I don’t understand why it’s legal for a pornography industry in which people are paid, by producers and directors, to have sex, is legal, but it is against the law in most of the United States for women to prostitute themselves.
Aren’t all porn actors and actresses prostitutes by nature? Their job is to offer their sexual services for money. The only difference is that they are offering themselves to big-shot porn studios rather than to the average shlub walking down the street. Why don’t the cops raid Wicked Pictures and Vivid Video on the grounds of it being organized prostitution?
Porn studios are legal because the performers, male and female, are not being paid for having sex. They are being paid to act in a movie (or photo shoot, etc.) As a part of that movie, there are hardcore sex scenes.
If the studios were grabbing people off the street and letting them participate for money, then it would be prostitution. However, since the studios are paying them to act, which includes shooting sex scenes, there is no prostitution involved.
To expand on brianjedi’s earlier remarks, another aspect of this is that if you engage in prostitution, at least one of the parties is doing it for fun .
In a porn production, everyone is doing it for money .
Sometimes they do get raided, though not as much today as it did in the 70’s and 80’s. I believe, however, the charges usually were more about obscenity than prostitution. I know many film stars and directors are/were constantly embroiled in legal battles over their “art”.
So theoretically, a brothel could open with the pretense of being a film studio, and they could say that every time a john and a hooker did their business, so to speak, it was being filmed and turned into a movie (in other words, they could say everyone was just an “actor.”) With a talented enough lawyer, this brothel could probably avoid excessive legal trouble. Right?
Paul, it’s no news that prostitution laws are illogical. There are indeed many, many brothels that get along just fine; personally I know more than one person who is a career prositute, and who have never had run-ins with the law.
Also, the person paying for the sex generally isn’t the person receiving the sex. I don’t know if that distinction comes into play anywhere, but it is a distinction.
There’s a movie available for rent now, a profile of porn legend Ron Jeremy. I don’t feel like looking it up. His name is in the title, look in the IMDB.
Anyhoo, in it, there is footage of him doing a Q&A/lecture deal.
He claims that a court ruling, in, I believe, 1993, decided that porn was legal in the same way that boxing is legal: Behavior that we might find reprehensible in the street becomes acceptable as entertainment when surrounded with the appropriate trappings. Without the lights and cameras, boxing is just two guys trying to beat the snot out of each other, which in other contexts, we usually put a stop to. But if you’re not going to outlaw boxing, why outlaw porn, which is simply prostitution with lights and cameras?
This was the legal logic as presented by Mr. Jeremy in the film.
The Hedgehog was referring to a case called People v. Freeman. I could not find a linkable copy of the case, but here is a discussion of the case and others that fit right into this thread.
A couple of points:
Prostitution is exchanging sex for money. You can’t add other stuff to the act and make it go away. Similarly, one can be charged, as Mr. Freeman was, with pandering, aiding and abetting, and other not so nice things without paying or being paid to have sex.
The *Freeman * case says that, at least in California, free speech concerns override prostitution laws. While I politically favor the result, I’m not so sure about the Court’s logic. I have not read the opinion in about 10 years, so I’ll stop right there.
