OSHA provides more protection to a wide range of jobs than you might think. FDA does a lot to prevent the spread of food born illnesses.

So, IMO there is nothing unusual about Prostitution regulations protecting both workers and customers, it's just striking because it demonstrates the value of regulation that's normally invisible.

PS: Track on the job deaths around the world and US workers are protected from a lot of harm even with relatively poor enforcement.

Haha, I could imagine an OSHA inspection at the brothel.

I imagine it would be similar to the sorts of inspections you'd find at a hospital.

Looks like the OSHA personnel weighed in with their votes...

"I'm here to inspect your pipes"

saucy music plays

I agree that worker protections need some work in the US, but to say that a black market brothel is somehow going to be safer than a regulated, above board one is simply madness. There is no way on Earth that sex workers are better off not having access to law enforcement. And that's just one facet of being in the black market.

Plumbing and electrician work is both heavily regulated and non-trivial.

I think they were saying that plumbing and electrical are easier jobs to perform and yet more heavily regulated.

Huh?

Spreading your legs doesn't exactly require a detailed training regime. Electricians and plumbers have challenging jobs that require a lot of training. Changing out electric sockets doesn't make you an electrician.

Anyone who thinks plumbing and electrical are easy jobs has no idea how to do them

Yeah, consumer protection and general employment law in the US is a whole other conversation.

Australia and NZ both have prostitution legalized with a bunch of European countries.

When I came to US I was amazed that guns and weed were legalized but not prostitution. Even in Vegas.

I'm sure there is plenty of underground prostitution in US where the workers have little rights and are probably abused.

I have no hopes that this will ever happen in trump administration but hopefully in 2020+ this could be a possibility.

weed is not legalized in most of the country, and even where it is "legal", it's a complete gray area. It's illegal federally, which completely overrules the states' ability to legalize it. Basically all the legalization you see is that the local state/county police will not come after you for it, but the DEA is still perfectly within their right to come after you if they wanted to - which has happened to some dispensaries.

FYI: Legalization and decriminalization are two different things. The first involves heavy regulation. The second involves making it not a crime, basically.

And making it a crime creates all kinds of problems. I support decriminalization.