Prostitution Reduces Rape | Hacker News Reader

Prostitution Reduces Rape

marginalrevolution.com

46 pointsjseliger9 comments

The headline is a bit extreme in phrasing but every study I’ve seen found the legalizing sex work reduces sexual assault rates, and reduces abuse of sex workers (the ability of “pimps” etc to control prostitutes is precisely because sex workers can’t go to the police or an employment authority).

>About 54% of these men stated that if prostitution did not exist then they would be more likely to rape women who were not prostitutes. This belief was clearly held by one man who even stated: “Sometimes you might rape someone: you can go to a prostitute instead” (Farley et al., 2009).

Is there some old-timey mindset still out there that rape is somehow ok? I'm stunned by this majority of men surveyed in London admitting that they would rape a woman.

The study quoted here says that 54% of men surveyed subscribed to a belief that prostitution in general decreases rape, not necessarily that they themselves would be more likely to rape a woman.

> Fifty-four per cent of these London buyers subscribed to the theory that prostitution decreases rape. There is no empirical basis for this theory, nonetheless it is assumed to be the truth by many people, including these buyers. In part as a justification for prostitution, men who bought sex reasoned that if prostitution did not exist then they would be more likely to rape women who were not prostitutes. This belief was clearly held by one man who stated that “Sometimes you might rape someone: you can go to a prostitute instead.” Forty-one per cent of 110 Glasgow and Edinburgh men who bought sex also believed this theory (Macleod, Farley, Anderson and Golding, 2008). Another man explained, “Society benefits. I’ve heard that levels of rape have decreased due to Internet porn.” And, “Prostitution is a last resort to unfulfilled sexual desires. Rape would be less safe, or if you’re forced to hurt someone or if you’re so frustrated you jack off all day."

https://i1.cmsfiles.com/eaves/2012/04/MenWhoBuySex-89396b.pd...

I disagree with this, and something doesn't quite feel right.... It's an interesting meta look at this idea that prostitute has a correlation with rape, or sexual assault crimes in general, but I don't buy it. Correlation is not the same as causation. It also seems to imply that men have this urge to have sex that if given an "outlet" through prostitution, means they won't go and rape someone.

"I disagree with this..."

This is totally of topic, but it kind of weirds me to see this kind of response so often. I just don't get the impetus to sort things into Agree vs. Disagree bins.

Naively, we're all working with a paucity of data here and should expect a turbulence of ideas on the matter. To your point in particular, one might pithily retort, "correlation also isn't not causation." It's hard to tell either way at this point, so what exactly are we doing by agreeing or disagreeing with... what exactly?

Forgive me if that sounded like an attack. It's totally not intended that way. I've just been getting confused by the "I agree/disagree..." language recently and thought I'd throw it out there.

This could be a case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc but I assume the data researchers know the possibility as well and wouldn't publish unless they could defend the counter-argument of "How do you know the two are related".

I'm not saying that we should go out and let there be a McSluts on every corner, but this sort of data brings to light interesting ripple effects of decriminalization.

There are two kinds of men that are relevant when talking about causation here:

- Those that do not rape as long as they can buy sex.

- Those that do rape when they can buy sex.

In my humble opinion, it is rather likely that there are more in the former than in the latter category, thus I would think that causation is plausible here.

On the "something doesn't quite feel right" thing - do you have an emotional reaction to this topic?

>It also seems to imply that men have this urge to have sex that if given an "outlet" through prostitution, means they won't go and rape someone.

Yes, and? I suspect quite a few men not able to get sex any other way are capable of rape.

"men have this urge to have sex"

Well I think there is truth in this. I notice that some women make arguments that downplay or are unaware of how strong that urge can be in some cases.

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