I’m not sure (well, kinda) why there’s so much fear about prostitution being legal. If you want to know what evils await if prostitution is legalized in the US, you’ve only to look at wild and crazy Canada.
And no, I’m pretty sure that if someone rapes a prostitute in Canada, he won’t be prosecuted merely for theft, not anymore than killing a prostitute is destruction of property. The selling of sexual services is not a denial of personhood, no matter how much poeticl hyperbole you want to use.
Legal in every province?
If you decided to not “put sex on a pedestal”, it would still be assault/battery. Probably aggravated, given the circumstances would almost certainly involve penetration of the attacker’s “weapon” of choice into the internals of the victim.
Of course, one can also hold simultaneously the beliefs that “sex is something one should be allowed to consent to perform for money” and “sexual assault and rape are more serious crimes than mere assault”.
Interesting how you go directly to the notion of people as property, though. Telling.
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What I want to know is, why don’t we see more brothels operating like the one I saw an ad for on CL the other week: “Star in your own porn movie! Pick the star, we’ll film it and edit it for $GOING_LOCAL_RATE_FOR_A_HOOKER+20.” There seems to me to be an inherent contradiction between porn (get paid to have sex) being legal where prostitution (get paid to have sex) is not, and I suspect that Cecil’s column holds the answer: prostitution is equally as irritating as many other relatively harmless vices, such as public drinking (not drunkenness, drinking), loitering, and what have you.
Yes. Criminal law is of federal jurisdiction exclusively. There are some activites related but not necessary to prostitution which are criminal but it’s quite possible to be a prostitute and not even have a theoretical risk of criminal conviction (absent a misapplication of the law by a judge).
I don’t know the civil law of every province, but I do that that a blanket prohibition of prostitution by a province or municipality would be tantamount to that province or municipality enacting a criminal provision, which is not in their power to do and so would be unconstitutional.
These are civil and (non criminal) penal matters. It’s penal in the same sense that a parking ticket is a penal (but not criminal) matter.
Now, it would be possible for a province or municipality to forbid some forms of prostitution, in the same way that it can forbid some forms of driving, some forms of liquor selling, some forms of industrial processing etc. For example, they could restrict the trade to some areas or impose minimum safety standards. These are civil and (non criminal) penal matters. It’s penal in the same sense that a parking ticket is a penal (but not criminal) matter because it attaches a penalty to breaking the law.
Then, well, why do horny American dudes go all the way to Cuba or Asia for their “sex tourism”?
There are plenty of jobs that involve the physical person. Masseuse, physiotherapist come to mind.
There is no country where prostitution is legal and women have been denied unemployment for refusing to take that option (British tabloid myths to the contrary). Stripping is legal in the US and I’ve never heard of any unemployed woman being told to do that rather than get unemployment, so why would it happen with prostitution?
Some sex workers do prefer working in managed brothels or for agencies. I don’t think that option should be taken away from them, any more than workers in other industries should be forced to be self-employed if they would rather not be. But of course they should have a legal right to refuse a client - that is the case in New Zealand, for all sex workers, managed or not.
Sorry, to answer your question I have to add something in a second post.
The term “illegal” can mean “which breaks civil law” or “which breaks penal law”. Penal law includes but is not limited to criminal law (in Canada, I can’t speak for other countries). If a non-fed level of gov’t gives teeth to its rules with lighter penalties, that’s penal law, not criminal law and is constitutional. If it does something which amounts to a criminal prohibition, it is violating the constitution because only the feds can do that in Canada.
Now, your question is likely “How do you distinguish between what is penal but not criminal and what is criminal?” That question has fuzzy answers but what’s clear is that a complete and morality-induced prohibition of prostitution would count.
Don’t mean to ignore anyone, I am just not around all the time…
Anyhoo, I suppose my point ultimately is grounded in my own personal ethos. I am not perturbed by the fact that we (mostly) are ‘coerced’ to earn a living wage; on the contrary, I take it as a personal duty. This means not being choosy about the type of job accepted if there are no good choices available. Long story short, there really isn’t any job that I wouldn’t be willing to do if it turned out to be the last.available.job.
I don’t think my excellent work ethic is compatible with legal prostitution. Sucking dick is just something I should never be obligated to do. I’d have to think about it, but circumstances forcing me into prostitution would damage my ethic in a way being forced into construction or some other productive endeavor would not. If it applies to me it applies in at least some degree to society as well. I guess I think the proposal would act as a kind of social malady, though I admit my conception of that isn’t perfectly defined.
But what’s next, I have to impregnate your wife?
They may not know it’s legal in Canada.
Labor costs are higher in first world countries.
If you want not only prostitutes but prostitutes and nice weather, Canada’s not the place for you.
Siam Sam is better placed than me to talk about sex tourists, but I think what sex tourists often seek is an exotic place with sunny weather and lots of very cheap prostitutes. Canada does not fit the bill.
Maybe so, but I bet the girls are cleaner and healthier.
It’s because the risk of actually being prosecuted for patronizing a prostitute is so remote in the US, legal prostitution alone isn’t that big of a draw. You don’t even need to look to the far north-- the legal Nevada brothels aren’t exactly big sex tourism destinations either. Most of them are just dusty little establishments out in the middle of nowhere that cater to locals and whoever’s passing through. Judging by how big the illegal sex trade is in Las Vegas, apparently most people consider the 45 minute drive out of town to be a bigger inconvenience than the risk of prosecution.
Maybe so, but I bet they aren’t 14 years old…
There seems to be a disconnect here. The notion isn’t that people shouldn’t have to work for their bread. The notion is that prior ownership of the means of production shouldn’t mean that others cannot subsist without wage labour. Wage labour is explicitly different from toiling on land in that one is providing surplus labour for another individual. There are alternatives to the endemic form of rent and property and the alternatives are not necessarily agricultural communes (which were a comprehensive failure in Cambodia, though there were extraneous variables at play).
These are arguments that women in prostitutes unions are actually familiar with. I saw another protester with a prostitute’s union here opposing spending cuts with a sign saying that it forced women into prostitution.
I’m forwarding an argument that prostitution may not be ideal in our current society, which in turn could be a secular reason for avoiding it.
I don’t see it. If anything, I believe working for a wage is commodifying individuals.
It’s not an obligation, any more than taking a job mucking out stables is an obligation. The only difference between legal and illegal prostitution is that you would be provided with the opportunity to engage in it for pay if you so choose, of your own free will. And, yeesh, what’s with the focus on “sucking dick”? As a fully licensed sex provider, one assumes that you’d be able to dictate what services you do and do not provide, just as McDonalds isn’t legally obligated to cook me a steak.
No… but we already allow women to serve as surrogate mothers and men can serve as sperm donors. So it looks like we’re way ahead of your fears.
Not even on Steak and BJ day?
Well, not anymore at least, Canada raised its age of consent from 14 to 16 a few years ago.
Ok, that was a bit unfair. The age of consent** for sex workers** was always 18 in Canada, and it is in pretty much every country that has legal prostitution, in any form, be it Thailand, Germany, or somewhere in the Caribbean.
Enderw24 tell you what, offer the guy at McD’s a bj and see if he’ll cook you a steak.
Enjoy,
Steven
You have a much better local McDonalds than I do, it seems.
I’m not a fan of prostitution from a moral perspective, but I don’t think it makes sense to legislate based on morality. Like a lot of other vices, making it illegal and strictly enforcing it simply creates a black market, which means crime and lacking any sort of regulation, either internal to the industry or by the government. Sex is such a visceral drive that no amount of money spent trying to wipe it out will ever succeed and, in the process, we just end up putting everyone involved at more risk.
I think any sort of regulation would help a lot, particularly with regular STD testing for everyone involved will do a lot. I remember seeing an episode of a show, I think it was taboo, where they showed a brothel in Australia, all the men were tested, the women had full right of refusal for any reason, and always did a full inspection and used barrier protection methods too. Admittedly, it was an expensive highend brothel, but full right of refusal and visual inspections cost nothing, and barrier protection is cheap.
I also think that the whole pimp and involuntary nature that a lot of it involves is terrible and legalization and regulation can probably do a lot to help with that, at least in developed countries. I don’t think the role of a pimp can survive if the prostitutes themselves and simply hire management and security as a business. I do think it’s unfortunate that we’d still see a number of women ending up in that business, not because it’s what they really want to do, but because they don’t feel they have another alternative, but at least they’d be safer and without a pimp to extort them, maybe they’d have an easier time eventually leaving it as well.
Thinking legalization will accomplish this is an illusion. Trafficers and pimps will not vanish over night and they actually do serve a ‘purpose’. You shouldn’t expect that every 18-20 year old with limited options, is going to figure out how and where to get started by herself. Assuming streetwalking isn’t the ideal, it probably isn’t that easy to get into a brothel either…unless you get introduced. Someone upthread assumed that demand outstrips supply in this business; let’s just say this isn’t true in other developed countries that have legalized prostitution, girls are lined up to work in the places where good money is to be made.
Legalization is still to be prefered (IMHO) over criminalization, if only for the reason that it is better if working girls can consider officials/police as being ‘on their side’ instead of people to stay away from.
Heh. Penal law. Heh.
