Sex work

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Yes, with caution. We don't want a destigmatised industry to rise in demand too much, for very ... obvious reasons.

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Yes, with caution. We don't want a destigmatised industry to rise in demand too much, for very ... obvious reasons.

Higher demand  increases wages though.

Or leads to, err, increased "supply". And there of course is a very, very major negative consequence to that; that the Netherlands and Germany are currently dealing with.

Anyway, I feel that a lot of this discussion is fairly moot in the Internet-era...

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Should sex work be legal?

No.

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Yes.

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It is consistent with their effort to destroy families and tear down western civilization in the name of personal choice/pursuit of selfish desires.

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Of course, because the amount that you get paid is the measure of its rightness. Your value system is highly troubling.

Surely that is a value of the right?

Anyway, sex work should be legalised with caution. People who want to rush into this sort of stuff should think of the, erm, consequences.

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Well the debate is still unsettled. That's why I thought your first line, about consensus amongst the academic left, struck me as curious. Although pretty much everybody agrees that being a sex worker should not be criminalised; there remains significant debate about the rest. The popular model at the moment, is the Swedish Law; which decriminalises selling sex, but goes after the johns. The idea is that legal prostitution has a negative impact on women and wider society, because it encourages growth in a profession that very few people willingly enter. We can talk about academic destigmatisation of sex work all we want, the role of a prostitute does not command respect in society (its definitely below similar low-status jobs that people are coerced into by circumstance). And therefore, to serve the demand, we see coercion. Pimpery is a natural consequence of legalised prostitution, and to serve their "demand" they focus on people with little means to effectively force them into prostitution: recent immigrants, the destitute, the mentally ill and the human trafficked. The easy responce would be to say "oh, well; we'll regulate it!"; but regulation is not foolproof (and Germany and the Netherlands' regulations were found to be wholly lacking.

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I think even a legalised cooperative model creates that big issue: a legitimised "industry" with very little in the way of "supply", beyond those at the lowest rungs of society. I know everyone has annecdotes about Miss Law Student who is sooo empowered by prostitution, but she is an exception in the grand scheme of things.

 It would take a profound shift in societal values for prostitution to be recognised as "just another career" (and such a shift may in fact knock sex off its pedestal to the extent that the entire business model of prostitution itself is rendered moot).

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Yes Polnut I think you're where I'm at (I.e. in two minds). What I can't stand is the idea that legalisation and regulation is like a magic wand. After all the oil and weapons industries are legal and regulated, and I wouldn't call either of them a godsend.

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Legalisation + regulation has been a failed policy so far on an empirical basis, a nice idea which doesn't seem to work particularly well in practice.

Not that I'm particularly enamoured with the Nordic model. For starters, it does start to creep into outright harassment of prostitutes when lazily applied (sex workers have been thrown out of their housing because landlords don't want to be accused of second-hand pimpery). The focus with prostitutin has to be on helping people escape the sex industry.

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Cory, which planet do you live on? Do you really believe that legalised prostiution would be seen by society as "just another job"? this isn't academia, this is the actual world. Prostitution is (and probably always will be) a job treated with scorn by society, no matter how regulated it may be. The ranks of prostitutes will always be swelled by the most at-risk vulnerable people in society, and society. Yes, this is also true for similar menial work like flipping burgers and agriculture; but newsflash I oppose those menial jobs as well. I see no reason to legitimise an exploitative industry for no reason other than "other exploitative industries exist". I can't help but think the "legalise and regulate" crowd are running off an ideological dream, based on the idea that "eh it worked for drugs"; in complete disregard for evidence.

Anyway, as Torie said, this whole discussion is pointless. The Internet has deempasised the societal need for brothels anyway. Why would anybody even need a prostitute to get laid?

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The vast majority of people employed in sex work would not choose to be in the business, yes. Is that what's controversial?

It feels like with the "legaliseit" brigade you can quote evidence all day, only to be met with the same trite ideological arguments treating sex like cannabis or some other tradable commodity.

Sex has a lot of societal connotations attached to it. We can argue all day about if it is good or bad to dress sex up in such a pedastel, but that is an academic discussion. In real life, sex work is different from flipping burgers. I know LOGICBOT3000 will come around to impersonate Spock and say "but crabcake that is firmly illogical". In answer,  that's all very good and great, but tell society that. Sex Work is different from other work, because in the eyes of society it is no matter what poxy hypothetical regulations the government places on it.

Legalisation and regulation seems like such a good idea in theory. I know why people are attached to it - it's elegant, it seems to please all sides and it definitely seems to have helped with ganja. Unfortunately, it has not lived up to its promise. We must change our minds when confronted with evidence, people.

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I'm not at all saying that it's not the case that especially at present, with sex work being forced onto the black market, it's women with few economic options who go into the profession.

But it is emphatically not true of all sex workers, as DimpledChad keeps asserting. This is part of the problem. He's not dealing with facts, he's dealing with assertions. Sometimes those assertions are adjacent to the truth, but he's refusing to accept that there are cases that are exceptions to what he's asserting as received wisdom.

Well I know people like to drag the hypothetical "middle class young Harvard law student becomes prostitute to find herself"; but she and her ilk are an irrelevance. When a business becomes legitimised (although the cooperative model is tempting, I wonder how long it would take in the real world to become a business in all but name, like most mutuals) it leads to a rise in demand, that will (not 'may') be filled with people who would rather not be in that job.

Consider this hypothetical to think about how ridiculous it all is. In my country (and probably yours) welfare has strings attached. You must prove you are attempting to get work and accepting what you can. If sex work is "just average work" can the government force benefit claimants into prostitution? Would you (regardless of your feelings on means-testing in general) recognise that is an order of magnitude worse than somebody who has to stack shelves?

TNF, I'd just like to make the the point that I don't think women are weak or anything. I just dislike exploitative industries in general. (Whether other industries are exploitative are moot as far as I'm concerned, I don't see why we have to add another source of exploitation to a litany of other exploitative industries.)

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Ok I'm going to ignore the Willips' typical inanity (not hard), because I think TNF is coming from a more interesting  position. From what I understand,  most modern arguments are against  the industry as a whole. As I assume TNF wouldn't exactly be thrilled  with a capital is regulated model nor a quasicapitalist cooperative group; I'm wondering what he wants. Some kind of nationalised brothel system?

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Regardless of whether or not the pro-legalization arguments are right-wing (it's ridiculous to say that they are IMO), that doesn't work as a legitimate refutation of it. Chad, you're talking about the patriarchal mindset being encouraged by prostitution, but you haven't really addressed that the Nordic Model decriminalization you advocate for does nothing to address patriarchy and exploitation of women. It doesn't arrest sex workers themselves; that's common sense. It does continue to allow sex work to exist as a black market industry.

The vast majority of people employed in sex work would not choose to be in the business, yes. Is that what's controversial?

It feels like with the "legaliseit" brigade you can quote evidence all day, only to be met with the same trite ideological arguments treating sex like cannabis or some other tradable commodity.

Sex has a lot of societal connotations attached to it. We can argue all day about if it is good or bad to dress sex up in such a pedastel, but that is an academic discussion. In real life, sex work is different from flipping burgers. I know LOGICBOT3000 will come around to impersonate Spock and say "but crabcake that is firmly illogical". In answer,  that's all very good and great, but tell society that. Sex Work is different from other work, because in the eyes of society it is no matter what poxy hypothetical regulations the government places on it.

Legalisation and regulation seems like such a good idea in theory. I know why people are attached to it - it's elegant, it seems to please all sides and it definitely seems to have helped with ganja. Unfortunately, it has not lived up to its promise. We must change our minds when confronted with evidence, people.

I'm not sure I understand what you want people to change their mind to, since you advocated for "cautious legalization" on the first page.

Partly I am being terrible and playing both sides, but partly I remain unconvinced by both sides. I loathe to use that horrid descriptor "pragmatic" but a lot of people with horses in this fight seem to be arguing from an idealogical standpoint. I have no idealogical opposition to prostitution, but all the evidence I've seen is that it's a poor mechanism to reduce the societal ills of an unregulated black market sex industry. If a wealth of evidence came out tomorrow suggesting that it was great, then great. but no, people don't use evidence in this fight - it's all the government should never ban things, banning things never, ever works etc.

"Cautious legalisation" is a moderate hero position that recognises society places sex on such a pedastel that legalisation of prostitution without simultaneously trying to  (for lack of a better phrase) end the patriarchal mindset that influences everyone's positions towards prostitution. Much as Cory et al deny it, they have been raised and conditioned as humans. They would be unwise to forget that.

However I also feel the Nordic model is also spotty in its execution and is not exactly perfect iself.

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Cory, you're reacting very emotionally. It's probably best to act more logically and less based on your fealz. Just saying

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To be fair, when both sides start out convinced they're in the right ;discussion is rather irrelevant.

I take a holistic approach to my opinions. We are faced with societal ills (e.g. the abuse and trafficking of vulnerable women and men for Prostitution); we come up with various mechanisms to end or diminish these ills (the Dutch model, the Nordic model), we see how they work in practice and we chose the method which reduces the social ill the most while having the least negative repercussions. In my opinion, that (in contempary society) is a slightly modified Nordic Model. (Which isn't to say that legalisation should never happen - just that I see no other sustainable mechanism to legalise prostitution without raising demand for the trafficked.)

It's of course easier to make fun of Cory et al. because they laughably claim to be 'super logical!!' which is always funny, especially in light of Cory's emotional outburst above.

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Madeline I apologize for being overly flip toward your position on this. I recognize you're ultimately on the right side of the issue even if you are personally morally conflicted and I don't mean to try and take that away from you, or anyone. I certainly don't like prostitution.

To be fair, when both sides start out convinced they're in the right ;discussion is rather irrelevant.

I take a holistic approach to my opinions. We are faced with societal ills (e.g. the abuse and trafficking of vulnerable women and men for Prostitution); we come up with various mechanisms to end or diminish these ills (the Dutch model, the Nordic model), we see how they work in practice and we chose the method which reduces the social ill the most while having the least negative repercussions. In my opinion, that (in contempary society) is a slightly modified Nordic Model. (Which isn't to say that legalisation should never happen - just that I see no other sustainable mechanism to legalise prostitution without raising demand for the trafficked.)

The reason I feel dismissive of this as an emotional appeal to consequence is because, and I'm trying to word this appropriately and I don't mean to diminish the severity of human trafficking so bear with me here, I don't see why a potential increase in incidence of a terrible social ill is necessarily relevant to the question of legality. There are a lot of terrible things, legal and illegal, that are enabled by the legality of a related substance or activity but the quest to deal with those things can be acted out just fine without prohibition.

I know you understand this, or almost certainly understand this, when it comes to drug use. It's a reasonable assumption that there would probably be less drunk driving incidents, less drunken brawls, etc if alcohol consumption was not legal, but obviously we can still effectively address those social problems without resorting to criminalizing the substance itself. I realize comparisons to drugs is pretty old hat at this point but the logic behind it isn't really all that different. In a liberal society we accept the potential for negative consequences to free actions and take separate measures to focus specifically on bad parts without throwing the baby out with the bath water. I have yet to see why this issue is the exception. Whether there are or are not negative related consequences doesn't really affect the specific question of an individual being free to sell their own body if they choose, within reason.

And for what its worth I think Mikado's indoor/outdoor distinction is super important and I agree with him. I don't think streetwalking should be legal.

The contrast with drugs/alcohol is still interesting so I don't blame you, but I disagree. I view the legalisation of things through a utilitarian lens, not through an attachment to Liberty above else. It seems to me that keeping the alcohol/soft drug industries as legitimate legal businesses (albeit on a tight leash) is a worthwhile risk that compounds the extremely negative effects of prohibition. I'm not convinced the sex industry offers the same benefits, and I think the data agrees with me.

One interesting note of comparison between argument and mine, that probably suggests we're duelling at cross purposes is I'm droning on about the industry as a whole and, by contrast, you refer to "an individual being free to sell their own body if they choose". It's intriguing, isn't it? For the record, I have no problem with self-employed pimps, for lack of a better word. It's the idea that we need to legalise the industry as a whole that begins to raise my alarm. (as I've said a couple times in this thread). For starters, of course brothels will look about as archaic as local blacksmiths pretty soon, so it may all be moot.

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But would it though? People like to say "legalisation" like its some kind of magic pixie dust that solves all ills. I mean should we stop and look at evidence? NO LEGALISE YOU FOOL, LEGALISDLIEGALISELEGALISEANDREGULATE

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But would it though? People like to say "legalisation" like its some kind of magic pixie dust that solves all ills. I mean should we stop and look at evidence? NO LEGALISE YOU FOOL, LEGALISDLIEGALISELEGALISEANDREGULATE

CrabCake, you know I'm not blindly saying "LEGALIZEANDREGULATE!!" It's taken me time and thought to reform my stance on this. You support decriminalization, correct? What does that solve that legalization would not solve?

I support what the evidence supports; and the evidence is inconclusive. People adopt this legalise mantra in a very rash, unscientific manner, and that worries me.