Should prostitution be legal?

[RandFan]

You probably won't get it, but here it comes anyway:

Those who, after hearing a critique, demand the “positive” side likewise pretend that the critique is fine but that the practical consequences remain in the dark. That’s not honest. Every particular critique shows what alternative it is driving at. Those who, for example, ascribe contemporary evils, which we after all are not the only ones to criticize, to free competition in which the big fish always swallow the small fish — those people are pleading for fairness in competition, control of monopolies, antitrust legislation, and healthy medium-sized firms. Those who lay the blame for these abuses on modern man‘s growth mania, on its unspecific “always wanting more” — those people are pleading for salvation in doing without and reveal themselves as global ecological reformers. And when we explain that the poverty and insecure existence of wageworkers is a necessary consequence of their role as the cost factor ‘labor’ and that this role is a consequence of the one and only purpose for which production in capitalism takes place — namely turning money into more money — then everyone can hear perfectly well the call for action in it: the people who, in their entire existence, are made instruments of the growth of capital must get rid of this obstacle standing in the way of their own benefit. They must break the power of those who have the interest in profits, and win the freedom to organize their work so that it finally is about their needs and a good life for them. Everyone who takes note of our explanations understands that much of an alternative. Whether these explanations deserve approval depends on whether or not the causes of the well-known evils have been correctly determined. But those who, apart from any controversy about particular causes, turn up with the question of whether we actually had an alternative just don’t want the practical consequences they’ve sounded out, and clothe their displeasure in polite doubt as to whether the intended goal is in fact realistic.

Good lord, asside from being visually a mess this sounds like something out of a communist propaganda film. I couldn't find any mention of the proletariat, beugouis or comrade though. No argument anywhere there that I can tell.

 

[dann]

Abolishing poverty sounds good to me, but you still haven't shown that poverty is the cause of prostitution.

Well, Earthborn, apparently everybody seems to know a happy hooker, but so far I’m the only one who has offered more than anecdotal evidence for anything:

Notice the difference between the imagined motivations for prostitution and reality.
And we are not even talking about your ridiculous fantasies!

Australian studies in law, crime and justice: Entrance into prostitution
“An immediate contrast with the imagined motivations for entering prostitution suggested by the health-workers and students presents itself. Whereas the non-prostitutes supposed that drug addiction and pimp manipulation were high level motivations for becoming prostitutes, the reality of the prostitute sample is that these feature quite low among motivations. The economic motives of unemployment, supporting families and pursuing higher incomes given by the prostitutes as reasons for their own entrance into the sex industry do coincide more closely with the assumed motives given by the non-prostitutes. Another economic motive often overlooked by non-prostitutes is that of offering commercial sex in order to pay for an education, for money needed to take an overseas trip, to pay off debts, to purchase a car, house or other large expensive item, or for some other specific purpose.”

Burnout among female indoor sex workers
“Only sex workers' mean score on depersonalization was significantly higher than that of a comparison group of female nurses and comparable to those of another comparison group of patients with work-related psychological problems. Evidence was provided for the importance of experiential and context-related factors in burnout among indoor sex workers. For instance, 42% of the variance in depersonalization was explained by not working by choice, negative social reactions, experiences of violence, and lack of control in interaction with clients. Depersonalization may be a strategy to cope with negative conditions and experiences in sex work, but was significantly related to indicators of stress and emotional exhaustion.”

Youth prostitution: a literature review
“It argues that whatever the power of personal experiences which incline a person towards prostitution, prostitution can still only be possible in specific cultural conditions. The phenomenon of prostitution has the sexual double standard, poverty and an unequal labour market as prerequisites. We should not expect prostitution to either disappear or occur with equal frequency in men and women while these aspects of inequality continue.”

Professional HIV risk taking, levels of victimization, and well-being in female prostitutes in The Netherlands

Alcohol and drug use in heterosexual and homosexual prostitution, and its relation to protection behaviour
“Alcohol and drug use was found to be relatively common among prostitutes.”

Risky life, risky business: AIDS risk of female prostitutes in the context of early abuse and well-being
” About 1 in 20 (4.3%) had experienced abuse both in their youth and adulthood. Only 1 in 5 women (22.8%) had not experienced any abuse, not even in their work. 57% of the respondents had experienced violence of one form or another in their work (physical or sexual violence). 45% of the women escaped abuse in private life (from being forced into prostitution, physical or sexual violence), while about 50% of them also experienced abuse in private life, in most cases associated with their work in prostitution.”

Prostitution crackdown
“We need to focus on the underlying social problems which force men, women and children into prostitution, such as family breakdown, drug misuse, child abuse, domestic violence and debt.”

And was it any different a hundred years ago? No, not really.
Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State
“Throughout the Victorian period, most prostitutes remained, in Abraham Flexner’s phrase, the “unskilled daughters of the unskilled classes.” In one late-Victorian study of London prostitutes interned in Millbank prison, the fathers of over 90 percent of the sample were unskilled and semiskilled workingmen. Over 50 percent of these women had been servants, largely general servants; the rest had worked in equally dead-end jobs, such as laundering, charing, and ….”

I forgot this beautiful invitation to a merry afternoon at the local brothel:

English Collective of Prostitutes:
“Most are single mothers who are just trying to put food on the table, and until they tackle that, these proposals are a waste of time.”

Don’t you feel a little weird being one the guys who consider this a wonderful opportunity, a way of gettin’ some from a single mother with no better way of feeding her children than by selling her sexual favours to you?

When people started making wrong claims about the contents of my links, I quoted fromthis one:

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/l...ing/ch4-2.html
Reasons given by prostitutes (n = 128) for entering prostitution
Reasons for entering prostitution
Unemployed at the time 36,7
To support a family 18,7
To support a man 5,5
To support a drug habit 9,4
To earn more money than at present 44,5
Freedom from home (be independent) 3,9
To seek excitement in own life 5,5
For sexual enjoyment or experiment 3,1
To seek a love relationship 0,0 (So much for Pretty Woman!)
To satisfy curiosity about self or prostitution 26,8
For a specific purpose (education/debts/holiday/purchase an item/subsidise a study) 15,6

 

[dann]

At least we now know why Dann a such a control freak; he embraces a totalitarian philosophy that reduces the individual human in all their glory to a social insect, subjugated to the fickle whim of the masses. Since the product of our minds or our labor are not our own in Dann's world, but "the People's," we all becomes slaves despite the claims of liberation from want and need.

Sorry, all the promises of "eliminating poverty" are never worth it. Especially given the body count of movements and nations who waved the red banner racked up during the last century.

Oh, YES, you finally got it! I’m only in it because I hope to be elected totalitarian dictator and reduce the glorious individual human beings to insects! I only criticize poverty to turn you all into slaves!

So let’s take a look at your motives:
You are so bitter because you don’t get any that you don’t even distinguish between marriage and prostitution. (And there actually are subtle differences, you know!) This makes you a big fan of prostitution, but not very happy about the prospect of paying the prices that the prostitutes in the (much celebrated) legalized brothels demand. (Wouldn’t it be cheaper to marry?)
So you enter into a john discussion about the the lack of competition that would make the women sell their 'goods' much cheaper, as a true supporter of the wonderful achievement of free enterprise, which allows men to have sex with women who have sex with men they don't feel attracted to: Sex for money, individual human hookers in all their glory, one of the most wonderful achievements of the freedom of the market economy and the poverty it entails.
Spoken like a true Libertarian!

 

[andyandy]

Oh, YES, you finally got it! I’m only in it because I hope to be elected totalitarian dictator and reduce the glorious individual human beings to insects! I only criticize poverty to turn you all into slaves!

dann if you have something to say about Marxism then please say it. There's a thread waiting for you. Otherwise people will think that your "eliminate all poverty" solution to prostitution is somewhat lacking in substance.

 

[dann]

Like I already said, I knew you wouldn't get it!

 

[andyandy]

Like I already said, I knew you wouldn't get it!

you claim Marxism offers a way to eliminate poverty, and then when challenged to expand you resort to "you just wouldn't understand." That's not a convincing argument dann.

 

[dann]

You don't have a clue what the quotation says, do you?!

 

[RandFan]

Like I already said, I knew you wouldn't get it!

Get what?

There is little if any argument. On the contrary it is largely propaganda consisting of claims and rhetoric.

 

[andyandy]

You don't have a clue what the quotation says, do you?!

How are you actually going to eliminate poverty? Your quote is rather vague on any details.....it's all very well saying things like....

They must break the power of those who have the interest in profits, and win the freedom to organize their work so that it finally is about their needs and a good life for them.

but how do you propose this will actually work?

Are you unable to express the argument in your own words?

I'm pasting this into the marxist thread so we can continue there.

 

[RandFan]

You don't have a clue what the quotation says, do you?!

Do you?

Could you make a well reasoned case for the position with logically valid argument? Lacking the ability to do so I would have to say that you don't have a coherent and intellectual understanding of the quotation.

It's really poor form to argue solely via link. It's intellectual laziness.

 

[Lonewulf]

I said in this thread that I think that poverty could possibly be abolished. I was asked to provide evidence by someone in this thread. I do not have time currently to go back to find details or who said it, but I spent some time thinking about it before I came back, because I wanted to give a decent response. I don't think that this response will be enough for people in this forum; I'm not really out to convince anybody here, just to explain my viewpoint. Also, please read this: I am not actually advocating any particular point, nor am I stating that any of the things below are necessarily preferable or without their downfalls. I'm just explaining how I think that poverty can, potentially, be eradicated. I'm not looking at nasty side effects or anything like that.

First of all, we have to define poverty before we can even discuss the issue. If poverty means, "Wealth below the average", or even "wealth way below the average", then I do not think that it is possible to eliminate poverty at all, without some measure of completely equal distribution of the wealth. I'm not generally opposed to a lack of equal distribution, however, and being "below average" is, quite frankly, meaningless in the context of an extremely wealthy society.

When I talk about eliminating poverty, I mean that people are such below a limit of unequal wealth, that it puts them, their lives, and the lives of their family in jeapordy. This includes a lack of food, a lack of shelter, a lack of clothing, etc. This also includes a lack of medicinal requirements to living, but only to a certain extent; sometimes, not even the wealthy can afford some of the more extreme treatments. Also, being able to afford cold medication to alleviate a symptom is less a requirement than, say, being able to afford life-saving treatments, but even those get to extreme costs in the end. So I put less of a focus on medicinal requirements (I'm not sure what the "official" view on medicinal requirements are, I'm just giving my personal viewpoint and definition so far).

These extremes of poverty tend to fluctuate, and are based on several factors. You cannot eliminate laziness and a lack of will to continue; this is increased as people are exposed to drug usage, naturally (I mean those drugs that are way addictive and severely debilitate your ability to function; not non-addictive or non-debilitating drugs). Further, if you're handicapped, you're less likely to be able to work. However, I do not think that anyone here would dispute my claim that poverty levels today are not the same, and in fact are far less than, poverty levels that existed during the Great Depression. I do not know if poverty levels have been decreasing as time passes along, but the numbers do change; there is not quite a constant that exists.

A person that is provided for by an outside source (such as the government), I would not consider to be in poverty as well; so there are some programs that the government can take (I'm not saying that it's preferable, just that they can take those programs) to try to help alleviate the poverty situation. Plus, is possible (not necessarily preferable, just possible) to push someone into, say, getting off the drugs or their slump in life to try to take up a job, and alleviate their own situation.

I don't have a cite or source (but I can look it up in my Sociology book, no doubt), but I learned in my Sociology class here in Del Mar College that the majority of those that are impoverished here in the U.S., statistically speaking, pull themselves up within one to a few years. To me, that's a sign that it is possible to eliminate one's own state of being impoverished; so I think that it's very possible to lessen poverty overall.

Completely eliminate? Well, if it's possible to lessen poverty, what's the limit? I don't know. There might be a limit that's a constant, but I don't think so. Poverty may never have been eradicated in the past, but I don't think that anyone would doubt that, say, in large super-powers like the United States, the resource value is very high, and the resource value available to the common man is much higher than in, say, a pre-industrial country.

There's also the issue of wealth distribution. Can wealth be distributed? I think so. The majority of resources held in the United States is held by the rich. The top 1% of the population controls a vast amount of the wealth available. Can that wealth be redistributed? Yes, and this could potentially go towards helping out those that suffer at the very bottom.

I once heard a possible measure that I found somewhat appealing, but I don't know enough to comment; I know crap about economics, so I tend not to advocate much about economics. But his idea was this:

Flat-rate tax. Everyone pays the same percentage, no one gets tax breaks dependent on wealth. Then, distribute that money equally to every person. This does not punish you for being rich, is a blind system (so it's not discriminating), and it sounds completely fair to me. It may not sound fair to you, but once again, I'm not necessarily advocating anything. I'm just giving my viewpoint.

Ideally, this distribution could help pay for medical and personal necessities.

 

[Earthborn]

so far I’m the only one who has offered more than anecdotal evidence for anything:

Yes, you did. It is just that the evidence you present has little relevance to your claims. You claim that prostitution is caused by poverty, and more to the point; that eliminating poverty will make prostitution disappear. Neither claim can be supported by the research you cite. The only things the research supports is that people get into prostitution for economic reasons, that is to say; they do it for the money (a conclusion that from me can only elicit a "Well, du-uh!") and that prostitution is a job that carries certain risks (which is also highly unsurprising).

 

[Beerina]

Guarantee every woman a $100,000 salary, and prostitution won't stop -- a little extra cash is always useful. I even doubt prices would go up all that much.

 

[Lonewulf]

Guarantee every woman a $100,000 salary, and prostitution won't stop -- a little extra cash is always useful. I even doubt prices would go up all that much.

I'm sure that prices would go up, since they don't need the cash right away.

Give all men $100,000 a year, and you bet prices will go up!

 

[Tailgater]

I'm sure that prices would go up, since they don't need the cash right away.

Give all men $100,000 a year, and you bet prices will go up!

I think your right. There might be a rise in group rates to cash in on the high volume too.

 

[brodski]

Guarantee every woman a $100,000 salary, and prostitution won't stop -- a little extra cash is always useful. I even doubt prices would go up all that much.

Give ofver 50% of the adult population $100,000 every year, and prices for everything will go up, not just prices for sex services.

 

[dann]

... the evidence you present has little relevance to your claims. You claim that prostitution is caused by poverty, and more to the point; that eliminating poverty will make prostitution disappear. Neither claim can be supported by the research you cite. The only things the research supports is that people get into prostitution for economic reasons, that is to say; they do it for the money (a conclusion that from me can only elicit a "Well, du-uh!") and that prostitution is a job that carries certain risks (which is also highly unsurprising).

Your "for economic reasons" is an abstraction from the reasons mentioned, here with my comments added in italics:

Reasons for entering prostitution
Unemployed at the time 36,7 (poverty)
To support a family 18,7 (poverty)
To support a man 5,5 (poverty/victim of pimp?)
To support a drug habit 9,4 (well, they obviously don't belong to the group of megastars like Britney who are in and out of detox and drugtreatment clinics without ever having to resort to selling their bodies)
To earn more money than at present 44,5 (may to a large extent be the same people who answered yes to the reasons above)
Freedom from home (be independent) 3,9 (probably very young people, probably poor)
To seek excitement in own life 5,5
For sexual enjoyment or experiment 3,1
To seek a love relationship 0,0 (So much for Pretty Woman!)
To satisfy curiosity about self or prostitution 26,8
For a specific purpose (education/debts/holiday/purchase an item/subsidise a study) 15,6 (education/studies: probably not people from rich families; debts: poverty; holidays and other purchases: does not sound like immediate distress, but being unable to go on a holiday without selling sex constitutes poverty in my opinion)

In Denmark a policeman mentioned that some women became streetwalkers when it was time for mortgage repayments ...
(Sorry, anecdote, no links!)

Concerning your "Well, du-uh!": A lot of people in this thread have made the equation prostitution = sex, so it's not a matter of course for everybody that prostitution is a question of money!

 

[dann]

http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/fempsy3.html
Apologists for prostitution legitimize it as a freely made and glamorous career choice. We are told that people in prostitution choose their customers as well as the type of sex acts in which they engage. Bell (1994) suggested that prostitution is a form of sexual liberation for women. We are also told that 'high-class' prostitution is different, and much safer than street prostitution. Referring to prostitutes in general, Leigh said 'most of us are middle class' (in Bell, 1994).
None of these assertions was supported by this study. Our data show that almost all of those in prostitution are poor. The incidence of homelessness (72 percent) among our respondents, and their desire to get out of prostitution (92 percent) reflects their poverty and lack of options for escape. Globally, very few of those in prostitution are middle class. Prostitution is considered a reasonable job choice for poor women, indigenous women and women of color, instead of being seen as exploitation and human rights violation. Indigenous women are at the bottom of a brutal gender and race hierarchy. They have the fewest options, and are least able to escape the sex industry once in it. For example, it has been estimated that 80 percent of the street prostituted women in Vancouver, Canada, are indigenous women (Lynne, 1998).
The appearance of choice to work as a prostitute is profoundly deceptive. 'If prostitution is a free choice, why are the women with the fewest choices the ones most often found doing it?' (MacKinnon, 1993). In Amsterdam, a woman described prostitution as 'volunteer slavery', clearly articulating both the appearance of choice and the overwhelming coercion behind that choice (Vanwesenbeeck, 1994).

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/...1IPR04892-02-02-2006-2006-true/default_da.htm
”EP henviser til, at udstødelse og fattigdom er helt afgørende årsager til prostitution og til den øgede handel med kvinder. Det kræver, at man gør op med forestillingen om, at prostitution kan ligestilles med udøvelse af et erhverv.”
My translation: ”The European Parliament refers to the fact that ostracism and poverty are decisive reasons for prostitution and the increase in trafficking. It demands to combat the idea that working as a prostitute can be equated with doing a job.”

http://english.people.com.cn/200503/03/eng20050303_175406.html
Child poverty was a serious problem. The Chicago Tribune reported on Aug. 27, 2004 that the number of children in poverty climbed from 12.1 million in 2002 to 12.9 million in 2003, a year-on-year increase of 0.9 percent. About 20 million children lived in "low-income working families" -- with barely enough money to cover basic needs (AP Washington, Oct. 12, 2004). In California, one in every six children did not have medical insurance. The Los Angeles Times said on May 6, 2004 that in the metropolitan area the number of homeless children found wondering on the streets at nights numbered 8,000, which had stretched the 2,500-bed government-run emergency shelter system well beyond capacity. Poverty deprived many children the opportunity to obtain higher education. In the 146 renowned institutions of higher learning, only 3 percent of the students came from the low-income class, while 74 percent of them were from the high-income class.
Children were victims of sex crimes. Every year about 400,000 children in the US were forced to engage in prostitution or other sexual dealings on the streets. Home-deserting or homeless children were the most likely to fall victims of sexual abuse.

http://www.haworthpress.com/store/ArticleAbstract.asp?sid=HM25NM5TAUR68GSJ3MQBEAQ2VP27F9A6&ID=57378

http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/en/news/2006/ormond.html
Mr. Costa answered a question on the link between poverty and trafficking by mentioning UNODC's recent report on Crime and Development in Africa which showed that poverty, along with factors such as urbanization, was a major factor that created vulnerability to crime, including trafficking but that he would be careful in drawing a direct link. Also during his travels to Afghanistan, he had seen how poverty was a cause of illicit drug cultivation. One Afghan farmer had told him that if he did not grow opium, first he would have to sell his cow, then his daughters and finally his house. Nevertheless, to equalize poverty with trafficking and crime would be an over-simplification.

'Oversimplification', my ....

 

[Kaylee]

I’m not in favor of legalizing prostitution. I won't rehash my arguments, if you want to read them, do a search under my name and the topic.

What I don't recall ever seeing posted under this topic in this thread or others are reports of countries where prostitution is or was legal deciding to make major changes or adjustments in this area. This was because the governments perceived that the prostitution was causing more problems rather than reducing them. Below are two examples:

Example 1
Amsterdam decideded to close down 1/3 of the brothels in their "Red Light District", effective January 1, 2007:

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/11/30/amsterdam_curbs_prostitution_windows/

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands --City officials say they will turn off the red lights and shutter a third of the prostitution "windows" in Amsterdam's famed Red Light District, where scantily-clad ladies of the night have beckoned customers for hundreds of years.

The move is part of a crackdown on crime in the area.
We're not knights on a morality crusade, and this is intended to target financial crime, not prostitution per se," city spokesman Martien Maten said Thursday. "But we do think it will change the face of the Red Light District."

The Dutch government legalized prostitution in 2000 to make it easier to tax and regulate.

Maten said the city was now making use of a new law to revoke brothels' licenses when it suspects operators have used them for money laundering or other illegal financial activity.

"In concrete terms (that) means that those involved won't be able to continue their businesses" after the measures takes effect on Jan. 1, the city said in a statement.

---
Example 2
As of January 1, 1999 Sweden reversed its stand on prostitution and made it illegal. Specifically, they decided to criminalize the purchase of sex and not the selling of it. AFAIK, this is the opposite approach that most other countries take when they make prostitution illegal.

It appears that as a result of Sweden's experience with prostitution, that Russia and Lithuania decided not make prostitution legal in their countries. Finland did not end up passing legislation similar to Sweden (mentioned in the below link), but in 2006 per Wikipedia they did pass a law making it illegal to purchase sex where it's linked to human trafficking. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Finland )

http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/CommonPage____13325.aspx

The Swedish Act Prohibiting the Purchase of Sexual Services has drawn interest from lawmakers in other countries. Iceland is just about to enact a law that criminalizes the buyers of sex, and a working group in Finland has proposed similar legislation. Discussions are underway in the Baltic States, where an earlier proposal to legalize the purchase of sexual services is now in the trash. In Lithuania, there is a proposal on the table to follow Sweden’s example. Moscow’s parliament was considering the legalization of prostitution, but changed its mind after learning more about the Swedish model.

===






Lastly, on this web page are six reports dated February 4, 2004 submitted as evidence to the Scottish Parliament for the Prostitution Tolerance Zones (Scotland) Bill Stage 1:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/b...ic/lg/inquiries-03/ptz/lg04-ptz-res-index.htm

BTW, despite the name of the bill, prostitution isn't illegal in Scotland. The last two reports are in favor of the bill, but IMHO, all the reports basically support that prostitution increases instead of decreases problems for the local community (including human trafficking).

This report from the Metropolitan University in London also includes data on prostitution in:
Victoria, Australia
Ireland
Netherlands
Sweden

See: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/b...toric/lg/inquiries-03/ptz/lg04-ptz-res-03.htm

 

[dann]

See: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/b...toric/lg/inquiries-03/ptz/lg04-ptz-res-03.htm

It is interesting that even this study tends to be in denial of prostitution being caused by poverty:

· Prostitution is caused by poverty.

Although many women in prostitution are poor, a significant proportion simply have the misfortune to meet a pimp, including when running away from abuse in the home.

How many women? How significant a proportion? And do rich women have the misfortune to meet pimps as often as poor women do when they run away from abuse in the home?