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Why is sex work even illegal in the first place.
Selling is legal, fucking is legal, why isn't selling fucking legal?
-- George Carlin
Seas he also the fella that said “Getting paid for sex is illegal… UNLESS YOU RECORD IT!”
For years I've contemplated the idea if I came into a bunch of money if starting a porn studio where the customer is an actor/actress in the porn.
We have a building and several "sets" with cameras recording, customer picks their "partner" and "set" and "shoot the porn", after they are done the video is burned on to a dvd(or blue ray or potentially put on a private file server).
The customer isn't paying for sex, they are paying for the video.
Pretty sure it would have a ton of legal push back and I would need a lot of money for the lawyers to fight the cases.
But 1. Safer for everyone imvolved(it's video taped so you won't beat/hurt/kill the other party) 2.technically legal just like shooting porn
Think there is a big group of customers for sex who want it captured on video?
You could burn it to a dvd or whatever, delete the file, and give the customer the only copy. Whether they choose to keep it or destroy it is their own choice.
They get the only copy... I don't care if the watch it, post it online or just it for skeet shooting with a shotgun.
Not to mention the possible tie ins...imagine if the studio partnered with onlyfans... Or offered special spaces with live streaming(with permission) to people's Webcam sites.
"remember to join the stream this Saturday where we will be on location in the pleasure dome's sunset beach set for a special sex on the beach adventure"
The underlying assumption is the same as in abortion: that women can't be entrusted with agency over their own bodies.
Because one of the biggest issues with sex work, human trafficking, gets worse with legalization. Studies across Europe have shown that countries that outlaw prostitution see a decrease in human trafficking victims while countries that legalized or decriminalized it see an increase.
Unlike with drugs, you don't just create a way to increase the supply. A very small minority of women actually want to engage in sex work. And the few who do, usually envision the high class escort lifestyle. But working in a brothel charging $100 per client isn't something many want to do.
But legalizing prostitution increases demand. Which makes it more profitable for criminals to utilize human trafficking to fill that demand.
https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/
One source of it.
It also doesn't help at all with protecting victims of human trafficking. Victims of human trafficking are already protected. But they don't step forward because of threats against their own well being and that of their families. Something that doesn't change just because their work technically is legal now.
Which leaves a small percentage of people who fall into financial hardship and consider prostitution as a method of overcoming said hardship. For them that might slightly improve their situation. But that still means exploiting vulnerable people and isn't people engaging in sex work because they want to. And it's even questionable if people in these scenarios would follow the legal way.
So while initially it might seem like legalizing it solves a lot of issues, it is more difficult than that.
I reckon that even though sex work is legalised, and still caused issues, the problem is that there is no government regulation. It's one thing to say by the government that they won't prosecute sex workers, but if it's not regulated and abuse still happens then nothing changed for all intents and purposes. Best analogy I could think of is like allowing food factories to manufacture food, of course. But if there is no regulatory watchdog to monitor and test to make sure food factories are not putting random and dangerous stuff into food, then legalising an activity is pointless.
Basically, the sex industry having been legalised by many countries is unofficially a libertarian set up. Yeah, the government exists and allow sexual transactions between agreeing parties, but they're hands off on how the practitioners in the industry would conduct business. There is no government agency for sex workers to complain to if they're abused. I know people would ask, how exactly would the government regulate sex? That, I will leave to policy experts.
Edit: wording
I see this single study trotted out every time the subject comes up and the key factor to take into account is that this is reported trafficking. If legalized sex work means more light is shed on human trafficking that means more can be done about it.
Just because more is reported doesn't mean more isn't also happening. In fact, one could reasonably expect reporting to go down as a percentage of incidents due to ordinary citizens not expecting sex workers to be involved in trafficking since sex work is now legal. That the number goes up after the stigma is removed seems to strongly indicate a correlation with a rise in actual trafficking.
More or less is a matter of comparison. How do you compare with an underground activity that cannot be tracked as easily?
As with anything, you can only work with the data you actually have.
Sure, but all you have is assumptions and you're assuming the increased reporting of trafficking means that trafficking is increasing rather than it just getting caught more. It's like when some governments fought over covid reporting. Keeping it hidden doesn't mean less of it is happening and making it more visible doesn't mean more of it is happening.
Isn't that a bit of the pot calling the kettle black?
No, because you presented the study as supposed proof of more human trafficking.
First, I didn't present anything.
Second, it does prove that more human trafficking is reported.
You only have the assumption that bringing it into the light of day results in a higher rate of reporting against actual incidents. It's an interesting hypothesis, but without any evidence to support your assumption Occam's Razor dictates that the simplest answer is that the rates do not change drastically and there actually is more human trafficking to be reported.
You didn't present anything but you certainly act like you did. We're agreed in that it proves more human trafficking is reported but again, that doesn't mean more human trafficking is happening. Refer back to my example about covid case reporting. Incorrectly citing Occam's Razor doesn't strengthen your argument.
I did no such thing.
Unless the reporting rates go down, then it must certainly does.
Your example of a concerted effort of large governmental agencies to hide the actual reported numbers is not actually relevant here. It wouldn't even be relevant if it were just random underreporting outside of governments as it doesn't have any similarity to decriminalizing sex work.
You have made more assumptions than I have. Tell me how you think Occam doesn't apply. You can't just declare an argument to be invalid and expect anyone to take your seriously.
What evidence do you have to support your theory that decriminalizing an activity increases the rate of reporting? If you don't have any, then you don't even have an argument. You only have your suppositions and theories.
It's entirely possible that you're correct, and decriminalization increases reporting without increasing activity. I have yet to see what mechanism you propose causes this quite curious paradox, so without some explanation you'll have to concede that you at least can offer no actual reason to believe it's true.
Puritan values.
My bet is on America's conservative puritan history where anything good is bad.
Also sex trafficking. At least that's the argument for keeping it illegal. :(
Which is bollocks anyways because illegalization actually makes things less safe for all sex workers, but especially for trafficking victims who are now legally marginalized into dark number status
I believe the reason sex trafficking happens is because sex work is illegal.
Old white men elected themselves under the guise of voting (gerrymandering who?) and are too embarrassed and confused to allow women the rights they have as humans. Isn't democracy silly.
I'd say the diagram of "Why is sex work illegal" and "Why is abortion illegal" is almost a perfect circle.
It's about contolling other peoples' bodies and weakening the separation of church and state.
AFAIK, it's not federally illegal, but mostly every state bans it. As how Nevada can have prostitution.
You're correct, it is not federally illegal in the US. Most things aren't. Murder isn't, either. However, traveling across state lines with a prostitute has gotten people in trouble with the federal government before.
woke af
What does woke even mean?
I think most people who've actually thought about it would say either "sensitivity to and awareness of the plight of marginalized people" or the same but with "oversensitivity", depending on which side of it you're on.