Prostitution

[rookie]

Fair enough. And FWIW, the regulations would work like any other regulated trades. Truck drivers, lawers, insurence salesmen, doctors, even flea market vendors all have to be licensed by the state to work. And it's not like a drivers license where other states honor it. You'd just need the states to write up a bunch of guidelines. DDL is already set up to handle compliance and logistics.

[chitoryu12]

Basically, Nevada style regulations (with legal brothels, security, contracts, etc.) are the ONLY way to ensure any kind of safety. There's a reason prostitution is called the world's oldest profession: it's been around for millenia and will never go away. Much like with drugs, it has only ensured that criminals have full control over the trade. In both cases, legalizing and taxing a product that human beings have spent many thousands of years attempting to acquire will make it less profitable for criminals and provide improved safety, as there's now government regulations regarding the product instead of letting any random diseased woman on the street corner provide it, or making it almost a given that the drugs available in the area are tainted and more likely to kill you than not.

Will it 100% end criminal exploitation of the market? Of course not. Nobody should be that naive. But the current situation -- where criminals have 100% control over the market -- is hardly a situation that must continue.

[rageaholic]

Legalize it but regulate it like the health and food industry.  As long as it's all consensual, I don't see a problem with it.

Here, I've seen police officers jump prostitutes 4-on-1 (and not in a good way), pin them to the pavement, cuff them, and genrally act like they're dealing with terrorists, guns drawn and everything.  Yet, when we called because some drunken morons were firing their guns off in front of our apartment, into a small courtyard between two buildings, they wouldn't even investigate.  When we called recently because middle school children were running back and forth across a 4-lane road, nearly getting themselves killed and almost causing wrecks, they didn't budge.

But one or two prostitutes, and they call SWAT in.  Can anyone explain this bullshit to me?

And I think that's where a big part of the problem lies, zero tolerance enforcement.  Everyone who is involved gets treated like a dangerous threat, even though this is a victimless crime.  If there is a victim, the victim is treated just like the criminal.  The person who was abused by their pimps or mistress now gets abused by the legal system.  How the fuck is that fair?

[chitoryu12]

Legalize it but regulate it like the health and food industry.  As long as it's all consensual, I don't see a problem with it.

Here, I've seen police officers jump prostitutes 4-on-1 (and not in a good way), pin them to the pavement, cuff them, and genrally act like they're dealing with terrorists, guns drawn and everything.  Yet, when we called because some drunken morons were firing their guns off in front of our apartment, into a small courtyard between two buildings, they wouldn't even investigate.  When we called recently because middle school children were running back and forth across a 4-lane road, nearly getting themselves killed and almost causing wrecks, they didn't budge.

But one or two prostitutes, and they call SWAT in.  Can anyone explain this bullshit to me?

And I think that's where a big part of the problem lies, zero tolerance enforcement.  Everyone who is involved gets treated like a dangerous threat, even though this is a victimless crime.  If there is a victim, the victim is treated just like the criminal.  The person who was abused by their pimps or mistress now gets abused by the legal system.  How the fuck is that fair?

Prostitution and drug usage are both extremely similar: they're victimless crimes that have existed since the dawn of human civilization, if not before. And yet both of them are made illegal and people are imprisoned for partaking in it. Yes, people get addicted to drugs. But why are so many resources spent trying to jail addicts instead of helping them? Yes, prostitutes are abused by their pimps or forced into the trade. But why are you allowing the criminals who will do that to their girls almost 100% control over it?

Drug usage and the sex trade are both timeless, and their existence goes far beyond what we can reliably date. Even less intelligent primates engage in both in their own ways. Criminalizing them has not only failed completely at preventing people from engaging in it, but now ensures that larger numbers of people are being put behind bars for it.

They're crappy attempts at regulating "human decency" that are self-contradictory. We allow people to get themselves addicted to tobacco and suffer cancerous tumors without anything more than mild disapproval. We allow people to drink as much alcohol as they want when they're the legal age (and often look the other way for underage drinking anyway) and only punish them when their drunkenness causes problems for other people. We allow people to participate in pornographic films and watch them all they want in the privacy of their own home. Hookers and blow? Absolutely not! Take everyone involved and throw them in jail!

[mellenORL]

chitoryu12:

" Drug usage and the sex trade are both timeless, and their existence goes far beyond what we can reliably date. Even less intelligent primates engage in both in their own ways. Criminalizing them has not only failed completely at preventing people from engaging in it, but now ensures that larger numbers of people are being put behind bars for it."

In this interesting new American era where prisons are built and operated by "contractor" companies ....crime pays, big time. And it is way cheaper (more profitable) to house low-to-non violent offenders like drug users and sex workers. You have to sell the politicians that decriminalizing or regulating is going to make them more money than the business taxes on private prisons.

[Meshakhad]

[not quite serious]
Another advantage of unionization is that the prostitutes can do some of the enforcing themselves. If a pimp abuses his girls, then he gets a safeword-free night with a dominatrix.[/not quite serious]

[chitoryu12]

[not quite serious]
Another advantage of unionization is that the prostitutes can do some of the enforcing themselves. If a pimp abuses his girls, then he gets a safeword-free night with a dominatrix.[/not quite serious]

On the contrary, I think punishments like this would be a major boon to civilization.

[RavynousHunter]

Honestly, prostitution doesn't bother me, so long as all involved are actually willing.  You want to dance near-naked for a horde of strangers, letting them stuff $20s in your G-string?  Perfectly legal.  Enjoy sex and want to make money off it?  FUCK NO, YOU'RE A WHORE AND A DANGER TO EVERYONE, DIEIDIEDIE!  Okay, the last one's a bit of a hyperbole, but that's how it comes across, a lot of the time, when it comes to prostitutes.  Yeah, a lot of em are, due to circumstances beyond their control, forced into the trade.  Then again, some aren't.  Legalizing hookers is, to me, just the same as legalizing drugs.  You should have a right to put whatever you want into your body, and that includes a cock, and you should also have the right to be paid for a job, even if that job ends with you on your back, counting money, as a guy tosses a rubber into the bin.

The only difference between a porn actress and a hooker is that porn's recorded on tape.  In the end, the same thing is still happening: people are being paid to fuck.  Turning basic human interaction into financial transactions?  That shit happens all the god damned time, and barely anyone bitches.  What about live, pornographic webcam shows?  Most of the time, you pay for that, and it is human interaction, albeit over the internet.  Even on the net, interaction still counts, I don't care what the fuck you say.  I'm on this board, I'm a real god damned person, and I'm talking to real bloody people.  We, on this board, are interacting, just like we were if we were talking on the phone.  The venue and medium change, but the essence of what takes place stays the same.

Is it demeaning, dehumanizing, or an insult to human dignity?  That's up to you to decide, and that's an opinion based largely on one's own feelings.  The facts don't care what you, or anyone else, feels.  Fact of the matter is, legalization and regulation of what are currently dangerous professions would, by and large, remove the danger from said profession.  With legal, regulated prostitution, you don't have pimps who can freely beat and/or kill their prostitutes simply because they haven't made enough money.  You have enforced protection, in the form of condoms, and you also weed out the workers who make having sex with a hooker dangerous, the ones with STDs or heaven only knows WHAT other forms of hideous disease.  It casts away the dross and leaves a refined product, a refined, legitimate trade that makes money both for the companies and their employees, and for the government in the form of taxes.

TL;DR: If you want to fuck for money, you ought to be able to do so legally, with legal protection and sensible regulation to ensure that you neither get infected with STDs, and that you do not infect anyone else, the latter of which is adequate grounds for termination from the trade and revocation of whatever license you may possess, if the infection is incurable.  Otherwise, you're simply suspended until such time as you are proven to have been cured of your illness, at which point, you may return to work.  Finally, if you want to fuck, and don't care if a relationship precedes it or not, then one ought to be able to go to a bordello, and pay to get your willy wet or your clam roughed up, whichever may be the case.

[dpareja]

An acquaintance of mine felt that it was odd that while having sex was OK, paying someone to have sex with you was not OK, but if you film it (and pretend you're a pizza delivery guy), it's OK!

[RavynousHunter]

An acquaintance of mine felt that it was odd that while having sex was OK, paying someone to have sex with you was not OK, but if you film it (and pretend you're a pizza delivery guy), it's OK!

Yup.  The double standard's so bright, I damn near went blind when I first saw it.

[Witchyjoshy]

If a man is good at building things, and enjoys building things, he is encouraged to sell building things.

If a woman is good at interior decorating, and enjoys interior decorating, she is encouraged to sell interior decorating.

If someone is good at sex, and enjoys sex, they are arrested for selling sex.

Weird.

[JohnE]

I think George Carlin summed it up best: Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?

[Distind]

Honestly, prostitution doesn't bother me, so long as all involved are actually willing.  You want to dance near-naked for a horde of strangers, letting them stuff $20s in your G-string?  Perfectly legal.

You're talking to someone who still does not grasp the point in PAYING for blue balls.

But I'm gonna note, absolutely none of this addresses the kind of problems that happen when people think of others in terms of cash value. When people are rendered down into how much it'd cost to fuck them. It's the same kind of lack of thinking of other people as human that got a girl dragged around from party to party and repeatedly raped. It's the same kind of thinking that has 'nice guys' believing women to be sex vending machines once you put enough work into it.

I've really been waiting for something better than "Duh it should be legal", but you're the closest anyone has really gotten. That said, it's roughly the same arugment for legalising anything else that isn't legal already.

[chitoryu12]

But I'm gonna note, absolutely none of this addresses the kind of problems that happen when people think of others in terms of cash value. When people are rendered down into how much it'd cost to fuck them. It's the same kind of lack of thinking of other people as human that got a girl dragged around from party to party and repeatedly raped. It's the same kind of thinking that has 'nice guys' believing women to be sex vending machines once you put enough work into it.

The people who will take legalized prostitution to mean "Any of these women will fuck me if I pay them enough" are probably inclined to already be in the Nice Guy group or otherwise inclined to think that even now. Have there been any non-biased studies showing that prostitution or the existence of strippers and whatnot have led to this kind of problem?

[Osama bin Bambi]

I believe that prostitution should be legalized and regulated like any other industry. In fact, legalizing prostitution would make it safer for the prostitutes as well as the clients. Right now, prostitutes often do not go to the police to report certain crimes against them, such as assault or rape, because they are afraid that they will have to confess to the crime of prostitution and be punished for that. Furthermore, abusive pimps are a problem and prostitutes need the means to break free of these underground businesses without fear of reprisal from the pimps or the police. Also, a lack of regulation means that prostitutes could have STDs, posing a danger to clients. These things could go away, or at least be greatly reduced, if prostitution was treated under the law as a legitimate business and not as a moral failing or societal issue.