Prostitution

[Mr Endon]

Alright, two questions, one dealing with law and the other with ethics:

1) Should it be legalised and regulated or not?

2) Is it inherently humiliating?
Also,

[is it / should it be / can it ever become] possible to lead a 'normal' life as a prostitute?

[PoeticPassions]

One time I read an article about prostitutes in Amsterdam... a lot of the women said they enjoyed their work, felt liberated by it and found it as an almost emancipatory thing.

I think, to answer your questions, one would have to specify what type of prostitution we're talking about. The kind of prostitution that results from no other possible means, from drug use...the "on-street hookers" so to speak that have PIMPS? Then I would say that it is inherently degrading and quite awful... and can't see how it could not affect all aspects of one's life (psychologically and physically)

But if we're talking about the "high class hookers" (of the Eliot Spitzer variety), then that might be a different story. These women choose clients, choose the profession, and so on.

I still think that legalization might be a better option, with regulation. Because whenever you make something illegal people tend to do it more or in more illicit ways, etc. (look at examples of marijuana or what not...) I think Amsterdam might be a good example of how legalization of prostitution has decreased violence within this... or perhaps made it easier to regulate, oversee, etc.

[BienvenuJDC]

I am not condemning or condoning here...I just want to raise some questions...

Should a prostitute be screened regularly and be required to be licensed and registered? Should customers have to be tested before they can be serviced (since they have the potential to permanently disqualify a prostitute? Or should there only be State ran prostitution facilities? Should a prostitute then be allowed to discriminate against anyone based on any reason?

[Tsuyoiko]

I think it should be legalised because it seems preferable to the unregulated alternative. As Poetic says, it seems to work well in The Netherlands.

However, prostitution views sex as an economic commodity, and it troubles me that that view of sex could be misapplied. I don't think sex should be something we offer in the hope of getting something in return.

[Virgil]

I find it amazing how some people find a way to justify a lack of dignity and self respect. I can understand need and no other recourse to live, but I cannot understand acceptance of humilation and lack of self worth. Thank God that when in my life we were poor, we had the self respect to not lower ourselves. It's amazing how the bluring of shame and justification for dysfunctional behavior continues in contemporary life. But to each his own. The world is made up of all sorts of people. A natural stratosphere of respectability must be inevitable.

[Zee.]

Each to their own.


If they're going to do it, and people are, and people are going to go to prostitutes, at least make sure they're screened for diseases and nastiness

[amarna]

1.) I think prostitution should be legalised, since it can't be prevented. Regulation, as far as it concerns establishing enforceable working and security standards for the prostitutes seems to make sense, too.

2.) I cannot decide if prostitution is inherently humiliating. By all means I can imagine a lot of better jobs. Maybe it depends on the prostitute's disposition and motifs if she/he feels humiliated or not, and on the efforts of her/his environment to humiliate her/him.
Anyway, sexual harassment in the workplace should never be taken lightly.

[BienvenuJDC]

1.) I think prostitution should be legalised, since it can't be prevented. Regulation, as far as it concerns establishing enforceable working and security standards for the prostitutes seems to make sense, too.

This is flawed thinking...
Murder cannot be prevented...it can be reduced, but not prevented. That does not mean that we should legalize it. I think that you need to have a better logic behind your argument.

[amarna]

Murder cannot be prevented...it can be reduced, but not prevented. That does not mean that we should legalize it. I think that you need to have a better logic behind your argument.

Prostitutes don't kill others. Wrong analogy.

[blazeofglory]

Prostitution, and we see it from a socioethic standpoint. Society makes someone a prostitute and the same society, and ironically at times the same society labels them as prostitutes.

First of all I hate this label I condemn the very institution of society that renders many as prostitutes.

[BienvenuJDC]

Prostitutes don't kill others. Wrong analogy.

They do by spreading disease...maybe not intentionally!!

From the moral viewpoint, I personally don't see prostitution any different than the porn stars. I personally don't feel that it should be legal, but I personally don't feel that it should happen. Putting my personal feelings aside, I'm not sure what position is best from a social aspect, there are a great deal of questions that must be answered first as I mentioned above. If the law puts their stamp of approval on it, then they have to be ready to take some responsibility for the many problems that will occur (even if those problems are already occurring).

[JBI]

Legalized, regulated, and taxed. That way, it will be clean, safe, and profitable, and will keep out all the pimps and drug dealers, as well as reduce the spread of Sexually transmitted deceases. Beyond that too, it will generate a sizable profit for the tax system, that will, ultimately, pay to fund better programs and give back to society.

If someone wishes to sell their body, than it is their choice - all the government can do is make sure that it is done properly, and without violence or duress, and that it is monitored, and regulated, and taxed, as it is, hypothetically, a business, and should be subject to income tax.

[Mr Endon]

People, I've divided the problem into two questions for a reason. For example, I'm definitely for legalisation, because I believe it's much more 'life-affirming' to support personal choice (should there be choice at all) and to protect prostitutes from pimps and disease than to criminalise and further castigate women who live in such dismal conditions as it is. Ethically speaking, though, prostitution poses a bigger problem, though I think it's only humiliating because of our society's powerful stigmata/taboos concerning sexuality.

So Virgil, though I understand and respect your stance on the moral side of the issue, I still think it's possible to disapprove of something and still be against its criminalisation, if only for the sake of freedom and for other people's welfare.

Bienvenu, I've used that same argument (the murder analogy) in the marijuana thread, only to find out that, as amarna pointed out, it's a fallacy. Prostitution doesn't really interfere with others' freedom, much less in such a forceful fashion as murder.


Here's a reframing of my second question, prompted by Tsuyoiko's post: is the commodification of sex condemnable? Is there something 'sacred' in sexual intercourse that sets it apart from any other activity? Pragmatically speaking, how is it different from a job where your labour force is a commodity?

[amarna]

They do by spreading disease...maybe not intentionally!!

Making condoms obligatory, which is one of the most important claims of prostitute's organisations, is a good example for what I mean by "regulating working and security standards".

[JBI]

I find it amazing how some people find a way to justify a lack of dignity and self respect. I can understand need and no other recourse to live, but I cannot understand acceptance of humilation and lack of self worth. Thank God that when in my life we were poor, we had the self respect to not lower ourselves. It's amazing how the bluring of shame and justification for dysfunctional behavior continues in contemporary life. But to each his own. The world is made up of all sorts of people. A natural stratosphere of respectability must be inevitable.

That's a cultural assumption - different countries have different attitudes. Of course, during the middle ages, frequenting a prostitute was deemed less harmful to the soul than masturbating, so the church actually set up, and administrated numerous brothels, in essentially every city in Christendom.

Of course, we like to think the class problem has moved on, but the sense of degradation is purely societal - for instance, I am told the attitude to prostitutes by the general population in Thailand, for instance, is one of acceptance. OF course, class systems and gender issues follow, and that is somewhat tragic, but ultimately are preoccupations with "degrading", and "disgusting", and "dysfunctional behavior" are all relative. Many pornographic actors, for instance, love their job, and the fame and money - that too is societal, it would seem, with something like 30% of movies sold in Japan being pornos, and a billion dollar industry working out of LA, as well as countless examples in Europe, in contrast to, for instance, China, who has a strict ban on pornography, and prostitution to an extent, though, according to my friend, there are countless prostitutes working for what she deemed as a "cheap" price.

You don't fight prostitution by banning it - you do so by fixing income inequality, and setting up rehabs - legalizing it would merely just make it function - there is nothing wrong with it, assuming the women and men involved in the industry no and understand what they are doing, and it is gone about in a healthy, safe way, which, under the current system, it is not.

Whether it is unclean or not is irrelevant - there has never been a time when sex trading did not exist in one form or another. At least if it is legalized it will be clean and somewhat respectable.