Some jobs are just simply for poor people. I'd rather solve that problem than isolate the effort to sex work.

The work involving sex doesn't make it significantly more exploitative than being so poor that you're willing to take short term gains and long term losses driving for Uber or something. At least you can come out profitable in sex work.

Let's also think of the service being provided here. Low economic status, ugly men can have their biological urges satisfied. What happens to incels if that goes away? This question is only going to become more important, given the trajectory of hypergamy.

As someone that lives in the US, neighborhoods, in my opinion, are ruined by moralists, even if they appear respectful. e.g. I can't legally walk around sipping a beer.

How many uber drivers were assaulted or killed in the last month? How many are coerced into driving for uber, and have their gains captured by third party? In which cities are there rings traficking slaves to drive uber cabs? What is the mean age of death for uber drivers?

I mean, please... do yourself a favour and research a bit before you make such ignorant claims.

Are we talking about sex workers globally or in countries where it is legalized and centralized?

I'm comparing specifically to places like Hong Kong and Amsterdam that have this work legalized, which is the topic at hand. OP wants the red light district either moved or removed.

Prostitution is going to exist in some form. I think we agree there, so do you think moving it outside of the city center is going to improve the situation for these women? I feel like it would do the opposite.

I do gig work and I think it has potential to do good things for the world, but my views are in the minority. Most people see the Gig Economy as an evil force doing nothing but exploiting workers and that exploitation absolutely kills people at times.

There is substantial evidence that a large part of the danger involved in sex work comes from the fact that it is criminalized. This fact actively makes it harder for sex workers to operate safely.

Uber drivers do not have that problem.

If you did the latter, you would change the market for it, and open up the door for non exploited workers in the field.

When others give you strange looks, when families disavow you, when people demonize you, shout you names, refuse you work in other fields, look at you with disdain and pity, etc.. It's no wonder the only people who still go through with getting in the field are exploited. Why would anyone do it otherwise? Making it legal doesn't change that.

And that goes for the customer base as well. The stigma is high, so who ends up being the target market? A bad crowd of people, that's what. The people who aren't affected by the stigma of seeking sex and drugs for money. And again, that doesn't change by making it legal.

But at least you aren’t being “exploited” by some filthy VC-funded capitalists right?

How is that different from lifting boxes in some factory job, or whatever menial work?

I mean, I know the e.g. Christian answer.

What would the distinction be, however, without giving some special negative spiritual quality to having sex?

This person has a valid, subjective opinion on taking penis in return for cash, but it's not necessarily the case for everyone.

Note that I'm not saying that being a sex slave is better than working a low tier job. I'm comparing peeing in a bottle, having every movement tracked/optimized and skipping meals to deliver Amazon packages vs true freelance sex work.

Now, an actual fact, I knew a guy, a licensed accountant, about 20 years ago who did the accounts of a working lady (ok, prostitute). He said she was pulling in about £80,000/year. He didn't say whether she liked her job so I can't help you there.

25 years ago the red light district was a no go area for except for people looking for sex or drugs. But in the recent decades that has slowly changed. At some point it became fashionable to live in the old city centre and in the red light district housing was cheap. As soon as those 'normal' people were living there they started to complain about all the noise and the shady figures that were hanging around. And the city government listened; now the policy is to make the Red Light district a normal neighbourhood for families and what not.

>> But the real issue is that none of the girl prostitutes are locals.

This has a simple reason: the red light district is all window prostitution, and as a local girl you wouldn't like to be standing there when your uncle or some friend happens to be passing by.

So it's like when Americans create a new suburb in the country, then get pissed off about the rooster crowing at 5am on their day off.

(Insert some joke here about cocks that somehow applies to both farms and red light districts.)

Edit: To be fair, some of the concerns outlined in the article seem completely fair and reasonable. The article indicates things have actually changed in ways that degrade the area and are worrisome.

People tend to not really know what a neighborhood is really like until they've lived there for a bit. It's common for things to be different during the day versus nighttime or weekdays versus weekends and a lot of places change dramatically seasonally or have some very big annual event that impacts the entire area for days or weeks.

So, just like multiple neighborhoods in any big urban city? Except that it's at least somewhat regulated/under legal protection?

All kinds of low and high paying jobs are exploitative and hardly anybody cares. But as soon as some degree of sex is involved, everyone is suddenly peculiarly interested exploitation. Why is sex treated so differently?

Why don't we listen to sex workers themselves, when they tell us what policy changes they want? If sex workers say sex work should be criminalized, that would hold some weight for me. If they're exploited, I'd like to hear what they think would actually help them.

E.g. when Norway criminalized buying sex, the prostitutes own organizations were against it and argued it'd push a lot of the sex trade underground and make the women less safe. They were totally ignored, and they continue to be ignored when they repeatedly warn that they're unable to report violence and crimes safely, in part because it makes police aware that they're prostitutes, and by extension that there will be people visiting them that are likely to break the law, and that their landlords are potentially breaking the law (if they're aware of the prostitution; which they will be soon enough if the police takes an interest).

If they were listening and disagreeing, that would be one thing, but there's a staggering amount of moralising from politicians that do not even try to talk to the people they claim they want to protect. And that makes me think that their motives are more to do with getting activities they don't like out of sight than about helping the people involved to get out of it.

But this isn't the same thing. You're talking about human trafficking, not sex work as a whole.

If Nike trafficked a bunch of kids to set up a sweat shop in North America, we'd be upset not because shoes were being made on our continent, but because of the trafficking and exploitation of underage workers.

Analogously, if some scumbag trafficked a bunch of women to work as prostitutes, we should be upset because of the trafficking and the coercion and strong-arming you describe, not because of the sex they engaged in.

So voluntary sex work should be perfectly fine, but it's not, and most discussions surrounding sex work seem to classify it as inherently exploitative, which simply boggles my mind.

I don't see how this is any different than taking any other menial, low paying job because you have to make ends meet. No one really wants to clean public toilets or work at Wendy's.

I wonder if I would have ever got married had there been a regular prostitution place to go to.

The only argument so far is "I should be free to use my body as I will". But probably only a minuscule amount of sex "workers" have the material and emotional comfort to choose that.

So basically when other industries are often exploitative, it's probably a few orders better than prostitution, leverage a bit less immature or broke people.

> wherever there’s money, there’s corruption

... I guess I should stop working in IT

There's an excellent claim that most domestic abuse per capita happens in suburbs in contrast to most reported abuse. I would look for better counter evidence before moving the fence.

This is a talking point used by people who try to criminalize sex work, and it flies completely in the face of what sex workers' advocacy groups around the world actually say. No, you're not equating sex work with sex trafficking in your comment, but you're adopting wholesale the language of people who do.

> But the real issue is that none of the girl prostitutes are locals. Not once I heard of a local Dutch girl doing this. And it’s also mostly lots of people that need he money. If the brothels were full of dutch-rich women then I’d be fine with it.

Why is it a problem when foreigners engage in sex work to make money, but not a problem when "Dutch-rich" people engage in sex work to make money?

You're talking about unionized workers in a highly regulated industry doing very lucrative labor. It's very hard to make the argument that they're being exploited, any more than laborers in any other industry are being exploited.

Citation needed, especially since they're unionized and very vocally and visibly fighting these measures.

It attracts trashy people and tweakers! They should abuse prescription drugs and wear the respectable fashion and be mannerly like upper class people such as myself.

Mote, meet beam. I'm sure we can whip the sinners into virtue and establish the true city on the hill.

We may not like the criminal underworld, but the cure is worse than the disease.

Are you implying that people is working for the money and not just for the sake of it?

edit: "[...] she stated that she enjoyed her job as a prostitute [...]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Coghlan#After_the_trial

Do any cities have laws which state certain areas are ok for prostitutes to work in? I'd guess not

How, exactly?

Your position is that they’d be better off with a different job, but presumably we’re talking about adults there by choice.

How is voluntary prostitution more exploitative than, say, a construction worker? ...or even third shift at a grocery store?

I mean, if your point is Marxist all labor for pay is “exploitation”, okay — but otherwise, I don’t see how adults choosing a profession exploits them.

How is this relevant? I mean in what manner would nationality change your opinion on this topic?

It's impossible to look at someone and tell with certainty that they are being exploited, but it's easy to look at a group of people and notice if any of them are from the local privileged peoples, and if most of them are from poorer regions.

In rich countries a lot of low paying jobs are performed by foreigners coming from poorer countries. I'm sure almost nobody enjoys any of those jobs but they do them because they need the money and have little choice.

And by the nature of these low paying jobs they only attract people with no other options, foreigners dreaming about a better life, completely unaware of the risks. This opens the door to abuse. I'm certain that plenty of locals (whatever country we're talking about) would do this job if it payed really well.

> Criminalization of prostitution in Sweden resulted in the shrinking of the prostitution market and the decline of human trafficking inflows. Cross-country comparisons of Sweden with Denmark (where prostitution is decriminalized) and Germany (expanded legalization of prostitution) are consistent with the quantitative analysis, showing that trafficking inflows decreased with criminalization and increased with legalization.

https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-...

Places with legal sex work have higher reported rates of human trafficking. This is not a surprise; one of the biggest arguments consistently made in favor of decriminalizing sex work is that it will make it easier to catch human trafficking, and make it easier for trafficking victims to come forward without the risk of being charged for a crime.'

Even the article you quote, if you take the time to read it all the way, doesn't draw the conclusion that the higher reported rates of human trafficking mean that sex work should be criminalized.

It's not just a concern for sex work; manufacturing, seasonal trades and agriculture attract human trafficking, for instance.

National police authorities do extensive research concerning prostitution because it touches key issues of organised crime, in particular illegal prostitution, human trafficking, violence, money laundering etc. The amount of problems they find with window prostitution are relatively small, because they're licensed and under supervision of various authorities. The amount of human trafficking, taking away of passports etc you describe, doesn't happen much at all in the red light district.

It does happen, but not in window prostitution (which has fixed, licensed addresses, which are supervised). Rather it happens in the shadow, i.e. various somewhat secret and temporary networks which offer prostitution services at constantly changing addresses, with front men running the operations. Almost all cases where police finds out about human trafficking, violence, money laundering, underage prostitution etc, is from this underground sector.

I'm not saying the red light district is paradise or that I'd want me or my friends to work there. But it's not really where most of the problems are. When people speak about issues in the Netherlands with respect to prostitution, it's either NIMBYism in the red light district, or the issues with illegal underground prostitution outside of the red light district. People seem to conflate the two in this thread.

So in a way this supports the idea of the red light district: make it legal in a well-defined, licensed space to protect the workers. Because you can't eliminate it and the ways they get exploited in the shadows are pretty bad.