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Why Prostitution Should be Legal

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Think as you like, but what we're concerned with in this thread is not just your opinion but any logical argument you might have to support it.

We?

Hate to break it to you, but I'm only interested in presenting an opinion in this thread. I am not making an argument. All I am saying is that I personally will NOT consider supporting legalizing prostitution while women's rights are under assault in my country. I couldn't care less if you or anyone else disagrees and based on past conversations I've had with you I really doubt you really care what my reasons are for this anyway. You'd rather assume I simply don't have any.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
We?

Hate to break it to you, but I'm only interested in presenting an opinion in this thread. I am not making an argument. All I am saying is that I personally will NOT consider supporting legalizing prostitution while women's rights are under assault in my country. I couldn't care less if you or anyone else disagrees and based on past conversations I've had with you I really doubt you really care what my reasons are for this anyway. You'd rather assume I simply don't have any.
You're right. Unless your reasons can be stated as logical arguments, they don't interest me in debate.

Female prostitutes are women with rights to do as they choose with their bodies, so legalizing prostitution, rather than making these women criminals, besides correcting an injustice, is an obvious advancement of women's rights.
 
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Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Female prostitutes are women with rights to do as they choose with their bodies, so legalizing prostitution, rather than making these women criminals, is an obvious advancement of women's rights.

Yup. In other news, unwanted pregnancy never happens because consent to sex is obviously the same as consent to pregnancy. The fact that several states are pushing to criminalize and outlaw abortion is, therefore, unrelated and not a problem. These liberated women who can charge people for sex will never want abortions for their inevitable pregnancies, so they don't have to worry about becoming criminals all over again, right? Nah, that'll never happen.

Obvious advancement of women's rights my $#@%.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Yup. In other news, unwanted pregnancy never happens because consent to sex is obviously the same as consent to pregnancy. The fact that several states are pushing to criminalize and outlaw abortion is, therefore, unrelated and not a problem. These liberated women who can charge people for sex will never want abortions for their inevitable pregnancies, so they don't have to worry about becoming criminals all over again, right? Nah, that'll never happen.

Obvious advancement of women's rights my $#@%.
Did you ever consider that the two topics might be related? They are both about a woman's right to decide what is done with her body.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
Yup. In other news, unwanted pregnancy never happens because consent to sex is obviously the same as consent to pregnancy. The fact that several states are pushing to criminalize and outlaw abortion is, therefore, unrelated and not a problem. These liberated women who can charge people for sex will never want abortions for their inevitable pregnancies, so they don't have to worry about becoming criminals all over again, right? Nah, that'll never happen.

Obvious advancement of women's rights my $#@%.
Women should have the right to do as they choose with their bodies whether it's to have abortions or to work as a prostitute. Making them criminals for either is an unjust denial of women's rights. The people who advocate for such legislation are morally wrong.
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Did you ever consider that the two topics might be related? They are both about a woman's right to decide what is done with her body.

Not only do I consider them related, the fact that they are is precisely why I will not consider supporting prostitution when abortion rights are under such fierce assault. When women's abortion rights are cemented against this new wave of challenges, legalized prostitution will no longer be a disaster waiting to happen. That will happen (or not) within the next few years.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Not only do I consider them related, the fact that they are is precisely why I will not consider supporting prostitution when abortion rights are under such fierce assault. When women's abortion rights are cemented against this new wave of challenges, legalized prostitution will no longer be a disaster waiting to happen. That will happen (or not) within the next few years.
I can understand prioritizing. Go after the worst offense first, and I agree that the assault on abortion rights is the greater wrong.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
Not only do I consider them related, the fact that they are is precisely why I will not consider supporting prostitution when abortion rights are under such fierce assault. When women's abortion rights are cemented against this new wave of challenges, legalized prostitution will no longer be a disaster waiting to happen. That will happen (or not) within the next few years.
There's no "disaster waiting to happen" since prostitutes will exist legal or illegal and they will get abortions if needed, legal or illegal. The main difference will be that the state can tax the legal brand and maintain some control while the cops get paid off in the illegal and there's more associated crime just as there was during Prohibition..
 
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Watchmen

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
They were not data driven, that was the problem. They could not even come up with a constant definition of "trafficking".

And that is a huge problem with all of these studies. I have seen studies where they assume that anyone that works in a business was trafficked. For example there are countless massage spas in the U.S. that are houses of prostitution. They are all assumed to be trafficked, as in the Kraft case. But quite often when busted that is found not to be the case. This is a case of our prosecutors assuming that because that sort of work is something very few in our culture would willingly do that it is work that no one would willingly do.

It makes for good headlines when those busts are made, but the claims of "trafficking" very rarely pan out.
I guess you missed the charts and formulas used. Data driven.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
An argument from emotion again that is not backed up by reality.
There is no other "reality" to this. It is an emotional subject. Rape would not be an 'issue' if we didn't care about it, "emotionally". But we do. Just as do care about the buying and selling live humans for other people's sexual gratification. It bothers us, emotionally.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
A few thoughts come to mind while reading this and other posts on this thread.

One thing is that there is an oversexualization in society overall - not just with prostitution, but even with legal activities - such as one-night stands, going to singles bars (often referred to as "meat markets"), strip clubs, skin mags, phone sex, webcam sex. Even movies and TV (even if rated "PG") tend towards a bit of lewdness designed to titillate the oversexed viewing audience. It can even be discerned in TV commercials and other advertisements. Sex sells.

This seems to be across the board throughout society, although some areas tend to be more conservative than others.

Personally, I've never been to a prostitute, although I have been propositioned a few times by prostitutes, whom I've had to politely turn down. I would never coerce anyone, although if I had accepted their offer and paid them for sex, I can't see how it would be coercion - especially if they approached me first. There may be other situations where a man is out of town on business, has a drink in a local lounge, where he might be approached by a lady of the evening. He may not go out actively looking for a prostitute, though. Some women can be quite sexy, seductive, and know how to use their feminine wiles to get what they want from a man. This can often happen even without actual monetary exchange.

Oftentimes I see commercials for a local jeweler, which usually shows a man giving a diamond ring to his wife/girlfriend/fiancee - and she just suddenly melts with passion. This is how people are conditioned in this society - and it might very well be degrading and dehumanizing. Although that seems more a comment on the obsession this society has with sex and money - but of course that's nothing new in human history.

Whether or not prostitution is legal or not - this is just a technicality and likely does not change the overall condition one iota.
In a civil human society, some things must not be 'for sale'. A person's life, for example. A child's innocence. An individual's liberty, and dignity. And in most human societies; sexual intimacy.

I already think we sell far, far too much of ourselves and our humanity in this country and culture, for money. I do not believe we need, or should, add sexual intimacy that very long and sad list.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
There is no other "reality" to this. It is an emotional subject. Rape would not be an 'issue' if we didn't care about it, "emotionally". But we do. Just as do care about the buying and selling live humans for other people's sexual gratification. It bothers us, emotionally.

The emotional aspect of rape often gets in the way of justice. People are unduly shame of being raped, there is excessive rage at the rapist at times that end up in a miscarriage of justice. Treat it as the crime it is. In what way is prostitution a crime?
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I guess you missed the charts and formulas used. Data driven.

Not if the charts are based upon poorly defined terms. The "data" is meaningless in those situations.

"Trafficking" tends to be so broadly defined that it becomes a non-crime. That is why though there was prostitution in the Kraft case there was no trafficking. No actual crime was found in that sense of the participants.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
The emotional aspect of rape often gets in the way of justice. People are unduly shame of being raped, there is excessive rage at the rapist at times that end up in a miscarriage of justice. Treat it as the crime it is. In what way is prostitution a crime?
There is no such thing as "unemotional" justice. What someone has stolen through rape cannot be given back. What someone sells, and buys, through prostitution can't either.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
There is no such thing as "unemotional" justice. What someone has stolen through rape cannot be given back. What someone sells, and buys, through prostitution can't either.

Often emotion is going to be part of it, but my point is that emotions get in the way of justice. It does no good to appeal to them.
 

Lyndon

"Peace is the answer" quote: GOD, 2014
Premium Member
Half the time a act of prostitution would be classified as a rape if money wan't involved.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Often emotion is going to be part of it, but my point is that emotions get in the way of justice. It does no good to appeal to them.
Justice is an idealized emotion. There is no not appealing to that. What a rapist takes from the victim is ideological, and emotional. It cannot be "justified". At best, it can only be avenged. The same is true, to a lesser degree, with prostitution. What is sold, and is bought, cannot be returned. It is ideological, and it is emotional. And the money cannot "justify" it any more than a fine can "justify" the damage incurred by a rape. The degrees are different, of course; I understand that. But the thing that is lost is similar, and so is the damage that comes from it's loss. It's not an object. It's an ideal that has great emotional value to us as humans.

To commodify it for sale is to commodify our humanity. Something that we should never do.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
Half the time a act of prostitution would be classified as a rape if money wan't involved.
If money wasn't involved and the sex was consensual, it'd be legal. I know lots of people who do it!
 
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