The Never Ending Ethical Debate

[Guest021716-4]

Cited from http://prostitution.procon.org/view....ourceID=000115


PRO Legal Prostitution CON Legal Prostitution 1. Victimless Crime?

PRO: "Prostitution should not be a crime. Prostitutes are not committing an inherently harmful act. While the spread of disease and other detriments are possible in the practice of prostitution, criminalization is a sure way of exacerbating rather than addressing such effects. We saw this quite clearly in the time of alcohol prohibition in this country.

...What makes prostitution a 'victimless crime' in the sense that no one is necessarily harmed by it is that there are consenting adults involved."

Sherry F. Colb, JD
Judge Frederick Lacey Scholar at Rutgers Law School
E-mail to ProCon.org
Dec. 17, 2006

CON: "MYTH 2 - Prostitution is a victimless crime.

Prostitution creates a setting whereby crimes against men, women, and children become a commercial enterprise.... It is an assault when he/she forces a prostitute to engage in sadomasochistic sex scenes. When a pimp compels a prostitute to submit to sexual demands as a condition of employment, it is exploitation, sexual harassment, or rape -- acts that are based on the prostitute's compliance rather than her consent. The fact that a pimp or customer gives money to a prostitute for submitting to these acts does not alter the fact that child sexual abuse, rape, and/or battery occurs; it merely redefines these crimes as prostitution."

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Female Juvenile Prostitution: Problem and Response
1992

2. Prostitution & Free Choice

PRO: "We chose sex work after we did a lot of things we couldn't stand. Sex work is better. For me, sex work isn't my first choice of paying work. It just happens to be the best alternative available. It's better than being president of someone else's corporation. It's better than being a secretary. It is the most honest work I know of."

Veronica Monet
Prostitute and Author
in Gauntlet Magazine
1994

CON: "The ILO [International Labour Organization] report admits that most women 'choose' prostitution for economic reasons. Surely no one can argue that this is free choice any more than the cattle in the squeeze chute choose to go to their death."

Diane Post, JD
Attorney and Human Rights Activist
"Legalizing Prostitution: A Systematic Rebuttal" in the journal off our backs
July 1999

3. Morality of Prostitution

PRO: "Why is it illegal to charge for what can be freely dispensed? Sex work is no more moral or immoral than the chocolate or distilling industries."

Catherine La Croix
Founder of Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics (COYOTE) chapter in Seattle
"Love For Sale" in the magazine Internet Underground
Oct. 1996

CON: "Prostitution as an institution is evil. It doesn't matter if it is the 'world's oldest profession', it is still wrong."

Dorn Checkley
Director of the Pittsburg Coalition Against Pornography
"Legalized Prostitution?" on Wholehearted.org
Jan. 22, 2007

4. Human Trafficking

PRO: "Criminalizing the sex industry creates ideal conditions for rampant exploitation and abuse of sex workers...[I]t is believed that trafficking in women, coercion and exploitation can only be stopped if the existence of prostitution is recognized and the legal and social rights of prostitutes are guaranteed."

Marjan Wijers
Chair of the European Commission's Expert Group on Trafficking in Human Beings
in her article in the book Global Sex Workers
1998

CON: "I believe that we will never succeed in combating trafficking in women if we do not simultaneously work to abolish prostitution and the sexual exploitation of women and children. Particularly in light of the fact that many women in prostitution in countries that have legalised prostitution are originally victims of trafficking in women."

Margareta Winberg
Former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden
Speech in Stockholm
Nov. 5-6, 2002

5. Prostitution & Violence

PRO: "Decriminalization would better protect people in the sex industry from violence and abuse.

...Police cannot and do not simultaneously seek to arrest prostitutes and protect them from violence.... Indeed, women describe being told, 'What did you expect?' by police officers who refused to investigate acts of violence perpetrated against women whom they knew engaged in prostitution. The consequences of such attitudes are tragic: Gary Ridgway said that he killed prostitutes because he knew he would not be held accountable. The tragedy is that he was right - he confessed to the murders of 48 women, committed over nearly twenty years. That is truly criminal."

Melissa Ditmore, PhD
Coordinator of the Global Network of Sex Work Projects
Washington Post's PostGlobal website
Feb. 28, 2007

CON: "Regardless of prostitution's status (legal, illegal or decriminalized) or its physical location (strip club, massage parlor, street, escort/home/hotel), prostitution is extremely dangerous for women. Homicide is a frequent cause of death....

It is a cruel lie to suggest that decriminalization or legalization will protect anyone in prostitution. It is not possible to protect someone whose source of income exposes them to the likelihood of being raped on average once a week."

Melissa Farley, PhD
Founding Director of the Prostitution Research and Education
"Prostitution Is Sexual Violence" in the Psychiatric Times
Oct. 2004

6. HIV/AIDS Prevention

PRO: "For HIV/AIDS prevention to succeed, the conditions of risk have to change. The context - legal, social, economic - of sex work has to change, with repeal of criminal laws, access to visas and work permits, freedom of movement and association, and occupational safety and health regulations, to reduce the imposition of risk from above. Until then, it will be heroic, strong individuals that can insist on safe behaviours, leaving those who are less heroic, those who are more timid and afraid, to suffer the consequences of the context of risk."

Priscilla Alexander
Co-founder of the National Task Force on Prostitution
"Contextual Risk Versus Risk Behaviour" in Research for Sex Work
2001

CON: "Even if a prostitute is being tested every week for HIV, she will test negative for at least the first 4-6 weeks and possibly the first 12 weeks after being infected.... This means that while the test is becoming positive and the results are becoming known, that prostitute may expose up to 630 clients to HIV. This is under the best of circumstances with testing every week and a four-week window period. It also assumes that the prostitute will quit working as soon as he or she finds out the test is HIV positive, which is highly unlikely. This is not the best approach for actually reducing harm. Instead, in order to slow the global spread of HIV/AIDS we should focus our efforts on abolishing prostitution."

Jeffrey J. Barrows, D.O.
Health Consultant on Human Trafficking for the Christian Medical Association
"HIV and Prostitution: What's the Answer?" The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity website
Sep. 9, 2005

7. Prevalence of Rape

PRO: "It is estimated that if prostitution were legalized in the United States, the rape rate would decrease by roughly 25% for a decrease of approximately 25,000 rapes per year...."

Kirby R. Cundiff, PhD
Associate Professor of Finance at Northeastern State University
"Prostitution and Sex Crimes"
Apr. 8, 2004

CON: "Prostitution cannot eliminate rape when it is itself bought rape. The connection between rape and prostitution is that women are turned into objects for men's sexual use; they can be either bought or stolen. A culture in which women can be bought for use is one in which rape flourishes[.]"

Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)
"Frequently Asked Questions About Prostitution" on the CATW-Australia Website
Mar. 8, 2007

8. Prostitution as a Legitimate Business

PRO: "Sex work is legitimate work and problems within the industry are not inherent in the work itself. It is vulnerability, not sex work, which creates victims. Sex workers should enjoy the same labour rights as other workers and the same human rights as other people."

Ana Lopes, PhD
President of Britain's General Union (GMB) Sex Workers Branch
"Stigmatising Sex Workers" in the Chartist
Mar. 2006

CON: "One needs to completely rid oneself of the voracity for cash to see that prostitution, although legalized, can never be a legitimate business because it will always be associated with crime, corruption, class, mass sexual exploitation and human trafficking."

Virada Somswasdi, JD
President of the Foundation for Women, Law and Rural Development (FORWARD)
Speech at Cornell Law School
Mar. 9, 2004

9. Prostitution as a Career Option

PRO: "Prostitution is not merely an exchange of sexual favors; it is a financial exchange. At this point, individualist feminists rise to defend the free market as well as a woman's self-ownership. This is expressed by the question: 'Prostitution is a combination of sex and the free market. Which one are you against?'

Feminists of all stripes should speak with one voice to demand the safety of these women by granting them the same protection as any other woman can expect. Only decriminalization can provide this."

Wendy McElroy
Research Fellow at the Independent Institute
"'Solutions' to Prostitution" on Ifeminist.com
Feb. 13, 2001

CON: "Some prostitution defenders argue that prostitution is an acceptable solution to poverty....

What they mean, but do not say, is that prostitution is an acceptable solution for women living in poverty. Seldom do we see proposals that poor men should make their way out of poverty by welcoming the insertion of penises and other objects into them on a regular basis or dance naked on a stage in front of ogling and masturbating males.

The prostitution industry exploits to its advantage the fact that most women and children who are in prostitution come from the most oppressed and vulnerable groups in society."

Gunilla S. Ekberg
Special Advisor on prostitution and trafficking in women at the Swedish Division for Gender Equality
Speech in Stockholm
Nov. 2002

10. Former Prostitutes' Viewpoints on Prostitution

PRO: "Decriminalization is not at all a solution to every injustice that exists in the sex industry; it is a starting point. If prostitution were not an underground activity it would allow us to much more effectively address the serious problems of forced prostitution and juvenile prostitution and the other abuses which are part of an industry that operates completely in the shadows. ...[T]here are many who... want other options and they should be given alternatives and assistance. And then there are also those who organize for their rights and are not quitting at the moment and they should be afforded options, their rights, and self-determination as well. Whatever ills are attendant to prostitution, criminalization of prostitutes exacerbates the abuse."

Carol Leigh
Founder of Bay Area Sex Workers Advocacy Network (BAYSWAN) and former prostitute
"Justice Talking" on National Public Radio (NPR)
Mar. 4, 2002

CON: "As long as we point the finger away from ourselves, away from the institutions that blame and criminalize women and children for their own rape, sexual abuse, trafficking and slavery, away from the men who we normalize as - Johns, - and as long as we disconnect adult prostitution and the exploitation of children and disconnect prostitution and trafficking in human beings for the purposes of rape and sex slavery; then we are to blame and we have assisted in creating well-funded transnational criminal networks - dollar by dollar."

Norma Hotaling
Executive Director of the Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE) Project and former prostitute
Testimony to U.S. Congress
Apr. 28, 2005

PRO Legal Prostitution CON Legal Prostitution
2. CON: "The ILO [International Labour Organization] report admits that most women 'choose' prostitution for economic reasons. Surely no one can argue that this is free choice any more than the cattle in the squeeze chute choose to go to their death."

My thoughts- Out of all the points debated, I find this one the most interesting. Sure, it may be true that the majority of sex workers do this for no other reason than economics, but it's a lame argument. People go into all kinds of work due to economical reasons. I have felt more humiliated and indignant working in the medical field than I ever have as a "sex worker".


What are your thoughts? Let's debate the points!

[Guest121613]

I am frequently brief as this is social media.

It should be legalized because the vast majority of acitvity is victimless, and if there is abuse, or attacks, the few victimes can seek legal help.

Seems like my favorites are all mothers, are doing this so they can take care of their family. I remember getting a thank you, and my donation was going to buy football gear for their kid to play in pop warner or some other league. It sucks when mama gets arrested.

Legitimate income can be taxed.

It is a simple and plain. Most of the con arguments are trying to make a pure, sinless society, which is not going to happen. One way to lure prostitutes away for sex trade is an aboundance of good paying legit jobs, and it ain't going to happen with Obama as prez.

[inctown]

Interesting read thanks.

I love the logic about the aids argument. "Well aids testing would not 100% solve the problem so therefore the entire argument is invalid." How about this "yes the DMV does inspect your car once a year to make sure it is road worthy but if you breaks go out 9 months later you still will be driving without breaks for 3 months. If you then fail inspection you are likely to keep driving without those breaks after that anyway so why should we bother to check at all.

In today's world a woman has the right to any job a man can do even combat. A woman still has the right to choose the traditional wife and mother role. A woman has the right to control her body (abortion ‚ egg donor‚ surrogate mother‚ or to never have children). A woman can be paid to fulfill the traditional female duties a live in care giver cooking cleaning raising children. A woman can legally even be paid to provide massages‚ strip in someone's home or even model naked for art pics paintings or whatever. It is even legal for a woman to be paid to have sex on camera (porn). A woman may even sell herself to spend time charity date auction or personal appearance fees.

But we as a society know better than women when it comes to who and how they have sex?

[vogon_slayer]

Con Point 2 (cattle, chutes) is functionally an argument against reality. Yes, most women enter the trade for economic reasons, just like others become nurses for economic reasons, and spend years handling feces, dealing with abusive patients and doctors and every other manner of unpleasantry.

The fact is, people consume things. Things that must first be produced by other people. In order to do that, there are fundamentally 2 options. You can trade something that other people desire in a voluntary exchange of what you have for what you want, or you can steal it in an involuntary exchange. In this respect, the prostitute is no different than the nurse, the doctor, or the farmer. She trades, in a voluntary exchange, the happiness she can cause a john to feel in exchange for the money he can offer her. It's an exchange that *always* leaves both better off than they were before, otherwise, it wouldn't take place. If he feels the price is too high, he doesn't hire her. If she feels that it isn't to her interests, she doesn't agree to do it.


Con point 3 is a flat statement, It is not making any form of case, it is taking it as a foregone conclusion. But the entire point of the pro/con discussion is to discover and analyze the merits of this question, so that point goes to the pros on the basis that the cons didn't show up.

point 4 raises the issue of "trafficking" in women. That's a more complex issue than it sounds. I spent a little time in Ukraine. During my time there, I got to know a few women that have been "trafficked" to these countries. They were all pretty happy about it! They worked at nightclubs in Switzerland or Cyprus for 6 months, and returned with enough seed money to open businesses! The term "trafficking" is being used as a synonym for "slavery", and that is not the case. It is true that far far too many women *are* victims of sex slave trafficking, but that fraction is far smaller than the total international trade in "human trafficking". In order to determine good policy, the first thing we need is honest assessment of the situation, and equating a woman working for 6 months and setting herself up comfortably for life with a woman kidnapped and abused for the rest of a short and miserable life is the exact opposite of honest assessment.


The biggest issue with all of this is that regardless of the law or law enforcement, it still happens. What that means is that making it illegal drives it into the shadows, where the worst of the worst take control of it. If the only option is back-alley streetwalkers, operating far below the radar, then under-aged girls in sexual slavery becomes the norm. With enforcement as lax as the US, we have the option of Eccie and other sites to keep things secure, verify that everyone is volunteering, as a community, resist slavery and under-aged exploitation. If it were *legal*, then there could be "certifications", much like the "ASE" standard for auto mechanics, a true marketplace could develop, and every serious ill would be that much easier to combat effectively.

[Rogue_Gent]

I think the economics of the profession are the most compelling reason for its existence. I boils down to the fact that a 20 year old woman can make as much in a couple of hours of prostitution as she can in a 40 hour week working at WalMart.

[Randall Creed]

I would be embarrassed to defend those cons, because they are generalizations, opinions, and pure speculation.

Other crimes are just that: other crimes. They can stand alone without the 'assistance' of a prostitutional setting. If someone rapes a nun, does that mean she had ties to prostitution?

Myth/con #2? Are you fucking serious? The example given only describes a trafficked/forced scenario...which again is a STAND ALONE CRIME.

'Chosen for economic reasons'. Uhhh, OK. So if a woman can make $200 an hour fulfilling needs of paying men vs. slaving in a plant or flipping burgers or even working at a desk job for $8 an hour and she choses option A, I believe that's called FREE WILL.

'an institution of evil'? Uhh, that's your opinion. Paying 100 bucks a month for a cell phone I might define THAT as evil. I might define having to sit through a ridiculous ad before being able to see a video as evil. Maybe smoking is 'evil'. Even if, the users of such items have free will to not use them. Who would defend that statement in front of an audience? Geez.

I agree that trafficking is wrong. It's also a form of kidnapping. Call it kidnapping, which, btw, is a STAND ALONE CRIME (there's that phrase again). Independent providers (that would be providers without a pimp) are at liberty to REFUSE SERVICE to any client. Read that again, they are AT LIBERTY TO REFUSE SERVICE TO ANY CLIENT. Next.

Yes, this business is a greater danger to women, and I praise them for the risks they take every day they continue in this arena. What I can't stand is that asshole guys who think this business is a freebie to mistreat women. For everyone that harms women, I wish his balls would rot off. Not get chopped off. Fucking rot off. In fact, raped/assaulted women should be allowed 15 kicks to the balls of her attacker, appointed by court, to be taken at her leisure (all in one setting or whenever she chooses over both of their lifetimes. Imagine for a second having to go to an appointed ball-kicking session. No padding, and she can wear whatever shoes she chooses to...and no flinching ).

STD's exist in the civvie world and all over. Prostitution doesn't do anything to add to the numbers. In fact, prostitutes are more LIKELY to use protection and practice safely, whereas drunk civilians at a club are more likely to use bad judgment and not practice safely.

'Bought rape'. Come on, dude. Rape, by definition, is when one party is UNWILLING or DOES NOT consent towards the act, or is FORCED to do the act. Paying for it may be, bribery at the very worst. It is NOT illegal to bribe anyone unless they're an appointed official in an authoritative position (i.e. a judge over a preceding, cop making an arrest, referee during a game). If she (or he) TRULY wants nothing to do with the act, she or he can SAY NO to the money. In fact, some women become providers BECAUSE THEY WERE TIRED OF GIVING IT AWAY FOR FREE. Ever hear the old saying, 'why give away what you can sell?'

Con #8 is simply too ridiculous to entertain. Moving along.

Women have the same access and many opportunities to greater education and likelihood of higher income that males have. That said, it's unrealistic to think EVERYONE will get a college education and a future job making a lot of money. People do jobs that they don't like. They are agreeing to do the job, even if they hate it. Do a poll on those NOT in the sex business to see who hates their job. Are they victims of 'bought rape'? I've had a job that I hated. I did it because it fed and clothed me. When a better opportunity came, I took it and ran. One solution to this is to create more equal opportunities to education. That said, there are women WITH COLLEGE DEGREES in this business, doing this on their OWN FREE WILL. Next.

Arresting consenting adults who are operating behind closed doors without inconvenience to society is just an excuse to legislate morality. I would argue that creating an environment that harbors poverty is immoral, yet I don't see big businesses being shut down. Why are gas prices 4x as high now than when I was a kid? Why should a cable bill be $150...for any fucking reason? Why is anti-health improving food so cheap and loaded with an addictive substance like sugar? Why is a DRUG like alcohol legal? Why? Because it is THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE to get drunk, eat a bag of Twinkies, eat 3 Big Macs a day, and have 37 premium channels. As far as cars go, there is a NECESSITY FACTOR to them, in instances where there's no public transit system. Gas and fuel prices ARE a ripoff and contribute to poverty as much as or more than fattening foods and monstrous phone and cable bills. So does alcohol. All are legal to be sold by whomever has the rights to sell them and be consumed by anyone who can buy them. Same with gambling (forgot to delve on this one, but it's as bad as alcohol...and is legal in some places...and it's even TELEVISED).

If ADULTS want to engage in pay for play activities, who the fuck are YOU to say they can't do it because YOU don't want them to?

Sorry for the long post.

[BBW Katrina]

To euthanize or not to euthanize......oh not that ethical debate...sorry.

[Old-T]

Originally Posted by Scarlett Rossi

Cited from http://prostitution.procon.org/view....ourceID=000115


PRO Legal Prostitution CON Legal Prostitution
2. CON: "The ILO [International Labour Organization] report admits that most women 'choose' prostitution for economic reasons. Surely no one can argue that this is free choice any more than the cattle in the squeeze chute choose to go to their death."

So, if I accept that argument--which I don't--then ANY job that people take primarilly because of economic reasons should be illegal.

Hmmmmm, so how many street cleaners, McDonald's counter workers, construction workers, fishermen, bottle washers, train conductors, electricians, etc., etc., DON'T choose to work those jobs mostly because of the "economic" reasons"? Why stop there: what about Wall Street brokers, Fortune 500 CEOs, etc? That argument is completely stupid.

I know many ladies who chose this line of work because it paid better,, had more flexible hours, and in their minds better benefits than flipping burgers, etc. Isn't that what we almost all do?

[ck1942]

On its "face" (no pun intended) sex between or among consenting adults should not be a criminal act.

But, like abortion, adultery or homosexuality, the exchange of cash or other consideration is what makes the P a crime for all concerned. This tracks back to religious and moral values of the particular society in which it occurs.

Unless and until the prevailing attitudes of society change (much as they have or are in the process of changing regarding gay marriage) we won't see much official movement into relaxing the P criminality.

[Cpalmson]

The problem with the debate is that you can't put things in a black or white light. There are shades of grey (pun intended). Is it a victimless? Yes and no. Does prostitution promote trafficking? Yes and no. Does prostitution enhance the spread of AIDS/other diseases? Yes and no.

It all depends on the situation. If I see a provider like Dallas, I know she is not the victim of anything. It is her decision to pursuit this line of work because she's a nympho On the other hand, if I venture to some 3rd World country and seek out some cheap nookie, I'm pretty sure there will be a victim and most likely the girl would be trafficked. As for diseases, the girls who are independent and provide as a means for their livelihood are probably less likely to have diseases and more likely to take measures to ensure they are clean. On the other hand, hitting up that crack-head ho under the lamppost is only asking for trouble when it comes the disease and being clean.

[Keyhole Arc Blow]

Originally Posted by Cpalmson

The problem with the debate is that you can't put things in a black or white light. There are shades of grey (pun intended). Is it a victimless? Yes and no. Does prostitution promote trafficking? Yes and no. Does prostitution enhance the spread of AIDS/other diseases? Yes and no.

It all depends on the situation. If I see a provider like Dallas, I know she is not the victim of anything. It is her decision to pursuit this line of work because she's a nympho On the other hand, if I venture to some 3rd World country and seek out some cheap nookie, I'm pretty sure there will be a victim and most likely the girl would be trafficked. As for diseases, the girls who are independent and provide as a means for their livelihood are probably less likely to have diseases and more likely to take measures to ensure they are clean. On the other hand, hitting up that crack-head ho under the lamppost is only asking for trouble when it comes the disease and being clean.

One of the ways to keep STDs down would be regular testing similar to what the porn industry does and what brothels in Nevada are required to do. To make sure women are keeping up with the regs, they'd have to keep certificates of their last test etc. Of course there are other details to work out but that seems like a common sense one.

Providers now are pretty good at taking care of themselves as far as STIs so I don't think legalization will have much difference.

Same goes with trafficking. The traffickers can make more money now than when it's legalized, taxed etc.

[Guest021716-4]

I had to debate the above points in one of my philosophy classes, so I don't have much more to say about it that hasn't already been brought up by alike minds here.

NEXT TOPIC-

The gay community has been embraced and accepted more and more by our country in the last 10 years. Marijuana has made tons of headway as well. Why the war on women? Specifically, why the war on prostitution? WHY do I even ask when I already know the answers?

I saw a post yesterday pertaining to rw women and why some men prefer to have sex with prostitutes. There was a complaint that they were embarrassed about their bodies, had hang up's
like only doing it under the covers with all the lights out. For fuck sake....to have come so far in so many ways, we are still in the stone age about sexuality. And attaching shame to sex/sexuality.

Fucking non sense I say!!