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Comment by 2rsf | Hacker News Reader

good question, I have many answers but they are not good enough to justify a law. Since I am not a libertarian and I think that the state should have some control over their citizens I can understand why the state objects prostitution under the assumption that most (or many) sex works don't (or wouldn't) choose this lifestyle voluntarily. I also in favor of gun control, limiting SMS loans, limitations on drug usage (not sure to which level) etc.

Huge disclaimer- I don't have any numbers or data to support my feelings, the fact that there is a community with 170k members worldwide (probably not all of them sex workers) which have positive online attitude towards selling sex doesn't mean that this is their real life attitude. Mental problems or financial hardships can push people to justify things they might regret later.

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>I can understand why the state objects prostitution under the assumption that most (or many) sex works don't (or wouldn't) choose this lifestyle voluntarily.

I've never understood how sex work gets singled out from all the other forms of selling your body for money. I can't think of many(any?) working class jobs that aren't some form of selling your body for money. Typically for way less money then I would argue our bodies are worth.

true, but it's a range where prostitution is on the lower side. Do note that some of those professions are supervised to some degree, for example by health services, or requires some license

True, but I feel like that is an argument for the state to not object to prostitution. If the state wasn't onjecting, the industry or the state could then have some more oversight/licensing and be 'safer' for all. I put safer in quotes because I don't think "oversight" is always very effective or makes conditions safer, easy to look at Amazon wearhouse workers or cell phone assembly factories as pretty exereme cases of people selling their bodies for money and the supposed oversight not really doing much to lessen the exploitation/abuse.

But then address the underlying problems, offer better ways out of financial hardships than going into prostitution, require a psychological assessment before granting a work permit, ...

I can't argue bout that, and actually Sweden is not that bad at that

> Since I am not a libertarian and I think that the state should have some control over their citizens I can understand why the state objects prostitution under the assumption that most (or many) sex works don't (or wouldn't) choose this lifestyle voluntarily.

So then shouldn't porn be illegal too?

Since I am not a libertarian and I think that the state should have some control over their citizens I can understand why the state objects prostitution under the assumption that most (or many) sex works don't (or wouldn't) choose this lifestyle voluntarily.

It gets chosen because women have too few opportunities to make similar amounts of money any other way. Not giving women the right to sell sexual services condemns them to having no means to adequately support themselves. It doesn't protect them from anything at all.

Think about why this conversation is always about women selling sex. Why is that? Why are sex workers almost universally female or assumed to be while their clients are almost universally male?

That's the real issue here and it doesn't get fixed by criminalizing sex work.

actually Sweden has a decent job equality, I have seen women doing work that is considered men's work elsewhere- we are talking low level, unskilled work here not computer science

Then I imagine it doesn't pay as much as prostitution.

So it's not really a rebuttal to my point.

I don't know how much prostitutes earn in Sweden but low skilled employees earn a very decent salary that includes pension, the state covers health and education. You can actually have a decent life by being a McDonald's worker ( obviously there are exceptions)

Look, I don't understand why you are arguing in this way. This is not a rebuttal to my point.

Whatever else is going on in Sweden, prostitution exists there as well and criminalizing it is not stamping it out and is not a means to address the concern some people have that "Women who become prostitutes without being trafficked do so because they are desperately poor, so they still aren't truly there voluntarily."

I'm not saying that "Good paying jobs will stamp out prostitution." I have no goal of stamping out prostitution.

I'm saying that criminalizing prostitution gives desperately poor women no remedy for the poverty that forces some of them into prostitution. It just closes another door and makes their life harder, not better.

Just a healthy discussion, no arguing

The swedish answer is simple- because they don't see prostitution as legitimate, criminalization or not

That also doesn't address my point.

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