Poll about Legalized Prostitution

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Previously, someone suggested turning the "Should Prostitution be Legal?" thread into a poll.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf43041-0-90.html

So, here we go.

I'm curious to see whether attitudes differ by gender.

Mere legalization would not keep the prostitutes clean, healthy, and free from victimization. The whole industry would have to be regulated, from recruiting to training, licensing, hiring, fair and equitable pay, work conditions, medical benefits, time off, and retirement benefits.

Merely making it legal would improve nothing.

Legalization would be a necessary first step.

I say no for exactly the reasons Fnord states, it is very difficult to get around those issues, simply making it legal wouldn't change working conditions or protections for the workers, it would just say to everyone everywhere that we (wherever it is being legalized in) find it legal to engage in those behaviors. Feminists and christians seem to have objections on the moral side of things, there is the sense that most people in Portland oppose it though. And even if you make demands on the industry to make it accountable for these issues, there is the issues of the Johns, which you cannot fully account for. I don't have anything against them in the sense that they will always exist, a response to male sexual nature, but I don't find it noble or even an elevating line of work... despite that, if the industry can address these issues where prostitution is legal, crack down on the slave trade, then I have no qualms with it.

Both Sweden and Norway criminalized prostitution (or more precisely, the buyer, not the seller). In both cases, this was detrimental to the prostitutes, as they suffered increased violence and increased marginalization from society.

Even if you did ensure that you gave all those rights to prostitutes, you would still have an illegal arm of the industry, as you get in Amsterdam. I think some people want the service to be exploitative.

Then you, erm, clamp down on the illegal arm of the industry!

The people who really want the industry to be exploitative are those that want it in the cupboard, as something dirty and seedy and dangerous for all women involved in it for whatever reason IMO.

Just because cigarettes are legal in the UK doesn't mean that there isn't an illegal industry (increasingly so now, due to the neo-prohibitionists and the insane taxes on cigarettes, making illegal activity very profitable). The best way ahead is to make the practice as open, as free and as non-stigmiatised as possible (for both parties), whilst punishing those involved in illegal activities and exploitation.

Aside from recruitment and training, all those things would naturally go hand in hand with legalising it, at least in this country.

I would imagine the cost of regulating the industry would be outweighed by the benefits to health of the women (enforcing condom use, for example), as well as reduced policing costs and increased tax income.

Some of those aren't just social conservatives, some of those are the punters. I think it's taboo to mention the punters as anything other than innocent purchasers of the service. The illegal arm of the industry wouldn't exist if there wasn't a demand for women/girls/boys who are forced into it.



I agree in theory, but in practice, very little will change unless we actually address the demand side of things.

A few prostitutes openly specialise in bareback due to demand. You can't regulate that without regulating freedom of choice.

It is legal in the UK, it just isn't regulated.

Oh, and elements of feminism too.

Take it away from both of them.

Prostitution is itself legal and unregulated, but a lot of the activities surrounding it are not.

You misunderstand the feminist critique of prostitution. Everyone does, even feminists.

To clarify, I support the legalisation and regulation of prostitution...but I don't think it will do that much good whilst patriarchy exists.

You failed to mention the feminist critique of the feminist critique of prostitution...

And the feminist critique of the feminist critique of the feminist critique .