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Could prostitution laws be subverted using a video camera?

volatile

Scholar and a Gentleman
volatile
Joined
Aug 19, 2006
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There have been a few threads on here recently dealing with pornography and / or prostitution, and they got me thinking.*

In most jurisdictions in the US, and in the UK, the exchange of money for sex is illegal if contextualised as prostitution, but legal if contextualised as pornography. The reasons for this are interesting and complex, but give rise to a possible method for subverting prostitution laws.

There must be hours of footage from most shoots filmed by professional porn companies that never see the light of day, and the making of porn is as legal as the selling of it; it seems to me, then, that the simple presence of the camera is what divides prostitution from pornography. Why, then, do brothels not just set up a video camera in the corner of the room?








* [SIZE=-2]Get your minds out of the gutter[/SIZE]
 
volatile said:
There have been a few threads on here recently dealing with pornography and / or prostitution, and they got me thinking.*

In most jurisdictions in the US, and in the UK, the exchange of money for sex is illegal if contextualised as prostitution, but legal if contextualised as pornography. The reasons for this are interesting and complex, but give rise to a possible method for subverting prostitution laws.

There must be hours of footage from most shoots filmed by professional porn companies that never see the light of day, and the making of porn is as legal as the selling of it; it seems to me, then, that the simple presence of the camera is what divides prostitution from pornography. Why, then, do brothels not just set up a video camera in the corner of the room?

* [SIZE=-2]Get your minds out of the gutter[/SIZE]
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In a porn shoot, the sexual images are being sold, not the sex. The people engaging in the sex are doing so for pay, but are not paying each other, and are, rather, being paid by the production company.

Tokie
 
Tokenconservative said:
In a porn shoot, the sexual images are being sold, not the sex. The people engaging in the sex are doing so for pay, but are not paying each other, and are, rather, being paid by the production company.

Tokie
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But there's no legal compulsion to sell all, or any, of the images recorded. The distribution of the images is incidental to the payment for the act.

Lots of the porn actors and actresses own the production companies whose films they perform in, so I don't think that's the distinction either.

I realise I'm missing some legal nuance here - I just wondered what it was.
 
Most patrons probably do not want the “servicing” recorded. Without at least the intention to distribute finial product the premise could not be construed as real. Perhaps distributed as a live web cam 1 time only showing with masked participants you might get around the law and have some customers willing to participate. However I feel the fear of blackmail or full distribution may keep a lot of people away.
 
volatile said:
In most jurisdictions in the US, and in the UK, the exchange of money for sex is illegal if contextualised as prostitution,
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In the UK prostitution is not illegal. Solicitation, living of immoral earnings (pimping) keeping a disorderly House (running a brothel) and many other associated acts are illegal. But buying and selling sex is not. No camera required.
 
brodski said:
In the UK prostitution is not illegal. Solicitation, living of immoral earnings (pimping) keeping a disorderly House (running a brothel) and many other associated acts are illegal. But buying and selling sex is not. No camera required.
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That makes sense. So my next question is - why are adverts from porn production companies seeking actors and actresses not counted as "soliciting"?

If I set up a brothel and advertised for customers by asking for people to come for a porn shoot, why wouldn't that fly with the law?
 
Remember the DC scandal that nabbed a couple of prominent politicians last year? It brought up a couple of interesting distinctions on what is and isn't legal. My favorite defense was "it's legal if you're lying on your stomach".

http://www.slate.com/id/2165573/?nav=fix
 
volatile said:
That makes sense. So my next question is - why are adverts from porn production companies seeking actors and actresses not counted as "soliciting"?
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no, as you are paying both people to have sex. Also, from what i can remember of the days when the stage still ran adds for porn shoots, the adverts are very carefully worded to avoid actually saying anything illegal...
If I set up a brothel and advertised for customers by asking for people to come for a porn shoot, why wouldn't that fly with the law?
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Why bother when you can just advertise as a massage parlour?
 
volatile said:
That makes sense. So my next question is - why are adverts from porn production companies seeking actors and actresses not counted as "soliciting"?
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California v. Freeman

If I set up a brothel and advertised for customers by asking for people to come for a porn shoot, why wouldn't that fly with the law?
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You would run into issues with pandering laws since you would be paying the people involved for the purpose of sexually gratifying yourself or the people involved.
 
I think the OP serves as a perfect illustration of the fundamental flaw with and idiocy of morality laws. The law should do two things - it should prevent people from interfering with the rights and lives of others and it should punish those who do.
 
In prostitution, you are paying someone to have sex with you, in pornography, you are paying someone to have sex with some third party. However, if you had some sort of prostitution collective whereby a bunch of people join a club wherein the pay for each other to have sex with prostitutes (with a camera and vague attempts at pretending it's a porn shoot), then in principle your plan might work.
 
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UserGoogol said:
In prostitution, you are paying someone to have sex with you, in pornography, you are paying someone to have sex with some third party. However, if you had some sort of prostitution collective whereby a bunch of people join a club wherein the pay for each other to have sex with prostitutes (with a camera and vague attempts at pretending it's a porn shoot), then in principle your plan might work.
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California v. Freeman look it up.
 
JoeEllison said:
You could also "subvert" those laws by getting a girlfriend...
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And yet Hugh Grant sought out a prostitute even though he was dating Elizabeth Hurley. The desire for a taste of strange can be powerful.
 
UserGoogol said:
In prostitution, you are paying someone to have sex with you, in pornography, you are paying someone to have sex with some third party.
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Not necessarily. In POV porn the person holding the camera and the person having sex are the same person. And if you are the producer of the video you could well end up paying someone to have sex with you and getting your profit from future sales.

As to generally why porn is legal and prostitution isn't is that porn falls under more first amendment protections in the US and in general you can make free expression arguments for porn while you can not make a good free speech argument for prostitution.
 
So set up your brothel as a "Produce your own porn movie here studio". Supply the camera- welded to a tripod above the bed. Along with a supply of blank discs, have unemployed 'actresses' standing by. Require the 'amateur producer' to take all of the recordings with him when he leaves. Possible have an 'editing facility' to allow erasing the tape on the way out.
 
ponderingturtle said:
As to generally why porn is legal and prostitution isn't is that porn falls under more first amendment protections in the US and in general you can make free expression arguments for porn while you can not make a good free speech argument for prostitution.
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That's the part I don't really understand, legally. Pornography doesn't become "speech" until its distributed - but the financial exchange comes way before that (and, indeed, takes place whether or not the images are disseminated).
 
casebro said:
So set up your brothel as a "Produce your own porn movie here studio". Supply the camera- welded to a tripod above the bed. Along with a supply of blank discs, have unemployed 'actresses' standing by. Require the 'amateur producer' to take all of the recordings with him when he leaves. Possible have an 'editing facility' to allow erasing the tape on the way out.
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Indeed - the pimp / brothel owner becomes the owner of a space rented for the making of pornography, and thus becomes legit. Right?
 
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