Bipartisan fascists go after Backpage et al

[Tom Sawyer]

This is actually kind of hard for me, I'm not normally used to being conservative on social issues, but I don't think we properly know what the long term or far reaching effects of something like this would be. I think China's one child policy is the best example of this. Who would have thought a one child policy would lead to sex descrimination in abortions leading to a glut of men without wives which could potentially result in population collapse?

I don't think most people think of these things when it comes to sudden social changes in legislation.

Probably not much. A very small percentage of women are willing to work as prostitutes and a small percentage of men are willing to rent them. It's a niche industry. Having the government not care what reasons adults have for agreeing to consensual sex with each other isn't much of a social change.

Here in Canada, a bunch of prostitutes complained to the courts that the current laws were making them more dead than they'd prefer to be, so all the prostitution laws got thrown out ... or put in some kind of state of nebulous uncertainty where just nobody got arrested or something. The net societal impact was that nobody noticed anything except for the prostitutes who ended up alive a bit more often than before. Amsterdam is a fairly regular city outside of a few blocks and hasn't experienced any kind of population crash. Las Vegas goes on being a normal place once you get away from the Strip.

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of justification for this sort of concern.

 

[Derec]

That is one of the inherent problems with legalization - it raises prices and only people with money can take advantage of it.

Well it's not necessarily cheap now. What you can get for $20 you usually don't want to fuck with a borrowed dick.
But you hit the nail on the head with over-regulation. I think that should be avoided as much as possible.

If a woman is advertising on the internet, she needs to pay for a website, an apartment to meet people in, etc.

Or at least a motel room. Internet ads do not cost much, and neither do cookie-cutter websites. Having a friend, a client take some photos or even just taking some selfies is free.
Now if you want a more custom website, fancy professional photos, etc. that will cost you some. It's still not high compared to the cost of getting arrested because some bigwig in city government thinks cracking down on prostitution makes for good headlines. And even under illegal regime you still have many hookers plying their trade indoors and advertise online - at least until now. It is only the very lowest tier that both a) stand of street corners to advertise and b) have no indoor place to do the deed.

The question remains: who is really helped by cutting off, at least in part, the internet advertising route for these ladies?

If it's a legal and regulated industry, there's additional costs for making sure the place is sanitary, keeping proper records, getting licenced and all that. You're probably not going to have a licenced and regulated prostitute hanging out on a street corner and giving blow jobs for $20 and you're likely going to need to spend at least a couple hundred dollars to see her.

Well if you over-regulate you keep a big segment of the market illegal still. That is a problem that should be avoided by having only reasonable regulation. It does not have to be onerous. Bonn for example has (or at least had in 2011) a flat six Euro per night tax. Sex work is regulated and legal in Germany (at least it still is, as there is a specter haunting Europe, the specter of the Nordic Model), but there is still place for street food, I mean street hookers.

If that's not in your price range, legalized prostitution doesn't really help you and the only people catering to your needs are the sex traffickers because not having to pay the women or make sure they're disease-free or alive at the end of the night cuts expenses.

Not necessarily, unless you believe that independent providers not conforming to all regulations and automatically trafficking themselves.

While there is, of course, an inherent inequality in that, this doesn't therefore mean that you can't make this aspect of the industry as safe and secure as possible anymore than you're hampered in making safety standards for cars because there are some people who can only afford to take the bus.

There is stratification in every industry and aspect of life, food, transportation, housing, etc. Why expect sex work to be one price point only?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

There is stratification in every industry and aspect of life, food, transportation, housing, etc. Why expect sex work to be one price point only?

Ya, fair point. There'd likely be a number of different pricing models.

As a general rule, though, I think it would be safe to say that the cheaper you get, the more likely you are to be raping a sex slave. There's not a linear correlation, of course, but it would be a better way to distinguish between the two aspects of the industry than any other.

It's also the type of industry that should be over-regulated. Given the prevalence and profitability of sex trafficking and the inherent risks to both the providers and the customers, extra caution needs to be taken to ensure that everyone is consenting and protected. A heavy handed approach is preferable to letting things slip through the cracks.

 

[Derec]

I don't know what to think Derec, I never have and never will have need for a prostitute.

Aren't you pretty much a prostitute in everything but name?

Truthfully I think prostitution will eventually be rendered obsolete by technology given enough time, such that to me the issue is somewhat moot.

Maybe, but it's going to be a while until sex bots are of WestWorld quality (and hopefully developed by somebody less crazy than Ford) but these may have profound impact on all sex, not just overtly commercial sex. Poor quality sex bots that we can expect in the next 10-20 years are going to be a substitute for low quality sex workers, but how much will they cost? However, a good sex workers is much more than a glorified Real Doll.

But I don't really know what to think, which is why I am mostly asking questions or offering new facets to the discussion such as the effects of psuedo-legal prostitution in Japan.

Don't have any experience with that. From what I heard, it's difficult for a Westerner to gain entry into that world anyway - it's mostly for Japanese men.

I do think there are potential societal impacts of legalizing and normalizing prostitution that we can't necessarily predict, so my objections are more out of pragmatic caution than moral righteousness.

Many countries have legal sex work and they have not disintegrated into roving bands of sex traffickers.

Blue and green are on the legal side, yellow and red illegal.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Here in Canada, a bunch of prostitutes complained to the courts that the current laws were making them more dead than they'd prefer to be, so all the prostitution laws got thrown out ... or put in some kind of state of nebulous uncertainty where just nobody got arrested or something. The net societal impact was that nobody noticed anything except for the prostitutes who ended up alive a bit more often than before. Amsterdam is a fairly regular city outside of a few blocks and hasn't experienced any kind of population crash. Las Vegas goes on being a normal place once you get away from the Strip.

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of justification for this sort of concern.

Exactly. I see claims that legalization has made trafficking worse--but the data is iffy. The only concrete data I see is that there are fewer dead prostitutes and fewer STDs. Unless the anti crowd can prove their case much better (and address whether it's inherent or poorly designed laws) I'm going to vote on the legalization side. I would like to see licensing to enforce STD checks and make it hard for the underage prostitutes to operate.

However, nitpick: Prostitution is not legal in Las Vegas, although the outcall industry is well enough organized that it operates quite openly--it's simply too much effort for the cops to bust them (a sting will cost the cops in the 4 figures and net only one prostitute at best) and so they're left alone so long as they behave. As a local I agree with this--there are plenty of more important things for the cops to be spending their time and money on.

 

[Derec]

Ya, fair point. There'd likely be a number of different pricing models.
As a general rule, though, I think it would be safe to say that the cheaper you get, the more likely you are to be raping a sex slave.

Depends. I would agree that it is likely with "cheap but somewhat organized" schemes, like a seedy brothel.

It's also the type of industry that should be over-regulated. Given the prevalence and profitability of sex trafficking and the inherent risks to both the providers and the customers, extra caution needs to be taken to ensure that everyone is consenting and protected. A heavy handed approach is preferable to letting things slip through the cracks.

I disagree that it should be over-regulated. That term implies too much regulation. Regulation should be for health and to ensure voluntary status.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

... there are plenty of more important things for the cops to be spending their time and money on.

Exactly. Unarmed black men walking down the street don't just shoot themselves, after all. [/derail]

- - - Updated - - -

I disagree that it should be over-regulated. That term implies too much regulation. Regulation should be for health and to ensure voluntary status.

No, over-regulated implies an abundance of regulation. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's too much. I agree with you about what it's for, but it would take a lot of it to ensure that.

 

[Derec]

Perhaps I'm not the one to open this discussion branch but I remember some years ago a number of video articles on prostitution in Japan, it seems to have a profoundly negative impact on their young girls in particular, with how widespread teenage prostitution is in that nation. One wonders if there's any correlation between this and their shrinking population.

I doubt it. If people want to have children, there are many other ways to do it than young people getting pregnant accidentally. So if a (still a small percentage) of young women go the sex work route, that is not necessarily correlated with people choosing to have fewer children.
Hell, I know a number of sex workers and many have children. So I do not see a correlation.

 

[Derec]

No, over-regulated implies an abundance of regulation. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's too much. I agree with you about what it's for, but it would take a lot of it to ensure that.

"Over" prefix means too much unless it litteraly refers to location relationship as in "overcoat". It never means "abundant but not too much". How about we settle on "well-regulated"?

 

[LordKiran]

Aren't you pretty much a prostitute in everything but name?[1]


Maybe, but it's going to be a while until sex bots are of WestWorld quality (and hopefully developed by somebody less crazy than Ford) but these may have profound impact on all sex, not just overtly commercial sex. Poor quality sex bots that we can expect in the next 10-20 years are going to be a substitute for low quality sex workers, but how much will they cost? However, a good sex workers is much more than a glorified Real Doll. [2]

But I don't really know what to think, which is why I am mostly asking questions or offering new facets to the discussion such as the effects of psuedo-legal prostitution in Japan.

Don't have any experience with that. From what I heard, it's difficult for a Westerner to gain entry into that world anyway - it's mostly for Japanese men.[3]

I do think there are potential societal impacts of legalizing and normalizing prostitution that we can't necessarily predict, so my objections are more out of pragmatic caution than moral righteousness.

Many countries have legal sex work and they have not disintegrated into roving bands of sex traffickers.

Blue and green are on the legal side, yellow and red illegal.[4]

1. No. Prostitution is an explicit financial arrangement between two parties wherein currency is exchanged for a service, which in a legal system is regulated, taxed, and kept tabs upon. Human interpersonal relationships aren't at all comparable to prostitution unless you're a bitter jaded mgtow with no wife or something. /shrug

2. It doesn't need to be westworld, it just needs to be more cost-effective/less trouble than the effort of seeking out and making time for an actual person to fuck you. Have you ever tried VR porn derec? People speak highly of it. Sort of like how self-driving cars don't need to be perfect, they just need to be better than you.

3. It could perhaps be a function of Japan's rather low age of consent but prostitution to my understanding has percolated through the whole of their youth up to and including their juniors of 13

4. Truthfully I'm less worried about sex trafficking and more worried what it may mean for the relationships between men and women on a societal level. I'm willing to accept these concerns have little basis in western society but it doesn't mean we shouldn't be cautious. As I said earlier who would have predicted China's one child policy could potentially lead to a population collapse in the future? (Not that I think that's necessarily what will happen here, mind.)

 

[Derec]

I suspect someone will see an opportunity and set up another "backpages" on a foreign server that will still serve the US market.

The guy who runs a website I frequent (which shall remain nameless) had the foresight to set it up abroad in a less puritan country.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No, over-regulated implies an abundance of regulation. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's too much. I agree with you about what it's for, but it would take a lot of it to ensure that.

"Over" prefix means too much unless it litteraly refers to location relationship as in "overcoat". It never means "abundant but not too much". How about we settle on "well-regulated"?

I don't think you understand how discussions on the internet work I already have used the word "over", so I will now defend that usage to the death and quickly base my argument on the fact that anyone who disagrees with me about it is a Hitler loving pedophile who wants the terrorists to win and thinks that pictures of kittens are only mildly adorable instead of the cutest thing ever (ya, I fucking went there ).

 

[Derec]

I think there's a thing that often happens with threads where it goes off to talk about the more general, abstract ideological argument. I find this to often (but not always) be useless because ideological arguments often do not map to reality. In reality, there are often many variables and contributing factors to a thing. So, as in this case, I think it's better to talk about the concrete criminal case of Backpage. The op itself painted the criminal case as a single issue which was incorrect. We can talk about abstract case for legalization separately in another thread alternatively. It's an option... As an aside, if every concrete issue being discussed ends up an ideological discussion about one single factor doesn't really contribute to reality-based discussion. We basically have no informed discussion or understanding of many factors but instead many threads where the same thing is rehashed over and over.

I think they are connected. First, the DCA230 had to be changed because without the change in law, Backpage was protected from being liable for posts by third parties. The law was specifically changed to go after BP and other websites. The "other websites" makes it much more far-ranging than what happens to any single website.
Second, now the government can go after any sex ads, not limited to suspected trafficking or underage ads. That will make sex workers less safe by taking away the opportunity to advertise online. So it's a lose-lose for everybody except moral guardians on both Left and Right.

 

[Derec]

There is an obvious difference between shutting down backpage as a sanction for violating the law

Law that had to be specifically written to allow the government to go after Backpage et al. A law that will probably have many unintended negative consequences, which is expected when a bunch of old geezers mess with the Internet.

 

[Derec]

]But it had many other legitimate uses like help Derec get some.

And made the sex work safer, but these women made the wrong choice so who cares about them, right?

 

[laughing dog]

There is an obvious difference between shutting down backpage as a sanction for violating the law

Law that had to be specifically written to allow the government to go after Backpage et al.

Regardless of one's view of that law, it is a good that the law was appropriately applied as opposed to stretching the meaning of some other statute.

 

[Derec]

Freedom? Seriously?That's just nuts. The only freedom in question here is the freedom of women and young children.

Typical radical feminist attitude. Freedom of men is not seen as important.
But note that this also affects freedom of women. Women with whose work choice you disagree, so I guess their freedoms don't count either.
Also show me one instance where "young children" were offered on Backpage? The only claims I have seen are that occasionally there are ads featuring teenagers under 18.

They have absolutely no freedom when it comes to being used and manipulated, coerced and imprisoned,

Nobody here advocates for involuntary or underage prostitution. The point is that consenting adults are being targeted as well ostensibly to fight against trafficking. And I find that wrong.
Note that sex work is illegal in the US and these things still happen. Making consensual sex work illegal doesn't do anything about parents selling their children for sex for example.

so that some male can get his rocks off.

If everybody is consenting, what's wrong with a male "gets his rocks off"? Is there something inherently sinful about it that must be permitted to exist only in the sacred confines of a marriage, dating relationship or a night club hookup?

Does banning sites like Backpage stop all aspects of this problem? Of course not, but it's wrong to simply turn our backs on things that facilitate criminal behavior.

Banning sites like Backpage does much more harm than good because it primarily targets consenting adults. Better way would be to focus on traffickers.

Freedom is never absolute. There are lots of things that we don't have the freedom to do, so pretending that this is an attack on one's freedom. That is quite a distortion of the word freedom.

No, freedom is not absolute, but there should be a damn good reason to restrict somebody's freedom. A person has no freedom to have sex with somebody who is not consenting. But just because that happens, there is no reason to restrict the freedom to have sex with somebody who consents.
And sex is no trivial matter either. It is an important aspect of being human.

See, it's right in the base of the pyramid!

And you know what guys? Why can't a lonely man without a partner do what a lot of women do. Buy a bottle of high quality lube, and fantasize. It works for women, so why not men? Get some good sex toys while you're at it.

Who says we do not do that? Sex workers are too expensive for vast majority to partake several times a week, so usually it's self-service. But sometimes you want another human body next to yours. What's wrong with that? And note that a good sex workers offers more than just the sex.

Note that women are free to see sex workers, and some do, but there is far less demand from women, because women have a much easier time getting casual sex when they want it. Men are not so lucky.

And while I think of it, what if there aren't enough women who want to sell you sexual favors? What then? Women are under no obligation to service men, so stop acting like we are.

Usually market takes care of that. If there aren't enough women to meet demand, prevailing prices rise. That encourages more women to enter the market and reduces demand because clients will partake less frequently if price is higher. In the end supply and demand equilibriate. ECON101.

 

[Derec]

There is an obvious difference between shutting down backpage as a sanction for violating the law

Law that had to be specifically written to allow the government to go after Backpage et al.

Regardless of one's view of that law, it is a good that the law was appropriately applied as opposed to stretching the meaning of some other statute.

Again, the law was not appropriately applied, it was changed for the sole purpose of going after websites for posts by third parties. Nothing appropriate about that, and it threatens the Internet as we know it.

 

[LordKiran]

Typical radical feminist attitude. Freedom of men is not seen as important.
But note that this also affects freedom of women. Women with whose work choice you disagree, so I guess their freedoms don't count either.
Also show me one instance where "young children" were offered on Backpage? The only claims I have seen are that occasionally there are ads featuring teenagers under 18.


Nobody here advocates for involuntary or underage prostitution. The point is that consenting adults are being targeted as well ostensibly to fight against trafficking. And I find that wrong.
Note that sex work is illegal in the US and these things still happen.

so that some male can get his rocks off.

If everybody is consenting, what's wrong with a male "gets his rocks off"? Is there something inherently sinful about it that must be permitted to exist only in the sacred confines of a marriage, dating relationship or a night club hookup?

Does banning sites like Backpage stop all aspects of this problem? Of course not, but it's wrong to simply turn our backs on things that facilitate criminal behavior.

Banning sites like Backpage does much more harm than good because it primarily targets consenting adults. Better way would be to focus on traffickers.

Freedom is never absolute. There are lots of things that we don't have the freedom to do, so pretending that this is an attack on one's freedom. That is quite a distortion of the word freedom.

No, freedom is not absolute, but there should be a damn good reason to restrict somebody's freedom. A person has no freedom to have sex with somebody who is not consenting. But just because that happens, there is no reason to restrict the freedom to have sex with somebody who consents.
And sex is no trivial matter either. It is an important aspect of being human.

See, it's right in the base of the pyramid!

And you know what guys? Why can't a lonely man without a partner do what a lot of women do. Buy a bottle of high quality lube, and fantasize. It works for women, so why not men? Get some good sex toys while you're at it.

Who says we do not do that? Sex workers are too expensive for vast majority to partake several times a week, so usually it's self-service. But sometimes you want another human body next to yours. What's wrong with that? And note that a good sex workers offers more than just the sex.

Note that women are free to see sex workers, and some do, but there is far less demand from women, because women have a much easier time getting casual sex when they want it. Men are not so lucky.

And while I think of it, what if there aren't enough women who want to sell you sexual favors? What then? Women are under no obligation to service men, so stop acting like we are.

Usually market takes care of that. If there aren't enough women to meet demand, prevailing prices rise. That encourages more women to enter the market and reduces demand because clients will partake less frequently if price is higher. In the end supply and demand equilibriate. ECON101.

The hierarchy of needs is predicated on a dubious definition of 'need'. You could argue sex is important in maintaining good emotional/mental health but you'll notice that the hierarchy makes a clear division between sex and sexual intimacy. In that regard, masturbation works just fine, you don't 'need' a prostitute anymore than you 'need' avocado toast.

 

[Derec]

Because there are posters arguing for policies that enable forced/trafficked prostitution. The OP is a perfect example. Backpage refused to take down its ads for illegal prostitution, so it is shut down. Yet there are people whining about sanction that is the result of a violation of law on the basis that it "enfringes on freedom".

So you admit that the whole point of the Backpage witch hunt is going after sex work ads and that "trafficking" and "children" were just pretexts to get this draconian legislation passed? "Think of the children" and that crap.

Every sanction of a violation of a law is an enfringement of freedom, yet that does stop the usual suspects for their illogical complaiints.

And every human action could become illegal if enough authoritarian legislators agree that it is "immoral". Gay sex used to be illegal. Alcohol used to be illegal. In each case there were arguments offered as to why it should be illegal. I guess, if some government bans something you like, you saying that they are enfringing[sic] on your freedom is just an illogical complaiint[sic].