Bipartisan fascists go after Backpage et al

[LordKiran]

What? As opposed to all those nice business men who aren't screwing over their employees with low pay that doesn't meet the costs of living and right-to-fire employment where the employee is seen as little more than a hired contractor to whom the business has zero responsibility?

Given our nation's short-comings with regards to properly regulating every-day businesses many of which are vital to the everyday function of our society (Like say the media...), why should I place any faith in our ability to regulate Prostitution in a way where the health, rights, and basic human dignities of sex workers are ensured?

Who's going the shoulder the health liability of an expanded sex trade? Because the people have made it clear that we won't be doing that. Ehh...I'm sure the type of people who run brothels totally care enough for their staff to keep them insured and in good health, and they won't at all cut "Unnecessary costs" in the interests of maintaining higher profits like literally every other corporate entity in America. So if a prostitute contracts HIV and can't work anymore, I'd bet you my left testicle what that leads to is her working the streets once again because she can't work legally, the EXACT scenario she wanted to avoid. The worst part now is that if she ever gets cought, she won't get the help she needs, nope! We'll throw her in prison for spreading disease, because that's how my nation treats its own.

And what's your solution to all of these misdeeds which occur due to lack of proper regulation? Is it to have less regulation, make doing the jobs illegal and put more criminal elements in charge of those businesses in order to clear up all the misdeeds? Or would it be doing literally anything else? If you picked "literally anything else" for these other industries, why do you this is an effective solution for clearing up the issues in the prostitution industry? Or do you think that prostitution is just going to stop if you pass enough laws, so we don't need to worry about it?

I do not expect perfection, and neither should anyone for that matter. So no, my ideal goal isn't to end prostitution, you don't 'win' a war of sex work anymore than you do any other form of crime. Crime is a reality of the world you live in and will continue to be so long after you are dead. That doesn't mean the solution is to legalize all the things because you've rendered perfection the enemy of good. I advocate decriminalization for actual workers and customers, with harsh penalties for proprietors and all those enmeshed within their business apparatus(Sex workers themselves being largely excluded with exceptions) I don't believe the goal should necessarily be to end people fucking for money so much as it should be to curtail predation. This should go alongside general economic reforms that uplift our nation's poor such that the vast majority of these men and women won't need or desire to prostitute themselves. In the case of sex trafficking, I don't think that's a problem any one nation can solve, and the best means of curtailing it would require good diplomatic ties with nations that are primary sources of sex trafficking such that it becomes easier to protect victims of it, and find/destroy trafficking rings. I believe when cases of foreign sex slaves arise they should be taken care of, and given the option to either naturalize and immigrate as part of a wider national program, or to go home with a care package containing a portion of confiscated assets related to sex trafficking. Hopefully it'd be enough to keep them out of prostitution in either case. The message should be clear, that if you're a sex slave that we're on your side, that we can and will help you, and that we can be trusted.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Maybe I misunderstood your post but you wrote that the good outweighed the bad. Maybe you don’t see forced prostitution as bad?? Maybe you see it as an acceptable trade off??? Happy for any clarity you might wish to share.

The thing is we aren't convinced that allowing prostitution out into the open will increase the forced prostitution.

Those who oppose it do not have a good track record for honest research--for example, counting women who travel to where the customers are as trafficked (aka forced) prostitution.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So because a high end prostitute makes enough money to hire security, and enough prestige that she can turn down clients, who are interested enough in her in particular to wait for a vetting process, and has enough of a reputation that people trust her with real identities, an unknown or perhaps less attractive prostitute can obviously do the same. Great argument. Oh, and she probably also has to have a pimple or criminal owner in order to accomplish these things.

Never mind that she could just NOT hire a bodyguard, NOT be involved with a pimp, and NOT have to have a reputation as a high-end "escort" for her to jump on craigslist, post a listing for a tiny commission, and only accept offers from men who have alright reputations.

Exactly--you don't need to be high end to greatly increase security by means of the internet.

Verify that the person is who they claim to be.

Look him up on sites that list bad clients.

When an appointment is booked in advance on the internet these are easy things to do, so long as the government doesn't block the efforts.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We only see dead prostitutes because of economic pressures driving women to be prostitutes in a fundamentally sick society that refuses to properly care for its own.

You realize that most of the dead ones are the low level ones forced into it to feed their drug habits?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

We only see dead prostitutes because of economic pressures driving women to be prostitutes in a fundamentally sick society that refuses to properly care for its own.

You realize that most of the dead ones are the low level ones forced into it to feed their drug habits?

It sounds so consensual when you put it that way.

 

[bilby]

Most policing is in response to reports from non-police sources - 911 calls, complaints to the police, reports by the public of suspicious behaviour or of crimes. The actual incidence of the police going out looking for crime and then acting on what they find, is a minuscule fraction of police enforcement.

By criminalizing an activity, you pretty much eliminate those reports - criminals don't want to interact with the cops, and will either tolerate being victimized, or take vigilante action against their attackers, rather than get the police involved.

What declines when prostitution is illegal is not crime; It is the reporting of crime. And that makes policing far more difficult and expensive.

As to 'trafficking', this usually encompasses all illegal border crossings. That does NOT imply unwilling border crossings.

If there is an increase in the wages for Mexicans who pick crops in the USA, people trafficking will increase. That's not an indication that Mexican farm-workers are being forced into the USA against their will - quite the opposite, they will PAY traffickers to get them across the border. Why we are supposed to suddenly assume that the people being trafficked are being forced into the country against their will when the job they arrive to do is prostitution rather than crop-picking I do not know.

The vast majority of 'trafficking' for prostitution - particularly in places where prostitution is legal - is prostitutes who are prepared to pay people smugglers to get them into a place where they see an opportunity. It is not kidnapping and sex-slavery; Those are only really practical where prostitution is illegal. A prostitute forced to work against her will in a legal brothel would be reported to police in very short order. After all, what disincentive do her customers have for reporting their suspicions to the authorities?

 

[LordKiran]

We only see dead prostitutes because of economic pressures driving women to be prostitutes in a fundamentally sick society that refuses to properly care for its own.

That's not totally true. Yes, if you had better social supports like universal single payer health care and universal basic income you would be much better off. If you had massive job creation so these sex workers could work jobs outside the sex industry in order to feed and house themselves, that would help a lot too. But, it wouldn't end prostitution, forced or willing. And it wouldn't make the working conditions of those sex workers not deadly.

Even if there are plenty of jobs available to sex workers aside from sex work, many of those sex workers earn through their sex vastly more than what they would in those other jobs. The big issue often isn't that they can't find another job to support themselves, so much as they can't find another job to support themselves to the same level. Without the sex work some won't be able to afford the lavish lifestyle with all the fancy jewelry and drugs that they want. Others wouldn't be able to put themselves through school to elevate them into careers that they would never otherwise have had available to them. There are doctors, lawyers, and MBAs who put themselves through these expensive educations via prostitution. We don't all come from rich families.

Short of total Communism, I really don't think you'll ever eradicate Prostitution through social supports and job availability.

Nobody puts themselves in unwanted danger if they don't have to. Whether or not they would still prostitute themselves is beside that point. Women who have their basics covered may still prostitute themselves but will be far less likely to do so in ways that put themselves at even further risk unless they're desperate enough for money due to economic pressures. By economically uplifting the lower percentiles of the economic spectrum, you indirectly reduce the labor pool for prostitution and create harm reduction relevant to sex work.

 

[bilby]

We only see dead prostitutes because of economic pressures driving women to be prostitutes in a fundamentally sick society that refuses to properly care for its own.

That's not totally true. Yes, if you had better social supports like universal single payer health care and universal basic income you would be much better off. If you had massive job creation so these sex workers could work jobs outside the sex industry in order to feed and house themselves, that would help a lot too. But, it wouldn't end prostitution, forced or willing. And it wouldn't make the working conditions of those sex workers not deadly.

Even if there are plenty of jobs available to sex workers aside from sex work, many of those sex workers earn through their sex vastly more than what they would in those other jobs. The big issue often isn't that they can't find another job to support themselves, so much as they can't find another job to support themselves to the same level. Without the sex work some won't be able to afford the lavish lifestyle with all the fancy jewelry and drugs that they want. Others wouldn't be able to put themselves through school to elevate them into careers that they would never otherwise have had available to them. There are doctors, lawyers, and MBAs who put themselves through these expensive educations via prostitution. We don't all come from rich families.

Short of total Communism, I really don't think you'll ever eradicate Prostitution through social supports and job availability.

Nobody puts themselves in unwanted danger if they don't have to. Whether or not they would still prostitute themselves is beside that point. Women who have their basics covered may still prostitute themselves but will be far less likely to do so in ways that put themselves at even further risk unless they're desperate enough for money due to economic pressures. By economically uplifting the lower percentiles of the economic spectrum, you indirectly reduce the labor pool for prostitution and create harm reduction relevant to sex work.

One good way to do that is to increase the price; And one good way to do that is to legalize the industry.

 

[Toni]

Most policing is in response to reports from non-police sources - 911 calls, complaints to the police, reports by the public of suspicious behaviour or of crimes. The actual incidence of the police going out looking for crime and then acting on what they find, is a minuscule fraction of police enforcement.

By criminalizing an activity, you pretty much eliminate those reports - criminals don't want to interact with the cops, and will either tolerate being victimized, or take vigilante action against their attackers, rather than get the police involved.

What declines when prostitution is illegal is not crime; It is the reporting of crime. And that makes policing far more difficult and expensive.

As to 'trafficking', this usually encompasses all illegal border crossings. That does NOT imply unwilling border crossings.

If there is an increase in the wages for Mexicans who pick crops in the USA, people trafficking will increase. That's not an indication that Mexican farm-workers are being forced into the USA against their will - quite the opposite, they will PAY traffickers to get them across the border. Why we are supposed to suddenly assume that the people being trafficked are being forced into the country against their will when the job they arrive to do is prostitution rather than crop-picking I do not know.

The vast majority of 'trafficking' for prostitution - particularly in places where prostitution is legal - is prostitutes who are prepared to pay people smugglers to get them into a place where they see an opportunity. It is not kidnapping and sex-slavery; Those are only really practical where prostitution is illegal. A prostitute forced to work against her will in a legal brothel would be reported to police in very short order. After all, what disincentive do her customers have for reporting their suspicions to the authorities?

Most trafficking is sex trafficking. Maybe you've never read accounts by girls and women who have escaped from forced prostitution, but I have.

Quite a few of these trafficked women and girls do indeed pay a fee to someone they think is helping them find jobs--not johns.

But maybe you are talking about this girl:

https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/americas/freedom-project-mexico-trafficking-survivor/index.html

Or her:

https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/americas/freedom-project-mexico-trafficking-survivor/index.html

https://www.ice.gov/features/human-trafficking-victim-shares-story

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35846207

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/04/25/daily-circuit-sex-trafficking

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2018/02/20/super-bowl-sex-trafficking-sting/

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2017/06/30/19-arrested-sex-trafficking-sting/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/us/raid-sex-trafficking-thailand.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/...in-sex-trafficking-ring-in-us-and-mexico.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/soccer-coach-human-trafficking.html

Honestly, I could fill pages and pages of such links.

It wouldn't matter. No one actually reads any of them. Y'all just think that legalization will make a lot of women WANT to be prostitutes. How many women do you know who would willingly have sex with 6 or 8 men a day, day after day after day? Because I'm telling you: after 6 or 7 times, stuff gets sore, no matter what kind of lubricant you use.

If y'all think it's so great, why don't you just help each other get off? Whaat? You aren't attracted to other guys? Here's a bit hint for you: the prostitutes are not attracted to their customers either. A lot aren't attracted to men at all. I realize that for a lot of guys, that's part of the turn on. And what does it matter as long as you throw a few bucks their way.

 

[Toni]

So because a high end prostitute makes enough money to hire security, and enough prestige that she can turn down clients, who are interested enough in her in particular to wait for a vetting process, and has enough of a reputation that people trust her with real identities, an unknown or perhaps less attractive prostitute can obviously do the same. Great argument. Oh, and she probably also has to have a pimple or criminal owner in order to accomplish these things.

Never mind that she could just NOT hire a bodyguard, NOT be involved with a pimp, and NOT have to have a reputation as a high-end "escort" for her to jump on craigslist, post a listing for a tiny commission, and only accept offers from men who have alright reputations.

Exactly--you don't need to be high end to greatly increase security by means of the internet.

Verify that the person is who they claim to be.

Look him up on sites that list bad clients.

When an appointment is booked in advance on the internet these are easy things to do, so long as the government doesn't block the efforts.

hahahahahahahaha

Really? You think you can verify that people are who they say they are on the internet??????????????

hahahahahahhahahahahahah

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

hahahahahahahaha

Really? You think you can verify that people are who they say they are on the internet??????????????

hahahahahahhahahahahahah

Yes, Toni. To an extent you really can. i'll bet heavily that you are not an ax murderer. I'll also bet heavily that you're not a prostitute.

Not only can you get some sense of somebody by communicating online (and no, you can't get a perfect sense, even communicating with somebody face to face), but you can also review both sex workers and clients online. There are entire forums in the same format at this one for both sex workers to chat with one another and for their customers to chat with one another. And each review the other. When a dangerous customer is around, or a dangerous person posing as a sex worker, it gets out as these people chat.

These people also educate each other on red flags and warning signs. I would bet heavily that these sites have saved more than a few lives, especially when used in conjunction with sits like backpage. Of course eliminating backpage and criminalizing these people eliminates these tools or discourages people from using these tools.

 

[Toni]

hahahahahahahaha

Really? You think you can verify that people are who they say they are on the internet??????????????

hahahahahahhahahahahahah

Yes, Toni. To an extent you really can. i'll bet heavily that you are not an ax murderer. I'll also bet heavily that you're not a prostitute.

Not only can you get some sense of somebody by communicating online (and no, you can't get a perfect sense, even communicating with somebody face to face), but you can also review both sex workers and clients online. There are entire forums in the same format at this one for both sex workers to chat with one another and for their customers to chat with one another. And each review the other. When a dangerous customer is around, or a dangerous person posing as a sex worker, it gets out as these people chat.

These people also educate each other on red flags and warning signs. I would bet heavily that these sites have saved more than a few lives, especially when used in conjunction with sits like backpage. Of course eliminating backpage and criminalizing these people eliminates these tools or discourages people from using these tools.

Please. You don't know my age, my size, my educational background or what kind of job (if any) that I do now or have done in the past. You don't know if a photo I might post is of me, is of me within the last 10 years or of my friend's daughter's best friend. You might guess that I haven't lied about being female but you don't actually know. You don't know my religious background, my family income, what kind, if any, pets I have, whether I ride horses or throw horse shoes or bowl or play tennis.

Please be clear: Backpage was shut down because it knowingly engaged in helping prostitute children.

I realize that you think that's just the moral cost of doing business and that it helps keep willing or 'willing' prostitutes safe.

I don't know how you can sleep at night.

 

[Derec]

Please be clear: Backpage was shut down because it knowingly engaged in helping prostitute children.

Wrong. That claim has always been just a pretext. The real aim by politicians like Kamala Harris (who has been pursuing this for years) is to shut down any online sex marketplaces even if vast majority of traffic is consensual and adult.

 

[Toni]

Please be clear: Backpage was shut down because it knowingly engaged in helping prostitute children.

Wrong. That claim has always been just a pretext. The real aim by politicians like Kamala Harris (who has been pursuing this for years) is to shut down any online sex marketplaces even if vast majority of traffic is consensual and adult.

Sure.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/opinion/when-backpagecom-peddles-schoolgirls-for-sex.html

A devastating new subcommittee report shows that the company protects pimps from their carelessness by deleting hints that a girl is underage. For example, if a pimp tries to post an ad for a “Lolita,” “little girl,” “school girl” or “amber alert,” those terms are automatically stripped from the ad — but it is still posted, so the girl will still be sold for sex.

One Backpage document indicated that by 2010, more than 70 percent of its ads in the adult section were being edited like that, suggesting that the company was far more involved in manipulating content than it ever let on.

Sure, some people selling sex are adults acting on their own to make money, and that’s not a concern of mine. If Backpage carefully verified names and ages, I’d be fine with that. But Backpage has more stringent rules for selling a dog than for selling a kid.

I’ve written repeatedly about Backpage over the years because the stories haunt me. My first column about Backpage involved a 13-year-old girl whom I called Baby Face. Her pimp had kicked her down a stairwell for trying to flee, and she was hurting and bleeding and couldn’t bear another rape, but her pimp sold her on Backpage anyway. He took her to an apartment building and waited outside after telling her which apartment to go to.

Terrified and desperate, Baby Face instead pounded on the door of a different apartment. When a surprised woman answered, Baby Face asked for a phone and called her mom and then 911. Her pimp went to prison, but Backpage simply profited from the sale, as it always has.

Derec, the least you could do is be honest: you don't really care that children are being prostituted through Backpage, Craigslist and many, many other sites. You just care that your favorite venue for obtaining prostitutes got shut down.

It's not like you are really different than most of the posters in this thread. They may not actually pay for prostitutes--or maybe they do. But they sure don't really care about the collateral damage of kids being forced into prostitution--that is being raped for other people's profit. After all, eventually these girls will turn 18 and be fully legal--and experienced. Assuming that they survive.

 

[bilby]

Most policing is in response to reports from non-police sources - 911 calls, complaints to the police, reports by the public of suspicious behaviour or of crimes. The actual incidence of the police going out looking for crime and then acting on what they find, is a minuscule fraction of police enforcement.

By criminalizing an activity, you pretty much eliminate those reports - criminals don't want to interact with the cops, and will either tolerate being victimized, or take vigilante action against their attackers, rather than get the police involved.

What declines when prostitution is illegal is not crime; It is the reporting of crime. And that makes policing far more difficult and expensive.

As to 'trafficking', this usually encompasses all illegal border crossings. That does NOT imply unwilling border crossings.

If there is an increase in the wages for Mexicans who pick crops in the USA, people trafficking will increase. That's not an indication that Mexican farm-workers are being forced into the USA against their will - quite the opposite, they will PAY traffickers to get them across the border. Why we are supposed to suddenly assume that the people being trafficked are being forced into the country against their will when the job they arrive to do is prostitution rather than crop-picking I do not know.

The vast majority of 'trafficking' for prostitution - particularly in places where prostitution is legal - is prostitutes who are prepared to pay people smugglers to get them into a place where they see an opportunity. It is not kidnapping and sex-slavery; Those are only really practical where prostitution is illegal. A prostitute forced to work against her will in a legal brothel would be reported to police in very short order. After all, what disincentive do her customers have for reporting their suspicions to the authorities?

Most trafficking is sex trafficking. Maybe you've never read accounts by girls and women who have escaped from forced prostitution, but I have.

Quite a few of these trafficked women and girls do indeed pay a fee to someone they think is helping them find jobs--not johns.

But maybe you are talking about this girl:

https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/americas/freedom-project-mexico-trafficking-survivor/index.html

Or her:

https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/americas/freedom-project-mexico-trafficking-survivor/index.html

https://www.ice.gov/features/human-trafficking-victim-shares-story

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35846207

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/04/25/daily-circuit-sex-trafficking

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2018/02/20/super-bowl-sex-trafficking-sting/

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2017/06/30/19-arrested-sex-trafficking-sting/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/us/raid-sex-trafficking-thailand.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/...in-sex-trafficking-ring-in-us-and-mexico.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/soccer-coach-human-trafficking.html

Honestly, I could fill pages and pages of such links.

It wouldn't matter. No one actually reads any of them. Y'all just think that legalization will make a lot of women WANT to be prostitutes. How many women do you know who would willingly have sex with 6 or 8 men a day, day after day after day? Because I'm telling you: after 6 or 7 times, stuff gets sore, no matter what kind of lubricant you use.

If y'all think it's so great, why don't you just help each other get off? Whaat? You aren't attracted to other guys? Here's a bit hint for you: the prostitutes are not attracted to their customers either. A lot aren't attracted to men at all. I realize that for a lot of guys, that's part of the turn on. And what does it matter as long as you throw a few bucks their way.

OK. If you don't want a rational debate, that's fine. But your passionate belief that your opinion is the only non-evil one doesn't actually make you right.

I do know one person who worked as a (legal) prostitute in a (legal) brothel for extra money while at university, and she seems to be quite OK with it - it is well paid, and she reckons it is less unpleasant than many other much less well paid jobs available to students.

I have no doubt at all that there are lots of sex slaves being forced to work as prostitutes in your backward nation, with its insane prohibition that does nothing to help (and plenty to promote) such abuse. I equally have no doubt at all that you think continued prohibition is the best way to stop these abuses. I think you are wrong, and I have good reasons to think that. You won't change my mind by banging on about how things that my hypothesis predicts will happen under prohibition are actually happening. Nor will you change my mind by making childish suggestions intended to drag my responses down to the purely emotional level to which you have sunk.

We do NOT disagree on the question of whether abuse and sex slavery exist. Nor do we disagree on whether it is something we should take steps to prevent. Nor do we disagree on the question of how attractive prostitutes find their customers.

I don't think a lot of women want to be prostitutes. Nor do I think that a lot of Mexicans want to be crop-pickers, or gardeners, or laborers or cleaners. But that doesn't imply that all (or even many) Mexicans who illegally enter the USA do so as slaves, and against their will. To make that assumption would be crazy.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

But bilby, sex slavery is bad. You should care about it

 

[Toni]

Most policing is in response to reports from non-police sources - 911 calls, complaints to the police, reports by the public of suspicious behaviour or of crimes. The actual incidence of the police going out looking for crime and then acting on what they find, is a minuscule fraction of police enforcement.

By criminalizing an activity, you pretty much eliminate those reports - criminals don't want to interact with the cops, and will either tolerate being victimized, or take vigilante action against their attackers, rather than get the police involved.

What declines when prostitution is illegal is not crime; It is the reporting of crime. And that makes policing far more difficult and expensive.

As to 'trafficking', this usually encompasses all illegal border crossings. That does NOT imply unwilling border crossings.

If there is an increase in the wages for Mexicans who pick crops in the USA, people trafficking will increase. That's not an indication that Mexican farm-workers are being forced into the USA against their will - quite the opposite, they will PAY traffickers to get them across the border. Why we are supposed to suddenly assume that the people being trafficked are being forced into the country against their will when the job they arrive to do is prostitution rather than crop-picking I do not know.

The vast majority of 'trafficking' for prostitution - particularly in places where prostitution is legal - is prostitutes who are prepared to pay people smugglers to get them into a place where they see an opportunity. It is not kidnapping and sex-slavery; Those are only really practical where prostitution is illegal. A prostitute forced to work against her will in a legal brothel would be reported to police in very short order. After all, what disincentive do her customers have for reporting their suspicions to the authorities?

Most trafficking is sex trafficking. Maybe you've never read accounts by girls and women who have escaped from forced prostitution, but I have.

Quite a few of these trafficked women and girls do indeed pay a fee to someone they think is helping them find jobs--not johns.

But maybe you are talking about this girl:

https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/americas/freedom-project-mexico-trafficking-survivor/index.html

Or her:

https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/americas/freedom-project-mexico-trafficking-survivor/index.html

https://www.ice.gov/features/human-trafficking-victim-shares-story

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35846207

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/04/25/daily-circuit-sex-trafficking

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2018/02/20/super-bowl-sex-trafficking-sting/

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2017/06/30/19-arrested-sex-trafficking-sting/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/us/raid-sex-trafficking-thailand.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/...in-sex-trafficking-ring-in-us-and-mexico.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/soccer-coach-human-trafficking.html

Honestly, I could fill pages and pages of such links.

It wouldn't matter. No one actually reads any of them. Y'all just think that legalization will make a lot of women WANT to be prostitutes. How many women do you know who would willingly have sex with 6 or 8 men a day, day after day after day? Because I'm telling you: after 6 or 7 times, stuff gets sore, no matter what kind of lubricant you use.

If y'all think it's so great, why don't you just help each other get off? Whaat? You aren't attracted to other guys? Here's a bit hint for you: the prostitutes are not attracted to their customers either. A lot aren't attracted to men at all. I realize that for a lot of guys, that's part of the turn on. And what does it matter as long as you throw a few bucks their way.

OK. If you don't want a rational debate, that's fine. But your passionate belief that your opinion is the only non-evil one doesn't actually make you right.

I do know one person who worked as a (legal) prostitute in a (legal) brothel for extra money while at university, and she seems to be quite OK with it - it is well paid, and she reckons it is less unpleasant than many other much less well paid jobs available to students.

I have no doubt at all that there are lots of sex slaves being forced to work as prostitutes in your backward nation, with its insane prohibition that does nothing to help (and plenty to promote) such abuse. I equally have no doubt at all that you think continued prohibition is the best way to stop these abuses. I think you are wrong, and I have good reasons to think that. You won't change my mind by banging on about how things that my hypothesis predicts will happen under prohibition are actually happening. Nor will you change my mind by making childish suggestions intended to drag my responses down to the purely emotional level to which you have sunk.

We do NOT disagree on the question of whether abuse and sex slavery exist. Nor do we disagree on whether it is something we should take steps to prevent. Nor do we disagree on the question of how attractive prostitutes find their customers.

I don't think a lot of women want to be prostitutes. Nor do I think that a lot of Mexicans want to be crop-pickers, or gardeners, or laborers or cleaners. But that doesn't imply that all (or even many) Mexicans who illegally enter the USA do so as slaves, and against their will. To make that assumption would be crazy.

https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2016/258716.htm

So glad that sex trafficking isn't a problem in your country.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2016/s4671885.htm

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...al-slave-in-sydney-house-20170519-gw8be6.html

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/li...6af7d76ea?sv=d900d6d76c9737412495881e145fd546

https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/l...ustralia-is-hiding-in-plain-sight_a_22114200/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-...ged-sex-slavery-victims-left-in-limbo/6714974

Or just plain slavery:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...im-of-slavery-speaks-out-20160408-go1bt7.html

I mean, I'm just emotionally overwrought to care that girls and women are being forced into slavery, forced into prostitution. I should be like Australia and put more obstacles into place so that I don't have to recognize the issue.

Do you know why so many immigrants from Central and South America come to the US and work in agriculture? Because agriculture producers can pay them very little and treat them very poorly and don't need to worry about nasty things like worker's comp. Sure, they might get raided and have to start over again with a fresh batch of immigrants. Just the price of doing business.

And so long as Americans can keep right on eating cheap food, and it's fine and dandy.

Oh, and as a kid, I worked on a crew going from farm to farm performing difficult, uncomfortable labor. We weren't paid well, we were treated worse. But, hey, they company had its cheap labor. And because we worked in Ag, regular minimum wage didn't apply--they could pay us less. But most of us were not so economically insecure that we had to do this labor so that we could eat and none of us were not citizens so we weren't afraid of being deported. We weren't hundreds or thousands of miles away from our families.

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But bilby, sex slavery is bad. You should care about it

Clearly, you don't.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Clearly, you don't.

And just as clearly, you want more women to die. That's pretty deranged of you. Why do you hate women Toni?

 

[LordKiran]

Nobody puts themselves in unwanted danger if they don't have to. Whether or not they would still prostitute themselves is beside that point. Women who have their basics covered may still prostitute themselves but will be far less likely to do so in ways that put themselves at even further risk unless they're desperate enough for money due to economic pressures. By economically uplifting the lower percentiles of the economic spectrum, you indirectly reduce the labor pool for prostitution and create harm reduction relevant to sex work.

One good way to do that is to increase the price; And one good way to do that is to legalize the industry.

Eh, give it another decade. I wanna see how things go in Europe before we commit to following suit. As it stands and in light of our current political climate I can't say with any confidence that legalization wouldn't just increase and enable predation. I think its really telling that it's been asked over and over again in this thread:

"What happens to a prostitute if she contracts a disease and can no longer work?" The lack of an answer tells me that there isn't one, and that the participants here aren't particularly interested in his/her lasting welfare which I fully expect to be reflected in any kind of legislation, because legalization is for the consumer and the proprietor, not the worker.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Nobody puts themselves in unwanted danger if they don't have to. Whether or not they would still prostitute themselves is beside that point. Women who have their basics covered may still prostitute themselves but will be far less likely to do so in ways that put themselves at even further risk unless they're desperate enough for money due to economic pressures. By economically uplifting the lower percentiles of the economic spectrum, you indirectly reduce the labor pool for prostitution and create harm reduction relevant to sex work.

One good way to do that is to increase the price; And one good way to do that is to legalize the industry.

Eh, give it another decade. I wanna see how things go in Europe before we commit to following suit.

Well, if women are dying or being enslaved unnecessarily today, then wouldn't today be a better time to start dealing with it rather than maybe getting around to perhaps doing something in a decade unless you find another reason to delay then?