Legalize it!
Why are we concerning ourselves with how people pleasure themselves in private? It's disgusting.
Of course, have law enforcement root out the kiddie stuff, and have a legal framework to ensure safety (STI testing, etc) but my goodness, the efforts we currently go through to catch consenting adults in mutual benefit...
Plus, the cost of entry is pretty low, I hear.
1. https://www-macleans-ca.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.macleans....
That law didn't just affect sex traffickers, it affected ALL sex workers. Craigslist famously shut down its personals as a result of it.
> In the United Kingdom, the term vice is commonly used in law and law enforcement to refer to criminal offences related to prostitution and pornography. In the United States, the term is also used to refer to crimes related to drugs, alcohol, and gambling.
By the dictionary defintion, this is true.
If you look at what gets called "sex trafficking" in the media, by politicians, by police and prosecutors, and in some cases, by the legal system, this is not true. One common definition is anyone who travelled across state (or country) lines has been trafficked, which is a bit like saying anyone who moves to SF for a tech job is a victim of human slavery.
It's not uncommon for a crackdown on sex trafficking to not find a single victim of sex trafficking (or anything else), but still result in a lot of arrests (overwhelmingly of women) and self-congratulatory press releases. The mind boggles.
In any case, the fight against "sex trafficking" (aka, consensual sex between adults) absolutely harms many victims of actual real trafficking. And bluntly, people who haven't yet got the memo yet and think the phrase is still only being used against actual unethical behaviour are making this worse.
too real :(
Because "legalizing it" doesn't stop sex trafficking or sexual exploitation, in fact all evidences point to the contrary, it increases sex slavery.
https://nordicmodelnow.org/2019/12/17/the-child-sexual-abuse...?
AFAIK ... decriminalization allows for
1. The sex worker to approach authorities without any fear of prosecution.
2. To set up freelance sex work without pimps and brothels.
There shouldn't be a debate about this. Criminalization makes things worse at the expense of moral tidiness.
Regulated sex work allows for
1. Brothels
2. Strip clubs
3. Massage parlors
4. Sex Therapists
If the regulators are corrupt or weak or there are no strong checks ... then the model will be as bad as an unregulated market and will actually be worse as it allows trafficked victims to work under quasi-legal protection. That's what the article implies.
From what I know the nordic model has a large number of social services that help sex-workers quit the profession if they wish to and helps sex-workers unionise.
Interesting. Do they have social services for those that wish to quit computer programming? Or quit hair dressing?
The fact that there needs to be a social service around this particular profession is indicative that this particular profession is probably harmful to the service provider and it probably also means that this isn’t a profession that a girl willingly accepts and perhaps there is value to not promoting this industry.
It is also a more physically oriented job that carries some risk of disease exposure, really shouldn't be worked sick, and some accounts mention an emotional toll and an emphasis on appearance. Individually all aspects aren't unique and some have more severe magnitudes.
Given the income is higher than many other available jobs it could be easy to become dependent upon it for income. A good ethical reason for support is that consent is an ongoing process.
The argument goes like this:
Person A is in such a bad situation that A will accept a job that is terrible!
Prohibiting the job has a good chance of making A worse off (usually, A will accept the job if A thinks it is an improvement over the current situation)
However, we can let A accept the job, and then try to offer A even better alternatives!
My views are largely shaped by the sex worker in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DZfUzxZ2VU
Criminalizing doesn't even offer protection for the sex worker. I'd rather argue about that than having some debate on numbers.
Another avenue that may be worth exploring is opening brothels on reservations, similar to casinos.
(yes accidentally) - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/17/when-...
Not directly,at least applicable to the states, but there are a variety of federal prohibitions around the sex trade which complicate it, and there'd probably be federal will for a direct ban if most states didn't prohibit it entirely and the fee remaining didn't prohibit it in most of their territory. Neither major party broadly supports legalized prostitution, for superficially different reasons.
> Another avenue that may be worth exploring is opening brothels on reservations, similar to casinos.
Not possible without changes to federal law, federal law prohibits prostitution on tribal land, while casinos are regulated by federal law which allows them with tribal-state gaming compacts.