Economist Article on Prostitution

[BgMstr4u]

The Online version of The Economist has an article favoring the decriminalization of prostitution:

 

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3151258

 

Here's the text in case the link goes dormant:

 

Prostitution

Sex is their business

 

Sep 2nd 2004

From The Economist print edition

 

Attitudes to commercial sex are hardening. But tougher laws are wrong in both principle and practice

 

TWO adults enter a room, agree a price, and have sex. Has either committed a crime? Common sense suggests not: sex is not illegal in itself, and the fact that money has changed hands does not turn a private act into a social menace. If both parties consent, it is hard to see how either is a victim. But prostitution has rarely been treated as just another transaction, or even as a run-of-the-mill crime: the oldest profession is also the oldest pretext for outraged moralising and unrealistic lawmaking devised by man.

 

In recent years, governments have tended to bother with prostitution only when it threatened public order. Most countries (including Britain and America) have well-worn laws against touting on street corners, against the more brazen type of brothel and against pimping. This has never been ideal, partly because sellers of sex feel the force of law more strongly than do buyers, and partly because anti-soliciting statutes create perverse incentives. On some occasions, magistrates who have fined streetwalkers have been asked to wait a few days so that the necessary money can be earned.

 

So there is perennial discussion of reforming prostitution laws. During the 1990s, the talk was all of liberalisation. Now the wind is blowing the other way. In 1999, Sweden criminalised the buying of sex. France then cracked down on soliciting and outlawed commercial sex with vulnerable women—a category that includes pregnant women. Britain began to enforce new laws against kerb-crawling earlier this year, and is now considering more restrictive legislation (see article). Outside a few pragmatic enclaves, attitudes are hardening. Whereas, ten years ago, the discussion was mostly about how to manage prostitution and make it less harmful, the aim now is to find ways to stamp it out.

 

The puritans have the whip hand not because they can prove that tough laws will make life better for women, but because they have convinced governments that prostitution is intolerable by its very nature. What has tipped the balance is the globalisation of the sex business.

 

Human rights

The white slave trade

 

It is not surprising that many of the rich world's prostitutes are foreigners. Immigrants have a particularly hard time finding jobs that pay well; local language skills are not prized in the sex trade; prostitutes often prefer to work outside their home town. But the free movement of labour is as controversial in the sex trade as in any other business. Wherever they work, foreign prostitutes are accused of driving down prices, touting “extra” services and consorting with organised criminal pimps who are often foreigners, too. The fact that a very small proportion of women are trafficked—forced into prostitution against their will—has been used to discredit all foreigners in the trade, and by extension (since many sellers of sex are indeed foreign) all prostitutes.

 

Abolitionists make three arguments. From the right comes the argument that the sex trade is plain wrong, and that, by condoning it, society demeans itself. Liberals (such as this newspaper) who believe that what consenting adults do in private is their own business reject that line.

 

From the left comes the argument that all prostitutes are victims. Its proponents cite studies that show high rates of sexual abuse and drug taking among employees. To which there are two answers. First, those studies are biased: they tend to be carried out by staff at drop-in centres and by the police, who tend to see the most troubled streetwalkers. Taking their clients as representative of all prostitutes is like assessing the state of marriage by sampling shelters for battered women. Second, the association between prostitution and drug addiction does not mean that one causes the other: drug addicts, like others, may go into prostitution just because it's a good way of making a decent living if you can't think too clearly.

 

A third, more plausible, argument focuses on the association between prostitution and all sorts of other nastinesses, such as drug addiction, organised crime, trafficking and underage sex. To encourage prostitution, goes the line, is to encourage those other undesirables; to crack down on prostitution is to discourage them.

 

Brothels with brands

Plausible, but wrong. Criminalisation forces prostitution into the underworld. Legalisation would bring it into the open, where abuses such as trafficking and under-age prostitution can be more easily tackled. Brothels would develop reputations worth protecting. Access to health care would improve—an urgent need, given that so many prostitutes come from diseased parts of the world. Abuses such as child or forced prostitution should be treated as the crimes they are, and not discussed as though they were simply extreme forms of the sex trade, which is how opponents of prostitution and, recently, the governments of Britain and America have described them.

 

Puritans argue that where laws have been liberalised—in, for instance, the Netherlands, Germany and Australia—the new regimes have not lived up to claims that they would wipe out pimping and sever the links between prostitution and organised crime. Certainly, those links persist; but that's because, thanks to concessions to the opponents of liberalisation, the changes did not go far enough. Prostitutes were made to register, which many understandably didn't want to do. Not surprisingly, illicit brothels continued to thrive.

 

If those quasi-liberal experiments have not lived up to their proponents' expectations, they have also failed to fulfil their detractors' greatest fears. They do not seem to have led to outbreaks of disease or under-age sex, nor to a proliferation of street prostitution, nor to a wider collapse in local morals.

 

Which brings us back to that discreet transaction between two people in private. If there's no evidence that it harms others, then the state should let them get on with it. People should be allowed to buy and sell whatever they like, including their own bodies. Prostitution may be a grubby business, but it's not the government's.

[woodlawn]

>Puritans argue that where laws have been liberalised—in,

>for instance, the Netherlands, Germany and Australia—the

>new regimes have not lived up to claims that they would wipe

>out pimping and sever the links between prostitution and

>organised crime. Certainly, those links persist; but that's

>because, thanks to concessions to the opponents of

>liberalisation, the changes did not go far enough. Prostitutes

>were made to register, which many understandably didn't want

>to do. Not surprisingly, illicit brothels continued to thrive.

 

 

I really don't understand the above argument. The writer is claiming that prostitution should be treated as a legal business, but then he says that since many prostitutes don't want to register (as people in other occupations from surgeons to hair stylists are routinely required to do) the illegal side continues to flourish. So what is the point of legalization?

 

If we look at gambling in this country, we see that in virtually every state Americans have access to many forms of legalized, regulated gambling. Nevertheless, a vast illegal gambling industry continues to exist and to propagate all of the evils that legalized, regulated gambling was meant to stamp out. So why does anyone think the same thing would NOT happen if prostitution were legalized?

[trilingual]

I think it may depend on the kind of registration or licensing involved, and the availability of the records to the general public. Perhaps one of our M4Mers who lives in Germany or Holland can answer more specifically, but I suspect that "registration" is with the police, which is something many prostitutes would want to avoid, particularly if they're in the country illegally.

 

If, instead of police registration, this was handled like other occupational licenses and was done at the local health department, with confidentiality for the licensee, there would be considerably less resistance to such regulation.

 

It should be possible to both legalize and regulate prostitution without making it so onerous that the purpose is defeated.

[woodlawn]

>If, instead of police registration, this was handled like

>other occupational licenses and was done at the local health

>department, with confidentiality for the licensee, there would

>be considerably less resistance to such regulation.

 

I'm not sure about confidentiality. When I get a haircut, I notice that my stylist has his state license prominently displayed, which I assume is a legal requirement. More generally, much of the purpose of licensing is defeated if there is no way for consumers to check and see whether a professional they want to employ has a valid license. If licenses are confidential, how would you know whether someone who represents himself to you as licensed is or is not licensed?

 

 

>It should be possible to both legalize and regulate

>prostitution without making it so onerous that the purpose is

>defeated.

 

I guess it depends on what you mean by "onerous." If licensing of prostitutes follows the same model as in other professions, we can assume that a candidate for a license would have to submit to a background check to find out whether he has a criminal record or a record of mental illness, would have to submit proof that he has been tested for certain STD's and is negative for all, and would have to take some sort of exam to show that he understands whatever legal limitations there are on his activities and what the health risks are to him and to his clients. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling there are many people in this occupation today who wouldn't be willing to do all of these things.

[trilingual]

Good points. As for confidentiality, I didn't mean that the sex worker wouldn't necessarily have to display her/his license. They could do that in their place of business, and there could even be a toll-free number included for customer complaints! I just meant that the list of licensees would have to be confidential, so everyone's friends and neighbors couldn't just go on-line or drop down to the town hall to find out who in their neighborhood is a prostitute.

 

As for the other requirements you list, it's true that there will always be people (as in any other business) who won't want to work legitimately. However, having licensed prostitutes would give consumers a choice: they can patronize someone they know has received public health training and is (presumably) required to be tested regulary for STDs as a condition of licensure, and who is not likely to rob them or do them other harm, or take their chances with an unlicensed and unknown hooker. My guess is that the legitimate workers will tend to crowd out the illegitimate ones, although, as I said, there will always be some illegitimate sex workers on the margins of the business. That means there would still be a police role, but it would change from being a morals crime to being a public health code violation, involving tickets and fines in most cases.

[+ Charlie]

I don't understand why de-criminalization of prostitution should automatically equate to licensing of prostitutes. Why must providers of every kind of service be organized and regulated? The comparison to gambling is valid: people who engage in a business that most people consider disreputable are not likely to seek an official imprimatur, especially when it is likely to uncover other illegal behavior. Many people engage in prostitution to support a drug habit, or because they are illegal aliens, or because they can't get other work and depend on prostitution temporarily--they are not interested in pursuing it as a career. If the licensing is onerous or expensive, even the "professionals" may find it more desirable to continue working off the books.

 

The only people who are likely to seriously support legalization plus licensing are the owners of agencies or brothels, who have a strong financial interest in operating a legitimate business. That may be a small positive move, but it won't affect the majority of sexual activity for money in this country, because most clients don't--and won't--patronize those businesses exclusively. In practice, prostitution will still operate much as it does now.

 

Why can't de-criminalization simply mean that authorities stop prosecuting prostitutes for being paid for their services, just as baby-sitters are, and stop harassing clients? The health certificates would be largely meaningless, in any case, because they are only as good as the most recent test (which could be invalidated by the prostitute's next sexual encounter after leaving the lab), and there would be plenty of phony certificates anyway. Even without licensing, prostitutes could still be prosecuted for the illegal activities that matter, like defrauding or assaulting clients, and failing to pay taxes on their earnings.

 

I'm for more freedom and less regulation.

[trilingual]

It would be possible to decriminalize prostitution without also regulating it, but it wouldn't be a good idea and it also is unlikely from a political standpoint.

 

Licensing doesn't have to be onerous, but it can protect both the sex worker and the customers. You're right that STD testing isn't a guarantee, but it goes a long way towards ensuring safe-sex practices because, if infected, the sex worker would be obliged to stop working until treated. With a licensed sex worker, it would also be more likely that contact tracing could be done with clients who might have been exposed to something. I disagree that licensing only benefits brothels/agency owners. There's no reason it wouldn't be good for free-lancers, too. In fact, with legalization and licensing, there is less incentive for sex workers to work for third parties, because they don't need the "protection" such third parties traditionally offered, and they won't have to share their earnings with someone else.

[Guest zipperzone]

>It would be possible to decriminalize prostitution without

>also regulating it, but it wouldn't be a good idea and it also

>is unlikely from a political standpoint.

 

I agree that simple decriminalizing it is the most logical solution. But in a country that has a hissy-fit over JJ's nipple being exposed on TV........ the chance of that happening is less than zero.

[+ deej]

>Licensing doesn't have to be onerous

 

Care to proffer an example? :9

 

Licensing by ANY government body WILL become onerous. It's in the job description of "government licensing body".

 

Probably the least restrictive example would be driving licenses. They require a birth certificate (which would be proof of age as well), a written test, and then a practical (driving) test. (And in CA, it requires a fingerprint and background check these days. And have YOU been nearly run off the road by a licensed driver recently?)

 

I'm OK with the birth certificate, and the written test would be a HOOT! "The proper method for performing fellatio is: a) b) c) d)"

 

How do you propose handling the practical test? I remember the fat bitch that gave me my last driving test. I sure wouldn't want HER judging how well I eat ass because I couldn't go anywhere near it!

 

You can count me firmly against licensing sex workers, unless clients are also required to be licensed and that's a can of worms *nobody* wants to open. I don't want to be required to have a license to have sex, and that's a perfectly valid viewpoint from other side of the fence, too.

[BgMstr4u]

The theoretical aspects of decriminalization are interesting. But what interests me is how removing the legal stigma has actually worked in various places. My impression is that the most advanced country in terms of making prostitution legal is the Netherlands. I remember visiting Amsterdam in the late 90's and had a ball in the various clubs/brothels. But the word now is that they are falling apart.

 

Is there something inherent in legalized prostitution which makes it less desirable than when the activity is prohibited? When it is legal, does it just become boring because it is now ordinary? Does the danger of arrest or exposure add spice to the experience?

 

Or is the decline of Amsterdam due to something else -- the internet as a medium to meet, for example? I understand that the brothel in London, Villa Gianni, is doing fine, and is quite a fun place to visit. But then, it is not technically a brothel -- you go there to get a "massage" etc. So there is still the thrill of doing the forbidden.

 

Ideas?

[woodlawn]

>I don't understand why de-criminalization of prostitution

>should automatically equate to licensing of prostitutes.

 

Because, as in the case of gambling, alcohol and tobacco, prostitution is viewed as a vice that carries some very substantial social costs. So, as in the case of those other vices, the trade-off for getting legislators to legalize it would unquestionably be a regulatory regime that seeks to eliminate or reduce the social costs associated with the industry.

 

 

>Why

>must providers of every kind of service be organized and

>regulated?

 

In order to protect consumers, of course. Do you want your loved ones to eat at a restaurant that is NOT subject to regulation and inspection by your local health department? I don't.

 

 

>The only people who are likely to seriously support

>legalization plus licensing are the owners of agencies or

>brothels, who have a strong financial interest in operating a

>legitimate business. That may be a small positive move, but it

>won't affect the majority of sexual activity for money in this

>country, because most clients don't--and won't--patronize

>those businesses exclusively. In practice, prostitution will

>still operate much as it does now.

 

Sounds reasonable to me.

 

>Why can't de-criminalization simply mean that authorities stop

>prosecuting prostitutes for being paid for their services,

>just as baby-sitters are, and stop harassing clients?

 

See above. Even assuming a majority of any legislature in the country would agree to decriminalize prostitution, which I think is pretty far-fetched, I don't believe any would do it without creating a regime of regulation designed to deal with the social costs of the institution.

 

 

>The

>health certificates would be largely meaningless, in any case,

>because they are only as good as the most recent test (which

>could be invalidated by the prostitute's next sexual encounter

>after leaving the lab), and there would be plenty of phony

>certificates anyway. Even without licensing, prostitutes could

>still be prosecuted for the illegal activities that matter,

>like defrauding or assaulting clients, and failing to pay

>taxes on their earnings.

 

 

You could say the same thing about licensing doctors. There are plenty of examples of impostors who have practiced medicine using fake diplomas and other credentials, and there is a system of malpractice litigation to expose doctors who treat patients negligently, so why bother licensing them?

 

>I'm for more freedom and less regulation.

 

Really? Ever thought about flying on an airline that does NOT follow FAA safety rules, being operated on by a surgeon who is NOT licensed by your state medical board, taking prescription drugs NOT approved by FDA, or eating meat NOT produced by a plant that is USDA inspected? How long could you really last without regulation?

[+ Charlie]

I am not opposed to regulation which is obviously necessary to protect the customer's health and safety. I just don't believe that it is reasonable to have bureaucratic regulation of EVERY service transaction. If I need someone to walk my dog while I am away, I don't need to call someone who has taken an exam and paid a fee to be certified as a dog walker, even though one could argue that there is potential for financial loss and emotional damage to me if he should allow the dog to run away or be run over. If the guy who cleans my pool or the guy who mows my lawn needs to be licensed, it is going to cost me a lot more, and the job probably won't be done any better. I happen to think that hiring an escort is analogous to these services, not to choosing a surgeon, to whom I am entrusting my survival, for a lot of money. Yes, there are professionals of all sorts with phony credentials, but their skills are harder to fake than simply appearing healthy. Besides, that still doesn't answer the problem of the value of a health certificate, which is only valid as of the moment the STD test was done; if the prostitute is successful at his or her work, it will be worthless by the next day. And it is unlikely that the prostitute will be required to pass tests on cock-sucking, fist-fucking, etc., with appropriate degrees to put on the bedroom wall.

 

I am not unaware that in the cultural climate of America, in which it is illegal in many places to give clean needles to addicts or sell marijuana to those who can benefit from it medically, it would be virtually impossible to simply drop sanctions against prostitution, even though to a large extent that is what happened to sodomy laws over the years in many places. One needs an issue on which the majority of the population give lip service to disapproval but doesn't really mind, like adultery, to get the government out of polcing behavior, and I understand that prostitution is not yet in that category.

[woodlawn]

> If the guy who cleans my pool or the

>guy who mows my lawn needs to be licensed, it is going to cost

>me a lot more, and the job probably won't be done any better.

>I happen to think that hiring an escort is analogous to these

>services, not to choosing a surgeon, to whom I am entrusting

>my survival, for a lot of money.

 

Sorry, can't agree with that. You can't spend too much time on this board without realizing that there are a hell of a lot of people who expect something more out of an escort date than a quick fuck. I happen to think they are wrong to harbor such expectations, but the undeniable fact that they do makes them vulnerable to exploitation and injury far more serious than an unevenly mowed lawn.

 

 

> Yes, there are professionals

>of all sorts with phony credentials, but their skills are

>harder to fake than simply appearing healthy.

 

And yet there are so many who seem to get away with it for such a long time. Didn't Spielberg recently make a movie about that?

 

 

>Besides, that

>still doesn't answer the problem of the value of a health

>certificate, which is only valid as of the moment the STD test

>was done;

 

The same is true of drug and alcohol tests, but that doesn't mean I want people in key occupations like airline pilot told that they will no longer be subject to such tests. If testing catches just a few people, that is certainly better than nothing -- which is what we have now.

 

> One needs an issue on which the majority of the

>population give lip service to disapproval but doesn't really

>mind, like adultery, to get the government out of polcing

>behavior, and I understand that prostitution is not yet in

>that category.

 

Neither is adultery. It is still quite relevant in states that do not have no-fault divorce and in child custody disputes even in states that do.

[+ Charlie]

When was the last time someone was arrested and prosecuted for committing adultery in your locale? Republicans tried to impeach Clinton, but did they demand he be prosecuted for having sex with Monica, even though he admitted it? Are all the people who admit to committing adultery on daytime tv shows being led off in handcuffs? It may be technically illegal in many places, but no authority is trying to enforce the law, because there is virtually no support for doing so.

 

In fact, the almost universal laws against prostitution in this country often go unenforced as well, but they remain a viable threat to those who violate them, because there is still strong political support for enforcing them whenever prostitutes' activity in a particular area becomes perceived as a public nuisance. They also tend to be enforced where it is easy (e.g., streetwalkers in a known neighborhood) and ignored where it is not. Prostitution seems to be where sodomy was 30 years ago: formally disapproved of and illegal in most places, but very unevenly prosecuted. I have my doubts that the laws against it will be repealed, however, as the sodomy laws were, not only because prostitutes have fewer savvy and powerful people and organizations on their side, but also because it involves the exchange of money, the most sacred totem in our society and therefore not to be sullied without penalty.

[woodlawn]

>When was the last time someone was arrested and prosecuted

>for committing adultery in your locale?

 

Beats me. But adultery remains an issue of significance in matrimonial disputes, so if you are saying that we as a society have decided it is now a private matter, you are wrong.

 

 

>In fact, the almost universal laws against prostitution in

>this country often go unenforced as well,

 

That simply isn't true. It is true that the crime -- like many sex crimes -- is often not reported by those directly involved in it, and so arrests for the crime usually result when it comes to the attention of people not directly involved in it. That may be when people in a given neighborhood are annoyed by streetwalkers, or it may be when the management of a hotel notices prostitutes using the hotel for apppointments.

 

> I have my doubts that

>the laws against it will be repealed, however, as the sodomy

>laws were, not only because prostitutes have fewer savvy and

>powerful people and organizations on their side, but also

>because it involves the exchange of money, the most sacred

>totem in our society and therefore not to be sullied without

>penalty.

 

Maybe. Among people I know, the principal reason for opposition to prostitution in general is the social ills associated with it -- the exploitation of women and children and the spreading of sexually transmitted diseases. The fact that so many prostitutes have serious drug and mental health problems also tends to associate those problems with prostitution in the public mind, the result being a perception that prostitution must be a bad thing because of the behavior of so many of those involved in it.

[Guest zipperzone]

>Maybe. Among people I know, the principal reason for

>opposition to prostitution in general is the social ills

>associated with it -- the exploitation of women and children

>and the spreading of sexually transmitted diseases.

 

I agree with your above paragraph.

 

But......... Take the following scenario.

 

An attractive female is having a drink in an upscale hotel bar.

Another patron of the bar, thinking she is a good looking woman, makes a pass at her and they end up upstairs in his room, doin' it.

Happens all the time, right?

 

Now...... same scenario, attractibe female, same bar, same horny male guest. The woman is NOT a working prostitute. She thinks the guy is OK - nothing to flip over - but not a dog either. She considers the pass he makes at her. Isn't too interested but just for the hell of it says, "sure, but it's goning to cost you a hundred bucks.

 

Immediately she is at risk for an arrest for prostitution. What harm has been done. In case one it is a freebe. Case two, she is an opportunist who sees a chance to score some $$$

 

Where is there an escalation in the health risk? And where is the exploitation of women.

 

I just don't get it!

[woodlawn]

>Immediately she is at risk for an arrest for prostitution.

>What harm has been done. In case one it is a freebe. Case two,

>she is an opportunist who sees a chance to score some $$$

>

>Where is there an escalation in the health risk? And where is

>the exploitation of women.

>

>I just don't get it!

 

So how would you write the law to provide an exception for the case you describe? "It shall be illegal for any person to accept money from another in return for sexual contact between the two, unless the former person has never done that before and is only doing it in response to an impulse that will probably never happen again."

 

Now suppose you were representing the woman in your hypothetical case and your strategy was to claim that the above-described exception to the statute applies to her. How would you prove it?

[Guest zipperzone]

>So how would you write the law to provide an exception for the

>case you describe? "It shall be illegal for any person to

>accept money from another in return for sexual contact between

>the two, unless the former person has never done that before

>and is only doing it in response to an impulse that will

>probably never happen again."

 

No - I guess what I was really trying to say that I think the laws are flawed and it should be decriminalized. I can see that a brothel could be cause for concern and hookers in slut drag cruising the curbs for johns are offensive, but other than those two scenarios I think what you do with your own body in private is no ones damn business - especially the vice squad.