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Pastimes : Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (3555)	3/3/2010 12:10:26 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3816

What is restricted? The age (12) factor, the sense of "paid rape", the suicide tendency, abuse from pimps? Yes. All but the suicide tendency are illegal, which goes a bit beyond restricted, but restricted still applies. The restrictions I was talking about are like Nevada's restrictions on brothels, the most populous counties don't allow them at all (for example prostitution is illegal in Los Vegas), and the limits on prostitution give the legal pimps some power over, and the ability to take a big chunk of the money of, the prostitutes who work for them (but not as much as illegal pimps). When prostitution is legalized, there are still incidental conditions which constitute illegal practices ... age, violence, drug abuse, human trafficking, etc which continue to flourish. Legalizing prostitution is no panacea, but the point is that legalizing it doesn't cure or even help most or all of the harms that action is supposed to solve. There is more violence associated with it when its illegal (just as there is more violence in general with black market activities), and less reason for pimps and panderers to refrain from offering under age prostitutes to johns. Even if I was unconcerned about the liberty issue involved (and I am not), the practical results recommend against criminalization (not because the industry is so wonderful when its legal, but because it so horrible when it isn't). STATISTICS Can you show the relevance of even a single one of those statistics? They are about rape. Rape is illegal. You don't make any argument based on them, no argument at all. Facts by themselves don't lead to conclusions, its like saying "Venus is slightly smaller than the earth, therefore prostitution should be illegal"... (well not quite, you don't actually present the "therefore..., you just present the initial premise without completing the argument). You might be trying to hint at the idea that making prostitution illegal reduces rape, but you don't even boldly assert that argument without backing, or even strongly hint at it, let alone actually back it up with relevant statistics, or a suggestion as to how a causal relationship could exist. I suspect the legal status of prostitution has about zero effect on the frequency of rape of non-prostitutes (although it could be argued that legal prostitution might very slightly decrease the frequency, by serving as an outlet). While at the same time making it illegal increases the frequency of rape of the prostitutes themselves. So the only way criminalization might make rape more common is to increase the number of prostitutes (you can cut the rate for both groups, but increase the overall rate by increasing the group with the higher rate as a proportion of the whole). A large increase in the number of prostitutes is possible but rather questionable (at least if you consider a general legalization, not legalizing it in one place, and having that place draw off more prostitution from other areas, but a large general increase), and even if there is such an increase the decrease in the likelihood of rape of the prostitutes would still likely be large enough to decrease the overall incidence of rape.