Should prostitution be legal?

[dann]

still no ideas about how to eliminate poverty?

no?

you've still got nothing to add to this debate dann.

I thought you had created another thread for that discussion ...
If nobody wants to discuss it with you, I cannot help you. I have already told you how and given you a couple of links that might help you. If you have nothing new to add, and don't either.

 

[RandFan]

Abolishing prostitution has nothing to do with alterations of people's sex drives.

And you still haven't explained why men risk disease, prosecution and even public humliation and will spend their money for sex.

Like I said, that is the elephant that you refuse to address. It's not going away and that is the reason that prostitution is so ubiquitous throughout history.

 

[dann]

Because she loved him? Stranger things have happened.

Not many that I can think of ...

Poverty also has existed in all cultures and political and economic systems,

It has???

so this is not in itself an argument against dann's thesis.

Poverty definitely did not always exist in its modern shape: being excluded from access to the means of production, thus depending on having to sell the only 'commodity' that the dispossessed have access to, their labour power, if anybody's willing to buy it, with the consequence that you starve if there is no buyer willing to pay you enough to support you and your family.

 

[RandFan]

...with the consequence that you starve if there is no buyer willing to pay you enough to support you and your family.

This is beside the point but you have not even demonstrated that this is necassarily true. Many prostitutes have other options. Not all and perhaps even most have other options in nations like America and even socialist nations including nations with high HDI like Norway.

Explain that one? Why is there prostitution in the nation with the highest HDI?

 

[dann]

And you still haven't explained why men risk disease, prosecution and even public humliation and will spend their money for sex.

Like I said, that is the elephant that you refuse to address. It's not going away and that is the reason that prostitution is so ubiquitous throughout history.

No, this is actually the 'elephant' that you use instead of an argument. As if the demand creates the supply.
The explanation for the sex drive, by the way, is Darwinian. All species with two sexes have it, or they wouldn't be. Only one species has prostitution, although sociobiologist are able to make analogies to spiders etc. No biological craving drives women to sell sex.

 

[Tailgater]

No, it is for you and RandFan to prove that prostitution has always existed. I know that it is often referred to as 'the oldest trade of women'. This, however, is nothing more than a misogynist joke. As already mentioned, in our time such a social organisation existed in Cuba from the 1960 to the 1980s.

I must have missed this. Are you trying to say there was no prostitution in Cuba during this time?

 

[RandFan]

No, this is actually the 'elephant' that you use instead of an argument.

No, it is a premise that is part of my argument.

1.) There is a demand.
2.) There is a supply.

You concede #1, right? Ok, now we are on our way.

During prohibition the demand for alcohol didn't create the supply of alcohol it just provided the motivation of the bootleggers to provide the supply.

As if the demand creates the supply.

No, it motivates those who have access to the supply to provide it.

1. There is a demand for drugs in America.
2. There are people in America who want money.
3. These people supply the drugs to get the money.

The explanation for the sex drive, by the way, is Darwinian.

Yes but it is beside the point that the sex drive exists. That is all that matters.

No biological craving drives women to sell sex.

Arguable but entirely irrelevant.

1. Men want sex.
2. Women want money.
3. Women can supply sex.

It will always come back to supply and demand. Animals want sex and will kill to get it. They will fight to the death for it. They will risk their very lives for it.

Humans simply figured out how to pay for it.

 

[andyandy]

I thought you had created another thread for that discussion ...
If nobody wants to discuss it with you, I cannot help you. I have already told you how and given you a couple of links that might help you. If you have nothing new to add, and don't either.

lol

you "told me how" to eliminate poverty? Where did you do that? All you've done is link to a Marxist website which dodges the question of how to eliminate poverty by saying that giving a positive response to this question would be equivilent to selling the ideal, and thus would render the socialist principles behind the ideas redundant. I started a separate thread on marxism because i thought you might have something interesting to say. But you appear incapable of expressing in your own words anything to do with this Marxist ideology you apparently embrace.

keep dodging all you like - you're fooling no-one.

 

[dann]

This is beside the point but you have not even demonstrated that this is necassarily true. Many prostitutes have other options. Not all and perhaps even most have other options in nations like America and even socialist nations including nations with high HDI like Norway.

Explain that one? Why is there prostitution in the nation with the highest HDI?

Very simple. There is poverty in the very rich, capitalist country of Norway!

http://www.lonedybkjaer.dk/flx/dans...x_koeb_en_menneskeret_eller_et_koensproblem_/
Undersøgelser fra Sverige og Norge viser da også, at oplysning om de prostitueredes faktiske forhold, herunder indsigt i misforholdet mellem, hvad kunden tror, han køber, og hvad han reelt får, har indflydelse på mænds lyst til at købe sex.
(…)
Kvinder, der er afhængige af narkotika, er særlig udsat. De har i årtier levet et prostitutionsliv , der minder om slaveri. Disse kvinder har nu fået følgeskab af mange udenlandske kvinder, der kommer fra fattige kår i Østeuropa, Asien og Afrika. Fælles for disse kvinder er, at de ikke har reelle valg eller fremtidsmuligheder. Dermed bliver prostitution et overlevelsesvilkår.
Der er sket en kraftig stigning i antallet af prostituerede i Danmark. En stigning som især skyldes den internationale handel med kvinder. Eksperter vurderer, at op mod 80 % af de prostituerede i Danmark i dag er af udenlandsk herkomst. Mange af dem er lokket til Danmark under falske forudsætninger, eller tvunget under trusler om vold mod dem eller deres familie. Alternativet til et liv under jorden som prostitueret i Danmark, er udvisning, gæld og forarmelse, trusler og vold. Handel med kvinder er ganske enkelt slaveri.

”Studies from Norway and Sweden show that information about the actual conditions of prostitutes, including knowledge about the disproportion between what the customer thinks he buys and what he actually gets, influences men’s desire to buy sex.

Women who depend on drugs are particularly vulnerable. For decades they have lived a life of prostitution similar to slavery. Added to these women there are now many foreign women who come from conditions of poverty in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. What these women have in common is that they have no real choices or prospects. Thus prostitution becomes a condition for survival.
There has been a steep rise in the number of prostitutes in Denmark. A rise that in particular is caused by the international trade with women. Experts assess that as many as 80 percent of prostitutes in Denmark today are foreigners. Many were lured to Denmark under false pretexts or forced with threats of violence against themselves or their families. The alternatives to a life underground as a prostitute in Denmark are expulsion, debts and impoverishment, threats and violence. Trafficking is nothing but slavery.”

 

[dann]

1. Men want sex.
2. Women want money.
3. Women can supply sex.

It will always come back to supply and demand. Animals want sex and will kill to get it. They will fight to the death for it. They will risk their very lives for it.

Humans simply figured out how to pay for it.

Men want sex, women want sex, men and women feel attracted to each other and have sex! Some women cannot feed themselves and/or their children and sell their bodies to men they don't feel attracted to, men who don't mind sleeping with women who don't feel attracted to them.
'Humans' simply figured out a way to take advantage of other people's poverty.

 

[dann]

... would be equivilent to selling the ideal, and thus would render the socialist principles behind the ideas redundant.

"... equivilent to selling the ideal" ...
Like I said, you have no idea what the quotation says, do you?

 

[andyandy]

"... equivilent to selling the ideal" ...
Like I said, you have no idea what the quotation says, do you?

good grief dann - is that all you can offer?



Here is the linked sources you provided here to explain how you're going to eliminate poverty

Question
If I correctly understand what I’ve read of yours so far, you reject any constructive criticism of society because it seeks to improve a system that needs to be abolished. In your articles, you offer evidence that society’s evils are due to the system and that the state, Keynesianism, the World Bank, the UN, etc. cannot remedy them.

Since you obviously confine yourself to criticizing capitalism, you must frequently be confronted in your public discussions with comments like: “Can’t you do more than just criticize!” or “What’s your alternative, then!” My question is aimed at this kind of objection.

Snip

Answer

Those who inquire about the attractiveness of what communists have to “offer” confuse the critique of capitalism with election slogans of an alternative elite who promise to run things better for their valued citizens than those currently holding power. They misunderstand themselves as courted voters allowed to choose in a department store for politico-economic systems which one they’d like to place an order for — from others who then are responsible for the delivery. They think as subjects of ruling authorities who decide for them, and they have resolved to remain just that: democratic underlings, who have no choice but between two sorts of rule — but this choice is theirs for sure. What we can tell these people is simply the following: nobody will offer them this free choice. Either they fight for the freedom to organize the politico-economic conditions of their lives in a sensible way, or they will continue to have no say at all in the matter.

http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/communist-vision.html

It's from the website gegenstandpunkt upon which you seem to base all your opinions.


try putting in your own words what you think the quotes your providing actually prove.

Can you do that?

I seriously doubt you have the ability seeing as this is the 6th or 7th time you've refused to do so.


You think that i don't understand what it means? Well tell me.

 

[RandFan]

Very simple. There is poverty in the very rich, capitalist country of Norway!

So how likely is it that we will eliminate poverty?
Are all prostitutes n Norway poor?
Your link says that prostitution is linked to drug use. Would you outlaw drugs?

 

[DanishDynamite]

Dann, I know you are a communist and hence against freedom and allowing people to do what they want.

Still, let us suppose that somewhere in the world a woman exists who loves sex and would have no problem earning a living from having sex for money.

What exactly is your communistic reason for not alllowing her to have this trade? I'm assuming of course that all precautionary measures are taken.

So, why isn't she allowed to do what she loves as her job?

 

[RandFan]

Men want sex, women want sex, men and women feel attracted to each other and have sex! Some women cannot feed themselves and/or their children and sell their bodies to men they don't feel attracted to, men who don't mind sleeping with women who don't feel attracted to them.

This is NOT the only reason why women are prostitutes. Many can feed their families.

And what the hell do you mean to simply say that men don't "mind sleeping with women who don't feel attracted to them"?

You are minimizing the facts.

Men risk disease, prosecution, humliation and pay money for sex. That's not as you charachterize it.

It's still supply and demand and you have not made one single argument to counter that fact.

'Humans' simply figured out a way to take advantage of other people's poverty.

I'm sorry but this is just a claim without justification and does not follow from the facts.

1.) Men risk prosecution, disease, humilation and pay money for sex.
2.) There are women who are not poor who are prostitutes.

Conclusion: Demand will always be there. Supply will always be there. There will always be prostitution.

I'm all for reducing the supply. Hopefully the price for sex will go up. Hopefully the lives of the prostitutes will improve. Hopefully prostitutes will have choices and not be subjected to judgements by people who disagree with their choices.

 

[dann]

So how likely is it that we will eliminate poverty?

We won't eliminate poverty. A lot of us seem to be quite happy with the way things are. Some people even seem to enjoy the pleasure that other people's poverty bring them.

Are all prostitutes n Norway poor?

Why don't you ask somebody who knows? They appear to be poor enough to consider selling sex the best option they've got.

Your link says that prostitution is linked to drug use. Would you outlaw drugs?

I think that drugs are outlawed. I'm not a lawmaker, but if anybody asked for my opinion I would recommend that people stay away from the drugs they are talking about in the article.

 

[dann]

Dann, I know you are a communist and hence against freedom and allowing people to do what they want.

Still, let us suppose that somewhere in the world a woman exists who loves sex and would have no problem earning a living from having sex for money.

What exactly is your communistic reason for not alllowing her to have this trade? I'm assuming of course that all precautionary measures are taken.

So, why isn't she allowed to do what she loves as her job?

Like so often before: When everybody else seems to have understood that this is not a question of legalization or the opposite, you come along and I have to take it from the top again just for your sake, DD.
Read my first post if you actually want to know what this is all about!

But I can assure you that there are many things that people want that I would love to put a stop to if I could. You did not get it in the thread about kiddie porn, however, so I don't think that you will get it here either.

 

[dann]

This is NOT the only reason why women are prostitutes. Many can feed their families.

No, you're right. I think the number mentioned in the Australian study was 3,1.

And what the hell do you mean to simply say that men don't "mind sleeping with women who don't feel attracted to them"?

What is so difficult for you to understand? The men who don't go looking for a women who feel attacted to them but instead finds somebody who is willing to have sex for money. The johns ...

You are minimizing the facts.

Men risk disease, prosecution, humliation and pay money for sex. That's not as you charachterize it.

Well ... I, for one, don't! It's fairly easy to avoid disease, I cannot imagine how I would risk prosecution, I don't think that a woman turning me down is in any way humiliating, and, of course, I don't pay money for sex since I don't go to prostitutes.
The johns, by the way, in most cases, I think, don't risk disease either since most of them probably use a condom when they have sex with a prostitute. (If for no other reason, then at least to avoid the embarrassment of infecting the wife with an STD!) Some johns probably pay to avoid what they consider the humiliation of being turned down, and some johns avoid prosecution by going to legal brothels.

It's still supply and demand and you have not made one single argument to counter that fact.

You are right, it's the supply of women who lack better options than to sell their bodies to strangers.

I'm sorry but this is just a claim without justification and does not follow from the facts.

1.) Men risk prosecution, disease, humilation and pay money for sex.
2.) There are women who are not poor who are prostitutes.

Conclusion: Demand will always be there. Supply will always be there. There will always be prostitution.

I'm all for reducing the supply. Hopefully the price for sex will go up. Hopefully the lives of the prostitutes will improve. Hopefully prostitutes will have choices and not be subjected to judgements by people who disagree with their choices.

Oh yeah, back to the myth of choices!
1) Some men sometimes risk prosecution, but they do their best to avoid it, some men actually risk disease by paying extra for unprotected sex. This is usually a lot easier if the woman is very poor or already showing signs of withdrawal symptoms. Some men go to prostitutes to humiliate them, some to be humiliated (usually at an extra cost), and some men sometimes pay money for sex. Most men never do. There are borderline cases not usually referred to as prostitution, marriage was mentioned earlier on in this thread. The best way to avoid them would be to secure that women weren't financially inferior to men, i.e. eliminate poverty.
2) There are actually women who become fairly rich from prostitution. This very small minority are the ones that everybody seems to be referring to in this thread when they defend prostitution as a woman's right to choose to have sex with men that don't turn her on.

 

[dann]

I must have missed this.

Maybe you did. Find the reference in an earlier post.

Are you trying to say there was no prostitution in Cuba during this time?

I think that people usually refer to prostitution in that period in Cuba as 'virtually non-existent'.
Here are some more references:

In the pre-1950s era, Cuba's prostitution industry was rampant. It is estimated there were more than 100,000 women of the night on this small island before Castro took control. After Castro took control in the 1950s, promising to abolish prostitution, the trade became almost extinct for the next 35 years.
http://www.american.edu/TED/cubatour.htm

The writer of the first quotation is not exactly a friend of Castro’s!

Propped by $ 4 billion in annual Soviet subsidies, the Cuban economy allowed women (and men) to meet their basic needs without needing to trade in their bodies.
Over the past decade, however, Soviet subsidies disappeared and trading partners were lost. Prostitution has come back. Despite government claims that it remains committed to eliminating the sex trade, prostitution continues, albeit at reduced levels from several years ago. Increased prostitution in Cuba is a byproduct of the economic crisis precipitated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic reforms initiated in 1993-94.
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:...tution"+Cuba+poverty&hl=da&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=dk

Prostitution was targeted for eradication and consequently, massive sweeps of the cities eliminated bordellos and put former prostitutes in trade schools. (Holgado, 234). Cuba was no longer America’s whore and Cuban women were no longer the sexual objects of the foreigners. (...)

The following quotations from the same article are about the 'special period' in Cuba, the 1990s and until today, when poverty returned to Cuban society:

(…)
Cuban prostitutes are not necessarily uneducated country girls. These women “are educated professionals who work as prostitutes at night in addition to their jobs.” (Perkovich and Saini, 434). The most over-represented group within these circles, of course, is the black woman and the mulatto because “they are underrepresented in the exterior of the country, so they do not have family to send them remissions in dollars.” (Holgado, 236: my translation)
(…)
What the government fails to realize is that these are not deviant Jezebels out to give Cuban women a bad name; many are single mothers or young women out to make money to buy basic necessities such as cooking oil and soap. Adriana, a 20 year-old jinetera remarks, “there are many jineteras that do this to survive, out of necessity, to maintain their families, or because they have children and the father cannot/does not support them. He may have left to the U.S. and left her alone” (Holgado 246 my translation). (…) The solution to this problem is not a legal one, but an economic one. If these women were provided with adequate support from the government, good salaries, decent rations prostitution would not be necessary. Absent an economic improvement, it will remain a way for Cuban women to utilize their exotic sexuality to survive.
(…)
To conclude, Fidel Castro’s government has overall been a mixed bag for Cuban women. Free education, abortion rights, and ascension into the workforce have brought women freedoms unmatched in other Caribbean nations. Yet, poverty and the resultant rise in prostitution, the “separate spheres” mentality, and lack of support for single mothers create for Cuban women a paradoxical situation.
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:...tution"+Cuba+poverty&hl=da&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=dk

 

[dann]

Prostitution and the fundamental question of choice.

The fundamental question of choice.
For the same reason, it is doubtful whether prostitution is ever a free choice. What proportion of prostitutes, given the possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which they did not need to sell their bodies, would choose nonetheless to continue in prostitution? A study made among prostitutes in San Francisco shows that nearly 90% want to leave the industry.
It is worth noting that the regulation camp, to prove that prostitutes choose their profession freely, cite the fact that they prefer prostitution to, say, working in a sweat shop for 15 hours a day. Of course they do. But a choice between two forms of exploitation is not a free choice, nor ever has been, but is purely and simply an abuse of the term. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could therefore only have been proposed by the regulation camp by misrepresenting the very notion of "free choice".
http://www.fidh.org/lettres/2000pdf/angl/cah38uk.htm

According to the report, the high levels of economic hardship had led to a possible increase in prostitution. While there was insufficient data on the practice, there was a distinct link between prostitution and poverty, as the majority of women engaging in the practice did so for economic reasons. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/wom1355.doc.htm