You are right, but I assume there will be a larger number of prostitutes around when it is legalized, exacerbating the problem. Nevada, after all, supposedly has the largest number of prostitutes in the country, and second largest number of child prostitutes, second only to Georgia.

The evidence would then tend to indicate that child prostitution is not encouraged by legalized adult prostitution, but by some other factor — one common to both Nevada and Georgia.

What little I can find on Google suggests that the number of underage prostitutes in Georgia is around 5 times that in Nevada, so the "legalized prositution" question begins to seem kind of insignificant relative to what the fuck is wrong with people in Georgia?!

You're talking out of your arse really though aren't you? I mean, your whole standpoint in this thread, apart from the hilariously patronising "Allowing" women to have certain jobs, is that you have nothing against legalising prostitution but for the fact that it will lead to more poor people becoming prossies as they have no other employment prospects, right?

Well currently, when people are so poor they can't eat and so unemployable that even farmers looking for fruit pickers won't take them, a lot of them turn to selling their bodies already. The difference is that as it's illegal, they have no rights like other employees and are often at the mercy of gangsters. If you legalised prostitution, the same people who were thinking about it as a career under the current laws would still think about it, only now they wouldn't get arrested for doing it or beaten up and exploited by pimps. I truly fail to see how this is a bad thing in your mind.

All the things you say are bad about prostituion, the exploitation, the bad conditions, the uptake of the career out of desperation and so forth are all the things that'd be reduced by legalising it.

You seem to have this weird idea that if it was legalised, the industry would still be run by sleezy gangsters with stupid furry top hats and canes. Like things would carry on exactly as they are only with no arrests ever and that's just dumb. You'll notice I'm sure that when alcohol prohibition ended in the US, people stopped making gin in old bath tubs out in the woods and instead, adopted a wholly more professional approach and the same would happen if prostitution was legalised. The face of the industry would change and it'd get a whole lot more professional.

You're not seeing the bigger picture and you're making yourself look silly as a result.

Unless you are a Capitalist or petit-bourgeoisie you are by definition being exploited.

Additional Spam:
This could arguably make prostitution the least exploitative industry, since whores posess control over the means of their production (sex), in the absence of the capitalist (pimp).

I am not sure this is necessarily right. There probably isn't a single factor in both of the states, and for all we know, the factors in Georgia could be completely separate from those in Nevada, one of which could be the fact of legalized adult prostitution.

I know that's not a very strong proposition, but it is really hard to argue about this stuff since there is almost no data and the starting points seem to be one's feelings towards sex, government intervention, and choice.

State governments are the entities that allow or disallow certain professions by making them illegal. I thought the purpose of the thread was to discuss whether or not prostitution should be legal. Whether or not that is patronizing seems to be a whole nother story.

If there are problems that are leading to poverty, then they ought to be addressed directly instead of simply mended by adding another industry to the table.

I believe that prostitution would become more common as well as a more attractive proposition for young people if whorehouses were set up.

How so? If people are poor, have no other job opportunities, and need the money, how will the greater availability of sex work reduce people taking it up out of desperation?

I understand that it would get a whole lot more professional, but I also think that young people from rural areas might come to see prostitution as their only option.

I go to school in a rural part of Mass which used to be an industrial metropolis. Today, the unemployment rate is 15%; the industries have all been moving away, but the population keeps growing. Many of the high school graduates have almost no prospects of going to college or technical school. From my familiarity with this community, I can see prostitution, in which a young person can make lots of money very quickly, becoming virtually the only profession any of these teens would want.

I think that legalizing prostitution can help lift some people out of poverty as well as solve some of the other problems you guys have brought up. On the other hand, I see this poverty as being inflicted from extra-personal forces, and I don't think prostitution is the solution every time. With the $50,000 a person our GDP offers, no one needs to be entering prostitution unless they truly desire it.

In the German Ideology Marx argues that the sex act the foundation of the division of labor... Even if women to posses their means of production, it is entrenched in a system of commodity and labor-time: they are paid to be the passive recipients of sexual desire. The prostitute is only worth his/her time, and that is pure worker commodification in the Marxist framework.

Marx was a dumbass.

If prostitution was legal, you'd get a lot more people who are really good at it wanting to do it, because they'd make a load of money doing it. As such, the opportunities for someone to just start doing it because they had nothing else to do would dry up straight away. You come across as someone who's not had sex very much, if at all, so I can understand how you might not understand this but there's more to having sex for a woman than just lying there. Like anything in life, some people are better at it than others and as with any other labour market, the more skilled people can demand a higher salary than those who are a bit shit. Once legalised and normalised, the sex industry would work just like any other, meaning if you wanted to be a hooker, you'd have to show some natural talent and get some training. Why would unskilled workers in rural areas not fall into any other jobs? If anything, being a prostitute is a far more skilled job than most rural work. Any fucking idiot can pick fruit but there's an awful lot of women out there I would never pay to have sex with. As well as your inabilty to understand sociology and anthropology, you're failing pretty badly at basic economics here.

Communism never works in groups of more than about 5 people. Your idea of a utopian society where everyone shares out all their money and poor people get all the training and support they need to get good jobs and nobody ever needs to pay for sex again is deeply flawed and just a silly pipe dream.

For starters, you're never going to persuade people who make a lot of money because they're well educated and they work hard to give a load of that money to train poor people because then there'd be more competition for their own jobs and the saturated labour market would mean they'd earn less, plus, fuck poor people, I worked hard for this money and it's mine goddammit.

Secondly, there are a lot of ugly people who can't get laid without paying for it. Why do you think no government in the history of anything has ever been able to completely stamp out prostitution? Because people like to get laid more than anything and a lot of people can't manage that on looks or personality alone so have to pay for it, simple as that.

It's all well and good sitting there going on about how instead of legalising prostitution we should invest in better education for paupers but you're flat out ignoring the fact that there will always be a market for hookers and that some people actually want to be prostitutes and you're still only offering as a reason why a legalised system of prostitution would be a bad thing "It'd mean more people would be prostitutes" and completely failing to explain why this is so bad, other than you personally think it's a bit icky.

You need to grow up a bit really. Probably losing your virginity would help too. If only there was a shop you could go to to sort that out...

When did I ever argue for communism? All I said is each US Citizen is entitled to $50,000 worth of services. If that money was better invested, then some people would not have to resort to being prostitutes.

Whether or not you want to be able to walk into a building and decide you want to fuck some asian or black woman up the ass if your own god damn problem.

I know it's really cool to be a fucking cynic on the internet but maybe if you read more carefully you might do better. You know, for the millions of people out there jerking off over how funny your comments are.

You didn't actually say this, but now that you have I can say that it's extremely retarded.

$50,000 in services is far too great a cost to avoid some people becoming prostitutes. In fact, if I was entitled to $50,000 worth of anything I just would not work anymore.

Furthermore, the statement that people are only entitled to $50,000 ignores that many individuals may in fact require greater costs in care. For instance, a person on UHC who requires 75,000 USD in medical bills may be turned down for treatment because they are only entitled to $50,000 of services, even though the prevailing idea behind UHC is the right of all people to healthcare.

You see "only" anywhere in my post or is the fat covering up your eyes?

If your government (read: YOUR) has a predetermined amount of wealth directly related to your taxes, then why the fuck would you not be entitled to it in terms of government services?

Besides, the current cost of health-care is contingent on a lot of fucking stupid administrative decisions.

Good job at completely ignoring what I wrote there.

You were arguing for communism when you suggested that the USA having a GDP per person of $50,000 meant that every person was entitled to $50,000 of help. This might not have been exactly what you meant but that's what you said.

I don't see what me wanting to fuck black or asian women up the arse has to do with anything really. I said that people pay for sex and people do. If you want to tell me they don't or that somehow in your magical world of sunshine and fairy dust that you'll completely eliminate the market for paid-for sex then you're not just misinformed, you're completely deluded. People have been paying for sex since the advent of trade, it's called the oldest profession for a reason and no amount of moral crusading by ignorant kids like you is going to change the fact that people pay for sex.

I'm not being cynical, I'm being realistic. I'm suggesting that as a market exists and there's exactly nothing you can do to stop that, it makes a lot of fucking sense to regulate that market and bring it out in to the open so that conditions for people involved in the trade will be improved and the whole thing can be made safer and the government can tax it and make money from it, rather than just funding criminals. What you're saying is that you want to impose your system of morality onto other people, simply because it's right in your eyes and by doing so you plan on wiping out a trade that has existed as long as people have actually had a notion of trade.

You've moved beyond the realms of reasoned debate into flights of pure, childish fantasy. Your inability to form reasoned arguments or understand basic concepts about how the world around you works is just making you look stupid now. Either actually answer some of the very basic questions people here, including myself have posed about your tenuous moral standpoint or shut up. Simply throwing around childish insults and ignoring what people are saying is doing you no favours.

But Tamburlaine, this entire time you've been speaking in this thread is about how to keep women from making choices, and making sure they don't have to deal with their OWN GOD DAMN PROBLEMS.

It's a woman's own god damn problem if she wants to sell said ass to some guy. The problem is, you seem to be on some 'I am better than art thou' kick and would rather see women starve just so they don't have to spread their legs.

Prostitution doesn't have to be a last resort for women you fuck nut and at least if it was legal, they'd be a lot safer IF they made that choice to work that way.

What the fuck are you not understanding about this?

And now Tamb has fallen into the useless trolling portion of his strawman argument. Such a sad cycle when ill-informed jackass realises he is actually a know-nothing, panics, hurls shit, and runs away.

"Resort to."

Did it occur to you that some people actually want this type of work?

Why do you assume prostitution is a necessarily bad occupation (if it was legal)? The illegal factor is what makes it dangerous right now, you dolt. And like we've all said: we know women who wouldn't mind doing it for a living. Some would actively seek it out because it's what they PREFER to do for a living.

Also, what Shin said.

I'm absolutely baffled at this idea that women will "have to resort to" prostitution if it was legal. I mean, the women who actually WANT to do it will flood the market, and will probably do their job better than the ones who don't WANT to be there. So, you know, it's almost like the ones who shouldn't be there WON'T be there because they won't be able to make a living at doing a half-hearted job.

Pretty much anyone who has to have a conversation with Brady is gonna panic and run away though

No, the US government is not communist and people still get a certain amount of money worth of services. Public school, transportation, paved roads, and police officers are all public services partially or completely offered by the government. All I said was each person, because of his/her status of citizenship and/or contribution to taxes is entitled to $50,000. Now, that is a pretty vague statement, I admit it. But it is pretty clear what I mean: no one should be in abject poverty or basically FORCED to sell themselves for money, whether legal or not.

Now, I will agree with you all ONCE AGAIN:

1) legalizing prostitution will make people safer
2) some people WANT to be prostitutes
3) I couldn't care less what willing parties do to each other

But saying prostitution is a way out of poverty for anyone is retarded. That is where the $50,000 comes in. Those funds should be used for schools, welfare, creating jobs, a new deal, whatever. IF people want to be prostitutes, FINE. But don't act as if EVERYONE that becomes a prostitute just loves it, because I doubt that is the case.

Whether or not the market controls it doesn't matter: some people have no opportunities other than prostitution, and that doesn't need to be the case.

You and other have been throwing around insults the whole time. Isn't careful dry wit what the internet runs on these days?

ONCE AGAIN, you're thinking only of the MINORITY of hoes who walk the street. Just sayin'.

Are you neglecting to think of the MAJORITY of prostitutes who actually make bank? And when I say "make bank," I mean a hell of a lot more money than the average person. (College girls are usually the ones who benefit the most)

I think, once again, you need to do more research before you start typing.

Like Shin said: either you're woefully ignorant on the topic entirely, or you're a moron.

Which one is it, Tamburlaine?

My fucking God. Sass, I have compiled a list of times I have agreed with you:

1) Let's get this straight: allowing women to become prostitutes is fine. But trying to protect them from being sexually exploited degrades them. Right.
2) I'd like a way that is less degrading. I know some people here don't think it is degrading, but I don't think that is how the vast majority of the country feels.
3) If our government can spend a trillion dollars on the Iraq war, 3 trillion bailing out banks, and another trillion in medicare, then why can it not give better opportunities to these women? Now, once those opportunities are in place, the women can become prostitutes and do whatever they want. I just think that there wouldn't be as many.
4) Look, I have already said that I want prostitution to be legal. I well conceive of some people who even enjoy being prostitutes, although I think that that is probably a minority.

When prostitution is legalized, it would be good if efforts were put in place to give women in urban and rural areas opportunities other than prostitution. I do have a problem with it becoming the profession that impoverished people default into. A young girl or boy in a rural area may only have prostitution as viable work in order to survive. That seems to be exploitative to a cruel degree.
5) Nothing. I have said that I am perfectly fine with legal prostitution, as long is it is not the profession people default into.
6) So, I agree with you. But I will say it again: my only fear is that in rural areas prostitution will become the ONLY means of living for certain women. That's my only problem; but other than that legalize it all you want.
7) I've said it a million times now: I am perfectly fine with legalized prostitution, as long as no people are forced into it by economic conditions, because that is exploitation.
8) I think that legalizing prostitution can help lift some people out of poverty as well as solve some of the other problems you guys have brought up. On the other hand, I see this poverty as being inflicted from extra-personal forces, and I don't think prostitution is the solution every time. With the $50,000 a person our GDP offers, no one needs to be entering prostitution unless they truly desire it.



So, for the last time:

LEGALIZE IT.

I don't care. All I care about is that it is not the only thing that is available to young people, which is ALREADY the case in many places anyway.

Yet you keep going on about how people shouldn't have to "resort" to it. Like it's career suicide or something. Baffling.

When you are 18, and you need to support your family, and prostitution is the only thing around, you might do it even if you don't want to. I think that is exploitative. That's it. Maybe I am a fucking moron or something.

Good. Now stop. Argument is over. We're done.

Right now those same girls become strippers. That's legal. That's acceptable. A lot of people turn to selling drugs. Illegal and dangerous. My god, it's almost as if desperate people will ALWAYS have desperate acts they can turn to if pushed far enough.

My god.

The shock and awe of it.

If I am 18 and I need to support my family, I may have to work at Walmart, even if I don't want to. I think that's exploitative.

C'mon, Tamburlaine. It's not like renting your pussy out (even if it was legal!) is the only option for a woman who needs money.

Don't be ridiculous.

In some places of the United States it just about is.

You win, nice receding hair line in your profile.

I can get hair transplants, but you can't fix stupid, son.