Running a legal brothel where it's illegal...sorta

[DRBUZZ0]

I'm not writing this as a joke. I'm really not. Because something had occurred to me. Brothels are cash cows. Prostitution is the sort of thing that just can't not drag in money. Sex sells and many are willing to pay for it. Those who have a lot to spend are often willing to spend it on sex. It's the sort of business that is universal in it's solvency, in good times and bad in recessions and booms. There's a reason why adult entertainment companies always rake it in.

But in the US, prostitution is illegal in all major cities. (personally I think this is stupid and I'm pretty libertarian in my views in general) In Nevada it is legal in some counties and the brothels there and their working girls (in a few cases guys) make a lot.

What if you could operate such a brothel in, say, New York City? A place where clients could come, without fearing being arrested and do the business in the open and safely. Someplace clean, with privacy and safety. Where those working were tested regularly for STD's and customers were required to use protection and where records were kept, though confidential, to assure better safety from possible unknown transmission.

A place which was well lit, that could take credit cards and checks and where there was no requirement for a hotel room or something. Instead private rooms and a lounge, bar and such for afterward. Overnight bedrooms of course, for those who might want to have overnight company or simply be acomidated afterward.

A good reputation, professional, with professional security guards and bouncers to assure that no conflicts could get nasty. This would be a huge difference from picking up someone on a streetcornor, avoiding sting operations, and being concerned about violence, STD's and all the other nasty sides of things. Having the only such place in a major city seems like it could not possibly fail to bring in the money.

But how could you do that openly in a place where prostitution is illegal?

In the 1920's alcohol was illegal in the US, but there was one way in places like New York to have a nice evening of drinks without violating the law. One only needed to take the short trip to international waters in what was called a "Booze Cruise."

So why not the same for prostitution? Deals not made until outside US jurisdiction, on a nice boat with private staterooms. If it grew to a large enough buisness oen could even have a large vessle offshore with smaller boats ferrying customers to and from the floating brothel. High rollers by private water taxi or even helicpoter.

Of course, this would also be an excellent venue for a cassino and some duty-free shopping as well. I see no reason why this would be illegal. Laws in international waters are a complicated patchwork of treaties and traditional commonlaws. Major crimes may get prosecuted in the home port of a vessel or by an international court. However, prostitution does not violate international law. It's legal in many nations.

[Piscivore]

But how could you do that openly in a place where prostitution is illegal?

"Escort Service".

[Lisa Simpson]

Can I run an legal brother?

[DRBUZZ0]

OH CRAP Will an admin Please change that????

[fuelair]

Can I rent an illegal blogger?


Excellent idea - if it functions fully as you suggest.

[DavidS]

One only needed to take the short trip to international waters in what was called a "Booze Cruise."

So why not the same for prostitution?
Or, why? Methinks the degreee of "needed" isn't as large as you might think.

If you seriously think this market suffers from a shortage of supply, open the YellowPages in any fair-sized city to "Escort", "Dating", "Entertainment", etc. I'll wager they're not all, nor even mostly, sting operations.

The mantle of legality you suggest cruising to international waters would gain comes at high capital, operating, and liabilty costs. Boats ain't cheap to aquire, maintain and run, particularly not for passenger service. You'd add another -- or several -- layer of regulatory concerns for the boat and cruise, over and above those for the "core" business.

I suspect potential market would shrink, too. Weather would gain a bigger impact on your business; steep seas shift many folks' priorities noticeably. Discretion, which I suspect is reasonably important to a large part of the market, becomes more difficult if clientele must arrive and depart en masse during port calls. You'll have to include other diversions to keep pending and finished customers amused between transport runs to the beach. I don't know about you, but when I can't arrive and depart independently I feel frustrated and insecure (one of many reasons I don't like air travel and prefer to drive up to 500 mi or so).

All this effort, cost, and risk to do it legally just might not be worth it when sub-legal brothels operate handily onshore. Even if the risks and operating costs are comparable after considering "facilitation" costs and prosecution risks for extralegal onshore operations, I'd expect the capital investment required for offshore operations would tip the balance.

[madurobob]

There's a reason why adult entertainment companies always rake it in.

Don't be so sure. I have a cousin on the production/direction side of the porn industry and the hours are grueling, the people dishonest, and the cash hard to hold on to. There is a lot of money flying around the industry, but also a lot of hands grabbing for it. Getting rich in that game is actually quite difficult.

[/Quote]What if you could operate such a brothel in, say, New York City? A place where clients could come, without fearing being arrested and do the business in the open and safely. Someplace clean, with privacy and safety. Where those working were tested regularly for STD's and customers were required to use protection and where records were kept, though confidential, to assure better safety from possible unknown transmission.
<snip>
But how could you do that openly in a place where prostitution is illegal?
[/QUOTE]

I've often wondered the same. Making movies seems to be more or less legal, why not use that as a front for prostitution? You make the movie, you seal it up and send it off with the client as "art".

[DRBUZZ0]

Or, why? Methinks the degreee of "needed" isn't as large as you might think.

If you seriously think this market suffers from a shortage of supply, open the YellowPages in any fair-sized city to "Escort", "Dating", "Entertainment", etc. I'll wager they're not all, nor even mostly, sting operations.


Understood, but still doing it openly has the up-and-up no-STD's thing going. I mean when it's on the downlow youn dont know who you're dealing with.


You'll have to include other diversions to keep pending and finished customers amused between transport runs to the beach. I don't know about you, but when I can't arrive and depart independently I feel frustrated and insecure (one of many reasons I don't like air travel and prefer to drive up to 500 mi or so).


Oh no no no. It's not about "having to provide diversions" it's an "opportunity" to offer gambling duty free drinking and maybe even a hash bar.

[rjh01]

Here are the names, addresses and telephone numbers for brothels. All 100% legal. All in Australia
In the
ACT (http://www.yellowpages.com.au/search/postSearchEntry.do?clueType=0&clue=escort+agency&locationClue=Greater+Canberra+ACT&x=50&y=12)

Sydney (http://www.yellowpages.com.au/search/postSearchEntry.do?clueType=0&clue=escort+agency&locationClue=Sydney+Metro+NSW&x=47&y=8)

Perth WA (http://www.yellowpages.com.au/search/postLocationSearch.do?sortByClosestMatch=false&sortByDetail=true&areaId=1186&currentLetter=&bookId=53&sortByAlphabetical=false&businessType=escort+agency&sortByDistance=false&locationClue=perth+wa&locationText=Greater+Perth+WA&safeLocationClue=perth+wa&stateId=3)

Adelaide SA (http://www.yellowpages.com.au/search/postLocationSearch.do?sortByClosestMatch=false&sortByDetail=true&areaId=1088&currentLetter=&bookId=33&sortByAlphabetical=false&businessType=escort+agency&sortByDistance=false&locationClue=adelaide+sa&locationText=Greater+Adelaide+SA&safeLocationClue=adelaide+sa&stateId=5)

These links are safe (just) for work. However the links within the links are not safe at work or with your spouse.

[DavidS]

Understood, but still doing it openly has the up-and-up no-STD's thing going.
<shrug> I'm not ready to believe the "no-STD's thing", but will submit that it offers promise for reducing that particular Bad Thing.
I mean when it's on the downlow youn dont know who you're dealing with.
If by "you" who doesn't know you mean the client: I suggest that's (a) a marketing consideration not intrinsically inaccessible to illegitimate operations, and (b) that it's not a sufficiently powerful marketing consideration to offset the cost and complexity of cruise operations for legitimacy's sake.
If by "you" you mean the operator: I expect that successful illegitimate brothel operators know quite well who they're dealing with on the enforcement side (more precisely, that those who don't won't be very successful for very long).
Oh no no no. It's not about "having to provide diversions" it's an "opportunity" to offer gambling duty free drinking and maybe even a hash bar.
The hash-bar thing suffers from all manner of controlled-substance issues (USCG routinely boards vessels outside territorial waters to search for such things, and what to do with the inventory during port calls), but that's another discussion and not central to your point: multiple attractions could piggyback on junkets/cruises between jurisdictions where their legality differs.

I'll go along with that point; as you noted, casino-cruises have already demonstrated the viability of such a business model (with real ships sailing out into the ocean as well as the thinly-formalized moored barges on the Mississippi River). An added "attraction" (e.g. happydeck) wouldn't have to fully fund the cruise operation if another attraction (e.g. casino) could bear that load. Of course, a rational operator would weigh the relative merits of adding a secondary attraction (e.g. happydeck) against using that space to expand the primary cash cow (e.g. casino), but that's an implementation detail.

I seriously doubt that a brothel-cruise, on its own, could compete with sub-legal onshore operations, though. If you've got the cornfield to spare, though, build it and they may come (pun apropos but unintended).

[DRBUZZ0]

I seriously doubt that a brothel-cruise, on its own, could compete with sub-legal onshore operations, though. If you've got the cornfield to spare, though, build it and they may come (pun apropos but unintended).

Well, for one thing I have neither the funds nor a large ship lying around. I thought it was an interesting concept because I tend to think prostitution is the sort of thing that is really both impossible and counter-productive to try to outlaw and cuts to the root of how a society its role in controlling people's decisions and lives.

That having been said... I don't actually like the idea of the concept as such enough that I would want to be known as a floating pimp. I wouldn't really want to be involved in porno either. Not that I see it as something that is inherently wrong... I'd just prefer to make my fortune elsewhere.

[skeptifem]

you could always become a prostitute instead of going through all the trouble of setting up a brothel.

[DRBUZZ0]

you could always become a prostitute instead of going through all the trouble of setting up a brothel.

Are you..... propositioning me?

[Zygar]

Are you..... propositioning me?

No, she was suggesting it on my behalf.

[AgeGap]

Here in the UK, prostitution is not illegal but the advertising of sevices is. If laws like that exist, in NY, your cruise would be sunk.

[rjh01]

Where I live, not only is prostitution legal, also there are advertisements for it in the paper. The words fetish and fantasy are used in some ads. Noticed one ad in the job vacancy notices as well.

[Starthinker]

Wouldn't a topless carwash be easier? Client never get out of the cars, girls stay isolated from weird men. They put on a show and wash your car. You can sell web cam time. Tape it and sell the videos.

[imjohn]

Around here the Asian Massage Parlors are brothels.

Definitely against the law, but they operate pretty openly.

[Mister Agenda]

Around here the Asian Massage Parlors are brothels.

Definitely against the law, but they operate pretty openly.

Ditto in SC...may get raided once in a couple years or so, they just lie low for awhile and go back to business as usual, maybe aren't allowed to advertise as offering massages anymore. I've never seen an 'out of business' sign on one.

[shecky]

My neighborhood had until recently two "Oriental Massage Parlors". They'd been there for years, and I'm not aware of the closing of one being related to legal troubles. Despite having modest neon signs, they're otherwise pretty nondescript and blend in with surrounding businesses.

Porn movies are traditionally a pretty strong industry locally. I've sometimes wondered if one could operate a brothel as a sort of amateur "movie studio", with lots of rehearsal space, and for a modest extra fee, a DVD of one's performance. The bulk of the money being made for rental of the rehearsal space.

[ShowerComic]

Despite the care taken in the Porn industry to protect against STDs, there have been some fairly recent cases that shook the industry. -- Porn workers in the US are regularly tested, and generally date amongst themselves. As to the industry in general, Brian Flemming (of Bat Boy, and The God who wasn't there fame) did a story of one young actress essentially ordered to do very dangerous sex acts from which she contacted AIDS.


So given the Porn industry as an example, would you trust your life to the prostitute and her sexual history?

[Vic Vega]

Wouldn't a topless carwash be easier?

Only if it came with a happy ending!


:D

[DRBUZZ0]

Despite the care taken in the Porn industry to protect against STDs, there have been some fairly recent cases that shook the industry. -- Porn workers in the US are regularly tested, and generally date amongst themselves. As to the industry in general, Brian Flemming (of Bat Boy, and The God who wasn't there fame) did a story of one young actress essentially ordered to do very dangerous sex acts from which she contacted AIDS.


So given the Porn industry as an example, would you trust your life to the prostitute and her sexual history?


Well, I'd sure as hell want my money back, I can tell you that much!

[Wildy]

Here are the names, addresses and telephone numbers for brothels. All 100% legal. All in Australia
In the
ACT (http://www.yellowpages.com.au/search/postSearchEntry.do?clueType=0&clue=escort+agency&locationClue=Greater+Canberra+ACT&x=50&y=12)

Sydney (http://www.yellowpages.com.au/search/postSearchEntry.do?clueType=0&clue=escort+agency&locationClue=Sydney+Metro+NSW&x=47&y=8)

Perth WA (http://www.yellowpages.com.au/search/postLocationSearch.do?sortByClosestMatch=false&sortByDetail=true&areaId=1186&currentLetter=&bookId=53&sortByAlphabetical=false&businessType=escort+agency&sortByDistance=false&locationClue=perth+wa&locationText=Greater+Perth+WA&safeLocationClue=perth+wa&stateId=3)

Adelaide SA (http://www.yellowpages.com.au/search/postLocationSearch.do?sortByClosestMatch=false&sortByDetail=true&areaId=1088&currentLetter=&bookId=33&sortByAlphabetical=false&businessType=escort+agency&sortByDistance=false&locationClue=adelaide+sa&locationText=Greater+Adelaide+SA&safeLocationClue=adelaide+sa&stateId=5)

These links are safe (just) for work. However the links within the links are not safe at work or with your spouse.

Err... if you want to go by the legality of prostitution in Australia based on those links then you are 75% correct.

In SA prostitution is legally illegal, but the police stance is one of de facto legality, this also sort of applies to the government as well. Attempts here to legalise the industry have met with vehement opposition, mainly because Adelaide is full of really conservative people who want to keep Adelaide as a "big country town" instead of a city.

Hell there was an uproar when it was revealed that the department in charge of the disabled was giving out brothels that would cater for the disabled.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

But how could you do that openly in a place where prostitution is illegal?

In the 1920's alcohol was illegal in the US, but there was one way in places like New York to have a nice evening of drinks without violating the law. One only needed to take the short trip to international waters in what was called a "Booze Cruise."

So why not the same for prostitution? Deals not made until outside US jurisdiction, on a nice boat with private staterooms. If it grew to a large enough buisness oen could even have a large vessle offshore with smaller boats ferrying customers to and from the floating brothel. High rollers by private water taxi or even helicpoter.

Of course, this would also be an excellent venue for a cassino and some duty-free shopping as well. I see no reason why this would be illegal. Laws in international waters are a complicated patchwork of treaties and traditional commonlaws. Major crimes may get prosecuted in the home port of a vessel or by an international court. However, prostitution does not violate international law. It's legal in many nations.

As my accountant told me years ago:

1) The IRS isn't stupid
2) No matter what scheme you come up with to avoid taxes, someone else has already thought of it, and it is illegal

Now I realize this isn't a tax situation, but I think the lesson is the same:

1) The police/FBI/INS/whatever aren't stupid
2) No matter what scheme you come up with to circumvent prostitution laws, someone else has already thought of it, and it is illegal

[pgwenthold]

This kind of reminds me of the plan I had once to create a company called "Mile High Adventures." I'd sell airplane sight seeing tours, it's just that we'd have a matress in the back of the plane, and a curtain to separate the pilot from the passengers. Kind of "don't ask, don't tell" approach.

I'd worry that the cost might be prohibitive, but I've never asked any pilots about the cost of renting a plane for an hour.

[JFrankA]

Brothels are illegal, but being an "out call escort" is not... so long as you know the work around.
One could easily be a "out-call escort", so long as you advertise that you are providing companionship for a night out. There is no mention of sex. However, if these two consenting adult happen to have sex, then that's great, they've hit it off. And if the person who used the escort decided to leave an extra tip, that's the "renter's" choice.
This is how they avoid prostitution charges. No mention of money is made after they meet face to face, and it's understood that if the escort choose not to have sex, then that's his/her perogative.

Personally, I'd love to run a legal brothel, and I'm in total agreement with the OP. There are three things people will always buy no matter what financial situtation they are in: Food, Sex, and way to escape.

However, instead of a brothel, one can legally open a swing club anywhere in the country. This would pose a different set of problems, but it's all on the up and up. And done very well, it can extremely profitable. I do adult shows at these places and they are always full!!

As to using filming porno as a front to prostitution, I've been making porno for about six years now (behind the camera, not in front) and I know that there are a whole bunch of religious groups who are trying to prove that all sex movies ARE prosititution, period. It's a stupid arguement by them but every few years, they try to prove it. So doing it that way is not advisable by me...

[DRBUZZ0]

I'd worry that the cost might be prohibitive, but I've never asked any pilots about the cost of renting a plane for an hour.

Depends on the plane. In any case, if you could bundle it with travel by plane as is that might work. I mean, I generally hate flying because of all the hassle of the baggage checks, the security, the layovers the fact that there are commonly delays...

But that might make me change my mind.

[Starthinker]

Brothels are illegal, but being an "out call escort" is not... so long as you know the work around.
One could easily be a "out-call escort", so long as you advertise that you are providing companionship for a night out. There is no mention of sex. However, if these two consenting adult happen to have sex, then that's great, they've hit it off. And if the person who used the escort decided to leave an extra tip, that's the "renter's" choice.
This is how they avoid prostitution charges. No mention of money is made after they meet face to face, and it's understood that if the escort choose not to have sex, then that's his/her perogative.
me...

1) The police/FBI/INS/whatever aren't stupid
2) No matter what scheme you come up with to circumvent prostitution laws, someone else has already thought of it, and it is illegal

Hmmm

[JFrankA]

Hmmm

I didn't say that this will fool FBI/INS/whatever agents.

What I said was that this is a work around, i.e. lawyer use this as a defense.

Prositution is "Prostitution is the act of engaging in a sex act for money. It is also illegal for a person to be solicitating sex, or ask another to engage in a sex act for money. Therefore, it is illegal for a person to offer to have sex with another for money and it is illegal for a person to accept the offer of another to have sex for money." SOURCE: http://www.gottrouble.com/legal/criminal/criminal_law/prostitution.html

A lot of out-call escort lawyer use this defense: there was no discussion for sex for money, the money was only for the company (which is not a crime), and that the sex was something that "just happened" and in no way was money for sex discussed.

[Cainkane1]

Escort services already provide much of what you suggest. They come to your home or room and money and services are exchanged.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Brothels are illegal, but being an "out call escort" is not... so long as you know the work around.
One could easily be a "out-call escort", so long as you advertise that you are providing companionship for a night out. There is no mention of sex. However, if these two consenting adult happen to have sex, then that's great, they've hit it off. And if the person who used the escort decided to leave an extra tip, that's the "renter's" choice.
This is how they avoid prostitution charges. No mention of money is made after they meet face to face, and it's understood that if the escort choose not to have sex, then that's his/her perogative.

There are people sitting in prison who agree with your analysis. Too bad the prosecutor didn't.

[Agamemnon2]

Around here the Asian Massage Parlors are brothels.

Definitely against the law, but they operate pretty openly.

Same here in Finland. A newspaper did an undercover survey of a few dozen places, and their intrepid reporter was offered sex for cash in all of them with no prompting on his part. Apparently the massages were pretty bad, too.

[Octavo]

There are people sitting in prison who agree with your analysis. Too bad the prosecutor didn't.

There are a few massage parlours in Cape Town that work on the same principal i.e. You arrive and pay for a massage with a woman of your choice in a private room upstairs. The woman gives you a massage and the two of you may or may not end up having sex together, however that is not the service that you paid for. Nor is it an advertised part of the service (even though there are obvious red neon lights outside, indicating the sorts of activities available inside).

Although sections of society have called on police to raid these parlours, the cops have responded that there is nothing they can do. People are having sex, but they're not being paid for it. They're being paid for the 5 minute massage before the sex and the massouse is in no way obligated to have sex with the client.

[dann]

A place which was well lit, Yes, this is exactly what all johns are looking for! Lots of security cameras, too! A place you'd feel confident about having your brother frequent and your little sister work!
Should prostitution be legal? (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2479841#post2479841) thread.

[dann]

There are a few massage parlours in Cape Town that work on the same principal i.e. You arrive and pay for a massage with a woman of your choice in a private room upstairs. But only until the school board finds out ...

[JFrankA]

There are people sitting in prison who agree with your analysis. Too bad the prosecutor didn't.


....didn't say it always worked either. :)

All I mean is that this is how out-call escorts (not streetwalkers nor in-call escort), try to get around the law. Some do get around it, too. Not all, but look up out-call escorts and see how many there are. They all say that what they sell is not sex, but a night of companionship. This companionship includes going on a 'date': dinner, movie, dancing, whatever. This makes it a date.

Now the arguement is this: "The payment is for non-sexual companionship. If sex occured, it wasn't paid for or discussed. It was something that just happened between two consenting adults. All moneys negotiated and exchanged had nothing to do with sex."

Does it always work in court? No, but works enough to let a lot of high-priced escorts get away with it for years.

Personally, I think the government is missing out on a large cash cow. Prosititution (and drugs, for that matter), should be legal. The government is missing out on a LOT of tax money!!! :)

[Octavo]

But only until the school board finds out ...

Can't manage to read your way through a whole post can you? There is nothing illegal about this practise. Loads of different groups have attempted to get them shut down. The official position of the police service is that they CANNOT do anything, because the courts CANNOT bring a case against them.

Next time, try engaging your brain. :flamed:

[dann]

Try engaging your own brain before you start flaming and look up the word principal in a dictionary. Then you just might get the joke!
Did I say anything about illegality?

[jmontecillo01]

There is no way to completely stop prostitution. I would rather see it legalized so that in could be monitored by the goverment, specially the health department.

[Octavo]

Try engaging your own brain before you start flaming and look up the word principal in a dictionary. Then you just might get the joke!
Did I say anything about illegality?

Can someone please explain this joke to me then? I assume it's some play on the word principal/principle.

[jmontecillo01]

It is normal to confuse principal and principle.

Principle is a noun. Principal is both an adjective and a noun.

In the US and other countries:

High-school principal, pertaining to the person who runs the school.
or

[rjh01]

There is no way to completely stop prostitution. I would rather see it legalized so that in could be monitored by the government, specially the health department.

That is exactly what happens in Australia. For example condoms must be worn. If you are an illegal migrant you are more likely to be employed as a waiter in a restaurant than a prostitute.

You also do not see prostitutes in the street corner.

[dann]

What exactly do you mean when you say, "monitored by the government"? And do you know anything about what a secure and comfortable trade prostitution is in countries where it is legal? It rarely lives up to the wet dreams of prostitution fans ...
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=78187

[jmontecillo01]

It rarely lives up to the wet dreams of prostitution fans ...



Just in case, I would like you to know that I don't go to brothels. The reason is what ever little money I have, I would rather spend it on my children. Though my wife and I separated way back 1995, I still love her.

Al long as a person does not do damage to others, I would continue to respect their right to live the way they want to live, regardless of the profession they choose.


What exactly do you mean when you say, "monitored by the government"? And do you know anything about what a secure and comfortable trade prostitution is in countries where it is legal?


Here in NSW, Australia, there is an organization called Sex Workers Association of NSW. It's main purpose is to ensure that sex workers are not descriminated againts.

As for the sex worker working in brothels, it gives them a sorrounding where they do not have to worry about the dangers street walkers has to face. They pay tax like the rest of us. The gov't (health department) ensures that they have a health check up every week, for sexually transmitted desease.

[dann]

I think that you misunderstand me, jmontecillo01. My point is not to criticize the johns. And I definitely don't condemn the prostitutes, which is sort of implied in, "respect their right to live the way they want to live". The problem is that in most cases this is not exactly the way that they want to live, it's just what they have deemed the best of the rotten alternatives.
You are right, of course, when you say about the legalized brothels that "it gives them a sorrounding where they do not have to worry about the dangers street walkers have to face". Instead they have to worry about the dangers that prostitutes in brothels have to face. The weekly health checks are a testimony to this!!!
And what happens to the poor prostittute with AIDS? Does the government pull her out of circulation and take care of her for the rest of her life? Or is she simply banned from working in the brothels approved by the government to prevent her from passing on the disease in a legal setting?

[jmontecillo01]

With regards to the danger a sex worker in a brothel and street walker,they face the same danger of sexually transmitted desease.

The gov't insists that condom must be used all the time. This minimizes the possibility of such deseases, including AIDS.

With regards to HIV, please refer to this link:

http://www.avert.org/ausstatg.htm

Please note the part about exposure categories. Only 7% are uncategorized.

[dann]

It must have occurred to you too that it minimizes the possiblity of contracting AIDS and other STDs enough to require "that they have a health check up every week, for sexually transmitted desease".
Prostitution just isn't a job like any other job - in spite of the government's intentions.

[rjh01]

<snip>And what happens to the poor prostitute with AIDS? Does the government pull her out of circulation and take care of her for the rest of her life? Or is she simply banned from working in the brothels approved by the government to prevent her from passing on the disease in a legal setting?

I do not know what would happen to such a person. What I do know is that a brothel run legally would be a lot safer in many ways. At least she would know her HIV status. Also a woman can insist on a condom (hence preventing her getting AIDS in the first place).

[jmontecillo01]

It must have occurred to you too that it minimizes the possiblity of contracting AIDS and other STDs enough to require "that they have a health check up every week, for sexually transmitted desease".
Prostitution just isn't a job like any other job - in spite of the government's intentions.

I am not quite sure what your stance is. Is it prostitution must never be legalized or we must stamp out prostituion in society? I am sorry but the way I see it, you are againts prostitution as a whole.

Please note that there could be several reasons why women goes into prostitution. Some of them needs the money to go through University, some are bringing up children as a single parent.

The argument that I am/was presenting is that since we cannot stop prostitution all together, why not make it as safe as possible for everybody, both to the sex worker and the people who uses their services.

[dann]

Also a woman can insist on a condom Yes, she can, even if she doesn't work in a brothel! And a john can offer her more money to have sex with her without a condom - whether in a brothel or not.
(hence preventing her getting AIDS in the first place). So why the need for weekly medical examinations?

[dann]

I am not quite sure what your stance is. Is it prostitution must never be legalized or we must stamp out prostituion in society? I am sorry but the way I see it, you are againts prostitution as a whole.And you are right about that.
Please note that there could be several reasons why women goes into prostitution. Some of them needs the money to go through University, some are bringing up children as a single parent.Yes, some of them need the money for an education, some to feed their children, some to feed their habit, some to pay the mortgage, some to get something to eat ...
The argument that I am/was presenting is that since we cannot stop prostitution all together ...I always love that argument! Why not use it in every other context? 'Since we cannot put a stop to murder all together ...'
And if 'we' cannot put a stop to prostitution all together, how about 98 percent? Or just 89? No?
Figuring out ways of establishing the ideal, wet-dream bordello (all in the best interest of the employees, of course ) seems to be a favourite passtime of many men ...
... why not make it as safe as possible for everybody, both to the sex worker and the people who uses their services. If the johns bring and use condoms, it is usually pretty secure for them. They don't tend to be the victims of rape and prostitutes don't usully have a problem with the use of condoms, bagaining that they'll do it cheaper if only they can do it without protection.
"Sex worker", by the way, is a brilliant euphemism for prostitute. It almost makes it sound like one of those ordinary jobs where a weekly health test is not required ...

[rjh01]

Yes, she can, even if she doesn't work in a brothel! And a john can offer her more money to have sex with her without a condom - whether in a brothel or not.<snip>

That is just the point. If prostitution is illegal then she cannot insist on a condom. If it is legal then anyone who encourages her to have sex without a condom is committing a crime. At least in the ACT.

[DRBUZZ0]

And you are right about that.
Yes, some of them need the money for an education, some to feed their children, some to feed their habit, some to pay the mortgage, some to get something to eat ...
I always love that argument! Why not use it in every other context? 'Since we cannot put a stop to murder all together ...'



Ah I see. So we should not allow people to do things for money that may end up being bad for them in the long run. We also should not allow people to do things with their bodies which are generally going to put them at risk for health issues or which are generally not going to lead to a good life or will lead to being exploited.

So lets see. What else should we impose our laws on:

~ Getting ugly tattoos that you're probably gona wish you didn't
~ Any kind of job that involves danger
~ Strippers, Porn Actors/Actresses
~ Sex with strangers (hey it's not a good idea to just bang whoever. So it ought to be illegal)
~ Smoking
~ Drinking
~ Getting paid to have paintballs shot at you (yeah there is a job like that).


Lets see... what else? Apparently murder is the same as prostitution even though it necessarily involves a non-consenting party. So lets see here, we ought to punish rape and prostitution the same.... well if the rapist leaves money though. Actually lets make all sex illegal. I mean come on, sex can have it's problems right?


Actually what about the guy who gets denied sex by a woman who is really mad at him for not paying the bills on time. Isn't that prostitution? Or the woman who feels a bit "generous" because a guy bought her a nice ring. That's deinfately prostitution!

[andyandy]

I think that you misunderstand me, jmontecillo01. My point is not to criticize the johns. And I definitely don't condemn the prostitutes, which is sort of implied in, "respect their right to live the way they want to live". The problem is that in most cases this is not exactly the way that they want to live, it's just what they have deemed the best of the rotten alternatives.
You are right, of course, when you say about the legalized brothels that "it gives them a sorrounding where they do not have to worry about the dangers street walkers have to face". Instead they have to worry about the dangers that prostitutes in brothels have to face. The weekly health checks are a testimony to this!!!
And what happens to the poor prostittute with AIDS? Does the government pull her out of circulation and take care of her for the rest of her life? Or is she simply banned from working in the brothels approved by the government to prevent her from passing on the disease in a legal setting?

Dann, I remember you being involved in a similar and tortueous thread on prostitution a while back where you seemed to wish to argue in ideological absolutes about the evil of prostition as a whole and therefore could not countenance even discussing what was best for the prostitutes within the industry itself.....so to keep it brief

(1) prostitution is for the large part a deeply unpleasant industry, in which the majority of people selling sex would rather not be doing so
(2) prostitution will not disappear regardless of whatever laws are passed or not passed by the state
(3) some people do choose to sell sex - either they prefer to work as a prostitute than in another profession, or are able to work in the high end "escort" market of their own free will. These people may be a minority, but nonetheless not everyone wants to be "rescued" from prostitution

Given that (1) (2) and (3) are statements which I don't believe even a blinkered ideologue can argue with, then the question should be "what is best for the women (and men) in the prostitution industry?"

The most dangerous position to be in is a street prostitue - in terms of rape, violence, pimp exploitation, drugs, low wage, STDs, and even murder it is absolutely the worst in terms of risk factors. Given that in legalised brothels you can
(1) Have bouncers and personal alarms to offer some protection from rape and violence
(2) Have a "condom only" policy (again reinforced through personal alarm)
(3) Have regular checks for STDs
(4) Have targeted outreach for all prostitutes to ensure that social workers, job cebtres, drug workers etc. can do everything possible to help these women out of prostitution if they wish
(4) minimise the pimp exploitation - breaking some of the drug dependent cycle, and ensuring that women get a greater share of any money earnt

then it is surely worth at least considering. I think prostition is unpleasant and exploitative but the question should be "how best to help?" rather than simplistic ideology distinct from reality.

The current status quo in the UK results in large numbers of street prostitutes, women trafficked from Europe and illegal and unregulated brothels. How then would you affect change to benefit the thousands of people in their current situation? More laws? Less laws? No laws? No state? The end of capitalism and the founding of an egalitarian society based on Marxism? Or just ideological masturbation?

(and if it takes a while to set up this Marxist state, what should we do in the meantime? ;) )

[dann]

Ah I see. So we should not allow people to do things for money that may end up being bad for them in the long run.Ah, I see. I never talked about allowing or forbidding anything, but you seem to be convinced that you see it. Have your eyesight checked, please.
We also should not allow people to do things with their bodies which are generally going to put them at risk for health issues or which are generally not going to lead to a good life or will lead to being exploited.And you continue in the same manner. Who are "we" who allow people to do things (?!) with their bodies? I'm certainly not one of you!
So lets see. What else should we impose our laws on:And here we go again with your continued and very wrong assumptions:
~ Getting ugly tattoos that you're probably gona wish you didn't
~ Any kind of job that involves danger
~ Strippers, Porn Actors/Actresses
~ Sex with strangers (hey it's not a good idea to just bang whoever. So it ought to be illegal)
~ Smoking
~ Drinking
~ Getting paid to have paintballs shot at you (yeah there is a job like that).
Very funny, and I get your drift, but you are still barking up the wrong tree.
Lets see... what else? Apparently murder is the same as prostitution even though it necessarily involves a non-consenting party. No, murder and prostitution are very different things. Do I really have to explain the difference to you?
So lets see here, we ought to punish rape and prostitution the same.... well if the rapist leaves money though. Actually lets make all sex illegal. I mean come on, sex can have it's problems right?Wow! This is one of the best strawmen I have seen in this forum, and I've seen a lot!
Actually what about the guy who gets denied sex by a woman who is really mad at him for not paying the bills on time. Isn't that prostitution? Or the woman who feels a bit "generous" because a guy bought her a nice ring. That's deinfately prostitution! Well, not according to the law, which you seem to be so preoccupied with in the rest of your argumentation.

[dann]

Dann, I remember you being involved in a similar and tortueous thread on prostitution a while back ...I already linked to the thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2479841#post2479841) in this one so you shouldn't have to strain your memory.
... where you seemed to wish to argue in ideological absolutes about the evil of prostition as a whole and therefore could not countenance even discussing what was best for the prostitutes within the industry itself.....so to keep it brief

(1) prostitution is for the large part a deeply unpleasant industry, in which the majority of people selling sex would rather not be doing so
(2) prostitution will not disappear regardless of whatever laws are passed or not passed by the state
(3) some people do choose to sell sex - either they prefer to work as a prostitute than in another profession, or are able to work in the high end "escort" market of their own free will. These people may be a minority, but nonetheless not everyone wants to be "rescued" from prostitution

Given that (1) (2) and (3) are statements which I don't believe even a blinkered ideologue can argue with, then the question should be "what is best for the women (and men) in the prostitution industry?"How about "not having to work in that 'industry'"? Would that be an acceptable answer? Well, no, probably not with your blinkered ideology ...

The most dangerous position to be in is a street prostitue - in terms of rape, violence, pimp exploitation, drugs, low wage, STDs, and even murder it is absolutely the worst in terms of risk factors. Given that in legalised brothels you can
(1) Have bouncers and personal alarms to offer some protection from rape and violence
(2) Have a "condom only" policy (again reinforced through personal alarm)
(3) Have regular checks for STDs
(4) Have targeted outreach for all prostitutes to ensure that social workers, job cebtres, drug workers etc. can do everything possible to help these women out of prostitution if they wish
(4) minimise the pimp exploitation - breaking some of the drug dependent cycle, and ensuring that women get a greater share of any money earnt

then it is surely worth at least considering. I think prostition is unpleasant and exploitative but the question should be "how best to help?" rather than simplistic ideology distinct from reality.Ah, this is rich: In order to avoid "simplistic ideology" it is necessary to succumb to your simplistic ideology, which, of course, is not at all blinkered.

The current status quo in the UK results in large numbers of street prostitutes, women trafficked from Europe and illegal and unregulated brothels. How then would you affect change to benefit the thousands of people in their current situation?You mean the poverty that forces them to 'work' in the 'industry'? Well, it appears as if the only solution is to abolish the poverty that makes this 'industry' appear to be the best of all the bad alternatives to these people, doesn't it? More laws? Less laws? No laws? No state? The end of capitalism and the founding of an egalitarian society based on Marxism? Or just ideological masturbation? Well, you seem to be comfortable with your ideological masturbation so why ask me for alternatives?
(and if it takes a while to set up this Marxist state, what should we do in the meantime? ;) ) As if you had not already delivered the answer: "We" should design brothels in the sky and pretend that this activity is a very practical, down-to-earth way of helping the poor people in the "unpleasant industry, in which the majority of people selling sex would rather not be doing so": weekly health checks, more lights, bouncers etc., which will help make this line of 'business' so much more enjoyable - in the meantime!

[dann]

That is just the point. If prostitution is illegal then she cannot insist on a condom. Of course, she can! What should stop her? Her poverty? Some illegal prostitutes insist on using condoms, some don't! If it is legal then anyone who encourages her to have sex without a condom is committing a crime. At least in the ACT. Yes, and we all know that crime does not exist, right? And you are absolutely sure that legal prostitutes are never persuaded to have sex without a condom? And you are certain that they are never cheated by customers who pretend to be wearing one but aren't, really, or are wearing one with holes in it?
Why the necessity of weekly health examinations, then?

[DRBUZZ0]

Ah, I see. I never talked about allowing or forbidding anything, but you seem to be convinced that you see it. Have your eyesight checked, please.


You compare prostitution to murder "well if we cannot stop all murders..." and continue on to state opposition to prostitution in general

Furthermore you respond to this statement:

.

I am not quite sure what your stance is. Is it prostitution must never be legalized or we must stamp out prostituion in society? I am sorry but the way I see it, you are againts prostitution as a whole.


With this statement:

And you are right about that.



So now you're saying you only apply that to the second part? That it is not an affirmation of "Must never be legalized" and must "stamp out"


It sounds a damn lot like you'd like you want it to be illegal.

[DRBUZZ0]

Of course, she can! What should stop her? Her poverty? Some illegal prostitutes insist on using condoms, some don't! Yes, and we all know that crime does not exist, right? And you are absolutely sure that legal prostitutes are never persuaded to have sex without a condom? And you are certain that they are never cheated by customers who pretend to be wearing one but aren't, really, or are wearing one with holes in it?
Why the necessity of weekly health examinations, then?


If you are of the impression that making something legal vrs illegal is not going to have any effect on the safety and whether or not there is a reduced risk of standards being followed, well then, I suggest you learn some history.

May I ask when the last time you had to worry about embalming fluid in your Martini was? in the US it was 1920 to 1933.

[jmontecillo01]

May I ask when the last time you had to worry about embalming fluid in your Martini was? in the US it was 1920 to 1933.


I don't think that dann is aware of the prohibition during the roaring 20's.

Dann, note that during those times, criminal elements, such as Al Capone and Bugsy Moran made millions taking by advantage of the prohibition.

Is that what you want to happen?

[DRBUZZ0]

I don't think that dann is aware of the prohibition during the roaring 20's.

Dann, note that during those times, criminal elements, such as Al Capone and Bugsy Moran made millions taking by advantage of the prohibition.

Is that what you want to happen?


Well it's more than that. When was the last time you saw someone cooking up some booze in their bathtub? It actually still happens to avoid taxes, but it's not what it was during prohibition.

It was decided then that alcohol ruined lives and it was just not a good thing on any level. So they decided to make the decision for the population. That is what triggered gangland violence. Al Capone and alike cashed in on the fact that people wold not give up alcohol. Since there was no regulation of the industry, they regulated themselves with violence. Once the industry came back the hayday of the old time gangs pretty much was over.


But not only was there crime involved it was very dangerous. Alcohol had no quality control. People still wanted it but they couldn't go to the liquor store and get it. So they bought it illegally. And people died of poisoning from embalming fluid, methanol, antifreeze, lead all sorts of other nasty stuff.


Unless there's some way of making people stop wanting sex and have a willingness to pay for it it will exist. And it won't just be a fringe. It'll be rampant.


But beyond the practical matters, it cuts to the heart of what a society is willing to accept in terms of freedom and personal choice.

[dann]

You compare prostitution to murder "well if we cannot stop all murders..." and continue on to state opposition to prostitution in generalNo, I don't. I compare the way some people argue about prostitution with the way that nobody would argue in the case of murder. Nobody uses the fact that a few victims of murder actually want to die to argue that murder as such can't be condemned ...
So now you're saying you only apply that to the second part? No, the first part consists of two questions, the second part of a statement - which is what I affirm.It sounds a damn lot like you'd like you want it to be illegal. Yes, to you it does, apparently, which means that you should have not only your eyesight but also your hearing checked.
I would also like to "stamp out" malaria. That doesn't mean that I want to make it illegal! It isn't my fault that a lot of you can't tell the difference!

[dann]

May I ask when the last time you had to worry about embalming fluid in your Martini was? in the US it was 1920 to 1933.I don't drink Martinis, so I never really worried. I know that even today women have to worry about what some rapist might slip into their drinks, and I know that anti-freeze has been used to 'improve' wine (in Austria or Italy, I think), but that is not what you are talking about ...

[dann]

I don't think that dann is aware of the prohibition during the roaring 20's.

Dann, note that during those times, criminal elements, such as Al Capone and Bugsy Moran made millions taking by advantage of the prohibition.

Is that what you want to happen?Yes, I want Al Capone and Bugsy Moran to make millions by taking advantage of prostitution. Your question is childish and stupid!
Why won't you strawman manufacturers realize that women are being taken advantage of in legal as well as illegal brothels? Why don't you take a look at the reality of legalized prostitution instead of basing your arguments on your visions of dreamworld brothels?

[andyandy]

You mean the poverty that forces them to 'work' in the 'industry'? Well, it appears as if the only solution is to abolish the poverty that makes this 'industry' appear to be the best of all the bad alternatives to these people, doesn't it?


ah yes - the solution is to abolish poverty - brilliant idea. How can you do it? And in the meantime whilst we're waiting for your Marxist utopia to be established, what do we do? Nothing?

Why won't you strawman manufacturers realize that women are being taken advantage of in legal as well as illegal brothels? Why don't you take a look at the reality of legalized prostitution instead of basing your arguments on your visions of dreamworld brothels?

*sigh*

yes, women get exploited in prostitution whether that is in legalised brothels, illegal brothels or as street prostitutes. But (and here's the nuance you seem to be having difficulty processing) street prostitution puts prostitutes at far greater risk than in other more controlled environments. It's a lesser of two evils debate, which you seem to wish to answer by pretending that one can snap one's fingers and make all that evil disappear.


As if you had not already delivered the answer: "We" should design brothels in the sky and pretend that this activity is a very practical, down-to-earth way of helping the poor people in the "unpleasant industry, in which the majority of people selling sex would rather not be doing so": weekly health checks, more lights, bouncers etc., which will help make this line of 'business' so much more enjoyable - in the meantime!

so we have a practical and achievable solution -

(1) provide some form of legalised brothels to best try to address the problems of prostitution

or we have your ideological masturbation

(2) end all poverty

I would love to end poverty. If it is a realistic goal then sure that is preferable to (1). But the problem is twofold

How do you propose to end all poverty?
What do you propose to do in the meantime?

If you can't answer either question then your contribution to this debate is redundant.

[dann]

Unless there's some way of making people stop wanting sex and have a willingness to pay for it it will exist. And it won't just be a fringe. It'll be rampant. OK, prostitution fan, what is this supposed to mean? That you don't know that there actually are ways of "making people stop wanting sex"? (But they aren't very pleasant, and so far nobody has argued against sex in this thread.)
The problem, by the way, is not 'people's' willingness to pay for sex but the poverty that drive some 'people' to sell it ...
And what exactly do you mean by "fringe" and "rampant"??? That prostitution is less rampant if it's legalized and therefore will be only a fringe? Will you please elaborate?

[dann]

ah yes - the solution is to abolish poverty - brilliant idea. How can you do it? And in the meantime whilst we're waiting for your Marxist utopia to be established, what do we do? Nothing?I already told you! It's quite obvious what you do: You buld fantasy brothels!
so we have a practical and achievable solution -

(1) provide some form of legalised brothels to best try to address the problems of prostitution
The problem of prostitution is that some people are so poor that they have to sell it to people who can pay instead of having it with people they feel attracted to. Brothels don't "address" this problem, they profit from it.
or we have your ideological masturbationUnlike your favourite passtime: designing fantasy brothels, right?
(2) end all povertyYes, please!
I would love to end poverty.I have a very hard time believing you.
If it is a realistic goal then sure that is preferable to (1). But the problem is twofold

How do you propose to end all poverty?Well, not by having the government legalize poverty abolishment! It's very adamant in this question: Private property is sacred, and since private property follows the principle of mutual exclusion, everybody else is excluded from the property that is mine, abundance exists right next to starvation. And it is not allowed to help yourself by eating the stuff that doesn't belong to you. This is the kind of freedom that no libertarian is in favour of!
What do you propose to do in the meantime?What do you mean with in the meantime??? What do you propose that the prostitutes do while you are building imaginary brothels?
If you can't answer either question then your contribution to this debate is redundant. If you continue to build nothing but strawmen, you've made a fool of yourself.
If, however, you actually want to know what causes poverty, you can start here (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/poverty.html)

[jmontecillo01]

Yes, I want Al Capone and Bugsy Moran to make millions by taking advantage of prostitution. Your question is childish and stupid!
Why won't you strawman manufacturers realize that women are being taken advantage of in legal as well as illegal brothels? Why don't you take a look at the reality of legalized prostitution instead of basing your arguments on your visions of dreamworld brothels?


Now I am sure that you know nothing about prohibition during the 20's. Was DRBUZZO's explanation not enough for you?


OK, prostitution fan


It is time for me to bow out. I'll let the other prostitution fans take over from here.

[andyandy]

The problem of prostitution is that some people are so poor that they have to sell it to people who can pay instead of having it with people they feel attracted to. Brothels don't "address" this problem, they profit from it.

yes once again, legalised brothels do not "solve" the problem of prostitution. No one is suggesting that it does. This has been explained to you already. Given a lesser of two evils choice between state help with regards to violence, rape, counselling, drugs, jobs in a controlled legalised brothel environment and a wholly uncontrolled street environment in which such support is much more difficult to provide I would rather the former. You simply seem to ignore reality and just wish that *poof* evil capitalism disappears in a puff of smoke ;)



Well, not by having the government legalize poverty abolishment! It's very adamant in this question: Private property is sacred, and since private property follows the principle of mutual exclusion, everybody else is excluded from the property that is mine, abundance exists right next to starvation. And it is not allowed to help yourself by eating the stuff that doesn't belong to you. This is the kind of freedom that no libertarian is in favour of!

i asked you how you would end poverty. You've said what you wouldn't do. Now say what you would do.

What do you mean with in the meantime??? What do you propose that the prostitutes do while you are building imaginary brothels?
If you continue to build nothing but strawmen, you've made a fool of yourself.

legalising brothels is a real world solution which could be implemented quickly and reasonably easily by governments - it is a more realistic short term approach than your suggested solution of "ending poverty" through some as yet undefined communist ideal. Even if your communist ideal is one day to be realised, you surely can not be suggesting that it would be quicker to implement than legalising brothels? One can have both short term and long term aims - you seem to solely be willing to look at long term idealism.

[DRBUZZ0]

OK, prostitution fan, what is this supposed to mean?

Do NOT call me a prostitution fan. How dare you start casting others in such terms based entirely on inability to attack the argument. I'm no more a fan of prostitution than of body modification, of extreme fetish porn, of idiotic reality TV or numerous other things which I would support other's right to do on their own time with consenting adults.


That you don't know that there actually are ways of "making people stop wanting sex"? (But they aren't very pleasant, and so far nobody has argued against sex in this thread.)



And what the hell does that have to do with anything? As long as people want sex and have money they'll be willing to trade money for sex. Is that so complicated? Are you suggesting that everyone walk around castrated or something? What the hell are you talking about that I don't "know there actually are ways" Yeah, I guess if you disfigure everyone's body to make it incapable of sexual function and suppress hormones then there ya go. Is that how important stamping out prostitution is?



The problem, by the way, is not 'people's' willingness to pay for sex but the poverty that drive some 'people' to sell it ...


Okay so then the idea is what? To eliminate poverty? And not just poverty but the need to sell for school payments or something? Are you suggesting that the answer is to assure everyone is so rich that they'll never feel a need to sell sex for some more? Geez, I think that's gona be... economically... rather impossible...

You know what else people do because they need money? A lot of crappy, dangerous, unpleasant things. And it's not like all prostitutes are dirt poor. I don't know if they like the job or consider it an "easy" way to make lots of money or if it's "The only option" or they "feel forced" into it or what. It could be any of these. Really it's there business and not yours.




And what exactly do you mean by "fringe" and "rampant"??? That prostitution is less rampant if it's legalized and therefore will be only a fringe? Will you please elaborate?

No I won't. I think everyone else understands. And it's especially frustrating when you ask someone to explain something and they refuse to. I think I'd like to make you feel a bit frustrated at the moment... just because you irritate me.




I don't drink Martinis, so I never really worried. I know that even today women have to worry about what some rapist might slip into their drinks, and I know that anti-freeze has been used to 'improve' wine (in Austria or Italy, I think), but that is not what you are talking about ...

If you're going to make a strawman, you could at least try to obfuscate it a little so that it is less apparent that it is such a strawman. Today women having anything slipped in their drink has nothing to do with alcohol quality. It could easily be a non-alcoholic soda. And I have not heard of anything but any isolated instances of antifreeze in anything.. I have never heard it being widespread.

There was a time when it was. There was a time when literally any alcoholic beverage could make you go blind from methanol poisoning or die from other contaminants. This was when it was illegal.

I don't care if you drink martinis or not.

[dann]

Now I am sure that you know nothing about prohibition during the 20's. Was DRBUZZO's explanation not enough for you?Yes, his 'explanation' was more than enough, and I know more than enough about prohibition, so let me repeat my questions to you:
Why won't you strawman manufacturers realize that women are being taken advantage of in legal as well as illegal brothels? Why don't you take a look at the reality of legalized prostitution instead of basing your arguments on your visions of dreamworld brothels? You seem to think that illegal prostitution more or less disappears with the introduction of legalized brothels. That is the whole point of your comparison with the prohibition, isn't it?

[dann]

yes once again, legalised brothels do not "solve" the problem of prostitution. No one is suggesting that it does. This has been explained to you already. Given a lesser of two evils choice between state help with regards to violence, rape, counselling, drugs, jobs in a controlled legalised brothel environment and a wholly uncontrolled street environment in which such support is much more difficult to provide I would rather the former. You simply seem to ignore reality and just wish that *poof* evil capitalism disappears in a puff of smoke ;)You seem to ignore reality and just wish that *poof* illegal prostitution disappears in a puff of smoke when legalised brothels are introduced! You imaine yourself a realist, but you are nothing of the kind!
Your "state help with regards to violence, rape, counselling, drugs, jobs in a controlled legalised brothel environment" simply makes a division between the legalised and the illegal prostitution - as if the former will put an end to the latter. By the way, your state help with these things imply that there are all still there (as the weekly health checks imply that STDs are still there - in the brothels approved by the government).
i asked you how you would end poverty. You've said what you wouldn't do. When? Where? Now say what you would do. That's quite simple - but not easy: Remove the thing that causes poverty (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/poverty.html)!
legalising brothels is a real world solution which could be implemented quickly and reasonably easily by governments - it is a more realistic short term approach than your suggested solution of "ending poverty" through some as yet undefined communist ideal. Even if your communist ideal is one day to be realised, you surely can not be suggesting that it would be quicker to implement than legalising brothels? One can have both short term and long term aims - you seem to solely be willing to look at long term idealism. As always when you make the so-called lesser of two evils your objective instead of abolishing the cause of both miserable alternatives, you start praising your own realism, which is a mistake. You become an alleged realistic, short-term, down-to-earth, anti-idealistic spokesman for brothels, not the real-life kind, but the idealized, psedo-realistic kind.
It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here is quite unpractical, and goes against human nature. This is perfectly true. It is unpractical, and it goes against human nature. This is why it is worth carrying out, and that is why one proposes it. For what is a practical scheme? A practical scheme is either a scheme that is already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under existing conditions. But it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to; and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish. http://wilde.thefreelibrary.com/Soul-of-Man-under-Socialism

[dann]

Do NOT call me a prostitution fan. How dare you start casting others in such terms based entirely on inability to attack the argument. I'm no more a fan of prostitution than of body modification, of extreme fetish porn, of idiotic reality TV or numerous other things which I would support other's right to do on their own time with consenting adults. You are not only a fan of prostitution, you seem to be a very big fan: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3087926#post3087926

And what the hell does that have to do with anything? As long as people want sex and have money they'll be willing to trade money for sex. Is that so complicated? Are you suggesting that everyone walk around castrated or something? No, as long as people want sex and have money, they may be willing to trade money for sex, but you still need the supplier, the people without money, the people whose poverty makes them so willing to disregard that they don’t feel attracted to the person with money. This aspect of the ‘profession’, by the way, is the main reason why prostitutes need drugs even if drugs weren’t the thing that made them turn tricks to begin with. This, by the way, is what I already said in my post: “ he problem, by the way, is not 'people's' willingness to pay for sex but the poverty that drive some 'people' to sell it ...”

What the hell are you talking about that I don't "know there actually are ways" Yeah, I guess if you disfigure everyone's body to make it incapable of sexual function and suppress hormones then there ya go. Is that how important stamping out prostitution is? No, not to me. It’s not a question of the ‘importance’, however. What you are willing to expose prostitutes to is a different question …

Okay so then the idea is what? To eliminate poverty? Exactly!

And not just poverty but the need to sell for school payments or something? Exactly!

Are you suggesting that the answer is to assure everyone is so rich that they'll never feel a need to sell sex for some more? Exactly!

Geez, I think that's gona be... economically... rather impossible... Not more impossible than your idealized brothels. But dreaming of making a profit from the misfortune of women (and men) is much more realistic, right? http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3087926#post3087926

You know what else people do because they need money? A lot of crappy, dangerous, unpleasant things. Yes, and how come you seem to enjoy the fact? Because you see people willing to let themselves be exploited as a business opportunity?

And it's not like all prostitutes are dirt poor. I don't know if they like the job or consider it an "easy" way to make lots of money or if it's "The only option" or they "feel forced" into it or what. It could be any of these. Really it's there business and not yours. But it appears to be yours, right? http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3087926#post3087926

And what exactly do you mean by "fringe" and "rampant"??? That prostitution is less rampant if it's legalized and therefore will be only a fringe? Will you please elaborate? No I won't. I think everyone else understands. And it's especially frustrating when you ask someone to explain something and they refuse to. I think I'd like to make you feel a bit frustrated at the moment... just because you irritate me. OK, suit yourself, prostitution fan.

If you're going to make a strawman, you could at least try to obfuscate it a little so that it is less apparent that it is such a strawman. Today women having anything slipped in their drink has nothing to do with alcohol quality. It could easily be a non-alcoholic soda. And I have not heard of anything but any isolated instances of antifreeze in anything.. I have never heard it being widespread. You mean like prostitution?

There was a time when it was. There was a time when literally any alcoholic beverage could make you go blind from methanol poisoning or die from other contaminants. This was when it was illegal. Literally any? What is your argument here? That sleeping with legalized prostitutes is better …. for the johns? That the prostitutes should be made safer for the consumers? In general the johns are not the ones who suffer …

I don't care if you drink martinis or not. I did not think that you do. I don’t care much for your Martini argument!

[andyandy]

You seem to ignore reality and just wish that *poof* illegal prostitution disappears in a puff of smoke when legalised brothels are introduced! You imaine yourself a realist, but you are nothing of the kind!
Your "state help with regards to violence, rape, counselling, drugs, jobs in a controlled legalised brothel environment" simply makes a division between the legalised and the illegal prostitution - as if the former will put an end to the latter.

good grief. this must be at least the third time you've tried to pretend that people arguing for legalised prostitution think that this is a utopian solution which will end all illegal prostitution. This is simply not the case. You are being deliberately disingenous.


By the way, your state help with these things imply that there are all still there (as the weekly health checks imply that STDs are still there - in the brothels approved by the government).

quite - legalised brothels are not a utopia which make all problems disappear. Congratulations for your discovery.


That's quite simple - but not easy: Remove the thing that causes poverty (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/poverty.html)!

Yes, i've read the somewhat vague and rather rambling gegenstanpunk, workers of the world unite, anti-capitalist argument. It doesn't present any positives - just a rejection of capitalism. How do you actually get from the system we have now to the system you want to exist? Sixth form essays on the evils of capitalism don't help in that regard.

As always when you make the so-called lesser of two evils your objective instead of abolishing the cause of both miserable alternatives, you start praising your own realism, which is a mistake. You become an alleged realistic, short-term, down-to-earth, anti-idealistic spokesman for brothels, not the real-life kind, but the idealized, psedo-realistic kind

REVOL REVOL! DOWN WITH REALISM! ;)

[DRBUZZ0]

You are not only a fan of prostitution, you seem to be a very big fan: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3087926#post3087926


Taken out of context, accusatory and inflammatory. You have been reported and will continue to be so for every additional time you make these empty personal attacks.




No, as long as people want sex and have money, they may be willing to trade money for sex, but you still need the supplier, the people without money, the people whose poverty makes them so willing to disregard that they don’t feel attracted to the person with money.



Where there is demand and sufficient willingness to pay there will be a supplier. And it does not have anything to do with poverty. It has to do with what someone is willing to do for a given amount of money. It involved personal ethics, values, willingness to take risks, feelings on sex, availability of alternatives and so on. You have no right to speak for anyone who makes such a choice.


This aspect of the ‘profession’, by the way, is the main reason why prostitutes need drugs even if drugs weren’t the thing that made them turn tricks to begin with. This, by the way, is what I already said in my post: “ he problem, by the way, is not 'people's' willingness to pay for sex but the poverty that drive some 'people' to sell it ...”


That's speculation. It may even be true in many cases, but you have zero right to speak for those who may choose such a profession. Doubtless there are some who regret it or feel they have been forced into it by lack of choices. This could be said for numerous other jobs. It is unfortunate but a reality.



No, not to me. It’s not a question of the ‘importance’, however. What you are willing to expose prostitutes to is a different question …


What *I* am willing to expose anyone to is not an issue. What a person is willing to expose themselves to is. Ideally, I'd like such a person to have as much precautionary and safety measures as reasonably possible taken. Doubtless, there is still risk. There's also risk in North Atlantic fishing which is one reason it pays so much. *I* don't think I have the right to tell others what risks are reasonable and what constitutes a fair and good job.


Exactly!




There have been attempts to make a society free from want in which every person is set and taken care of and never feels need for money or feels social unfairness. You might remember one of them... they had to build a really big wall to keep everyone from fleeing

In any case, I doubt even the most progressive socialists would claim it's possible to have everyone live in such a lap of luxury that they would never ever desire any additional money or possessions. At least, that's not possible without some very very heavy social engineering. It's never even come close to working...EVER.


Not more impossible than your idealized brothels. But dreaming of making a profit from the misfortune of women (and men) is much more realistic, right? http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3087926#post3087926

The tone of that is accusatory and the accusations are ad-hom and unfounded. You have been reported and will continue to be reported for every additional attack of this nature.

You are making a great assumption when you state "misfortune" of women and men. Where do you get off being the spokesperson for everyone who's been taken advantage of?

I happen to have a friend who was a stripper for a long time. The same has been said of that job taking advantage of people. I asked her if she ever felt used or like a piece of meat. She told me that occasionally she had a bad night, but in general she *liked* the job. She said she actually felt like she was empowered because she was able to just flirt with a guy and get him to cough up lots of money. She said that she really thought it was a great job because she made gobs or money and it was easy and had relatively short hours. She could afford a pretty nice place based on the money. And she does not regret it. The only reason she left was that she wanted a job she could keep into her older years so she got an education. She said she honestly would do it if she could because it was good money and easy.

Is this universal? Certainly not. Did she have nights where some guys made her feel crappy? Sure, occasionally. She chose the job and had a better standard of living because of it. I don't even know if maybe she was lying about not minding it, but I'm not going to pretend to get into someone's head. There are people who don't feel like she did or don't see it as beneficial. But you have no right to speak for someone who goes into a job at a strip club, a brothel, a porn studio, a coal mine, a fishing boat, a corporate office or anywhere they choose.

It's absolutely reprehensible to claim to be the one who can make the better decision or who helps them by benovelantly taking away the option. The statements made toward those who might see this as a necessary or advantageous choice are disgusting and extremely judgmental.



Yes, and how come you seem to enjoy the fact? Because you see people willing to let themselves be exploited as a business opportunity?


If somebody wants to sell sex and they think it's a fair trade and have gotten sufficient money in return then yes, I am happy to see that as I am with any mutually beneficial business transaction. Exploitation? Absolutely not. Nobody should be expoited or forced into anything. That's not the same issue and you are well aware of this.

In the end, if it is such a bad decision then the best thing to do is to inform those who would do it to the consequences. You cannot go around protecting people from themselves. It in no way helps to take away the option which will force them to do so illegally.


But it appears to be yours, right? http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3087926#post3087926



OK, suit yourself, prostitution fan.

You have been reported and will continue to be so for every additional time you make these empty personal attacks.





Literally any? What is your argument here? That sleeping with legalized prostitutes is better …. for the johns? That the prostitutes should be made safer for the consumers? In general the johns are not the ones who suffer …


Don't tell me who is suffering. You cannot speak for anyone. Your assertions are very offensive, judgmental and generally reflect very very poorly on you, but that's just my opinion.... as opposed to your statement which is a clear violation of forum policy


I did not think that you do. I don’t care much for your Martini argument!

Yeah I understand that. It's a pretty good analogy which is hard to refute and it's based on something observed in the real world in a parallel situation. That must make it really suck for you, eh?

[dann]

Taken out of context, accusatory and inflammatory. You have been reported and will continue to be so for every additional time you make these empty personal attacks.

(...)
The tone of that is accusatory and the accusations are ad-hom and unfounded. You have been reported and will continue to be reported for every additional attack of this nature.
(...)
You have been reported and will continue to be so for every additional time you make these empty personal attacks.

You did not appear to be so sensitive at the beginning of this thread - and this is just the beginning:
I'm not writing this as a joke. I'm really not. Because something had occurred to me. Brothels are cash cows. Prostitution is the sort of thing that just can't not drag in money. Sex sells and many are willing to pay for it. Those who have a lot to spend are often willing to spend it on sex. It's the sort of business that is universal in it's solvency, in good times and bad in recessions and booms. There's a reason why adult entertainment companies always rake it in.

But in the US, prostitution is illegal in all major cities. (personally I think this is stupid and I'm pretty libertarian in my views in general) In Nevada it is legal in some counties and the brothels there and their working girls (in a few cases guys) make a lot. http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3087926#post3087926
Context enough for you?

[dann]

... but you have zero right to speak for those who may choose such a profession. (...) Where do you get off being the spokesperson for everyone who's been taken advantage of? (...) But you have no right to speak for someone who goes into a job at a strip club, a brothel, a porn studio, a coal mine, a fishing boat, a corporate office or anywhere they choose.

It's absolutely reprehensible to claim to be the one who can make the better decision or who helps them by benovelantly taking away the option. The statements made toward those who might see this as a necessary or advantageous choice are disgusting and extremely judgmental. (...) Don't tell me who is suffering. You cannot speak for anyone. Your assertions are very offensive, judgmental and generally reflect very very poorly on you, but that's just my opinion.... as opposed to your statement which is a clear violation of forum policy
I was not aware that I was speaking for, being the spokesperson for or making decisions for anyone.
But for somebody who is making that accusation, you seem to be very confident about being the spokesperson for people who are forced out of necessity to work in brothels - legal or illegal. As for your actual suggestions for how to run "a legal brothel where it's illegal...sorta", you don't come across as the most empathic guy in the world!

[chillzero]

Please treat this thread as an area where ideas can be discussed without judgement or personalisation of the issues. Your posts should address the point being raised, without reference back to the person making that point in any derogatory or negative fashion.

[dann]

Prostitution Reality Check (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2489722#post2489722)
And more links about prostitution and poverty:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2496288#post2496288
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2497034#post2497034
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2498549#post2498549
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2498551#post2498551
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2498821#post2498821
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2499382#post2499382
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2499417#post2499417
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2499546#post2499546

[DRBUZZ0]

I have no interest in the "reality check" which is nothing but comments from yourself and your own self-serving links. You are unhealthily obsessed with this and the reenforcement of an argument which at it's basis is contrary to the principals of liberty and management of oneself. Nobody is listening just getting a bit irritated.

[rjh01]

I have no interest in the "reality check" which is nothing but comments from yourself and your own self-serving links. You are unhealthily obsessed with this and the reenforcement of an argument which at it's basis is contrary to the principals of liberty and management of oneself. Nobody is listening just getting a bit irritated.

This is a statement of the obvious.:D

[dann]

Oh, dear, more principals! And this time of ”liberty and management of oneself”! Hilarious!

Nobody is listening, you say? Nobody at all??! It’s funny how you are able to make yourself the spokesperson for the rest of the world! I don’t doubt that you are not interested in links to information about prostitution, however. I didn’t expect you to be.Your puerile imagination seems to be all you need to fabricate your fantasies of ideal brothels – legal or illegal - as a wonderful business opportunity,
Having the only such place in a major city seems like it could not possibly fail to bring in the money.

But how could you do that openly in a place where prostitution is illegal?

In the 1920's alcohol was illegal in the US, but there was one way in places like New York to have a nice evening of drinks without violating the law. One only needed to take the short trip to international waters in what was called a "Booze Cruise."

So why not the same for prostitution? Deals not made until outside US jurisdiction, on a nice boat with private staterooms.
which you probably think is a very healthy preoccupation, so why worry about a reality check (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2489722#post2489722)? It would only serve to ruin your fantasy, and all you need to feed it is your anecdotal evidence from former strippers …
Your affinity with woowoos could not be more obvious.

Apropos of liberty, let me at least offer you this:

The fundamental question of choice.
For the same reason, it is doubtful whether prostitution is ever a free choice. What proportion of prostitutes, given the possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which they did not need to sell their bodies, would choose nonetheless to continue in prostitution? A study made among prostitutes in San Francisco shows that nearly 90% want to leave the industry.
It is worth noting that the regulation camp, to prove that prostitutes choose their profession freely, cite the fact that they prefer prostitution to, say, working in a sweat shop for 15 hours a day. Of course they do. But a choice between two forms of exploitation is not a free choice, nor ever has been, but is purely and simply an abuse of the term. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could therefore only have been proposed by the regulation camp by misrepresenting the very notion of "free choice".
http://www.fidh.org/lettres/2000pdf/angl/cah38uk.htm

[DRBUZZ0]

Oh I stopped listening to you a long time ago. The only reason I continue to respond is that it's so hard to resist an opportunity to make a fool out of someone with such ridiculous arguments and who makes themselves look like such a... (I better stop right there).

In any case, I'm not going to read your stupid little commie nonsense. Yeah, people take jobs for the money which they otherwise wouldn't do. I remember having a conversation with captain obvious about this.

The quote in your signature is very telling. Anyone who suggests that "Abolishing" religion and thereby forcing "happiness" on everyone and sees Karl Marx as a great speaker of truth and valid theory for how to do things is not someone I'd care to even bother with.

Why don't you go back to Russia and see if you can get them to try that idea again. I think Putin's been working on it for some time. Unfortunately China seems to be putting that by the side. Uh??? Cuba maybe? Yeah. Excellent. You know there are so many damn americans who get into rickety boats and flea to a life in Cuba where they won't be exploited by society.


Seriously go read some books or something. Not philopsophy books, though. History books. Those actually deal with reality.

[dann]

Ah yes, the last resort of the utterly clueless: ad homs and not a single argument! Maybe you should start reading a couple of books or maybe just newspapers. It might help ruin your ignorance and improve your spelling …
Putin, for instance, is not a commie any more. (I don’t know if he ever was.) He is one of your guys. The US government does not like him but for other reasons than you appear to think. But every post from you so far has demonstrated that you are not too fond of books or articles that ”actually deal with reality”.
That you are not particularly fond of Cuba either would not come as a big surprise to anybody, I think. After all, this poor country managed to eliminate prostitution for three decades, but the unfortunate return of poverty in the 1990s also gave rise to prostitution again:

In the pre-1950s era, Cuba's prostitution industry was rampant. It is estimated there were more than 100,000 women of the night on this small island before Castro took control. After Castro took control in the 1950s, promising to abolish prostitution, the trade became almost extinct for the next 35 years.
http://www.american.edu/TED/cubatour.htm

Propped by $ 4 billion in annual Soviet subsidies, the Cuban economy allowed women (and men) to meet their basic needs without needing to trade in their bodies.
Over the past decade, however, Soviet subsidies disappeared and trading partners were lost. Prostitution has come back. Despite government claims that it remains committed to elimi¬nating the sex trade, prostitution continues, albeit at reduced levels from several years ago. Increased prostitution in Cuba is a byproduct of the economic crisis precipitated by the col¬lapse of the Soviet Union and the economic reforms initiated in 1993-94.
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:Y...lnk&cd=7&gl=dk

Prostitution was targeted for eradication and consequently, massive sweeps of the cities eliminated bordellos and put former prostitutes in trade schools. (Holgado, 234). Cuba was no longer America’s whore and Cuban women were no longer the sexual objects of the foreigners.
(…)
Cuban prostitutes are not necessarily uneducated country girls. These women “are educated professionals who work as prostitutes at night in addition to their jobs.” (Perkovich and Saini, 434). The most over-represented group within these circles, of course, is the black woman and the mulatto because “they are underrepresented in the exterior of the country, so they do not have family to send them remissions in dollars.” (Holgado, 236: my translation)
(…)
What the government fails to realize is that these are not deviant Jezebels out to give Cuban women a bad name; many are single mothers or young women out to make money to buy basic necessities such as cooking oil and soap. Adriana, a 20-year-old jinetera remarks, “there are many jineteras that do this to survive, out of necessity, to maintain their families, or because they have children and the father cannot/does not support them. He may have left to the U.S. and left her alone” (Holgado 246 my translation). (…) The solution to this problem is not a legal one, but an economic one. If these women were provided with adequate support from the government, good salaries, decent rations prostitution would not be necessary. Absent an economic improvement, it will remain a way for Cuban women to utilize their exotic sexuality to survive.
(…)
To conclude, Fidel Castro’s government has overall been a mixed bag for Cuban women. Free education, abortion rights, and ascension into the workforce have brought women freedoms unmatched in other Caribbean nations. Yet, poverty and the resultant rise in prostitution, the “separate spheres” mentality, and lack of support for single mothers create for Cuban women a paradoxical situation.
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:P...lnk&cd=9&gl=dk

And I do not think that these quotations come from pro-Castro sites!

When you say that ”there are so many damn americans who get into rickety boats and flea to a life in Cuba”, I have to admit that I am not really sure if you are talking about these poor guys (http://www.pickledbushman.com/index.php/2007/06/19/michael_moore_sicko_or_american_refugees) ….

Merry Christmas!

[rjh01]

Can I declare this thread dead? I mean Dann has made a good case for prostitution to be legal in his last post. I doubt that DrBuzzo will argue it should be otherwise. Chillzero is here to make sure we keep to the rules. The lurkers can read and come to their own conclusions.
I declare this thread well and truly dead.

[dann]

I guess that rjh01 is probably right about one thing. For the guys in this thread who consider brothels to be a wonderful business opportunity (and DrBuzzo is certainly one of those even though, for some reason, he objects to the term prostitution fan. Go figure), the fact that poverty is what forces poor people to become prostitutes:

“single mothers or young women out to make money to buy basic necessities such as cooking oil and soap. Adriana, a 20-year-old jinetera remarks, “there are many jineteras that do this to survive, out of necessity, to maintain their families, or because they have children and the father cannot/does not support them. He may have left to the U.S. and left her alone”. (…) The solution to this problem is not a legal one, but an economic one. If these women were provided with adequate support from the government, good salaries, decent rations prostitution would not be necessary. Absent an economic improvement, it will remain a way for Cuban women to utilize their exotic sexuality to survive.”

is neither an argument against poverty nor against prostitution. Instead they see it exclusively as a good case for prostitution to be legal and as an argument which at it's basis is contrary to the principals of liberty and management of oneself.
What the economic circumstances force people to do from this perspective turns out to be nothing but an exertion of their constitutional rights:
Yeah, people take jobs for the money which they otherwise wouldn't do.
And this principle, of course, is the reason why poverty (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/poverty.html) is such a splendid opportunity for people with money: Poor people are not only willing (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/psych/1-0-part-I.html) to do things that they find disgusting, they are forced to do so, not by a feudal despot, but by the wonderful compulsion of their financial circumstances. This is the logic of free will (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/state/1.html) and free enterprise (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/katrina.html) for poor people: They have the same constitutional rights (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/state/2.html) as the people with money to exert their will to choose, but in their case the free choice is not one of deciding between investing in bordellos or stocks and bonds. They have to choose between all the glorious offers from people with private property (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/state/4.html) who are thus able to pick and choose: If they want (poor) people to work for them in their factories, fields or sweat shops, they have the money to pay them and thus command over (sometimes) all their waking hours. And if they want (poor) people for sex they have the freedom to pay them to overcome their dislike and aversion to do so.

This is then what constitutes the much celebrated principals of liberty and management of oneself. i.e. the choices of the poor – if they have even those. If they are too weak or too old, working in a sweat shop may be out of the question, and if they are sexually unattractive, selling their sexual favours also is not an option.
The rich are free to decide whose sexual favours to buy. The poor have the liberty to exert their freedom to starve.

Anyone who suggests that "Abolishing" religion and thereby forcing "happiness" on everyone and sees Karl Marx as a great speaker of truth and valid theory for how to do things is not someone I'd care to even bother with.

Yes, of course. Eliminating the circumstances which force people to undertake ‘services’ so vile that they have to take drugs in order to numb their senses to the acts, would amount to force in the egalitarian view of things, whereas actually undertaking these acts becomes an expression of the celebrated free will. And of course this also goes for the opium of the people, religion. A ‘skeptic’ does not want to consider eliminating the circumstances, which force upon people the choice between drugs and religion. This kind of abolishing religion by eliminating the force of poverty and destitution is not seen as something which liberates people who no longer have to manipulate their own view of the world by inventing superstitious delusions in order to be able to endure it.

Thus everything is turned upside-down in this ideology: Submission to the forces of capitalist poverty is celebrated as the ultimate freedom and any criticism of this condition is consequently considered to be outright tyranny, taking away people’s freedom of choice to become (for instance) prostitutes, addicts or a homeless (very realistic ‘career moves’ for a lot of people in any market economy).
And people who feel like discussing DRBUZZO’s suggestions of how to turn people’s people into money machines are the people with whom he cares to bother, since he is one of them himself:
Brothels are cash cows. Prostitution is the sort of thing that just can't not drag in money. Sex sells and many are willing to pay for it. Those who have a lot to spend are often willing to spend it on sex. It's the sort of business that is universal in it's solvency, in good times and bad in recessions and booms. As DRBUZZO et al see it, the only problem is that, so far, in many places it is still illegal, and that infringes upon their liberty to exploit the poor!

This quotation already put it very nicely:
The fundamental question of choice.
For the same reason, it is doubtful whether prostitution is ever a free choice. What proportion of prostitutes, given the possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which they did not need to sell their bodies, would choose nonetheless to continue in prostitution? A study made among prostitutes in San Francisco shows that nearly 90% want to leave the industry.
It is worth noting that the regulation camp, to prove that prostitutes choose their profession freely, cite the fact that they prefer prostitution to, say, working in a sweat shop for 15 hours a day. Of course they do. But a choice between two forms of exploitation is not a free choice, nor ever has been, but is purely and simply an abuse of the term. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could therefore only have been proposed by the regulation camp by misrepresenting the very notion of "free choice".
http://www.fidh.org/lettres/2000pdf/angl/cah38uk.htm

... and a happy New Year!

[JFrankA]

*jumps into the frey, with both feet, just reading parts of this thread*

I am JFrankA and a prostitution fan. :)

My humble opinion: will legalizing prostitution solve all of it's problems? Of course not. However, it will help make some situtations better.

And I have to say not everyone goes into prostitution because of poverty. I know some escorts, who are prostitutes technically, who go into it because they actually enjoy it. They wouldn't do anything else.

About Dann's quote above, (and please, Dann, take no offense), what prostitutes where they surveying? Just streetwalkers or brothel workers or escorts or all of them? Also, I know I've been working in customer service for a number of years (my day job), and if I am "given the possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which" I do not need to talk to customers anymore, I'd say yes.... Sorry, that's a very leading question.

And if I may add, not all protitutes are female. I know a couple of male prostitutes who work exclusively with male clients, and some who work exclusively with female clients (Yes, women use prostitutes too!!! I know a few who have!) and some for both.

...just wanted to make that clear. :)

'sides, if you want to get technical, the commercial "Every kiss begins with Kay" screams prostitution to me. I mean, they are basically saying that my girlfriend won't even give me a kiss unless I give her expensive jewerly? :D

[dann]

*jumps into the frey, with both feet, just reading parts of this thread*

I am JFrankA and a prostitution fan. :)

My humble opinion: will legalizing prostitution solve all of it's problems? Of course not. However, it will help make some situtations better.

And I have to say not everyone goes into prostitution because of poverty.No, not everyone.
I know some escorts, who are prostitutes technically, who go into it because they actually enjoy it. They wouldn't do anything else.
This is a tricky quesion: Can you believe anybody who claims that he or she wouldn't do anything else? I don't think so. I've even met school teachers who claim that they wouldn't do anything else, and you probably have colleagues like that too.
I tend to have more faith in the lotto commercials on TV where people win (so much for reality) and immediately tell the boss to go ***** himself.
About Dann's quote above,
Which one?
Prostitution Reality Check (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2489722#post2489722)
And more links about prostitution and poverty:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2496288#post2496288
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2497034#post2497034
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2498549#post2498549
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2498551#post2498551
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2498821#post2498821
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2499382#post2499382
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2499417#post2499417
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2499546#post2499546
(and please, Dann, take no offense),I don't usually.
what prostitutes were they surveying? Just streetwalkers or brothel workers or escorts or all of them? Also, I know I've been working in customer service for a number of years (my day job), and if I am "given the possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which" I do not need to talk to customers anymore, I'd say yes.... Sorry, that's a very leading question. Sometimes I feel the same way about teaching high-school students, but even when I was young enough I never felt tempted to change to prostitution.

And if I may add, not all protitutes are female. I know a couple of male prostitutes who work exclusively with male clients, and some who work exclusively with female clients (Yes, women use prostitutes too!!! I know a few who have!) and some for both.

...just wanted to make that clear. :)

I don't doubt it, but the male prostitutes with female clients are probably so rare that they are more frequent in men's fantasies than in reality.

'sides, if you want to get technical, the commercial "Every kiss begins with Kay" screams prostitution to me. I mean, they are basically saying that my girlfriend won't even give me a kiss unless I give her expensive jewelry? :D I don't know that one, but my answer is the same: Poverty stinks! When it forces people to become prostitutes or to get engaged or married (whatever).

[DRBUZZ0]

Poverty? You realize that there are plenty of upper middle class and rather comfortable women who would want (or expect) a big diamond ring and would be willing to do things in exchange for it such as kissing or more.

Jesus, it's not like everyone who does something for money is starving and dirt poor!

[JFrankA]

Quote:
I know some escorts, who are prostitutes technically, who go into it because they actually enjoy it. They wouldn't do anything else.

This is a tricky quesion: Can you believe anybody who claims that he or she wouldn't do anything else? I don't think so. I've even met school teachers who claim that they wouldn't do anything else, and you probably have colleagues like that too.
I tend to have more faith in the lotto commercials on TV where people win (so much for reality) and immediately tell the boss to go ***** himself.

Quote:
what prostitutes were they surveying? Just streetwalkers or brothel workers or escorts or all of them? Also, I know I've been working in customer service for a number of years (my day job), and if I am "given the possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which" I do not need to talk to customers anymore, I'd say yes.... Sorry, that's a very leading question.

Sometimes I feel the same way about teaching high-school students, but even when I was young enough I never felt tempted to change to prostitution.

But you've proven my point. Many people in their jobs would be happy to leave it they were given the "possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which" they aren't doing ...whatever. All I was saying there is the quote you gave:

"What proportion of prostitutes, given the possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which they did not need to sell their bodies, would choose nonetheless to continue in prostitution? A study made among prostitutes in San Francisco shows that nearly 90% want to leave the industry.
doesn't mean a thing because I'm sure you'd get high figures with ANY occupation.

I do agree with you when you say that
Poverty stinks! When it forces people to become prostitutes or to get engaged or married (whatever). but all I am saying is that there are plenty of examples when people get in the profession because they want to, and there are plenty of examples when people do things they don't like to do that is not prostitution because they need the money.

That's all. :)

[dann]

But you've proven my point. Many people in their jobs would be happy to leave it they were given the "possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which" they aren't doing ...whatever. All I was saying there is the quote you gave: "What proportion of prostitutes, given the possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which they did not need to sell their bodies, would choose nonetheless to continue in prostitution? A study made among prostitutes in San Francisco shows that nearly 90% want to leave the industry. doesn't mean a thing because I'm sure you'd get high figures with ANY occupation.
No, I haven't proven your point, but you have drawn a conclusion from the quotation I gave you that you cannot really draw. You seem to be thinking that the prostitutes in San Fransisco were asked the question: 'If it would be possible for you to earn the same or better in acceptable working conditions, would you then still be turning tricks?'
Unfortunately I don't know the exact question being asked in the survey, but I can offer you a little more of the context of the quotation. Feel free to look up the rest of the article.
(...) However, the prostitute hires our their body not to do work but as the passive object of their client's desire[6]6. Since prostitution (as well as organ or blood donation) involves offering the human body in all is intimacy, its status changes fundamentally and cannot be compared to other forms of manual labour[7]7. The very notion of work is problematic, and by extension, the term "sex worker". It is precisely because sexual intercourse reaches the most intimate core of a body and of a human being that it is also a unique means of relating to another person, an exceptional means of each offering themselves entirely to the other. This type of interaction cannot happen unless it is entered into freely and with full consent on both sides, a relationship of equal partners _ evidently not the case with prostitution, which in its very essence is a relationship of power.

The fundamental question of choice.
For the same reason, it is doubtful whether prostitution is ever a free choice. What proportion of prostitutes, given the possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which they did not need to sell their bodies, would choose nonetheless to continue in prostitution? A study made among prostitutes in San Francisco shows that nearly 90% want to leave the industry.
It is worth noting that the regulation camp, to prove that prostitutes choose their profession freely, cite the fact that they prefer prostitution to, say, working in a sweat shop for 15 hours a day. Of course they do. But a choice between two forms of exploitation is not a free choice, nor ever has been, but is purely and simply an abuse of the term. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could therefore only have been proposed by the regulation camp by misrepresenting the very notion of "free choice".
Having raised the issue of "consenting prostitutes", we must return for a moment to the notion of "free and clear consent". According to the CCNE's 58th pronouncement of 12 June 1998, "The act of consent implies two areas of ability (or aptitude or capacity): one must be able to understand (clear comprehension or intellect), and to be able to freely choose (free will). Those whose ability to understand is weak or disturbed or those whose freedom of choice is limited[8]8 are considered to be unable to give such consent []" (our emphasis). The issue is the extent of the prostitute's freedom of choice. One could consider, in fact, that she became a prostitute by lack of choice rather than by choice.[9]9 When a woman becomes a prostitute to feed her family and children, as is so often the case in developing countries, was that free choice? Is it not on the contrary the last resort _ when no other option is open for survival, when all the conditions allowing free choice have been eliminated? Studies reveal that in the West, more than 70% of prostitutes have been sexually abused as children, and that the average age of entering prostitution is 16 (14 in the United States)[10]10: how can we avoid the conclusion that the "choice" of prostitution "logically" flows from a situation of many years of exploitation, where the identity and autonomy of the individual have already been broken or damaged? Far from being free, prostitution seems on the contrary in every case to be the result of pressures and constraints _ psychological, social, family-related and of course, economic. "Freelance" prostitution, where the individual is independent and keeps their earnings, is rare indeed: the constraints suffered on entering prostitution are exacerbated by the daily constraints of those who profit from the prostitution of their "protégé(e)s".[11]11 Thus the distinction between free and forced prostitution has no basis in fact. (...) http://www.fidh.org/lettres/2000pdf/angl/cah38uk.htm

[6]6 Jo Bindman's argument (Redefining Prostitution as Sex Work in the International Agenda, CSIS, 1997), according to which a prostitution transaction would regain its dignity if the prostitute were not unconditionally subject to the client's wishes ("the sex worker has no reason to accept a particular client or to subject themselves to acts to which they do not consent") is insufficient.
[7]7 The psychoanalyst would reply, "everything is sexual", that is that every physical activity is sexualised. This is not the place to respond to this interpretation, but the psychoanalysts will concede nonetheless that there is a difference between explicit physical sexuality (fellatio, coitus) and a particular (and debatable) reading of symbolic sexuality in behavioru which his not explicitly sexual.
[8]8 Cf. I Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford Univ. Press, 1969 for an interesting reflection on the subject of free will in consent.
[9]9 In Amsterdam (where prostitution has been legalised), 80% of prostitutes are immigrants, and 70% are illegal immigrants. This places a question mark over the free nature of their prostitution, and also implies that prostitution encourages traffic in illegal immigrants rather than discourages it.
[10]10 Cf. D Leidholdt, "Prostitution: a form of modern slavery", in Making the Harm Visible, p52. Recognising prostitution as a legitimate profession also means that it will become difficult for young women to refuse it in the face of a range of pressures.
[11]11 N. Hotaling ("What happens to women in prostitution in the United States" in Making the Harm Visible, p244) describes the psychological manipulative game to which pimps subject their prostitutes. An important stage in this game is the changing of identity--a logical move, given that they wish to make the prostitutes lose their sense of personal identity.

I do agree with you when you say that
but all I am saying is that there are plenty of examples when people get in the profession because they want to, and there are plenty of examples when people do things they don't like to do that is not prostitution because they need the money.

That's all. :)
You are aware, I hope, that "plenty" is not a very exact specification. The percentage mentioned in one survey For sexual enjoyment or experiment 3,1
could be considered to be plenty even though it would still be a very small minority.
I also hope that you are aware that the expression "because they want to" would include even the women (or men) who make the 'choice' in order to be able "to feed her family and children", i.e. because poverty forces this choice upon them.

[JFrankA]

Okay, I have to read that post when I'm not at work or on break, because there's a lot there, but I do have a knee-jerk reaction, if I may. Your statement, (which seems to me to be a conclusion or summary to me, (and if I'm wrong please forgive me, I promise to read that when it's possible), in which you say:

I also hope that you are aware that the expression "because they want to" would include even the women (or men) who make the 'choice' in order to be able "to feed her family and children", i.e. because poverty forces this choice upon them.

...could apply to ANY profession. I work as a customer service rep. I do it out of poverty because I want to keep paying my child support payments. I get yelled at for no reason, correct problems without any thank you from my customers, I get blamed for company problems, I become an ear to people who want to tell me everything in their lives, all trying to keep a quota of number of calls taken.

Is it something I enjoy? No. I hate it. Given a choice, I'd do something else in a heartbeat ...IF THE PAY IS EQUAL OR MORE....

....so I am in this job because of poverty. I have to pay bill, child support, etc, so I do something I hate.

I'm sorry. I don't get the difference of doing any job you hate out of poverty (which is what plenty of people do), and doing prostitution out of poverty.

Poverty sucks. I agree. A lot of people are doing things they'd rather not do to keep it at bay. But doing things to keep it at bay includes LOTS of things other than prostitution.

Sorry, I don't get it. And if the difference is written in that post, I promise to read it :)

edited to add:

Okay I read it. It seems like a lot of confusing rhetoric to me. Sorry. To me, it doesn't prove a thing. It's trying to convince me that there's no free will when it comes to prostitution and if you are going to argue that, then I can argue right back that there is no free will in any job you take.

Everyone takes a job because of poverty. In that case, prostitution is no different than cooking at McDonalds.

And BTW, I consider cooking VERY intimate. Think of it: we all trust a stranger who we never met or even saw, to create something that we PUT INTO OUR BODIES and hope we don't get food poisoning from it. We trust people we don't know to deliever it, and the government to enforce the regulations on the food. (And I'm Italian, so you know how intimate we are about food! :D ).

So I still say:


"What proportion of prostitutes, given the possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working conditions and in which they did not need to sell their bodies, would choose nonetheless to continue in prostitution? A study made among prostitutes in San Francisco shows that nearly 90% want to leave the industry.

doesn't mean a thing because I'm sure you'd get high figures with ANY occupation.

No, I haven't proven your point, but you have drawn a conclusion from the quotation I gave you that you cannot really draw. You seem to be thinking that the prostitutes in San Fransisco were asked the question: 'If it would be possible for you to earn the same or better in acceptable working conditions, would you then still be turning tricks?'
Unfortunately I don't know the exact question being asked in the survey, but I can offer you a little more of the context of the quotation. Feel free to look up the rest of the article.

I thought that was the question because that is what you quoted. Now you tell me you don't know what the exact question was. I say that the survey is moot because we don't know the question. As to the rest of it, I see opinions and rhetoric not facts. Sorry.

I will agree with you on this: Yeah, you're right. Poverty sucks. That's why everyone at one point or another does a job they'd rather not do ranging from prostitution to CEO of a fortune 500 company. So?

[dann]

I don't think that you should look in the link for a description or an explanation of ”the difference of doing any job you hate out of poverty (which is what plenty of people do), and doing prostitution out of poverty”.

However, I like the way you describe your job and your reasons for doing it! It is not all that different from my own situation. I am dealing with students instead of customers, I correct and grade papers instead of taking calls, but like you I don't pretend to do it because my life would be meaningless without this activity. It gives me a pay check, and without the pay check, which I need, I'd be doing something else. I don’t work to kill time, which is what many people – at least in my country – claim is the major reason for working, as if the pay check were just an extra benefit.

So, yes, you and I both "do it out of poverty". I don't have to pay child support, but I suppose that you would also have to work even if you didn't have that expense on top of the others that an ordinary life demands. You have bills to pay, rent, have to put food on the table etc.
Unlike you, however, I don’t hate my job, but I do hate certain aspects of it, not least grading and (consequently) flunking students!

Still, like I said, even so I have never considered prostitution an option because I would hate to have sex with somebody I do not find attractive. And I think that most people would feel the same way
And even if you hate your job, it’s probably not so unsavoury that you have to do drugs in order to endure it.
And even though I don’t know the exact wording of the questions answered by the prostitutes in San Fransisco, but I seriously doubt that they were asked if they would rather be stinking rich, live in luxury and never have to work another day in their lives than turn tricks! Questions in surveys like tend to be fairly realistic.

In other words, and I mentioned this already: When you are poor, i.e. when you don’t have the independent means to support yourself, you are forced to find some other way of buying the necessities of life. This means that you depend on the people with money, to whom you sell your services, and to that extent you can compare yourself with a prostitute – or a pauper. The difference is that the latter (usually) don’t even have the options that you do: the skills required for your services to be useful to the moneyed interest – and in this society these skills depend on the competition from suppliers like yourself. If you are slower or don’t do the job as well as somebody else, you may be out of a job even though you are not by definition without working skills. In capitalism you are. If you cannot sell the skills you have, they are worth nothing.

edited to add:

Okay I read it. It seems like a lot of confusing rhetoric to me. Sorry. To me, it doesn't prove a thing. It's trying to convince me that there's no free will when it comes to prostitution and if you are going to argue that, then I can argue right back that there is no free will in any job you take.
No, I’m not going to argue that, and, no, that is not what the article says. It never claims that there is no free will, it is not a treatise on philosophy. Instead it describes the very limited alternatives that this free will has to choose between:
The fundamental question of choice.
For the same reason, it is doubtful whether prostitution is ever a free choice. What proportion of prostitutes, given the possibility of earning the same or better in acceptable working con¬di¬tions and in which they did not need to sell their bodies, would choose nonetheless to continue in prostitution? A study made among prostitutes in San Francisco shows that nearly 90% want to leave the industry.
It is worth noting that the regulation camp , to prove that prostitutes choose their profession freely, cite the fact that they prefer prostitution to, say, working in a sweat shop for 15 hours a day. Of course they do. But a choice between two forms of exploitation is not a free choice, nor ever has been, but is purely and simply an abuse of the term. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could therefore only have been proposed by the regula¬tion camp by misrepresenting the very notion of "free choice".
http://www.fidh.org/lettres/2000pdf/angl/cah38uk.htm

Another study says:
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/fempsy3.html
Apologists for prostitution legitimize it as a freely made and glamorous career choice. We are told that people in prostitution choose their customers as well as the type of sex acts in which they engage . Bell (1994) suggested that prostitution is a form of sexual liberation for women. We are also told that 'high-class' prostitution is different, and much safer than street prostitu¬tion. Referring to prostitutes in general, Leigh said 'most of us are middle class' (in Bell, 1994).
None of these assertions was supported by this study. Our data show that almost all of those in prostitution are poor. The incidence of homelessness (72 percent) among our respondents, and their desire to get out of prostitution (92 percent) reflects their poverty and lack of op¬tions for escape. Globally, very few of those in prostitution are middle class. Prostitution is con¬sidered a reasonable job choice for poor women, indigenous women and women of color, instead of being seen as exploitation and human rights violation . Indigenous women are at the bottom of a brutal gender and race hierarchy. They have the fewest options, and are least able to escape the sex industry once in it. For example, it has been estimated that 80 percent of the street prostituted women in Vancouver, Canada, are indigenous women (Lynne, 1998).
And a UN report has this to offer:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/wom1355.doc.htm
According to the report, the high levels of economic hardship had led to a possible increase in prostitution. While there was insufficient data on the practice, there was a distinct link be¬tween prostitution and poverty, as the majority of women engaging in the practice did so for economic reasons.
This might in accordance with your idea that:
Everyone takes a job because of poverty.
But it does not justify your conclusion that:
In that case, prostitution is no different than cooking at McDonalds. You know that it is very different. It may be the same needs for money that makes you flip burgers or turn tricks, but that does not mean that the two jobs are indistinguishable, no matter how hard you try to abstract from the differences:
And BTW, I consider cooking VERY intimate. Think of it: we all trust a stranger who we never met or even saw, to create something that we PUT INTO OUR BODIES and hope we don't get food poisoning from it. We trust people we don't know to deliver it, and the government to enforce the regulations on the food. (And I'm Italian, so you know how intimate we are about food! ).
Yes, I know, but do you notice something very important in this description of the ‘intimate’ of cooking? You describe it from the point of view of the consumer, not from the point of view of the workingwoman or -man! The johns are not usually the ones who feel inclined to take drugs in order to be able to provide the kind of ‘service’ they sell. And even though burger flipping or other MacJobs may not be very pleasant, I don’t think that cooks tend to do drugs in order to endure their jobs.
(And, no, I never worked in that line of business either, but I was a teacher at the Hotel and Restaurant School of Copenhagen (http://www.kokkeskolen.dk/) for seven years, teaching foreign languages and health and safety regulations for waiters, so I know that it’s not a particularly pleasant occupation either. Back then (18 years ago) the excess mortality rate for waiters from cirrhosis of the liver was 450 percent! And apropos of prostitution: The students’ entrance was in Skelbækgade, a well-known place to pick up streetwalkers in Copenhagen back then (probably still is), which was sometimes a problem when our students were waiting to be picked up by in the afternoon and were propositioned by cruising johns instead. Once I left half an hour after closing time and saw a girl leaning on my motorcycle. It was raining, and I asked her why she didn’t wait for her relatives inside since she could watch the street from the window. She told me that she would rather not, and even so I was so stupid that it took me a while to figure out that she was not a student and that it was important for her that people driving by could see her …).
edited to add:
So I still say:

I thought that was the question because that is what you quoted. Now you tell me you don't know what the exact question was. I say that the survey is moot because we don't know the question. As to the rest of it, I see opinions and rhetoric not facts. Sorry. No need to be sorry. I provided you with the quotation. You had the opportunity to read it. You cannot really blame me that you made the wrong conclusion based on a wrong assumption. Unfortunately studies aren’t always published along with the questionnaires that they are based on. And, like you, I wish that they were. I, too, would have liked to see the exact questions, but in this case I cannot help you. I haven’t got them.

I will agree with you on this: Yeah, you're right. Poverty sucks. That's why everyone at one point or another does a job they'd rather not do ranging from prostitution to CEO of a fortune 500 company. So? So? That’s it. Not everyone, but definitely most people at one point or another do jobs they’d rather not do. Very few have the option of working as “CEO of a fortune 500 company”, however, and the people who don’t have any other options at all sometimes have to resort to prostitution. A lot of people have to do MacJobs for the rest of their lives, and some cannot even hope to get that. That is the truth about the relationship between work and wealth ( http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/workandwealth/1-sec-1.html) in the market economy.
So? Your willingness to abstract from this difference indicates that you don’t want to recognize it at all. Did you notice, by the way, that – as imperfect as they may be – so far I’m the only one to come up with anything other than anecdotal evidence in this debate? And not for the first time either …

Prostitution Reality Check (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2489722#post2489722)
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2496288#post2496288
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2497034#post2497034
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2498549#post2498549
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2498551#post2498551
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2498821#post2498821
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2499382#post2499382
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2499417#post2499417
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2499546#post2499546

[DRBUZZ0]

No, I'd just like to live in such a world as opposed to the walled-off workers utopia where everyone stands in bread lines equally that the dirty little commies still like to spout about...

And how many damn times do we have to get a "Prostitution reality check"? Here's a little reality check for you:

(psst... they're not fleaing the market economy)
http://www.depletedcranium.com/content_berlin_wall.jpg

http://www.depletedcranium.com/tiananmen-square-tanks.jpg

http://www.depletedcranium.com/3323931.jpg

http://www.depletedcranium.com/castro-khrushchev-2.jpg


"anything besides anicdotal evidence" HA! No no, I'm not here to claim that there aren't some people who end up with crappy mc-jobs. I'll admit to that. But I'd rather live in a world where people end up with mc-jobs than in the world you offer as the solution, where people are instead worked to death in Syberian Coal mines.


Stop with your stupid reality checks, it's getting annoying. Here's something you should consider: Marx was wrong. But not as wrong as you are, because at least he didn't have the benifit of having seen his system fall apart every damn time it was tried on numerous occasions.

Not go take your reality checks back to the USSR.

[dann]

No, I'd just like to live in such a world as opposed to the walled-off workers utopia where everyone stands in bread lines equally that the dirty little commies still like to spout about...

Which is what I am supposed to have been in favour of all along, right, DRSTRAWMAN???

And how many damn times do we have to get a "Prostitution reality check"? Here's a little reality check for you:
(psst... they're not fleaing the market economy)

No, of course not! They are on their way to the local brothel! And did you notice the woman who is being helped by five or six other guys? She is on her way to apply for a position in the same brothel. If you have a photo of her from the front, you'll notice that she is wearing a button saying, "I want to be a hooker, and my damn autocratic, liberty-bashing state won't let me!"
http://www.depletedcranium.com/content_berlin_wall.jpg

Ah, yes, and the notorious We are gay and proud photo, which led to the downfall of Khruschev:
http://www.depletedcranium.com/castro-khrushchev-2.jpg
Russia and Cuba just were not ready for gay liberation back them. Too much, too soon …

"anything besides anicdotal evidence"

Is this supposed to be a quotation???

HA! No no, I'm not here to claim that there aren't some people who end up with crappy mc-jobs. I'll admit to that.

That’s very noble of you! I wasn’t even trying to prove the fact!

But I'd rather live in a world where people end up with mc-jobs than in the world you offer as the solution, where people are instead worked to death in Syberian Coal mines.

And where exactly did I offer that solution? Never mind …

Stop with your stupid reality checks, it's getting annoying.
Yes, I can easily imagine that you would rather stay in dreamland.

Here's something you should consider: Marx was wrong. But not as wrong as you are, because at least he didn't have the benifit of having seen his system fall apart every damn time it was tried on numerous occasions.

His??? System??? He wrote a book about a system, Das Kapital (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index.htm), but that cannot be the one that you are talking about since it appears to be doing rather well even though it goes through regular crises of a cyclical nature, but they tend to harm its poor inhabitants more than the system so it never falls apart on its own. I’ve read it a couple of times, in Danish, English and German, and it does not contain anything that is even remotely similar to something that has been “tried on numerous occasions”.
You should read it!!! I’ll add it to my list of required reading for your reality checks!

Not go take your reality checks back to the USSR.

Well, you can take yours back to the brothel! You know, the place with all the lights and the security guards that you recommended in your opening post, right?

A good reputation, professional, with professional security guards and bouncers to assure that no conflicts could get nasty. This would be a huge difference from picking up someone on a streetcornor, avoiding sting operations, and being concerned about violence, STD's and all the other nasty sides of things.

Is it really such a bad thing to cut out the middle man? To leave the entrepreneurial, go-getter spirit to the (wo)man in the street? I thought that was the whole idea of free enterprise?
Well, no, I guess the point of your ideal economy is simply to let the people with money take advantage of the poverty of the people who are left to fend for themselves with no other income.
By the way, isn’t there a word for people like that? Maybe you should pimp your argumentation before you try again …

[JFrankA]

Meaning no disrespect, and I've not the chance to completely read through all the stuff you posted, but no matter what facts you throw at me, I can counter with a universal fact:

Not everyone sees everything the same way.

It just seems to me that your position is absolute: if there wasn't poverty, there wouldn't be prostitution.

And there are three simple counters to that position:

1. Not everyone thinks the same way: therefore, not everyone who is a prostitute is in it to avoid poverty.

2. There are far worse things to do to avoid poverty: (coal mining, anyone?) And yes, that's a subjective viewpoint because you obvious believe that there's nothing worse than being a prostitute. I tend to disagree. Hence, my above statement of "Not everyone sees everything the same way" is fact.

3. If there were no prostitutes, the world would be incredibly boring! :D (Sorry, I couldn't resist...)

Now, out of curiosity, I'd like your final solution and opinion. Out of what I read from your posts, (and I apologize for not reading them all), you don't seem to have an opinion on it other than "poverty is the only cause for prositution". And if I get that wrong, please explain it, but be succinct.

I'll go first:

I feel that prostitution should be legal. Some people do it for money, some people really do enjoy the job. But if it's legal, then the people doing the job would be better protected, have health care, get a decent wage (perhaps help put a dent in poverty). :D

And yes, s/he would still be working for the "man", but let's face it, ninety percent of the country is.

[JFrankA]

Well, there's more. I had to debate you on a couple of points. Sorry. :)

Still, like I said, even so I have never considered prostitution an option because I would hate to have sex with somebody I do not find attractive. And I think that most people would feel the same way

Assumption. Personally, I'd rather have sex with an unattractive person than flip a burger. I think that there are people who feel the same way I do. BTW, on a personal note, have you ever had a job where you had 100 strangers call you and tell you their life stories or yell at you for no reason or just act stupid? (Well, I would guess being a teacher, the answer is "yes, they're called students" :D), But I'm sorry, that can be just as exposing and degrading as sex with someone you're not attracted to.

And even if you hate your job, it’s probably not so unsavoury that you have to do drugs in order to endure it.

Drugs are everywhere. No matter what job you're in. I can go to four people I know of in my non-prostitution, customer service job and buy drugs.

And even though I don’t know the exact wording of the questions answered by the prostitutes in San Fransisco, but I seriously doubt that they were asked if they would rather be stinking rich, live in luxury and never have to work another day in their lives than turn tricks! Questions in surveys like tend to be fairly realistic.

Sorry, that's an assumption. I say that they might've actually asked that question. You have no proof of what they asked. Also, what prostitutes were interviewed? Just streetwalkers? Did they ask escorts? Brothel workers? Hey, "golddiggers" (people who date an old person to get presents from him/her) are prostitutes too. Did they ask them? And why just San Fransisco? There are prostitutes everywhere? Why limit it to that?

In other words, and I mentioned this already: When you are poor, i.e. when you don’t have the independent means to support yourself, you are forced to find some other way of buying the necessities of life. This means that you depend on the people with money, to whom you sell your services, and to that extent you can compare yourself with a prostitute – or a pauper. The difference is that the latter (usually) don’t even have the options that you do: the skills required for your services to be useful to the moneyed interest – and in this society these skills depend on the competition from suppliers like yourself. If you are slower or don’t do the job as well as somebody else, you may be out of a job even though you are not by definition without working skills. In capitalism you are. If you cannot sell the skills you have, they are worth nothing.

Welcome to the world! That's just how it is. If you don't have the skills, you start at the bottom and train and learn. You are too slow? You improve. You work your tail off. That includes prostitution. You think madams are born? :D No, they grow up from bottom and worked to get to the position they are in. Again, your arguement can be turned to say that this applies to any job.

Did you start as teacher? Or did you have to start as student? :)


Yes, I know, but do you notice something very important in this description of the ‘intimate’ of cooking? You describe it from the point of view of the consumer, not from the point of view of the workingwoman or -man!

Again, I'm Italian. Apparently, you've never been in a kitchen when your Italian mother and father are cooking. :D


The johns are not usually the ones who feel inclined to take drugs in order to be able to provide the kind of ‘service’ they sell. And even though burger flipping or other MacJobs may not be very pleasant, I don’t think that cooks tend to do drugs in order to endure their jobs.

Aaaaand you've never been in a fast food kitchen with a bunch of teenagers. :D

Again, drugs are everywhere, no matter the profession. I'll grant you that it's more rampent in prostitution, but I can also say that drugs are rampart with the CEOs and vice CEO's of big companies. Look, drug use exists in all professions no matter where you go. If that wasn't so, why would there companies with drug testing programs?


(And, no, I never worked in that line of business either, but I was a teacher at the Hotel and Restaurant School of Copenhagen for seven years, teaching foreign languages and health and safety regulations for waiters, so I know that it’s not a particularly pleasant occupation either. Back then (18 years ago) the excess mortality rate for waiters from cirrhosis of the liver was 450 percent! And apropos of prostitution: The students’ entrance was in Skelbækgade, a well-known place to pick up streetwalkers in Copenhagen back then (probably still is), which was sometimes a problem when our students were waiting to be picked up by in the afternoon and were propositioned by cruising johns instead. Once I left half an hour after closing time and saw a girl leaning on my motorcycle. It was raining, and I asked her why she didn’t wait for her relatives inside since she could watch the street from the window. She told me that she would rather not, and even so I was so stupid that it took me a while to figure out that she was not a student and that it was important for her that people driving by could see her …).

You know, she could've been telling the truth.... But in that story, you were telling me about the high mortality rate for waiters. Sounds like being a waiter was just as dangerous as being a prostitute....


No need to be sorry. I provided you with the quotation. You had the opportunity to read it. You cannot really blame me that you made the wrong conclusion based on a wrong assumption. Unfortunately studies aren’t always published along with the questionnaires that they are based on. And, like you, I wish that they were. I, too, would have liked to see the exact questions, but in this case I cannot help you. I haven’t got them.
[\quote]

Sorry, but then I do not trust the survey. I'm no mathemetician (I can't even spell it! :D) but I know how easy it is to skew numbers. Also, I am stage hypontist, so I know how to ask questions that can be leading, confusing or double sided or all three. Unless I get the details I listed above, I feel that the survey results are unreliable.

[quote]
So?


Yes. So? Some people go into prositution because of poverty, but (and this is my point) it's not always the reason. And to further my point, I can say that about any job at all you throw at me. There are people who find that there are things worse doing than having sex with someone.


Did you notice, by the way, that – as imperfect as they may be – so far I’m the only one to come up with anything other than anecdotal evidence in this debate? And not for the first time either

but the source of your main point, the survey, is incomplete at best. And although admittingly I haven't read all of the posts you list, a lot of it seems to be confusing rhetoric trying to prove an opinion.

And who is sponsering the "prostitution research" website? Who is doing the research? I've looked and looked and, although I've seen a donation button, I don't see who is actually doing the research. I'm sorry if I seem disrespectful, I don't mean to be, but I would like a source.

[dann]

Meaning no disrespect, and I've not the chance to completely read through all the stuff you posted, but no matter what facts you throw at me, I can counter with a universal fact: I also don’t mean any disrespect, but what is the point of facts if they don’t count?
And your first, so-called “universal fact” (!) is nonsense:

Not everyone sees everything the same way.
It doesn’t even occur to you that this is one of the favourite argument of woowoos when their ideas are refuted by rational arguments and facts!? ‘No matter what you say, you cannot convince that there is no afterlife. I know that there is a God, so no argument or fact can convince me that there isn’t! This is the way I choose to see things.’

It just seems to me that your position is absolute: if there wasn't poverty, there wouldn't be prostitution.
No, Frank, the prostitution fans are the ones who try to distort my position by making it into an absolute one. The same thing happened in the other thread about this theme. They insist that the elimination of prostitution would have to mean that not a single woman (or man) would ever consider sleeping with somebody for any other reason than sexual attraction. 1) They widen the concept into absurdity, and 2) they insist that it would have to mean absolutely everybody. (And they tend to forget that nobody has talked about trying to prevent the people who simply desire to have sex with ten or twenty other people a day from doing so. If this is actually their motive, they should go ahead and do so. Free will, remember? But a very different kind of free will than the one proclaimed by DRBUZZO, who enjoys playing the pimp in his idealized (il)legal brothel, which (since it is idealized anyway) probably wouldn’t include the exploitation of women who don’t have any real choice. In your fantasies you are the man!

And there are three simple counters to that position:
I’m looking forward to those!

1. Not everyone thinks the same way: therefore, not everyone who is a prostitute is in it to avoid poverty.
As I already said: If they still want to have sex with 10 people or more a day,
Reasons for entering prostitution (http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/lcj/working/ch4-2.html)
To seek excitement in own life 5,5
For sexual enjoyment or experiment 3,1
who’s stopping them?
Do you really think that it is necessary to preserve the noble institution of prostitution for this reason?

[/QUOTE]2. There are far worse things to do to avoid poverty: (coal mining, anyone?) And yes, that's a subjective viewpoint because you obvious believe that there's nothing worse than being a prostitute. [/QUOTE]No, Frank, now you have stopped making any kind of sense. ‘Meaning no disrespect’, but when you start inventing these obvious strawmen, it becomes impossible to have a serious discussion with you! I tend to disagree. Yes, you disagree with your own strawman! Quelle surprise! Hence, my above statement of "Not everyone sees everything the same way" is fact. No, you are obviously right! Some people deal with the arguments of their opponents, other people invent arguments and attribute those to their opponents instead.

3. If there were no prositutes, the world would be incredibly boring! (Sorry, I couldn't resist...) For you, maybe, not for the prostitutes.

Now, out of curiosity, I'd like your final solution and opinion. Out of what I read from your posts, (and I apologize for not reading them all), you don't seem to have an opinion on it other than "poverty is the only cause for prositution". And if I get that wrong, please explain it, but be succinct. Did you notice your own ”only”?

I'll go first:

I feel that prostitution should be legal. Some people do it for money, some people really do enjoy the job. But if it's legal, then the people doing the job would be better protected, have health care, get a decent wage (perhaps help put a dent in poverty). OK, you apologize for not reading all my posts, but would you please point out the one where I’m taking a stand on the question of legality/illegality of prostitution? I’m against the poverty that force people to sell their sexual favours for money instead of having it with people for fun, love, sexual attraction, to get off, whatever! So I'd prefer to make poverty illegal! As you already know, it isn't, and almost nobody is seriously interested in eliminating it. There are all kinds of measures (against begging and loitering, for instance) to prevent poor people from becoming a nuisance, but poverty is too useful for people in power to want to abolish it. It is what the present market economy is based on and reproduces on a permanent basis.

And yes, s/he would still be working for the "man", but let's face it, ninety percent of the country is.
That explains the number of poor people (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/poverty.html)!

I can see that you have added a new post. I won’t have time to answer that one till tomorrow. There’s a New Year’s Eve to celebrate. Without hookers, in my case.

But ... if you seriously want to know who is sponsoring the prostitution research, why don't you simply ask them?

PS The link to a prostitution report in this post appears to be 'sponsored' by the Australian government.

[dann]

There are people who find that there are things worse doing than having sex with someone.
Yes, starving, for instance, or watching your children starve is probably much worse! Again your argument rests on your own strawman, but I never claimed that nothing is worse "than having sex with someone".
For your information: In most cases "having sex with someone" is actually marvellous, one of nature's most pleasant inventions. In most cases people don't even have to take drugs to overcome their aversion to having it. They enjoy it!!! But then we are talking about sex, not about prostitution, which is an entirely different matter ...

[JFrankA]

Meaning no disrespect, and I've not the chance to completely read through all the stuff you posted, but no matter what facts you throw at me, I can counter with a universal fact:

I also don’t mean any disrespect, but what is the point of facts if they don’t count?
And your first, so-called “universal fact” (!) is nonsense:



Not everyone sees everything the same way.

It doesn’t even occur to you that this is one of the favourite argument of woowoos when their ideas are refuted by rational arguments and facts!? ‘No matter what you say, you cannot convince that there is no afterlife. I know that there is a God, so no argument or fact can convince me that there isn’t! This is the way I choose to see things.’


I never said whether they were right or wrong: I simply said everyone sees things differently. It's absolutely true. If someone is telling you that there is a god and you say that there is not, then my statement is true: Not everyone sees everything the same way.

Also, I thought you were saying that "all prostitutes are in the business because of poverty and only poverty", However, you said that isn't your statement. That's fine. I got it wrong, as you state below:



It just seems to me that your position is absolute: if there wasn't poverty, there wouldn't be prostitution.
No, Frank, the prostitution fans Smile when you say that! :) are the ones who try to distort my position by making it into an absolute one. The same thing happened in the other thread about this theme.

I got your position wrong too, my apologies.

They insist that the elimination of prostitution would have to mean that not a single woman (or man) would ever consider sleeping with somebody for any other reason than sexual attraction. 1) They widen the concept into absurdity, and 2) they insist that it would have to mean absolutely everybody. (And they tend to forget that nobody has talked about trying to prevent the people who simply desire to have sex with ten or twenty other people a day from doing so. If this is actually their motive, they should go ahead and do so. Free will, remember? But a very different kind of free will than the one proclaimed by DRBUZZO, who enjoys playing the pimp in his idealized (il)legal brothel, which (since it is idealized anyway) probably wouldn’t include the exploitation of women who don’t have any real choice. In your fantasies you are the man!


Now, honeslty, I have re-read this paragraph several times and I am not getting what you are trying to say. No offense, it sounds like an angry rant. Please clarify.



And there are three simple counters to that position:

I’m looking forward to those!



1. Not everyone thinks the same way: therefore, not everyone who is a prostitute is in it to avoid poverty.

As I already said: If they still want to have sex with 10 people or more a day,

Reasons for entering prostitution
To seek excitement in own life 5,5
For sexual enjoyment or experiment 3,1
who’s stopping them?
Do you really think that it is necessary to preserve the noble institution of prostitution for this reason?


It's not a question of a necessary of preserving it. It will be perserved no matter what we do. :)


2. There are far worse things to do to avoid poverty: (coal mining, anyone?) And yes, that's a subjective viewpoint because you obvious believe that there's nothing worse than being a prostitute.

No, Frank, now you have stopped making any kind of sense. ‘Meaning no disrespect’, but when you start inventing these obvious strawmen, it becomes impossible to have a serious discussion with you!


I tend to disagree.

Yes, you disagree with your own strawman! Quelle surprise!

No I don't. And it's not a strawman. To clarify: "I tend to disagree" refers to my previous statement "there's nothing worse than being a prostitute". Sorry, I wasn't disagreeing with myself. I simply wasn't clear. And you please clarify simply: In your opinion, is there anything worse doing than being a prostitute?



Hence, my above statement of "Not everyone sees everything the same way" is fact.


No, you are obviously right! Some people deal with the arguments of their opponents, other people invent arguments and attribute those to their opponents instead.


Again, I misinterpreted your opinion and statement. And I apologize, I misunderstood your position. I admit that. But again, my statement is correct. Your own survey proves my point. If I recall it said that 90 percent of prostitutes say that they do it to avoid poverty. If my statement of "Not everyone sees everything the same way" was not true, that survey, for example, would be 100 percent.



3. If there were no prositutes, the world would be incredibly boring! (Sorry, I couldn't resist...)

For you, maybe, not for the prostitutes.


Geez, man, can't you take a joke?????



Now, out of curiosity, I'd like your final solution and opinion. Out of what I read from your posts, (and I apologize for not reading them all), you don't seem to have an opinion on it other than "poverty is the only cause for prositution". And if I get that wrong, please explain it, but be succinct.

Did you notice your own ”only”?


Again, it was a misinterpretation of your statement. However, if I'm misinterpreting it this badly, then please clarify what you are saying. I even asked you nicely in that paragraph (twice!) to correct me if I was wrong.




I'll go first:

I feel that prostitution should be legal. Some people do it for money, some people really do enjoy the job. But if it's legal, then the people doing the job would be better protected, have health care, get a decent wage (perhaps help put a dent in poverty).


OK, you apologize for not reading all my posts, but would you please point out the one where I’m taking a stand on the question of legality/illegality of prostitution?


Part of the point, Dann, you haven't said your stand sucicintly. It sounds to me that your stand was what I said before. Obviously, I was wrong. Sorry....


I’m against the poverty that force people to sell their sexual favours for money instead of having it with people for fun, love, sexual attraction, to get off, whatever! So I'd prefer to make poverty illegal! As you already know, it isn't, and almost nobody is seriously interested in eliminating it. There are all kinds of measures (against begging and loitering, for instance) to prevent poor people from becoming a nuisance, but poverty is too useful for people in power to want to abolish it. It is what the present market economy is based on and reproduces on a permanent basis.


Okay. So, correct me if I'm wrong, you are not against prostitution but you are against poverty that causes prostitution. Do I have it right?

If I do have it right, and let's say we do make poverty illegal and it's eliminated, I put it to you that there will still be prostitutes!!!! So, how the hell do we eliminate poverty?



And yes, s/he would still be working for the "man", but let's face it, ninety percent of the country is.

That explains the number of poor people!


:)


I can see that you have added a new post. I won’t have time to answer that one till tomorrow. There’s a New Year’s Eve to celebrate. Without hookers, in my case.


Sadly, no hookers in my case, either. Happy new year :)

But ... if you seriously want to know who is sponsoring the prostitution research, why don't you simply ask them?

PS The link to a prostitution report in this post appears to be 'sponsored' by the Australian government.


Again, assumptions from your trusted source. And I'm sorry, IMHO, any research that is supposed to be trusted and accurate has it's sponsers plastered all over it to show that the result is not skewed by the sponsers.

Look, Dann, basically, I agree with you. Poverty is a major cause of prostitution. I don't think you've come up with anything earth-shattering there. Just the way it's presented it seems like you're saying it's the only reason. And since you're not, sorry I misinterpreted.

However, it's still my guess (and yes, it's only a guess) is that most people take a job to avoid poverty.

Therefore, okay, Dann you're right.

So?

[DRBUZZ0]

For your information: In most cases "having sex with someone" is actually marvellous, one of nature's most pleasant inventions. In most cases people don't even have to take drugs to overcome their aversion to having it. They enjoy it!!! But then we are talking about sex, not about prostitution, which is an entirely different matter ...


I'm not sure I'd really like having sex with someone if who I have sex with was not dictated by who I liked and who liked me but rather which person would best serve the progress of the society as decided by the central beauro of sex and procreation.

They'd probably assign someone to me based on genetic diversity and likelihood to produce desired offspring and such. Or they might decide I should not have sex at all because I carry some recessive gene which would be better not passing on. Or perhaps it would be decided that sex in general was not effecient and did not contribute to the work being done in the job I'd have been assigned by the central office of labor.

Yes... what a wonderful world indeed.

[dann]

... if who I have sex with was not dictated by... but rather which person would best serve the progress of the society as decided by the central beauro of sex and procreation.

They'd probably assign someone to me based on genetic diversity and likelihood to produce desired offspring and such. Or they might decide I should not have sex at all because ... Or perhaps it would be decidedthat sex in general was not effecient and did not contribute to the work ...

Yes... what a wonderful world indeed. Yes, what a wonderful world of strawmen, indeed! And all because you think it is one of society's great accomplishments that poor women don't get to have sex with men based on the choice of "who I liked and who liked me", but instead have to do it for a living, forced by poverty and the exploiters out to make a buck on the poor women's expense! That's your defintion of free choice and liberty, right?
Happy New Year, Buzzo.

[dann]

Well, there's more. I had to debate you on a couple of points. Sorry. :)
DEBATE, please! Don’t apologize! (Well, maybe I ought to apologize for the length of this post, but I won't.)

Assumption. Personally, I'd rather have sex with an unattractive person than flip a burger. I think that there are people who feel the same way I do. BTW, on a personal note, have you ever had a job where you had 100 strangers call you and tell you their life stories or yell at you for no reason or just act stupid? (Well, I would guess being a teacher, the answer is "yes, they're called students" :D), But I'm sorry, that can be just as exposing and degrading as sex with someone you're not attracted to. Well, when I was still a student, I once operated a switchboard at a so-called social center in charge of health insurance and home help. That doesn’t sound so bad, but the problem was that the old ladies calling the center had to tell me to which employee (or at the very least to which department) they wanted me to put them through. For some reason this is almost impossible for old ladies to understand, so instead they insisted on unloading all of their questions and complaints on me, and I had absolutely nothing to do with the whole thing.
Still, I did not consider if I’d rather have sex with them, but I’m quite sure that I wouldn’t.

Drugs are everywhere. No matter what job you're in. I can go to four people I know of in my non-prostitution, customer service job and buy drugs.

I'm pretty sure that I cannot. (And I don't miss the option!) :)

Sorry, that's an assumption. I say that they might've actually asked that question. You have no proof of what they asked. Also, what prostitutes were interviewed? Just streetwalkers? Did they ask escorts? Brothel workers?

I don't know!

Hey, "golddiggers" (people who date an old person to get presents from him/her) are prostitutes too.

No, they aren’t. They are (in your own words) “golddiggers”, and even you seem to feel the need to use a different title. As I said in a post above, you extend the concept of prostitution till it becomes meaningless.
I know what you are getting at, I know what you mean. To some extent the analogy is valid, but it is still only an analogy. I can see the similarity, but can you see the difference?

Did they ask them?

I don’t know, but I’d say: probably not!

And why just San Fransisco? There are prostitutes everywhere? Why limit it to that?

Why not? Does a study or a survey of prostitutes in San Fransisco become questionable because it is not a study of the prostitutes in the USA? Or in the world? I don’t think so. Your question is studid.

Welcome to the world! That's just how it is. If you don't have the skills, you start at the bottom and train and learn.

Or you don’t start at all and learn nothing …

You are too slow? You improve.

Or you are simply laid off …

You work your tail off. That includes prostitution. You think madams are born? :D

Did I ever imply that I thought so? A lot of the time you seem to have me confused with somebody else!

No, they grow up from bottom and worked to get to the position they are in. Again, your arguement can be turned to say that this applies to any job.

Yes, you can make any kind of analogy between prostitution and ordinary jobs. That does not make the difference disappear, however.

Did you start as teacher? Or did you have to start as student? :)

I started teaching German, which I’d learned in Germany (I had a German girlfriend, long story …). Eight years later I got the appropriate exams for teaching German.

Now let me ruin your analogy: Do prostitutes start as apprentice prostitutes? Do they need to learn an awful lot of skills in order to qualify for the position as fully qualified prostitutes? Do you see any diplomas on the walls of brothels? (‘This is to certify that Bambi Tricks went to B.J. College and majored in ….’)
Do you know that johns are willing to pay extra for a prostitute who has no experience and no ‘education’ whatsoever? One who is so young that she should not even be doing what she does with a child of her own age, for free?

Again, I'm Italian. Apparently, you've never been in a kitchen when your Italian mother and father are cooking. :D
No, since my parents were not Italian that would not be possible.

Aaaaand you've never been in a fast food kitchen with a bunch of teenagers. :D

No, I haven’t, but my colleagues at the Hotel and Restaurant School claimed that they were much easier to handle in a kitchen than in an ordinary classroom. And even easier in a restaurant, even a fast-food restaurant, because they knew that they could be laid off if they did not behave … Not that I envy you, though! :)

Again, drugs are everywhere, no matter the profession. I'll grant you that it's more rampent in prostitution, but I can also say that drugs are rampart with the CEOs and vice CEO's of big companies. Look, drug use exists in all professions no matter where you go.


I’m fairly sure that it does not exist in mine.

If that wasn't so, why would there companies with drug testing programs?

Because they are professions where it is important that the employees don’t do drugs, I guess.

You know, she could've been telling the truth.... But in that story, you were telling me about the high mortality rate for waiters. Sounds like being a waiter was just as dangerous as being a prostitute....
It was/is not the healthiest of professions if you don’t stay away from the alcohol. The problem is that you are in an environment where alcohol is available all the time (it’s your job to sell it), people offer to buy you drinks. Restaurant waiters claimed that the rush hour pumps so much adrenalin into your body that it is hard to calm down afterwards, alcohol helps you do so. Your work ends when other people go to bars, and it is therefore tempting to join them instead of going home.
The divorce rates correspond to this.


No need to be sorry. I provided you with the quotation. You had the opportunity to read it. You cannot really blame me that you made the wrong conclusion based on a wrong assumption. Unfortunately studies aren’t always published along with the questionnaires that they are based on. And, like you, I wish that they were. I, too, would have liked to see the exact questions, but in this case I cannot help you. I haven’t got them.


Sorry, but then I do not trust the survey. I'm no mathemetician (I can't even spell it! :D) but I know how easy it is to skew numbers. Also, I am stage hypontist, so I know how to ask questions that can be leading, confusing or double sided or all three. Unless I get the details I listed above, I feel that the survey results are unreliable.

So get the details! Make your own surveys based on your own questions. I have provided you with the ones I could find. Find your own!

Yes. So? Some people go into prositution because of poverty, but (and this is my point) it's not always the reason. And to further my point, I can say that about any job at all you throw at me. There are people who find that there are things worse doing than having sex with someone.

Yes, you “can say that about any job at all”. That does not make it true, however. You already mentioned CEO’s, for example. When somebody earns a million dollars a year, they would not need to work more than three years to earn enough for them to be able to live comfortably from the returns if properly invested. That is not the case if you hold ordinary jobs. If you have the right exams from a university, you are able to get very different jobs than the ones you can get if you haven’t got any skills. And, of course, if you are poor it is much more difficult, maybe impossible, to get a college degree.
If you are a skilled workman, you can get jobs that you cannot get if you are unskilled. And sometimes you cannot get any at all …

but the source of your main point, the survey, is incomplete at best. And although admittingly I haven't read all of the posts you list, a lot of it seems to be confusing rhetoric trying to prove an opinion.

And who is sponsering the "prostitution research" website? Who is doing the research? I've looked and looked and, although I've seen a donation button, I don't see who is actually doing the research. I'm sorry if I seem disrespectful, I don't mean to be, but I would like a source.

Feel free to be disrespectful if you have reason to be so. If you’d like a source, get the source. If you are not happy with the surveys and studies I’ve linked to, find your own.

Apart from the ones I’ve found on the internet, I can offer you this one from the book Sex for Sale (http://books.google.dk/books?id=LEhzBddEcjkC&dq=%22sex+for+sale%22+%22ronald+weitzer%22&pg=PP1&ots=7NKNiX4JsG&sig=QP5XEUujck5sALcVrYmXlRVD-r4&hl=da&prev=http://www.google.dk/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=da&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SKPB_daDK230DK231&q=%22Sex+for+Sale%22+%22Ronald+Weitzer%22&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPP9,M1), ed. By Ronald Weitzer. It is from the article From Victims to Survivors: Working with Recovering Street Prostitutes by Nanette J. Davis. It is from the Council for Prostitution Alternatives (http://portland.lifetips.com/tip/62965/community-resources/support-groups-services/council-for-prostitution-alternatives-cpa.html) (CPA) in Portland, Oregon, which ”takes a radical feminist perspective and works to get women out of prostitution. The council receives city and county funding as well as private grants; it is run by paid staff, including social workers, as well as volunteers who are fomer prostitutes. Board members are involved in fund-raising and public relations work.” (p. 140)
(Now you cannot claim that I didn’t warn you!)
Its ”core ideology” is:
“Prostitution at all levels is a dehumanizing, abusive, and life-threatening experience. It is violence against women. Prostituted women do not “freely” choose prostitution or abusive relationships; they do not choose prostitution as a form of sexual liberation and/or pleasure; they are not empowered emotionally or financially through prostitution. When provided with help and alternatives, they freely choose to leave prostitution.“ (p. 141, bold by me, dann)
And:
”The organization seeks to change women’s lives completely: to turn their lives around, as it were. There is no “halfway” approach to leaving prostitution: It is an all-or-nothing decision. The second goal is to call attention to underlying social problems that generate female prostitution in the first place. These include:
1. male sexual control over women: Men both solicit and punish women who provide sex services;
2. gender inequality and discrimination against women: This is reflected in gender bias in enforcement. Most of the persons arrested for prostitution are women; pimps and customers are rarely prosecuted;
3. class and racial discrimination: A high proportion of street prostitutes are minority and poor women, many of whom lack social and work skills that could provide options.
The CPA eschews legal remedies, such as criminalization, decriminalization, legalization, or zoning ordinances. Since these approaches fail to address the causes of prostitution, they do not remedy the problem.” (p.141-42) (bold by me, dann)
I tend to agree with them.

I will not quote all the figures mentioned, but among other things table 9.1 on p. 143 ”Characteristics of 800 CPA Participants (1991)” mentions:
“Convicted of crime: 84 percent (Jail or prison: 80 percent) (…)
Drug/alcohol addiction: 88 percent (5 years or more addicted: 68 percent) (…)
Homeless (average 6.3 years): 90 percent”

But you probably won’t find these figures worth attaching importance to since they are only from Portland and not everywhere else, right?

Here is some more
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/factsheet.html
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/c-prostitution-research.html
From the same website you might want to consider this Help Wanted (http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/faq/000009.html) ad an an alternative to your job in the catering industry. :)

How Prostitution Works (http://www.prostitutionrecovery.org/how_prostitution_works.html)

These guys are socialists, so they definitely cannot be trusted:
We estimate that 70% of prostitute women are mainly single mothers trying to feed themselves and their families. It is about time that local and central government recognised, not “tolerated”, the legal, civil, economic and human rights of prostitutes and provided higher benefits, wages, housing and other resources so that no woman, man or child would be forced by poverty into sex with anyone. http://www.redflag.org.uk/frontline/twelve/12pro.html

This one is from : ” Monto, Martin A. and Steve Garcia. 2001. "Recidivism Among the Customers of Female Street Prostitutes: Do Intervention Programs Help?" (http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:cUa4SvBTPt4J:www.caase.org/uploads/File/Monto-%2520Recidivism%2520among%2520customers.pdf+%22Cou ncil+for+Prostitution+Alternatives%22+poverty&hl=da&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=dk) Western Criminology Review 3 (2).”
Prostitutes are often compelled by poverty, drug addiction, or fear of violence from pimps and frequently face rearrest.

A substantial portion of streetwalkers are homeless or living below the poverty line. Even most women who work in outcall or escort services have no control over their income because they are at the mercy of a pimp or pusher. Most will leave prostitution without savings.
Prostitution is not a profession selected from among other options by today's career women. It comes as no surprise that the ranks of prostitutes both in the United States and globally are filled with society's most vulnerable members, those least able to resist recruitment. They are those most displaced and disadvantaged in the job market: women, especially the poor; the working class; racial and ethnic minorities; mothers with young children to support; battered women fleeing abuse; refugees; and illegal immigrants. Women are brought to the United States from Asia and Eastern Europe for prostitution. In a foreign country, with no contacts or language skills and fearing arrest or deportation, they are at the mercy of pimps and crime syndicates.
Most tellingly, the largest group of recruits to prostitution are children. The average age of entry into prostitution in the United States is approximately 14, sociologists Mimi Silbert and Ayala Pines found in a study performed for the Delancey Foundation in San Francisco.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n9_v11/ai_16709484
Wealth and Poverty (http://www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/resources/stats.html) statistics (from the USA – but not about prostitution)

Street prostitution is largely an economic crime. Women who have prostituted themselves on Toledo streets do so because they are poor. Results of a recent study of women in Toledo involved in prostitution revealed that 81% hadn't earned a high school diploma. Forty-eight percent, nearly half the women interviewed, had no previous work history. All of the women were eligible for welfare benefits and all came from families where their parents lived in poverty or fluctuated from poverty to working class throughout their childhood. None of the women were currently married, nor did any of the women who were parents consistently collect child support for the children they were attempting to raise. Therefore, street prostitution is largely representative of the poor, single, and less educated. With very few skills, a limited education, and minimal, if any, work experience, these women saw prostitution as a way to succeed in otherwise blocked entrances to conventional opportunities. (Williamson, 2000 (probably Celia Williamson, dann). http://www.wmich.edu/destinys-end/statistics.htm
Education
46.5 % of the women arrested for prostitution and/or related charges reported they did not complete high school
28.7 % of women arrested on all other charges reported they did not complete high school
Economic Stability
14.1 % of the women arrested for prostitution and/or related charges reported they earned enough money to support themselves and their children
33.3 % of women arrested on all other charges reported they earned enough money to support themselves and their children
Financial Support from Fathers
26.5 % of the women arrested for prostitution and/or related charges reported the fathers of their children provided economic support
37.1 % of women arrested on all other charges reported the fathers of their children provided economic support http://www.prostitutionconference.com/Pros%20and%20Cons%20presentation.ppt
And this one ought to be required reading for DRBUZZO & Co:
Bad for the Body, Bad for the Heart": Prostitution Harms Women Even if Legalized or Decriminalized (http://action.web.ca/home/catw/attach/Farley.pdf)

[dann]

No I don't. And it's not a strawman. To clarify: "I tend to disagree" refers to my previous statement "there's nothing worse than being a prostitute". Sorry, I wasn't disagreeing with myself. I simply wasn't clear. And you please clarify simply: In your opinion, is there anything worse doing than being a prostitute?

Dying. Starving. Watching your children starve. If you mean professionally, then .... I don't know. Selling your children to strangers for money because you cannot afford to feed them, maybe. Selling your organs to people because you cannot otherwise afford to feed your family. As stated before: poverty forces a lot of bad options on people; the more extreme the poverty, the more horrible the options.

Okay. So, correct me if I'm wrong, you are not against prostitution but you are against poverty that causes prostitution. Do I have it right?

I am against poverty and the very bad alternatives it forces upon people, one of the worst of those being prostitution, so I am against poverty and prostitution.

If I do have it right, and let's say we do make poverty illegal and it's eliminated, I put it to you that there will still be prostitutes!!!! So, how the hell do we eliminate poverty? By eliminating the causes of poverty (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/poverty.html) - which, of course, is much easier said than done (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/communist-vision.html)!

Again, assumptions from your trusted source. And I'm sorry, IMHO, any research that is supposed to be trusted and accurate has it's sponsers plastered all over it to show that the result is not skewed by the sponsers.

Ideally, yes! I don't disagree with you on that one! I would have preferred it that way, too! :)

Look, Dann, basically, I agree with you. Poverty is a major cause of prostitution. I don't think you've come up with anything earth-shattering there. Just the way it's presented it seems like you're saying it's the only reason.

No, just that it's the major reason. And I haven't found information or statistics that indicate that it isn't.

However, it's still my guess (and yes, it's only a guess) is that most people take a job to avoid poverty.

My guess, too, and I think that it is more than a guess. I consider it a fact, and the major reason why poverty should be abolished!

[JFrankA]

Look, Dann, basically, I agree with you. Poverty is a major cause of prostitution. I don't think you've come up with anything earth-shattering there. Just the way it's presented it seems like you're saying it's the only reason.


No, just that it's the major reason. And I haven't found information or statistics that indicate that it isn't.


However, it's still my guess (and yes, it's only a guess) is that most people take a job to avoid poverty.


My guess, too, and I think that it is more than a guess. I consider it a fact, and the major reason why poverty should be abolished!




Woooo hoo!!!! We've come to an agreement!!!!!! (Maybe we don't agree on the details, but that's okay with me... ) :)

[dann]

Why do you seem to be so surprised?! :)

[dann]

Since DRBUZZCOCK probably won't read the whole article, I've found two quotations for him:
Bad for the Body, Bad for the Heart": Prostitution Harms Women Even if Legalized or Decriminalized (http://action.web.ca/home/catw/attach/Farley.pdf)

Of 845 people in prostitution in nine countries (Canada, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, United States, and Zambia), 71% experience physical assaults in prostitution, and 62% reported rapes in prostitution (Farley, Cotton, et al., 2003). Eighty-nine percent told the researchers that they wanted to leave prostitution but did not have other options for economic survival. To normalize prostitution as a reasonable job choice for poor women makes invisible their strong desire to escape prostitution.
Vanwesenbeck (1994) found that two factors were associated with greater violence in prostitution. The greater the poverty, the greater the violence; and the longer one is in prostitution, the more likely one is to experience violence. (p. 1095)

They noted that because most women enter prostitution as a result of poverty, rape, infertility and subsequent abandonment, or divorce, public health programs must address the social factors that contribute to STD/HIV. (p. 1111)

I hope that he at least appreciates the application form (http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/faq/000009.html) for prostitutes. It only needs the signatures of applicant and manager on behalf of applicant.

[dann]

Myths and Facts about Nevada Legal Prostitution (http://www.nevadacoalition.org/factsheets/LegliznFactSheet091707c.pdf)

I will quote only the two Myths/Facts that are most relevant to this thread:

POVERTY
MYTH: When prostitution is legal it eliminates pimps by providing prostitutes with an occupational alternative.
FACT: Prostitution is about not having a range of occupational and job options to choose from. Most women in prostitution end up there only because other options are not available. They do not have stable housing, they urgently need money to support children or pay for school, and they often have limited or no education. Prostitution is not labor, it is paid sexual exploitation. It is often paid rape. It is intrinsically harmful and traumatic.

LEGALIZATION
MYTH: Prostitution is ugly, but we have to do something to make it a little better. Legalization is better than nothing at all.
FACT: Prostitution cannot be made “a little better” any more than domestic violence can be made “a little better”. Women in prostitution tell us clearly: they want the same options in life that others have: a decent job, safe housing, medical care and psychological counseling. They deserve that, not just an HIV test to make sure that they are “clean meat” for johns or a union to ensure that they get an extra dollar or two for being paid to be sexually harassed, sexually exploited and often raped.

And this fact is also very relevant to this discussion:
81% of the women in the Nevada legal brothels urgently want to escape prostitution.

[JFrankA]

First off, I must apologize.

I apologize to everyone reading that I re-started this thread.

Second, Dann, you've proven your point: Poverty is a big part as to why people go into prostitution and poverty should be stamped out.

However, you can continue to throw fact after fact on this board but you cannot change these simple facts. (and they are not strawmen (strawmans?))

1. No matter how much people will try, no matter whatever the reason people go into prostitution - it will be around. Even if we stamp out all poverty, people will go into prostitution. Because even if the number say that 90% of the people wouldn't go into it, there is still that 10% who will go into it because they want to.

2. There will always, always be a demand for it.

3. Most people in the world take jobs they'd rather not do to avoid poverty. Some stay with it for years and years and years because they don't know how to do anything else. Some jump from job to job. Either way, I can do the research for any profession and have the numbers and findings come out to say that people who are in "X" job did it to avoid poverty.

4. Some people are actually successful at it! Enough to live very comfortably.

5. There are people in this world who believe that there are worse things to do for a living than to have sex with a stranger. I, for one, would rather do that, even with someone I am not attracted to rather than coal mine, clean sewers, work on a farm (sorry, I'm a city boy :)), etc. Does everyone agree with me? Of course not! Because I know the simple fact that "Not everyone sees everything the same way"!

And this thing is only my opinion, but I believe we will never be able to stamp out poverty completely. Yes, that's an opinion, that's all. I base that on human nature and the fact not everyone's goal is to stop poverty completely.

Finally, no matter all the facts you posted here, and I'm sorry, quite a few were questionable as to their source, bias (in fact, you're quotes from your last post comes from an internet sight that is firmly against the sex trade! With that bias, how can I trust their facts???) and intent. I still say that legalizing prostitution can possibly help take a bad situtation and make it better.

Now I tried to let this thread die on a nice, happy note. I apologize for restarting it. Now, I'm going to leave, but, Dann, I will state one more time: I agree with you that poverty is the major cause of prostitution and poverty sucks.

But that's as far as it goes.

[dann]

Finally, no matter all the facts you posted here, and I'm sorry, quite a few were questionable as to their source, bias (in fact, you're quotes from your last post comes from an internet sight that is firmly against the sex trade! With that bias, how can I trust their facts???) and intent. I still say that legalizing prostitution can possibly help take a bad situtation and make it better.

Yes, Frank, you still say that. Now won't you please "throw fact after fact" after me, facts that support your idea that "legalizing prostitution can possibly help take a bad situtation and make it better" and are not at all "questionable as to their source, bias (...) and intent"?
That you still say the same thing is hardly an argument, is it?

[JFrankA]

Yes, Frank, you still say that. Now won't you please "throw fact after fact" after me, facts that support your idea that "legalizing prostitution can possibly help take a bad situtation and make it better" and are not at all "questionable as to their source, bias (...) and intent"?
That you still say the same thing is hardly an argument, is it?

So it's not a fact that "not everyone sees things the same way". -- Are you disputing that?

Here are the source of some of your facts:

http://www.nevadacoalition.org

"NCAST will build a diverse coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to achieving progressive reform of Nevada's laws on prostitution and trafficking.

NCAST will initially seek enforcement of existing laws related to pimps and johns. This is not a solution to the problems in Nevada as the laws themselves need to be reformed. However, as we work through the political and legal reform movement, this step will serve to help raise the awareness of individuals and leaders regarding the prevalence of prostitution and sex trafficking in Nevada and will start helping hold the perpetrators of these crimes against women accountable."

* Advocate for political reform that replaces Nevada's legalized prostitution laws with progressive laws such as those in Sweden that address men’s demand.


......sounds biased to me........

http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/

PRE’s goal is to abolish the institution of prostitution while at the same time advocating for alternatives to trafficking and prostitution

.......sounds biased to me........

http://www.redflag.org.uk/frontline/twelve/12pro.html

Website of Frontline, an independent Marxist journal produced in support of the Scottish Socialist Party.

Now you stated that it can't be trusted because it's from Socialist website, but you quote it anyway!!!

And, in the case of the poll where your quoted 90%, you've admitted that you don't know the particular question and who were involved in the poll, which makes the poll questionable.

So, because of all the questionable and biased sources, I don't trust them.

And by the way, how many times do I have to tell you? I agree with you: poverty sucks, poverty is the major cause of prostitution.

And, sorry, this is true: Poverty is the major cause of most employment!!!!

But I get it. You're trying to prove to me that legalization will do nothing to improve the situtation of prostitutes. Sorry, Dann, you failed. Your sources are biased and incomplete. So, you have no way swayed my opinion (Note: this is an opinion. I never stated it as a fact) that legalizing prostitution will make a bad situtation a little better.

Finally, I tried to be nice. (You even told me go ahead and be disrespectful), and you know what? I still won't be. :) You are entitled to your opinion and that's all it is, just an opinion.

And this is the third time this thread should be declared dead. The first resurgence of it was my fault. Again I apologize. But now, I don't care if it continues or not because I'm not coming back here to discuss this. Not because you've proven anything, but because you didn't.

Whether legalization would make things better or not, this thread has turned from a discussion into a battle of "who has the most links". And this game isn't solving anything.

So type as many questionable and biased links you want, I'm not reading them anymore. I don't trust your sources. (Yes -- my opinion).

Bye! :)

[dann]

Yes, it is a fact that "not everyone sees things the same way", and therefore, no, I don't dispute that. Why should I?
Some people see a light in the sky and say, "UFOs". Others say, "No, it's the planet Venus". Sometimes they may even explain why Venus may look like a flying saucer to the untrained eye, which, of course, is not a denial of the fact that "not everyone sees things the same way". Instead it shows that insisting that people see things differently may be rather immaterial if you want to decide what things are.

As far as sources are concerned: In Denmark we have two organizations dealing with UFOs, Skandinavisk UFO-Information (http://www.sufoi.dk/) and UFO-Kontakt (http://www.igap.dk/magazine_dk.htm). The former finds scientific explanations to the phenomena people see in the sky and don’t understand, the latter tends to interpret the same phenomena as manifestations of aliens visiting Earth and therefore thinks of the former as biased.

Now you don’t approve of the links to (some of or all of???) the sources that I have provided, but your reason for disapproving of them simply is that they have an agenda. And they do! And they are open about it! Why shouldn’t they be? They have discovered that prostitution hurts prostitutes – and they publish the facts that they have discovered. Why shouldn’t they?

In some cases your questions are relevant when you question the validity of some of these alleged facts: it would be nice to see the wording of the questions asked, for instance. In other cases you raise doubt in a very ridiculous manner: It is not wrong to make a survey of attitudes of prostitutes in San Fransisco, as long as it does not claim that it is also a survey of prostitutes in New York or Berlin.
(One source, by the way, was the Australian government, which may be biased as well, I don’t know, but you don’t seem to think that it is relevant.)

You think that legalization would help prostitutes. But you won’t provide us with a single study or piece of fact that supports your idea. So what you are saying is something along the lines of: 'I stick to my opinion, I am entitled to have it and I won’t change!'
And you certainly won't provide us with a single fact to support this opinion.
(And the only thing that other spokesmen of (regulated) prostitution have to offer is anecdotal evidence.)

That’s OK, but your idea may be just as far from reality as DRBUZZO’s imaginary brothel.

[Island Skeptic]

And, in the case of the poll where your quoted 90%, you've admitted that you don't know the particular question and who were involved in the poll, which makes the poll questionable.

So, because of all the questionable and biased sources, I don't trust them.

And by the way, how many times do I have to tell you? I agree with you: poverty sucks, poverty is the major cause of prostitution.

A level-headed person does not need a poll to make the logical conclusion that most (if not all) prostitutes would quickly abandon their jobs if they had the financial means to do so. A well-to-do woman would never enter the occupation of prostitution unless she has some serious psychiatric disorder.

But I get it. You're trying to prove to me that legalization will do nothing to improve the situtation of prostitutes. Sorry, Dann, you failed. Your sources are biased and incomplete. So, you have no way swayed my opinion (Note: this is an opinion. I never stated it as a fact) that legalizing prostitution will make a bad situtation a little better.

I've tried to read the bulk of this thread and have not found any sources provided by those who support brothels (or legalized prostitution) that rebut the data provided by Dann. Although his sources may be biased, at least he provides some data, which should cause one to at least ponder this issue.

And this is the third time this thread should be declared dead. The first resurgence of it was my fault. Again I apologize. But now, I don't care if it continues or not because I'm not coming back here to discuss this. Not because you've proven anything, but because you didn't.

Whether legalization would make things better or not, this thread has turned from a discussion into a battle of "who has the most links". And this game isn't solving anything.

I'm sorry for reviving this thread, but i feel that there is much more to be said on this topic that has not yet even been introduced -or properly discussed.

I come from a socialist country, and i must say that the society in this socialist country is generally far more civilized than the USA. I realize this thread is not about socialism, but one of the points that i believe Dann has been tirelessly trying to make is that poverty is the primary issue that drives women (and men) to prostitution. In my home country, very few women are so desperately impoverished that they are forced to succumb to prostitution.

Because most people in my home country are not impoverished, prostitutes are brought in from impoverished countries.

To argue that prostitution (legalized or not) is not a serious social concern is a form of denial or complete callousness. Too many women and men (and children) are hurt by this 'industry' and it must be addressed.

Quote from http://www.dogstreetjournal.com/story/3079:

Many clients would claim that prostitution is a "victimless crime." Many economists would claim that prostitution is just another business. But the large majority of prostitutes are coerced, if not by violence, then by poverty and despair, and their choice, if they have one, is one of survival, not of freedom. If such varying groups of people can agree on the same anti-prostitution legislation than perhaps this is more than just a right wing crusade. Adam Smiths invisible hand should not be able to permeate every aspect of human life, especially the most intimate sexual aspects. Freedom requires more than a lack of restraint, it requires real and tangible hope. By allowing the selling of sex, humanity is enslaving women in the name of personal freedom.

[dann]

I come from a socialist country Suomi/Finland???! Well, at least the weather must be so much better in Hawai! :)

Welcome to the thread, Jaana.

I tend to think that the main reason why some people deny the obvious connection between poverty and prostitution is basically a john thing: It is not a very sexy thought, at least to fairly sane people, that the one you are having sex with hates it and only tolerates what you are doing to her because she has to feed her children, her habit, whatever. So it's a way of denying the callousness.

Jody Raphael: Listening to Olivia: Violence, Poverty, and Prostitution (http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=RX24Y3ANfFwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=poverty+prostitution&ots=-HHpsPme0D&sig=KG6HkBdOaNy2WMX-3orT4x53wqc#PPA6,M1)
“One study of 378 women in New York’s sex trade between 1907 and 1915 found that 25 percent had no parents and 60 percent had a parent absent from the home because of separation, divorce, or death, with a much lower percentage of such losses amone working women who were not in prostitution. This disruption of economic stability may have created immediate needs for funds that only prostitution could meet. The illusion that prostitution may provide a certain upward economic mobility is one shared by women in prostitution then and now, as the sex trade continues to attract poor girls because of its seemingly glamourous life style.” (p. 27)

“Despite many positive changes in American life at the turn of the twenty-first century for women and girls, the prostitution industry has continued to entice the same kinds of low-income girls for the same complex of reasons it did at the turn of the twentieth century – a profoundly depressive conclusion.” (p. 28)

Annette Graham Scambler: Rethinking Prostitution: Purchasing Sex in the 1990s (http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=GZnVmXRqXLkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=poverty+prostitution&ots=9Iw79IGMzM&sig=ISrwiZUD9bcrpwv428-dVrSivBs#PPA12,M1)
“Materially, prostitution is often a response to poverty, financial hardship and need. We need to be aware of changes in the benefit system, changes in the care system, changes around the employment of young people, including YTS, the council tax, students grants, recession and high interest rates, which increase the risk of more people and more young people becoming involved in prostitution (see Lupton 1985; O’Mahoney, 1988; Newman 1989; Stein 1990; Dibblin 1991; O’Neill 1991; Walklate 1991; Biehal et al. 1992).
As a response to poverty, selling sex is often a last resort, the body one’s last commodity. We cannot look at prostitution without looking at the social and economic contexts which give rise to it.” (p. 12)

“Who are the prostitutes? They are women, men and young people who come from all social classes although the majority of women working as prostitutes tend not to come from the middle classes. McLeod (1982: 26-7) documents becoming a prostitute as a way out of relative poverty through the accounts of Rosa, Carol, Julie and Kathy.” (p. 13)

[Island Skeptic]

Hi Dann,

Yes, I'm Finnish, and yes, it is *much* warmer here in Hawaii. :)

I found this thread from someone quoting someone else from here in another thread - and now i forget the originating thread... LOL!

Anyway, i agree with you wholeheartedly. I'm kicking myself in the *ss right now because i found a site where there was a perfectly good study on legalized prostitution & brothels that showed there was absolutely NO change to the crime level, amount of STD's reported, etc.

It was a perfectly unbiased and reputable site that nobody in this thread could have disputed. Ah, well.... I will find it again I am sure.

Aloha!

[Mister Agenda]

I think it is not enough to argue that legalization does not make things better. You have to argue that it makes things worse, or it can be justified on other grounds, like saving public money (why spend the money on enforcing anti-prostitution laws if prostitutes are no worse off either way?) or the fact that putting prostitutes in jail is not very good for them either. Some have proposed only enforcing laws against johns (unintended side effect of forcing prostitutes to put themselves at risk so their tricks won't be spotted by the cops) or pimps. I believe they have anti-pimp laws in England, but prostitution is legal. Anyone know how that is working out?

In any case, neither criminalizing nor legalizing prostitution seems to have a dramatic effect on the institution of prostitution.

If REDUCING prostitution is your goal, I recommend contributing to one of the prostitute assistance organizations linked to in this thread. If you have the calling and constitution for it, volunteerism wouldn't be amiss either. I'm a rescuer and fall in love easily. Knowing this about myself, it is in my best interest to not try to get involved with direct action to assist prostitutes in getting 'out of the life'. This just by way of saying you have to know yourself before you can make a mature decision about getting directly involved in a toxic situation. It's a good cause though, and money CAN help.

[dann]

I think it is not enough to argue that legalization does not make things better. You have to argue that it makes things worse, or it can be justified on other grounds, like saving public money (why spend the money on enforcing anti-prostitution laws if prostitutes are no worse off either way?) or the fact that putting prostitutes in jail is not very good for them either.

Poverty makes women turn tricks. As long as the money earned from prostitution to them appears as the alternative to watching their children starve, criminalization is not something that I would want to force upon them. But according to many researchers legalization appears to make things worse.

In the book What Are the Causes of Prostitution? (http://www.amazon.com/What-Are-Causes-Prostitution-Issue/dp/0737727381), in the series At Issue – social issues (Thomson Gale, 2007), Donna M. Hughes. Professor of women’s studies at the University of Rhode Island, writes:

“The legalization of prostitution has not controlled prostitution. In fact, the demand for victims of sex trafficking increases when men can legally buy sex. Nor has legalization improved conditions for women forced into prostitution by poverty or a childhood of sexual abuse. Prostituted women do not join unions or sign up for benefits because many women are trafficked, and others view prostitution as a temporary solution. Prostitution is not work but a predatory and criminal business that depends on the abuse and exploitation of women.” (p. 21)
“Over the past decade, the most popular proposed solutions to sex trafficking and “out of control” prostitution is legalization of prostitution. Prostitution has been legalized with the expectation that it would bring positive outcomes in Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, and recently, in New Zealand. Although legalization has resulted in big legal profits for a few, the other benefits have not materialized. Organized crime groups continue to traffic women and children and run illegal prostitution operations alongside the legal businesses. In Victoria, Australia, legalization of brothels was supposed to eliminate street prostitution. It did not; in fact, there are many more women on the street than before legalization.” (p.23-24)
“In the Netherlands, since legalization, there has been an increase in the use of children in prostitution.” (p. 24)

Some have proposed only enforcing laws against johns (unintended side effect of forcing prostitutes to put themselves at risk so their tricks won't be spotted by the cops) or pimps. I believe they have anti-pimp laws in England, but prostitution is legal. Anyone know how that is working out?I don't know about England, but I do know that they have criminalized johns in Sweden. I think the verdict is still out on that one, but I'll try to find out more.

In any case, neither criminalizing nor legalizing prostitution seems to have a dramatic effect on the institution of prostitution.

Not as long as poverty is not abolished.
In the same book Lisa A. Kramer, “working toward the completion of a Ph.D. in Sociology from Arizona State University”, and Ellen C. Berg, “an assistant professor of sociology at California State University, write that
“Studies also reveal racial differences. White prostitutes are more likely to have experienced sexual and physical abuse by a family member. Minority women, however, often enter prostitution because they have fewer economic opportunities.” (p. 11)

Carol Mithers, who “writes articles and commentary on women’s issues”, writes that
“The root cause of prostitution and sex trafficking in the developing world is poverty. Some women are tricked into prostitution with the promise of a job, and others come from desperate families that are willing to sacrifice a daughter to prostitution to feed the family. The problem is exacerbated by governments that turn a blind eye to the problem and by corrupt officials who profit from brothels. To end the trafficking and prostitution of women and children, economic conditions in developing nations must improve.” (p. 32)


If REDUCING prostitution is your goal, I recommend contributing to one of the prostitute assistance organizations linked to in this thread.
I have some more that I found in the book. I'll post them later.

If you have the calling and constitution for it, volunteerism wouldn't be amiss either. I'm a rescuer and fall in love easily. Knowing this about myself, it is in my best interest to not try to get involved with direct action to assist prostitutes in getting 'out of the life'.

Some of these organisations actually warn against men with co-dependent tendencies ...

This just by way of saying you have to know yourself before you can make a mature decision about getting directly involved in a toxic situation. It's a good cause though, and money CAN help.

Well, abolishment of poverty would help. Charity is not enough:

Poverty Fuels Sex Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Feeds Prostitution ( http://www.captivedaughters.org/gatesfoundation.htm)
“What we do know is that poverty drives sex trafficking, and that sex trafficking as the delivery system for prostitution means that each day scores of young, poor women and girls will turn to sex trafficking and prostitution as a means to provide for themselves, and for their families, because they have no other choice. The hope is that funds earmarked for fighting poverty will eventually fight sex trafficking, too, putting an end to this exploitative practice by offering viable economic options for poverty-stricken women and girls in developing nations who want to work.”

Every woman has a right not to be prostituted ( http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3693/is_200103/ai_n8952248/print)
“The view on the right to work further holds that where there are inadequate, poor or outright bad economic options for women, prostitution may be the best option and that in any case, it is work that does no one any harm because the two parties most directly involved agree to what will happen in the prostitution exchange. This fails to acknowledge that in fact, violence is often done to women in prostitution not just because laws do not protect women or that work conditions are not what they should be, but because men's prostitution use of women and the acts carried out are sexual enactments of a culture and system of subordination of women.”

[volatile]

I've often wondered the same. Making movies seems to be more or less legal, why not use that as a front for prostitution? You make the movie, you seal it up and send it off with the client as "art".

I wondered the same thing - a thread on it's here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=97824)!

[dann]

I've often wondered the same. Making movies seems to be more or less legal, why not use that as a front for prostitution? You make the movie, you seal it up and send it off with the client as "art". ... and threaten to send the copy to his wife and his family unless he pays a lot more than he bargained for. There's a reason why so many johns fear the mug shots more than the regular penalty. End of that idea!

[dann]

Some have proposed only enforcing laws against johns (unintended side effect of forcing prostitutes to put themselves at risk so their tricks won't be spotted by the cops) or pimps. I believe they have anti-pimp laws in England, but prostitution is legal. Anyone know how that is working out?

The Swedish Law that Prohibits the Purchase of Sexual Services (http://vaw.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/10/10/1187)
Prostitution on Demand (http://vaw.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/10/10/1156)
Prostitution Policy in Europe (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0141-7789(200121)67%3C78%3APPIEAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T)
I have made it abundantly clear in this thread that the question of legalization versus criminalization of prostitution neglects to consider the role played by poverty (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/poverty.html), which would have to be addressed since the elimination of poverty (http://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/poverty.htm) is the only efficient way of fighting prostitution. I think that the abstract above, Prostitution Policy in Europe supports my argument, indirectly, since its ideal of ”the self-organization of sex workers into unions and rights groups, along with full decriminalization” has already been proved nothing but an ideal since the Dutch example shows that a majority of prostitutes cannot be ‘self-organized' into unions.

[Smiley]

I really like banging teh bitches, but sumtimes I can't find a woman who will suck my crusty dick for free, because I am such a loser.

So for those times, I need me sum hoes. But it's illegal! So I will argue that's a dumb law! Ya that's right!

Justifications and excuses aside, I agree with the assumption that some women think they are nothing more then meat -- because that's the over-riding message society givess to all girls and their daddy's do nothing to correct the brainwashing. But the answer is not to enable their low-self-esteem, the answer is to do what Denmark has done, and that is to make the act of buying sex illegal and the act of selling sex legal.

But for some mysterious reason, that isn't good enough for the creeps arguing for legal prostitution. What they really want is to be able to dehumanize and degrade a female with no consequences -- because to them, being able to buy a woman for an hour is the ultimate act of power. The thought of a prostitute having more legal privileges then a man really chaps his misogynistic hide, and those men's overwhelming opposition to following Denmark's example proves it.

Face reality -- Men like sex with random strangers more then women do, in general, and so entire societies are predicated on enabling some men to exercise the control and manipulation necessary to keep those uppidity bitches in line. I'm tired of pretending that if we just give those creeps enough respect, then they will somehow stop getting all control-freaky over women's bodies.

Did you know that there are more men with low IQ's then women? They use the excuse that "women hate them" as justification for all the hateful things they do, never stopping to admit out loud that it is HEALTHY to hate those who deny equality to others. It isn't women who have denied privileges, rights, and status to men for so many centuries that we think it's normal, but MEN. There is a pattern here, and you are a fool if you think women haven't noticed. The pattern hasn't stopped, and yes, we've noticed that too.

[dann]

Sweden! Not Denmark ... yet.