Prostitution: Yea or Nay?

Is it a victimless crime? Is it an individual's right to use her own body in any way she feels fit? Is it a gilded road to damnation? Does legalizing prostitution lead to human trafficking and children being kidnapped to feed the insatiable hunger for sex workers? Are all sex workers just victims? Should we decriminalize it, but not have laws about how it can be done? Should we legalize it and have laws out the ass about it?

C'mon. Out with it. Share your (most likely offensive to somebody) opinion.

Like pot, this happens anyway. And like pot, we can spare some people a lot of grief by putting laws in place to protect them. Yes. Legalize nookie for cash.

Legalising it is probably the best way to clear it up as most people should be free to do what they want with their own body.

However, if that is the case, then it should become a job like any other job. You want to work as one, you get trained, get registered, get health checks, get an "office" etc. etc.

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Originally posted by CatInASuit

Legalising it is probably the best way to clear it up as most people should be free to do what they want with their own body.

However, if that is the case, then it should become a job like any other job. You want to work as one, you get trained, get registered, get health checks, get an "office" etc. etc.

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Yup.

The impression I got in Nevada is that while there are certainly problems with illegal street prostitution, the legalized brothel system comes with its own difficulties as well as severe stigma. Those countries with legalized prostitution that the UN has identified as being major human trafficking hot spots are also, uncoincidentally, places using the brothel system. Creating a legally recognized red light district and sanctioning a system which allows the brothel owner to exert a great deal of control over the sex workers who have little choice but to stay with the brothels is just a recipe for exploitation, IMHO. It makes it much easier to mask situations wherein the workers are not entirely willing.

I'm all for legalizing prostitution and having certain public health measures taken, just as we do in any situation where a worker's health might have an impact on clients. I just don't agree with forcing all legal sex workers into staying in a red light district. Having fewer regulations on "out calls" and heavy oversight on brothels seems the best way to actually handle legalizing it.

I agree in principle that it should be legal, but it would take a lot to convince me that in practice, it wouldn't continue to be dangerous and degrading for everyone involved.

There are many ways of selling your body.

Ask the miner who makes good union money but is broken down physically from his work by the time he's sixty. Ask the woman sewing blue jeans for a living who needs surgery for carpel tunnel at forty-five, but with no insurance, can't afford it. Ask the farmer whose arthritus from her years of physical labor has crippled her before her time. They've all sold their bodies in one way or another.

What makes prostitution different? Social taboo. Like other posters, I'm for legalizing it with tight health regulations and oversight.

Also, all hookers should be hot. I can't stress this enough.

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Originally posted by OneCentStamp

I agree in principle that it should be legal, but it would take a lot to convince me that in practice, it wouldn't continue to be dangerous and degrading for everyone involved.

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Yeah, this tends to be my thought process. I know sex workers (online, at least) who don't feel degraded, who feel safe, and who have entered into it of their own free will. Every last one of them also happens to be a white woman from a middle class background. I can nod along with their rhetoric, and yet I still feel like they're speaking from a place of privilege and making dangerous assumptions about what things are like for sex workers of different backgrounds and situations.

Sweden's way of handling it is interesting. Prostitution is legal, but soliciting a prostitute isn't. It comes from the perspective that if anyone is committing a crime, it isn't the person selling his or her body. It's the person paying money for access to someone's body.

I still don't agree with it entirely, but I do find it more ethically pleasing than the people who say they're worried about the welfare of sex workers and yet defending laws that make them criminals.

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Originally posted by missred

There are many ways of selling your body.

Ask the miner who makes good union money but is broken down physically from his work by the time he's sixty. Ask the woman sewing blue jeans for a living who needs surgery for carpel tunnel at forty-five, but with no insurance, can't afford it. Ask the farmer whose arthritus from her years of physical labor has crippled her before her time. They've all sold their bodies in one way or another.

What makes prostitution different? Social taboo. Like other posters, I'm for legalizing it with tight health regulations and oversight.

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It's more than social taboo; all ways of selling your body are not created equal. For the same reason rape is a far more serious crime than assault - and should be IMO - the business of sex involves a lot more emotion, vulnerability, and potential for abuse than simple hard manual labor, no matter how
backbreaking it might be.

Prostitution has always been legal in Canada, but soliciting, pimping and running a whore house are not legal, which, in addition to indirectly prohibiting the practising of a legal occupation, has made things more dangerous for hookers, for they cannot legally operate in facilities with proper security, and instead must either work on the street or make out-calls if they want to stay within the law. The Ontario Court of Appeal will be ruling on a challenge to these laws very shortly.

Is there any firm plan in place about how people would like to replace the current laws, Muffin?

There are a lot of developing countries that have semi-legal prostitution with relatively minor issues, but they've also got a larger pool of poor people to pull from that may be attracted to the lifestyle. The "pimps" in these cases are usually just the operators of the locations the girls work from. Stay clean, stay drug free, lounge around the bar until someone comes in to pick them up. Generally a mix of hostess bars/escorts and hookers, especially in Asia.

hobbler, I'm always hearing people freaking out over underaged prostitution and sex tourism. In your experience is the presentation of Americans and western Europeans showing up in these developing countries looking for young girls overblown or not?

But the option to make the choice of how to sell your body, made of free will, should be up to the individual. Free will is the key. Regulated, prostitution could be a better option for some people than other occupations that they either aren't qualified for or would impact their life in a more negative manner. Legalize it, and you remove some of its power to make a negative impact.

I agree that people should have the right to do what they want with their own bodies, missred. But are we at risk of making it too attractive, causing more people to potentially do themselves psychological damage out of financial desperation?

Let me throw this out there first:
I don't really have any experience with the sex industry except in passing (wife is Thai, "home" is in Thailand), and having spent time in Germany listening to other guys talk about it.

Peeta: There's a reason they call them "child predators". Those people are scum that exploit kids, and in any country there's ways for them to get what they want. Laws and law enforcement are a bit more lax, but I know in Thailand they're cracking down on this sort of thing. Unfortunately this just forces the predators to move to other nations, like Cambodia.

Sarahfeena: Most of the psychological damage is done by the atmosphere that goes along with the sex trade. The industrialized sex trade proposed above is pretty dehumanizing. I know in Germany, the women have timers. Timer goes off, either you pay for more or you're done. The escort service/bar girl thing is more that a guy is paying an attractive girl to pretend to be interested in him for a certain period of time, details worked out ahead of time. Big mental jump. One's a relatively cathartic "date" experience (ie, girlfriend experience), the other's masturbation with a lifelike doll.

Which one can be more easily controlled, regulated, and safety provided for the girl, though?

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Originally posted by hobbler

The industrialized sex trade proposed above is pretty dehumanizing. I know in Germany, the women have timers. Timer goes off, either you pay for more or you're done. The escort service/bar girl thing is more that a guy is paying an attractive girl to pretend to be interested in him for a certain period of time, details worked out ahead of time. Big mental jump. One's a relatively cathartic "date" experience (ie, girlfriend experience), the other's masturbation with a lifelike doll.

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Yeah, this is why I feel like legalizing prostitution solely in a brothel is going to lead to a lot more abuse rather than less. It's the sexual equivalent of working in McDonald's. Being someone else's wage slave is hard enough when you're slapping burgers on buns. It's got to be brutal when there's a different kind of bun slapping going on. The more freedom the sex workers have for their own safety and sanity as far as choosing where and how they work, the better.

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Which one can be more easily controlled, regulated, and safety provided for the girl, though?

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That's the hard part.

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Originally posted by Sarahfeena

I agree that people should have the right to do what they want with their own bodies, missred. But are we at risk of making it too attractive, causing more people to potentially do themselves psychological damage out of financial desperation?

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The thing is, once it becomes less stigmatized, a good share of the psychological damage that comes from the stigma goes away. Look, for example, of gambling. A generation or two ago, someone working in the gambling industry was not considered worthy of respect. With legalized gaming, that attitude has all but gone away.

missred: One thing I forgot to mention is that the mental damage usually comes from the atmosphere involved. Easy access to drugs, constant partying, and a less than stellar outlook on humanity/men isn't the most healthy atmosphere to be in.

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Originally posted by Peeta Mellark

Is there any firm plan in place about how people would like to replace the current laws, Muffin?

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Nope. The court's decision is being appealed by the province.

If the decision stands, I expect that more municipalities will be putting health, safety and business licence bylaws in place to regulate prostitution, but this will be a very scattered approach, for some municipalities will try to drive prostitutes out of business by applying very high licence fees, while others will try to make the industry safer by requiring certain health procedures and inspections.

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Originally posted by missred

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Originally posted by Sarahfeena

I agree that people should have the right to do what they want with their own bodies, missred. But are we at risk of making it too attractive, causing more people to potentially do themselves psychological damage out of financial desperation?

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The thing is, once it becomes less stigmatized, a good share of the psychological damage that comes from the stigma goes away. Look, for example, of gambling. A generation or two ago, someone working in the gambling industry was not considered worthy of respect. With legalized gaming, that attitude has all but gone away.

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I'm not sure it would be the same with prostitution. As artifex said earlier, there are all kinds of emotions tied up with sex and our bodies, which I think are hard to set aside for most people.

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Originally posted by Muffin

Nope. The court's decision is being appealed by the province.

If the decision stands, I expect that more municipalities will be putting health, safety and business licence bylaws in place to regulate prostitution, but this will be a very scattered approach, for some municipalities will try to drive prostitutes out of business by applying very high licence fees, while others will try to make the industry safer by requiring certain health procedures and inspections.

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Interesting. Of course, very high license fees won't actually stop prostitution. As long as there are people who want to make money and other people willing to pay for sex, it's going to exist. It'll just start up the illegal business all over again.

Yeah, that's a good point, Peeta. I'm not sure the answer is to make it difficult and expensive to get licensed, given that people often get into it due to tough circumstances.

I would prefer if specific problems were targeted by specific laws, rather than by using overly broad catch-alls.