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]

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.