Should prostitution be decriminalised?

Poll

Should prostitution be decriminalised?

F.Nietzsche

So should it?

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It already is.

Original post by Europhile

It already is.

Whoops!

Reply 3

zippity.doodah

you mean full-on brothels and red light districts? yes!

Reply 4

HigherMinion

Original post by zippity.doodah

you mean full-on brothels and red light districts? yes!

>muh free market will solve all.

Nice try. Let's legalise prostitution, then marriage between siblings, bestiality, legalisation of all drugs. Etc. Etc.

I am sovereign over my own body! I am an individual!

I believe the lack of understanding from familial wisdom has destroyed any tradition in this country. I think asking a question like this is worth asking to highlight the issues we no longer understand. They are moral dilemmas.

We do not condone prostitution because it weakens the female position. Incest weakens the gene pool and homosexuality deprives one family a potential heir. There are always going to be reasons for these prohibitions more than 'some people think it gross'. These are universal cultural taboos.

Reply 5

zippity.doodah

Original post by HigherMinion

marriage between siblings? sure, why the hell not - nobody is being harmed and it causes pleasure for those involved. and it involves consent. so sure.
bestiality? depends if hunting is legal - if hunting like it is today is illegal (for the purposes of the non-aggression principle), then no, bestiality is a violation of the non-aggression principle; we can only eat animals, for example, here, by stunning them, to not cause pain and torture upon them in order to slaughter them. if we did, however, go into the logic of "animals aren't worth our support", then fine, whatever you say.
legislation of all drugs? sure, absolutely no problem with that one at all.

I believe the lack of understanding from familial wisdom has destroyed any tradition in this country. I think asking a question like this is worth asking to highlight the issues we no longer understand. They are moral dilemmas.

tradition is old. society changes over time. fact.
what moral dilemmas? people's personal lives aren't your dilemma.

We do not condone prostitution because it weakens the female position. Incest weakens the gene pool and homosexuality deprives one family a potential heir. There are always going to be reasons for these prohibitions more than 'some people think it gross'. These are universal cultural taboos.

1) if women themselves want to partake in prostitution through their own intelligence and their own decision-making capacity, then I have no idea how this is bad for their position when they are exercising adult rights and adult responsibilities. whatever happens to them is up to them, not us.
2) incest increases the likelihood of mutations, but it's not as much as you might think if it is in only one situation - it's only if it's many families doing it over many generations where you might start to see mutations beginning.
3) nobody has a right to an heir. that's not one's own responsibility in terms of one's grandchildren.
4) who cares about culture? culture shouldn't determine the law; it's against culture to do a lot of things that are perfectly legal. so what, then?

Reply 6

CottageCheese

As long as the legislation works to keep the sex workers safe and healthy and not at the mercy of the worst pimps, I don't see the problem.

Reply 7

HigherMinion

Original post by zippity.doodah

tradition is old. society changes over time. fact.
what moral dilemmas? people's personal lives aren't your dilemma. about culture? culture shouldn't determine the law; it's against culture to do a lot of things that are perfectly legal. so what, then?

Hnnnnngg... You're Starting to sound like a hardcore anarcho capitalist. That's right, culture doesn't matter and tradition exists for no reason other than flowering up life and keeping people in line. Goddamnit Zippy, you can't put consent above traditional morality, there is so much more than that.

Libertardians have this idea that everything is permitted as long it doesn't harm anyone else, but these things are there to support a family and community. The elders pass down this wisdom to ensure we remember where we came from and what it took to be successful.

I guess you just want to live a guilt free degenerate or decadent life without judgement. Unfortunately that's not going to happen.

Reply 8

CottageCheese

Original post by HigherMinion

But unless we like, make sex outside of marriage illegal there will always be decadence in our society, the government might as well legalise it, tax it and earn a bit off it.

yes, it should be.

Original post by CottageCheese

But unless we like, make sex outside of marriage illegal there will always be decadence in our society, the government might as well legalise it, tax it and earn a bit off it.

Now you're conflating two completely different propositions: taxing women for providing sex, making the UK the first to have a nationalised pimping industry. That is the precedent you'd like to set?

We don't need many social laws like this as long as we still have freedom of association- if someone does something as stupid as an affair, it's up to the individuals to resolve their situation.

Reply 11

zippity.doodah

Original post by HigherMinion

I didn't say culture and tradition didn't matter overall, I said they didn't matter for the law, because culture should be allowed to exist without being restrained by government - that means traditions should be allowed to change and the government shouldn't be trying to rein it in as if it should not ever be allowed to slowly alter. consent is a very important feature of legal/public life - tradition is simply in the background to that. tradition requires consent, or should do. if people no longer consent to a tradition, for example, then it's really no longer a tradition other than the government trying to make it a tradition still

Libertardians have this idea that everything is permitted as long it doesn't harm anyone else, but these things are there to support a family and community. The elders pass down this wisdom to ensure we remember where we came from and what it took to be successful.

so this "wise old man" generation is going to dictate to the new generation what they can and can't do? why? old people aren't always correct, and in terms of politics, there isn't really such a thing as "correct" in the first place, other than perhaps basic principles like liberty, equality, democracy (etc).

I guess you just want to live a guilt free degenerate or decadent life without judgement. Unfortunately that's not going to happen.

"without judgement"? who says I or anybody else isn't going to be judged for doing certain controversial (yet hypothetically legal) acts? if every was legal so long as nobody was harmed one day so I ran outside completely naked, smoking a joint and waved around a nazi flag, do you seriously consider that an act which will not get judged?

Reply 12

Oshi

Original post by HigherMinion

>
Nice try. Let's legalise prostitution, then marriage between siblings, bestiality, legalisation of all drugs. Etc. Etc.

Those are all different issues, and should be considered as such. There is not much point in changing the original issue into a bunch of insubstantial straw men.

Original post by HigherMinion

>
We do not condone prostitution because it weakens the female position.

There are also male prostitutes - gigolos. So, by your logic, prostitution is not to be condoned because it weakens the position of the worker.
To clarify - what do you mean by their 'position'? Example: we have jobs like zero hour contracts which are legal, which incredibly weaken the position of the worker. They are left completely at their employer's whims.

On your point of tradition. It used to be traditional to keep slaves. It used to be traditional to beat misbehaving children. It use to be ... etc.

Moral principles which may seem 'obvious' change over time.

Reply 13

username402722

I wish it did not exist but it does.

My question would be what would reduce and hopefully eliminate women being trafficked and what would enable women to get out of prostitution and receive help to do so.

Reply 14

HigherMinion

Original post by Oshi

Those are all different issues, and should be considered as such. There is not much point in changing the original issue into a bunch of insubstantial straw men.

There are also male prostitutes - gigolos. So, by your logic, prostitution is not to be condoned because it weakens the position of the worker.

On your point of tradition. It used to be traditional to keep slaves. It used to be traditional to beat misbehaving children. It use to be ... etc.

Moral principles which may seem 'obvious' change over time.

You've misunderstood my "logic". Let me clarify what I meant by "position of the female":

Women, heterosexual women, trade sex for resources with long term partners. When men can get cheap sex elsewhere, and you end up with a saturated market of female sex workers who help to devalue the bargaining power for the women who desire long term relationships.

Of course this is a cold and cynical way of looking at the interaction, but it's something to consider.

Speaking of strawman, introducing slavery at tradition is laughable. However, I was pointing out that the same argument can be made for those same activities.

To clarify: I wasn't clear enough :frown:

Reply 15

Rakas21

Yes.

So long as brothels pay corporation taxes i'm all for it. The state has no place in telling a woman she can't spread her legs for cash.

Reply 16

HigherMinion

Original post by Rakas21

Yes.

So long as brothels pay corporation taxes i'm all for it. The state has no place in telling a woman she can't spread her legs for cash.

Then she can do it illegally. Really, now: how do you stop and search two consenting adults in a private domicile from performing the 'act'? You can't. It is purely a gesture of natural morality and the societal attempt to not encourage such behaviour.

Reply 17

zippity.doodah

Original post by HigherMinion

wow. so even though you *know* this law is unenforceable, you want it there to scare people away from doing what they want with their own bodies when it's no one else's business...

Reply 18

callum_law

Original post by Rakas21

Yes.

So long as brothels pay corporation taxes i'm all for it. The state has no place in telling a woman she can't spread her legs for cash.

An awful lot of men sell their bodies, as well. Does the state have a place to tell a man he can't ride a BBC? Why does it always come down to feminism? It truly beggars belief and makes feminists seem unreasonable. Cry wolf when there's actually one there.

Reply 19

HigherMinion

Original post by zippity.doodah

wow. so even though you *know* this law is unenforceable, you want it there to scare people away from doing what they want with their own bodies when it's no one else's business...

Anything that culturally damages the family unit should not be encouraged. Your emotionally charged response suggests you wish to encourage women to sell their bodies for taxable income. This is very revealing as to how individualistic you think. I think in terms of families and individuals.