<p>Digression:In Sweden it’s legal to sell sex, but not to buy.</p>
<p>Input:
As a feminist who thinks that flimsy formal dresses and durable formal pants reek of inequality, I think that it would be fine to have a pornography industry with unions. The point of male-female inequity in a particular instance of porn and/or prostitution (henceforth Pp) is not a result of the existence of Pp, but the male-female inequity in the society in which the particular Pp occurs.</p>
<p>It would be better if everyone was allowed to be sexually uninhibited with legal adults and in public (I see no reason kids should be shielded from sex - it’s not like sex is a big deal), so that a woman could display her breasts as she wishes and she could consider some men as sexual conquests. Although I am asexual, as a woman I would want to have as much sexual freedom as any male. (Before you use a perspective argument against this, note that I do not experience sexual attraction, and “fair” law is sculpted in symmetry.) If my organs make you sexually excited, then that is your business. Just be aware of harassment laws.</p>
<p>As a male, exactly the same argument applies.</p>
<p>If Pp were totally legal and unregulated - but registered - save for child issues, it would be possible for an abused prostitute to gain aid from police.</p>
<p>Good decisions on the part of the prostitute could go along the lines of:
0. You must present recent proof of STD-freedom and undergo certain tests if you resist condom usage. It will cost a lot more.
Neighbourhood sex service (I’ll come to your door).
Nothing at all will happen unless we videotape it, so there’ll be evidence if you harm me.
Discount if you let me videotape our session and keep the rights. This way prostitution can encourage competition with the pornography industry.
Establish a conglomerate or union with close ties to sexual industries like manufacturers of condoms and vaccines. Lobby for more funding for minor STD research etc.
Station my building as close as possible to a clinic, so clients can be directed there.
My (possibly shared) secretary will receive electronic status updates during our session, so you will likely be caught if something goes awry. </p>
<p>Hopefully we’ll get rid of marriage - or make it polyandrogynous - by 2045.
Above all masturbation must be encouraged, and the advent of materials and robotics sciences could make prostitutes obsolete.</p>
<p>"jaf1991, “I think it’s very sad that any woman would think her primary asset was her body”</p>
<p>What about models and cheerleaders?"</p>
<p>I knew someone would bring that up and I almost addressed it in my post. ;)</p>
<p>I don’t know, I just don’t think modeling and cheerleading are degrading in quite the same way, do you? We are talking, for the most part, about hopeless women who feel they have no other options. That’s just so sad. These women are sisters and daughters, don’t you think it’s sad that no one cares enough about them to help them? They used to be sweet, innocent little girls. How could a life go so horribly wrong?</p>
<p>Seriously, now I’m making myself cry. I have to go.</p>
<p>There are many logical arguments promoting the legalization/regulation of prostitution being presented here, and many of them are familiar to anyone who has participated in the gun debate. In example:</p>
<p>-“If selling your body is wrong, what about models and cheerleaders?”
This is basically analogous to comparing people who use weapons for hunting/animal control to people who use weapons for the expressed purpose of destroying another individual. While most (but certainly not all) would agree that hunting is a morally permissable action, those same people would likely be against such violence used to exterminate a human being. The actions are the same, but done for different reasons and with a completely different levels of morality. This compares quite nicely to the example above. A cheerleader most likely does not dance (if you can call it that) with the motivation of initiating sex, or making a profit from sex. (While even I have some doubts to this claim, as anyone who has attended public high school will, we can accept it as generally true ; ) Using their bodies for dance and sport is completely different from making a sexual profit from it. While the ideas may seem similar, in levels of morality they are quite different. Asking why prostitution is morally debased is a hard question to anwser directly, but it is fairly obvious when you ask if you would like a loved one to do it, as pointed out above. It is simply something that the human spirt is opposed to, on the same level as grave robbing or slavery (which it is often tied to). In addition, events such as cheerleading rarely lead to crime, modeling may lead to a lot of crack but probably not much else, whereas prostitution, legal or illegal almost always tend to lead to various intensities of crime and sub-moral actions. This will be further addresed below.</p>
<p>-“But if we legalize it and put it (prostitution, obviously) under government regulation/control, surely it would be safer for all the parties involved? Making prostitution illegal won’t make it go away, it will always be with us, so it might as well be safe and controled, right?”
A similar idea to this one has been used to justify the legality of firearm ownership for decades. If the government regulates weapons sales and distribution through background checks, waiting periods before purchase, a database of who owns what and limitations on firearm tyes availible to the public, gun-related crime should decrease because only government approved and thus “safe” persons will have weapons. Okay, great argument so far. Until you consider that people who would not pass the background checks, would not like the government knowing of their gun ownership, etc., but would still like to own a gun, are probably going to find a way to get a hold of one anyway. Watch the news, or walk through the rougher parts of any American city. Then ask yourself if legalizing and regulating guns eliminates homicide by them. The anwser, that regulating weapon sales does not prevent gun crime, should be obvious. This relates to prostitution in that making prostitution legal would not eliminate illegal prostitution. There will always be those who would not wish to comply, for fear that they might lose their “license”, or that they wouldn’t pass the required medical tests. And an illegal market would exist additionally for the economic reason that some would need cheaper services provided by these illegal prostitues. And the various crimes related to prostitution would continue to flourish in spite of government regulation.</p>
<p>In addition, if prostitution was legalized, the image of the happy-go-lucky “pimp”, decked out in respeldent furs, carrying his “pimp stick”, “crusing” in his “pimp-mobile”, managing his “hos” and playing “the game” would disappear from America’s streets and be replaced by a tie wearing bussinessman well versed in the mudane codes of law. This would be of great loss to the nation, as these shady but colorful characters have been an integral part of our culture since at least the 1960’s. Indeed, an entire library of blaxploitation films would become irrelevant and future generations would be unable to relate to almost 95% of rap. Who would America’s youth turn to as rebellious, style-leading idols? The pimp would go the same way of the town-crier and the butter-churn, being preserved only in literature and in small, tightly knit communities in the Pennsylvanian countryside, where they would fight occasional gang wars with the Amish. It would be that lame. Don’t let Americia lose a part of her historic heritage! Keep prostitution illegal and on the streets of the hoods, where is belongs!</p>
<p>In closing, this entire post was facetious and a (bad) joke. Please don’t flame me :(</p>
<p>Mustang Ranch reopens
Owner ‘giving back’ by opening world-famous brothel</p>
<p>Lance Gilman, the brothel owner, said that helping lonely men - along with saving women from illegal prostitution and giving back to Storey County - is why he is reopening one of the most famous brothels in the world, the Mustang Ranch…</p>
<p>He said he has spent more than $5 million restoring and relocating the ranch he bought on eBay in 2003 and will reopen Saturday. The public party will include an interview with Joe Conforte, the former owner and man who opened the Mustang in 1971 as the first licensed brothel in the state. Conforte will give an interview via satellite from South America.</p>
<p>“Here’s a question for you all…would you want your mother/daughter/sister/friend working as a prostitute? Why not? To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t want my worst enemy in that line of work. Most women don’t become prostitutes because it’s such a great job. It’s degrading and humiliating in ways that - hopefully - most of us can’t even begin to imagine. Not to mention that human trafficking is real and not limited to third world countries, it is a real problem here in the US.”</p>
<p>Wow, someone here actually gets it.</p>
<p>“What about models and cheerleaders?” Hey, that’s BS too! For christ’s sake, cheerleader skirts often look like they’re shorter than what’s allowed for the school dress code!</p>
<p>~ah, and to think that the people behind it all (parents, politicians) were raised on the Bible. Makes perrrfect sense. It all boils down to gender roles.</p>
<p>I don’t want my mother to be a Walmart employee either. Lets illegalize that too. Unbeatable logic. Hey, its degrading and humiliating too. Have you been there? I’d rather ask a pile of rocks for help than their clerks.</p>
<p>^Irrevelant what you want. Laws and professions don’t depend on your whims. Should we honor the hippies and get rid of the army as well? Try again.</p>
<p>Like drug prohibition, it is not the act itself that brings about most problems, but rather the fact that it is illegal and can only operate in the context of a black market that’s more often than not seedy and dangerous. </p>
<p>I wondered awhile back why prostitutes can’t be licensed professionals who require frequent tests for STDs and can work for their own dime without middlemen(pimps). Just a thought…</p>
<p>IMO, degradation is in the eye of the (potentially) degraded. </p>
<p>Some people think that posing in magazines like Playboy is degrading – and for some women, it is! – but for the woman who thinks it’s liberating to take off her shirt and pose for a picture, it’s anything but. </p>
<p>No act is inherently degrading. Professions like prostitution can be respectable if they are viewed as such by both the prostitutes and the members of the rest of society. </p>
<p>Read the Mustang Ranch article posted by collegemom (post #30) for some proof that prostitution doesn’t HAVE to be “exploitation”; it can be a job beneficial to both the customers and the workers. </p>
<p>I think it could also be a problem of solicitation. The problem could (I’m being scientifically pessimistic here) get out of hand to the point that you can’t walk to a transit stop without seeing a (passively working) prostitute.</p>