Prostitution: Should it be legal?

I'm replying to add that many "high class" prostitution services, also known as "escort" services, explicitly reserve the right to refuse service to jerkass customers, are often owned and/or managed by the women themselves, mandate health care and STD screening for their employees, and earn a ton of money. Having these things be equated with drug-addled street corner whores is a gross distortion.

I actually did a report, for school on this subject once. Initially, I was pro legalization, but during my research I change my mind.

The main problem is the human trafficking issue. In many cases, people are essentially kidnapped and enslaved.

Trafficking is always illegal - I don't see how legalizing prostitution (i.e., the selling of sex) is likely to increase slavery (i.e., the selling of people). Having the industry be aboveboard and subject to regulation makes it far harder for "employers" to engage in shady practices of this type.

Legalizing prostitution doesn't prevent the existence of illegal prostitutes.

^

No, but it will lessen the amount when there is a legal option.

Nobody is going to want to pick up an illegal streetworker who might have AIDS when there's a certified brothel down the way with clean women and such. Illegal prostitution will fade significantly if it's legalized, as there is no incentive to do it illegally.

@Karalora:

But the problem with prostitution is not that people are trading sex for money, it's that men are paying other men for the privilege of abusing women for a few hours. The abuse suffered by prostitutes is legendary, and where prostitution is legal, regulated, and thus safe, black markets tend to spring up so that men who get off on abusing women can still pay for the privilege of doing so.

As most men are physically stronger than most women, they have the advantage in expressing their libido dominandi. This difference is what allows pimps to slap their prostitutes around and rent them to be dominated by other men.

Thus, most women need the police to protect them. Prostitution being illegal deprives the woman doing it of this protection.

So in practice it doesn't make the least difference whether it's legal or not, if your main concern is the welfare of the workers.

I don't see how this follows. If the number of prostitutes is constant whether it's legal or illegal (like the volume of alcohol quaffed before and after Prohibition was passed), far fewer women will be abused if 90% are in the white market and 10% in the black market than if there is no white market.

Long story short, I think the culture has to change significantly before prostitution will become an ethically neutral industry. But it's inconsistent to keep it illegal when so many other types of sex-related commerce are perfectly legal.

Prostitution can't be an ethically neutral industry. Unless the human mind is a tabula rasa, you can't socialize them to have casual sex but only a virtuous way. Prostitutes are hired to slake one's lust, which is inherently exploitative. Lust makes one's partner a means, not an end, and so does injustice to her even when consent is obtained.

The point is, this is one of those industries that the law is powerless to suppress.

If the number of prostitutes is constant whether it's legal or illegal, far fewer women will be abused if 90% are in the white market and 10% in the black market than if there is no white market.

If women are only abused by white people, eliminating the white market will result in the abuse stopping.

Thus, most women need the police to protect them. Prostitution being illegal deprives the woman doing it of this protection.

We could theoretically offer police protection to the women while keeping prostitution illegal: simply take the focus of the enforcement off the workers (where it currently rests) and go after the pimps and johns.

So in practice it doesn't make the least difference whether it's legal or not, if your main concern is the welfare of the workers.

far fewer women will be abused if 90% are in the white market and 10% in the black market than if there is no white market.

True enough. I oversimplified. What I meant was that you won't eliminate abusive prostitution by legalizing and regulating sex work, because in many cases the abuse itself is the draw. Honestly, it's not that hard to obtain no-strings sex in a city. But then you don't "own" the woman for the duration of the encounter. Some men want to own the woman.

Prostitution can't be an ethically neutral industry. Unless the human mind is a tabula rasa, you can't socialize them to have casual sex but only a virtuous way.

The human mind is certainly not a tabula rasa. But it is highly variable. Impersonal sex is not inevitably harmful to every psyche. Some people, both male and female, actually prefer it. If we could arrange things so that all prostitutes had that preference, it would be no worse than any other service industry and better than many. Ask a retail employee.

The point is, this is one of those industries that the law is powerless to suppress.

Right. For that reason alone, I lean toward legalization, but I am uneasy about the potential intersection of legal prostitution and rape culture.

Right. For that reason alone, I lean toward legalization, but I am uneasy about the potential intersection of legal prostitution and rape culture.

It seems that illegal prostitutes get raped as a structural element of the job (maybe not high-class ones). Since rape is a crime, suppressed by the police, it seems self-evident to me that legal prostitutes wouldn't be in a worse position than any other female citizens. So it comes back to "legalize it so the vast majority of sex workers, who can't be eliminated by legal fiat, will be in the white market."

This is actually a very old Christian position (Aquinas held it): lack of legal prostitution leads to much more rape, because the libido is irrepressible. Society had to channel extramarital sex into the least bad outlets.

Since rape is a crime, suppressed by the police, it seems self-evident to me that legal prostitutes wouldn't be in a worse position than any other female citizens.

I don't know about that. When cash changes hands, you tend to get a "the customer is always right" mentality. We already have jerkwad judges ruling that prostitutes cannot be the victims of rape, only "theft of services." We already have men thinking women owe them sex for less direct reasons than cash changing hands. All that is part of rape culture.

In 1930's illegal bars, people got knifed or assaulted occasionally. They had no legal recourse, because if they went to the police they'd have to admit they were, you know, having an illegal drink in an illegal bar. It's the same with prostitution.

I tend to be of the mind that legalized prostitution would at least allow police attention to be focused on the actual problem areas and problem customers (the illegal, black-market portion). We care if there's excessive exploitation. We care if there's duress. We care if there are unsanitary, unsafe working conditions. We care if there's abuse, rape, pimps who get girls addicted to drugs and use it as a control mechanism.

By providing a way for prostitution that's not those things (or at least, no more so than e.g. the legal porn industry, which is far from perfect but not as bad as all that) to be legal and above board, we remove any excuse for the illegitimate trade, and can label it as unacceptable.

Legal prostitution isn't a nice job (though it may suit some people better than other jobs), but it's far from the only nasty job out there, including some that in my opinion are more degrading and perfectly legal.

@Swish:You forgot to mention the black market. You quoted it, but you only mentioned the white market.

If the number of prostitutes is constant whether it's legal or illegal, far fewer women will be abused if 90% are in the white market and 10% in the black market than if there is no white market.

Things are always safer legal.

edited 30th Sep '10 1:03:00 PM by secretist

@Secretist If black people don't abuse women, then why worry about the black market? It's white people that are the problem...

Seriously though, I never saw the problem with the legalization of prostitution. I mean, other than the moral issue, it seems like a win for the government and prostitutes as a whole.

Some form of regulation, at the very least, would give the prostitutes a way to report crimes against them. But think of the tax revenue the government could receive. Especially from the "high-end escorts" supposedly making $30k a month.

The problem, as always, is that you're going to get massive resistance from the moralists who claim that any move to legalize prostitution is destroying the morals of the country, etc., etc. It's inevitable and something that should not be underestimated for its sheer political power.

Of course you will, which is why I don't expect it to happen overnight. Nevada's legal brothels in non-urban counties haven't exactly caused the ruin of the place, though, and that example may spread — even though social conservatives consider it Sodom-in-the-desert. Look at how gambling has steadily been legalized. I suspect the most likely way to see it legalized is if states see a taxation moneypot in it.

It's legal in Nevada. That Other Wiki. List of brothels in Nevada. Prostitution in Nevada.

edited 30th Sep '10 1:42:50 PM by secretist

Um, that's what I said. Legal in non-urban counties. Prostitution is still illegal in Las Vegas or Reno.

edited 30th Sep '10 1:42:59 PM by Morven

As an amusing but possibly irrelevant anecdote, when I went to Vegas for my wedding/honeymoon, the place was littered with "adult services" flyers to the point where I could have wallpapered my hotel room with them. It was ridiculous.

edited 30th Sep '10 1:44:51 PM by Fighteer

It's legal to advertise services available in nearby, prostitution-legal counties, as well as things (such as strip clubs) actually legal in Vegas. However, I'm not sure the law is policed that stringently.

I honeymooned in Vegas too — one of the bigger suites at the MGM Grand, back when it was pretty new.

edited 30th Sep '10 1:47:57 PM by Morven

So, if we don't want any abuse, does that mean that prostitution catering to sadists remains illegal?

We're talking about real-world abuse, not fictional abuse.

A BDSM scene is theater. It's putting on a world of pretense, a world in which fantasies can become real for a space.

A professional submissive would be being "abused" in the context of a scene, in her or his role in the theater. However, that person may like their job immensely. If they like it (at least as well as anyone likes their job well enough), it's not abuse in real life, is it?

There are many parallels here with arguments for drug legalisation. If you acknowledge its prevalence in society and legalise it, you can regulate it. In this case, by setting up licenced and inspected legal brothels where people can visit knowing everything is consensual and the girls (and customers) are disease free and said women aren't being forced into what they do.

It also isolates the ones who still seek out the illegal ones, and isolates the human traffickers.

I am in favour of this, for the above reasons. I equally agree that for the remaining illegal matters, it is not the prostitutes who should be criminalised, but the men who run the illegal brothel/trafficking ring.

Unfortunately the cops who work these kind of things are notoriously corrupt. Sure, they bust hookers. if it's their town's policy, they bust customers too. Time and again, though, the criminals who run prostitution get the cops to take their money and do what they're told.

It's certainly happened enough times in the past - in fact, some police forces had a policy of rotating cops through the vice units, so that nobody stayed there long enough for severe corruption to kick in.

Sounds like we need better cops.

EDIT: I forgot to mention: go after the customers who visit the illegal brothels/deal with human traffickers as well of course.

edited 30th Sep '10 7:05:26 PM by GameChainsaw