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There is never a 100% guarantee of safety. But no sex worker from any of the legal brothels of NV has ever tested positive for HIV. And HIV has been with us now for approx. 30 years. AFAIK there has never been a case of a murder of a prostitute in the legal brothels. We had one guy alone in WA who killed over 50 street hookers. He was able to do this due to the cover provided by the fact that prostitution is illegal. So those 50 murders were a direct consequence of the prostitution laws.
I am scratching my head to understand the connection to taxing of billionaires, single payer health care, etc.
I wonder how being a brothel worker reduces a sex workers chances of getting AIDS to zero. Do they field test johns as they walk in the door with pinprick instant read-out AIDS tests? Or is it that NV is just not that much of an AIDS epicenter. I think a sex worker in the District of Columbia is playing AIDS roulette with every transaction. Legalization wouldn't change that. The ONLY thing that might change is that the doctor giving her the bad news would be an employee of the state healthcare system during a routine exam vs a private physician if and when a woman got sick enough to seek a doctors opinion on her own. The public benefits from a system that could identify and remove sex workers with STD's, but the mechanism is clunky and an infected worker could infect dozens of people by the time her next routine exam came around. And... I thought we were about helping the poor, exploited, women here. How is making them have monthly AIDS tests actually preventing them from getting it?
The real head scratcher is that you don't make a connection between our present lack of a robust, single-payer Universal Healthcare System and other manifestations of a genuine social safety net, as a direct cause of women turning to sex work. The number one reason women go into sex work is debt! Debt from a medical bill, automobile, credit card... debt. Financial hardship. Men would go into sex work as well if there was a market. Why the billionaires? Why not them? Do you want to fork over more each year so that American society can actually be as well off as we claim in travel brochures? I don't. I'm maxed out at ~30%. It would take at least another ~30% from you, me and everyone else earning under $100K but a percent or less from those in the $100M and better would more than cover it. But it isn't because I think regular business don't need more tax... it is that I don't think prostitution should be singled out for a different tax schedule than other transactions. If anything, transactions of sex between consenting adults, even if done for money should be tax free! How about that? Forget what I said earlier. Since that was too hard to fathom I'll get obvious about it. Weed is a vice, cigarettes are a vice, alcohol is a vice. Sex is not a vice. It is a natural human function. It should not be taxed. And its free trade among consenting adults should be done without government regulation. And, no, I don't intend to partake either. I have all I can handle at home, thank you.
I'm not optimistic on there ever being a watershed change to prostitution in America. The issue is only partially related to taxation, safety, exploitation and the "broken windows" hypothesis of minor crimes as segue to larger ones.
The real issue is cultural. Whether informed by Christian scruples or not, most Americans view dimly and with opprobrium the very idea of sex as a material transaction. Sensational anecdotes of "hookup culture" notwithstanding, most people feel in their guts an aversion to the idea of sex between persons who don't feel emotional connection, and especially when one of them is paying for the act.
Consider that even though it's wholesome and laudable to wash one's own dishes, launder one's own clothes, vacuum one's own carpets and so forth, many people hire maids for domestic chores. There's no shame admitting in the Monday watercooler conversation that so-and-so went boating or hiking over the weekend, hiring a maid to clean the house. Amongst professionals and upper-income people, it would be regarded as misallocation of one's resources to perform these cores by oneself. It's only fitting that highly-compensated people outsource the menial work, freeing themselves for leisure, or perhaps for more work in their own professions.
We're far, far away from regarding prostitution along similar lines. Imagine what would happen at the same watercooler on Monday morning, if Joe Employee admitted to his buddies that instead of online dating or cold-approach in a bar or joining a yoga class or whatnot, he foreswore the travails of meeting women and searching for a girlfriend, and instead hired a prostitute for the weekend. Suppose that Joe flew to Amsterdam on Friday night, specifically for patronizing the red-light district, and returned to the US on Sunday, quite satisfied with his exploits. Nothing illegal happened. And yet, what would happen to Joe's reputation in the office on Monday?
Laws follow culture. By the mid 20th century, the cultural mainstream in American society (at least in the North and in the major cities) had sufficiently evolved that officially-sanctioned racial segregation came to be regarded as an abomination. Desegregation laws followed. It took perhaps two generations for laws and mores to jointly evolve and to stabilize. But no act of Congress or of the Supreme Court could have substantially dented segregation say in 1900. The culture had to evolve first... not evenly, and not entirely... but it did need to evolve.
If our views on prostitution don't evolve, no legislative effort will succeed.
I wonder how being a brothel worker reduces a sex workers chances of getting AIDS to zero. Do they field test johns as they walk in the door with pinprick instant read-out AIDS tests? Or is it that NV is just not that much of an AIDS epicenter. I think a sex worker in the District of Columbia is playing AIDS roulette with every transaction. Legalization wouldn't change that.
They can insist that Johns were a condom. Which would be easier to enforce in a legal business with bouncers throwing out unruly customers (similar to bars); rather than in an illegal business where the pimp may or may not care.
I wonder how being a brothel worker reduces a sex workers chances of getting AIDS to zero. Do they field test johns as they walk in the door with pinprick instant read-out AIDS tests? Or is it that NV is just not that much of an AIDS epicenter. I think a sex worker in the District of Columbia is playing AIDS roulette with every transaction. Legalization wouldn't change that. The ONLY thing that might change is that the doctor giving her the bad news would be an employee of the state healthcare system during a routine exam vs a private physician if and when a woman got sick enough to seek a doctors opinion on her own. The public benefits from a system that could identify and remove sex workers with STD's, but the mechanism is clunky and an infected worker could infect dozens of people by the time her next routine exam came around. And... I thought we were about helping the poor, exploited, women here. How is making them have monthly AIDS tests actually preventing them from getting it?
The real head scratcher is that you don't make a connection between our present lack of a robust, single-payer Universal Healthcare System and other manifestations of a genuine social safety net, as a direct cause of women turning to sex work. The number one reason women go into sex work is debt! Debt from a medical bill, automobile, credit card... debt. Financial hardship. Men would go into sex work as well if there was a market. Why the billionaires? Why not them? Do you want to fork over more each year so that American society can actually be as well off as we claim in travel brochures? I don't. I'm maxed out at ~30%. It would take at least another ~30% from you, me and everyone else earning under $100K but a percent or less from those in the $100M and better would more than cover it. But it isn't because I think regular business don't need more tax... it is that I don't think prostitution should be singled out for a different tax schedule than other transactions. If anything, transactions of sex between consenting adults, even if done for money should be tax free! How about that? Forget what I said earlier. Since that was too hard to fathom I'll get obvious about it. Weed is a vice, cigarettes are a vice, alcohol is a vice. Sex is not a vice. It is a natural human function. It should not be taxed. And its free trade among consenting adults should be done without government regulation. And, no, I don't intend to partake either. I have all I can handle at home, thank you.
H
OK, I get you now. I actually have heard this a variant of this argument before. I've heard a Seattle liberal argue that strip clubs only exist because of a lack of options for young women, and a lack of liberal policies such as $15/hr minimum wage, free housing, free health care, etc. And thus all the strip club raids done by SPD are justified because they show a need for, and create pressure for, more liberal economic policies. I know it's not quite exactly your argument, but it's in a similar vein.
One problem I see is that prostitutes probably make much more than even the most generous welfare systems, so I'm not sure that bumping up welfare would get them to leave the life, or stop them from getting into it.
I don't know exactly how the legal brothels of NV have managed to avoid even one case of HIV all these years, but they have. Presumably religious use of condoms. I would have guessed they had a no-anal policy, but I just googled to see, and apparently that is not the case.
Prostitution will never go away. It is one of the oldest businesses. I think it should be legalized. Reason why I say this is because the lives of prostitutes matter to me and keeping prostitution illegal only puts their lives in danger (continues to).
Brothels are primitive businesses. They have nothing to do with 'forwardness'. If you want a prostitute or an escort, just pay her and take her to a hotel (dunno if that's illegal in the US?). No need for a brothel.
The average street prostitute would not be the ones getting a job in a high class brothel. They will still exist but their prices would probably drop. It would be a quick way for more tax dollars to come in.
It would be more like gambling. Highly regulated and heavily taxed. The street prostitute could still get arrested, the john arrested, and the pimp arrested. The same as we cannot open our own casino where gambling is legal we will not be able to just open a brothel where prostitution is legal. With all of the permits, licenses, inspections, health checks, and everything else I am sure it would be quite expensive and not what the average person could afford with much regularity. I am sure they would have their own lobbyists to push for more law enforcement of the illegal prostitutes.
I still think we should make it legal. I really doubt I would be a customer.
I agree with the above. I would add that since we are looking hard at separation of church and state that there is just no grounds for not making it legal. On moral grounds and just the fact that its "ick" factor is high to me, I just can't imagine........... But, I do support separation of church and state. I do think a major reason for it not being legalized is that much of it is related to organized crime.
Yes without a doubt it should be legalized. It hurts no one, it gives women who may not otherwise be able to handle a "regular job" the option to earn a living, and it gives men the opportunity to satisfy their natural urges with little hassle.
I agree with the above. I would add that since we are looking hard at separation of church and state that there is just no grounds for not making it legal. On moral grounds and just the fact that its "ick" factor is high to me, I just can't imagine........... But, I do support separation of church and state. I do think a major reason for it not being legalized is that much of it is related to organized crime.
Again, it has little to do with religion. If it did, there would be at minimal support for the liberal democrat politicos here for legalization, but instead we have an ongoing and relentless War on Prostitution here in the Seattle area.
I highly doubt there is much involvement of organized crime, at least not in this region. I don't know about other regions. There was some semblance of organized crime, or really more like organized corruption rings, back in the 50's and 60's under the 'tolerance policy' but those days are long over.
It is generally only the radical feminists opposed to it on the grounds of exploitation, furthering oppression of women etc.. Many moderate feminists are in favor of legalization. IMO, the religious, moral concerns of the American majority are a much stronger opposition than most modern feminists. I think there would be a huge uproar in the bible belt if a politician seriously brought up the subject.
I consider myself a feminist, and have no issue with it. People can choose to do whatever they wish with their own bodies. I believe it should be legal, and well regulated for the safety of the workers, and clients.
No women in general are much more hostile to the idea of prostitution being legal then men are. The US was extremely religious in the 19th century and yet brothels were not uncommon regardless of the fact religious leaders weren't fond of them. The reason why it's illegal today isn't just do to religion or else the democrats would've made it legal and it's not just because of female liberal voters or else republicans would've made it legal. It's the combination of both religion and feminism that keeps prostitution from being legal in the United States.
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