"Prostitute" too bad for legal statutes

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According to an article I've just read, Britain is about to remove the term "prostitute" from legal statutes, replacing it with, "person who sells sex persistently."

Not only does political correctness interfere with political life, creating absurd illusions, as well as private life and putting on citizens a weird yoke of double-speak, it also interferes with law terms now.

This is probably something that takes a lawyer to notice, but you can't really sell sex. You can't sell sex any more than you can sell shoe mending or car washing. Strictly speaking, you cannot even sell sexual services, much less sex itself, which is not an item (and neither a service on its own, strictly speaking).

The obvious conclusion is that either statutes are being written by people who don't know anything about the law, or that lawyers have abandoned their education for the immediate goals of appeasing an idiotic public.

Another conclusion is that sex is regarded not even as a service but rather as a commodity akin to something you can measure in kilograms and wrap in newspaper for selling. Some people want sex, others offer it, money changes hands for "sex", not even for "having sex".

Hurrah for new ethics of free exchange of goods and the use of nice names, forget the basic principles of law doctrine.

Link

For some nice logic to behold, here are excerpts from the article:

They want to remove the stigma from professional prostitutes, so they rename them and put in the same category people who have paid sex twice or more in three months.

The obvious absurdity of this comes also from the fact that whoever is offering sexual services for money at any given moment is a prostitute at that moment, whereas according to the new ideas from the oh so enlightened Justicy Ministry, it will be defined by how many times a person out in the streets to work as a hooker can be proven to have had sex for money in the last three months.

If they also redefine prostitution itself, think about the crime of forcing someone into prostitution. If you can't prove more than one account of such prostitution, forget it. Absurd.

"Excuse me, scantily clad lady standing under the street light in the corner. Are you a prostitute?"
"But of course not, sir. You're my first customer in the last three months. This is not prostitution. I'm merely selling you some sex."

[ June 29, 2007, 13:39: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Interesting. Why don't they just take the law against selling sex off the books? Just how will they prove how many times a person sold sex? The customers aren't apt to testify against the whatever he/she is now.

 

Did you not read the article, Chev?

I'd think you'd be onboard with measures designed to 'get sex workers out of the industry'.

Any substantive criticism will require a rather more in-depth assesment of the changes to the law.

At first blush, it strikes me that they're simply beginning to acknowledge the obvious: prohibition doesn't work, and does more harm than good.

 

I was refering to prostitution, drugs, and alcohol.

 

Whereas I was referring to the fact that you can't sell sex, legally. You can offer sexual services for monetary gratification, but you cannot sell sex. You can't sell a service, if you actually term prostitution so, and all so much less can you sell a form of interaction.

Apart from the obvious crap of avoiding the term prostitute and pretending it's a normal job. Prostitutes are better than most politicians and lawyers, but still.

At any rate, I'm complaining about political correctness meddling with the proper use of legal terms. Sale is a transfer of property. You cannot transfer property if there is no property and you cannot be a proprietor of sex.

As for prostitution, do it the Swedish way and punish the johns too or even first of all. Not like I'm necessarily in agreement with all the other Swedish ideas.

 

Uh, Chev, if you can't sell a service, why does the guy who mows my lawn keep billing me for it? And what about the guy who cuts my hair? Seriously, Chev, there are whole industries devoted to selling a service in which no tangible object is traded for money. I think they call it the service industry. Sure, I'm sure they have some sort of bizarro legal definition for the process of selling a service, but it's really just semantics, now, isn't it?

 

It doesn't need to be a sale-purchase contract for the bill to be there - sale is not the only way to claim money from people. You can hire yourself out, you can provide a service for money, but you can't sell a service strictly speaking. Property transfer is a whole different branch of private law from service contract and there are different rules there. "Who sells sexual services," would probably just mark a nonchalant lawyer or one who truly believes there's no difference, but, "who sells sex," sounds like something a lawyer should suffer a painful fate for if it's meant in any direct sense.

 

Online meaning of semantics:

It seems to me that semantics is immensely important in legal terminology.

Persistute!

 

Not everything which is legal is good, granted, but neither needs everything which is voluntary necessarily be legal.

However, my problem here is not so much with the idea not to punish prostitutes, as it is with the meaning of the abolition of the term "prostitute", as well as the ridiculous definition of the, "person who sells sex persistently," as, "at least twice in the last three months." Why it's ridiculous should be obvious, but just in case: Primo, twice over three months is not "persistently". Secundo, a single isolated act doesn't make the person a prostitute perhaps, but it's already an act of prostitution. Tertio, even if a virgin were to dress as a hooker and look for clients in the right (or rather wrong) part of the city, that would still be what prostitution is about.

 

And thus, Chevalier disproves the existence of prostitutes.

 

please enlighten me on the bad part of having sex, because so far i have found none.

 

http://www.southparkcows.com/sounds/chef/chef415.mp3

Sorry. I couldn't resist. Given the subject matter, this one's too good not to link to.

 

Chev, normally I agree with you on most thiings, and indeed, my knowledge of legal terms is weak. However, the vast majority of the population sees a service as something that can be sold. From the perspective of the layman, when I get my hair cut, I am not purchasing anything physical -- in fact, I walk out with LESS than what I walked in with! But from my perspective, I purchased a service.

Now, unless I miss my guess, you are saying that lawmakers should have a better grasp on the legal ramifications of their vocabulary choices. That I can understand.

The problem with prostitution is that in the vast majority of cases the woman gets the short end of the stick (sorry for the pun). Many people are vehemently opposed to polygamy (see the relevant threads) on the same grounds -- while in theory both practices CAN be about intelligent, informed people making personal choices, far too often in reality the woman ends up being exploited, and thus empirical experience leads us to believe that the practice is not a healthy one for society.

 

Nope. Prostitution is having sex for money. The fact there's no sale-purchase contract in it doesn't mean the money can't flow or the whole thing isn't taking place.

@LKD:

That's actually more accurate than saying the barber sold you the service, which he didn't. He provided it. Strictly speaking, you didn't actually purchase it, either, but the term at least isn't offensive.

Exactly, and especially lawyers. That's my worry. They don't seem to have a grasp of it and it's not like they just have lexical problems. They don't get the whole underlying thing if they mix it up.

 

Well, i work for a company that offers services that people can buy. You don't pay, you won't get our service. Why would that be so different from buying food in a groceriestore?

 

Because unintended, illegitimate pregnancies threaten the stability of the patrilineal succession.

 

My personal view is that banning prostitution is good for the society in general. Legalized prostitution won't take away the human trade or the black markets since the supply will be less than the demand. Increase in the supply would mean increased amount of women/men turning to prostitution to earn their living, and I seriously don't think that an increase in prostitution is in any way beneficial for the society.