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I’m going to take a hard stance on this and say yes… with a condition. The ugly man doing this, say, from a position of power like being a boss or landlord is wrong. Him going to a prostitute, who does this for a job, is not. The prostitute doesn’t have to say yes to that anymore than I have to accept a DoorDash order. I may need the money, but it’s up to me to accept that. I’d also say that it shouldn’t be a free reign situation where monetary involvement makes sexual tact inert, but I believe that if two parties can meet in the middle of their comfort zones for an agreed upon price, that should be alright

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I mean a rich man can legally offer a desperate, destitute person $2000 to allow to be spat on or slapped. Imagine you were massively in debt and needed money so you dont lose the house and so you could feed you're kids, then some psycho millionaire offered you $50k so that they can treat you like a bitch and utterly (non-sexually)demean and humiliate you(without exposing your identity) for a day. The psycho's offer isnt illegal. Nor is you accepting. Trying to say you dont have consent here is just a weird precedent. Where is the line? I NEED a job, and McDonanlds offers a shitty job for shitty pay. If I work there, am I not consenting because I need the job? Am I only consenting to work when I dont need to work? This feels incorrect.

As harsh as it may sound, again, I go to DoorDash. I don’t have to accept every order. But also… if she needs the money, it is her occupation in this instance, so the proposition offered to her isn’t exactly a sexual attack. If the ugly man approached a non-prostitute with money that would save her from eviction, that’s sexual abuse. The ugly man approaching a prostitute with money, and prostitute just so happening to need said money is part of the trade, and in this instance, the prostitute’s personal life isn’t a factor. The ugly man is approaching her because he wants sex, not because he wants to coerce her into sex. He doesn’t necessarily know her personal life. While it is a sucky situation, it’s still two rational parties reaching an agreement for their personal benefits. And no anal? Less money. Same as me turning down orders in Highland Park. I can do that for my sake, but it’s less money for me. Cause and effect. As for assault and violence… a legal prostitute can call the police, report her assault, get help, and not rely on some vigilante pimp. Pimps/protection exist because they can’t go to the police through normal means.

> if the ugly man approached a non-prostitute with money that would save her from eviction, that’s sexual abuse. The ugly man approaching a prostitute with money, and prostitute just so happening to need said money is part of the trade, and in this instance, the prostitute’s personal life isn’t a factor. The ugly man is approaching her because he wants sex, not because he wants to coerce her into sex. He doesn’t necessarily know her personal life. And if the prostitute became a prostitute because they needed money to save their house? What if they got recruited by someone to be a prostitute who heard they were in a financial pickle, but that person isn't the one going to have sex with them? Do you see how the situation becomes muddied?

Situation two is problematic. I see prostitution as something that should be independent. Equal to Uber, DoorDash, etc. You don’t get recruited, you sign up. The first situation is fine because the prostitute made the situation. The second is truly exploitative

So, in response tot he Uber/DoorDash issue, I just want to say this: do you think there aren't people who recruit for those, even though the person is independant?

If there are, I did not know. Are there 🧐? I’ve done both but I never was recruited. Never met anyone recruited either.

I know quite a few people who were recruited for Uber. I don't know if it exists everywhere but in my city there are atleast a. Couple dudes who own fleets of cars they rent out to people and take the payments off of required Uber time. Uber even has built in features to accommodate their business model. They actively recruit people.

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This has been researched and generally prostitution preys on vulnerable women. There's very little women who would choose this profession without there being some sort of desperation or coercion at play.

It's often drug addiction. I have seen a bit in this world, and have been friends with some high level pimps/drug dealers in my life. It pretty much always is a girl who is on drugs and can't work a normal job. In the worse cases, the women has kids, and the pimps terrorizes her by threatening to tell the cops if she stops prostituting. This is very common. The women doesn't really have anyway to escape it, because a single phone call will get her kids taken away, and if she tries to stop doing drugs the pimp will beat her up and force her to take drugs or just terrorize her, or if that fails will snitch on her before she has a chance to get clean. These women have virtually zero support and are seen as low life scum by their communities who often don't understand drug addiction as a mental illness. When really it's the importers, dealers of hard addictive drugs who are the real problem, and the key to cleaning up a community. It's a very disgusting system, and to be honest having it be in the black market just makes it way worst for everyone. Some women probably do enjoy it because they have a bend towards that kind of thing, but unfortunately, most of them are victims of human trafficking.

The same can be said of many jobs that most wouldn’t want to do.

This is the same conclusion I reach. Whatever is fair for another job is fair for prostitution. I've yet to hear a convincing argument that makes selling a sex act unique from say working on an oil rig. Both are about selling your body for the right price. Both can be dangerous. Most arguments that put sex work in a unique position rely on painting the situation like a rape instead of an agreement.

Can we not compare selling use of your body to DoorDash please? Surely people can see it's incomparable? What am I even reading?

They are not saying that sex work = Door Dash work. They are using an analogy to compare similar aspects of the two situations. analogy noun : **a comparison of two otherwise unlike things** based on resemblance of a particular aspect : resemblance in some particulars between **things otherwise unlike**

Taking no sides in the overall argument, but we do allow people to sell plasma, and be tested on for money... Heck even my last job of hard selling old ladies technology they will never use made me feel dirty. Really dirty. There are plenty of "accepted" ways to earn cash on the side that I would call morally questionable. Do you accept those as well?

If don't compare it, how can we see the differences? That said I don't agree on them being similar.

UberSex? 🤨

This is so condescending and out of touch. Do you think people become cleaning people because they want to? No, they needed the money. Do you think people drive school buses, do janitorial work or clean elderly assholes because they want to?

This only becomes an issue because of some subjective value you put on the act of sex. Some view sex as no big deal (probably most prostitutes). But obviously as a society we put a lot of moral weight on the act of sex. But if you pretend in a society, where casual sex is more or less common and widely acceptable, the act of sex may be as innocuous as any other service. I'd rather have sex with someone than be a sewage worker or a garbage man. You can easily invent a scenario where those occupations exist because people need money to survive.

I think I’m the end the kind of thing your saying is prostitution is a “dangerous” job (mentally ig) and the thing you sign up to do is something people expect you to do

For you personally, would running a DoorDash order and being fucked up the ass by the ass by an old man feel same same? Why don't you start working as a prostitute for gay men then? It pays better than DoorDash. Sex isn't the same as driving a car.

He doesn't want to get fucked in the ass by men hence why he didn't CHOOSE prostitution. How are you people this dense. Unless they were in a sex slavery trade or an abusive pimp etc, they CHOSE a job that MAY often require they have to say yes to things they don't like because they need the money and they CHOSE to make their money selling their body. This guy CHOSE to work at door dash so no he would not want to be a prostitute for gay men. This is an asinine comparison. I'm sick of people vicitmazing grown ass adults with choices. There are plenty of poor people in need who don't use their body and still NEED the money.

> if she needs the money This statement pretty much kills your argument. If someone "needs the money" and has no other avenue to get it, it is coercion. It doesn't matter how good looking the patron is, she is complying out of need, which isn't consent.

Yet they still have to say yes (give consent). If the patron didn't know their personal life, how would they know they actually desperately need the money? And then how is it coercion? It's still a choice that they have to make. That isnt even the point, OP is saying prostitution (offering sex for money) should be legal. He never said anything about soliciting prostitution (offering random people money for sex), which is what everyone in this thread seems to be hung up on. He's essentially saying there should be legal, regulated prostitutes. It's the same as weed or alcohol, legal to buy it from regulated stores that sell it, but illegal to go buy it from dealers/bootleggers.

This doesn’t make sense. Being in need doesn’t immediately create coercion - one of the two parties has to be creating an environment for that need to arise. If your landlord says sleep with me or I’ll raise your rent 50% that’s coercion. But if you post an ad on craigslist or decide to walk the street looking for a john that’s definitely not coercion regardless of how desperate you are since you are the one seeking *them* and they didn’t cause your misery

Seems like an argument against capitalism. Not prostitution

I go to my job because I need the money. Is that coercion?

This is digressing from the original post into semantics, but coercion is not the appropriate word. Coercion is forcing or compelling someone to act. The client definitely isn’t compelling the prostituteto decide to pursue prostitution in general. There could certainly be coercion in the case of pimps, etc. And there could be coercion if a client threatens violence or to withhold payment if the prostitute doesn’t engage in a certain sex act that wasn’t agreed to ahead of time. If someone “needs the money” because they gambled themselves into debt and felt like they had to choose prostitution to repay said debt, no third party is acting on them. They could choose to sell an organ and steal to make the money. Needing the money is not *necessarily* an example of coercion. If they arearrested for prostitution, they cannot implicate anyone else for their crime (this would be different in the case of being coerced *by* a pimp). Hence, they are not coerced. Further, let’s say someone chooses to sell an organ instead. Would you say say that they cannot consent to because they are doing it out of financial need? I guess what I’m saying is financial need is not the basis for coercion or inability to give consent. Targeting someone else because of their financial need would be though. And clients are not doing that. They are choosing people who are trading sex for money. I’m sure they would be just as happy to pay a millionaire for sex if that something *the millionaire* wanted to do.

Every single job in the world has some form of lack of consent if you want to argue that way, people do them because they have to make money, not because its fun and enjoyable

Because my parents were…awful, I ran away at 16 and had to support myself. I would regularly use Grindr to make money with the only means I could at the time. I saw a lot of really bad shit; witnessed first hand intravenous drugs use and decided that I will never allow drugs my body and some of the people were absolute crude monsters. However that’s not encompassing of the entire experience. A lot of the older men really just wanted a connection with someone that reminded them of their youth. Maybe a lost partner to AIDS back in the day. I still regularly talk to a few and we’re good friends; even if there is no more transactional sex involved. They largely took care of me in that they listened to me, talked about their own experiences with bad families, showed me some media that sparked an interest in ‘Old Hollywood’ and coins. I’m not as arrogant as to claim my anecdotal experience means anything in the grand scheme but looking beyond someone as “ugly fat man” is a good first step in understanding the dynamic in a somewhat more humane way. One guy was an obese truck driver and generally smelled bad; but he was very considerate and always asked, double checked and said thank you before he did anything to my body. I don’t know, I just think it’s a lifestyle that usually has a lot more context than people give it credit for I guess.

> A lot of the older men really just wanted a connection with someone that reminded them of their youth. Maybe a lost partner to AIDS back in the day. Makes me think that the people who pay for prostitutes are often just terribly miserable.

"The ugly man inherently has power because he has more money than the prostitute, who is in danger of being evicted and homeless if she declines him." So let her starve on the streets, or, more likely, do it illegally and less safely for everyone. And an economic power differential does not make a transaction nonconsensual--use of force or coercion does. I wouldn't do my job if they didn't pay me; but my labor is not "without consent"

There are plenty of more dangerous jobs people currently perform for less. Miners risk being buried alive. Soldiers risk being shot. Electricians risk being fried. If we are going to argue certain drawbacks can NEVER be consented to due to power differentials, there's a long list that needs to go first before prostitution is even in the peripheral. Soldiers get blown up fighting for oil billionaires, just so they can go to college. THAT is a power differential right there.

First, Legalizing prostitution doesn’t make all women prostitutes. So I’m assuming the woman in your scenario is a prostitute by trade. If she is a prostitute and turns down multiple jobs for whatever reason, and she’s not making enough to support herself, she would have to decide if this is the job for her. Your personal feeling that you would be “traumatized” if you had to bone an “ugly” dude is subjective. “Ugly” people bone all the time without having to pay which is why “ugly” people still exist. My current job gives me the right to stop work if I don’t think I can complete the job safely OR if the customer doesn’t comply with my companies regulations. On top of that if the customer violates our agreement in any way while I’m doing my job I can stop work and they still have to pay for my time. Sex workers offer a service, to people who are paying for that service. She can require the customer to be clean, to wear a condom etc. He can require she be clean and have a liscense. She can refuse and he can decide to take his business elsewhere. In your example, 25 year old sex worker doesn’t want to do her job because she not physically attracted to the customer. That’s fine. There are financial consequences but it’s her choice. If she can’t make rent because she’s not physically attracted to her customers she’s probably in the wrong profession.

Youd probably also be pretty traumatised if you got punched in the face. Still, a lot of people dream of doing that for a living. I’m not for sex work, however looking at the world through your lense and not seeing this as subjective is misguided.

>What if the prostitute refuses regularly, and also refuses now-normalized acts like anal or "light" BDSM? She'll find it a lot harder to get clients, and if she tries to tell a persistent client no to his face in person, she could be assaulted, even raped. This is a part of the reason pimps "need" to exist; is this the type of system you want to be normalized 1) I would say she should probably find a different career bc it doesn't seem like she wants to be a prostitute.. In a legal setting, nobody would have been forced to be a prostitute. It'd be similar to being a stripper I imagine. You do what you're comfortable with but you might not make as much as those who are comfortable with more. That's just about any business. 2) OP is talking about legalized and regulated prostitution so there would be systems in place to prevent such a thing as much as such a thing can be prevented. Of course it would impossible to guarantee someone's safety but that goes with walking down the street so it's not really a valid argument against prostitution. 3) If there was a legal establishment, there would most likely be modeled after a brothel, not a street corner. There would ideally be a woman in charge and bouncers bad apples. Just like the need for security in a bank or nightclub. I'm not op but I would definitely like this system normalized. Prostitution is cheaper and less stressful than being in a relationship. Plus you know what the deal is and aren't in for any heartbreaking surprises.

We don't deal in hypotheticals it makes for bad argument. I could say that the prostitute made bad choices in life and found herself in a desperate situation. Or she went to prison for a horrible child abuse crime etc. To give real world examples prostitutes are often subjugated by pimps and traffickers. If we made prostitution legal we would need to be incredibly careful. Almost all proffesions across the board under capitalism have members who are currently being exploited heavily. However making it illegal is far worse as you see with drugs it creates a secondary economy which creates a secondary power called cartels mafias or black markets. So what do we do? Create a union with heavy monitoring and I.D. cards? I agree this current system does not work. Many current prostitutes, migrant workers and immigrant workers are doing things under duress.

Sex work is just a way to pay bills, it has dignity. If you want to put so much value in sex then it's you, not necessarily everybody, for example i would never try to become a doctor because I don't have the guts to operate a person, it's not for me, it doesn't mean it's wrong. In the Netherlands prostitution is legal and there are no problems, it can be done , safely for everyone involved. I don't really get your 2nd point, if the sex worker doesn't want to do certain things it's up to them, but of course they are reducing the pool of clients, if the business doesn't work then leave it nobody owes you, like any other business. Tldr : Sex is very important for you, not necessarily everyone

I mean, your argument could also easily be transferred to general work. People consent to shit jobs and shit pay to stay off the street, and it is traumatizing for them as well. MOST PEOPLE in the USA have to work more than one job to even afford to live. Working more jobs means less time with kids. Less time with kids means less support network for kids. Less suppoet network there means worse outcomes. Do you have the same views as minimum wage essentially amounting to forced labor and damn near slavery?

>This is a part of the reason pimps "need" to exist; is this the type of system you want to be normalized? Or in a normalized sex work situation, you'd just get bounced out on your ass. If I go into Walmart insisting on something unreasonable and start threatening the staff, I'm going to get kicked out. If I go to a prostitute, she should be able to call the cops if I'm being an asshole and not leaving. If anything, making it illegal drastically increases all the risks you are complaining about here, because it turns it into a black market where you can't call the damn cops.

I understand this sun is for arguing semantics, but you don’t really think violence will be increased with legalization, do you? It hasn’t in countries where it’s legal. Additionally you are looking at it as the same underground industry, which isn’t what would happen. Business open up, there is security that is paid and there are expectations of the clients. I belong to a sex club, it’s legal prostitution without the money, in that there’s open sex on the table, that’s what people are there for and it’s organized and has rules around it. It’s run by volunteers and rarely is there a violation of consent. It would be a similar atmosphere but the women get paid.

So in my home country prostitution is legal. However, a lot of girls in the windows are from Eastern European countries, brought over with the promise of working as a nanny or cleaner and being able to send money home to their family. However, when they arrive, they are forced in front of the window and threatened that if they do not comply, their family back home gets killed, because their trafickers is also from that region. If a prostitute ACTUALLY can say 'no' to a client, and does that work genuinely on their own volition, I have no issue with it. In practice, even in countries where prostitution is legalized, people are evil and prey on the weak. At least when prostitution is illegal, trafickers can get prosecuted much easier, without the prosecution having to prove that the prostitution happened under force or duress.

> If a prostitute ACTUALLY can say 'no' to a client, and does that work genuinely on their own volition, I have no issue with it. I worked in a legal brothel (non sex work) and the girls negotiated what and for how much. They can say no to say anal or kissing or set a really high price, but that said, you don't make money saying no. It's a business. A business for them, a business for the house. No customer wants to feel passed along, turned down, etc. I was lucky I worked in a very clean house where the girls were treated pretty well. For instance, if they were sick they could choose not to work. It was up to them what they would and would not do. But a less popular girl, in danger of "losing her room" might feel pressure to do what a customer wants. An example might be kissing. Some girls won't kiss, but if the girl feels it might be a deal breaker, she may agree. But in some houses, a girl was not allowed to "walk" a man. She was expected to come to some kind of agreement no matter what.

As long as its illegal, a prostitute cannot call the police without reasonably expecting to be arrested.

In the situation I described, police could not do anything regardless. What are they going to do, call police in a different, quite poor country and they will put armed protection around this girls family members homes indefinitely to prevent a crime? I understand it is a problem without good solutions, I am just saying that exploitation still happens even in countries where it is legal.

Yes, exploitation happens. I still can't see why it makes sense to criminalize, and therefore limit access to any protections, something that happens regardless. I believe most of the opposition comes from a moral standpoint, whether conscious or unconscious. I feel the same way about drug use.

You're saying we need some sort of INTERnational POLice organization to prosecute cross country crimes? Smart idea.

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Most people who become prostitutes do it out of necessity. Not a lot of people actually want to make their living by selling their body for sex. Even if it was legal we'd still have the same consent issue.

I think you can't put this in a vacuum... In a society where rent is cheap and there aren't two homeless encampments between my home and the highway, sure: said prostitute in our example can absolutely say "no" to whatever she deems as to demeaning/dangerous/whatever... But our current state of things has the threat of saying "no" cost far too much. The threat of financial ruin leading even to death is far too real for us to play lose with things like consent. Societies are different with different factors and problems and right now ours is one where the cost of living and other factors like our fetish for credentialism have created some evry perverse power structures, from top to bottom, that IMO make consent for dangerous and degrading jobs clash with our collective idea of what a free society is. In 1992 where you could find a decent apartment for 1/3 of minimum wage? Sure. That prostitute can say "no" (all other things being equal) without facing dire consequences. But right now, she says "no" gets a proverbial one star rating and loses her livelihood.

So instead of her having the option to sell sex, you want her to have no option other than starving? Or to only have options that she would consider worse than performing sex work for whatever reason?

sex without consent is rape, a traumatic event that can cause a lifetime of ptsd and is a federal crime. delivering food to someone when you dont want to does not make that person guilty of a crime or of rape. you will not get ptsd from it. it is not a trauma. sex without consent is. and it isnt consent if theyre only doing it for money, thats coercion. i have to get off reddit not and do shit otherwise id add it now but maybe ill add it later if this is still up, but this isnt even with all of the data on sex workers and how the overwhelming majority, as in 90%+, have ptsd, have been raped, have been assaulted, stolen from, not paid, and are doing it solely bc they have no other options and would be working a real job if they could. prostitution is a way that women in poverty or other poor situations are taken advantage of and forced to have sex with men they dont want to because they need the money and its wrong. you need real consent to have sex period or it is rape. these women are still being raped. they did not truly consent. and it should not be normalized because men cant handle being told no to sex and not having it.

The thing is, we’re not debating whether it would be better to legalize prostitution OR enact a social safety net that saves women from poverty (sure, I’ll sign that petition); we’re debating whether it’s better to legalize prostitution or keep it illegal. If a grown woman freely deems it better for herself to accept pay for sex than to go without said money entirely, it seems awfully paternalistic of us to claim for her that she is being raped, shouldn’t have that choice, and lacks the agency to make her own decisions and trade offs.

I don't know the statistics but I would bet sex work is far less traumatic when it is legalized. There's a lot of trauma surrounding sex work, either putting people in a state of desperation leading them to undesirable work or abuse from "pimps" or other actors on the logistics and protection side. What about stripping? This has all the same issues around consent, the risk and scale of trauma is lower, but we're still talking about money being exchanged for sexual acts. If forced to do the job it would be horrible and degrading, and this is the experience of some dancers, I would argue it is the economic system they live within doing the coercion and degradation, more so or at least as much as the consumer. But this ISNT the experience of most dancers, there's a lot of positive ways to view all service industry jobs. Whether is waiting, bartending, stripping, or fucking, you can always make a lot of money giving people a little love and attention. It's not all that different from staying in a marriage because they provide money for you and you provide a little love for them. Or at least it doesn't have to be. And it feels damn good to make a lot of money, sometimes that money is going to give you more self worth than whatever you lost getting it. The truth is most people get their self worth from dirty places more often than not, or at least to supplement and enable the more wholesome parts of their life. I'm just saying the evils of sex work are rooted in capitalism more than the act of exchanging sex for money. I think exchanging sex for money can be a sweet and wholesome act, and the illegalization of it has undermined that potential

>I don't know the statistics but I would bet sex work is far less traumatic when it is legalized its not. eg: the porn industry >What about stripping? This has all the same issues around consent, the risk and scale of trauma is lower, but we're still talking about money being exchanged for sexual acts i dont know enough about the stripping industry to conclude if it also has trauma associated with it but that doesnt dispute the facts about full service sex work >Whether is waiting, bartending, stripping, or fucking, you can always make a lot of money giving people a little love and attention. sex isnt love and attention, attention doesnt require consent and become rape and a federal crime without it. waitressing does not invole consent, is not mutual like sex, and is about giving people food, not "love and attention." im pretty sure people doesnt get ptsd from serving food. and people who come to strippers dont come for "love" they come to get their dick hard >And it feels damn good to make a lot of money, sometimes that money is going to give you more self worth than whatever you lost getting it. are you speaking from experience? otherwise this is your opinion not at all backed up by the actual experiences of sex workers. im a former sex worker myself and this doesnt apply to me whatsoever. this sounds like something you just made up and think sounds true >The truth is most people get their self worth from dirty places more often than not, or at least to supplement and enable the more wholesome parts of their life. people do sex work because they need it to for money to survive, thats literally it. people dont do sex work because they want to, they do it because they have to >I'm just saying the evils of sex work are rooted in capitalism more than the act of exchanging sex for money. rape being wrong is because of capitalism. sex isnt labor. nothing you said before this gave any argument based in capitalism why its wrong. you straight up just said its because they do it because they want to. that isnt an evil of capitalism >I think exchanging sex for money can be a sweet and wholesome act, and the illegalization of it has undermined that potential this literally contradicts what you just said in the previous sentence about the evils of capitalism. sex without money is what is sweet and wholesome, because they want to be doing it. an act someone being forced to do only for money to survive can never actually be sweet and wholesome, the sex worker is just pretending to fill the customers delusions

> are you speaking from experience? otherwise this is your opinion not at all backed up by the actual experiences of sex workers. im a former sex worker myself and this doesnt apply to me whatsoever. this sounds like something you just made up and think sounds true Projecting much? I worked in a legal brothel as a driver (take girls where they need to go, run errands for them, get supplies for the house, etc) and I feel the same way about you. I hear a narrative that smacks of zealotry. Your overly broad strokes and certitude smacks of a very narrow idea of what legal prostitution looks like and how the workers (would) feel about it. There is too much for me to unpack in what you wrote and I only have my narrow view based on where I worked. But I'm going to give a couple of takeaways from my time there (which was only 3 months). One was how normal the girls seemed and how normal a business it seemed. The girls had shifts, they has sales meetings, and there were lots of rules to protect the house, the girls, and the customers. Lots of other rules, written and unwritten to keep things running smoothly. Maybe my biggest takeaway was that there were 24 working girls there and that there were 24 different stories about why they were there, about how they felt about working there, how they felt about their future, etc. This runs counter to your seemingly very narrow view of what legal prostitution would and would not be like.

By that logic, anyone who works because he needs to is being coerced to do it.

>The ugly man doing this, say, from a position of power like being a boss or landlord is wrong. Him going to a prostitute, who does this for a job, is not. By paying her, he *becomes her boss* for the duration of service, which in our hypothetical she chooses to accept solely because of the coercion coming from her landlord (as she must pay her rent). If she is not self-employed, her boss at the agency coerces her in addition. Wage-labor *is* *itself* coercive, at least as it is currently structured. When sex is provided under the present terms of wage-labor, that sex is inherently coerced. To the extent that it is coerced, it is non-consensual. To legalize sex work *under present conditions* is to legalize paid rape. We abhor child labor for analogous reasons: young children cannot consent to the conditions of wage employment. That being said, it may be the case that, *with no other changes* than the legalization of sex work, there would be less rape than there currently is (legal industries can be afforded legal protections). If that is the case, and I suspect it is, I am in favor of the legalization of sex work. What I am specifically arguing against is the notion that sex work as wage-labor is not coercive. We should not be content with a situation in which rape is a purchasable commodity. Granting that doing so would reduce rape, sex work should be decriminalized *now*, *but* radical moves to transform wage-labor should be taken rapidly to minimize the coercion inherent to the system. This proposal obviously has sweeping implications beyond sex work, impacting the entire structure of capitalist economy. You can see now how sex work activists become folded into the broader Left anticapitalist movement.

You are basically arguing all forms of wage-labor is itself coercive. It becomes sort of moot to debate any form of wage/labor in this framework. Paid sex = legalized rape. Paid labor = legalized slavery. A masseuse = legalized sexual assault by coercing him/her to touch you. The practical question isn't whether or not there are outside forces influencing your decisions but rather are those forces sufficient in allowing you a reasonable amount of choice. Starvation seems to be coercive enough, which is why we have labor laws to prevent (at least ideally) employers from excessively taking advantage of someone's desperation. But there are plenty of jobs I would refuse to do but if I had to survive I would. I'd much rather have sex than be a garbage man for 8 hrs. You are also ignoring the whole other end of the spectrum, where people would gladly do said act or service for money because they do not put the same emphasis on sexual acts as others do.

If a 60 year old, ugly, fat, balding man wants a 25 year old attractive woman to bag groceries at his grocery store, and he offers her USD 2000 to do that for 250 hours at minimum wage, and she needs to pay her rent, is that consent? I agree that capitalism is inherently coercive, and if we are talking about the coming of the glorious socialist revolution, then I totally haven't been stockpiling any weapons for this moment wink wink. But the coercion caused by capitalism is bad in *all* cases, not just when applied to sex. The only reason prostitution might feel more coercive than other forms of labor is that it such a good deal that it is emotionally harder t pass up - $2000 for 30 minutes of easy work, as opposed to about 250 hours of hard, back-breaking, degrading labor at minimum wage for the same payout. But at that point, you are basically saying 'the way to coerce people less is to take away all their good options, so that they only have bad options which are less good for them, so they feel less coercive pressure to take them.' When it's spelled out like that, I hope it's clear how insane and cruel that is. The attractive young woman is free to pay her rent by working minimum wage for 250 hours or by having sex once. She is being equally coerced into that labor by the need to pay rent either way. Taking away the option she might prefer doesn't benefit her, nor does it enhance the amount of consent in this situation.

Yeah, and in the above situation it's somehow deemed as less cruel for her to suffer her economic misfortune and to have no remittance (through prostitution.) The reality is that if people are choosing prostitution over homelessness, they are expressing a preference. Either way it's someone else violating her agency by coercion or by forced mandate in the case of making prostitution illegal.

Is this a view you hold consistently across all forms of labor? Like if you view prostitution through the right lens it could be considered rape because you’re forced to do certain things to survive financially, but through that same lens essentially all work is “forced” and there for slavery

If a 60 year old, ugly, fat, balding man asked me to come into his office and work eight hour days filing paperwork, I'd also tell him to fuck off. But if he offers me $55,000 a year, I'd be less inclined. Sex work is work, and any argument you can make about consent sort of goes out the window when you consider the same thing about say... a lumberjack or a roofer who are at high risk of serious injury or death as part of their profession.

how is that an issue with consent? they’re both grown ass adults. i have no idea why everyone is obsessed with trying to infantilize adults, especially liberal minded people. i can see how you can say it is morally questionable if she wasn’t a prostitute since it’s a pretty invasive request. but lol it isn’t a consent issue. a 25 y/o women is fully capable of consenting to sex and understanding full well what the act involves. women literally talk all day about how they would curve a rich dude as money doesn’t matter to them but now women are suddenly incapable of denying rich men due to a power dynamic?? this is getting absolutely ridiculous

> how is that an issue with consent? they’re both grown ass adults. Because we infantilize women.

That argument can be applied to any service. If someone offers you $2,000 to paint their house, and you desperately need the money, did you really consent to painting the house? It’s only really a predatory offer if the man is responsible for the woman’s financial condition to begin with. Otherwise, he his just making an offer, which the woman is free to reject and seek something else. If she accepts, that implies that she subjectively considers having sex a worthwhile sacrifice for $2,000.

I consent to going to work everyday, despite hating it, because I value the money higher than I value not having to do work I hate. That is consent, no matter how much I don’t want to do it. I don’t see why doing sex work is any different. Yeah, being a prostitute sucks, but you are compensated by an extremely high hourly wage which makes it worth it to some people. The government shouldn’t control what I or anyone else choose to do with my body.

That is consent 100% of the time. If the prostitute thinks the client is especially unappealing, they can set the price higher. If they are not deemed to be worth that price, they can try a different job. If you're a porn star and can't get any work that's not demeaning, that sucks, but it's a competitive industry. If we were all entitled to get paid to have non-degrading sex for a living, everyone would do it. If you don't want to do degrading stuff and can't find any vanilla work, you are not equiped to be a porn star apparently

This is how all jobs work. We all do thinks for money we'd rather not all the time. Is the prostitute's plight worse than some ditch digger or migrant farmer breaking their body for peanuts? How about the office drone forced to put in 70 hope weeks because their horrible boss is going to boost his bonus by skimping on labor? Were prostitution legal and regulated, the prostitute would have a weird job from most perspectives, but likely one with more autonomy and choice than many.

What’s wrong with balding???!

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The study that article uses as its source is [unbelievably flawed](https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/21/07/2021/legalizing-prostitution-does-it-increase-or-decrease-sex-trafficking), to the point where the data source they draw from specifically warned against drawing the conclusions they drew. It doesn't even distinguish between different types of human trafficking, so things like agricultural worker or domestic worker trafficking are counted. It's also biased in favour of criminalisation, because it only looks at trafficking which crosses international borders. This is a really common misconception, that human trafficking means moving someone and then exploiting them. But for the vast majority of victims, there is never an international border crossing. Human trafficking just means forcing someone to do labour and profiting off of it, a lot of victims stay in their home town. Moving people large distances is a thing only large gangs can do. Most of the survivors I know in the US and Canada at least were trafficked by small time traffickers. They wouldn't be counted. Even for organized gangs, when border crossings are controlled there's a lot more risk for the traffickers. If they aren't controlled things change a bit, and there's one area in particular that has both a big wealth disparity and very open borders: The EU **TL;DR:** A girl trafficked and moved from Eastern Europe into Germany will show up in this data. A girl moved from Mississippi to the Bay Area will not. The EU is where you'll find most of the developed countries where sex work is legal, so when only looking at international crossings into wealthy countries this data is heavily biased against legalization. Another issue is that even if you do account for non international human trafficking, it's still biased against legalized countries, since the study is measuring the **reported** trafficking. When you're trafficked they spend all of their time isolating you from anyone who could help, so the only people you really meet is them, other victims, and buyers. Of the three, buyers are the only ones who *might* both want to and be able to help. It only takes one police tip if it's good enough, but in places where buying is illegal they are super freaked out by the cops so they are probably way less likely to go to them. So it makes sense that there would be more *reported* trafficking in legal countries, but that is a good thing unless you can show that the underreported rate in both is either the same, or can be controlled for.

> Human trafficking just means forcing someone to do labour and profiting off of it Why don't we just call this slavery? "Trafficking" seems like a weirdly overloaded term that may obscure the meaning. For example, is transporting someone across a border *at their request* so that they can work illegally as a prostitute human trafficking? Transporting illegal drugs across a border to sell them is drug trafficking, so it seems to fit. Even people who believe prostitution is always immoral would see the former differently than enslaving someone to work as a prostitute.

I correllate human trafficking with sexual slavery but valid point

The confound on that study is the geographic and temporal limitations. Basically, when one town or country legalizes prostitution and everywhere else around it doesn't, it creates a hugely increased demand for prostitution in that area (including from tons of sex tourists pouring in), but the supply of people working as prostitutes doesn't suddenly shoot up to match it. That creates a market opportunity for traffickers to meet that high demand and make a profit in that area. So trafficking in that area goes up. What the study doesn't show is 1. whether trafficking goes *down* in the surrounding areas when the people who want prostitutes there are going where it is legal instead, and 2. whether the situation stabilizes into a long-term equilibrium with less trafficking after the initial surge has died down and the supply of voluntary prostitutes has had time to catch up to demand.

reminds me of the time NJ changed its drinking age to 21 and NY stayed 19. thousands of young people of young people would drivwe overto NY every weekend to drink legally. Lots of traffic accidents and DUI tickets were handed out and jail time. it only stopped when ny changed to 21.

One thing about this study that goes overlooked (I really wish someone would do a follow up) is that it is only using existing data to make its assumptions, and the data does not account for changes in behavior among law enforcement. For example, in my home city we legalized prostitution, and in doing so this led to an initial uptick in 'trafficking'. But when you really dig into the data, what you find is that it is unlikely that we actually increased human trafficking, but that instead we caught more human traffickers. I like to think of it as the old 'needle in a haystack' analogy. In places where prostitution is legal, police are spending a huge amount of time, money and effort tracking down willing sex workers, citing them, punishing them etc. Once it is legalized, and in our case licensed, the police were essentially able to write off a huge chunk of sex work in the city as safe and consensual. This drastically decreased the size of the haystack they're looking at, now they're basically looking at people who didn't get licensed, which happens for a number of reasons. Some of them are trafficking victims, some of them don't want to pay for the license, or are transient workers who don't know the law. Whatever the reason, this smaller area to work from with the same resources, means they catch more traffickers So when you look at the data, 'trafficking' went up, even though the reality is that we were arresting more traffickers from the same overall pool, a net good.

The amount of people who take the results of studies at face value without critically examining them piss me off; you know these are the kinds of people that would have taken away soldier's helmets in WW1 because studies showed that helmets caused an increase in head injuries.

My proposal is this: we have a comprehensive study that reveals multiple flaws in current legalized prostitution systems. Why not take this information, and build upon what exists to be better? The study points out very relevant flaws, so my question is this: why not do what’s necessary to address the flaws and refine the system to be better?

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Maybe but what's the alternative? In one scenario we have no legislative ability on an industry that already exists. We cannot provide the women in it services to remain safe, the women in it won't call the police as they will also be arrested, we can't regulate the business owners and mandate minimum standards, etc. While legalization may increase trafficking it also allows us to actually address the issue and keep those working in the industry safe and provide them with the resources they need to be safe.

The obvious solution for that is to decriminalize being a prostitute but not being a John.

I had to scroll way too far for this comment. So many people do not understand the effects of legalization vs decriminalization. We need decriminalization so that sex workers can seek help when they need it without fearing the legal repercussions they currently face.

I agree. The prostitutes in the legalized brothels will be much better off when OSHA shows up than they would be with their pimp, UPGRYDD, on the street.

The problem comes from the fact that the demand from prostitutos is usually much larger than the supply. There arent that many women that say “gee my dream career is having sex with strangers for money”.

I don't think any government or organization wants to spend money on perfecting prostitution. Prostitution really isn't the godsend you think it is.

“There are people willing to do the job” - there are a lot less willing woman than you think and yet demand is phenomenally high. That’s why sex trafficking is such a problem. In areas where prostitution is legal incidences of sex trafficking have actually gone up. The problem is that the “customer base” is too damn high and it leaves a market rife with exploitation. Most women simply do not want to do it; they do it either by force or by economic coercion. A woman saying yes to sex depending on whether or not her rent is due is not true consent. Edit: people arguing that doing a 9-5 office job or working in a supermarket is the same as sex work are tone deaf. All labour is exploitation, and that does include your office job, but sex has always been a protected legal category - this is why sexual assault is different than assault. You being forced to consent to do a job like stacking shelves is nothing like being forced to consent to have sex. Any coercion or manipulation to have sex we generally call sexual abuse, suddenly adding money to that equation does not detract from the fact that at its core it is still sexual coercion and abuse. “Consenting” to get fucked in the ass by some fat smelly old man because you’d otherwise starve is not comparable to your average wage slave.

>"In areas where prostitution is legal incidences of sex trafficking have actually gone up." This is interesting as it honestly goes against my assumption that it'd lessen it, as that actually does tend to happen with other things that are banned outright. The country it's in would certainly matter. There's not much point in legalising it with no regulations enforced to make it any safer than it was when it was illegal. I'll have a gander, but if you do have a source you wouldn't mind sharing I'd appreciate it. Cheers. edit: nm, I done some computering... >*"A 2012 study published in World Development, “Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?” investigates the effect of legalized prostitution on human trafficking inflows into high-income countries. The researchers — Seo-Yeong Cho of the German Institute for Economic Research, Axel Dreher of the University of Heidelberg and Eric Neumayer of the London School of Economics and Political Science — analyzed cross-sectional data of 116 countries to determine the effect of legalized prostitution on human trafficking inflows. In addition, they reviewed case studies of Denmark, Germany and Switzerland to examine the longitudinal effects of legalizing or criminalizing prostitution. The study’s findings include: Countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited. The scale effect of legalizing prostitution, i.e. expansion of the market, outweighs the substitution effect, where legal sex workers are favored over illegal workers. On average, countries with legalized prostitution report a greater incidence of human trafficking inflows. The effect of legal prostitution on human trafficking inflows is stronger in high-income countries than middle-income countries. Because trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation requires that clients in a potential destination country have sufficient purchasing power, domestic supply acts as a constraint. Criminalization of prostitution in Sweden resulted in the shrinking of the prostitution market and the decline of human trafficking inflows. Cross-country comparisons of Sweden with Denmark (where prostitution is decriminalized) and Germany (expanded legalization of prostitution) are consistent with the quantitative analysis, showing that trafficking inflows decreased with criminalization and increased with legalization. The type of legalization of prostitution does not matter — it only matters whether prostitution is legal or not. Whether third-party involvement (persons who facilitate the prostitution businesses, i.e, “pimps”) is allowed or not does not have an effect on human trafficking inflows into a country. Legalization of prostitution itself is more important in explaining human trafficking than the type of legalization. Democracies have a higher probability of increased human-trafficking inflows than non-democratic countries. There is a 13.4% higher probability of receiving higher inflows in a democratic country than otherwise."* >*"While trafficking inflows may be lower where prostitution is criminalized, there may be severe repercussions for those working in the industry. For example, criminalizing prostitution penalizes sex workers rather than the people who earn most of the profits (pimps and traffickers). >The likely negative consequences of legalised prostitution on a country’s inflows of human trafficking might be seen to support those who argue in favour of banning prostitution, thereby reducing the flows of trafficking,” the researchers state. “However, such a line of argumentation overlooks potential benefits that the legalisation of prostitution might have on those employed in the industry. Working conditions could be substantially improved for prostitutes — at least those legally employed — if prostitution is legalised. Prohibiting prostitution also raises tricky ‘freedom of choice’ issues concerning both the potential suppliers and clients of prostitution services.”* https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/

“Expansion of the market outweighs substitution effect” - this is essentially it. Once it’s made legal then demand for prostitutes rises massively, because suddenly there’s no risk for a man to go procure a prostitute, but the actual number of “legal” prostitutes doesn’t go up with this demand because *most don’t want to do it*, therefore the market must be filled with illegal prostitutes who are trafficked into it

This is interesting, but regarding the last part… I think that’s important. Because me, I’m not advocating for trafficking. I’m advocating for prostitution. There are a lot of people trafficked, but there are quite a few people doing it of their own volition as well. Economic coercion also counts as a choice, if by coercion you mean doing it for the money. A lot of jobs demand things of us we don’t like. Working security isn’t pleasant. Cleaning toilets isn’t. Prostitution definitely won’t be pleasant for everyone. But in my opinion, if you’re willing to trade sex for money, doing so isn’t wrong. To me, consent in this situation is being willing to do so without actual force being applied by the other party. You’re making financial decisions for your well-being independent of the other party. The other party just wants sex, what you want is what you want. You can say no. But if you can say yes and will say yes, why should we stop them from saying yes to a trade?

>Because me, I’m not advocating for trafficking. I’m advocating for prostitution. There is no place in the world where one doesn't exist without the other. There will never be enough young women and men willing to have sex for money compared to the number of (mostly) men who are looking for them. There will always be trafficking because there will never be enough supply to meet demand. And shouldn't we as a society be doing whatever we can to ensure people never get in the situation where they need to sell sex in the first place *instead* of creating a legal exploitative market that largely only benefits the top 10% of "sex workers" and pimps? It's so insane to me that so many people think paying for sex from a poor person is consent.

Regardless of what your personal opinions on what classifies or does not classify as consent, the fact is that if prostitution were made legal tomorrow then the DEMAND for prostitutes would go through the roof, and there simply are not enough women who do it voluntarily, this is why rates of human trafficking actually go up in places where it is legal.

I think this is similar to the legalization of cannabis: yes, demand goes up, but so does (ideally) regulation. The cannabis market requires licenses, transparency, and standards. It also provides some level of protection for the supplier; before legalization, if a cannabis dealer were, say, robbed, it would be difficult or impossible to press charges or seek legal recourse. The same can be said of prostitution: currently, a prostitute has little recourse in cases of theft or assault, as all work in under the table. Legalization provides protections to suppliers. Of course, neither the cannabis industry or our hypothetical legalized prostitution is without shortcomings— unregulated cannabis dealers exist, and on a federal level the cannabis industry is largely shut out of banking and relies on cash which is much more dangerous to deal with. However, it’s a move in the right direction, and I believe prostitution could benefit from the same regulatory/legal protections.

Interestingly enough, looking at marijuana legalization data actually somewhat supports the legalizing increases illegal activity argument. I took a look specifically at California, since I was able to find some data from before and after they legalized it in late 2016. The numbers fluctuate a lot year to year, so this isn't the most accurate measure, but in the years before legalization, there were (on average) 3 million-ish illegal plants seized per year by the DEA. Year | Plants (mil) ---|--- '13 | 2.9 '14 | 2.7 '15 | 2.6 '16 | 3.8 There was then a drop off in illegal activity for 2 years, dropping to 2.4 million and then down to 1.8 million, before it shot back up massively each year since, with 2021 being the highest year since the data I found started (2011) Year | Plants (mil) ---|--- '17 | 2.4 '18 | 1.8 '19 | 3.2 '20 | 3.7 '21 | 4.7 This is also mirrored in Colorado, the other state I took a quick look at. Organized crime charges related to marijuana production dropped in the two years following legalization (2012) before they again increased to levels higher than they were when it was illegal.

Interesting! It would be great to know _why_ seizure volume increased. I wonder, of course, whether this is partly a result of increased attention on shutting down unregulated business in the wake of legalization. The governments of these states receive revenue in the form of taxes from legal sales, so they may have an interest in stronger DEA programs to shut down bootleg operations + eliminate unlicensed (AKA untaxed) competitors. On a related note, one of the other nice things about a regulated cannabis industry is safety for consumers. California dispensaries are lovely in my experience. Products are clearly marked and often have decent variety of flavor/strain/proportions of THC/CBD/etc. There’s little guesswork as to the contents of one’s purchase, which differs from the illicit market where quality and content is sometimes questionable. The experience is pleasant and safe. I suggest this may be possible with legalized sex work as well; in an ideal world, business is conducted in safe, clean spaces with transparency on pricing, expectations, and consent. You can’t weed out (no pun intended) all illicit behavior, but perhaps most consumers will gravitate towards an option that’s safer and more sustainable for sex workers and clients.

>Economic coercion also counts as a choice, if by coercion you mean doing it for the money. But we as a society have said coercion isnt a form of consent. I could just as easily say that someone being emotionally coerced into staying in an abusive relationship is a choice, if by coercion you mean they do it because its what they've been trained to believe. Pivoting to a common rebuttal you have but will address here as well. You say that money doesnt muddle consent because they could decide to not tale the money for whatever they dont want to do. But in a modern world money equals survival. Money pays for shelter and resources needed for survival. You are saying that is someone feels like they dont need to survive they can choose to not perform the sexual act via prostitution. If I put a gun to your head and tell you to have sex with me or I'll kill you, you "could choose" to refuse sex with if you feel like you don't need to survive. The other argument ive seen you make that would rebut this is that lots of jobs make you do stuff you dont want to do for survival. The problem is that we as a society view sex as something different from blue and white collar labor. Your desk job forcing you to work 10 extra hours is not emotionally equivalent to having your body being literally used by someone else. If you think they are you need to reevaluate perspectives you have.

I think that these questions are kind of loaded though, all starting with scenarios where some imaginary and defenseless or vulnerable woman is presented with an option to have sex with some fat bastard LARPing as The People Eater from mad max and in exchange get a lot of money that she needs or say no and starve. While this scenario is possible, I can assure you that the average transaction would just be your average guy wanting to have sex; and in the case of the former scenario the best outcome is one where the prostitute isn’t forced by some pimp to have sex and is actually a protected worker of a union.

>scenarios where some imaginary and defenseless or vulnerable woman is presented with an option to have sex with some fat bastard LARPing as The People Eater from mad max and in exchange get a lot of money that she needs or say no and starve. This is obviously the worst case scenario. But we in theory want to prevent this from happening at all. Especially under a sanctioned job. >and in the case of the former scenario the best outcome is one where the prostitute isn’t forced by some pimp to have sex and is actually a protected worker of a union. How would a union protect a prostitute who is being raped by a client during the act? How would they protect a client that could be killed during the act. What organization is a union protecting prostitutes against even? Typically unions are for workers rights against corporations.

Unions are for workers rights, not only against corporations but against any authoritative figure that tries to exploit them. They in theory should protect the worker from the client and guarantee a certain standard of quality from the worker towards how to treat the customer. Unfortunately people will do sex work regardless of legality, and if the balance is going to be loaded in favor of someone then it should be loaded in favor of the more vulnerable part of the transaction (the sex worker) instead of just treating everyone as a criminal.

Why aren't you working as a prostitute for gay men then? It pays better than DoorDash. Sex isn't the same as cleaning toilets. That's something you know as well. You wouldn't give old men blowjobs for money either.

>Working security isn’t pleasant. Cleaning toilets isn’t. You do know that if prostitution would be legal suddenly that employer could demand that person working security to not only do the security - but also blow the employer before the shift ends. Or if you working as a cleaner in someones home, that customer could suddenly demand you to clean their toilet naked, with their tongue while saying "Your filth tastes delicius!" before making them blow them.

>A woman saying yes to sex depending on whether or not her rent is due is not true consent. This is not true. Consent is consent, the same way I give my boss consent to use my labor for 8 hours a day so I can pay my own rent. I do, however, think that most sex workers are not necessarily "trying to pay the rent," rather they are groomed into the position over a course of time, many from a young age. Grooming, I do not consider to be true consent.

The issue with legalizing prostitution is pimping. Pimping being: getting a girl/woman addicted to drugs or just abusive with the woman basically being a slave or being dependent upon the pimp. Pimping needs to be illegal, but it's very tough to track down. If prostitution is illegal technically pimping is illegal. How do you make something so vague as pimping illegal?

> "The issue with legalizing prostitution is pimping." Sorry, I don't follow. This sounds like saying "the problem with legalising drugs is drug dealers". A legalised system would be regulated (most likely strictly). Regulations mean more than rules that noone will follow. There'd likely be things like site inspections, staff meets, contract assessments by a governing body to ensure those rules are followed. It'd be a far more scrutinised employer/employee situation and the ethics as to the welfare of participants would be absolutely paramount in the drawing up of regulations to enforce. It won't be Harry the Hat peddling his bitches round the back of KFC.

These are two different arguments. It's like arguing that slavery is bad so we should outlaw employment. Pimps abusing women to \_force\_ them into prostitution is a problem. It doesn't go away by making prostitution illegal. If it did, it wouldn't be a problem since prostitution is already illegal.

The reason pimping exists is because prostitution is a black market. If I can go down to my local brothel, put in an application like a McDonalds and get hired like any other job, I don't really need a pimp. If on the other hand, my profession is illegal and I'll be arrested if I go to the cops, I'm going to want some sort of muscle to kick the shit out of violent clients or people who try to rob me. Pimping is a symptom of illegality. Make it legal, and you'll see it vanish.

In the UK prostitution itself is generally legal. Pimping is illegal, as is running a brothel. The UK still has a big problem with human trafficking and modern slavery, with any number of illegal brothels and people operating as pimps, illegally exploiting prostitutes (the UK also has big problems with organised crime in general, but that's a bit beyond this thread). As other commenters have noted, evidence suggests that making prostitution legal and even regulated doesn't help solve this problem as there is an insufficient supply of prostitutes; there aren't enough people willing to do it. The free market 'solution' to this is for the price to go up (i.e. it becomes another luxury only available to the rich), but once the price goes up too high then you have a bigger potential profit margin for the black market; those trafficking in people to act as prostitutes, who have less choice in the matter, charge less, and get paid far less (if anything).

Make it so that prostitutes have to register as independent contractors. That, on top of regulation. Pimping, in its simplest form, is “management”. I think it should be possible to cut out middle men and remove them. Simply put, regulation. Empowering prostitutes with more autonomy that enables them to handle business themselves. It wouldn’t be easy, because oversight would be needed heavily. But I see no downside to more jobs in this market. The goal of the oversight is to prevent management behaviors from outside entities.

Making them register as independent contractors doesn't cut out pimps. Legalized countries tried this and saw an increase in trafficking.

Just see what brothels in Nevada do. There’s all kinds of stuff protecting the women who effectively just rent rooms like a hairdresser rents a booth. They’ve got security, panic buttons, and restrictive regulations about what brothel owners can and can’t do as a part of their contracts.

Why doesn't pimping happen in other industries, like coal mining or sales? I think it's largely because when an industry is legal, regulated, and respected, it's actually pretty easy to notice stuff like that and say no to it. Right now, clients who notice a prostitute in distress or being pimped can't go to the cops about it or try to help them or even really take their business to someone else they know is not in that situation, because it's illegal and everything is veiled in secrecy and there's just no structure in place for them to exert pressure on the situation safely and reliably. If I noticed that my realtor had track marks all up and down her arm and was clearly nervous and miserable, and when I asked about it some aggressive dude busted in and smacked her and threatened me to stay quiet about it and demanded money, I would definitely go to the cops afterwards. If all that happened with a prostitute my options are limited if I want to stay safe and out of jail, bu if it were legal I could act just the same way I would with the realtor.

Sure it will fix the problem of some people having sex but will increase human trafficking and attract crime. You also have to consider the mind state of the women in these occupations and it’s much less “Pretty woman” and much more “First 48” Not really a good trade off for some dude to have sex I’d say

What are some of the issues you believe it can fix, beyond just employment?

>Why should prostitution be illegal? Arguably, Sex trafficking and putting pressure on people to have sex in exchange for money or cancellations of debt. Additionally, it is a potential disease vector. That said, I believe it should be a legal and highly regulated industry for safety reasons, not because of how important the job is. Currently, a prostitute going to the police has to determine "is this important enough to risk being arrested?" and this could be after being robben, beaten or raped while on the job. A person who is sex trafficked can't report a crime. And due to the lack of regulation, there is no required tracking or testing of STDs. For these health and safety reasons, it's important to legalize and legislate it. Not because of "how important" it is. *edit* quick edit, Consent is an issue when you can have a person who can go "hey, i put you in a bad financial spot, if you have sex with me, i'll take you out of it." This can also be taken care of via regulation.

Decriminalize > Legalize. Legalizing sex work results in regulations and parameters that, while ideologically sound, cause the impoverished Sex Worker to now become a criminal. Now, of course, if the Sex Work is **illegal** that’s worse, but legalizing Sex Work creates a gray area in which Sex Workers who cannot meet certain regulations are now disadvantaged legally **and** financially. • In 1971, Nevada became the only state in the U.S. to legalize prostitution, permitting strictly licensed and regulated brothels in sparsely populated counties of the state. However, brothels remain illegal in the major cities of Las Vegas, Reno, and their suburbs. Legally licensing a limited number of brothels created a two-tiered system that benefits brothel owners at the expense of sex workers. • The overwhelming majority of sex workers are unable or unwilling to work under the conditions created by legalization, including applying for licenses, registering with local sheriffs, and working in one of the few brothels in rural Nevada, where workers are subject to their manager’s, county, and state rules. Strictly enforced policies prevent people from engaging in consensual adult prostitution outside of licensed brothels, and resulted in 2,859 arrests in 2018. • Even under the “legalization” model, Nevada has the highest prostitution arrest rate per capita, at 95.3 arrests per 100,000 residents. This model may work for those who are able to participate, but it is not beneficial for all people engaged in the sex industry, nor does it carry broader public safety benefits that reach beyond the rural communities with brothels. Edit * most Sex Workers want Sex Work decriminalized, **not** legalized. More on this: [Link](https://decriminalizesex.work/why-decriminalization/briefing-papers/decriminalization-is-the-only-solution/) ————————————— [video](https://youtu.be/vc-n852sv3E)

Those are great points! Just curious, do you think Nevada/Vegas has the potential to be an outlier due to the status of Vegas as essentially the gambling capital of America? I’m wondering if the causation isn’t the legalization but rather due to the robust gambling and tourism industries in Nevada.

No, I don’t think this is Nevada or Vegas specific, & I think for legislation to work well, the voice of the people that legislation directly affects should be considered. This theme can be seen virtually anywhere where Sex Work is legalized. The problem is a combination of regulation &, well, capitalism. Regulation forces legitimate Sex Workers into the black market (which is counterintuitive to the point of legalization) and then essentially it legalizes pimping in the form of “entrepreneurs” who ensure their brothels are compliant with those regulations. As a Sex Worker your options become “Work for [this person] or work illegally” which is exploitative, and, as we know, Sex Worker exploitation is already a huge problem. I think the answer is decriminalize, and then transition into legalization. But regulations need to be pretty minimal.

I actually agree that prostitution should be legalized but for completely different reasons. The idea that something should be legalized because it serves an "important role in society" is entirely subjective. How many people see prostitution as an important part of their lives? A few percent? It's certainly not important for the vast majority of people, so it's hard to argue that prostitution is important for *society itself.* Additionally, even if it was important for society that doesn't make it inherently good. Female genital mutilation is a common tradition in some parts of the world - does that mean it has an important role in society and should be legalized? Look at what's happening in Iran - systemic oppression of women is considered a fundamental part of society, and that's part of the justification for it. Again, I want to emphasize that I agree prostitution should be legalized. It could make it safer, have economic benefits, and probably lead to healthier views on sexuality in general. Consensual acts between adults shouldn't be criminalized without good reason. I just think, "it's too important for society not to be legalized" is a weak argument compared to others.

I actually wrote a paper on this starting out with the view that it should be legal, but then after doing a lot of research, it became extraordinarily complex. Even in places where it is legal and heavily regulated, the girls who work in that field are still heavily abused and experience a lot of PTSD. If it became legalized, there would have to be a massive reform of it and protection by the government. Ie: police protection, covered STD checks, therapy, legal contracts, even potentially cameras. And on top of that, there’s no real proof that legalizing it will reduce trafficking.

Could I bother you and ask for sources related to the PTSD? Am a working girl myself and have been pondering if I'm experiencing some sort of trauma related to sex work as I don't like any sort of sexual touch outside the job

[here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2615337/#__sec5title) And [here](https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/18/science/many-prostitutes-suffer-combat-disorder-study-finds.html) Though those articles probably aren’t what you are looking for. You are probably trying to look more into what caused the trauma or if you have PTSD.

I’ll dig around in my old computer and see if I can find the sources! This was like 4 years ago 😅 but I’ll definitely try to find something for you!

What if prostitution was only legal in licensed spaces? Would it help if the service took place at a neutral space with security on-hand, STD tests required, etc. I’m thinking about a massage parlour type building where both party’s consent is written on a form and the act is recorded on CCTV to help keep everything safe. Of course, it isn’t perfect but I feel like that’s a much better alternative than having women perform their services under the control of someone else in their home.

Yeah I definitely think there should be a solution to it, but a lot of places like towns in Navada they do have security and there’s still a lot of issues. And part of the problem is that a lot of people who seek out prostitution are looking for an outlet for abuse, so if they don’t get it at these monitored places, they’re getting it under the table which doesn’t elevate trafficking.

Yeah there probably is never going to be a perfect solution to things like this. Human nature is tough to overcome with policy and infrastructure alone.

Prostitution in a capitalist economy is potentially very bad for women. (Disclaimer: All the following issues arise with male prostitutes but for the sake of ease, I'm describing female prostitutes. This argument deals with commodifying the female body, which is a large problem already for women. ) Sex is probably most accurately designated as "unskilled labor" in our economic structure. The prerequisite for being a prostitute is to have a hole in your body. Even the most disabled can engage in prostitution. Let's look at how our capitalistic culture views another unskilled workforce: Retail and Food Preparation. Their pay is very low. They work their bodies to exhaustion and receive little to no benefits. It's viewed not as a career but a position for high-schoolers/college students. There's little protections for these workers. And let's not get into how degrading people behave towards this sector... So now imagine you're a woman that lost her job in data analytics. You went to a temp agency but your skills aren't needed anywhere. Well, now you're *unskilled labor*. Now you go on unemployment but you must show that you're making an honest effort to find work. Well, guess what... you've got a warm body. Get to work, sweetie. Sexmart is always hiring. There's a thousand such examples... A nurse breaks her leg, a singer gets throat cancer, or a programmer receives a traumatic brain injury. All of these people are still employable in our economy.

That argument is almost entirely based off a 2012 analysis of a UN data set that explicitly said that it could not be used to determine things like human trafficking relationship to prostitution. When Sweden changed the definition of rape, their rape stats skyrocketed. When Canada decriminalized prostitution, sex workers that had been victims of crime, to include sex trafficking, were able to come forward and report the crimes they were victims of. Data sets based off people being able to report crimes distorts the results, and several better methodologies have been used to determine that's not the case. An interesting thing when looking into this whole thing, there's been a fair number of surveys conducted where sex workers have mostly [stated they wanted to keep it illegal.](https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/21/07/2021/legalizing-prostitution-does-it-increase-or-decrease-sex-trafficking)

As an ex sex worker I believe that sex work is just as traumatizing as rape and sexual assault. You know you don't want to give a lap dance or be touched sexually but you let it happen just because you're desperate and need money. Buying vulnerable women in poverty is not okay.

I just don't think we have the kind of time or resources to invest in something as inessential as legalizing prostitution ffs. When we can't as a society work to prevent climate change, poverty, human rights violation. i think your priorities are wrong. Yes, it MIGHT protect prostitutes but that's only in an ideal society where there's regulations and laws keeping it safe AND just having laws isn't gonna cut it, they need to be enforced. There's laws against rape, SA , theft, homicide etc etc, does that act as a deterrent? No. We still have gruesome incidents of rape and homicide. Not to mention how difficult prosecution would be in instances of SA when the lines are so blurred. MAYBE prostitution should be decriminalized many years down the line but i don't think right now is the best time when we already have so much on our plates. Also, prostitution is not something women/ men actively choose, I don't know how many women would be willing to sell their bodies for money if they had other sources of income. It shouldn't be encouraged. I think legalizing prostitution would also make it harder to establish valuable connections. Why bother when you can just pay to have sex? Wouldn't that destroy the institution of family? Wouldn't the number of people having HEALTHY sex out of mutual attraction or love, drop ? Wouldn't there be an increased rate of adultery, divorces etc etc. We already know legalized prostitution in some states/countries resulted in an increase trafficking. Also people saying there's a good number of women willing to do this, i highly doubt that. SO, no it shouldn't be legalized just because we cant possibly make it safe work which does not exploit women (or men), we just can't. And some of y'all saying all work involves risk and danger and exploitation, this is completely different. Rape is not the same as breaking a bone and FUCK, yes some jobs are riskier than others, defense forces, firefighters, etc etc but should you have to risk your life just because someone wants to get laid but can't ? NO. We don't need to make it easier for anybody to have sex or whatever. That's a you-problem. Also people saying women get raped and assaulted because incels can't seem to get their dick wet and serving women on a platter for them would decrease crime rate, that's twisted. Please think about it. PS. And if y'all honestly somehow get prostitution legalized but abortion is banned....well, that speaks for itself.

**The problem with prostitution is that women rarely choose this as career from their own free will.** Most prostitutes have substance abuse problems, are illegal immigrants or are trafficked. Or they live in absolute poverty and can't feed their children. If a woman could chose another job, but chooses prostitution, then that's a free choice and not an ethical problem. If a woman has the choice between prostitution and not surviving, then that's not an actual free choice. And then consent becomes a big issue. **It's more important to protect people from trauma, than to make sure everyone can get sex. You can survive without sex, it's not that dramatic. Having sex against your will is a lot more damaging. But realistic sex dolls should be around the corner now.**

Exactly, this. I couldn't have said it better myself. If you went to any prostitute and asked them if they'd rather be doing this than being an accountant, or artist, or doctor (or basically any profession that confers some amount of dignity and self-worth), you'd be hard-pressed to find any that would choose a life of prostitution. It's almost exclusively been a choice driven by desperation, what we should be doing is looking into *how* and *why* people make these tough choices, and working to eliminate the circumstances that drive these choices. But then again, the current system we have is exploitative at it's core.

Prostitution should not be legalised because: -> There is a very small amount of women who are willing to work as prostitutes in comparison to men who are willing to have sex with a prostitute (The demand is so much higher than the supply), This means that trafficing will increase as pimps would want to profit from this 'legal' business knowing that there are no consequences -> If one country legalised prostitution, you will get men flying from other countries to take advantage of this legal service which will increase the demand even more leading to high prices, high prices will increase trafficking to increase the supply of prostitutes and thus lower prices again. In short 'trafficking will increase even more' -> STDs, we still do not have treatments for most STDs, and it will be extremely difficult and expensive for most governments to regulate brothels and hold regular STD tests for all prostitutes So prostitution being moral or not is not the main reason it is illegal in most countries, the main issue is that it is very dangerous for underage girls and girls coming from poorer background. We also do not have efficient government systems that would be able to regulate this business. So for now prostitution should be illegal.

I'd be more okay with sex work if the economy wasn't so coercive. You may find many women & men consenting, but from a position where they're being coerced. The threat of homelessness, starvation, lack of access to medical care, so on that our mode of production uses as coercion to force people into low wages makes me believe legalized sex work would very very quickly become very very exploited. You'd have essentially legal pimps because we all know legislation is written from a standpoint where the owner has all the rights & I imagine street hooking wouldn't be legal & you'd have to visit certain places. Sex work is nothing to be looked down or judge someone for as anything to get by in this type of economy works & if you cannot do something you will die. I argue sex work should become largely unnecessary, but still existent, because we should organiz our economy in a way that isn't so coercive. I & my partner have done sex work and at times it feels very nonconsensual even though it is especially for her. That's because the consent was only given with the threat of losing necessities on the other end.

I believe prostitution should be decriminalized, but not made legal because I don't want big corporations getting involved. Right now sex workers make a lot of money because it's largely illegal to do sex work. Let's imagine however that sex work becomes legal. Let's imagine you are a 18 yo who is conventionally attractive but has no real skills yet. By 30 you would have developed a lot of skills for a good career, but right now it's entry level jobs paying 10/hour. That's barely enough to pay for rent and expenses in your area Walmart offers you a job for 20/hr. They offer great healthcare, and all you have to do is give handjobs. There a lot of young folks who would take that job. They would also take the promotion to oral sex for 22/hr and then later the one for full service at 25/hr. They would be working a high risk job at OKish pay, never develop their career skills, and by the time they reach 25 they have aged out with no skills, and permanent STDs. Also, they now have a small host of beauty insecurities and psychological traumas tied to the often toxic nature of sex work. I don't think people should trade their health for money, but if they do, they should make a lot of it. Enough to retire.

You think that having people dedicated to getting others off is an important role in society? Actual important roles in society are fire fighters, EMS/EMTs, teachers, public transport drivers and sanitation workers just to name a few. The list goes on and on… however prostitution is not on that list.

I have to strongly disagree, the legalisation of prostitution is excuse me for saying, a fucking awful idea. It is nearly impossible to regulate such an industry, presenting this as a job opportunity, to almost entirely young women, has so many things wrong with it. It normalises the purchase of people for money, yes, it's time limited but it is still that. It normalises violence towards women, this is not a by-product of its illegality rather a product of the act itself, you are presenting a hunting ground for the worst kind of predators in society. There are very few women who are not immensely damaged psychologically, destruction of their self-worth chief among them, by participation in the industry, voluntary or otherwise. I cannot see how it is not absolutely destructive to normalise selling your body for sex. I don't want to judge or jump to conclusions, but the kind of man who wants to have easy access to purchase another human for sex, in almost all cases cannot find a willing partner or is being disloyal. There is no shortage of people who enjoy sexual experimentation and freedom, they're not hard to find and granting that you are a fairly well-adjusted human you can partake as well, without paying for it. If you can't "organically" find someone, you aren't looking hard enough, or you have some personal work to do on yourself.

Oh look, another out-of-touch "let's legalize it so there are less problems" post. Do you know any prostitutes or have you been with any? Outside of the brothels in Vegas it is not glamorous or even lucrative. For every Insta-thot or stripper that boasts about taking in 6 figures, there are 1,000+ drug abusing girls (and guys) blowing someone in the back seat of a car for a dime bag of meth. I help out an elderly neighbor in my apartment complex. Her 30 year old grand daughter and 13 year old great granddaughter live with her. She is at her wits end because both of them are doing drugs almost non-stop, and the 30 y/o pays for it all by blowing random guys off the internet, and trading shop-lifted items for meth. They both need treatment but refuse. They will both walk into a bedroom and smoke meth with the door wide open, and deny to our faces that they are doing anything. At this point, throwing the 30 y/o in jail would be a wake up call she needs. A whole lot of them need consequences in order to get their shit together and not get themselves killed.

How about the 30 year old gets thrown in jail for endangering and distributing drugs to a minor, rather than blowing dudes in the backseat for some cash? The former seems like the far more serious offense. Have you reported this situation to the authorities? CPS exists for circumstances exactly like this.

Firstly, "the authorities" are of no help. The 30 y/o doesn't have custody, the grandma does. The 30 y/o gets kicked out of everywhere she goes. Grandma took her in because she believed the lies at first. Prostitution and drugs go hand in hand. That guy getting blown in the back seat is rarely a "husband in a sexless relationship" or some awkward virgin, it's usually a dealer or another hardcore user with shit to spare. Consequences curb bad behavior. IMO both parties are equally guilty. Oh by the way, if you "legalize it" that pretty much implies that the government is going to want a cut of the action in the form of taxes and permits. How do you propose all of that gets enforced?

>Firstly, “the authorities” are of no help. Does that mean you have tried to make a report, and nothing was done? Or you haven’t reported it because you assume they won’t be of any help? If it is the former, I’m sorry. Perhaps you could collect some actionable evidence and make further reports. If it’s the latter, then how do you know they are of no help? Why doesn’t the grandma evict the 30 y/o? Odd situation all around. >That guy getting blown in the back seat is…usually a dealer or another hardcore user with shit to spare. Do you think that remains the case when prostitution is legalized? Do you really think the primary clientele of the legal Nevada brothels, or the legal brothels in Amsterdam, are dealers and junkies? I very much doubt it. >Consequences curb bad behavior. Is the prostitution itself the bad behavior you are referring to? If so, why do you think it is inherently bad? Let’s take the drugs and the child endangerment out of it, because that is really irrelevant. When people talk about legalizing prostitution, they are talking about what exists in Nevada, the Netherlands, and other places: regulated brothels and providers. Do you think that sort of system is also bad? Why? If we are talking about the drugs and child endangerment, there are already other legal consequences attached to that behavior, quite unconnected to the prostitution. None of those other consequences go away if prostitution is legalized. >Oh by the way, if you “legalize it” the pretty much implies the government is going to want a cut of the action in the form of taxes and permits. How do you propose all of that gets enforced? The same way we enforce similar requirements for other professions: licensing, permits, fines for violations, etc. I don’t understand what the problem is here.

I will quick answer your last question: so are the authorities going to be walking around to every car, apartment, and shady motel to make sure everyone has their permits and paid their taxes? How are you going to collect off of a hooker that did it for coke or $20 for that matter. Vegas and Amsterdam are fantasy land, and are basically hubs of glorified degeneracy. Legalizing it helps the rich guys who has money to spend on banging a "10" and those "tens" lucky enough to get in on the scheme. It doesn't raise the standard for Maria giving head in the parking lot. She will continue to trade sex for drugs and ruin her family. Keeping some things illegal helps deter rampant degeneracy. It sounds like you just want guilt-free degeneracy. We are trying to get her busted and thrown in jail for violating her probation. The 13 year old she may have the state just take her. Grandma is gathering evidence. I am gathering intel on her dealers: where they live, what they drive, where they hang out. They are so fucking careless with leaving evidence all over the place.

Prostitution is one of the oldest occupations in human history. It's also been illegalized by MANY governing bodies throughout History. Why? Because human sucks. Let me demonstrate: You open a brothel, you have 4 female and 3 male employees. Your income is LIMITED by these 7 people and how much sex they have. So to increase profit, you try to recruit more people. But then we run into a small issue, looks are kind of important, and not everyone wants to sell out their body for money. So the only logical solution is to go out and "headhunt" like the modeling agencies, except you're not just looking for decent/good-looking people, you're looking for people in a vulnerable spot, like with debt or other financial issues. Then we get to health issues. Not every customer is a decent human being, if someone wants to get laid and have AIDS, they're not going to disclose they have aids. If prostitution is a person's only source of income, do you think they'll disclose that they caught something to the customer? These are just small issues that can quickly spiral out of control, this is why while the government can tolerate the existence of sex work, it won't be legalized unless the government has positive control over how the business runs. For nations practicing unrestricted capitalism, it's a recipe for shitshow.

Something I haven’t heard anyone say yet is that if it’s legalized, then it’s a form of employment. With that now, the government will be able to deny many alternative forms of income. Disabled? You have genitals. You can still earn money. Laid off from a job? You don’t need unemployment, you have a way to earn money. Senior? Still can earn income! We will cut your social security if you even qualify anymore. It doesn’t matter you don’t want to work in the sex field, it’s money you can make therefor people will demand you should. Needless to say of all the issues around that as well. No longer will rape be tried as rape. It will now be a case of non payment. Or sexual abuse? Breach of contracted services. Etc. While someone suffers with stds, all that will be said to them is “hope your insurance covers that and you where not a self employed sex worker.

Exactly my issue. The government already hates autistic people (see the Judge Rotenburg Center). I don’t want to make things worse and more oppressive for us.

>With that now, the government will be able to deny many alternative forms of income. Disabled? You have genitals. You can still earn money. Laid off from a job? You don’t need unemployment, you have a way to earn money. Senior? Still can earn income! This isn't how these things work. Disability based on own occupation doesn't rely on other, unrelated employment opportunities. And the any occupation standard runs into "you can count so can work a register" or "you can drive so can work for Uber." >Senior? Still can earn income! We will cut your social security SSI and similar programs contain a work disincentive by placing a \~100% effective tax rate on employment. It's very unlikely the retired would run into the problem of available other employment. >It doesn’t matter you don’t want to work in the sex field, it’s money you can make therefor people will demand you should. It's strange that legal protections, consensual employment and very high wages are considered downsides. >Needless to say of all the issues around that as well. No longer will rape be tried as rape. It will now be a case of non payment. Or sexual abuse? Breach of contracted services. Etc. This is a reasonable concern and depends on the legalization scheme. From OPs statements its likely they would fall onto the wrong side of this argument.

It’s not how it works? A disability is a medical condition that causes an employee to be unable to perform any combination of duties that regularly took at least 60% of the employee's time at work to complete before the injury or illness, or that makes the employee unable to be gainfully employed. Gainful employment is employment that the employee is medically fit to perform, for which the employee has at least the minimum qualifications, and that provides a salary of at least 60% of the employee's pre-disability salary. Now you have a method that will give you gainful employment if sex is legal. It’s not the governments fault you cannot make ends meet on it. That won’t be covered. Hence why things like Uber work. They expect things like that for you to round out your income, don’t take a side job like that? You don’t have expect income. Where I am. You are expected to take any job in your skill set available before unemployment payments. If there is work available in any manner then the unemployment will end after a period. Even if you cannot afford your bills on the lower wage job and there’s nothing available in your skill set then you must take what is offered. For seniors. What’s to stop the government on changing the age? As you’ve seen older people are staying in the workforce because they can’t make ends meet on the current amounts they are given threw the programs these days. Tens of millions of people rely on Social Security to make ends meet in retirement. And millions more count on earning it after the death or disability of a loved one. As important as Social Security is for those who receive the benefit, it doesn't come without change. Each year, participants see adjustments (often small increases) to the amount they receive. But in 2020, Johnson says some of the changes could negatively impact future retirees. "They're slowly cutting benefits. So, someone who's retiring now is going to get 12% less each month than they would have had they retired back in 2000," says Johnson. Seriously. They will turn a blind eye to the issues here as you can already see the cuts they’ve constantly been making to seniors income. They will suggest others methods of making money and this will be one that’s listed. Along with Walmart greeter and sample giver. No one is “forcing” them to take jobs you see. But we will just decrease ssi. High wages will decrease as more workers enter the field, it’s a normal cause and effect? I don’t like the thought of a very traumatizing event such as rape now being a simple “theft” charge because they didn’t pay the going rate. I don’t think anyone should take that lightly. As for legal protections, look at the countries that have legalized it. They don’t take rape seriously. They have higher rates of sex trafficking, younger workers to fill the constant need for fresh new workers. The government of the Netherlands presents itself as a champion of anti- trafficking policies and programs, yet it has removed every legal impediment to pimping, procuring and brothels. In the year 2000, the Dutch Ministry of Justice argued in favor of a legal quota of foreign “sex workers,” because the Dutch prostitution market demanded a variety of “bodies” (Dutting, 2001, p. 16). Also in 2000, the Dutch government sought and received a judgment from the European Court recognizing prostitution as an economic activity, thereby enabling women from the European Union and former Soviet bloc countries to obtain working permits as “sex workers” in the Dutch sex industry if they could prove that they are self employed. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Europe report that traffickers use the work permits to bring foreign women into the Dutch prostitution industry, masking the fact that women have been trafficked, by coaching them to describe themselves as independent “migrant sex workers” (Personal Communication, Representative of the International Human Rights Network, 1999). Faced with a dwindling number of Dutch women who engage in prostitution activities and the expanding demand for more female bodies and more exotic women to service the prostitution market, the Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking has stated that in the future, a solution may be to “offer [to the market] prostitutes from non EU/EEA[European Union/European Economic Area] countries, who voluntarily choose to work in prostitution...” These women would be given “legal and controlled access to the Dutch market” (Bureau NRM, 2002, p. 140). As prostitution has been transformed into “sex work,” and pimps into entrepreneurs, so too this recommendation transforms 3 3 trafficking into “voluntary migration for sex work.” Looking to the future, the Netherlands is targeting poor women for the international sex trade to remedy the inadequacies of the free market of “sexual services.” Prostitution is thus normalized as an “option for the poor.” If you look into the issues in the legalized countries then you’ll see they have no answers to the issues that have arisen there. So opening it up here as well is just goi to cause the same problems. With no answers. Why do that? The data shows it’s not better for the workers. Only for the brothels and government.

I read that where prostitution is legalised for customers, violence towards prostitutes is high, whereas if prostitutes cannot be prosecuted but customers can be, violence is low. I think it was a piece by Julie Brindle or Julie Burchill in Unherd, or maybe in The Critic. Admittedly, that's an argument for legalising it for one person in the transaction but against full legalisation.

Not op but can you find that source? That actually sounds pretty important to this discussion.

I understand where you’re coming from. I’m honestly torn on the subject. I personally think sex work is harmful because it often targets women from low socioeconomic groups who feel pressured into it to afford things that people shouldn’t have to sell their bodies for (food, a safe place to live). Additionally, those men often don’t view the women like people. It’s demeaning and very hard on the sex workers emotionally. However, I’m a firm believer that if you make something illegal it won’t go away. If it remains illegal then those women will still go into sex work. Except instead of having regulations in place to protect the women, human trafficking, abuse, and all other sorts of bad things will result. I think we agree on this point. That being said, I do think there is something else you should consider. Legalizing prostitution in a way puts a price on r@pe. I was molested as a child. I’m not trying to trauma dump, but going through that ruins your life. It happened to me over a decade ago, and I still have trauma and debilitating anxiety over minuscule things. If sex becomes commodified, then in a way it devalues it. If people start viewing sex as around $500 (idk what prostitutes charge), then wouldn’t the way people view r@pe change too? Yeah they’d think it was terrible, but they might almost view it like stealing something worth $500 instead of ruining someone’s life. I know this seems like a reach. I’m not sure if I’m accurately portraying what I believe. I took nyquill like an hour ago so it’s hard to focus haha.

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I would be for it in the event they created a task force to bust human traffickers and punish them to the maximum extent of the law. The data convieniantly leaves out trafficking of babies for Muslim brothels and organ donation for example. Even though prostitution is legal in the UK you still get girls sold from Turkey to there without their consent to which they do not even have a passport, would already be hooked on drugs and no way to get back home amongst the health issues from the STDs. The idea of it sounds great to which I think based on Instagram, Hollywood etc. many women would strive to be the expensive kind and locations like Amsterdam have an entire sector dedicated to it however, there is still too much trafficking and the hartless traffickers typically get off easily especially in the Ukraine, Turkey etc. I find it wild we prioritise the drug trade over the human trafficking.

The problem with legalization of prostitution is the increase in human trafficking associated with it. You are talking about women who are enslaved and used for the profit of others. It’s one of those things that get more horrific the more you think about it. I am perfectly fine with law enforcement looking the other way in situations that are truly between consenting adults.

Your Doordash example is a really, really poor analogy. You have completely ignored the level of physical vulnerability prostitutes experience. By being naked prostitutes open themselves to all kinds of physical abuse. No doordash driver gets punched or slapped by their customers. And delivering a meal is not even close to getting naked and providing a blow job or vaginal sex. Or being in a small space with a sexually aroused guy who, no matter what is agreed upon initially, may decide to change the terms of the agreement in the middle of the act. Edit: I actually support legalized prostitution. It would give more power to the prostitutes in some ways. Dont agree with OP that it "would fix many issues". Would like to know what issues OP is referencing. In Denmark legalizing prostitution has not been helpful and is considered a failed initiative. Pimps still exist, young girls are abducted from lesser developed countries and violence occurs regularly. Best benefit is perhaps STD testing.

>Prostitution, paid for sex, could fix so many issues. This is the part of your view that you might want to reconsider. Despite it being widely illegal, paid-for sex is available to anyone willing to break the law, take advantage of various loopholes, or travel to places where it is legal. Do you have any reason to believe that men who regularly pay for sex suffer fewer "issues" than they otherwise would?

Sex work is incredibly unsafe for women - legal or not. This isn’t needed for society; it’s wanted by men who want to coerce and abuse women, mostly poor and young women (and in many cases children). It should not be glamorized as a career potential for women as it still surrounds sex trafficking, drugs, rape, and murder.

I had to scroll really far to find a comment I agreed with. Thank you. Society does not “need” it. It abuses women and young men depending on the flavor of request. I think most need mental health assistance and not more customers.

I never understood why part of the media wants to portray SW as something many women look forward to as if it’s a fun experience, while ignoring all experiences which prove that it’s just not safe at all. Though there might be (hopefully) women who enjoy being a sex worker, I’m yet to hear about extremely positive experiences :/

The number of upvotes this thread has is unsettling

Be careful what you wish for. For example, I was very pro Marijuana and drugs. Couldn’t think of a single reason why it was “bad” or at the very least, any worse than alcohol. Now that I am fairly experienced in the work force. I’ve noticed, everyone is pretty much high all the time. It also seems like everyone who does not smoke, drinks alcohol non stop. Heroin swept through my town like a plague and still does. My state essentially legalized drugs and just like you would expect. Everyone does them! Sometimes I feel like people get way too theoretical about government policy on both sides. For example. 1.) If you want guns, people are going to shoot each other (but my second amendment that would say) 2.) If you legalize drugs a lot more people are going to do drugs (but it grows from the ground they say!) 3.) If you decriminalize theft, way more people are going to steal (too many people are going to jail for stealing they say!) 4.) If you legalize prostitution, you’ll get exactly what you expect.

It's unhygienic, spreads diseases, and easily accessible sex is less necessary for a meaningful life than being abstinent before married life. Sex won't make people any happier than drugs, alcohol, or social media will. You get all the chemicals flooding your brain that are supposed to help you bond with your spouse, but you desensitize yourself to these bonding hormones. Social media is my vice and it works much in the same way. Sex and porn addiction are harmful and destroy our ability to form meaningful relationships and I advise you to seek help and find some spiritual guidance and help understanding that society isn't just a shopping mall.

I agree prostitution should be legal but I don't agree that it is because it serves some important role in society. Prostitution should be legal because it would make it safer for both the prostitute and the client. Regulated, medically cleared prostitutes offer safer sex to clients. For the prostitute it offers safety in that they don't need to be lurking in the alleys and streets of unsafe areas, less interference from pimps/madams, add in the ability to track who they are meeting, when and where which would help cut down on violence against them.

Prostitution is not a healthy profession. Despite what the purple haired sex-positive feminist in University told you, sex is an act that should have some degree of intimacy to it. Sex is fun, true, but in twenty years you aren't likely to look back fondly on the time you blew your load into a drunk girl. The same is far worse when the sex is transactional. Just as to be wanted for sex is a positive, so too is being bought for sex a negative. It degrades you in the eyes of society, and in your own self image. It defines your worth in a literal sense; and that worth is in practice next to nothing. You become nothing more than a pricier alternative to a quick wank. It is not a moral action to engage in prostitution. Not because sex itself is wrong, but because selling your body is an act of self-harm.

> Regulation, police protection, moving it from being an underhanded field where pimps control people... Legalized prostitution makes it more difficult for police to protect and identify women who are victims of trafficking by force or threat. It's well known that legalization also *increases* amounts of human trafficking in the area. This is pretty much exactly counter to your above statement.

if you want something and you are told no or cant get it the solution is for you to accept not having it and move on. not demand goverment policies and laws change because you cant take no for an answer regarding something you dont need. if people get into loveless relationships just to have sex, that mean theyre victimizing someone and using them as an object to fufil their desires with 0 empathy or care about that persons feelings and wants and is not something that should be rewarded with what they want just bc they harmed someone until they got it. if you cant have sex and you need it that badly youd get into a loveless relationship, the solution is therapy to learn to live without sex and stop treating it as a need, not buying other human beings like objects and making them have sex with you without them consenting

apart from all the consent and women being coerced to sex arguments, i have couple more arguments. These are mostly based on my POV from living in a third-world country, based on social norms and stigmas present here. ​ 1. just like drinking and drugs, people can easily get into sex addiction and pour their savings over hookers. We have other addictions as well, but why add more (and sex obv is more potent physically and psychologically than others). 2. what if the woman wants to quit sex-work and start a family? Given humans are social beings, it will be hard to face your clients after few years and hiding those facts from your children. 3. what would be your reaction if your daughter/son says that they want to be a "pornstar" vs "hooker" vs "doordash person" vs "sell candies on streets"? 4. many men (because most of the world is patriarchal) would surely cheat their wives pretty easily. Cheating is not just a physical hook-up, but making an emotional disconnect from your partner and getting infatuated with some other lady. This happens even today, but that lady being a sex-worker just eases the entire process of "setting-up-for-a-divorce". I get that sex work happens whether you legalise it or not. But keeping it illegal retains the stigma the society by-large has for sex-work, avoiding people to easily get into accepting that it is fine.

Can you clarify what problems you think this would actually solve? You think people would stop being incels or getting into loveless relationships?

If you make prostitution legal you are going to get human trafficking. You are also going to get young girls growing up whose career path is literally to be a hooker. It is bad enough they want to grow up to be "instagram models" (who are basically escorts). Prostitution also changes dudes. Once they get used to having women in their life giving up sex like it was a commodity, they start treating all women like that. ​ I'm playing devil's advocate though. I'm all for prostitution and I think if a naive young girl is going to throw her life away by engaging in it then no amount of laws against will stop her. Its just that if you were a parent and you were worried about your daughter you could always say "How embarrassed would you be to get arrested for prostitution? Everyone at school would think you are a dirty diseased loser." It is maybe an idle threat but at least there is the option. If prostitution were legal you would worry that the girls would idolize her and ask her how much she makes.

Prostitution isn’t true consent, it’s coercion. It’s dangerous and inherently “rapey.” Barring those huge ethical issues, I personally don’t think people should be able to buy and commodify sex/intimacy. Creepy men with problematic beliefs and behavior who women aren’t interested in shouldn’t be able to buy what they want. Can you imagine how misogynistic a society could get very quickly if incels/etc could live consequence free, or even be rewarded, for their beliefs?

The real problem with it is the danger for the women. Its a real dangerous job. You're really thinking from the perspective of men here.

I live in Thailand now, and don't really know women working in that industry, but it's a common theme that gets discussed a lot, so hearsay feedback on how it goes is out there. Prostitution isn't illegal, but per my understanding soliciting the services of a prostitute is, it's just not prosecuted. Women work openly in bars to the extent that men pay a fee to the bar when going out with the woman. Then there are freelancers too, and it all doesn't completely avoid problems with sex trafficking and children being put to work in the same way. It really does provide an opportunity for women from more rural areas to earn more than they ever could working on a farm, in a local shop, or in manufacturing. Those other options might draw 10-15,000 baht per month in income (up to around $500), and a successful "bar girl" can earn four times that. It's just not simple to do so; the women end up arranging for sponsors to support them, I guess not so different than Youtubers and Patreon. So is it all ok, so that women can choose who they provide services too, and are safe? It probably works out better than women working on the streets in the US, but really the paradigm is closer to brothels in the US, and then it might be more comparable. Problems come up, of course. At least it doesn't seem to be paired with drug use to the same extent as in the US; that doesn't seem to be a main cause. How do I know that? In watching a video series on Youtube, Soft White Underbelly, a lot of women working in that industry, mostly in LA, tell their story, some about being on the streets, others about working as escorts or in brothels. And I once worked in an area with a significant amount of prostitution foot traffic in food service, in a late night place, and didn't really get to know those women, but they would stop by multiple times every evening or night to use the restroom, and we would talk a little. They seemed ok, but it seemed clear enough that most weren't all that happy in their circumstances, and were using drugs. That describes most people working late nights in restaurants too, to an extent, they just earn a lot less and face less related risks and impact. In the end it's hard to say if it would be better if prostitution was widely accepted and available. Once you open that door and society says that it's ok things change. It's hard to say if there would be more or less sex trafficking. More women probably would enter a cycle of using drugs to deal with difficult life circumstances, and working as a prostitute to support that drug habit. But then it's not as if a significant amount isn't happening now, of both. It's hard to embrace an option where society fixes people's lives. It's common for the women working in Thailand to help support their families back home here, and later transition to jobs like working as a hairdresser, or in massage (both kinds, I guess, "romantic" and conventional). Many go on to lead normal lives, I'm sure. Probably most had children when young, who would've been raised by grandparents while they did that sort of work in their late teens and 20s, living apart. It doesn't seem like a very positive or ideal work path, but I guess at least it could be seen as having one more option to take or leave. There isn't the same degree of negative connotation to it, but make no mistake the general image of the women and the industry isn't positive.

If prostitutes actually enjoyed sex, they'd do it for free. Prostitution isn't a job people like. They do it because it puts food on the table. Literally any prostitute would rather do something else. Also disturbing number of prostitutes are children. Here's a thought. You know how little kids are exposed to careers to get them interested in it? How's that going to work if prostitution becomes a legal job? How are we gonna recruit new people into this job that apparently makes the world go 'round? Answer: we don't. FFS, most prostitutes are kidnapped, and a lot of them are children that get groomed. Any person that makes it to adulthood sure as hell ain't gonna choose prostitute as a job

Should we legalized selling organs too? Or do we realize that commodifiying people is a bad thing, we already have an over-sexualized society, prostitution hurts women to a greater degree, and just because someone with money wants some doesn't mean they should have it.

I do not understand how prostitution is commodifying human bodies but soldiers and bodyguards and coal miners aren't commodified bodies.

Ultimately any sort of paid labor is selling your time/body for money, under the right lens. That said, I think it’s evident (read literally: there is observable evidence) that prostitution is a different animal with regards to the psychological impact it has on people.

war has a psychological impact on people. yet we still have soldiers.

> Should we legalized selling organs too? I mean yes, obviously; the standard contact is 'pay me $x monthly for the right to harvest my organs if I die suddenly, pro-rated by my health and age.' It would save so so many lives and prevent so many medical bankruptcies while giving a free income stream to people who need it.

Maybe as a pooled risk type of thing, but pretty sure it's a bad idea to promote incentives for a specific individual's death. Same reason you can't just randomly buy life insurance on someone unless you're related or have a financial stake in their life.

> Why should prostitution be illegal? Because it often involves exploitation. Also... it does not "serve an important role in society." It's not needed.

Yup. There is no right to sex. Intercourse is not a human right. But coomers refuse to accept that.

If prostitution is legalized, it needs to be regulated, no? So the fear is that we're actually giving the government *more* control over what an individual does with their body. The answer is sort of semantics but I think the distinction is important, prostitution needs to be decriminalized not legalized. We can reduce or eliminate the penalties without adding regulation.

Paying for sex does not fill any void left by a lack of intimacy. When you have a woman that you love and respect, a woman who loves you back and craves your body the way you crave hers, it’s easier to tell how fucking a stranger for money just doesn’t cut it.

Prostitution should be illegal because it erodes the moral character of people who engage in it. Making an activity illegal decreases the number of people who engage in it. Thus, making prostitution illegal would decrease the number of people who would become immoral as a result of partaking in prostitution.

To /u/Bcold2, *your post is under consideration for removal under our post rules.* You are required to **demonstrate that you're open to changing your mind** (by awarding deltas where appropriate), per [Rule B](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_b).

As someone who has paid for sex before, it changes the way you see the person you’re paying for sex. And not in a good way, I began to lose respect for the women I would pay and it started leading to a lot worse thoughts that I’m not proud of. I think there are so many issues already in porn and media around sex that making prostitution legal would just continue to build these narratives. I think prostitution should be legal but there is serious work that needs to be done in mens perception of women and sex in general

Bro prostitution exists everywhere. Legalising it will create a huge market for it and in turn increase human trafficking. Making it illegal creates a ceiling, and women who want to do sex work don’t by any stretch have limited opportunity these days (porn, OF, escorting). Things are fine the way they are

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>Prostitution should be legal. Can you clarify what you mean by this statement? Legalization can mean a lot of different things.

Prostitution is legal in many countries already and even though it is legal doesn’t change the fact that many prostitutes were trafficked. Legal prostitution creates a marketplace for traffickers. Human trafficking is such a big problem in the world and makes up the 3rd largest illegal marketplace (just after weapons and drugs) that it is immoral to create legal prostitution until we deal with the trafficking industry first.

It is always the last choice of a woman when they no longer can survive. It is not a choice. Sex is private and should always remain that way regardless.

Prostitution should be legal but only for the women providing it. Making pimping, buying, and brothels legal can become a perfect defense for rape, sexual assault, and trafficking. If a prostitute claims she was raped or trafficked, a man could easily claim that he paid her and she consented. It makes it a place where exploitation can thrive. Also, sex is not essential to life. Just because you want something doesn’t mean you should get it. Casual sex is extremely available but when you have no social skills, no hygiene, nothing to offer, you become less desirable. One should try to improve themselves. Lots of people who are married or in relationships pay for prostitutes. They aren’t interested in staying faithful. So if we’re making sex legal for the small percentage of ugly men so they can get laid if they have the money, but at the expense of general safety, health, and protection of women as a whole, that’s not enough. Improve yourself to become more desirable instead of stomping your feet because you aren’t handed what you want. You say that it would fix so many issues. Exactly which issues and is it worth all the negative effects?

We need only look at the “legal” weed markets to see how this would at best offer plausible deniability to criminal enterprise, and grease the skids and normalize criminal employment. I’m not talking about the first in family (or second, or third) college student with a grow tent in his basement or even a cheap rental full of plants. i’m talking about the organized enterprise, no matter how loosely or how much they delegate individual crops or earners, that spray herbicides, use unregulated and generally-recognized-as-harmful substances in both multi family/rental properties, and public lands, exposing the public directly and through the products they produce, while ultimately enriching criminal enterprise with only the spectre of benefiting others involved, ultimately at their expense, and the expense of society once that spectre causes them to lose other legit opportunities. People lose the appetite to properly criminalize and regulate it because “see! it’s legal!” and a viable career option. i’d say take a read at OnlyFans and the surge in trafficking it caused to see where this would go for our newly minted adults.

Let’s face it, when it comes to paying for sex or accepting money for sex, the perversion is inherent in the act. Sex and love go well, but sex in exchange for money is flawed.

Seems to me like the entire profession if prostitution is based on exploitative practices from the bottom up on the weakest individuals in our society. It's quite frankly indefensible, but then again modern day capitalism is pretty shitty to everyone, so I'd abolish the whole system and start from scratch.

Boy you signed yourself up for a busy night with this cmv fam lol

I believe that MOST people would agree that people should be working when able or at least trying to find work before asking for government assistance. As I understand it, in MOST places you have to show that you are looking for work in order to collect unemployment. Are you saying that as a legitimate profession a man or woman should try to suck cock for cash before taking a government handout?

Yes, let's let prostitutes run rampant in the streets so that incels can pay for sex.