Paying for sex, should it be illegal?

[Dr. Keith]

Dr Keith, your mother was passing along a load of, at best, hyperbole.

No doubt. I hope you didn't take the old lady to be an oracle of great wisdom. She was just pithy. If men got pregnant it is unlikely we would still have a patriarchal society, for one thing.

 

[Arcade22]

So, for example, some age limit might be picked, based on a rejection of the image of a teenager, still in high school, "servicing" his teachers. If that's feared enough, maybe the age will be set at 21 instead of 18.

Maybe they would also prohibit same-sex prostitution as well? I mean what if some sexy and pretty youth was to be prayed upon by sick homo pederasts?

 

[marplots]

Maybe they would also prohibit same-sex prostitution as well? I mean what if some sexy and pretty youth was to be prayed upon by sick homo pederasts?

Could be. Fear is a great motivator, both for and against something. I'd guess the HIV fear would play big.

 

[Arcade22]

Could be. Fear is a great motivator, both for and against something. I'd guess the HIV fear would play big.

Yes, yes of course there's a little motivation based on public health in there. So i guess if one were, for example, to put the "age of legal prostitution" at 18 for females it should be 21 for males, or at least 21 for males that prostitute themselves to other males. Both to protect male youths from being converted into homosexualism, instead of developing healthy sexual desires, but also to prevent them from being infected by diseases.

 

[Belz...]

Is any job? I mean, isn't that why they have different titles?

Ok you're not having a conversation, here.

 

[TheGoldcountry]

Maybe they would also prohibit same-sex prostitution as well? I mean what if some sexy and pretty youth was to be prayed upon by sick homo pederasts?

Freudian slip?

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Is any job? I mean, isn't that why they have different titles?

You're right, all jobs are unique in some respect. Prostitution should be just another unique and legal job, like any other - with the same safeguards and protections. Even if making it legal doesn't reduce the number of people doing it, they will still be better off on the right side of the law.

And if - horror of horrors - more people take it up because it's legal, so what? If only a certain suicidal airline pilot had switched to a safer and more rewarding profession...

 

[Brian-M]

I hope it is. The point is to map prostitution onto a "regular" job and see what emerges. Whole hog. No restrictions. The full monty.

You keep comparing prostitution to "regular" jobs, but how about we look at it from a different angle for a moment...

How about we compare laws about prostitution to other laws concerning provision of products and services to the general public?

Is there any other product or service that's perfectly legal to give away for free, but illegal to sell?

Is there any other product or service that's perfectly legal to intentionally acquire, but is illegal to offer money for?

ETA:

For example, if you want somebody to slather your near-naked body with aromatic oils and bring you great pleasure by rubbing, pressing and kneading your flesh, that's perfectly legal regardless of whether or not you're paying them to do it.

But if you want them to extend that same service to a slightly different part of your body to bring you additional pleasure, then it's suddenly a crime unless they're doing it for free.

How does that make sense?

 

[luchog]

Is there any other product or service that's perfectly legal to intentionally acquire, but is illegal to offer money for?

Psychadelic mushrooms.

 

[Brian-M]

Psychadelic mushrooms.

Really? I thought that it was illegal to even possess them. So it's perfectly legal to get a friend to give you some, or grow them yourself?

 

[marplots]

You keep comparing prostitution to "regular" jobs, but how about we look at it from a different angle for a moment...

How about we compare laws about prostitution to other laws concerning provision of products and services to the general public?

Is there any other product or service that's perfectly legal to give away for free, but illegal to sell?

Is there any other product or service that's perfectly legal to intentionally acquire, but is illegal to offer money for?

Human organs, marriage to foreigners. Interestingly, these may share the attribute of crossing the "body boundary." I'm not sure.

Oh, here's another: Public services - you can't purchase the services of a cop or other public servant, although they are hired en mass. You just can't bribe them. There ought to be religious services in that category too, although I can't think of one off the top of my head.

Can you give away children? Like to an adoption agency or a relative? I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed to sell them as a product.

ETA: Moon rocks. Historical artifacts, like the pens used by a president to sign a bill. Food donated to charity. Medical services from places like the Shriners. Tickets to various events with restrictions on scalping (I think the Super Bowl falls in this category).

Ivory is an interesting case. This is from PBS (my bolding):

However, some items containing African-elephant ivory — including musical instruments and items in an inheritance or a household move — may be imported for non-commercial purposes, but ONLY IF:

The item is accompanied by a document from the exporting country attesting that it was acquired before 1976 (by the current or previous owner);
It has not been bought or sold since February 25, 2014.

Once in the United States, these items cannot subsequently be bought or sold.

 

[Information Analyst]

No doubt. I hope you didn't take the old lady to be an oracle of great wisdom. She was just pithy. If men got pregnant it is unlikely we would still have a patriarchal society, for one thing.

No, it would probably just be the complete reverse, and people would be bitching about the matriarchy.

 

[Arcade22]

Just had the displeasure of yet again reading one of the common anti-prostitution tropes that gets constantly repeated in Swedish media and it's that prostitutes aren't selling sex but rather are "selling their bodies" and their customers are "purchasing their bodies". By using this rhetoric they implicitly equate prostitution with chattel slavery, even though prostitution is clearly a service.

If one finds it reasonable to say that prostitutes "sell their bodies" wouldn't it be just as applicable to just about any services people offer? Wouldn't barbers, groundskeepers, construction workers and so on also be "selling their bodies"? If so, then why is that supposed to be anything objectionable?

 

[Information Analyst]

Just had the displeasure of yet again reading one of the common anti-prostitution tropes that gets constantly repeated in Swedish media and it's that prostitutes aren't selling sex but rather are "selling their bodies" and their customers are "purchasing their bodies". By using this rhetoric they implicitly equate prostitution with chattel slavery, even though prostitution is clearly a service.

If one finds it reasonable to say that prostitutes "sell their bodies" wouldn't it be just as applicable to just about any services people offer? Wouldn't barbers, groundskeepers, construction workers and so on also be "selling their bodies"? If so, then why is that supposed to be anything objectionable?

Maybe it's just me, but from this side of the North Sea, would it be wrong to think that part of the reasoning behind the Swedish ban on prostitution is a thinking of, "hey, we're so free and easy about sex in Sweden, who needs have to pay for it, right?"

 

[Brian-M]

Human organs, marriage to foreigners. Interestingly, these may share the attribute of crossing the "body boundary." I'm not sure.

I'm not entirely sure I'd count either of those as products or services.

ETA: Is paying a foreigner to marry you even illegal?

Oh, here's another: Public services - you can't purchase the services of a cop or other public servant, although they are hired en mass. You just can't bribe them.

But they're not performing the services on your behalf nor giving them away for free, they're performing the services because the community is paying them to perform those services.

This would be analogous to the state hiring prostitutes with a contract to exclusively service lonely people who desperately need to get laid.

In both cases you can't hire them yourself because their services have already been purchased by somebody else (the government). It'd be like paying a used car-dealer for a car he's already accepted payment for from someone else.

Can you give away children? Like to an adoption agency or a relative? I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed to sell them as a product.

And you can't give them away as property either. That would still be slavery.

All you can do is place them in someone else's care, which isn't the same thing.

ETA: Moon rocks. Historical artifacts, like the pens used by a president to sign a bill.

What? Really? If you legally owned a moon rock, or an ancient Roman belt-buckle, or a pen once used by a president, you couldn't legally sell them?

Food donated to charity.

Um, I think it's stealing the food from the charity that's the illegal part, regardless of whether you intend to resell it or not.

If you own a can of beans, does it matter if it was given to you by a friend, purchased by you from the store, or handed out to you by a charity? If you legitimately own the can of beans (or any other food), I don't see how there would be any restriction on what you do with it regardless of how you got it.

ETA: I'm not sure it's actually illegal for charities to sell donated food either. After all, many charities run stores where they resell donated items. Why not resell surplus donated food in order to raise the money to buy the poor non-food items they need?

(Of course, there's probably no call to do that, as you wouldn't get much money from reselling second-hand food, and food is one of the main things that people need. But the fact that they don't do this doesn't necessarily mean that it's illegal to do it.)

 

[Brian-M]

but rather are "selling their bodies" and their customers are "purchasing their bodies".

That is silly. Clearly it's just a rental, not a sale.

 

[catsmate]

This article may be of interest: The Weight of a Magazine for Sex Workers

In the waning days of the summer of 2007, a 20-year-old single mother in North Philadelphia agreed to meet with a man named Dominique Gindraw after he responded to her escort agency’s Craigslist ad. The initial deal was $150 for an hour of sex. Gindraw later proposed that his friend join in, and the woman agreed, for an additional $100. He gave her an address that she believed to be his house, but when she showed up, it was an abandoned property. By her account, Gindraw’s friend showed up with three other men, at least one of whom had a gun, and they proceeded to gang rape her.

When the case came to trial the following month, Judge Teresa Carr Deni downgraded the charges of rape and assault to “armed robbery for theft of services.” Deni explained to the Philadelphia Daily News at the time that because the woman worked as a prostitute, trying the case as rape would “minimize true rape cases and demean women who are really raped.”

That interpretation of the law, most pointedly the idea that a person’s profession is relevant to the definition of rape, drew the ire of the sex worker’s rights movement, as well as the Philadelphia Bar Association. Its chancellor, Jane Leslie Dalton, rebuked Deni, saying, “The victim has been brutalized twice in this case, first by the assailants, and now by the court. We cannot imagine any circumstances more violent or coercive than being forced to have sex with four men at gunpoint.”

 

[Information Analyst]

This article may be of interest: The Weight of a Magazine for Sex Workers

In the waning days of the summer of 2007, a 20-year-old single mother in North Philadelphia agreed to meet with a man named Dominique Gindraw after he responded to her escort agency’s Craigslist ad. The initial deal was $150 for an hour of sex. Gindraw later proposed that his friend join in, and the woman agreed, for an additional $100. He gave her an address that she believed to be his house, but when she showed up, it was an abandoned property. By her account, Gindraw’s friend showed up with three other men, at least one of whom had a gun, and they proceeded to gang rape her.

When the case came to trial the following month, Judge Teresa Carr Deni downgraded the charges of rape and assault to “armed robbery for theft of services.” Deni explained to the Philadelphia Daily News at the time that because the woman worked as a prostitute, trying the case as rape would “minimize true rape cases and demean women who are really raped.”

That interpretation of the law, most pointedly the idea that a person’s profession is relevant to the definition of rape, drew the ire of the sex worker’s rights movement, as well as the Philadelphia Bar Association. Its chancellor, Jane Leslie Dalton, rebuked Deni, saying, “The victim has been brutalized twice in this case, first by the assailants, and now by the court. We cannot imagine any circumstances more violent or coercive than being forced to have sex with four men at gunpoint.”

How relevant is a clearly dumb judicial decision?