I don’t really have much interest in today’s current social hot button issues like marijuana and gay marriage. But from memorable experiences during my travels abroad, I will admit that having legalized prostitution back home would be pretty cool.
Perhaps someone with more insight into this issue than me can comment. I know there’s no chance in the next 10 years. What about the next 20 or 30? Does it seem like there is some traction at all towards the legalization of prostitution in the US at the federal level, or in a significant number of states?
Actually, legalization is more popular than you might think. About 38% of Americans favour legalization of prostitution, and 48% oppose it. Same-sex marriage was more unpopular thn that, not too long ago, but things changed.
I tend to think prostitution should be legalized, personally, but I’d want extremely heavy government regulation if it is.
I’m not sure there’s enough money involved to draw the attention of the people pulling the strings in Congress; one of the big arguments for legalizing marijuana was that it would be taxable and lower costs of litigation & imprisonment. I don’t know whether those are factors in the prostitution industry. In spite of being legal in certain limited parts of Nevada, it’s not a wildly successful money-maker.
In various European countries it’s legal for a woman to be a prostitute but illegal for a man to hire her. I would not be surprised to see a move in that direction, if we’re talking about decades out.
It moves the law-breaking act away from the (potentially victimized) woman. If you’re gonna ban prostitution, I think it’s probably exactly the wrong way to deal with it, but it’s certainly more friendly to women and I’m not well-versed in whatever argument this may be.
It might help to define the parameters of the question. Legalized somewhere in the US? Already happened. Legalized everywhere in the US? Probably not; legally it’s a state and local issue that doesn’t create the sort of cross-jurisdiction issues that (for example) arise from gay marriage, so there’s no real need for uniformity.
You never say never, but I just don’t see any kind of groundswell for legalization.
It may be legalized in various locales here and there, but there’s no widespread demand for legalized prostitution, so why would any politician propose it?
Beyond that, pot and prostitution are two different things- there’s a huge number of underground pot smokers of all walks of life, a relatively harmless drug involved, and a criminal infrastructure supplying them with pot. The idea behind legalization is essentially to crush the criminal infrastructure and get some of that action in the form of tax, as well as regulate the industry.
Prostitution doesn’t have a huge number of patrons- if anything, the patronage is much less than it was in say 100 years ago, when it was still illegal, but authorities generally turned a blind eye. While there may be criminal infrastructure in getting girls to the brothels, from what I gather, it’s underage girls, which would still be illegal.
The only thing that the governments would get from making it legal would be regulation and taxation, and I’m not at all convinced there’s that enough money to be made from taxation to offset regulation costs.
Prostitution, or at least a fairly heavily regulated brothel-based prostitution system, is legal in several counties in Nevada. In this case, it appears that the “legal” prostitution there is actually 100% really-and-truly-o legal, as opposed to Colorado’s “legal” marijuana where it is actually still illegal under Federal law and the FBI could swoop in at anytime.
So maybe that’s how it should be - keep it legally available, but push it far away from those who don’t want to see it in their town. Those who want it can still get it.
In nordic countries, specifically : Norway, Sweden, I believe, maybe Finland.
A similar law was to be implemented in France, but it was buried despite an initial majority vote in the lower chamber (which is the only one that really matters, in France), I don’t know why. Which is fortunate since 1) I was opposed to this law 2)The proponents displayed such a bad faith IMO that it was shocking 3)It was contrary to the interests of prostitutes (and all their associations expressed the same concerns, but of course they were the only ones whose opinion nobody cared about).
There are plenty of reasons to outlaw prostitutions (as well as reasons not to outlaw it), but I don’t think ‘it’s exploiting women’ is a good one, nor are prostitutes necessarily ‘victimes’ (assuming they’re of legal age, knew what they were getting into, etc.).
Also, it’s hilarious that they would put forth a bill purportedly to protect ‘exploited victims’, and then not care about the interests of the people they were supposedly trying to protect.
I would stress that’s there’s a very heavy moral issue with prostitution that doesn’t exist with marijuana. And on both sides of the political spectrum : as much from the conservative Christian as from the leftist feminists.
Plenty of people are extremely preoccupied with whom is fucking whom, and think they’re perfectly entitled to regulate your bedroom behaviour for your own good or that of your partner.
And as long as we keep making sex something extra-super-duper special, it’s not going to change. I dream of the day when people will care as much about whom you’re having sex with as about with whom you’re playing tennis. Not going to happen in my lifetime, unfortunately.
Drug consumption isn’t at all similar.
