Morality Concerning Prostitution

So, your real topic is things that just seem wrong, but you can't actually defend your uneasyness. Some things are just . . . WRONG.

I don't consider an act of prostitution morally wrong, if the woman is acting freely (also the man), if they do all that is possible to protect the health each of the other and both parties are of legal age.

I am not inclined to think prostitution is wrong. That whole American Dream bit says "do what you love". What better profession for some people? If it were regulated, medical risks could be avoided, as they are in the porn industry. (Why porn is ok and prostitution is not is really beyond my comprehension.)
That being said, there are many reasons to consider prostitution wrong. For one it promotes sexual activity outside of a relationship. Of course, so does every TV show going. It may result in unwanted pregnancy. Thankfully, abortion is still legal, but this is still a point for consideration. Then there is the exploitative piece and the objectification of women that needs to be considered. Some/most women prostitute themselves, not because they want to, but because they have low self esteem and/or no other way to make money. If these reasons are not enough, I wonder if prostitution encourages modern slave trade.

Well prostitution isn't one of them. Besides that keeping prostitution illegal does more harm than if it were made legal. So people can not use the argument that prostitution causes harm as a reason to keep it illegal. Because that is a logical fallacy.

If both parties are entering into the situation fully willingly then why would it be considered harmful? If it were to be forced in the sense that the person is there against their will and would not do it upon their own volition then it is wrong. But a majority are not in that situation. In fact if you made it legal there would be even less chances of someone being forced into it.

No one who typically objects to prostitution honestly ever considers every aspect of the whole business when they consider it. They only look at one aspect of the business and that tends to be the part they disagree with the most and stop at that. They rarely ever look at what the effects of making it illegal will do. They don't care about those effects. They don't care that the demand for sex will still exist regardless if you make it illegal. They don't care that since there is a demand that women will get involved in it and put themselves into unsafe situations. They don't care because they write it off with some stupid comment like, "Well since it was illegal they get what they deserve if they are getting hurt because it's illegal."

Pimps would not exist to take advantage of women if prostitution were legal. Sure there would still be technically "pimps" however the conditions by which these women or men would work would be higher quality or better conditions. How do i know this for certain? Because no woman is going to work for an abusive pimp if they have the chance to go somewhere else that doesn't abuse them. Just like any other job. If you boss abuses you, are you going to stay working there? No, you'll leave. You think your boss is going to show up at your house with a gun and make you go to work to flip burgers. No. Never happens and it wouldn't happen if it were legalized. But since it is illegal, they can abuse the women because they have no other option, n0 other place to go. If they do try to find another pimp to work with, chances are the conditions will be just as bad.

Another aspect is that you can control diseases and the chances of spreading AIDS if you legalize it. You can have the women and men tested where as street walkers are not or rarely ever tested for AIDS or other STDS. So the chances of spreading disease is much higher if it is illegal. Sure you could tell people don't go to prostitutes and then you won't get an STD or AIDS but that is just plain silly. It's going to happen because the demand for sex is not something you can just make go away.

It does not even matter if you were to make prostitution a death penalty for convictions. There would still be prostitutes however if the penalty were that high, the price of it would also increase dramatically which would bring even more people into the business. It would solve nothing.

Not only would you make the whole business safer but you would free up police resources. So many law enforcement officers are spending time trying to either stop prostitutes or to catch sex buyers that there are far worse crimes going investigated or even looked into because they are too spread thin on trying to prosecute and convict people of this non crime.

Which brings me to court costs. All the trials and convictions of prostitutes or sex buyers eats up even more of tax payer money to pay for the lawyers and judges where this money could be spent on real crime cases.

Sex walkers would not walk on the street if prostitution were legal. More than likely they would establish businesses similar to a strip club, where the women can be in a safe environment and the men who go to these places can be monitored. The women or men can be safe from predators who just want to rape and murder someone. Which brings me back to police investigations of murdered prostitutes. There are thousands of murders every year that are prostitutes and police are paid to investigate these crimes. Which is nothing more than tax money. If prostitution were legal, these murders would drastically reduce, I wouldn't claim they would completely disappear but they would definitely dramatically drop. This means less work for police investigators and less tax money wasted on crimes that may never get solved.

I know this is getting long, so long story short. You must weight every thing in your consideration other than your own moral opinion. Sure you might consider it wrong, but that is not a universal truth. Not everyone thinks it is wrong. You don't have to accept prostitution nor go to a prostitute if it were legal. Just like alcohol is legal to consume, yet I don't consume it. I have never been to a prostitute and probably never would even if it was legal. However; I still support it's legalization because it actually causes the least amount of harm.

Try considering what prostitution brings; all the harms and goods with their associated "whys". Compare that result with an individual's "right" to do with their bodies what they choose.

When we decide (ostensibly via the laws we make) to prohibit one thing or another, upon these there must be reasons; reasons that have a solid basis. As a general rule, you don't want to tell someone they can't do something with their body unless by doing so it creates an infringement upon another (of an agreed-upon basic respect or recognized "right").

As far as prostitution goes, I think its probably wise to consider the different settings and motivations in which its done; because what might create an infringement upon another in one setting might be made moot by how it's done in another. To me: I don't like it because I believe what's being sold is worth much more than money; but I can't deem it wrong en masse and on its own unless the circumstances and situation makes it wrong (which is where I'm at personally).

Thanks

Obviously, I was wrong, and the topic is prostitution. Too bad. It had potential.

For the majority of act of prostetution, I find no harm done, it's a service for mankind that has been there since dawn of man.

On the other hand it will spawn things such as illegal sex-trafficking, using sexslaves, also minors are in certain countries being abused.

It's a sad situation, since it's considerd immoral, but most regimes turn the blind eye, or have made laws against it, but it won't remove the need of sex in people.

Imo it should be legal, stopping the sex slave-trade.

I somehow doubt that there many women who so enjoy sex that their dream job is to couple with any man who crosses their threshold.

There is nothing liberating or self-expressive about being a prostitute and the notion that there might be is ridiculous in the extreme.

Having said this, if an adult woman wishes to barter sex for money and is not being coerced to do so, why should it be illegal?

Prohibition of so-called vices are never effective and always lead to crime; often violent in nature.

Keeping prostitution in the shadows enables the abuse of the women who trade in sex.

It seems to me that most women turn to prostitution out of desperation, but until desperation can be banished from the world, how is it in any way moral to assure that the desperate choice is all the more dangerous and debasing?

It also seems to me that most women who are players in the pornography industry are in some way psychic damaged but at least they can govern their own lives.

There are actions people can take that can be effectively controlled by governmental prohibition: murder, rape, robbery, etc because there isn't a thriving market for these sins, and the people who are harmed by them have not entered into the act willingly.

Prostitution, drugs, and gambling are not examples of such actions.

We don't need to approve of them, but I would argue that allowing our disapproval to worsen their ill effects is stupid and immoral.

How are we defining prostitution? At what point does an exchange of goods, services or money for sexual favors become prostitution?

What degree of sexual act?
What degree of goods/services/money?

On the other hand, we can simply look at prostitution in the terms it actually takes place in and see it is a brutal abuse of people. If we muse too much about the principles and technicalities, we'll wander off too far away from the real issue.

e.g. - Fundamentally, a kissing booth is a monetary exchange for a sexual act. But we need not do the mental gymnastics to make prostitution as morally harmless as a kissing booth.

A
R
T

Although prostitution does no harm by itself, there are several serious issues surrounding it that might trigger your something-is-not-right instinct.

• Slavery: A good number of prostitutes are lured into the US with false promises, where they are then imprisoned and raped as sex slaves. Slavery is a horrible crime, much of which happens in the sex trade.
  
• Exploitation of minors: A good number of prostitutes are minors, pimped by their parents or by other elders who ought to be protecting them. Exploitation of minors is a serious problem, much of which happens in the sex trade.
  
• Sexually transmitted diseases: Prostitutes are STD hubs. Moreover, their Johns, having had sex with them, go on to transmit the diseases to their unsuspecting wives and girlfriends. Public health, while less pressing than slavery and exploiting minors, is still a major concern around prostitution.

Personally, I would support that society lift the moral taboos and stigmata surrounding prostitution, and that it legalize, safety-regulate, and tax prostitution like any other hazardous job. That way, we could address prostitution problems with narrower measures than the outright moral and legal bans we now have. Nevertheless, since prostitution often comes bundled with major amounts of suffering, you have sound moral reasons for objecting to it.

thomas wrote :



in canada the new " harmonized " sales tax would be applied - just like for any other service contracted .

still kind of strange : " ... ... and please add 13 % ' HST ' ( harmonized sales tax ) " .

*** HST is the new combined provincial and federal sales tax - ARGHHH !

I find my self agreeing with Finn again. This simply has to stop.

And agreeing with Thomas' excellent points. I expect there would still be brothels et al that get by with an underground economy, but the concept seems better to me than the present situation.

Morality wrong no however street prostitution can be a great public nuance and therefore should be ban.

Prostitution, if a freely expressed act between consenting adults can easily be argued to be perfectly ethical.

However, the empirical research strongly suggests that prostitutes, as a group, contain a significantly higher proportion of people who come from sexually/physically abusive childhoods, have substance dependency problems or are severely economically disadvantaged when compared to the wider population.

At which point, one has to seriously question whether prostitution is a freely expressed behaviour.

You know Steve your points are very likely to be true however does those facts in any way justify taking away the right of adults to made such decisions away from them?

At least until the economic tank a large percent of people willing to sign up for the military was from a lower level of the population then the average.

Is that fact in any way implying we should keep those members of society from signing up?

At the very very highest levels of prostitutions/escort, we have lawyers, doctors, and the winners of world beauty contests taking part and if you do not find such people at the bottom so what as that is just the way the society work in all aspects.

If your argument is taken to its logical conclusion, then we shound not intervene to minimise sweat-shop, near-slavery in third world countries. After all, these people are free to not work under such henious conditions aren't they? The fact that their probability of starving is very high if they don't "agree" to the working conditions on offer is neither here nor there is it?

Who are we, after all, to stand between them and their "freedom" eh?

Additionally, what about such places that employ kids as young as 10 years old? What about prostitutes who are just out of high school or, in some countries, even younger due to lower ages of "consent"?

Are they free?

If not, what criteria are you using to decide who is free and who is not?

Where do you draw the line?

ADULTS I am damn sure Steve I stated taking away the rights of adults not ten years olds.

As far as adults in third world countries working in “slave” manufacturing well before those "slaves" shops came along a lot more of the those populations were dying from lack of water or food or shelter from diseases carrying insects.

Placing economic/politics pressures on such manufactures to improve the working conditions is fine forbidding workers from working for these companies when the other choice is death for themselves and their families is not.

Define "adult"