Poll: Should prostitution be legalized?

What happened to the poll!!???

The discussion was JUST getting started!

;)

hey, people, what do you think?

Yeah . . what are people's thoughts?

I voted for "after the feminist socialist revolution" though truthfully I think that legalizing prostitution is a step in that direction. so it's complicated.

I definitely think it should be decriminalized and made into a far less dangerous profession. Which I say for all versions of sex work. But I think we also have to examine how it is dictated by powers of gender (in that the woman is almost always the one being commodified, AND the one punished).

Basically it's a matter of sexual empowerment across the board, so different forms of sexualities and sexual acts can be expressed without fear, abuse, or castigation.

(ps fyi: i'm against child prostitution . .of course)

I live in Las Vegas... just outside of here,in Nye County, we have more than one legal brothel.. I personally think of it as just another profession, and probably still more moral than practicing law as of late.. yeah.. so,technically, prostitution helps my state economy.. it's funny how off Nevada is like that.. We have prostitution and drive-through marriage chapels... but more religious groups than most of the US...

oh, and RJ Reynolds is paying for my college education... Sin City?

However, I'm not fond of some of the ways Nevada is handling the legalized prostitution thing.

I'm not thrilled with it either.. but the state government has stopped listening to me. I've sent them numerous letters regarding various things, and made several phone calls. I'm surprised the senators haven't filed for restraining orders.

but, can't say I didn't try.

let's see.... if it's legal, then, as a legitimate business, its workers could be provided with much needed health insurance, birth control, protection against STDs (for both prostitute and client), better protection against violent crime, and so on.

I can't really see any disadvantage to legalising it, but many to keeping it illegal.

In spite of many years of wanting to believe that it can be just another career choice and be just as honourable or degrading as any other job (actually even now some retail jobs may actually have less status) prostitution is rarely an empowered or empowering choice. Its purely the exploitation of people who have an addiction problem.

However, I don't think that means we should punish the addicted person. The one taking advantage of the situation is the morally wrong person.

Well wait, what kind of addiction problem? Do you mean to drugs? Not all prostitutes are drug addicts. And not all prostitutes are sex addicts either. In fact, most women enter into the business as a way of survival. (And it's a sad world when a woman has to sell her body to survive. :gets off soapbox:) But other women choose to be sex workers - and in fact, I know women who say that if prostitution were legalized with protection and unionization, they would totally do it because they like sex, and it would be empowering.

>Well wait, what kind of addiction problem?<
Sorry I could have been more clear about that. Yes I meant drugs. You are right not all hookers are drug addicts. At the other extreme there are not many Julia Roberts types either.
>And it's a sad world when a woman has to sell her body to survive<
No arguement there, particularly if you are fairly flexible with the definition of survival (working at McDonalds could be said to be an alternative but I see it as slow death).
>But other women choose to be sex workers<
That was my point. I have looked at a lot of women who are sex workers hoping to see *real* choice. But I haven't. And I can't moralize that if some guy holds out some drugs in one hand and his cock in the other and says do one and get the other that that is a real choice situation. I think these women you speak of are looking for no strings attached love making, not what amounts to consensual rape which is what it often is when you have no idea what kind of jerk you are with.
But ya'know, I really have no objection to prostitution in theory, as long as being in the profession is free of physical and mental inducements and proper health and safety precautions are followed.

Not all choices have to be empowered or empowering, though, as long as they're still choices. It is, of course, wrong to force someone into prostitution, but why shouldn't it be an available option otherwise?

It is one job that can't be outsourced to the thirdworld!

sigh . .unfortunately, it can. There is child-trafficking and other sex work all over Asia and the caribbean.

(Sigh) I forgot about that. That is depressing to think about. Sometimes capitalism can really be evil...

Well empowering, in the sense of mking you feel good or better about yourself than you felt without a job, is more what a job should be about. Rather than just about the money, which is not a good empowerment on its own in the long term (witness the friends we both know who have left good paying jobs that sucked, and those who wish they could).
>It is, of course, wrong to force someone into prostitution<
The slippery slope is defining force, anytime one person is in the position to offer something another person needs desperately and uses that to gain an advantage (in this case sexual favours) I consider that force even though there is undeniably choice.
But as I said above, in theory I have no problem.

What I've never understood is that porn IS legal...... since it's basically prostitution. (Someone paid to have sex.)

If that's legal, why not just have prostitution be legal (and therefore safe/regulated) as well?

... i'm pretty sure that in canada, it's not the sellin fo sex that's illegal... it's the public solicitation of sex for money. oh, and also, brothels, so basically "in-calls" are also illegal.

if someone knows better, please correct me.