Legalise Prostitution?

Originally posted by Mayharm
[bAs for the question of choice, some people choose to become sewage workers, perhaps they are also "forced" to do such a horrible job because of financial considerations. Indeed it is not only an unpleasent job, but potentially quite harmfull. However some sewage workers actually enjoy their job...

Thats right. Most do enjoy their job. I am a plumber and your shit is our bread and butter! 😀
You would'nt want to know what money smells like to me.

Most people in the type of trade are there because they want to be.

It would have been better to say maybe a person who cleans adult movie booths.

Mike

Originally posted by belgianfreak
I agree that there are many reasons to legalise prosititution. Anything illegal immediatly goes underground making it a dangerous world to live in, and legalisation would go some way to improve this. Legalisation could lead to licencing which required health checks reducing the spread of disease & use of drugs. Tax the industry to pay for the cost of po ...[text shortened]... alleviates. I'd love to hear any studies done on the effect it has had on the trade in Holland.

Your contention that sex is a vice, and therefore equal to drugs and gambling, is a holdover from medieval christian superstition and dogma. It has no basis in reality. Sex is an integral part of most well balanced lives. It is no more a vice than sleeping or eating.

Your claim that prostitution is a potentially harmful career choice is one of the strongest arguments for legalizing it. They would have access to regular health inspections, better working conditions, abusive and coercive employers would be shut down, alternative job programs could potentially be made available to them. The long list of ills associated with prostitution are in direct association with its illegal status. Besides, when has the danger associated with a job ever made it illegal anywhere else? Look at what coal miners have to endure. If there is any profession that should be made illegal due to horrible working conditions, coal mining would be the one.

As for having enough police to watch over the prostitution industry, do we have that now? No, we don't. If police didn't have to waste their time chasing down adults engaged in consensual sex acts, then they could spend their time more efficiently by chasing the real criminals like child pornographers and the like.

An enlightened society would clearly make prostitution legal and would spend its recources in monitoring the business and improving the working conditions therein. The extra revenue generated from the taxation of prostitution would make it a self-funding enterprise.

Originally posted by rwingett
Your contention that sex is a vice, and therefore equal to drugs and gambling, is a holdover from medieval christian superstition and dogma. It has no basis in reality. Sex is an integral part of most well balanced lives. It is no more a vice than sleeping or eating.

Your claim that prostitution is a potentially harmful career choice is one of the strong ...[text shortened]... evenue generated from the taxation of prostitution would make it a self-funding enterprise.

oh dear, I don't seem to have explained myself very well and as a result got a kicking from 3 sides. Probably deservedly, but give me a chance to try again.

I never mean that all sex was wrong when I said it was a vice (I'm a sexually liberal as anyone, more than most by a long shot). In my dictionary a vice is something that is potentially addictive. You rightly point out that sex is natural, fun, good for us and necessary, but when it gets to the stage of someone haveing to pay someone else for sex then something isn't right. Worse, when someone has to sell their body as a sexual object it is twisted in my view.
You make the point that sex is a good thing, natural & necessary like breathing and I agree, but when you say that you are thinking about sex between 2(+?) people who care about each other or at least have chosen each other. This is a world apart from one person chosing and the other being chosen as an object.

I would also agree (as I did try to say before, honestly) that the improvement in health, reduction of danger etc is one of the best arguments for legalisation of prostitution. The problem I still have is that nearly no one who becomes a prostitute choses to do so, they are forced by the need for the money. Selling your body for sex destroys you on the inside, as I know from talking with many prostitutes when I worked for a crisis center (has anyone else here actually talked to a prostitute about how they feel about their 'job'?). This is why I don't think your comparison to coal miners & sewage workers is valid, because although these jobs may be unpleasent, dangerous and/or bad for your health they don't degrade you and make the 'worker' hate themselves as is very common with prositiutes. Is it right for society, by legalisation, to say that it's OK for the desperate to be forced into the sex trade & that it's OK to take advantage of these people?

Legalisation is probably the way to go as it will bring the trade out of the dangerous criminal world. The point I was tryin to make is that is won't solve the core problem, that people by selling their bodies hurt themselves massively mentally and emotionally.

Originally posted by belgianfreak
I agree that there are many reasons to legalise prosititution. Anything illegal immediatly goes underground making it a dangerous world to live in, and legalisation would go some way to improve this. Legalisation could lead to licencing which required health checks reducing the spread of disease & use of drugs. Tax the industry to pay for the cost of po ...[text shortened]... alleviates. I'd love to hear any studies done on the effect it has had on the trade in Holland.

Situation here is the act of prostitution has always been legal. It has been considered too difficult to draw a line where sex becomes commercial. What has been illegal has been running a brothel and being a pimp. These laws have been repealed about a year ago.

These old laws were bad because they forced sex workers to work alone or on the streets. The new laws allow woman to work together in a shared place, employ a bouncer to protect them from abuse and unsafe sex, and provide legal remedy for contract disputes. These places existed before - but the bouncer could be prosecuted, he was likely to use force because he could not go to the police, stocks of condoms and safe sex training was evidence of running a brothel and there was no control over who ran the place or conditiosn of work.

The issue of freedom is a real one. People should be free to make choices, even bad ones. Putting sex workers outside the law does not help them.

Originally posted by genius
sounds like something from terry pratchett

"the guild of sluts and whores"

hell yeah i'm all for it! 😀

I think they were called the Seamstresses' Guild. One of the more powerful ones, IIRC.

I'm also in favour of licensed prostitution. Even if there will always be illegal prostitution (as we're seeing in Holland), it's still better if some prostitutes are protected by labour laws and get regular medical check-ups than none of them. It's true that many female drug addicts turn to prostitution, but I don't see why that makes prostitution inherently bad. Some movie stars are cocaine addicts, and many successful musicians are on drugs - does this mean that music and acting are bad, because they're being used to fund an illegal drug habit?

Originally posted by Acolyte
I think they were called the Seamstresses' Guild. One of the more powerful ones, IIRC.

I'm also in favour of licensed prostitution. Even if there will always be illegal prostitution (as we're seeing in Holland), it's still better if some prostitutes are protected by labour laws and get regular medical check-ups than none of them. It's true that ma ...[text shortened]... s mean that music and acting are bad, because they're being used to fund an illegal drug habit?

Correct, the 'Seamstresses Guild', who have one of my favourte euphamisms - "Ladies of negotionable affection"

yes, many people in many professions are drug adicts. The difference is that these people do drugs regardless of their jobs, or sometimes because of it if that environment encourages this behaviour. Prostitutes do their job because they need the drugs.

Originally posted by Acolyte
I think they were called the Seamstresses' Guild. One of the more powerful ones, IIRC.

I'm also in favour of licensed prostitution. Even if there will always be illegal prostitution (as we're seeing in Holland), it's still better if some prostitutes are protected by labour laws and get regular medical check-ups than none of them. It's true that ma ...[text shortened]... s mean that music and acting are bad, because they're being used to fund an illegal drug habit?

Licensed? How does a young woman becomee licensed? Does she need to be of good moral character to be awarded one?

Why should she have to submit to compulsory medical checks when the bloke who goes down to the pub and will sleep with anybody does not have to?

Originally posted by steerpike
Licensed? How does a young woman becomee licensed? Does she need to be of good moral character to be awarded one?

Why should she have to submit to compulsory medical checks when the bloke who goes down to the pub and will sleep with anybody does not have to?

It would be a case of licensed brothels - indivdual prostitues aren't breaking the law in the UK as it is.

'The bloke who goes down the pub' is having sex for his own pleasure, not as a business. I see no contradiction between things which are free being provided 'as is', while services people pay for are subject to consumer protection laws. If I give you my DVD player for free, I need make no promises as to its effectiveness; but if a shop sells you a DVD player, they're required by law (in the UK at least) to give you something that plays DVDs, or otherwise give you a refund.

Originally posted by Acolyte
It would be a case of licensed brothels - indivdual prostitues aren't breaking the law in the UK as it is.

'The bloke who goes down the pub' is having sex for his own pleasure, not as a business. I see no contradiction between things which are free being provided 'as is', while services people pay for are subject to consumer protection laws. If I g ...[text shortened]... law (in the UK at least) to give you something that plays DVDs, or otherwise give you a refund.

Consumer protection laws for a knocking shop? So you can complain if the young lady isn't up to scratch just like you would complain about a dodgy kebab?

Originally posted by steerpike
...you can complain if the young lady isn't up to scratch just like you would complain about a dodgy kebab?

I dunno. What I got from Acolyte's post was that if she doesn't play DVDs then you can demand a refund. You're trying to say, among other things, that you can be refunded if she has DVD. Apparently there's some kind of contradiction here.

(Just read it aloud.)