Can legalized prostitution combat poverty?

[IanBean]

Think about it. Right now all uneducated women who try to make a decent living as a prostitute must do so against the law, ensuring they stay in poverty no matter how much money they earn. The pimp who can keep them safe takes all the money. If prostitution is legalized than women can safely ply their trade and improve their situation within a society that doesn't demonize them.

[Colobo]

1. It would be a good thing, because it would regulate it

Prostitution should be supervised, regulated and taxed.

[Donnachaidh]

4. supervised by WHO? I'm curious.

Also, they should have full medical. But exactly WHO is going to pay for this?

[stompk]

5. i forgot which country it was

in EU I believe, where they denied a woman unemployment because she refused to become a prostitute.
since it was legal, she was rejecting a valid form of employment and therefore no longer qualified.

[happyslug]

8. That case, which was on DU about a year ago did NOT force her to become a prostitute.

The scandal was that under the new policy of Germany ALL workers had to apply for any "Reasonable" Job offered to continue to get Unemployment Benefits. The Woman was given a job location that turned out to be a legal bordello. She refused to take the job, but was NOT denied benefits. The issue was why she had been given the job information in the first place since prostitution requires you to provide sex to other for money.

Thus it was more of an attack on the attempt by the German Government to reduce their social safety net, then any requirement to women to become prostitutes.

[youngdem]

2. An Immodest Proposal?

[On the Road]

3. It Already Does So

in many third world countries. I am sure that studying income distribution in a country like Thailand compared with similar countries without prostitution would show the beneficial effects to the working classes. A lot of these women use the money mostly for their children and families. I doubt the same is true for pimps.

[tomreedtoon]

6. You're saying "Slavery can end poverty," right?

Prostitution is not, and cannot, be considered a fair business. Its backbone is the enslavement of women. And, through its very nature, enslavement of men to their innate desire to brutalize and humiliate SOMEBODY to get even for their crappy lives.

I discovered that my older brother patronized prostitutes in his teens. Since I can't attract a woman in any way, do you think I was jealous? No. I'd rather remain lonely forever than enslave another human being like he did, and I will probably never have anything to do with him until his funeral.

Science fiction writer Spider Robinson theorized a "moral" whorehouse with caring operators and prostitutes of both sexes who looked out for each other. You'll note the words "science fiction" used above. Those stories are assuming that human beings are a whole lot nicer than real people - fantasies, if you will. And the original post must have been influenced by these "Callahan's Lady" stories. Heck, maybe that's the only thing the original poster reads.

[IanBean]

10. of course not

Why can massage be a fair business but not prostitution. I'll tell you why. Because people like you, best friends of the ultra conservatives, make sure that prostitutes can't go to the government for help without judgment. So the only people they can turn to for help are pimps. What will this system do? Keep them in poverty, because the pimps can take whatever they want. Instead of living in a fantasy land try coming to the real world where you have to deal with people who are poor. Guess what? There are people on this planet and in America who are worried about going hungry. It sure must be nice to have time to read science fiction and judge prostitution on the internet.

[tomreedtoon]

11. Nice philosophy. Pity it doesn't touch human flesh.

You can philosophize about a system all you want. College kids love to do that. But until you actually see the result of prostitution, you are working in a vacuuum. Talk to some of the counselors who've dealt with prostitution - no, not the cops, since I suspect you hate them, but the people trying to rescue prostitutes and get them into a less abusive life. Then come back and tell me that the system is fixable.

And your "massage is just prostitution without a happy ending" is rationalization.

About the only way prostitution might be made legal, safe and fair for everybody would be if it was operated by the government. And we've seen how well they work with poor people (ahem).

Also, do you call anyone you disagree with "friends of ultra conservatives?" That name-calling is the final confirmation that I could jump into the deep end of your argument and not get my feet wet.

[IanBean]

12. Hunger touches human flesh

The government doesn't operate anything that well, except their relentless hunt for "criminals". I'd rather they didn't take the roles of pimps over, but rather just eliminated them.

By the way, I'm sure Jerry Falwell, the famous liberal, would agree with what you have to say more than me.

[tomreedtoon]

13. Again, an ad hominem attack. You can't discuss fair.

So anyone who doesn't like prostitution must be Bush, right? Y'know, men who exploit women - as you seem to wish to - are closer to Falwell than your imputed positioning of me. Or maybe closer to Jimmy Swaggart, to be a bit closer to the target.

Funny how everyone who seems to promote the legalization of prostitution doesn't actually have any real-life prostitutes or former slaves testify how "wonderful" and "rewarding" the process is.

[IanBean]

14. ok I admit you're right

Women are too dumb to not be exploited. Prostitution should be illegal, it's much better for them.
Also, pornography exploits the women and men in it, so that should be made illegal.
Obscene material in general exploits whoever makes it, so that should be banned.
Books that print a swear word like "piss" or "ass" should be illegal.
The Bible is a book people can read. Maybe Dr.Suess. Maybe.

You agree with the first sentence, possibly the second, I doubt the third but the point is who do you think you are to judge what people can and can't do. Good for you for meeting real life prostitutes and saying they enslaved themselves. Now jump off your high horse and welcome back to reality.

[nebenaube]

7. no but it would fight disease n/t

[happyslug]

9. Never has, why should it now?

The problem with most prostitution is that most prostitutes do so to get money the desperately need. It is rare for women to be in such need unless they are alone or alone with children. Those with Children tend to be older and thus poorly paid (and drift out of prostitution for regular employment and/or welfare pays better especially as a woman A"gets" beyond her "prime years" of 16-25). Younger women (19-25) quickly find prostitution also does not pay (Through "Escorts" and other such high end prostitute do get pay well, but these are the exception to the rule). Such younger women find it is better to use they beauty to find regular jobs which pay better.

Most prostitutes, legal and illegal, tend to have serious mental problems, including drug and alcohol addiction. These mental problems prevent them from holding down regular jobs so their drift into prostitution (or if a young run away taken in by a pimp and made into a drug addict and the prostitute). In any event most women do NOT stay in prostitution. Those that are good looking may drift into X-rated movies where they find less risks (Johns can beat prostitutes up, and that was true when prostitution was legal), so can the prostitutes pimps (and that was true even when prostitution was legal).

Prostitution was made illegal in the US as the best way to REGULATE the business. By making it illegal the local police could arrest the prostitute and see if she was being abused by her pimp, kept in the business against her will be her pimp, and to make sure such transaction did NOT interfere with the general business of most cities which was to sell goods. Prostitution with its tendency to drugs and alcohol abuse tended to be in areas where crime occurred on a regular basis. Both Crime and prostitution were tied in with drugs and Alcohol and to control the crime it was found you had to control Drugs and Alcohol and also prostitution. The problem was how do you control prostitution? All forms of control were tried, licensing, restricting where prostitutes could operate, all failed. The reason the attempts to regulate failed was as long as Prostitution was legal, the Police had to prove a violation of the Regulation. No evidence of violation, no conviction, and once you have no conviction to lost control.

On the other hand once you make Prostitution illegal, you can control it by simply arresting the prostitute for accepting cash for sex. You did not have to prove she did not have a license, you did not have to prove she was out of bounds, you did not have to prove she failed to pay a tax on an act that may or may not have occurred. All you had to prove was cash for sex. Thus, except for Nevada, every state ended up making Prostitution illegal (and even Las Vegas and the other big cities of Nevada did the same).

Thus the problem was prostitution connection to drugs and alcohol and the connection between drugs and alcohol and violent crime. The connection between both Crime and prostitution with drug abuse was clear and to regulate all three, all three had to be made illegal (remember prohibition?). After prohibition alcohol was permitted back into society, but till the 1960s as some sort of bastard step child with heavy regulations to make sure the new Bars did NOT become the havens for crime and prostitution the pre-prohibition Saloons were noted for.

Now I must separate prostitution from its near cousin, the X-rated movie and X-rated Books. Unlike prostitution there has been no evidence that the existence of X-rated Movies and books have any affect on people and their attitude to sex (Through there is some evidence that watching TO MUCH can make a person more callous to woman, but the fact most men watch X-rated movies for an average of 9 minutes makes such long exposure to x-rated movies the exception as opposed to the rule). The problem is NOT sex itself, but the connection Prostitution has with drugs, Alcohol and violent crime.

Strip clubs tend to have similar problems, but are generally legal if no alcohol is sold (Or if alcohol is sold has strict regulations on what the women can wear and failure to follow the rules can cut out the bar's liquor license). These heavily regulated sex clubs still tend to be centers of crime, but unless illegal drugs are sold, or sex is sold for drugs cash tend to stay legal (but again the fact that prostitution is illegal permits law enforcement crack down on such places when they get out of hand).

My point is no one has come up with a better way to regulate prostitution other than making it illegal. No one who voted to make prostitution illegal thought that prostitution would be eliminated simply by making it illegal. No, the il-legalization of prostitution was an attempt to control the criminal elements that tend to hang around prostitutes. Prostitutes, even when legal, deal in cash and as such a ready source of cash for other activities, Thus the efforts to control prostitution lead to it becoming illegal more to control prostitution than to ban it.