I doubt barely anyone would propose legalizing sex slavery. I definitely do not.

Nonetheless, I do not want the government to forcefully restrain people from activities that are freely chosen but may be considered self-abusive and morally degrading. That's one reason I support the legalization of prostitution (as well as the legalization of other freely chosen activities such as doing drugs, overeating, etc.).

Regardless, I also support the legalization of prostitution for women's sake. Criminalizing prostitution does not get rid of it; it just pushes it underground. When prostitution is legalized, legitimate businesses legally provide the supply of paid sex to customers using employees who voluntarily applied for the job and who are free to quit. When prostitution is criminalized, the paid sex market is given to violent criminals; "johns" must go to criminal pimps to buy sex, and the criminal pimps often will use violence to enslave women as prostitutes. I firmly believe legalizing prostitution would drastically improve the conditions of prostitutes and would drastically decrease the amount of sex slavery.

What do you think? Do you think legalizing prostitution would make the conditions better for prostitutes? Do you think legalizing prostitution would undermine the underground sex slavery market?

I just made a blog post that further explains the benefits of legalizing prostitution. It also points out that prostitution prohibition drastically increases the spread of AIDS.

anarchyisbliss wrote:The main reason it is illegal is because moralists in Washington think it is to immoral yet they legalize strip clubs. pornography, and sex shops.

I would bet the main reason that consensual crimes like prostitution remain illegal is because of the influence of the corporations and unions that financially benefit from prohibition. As I explained in my article, The Philosophy of Government Spending, since the government has the power to spend trillions of taxpayers' dollars a year, that means special interests have trillions of dollars worth of incentive to get that money given to them. What's waste to taxpayers is profit to the special interests who receive the money. From the money alone, I can bet the private-owned prison industry, the police unions, the manufacturers of police equipment, the staff at the flooded courts and so forth all support prohibition of prostitution as well as other consensual crimes like possessing marijuana.

Nick_A, it seems to me you are contradicting yourself. How can you on one hand say you support a "free society" and then on the other hand say you want big government regulating the personal, consensual choices of competent adults? How can you oppose the free market so clearly and say you are doing it because you want to keep the free society. That I don't understand.

But what I do understand of you argument, Nick_A, is the claim that legalization of prostitution is tantamount to promotion of prostitution. I disagree with this claim. Firstly, as I clearly argued in my other posts in this thread and in the blog post, prohibition of prostitution does not stop prostitution form occurring; prohibition makes prostitution more dangerous and disables us from regulating it. You wouldn't say that having a more dangerous STD-ridden black market filled with many unwilling sex slaves of all ages is more conducive to a 'free society' than a regulated, legal market of consenting adults; would you? Legalization of prostitution doesn't promote prostitution but rather enables us to regulate it and discourages sex slavery, underage prostitution and STD-filled prostitution. To stress this point further, it may currently be legal for one to shove a battery up his own butt and eat lit candles, but I would not say the legalization of those ridiculous activities is tantamount to promotion of them, nor would I say that criminalization of them promotes a free society.

Juice wrote:Sorry WTS but I am going to have to disappoint. Being a man of experience, not only my own but also through conversations with men who have similarly availed themselves of various aspects of life I can honestly say with no trepidation that had I known I would meet my wife I would have waited for her. Sure one can say that I am lucky, but the men who comprise my circle of friends and acquaintances value family above anything else and live their lives IAW that priority, children love mothers but learn from fathers.

We have to respect, defend and honor woman. That is how we honor ourselves as men. I watch Gladiator at least once a week since one of the underlying values it expresses is that point of view. I have raised my son with that perspective and I am grateful that he is becoming a better man than I am since I talk to him about intimacy, love and respect, and how adopting those precepts will make him a better man.

[...]I believe that we should look at women and approach our dealings with them in as an honorable manner as possible and we should encourage our sons to act accordingly so that more and more pornography and prostitution become passe'.

I think I agree with all of that Juice. But I do not think it supports national or statewide prohibition of prostitution.

Please note, I am not promoting or encouraging prostitution. If I had a daughter, I would very, very strongly discourage or disallow her from engaging in it. There are many things that are legal or that I want to be legal that I would not do, that I would not allow my future children to do, or when they're older would strongly discourage them from doing. While I support legalizing or at least decriminalizing prostitution, I would still support programs that discourage it by educating the public of the risks, taxing it, etc. Indeed, the main reason I want it legalized (and regulated and taxed) is because that would be much safer for women, both those who voluntarily choose to engage in it and those who are violently forced to do it when it is illegal and thus run by black market thugs.

Nick_A, I'm not celebrating prostitution. I am not proposing we celebrate prostitution. I think you are incorrect when you conflate legalization with celebration. For instance, I would definitely support replacing the expensive, ineffective war on prostitution with a less expensive public health campaign similar to what is done with cigarettes and alcohol.

Scott in post 3 wrote:I just made a blog post that further explains the benefits of legalizing prostitution. It also points out that prostitution prohibition drastically increases the spread of AIDS.

Scott in post 13 wrote:prohibition of prostitution does not stop prostitution form occurring; prohibition makes prostitution more dangerous and disables us from regulating it. You wouldn't say that having a more dangerous STD-ridden black market filled with many unwilling sex slaves of all ages is more conducive to a 'free society' than a regulated, legal market of consenting adults; would you? Legalization of prostitution doesn't promote prostitution but rather enables us to regulate it and discourages sex slavery, underage prostitution and STD-filled prostitution.

Nick_A in post 19 wrote:All legalizing it will do is to make it more attractive and invite more prostitution out of the Govt. approved brothels. the result will be more STDs

The result of prohibition is more STDs, and more violence, slavery and underage sex.

As for this claim that legalization will make it more attractive, I do not think so. Legalization of overage, consensual, STD-less prostitution from legitimate businesses will make the other types of prostitution less appealing in comparison. Like with the historical prohibition of alcohol, I think prohibition doesn't significantly stop people from engaging in the activity. I think a public health campaign like what is done with cigarettes is more effective and more conducive to a free society than prohibition. Indeed, since prohibition so drastically increases the harmful effects of prostitution and its impact on society, it is the equivalent of drastically increasing the amount of prostitution.

In regards to your continued claims that legalization is celebration, what is your response to my previous example in post #13: "it may currently be legal for one to shove a battery up his own butt and eat lit candles, but I would not say the legalization of those ridiculous activities is tantamount to promotion of them, nor would I say that criminalization of them promotes a free society."

Nick_A wrote:What does the general welfare mean to you? Does it mean providing a welfare state or an environment that is conducive for a person becoming themselves?

Any single country's constitution aside, I will repeat the common slogan that I think liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order and prosperity. (As you point out, liberty entails as many obligations as it does rights. For instance, the universal obligation not to murder or rape is included in the universal freedom not to be murdered or raped.)

Juice wrote:Once prostitution becomes legal then it sends the message that it has become socially acceptable, and therefore negates the necessity for familiar discourse.

Nick_A wrote:When you legalize prostitution you are not directly promoting it but rather putting it on the same level as other institutions. I'm in a minority but I'd prefer a brothel not being considered on the same level as a hospital even though the trend is to consider them equal in their legality.

No, legalization of something is not celebrating it and is "not putting it on the same level" as other institutions. Regardless of their legal status, a package store is not on the same level as a hospital, a lottery ticket salesmen is not on the same level as a charity, an employer who pays his employees minimum wage and treats them meanly is not on the same level as a kindhearted small businessman who pays his employees well and goes the extra mile with his customers not because he has to but because he cares about the community.

We don't need a big government to interfere in the consensual interactions between competent adults to tell us what is on the same level or to tell us what to celebrate. There are many things I wouldn't do, many things I discourage rather than celebrate, many things that if my hypothetical child did could make me cry, but that I want to be legal at least on the nationwide and statewide level. (If a particular small town wants to make up a very local ordinance that prohibits prostitution or smoking, or that creates a high minimum wage or so forth, go for it.)

Juice wrote:The activity is exploitive and foments other criminal enterprises such as pedophilia and drug trafficking. Ninety percent of prostitutes are drug addicts.

I think I agree with that. Indeed, I have been arguing against prohibition because prohibition increases the amount of destructive or criminal activity (besides prostitution itself) that prostitutes and their clients engage in by pushing this huge industry underground and handing it over to violent career criminals. Prohibition increases STDs, drug addiction, violence, sex slavery, statutory rape and generic criminal activity among those who are involved in prostitution.

There are many activities which could be called exploitative, mean, unhelpful or self-destructive. In addition to prostitution, this includes cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol, sweat shops, unprotected sex with strangers, gambling, not giving employees health benefits, risky wall street investing, overeating, etc. Generally, I think criminalizing them only makes matters worse by creating new problems and exacerbating others. In contrast, I believe freedom tends to lead to prosperity through self-responsibility, lack of violence, lack of government spending, and the tendency of voluntary interactions to be more mutually beneficial than involuntary ones.

Juice wrote:Let's make it clear that it is the "activity" of prostitution itself that promotes destructive and criminal activity regardless of its legality.

Even if that is true, criminalizing prostitution or any other activity causes the activity to lead even more to destructive and criminal activity. I think more problems are caused by the criminalization of prostitution than by prostitution itself. And since criminalization isn't an effective way of stopping prostitution, when it's criminalized we have to deal with the alleged regular drawbacks of prostitution and the new problems and exacerbated problems caused by criminalization, i.e. the drastic increase in prostitutes with STDs, sex slavery, underage prostitution, violence, other crimes, government spending, police corruption, and funding for criminal organizations.

One can allege that consensual, above age, STD-less prostitution engaged in by law-abiding citizens or any other activity consensually engaged in by competent adults "promotes destructive and criminal behavior." Maybe eating ice cream promotes destructive and criminal behavior. Maybe playing video games does. But this fancy language does not put these behaviors in the same category as offensive violence, victimization or other involuntary interactions between people, such as rape, battery or murder. So how does it warrant infringing on the freedom of competent adults to engage in voluntary interactions and exchanges? Why criminalize these non-violent, consensual interactions if criminalizing them will not stop people from engaging in the activity but worsens the drawbacks of engaging in the activity and causes many more problems such as the drastically increased government spending and actual violent victimization? I want to understand the underlying general principle you want used to decide which activities the government involves itself and prohibits, i.e. what types of statism you support. If it turns out playing violent video games 'promotes destructive and criminal activity,' would you support criminalizing that? If it turns out paying employees anything less than $20 an hour 'promotes destructive and criminal activity,' would you support criminalizing that? If not, then what qualities does any given activity have to possess for you to support criminalizing it and waging an expensive government-run war on it?

Would you really rather have a dangerous, violent STD-ridden black market filled with many unwilling sex slaves of all ages rather than a regulated, taxed market of consenting, STD-free adults?

I commend you for your comments on respecting and protecting women. Perhaps the main reason to demand the legalization of prostitution is out of respect for the many women who suffer the consequences of prohibition such as the unwilling women who are literally slaves of violent thugs who have been given this huge industry. Criminalization of prostitution is a policy that was created by elite men and is a policy that causes dire harm to many but most of all to the women the elitists claim to protect.

Juice wrote:...the obvious circumstance that prostitution compounds further anti-social behaviors and criminal activities.

Even if that statement is correct, so what? If prostitution "compounds further anti-social behaviors and criminal activities," then so what? Is that grounds for criminalizing it? Would you support criminalizing it even if criminalizing it compounds further anti-social behaviors and criminal activities in addition to other problems like increased government spending?

Juice wrote:No one is denying anyone the freedom to engage in any consenting activity...

It seems to me that is clearly what you are doing. I am asking you if you want to criminalize a consensual interaction between competent adults in which nobody is harmed against their will, and I believe you are saying yes.

To be clear, Juice, do you support the criminalization of prostitution between consenting adults?

Please excuse me for re-asking the same question I asked in post #28: If it turns out playing violent video games 'promotes destructive and criminal activity,' would you support criminalizing that? If it turns out paying employees anything less than $20 an hour 'promotes destructive and criminal activity,' would you support criminalizing that? If not, then what qualities does any given activity have to possess for you to support criminalizing it and waging an expensive government-run war on it?

Juice wrote:Would you want or encourage your daughter, son, sister, brother or wife to become a legal tax paying prostitute?

I thought I already said that I wouldn't want that. Of course, I wouldn't want that. Like I've already said, there's many things I wouldn't do and I wouldn't want my family members to do that I still want to be legal. There's many things I strongly discourage but that I still want legal.

Juice wrote:Would you want to live next door to a house of ill repute (being nice)?

This question is irrelevant as well. If you and I didn't want to live next door to fat people, would you support criminalizing obesity? If you and I didn't want to live next door to people of a certain ethnicity, would you support making that a law? (Again, if any small town or condo community wants to make a very local ordinance that bans people from engaging in an activity that is legal at the state and national level, that's fine by me for the same reason one could disallow someone from entering one's home for an assortment of silly reasons.

Juice wrote:Would we allow people to become prostitutes so they can support a legal drug habit?

Again I do not see the point of this question. Of course we would allow people to do legal work to earn legal pay to pay for a legal habit. We may not like the work they are doing. We may even say they are being exploited. We could say a roofer getting paid poorly is being exploited, and we could disapprove of him performing an unpleasant job to makes funds for a legal drug habit, but that wouldn't cause me to support big government interference in an otherwise free market to regulate the consensual interactions and economic exchanges between competent adults.

Juice wrote:Could I go to the job fare at the local high school to promote careers in prostitution?

I would hope that there are many jobs that are legal that you could not promote in a high school. But I suppose it depends on the rules of the specific school.

Juice wrote:Would a ugly person be cheaper than a beautiful person? Can we establish price control so as to make it fair for the less accomplished sexual servers? Could I get a refund if I am not satisfied? Where could I get a reference? Will the better business bureau provide them? Could virgins be actioned? What's the retirement age? Do we wait until the server is used up? Can I serve alcohol in my business of ill repute? Will Johns have to show proof of marital status? Will the hotel be sectioned off like they do for smoking so I don't have to worry about stains or unpleasant odors? If I solicit my next door neighbor or her daughter will the law protect me from stalking laws? Could I solicit your wife or daughter, and if you don't like it and hit me do I have grounds to sue for medical expenses or more?

All of those questions could be asked about many other professions that we would both want to be legal. So I do not see how the questions are relevant to the question of this thread: Do you support the criminalization of prostitution?

Juice,

Though you continue to talk about sex slavery, rape and non-consensual as if to make it seem like consensual prostitution between competent adults is somehow tantamount to slavery.

Yet, your arguments and claims in now way show us that prostitution is slavery. You've shown that it can be slavery, but not that it is.

Activities that involve using force or the threat of force to get someone to do something for you or just to hurt them are in one category. The other category contains actions that are, in contrast, consensual. The first category includes actions like rape, murder, and battery. The second category contains other actions like doing drugs, paying employees poorly, prostitution, and indeed many actions that it would be considered ludicrous to criminalize such as eating ice cream or watching too much TV.

For the sake of clarity, let me point out the many scarecrow issues about which I happen to agree with you:

I agree with you that I want sex slavery to be illegal.

I agree with you that I want rape to be illegal.

I agree with you that we need to consider how economic pressure can effectively be slavery, but this applies to any profession not just prostitution. Here's another instance of me explaining such an argument. I think I agree with it more than you!

I agree with you that I would not engage in prostitution myself.

I agree with you that I would very much not want my children or other close family members to be a prostitute or to use prostitution, and as long as they are young enough I would disallow my children from it.

I agree with you in laughing at those whose sexual ineptness leads them to prostitutes.

But I do not see why you support the criminalization of prostitution. All of those arguments above are clearly red herrings.

I have read through your posts to try to infer the underlying principle that dictates what types of actions you want criminalized. I apologize for not understanding you better, but I have failed to find it. Can you please provide a clear, direct answer to this question which I've asked you before: What qualities does any given activity have to possess for you to support criminalizing it and waging an expensive government-run war on it?

From your arguments, it seem you are simply a utilitarian statist or a populist, i.e. you support government infringing on the freedom of individuals to make society more productive or supposedly lead to less actual violent crime (e.g. murder, rape, etc.). This is what it seems when your arguments for criminalizing prostitution (besides the red herrings listed above) is that it promotes destructive and criminal activity, that it correlates to slavery, that you don't want it "celebrated," etc.

Even from the view of utilitarian statism or populism (or whatever you want to call your brand of what you call "black conservatism" which apparently entails government regulation of consensual individual interactions supposedly for the collective good), wouldn't you support legalizing consensual prostitution if that would drastically reduce the amount of STDs (especially among prostitutes themselves), rape of prostitutes, drug addiction (especially among prostitutes themselves) trafficking of unwilling women, underage prostitution, violent crime and government spending, and create better conditions for prostitutes themselves? If not, why not?

Let it be clear, I am obviously not suggesting the legalization of rape (i.e. non-consensual sex) or slavery (i.e. non-consensual labor).

If one believes all or almost all instances of prostitution are non-consensual, then the one who has forced the non-consensual person to engage in the act of sex can be charged with rape without any laws specifically outlawing the offering of consensual sex for some other payment or any other form of labor for any other form of payment.

***

Nick_A,

Nick_A wrote:Hi Scott

Nick_A, I'm not celebrating prostitution. I am not proposing we celebrate prostitution. I think you are incorrect when you conflate legalization with celebration. For instance, I would definitely support replacing the expensive, ineffective war on prostitution with a less expensive public health campaign similar to what is done with cigarettes and alcohol.

You are suggesting that we battle prostitution by legalizing it. But when you legalize it you are claiming it to be a non threat to the preservation of a free society.

This depends what you mean by being a "non threat to the preservation of a free society." I think that consensual prostitution is obviously a non-threat to freedom in the sense that it does not necessarily infringe on anyone's freedom.

It may be a "threat to the preservation of a free society" in others senses. I would say greed, stock market speculation, sadism and poverty are major threats to the preservation of a free society. But legalizing them is not tantamount to claiming they are not threads to free society. Insofar as all interactions have been consensual and peaceful, third-party initiation of statist regulation and violence would be an infringement of freedom and thus the biggest threat to freedom of all.

There many self-destructive, disgusting and/or addictive activities that be called common problem for the social psyche, whatever that means. Consider gambling, watching too much TV, eating fast food, getting ugly tattoos, being a racist, being a sexist, being a member of various organized religions or cults, boxing, having frequent orgies without STD-protection or birth control, drinking coca-cola, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes or marijuana, etc. But I would never suggest criminalizing these activities insofar as all participants are consenting, competent adults.

In another thread, when I suggested increasing the taxes or fines on unhealthy behaviors like eating cigarettes, doing recreational drugs and eating candy, you objected, saying that you thought it was "a direct avenue into Big Brother's domination," and that you "believe in personal responsibility." And I would never suggest criminalizing them, just taxing them instead of taxing income.

So I will re-ask questions that I originally had asked in a post mainly in response to Juice. What general qualities does any given activity have to possess for you to support criminalizing it and waging an expensive government-run war on it?

I don't think anyone is "rationalizing and supporting prostitution," Nick_A.

We are supporting the legalization of an activity when consenting, competent adults voluntarily choose to engage in it.

There are many things I strongly discourage but that I still do not want criminalized. Even when I wish people would exercise their freedom differently, I do not want to infringe on their freedom by taking away their free choice and giving it to Big Brother.

Here is something Juice wrote in another thread that reminded me of this one:

Juice wrote:I am for as little and even no government intrusion into the freedoms and lives of humanity at all. All government is inherently corrupt and should be limited to keeping the citizenry free from force so that they can conduct their business according to their own rational will.

Essentially speaking, I share that political philosophy iterated in those two sentences, which I would call anti-statism. I believe it calls for the legalization of prostitution between consenting, competent adults particularly in cases where neither party is poor.

I would be interested to read Juice's explanation of the apparent contradiction between those anti-statist remarks and his statist position in this thread.

PaulNZ, according to the link you provided prostitution in New Zealand was already legal before 2003. The law change in 2003 simply abolished some of the restrictions on the prostitution they were officially already allowing, such as by allowing the advertising of prostitution.

***

BubbaD0g, I enjoy reading your posts and think are written clearly and well. Excuse me for only responding to the following two points of yours:

BubbaD0g wrote:I don't advocate criminalizing presently lawful, albeit harmful, activities; whenever a massive social change is proposed, my position is that the onus is on proponents of that change to demonstrate that it is a change

I understand. Nonetheless, prostitution is currently legal in some places and illegal in others. Are you saying that you support keeping it legal in the places in which it is already legal and illegal in places in which is it is already legal? What if we were all in a plane together and landed on an unknown previously uninhabited cliche island and we were writing the laws from scratch? Would you support or oppose the prohibition of prostitution?

BubbaD0g wrote:Maybe you and Scott are right. Maybe our society's attitude towards women is so distorted and evil that the state placing its imprimatur on the sex trade can't really make things that much worse.

I think the above is a mis-paraphrasing me. Firstly, I do not think the word 'imprimatur' is correct as it implies approval to me. I'm not suggesting states approve of or encourage prostitution just as they do not approve of binge drinking, cigarette smoking, pornography or morbid obesity where those things are legal. In contrast, I would suggest that some of the funds currently being put towards the criminal investigation, prosecution and incarceration of prostitution where it is currently illegal but put towards a public campaign against prostitution in parallel to the funds spent on reducing cigarette smoking and pregnant-women-drinking in places where those are legal. Moreover, my argument is not the legalization would 'not really make things much worse' but rather that criminalization exacerbates the problems of prostitution and that semi-restricted legalization would actually make things better by such ways as reducing STDs and allowing for more efficient use of government funds. I also think it would help reduce child prostitution and the trafficking of women (i.e. literal slavery).

***

Xris, I do think there is a blurry line between prostitution and gold digging. Indeed, many stand up comics have addressed the similarities between taking a woman out for a nice meal in hopes of sleeping with her to a prostitute using the money you just paid her to buy herself a nice meal, for instance. However, to essentially equate marriage to prostitution is way off in my opinion. If you excuse me being anecdotal, My wife and I for instance each make about equal money and are together because we love each other and we both enjoy being with each other, not to trade money for sex.

***

I agree with most if not all of the points made in the posts supporting the decriminalization and/or legalization of prostitution, so I apologize for not having individual responses for those. Anyway here is yet another statistic that I feel supports legalization:

Christopher Fairley, PhD, Director of the Melbourne Sexual Health Center, wrote in the Nov. 18, 2000 The Lancet article "Prostitution, Public Health, and Human-Rights Law" that:

"In one Australian study carried out in 1998, the prevalence of sexually transmitted bacterial infections was 80 times greater in 63 illegal street prostitutes than in 753 of their legal brothel counterparts... Legally sanctioned encouragement of prostitutes to use condoms or access screening services, both major determinants of the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases, is impossible because of their illegal status. Occupational health and safety law is applied to prostitutes in lawful brothels but not to their counterparts on the street."

Thanks!
Scott

BubbaD0g,

BubbaD0g wrote:Still, so long as there are legitimate arguments on both sides, my inclination is to allow each community its own voice in the debate, whether I agree with that voice or not.

If we are talking about small communities, namely towns, then I fully support their decision to choose to allow or ban prostitution on their own premises just as much as I support a homeowner to not allow prostitution to occur in his own home. (Indeed, in the thread Can a roommate, condo community or town infringe freedom?. I made my case for small towns and condo communities to ban or require any sort of behaviors according to their own preferences as a condition of allowing others to live in their shared home.

So when I say that I support legalization of consensual prostitution between adults, I mean that at the national or big state level, not at the town or village level.

BubbaD0g wrote:I concede many of the practical advantages of a legal but regulated sex industry, with regulation probably very similar in form to that of the pornography industry now--valid proof of age, mandatory routine STI testing, mandatory use of barrier contraceptives for penetrative acts and the like--but that still does not address my concern about furthering the objectification of women.

Incidentally, aren't 20-30% of prostitutes male?

Anyway, more to the main issues, BubbaD0g, you say that [i]the existence of legal brothels makes it much harder for law enforcement and social service agencies to find [trafficked sex slaves] and get them out of that situation. But why do you believe that? Do you have evidence of that, even just like some kind of poll of law enforcement or social worker. Your haystack analogy seems to me to apply more towards my way of thinking; I bet it would be harder for law enforcement to uncover the sex slave and child traffickers among the pile of hay that is illegal prostitution when consensual STD-tested adult prostitutes are thrown into the pile of illegal hay located in the black market that enforcement has to sift threw. In another analogy, would criminalizing tobacco cigarettes make it easier or harder for drug enforcement officers to stop cocaine dealers? Would it increase or decrease the figurative pile of hay that the apparently overwhelmed drug enforcement agents have to sift through? Does taking all the otherwise law-abiding cigarette smokers and cigarette sellers out of the black market increase the efficiency of drug enforcement officers to get the other more dangerous drugs?

You say you prefer decriminalization over regulated legalization. This doesn't make sense to me. Legalization is preferable to decriminalization for at least the same reasons decriminalization is preferable to criminalization. You say one of the pros of decriminalization is that it would still allow police to investigate the less nefarious of your two-tiers of prostitution if there is any reasonable suspicion that something more nefarious is going on. But regulated legalization provides for this. Prostitutes, customers and brothels would have to open themselves up to investigation and influence when they wish to register and get licensed. Consider that speeding is essentially decriminalized while driving in general is not. Do speeders cooperate with police? Not really, they try to slow down when they see cops on the side of the road or they get radar detectors and such. Law-abdiding legalized drivers, in contrast, undergo testing and voluntary investigation by submitting data about themselves as a requirement to get a license. As opposed to total criminalization or even decriminalization, regulated legalization allows the state to get many otherwise criminal enterprises to voluntarily assist in their own investigation and monitoring as a condition of getting their licenses and permits--basically these people have to submit the data that under decriminalization or regular old criminalization a police-investigation would have to attempt to uncover--such as blueprints and walk-throughs of these buildings to ensure there is not a secret room filled with immigrant child sex slaves. Police wouldn't even need a warrant or reasonable suspicion to get this information or access from non-sex-slave prostitution dealers because they would volunteer the information as a means of getting their license just as you and I volunteer our eye health information and voluntarily undergo an investigation of our eye health as a means to getting our driver's license.

You also say, "the European situation proves that, given present circumstances, legal prostitution makes human trafficking worse." I disagree. I think how much sex slavery, trafficking, and child prostitution--which we all want to be illegal--occurs in any country where those things are already illegal is most determined by the overall effectiveness of law enforcement and crime prevention in those areas. There are some very poor countries with very ineffective police departments wherein people can more easily get away with stuff that is generally illegal everywhere such as rape, copyright infringement, international terrorist plotting, etc.

There are tens of thousands of sex slaves in the United States--that's not voluntary prostitutes but rather sex slaves, i.e. people who are repeatedly raped for the financial profit of criminals. If consensual prostitution were made legal, but heavily regulated and taxed, at the national and state level in all 50 states, I believe that number would go down. Saying how many women are trafficked and raped and where and what the law regarding consensual adult prostitution in those areas is does not really constitute evidence of the contrary as it is uncontrolled, ipso facto unscientific, comparison. At the very least, I would like to see statistics over time from places with decently funded and relatively functional law enforcement
where consensual adult prostitution was once completely illegal and was then legalized (but presumably and hopefully heavily regulated like alcohol, cigarettes and gun ownership in the U.S.) or vice versa.

***

PaulNZ, I digested the information in links you gave me. My point is that prostitution was already legal before 2003 in New Zealand. Yes, the specific regulations affecting prostitution were reformed in 2003 in the direction of even more leniency, but it was already legal before that.

BubbaD0g wrote:1. My arguments that human trafficking is made worse by legal prostitution in the European Union are taken from articles on Humantrafficking.org which cite Europol officials on the subject and solwodi.org; as best I can tell, both sources are reliable.

I'm sorry if you posted those previously I missed it. Can you point me to the specific post or page on those websites where I can find a source describing the difference between trying to stop sex slavery, child prostitution and human trafficking--all essentially forms of repeated rape--from before consensual adult prostitution was illegal as opposed to after consensual adult prostitution was legalized but regulated in their jurisdiction.

Anyway, here are some experts on my side of the issue:

Marjan Wijers, LLM, Chair of the European Commission's Expert Group on Trafficking in Human Beings in the book Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance and Redefinition, wrote: "Criminalizing the sex industry creates ideal conditions for rampant exploitation and abuse of sex workers…[I]t is believed that trafficking in women, coercion and exploitation can only be stopped if the existence of prostitution is recognized and the legal and social rights of prostitutes are guaranteed."

In the same book, Alison J. Murray, PhD, lecturer at the University of Sydney, wrote: "Blanket statements about prostitution and the exploitation of women are propaganda from a political agenda which seeks to control the way people think and behave. The situations which the anti-traffickers rail against, insofar as they do exist, are a result of economic, political and gender inequalities which should be our central cause for concern. The vast range of sex industries and contexts requires an understanding of diversity and difference and a realization that prohibition and unitary 'moral values' are part of the problem, not the solution."

David A. Feingold, PhD, Coordinator of Trafficking-HIV/AIDS Programs, Culture Unit, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Bangkok, in the article "Think Again: Human Trafficking" wrote:

David A. Feingold, PhD wrote:The intersection of the highly emotive issues of sex work and human trafficking generates a lot more heat than light. Some antitrafficking activists equate 'prostitution' with trafficking and vice versa, despite evidence to the contrary. The U.S. government leaves no doubt as to where it stands: According to the State Department Web site, 'Where prostitution is legalized or tolerated, there is a greater demand for human trafficking victims and nearly always an increase in the number of women and children trafficked into commercial sex slavery.' By this logic, the state of Nevada should be awash in foreign sex slaves, leading one to wonder what steps the Justice Department is taking to free them. Oddly, the Netherlands, Australia, and Germany--all of whom have legalized prostitution--received top marks from the Bush administration in the most recent Trafficking in Persons Report.

Moreover, some efforts to prohibit prostitution have increased sex workers' risk to the dangers of trafficking, though largely because lawmakers neglected to consult the people the laws were designed to protect. Sweden, for example, is much praised by antiprostitution activists for a 1998 law that aimed to protect sex workers by criminalizing their customers. But several independent studies, including one conducted by the Swedish police, showed that it exposed prostitutes to more dangerous clients and less safe-sex practices.

3. Your cigarette analogy fails because a legal cigarette looks very different than an illegal vial of cocaine, whereas a legally employed prostitute (in such juridsictions as allow that) is indistinguishable from a trafficked one; a greater level of scrutiny is required. Moreover, the legal trade in tobacco products is relevant here in that it has given rise to a massive illegal trade therein, especially in smuggling cigarettes across national borders so as to circumvent taxes.

What about a cocaine-laced cigarette? If a someone who smokes cigarettes goes out to buy some tobacco but also intends to illegally buy some cocaine, both of which he may do discreetly, do you think it would be harder for police to enforce the cocaine law if he bought the cocaine from a local, registered licensed CVS listed in the phone-book and that constantly submits itself to audits to renew its various licenses and permits to operate as a drug/convenience store or if the man bought the cocaine from some nameless career criminal dealer in a trench-coat in a dark alley who presumably is trying to avoid police and detection at all costs? You got the legal drug store that probably puts up cameras inside its own store and would voluntarily hand over the tapes to police and you have the career criminal who regardless of whether he is selling cocaine or not is avoiding police and undergoing any sort of investigation or audit or legal test of any kind.

You say a hard drug like cocaine looks so different from a soft one like tobacco. What about caffeine? Incidentally, cocaine was the original ingredient in coca-cola. Would criminalizing caffeine and soda and putting some of our anti-cocaine money into stopping otherwise law abiding people from drinking non-cocaine soda or coffee increase or decrease the efficiency of the enforcement of cocaine criminalization? Would sending all those otherwise law-abiding soda drinkers and caffeine addicts into the streets to illegally buy soda and caffeine in the way cocaine addicts buy cocaine make it harder or easier for those cops trying to sneak up and observe a cocaine dealer do the crime without spooking him first? Would legalizing soda and caffeine and sending those otherwise law abiding soda and coffee drinkers to CVS and Dunkin Donuts make it easier or harder for the cocaine-enforcement cops to catch the cocaine dealers and users in the streets and the now smaller black market?

On the other side, it depends what kind of illegal prostitution you are comparing to legal consensual adult prostitution. For instance, the pimping of a 14-year-old is fairly easy to distinguish from a middle-aged women carrying a license and other documentation (such as that that proves she has gone to her required monthly/weekly STD tests and paid her taxes for each and every john). Perhaps easy to tell a girl with a undocumented bruise who won't say her real last name with a legal prostitute whose never been raped carrying a prostitution license with her name on it.

BubbaD0g wrote:Your preference for regulated legalization over decriminalization assumes that brothel operators, including those who deal in sex slaves and children, will be upfront and honest with the regulating agencies and law enforcement. You assume that an inspection under controlled conditions arranged in advance by the proprietor of an establishment will be enough to ensure that said establishment doesn't engage in unlawful, off-the-books activity. Such precautions have worked for no other industry of which I am aware; I can't imagine why they would work for the sex industry.

What about the end of alcohol prohibition in the USA? Am I wrong to assume TGIF is significantly more upfront and honest with law enforcement than an alcohol dealer would be if alcohol was still prohibited? For instance, it's illegal to lie about the proof of an alcoholic drink. If I went to TGIF and ordered a drink and then I went to a local crack dealer and bought some of his unlicensed, illegally home-brewed beer, who's more likely to have done the even worse deed of lying about the exact alcoholic content of the drink? Who would regulators more likely notice lying about it? The secret dealer who is breaking the law anyway or the open business that has to undergo routine audits in a legal profitable market that has to compete with other businesses in the same market who are not breaking the law?

BubbaD0g wrote:Keeping prostitution illegal gives police leverage to encourage cooperation and automatically legitimates any investigation without law enforcement having to present a judge with cause and secure a warrant beforehand.

I not only disagree with that statement, but find this following one to be an obvious truth: Legalizing consensual adult prostitution gives police incredible leverage to encourage cooperation and automatically legitimates any investigation without law enforcement having to present a judge with cause and secure a warrant beforehand. In analogy, police have little leverage to test whether I am illegally intoxicated in my own home and need cause and a warrant, it is apparently not unconstitutional for police to set up a DUI checkpoint on the road because being a driver, much like being a legal prostitute, requires a license that the police are allowed to demand to see at any I have been suspected of driving and that requires me to submit to cooperate with certain investigation such as an eye-exam even before I get a license and at DUI checkpoints and routine traffic stops. Also, consider the leverage that police and legislators often use to ensure almost everyone carries driver's insurance. If you don't have driver's insurance in my state at least, you cannot register a car. If you have a car registered and your insurance gets cancelled, the government is automatically notified and your car registration is revoked and the police come and take your car plates away. The police can find uninsured drivers very easily because drivers voluntarily agree to carry their proof of insurance and law enforcement does not even need to investigate each driver individually because by using the process of elimination and the system of required voluntary submission of proof of innocence as a condition of being and stayed license the law enforcement is notified when someone is apparently driving without insurance--even if simply by being notified that the state has stopped receiving the regular required notifications that a driver does have insurance. This happens much like brothels would be required to prove that they their prostitutes are all consenting, registered, STD-free adults, documented citizens with contactable families (i.e. not girls stolen on their vacation, stripped of their name and forced to have sex with various customers) and that they have no secret rooms or secret prostitutes or secret transactions in their brothels..

Someone being offered a very valuable license to do something--even something one would do illegally if no license was available to one (e.g. the unlicensed--and thus much more likely to not care about insurance or drunk driving laws--15-year-old driver)--creates very strong leverage for legislators and law enforcement to make that person do anything they want as a condition of getting and/or keeping that license.

BubbaD0g wrote:Finally, is anyone going to address the sociological issue of the effect legalizing prostitution would have on society's attitudes toward, and thus treatment of, women?

My comment about the fact that 20%-30% of prostitutes are male was meant to address that concern.

Would you support repealing the prohibition against male prostitution specifically more than repealing the prohibition against female prostitution? The gender of the individuals having sex with each other for money does not matter to me in regards to whether or not I want it to be legal.

I have read through this entire topic with the intent of trying to summarize the debate and figure out why it could go on for 13 pages. Honestly, I feel that actually although it lasted for that long it does appear to have some resolution. The case for legalizing prostitution where currently illegal and for keeping it legal where already legal seems to have been made effectively. The arguments for criminalizing consensual prostitution between adults that conforms with regulations seem to have been successfully rebutted. In any case, I will try to summarize all the arguments made for and against legalizing prostitution.

The arguments for criminalization

Juice and Nick_A made some arguments for criminalizing prostitution that stemmed from the premise that criminalization is tantamount to celebration/glorification. However, the falsehood of this premise was IMO successfully demonstrated, particularly with the myriad of examples from many posters of so many activities which we almost agree we want to be legal but which we almost all discourage and for which many already have government-sponsored public discouragement campaigns.

These posters also spent a lot of time on a question that I feel was effectively proven to be irrelevant. The false premise being that if someone would disallow or strongly discourage their own children from doing something that that person must reasonably want that thing to criminalized. Again this was disproven (IMO) and shown to be an irrelevant question, particularly with the myriad of examples of things we would not want our children to do, that we strongly discourage them from doing and/or would be very disappointed if they did them but still want to be legal.

Juice starting in post 40 argued that prostitution is always slavery, claiming "no person, even an adult, is believed to be able to give genuine consent to engaging in prostitution," but he seemed to back down from this (with a toilet paper analogy in post #58) to claiming it is slavery only 90-95% of the time, thus apparently admitting that there is such a thing as consensual, non-slavery prostitution between adults. I maintain support for legalizing those and only those instances of prostitution where it does not include coercion/slavery.

It was also alleged that legalizing prostitution could encourage or lead to an increase in sexism. However, I have pointed out that 20-30% of prostitutes are males.

Some, namely Nick_A, defended the criminalization of prostitution on the grounds that it allegedly is mainly a symbolic gesture that does not actually infringe on the ability of people to engage in it. Alun rebutted this by pointing out that "...the criminalization of prostitution is not nominal. In Vermont, the punishment is reported to be between a $100 fine and 1 year in prison (for the 1st offense). In Illinois, the punishment is up to a $2500 fine and a year in prison for the first offense--comparable to driving drunk."

Although I do not recall anyone making the argument directly, some have seemed to imply the following argument: "Prostitution is always (or almost always) 'immoral,' therefore I support criminalizing it." Many have argued in this topic have passionately provided arguments against the government enforcing morality as such. Namely though I think this was most easily and unarguably disproved via example by numerous posters. Numerous people gave examples of many activities which they consider and presumably which most other people consider to be so-called "immoral" but which we almost all want to be legal. Although I think that ends the debate on that issue right there, others made important points about the fact that moral opinions and matters of personal disgust are too subjective to provide the basis for government action. For instance, in post #33 Pjkeeley wrote, "There is no such right [to not have morally reprehensible and individually destructive conduct legitimized] How could there be, since what is seen as morally reprehensible to you may be seen as acceptable and even important to others?"

Some people also suggested that legalizing consensual prostitution between adults would increase the spread of HIV and other STDs or would increase the occurrence of kidnapping, child slavery, rape, sexual violence, poverty, human trafficking, drug addiction and/or involuntary prostitution. Besides many of instances of this argument being shown to be a cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, I found nothing I personally consider to be valid statistical or scientific evidence for it. More importantly, I will address more below because it is the contradiction of the main reason I have for legalizing prostitution.

Other than that, I did not find any other arguments for criminalizing prostitution. If I missed any that have already been made or if anyone has a new one to submit, please do. Basically, if you support statewide or national criminalization of consensual prostitution between adults of at least average intellectual ability and mental competence even in states/countries where it is currently legal like Nevada and many European countries, please explain why. If it is for any of the reasons listed above, please explain why you do not accept the attempted rebuttals already posted.

The Arguments for Legalizing Prostitution

Most of the arguments for legalizing prostitution stem in part from at least part of the following premise, and many stem almost entirely from it: Legalizing regulated prostitution between otherwise consenting, mentally competent adults in a non-violent setting who are otherwise law-abiding reduces the spread of STDs, reduces sex slavery, reduces child/underage prostitution, reduces rape, reduces sexual violence, and reduces violent crime. I bet most people who support legalizing prostitution would not support it if they did not believe the previous statement to be true. For those who after reading this topic still do not support legalizing prostitution, I politely ask you to if you do not mind state clearly whether or not you agree with the bold sentence in this paragraph. If you do not, then I think then our disagreement is not philosophical but simply a disagreement over that alleged fact. If one does agree with that bold statement but still wants prostitution to be illegal, then I think they have a fundamental, philosophical disagreement with most proponents of legalizing prostitution including myself. The arguments summarized in the next paragraphs may speak to those philosophical issues.

Many people argue in various forms and ways for legalizing prostitution on the grounds that it is a victimless crime. Many users have posted their own more in-depth explanation of why they support freedom and oppose the continuance or creation of a nanny-state. While this topic has focused specifically on the issue of prostitution, at the philosophical level these arguments are essentially the same as when made more generally in the support of philosophical doctrines such as libertarianism, minarchism, anarchism and classical liberalism.

Some posters have 'moralized' the issue as described above. They argue that prostitution is not "immoral" and/or that criminalizing prostitution is "immoral," namely because prostitution does not significantly hurt anyone against their will and criminalizing the would-be victimless crime of prostitution does significantly hurt anyone against their will by being the intuition of violence/coercion. (However, I consider myself an amoralist.)

Can anyone elaborate any further either on arguments in the topic I have missed or by adding new arguments to the mix?

Bubbad0g, in post #192, you make some interesting points regarding the label criminal and the very idea itself.

Xris, I of course agree with almost all of your points in support of legalization of prostitution and particular in regards to not creating laws that would lead to the criminal prosecution of willing prostitutes. I realize much of your points are in response to Bubbad0g, so excuse me for interjecting. Nonetheless, Bubbad0g has agreed with the structure of my case--and thus at least mostly your case since you and I seem to agree as far as I can tell. Bubbad0g's disagreement with my case is with a premise that I think can be effectively summed up in one sentence. Take a look at this:

Scott wrote:Most of the arguments for legalizing prostitution stem in part from at least part of the following premise, and many stem almost entirely from it: Legalizing regulated prostitution between otherwise consenting, mentally competent adults in a non-violent setting who are otherwise law-abiding reduces the spread of STDs, reduces sex slavery, reduces child/underage prostitution, reduces rape, reduces sexual violence, and reduces violent crime. I bet most people who support legalizing prostitution would not support it if they did not believe the previous statement to be true. For those who after reading this topic still do not support legalizing prostitution, I politely ask you to if you do not mind state clearly whether or not you agree with the bold sentence in this paragraph. If you do not, then I think then our disagreement is not philosophical but simply a disagreement over that alleged fact.

Bubbad0g wrote:That is, I think, the source and font of my skepticism on the matter. The factual claim you advance runs counter to my intuitions, my experience, and the bulk of what I've read (apart from this discussion) about the matter. Can you provide factual support for it? Or are we saying that, given that this is a forum for philosophical rather than factual debate that facts don't matter? Because structurally, your case is quite strong; if your factual claim above is true, then your conclusion seems nigh inescapable. But as we all know (or ought to anyway) an argument is sound only if it is structurally valid and contains only true premises.

Xris, I firmly believe the bolded statement above to be true. However, I want to ask you to consider if it is not true. Say hypothetically enough convincing empirical evidence came to light to prove to you and I that actually legalizing regulated prostitution between otherwise consenting, mentally competent adults in a non-violent setting who are otherwise law-abiding INCREASES the spread of STDs, INCREASES sex slavery, INCREASES child/underage prostitution, INCREASES rape, INCREASES sexual violence, and INCREASES violent crime. If that statement is true, then would you support the outlawing of prostitution? Needless to say, if your answer is yes, then I think you and Bubbad0g's disagreement is over that one premise, just like his and mine is, which isn't even really a philosophical disagreement but just a matter of facts.