Prostitution

[ewx]

[Poll #1053551]

(NB for the last two questions - "results viewable to none" means "viewable to ewx", and of course in theory to LJ's operators.)

Comments

[saraphale.livejournal.com]

No options for hire purchase?

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Are you referring to marriage?

[arnhem.livejournal.com]

as the onion points out ... (http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30017)

[emperor]

I not convinced either is moral, but I don't think they should be illegal.

[saraphale.livejournal.com]

Hrm, I can't decide. The strongest issue for me is not the morality of the sex but rather the prevention of abuse, and which option would have most effect on limiting those cases of what's effectively slavery, physical and psychological abuse.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Likewise - but it seems clear enough to me that that sort of abuse is promoted largely by discouraging people who would be willing to do the job from doing it by virtue of its effective criminality.

[naath.livejournal.com]

That is an interesting point.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Also - dismissing the tiny sliver of technically legality, anyone working in the industry is _already_ doing something illegal. It's hard for them to protest illegality on the part of others.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Especially if they are technically an illegal immigrant.

[simont]

Indeed. I don't think there's anything immoral about selling or buying sex in principle, if it's a mutually consensual trade between two adults neither of whom is under any unreasonable coercion (economic or more direct). So the only real problem with prostitution is the possibility (that is, currently, the reality) of people doing it against their innermost will: being forced into it by exploitative pimp types, or resorting to it out of desperation because it's the only means for them to survive financially. In which case the solutions, in a naïve and ideal world, ought to be respectively to catch and punish the pimps and to make sure people have other viable means of making a living. (In the latter case, they could then still be prostitutes by choice if they really wanted to.)

So I think I've argued myself into the position that one certainly shouldn't punish the prostitutes themselves, and that punishing their customers is probably not the ideal way to solve the problem in principle. However, it might conceivably be that other approaches turn out to work less well in practice and hence criminalising the customers is the best approach in practice; I lack the detailed knowledge to decide whether this is true (although a column in the Grauniad today was arguing persuasively that it isn't).

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

In principle, that sounds right.

The only measures that have proven effective in terms of safety are those of toleration; the only measures that have ever achieved a reduction in visible activity (rather than displacement) are measures taken against the punters - 'naming and shaming' being a particularly effective case in point.

In practice, the enforcement of the law always ends up with the removal of all legal protection from the women selling sex and - eventually - active persection by the organs of the state. No matter how enlightened or tolernt or even-handed it is at the beginning.

[armb.livejournal.com]

I feel that in principle it ought to be legal, but reading recent reports of abuse, if making it illegal reduces the abuse it might be worthwhile. I suspect regulated legal brothels run as a cooperative by the workers would do as good a job of reducing abuse though.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

I don’t think it makes sense for prostitution to be legal from one side but not the other.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Selling> My body, my choice as to whether to sell it or not. Why *shouldn't* I be permitted to sell sex just as I am permitted to sell my code or my novel or my cleaning skills?

On the other hand if you are *buying* it might be the case that the person you are buying sex from was forced to sell it rather than opting to do so. And if we (society) take the view that *most* prostitutes were forced into it then we might say that if we take away the demand for prostitutes then the people doing the forcing might stop it because they would stop making money. I don't think it's inherently unethical to buy sex but I think it is inherently unethical to buy sex from someone who doesn't want to sell it - that is very like rape. I'm not convinced that making it illegal to buy sex would stop people trading in it though - so I don't think this is a very good law.

What I think we need is better regulation so the people doing the unethical forcing of women into prostitution get arrested and the women (it's mostly women) who have been forced into prostitution get help to put their lives back together.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

If, as a result of taking the view that prostitutes are forced into it, we criminalise everyone paying for sex as well as the pimps, then we criminalise those who pay for sex with someone who’s not been forced into it. I think that would be wrong.

And also counter-productive. We need to persuade men who use prostitutes to not use prostitutes who’ve been forced into it. Prosecuting men who pay for sex with women who’ve been forced into it, whilst leaving legal paying for sex with women who do it by choice, may be a way of doing this.

I was shocked to read that 100% of men who pay for sex wouldn’t be put off if the woman they’d paid for sex had been forced into it. (100%: Not a single buyer of sex in the poll sample said they’d be put off.)

[truecatachresis.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a horrifying statistic. Where was the survey taken, as I can imagine that there may be differing groups of clients with different opinions?

[mooism.livejournal.com]

It was mentioned at the end of a recent news article on the government’s proposal. I don’t know who carried out the survey, the sample size, whether it was carried out in a single location or across the country, any useful background information really :-\

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I have trouble believing the 100% figure; I'd at least expect some people to lie about it.

[armb.livejournal.com]

Why would anyone lie saying they wouldn't be put off when they would? The other way around I can understand. Or do you mean that a reported 100% figure must be wrong even if it's the true figure because even if none of them would be put off some would lie and pretend they would?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

The latter; I'd expect some people to hide the fact that they would not be put off.

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

I've heard different results (iirc that it's mostly but not totally the other way), I think there was something about it on this blog: http://www.wakingvixen.com/blog/ somewhere.

[the-local-echo.livejournal.com]

Legal but regulated for both parties, I think. Ie licensed brothels.
I'm not sure whether buying unlicensed sex should be an offence as well (selling would have to be, otherwise there would be no point having a licence). Potentially. Implement licensing first, and see how it works.

[lnr]

That's where my gut feeling lands too. I don't know how practical it could be though.

[gerald_duck]

I think buying and selling sex should be legal; I don't think it's immoral, and I don't think the practical problems would be solved by criminalising it.

On the other hand, I wouldn't buy or sell sex myself. (Well, I did once, for 1p. But that was for the sake of a purity test so probably doesn't count within the spirit of this poll.)

1p

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Indeed, that wasn't the kind of thing I was thinking of.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

There's nothing inherently immoral in either buying or selling sex; the problems - as many people here have pointed out - are exploitation, violence and oppressive laws.

I will add another point here: explicitly buying sex is a statement of failure - a man's admission that he is not intrinsically attractive - and the self-loathing, disgust and guilt that follows from this is always transferred to the paid partner. Hence the abusive and denigratory opinions that men have towards prostitutes.

Women, of course, have a different agenda: in a society where sex is 'sold' by entering into the lifelong contract of marriage - exclusivity, a house, joint-share of his worldly goods - prostitutes might be seen as selling it too damn' cheap. An older form of third-world competition, if you will, and a worrying threat to 'job security'.

The latter attitude might be dying out - at least, I hope so, as women are achieving economic independence - but the former never will.

[lnr]

As a woman who's currently the significantly higher earner in a partnership which isn't marriage but still involves exclusivity, sharing a house and sharing use of possessions I'm rather glad you added that last paragraph.

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

a society where sex is 'sold' by entering into the lifelong contract of marriage

Which society is that?

[arnhem.livejournal.com]

I think it is entirely broken (in a very worrying way) to assert that buying sex is necessarily a statement of failure; I'd entirely agree that in practice it seems likely that it quite often is, and that the consequence that you state always occurs, often does.

I'm also stunned by the extent to which people replying here (and commenting in newspapers linked to above) seem to have a hardwired notion that the sex trade (or even just the broken exploitive bits of it) necessarily involves men buying sexual favours from women.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

"Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?" --George Carlin

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

I've ticked that both should be legal, BUT... generally speaking, I think it's OK that someone should be expected to do any legal work they are capable of doing, rather than expect taxpayers to pay them to do nothing (i.e., I think choosing a job one likes is a luxury earned by working to have a choice of employment). I think doing sex is an exception to this general rule: I don't think someone should have to sell sex for economic reasons. Currently, criminalising buying sex is an attempt at ensuring this. I feel sure there must be a better way.

However, I don't know what it is. Trouble is, I can easily imagine someone being forced into job-they-hate-X because it's the only job they can find that they can do, and the fact that they can find it means that they can't have benefits. Suppose this person finds out that they could also decide to be a prostitute, and that they hate that marginally less than they hate X. It's not really very clear how this differs from forcing them into prostitution. There are certainly legal jobs such that I'd rather be a prostitute than do them (telesales, for example), but that doesn't imply that I'd choose prostitution given a "real" choice.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Regarding the first point I tried to find out if someone could have their JSA cut off if they didn't join the army (hypothetically), which was the first properly recognized job I could think of which might fall into a similar category. However I couldn't find anything making a statement either way...