Is there anything wrong or shameful about prostitution?

[Rezzy]

2 hours ago, blah the Prussian said:

Well, yes I can. I'd decriminalize it for one side but not the other because the goal is to crack down on sex trafficking. They should be brought to trial and acquitted if it's found that there was nothing untoward about the brothel they went to; if the prostitute wasn't trafficked there's no problem but if she was, it's rape, although unknowingly raping someone is quite the gray area.

That would be the fault of the ones doing the trafficking, not the customers.  Jewelry is not illegal, but Blood Diamonds are gotten through human suffering.  Just because a percentage of the product is immoral, it doesn't mean you can blame the entire industry. 

[Lushen]

Wow!  Interesting topic.  You can't really talk about this stuff in public so it's cool to see it here.

My opinion is that prostitution is very harmful to both parties.  There are many studies on the effects of pornography and if I understand them correctly - it's not that pornography is harmful, it's the distortion of sex in pornography that is harmful.  I think the same applies here.  By treating individuals as property (which they are with limitations during prostitution), you are distorting your view of sex by turning it away from something mutual.  Sure, the customer pays for the service but that doesn't make it mutual.  That makes prostitution mutual, but not the sex.  I think the effects on the mind of the person the customer is paying is self-evident, so I won't go into that.  But I will expand it by saying I know a few people who grow up with mothers who were prostitutes, and it's important to think about how it affects society as a whole, not just the two individuals.

Now I'm going to flipflop.  I think it should be legal.  Why? Currently, two people get drunk at a bar and have sex to satisfy their desire for "casual sex".  Is this really more moral or less harmful than prostitution?  I think it's worse.  Instead of prostitution, both parties are endulging themselves to each other.  It's like both people are selfishly abusing one another rather than a mutual encounter based on love.

So, obviously, the best practice of sex is with someone you're in a relationship.  It is extremely beneficial for both parties whereas casual sex through prostitution or drunken encounters is harmful to both parties.  BUT!  It's important to note that if you're married/with someone, it's very easy to judge someone else and fail to understand their situation.  I can't speak for woman necessarily (though I think it's the same for them), but men have needs.  If a man finds himself in a situation without his sexual preference, he will find a way to please himself.  Prostition, drunken bar sex, pornography, weird fetishes?  He will find something, it's how men work. 

 

The other side of this argument is how do you know if a prostitute is being abused or even enslaved?  The obvious answer is to make it extremely transparent, but I highly doubt any customer would want to be with a prostitution service that keeps records of who they are.  Still, I think making prostitution illegal while pornography and drunken sex are legal makes no sense at all.  Perhaps the best thing to do would force the prostitution company to be extremely transparent and force them to have routine checkups or perhaps even therapy for their workers.  It may sound expensive, but a legal prostitution company would probably make enough money to afford it.

 

No matter what - any woman/man who has a serious mental/social disability should NOT be allowed to work as a prostitute for any reason.  The same goes with individuals who have STDs.   A prostitute should only be allowed to work if a doctor deems them completely healthy and they need to be regularly checked for STDs and preferably any signs of physical or mental harm.

Edited October 26, 2017 by Lushen

[Shoblongoo]

On 10/25/2017 at 7:52 AM, Rezzy said:

I think the very act of making it legal will do much to clear up the corruption.  

^^^This. The effect of criminalizing a profession is that you put operational control and industry standards in the hands of criminals, instead of persons trying to maintain professional reputations as proprietors of a legitimate business. See the difference between a modern liquor store, and a prohibition-era speakeasy. See also the difference between a lawfully owned and operated marijuana dispensery in downtown Denver, and a street-dealer in the slums of Atlantic City. The same is true of commercial sex. Make it legal. Make it regulated. Make it safe.

Edited October 26, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Lushen]

49 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

^^^This. The effect of criminalizing a profession is that you put operational control and industry standards in the hands of criminals, instead of persons trying to maintain professional reputations as proprietors of a legitimate business. See the difference between a modern liquor store, and a prohibition-era speakeasy. See also the difference between a lawfully owned and operated marijuana dispensery in downtown Denver, and a street-dealer in the slums of Atlantic City. The same is true of commercial sex. Make it legal. Make it regulated. Make it safe.

I always disliked this excuse.  The question here is - is prostitution moral?  If the answer is no, you don't legalize it to make it occur less often. First off,  you have to have a high level of confidence in the government's ability to regulate things efficiently, of which I have none.   But more importantly, you don't legalize things that are wrong.  If they came out with a study that legalizing murder would decrease the overall murders, I still would not want to legalize murder.

If our solution to problems in the country is to legalize them, where does that end?  In my view, it should never have started.  You don't legalize something because it's hard to prevent.  That's not the way laws should work.  They're laws.  We make rules for our kids.  We don't teach our kid that if they break the rules enough we will get rid of the rules... Kids understand, why can't we?

So again, the question is whether it is moral?  As I said, it should be legal in my opinion because it is no more harmful to people than pornography and perhaps even less harmful than drunken sex.

 

Edited October 26, 2017 by Lushen

[Shoblongoo]

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

I always disliked this excuse.  The question here is - is prostitution moral?  If the answer is no, you don't legalize it to make it occur less often. First off,  you have to have a high level of confidence in the government's ability to regulate things efficiently, of which I have none.   But more importantly, you don't legalize things that are wrong.  If they came out with a study that legalizing murder would decrease the overall murders, I still would not want to legalize murder.

If our solution to problems in the country is to legalize them, where does that end?  In my view, it should never have started.  You don't legalize something because it's hard to prevent.  That's not the way laws should work.  They're laws.  We make rules for our kids.  We don't teach our kid that if they break the rules enough we will get rid of the rules... Kids understand, why can't we?

So again, the question is whether it is moral?  As I said, it should be legal in my opinion because it is no more harmful to people than pornography and perhaps even less harmful than drunken sex.

 

Don't confuse excuse with justification. You hit upon the issue: are the social costs of criminalization more harmful to society than the frequent, legally unrestrained occurrence of the act? With murder, the answer to that question will always be [No]. You can not have Civil Order with people free to run around killing each other. The same is true of property crimes, assaults, terroristic threats, unlawful use of weapons, and human trafficking. The social benefit of criminalization greatly outweighs the costs, and any argument as to the contrary yields a hollow excuse for criminal misconduct. Without speaking to the "morality" of the act (except perhaps in the humanist/utilitarian sense of the word): the social costs of criminalization yield a compelling justification for lawful prostitution,. Because you cannot look at the societal benefit to be accrued from criminalization and say: this is worth making otherwise-productive members of society who would participate in the act "criminals," with all the economic demerits to the convicted and  administrative costs to the Justice System their criminal status carries. 

Edited October 26, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Lushen]

41 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Don't confuse excuse with justification. You hit upon the issue: are the social costs of criminalization more harmful to society than the frequent, legally unrestrained occurrence of the act? With murder, the answer to that question will always be [No]. You can not have Civil Order with people free to run around killing each other. The same is true of property crimes, assaults, terroristic threats, unlawful use of weapons, and human trafficking. The social benefit of criminalization greatly outweighs the costs, and any argument as to the contrary yields a hollow excuse for criminal misconduct. Without speaking to the "morality" of the act (except perhaps in the humanist/utilitarian sense of the word): the social costs of criminalization yield a compelling justification for lawful prostitution,. Because you cannot look at the societal benefit to be accrued from criminalization and say: this is worth making otherwise-productive members of society who would participate in the act "criminals," with all the economic demerits to the convicted and  administrative costs to the Justice System their criminal status carries. 

But see that's the question.  Is legalizing prostitution more harmful to society than legal prostitution?  That is a very different than the classical justification that "Legalization limits occurrences" or "Legalization makes the crime more moral through regulation" which is what I hate hearing.  We see it with drugs too.  People say 'Well drug use would go down if it was legal'.  Isn't that somewhat of a moot point when determining whether it should or should not be legal?  Again, I go back to what you tell your kids.  I'm not going to tell my kids to use drugs responsibly because I don't want my kids to use drugs at all.  I don't care if it's a harder fight, it's a fight that, to me, is worth fighting.

As I said, I think Legal prostitution, and even legal drugs in some cases like marijuana, should be allowed.  But not because it will limit uses, but because they are not more immoral or harmful to society as alternatives.  Marijuana is not any worse than drinking which is legal and prostitution is not any worse than pornography or drunken sex.   This is very different than "Legalization makes it more moral or makes it occur less often".  Legalizing something never makes it more right, even if it's more regulated. 

Edited October 26, 2017 by Lushen

[Zanarkin]

Prostitution itself is not a morally wrongful thing to do. To buy or sell sex, by or from consenting adults, is not a wrongful act. At the very least, it wouldn't be any more wrong than casual sex, which in my opinion isn't wrong at all.  

Problems with prostitution itself generally come from how the transaction is made. For example, if the prostitute is a sex slave, then it is wrong because she can't consent. Another way it could be wrong would be if the buyer gets to control the situation entirely, disregarding the safety and consent of the seller or vice-versa. 

Legalizing prostitution makes it a lot easier to control the health and safety of both the buyer and seller. A legal practice with the proper laws could reduce the risk of unwanted pregnancies and births, reduce the risk of STD's, and make it easier to persecute a person in the case of an actual crime (sex slaves, sexual assault, etc.). 

There is a very good paper on this topic, titled "Should Feminists Oppose Prostitution?" (1989) by Laurie Shrage. 

[Lushen]

Here's the other question.  If it were legal and regulated, how would it be regulated?

 

I could see a classical liberal v conservative debate brewing from the fact that certain races, sexes, 'looks', and sexual orientations are paid more than the other.

The other question would be should the anonymity of the customer be protected? 

Another would be should the age of the customer have a factor?  Personally, I think there's a clear distinction between someone who is 70+ hiring an 18-year-old prostitute and someone in their twenties doing so.  The 70+ year old is a creep.  Should customer-service be regulated so they are within certain age brackets? 

[Zanarkin]

13 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Another would be should the age of the customer have a factor?  Personally, I think there's a clear distinction between someone who is 70+ hiring an 18-year-old prostitute and someone in their twenties doing so.  The 70+ year old is a creep.  Should customer-service be regulated so they are within certain age brackets? 

If a 70 year old can marry or have sex with an 18 year old, why should it be any different with buying sex? The question here is a matter of consent, which an 18 year old can give (at least legally in Canada). Whether you, or anyone else sees it as creepy is entirely irrelevant unless you can provide acceptable reasons as to why it should be unlawful.

Edited October 26, 2017 by SlayerX

[Lushen]

Just now, SlayerX said:

If a 70 year old can marry or have sex with an 18 year old, why should it be any different with buying sex? The question here is a matter of consent, which an 18 year old can give (at least legally in Canada). Whether you, or anyone else sees it as creepy is entirely irrelevant unless you give acceptable reasons as to why it should be morally repugnant.

The issue is the hypothetical prostitution company would force that person to have sex with the customer.  You might say we can regulate that too, but we can't.  If an 18 year old woman refuses to have sex with 80 years old she finds repulsive, she won't be working for the company for a long time.  At this point, it's infringing upon the rights of the woman.  Escort services wouldn't have this problem because, from what I've just read on Wikipedia, the company only sets up a meeting and then both parties discuss the details so it would be a consensual relationship.  Still...how do you prevent the escort service from firing their employees when their employees don't give consent to the customers?

The difference between an 18-year-old getting married or having consensual sex is it is supposed to be based on love, not lust.  In prostitution, you are forcing young people to have sex with older people for money.   That is very different than sex between like-aged parties.

[Zanarkin]

5 minutes ago, Lushen said:

The issue is the hypothetical prostitution company would force that person to have sex with the customer.  You might say we can regulate that too, but we can't.  If an 18 year old woman refuses to have sex with 80 years old she finds repulsive, she won't be working for the company for a long time.  At this point, it's infringing upon the rights of the woman.  Escort services wouldn't have this problem because, from what I've just read on Wikipedia, the company only sets up a meeting and then both parties discuss the details so it would be a consensual relationship.  Still...how do you prevent the escort service from firing their employees when their employees don't give consent to the customers?

It is important to provide context. I assumed both parties were free to negotiate their sexual encounter beforehand. I don't think that a company that forces or pressures prostitutes to have sex with clients is a moral one, although we could have rules in place that allows the prostitute to fight unlawful terminations and such. A better way might be a company which provides rooms for prostitutes to rent, but the decision of who, how, and when the prostitute has sex is entirely up to the prostitute. I believe this is the system they have in Amsterdam.

[Rezzy]

3 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

^^^This. The effect of criminalizing a profession is that you put operational control and industry standards in the hands of criminals, instead of persons trying to maintain professional reputations as proprietors of a legitimate business. See the difference between a modern liquor store, and a prohibition-era speakeasy. See also the difference between a lawfully owned and operated marijuana dispensery in downtown Denver, and a street-dealer in the slums of Atlantic City. The same is true of commercial sex. Make it legal. Make it regulated. Make it safe.

 

1 hour ago, Shoblongoo said:

Don't confuse excuse with justification. You hit upon the issue: are the social costs of criminalization more harmful to society than the frequent, legally unrestrained occurrence of the act? With murder, the answer to that question will always be [No]. You can not have Civil Order with people free to run around killing each other. The same is true of property crimes, assaults, terroristic threats, unlawful use of weapons, and human trafficking. The social benefit of criminalization greatly outweighs the costs, and any argument as to the contrary yields a hollow excuse for criminal misconduct. Without speaking to the "morality" of the act (except perhaps in the humanist/utilitarian sense of the word): the social costs of criminalization yield a compelling justification for lawful prostitution,. Because you cannot look at the societal benefit to be accrued from criminalization and say: this is worth making otherwise-productive members of society who would participate in the act "criminals," with all the economic demerits to the convicted and  administrative costs to the Justice System their criminal status carries. 

It's nice to see our resident lawyer weight in.  You touch on a lot of points that I tried (or meant to and forgot) to put perhaps less eloquently.

 

Another things about just moving to partial decriminalization is that laws move slowly.  How is the government going to go about "cleaning up" the prostitution industry and how will they determine when, if ever we can move on the full legalization?  It's better to do it all in one step.

2 hours ago, Lushen said:

I always disliked this excuse.  The question here is - is prostitution moral?  If the answer is no, you don't legalize it to make it occur less often. First off,  you have to have a high level of confidence in the government's ability to regulate things efficiently, of which I have none.   But more importantly, you don't legalize things that are wrong.  If they came out with a study that legalizing murder would decrease the overall murders, I still would not want to legalize murder.

If our solution to problems in the country is to legalize them, where does that end?  In my view, it should never have started.  You don't legalize something because it's hard to prevent.  That's not the way laws should work.  They're laws.  We make rules for our kids.  We don't teach our kid that if they break the rules enough we will get rid of the rules... Kids understand, why can't we?

So again, the question is whether it is moral?  As I said, it should be legal in my opinion because it is no more harmful to people than pornography and perhaps even less harmful than drunken sex.

 

 

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

But see that's the question.  Is legalizing prostitution more harmful to society than legal prostitution?  That is a very different than the classical justification that "Legalization limits occurrences" or "Legalization makes the crime more moral through regulation" which is what I hate hearing.  We see it with drugs too.  People say 'Well drug use would go down if it was legal'.  Isn't that somewhat of a moot point when determining whether it should or should not be legal?  Again, I go back to what you tell your kids.  I'm not going to tell my kids to use drugs responsibly because I don't want my kids to use drugs at all.  I don't care if it's a harder fight, it's a fight that, to me, is worth fighting.

As I said, I think Legal prostitution, and even legal drugs in some cases like marijuana, should be allowed.  But not because it will limit uses, but because they are not more immoral or harmful to society as alternatives.  Marijuana is not any worse than drinking which is legal and prostitution is not any worse than pornography or drunken sex.   This is very different than "Legalization makes it more moral or makes it occur less often".  Legalizing something never makes it more right, even if it's more regulated. 

 

46 minutes ago, SlayerX said:

Prostitution itself is not a morally wrongful thing to do. To buy or sell sex, by or from consenting adults, is not a wrongful act. At the very least, it wouldn't be any more wrong than casual sex, which in my opinion isn't wrong at all.  

Problems with prostitution itself generally come from how the transaction is made. For example, if the prostitute is a sex slave, then it is wrong because she can't consent. Another way it could be wrong would be if the buyer gets to control the situation entirely, disregarding the safety and consent of the seller or vice-versa. 

Legalizing prostitution makes it a lot easier to control the health and safety of both the buyer and seller. A legal practice with the proper laws could reduce the risk of unwanted pregnancies and births, reduce the risk of STD's, and make it easier to persecute a person in the case of an actual crime (sex slaves, sexual assault, etc.). 

There is a very good paper on this topic, titled "Should Feminists Oppose Prostitution?" (1989) by Laurie Shrage. 

 

28 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Here's the other question.  If it were legal and regulated, how would it be regulated?

 

I could see a classical liberal v conservative debate brewing from the fact that certain races, sexes, 'looks', and sexual orientations are paid more than the other.

The other question would be should the anonymity of the customer be protected? 

Another would be should the age of the customer have a factor?  Personally, I think there's a clear distinction between someone who is 70+ hiring an 18-year-old prostitute and someone in their twenties doing so.  The 70+ year old is a creep.  Should customer-service be regulated so they are within certain age brackets? 

 

20 minutes ago, SlayerX said:

If a 70 year old can marry or have sex with an 18 year old, why should it be any different with buying sex? The question here is a matter of consent, which an 18 year old can give (at least legally in Canada). Whether you, or anyone else sees it as creepy is entirely irrelevant unless you give acceptable reasons as to why it should be morally repugnant.

 

I'm also in favor of legalization of drugs, not just marijuana, but also decriminalize harder things, like heroin.  We should treat them either as mostly benign recreations, like alcohol, or a health issue in the cases of crystal meth or the harder drugs.

For the lighter drugs like marijuana, I think they should just be put through the same regulations that we have for any other medication/substance in the FDA.  For harder drugs that will screw up your life, like crystal meth, the FDA would never approve mass productions, so we don't have Budweiser selling them in little blue bags at the gas station, but you won't have 21 year old Jimmy getting sent to prison for 20 years when some rehab might have been able to help him get his life on track.

Legalization/decriminalization could hopefully also help the USA get our prison population down to something that only includes violent, irredeemable criminals and not benign drug offenses.

 

For Sex Workers, there's nothing wrong with the 18 year old prostitute serving the 70 year old.  I would give the prostitute the right to refuse service to whomever they want, though, as should all businesses.  Watch 30 years from now, there's a 70 year old suing for discrimination, because he had to pay $500 for a blow job, when the 30 year old only had to pay $100.

12 minutes ago, Lushen said:

 

The difference between an 18-year-old getting married or having consensual sex is it is supposed to be based on love, not lust.  In prostitution, you are forcing young people to have sex with older people for money.   That is very different than sex between like-aged parties.

 

I'd be willing to bet a good 90% of 70 year old/18 year old marriages are because the older party wants sex, and the younger party wants money, with little to no love involved.

Edited October 26, 2017 by Rezzy

[Lushen]

6 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

For Sex Workers, there's nothing wrong with the 18 year old prostitute serving the 70 year old.  I would give the prostitute the right to refuse service to whomever they want, though, as should all businesses.  Watch 30 years from now, there's a 70 year old suing for discrimination, because he had to pay $500 for a blow job, when the 30 year old only had to pay $100.

5

That's the issue.  We see this exact problem in our daily life.  A company fires someone who recently comes out as homosexual.  Big question, was he fired because he was homosexual or because he did a bad job?  We try VERY hard to regulate this, but at the end of the day, it's very tough to do.  The same happens with race and sex. 

With prostitution, an 18-year-old could get creeped out with the idea of having sex with a 70-year-old.  This isn't discriminatory, this is disgusting.  The fact that you said "Nothing is wrong" with it is terrifying to me.  Whether it should be legal or not, there is definitely something very wrong with a 70-year-old getting blowjobs from an 18-year-old.  The old man is a creep.

Either way, say the woman refuses.  Two days later, the company fires the woman and cites "customer complaints" as a general reason.  How the hell would we regulate this?

Edited October 26, 2017 by Lushen

[Rezzy]

3 minutes ago, Lushen said:

That's the issue.  We see this exact problem in our daily life.  A company fires someone who recently comes out as homosexual.  Big question, was he fired because he was homosexual or because he did a bad job?  We try VERY hard to regulate this, but at the end of the day, it's very tough to do.  The same happens with race and sex. 

With prostitution, an 18-year-old could get creeped out with the idea of having sex with a 70-year-old.  This isn't discriminatory, this is disgusting.  The fact that you said "Nothing is wrong" with it is terrifying to me.  Whether it should be legal or not, there is definitely something very wrong with a 70-year-old getting blowjobs from an 18-year-old.  The old man is a creep.

Either way, say the woman refuses.  Two days later, the company fires the woman and cites "customer complaints" as a general reason.  How the hell would we regulate this?

Disgusting is subjective person to person.  As a doctor, I see things on a daily basis that make some people pass out.  Being disgusting is not in and of itself immoral.

13 years ago, if some 80 year old said he wanted to marry me, and he had a net worth of 10 million dollars, would I be immoral for considering saying yes?  You have to put out for a geriatric for 5-10 years, but then you get a massive pay out when they die.  The old men are happy, because they get to have sex with an attractive young woman in their golden years, and the girls are happy because they're set for life.  I don't judge girls who do that.  I can't say I'd say no, if I were in their shoes.

[Lushen]

6 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

Disgusting is subjective person to person.  As a doctor, I see things on a daily basis that make some people pass out.  Being disgusting is not in and of itself immoral.

 

 

Agree to disagree. :)

I likely should not have been so judgmental, I just find the idea of old-young pairings absolutely disgusting whether it exists in marriage, pornography, prostitution, sexual harassment, or anything sexually related.

Edited October 26, 2017 by Lushen

[Rezzy]

2 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Agree to disagree. :)

I likely should not have been so judgmental, I just find the idea of old-young pairings absolutely disgusting whether it existing marriage, pornography, prostitution, sexual harassment, or anything sexually related.

I myself judge them in a way thinking that you can't have a true loving relationship between two such disparate age groups, but I can understand why they would do that.  If I openly condemned everything I didn't agree with personally, that would be a long list.  I think the law should do the minimum necessary and not try to legislate morality.

As Mr Spock once said, "I do not approve.  I understand."

[blah the Prussian]

11 hours ago, Lushen said:

I always disliked this excuse.  The question here is - is prostitution moral?  If the answer is no, you don't legalize it to make it occur less often. First off,  you have to have a high level of confidence in the government's ability to regulate things efficiently, of which I have none.   But more importantly, you don't legalize things that are wrong.  If they came out with a study that legalizing murder would decrease the overall murders, I still would not want to legalize murder.

If our solution to problems in the country is to legalize them, where does that end?  In my view, it should never have started.  You don't legalize something because it's hard to prevent.  That's not the way laws should work.  They're laws.  We make rules for our kids.  We don't teach our kid that if they break the rules enough we will get rid of the rules... Kids understand, why can't we?

So again, the question is whether it is moral?  As I said, it should be legal in my opinion because it is no more harmful to people than pornography and perhaps even less harmful than drunken sex.

 

Okay, hold on a second, the law is not (or shouldn't be) based on morality. For example: taxation is morally wrong, but is needed for the greater good, so is legal. Conversely, it is morally okay to steal food to feed your family, but we still can't let everyone who needs food steal, because that system is easily abused, so stealing should always be illegal. Prostitution, whether or not it is morally wrong, should be ultimately legal in my opinion, but the idea that laws are based on morals is incorrect.

[Lushen]

7 hours ago, blah the Prussian said:

Okay, hold on a second, the law is not (or shouldn't be) based on morality. For example: taxation is morally wrong, but is needed for the greater good, so is legal. Conversely, it is morally okay to steal food to feed your family, but we still can't let everyone who needs food steal, because that system is easily abused, so stealing should always be illegal. Prostitution, whether or not it is morally wrong, should be ultimately legal in my opinion, but the idea that laws are based on morals is incorrect.

Taxation is morally right if the money the gov't is "stealing" is going towards a goal that benefits society as a whole. For example, if the gov't takes my money to build roads that help me get to work, this is great.  Redistribution of wealth is a taxation I don't think is moral because it takes money from a group of people to give to another group of people which benefits me in no way.  However, I think it's safe to assume that those who want redistribution of wealth consider it moral because the rich "don't need the money" and the poor "desperately do".  

Nevertheless, I agree that laws are not exclusively about morals.  Though, whether or not what's best for cultural as a whole is the same thing as morals, depends on your definition of morals which vary from person to person.  They are, however, about what is good for society.  So if you don't think prostitution is good for society because it leads to a culture you don' agree with, it is perfectly valid to be against prostitution.  That's why my arguments for legalizing prostitution is based on the fact that prostitution is likely less harmful to society and is a culture I can agree with more than drunken sex and one night stands.  HOWEVER, if I hated the culture of sex generally (which I don't), then I would be against prostitution because I would consider it harmful to society.  

Edited October 27, 2017 by Lushen

[Rex Glacies]

On 10/25/2017 at 7:31 PM, Rezzy said:

You mean assisted suicide?  That's a pretty big topic of discussion in medicine.

On 10/25/2017 at 7:51 PM, EricaofRenais said:

,That would be assisted suicide and that is a lot different then paying for sex.  As someone with a medical condition that could kill me and will shorten my life span by at least 20 years I have mixed feelings on assisted suicide, but that is not the issue here and if you want to talk about that you can PM me.  

Assisted suicide, yes I guess that's what I meant. But my point was that the initial statement was "It's OK if both people are willing," and I was asking if that logic applied to anything else presently illegal, such as murder.

So, I guess my initial question remains - are things such as murder justifiable if both parties are willing?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Prostitution can be immoral without it being illegal. I think almost everyone would agree that adultery is immoral, but it isn't illegal, and nor should it be. Something should only be illegal if the act of outlawing it does more good than harm.

I think prostitution has a lot of ugly side effects which should probably be policed, but making prostitution itself illegal is ineffective at best (people will still do it) and harmful at worst (driving the industry underground where it can adopt worse practices). If two consenting adults choose to swap sex for cash I don't think that's necessarily wrong, though.

[Jotari]

I wouldn't fault a brothel for firing an employee who refuses to sleep with certain clients. If they have qualms with sleeping with people they don't find attractive then they're in the wrong line of work.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I disagree there rather strongly. People should be able to choose who they sleep with; sexual consent doesn't stop being a thing just because one is a prostitute. Obviously, a prostitute who is too picky won't have much business (but that's their problem, since they also won't get paid) but if a customer sends off warning signs of being a creepy abuser, the prostitute should absolutely have a right to refuse them.

[Lushen]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

I wouldn't fault a brothel for firing an employee who refuses to sleep with certain clients. If they have qualms with sleeping with people they don't find attractive then they're in the wrong line of work.

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I disagree there rather strongly. People should be able to choose who they sleep with; sexual consent doesn't stop being a thing just because one is a prostitute. Obviously, a prostitute who is too picky won't have much business (but that's their problem, since they also won't get paid) but if a customer sends off warning signs of being a creepy abuser, the prostitute should absolutely have a right to refuse them.

I agree with you both...if I may.  I would not fault a brothel for firing someone who refuses to sleep with certain clients because that makes them bad employees.  Just like any buisness, they're out.  I also think this makes or a really sucky society, which is why I brought it up.  I am still for legalization for the reason I mentioned, but this issue is a huge concern and I would need someone to figure it out for me (if possible) first.

[Jotari]

Just now, Dark Holy Elf said:

I disagree there rather strongly. People should be able to choose who they sleep with; sexual consent doesn't stop being a thing just because one is a prostitute. Obviously, a prostitute who is too picky won't have much business (but that's their problem, since they also won't get paid) but if a customer sends off warning signs of being a creepy abuser, the prostitute should absolutely have a right to refuse them.

Oh yeah they certainly have a right to refuse them. Definitely not advocating raping them is okay. But they can't really be expected to keep their job if they're not actually doing it.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I think there's something immensely problematic about "have sex with this person or you'll be fired". I feel like a "make at least $X per month or you'll be fired" would be a far more sensible model, since it would give prostitutes freedom to refuse the more egregious cases. But I haven't studied how this actually works in places where it's fully legal, so I dunno, maybe somebody else should weigh in on this point.