Paying for sex, should it be illegal?

[Butter!]

Working at Subway.

I mean, you're paying someone to do something your wife should be doing.

LOL

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

But it is. In fact I would go even further and say that it's legalized rape.

Sex workers can be and are raped, but that is not what sex work is. Removing that distinction allows for great moralising, but it ironically denies the agency of sex workers and delegitimises their rape.

 

[Puppycow]

Since I'm trying to build experience with my current job, money is actually a secondary motive at best. So I might very well do so if I thought it would get me to where I wanted to go.

It's still ultimately for money. You expect to be paid for it eventually.

 

[Butter!]

1) OK: try legislation mandating the wearing of helmets when riding a motorbike.

2) I really think that we need to move beyond the comparison of a) a guy and a girl hooking up in a bar and going off to have sex and b) a woman making herself commercially available for sex, and a man buying that service. It's facile to say that simply because the same physical act is involved, and that the parties might have known each other for a similar time period, there is necessarily any sort of ethical or moral equivalence.

Context and circumstances make all the difference here. Another (simplistic, obviously) example: a doctor prescribes Tramadol (a very strong painkiller) for a specified condition to a patient, Mr A, who collects (and pays for) the drugs from a pharmacist, Mr B, and takes them home and ingests them. Not illegal, obviously. But if a dealer, Mr X, with a stash of Tramadol sells them to Mr Y, who the takes the drugs home and ingests them, then both Mr X and Mr Y are breaking the law. Yet the same basic thing is happening in both instances: one person is selling Tramadol to the other person, and the other person is ingesting the drugs.

Well, I'm actually not one who supports helmet laws either, so I guess my arguments are the same. I think anyone who doesn't wear one is a fool, but I also think it should be their choice if they're not endangering anyone else.

And yes, your second example is apt. But here's the thing. In that scenario, there is a legal alternative for the medicine - a doctor has to determine you need it. That's the regulation. I think there should also be a legal, regulated avenue for prostitution.

Unlike with drugs, I don't think the regulations would necessarily increase the underground side-economy. Because unlike with drugs, there's no advantage to going the unregulated way. In the case of drugs, the doctor could say no, so the person who wants them goes to the dealer. But there'd be nothing but risks involved in going outside the regulated prostitution economy. If one's conscience didn't bother them regarding the potential for funding abuse, then surely they wouldn't want to take the risk of catching a disease. One of the regulations I'm proposing is a license for legal sex work contingent upon regular and thorough STD testing.

I hope that makes sense, I feel like I got a little rambly.

 

[LondonJohn]

As a slight aside, the fact that (usually) both parties in a female prostitution transaction - the prostitute and her client - consent to the transaction and are happy with the commercial arrangement, is not altogether important.

(Examine, for example, the touting of tickets for sporting events or rock concerts. Both parties in that sort of transaction - the tout and the buyer - are usually happy with the arrangement and the price. As indeed, usually, is the person who sold the tickets to the tout in the first place. Yet touting is legislated against in many countries.)

 

[LondonJohn]

Well, I'm actually not one who supports helmet laws either, so I guess my arguments are the same. I think anyone who doesn't wear one is a fool, but I also think it should be their choice if they're not endangering anyone else.

And yes, your second example is apt. But here's the thing. In that scenario, there is a legal alternative for the medicine - a doctor has to determine you need it. That's the regulation. I think there should also be a legal, regulated avenue for prostitution.

Unlike with drugs, I don't think the regulations would necessarily increase the underground side-economy. Because unlike with drugs, there's no advantage to going the unregulated way. In the case of drugs, the doctor could say no, so the person who wants them goes to the dealer. But there'd be nothing but risks involved in going outside the regulated prostitution economy. If one's conscience didn't bother them regarding the potential for funding abuse, then surely they wouldn't want to take the risk of catching a disease. One of the regulations I'm proposing is a license contingent upon regular and thorough STD testing.

I hope that makes sense, I feel like I got a little rambly.

Yep, it makes sense, and I think your proposal is sensible. Would you criminalise prostitution (and if so, on the demand side or both sides?) for all prostitution that didn't take place within that system of regulation and licences?

 

[Butter!]

As a slight aside, the fact that (usually) both parties in a female prostitution transaction - the prostitute and her client - consent to the transaction and are happy with the commercial arrangement, is not altogether important.

(Examine, for example, the touting of tickets for sporting events or rock concerts. Both parties in that sort of transaction - the tout and the buyer - are usually happy with the arrangement and the price. As indeed, usually, is the person who sold the tickets to the tout in the first place. Yet touting is legislated against in many countries.)

Well now you're just all over the place. If you study the market, you'll find all sorts of regulations in all different parts of the economy. Some things, like tickets, have regulations like what you describe. Others don't. People can sell furniture to each other, but not tickets. Cigarettes can't be sold to minors. There's thousands of nuances.

None of that necessarily has a thing to do with prostitution. Examine it as its own issue.

 

[Butter!]

Yep, it makes sense, and I think your proposal is sensible. Would you criminalise prostitution (and if so, on the demand side or both sides?) for all prostitution that didn't take place within that system of regulation and licences?

Yes. Absolutely.

I wouldn't agree with legalization unless that was part of it, and strictly enforced. Otherwise, I'd have to agree - there would be no real advantage and many potential disadvantages to making it legal.

 

[angrysoba]

Name one job comparable to prostitution.

This should be open season!

 

[LondonJohn]

Sex workers can be and are raped, but that is not what sex work is. Removing that distinction allows for great moralising, but it ironically denies the agency of sex workers and delegitimises their rape.

While I partly agree - and I certainly disagree with the extremist feminist position that "all prostitution is rape" - I think it's short-sighted to define rape in the sort of narrow range that you seem to be suggesting. I think, for example, that there's a good argument to be made that a significant proportion of (female) prostitution is a form of violation, in that the woman may be giving consent, but only under a form of duress.

 

[LondonJohn]

Yes. Absolutely.

I wouldn't agree with legalization unless that was part of it, and strictly enforced. Otherwise, I'd have to agree - there would be no real advantage and many potential disadvantages to making it legal.

Then we are in broad agreement! Fancy a one-night stand to celebrate?

 

[LondonJohn]

Well now you're just all over the place. If you study the market, you'll find all sorts of regulations in all different parts of the economy. Some things, like tickets, have regulations like what you describe. Others don't. People can sell furniture to each other, but not tickets. Cigarettes can't be sold to minors. There's thousands of nuances.

None of that necessarily has a thing to do with prostitution. Examine it as its own issue.

Oh I know. I was just using that example to illustrate that even where all parties involved in an act give their ready consent and are entirely happy with the arrangement, it might still make sense (for society as a whole) to make that act illegal.

 

[Butter!]

Then we are in broad agreement! Fancy a one-night stand to celebrate?

LOL! I suppose there's a first time for everything.

 

[Arcade22]

In Canada, sex workers themselves seemed to favour the NZ approach over the Swedish one.

The kind of prostitutes that come in contact with the police and social services are usually victims of abuse, trafficking or are otherwise exploited, have mental health issues and such problems. When they get stuck in an echo chamber where they only hear awful things about prostitution there's no reason at all for them to recognize that all prostitutes aren't suffering and aren't "victims".

 

[GnaGnaMan]

If money weren't in the equation, how many of those women would be willing to let perfect strangers have sex with them? And let's make no mistake, that's exactly we're talking about here. Women being required to perform acts that they wouldn't be normally comfortable doing with people they normally wouldn't be comfortable doing it with.

That isn't about sex, it's about power. You know, like rape.

No one is talking about making sex work mandatory.

If service for money is inherently involuntary then any paid work is forced labor...

I do think that there is an issue there. If circumstances force someone to do something they find abhorrent, that's just not acceptable. Whether that is sex work or something else. I do not see a justification for applying a double standard here because sex is involved.

What needs to be remembered is that everyone who choses sex work decides for themselves that it is the best option under the circumstances. If sex work is not available their lives will not be better but worse.

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Oh I know. I was just using that example to illustrate that even where all parties involved in an act give their ready consent and are entirely happy with the arrangement, it might still make sense (for society as a whole) to make that act illegal.

No. What gives anyone the moral high ground to decide whether someone should sell (rent out) their body or not? I don't like it and I personally don't wish to see anyone I know take that route, but who the hell am I to judge?

 

[abaddon]

I don't know what you mean. Comparable in what sense? That's pretty subjective.

Not everyone hates the idea of sex with strangers. Some people do it for free every weekend.

LOL, you are indeed correct. Some people do so just for <deleted> and giggles.

By any definition, I am a prostitute because I sell my skills for filthy lucre. It so happens that my skills lie in the area of technology. It so happens that this is not the only skill area that exists. Gardeners ply their trade. So do plumbers and any amount of folks who have skills in a particular area. Who are you, I or anyone to regulate this one particular skill which somehow seems to get on some peoples wick? Nobody, that's who.

Once again, while I will object to pimps, exploitation et al, if a man or a woman chooses to engage in such, more luck to them. There is nothing wrong with it per se.

It might very well not be my particular cup of tea, but nor is religion, so perhaps we should ban that also. It is, after all, the thing which seeks not only to ban the oldest profession, but to murder all participants therein. With added brutality.

 

[Arcade22]

Well obv I know why you've made the comparison to a cleaning job, but I expect that legislators take into account that offering yourself up sexually to a man (whom often you are initiating sex before barely a couple of sentences have been spoken between you....) is a far more sensitive and personal choice for a woman to make than cleaning someone's house.

Remember folks: prostitution is when women have sex with men for pay. No preconceived ideas there at all.

 

[fuelair]

Politician.

Mostly absolutely!!!

 

[abaddon]

Remember folks: prostitution is when women have sex with men for pay. No preconceived ideas there at all.

And this is wrong because? LondonJohn claims it to be so. I would very much like him to defend that claim.