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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
That's not a source, it's an opinion piece by a woman who mistakes her personal experience as universal. Not all prostitution is sexual exploitation of minors, but because that was her experience, it's how she views prostitution. If you want to fight anecdotes with anecdotes, there are many women who have had a positive experience with prostitution.
The difference is that sexual exploitation of minors is a crime regardless of the legalities of prostitition.
If prostitution is criminalized, a 12-year-old forced to engage in it will be punished by law, and so will a 24-year-old who made an informed choice for herself. If decriminalized, the 12-year-old can seek legal protection and her victimizers punished, while the 24-year-old is not accosted by law for her own choices.
Criminalization of prostitution hurts women, full stop.
edited 17th Dec '16 12:59:16 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.What moral reasons to be against prostitution do you mean exactly? I mean, either it's forced, in which case criminalizing prostitutes is just beyond the pale. Or it is voluntrary. In which case it is an action that is otherwise neither illegal nor immoral, done for money. Or in other words just another job in the service sector.
See, my impression is that California has not decriminalized prostitution.
Rather - see what I said before about "bad joke"? Apparently, the Golden State considers any sexual activity involving minors as a crime. Which would make about half of its adolescent population criminals if memory serves. That bad idea carried over into prostitution law, which considers being an underage prostitute a crime just like it does for the "customer". Until this law change, which legalizes the "being" part.
Full legalization means that customers of adult prostitutes are not criminals, either (nobody wants legal underage prostitution, I hope).
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman@ randomdude: And why should your morality apply? There is no reason to keep these archaic and puritan laws in place that do nothing but victimize people who, due to economics forced into place, fell into the world's oldest profession.
I am so very glad that California is leading the fight against the Fuhrer (I refuse to call him the President). I am very proud of my state for doing this. Flawed as we may be, this state is the best chance for those looking to escape the worst of the Fuhrer's dictates.
I guess the older profession is the hunter. But prostitution comes close.
Anyway, prostitution is actually legal in Germany. Prostitutes even pay taxes. Does it undermine the criminal side of the business? Not really, but I do think that it makes the work of the police slightly easier. Personally I have a hard time that a woman would actually choose this particular profession, if for no other reason than it being a dangerous one, but in the end, it is their body and their choice...once they are a legal adult.
Some women choose to be porn stars, and being a legally-protected prostitute is like being a porn star, but a lot less work (since you have to do a lot of positioning for the camera's convenience in porn compared to actual sex).
The real nastiness of the profession is what surrounds it: fear of the police, of johns taking advantage of you because they know you can't turn to the law for help, and of pimps running a protection racket and abusing you because again, you need protection from the law, as well as the lack of regulation making you a target for disease and the potential for psychotically dangerous johns.
Reposting my previous statement, since it got buried:
Rather - see what I said before about "bad joke"? Apparently, the Golden State considers any sexual activity involving minors as a crime. Which would make about half of its adolescent population criminals if memory serves. That bad idea carried over into prostitution law, which considers being an underage prostitute a crime just like it does for the "customer". Until this law change, which legalizes the "being" part.
Full legalization means that customers of adult prostitutes are not criminals, either (nobody wants legal underage prostitution, I hope).
The scope of the law change is much narrower.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanUh, no. You can consider prostitution to be inherently exploitative and therefore immoral, without thinking sex is bad. Alternately one could also think that sex is a special act and that doing it for cash inherently ruins it. Or any number of other opinions. I've met some people, for instance, who believe that all systems of employment contain an element of coercion to them that cannot be easily removed and that while that's awkward enough when dealing with someone selling their labour, it becomes so much worse when dealing with someone who is selling sex, creating scenarios where wage disputes or asking someone to pick up an extra shift when they don't want to, or what have you become tantamount to rape apologia.
Me personally, I lean towards a combination of the above, and I don't have a lot of respect for people who chose to be prostitutes (being forced into it, either at gunpoint or by economic factors is different) or for those who patronize them (side note since this should be obvious but people often miss it anyway when I say this—I can respect other things about that person but not that decision). Luckily, however, I don't have to respect a choice to believe it should be legal—after all, I don't have much respect for people who post drunken videos of themselves on Facebook, but I don't think they belong in jail.
edited 17th Dec '16 5:22:48 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
lol
edited 17th Dec '16 5:26:13 PM by MadSkillz
That's... a question of taste, not morality. And it only affects those engaging in it. Employment being inherently exploitative is a better point. In sex you need a way to bail out, other work doesn't require.
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Trump, actually telling it like it is.
I think he's trying to imply the wall and jailing Hilary was their idea- so that by not doing those particular crazy things, he's not breaking his promises. 'I never wanted to do those things; some of my crazier supporters just suggested them in the heat of the moment'.
So it's his usual reviving history move, like how he decided to claim he didn't perpetuate birtherism and never supported the Iraq war. He never changes his mind, the idea that he ever held a position other than his current one is nothing more than a media distortion.
So, how long before Trump says that we have always been at war with Eastasia/Eurasia?
edited 17th Dec '16 5:40:27 PM by TrashJack
"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's DictionaryI was under the impression that this site was a place to discuss recurring media devices, not political topics so I was surprised to find a thread such as this.
Anyways, with all the apparently recent talk about prostitution, as someone who hails from Nevada, a state with legal prostitution, I can confirm that the topic is far from black and white.
edited 17th Dec '16 5:42:18 PM by DreadKing
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That poor man they're going to eat him alive! Oceans rise, empires fall, next to Washington, they all look small. All alone, watch them run; they will tear each other into pieces... Jesus Christ, this will be fun!
Da da da dat da dat da da da da ya da
Da da da dat dat da ya daaaaa!
Hahahahahahahahaha
“President Donald Trump”
Good Luck
I like the way an associate of mine once put it: prostitution is, at heart, the selling of one's body for money. But what form of employment isn't?
If you're a typist, she explained, then you're selling your fingers. If you're a construction worker, you're selling your muscles. An analyst? Your brain. Why is selling one's body only wrong when it's your genitalia?
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

Just as he can bring in sources that support it, I can find sources against it. Here's
one to start. Frankly I don't care if you find my objection to it questionable. It's not like I haven't thought about it before from all angles, and I know how I stand on it. You - some random person on the internet - aren't going to change my mind.
edited 17th Dec '16 12:52:34 PM by randomdude4
"Can't make an omelette without breaking some children." -Bur