Originally Posted by Craig T (Post 8580338)

Where ever prostitution is legal, young women are exploited or even enslaved. If money can be made, heartless people will work the system. Thailand and Vietnam have legal prostitute and have a terrible sex slavery trade.

Originally Posted by MRM (Post 8580318)

When I was a prosecutor one of the student practice clinics specialized in defending prostitution cases. They had a phenomenal record of success. The professor who headed the program told me that the secret to their success was that they struck from the jury anyone who lived near the neighborhoods affected by prostitution. He said that to anyone who was not directly affected, prostitution is a complete non-issue but to anyone who lives close enough to it to be impacted it is their number one quality of life complaint.

I think that pretty much explains the attitudes toward prostitution. People who aren't close enough to see it don't think it's much of a problem and don't really understand why it's illegal. People who have seen behind the curtain consider it a scourge on humanity.

There are a lot of good reasons. I can go over a short list of some of the big reasons. Prostitution is rarely an arms-length transaction between consenting adults. There is almost always an element of compulsion on the prostitute's part. Healthy women do not repeatedly exchange sex for money with strangers. Almost all prostitutes were abused as children and almost all are either chemically dependent, mentally ill, or both. At some point all prostitution is controlled by some organized criminal gang, right down to the corner street walkers. Prostitution spreads disease and johns will pay extra to not use protection. By the nature of their transaction, whether legal or not, both prostitutes and johns are vulnerable to violence by the other. The secondary effects on neighborhoods are well known and prostitution leads to other crimes and property degradation. That doesn't even get into the whole human trafficking issue.

But as a practical matter, you can't run a massage parlor, outcall business, brothel, or even a streetwalker gang without human trafficking. You just don't have the numbers necessary to keep the business operating. That means that you have to kidnap, buy or drug and coerce enough people to staff your business and keep them from going somewhere else or escaping. Even the most benign looking bath house or massage parlor is staffed by prostitutes who were trafficked. That's how they get they and that's why they stay.

If prostitution was in practice an arms-length transaction between fully consenting adults with equal power, it would have more arguments in its favor. But it isn't.

Originally Posted by MRM (Post 8580318)

When I was a prosecutor one of the student practice clinics specialized in defending prostitution cases. They had a phenomenal record of success. The professor who headed the program told me that the secret to their success was that they struck from the jury anyone who lived near the neighborhoods affected by prostitution. He said that to anyone who was not directly affected, prostitution is a complete non-issue but to anyone who lives close enough to it to be impacted it is their number one quality of life complaint.

I think that pretty much explains the attitudes toward prostitution. People who aren't close enough to see it don't think it's much of a problem and don't really understand why it's illegal. People who have seen behind the curtain consider it a scourge on humanity.

There are a lot of good reasons. I can go over a short list of some of the big reasons. Prostitution is rarely an arms-length transaction between consenting adults. There is almost always an element of compulsion on the prostitute's part. Healthy women do not repeatedly exchange sex for money with strangers. Almost all prostitutes were abused as children and almost all are either chemically dependent, mentally ill, or both. At some point all prostitution is controlled by some organized criminal gang, right down to the corner street walkers. Prostitution spreads disease and johns will pay extra to not use protection. By the nature of their transaction, whether legal or not, both prostitutes and johns are vulnerable to violence by the other. The secondary effects on neighborhoods are well known and prostitution leads to other crimes and property degradation. That doesn't even get into the whole human trafficking issue.

But as a practical matter, you can't run a massage parlor, outcall business, brothel, or even a streetwalker gang without human trafficking. You just don't have the numbers necessary to keep the business operating. That means that you have to kidnap, buy or drug and coerce enough people to staff your business and keep them from going somewhere else or escaping. Even the most benign looking bath house or massage parlor is staffed by prostitutes who were trafficked. That's how they get they and that's why they stay.

If prostitution was in practice an arms-length transaction between fully consenting adults with equal power, it would have more arguments in its favor. But it isn't.

Originally Posted by Crowbob (Post 8580347)

To try to articulate one gross and overly-simplistic rationale: Price fixing. Because prostitution is the cheapest sex there is, it forces the cost downward. Sex has always been a negotiable commodity. You pay one way or the other in the long run. If prostitution were legalized, the stigma would evenutally evaporate, competition would increase and the economic value of sex would diminish.

I believe many womens' obsessions about their looks is directly due to their attempts to make their sex more valuable than someone else's. Legalizing prostitution would be devastating to gyneconomics. One rarely mentioned reason that more and more women are in the workforce is because sex is becoming cheaper and more available.

Feminism and the sexual revolution has pretty much back-fired on women. To counter this we see all kinds of artificial economic pressures such as the fictitious claims of gender wage disparity, affirmative action, unjust divorce law, etc.

Legalizing prostitution would be the nail in the coffin, so to speak.

In my opinion, I don't see women being happier now. They are beginning to work harder and longer are angrier and are dying sooner.

For men the issue would become even more one of why buy when you can rent?

Right about now, before flaming, please re-read the first sentence.

Originally Posted by 70SATMan (Post 8580324)

Really? None, NADA, no beer? Being serious cause I never realized we still had completely dry areas.

They must be sad places.:D

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera (Post 8580234)

It is legal in parts of Nevada. Or it was, I presume it still is.

I have never seen a hooker I would want to pay for anything at all except to maybe go somewhere else far away from my sight.

It is illegal only because the lawmakers deem it a horrible thing. Of course most people know it is the oldest profession with the possible exception of a politician.

That is really why it is illegal. Politicians don't want the competition.

Originally Posted by MRM (Post 8580318)

When I was a prosecutor one of the student practice clinics specialized in defending prostitution cases. They had a phenomenal record of success. The professor who headed the program told me that the secret to their success was that they struck from the jury anyone who lived near the neighborhoods affected by prostitution. He said that to anyone who was not directly affected, prostitution is a complete non-issue but to anyone who lives close enough to it to be impacted it is their number one quality of life complaint.

I think that pretty much explains the attitudes toward prostitution. People who aren't close enough to see it don't think it's much of a problem and don't really understand why it's illegal. People who have seen behind the curtain consider it a scourge on humanity.

There are a lot of good reasons. I can go over a short list of some of the big reasons. Prostitution is rarely an arms-length transaction between consenting adults. There is almost always an element of compulsion on the prostitute's part. Healthy women do not repeatedly exchange sex for money with strangers. Almost all prostitutes were abused as children and almost all are either chemically dependent, mentally ill, or both. At some point all prostitution is controlled by some organized criminal gang, right down to the corner street walkers. Prostitution spreads disease and johns will pay extra to not use protection. By the nature of their transaction, whether legal or not, both prostitutes and johns are vulnerable to violence by the other. The secondary effects on neighborhoods are well known and prostitution leads to other crimes and property degradation. That doesn't even get into the whole human trafficking issue.

But as a practical matter, you can't run a massage parlor, outcall business, brothel, or even a streetwalker gang without human trafficking. You just don't have the numbers necessary to keep the business operating. That means that you have to kidnap, buy or drug and coerce enough people to staff your business and keep them from going somewhere else or escaping. Even the most benign looking bath house or massage parlor is staffed by prostitutes who were trafficked. That's how they get they and that's why they stay.

If prostitution was in practice an arms-length transaction between fully consenting adults with equal power, it would have more arguments in its favor. But it isn't.

Originally Posted by flyenby (Post 8580974)

It is legal in the senate and the congress...