The answer to this question I have seen other times this has been discussed is that prostitution Was legal for a long time. Around the end of the 19th century or thereabouts, prostitutes simply became an ongoing public nuisance- you couldn’t walk down the street without being accosted by a bunch of hookers. Ruined the whole family vibe, I guess.
Now, it is legal in Nevada (And RI, I think), but in brothels, not just in the street as private contractors. It is not legal in Vegas though- last time I was there, I remember a bunch of hookers hanging around the hotel, and the staff being annoyed by them, comparing them to rats or something like that. Apparently people reliably get offended by the presence of a bunch of hookers.
Is there something wrong with them? Who knows, I am the wrong guy to ask though. I figure they are just broke or straight up out of drugs and see prostitution as their path of least resistance.
I’m inclined to say prostitutes are treated like nonpersons because they were never afforded the legal protection as employees. Prostitutes don’t unionize, they don’t have minimum wages, they can’t force pimps to abide by OSHA, they probably don’t get health insurance, worker’s comp, 401k, etc… Lack of protections only amplifies the power differential between a woman and a man who literally sells the woman’s body for sex.
Also some prostitutes have children, and I dare say all such are single mothers. If a prostitute sues their pimp (eg: abuse), there’s a perceived risk that she goes to jail for the crimes of … prostitution and tax evasion. The court can definitely take the kid away.
You seem to think the act of prostitution qua prostitution implies the prostitute has a mental disorder. I disagree. Most people are wired to like sex*, which is an obvious evolutionary benefit. It is not inherently irrational to make a living by having sex.
Unfortunately there are prostitutes who may not be so excited about their career path. But that doesn’t mean anything is wrong with them mentally. Lots of normal people take jobs they don’t like, and it does not follow that something is wrong with them mentally.
Drugs can introduce addiction, which is a mental disorder. It may well be that there are many drugs in the prostitution industry right now, the movies certainly give that appearance.
~Max
*I can’t provide a cite, at least not at work. But having sex activates pleasure pathways in a relatively healthy way. Taken to an extreme, this does result in a disorder called hypersexuality.
Sure, a lot of people think it should be criminalized. Probably why, you know, there are all those laws making it illegal. Just a guess there. The thing, even in a lot of countries where it’s tolerated it’s still, technically, illegal. You might want to consider that there are people who oppose it for a variety of reasons before asking such sweeping questions, unless you meant to say ‘Does anyone on this board actually think prostitution should be criminalized?’.
As for the reasons, there are a lot, ranging from the moral to the fact most places think it’s a nuance. Here is a website that lists the top 10 reasons THEY think it should be illegal. It’s trivially easy to look this stuff up yourself:
Why single out the US? Are you under the impression that the US is the only country that criminalizes prostitution? It’s not even legal in all of Europe, let alone world wide, and the number of countries where it is legal are fewer than the countries where it’s illegal, though if you expand that to countries where it’s technically illegal but not enforced you get a better balance.
The thing is, your simplistic sucking of your dick and other graphic horseshit glosses over some of the details. The women (or men) aren’t always volunteering to do this of their own free will, despite what you might be telling yourself. Legalization would be a huge pain in the ass as you’d need to strictly regulate it or there would be abuse. Even if you do strictly regulate it, it’s open to abuse. It’s like anything else…when you make something legal there will be unintended consequences and blow back that you didn’t anticipate. So, it’s not something that is easy or cheap to do. And, frankly, there aren’t enough people who want to jump through the hoops necessary to get it made illegal in a way that actually would benefit the working people and protect them. Think about how hard it has been to get marijuana legalized and you can see a glimmer of what it would actually take to make prostitution legal across the country, let alone worldwide. The potential for abuse is staggering.
SHOULD a person freely be able to sell their body as they choose? I think so, yes…it’s their body and they should be able to do what they want. But, sadly, it isn’t always what they DO want, and often they are force or coerced into it. Personally, I think if you put regulation and strict enforcement of sane laws in place it would, eventually, help those who are in the sex business, but I’m not naive enough to think this would be cheap or easy to do, except in very small, controlled places (after all, it IS legal in parts of Nevada already).
…of course it fucking matters. If you are going to be claiming there is something inherently “mentally wrong” with an entire group of people then the very least you can do is provide some evidence for that claim.
You want me to provide data that fucking is normal? That there is something wrong with having multiple partners above a certain arbitrary number? That isn’t my obligation.
You aren’t as “liberal” as you think. Nobody “tiptoes” around this problem. You aren’t being woke" or “original” imagining sex work isn’t healthy. I’d be open to your argument if you had some evidence to back up anything you’ve said. But you don’t. You won’t even back up your “anecdotal findings” by telling me how many sex workers you interacted with to be able to determine their “mental aptitude”. You’ve got nothing.
In some countries in the world - and even in the US - women are imported to become maids and are basically enslaved as such, with their passports being held “for their protection.” Should we outlaw housecleaning, or should we increase our efforts to stem abuses?
The question about legalization puts the cart before the horse. First we must ask
(1) Is prostitution helpful or harmful for society, the economy, and liberty?
I don’t think this question has an easy answer, but will note:
(a) Easily available sex might raise society’s net happiness!
(b) I read here about the bizarre “Incel” phenomenon. Prostitution might be a partial remedy for ailments like that.
But along with prostitution comes forced prostitution:
ONLY after considering question (1), and considering the perils of forced prostitution should the question of legalization even arise. The highest priority must be to reduce coercion and other harms.
“IIRC” implies I’m no expert. And anyway, studies differ. For example:
I didn’t click XT’s link, but the source certainly thinks it has the answers! I’m especially skeptical of the final claim in the quote.
Those who use a broad brush to paint all prostitutes, are in error IMO.
They are Unionized in New Zealand and have been for over 30 years. The New Zealand Prostitutes Collective was founded in 1987 before prostitution was legalized and if you wanted to use the “labor and management” model then it wasn’t pimps they were negotiating against as “management” it was the New Zealand government and instead of a worker’s employment contract they were looking for laws to be passed through the legislature.
Which is why the whole issue of pimps is mostly a red herring in this discussion. The controlling authority, who sets the working conditions, rules for market access, health and safety standards, etc. is the government, not the dude in platform shoes with goldfish in them. Pimps exist for the same reason warlords exist in failed states. They provide necessary services, particularly security, access to markets, and support. Don’t laugh, the stereotype of an abusive pimp is only part of it. Most pimps spend their time posting listings for their girls, scouting locations where they can work without interference, communicating with clients while the girls are behind closed doors, etc. In today’s information age a pimp is part marketing, part secretary, part driver, part bouncer, etc… These are necessary to run a business with fuzzy legal status. In the one place in the US where prostitution is legal the brothel handles all those services and you’ll find the women there don’t have pimps. If prostitution was legal odds are services for all those needs would spring up that would have standard, contractually enforceable, behaviors that minimize the problems we see when they’re provided by pimps.
That’s a whole separate issue. Drugs can drive someone to desperation AND impair their judgment so they do things they wouldn’t do even if they weren’t desperate. But drugs are a social health crisis and prostitution is more of a employment and market issue. It’s the world’s oldest profession and substance abuse is a bigger problem among the sex workers who self medicate to avoid the issues they can’t overcome, like legal recourse to a client who treated them poorly, or being able to legally manage their funds. Sex workers are often on the fringes of society already and doing things like using FOSTA/SESTA to seize their bank balances are going to marginalize them further and push them into taking even more risky work.
I’m pretty libertarian about this. If people can voluntarily work in the fields picking vegetables until their kidneys give out from repeated dehydration and they die before they’re forty and we’re ok with the market managing that situation then why not let people use their genitalia to make money?
Why wouldn’t you ask “is making sex work illegal helpful or harmful to sex workers?”
Your “notes” are framed through a male gaze. Why do incels matter? They are statistically insignificant. They shouldn’t even be part of this discussion.
“Forced prostitution” remains illegal in countries like New Zealand that have legalized sex work.
Except the question you ask doesn’t have a single, objective answer, and almost nothing exists where you couldn’t argue that it both “helps” or “harms” society. The “perils” of forced prostitution is something you are dealing with now. Why would decriminalizing or legalizing change this?
“IIRC” implies you’ve seen the studies, but cannot recall the exact details.
If you had of clicked on the link you would have discovered the list was compiled Janice G Raymond, a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist who authored the book " The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male." A quote from the book: “All transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves.”
And you should be skeptical of the final claim. In New Zealand the law change came about because of active lobbying from women and men from the sex industry. Here is the case Amnesty International makes for decriminalizing sex work:
Those who view this issue through the lens of “well maybe it will fix the incels” are in error as well.
Why exactly would giving one’s body in exchange of money require a mental affliction? Why would it be necessarily worst than, say, extracting coal, or cleaning office toilets 3-7 am and then again 7-11 pm?
That’s a ridiculous notion. You could go outside and walk and sprain or break something if you take a misstep. You’re also implying all athletes endure injuries that cause permanent harm.
An athlete, barring any CTE trauma, is fully capable of understanding the risks. They enter a legal contract with a team or league to be paid to play. These contracts also include guaranteed minimums and clauses that pay out if the contract is terminated for X reasons over Y reasons. Athletes often have access to some of the world’s best medical care not paid by them, but their team or league. They eat some of the best food possible. They train at world renown centers.
By your own notion, drivers who drive every day fall under the same argument you posed because they take a risk of traveling 65 mph in a metal box.
This pretty much. Not to mention that barring financial struggle, few will go into prostitution. I’d even argue professional pornographers have deep rooted issues. Not mental illness, but something that caused them to do that. I recall a case where a gifted Harvard student chose to engage in porn when she came from an upper middle class or upper class family and seemed fairly normal. Of all the things to do, especially with a top tier education, you chose one of the lowest “professions”?
Lots of athletes don’t have the benefits of the best doctors. Even without CTE lots of athletes are pretty banged up by the end of their careers. Check out the news of injuries and surgeries which are a standard part of their life.
But you clearly think male athletes are smart enough to evaluate these risks and female prostitutes aren’t. In a legal system they’d have contracts also, have a union (like New Zealand) and regulated hours and medical care.
In the current situation they can’t call the cops when abused. That won’t be true under legalization.
Plus, you can require drug tests and treatment.
I’m all for lowering the boom for pimps and johns who go outside the legal system. And transitioning the women to become legal. But right now unless they are in certain counties of Nevada, they can’t be legal.
I compare them to difficult, unpleasant, not valued, poorly paid and health-threatening jobs for obvious reasons. Why makes you (or whoever stated that you needed to have a mental affliction to sell sex, can’t remember if it was you) think that one needs to be mentally deficient to sell sex but not to accept such extremely bad jobs?
I could most certainly compare them to astronauts or politicians. I’ve seen many sex workers blogs on Tumblr, when it used to be a thing, that clearly hadn’t been created by mentally deficient people. I would equate some of the cam-girls there to artists doubling as businesswomen with a knack for promotion. And very obviously hard working : you don’t produce dozens of high quality videos that people want to watch by being a lazy idiot. I’m sure that not all prostitutes or other sex workers are the brightest bulb on the porch, but some are definitely vastly above average in the brain department. And somehow decided not to pick another job.
And regarding the lack of logical argument : I’m still waiting for any logical explanation of your belief that they must have a mental problem. You make an assertion based on…nothing, as far as I can tell…and expect others to present sound arguments to contradict it. I don’t see the need to present any argument, because you’ve failed to justify your belief in any way. I’m trying to make you advance any kind of argument in support of your position
Are you forgetting young women who fund their education this way? They aren’t mythical, we even used to have one on this board (maybe still present, for all I know)
It’s one of the lowest profession only because people like you insist that it is so. There’s no reason that it should be considered lower, than, say, being a model, who also sell their bodies, although in a different way.
And so, how do you explain that someone who has other options would still pick this activity? Despite having to face the loathing coming from people like you?
…“Why Sex Work will not be legalised in America any time soon, datapoint #1001”
(Quoted in full in case WSB-TV deletes the link)
The story, framed around the deaths of two sex-workers, isn’t about the murder of the sex-workers but that “nothing is being done about prostitution.” Sex-work is talked about in the abstract, both in the article and by many in this very thread.
This is an issue with legalization. The government will require (as it should) drug tests, treatment, health inspections, condom use, business licenses, no brothels near schools, churches or residential areas, the payment of income tax and the like which will drive up the price and exclude some women who want to become prostitutes. What does a drug addicted prostitute do under this system?
Nevada is the perfect example. I am told (yes, really I was told ) that these places are out in the middle of nowhere, are insanely expensive, and due to the regulations and the realities of the business model, they only have a certain number of prostitutes. This means, naturally, that only the most beautiful women fill the limited slots (there’s a joke in there somewhere) leaving the vast majority of women who want to become prostitutes unemployed in these legal brothels.
Further, the customers will want certain things like cheaper prices, more convenience, a better selection to meet their budget, and blow jobs or intercourse without a condom.
I mean, suppose I am in Vegas and am drunk and horny right now. I’m not going to get a cab for a two hour ride out in the desert and blow most of a paycheck and then a two hour ride back. I am going to look for an illegal hooker, and that is exactly what happens. Vegas is awash in prostitution despite it being legal nearby.
It seems that you still have the illegal market with all of the issues that come along with that while establishing a legal system where the well to do have access to legal prostitution. Doesn’t sound like a practical solution.
