Why is prostitution illegal?

articulett said:
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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.

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:boggled:

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.
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And you ignore the evidence Fiona presented too.

Your wilful ignorance is like that of a true believer. Remember that the next time you're having a go at creationists. You, like they, will deny what is put in front of your face to support your world view.
 
So you aren't stopping the prostitution, your just moving the girls to where it's legal. Excellent solution. I'm sure they are all very pleased... as are the self important who can tell themselves that they've stopped someone from being exploited.

I agree that it's better than penalizing the women... but you have not shown that it's better than legalizing it... you have shown that you just send the women off to countries where it's legal or force them underground where they hide and their numbers aren't really known. The fact that you don't see this, astounds me. But I guess it makes you feel like you are keeping women from being exploited, so far be it from me to introduce facts and critical thinking and actual analysis and the words of those who buy and sell sex.
 
And still no one has answered why they support legalising selling and buying sex between consenting adults, but not human organs.

Gotta avoid that cog. diss. somehow I guess...
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
:boggled:

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



And you ignore the evidence Fiona presented too.

Your wilful ignorance is like that of a true believer. Remember that the next time you're having a go at creationists. You, like they, will deny what is put in front of your face to support your world view.
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Those statistics are useless. Better ones would be comparing the effect of the law by looking at the numbers before and after it took effect, like the New Zealand info I posted.

And enough insults, for the last two pages no one has been saying anything.

And again, the problem I have with that Swedish law is right at the beginning of the paper you provided:

Sweden appears to have nearly wiped out prostitution. How? In 1999 Sweden passed legislation that criminalized the buying of sex, and decriminalized the selling of sex. The groundbreaking principle behind this legislation is clearly stated in the government's literature on the law:

"In Sweden prostitution is regarded as an aspect of male violence against women and children. It is officially acknowledged as a form of exploitation of women and children and constitutes a significant social problem... gender equality will remain unattainable so long as men buy, sell and exploit women and children by prostituting them."
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That is pseudo-feminist BS.
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
And still no one has answered why they support legalising selling and buying sex between consenting adults, but not human organs.

Gotta avoid that cog. diss. somehow I guess...
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Wow, way to do the slippery slope.

Sex is a service, prostitutes aren't literally selling their bodies.

And the selling of human organs involves medical ethics and numerous other things not related to this discussion.
 
So is there less drug addiction? less violence towards women? Less drug abuse? Are these women getting their money in less exploitive ways? Are women who were sexually abused as children less likely to have PTSD with these new laws than those in places where prostitution is legal? Where is the measurement of efficacy? You think you are illustrating less exploitation of women (your supposed goal) by using those figures... but you are not. Moreover, you need to compare them with the figures of places where it's legal to see whether this solution is the best for reducing exploitation of women as you claim!

No serious scholar would consider this evidence that less women are being exploited because of Sweden's "punish the johns" laws as opposed to legalizing prostitution. You might have a case in saying that, if you are going to make it illegal, it's better to punish the johns than the prostitutes-- but that is not a reason for keeping prostitution illegal if decriminalizing it has a better effect at lessening measurable exploitation of the people who sell sex for cash (whatever their reasons and whether they or you are actually aware of their reasons or not.)
 
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articulett said:
So you aren't stopping the prostitution, your just moving the girls to where it's legal. Excellent solution. I'm sure they are all very pleased... as are the self important who can tell themselves that they've stopped someone from being exploited.

I agree that it's better than penalizing the women... but you have not shown that it's better than legalizing it... you have shown that you just send the women off to countries where it's legal or force them underground where they hide and their numbers aren't really known. The fact that you don't see this, astounds me. But I guess it makes you feel like you are keeping women from being exploited, so far be it from me to introduce facts and critical thinking and actual analysis and the words of those who buy and sell sex.
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Obviously I missed where you presented these facts.

Using the argument of sex tourism is really low. Should we legalise paedophilia too so Thailand doesn't get as many?
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
Wow, way to do the slippery slope.

Sex is a service, prostitutes aren't literally selling their bodies.

And the selling of human organs involves medical ethics and numerous other things not related to this discussion.
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Keep on telling yourself that. I'm sure it's very soothing.
 
Prostitution is like massage... sometimes it's the hand that does the job... and other times it's some other body part.

Regarding selling body parts (which is off topic)-- some adults do feel that humans should be able to sell their body parts, and in places where it's legal, people do and wealthy people who need organs pay premium prices for them. I would say that it's not in the governments interest to determine what people can and can't do with their bodies provided they are consenting adults. If your loved one needed a kidney to live, I think you'd be grateful to have that kidney and pay what you needed to rather than have that loved one die. And some people give their kidneys freely-- others will do so for the right price. Why should the government interfere? They can't really stop it... but they could regulate it so that it's less exploitative.

But giving away or selling a kidney is much different than renting out body space. I trust that most adults can make these decisions for themselves and that the government only need step in when there are clear cases of abuse such as in nonconsual sex. If the government doesn't have a better way of providing for someone, then they may well be more exploitative to get in the way of opportunities where people can provide for themselves.

The question in the OP was why prostitution is illegal. Nobody seems to have a great answer... something fuzzy to do with morality and exploitations of women-- some people think they know how to make illegal prostitution less exploitative... but less exploitative illegal prostitution begs the question if legalizing it has a more positive measurable outcome in regards to exploitation of women.
 
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Couple of reasons I'm ignoring that article.

A) I gave this reason before:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3866751&postcount=387

B) It does not, in any way, actually get any info from the sex workers themselves. It's all estimates and sayings from talking to the government. The other article actually went to, but in a limited way, the sex workers themselves.

Funny how the government article had a glowing article about how wonderful it's working, but the sex workers said it made no difference.

....seems to me like an agenda going on here. I wonder which would have an agenda?

I didn't ignore Fiona's posts. I simply critiqued them. They did not prove a thing and the good Doctor she refers to I do not trust because I think she's biased. Anyone who says that ALL people are this because of that, and says that the absolute is true no matter the circumstances, is not to be trusted in my book.
 
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And still no one has answered why they support legalising selling and buying sex between consenting adults, but not human organs.
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And still no one has answered why they support marriage between consententing adults but not prostitution....



Get real.
 
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Anyway, it's quite clear everyone contributing to the thread has made up their minds and is not going to change their opinion, so I'll get down off my high horse and leave you all in peace.;)
 
What is having a sugar daddy other than "legal" prostitution...? Shall the government stop that too... could they? Aren't there a lot better uses of resources. Shouldn't those involved in the sex trade have a voice as to how they feel they could be less exploited? What about mail order brides. Aren't they being exploited? Shouldn't we save them? Who is exploiting who and how do you know and via which measurements. Exploitation involves harm... we can measure reports of abuse, drug addiction, poverty, venereal disease rates, etc.

I trust myself to come to my own moral conclusions... I don't trust others or my government to decide what is best for me. I'm sure most adults feel the same.

Fiona is confused about morality. Here is a statement she made about morality:
Fiona said:
My own morality is quite inchoate, but it is best summarised as "you must not steal another person's choice". This works for me in quite a lot of situations. It may be this approach has a name in moral philosophy but I do not know it. It gives me a working rule of thumb in lots of different cases, however and so I think it is quite a useful principle
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She clearly thinks it's fine to take away the prostitutes choice by deeming her (or him) to be an exploited party in the transaction --proving, once again, that she defines her morality as convenient for the circumstance while imagining she's being guided by some higher understanding.

Ivor, too, in this case. You've decided that it's more moral or right or less exploitative to have prostitution be illegal... you cannot support that belief with evidence... so you drum up the evidence and platitudes you want to imagine yourself as making a more moral choice or "righter" choice than those who would legalize it.

It doesn't fly except in your own head.
 
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Ivor the Engineer said:
Anyway, it's quite clear everyone contributing to the thread has made up their minds and is not going to change their opinion, so I'll get down off my high horse and leave you all in peace.;)
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I think that is very true of you... as you refused to look at evidence you specifically asked for (peer reviewed, btw), and you were not able to provide evidence which measured exploitation --the very thing you claimed to be concerned about.

If there was evidence that showed that keeping prostitution illegal but punishing the johns was less exploitative then legalizing it, I would change my mind. But you didn't provide that. I provided a great article using measurements that could be applied to Sweden.. we could make a comparison. So I think you are really speaking about yourself here. You want to believe you have the more moral position, but you have no evidence and you are the one who refuses to look at the evidence on the other side because of the possibility that the other side might have a point. I read your news clips... I pointed out the problems... any scholar would see that those clips do not support the notion that illegal prostitution is less exploitative than legal prostitution.

Moreover, it was dishonest for you and Fiona to liken prostitution to rape. Rape is non consensual sex... prostitution is sex in exchange for money-- a victimless crime. It can lead to battery and other abuses... but making it illegal doesn't stop that!

If you really wanted to get off your high horse you might want to admit mischaracterizing others and not having an understanding of the issue like you thought you had. You might also want to thank those who provided the evidence you asked for and told you why your studies don't indicate that there is less exploitation of women--nor do they address the OP. You also might want to ask yourself why you entered this thread... was it because you wanted to further your own understanding... or because you thought you had the answer that others needed to learn while being unaware that you have much to learn on the topic too.

Just because you won't change your mind, don't imagine that evidence wouldn't change the mind of the rest of us. You just don't have it.

You have put others down to build up your own position... even implying that I have prostituted myself. That's dishonest and smarmy. If your position can't be supported by evidence, the adult thing to do is admit it and not flounder about putting others down so you can continue to believe in your moral superiority or imagined expertise. We've come to expect it in woos-- it sucks to see it in those who call themselves skeptics.
 
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articulett said:
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You have put others down to build up your own position... even implying that I have prostituted myself.

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Where on earth did you get that idea from?

Hang on...

The joke about laundering money given to you from an exotic dancer renting from you was a reference to cleaning the bills because of what fluids they might have come in contact with.

It's not funny now I've had to explain it.
 
articulett said:
Moreover, it was dishonest for you and Fiona to liken prostitution to rape. Rape is non consensual sex... prostitution is sex in exchange for money-- a victimless crime. It can lead to battery and other abuses... but making it illegal doesn't stop that!
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And, of course battery and other abuses occur without prostitution. They occur within marriage, and nobody seems to advocate making marriage illegal to protect people from those abuses.
Nobody has yet made anything like a rational case for making prostitution illegal.
Assault, rape, kidnapping, false imprisonment, are all crimes in their own right.
Taking away the rights of consenting adults to engage in sex for whatever reason they choose is not going to change that. Consenting adults shouls be able to sell sex or give it away. It is nobody else's business.
 
@Articulett. It is dishonest of you to say I likened prostitution to rape. I did not. I did explore the implications of Passing Truckers stance, if adopted.

And for the record, I am not opposed to the legalisation of prostitution: so far as I can see there is no evidence it makes any difference either way.
 
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