Emily Bazelon is tackling this puzzling question in Slate. I think most arguments about keeping prostitution illegal are stupid, but this one--the one she features most prominently--is downright moronic:
The case for making it against the law to buy sex begins with the premise that it's base and exploitative and demeaning to sex workers. Legalizing prostitution expands it, the argument goes, and also helps pimps, fails to protect women, and leads to more back-alley violence, not less.
Name one industry that has been characterized by more violence and mayhem when it was legal than when it was illegal. For that matter, name one job, other than being a mercenary, that involves as much violence as, say, the drug trade1. You can't, because this argument makes absolutely no sense. Violence goes hand-in-hand with illegal industries because there is no legal way to enforce contracts, and because people engaged in illegal activity are understandably reluctant to report other crimes that took place during their malfeasance.
1 You're possibly tempted to say "Taxi driver", but in fact drivers of illegal cabs suffer a vastly disproportionate share of the violence.
Why is it illegal to sell, what it is perfectly legal to give away ;-)?
Dwarf tossing.
For that matter, name one job, other than being a mercenary, that involves as much violence as, say, the drug trade.
Professional boxer/wrestler/american-football-player/rugby-players, but that seems to be a bit of a cheat. Pizza delivery guys come in a just past cab-drivers, and just before lumberjack, in terms of just how easy it is to die ugly at work. Makes you realize just how much of the violence we are still exposed to is the random vehicular nonsense you sign up for everytime you get behind the wheel.
It would be handy if it were legal and you could order women like pizzas.
However I don't think we know what the cultural cost might be. That is, once legal, how much more will certain women, and young ones, make prostitution their primary income choice?
Will college enrollment drop as certain women opt for perceived easier income? Will more marriages come under strain as the threat of legal sanction/punishment is removed? Will certain neighborhoods rise or fall in home value? Will disease spread or would legality improve health related prostitution issues?
Also, given the cultural complexity of our nation (us not being the Netherlands, or Japan, or Iceland), massive in size and inputs, would the ultimate result prove satisfactory after all collateral issues are considered?
Spitzer may be saying yes, but I wonder.
Professional boxer/wrestler/american-football-player/rugby-players, but that seems to be a bit of a cheat.
I dunno about that, Dave. I've had to run the fingerprints from a fair number of drug dealers, dealers who were gunned down by their business rivals, while there are relatively few professional sports teams who are involved in murder.
But I don't follow popular sports, so maybe the trade has gotten rougher.
Anyway, why is prostitution illegal? I know why.
Because it was illegal in the past, and it would mean the end of their career if a politician actually made any meaningful moves to rescind the law.
James
The issue with "victimless" crimes is not usually (moralisms aside) about the nature of the business that would exist if the crime were de-criminalized but the number of people who would engage it if this form of alienation of property rights (one owns one own's body) were permitted.
Same with drugs. Remember the Carrol O'Connor commercial about his son? If you've been in misdemeanor court (where such misdemeanors are prosecuted) in a large metropolitan area, you would understand what I mean.
"Name one industry that has been characterized by more violence and mayhem when it was legal than when it was illegal."
TR: Chemical weapons dealer, child pornographer, professional duelist, privateer/sea-pirate, and probably a few others.
From Brad Plumer's blog:
In 2003, the Scottish government, looking to revamp its own prostitution laws, did a massive report on policies in different countries around the world, and discovered that legalization-plus-regulation comes with its own set of problems.
The study found that legalization often led to a dramatic expansion of the sex industry: In Australia, brothels proliferated to the point where they overwhelmed the state's ability to regulate them, and they became mired in organized crime and corruption. In many countries, child prostitution and the trafficking of foreign women also increased dramatically. Meanwhile, surveys found that many sex workers still felt coerced and unsafe even after decriminalization. In the Netherlands—often held up as a model—a survey done in 2000 found that 79 percent of prostitutes were in the sex business "due to some degree of force.""
I wonder how much of a comparison could be made with stripping, now that there's less social opprobrium and easier access to it as work. I know several women who've stripped for a while, and considered it a good and reasonably safe way to make a lot of money.
As I understand the arguments for legalization, one of the problems of criminalizing it is to trap women into the profession. As one ex-hooker put on her blog, it gets mighty difficult to explain that year long gap in your resume. Decriminalizing it makes it incrementally easier to exit the profession, which suggests that a lot of women who choose it out of need would later exit the field as soon as poosible, keeping the overall numbers down.
Do not forget the "rescue industry" which is employed, empowered and funded by the status quo.
As to "some degree of force" please tell me the study defined this as physical not economic, who would work in a cube all day in there was no economic imperative?
http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Margins-Migration-Markets-Industry/dp/ASIN/1842778609
In Australia, brothels proliferated to the point where they overwhelmed the state's ability to regulate them, and they became mired in organized crime and corruption.
According to this article, there are 94 legal brothels in Victoria, Australia's second-most populous state (home of Melbourne). That obviously isn't a number beyond the state's ability to regulate. I suspect the study you're citing lumped Australia's many illegal brothels in with the legal ones.
It is also a bit strange to complain about organized crime controlling brothels. Who do you think controls the brothels in states where prostitution is illegal?
"privateer/sea-pirate, and probably a few others."
I forgot a really obvious one, the slave trade. Carry on.
Dan Miller's post is the solid rebuttal to Megan's point. I'm not sure that legalizing prostitution leads to an increase in prostitution-related violence and coercion, but the argument that it does so isn't "moronic"; it's often based on observation of the places where prostitution has been legalized. The conceptual point is that there is something about the nature of the business of prostitution itself, and about certain other businesses like drugs and gambling, that tends to be affiliated with violence. In the friction-free world of neoclassical economics, all labor may be morally indistinguishable, and two hundred dollars an hour is two hundred dollars an hour; but in the real world, screwing for money is different than dancing ballet for money.
I think the argument is part right and part wrong. The Netherlands is currently retreating from its maximal legal-prostitution stance; they recently shut down Yum Yum, the flagship Amsterdam brothel. The experiment in the '90s of making prostitutes legal taxpayers has not eliminated pimps, trafficking, or the association of prostitution with hard drugs and money laundering. But the Dutch approach will most likely be a return to the "not legal but generally not prosecuted" stance that obtained before the '90s. Arguably much of the criminality of legal prostitution stems from the fact that it remains illegal in neighboring countries, creating greater sex tourism, and from the illegal immigration issue; there one could argue that this isn't strictly a prostitution problem but a wage-inequality problem, since after all illegal migrant farm workers are also subject to violence and trafficking.
What I don't understand is how making pornography can be legal while prostitution is not. And I don't mean that it is somehow inconsistent to criminalize prostitution while allowing pornography. I mean, I don't understand how it is practically possible.
What is the difference, legally speaking, between being paid to have sex as part of a pornographic film, and being paid to have sex simpliciter? Is it simply that in the former case a camera is rolling? If so, could prostitutes avoid the law simply by videotaping their tricks?
The historical reason that laws exist on "vices" is twofold. The media focuses on the 1st, largely ignores the 2nd.
The first is the "sinful" argument, which is of course the discussion point about "freedom", "don't impose your religious morality on others", "victmless crime" yadayada.
But if you look at the Bible, the moral edicts of other religions, you see that the religious prohibitions were meant to control destructive or potentially destructive behavior that turned man or woman's eyes away not only from God, but the welfare of their fellow man and family.
Gambling, drugs, prostitutes, usury, promiscuity, alcohol abuse, gluttony all had the potential to transform an individual into a wastrel or parasite - putting at risk not just the individual but the family or larger society.
It could hurt them by money spent on vices putting the innocent into depravation of the expected sharing of earnings, even destitution. Expose them to danger of disease caused by prostitution or promiscuity, danger of violence from alcohol or drug abuse.
It could hurt larger society, for example, by spending on the likes of NOLA scum and their pack of illegitimate children and absent biodaddies instead of on levees and schools. Which is no different than other civilizations worried that worthy projects would be derailed by focusing instead on curing and supporting wastrels in the grips of their vices...the ancient Chinese and the Sumerians also had tough laws on vices.
The question is when laws are too punitive given the damage of vices, as with draconian drug policies - and when they are too lenient like with the NOLA scum and the screams that we can't "punish the children" - and what we must do to get laws more balanced.
The former requires us to reconsider a punishment system that has other features than expensive, long harsh jail sentences. Like forced labor, corporal punishment, fines.
The latter requires us to be more intrusive in the lives of underclass scum and condition society's financial aid on them being forced to work, opt for sterilization in return for state aid, or Norplant as long as they are parasites...and for them to name and DNA confirm the Biodaddy's ID...so they can be gone after for money or be made to do forced labor.
America is now both too hard on some vices, and too "free" with others with our emphasis on "rights" over responsibilities.
We should also require prisoners to work 10-12 hour days and grow their own food or otherwise support themselves and then make restitution for the balance of society's costs keeping them once they get out.
But we should also jail far less people. Jail should be the way we punish the truly dangerous - murderers who do it while doing another felony, premeditated murder, armed robbers, muggers, traitors, child molesters.
of course, solutions are rarely simple enough to cover in a short post and our whole legal system has ponderously worked for decades to give us the current failed solutions and we can't do much if we continue to hold Lawyers Dressed in Robes as the arbitrars of all society's problems. We may have a case to treat "one-time murderers" more lienently than armed thugs solidly locked into a habitual criminal careers. We may have a case where druggies get warnings up to a 3rd time, when jail is the punishment they face. Choose to punish pimps harsher than whores.
Prostitution is complex, as are certain other vices. Men want sex. They seek mates for that. It remains a major reason why they stay with women. Women that de-emphasize sex as they get older and find reasons why they don't wish to put out ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM - they are not pure victims. They cannot expect the men they shut off will not look elsewhere. For now, the "frigid woman" defense has not been used, but it should be brought up at a certain level as a defense. Women trade sex for favors of all sorts, even forcing men to "domesticity" and companionship when they would really rather be out with their male pack. A women that does trade sex for more money than her other skills warrants, with multiple partners, not trading sex for the favors of a committed single partner - is a whore.
Prostitution should be more a mark of social embarassment than a "menace" to safety. We need a little more humiliation (on the pimps, the whores, the man, and the sexless female mate) and less insistance that any act of prostitution known to the public should wreck careers, wreck families by making divorce "morally obligatory".
I forgot a really obvious one, the slave trade. Carry on.
Posted by Thomas R
Superb.
"Privacy is dead"
Posted by James Ostrowski at March 10, 2008 07:26 PM
The Spitzer episode shows that privacy is essentially dead now.
We have no privacy in our financial records--the banks ratted him out to the IRS.
We have no privacy on the phone--Big Brother was listening to his calls.
We have no privacy as to consensual acts between consenting adults.
Update:
This is from the search warrant application:
7. As demonstrated below, the evidence obtained during this investigation includes, among other things, statements of a confidential source who worked with the Emperors Club; statements of an undercover officer; more than 5,000 telephone calls and text messages intercepted pursuant to court authorized wiretaps; more than 6,000 e-mails recovered pursuant to court-authorized search warrants; bank records; travel and hotel records; and physical surveillance.\
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/019915.html
That's an interesting question Blackadder, but there are some differences.
I'm not knowledgeable on the matter, but I believe in pornographic films both individuals are paid by a third party. There is also obvious oversight in that they are being filmed so anything illegal will be recorded. Even in sanctioned prostitution there's a bit less oversight, unless there are cameras in the room. (As there are in some casinos to avoid cheating)
Another difference is "expression." The First Amendment is seen as allowing a great deal of things that might be illegal in other circumstances. If a woman claimed that her prostitution was a form of performance art, or better yet if she could prove it was temple prostitute for a Neo-Pagan sect, I imagine she'd get some defenders. Granted the "temple prostitution" thing could be a tad ambiguous as I think there might've been some cases where paying the temple was a matter of voluntary donation and therefore wasn't real prostitution. That said I don't know of a woman who tried either "performance art" or "temple prostitution" as a defense.
On another matter thanks brooksfoe.
Anyway much of her premise goes by the standard libertarianish idea that illegalizing something can never reduce it. This is almost seen as a "truism", but I've never seen much evidence it's actually true.
It's certainly possible that per-capita slave traders, assassins, and sea pirates are more violent now because "there is no legal way to enforce contracts and people engaged in these activities are understandably reluctant to report other crimes that took place during their malfeasance." (Although I've never read or seen any evidence that they are more violent now as compared to when they were legal/licensed services) However they have become so much rarer since illegalization that overall violence from them was reduced. Granted this is in part due to cultural as well as legal shifts. The idea of say the King of Morocco hiring sea pirates to plunder Portuguese cruise ships would seem vaguely ridiculous. Slave trading is also seen as antiquated and immoral by most societies. Still the cultural shifts and the legal shifts went together. In the case of parts of North Africa and the Middle East the legal shift of banning the slave trade led to the cultural shift of rejecting it.
The notion is also based in a premise that all these businesses are perfectly rational and that enforcing their rules is no different than enforcing restaurant health codes. I'm not sure that's justified. Even if it's legal prostitutes might have many reasons to not want to report crimes. In addition to that women who go into prostitution may not always be perfectly rational businesswomen doing it based on a cost-benefit analysis. I think it's highly plausible many to most of them would still be women suffering from various psychological ailments or drug addiction. In addition to that there'd still be the issue of underage prostitution and sex slavery.
All that said the main reason I wouldn't be for it is because people clearly don't want it legalized. As far as I know it's not like drugs. If a state wants to legalize prostitution they can. Most states either see *Nevada's high rate of sex-crimes, or think of other reasons, and presumably say "no thanks." And that'll probably continue through the foreseeible future.
*Note: I'm saying "Nevada" not "Las Vegas." I read somewhere that prostitution is not legal, or zoned for or something, in Vegas proper. It is legal in other parts of the state. And Nevada does have one of the highest rates of rape in the nation.
Some things shouldn't be sold.
In a capitalist world, when your only 'possession' is your body (poor and uneducated, etc.), you can be 'coerced', one way or another, into selling it. (See Dan Miller above for stats).
We are better as a society for proscribing that. Some things shouldn't be sold.
So far, everyone who's commented has missed the obvious: Prostitution is illegal because (a) on the whole,it's women who control social norms and (b) women typically expect a lifetime of payment from a man for one night of sex.
to those who never bother descending from their own special dream-world, the slave trade is alive and well...
http://www.humantrafficking.org/
http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/global_issues/human_trafficking.html
from above link: The U.S. government says some 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year and millions more are trafficked within their own countries to be indentured servants, farm laborers or worse.
In case you misunderstood me "It's certainly possible that per-capita slave traders, assassins, and sea pirates are more violent now..." is meant to indicate that there are still slave traders, assassins, and sea pirates in the "now." It might've gotten confused as I used words like "antiquated", but many things that are "antiquated" to the Modern Western World are still very much alive.
Admittedly 800,000 a year is a great deal more than I thought. Still compared to the size of the world population I believe the 1400-1850 slave trade was worse.
The main problem I see with Bazelon's argument is that the justice system punishes prostitutes much more harshly than johns. The argument that prostitution is demeaning to women would make solicitation a greater crime than it is. As to how well sex workers are being treated, what are the comparisons like between places where its illegal and places where it's legal?
Empathy in modern relationships is distorted and self-appointed political leaders are mostly psychopaths following the path that Orwell described in 1984.
Thomas R - Slave traders, assassins, and sea pirates, where not just violent because their professions where illegal. Violence is an inherent part of their profession. Assassins kill for a living, slaver traders imprison and compel others, pirates either need to violently defeat the people on the vessels they take over, or they need to intimidate people, which requires a credible threat of violence, and often at least a degree of applying violence, so even if they where relatively restrained (and they often where not) they would still need to exert violence.
Prostitution doesn't require doing violence to others. Most of the violence that happens is indeed because its illegal.
"What is the difference, legally speaking, between being paid to have sex as part of a pornographic film, and being paid to have sex simpliciter? Is it simply that in the former case a camera is rolling? If so, could prostitutes avoid the law simply by videotaping their tricks? "
Posted by Blackadder
That would scare off business. I suggest the encounters be treated as auditions, or, for repeat business, undress rehearsals.
What is the difference, legally speaking, between being paid to have sex as part of a pornographic film, and being paid to have sex simpliciter?
Porn stars are not paid to have sex. They're paid to allow cameras into a room where they just happen to be having a consensual sexual encounter with somebody they freely chose for themselves.
The main problem I see with Bazelon's argument is that the justice system punishes prostitutes much more harshly than johns.
Is this really true? In my experience (which I admit is limited) the guy at the defendant's table is usually a pimp. If you're looking for a psychopath, you'll never fail to find one in a pimp for streetwalkers.
Some activities, by their very nature, tend to break down natural inhibitions. Whether or not you will get more violence upon legalizing something is dependent upon whether the legalization of the activitiy releases pent-up desires and makes the activity more mundane, or whether it tends to break down a person's sense of restraint.
IMO something like e.g. marijuana probably fits the former profile, and we could do society a lot less harm by legalizing and regulating its sale in the manner of alcohol and tobacco.
Ready access to prostitution, on the other hand, has the potential to break down a goodly portion of social order by eliminating any remaining inhibitions to sexual restraint, while teaching the solicitor (primarily, men) that the partner's body (primarily, women) is a temporarily transactable property, lending a whole new and disturbing meaning to the phrase, "Drive it like you rented it."
Given that the sexual impulse is one of the most fundamental and intimate of the human experience, you would have to be stopping eyes and ears not to see how this might lead to more problems than any it allegedly solves. Instead of having limited illegal prostitution and limited illegal activity surrounding the places where it occurs, you might well get widespread prostitution and widespread illegal activity as a result.
The other thing to remember is that law can drive culture. My grandfathers would both have been ashamed to admit that they couldn't provide for their families, yet today we send a 12-year-old out to do a national radio address about how his parents can't/won't get his kids health insurance, so the government needs to buy it for them. Surely part of the cultural shift away from charity as shameful to charity as a FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT has been the changes in the law in that time.
We objectify women too much as it is. I find it disturbing and disheartening even as I can't help enjoying it a fair amount. Make the purchase of sex an ordinary and respectable transaction, and that will only get worse.
Think of it as a zoning offense. One can't open a waste plant in a neighborhood zoned for homes and apartments, hence one can't offer services of prostitution in an area not zoned for same. Some states have no zones set aside for prostitution, other do. Prostitution is commerce and the government has the right, responsibility, and duty to regulate commerce for the public good.
In a capitalist world, when your only 'possession' is your body (poor and uneducated, etc.), you can be 'coerced', one way or another, into selling it.
But I, personally, am neither poor nor uneducated, so it's not at all clear why I can't be allowed to sell my body, or parts of it.
I'm not familiar with this argument where because one class of people can't be trusted with a responsibility, noone can. It doesn't seem to apply to any other situation; even though a child isn't qualified to operate a car, I'm allowed to, if I wish.
Even if prostitution were to be legalized and regulated, I presume that "street walking" would still be illegal. Places such as the high-end establishments that Spitzer patronized would be the model: the women get nicely compensated, most of the clientele is wealthy, the women are tested often for STDs, etc. Soliciting for sex on the street, for money or not, would definitely not be legal. And neither would committing violent acts against women. Again, like with drugs, there is a human desire to seek pleasure. The law will never be able to change that. So punish the bad acts committed against others and in public, and let mature adults make whatever private transactions they wish to.
Who usually showed up to deliver a pizza or fix the cable.
The conceptual point is that there is something about the nature of the business of prostitution itself, and about certain other businesses like drugs and gambling, that tends to be affiliated with violence.
How about British soccer?
Hmmmmm.
Pretty absurd stuff.
Here's one primary reason to NOT legalize prostitution:
If prostitution were legal then women, *and* men, would have to accept offers of employment by brothels or loose unemployment benefits.
I.e. there are a multitude of unexpected circumstances that arise from legalization that very rarely can be anticipated.
And the problem with women losing unemployment benefits because of job offers from brothels is an ongoing problem in Germany.
"Chemical weapons dealer, child pornographer, professional duelist, privateer/sea-pirate, and probably a few others."
"I forgot a really obvious one, the slave trade."
Nice TR, you made a superbly senseless list. Child pornography: illegal industry. Privateer/sea-pirate: illegal industry by both national and international law of the time. Professional duelist: not an industry/no such thing, plus the point of dueling was not to so much to shoot the other person as to merely shoot at each other, i.e. Aaron Burr was an a-hole for shooting Alexander Hamilton because you were supposed to shoot up in the air. Chemical weapons dealer: the trade in chemical weapons has no violence or mayhem attached to it, it is the ultimate use by chemical weapons that is characterized by violence and that violence is committed by States which are not industries. Slave trade: illegal in modern times, and really outside the scope of the question, sort of like saying the Railroad Bounty Hunter Industry or the Scalp Hunter Industry of the mid-late 19th century was characterized by more violence.
Privateer/sea-pirate: illegal industry by both national and international law of the time.
A privateer is certainly not acting illegally; that's what his letters of marque are for: to make the use of force against shipping a lawful act of war rather than one of piracy.
Ready access to prostitution, on the other hand, has the potential to break down a goodly portion of social order by eliminating any remaining inhibitions to sexual restraint,
anony_mouse, prostitution was perfectly legal in Victorian Britain, on libertarian grounds.
The promiscuity and sexual depravity of the Victorians is notorious, is it not? (Opium was legal as well, and it may have been the only country in history where the public were armed, but not the police. In many ways, Queen Victoria was a lot more liberal than the Democratic Party.) The social order seems to have survived.
Speaking of the Victorians, the ban on female labour in mines was because the job was regarded as “base and exploitative and demeaning”. The ban was conducted along what are apparently feminist lines as well: it was the evil exploitative employers who were punished, not the oppressed exploited women.
I often think of this, when people justify something by claiming it will “protect women”.
Hmmmmm.
May as well add "Serial killer". Equally absurd.
"Anyway much of her premise goes by the standard libertarianish idea that illegalizing something can never reduce it. This is almost seen as a "truism", but I've never seen much evidence it's actually true."
The Libertarian arguement as it pretains to the issue of prostitution (as well as drugs) is not simply that making it illegal can't reduce it, but that it is not/should not be the government's role to try to prohibit or reduce something that is a matter of self determination. It is my body, I should be able to do what I like with it, and that includes selling it, or even destroying it, if that is my choice. That is my right as a human being.
When it comes to their effect on society, whether we're talking about prostitution or drugs or any other so-called vice, we are dealing with a macguffan, an elusive thing that can be anything, as long as we can blame all of our problems and personal moral failings on this object instead of placing the blame where it belongs, with us(you can put violent video games on this list too). If the mere presence of freely accessible drugs or prostitution in a given community by themselves are enough to destroy that community, it is not the fault of the vice, but of the people who choose to let that vice destroy their lives. It's not the government's job to protect me from gambling all my savings away, as long as I did it of my own volition, and the same goes for drugs and prostitution. Why so many people feel it is the government's job to protect us from ourselves is beyond me.
A letter of marque meant that the granting nation's navy wouldn't hang you for piracy, but other nations sure considered you a criminal acting in contravention of the law.
Rob, letters of marque in effect turned existing merchant ships into mercenaries of the state. And Megan already covered that exception.
A letter of marque meant that the granting nation's navy wouldn't hang you for piracy, but other nations sure considered you a criminal acting in contravention of the law.
Certainly not. A privateer was a lawful combatant vis-a-vis shipping of the enemies of the granting nation, and thus cloaked in the combatant's privilege as long as the conditions of the letter of marque were followed.
Pirates were liable to summary execution by any nation's ship which captured them; to hang privateers would be an act of war or, if committed by a belligerent, a war crime.
If prostitution were legal then women, *and* men, would have to accept offers of employment by brothels or loose unemployment benefits.
Maybe they should. If we were talking about any other field of employment - say, agriculture, or food service - and people who refused offers of employment for jobs that were "beneath them", or too physically demanding, but expected to get unemployment benefits regardless, you'd be excoriating them for being privileged and spoiled, and that they could stand to learn about the value of hard work.
Personally I think that's a little presumptuous, but it's not immediately obvious from your post why we should defer to some people's personal distaste for certain kinds of work and not others. Once again, it's the inconsistency that rankles.
ad, take that up with Thomas R, who listed privateering as a violent but legal profession (at one time). I'm just arguing with Will, who isn't properly distinguishing between privateers (legal) and pirates (illegal).
Thinking more broadly, I'm now starting to wonder if the world can't find a use for software and music privateers.
"If prostitution were legal then women, *and* men, would have to accept offers of employment by brothels or loose unemployment benefits."
IIRC* a very similar issue came up for an unemployed woman in Germany (?) roughly two years ago. In that case I believe the job was stripping, and I think other employment made the issue moot just in time.
(* means I recall reading about it on the intertubes, but am too lazy to Google for it.)
If the mere presence of freely accessible drugs or prostitution in a given community by themselves are enough to destroy that community, it is not the fault of the vice, but of the people who choose to let that vice destroy their lives.
Well, if the libertarians are in charge, you can't have "the people" interfering with the autonomy of others, right?
Thing it, there are some people that can't handle alcohol and drugs - and there seems to be no way to know who those people are. They get addicted very, very quickly and kicking a drug habit is extremely hard to do. (This is one of ht
Now, if there were very strong cultural norms against drug use, legalization would have little impact. But we don't have those norms in place now, and the societal effects of widespread legalization would likely be a surge in DUI fatalities, drug overdoses, etc. Would ad campaigns by Big Marijuana and Big LSD be more effective than cautionary ones by government? It took quite a while before being a drunk driver went from loveable to shunned in popular entertainment, despite the best efforts of MADD and the like.
And though I hate to bring this in, it would spill over to minors getting easier access. The 18 year old drinking laws were not real successful experiments.
michael i made a good point above when he said:
Prostitution is illegal because (a) on the whole,it's women who control social norms and (b) women typically expect a lifetime of payment from a man for one night of sex.
Prostitution will never be decriminalized in any state in the US because women would vote the legislators who did this out of office. They want to make it difficult for their husbands to get sex from other people. In part this is because their position as monopoly provider of sex to their husbands gives them more power in the relationship.
michael i made a good point above when he said:
"Prostitution is illegal because (a) on the whole,it's women who control social norms and (b) women typically expect a lifetime of payment from a man for one night of sex."
Prostitution will never be decriminalized in any state in the US because women would vote the legislators who did this out of office. They want to make it difficult for their husbands to get sex from other people. In part this is because their position as monopoly provider of sex to their husbands gives them more power in the relationship.
Ech,
"Now, if there were very strong cultural norms against drug use, legalization would have little impact. But we don't have those norms in place now, and the societal effects of widespread legalization would likely be a surge in DUI fatalities, drug overdoses, etc."
I agree, however, as you point out, that is a cultural problem, not a drug problem (or a prostitution problem, and so on). It isn't the fault of the vice that its accessibility causes negative societal effects, but the fault of the person or persons partaking in said vice. One could argue that there should be strong social imperitives against heavy drinking, drug use and the like to the point of personal destruction (shame is always good for things like this). I think the fact that we have no shame in this country anymore is a problem, but it isn't a legal problem.
The notion of these being victimless crimes should not be lost here. Making drugs, prostitution, violent video games, etc illegal only amounts to the government restricting our ability to exert our unalienable right to self-determination on the assumption that it knows better than we do about how to take care of ourselves. The government is not a nanny, it is not a parent. We don't get cultural norms from government and we don't get government from cultural norms. Or at least we shouldn't.
And as for underage drinking, whatever happened to parental responsibility. I never smoked or did drugs or drank when I was a teenager (still don't as a matter of fact), because my parents taught me the risks. They didn't forbid me from doing anything that may harm me, but prepared me to make an informed choice. Just because most parents today are negligent, resulting in stupid kids, is no reason for the government to step in and become everyone's parent.
Prostitution will never be decriminalized in any state in the US
Ummm
"Nice TR, you made a superbly senseless list."
It was not intended to be entirely sensible. It was a response to Megan's statement "Name one industry that has been characterized by more violence and mayhem when it was legal than when it was illegal." "Child pornographer" and "professional duelist" never existed, or never existed as legal professions, so I dropped them later on.
Her contention was that you can't name any such industry and I think at least some of the examples essentially refute that. Unless one takes the position slave trading or piracy would be better legal and well-regulated.
And the position that privateering was never "legal by international law" is essentially meaningless. There were no international laws or law organizations in the period described. (Except maybe the Catholic Church, but this was not binding on Anglican/Protestant England) Granted they were essentially hired to commit crimes against another nation so I see your point, but still the idea of respecting the laws of other nations was not necessarily accepted at the time by anyone.
And I'm not comparing those things directly to prostitution. However prostitution is essentially based on using someone's body, and injecting potentially dangerous fluids into it, for money. The idea that accepting that, which legalization usually does come with acceptance, is a net-good is not at all proven.
The promiscuity and sexual depravity of the Victorians is notorious, is it not? (Opium was legal as well, and it may have been the only country in history where the public were armed, but not the police. In many ways, Queen Victoria was a lot more liberal than the Democratic Party.) The social order seems to have survived.
The wasted lives in the opium dens and Jack the Ripper might have a comment or two in regards to that.
There were no international laws or law organizations in the period described.
There were certainly widely respected customs governing warfare and in particular appropriate behavior by the gentlemen of the officer class. These would have included not killing surrendering prisoners, and also considering the crew of a surrendering privateer to be roughly the same as the crew of a surrendering navy warship. It would also have forbidden neutral powers to interfere with privateers' attacks on belligerent shipping or offer privateers safe haven in neutral territorial waters, under pain of being drawn into the conflict.
Pirates were fair game for any nation's warships, wherever found.
The promiscuity and sexual depravity of the Victorians is notorious, is it not?
This rather depends on whether we're talking about the petty bourgeoisie and landed gentry, or the Alfred Doolittle-ish lower classes.
I suppose that's true more or less. Still I think in many cases neutral countries just ignored privateers so long as they stuck by "the rules" and didn't attack ships of their nation. Likewise slave traders would still be a case of an illegalized trade that, although still around, is probably not worse now. On some level prostitution has similarities with slavery and incidence of trafficking sex-slaves to the Netherlands are not precisely unheard of.
In any event the core issue, legalizing prostitution in the US, still strikes me as one of those things that might be interesting to talk about but is sort of disconnected from reality. There's no evidence I've seen for a movement to legalize prostitution in any state outside Nevada. If one really thinks this is important to have legalized discussing it on talk shows or Internet forums is probably ineffective. They'd be better off forming a "pro-legalization" lobby group like the drug groups have. (Not that drug legalization has went anywhere either)
Although the way the culture and society is pushing for legalization in any form seems pretty well pointless. It'd make more sense to work for fairer sentencing, rehabilitation, or just making it of extremely low priority investigating. Same with drugs. Hard drugs like cocaine or heroin are not going to be legalized. There's no country I'm aware of where they are legal and it just won't happen here. So it'd make more sense to try to make illegalization less "painful" than quest for some libertarian fantasy that's never going to happen.
In a reverse way I'd concede the same might be true for abortion illegalization. I'd be willing to look for ways of reducing abortion, while it remains legal, for the time being though. If it never gets restricted again at least efforts to reduce would be something.
Only in the U.S.
Private consenting adult prostitution at least outcall like Spitzers case, is legal in almost all the world except the U.S. It wouldn't even be an issue in most of the world.
Not street hookers, no coercion, zillions of women worldwide choose sexwork as a career without the legal issues virtually unique to the U.S. - not the land of sexual freedoms but religious right false morality.
Nothing wrong in biblical times with "common" prostitutes often mentioned in the bible with no negative inference. It was the idolatry of the temple prostitutes worshiping the fertility gods that was the sin, not sex. Men could have as many wives, concubines and common prostitutes as they wished. Adultery was never wrong for a married man, only a married women since it violated her husbands property rights.
See: Common Prostitution not a biblical confict at
http://www.sexwork.com/coalition/christian.html
15 Reasons Why Prostitution is Beneficial at
http://www.sexwork.com/coalition/15reasons.html
abolition and prohibition used to be fantasies too. all it took was fifty years of work by people who didnt give up on their quests just because they were hard
"Private consenting adult prostitution at least outcall like Spitzers case, is legal in almost all the world except the U.S." Dave in Phoenix
TR: Well an unsupported assertion like that, how can I disagree? Still there does seem to be support for the claim that most modern nations legalize it, but there are exceptions.
Prostitution is illegal in Taiwan and South Korea. In addition
"In Sweden, prostitution is officially acknowledged as a form of male sexual violence against women and children." Therefore buying sex i.e. being a John is illegal but being a "seller of sex" i.e. a prostitute is not punishable. (I actually like that better than what we do, but I doubt we'd do it)
http://www.prostitutionprocon.org/international.htm
"abolition and prohibition used to be fantasies too. all it took was fifty years of work by people who didnt give up on their quests just because they were hard." y
TR: Prohibition of alcohol didn't exactly last. Abolition of slavery is not really comparable to legalized prostitution. By the time the US became independent there were states where slavery was rare or non-existent. In addition the rise of industrial capitalism made an agrarian slave system less competitive.
There's no evidence that US counties that ban prostitution are more backward or unhealthy than the 11 rural counties of Nevada that allow it. If anything quite the reverse. Even going internationally Taiwan and South Korea have experienced greater improvements in development in the last decade than Germany or Switzerland. Any "moral benefit" of legalizing prostitution is questionable.
Still if you want to think someday prostitution will be legal in the US feel free. Maybe it'll even happen, but I think I'll be long dead before it does.
Why is it illegal to sell, what it is perfectly legal to give away?
The trouble is that not enough women are giving it away! This causes artificial scarcity and demand that drives up prices while driving the business of prostitution underground.
Most men would be fine with a bordello or two on the mainstreets of every city and town. It is the women, and the pious politicians who pander to their female constituency, who would object, based on a perceived, but non-existent threat to the family structure.
"Why is it illegal to sell, what it is perfectly legal to give away?"
TR: I believe it's also illegal to sell a kidney, but legal to donate one. Same with hearts or livers.
And even if it's fun the raw misogyny of many of the posters here is kind of overpowering. Legalizing prostitution is apparently most supported by men who see it as a women's duty to put out and respond crankily when they don't.
Weirdly that almost makes me consider the Aquinian type argument for legalized prostitution. Basically that it's a "rain gutter" that drains men that amoral away from virgins and "good women." Although that's kind of sexist in itself and I think those kind of men would still be annoying regardless. Still I suppose I can see the logic in having an area where we could monitor those kinds of men in order to shun and shame them later. Kind of like what we have for smokers. It being illegal we don't know too well what men to shun and ostracize over the issue.
memomachine and Fred the Fourth - Yes there was a problem in Germany with women being pressured to take jobs as prostitutes or strippers or lose their unemployment benefits. But there doesn't have to be such a problem. You could make prostitution legal, without making it a job you have to accept if you don't want not job and no benefits. If it takes a change in the unemployment benefit law, than you can change that law, as easily (probably easier) than you could legalize prostitution in the first place.
Thomas R - re: the law in Sweden - If you make it illegal for the John's but legal for the prostitutes it doesn't help the prostitutes as much as you might think. They would face similar dangers in terms of their clientele, as they would only get people willing to commit a crime.
Thomas R - re: "I believe it's also illegal to sell a kidney, but legal to donate one. Same with hearts or livers."
Should its illegal, but that isn't much of a counter argument to "Why is it illegal to sell, what it is perfectly legal to give away?" The obvious response is that it should also be legal to sell a kidney. (Hearts and livers can't be given or sold by a living donor, but I guess you could leave in your will that if the organ is in good condition that your estate would sell it). This would ease the problem with organ shortages.
anony_mouse:
The wasted lives in the opium dens and Jack the Ripper might have a comment or two in regards to that.
And modern America proves that a ban would have improved their conditions?
Thomas R:
"In Sweden, prostitution is officially acknowledged as a form of male sexual violence against women and children." Therefore buying sex i.e. being a John is illegal but being a "seller of sex" i.e. a prostitute is not punishable.
Officially then, whether prostitutes are victims or not depends on their sex. Either that, or the authorities think that buying sex from a man is a form of “male sexual violence against women and children." Even if the purchaser if female.
And note the line of thought that believes you cannot harm a woman by banning anyone from buying her services.
Unless one takes the position slave trading or piracy would be better legal and well-regulated.
It would certainly be safer for the slave traders and the pirates, as well as their customers. Megans claim, you will recall, was that that legalising prostitution would make things safer for the prostitutes (and by implication, their customers).
Would you argue that banning the slave trade made the slave traders better off? Then why do you think that banning prostitution makes the prostitutes better off?
And even if it's fun the raw misogyny of many of the posters here is kind of overpowering.
You are the person arguing in favour of a ban on one of the few industries which offers women better pay and employment opportunities than men.
One word: women.
Women do NOT want to see prostitution legalized.