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Great Debates
281

Sterra: Legalized prostution would greatly reduce the illegal abuses of prostution as it would greatly reduce illegal prostution.

With respect, neither your premise nor your conclusion has been at all solidly established on this thread. It may be that there would be much less illegal prostitution if there were legal establishments competing with it, but wring and others have pointed out some serious flaws in that assumption. Likewise, it’s wishful thinking to assume that illegal abuses such as trafficking, or rape and assault of prostitutes, would go away following legalization; on the contrary, it seems likely that they would increase, for reasons noted in earlier posts. Things might work out the way we’d want them, but I want to see much more convincing evidence in favor of it before we take the step of legalization.

People who don’t like to risk breaking the law for a little extra profit would make up most of the legalized buisnesses.

That sounds kind of naive. There are lots of people running various kinds of “legalized businesses,” from strip clubs to construction companies, who are perfectly willing to “risk breaking the law for a little extra profit.” I see no reason to assume that legalized prostitution would attract mostly entrepreneurs with impeccable ethical standards.

Cops could also keep a closer eye on the abuses of brothels as they are legal and regulated.

More wishful thinking, I’m afraid. Again, you seem to be confusing a change in the legal status of prostitution with a change in the social status of prostitution. To some extent they do go together, but not dependably so. I’ve already agreed that it would be nice to have a society where prostitutes were accorded dignity, respect, and protection from abuse. What you haven’t shown at all is that the mere act of legalization would produce such a society, or even encourage its development. As I said before, it seems much more probable that we’d just be getting increased recreational freedom for consumers at the expense of increased vulnerability for the poor and desperate. Not a good trade-off, IMHO.

And once again, you don’t strengthen your case by trying to accuse legalization opponents of not caring about the poor and desperate. Complaining that Doc Cathode is inhumane because he doesn’t want to decriminalize the activities that some people depend on for survival? Oh, please. No matter what type of activity you considered, you could doubtless find plenty of people who are poor and desperate enough to undertake it for the sake of survival. That doesn’t mean that we should decriminalize all activities. We have to have solid evidence that decriminalization would have a significant positive effect for society in general, without being offset by significant negative effects—and that evidence is just what none of the legalization advocates here really seem able to provide, despite a lot of sounding rhetoric and unsubstantiated assertions.

282

DocCathode:

I probably should have said this in my last post, but so do I. I just want one that doesn’t discourage these women from seeking help the way criminalization invariably does. People are much more likely to get the help they need when they don’t have to risk jail time to do so.

Yes, our ultimate goal should be to find these women non-degrading jobs. Burdening them with criminal records will only make things worse.

283

May I ask where you get this statement from? Even wring backed off from the assertion that trafficking would probably increase after legalization, merely saying that “we can’t know that it won’t.” As I pointed out, economics suggests that it would do so only if it were fundamentally different from almost any other good or service. Further, I haven’t seen anyone assert that there would be more illegal prostitution than there is now, only that there would be more total prostitution.

284

Thanks for the clarification ENugent: I didn’t mean to imply that each of those problems would be likely to increase. Trafficking by itself might well decline (although as wring pointed out, it’s unlikely that it would vanish).

285

I am really trying to finish reading through this thread so that I can throw my two bits in, but since I am now happily on the last page, I will jump the gun a bit…

Nude Lap Dancing is legal again in Tampa. As background, Tampa has a thriving lap dancing industry. A little over a year ago, IIRC, the city council passed an ordinance saying that the dancers needed to remain six feet away from the customers, or somesuch, instead of direct, nude contact. The linked article shows that the judge has ruled this ordinance an unconstitutional breach of freedom of expression. One of the clubs fought this by just refusing to obey the ordinance and paying any and all customer and dancers legal fees.

I apologize in advance if anyone has previously resolved this question, just so far the arguments have remained fairly circular, so I doubt that I will find a cite in the remaining page yet ahead of me.

286

The way I heard it phrased was this:

And I agree, prostitution should be safe and legal

287

who said this? *I just want one that doesn’t discourage these women from seeking help the way criminalization invariably does. People are much more likely to get the help they need when they don’t have to risk jail time to do so. *

Reasonable enough. Well then, if our primary concern is to help the prostitutes and see they don’t get exploited and degraded, how about keeping prostitution illegal for the johns and the pimps, but reducing the punishment for the prostitute to something more comparable to a traffic violation? Impose a fine (to remove the immediate financial incentive for turning tricks) and perhaps some mandatory counseling, but save the jail time for the johns and the pimps, who presumably don’t have the excuse of being poor and desperate. I’m all in favor of not adding legal burdens to the ones that most street hookers are already carrying, but I don’t see that we have to go all the way to legalization in order to improve our treatment of them.

288

It would certainly attract entrepreneurs with higher ethical standards. There are certainly lots of legalized buisnesses that break the law, but they do not make up the majority. Whereas when people have to break the law to even start the buisness they aren’t going to worry about breaking laws as much.

I wasn’t talking about social status. I was talking about the fact that legal brothels would not try to actively hide from the police. The legalization would allow people to have a much easier time helping the poor and the desperate. The social status would change very little, but I do not think there is a lack of people who want to help them. The people do not have that much ability to help them right now because the prostitutes have to hide. They don’t hide because of social stigma.

289

Here in Philadelphia, there are plenty of brothels and prostitutes making no attempt to hide. Check the Yellow Pages or the classifieds. While some spas are legitimate the “Hula Hand” clearly isn’t. I see this as the reason criminalisation has failed to eliminate prostitution. The cops are generally too busy turning a blind eye, or providing amnesty in exchange for freebies.
On a side note, I may be without net access for a while. My silence should not be interpreted as disinterest or an admission of defeat. Bluelight has found that its users are disinterested in banner ads and admitted failure. Hopefully, I won’t miss many posts before getting a new ISP.

290

That is an excellent plan for increasing the amount of illegal prostitution. In New York state, prostitution is a “B” misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum of 3 months in jail and a $500 fine - the same punishment for frequenting a prostitute (if you frequent an underage prostitute, the punishment increases, up to felony status) http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?cl=82&a=56
Reduce the punishment and the fine (as well as the legal costs), and the disincentive to engage in prostitution decreases. Hence, more hookers.
And, of course, keeping prostitution illegal, even with reduced punishments for the prostitute, still prevents any regulation of the relationship between the hooker and her employer.

Sua

291

That is also one of the main reasons I am in support of legalization. When people allow something, but it is illegal it only gives the cops power they should not have.

292

Kimstu:

Prostitution should remain illegal because we haven’t proved to your satisfaction that legalization would be a good thing? Baloney.

                                   Weird_Al_Einstein

As an advocate of prohibition, it is your responsibility to conclusively show that our policy of criminalixation is superior to controlled legalization. Neither you nor Wring nor DocCathode have even come close.

We might not have to, but why shouldn’t we? If a healthy person makes a rational decision to make a living having sex for money, why does the government have a right to prohibit that?

293

Ummmm…what??? Excuse me, but I most certainly am not an advocate of prohibition. You appear to be interpreting what I have posted to mean almost exactly the opposite of what I say.

294

RoboDude: Prostitution should remain illegal because we haven’t proved to your satisfaction that legalization would be a good thing? Baloney.

That’s not what I said. A more accurate paraphrase would be “prostitution should remain illegal until and unless legalization advocates can prove to the satisfaction of informed specialists and the general public that legalization would be a good thing.” You haven’t done that, and the arguments you’ve made so far are a long way from doing so.

RD also commented on an earlier statement of mine, apparently under the impression that it was made by WAE: *…“I don’t see that we have to go all the way to legalization in order to improve our treatment of [hookers].”

We might not have to, but why shouldn’t we? If a healthy person makes a rational decision to make a living having sex for money, why does the government have a right to prohibit that? *

As has been said on this thread about a dozen times now, for the same reason that the government has a right to prohibit lots of other commercial activities that it would have no right to prohibit if they weren’t commercial transactions. News flash: the government regulates commerce and employment. There are lots of things that you have a right to choose to do, as a private individual, that you do not have a right to be employed to do or to employ others to do. (I should just put that sentence in my sig and then maybe I wouldn’t have to repeat it so much in threads like this.)

One of the factors affecting government decisions to criminalize or regulate certain commercial activities is the extent of harm they cause to society. Prostitution is widely believed, for a variety of reasons including some very good ones that have been put forward on this thread, to cause enough societal harm to justify severe legal curbs on it. I have no problem with your disagreeing with that assessment, but the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate convincingly that it is erroneous if you want the legal status of prostitution to change. You can keep attempting that or not, just as you wish, but for land’s sake please don’t keep wasting everybody’s time with repetitions of the fallacious assertion that the government doesn’t even have the right to regulate such commerce in the first place.

295

Oh, sorry about that. I was still talking to Kimstu. I was just showing the author of the quote. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

Kimstu:

What’s the difference?

So just because having sex for money isn’t recognized as a basic human right, there’s nothing wrong with it being prohibited? I don’t think so. In a free society, the government doesn’t have the right to prohibit anything it doesn’t absolutely need to.

296

Well… no. Yes, government can regulate commerce (sidebar - prostitution is generally prohibited under state law, so in most cases the Commerce Clause does not apply), but that right is not absolute by any means. Example - government could not prohibit the manufacture and sale of food products.
At a bare minimum, governmental prohibition of particular commercial activities, at a state or federal level, must be “rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest.” Under that legal test, the burden of proving the legality of commercial regulation is on the government. It is not a hard legal standard for the government to beat, but it is their burden.

Sua

297

RoboDude replied to my reply to him:
*[RD:] Prostitution should remain illegal because we haven’t proved to your satisfaction that legalization would be a good thing? Baloney.

[K:] That’s not what I said. A more accurate paraphrase would be “prostitution should remain illegal until and unless legalization advocates can prove to the satisfaction of informed specialists and the general public that legalization would be a good thing.”

[RD:] What’s the difference? *

The first assumes, or appears to assume, that it’s my opinion on the legalization question that should determine it, which is silly. The second makes it clear what the crucial factor really is.

So just because having sex for money isn’t recognized as a basic human right, there’s nothing wrong with it being prohibited? I don’t think so. In a free society, the government doesn’t have the right to prohibit anything it doesn’t absolutely need to.

Who decides what the government “needs” to prohibit? You appear to feel that the government doesn’t need to prohibit prostitution. A majority of other citizens seem to feel that it does. Moreover, prostitution (like most other commercial activities) is not protected as a paramount individual civil right. Therefore, the government can and does prohibit it. That’s how the type of free society known as a democracy works. If you want to change the law, you have to change the minds of people who disagree with you. Merely repeating “but the government doesn’t have a right to do that!” will get you exactly nowhere.

298
  1. You have no evidence that a majority of citizens in each state support the criminalization of prostitution - a law does not indicate majority approval (note Bush and the tax cut, for one). I have no evidence to the opposite - it’s a wash;
  2. Regardless of how many times you state the opposite, the burden of establishing the validity of the law lies on the government. “[A] statute is upheld if it bears a rational relation to a legitimate government objective.” Kadrmas v. Dickinson Public Schools, 487 U.S. 450, 461 (1988). Even if 99.99% of the voters of a state approved a measure, the law would be invalid if the government could not meet their burden of proof.

Sua

299

I haven’t been ignoring the thread, but no one’s brought up anything new. It’s still back to the ‘well we don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be legal, therefore it should be’ vs. "we see reasons it shouldn’t be legal, PLUS it already is illegal, so those who desire the change need to demonstrate that said change will result (not just ‘may’) in generally better conditions for most (not specifically to those people who wish to buy/sell sex, but in general). The great lesson of Prohibition IMHO wasn’t ‘you can’t legislate morality’ but that not only can’t you legislate people to think something is bad/good when they already believe it to be the other, but also drastic changes can have some pretty far reaching and unpredictable results, so one should be certain that the change itself is demonstrably a positive one in general.

However, thought I should step back in to address this point:
Sua although there hasn’t been a wide scale referendum on the legalization of prostitution, one can make some determinations:

for example, although it’s been legalized in certain areas of Nevada, have the adjoining places in Nevada sought out legalization as well, to gain the boon in taxes and allow for the ‘will of the people’? I’m sure it’s something that’s discoverable.

Do politicians, in general, even lobby for such a change? I follow all the goings on in my local legislature, and have noticed all sorts of proposed legislation. Legalization of prostitution hasn’t even been mentioned. On the contrary, there’s been several pushes on to stiffen the prosecution, and so on. When we hear locally of the issue being brought up to civic leaders it’s all about 'get rid of 'em ’ not, ‘can’t we legalize this?’.

I think we can assume that politicians, who depend on their electability, are unwilling to advance causes they feel would jeopardize their continued station, and are (a) not proposing legalization in general and (b) are attempting to make the laws more strict (the confiscation of cars etc.)because their constituents haven’t made it an issue. It’s been my experience that if most of some one’s voters call and bug 'em about something, the very least they’ll do is propose some legislation. I think it’s entirely probable that the lack of such proposed legislation indicates a similar lack of popular support. The SDMB is not a good ‘sampling’ of folks in general :smiley:

Didn’t Stoid mention once that her step mom ran for office (didn’t win).

Certainly grass roots organizations have had some effect on a variety of issues - if the great majority of folks felt that prostitution should be legalized, what’s stopping them from organzing? Stoid has presented a number of sites from pro-legalization sources. They don’t seem to be having much of an effect.

In addition - wasn’t it Dr. Joyce Elders, who (horrors) advocated masturbation as a reasonable response to issues such as teen pregnancy and HIV and remember the furor? I’m sorry, it’s more than just a wash. You’ll have to do some pretty fancy talking to convince me that a country that was offended about masturbation would find legalization of prositution to be a good plan.

300

Ok, and what about the guy who is found dead in a hotel room with a prostitute and she says he tried to rape her so she shot in self defense but in reality she lured him in, shot him, then stole his cash and credit cards. Scams like this happen right now, if the rules you’re proposing came about, we’d probably have more than a few cases of this. Who are you going to believe? The families would hush it up because they don’t want it known that dear old dad or uncle Charley was payin’ for it on the sly. The dangers of this trade aren’t just for the ladies.

I’ve been a reader and contributer to the alt.sex.prostitution newsgroup(even though I’m not a patron of sexworkers, I just like discussing the big issues, kind of like this thread) for some time and I’ve seen both sides of this arguement. It’s not as cut and dried as you’d like to think. Making it legal won’t change the fact that these women are treated like objects/property because their services are paid for and it won’t change the fear that both parties have when entering such a transaction due to mistrust of the other.

Steven