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Why is there no major movement to legalize Prostitution?

RowdyReverb

Member
If a public official supported legalizing prostitution, imagine all the ways his/her opposition could tear them to shreds over it. It's a very difficulty proposition to defend while remaining electable
 
I don't understand the point of keeping it illegal and stuffed in the backseat because people will still pay for sex and we'll still talk and joke about it openly

At the very least there should be some movement to helping women feel more safe and not abhorring them. I don't even understand the logic behind that vitriol, by the way...
 

Madame M

Banned
Because prostitution sucks for the prostitute under both legal and illegal regimes.

That being said, prostitutes should not be punished. Punish the johns.
 

*Splinter

Member
I would fully support legalized prostitution if no one was being seriously taken advantage of, if it was just a buyer and a seller who were making a transaction that they both felt good about. I don't really see that happening, so I'm not surprised no politician wants to touch it.
I think this is how the law is set up in the UK. It's legal as long as the seller isn't being "coerced" (pimped?) by a third party. The buyer is breaking the law even if they didn't know the coercion was taking place, so there is some legal risk to being a John even though it's generally legal.
That's my understanding anyway, could be wrong.

Should be decriminalized, legal is another thing.
What would this even mean and why is it the right answer? Sounds like a halfway house that satisfies neither argument?
 
It does? Why? I was under the impression that it's not that terrible in places like the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, it's a service job with all that comes with it, including the occasional unreasonable and/or disrespectful clients. RetailGAF or WaitstaffGAF probably has a thousand horror stories of how they were treated in a professional capacity... but no one is going to claim that those horror stories are the norm or representative of the average client/guest.

The two things that make it more bearable than other service jobs is 1) the ability to dictate your own work hours (over here, you either notify the club when you're there and pay them for advertising/hosting you during those hours or you activate/deactivate your web advertisements whenever you want) and 2) being able to screen clients before you ever get in close contact with them.

That ability to screen johns is something that goes out the window the minute you criminalize them. Whereas Dutch clients are, on average, far more likely to use their own cell phones, park their cars where the sex workers can see their plates or frequent the same agencies/establishments so they're recognizable on sight, in other countries they take active measures to avoid being identified which makes finding them as suspects or witnesses much more difficult and time-consuming.

Also good luck getting tips about sex workers under duress/suffering addiction or other health problems if clients fear arrest just for calling the cops.
 
In the Netherlands, it's a service job with all that comes with it, including the occasional unreasonable and/or disrespectful clients. RetailGAF or WaitstaffGAF probably has a thousand horror stories of how they were treated in a professional capacity... but no one is going to claim that those horror stories are the norm or representative of the average client/guest.

The two things that make it more bearable than other service jobs is 1) the ability to dictate your own work hours (over here, you either notify the club when you're there and pay them for advertising/hosting you during those hours or you activate/deactivate your web advertisements whenever you want) and 2) being able to screen clients before you ever get in close contact with them.

That ability to screen johns is something that goes out the window the minute you criminalize them. Whereas Dutch clients are, on average, far more likely to use their own cell phones, park their cars where the sex workers can see their plates or frequent the same agencies/establishments so they're recognizable on sight, in other countries they take active measures to avoid being identified which makes finding them as suspects or witnesses much more difficult and time-consuming.

Also good luck getting tips about sex workers under duress/suffering addiction or other health problems if clients fear arrest just for calling the cops.

Great posts.
So yeah, I don't see why someone would say it sucks when it's legal.
 
Because it's a dangerous profession.

It's only dangerous because it's illegal.

Seriously, we already have legal prostitution in all but name in the United States. Porn stars, professional dominatrixes, and strippers to name only a few. If legalized prostitution in America will loom like anything, it'll look like this.

All of these can be exploitative, brutal professions. But they are nearly devoid of trafficking, and almost always the least bad option for the people employed in them. They don't have pimps. And very few people believe that the lives of sex workers in these industries would be better if they were criminalized, for what I think should be obvious reasons.

It's all status quo bias.
 

psyfi

Banned
There's been a sex worker rights movement in the US for decades, but Americans really really hate sex and women, so it hasn't gained much steam.
 
Sexualization is frowned upon because it goes hand-in-hand with objectification, which by dint of its very nature reduces people to sex objects.

Prostitution is a different matter as it is a person deigning to use their body to make money in the most direct way possible.

These are completely different issues.
To be completely honest, I don't see how selling your body doesn't objectify it, and this is coming from someone with a neutral view of the whole prostitution sheningan...
 
Because people on both sides of the aisle hate prostitution, and both have no idea how to fix the problem that doesn't involve going after sex workers.

To be completely honest, I don't see how selling your body doesn't objectify it, and this is coming from someone with a neutral view of the whole prostitution sheningan...

Objectivization requires context. For instance, if a sex worker was doing sex work without duress and in a way that empowered them rather than having them at the whims of their client or employer, is it objectification? What about a dominatrix who brings on clients, for example?
 
In the Netherlands, it's a service job with all that comes with it, including the occasional unreasonable and/or disrespectful clients. RetailGAF or WaitstaffGAF probably has a thousand horror stories of how they were treated in a professional capacity... but no one is going to claim that those horror stories are the norm or representative of the average client/guest.

The two things that make it more bearable than other service jobs is 1) the ability to dictate your own work hours (over here, you either notify the club when you're there and pay them for advertising/hosting you during those hours or you activate/deactivate your web advertisements whenever you want) and 2) being able to screen clients before you ever get in close contact with them.

That ability to screen johns is something that goes out the window the minute you criminalize them. Whereas Dutch clients are, on average, far more likely to use their own cell phones, park their cars where the sex workers can see their plates or frequent the same agencies/establishments so they're recognizable on sight, in other countries they take active measures to avoid being identified which makes finding them as suspects or witnesses much more difficult and time-consuming.

Also good luck getting tips about sex workers under duress/suffering addiction or other health problems if clients fear arrest just for calling the cops.
Whelp depends on the place honestly... my understanding was that one of eindhoven latest major was steering for stopping the prostitution..

Nevertheless, i more or less understand the point..
Still I think that via sex-market we're inherently sexualizing the male/female prostitutes's bodies, but if it's fine with them, sure
 

Z3M0G

Member
Oddly I never really gave this serious thought before, but as soon as I did, it makes immediately no sense why it is Illegal...

- consenting adults
- I could sell someone a handshake if they were willing to pay for it, I assume...

Yah, the logic immediately breaks down for me...

Edit: And as OP states, it's "black market" nature/culture does WAY more harm than good...

Edit: thinking of the the pimp "protecting" the prostitute part... It's Illegal to rob or assault someone anyways... let the law handle those situations and take the pimp out of it, just as the pimp would be taken out of the "dealer" role.
 

Hermii

Member
By keeping it illegal they are giving poorly socially functioning people like me the choice between braking the law and paying for it once in a while or everlasting celibacy. It fucking sucks to be me :(.
 

Madame M

Banned
Oddly I never really gave this serious thought before, but as soon as I did, it makes immediately no sense why it is Illegal...

- consenting adults
- I could sell someone a handshake if they were willing to pay for it, I assume...

Yah, the logic immediately breaks down for me...

Edit: And as OP states, it's "black market" nature/culture does WAY more harm than good...

Edit: thinking of the the pimp "protecting" the prostitute part... It's Illegal to rob or assault someone anyways... let the law handle those situations and take the pimp out of it, just as the pimp would be taken out of the "dealer" role.

Legalization will not reduce the black market culture, look at the Netherlands. They legalized it and there's still a ton of sex trafficking, if anything it's easier to get away with it there now.
 

Sephzilla

Member
Because America is weird when it comes to sex. And any politician who was open to legalizing prostitution would be obliterated come election time
 
I'll repeat my "Why".
BrassDragon argues pretty convincingly.

It's terrible for quite a few, but the reasons for this vary. There is still a lot of forced prostition with loverboys and the like and women trafficking on one hand, and women who choose this life but hit bureaucratic walls on the other.

I also know women who are sex workers and are completely happy with it. They often work in more exclusive clubs or as escorts. Who are we to say they shouldn't be allowed to?

It is and will always be a grey area, but I'm definitely in favor of legalisation.
 
Its not just America, its illegal in most of Europe too.

Don't know how accurate it is, but:
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Here is a prominent study on prostitution leading to more trafficking:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1986065

Generally, the method that works best in regards to protecting the women is to legalize selling sex but make the act of buying sex illegal.


Other issues with prostitution:
- Amount of underage girls
- Inadequate systems in place essentially legalize pimping rather than helping the women in any meaningful way

Also worker's rights is pretty bad here; legalizing might not actually be that much better.

If it increases more trafficking than it is all the more reason for opposition groups to opposition it.
 
This used to be my field before I moved to counter-terrorism.

The quoted reports state that legalization means more reports of human trafficking, in other words more discovery. That's a logical consequence of sex workers and their enablers being more cooperative and open with the authorities - suddenly stuff that was underground comes to the surface.

Nowhere is there any credible evidence that the number of actual trafficked human beings goes up or down based on policy measures. The total sum of human trafficking is, in law enforcement terms, a 'dark number' - our best criminologists can only estimate the volume but it's impossible to measure accurately as of 2017.

More discovery does NOT mean that legalization 'leads to' more human trafficking. More discovery is a good thing for those of us who prefer to fight this evil with the clearest possible picture.

But a lot of policy makers and citizens would prefer to have the problem disappear under the rug so we can pretend it's not happening in the shadows.

Your posts so far have been really illuminating. Having someone speak from experience on the subject is incredibly valuable.

It's concerning that the study itself may be invalid because they conflated increased discovery with an actual increase.
 
Whelp depends on the place honestly... my understanding was that one of eindhoven latest major was steering for stopping the prostitution..

Nevertheless, i more or less understand the point..
Still I think that via sex-market we're inherently sexualizing the male/female prostitutes's bodies, but if it's fine with them, sure

You're absolutely right on both counts - my arguments don't come from a place of encouraging and appreciating prostitution but rather from the purely pragmatic view that exploitation crimes will happen regardless of policy but that IMO fighting excesses is much easier in a permissive and legal environment.

When I worked on trafficking cases there was never a shortage of victims and criminal enterprises abusing them, so far be it from me to say the Netherlands has it all figured out... for example, Dutch nationals tend to work the very high-end escort and better sex clubs while the famous red light districts and low rent massage parlors are staffed by foreign sex workers with student visas under various degrees of coercion. Then there is the headache of criminals using legal prostitution as a relatively easy way to launder vast sums of money.

But the reason we found these problems easier to tackle is because these victims were much more willing to be open with health workers, local police officers and even clients. And you have no idea how valuable tax returns are for intelligence gathering.

Legalization is not a silver bullet but the politicians who try to paint it as a cure worse than the disease just baffle me.
 
Your posts so far have been really illuminating. Having someone speak from experience on the subject is incredibly valuable.

It's concerning that the study itself may be invalid because they conflated increased discovery with an actual increase.

It's right in the summary of the quoted study (which I find highly illuminating, just wish people would stop drawing the wrong conclusions from it.)

This paper investigates the impact of legalized prostitution on human trafficking inflows. According to economic theory, there are two opposing effects of unknown magnitude. The scale effect of legalized prostitution leads to an expansion of the prostitution market, increasing human trafficking, while the substitution effect reduces demand for trafficked women as legal prostitutes are favored over trafficked ones. Our empirical analysis for a cross-section of up to 150 countries shows that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect. On average, countries where prostitution is legal experience larger REPORTED human trafficking inflows.

I'll also allow that a country known for being permissive of sex work, like the Netherlands, just naturally attracts sex tourists from countries where it's all illegal... they just think they can indulge here more easily, so yes, there is an increase in demand from that angle. But to me that's a sign we need international policies, not a call to dial everything back to the last century.
 

Khoryos

Member
I've always viewed it as Illegal prostitution : Slavers :: War on Drugs : Cartels :: Prohibition : Capone Organisation.
 

eot

Banned
With the movement to legalize marijuana finally making some headway over the last decade, you'd think that legalizing prostitution would be gaining traction as well.

Just off the top of my head, pro-legalization logic seems pretty strong. Anti-prostitution law:

-Is almost entirely based around largely outdated morals rather than facts or science.
-Forces the practice to remain unregulated, increasing the spread of STDs between prostitutes and johns.
-Prolongs the suffering of sex workers at the hands of the pimps who manage them.
-Infringes on the basic right to do as one pleases with one's own body.
-Discourages prostitutes from pursuing police protection and/or reporting their own victimization.
-(As with drugs) Is an issue where the poor face the brunt of the punishment from law enforcement.
-*May* increase the likelihood of a person utilizing underhanded/non-consensual means to obtain sexual gratification.
-*May* increase the prevalence and profitability of truly immoral and reprehensible sex trafficking.

I'm sure there are dozens of other positives that could be listed. All of the reasons against legalization amount to the same sort of nonsense people levied during the war on drugs.

The sad thing is, certain parts of the world seem to be moving in the opposite direction. The French National Assembly voted in April 2016 to begin fining johns €1500 for accepting the services of a prostitute, with France joining Sweden, Canada, Norway, Iceland, and Northern Ireland before it. There are very few developed nations where prostitution is 100% legal (the UK, Germany and Australia are among them).

Why is this not a bigger issue? It seems like common sense that more consensual sex is good for everyone, especially in this antisocial era of every thirsty idiot sending/requesting nudes over social media.

Very few?

Green = legal
Blue = legal (but no brothels)

It's legal in a lot of countries, there's New Zeeland too
 
If a public official supported legalizing prostitution, imagine all the ways his/her opposition could tear them to shreds over it. It's a very difficulty proposition to defend while remaining electable

Yup. If any change on this is going to happen in the US it will be through the courts.
 
The EU did a study on how to reduce trafficking.

https://ec.europa.eu/anti-trafficki...trafficking_in_human_beings._final_report.pdf

Some of the takeaways were to consider decriminalizing the sale of sex, but criminalizing the purchase (Swedish model). Anyone in trouble would not suffer legal trouble for coming forward. They also found that many of the supposed benefits of legalized prostitution didn't always materialize.

I can't vouch for the methodology, but the EU is hardly partisan on this issue.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Because prostitution sucks for the prostitute under both legal and illegal regimes.

That being said, prostitutes should not be punished. Punish the johns.

This attitude has never made sense to me, because if you think something should be illegal going after the suppliers is always a better idea, whether drugs or prostitutes. There are always fewer of the former than the consumers, and if you can't reduce demand directly reducing supply is the next best thing.

The problem is that, much like the fable of drug legalization, "just legalize it" doesn't solve all the problems and creates new ones, especially since sex trafficking is a multinational industry. If you legalize it in one country, no matter how good your laws there, you're basically just increasing demand and more women will be exploited somewhere else and trucked off to meet it. It's not an easy problem to solve.
 

Hermii

Member
This attitude has never made sense to me, because if you think something should be illegal going after the suppliers is always a better idea, whether drugs or prostitutes. There are always fewer of the former than the consumers, and if you can't reduce demand directly reducing supply is the next best thing.

The problem is that, much like the fable of drug legalization, "just legalize it" doesn't solve all the problems and creates new ones, especially since sex trafficking is a multinational industry. If you legalize it in one country, no matter how good your laws there, you're basically just increasing demand and more women will be exploited somewhere else and trucked off to meet it. It's not an easy problem to solve.

Also from the my perspective as I am one of the Johns.

Im slightly autistic (Either asberger or NLD, they are very similar anyway). I always been socially awkward, having few friends, was bullied etc. Its really close to impossible for me to have sex the normal way. I can't imagine visiting an escort is many peoples first choice, but for me and I imagine many other customers its that or celibacy. I have no idea if Im a typical customer. Its really easy for others who aren't in that situation to say arrest them all.

Ofcourse trafficking is a terrible thing, but when its consensual and a good experience for both parties, I don't see anything wrong with it.
 
The EU did a study on how to reduce trafficking.

https://ec.europa.eu/anti-trafficki...trafficking_in_human_beings._final_report.pdf

Some of the takeaways were to consider decriminalizing the sale of sex, but criminalizing the purchase (Swedish model). Anyone in trouble would not suffer legal trouble for coming forward. They also found that many of the supposed benefits of legalized prostitution didn't always materialize.

I can't vouch for the methodology, but the EU is hardly partisan on this issue.

This is a good quality study that, again, seems to feed some misunderstandings of the data - it points out in scientific terms what I said above, that legalization does not reduce demand and in fact seems to increase prostitution overall (as we've seen in the Netherlands).

It doesn't correlate an increase of human trafficking with supply-side legalization although one can hypothesize that it would grow alongside overall prostitution (again, the 'dark number' problem of no one knowing how much trafficking goes on on any given day in any given area, which the report admits is a structural issue.)

There is also mention of a narrative that politicians and media have seized on, namely the reduction of street prostitution in Sweden following the demand-side criminalization ('punishing johns'.)

The problem I have with that is that street prostitution is decreasing rapidly anyway because of internet advertising dramatically changing the marketplace in the last decade. For some reason, people view prostitution as this static, timeless thing while in reality the providers are just as tech and business savvy as any other industry.

EDIT: No matter where you stand on the issue, this is a pretty cool thread with contributions from all perspectives. Cheers guys.
 

ThisGuy

Member
Shit I ain't single. The day I start marching in the streets to pay for pussy is the day I'm gonna need to start marching the streets to pay for pussy.
 
I think that nobody should sell his body for money, but i think that it's hypocritical and detrimental to the prostitutes which are (in the vast majority of cases) victims of prostitution networks and/or poverty to condemn them.

I think the best way to go is actually condemning the users and going harsh against the networks.

I really disagree with the "abolitionist" narrative, i think prostitution is inherently bad. Pornography, in many cases, is not so far from that. I don't see how it's a fear or hate of sexuality. Sex is great. Reducing it as a commodity is bad.
 
I think that nobody should sell his body for money, but i think that it's hypocritical and detrimental to the prostitutes which are (in the vast majority of cases) victims of prostitution networks and/or poverty to condemn them.

I think the best way to go is actually condemning the users and going harsh against the networks.

I really disagree with the "abolitionist" narrative, i think prostitution is inherently bad. Pornography, in many cases, is not so far from that. I don't see how it's a fear or hate of sexuality. Sex is great. Reducing it as a commodity is bad.

We need to do everything to fight forced prostitution, abuse, women trafficking, poverty etc. Nor do I think we should romanticize prostitution. But we shouldn't criminalize it either. Freedom of choice matters. If people choose to sell their body instead of their looks, voice or intellect, who are we to condemn it? It's their body and they alone decide what to do with it.

I know multiple people who are or were sex workers, including one person who I hold very dear to my heart. Not as I customer I should add. When I got to know her she was out of the prostitution game for about five years, but she worked around a decade as a call girl prior to that. She wasn't forced into it, nor was she poor, abused or addicted. It was her choice and one she had no regrets about. She is not alone. I don't think we should condemn people like her nor the people who were her customers.
 
I'm all for legalized prostitution. That means regular OB/GYN visits (decreasing sexually transmitted diseases), the ability to have a union (decreasing Pimping and increasing individual rights) and a flat-rate on basic/specific services provided (self-explanatory, I hope).

Weed and Prostitution legalization would do exactly what most Right wingers are against: Give power to POC and Women. It wouldn't happen until a certain political party controls all branches of government, and even then, don't hold your breath.
 
In an ideal world, it would be legal, but would be strictly regulated from a buyer and seller perspective. Ideally only allowed at verified institutions with the people participating required to be clean of all diseases before entering. If you want to be a prostitute, you would have to become licensed and do it at a verified institution. If you wanted to buy, you would go to those institutions.

Contraceptives would be required and provided. There would be cameras in the room to protect the sellers. The person selling would always be given the choice to back out and the buyer would get their money back or get another go with someone else, no questions asked.
 
What's stopping states from decriminalizing it themselves?

A group, such as MPP for weed, work to get enough signatures and put it on the ballot for that state. Or someone in the house introducing such a bill and then having it pass the 2 chambers of congress and be signed into law by the Governor of that state.

Hawaii introduced a bill earlier this year that would make prostitution legal there:

http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=1533&year=2017
 
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