Legalizing Prostitution

[hepcat]

Prior to the year 2000, the world wasn't entirely populated by the Amish. Berlin pre WWII, France...well...at almost any point, ancient Rome, ancient Greece....I could go on, but I think you get the gist. I'm not sure why you seemingly keep insisting that historically the world has been puritanical in its views of sexuality, but now it's almost positively enlightened. As I said, we wouldn't even have this thread if we lived in a society that celebrated sexuality the way you think it does. We live in a country right now where showing a zombie eat another human being on prime time television earns a viewer warning at the start of the show, while flashing a boob will send it straight off to HBO.

We still live in a sexually repressed society in so many ways.

[em2nought]

Prior to the year 2000, the world wasn't entirely populated by the Amish.

That is sort of the way it feels. LOL The late 90s felt like freedom was exploding on the internet, including sexual freedom. This century has felt like gradually increasing efforts to squash that freedom. It kind of feels like we've moved into "The Village" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_(2004_film) Well, that's my take anyway.

"Starforce" is a good example. I'm sure it "sort of worked" against it's intended targets, but It also killed computer gaming for me. It also killed my PC and my purchasing of video games.

Here there be monsters

[Defiant]

Suppose prostitution were legalized, would a prostitute be allowed to select who they sell their services based on race, age, sex, marital status or other potential protected classes?

[hepcat]

Depends. Will they make the client a cake after sex?

[Jaymann]

We've already established what you are, now we're just haggling over the price - Lord Beaverbrook.

[Holman]

Prior to the year 2000, the world wasn't entirely populated by the Amish. Berlin pre WWII, France...well...at almost any point, ancient Rome, ancient Greece....I could go on, but I think you get the gist. I'm not sure why you seemingly keep insisting that historically the world has been puritanical in its views of sexuality, but now it's almost positively enlightened. As I said, we wouldn't even have this thread if we lived in a society that celebrated sexuality the way you think it does. We live in a country right now where showing a zombie eat another human being on prime time television earns a viewer warning at the start of the show, while flashing a boob will send it straight off to HBO.

We still live in a sexually repressed society in so many ways.

I'm talking about the West since maybe 1700, not ancient Rome or China. You know, the world we live in.

Of course public morals and actual behavior are different things and always have been (there has never been a shortage of adulterers), but my point is that today's public morals are more open and honest about sex than at any time in this culture's history.

My attitude is colored by having taught classrooms full of young people who make no secret of their sexual experience. Together we read old novels where a kiss or a rumor can ruin someone's reputation.

[Holman]

Suppose prostitution were legalized, would a prostitute be allowed to select who they sell their services based on race, age, sex, marital status or other potential protected classes?

Probably more than they can now.

[hepcat]

I'm talking about the West since maybe 1700, not ancient Rome or China. You know, the world we live in.

Fine, arbitrarily narrowing the scope of your point this late in the discussion seems odd. But oh well. It also doesn't dismiss a couple of the time periods I mentioned.

but my point is that today's public morals are more open and honest about sex than at any time in this culture's history.

And I still know that we can show blunt force trauma on television, but a boob will get you sent to late night.

My attitude is colored by having taught classrooms full of young people who make no secret of their sexual experience. Together we read old novels where a kiss or a rumor can ruin someone's reputation.

My attitude is colored by living in a larger world. You know, the one the rest of us live in.

p.s. Here's a great article on this very subject.

[Holman]

I'm not sure why you think I don't see nuance when I've several times stated that sex is still a complicated and uneven topic.

You keep saying that sexual repression is the reason we're having this thread. My point is that if sexual mores hadn't changed, this open public discussion would be literally impossible to have.

[hepcat]

To quote you:

I think we'd all agree that we now (happily) live in an era where sex is celebrated.

I disagreed with that. I guess the discussion should have stopped there because it seems we actually DO agree that we don't live in an era where sex is celebrated. At least not to the extent I believed you were saying.

You keep saying that sexual repression is the reason we're having this thread. My point is that if sexual mores hadn't changed, this open public discussion would be literally impossible to have.

We're a microcosm of the internet. If sexual mores were at the level I thought you were saying they were, we wouldn't need to have this discussion because sex work wouldn't be illegal or scandalous.

[Holman]

I'll happily concede that you're focused on the limitations and I'm focused on the openness. Society is weird and complex enough that these aren't even contradictions.

I come from the Evangelical prudishness that is the baseline for any discussion of contemporary limitations. That the wider world isn't nearly so prudish now is the whole point I'm making.

In the 1950s, married couples on TV slept in separate beds.

[Kraken]

The sexual revolution in the US kicked off with the introduction of the Pill, and possibly peaked (for heterosex, anyway) in the Summer of Love. AIDS put a crimp in the "free love" era; although it didn't roll morality back drastically, coupling got less casual for a decade or so and I don't know that it every fully recovered -- surveys show that young people today have less sex than we did in the 1960s-70s (this report doesn't go back that far so I'm extrapolating). The golden age of heterosex in the US fell between the Pill and AIDS.

[Blackhawk]

Ugh.

We started as an almost (and in some cases, literally) puritanical society. As we were a new society, we tended to change slowly. We've made huge strides in the past century in the process of turning sex from a taboo, shameful thing into a natural, healthy, normal thing. And yet we've got a long, long way to go. And yes, we've taken some steps back due to the expected backlash that always follows extreme social change. That backlash is usually a speed bump not a wall.

[gameoverman]

There are certain lines of work that, for the most part, only involve a certain segment of the population. This has a side effect of allowing the people who do not go into those lines of work to look down on the people who do. This leads to those workers being exploited. For instance, it's easy to begrudge someone a tip if you have never and will never work for tips.

So then, what of legalized prostitution? I'd be in favor of legalizing it. I have no reason to be against it, and I have heard no one else give a compelling reason to be against it. Yet I know that legal or illegal, it's going to just add one more way to exploit workers. My hope would be that at least if it were legal then it would result in safer working conditions, and a general improvement in quality of life at work for prostitutes. Also, if it were legal I think some of the stigma would be removed as time(a lot of time) passes. That all might be wishful thinking though.

[em2nought]

Yet I know that legal or illegal, it's going to just add one more way to exploit workers.

Oh hell, people are claiming to be exploited if they have to work from cushioned chairs in offices with the air conditioning set too low.

I was just out this afternoon exploiting myself by pushing a mower thru three foot tall grass in 90 degree weather.

[hepcat]

Yet I know that legal or illegal, it's going to just add one more way to exploit workers.

Oh hell, people are claiming to be exploited if they have to work from cushioned chairs in offices with the air conditioning set too low.

I was just out this afternoon exploiting myself by pushing a mower thru three foot tall grass in 90 degree weather.

Should we get you a medal of honor for lawnwork above and beyond the call of duty? It was a hot day, not Omaha Beach on D Day. Suck it up, snowflake. I see 13 year olds mowing lawns on hotter days, and they don't whine as much about it.

[LawBeefaroni]

Suppose prostitution were legalized, would a prostitute be allowed to select who they sell their services based on race, age, sex, marital status or other potential protected classes?

Probably more than they can now.

I'd think so.


How does it work in legalized areas in Nevada?

[Jeff V]

Fine.

You legalize prostitution and you ruin the pimp business. Without the pimp business, Cinemax and HBO lose about half their late night, adult programming. Without the pimp business, the annual Player's Ball in whatever city the dart randomly hits on a map goes kaput (although I suspect Ice-T would still show up), and that place loses out on 48 dollars in tourism.

You gonna give some random city back that 48 bucks? Huh?

HBO killed their late night adult programming over a year ago. Legal hookers would help fill the void!

Combined with the internet, this can be Uber-like lucrative for those who can do it. I imagine there will be an Uber-like app available almost the instant it would become legal. The app would, in time, help vet both the customer and provider, bringing some measure of safety lost by cutting pimps out of the equation.

The biggest problem to solve would be how to prevent underaged teens (especially those who appear older than they are ala Traci Lords during most of her porn career) from misrepresenting themselves. We're in the midst of a long conversation about Jeffrey Epstein who essentially proved that underage girls are attracted by surprisingly small amounts of money and are willing (or are subject to being coerced) to do just about anything. Because of this, I think you need a highly regulated industry with providers being licensed and subject to frequent, regular health exams (this, by the way, is how it's done in Mexico). It would still be illegal to practice this vocation without a license and oversight.

[Isgrimnur]

We're in the midst of a long conversation about Jeffrey Epstein who essentially proved that underage girls are attracted by surprisingly small amounts of money and are willing (or are subject to being coerced) to do just about anything.

I would have thought the Jared story would have done that.

[hepcat]

If a middle aged man pays a 13 year old girl to take off her clothes and give him a massage, she's not the one you should be blaming for doing so.

[Jeff V]

We're in the midst of a long conversation about Jeffrey Epstein who essentially proved that underage girls are attracted by surprisingly small amounts of money and are willing (or are subject to being coerced) to do just about anything.

I would have thought the Jared story would have done that.

Epstein predated Jared. Last week's outrage stemmed from new indictments in a different state regarding behavior we were outraged about over a decade ago. But yes, both are shining examples of why this ought to be a well-regulated thing.

[Jeff V]

If a middle aged man pays a 13 year old girl to take off her clothes and give him a massage, she's not the one you should be blaming for doing so.

It's almost like you don't remember what Traci Lords looked like in her hey-day. Sure, there would be case were the child was obviously not old enough, but what about those where it is not so obvious? If such a person presented herself as a legitimate sex worker in a legalized industry, how is the customer to know any different?

[noxiousdog]

If a middle aged man pays a 13 year old girl to take off her clothes and give him a massage, she's not the one you should be blaming for doing so.

It's almost like you don't remember what Traci Lords looked like in her hey-day. Sure, there would be case were the child was obviously not old enough, but what about those where it is not so obvious? If such a person presented herself as a legitimate sex worker in a legalized industry, how is the customer to know any different?

In a regulated industry there would be licenses or certificates. Licenses and routine checkups are required in Nevada for legal prostitution.

[LawBeefaroni]

If a middle aged man pays a 13 year old girl to take off her clothes and give him a massage, she's not the one you should be blaming for doing so.

It's almost like you don't remember what Traci Lords looked like in her hey-day. Sure, there would be case were the child was obviously not old enough, but what about those where it is not so obvious? If such a person presented herself as a legitimate sex worker in a legalized industry, how is the customer to know any different?

Presumably licensure and perhaps some kind of online verification. And the customer not being willfully ignorant.

[Jeff V]

Presumably licensure and perhaps some kind of online verification. And the customer not being willfully ignorant.

Didn't I suggest that would be a necessary requirement?

[LawBeefaroni]

Presumably licensure and perhaps some kind of online verification. And the customer not being willfully ignorant.

Didn't I suggest that would be a necessary requirement?

Willful ignorance? When then it would be a crime. Same as now. Statutory rape and whatever additional protections are added with legalization.


Also, what is this thing with grown men and young girls (Trump, Epstein, porn, wherever)? If they're "borderline" why not just assume the worst and bail? Is it a power thing?

[LordMortis]

Willful ignorance? When then it would be a crime. Same as now. Statutory rape and whatever additional protections are added with legalization.

Those are laws that ought to be revisited to. Maybe to add predator or something while concurrently reducing the lifetime affects consensual teens making poor decisions. There's a huge difference between if my middle aged ass went out cruising for 15 year olds and an 17 year old and a 15 year old getting too hot and bothered with their peer interest of the moment. Statutory rape does not seem nearly severe enough in my case and too severe for two kids if the 15 year old pressured or lied to the 17 year old.