5 ms·
Fall of the Brothel Industry
- a3voices 11y agoBut what about the rise of Backpage prostitution?
- chaostheory 11y agoWell there's the question of how much of it is being provided by sex slaves. Still, prostitution is not as wide spread as it was in the US before the 1960's.
- barkingcat 11y agoThe was a Conservative attack ad in the recent Canadian election that says in Chinese that the Liberals will make brothels open in Canadian neighborhoods. Obviously this was a really stupid move. Good thing the Conservatives lost.
- Steko 11y agohttp://bc.ctvnews.ca/mobile/fact-or-fear-conservative-attack-ad-raising-eyebrows-in-vancouver-1.2610195 http://bc.ctvnews.ca/mobile/fact-or-fear-conservative-attack...
- logicchains 11y agoI find this ironic, as I've lived in a few cities in mainland China and it was almost impossible to walk more than a couple blocks without seeing a "massage parlour" or the like. In spite of it being nominally illegal there, China seems a lot more tolerant of prostitution than the average US/Canadian city, so I don't imagine an ad like this would have much effect.
- beachstartup 11y agothis is not ironic at all. do you know why people immigrate from places like china to places like canada? maybe the fact that there's a brothel every 2 blocks in china has something to do with it.
- logicchains 11y ago>do you know why people immigrate from places like china to places like canada? maybe the fact that there's a brothel every 2 blocks in china has something to do with it. None of the Chinese I know here in Australia came here for that reason, and I certainly can't see them changing their votes based on a party's attitude towards brothels. Although I suppose prostitution being legal here may have something to do with that; the ones who were hated it enough to migrate away from it obviously wouldn't migrate to a country where it's legal.
- smegel 11y agoI don't get it. Were the Chinese worried about the competition?
- ZoeZoeBee 11y agoIt's time we legalize prostitution to bring it out of the shadow's. Its naive to pretend it does not exist, the illegality of it only hurts those who engage in it for a living whether they are doing so willingly or not. Keeping it illegal on moral high grounds leads to unintended consequences like sex trafficking and criminal charges the effects which last a lifetime. Path2Freedom is trying to raise money for a $20 million dollar 100 acre refuge/community for victims of sex trafficking http://www.path2freedom.org/ http://www.path2freedom.org/
- gilgoomesh 11y agoBrothels are legal where I live (Australia). It's always a bit strange to see U.S. TV shows where prostitution is a crime. That said, just because legal brothels exist, doesn't mean illegal prostitution stops. Pay attention to the news for a few years and you'll still periodically hear about arrests for illegal types of prostitution (sex slavery, underage prostitution, etc).
- derefr 11y agoTrue, but in places (like Australia, or Amsterdam) where you go all the way and unionize prostitution, it's much, much easier to catch the illegal types: you just raid anything that looks like an unregistered/unlicensed prostitution operation. The main problem with catching sex trafficking and other sexual exploitaton, usually, is that there's so much "grey market" prostitution that isn't really hurting anybody, that law-enforcement tends to just ignore the whole mass as something they don't have the resources to confront or enough information to prioritize. Creating a whitelist and getting all the voluntary sex workers on it gives you a manageably-smaller set of non-whitelisted cases to investigate.
- riffraff 11y agoTo be fair, there are victims of sex trafficking even where prostitution is legal.
- ZoeZoeBee 11y ago
- chaostheory 11y agoThe internet is not the main culprit for the decline of both the brothel and prostitution; it's only helping to accelerate it. The main reason is probably due to the Sexual Revolution, as well as the lowered importance of marriage in modern society. It's no longer taboo to engage in sex outside of marriage and divorce is commonplace and no longer a scandal.
- riffraff 11y agofreakonomics has a chapter about this and it agrees with what you say, with somewhat convincing evidence. In addition to what you mention, things that you could only find at a brothel (oral & anal sex, or less usual things) are also not taboo anymore.
- wavefunction 11y agoPretty sure you could find oral and anal sex throughout human history with non-prostitute intimate partners, just maybe not all of them or at least varying rates depending on the era. Some women and men love these sexual acts so it seems like they would pursue them even in the past. Maybe people are more open to admitting that they engage in these activities than those folks in the past, as well.
- chaostheory 11y agoMaybe you can find plenty of this before the Dark Ages, but after that - I'm not so sure especially once Victorian culture starts to spread.
- Scarblac 11y agoEspecially since without contraception, vaginal sex would have been an issue even inside marriages (given that not everybody would have wanted continuous pregnancies).
- riffraff 11y agoYou are undoubtedly right that these things have always happened, but the rate changed drastically since the 19th century. Keep in mind that even plain premarital sex for women was a taboo until very recently.
- gfody 11y ago> Las Vegas, the Times Square of America isn't Times Square the Times Square of America?
- jensen123 11y agoI find it strange that prostitution is illegal in much of the world. Many people basically seem to be like this: if they don't like something, then they want to ban it. They don't seem to think much further than that. Alcohol prohibition is probably the best example of what happens when you ban something: it doesn't go away, but you get lots of crime etc.
- A_COMPUTER 11y agoPeople noticed that crime happened around certain types of establishments.
- escherize 11y agoLike bar fights?
- venomsnake 11y agoThat is not a crime, but recreation.
- sobkas 11y agoAnd then ignored what they noticed and implemented their prejudices/aversion/"moral values" as laws.
- A_COMPUTER 11y agoIt's funny how pragmatic decisions you keep having to make turn into social norms after a while, and then you don't have to keep making them.
- sneak 11y ago"I don't understand why prostitution is illegal. Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?" —George Carlin
- 11y ago
- lexcorvus 11y agoIt has one star on Yelp. At the time of writing, there are only two reviews total, one of them obviously post-Odom. just 12 of the state’s 16 counties Just? 12/16 = 75%. That's not "just." Who is editing this stuff?
- stickfigure 11y agoWhy isn't this the top rated post? No matter what you think of the subject matter, the newspeak is running bold and thick in this piece. It's like the dihydrogen monoxide scare without the irony.