Should prostitution be legalized?

[Madalch]

I wouldn't want my daughter to become a prostitute.

I also wouldn't want her becoming a circus performer, an astrologer, a homeopath, or a cleaning lady, but I'm not going to argue that those professions be made illegal.

 

[The Atheist]

I don't know, I think dedication is more important than "smarts." I work in a university and the amount of common sense many PhD's are lacking is often astounding.

I don't entirely agree. If prostitutes are in the top 10% of income earners, they would need to be in pretty high-powered jobs to earn similar money. The competition at that level is pretty fierce and I doubt whether many current hookers would survive. But, say a chick is smart enough to become a doctor; she looks at seven years intense work or an afternoon's "training" at the brothel where she can start earning the same money tomorrow. Some choose the second option.

While there may indeed be some percentage of prostitutes that chose the profession of their own complete and informed free will out of many possibile professions available to them, there is also a percentage of prostitutes that were and are coerced into the job.

What would legalization of prostitution do to help those women?

*WAVES FLAG*

Meg; you just answered one of your own questions, but I guess you avoided it since the answer doesn't support your other concerns.

Coercion disappears with legalisation of prostitution. When a brothel-owner can make the almost the same money legally, where is the incentive to enslave young women?

When I hear arguments for legalization and regulation of prostitution for "disease control", it seems that usually people are just talking about testing the prostitutes for STDs. The assumption seems to be that the client has some right to purchase disease free sex. Shouldn't the sex worker have that same right? In the U.S., more and more cities are going "smoke free" on the grounds that workers' health is endangered by passive smoke inhalation. They are not given the option to "choose" whether they're willing to risk it or not, the government wants to look after us. Shouldn't we look after our sex workers with the same level of concern? It seems to me that the clients should have to show themselves to be disease free prior to being permitted to partake of the "services".

That's both a poor analogy and completely impractical. First off, sex and smoking have no relation beyond maybe the latter being done after the former. Anti-smoking legislation protects people who do not wish to inhale cigarette smoke. Which of the two parties - hooker and John - is going to object to sexual penetration?

Not to mention that the difference in timing between infection, symptom and test results would make the entire process impossible. As I noted above, prostitutes can and do decline to offer their bodies to some customers. In a world with illegal prostitution, it isn't necessarily easy for a prostitute to get rid of a customer. In a legal brothel - it's very easy.

If prostitution is legalized and considered a legitimate profession, should a woman be denied unemployment, welfare, or any other kind of social assistance if she refuses to apply for work at the local brothel?

If they're under 25, there's definitely merit in the idea!

[silly question/silly answer club]

If prostitution is legalized and considered a legitimate profession, will there be less societal motivation to provide job training, assistance or education to poor women? Would pretty women be denied scholarships or educational assistance because they could (or should?) hook their way through college?

No, but if prostitution is kept illegal and maybe driven out completely, will the state and federal governments organise additional payments to the poor women who currently fund their studies through prostitution? Are you happy to take away the opportunity for some young women to lift themselves out of the gutter?

I have an excellent friend who was a down and out, destined for committing suicide at age 19. Thanks to a stint working in a brothel, she was able to turn her life around and is now a registered nurse with a long-term boyfriend with whom she intends to have children.

Not all hooker stories are nightmares - are you prepared to deny the chance to those who use it positively?

I wouldn't want my daughter to become a prostitute.

Me neither, although it depends what you daughter looks like!

In all seriousness though, I'd rather my daughter became a prostitute than a christian. (no, I am NOT kidding)

 

[Uzzy]

Another vote for Legalise and regulate here. Simply for the fact that it makes those who engage in these activities safer, if the prostitutes can work in licensed brothels, offering clean and safe environments.

Allow brothels to be set up by a group of women or men. Have mandatory drug and STD testing every month. Have mandatory condom usage. This allows the government to tax it, earning some income, and much more importantly it keeps the people who engage in these activities safe. That's the important thing from my point of view.

After five prostitutes got murdered over here in Suffolk, there was a lot of media attention put on the risks prostitutes face. It's very sad. They can and should be made safer.

Will legalisation and regulation solve all the problems? No. But it can start to eliminate some. Giving prostitutes the ability to protect themselves from pimps and other traders in human misery is a good thing in my mind.

 

[Kerberos]

Girls with sexually liberated attitudes that haven't been infected by the anti-sex priggishness of "Judeo-Christian morality."

Or with the normal instincts that evolution suplied them.

 

[Michael C]

Do you really believe those are "typical" working conditions? I'd call those sites very biased. The span of working conditions for prostitutes varies enourmously, with the "bottom" end being dominated by drug abusers or extreme poverty, usually combined with illegality and the inability to get help from police. Illegality creates the need for pimps.

Legal prostitution works, at least in western societies like Germany.

I live in Germany. It doesn't seem that the legalisation of prostitution here has helped to reduce the problems of prostitutes. In surveys, 2/3 of the prostitutes said they had experienced violent attack giving rise to injury at least once. The majority said they had been raped. The vast majority said they are not in this business out of choice and would get out if they could. (see "Lebenssituation Prostitution", Brückner and Oppenheimer)

 

[Michael C]

When I hear arguments for legalization and regulation of prostitution for "disease control", it seems that usually people are just talking about testing the prostitutes for STDs. The assumption seems to be that the client has some right to purchase disease free sex. Shouldn't the sex worker have that same right? In the U.S., more and more cities are going "smoke free" on the grounds that workers' health is endangered by passive smoke inhalation. They are not given the option to "choose" whether they're willing to risk it or not, the government wants to look after us. Shouldn't we look after our sex workers with the same level of concern? It seems to me that the clients should have to show themselves to be disease free prior to being permitted to partake of the "services".

That's both a poor analogy and completely impractical. First off, sex and smoking have no relation beyond maybe the latter being done after the former. Anti-smoking legislation protects people who do not wish to inhale cigarette smoke. Which of the two parties - hooker and John - is going to object to sexual penetration?)

A John already infected with AIDS or some other STD won't object to penetration. And how's the prostitute to know he's infected?

I agree with meg: if legal prostitution is to work at all, both prostitutes and clients need to be tested for STDs. If this isn't done, the whole thing backfires:

"In 1986, the Victorian Labour government legalized brothels, claiming crime would be eliminated, prostitutes' lives would be made safer, and there would be fewer health risks. None of this happened.

Organized crime had a field day in Victoria, with gangs fighting for control of the sex and drug trades with four or five gang leaders controlling the entire prostitution "industry". Sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and AIDS increased. This was due to the fact that medical authorities examined only one of the partners in the sex act, which was self-defeating."

(see http://www.realwomenca.com/newsletter/2005_mar_apr/article_6.html)

 

[dann]

In all seriousness though, I'd rather my daughter became a prostitute than a christian. (no, I am NOT kidding)

I hope that you are aware that it is not usually a question of one or the other. It is a little like the old saying about there being no atheists in fox holes. There are situations where people tend to need religion more. That Christians are scandalized at prostitution does not mean that prostitutes don't sneak into the church to light candles for the saints that are supposed to protect them from STDs, rape and assault.

So I see no reason why your daughter could not be both!

 

[dann]

I voted Planet X option, because none of my concerns seem to be addressed in any of the voting options.

And Ben left them out on purpose.

If prostitution is legalized and considered a legitimate profession, should a woman be denied unemployment, welfare, or any other kind of social assistance if she refuses to apply for work at the local brothel?

I think that this has actually been the case in Germany. Maybe Michael C knows more about this.

 

[dann]

If prostitutes were offered an occupation in which they could earn equally as much money without having to have intercourse with utter strangers (and throw in any rehabilitation and counseling that they may require), and they should turn that opportunity down, then i might listen.

I'm trying to figure out how that makes it different from a fry cook at McDonalds.

He doesn't have to swallow!
But, hey, I'm with you on this one! We should do away with the poverty that forces a lot of people to accept low-paid, unpleasant jobs like prostitution or fry cooking at McDonalds.

 

[Fiona]

I notice that no-one here seems to be talking about the children of prostitutes. I know that I will now face a barrage of mocking "won't someone think of the children" posts, but this is a serious point. Prostitutes do work anti-social hours in dangerous conditions and often in very poor accommodation. I have personally been involved in long discussions with one prostitute who had to face the question of whether she could care adequately for her child and keep him safe. She could not and she decided she must ask for alternative care for him. Those of you who believe this is a free choice either must assume she cared less for her child than other women: and this does not fit my experience of her; or face the fact that she was where she was because of a host of factors beyond her control. I do not argue this is always the case but to suggest that the reality is empowering or that people can just earn college money and then leave was not true for that woman at least.

For those of you who have said you do not mind if your daughters become prostitutes may I ask if you are equally sanguine about raising your grandchildren and explaining to them that this is because their mother had been "empowered"?

 

[Fiona]

And let's make the military illegal as well. I don't feel comfortable with young men prostituting their body for money and a worthless cause such as killing other people.

Neither do I. It would actually be a very good idea to put a stop to "young men (...) killing other people", in particular the legal kind of killing that the state pays soldiers to do!

Good luck. How are you gonna stop it, my neo-pacifist friend?

It would be a start if we raised the age for entering the armed forces to 40

 

[brodski]

I notice that no-one here seems to be talking about the children of prostitutes. I know that I will now face a barrage of mocking "won't someone think of the children" posts, but this is a serious point. Prostitutes do work anti-social hours in dangerous conditions and often in very poor accommodation.

Firstly, is this unique to prostitution? and Secondly are these conditions inherent in prostitution itself, or an artifact of its legal status?

I have personally been involved in long discussions with one prostitute who had to face the question of whether she could care adequately for her child and keep him safe. She could not and she decided she must ask for alternative care for him.

And would this be different if she were working in a safe(er) regulated, inspected and legal brothel? if not, why not?

For those of you who have said you do not mind if your daughters become prostitutes may I ask if you are equally sanguine about raising your grandchildren and explaining to them that this is because their mother had been "empowered"?

Perhaps you could try and not make such bald faced appeals to emotion. There is a difference between saying "I would not mind my daughter being a prostitute in a safe, legal environment" and "I wouldn't mind her beign a prostitute under any circumstances".

 

[Michael C]

If prostitution is legalized and considered a legitimate profession, should a woman be denied unemployment, welfare, or any other kind of social assistance if she refuses to apply for work at the local brothel?

This did happen in Germany a few years ago. As I remember, the case blew over very quickly: it was considered to be a mistake and the lady got her social benefits back. The ministry of employment has stated that nobody is obliged to accept the offer of a job as prostitute. As reasons for refusing you may state that the job is "seelisch unzumutbar" (makes unreasonable psychological demands), or not allowed by your religion.

 

[brodski]

When I hear arguments for legalization and regulation of prostitution for "disease control", it seems that usually people are just talking about testing the prostitutes for STDs. The assumption seems to be that the client has some right to purchase disease free sex. Shouldn't the sex worker have that same right?

yes, but how would your regulate it without legalisation?

If prostitution is legalized and considered a legitimate profession, should a woman be denied unemployment, welfare, or any other kind of social assistance if she refuses to apply for work at the local brothel?

no, in the UK, for instance, a woman (or a man) cannot be denned benefits if they chose not to work in the legal "sex industry" including taking a job at "Anne Summers, a high-street "sex shop".

If prostitution is legalized and considered a legitimate profession, will there be less societal motivation to provide job training, assistance or education to poor women? Would pretty women be denied scholarships or educational assistance because they could (or should?) hook their way through college?

Ar they currently denied scholarships because they should become strippers instead?

 

[kosai]

I don't entirely agree. If prostitutes are in the top 10% of income earners, they would need to be in pretty high-powered jobs to earn similar money. The competition at that level is pretty fierce and I doubt whether many current hookers would survive. But, say a chick is smart enough to become a doctor; she looks at seven years intense work or an afternoon's "training" at the brothel where she can start earning the same money tomorrow. Some choose the second option.

Ah, but you have forgotten that the only thing making them expensive currently is because they are illegal. The same thing happened with alcohol and prohibition, prices were high or quality was low (and dangerous.) The same is happening now, you can get an "escort" which is a more classy option but will be very expensive. Or you can go to the "druggy row" in your city and pick up a cheap, less desireable and perhaps dangerous date. Also, where have you gotten a top 10% income earner figure? I would guess prostitutes now, as a whole, make very little money if you took an average of all prostitutes. If you are talking about the higher priced "escort", yes I believe they make a good sum but you would be leaving out the (many many) lower class in your averages. Legalization would increase competition, increased competition would bring lower prices. Therefore, I don't think the argument can be made that prostitution would become the new get rich quick job.

I think it's also important to point out, I believe brothels should be legalized. Not prostitution as a whole. I don't think many people want the "street walker" type prostitution available in their local park. Instead it would have similar zoning laws to strip clubs. Also a brothel environment has better security and control over both customer and working girl.

 

[meg]

Coercion disappears with legalisation of prostitution. When a brothel-owner can make the almost the same money legally, where is the incentive to enslave young women?

Evidence?
You're not thinking very hard, Atheist, if you can't think of any reasons why a brothel owner wouldn't prefer slaves to indepedent, law savvy employees. Trafficking into the Netherlands has increased since they legalized prostitution. They are engaging in big $$ programs now to attempt to combat it.

http://tribes.tribe.net/humantrafficking/thread/eefb2135-e291-49f5-898d-552d3271f035

Each year about 3,500 women are trafficked to the Netherlands to work in brothels or illegal escort agencies even though the Dutch have thousands of self-employed prostitutes and some of the most liberal sex laws in the world, research shows.

http://www.gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Netherlands-2.htm

The Netherlands is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and girls trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Trafficking for sexual exploitation is more prevalent than labor trafficking. Internally, women and girls are trafficked by "lover boys," young men who seduce young women and girls and force them into prostitution. Women and girls are trafficked to the Netherlands from Nigeria, Bulgaria, People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), Poland, and Romania for sexual exploitation. To a smaller extent, men are trafficked to the Netherlands from India, P.R.C., Bangladesh and Turkey for forced labor in ports, factories, restaurants, and as domestic workers.

Bulgaria moves away from legalizing prostitution
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/05/america/bulgaria.php

"Legalizing prostitution creates a legitimate business front for the most brutal exploitation of women," said Mark Lagon, the U.S. ambassador-at-large to combat human trafficking. "It is the demand that draws a flow of people and a dark underground sex trafficking industry."

Bulgarian officials said that the flows of trafficked women from their country were directed chiefly to places in Western Europe like Germany and the Netherlands where prostitution is legal.

"The traffickers are very practical businessmen. They are going to the countries where the law is not suppressing them," said Antoaneta Vassileva, executive secretary of the national anti-trafficking commission here.

"Paying for Servitude: Trafficking in Women for Prostitution in Australia"
http://cpcabrisbane.org/Kasama/2004/V18n1/Servitude.htm

Women are prostituted both in brothels and through escort arrangements. It is commonly assumed that, in states where prostitution is legal, trafficked women are found predominantly in illegal brothels. In Victoria at least, this is not the case – trafficked women have been located in a number of legal brothels. This is an issue that prostitution regulatory regimes have yet, in my opinion, to seriously address.

Not to mention that the difference in timing between infection, symptom and test results would make the entire process impossible. As I noted above, prostitutes can and do decline to offer their bodies to some customers. In a world with illegal prostitution, it isn't necessarily easy for a prostitute to get rid of a customer. In a legal brothel - it's very easy.

Again, do you have some evidence that legal brothels make the profession safer for the prostitutes? Please show it.

From the above Bulgaria article:

A 23-year-old woman working as a prostitute, who declined to give her name to keep her family from finding out about her occupation, said that she preferred working on the street because she could make a judgment about whether to go with a client.

"If you're in a club you go to addresses and you don't know what will happen," she said through an interpreter, referring to making house calls out of a brothel. "They may beat you. That has happened."

Working in a brothel doesn't automatically make things safe for prostitutes. And testing prostitutes for STDs doesn't make them safer either. That only serves to attempt to ensure that the client wont get an STD from the hooker. If we are genuinely interested in the welfare of prostitutes, then I think we should engage in programs that actually try to reduce the occupational hazards for the hooker.

No, but if prostitution is kept illegal and maybe driven out completely, will the state and federal governments organise additional payments to the poor women who currently fund their studies through prostitution? Are you happy to take away the opportunity for some young women to lift themselves out of the gutter?

As the money she has earned illegally is unknown to assistance agencies, she still is as eligible for assistance as any other woman with no income.

I have an excellent friend who was a down and out, destined for committing suicide at age 19. Thanks to a stint working in a brothel, she was able to turn her life around and is now a registered nurse with a long-term boyfriend with whom she intends to have children.

Have you ever asked her if she could have earned the money to help her turn her life around doing something other than prostitution, would she have?

Not all hooker stories are nightmares - are you prepared to deny the chance to those who use it positively?

And many hooker stories are filled with violence and abuse. Are you prepared to deal realistically with that?

Decriminalization of prostitution by itself does nothing to better the lives and working environments of those that do it, nor does it combat the very real problem of human trafficking. Only laws specifically aimed at protecting prostitutes will protect prostitutes. Only laws specifically aimed at human traffickers will stop human trafficking.

If you want to argue for legalization of prostution, I want to hear what proposals you would make that actually would help to stop the abuses that occur. I hear you that you think anyone that wants to be a prostitute should be able to be one. I think that's fine, actually. What I think is a more fundamental human right, though, is that no one should be prostituted against their will. And no one should have to prostitute themselves to survive.

 

[BenBurch]

Don't know if I heard this correctly on the TV last night, or how accurate it is, but it would appear Client 9's hooker put a new song out there yesterday for downloading at $0.90 a pop, and she had close to a million downloads last night.

And Penthouse magazine is negotiating about having her on a cover.

And I'm hearing on the news this am that her supposed history of abuse as a child may not be true. Seems some of the abuse she suffered was not getting a new car after she'd cracked up her stepfather's Porsche.

I'm sure details will follow in due course.

Kickass Pictures (Mary Carey's outfit) offered her $1 Million if she would do films for them.

 

[Fiona]

Firstly, is this unique to prostitution?

Probably not but there are few more dangerous jobs

and Secondly are these conditions inherent in prostitution itself, or an artifact of its legal status?

And would this be different if she were working in a safe(er) regulated, inspected and legal brothel? if not, why not?

I think Meg has answered that

Perhaps you could try and not make such bald faced appeals to emotion. There is a difference between saying "I would not mind my daughter being a prostitute in a safe, legal environment" and "I wouldn't mind her beign a prostitute under any circumstances".

Well at least you did not use the cliche.
I do not see this question as you do. I think that it is perfectly legitimate to ask realistic questions of this sort. If those who do not mind their daughters being prostitutes wish to stipulate where they draw their lines I am listening. I do not at all see why I should just go along with the starry eyed depiction of prostitution, nor why the direct consequences in the real world constitute an "appeal to emotion".

 

[Island Skeptic]

On the topic of STD testing:

Are none of you aware of the important fact that, in the case of HIV, there is a window period between the initial time of infection and detection of the virus????

Even if a Brothel were to regularly test both its sex-workers *and* its "clients" monthly, this is by no means a guarantee that one or the other is not a carrier of the virus!

The HIV test could very well be conducted during that window period, and thus, not detect the virus.

http://www.aids.org/factSheets/102-HIV-Testing.html

If you think you were exposed to HIV, you should wait for two months before being tested. You can also test right away and then again after two or three months. During this "window period" an antibody test may give a negative result, but you can transmit the virus to others if you are infected.

About 5% of people take longer than two months to produce antibodies. There is one documented case of a person exposed to HIV and hepatitis C at the same time. Antibodies to HIV were not detected until one year after exposure. Testing at 3 and 6 months after possible exposure will detect almost all HIV infections. However, there are no guarantees as to when an individual will produce enough antibodies to be detected by an HIV test.

 

[Island Skeptic]

Decriminalization of prostitution by itself does nothing to better the lives and working environments of those that do it, nor does it combat the very real problem of human trafficking. Only laws specifically aimed at protecting prostitutes will protect prostitutes. Only laws specifically aimed at human traffickers will stop human trafficking.

I did not have the time or energy to go through the efforts of providing all the data on human trafficking (again), so i appreciate you taking the time to do so.

Human trafficking is one of the most horrific and escalating criminal industries in todays world. Not only do the nations need to seriously increase their efforts to put a stop to this crime, but we also need to educate the people to work towards ridding the demand for it.

All consumers of pornography, prostitution, strip clubs, and other "sex trades" are directly to blame for the thousands of victims of human trafficking because they create the demand that is necessary for this industry to thrive. And for what? For the mere purpose of ejaculating?

I apologize if i sound harsh, but my tolerance for those who think of nothing but their own sexual gratification is growing very thin.