Prostitution is a victimless crime. Why is it that two people can't agree to exchange sex for money? You can't legislate morals into existence (not saying prostitution is immoral, but people who want to outlaw it probably do). The world's oldest profession will probably be outlawed for some time to come because adding support for prostitution to your platform is political suicide.
EDIT: Since I don't want to reply to everyone individually:
I am not condoning prostitution as a career. I am saying that criminalizing prostitution hurts all parties involved. There is a common misconception that wanting to repeal a law means you support whatever that law outlawed. I don't think prostitution should be illegal.
The rule of law is not a place to push morality. There is no reason for the government to interfere in a consensual transaction between two people. If a pimp is forcing a prostitute to sell themselves, that's called slavery, and it is illegal. Selling a prostitute to someone else against their will is illegal, and it is called human trafficking. Simply selling your body harms no third party against their will.
There is the troubling fact that many prostitutes are not in the business of their own free will.
Of course if you analyze the incentives and option of everybody involved, it is clear that the criminalization of it compounds the problem.
What puzzles me immensely is that in progressive countries like Sweden the push against prostitution is almost worse (although with the angle that the buyers are criminalized), and that feminist women don't see that decriminalization would have a mostly empowering fact for the prostitutes (who are mostly female).
I can see that it is an icky subject for many and how people who fight against the objectification of women might fall in the trap of thinking that selling your time for a fee might contribute to that.
However pimping out my brain for trying to make people spend their money on ingame purchases is way ickier to me.
> There is the troubling fact that many prostitutes are not in the business of their own free will.
Others have already waved the wikipedia card, but I feel that there is one aspect which deserves clarification.
Above all, we should divide prostitutes into two groups: sex workers (who have, for whatever reason, chosen the profession); and the victims of human trafficking. In my mind, trafficking is no different from slavery. It's a vile thing. A sex worker, on the other hand, can choose to have a pimp -- but one is not required.
I have absolutely no problem with law enforcement cracking down on trafficking. Those people are not selling their services out of their own will. But trying to mandate morality by law makes my hair stand out.
I happen to believe that indiscriminately cracking down on all forms of prostitution is simply a waste of resources. The similarity between aggressive pro-lifers (who want to impose their own views on how women can use their bodies) and anti-prostitution zealots is not that big. Control in the name of morality ... or just in the name of their personal delusion.
I mostly agree with you, but worry that trafficking vs voluntary aren't so much two different things but a continuum, and worry where we should draw the line.
That said -- and it's amazing how many people are so stupid -- it's very difficult to successfully ban transactions that are, if not morally voluntary (ie the whore could be trafficked), at least voluntary in the moment. The same applies to drugs, prostitution, and sex. As Bill Hicks said: We had a war on drugs, and drugs won. (Though most republicans don't even believe their own bullshit; the number that have smoked a joint or who look the other way when it's their daughter knocked up at 17 or their mistress or their wife is pretty astounding).
It's legal here in Melbourne as long as the prostitution takes place within a registered brothel. This allows the police to do spot checks and confirm that things are above board, including health checks. Streetwalking is still illegal. It's still not perfect, for example, a trafficking ring was broken up a few years ago by the police, but it seems to have struck a happy balance.
No doubt trafficking is a big problem in many places - there just isn't any evidence that the US is one of them.
If there mere fact that there exists sex workers who are in the trade not out of their own free will is sufficient to outlaw the trade entirely, there are quite a few trades that would need to be outlawed.
Not all feminists are against the decriminalization of prostitution. The new generation of feminists (mostly those under 30) are very much for sex workers' rights.
There is one peculiar breed of feminist which one or two of my friends adhere to: prostitution isn't shameful. It's a normal profession, and that's fine. A prostitute is just a normal professional providing a service, like any other. People who patronise prostitutes, however... those people are disgusting scum.
You are right, I should not have used many but the nondescript "some". However my argument that this problem would be lessened by decriminalization does not depend on a specific percentage.
> Why is it that two people can't agree to exchange sex for money?
It depends very heavily on the balance of power. You're talking about it like two people with equal bargaining power coming to a agreement they're both happy with. If that's the case then great, that's fine. I don't think that's universal though, or even particularly common.
However we have a large number of rules to stop exploitative working environments across all industries, and something as physical and emotional as sex should have similar or stronger guarantees around.
There should be ways of creating safe environments and regulations that allow prostitution, but saying that "prostitution is a victimless crime" seems very off. We can probably create situations where it is, at worst, no more objectionable than someone working an office job they hate. However, I hardly think that's a good explanation of the current situation in many countries.
Only in the same sense as selling organs or babies (or conspiring to fix prices) is a victimless crime. There are instances where society legitimately chooses to make certain consensual interactions illegal because of the implications that conduct has for everyone else. As 'tedks points out below, turning sex into a commodity has real implications for the status of women in society as a whole. Moreover, as with selling organs or selling babies, there's a strong belief that such transactions are usually only technically voluntary, and are driven by economic duress more than anything else.
>Only in the same sense as selling organs or babies (or conspiring to fix prices) is a victimless crime.
Selling your own organs is definitely a victimless crime. Arguably the baby you are selling is the victim of a baby-selling scheme. The victim of a price-fixing conspiracy is the consumer (though every member of the conspiracy has an incentive to defect and sell at a lower price, so presumably the individual members of the conspiracy are also in some ways victims of the scheme, to the extent that the scheme is actually enforced upon them somehow).
> turning sex into a commodity has real implications for the status of women in society as a whole
In a society in which a hefty part of the male population thinks that buying a woman drinks or even dinner entitles them to have a happy ending, this statement is very cynical.
Au contraire, I think that allowing people to pay for sex might actually de-blur some lines here. If you want quick sex for money go to a prostitute. If you want companionship that at some point get intimate enough to end in sex, date someone. If you buy someone dinner do that because you want to and not with an implicit expectation of getting something in return. Jeez.
>>In a society in which a hefty part of the male population thinks that buying a woman drinks or even dinner entitles them to have a happy ending, this statement is very cynical.
There's a significant difference between buying someone dinner and expecting sex, and paying them money for sex. The former is a favor that is done as a form of signaling and courtship. The latter is a monetary transaction that formalizes the objectification of one party.
Doesn't that depend on how you define economic duress?
If we are talking about voluntary prostitution in a country with a welfare state then does it count as coercion if the person chooses prostitution over a minimum wage job because it pays better?
Even if there is no welfare state or any form of social safety net, it's still better to have the choice between prostitution and starving to death than for starving to death to be the only possible outcome.
> If we are talking about voluntary prostitution in a country with a welfare state then does it count as coercion if the person chooses prostitution over a minimum wage job because it pays better?
Here's an interesting question for you: is the public entitled to make prostitution illegal,[1] on the basis that they don't like the sociological implications of selling sex becoming an alternative to getting a minimum wage job? I think they are quite entitled to do that.
[1] Though I prefer how Sweden does it: to make buy sex illegal, but not selling it.
That really depends on how libertarian you are and whether you believe that by definition selling sexual services for money will always make somebody worse off than being poor.
It doesn't have to make the prostitute always worse off, or worse off at all. Many other people might be impacted as a result of the changes in social dynamic from turning sex into a commodity.
But prostitution doesn't do this. A commodity has full or near full fungibility, i.e. "one sex" is (almost) substitutable by any other "one sex". Obviously this isn't true for sex.
For this commoditization to be meaningfully damaging to women (which is what the GP claims), it must cover both prostitution and relational/emotional sex. The kind of sex you have with a prostitute (legal or not) is substantially different from the kind of sex you have with a lover.
I don't think your analogy is particularly accurate.
If I was to sell one of my organs, it would A. have an immediate detrimental effect on my health and B. be permanent. Further, the state has a very high probability of paying for some or all of my medical care post-op.
If I sell a baby, I am selling something that is not my property. If I am the parent, I have some claim to the baby, but not one of direct ownership. So in truth I am selling something that is not mine. In reality, what you would be selling is your lack of action in defense of your paternal rights. That is, in fact, a victimless crime. However, the administration of those rights is not yours alone, but also your community's. You can't sell that, so you'd be lying to whoever you gave the child to if you implied that you could.
Lots of decisions and transactions are only technically voluntary and are driven by economic duress more than anything else. Working a dead end job, working a dangerous job, being a roofer or garbage man or flagger. Joining the military. Being a lumberjack. Hell, being a fisherman in many cases.
A lot of these jobs are dangerous. They're accepted, though. If I work as a lumberjack, it's not because I have a choice. It's because otherwise I would be homeless and this is a skill I can employ to feed and house myself.
I downvoted you because you lumped "Joining the military" in the category of jobs that "are only technically voluntary and are driven by economic duress more than anything else." That's surely true in a few edge cases, but not in the vast majority (unless things have changed dramatically). And I'll accept the downvotes that I'm sure are coming.
My ex was career military. It was his dream career, the only thing he wanted since childhood. But, like anything, for some people it isn't so voluntary. The American military is more "color blind" and thus a better opportunity for black Americans than many civilian jobs. So when the Gulf War broke out, blacks were "overrepresented" in the military and this became a political hot potato: What had been a good opportunity in peace time was now a serious risk to life and limb for an inordinately high number of blacks and this was seen as another form of racism in America, basically.
Plus, in many countries there is a compulsory term of service.
Yeah, I meant that it can be. Also remember that we're not simply talking about the U.S. here; in many countries people join the military because they see no other choice, not because they want to.
Selling organs is absolutely a victimless crime. Selling babies, depending on exactly what you mean by the phrase, sounds to me like the baby is the victim.
> As 'tedks points out below, turning sex into a commodity has real implications for the status of women in society as a whole.
The real implications would be that prostitutes would most likely be safer and more wealthy.
> Moreover, as with selling organs or selling babies, there's a strong belief that such transactions are usually only technically voluntary, and are driven by economic duress more than anything else.
A choice made out of economic interest is still "voluntary" under the definition used in this context. Your claim seems to be that if the only two choices are selling your kidney or starving to death, then selling the kidney is not "voluntary." But if those were really the only two choices, and you ban selling the kidney, then the only scenario remaining is that the person starves to death.
> Selling organs is absolutely a victimless crime.
I don't think there is anything wrong with making illegal, as unconscionable, transactions in which the poor give up their most basic human capital. It's "the rich get richer, the poor get poorer" at the most vulgar level.
> A choice made out of economic interest is still "voluntary" under the definition used in this context.
I think that's a very impoverished definition of "voluntary."
> I think that's a very impoverished definition of "voluntary."
Are you suggesting that it's not voluntary if the choice makes the person better off? So is an action only voluntary if it makes the person worse off? That doesn't make much sense to me.
I'm saying that decisions made in the face of economic coercion must be scrutinized and potentially voided, not because they don't directly make the individual better off than they would otherwise be, but because they normalize the coercion and make it harder to prevent a race to the bottom in society as a whole. No transaction is entirely between two individuals. Every transaction happens within and creates signals within a larger market.
> I'm saying that decisions made in the face of economic coercion must be scrutinized and potentially voided
But if the person's only options are 1) starve to death or 2) become a prostitute, then prohibiting the second option means the person will starve to death. If there's a third option, like 3) work as a cook at a restaurant, then the person can choose between options 2 and 3, and if they choose 2, then it must not have been economic coercion like you suggest.
Economic coercion need not mean having only starving to death as the alternative. It can be any situation which a significant differential in economic resources is involved. There's lots of people who can't get a regular job but don't starve to death, for various reasons, but are still in a desperate situation.
> [economic coercion] can be any situation which a significant differential in economic resources is involved
This is a pretty benighted attitude. Where you're choosing between a comfortable life and a more comfortable life, why does picking the second option indicate coercion?
You implied that just because someone could be a "cook at a restaurant" means there isn't any economic duress. But that's not true. Thanks to modern demand scheduling, many of these service jobs are both extremely poorly-paying as well as physically unpleasant. Taking advantage of someone in that position is taking advantage of economic duress.
Obviously there's no clean line as to how the alternative courses of action have to be before it counts as duress. But we don't have to draw the line clearly in order to be able to make the distinction.
I'm not sure I grasp your argument here. Jobs at places like restaurants are themselves "extremely poorly-paying" and "physically unpleasant" because of economic coercion and the power imbalance between employee and employer; the employees know that if they complain or refuse to come in on short notice, their hours will be given to someone else and they won't be able to pay the bills. Many women actually say they prefer sex work because it doesn't have these coercive power dynamics and they have more control.
You seem to be arguing that women who do sex work are under "economic duress" because the alternatives are so awful, therefore we should make it illegal, forcing them into back those awful alternatives. That seems backwards to me. Surely we should be banning the shitty, coercive minimum wage jobs, not the sex work women are choosing in preference to them?
> Taking advantage of someone in that position is taking advantage of economic duress. Obviously there's no clean line as to how the alternative courses of action have to be before it counts as duress.
It sounds to me like your distinction is that if any person makes less money than any other person, then the first person is under economic duress and thus is incapable of making any voluntary choices.
You're vastly oversimplifying my argument, and reducing complex human interactions to economic platitudes.
Sex is not like every other human interaction. If you forced someone to answer phones for eight hours, it is unlikely they would be traumatized in the same way as if you raped them for eight hours. Its different.
Not every transaction between people in unequal economic circumstances is suspect, but we're not talking about every transaction. We're talking about something much more intimate and emotional. Such transactions are far more suspicious.
Once we have androids for this task I wonder what will happen to the sex industry. What are the moral implications of buying a female android companion in the 2045 edition of Amazon.com
Oh, but you can and it has been done. The repeal of DOMA was the first time the US Supreme Court has actually addressed this issue and said that laws cannot be based solely on morality. However, as long as you have morality + something else, you can have laws that would criminalize prostitution. I am mostly with you on this issue, but the details of all of this are much more complex than "let's just make it all legal".
Maybe it can be done that way. My interpretation is that the outlawing of prostitution is an old law from long ago when we didn't have the precision for regulation and safety, and it hasn't been revisited yet. Perhaps due to people's personal ethical beliefs.
If an 18 year old girl consents to prostitute herself, she isn't a victim of a "crime of prostitution". But if she was kidnapped as a child from her home country and traffiked to become a prostitute, she is considered a victim of the "industry of prostitution".
None of the crimes against her were prostitution. But the crimes against her were committed in the name of prostitution.
While harm reduction is a great thing, legalizing prostitution would have a hugely detrimental effect on the fight against human trafficking and the status of women in general. The idea that women's bodies can be commodified and sold to men is the foundation of patriarchy, and as long as prostitution exists we'll never have a free society.
It's also laughable to say that prostitution is ever some fantasy rational economic exchange. Women are forced into prostitution, either by being literally enslaved, or by economics.
> legalizing prostitution would have a hugely detrimental effect on the fight against human trafficking
The opposite is potentially true, because if it's decriminalized, it will also be regulated. Which means that everyone involved could be required to have their IDs on file, and could also require medical exams where doctors could ask whether they are there against their will.
When it's underground, it's less visible, and therefore easier for human trafficking to go undetected. [1] Human trafficking is clearly not a victimless crime, and all attempts should be made to stop it, but keeping prostitution illegal doesn't help, and probably instead hurts, that cause.
>Women are forced into prostitution, either by being literally enslaved, or by economics.
"Forced" means they had no other options. You'd rather they or their families starved, then?
Work on fixing the underlying economic realities that are "forcing" people into a profession against their will. Don't try to outlaw something that will continue exist no matter what laws are passed.
It's as futile as the War on Drugs.
[1] It's also worth noting that human trafficking doesn't always involve sex work. There was a case in Boulder, Colorado a few years back where people were lured to the US under false pretenses and they were forced to work in a chain of Thai restaurants without pay.
While harm reduction is a great thing, legalizing prostitution would have a hugely detrimental effect on the fight against human trafficking and the status of women in general.
Based on what evidence are you claiming this?
Women are forced into prostitution, either by being literally enslaved, or by economics.
Sure. But they are enslaved whether prostitution is illegal or not. To claim that the criminalization solves that problem would be laughable; all it does it sweep it under the rug, by forcing prostitutes to hide and avoid help, with fear of being imprisoned.
Here in Portugal we decriminalized all drug use. And you know what? It seems that when people can ask for help without fearing they'll end up behind bars, they actually do it more!
If we want to end prostitution, we must attack the root of the problem, which you so well pointed out: the literal enslavement of women, and the economic situations that lead them to it. Criminalizing it solves nothing, it's just one more case of a policy that makes people feel good about themselves while they screw those they wanted to help.
I find prostitution to be a very sad thing. I believe that many women are forced into it. Either overtly, by physically violent boyfriends/pimps who threaten to beat them, or more subtly by being raised in an environment with few options and/or becoming addicted to drugs. I would like for it to be non existent but it's pretty apparent that it's always going to be part of our society for the foreseeable future. I therefore want it legalized and regulated. The majority of the problems around prostitution are because it's run by criminal elements and not the State. Do you want to ensure basic physical protections for prostitutes? Create well managed brothels where they are safe. Next step up. Want to ensure they have reasonable health and nutrition? Pull them out of the shadows and let brothel's or the state offer benefits and look after their ladies around nutrition, rehab, keeping more of what they earn (economic interests align!) Final step - want to offer them a way out? It's hard when they're hiding in the shadows. Decriminalize it and you can target the industry with new skills/training/work opps etc.
If you're against prostitution I think the worse thing you can do is want it outlawed.
What makes you think that legalization will offer any of that?
It's a little absurd how when it comes to things like taxis or hotels or the Internet infrastructure regulation is a horrible thing that does nothing but cause pain, but when men want to rape women (because that is what it is, to have sex with someone who is forced into it, that is rape, that is what prostitution is), all of a sudden regulation becomes a silver bullet.
I'm for harm reduction, but I'm also against normalizing rape, and teaching generations of men that rape is an okay, totally acceptable, shiny and regulated commodity. That's not acceptable for any sane, moral human.
I'm sure there are hardcore libertarians who think that all you need to do is legalise it and market forces will take care of everything else. The situation is so messed up currently that that would almost certainly be an improvement. But I'd be happy to see the same level of regulation we see for selling cigarettes, nightclubs, places that serve food, dangerous factories etc. because I'm pro sane levels of regulation for many things.
Also, as covered elsewhere in the thread if you think doing something in exchange for money is "force" then you've written off most of modern society.
> legalizing prostitution would have a hugely detrimental effect on the fight against human trafficking
That is just ridiculous. The fact that prostitution is illegal is the reason there is a trade in human sex slaves. Legalizing prostitution doesn't result in human sex-worker trafficking any more than legalizing professional sports results in athlete trafficking.
That's libertarian bullshit. Prostitution is regulated in Thailand, and there is a tremendous amount of human trafficking. Even in a legal market, it's cheaper to get the product for free.
Prostitution is NOT legal in Thailand, it's just that the law against it is not enforced. If you want an example of a country where prostitution is actually legal you have to look at the Netherlands, where there is very little if any human trafficking. Nevada is another example. (And, by the way, I'm not a libertarian.)
The reality is that since women make, on average, 2/3 of what men make and most people are heterosexual, most sexually active women are sleeping with someone who makes quite a lot more money than they do. Because if you flip that around, it means men make on average 1.5 times what women make. For that and a very long list of other reasons, most women are de facto trading their bodies for money in some sense, to some degree, almost every time they have sex.
So I have kind of a big problem with your idea that prostitution is per se some big moral problem here.
I don't see it that way. I have read quite a lot and thought quite a lot on the subject. But I don't imagine you really want me to give you my 2 cents worth since you seem to be coming from an (unfounded and rather disrespectful) assumption that I am ignorant.
I mean, you could have asked had I read Dworkin rather than framing your remark like you are sure I haven't, which is kind of an insulting, dismissive thing to do. And, upon googling, gee, if you mean THIS Dworkin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Dworkin, then: no thanks. I happen to like men and sex, I worked hellaciously hard to get there and I am not interested in drinking deeply of her rage. Her apparent thesis -- that porn is linked to rape and violence against women -- flies in the face of statistics that internet porn apparently reduces incidence of rape and, from a quick skim of the Wikipedia page, I get the impression she was pretty angry and dissatisfied with life. I generally try to get my advice from bon vivants, not embittered cynics.
This is total crap. You can't possibly say that women are forced in prostitution. For some it's a choice between making $x or making $100x, that's not enslaving, but just a personal choice by the woman.
"as prostitution exists we'll never have a free society." The whole idea of a free society is total bullshit anyway. While I totally agree with you that human trafficking is despicable, it doesn't change the equation, if the end product is legally sold (or rented by the hour more accurately) or illegally doesn't change the demand or the supply.
We will never have a free society because it's an impossibility, humans are not evolved enough, nor are we devoid of vices like greed. A free society of automatons maybe, but not humans.
And as for your comment about farming, that's also wrong. Farming is a relatively recent profession, no older than 10k years. You think women didn't exchange protein for sex before that? If you do then you're dead wrong.
Exactly how would it affect the fight against any of those? Why would trafficking in sex workers be more exposed to trafficking than any other kind of slavery, except because it is illegal in most places? If legal, why would trafficking be able to compete with legal alternatives?
As for the idea of selling bodies, why are you equalizing the women with their bodies and thereby making them into objects instead of seeing them as people that perform services? I thought the whole point of feminism was to see and treat women as agents with the same self determination as men have - so why are you reducing sex workers to simply their body and gender?
And yes, some women are forced into prostitution. But some are not - some choose it because they like it and some choose it because it is a lot better than any of their available alternatives. Why do you think that it is ok to deemancipate those women?
I disagree; perhaps the idea that women's bodies can be commodified and sold to men BY MEN is a foundation of patriarchy, but the simple sale of sexual physical services isn't.
I can sell you my labor, the product of my labor, or actions I can take upon your body (massage, for example). Why is sex different?
I'm not talking operations-wise, I'm saying that excluding the slavery and pimping, what exactly is inherently wrong with the act itself? What separates sexual activity from other activity as something that 'is the foundation of the patriarchy?'
Not only that, the whole argument that somehow "women's bodies [are] commodified and sold to men" when they have sex in exchange for money is ridiculously objectifying. It completely ignores the actions, desires and views of the women involved in the trade and reduces them to passive objects that are bought and sold. It's not the industry that's doing this, or their clients, or even the patriarchy - it's feminist activists that claim to be fighting the objectification of women.
> legalizing prostitution would have a hugely detrimental effect on the fight against human trafficking and the status of women in general.
Why? There's no need to traffic humans for prostitution if prostitution is legal.
> The idea that women's bodies can be commodified and sold to men is the foundation of patriarchy
What about the idea that men can pass laws forbidding women to do certain things with their own bodies? If a woman can choose to have an abortion, why can't she choose to have sex for money?
> Why? There's no need to traffic humans for prostitution if prostitution is legal.
There'd almost certainly be reduced demand to traffic humans for prostitution if it was legal but trafficking humans was not, compared to the situation where both are illegal, but that's not the same as no demand.
> Why? There's no need to traffic humans for prostitution if prostitution is legal.
By this logic, there should be nobody brought to a country to do a job legal in that country. Are you happy making that equivalent claim, or changing your view given a counter example?
> By this logic, there should be nobody brought to a country to do a job legal in that country.
Isn't that the case? Presumably humans that are trafficked for forced labor are paid below minimum wage and exposed to bad working conditions that are illegal.
I'm not sure what you're arguing here. You said that there wouldn't be anyone trafficked for prostitution if it was legal, but humans are trafficked to work in fields like construction.
> a third, uncomfortable hypothesis: it's possible that violent males consider prostitution and rape as "substitutes". With prostitution legally acceptable and cheaper than when it was a criminal offense, would-be rapists might shift away from violence toward women, opting to purchase sex instead.
I'm really not sure how one could consider "uncomfortable" the idea that some people who would otherwise commit a crime, would instead opt to pay for a legal service?
When prostitution is legal, isn't this situation just the same as someone buying a car instead of stealing it, or streaming a movie on Netflix instead of torrenting it? The only difference I see is that the rape prevented would have been worse than stealing or copying, so it's even more important to prevent it.
edit: I can see people saying that I'm comparing a crime against people with crimes against objects. So here's another situation: someone paying an employee instead of enslaving him.
contra rayiner, the reason that hypothesis is described as "uncomfortable" is that it implies people commit rape because they desire sex. Rayiner has made a good statement of the feminist-cultish alternative belief, usually summarized as "rape is not about sex".
Studies show that rapists are not, in general, men who can't get sex another way, but rather men who want to exert power over women. The uncomfortable hypothesis is that prostitution fulfills the same urge to exercise power.[1] It's uncomfortable because of what it implies about the nature of prostitution.
[1] The quote, usually attributed to Charlie Sheen, that "you don't pay a prostitute for sex, you pay her to leave afterward" is illustrative of this hypothesis as well.
Charlie Sheen was a man who didn't have problems getting a woman to agree to sleep with him. That doesn't mean he had sex out of a love of exercising power instead of the normal sexual drive; the quote is telling you that he considered a prostitute's monetary cost to be a lower price than paying nothing to a girl who would then brag to all her friends and the National Enquirer that she was Charlie Sheen's girlfriend, flip out when she saw him kissing an actress, show up crying at his house in the middle of the night, etc etc etc.
> "you don't pay a prostitute for sex, you pay her to leave afterward"
How is that about power? It plainly reads as "I want sex, but I don't want to maintain a relationship with a woman to get it." If anything that confirms that prostitution is about sex.
The definition of rape hinges upon the detail of consent. So the reality is that many rapes are not particularly violent. I realize people don't like hearing that but men are typically bigger than women and the socially expected thing is for men to be the pursuers. So in cases of, for example, date rape, men often do not realize they committed rape unless they are charged with it. There is often alcohol and miscommunication involved.
So it really doesn't help to understand the problem space to characterize rape as a "violent" crime and rapists as "violent criminals." That is often not how it happened at all.
Yes and no. Yes, violent stranger rape is a tiny percentage of rapes, but the communication thing is (according to a study by Lisak) largely a post-hoc rationalisation; at the time communication is actually quite clear, but because of this myth, pretending to misunderstand etc proves an effective form of plausible deniability. Alcohol, yes, definitely, as again it's just another cloak of plausible deniability and 'social license'.
I have seen studies as well. And written two college papers on the subject. And was raped -- by someone whom I am quite confident thought he had my permission...until I began screaming and crying. At which point, he got up and left, without ejaculating. I am confident he did not intend to hurt me. So my first-hand experience, as the victim, indicates that, at least some of the time, no, honest, it was a really terrible misunderstanding.
Am I the only one who thought, given it's now 2014 and that the law was changed nearly 5 years ago, that we also now have an even more complete set of data with which to support the hypothesis? But they don't seem to go there at all?! The chart appears to show crimes rising again once it was outlawed but for the most part the article is written as though it's 2010.
Don't know why this doc does haven't statewide numbers for 2007 (some locations also have 2006, Providence doesn't).
A really odd thing is that PROSTITUTION: ENGAGING seems to have been at by far its highest in 2008. I can't think of a good explanation. Maybe police were pissed off about indoor prostitution being legal, so they cracked down extra hard on outdoor prostitution, but since indoor was re-illegalized, they don't care?
Situation #1: Person A and Person B have consensual sex together. Person A gets paid by Person C, who films this sex and sells the video. (it is called porn) Legal
Situation #2: Person A and Person B have consensual sex together. Person A gets paid by Person B. (it is called prostitution) Illegal
I don't understand how adding a camera crew and having the money come from someone not involved in the actual sex some how makes it legal.
The authors say they aren't sure, as if this was a unique experiment making it hard to drw conclusions from. However, there have been other places where prostitution has been decriminalised. The Netherlands, for example. Surely there has been research on the effects there, the results of which can be compared to this situation?
…compared to similar control states wherein South Dakota, Idaho, and Iowa are the control states‽
For those not up on their US states, Rhode Island (388 people per km^2) is a fly speck of an east coast state. South Dakota (4 people/square mile) and Idaho (7 people per square mile) are large rural western states, Iowa (20 people/km^2) is a giant cornfield with some insurance company headquarters hiding in the middle.
I don't have time to check the FBI databases today†, but it smells like a cherry picking.
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† Ok, a little time. The selected states are definitely on the high side for forcible rapes in 2009.
If prostitution were legalized then it could be regulated making it more likely that proper healthcare and protection is administered. It also gives a prostitute the ability to report to the police if there is foul play without worrying about getting in trouble for the prostitution itself. Much like the war on drugs, trying to eliminate prostitution by criminalizing it is not an effective way of eliminating the problem (if you see it as a problem).
FYI: Legalized and decriminalized are not the same thing. A professional prostitute and political activist named Dolores French (http://www.amazon.com/Working-My-Life-As-Prostitute/dp/05756...) was for decriminalization and against legalization. She claimed that legalization typically involves regulation of a sort that is often no better for sex workers than the violent pimps that are so frequently decried as the cause of everything that's bad about sex work currently.
They aren't the same thing and the article here specifically uses the term decriminalized.
I'm on the fence about those semantics. I think we're splitting hairs here.
Is there honestly a profound difference between the two? If prostitution were legal, yet regulated, failure to adhere to the proper regulations could still result in the same consequences for the cases that criminal policing targets anyway. Does legalization mean permissible with documentation?
What are the specific results of "decriminalization"? Does it simply mean that it's classified as a lesser misdemeanor, punishable by fines and community service, rather than felonies plea bargained to trespassing, that result in years in county lockup after repeat offenses? Or does it mean ordinance violations for things like disordely conduct, that do not accumulate as serious offenses on an individual's arrest record?
Does decriminalization mean that certain parts of town don't get policed as much on the weekends, and cops look the other way, when it comes to certain hotels and drinking establishments?
Does regulated legalization mean solicitation goes unreproached even in broad daylight on a sunday morning on main street, so long as you carry your laminated photo ID card on your person, while you loiter near the gas station?
Does legalization mean that johns experience zero repercussions for patronizing regulated whores, while decriminalization leaves johns open to petty offenses where they still cannot patronize under any circumstances, but if caught no jail time will result?
My best understanding: Decriminalization means it is not illegal. Legalization means it is regulated.
Let me see if this helps make it clear:
I used to subscribe to some sort of energy/environmental magazine. Solar power or whatever. And there was a story about a guy in Chicago who wanted to make his own home-grown power and go off the grid in the midst of Chicago. And he called around to see what agency was in charge of this, who he needed to apply to for permits and that sort of thing. And he got told, basically, that this had not yet made anyone's radar and there was no agency in charge of this stuff. There was no where he needed to go in order to get permission.
He hung up the phone and realized as long as he didn't mess up badly and make the radar of the police or others, he could do any damn thing he wanted. So he set about doing what he wanted and went off-grid. It was perfectly "legal" to do so and no one was up in his business about it. It was a new thing and no rules had yet been made for it, basically. So there was nothing stopping him.
Legalizing prostitution would be more akin to, say, the way we have driver's licenses. There would be a process for applying to get your hooker's license and proving you did not have VD or whatever. Decriminalization is more just saying "If a woman (or other person) wants to charge money for sexual services, she is not breaking the law and cannot be charged with a crime for that."
Or so I understand, law not being some strong point of mine.
EDIT: Since I don't want to reply to everyone individually:
I am not condoning prostitution as a career. I am saying that criminalizing prostitution hurts all parties involved. There is a common misconception that wanting to repeal a law means you support whatever that law outlawed. I don't think prostitution should be illegal.
The rule of law is not a place to push morality. There is no reason for the government to interfere in a consensual transaction between two people. If a pimp is forcing a prostitute to sell themselves, that's called slavery, and it is illegal. Selling a prostitute to someone else against their will is illegal, and it is called human trafficking. Simply selling your body harms no third party against their will.