Why is prostitution illegal?

The lord's right is not about prostitution - that's about the alleged priveledge of a leader to have sex with a woman.

Demanding and asking are certainly two different things. At the same time, harassment and prostitution are not linked so I'm not sure why there's a continued discussion about the harassment. The conflicts you mention could easily be addressed by making sure employers have adequate job descriptions. If a person's job description says they are there for sex, then they can probably find ways to ensure that their rights are preserved and they cater to the desires of their employer. By the way, secretaries with perks do exist - they just aren't listed in the employment section of the newspaper ...
 
SophieHirschfeld said:
The lord's right is not about prostitution - that's about the alleged priveledge of a leader to have sex with a woman.
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Yes yes I know... one has to spell everything in so much detail here...

What I mean is that f.e. a boss could demand something akin to that, with coercion of the economical kind, and that would not be very different to soliciting sex from a sex worker.


SophieHirschfeld said:
Demanding and asking are certainly two different things. At the same time, harassment and prostitution are not linked so I'm not sure why there's a continued discussion about the harassment.
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I tried to explain. Because of harassment laws, society admits that sex is not just like any other thing that a boss can demand (even just ASKING for it could be seen as harassment for many). Legalising prostitution is sort of against this way of thinking, specially since we know that in this society abuses can occur and economic coercion will certainly be used to get women to prostitute thamselves.

What if a boss offers to change an employee´s job description to "secretary with perks", as you call it, for an economic reward, is that very different to harassment?
 
Abooga said:
Yes yes I know... one has to spell everything in so much detail here...

What I mean is that f.e. a boss could demand something akin to that, with coercion of the economical kind, and that would not be very different to soliciting sex from a sex worker.
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The lord's rights only worked because the lord was the ultimate law in the area - he was the ultimate enforcer and producer of the law. An employer in a market economy is not.

Abooga said:
I tried to explain. Because of harassment laws, society admits that sex is not just like any other thing that a boss can demand (even just ASKING for it could be seen as harassment for many).
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The only reason why sex as an act is treated so differently is that it is 1) intricately linked to our psychological well being and 2) society has an irrational aversion to it.

However, perhaps we could show why it is still irrational and dangerous for an employer to harass someone in the way mentioned by example. Say you have someone hired for the purpose of accounting. It would be wrong and perhaps dangerous for an employer to take that employee to another building and give him a saw and tell him to help in the construction of a building. It wasn't the labor that the individual applied to the job to do, and there could be restraining factors in the way the individual thinks, values things and physically needs that make the job not only difficult but dangerous. The same thing could go for someone who is approached for sex in a work environment. They may not have the sexual education, the mental ability to approach the situation maturely or even the physical ability to do what is asked of them. That's just not the job they applied for. In that light, sexual activity in workplaces can be treated as any other skill. You don't ask the baker to mine coal and you don't ask the janitor to fly an airplane if it is not in their job description and/or they don't accept the task.

Abooga said:
Legalising prostitution is sort of against this way of thinking, specially since we know that in this society abuses can occur and economic coercion will certainly be used to get women to prostitute thamselves.
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Coersion and abuses can and do occur in any industry.

What if a boss offers to change an employee´s job description to "secretary with perks", as you call it, for an economic reward, is that very different to harassment?
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Since that's not what she was hired for and if it was not in her contract then she has every right to object and could even file a lawsuit over something like that.
 
Abooga said:
I don´t understand how this answers my point.
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It answers your point by telling you that there is no reason for a sex worker in Nevada to put up with any kind of unwanted sexual attention from her employer. The law against sexual harassement applies exactly the same way to a sex worker and her employer as it does to an office worker and her employer. So there is absolutely no irony as you state.


I got a very different impression from reading related past threads.
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Links to those specific threads, please? I have to see what you read before I can comment.

One Nevada house was described as a sort of prison, and many of the workers as mentally il and abused...
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Which one? Do you have a source for this story? Statistics, police reports from victims?

Show us your research then. I´d be interested to see it.
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"Us?" How many people are you?

The source for the "women are kept as prisoners!" spin is simple, and quite misleading. Yes, it's true the women are not allowed to leave the house while working. Here's why.

First, no one lives year-round at a house. Instead, a worker books a shift, usually two to three weeks. She reserves a room at the house for that time period. Then she must be medically cleared by a doctor. If she is disease-free, she can go to work.

While she is at the house, the house certifies to all customers that this worker is disease-free. Condoms are required at all houses, and there has not been a single case of HIV/AIDS transmission in a legal, licensed house since 1988. The transmission rates for other STDs is extremely low; lower than that of the general population. In fact, tourist and promotional sites for the State of Nevada claim that there have been no reported cases of any STD transmission from a Nevada brothel in that time.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000891.htm

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpa...4A15750C0A961948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

However, if the worker were allowed to leave the house freely, there is no way the house could certify she isn't having unprotected sex outside its purview, and is still disease-free when she returns. So in order for that certification to stand, she must remain on the premises during her shift. Yes, for the whole two or three weeks, or longer if she books for longer.

But she knows this before she ever shows up. If she doesn't want to do that, she can simply not go. Gasp! It's true! And yet, the women still book shifts and reserve rooms, whenever they want to, on their own schedules, knowing full well that once they enter, they can't leave until the shift is up.

If a worker does want or need to leave during her shift, she can go. No one makes her stay, or keeps her prisoner. But there are certain natural consequences to this. First, the worker who leaves must be re-certified by the doctor before coming back. Second, the worker's booked room will have been taken by another worker. There likely isn't going to be another open room for a few weeks. And third, it's an inconvenience to the house, in general. Often, your "shift" at the house has been announced, on the house website for instance, and your regulars expect you to be there. Your boss expects you to be there, like any other boss. Leaving tends to make any boss unhappy. He might not let you come back right away, as a kind of penalty. And there goes your income, yes?

So there are legitimate and sound reasons why a worker must remain on the premises for the duration of her shift.
 
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Abooga said:
So if one asked for sex twice to a sex worker that would be harassment?
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No.

And, one can demand for sex from an employee if he does it only once?
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Legally, one cannot demand sex from an employee. Not even once.

And why the sharp distinction?
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There isn't one. You're seeing something that isn't there, deliberately, I think.

If prostitution would be legal you could have all sorts of mixed employments, "secretary with extra services" etc. Could you still have the same sexual harassment laws we have now? Don´t you see the contradictins there?
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NO.

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.
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Bolding mine. Source: http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-sex.html

Just because you are a sex worker, that fact does not in any way exempt you or your employer from sexual harassment laws. If you are harassed, you bring a complaint like any other worker in any other job. The law does not care what your job is; you are still protected from unwanted sexual advances, regardless.

How is it you still can't get this?
 
SophieHirschfeld said:
The lord's rights only worked because the lord was the ultimate law in the area - he was the ultimate enforcer and producer of the law. An employer in a market economy is not.
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Forget the lords and the middle ages, it was just an example...

SophieHirschfeld said:
The only reason why sex as an act is treated so differently is that it is 1) intricately linked to our psychological well being and 2) society has an irrational aversion to it.
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So forcing someone to work a shift at a factory or forcing someone to do sex are EQUALLY exploitative? Both are rape? Or none?

And what´s the point of having rape laws then? You could just have laws about forcing people to do things in general. One guy kidnapping some girl and forcing her to wash his car would be the same as kidnapping some girl and raping her?

SophieHirschfeld said:
However, perhaps we could show why it is still irrational and dangerous for an employer to harass someone in the way mentioned by example. Say you have someone hired for the purpose of accounting. It would be wrong and perhaps dangerous for an employer to take that employee to another building and give him a saw and tell him to help in the construction of a building. It wasn't the labor that the individual applied to the job to do, and there could be restraining factors in the way the individual thinks, values things and physically needs that make the job not only difficult but dangerous. The same thing could go for someone who is approached for sex in a work environment. They may not have the sexual education, the mental ability to approach the situation maturely or even the physical ability to do what is asked of them. That's just not the job they applied for. In that light, sexual activity in workplaces can be treated as any other skill. You don't ask the baker to mine coal and you don't ask the janitor to fly an airplane if it is not in their job description and/or they don't accept the task.



Coersion and abuses can and do occur in any industry.



Since that's not what she was hired for and if it was not in her contract then she has every right to object and could even file a lawsuit over something like that.
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So then harassing an office worker into going out to get some coffees should be treated the same as harassing the same office worker into sex?
 
slingblade said:
"So if one asked for sex twice to a sex worker that would be harassment?"

No.
.
"Quote:
Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment"
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So how do you know if the sex worker welcomes the "sexual advances"? Because if he/she doesn´t welcome them, then you´re harassing him/her...

(ok, for this analogy to work I´ll change the first part to ""So if the boss requests a sex worker for sexual favors, that would be harassment?)
 
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slingblade said:
N
Just because you are a sex worker, that fact does not in any way exempt you or your employer from sexual harassment laws. If you are harassed, you bring a complaint like any other worker in any other job. The law does not care what your job is; you are still protected from unwanted sexual advances, regardless.

How is it you still can't get this?
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I think you´re the one who doesn´t get my point. I understand what you´re saying but in practice, when the sex worker´s boss, for example asks the employee to submit to his sexual advances (he could call it "quality control") or else lose the job, would that be harassment?
 
Abooga said:
So forcing someone to work a shift at a factory or forcing someone to do sex are EQUALLY exploitative? Both are rape? Or none?
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If rape is exploitation that does not make exploitation rape, you do understand that, right?

Abooga said:
And what´s the point of having rape laws then? You could just have laws about forcing people to do things in general. One guy kidnapping some girl and forcing her to wash his car would be the same as kidnapping some girl and raping her?
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No, because you're assuming that because an act falls into a category that the category becomes the act.
 
Abooga, you are committing a Syllogistic Fallacy.

This is what it looks like:

All P are a type of S.
Therefore, S is P.

Yours says:

All rapes are a type of coersion.
Therefore, coersion is rape.

Your variation:

All rapes are exploitation.
Therefore, exploitation is rape.

Let me turn this into something to SHOW you the flaw:

All cheerios are a type of cereal.
Therefore, cereal is cheerios.

All dresses are a type of clothing.
Therefore, clothing is dresses.

Do you see the flaw in your argument now?

While rape may be a type of coercion and/or exploitation. Exploitation and/or coercion is NOT rape.

I hope you understand it now.
 
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Ok, Andrea Dworkin is not a reliable source. Her statements are inconsistent and her studies don't have enough participants to be valid. Most of her arguments are bare assertions. Thus, the prostitution research link, which is mostly repetition of Dworkin's work is not a reliable source. The sisyphe link is simply emotional appeal, assertion and other forms of the same fallacy you've been using.
 
SophieHirschfeld said:
Abooga, you are committing a Syllogistic Fallacy.

...

While rape may be a type of coercion and/or exploitation. Exploitation and/or coercion is NOT rape.

I hope you understand it now.
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Thank you for you patience. However... bear with me...

I said:

"society admits that sex is not just like any other thing that a boss can demand (even just ASKING for it could be seen as harassment for many)."

And you answered:

"The only reason why sex as an act is treated so differently is that it is 1) intricately linked to our psychological well being and 2) society has an irrational aversion to it."

and then you went on to argue that sexual harassment is wrong because it entails a a change of work description, just like it is wrong to "ask the baker to mine coal" . you said: "In that light, sexual activity in workplaces can be treated as any other skill.".

That´s why I ask why we have rape (or in this case harassment) laws. The same laws that don´t allow a boss to ask "the baker to mine" could be applied to the boss that asks the secretary to give him a B.J.

But that´s not the case, there are SPECIFIC laws against sexual harassment and rape.

Do you think these laws should not exist?
 
SophieHirschfeld said:
Ok, Andrea Dworkin is not a reliable source. Her statements are inconsistent and her studies don't have enough participants to be valid. Most of her arguments are bare assertions. Thus, the prostitution research link, which is mostly repetition of Dworkin's work is not a reliable source. The sisyphe link is simply emotional appeal, assertion and other forms of the same fallacy you've been using.
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Thanks for the critical view.

But I´m not aware of having commited any fallacies yet. In fact I was trying to point out what I think are fallacious or contradictory aspects of society once prostitution is legalised.

(And I still think regulation it is probably a good (pragmatic) idea. I´m just trying to clarify some misgivings I have with it...)
 
Jonnyclueless said:
I'm kinda of curious to find some anti-prostitution arguments. I'm having a hard time understanding the basis for prostitution being illegal. I am sure there are some decent arguments out there.

Any opinions?
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Personaly I blame the victorians.
 
SophieHirschfeld said:
That's actually two different things. If someone gets a raise for doing somethign sexual for their boss, well, that's their business.
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Well assuming that their boss's boss is fine with reasons other than competence being primary for determining raises, a union might also have something strong to say.
 
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