I believe that many of the problems you list are due, in part, to the
current laws against prostitution.
You say that the majority of women currently entering into
prostitution were sexually abused as children and have had no help
coping with that abuse. You may well be right. It is hard to get
good demographics on criminal industries. My sense is that you may be
overstating the numbers but even if its 25%/75% that's not OK.
I wish I could recall the source on this, but a man who I was talking
to was telling me about his wife's job which was to find young girls
who had been abused and coerced into prostitution and intervene.
According to them, one source of prostitutes on the streets of
Minneapolis are kids who left home (for a wide variety of reasons,
some of which were probably abuse but others likely weren't) and got a
bus ticket into the city.
Being kids, they often don't have much when they get here. There's a
certain type of scum who waits at the bus station for these kids.
Acts nice to them. Gives them food, a place to stay, assures them
that their parents are bad and that they can crash here for as long as
they like and have the freedom they were craving. Then, they maybe
get them drunk or get them high. Coerce or encourage them into sex
and take pictures. After this, they tell the kids, "You can never go
home, your family wouldn't accept you back now that you've done this".
They make these kids feel dirty, tainted, worthless and trapped.
They are practiced and experienced at this psychological conditioning
and they are good at it. Within 4 - 8 months, the pimp's got a new
prostitute.
There are some folks in the world that shouldn't have to wait to get
to hell to burn.
Do you really think this dynamic would be nearly as likely to exist if
prostitution were legal and licensed? I tend to be hesitant about
over licensing, but some licensing is good and prostitution is a good
prospect for it if for no other reason than to make sure this kind of
stuff doesn't happen.
You argue about intervention - don't you think that having
prostitution legalized and licensed gives much more opportunity for
intervention? I personally think that licensing should involve
regular health screenings and see no reason why, especially for people
applying for new licenses, this shouldn't involve some sort of
discussion with a mental health counselor.
I'd mentioned that I consider euthanasia to be a related issue. It
could easily be considered appropriate that as a prelude to the doctor
giving a prescription for something lethal, the candidate be required
to go through some work with a counselor to be sure this was really
what the person wanted. I think for men and women going into
prostitution, a similar screening session could be appropriate. Do
you know what you're getting into? Is this really what you want to
do? Are you fully aware of the physical and psychological risks?
When people go into dangerous careers, we require that they be
informed of the risks. This should also be a part of licensing. Yes,
all this means that licensed prostitutes are likely to be a bit more
expensive than black market ones but I would be amazed if the vast
majority of clients wouldn't be willing to pay the premium, if for no
other reason than less fear of taking AIDS or other nasties home with
them.
You talked about prostitutes having their kids taken away from them.
Don't you think this might have something to do with the fact that
prostitution is illegal?
There's also something else that has stuck with me for a long time:
When I was young, I was at my parents house in southern Wisconsin
listening to NPR. They were talking about child prostitutes in
Minneapolis and stated that boys who prostituted themselves on the
streets of Minneapolis had an average lifespan of 2 years. Now, this
was a long time ago. I don't know if it was accurate then or if it is
accurate now, but it nailed me pretty hard. They were talking about
kids my age, many of whom would be dead in two years.
Legalizing prostitution would go a long ways towards ending this dynamic.
Right now there is financial and sexual incentive to the rampant child
abuse that occurs around black market prostitution. Legalizing
prostitution would, in a large part, remove this incentive.
To my knowledge, in places where prostitution is legalized or
decriminalized, the types of abuses that we should all be concerned
about are significantly reduced. The conditions that the men and
women in the industry work under are significantly increased. If I am
mistaken in this understanding, please point me at some facts that
prove it.
And, all this set aside. When you do have two adults (mentally and
physically) who wish to exchange money for sex, what on earth is your
justification for telling them that they can't?
We had the couple that lives downstairs in my house up for dinner the
other night. I asked them their opinion the subject. The female
member of the couple just scoffed and said "of course it should be
legal, its ridiculous that it isn't."
You're going to get no disagreement from me that non-consensual
physical and psychological abuse are crimes that should not be
tolerated. You'll get no disagreement from me that children are
easier to manipulate and coerce and should have a greater degree of
protection and that we need to be more vigilant in watching out for
their welfare.
Where I disagree whole heartedly is on the idea that criminalizing a
transaction that should be legal between consenting adults does
anything to protect those we wish to protect. In fact, I argue
heavily to the contrary - by putting the entire industry in the
shadows, we make it far easier for those who will abuse the
vulnerable.
- phaedrus, (j.goray), 3-6, earth.
On Jan 15, 2008 7:55 AM, WIZARD MARKS <<email obscured>> wrote:
> Mike Jensvold: "The prohibitionist attitude on the surface seems to be
morallysuperior. But at its core it suggests that: if we don't completely stop
X behavior, it will devour us." No, you are reinterpreting what I've said. Six
percent percent of female prostitutes (usually those working for the expensive
out call services) enter into prostitution as functioning adults, both
physically and emotionally. The other 94% of prostituted women (those who were
sexually abused as children, but had no help to recover from those wounds) are
emotionally retarded concerning issues of adult sexuality. Ergo, a male's
chances of paying for sex with a functioning adult prostitute are 16 to 1
against that happening. For the 94% of prostituted women, a male is actually
engaging in sex with a child. Therefore, when men are using any of the 94% of
prostitutes, they are, by that act, revictimizing an unrecovered victim of
child sexual abuse. Know that when you pay for prostitutes' attention, y
ou
> are paying to re-victimize a child-woman. Concomitant with that, you may
have gotten hold of a prostitute who is tired of being victimized and has
enough gumption to 'whup your sorry a**' for the insult. Does not happen all
that often, of course, sometimes the prostitutes steal your wallet, your car,
or give you some venereal disease, gratis, no extra charge. You could look on
those events as 'revenge of the lawn' actions. The other thing I've said is
that "customers" can no longer use store front commercial prostitution services
on Lake St. because they are all closed after 30+ years of work on many
people's parts. Whoopee! I was sick of looking at the Utopia East out my
kitchen and dining room windows. Maybe someone will rent that building, put a
new face on it, and help people with their tax returns in Spanish or Arabic. Or
fix bicycles. Prostitution will probably never get wiped out so long as people
lead with the lizard brain. We are predatory by nature as a species.
B
> ut it does not keep us from recognizing what we do with different types of
our predation. We've outlawed canniblism, murder, etc. for that reason. It
hasn't stopped any of those behaviors, but it has slowed down some of them.
>
> The cost to us, the taxpayers, is enormous. How many prostitutes have their
children taken away from them. One prostituted woman I know had her five
children taken by the state/county. If they are kept in orphanages, it cost to
raise them and school them. If they are fostered out, the foster parent gets
over $900/mo. to keep each child. I doubt the prostituted women are paying
taxes. When they get sick, someone pays the costs, they don't have the money.
I've never met a prostituted woman who had any money. (Except Rebecca Rand, but
she was a sauna pimp.) If she gets AIDS, that costs three fortunes. Prostituted
women don't have insurance.
>
> Legalizing prostitution means legalizing the right to sexually abuse women
and children and paying the cost of the damage.