One (possibly) legit argument against legalizing prostitution.

Great Debates
1

I have no stake in this game, just trying to clarify my own thoughts on the matter. Your help is appreciated.

I’m totally convinced by the 2 major arguments in favor - consenting adults should be at liberty to transact money for time in whatever forms they please, and criminalizing sex work inevitably results in a black market that is dangerous for everyone but most of all for the providers.

There is one thing I still struggle with. It’s hard to explain well. It’s somewhat akin to what we hear from the younger women nowadays about porn on their romantic relationships. To start with, it seems the dating scene is more competitive because more men are just opting to stay home with xxxtube instead of going out to meet someone. When they do, they expect an experience what they see in porn videos - unrealistic beauty standards, no commitment, easier availability, more adventurous acts, and a lopsided focus on the man’s needs.

So if this is what porn gets us (and I’m not condemning porn, BTW), what do we get when we break down the barrier to paid sexual access? I know that it’s already out there being accessed by the more entitled risk-seekers among us. But when a man can simply say “fuck it, I’m not buying dinner and a movie for the possibility of a blowjob later.” Or in an existing relationship, “why should I work on my sexual relationship with my wife when I can just buy it elsewhere?”

If sex becomes a commodity, its price goes down when it floods the market. This is a serious blow to those who depend on it to help them forge and maintain stable relationships. Whoever you are, if you need to be sexually attractive at all, now you need to lose more weight, wax more hair, send off stronger availability signals, hook up more casually, do more in bed, worry less about yourself. And this impact would fall disproportionately on the older, the less attractive, the more heavyset, the sexually unadventurous, the emotionally needy or complicated, and mainly upon women and gay men.

I know this explanation sounds horrible, like “who will save the fat chicks if nobody needs sex from them anymore.” I mean it to read more that sex is often the first step of the mating dance, the thing that nudges people together when the other good reasons aren’t immediately apparent.

Quotable summary - if sex becomes a market commodity, then participants will have to become more competitive, like it or not. This seems to me like a bad thing mainly for women and gay men, and also for society at large. Your thoughts?

2

No, it just makes it easier for men and women to not have to put up with bullshit just to have sex.

3

And legalizing drugs will hit the dealers and trafficers hard too, so let’s not do that.

4

This opportunity seems woefully lopsided in mens’ favor, as there seem to be way, way more men looking to pay for uncommitted sex than there are women.

5

You are only considering one side of the equation, the financial side is woefully lopsided in the women’s favor.

6

I think this analogy is weak, because I’m talking about impact on people who are already obeying the law and (arguably) providing a social good - people who just want to be in stable, committed relationships.

But if you want to go with that analogy, you can look at the grey-market specialty pot growers who are being crushed by the market and crowded out by laws that favor commercial grow-operations. Think of individuals hunting for romantic relationships as the mom-and-pop shops. Do you think it’s a social good for them to be driven out of business by commercial competition?

7

I think you may be overlooking the fact that prostitution is legal in some form or another in many places throughout the world, including North America, and neither have fat chicks ceased getting laid nor has any such “sex arms race” occurred, not to mention legalization does not magically make prostitution an attractive vocation to people otherwise capable of earning a living doing something that does not require them to fuck strangers. Prostitutes, and their clientele, even where such activities are perfectly legal, remain firmly on mainstream society’s periphery.

8

Can you clarify the side you think I should be considering, and how it relates to legalization? Because I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.

9

I’m sure you realize it was an exaggeration of the situation. But no, I don’t feel worse about the situation for the mom and pop drug dealers than I do about any mom and pop shop pushed out of business by Walmart. I don’t like it, there are systematic problems that make this happen to often and too easily, but the same applies to all industry. Inflating the cost of goods and services by making them illegal is not good for the economy. It only works because of the secondary costs of enforcement which are worse overall in the end. Regulation is an intermediate approach, I don’t love it, it gets abused, many regulations gravitate toward the realm of anti-competition instead of serving the public good over time. But there are far better ways to make sure fat chicks get laid than keeping prostitution illegal. I’d volunteer to take care of that problem myself.

10

That’s a pretty good argument.

11

You are saying this benefits men because they would have easy access to sex without considering that they are paying for it from willing sellers, an opportunity that most men would not have.

12

Sex has ALWAYS been a commodity available for a price. It is now. Making it legal won’t change that aspect in any fashion.

Men will still be able to trade cash for sex. Like they can right now, in every city in the world.

13

Not a problem so long as a high percentage of men continue to be lazy bums and prefer to not work. Easy for fat women and gay guys to support them and in turn have them “pay the rent”!

So I think we will continue to see young good looking guys with fat chicks and older men.

14

I get the economics 101 of the situation all too well. I’m taking a step back and asking, is it good for a socially important part of human experience to be diminished to the status of “goods and services” in the first place. As for drugs, people can lead happy and healthy lives without ever buying or selling. They have a social cost, but this is less than prohibition and can be mitigated by taxation. So I’m not very concerned about the effects of market forces on drug buyers or sellers (except maybe the artisanal pot growers, but omlettes, breaking eggs, etc).

Not all heroes wear capes :slight_smile:

15

Wait, if more men are just opting to stay home instead of going out into the world to date how does that make dating “more competitive”?

16

I question how common this calculus is done, and how important it is to protect.

I think you’re maybe right here in that it would take some small amount of wind out of ‘hook-up culture’, but I don’t think it will keep people from seeking partners.

People already often neglect working on their relationships in favor of finding sex partners outside of their marriage. It might be a little simpler to do so if prostitution were legal, but finding extra-marital nookie is not a problem for those who are actively seeking it out.

I think there is ultimately no problem here because you’re conflating sex with relationship/partnering, which typically includes sex, but is not defined by it.

In fact, maybe (and I’m just making this up) commodified and affordable sex would enable people to pursue long term relationships and partnerships without the sometimes fraught short-term desires that don’t always point us towards healthy choices?

17

It benefits buyers (mostly men, let’s be honest) because:
[ul]
[li]Financial power is already unequally distributed toward men[/li][li]Nobody’s forcing men to buy sex.[/li][li]Flooding the market with greater supply would depress the price for all providers, including the “legal” ones.[/li][li]“Non-market” women would need to become more sexually competitive with “commodity” women.[/li][/ul]

18

I think most people looking for relationships are looking for something beyond just sex. And they won’t get that with prostitutes.

As for people who are looking for just sex, why not let them have their prostitutes? It’s better than having them enter into relationships they don’t really want.

19

I like this answer.

20

I think this folds into the “prostitution is bad for the community” type argument. Which is a fine argument to make, it probably does do that. But so what if it does? So what if it makes sex more competitive, less fun for people, less available, etc.? To me, selling sex is about body autonomy. No negative outcome of prostitution that I’ve seen so far trumps a person’s own body autonomy.