Weed is finally legal and readily available. Why not prostitution?

Great Debates
41

…from wiki:

The NZ reforms:

https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2003/0028/latest/whole.html#DLM197815

The objectives are different.

The goal of the Nordic model is to decrease the demand for sex work. The goal of the NZ model is, in essence, to safeguard the human rights and protect the well being of sex workers.

With the Nordic model, typically sex buyers are criminalized. In the NZ model, if both the sex worker and the buyer are consenting, of legal age, and comply with the health and safety regulations that are in the legislation, the government doesn’t care. Its a consensual sexual act between two consenting adults that just happens to have an exchange of money.

As mentioned above in the NZ model sex workers can work together in a “sex-worker-owned brothel” with up to four other sex workers, and as long as there “isn’t a boss”, and each worker is in control of their own income, they don’t need to get an operators licence. The purpose of sex-worker-owned brothels is to provide a way for sex workers to work in an environment where they can live together if they want, provide mutual protection, but otherwise act in the same way as an independent sex worker.

Sex workers can also “work on the street.” Exactly where they can work are set by local councils and by-laws.

And sex workers can work in brothels. Brothels owners need to hold a Operators Licence, which requires them to ensure they comply with the relevant law.

The NZ framework is explicit that you cannot induce or compel anyone else to provide sexual services without consent. And everyone is required to comply with the relevant health and safety laws. There was even an Occupational Health and Safety document (warning NSFW text) that goes into quite explicit detail about ways sex worker can protect themselves and their clients.

As I linked to up thread: the ACLU, HRW and Ammnesty International all advocate for decriminalisation over the Nordic model and other options for a couple of reasons: the evidence clearly shows decriminalization has better outcomes, and secondly decriminalization doesn’t treat sex workers as “second class citizens” that society is trying to eliminate.

42

Alas, here and in many other places a significant feminist faction would be in opposition, based on an Article Of Faith that any sex trade is ipso facto exploitation – or even worse, that there cannot possibly be valid consent to engage in sexwork.

Which is a problem here in the US where the notion of “rights” is culturally tied in with a legal-political dispute in which half of the national power structure does NOT believe that personal privacy is a right worth protecting at all.

Partly because the several states passed sex-trafficking laws… and in enforcement basicaly just substituted that for the previous laws on common vulgar street pimping with, yes, the usual skew.

(rappers celebrating their own pimphood is often called out as one of those “you’re not helping” things in the culture, but this is not the place to go into that)

…

With many things, in the US the notion of decriminalization v. legalization-and-close-regulation (of drugs, of sexwork, of whatever) gets tied up in a whole moralistic debate. Not only is there the anarchy fallacy (“w/o a legal mandate how are we to avoid law-of-the-jungle chaos?”) but then there is how we refer to the levies and excises on things like alcohol, tobacco, gambling, etc. : As “Sin taxes”. It is presumed these are all things that are ultimately “bad for you” even if popular culture supports them, and the reason to legalize and regulate is so it’s the Government officials with calculators and not Mr. Capone with Tommy guns who get to oversee it.

43

Thank you for fighting my ignorance – although I did note that your research only included data through 2010.

44

I 100% believe you, and furthermore wish the U.S. could simply let people who want to do sex work professionally interact freely with people like me who would happily pay them.

It’ll never happen.

No services business in the U.S. operates with complete freedom from government oversight, and pretty much anything involving physical contact – massage therapy, for example – requires accreditation from quasi-governmental agencies. (I know these agencies are problematic in their own right, so let’s not argue about that. They’re not going away and thus will be a factor in any decriminalization of sex work.)

Plus, the more controversial a practice is, the more important it is to make it a cash cow to overcome that controversy. Alcohol, weed, gambling, etc. are gigantic revenue sources for state and local governments – and yes, as you point out, doing the same for sex work “won’t get rid of the “shady characters”. It gentrifies them, and gives them the full backing of the state and the police forces. This would be a bad thing.”

I just can’t imagine it happening here any other way.

45

It looks very different in more recent stats;

46

Sure does:

Of the 1,169 defendants charged with any of the three
types of human trafficking offenses in fiscal year 2020:

  • 92% were male
  • 63% were white
  • 18% were black
  • 17% were Hispanic
  • 95% were U.S. citizens
  • 66% had no prior convictions.
47

Note that it’s different for the 3 categories (Peonage, slavery, forced labor, and sex trafficking; Sexual exploitation and other abuse of children; and Transportation for illegal sex activity)
Blacks are 18% overall, but 50% in that first category.

48

…I always find it funny that “the land of the free” isn’t really all that free, especially when it come to business, bodily autonomy, the press freedom index, and the fact you lock up more people per capita than anywhere else in the world.

You really need to workshop a new national slogan.

49

Tbf, AFAICT that varies somewhat depending on the activity. Homeschooling kids, for example, seems to be more tightly regulated in NZ than in most if not all US states; Kiwis have to apply to the Ministry of Education for permission to homeschool. And of course, rules about what organisms and possible organism-bearing objects you can and cannot bring into the country are WAY more draconian in NZ than in the US.

Adults are required by federal law to wear bicycle helmets in NZ, not in the US. NZ law doesn’t let you name your baby “King” or several other names that are fine in the US. And so on. As a rule, most people find that the unfamiliar laws of foreigners tend to seem more oppressively and unreasonably restrictive than the ones they’ve grown up taking for granted.

50

…yeah, but we don’t call ourselves “the land of the free.” So the fact that we might do some things that you consider to be “less free” isn’t really relevant because our national identity isn’t tied up in thinking we are the most “free nation in the world.”

And as most people in this thread seem to concede, its pretty much impossible that America would ever draft a set of laws that had no ulterior motive, that would just treat sex workers like human beings. And there is no more damning indictment on the “land of the free” than that.

51

I find it strange that if two people have sex, you film them, and they both get paid, that’s pornography and it’s legal.

If only one is being paid, that’s prostitution and it’s illegal.

I’m trying to think of an equivalent with weed. It’s like saying that if you get filmed smoking weed for a movie, then that’s just a stoner comedy and it’s legal.

52

Yes, massage therapists and hair dressers are regulated and licensed and need to get continuing professional education in most states. I suppose it would be crazy to assume prostitutes could avoid all that.

53

Like many such things, it’s aspirational.

54

Regarding oversight and regulation, would that apply in the scenario @Banquet_Bear is describing, which is just focusing on decriminalization, so a prostitute’s “work” is no longer illegal. Maybe it’s analogous to someone who grows some weed in their backyard for their own recreational use, but sells a little bit to their neighbors for some extra cash. Or someone who raises chickens has too many eggs and sells the surplus from their driveway. Those sorts of activities may or may not be illegal, but no one will care. Sure, an enterprise producing tons of pot or millions of eggs needs oversight and regulation, but an individial prostitute is a one-person enterprise selling one service at a time - why would that need regulation?

55

I don’t know whether or not I’m in favor of regulation - but an individual hairstylist/barber selling one service at a time is currently subject to regulation. Whether they can get away without complying is another story entirely .

I think we need standard definitions of “decriminalization” and “legalization” because in the US, “decriminalization” means it’s still illegal. It either means 1) the action/activity is prohibited, but the law prohibiting it does not have criminal penalties ( the law requires me to shovel snow on my sidewalk, but it’s not a crime) or 2) There is some jurisdiction that prohibits the action/activity but the jurisdiction that does most of the enforcement does not prohibit it. For example, marijuana is not legal in the US. Not anywhere. It remains illegal under Federal law. But many states have decriminalized simple possession and state and local law enforcement agencies will not enforce the Federal law.

56

…I’ve provided links to the definition of both of these words, and they all pretty much say the same thing. Here is the ACLU link again, it that doesn’t provide clarity, I’m not sure what else will.

57

Do you mean regulation as in some sort of guild membership? There is a user on the Straight Dope who told of frequenting the world’s largest brothel, in Cologne, and while the prostitutes are one-person enterprises the management is not obligated to let anyone work out of there (or enter as a customer) if they do not agree to their rules.

58

…in NZ, no guild membership is required. I’ve linked to the legislation up thread, it isn’t very long, that outlines how within our framework what regulations exist. Here, the sex worker has the absolutely right to refuse services to anyone at any time, even if working in a brothel, for no reason.

59

OK, I’m going to need you to elaborate on just what that would entail for prostitutes, and how they would be graded. The lab practicals would be…interesting. :wink:

60

Yes, it does to an extent.

Decriminalization refers to the removal of criminal penalties for the buying and selling of sexual acts, specifically those categorized as prostitution. Decriminalization is not the same as legalization.

Legalization removes criminal penalties for certain incidents of buying and selling of sexual acts, i.e. prostitution, provided the participants comply with relevant regulations.

I don’t agree that legalization requires regulation, although in the specific case of prostitution it’s likely that there would be some form of regulation.

But if you saw what I quoted , that person said your scenario focused on “decriminalization” which means prostitution is not illegal - and the ACLU’s definition of “decriminalization” very specifically does not say that buying and selling sexual acts would not be illegal - it says it would remove criminal penalties. Now , maybe that’s not possible where you live. Maybe where you live everything is either a crime or perfectly legal - but that’s not the case in the US.