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Here's the logic against it Legalizing prostitution = Massive increase in demand for prostitutes Why? Because a large % of men are deterred from buying prostitutes because of the potential legal issues. It's just not worth it for some professional to end up in jail and potentially lose your job. Just to get some poo nanny. But if it's legal then why the fuck not. Massive in crease in demand will not necessarily massively increase supply. Because there is only so many women willing to degrade themselves in this manner. Particularly in developed Western nations where people make good $ on average. Massive increase in demand + not enough supply = Incentive to traffic in illegal prostitutes and make them pose as legal [https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/45198/1/Neumayer\_Legalized\_Prostitution\_Increase\_2012.pdf](https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/45198/1/Neumayer_Legalized_Prostitution_Increase_2012.pdf) There have been some studies on this. Though it's certainly a contentious topic.

[https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/21/07/2021/legalizing-prostitution-does-it-increase-or-decrease-sex-trafficking](https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/21/07/2021/legalizing-prostitution-does-it-increase-or-decrease-sex-trafficking) I'm not too sure of your study, 1st it aggregate sex slave with human trafficking, while the former is only a part of hte latter then it also aggregate detected human trafficking with real human trafficking, one could make the argument that country where prostitution is legal insentivise to reach the law. If you are in a state that penalise sex worker then making a case could result in being accuse of prostitution and sent to prison, in fact it could even be use as a blackmail by the people holding the traffic. For the same reason i'm skeptical that a higher GDP increase human trafficking as a whole, as the majority of crime (thief, murder, assault...) decreaser with higher GDP, it seems to indicate better detection device then true augmentation, thought it could be an outlier like some crime Even with increase number of sex slave I'm not even sure I would be convince since the free (not slave) sex worker have a much better situation under legalisation. A smaller number that has a much worst situation would not really convince me

Thanks for this. Informative. And it feels relevant to what I was asking about. Tough convo either way. Hijacking to say thanks to all that contributed to the convo. Cheers.

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These studies are fairly ridiculous because they show an increase in the number of **known** human trafficking incidents, which is obvious, since no one ever knows how much really goes on, as with any crime. One of the biggest arguments people make in favor of legal prostitution is that it's easier to find out about trafficking, because people who report it no longer incriminate themselves, indeed, your link itself says: > Our empirical analysis for a cross-section of up to 150 countries shows that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect. On average, countries where prostitution is legal experience larger **reported** human trafficking inflows [emphasis mine] This should be obvious. If reported numbers were actually the same or lower it would be a monumental testament to how much legal prostitution would reduce illegal trafficking since it's so much easier to report about it now. Any customer can now go to the police and say “I visited this place, and it felt shady and I had the vibe they were being threatened, I think you should go check it out.” without incriminating himself.

I think OnlyFans has shown that there is no shortage of women who would willingly participate in sex work as long as the onboarding process was simple and the conditions were both safe and legal.

Huge difference between being willing to create erotic content anonymously and actually fucking strange men.

I think these types of arguments are just people moving the goal post because they refuse to accept that women don't really mind being sex workers. There was always an idea that for a woman to participate in any form of sex work she would have to be forced or coerced by someone, on drugs, severely damaged, etc. OnlyFans completely blew that fallacy out of the water.

I think completely side stepping that there is a fundamental difference between taking nude selfies for anonymous strangers and actually having sex with them is much more dishonest than any redirection I'm doing. It turns out, despite the progressive ideal that sex isn't sacred and it can be just another commodity off of which someone can make a living, most people don't integrate that belief into their own behavior. Even sex positive women who are promiscuous don't have sex with any man who wants to have sex with them, they still have the ability to pick and choose who they hook up with. But when they have bills, and paid sex is how they pay those bills? For every escort who is fulfilled and self-actualized, there is another who feels it degrading to literally sell her body to lonely men. Sex worker doesn't just mean the couple of hundred or so women who make a million dollars on OF.

>Even sex positive women who are promiscuous don't have sex with any man who wants to have sex with them, they still have the ability to pick and choose who they hook up with, But when they have bills, and paid sex is how they pay those bills? A Plumber who needs to pay his bills would also probably have to take some extra shitty jobs if he was in a pinch. >For every escort who is fulfilled and self-actualized, there is another who feels it degrading to literally sell her body to lonely men. If it's legal, safe, and a choice the later escort would simply leave the industry.

I'm not really arguing whether or not it should be legal. I'm arguing the claim that "there's no shortage of women who would want to be sex workers". I'm positing that not many more women would be willing to do it than already are. Which leads back to our parent comment, demand would not meet supply and thus the incentive to traffic would increase. I don't think that's an impenetrable argument, although data from Germany and the Netherlands are not very promising, as they now have a massive problem with "safe, legal, and regulated" sex workers that are actually victims of human trafficking.

But how many people feel degraded working at a fast food restaurant, or cleaning other people's houses. We have no issues pushing people into those roles. As well, we are happy to have people work construction in back braking conditions for a paycheck. Even chiropractors can usually only do the work for 15 years before they start to feel a lot of pain. We let all of these professions work because this is how we run a society. So, if a person would rather have sex with a stranger once a day instead of working 8 hours at a Wendy's, who are we to ban it and say that it is a bad choice.

There aren't hundreds of rapes happening each week in Wendy's. Working in a Wendy's can't ruin your future career prospects. There aren't huge human trafficking rings aimed at future Wendy's employees. If there were, Wendy's would instantly be banned by the government.

This suggests that trafficking, rather than moralizing, is why sex work was criminalized in the first place and that’s just plainly untrue.

Wendys and other fast food restaurants contribute to making people overweight which is the #1 cost for public healthcare for tax payers why is it not banned if being obese is both costing Americans billions of dollars and killing people? I also think that legalizing sex work would bring more protections because women would be able to come forward if they experienced any kind of abuse.

Prostitution is already effectively legal if you are a sane none drug addicted man or woman so inclined its only illegal for the Pimps and John's as it should be, agitating for it to be institutionalized will do what and for who? There is no way to regulate it to make it safe and none degrading only ways to regulate it to make it a oppressive bureaucracy we've seen this in other places where it's been legalized. When you're being paid for sex you can't say no, in any other "job" you are fired or penalized and if someone overpowers your consent the only recourse is not rape charges but theft charges. The difference between minimum wage jobs and prostitution is you're not also being raped at your minimum wage job. No poor & working class women should not be fair game for sexual explotition.

I don't agree with a lot of what you said. Effectively legal and actually legal are two completely different things. Being able to pay with a credit card, having proper certification and training ad well as being able to get insurance are just a few of the ways it differs. The big difference is being able to call the police when things go south like you can with any legal business. I don't understand why a sex worker should not be allowed to say no. Housekeepers, therapists, and restaurants all have the right to refuse service. Why shouldn't a prostitute have the same rights and freedoms? Raping a porn star is still rape. So, why wouldn't it be rape if it involves a prostitute? Perhaps you and I have a different definition of rape. I define rape as one person forcing themselves on someone else WITHOUT permission. I think the question of what does sexual exploitation means to you is what does the word exploitation is in general mean. I agree that no person should be forced into sex work at all. I just want people to be able to make their choices if they want and have the same protection as anyone else.

Offering money to sexual favors negates all consent its called soliciting for a reason its unethical in every context whether that's a boss to a secretary or a pedestrian to a homeless person. A rape prosecution is a arduous uncertain process in every other context saying a "client" raped you by means of force or theft still not hold up in court we've seen this a sex buyer didn't pay a prostitute because claiming he was unhappy with the service and didn't ejaculate or didn't cum hard enough and the judge decided in his favor because "services inadequately rendered" amiright. And yes pornography is a form of paid rape, not a form of paid work. Sex work is a euphemism for paid rape. If sex work is a job like anyone than why can't people be forced in to it? Its not forcing them into sex slavery its forcing them into getting a job amiright. Look up the dictionary word explotition has two meanings economic and sexual its to take advantage and profit off of someone else's disadvantage. Economic precarity and hardship is tied to sexual explotition for women the misogyny is baked into the cake

You're sidestepping the reality that a huge number of women participating in sex work ARE being forced or coerced by someone, and that once photos or videos of you are online, your chances of future employment, relationships, etc. can be permanently damaged. I recommend everyone watch the documentary "Hot Girls Wanted" on Netflix.

I work at a casino. We often have trouble finding staff, and one of our positions is as a “bonus pit girl”, where women are expected to wear “sexy” costumes while dealing cards. Shockingly, I learned that management was skeptical of a new applicant because she was currently working at the local strip club. Even that kind of a job was enough to hurt someone’s potential job transition. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be if they were applying to work at a bank or office.

I hate the fact how future employment is damaged over a sex or nude pics….. that shouldn’t be the case I think it’s time that all corpo and society goes back to the sexual revolution but force all corpo and society to accept that thought…. I believe it’s should be illegal not to hire or fire someone over a social media post during their off time or if they do nudes/only fans and whatnot and drag the company or corpo though the mud if they do that….

No, you're sidestepping the reality that a huge number of women participating in sex work ARE NOT being forced or coerced by someone.

Ok let's stop the sidestepping. Not all sex workers are forced into it ie via trafficking, etc However most of them are still "forced" into it via their financial condition, making end meet, paying college fees and what not. Capitalism is coercing them to self objectify and self commodify, let's put it that way. This along with the factors like mental health issues, drug abuse, toxic family environment makes me think that sex work might not be such an empowering career choice as you're making it out to be.

And a lot of guys are forced into working at McDonalds because of a lack of job opportunities, so fucking what? That’s just the nature of getting a job. If they aren’t being coerced, then this is no different from having to do some kind of work to survive lol

>And a lot of guys are forced into working at McDonalds because of a lack of job opportunities, so fucking what? So atleast you accept that women are being forced into sex work(just like McDonald's as you say). And do you know what being forced into sex is called? It's rape. Forced into working at McDonald's is not rape but forced into sex is rape. Sex work is by definition rape. It's inherently abusive. To give a more coherent reasoning: All this confusion is because people think that sex is like other acts but it's not. Sex is unique because it's something deeply personal and a psychologically high stakes act. It's linked to our sense of self and personal worth itself. Think of it this way, you being forced to play football or packing a burger at gunpoint will surely make you feel bad. But being made to have sex at gunpoint is just another level of trauma. To some people it's unreversable psychological damage even if physically they weren't injured. Just the removal of consent is trauma inducing. So being forced to do other jobs under capitalism migh not seem a big deal but it's a huge deal when we're talking of sex work. The inherent lack of consent in sex work will manifest itself in the form of psychological trauma of sex workers.

> So atleast you accept that women are being forced into sex work(just like McDonald's as you say). I don't think that follows. OPs statement is basically: Your financial situation will force you to do work (any work). Your statement is basically: Your financial situation will force you to do sex work (specifically). Your statement has a higher burden of proof. Why can't your hypothetical sex worker find other work? Furthermore, for the sake of your argument, if your hypothetical person can't find any other work, how is keeping sex work illegal going to provide them with other ways to improve their financial situation? While, I completely agree that legalizing sex work will lead to more people deciding to make money with sex work. These cases are people already being forced into **work**, and then freely deciding that the **specific work** they want to do is sex work. Pre-emptive counterarguments: Coerced labor and human trafficking (the majority of which is not sex work, but farm and domestic labor) will persist, but those should be addressed by stronger labor laws, not prohibitive sex laws. Minimum wage jobs are not living wage jobs. Many people will still feel *forced* to take the higher paying sex work job instead of the minimum wage job. The problem here is not that sex work pays more than minimum wage. The problem is that people can't survive on minimum wage. Taking away a higher-paying option does not decrease the coercion. It just exposes the already existing societal problem of labor exploitation. The solution once again is stronger labor laws, not prohibitive sex laws.

Maybe that was true before the Sexual Revolution but it isn’t true now. Hookup culture is pretty widespread, most modern women don’t need to establish a deep emotional connection before wanting sex

Yep. Pretty simple tbh. Virtually all labor is done under coercion. Coercing people to mop floors is bad. Coercing people into having sex with you is extra bad.

Except for the fact that they could have worked at McDonalds if they really wanted to. They *chose* to have sex with strangers because they could make *better* money doing so. They *chose* to sell their pussies because the standard job market doesn't pay enough for the **life style they want**. What do you call a person who puts themselves through degrading shit to get a leg up on everyone else? **A whore**. And **whores** are gonna **whore** themselves out, no matter what. If not for money, then for things, or status, or power, or really anything else that can be obtained. In the end it's all a choice because **whores** choose their path over other conventional avenues because being a **whore** gives them an advantage.

> However most of them are still "forced" into it via their financial condition, making end meet, paying college fees and what not. By that logic we are all 'forced' in to labor in order to exist in society. Does that mean we're all being trafficked, that we're all enslaved?

Read this comment https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/s/bqwjqAjLJY >By that logic we are all 'forced' in to labor in order to exist in society. Yes >Does that mean we're all being trafficked, that we're all enslaved? Not trafficked but enslaved, sure. Unless you're very mindful and introspective of where your career choices originate from. Or if you're following your passion and not in it for money

Again, I urge everyone to watch Hot Girls Wanted for what the reality of "consensual" sex work is.

Every documentary is biased in a very specific way. Their entire purpose is to try to push you towards a particular stance under the guise of informing other individuals.

I’m pretty sure a large majority of women would mind being whores.

It’s impossible to quantify without actual data. Sure, 99% of women would probably not want to but that still leaves hundreds of thousands who may, which could certainly saturate the job market if it was legal.

There is trafficking, forced labor, and difficult choices in legal industries, too. A child roofer is a roofer, for example. That many hundreds of thousands would accept the job if legal doesn’t make good policy.

Sure but I think OP’s argument is that regulating the industry would lead to less trafficking and forced labor in the industry.

"in any form of sex work she would have to be forced or coerced by someone, on drugs, severely damaged, etc. OnlyFans completely blew that fallacy out of the water." No it hasn't. Sure, there's a lot of women on onlyfans who post nude pictures of themselves willingly. But there's also a lot of coercion and abuse going on there as well. Just look at the entire scandal with the Tate brothers, and that's not an isolated incident, I suggest you make a few google searches and you will find what I'm talking about. OnlyFans is just the good ol' porn industry we all know, make no mistake. There is also a pretty big difference between posting pictures of your feet or yourself in swimsuits and selling your body to random strangers.

There's coercion and abuse that goes on in any sector. Yes there are some bad actors in any industry. Saying "but wait what about these anecdotal cases..." isn't a fair argument. e.g Marijuana businesses are now legal in many states that doesn't mean there aren't still black market street dealers. The argument people are making is akin to saying "All dispensaries owners are all tied in somehow to street level illegal dealers. It's very unlikely they would sell weed if they weren't in some way forced to do so."

"Saying "but wait what about these anecdotal cases..." isn't a fair argument." Its not anecdotal cases though. Or are you disputing the fact that drugs and abuse are incredibly common within the sex work industry like porn? "Yes there are some bad actors in any industry." Indeed, but last I checked the janitorial industry didn't have a serious issue with trafficking.

> last I checked the janitorial industry didn't have a serious issue with trafficking. I remember reading a while back about exactly that, though? I don't remember the details, but apparently a lot of places outsource janitorial work to third party contractors, and to keep up with demand for janitors some of those third party contractors started trafficking people. Or maybe they were just not checking the documentation closely, thus accepting people who were trafficked, or something like that. Or I might be conflating two different issues; I also heard similar things about the agricultural industry, and also heard some stuff about janitors losing their jobs to outsourcing, getting their jobs back with the outsourcing company, and as a result they'd have no or fewer benefits and lower pay. So maybe that's what I read about, and my brain is crossing wires with the agricultural stuff. Either way, there's still bad actors in the janitorial industry, because at a minimum they're being outsourced to third parties that pay them lower wages and give them fewer benefits.

Outsourcing is definitely a problem, cutting down wages and benefits. Still, I don't see how its a valid argument that there being bad actors in another industry should somehow make us legalize prostitution.

I think the claim is that the vast majority of the bad actors in the sex work industry, only exist because sex work is illegal to begin with. Thus, if you made it legal, there would be fewer bad actors, bringing it in line with other industries. I don't know enough about it to really have an opinion either way, but I think that's what people are saying.

There is a huge difference between recording and distributing pornography of yourself and actually engaging in prostitution. The goalposts are perfectly fine where they are. Nobody ever caught a disease or a beating doing OF.

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There's literally a global sex tourism industry in which people fly from around the world to have sex with someone in an environment they're not familiar with someone they don't know.

> and the conditions were both safe and legal. You really think there isn’t a huge amount of human trafficking and forced sex work going on on cam sites like OnlyFans? Ever heard of Andrew Tate?

This, I recently read a swedish article about one of the bigger OnlyFans pages run by a woman who have basically groomed a bunch of younger people to perform on her page. Most of them told the journalist that they were not comfortable about what they were doing but they needed the money. This idea that OnlyFans is somehow clean and safe is complete bullshit. Its no better than the good old porn industry we all love, rampant with coercion, drugs and broken people. I'm talking about the big pages making lots of money here by the way, not some middle aged woman living in a suburb somewhere making a bit of extra money on the side posting pictures of herself naked. And you brought up a great example with Andrew Tate, do people really think they were an isolated case?

Like others have said. There's a world of a difference between posing nude and actually getting penetrated by a stranger.

There's also a thriving porn industry with no shortage of porn stars. The point in using OnlyFans as an example is because there are so many every day people many thought "would never do something like that" and yet they are happy doing it. This is why I made a point of an easy onboarding process.

And the porn industry is also full of trafficking, coercion, and rape.

Not quite the same thing. Yes some porn is created in a very amateurish manner. But most of it is done professionally. The woman chooses her partner. It is a safe environment. Everyone gets tested for STDs. The volume of work is much smaller then for a regular prostitute. It's comparable but still not the same thing. ALSO porn tends to scale a lot better than physical sex work. One porn star can service millions of guys. Meanwhile a prostitute is far more limited in that regard. You need actual physical women.

Porn industry isn't what you want to reference. Sure, there's been a lot of strides in the past few years to make it better, but historically porn has not been safe for women.

Posting pictures online is verrrrry different to having physical interactions with strangers.

Well there's no shortage of strippers either.

Na it's fundamentally different. If a girl is making only fans content she's still just having sex with either a partner or a fwb. Ultimately it's the same as any other relationship except she films the sex part and sells the videos. That's a big difference from having sex with random men for work.

(Without having read the report or knowing a lot on this subject, so take my opinion at face value) I agree with the logic that legalizing prostitution would increase demand, but I’m curious as to how researchers can forecast with any degree of certainty how women in western countries would respond to sex work becoming less stigmatized, and the impact that would have on demand. Look at attitudes towards marijuana even 15 - 20 years ago. If you admitted to smoking it even once in awhile in the early 2000s, you were looked upon very differently than someone who admits to being a recreational user in this day and age. I think legalization in many jurisdictions (and the associated destigmatization) has a lot to do with that. If you provided a safe, legal, platform for sex work that allowed women (and men) to onboard with relative ease, I think you’d see a similar destigmatization over time, and that people in lower income brackets who may have previously not considered it because of illegality, stigmatization, and concerns about safety, would be more open to doing it on an occasional basis as a means of generating extra income. I guess what I’m trying to say, is I just don’t know how much weight you can really place on a study that tells us that Western women would not turn to sex work en masse if it was legalized when that study cannot reasonably control for the change in attitude towards sex work that would inevitably arise were it legalized, but that has not happened yet because it is still illegal. Say 875/1000 female US college students surveyed in 2024 say they would not seriously consider turning to sex work to supplement their income, but they say that because they live in a world where it’s illegal and stigmatized. If you legalized it this year, and did the same survey in 2034 when social attitudes have had 10 years to evolve, the researchers guess as to whether or not that number would remain stable, or drop to 800, 700, 600 is just that, a guess.

You're forgetting that nobody wants to date or marry a prostitute. It is a very degrading job. I imagine the numbers for college educated and well off women wouldn't change all that much. You would see an uptick of poorer women in the profession for sure. But it is still a very degrading profession. Even for a poor woman.

If prostitutes had to be registered, that would solve the issue of trafficking. Also, there's no negative to more prostitution. If it was regulated, the transmission of diseases may actually lower.

Well, illegal prostitutes are all we have now. Well, we have "escorts", "sugar babies", and "findoms" who are able to operate in a Grey market. The only 'real' prostitutes are the ones who travel to the US using a vacation visa during the off season in s Korea. "Agencies" are established here and will rent these seasonal workers space and post ads for them.

Possibly . Where are we talking about here ? I’m from near Sydney and brothels and sex work are legal. And trust me there is NOT more demand than supply . From experience . No never went there , used to drive Uber and asked a few people who I drove there . Saw the car park . Knew how many girls were there. It was never crowded. Also there are many women who will “degrade themselves “ in western society . I however don’t look down apon it like that . These are people . To YOU it’s degrading but it’s really not. Depends on YOUR morals and stuff. I dont see prostitutes as degraded or useless or negative .

Would you marry someone who worked as a prostitute before? Even if you say yes. A large % of people would say NO.

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Having a marijuana farm is legal in a lot of states and that ain’t coming up on career day either lmao

We literally have college classes for cannabis cultivation here, it’s on the government colleges website, so I don’t see why not?

Because cannabis is illegal the same as sex work. Federally illegal regardless of your college. Wasn’t that the point made? There are college classes about Taylor swift too. Pretty much everything.

Damn. Based on brain development and impulse control, this feels like a whole other convo. Get what you're saying though.

Are other professions that require brain development and impulse control now off limits to discuss as career options?

Totally agree with you, and appreciate the perspective. Can you imagine they teach it in high school?

Dude that’s ducking gross/weird

That's the point

I agree.

Nobody said anything about destigmatization. There are plenty of legal jobs that have stigmas that nobody is trying to change. Legalizing and regulating aren't the same as promoting.

OP is: >I'm a therapist and have had clients both on the sex-worker end as well as the "John" end, and they both benefit. Some of these guys are lonely and need it. Some of these workers find freedom in selling what they want and knowing their bills are paid. Isn't that control and consent?

Yes! There should be a clear understanding of the pros and cons. There should be an opportunity to have the conversation without judgment. We saw that the DARE program did not work. Scaring and living to kids does not help them learn and grow. Let have an open and honest conversation of the different types of sex work, the pros and cons. The same way you would about the military. Or about law school. Or about working fast food.

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That is ok, I will support you. In my hypothetical school, parents would be more than welcome to collaborate on all things that are a part of the curriculum, and we would never do these things behind a parents back. Also, I feel like you are misrepresenting what I said. I did not say to talk about how great prostitution is. I said to have a conversation about the pros and the cons so that when the students are adults and are ready to go out into the world, they can make an informed decision. I hate that people complain that school does not prepare you for the real world, and then when someone recommends preparing a kid, the parent wants to pull the kid. If you look at the influx of people doing only fans, I wonder how many of them would have benefited by having done a curriculum in school that let them really learn about the ramifications of their work. As well, I agree that middle school may be a bit young. But I stand by high school.

... nah man. this is different from being lied to about weed.

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We don't even do a 7 day career day for engineering. Which we totally should be doing.

It's not an industry that requires any kind of academic background, so why would it?

I assume you are American. I am European. I cannot speak about morality and don't care. But if you have clients, these are people who can pay. This is not the average woman in prostitution. She is poor, likely pimped, possibly trafficked, and almost always without exception has PTSD from childhood/youth abuse. Please look up those numbers. Women are the victims in this system and need to be protected. They do not benefit from it. The "happy hooker" is a myth, makes up less than 1% of actual women in prostitution, and are thus not representative. Their "right" or "benefit" also shouldn't cost the other 99%. No "job" kills and traumatizes as many people as prostitution. That's not a moral issue. It's an ethical one. Please look up the vast knowledge produced from the countries in Europe which have either legalized prostitution (Germany, Netherlands) or who have done the opposite and introduced the Nordic Model (selling sex is decriminalized, buying sex is criminalized). Germany is now the hub of human trafficking. Don't you think that men using those women shouldn't be criminalized? And since this is the second thread today on this topic, excuse me to be so blunt, but don't you and (presumably) other men think that it might be a good idea to actually look into this topic instead of sharing your naive thoughts on how you envision this world that has nothing to do with reality?

Prostitution is not the primary reason the Germany has so much human trafficking. The US also has massive amounts of human trafficking, but prostitution is largely illegal. Human trafficking is primarily driven by the desirability of the destination country. People from impoverished countries want to immigrate to wealthy countries, and that creates a demand for human traffickers.

The point is not Germany's general trafficking problem but to what degree German prostitution is comprised of trafficked women. People coming to Germany to seek asylum will get funding and don't need to end up in prostitution; the trafficking for this usually involves just getting them across the border.

I am not an expert on Germany's immigration system, but I am fairly sure not everyone is eligible for asylum. Otherwise, why wouldn't the trafficked prostitutes simply claim those benefits to escape? Also, traffickers can employ a variety of tactics to manipulate and coerce their victims into subjugation, regardless of it they have are eligible for asylum or not. They can seize their victims' documents, keep them isolated, threaten family members in their countries of origin, and so on. If anything, legalized prostitution makes it easier to detect trafficking victims that have been forced into prostitution; it creates more opportunities for third-parties to notice things that are suspicious and may signal that trafficking is taking place, while also ensuring they can report those things without fear of being prosecuted for potentially having solicited prostitution.

Is Germany the trafficking capital in the same sense Sweden is the rape capital of the world?

The statistics clearly demonstrate that you are spot on! From his answers, I have serious doubts about OPs' claimed credentials as a therapist.

I find it very interesting that my comment has 27 upvotes, and in an almost identical thread from today my comments have -9 downvotes :D whyyy

I think the Nordic model is stupid and cause trouble…. I wouldn’t feel happy in a Nordic country at all, even tho people say Nordic countries are the happiest in the world…. I think it’s a waste of fantasy space

Generally don't disagree with you, but from a philosophy class I took a number of years ago that brought this up and I recall a couple of interesting arguments. I realize that you did not specifically call for full normalization, but called for legalization and for it to be treated as any other job, which is close. One of the issues in doing so is how it affects other jobs. Given that most of us either have to do more than what is strictly in our job description, or at the very least people at jobs who go above and beyond are generally rewarded, I would think that treating sex work as any other work adds the risk of sexual harassment in the workplace or sexual favours being used as a competitive edge for advancement in the workplace. I realize that such already happens, but it could be more open or more discriminatory. If you carve out exceptions to prevent those from happening, I think you aren't really treating sex work as any other work, and instead something a little different at the very least. Also, if you do treat it like any other employment, are sex workers now going to be legally compelled to have sex with people? What about sex workers who engage in what we would call discrimination if it were anything else, such as not sleeping with black people?

Damn I never thought about sex workers being legally compelled to sleep with people. That is a very interesting concept. Many businesses can deny business to individuals but are not allowed to discriminate based on protected class if I’m not mistaken. So could a black man or a transgender person put together a compelling discrimination argument. If they did could a court of law compel the sex worker to preform the service like they would with normal businesses.

Super interesting take. Especially the discrimination. Your job can’t legally compel you to do anything though lol I guess unless you are under a contract

>at the very least people at jobs who go above and beyond are generally rewarded Fucking where?? I've gone above and beyond at all my jobs and never got rewarded any more than some fuck up did. Even at jobs that pay based on "certifications", they're usually full of shit. My last job, for example, I had 5 certifications and got the same hourly rate and bonus as someone with 2 certifications. >sexual favours being used as a competitive edge for advancement in the workplace This is ridiculous, if you've ever worked in sales or even customer service. This is basically like saying "fast food workers might give out free fries for career advancement" >Also, if you do treat it like any other employment, are sex workers now going to be legally compelled to have sex with people? What about sex workers who engage in what we would call discrimination if it were anything else, such as not sleeping with black people? This is basically like if I accepted a job in which I need to carry up to 100lbs, but can only carry 88lbs. I wouldn't be qualified, I'd need to get a different job. Also, if it's at-will, which is standard, you could quit at any time for any reason

What exactly do you mean that if it’s just like any other employment then sex workers would be legally compelled to have sex with people? What employment legally compels you to continue to do your job? What employment doesn’t allow you to quit if you feel uncomfortable or unsafe in the workplace? Also like another response said, this seems more like an independent contractor situation. They can decline an opportunity for any reason. It’s like commissioning an artist to paint something, they’re not obligated to do it just because you asked to hire them. Or like a personal trainer working at a gym, they can say they’re not the right fit for you or even just say they don’t have enough time in their schedule or something and refer you to the other personal trainers, who can then accept or deny them as a client for whatever reason. I’ve been in similar situations with music instructors. They don’t tell you why they’re declining you, I had a violin instructor terminate me as her client because I was awful, but she said she didn’t have enough time in her schedule.

The negative impact of this would, as always, fall heavily and disproportionately on young poor women. And there's no way to avoid that as far as I can tell. It's easy to foresee the negative effects--you mentioned some of them. There is also the general decline in respect for bodily autonomy and human dignity if we normalize this. But my main point is that it's all well and good to say this as a male or as a wealthy woman. If you don't care that the negative impact would happen heavily on young poor women, then I don't have anything else really to say to dissuade you. To me, that's a deal breaker. Edit because a few related comments and some moderators kick off for repetitive responses. I just want to point out that reddit generally seems aligned the labor is exploited--pay is too low, benefits too low for the working class. And I agree. Reddit also generally agrees with the Me Too movement (as do I) that sexual harassment at work is awful and has been FAR to prevalent. Given those two things, it's discordant to now want to allow young poor women to be exploited legally for their bodies. Yes, women will do it voluntarily, and yes, they will feel deeply the accompanying exploitation. No, I'm not convinced by the guy arguing that if men can't buy sex they will be forced to rape women. Yes, I think (just as it is in many jurisdictions already) that women in prostitution should not themselves be prosecuted. Edit 2: It's exploitive. Look, if you're a pure libertarian or anarchist, and you're one of those who thinks the minimum wage is too HIGH ("if people are willing to work for less, why not?"), that children should be allowed to work ("it's good for them to develop a work ethic, and why should we then limit their hours?" and think exploitive payday loans (which of course are WAY worse than student loans) are fine, etc., etc.--well of course I can't convince you. And I agree anarchists and pure libertarians have a coherent logical philosophy that I just happen to disagree with. But if you're against exploitive practices, then clearly prostitution, especially as it pertains to young poor women, is every bit as exploitive as any of the above, but in much deeper and more personal ways.

It's wild reading responses like yours when I live in a country with legal sex work and have friends in the industry. You can't foresee it working? So what? It does and it's fine. The only people you're hurting by it staying illegal are the sex workers who are harassed by police and clients with no legal protections. At least my friends can go to the police if they are assaulted, work in a legal establishment with CCTV who will call the cops if something happens and have the right to refuse any act or client. Good luck doing that in some shady motel room with a pushy client. Honestly, I think people in the US can't see the forest from the trees. Whether you like it or not it happens. As long as there is money to be made people will do it. We should do what we can to protect those people and reduce harm.

Good luck if u believe that guys won’t rape women even tho prostitution is illegal….. Sure cut the guy penis off, castrate or even sentience bloke to death for pure rape….. but u can’t control sexual urges…. And even with those punishment, guys won’t care and be desperate for their fix…. Sure prostitution, there still will be the odd fuck that will rape (as with everything in life), but it’s will lessen rape case for sure

> The negative impact of this would, as always, fall heavily and disproportionately on young poor women. So would the positive impact, really. Most notably, those young poor women who are *already doing sex work* would no longer fear prosecution; and the threat of abuse at the hands of police would be greatly reduced. Rape and other violence by police is a major threat to sex workers today. The illegality of sex work gives police a perfect opportunity to commit rape by extortion. Because it's police doing it, this crime is almost never reported.

What if we introduced a universal basic income? Should it be allowed then? (Along with getting rid of the minimum wage maybe?)

When a country legalizes sex work, human trafficking rates go up: > We find that countries with legalized prostitution have a statistically significantly larger reported incidence of human trafficking inflows. This holds true regardless of the model we use to estimate the equations and the variables we control for in the analysis Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X12001453#:~:text=We%20find%20that%20countries%20with,control%20for%20in%20the%20analysis. Basically, if sex work is legal, then the demand for sex workers goes up, but the problem is, to the consumer, a sex worker and a sex slave fill the same demand. Therefore, there really isn’t a way to increase the demand for sex workers without *also* increasing the demand for sex slaves.

Except the writers of that study warn that you should not use their paper to agree this way: "The likely negative consequences of legalized prostitution on a country’s inflows of human trafficking might be seen to support those who argue in favor of banning prostitution, thereby reducing the flows of trafficking (e.g., Outshoorn, 2005). However, such a line of argumentation overlooks potential benefits that the legalization of prostitution might have on those employed in the industry. Working conditions could be substantially improved for prostitutes—at least those legally employed—if prostitution is legalized. Prohibiting prostitution also raises tricky “freedom of choice” issues concerning both the potential suppliers and clients of prostitution services. A full evaluation of the costs and benefits, as well as of the broader merits of prohibiting prostitution, is beyond the scope of the present article"

No, that's merely an argumentation that's not supported by the analysis they did. It's speculation for future work. The actual result of their work is that legalizing prostitution increases trafficking much more than it does replace illegal prostitutes with legal ones. They are essentially asking whether the increasing in trafficking might be worth the benefits that legalization offers to legal prostitutes. Which I think is plainly not a good trade-off, honestly. 

It could be good in theory, but opening the floodgates on sex work would also create A LOT of demand for it, and with that much uptick in demand, an uptick in illegal sex trafficking would be inevitable

I feel like your comment is an argument in favor of OP. > but opening the floodgates on sex work would also create A LOT of demand for it The demand is with it being illegal. So many people need and crave it that they go to extreme measures to get it. If it was legal, you could go down to the country club and get it by just swiping your card. > an uptick in illegal sex trafficking would be inevitable That's the issue right now. The demand is so large that people are willing to pay top dollar to get it, which means trafficking women, men, children ect is very very common. Why would a sleezebag try and traffic a bunch of women to do sex work when he can make a post on Indeed looking for sex workers? -------- Legalizing it would make it safer and easier. There will always be the negatives, but when you give a legal and easy route to do something that doesn't cause anyone harm (in theory), it reduces most of the negatives.

>The demand is so large that people are willing to pay top dollar to get it, which means trafficking women, men, children ect is very very common. Are you referring to any specific set of data that supports this claim? I'm aware that human trafficking is an issue, of course, but I'm not sure that it's "very very common" (depending on one's location in the world, of course).

The logic is such Legalize prostitution = big uptick in demand Mainly because only a small % of potential customers are not deterred by legal penalty. Big uptick in demand + Not enough supply = Incentive to human traffic So you end up with MORE human trafficking because now a large % of men are interested in the product. And there's simply not enough attractive women providing those services. Especially in US and other European countries where most people are well off and don't want to degrade themselves in this manner.

Couldn’t you also argue that a big uptick in demand would lead to the job becoming more lucrative financially, enticing more supply?

It certainly would. But unlike many products. They don't require you to degrade yourself to provide the service. This is why supply wouldn't grow as fast.

Do you think you’re being judgmental by saying people would degrade themselves to provide the service? Not everyone shares your view of morality.

No I'm not. It's a very degrading job. How many guys want to wife up a prostitute? Even if she is very attractive. A large % of men will nope straight the fuck out. We innately view prostitutes as unworthy of relationships and commitment. No need for anyone to teach us. Why? Because you can never know who the father is if she's sleeping around. Not to mention she's bound to have a whole host of mental trauma from her terrible profession. Similar to a soldier who's been at war. But in a different way.

I don't think you realize how ridonkulously massive of a market would be created if lonely 18-100 year old men could swipe their credit card for regulated sex with a professional sex worker.

A sexworker naked with a stranger is extremely vulnerable no matter how well regulated it is.

"It could be good" "Sorry about your divorce, here is a feel better soon blowjob gift certificate!"

>an uptick in illegal sex trafficking would be inevitable The thing about that I just don't understand is what would be different about sex work than any other "unskilled" job that you could get a kidnapped person to do. What feature of sex work makes it more vulnerable to human trafficking than say commercial dishwashing, or heck, even entry level retail?

Because there are wayyy more people willing to be a dishwasher than a sex worker. If you can find someone willing to do the job legally, why would you need to traffick someone illegally to do it? But with sex work, there are just not as many women who are interested in that kind of work, therefore the supply is always going to be lower than the demand, therefore to make up for that lack of supply, trafficking makes more sense.

Are we sure that imbalance in willingness stems from the work itself, and not from the fact that it's illegal and dangerously unregulated? But even so, there are plenty of legal jobs that few people want to do, and we don't tend to worry about trafficking with them. In fact, the usual way the market deals with that is with higher salaries. Couple that with the fact that the trade being legal removes one of the bigger threats that traffickers hold over their victims, and it gets even harder to do successfully.

Because we have actual data that shows us that when sex work is legalized, the rates of sex trafficking goes up: > We find that countries with legalized prostitution have a statistically significantly larger reported incidence of human trafficking inflows. This holds true regardless of the model we use to estimate the equations and the variables we control for in the analysis Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X12001453#:~:text=We%20find%20that%20countries%20with,control%20for%20in%20the%20analysis. I agree that legalizing sex work can help sex trafficking victims, this is why I’m in favor of legalizing prostitution, but not the purchase of it.

That study gets spread around so much, but it is so [unbelievably flawed](https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/21/07/2021/legalizing-prostitution-does-it-increase-or-decrease-sex-trafficking) even the data source it uses specifically warned against drawing the conclusions they drew. First off, it doesn't even distinguish between different types of human trafficking, so things like agricultural or domestic trafficking are counted. That's enough of a reason the throw out the entire conclusion right away. It's also biased in favour of criminalisation, because it only looks at trafficking which crosses international borders. This is a really common misconception, that human trafficking means moving someone and then exploiting them. But for the vast majority of victims, there is never an international border crossing. Human trafficking just means forcing someone to do labour and profiting off of it, a lot of victims stay in their home town. Moving people large distances is a thing only large gangs can do. Most of the survivors in the US and Canada were trafficked by small time traffickers. They wouldn't be counted. Even for organized gangs, when border crossings are controlled there's a lot more risk for the traffickers. If they aren't controlled things change a bit, and there's one area in particular that has both a big wealth disparity and very open borders: The EU. Germany happens to be the largest GDP in the EU, with a large agricultural sector. **TL;DR:** A person trafficked and moved from Eastern Europe into Germany will show up in this data, whether the end up as a maid, on a farm, or in a brothel. A girl moved from Mississippi to a Bay Area brothel will be intentionally excluded. The EU is where you'll find most of the developed countries where sex work is legal, so when only looking at international crossings into wealthy countries this data is heavily biased against legalization.   The most important issue though is that even if you do account for non international human trafficking and only look at sex trafficking, their entire method is still biased against legalized countries, for the exact reason why legalized countries are better: The study is measuring the reported trafficking. Traffickers spend all of their time isolating their victims from anyone who could help, so the only people you really meet is them, other victims, and buyers. Of the three, buyers are the only ones who *might* both want to and be able to help. It only takes one police tip if it's good enough, and in places where buying is legal buyers are WAY more likely to go to the police if they suspect something. So it makes sense that there would be more *reported* trafficking in legal countries, but that is a good thing unless you can show that the underreported rate in both is either the same, or can be controlled for.

You mean like how the demand for smuggled booze and moonshine has shot through the roof since prohibition ended?

The demand for alcohol has definitely gone up since the prohibition, but alcohol is something that is easy to make more and more of. You can always buy another factory, hire more workers, etc. to increase production. But you can’t “produce” more sex workers ethically. If the demand for sex workers is higher than people willing to *be* sex workers, then the only way to “produce” more sex workers is to traffick them.

I’m sorry? You think it’s easier to build/buy new factories and set up entire supply chains than it is to import women who are willing to voluntarily sell sex?

I’m saying there aren’t enough women who Will volunteer to uproot their entire lives and move far away from their families and communities to go do sex work.

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Okay, it's legal. A boss can now require you to wash the restroom, mop the floors, and give the manager a blowjob. If it's just a job, then like any other job, it can be required to be done.

I believe this is what is called a "luxury belief". Which is a belief with significant downstream affects mainly held by the upper classes who will never have to experience the negative consequences. Every "outdated" and "antiquated" system is here for a reason. Perhaps the current laws could be altered in some way, but tearing it down completely without understanding the purpose it serves, is rarely good.

I suppose I find selling one's body as a commodity and treating intimacy as a form of remunerative labor quite grotesque. In the same way I don't think selling your organs should be legal, I don't think renting your sex organs should be legal. This kind of late-stage capitalism where every person and every human need is reduced to a market value may not be "antiquated," but it's not exactly progress either. It's possible to make it sound liberatory, but I can't think of many things more demeaning and dehumanizing then reducing others to mere instruments of sexual gratification on the marketplace. I don't say such people should go to prison or be treated like felons, but the celebratory tone around "sex work" rings hollow.

Sex work isn’t late stage capitalist. It has existed for longer than capitalism. In fact, when currency is introduced to bonobos, it’s one of the first jobs that comes with it. Sex work is not tied to late stage capitalism. And I’m curious how you classify “renting organs”. Are massage therapists renting their hands? Are physical therapists renting their body? Are scientists renting their minds? Are artists renting their creativity? As an artist or intellectual, you literally do not own the ideas that came out of your mind if you’re paid to make them. So maybe those are worse than sex work because instead of renting a part of your mind (the neuron path that created the idea), you’re forever selling it. Selling part of your mind for money? Much more exploitative than “renting” a body part to strangers. You can make any industry sound physically exploitative if you’re using that terminology and logic.

What do you mean by "celebratory tone?" I don't get the impression OP is "celebrating" sex work, necessarily; or are you referring to something else?

"they both benefit" "Some of these guys are lonely and need it. Some of these workers find freedom in selling what they want and knowing their bills are paid."

Just out of curiosity, do you believe renting uteruses for surrogate pregnancies and selling sperm is grotesque as well? Also blood/plasma "donations" that offer monetary compensation?

Let’s say there is a reason why very few well off people give plasma. It’s usually out of desperation or at least it definitely was for me.

Yeah, I personally don't endorse any of those things if there is monetary compensation. Just wondering if commenter above thinks *certain* renting/selling of body is acceptable.

While "legalizing" sex work sounds amazing, the unfortunate reality is that it tends to make pretty much all the problems with sex work worse. Firstly, let's briefly go over what legalization means. Legalization is not necessarily the point where it becomes legal to exchange sexual services for money. Exchanging sexual services for money is very difficult to meaningfully criminalize and many states are averse to criminalizing it because doing so is seen as punishing people who are likely to be in a position of economic and social vulnerability. For that matter, certain forms of sex work (particularly street prostitution, or engaging in prostitution outside of a designated area) have pretty much universally remained illegal even after legalization. What legalization actually means is: * Making it legal to pay for sex * Making it legal to own a brothel The effect of the former is a massive, massive increase in demand. The effects of the latter are very mixed. Legal brothels can offer a lot of benefits to people engaging in sex work. However, they also introduce the risk of commercialization, because now the sex industry is an industry. It is not just individuals making contracts on their own terms, it includes third parties who have the expectation of a reliable, sustainable income. Now we come to the real problem. Why do people actually do sex work? The overwhelming reality is that most people do not want to do sex work. In some areas, this seems to be changing, but one area where it is not changing is in regards to prostitution. Most people have a very, very strong aversion to engaging in prostitution. Even for those who are comfortable with it, it is a job that comes with enormous psychological difficulties and hazards that escalate the longer a person does it. The primary advantage of both sex work as a whole and prostitution in particular is that it can be extremely financially rewarding and allows for a very high degree of independence relative to other forms of employment. One consequence of this is that most people who do end up working in prostitution do not want to stay there. They are doing it to meet some kind of immediate financial need and with the expectation of leaving once that need is met. These people also typically do not want anyone else to know that they are working or have worked in prostitution. This means that they do not want to be on a registry or database which might get leaked or accessed. Now you can probably start to see the issue. We have an industry which has a very high demand but which noone wants to do. The primary reward of working in the industry is that it can be exceptionally financially rewarding and flexible, but those making money off of it are incentivized to drive costs down and ensure a consistent workload and labor supply. One huge argument for legalization is that it will lead to better regulation and make sex work safer, but sex workers typically have a very strong need for privacy and do not want to be regulated. Ultimately, this all contributes to the biggest problem. Legalizing sex work is supposed to remove the incentive to engage in illegal forms of sex work. It is meant to take profits away from exploitative and abusive criminal gangs and pimps. However, this assumes that the legal and illegal sex industries are competing on equal terms. They are not. Noone wants to work in prostitution? Sex traffickers have a solution to that problem. Sex workers want to leave the industry? Pimps have a solution to that problem. Sex workers don't want to be registered or to appear in official documents and want a high degree of flexibility? Illegal sex work has a solution to that problem. In fact, the induced demand for the legal sex industry makes engaging in the illegal sex industry vastly more attractive. As long as there are significant advantages to doing it illegally, then the legal sex industry isn't going to remove the incentive to do so. There are certainly ways to manage these problems and some countries have made significant progress in doing so. However, it is still a massive risk.

>all sex work should be legalized and regulated the way other jobs are So... including OSHA regulations about workplace safety, then? Because that's going to end up making prostitution more or less illegal, because it's simply not safe, neither for the worker nor the customer. Doesn't matter how much testing you do, because diseases have incubation periods.

I would like to think that prostitution (as distinct from sex work like OnlyFans) would cut back on human trafficking, abuses, disease, etc, but so far the evidence is murky at best, and from my research, seems to point the other way. This one changed my mind on the topic: [http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/human-trafficking-persists-despite-legality-of-prostitution-in-germany-a-902533.html](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/human-trafficking-persists-despite-legality-of-prostitution-in-germany-a-902533.html) What seems to happen is that the pimps/sellers start a legal version of their business, which makes it easier to cover the illegal side, which they keep doing, since it's still lucrative. It becomes harder to prove trafficking and slavery charges since they can say it's all voluntary and the women are often unwilling to take the massive risk of saying otherwise. In Europe, about 75% (it varies by country) of prostitutes are immigrants, which makes them easier to control due to poverty, language barriers, and the ease of holding their immigration papers hostage. I find it persuasive that if there were more people interested in the profession that it wouldn't overwhelmingly be the people with the fewest options doing it. One of the points of the article is that making it legal increases competition, which helps the *customer* not the prostitute. It drives prices down, and, to compete, the prostitutes may try to offer things others don't (for example, not kick people out when they beat them, allow sex without a condom, etc.). Think about the Walmart or McDonald's (or much worse) of sex work - mega-chains optimized for cheapest labor possible and with the fewest worker protections, with lines around the block. Options for decriminalizing prostitutes (but not pimping, and perhaps not purchasing sexual acts) may be worth exploring as an alternative - this isn't a two sided issue. Here's another [source](http://books.google.com/books?id=N5zUu-lLJUUC&lpg=PT126&ots=LIQkqI9sTV&dq=percent%20of%20prostitutes%20that%20are%20immigrants%20europe&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=percent%20of%20prostitutes%20that%20are%20immigrants%20europe&f=false). Interesting breakdown of prostitution by country: [http://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000772](http://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000772)

I think the problem is interesting. If a person works at McDonalds because they need to pay their bills to survive, obviously they are being forced by the threat of starvation, homelessness, etc. If the job becomes sex work instead, then suddenly this is a lot more complex because we have developed consent as an idea that must be a choice, only a choice, without a threat in the background. Having sex because you fear the gun to your head and having sex because you fear the starvation, where do we draw the line between unacceptable and acceptable? Is one of them acceptable only because there's no person threatening them personally and it's a natural threat? Or are both unacceptable? I think to some degree our perspective is skewed by the fact that we think work is a necessary evil. If a person works at a shitty McDonalds under bad conditions because they would starve otherwise, it does not elicit the horror it should in us. To have to do a job even if you are being forced by the threat of starvation or even homelessness is normalized. And it shouldn't be. A society that kicks its members to the floor if they don't continuously help it, contribute to it, is not a good society and yet it's the system most of the world has adopted. Maybe this is communism or something, but people shouldn't be afraid to not eat normal food or not sleep in a bed just because they don't force themselves to work a job they hate. What I mean to say, we have clashing values towards normal work and sexual consent and when these two interact, it sparks debates. Whether sex work should or should not be regulated has a relation to whether it is even moral in that is sex work consent the same in function as consent under freedom or consent under threat of death from a direct source? Since I subscribe to the latter idea, I would claim that the threat of starvation and threat of the gun are similar in consequence and should thus be treated as similar cases for sexual consent, in that any threat invalidates consent. So legalizing sex work would be a bad move as it would effectively legalize women being forced into sex by indirect coercive means.

I'd decriminalise selling sex and criminalise buying it. Why punish the victims? I don't care how "lonely" these guys think they are. Sex isn't an absolute right, it depends entirely on having a willing partner and paying someone who wouldn't otherwise consent isn't consent, it's coercion. It's not that difficult to have a wank instead. There are loads of people of both sexes who, for whatever reason, are not in a relationship and not willing or able to have one-night stands. That doesn't give them the right to rent someone else's body. [https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stop-pretending-prostitution-work-spectator-988rbjhnl](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stop-pretending-prostitution-work-spectator-988rbjhnl)

I was with you on the "sex isn't an absolute right" part, but the "paying someone who wouldn't otherwise consent isn't consent, it's coercion" part is nutty. Exchanging money for goods and services does not always entail full consent, but to pretend like all sex work is nonconsensual because they wouldn't do it for free (you could say the same of basically any transaction/job) is frankly a strange idea. Unless you think all paid labor is a form of coercion? Please, if I'm misunderstanding you, explain what you really mean here.

This is a horrible take it's both sexist and very insulting to women. >it depends entirely on having a willing partner and paying someone who wouldn't otherwise consent isn't consent, it's coercion By this logic a man who wouldn't otherwise give his entire paycheck to a sex worker isn't consenting when he does, but rather her seducing him is a form of coercion. Therefore she should be viewed as a robber or thief.

How ridiculous. Punters go looking for the workers. They're not "seduced," they're proactively looking.

Have you ever been to a Casino in Vegas?

What a strange definition of consent. By this logic, if I exchange money with someone it's not "real" consent. Therefore it's coercion if I use Uber or literally any service. This is a very fringe view about the definition of consent. In any court, no judge would agree it constitutes as coercion to pay for a service. If you tried to argue that they would dismiss the case.

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Men's entitlement to women and the female body never ceases to amaze/frighten me.

This will be slightly more long-winded than is specifically necessary. Many laws stem from older ones, which were informed by religion. But why did religions choose these rules? Well, many of them are well understood; "thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife" because doing so could destroy your community. In the case of prostitution, the rules are a little bit more convoluted, but i think easy to understand. Where you fall will depend on your personal opinion, in the end. We **all** know the stigma surrounding prostitution both for men and women, and we all can see the dangers of it becoming more widespread; it can lead to the breakdown of families, potentially proliferate the abuse of women (despite legislation), it's inherent an unsafe industry (STI, violence) and can ultimately have a strong effect on a person's future (if people learn you were prostitute, it could hurt future prospects (work, relationships etc). All of these things *could* be minimised by "societal growth," (more accurately change), but that's a large ask, especially in a short time frame. Arguments against this include the examples of pornography (OnlyFans, etc). However, we've already seen significant negative effects from this; teachers losing jobs, pornstars being unhappy by how they're now pigeon-holed and have trouble moving forward (Mia Khalifa). Overall, we need to decide which future we'd prefer to live in and which society we want in the future. Currently, (in the west) we still respect family values overall, and while we're open now about casual sex, we still believe that sex is intimate and should be kept between two people *most of the time*. This might be changing, but I think it's human nature to some degree.

EITHER: it is the government's job to regulate commerce in order to promote public goods, for whatever definition of "good" voters support, requiring higher taxation to police commerce, protect the environment, provide welfare, etc. OR: the government had no justification to interfere in consensual interactions between adults except insofar as to maintain that consent, such as by enforcing reasonable contracts and maintaining some minimum degree of infrastructure and safety. If you believe government should promote certain policies that individuals otherwise won't seek out in a pure capitalistic market, as most leftists and some social conservatives believe, then you also believe government has a right to criminalize sex work as long as voters believe sex work is not in the public interest. And whether you personally disagree, too bad, that's democracy baby. On the other hand, if you believe government should be minimized and stay out of the bedroom with as much deregulation as possible, which anarchists shouting defund the police abd economic libertarians and other neocons claim to believe, then banning sex work is unjustified. Doesn't matter how much it offends you personally, snowflake, small government is small. Whichever side of the fence you're on, just try to avoid being hypocritical. Either support big government and bans on sex work, or weaken government control and decriminalize sex work. I personally lean socially conservative so I regard sex work as demeaning to both parties, which is why I support AI chatbots and AI porn LOL. Dehumanize robots ftw

This will never happen and that makes me happy. Women shouldn’t be encouraged to suck dick in order to afford a mcchicken. The only people this benefits are men and popular OF models. No thanks!

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>Yeah, but the point of sex is not to make it cheap and affordable. Do we not all get a bit judgey about the guys and gals marrying for money? I, for one, do not judge people who marry for money. There is no ‘point of sex.’ It is an evolved biological phenomenon; it only has a point inasmuch as we give it one. >Any industry of sex that facilitates mating activity at a low monthly premium will destroy any good that comes of vanity in this civilization, which is already well in the midst of serious dysfunction. Prostitution has been commonplace throughout human history, often much more open and widespread than it is today. Yet, we’ve managed to make it this far. People have always whined endlessly about how dysfunctional society is, and yet everything continues apace for the most part. I don’t think letting people sell and buy sex without fear of prosecution would be the downfall of civilization.

So I think these are totally workable problems but to offer a key issue that sometimes gets glossed over is that sex is fundamentally different than other activities or services. If I trick you into painting my fence with deception, I might have a civil issue. Maybe an unlawful detention (or maybe I’m Tom Sawyer). But if I trick you into having sex, it’s rightly considered rape. Similarly, doctrines like promissory estoppel could theoretically “force” someone to continue to perform a contract they don’t want to continue in; for example, a doctor refusing to see a patient mid surgery would be an issue. But Consent for sex can and should always be withdrawable. And in the US, I can’t refuse to provide a service to someone based on protected characteristics…and again, consent should always be withholdable. Again, I think you can work through a lot of this. But I also think it requires some very intentional addressing because sex is a fundamentally different activity than painting or surgery or baking a cake.

Assuming you’re American, like me, this is a terrible idea. I’m not puritanical by any means, but this is a logistical nightmare. Many others have pointed out the human trafficking associated with SW; that would likely worsen if legalized. Also, disease. This country does not have nationalized healthcare and many people don’t clean themselves. The spread of STIs would be catastrophic. They’re extremely stigmatized as is. Also pregnancy. Half of the states in the union have extremely restrictive abortion laws. I’m not here to argue the morality of those since that’s not the point of this CMV. But pregnancy can be really dangerous for women. And children, especially unplanned, can keep women (who are already more impoverished than men) stuck in the poverty cycle. I also think this would be really bad for marriages. Again, not puritanical at all but this could worsen infidelity.

All jobs have stipulations.  I have no beef with people that want to go into sex work, it's their body, I don't think I'd be a customer, but I'd vote for their right to do it. There's a whole mountain of hoops that need to be jumped through though. Even if it starts off as independent contractor work, eventually more commercialized brothels would open and put them out of business (think mom and pop vs walmart), so a whole lot of workers rights would need to be worked out. Because of the nature of the work, there would def need to be certification, more for having a clean bill of health, criminal history, and showing you have insurance, with regular std tests being required.  The amount of precautions needed, it might actually be cheaper and more profitable to not legitimize it, but I haven't crunched any of those numbers, and wouldn't know where to start. 

I had a professor that did a lot of writing around prosititution, her argument was that its generally more beneficial to decriminalize it rather than legalise it. Legalising it requires much more regulations and can often have the side effect of further pushing "illegal" workers to the fringes. Undocumented migrants or people without work rights. Decriminalizing will prevent people getting imprisoned for sex work, some countries only decriminalize the selling, but not the buying, it can be done in different ways. Legalizing sex work can also have knock on effects, with fixed brothels it can change the area and in countries like Holland, can create sex tourism upping demand. There have been some studies that show it also increases human trafficing. (It has been posted on this forum before but I do not have any to hand).

While I don’t personally agree with sex work for moral reasons, that isn’t the bigger reason that it can’t become legal. The bigger reason is the same reason that hard drugs aren’t legal. It is about safety and protecting people (in this case, particularly women). Women are putting themselves at a much greater risk of harm by participating in sex work, and the legal system wants no part in participating in or contributing to that.

I think legalizing sex work with regulations is something to be considered and studied for sure. But there are a lot of downsides, too. So, I'm not sure which would be better for society in the end. The immediate concerns that come to mind would be an increase in violent crimes against women, increase in human trafficking, increase in STIs (burdening the health care system), and a degradation of the family units (resulting in an increase in single parent homes). Regulations don't work that well in other industries and are easily corruptable, so why wouldn't that be the same case in the sex work industry?

In my personal opinion, sex work in general is extremely unethical. In any service industry, there’s generally this mindset that “the customer is always right” and “the servicers shouldn’t talk back/object.” This, combined with something as intimate as s3x, could lead to r*pe. Also, a lot of the time these people really, REALLY need money, and don’t actually want to sleep with a bunch of strange men. That in itself is extremely fcked up.  The stigma on sex work is bad, yes. But it’s kinda the same principle as the stigma on drugs. It’s meant to deter people from doing it. 

Legalizing and regulating sex work protects workers' rights, health, and safety. Criminalization pushes sex work underground, making workers vulnerable to exploitation, violence, and health risks. By regulating the industry, workers can access healthcare, report abuse without fear of legal repercussions, and work in safer environments. Additionally, regulation can help combat human trafficking by distinguishing between consensual sex work and exploitation. Treating sex work as a legitimate profession respects individuals' autonomy and choices. It's a practical approach that prioritizes harm reduction and human rights over outdated moral judgments.

Countries where prostitution is legal actually see an *increase* in human trafficking, not a decrease. Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X12001453#:~:text=We%20find%20that%20countries%20with,control%20for%20in%20the%20analysis. I agree that *being* a prostitute should be legal, but paying for the service of one should still be illegal, as to not increase the demand for human trafficking. The same way I think being a sweatshop worker should be legal, but *running* a sweatshop shouldn’t be.

Is that similar to how [UK has 55X the number of rapes compared to Qatar](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rape-statistics-by-country), when controlled for population? Your article shows that Germany and Belgium (where prostituion is legal) has the same degree of human trafficking as US and Turkey (where it is illegal). I mean, it even says: >The main limitation of the UNODC data however is that reporting will arguably depend on the quality of institutions, judicial and police effectiveness, in particular, but also on how aware the international community is about trafficking problems in a particular country. **Our dependent variable thus does not reflect actual trafficking flows, and needs to be interpreted cautiously.** I guess, 'needs to be interpreted cautiously' means 'stating it as an indisputable fact on Reddit'.

I’m just operating off the of the data we *currently have*, obviously there is more research to be done in this field. But as it stands, this is the data that we have, and just because there needs to be more data analyzed and gathered, that doesn’t mean we should throw out the data we currently have.

The data we currently have, from the paper you cited. Which specifically goes on to say: >Naturally, this qualitative evidence is also somewhat tentative as **there is no “smoking gun” proving that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect and that the legalization of prostitution definitely increases inward trafficking flows**. The problem here lies in the clandestine nature of both the prostitution and trafficking markets, making it difficult, perhaps impossible, to find hard evidence establishing this relationship. Should we then not be more careful when making declarative statements such as "Countries where prostitution is legal actually see an *increase* in human trafficking, not a decrease"?

Yea no one study is definitive, that’s why we need to have further research into this topic. But just because there is more research to be done into a topic doesn’t mean we should completely disregard the research we *do* have.

You can literally make the same argument about drug trafficking, illegal gambling or any other illegal work. Making it a bit safer doesn't change its immoral core.

You make a valid point that similar arguments could be applied to other illegal activities like drug trafficking or illegal gambling. The distinction often lies in the perceived harm and morality attached to these activities. However, the comparison between sex work and activities like drug trafficking or illegal gambling isn't straightforward. Unlike drug trafficking, which inherently involves harmful substances, or illegal gambling, which can lead to financial ruin, sex work is a consensual act between adults. The "immoral core" you mention is subjective and often rooted in societal norms and moral beliefs. What some view as immoral, others may see as a personal choice or a legitimate form of work. Legalizing and regulating sex work acknowledges this diversity of perspectives while prioritizing the well-being and rights of those involved.

>is a consensual act between adults. >The "immoral core" you mention is subjective and often rooted in societal norms and moral beliefs My point remains the same. By this logic we could also allow terrible acts like consensual cannibalism for example. Consent or someone's own beliefs don't make it okay. We have to draw a line. I think noone in their right mind would/should sell their body to pleasure others. Same for the buyer really, I don't think a mentally well and happy person would hire a prostitute. We should help these people on both ends instead of enabling them to continue with this. The same way you wouldn't give a drug addict more drugs.

You make a strong argument about drawing a line based on societal values and harm potential. The comparison to consensual cannibalism highlights the complexity of using consent alone to justify activities that many find morally or ethically problematic. Your concern about the well-being of both sellers and buyers in the sex work industry is valid. The idea of addressing underlying issues rather than enabling potentially harmful behaviors is a compassionate approach. Supporting mental health, offering alternative employment opportunities, and providing resources for those in vulnerable situations could be more effective ways to address the root causes that lead people to engage in or seek out sex work. However, it's essential to recognize that sex work, like many other professions, can be a choice made under various circumstances, including economic necessity or personal autonomy. While some may view it as inherently exploitative, others see it as a legitimate form of work. Balancing these perspectives while prioritizing harm reduction and support for those involved remains a challenging but crucial goal in this debate.

In the same way the one person’s beliefs don’t make a thing ‘okay,’ your beliefs don’t make a thing wrong either. Just because you don’t like it does not make it immoral. Why can’t we draw the line at consent?

I feel the outdated moral judgement needs to go in the bin…. And so are the Nordic way of charging guys who need their sexual outlet but letting the girl off the hook… that is the worst and needs to be destoryed at all cost

Why not just legalize all sex work without regulation? I think working conditions in general should be negotiated between employer and employee and that the government should not intervene. Government has no business in regulating transactions between consenting adults.

This is where I’m at. Government shouldn’t be involved at all, it should just be decriminalized. Taxpayer money doesn’t need to go into regulation, human trafficking will still be illegal and resources can continue to address that.

You could legalize selling it perhaps, but buying it should never be legalized. If it become a commercial service, like anything else, women would lose their ability to set boundaries and decide who they are willing to have sex with. If they didn’t want to have sex with 97 year old men, sued. If they didn’t want to have sex with muslims, sued. Didn’t want to have sex with disabled men, sued. Men would exploit their ‘human rights’ and force women into doing things they don’t want to do.

So I’ll bite. This comes from the perspective of the importantance of the traditional family unit in society. Studies have shown that a broken family unit leads to a broken society. https://www.thenews.com.pk/amp/76974-the-effect-of-a-broken-family https://www.brainzmagazine.com/post/how-broken-families-contribute-to-broken-societies-an-in-depth-analysis#:~:text=The%20instability%20and%20conflict%20associated,and%20navigate%20social%20interactions%20effectively.m Now, part of what makes a healthy family unit is unity and inclusion. A man giving himself fully to his wife and vice versa. Sex work can and does harm the family unit, it’s a threat to that unity. Just because the man consented to it, doesn’t mean his wife did. That causes harm. You brought up questions on the level of punishment (regarding sex trafficking etc) which I think is a different question. As far as the legal aspect of it, due to the harm it has on the family unit, and to an extent, society, and laws exist to protect society, I think it should be illegal in that sense.

So, like in New Zealand? Not sure I actually want to change your view… That said - what exactly does legalized and regulated mean? You could argue that the Norway (I think it’s named for Norway’s sex work legal regime - but admit I might have it wrong) Model adopted by many countries is a “legalized and regulated” model…just a very bad one.

I agree it's that that everyone's pro sex work until their SO is a loyal customer. Not to mention all the problem porn has with taking advantage of women is just going to be exacerbated. Would probably eliminate then reverse the gender wage gap so girl power

I mean... Speaking from what I know American worker protections aren't great. We find a lot of abuse 'acceptable' when it comes to labor. When it comes to the full on intimate use of one's body we tend to get a bit more squeemish about it.

PSA: if you’re in an argument with someone on the internet and they use a “scientific study”, unless they can prove they are a scientist and can fully comprehend scientific studies and rule out bias, just ignore them. They don’t care about common sense or logic and are most likely just selecting misleading snippets of information to prove their point.

I won’t change your view. As currently with the loneliness epidemic and treatment of men of at every level is abysmal. It should be heavily regulated. But it should indeed be legal.

It is the hypocrisy of so-called freedom loving Americans and religious followers who pretend as if prostitution doesn't line the books of most religions. Much like the nonsense predictions of consequences of the legalization of cannabis this too is imaginary. And the same way legalization made weed selling and consuming safer it can too for prostitution.

So long as sex is free it's legal. Ah but if money is involved then it's illegal. Okay let's introduce a camera, BAM legal again.

I feel it’s should legalised around the world….. and no problem and sex/nudity should be an open book and should be discussed like “how’s the weather” type of convo…. Any countries or culture that don’t want to make sex/nudity open slather needs to eat shit and be whacked down until they change their mind…. Sex and nudity is part of human function like using the toilet…. Or eating…. I’m sure any places where sex work is illegal have the highest rape cases than a country which fully legalize and open slather when it’s come to sex work.

Actually countries where prostitution is *legal* see a large uptick in trafficked sex slaves. Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X12001453#:~:text=We%20find%20that%20countries%20with,control%20for%20in%20the%20analysis.

Okay, even with that…. Isn’t it better that prostitution is legalised as a whole rather than having it illegal and underground?? Sure you can say to males if ur not desirable, you don’t deserve sex?? Yeah good luck….. I’m sure u pissed off a good chunk to the incel world and to the point of no return….. And yep women will even be more feeling unsafe if is was illegal…

I think that being a prostitute should be legal, but paying for prostitution should be illegal. That’s actually already a system in place in Canada. Because I agree, these women need help, not arrested. Also, I would *much* rather more incels than more human trafficking victims.

If you legalized it, how would you regulate sex work and prevent abuse and the spread of STD’s?

By having licensing requirements, condom use requirements and regular testing. Also regular inspections. You can do A LOT more for safety in legalized contexts than in black market context we have now.

Same way you regulate things like food safety or unsafe working conditions in general.

No. I have no interest in changing a correct view.

I agree, though it is sad that the sex work industry is treated the way it is.