"Prostitute" too bad for legal statutes

Remove all ads!

Now there's a question. Anyone got any data on how much 'unregulated' prostitution is going on in Nevada vs. how much 'regulated' stuff is?

No, probably not. Means I gott go google. Damn it.

 

Well, guess what? Prostitution IS legal where i live, and there hasn't been a female run towards a career as a prostitute. Sure, there's a few students here and there who finance their expensive education by selling their body for a short period of time, but nothing out of the ordinary. So much for that theory huh?

It's the same as legalized softdrugs. When suddenly it's legal and easy to get your hands on a joint, you won't see a sudden outburst of mass drugabuse, quite the contrary in fact, despite several governments trying to convince their people otherwise.

 

@Pac Man: The question is at what timeframe? As far as I know Amsterdam street prostitution experiment didn't work out as it was supposed to because it didn't have the wanted impact on illegal prostitution and organized crime. So as it might be said that legalizing prostitution doesn't necessarily increase crime, especially on a short period of time, it doesn't lessen it either.

The problem is that usually the timeframes at which the issue has been under observation are too short. I know of no exeptions to this, but I admit that my knowledge is somewhat limited. Studies of what and how legalized and illegal prostitution affects the society spanning at least two or three generations are far more sufficient than approaching the issue only on the level of transaction between two consenting adult, mentally capable individuals. Please inform me if you know of any such studies.

What we do know is that birth control has an impact on crime, poverty, and the well being of the society. Clear majority of prostitutes come from those very same social classes which also produce the majority of violent crimes, gang affiliations, organized crime and illegal narcotics. There is a connection, not a straightforward causal relation, not necessarily, but all of these are tied in together, and you cannot approach the issue of prostitution without addressing these other facets. They're all part of the same problem, and it's not just a problem of the government trying to limit a specific form of business. When it comes to sex, it comes down to reproduction, whether there's money involved or not and a government that doesn't take population control and thus reproduction control into account is knee-deep in trouble with increased criminal activity within 15-30 years and social unrest. Parade example of this would be what happened in Ceaucescu's Romania.

Prostitution as a reproduction control method is degrading, inhuman and I wouldn't be sure at all that it would work. How ever you'd like to put it, the majority of pregnancies among prostitutes are unwanted; I'm willing to bet that the rate of abortions among prostitutes are disproportionately large considering the average woman. If they do give birth, their children will have less opportunities in their life, thus resulting in unwanted social activity, thus resulting in unnecessary suffering. So what's the answer? Sterilization of prostitutes? A type of eugenics? Or limiting the activity that is an essential cofactor with other things resulting in social unrest by law? Any other options?

About the stigma, it won't dissapear, no matter how much you'd try semantic fiddling. Try removing 2000 years of christian cultural history and you'd have an idea how futile that is. And all hell breaks loose when you go trying to do that. Remember what happened to atheistic Soviet Union? Morals, no matter how contemporary they'd be, and how society works is tightly tied in together, all the more so when we're talking about sexual morals. Perhaps this should be something to consider about.

 

Yeah I know, it's technically legalized here too. I'm not worried about it getting to a mainstream profession. Most would not do it anyhow. Still you admitted that some pay for their education through prostitution, which I would not see as anything positive.

However it won't do much good either. Human trade is still going on here, and is not exactly showing signs of slowing down in countries like Germany where the prostitution laws are even more lax than in here. The demand is not obviously met by the current supply so there's need for import even if you legalize prostitution, unless of course the domestic supply increases which practically means that more people are turning to prostitution to provide for themselves.

Except for a few horny guys/gals getting laid there's not much good coming from legalizing prostitution. Sure it will allways exist and individual prostitutes probably should not be hunted down and tried. The important thing is to stop the pimping and human traffic that's going on in Europe.

 

I would. It allows people of limited means (that is, poor people) another way to climb the social ladder.

So what good is coming from McDonald's? From Burger King? Hell, from Hollywood?

But you're not going to argue those should be banned/restricted, right?

 

I would. Hollywood's a bit trickier than Burger King and McDonald's though, but those two should be seriously restricted and controlled and they should, and hopefully will find better ways of conducting their business, which as of yet is and has been detrimental for individual health, environment and thus societies in general. Resrtiction might seem a harsh word, what I mean is that if these are allowed, they should be moderated by individual consumers, for their own sake, and by governments for the sake of their own society and for the sake of the well being of the current and the future generations of the whole world. But fast food is a little off the topic unless you do want to compare prostitution with the production and consumption of fast food. On an individual level I find the analogy quite fitting though

 

In the country I live in, you have no need for that. Education is free. So really I'd prefer them not having to sell themselves to provide for a better life. I sure would not like to live in a society where people were required to sell off their body if they wanted to advance in life.

Atleast they provide work to finance your education instead of selling your body.

 

But you already do. You get paid for giving your employer bits and pieces of your life.

Every time you go to work you are, quite literally, selling yourself. Welcome to the free market.

OTOH, I do take your point.

If I had to choose between being a gigolo and flipping burgers, I'd go with the former.

Provided, that is, that it was properly regulated and I had little to fear from STDs.

 

Umm...nice idea, too bad it works just as well as selling crack as a way to climb the social ladder. The only major difference is that you probably go to jail for a longer time for selling crack than for pimping or human trafficking.

Of course there's those people who use hard drugs without being violent criminals. Of course there's prostitutes who do get paid well for what they do and don't have to suffer the consequences of bad clients. They're not the one's who are the problem and who are in trouble and, what's more important, they're not in the majority. Not even close. On average, you don't get paid well for being a prostitute, the work conditions are worse than in any burger joint, the job and health security is appalling, and most likely you will have to quit the job without benefits before you turn fifty or even younger than that. The ones who do get climb the social ladder and have a secure position are as rare as people getting to run the joint after flipping burgers for years. As an estimate I'd say that to be close to 1-2% of the people working on either industry, so the thing is that the rosy picture of call-girls getting paid well and liking their job doesn't exactly match the reality too well. It's a part of it, but not even the most important part.

 

Well, yes, when an activity is criminalized, it hurts the people at the bottom of the hierarchy immensely. Illegal immigrants in America tend to receive terrible compensation; that doesn't mean that all farm workers receive terrible compensation.

You'll note that Pac-Man describes actual students taking this course to finance their education--where it's legal to do so.

You'll also note that it's quite feasible for young women to 'strip' their way through college in the United States. Were prostitution legal, it follows that it would likewise be possible.

 

@AMaster: Duly noted, but as it is, the students and the farm workers who fare extremely well with their profession are still not the rule, but a fortunate exception. Unfortunately they're on the top of a pyramid that lies on the backs of those who are far less fortunate, exactly same way as the ceo's and the exec's and the higher-ups of a fast-food organization. Of course there are those who fall in between the two extremes, if you can even say that they're opposite extremes considering the distribution of these people. The thing is that the demographics of all the prostitutes is not a bell curve. I don't think that it is acceptable, nor that it should be acceptable, that a solution should be found for it, and it's pretty redundant to consider the hurt feelings of the poor high-school girls who sell themselves if they are called prostitutes instead of people who sell sex.

 

That's weird. I thought this thread was about semantic issues for dropping the term "prostitute" in favor of another term, the aptly nicknamed "persistute". Why are people discussing about issues pertaining to legalization of prostitution here?

 

Conversations have a tendency to evolve, my friend. Since the poorly worded law was about prostitution, it isn't such a leap to start talking about it's societal ramifications, now, is it?