Why is prostitution illegal?

[gdnp]

I apologize for joining the conversation late. I have not read the entire thread. I have read the first two and last two pages.

Before we use words like "exploitation," I think it would be reasonable to have some understanding of how much money a legal prostitute makes on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis. I suspect (but do not know for a fact) that this is much more than she could make working at McDonalds or similar low-skill entry level jobs. At which point her reasoning may go something like this: (I made up the hourly rates)

I can work at McDonalds for $7/hr
I can clean floors and empty wastebaskets for $10/hr
I can wait tables for $12/hr with tips
I can work as a stripper for $50/hr with tips, but limited hours
I can work as a prostitute for $100/hr

Is she being exploited if she chooses the job that pays the best? Even if the "working conditions" are not precisely to her liking? (If this has already been discussed in detail, I again apologize)

 

[JFrankA]

I apologize for joining the conversation late. I have not read the entire thread. I have read the first two and last two pages.

Before we use words like "exploitation," I think it would be reasonable to have some understanding of how much money a legal prostitute makes on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis. I suspect (but do not know for a fact) that this is much more than she could make working at McDonalds or similar low-skill entry level jobs. At which point her reasoning may go something like this: (I made up the hourly rates)

I can work at McDonalds for $7/hr
I can clean floors and empty wastebaskets for $10/hr
I can wait tables for $12/hr with tips
I can work as a stripper for $50/hr with tips, but limited hours
I can work as a prostitute for $100/hr

Is she being exploited if she chooses the job that pays the best? Even if the "working conditions" are not precisely to her liking? (If this has already been discussed in detail, I again apologize)

Welcome to the discussion.

Just to get you up to speed a bit, there are some people on this thread who believe

a) all workers are exploited
b) all sex workers are exploited
c) people are exploited by choice
d) some by choice, some are forced, some are not at all.

....keep reading. You'll see who believes what.



(...and I'm willing to bet that your post is a cue for Dann to type a long-winded response complete with whole bunch of links...)

 

[CFLarsen]

How do you ensure it? How does this relate to the OP? Does making it illegal stop exploitation?

The OP was about why it's illegal, remember? So do you have evidence that making it illegal ensures that women aren't exploited? If so--present it please.

You made this comment:

No evidence, that it cuts down on the exploitation of women.

Just checking in. If there are no good arguments for it being illegal, then I think it's time to make it legal and put our legislative money to better uses.

So, I am asking how you will ensure that women aren't exploited.

I already presented a peer reviewed article on exploitation in regards to legalized prostitution with suggestions about how to prevent such exploitation... --and what have you offered besides your ever ready insincere troll question?

Please refrain from personalizing the debate.

What is exploitation?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/exploitation

To be clear we are talking about definition 2 right?

The answer is then: the women are just going to have to be responsible for that themselves just like everyone else is who is essentially self-employed. Otherwise you're talking about sex trafficking and pimps which are ancillary activities of sex work and not a single person here has advocated in favour of these things to my knowledge.

How do we ensure these things don't occur? The answer is clearly not "make selling sex illegal," otherwise it would have ensured these things don't occur.

So, if women are exploited for becoming prostitutes, it's their own damned fault?

Nice.

 

[Gurdur]

..... As to why it's illegal? I think it's all morality and politics. People will approve of violence but not of sex.

Funny. That explains why violence is so legal, on every street corner.

Or, IOW, this is ridiculous.

I find it ironic that people can sell their bodily fluids or their bodies to produce a child with the stipulation is that you can't enjoy yourself while doing it. To do anything with your body to give pleasure to someone is a big no-no.

Make up your mind whether it's supposed to be the prostitute enjoying his-/herself, or whether a prostitute just gives pleasure.

My guess is that you don't know any prostitutes, nor do you know anything about the scene, if you think that by and large most prostitutes get pleasure out of it themselves.

It's the wrong message to give to someone that it's okay to use your body for a short time to give pleasure to someone else who might need to feel companionship?

I kinda love the rhetoric and strawmen you use, but I guess you're not into actually understanding what others are saying if they differ with you. So keep up the longwinded slogans!

 

[JFrankA]

So, if women are exploited for becoming prostitutes, it's their own damned fault?

Nice.

See what I mean, Gdnp?

Sorry, CFLarsen, sometimes, it's very true. Some people are exploited because it's their own fault, some are not, and some aren't exploited at all. However, it seems like there's a lot of people on this thread who seems to think in absolutes: "all prostitutes are exploited by (choose one) a) poverty b) men c) men and poverty d) men, poverty and pretty much everything else."

I happen to agree with her and I think that's the point she was trying to make that seems to be ignored here.

 

[JFrankA]

*sigh*

There we go again. Words and ideas being twisted to make it mean something I didn't. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and figure that I wasn't clear.

Let's break this down, shall we?

Funny. That explains why violence is so legal, on every street corner.

Or, IOW, this is ridiculous.

Funny, I said "accepted" not "legal". It is accepted and shown on television mass murder, violence, etc, etc, freely for quite a long time. But a show about swinging couples in the seventies is contriversial today. A show about a prostitute is on Showtime (a paid only channel) and even then late at night. The Sapranos are now shown on A&E, a non-paid channel.

This is the point I was trying to make. Accepted does not equal legal.

Oh, by the way, there could be violence on street corners. Guess you never got robbed, huh?

(Hey, I couldn't resist, what can I say? One good strawman deserves another. )

Make up your mind whether it's supposed to be the prostitute enjoying his-/herself, or whether a prostitute just gives pleasure.

My guess is that you don't know any prostitutes, nor do you know anything about the scene, if you think that by and large most prostitutes get pleasure out of it themselves.

Have you read the thread?

I feel that prostitutes who want this job should enjoy their job just like anyone else who has a job. I think that would be a good thing, yes. I would imagine that like any other job, sometimes one would have a bad day or just not in the mood.

And I don't know about you, and I'm not submissive, but giving pleasure to someone gives me pleasure.

Now as to if I believe ALL prostitutes enjoy their job. No, of course not. There are some deplorable conditions and situations. There is trafficking, and maybe other circumstances so the people involved don't desire this job and are suffering I'm sure. However, to say that "all prostitutes don't like their job" is just silly. Just because YOU wouldn't want to do that doesn't mean ALL people wouldn't. That's kind of absolute and egotistical, don't you think?

But then again, I think you misunderstood my words. Sorry if I wasn't clear. The purpose of the prostitute is to give sexual pleasure and satisfaction to his or her client. That's the basic "job description" if you will, of the occupation.

What I was referring to is that the attitude of someone who has that job description - even if they are not exploited and they are enjoying their work - is generally looked down upon by the "moralistic" people of the world.

And by the way, I do work in the adult industry. I know a lot of porno actors and actresses (some you may of heard of) and yes, prostitutes. Even though my involvment with the adult industry does not deal with prostitution, I know all kinds of sex workers - from "escorts" to "streetwalkers". I know the industry well, thank you very much. Please don't make guesses, it's annoying....

I kinda love the rhetoric and strawmen you use, but I guess you're not into actually understanding what others are saying if they differ with you. So keep up the longwinded slogans!

I do understand what others are saying. I am debating them because I disagree. Just like others here are debating me. It seems to me that you obviously didn't understand what I'm saying and just dismissing me opinion as "stupid". And again, that's because I wasn't clear, or you just read what you wanted to read, or twisted it to make me sound bad.

I'm being nice and saying it's the first one. Okay?

Oh....I'll agree to stop my "strawman slogans" only if you agree that you stop your strawman long-winded rhetorical red herring equations about how there can be no "yes or no" answer to a question.

Deal?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

That's an odd article for you to link. What point were you making with it?

How would making buying sex legal help someone like the woman in the story? She would still be a damaged individual.

What she needs is guidance and support to get out of prostitution and make something of her life, as well as help her deal with the issues she has from the abuse she suffered during her childhood.

Making the buying of sex legal only helps the cheating millionaire husbands deduct the charges for her services from their tax bill.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Well, if that's "asking the tough questions" I can do that too.

Was Prohibition a good idea, Ivor? Did it work? Don't try to ignore the tough questions!

(Any attempt to point out that this is an off-topic distraction will be misrepresented as you ignoring the tough questions).

Yes, it did reduce alcohol consumption. I've got evidence to support that statement too, but I know you don't really care about that.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

That's a major problem in Africa right now. Women often turn to prostitution to support children who are often born of rape in a country where condoms are seen as ineffective or a sign of sin (preplanned sex)-- and AIDs is too shameful to talk about. The primal urges of men are still there -- the drive for a woman to do anything to support her children is still there... the simplest solution seems to be causing AIDS to spread unchecked which just encourages the phenomena... kids without parents need to eat... it's better to have someone pay for sex then just to steal it... and so on.

So your solution to the African HIV epidemic would be to legalise prostitution!?

You don't think the attitude of African men towards women and sexual intercourse (e.g., multiple concurrent sexual partners, preferring dry sex and not using condoms) *might* have more to do with it?

This moral high brow approach seems about as effective as the "just say no" approach to drugs and "abstinence only" education-- doomed to failure-- uninformative-- and based religious based morality that doesn't take facts and knowledge about how humans have evolved into mind.

Ah, so men's behaviour toward and views about women are unchangeable because they're encoded in our DNA? Is prostitution encoded in women's DNA? Are all women whores in the making? How much would an ugly stranger have to pay you for you to get down on your knees and give him a blow job? How much extra to swallow?

Humans did evolve to be "barterers"-- to offer what we have in return for what we want. Young kids do it with their Halloween candy and toys. Unless you give people other things to barter with, they will use whatever they have... especially when it comes to fulfilling primal urges-- protection of the young, social and sexual contact, survival, eating. These are not drives that you can regulate with "just say no" platitudes and moral legislation.

That bolded part is the key. Provide people other things to barter with so they don't have to engage in degrading, emotionally traumatic "work" to make ends meet.

You need to define goals, study what actually does work, and provide valid options for meeting drives that people really don't "choose". I'm not sure that people choose what they are and aren't sexually attracted to-- but I know the drive is very strong for some people... and I would hope that it's also safe. I don't know why pedophiles are attracted to kids... I'm not sure they do either... but I'd rather a creepy safe outlet even if it's a doll that looks like a real kid or a consenting adult that is willing to role play for cash-- then the harm of a real kid. Shaming doesn't solve the problem at all it seems. If someone has a weird fetish, or perversion-- it would be better for all concerned if he found a consenting partner -- even if he had to pay her/him.

Most of us have this great technique to handle sexual tension and potentially harmful fantasies. It's called masturbation.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

I already presented a peer reviewed article on exploitation in regards to legalized prostitution with suggestions about how to prevent such exploitation... --and what have you offered besides your ever ready insincere troll question?

Have you even read what you presented?

 

[gdnp]

I guess I look at it this way. An illegal immigrant who is smuggled into the country with the promise of a job, held prisoner, and forced into prostitution is being exploited. Kidnapping and enslavement are involved. The perpetrators should be prosecuted.

A woman who of her own free will signs a contract with a brothel in Nevada, undergoes health exams, follows the rules, and pays her taxes is not being exploited. She is making a decision based on her personal morality, tastes, aptitudes, and other employment opportunities.

A woman who has an affair with a married man, with no direct payments but with a quid pro quo of fancy dinners, gifts, travel, or even housing, is making another type of economic decision. Whether she enjoys her "work" or enjoys the "perks" is her business

I woman (or man) who takes their future spouse's economic prospects into account is also weighing the benefits of love and/or sex and money. Was Anna Nicole Smith a prostitute? Was she "exploited?" Do we seriously believe she would have married her husband if he were penniless?

Are NFL player exploited? They get paid lots of money, but most only last a few years, and many retire with orthopedic injuries that leave them in pain for the rest of their lives. No one forces them to play.

Are soldiers exploited? We take a bunch of impressionable young people, often with lousy job prospects, feed them a bunch of patriotic slogans, put them through mind-altering indoctrination, pay them lousy salaries, put them into situations where they may be killed, maimed, or psychologically scarred, and we don't let them quit when they discover that reality doesn't match the recruiting posters. Once we're done with them we discharge them with some meager benefits and let them fend for themselves. Homelessness and suicide rates are high, as is drug use and alcoholism. Explain to me why this is less exploitive than well-regulated prostitution.

Maybe it's just that prostitutes have gotten a bad rap. What we need is a TV series to buff up their image. A few celebrity spokespeople.

How about a reality show, "America's top prostitute?"

 

[dann]

As to why it's illegal? I think it's all morality and politics. People will approve of violence but not of sex.

Funny. That explains why violence is so legal, on every street corner.

Or, IOW, this is ridiculous.

I find it ironic that people can sell their bodily fluids or their bodies to produce a child with the stipulation is that you can't enjoy yourself while doing it. To do anything with your body to give pleasure to someone is a big no-no.

Make up your mind whether it's supposed to be the prostitute enjoying his-/herself, or whether a prostitute just gives pleasure.

Well, you know, JFrankA's preferences and financial involvement in the adult 'industry' may make it a little hard for him to distinguish between violence and pleasure, reality and fiction, coercion and free choice. He seems to have turned the strawman argument into an art form based on his idea that everything is 'in the eye of the beholder' anyway.

 

[gdnp]

Ah, so men's behaviour toward and views about women are unchangeable because they're encoded in our DNA? Is prostitution encoded in women's DNA? Are all women whores in the making? How much would an ugly stranger have to pay you for you to get down on your knees and give him a blow job? How much extra to swallow?

This has to be the most vile straw man argument I have read in quite some time. Perhaps ever. Congratulations, Ivor, you have raised the bar.

I hope Articulette holds her temper when she rips you the new a**hole you so richly deserve. As entertaining it would be to watch, I would hate to see her suspended again. You are out of your league.

 

[dann]

Are soldiers exploited? We take a bunch of impressionable young people, often with lousy job prospects, feed them a bunch of patriotic slogans, put them through mind-altering indoctrination, pay them lousy salaries, put them into situations where they may be killed, maimed, or psychologically scarred, and we don't let them quit when they discover that reality doesn't match the recruiting posters. Once we're done with them we discharge them with some meager benefits and let them fend for themselves. Homelessness and suicide rates are high, as is drug use and alcoholism. Explain to me why this is less exploitive than well-regulated prostitution.

Did anybody make the claim that you now need us to explain to you?

Your description of the way the poverty and ignorance of these people are used against them by the state is brillant. However, it should be noted that their victims aren't merely exploited, they are actually killed. And, yes, being trained to do this 'job' may damage even otherwise sane people, and practising the 'skills', of course, is not cost free either.

Maybe it's just that prostitutes have gotten a bad rap.

So far I don't think that anybody in this thread has claimed that prostitutes are bad people.

 

[dann]

"The fundamental question of choice.

For the same reason, it is doubtful whether prostitution is ever a free choice. What proportion of prostitutes, given the possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which they did not need to sell their bodies, would choose nonetheless to continue in prostitution? A study made among prostitutes in San Francisco shows that nearly 90% want to leave the industry.
It is worth noting that the regulation camp, to prove that prostitutes choose their profession freely, cite the fact that they prefer prostitution to, say, working in a sweat shop for 15 hours a day. Of course they do. But a choice between two forms of exploitation is not a free choice, nor ever has been, but is purely and simply an abuse of the term. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could therefore only have been proposed by the regulation camp by misrepresenting the very notion of "free choice".
Having raised the issue of "consenting prostitutes", we must return for a moment to the notion of "free and clear consent". According to the CCNE's 58th pronouncement of 12 June 1998, "The act of consent implies two areas of ability (or aptitude or capacity): one must be able to understand (clear comprehension or intellect), and to be able to freely choose (free will). Those whose ability to understand is weak or disturbed or those whose freedom of choice is limited[8]8 are considered to be unable to give such consent []" (our emphasis). The issue is the extent of the prostitute's freedom of choice. One could consider, in fact, that she became a prostitute by lack of choice rather than by choice.[9]9 When a woman becomes a prostitute to feed her family and children, as is so often the case in developing countries, was that free choice? Is it not on the contrary the last resort _ when no other option is open for survival, when all the conditions allowing free choice have been eliminated? Studies reveal that in the West, more than 70% of prostitutes have been sexually abused as children, and that the average age of entering prostitution is 16 (14 in the United States)[10]10: how can we avoid the conclusion that the "choice" of prostitution "logically" flows from a situation of many years of exploitation, where the identity and autonomy of the individual have already been broken or damaged? Far from being free, prostitution seems on the contrary in every case to be the result of pressures and constraints _ psychological, social, family-related and of course, economic. "Freelance" prostitution, where the individual is independent and keeps their earnings, is rare indeed: the constraints suffered on entering prostitution are exacerbated by the daily constraints of those who profit from the prostitution of their "protégé(e)s".[11]11 Thus the distinction between free and forced prostitution has no basis in fact. http://www.fidh.org/lettres/2000pdf/angl/cah38uk.htm

[6]6 Jo Bindman's argument (Redefining Prostitution as Sex Work in the International Agenda, CSIS, 1997), according to which a prostitution transaction would regain its dignity if the prostitute were not unconditionally subject to the client's wishes ("the sex worker has no reason to accept a particular client or to subject themselves to acts to which they do not consent") is insufficient.
[7]7 The psychoanalyst would reply, "everything is sexual", that is that every physical activity is sexualised. This is not the place to respond to this interpretation, but the psychoanalysts will concede nonetheless that there is a difference between explicit physical sexuality (fellatio, coitus) and a particular (and debatable) reading of symbolic sexuality in behavioru which his not explicitly sexual.
[8]8 Cf. I Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford Univ. Press, 1969 for an interesting reflection on the subject of free will in consent.
[9]9 In Amsterdam (where prostitution has been legalised), 80% of prostitutes are immigrants, and 70% are illegal immigrants. This places a question mark over the free nature of their prostitution, and also implies that prostitution encourages traffic in illegal immigrants rather than discourages it.
[10]10 Cf. D Leidholdt, "Prostitution: a form of modern slavery", in Making the Harm Visible, p52. Recognising prostitution as a legitimate profession also means that it will become difficult for young women to refuse it in the face of a range of pressures.
[11]11 N. Hotaling ("What happens to women in prostitution in the United States" in Making the Harm Visible, p244) describes the psychological manipulative game to which pimps subject their prostitutes. An important stage in this game is the changing of identity--a logical move, given that they wish to make the prostitutes lose their sense of personal identity. "

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

This has to be the most vile straw man argument I have read in quite some time. Perhaps ever. Congratulations, Ivor, you have raised the bar.

I do try.

I hope Articulette holds her temper when she rips you the new a**hole you so richly deserve. As entertaining it would be to watch, I would hate to see her suspended again. You are out of your league.

I agree. I'd never think it ok to pay a starving woman for sex so she can purchase food.

 

[JFrankA]

Well, you know, JFrankA's preferences and financial involvement in the adult 'industry' may make it a little hard for him to distinguish between violence and pleasure, reality and fiction, coercion and free choice. He seems to have turned the strawman argument into an art form based on his idea that everything is 'in the eye of the beholder' anyway.

Dann!!!!!! You acknowledged Me!!!!! (BIG HUG TO YOU)

And here I thought you didn't care.

Just like old times, huh? Misinterpreting me, changing my meanings, changing what I am saying to something I've never said, making assumptions that aren't true.

I love you, Dann

And I love the fact that you believe that if you didn't have your money, you would become a prostitute because you had no choice!!!!!!!!

...by the way, isn't that little quote you said above just a strawman too? Just wondering......


EDITED TO ADD:
This is fun!! First it is assumed I've never met prostitutes and now it's assumed that my mind is skewed because my financial status is due to the adult industry. Either way, I'm regarded as, well, to put in a one way, not having a clue as to the "truth".

You know, fellows, calling "strawman!" to people who simply disagree with you is very poor form......

FURTHER EDITED TO ADD:
.....uh Dann, check your fly, your link's broken.....

 

[gdnp]

So far I don't think that anybody in this thread has claimed that prostitutes are bad people.

What does that make them, good people doing bad things?

Prostitution has been called degrading. Probably worse things. Someone who does degrading things, I assume, becomes degraded. What should I assume about a person who degrades herself for money? That she is a good person?

 

[gdnp]

I agree. I'd never think it ok to pay a starving woman for sex so she can purchase food.

Who is more evil: the person who offers the starving person money in exchange for sex, or the person who calls her a whore, turns up his nose, and walks away?

Leaving her to starve?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Who is more evil: the person who offers the starving person money in exchange for sex, or the person who calls her a whore, turns up his nose, and walks away?

Leaving her to starve?

They are both more evil that a person who offers the staving person a meal.