Sex work (digression from Charlie Kirk)

[Loren Pechtel]

I’m in a rush so I’ll just address the last: Providing manicures to the public does not carry with it the same risk to health from transmission disease or from violence as does sex work, even in places where sex work is legal.

The rate of infections in the legal brothels here is very low. And it's not like we exactly protect workers in other situations--if we did employers would not have been able to tell employees not to wear a mask. (Beware of deceptive data--the brothel-bashers like to lump the pre-employment test results with the during-employment test results.)

I'm looking at this from a standpoint of harm reduction. Anathema to the reich wing, but history shows us that stomping out vices is not possible and considerably increases the harm caused by the vices.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?

Human trafficking leaves no land untouched. In 2013 the U.S. State Department estimated that there are 27 million victims worldwide trafficked for forced labor or commercial sex exploitation. A 201…

orgs.law.harvard.edu

• Countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited. The scale effect of legalizing prostitution, i.e. expansion of the market, outweighs the substitution effect, where legal sex workers are favored over illegal workers. On average, countries with legalized prostitution report a greater incidence of human trafficking inflows.
• The effect of legal prostitution on human trafficking inflows is stronger in high-income countries than middle-income countries. Because trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation requires that clients in a potential destination country have sufficient purchasing power, domestic supply acts as a constraint.

There are obviously pros and cons to legalization of prostitution. For me, the pros do not outweigh the cons.

The problem with this is that we do not trust the data on "trafficking". It should be used to mean those who are forced into it, but it is routinely used to describe any situation where anyone facilitates the women moving around. Look at it from the point of view of a hooker from some poor place: are they better off plying their trade where they are, or being smuggled into a first world country and plying the same trade? Especially if it's legal in that country so the police aren't going to pick her up simply for prostitution? This obviously does not prove that she's there voluntarily but it suggests that she very well might be.

 

[Toni]

I’m in a rush so I’ll just address the last: Providing manicures to the public does not carry with it the same risk to health from transmission disease or from violence as does sex work, even in places where sex work is legal.

The rate of infections in the legal brothels here is very low. And it's not like we exactly protect workers in other situations--if we did employers would not have been able to tell employees not to wear a mask. (Beware of deceptive data--the brothel-bashers like to lump the pre-employment test results with the during-employment test results.)

I'm looking at this from a standpoint of harm reduction. Anathema to the reich wing, but history shows us that stomping out vices is not possible and considerably increases the harm caused by the vices.

Of course we protect workers in other industries! Universal precautions are a thing even in preschools and day care!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

ETOH is one of if not the worst drugs that people abuse, yet it's legal. It sometimes shortens lives if used in excess. I still recall a 34 year old patient, during my first year working as a nurse, who died of liver failure secondary to excessive drinking that he started at a very young age, by stealing beer from his parent's little store. At least that is what we nurses were told. Over eating sweets often leads to type II diabetes. Eating too much red meat often leads to heart disease. Smoking too much often leads to COPD or lung cancer. There are many harmful legal habits that humans often have, and there are many potentially dangerous jobs other than sex work. So, why do we choose to moralize and criminalize sex work and certain drugs? There are many sports that are potentially more dangerous than sex work but people are often fans of these sports. It makes no sense to me that humans moralize about sex workers who choose to do that type of work yet football and boxing to name two, are applauded. When can we come to terms that sex regardless if it's about love and friendship or making a living is part of human nature.

It's a dismal second to the champion: tobacco. Tobacco manages to rack up 400k deaths/year, alcohol a paltry 100k.

We have recognized that those should be tolerated, I find it unreasonable to prohibit vices that don't even come close to this level of danger.

Even when it comes to secondary effects--being too aggressive about DUI actually increases the harm because it discourages safer options. Sleep it off in your car at the bar or drive home? Where's the highest DUI rates? Dry counties.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Look at pot, for example. It’s legal in many states and that has generated new business models and products, including lots of CBD products. In my life, I’ve never been interested at all in smoking anything. But I’ve used some legal CBD products. Because they are legal. The market has expanded.

But you never crossed your original line: no smoking.

And I do agree that legalization does tend to expand markets--but note what happened here. New low end options showed up that were not particularly viable in the illegal marketplace as illegal markets reward potency. Yes, some people partake that would not have otherwise, but in the other direction some people step down to the less potent options when given the opportunity.

Ever notice that one coffee shop on a nice corner often leads to another coffee shop? Same thing with fast food and tattoo parlors.

Availability generates demand.

As your evidence for the arrow of causality is???

No, demand generates providers. Providers do not like competition--Starbucks puts a clause in their leases prohibiting other coffee shops in the complex.

Do we think that making pot legal has increased or decreased demand for pot? Has it had an impact on illegal drugs? Would legalizing drugs reduce demand or increase it? Reduce the negative consequences of drug use? Sure, it would reduce arrests for buying/selling/possession. I applauded d that! But there are plenty of other negative effects.

History gives us a few examples:

1) England used to take the addiction is a valid reason for a prescription approach to opiates. Result: very low rate of opiate addiction because there were no dealers. (And note that a substantial chunk of our fentanyl problem comes directly from the drug war. The problem was Oxycontin often did not perform as advertised and the DEA was obsessive enough about prescribing practices that the doctors weren't at liberty to prescribe what the patient actually needed, thus driving a lot of people to the street.)

2) Some places have taken decriminalization approaches. Nowhere near as good as legalization (there's still all the negatives of the illegal supply chain), but it doesn't increase addiction rates.

Legalization would do nothing to reduce the demand for underaged sex workers. It would not reduce the demand for what could still remain illegal. It would not guarantee that sex workers are willing participants but it would make it easier to claim that they were.

You're assuming there's much demand for them in the first place. And why do you think it would make it easier for people to claim prostitutes were consenting? Make them take their license exam (yes, there should be one--safety practices) alone, do a bit of an interview. That would screen out most of the coerced ones. Make the licenses anonymous--picture but they can put whatever name they want on them. Put a 2D barcode on them, if scanned it pops up the picture and license status. They can remain anonymous while permitting verification. And you punish anyone who patronizes a prostitute without a license.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I confess to being baffled by the economics of pornography. I'm sitting at a computer that gives me free access to almost any sexual display for no cost. I really don't understand how anyone manages to sell something when most of the competition is giving away the same product, and besides that, anyone with access to it, can reproduce it at no cost.

Very often what's available free is of lower quality than what's behind paywalls. You want the quality, you either have to pay or resort to illicit downloading.

And OnlyFans is also about interaction with the person, not just seeing the content. That's going to be paywalled and often it turns out not to even be real--the successful people outsource a lot of it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The seller is under duress. But the buyer wouldn't know that. Legalization and regulation could help remediate this concern, but not solve it. Also, what in the fuck does your hobby horse have to do with the targeted murder of Charlie Kirk?

And why are we to assume the seller is under duress?

If she truly is go after the person putting her under duress. That should carry very heavy penalties.

But "want money" is not duress.

You know, if people actually managed to get rid of the people putting them under duress, there'd be like a dozen prostitutes left in the whole country.

It's flat out exploitation by both the pimps and the purchasers, and it's the commodification of a woman's entire body for use as a literal object for sexual gratification.

Cop to Call Girl

Disgusted by the corruption all around her, LAPD traffi…

www.goodreads.com

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The seller is under duress.

Why do you think that a sex worker is under duress, but the people working in an auto parts factory or a slaughter house aren't? Do you think that the people working at McDonald's are doing it out of love for burgers?

What about people who stay with a partner that they can't stand because they can provide a lifestyle that they are not equipped to provide for themselves? Do you think that Melania Trump stays with Donald because she loves him so much?

Where do you draw the line between sex worker and and wife?
Tom

See the questions a few posts above, and provide your own fucking answers, Tom. And if you think wives are the same as prostitutes, then it's a good thing you're gay, buddy.

He's talking about marrying for money. Definitely prostitution in my book.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I do not think that one tattoo shop (or coffee shop or burger joint) begetting another necessarily leads to increased demand, but there is certainly clustering of certain businesses that compete with each other. This is a very different phenomenon than increased demand due to a product or service becoming legal, be it pot, gay sex, abortions or sex for money.

Disagree on the clustering. Businesses do not like clustering as it leads to more competition and thus lower profit because the cost of going to the next one is lower. Businesses cluster either because they are clustering around a source of customers (coffee shops love to be on the morning commute), or because they're forced to. Look at businesses that have mandated setbacks--by the time you're far enough from schools, churches etc you're forced out of the commercial/residential stuff (think of the grocery store on the corner) and into the purely commercial/industrial areas. And there's more traffic in commercial areas than in purely industrial areas, so where do you find the regulated businesses? Commercial/light industrial areas. They aren't clustering by choice.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Lots of women—and men come to the US to work and many of them find that the jobs they were coming to work do not exist and many are pressed into sex work. They are told they have to ‘work off their debt’ incurred in transporting them to the US. So yeah, that qualifies as trafficking.

We hear a lot more about this than we actually see.

That happens, you go to the police, you help with the prosecution, you can get a T visa. And while a T visa is not an immigrant visa it is in time possible to apply for a green card. And family members can be brought over on the T visa.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Businesses DO create demand. No one needs a coffee from Starbucks but the presence of a Starbucks does predict another Starbucks. From what I’ve been told, it is impossible to go into any commercial place in Nevada without encountering slot machines.

You are not establishing that it's Starbucks causing Starbucks rather than the demand for coffee causing Starbucks.

And there definitely are not slot machines everywhere. Some groceries have them, I don't recall a gas station without them, I do not recall any other business with them.

In Nevada, where prostitution is legal in six counties, the vast overwhelming amount of prostitution is illegal and occurs in Las Vegas and Reno. I’d bet money that’s where most illegal drug trade occurs as well. Sure, that’s also where the bulk of the population lives and where the majority of visitors go. In people’s minds, Las Vegas is where you go to gamble and party and maybe see a show. For lots of those visitors, party includes sex workers.

The fact is that legalizing prostitution sends a message to men and boys that women ( and too often, children) are available for sex—for a fee.

I don't see what you're trying to establish here.

Yes, there's a lot of prostitution here even though it's illegal. There aren't a lot of problems, though, because the police generally leave the prostitutes alone so long as they don't get reports of secondary crime.

You seem to be focusing on sending a message--and just about every argument based on sending a message is wrong.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I’m in a rush so I’ll just address the last: Providing manicures to the public does not carry with it the same risk to health from transmission disease or from violence as does sex work, even in places where sex work is legal.

The rate of infections in the legal brothels here is very low. And it's not like we exactly protect workers in other situations--if we did employers would not have been able to tell employees not to wear a mask. (Beware of deceptive data--the brothel-bashers like to lump the pre-employment test results with the during-employment test results.)

I'm looking at this from a standpoint of harm reduction. Anathema to the reich wing, but history shows us that stomping out vices is not possible and considerably increases the harm caused by the vices.

Of course we protect workers in other industries! Universal precautions are a thing even in preschools and day care!

I just gave an example of where we don't.

 

[bilby]

Businesses cluster either because they are clustering around a source of customers (coffee shops love to be on the morning commute), or because they're forced to.

No, they cluster because of the beach effect.

Imagine a long beach, randomly populated with bathers and holidaymakers.

If an ice cream vendor turns up, he sets up in the middle of the beach, so that he can attract the maximum number of customers. Whether people decide to go get an icecream is largely dictated by how far they will have to walk, so the middle is the best place for him to be.

But if two turn up, things are different. To maximise the amount of icecream sold, each would set up about a quarter of the way along the beach (but at opposite ends). Now each vendor is serving half of the beachgoers, and is maximising overall sales by minimising walking distance.

But that optimum position is unstable. By moving a little closer to their competitor, a vendor can take some of that competitor's market. They lose less than they gain, because the people at their end of the beach are not going to buy from their competitor, who is even further away.

The stable outcome is to have both vendors together, in the middle, again each serving half of the beach. It's worse for both than the optimum placement, but not as bad for either as letting the other guy move towards the middle, without mirroring his move.

Free markets lead to clustering of similar businesses, which reduces efficiency.

 

[Toni]

Look at pot, for example. It’s legal in many states and that has generated new business models and products, including lots of CBD products. In my life, I’ve never been interested at all in smoking anything. But I’ve used some legal CBD products. Because they are legal. The market has expanded.

But you never crossed your original line: no smoking.

And I do agree that legalization does tend to expand markets--but note what happened here. New low end options showed up that were not particularly viable in the illegal marketplace as illegal markets reward potency. Yes, some people partake that would not have otherwise, but in the other direction some people step down to the less potent options when given the opportunity.

Ever notice that one coffee shop on a nice corner often leads to another coffee shop? Same thing with fast food and tattoo parlors.

Availability generates demand.

As your evidence for the arrow of causality is???

No, demand generates providers. Providers do not like competition--Starbucks puts a clause in their leases prohibiting other coffee shops in the complex.

Do we think that making pot legal has increased or decreased demand for pot? Has it had an impact on illegal drugs? Would legalizing drugs reduce demand or increase it? Reduce the negative consequences of drug use? Sure, it would reduce arrests for buying/selling/possession. I applauded d that! But there are plenty of other negative effects.

History gives us a few examples:

1) England used to take the addiction is a valid reason for a prescription approach to opiates. Result: very low rate of opiate addiction because there were no dealers. (And note that a substantial chunk of our fentanyl problem comes directly from the drug war. The problem was Oxycontin often did not perform as advertised and the DEA was obsessive enough about prescribing practices that the doctors weren't at liberty to prescribe what the patient actually needed, thus driving a lot of people to the street.)

2) Some places have taken decriminalization approaches. Nowhere near as good as legalization (there's still all the negatives of the illegal supply chain), but it doesn't increase addiction rates.

Legalization would do nothing to reduce the demand for underaged sex workers. It would not reduce the demand for what could still remain illegal. It would not guarantee that sex workers are willing participants but it would make it easier to claim that they were.

You're assuming there's much demand for them in the first place. And why do you think it would make it easier for people to claim prostitutes were consenting? Make them take their license exam (yes, there should be one--safety practices) alone, do a bit of an interview. That would screen out most of the coerced ones. Make the licenses anonymous--picture but they can put whatever name they want on them. Put a 2D barcode on them, if scanned it pops up the picture and license status. They can remain anonymous while permitting verification. And you punish anyone who patronizes a prostitute without a license.

Loren, nothing you wrote is remotely true.

There are many locations which have Starbucks within a stone’s throw/kitty cornered from them. There is no way that a simple test would week out coerced sex workers.

England making opiates by script only did nothing to change the addicting nature of that class of drugs. Btw, they are only legally available by script here, too.

You make zero sense.

 

[Toni]

Lots of women—and men come to the US to work and many of them find that the jobs they were coming to work do not exist and many are pressed into sex work. They are told they have to ‘work off their debt’ incurred in transporting them to the US. So yeah, that qualifies as trafficking.

We hear a lot more about this than we actually see.

That happens, you go to the police, you help with the prosecution, you can get a T visa. And while a T visa is not an immigrant visa it is in time possible to apply for a green card. And family members can be brought over on the T visa.

I have no idea what you see.

I have a fair idea of what you know..

 

[Toni]

I’m in a rush so I’ll just address the last: Providing manicures to the public does not carry with it the same risk to health from transmission disease or from violence as does sex work, even in places where sex work is legal.

The rate of infections in the legal brothels here is very low. And it's not like we exactly protect workers in other situations--if we did employers would not have been able to tell employees not to wear a mask. (Beware of deceptive data--the brothel-bashers like to lump the pre-employment test results with the during-employment test results.)

I'm looking at this from a standpoint of harm reduction. Anathema to the reich wing, but history shows us that stomping out vices is not possible and considerably increases the harm caused by the vices.

Of course we protect workers in other industries! Universal precautions are a thing even in preschools and day care!

I just gave an example of where we don't.

You made zero sense.