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Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

I investigated this a few years ago in Australia. Sex work is legal in Australia, kinda. It is legal to exchange sexual services for money, but supporting and assisting such a transaction is illegal. So a landlord who rents a property to a sex worker is breaking the law. A payment processor who processes the card transaction is breaking the law, and so on. There are some clauses around managing establishments that basically make brothels just, barely, within the law.

It's a ridiculous position in that it almost forces sex workers onto the street or into brothels (which often take a huge chunk of each transaction). There was no way of getting my client (I was freelancing for a sex worker to try and solve some of their tech issues) any reasonable ability to process credit cards. Or do a wide range of things that we'd consider normal for a small business (like set up a Stripe account, or even a business bank account, or rent an office).

This needs to change.

View on HN

Ostracizing sex work has become fully normalized, so unfortunately people read this and immediately think, "Why not pretend to be someone else?", "Why not just do other illegal things (like tax evasion)?"

> has become fully normalized

I don’t think this is a new phenomenon at all. I would guess it’s the norm through much of history.

In early modern venice, the state operated and promoted a special place for prostitutes to work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_delle_Tette - "Titty Bridge") because they were afraid that men not getting enough sex would turn them gay!

The history of sex work is fascinating and wildly diverse.

You would guess wrong then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_prostitution

> it almost forces sex workers onto the street or into brothels (which often take a huge chunk of each transaction)

Exactly. It makes sex work more dangerous, not less.

Cake-eating-and-having exercise.

To progressives: "See how progressive we are, not criminalizing sex work!"

To conservatives: "See how conservative we are, endangering sex workers and making life hard for them!"

It's almost like conservatives only want to harm people who aren't like them. Weird

I don't think conservatives are attempting to endanger sex workers - they believe sex work is fundamentally risky and leads to abuse. There is no safe way to do sex work that doesn't result in problems. Therefore they believe it should be discouraged and made illegal, the same way many progressives believe firearms should be illegal since they are dangerous.

Tribal groups are alive and well, and even if you dislike your opposing one you should try to at least understand their motives if only for selfish reasons.

I thought they believed sex work is fundamentally sinful and that's why it should be banned. I guess we talked to different conservatives.

Freedom of religion was supposed to be a thing in the US. Sin is not a good reason to make a law that binds those who don't follow the same religion

The first amendment restricts congress, not voters. Voters are free to vote for whatever politician they like for whatever reason they like, including religious reasons. The constitution does not demand that religious citizens demarcate and compartmentalize their religious and civic beliefs when they go to vote.

In theory it should restrict the representatives who got voted in from using their religious beliefs in legislating

It doesn't even do that. It restricts what kind of laws congress can create, not the reasoning congressmen use when choosing which laws to support.

Completely secular and constitutional laws may be enacted by congressmen that have religious reasons to support that law; e.g. religious legislator may vote for a law against murder because murder is against their religion. The first amendment doesn't regulate the thoughts and reasoning of legislators; religious reasoning for secular laws are fine.

And conversely, secular reasoning for religious laws doesn't make the law okay; a cynical atheist might say that religion is necessary for controlling the unwashed masses, but despite that secular reasoning, a law mandating a religion would still plainly violate the first amendment.

We fought a whole war to end chattel slavery because a movement largely composed of pious Christians believed it to be sinful.

There was also a large amount of Christians who thought slavery was permitted by the Bible so I don't think that argument has a leg to stand on

What argument? The point is that everybody votes based on their particular opinions of what is moral or immoral, often related to their religious beliefs, this is not a new phenomenon, and it is not at odds with freedom of religion.

The point is not that all religious reasoning leads to constitutional laws; that is obviously false. The point is that religious reasoning dos not necessarily lead to unconstitutional laws.

That is easily the most wildly inaccurate categorization of conservative positions on sex work I have ever, and am ever likely to, encounter. Conservatives (in the US anyway) view sex work as grossly amoral and sex workers as sub-human and a threat to the community. Collectively they don't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about sex worker safety, they just want it banned outright through any means necessary.

Fact. "for their own safety" is just the sales pitch / cover story.

Opinions vary. Certainly many people, not just conservatives would think that sex work is immoral. I don't believe I've ever met someone that believes sex workers are subhuman, that reeks of hyperbole. The perception of sex work as a threat to community is probably wider spread still, in its current form it certainly isn't conducive to safety for anyone involved.

Overall, you're simply setting up a strawman that poorly characterizes your opponents. There are many reasons why someone would oppose sex work, including concern over the safety of the sex workers. Even if it were fully legalized and regulated there would still be significant risk when you have two people who don't know each other well in a room alone together and questions of sex and money are money are involved. Especially if it is a physically stronger man with a woman. The more cogent arguments take that into consideration along with the other effects such as sex workers becoming trapped in the occupation, the poor prospects for aging workers to earn an income or be able to retire, the second order effects on the community which are poorly understood but could be far reaching, economic effects of making the occupation more available to the working age population who might otherwise pursue other careers, etc. All of that generally lines up with the conservative take on any change which is to ask "Are you sure you have considered all of the consequences?" and "Do the benefits outweigh the costs both short term and long term?".

Really well thought out reply. Thanks for taking the time to write this, it really helped me understand conservative positions on not legalizing prostitution

Prostitution has been legal in Amsterdam since 2000, so a good percentage of the current sex workers were born into that world. Has someone done a case study on the long term effects?

I'd be interested to know, it's worth reading up on.

It reeks of hyperbole you say? I invite you to attend services at the Southern Baptist church of your choosing and then try bringing up the topic of sex workers after services. Depending on where you attempt this you might make it to your car under your own power.

Your claim that I'm advancing a strawman argument here strongly suggests to me that you may not have a solid grasp on conservative attitudes on this topic. I assure you Alabama (for example) exists, and it's residents absolutely have opinions about things.

You said, and I quote:

> Conservatives (in the US anyway) view sex work as...

You did not specify Southern Baptist church members, which I am sure form a part of the entire set of conservatives in the US but do not solely comprise it. I'm also sure that Alabama doesn't consist of 100% conservative leaning people nor do I believe that all of its conservatives share the same opinions. Please try to think clearly, I don't have time to correct all of your statements.

From the parent:

"I don't think conservatives are attempting to endanger sex workers - they believe sex work is fundamentally risky and leads to abuse."

Having established that you don't refute my claim that (at minimum) large portions of the conservative constituency take a militantly hard line on the topic of sex work that puts us a lot closer to "well, I knew this guy once who claimed to be a conservative that also said this thing once" than "the conservative position on sex work is X". If you insist I can absolutely compile a list of links of everything from "religious leaders" to pundits and politicians openly railing against sex workers. Your sassy banter doesn't impress.

I actually grew up in a Southern Baptist church, worked in it for a few years and still ocassionally interact with that community.

First of all it's a diverse community, both in skin color and in national origin. Second, I have never seen any member of that group do any worse than engage in debate. That you "might not make it to your car" is such hilarious hyperbole that it's bordering on satire.

That sex work is dangerous, leads to the abuse of women and often times is associated with sex trafficking is their view. They will tell you that. Some of the people, at least from my families church, were sex trafficking victims. Many of them help support and house battered women, help provide rape counseling on a weekly basis, and otherwise certainly have at least anecdotal reasons for their beliefs.

You aren't the only one here who grew up in a Southern Baptist church and buddy I see you over there pretending the 700 club isn't a thing. I've seen fist fights break out during funeral services on more than one occasion so don't piss in my pocket and tell me it's raining.

Framing something in moral terms breeds desire for punishment.

Many religious conservatives aren't worried about the safety of sex workers. They believe the act is sin and shouldn't be tolerated in any context. Nevermind the fact that many religious historical figures were themselves prostitutes.

Many conservatives, regardless of religion, believe sex work damages the traditional nuclear family structure. This is similar to the Roman decadence argument.

Many liberals believe sex work is degrading to women. Nevermind the fact that legalizing it would empower workers, make it safer, and decrease trafficking. Nevermind the entire LGBT spectrum.

There is entrenched opposition from all points on the spectrum. It's maddening that "vices" like sex and drugs that don't hurt anyone are so denigrated.

The time is overdue for moving past these taboos.

Removing taboos around drug use has at best mixed results in, eg, Seattle and Portland.

Perhaps there’s a reason that past societies invented the taboos to begin with.

I'm not sure it is this. Instead, I think it is that conservatives think that sex work is fundamentally immoral and that therefore it cannot be accepted by society, regardless of any harm or benefit created by this policy. It isn't "hey we believe that sex workers fundamentally cannot be protected from abuse" like something like child labor but is instead "sex work is moral degeneracy and must be stopped."

You’re not following their logic through:

“Moral degeneracy” is a problem (in their view) because of the associated harms — which we’ve learned over time and encoded into our traditions. That things they call “moral degeneracy” fundamentally are harmful to a healthy society and to the people involved.

That is, they think sex work is harmful to the people who participate and those nearby (eg, children of sex workers).

Morality isn’t merely arbitrary and capricious rules, but an evolved code of conduct which tries to avoid things that are harmful. (Or at least, were — eg, prohibitions on pork.)

Well, the modern conservative movement is an alliance of several groups.

Some conservatives get from sex work to prohibition via moral degeneracy - perhaps they'll want strong moral fibre from their politicians and oppose all forms of corruption.

Other conservatives reason via religion - perhaps they'll also oppose teaching evolution, and support 'in god we trust' signs in classrooms.

Still other conservatives don't really care either way about prostitution, but have strong opinions on guns or taxes and kinda tolerate the rest of the conservative platform.

And there are even conservatives who think the state has no business regulating what goes on between consenting adults behind closed doors, and the smaller and less intrusive a state is the better; and they're frankly embarrassed their fellow conservatives are inviting the state into the bedroom.

> “Moral degeneracy” is a problem (in their view) because of the associated harms

You're assuming the social conservative subscribes to a consequential ethics system. But a social conservative subscribing to deontological ethics is more likely, particularly if they're a religious social conservative.

Not so. Consider gay sex. Conservatives consider this to be "moral degeneracy" and seek to ban things like gay marriage or even gay sex altogether. Occasionally, conservatives will claim this is about protecting gay people from disease but this is obviously a lie because

1. they never exclude gay women

2. they don't actually follow through on other policies to prevent STDs in the gay community and even frequently consider things like HIV to be divine judgement

It becomes clear that the concern about "moral degeneracy" is not at all related to a desire to keep gay people from experiencing harm.

Similarly, the concern about "moral degeneracy" related to sex work is not at all related to a desire to keep sex workers from experiencing harm. Instead it is about "protecting" society from what they perceive to be evil harlots.

> they believe sex work is fundamentally risky and leads to abuse

More like they believe sex work is inherently immoral and therefore sex workers deserve abuse.

This is why so many sex workers prefer decriminalization to legalization. Because many times legalization comes with these shotgun laws that prevent anyone from helping out a sex worker in any way without facing legal consequences that were built to be severe enough to punish the worst sex traffickers.

Do you want to pay your ex-marine brother to sit in the next room to make sure you're safe? You can't, he'd face severe penalties for supporting the transaction.

What were their tech issues?

mainly "is there any way I can accept credit card payments?"

I’m confused — why can’t the sex workers just claim to be independent masseuses or something else innocuous like that?

Why can't drug dealers claim to sell recreational tea products?

Why can't hitmen claim to be bespoke pest exterminators?

OK, so I don't know about the hitmen thing, but there's been plenty of news stories about "independent masseuses" and "incense", "bath salts", etc.

People do stuff like this. I too wonder how they get away with it for as long as they do.

It's totally a solution on an individual level, if not a long term solution. It's just not a solution at the societal level.

Lying to your payment processor about what you really sell typically always ends up in the same way. They catch up with you and your account is terminated.

Ask all those CBDs sellers that pretended they were selling "supplements", takes a while but eventually.. all shut down.

Meanwhile, there are places in the world where CBD oil can be found in a supermarket, among other supplements.

Yes, it needs to be made permanently illegal and the activity driven underground. This would solve the problem you are mentioning.

You forgot the /s tag.

Hah, except that you get more of what you subsidize. Besides being immoral, it’s destructive to society.

My point is that the "war on drugs" approach is pretty ineffective while at the same time inflicting significant collateral damage. It already is underground, and it already is almost illegal in most jurisdictions.

(Actually criminalizing the exchange of valuable consideration for sex hits the problem that things that look suspiciously like it are endemic in hetero dating and "giving money to your tinder date for a taxi" becomes an offence)

Just say you're filming a porno and in most of the western world it suddenly becomes legal.

There's a lot of paperwork you have to keep around that IIRC dealing with actor's ages and everything.

Yeah prostitution is legal as long as you film it and sell the video. Unclear if this is a feature or a bug.

You’re skipping the moral problem. The road to hell is paved with utilitarians.

Your religion is not my religion. The law should not prevent me from doing things just because you think it'll send me to hell, anymore than the law should force you to practice my religion.

If you don't believe in freedom of religion, that's your choice, but it sort of one of the founding principles of the USA.

The founding of the USA had all 13 colonies with state churches. Sure, let’s return to that. Then all the states would outlaw this immoral practice.

And yet the first amendment guarantees freedom of religion and none of these 13 colonies banned prostitution, so it seems your assumption is incorrect.

The first Amendment guarantees that Congress will not establish a religion. The states already had them established.

And adultery was a capital crime, read between the lines.

Look, if your daughters came to you and said “we want to be whores for a living”, you’ve got bigger issues than arguing on this website.

> And adultery was a capital crime, read between the lines.

Uhhh... No, no it was not.

> Look, if your daughters came to you and said “we want to be whores for a living”, you’ve got bigger issues than arguing on this website.

Better throw them in prison then. That'll solve the problem.

"And adultery was a capital crime"

Are you confusing Islam with Christianity? Adultery is a capital crime in traditional Islamic jurisprudence.

From wikipedia:

> Laws against adultery in colonial America were very harsh. Despite this, there is only one known execution for adultery in American history: it occurred in the Colony of Massachusetts in 1643, when the married 18 year old Mary Latham[118] and her extramarital lover James Britton were executed.[119][120]

This is new to me, I had no idea. But it seems that in colonial Massachusetts at least, adultery was a capital crime. Technically colonial Massachusetts isn't Massachusetts state. I don't know when this/these laws were revised, but it seems plausible that some of them lasted past the colonial era.

These are the only two people ever known to be executed in the colonies or states to follow: https://horrorhistory.net/2021/03/21/pair-hanged-for-adulter...

Which makes sense. Too many lawmakers would have to be hanged if it was actually illegal, as there were plenty of scandals around affairs made public. Hamilton for example admitted to having an affair (https://www.history.com/news/alexander-hamilton-maria-reynol...), which would of course be a crazy thing to do if he could be hanged over it.

Well, even today adultry is illegal in some states, but thankfully not a capital crime. As of 2022 It's illegal in 16 states (including a few surprising states like New York) and a felony in 3 (Michigan, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma.)

But yes, enforcement is rare and probably for exactly the reason you say.

What happens between 2 consenting adults isn't my business, nor is it yours.

Is sex outside of marriage immoral? Are you citing biblical proof to justify your claim?

citation needed

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Please don't comment like you're on reddit or Facebook.

I commented like I'm on a site that values discussion over blind downvotes, but also substance over empty moral claims.

I was genuinely interested in reading some arguments for that claim. (After all nowadays it's s trope that this or that thing corrupts society. Porn, money, capital, the Internet, music, 5G, drugs, sex, millennials, conservatives, radicals, atheists. And of course DnD.)

I don't understand this. Why is it destructive to society to provide an easy way for people to get laid if they need to?

If I had to guess (just a guess, I don't really believe these things.)

- Lowering birthrate; people may be less likely to have a family and kids if the primary driver for these things (sex) is already taken care of. - Higher STI rate (regulation might help here). - More isolation; people are less likely to go out and mingle if one of the reasons to do so is easy and transactional. - Wealth inequality; I believe men are more likely to pay for sex, and women sex workers tend to make more. So, money will move from one gender to the other unidirectionally. This may result in wealth inequality if sex work becomes wide spread.

Precisely because it feeds the destructive attitude that the "get laid" impulse is a sort of mechanical need that can be cleanly isolated from the "find a long-term partner" impulse. Sex work for someone who wants to get laid is like cigarettes for someone who wants to lose weight - it'll work (nicotine is a reasonably strong appetite suppressant), but at what cost?

Imagine you met someone who says "yeah, I used to really struggle on Tinder, so now I've uninstalled the apps and just hire a prostitute every Saturday". Does he seem like a healthy guy whose needs are being met?

It sounds like none of my or your business. Neither of us has any legitimate interest in them other than do they rob anyone? Do they burn down houses? Do they perform at some job and pay taxes? If they spend all their money on prostitutes, it's no more your business than if they spend it all on video games or cars or rare stamps.

I don't agree. A society where prostitution is welcomed and celebrated is very different than one where it's not, and it's entirely reasonable for me to say I'd like to live in the second kind of society. You mention cars, so I'd point to muffler mandates as a good analogy - an un-muffled car won't rob anyone or burn down your house, but because they're loud and annoying they've been prohibited.

Tobacco is tolerated, not celebrated. There is a large gap between someone's vices being no one's business and actively celebrating them.

If you enjoy the status quo on tobacco, the people you have to thank for it are strong, dedicated anti-smoking advocates who think smoking is absolutely their business and would happily ban it if that were politically feasible. It used to be that smoking was celebrated and as a consequence happened everywhere. Stepping into a restaurant, bar, or airplane meant breathing in clouds of cigarette smoke. Smokers at the time would argue, quite passionately, that because their vices are none of your business it's unfair to try and drive smoking out of public life.

I'm torn on whether it should be completely illegal, because I've seen some kinda persuasive arguments in the direction of decriminalization. In particular, you don't want people who do sex work to feel like they can't get help without going to jail. But I'm confident that "ban it all" is much closer to the truth than "none of our business".

If someone out there is actively advocating to be able to have sex with a prostitute next to you in a restraunt then I see your point. Otherwise prostitution is already not part of public life.

There are people out there (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/09/sex-work-...) advocating for prostitution as a reasonable career path which should be discussed openly with women who feel undervalued or unfulfilled in their current career.

I don't think people are gonna start plowing each other in public, but I think there's a very real possibility that in a decade or two it could be considered strange and prudish to tell your friends and family that they shouldn't make an OnlyFans. I've seen some spaces online that are already at that point, although it's always hard to know whether online subcultures represent anything in the real world.

What if they did? In what way does this harm you?

At one time they said the same thing about exposing any skin at all even at the beach.

Every human, yes including children gasp has a body with body parts, so mere exposure to the sight of them and knowledge of their existance is not harmful. Sight of the act of sex is merely more of the same. Kids on farms see it every day from birth.

At worst it's perhaps distasteful or lacks appropriate decorum in some contexts. I find practically everyone to lack taste or decorum in most WalMarts. It's not a valid argument.

It's only worth about as much legal consequence as defecating in the wrong place. In fact defecating is worth more since it at least carries an actual public health consequence to others beyond "I don't want to see that"

"I don't want to see that" is an utterly invalid demand, since anyone can say that about anyone for any reason. They used to be able to say it about merely being a mixed race couple in public, or hell a lot of people still do say it about gay couples or trans individuals merely existing in the room. It is ever so slowly being recognized that in order to try to claim any kind of say over anyone else like that, you have to show harm, and no one can show any harm from a person merely existing as gay or trans or black or female etc. Anything you can say about how obviously depraved and harmful it would be to see naked people or sex acts in public, used to be said about all kinds of ordinary harmless things. People were imprisoned or killed over nothing but "I don't want to see that" and "I don't like it that that exists" without any actual harm to justify it.

Talking this way about sex work and evidense of sex work being visible in public, is exactly the same.

I don't think there can be a rigid distinction between "I don't want to see that" and "actual harm". We can presumably agree that it would be wrong if Google put up posters of naked women all over the office, and that the EEOC is right to prohibit such things as a hostile work environment. But what "actual harm" could you point to beyond the fact that the posters are offensive and people don't want to see them? I understand the appeal of being able to take a "live and let live" attitude without considering these kind of tricky values judgments, but I just don't see how you can avoid it.

It's an interesting idea to follow.

So a buisiness that isn't any of the many that might legitimately have pictures of naked women in their offices or other public spaces where employees have to work, has them.

What makes them a hostile work environment? Hostile or harmful to who, and by what mechanism?

I'll proceed on the assumption that it causes women to feel threatened by the men in the area and/or the owners/managers who installed the posters.

This line of reasoning is essentially the same as blaming women for the rapes they endure because they should have made sure they didn't look attractive to any men, instead of holding men to a standard to be responsible for their actions.

The harm in your example is that by putting up these posters of naked women being valued only for their body, you send the message that that is how women are seen here. A woman is likely to feel she is at risk of being objectified the same as the women you've put on the wall as literal objects.

I'm confused what the analogous harm is to you when two adults have consensual sex behind closed doors where you can't see or know about it.

Who said consentual sex causes any harm? I'm arguing the opposite.

The argument that women will interpret the posters as a message that they are seen as objects is potentially interesting, but then what about all the women who work at modelling agencies and ad agencies and actual sex related businesses?

The argument that women will feel threatened because the posters will cause the men to attack them, or even just low level menace them, is saying that men are helpless reacting animals and are not responsible for their actions, which is the same argument as saying women are responsible for rape by not dressing badly enough.

These theoretical posters are simply and merely inappropriate for facililitating the work being done in most workplaces. They are unwelcome but it's merely because they are a distraction and an annoyance. It doesn't cause any sort of harm that can justify any legal consequences.

There is no argument for making them illegal, and in fact they're already not because there are tons of businesses where such images are central to the business. The same image will be interpreted as porn in one room while it's just the businesses product on the wall at countless clothing manufacturers. So the image itself can not be said to posess any intrinsic harm or evil.

> Who said consentual sex causes any harm? I'm arguing the opposite.

The comment I'm replying to is. They are arguing that prostitution is somehow harmful to them and should be banned. I'll note the analogy of a poster on the wall of ones workplace is pretty poor, unless someone is advocating that prostitutes should be manning the hallways of Google. If you don't want to be exposed to prostitution it's easy to avoid. If you don't want to be exposed to the decoration of your place of work it's a lot harder.

> The argument that women will interpret the posters as a message that they are seen as objects is potentially interesting, but then what about all the women who work at modelling agencies and ad agencies and actual sex related businesses?

You mean the women who signed up for this line of work voluntarily rather than walking into their software engineering job and finding these posters on the wall? I think there's a clear differentiation between the two. Google probably shouldn't decorate it's offices with graphic images of say, people being operated on, I think that'd arguably be just as hostile a work environment. That doesn't mean that every surgeon is being abused.

> So the image itself can not be said to posess any intrinsic harm or evil.

Agreed the harm is not in the inherit to the image. As with many (most?) human interactions, context matters.

"> Who said consentual sex causes any harm? I'm arguing the opposite.

The comment I'm replying to is."

Doh, right, sorry.

> which should be discussed openly with women who feel undervalued or unfulfilled in their current career.

Why shouldn't it be "discussed openly"? Why should a person making a good living in their career not be allowed to discuss it? I'm also not getting where your getting the "women who feel undervalued or unfulfilled in their current career". It seems like your implying she's suggesting we push these women into that work, but that's not supported by your article at all.

And yeah, maybe in 10-years it'll be frowned on to tell people they shouldn't make their money the way they choose. I don't see why it should be anymore acceptable to tell fully grown adults you don't like them making their money on OnlyFans vs say joining the military or starting a risky business.

Poo pooing adult's life decisions uninvited is generally frowned upon. There's no reason we need an exception to this for OnlyFans.

I also now wonder exactly where the line is here. We were talking prostitution now the goalposts have moved to OnlyFans, so I guess nudity for money is now unacceptable? That's a pretty broad line that rules out a lot of modelling and mainstream acting as well.

I garantee without even knowing you ahead of time, that I could find 10 things about your life that you value, that I could make an argument that society would benefit if you weren't allowed those things.

I don't have to know anything about you ahead of time because this applies equally to every human on the planet.

Thus your argument is invalid.

Worse than that that, it's not merely in error which anyone can be wrong about anything, it's an ugly offensive personality trait to even want to try to make that sort of argument and rationalization in the first place.

Have you ever lived in a society that welcomes and celebrates sex work? The only one that springs to mind is Holland, and they have a great society. I would much rather Australia had Dutch attitudes to this (and a bunch of other stuff; Aussies are secretly very authoritarian)

A significant amount of people aren't looking at this as an issue of metrics, convenience, economics, or anything of the sort. That's a utilitarian approach. The vast majority of people opposed to legal & regulated prostitution are approaching it from a religious and moral perspective. The Christians that the article rags on believe that the Bible is truth that has been revealed to man by God and that it encourages the civil magistrates to deter sexually perverse behavior of all kinds including but not limited to pornography and prostitution.

Yet the US has freedom of religion, it seems there is a large conflict there

The Constitution says there shall be no church of the United States, but that was at a time when all the states had state churches.

And adultery was a capital crime.

Outlawing whoring and the founding principles of the country are not at odds.

As @a-user-you-like has pointed out, your interpretation is a common misconception about what 'freedom of religion' means. The framers certainly did not mean that the laws passed by the state and federal governments were to be completely free from moral judgement based on religion or more particularly Christianity. There is no conflict, because neither the states or the federal government are instituting a state church. Instead, you have individual citizens insisting that the laws of their land should be derived from God's law and not judged by some arbitrary and immeasurable standard such as the happiness of prostitutes and their clientele.

For some time now it seems moral / christian crusaders are invading HN. All those accounts have very low karma (sometimes even negative) and insist on "values" and "morals".

I wonder if it's the result of a concerted effort or the inevitable consequence of HN becoming mainstream.

It's probably the latter, but it's pretty annoying.

Basically half the US thinks this way and votes this way. If you are a conservative and upset at my comment, understand the people you vote for SIGNIFICANTLY support the religious nuts.

I'm not from the US, don't live there (and don't vote there).

Billions of people still live under the framing that their religion is the only truth in the universe and think that prostitution is defined as some sort of bad thing according to their holy books. Even just limiting to Christians and Muslims, that's billions of diverse people who are limited to very against prostitution and sex out of wedlock. Why are you surprised that some of them can find this community?

Why would social conservatives and Christians, who make up a large share of US population, not be expected to be present among HN commenters?

Because they weren't in the past. And because HN is an international forum for tech geeks; I think social conservatives and Christians are underrepresented in tech; and I am quite certain the kind of social conservatism and "Christianity" that exist in the US doesn't exist in the same proportion, or with the same beliefs, elsewhere. In Europe for instance, so-called "pro-lifers", while they exist, make up a small minority of the public.

Fair, but if the underrepresentation is 50% say, half of a large number is not tiny. Tech nowadays is a major career path akin to law or medicine, less of the niche idiosyncratic subculture it was 20 years ago.

Anecdotally, my socially conservative church is full of FAANG developers & one of our lay pastors is a highly-cited ML researcher

Hacker culture is full of exactly the kind of people it used to despise.

In Europe in many countries left wing feminists fight against prostitution, I'm not sure what you're talking about.

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