Should prostitution be legalized?

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I don't see anything on that page that looks like disagreement with my statement. Is it in one of the links on the sidebar?

(BTW, thanks for actually responding to a request for evidence. I just out of a thread where trying to get someone to substantiate their argument was like pulling teeth, so this is a breath of fresh air.)

Well, it is a website for sex workers which contains the following statement:

The way I see it, it follows from this statement that an organisation of sex workers (in the UK, as it is a UK site) disagrees with the notion that the provision of sex as a service should be treated fundamentally different than other services.

Similar sentiments have been voiced by a similar organisation in my native country of Denmark, and there appears to be an underlying resentment among a lot of sex workers towards the notion of sex as an activity qualitatively different from other activities.

"whether they are there through choice, circumstance or coercion"

How can you stand behind this statement and compare this with providing another service, eg. accountancy, carpentry or medical treatment.

Because people who are coerced into prostitution are unlikely to benefit from anti-prostitution policies. This is exactly what happened in Sweden, where it became more difficult to prosecute violence and other types of coercion against prostitutes after prostitution was made illegal, because the witnesses (often clients) were less likely to come forward because they would risk prosecution themselves.

I will reiterate, again, that I do not propose that prostitution should be illegal.

My argument is that the people involved in prostitution which need help are those that experience the most hardships and are they hardest to reach.

I feel it's very short sighted to think that legalisation results in all the mean-hearted and mean-headed types of people involved in this business, as "employers", dealers and clients, will just pack up a find alternative areas to aim their interests.

If the government imposed a minimum rate for prostitution, a black market would pop up to undercut the official prices and legalising has been useless. It's very hard to get around suppy&demand pricing.

What it does is to bring the whole thing out into the open, where it can be properly regulated, which is a step in the right direction. Your objection seems to fall under the rubric of the perfect being the enemy of the good.

It's had the effect of moving a lot of prostitution that would have taken place in the Scania region to Copenhagen (where prostitution is legal), and that often, prostitutes have to do more to protect their clients from the risk of arrest and prosecution in other countries.

So it's not done anyone any good. It's just shoved prostitution underground.

That doesn't follow from their statement, since their statement is specifically concerned with rights, and makes no mention of how it is treated compared to other services. With that said, they're fairly similar statements.

My statement was that sex is different from other things; it didn't address how sex work should be treated. I chose my examples to try to make clear what I was getting at; I think the fact that there is no crime of forced carpentry, but there is a crime of forced sex isn't just random, that it reflects something about how humans react emotionally to sex.

I think the statement you quoted is quite reasonable. I think it might be taken to indicate an acceptance of coercion, but that is not logically implied, and given the source I doubt that was intended.


I think that sex is (at least for most people) fundamentally different from other activities. Just because they might resent something doesn't mean the thing they resent isn't true.

Actually, being a relationship subtitute (an easy substitute) is what is the most enjoyable with prostitution, and that is practically the beauty of it, specially for the ones who can't have one.

I think that, like abortion, the issue is, while being legalized, each person having the freedom to choose for using the service or not, according to their own moral values. (BTW, I don't care if someone brings up a "abortion =/= prostitution" or similar argument)

I know that perfect is not possible in the real world. We should try to do better than the lowest common denominator.

The legalisation in New Zealand had no impact on the number of girls working on the street or related problems.
In Holland many areas are being reconsidered due to the proven level of organized crime involved and interdependent hard drug trade.

Sure it can be made artificially expensive, if necessary, by taxing it one way or the other - make the prostitutes obtain permits to legally ply their trade (and make the penalties for not having a permit severe) and make the permit expensive. Or tax it in other ways such that no matter what its not too cheap.

This is how you create a black market; remember that drug trafficking carries a death sentence in some countries, and yet people still smuggle drugs there. Trying to buck the market almost always ends badly.

One question: if eventually prostitution gets legal, would it be controlled?
It could be directly expensive, but if you think about STD's(this only happens with some prostitutes that don't use contraceptives) that could be a bigger expense.
In Portugal, a lot of prostitute want it legalized because they could pay taxes to, posteriorly, obtain retirement money - This is great: contributing to the state and contributing to themselves!

I don't know what's wrong if a man feels lonely and wants to have a bit of fun, with carefulness.

As others have already said here, if you make the service too expensive then a Black Market economy will grow around the demand. So again the workers with the most problems are outside of any regulations.

I think you'll find it's often the clients who want unprotected sex not the prostitutes.