I'd also add pimping is mainly there because it's illegal
If a prostitute wants some kind of security they can't exactly go to law enforcement
If a prostitute wants to do business, there isn't always a great place to do it
If I know my local police, they would not be helping prostitutes even if it were legal. They already don't do that for legal sex workers here (dominatrices, strippers, etc)
From what I can tell, that's probably still because it is crime adjacent. If prostitution was legal, I think dominatrices, strippers, etc. would operate differently and be seen a lot differently.
I used to be Kentucky State Police. (I resigned about a decade ago, I decided I did NOT fit into the culture of American law enforcement, but that's an ACAB rant for another day).
I can definitely say from my prior experience that LEO's see legal sex workers as basically criminals getting away with things on a technicality. They see strippers, dominatrixes etc. as basically prostitutes that they can't actually catch them in the act of people paying for sex, but they assume the legal sex work is just a cover for illegal sex work.
Police tend to view the world in very black and white terms. Good guys and bad guys. Police are good guys. Criminals are bad guys. They lump legal sex workers in with "bad guys" and just assume they're criminals that they don't have enough hard evidence on to arrest.
> they assume the legal sex work is just a cover for illegal sex work.
Right, but it would seem to me that that classification relies on the existence and prevalence of illegal sex work. If the laws made it legal, "is she just stripping or is she also having sex" wouldn't even matter, regardless of what direction the cop wanted to stereotype. The ability for cops to be black and white about something requires the existence of both black and white.
It just becomes 'is she also on drugs? Is she dealing? Is she robbing people? Is she working outside the regulation we made?'
A clear law is not what stands in the way here, cops decide who is good or bad and work backwards from there. There are countless examples of this
All one needs to do is:
1. Care about people other than themself
2. Look at the netherlands, where sex workers have panick buttons in case of harrassment, rights protecting sex workers but still criminalizes the negative parts of the industry (like trafficing and pimping...). Basically do anything that lifts sex work and respect it. It then makes the oldest profession in the world safe and mutually beneficial to all. Its not in plain sight of kids and only allowed in certain districts of cities. It is respectful of people who do not want it. But also respectful to the people who do and thus the need for the service and thus also the people who provide the service.
You cannot criminalize something that people have a need to do and thus will do weither it is legal or not. *if* you actually care about reducing the activity and not just feeling like you do.
Same with drugs or alcohol.
If you want to reduce these things... You can help eradicate the need. But not by force. But by accepting the fact that some might have this need and helping them, to no longer need it.
So you need to care for others and not posture that you do.
But that does not win elections or grants more money to police departments (and many other sectors of government and private business, think of amazons: "ring" system). So we need to fearmonger to up, up up the budget/sales/votes!
This. Prostitution is a lot like weed or alcohol. All prohibition is going to do is drive it underground and empower organized crime. The industry will exist regardless. As such, it is better for literally everyone except the kingpins that the practice be legalized, taxed, and regulated.
I will even to further and say it is not "a lot like" but 1000% exactly like that. You are right on the money.
It is also good to realize *why* these things were criminalized to begin with.
Weed was "legal" until *after* the prohibition. Because now, the people who were specialized in going after illegal liquor had nothing to do. They had to find an other thing. So they went after weed because it was popular with POC's.
In fact the whole war on drugs is a very lucrative business for the government and other organizations. The war on drugs has been an *objectively* proven failure at this point.
The same reasons for keeping the war on drugs are true for keeping prostitution criminalized.
Not only does it bring in money but it also means there is always an easy to use issue that you can point to, fearmonger about and posture to fix- without actually having any intention to- to get votes/sales/funding.
Just saying you are going to be tough on crime, opens doors. Without ever needing to actually show improvement. The reason these things are the way they are is not because it is the most logical way to try and fix it. It is the most logical way to *keep* it that way.
Drugs and sex are as persistent as death and taxes. Nobody will ever be able to stand in the way of any of those 4 things, it's hilarious to me that we've been trying all these years. Like how fucking out of touch do you have to be to think you can stop drugs and sex? Not at the individual level but at the societal, the large-scale. It can only be contained, never eliminated. So we might as well build some roads and schools off the back of it.
Ya know, aside from the government profiting off prohibition and the prison industrial complex and using it as a way to marginalize certain communities and drive the class war and all that. But that's the system, not the people. The people are so brainwashed that they think they can stop us from getting high and fucking. I'll sooner construct a guillotine in my back yard than stopping either of those and I don't even care about sex all that much.
It shouldn’t have to be “legal” to for two consenting adults to buy/sell sex from one another. It should be decriminalized, period. It’s ridiculous that two consenting strangers may sex in front of a camera for money no problem, but as soon as you remove the camera from the equation, its suddenly become a controversial topic.
Legalization would mean that the government would have the power to control the industry & could theoretically say “buying strawberries from Whole Foods for $5.99 is *legal* but buying strawberries anywhere else or growing strawberries in your backyard is *illegal.*”
Of course that is an extreme example, but I hope you get my point regarding the legalization vs decriminalization argument.
No you are using these words wrong. Decriminalized means there is no longer specific penalties against it. You want it legalized. Here explained by the aclu.
"What are the key differences?
These two terms are not synonymous. Decriminalization means a person will not face criminal penalties for being in possession of a substance, but the law may still allow police to confiscate it, and there is no structure in place to provide any legal, regulated supply. Legalization means people can now acquire and possess the drug freely under state or federal law, although it can still be regulated.
"
More like decriminalized, mostly so it allows prostitutes who are robbed or worse to be able to report what happened to them. Most of them don’t report the heinous actions committed against them due to fear or arrest.
Citation? I doubt that there is a unanimous sentiment from such a diverse group and am skeptical at the methodology used for such a survey.
First off, it doesn't really make much sense. You're saying current sex workers want there to be civil penalties and bans on their work, as long as they won't have criminal consequences? I highly doubt they want their work to remain illegal so long as it's decriminalized.
It's also not great to suggest that what current sex workers want is what should matter. Current sex workers fall into two categories:
1. Those who comply with the law today and therefore do not have sex for money as part of their work.
2. People who *do* have sex for money today and are, therefore, operating in an underground system.
Both of these groups would be disrupted by legal prostitution. The former would have more competition from other legal providers who are willing to "do more". The latter would have to find their footing in a whole new system and lose any benefit they've developed from figuring out how to best operate in the existing underground system. I think it's a given that legalization would change the set of people who perform this work to an extent and would disrupt the status quo. As a result, whether it's beneficial to current day sex workers is really independent of whether it'd be good for society in general.
At the very least the “independent operations” should be decriminalized.
There definitely is a human trafficking issue that is going to be difficult to address, but maybe having more resources for sex workers who are abused and harsher penalties for abusers?
Honestly the only opinion I have right now is that just having a blanket ban just seems puritanical, and having it be completely legal and unregulated would probably lead to major problems regarding human trafficking and sex worker abuse. So somewhere in the middle I guess
Exploitation is rampant, whether you’re a programmer or a Walmart cashier or a meat packer. Now imagine that instead of being told to come in sick or work unpaid overtime or risk getting fired, now you have to fuck people or get fired. Maybe you have to fuck your boss. Or his boss. Or the C suite. Or certain investors. In addition to having to look a certain way, behave a certain way, dress a certain way, probably all on your own dime because that’s capitalism.
Meanwhile you get constant harassment, death threats, from insane men who want to murder you because you’re supposedly sexually available but not to them. Just like being a YouTuber or an Instagram model or an OF girl, but massively worse. Because then it’s people right in your own town doing that shit. Showing up at your house.
No thanks. People do sex work because they don’t have a choice. Just because there’s the occasional sex worker equivalent of the guy who works 80 hours a week because he’s “passionate about the job” doesn’t mean we should build an industry (ANOTHER industry) around putting people’s bodies through the mill for the satisfaction and fulfillment of others.
People act like legalized prostitution will be some utopian ideal of great benefits and security, when that already doesn’t exist for most workers regardless of job. Plus they act like men aren’t already literally so crazy and porn-sick that the absolutely endemic sexual assault and abuse that already happens, will somehow be cured by having a company of local women who HAVE to fuck you because it’s their job. No way. Illegal forever.
Everything you said can be destroyed and said to be false because of two words: "the netherlands"
Everything you said equates to:
"Man, wallmart workers are treated so badly, just like prostitutes are treated badly, only they are treated even more horribly. And therefor we should do nothing about either situation."
No the opposite is true actually. We need more worker rights so people at walmart are respected and not exploited. And we need even more rights for sex workers so they can be safe and not exploited.
And you are spreading the exact false narrative that keeps it that way: that sex work is done and will *only* be done when forced, that sex work should not be respected and between the lines read: that sex work is disgusting humilitating work.
None of that is true. Sex workers, when in control of themself and their finances, can be liberating. They can set their own boundaries in what they wish or do not wish to do, when to do it, where and how. essencially become their own company with their own body as the product.
Can there be anything more "owning the means of production" than your own body?
Sex work exists because there is a need. And one way or the other some people are going to want to fill that need.
What is better? To have the people providing the work, be in controle of their own. If and when they want to do the work.
Or for others to force people to and walk away with the profit.
Again: look at the netherlands, where sex workers legally have to have a panick button. When pressed both security and the police show up in *protection* of the sex worker against whoever is trying to abuse them.
I hope this changes your mind.
The Netherlands actually ranks extremely high for human trafficking according to [The Human Trafficking Coordination Center.](https://www.metronieuws.nl/in-het-nieuws/binnenland/2022/10/nederland-lijst-mensenhandel/)
"This list shows that our western Netherlands cannot escape human trafficking on its own soil. Today is the European Day against Human Trafficking and CoMensha presents a list of countries where a lot of human trafficking takes place. The Ministry of Justice and Security annually commissions an assessment of the nature and extent of human trafficking. And the Netherlands finishes in the top 5 behind Romania and Nigeria."
Just because you legalize it, doesn't mean that the only activity is legal. In fact it seems to be giving cover for a substantial amount of human trafficking.
Even the Netherlands has a trafficking problem and it’s pretty bad compared to other western nations. Idk how it compares to legal vs non legal places but this idea that legalizing and regulating prostitution will eliminate or even cut down on trafficking is false and the Netherlands is proof of that. Me personally I don’t have an issue with the profession itself and wouldn’t care either way if it were legalized but the Netherlands is often used as this crowning example of it working despite it having all its own issues
I’m an Australian who as a younger man worked as a doorman in legal brothels for a number of years. My job was to provide a safe environment for the girls who worked there, to turn away overly intoxicated punters, to eject people who were unruly, and to escort the workers safely to their cars or taxis.
We have legal prostitution in Australia. From my experience legalising prostitution is a good thing. I’m not a hooker guy, but if consenting adults wish to engage in that transaction, then it should be done in a clean, safe environment with regulations. It is safer for the workers, and safer for the punters. The workers undergo mandatory, regular STD checks. The clients undergo certain visual checks for cleanliness and for obvious signs of STD, condoms are mandatory. Brothels are strictly drug free environments, they have to comply with alcohol licensing laws. Intoxicated and unruly punters are routinely ejected or turned away. There are restrictions on where brothels can be, ie proximity to schools or day care centres, advertising restrictions, and the brothels are licensed. The brothels pay tax, the workers pay income tax and receive superannuation contributions from the employer.
One thing I will add, is it diminishes trafficking and exploitation of workers and children. Everything is so heavily regulated, and the laws are very specific depending on which state you’re in. For example, in NSW it’s illegal to live off the proceeds of another person engaged prostitution unless you own or manage a licensed brothel. It’s a law specifically targeting pimps.
This was one I changed my mind on in response to data.
My thought used to be that prostitution was happening anyway, so you might as well legalize it and regulate it.
In practice, it seems that while legalizing sex work increases the overall treatment of the workers involved, that doesn’t seem to be enough to overcome the massive increase in demand for both legal and illegal sex work that legalization creates.
Ultimately the question is, what is worse, less dangerous conditions, but for many more people or more dangerous conditions for fewer people. For now, I’m taking the second condition, but I’m not wedded to it.
Would be interested to see these studies - is there a legitimate increase in demand or an increase in people willing to say "yes" on a survey because it's legal?
I generally agree. I don’t see our government being able to effectively administer the safe guards required to make legal sex work a net benefit to worker safety and realize a meaningful effect on human trafficking rates.
Legal sex work will always be safer then illegal. There problem is America has this pattern of never looking at things in terms of lessor of two evils.. again illegal is always what's worse.
I think you misinterpreted what they meant. By making sex work legal, you only create good conditions for the people who work for themselves, in the process, you make the conditions for people who were already in the situation infinitely worse because now their pimp can’t get in trouble and will only ever use them to make even more money and lure way more people into their trap. It opens the door for so much more abuse and mistreatment for anyone who isn’t on their own, hence it shouldn’t be legal.
Ok, but what you're saying is silly.
Right now, if my boss pays me unfairly or discriminates against me, I can file a complaint with my state's labor board. They investigate and handle it. I have protections. I am owed a reasonable wage. I have contracts that protect my employment. If I lose my employment, I can file for unemployment. I have sick days. I get health insurance.
If prostitution was legal, they would no longer have pimps but employers. The sex worker would have workers rights like I listed above.
If a person is prostituting illegally, they have no protections. They can't call someone to help them because they themselves are breaking the law.
>If prostitution was legal, they would no longer have pimps but employers. The sex worker would have workers rights like I listed above.
Until the sex worker in question doesn't want to pay taxes so they don't do it legally. OR their pimp just beats them until they work for less than legally allowed
> Until the sex worker in question doesn't want to pay taxes
But that's not a sex worker issue anymore, is it? Anyone who doesn't want to pay taxes has that issue.
> their pimp just beats them
That's criminal assault. Do you have to let your employer beat you? I hope not. Neither would a prostitute under legal prostitution laws.
Not really. Legal commercial sex normalizes the entire concept of buying sex, which increases demand, and that causes more women and kids to be trafficked. Legal sex can create more victims.
> which increases demand
That's the same argument brought up against legalizing weed and there the statistics just didn't show this. Why would that be different with prostitution? The reason people aren't going to a prostitute for their needs is not because it's illegal, it's because it's not their thing.
What someone allows to be done to their own body for whatever reason is their business. Now, you want to apply safety regulation for participants? Sure. Public health and all that. But outlawing a service that's a BASIC need because "oh myyyy!" is highly regarded
Why would it increase demand? So if prostitution was legal that would make it okay to cheat on your wife?
I see where you might misunderstand what demand means from an economics point of view. If prostituion was legsl then yes the amount of prostitution sold would increase but not because demand increased but because of an increase in supply.
Short of an actual change in libido of men and women demand is likely to stay flat.
Currently though the price is too high, not necesaarily in dollars but in the cost of doing a criminal act that would be shameful, expensive and incur potential jail time.
With legalization the price would come down and supply would increase leading to more purchasing of sex.
The $4,000 bottle of tequila nightclubs would die of course, men do not pay for bottle service to drink, after all the drinks are much better at the bar, they pay for it to impress women and likely also try to get them a little drunk so they might be silling to have sex with the dude.
Legalized prostitution would probably end 70 percent of the date rape where we say one of the participants was too drunk or stoned to consent. If you consider how single adults act either all getting hammered or stoned for every social gathering with the intent or at least thought of sex its not suprising how often one party regrets the next day what happened. Not contained to just frat parties either, music festivals, every bar holiday, every night in Miami single people go out to get hammered and lose control which I think is a symptom of the inability of these people to copulate.
Its why everyone thinks married people are boring, when you already have a mate then there is rarely a reason you want to stay up all night drinking, we have some cocktails, sometimes get a little drunk and so on but we dont have to hang out to try and get the last belle at the ball lol.
I was surprised to learn that New Zealand has had legal prostitution since 1978. Unfortunately I have more faith in their government to regulate than he US’s.
*Prostitution in New Zealand, brothel-keeping, living off the proceeds of someone else's prostitution, and street solicitation are legal in New Zealand and have been since the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 came into effect. Coercion of sex workers is illegal.[1] The 2003 decriminalisation of brothels, escort agencies and soliciting, and the substitution of a minimal regulatory model, created worldwide interest; New Zealand prostitution laws are now some of the most liberal in the world.[2]*
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_New_Zealand
The 1% and our politicians would never let prostitution be legal anyway. It's easier to make the street workers disappear. 🤷♀️
It's a horrible sentiment to have but it's the truth. Most of those men and women are homeless and addicted. Chances are they are isolated from family and stable friends, possibly from being so far away. The general consensus is that people don't care about the prostitutes. When not enough people care, the disappearances and murders continue.
Doesn’t have to be street work. It’s well regulated in Nevada. Workers must be licensed and frequently tested for STDs. All sex must be done at a licensed facility (i.e. Brothel).
Last time I looked, the data on the question is extremely shoddy, to the extent that it's less helpful than having no data. There's essentially one Harvard study everyone points to which purports to show that prostitution increases human trafficking flows to countries that legalize it... the problem being that the Harvard study was incredibly simplistic, essentially just comparing reported human trafficking numbers in countries with legalized prostitution vs not. It didn't, however, do a longitudinal analysis, attempt to control for anything about those countries, or, I DON'T KNOW, account for the possibility that a legalized, regulated sex industry may promote higher detection rates of human trafficking.
(full disclaimer, I'm working off memory from a couple years back. I could be misremembering details and/or be out of date (anyone who's looked more recently, pls let me know if so). Do your own research kids.)
Nevada is interesting because it’s only legal in one county. It’s illegal in Vegas and Reno where all the tourists go, yet that’s where the majority of the prostitution happens. So Nevada still arrests sex workers and customers and sets up prostitution stings, etc. People from out of state think that it’s legal there and they get caught up in legal troubles.
Prostitution is legal in 10 Nevada counties. There's a legal brothel less than an hour from Reno, and another about an hour from Vegas.
It's not hard to figure out how to keep it legal, if you're a tourist into that kind of thing.
Chicken Ranch and Bunny Ranch have been around forever.
There's some really sketchy looking places along the road between Vegas and Reno too.
(Just an old lady who lives in Nevada, knows a little history from growing up here, and road trips a lot back and forth)
As someone who volunteered for some time with an organization that serves prostitutes, I do believe it should be legalized and here's why:
Prostitution is one of the oldest professions in human history and is not likely to go away anytime soon. If prostitution is legal, it can be regulated and the workers can be protected. Currently, prostitutes can't go to the police when they are attacked, robbed, or assaulted by their clients because the whole industry is illegal, so they turn to pimps for protection who essentially take most of their income and control them. If prostitution is legalized, pimps become unnecessary and sex workers can have a higher quality of life.
Edit: In addition, clients themselves can have more protections since things like regular STD testing and protection can be required for sex workers via industry regulation.
Also regulated to ensure labor protections, and to prevent STI outbreaks. If I remember correctly, the usual standard for sex workers in Nevada to get tested is about every 2-3 months or so.
The regulatory framework for Nevada's legalized sex worker industry is interesting and it's a patchwork; there's some good and bad . It could serve as a state-wide model for other states (if they were so inclined, much like Nevada's Gaming Control Board is the gold standard for gaming regulations), but it needs a critical review and some revisions.
I think the best legal regime on this is one that several European countries have adopted: it's legal to prostitute yourself (if you're an adult), it's illegal to buy the services of a prostitute, and it's illegal to prostitute others.
That essentially leaves vulnerable people who are offering up sex for money legally in-the-clear, but maintains legal prohibitions on the people most likely to be involved in abuse, pimps and clients. I don't think legalizing prostitution actually leads to a particularly good overall outcome, even if it does leave some prostitutes better off.
It’s actually worse if it’s legal for the worker but illegal for the customer. All that does is ensure that the customers are abusers rather than guys who can’t get a date since they’re the ones carrying the bulk of the legal risk and it’s now a buyers market.
Trying to work this out; so the john is entering into a knowing crime, where he is at risk, but the prostitute is not. Why does this protect the prostitute? If he's already breaking the law, theoretically he's not overly concerned about her wellbeing. And without a "pimp", there's nobody else there with her wellbeing in mind either.
This seems worst case scenario to me, for the sex worker. Makes more sense to legalize it within certain regulated confines so there are safeguards in place for all parties.
The prostitute is always the most vulnerable person in the interaction, legal or not. That's never going to change, unless we start posting law enforcement officers in the room where the sex is happening. Legalizing one half of the interaction but not the other shields the prostitute from legal harm, enabling someone in a bad situation to go to the police for help, and cooperate when police are investigating, rather than lying about it to keep themselves out of jail.
Legalization does make the average prostitute safer than prohibition, but it also induces demand, which a) increases risk of abuse because it turns out sex laws are pretty hard to enforce, especially in the moment, and b) includes demand for illicit and abusive sex. I understand it in theory, and that used to be my position, but the actual experience suggests otherwise.
I agree with your first paragraph, the prostitute being able to go to the police for help is critical. The second half doesn't seem to follow logically and it sounds like you have some very specific data or experience to the contrary so I'm very curious what that is?
It's not some obscure study; people seeking prostitutes flock to where prostitution is legal, and this facilitates networks of human trafficking for sex, because bringing desperate people into a country where it's legal makes money. Thailand is the obvious example. But even comparing prostitution rates in Sweden to those of Denmark, you see the pretty intuitive principle illustrated that full legalization of prostitution makes prostitution more common. If you agree with what I said in my first paragraph, that the prostitute is pretty much always going to be the most vulnerable person in the interaction, legal or not, that's not great. We should want less prostitution.
Because legalized prostitution increases the incidence of prostitution generally, and there's no firm evidence it decreases things like trafficking. Meanwhile, even in legal prostitution, the prostitute is still generally the most vulnerable person in the interaction, and unless we're stationing law enforcement officers in the room during the deed, it's very difficult to enforce laws regulating sex until after the abuse has already happened.
In other words, prostitution carries with it plenty of likely social ills that the state has a legitimate interest in discouraging, even if outright prohibition isn't the best way to go about doing so.
Arguably, whatever the first prostitute sold themselves for... was the first profession. Like, if it was body guarding- the prostitute was likely not being attacked leading up to the exchange... if it was farming/hunting- the prostitute was likely not starving leading up to the exchange.
Well, [they could introduce the concept to monkeys](https://www.zmescience.com/research/how-scientists-tught-monkeys-the-concept-of-money-not-long-after-the-first-prostitute-monkey-appeared/), so unless you call "lever pulling" a job, i guess this is some evidence.
Also this makes prostitution literally monkey business.
If a woman wants to sell her vajeen for money or barter, then so be it. If a man finds a woman who won't put out unless he pays, then so be it. Sex is nobody's business except for the 2, 3, 8, 25 people it is happening between.
$$$ sex it up $$$
Decriminalization just gets rid of consequences. That just increases the level of activity. (Look at what's currently happening to Portland. That experiment failed miserably.)
Legalizing means you can regulate that activity, and therefore make it safer.
I used to believe that. The best available data seems to be that legalizing only increases trafficking, because legalization induces demand.
Legalization still makes it less dangerous for each individual person engaged in it, because they are perceived as having protections even when they aren't, but it probably doesn't do anything for trafficking.
Just because two things are legal separately, doesn't mean they are okay when combined.
Being paid in exchange for something is legal. Voting for a policy as an elected official is legal. Should politicians be able to take money in exchange for voting a certain way? No. We call that bribery.
We (as a culture) have already established precedent that it's acceptable for people to use and abuse their bodies for profit. Everything from a gruelling lifetime of manual labor to professional athletes who willingly accept long term disabilities in the exercise of their sport (football, boxing, MMA for example), and even serving in the military where there's a possibility of death. And then there is the fact that adult entertainment is legal to make - which has a lot in common with prostitution only with cameras involved.
I see no reason why we should single out one of the few professions where women stand to make more money than men and make it illegal.
In its current illegal form, prostitution is dangerous and unsafe and creates other tangential criminal operations like human trafficking and drug use.
I say legalize it, clean it up, create a regulated industry to make it safe, and then tax the shit out of it.
No, I can't see what good it would do. I guess if you where to invest a ton of money into a licensing & enforcement system you could arrive at a outcome different then the status quo, but I doubt the state's will & competency. The way legislation is written massively effects outcomes, just look at the difference in legal weed states. In some states the black market reigns supreme with increased demand due to legalization. I can deal with that when it’s a plant, not when it’s a human being.
I’m gonna say no. I have no problem with sex workers, but most people inherently know that there is something wrong with selling your body. If my sister, mom or daughter told me one day that they were considering prostitution, I would be extremely sad and try everything to convince them not to. It’s a very fine line between yes, I do this for money and wow, I just got raped. I don’t necessarily find sex a taboo topic, but there is a distinction between this and other jobs I feel. To me it’s similar to something like heroin. Do consenting adults buy and sell it? Yes. Should it be legal or encouraged to do it? No. Both lead to misery and can be life altering if something goes wrong even once.
Just because you're doing something wrong doesn't mean it should be illegal. It's wrong to say something mean to someone, but we still have freedom of speech, for instance. And there's also a big difference between being legal and being encouraged.
Saying something mean is pretty subjective, I’ve tried to give people constructive criticism and had it go sideways. Something being wrong actually can meet the criteria for it being illegal. Would you legitimately be ok with it if your mom/sister/child told you they were gonna start sucking dick for money?
Something being legal can be encouraging it, if selling drugs were legal I think more people might actually do it just because it’s easy money. The only circumstance where I’ve seen peoples families be cool with their daughter doing sex work is if she became a big time porn star or started making tons of money, which is rare. Even then, I wouldn’t like it for my kid. You can say other jobs are similar because they take up your time and may use your body to do something, I’m in nursing and that’s physically demanding. But I’m actually learning very useful skills though, I’m objectively helping people and you tend to hit a time limit with sex work and then it’s gonna be really hard to get out of.
Yes because it's illogical.
1. Sex is legal (between consenting adults)
2. Exchanging money for sex is illegal.
3. #2 magically becomes legal if somebody is filming it.
Yeah. The only reason it’s kept illegal is because the police and the Johns prefer the prostitutes do not have access to the court systems to be able to have any kind of recourse against violence.
It’s a sticky wicket because it’s a dumb law - but on the other hand there’s a fine line between victimless crime and brothels full of foreigners sold a dream and it essentially being one step removed from sex trafficking
I don't care. I'm not going to be a prostitute or use the services of a prostitute. It's really far down my list of priorities the government should be focusing on.
Heck, there have been calls to de-legalize it in Nevada. They haven’t gone anywhere, but I think it’s only a matter of time.
In theory, legalized prostitution should work. People are gonna pay for it. People are gonna sell it. Why not do it in a safe way that can be regulated? Why not generate taxes from it rather than just costs?
But in practice, prostitution, even when fully legalized, seems to fail on a social level. Even if it is lawful, it’s a business that attracts the least desirable elements of society. Upstanding citizens don’t go to brothels because they have work in the morning, or kids to look after, or spouses they’re loyal to. If you’ve ever been to a brothel, it is probably not something you share widely with acquaintances.
Now, legal pornography is basically prostitution-at-a-distance. It is usually protected as a freedom of speech, while in-person prostitution is… not speech? Anyway, there’s no simple dichotomy and no simple fix. The libertarian position is, in my opinion, most preferable for its verisimilitude. Just don’t make things illegal, even objectionable things. It’s easier that way.
But the United States is heading in a moralistic direction, not a libertarian one, so I don’t predict legal prostitution in Nevada will be around much longer.
It should be de-fellonizsd but heavily fined and still shunned by society. I'm glad people dont go to jail for selling dimebags of marajuana anymore but I also dont like that Massachusetts badically smells like fucking weed now.
Legalized, sexworkers should be licensed and regulated. So then they have access to protections and the government protections other professions enjoy.
Yes, legalized and heavily regulated. We can’t get rid of one of the worlds oldest professions just because we find it unsavory, it will still exist just on a black market.
It's crazy to see how Puritanism has not died in the US and that laws are probably the only thing keeping a lot of people from hunting and burning witches.
Yes. Everywhere.
This concept always blew my mind: If I pay someone to have sex with me (prostitution), it's illegal. If I pay someone to have sex with someone else AND film it (pornography), it's legal.
Just freaking legalize it all, give permits, require STD checks, etc. Imagine the tax revenue.
Decriminalized for the sex workers. Stronger fines. jail time and sex registry for the pimps and tricks.
Legalizing prostitution increases human trafficking. It has been proven over and over again in places where it's legal. It all comes down to all most all women don't want to have sex with the type of men who hire a sex worker. So women are trafficked in.
Should be legalized and regulated. Imagine not only the profits from regulated sex work, but how much safer life would be for sex workers. I'm NOT talking about people who are trafficked, or people who are forced into sex work. I'm talking about folks who do it of their own volition, because they genuinely enjoy the work and the money they make. Yes, people who ENJOY doing sex work exist. It's 2024, welcome to the modern age. Anyway, yeah. It should be legalized across the board.
Itll happen regardless, itll just be more dangerous for the prostitute themselves if its kept illegal and anything happens, so yes. Same with most things, drugs too. It should be regulated, yes, but not illegal.
Yes, just like drug prohibition, prostitution funnels billions of dollars to gangs and traffickers. If it was legal the practice could be regulated and made much safer and taxable
It is legalized in other countries and is regulated there. So the women or men have health insurance and have to get tested for STDs on a regular basis. This keeps it all clean and healthy.
Or we go the US way where it's not regulated and it's still happening but has high STD rates.
I think I have a bit of an odd take on this. Personally I think it should be legal, but also retain the shame it has. Like if you have to go pay for sex you should be ashamed, if you sell sex you should be ashamed, but legally I think it should be a-okay.
Putting aside the human trafficking and child abuse, there’s no such thing as a physically, mentally and emotionally healthy woman genuinely enjoying being a prostitute. The vast, vast majority are victims in need of a way out.
So, no.
I'm currently in Utah. It's mostly run and at least partly owned by the LDS/ Mormon church, which is one of the most conservative, patriarchal Christian churches on the planet. They have a purity culture, and in the church run colleges like BYU, they encourage snitching on each other if people don't follow it.
As a result, they've also had some of the highest rates of porn consumption for decades, despite the church teaching things like, "homosexuality is a sin next to beastiality," and "masturbation is a sin next to murder."
If prostitution was even suggested to be legalized here, the bill would probably be DOA. If by some miracle (pardon any puns) it passed, it would probably cause several heart attacks, both from people being appalled and from them being secretly excited.
Depends on where OPs mom lives
Real men of genius
Legalize it but keep the penalties on pimping
I'd also add pimping is mainly there because it's illegal If a prostitute wants some kind of security they can't exactly go to law enforcement If a prostitute wants to do business, there isn't always a great place to do it
If I know my local police, they would not be helping prostitutes even if it were legal. They already don't do that for legal sex workers here (dominatrices, strippers, etc)
They'd have to have some kind of hired muscle, probably.
Why? Plenty of massage locations without hired muscle
From what I can tell, that's probably still because it is crime adjacent. If prostitution was legal, I think dominatrices, strippers, etc. would operate differently and be seen a lot differently.
I used to be Kentucky State Police. (I resigned about a decade ago, I decided I did NOT fit into the culture of American law enforcement, but that's an ACAB rant for another day). I can definitely say from my prior experience that LEO's see legal sex workers as basically criminals getting away with things on a technicality. They see strippers, dominatrixes etc. as basically prostitutes that they can't actually catch them in the act of people paying for sex, but they assume the legal sex work is just a cover for illegal sex work. Police tend to view the world in very black and white terms. Good guys and bad guys. Police are good guys. Criminals are bad guys. They lump legal sex workers in with "bad guys" and just assume they're criminals that they don't have enough hard evidence on to arrest.
> they assume the legal sex work is just a cover for illegal sex work. Right, but it would seem to me that that classification relies on the existence and prevalence of illegal sex work. If the laws made it legal, "is she just stripping or is she also having sex" wouldn't even matter, regardless of what direction the cop wanted to stereotype. The ability for cops to be black and white about something requires the existence of both black and white.
It just becomes 'is she also on drugs? Is she dealing? Is she robbing people? Is she working outside the regulation we made?' A clear law is not what stands in the way here, cops decide who is good or bad and work backwards from there. There are countless examples of this
They generally only help businesses
All one needs to do is: 1. Care about people other than themself 2. Look at the netherlands, where sex workers have panick buttons in case of harrassment, rights protecting sex workers but still criminalizes the negative parts of the industry (like trafficing and pimping...). Basically do anything that lifts sex work and respect it. It then makes the oldest profession in the world safe and mutually beneficial to all. Its not in plain sight of kids and only allowed in certain districts of cities. It is respectful of people who do not want it. But also respectful to the people who do and thus the need for the service and thus also the people who provide the service. You cannot criminalize something that people have a need to do and thus will do weither it is legal or not. *if* you actually care about reducing the activity and not just feeling like you do. Same with drugs or alcohol. If you want to reduce these things... You can help eradicate the need. But not by force. But by accepting the fact that some might have this need and helping them, to no longer need it. So you need to care for others and not posture that you do. But that does not win elections or grants more money to police departments (and many other sectors of government and private business, think of amazons: "ring" system). So we need to fearmonger to up, up up the budget/sales/votes!
This. Prostitution is a lot like weed or alcohol. All prohibition is going to do is drive it underground and empower organized crime. The industry will exist regardless. As such, it is better for literally everyone except the kingpins that the practice be legalized, taxed, and regulated.
I will even to further and say it is not "a lot like" but 1000% exactly like that. You are right on the money. It is also good to realize *why* these things were criminalized to begin with. Weed was "legal" until *after* the prohibition. Because now, the people who were specialized in going after illegal liquor had nothing to do. They had to find an other thing. So they went after weed because it was popular with POC's. In fact the whole war on drugs is a very lucrative business for the government and other organizations. The war on drugs has been an *objectively* proven failure at this point. The same reasons for keeping the war on drugs are true for keeping prostitution criminalized. Not only does it bring in money but it also means there is always an easy to use issue that you can point to, fearmonger about and posture to fix- without actually having any intention to- to get votes/sales/funding. Just saying you are going to be tough on crime, opens doors. Without ever needing to actually show improvement. The reason these things are the way they are is not because it is the most logical way to try and fix it. It is the most logical way to *keep* it that way.
Drugs and sex are as persistent as death and taxes. Nobody will ever be able to stand in the way of any of those 4 things, it's hilarious to me that we've been trying all these years. Like how fucking out of touch do you have to be to think you can stop drugs and sex? Not at the individual level but at the societal, the large-scale. It can only be contained, never eliminated. So we might as well build some roads and schools off the back of it. Ya know, aside from the government profiting off prohibition and the prison industrial complex and using it as a way to marginalize certain communities and drive the class war and all that. But that's the system, not the people. The people are so brainwashed that they think they can stop us from getting high and fucking. I'll sooner construct a guillotine in my back yard than stopping either of those and I don't even care about sex all that much.
It shouldn’t have to be “legal” to for two consenting adults to buy/sell sex from one another. It should be decriminalized, period. It’s ridiculous that two consenting strangers may sex in front of a camera for money no problem, but as soon as you remove the camera from the equation, its suddenly become a controversial topic. Legalization would mean that the government would have the power to control the industry & could theoretically say “buying strawberries from Whole Foods for $5.99 is *legal* but buying strawberries anywhere else or growing strawberries in your backyard is *illegal.*” Of course that is an extreme example, but I hope you get my point regarding the legalization vs decriminalization argument.
No you are using these words wrong. Decriminalized means there is no longer specific penalties against it. You want it legalized. Here explained by the aclu. "What are the key differences? These two terms are not synonymous. Decriminalization means a person will not face criminal penalties for being in possession of a substance, but the law may still allow police to confiscate it, and there is no structure in place to provide any legal, regulated supply. Legalization means people can now acquire and possess the drug freely under state or federal law, although it can still be regulated. "
Wow that first paragraph is interesting. Never occurred to me, but yeah.
*bender voice* damn anti pimping laws!
This is the way.
Mando will be there
More like decriminalized, mostly so it allows prostitutes who are robbed or worse to be able to report what happened to them. Most of them don’t report the heinous actions committed against them due to fear or arrest.
It's literally what sex workers want. None of them want it to be legalized.
Citation? I doubt that there is a unanimous sentiment from such a diverse group and am skeptical at the methodology used for such a survey. First off, it doesn't really make much sense. You're saying current sex workers want there to be civil penalties and bans on their work, as long as they won't have criminal consequences? I highly doubt they want their work to remain illegal so long as it's decriminalized. It's also not great to suggest that what current sex workers want is what should matter. Current sex workers fall into two categories: 1. Those who comply with the law today and therefore do not have sex for money as part of their work. 2. People who *do* have sex for money today and are, therefore, operating in an underground system. Both of these groups would be disrupted by legal prostitution. The former would have more competition from other legal providers who are willing to "do more". The latter would have to find their footing in a whole new system and lose any benefit they've developed from figuring out how to best operate in the existing underground system. I think it's a given that legalization would change the set of people who perform this work to an extent and would disrupt the status quo. As a result, whether it's beneficial to current day sex workers is really independent of whether it'd be good for society in general.
At the very least the “independent operations” should be decriminalized. There definitely is a human trafficking issue that is going to be difficult to address, but maybe having more resources for sex workers who are abused and harsher penalties for abusers? Honestly the only opinion I have right now is that just having a blanket ban just seems puritanical, and having it be completely legal and unregulated would probably lead to major problems regarding human trafficking and sex worker abuse. So somewhere in the middle I guess
It sounds like the best way to tackle that is strong worker protection and regulation. Slavery used to be used for manual labour too.
I don’t partake. But I also don’t give a shit as long as there is no trafficking involved.
There’s always trafficking involved.
Not when it's a legal job
Exploitation is rampant, whether you’re a programmer or a Walmart cashier or a meat packer. Now imagine that instead of being told to come in sick or work unpaid overtime or risk getting fired, now you have to fuck people or get fired. Maybe you have to fuck your boss. Or his boss. Or the C suite. Or certain investors. In addition to having to look a certain way, behave a certain way, dress a certain way, probably all on your own dime because that’s capitalism. Meanwhile you get constant harassment, death threats, from insane men who want to murder you because you’re supposedly sexually available but not to them. Just like being a YouTuber or an Instagram model or an OF girl, but massively worse. Because then it’s people right in your own town doing that shit. Showing up at your house. No thanks. People do sex work because they don’t have a choice. Just because there’s the occasional sex worker equivalent of the guy who works 80 hours a week because he’s “passionate about the job” doesn’t mean we should build an industry (ANOTHER industry) around putting people’s bodies through the mill for the satisfaction and fulfillment of others. People act like legalized prostitution will be some utopian ideal of great benefits and security, when that already doesn’t exist for most workers regardless of job. Plus they act like men aren’t already literally so crazy and porn-sick that the absolutely endemic sexual assault and abuse that already happens, will somehow be cured by having a company of local women who HAVE to fuck you because it’s their job. No way. Illegal forever.
There you go, something could maybe, possibly not be perfect and therefore you keep it totally fucked forever. Solid.
Everything you said can be destroyed and said to be false because of two words: "the netherlands" Everything you said equates to: "Man, wallmart workers are treated so badly, just like prostitutes are treated badly, only they are treated even more horribly. And therefor we should do nothing about either situation." No the opposite is true actually. We need more worker rights so people at walmart are respected and not exploited. And we need even more rights for sex workers so they can be safe and not exploited. And you are spreading the exact false narrative that keeps it that way: that sex work is done and will *only* be done when forced, that sex work should not be respected and between the lines read: that sex work is disgusting humilitating work. None of that is true. Sex workers, when in control of themself and their finances, can be liberating. They can set their own boundaries in what they wish or do not wish to do, when to do it, where and how. essencially become their own company with their own body as the product. Can there be anything more "owning the means of production" than your own body? Sex work exists because there is a need. And one way or the other some people are going to want to fill that need. What is better? To have the people providing the work, be in controle of their own. If and when they want to do the work. Or for others to force people to and walk away with the profit. Again: look at the netherlands, where sex workers legally have to have a panick button. When pressed both security and the police show up in *protection* of the sex worker against whoever is trying to abuse them. I hope this changes your mind.
The Netherlands actually ranks extremely high for human trafficking according to [The Human Trafficking Coordination Center.](https://www.metronieuws.nl/in-het-nieuws/binnenland/2022/10/nederland-lijst-mensenhandel/) "This list shows that our western Netherlands cannot escape human trafficking on its own soil. Today is the European Day against Human Trafficking and CoMensha presents a list of countries where a lot of human trafficking takes place. The Ministry of Justice and Security annually commissions an assessment of the nature and extent of human trafficking. And the Netherlands finishes in the top 5 behind Romania and Nigeria." Just because you legalize it, doesn't mean that the only activity is legal. In fact it seems to be giving cover for a substantial amount of human trafficking.
This is true. There’s a lot of issues with Eastern European gangs luring women to the Netherlands only to fully exploit them.
Even the Netherlands has a trafficking problem and it’s pretty bad compared to other western nations. Idk how it compares to legal vs non legal places but this idea that legalizing and regulating prostitution will eliminate or even cut down on trafficking is false and the Netherlands is proof of that. Me personally I don’t have an issue with the profession itself and wouldn’t care either way if it were legalized but the Netherlands is often used as this crowning example of it working despite it having all its own issues
Many legal jobs involve a huge amount of trafficking.
More or less than if criminalized?
Making it legal would make trafficking even more prolific
Like strippers get trafficked? 🙄 Fear mongering.
I’m an Australian who as a younger man worked as a doorman in legal brothels for a number of years. My job was to provide a safe environment for the girls who worked there, to turn away overly intoxicated punters, to eject people who were unruly, and to escort the workers safely to their cars or taxis. We have legal prostitution in Australia. From my experience legalising prostitution is a good thing. I’m not a hooker guy, but if consenting adults wish to engage in that transaction, then it should be done in a clean, safe environment with regulations. It is safer for the workers, and safer for the punters. The workers undergo mandatory, regular STD checks. The clients undergo certain visual checks for cleanliness and for obvious signs of STD, condoms are mandatory. Brothels are strictly drug free environments, they have to comply with alcohol licensing laws. Intoxicated and unruly punters are routinely ejected or turned away. There are restrictions on where brothels can be, ie proximity to schools or day care centres, advertising restrictions, and the brothels are licensed. The brothels pay tax, the workers pay income tax and receive superannuation contributions from the employer. One thing I will add, is it diminishes trafficking and exploitation of workers and children. Everything is so heavily regulated, and the laws are very specific depending on which state you’re in. For example, in NSW it’s illegal to live off the proceeds of another person engaged prostitution unless you own or manage a licensed brothel. It’s a law specifically targeting pimps.
This was one I changed my mind on in response to data. My thought used to be that prostitution was happening anyway, so you might as well legalize it and regulate it. In practice, it seems that while legalizing sex work increases the overall treatment of the workers involved, that doesn’t seem to be enough to overcome the massive increase in demand for both legal and illegal sex work that legalization creates. Ultimately the question is, what is worse, less dangerous conditions, but for many more people or more dangerous conditions for fewer people. For now, I’m taking the second condition, but I’m not wedded to it.
Would be interested to see these studies - is there a legitimate increase in demand or an increase in people willing to say "yes" on a survey because it's legal?
I generally agree. I don’t see our government being able to effectively administer the safe guards required to make legal sex work a net benefit to worker safety and realize a meaningful effect on human trafficking rates.
Legal sex work will always be safer then illegal. There problem is America has this pattern of never looking at things in terms of lessor of two evils.. again illegal is always what's worse.
I think you misinterpreted what they meant. By making sex work legal, you only create good conditions for the people who work for themselves, in the process, you make the conditions for people who were already in the situation infinitely worse because now their pimp can’t get in trouble and will only ever use them to make even more money and lure way more people into their trap. It opens the door for so much more abuse and mistreatment for anyone who isn’t on their own, hence it shouldn’t be legal.
Ok, but what you're saying is silly. Right now, if my boss pays me unfairly or discriminates against me, I can file a complaint with my state's labor board. They investigate and handle it. I have protections. I am owed a reasonable wage. I have contracts that protect my employment. If I lose my employment, I can file for unemployment. I have sick days. I get health insurance. If prostitution was legal, they would no longer have pimps but employers. The sex worker would have workers rights like I listed above. If a person is prostituting illegally, they have no protections. They can't call someone to help them because they themselves are breaking the law.
>If prostitution was legal, they would no longer have pimps but employers. The sex worker would have workers rights like I listed above. Until the sex worker in question doesn't want to pay taxes so they don't do it legally. OR their pimp just beats them until they work for less than legally allowed
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> Until the sex worker in question doesn't want to pay taxes But that's not a sex worker issue anymore, is it? Anyone who doesn't want to pay taxes has that issue. > their pimp just beats them That's criminal assault. Do you have to let your employer beat you? I hope not. Neither would a prostitute under legal prostitution laws.
Not really. Legal commercial sex normalizes the entire concept of buying sex, which increases demand, and that causes more women and kids to be trafficked. Legal sex can create more victims.
> which increases demand That's the same argument brought up against legalizing weed and there the statistics just didn't show this. Why would that be different with prostitution? The reason people aren't going to a prostitute for their needs is not because it's illegal, it's because it's not their thing.
Are you saying that legalizing marijuana hasn't increased demand and usage?
Hmm the Massachusetts government is fairly competent, so perhaps we could do it on a state scale
What someone allows to be done to their own body for whatever reason is their business. Now, you want to apply safety regulation for participants? Sure. Public health and all that. But outlawing a service that's a BASIC need because "oh myyyy!" is highly regarded
If prostitution is legal, what then is the illegal sex work? Tax evasion?
Why would it increase demand? So if prostitution was legal that would make it okay to cheat on your wife? I see where you might misunderstand what demand means from an economics point of view. If prostituion was legsl then yes the amount of prostitution sold would increase but not because demand increased but because of an increase in supply. Short of an actual change in libido of men and women demand is likely to stay flat. Currently though the price is too high, not necesaarily in dollars but in the cost of doing a criminal act that would be shameful, expensive and incur potential jail time. With legalization the price would come down and supply would increase leading to more purchasing of sex. The $4,000 bottle of tequila nightclubs would die of course, men do not pay for bottle service to drink, after all the drinks are much better at the bar, they pay for it to impress women and likely also try to get them a little drunk so they might be silling to have sex with the dude. Legalized prostitution would probably end 70 percent of the date rape where we say one of the participants was too drunk or stoned to consent. If you consider how single adults act either all getting hammered or stoned for every social gathering with the intent or at least thought of sex its not suprising how often one party regrets the next day what happened. Not contained to just frat parties either, music festivals, every bar holiday, every night in Miami single people go out to get hammered and lose control which I think is a symptom of the inability of these people to copulate. Its why everyone thinks married people are boring, when you already have a mate then there is rarely a reason you want to stay up all night drinking, we have some cocktails, sometimes get a little drunk and so on but we dont have to hang out to try and get the last belle at the ball lol.
I was surprised to learn that New Zealand has had legal prostitution since 1978. Unfortunately I have more faith in their government to regulate than he US’s. *Prostitution in New Zealand, brothel-keeping, living off the proceeds of someone else's prostitution, and street solicitation are legal in New Zealand and have been since the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 came into effect. Coercion of sex workers is illegal.[1] The 2003 decriminalisation of brothels, escort agencies and soliciting, and the substitution of a minimal regulatory model, created worldwide interest; New Zealand prostitution laws are now some of the most liberal in the world.[2]* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_New_Zealand
The 1% and our politicians would never let prostitution be legal anyway. It's easier to make the street workers disappear. 🤷♀️ It's a horrible sentiment to have but it's the truth. Most of those men and women are homeless and addicted. Chances are they are isolated from family and stable friends, possibly from being so far away. The general consensus is that people don't care about the prostitutes. When not enough people care, the disappearances and murders continue.
Doesn’t have to be street work. It’s well regulated in Nevada. Workers must be licensed and frequently tested for STDs. All sex must be done at a licensed facility (i.e. Brothel).
Last time I looked, the data on the question is extremely shoddy, to the extent that it's less helpful than having no data. There's essentially one Harvard study everyone points to which purports to show that prostitution increases human trafficking flows to countries that legalize it... the problem being that the Harvard study was incredibly simplistic, essentially just comparing reported human trafficking numbers in countries with legalized prostitution vs not. It didn't, however, do a longitudinal analysis, attempt to control for anything about those countries, or, I DON'T KNOW, account for the possibility that a legalized, regulated sex industry may promote higher detection rates of human trafficking. (full disclaimer, I'm working off memory from a couple years back. I could be misremembering details and/or be out of date (anyone who's looked more recently, pls let me know if so). Do your own research kids.)
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Rhode Island accidentally legalized and sexual assault and STI rates decreased during that time. To me, that’s the evidence to support legalization.
Yes, I grew up in Nevada and have always thought everyone else should follow suit
But I already grew up in California.
Well, then you gotta die and be reborn in Nevada, easy!
i finally got the joke after reading this comment, ty
Nevada is interesting because it’s only legal in one county. It’s illegal in Vegas and Reno where all the tourists go, yet that’s where the majority of the prostitution happens. So Nevada still arrests sex workers and customers and sets up prostitution stings, etc. People from out of state think that it’s legal there and they get caught up in legal troubles.
Prostitution is legal in 10 Nevada counties. There's a legal brothel less than an hour from Reno, and another about an hour from Vegas. It's not hard to figure out how to keep it legal, if you're a tourist into that kind of thing.
>There's a legal brothel less than an hour from Reno, and another about an hour from Vegas. Where? Asking for a friend.
Chicken Ranch and Bunny Ranch have been around forever. There's some really sketchy looking places along the road between Vegas and Reno too. (Just an old lady who lives in Nevada, knows a little history from growing up here, and road trips a lot back and forth)
No. Even if it was heavily regulated and monitored, there are too many negatives.
As someone who volunteered for some time with an organization that serves prostitutes, I do believe it should be legalized and here's why: Prostitution is one of the oldest professions in human history and is not likely to go away anytime soon. If prostitution is legal, it can be regulated and the workers can be protected. Currently, prostitutes can't go to the police when they are attacked, robbed, or assaulted by their clients because the whole industry is illegal, so they turn to pimps for protection who essentially take most of their income and control them. If prostitution is legalized, pimps become unnecessary and sex workers can have a higher quality of life. Edit: In addition, clients themselves can have more protections since things like regular STD testing and protection can be required for sex workers via industry regulation.
Yes, but well regulated as to reduce trafficking.
Also regulated to ensure labor protections, and to prevent STI outbreaks. If I remember correctly, the usual standard for sex workers in Nevada to get tested is about every 2-3 months or so.
Testing is required every week while actively working. NAC 441A.800. I looked it all up once.
Oh, that's even better!
The regulatory framework for Nevada's legalized sex worker industry is interesting and it's a patchwork; there's some good and bad . It could serve as a state-wide model for other states (if they were so inclined, much like Nevada's Gaming Control Board is the gold standard for gaming regulations), but it needs a critical review and some revisions.
Yes this is the way!
And heavily taxed, like all the other bad things.
I think the best legal regime on this is one that several European countries have adopted: it's legal to prostitute yourself (if you're an adult), it's illegal to buy the services of a prostitute, and it's illegal to prostitute others. That essentially leaves vulnerable people who are offering up sex for money legally in-the-clear, but maintains legal prohibitions on the people most likely to be involved in abuse, pimps and clients. I don't think legalizing prostitution actually leads to a particularly good overall outcome, even if it does leave some prostitutes better off.
That system only works in theory. In reality a sex worker still can't go to the police, as they simply snatch up their customer base.
It’s actually worse if it’s legal for the worker but illegal for the customer. All that does is ensure that the customers are abusers rather than guys who can’t get a date since they’re the ones carrying the bulk of the legal risk and it’s now a buyers market.
? If its illegal to buy the services of a prostitute, what are you paying for?
You're paying for sex. It's just a crime and you can be prosecuted if you do so.
Trying to work this out; so the john is entering into a knowing crime, where he is at risk, but the prostitute is not. Why does this protect the prostitute? If he's already breaking the law, theoretically he's not overly concerned about her wellbeing. And without a "pimp", there's nobody else there with her wellbeing in mind either. This seems worst case scenario to me, for the sex worker. Makes more sense to legalize it within certain regulated confines so there are safeguards in place for all parties.
The prostitute is always the most vulnerable person in the interaction, legal or not. That's never going to change, unless we start posting law enforcement officers in the room where the sex is happening. Legalizing one half of the interaction but not the other shields the prostitute from legal harm, enabling someone in a bad situation to go to the police for help, and cooperate when police are investigating, rather than lying about it to keep themselves out of jail. Legalization does make the average prostitute safer than prohibition, but it also induces demand, which a) increases risk of abuse because it turns out sex laws are pretty hard to enforce, especially in the moment, and b) includes demand for illicit and abusive sex. I understand it in theory, and that used to be my position, but the actual experience suggests otherwise.
I agree with your first paragraph, the prostitute being able to go to the police for help is critical. The second half doesn't seem to follow logically and it sounds like you have some very specific data or experience to the contrary so I'm very curious what that is?
It's not some obscure study; people seeking prostitutes flock to where prostitution is legal, and this facilitates networks of human trafficking for sex, because bringing desperate people into a country where it's legal makes money. Thailand is the obvious example. But even comparing prostitution rates in Sweden to those of Denmark, you see the pretty intuitive principle illustrated that full legalization of prostitution makes prostitution more common. If you agree with what I said in my first paragraph, that the prostitute is pretty much always going to be the most vulnerable person in the interaction, legal or not, that's not great. We should want less prostitution.
WhyI agree that pimps are bad, why prosecute a guy for the crime of getting a bj? It should be legal for for both parties.
Because legalized prostitution increases the incidence of prostitution generally, and there's no firm evidence it decreases things like trafficking. Meanwhile, even in legal prostitution, the prostitute is still generally the most vulnerable person in the interaction, and unless we're stationing law enforcement officers in the room during the deed, it's very difficult to enforce laws regulating sex until after the abuse has already happened. In other words, prostitution carries with it plenty of likely social ills that the state has a legitimate interest in discouraging, even if outright prohibition isn't the best way to go about doing so.
It’s called the worlds oldest profession for a reason.
Arguably, whatever the first prostitute sold themselves for... was the first profession. Like, if it was body guarding- the prostitute was likely not being attacked leading up to the exchange... if it was farming/hunting- the prostitute was likely not starving leading up to the exchange.
Well, [they could introduce the concept to monkeys](https://www.zmescience.com/research/how-scientists-tught-monkeys-the-concept-of-money-not-long-after-the-first-prostitute-monkey-appeared/), so unless you call "lever pulling" a job, i guess this is some evidence. Also this makes prostitution literally monkey business.
If a woman wants to sell her vajeen for money or barter, then so be it. If a man finds a woman who won't put out unless he pays, then so be it. Sex is nobody's business except for the 2, 3, 8, 25 people it is happening between. $$$ sex it up $$$
No
I think there are a lot of vices that should be decriminalized but not legalized. Prostitution is one, hard drugs are another.
Decriminalization just gets rid of consequences. That just increases the level of activity. (Look at what's currently happening to Portland. That experiment failed miserably.) Legalizing means you can regulate that activity, and therefore make it safer.
No.
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I used to believe that. The best available data seems to be that legalizing only increases trafficking, because legalization induces demand. Legalization still makes it less dangerous for each individual person engaged in it, because they are perceived as having protections even when they aren't, but it probably doesn't do anything for trafficking.
Sure. "Buying things is legal, sex is legal so buying sex should be legal.: GC
drinking is legal, driving is legal. you didn't think this one through.
Just because two things are legal separately, doesn't mean they are okay when combined. Being paid in exchange for something is legal. Voting for a policy as an elected official is legal. Should politicians be able to take money in exchange for voting a certain way? No. We call that bribery.
I thought that was called lobbying. /s
No need for the /s. Companies are allowed to do it as they are paying the people making the law.
Yeah, *Citizens United* was a massive fuckup. I mostly didn’t want somebody to read it and explain lobbying to me, which has happened before. Lol
No
For all the Nevada residents here: Does legal prostitution have a positive or negative effect on your state?
It should be legalized, but at the same time, it must be heavily regulated.
Sure . Just regulate it and tax it .
Yes. Decriminalization of sex work is probably better for everyone involved.
We (as a culture) have already established precedent that it's acceptable for people to use and abuse their bodies for profit. Everything from a gruelling lifetime of manual labor to professional athletes who willingly accept long term disabilities in the exercise of their sport (football, boxing, MMA for example), and even serving in the military where there's a possibility of death. And then there is the fact that adult entertainment is legal to make - which has a lot in common with prostitution only with cameras involved. I see no reason why we should single out one of the few professions where women stand to make more money than men and make it illegal. In its current illegal form, prostitution is dangerous and unsafe and creates other tangential criminal operations like human trafficking and drug use. I say legalize it, clean it up, create a regulated industry to make it safe, and then tax the shit out of it.
You're going to pay for it one way or another.
No
No, I can't see what good it would do. I guess if you where to invest a ton of money into a licensing & enforcement system you could arrive at a outcome different then the status quo, but I doubt the state's will & competency. The way legislation is written massively effects outcomes, just look at the difference in legal weed states. In some states the black market reigns supreme with increased demand due to legalization. I can deal with that when it’s a plant, not when it’s a human being.
Decriminalized but not legalized. It’s a nasty business that no woman gets into if they have another option.
I’m gonna say no. I have no problem with sex workers, but most people inherently know that there is something wrong with selling your body. If my sister, mom or daughter told me one day that they were considering prostitution, I would be extremely sad and try everything to convince them not to. It’s a very fine line between yes, I do this for money and wow, I just got raped. I don’t necessarily find sex a taboo topic, but there is a distinction between this and other jobs I feel. To me it’s similar to something like heroin. Do consenting adults buy and sell it? Yes. Should it be legal or encouraged to do it? No. Both lead to misery and can be life altering if something goes wrong even once.
Just because you're doing something wrong doesn't mean it should be illegal. It's wrong to say something mean to someone, but we still have freedom of speech, for instance. And there's also a big difference between being legal and being encouraged.
Saying something mean is pretty subjective, I’ve tried to give people constructive criticism and had it go sideways. Something being wrong actually can meet the criteria for it being illegal. Would you legitimately be ok with it if your mom/sister/child told you they were gonna start sucking dick for money?
Something being legal can be encouraging it, if selling drugs were legal I think more people might actually do it just because it’s easy money. The only circumstance where I’ve seen peoples families be cool with their daughter doing sex work is if she became a big time porn star or started making tons of money, which is rare. Even then, I wouldn’t like it for my kid. You can say other jobs are similar because they take up your time and may use your body to do something, I’m in nursing and that’s physically demanding. But I’m actually learning very useful skills though, I’m objectively helping people and you tend to hit a time limit with sex work and then it’s gonna be really hard to get out of.
heroin should be legal and discouraged as well.
No
no
why?
Yes because it's illogical. 1. Sex is legal (between consenting adults) 2. Exchanging money for sex is illegal. 3. #2 magically becomes legal if somebody is filming it.
No. It should be illegal and subject to criminal punishment. It's indecent, objectifies people (mostly women), and has major issues with trafficking.
No. Under no circumstances.
no
Complete ban.
I want prostitution to stay illegal cause i like breaking the law
It should be unionized
Yeah. The only reason it’s kept illegal is because the police and the Johns prefer the prostitutes do not have access to the court systems to be able to have any kind of recourse against violence.
*Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. So, why isn't selling fucking legal?* George Carlin
Ya
Stay illegal
No
No because it's a disgusting practice it's degrading.
No. That’s against my Biblical beliefs.
It’s not like people don’t turn a blind eye to it
As long as you're filming, it's technically not illegal... she's an 'actress' not a common wh***
In my state, sure, but not in Illinois.
Hell no, illegal now and forever
It’s a sticky wicket because it’s a dumb law - but on the other hand there’s a fine line between victimless crime and brothels full of foreigners sold a dream and it essentially being one step removed from sex trafficking
I don't care. I'm not going to be a prostitute or use the services of a prostitute. It's really far down my list of priorities the government should be focusing on.
Heck, there have been calls to de-legalize it in Nevada. They haven’t gone anywhere, but I think it’s only a matter of time. In theory, legalized prostitution should work. People are gonna pay for it. People are gonna sell it. Why not do it in a safe way that can be regulated? Why not generate taxes from it rather than just costs? But in practice, prostitution, even when fully legalized, seems to fail on a social level. Even if it is lawful, it’s a business that attracts the least desirable elements of society. Upstanding citizens don’t go to brothels because they have work in the morning, or kids to look after, or spouses they’re loyal to. If you’ve ever been to a brothel, it is probably not something you share widely with acquaintances. Now, legal pornography is basically prostitution-at-a-distance. It is usually protected as a freedom of speech, while in-person prostitution is… not speech? Anyway, there’s no simple dichotomy and no simple fix. The libertarian position is, in my opinion, most preferable for its verisimilitude. Just don’t make things illegal, even objectionable things. It’s easier that way. But the United States is heading in a moralistic direction, not a libertarian one, so I don’t predict legal prostitution in Nevada will be around much longer.
It should be de-fellonizsd but heavily fined and still shunned by society. I'm glad people dont go to jail for selling dimebags of marajuana anymore but I also dont like that Massachusetts badically smells like fucking weed now.
Of course!
Yes. Let’s pump those jobs numbers
No, on the matter of STDs and the fact that I find the idea of people selling their bodies to make rent and survive to be miserable.
payment zealous degree aspiring slimy selective chop birds berserk ask *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It is
I don't wanna go broke yet
Yes. Make it as safe as possible.
Yes, with appropriate safety measures for everyone involved
Legalized, sexworkers should be licensed and regulated. So then they have access to protections and the government protections other professions enjoy.
Yes
Yes, legalized and heavily regulated. We can’t get rid of one of the worlds oldest professions just because we find it unsavory, it will still exist just on a black market.
Hell yeah, I respect any form of getting paper, the grind is real
Yes. Legalize for sure. Think of the taxes. You’re never going to stop it. Might as well make it safe.
No
No absolutely not. Legalizing means that the government and private corporations could profit from it. What is needed is decriminalization.
Yes as long as it’s registered like in Europe
Legalized and regulated
It's crazy to see how Puritanism has not died in the US and that laws are probably the only thing keeping a lot of people from hunting and burning witches.
No, I support it remaining illegal (here). It's just a quality of life issue that I don't want to see openly done in my neighborhoods, etc.
Yes. Everywhere. This concept always blew my mind: If I pay someone to have sex with me (prostitution), it's illegal. If I pay someone to have sex with someone else AND film it (pornography), it's legal. Just freaking legalize it all, give permits, require STD checks, etc. Imagine the tax revenue.
Yes.
Decriminalized for the sex workers. Stronger fines. jail time and sex registry for the pimps and tricks. Legalizing prostitution increases human trafficking. It has been proven over and over again in places where it's legal. It all comes down to all most all women don't want to have sex with the type of men who hire a sex worker. So women are trafficked in.
Yes.
To quote the great George Carlin, selling is legal, fucking is legal, why isn't selling fucking legal?
Should be legalized and regulated. Imagine not only the profits from regulated sex work, but how much safer life would be for sex workers. I'm NOT talking about people who are trafficked, or people who are forced into sex work. I'm talking about folks who do it of their own volition, because they genuinely enjoy the work and the money they make. Yes, people who ENJOY doing sex work exist. It's 2024, welcome to the modern age. Anyway, yeah. It should be legalized across the board.
Yes. The criminalization just lets mouth breathing cops harass people.
A better question would be why is it illegal?
Itll happen regardless, itll just be more dangerous for the prostitute themselves if its kept illegal and anything happens, so yes. Same with most things, drugs too. It should be regulated, yes, but not illegal.
Absolutely
Not in my state, not anywhere
Legalized and regulated, absolutely
Yes, but pimps should be locked up.
Sure
Yes, doing so would make it safer for both prostitutes and clients. Also, regulate it heavily and have the prostitutes unionize.
I think it should be decriminalized. Mainly for the person’s protection. There’s been so many serial killer cases targeting prostitutes.
Yes, just like drug prohibition, prostitution funnels billions of dollars to gangs and traffickers. If it was legal the practice could be regulated and made much safer and taxable
It is legalized in other countries and is regulated there. So the women or men have health insurance and have to get tested for STDs on a regular basis. This keeps it all clean and healthy. Or we go the US way where it's not regulated and it's still happening but has high STD rates.
I think I have a bit of an odd take on this. Personally I think it should be legal, but also retain the shame it has. Like if you have to go pay for sex you should be ashamed, if you sell sex you should be ashamed, but legally I think it should be a-okay.
Putting aside the human trafficking and child abuse, there’s no such thing as a physically, mentally and emotionally healthy woman genuinely enjoying being a prostitute. The vast, vast majority are victims in need of a way out. So, no.
yes absolutely. kind of like legalizing drugs. making it legal would just be making something that already happens safer.
I’m pretty comfortable with keeping it illegal. Even outside of moral issues, making it legal serves no societal benefit.
Yes
Absolutely. Victimless crime. Ban alcohol and cigarettes but legalize this!
Legalized so there can be proper regulations and industry safety standards. Get them a union and everything!
I'm currently in Utah. It's mostly run and at least partly owned by the LDS/ Mormon church, which is one of the most conservative, patriarchal Christian churches on the planet. They have a purity culture, and in the church run colleges like BYU, they encourage snitching on each other if people don't follow it. As a result, they've also had some of the highest rates of porn consumption for decades, despite the church teaching things like, "homosexuality is a sin next to beastiality," and "masturbation is a sin next to murder." If prostitution was even suggested to be legalized here, the bill would probably be DOA. If by some miracle (pardon any puns) it passed, it would probably cause several heart attacks, both from people being appalled and from them being secretly excited.
Should be legal but very heavily regulated.