Should Prostitution Be a Crime?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Our bodies wear down and tire doing non-sexual labor. What makes sexual labor so horrid? As long as we do safe procedures (condoms, dental dams, etc.), there shouldn't be any problems with labor of a sexual nature.
It's always better if you like your job. A lot of us do programming, or designing systems, or administration. We enjoy it. There's also people who like sex. I know a few, and they have made more in the sex industry.
The only real problems are disease and abuse. Disease is obvious, but "owners" like pimps and such are big problems. We don't accept this in standard employment.
And yes, sex for money for both genders is pretty awesome. It bypasses the whole mating ritual, and makes very clear expectations up front. And once done, the transaction is completed. Regular relationships can, and will get messy. I can certainly understand why some would not want to venture down that avenue in their point of life.
Now, if you're talking about paid surrogacy, that's a whole different area, and a whole different set of laws.
Sure used, but easily avoided, and it would be a social and political nightmare to deal with this as a society.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#Life_Value_in_th...
[2] http://www.businessinsider.com/the-epa-has-tabulated-the-val...
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/weekinreview/09marsh.html
Same for abortion.
Just googling a little: http://gradworks.umi.com/34/32/3432633.html
''' The vast majority, 19 of the 20 participants, had been pregnant as a result of intimate partner, rape, and prostitution encounters. The risk of pregnancy was not a concern for most participants. Participants rarely used consistent contraception with either intimate partners or prostitution clients. Most pregnancies were unintended, irrespective of prostitution involvement. '''
OK. Anecdotal, not random sampling, but it proves that "Just use contraception!" isn't a fair answer for whatever reason.
Anyway, the kids that are born to prostitutes are certainly not consenting and absolutely in a bad situation.
I hope ProAm gets some corrective upvotes, because they're making reasonable points in a polite way, yet all their posts are getting downvotes.
Religion, especially Christendom and it's various strains. Before that in many cultures, sex was seen a something positive, a pleasure in which you should indulge in.
You can see it on TV. Take DareDevils TVSeries, but I'm sure you'll find many examples, there are countless raw violence scenes for free, but 3 seasons in and DareDevil hasn't been with a woman with the exception of a kiss. It's okay to display violence, no one will argue, but displaying explicit sex scenes... Well that's a no-no :-)
We have more than a few remnants from the dark ages.
EDIT: There's this amazing song by an Italian cantautor called "Fabrizio De Andre". The story (lyrics) are spectacular, full of everyday life wisdom. You can read an English translation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysydBLMSbRs
I can go and sell blood, or work ten hours a day, or eat until I explode, yet I have someone dictating what I can or cannot do with my sex life?
Certainly more than a few remnants from the dark ages.
Or perhaps that has more to do with the fact that Catholicism is central to Mathew Murdock as a character, so it makes sense he isn't sleeping around given that premarital sex is a big no-no for Catholics. Also, we're only two seasons in, not three.
There's an entire flashback sequence where Foggy gets excited to learn Matt uses his "disability" to woo ladies. He figures some of that will spill over into his lap.
If you're looking for more, one might suggest the "affiliated" Hell's-Kitchen-in-Marvel-Universe-on-Netflix program Jessica Jones. Ms. Jones has a different philosophy than Mr. Murdock with respect to casual intercourse, which you might find more appealing. They appear to agree on plenty of the old ultra-violence, however.
Two C.S. Lewis quotes on the subject:
"The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins."
"...a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute."
The desire for sex is ingrained in human nature, and so long as people can pay for things, sex will be one of the things they pay for. If we can reduce the number of victims by making it legal and regulating it, then I'm all for it. But, at the same time, I'd consider myself a failure as a moral guide if my daughter chose it as a career.
One of the issues around sex work, even in countries where it is legal is how the stigma associated with sex work leads to increased negative outcomes for sex workers.
And although moral outrage against sex may not be in the teachings of Jesus, it's certainly in the teachings of Paul and other canonical early Christian writers.
I believe the correct legal thing to do is to criminalize only the buying side of the transaction. If you pay for it, you are victimizing, and that should be criminal. If you provide, that's legal, but not moral.
Decriminilizing it is about improving safety for sex workers. I think that is where our questions of morality should focus. People are going to continue to have sexual needs. Prostitution gets called the oldest profession for a reason: Even certain monkey/ape species will trade sex for goods (like food). Making it illegal doesn't make it go away. It just makes it riskier and that risk disproportionately negatively impacts the women doing sex work.
For that, the Nordic model actually works. Full decriminalization doesn't. http://mic.com/articles/112814/here-s-what-s-happened-in-swe...
I think they have an internal feeling of right versus wrong, and then they seek out belief structures that justify their feelings.
That means all this psychological discussion of "feeling dirty" and "justifying their feelings" is attacking a straw man fallacy.
I think that is a weak reframing of the breadth of sex, and that sex for the supermajority of American people, in and out of the church, is pre-marital.
I think young Christian boys are taught that sexual fantasy and pornography is the same as adultery, a defilement of the temple that is their body. I think one example that's brought up along these lines of narrative is a story of direct divine punishment for the spilling of seed. I think Protestant and non-denominationals with sizeable youth groups form little sexual discussion groups, especially for boys, where they vent their sexual guilt with regards to their fantasy of the day or how they masturbated. I think American Christian parents are ever anxious about government discussion of sex, and that they backwardly expend finite energy to make it a political battle point. And I think American Christian culture is as much about the implicit as it is about the explicit.
But somehow your choice framing of the discussion is that Christians don't feel dirty about sex because they are explicitly taught that only sex outside of marriage is dirty.
Young boys and girls in the church learn the anxiety of the community and their parents first, and then they listen to the belief structures to justify that anxiety.
A straw man, by the way, is a misrepresentation of someone else's discussion, and not actually a logical fallacy at all. It is by definition outside of logical purview. Most people would be better off not ever hearing about logical fallacies, because it gets in the way of quality thinking.
Anyways, I want to make one last point about American Christians expending their precious, finite energy in politics. I say that there are 3 high consensus Christian political issues in America, in order of strength: (1) abortion, (2) homosexuality, and (3) sex education in school. The latter is the weakest, and mostly in state-level politics, but there it is brutally fought. Notice the theme of these 3 issues?
It's really kind of silly that these are the highest consensus issues for American Christians. Um, not poverty, right? Or injustice in the police system, and classism and racism in America? Yes. Let's discuss abortion, homosexuality, and sex education in schools (condoms detract from abstinence!).
I made no reframing of the breadth of human sexuality, because that was not what was being discussed. I did make assertions regarding the Christian teaching of what was moral in regard to human sexuality.
You then state a number of assumptions (prefaced with "I think") which are largely irrelevant. The story of Onan, who spilled his seed during intercourse rather than give his brother's widow a child as the Mosaic law required, was punished because of disobedience to the law. That had nothing to do with fantasy or pornography.
Christian teachings regarding sexual fantasy or pornography are all aimed at the training of one's conscience to avoid behavior that typically leads one to the societal norm of extra-marital sexual experience. This expands to a wider belief regarding self-control. If you routinely do something wrong, you come to accept it as normal, and are likely to continue where that path winds.
A straw man argument is a logical fallacy [1]. It is the deliberate misrepresentation of someone's position in order to make it easier to attack. My opinion is that understanding logical fallacies (formal and informal) is important for conducting honest and rational discussions, so we disagree on that.
I tend to agree with your point about wasted effort regarding enforcement of morality with law.
I then watched an entire human body literally splatter against a wall without censorship, followed later by a heavily injured protagonist standing up facing away, presumably nude because they blurred out his butt.
How absurd! How can nudity be an issue? We're all naked under these clothes.
This is also why I believe religion should be ridiculed and shamed until it drops this utterly false pretense, until it -all of them- come out and publicly recall the sins of the flesh.
Your main point seems to be lack of explicit sexual content on DareDevil. You are tying that with Matt Murdock's (loose) Christian faith. I feel somewhat differently about DareDevil and it's story line.
[1] In season 2, Matt had relationship with Electra and they _do_ have sex in the boxing gym. Creators of the show did not show it _very_ explicitly.
[2] Matt's discussions with Father Lantom in the Church is more spiritual rather than religious, IMO. They discuss about morals, right/wrong etc. Notice that Lantom always uses "God" and not "Jesus" (AFAIR). I don't think anything Father Lantom says is picked out of Bible or looks like preaching. Just his observations on life. I am a Hindu and I totally related to what he was saying. Never felt he was preaching or giving sermons. I feel, you can rename Matt to something else and put a Temple of Mosque there and still all that Father Lantom says will be appropriate (story line wise).
[3] Matt is very clear in his priorities. Given his "other life", he simply cannot afford to have a serious relationship. He states it at some point with Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson). His will "weakens" in season 2 and begins relationship with Karen Page before Electra comes in and sours it. With all this background, and no serious relationships between other characters, having an explicit sexual scene seems contrived and needless.
[4] The original content from Netflix in the Drama section has about 10 series. I watched 4 of them to a certain lengths. The amount of explicit content, particularly sexual content, is too much for me. Many times I feel there is absolutely no need for it (especially with Marco and Sense8). In that light, I feel DareDevil is much better for me.
Sorry, my comment is too long than I intended. And it digressed from OP and more on DD's story line.
I disagree, Catholicism is a big part of the Daredevil character.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/04/netfli...
Neither of those things are really accurate though. Christianity long considered sex positive too. Having sex with your spouse was in fact a legal requirement, your wife could sue you for not performing.
Most other cultures were the same way. Everyone having sex with everyone made for a pretty bad society. That's why there was so much focus on pairing off and creating a family.
(disclaimer: I do not believe that view)
For a deep dive, see Pope St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body[1] and the late Fr. Paul Quay's The Christian Meaning of Human Sexuality[2].
Thing is, I'm not particularly religion and neither is my wife, but our family insisted we get married in a Catholic church so we had to go through with it. So I opted for the retreat because it got it over and done with in a weekend.
To lessen distractions from the cares of daily life, retreats are usually conducted away from one's domicile in some peaceful setting (mountains, coast, etc.), at a "retreat center" or some facility that provides sleeping quarters, bathrooms, meeting space, and a refectory. To make the whole exercise cost-efficient, a retreat is usually conducted for a small to medium-sized group, rather than for just one or two participants.
In the context of religious institutions, it is a fairly common practice to organize retreats for persons who are finalizing their preparations for a change in state of life, e.g. going from single to married, lay person to ordained, student to graduate, etc. The topics addressed at such retreats usually pertain to that change, with an aim to help participants better prepare internally for the obligations and challenges ahead.
[0] Not sure what it would be called in the US but something very strictly Christian where you cannot do anything on sunday, not only not work, but also not drive cars etc and in are not allowed to have (own or use) TVs, radio's, computers and have special schools schools which teach them this kind of thing. Thinking (yes thinking), at any moment, about anything that is not allowed, will land you in hell. The ordeal made me an atheist at a young age, but I remember the teachings well.
That's my point. Christianity has long been very pro-sex, just with your spouse. As I said, you could be sued for not having sex with your spouse.
>Also, as someone who was raised Catholic it was very clear. If you're not doing it to procreate you are sinning.
That is totally incorrect. You aren't allowed to prevent conception, you need to "let god decide". But there's nothing suggesting the purpose of sex must be procreation. Again, there's a spiritual and emotional side of sex that is seen as vital.
Someone can say it has an emotional aspect all they want (and they do, and it's true) but that doesn't stop the other part from being true too.
Note: I have a child and I love her more than anything. Buy saying you can't do anything to prevent pregnancy and saying the only way you can have sex if there is a chance you procreate is the same thing (unless your physically incapable).
No it is not. At all. Saying you can't barf up your food after you eat it is not the same as saying you can only eat solely for the purpose of nourishment. You can still eat for taste and pleasure. You just can't prevent yourself from getting the nourishment that goes with it.
>Buy saying you can't do anything to prevent pregnancy and saying the only way you can have sex if there is a chance you procreate is the same thing
Which has nothing to do with the subject. You are confusing intent with outcome.
"In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued his landmark encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Latin, "Human Life"), which reemphasized the Church’s constant teaching that it is always intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent new human beings from coming into existence.
Contraception is "any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act [sexual intercourse], or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" (Humanae Vitae 14). This includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicides, coitus interruptus (withdrawal method), the Pill, and all other such methods."[1]
The opposite of true. I recommend "Sex at Dawn" for a good treatment of this topic
https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Dawn-Stray-Modern-Relationships-e...
TL;DR "Everyone having sex with everyone" pretty much maintained social cohesion in small societies for millenia.
> The book generated a great deal of publicity in the popular press, where it was met with generally positive reviews. A number of scholars from related academic disciplines such as anthropology, evolutionary psychology, primatology, biology, and sexology have commented on the book; most have been critical of the book's methodology and some of its conclusions, although some academics have praised the book.
Wasn't there a fairly explicit sex scene in the most recent season (which incidentally is 2, not 3)?
I can imagine that historically prostitution was kinda the equivalent of becoming a eunuch. Sure it maybe pays well, but you typically won't marry (I guess unless your stunningly beautiful?) and you won't carry on your family lineage (or the vague female equivalent)
There is a fascinating essay on the moral theology of Thomas Aquinas – one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Western Christian thought – as it pertains to the toleration of prostitution:
Aquinas on the Practice of Prostitution
Can you back that up with evidence?
"Because religion" is a predictable response, but I think there is more to it than that. This argument fails to acknowledge the fact that sex is inherently an emotional activity, while other activities, such as bricklaying, are not. The social aspects of prostitution, and the implications on relationships between humans, are precisely why it is widely deplored beyond religious ideology. Religion is not some construct of imagination, it is the result of human cultural development over thousands of years.
It's generally exploitive of women.
It's a business that fundamentally thrives on exploiting the weak. Similar industries that ride the edge like porn and strip joints aren't exactly empowering of women, and attract a seedy element from a business owner (and patron) point of view.
I'm perfectly okay with fathers telling their daughters "This is something you shouldn't do", but once you get the state involved you're limiting the freedom of people who've thought it through and decided to go ahead anyway.
as with most issues, nuance is key
As this person's experiences illustrate, it's not about choice: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2012/02/22/dissent-of-the-day...
So that does the opposite of justifying prohibition.
doesn't measure trafficing, it only measures how many incidenses of trafficing are detected by the government. [...] This is important because we'd expect law enforcement detected cases of trafficking to go up under legalization, even if legalization reduced the actual number of trafficking victims. When prostitution is legal, victims of trafficing have less to fear by going to law enforcement (therefore making it more likely they will do so) and law enforcement can concentrate their efforts on prostitution operations that are still trying to avoid law enforcement, thus increasing their efficiency.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/49ivf2...
In my experience as a woman, the cure here is to give women agency over their own sexuality. Decriminalizing prostitution plays well with that idea.
There's no need to play amateur psychologist in policy debates. You can make your argument without attacking someone.
"deserve's got nothin' to do with it." it has nothing to do with my personal preference, only cultural attitudes that are easily observed.
Here's an op-Ed from someone with direct experience.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/11/11/does-pornogr...
I don't believe that article describes the experience of every sex worker.
We should work towards a society where people are able to choose to do work that doesn't impact them negatively.
If we were to make make the creation of porn illegal, we would cause more abuse, exploitation and shaming of porn stars.
Simply making sex workers not criminals means that they can go to the police when someone hits them or steals from them.
Making sex work something that can legally happen in safe locations, decreases the risks that sex workers face.
You mean the same way as any other job is exploitative of women (and men) who perform it?
You answered your own question.
I have no doubt there are plenty of folks out there who are willing and eager participants in prostitution. Since it seems to be heavily associated with abuse, drug addiction and violence, society has put effort into stamping it out.
Taking a look at any "prostitute review" site will show you what the men who purchase sex actually think of prostitutes -- feel free to imagine what having sex with these people day in and day out would be like.
[1] http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/FarleyVAW.pdf [2] https://www.collegium.ethz.ch/fileadmin/autoren/pdf_papers/1...
But then you say it made it more hazardous.
Those are two different things.
There were also other downsides, such as increase in gang power due to profits from alcohol running, sales. It seems like there would be similar parallels to prostitutions (gangs, pimps, etc).
It is a really effective way to spread some pretty terrible diseases.
And, no, condoms and dental dams etc aren't going to be full protection. There are some that are not routinely tested for and many people don't know about.
For example HTLV is a sexually transmitted virus that can stay dormant for decades before causing lymphoma all the while being passed to other people. In other instances it can lead to nerve damage. I wonder how many people have 'MS' when it is really just a nerve destroying virus nobody thought to test them for or that we haven't isolated yet...
And that is one that we happen to know about (but isn't commonly regarded). What about all of those diseases that we haven't discovered yet? They are out there.
Just because religion says its wrong doesn't mean it's not a bad idea. This is not an original idea but I think it is likely a lot of religious dogma comes from practical observation that was easier for observers to explain to lay-folk as the Will of God rather than as a probabilistic fact. It is dangerous to assume that people don't have a point because of the way that point is presented.
Suffice to say, while this is a valid effect, it is not the actual reason the public has such a moral aversion to legalized prostitution.
I ask because I'm trying to grant the greatest possible latitude to generously interpreting your statement. And that, for me, is quite a stretch, given that I feel you are moving the goalposts in a very significant fashion with the modifier of "incorrectly attributed to the supernatural". To quite a seemingly intellectually and rationally dishonest degree.
I get the sense you are building your argumentative trenches behind your restatement of "correct attribution", which involves way too much application of modern knowledge (and forgiveness) to past errors.
I'm not sure what definition I can give that would clarify matters, but an example of "a recognition of danger with incorrect attribution of cause" would be something like "a community was affected by a particularly visible STI; someone noticed that it was afflicting those who were more promiscuous; decided promiscuity was being punished and therefore bad." I don't see any reason to treat this as less likely than any other specific story, without evidence given in either direction. That doesn't mean it's likely - any specific story is unlikely, a priori.
Given that you're suggesting a scenario that is far more difficult to prove than what the historical record shows us, I think the burden of citing examples is more squarely on your side here.
There is ample historical evidence available that documents the establishment and spread of religiously motivated moral aversion to many things. Within the context of the available historical record, it can further be established when these ideas were created in relation to the history of other ideas that either supported, refuted, or otherwise informed pre-existing moral aversions.
I'm making no strong claims here. I'm merely referencing the historical record. A religiously motivated moral and social aversion that demanded women on their periods keep themselves sequestered away from others predated the works of Shakespeare. Moral aversion regarding sexuality (documented in religious texts from centuries BCE) predated recognition and discovery of STIs (which started as early as the 15th century, iirc).
> I don't see any reason to treat this as less likely than any other specific story, without evidence given in either direction.
The historical evidence is there! Go look at it.
> It is quite curious to me that making a statement about the available historical record is interpreted as making "a relatively strong statement that things happened a particular way and gave nothing in the way of explanation, evidence, or elaboration."
I can't imagine that you think you gave explanation, evidence or elaboration. You object to my characterization of it as "a relatively strong statement"? I can weaken that language, but you made a specific claim and I was interested in it.
> Do you make the same charge when someone says the ideas of Isaac Newton predated those of Albert Einstein?
That is a question that is answered far more directly and far more easily, to the point that adding evidence to the conversation is not terribly interesting. So, no.
> Given that you're suggesting a scenario that is far more difficult to prove than what the historical record shows us, I think the burden of citing examples is more squarely on your side here.
The only claim I made was that I did not find something obvious, coupled with a request for more information. Your labeling something "my side" is confusing - my example was in pursuit of clarification you'd asked for, not something I am claiming happened.
> There is ample historical evidence available that documents the establishment and spread of religiously motivated moral aversion to many things. Within the context of the available historical record, it can further be established when these ideas were created in relation to the history of other ideas that either supported, refuted, or otherwise informed pre-existing moral aversions.
This is closer to the kind of elaboration I was looking for, though not at all specific.
> A religiously motivated moral and social aversion that demanded women on their periods keep themselves sequestered away from others predated the works of Shakespeare.
Much earlier - it's present in Leviticus and presumably predates that. I don't see that it's necessarily related, though.
> Moral aversion regarding sexuality (documented in religious texts from centuries BCE) predated recognition and discovery of STIs (which started as early as the 15th century, iirc).
Your timeline on "aversion to sexuality" is what I've had in mind from the start.
Regarding STIs, actual germ theory came hundreds of years after that. But this is talking past my question. It is certainly the case that no one said, "Hmm, there is an affliction spreading between people by way of sexual contact - let's tell people God will punish them if they fool around." That's Einstein vs Newton thing (or Einstein vs Ptolemy). That you think it relevant evidence confuses me. "The people who did X are the ones who got sick" is not predicated on any sophisticated understanding - it's the kind of thing that keeps people away from poison berries.
> The historical evidence is there! Go look at it.
You basically said the evidence wasn't there, above. I read your original statement as implying you had some in mind. It's clear that you don't.
I did not at any point say the evidence for my statement wasn't there. How do you interpret anything I've said as saying evidence wasn't there? I have now more than once said exactly the opposite, pointing you toward the historical record of human history. If you're interested, you can investigate it on your own. Look at religious texts. Look at ancient/classical texts. Look at antiquity and the Middle Ages. Look then to the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the ever-expanding records since.
There is little to no historical evidence for your claim that recognizing STI danger predates establishing moral aversion to certain kinds of sexual practices, especially prostitution (the actual topic). You're offering a hypothetical and conceivable scenario, positing a great deal of modern sensibility onto pre-modern humanity, as if that has any explanatory and provable power against documented human history. We aren't going to get anywhere if your idea of seeking understanding is to suggest that some scenarios A, B, or C could have plausibly and conceivably happened, provide no evidence that this has ever been the case, and then ask for evidence that history did not happen that way. How is it that you think that is at all sensible?
Seriously, go read the texts available that investigate and document the history of human sexuality if you don't want to just look at primary sources. There is so much material out there. A Google search will get you going.
Moreover, I'm not at all talking past your question. I think you're expanding your question far beyond my original statement and may have your own idea of what it means to answer your question. Documented history of moral aversion to sexual practices predates any documented recognition and understanding of risk of danger, disease, and so on. This is my entire point. The evidence is in the historical records, which you can investigate to your own satisfaction. Documented history of many moral aversions often shows little rationale beyond establishing difference and power. My followup was simply explaining that, within the context of understanding the historical record, there isn't even a question that this is so. You are perhaps coming from outside that context. Fine. It's simply not my concern to provide a survey of the history of human sexuality, though you can tackle that topic on your own if you're that interested.
My comment about Levitical law concerning women's periods predating Shakespeare wasn't offered as a piece of evidence related to this, but as an example of a statement based on historical record that is beyond doubt, just like the Newton-Einstein example. How is that not obvious from the context of my statement? I say specifically that I'm merely making statements in reference to the records of history. Levitical law predating Shakespeare is a matter of the historical record. As is the establishment of moral aversion to sexual practices predating germ theory and understanding the danger and risk of certain sexual behaviors. I mean, from my perspective, you're making my point for me. And yet, you're saying it's somehow not relevant.
Look at the moral aversion regarding eating pork for some religions. It is completely conceivable that they saw people getting terrible wasting diseases from parasites from people who ate pork and came to their own conclusions that they were 'dirty animals'. Local authorities banned pork consumption. A few generations later it became necessary to describe why people shouldn't eat these animals and what made them different. There were no longer any examples of human disease people could point to so it simply became 'because God said so'.
Who knows if this is how it actually happened but we do know early societies attributed to the divine all sorts of stuff that seems silly in terms of attribution but wise in terms of action today...I recall a story of one village in SE Asia surviving a devastating tsunami because of old religious lore about what to do if the ocean receded.
Because available historical records are quite informative.
> Who knows if this is how it actually happened...
Given the available historical record, we do. Sure, we cannot identify every possible reason behind every religious prescription, but we can at least identify the point in history that certain moral aversions were drafted, and the reasons given for them by those who created them.
> It is completely conceivable that...
That some creative scenario is conceivable has nothing to do with its place in history or its likelihood of being true.
Just because some religious notion happened to centuries later be found to have a grain of sensibility doesn't in any way counter that, historically speaking, the known moral aversion predated any known danger. Many religious prescriptions are part of carving out an identity and social rules for its adherents. Hence casting them in a moral dimension, to add the weight of divine approval/disapproval to the weight of the religious source of obligation. They established and perpetuated power structures in human relationships.
Pointers to said records? I wasn't aware there was a historical play-by-play regarding how the dogma of today's dominant religions came to be.
2. Grab the source material of said religion's scriptures and other authoritative texts.
3. Jot down the approximated date of said authoritative text's believed/identified authorship.
4. Interrogate the scriptures and authoritative texts for presented rationales. Admit these to be the primary offered reasoning, and the highest source of obligational determination for adherents. Where possible, include comparative and secondary sources that identify and illuminate social, cultural, political, intellectual, scientific, and philosophical understanding and reasoning of the period that may also be additional sources of obligational determinative weight.
5. Compare to known timeline of understanding physical risks of prostitution and other sexual behaviors.
6. Place everything on a timeline and see which came first. Trace the development of human ideas, beliefs, and knowledge through time.
I'm not making any radical suggestions here. This is just basic intellectual and cultural history.
Further that there is a 'known timeline of the understanding of risks' -- IOW when, exactly, did humanity start to recognize some idea of cause and effect when it comes to disease.
You have to recognize that this is all impossible and it is perfectly legitimate to say 'I don't know how this happened but here is a plausible scenario'.
To say 'oh yes, this knowledge is out there and perfectly knowable' is quite radical.
I have in no way made such a claim.
There is a known timeline of human understanding of germs, bacteria, viruses, etc. That knowledge is out there, and the timeline we can build with available records is perfectly knowable, insofar as humans are capable of perfectly knowing anything based on available evidence.
That you seem intent on persisting in arguing the plausibility of undocumented and truly unknowable alternative scenarios makes for very boring discussion. Let's just say aliens did it. We cannot possibly prove otherwise.
For some reason you assume people are implausibly stupid, and not just in this thread but as a general approach. It does make for very boring discussions where I have to explain things like this: I know when germs, bacteria, viruses etc were understood...I also know that the macro evidence of diseases were observed and understood at some level much, much earlier.
I made it clear from the outset that I was discussing the merely plausible, but you decided to trudge down that path anyway...I'm not sure why you are trying to saddle me with that decision that you made nor how your boredom is my responsibility.
Please feel free to ignore any comments of mine that you find boring in the future and keep out of that portion of the thread...I will be sure to do the same in regards to you.
But the thing is -- as demonstrated by the entirety of known human history -- people are going to find a way to engage in it, no matter what governing power structures may try do to try to prohibit it. So the bigger question is whether attempts at totalistic prohibition (as opposed to regulation) actually lessen the risks of disease transmission -- or make them worse.
Part of this was covered in the article:
> Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, along with other groups that support decriminalization — U.N.AIDS, the World Health Organization, the Global Commission on H.I.V. and the Law and the Open Society Foundations — acknowledge that there can be grave harms associated with the sex industry, but say that they see changes in the law as a precondition to reducing them. Last year, an analysis[0] in The Lancet predicted[1] that “decriminalization of sex work could have the largest effect on the course of the H.I.V. epidemic,” by increasing access to condoms and medical treatment. Governments can free themselves to crack down on trafficking and under-age prostitution, human rights advocates argue, if they stop arresting consenting adults.
So sure, awareness of condoms and dental dams might not be 'full protection.' But outreach efforts to improve safer sex along with legalization seems to be the better alternative to doing nothing.
[0]: http://www.thelancet.com/series/hiv-and-sex-workers [1]: http://www.vox.com/2014/7/28/5944597/study-decriminalizing-p...
The probabilities of getting the diseases you refer to are much, much lower than the probability of suffering harm due to alcohol or tobacco use.
Now if you're saying we should also ban the use of those items, then I can at least applaud you for being consistent, if rather extremely risk averse.
But I'd bet that you wouldn't support banning labor involved in alcohol and tobacco assumption, would you?
Nope.
This is just irrational moral revulsion masquerading as a concern for public health.
Life is full of risks. Some we can ban, but most we either can't or wouldn't want to ban. We need to educate and regulate.
>> What makes sexual labor so horrid?
> It is a really effective way to spread some pretty terrible diseases.
There are tons of diseases know to the ancients as spread through human action like typhoid, cholera, TB, etc. And yet, I can't recall coming across taboos against the infected. The only taboo I'm aware of is against lepers. STDs are spread by direct exchange of blood too. And yet, many cultures had taboo-free blood bonding[1]. That it can spread "pretty terrible diseases" comes across as a weak boogeyman. Contrast this with other, nearly universally entrenched, taboos against fraternizing with those who are not your ethnicity, race, caste, social standing, etc.
The diseases can be spread from generation to generation. And the problems tend to be worse for kids that are born with these diseases than if they contracted them in adulthood.
I personally have no moral qualms with prostitution as long as prostitutes are making the decision freely and not coerced (even indirectly by lack of options to survive economically) into it. My point is that it is somewhat reasonable for people to have a default rule of thumb that says 'this activity is not a good idea and I feel some revulsion for it'. Kind of like swimming in stagnant, slimy water.
Legalization has some definite appeal -- I mean, if it is going to happen anyway (and it will) it might as well be above board so we can at least exert some level control and have society offer legal protections to those invovled -- there is some level of danger reduction. But legalization cannot remove the inherent dangers of the activity and the dangers are real and lasting and not as fully understood as some seem to think.
To actually confirm that prostitues are protected/healthier, you'd need to track people who used to be prostitutes vs. people who never were, and measure incidence of STDs for e.g. 10 years.
Q: "What is the process of being tested for STD's? Do all of your clients wear condoms all the time, or is it up to your discretion?" A: "Yes we get tested once a week. Customers wear condoms for oral and sex."
One of the commenters says (about a different brothel): "You settle on a price, they inspect your junk for any visible diseases. Then you go to her room or a theme room if you pay extra for it."
From an interview by Salon with the owner of the first brothel:
""At the Bunnyranch, our girls get tested for HIV every 30 days, every seven days for gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis," he told me. "Then it's all condom usage -- even for oral sex. They're also trained on how to inspect a client. We actually have the Health Department come in and tell a girl what to look for. It's not 100 percent -- but by inspecting a man and making him use a condom, it helps take the risk out of it."
Hof said that the testing the brothel does is mandated by state law. And registered prostitutes are required to have cards signed by a health provider indicating that they're disease-free; otherwise, they don't work. Police check the cards once a week, and if the women are not cleared, Hof gets slapped with a substantial fine."
One of the girls claims in a 2014 Q&A post: "61. How often does STD transmissions occur in Brothels? I encourage you to do your own research, I did. It's a documented fact that in more than 30 years of state record-keeping, not a single incidence of STD transmissions have occurred in a legal brothel here in Nevada. Not one! Again, you're astronomically safer here than in your neighborhood meat market." As we'll see, she seems to be not totally correct, but close:
I was able to track down a study, referenced by a bunch of articles, comparing STD rates in the port industry versus Nevada brothels. For our purposes, the relevant quote is: "As of the late 1980s, brothel workers in Nevada have been required by state law to use condoms for every type of sex act and to be tested weekly for STIs. Since the implementation of these regulations, these brothel workers have not had a single case of HIV, and their STI rates are negligible."
http://mobile.journals.lww.com/stdjournal/_layouts/15/oaks.j...
This sounds true if you have a choice of jobs. But with "regular" jobs, we accept that someone can be forced by circumstances to take such a job, even if it isn't the greatest job in the world.
Suppose a friend of mine is unemployed and complaining about money problems, I can imagine myself saying "So why don't you just take the job of a dishwasher until things get better?"
But I can't really imagine myself saying "So why don't you just sell your body until things get better?"
For instance, people may lose unemployment benefits if they turn down a "suitable" job. I cannot imagine anyone would want to extend this rule to prostitution.
It's not news in the UK that one of the side effects of tuition fees has been a big increase in student-age women funding their courses by selling sex.
You can argue whether this was an intended or unintended consequence.
But for anyone buying, it's hard to argue that increasing supply and lowering prices isn't a happy result.
The strange thing is that in both cases we are often talking about vulnerable people (less true for people who join the army with a view to do officer training).
The images we have in our head for what constitutes as a 'vulnerable man' and 'vulnerable woman' are very different despite the definitions being very similar. Likely to get into crime, harmful use of drugs, alcoholism these are all halmarks of vulnerable people but men have a societally acceptable way out, the army. For women (who make up the majority of sex workers) there is no such option.
Why can we not see sex work as a genuine service to society not just for the workers but also to alleviate the anger and frustration of those who have difficulty getting sex otherwise?
"Love you long time, five dallah" and the ensuing event takes three minutes which works out to $100/hr while the dishwasher makes what, %7.50? $100/hr vs $7.50/hr, hmmmm. I have known nurses and teachers who worked their way through college in the sex trade. They were incredible people who likely had no student debt.
Life is not awesome for most sex workers. If you're paying for sex, assume you're in the slave trade! Full stop.
That's the war on drugs all over again: the violence and exploitation is mostly a consequence of the illegality, not of the profession itself.
But, I have a such a convenient solution, hear me out! We can just delude ourselves into thinking the world already works the way we think it should. We won't have to acknowledge the misery we perpetuate AND we can get our rocks off in the most awesomest way.
If you paying for a fast food burger or for an iPhone, assume you're in the slave trade.
One of the things I love HN community for is the overall interest in collecting and representing reliable statistical information.
The reason I am questioning "vast majority" is that when something is illegal, it's very hard to derive accurate statistics on. When something is illegal your primary sources of information is law enforcement, people who have exited, and what a few people involved in the activity will volunteer. Since the activity is illegal, few people who are actively involved will volunteer information for the fear of having it used against them. Add to that the stigma that sexual services carries with it (regardless if they were cohered or not), and people REALLY do not want to divulge information about their activities in sexual services even after they have exited.
Because of this any metrics derived will be very law-enforcement biased, or from a vastly small sample of the overall community. Neither of these are reliable sources of information. Just looking at how the FBI in recent years /reduced/ the number of statistics available on their sexual-service stings is a great example of this. It makes it impossible for anyone to derive reliable or trend-able information from the statistics they have released.
Here's a great article that explains a lot of what I'm saying with links to verifiable references
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/...
I think prostitution is a victimless crime and the only reason why countries penalize it, is because politicians are not brave enough to do it.
They fear to be labeled "immoral" or bad influences of some sort by religious audiences.
http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/sites/default/files/imce/...
If the facilities themselves were gov't ran, with weekly medical checks and safety protocols, then I have a feeling things would be very different.
Right now, with prostitution being illegal, it is abhorrent and disgusting and evil. I'm thinking of the similar comparisons with Colorado and marijuana.
I'll bite. Sexual workers are among a very rare breed of "workers" who can make money from doing nothing, and this is what opens the doors to abuse. You cannot make money off a factory, construction, or retail employee if they just sit there and do nothing, you can however make money off a sex employee in that situation.
I think there is something fundamentally different about a sex worker that can't allow us to compare them to athletes or construction workers or other professions.
What? If I hire a prostitute, and they do not do anything, I would want my money back. If it prostitution were legal, one could consider suing the prostitute (although, like most scammers, it is probably easier to eat the loss then go after them).
Maybe you are saying that a sex worker could have an arrangement where they get paid for merely being on-call, even if no work comes in for them. However, this is not unique to sex work either. For instance, I have a doctor friend who does online consulting. He has regular hours that he gets paid for, even though often times he does not receive any calls during this time. I assume that there are other industries with simmilar arrangements.
I am hoping I am wrong. Regardless of how it is intended, it is wrong.
But I don't think all work is created equal. Doing intimate and personal things for money COULD be argued to be such a mentally or emotionally damaging task, only people being exploited would ever take the work.
I think any work which falls in to the category of /no one would do it unless they are horribly without options/ is work that society should strive to eliminate.
From a economics stand-point, there's way higher demand than supply. And currently the only supply is another person. Most people won't willingly choose to be prostitutes when they have other options. Surprise! This big supply/demand gap leads to some very unsavory ways to increase supply:coercion and exploitation.
Maybe one day something like sexbots will change this dynamic, but until then the sex trade is a very difficult and tragic problem.
Simply legalizing sex work is not enough. We have to combat the social stigma. We have to craft regulation that puts the power in the hands of sex workers, not brothels. We have to put in place enforcement strategies that combat and discourage human trafficking (such as undercover checks of immigration status that provide amnesty for illegal immigrants while prosecuting those who trafficked them.) The solutions to combat exploitation and coercion are not simple, but making it illegal solves very few problems beyond allowing some people to feel morally superior.
As we work towards solving these problems, our position on the supply/demand curve will shift to provide a price where supply equals demand.
No, I don't. I was countering the PC's notion that prostitution should be treated like any other profession.
Is it most people's dream to be a fast food worker, Walmart greeter, or street sweeper?
Tons of people work jobs they didn't dream of because they pay the bills, why is sex work so different?
There is no inherent intimacy (taught, or otherwise) to working as a greeter or fast food worker, but whether through cultural or biological forces, I would imagine most people would consider sex an intimate act which would put them off pursuing it as a career.
It is obvious that most prostitutes are not there by choice, by a mature rational decision. Most prostitutes are victims dragged into it by ignorance, by poverty, by drug addiction, by human traffic and exploitation. The psychological damage is done too fast too soon, rehab is hard if not impossible. In many cases they become pregnant and now they have another mouth to feed. If the kid is a girl, very likely to learn to do what the mother does.
It should be a crime! However, only the buyer should be punished, as it would be very unjust to punish the victim twice.
Given that people freely choose very similar jobs (porn actors & actresses), it would appear to me that some consider this a legitimate and good life choice (plenty of sex, good money, good working hours).
Having said that, I personally don't understand why anyone would choose that life path. But I also don't understand why anyone would voluntarily go into the military. Different people like different things!
It is true that 'sometimes' a seatbelt is the actual cause of death but the huge majority of cases it does save a life.
It is true that 'some' people freely chose to be pornstars or prostitutes but the great majority of times is innocent teens dragged into it for the reasons already stated.
A law is made for the general case in spite of particular exceptions.
http://www.justice.govt.nz/policy/commercial-property-and-re...
From 5 minutes of Googling, it seems this might be a regional difference. AU/NZ references I found seemed to be different than the typical US usage, which follows what GP said.
Massachusetts recently decriminalized THC.
Possession for Personal Use
Possession of 1 ounce or less of marijuana is decriminalized and is punishable as a civil offense. If the offender is over the age of 18 they must pay a fine of $100.
Source: http://norml.org/laws/item/massachusetts-penalties-2
The AU/NZ usage seems to use "decriminalized" to mean "removing all laws against", where the US tends to use "makes it into a civil violation". We (in the US) use legalization to mean "fully legal (and possibly regulated/licensed and taxed)"
Decriminalization seems to be about making as few laws as possible concerning the matter. Legalization involves writing a bunch of laws about what you can and cannot do.
Based on the opinions of sex worker and political activist Dolores French, I have long been for decriminalization. If a legal adult wishes to take money for sexual services, I don't see why anyone should care.
I don't see any relevance to sex work though.
https://www.collegium.ethz.ch/fileadmin/autoren/pdf_papers/1... http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/FarleyVAW.pdf
Some clarification: under legalisation, sex work is controlled by the government and is legal only under certain state-specified conditions. Decriminalisation involves the removal of all prostitution-specific laws, although sex workers and sex work businesses must still operate within the laws of the land, as must any businesses.
Legalisation means going the whole hog - removing all fines and criminal penalties. This usually also means bringing an activity in the mainstream by, for example, taxing it like any other activity, or making it subject to workplace safety regulation. This is what New Zealand did with prostitution.
Wikipedia explains this reasonably well:
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_New_Zealand
http://www.business.govt.nz/worksafe/information-guidance/al...
So logically speaking it should be officially accepted as a profession and managed by the health department in order for the sex workers to not suffer as much. Then you can also apply the same controls to sex trafficking as you do to the non-sex shadow work force.
Portugal's health system allowed them to legalize drug use and create a healthier society and decrease related crime. Let's face it, if someone wants to smoke crack or pay a sex worker, they will do it regardless. Might as well control and earn money the usual way like liquor taxes.
Let's see, why I pay for sex?
1) I'm in the bottom 20% in attractiveness.
1.1) Tinder and real life take work.
1.2) Low market value -> Low value offers.
1.3) Return on investment is negative.
2) It's not that expensive
2.1) 60 euros -> top 10% for 30 minutes
2.2) Time and effort. Better write python a couple hours.
3) Selection
3.1) Age, physical characteristics, services, "personality"..
3.2) There are forums/webpages with reviews by other customers.
4) Not interested in relationships.
4.1) I don't even know in which country I'm going to live next year.
4.2) I expect to do that when older.
If you followed the link, skimmed through the article, and are now back at this comment going "what the hell are you talking about," go back to it and reread the first two paragraphs. It's really short, and it packs a punch, even if you're not a libertarian (I'm certainly not).
If you don't want to click through: Don't support a law unless you accept that it will kill some of the perpetrators. A law needs to survive its collateral damage. It is always a strong, non-theoretical possibility that due to some law, and whatever dynamics are available at the time, that someone will die as a result of it. It just requires a pimp or prostitute (in this case) who is being apprehended to accidentally move in just the wrong way, show just the wrong disrespect, that some police officer thinks they're in imminent danger of being attacked or shot. And, are you going to be comfortable with it?
The linked article points out that this is true in the case of Eric Garner's crime of selling loose cigarettes: nobody really thinks that this is something anyone should potentially die over. Similarly, I would say, for the act of selling one's body -- perhaps it might come with fines, to discourage it, but jail time seems insane. And one of the reasons is that it puts a threat on the lives of the women who are presumably already being trafficked.
(The article contains a bunch of other gems from a book it recommends: for example if you're having the "I don't need privacy; I've done nothing wrong" thing, you can be like, "statistically according to this book there's a 70% chance you have -- you probably just don't know it yet. Have you read the 3,000+ federal laws and do you know the 300,000+ federal regulations to be sure of that?")
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-12-04/law-puts-u...
The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior. The volume of federal crimes in recent decades has increased well beyond the statute books and into the morass of the Code of Federal Regulations, handing federal prosecutors an additional trove of vague and exceedingly complex and technical prohibitions...
Eric Garner's death has more to do with management of the police department then taxes on cigarettes. Also selling tax free cigarettes is likely to increases smoking and increase cancer deaths.
An open society should make prostitution legal but also regulate it, institute regular health checks for the workers, find a way to ensure that there are legal ways for both prostitutes and clients to do the transaction in a safe environment and be tough on any abuse that happens outside of the law.
Some countries like Sweden have started penalizing customers but that, while the government claim that it's been efficient and shows that there are less streetwalkers nowadays in Sweden, the opposition claims otherwise by saying that prostitution just moved to online venues and that there's been an increase in sexual tourism by Swedish Nationals.
There is no way to do the transaction in a safe environment as by nature you (nearly always a woman) are locking yourself in a room with someone who is likely larger and stronger than you (nearly always a man) who views your body and emotional output something they can buy.
The people who oppose the criminalization of purchasing sex via the Nordic Model make vague claims about stigma and 'shifting underground' but ignore the reality of the data: The Nordic model has been shown to reduce being hit with a fist (38%) and rape (48%) by significant amounts. Research done by anti-Nordic model researchers substantiates this, while claiming that an increase in reports of verbal abuse and hair pulling makes this a failure. From the report, we also see: “Most of the women who said they would seek help to protect against violence said that they called or threatened to call the police when they found themselves in a dangerous or threatening situation. This would often scare the customers, or others, who were acting threatening/violent away.” There was also an 80% reduction in prostitutes seeking help from emergency care. [1]
Also, claiming that people leaving your borders to break your laws constitutes a failure would be a great way to repeal age of consent laws in the US. Pedophiles just go on sexual tourism trips to places where the age of consent is lower -- but does that make the law unsuccessful?
Even if the law is placing the focus on johns, that doesn't mean that johns are the group that are designed to see the primary effects of the law. The Nordic model is very upfront about trying to minimize coercion, trafficking, and violence against women, and does so by providing exit programs for prostituted women and placing the burden of the law on those who purchase sex.
[1] https://humboldt1982.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/dangerous-l...
About 40% of the prostitutes in the UK are male. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11169544/Are-we-...
I agree the clients are almost entirely men.
Lots of sex-worker organisations have criticised the Nordic model as something that increases the risk to sex workers. Restricting the client base to men who are willing to break the law means you've biased the client group towards men who are more likely to be violent. https://newrepublic.com/article/121981/northern-ireland-sex-...
(EDIT I don't think I downvoted you, and I think it's a shame you were downvoted. I've upvoted your other reply.)
Studies conducted in Nordic Model countries show that the Nordic Model reduces violence, trips to the ER, and increases rates of calls to the police by extremely significant margins. (note that this source is actually anti-nordic model, look through their data to see the reality of the situation)
https://humboldt1982.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/dangerous-l...
Most of the time, maybe, but clearly not always. A woman was arrested for prostituting herself out of my university dorm. Her parents were paying her way through school. She just wanted cash to buy nice cloths.
There have long been people who prostitute themselves simply because it's easier than working.
Personally speaking, I think it's a misogynistic policy that creates untold tragedy for exploited women everywhere.
"How do we prevent people from being forced into electrical engineering to get out of their economic desperation?"
Answer: Prevent economic desperation.
In this dystopian future if prostitution is illegal and the law is heavily enforced then desperate people will find other ways to make ends meet which will surely be more harmful to society.
And the answer I most often see is to have a universal basic income, which makes sense to me.
The main argument against basic income in the United States is that it discourages people from working. I think that's probably true, and in this country we see work as a virtue and an obligation. But I don't think the only thing we should seek from automation is to increase profits for business owners; we should also see it as improving human life in general by making work less necessary. And if work isn't necessary, shouldn't we provide a replacement for income that workers lose out on by the decreased availability of employment?
I guess that's not the only solution to the problem. I could also see the government taxing automated labor to artificially inflate its cost and thus encourage businesses to employ humans. I don't think it's as good of a solution, but it would solve the problem too.
How would you ever set about trying to remove the demand for prostitution?
While there are severe issues with underage involuntary prostitution I think that legalizing prostitution with a proper legal framework and such to insure the safety of said workers would actually reduce the occurrences of underage prostitution. It is one industry that would need to regulation, basically medical certification that they have no communicable diseases, know how to protect themselves from the same, and are not being forced into the industry by a pimp. If anything I can see having pimps sidelined by professional management groups.
The simple fact is, it does not harm any adult who voluntarily engage is such activity and therefor has no reason to be illegal.
This is not accurate. There are many adults who voluntarily engage in prostitution and are harmed. They are assaulted, robbed, raped and have little legal recourse. The fact that sex workers are harmed regularly is precisely why it should be legal.
edit: the country I live in tolerate prostitution and neither prostitutes, neither customers are committing crimes. But there is still a lot of criminal activities related to prostitution.
Also, this weird notion that prostitutes clientele are not family men... Where did this came from?! I would say that it's predominantly married, family-men (whatever that is).
As another commentator said, you're making too many, extremely naive assumptions about a complex topic.
IMHO the solution is to take a way the excitement by legalising the activity in question and create healthy, tightly state-controlled places where prostitutes are protected and taken care of.
> Or are you implying that it is impossible to reduce demand for prostitution?
Without creating an illegal market and/or violent reactions, hardly. Socrates would argue that selling your soul (e.g. being a teacher at Stanford) is equal or worst with selling your body, because sharing your knowledge and "Eureka" moments makes sense only when if/when you enjoy a stimulating conversation. So as far as prostitution goes, I could easily argue that every teacher who gets paid to teach is a soul-prostitute. The fact that you, me and others don't perceive it as a prostitutions has more to do with culture (religion, society, etc.) than anything else.
> Which would imply that demand is the same in all types of societies, cultures, regions. If that is not true, what makes demand higher/lower in certain societies? You are convinced that the parameters I shared are not the right ones.
I disagree with your views on a different levels. I also believe that demand alone doesn't say much. I would prefer a correlation of demand vs violence study on legal vs illegal prostitution countries.
> You are convinced that the parameters I shared are not the right ones. Let's go with that. What parameters are you proposing? Or are we just going to say, "too complex" and leave it at that?
For what kind of parameter are we looking for?! I'm confused :-)
Yes it is complex and sure as hell I don't have a definitive answer and I'm open to suggestions. That doesn't mean that I can't dismiss a simplistic approach that AFAIK never works (prostitutes, drugs, etc.).
The parent asked "how will you reduce demand?". I mentioned some ideas (rather a combination of many factors). There could be many many more ideas. But you called my assumptions naive while coming up with your solution on the lines of, "things that are legal and openly traded have a lot less market than things that are illegally traded". Now many might argue the soundness of such an assumption and call it naive and simplistic.
You say you are open to suggestions. I'm sorry, but it seems more like you are open to suggestions that agree with your views.
Doesn't everybody? :-)
Jokes apart, being open to suggestions means that I can entertain an idea without accepting it or dismissing it completely. So here you go: Your approach might work in a country like Switzerland, North Korea, China, etc. where people are prone to order fearfully (N.Korea, China) or otherwise (Switzerland). But I have strong doubts it would work in other countries (US, UK, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Turkey, etc.), I strongly believe that will have the exact opposite effect, so yes I still consider your approach rather naive: If a legislation could solve something like this, so easily without creating havoc, it would have been applied long time ago in pseudo-puritan societies like the US IMHO.
The Oslo police has had a long-running operation called "Operation Houseless" (official name), where the police threaten landlords with prosecution unless they evict suspected sex workers from their home.
Just thought I'd share that tidbit - the left's rhetoric has the sex worker laws painted as protecting women from exploitation, but the enforcement of the law doesn't support this goal at all. (Not to mention that enforcement of these laws when the sex workers are male, is non-existent). My skeptic view is that the criminalization of the purchase of sexual services came about mostly because there were a lot of Nigerian prostitutes in the main street outside of Parliament in 2008, and that the politicians needed a palatable legal excuse for getting rid of what seemed like a disgraceful situation.
Here in Melbourne, I think they've got the right answer. Brothels are perfectly legal and get government inspectors, but street prostitution is illegal. Basically it's a regulated industry, and the form of prostitution that's subject to the bulk of the problems is the banned one. It's a bit like the War on Drugs, where almost everyone agrees that legalisation and regulation is a better answer to the ills of drugs than blanket bans.
This ends up causing more problems than the prostitution caused.
One proposal in Russian feminism movement in the beginning of XX century was "glass of water theory" (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Теория_стакана_воды , sadly there is no good English source) that stated that providing sex must be as easy as providing a glass of water to somebody who asks for one, and concepts of love/relationships/family/jealousy/cheating (which were viewed as related to interpretation of marriage as a sort of slavery) must be deprecated for this.
Other interesting proposal made by Eliezer Yudkowsky in the "Three Worlds Collide" novella was legalising rape.
Ohhh. It is satire. You had me ಠ_ಠ for a moment.
I share a similar view,
But our current set up won't allow for something like that.
When you take out those concepts, you will see a human being suddenly has a lot less potential disasters/sufferings hanging over his head, which makes him harder to control and exploit, which is all living in todays world is about. Being exploited nicely.
Give a man a family or put him in a 'romantic' relationship. You will see that he get reduced to pulp, Easily controllable and mouldable into anything as required by the state and similar establishments...
They won't let that change happen.
These delusional people are the ones who need to be regulated as making sex a moral issue has indeed led to horrors that would have otherwise been avoided. I wouldn't even say they have good intentions in this case as it's obvious what happens when sex is made into a moral issue. We have the evidence and we know. We also know what happens when it's not and people are allowed to have sex with whomever they want for whatever they want. To still want to control who people have sex with and under what terms after knowing all this is to intentionally support all the negatives of having sex be a moral issue and outlawed in most places: human trafficking, slavery, etc.
These people making moral judgements about an amoral topic are the ones providing the foundation for the global sex trade. Shame on them indeed.
So, there are some people who'll say that any paid for sex is wrong, even if all people involved are freely able to make the choice. Let's ignore those people for a moment.
> Why should it matter with whom one has sex with if all parties consent?
48 year old buys sex from a 15 year old? Neither are in debt, or have drug addiction. Each say it's their free choice. Is that a problem?
Person buys sex from other person. The person selling sex has a drug addiction, and is using sex work as a method to buy drugs. Is the seller able to give consent in this situation?
There are many more, and these feel like moral judgements to be made, and it doesn't feel unreasonable to try to work out where the border between acceptable and unacceptable is.
A 68 year old buying sex from a 18 year old - why not, it happens e.g. in marriage/"golddigging" scenarios? I mean, I can at the same time morally dislike some behavior and also acknowledge that I do not and should not have any right (moral or legal) to prohibit that behavior if they wish to do so.
I guess for the same reasons we make other personal decisions illegal, like suicide and the use of certain drugs.
C. S. Lewis once gave a metaphor. In a fleet of ships, if one fires on another, that of course is bad and should be illegal. But also if a ship's internal mechanisms are so bad that the ship careens into others, that is bad too.
Promiscuous sex spreads disease. Before the 1960s in the US, there were two main STDs, and both curable: syphilis and gonnorhea. After the '60s, it ballooned into a nationwide epidemic, and now we also have chlamydia, HIV, HPV (causes more deaths than HIV), and many others.
Another common-sense splash of water is to ask the question, "Would you want your child to grow up to be a prostitute?"
I don't see how the exploitation and abuse will end just by making it legal, either.
They shouldn't be illegal either imho.
I believe we treat it as a moral issue because when things go wrong, it negatively impacts the lives of many people, not just the person or persons who messed up.
If a child is conceived under poor circumstances, it isn't just the man and woman who suffer. The child suffers and so does all of society. Plus, diseases (very serious ones) and other complications abound.
Please note: I am for decriminilization of sex work. I think decriminilization reduces problems. So I am not saying we should handle sex as a moral issue -- at least, not in the sense of "and that justifies people being very controlling and judgey about it." I am just explaining why I think it gets treated that way.
Sex workers get on with their lives and it rarely seems to be a problem for anyone.
If you film it... changes everything.
It's like comparing filming a romantic comedy to a lonely guy paying an escort to hang out with him. There's a bigger difference than just the fact that a camera is involved.
Also not really into the contract angle either. Why can't a consenting adult sell their vote?
That's not the comparison I was making.
> "They’re sexual objects. What does that mean for how professional women are seen? And if women are sex toys you can buy, think about the impact on relationships between men and women, in marriage or otherwise."
They're really showing their hand here. First, they want you to believe that all women are accountable for all other women. They see every sexual depiction of a woman to be representative of all women, which to me is the real objectification of the gender.
Second, as it relates to "relationships between men and women", they want to exert control over personal relationships, which is just ludicrous. Do they honestly think men only have monogamous relationships for the sex?
Whether it should be legal is another question, and one which I don't have much of an opinion on. But I do not believe that it is moral to pay for sex.
However, I also don't think that sex should occur outside of marriage, so, my viewpoint might be kind of far from what others are stating in this thread.
See France.
If we had systems in place that prostitues could turn to instead of prostitution, then only those that actually wanted to be a prostitue would be. People wouldn't turn to it as a last resort.
[1] http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/robot-sex-may-be-co...
[2] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/lovesick-cyborg/2016/03/10...
There are problems allowing it and problems outlawing it. Letting each neighborhood decide will enable those benefitting from this trade to also pay the costs of it. If it does attract crime, they'll need to consider that when they make their decision, tax brothels enough to pay those costs.
There will always be some neighborhoods that allow it. Everybody that wants to engage in this will have a place to do it.
And neighborhoods that don't want it can just levy fines rather than prison sentences. That alone will make people do this in more permissive neighborhoods.
This is one of those issues where intelligent people cannot disagree. If you think prostitution should be illegal, you are stupid. Categorically and unequivocally. There are precisely zero valid arguments in favor of its criminalization.
seems a tad unfair to penalise someone who can be viewed as being exploited and a victim on either side of it to me. some women/men are desperate for money and others are desperate for sex... and the only harm these people do to the world is to each other.
(... and the ones who do it for other reasons are probably in need of help imo)
(EDIT: actually after some reflection, all of them are. its a sad state of affairs on both sides. :( )
In Germany, they pay income tax and charge VAT for their services.
Just because you do something illegal doesn't mean you shouldn't pay taxes. I think there is something similar in the US, where you can "take the fifth" on a tax return. Kansas even taxes illegal drugs and requires dealers to purchase and affix "drug stamps" to them.
I think most people would be happier with such an arrangement. That's partly why many societies avoid it. The puritanical impulse motivates all laws against prostitution.
Edit: people seem to be missing my point. I am female and I don't date. (http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/01/no-dating-re...) Stating that this is a logical interpretation of dating does not mean I condone it. (Yup, as stated elsewhere, I am for decriminalization of sex work.)
For me, paying for sex is not a big deal. Paying for intimacy is way more ickier to me than the former.
My expectation was sex, yes, but with marriage. I had no real desire to be a manslut, or whatever you'd call it. The risks and costs would not be worthwhile.
BTW, I mostly avoided paying. I didn't want to feel used.