Should Prostitution Be Legalized?

[Bo]

I'm not sure if this question was asked here before, but I wanted to see if anybody's opinions have changed.

My opinion: I'd say Yes. I don't care whether someone commits prostituion, but I think people should have the right to do it if they want. Besides, couldn't the govt. tax this activity?

[Bo]

Anyone?

[President Mitt]

You bumped the thread 20 minutes after you made it?

Yes by the way.

[Countess Anya of the North Parish]

this thread was already made.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Absolutely not.

[Vepres]

Only if done nationwide, otherwise they'd all flood in to certain areas.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Only if done nationwide, otherwise they'd all flood in to certain areas.

Hasn't happened in Nevada and never happened in Rhode Island. For a long time there was prostitution thriving in Boston while one could just drive an hour to Rhode Island and do it legally. Then again considering how easy it is to get away with it...

I vote yes.

[Free Palestine]

Yes.

[useful idiot]

Yes

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Yes, it should.

[Bo]

Absolutely not.

Why not? Don't tell me it's immoral or something along those lines. I know that, and if people want to be immoral, they should be able to.

[Countess Anya of the North Parish]

sure but it i just such a dirty sad 'job' to be doing.

[The Mikado]

sure but it i just such a dirty sad 'job' to be doing.

Have you read Super-Freakonomics?  The chapter on prostitution is mind-blowing.  (Er...perhaps "mind-blowing" isn't the right phrase.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

sure but it i just such a dirty sad 'job' to be doing.

Depends really. People think of crackwhore streetwalkers and Asians in brothels for this sort of thing, but there's plenty of others. Some are just young massage students who figure they can make some extra cash with some "handy endings" and don't even have sex with their customers. I once even met with a girl in fact who said the only reason she doesn't do them is she'd be too spooked about getting busted, and that some of her friends in the massage business do and she doesn't care. Then you got the big time call girl types like who Eliot Spitzer was seeing. The main reason why besides the adultery I don't care about what Spitzer was doing, with the prices he was paying HE was the one being exploited, not the girl.

Anyway things wouldn't be so bad if there was at least smart enforcement focusing only on the streetwalkers and trafficker and pimps and all that instead of wasting taxpayer money and police resources in busting escorts and some of their customers on sites like Craigslist who aren't bothering anyone or some woman who offers sex for World Series tickets.

[fezzyfestoon]

Yes, but carefully.

[dead0man]

I'm with BRTD on this one, make it legal, but keep busting streetwalkers.  There should be some regulation there, but I'd prefer if it was above the board SELF regulated like doctors and electricians not state regulated like teachers and pilots.

[fezzyfestoon]

I'm with BRTD on this one, make it legal, but keep busting streetwalkers.  There should be some regulation there, but I'd prefer if it was above the board SELF regulated like doctors and electricians not state regulated like teachers and pilots.

Eh, I'm not so sure this would regulate itself very well.  Too much power in the pimps.  Doctors and electricians are more independent while prostitutes are often controlled.  Of course, there could just be safety measures in place to make sure abuse doesn't happen and safety is kept a priority.  Amsterdam has some good lessons to be learned as does Nevada.

[Mint]

No, but not for moral reasons. Pretty much all the research I've come across points towards legalization being a failure. There has been no significant decrease at all in terms of trafficking in countries like australia or the netherlands, actually the opposite. I do think that putting women in jail for prostitution is asinine though.

[Mint]

I'm with BRTD on this one, make it legal, but keep busting streetwalkers.  There should be some regulation there, but I'd prefer if it was above the board SELF regulated like doctors and electricians not state regulated like teachers and pilots.

Eh, I'm not so sure this would regulate itself very well.  Too much power in the pimps.  Doctors and electricians are more independent while prostitutes are often controlled.  Of course, there could just be safety measures in place to make sure abuse doesn't happen and safety is kept a priority.  Amsterdam has some good lessons to be learned as does Nevada.

 Out of all Amsterdam's 8,000 to 11,000 prostitutes, more than 75% are from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia according to a former prostitute who produced a report about the sex trade in Amsterdam, in 2008. Le Monde in 1997 found that 80% of prostitutes in the Netherlands were foreigners and 70% had no immigration papers. Recent reports in general indicate that the problem has worsened, not improved and the same has been found in countries like Australia too. Why? Because the number of native girls who want to enter the trade and go through the hassle of registration are small and the demand is high. Now admittedly, it might be less of a problem if we had much stronger border control, but...

[minionofmidas]

No - they're not usually literally smuggled over the border, but overstaying tourist visas, seasonal work permits (in a different industry) etc.
And yes, being in the country illegally (and not paying their taxes) and thus having reason to fear the police is the source of pimp* power over here. Along with their quite cozy relationships with the police, of course.

*Read: Brothel operator/manager. Not the whores' "boyfriends", who're usually referred to by the same term, and whose role in the system appears to be to curb the worst of the operators' abuses, actually. Pretty strange subculture.

[Mint]

You know I meant immigration enforcement in general.

[minionofmidas]

You know I meant immigration enforcement in general.

In that case you clearly didn't think very far. Read my post again, all of it this time.

[minionofmidas]

Then where do you get the notion that the police might somehow become part of the solution from?

New post etc

Alright I take that back pre-emptively, just ignore me. Actually forget it, I quit. See all of you whenever.

Uh, what? Don't. (I don't want to ignore you. I do that only with the really dumb arguments. Like, say, anything Libertas says.)

[Mint]

I said stronger, that doesn't mean simply cracking down on the immigrants or migrants. You could implement new measures like much tougher sentencing for corruption, streamline the application process for visas (if people meet requirements), etc. Although I think more people patrolling and speedy enforcement would certainly help stem a lot of it, especially in the states.

Anyway yeah, ignore whatever I said earlier I'm just frustrated lately.

[k-onmmunist]

Yes, it should.