Dann,
Women's rights are at the top of my mind when discussing this issue. This means making prostitution as safe and as secure a job as it can possibly be. The direct follow-on from this is to ensure that the job is regulated, controlled and protected by the state and various components of the state, like the police, tax office, health department and so on. When prostitution is illegal, the prostitutes themselves can not call upon the protection of the state when something bad happens. Surely you know this.
I feel I need to point something out here which seems to be eluding you - not all prostitutes are women. There are many male prostitutes out there as well, servicing both male and female clients. These prostitutes also need their rights protected. Please do not continue in your mistaken assumption that prostitution is solely a female issue.
Furthermore, there are many people who work in the sex industry, not just prostitutes. There are receptionists, cleaners, madams, etc., etc. If prostitution is illegal, then all of these people are also affected. They too can be charged with offenses and lose their income or go to gaol if found guilty.
What Hairy does not seem to understand no matter how many times I point it out to him is that I never argued for or against legalization.
Then why are you posting here? The topic of the thread was legalisation, not the morality or cause behind prostitution. If you're not arguing one way or another, why not start a new thread, and we can discuss it in there? The core issue being discussed here is whether or not it should be legal, and the majority - the overwhelming majority - agrees that it should be legal.
Go back and read the Australian statistics. There aren't many women who actually enjoy this line of work. See what happens to people who are prostitutes. It's all in the statistics, not in my "judgment"! But I can see that reality does not affect you as long as you have heard about one who lived to tell the tale and didn't think that it was all bad.
Dann, have you read that article? I think not, as you are extracting conclusions which are not supported by the text. Firstly, the article has no statistics on any enjoyment of the work. It's worth noting that of all of the prostitutes interviewed, none of them seemed to say "I hate it" or anything along those lines. One actually said "it's a lot of fun" and another says she hadn't had an orgasm until she started working as a prostitute.
Secondly, the article clearly states that there usually is a mix of reasons for someone to enter prostitution, not just financial ones. 25% of the people interviewed entered prostitution to "satisfy curiosity about self or prostitution". It seems to me that even if we removed your claimed central cause (poverty) we would still have a sizable group of people selling sex for money because they were curious about it.
Yes, for some women it appears to be necessary to sell sex in order to be able to afford going on a holiday. Some women cannot get a college degree unless they pay their way through college by being prostitutes.
This is not the case in Australia back in 1991. Attending university was basically free at that point. You're misinterpreting the data there, it states that these people were engaging in prostitution to enable them to afford luxury items, not day to day requirements.
You mean the fact that 36,7 percent are unemployed and 18,7 percent have to support a family? Or are you thinking of the addicts or the ones who have debts or have to pay their way through college?
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/lcj/working/ch4-2.html
No, I guess you are probably thinking of the 3,1 percent allegedly in the business for sexual pleasure, aren’t you? And the prostitute giving
you a b.j. belongs to the 3,1 percent, of course ….
Firstly, I've never used the services of a prostitute. Please refrain from making such assumptions.
Secondly, the reason I like that article is it basically blows your argument out of the water. It clearly states that not all people enter prostitution based on monetary reasons. Note the 44% under "to earn more money than present" - in other words, these people are earning enough money to live, and do not NEED to become prostitutes. That they do indicates that a lot of money can be made from selling sex, in a very short time. There is no indication that these people
remain prostitutes once they have made the amount of cash they need for that luxury item or expensive trip.
Prostitution is a question of poverty, not of sex.
You are yet to prove this opinion. You need to come up with better evidence.
It is more than distinct from that of the OP. It criticizes the OP and the arguments in favour of either legalization of or prohibition against prostitution.
If people are going into prostitution because they are poor, why add all the issues illegality brings as well??? You're claiming these people are being exploited because of their financial situation, why add extra scope for exploitation by making it all illegal??
Give the prostitutes better alternatives (i.e. eliminate poverty, feed the prostitutes and their children), , however, and prostitution vanishes. It's been done before. Eliminate poverty, and prostitution disappears. When people are impoverished, prostitution returns.
Dried nostril pickings.
Prostitution does not just exist because of poverty. The documents you linked before, if you had read them, would show you this. There are a myriad of reasons why people go into prostitution, not just long term financial ones.
Furthermore, as long as people have sex, prostitution in some form will exist. Thus it is better to legalise it and control it with government regulations, than let the criminal underworld control it.
Cheers,
TGHO
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