Prostitution.....should it be legalised?

[CellarDoor]

Wanna hear something funny? I was in another forum last week and someone started this exact same thread. I mean word for word on that first post.

 

[aussie1]

thought it was legal lol

 

[twarrior]

Not really. Again, anyone who argues that prostitution is a victimless crime is clearly not seeing reality. As a rule, normal, healthy, well-adjusted individuals do not choose to become prostitutes. I've never understood why anyone would want to have sex with someone for money. Sounds about as much fun to me as moving furniture.

WHAT??!!!! making money to get laid....where do I sign up for that ...and I've moved furniture all my life and have no problem with it.

 

[GearsMcGilf]

All women are really prostitutes anyway. Some will give it up for $50, and others it takes a lot more. But, at the end of the day, they're all selling it.

 

[Silver Back]

Wanna hear something funny? I was in another forum last week and someone started this exact same thread. I mean word for word on that first post.

Because OP is a spambot.

OP, where's Chuckychucky and Iamsupercute? You fucking spambot POS.

 

[CellarDoor]

Because OP is a spambot.

OP, where's Chuckychucky and Iamsupercute? You fucking spambot POS.

That's it! Iamsupercute.

 

[CellarDoor]

All women are really prostitutes anyway. Some will give it up for $50, and others it takes a lot more. But, at the end of the day, they're all selling it.

^^^ agreed. But u fall for it.

 

[MDR]

WHAT??!!!! making money to get laid....where do I sign up for that ...and I've moved furniture all my life and have no problem with it.

Well Twarrior, since you are a guy that means getting fucked in the ass and sucking a lot of dick. If you are that interested in such things, I'm sure you'll find work somewhere, even in this economy. Good luck with that.

 

[GearsMcGilf]

I wish it were legal. With the wife being out of town, I could sure use another fix without having to resort to another extramarital affair. But, the qualidad is never quite as good at those happy ending massage places. If it were legal, I reckon you could find hotter and cleaner chicks. Just food for thought.

 

[MDR]

I wish it were legal. With the wife being out of town, I could sure use another fix without having to resort to another extramarital affair. But, the qualidad is never quite as good at those happy ending massage places. If it were legal, I reckon you could find hotter and cleaner chicks. Just food for thought.

Shocking! You cheat on your wife! Hard to believe given your views on women in general. Never had much trouble meeting attractive and intelligent women; it's not like there is a shortage out there or anything. But then again, I actually like women. Good luck at the massage parlor.

 

[Bilal123]

Shocking! You cheat on your wife! Hard to believe given your views on women in general. Never had much trouble meeting attractive and intelligent women; it's not like there is a shortage out there or anything. But then again, I actually like women. Good luck at the massage parlor.

Zing!

 

[Trained to Kill]

What's goin on guys?

 

[KelJu]

No.
It should stay illegal and the laws should be inforced. Anyone who states that prostitution is a victimless crime just doesn't have a clue.

You sound like you are referring to the terrible things that happen to women in the life of prostitution. You are right, but only because pussy, in the US, is a black market commodity.

Hookers are treated much differently in countries like Amsterdam and Germany. Working women are required to have their clients use condoms. They have protection through a Union type system, so there is no need for pimps. The women are cleaner, safer, and nearly all problems associated with prostitution goes away.


The argument that women are in danger, therefor prostitution should remain illegal for their protection is an invasion of their liberty. It's their pussy, they should do whatever they want with it. On the other hand, a pimp brings nothing to the table and is most often the one that endangers the hookers the most.

 

[MDR]

You sound like you are referring to the terrible things that happen to women in the life of prostitution. You are right, but only because pussy, in the US, is a black market commodity.

Hookers are treated much differently in countries like Amsterdam and Germany. Working women are required to have their clients use condoms. They have protection through a Union type system, so there is no need for pimps. The women are cleaner, safer, and nearly all problems associated with prostitution goes away.

The argument that women are in danger, therefor prostitution should remain illegal for their protection is an invasion of their liberty. It's their pussy, they should do whatever they want with it. On the other hand, a pimp brings nothing to the table and is most often the one that endangers the hookers the most.

I could not disagree with you more.

[FONT=arial,helvetica] 10 Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]by Janice G. Raymond
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International (CATW)
(March 25, 2003) [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Summary[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] The following arguments apply to all state-sponsored forms of prostitution, including but not limited to full-scale legalization of brothels and pimping, decriminalization of the sex industry, regulating prostitution by laws such as registering or mandating health checks for women in prostitution, or any system in which prostitution is recognized as "sex work" or advocated as an employment choice. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]As countries are considering legalizing and decriminalizing the sex industry, we urge you to consider the ways in which legitimating prostitution as "work" does not empower the women in prostitution but does everything to strengthen the sex industry. [/FONT]​

1. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution is a gift to pimps, traffickers and the sex industry. [/FONT]
2. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution and the sex industry promotes sex trafficking. [/FONT]
3. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not control the sex industry.It expands it. [/FONT]
4. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution increases clandestine, hidden, illegal and street prostitution. [/FONT]
5. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Legalization of prostitution and decriminalization of the sex Industry increases child prostitution. [/FONT]
6. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not protect the women in prostitution. [/FONT]
7. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution increases the demand for prostitution. It boosts the motivation of men to buy women for sex in a much wider and more permissible range of socially acceptable settings. [/FONT]
8. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not promote women's health. [/FONT]
9. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not enhance women's choice. [/FONT]
10. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Women in systems of Prostitution do not want the sex industry legalized or decriminalized. [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Arguments:[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 1. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution is a gift to pimps, traffickers and the sex industry. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]What does legalization of prostitution or decriminalization of the sex industry mean? In the Netherlands, legalization amounts to sanctioning all aspects of the sex industry: the women themselves, the so-called "clients," and the pimps who, under the regime of legalization, are transformed into third party businessmen and legitimate sexual entrepreneurs. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Legalization/decriminalization of the sex industry also converts brothels, sex clubs, massage parlors and other sites of prostitution activities into legitimate venues where commercial sexual acts are allowed to flourish legally with few restraints. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Ordinary people believe that, in calling for legalization or decriminalization of prostitution, they are dignifying and professionalizing the women in prostitution. But dignifying prostitution as work doesn't dignify the women, it simply dignifies the sex industry. People often don't realize that decriminalization, for example, means decriminalization of the whole sex industry not just the women. And they haven't thought through the consequences of legalizing pimps as legitimate sex entrepreneurs or third party businessmen, or the fact that men who buy women for sexual activity are now accepted as legitimate consumers of sex. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]CATW favors decriminalization of the women in prostitution. No woman should be punished for her own exploitation. But States should never decriminalize pimps, buyers, procurers, brothels or other sex establishments.

[/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]2. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution and the sex industry promotes sex trafficking. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Legalized or decriminalized prostitution industries are one of the root causes of sex trafficking. One argument for legalizing prostitution in the Netherlands was that legalization would help end the exploitation of desperate immigrant women trafficked for prostitution. A report done for the governmental Budapest Group* stated that 80% of women in the brothels in the Netherlands are trafficked from other countries (Budapest Group, 1999: 11). As early as 1994, the International Organization of Migration (IOM) stated that in the Netherlands alone, "nearly 70 per cent of trafficked women were from CEEC Central and Eastern European Countries]" (IOM, 1995: 4). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The government of the Netherlands promotes itself as the champion of anti-trafficking policies and programs, yet cynically has removed every legal impediment to pimping, procurement and brothels. In the year 2000, the Dutch Ministry of Justice argued for a legal quota of foreign "sex workers," because the Dutch prostitution market demands a variety of "bodies" (Dutting, 2001: 16). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Also in the year 2000, the Dutch government sought and received a judgment from the European Court recognizing prostitution as an economic activity, thus enabling women from the EU and former Soviet bloc countries to obtain working permits as "sex workers" in the Dutch sex industry if they can prove that they are self employed. NGOs in the Netherlands have stated that traffickers are taking advantage of this ruling to bring foreign women into the Dutch prostitution industry by masking the fact that women have been trafficked, and by coaching the women how to prove that they are self-employed "migrant sex workers." [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In the one year since lifting the ban on brothels in the Netherlands, NGOs report that there has been an increase of victims of trafficking or, at best, that the number of victims from other countries has remained the same (Bureau NRM, 2002: 75). Forty-three municipalities in the Netherlands want to follow a no-brothel policy, but the Minister of Justice has indicated that the complete banning of prostitution within any municipality could conflict with "the right to free choice of work" (Bureau NRM: 2002) as guaranteed in the federal Grondwet or Constitution. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In January, 2002, prostitution in Germany was fully established as a legitimate job after years of being legalized in so-called eros or tolerance zones. Promotion of prostitution, pimping and brothels are now legal in Germany. As early as 1993, after the first steps towards legalization had been taken, it was recognized (even by pro-prostitution advocates) that 75 per cent of the women in Germany's prostitution industry were foreigners from Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and other countries in South America (Altink, 1993: 33). After the fall of the Berlin wall, brothel owners reported that 9 out of every 10 women in the German sex industry were from eastern Europe (Altink, 1993: 43) and other former Soviet countries. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The sheer volume of foreign women who are in the prostitution industry in Germany - by some NGO estimates now up to 85 per cent - casts further doubt on the fact that these numbers of women could have entered Germany without facilitation. As in the Netherlands, NGOs report that most of the foreign women have been trafficked into the country since it is almost impossible for poor women to facilitate their own migration, underwrite the costs of travel and travel documents, and set themselves up in "business" without outside help. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The link between legalization of prostitution and trafficking in Australia was recognized in the U.S. State Department's 1999 Country Report on Human Rights Practices, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. In the country report on Australia, it was noted that in the State of Victoria which legalized prostitution in the 1980s, "Trafficking in East Asian women for the sex trade is a growing problem" in Australia…lax laws - including legalized prostitution in parts of the country - make [anti-trafficking] enforcement difficult at the working level." [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]3.Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not control the sex industry. It expands it. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Contrary to claims that legalization and decriminalization would regulate the expansion of the sex industry and bring it under control, the sex industry now accounts for 5 percent of the Netherlands economy (Daley, 2001: 4). Over the last decade, as pimping became legalized and then brothels decriminalized in the Netherlands in 2000, the sex industry expanded 25 percent (Daley, 2001: 4). At any hour of the day, women of all ages and races, dressed in hardly anything, are put on display in the notorious windows of Dutch brothels and sex clubs and offered for sale -- for male consumption. Most of them are women from other countries (Daley, 2001: 4) who have in all likelihood been trafficked into the Netherlands. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]There are now officially recognized associations of sex businesses and prostitution "customers" in the Netherlands that consult and collaborate with the government to further their interests and promote prostitution. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]These include the "Association of Operators of Relaxation Businesses," the "Cooperating Consultation of Operators of Window Prostitution," and the "Man/Woman and Prostitution Foundation," a group of men who regularly use women in prostitution, and whose specific aims include "to make prostitution and the use of services of prostitutes more accepted and openly discussible," and "to protect the interests of clients" (NRM Bureau, 2002:115-16). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Faced with a dearth of women who want to "work" in the legal sex sector, the Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking states that in the future, a proposed "solution" may be to "offer [to the market] prostitutes from non EU/EEA countries, who voluntarily choose to work in prostitution…" They could be given "legal and controlled access to the Dutch market" (NRM Bureau, 2002: 140). As prostitution has been transformed into "sex work," and pimps into entrepreneurs, so too this potential "solution" transforms trafficking into voluntary migration for "sex work." The Netherlands is looking to the future, targeting poor women of color for the international sex trade to remedy the inadequacies of the free market of "sexual services." In the process, it goes further in legitimizing prostitution as an "option for the poor." [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Legalization of prostitution in the State of Victoria, Australia, has led to massive expansion of the sex industry. Whereas there were 40 legal brothels in Victoria in 1989, in 1999 there were 94, along with 84 escort services. Other forms of sexual exploitation, such as tabletop dancing, bondage and discipline centers, peep shows, phone sex, and pornography have all developed in much more profitable ways than before (Sullivan and Jeffreys: 2001). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Prostitution has become an accepted sideline of the tourism and casino boom in Victoria with government-sponsored casinos authorizing the redeeming of casino chips and wheel of fortune bonuses at local brothels (Sullivan and Jeffreys: 2001). The commodification of women has vastly intensified and is much more visible. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Brothels in Switzerland have doubled several years after partial legalization of prostitution. Most of these brothels go untaxed, and many are illegal. In 1999, the Zurich newspaper, Blick, claimed that Switzerland had the highest brothel density of any country in Europe, with residents feeling overrun with prostitution venues, as well as experiencing constant encroachment into areas not zoned for prostitution activities (South China Morning Post: 1999). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]4. Legalization/decriminalzaton of prostitution increases clandestine, hidden, illegal and street prostitution. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Legalization was supposed to get prostituted women off the street. Many women don't want to register and undergo health checks, as required by law in certain countries legalizing prostitution, so legalization often drives them into street prostitution. And many women choose street prostitution because they want to avoid being controlled and exploited by the new sex "businessmen." [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In the Netherlands, women in prostitution point out that legalization or decriminalization of the sex industry cannot erase the stigma of prostitution but, instead, makes women more vulnerable to abuse because they must register and lose anonymity. Thus, the majority of women in prostitution still choose to operate illegally and underground. Members of Parliament who originally supported the legalization of brothels on the grounds that this would liberate women are now seeing that legalization actually reinforces the oppression of women (Daley, 2001: A1). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The argument that legalization was supposed to take the criminal elements out of sex businesses by strict regulation of the industry has failed. The real growth in prostitution in Australia since legalization took effect has been in the illegal sector. Since the onset of legalization in Victoria, brothels have tripled in number and expanded in size - the vast majority having no licenses but advertising and operating with impunity (Sullivan and Jeffreys: 2001). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In New South Wales, brothels were decriminalized in 1995. In 1999, the numbers of brothels in Sydney had increased exponentially to 400-500. The vast majority have no license to operate. To end endemic police corruption, control of illegal prostitution was taken out of the hands of the police and placed in the hands of local councils and planning regulators. The council has neither the money nor the personnel to put investigators into brothels to flush out and prosecute illegal operators. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]5. Legalization of prostitution and decriminalization of the sex industry increases child prostitution. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Another argument for legalizing prostitution in the Netherlands was that it would help end child prostitution. In reality, however, child prostitution in the Netherlands has increased dramatically during the 1990s. The Amsterdam-based ChildRight organization estimates that the number has gone from 4,000 children in 1996 to 15,000 in 2001. The group estimates that at least 5,000 of the children in prostitution are from other countries, with a large segment being Nigerian girls (Tiggeloven: 2001). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Child prostitution has dramatically risen in Victoria compared to other Australian states where prostitution has not been legalized. Of all the states and territories in Australia, the highest number of reported incidences of child prostitution came from Victoria. In a 1998 study undertaken by ECPAT (End Child Prostitution and Trafficking) who conducted research for the Australian National Inquiry on Child Prostitution, there was increased evidence of organized commercial exploitation of children. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]6. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not protect the women in prostitution. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International (CATW) has conducted 2 major studies on sex trafficking and prostitution, interviewing almost 200 victims of commercial sexual exploitation. In these studies, women in prostitution indicated that prostitution establishments did little to protect them, regardless of whether they were in legal or illegal establishments. "The only time they protect anyone is to protect the customers." [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In a CATW 5-country study that interviewed 146 victims of international trafficking and local prostitution, 80% of all women interviewed suffered physical violence from pimps and buyers) and endured similar and multiple health effects from the violence and sexual exploitation (Raymond et al: 2002). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The violence that women were subjected to was an intrinsic part of the prostitution and sexual exploitation. Pimps used violence for many different reasons and purposes. Violence was used to initiate some women into prostitution and to break them down so that they would do the sexual acts. After initiation, at every step of the way, violence was used for sexual gratification of the pimps, as a form of punishment, to threaten and intimidate women, to exert the pimp's dominance, to exact compliance, to punish women for alleged "violations," to humiliate women, and to isolate and confine women. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Of the women who did report that sex establishments gave some protection, they qualified it by pointing out that no "protector" was ever in the room with them, where anything could occur. One woman who was in out-call prostitution stated: "The driver functioned as a bodyguard. You're supposed to call when you get in, to ascertain that everything was OK. But they are not standing outside the door while you're in there, so anything could happen." [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]CATW's studies found that even surveillance cameras in prostitution establishments are used to protect the establishment. Protection of the women from abuse is of secondary or no importance. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]7. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution increases the demand for prostitution. It boosts the motivation of men to buy women for sex in a much wider and more permissible range of socially acceptable settings. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]With the advent of legalization in countries that have decriminalized the sex industry, many men who would not risk buying women for sex now see prostitution as acceptable. When the legal barriers disappear, so too do the social and ethical barriers to treating women as sexual commodities. Legalization of prostitution sends the message to new generations of men and boys that women are sexual commodities and that prostitution is harmless fun. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]As men have an excess of "sexual services" that are offered to them, women must compete to provide services by engaging in anal sex, sex without condoms, bondage and domination and other proclivities demanded by the clients. Once prostitution is legalized, all holds are barred. Women's reproductive capacities are sellable products, for example. A whole new group of clients find pregnancy a sexual turn-on and demand breast milk in their sexual encounters with pregnant women. Specialty brothels are provided for disabled men, and State-employed caretakers who are mostly women must take these men to the brothels if they wish to go (Sullivan and Jeffreys: 2001). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Advertisements line the highways of Victoria offering women as objects for sexual use and teaching new generations of men and boys to treat women as subordinates. Businessmen are encouraged to hold their corporate meetings in these clubs where owners supply naked women on the table at tea breaks and lunchtime. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A Melbourne brothel owner stated that the client base was "well educated professional men, who visit during the day and then go home to their families." Women who desire more egalitarian relationships with men find that often the men in their lives are visiting the brothels and sex clubs. They have the choice to accept that their male partners are buying women in commercial sexual transactions, avoid recognizing what their partners are doing, or leave the relationship (Sullivan and Jeffreys: 2001). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Sweden's Violence Against Women, Government Bill 1997/98:55 prohibits and penalizes the purchase of "sexual services." It is an innovative approach that targets the demand for prostitution. Sweden believes that "By prohibiting the purchase of sexual services, prostitution and its damaging effects can be counteracted more effectively than hitherto." Importantly, this law clearly states that "Prostitution is not a desirable social phenomenon" and is "an obstacle to the ongoing development towards equality between women and men."** [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]8. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not promote women's health. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A legalized system of prostitution that mandates health checks and certification only for women and not for clients is blatantly discriminatory to women. "Women only" health checks make no public health sense because monitoring prostituted women does not protect them from HIV/AIDS or STDs, since male "clients" can and do originally transmit disease to the women. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]It is argued that legalized brothels or other "controlled" prostitution establishments "protect" women through enforceable condom policies. In one of CATW's studies, U.S. women in prostitution interviewed reported the following: 47% stated that men expected sex without a condom; 73% reported that men offered to pay more for sex without a condom; 45% of women said they were abused if they insisted that men use condoms. Some women said that certain establishments may have rules that men wear condoms but, in reality, men still try to have sex without them. One woman stated: "It's 'regulation' to wear a condom at the sauna, but negotiable between parties on the side. Most guys expected blow jobs without a condom (Raymond and Hughes: 2001)." [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In reality, the enforcement of condom policy was left to the individual women in prostitution, and the offer of extra money was an insistent pressure. One woman stated: "I'd be one of those liars if I said 'Oh I always used a condom.' If there was extra money coming in, then the condom would be out the window. I was looking for the extra money." Many factors militate against condom use: the need of women to make money; older women's decline in attractiveness to men; competition from places that do not require condoms; pimp pressure on women to have sex with no condom for more money; money needed for a drug habit or to pay off the pimp; and the general lack of control that prostituted women have over their bodies in prostitution venues. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]So called "safety policies" in brothels did not protect women from harm. Even where brothels supposedly monitored the "customers" and utilized "bouncers," women stated that they were injured by buyers and, at times, by brothel owners and their friends. Even when someone intervened to control buyers' abuse, women lived in a climate of fear. Although 60 percent of women reported that buyers had sometimes been prevented from abusing them, half of those women answered that, nonetheless, they thought that they might be killed by one of their "customers" (Raymond et al: 2002). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]9. Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution does not enhance women's choice. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Most women in prostitution did not make a rational choice to enter prostitution. They did not sit down one day and decide that they wanted to be prostitutes. Rather, such "choices" are better termed "survival strategies." Rather than consent, a prostituted woman more accurately complies to the only options available to her. Her compliance is required by the very fact of having to adapt to conditions of inequality that are set by the customer who pays her to do what he wants her to do. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Most of the women interviewed in CATW studies reported that choice in entering the sex industry could only be discussed in the context of the lack of other options. Most emphasized that women in prostitution had few other options. Many spoke about prostitution as the last option, or as an involuntary way of making ends meet. In one study, 67% of the law enforcement officials that CATW interviewed expressed the opinion that women did not enter prostitution voluntarily. 72% of the social service providers that CATW interviewed did not believe that women voluntarily choose to enter the sex industry (Raymond and Hughes: 2001). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The distinction between forced and voluntary prostitution is precisely what the sex industry is promoting because it will give the industry more security and legal stability if these distinctions can be utilized to legalize prostitution, pimping and brothels. Women who bring charges against pimps and perpetrators will bear the burden of proving that they were "forced." How will marginalized women ever be able to prove coercion? If prostituted women must prove that force was used in recruitment or in their "working conditions," very few women in prostitution will have legal recourse and very few offenders will be prosecuted. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Women in prostitution must continually lie about their lives, their bodies, and their sexual responses. Lying is part of the job definition when the customer asks, "did you enjoy it?" The very edifice of prostitution is built on the lie that "women like it." Some prostitution survivors have stated that it took them years after leaving prostitution to acknowledge that prostitution wasn't a free choice because to deny their own capacity to choose was to deny themselves. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]There is no doubt that a small number of women say they choose to be in prostitution, especially in public contexts orchestrated by the sex industry. In the same way, some people choose to take dangerous drugs such as heroin. However, even when some people choose to take dangerous drugs, we still recognize that this kind of drug use is harmful to them, and most people do not seek to legalize heroin. In this situation, it is harm to the person, not the consent of the person that is the governing standard. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Even a 1998 ILO (UN International Labor Organization) report suggesting that the sex industry be treated as a legitimate economic sector, found that "…prostitution is one of the most alienated forms of labour; the surveys [in 4 countries] show that women worked 'with a heavy heart,' 'felt forced,' or were 'conscience-stricken' and had negative self-identities. A significant proportion claimed they wanted to leave sex work [sic] if they could (Lim, 1998: 213)." [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] When a woman remains in an abusive relationship with a partner who batters her, or even when she defends his actions, concerned people don't say she is there voluntarily. They recognize the complexity of her compliance. Like battered women, women in prostitution often deny their abuse if provided with no meaningful alternatives. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]10. Women in systems of prostitution do not want the sex industry legalized or decriminalized. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In a 5-country study on sex trafficking done by the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and funded by the Ford Foundation, most of the 146 women interviewed strongly stated that prostitution should not be legalized and considered legitimate work, warning that legalization would create more risks and harm for women from already violent customer and pimps (Raymond et al, 2002). "No way. It's not a profession. It is humiliating and violence from the men's side." Not one woman interviewed wanted her children, family or friends to have to earn money by entering the sex industry. One stated: "Prostitution stripped me of my life, my health, everything." [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Conclusion: [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Legislators leap onto the legalization bandwagon because they think nothing else is successful. However, as Scotland Yard's Commissioner has stated: "You've got to be careful about legalizing things just because you don't think what you are doing is successful." [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]We hear very little about the role of the sex industry in creating a global sex market in the bodies of women and children. Instead, we hear much about making prostitution into a better job for women through regulation and/or legalization, through unions of so-called "sex workers," and through campaigns which provide condoms to women in prostitution but cannot provide them with alternatives to prostitution. We hear much about how to keep women in prostitution but very little about how to help women get out. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Governments that legalize prostitution as "sex work" will have a huge economic stake in the sex industry. Consequently, this will foster their increased dependence on the sex sector. If women in prostitution are counted as workers, pimps as businessmen, and buyers as consumers of sexual services, thus legitimating the entire sex industry as an economic sector, then governments can abdicate responsibility for making decent and sustainable employment available to women [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Rather than the State sanctioning prostitution, the State could address the demand by penalizing the men who buy women for the sex of prostitution, and support the development of alternatives for women in prostitution industries. Instead of governments cashing in on the economic benefits of the sex industry by taxing it, governments could invest in the futures of prostituted women by providing economic resources, from the seizure of sex industry assets, to provide real alternatives for women in prostitution. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

Notes: [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]*Budapest Group. (1999, June). The Relationship Between Organized Crime and Trafficking in Aliens. Austria: International Centre for Migration Policy Development. The Budapest process was initiated in 1991. Nearly 40 governments and 10 organizations participate in the process, and about 50 intergovernmental meetings at various levels have been held, including the Prague Ministerial Conference. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]**The National Rapporteur on trafficking at the National Swedish Police has stated that in the 6 months following the implementation of the Swedish law in January 1999, the number of trafficked women to Sweden has declined. She also stated that according to police colleagues in the European Union that traffickers are choosing other destination countries where they are not constrained by similar laws. Thus the law serves as a deterrent to traffickers. Quoted in Karl Vicktor Olsson, "Sexkopslagen minkar handeln med kvinnor," Metro, January 27, 2001: 2. [/FONT]​

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REFERENCES[/FONT]:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Altink, Sietske. (1995). Stolen Lives: Trading Women into Sex and Slavery (London: Scarlet Press). [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Budapest Group. (1999, June). The Relationship Between Organized Crime and Trafficking in Aliens. Austria: International Centre for Migration Policy Development. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Bureau NRM. (2002, November). Trafficking in Human Beings: First Report of the Dutch National Rapporteur. The Hague. 155 pp. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Daley, Suzanne. (2001, August 12). "New Rights for Dutch Prostitutes, but No Gain." New York Times, pp. A1 and 4. Dutting, Giseling. (2000, November). "Legalized Prostitution in the Netherlands - Recent Debates. Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights, 3: 15-16. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]IOM (International Organization for Migration). (1995, May). "Trafficking and Prostitution: the Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe. Budapest: IOM Migration Information Program. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Lim, Lin Lean (1998). The Sex Sector. International Labour Office, Geneva, Switzerland. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Raymond, Janice G., Donna M. Hughes, Donna M. and Carol A. Gomez (2001). Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States: Links Between International and Domestic Sex Industries, Funded by the U.S. National Institute of Justice. N. Amherst, MA: Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. Available at http://www.catwinternational.org [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Raymond, Janice G., Jean d'Cunha, Siti Ruhaini Dzuhayatin, H. Patricia
Hynes, Zoraida Ramirez Rodriguez and Aida Santos (2002). A Comparative Study of Women Trafficked in the Migration Process: Patterns, Profiles and Health Consequences of Sexual Exploitation in Five Countries (Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Venezuela and the United States). (2002). Funded by the Ford Foundation. N. Amherst, MA: Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW). Available at http://www.catwinternational.org [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]South China Morning Post (1999, September 10)."Brothel Business Booming at a Legal Red-Light District Near You." [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Sullivan, Mary and Jeffreys, Sheila. (2001). Legalising Prostitution is Not the Answer: the Example of Victoria, Australia. Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Australia and USA. Available at http://www.catwinternational.org [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Tiggeloven, Carin. (2001, December 18). "Child Prostitution in the Netherlands." Was available at http://www.nw.nl/hotspots/html/netherlands011218.html. [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Contact Person:
Dr. Janice G. Raymond[/FONT]​

 

[assassin]

That study reflects exactly how I feel just going to work.

loool

 

[Arnold]

fighting prostitution is about as worthwhile as the war on drugs, complete waste of time, money and resources, period.

 

[Curt James]

^This.

Prohibition does not work. Not with alcohol, drugs, or sex.

 

[Curt James]

Wanna hear something funny? I was in another forum last week and someone started this exact same thread. I mean word for word on that first post.

I'm on a number of forums other than IronMagazine (the best one, of course) and can tell you that this happens quite often. MD, Rx, BB.com, here, there, others probably all have the pic of Arnold flexing his biceps as the governor.

The thread about the cop who shot the guy in the back and said he thought he was tasering him? Appears on multiple boards.

Female Talk seems like the perfect location for a thread on prostitution-pro or con. It's an issue which has an impact on women.

I don't see where the OP was or is selling anything so I'm not sure where the spam accusation arises from.

But, hey, I'm flexible. Convince me why I should hate this user. lol

 

[MDR]

^This.

Prohibition does not work. Not with alcohol, drugs, or sex.

Prostitution is about violence, control, manipulation and abuse, not sex. Legalizing criminal acts because it is convenient to do so is not the answer to anything. Might as well legalize assault, rape, child abuse and any and all forms of violence against women because they are all a part of the prostitution industry. That is simply not a solution I am willing to accept.

 

[Curt James]

^^^^I'm just saying that prohibition is ineffective. Doesn't mean I'm in favor of legalization especially.

Legal or illegal, people will be paying for sex. Or committing violence. Look at it from whatever perspective seems appropriate.

I'd rather see more money spent on support systems - self defense centers, drug rehabs, etc. - than on interdiction and incarceration.

 

[MDR]

^^^^I'm just saying that prohibition is ineffective. Doesn't mean I'm in favor of legalization especially.

Legal or illegal, people will be paying for sex. Or committing violence. Look at it from whatever perspective seems appropriate.

I'd rather see more money spent on support systems - self defense centers, drug rehabs, etc. - than on interdiction and incarceration.

Makes sense to me. I think focusing law enforcement efforts on the victimizers rather than the victims makes sense. Arrest the men who use prostitution, and make the sentences long enough to dissuade others. Leave the victims alone and get them help (drug rehab, ect).

 

[Arnold]

It's Time to Make Prostitution Legal

Prostitution has long been called the world's oldest profession. For as long back as we have records, evidence can be found of people selling sex for some sort of gain. When the colonists were running around slaughtering the natives, they also were enjoying the pleasures of local prostitutes. In fourth century, Athenian orator Apollodoros stated "we have courtesans for pleasure, and concubines for the daily service of our bodies, but wives for the production of legitimate offspring and to have reliable guardians of our household property." And yet in "progressive" America, a land were people claim to be the most socially advanced, prostitution is an illegal act that results in the sheltering of rapists, drug dealers, and abusers.

Legalization of prostitution could solve a lot of problems caused by its illegality, but it's unlikely that those rich old white guys in Washington are going to make the change. They prefer to ignore the issue, occasionally making the token gesture at trying to end it completely. Reality check folks, if prostitution has been around this long, it's not going anywhere. You can throw more laws at it, up the punishment, even do like Minnesota and post those arrested for prostitution (not those just found guilty) and stick their pictures on the internet, but you aren't going to change reality. Nevada has already seen the light...why not the rest of country?

If this country were to legalize prostitution, we could make a fortune while also improving the health of our country and the "character" behind it all. Look at Nevada. Let's take prostitution off the streets by requiring services be offered in a brothel or on appropriate web sites. As for the common streetwalker, arrest them for solicitation, but just solicitation, no more tacking on the prostitution part. Change the law to require condoms and regular health checks and AIDS testing. Where prostitution is legal in Nevada, the number of AIDS cases among the workers is now down to 0 (where the illegal hookers have topped 25% infection...that's a one in four chance of paying to get AIDS).

By having it legal, prostitutes will no longer have to fear going to the cops when they get raped or beaten. Over 60% have been raped, and yes, if you force a prostitute it is still rape. Most of the rapes go unreported though because they'll just get arrested for being a victim. How sick is that? With legalized prostitution, families won't have to wonder how a prostitute died if they get murdered (since today's cops don't give a fuck if a whore gets popped). It would also cut back the numbers of people forced into prostitution. Now those victims can report their attackers without fear of being arrested of doing what they were forced to do.

Sure, those religious nuts will scream about it forever (like they are still fighting abortion, birth control, and taking religion out of schools), but who cares. There will always be prostitution; even Gene Roddenberry knew that when he added those Dabo girls to Ferengi casinos. So let's make it safer for the workers and the clients, while upping our countries income tax earnings by making it a legal profession. Porn is legal, stripping is legal, why not sex for hire. Be honest, some people couldn't get laid any other way.

 

[bio-chem]

does anyone honestly think that because prostitution is now legal they are going to want everyone know that this is their profession? legalizing this profession helps nothing. I agree with MDR 100% on all of his posts here

 

[MDR]

I guess we need more evidence refuting all the proposals for legalizing prostitution. The fact is, it just doesn't solve anything, and only serves to make matters worse. Looking to simple solutions to complex social issues is just not the answer.

Cecilia Hoffman, Secretary of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women - Asia Pacific (CATW-AP), wrote in the Aug. 1997 paper "SEX: From Human Intimacy to 'Sexual Labor' or Is Prostitution a Human Right?" published on the CATW-AP website:

"Prostitution violates the right to physical and moral integrity by the alienation of women’s sexuality that is appropriated, debased and reduced to a commodity to be bought and sold.
It violates the prohibition of torture and of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment because clients’ acts and practices of sexual 'entertainment' and pornography are acts of power and violence over the female body.
It violates the right to liberty and security, and the prohibition of slavery, of forced labor and of trafficking in persons because millions of women and girls all over the world are held in sexual slavery to meet the demand of even more millions of male buyers of sex, and to generate profits for the capitalists of sex.
It violates the right to enjoy the highest standard of physical and mental health because violence, disease, unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and AIDS stalk, presenting constant and grave risks for women and girls in prostitution, and militating against a healthy sense of and relationship with their own bodies."


Aug. 1997 - Cecilia Hoffman
​

John Bambenek, Executive Director of the Tumaini Foundation, wrote in his Jan. 2, 2007 post "The ACLU Is Fighting for the Trafficking of Women Worldwide" on his Part-Time Pundit blog:

"One cannot support the reduction of AIDS infections and support legal prostitution at the same time. Prostitution remains one of the leading vectors for AIDS infection. This is true in the case of both legal and illegal prostitution...
Prostitutes, because of their many partners, have a greatly increased risk of exposure to HIV. They are likewise able to spread HIV to many other partners...
The redefinition of prostitution as 'commercial sex work' is just an attempt to legitimize sex trafficking. It should come as no surprise the ACLU and Planned Parenthood have signed on. While both groups are considered 'pro-woman', it is odd that they support an industry of flagrant abuse of women...
There are a multitude of studies to show the high level of abuse that prostitutes suffer. Women are literally bought and sold as property. The incidence of drug addiction is high among women, partially explaining why they became prostitutes to begin with.
The argument for legalization goes something like this. Prostitution will happen anyway but legalization and regulation will help stem the abuses. The argument has 50,000 foot appeal. Using the same logic, slavery (which still exists in many places) should be legalized so underground slaves can be given some measure of human rights. The fact that the ACLU and the bevy of left-wing international groups don't argue for the legalization of slavery shows the logical inconsistency of their position.
Further, the legalization of abortion has shown that it lead to a radical increase in abortion. The legalization will lead to an untold number of women being forced into sex slavery. Make no mistake, women will be forced into commercial sex work in greater numbers if it were legalized."


Jan. 2, 2007 - John Bambenek
​

Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, Senior Director at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, wrote in his Jan. 29, 2007 article "Legalization Opens Criminal Floodgates" posted on the PostGlobal website:

"My home country of Germany is one of the few nations to legalize prostitution. Proponents of legalization argue that all attempts to deal with the sex business have failed and the only option left untried is decriminalization...
Legalized prostitution creates the same problems that legalized marijuana does. While prostitution is legal, forced prostitution is not. The latter occurs, and the new German law unintentionally makes it harder to hunt down human traffickers, especially from Eastern Europe and Africa. Similarly, it is harder to combat under-aged prostitution. With legalized marijuana and prostitution, Amsterdam became a magnet for human traffickers, drug traders and petty criminals. This is not the world legalization’s proponents envisioned, but it happened."


Jan. 29, 2007 - Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff
​

The US Department of State, wrote in its Nov. 24, 2004 article "The Link Between Prostitution and Sex Trafficking" provided on its website:

"The U.S. Government adopted a strong position against legalized prostitution in a December 2002 National Security Presidential Directive based on evidence that prostitution is inherently harmful and dehumanizing, and fuels trafficking in persons, a form of modern-day slavery. Prostitution and related activities—including pimping and patronizing or maintaining brothels—fuel the growth of modern-day slavery by providing a façade behind which traffickers for sexual exploitation operate.
Where prostitution is legalized or tolerated, there is a greater demand for human trafficking victims and nearly always an increase in the number of women and children trafficked into commercial sex slavery...
Few activities are as brutal and damaging to people as prostitution. Field research in nine countries concluded that 60-75 percent of women in prostitution were raped, 70-95 percent were physically assaulted, and 68 percent met the criteria for post traumatic stress disorder in the same range as treatment-seeking combat veterans and victims of state-organized torture. Beyond this shocking abuse, the public health implications of prostitution are devastating and include a myriad of serious and fatal diseases, including HIV/AIDS...
State attempts to regulate prostitution by introducing medical check-ups or licenses don’t address the core problem: the routine abuse and violence that form the prostitution experience and brutally victimize those caught in its netherworld. Prostitution leaves women and children physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually devastated. Recovery takes years, even decades—often, the damage can never be undone."


Nov. 24, 2004 - US Department of State
​

Norma Hotaling, Founder and Executive Director of Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE) Project and former prostitute, wrote in her prepared testimony for the Apr. 28, 2005 hearing "Combating Trafficking in Persons: Status Report on Domestic and International Developments," before the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology:

"As long as we point the finger away from ourselves, away from the institutions that blame and criminalize women and children for their own rape, sexual abuse, trafficking and slavery, away from the men who we normalize as ‘Johns,’ and as long as we disconnect adult prostitution and the exploitation of children and disconnect prostitution and trafficking in human beings for the purposes of rape and sex slavery; then we are to blame and we have assisted in creating well-funded transnational criminal networks – dollar by dollar."


Apr. 28, 2005 - Norma Hotaling
​

Bonnie Erbe, Contributing Editor at US News & World Report, wrote in the June 15, 2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer article "Cry Foul on World Cup Prostitution":

"Germany is one of several European nations where prostitution is legal. Germany came late to this game, in 2002. In only four years, it built up a work force some 400,000 strong for its multibillion-dollar annual prostitution business...
My admiration for relaxed European attitudes toward sex comes to an excruciatingly cacophonous halt on the issue of legalized prostitution.
Women's-rights activists believe the German government's sanctioning of sex services for World Cup visitors will drive the illicit international trade in sex trafficking. This, in turn, could force thousands of unwilling women into prostitution.
Whether women enter the sex trade willingly or not, no government should sanction prostitution. By its very nature, prostitution is demeaning to women and encourages anti-social, some would say depraved, behavior by men.
...German officials... should ban prostitution altogether."


June 15, 2006 - Bonnie Erbe, JD
​

Andrea Dworkin, an author, activist, and former prostitute, stated in her Oct. 31, 1992 speech at the University of Michigan Law School:

"I ask you to think about your own bodies--if you can do so outside the world that the pornographers have created in your minds, the flat, dead, floating mouths and vaginas and anuses of women. I ask you to think concretely about your own bodies used that way. How sexy is it? Is it fun? The people who defend prostitution and pornography want you to feel a kinky little thrill every time you think of something being stuck in a woman. I want you to feel the delicate tissues in her body that are being misused. I want you to feel what it feels like when it happens over and over and over and over and over and over and over again: because that is what prostitution is.
...And so, many of us are saying that prostitution is intrinsically abusive. Let me be clear. I am talking to you about prostitution per se, without more violence, without extra violence, without a woman being hit, without a woman being pushed. Prostitution in and of itself is an abuse of a woman's body. Those of us who say this are accused of being simple-minded. But prostitution is very simple. And if you are not simple-minded, you will never understand it. The more complex you manage to be, the further away from the reality you will be--the safer you will be, the happier you will be, the more fun you will have discussing the issue of prostitution. In prostitution, no woman stays whole."


Oct. 31, 1992 - Andrea Dworkin
​

Anastasia Volkonsky, JD, former Executive Director, Colorado Lawyers for the Arts (CoLA), wrote in the Feb. 27, 1995 Insight on the News article "Legalizing the 'Profession' Would Sanction the Abuse":

"Behind the facade of a regulated industry, brothel prostitutes in Nevada are captive in conditions analogous to slavery. Women often are procured for the brothels from other areas by pimps who dump them at the house in order to collect the referral fee. Women report working in shifts commonly as long as 12 hours, even when ill, menstruating or pregnant, with no right to refuse a customer who has requested them or to refuse the sexual act for which he has paid. The dozen or so prostitutes I interviewed said they are expected to pay the brothel room and board and a percentage of their earnings -- sometimes up to 50 percent. They also must pay for mandatory extras such as medical exams, assigned clothing and fines incurred for breaking house rules. And, contrary to the common claim that the brothel will protect women from the dangerous, crazy clients on the streets, rapes and assaults by customers are covered up by the management."


Feb. 27, 1995 - Anastasia Volkonsky, JD
​

Gunilla Ekberg, Special Adviser to the Swedish Division for Gender Equality in the Ministry of Industry, Employment, and Communications, wrote in the article "The Swedish Law That Prohibits the Purchase of Sexual Services: Best Practices for Prevention of Prostitution and Trafficking in Human Beings" published in the Oct. 2004 issue of Violence Against Women:

"In Sweden, prostitution is officially acknowledged as a form of male sexual violence against women and children. One of the cornerstones of Swedish policies against prostitution and trafficking in human beings is the focus on the root cause, the recognition that without men’s demand for and use of women and girls for sexual exploitation, the global prostitution industry would not be able flourish and expand.
Prostitution is a serious problem that is harmful, in particular, not only to the prostituted woman or child but also to society at large. Therefore, prostituted women and children are seen as victims of male violence who do not risk legal penalties. Instead, they have a right to assistance to escape prostitution."


Oct. 2004 - Gunilla Ekberg
​

Michael Horowitz, LLB, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, in the article "Right Abolitionism" published in the Dec. 2005 - Jan. 2006 issue of The American Spectator:

"...Historians will also note the attacks on the Bush administration and Miller [Ambassador John R. Miller] from a shrill claque of academic feminists and their radical chic allies -- and by doing so these historians will understand the reasons for the declining state of the 21st-century American left. They will see in the critics' attacks liberal utopianism at its worst -- the belief that until all poverty and all exploitation of the weak has ended, targeted efforts 'merely' to ameliorate such 'symptoms' as the mafia-conducted destruction of millions of girls and women in the sex trade are distractions from the need to eliminate 'root causes.' Historians will see in these attacks rhetoric and ideology unhinged from reality, a worship of materialist goals, contempt for traditional values, and a moral stinginess that denies credit for good work to any but political allies.
...The critics endorse the big lie of Pretty Woman and act as if the Julia Roberts character exists beyond Hollywood. The critics routinely seek 'sex worker unions,' government-trafficker condom distribution partnerships, and government regulation -- as if written contracts or OSHA [US Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration]-mandated ergonomic mattresses could ever trump the ability of pimps to exploit the abused and psychologically manipulable runaway girls they prey upon."


Dec. 2005 - Jan. 2006 - Michael Horowitz, LLB
​

Theodore Dalrymple, a writer and retired physician, wrote in the Feb. 3, 2005 City Journal article "Welfare-to-Work's New Thrust":

"A few years ago, prostitutes disappeared from the pages of medical journals; they returned as 'sex workers.' Nor did they work in prostitution any more: they were employees in the 'sex industry.' Presumably, orgasms are now a consumer product just like any other. As for pimps, the correct term is probably: 'brief sexual liaison coordinators.'
The editors who decided on the new terminology almost certainly felt, and probably still do feel, a warm glow of self-satisfaction (one of the few emotions than never lets you down). How they must have prided themselves on their broadmindedness, as they strove to reduce the small-minded stigma traditionally attached to offering sexual services in return for money! How morally brave and daring they must have felt, to fly so boldly in the face of two millennia of unthinking condemnation!
...The idea of the state coercing its population into prostitution is, of course, repellent. Even the most liberal of liberals would probably agree with that. This means that there is after all a moral difference between prostitution and washing dishes in the local restaurant or stacking supermarket shelves. And that prostitution is both age-old and ineradicable does not make it any less degrading to all concerned."


Feb. 3, 2005 - Theodore Dalrymple
​

Charles H. Ramsey, former Police Chief of Washington, DC, stated in the May 11, 1999 interview "Q&A with Charles H. Ramsey" on Levey Live (a weekly live online discussion) on Washington Post with Bob Levey:

"I believe that two crimes make a city look totally out of control. That's open prostitution and open air drug trafficking. I was appalled at the blatant prostitution taking place in the District and I have been determined to put an end to it. You're right that often times a problem is simply displaced when strong enforcement action is taken, that's to be expected, actually. The key is to shift resources to the new location and continue to take strong enforcement action wherever the problem crops up. Eventually, people engaged in this kind of activity either stop or leave the area altogether."


May 11, 1999 - Charles H. Ramsey
​

Jeffrey J. Barrows, DO, Health Consultant on Human Trafficking for the Christian Medical Association, wrote in the Sep. 9, 2005 article "HIV and Prostitution: What's the Answer?" published on the Center for Bioethics Human Dignity website:

"Even if a prostitute is being tested every week for HIV, she will test negative for at least the first 4-6 weeks and possibly the first 12 weeks after being infected. If we assume that he or she takes only 4 weeks to become positive, because there is an additional lag time of 1-2 weeks to get the results back, there will be at best a window period of 6 weeks for a prostitute. The average prostitute services between 10-15 clients per day. This means that while the test is becoming positive and the results are becoming known, that prostitute may expose up to 630 clients to HIV. This is under the best of circumstances with testing every week and a four-week window period. It also assumes that the prostitute will quit working as soon as he or she finds out the test is HIV positive, which is highly unlikely. This is not the best approach for actually reducing harm. Instead, in order to slow the global spread of HIV/AIDS we should focus our efforts on abolishing prostitution."


Sep. 9, 2005 - Jeffrey J. Barrows, DO
​

Lisa Thompson, Liaison for the Abolition of Sexual Trafficking for the United States Salvation Army, stated in her Jan. 26, 2007 phone interview with ProCon.org:

"We need to eliminate the purchase of commercial sex. That is no easy task. People tell me all the time that prostitution has been around forever and you can't stop this. I think that's baloney. There are a lot of things that have been around forever but if we provide the right evidence and provide positive motivation and use our laws effectively people's behaviors can change and we can change people's minds…
I'm opposed to anything that would legalize the purchasing of sex by buyers. I'm opposed to pimping being legal. I'm opposed to brothel keeping being legal. I think we need to absolutely keep as many barriers up as possible. We want to create a sense that buying sex from a woman is socially unacceptable and legally unacceptable…
Prostitution is a despairing, horrible condition for any women and girl who should end up there. We need to get more and better information out to the public about the harms of prostitution: mortality, homicide, suicide, sexually transmitted diseases, violence, beatings, shootings, stabbings, rape… It is no life for anyone."


Jan. 26, 2007 - Lisa Thompson
​

Joseph Parker, Clinical Director of the Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation, wrote in the article "How Prostitution Works" posted on the Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation website (accessed Jan. 19, 2009):

"People who have had luckier lives, as well as those who profit from the sex industry in some way, frequently refer to prostitution and pornography as 'victim-less crimes'. They point to a tiny fraction of sex workers who actually might be involved by choice. They selectively read history to find some tiny minority, somewhere, at some time, who gained something in the sex business.
The very selectiveness of their attention indicates that, on some level, they know that for almost everyone, involvement in the sex industry is a terrible misfortune.
As many an old cop will say, 'Anyone who thinks prostitution is a victimless crime, hasn’t seen it up close.'"


Jan. 19, 2009 - Joseph Parker
​

S.M. Berg, Co-Founder of the Sexual Health Activist Group (SHAG), wrote in the article "Hey, Progressives! Cathouse Got Your Tongue?" in the July 2006 Portland Alliance:

"Instead of railing against the increasing exploitation of females internationally, mainstream American feminists have mostly chosen to ignore the severe and tragic harms of prostitution. Why the wall of silence regarding men’s legitimized sense of entitlement to demand sex anytime, any way they want it, from mostly minority and poverty-stricken women?
...Rejecting prostitution is consistent with the feminist belief that men do not have a right to control women’s sexuality ever, but too many feminist women still can't say so while standing tall and without apologizing for believing it."


July 2006 - S.M. Berg
​

Mary Anne Layden, PhD, Co-Director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania, was quoted as having stated in the Aug. 10, 2005 The Australian article "Porn Fuels Prostitution":

"Internet pornography and the legalisation of prostitution have driven up demand through a set of beliefs that imply that this behaviour is normal, acceptable, common and doesn't hurt anyone so the person has permission to continue to behave in that way...
There are not enough women in Australia who have been raped as a child, are homeless, or have a drug addiction, to be prostitutes, because in reality these are the women who end up in this situation. In this case, you have to deceive or kidnap women and children from other countries, take their passport, beat them up and put them into sex slavery."


Aug. 10, 2005 - Mary Anne Layden, PhD
​

In US v. Bitty (decided Feb. 24, 1908), the US Supreme Court, in a decision written by then Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan:

"There can be no doubt as to what class was aimed at by the clause forbidding the importation of alien women for purposes of 'prostitution.' It refers to women who, for hire or without hire, offer their bodies to indiscriminate intercourse with men. The lives and example of such persons are in hostility to 'the idea of the family as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization; the best guaranty of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement.'"


Feb. 24, 1908 - U.S. v. Bitty (12 KB)
​

Melissa Farley, PhD, Founding Director of the Prostitution Research and Education, wrote in the article "Bad for the Body, Bad for the Heart" published in the Oct. 2004 Violence Against Women:

"Legal sex businesses provide locations where sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, and violence against women are perpetrated with impunity. State-sponsored prostitution endangers all women and children in that acts of sexual predation are normalized — acts ranging from the seemingly banal (breast massage) to the lethal (snuff prostitution that includes filming of actual murders of real women and children)...
Johns who buy women, groups promoting legalized prostitution, and governments that support state-sponsored sex industries comprise a tripartite partnership that endangers all women. These groups collude in denying the everyday violence and subsequent health dangers to those in prostitution."


Oct. 2004 - Melissa Farley, PhD
​

Dave Quist, MPA, Executive Director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada (IMFC), was quoted as having stated in the July 13, 2006 LifeSiteNews.com article "National Post Advocating Legalization of Prostitution Again":

"The concept that 'mom's job' is having sex with strangers sets the wrong tone for family life. It hurts the woman, it hurts the children; that is an exploitative situation. If prostitution is legal it affords men the 'excuse' to go find sex outside of marriage, when things in the marriage are difficult. That does nothing to enhance the relationship between a man and a woman.
[Prostitution] runs opposite to what relationships are supposed to be. Intimacy and love are not involved; it's just a purely physical act. It lowers both people to the lowest common denominator."


July 13, 2006 - Dave Quist
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Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States and interviewed as former Governor of California (Jan. 1967-Jan. 1975) at the time of the quotation, was quoted as having stated in the July 1975 Reason Magazine article "Inside Ronald Reagan":

"Prostitution has been listed as a nonvictim crime. Well, is anyone naive enough to believe that prostitution just depends on willing employees coming in and saying that's the occupation they want to practice? It doesn't.
...Talk to law enforcement people about the seamy side of how the recruiting is done, including what in an earlier day was called the white slave traffic - and you will find that the recruiting for prostitution is not one of just taking an ad in the paper and saying come be a prostitute and letting someone walk in willingly."



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[KelJu]

Bah, this thread is full of a whole lot of cut and paste with no original thought. People died before alcohol prohibition and people died after, but a tremendous amount of other illegal activity was created during the prohibition. Well prostitution isn't baking cookies. The lifestyle can be dangerous, but there are many areas that have proven conclusively that both clients and servers in the industry are safer when organized and regulated.

There are no direct victims in a prostitution deal. It is not a myth is is a fact. There are indirect victims, but smoking a cigarettes involve indirect victims, too. Putting gas in your car has indirect victims, so just toss that lame ass argument out the door please.

It is a slippery slope. It isn't until something that you do that indirectly affects Joe Blow is made illegal that you realize that people should be allowed to hurt themselves for the sake of liberty. This is all painfully aware to everyone here when we stop to consider what a huge fucking pain in the ass getting gear is.

 

[MDR]

Bah, this thread is full of a whole lot of cut and paste with no original thought. People died before alcohol prohibition and people died after, but a tremendous amount of other illegal activity was created during the prohibition. Well prostitution isn't baking cookies. The lifestyle can be dangerous, but there are many areas that have proven conclusively that both clients and servers in the industry are safer when organized and regulated.

There are no direct victims in a prostitution deal. It is not a myth is is a fact. There are indirect victims, but smoking a cigarettes involve indirect victims, too. Putting gas in your car has indirect victims, so just toss that lame ass argument out the door please.

It is a slippery slope. It isn't until something that you do that indirectly affects Joe Blow is made illegal that you realize that people should be allowed to hurt themselves for the sake of liberty. This is all painfully aware to everyone here when we stop to consider what a huge fucking pain in the ass getting gear is.

Of course there are direct victims in a prostitution "deal". I back up my arguments with the arguments of dozens of others, you just claim something to be a fact when it is obviously false. If you took the time to read what I posted, you would realize that legalization does not work, and it only serves to make things worse. Organization and regulation only serves to make the problem more widespread, and make human trafficking and indentured servitude more likely. We have laws in this country against rape and assault for a reason. Changing the name to prostitution does not change the reality of the situation. Talk about your argument having no original thought. Believe what you want to believe, but the legalization of prostitution does nothing to solve the variety of inherent problems that come with prostitution, legal or not.

 

[KelJu]

Of course there are direct victims in a prostitution "deal". I back up my arguments with the arguments of dozens of others, you just claim something to be a fact when it is obviously false. If you took the time to read what I posted, you would realize that legalization does not work, and it only serves to make things worse. Organization and regulation only serves to make the problem more widespread, and make human trafficking and indentured servitude more likely. We have laws in this country against rape and assault for a reason. Changing the name to prostitution does not change the reality of the situation. Talk about your argument having no original thought. Believe what you want to believe, but the legalization of prostitution does nothing to solve the variety of inherent problems that come with prostitution, legal or not.

Stop it, just for the love of god, stop it. There are no direct victims in a prostitution deal. End of discussion. It has nothing to do with belief, it is the definition of the act itself. There is no other way to explain this, so I can't help it if you can't see that. Two consenting adults agreeing to sexual relations for money is prostitution, and in that deal exist no direct victims.

A prostitute becomes a direct victim when they are assaulted, kidnapped, or raped. There are criminal laws against all of those situations which exist with or without prostitution. I know this to be a fact because if someone murders a prostitute, they charge that person with murder, not solicitation of prostitution.

Seriously, I could throw out a 100 analogies here. What part of direct victim don't you understand? The writer of that rhetoric you posted doesn't understand what a direct victim is either. Porn is legal, and is between two consenting adults for money. There is no difference except one is performed in front of a camera. Who is the direct victim? There isn't one.

If I go buy a 12-pack of Irish Red, am I a direct victim since I become an alcoholic and develop liver cirrhosis? If I later choose to drive, do the kids who kid plowed over become direct victims of alcohol? No. They are the victims of my poor decision making and I would be charged with man slaughter, not drinking alcohol.

 

[Muscle_Girl]

What percentage of prostitutes would you say are in the profession for the fun of it?

What percentage of prostitutes would you say have an orgasm while working?

What percentage of prostitutes would you say work while not intoxicated?

 

[MDR]

You stop. Prostitutes are victims. End of discussion. There can be no consent. Your argument is full of holes, and you complain about rhetoric yet spew nothing but. The prostitute has often been put into a position where there is no longer free choice. Try reading again. Maybe you can get someone else to explain the big words to you. Don't bother responding, because I'm done with this thread. I think on some level even you know that prostitution is far from a victimless crime.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), in the 1992 Female Juvenile Prostitution: Problem and Response stated:

"MYTH 2 - Prostitution is a victimless crime.

Prostitution creates a setting whereby crimes against men, women, and children become a commercial enterprise.... It is an assault when he/she forces a prostitute to engage in sadomasochistic sex scenes. When a pimp compels a prostitute to submit to sexual demands as a condition of employment, it is exploitation, sexual harassment, or rape -- acts that are based on the prostitute’s compliance rather than her consent. The fact that a pimp or customer gives money to a prostitute for submitting to these acts does not alter the fact that child sexual abuse, rape, and/or battery occurs; it merely redefines these crimes as prostitution."

1992 - National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)
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The Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of the Migrants and Itinerant People, in the June 20-21, 2006 "First International Meeting of Pastoral Care for the Liberation of Women of the Street," wrote:

"Who is the victim?

She is a human being, in many cases crying for help because selling her body on the street is not what she would choose to do voluntarily. She is torn apart, she is dead psychologically and spiritually. Each person has a different story, mainly one of violence, abuse, mistrust, low self esteem, fear, lack of opportunities. Each has experienced deep wounds that need to be healed."

June 20-21, 2006 - Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People
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Joseph Parker, Clinical Director of the Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation, wrote the Aug. 4, 1998 "How Prostitution Works," which stated:

"People who have had luckier lives, as well as those who profit from the sex industry in some way, frequently refer to prostitution and pornography as 'victim-less crimes'. They point to a tiny fraction of sex workers who actually might be involved by choice. They selectively read history to find some tiny minority, somewhere, at some time, who gained something in the sex business.

The very selectiveness of their attention indicates that, on some level, they know that for almost everyone, involvement in the sex industry is a terrible misfortune.

As many an old cop will say, 'Anyone who thinks prostitution is a victimless crime, hasn’t seen it up close.'"

Aug. 4, 1998 - Joseph Parker
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Andrew Arena, JD, Special Agent in Charge of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Detroit, was quoted in the Aug. 16, 2006 FBI press release "Halting Human Trafficking: 31 Arrests in Major Prostitution Ring" as having said:
"Illegal prostitution is not a victimless crime. The FBI is part of the apparatus in place to protect people, sometimes even from their own poor choices."

Aug. 16, 2006 - Andrew Arena, JD

 

[KelJu]

Stop posting that shit. Stop it. No, bad dog! You can't change the meaning of words and ideas to serve an argument. That sir, is rhetoric, and I shit on rhetoric. I can't help it that you and that author of that crap can't quite grasps words. Here is a short tutorial on the difference between crimes that directly or indirectly affect people.

Bob mugs Bill for his wallet and punches him in the face. Bill is now a direct victum of assault and theft. Sally is a prostitute in a bad neighborhood and provides sexual service to Bill. Sally is satisfied with the deal and goes off to buy crack from Jim. Bill is enabling Sally's habit and lifestyle by soliciting sex and therefor Sally is an indirect victim of Bill's vice. Sally is also an indirect victim of Jim's drug dealing. Bob also buys crack from Jim, Sally becomes an indirect victim of Jim's drug habit. Sally spent all of the money she made on crack, and now has none to give to Bob. Bob pimp slaps Sally and roughs her up. Sally is now a direct victim of Bob's assault.


Do you get it?

I don't disagree for a second that some hookers become victims. I don't disagree that it is a terrible existence for most. In many underdeveloped nations, it is a downright heartbreaking situation with kidnapped children being forced into a life of sexual slavery and women forced into the life against their will. But prostitution isn't the crime. Kidnapping is the crime. Assault is the crime. Rape is the crime.

Every vice on the planet has a massive fallout of indirect victims. Alcohol, tobacco, prescription medications, sex, religion, sports, love, bad food, relationships, ect ect ect. You know, all of the stuff that makes life worth living in the first place. Every vice has a massive fallout of indirect victims. You want to outlaw Catholicism because it lead to boatloads of kids getting fucked? How about banning steroids and OTC stimulants like caffeine and ephedra, because some dumb kid takes a bunch of dbol and No-Explode and his heart explodes on the football field. Next we might as well shutdown every fast food joint in America, because millions of fatass fucking kids will die of diabetes at an early age only after sucking every dime out of America's medical system trying to keep these fat fucks alive.

Tell me you understand what I am saying here.

When does it stop? This slippery slope of legislating laws based on the indirect consequences is going to lead to a government mandated nap time. I say no fucking way! I'll do what I want when I want. In the meantime, I am a pretty damn productive citizen. I work hard, and pay those shitty taxes. People like me in the working class are indirectly keeping this country going. What purpose does locking me up do? Paying for a blow job has relatively low consequences, but stopping someone's production, and then on top of it all, losing twice what their production was to house that person in jail while ruining their life in jail in the process is fucking retarded.