And my OP lays out the argument, and it has nothing to do with “because it’s a bad choice.” That’s your own hijack.
See again:
Quote fail. I explained my opinion of why it’s a bad choice. I never once said nor implied that this opinion should be the basis of law.
I think it’s time we introduced you to the OP. OP, Velocity. Velocity, OP.
[QUOTE=HMS Irruncible]
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.
[/quote]
Looks like a pretty clear endorsement of choice to me. It’s a pretty good OP if I do say so myself; take the time to read it if you’re going to spend your efforts to debate it.
I see the difference, yes. But a large component of your OP is essentially this:
“Legal prostitution is bad for society because it means that if a woman doesn’t want to have sex, a man then has the option to seek sex elsewhere.”
That’s not a very compelling argument.
The reason there are no benefits is because prostitution is illegal and sex workers are forced into the black market / underground economy.
Have a legal, state-regulated sex industry where the sex workers report their earnings and pay into a pension system like everyone else, and then that problem goes away.
Sex workers can also to some extent set their own hours, so it shouldn’t be incompatible with going to school (not that I think everyone should be pursuing higher education anyway).
That’s not it, but it’s a subtle point so I don’t blame anyone for misunderstanding it.
Let me get graphic and crude for a bit. If the brothel at the local strip mall is offering anal threesomes for half a week’s salary, then men are more comfortable asking (and expecting) anal threesomes from prospective romantic partners, because it’s become a normal part of sex. Like it or not, everybody’s got to hold their nose and get comfortable with anal threesomes, because this is now an attainable norm.
I think this dynamic is pretty undeniable because we’re already hearing from younger women that they’re having to get more comfortable with more extravagant demands from men because of porn consumption.
The only remaining questions to debate on that topic are (1) would illegal prostitution exacerbate that situation, and (2), does this situation constitute enough social harm to justify keeping prostitution illegal.
That’s all I’m saying… if there is an anti-legalization argument, then I think this is the one. And even still I’m trying to decide whether the argument holds water.
Back into dangerous territory that would potentially blow up the thread, but if we implemented a universal basic income, single-payer health, and free college tuition, then I’d have absolutely no problem legalizing prostitution and forgetting about it. Selling sex would then truly become a choice. For that matter, nobody would have to get married or stay married just for economic reasons. But as long as we have all the forms of social inequality that we do, I can never truly consider it a free choice.
- In countries where it’s legal, sex workers vary quite a bit in terms of what sexual acts they will or won’t perform.
- No woman is going to have to ‘get comfortable’ with any sexual act whatsoever. At most, she is going to have to get comfortable with her boyfriend seeking sexual satisfaction elsewhere. I think norms of monogamy are too strong and largely outdated anyway, so I don’t see this as a problem.
- It’s probably true that legal prostitution will lower the, uh, ‘price’ of sex somewhat, and that will make relatively promiscuous people (men and women, with probably somewhat more men than women) happier, and relatively chaste people (men and women, with somewhat more women than men). Fine. why do you think the happiness of the relatively chaste people should outweight the relatively promiscuous ones?
No one, then or now, is going to be forced to have sex they don’t want to have. Actually, if more men start going to sex workers as an alternative to being overly sexually assertive with the girl they just met at a bar / dorm party / night club, this would probably be a good thing, with fewer one night stands that girls end up regretting the next morning.
The only problem with these so-called “new norms” is the whole fundamental concept of social activities “competing with”, or being bartered for, sexual ones.
If one person wants to go out to dinner and another person wants to have anal sex, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with either of those desires, but those two people should probably not be going out on a date together.
The core of the problem is the societal expectation that women have to “score” social/sexual attention from men, and therefore must be prepared to “earn” that attention by doing things they don’t want to do. Why not just agree that nobody actually has to go on dates, and therefore if one person wants pornsex and the other person doesn’t, the party of the first part is free to seek pornsex somewhere consensual and the party of the second part shouldn’t feel pressured into wasting any time on something that doesn’t appeal to them?
Not to mention fewer date rapes, which is a less euphemistic way than “one night stands that girls end up regretting the next morning” of describing undesirable consequences of men “being overly sexually assertive”.
I’ve got to sign off for now, but just wanted to say that’s a quality response that deserves followup when I have time.
As a side-note to all of this…
Would the legalisation of prostitution (in x country or area) result in a sudden uptake in the use of prostitutes?
I am a married man, like a couple of billion others. I don’t use prostitutes, but not because it is *illegal *(actually in the UK it’s not technically illegal, but that’s complicated…), but because…
a) I don’t fancy it
b) Even if I did, I couldn’t afford it - certainly not without the wife asking questions about where the money’s going, and…
c) It has an ‘icky’ stigma attached to it; meaning that I would be guilt-ridden and slightly self-loathing afterwards
Legalisation wouldn’t remove any of those barriers to my becoming a purveyor. I would imagine that many men would argue something similar; it is psychosocial as opposed to legal barriers which stop men from using prostitutes on the whole. I could make a similar list of arguments as to why I don’t take heroine - it’s not because its illegality per se, rather it is because of a whole host of other (mostly) practical and culturally inherited reasons.
Maybe the act of legalisation would lead to a gradual change in cultural attitudes whereby seeing a prostitute is akin to getting a haircut. I suspect, though, that changes in law are *results *of social and cultural change as opposed to causes of it.
**
tl;dr: People who are going to sleep with prostitutes are going to do it anyway. Legalisation won’t change who does it, it will change how it is done.
Women tend to be more hesitant to commit crimes in general, so I’m not sure that the relative lack of women johns is due to a lower sex drive or desire to pay for no-strings sex. I think (but have no data to back this up) that it’s fairly easily explained by it being illegal, as well as culturally unacceptable, and both of those things change if prostitution is legalized. I would definitely expect an uptick in female johns in that case, same as we’ve slowly seen an uptick in female audiences to see male strippers and female oriented porn as sexual mores have loosened for women in those areas.
As for the question in the OP, this is an old wives’ argument - literally - against prostitution. I think it’s irrevocably stuck at conflating sex with relationships. Sure, there are some people - male and female - who would rather pay for sex. There are other people who would rather have relationships. I could just as easily make an argument that legalized - and culturally accepted - prostitution will *reduce *the divorce rate and *increase *marital happiness, because only those interested in relationships will be seeking relationships. Those interested in sex without relationships won’t “have to” enter a shitty relationship they don’t want to get the sex that they do want. And those interested in relationships won’t be tricked or misled into having those relationships with people who just want sex.
Furthermore, I think that most people, after a certain age, do want relationships. So you might end up with more single 20 and early 30somethings paying each other for sex, but I suspect by the mid 30s, those same people will settle down and start looking for relationships. After all, we’re already looking at a culture with some of the most lax extramarital sexual mores in the last 2000 years; the “hookup culture” hasn’t caused the collapse of society. Largely because it doesn’t exist. People are still looking for relationships, even when we don’t say they have to anymore in order to enjoy sex.
I don’t think this is all that true. Having sex is not worth getting arrested.
I appreciate those comments and my only issue with it is the implication that sex and relationships aren’t irrevocably conflated. Most often when we’re talking about relationships, at some point there will be a sexual component. If not, then it’s just a friendship (unless there’s a definition I’ve missed, which could be entirely possible).
And I don’t think it’s as black and white when you suggest that people who want sex will pay for it, and people who want relationships will have relationships. Relationships change over time and so do people, so it doesn’t seem realistic to think that people will sort themselves into the “proper” category and stay happy.
True, but the opposite isn’t true. Talking about sex doesn’t necessarily mean there is a relationship component.
I don’t think this is at all true. Heroin is an extreme case, but let’s take a softer drug. I don’t smoke marijuana, purely because it’s illegal. (If it was fully legalized, I’d probably be stoned a good portion of the time). I would suspect the same is true of the demand for sex work, and that “having sex with a prostitute” is for a lot of people much more similar to ‘smoking marijuana’ than ‘doing heroin’.
…you are starting from a premise that I don’t believe you have established is an actual fact. So for starters you need to prove that:
-Men are opting to stay home with xxxtube instead of going out to meet someone
-When they do: they expect an experience from what they see in porn videos.
-That this is something that occurs to such a large degree that it is problematic.
So even before we can examine the questions that is the focus of this thread we need to firstly prove that what you assert has actually happened.
I live in New Zealand which has had legalised prostitution for the last 13 years. And anecdotally (because this isn’t the sort of thing that people conduct survey’s of) absolutely nothing has changed. The same people who engaged the services of sex workers before legalisation are engaging the services of sex workers now. “Breaking down the barrier to paid sexual access” has not changed the sex industry nor has it changed how people date.
Exactly! The OP is determined to ignore the obvious, even when it’s been pointed out to him more than once.
Sex has ALWAYS been available for purchase for anyone who wishes it. Since the beginning of time. And in any city in the world today, if you have money, you can purchase sex.
It has not put any pressure on women to compete sexually with such service providers. Purchased sex providers have always been willing to do what the client wants, for a price. It has not had even the slightest effect on what your wife is willing to do, in my opinion.
How’s that conversation go anyway? " Well, the prostitute up the road WILL do this with me, so you had better too! Or you’re out!" Yeah, right!
It’s just nonsense, straight up. Sex, of any kink, has always been available, with zero resulting change in sexual norms between man and wife.
If you expect us to believe one follows the other, then show us some actual evidence.
That’ll earn you a warning, HMS. If you want to use that sort of insult take it to the Pit.