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Prostitution decriminalized: Rhode Island’s experiment

312 points by MaysonL 9y ago

andrewstuart 9y ago
It's weird seeing this. In Australia prostitution is completely legal. There was actually a publicly listed brothel for a while. Strange to think other societies criminalise it. I think being legal is best for the health and wellbeing of the sex workers and minimises the criminal involvement. There are brothels all over the place but mostly they are pretty low key, often hidden in backstreets or warehouse areas with only a red light and a sign to indicate they exist. I wish we had such an enlightened position on drugs, which remain almost completely criminalized, whilst other parts of the world move towards legalization of various aspects of drug law.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pitaj 9y ago
  There are several public brothels in Nevada. Prostitution is on a state-by-state basis.
  - duncan_bayne 9y ago
    I hear it's most common in Washington D.C.
    - pc86 9y ago
      I think the key word there was "public."
      - Kinnard 9y ago
        I think the OP was being sarcastic.
        pc86 9y ago
        OP means Original Poster, or the person who started the thread/posted the article. Do you mean GP (duncan_bayne)?
        Kinnard 9y ago
        Yes. Thanks for the vocab word.
    - alistairSH 9y ago
      Nope, brothels are illegal in DC. There used to be loads of street walkers, but not so many as the city has gentrified, cleaned-up, and crime rates in general have gone down.
      - duncan_bayne 9y ago
        I was referring to the practice of political lobbying and revolving doors, not literal prostitution. For example: https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=78755 https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=787...
- notjesse 9y ago
  The thing with Australia is it's very difficult for the US to learn from Australian social experiments and determine if they will be effective. Australia has extremely tight border control and far more police powers. So while legalized prostitution has been a huge success in Australia, it may open avenues for human trafficking to thrive in the US. While I generally agree with the notion that legalized prostitution reduces human trafficking, this wouldn't be a certainty from looking at the effects on Australia/NZ.
  - iamflimflam1 9y ago
    I suspect that legalising prostitution would actually make it much easier to prevent human trafficking for sex work.
    - Noos 9y ago
      I think that it would increase it, because contrary to what people seem to think here, prostitution is very low on people's ideal career choices. Increasing demand is going to increase the need labor, and I don't think anyone here is advising their sons or daughters to have sex with strangers for money. SO trafficking would increase.
      - iamflimflam1 9y ago
        If something is legal then workers have protection, can form unions and have rights. It's more difficult in a legal environment to have people who are coerced or forced to work. If prostitution is illegal then it will be run by people who do not obey the law and will happily traffic people and have people people working illegally or forcibly. http://humantraffickingsgp.weebly.com/amsterdams-red-light-district.html http://humantraffickingsgp.weebly.com/amsterdams-red-light-d...
      - lighthazard 9y ago
        Current laws seem to penalize the sex worker and the buyer, not the traffickers. Legalizing this would let both parties involved feel safer, no repercussions from calling the police if something goes awry.
- ClassyJacket 9y ago
  Yeah. A bunch of my friends are sex workers. They make literally ten times as much money as me per hour and love their jobs.
  - throwaway29292 9y ago
    How much money do you make per hour?
  - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
    But do they work as many hours as you do? (the answer is probably "they don't need to")
  - ivrrimum 9y ago
    Huh..?
  - quickthrower2 9y ago
    Says more about how little tech workers are paid in Australia, than anything else. Work for Google in US and earn more than a hooker!
    - andreasklinger 9y ago
      > Work for Google in US and earn more than a hooker! What a marketing claim
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      ...and then spend 90% of it on rent ;). Costs of life matter.
      - pault 9y ago
        Australia ain't cheap.
    - joesb 9y ago
      Have to account for stability of the job as well. How many people can work in sex markets in their 40s.
- wsc981 9y ago
  Somehow The Netherlands, once a front-runner on legalisation of drugs and prostitution, seems to become more strict lately. For example the local government of Amsterdam is trying to close the window brothels [0] in the cities' Red Light District and many cities now have a policy where they don't grant licences for new coffeeshops and wait for the current licenses to expire [1]. The cited reasons for wanting to close the coffeeshops (too close to schools, within 250 meters) are stupid since every Dutch student rides a bicycle and for my friends it was no big problem during a free hour to bike for a few kilometers to buy and smoke hash or weed. My friends did this many times (none became a worse person for it, either). --- [0]: http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1763216/amsterdam-prostitutes-protest-planned-shutdown-brothel-windows-red-light http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1763216/amsterdam-pro... [1]: http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/3485-amsterdam-coffeeshops-phased-out http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/3485-amsterdam-coffeeshops-phas...
  - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
    The problem with prostitution in NL is that it's not tightly regulated, it's still a bit of a private organization of sorts. There's problems with things like loverboys (pimps seducing / coercing young girls into prostitution) and human trafficking. Eastern-European women getting lured to NL with the promise of jobs and such. Regulation is failing, so it's being banned instead. Which will only push things further underground.
    - timwaagh 9y ago
      I hope they dont ban it. although i dont like the concept it needs somewhere to go. i dont think a ban is on the cards. utrecht is still building brand new brothels. unfortunately in my neighbourhood. would be better if they used areas outside of city limits for this though. you dont want kids growing up near brothels.
  - Iv 9y ago
    The reasonable reason often cited is that it attracts drug tourists and prostitution tourists which all attract their own problems. They wanted to restrict access to coffeeshop (not sure about brothel) to only Netherlands citizens but this raises constitutional problems. They initially thought they would be at the forefront of a wave of legalization across Europe, but as it failed to materialize, their uniqueness brought their own issues. I do have hopes for France though. Macron has the same political sense as Hollande, who just made a show of gay marriage legalization to prevent talking about other issues. I think they are keeping weed legalization as the next smokescreen. On prostitution, the French liberals are a bit more divided. A lot of people actually associate human trafficking and prostitution and feel that criminalizing clients could be a way to make it go away. I tend to think that legalization would actually make the fight against sex-slavery much easier but I understand why people are more cautious about this issue. Also the far-left shared some fake stories (but not totally implausible scenario) under which legalization of prostitution could mean that unemployed women could be forced by unemployment office to accept prostitution jobs or lose their unemployment benefits. They used the outcry to justify that prostitution is not a job like every other one. It is a complicated issue, muddied by emotional bias and over-simplified solutions.
- disordinary 9y ago
  Yep, the same in NZ. The other thing is that legalisation means that both the prostitute and the customer are protected by law. There was a case recently where a customer took a prostitute to the small claims court for not providing the services agreed to and of course prostitutes can call the police without fear of repercussions if a client is getting too rowdy. They pay tax and get the government work related accident insurance and retirement saving schemes, they get health checks and are regulated to prevent unsafe behavior, they also are presumably subject to inspections to ensure that no drugs, human trafficking, or underage prostitution occurs.
  - keerthiko 9y ago
    That sounds nice, but as far as I can tell, in America even most above-board jobs aren't required by government to provide those kinds of protections. Prostitution needs it more than simple things like plumber or electrician, especially things like health checks and accident insurance, but legalizing without those around is kind of a half-baked scheme which could be more harmful than the present state of being illegal.
    - disordinary 9y ago
      Yeah, consumer protection and general employment law in the US is a whole other conversation.
      - nojvek 9y ago
        Australia and NZ both have prostitution legalized with a bunch of European countries. When I came to US I was amazed that guns and weed were legalized but not prostitution. Even in Vegas. I'm sure there is plenty of underground prostitution in US where the workers have little rights and are probably abused. I have no hopes that this will ever happen in trump administration but hopefully in 2020+ this could be a possibility.
        Teknoman117 9y ago
        weed is not legalized in most of the country, and even where it is "legal", it's a complete gray area. It's illegal federally, which completely overrules the states' ability to legalize it. Basically all the legalization you see is that the local state/county police will not come after you for it, but the DEA is still perfectly within their right to come after you if they wanted to - which has happened to some dispensaries.
- thewhitetulip 9y ago
  Usually when conservative governments come to power they try to enforce their way of thinking onto the general populous and they do it in a smart way. Propaganda everywhere, tv adverts etc
  - BearGoesChirp 9y ago
    Just conservative? Isn't a defining feature of any government passing laws that enforce its way of thinking on others?
    - hackinthebochs 9y ago
      Not in any robust sense, no.
    - thewhitetulip 9y ago
      Yes, but when you have conservative governments, they try to enforce such notions. Then have an abysmally narrow minded point of view of the world and they try to make regressive changes to the country. and no, the defining feature of any govt is not to enfore its way of thinking on others, it is to govern others in a proper way. but at least in India, politics has become a business.
- sjy 9y ago
  Prostitution is not 'completely legal' in Australia. Brothels are still illegal in some states and even those states which have decriminalised prostitution have brothels operating illegally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Australia
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
  In Australia prostitution is completely legal ... There are brothels all over the place It can vary from state to state. Under Tasmanian law it has never been illegal to be a sex worker, however Current Tasmanian Legislation – Sex Industry Offences Act 2005 Provides that it is illegal for a person to employ or otherwise control or profit from the work of individual sex workers (brothels are illegal) Allows two sex workers (but not more) to work together in a partnership arrangement, provided neither controls or manages the other; Makes it an offence to offer or procure sexual services in a public place – making street prostitution illegal for both worker and client 1. https://www.justice.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/188738/Regulation_of_the_Sex_Industry_Discussion_Paper.pdf https://www.justice.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1... 2. http://www.scarletalliance.org.au/laws/tas/ http://www.scarletalliance.org.au/laws/tas/
  - timwaagh 9y ago
    some sensible rules right there. pimping is not what you want. good for tasmania.
- shams93 9y ago
  Its a mistake to re-criminalize, just look at Germany when they legalized prostitution they were able to focus efforts on slavery and human trafficking, by separating the issues of human trafficking and slavery from prostitution they saw a 75% increase in prosecution of human traffickers.
jacknews 9y ago
I neither endorse nor reject this paper, but it is an interesting argument: http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71503.pdf http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71503.pdf
- therebedragons 9y ago
  I love the caveats - and yes, it is really good, and no, I neither endorse nor reject this paper either... at the very least, I'll do neither publicly :) Seriously, a quality read.
forkLding 9y ago
I wonder if government-operated brothels could be a better solution, this way there is a constant monitor on sex workers and human trafficking while providing extra income to the government and being able to protect the sex worker/citizens its meant to protect. Not sure what would be the obvious cons. Happy to know if anyone points any out.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  The obvious con for sex workers is that the government knows the names of all the sex workers involved. In case of a reactionary backlash (as happened in Rhode Island after 6 years), the government can easily round up everyone involved for surveillance if they're still in sex work.
- patrickaljord 9y ago
  Public workers tend to get away with anything, like politicians or cops get away with murders, theft or even rape. Putting these unaccountable people in charge of brothels sounds like a nightmare.
  - PhantomGremlin 9y ago
    There's a reason that Patty and Selma work for the Department of Motor Vehicles. They "suck the life out of everything". If they worked in a brothel it would be even less fun than visiting the DMV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_and_Selma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_and_Selma Yes it's a cartoon and a stereotype. But the reason it's funny is that it's so close to peoples' everyday experience with government employees.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  Probably not; that would make the employees work for the government and fall under their payment rules, e.g. fixed hourly pay, instead of what they earn right now + tips + etc.
- stephengillie 9y ago
  Each brothel would probably be open the most inconvenient hours. Like 10am-4pm Tuesdays-Fridays. And paid sex outside a brothel would likely still be illegal.
MachineMan 9y ago
A fitting phenomenon for the "Red Island" :)
i_heart_robots 9y ago
ITT: over-enthusiastic brothel customers who are fully intimate with the industry... And one dude who cited SMH as a source of truth...
geff82 9y ago
As a German where prostitution is just seen as a regular trade, some general points. 1.) While paid sex is surely available at many places, we still do not live in one big brothel. 2.) Why should people have to film their act of having sex and then publish it (porn is legal in the US...) 3.) There is a problem with human trafficking that has to be dealt with. But dealing with this problem in some manner is surely the better way than making prostitution illegal. As long as there are hormons in this world, prostitution will exist. Learn to live with it.
- fredley 9y ago
  The USA moralises issues more than any other Western democracy as far as I can tell. To a large portion of the electorate, it's not a question of what's [better for women, better for the planet, better for x], it's a question of what's right and what's wrong. Prostitution is obviously wrong, therefore nobody good should be doing it, therefore criminalising it only affects bad people, which is fine, they're bad and they deserve punishment (maybe they'll see the error of their ways and become good people). Or that's how it seems from over here anyway. The UK's better, but not much.
  - stared 9y ago
    The eternal battle of deontology vs utilitarianism. For example, just a few months the Polish government made emergency contraception pill prescription-only. This government is strongly against abortion of any kind, yet it passed a bill that will surely increase (illegal) abortion rates. Yet, it does not THINK about consequences of action, just if it supports "right" or "wrong" causes (for them any non-Catholic sex life is "wrong").
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      > This government is strongly against abortion of any kind, yet it passed a bill that will surely increase (illegal) abortion rates. This isn't a very good argument. If you care about "abortion of any kind", then increasing the illegal abortion rate while decreasing the overall abortion rate is a perfectly sensible thing to do.
plainOldText 9y ago
Speaking of various models of legislating sex, I found this TED talk quite informative: https://www.ted.com/talks/juno_mac_the_laws_that_sex_workers_really_want https://www.ted.com/talks/juno_mac_the_laws_that_sex_workers...
the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
As someone from a country where all form of prostitution is legal and regulated it did not really ever come up as something odd when I grew up. Prostitution is becoming less prominent in recent years because families move into places traditionally frequented by prostitutes but the industry is healthy as ever as far as I can see.
Iv 9y ago
Either as a society we accept that some people will trade sexual favors for money or we refuse it. I can see arguments both ways. In the end, that is a stance on how you weight two values: 1. The morality to add financial consideration in the decision to provide consent to a sex act. 2. The amount of freewill that a person has within the job market. What is interesting is that you can have different liberal or conservative position on both of these considerations and still be unsure about the side the scale weights in: As a conservative: 1. Social conservatives tend to consider sex like a serious matter, set apart from the rest, so they will say that consent is not to be sold. 2. Fiscal conservatives tend to consider freewill in the job market is close to absolute: you are always free to refuse a job, so people deciding to go into prostitution really chose it without constraints. Depending on how you weight sex-is-special vs job-market-is-free, you can be against or for prostitution as a conservative. As a liberal: 1. Social liberals will tend to consider that consent is important in every part of life but that sex is (or can be chosen to be) an activity like any other. If someone is really willing to sell sexual favors, under what principle forbidding it? (and it turns to be a fetish too) 2. "Fiscal liberals" (is that an expression? Not sure, non-native here, I mean the opposite of "fiscal conservative) tend to consider wages and employment to be a tool of oppression and control. In that respect, they will be less likely to consider that someone who works for money chooses to do so freely. Depending on how you weight you-are-free-to-sex-as-you-want vs wage-is-a-way-to-control you can be a liberal and be for or against prostitution.
- didibus 9y ago
  Your "fiscal liberal" doesn't make that much sense. I suspect their claim would be towards regulating the business, making sure the workers have rights, can negotiate better conditions and ultimately resign if they wanted. Probably education would be pushed to be cheaper or free, programs to transition people out of it put in place, etc.
  - Iv 9y ago
    Maybe that's a French bias, but here we tend to consider that poor people usually have less job opportunities to choose between and that some prostitutes do this because they are out of option to make additional money. "Have sex or starve" can be seen as a breach of consent. Most prostitutes do not work out of a vocation or because they enjoy having sex with random people (though I guess on can find a few who do) but they do that for money. Some will think "that's so much easier and enjoyable than flipping burgers at the fastfood" and that's fine by me, but some others will think "that's the only way I can make enough money to feed my kids and pay our debts" and that's less ok.
muse900 9y ago
prostitution is probably the oldest profession.
k__ 9y ago
It's legal in Germany too. My girlfriend grew up in a red light district. She said it was mostly okay, the nights were a bit rough, because the clients would often argue loudly with the girls right before her window. But the "madame" of a brothel around the corner would always look after the children going to school in the morning so they wouldn't be bothered.
tryingagainbro 9y ago
I never understood this: it's your body so you have the right to an abortion, but... Someone does it for free, someone for a promise to marry, someone for marriage, someone hoping it leads to something, rent paid etc etc. Who are to decide what "currency" is legal and what isn't for "her body"?
- dspillett 9y ago
  > I never understood this: it's your body so you have the right to an abortion, but... There may be less to understand than you think: there is a huge overlap between groups of people who are very anti-abortion and groups who are very anti-prostitution. The religious right to give the most obvious example (as they are loudly vocal, highly active, and in many places countries pretty controlling via lobbying), but that is definitely not the only example. There are reasons to support one but not the other though they are contested. Many see prostitution as something that will lead to people trafficking and other crime. The opposing views, that legalising it will reduce such crime by bringing the activity more into the open so availability is not an issue for those who wish to take part (reducing the trafficking to bring in resource) and so those who chose to take part are better protected, don't generally win out in relevant debates. Studies of real world examples show wildly differing results (in part because most of them are run and/or funded by those with some bias towards one result or another) and experimental studies have problems getting through ethics committees for obvious reasons - so it is going to be a complex issue to resolve (and is unlikely to ever be resolved to the satisfaction of all). > someone for a promise to marry, someone for marriage, someone hoping it leads to something, rent paid etc etc. Who are to decide what "currency" Again, in many cases you'll find the judgement applied to selling sex is similarly applied to this form of currency, or if not other moral judgement is often found.
  - tryingagainbro 9y ago
    The "NO" side, IMO, is mostly for religious /morality reasons or the ultra-feminists that think women will be abused by men. The first part I understand, it's at least consistent. But I don't see how a bunch of women in DC or ivory towers can claim that a 16 yo girl can decide /has the right to abort but 40 yo woman can't decide to have sex for $150 a shot.
randyrand 9y ago
off topic: This is why states rights is so important. Each state acts as an incubator for ideas. Its 50 experiments running all at once.
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  When nearly all of the states have pretty extreme anti-sex worker views, the experiments don't happen. It's, honestly, embarrassing how long it's taking for the US to get sane policy regarding sex work. The US is perhaps too homogeneous to provide good experimental data. But, it's great when experiments do happen. And, I guess we're reaching a tipping point on drug policy, at least with regard to the most popular (still mostly) illegal drug.
  - yellowapple 9y ago
    Keyword there is "nearly", though. Greetings from Nevada, land of the free and home of the Mustang Ranch.
    - SwellJoe 9y ago
      Isn't it legal in only a handful of counties in Nevada, though? So, wouldn't that mean it's not really an entire state full of freedom, just a few enlightened counties. Also, as I understand it, the only legal prostitution is within licensed brothels. So, no independent contractors allowed anywhere in the state. That seems more like rent-seeking by brothel owners rather than rights for sex workers. I'm not saying it's not a positive thing that prostitution is less criminalized in some parts of Nevada than in the rest of the US. But, it's still pretty repressive and it still victimizes sex workers in the general case by putting their livelihood at the mercy of brothel owners.
      - yellowapple 9y ago
        "Isn't it legal in only a handful of counties in Nevada, though?" Indeed; it's notably illegal in both of Reno's two largest cities (Las Vegas because Clark County has too high of a population, so prostitution is automatically illegal per state law; Reno/Sparks because Washoe County specifically outlawed prostitution), which really hinders the effectiveness of such an experiment. About 90% of Nevadan prostitution happens illegally, from what I understand. Still, that's better than 100% illegal statewide, which is the case in pretty much every state bordering Nevada IIRC. "no independent contractors allowed anywhere in the state" I'm pretty sure most (all?) prostitutes in Nevadan brothels are independent contractors. They still report to brothel owners, though. "it's still pretty repressive" Indeed it is.
ilaksh 9y ago
Do you guys think that the majority of sex workers really enjoy their work or prefer it? Do you think that this is the career they prefer? Do you think it may have some affect on their psychological well-being? I believe prostitution is an indication of a lack economic and social well-being both in the case of buyers and sellers. Within about one or two decades maximum there will be revolutionary advances in robotics including things like much better weight-to power ratio artificial muscles and increased bio-mimicry. This will lead to truly life-like sex robots. Along the same lines, the majority of "ordinary" jobs that humans can currently do without high-bandwidth connections to computers or control over them will be replaced with sophisticated AIs and robots or automation. The perspective on sex work and general objectification of women will shift more towards one side then.
- techer 9y ago
  Working in a poisoned corporate environment has some effect on psychological well being.
  - beagle3 9y ago
    It is easy to reason about these things on an armchair, much like it is to reason about war. And much like soldiers who have actually been in the battlefield, many prositutes suffer from PTSD. I suspect the percentage of corporate drones suffering from debilitating PTSD is much lower than among soldiers and prostitutes.
    - Eridrus 9y ago
      The article mentions a decrease in both STD rates and sexual violence with legal prostitution. So it's not crazy to think that there may be a reduction in PTSD as well. And making their trade legal makes it easier to provide (mental health) services.
      - beagle3 9y ago
        For sure. I was just trying to explain why the "corporate effect on mental well being" is not comparable to the effect that sex work has on sex workers (which is closer to PTSD in the military). The only way I can understand the downvotes to my comment is the missing /s on the first line; I somehow completely failed to communicate that, it seems.
jaemison 9y ago
I love how in the past hour, a NYT op-ed discussing motherhood and women's agency is flagged as irrelevant but an article on decriminalizing prostitution is at the top of hacker news with a lengthy discussion on the nuances of policy and practice /s
- cokernel 9y ago
  Is that https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/opinion/sunday/motherhood-family-sexism-sacrifice.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/opinion/sunday/motherhood... by any chance?
  - jaemison 9y ago
    That's the one! Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14944904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14944904
    - UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
      I have little sympathy. The author decided to pick an "edgy" title to get clicks and it clearly backfired. If you posted "Motherhood Isn’t Sacrifice, It’s Selfishness" as a comment here it would get flagged to death too. Putting it as a title of an OP-Ed doesn't change that even if the author will slowly break down why that ISN'T true (or more complex/nuanced). If the author wants to generate legitimate discussion, they should talk to their editor about dropping the faux-controversial titles. Particularly as it sets the tone for the discussion is such a negative way.
      - maxerickson 9y ago
        The headlines in newspapers aren't written by the people that write the columns and articles.
        soundwave106 9y ago
        From what I can tell, the title unfortunately reflects the article well. Sure, the article does skirt around some interesting thoughts on ingrained societal bias / roles (which has been discussed here quite a bit). But the article struck me as preachy / opinionated, in that the author had a fairly exact idea of what she thought the motherhood of everyone else was.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
grondilu 9y ago
Confession time. I suck with women. I don't know how to behave with them, I don't know how to talk to them, and of course I have no clue how to get them to enjoy my company, let alone to have sex with me. As a consequence, I only ever had sex with prostitutes. I don't know how my life would have been, had I not the possibility to pay for sex. I suppose I would have been miserable, and perhaps at some point a woman would have taken pity of me, and I would have clung to her, for I would see her as my only hope for emotional and sexual company. I have quite a clear picture of what I would have looked like then, and that picture inspires me nothing but self-contempt. I don't know why I'm so bad with women, but I know I was exposed to pornography from a very young age (about 10 I believe, maybe less), and I masturbated while looking at porn very often ever since. I suspect it is related. This disgusting habit only started decreasing after I decided to pay for sex in my mid-twenties, and I only made a serious effort to stop when I discovered /r/nofap few years ago. Even nowadays, my longest streak is only about 120 days (my current one is 67). I'm not comfortable with the idea of young men growing in a world where prostitution is a crime, while pornography is free and only a few clicks away on internet. This just seems wrong to me. You can't both taunt people with something and at the same time punish them when they try to get it by the only way they know. There are, no doubt, issues with prostitution. But I personally believe the benefits outweigh the costs.
lngnmn 9y ago
Look no farther than some South Asian societies. Countries with no madness around prostitution are better off socially. It is not an accident that Thailand is a Buddhist country - people are tolerant to whatever is not harming others living beings. Too much pressure on sexual issues is a sign of primitive authoritarian societies (who are cooksure that they know better what is right and what is wrong than biology and evolution).
- vixen99 9y ago
  Better off socially? Difficult to determine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_prostitution_in_Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_prostitution_in_Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Thailand
  - lngnmn 9y ago
    It should be taught in high school that extremes are not representative. The popular areas of sex tourism in Thailand are safer than most tourist hotspots without any security forces, cameras, etc. Everything is self-regulated, like a healthy market or society should be.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  It is not an accident that Thailand is a Buddhist country - people are tolerant to whatever is not harming others living beings Oh really? http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/05/07/thailand.drugs/ http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/05/07/thaila... So tolerant!
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    Haha you wouldn't have to go back 14 years for most nations...
    - lr4444lr 9y ago
      Perhaps not even for Thailand; I just happen to know of this particular episode. But regardless, Buddhism's influence there certainly didn't start 14 years ago!
bitwize 9y ago
Legalizing prostitution increases human trafficking: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X12001453 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X12... The correct approach is to decriminalize providing, and crack down hard on buyers.
- timwaagh 9y ago
  this always strikes me as a mistaken case of white-knightism. it does not help these girls who would have to lower the price to adapt to adjust to lowered demand. you need customers to run a business.
  - bitwize 9y ago
    The idea is to get demand to dry up, so prostitutes will be incentivized to find other lines of work. Ending prostitution, and the exploitation it brings, is the goal. Criminalizing johns but not prostitutes will make prostitutes fear the authorities less and come forward if they have been victimized.
wcummings 9y ago
Rhode Islander checking in. I'll share a story I heard from someone downcity many years ago, before this law was reversed in '09. Buddy's (7-time wiseguy mayor of Providence, and 2-time convicted felon) usual driver was unavailable, and a detective was assigned to escort him. The mayor gives his new driver an address. The detective recognizes it, bit can't quite place it, and gets on his way. When he gets there, it hits him. "Buddy, this is the address of a known brothel". Buddy quips back "you must be a detective" and disappears into the building.
- qq66 9y ago
  Did you listen to the podcast "Crimetown?"
  - wcummings 9y ago
    No, but everyone keeps telling me about it, it's on my TODO list.
deleted 9y ago
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spodek 9y ago
Does anyone else see the article presenting for a mutually agreed on act as women innocent / men predatory? For example > The Swedish or Nordic model takes aim at the demand, making it illegal to buy sexual services but not to sell it. but > In a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District of Rhode Island, COYOTE's lawyer argued that the state's law on prostitution was too broad and discriminated against women, given that female sex workers were arrested far more than male customers. Saying "takes aim at the demand" for a mutually consenting interaction just seems a way of targeting men without explicitly saying it. Different countries and situations, but the reporter doesn't note the different treatment by the state when one sex is criminalized versus the other. Or > "You see the silencing of victims," Hughes said. "It is just very harmful to women. It really is a libertarian approach, but the ones who get freedom are the pimps, the sex buyers, the businessmen who then can rent properties to the massage parlors, and to the sex buyers. There's very little freedom for the women." or > As for Robinson, the online escort who moved to Rhode Island? She was angry. > "It pissed me off. I didn't know nothing about activism, I didn't know what a sex worker rights organization was," she said. > Robinson changed that. She became active with COYOTE, the sex worker union and advocacy group. > "Criminalization is a punishment for women who won't conform," Robinson said. "And we're just supposed to go live in the streets in poverty and not complain about it, and be good women." Nothing wrong with a woman's perspective, but men's behavior was criminalized too. I would think it would add to the article to get some of their perspective. Not including men's perspective, except as the businessmen who make money off the women and the rapists, makes the article sound like the reason for prostitution's negative reputation is men. Would a quote like the following fly? > "Criminalization is a punishment for men who won't conform. We're just supposed to go live without sex and not complain about it, and be good men."
nvahalik 9y ago
Honest question... for those of you on board with this: how do you reconcile the complaints about the objectification of women as sex objects (and how that harms women) with this?
- root_axis 9y ago
  The objectification of women will be present either way, the only difference is that in one scenario, we criminalize a woman's sexual agency and in the other we don't. We know that decriminalization creates better outcomes in terms of safety and public health, so at the end of the day I feel like the hand wringing over objectification is not helpful.
cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
Plenty of demand for MILFs and cougars out there. ..I just realized that I'm turning 35 this year and that ladies in their fourties are still really attractive to me.
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't do this here. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14946448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14946448 and marked it off-topic.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
    Hi dang. I don't understand why this post is considered off-topic if the post it replied to is considered on-topic. The post that this responds to asked if prostitution would be a viable career post forty, and my response is directly on-point. I certainly respect your right to moderate, but I'm trying to understand why this was unacceptable and their post was. Thanks.
  - Dangisapussy 9y ago
    Faggot
kolbe 9y ago
I've always thought about how brutally sexist it is to take this industry where women have a massive competitive advantage, and criminalize it.
- the_stc 9y ago
  Yes it is long due for a major overhaul. Fortunately with new tech it is finally possible to do something about it. Imagine a large scale union of sex workers with strong protection. They will be able to demand safer working conditions and join together to leverage power over abusive clients. They can coordinate and accurately judge demand. The company can then do marketing and logistics on their behalf. It would also enable women that are not as entrepreneurial but do not want to give up all their personal control to a local representative.
stretchwithme 9y ago
I think the best way to handle prostitution and recreational drugs is to let each neighborhood decide what is allowed. If the majority of residents and majority of property owners are okay with a particular activity, it should be legal there. There are always going to be problems allowing these activities and problems with banning them. If you let each neighborhood decide, at least you're moving the problem to areas that are ready and willing to deal with the problems. They can tax it, regulate it, provide security, drug treatment etc. That means the neighborhood has to form some kind of legal entity, of course. And you're giving the customers reasons to go where they are welcome. By doing it on a neighborhood level, it becomes much easier to comply. It's easier to drive 15 blocks than to go to the next county. And I think enforcement where it is banned can just be done with fines, giving people a good reason to take their business to where it is welcome. There's no reason to put people in prison.
- msla 9y ago
  That's an amazingly dumb idea.
jessaustin 9y ago
TFA: Still, perhaps even more surprising than the decrease in gonorrhea was another public health development. Sexual violence, or rapes, dipped dramatically. And this wasn't just amongst sex workers. It was across the board, according to FBI crime reports and jurisdiction level data. "Reported rape offenses decreased by about 30 percent," Shah said. That's another big decrease. Shah says, if anything, you'd expect rape to go up as when prostitution is decriminalized, sex workers are more likely to report rapes. She compared this to neighboring states, too. The drop was only in Rhode Island. So she examined other crime data in Rhode Island, like burglaries and murders, to see if there had just been a drop in crime generally. It didn't match.
cestith 9y ago
Banning anything that has a high demand mainly gives criminals control of the market. It has little impact on demand but is an abrogation of any responsibility to regulate. The same was true of the US 18th Amendment, of the "War on Drugs" in the US now, of the banning of sex work, or most anything else. When the government decides to just ban something, others step in to control the market without any rule of law or responsibility to the public.
Corrado 9y ago
I just can't understand how people think that you can regulate sex between consenting adults. Did we not learn anything from prohibition? Trying to make something that almost everyone wants illegal is just not possible. Hell, we can't even enforce a speed limit on the highways.
RealityNow 9y ago
Summary of results from prostitution decriminalization experiment: * Female gonorrhea rates decreased 40% * Reported rape offenses decreased 30% * No evidence that decriminalization increases human trafficking > She has a theory, though, in that while she knows for some men rape is about power, "I think the argument that we're making is that that might not be true for all men, and for some, these activities could be substitutes." > In other words, for some men, rape may be just about sex. And if there's a legal and accessible market for it, the number of rapes in a community may go down. This has not been a popular theory or study. And for many, it challenges the notion that rape is about violence and power, and not sex. "So I consider myself a feminist, but I think this finding angers a lot of feminists," Shah said. "It is a very controversial idea." What the hell is this "rape has nothing to do with sex" nonsense and why does challenging this absurd assertion anger feminists? How removed from reality do you have to be to believe that forcing sexual intercourse on someone has nothing to do with sexual attraction? But back to the topic of criminalization, it's downright disingenuous to conflate prostitution with human trafficking. And I don't believe the government should be in the business of imposing its moral whims on the decisions of consenting adults.
- hashberry 9y ago
  > What the hell is this "rape has nothing to do with sex" nonsense This is because feminists (and everyone else) started rejecting Freud's theories of sex in the '60s. Freudian theory states sex and aggression are interconnected (e.g. the much misunderstood Oedipus complex). Even now people think violence is due to our culture, not biological drives or instincts. This is why feminists say we have a "Rape Culture," and that all we have to do is fix culture, then all rape and violence will disappear. Freud was much more pessimistic. "Civilization and Its Discontents" is a good summary of why.
vitro 9y ago
I highly recommend the document Whores' Glory by Michael Glawogger which gives you a different look on what prostitution can also be like.

312 points by MaysonL 9y ago

It's weird seeing this. In Australia prostitution is completely legal. There was actually a publicly listed brothel for a while. Strange to think other societies criminalise it. I think being legal is best for the health and wellbeing of the sex workers and minimises the criminal involvement. There are brothels all over the place but mostly they are pretty low key, often hidden in backstreets or warehouse areas with only a red light and a sign to indicate they exist. I wish we had such an enlightened position on drugs, which remain almost completely criminalized, whilst other parts of the world move towards legalization of various aspects of drug law.

deleted 9y ago
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pitaj 9y ago
There are several public brothels in Nevada. Prostitution is on a state-by-state basis.
- duncan_bayne 9y ago
  I hear it's most common in Washington D.C.
  - pc86 9y ago
    I think the key word there was "public."
    - Kinnard 9y ago
      I think the OP was being sarcastic.
      - pc86 9y ago
        OP means Original Poster, or the person who started the thread/posted the article. Do you mean GP (duncan_bayne)?
        Kinnard 9y ago
        Yes. Thanks for the vocab word.
  - alistairSH 9y ago
    Nope, brothels are illegal in DC. There used to be loads of street walkers, but not so many as the city has gentrified, cleaned-up, and crime rates in general have gone down.
    - duncan_bayne 9y ago
      I was referring to the practice of political lobbying and revolving doors, not literal prostitution. For example: https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=78755 https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=787...
notjesse 9y ago
The thing with Australia is it's very difficult for the US to learn from Australian social experiments and determine if they will be effective. Australia has extremely tight border control and far more police powers. So while legalized prostitution has been a huge success in Australia, it may open avenues for human trafficking to thrive in the US. While I generally agree with the notion that legalized prostitution reduces human trafficking, this wouldn't be a certainty from looking at the effects on Australia/NZ.
- iamflimflam1 9y ago
  I suspect that legalising prostitution would actually make it much easier to prevent human trafficking for sex work.
  - Noos 9y ago
    I think that it would increase it, because contrary to what people seem to think here, prostitution is very low on people's ideal career choices. Increasing demand is going to increase the need labor, and I don't think anyone here is advising their sons or daughters to have sex with strangers for money. SO trafficking would increase.
    - iamflimflam1 9y ago
      If something is legal then workers have protection, can form unions and have rights. It's more difficult in a legal environment to have people who are coerced or forced to work. If prostitution is illegal then it will be run by people who do not obey the law and will happily traffic people and have people people working illegally or forcibly. http://humantraffickingsgp.weebly.com/amsterdams-red-light-district.html http://humantraffickingsgp.weebly.com/amsterdams-red-light-d...
    - lighthazard 9y ago
      Current laws seem to penalize the sex worker and the buyer, not the traffickers. Legalizing this would let both parties involved feel safer, no repercussions from calling the police if something goes awry.
ClassyJacket 9y ago
Yeah. A bunch of my friends are sex workers. They make literally ten times as much money as me per hour and love their jobs.
- throwaway29292 9y ago
  How much money do you make per hour?
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  But do they work as many hours as you do? (the answer is probably "they don't need to")
- ivrrimum 9y ago
  Huh..?
- quickthrower2 9y ago
  Says more about how little tech workers are paid in Australia, than anything else. Work for Google in US and earn more than a hooker!
  - andreasklinger 9y ago
    > Work for Google in US and earn more than a hooker! What a marketing claim
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    ...and then spend 90% of it on rent ;). Costs of life matter.
    - pault 9y ago
      Australia ain't cheap.
  - joesb 9y ago
    Have to account for stability of the job as well. How many people can work in sex markets in their 40s.
wsc981 9y ago
Somehow The Netherlands, once a front-runner on legalisation of drugs and prostitution, seems to become more strict lately. For example the local government of Amsterdam is trying to close the window brothels [0] in the cities' Red Light District and many cities now have a policy where they don't grant licences for new coffeeshops and wait for the current licenses to expire [1]. The cited reasons for wanting to close the coffeeshops (too close to schools, within 250 meters) are stupid since every Dutch student rides a bicycle and for my friends it was no big problem during a free hour to bike for a few kilometers to buy and smoke hash or weed. My friends did this many times (none became a worse person for it, either). --- [0]: http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1763216/amsterdam-prostitutes-protest-planned-shutdown-brothel-windows-red-light http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1763216/amsterdam-pro... [1]: http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/3485-amsterdam-coffeeshops-phased-out http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/3485-amsterdam-coffeeshops-phas...
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  The problem with prostitution in NL is that it's not tightly regulated, it's still a bit of a private organization of sorts. There's problems with things like loverboys (pimps seducing / coercing young girls into prostitution) and human trafficking. Eastern-European women getting lured to NL with the promise of jobs and such. Regulation is failing, so it's being banned instead. Which will only push things further underground.
  - timwaagh 9y ago
    I hope they dont ban it. although i dont like the concept it needs somewhere to go. i dont think a ban is on the cards. utrecht is still building brand new brothels. unfortunately in my neighbourhood. would be better if they used areas outside of city limits for this though. you dont want kids growing up near brothels.
- Iv 9y ago
  The reasonable reason often cited is that it attracts drug tourists and prostitution tourists which all attract their own problems. They wanted to restrict access to coffeeshop (not sure about brothel) to only Netherlands citizens but this raises constitutional problems. They initially thought they would be at the forefront of a wave of legalization across Europe, but as it failed to materialize, their uniqueness brought their own issues. I do have hopes for France though. Macron has the same political sense as Hollande, who just made a show of gay marriage legalization to prevent talking about other issues. I think they are keeping weed legalization as the next smokescreen. On prostitution, the French liberals are a bit more divided. A lot of people actually associate human trafficking and prostitution and feel that criminalizing clients could be a way to make it go away. I tend to think that legalization would actually make the fight against sex-slavery much easier but I understand why people are more cautious about this issue. Also the far-left shared some fake stories (but not totally implausible scenario) under which legalization of prostitution could mean that unemployed women could be forced by unemployment office to accept prostitution jobs or lose their unemployment benefits. They used the outcry to justify that prostitution is not a job like every other one. It is a complicated issue, muddied by emotional bias and over-simplified solutions.
disordinary 9y ago
Yep, the same in NZ. The other thing is that legalisation means that both the prostitute and the customer are protected by law. There was a case recently where a customer took a prostitute to the small claims court for not providing the services agreed to and of course prostitutes can call the police without fear of repercussions if a client is getting too rowdy. They pay tax and get the government work related accident insurance and retirement saving schemes, they get health checks and are regulated to prevent unsafe behavior, they also are presumably subject to inspections to ensure that no drugs, human trafficking, or underage prostitution occurs.
- keerthiko 9y ago
  That sounds nice, but as far as I can tell, in America even most above-board jobs aren't required by government to provide those kinds of protections. Prostitution needs it more than simple things like plumber or electrician, especially things like health checks and accident insurance, but legalizing without those around is kind of a half-baked scheme which could be more harmful than the present state of being illegal.
  - disordinary 9y ago
    Yeah, consumer protection and general employment law in the US is a whole other conversation.
    - nojvek 9y ago
      Australia and NZ both have prostitution legalized with a bunch of European countries. When I came to US I was amazed that guns and weed were legalized but not prostitution. Even in Vegas. I'm sure there is plenty of underground prostitution in US where the workers have little rights and are probably abused. I have no hopes that this will ever happen in trump administration but hopefully in 2020+ this could be a possibility.
      - Teknoman117 9y ago
        weed is not legalized in most of the country, and even where it is "legal", it's a complete gray area. It's illegal federally, which completely overrules the states' ability to legalize it. Basically all the legalization you see is that the local state/county police will not come after you for it, but the DEA is still perfectly within their right to come after you if they wanted to - which has happened to some dispensaries.
thewhitetulip 9y ago
Usually when conservative governments come to power they try to enforce their way of thinking onto the general populous and they do it in a smart way. Propaganda everywhere, tv adverts etc
- BearGoesChirp 9y ago
  Just conservative? Isn't a defining feature of any government passing laws that enforce its way of thinking on others?
  - hackinthebochs 9y ago
    Not in any robust sense, no.
  - thewhitetulip 9y ago
    Yes, but when you have conservative governments, they try to enforce such notions. Then have an abysmally narrow minded point of view of the world and they try to make regressive changes to the country. and no, the defining feature of any govt is not to enfore its way of thinking on others, it is to govern others in a proper way. but at least in India, politics has become a business.
sjy 9y ago
Prostitution is not 'completely legal' in Australia. Brothels are still illegal in some states and even those states which have decriminalised prostitution have brothels operating illegally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Australia
TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
In Australia prostitution is completely legal ... There are brothels all over the place It can vary from state to state. Under Tasmanian law it has never been illegal to be a sex worker, however Current Tasmanian Legislation – Sex Industry Offences Act 2005 Provides that it is illegal for a person to employ or otherwise control or profit from the work of individual sex workers (brothels are illegal) Allows two sex workers (but not more) to work together in a partnership arrangement, provided neither controls or manages the other; Makes it an offence to offer or procure sexual services in a public place – making street prostitution illegal for both worker and client 1. https://www.justice.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/188738/Regulation_of_the_Sex_Industry_Discussion_Paper.pdf https://www.justice.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1... 2. http://www.scarletalliance.org.au/laws/tas/ http://www.scarletalliance.org.au/laws/tas/
- timwaagh 9y ago
  some sensible rules right there. pimping is not what you want. good for tasmania.
shams93 9y ago
Its a mistake to re-criminalize, just look at Germany when they legalized prostitution they were able to focus efforts on slavery and human trafficking, by separating the issues of human trafficking and slavery from prostitution they saw a 75% increase in prosecution of human traffickers.

jacknews 9y ago

I neither endorse nor reject this paper, but it is an interesting argument: http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71503.pdf http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71503.pdf

therebedragons 9y ago
I love the caveats - and yes, it is really good, and no, I neither endorse nor reject this paper either... at the very least, I'll do neither publicly :) Seriously, a quality read.

forkLding 9y ago

I wonder if government-operated brothels could be a better solution, this way there is a constant monitor on sex workers and human trafficking while providing extra income to the government and being able to protect the sex worker/citizens its meant to protect. Not sure what would be the obvious cons. Happy to know if anyone points any out.

mschuster91 9y ago
The obvious con for sex workers is that the government knows the names of all the sex workers involved. In case of a reactionary backlash (as happened in Rhode Island after 6 years), the government can easily round up everyone involved for surveillance if they're still in sex work.
patrickaljord 9y ago
Public workers tend to get away with anything, like politicians or cops get away with murders, theft or even rape. Putting these unaccountable people in charge of brothels sounds like a nightmare.
- PhantomGremlin 9y ago
  There's a reason that Patty and Selma work for the Department of Motor Vehicles. They "suck the life out of everything". If they worked in a brothel it would be even less fun than visiting the DMV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_and_Selma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_and_Selma Yes it's a cartoon and a stereotype. But the reason it's funny is that it's so close to peoples' everyday experience with government employees.
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
Probably not; that would make the employees work for the government and fall under their payment rules, e.g. fixed hourly pay, instead of what they earn right now + tips + etc.
stephengillie 9y ago
Each brothel would probably be open the most inconvenient hours. Like 10am-4pm Tuesdays-Fridays. And paid sex outside a brothel would likely still be illegal.

MachineMan 9y ago

A fitting phenomenon for the "Red Island" :)

i_heart_robots 9y ago

ITT: over-enthusiastic brothel customers who are fully intimate with the industry... And one dude who cited SMH as a source of truth...

geff82 9y ago

As a German where prostitution is just seen as a regular trade, some general points. 1.) While paid sex is surely available at many places, we still do not live in one big brothel. 2.) Why should people have to film their act of having sex and then publish it (porn is legal in the US...) 3.) There is a problem with human trafficking that has to be dealt with. But dealing with this problem in some manner is surely the better way than making prostitution illegal. As long as there are hormons in this world, prostitution will exist. Learn to live with it.

fredley 9y ago
The USA moralises issues more than any other Western democracy as far as I can tell. To a large portion of the electorate, it's not a question of what's [better for women, better for the planet, better for x], it's a question of what's right and what's wrong. Prostitution is obviously wrong, therefore nobody good should be doing it, therefore criminalising it only affects bad people, which is fine, they're bad and they deserve punishment (maybe they'll see the error of their ways and become good people). Or that's how it seems from over here anyway. The UK's better, but not much.
- stared 9y ago
  The eternal battle of deontology vs utilitarianism. For example, just a few months the Polish government made emergency contraception pill prescription-only. This government is strongly against abortion of any kind, yet it passed a bill that will surely increase (illegal) abortion rates. Yet, it does not THINK about consequences of action, just if it supports "right" or "wrong" causes (for them any non-Catholic sex life is "wrong").
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    > This government is strongly against abortion of any kind, yet it passed a bill that will surely increase (illegal) abortion rates. This isn't a very good argument. If you care about "abortion of any kind", then increasing the illegal abortion rate while decreasing the overall abortion rate is a perfectly sensible thing to do.

plainOldText 9y ago

Speaking of various models of legislating sex, I found this TED talk quite informative: https://www.ted.com/talks/juno_mac_the_laws_that_sex_workers_really_want https://www.ted.com/talks/juno_mac_the_laws_that_sex_workers...

the_mitsuhiko 9y ago

As someone from a country where all form of prostitution is legal and regulated it did not really ever come up as something odd when I grew up. Prostitution is becoming less prominent in recent years because families move into places traditionally frequented by prostitutes but the industry is healthy as ever as far as I can see.

Iv 9y ago

Either as a society we accept that some people will trade sexual favors for money or we refuse it. I can see arguments both ways. In the end, that is a stance on how you weight two values: 1. The morality to add financial consideration in the decision to provide consent to a sex act. 2. The amount of freewill that a person has within the job market. What is interesting is that you can have different liberal or conservative position on both of these considerations and still be unsure about the side the scale weights in: As a conservative: 1. Social conservatives tend to consider sex like a serious matter, set apart from the rest, so they will say that consent is not to be sold. 2. Fiscal conservatives tend to consider freewill in the job market is close to absolute: you are always free to refuse a job, so people deciding to go into prostitution really chose it without constraints. Depending on how you weight sex-is-special vs job-market-is-free, you can be against or for prostitution as a conservative. As a liberal: 1. Social liberals will tend to consider that consent is important in every part of life but that sex is (or can be chosen to be) an activity like any other. If someone is really willing to sell sexual favors, under what principle forbidding it? (and it turns to be a fetish too) 2. "Fiscal liberals" (is that an expression? Not sure, non-native here, I mean the opposite of "fiscal conservative) tend to consider wages and employment to be a tool of oppression and control. In that respect, they will be less likely to consider that someone who works for money chooses to do so freely. Depending on how you weight you-are-free-to-sex-as-you-want vs wage-is-a-way-to-control you can be a liberal and be for or against prostitution.

didibus 9y ago
Your "fiscal liberal" doesn't make that much sense. I suspect their claim would be towards regulating the business, making sure the workers have rights, can negotiate better conditions and ultimately resign if they wanted. Probably education would be pushed to be cheaper or free, programs to transition people out of it put in place, etc.
- Iv 9y ago
  Maybe that's a French bias, but here we tend to consider that poor people usually have less job opportunities to choose between and that some prostitutes do this because they are out of option to make additional money. "Have sex or starve" can be seen as a breach of consent. Most prostitutes do not work out of a vocation or because they enjoy having sex with random people (though I guess on can find a few who do) but they do that for money. Some will think "that's so much easier and enjoyable than flipping burgers at the fastfood" and that's fine by me, but some others will think "that's the only way I can make enough money to feed my kids and pay our debts" and that's less ok.

muse900 9y ago

prostitution is probably the oldest profession.

k__ 9y ago

It's legal in Germany too. My girlfriend grew up in a red light district. She said it was mostly okay, the nights were a bit rough, because the clients would often argue loudly with the girls right before her window. But the "madame" of a brothel around the corner would always look after the children going to school in the morning so they wouldn't be bothered.

tryingagainbro 9y ago

I never understood this: it's your body so you have the right to an abortion, but... Someone does it for free, someone for a promise to marry, someone for marriage, someone hoping it leads to something, rent paid etc etc. Who are to decide what "currency" is legal and what isn't for "her body"?

dspillett 9y ago
> I never understood this: it's your body so you have the right to an abortion, but... There may be less to understand than you think: there is a huge overlap between groups of people who are very anti-abortion and groups who are very anti-prostitution. The religious right to give the most obvious example (as they are loudly vocal, highly active, and in many places countries pretty controlling via lobbying), but that is definitely not the only example. There are reasons to support one but not the other though they are contested. Many see prostitution as something that will lead to people trafficking and other crime. The opposing views, that legalising it will reduce such crime by bringing the activity more into the open so availability is not an issue for those who wish to take part (reducing the trafficking to bring in resource) and so those who chose to take part are better protected, don't generally win out in relevant debates. Studies of real world examples show wildly differing results (in part because most of them are run and/or funded by those with some bias towards one result or another) and experimental studies have problems getting through ethics committees for obvious reasons - so it is going to be a complex issue to resolve (and is unlikely to ever be resolved to the satisfaction of all). > someone for a promise to marry, someone for marriage, someone hoping it leads to something, rent paid etc etc. Who are to decide what "currency" Again, in many cases you'll find the judgement applied to selling sex is similarly applied to this form of currency, or if not other moral judgement is often found.
- tryingagainbro 9y ago
  The "NO" side, IMO, is mostly for religious /morality reasons or the ultra-feminists that think women will be abused by men. The first part I understand, it's at least consistent. But I don't see how a bunch of women in DC or ivory towers can claim that a 16 yo girl can decide /has the right to abort but 40 yo woman can't decide to have sex for $150 a shot.

randyrand 9y ago

off topic: This is why states rights is so important. Each state acts as an incubator for ideas. Its 50 experiments running all at once.

SwellJoe 9y ago
When nearly all of the states have pretty extreme anti-sex worker views, the experiments don't happen. It's, honestly, embarrassing how long it's taking for the US to get sane policy regarding sex work. The US is perhaps too homogeneous to provide good experimental data. But, it's great when experiments do happen. And, I guess we're reaching a tipping point on drug policy, at least with regard to the most popular (still mostly) illegal drug.
- yellowapple 9y ago
  Keyword there is "nearly", though. Greetings from Nevada, land of the free and home of the Mustang Ranch.
  - SwellJoe 9y ago
    Isn't it legal in only a handful of counties in Nevada, though? So, wouldn't that mean it's not really an entire state full of freedom, just a few enlightened counties. Also, as I understand it, the only legal prostitution is within licensed brothels. So, no independent contractors allowed anywhere in the state. That seems more like rent-seeking by brothel owners rather than rights for sex workers. I'm not saying it's not a positive thing that prostitution is less criminalized in some parts of Nevada than in the rest of the US. But, it's still pretty repressive and it still victimizes sex workers in the general case by putting their livelihood at the mercy of brothel owners.
    - yellowapple 9y ago
      "Isn't it legal in only a handful of counties in Nevada, though?" Indeed; it's notably illegal in both of Reno's two largest cities (Las Vegas because Clark County has too high of a population, so prostitution is automatically illegal per state law; Reno/Sparks because Washoe County specifically outlawed prostitution), which really hinders the effectiveness of such an experiment. About 90% of Nevadan prostitution happens illegally, from what I understand. Still, that's better than 100% illegal statewide, which is the case in pretty much every state bordering Nevada IIRC. "no independent contractors allowed anywhere in the state" I'm pretty sure most (all?) prostitutes in Nevadan brothels are independent contractors. They still report to brothel owners, though. "it's still pretty repressive" Indeed it is.

ilaksh 9y ago

Do you guys think that the majority of sex workers really enjoy their work or prefer it? Do you think that this is the career they prefer? Do you think it may have some affect on their psychological well-being? I believe prostitution is an indication of a lack economic and social well-being both in the case of buyers and sellers. Within about one or two decades maximum there will be revolutionary advances in robotics including things like much better weight-to power ratio artificial muscles and increased bio-mimicry. This will lead to truly life-like sex robots. Along the same lines, the majority of "ordinary" jobs that humans can currently do without high-bandwidth connections to computers or control over them will be replaced with sophisticated AIs and robots or automation. The perspective on sex work and general objectification of women will shift more towards one side then.

techer 9y ago
Working in a poisoned corporate environment has some effect on psychological well being.
- beagle3 9y ago
  It is easy to reason about these things on an armchair, much like it is to reason about war. And much like soldiers who have actually been in the battlefield, many prositutes suffer from PTSD. I suspect the percentage of corporate drones suffering from debilitating PTSD is much lower than among soldiers and prostitutes.
  - Eridrus 9y ago
    The article mentions a decrease in both STD rates and sexual violence with legal prostitution. So it's not crazy to think that there may be a reduction in PTSD as well. And making their trade legal makes it easier to provide (mental health) services.
    - beagle3 9y ago
      For sure. I was just trying to explain why the "corporate effect on mental well being" is not comparable to the effect that sex work has on sex workers (which is closer to PTSD in the military). The only way I can understand the downvotes to my comment is the missing /s on the first line; I somehow completely failed to communicate that, it seems.

jaemison 9y ago

I love how in the past hour, a NYT op-ed discussing motherhood and women's agency is flagged as irrelevant but an article on decriminalizing prostitution is at the top of hacker news with a lengthy discussion on the nuances of policy and practice /s

cokernel 9y ago
Is that https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/opinion/sunday/motherhood-family-sexism-sacrifice.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/opinion/sunday/motherhood... by any chance?
- jaemison 9y ago
  That's the one! Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14944904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14944904
  - UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
    I have little sympathy. The author decided to pick an "edgy" title to get clicks and it clearly backfired. If you posted "Motherhood Isn’t Sacrifice, It’s Selfishness" as a comment here it would get flagged to death too. Putting it as a title of an OP-Ed doesn't change that even if the author will slowly break down why that ISN'T true (or more complex/nuanced). If the author wants to generate legitimate discussion, they should talk to their editor about dropping the faux-controversial titles. Particularly as it sets the tone for the discussion is such a negative way.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      The headlines in newspapers aren't written by the people that write the columns and articles.
      - soundwave106 9y ago
        From what I can tell, the title unfortunately reflects the article well. Sure, the article does skirt around some interesting thoughts on ingrained societal bias / roles (which has been discussed here quite a bit). But the article struck me as preachy / opinionated, in that the author had a fairly exact idea of what she thought the motherhood of everyone else was.

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grondilu 9y ago

Confession time. I suck with women. I don't know how to behave with them, I don't know how to talk to them, and of course I have no clue how to get them to enjoy my company, let alone to have sex with me. As a consequence, I only ever had sex with prostitutes. I don't know how my life would have been, had I not the possibility to pay for sex. I suppose I would have been miserable, and perhaps at some point a woman would have taken pity of me, and I would have clung to her, for I would see her as my only hope for emotional and sexual company. I have quite a clear picture of what I would have looked like then, and that picture inspires me nothing but self-contempt. I don't know why I'm so bad with women, but I know I was exposed to pornography from a very young age (about 10 I believe, maybe less), and I masturbated while looking at porn very often ever since. I suspect it is related. This disgusting habit only started decreasing after I decided to pay for sex in my mid-twenties, and I only made a serious effort to stop when I discovered /r/nofap few years ago. Even nowadays, my longest streak is only about 120 days (my current one is 67). I'm not comfortable with the idea of young men growing in a world where prostitution is a crime, while pornography is free and only a few clicks away on internet. This just seems wrong to me. You can't both taunt people with something and at the same time punish them when they try to get it by the only way they know. There are, no doubt, issues with prostitution. But I personally believe the benefits outweigh the costs.

lngnmn 9y ago

Look no farther than some South Asian societies. Countries with no madness around prostitution are better off socially. It is not an accident that Thailand is a Buddhist country - people are tolerant to whatever is not harming others living beings. Too much pressure on sexual issues is a sign of primitive authoritarian societies (who are cooksure that they know better what is right and what is wrong than biology and evolution).

vixen99 9y ago
Better off socially? Difficult to determine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_prostitution_in_Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_prostitution_in_Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Thailand
- lngnmn 9y ago
  It should be taught in high school that extremes are not representative. The popular areas of sex tourism in Thailand are safer than most tourist hotspots without any security forces, cameras, etc. Everything is self-regulated, like a healthy market or society should be.
lr4444lr 9y ago
It is not an accident that Thailand is a Buddhist country - people are tolerant to whatever is not harming others living beings Oh really? http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/05/07/thailand.drugs/ http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/05/07/thaila... So tolerant!
- jessaustin 9y ago
  Haha you wouldn't have to go back 14 years for most nations...
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    Perhaps not even for Thailand; I just happen to know of this particular episode. But regardless, Buddhism's influence there certainly didn't start 14 years ago!

bitwize 9y ago

Legalizing prostitution increases human trafficking: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X12001453 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X12... The correct approach is to decriminalize providing, and crack down hard on buyers.

timwaagh 9y ago
this always strikes me as a mistaken case of white-knightism. it does not help these girls who would have to lower the price to adapt to adjust to lowered demand. you need customers to run a business.
- bitwize 9y ago
  The idea is to get demand to dry up, so prostitutes will be incentivized to find other lines of work. Ending prostitution, and the exploitation it brings, is the goal. Criminalizing johns but not prostitutes will make prostitutes fear the authorities less and come forward if they have been victimized.

wcummings 9y ago

Rhode Islander checking in. I'll share a story I heard from someone downcity many years ago, before this law was reversed in '09. Buddy's (7-time wiseguy mayor of Providence, and 2-time convicted felon) usual driver was unavailable, and a detective was assigned to escort him. The mayor gives his new driver an address. The detective recognizes it, bit can't quite place it, and gets on his way. When he gets there, it hits him. "Buddy, this is the address of a known brothel". Buddy quips back "you must be a detective" and disappears into the building.

qq66 9y ago
Did you listen to the podcast "Crimetown?"
- wcummings 9y ago
  No, but everyone keeps telling me about it, it's on my TODO list.

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spodek 9y ago

Does anyone else see the article presenting for a mutually agreed on act as women innocent / men predatory? For example > The Swedish or Nordic model takes aim at the demand, making it illegal to buy sexual services but not to sell it. but > In a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District of Rhode Island, COYOTE's lawyer argued that the state's law on prostitution was too broad and discriminated against women, given that female sex workers were arrested far more than male customers. Saying "takes aim at the demand" for a mutually consenting interaction just seems a way of targeting men without explicitly saying it. Different countries and situations, but the reporter doesn't note the different treatment by the state when one sex is criminalized versus the other. Or > "You see the silencing of victims," Hughes said. "It is just very harmful to women. It really is a libertarian approach, but the ones who get freedom are the pimps, the sex buyers, the businessmen who then can rent properties to the massage parlors, and to the sex buyers. There's very little freedom for the women." or > As for Robinson, the online escort who moved to Rhode Island? She was angry. > "It pissed me off. I didn't know nothing about activism, I didn't know what a sex worker rights organization was," she said. > Robinson changed that. She became active with COYOTE, the sex worker union and advocacy group. > "Criminalization is a punishment for women who won't conform," Robinson said. "And we're just supposed to go live in the streets in poverty and not complain about it, and be good women." Nothing wrong with a woman's perspective, but men's behavior was criminalized too. I would think it would add to the article to get some of their perspective. Not including men's perspective, except as the businessmen who make money off the women and the rapists, makes the article sound like the reason for prostitution's negative reputation is men. Would a quote like the following fly? > "Criminalization is a punishment for men who won't conform. We're just supposed to go live without sex and not complain about it, and be good men."

nvahalik 9y ago

Honest question... for those of you on board with this: how do you reconcile the complaints about the objectification of women as sex objects (and how that harms women) with this?

root_axis 9y ago
The objectification of women will be present either way, the only difference is that in one scenario, we criminalize a woman's sexual agency and in the other we don't. We know that decriminalization creates better outcomes in terms of safety and public health, so at the end of the day I feel like the hand wringing over objectification is not helpful.

cuckcuckspruce 9y ago

Plenty of demand for MILFs and cougars out there. ..I just realized that I'm turning 35 this year and that ladies in their fourties are still really attractive to me.

dang 9y ago
Please don't do this here. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14946448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14946448 and marked it off-topic.
- deleted 9y ago
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- cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
  Hi dang. I don't understand why this post is considered off-topic if the post it replied to is considered on-topic. The post that this responds to asked if prostitution would be a viable career post forty, and my response is directly on-point. I certainly respect your right to moderate, but I'm trying to understand why this was unacceptable and their post was. Thanks.
- Dangisapussy 9y ago
  Faggot

kolbe 9y ago

I've always thought about how brutally sexist it is to take this industry where women have a massive competitive advantage, and criminalize it.

the_stc 9y ago
Yes it is long due for a major overhaul. Fortunately with new tech it is finally possible to do something about it. Imagine a large scale union of sex workers with strong protection. They will be able to demand safer working conditions and join together to leverage power over abusive clients. They can coordinate and accurately judge demand. The company can then do marketing and logistics on their behalf. It would also enable women that are not as entrepreneurial but do not want to give up all their personal control to a local representative.

stretchwithme 9y ago

I think the best way to handle prostitution and recreational drugs is to let each neighborhood decide what is allowed. If the majority of residents and majority of property owners are okay with a particular activity, it should be legal there. There are always going to be problems allowing these activities and problems with banning them. If you let each neighborhood decide, at least you're moving the problem to areas that are ready and willing to deal with the problems. They can tax it, regulate it, provide security, drug treatment etc. That means the neighborhood has to form some kind of legal entity, of course. And you're giving the customers reasons to go where they are welcome. By doing it on a neighborhood level, it becomes much easier to comply. It's easier to drive 15 blocks than to go to the next county. And I think enforcement where it is banned can just be done with fines, giving people a good reason to take their business to where it is welcome. There's no reason to put people in prison.

msla 9y ago
That's an amazingly dumb idea.

jessaustin 9y ago

TFA: Still, perhaps even more surprising than the decrease in gonorrhea was another public health development. Sexual violence, or rapes, dipped dramatically. And this wasn't just amongst sex workers. It was across the board, according to FBI crime reports and jurisdiction level data. "Reported rape offenses decreased by about 30 percent," Shah said. That's another big decrease. Shah says, if anything, you'd expect rape to go up as when prostitution is decriminalized, sex workers are more likely to report rapes. She compared this to neighboring states, too. The drop was only in Rhode Island. So she examined other crime data in Rhode Island, like burglaries and murders, to see if there had just been a drop in crime generally. It didn't match.

cestith 9y ago

Banning anything that has a high demand mainly gives criminals control of the market. It has little impact on demand but is an abrogation of any responsibility to regulate. The same was true of the US 18th Amendment, of the "War on Drugs" in the US now, of the banning of sex work, or most anything else. When the government decides to just ban something, others step in to control the market without any rule of law or responsibility to the public.

Corrado 9y ago

I just can't understand how people think that you can regulate sex between consenting adults. Did we not learn anything from prohibition? Trying to make something that almost everyone wants illegal is just not possible. Hell, we can't even enforce a speed limit on the highways.

RealityNow 9y ago

Summary of results from prostitution decriminalization experiment: * Female gonorrhea rates decreased 40% * Reported rape offenses decreased 30% * No evidence that decriminalization increases human trafficking > She has a theory, though, in that while she knows for some men rape is about power, "I think the argument that we're making is that that might not be true for all men, and for some, these activities could be substitutes." > In other words, for some men, rape may be just about sex. And if there's a legal and accessible market for it, the number of rapes in a community may go down. This has not been a popular theory or study. And for many, it challenges the notion that rape is about violence and power, and not sex. "So I consider myself a feminist, but I think this finding angers a lot of feminists," Shah said. "It is a very controversial idea." What the hell is this "rape has nothing to do with sex" nonsense and why does challenging this absurd assertion anger feminists? How removed from reality do you have to be to believe that forcing sexual intercourse on someone has nothing to do with sexual attraction? But back to the topic of criminalization, it's downright disingenuous to conflate prostitution with human trafficking. And I don't believe the government should be in the business of imposing its moral whims on the decisions of consenting adults.

hashberry 9y ago
> What the hell is this "rape has nothing to do with sex" nonsense This is because feminists (and everyone else) started rejecting Freud's theories of sex in the '60s. Freudian theory states sex and aggression are interconnected (e.g. the much misunderstood Oedipus complex). Even now people think violence is due to our culture, not biological drives or instincts. This is why feminists say we have a "Rape Culture," and that all we have to do is fix culture, then all rape and violence will disappear. Freud was much more pessimistic. "Civilization and Its Discontents" is a good summary of why.

vitro 9y ago

I highly recommend the document Whores' Glory by Michael Glawogger which gives you a different look on what prostitution can also be like.