Why not legalize prostitution?

Guys why do you bother arguing in threads that will only be sealed forever the moment Styphon notices that something in the Palace is actually alive

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Tamburlaine

Yes, but not all of them require becoming a prostitute to lead a finnancially stable life.

I don't know what you do for a living, but I guess you do it pro bono. I kind of admire your selflessness. The rest of us are mostly whores, though. We sell ourselves and our talents for the petty reward of filthy lucre. How foul it is that society has driven us to this!

There is no practical distinction between "I work as a coal miner because it's the best job available to me" and "I work at a brothel because it's the best job available to me". Coal mining, like sex work, can be an immensely dangerous job if the proper precautions are not taken, but does anyone propose it should be illegal to work as a coal miner? Of course not! Instead, laws are put into place to make coal-mining a safer profession.

The arguments in play here seem to revolve entirely around the notion that using one's body to make a living abruptly becomes implicitly monstrous the moments one drops one's drawers. Why? What is so implicitly amoral about the vagina or the penis relatively to the arms or the back? Yes, fucking for a living can give you diseases if you don't take precautions. Are we to outlaw DOCTORS on this basis? After all, they touch sick people every day! HOW DANGEROUS!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Tamburlaine

It is not I who is doing the allowing, but the US Government, which, by the way, allows GROWN ASS PEOPLE to do or not things/professions all the time.

A: The federal government doesn't disallow prostitution AFAIK. There are laws governing interstate travel or immigration for the purpose of prostitution, but I'm pretty sure the FBI doesn't give a tin shit if you invite some dude into your house and charge him $100 when he leaves. Local authorities will be very interested, but not the Fed.

B: Name any other victimless profession that is broadly outlawed in the majority of the USA (and no, doing a job that may subject you to certain stresses does not make you a victim).

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Tamburlaine

I assume teaching people how to build dirty bombs, drugs, or other harmful substances would land people in jail if they did it out in the open.

You assume it would be illegal to openly advise people on the practice of producing & using drugs? Why would you assume that?



I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by killerpineapple

Sex makes everything different.

Why? Exactly what went wrong in your upbringing that you see sexual intercourse as some kind of magical transfigurating event? It's just nerve endings and lube, no particular witchcraft is involved. Your perception of sex as some kind of witchcraft that corrupts everything it touches is hard to rationalize on any level other than "because the Bible tells me so".

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Tamburlaine

Then let's go through this example: would you mind me fucking your mom for $10,000? And have absolutely no qualms? You are a being of pure reason, afterall, and you know that the money is more real than nut I'd bust on her face or what that would mean to you or her.

"How would you like if it I fucked your mom"? You're a real class act, Tamburlaine. But I tell you what, put the money in my hand and I'll escort you to the cemetery straightaway. Hell, I'll even give you the shovel.

However, if my mother weren't both three years dead and morbidly obese in the bargain, whatever acts you might like to pay her for would be entirely between the two of you. It's none of my business how anyone makes their money — even my family, provided it impacts me in no material way.

You know what, I've got a cousin who's kind of slutty, maybe we can compromise here.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

"SEX MAKES EVERYTHING DIFFERENT"

"How? Explain why sex makes everything different."

"IT JUST DOES".

How is that different from "it's magic"?

I am really, really curious about your logic here and I'm trying to figure out whether you're 13 years old and helplessly naive or 65 years old and desperately bitter.

Quote:

if sex is a very casual "no-big-deal" kind of thing for adults

For adults that willingly choose to have sex with people with whom they have no emotional ties, yes. It is. Why is this so complicated for you? It's a service that you provide, dispassionately, with the use of your body. Like a masseuse (There's a reason these two professions tend into wink-nudge overlap). If you're doing something on a professional basis, for money, it stops being intensely emotional about an hour into your first day on the job. If you want to use morticians as an example

Riding a rollercoaster can be very exhilirating, yes. It can be a very enthralling experience that you remember for weeks, if not years. But if you were being paid to ride rollercoasters every day, you'd get jaded about it in a goddamn hurry, don't you think?

However, here are some 'spec knucks on outlawing morticians. The funeral industry is a massive scam.

FELIPE NO

Yes, adding prostitution to office work would, in fact, change everything about office work.

Adding office work to prositution would also change everything about prostitution.

Adding prostitution to prostitution, however, does not cause any great waves.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

The argument that sex is super-powerful because people get upset about rape doesn't hold water. Rape isn't horrifying because it involves sex; it's horrifying because it violates a person's control over their own body. That's why we prosecute date-rapists who drug women and rape them in their sleep. The victim may not even remember the actual rape or derive any direct harm from the experience; it's the violation that horrifies. It has nothing to do with the sex and everything to do with being pulled around on somebody else's puppet strings.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by killerpineapple

So yeah, I think prostitution is morally wrong. I support the right for lawmakers to make laws based on these moral values. Not unconditionally. Not based on religion. Not based on one culture

This is a pipe dream. You are positing the existence of some Universal Morality that transcends religious/cultural boundaries. There is no such thing.

To propose, straight-faced, that the notion of prostitution is somehow inherently offense to mankind's universal ethical fiber is to ignore several thousand years of history. The idea that sluttin' it up for cash cash dollars is somehow WRONG is very much a relatively recent development and one that I think you'll find a significant proportion of the world is still a little iffy about.

Look, it's fine and good, in principle, to make laws with a moral foundation. As somebody already pointed out in this thread, most laws have some kind of moral basis underpinning them. However, there's an important principle separating, say, laws about theft, murder, or assault and laws about prostitution or homosexuality.

This principle is the determination of harm. Stealing is illegal. Why? Because it harms the victim financially without his consent. Assault is illegal. Why? Because it harms the victim physically without his consent. Stalking is illegal. Why? Because it harms the victim psychologically without his consent.

However, there is no law against assaulting yourself. If you punch yourself in the face and give yourself a black eye, or deliberately drive your motorbike into a ditch, it's extraordinarily unlikely that police will find you very interesting. Why? Because it is accepted wisdom in most Western cultures that people have the right to do whatever they want to themselves. This is why smoking cigarettes is legal. This is why drinking liquor is legal. This is why eating sausages wrapped in cookie dough is legal.

And these are things that PROVABLY, DEMONSTRABLY can hurt you, sometimes lethally. Yet we allow them. Why? Self-determination. You have a right, in America, to intentionally stick your hand in a blender. May it be stupid to do so? Sure. But if it's your hand and your blender, hey hey. That's between you and the baffled ER staff.

Your argument hinges upon the (questionable) notion that being a prostitute may somehow result in self-harm. It does not demonstrably do so, but it may. Fair enough. But if demonstrably self-harmful behaviors remain legal, on what basis do we illegalize arguably self-harmful behaviors?

The question of whether prostitution is traumatizing for the prostitute is irrelevant when prostitution is entered into as a choice on the part of the prostitute. Adults in the United States have a right to harm themselves.

"It's bad for ya" is not a basis for law.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

"It makes me uncomfortable" is definitely not a valid basis on which to hang legislation. If I could ban anything that made me uncomfortable then we'd never get to have this conversation because liberty-hating mob-rule enthusiasts would be locked up.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by killerpineapple

From what basis do you think current laws developed from?

Precisely the same basis that lies beneath antiabortion legislation: the desire to undermine the status of women. Bans on prostitution, specifically, were designed to make it more difficult for women to live productive lives independent of a man on which to rely. If a woman has her own income, she no longer needs a man. This reduces the pool of marriageable women, which in turn increases the number of bachelors, which leads to patrilineal lines dying out — which, in a patriarchal culture, is entirely unacceptable.

Of course, nowadays we all pretend sexism is over and women can take any job they want so the ban on prostitution is largely just an anachronistic leftover which survives purely on the will of... well, people who feel it's BAD for reasons they can't quite communicate.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Tamburlaine

I am perfectly fine with legalized prostitution, as long as no people are forced into it by economic conditions, because that is exploitation.

It should be noted that adequately severe economic conditions are quite capable of forcing people into certain niche occupations even when these occupations are illegal. The only difference is that these desperate, economically-disadvantaged people would enjoy the same legal protections that anyone else does at their work. So what you really mean to say is:

Originally Posted by Tamburlaine

I am perfectly fine with legalized prostitution, period.

Man what a waste of time that was, huh? =D

I was speaking idiomatically.

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?!

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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

FELIPE NO

Tam, you are not ready for the monster you have unleashed

Do you have any idea how many degrees this man has

ANY IDEA WHATSOEVER

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

IT IS A LARGE NUMBER OF DEGREES

MORE THAN ONE

YET LESS THAN TEN

THE THREAT BEFORE YOU IS UNCERTAIN, FRIEND

DO YOU DARE?

CAN YOU DARE?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Tamburlaine

You win...

There's nowhere I can't reach.

It's just a little yellow man with no body

just havin' a little party all on his lonesome

havin' a good time

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

well it ain't yale

so why the fuck you even mention it bitch

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Why you even gonna ask that

Styphon spoke to you and you still ain't banned

if I didn't know better I'd think he must owe you some cash, ain't nobody that lucky

I was speaking idiomatically.

Yes Tamburlaine but how does one get the gold border

That is your homework assignment

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Why you gotta do a nigga's homework for him?



is he payin u

with his YALE money

How ya doing, buddy?

pineapple nobody cares about you okay

tamburlaine is the new hotness

his arguments are crazy and convoluted and dumb like a tilt-a-whirl

your arguments are lame and slow and boring like a ferris wheel

GFF ill needs a savior such as you

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