution is perfectly legal in the UK, the lack of regulation and historical taboo associated with it means it is well and truly an underground, seedy thing.
This had allowed sex trafficking to be a very real issue, with a lot of the girls here being eastern Europeans who have no choice in their profession. Although the anti regulatory argument you give is nice in principal, the sex trade is by its very nature, prone to attract bad people looking to exploit and profit. I believe it should be brought under a little more regulation, even where it is legal.
So does the oil trade - and yet those bastards don't even have to operate around the law because they operate above it. Every profession attracts greedy scumbags who try their best to exploit us and all the other greedy scumbags - making it a race to see who can be the greediest and scumbaggiest. Just think if fossil fuels suddenly became like a schedule I controlled substance. The oil trade wouldn't disappear (if you think so you should probably investigate a phenomena colloquially referred to as "illegal drugs"). Do you think the ensuing black market for petroleum products would be safer or more dangerous than the previously held legal version?
On September 29 2012 01:50 noD wrote: As long as they are doing by free will no problem ... It's actually the oldest job known by man
I wonder what precentage of prostitutes that do it by free will is. If someone choose prostitution because of economical issues - thats not free will. Thats being pushed into it. Same goes for acknowledgement issues and actually most cases.
There might be a small fraction of people that have sex for money by free will - but that number is likely VERY small.
You have to be careful about this line of thinking. It is free will to choose prostitution because of economical reasons. No one is forcing a poor woman to go into prostitution (unless they are actually forcing her, which falls into the realm of coercion/violence). She could be a maid, or a janitor, or wait tables, or work at McDonald's, but she chooses prostitution because it makes more money than those jobs. That may be a conscious choice of money over values, but it's still a choice.
Depends, since your economic needs may vary. The fact that prostitution makes more money than those jobs you listed (for similar training/study requirements) may mean that at the end of the day, it isn't a "choice" because your only options are "make all the money you need" or "make -not enough money- and only pay half of the bills/starve". Some women could be single moms with more than just themselves to take care off, I know here in the Philippines I can't support anyone other than myself at a McDonalds salary.
tldr; if you "need" more income, the decision to choose between more or less isn't really a choice.
Is this an issue with prostitution or with economics? Say if another "unsavory" job, like working as a janitor, made more money than any other job (for similar training/study requirements), would people be arguing that it's immoral because poor people are forced into being janitors? Making or keeping prostitution illegal won't change the stratification of economic classes in a particular country, you're going to have to go deeper than that if you want to provide incentives to women not to go into prostitution.
Let's take a pragmatic approach here. The demand for sex is constant and persistent, and not everyone can get it for free whenever they want. Thus, the demand for prostitution is relatively constant, as is proven through the resilience of the industry through economic recessions/depressions all over the world. People want to pay for sex. Since there is a demand, there will be a supply, whether through legal or illegal means. The reason the prostitution industry is so dangerous to the prostitutes themselves is because it is illegal.
Uhhh, all I did was comment against the notion that "going into prostitution is still a choice (of free will)", because it's riding on this technical definition of a "choice" rather than what it means to make a "free choice". Unless it was implied somewhere, I dont really have any issues about regulation, morality, etc. Unless I missed something.
You contended that it isn't a choice because women are forced into the profession for economic reasons. While this may be true in some parts of the world, I don't really see why this is relevant to the discussion of whether or not to legalize prostitution. Of course you don't want to give women the disproportionate incentive to go into prostitution because it is the only way to pay their bills, but if that is the situation, is it the fault of prostitution or the state of the economy?
Prostitution will always exist, legally or otherwise. If women feel forced to do it because it pays more than any of their other alternatives, that's an economic issue, not an issue with prostitution. It's for this reason I'm not really sure why this "free choice" argument is relevant to the discussion of whether or not to legalize it.
Free will is not the same thing as making a choice within limited means. Personally, I think most proponents of free will, or rather, absolute free will, are those of us privileged enough to actually have some a significant amount of money, legal protections, supportive environments and upbringings, etc. That isn't to say that there aren't prostitutes who go into this as a matter of choice, but I think to deny the fact that some people in certain sectors of the world go into jobs like this are doing so out of free will is ignorant. Not everyone has access even to janitorial jobs, and the fact that people bring that up as the alternative is an even more ignorant statement.
Soap box, done.
In addition to this post, I just wanted to suggest a graphic novel I read a few weeks ago called Paying For ItPaying For It It's autobiographical awesomeness about the few years the writer spent being a john. There's an extensive appendix making a case for the decriminlization (not regulation) of prostitution. It just humanizes the whole thing...
I actually think there is a debate that can be held over this issue, but at the risk of trivializin the matter I'm going to qute a stand up comedian who said: "If God wanted women to be able to prostitute themselves He would have given them free will and a vagina."
I think, like most moral issues, this is heavily dependent on context. There's an argument that was brought up in the "awesome" thread that prostitution is a form of violence against the prostitute; the money is forcing women to have sex with men they ordinarily wouldn't have sex with. Now, I hastily identified this as a bullshit argument, because I too am "forced" to work every day to make money and yet no one would consider workers victims of violence.
Then I started to think about the position women have traditionally held in societies, for most of history. Barred from getting any kind of normal job. Ostracized, publically beaten, hung as witches and whatnot when they fail to conform to societal norms. Taken away en masse to be slaves in someone else's country. Depending on the culture, and the woman's status, I think a woman may honestly reach a point where it's either prostitution or starvation, or at the least, crippling poverty. So given those circumstances I think prostitution really is like rape, because the women honestly have little choice.
I think in some areas of the US where pimps presently operate with impunity, simple legalization might well create a scenario like what the op said about Amsterdam, with women just being exploited all the more. For prostitution to be legal and still be moral, some things need to change. Mainly views of society and particularly law enforcement towards prostitutes. If a prostitute is raped or beaten by a John or would be pimp, it needs to be viewed seriously and steps need to be taken to protect the prostitute. If they can feel safe and free to make their own choices, as many "call girls" and whatever the term is for those really high class mistresses who find a sugar daddy to get them through college, etc, presently do, then I think the system could work.
This would leave us with more instances of men falsely accused, to be sure, but that's a problem for another day.
Just like any "illegal" kind of activity that makes a lot of money. If capitalism were to harness it in a way that made it more moral, not saying it is, but if we did, we would drive a lot of people out of poverty. There are a lot of girl that pay for college by stripping, this would be the same thing except more lucrative, and guys and girls would be able to do the same. That is one scenario, the other is that their is a huge increase in HIV/AIDS spread and this would result with terrible consequences. It has to be balanced is all I'm saying.
If you legalize it, you can control it, protect the workers, require STD tests, provide health benefits, protect the reliability of prices and income to the workers. Everything is documented and tracked, any problems that arise can be dealt with because it's all on the books. Nobody is exploited because everything requires consent and wages will be paid in full.
If you don't legalize it, you have no fucking idea what is happening or how the business is conducted, and no idea who is working the trade. Men and women (yes, both genders) will still become prostitutes, because people need money and for some, the only work they're willing/able to do is sex work. It's all under the table so nothing is documented, nobody knows who is doing what, there's no way to track health issues or other crimes. People will be exploited, wages will be lost or confiscated, or substituted with drugs or other contraband.
The illegality of prostitution directly feeds into the illegal drug trade also. There are so many people who do it to feed their addiction rather than their family. By legalizing it, you take the workers an extra step away from the drug trade. Where I live its well known that you can get a blowjob much cheaper if you barter with coke instead of cash.
So if there's going to be prostitution either way (its impossible to stop without auditing every sexual encounter between all people), why not create an environment where it can be done safely and legally?
Should be legal, makes it easier to create standards to protect all involved parties from crime, STD etc.
Apart from that prostitution will be around either way, legalized or not. Prisons are expensive enough or shall we make hookers and stoners cellmates?
Additionally if prostitution would somehow magically vanish over night, my guess would be that we would see a lot more violent crime after some time. Prostitution is a reliable source of teststerone reduction.
Sounds like it isn't working out all that well in Amsterdam. I would wait and see how the situation there develops before committing to policies anywhere else. Theorycraft can only get you so far.
On another note, I am surprised at how overwhelmingly in favour of legalisation TL is.
Edit: On seeing this:
On September 29 2012 05:49 AngryMag wrote: Additionally if prostitution would somehow magically vanish over night, my guess would be that we would see a lot more violent crime after some time. Prostitution is a reliable source of teststerone reduction.
I couldn't help but say something. I'm pretty sure sex does NOT reduce testosterone levels. Please provide a study to back this up if you are confident. And then another one to demonstrate that reduced testosterone is shown to reduce violent crime. And then another one to show that switching from illegal to legal prostitution would have any significant impact on this (nonexistant?) effect.
Is that statement actually based on anything at all?
Not sure what to think about this, it is a difficult topic. It is legal in the netherlands and its not a pretty sight tbh. It beeing illegal also has its disadvantages.
Making it legal could have a few interesting/difficult implications though. For example:In some countrys people only can get monney from the government to help them if they can not find a suitable job. When prostitution is legal, would it also be considered a suitable job? In other words, would women who now live from monney they get from the government (foodstamps or anny other way) be forced to prositute themselves or loose their support monney? I dont think annyone in this thread would answer that question with a "yes" but it could/should be one of the imlications if there realy was nothing wrong with prostitution. Think that most people feel that there is something wrong with prostitution.
Think i would vote for it to be illegal, but not activly enforced by authoritys. This leaves the option open for the police to judge every case individually and decide if action is needed or not.
On September 29 2012 02:16 zatic wrote: Those legal / illegal stats seem off. What is their definition of "legal"? No prosecution of sex workers? How about clients?
I did not want to needlessly lengthen the thread when the statistics could be easily acquired from the source, and the definition of legality and illegality is nuanced across the 100 countries. It would be too much or I would be committing grave cultural indiscretion by choosing some and not the others. You can check them out here: http://prostitution.procon.org/
I just looked through the list for the countries that I was surprised to find a Legal classification for (Turkey, Spain, Portugal). They happen to mentioned no sources. It seems that every country that doesn't actively enforce bans on prostitution gets the Legal stamp from the site.
My own ideal is:
Make prostitution legal only within regulated brothels for all parties involved. Make prostitution illegal outside of regulated brothels, but only persecute the clients (and pimps, should they be involved), but never the sex workers.
On September 29 2012 01:50 noD wrote: As long as they are doing by free will no problem ... It's actually the oldest job known by man
It's not. Stop repeating dumb sayings.
It actually might be the second oldest profession, after all, they had to SELL the sex in the first place, this would indicate that MARKETING potentially could be the oldest profession.
Off topic, a couple of scientists successfully trained a monkey tribe to use currency based transactions with each other, like to buy food and such. Guess what the very first transaction the male monkeys did, *hint* it had to do with the females
As far as America goes, it's not the federal government's place to make prostitution illegal. That's a decision to be left to individual states. The same is true about the legality of drugs. I find it a bit annoying that the federal government has stuck their noses into these types of issues.
Personal opinion: There's nothing wrong with prostitution, but even if you think there is, it's not your business to make it illegal. Just because we don't like something, what gives us the right to tell others that they aren't allowed to do it? My Christian Bible says that gay people aren't allowed to get married, therefore it should be illegal for gays to get married! Isn't there something wrong with saying something like that? If you don't like gay marriage, don't marry a gay person. If you don't like drugs, don't use them, and tell your kids about the dangers of using them so that they won't either. If you don't like prostitution, don't hire a prostitute. Why restrict the freedom of others just because you don't like what they're doing?
On September 29 2012 07:14 MichaelDonovan wrote: Why restrict the freedom of others just because you don't like what they're doing?
Some of these things have wider-ranging social effects than merely the cost to the consumer. It's a more complex issue than you lay out.
If these things can be regulated and made as safe as possible, then that problem is reduced.
I understand that, but what I'm saying is that, at least from an American point of view, our federal government has no place in the issue. They really don't have the right to make these things illegal.
I have no problem with prostitution, but I'd never go for it since getting girls is a lot more enjoyable and challenging. My only issue is STDs. Prostitutes tend to be rife with STDs and tend to spread them. It's a huge issue.
I don't see how we can dictate what other people do with their bodies if it doesn't threaten anyone else or inflict on peoples freedoms.
If it's "illegal" prostitution that's a big difference but a brothel should be legal. I'm for big government doing shit like taxing so I can have a health treatment that doesn't cost 100 grand but I'm not for any government infringing on acts that have no affect on others.
On September 29 2012 07:34 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: I have no problem with prostitution, but I'd never go for it since getting girls is a lot more enjoyable and challenging. My only issue is STDs. Prostitutes tend to be rife with STDs and tend to spread them. It's a huge issue.
That's an assumed risk when a man hires a prostitute. He knows that he could get an STD. Prostitutes can only spread STDs to men like these who assess the risk of getting an STD and still have sex with her anyway. Could always use a condom. That helps quite a bit.