Travesty: Abhisit Vejjajiva charged with 'murder'
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Author Topic: Travesty: Abhisit Vejjajiva charged with 'murder'  (Read 8602 times)
MaxQue
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« Reply #25 on: December 12, 2012, 01:11:55 PM »

The worst approach, which is unsurprisingly the one you appear to prefer due to your own concupiscent selfishness (or selfish concupiscence, it's all the same), is the one taken by the countries in blue on this map.

What's wrong with banning organized (ie, exploited) prostitution?

The prostitute are charged for soliciting customers, the customer isn't charged, as he did nothing illegal.

In Canada, note than the Ontario courts stuck down the law, Government is appealing.
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opebo
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« Reply #26 on: December 12, 2012, 02:18:26 PM »

True. Ideally laws against selling sex should be considerably more forgiving, and laws against buying it commensurately sterner, than what I'm given to understand most countries actually have.

Why?  You'll just force a  lot of women to have to go to work for a living instead of getting huge easy incomes.  The guys can just go whack off, its not the end of the world for them, but for the ladies, it will be so unpleasant for them to see their income dwindle to 10-20% of its former level, for 5 times the number of hours.

Why do you wish to interfere at all in people's private sex lives?
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #27 on: December 12, 2012, 03:41:20 PM »

The worst approach, which is unsurprisingly the one you appear to prefer due to your own concupiscent selfishness (or selfish concupiscence, it's all the same), is the one taken by the countries in blue on this map.

What's wrong with banning organized (ie, exploited) prostitution?

The prostitute are charged for soliciting customers, the customer isn't charged, as he did nothing illegal.

In Canada, note than the Ontario courts stuck down the law, Government is appealing.

That sucks, yeah. However, I would say that ideally laws should punish customers and pimps, while leaving prostitutes alone (ideally, offering them opportunities for another professional orientation).
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #28 on: December 12, 2012, 03:52:55 PM »

I would say that ideally laws should punish customers and pimps, while leaving prostitutes alone (ideally, offering them opportunities for another professional orientation).

Sweden has largely gone in that direction.  Indeed, it generally has chosen throw out the idea that men can do whatever they like sexually with women and not worry about the consequences of their bad behavior, as a certain Australian who is now a guest of the Ecuadoran government has found out much to his displeasure.
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MaxQue
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« Reply #29 on: December 12, 2012, 04:15:45 PM »

I would say that ideally laws should punish customers and pimps, while leaving prostitutes alone (ideally, offering them opportunities for another professional orientation).

Sweden has largely gone in that direction.  Indeed, it generally has chosen throw out the idea that men can do whatever they like sexually with women and not worry about the consequences of their bad behavior, as a certain Australian who is now a guest of the Ecuadoran government has found out much to his displeasure.

Doesn't Sweden has more male prostitutes than female, through?
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Velasco
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« Reply #30 on: December 12, 2012, 04:23:36 PM »
« Edited: December 12, 2012, 04:25:36 PM by Velasco »

True. Ideally laws against selling sex should be considerably more forgiving, and laws against buying it commensurately sterner, than what I'm given to understand most countries actually have.

Why?  You'll just force a  lot of women to have to go to work for a living instead of getting huge easy incomes.  The guys can just go whack off, its not the end of the world for them, but for the ladies, it will be so unpleasant for them to see their income dwindle to 10-20% of its former level, for 5 times the number of hours.

Why do you wish to interfere at all in people's private sex lives?

It's surprising this praise of the easy money coming from someone who supposedly should be a fierce critic of the exploitation of the human beings by the merciless market laws. Because the sexual trade has more to see with the laws of supply and demand than with questions relative to private life or the free exercise of sexuality. There exists the demand of feminine bodies in the same ways that there exists demand for assassins of easy trigger or dealers to pass the drug. On the other hand, there always exists a convenient supply of desperate people arranged to earn easy money, given the lack of opportunities that exists in many societies. I guess that you aren't naive enough to believe that a relevant percentage of persons who devote themselves to prostitution works for pleasure. In an overwhelming majority of the cases, it's the money or the constraint (human trafficking).
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politicus
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« Reply #31 on: December 12, 2012, 04:31:59 PM »

I would say that ideally laws should punish customers and pimps, while leaving prostitutes alone (ideally, offering them opportunities for another professional orientation).

Sweden has largely gone in that direction.  Indeed, it generally has chosen throw out the idea that men can do whatever they like sexually with women and not worry about the consequences of their bad behavior, as a certain Australian who is now a guest of the Ecuadoran government has found out much to his displeasure.
Doesn't Sweden has more male prostitutes than female, through?
Probably, but I haven't seen a report on it. I know we do in Denmark and gay prostitution is generally very high in Scandinavian countries.
I don't think it really changes the various ethical dilemmas much whether or not the prostitutes are female or male.
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Nathan
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« Reply #32 on: December 12, 2012, 05:12:12 PM »

Sweden has generally sensible prostitution laws, at least as written.

Antonio, this is a corner of the market I'm hugely uncomfortable with leaving unregulated, even if there are at times positive externalities to doing so. Tons of things (and people) end up slipping through the cracks.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #33 on: December 12, 2012, 05:54:46 PM »

Antonio, this is a corner of the market I'm hugely uncomfortable with leaving unregulated, even if there are at times positive externalities to doing so. Tons of things (and people) end up slipping through the cracks.

...so, that means we agree, right? Huh

I'm not sure what you are saying.
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Nathan
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« Reply #34 on: December 12, 2012, 06:59:01 PM »

Antonio, this is a corner of the market I'm hugely uncomfortable with leaving unregulated, even if there are at times positive externalities to doing so. Tons of things (and people) end up slipping through the cracks.

...so, that means we agree, right? Huh

I'm not sure what you are saying.

It means we more or less agree, yeah.

I was confused by your question about my problems with the laws in the countries in blue on the map, sorry.
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Kitteh
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« Reply #35 on: December 12, 2012, 07:53:52 PM »

As a side note, that wiki map seems like an oversimplification that's really misleading. Ontario's and Sweden's laws would both be shown as blue on there, but as people have pointed out they're extremely different.
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Nathan
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« Reply #36 on: December 12, 2012, 07:56:40 PM »

As a side note, that wiki map seems like an oversimplification that's really misleading. Ontario's and Sweden's laws would both be shown as blue on there, but as people have pointed out they're extremely different.

Yeah, looking into the subject more, it's...not a great exercise in the cartographic arts. And the original generalization I made about it was, um, not always right.
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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #37 on: December 12, 2012, 08:06:07 PM »

The worst approach, which is unsurprisingly the one you appear to prefer due to your own concupiscent selfishness (or selfish concupiscence, it's all the same), is the one taken by the countries in blue on this map.

What's wrong with banning organized (ie, exploited) prostitution?

The prostitute are charged for soliciting customers, the customer isn't charged, as he did nothing illegal.

In Canada, note than the Ontario courts stuck down the law, Government is appealing.

That sucks, yeah. However, I would say that ideally laws should punish customers and pimps, while leaving prostitutes alone (ideally, offering them opportunities for another professional orientation).

Why treat potentially distasteful manual labor involving a vagina any differently from potentially distasteful manual labor involving one's hands? Surely you don't advocate saving female janitors or factory workers and "offering them opportunities for professional orientation"? At least a prostitute gets paid considerably more (a prostitute in a place with sensible laws, at least).
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politicus
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« Reply #38 on: December 12, 2012, 08:18:54 PM »
« Edited: December 12, 2012, 09:10:33 PM by politicus »

The worst approach, which is unsurprisingly the one you appear to prefer due to your own concupiscent selfishness (or selfish concupiscence, it's all the same), is the one taken by the countries in blue on this map.

What's wrong with banning organized (ie, exploited) prostitution?

The prostitute are charged for soliciting customers, the customer isn't charged, as he did nothing illegal.

In Canada, note than the Ontario courts stuck down the law, Government is appealing.

That sucks, yeah. However, I would say that ideally laws should punish customers and pimps, while leaving prostitutes alone (ideally, offering them opportunities for another professional orientation).

Why treat potentially distasteful manual labor involving a vagina any differently from potentially distasteful manual labor involving one's hands? Surely you don't advocate saving female janitors or factory workers and "offering them opportunities for professional orientation"? At least a prostitute gets paid considerably more (a prostitute in a place with sensible laws, at least).
Short answer is that selling your body is very damaging to your health, at least if you do it over an extended period of time. There are severe long term psychological effects of being a prostitute. The myth of the happy whore is indeed a myth.
As I understand it the main problem is that prostitutes block the contact between body and mind when they are with a customer to endure it, this practice is psychologically very problematic in the long run. Prostitutes are also very exposed to violence, rape and other kinds of abuse.
The problems factory workers encounter are psychical and generally much less severe.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #39 on: December 12, 2012, 10:23:21 PM »

The worst approach, which is unsurprisingly the one you appear to prefer due to your own concupiscent selfishness (or selfish concupiscence, it's all the same), is the one taken by the countries in blue on this map.

What's wrong with banning organized (ie, exploited) prostitution?

The prostitute are charged for soliciting customers, the customer isn't charged, as he did nothing illegal.

In Canada, note than the Ontario courts stuck down the law, Government is appealing.

That sucks, yeah. However, I would say that ideally laws should punish customers and pimps, while leaving prostitutes alone (ideally, offering them opportunities for another professional orientation).

Why treat potentially distasteful manual labor involving a vagina any differently from potentially distasteful manual labor involving one's hands? Surely you don't advocate saving female janitors or factory workers and "offering them opportunities for professional orientation"? At least a prostitute gets paid considerably more (a prostitute in a place with sensible laws, at least).

Because I do not believe that sex should be a commodity. It's not that complicated.

(and also what Politicus said, of course)
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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #40 on: December 12, 2012, 11:05:58 PM »

The worst approach, which is unsurprisingly the one you appear to prefer due to your own concupiscent selfishness (or selfish concupiscence, it's all the same), is the one taken by the countries in blue on this map.

What's wrong with banning organized (ie, exploited) prostitution?

The prostitute are charged for soliciting customers, the customer isn't charged, as he did nothing illegal.

In Canada, note than the Ontario courts stuck down the law, Government is appealing.

That sucks, yeah. However, I would say that ideally laws should punish customers and pimps, while leaving prostitutes alone (ideally, offering them opportunities for another professional orientation).

Why treat potentially distasteful manual labor involving a vagina any differently from potentially distasteful manual labor involving one's hands? Surely you don't advocate saving female janitors or factory workers and "offering them opportunities for professional orientation"? At least a prostitute gets paid considerably more (a prostitute in a place with sensible laws, at least).
Short answer is that selling your body is very damaging to your health, at least if you do it over an extended period of time. There are severe long term psychological effects of being a prostitute. The myth of the happy whore is indeed a myth.
As I understand it the main problem is that prostitutes block the contact between body and mind when they are with a customer to endure it, this practice is psychologically very problematic in the long run. Prostitutes are also very exposed to violence, rape and other kinds of abuse.
The problems factory workers encounter are psychical and generally much less severe.

There are plenty of jobs that are damaging to your health, both physically and psychologically. Scrubbing toilets for your entire life isn't very fun. Working in a coal mine isn't fun. I don't see anyone advocating that we outlaw those jobs or find all the janitors and coal miners new professions. A lot of prostitution is exploitative (though far from all; there are many prostitutes who enjoy their job or at least tolerate it as much as anyone with a normal job does theirs), but so are many other manual labor occupations. The only reason that a distinction exists is because of out-dated moralistic concerns that constrain sexual behavior and expression.  

There are problems with the working conditions of prostitutes and with sex slavery/trafficking. Those are real concerns. But these are analogous to safety concerns or slavery in any other profession. Prostitution, in and of itself, is not the problem.
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Nathan
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« Reply #41 on: December 12, 2012, 11:18:38 PM »

What makes a moralistic concern 'out-dated'? How does one know when a moralistic concern has ceased to be 'of the times', so to speak? Is it simply a question of popularity or is there some other factor? If the latter, how might we extrapolate this so as to predict what moralistic concerns will become 'out-dated' in the future?
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MaxQue
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« Reply #42 on: December 12, 2012, 11:20:18 PM »

As a side note, that wiki map seems like an oversimplification that's really misleading. Ontario's and Sweden's laws would both be shown as blue on there, but as people have pointed out they're extremely different.

It's not the Ontarian law, it's the Canadian law, by the way. Prostitution is reguled by the Criminal Code and is so a federal reserved power.
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SUSAN CRUSHBONE
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« Reply #43 on: December 13, 2012, 12:36:35 AM »

The worst approach, which is unsurprisingly the one you appear to prefer due to your own concupiscent selfishness (or selfish concupiscence, it's all the same), is the one taken by the countries in blue on this map.

What's wrong with banning organized (ie, exploited) prostitution?

The prostitute are charged for soliciting customers, the customer isn't charged, as he did nothing illegal.

In Canada, note than the Ontario courts stuck down the law, Government is appealing.

That sucks, yeah. However, I would say that ideally laws should punish customers and pimps, while leaving prostitutes alone (ideally, offering them opportunities for another professional orientation).

Why treat potentially distasteful manual labor involving a vagina any differently from potentially distasteful manual labor involving one's hands? Surely you don't advocate saving female janitors or factory workers and "offering them opportunities for professional orientation"? At least a prostitute gets paid considerably more (a prostitute in a place with sensible laws, at least).

Gee, I wonder why so few women post here… it must be because they're mentally unable to pick apart factoids or something…
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Cory
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« Reply #44 on: December 13, 2012, 12:48:39 AM »

Many of the opposition to legal and regulated prostitution I hear comes from this idea that sex is somehow "special" in an quasi-spiritual sense and thusly not based in fact.

"I don't think selling sex is right."

"I just don't think sex should be a commodity."

Ect, ect.

It's similar to people who oppose legalization of Marijuana. "It's just bad."

If the sex trade is regulated properly sex trafficking can be cut down. Similar to drug legalization cutting down on drug trafficking. What John in their right mind would choose some dirty street walker over the clean and safe alternative? Don't get me wrong there will always be broke people who have to get their fix but legalization and regulation actually have a notable affect in making sex workers safer. Which is infinitely more then you can say for the high-horsed moralistic stands of some people, which accomplish nothing.
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« Reply #45 on: December 13, 2012, 12:58:39 AM »

It just seems incredibly arbitrary to me to say that something is perfectly legal until money is involved, and then it's really bad and needs to be banned.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #46 on: December 13, 2012, 01:47:54 AM »

Many of the opposition to legal and regulated prostitution I hear comes from this idea that sex is somehow "special" in an quasi-spiritual sense and thusly not based in fact.

"I don't think selling sex is right."

"I just don't think sex should be a commodity."

Ect, ect.

It's similar to people who oppose legalization of Marijuana. "It's just bad."

If the sex trade is regulated properly sex trafficking can be cut down. Similar to drug legalization cutting down on drug trafficking. What John in their right mind would choose some dirty street walker over the clean and safe alternative? Don't get me wrong there will always be broke people who have to get their fix but legalization and regulation actually have a notable affect in making sex workers safer. Which is infinitely more then you can say for the high-horsed moralistic stands of some people, which accomplish nothing.

But why don't you accept that there might be a legitimate moral concern about accepting sex as a commodity? Is it so weird to think that sex is a particularly meaningful aspect of human life and must not be degraded in a merchandised relationship? I don't want you to agree with me, but you can't just dismiss these concerns only because they are grounded on morality.


It just seems incredibly arbitrary to me to say that something is perfectly legal until money is involved, and then it's really bad and needs to be banned.

Of course, that's why I think it's fair to have a certain margin of tolerance. Meaning, we're not going to go after a guys who accepts an offer like "OK, I'm gonna have sex with you, but you give me 100 bucks". However, when sex is turned into a full employment, organized in activities that amount to corporations, I think the State can and must step up and take action against the "customers" and against the "capitalists", while leaving the "workers" alone (ideally, helping them).
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Cory
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« Reply #47 on: December 13, 2012, 02:33:34 AM »

But why don't you accept that there might be a legitimate moral concern about accepting sex as a commodity? Is it so weird to think that sex is a particularly meaningful aspect of human life and must not be degraded in a merchandised relationship? I don't want you to agree with me, but you can't just dismiss these concerns only because they are grounded on morality.

The issue is that you would be using a moral concern to make laws that would apply to all of the people. Also, the society would be taking a "moral stand" at the expense of more rational laws that would actually improve the lot of sex workers (and their clients, for that matter).


However, when sex is turned into a full employment, organized in activities that amount to corporations, I think the State can and must step up and take action against the "customers" and against the "capitalists", while leaving the "workers" alone (ideally, helping them).

Why is it inherently wrong in your view to pay for sex but not a big deal to sell it? This seems like an obvious double-standard.
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Nathan
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« Reply #48 on: December 13, 2012, 02:43:24 AM »

I think the idea is that the whole transaction is wrong but somebody in the position to be the consumer in such a transaction would generally speaking have more options.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #49 on: December 13, 2012, 02:44:29 AM »

But why don't you accept that there might be a legitimate moral concern about accepting sex as a commodity? Is it so weird to think that sex is a particularly meaningful aspect of human life and must not be degraded in a merchandised relationship? I don't want you to agree with me, but you can't just dismiss these concerns only because they are grounded on morality.

The issue is that you would be using a moral concern to make laws that would apply to all of the people. Also, the society would be taking a "moral stand" at the expense of more rational laws that would actually improve the lot of sex workers (and their clients, for that matter).

I do think that the fundamental consequences of legalizing prostitution (ie, spreading a merchandised conception of sexuality) would ultimately outweigh its potential advantages. I just think it is fundamentally necessary for a society to cultivate the idea that one's body is not and cannot be for sale.


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Why is it inherently wrong in your view to pay for sex but not a big deal to sell it? This seems like an obvious double-standard.[/quote]

Because it is indisputable that, in 90% of cases, prostitutes are the victims of merchandised sex rather than their beneficiaries. Of course they get paid for that, so what? Most of them do this job because they feel this is their only opportunity to maintain economic security, and, as Politicus pointed out, this activity physically and psychologically degrades them. I am against punishing the victims in any situation, even when the victims are, in some way, consenting. The same applies for drug use: I'm in favor of decriminalizing it entirely while cracking down on drug dealing very harshly.
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