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Just legalize it already! It's been proven time and time again across many countries around the world that legalizing and regulating prostitution creates a safe
by coenhyde 9y ago
Just legalize it already! It's been proven time and time again across many countries around the world that legalizing and regulating prostitution creates a safer environment for the girls AND the customers.
- ihsw2 9y agoProstitution is abhorrent to the women's rights movement -- it is another tool of oppression. Women are having sex with men whom they otherwise wouldn't have sex with -- we should be removing the need for sex work rather than accommodating it. Sex "for survival," child prostitution, sex trafficking -- none of these go away when the stigma and illegality are removed and if anything it gets worse because clients just automatically assume their sexual partner isn't (for example) a victim of sex trafficking.
- orthecreedence 9y agoSorry, I completely disagree. Sex is one of the last places where women have more power than men. I believe that illegalizing prostitution and other forms of sex acts is a way for a male-dominated world to try to, yet again, limit the power women have in society. A regulated sex marketplace is going to mean women can be much more picky about who they choose to sleep with, and can do so much more safely. They can use their sexual power to make financial gains for themselves. I believe this is empowering towards women, much more so than trying to erradicate all forms of prostitution. There will still be illegal activity, but legalizing prostitution will decrease the noise on activity that actually IS bad (children in sex work, forced sex work, etc).
- phkahler 9y ago>> Sex is one of the last places where women have more power than men. It's interesting that you point that out. Some claim that plenty of women use their sexuality to manipulate men, to trade sex for resources (marriage), and other such things. By legalizing prostitution you deprive the rest of the women from being able to do this - guys don't have to buy the cow when they can get the milk on an as-needed basis for a negotiated price and no strings attached.
- orthecreedence 9y agoThose managers and husbands and whoever else are still bound by social rules. Legalizing prostitution doesn't magically make it ok to go out and bang a bunch of hookers if you're married or have elevated social status. Are they more likely to do it? Maybe. But I think woman can still use their sexuality outside of the legal sex market to achieve the things they want, if that's what they choose to do.
- duncan_bayne 9y agoThat's only true for the middle class. Once your social status is sufficiently high it doesn't matter. Case in point, the current POTUS is known for banging hookers.
- orthecreedence 9y agoSure, but those people aren't harmed by banging illegal hookers already, so legalization of sex work is irrelevant to them anyway.
- duncan_bayne 9y agoTo them, yes, but not to the prostitutes they use.
- Nrsolis 9y agoIs it moral to use sex to manipulate someone into giving you the things that you want? Just because it happens doesn't mean it's something that can't be construed to ALSO cause harm. I would be devastated to know that a partner was only having sex with me to further some other goal. I don't see how this is good for the parties involved.
- phkahler 9y agoYou misunderstand. Women use their sexuality to manipulate men all the time without actually having sex or violating social rules. In fact a lot of them play this game for sport. Here's one woman's take on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manipulated_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manipulated_Man
- coenhyde 9y agoAh no. If you listen to the sex workers who are generally WOMEN they advocate for legalizing and regulating sex work. Because they want a safe environment to work in. By making sex work illegal you are preventing people in the industry from going to the authorities to report all the things you are against. You will never stop prostitution by saying it is illegal, all you are doing is allowing the criminal elements to thrive. If you care about preventing sex trafficking and child prostitution you need the help of people in the industry to ensure organized crime can not operate with a cloak of silence.
- ihsw2 9y agoHow is prostitution different from rape, where sexual autonomy is removed by economic force rather than physical force?
- rosser 9y agoHow is having a job different from slavery, where personal autonomy is removed by economic force rather than physical force?
- smadge 9y agoAbolish the wage system!
- eilyra 9y agoConsent. In a proper/safe environment the prostitute has the option of declining a client. Such an environment would hopefully be easier to create if it was legalized.
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- BrainInAJar 9y ago> we should be removing the need for sex work rather than accommodating it. What would that look like, exactly?
- orthecreedence 9y agoI think this is the most important question. I've seen a lot of comments saying various things are bad. I have not seen any suggest alternatives. It seems like the people who think prostitution is bad want it to just go away, favoring words like should/shouldn't. I want to know a solution to prostitution that takes into account human nature and markets.
- Notorious_BLT 9y agoMany people do all kinds of jobs they wouldn't otherwise do for survival. Sex isn't magically different from backbreaking manual labor.
- pastage 9y agoBack breaking manual labor is not legal, or rather you can be forced to pay rather steep fines for doing it. (The definition of the words we use is key here)
- orthecreedence 9y agoBack-breaking isn't generally used in the literal sense, but to describe something very difficult. Legality is regional, and often doesn't apply to contractors or, say, a farm owner.
- Notorious_BLT 9y agoSorry for lack of precision, but I think my intent was clear. "Back-breaking" here means "difficult, and undesirable manual labor". What I meant in the first place (which I think was clear to begin with, regardless of language) is that many people make choices to do jobs they wouldn't otherwise because they need the money. Many jobs are taken for survival. Prostitution isn't really significantly different than any other undesirable job, aside from the emotional significance that we often assign to sex. But there isn't fundamentally anything about sex that differentiates it.
- pastage 8y agoThis was not my point, from what I've understood sex work is a really high risk work. You might argue that it could be made safer, but to state that prostitution is like any other work is just a sign of you ignoring the real problems that exist in the sex industry. You can not separate the act with the environment it is done in. I would compare sex workers to something that is way more safer, mining jobs. You only have safe mining jobs if you strive towards it, same goes for sex work. For the record I've lived with a family with a daughter/mother in the in the sex industry of a port city, but do not base my views on those anecdotal evidence. But sure it colours it a lot.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago> Prostitution is abhorrent to the women's rights movement -- it is another tool of oppression. One of the core tenets of feminism is that women have a right to do what they please with their own bodies. A lot of bad things come out of prostitution. That needs to be addressed and policed. Jailing the women practicing it to survive fixes nothing.
- sudosteph 9y agoJailing the women who practice is not the only option here. The nordic model advocates that it's only the buyers who are penalized. Women are then given services that provide a path towards a different means of earning income. The idea is that by making it riskier for the buyer, the average John won't bother with looking for that type of service. The aim is to reduce demand for prostitution in general, which in turn should reduce the demand for trafficking for the purposes of prostitution. Studies do indeed show that countries with this model (Sweden) have less incidence of human trafficking than countries with legalization (Netherlands). There is a tradeoff though with that model. Mainly that the Johns who remain in the market are more likely to be dangerous. This is not a clear cut feminist issue though. Many feminists do indeed believe sex work as an industry is harmful to women, even if regulated for worker safety. There are feminists who are ex-sex workers that advocate this position.
- makomk 9y agoFor some context, while Sweden doesn't criminalize women who sell sex, it does criminalize everyone around them - including landlords who knowingly rent to them, with the main defence being that they evicted their tenant as soon as legally possible after finding out. So sex workers in Sweden have gone to the police about being raped by clients, only to have the police tell their landlords to evict them. They don't report rape to the police anymore. (I think the other Nordic countries that adopted this model have the same issue.) A few years ago, Amnesty International found out about this and took a strong position against the Nordic model because of it. The response amongst feminist supporters of the Nordic model was not to disown this part of the Nordic model or try and change the law in Sweden; instead they launched a campaign against Amnesty International to try and shut them up. Its proponents might try and spin it as something that protects women in the industry and only affects johns, but pretty much all of them are fighting hard to strip those women of any police protection against rape and violence. Occasionally, you'll even find someone who openly admits that they want those women to be more at risk of rape because they hope it'll encourage them to give up a trade that they think is hurting other women, and no-one else in the supposedly feminist anti-sex-work movement seems to have a problem with this from what I've seen.
- tree_of_item 9y agoIt's really sad that you're being downvoted. I can't believe so many people here have twisted themselves in to knots claiming prostitution is "empowering" for women. Absolutely incredible.
- cornholio 9y agoYou are of course correct in that prostitution is abhorrent to the women's rights movement. That's because women's rights movements see prostitutes as collateral damage in their war against male oppression: prostitutes should not exist, therefore we can pretend like they don't exist. Political ideology over reality, this is the sad story of many of the policies pushed both by the conservatives and progressives, and here they agree. The real people are left with the consequences, pushed to the fringes and victimized both by the state and the traffickers.