Nick_A wrote:The only time the objection to prostitution has merit for a society IMO is when the society values freedom. The nuclear family is the basis of a free society. Without it, obligations become assumed by the state rather then agreed upon within a family structure.

The nuclear family when balanced harmonizes the yin yang influences in the context of higher spiritual influences making for a healthier collective psych within the family which further sustains the inner quality necessary to sustain a free society.

A free society must be forced to have a nuclear family? When you say "free," are you talking about a society where people are not oppressed, or about a society in which people do things you think they ought to do?

Nick_A wrote:Young girls are enticed into it for money and fame as they sacrifice their inner quality so consequently the societal inner quality.

What inner quality?

I suspect what you want is to make society have your moral system. This is not what freedom is, nor is freedom desirable only if people act based upon a particular moral system. It is not the government's job to make us good people.

Juice wrote:Can we at least try to pretend that we expect more from women than them just being the object of sex and poor self image.

I don't want my children to be telemarketers, those costumed advertisers on street corners, or even corporate lawyers. Should I mandate all of these occupations be criminalized?

You ought to make your children good people by teaching them to choose of their own volition to be good, not by making society punish them for personal choices.

Juice wrote:Come on now guys let's at least try to be a little objectively intellectual here!

...

Juice wrote:consider my point an attempt to put some "emotion" into the question.

Juice wrote:Let's also not pretend that there is no morality or expected morality in society.

In a just and free society there must be a recognition of some semblance of order and morality.

No. There's a huge difference between personal immoral choices and harmful immoral choices. The illegality of murder, obscenity, zoning violation, etc. all stem from the harm they cause people. Prostitution is between two consenting adults.

Juice wrote:Pretending that there is some disproportionate level of value expectations can not negate the fact that the majority of people see morality very similarly.

It doesn't matter. You're talking blatant violation of individual liberty here. I don't give two **** how unpopular something is; if it doesn't influence anyone besides those who consent to it, then it should be allowed.

Juice wrote:While it may be a persons choice to place themselves in bondage what does it say about society or the person who allows and supports it?

I don't think it should be "supported," I just don't think it should be criminalized.

Juice wrote:What some fail to comprehend and apparently want to whitewash is that prostitution, no matter its legality is, as I have tried to point out, an activity which promotes and encourages slavery.

It is legal in most of Nevada and most of the Netherlands. Is there more or less abuse related to prostitution in those areas compared to other areas?

Breast implantation, makeup, and even fashion in general are female driven industries. Does that mean each irreparably destroys society? What about football? Penile enhancement (claims)?

It is likely not true that most prostitutes were abused as children. Most studies of prostitute demographics are fairly narrow, so I'm amazed that you feel confident in assigning the majority of them to such a category.

Please explain how prostitution is violence.

Juice, the age of consent in Texas (my state) is 17. Is that some gold standard, or were you just taking a cheap shot?

I believe legal prostitutes should have regular STD workups, I'm a little confused as to your argument here. If you're saying there should be more regulation, then I agree. The Netherlands is currently tightening up prostitution laws, since, as seems obvious to me, legalizing such an industry requires heavy oversight--the industry is maintained by criminals in other countries, and there is a huge worldwide demand for prostitution.

Why are you bringing up Sweden? Sweden has decriminalized prostitution, but that's different than legalization, which is what has been done in the Netherlands and Nevada. I think that's a better-than-nothing route, as it allows prostitutes to be protected, but maintains the moralist hammer over the heads of clients.

Are you going to defend your previous claims, or just keep switching arguments?

The problem is you haven't explained how prostitution is always slavery. If the prostitute really does want to have sex with a customer just because the customer will pay, how is that slavery?

What I'm asking here is, if there is a real and honest contract between the prostitute and customer, how is it unfair?

Correlation is not causation. Yes, prostitution in general correlates to sex slavery. But prostitution in general is illegal, and all illegal activities correlate to one another. The fact of illegality is a common cause to explain the correlation.

Can you explain how prostitution is slavery, or not?

Juice wrote:In order to understand the "correlation" between prostitution and slavery we need to understand the history of prostitution... the overriding truth is that the vast majority of workers in the sex trade do so as a product of some form of force

As Scott says, virtually none of this or your last post is disputed. How do you get from this correlation to a legal paradigm? Slavery is illegal, that doesn't mean that prostitution, when it isn't slavery or rape, should still be illegal.

What I do disagree with is the ridiculous assertion that, "no person, even an adult, is believed to be able to give genuine consent to engaging in prostitution." You yourself immediately contradict this claim.

Juice wrote:"As such, no person, even an adult, is believed to be able to give genuine consent to engaging in prostitution.". These are not armchair quarterbacks who consider this subject to be an intellectual or ideological exercise, but have correlated statistics and personal accounts to formulate a psycho-socialologocal conclusion.

Once again, this is the problem here. None of your arguments work unless you show that the bold quote is true. And you cannot just reference studies of illegal prostitution; what we're saying is that if you pull prostitutes out of the arena of criminals, then all of these correlations with abuse can go away.

What we're talking about is how prostitution always is; what is inherent to prostitution. So why is it impossible for a person to consent to prostitution? Do you honestly think that all of the sex workers who advocate decriminalization are really being coerced?

Juice wrote:I have provided and which you further site, as established through approved methodologies that prostitution in all its manifestations is slavery and as such should be abolished since it is as is slavery the perpetuation of evil in society just like slavery.
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In the research I have provided there are statistics which state that anywhere between 90 and 95%, depending on the study, of prostitutes are so engaged through some form of coercion and/or force which includes, as a reasoned sort, any other forms of enslavement.

Ok, I'm sorry that I have to keep repeating myself, but again, don't you see some contradiction here? And with your earlier reference to a blonde, blue-eyed coed trading favors or even cash for sex? Clearly prostitution is possible without coercion, otherwise there would not be this 5-10% missing from the numbers of your biased studies.

I am again saying that prostitution is not equivalent to slavery, as evidenced by the fact that it can exist without slavery, even according to your own posts. There would be no such thing as prostitution advocates who were also sex workers. There would be no such thing as spontaneous, solicited offers of prostitution (e.g. the college coed). So there is no way the people who claim, "no person, even an adult, is believed to be able to give genuine consent to engaging in prostitution," can be right.

If you went to a country where 90% of the toilet paper was already used, would you throw out the bad toilet paper and use the 10% that was clean toilet paper, or stop using toilet paper?

So you admit that the fact of that country's dirty toilet paper does not imply the depravity of toilet paper in general? (Toilet paper from brown paper bags is still toilet paper.)

What is being suggested here is not the legalization of prostitution that is also slavery, only the legalization of prostitution that is not also slavery. Your argument so far is that most prostitution is slavery, and therefore there should not be any prostitution. This is equivalent to saying that, if you're in a country where 90% of the toilet paper is dirty, you should convince everyone to abandon all forms of toilet paper.

Juice wrote:You lose points Alun!

Prostitution is slavery and any form of promoting prostitution promotes slavery. The argument has been made.

Why are you running me in circles? You have said,

Juice wrote:In the research I have provided there are statistics which state that anywhere between 90 and 95%, depending on the study, of prostitutes are so engaged through some form of coercion and/or force which includes, as a reasoned sort, any other forms of enslavement.

Juice wrote:it may be debatable to equate prostitution with slavery when some blond haired blue eyed co-ed goes off on a sexual jaunt for pay to make ends meet. Or that there is a demand from older Japanese men for well to do girls as young as 12 who willingly prostitute themselves for large profits

Did you mean the above, or not? If you did, then stop making generalizations.

Juice wrote:As per the social justice industries flawed and fallacious reasoning who rationalize that legalization or decriminalization will somehow save the overwhelming percentage of poor prostitutes, who are too disenfranchised, to escape dehumanization, brutalization, coercion, force and enslavement, well, I have provided enough data to show that it will not, and any demand to use political means by which to secure legalization or decriminalization is only an attempt to camouflage the real "oldest profession" which is slavery.

... You have shown no data on the decriminalization or legalization of prostitution. You have only shown psychological canvas studies of illegal prostitution. The fact of the matter is that there are many ways to "legalize" prostitution that are not desirable, but you haven't even referred to these, you have just kept on making this unsubstantiated generalization.

For example, which of your studies shows that punishing the women who are coerced into prostitution helps solve the problem of prostitution? Part of what I am advocating is "decriminalizing" prostitutes themselves, do you disagree with this, or not?

That's a horrible story, and I'm sorry.

The last thing I want to protect here is the sort of misogynist hierarchy that prostitution in the US has defined itself by. I am well aware of the difficulties of Nevada's legalization. However, it also seems clear to me that, were legalization really centered around the prostitutes themselves, rather than the business venture, this could be resolved. In your real example, the cops would not want to look the other way for the dirty dealings of the strip club, because they could get cleaner, more satisfying deals from a legal prostitute.

The difficulty here would be that not very many people in the world aspire to prostitution, whereas many people, especially men, desire the services of prostitutes. I have met, heard, and read stories of people who really seem to want to be prostitutes, however, so I think there's hope in that respect.

But even if there are not enough people who want to be prostitutes, I think prostitution should be decriminalized (as opposed to legalized) such that the prostitutes themselves are not punished, but the customers and 'managers' are, especially where the managers can be shown to actively engage in coercion. Otherwise, prostitutes cannot even protect themselves, as the blog you quoted points out, by filing a report with the police.

Nick_A wrote:

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?

In general, any action that damages either the rights of an individual or the social attitudes that preserve a free society.

These are contradictory, in case WTS wasn't direct enough. You cannot criminalize the violation of "attitudes" whilst protecting rights, since it is in fact an individual right to have whatever attitude we prefer to have. Otherwise, you'd expect for Obama to punish you for being a Conservative, since in his mind being of the liberal "attitude" is best for the country.

Further, 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. Etc. This is for the prostitute, not the customer, brothel-owner, or pimp.