4 ms·

This has been considered. You stop commerce by stopping demand, not supply.

miley_cyrus 3y ago
I have long advocated for this, and people always reject it out of hand!
gizmo686 3y ago
Are you intending to speak generally, because there are almost no markets where that is the way things work. I can't think of any other market that is restricted purely on the demand side, and the few markets I can think of with demand side enforcement as a major component, they do so because they are at the limit of what is practical on the supply side, not because they choose not to enforce supply side.
- michaelmrose 3y ago
  It's true of illicit markets with a high ceiling for what buyers are willing to pay vs the requirements for sellers to engage in trade. People are willing to pay so much for drugs which are so cheap to produce that dealing with dealers does virtually nothing for consumption because rising prices inspire people to fill any gaps you poke in the supply chain. I would say sex is not dissimilar.
roenxi 3y ago
1) Generally the way commerce is stopped is first it is moved via a regulator, then the regulator squeezes it. See the medical market for example. 2) Sometimes we must refer to King Canute and the tide. The idea of "stopping demand" for prostitution seems like a long shot.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  Have you got an example of regulatory pressure working? Drugs, alcohol, sex, abortion. You make it illegal and you get the same behaviour with a whole load of bad add-ons.
  - GloomyBoots 3y ago
    All of these things have been prohibited to varying degrees of success throughout history. Just because there are times and places where it doesn’t work doesn’t mean prohibition is a universally ineffectual measure. That’s a fairy tale.
    - lostlogin 3y ago
      Harm and demand reduction are great - though hard to achieve. Have you got any examples of prohibition working?
      - GloomyBoots 3y ago
        Parts of the Islamic world today prohibit alcohol without much fuss. I’m sure there are minor bootlegging operations here and there, but nothing comparable to America during prohibition (my adoptive family’s patriarch was a bootlegger whose sons worked for him, so I’ve been interested in the subject for a long time). Abortion was successfully prohibited in America. The whole back-alley thing is heavily overblown in terms of how common it was. There are always going to be cultural factors at play. You aren’t going to succeed in banning something if it’s popular enough, like jazz in the Third Reich, or if you just don’t have the power to enforce it. In terms of harm reduction, a tightly controlled black market can easily be preferable to legalization. Kind of like el Paquete in Cuba.
        e44858 3y ago
        The Islamic world just replaces alcohol with khat and opium, which aren’t much better. I wouldn’t call that an example of successful prohibition.
        GloomyBoots 3y ago
        I don't know how well opiate use correlates to the legality of alcohol. In theory, then, you could depress opiate use by introducing alcohol, but that doesn't mesh with what's going on in America right now, where opiate use is rising without any prohibition on alcohol. Khat's an upper, not really comparable. There are other factors that drive the demand for these drugs, and I think we're in agreement that the demand can and should be addressed in large part by dealing with root causes. But sex, drugs, guns, abortions etc. have all been successfully prohibited. There's little human behavior that hasn't.
mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
Trying to stop demand for sex is a fool's errand.
lelanthran 3y ago
> You stop commerce by stopping demand, not supply. You can't stop demand. Preaching abstinence almost certainly doesn't work.
- mfru 3y ago
  Abstinence would mean no sex at all, when in fact all the buyers need therapy to have enough social competence to get genuine encounters instead of using force by money and prostitutes need ways to safely leave their “job”. Buying sex is a horrendous, (socially and often also physically) violent way of exploiting (mostly women's) bodies. Overall, it is a societal topic. As long as commodification of everything is the norm, bodies will continue to be commodified. There is no legislation that will make prostitution ok or be safe.
  - lelanthran 3y ago
    > Abstinence would mean no sex at all, No, it doesn't. If you have to change the definitions of words from what is in a dictionary to make your argument work, it's your argument that is broken, not the dictionary. And, disregarding your attempt to shut down discussion by shaming language, the fact still remains that mandating what sex consensual adults have with each other never works. Legislating consensual sex is a primitive and regressive opinion, mostly opined by a few close-minded but loud and vocal puritanicals. The government should not be getting involved in consensual sex between adults.
    - mfru 3y ago
      Abstinence means what I wrote. It means to refrain (= not do) something. In the sexual context and on this topic, this would mean not buying sex. It's cool that you have to resort to low-key ("look in the dictionary", "shaming", "primitive and regressive", "close-minded") blows to push your argument, fantastic for discussion. Oh, and you don't have to be a puritanical to think that intimacy for sale is a bad idea and should not be encouraged. Once again, the problem is societal. If you treat everything as a market, you will get a society where everyone is treated as a commodity.
willcipriano 3y ago
> This has been considered. So has nuking the moon to stop communism.
smsm42 3y ago
Except nobody is stopping anything, and everybody knows it by now.

I have long advocated for this, and people always reject it out of hand!

Are you intending to speak generally, because there are almost no markets where that is the way things work. I can't think of any other market that is restricted purely on the demand side, and the few markets I can think of with demand side enforcement as a major component, they do so because they are at the limit of what is practical on the supply side, not because they choose not to enforce supply side.

michaelmrose 3y ago
It's true of illicit markets with a high ceiling for what buyers are willing to pay vs the requirements for sellers to engage in trade. People are willing to pay so much for drugs which are so cheap to produce that dealing with dealers does virtually nothing for consumption because rising prices inspire people to fill any gaps you poke in the supply chain. I would say sex is not dissimilar.

roenxi 3y ago

1) Generally the way commerce is stopped is first it is moved via a regulator, then the regulator squeezes it. See the medical market for example. 2) Sometimes we must refer to King Canute and the tide. The idea of "stopping demand" for prostitution seems like a long shot.

lostlogin 3y ago
Have you got an example of regulatory pressure working? Drugs, alcohol, sex, abortion. You make it illegal and you get the same behaviour with a whole load of bad add-ons.
- GloomyBoots 3y ago
  All of these things have been prohibited to varying degrees of success throughout history. Just because there are times and places where it doesn’t work doesn’t mean prohibition is a universally ineffectual measure. That’s a fairy tale.
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    Harm and demand reduction are great - though hard to achieve. Have you got any examples of prohibition working?
    - GloomyBoots 3y ago
      Parts of the Islamic world today prohibit alcohol without much fuss. I’m sure there are minor bootlegging operations here and there, but nothing comparable to America during prohibition (my adoptive family’s patriarch was a bootlegger whose sons worked for him, so I’ve been interested in the subject for a long time). Abortion was successfully prohibited in America. The whole back-alley thing is heavily overblown in terms of how common it was. There are always going to be cultural factors at play. You aren’t going to succeed in banning something if it’s popular enough, like jazz in the Third Reich, or if you just don’t have the power to enforce it. In terms of harm reduction, a tightly controlled black market can easily be preferable to legalization. Kind of like el Paquete in Cuba.
      - e44858 3y ago
        The Islamic world just replaces alcohol with khat and opium, which aren’t much better. I wouldn’t call that an example of successful prohibition.
        GloomyBoots 3y ago
        I don't know how well opiate use correlates to the legality of alcohol. In theory, then, you could depress opiate use by introducing alcohol, but that doesn't mesh with what's going on in America right now, where opiate use is rising without any prohibition on alcohol. Khat's an upper, not really comparable. There are other factors that drive the demand for these drugs, and I think we're in agreement that the demand can and should be addressed in large part by dealing with root causes. But sex, drugs, guns, abortions etc. have all been successfully prohibited. There's little human behavior that hasn't.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago

Trying to stop demand for sex is a fool's errand.

lelanthran 3y ago

> You stop commerce by stopping demand, not supply. You can't stop demand. Preaching abstinence almost certainly doesn't work.

mfru 3y ago
Abstinence would mean no sex at all, when in fact all the buyers need therapy to have enough social competence to get genuine encounters instead of using force by money and prostitutes need ways to safely leave their “job”. Buying sex is a horrendous, (socially and often also physically) violent way of exploiting (mostly women's) bodies. Overall, it is a societal topic. As long as commodification of everything is the norm, bodies will continue to be commodified. There is no legislation that will make prostitution ok or be safe.
- lelanthran 3y ago
  > Abstinence would mean no sex at all, No, it doesn't. If you have to change the definitions of words from what is in a dictionary to make your argument work, it's your argument that is broken, not the dictionary. And, disregarding your attempt to shut down discussion by shaming language, the fact still remains that mandating what sex consensual adults have with each other never works. Legislating consensual sex is a primitive and regressive opinion, mostly opined by a few close-minded but loud and vocal puritanicals. The government should not be getting involved in consensual sex between adults.
  - mfru 3y ago
    Abstinence means what I wrote. It means to refrain (= not do) something. In the sexual context and on this topic, this would mean not buying sex. It's cool that you have to resort to low-key ("look in the dictionary", "shaming", "primitive and regressive", "close-minded") blows to push your argument, fantastic for discussion. Oh, and you don't have to be a puritanical to think that intimacy for sale is a bad idea and should not be encouraged. Once again, the problem is societal. If you treat everything as a market, you will get a society where everyone is treated as a commodity.

willcipriano 3y ago

> This has been considered. So has nuking the moon to stop communism.

smsm42 3y ago

Except nobody is stopping anything, and everybody knows it by now.