Should prostitution be legal?

[dann]

"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."

Get it, DD?

 

[andyandy]

still dodging the question dann?

http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/engli...st-vision.html

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

Can you do that?

Still can't?

well colour me a pinky commie red surprised....

 

[dann]

Are all prostitutes n Norway poor?

Apparently ...

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?

The funny thing is that this article seems to agree with you, RandyFandy, and at the same time it makes it very clear that the prostitutes disappear when poverty does. Men's sexdrive doesn't change, but the no longer poor ‘suppliers’ give up the 'profession'. When they disappear, new ones are ‘imported’ from the pool of poverty in third-world countries. So in order to put a stop to prostitution, it is necessary to eliminate poverty!

Norway has got too many customers compared to the number of prostituted women. Earlier, Norway exported the customers for sex-tourism to Thailand and the Philippines. Now, there are so many poor white women, that prostitutes are imported from Norway's neighbouring countries. This is common through the whole of Europe, and in Norway we see it mostly in the northern parts of the country, along the Russian border.
The reports from Eastern Europe are similar to the ones from Thailand. The main point is that prostitution is cheap here, and that the women there are more submissive than the Norwegian women.
In the prostitution debate, many people claim that it's because of the prostituted women that prostitution exists. Our point is that this market survives by the customers, the johns. Poverty alone is not the cause of prostitution, also seeing women as goods to be bought is what makes it possible for men to buy women. Prostitution is mainly about rich, white men buying poor women, and it's an enormous worldwide industry.
Image 23 - Cocktail, unknown number
Personal ads
Pornographic magazines are also used for advertising bride-trade. Russian women travel to Scandinavia, and are bought by Scandinavian men. Russian Mafia arranges this trade. We also hear stories about Russian women who search for Norwegian husbands through contact bureaux. They are poor and wish for a better life. The Russian women pay the bureaux a lot of money, and the bureaux send their personal ads to Norwegian porn magazines. There's a huge contrast between these ads and the other ones on this page. Men send their naked pictures, say they've looking for "perverted women". In the ads from the Russian women we can read: " I like to travel, dance, drive a car, listen to music..." or "I love art, music, literature..." Imagine what the Norwegian men search for while contacting women whose ads they find in these porn magazines.
Norwegian shelters for abused women report about increasing numbers of Russian women contacting them, having experienced abuse and rape from their Norwegian husbands. The Russian women are have few rights in Norway, they have to choose between staying in an abusive marriage or sent back to poverty.
http://www.ottar.as/artikler/new_york.htm

 

[DanishDynamite]

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!

Yes, I know that you don't care what the law of the land is. The rest of us do however care and if you engage in political debate you must be able to answer simple things like whether something should be legal or not.

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.

There is nothing to get. You discuss politics, not because you care one way or the other about laws and how they are practized, but because you get a kick out of discussing morality in the abstract.

 

[DanishDynamite]

Get it, DD?

Get what? Your abstract philosophical viewpoint?

Yes, I get that it is of no interest in the real world.

 

[RandFan]

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

This is a very important concession. Thank you. I will refer back to this often so please get it in your head that you did concede to it. Ok, onward and upward.

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 not making any sense. Please don't ask me why something is difficult to understand when you followup with a non-sequitur.

It's not that simple. You are minimizing that which demonstrably is not simple.

It's fairly easy to avoid disease...

Condoms fail, not all std's can be prevented by prophylactics.

I cannot imagine how I would risk prosecution...

Men are arrested every day for solicitation by vice cops. You are arguing by personal incredulity, a fallacy, in the face of evidence counter to your incredulity.

I don't think that a woman turning me down is in any way humiliating...

This has nothing whatsoever to do with my point. Arrests are public and men often are found out by their families that they have been arrested for solicitation. This is an embarrassment for many.

So, my points stand.

Oh yeah, back to the myth of choices!

You have concede that it is possible for women to choose to be prostitutes (see above) so this, demonstrably, is not a myth.

I have conceded from the very beginning that poverty plays a part in the lives of many prostitutes. That is not at issue so your insistence of harping on this is argument ad nauseam.

My point is that if and when poverty is curtailed and or eliminated the working environment for prostitutes will dramatically improve and there will be more choices for women. Of course legalizing prostitution will help also.

1) Some men sometimes risk prosecution...

Any man engaging in prostitution in most countries where it is outlawed take that risk. It is a significant factor.

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.

And that is all that is needed to demonstrate that you are wrong. It proves that there are women who will choose prostitution given that the money and working environment is a good one.

So, let's take away the stigma, legalize the trade, improve the conditions of poor women and let women choose. That's a reasonable response.

 

[dann]

The real world being something along these lines?

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

Dream on, DD!

 

[DanishDynamite]

The real world being something along these lines?

Dream on, DD!

I'd ask you to answer the question if I cared one way or the other about your meaningless philosophical weasel answer.

 

[RandFan]

The funny thing is that this article seems to agree with you, RandyFandy, and at the same time it makes it very clear that the prostitutes disappear when poverty does. Men's sexdrive doesn't change, but the no longer poor ‘suppliers’ give up the 'profession'. When they disappear, new ones are ‘imported’ from the pool of poverty in third-world countries. So in order to put a stop to prostitution, it is necessary to eliminate poverty!

It shows no such thing. It shows that if a cheaper supply is availabe men will turn to that supply. It shows the lengths men will go to for sex. Take that supply away and the price will rice and men will pay more and more women will then be willing to trade sex for money.

An what is wrong with that? Nothing. So long as women have choices and have good working conditions then there is nothing inherently wrong with prostitution. It's only the exploitation that we both agree is bad. However if a woman has a choice and there are opportunities for the woman then it is not exploitation.

From the start we have all agreed that it would be good to reduce or eliminate poverty. No one disagrees. The point is that so long as there is demand and a supply there will be prostitution which is to say there will always be prostitution.

BTW, I've not done anything to show you disrespect. Could you simply refer to me as "RandFan"?

 

[dann]

All economies are market economies. I'm refering to free market economics.

1. I live in a free market economy.
2. Starvation is evidenced by certain diseases including rickets, scurvy, famine dropsy, hyperammonemia, etc.
3. If what you are saying is true then we should be able to find evidence of these diseases in America.
4. If what you are saying is true then there should be data demonstrating starvation in America.

Here is something for you to try at home. Go to Center for Disease Control (CDC) and look up the number of starvation related diseases in America. Now subtract the cases that are the result of neglect. Please to tell us what those numbers are? Now find some demonstrable data that show what the death rate due to starvation in America is?

Lack of food in the USA:

The other thing that I think we need to ask is Why do people go into prostitution? Most of the men and women who become sex workers do so because they're having trouble with money. They're really doing it to stay out of poverty or because they're poor. So poverty is often the cause of prostitution and I think we need to deal with that. I'm not saying that eliminating poverty is the only cure, but I think it is very significant. Some of the studies show that as the economy goes down, prostitution of both men and women goes up. When we start cutting Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), we find more AFDC moms being arrested for prostitution. We've known for many years that many women marry just for money. To me, that's one more form of prostitution.
(…)
We [the United States] control 25 percent of the world's wealth and have only 5 percent of the world's population; yet we can't feed and house our own people. We have children in America who will only be members of what I call the "5H Club": children who are Hungry - every night we have 5 million children who go to bed hungry - then Home-less; Health-less; Hug-less; and Hope-less. That's a real problem.
Dr. Joycelyn Elders in this book, quotations from this blog.

 

[RandFan]

Lack of food in the USA:

?

You claimed that there is starvation.
Starvation causes specific diseases.

I asked you to demonstrate that these diseases exist in the USA. Or provide data that demonstrates that there is starvation in the USA.

You did not do that. Why?

The discussion cannot advance if you are going to be obtuse.

ETA: I grew up poor and know what it is like to go to bed hungry so I don't need any proof that it exists.

 

[dann]

It shows no such thing. It shows that if a cheaper supply is availabe men will turn to that supply. It shows the lengths men will go to for sex. Take that supply away and the price will rice and men will pay more and more women will then be willing to trade sex for money.

It says no such thing! More women weren't willing to trade sex for money which is why impoverished women from Asia and Eastern Europe were 'imported' to Norway!

An what is wrong with that? Nothing.

Why doesn't that conclusion surprise me?

So long as women have choices and have good working conditions then there is nothing inherently wrong with prostitution.

So let's pretend that this is the reality of prostitution and not merely your bad fiction.

It's only the exploitation that we both agree is bad. However if a woman has a choice and there are opportunities for the woman then it is not exploitation.

Like I said before and like the people in the links that I have provided you with above have been saying all the time. To claim that these women have 'choices' borders on the worst kind of cynicism! **** for money or starve!

From the start we have all agreed that it would be good to reduce or eliminate poverty. No one disagrees. The point is that so long as there is demand and a supply there will be prostitution which is to say there will always be prostitution.

The Norwegian example, however, demonstrates the exacte opposite of what you have claimed.

BTW, I've not done anything to show you disrespect. Could you simply refer to me as "RandFan"?

OK, it was just meant as a joke on you and andypandy!

 

[dann]

You claimed that there is starvation.

In the USA? I don't remember doing so. Could you tell me where exactly?
It is my impression that malnutrition due to the wrong kinds of (fast) food and sweetened beverages rather than actual starvation was the main problem in the USA in this field.

 

[dann]

Yet another example, but neither from Norway or the USA:

Unemployment and hopelessness force some Uzbek women into prostitution. Many articles have been written about this, but the authorities do not care about such women because they do not see that the cause of prostitution is social problems but blame some women’s immorality for this.
http://www.uznews.net/english/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=123&Itemid=53

 

[DanishDynamite]

It says no such thing! More women weren't willing to trade sex for money which is why impoverished women from Asia and Eastern Europe were 'imported' to Norway!

You don't care one way or the other, remember? You don't care about laws and how they are enforced.

Why doesn't that conclusion surprise me?

You don't care one way or the other, remember? You don't care about laws and how they are enforced.

So let's pretend that this is the reality of prostitution and not merely your bad fiction.

You don't care one way or the other, remember? You don't care about laws and how they are enforced.

Like I said before and like the people in the links that I have provided you with above have been saying all the time. To claim that these women have 'choices' borders on the worst kind of cynicism! **** for money or starve!

You don't care one way or the other, remember? You don't care about laws and how they are enforced.

The Norwegian example, however, demonstrates the exacte opposite of what you have claimed.

You don't care one way or the other, remember? You don't care about laws and how they are enforced.

OK, it was just meant as a joke on you and andypandy!

You don't care one way or the other, remember? You don't care about laws and how they are enforced.

 

[DanishDynamite]

In the USA? I don't remember doing so. Could you tell me where exactly?
It is my impression that malnutrition due to the wrong kinds of (fast) food and sweetened beverages rather than actual starvation was the main problem in the USA in this field.

You don't care one way or the other, remember? You don't care about laws and how they are enforced.

 

[RandFan]

It says no such thing! More women weren't willing to trade sex for money which is why impoverished women from Asia and Eastern Europe were 'imported' to Norway!

There is no other conclusion. There is clearly a demand. You must concede that. If the men had not been able to find a cheap supply the price would have gone up.

Why doesn't that conclusion surprise me?

Rhetoric. It's lost on me I assure you and I seriously doubt that it has any meaning to most here.

Like I said before and like the people in the links that I have provided you with above have been saying all the time. To claim that these women have 'choices' borders on the worst kind of cynicism!

You are making a straw man. ONE MORE TIME.

I concede that poor women have fewer choices. While it's arguable that this is there ONLY choice I'm happy to let it go. We will agree, again, that poverty makes for few to no choices for poor women.

I hate to do this but if you are going to be obtuse then I don't see any other way.

Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.

Did you get that? Here, let me make it more clear.

Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.
Poverty makes for few or even no choices for poor women.

Are we clear now Dann? Please stop with the strawman.

The Norwegian example, however, demonstrates the exacte opposite of what you have claimed.

The Norwegian example demonstrates that there will always be prostitution. There does exist Norwegian prostitutes who however, since there is a cheap supply from other countries they are taking the jobs. Much like Migrant farm workers in America. If the immigrants suddenly stopped it's not like American's wouldn't fill in. They would. Farmers would just have to pay more.

The laws of economics just don't change.

 

[dann]

There is no other conclusion. There is clearly a demand. You must concede that. If the men had not been able to find a cheap supply the price would have gone up.

Or they would have had to go without any. Like I said before, this is how your equilibrium of supply and demand works when people starve to death because they don't have the money they need to buy food!

We will agree, again, that poverty makes for few to no choices for poor women.

Thank you!

The Norwegian example demonstrates that there will always be prostitution. There does exist Norwegian prostitutes who however, since there is a cheap supply from other countries they are taking the jobs.

Your sentences are starting to grow a little incomprehensible, but I think that get the drift. However, what happened in Norway didn't quite live up to your theory that 'poverty disappered, prostitutes dropped the 'profession', leading to rising prices leading to more prostitutes'. Instead the johns looked for a new supply of impoverished women, i.e: You cannot put a stop to prostitution without eliminating povertey!

Much like Migrant farm workers in America. If the immigrants suddenly stopped it's not like American's wouldn't fill in. They would. Farmers would just have to pay more.

And then the US farmers might be out of business because they can't afford to pay higher wages and at the same time having to compete with farmers abroad. Unless, of course, the US government decides to introduce new measures to restrict imports, i.e. (even) higher tariffs on imported foodstuffs, thus changing the notoriously unalterable laws of economics ...

The laws of economics just don't change.

Unless people change them, which they often do.

 

[dann]

You don't care one way or the other, remember? You don't care about laws and how they are enforced.

I thought you needed only one law: the free choice of having to do what the circumstances force you to do:

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

 

[DanishDynamite]

I thought you needed only one law: the free choice of having to do what the circumstances force you to do:

You don't care one way or the other, remember? You don't care about laws and how they are enforced.