What puzzles me immensely is that in progressive countries like Sweden the push against prostitution is almost worse (although with the angle that the buyers are criminalized), and that feminist women don't see that decriminalization would have a mostly empowering fact for the prostitutes (who are mostly female).
I can see that it is an icky subject for many and how people who fight against the objectification of women might fall in the trap of thinking that selling your time for a fee might contribute to that.
However pimping out my brain for trying to make people spend their money on ingame purchases is way ickier to me.
Others have already waved the wikipedia card, but I feel that there is one aspect which deserves clarification.
Above all, we should divide prostitutes into two groups: sex workers (who have, for whatever reason, chosen the profession); and the victims of human trafficking. In my mind, trafficking is no different from slavery. It's a vile thing. A sex worker, on the other hand, can choose to have a pimp -- but one is not required.
I have absolutely no problem with law enforcement cracking down on trafficking. Those people are not selling their services out of their own will. But trying to mandate morality by law makes my hair stand out.
I happen to believe that indiscriminately cracking down on all forms of prostitution is simply a waste of resources. The similarity between aggressive pro-lifers (who want to impose their own views on how women can use their bodies) and anti-prostitution zealots is not that big. Control in the name of morality ... or just in the name of their personal delusion.
Makes little practical difference.
That said -- and it's amazing how many people are so stupid -- it's very difficult to successfully ban transactions that are, if not morally voluntary (ie the whore could be trafficked), at least voluntary in the moment. The same applies to drugs, prostitution, and sex. As Bill Hicks said: We had a war on drugs, and drugs won. (Though most republicans don't even believe their own bullshit; the number that have smoked a joint or who look the other way when it's their daughter knocked up at 17 or their mistress or their wife is pretty astounding).
That phrasing usually refers to trafficking. Let's do some numbers.
In 2000-07, there were 1,500 identified victims of trafficking in the USA - total, not a year, and including both sex and labor trafficking.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09...
Arrests alone for sex work is on the order of 100,000 a year (confirmed). An estimate puts the number of prostitutes at 1-2 million.
http://prostitution.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=0...
No doubt trafficking is a big problem in many places - there just isn't any evidence that the US is one of them.
If there mere fact that there exists sex workers who are in the trade not out of their own free will is sufficient to outlaw the trade entirely, there are quite a few trades that would need to be outlawed.
How many? What percentage? Citation needed.
Weasel words will get you nowhere.
It depends very heavily on the balance of power. You're talking about it like two people with equal bargaining power coming to a agreement they're both happy with. If that's the case then great, that's fine. I don't think that's universal though, or even particularly common.
However we have a large number of rules to stop exploitative working environments across all industries, and something as physical and emotional as sex should have similar or stronger guarantees around.
There should be ways of creating safe environments and regulations that allow prostitution, but saying that "prostitution is a victimless crime" seems very off. We can probably create situations where it is, at worst, no more objectionable than someone working an office job they hate. However, I hardly think that's a good explanation of the current situation in many countries.
If there were, the employee wouldn't have to work for the employer, since he'd have just as much money and influence in the first place.
Your argument condemns all employment.
So the employer needs no employees?
> Your argument condemns all employment.
Only exploitative employment.
Only in the same sense as selling organs or babies (or conspiring to fix prices) is a victimless crime. There are instances where society legitimately chooses to make certain consensual interactions illegal because of the implications that conduct has for everyone else. As 'tedks points out below, turning sex into a commodity has real implications for the status of women in society as a whole. Moreover, as with selling organs or selling babies, there's a strong belief that such transactions are usually only technically voluntary, and are driven by economic duress more than anything else.
Selling your own organs is definitely a victimless crime. Arguably the baby you are selling is the victim of a baby-selling scheme. The victim of a price-fixing conspiracy is the consumer (though every member of the conspiracy has an incentive to defect and sell at a lower price, so presumably the individual members of the conspiracy are also in some ways victims of the scheme, to the extent that the scheme is actually enforced upon them somehow).
In a society in which a hefty part of the male population thinks that buying a woman drinks or even dinner entitles them to have a happy ending, this statement is very cynical.
Au contraire, I think that allowing people to pay for sex might actually de-blur some lines here. If you want quick sex for money go to a prostitute. If you want companionship that at some point get intimate enough to end in sex, date someone. If you buy someone dinner do that because you want to and not with an implicit expectation of getting something in return. Jeez.
I didn't come up with that but I do feel comfortable quoting it.
There's a significant difference between buying someone dinner and expecting sex, and paying them money for sex. The former is a favor that is done as a form of signaling and courtship. The latter is a monetary transaction that formalizes the objectification of one party.
“You’re not inviting me in? But I bought you dinner!”
I find that sort of logic and thinking very disturbing.
Here's an interesting question for you: is the public entitled to make prostitution illegal,[1] on the basis that they don't like the sociological implications of selling sex becoming an alternative to getting a minimum wage job? I think they are quite entitled to do that.
[1] Though I prefer how Sweden does it: to make buy sex illegal, but not selling it.
That's a useless tautology.
But prostitution doesn't do this. A commodity has full or near full fungibility, i.e. "one sex" is (almost) substitutable by any other "one sex". Obviously this isn't true for sex.
If I was to sell one of my organs, it would A. have an immediate detrimental effect on my health and B. be permanent. Further, the state has a very high probability of paying for some or all of my medical care post-op.
If I sell a baby, I am selling something that is not my property. If I am the parent, I have some claim to the baby, but not one of direct ownership. So in truth I am selling something that is not mine. In reality, what you would be selling is your lack of action in defense of your paternal rights. That is, in fact, a victimless crime. However, the administration of those rights is not yours alone, but also your community's. You can't sell that, so you'd be lying to whoever you gave the child to if you implied that you could.
Lots of decisions and transactions are only technically voluntary and are driven by economic duress more than anything else. Working a dead end job, working a dangerous job, being a roofer or garbage man or flagger. Joining the military. Being a lumberjack. Hell, being a fisherman in many cases.
A lot of these jobs are dangerous. They're accepted, though. If I work as a lumberjack, it's not because I have a choice. It's because otherwise I would be homeless and this is a skill I can employ to feed and house myself.
Plus, in many countries there is a compulsory term of service.
> As 'tedks points out below, turning sex into a commodity has real implications for the status of women in society as a whole.
The real implications would be that prostitutes would most likely be safer and more wealthy.
> Moreover, as with selling organs or selling babies, there's a strong belief that such transactions are usually only technically voluntary, and are driven by economic duress more than anything else.
A choice made out of economic interest is still "voluntary" under the definition used in this context. Your claim seems to be that if the only two choices are selling your kidney or starving to death, then selling the kidney is not "voluntary." But if those were really the only two choices, and you ban selling the kidney, then the only scenario remaining is that the person starves to death.
I don't think there is anything wrong with making illegal, as unconscionable, transactions in which the poor give up their most basic human capital. It's "the rich get richer, the poor get poorer" at the most vulgar level.
> A choice made out of economic interest is still "voluntary" under the definition used in this context.
I think that's a very impoverished definition of "voluntary."
Are you suggesting that it's not voluntary if the choice makes the person better off? So is an action only voluntary if it makes the person worse off? That doesn't make much sense to me.
But if the person's only options are 1) starve to death or 2) become a prostitute, then prohibiting the second option means the person will starve to death. If there's a third option, like 3) work as a cook at a restaurant, then the person can choose between options 2 and 3, and if they choose 2, then it must not have been economic coercion like you suggest.
This is a pretty benighted attitude. Where you're choosing between a comfortable life and a more comfortable life, why does picking the second option indicate coercion?
Obviously there's no clean line as to how the alternative courses of action have to be before it counts as duress. But we don't have to draw the line clearly in order to be able to make the distinction.
You seem to be arguing that women who do sex work are under "economic duress" because the alternatives are so awful, therefore we should make it illegal, forcing them into back those awful alternatives. That seems backwards to me. Surely we should be banning the shitty, coercive minimum wage jobs, not the sex work women are choosing in preference to them?
It sounds to me like your distinction is that if any person makes less money than any other person, then the first person is under economic duress and thus is incapable of making any voluntary choices.
Sex is not like every other human interaction. If you forced someone to answer phones for eight hours, it is unlikely they would be traumatized in the same way as if you raped them for eight hours. Its different.
Not every transaction between people in unequal economic circumstances is suspect, but we're not talking about every transaction. We're talking about something much more intimate and emotional. Such transactions are far more suspicious.
You're moving goalposts.
What you are saying is absolute nonsense in light of decision theory.
Few would work if they didn't have to.
Money is an artifact of scarcity.
From each according their desires, to each according to an equitable resource distribution heuristic prioritised on a Maslovian basis.
Let the machines labor so that humanity may be free.
facetiousness factor: 0.5 < n < 0.95
Same thing.
Oh, but you can and it has been done. The repeal of DOMA was the first time the US Supreme Court has actually addressed this issue and said that laws cannot be based solely on morality. However, as long as you have morality + something else, you can have laws that would criminalize prostitution. I am mostly with you on this issue, but the details of all of this are much more complex than "let's just make it all legal".
I think governments can be pretty illogical at times.
If an 18 year old girl consents to prostitute herself, she isn't a victim of a "crime of prostitution". But if she was kidnapped as a child from her home country and traffiked to become a prostitute, she is considered a victim of the "industry of prostitution".
None of the crimes against her were prostitution. But the crimes against her were committed in the name of prostitution.
While harm reduction is a great thing, legalizing prostitution would have a hugely detrimental effect on the fight against human trafficking and the status of women in general. The idea that women's bodies can be commodified and sold to men is the foundation of patriarchy, and as long as prostitution exists we'll never have a free society.
It's also laughable to say that prostitution is ever some fantasy rational economic exchange. Women are forced into prostitution, either by being literally enslaved, or by economics.
The opposite is potentially true, because if it's decriminalized, it will also be regulated. Which means that everyone involved could be required to have their IDs on file, and could also require medical exams where doctors could ask whether they are there against their will.
When it's underground, it's less visible, and therefore easier for human trafficking to go undetected. [1] Human trafficking is clearly not a victimless crime, and all attempts should be made to stop it, but keeping prostitution illegal doesn't help, and probably instead hurts, that cause.
>Women are forced into prostitution, either by being literally enslaved, or by economics.
"Forced" means they had no other options. You'd rather they or their families starved, then?
Work on fixing the underlying economic realities that are "forcing" people into a profession against their will. Don't try to outlaw something that will continue exist no matter what laws are passed.
It's as futile as the War on Drugs.
[1] It's also worth noting that human trafficking doesn't always involve sex work. There was a case in Boulder, Colorado a few years back where people were lured to the US under false pretenses and they were forced to work in a chain of Thai restaurants without pay.
Based on what evidence are you claiming this?
Women are forced into prostitution, either by being literally enslaved, or by economics.
Sure. But they are enslaved whether prostitution is illegal or not. To claim that the criminalization solves that problem would be laughable; all it does it sweep it under the rug, by forcing prostitutes to hide and avoid help, with fear of being imprisoned.
Here in Portugal we decriminalized all drug use. And you know what? It seems that when people can ask for help without fearing they'll end up behind bars, they actually do it more!
If we want to end prostitution, we must attack the root of the problem, which you so well pointed out: the literal enslavement of women, and the economic situations that lead them to it. Criminalizing it solves nothing, it's just one more case of a policy that makes people feel good about themselves while they screw those they wanted to help.
If you're against prostitution I think the worse thing you can do is want it outlawed.
It's a little absurd how when it comes to things like taxis or hotels or the Internet infrastructure regulation is a horrible thing that does nothing but cause pain, but when men want to rape women (because that is what it is, to have sex with someone who is forced into it, that is rape, that is what prostitution is), all of a sudden regulation becomes a silver bullet.
I'm for harm reduction, but I'm also against normalizing rape, and teaching generations of men that rape is an okay, totally acceptable, shiny and regulated commodity. That's not acceptable for any sane, moral human.
I'm sure there are hardcore libertarians who think that all you need to do is legalise it and market forces will take care of everything else. The situation is so messed up currently that that would almost certainly be an improvement. But I'd be happy to see the same level of regulation we see for selling cigarettes, nightclubs, places that serve food, dangerous factories etc. because I'm pro sane levels of regulation for many things.
Also, as covered elsewhere in the thread if you think doing something in exchange for money is "force" then you've written off most of modern society.
That is just ridiculous. The fact that prostitution is illegal is the reason there is a trade in human sex slaves. Legalizing prostitution doesn't result in human sex-worker trafficking any more than legalizing professional sports results in athlete trafficking.
According to http://www.humantrafficking.org/countries/thailand:
"Trafficking victims in Thailand are found employed in maritime fishing, seafood processing, low-end garment production, and domestic work."
By your logic Thailand should ban maritime fishing, seafood processing and domestic works.
[1] http://www.thailawforum.com/sex-crimes-in-thailand-part2.htm...
So I have kind of a big problem with your idea that prostitution is per se some big moral problem here.
The fact that the comment above may make people uncomfortable is perhaps the best reason to prevent it from being buried.
(For the record, and in case it makes a difference in interpretation: I am married.)
I mean, you could have asked had I read Dworkin rather than framing your remark like you are sure I haven't, which is kind of an insulting, dismissive thing to do. And, upon googling, gee, if you mean THIS Dworkin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Dworkin, then: no thanks. I happen to like men and sex, I worked hellaciously hard to get there and I am not interested in drinking deeply of her rage. Her apparent thesis -- that porn is linked to rape and violence against women -- flies in the face of statistics that internet porn apparently reduces incidence of rape and, from a quick skim of the Wikipedia page, I get the impression she was pretty angry and dissatisfied with life. I generally try to get my advice from bon vivants, not embittered cynics.
False.
The actual reality is that, when adjusted for skill and seniority, women make just as much as men.
This is one of the most malicious feminist lies out there, eclipsed only by the 1 in 3/4/5 rape lie.
Where in the world did you get this idea? Farming postdates the human species. Prostitution predates it by a long, long way.
"as prostitution exists we'll never have a free society." The whole idea of a free society is total bullshit anyway. While I totally agree with you that human trafficking is despicable, it doesn't change the equation, if the end product is legally sold (or rented by the hour more accurately) or illegally doesn't change the demand or the supply.
We will never have a free society because it's an impossibility, humans are not evolved enough, nor are we devoid of vices like greed. A free society of automatons maybe, but not humans.
And as for your comment about farming, that's also wrong. Farming is a relatively recent profession, no older than 10k years. You think women didn't exchange protein for sex before that? If you do then you're dead wrong.
Exactly how would it affect the fight against any of those? Why would trafficking in sex workers be more exposed to trafficking than any other kind of slavery, except because it is illegal in most places? If legal, why would trafficking be able to compete with legal alternatives?
As for the idea of selling bodies, why are you equalizing the women with their bodies and thereby making them into objects instead of seeing them as people that perform services? I thought the whole point of feminism was to see and treat women as agents with the same self determination as men have - so why are you reducing sex workers to simply their body and gender?
And yes, some women are forced into prostitution. But some are not - some choose it because they like it and some choose it because it is a lot better than any of their available alternatives. Why do you think that it is ok to deemancipate those women?
But some women want to engage in that profession and can't due to (mostly male) lawmakers preventing them. So it really swings both ways.
And further, prostitution isn't just women. It's mostly women, but not only women.
I can sell you my labor, the product of my labor, or actions I can take upon your body (massage, for example). Why is sex different?
I'm not talking operations-wise, I'm saying that excluding the slavery and pimping, what exactly is inherently wrong with the act itself? What separates sexual activity from other activity as something that 'is the foundation of the patriarchy?'
Why? There's no need to traffic humans for prostitution if prostitution is legal.
> The idea that women's bodies can be commodified and sold to men is the foundation of patriarchy
What about the idea that men can pass laws forbidding women to do certain things with their own bodies? If a woman can choose to have an abortion, why can't she choose to have sex for money?
There'd almost certainly be reduced demand to traffic humans for prostitution if it was legal but trafficking humans was not, compared to the situation where both are illegal, but that's not the same as no demand.
By this logic, there should be nobody brought to a country to do a job legal in that country. Are you happy making that equivalent claim, or changing your view given a counter example?
Isn't that the case? Presumably humans that are trafficked for forced labor are paid below minimum wage and exposed to bad working conditions that are illegal.
EDIT: Since I don't want to reply to everyone individually:
I am not condoning prostitution as a career. I am saying that criminalizing prostitution hurts all parties involved. There is a common misconception that wanting to repeal a law means you support whatever that law outlawed. I don't think prostitution should be illegal.
The rule of law is not a place to push morality. There is no reason for the government to interfere in a consensual transaction between two people. If a pimp is forcing a prostitute to sell themselves, that's called slavery, and it is illegal. Selling a prostitute to someone else against their will is illegal, and it is called human trafficking. Simply selling your body harms no third party against their will.