https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Model_approach_to_prost...
> It has also been reported that 12,5 % of men used to solicit prostitutes before the implementation of the law in 1999 whereas in 2014 only 7,7 % of men purchased sexual services.[5]
As the top comment said, this was never about actually decreasing prostitution, but about victimizing and outcasting women.
My elementary school was a religious one. There was something that deeply annoyed me about how they reasoned. I couldn't put my finger on it then, but I got a knee-jerk reaction as soon as I heard it. It was just that: love is better than hate, virtue is better than sin, etc. so you must comply with what God/they/your parents said because they loved you vs. your bad instincts, inspired by the devil that is Bad.
By the time I started high scholl in a public school, the dictator had died and we transitioned to democracy. Tolerance was the magic word. We can now speak our minds, accept others' opinions, discuss frankly any idea.
But then the left was the forbidden set of ideas making itself a space. Forty years later they're hegemonic and "zero tolerance" (I hate that expression) and beware of what you say are back.
They're exactly the same as their parents (that they consider troglodites) just with a different set of dogmas. Ideas change easily with the fads, but mindsets not so fast.
The trick is to present an idea that's absolutely good on paper like: "don't you think that everybody should have what they need to live?" But ignoring all the practical details of implementation: if it's at all possible, if the proposed measures are useful to reach that goal, etc.
No one of them would call themselves "absolutists", that sounds like ancient regime, or fascists, nazis. But they reason in absolutes and there's no way to touch them with words. They won't negotiate because they just vote for politicians that promise to magically implement that wishful thinking. The politicians will negotiate to reach power, though, they know better.
I'll add that Haidt's analysis that the value placed on compassion relative to loyalty or fairness is a good predictor of party rings true. Compassion > fairness -> democrat Compassion = fairness -> republican Compassion < fairness -> libertarian
The majority of people oppose decriminalisation [1] even in fairly progressive Ontario, Canada, 6 in 10 oppose it [2]
Second - it's a very reasonable course of action to make an activity which is deemed harmful - actually illegal.
"Smoking is bad" -> "Let's make it widely available" is generally not the first order course of action.
Ergo - your assumptions about 'moralising and not caring' is starting to inch into anti-religious bigotry territory.
Now - obviously this is a nuanced issue - and it's possible more permissive laws might lessen harm, but this is by no means obvious.
We saw this with vaping: once something becomes socially normative, behaviours can grow rapidly. There is a black market for almost everything, legal or not.
A large, wide open, legalised & regulated sex trade may simply provide more customers for nefarious sex-traders who can take all the profit & provide underage girls (which will surely remain illegal).
The cigarette industry provides good parallel example, although it's surely not perfect. [3]
In short - increased taxes (i.e. supply curve shift) and overall changes in social norms away from smoking have not caused an increase in illicit consumption - just the opposite. Illicit consumption is down. This might imply that creating more barriers to the sex trade (law), and also reducing demand (social norms), would likely have the overall effect of reducing black market for sex-slavery.
Of course, it's not nearly a perfect analogy, and it's a complicated subject and of course there are individuals and groups who are probably more concerned about morality than justice, but it's still not fair to castigate a policy as being one way or the other.
Personally, I don't see how normalising the sex trade and providing vast online services decreases frequency of transactions, but I'm open minded about the right way to do this. Though I personally think it should be 'decriminalised' (not illegal, but sex workers not allowed to go to 'job fairs' at high school!), I would put the wellbeing of those being trafficked ahead of any of that.
[1] https://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID...
[2] https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-polls/LAWC-and-CATW-Prostit...
Meanwhile, SESTA/FOSTA effectively puts such a burden on web operators that even legitimate sites (like Craiglist personals) have been shut down out of fear that they will be liable if someone misuses them. This is even true in states and municipalities that choose to legalize prostitution. The effect of SESTA/FOSTA is to usurp states' ability to decide for themselves how they want to regulate the sex trade, at least as far as it comes to the communication platforms they can use. If the intent of SESTA/FOSTA was to inhibit prostitution that didn't involve trafficking, fine, but that's not how it was sold by elected Democrats.
I wouldn't be so cynical about this, except that there is a long history in the US of using moral panic around trafficking to enforce moral preferences -- look at how the Mann act was used against interracial couples, for example. I'm all for helping actual victims of trafficking, but using outrage about trafficking for other political purposes upsets me.
Alternately, decriminalizing sex work means law enforcement would stop wasting their time their pursuing adult sex workers doing legit business, and actually focus on the trafficking of those actually being exploited.
Like... almost all other laws?
Do you think murder is immoral? Well guess what? There's a law for that. Just because you disagree with the morality being legislated, you can't pretend that "legislating morality" is the problem.
Pushing this underground will hurt nothing but victims in the long run. Is that moral? Of course not.
Much legislation is technocratic and hides its moralism, but it’s all questions of right and wrong, good and bad, at the end of the day.
Still, someone can be wronged with their consent. Consent is not binary. That's why there are minimum salary laws for instance : so that there's not a competition to the bottom.
When it comes to prostitution, the fact that huge numbers of prostitutes are former victims of abuse, for instance, should tell you that something is wrong. And even then, I would say that the minority who could be unambiguously considered to be doing it voluntarily is doing a disservice to women and society in general, by promoting the idea that bodies and what is most intimate can be for sale.
Using the same reasoning to outlaw prostitution is harder. Sure you could argue people have a right to not be a prostitute -- and I heartily agree with that -- but then the job of the law is to prevent people from being prostitutes against their will. All outlawing prostitution outright does is hide it from view. It doesn't help people get the rights they deserve. In fact it takes away the right to be a prostitute if you want to. The only line of arguing that prostitution should be illegal is either because we should outlaw anything we deem immoral, or because somehow concocted a right that prevents people from doing what they want to do.
In my opinion the basis for any system of law ought to be that people can do what they want to. The only exceptions being when doing so infringes on the right of others. I should be free to be a prostitute. I should not be free to force other people to be prostitutes against their will. I should be free to wildly swing my arms. I should not be free to punch someone in the face.
Of course everyone has their own opinion of what the law should be and so we end up with a patchwork of intentions -- let alone how the law actually gets applied. That's fine. People are free to have opinions.
Either laws are written based on morality, or laws are written based on rights. You can't have both without being inconsistent.
The important part here is if you include economic factors into "against their will" or not.
Also, how are we supposed to reach gender equality if one gender's body is for sale as a matter of routine ?
Note that I still agree with your point on being a cleaner, that's why I think universal income is a good idea.
At the end of the day when an adult makes the decision to do a particular job because it pays better than the alternative we can't automatically count them as a "victim". It robs people of their agency and infantilizes them.
Edit: Actually I retract this comment. You bring an interesting point, and shouldn't be downvoted. I guess the argument "to prevent abuse" includes "to prevent people from exchanging their lives for money". And you could say the same for sex - people should be able to choose to have sex / be murdered / donate their organs, but shouldn't be able to exchange that for money.
I guess the counterargument would be, that the exact definition of "exchange" depends on whether you're actually giving something - arguably, you're giving up your life / kidney (and most people aren't willing to give that up, regardless of whether they're being paid or not), but not necessarily giving up sex (and many people are giving it up pretty often... the only difference is, are they also getting paid for it, or not).
Not in the sense of "They'll murder my family if I don't" but just choosing to do it out of her own free will.
I chatted to a prostitute in Thailand, she came from the poor North to work as a sex worker in Bangkok and she was fairly proud of the fact she was sending so much money home to her parents, living in a village where pretty much the only thing you can do is farm.
She showed me a picture of the car her dad was able to buy and kept stressing "it's a 4 door!". She was a genuinely happy and fun loving girl.
To me the shocking thing in this story is a man driving around in a car paid for by his daughter by fellating 300+ men per year, but not the fact this girl decided to do this for a living.
> Do you think murder is immoral?
The story of Armin Meiwes comes to mind, who killed and ate a man who volunteered to have done that to him. There's also the concept of consensual homicide