Bureaucracies have an uncanny knack for finding and severely punishing victimless crimes. Of all the things the US government manages, the war on consenting adults having sex has to be one of the most petty. Unfortunately, because it is the most petty, I wouldn't anticipate much progress on it. Anyone in a position of influence will hopefully rate it as less important a problem than the ongoing and escalating fiscal and military crisis that the US seems to be facing.
The article says the prosecution argued fervently about child sex trafficking on the site but of course this forum is so sycophanticly politically correct no one read the article itself & just upvoted whatever toes the line
This comment is engaging in the exact same behavior that caused the first trial to get thrown out: conflating consensual prostitution with sex slavery and human trafficking.
> In 2021, an Arizona judge declared a mistrial in the case of Larkin and Lacey after they found that prosecutors’ arguments hinged on the horrors of child sex trafficking even though neither defendant was facing charges related to it.
Backpage was never on trial for facilitating sex trafficking. They were proactive in reporting cases to law enforcement.
I would agree with you if the entire issue really did exist in a vacuum where "consenting adults" were truly the only variables, but as we've demonstrably seen from legalization efforts worldwide - legalizing prostitution is highly correlated with an uptick in sex trafficking.
Determining if two parties are actually "freely consenting" is notoriously difficult, given the way that sex trafficking rings operate - and as has been proven over and over again, determining if an individual is "freely consenting" is not at all a simple thing for law enforcement to figure out and making it legal does not make it easier.
So while I agree in spirit with "two consenting adults should be able to do what they want if they aren't hurting anyone else" - reducing prostitution to those terms is an overly simplistic way of looking at it and is ignoring mountains of evidence that legalizing it increases the rate of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation for those countries which made it legal already.
these are labor trafficking issues, both forms of trafficking is illegal in all of those countries as well
expanding access to labor rights, labor organizations, and the government prosecuting traffickers is a more productive use of resources than the rhetorical solution to the “mountains of evidence” you pointed out
> Determining if two parties are actually "freely consenting" is notoriously difficult
obsessing over that is odd, if you're not doing that in the rest of the employment market too.
yes, people that aren't sex workers behave wildly different regarding boundaries and discernment in who they engage with, while putting the onus on sex workers to prove why they are different, right now, is folly and ineffective uncalled for vicarious interest at best and discrimination at worst
a better use of energy to exercise any discomfort around possibly trafficked people is allowing sex workers access to the same labor avenues as the rest of the employment market allows them agency to better navigate everything you’re (ostensibly) worried about. even expanding what those avenues are.
> expanding access to labor rights, labor organizations, and the government prosecuting traffickers is a more productive use of resources than the rhetorical solution to the “mountains of evidence” you pointed out
Except counties that have legalized prostitution have tried this and failed. Again, there is evidence that legalizing prostitution increases the amount and scope of sex trafficking operations in said counties which have legalized. It isn't "Labor trafficking issues" - it is sex trafficking, and a very specific issue with legalizing prostitution.
> obsessing over that is odd, if you're not doing that in the rest of the employment market too.
Can you expand on why? Sex trafficking is a very specific form of labor exploitation which is tied up with prostitution - and it has been seen to demonstrably get worse after prostitution becomes legal. Why should this evidence be ignored or tied up with the broader umbrella of "labor exploitation"?
> a better use of energy to exercise any discomfort around possibly trafficked people is allowing sex workers access to the same labor avenues as the rest of the employment market allows them agency to better navigate everything you’re (ostensibly) worried about. even expanding what those avenues are.
I think advocates of legal prostitution like yourself like to say things about legalized prostitution that they wish were true, but reality tells a difference story. If it was better and easier for law enforcement and/or prostitutes to navigate sex trafficking when prostitution is legal, one would think we wouldn't see a marked increase in sex trafficking when prostitution becomes legal. What you keep doing here repeating "it's better for prostitutes to operate in a legal environment" is ignoring reality and sticking your head in the sand regarding the very real consequences for the 150$ billion a year sex trafficking industry which has very brutal and effective ways for suppressing/exploiting/manipulating their victims even in regions where prostitution is perfectly legal.
Again, I totally agree that two consenting adults who aren't hurting anyone should have legal recourse to do what they want, as long as that situation exists in a vacuum. If there are huge externalities involved, such as 150 billion a year sex trafficking industries that can capitalize on legalization and which no country in the world has figured out how to suppress after legalization - well, that should at least be considered in any effort to legalize.
what you’re missing is that I’m not disagreeing about the prevalence of sex trafficking, I never said anything that is the opposite of your observations and I don't know the advocates that you are grouping me in with that are doing what you’re triggered by.
I don't gauge efficacy of a public policy based on whether sex trafficking exists or not.
The other part I think is substantive to clarify is that there are far more similarities to all workers than there are differences. You don't need to rationalize to people why you are not being exploited, and it would be disingenuous if you tried to prove to everyone that you loved your job all the time. The reality is that sometimes it is fulfilling for you and other times it is a chore. If anything exploitative occurs there are power dynamics in play that compete with your willingness to address them. Labor rights issues that are completely valid to acknowledge and improve. The only thing being added is that sex workers should be equally included in that improvement.
Countries with more trafficking need to prosecute the traffickers and get better at that. I’m not willing to criminalize sex workers or make their life more difficult just because an area may be bad at finding traffickers. Criminalizing consumers is ineffective too and have been shown to be a primary confidant a sex worker confides in, unless the consumer cant report due to being criminalized, so I’m not willing to make their life difficult either. Any policy based on marginalizing sex work harms ability to access labor rights, if blanket statements like that bother you, I could be open to a currently unexplored combination of policies. I’m not open to pretending that a solution is a worker or consumer criminalization framework just because of a perception of less trafficking occurring, in comparison to a decriminalized or legalized framework.
I think our main disagreement is in the recognition of the fact that sex trafficking and prostitution are irrevocably linked, such that you cannot meaningfully tackle one without considering the other.
Your approach would be to consider both in a vacuum. Let us legalize prostitution because according to you it is axiomatic that a legal framework will necessarily be better for participants of the prostitution industry, and we can consider sex trafficking as a wholly separate independent problem.
I fundamentally disagree because based on available evidence, legalization of prostitution exacerbates the already existing sex trafficking problems which have demonstrable negative results in countries which have legalized prostitution.
I also disagree with shoe horning sex trafficking into the existing umbrella of "labor exploitation" since sex trafficking is at a scale where it demands it's own consideration for solutions and ways to contain it's growing influence, and yes, one of those techniques is to outright outlaw prostitution to stymie the growth of this cancerous industry in the world.
Fundamentally, you are making a trade off here - you are saying worker rights for prostitution trump stopping the spread of sex trafficking. You could argue it is a fair trade, but there is also an argument that it isn't on balance a societal benefit to make that trade off. Saying "we need to target sex traffickers better" isn't an answer, because countries are already trying and failing to do that - what is the magic secret sauce we can invent as a policy to stop it when there isn't an example to follow? Saying "we need to prioritize worker rights" isn't convincing, because if overall exploitation increases you are increasing the scope of vulnerable people being exploited, and it isn't a good trade off for society.
That is accurately summarizing my view, there are additional areas I think you are overindexing
basically you dont consider the experience of the non trafficked providers
their experience is not cancerous
and what are the “demonstrably negative results”? are you referring to just the trafficking?
and your solutions are false dilemmas, you consider my view an extreme in favor of your view at another extreme
you’re citing “evidence” as “failure” because the state has a poor implementation problem in the labor rights organizations, as if you were previously waiting for data instead of this all being window dressing for your view that all prostitution is inherently cancerous. I’m trying to avoid strawmanning here and this has been a good discussion, I will point out now that everything you wrote so far sounds like Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminism (SWERF) which is broadly discouraged because it silences other women. The hallmarks of it are a few core tenets such as not considering the consensual sex worker’s view and relies on women lacking agency, well not all women, just if they are sex workers. Allowing other people, ironically women, to speak over them as a rebuttal to an impossible standard where the sex worker exclusively must prove they like their job unlike any other laborer. and then discredit that person anyway.
challenging SWERF logic, the experience of non trafficked providers is valid, can be more prevalent, can disappear if nobody wants to offer that service without the government being involved in that at all, and their experience is marginalized and diminished by the criminalized framework you wish for them to exist in, where everything supporting your criminalization is based on criminalization such as the dangers of the environment, and the trafficking which is illegal in both extremes of legality. on the contrary, dealing with trafficking can be improved and those improvements will extend to all laborers. you’re latched in and doubling down on the state being incapable of policing trafficking because you found a study that matched your preexisting discomfort with prostitution existing at all and keep pushing the proposed policy into absurd territories.
Look, for an illustrative example we have immigrants working in fields right now, in the US, under bad coercive pretenses whether the immigrant is here legally or illegally. The coercive pretenses are already illegal and whatever exploitative aspect happens to be legal also needs to be addressed. The state’s inability or unwillingness to tackle that problem is a valid problem, the solution is to beef up the states task forces and attention to that problem. Thats the obvious answer in that field, nobody is seriously ever saying criminalize the agriculture industry, or criminalize contracting or employment because its proven to increase labor trafficking.
Yes, demand for sex for money (prostitution) increases people attempting to capitalize on sex for money (prostitution). Anybody coerced (sex trafficked) should have a way for help and whoever is doing the trafficking needs to be prosecuted and deterred.
The circumstances that support that are analogous to the circumstances around sex trafficking. Treating sex trafficking differently is solely based on a personal discomfort that has nothing to do with the government.
the idea that its lack of legal consequence encourages or endorses being a prostitute again plays into the logic that providers (overwhelmingly and synonymously women) lack agency in considering other choices. thats a community, parenting, and economic problem.
> basically you dont consider the experience of the non trafficked providers
I do consider the experience of non-trafficked providers, but legalization has implications for both that group and other groups - it takes a holistic approach and recognition of all the effects of a policy change to make an informed decision - you cannot make a policy change in a vacuum only considering one side of the coin.
> their experience is not cancerous
To be clear, you are straw manning my views. I do not assume a lack of agency of participants of the prostitution industry. I do not view prostitution itself as a cancerous industry. The cancerous industry is sex trafficking, which as has been demonstrated, has grown in countries which have chosen to legalize prostitution.
> you continue to cite “evidence” as “failure” because the state has a poor implementation problem in the labor rights organizations, as if you were previously waiting for data instead of this all being window dressing for your view that all prostitution is inherently cancerous
Do you or do you not recognize the fact that countries which have made prostitution legal have growing sex trafficking issues? Actually I would be quite happy with data which shows that legalizing prostitution reduces sex trafficking, that would be a feather in the cap of pushes to legalize prostitution and would silence what in my opinion is the largest argument against legalization.
In reality, the countries which have legalized prostitution have seen growing sex trafficking problems. So while you want to imply that I am the one who is insincerely waiting for evidence, it is actually you who are not dealing with the pragmatic reality in the world that shows legalization of prostitution is related to an increase in the size and scope of sex trafficking. Again, these two things cannot be tackled independently - they are intimately and irrevocably related.
If legalizing prostitution increases the size of the vulnerable population being exploited, then on balance it is not a benefit for society.
> on the contrary, dealing with trafficking can be improved and those improvements will extend to all laborers. you’re latched in and doubling down on the state being incapable of policing trafficking because you found a study that matched your preexisting discomfort with prostitution existing at all and keep pushing that into absurd territories.
Again, you are making statements that you wish to be true, but are not borne out by the reality of the facts. If dealing with sex trafficking is easier when the industry is legalized, why is it that countries are facing increasing problems with sex trafficking after making it legal?
Okay, thanks for the clarification we mostly agree then.
For the record, I do acknowledge that sex trafficking is both cancerous and increases in countries with decriminalized and legalized prostitution. (I would point out these are two distinct frameworks)
My view of this is that its like any other thing, lets take actual cancer. Without healthcare, people show up when there are emergencies that reveal they are in stage 4 and terminal. With broad healthcare and improved screening people are found in stage 2 and treated. The studies will show that there is an increase in stage 2 cancer and more resources go into prevention. Sick people from other markets without healthcare do medical tourism and gooses the statistics up even more.
The similarities here are numerous. The change was the expansion of healthcare, the solution is not rolling back the expansion of healthcare because countries with healthcare have spikes in stage 2 cancer, in this example.
Analogies compare dissimilar things with at least one common attribute.
If the bordering countries are operating under criminalization frameworks or economically lesser, then trafficking will be greater from those places. The solution isn't to rollback the legal status to criminalize everyone again. Or use those countries as an example in order to continue to criminalize everyone and make their life more difficult and dangerous.
These are “victimless crimes” only under a highly individualistic mindset that doesn’t consider that bystanders and society as a whole can be harmed by conduct between consenting adults.
Are bystanders typical in your bedroom? As a part of society I’ve never once been harmed by anyone’s sexual intercourse, even folks who invite bystanders. I think only societies that take great interest in conformity to some norm to the extent they feel the need to be angry about someone else’s nonconformity reap harm from private thought and activity. In that case I think the harm starts with society and ends with the individual rather than the individual harming society.
In this case it’s not the sex that’s the issue but the betrayal of a commitment. You can have marital infidelity that doesn’t include intercourse and it’s still just as much a betrayal and leads to divorce etc.
But the sex is the thing that tempts people to break the commitment. Yeah, there’s the libertarian take where you say “just don’t take the opioids if you don’t want to deal with the consequences” but I thought we had learned that libertarianism doesn’t work. You can’t model humans as rational creatures. You can improve outcomes by limiting people’s ability to make bad choices.
People taking shits in the street does have a clear and concrete harm: worse sanitation, namely the likelihood of stepping into a pile of feces.
How does this analogy map onto prostitution? Higher rates of STDs? People get diseases from non-paid sex too. You don't like seeing prostitutes soliciting on the street? If only they could advertise online...
I'm still not seeing an explanation of how prostitution harms "bystanders and society as a whole".
It all stems from the same culture of permissiveness and individualism. The shit in San Francisco’s streets, the graffiti, the needles, etc., is a physical manifestation of the city’s underlying cultural degeneracy.
Again, I still have yet to see you or any other commenter explain how two people wilfully exchanging money for sex harms people uninvolved in this transaction.
Shit on the streets has a clear harm: worse sanitation, increased probability of stepping into shit.
What's the harm of sex work? "Cultural degeneracy" is an extremely vague and hand-wavy claim.
And for what it's worth non-individualist countries such as much of east Asia actually have substantially higher rates of prostitution than North America. I don't see the link between individualism and prostitution.
If we were to take this on principle, we'd end up with an authoritarian regime not unlike Saudi Arabia. Lots of consensual conduct harms individuals and society, but if we try to use the legal system to prevent it, we're setting ourselves up for an impossible goal. And we'd make ourselves miserable in the process.
Apart from supporting human trafficking (a non-negligible amount of sex workers has been brought from other countries under false pretenses and is held against their will), it coaxes consenting (young) women into a harmful lifestyle. Prostitution harms mental health, hinders relationships, and breaks career paths in the bud.
Or putting it simple: I definitely do not want my daughter to become a prostitute.
The sad part of this line of thinking is anti-human trafficking efforts are infact made WORSE when you have a blanket prohibition. It drives the entire market underground, wastes resources that could be used to find and rescue victims and makes it where market customers have no real venue to know if a provider is "trafficked" or not. Where a legal market would have such things built in.
Blanket prohibitions on anything, sex, drugs, etc do not curb or prevent abusive actions it infact masks it, hides it, and makes such abuse MORE PREVALENT,
if you want to reduce human trafficking, legalize Prostitution
We should decriminalize the sex worker so they can report abuse and seek medical attention without fear of imprisonment. It's hard to say it should be completely legal because that does seem to incentivize some trafficking that might not otherwise happen. Maybe I should see some statistics instead of blindly guessing what the situation is.
I think we somewhat agree. But what I am going for is: we still want to be prosecuting the sale of drugs while decriminalizing drug use. Society doesn't benefit if heroin is readily available, but it does benefit if heroin users are able to get help. I don't know the analogous situation with sex work. Even taking part may be harming a third party.
>> But what I am going for is: we still want to be prosecuting the sale of drugs while decriminalizing drug use.
We do not agree then, I should be able to walk in a CVS and buy Cocaine or any other drug (provided CVS wants to sell it)
It is no business of the government (or you) what I consume, be it a High Fat diet or cocaine or something else
No different than who I sleep with and the reasons why be it for a "relationship", for a dinner or for $XXX money exchange
The government should prevent person X from Abusing Person Y, so in the context of Drugs that would preventing someone selling Weed that was laced with something, or that was some other substance. in the context of Sex, just like any other work, that would be to ensure the seller is selling their labor voluntarily
I dont care if they are selling their labor for sex or to work in a meat packing plant, sex work is no different than factory work, I would want people prosecuted for operating Sweat Shops and I would want people prosecuted forcings someone into sex work
Why should the government do anything about minimum wages and long working hours in a sweatshop? That's a voluntary exchange just like you buying cocaine at CVS is.
Well sweatshops normally invoke forced labor of some kind, often in relation to Human Trafficking, since this conversation is about Human Trafficking I was using that context. I will recognize the technical definition is any "employer that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers' compensation, or industry registration", however in the context of this conversation I think it is pretty disingenuous to circumscribe that to be violations of "minimum wages"
In the context here Sweatshops often obtain workers that have been tricked into starting work without informed consent, or when workers are kept at work through debt bondage or mental duress, or child labor. None of which have anything to do with Minimum wage, they could be paying them $20/hr and still be a sweatshop
I am not a big fan of current Minimum wages laws, and believe there is far better ways to accomplish the stated goals of those laws with out a blanket floor on the price of labor, ironically minimum wages also end up hurting the very people they purport to be "helping" very much like drug and sex laws.
> > Or putting it simple: I definitely do not want my daughter to become a prostitute.
So it's about you and your honor, not her and her life and financial choices.
This is patriarchy too.
And supports my thesis that people become parents because they want something in return, especially men , they want to be the patriarchs of a family that has a bunch of members in relevant and respected roles in society.
If one of the members defaults on the grand vision of the patriarch and pursues immediate financial gain abandoning the "relevant and respected" part then the patriarch becomes irate and resentful because his grand vision has been sabotaged.
The point is that the patriarch and young people have different preferences. Young people want stuff and experiences, so they are looking for ways to make money to buy such things, the quicker the better. Unlike the aforementioned patriarchs ,young people have not yet painted themselves in the corner so much that they are only satisfied with people kissing their asses in the local town council because they are a doctor or a lawyer.
> Apart from supporting human trafficking (a non-negligible amount of sex workers has been brought from other countries under false pretenses and is held against their will)
Isn't this primarily an argument for legalizing and regulating prostitution so that less money goes the the black market to create demand for trafficking?
I don't want anyone to be homeless, daughter or otherwise. Nevertheless, criminalising homelessness is unlikely to help.
How long have there been attempts to stamp out prostitution? Centuries? Millennia? At some point, and that point is passed, the retrogrades would do everyone a favour by working to providing alternatives and get better outcomes than trying to send in the police. Arresting these 3 septegenarians:
* Is a waste of taxpayer money.
* Will have no impact on the ability of prostitutes to sell their bodies.
* If it does have an impact, will probably make the lives of prostitutes even worse, somehow.
* Will save no failing marriages.
Something can simultaneously be horrible and legal. Sex work should be in that category. If human trafficing is a problem concentrate on that - but this article is (and I repeat myself) the US government at its most petty and ineffective.
Most of those are consequences of it being illegal. Similar to how legalizing marijuana has drastically cut down on the illegal trade for it in the states where it's legal, you've actually just made a great argument for legalizing prostitution as a way to reduce human trafficking by pulling it out of the illegal ring.
The rest of those things are consequences of the economic system we live in, not the job it itself. I don't see people arguing for outlawing of electrician work because it draws in young people and is strongly correlated to physical health issues. The fact that people need to sell their bodies in order to survive is an established part of capitalism. Why then is the target of your banhammer specifically prostitution? Just because sex is icky?
the employment market supports labor trafficking, guess what, labor trafficking is still illegal.
there is no reason for sex work and sex trafficking to be conflated, as sex trafficking is labor trafficking. in both a decriminalized or legalized world, trafficking is still illegal.
everything else you wrote is a labor rights issue as well. those particular harms of prostitution are specifically because the government perpetuates it being more dangerous than it is.
you not wanting your daughter to become a prostitute is not a government problem.
in another comment you wrote you're worried about government endorsement: the government getting out of the way in a decriminalized framework, or providing consumer protection in a legalized framework, is not endorsement. if you want to reinforce a deterrent, that comes from your community.
And people are trafficked to work in meatpacking plants. Should we outlaw meat too? (the people that think yes usually base their reasoning on other grounds)
Human trafficking is an orthogonal issue, but one that is facilitated by prostitution being illegal.
There are a lot of young girls (which are definitely someone's daughters) who knowingly start to perform escorting because it's easy and provides a lot of money. Without all that human trafficking argument.
And plenty more become mistresses of wealthy men, or "sugar babies" or whatever other terms we have for compensated relationships. But society doesn't regard this as prostitution because it's done under the guise of a relationship.
Women are prostituted because they need money to eat and pay rent, and if they don't "consent" to sex they don't get to eat and live in a house. That's the harm.
How is this any different from any job? I need money to eat and pay rent and I am forced to offer my body as a tool for an employer in exchange for payment, regardless if that job entails sex or laying bricks, if I don't offer my body for work I can't eat or live in a house.
And keep in mind that prostitutes are not exclusively women, there are a lot of male prostitues.
>How is this any different from any job? I need money to eat and pay rent and I am forced to offer my body as a tool for an employer in exchange for payment, regardless if that job entails sex or laying bricks, if I don't offer my body for work I can't eat or live in a house.
It is no different in the sense that rape and assault (e.g. punching or kicking someone) are essentially similar physical acts. Nevertheless, we recognise that sex crimes are particularly heinous compared to other crimes. It isn't good or acceptable that people are threatened by others with starvation and homelessness if they cannot perform a given task and are therefore coerced into it; it is worse in a particular and special way if the thing they are forced into is sex.
>And keep in mind that prostitutes are not exclusively women, there are a lot of male prostitues.
I know, I have known some gay prostituted men during my time in the trade. The overwhelming majority of the sex trade is composed of prostituted women, even in places where it's highly legalised and regulated. It's a significantly more gendered industry than any other I can think of off the top of my head.
> It is no different in the sense that rape and assault (e.g. punching or kicking someone) are essentially similar physical acts
Correct and this is reflected by the fact that both are criminal acts. If the latter is particularly severe it might even carry a penalty even greater than rape. This example doesn't really do a good job making the case for why sex work harms participants or society as a whole, because unlike battery paying people who face starvation and homeless to do work is not only acceptable it's seen as totally normal. Save for people who have enough wealth live off for the rest of their lives, everyone is working to avoid homelessness and starvation.
This does not address the above commenter's point, "
...bystanders and society as a whole can be harmed by conduct between consenting adults." How doe a sex between two consenting adults harm people besides those two adults and society as a whole? Your comment doesn't explain this, it's focusing on the purported harms experienced by one of the participants, not the bystanders.
And regarding your point that paid sex is not consent because they need money to afford necessities: the same can be said about pretty much any job. My plumber probably needs money to eat and pay rent, too. Paying someone who needs money to do a job is not something that society by and large consideration unethical.
>This does not address the above commenter's point, " ...bystanders and society as a whole can be harmed by conduct between consenting adults." How doe a sex between two consenting adults harm people besides those two adults and society as a whole? Your comment doesn't explain this, it's focusing on the purported harms experienced by one of the participants, not the bystanders.
For one, we are members of society and harm done to us en masse is harm done to society as a whole. For another, if you need some narrow conception of who gets impacted that excludes us, then generally prostituted woman have family or friends who are impacted by us being prostituted and our eventual death. For another, society misses out on the productive labour of a large number of women when instead of being able to pursue education or work to the extent we otherwise could, women are prostituted.
>And regarding your point that paid sex is not consent because they need money to afford necessities: the same can be said about pretty much any job. My plumber probably needs money to eat and pay rent, too. Paying someone who needs money to do a job is not something that society by and large consideration unethical.
Yes, and if you're unwilling to consider it unjust that people face starvation and homelessness for the crime of losing the unemployment lottery, we can argue about that, sure. But even someone who thinks that's fine for whatever reason should be able to see that similar coercion into sex acts is worse.
Impacted how? How is the impact of a family member participating in sex work distinct from, say, a fisherman going out to sea for months at a time, and substantial risk of dying. Stigma would be a good answer, but that's a direct consequence of social rejection of sex work, not due to sex work itself. Again, you've just given a vague assertion of impact, but haven't actually explained why this is different from any other work.
Also, how does participation in sex work impede the ability of women to pursue an education? How is someone doing sex work 20 hours a week any less able to get an education than someone working at Starbucks 20 hours a week? In fact, there are people who can afford education because of the profits from sex work so sex work also enables some people to obtain education.
And who says sex work is not productive? Sure, it doesn't produce tangible goods like manufacturing or mining. But the same criticism can be made of all entertainment industries. The fact that people are willing to pay for sex workers is undisputable evidence that theze services are in demand.
"Losing the employment lottery" as you put it, isn't an exception, it's the norm for the vast majority of people. The fact that people need to work to earn money to live isn't even remotely unique to sex workers. Nearly everyone is in this situation.
Nobody is coerced into sex, outside of sex trafficking which I don't think anyone in this comment section is advocating. If someone can make minimum wage in a retail or service job, but would rather have sex with people for vastly greater pay, why should society prevent that transaction?
"So close"? Where do you think my understanding of labour comes from and why on Earth would you assume I don't apply the same analysis to other work?
As a society we acknowledge that sex crimes are worse compared to other crimes that are physically similar. "Rape is just assault" and "sexual assault is just assault" makes no sense even if it's technically true in some particular definitions you have, there is a reason we use a different word to describe crimes that include a sexual component, because we recognise sexual crimes as particularly heinous and degrading. Similarly, all labour is coerced but we recognise that coercing someone into filling out an Excel spreadsheet, while wrong, is not especially heinous in the way that coercing someone into sex is.
No. If I don't pay my plumber after a job, it's theft (or breach of contract, or something along those lines).
If snatch someone off the street, drag them into my condo, and force them to fix my toilet at gunpoint this is kidnapping and forced labor - something I'm going to guess has a much bigger penalty than breach of contract.
It's moderately funny, in an unpleasant way, that you had to invent a scenario that almost never happens to plumbers and does regularly happen to women in the sex trade as part of your argument that the sex trade isn't analogous to rape.
I'm not denying the existence of forced labour, it's horrific. I'm saying plumbing is a very contrived example of it, compared to things like the sex trade, construction, or mining.
Not religious, just a woman who has actually been prostituted unlike armchair theorists and johns.
We regularly recognise sex crimes as especially heinous for well-understood reasons. Pleading ignorance is unconvincing. All work is coercive, but as a society we recognise that coercing someone into sex is especially heinous compared to coercing someone into filling out an Excel spreadsheet.
I think people are too quick to dismiss this point of view. I have very little patience for your recent tendency to frame arguments as condemnations of individualism vs. authoritarian communitarianism, but the normalization of prostitution creates a bunch of straightforward externalities that we should be able to talk about, from economic pressure on people disinclined towards sex work to the inevitable screening failures that bring minors into the industry.
Of course, you could make this point effectively just by explaining to the preceding commenter what an externality is, since the idea is fundamentally about the damage consenting counterparties can do to the surrounding community.
Well, we’ve had birth control and abortions for, what, 60 years now?
Think about the collective experience of humanity before them. If you were a prostitute and got pregnant, it wasn’t about you, it was about that child’s experience as a fatherless individual, being raised by a person that can hardly provide for herself. As well as, what a child raised in that environment, is more inclined to do to other people.
Now that has changed if only because the link between sex and children, in most minds, has been broken. In those where it hasn’t… that’s the natural area where restrictions on birth control and abortion come from.
What’s funny is prostitution was legal most of the time and in most places in the western world until recently. Widespread prohibition of it is not as much a holdover from medieval times as a recent sex-negative feminist innovation. Which makes sense when you consider that the people punished are usually horny, kind-of-sleazy guys.
It’s probably most accurate to say it’s an unspoken alliance between the two groups—feminists and traditional moralists. But when the church was actually politically powerful, prostitution was much less likely to be prohibited than it is now.
I did a quick Google. Being a pimp was regarded as distasteful and had legal consequences so most rich people running a brothel used an intermediary freedman to manage his investment.
> What’s funny is prostitution was legal most of the time and in most places in the western world until recently.
That attitude towards prostitution closely correlates with those same societies considering women to be property. Anti-prostitution laws and the emancipation of women go hand-in-hand.
The idea that prohibition on prostitution is to combat fatherless could not be further from the truth.
The government in many avenues encourages and subsidizes fatherlessness in society in general, and the laws around prohibition were never contemplated, or even remotely idealized as an effort to combat the issue of fatherless homes.
I specifically said the collective experience of humanity before now (the average attitude over the last several thousand years). Nothing to do with our current government.
