Legalizing Prostitution

I know it was 9 pages ago but this is to Scott's OP.

So let's say prostitution is legalized now all the women who truly want to be paid for sex can; safely all the while.

What about quality control?: take that any way you like, but people will still be exploited and used by the new legal pimps.

I think that physically the conditions of half the prostitutes would be better, but all the other ways the problems remain still. I say half because half of the prostitutes will be out of a job or more because they can not work legally cause they are not clean, attractive etc.; they want to work but can't legally.

There will always be an underground for anything. Things that are legal, are still practiced illegally because there are certain things that people will just not make legal.

I don't think legalizing prostitution would make any profound differences to be worth the effort of convincing people that it's ok because "its legal now", it's a dangerous game legal or not. We had better do away with S.T.D.'s and jealous lovers first.

On the other hand I'm sure a lot of psychos wouldn't kill if they got laid more, so there could be indirect good that came of it. Just wont know till we try. Were it to come to vote I would vote to legalize it to give it a chance to work(in America{cause it is legal in other countries}).

So let's say prostitution is legalized now all the women who truly want to be paid for sex can; safely all the while.

Legalizing something (despite what seems to be growing public opinion to the contrary) isn't about whether it's "right" or "wrong".

Things like drug use and prostitution, if legalized, would be individual choices, and free adults should have the right to choose whether engaging in a given activity involves an acceptable level of risk.

An "underground market" for "illegal" prostitution would only develop if prostitution was legal and regulated. Those who wanted to engage in acts that were not sanctioned by the regulators, would create an underground market--

--but that would still involve fewer folks (including law enforcement) than it does now, given that (except for Nevada) all prostitution is illegal in the US.

This black-market you two are describing is the official black-market. Prostitution could easily be wiped out, it exists now because of institutions, elites, and authority. 'Prostitution is the oldest profession' is a capitalist myth. The money system will not always exist, it is not eternal and necessary as the capitalist would have us believe, neither is prostitution. Prostitution is a pillar of capitalism: to make it 'legal' would be redundant.

Keith Russell,

Legalizing something (despite what seems to be growing public opinion to the contrary) isn't about whether it's "right" or "wrong".

I didn't say it did. You are right, it is not necessarily about right or wrong. The idea behind laws is that they are a tool to keep society functioning at a maximum. As it happens: many morals have been translated into laws because morals(let this not be confused by how the morality is manifested) create similar 'maximum-function' for society. With that said; it is easy to see why public opinion about law may seem like is it about right or wrong, because sometimes it is.

Things like drug use and prostitution, if legalized, would be individual choices, and free adults should have the right to choose whether engaging in a given activity involves an acceptable level of risk.

Agreed.

An "underground market" for "illegal" prostitution would only develop if prostitution was legal and regulated. Those who wanted to engage in acts that were not sanctioned by the regulators, would create an underground market

There is an illegal market for prostitution now; it is run by criminals, hence underground.
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Billy,
Prostitution could be wiped out(but not whores{male or female}, which have all the same dangers). Although to say prostitution exists now "because of institutions, elites, and authority." is a bit of a stretch, they are not the sole cause. If it was why would the cops bust people for using prostitutes. I know your going to cry conspiracy... My only defense against the mighty burden of proof you lay on me is that: there are much easier ways of keeping power.

Money is a bunch of 'hog-wash'. Completely agree.

An "underground market" for "illegal" prostitution would only develop if prostitution was legal and regulated. Those who wanted to engage in acts that were not sanctioned by the regulators, would create an underground market

There is an illegal market for prostitution now; it is run by criminals, hence underground.

What I should have said was, an illegal market for prostitution could still develop even after prostitution was legalized, if some people wanted to engage in acts that were not sanctioned...etc"

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Billy,
Prostitution could be wiped out(but not whores{male or female}, which have all the same dangers).

Society is artificially maintained in a state of stress-torture.

Prostitution is the oldest profession. Prostitution is the creation event of money. There is ultimately only one commodity for sale: labor. (Any property is a token of value added.)

(Virginity has a somewhat different meaning for capitalism, its value is not in the labor that has been put into (keeping) it, but that it has not already been consumed.)

Money is the root of all evil. Money is the leaves. Money is the trunk, the sap and the rhizomes. Money makes the world go round, everything for sale. There is only money and no one anymore has seen the "desert of the real". There isn't clean money and dirty money: all money is blood money. Burn your money. Never touch money.

Although to say prostitution exists now "because of institutions, elites, and authority." is a bit of a stretch, they are not the sole cause. If it was why would the cops bust people for using prostitutes.

The people desire their own oppression. Society constructs itself as the actualization of the unconscious id and superego. Oh I don't know why!?

Scott wrote

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?

In most European countries it is legal. Sweden, Germany & Holland, it makes it more hygenic, the prostitutes have to be checked at a clinic every week. There are better reason`s to legalise it than to keep it underground.

In most European countries it is legal. Sweden, Germany & Holland, it makes it more hygenic, the prostitutes have to be checked at a clinic every week.

Hygiene is the enemy of organisms.

Organisms pose the need for hygiene.

Money is the root of all evil. Money is the leaves. Money is the trunk, the sap and the rhizomes. Money makes the world go round, everything for sale. There is only money and no one anymore has seen the "desert of the real". There isn't clean money and dirty money: all money is blood money. Burn your money. Never touch money.

Maybe money is, as Ms. Rand put it, the "material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value".

Is this what you consider evil?

Maybe money is, as Ms. Rand put it, the "material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value".

Is this what you consider evil?

Money is not a tool of exchange. That's capitalist propaganda repeated so many times it has become true. Money is an invention by authority for the purpose of social power, similar to the gun. It may have some use in herding slaves for the construction of civilization.

It is probably the single greatest tragedy of civilization that every human aspiration and value has been deterritorialized into a quantity of money. Capitalism is the least efficient economic system, money always being required to initiate any project. If money were illiminated, everyone would work, hospitals and universities would be constructed and there would be more doctors and teachers than ever before.

If money were eliminated, how would we determine the difference between the value of one man's contributions and another's?

Would a Janitor be expected/entitled to the same compensation for his labor as a Doctor? If so, would as many people try? Why? Out of the goodness of their hearts?

Maybe in utopia, but I don't think mankind has evolved to that state yet ...

If money were eliminated, how would we determine the difference between the value of one man's contributions and another's?

They are all equal.

Would a Janitor be expected/entitled to the same compensation for his labor as a Doctor? If so, would as many people try? Why? Out of the goodness of their hearts?

Compensation?

Maybe in utopia, but I don't think mankind has evolved to that state yet ...

It is 10,000 BC, damn straight 'man'kind hasn't evolved that far yet.

Yes ...

Why would I go to school and bust my ass for up to 10 years to become a specialized Doctor if I had to live in 'relative' poverty, when I could just be a receptionist and play on the computer all day?

Very simple concept, is it not?

To rephrase, why would I spend extra time doing things for people if I received nothing extra in return? Out of the goodness of my heart?

Sorry to say, but it will never happen. All organisms are primarily selfish, with the occasional selfless act [generally biologically selfish in itself].

If money were eliminated, how would we determine the difference between the value of one man's contributions and another's?

They are all equal.

Really? I'd like to clarify my response here. Who are you to determine the value of one man's labor? Is not true economic freedom the ability for one man to VOLUNTARILY trade his goods for another's services?

Value for Value. Determined between two parties; the producer and the consumer.

It is no longer free when a third party determines that they are more right in valuing either man's contribution.

If you really are a white-trash soldier, why would you defend the system that exploits you?

Money is an invention similar to pottery. Humans have only just emerged from animal non-self-consciousness. We still have the ideas of beasts.

Money is an authoritarianism like this: You can't do it without the paper-work!

'As above-so below' is Medieval madness. Every action must have a fiscal ledger?

People have been doing things for a lot longer than money has existed.

Because humans dread intimacy, it is too horrifying to be with another person. An exchange of money is a cover-story. Prostitution is probably often a cover-story for human love.