Should Sex Work Be Legal?

[Sherman123]

Gosh. It kinda seems like you're going to make it expensive. That's before we even start requiring companies to buy health insurance, maternity leave, retirement plans, etc.



What happens when we make something significantly more expensive, but a cheaper black market version is available?

Thats going to be a necessary byproduct. I'm confident legal monopolies can crush black market competition in the same way that alcohol giants can comply with federal and state requirements without losing out to illicit distillers.

 

[Henrin]

Oh please... if I open a liquor store I have to pay taxes.
If I start a business in my home as baker of wedding cakes and birthday cakes I have to pay taxes.

Why would you allow a person who makes money through a business to NOT pay taxes?

Are you suggesting providing orgasms in exchange for cash might be a religious endeavor?
I would assume plenty of "oh god's" would be uttered during business hours.

I'm suggesting we don't need to tax everything. Far too often in this country people ask can the government make money when speaking towards new taxes and not is the tax necessary for the government to function.

We should want as little taxation as possible as a country and strive towards those ends. What we should not do is try to maximize the governments revenues through taxation.

 

[TheGoverness]

You mean like how no one is buying pot on the black market in Washington or Colorado?

Lol, people there are buying from legal dispensaries now. It's the places where it's illegal where weed is being bought illegally.

But Sex Work isn't even comparable to sex trafficking in the first place.

 

[Henrin]

Lol, people there are buying from legal dispensaries now. It's the places where it's illegal where weed is being bought illegally.

You should be laughing at yourself. The black market in Washington and Colorado are doing fine. People that were buying from the black market before are still doing so and many people that are buying from the legal market likely wouldn't have bought pot otherwise.

 

[justabubba]

Should sex work be legal?

sex should not be work

that takes all the fun out of it

 

[cpwill]

Can you quantify anything you've just said with studies?

Hm. Well, I think that it's fairly obvious that illegal immigrant labor performs our dirtier, cheaper labor, and that they are also more likely to be exploited and victimized by organizations seeking to use them for precisely those purposes, because they perceive that they lack legal options. Decreased familial cohesion similarly seems rational - the more we decouple sexual activity from marriage, the less likely people are to go through the difficult work of forming and maintaining successful ones. We also lower the costs to men (mostly) to leaving a marriage, encouraging divorce, and we increase the incidence of adultery, making that divorce more likely.

You're also conflating the illegality of human trafficking with a specific profession, forgetting that human trafficking is used in relation to a great number of professions unconnected with prostitution

Not at all. I am fully aware that illegal labor is used for a host of tasks, just as I am also aware that the organization and pathways I described are also already present, and will be able to operate more freely once they and their customers are given the cover of legal industry.

Also, you use the "Vegas making a killing" example where prostitution is legalized. It seems that where prostitution is legal, monitored and regulated, prostitutes aren't treated anywhere near so badly as their counterparts in other states.

Here it is because you have an artificial concentration. If you want to be a professional sex worker, go to Nevada, where it's legal. I could just as easily take a survey at Harvard to "prove" that people who spend their lives filling out the "comments" section on online news stories are, in fact, of above-average intelligence.

However, Vegas also helps to make my argument. It's a sleezy place, where vice is encouraged and, indeed, part of the selling allure. It's what you advertise on (Don't Worry, Mr Businessman Away At A Conference - What Happens In Vegas, Stays In Vegas). Do we want the whole country to become that? Yuck.

 

[cpwill]

Thats going to be a necessary byproduct. I'm confident legal monopolies can crush black market competition in the same way that alcohol giants can comply with federal and state requirements without losing out to illicit distillers.

That's fairly magical thinking. Waving away a likely problem with a "Oh I'm Sure We'll Deal With That" isn't actually a solution, it's just a refusal to deal with a perverse unintended consequence of your favored policy.

 

[Cephus]

I have no problem with it being legal, so long as it is heavily regulated to keep everything involved consensual and healthy.

 

[Cardinal]

Hm. Well, I think that it's fairly obvious that illegal immigrant labor performs our dirtier, cheaper labor, and that they are also more likely to be exploited and victimized by organizations seeking to use them for precisely those purposes, because they perceive that they lack legal options. Decreased familial cohesion similarly seems rational - the more we decouple sexual activity from marriage, the less likely people are to go through the difficult work of forming and maintaining successful ones. We also lower the costs to men (mostly) to leaving a marriage, encouraging divorce, and we increase the incidence of adultery, making that divorce more likely.

Do you have any stats for this?

Not at all. I am fully aware that illegal labor is used for a host of tasks, just as I am also aware that the organization and pathways I described are also already present, and will be able to operate more freely once they and their customers are given the cover of legal industry.

But you used the human trafficking example as one reason not to support the legalization of prostitution. If you hold that view for one industry but not another, then you're being inconsistent.

Here it is because you have an artificial concentration. If you want to be a professional sex worker, go to Nevada, where it's legal. I could just as easily take a survey at Harvard to "prove" that people who spend their lives filling out the "comments" section on online news stories are, in fact, of above-average intelligence.

However, Vegas also helps to make my argument. It's a sleezy place, where vice is encouraged and, indeed, part of the selling allure. It's what you advertise on (Don't Worry, Mr Businessman Away At A Conference - What Happens In Vegas, Stays In Vegas). Do we want the whole country to become that? Yuck.

You used a number of arguments, one being the generally humane treatment of prostitutes where it's legal vs. prostitutes who are treated quite badly where it's not. I don't think you understood the argument you were attempting to make here. If you do, then you need to state it more clearly for the rest of us.

 

[Crovax]

Can you quantify anything you've just said with studies?

You're also conflating the illegality of human trafficking with a specific profession, forgetting that human trafficking is used in relation to a great number of professions unconnected with prostitution. Also, you use the "Vegas making a killing" example where prostitution is legalized. It seems that where prostitution is legal, monitored and regulated, prostitutes aren't treated anywhere near so badly as their counterparts in other states.

Maybe you should look at the horrors of the porn industry just to get a taste of what legalized prostitution does to the workers and society.

 

[Sherman123]

That's fairly magical thinking. Waving away a likely problem with a "Oh I'm Sure We'll Deal With That" isn't actually a solution, it's just a refusal to deal with a perverse unintended consequence of your favored policy.

All of our legal industries are regulated, some are more heavily regulated than others like Tobacco and Alcohol. I'm not sure why legalized prostitution couldn't drown out illicit sex work when Tobacco and Alcohol don't have significant threats to their legal market share.

 

[TheGoverness]

Maybe you should look at the horrors of the porn industry just to get a taste of what legalized prostitution does to the workers and society.

What's wrong with the porn industry?

 

[cpwill]

Do you have any stats for this?

For which part?

But you used the human trafficking example as one reason not to support the legalization of prostitution. If you hold that view for one industry but not another, then you're being inconsistent.

Sort of. I'm not saying "Oh, we don't have a human trafficking problem, but we will if we legalize prostitution." I am saying that our human trafficking problem will get worse, as some of its ugliest manifestations will be able to operate under legal cover, and that it will be these trafficked people who will be disproportionately likely (along with others who are easily exploited - such as drug addicts) to be engaging in the now-legal $15-a-pump-for-truckers. It's not going to be all high-end escorts.

You used a number of arguments, one being the generally humane treatment of prostitutes where it's legal vs. prostitutes who are treated quite badly where it's not. I don't think you understood the argument you were attempting to make here. If you do, then you need to state it more clearly for the rest of us.

No, I didn't. I used a mental model that folks often bring to bear when discussing this issue, and contrasted it with the uglier side of the industry that they are deliberately ignoring. It's about as honest as having a "legalize all drugs" discussion by only mentioning marijuana, and failing to mention things like heroin and meth. I agree that women in that model are treated better - my point was that its' not going to be all that model that we are expanding. We will be expanding the uglier, more abusive sides as well.

 

[cpwill]

All of our legal industries are regulated, some are more heavily regulated than others like Tobacco and Alcohol. I'm not sure why legalized prostitution couldn't drown out illicit sex work when Tobacco and Alcohol don't have significant threats to their legal market share.

You've never heard of cigarette smuggling? Really?

You are also discussing industries with higher entry barriers in terms of production. There is no capital investment required for illegal labor, you simply hire the labor.


Example: We regulate the farm industry - do you think that maybe that industry heavily utilizes illegal labor?

 

[Mr Person]

Yes, like drugs.

I'm pretty much pure libertarian when it comes to social stuff like that.


Oh, and you should be able to take two spouses if you're a glutton for punishment.

 

[USViking]

I do not see where that leads to a better society, and I see many ways in which it leads to a worse, more degraded one.

The Classical Greco-Roman societies of Western antiquity were perhaps the most productive in history, intellectually and militarily, and I think probably as good as any economically.

And they were WIIIIIIIDE OPEN as far as prostitution went. Google "Pompeii sex murals" on that note, and Rome did not fall until about 400 years after those Pompeian sex murals were composed.

Now, I agree that prostitution is a pitiful state of being, for both parties. But the historical record refutes its condemnation on practical grounds, such as cpwill suggests.

 

[tres borrachos]

It should be legal provided the person working in the trade is an adult.

 

[Real Korimyr #9]

I hate to say it, because I believe sex work is fundamentally morally degrading for both the sex worker and the customer, but yes... sex work should be legal.

Simply put, there isn't a single anti-sex-work law designed to protect women from being exploited that hasn't been turned around by some asshole prosecutor or another into a weapon to further victimize women who have been forced into this abhorrent career. This is a case of a profound societal wrong that cannot be addressed by the law because any proposed law will cause more harm than it solves.

 

[_Sal]

of course it should be legal...

two or more consenting adults may do whatever they please and the government/law should butt out

 

[Urethra Franklin]

How about for once we just make something legal and not tax it? Why does our rights always have to be taxed? WTF kind of country legalizes something just so they can tax it? Do we somehow not have enough things that are taxed?

Take yourself to a country where you have a free education, as I did, right up to university level, where you have a good free health service, good public transport and infrastructure that works, and you'll see what taxes are for.

 

[jamesrage]

Should sex work be legal?

I say the same thing I said in another thread on the subject.
It should be legal but heavily regulated to ensure the health of the prostitute and and customer are protected and for the financial protection of the prostitute. Frequent checks for STDs, no unprotected sex by both the prostitute and customer,and frequent health inspections of the place of business regardless if that business is private home, cat house or some other facility where the prostitute works.There should also be wage/pay protections to ensure that the prostitute gets to keep the majority of her pay earned from her services so that she is not taken taken advantage of by a pimp,'employment' agency, brothel, cat house or some other employer.

 

[Peter King]

Yes, but under very exacting and specific rules (like no prostitutes under 21, monthly health checks, no pimps, paying taxes, clean work environment, etc. etc. etc.).

 

[Lord of Planar]

No, it should not be.

Basing law on personal morality?

Why persecute in a victimless crime?

 

[Lord of Planar]

I do not see where that leads to a better society, and I see many ways in which it leads to a worse, more degraded one.

Many of our problems are all the taboos we place on society. We need less taboos, and more insight on personal responsibility.

 

[Grand Mal]

I do not see where that leads to a better society, and I see many ways in which it leads to a worse, more degraded one.

Pretty much how I feel about legislating morality and making bad behavior criminal.
Laws don't prevent anything and bad laws are a distraction and waste of resources.