Why is prostitution illegal?

[articulett]

Nah, you just remember the bits which support your opinion and forgot or ignore the rest.

Really... so what is my "opinion" as you see it? I see you as asking questions and then ignoring the answers that don't fit with what you want to be true.

And, I will note that many more people seem to be following what I am saying than following what you are saying and are able to understand how it applies to the OP and "exploitation" of women which you claim to be concerned about.

I think better insight comes from the people actually involved in the industry... and that is why I quoted references involving such. What buyers and sellers of sex have to say is more important than your beliefs about how to handle "exploitation" and your beliefs about what works for lessening such exploitation. So do peer reviewed studies that define and measure exploitation and how it correlates with prostitution.

I think that you think you have a much better grasp on the situation than anyone else thinks you have. And I think that if you were really interested in women and exploitation you'd be eager to hear what sex workers have to say on the subject in regard to legislation and whether it should be legal or illegal and what offers the best way of lessening harm to them.

 

[JFrankA]

How? They are breaking the law. Or are you for making all prostitution, no matter under what conditions it is carried out, legal?

I am in favor of making prostitution legal, not just brothels but legal all around. With regulations of course, as I'm sure there would be, just as the porno industry has regulations.

The women in the legal brothels are protected. The women on the street and in the unregulated brothels are not.

Then we make it legal for streetwakers too. Have them registered and maybe create a program so that they can be helped.

Nothing can be done for these people if it's illegal!

No, it's a basic observation.

No, it's basically your opinion.

Humor me. Why can't I pay someone for one of their spare organs? What objection could someone such as yourself have to such a trade if it was legal and regulated?

Nope, no way. This is a red herring and has NOTHING to do with what we are talking about.

 

[dann]

Most prostitutes do it for the money (see previous studies). Hey, I sell my body to McDonald's and do labor so I can get the money I need to survive too. Am I being exploited?

Yes.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Really... so what is my "opinion" as you see it? I see you as asking questions and then ignoring the answers that don't fit with what you want to be true.

I've read the study you linked to. Have you read the one I linked to?

And, I will note that many more people seem to be following what I am saying than following what you are saying and are able to understand how it applies to the OP and "exploitation" of women which you claim to be concerned about.

I think most people want to imagine most prostitutes enjoy their work. What did you think about the bit in the study you linked to where many of the prostitutes said they did not allow kissing under any circumstances? I thought that was interesting.

I think better insight comes from the people actually involved in the industry... and that is why I quoted references involving such. What buyers and sellers of sex have to say is more important than your beliefs about how to handle "exploitation" and your beliefs about what works for lessening such exploitation. So do peer reviewed studies that define and measure exploitation and how it correlates with prostitution.

The study you linked to only studied exploitation between legal brothels.

I think that you think you have a much better grasp on the situation than anyone else thinks you have. And I think that if you were really interested in women and exploitation you'd be eager to hear what sex workers have to say on the subject in regard to legislation and whether it should be legal or illegal and what offers the best way of lessening harm to them.

Prostitutes' views should be taken into account, but I'd imagine the ones shouting the loudest would not be representative of the average.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

I am in favor of making prostitution legal, not just brothels but legal all around. With regulations of course, as I'm sure there would be, just as the porno industry has regulations.

That's so easy to say, but totally impractical to implement.

Then we make it legal for streetwakers too. Have them registered and maybe create a program so that they can be helped.

Nothing can be done for these people if it's illegal!

Why can't that be done with the scheme I favour?

Nope, no way. This is a red herring and has NOTHING to do with what we are talking about.

I think it has a lot to do with want we're talking about. You don't want to answer because you see the similarities and you agree (but would never admit) that there are some things which should not be reduced to trade.

 

[dann]

Articulett: I think scrubbing hotel rooms or cleaning zoo poop would be a hard way to make a living. I don't think you should ever force people to do these things against their will.

Cleaning zoo poop isn't that bad. I did it for at short time many years ago. You feel like a shower and fresh clothes afterwards, but nobody demands that you pretend to enjoy what you are doing. I also don't think that many zoo cleaners end up emotioally or otherwise disturbed due to their jobs. It does not seem to be an occupational hazard ...

Articulett: However, I trust the market to set the price on these services and would find it invasive if the government tried to protect people from being "exploited" by doing such undesirable jobs.

Yes, she would, wouldn't she?! The market does "set the price on these services" - as it does on all others, in sweat shops and whore houses, too, which is why these occupations may not be well-paid and glamorous but, at least (in some areas), free from the awful 'intervention' of governments. Thus all's well in Artie's fairytale world where "exploitation" only exists in quotation marks!

 

[Marcus]

The moral aspect of this issue is nothing whatsoever to do with sex

It doesn't? The people claiming that it is a moral issue certainily think it is about sex. If someone has sex outside of marrige, and is condemed as immoral, what are they objecting to?

 

[Gurdur]

Of course, the whole trouble with the "stop the govt being invasive" crap is that you can refute it ever so easily.

Enron.
Segregation. Other discrimination.
Slavery.

IOW, rule of law is needed, otherwise it's a jungle.

Here's to an "invasive govt" and an end to crappy slogans.

Now, maybe we can get a bit more actual thought and skepticism into this discussion? Or is that too difficult or simply unwanted in the morass of slogans?

 

[Marcus]

Of course, the whole trouble with the "stop the govt being invasive" crap is that you can refute it ever so easily.

Enron.
Segregation. Other discrimination.
Slavery.

IOW, rule of law is needed, otherwise it's a jungle.

Here's to an "invasive govt" and an end to crappy slogans.

Now, maybe we can get a bit more actual thought and skepticism into this discussion? Or is that too difficult or simply unwanted in the morass of slogans?

The question is where you draw the line. Pretending there is no line is more indicitive of a lack of thought.

I want the "govt" to tell me I can't murder someone. I don't want them to tell me what foods I am required to eat to stay healthy, or what kind of sex under what conditions consenting adults are allowed to have, to name just 2 examples.

 

[I Ratant]

Why does prostitution exist?

Good one, well worth a ponder or two.
Why is it a (probably) human activity, not part of normal animal activity?
Most animals fend for themselves. Food and shelter.
Sex isn't something animals do every day.. it's "seasonal" as it were.
Humans are "ready" 24/7.
And the opportunities for gathering food and shelter vary more. Generally one works for money to get the food and shelter.
Taking advantage of those with money by offering sex in exchange simplifies the life process for some.
They're the professionals.
They're engaged in sex work because they can do it without too much effort, less than that needed for a 9-to-5 job, and get paid enough to set their own hours. (And support their habit and their pimp.)
If subsistence living was as simple as picking fruits and vegetables and finding the occasional animal, without having to buy that stuff, maybe prostitution wouldn't be as widespread/popular as it is.

 

[Fiona]

It doesn't? The people claiming that it is a moral issue certainily think it is about sex. If someone has sex outside of marrige, and is condemed as immoral, what are they objecting to?

I see it as a moral issue and I do not think it is about sex. I do not understand the relevance of your second sentence

 

[Mark6]

The market does "set the price on these services" - as it does on all others, in sweat shops and whore houses, too, which is why these occupations may not be well-paid and glamorous but, at least (in some areas), free from the awful 'intervention' of governments. Thus all's well in Artie's fairytale world where "exploitation" only exists in quotation marks!

And YOUR fairytale ignores the fact that Marxism never managed to eliminate either poverty or prostitution. Prostitution was common in Soviet Union, and still is in Cuba. For that matter, American poor live better than Soviet citizens did. Maybe not drug addicts, but in USSR they'd be in gulag, not in a "Khrushchev apartment", so even drug addicts are better off under capitalism.

 

[JFrankA]

Okay, typing this at work, so if I come off has harsh and make gramatical error, please forgive me.

That's so easy to say, but totally impractical to implement.

Why? Why would it be impracticle to implement programs to help the people who need help? That sounds like you are saying to me "Oh, it won't work, so don't bother."

With all prostitution being legal, the very least that will happen is that the police force can concentrate on the real crimes you are all so concerned with: instead of arresting people for having sex for money, they can concentrate on arresting people who've physically assaulted someone, child abuse, and yes, even human trafficking.

Arresting everyone who is doing something that could be connected to a real crime like I mentioned above seems excessive and a waste to me.....

Why can't that be done with the scheme I favour?

Because this program has been implemented for ten years and still NOTHING has been improved. Re-read the article.

We met five women working as prostitutes. All were Swedish. Two of them had drug habits.

But they said they had not been offered any help getting off the game. One was still waiting after six months for a drug prescription.

She said that because there wasn't supposed to be prostitution, there were no drop-in centres for health checks, and no-one handing out condoms or needles.

Only one of the five had anything positive to say about the legislation.
Eve, 60, who has been working as a prostitute for 40 years, said that the men think twice before they rob or try to beat the women they have paid for, as they are aware that they can be reported to the police.

But, according to another woman, Pia, who had worked the streets since 1979, nothing had really changed

...it works......how??????? This is your own source. It doesn't do the job. There needs to be more. This is a half-assed, band-aid of a solution that doesn't do a thing. In fact, in that article, the only people who think it does any good at all are the people who aren't prostitutes!

I think it has a lot to do with want we're talking about. You don't want to answer because you see the similarities and you agree (but would never admit) that there are some things which should not be reduced to trade.

Nope. Sorry. Red herring and a weak analogy. That's like asking someone "Since you think it's okay for a child to act in a horror movie, do you think it's okay for a child to be locked in a closet for days if s/he did something bad?"

One thing has nothing to do with the other, except they both involve a child.
It is a weak analogy: http://www.logicalfallacies.info/weakanalogy.html

and also if you insist on going down that route, I offer a counter:

having legal brothels sends the wrong signal about how we should treat each other - it reduces human sexuality and women to a commodity. It demeans men.

I seriously think that the attitude of "abstenence until marriage" does an even better job of reducing human sexuality and women, and men to a commodity than any legal prostitution can.

"Oh, I love you but before we could have sex, you have to promise that you will love me and take care of me for the rest of your life."

Marriage is legal prosititution. What do you people who think prostitution should stay illegal think of that????

But then again, that is a red herring also.....

 

[Mark6]

Good one, well worth a ponder or two.
Why is it a (probably) human activity, not part of normal animal activity?

Not entirely. Prostitution can be described as "social primate activity":

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/09/11/eachimp111.xml

http://www.springerlink.com/content/p3l31012333t7432/

Here is trading grooming for sex:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1700821,00.html

The Primal Feast: Food, Sex, Foraging, and Love

Time after time Stanford saw male chimpanzees dangle a dead colobus monkey in front of a swollen female, sharing it with her only after she allowed him to mate.

And here is an even more sophisticated example of exchanging something for sex:

http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/001105.html

 

[I Ratant]

Not entirely. Prostitution can be described as "social primate activity":

.
Primates.
Coming back from a bike ride in the desert, I saw a ground squirrel dragging itself off to its burrow. Apparently had a broken hip. both rear legs were inoperative. It was either going to die of its injuries or starve to death.
There's no squirrel 911 to call for assistance.
Primates OTOH, can and do assist those in distress.. (most of the time).
Sex activity in other-than-primates tends to be as mentioned, seasonal... "in heat", "musth", etc.. eating and staying alive is the primary activity when awake.
We primates don't have to work all that hard to keep the home fires going and the pantry stocked day-to-day, and can devote a portion of the day to doing the nasty. if so inclined.
Some people provide access to the nasty for whatever reason.

 

[Fiona]

We seem to be focussing on the idea of free choice and the free market, as I said before. So can those who paint this picture of prostitution please address the association of childhood abuse and prostitution? Of violence and prostitution? Of the post traumatic stress disorder attendant on prostitution? And of the complete failure of legalisation to have the predicted benefits in the Netherlands and other countries where this route has been taken?

http://sisyphe.org/article.php3?id_article=1596

In Amsterdam, where there are 250 brothels, 80% of the prostituted people are of foreign origin and "70% of them have no papers", as they are victims of trafficking. (15) In 1960, 95% of prostitutes in the Netherlands were Dutch, whereas by 1999 the figure was a mere 20%. In Denmark, where prostitution is also legal, the number of prostituted people of foreign origin who are victims of trafficking has increased ten-fold over the past decade. (16) In Austria, 90% of prostituted people are originally from other countries. In 2003, the number of victims of trafficking for the purpose of prostitution was estimated at 20,000 annually, compared to 2,100 annually at the start of the previous decade.

Organized pimping, which is controlled by organized crime, is the major supplier of the night clubs and brothels, of which there are 700 in the Netherlands (18), where prostitution has been regulated since October 1, 2000. This legalization, which was intended to benefit prostituted people, according to its advocates, is probably a failure, since only 4% of them have registered.

The promoters of the legalization of prostitution in Australia (24) maintained that such a step would solve such problems as the control by organized crime of the sex industry, the deregulated expansion of that industry and the violence to which street prostituted people are subjected. In fact, the legislation has solved none of these problems : on the contrary, it has given rise to new ones, including child prostitution, which has increased significantly since legalization. Brothels are expanding (25) and the number of illegal brothels exceeds the number of legal ones. Although there was a belief that legalization would make possible control of the sex industry, the illegal industry is now "out of control". Police in Victoria estimate that there are 400 illegal brothels as against 100 legal ones.

The most recent research, carried out by London Metropolitan University, at the request of the Scottish government and published in 2004 on its government website, "confirms what several prior studies have shown, namely that the "sex industries", sexual tourism, child prostitution and violence against prostituted people have increased markedly in all the countries that have liberalized their prostitution laws and turned pimps into respectable businessmen."

http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/50/12/1606?view=full&pmid=10577881

http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&uid=1982-30614-001

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/86/11/1607

http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/ProsViolPosttrauStress.html

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=26557

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Okay, typing this at work, so if I come off has harsh and make gramatical error, please forgive me.

No problem.

Why? Why would it be impracticle to implement programs to help the people who need help? That sounds like you are saying to me "Oh, it won't work, so don't bother."

Regulation is only practical if the prostitutes operate in brothels. How on earth could street prostitution be regulated?

With all prostitution being legal, the very least that will happen is that the police force can concentrate on the real crimes you are all so concerned with: instead of arresting people for having sex for money, they can concentrate on arresting people who've physically assaulted someone, child abuse, and yes, even human trafficking.

With buying sex being legal, I believe there will be just as many if not more of those types of crimes.

<snip>

Because this program has been implemented for ten years and still NOTHING has been improved. Re-read the article.



...it works......how??????? This is your own source. It doesn't do the job. There needs to be more. This is a half-assed, band-aid of a solution that doesn't do a thing. In fact, in that article, the only people who think it does any good at all are the people who aren't prostitutes!

Firstly, all you've done is look at the single BBC report. There’s more information about the effect of the policy on the web. Secondly, I posted a second article which gave an indication of how successful the policy has been at reducing trafficking and the number of prostitutes operating in Sweden. Here it is again:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07111506.html

In a report in Spiegel, Jonas Trolle, an inspector with the Stockholm police unit dedicated to combating prostitution said, "The goal is to criminalize the demand side of the equation, the johns, rather than putting emotionally and physically imperiled women behind bars."

The results of this strategy are impressive. "We have significantly less prostitution than our neighboring countries, even if we take into account the fact that some of it happens underground," says Trolle. "We only have between 105 and 130 women - both on the Internet and on the street - active (in prostitution) in Stockholm today. In Oslo, it's 5,000."

Another relevant aspect of the ban is the reduction of the number of foreign women now being trafficked into Sweden for sex. The Swedish government estimates that in the last few years only 200 to 400 women and girls have been annually trafficked into Sweden for prostitution, while in neighboring Finland the number is 15,000 to 17,000.

An essential element of Sweden's prostitution legislation is to provide women prostitutes with the avenue to get out of the dangerous businesss and receive the needed social support to reshape their lives.

Thirdly, even if the views of the few prostitutes who were interviewed were representative (and let's face it, the opinion of 5 people is unlikely to be representative), why can their concerns not be addressed while keeping buying sex illegal? What is it about the law which makes you think better support for prostitutes cannot be provided with it in place?

Nope. Sorry. Red herring and a weak analogy. That's like asking someone "Since you think it's okay for a child to act in a horror movie, do you think it's okay for a child to be locked in a closet for days if s/he did something bad?"

One thing has nothing to do with the other, except they both involve a child.
It is a weak analogy: http://www.logicalfallacies.info/weakanalogy.html

It's not a weak analogy at all. You can't answer without either destroying your argument for legalising the selling and buying sex, or condoning what is one of the basest acts humans can perform: buying and selling human organs.

If a buyer and a seller consent, the transaction can be regulated and performed safely, what's your problem with the sale of human organs or tissue? Organ removal/transplants can hardly be performed down a dark alley (unlike some other transferrals of bodily fluids), so regulation should be even more straightforward than prostitution.

and also if you insist on going down that route, I offer a counter:


I seriously think that the attitude of "abstenence until marriage" does an even better job of reducing human sexuality and women, and men to a commodity than any legal prostitution can.

"Oh, I love you but before we could have sex, you have to promise that you will love me and take care of me for the rest of your life."

Marriage is legal prosititution. What do you people who think prostitution should stay illegal think of that????

But then again, that is a red herring also.....

I’m sure there are people who treat marriage as you describe. Most of the married people I know do not.

Finally, some snippets from Arti's link:

Most prostitutes reported that they do not kiss, for either intimacy reasons, or because they did not want to “exchange any body fluids.”

...

As one prostitute said, she does not enjoy herself while having sex. I would have to say no., because I have a boyfriend. I’ve had a couple of bad experiences with a couple of guys... some girls just think about something else. You know sometimes it’s even harder because you can get the guys who come in on drugs that they have done outside. They come in here to have fun but they can’t, they’re just sitting there, and you can’t really do nothing with them. So you’re sitting with them and they’re tripping on you. And you’re like, gosh, just please hurry up and make this time go by, and make it go by faster. Ginger at OB says It really is very hard to do this. At least with me, I start to feel like bad about myself, or just the thought of going back to a room with a total stranger and getting paid for sex. Sometimes it just almost makes me sick, you know. I mean, it really is a mind f***. But you just kind of gotta get over it.

...

Some women, despite emphasizing that they told family and friends and were proud of what they did, admitted that they would not want their daughter doing this job.

And this is supposed to be the "nice", regulated part of the sex trade. Sounds pretty bloody awful to me.

 

[JFrankA]

Sorry, I don't trust Dr. Farley. I completely disagree with her view that "all prostitutes are the weaker partner in the transaction and are exploited". Sorry, just do. And as it was stated before, her method of solving the problem didn't do squat.

Farley is a leading proponent of the abolitionist view of prostitution[18] holding that prostitution is inherently exploitive and traumatizing, and should therefore be abolished. She is an opponent of across-the-board decriminalization of prostitution, instead advocating the "Swedish model" of prostitution laws, in which the buying of sex (including soliciting, procuring, and trafficking) is criminalized, while the selling of sex is decriminalized, along with the funding of social services to "motivate prostitutes to seek help to leave their way of life." Such an approach is based on the point of view that prostitutes are the weaker partner in the transaction and are exploited.[19] She is also largely opposed to sex workers' rights activists and groups, such as COYOTE, which advocate legalizing or decriminalizing both prostitution and the purchase of sexual services.[20][21] Many of these activists are likewise strongly opposed to Farley's perspective, holding that Farley's research discredits and misrepresents women working in the sex industry and lacks accountability toward them.[21][22]

Farley is also an anti-pornography activist. In 1985, she led a National Rampage Against Penthouse alongside Nikki Craft. The "Rampage" was a civil disobedience campaign of public destruction of bookstore-owned copies of Penthouse and Hustler (which they denounced as violent pornography). Farley was arrested 13 different times in 9 different states for these actions.[23][24][25] In March 2007, she testified in hearings about Kink.com's purchase of the San Francisco Armory, comparing the images produced by Kink.com to images of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.[26][27]

As of 2008, she is currently director of Prostitution Research and Education, a San Francisco nonprofit organization.

As to some of your links, using one as an example, concludes that:

ONCLUSIONS: These findings strongly support a relationship between childhood victimization and subsequent prostitution. The presumed causal sequence between childhood victimization and teenage pregnancy may need to be reevaluated.

Doesn't say that prostitution causes child abuse, drug use or run aways, but that there is a possible relationship of a child going through that becomes a prostitute.

So keeping prostitution illegal (or the Swedish way of doing things) helps...how????

As to the human trafficking thing, yeah, it exists in the sex industry. It also exists very strongly in the chocolate industry.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/120054

Like Elena, these victims may end up in the sex trade. Many others find themselves condemned as slave laborers, forced to work in domestic service, in hazardous factories or at grim sites like the cocoa plantations of West Africa. Thousands more, many just children, become unwilling conscripts in bitter wars. Nearly all suffer physical or sexual abuse, creating mental and physical scars they carry for the rest of their lives.

How come none of you people who are screaming "stop human trafficking" aren't saying boo to the chocolate industry?

Oooooh!!! How about this article?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/123481

And yet the nature of the global economy makes it nearly impossible to avoid buying products of forced labor. Trapped workers on plantations in Malaysia harvest basic commodities like rubber and palm oil (for toothpaste, cosmetics and biofuels).

Hey, since prostitution has possible human trafficking involved, we should stop that and also stop brushing our teeth and putting on make up!!!

If you want to stop human trafficking you go after human traffickters. You do not condemn the whole industry to stop the bad ones. With that mentality, we should stop all the drug companies because there's a bunch of people making crystal meth in their basements.

 

[articulett]

But according to the women involved, they prefer legalized prostitution over your brand. That counts in my book.

Often these women have been sexually abused as youngsters... they become prostitutes to make money off of what people took from them. It may not make it better, but there is nothing to say it makes it worse... and it does give them an income and is a lot less exploitative than nonconsensual sex.

If you are going to mess with what consenting adults do then you ought to have a very good reason for it in my book-- and you ought to consult the adults involved--not assume you know what's best for them. Moreover you need to define your goals and find a means of measuring them. You can't just hide the problem and tell yourself that you've kept women from being exploited. What Sweden has done is kept the public from knowing about womens' exploitation... it hasn't solved their problems. The only problem it seems to have solved is that they are less likely to be beat up by their clients. But legalizations solves that better-- you can hire protection, legally, for the women.

You are so bent on proving to yourself that Sweden's solution is ideal that you have ignored all other options and even the question in the OP-- why is prostitution illegal.

People can have sex with who they want and do what they want freely without government interference. There are laws to protect against non consensual sex. People can also spend their money freely on what they want-- they can buy porn, a blow up doll, or a companion to fulfill a fetish that few might engage in willingly. A 25 year old pimply virgin can feel like a stud for the right price-- There are too many shades of grey regarding the issue... the government is best at spending it's time fighting against actual exploitation-- child molestation... child marriage as practiced in polygamous clans and some religions, human trafficking-- especially those involving deception and lies about promised jobs, venereal diseases, drug addiction-- money made from legalizing consenting acts of prostitution could go toward fighting actual exploitation.

Are you going to go save all the women in porn and playboy and exotic dancing form the exploitation you imagine they are receiving... how about the masseuses throwing in handjobs for an extra tip? It's just not the governments business. It makes laws get in the way of actual goals. If your goal is to stop or mitigate the exploitation of other humans, then sweden's solution might be a step in the right direction-- but not a very big one as far as the evidence shows. Can we show that even one person's life is "less exploited" because of this law? Can we compare how these "less exploited" numbers compare to legalized prostitution?

It may not be a happy life for many prostitutes-- but that sure as hell doesn't mean that Swedens law make it the least bit happier for anyone. The life of a drug addict sucks too-- but all the laws in the world against it don't seem to be solving any problems on that front.

 

[JFrankA]

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