ok, with the recent sucess(?) or at least not falming disastor that is the
legalization of prostitution in toronto and windsor, as well as our european 
friends, how do you feel about it?

24 responses total.

Legal or now, prostitution has certain "institutional" problems....

Let's start with disease.  In terms of worker safety, how different is a
legal prostitute from a nuclear industry worker with an "allowed annual
radiation exposure limit" of infinity?  True, HIV spreads more & costs
more to treat than radiation exposure....

Then there's the often minimal difference between "sex industry worker" 
and "slave".  Valerie & janc noted how the workers at the "asian massage 
business" that they once lived next to never *ever* left the building...
that was in the middle of Ann Arbor.  Workers' rights awareness, regular
enforcement of same, etc. aren't likely to be better elsewhere...

These are problems whether prostitution is legal or not.  Assuming that
someone cares about 'em, which way will make it easier to seriously
address these problems? 

well, legal and a) you can have your workers go home w/out fear of them
telling anyone of what goes on.
b) you can get a union (which as my understanding is what happend in amsterdam)
institutionalizing it allows it to happen in a single designated place,
you can then justify tightening the penalties for unliscenced practitioners
same thing they did with doctors.
also, you get to tax a trade currently doing nothing but costing 
the society.
as to forced labour, that is a problem of any industry that no one wants
to pay attention too, itenerant workers, domestic service, and the illegal
industries of sex, drug running, and even garmet sweat shops in the us

Obvious question: If Valerie and janc never *ever* saw the workers enter or
leave, what evidence did Valerie and janc have that there WERE workers inside?

Obvious quesiton #2: If Valeerie and janc never *ever* saw the workers enter
or leave, didn't Valerie and janc have anything better to do than to stand
24/7 watch on the next-door massage parlor.

I'm more inclined to think that maybe neither of them happened ever to see
any workers go in or out.

A couple answers, brighn...
1.)  I'm using "least hypothesis" and figuring that a place called "Asian
Spa" that (too casual observation over many months) appears to have all-
fairly-well-to-do-male customers who don't stay very long is some sort of
business that requires on-site employees.  Regular patronage of the
establishment, casual questioning of any persons who seem like they might
be employees, and cross-checking stories of same would obviously give a
stronger (though still not proven) conclusion. 
2.)  I'm using the phrase "never *ever* saw X" to indicate that there is
no occurence of X in the available dataset, not that X has never occurred. 
Nothing suggests that valerie & janc went beyond the level of "idle but
quite amused frequent" observation of "Asia Spa" while living next door. 
Obviously 24/7/365 observational data would let us draw substantially
stronger conclusions.  Unfortunately, we've no research grant to fund it. 

Re: #2 -
Yes, legalization with *steady*, *active* regulation and enforcement has 
a number of advantages.  It also requires that government really care.  
I've serious doubts about this because of US government's very poor record 
in similar "very bottom of the employment barrel" industries (some of which
you mention).  Legalization of habitually highly abusive (whether of the
employees, environment, or whatever) industries without serious, reliable
regulation strikes me as vastly more a favor to amoral businesses than to
their regular victims. 

Casual observation of any place of business would yield a very significantly
higher probability of seeing patrons enter and exit than seeing employees
enter and exit, else the place of business is not being very successful. It's
also possible that there is a separate employee entrance of which Valerie and
janc are unaware, although they may be aware that there isn't such an
entrance.

What's up with all the negativity? I think hoe's are cool.They keep the sick
frustrated men of the street (me that is). Somethimes in the weekend i go
round these bars and find no chick to take home with me. Well, then ... you
know the rest .. 

Dude, raqueem's my hero. 

I guess from a customer's standpoint, I have no issues with prostitution. 
What a customer decides to do with his or her body is up to them.  yeah, there
are the risks of diseases and whatnot....but it's their choice to make those
risks.

From the viewpoint of the worker, as long as they are doing this voluntarily,
why make a fuss.  There are alot of women and men who do this because they
want to.  More power to them!

I do like Amsterdam's solution, as it should help keep the disease and issuses
down a little bit.

Regulation is a lot easier when something like this is legalized, at least
at the regulated locations.  With stiffer penalties for unlicensed facilities,
the fiscal advantages of "going legal" would be too good to pass up.  

Which isn't to say I'm necessarily in favor of such action, but there is merit
to arguments in favor of it.

   The counties in Nevada where prostitution is legal have very few
(if any) problems similar to those where it's still banned.  I think
hooking ought to be legalized and taxed, with the taxes earmarked for
funding public schools.

I'm with i on this one.  I can't support it from a moral standpoint, 
but I do think it's worthy to note that legalization will probably 
benefit the employer more than the employees as he said.  The comment 
that it is a highly habitually abusive industry is also key-- I 
seriously doubt that views of U.S. society will strongly change 
towards prostitution.

In some areas where prostitution is legal, there has also been some 
legalization of drug use.  This would be true in Amsterdam and 
Vancouver, B.C., as far as I know.  It is also regulated to use in 
public areas and restricted to minors.  I am not sure what drugs are 
legal in Amsterdam, but in Vancouver, it is limited to cannabis 
(marijuana).  Prostitution and dealing of illicit drugs often are side 
by side crimes, and so I note that there has been some legalization of 
drugs.

I'm not sure what the case is in Nevada, because there are the 
counties where it is still legal, and there are the ones where it has 
been banned.  Nevada has had a long reputation, however, long before 
La Cosa Nostra took an interest in its development.  The prospects of 
gambling had already long been established in the early Western 
settlements of the gold rush days.  I don't know if prostitutes gained 
better rights under the business structure of legal gambling, but I do 
know that a number of the business are somewhat more self-regulated in 
their support the trade.

Of course, there are a number of prostitutes who supplement their 
income in related industries such as stripping and the adult media 
industry.  It seems that such industries will likely consolidate more, 
and therefore, attitudes toward any of them will be a factor.  I would 
say this is probably truer in the 'hardcore' designations of adult 
media.

I realize that comparing Prohibition and such to this issue might be a 
poor reflection, but perhaps current issues with cigarette and alcohol 
use, taxes, etc. might be an interesting study when considering a 
hypothesis of socially and legally accepted prostitution.

   Wow, jaklumen, there's a lot here.  Morality and law are separate
issues.  Legalizing prostitution would benefit the employees, since
legalization also often means regulation.  As in regular medical exams
and requirements for health certificates which would exclude hookers
who are HIV+ or junkies.  Requirements for health certificates and drug
testing would immediately end several of the abuses perpetrated on
hookers by pimps determined to force them to work.  That right there
is an enormous benefit to the employees.  As I understand it,
prostitutes in Nevada share 50-70% of their take with the bordello
owners.  70% is a little steeper than some cab companies which charge
cab rent on a percentage basis, but only by 5-10% or so.  Frankly, if I
were going to avail myself of a prostitute's services, I'd rather go
someplace where I knew the workers were required to adhere to health and
sanitation standards rather than some dingy and questionable apartment in
a dingy and questionable part of town.

   How many strippers have you ever actually known?  While certainly
not unheard of, strippers who sell it on the side are not as common
as most people think.  Strippers tend to make more just stripping than
most prostitutes except for the posher escorts.

Disclaimer: 'moral standpoint' should have not had any interpretation 
with the rest of my statement.. sorry for the lack of clarity.

My point was more at the observation that where prostitution is 
legalized, there is sometimes drug legalization as well, and the 
regulation seems to be privatized.  Now-- the bordellos in Nevada seem 
to be willing to regulate themselves, and my point was, many have been 
established for quite some time.  Could the same thing be reasonably 
and consistently established elsewhere?  Again, the key element seems 
to be private regulation; I doubt we can be sure the government would 
honestly do it in an efficient manner.

I don't doubt that strippers who prostitute are probably a minority, 
but the fact that such a minority often dabble in the other 
businesses, I think, contributes to such a misconception.

Note that these are just my simple observations.

   I'll have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure that Nevada bordellos
have to conform to some kind of health code.

I was under the impression that one of the things that made prostitution
attractive was if you were addicted to some really expensive drug, needed the
money, and couldn't think of any other way.

It makes sense that the legalization of drugs and prostitution then, would
go hand in hand.

Can't say I like the idea.

resp:12  You can't guarantee that legalizing prostitution and then 
enacting all these protective laws for them would actually stop pimps 
from using drugs to try to force their prostitutes to keep working.  
There would *still* be a lot of illegal activity.

Getting your workers hooked on drugs to make them keep working is pretty rare
in legitimate industries, right?  I think it would also be rare among
prostitutes if prostitution were legalized.  After all, they'd be covered by
the same labor laws everyone else is, and would have legal recourse if they
were abused by management just like everyone else does.  Now, they're
basically, well, screwed if they have a problem with their pimp because they
can't exactly go to the cops and hope for help.

No, it's not rare, although maybe those industries are semi-legitimate.
A friend of mine worked in a few blue collar jobs.. orchard, I think, 
where the bosses handed out drugs to keep the workers working.  He 
didn't touch the stuff.

btw, caffeine does count as a drug.  People get full-tilt addicted to 
java and espresso.

        Believe it or not, cane and beet sugar is too.  As is tea.  There's
an almost limitless list of things that you can become psychologically
addicted to, and the list of physically addictive substances is also quite
long.  

        We don't really have to speculate whether legalizing prostitution ends
institutionalized drug use and improves conditions for the workers; 
everywhere it's been done, that's been the effect.

What jazz said.

Yeah, but nobody's gonna get their workers hooked on beet sugar to keep them
from finding other jobs.  Good point, but not in this context.

If prostitution were legalized, it wouldn't get less sleazy overnight.  But
it would be easier to keep an eye on things like violence and diseases if the
workers didn't all have to stay out of the limelight anyway.  Cultural
attitudes would change much more slowly.  I don't think "sex worker" will be
a respected job title anytime soon, no matter how much the "industry" cleans
up its act.  

        Well, that was sort of my point there.  Many offices provide vending
machines filled with sugar-laden treats, but sugar addictions really aren't
comparable to heroin addictions, and I doubt anyone would even consider it
a factor in getting or keeping a job.  It might be a nice perk, but that's
it.

Sugary candy at vending-machine prices doesn't strike me as a way to
encourage consumption or retention.  Far better to put in one of those
runs-on-syrup,-CO2,-and-filtered-water soda pop dispensers plus an ice
machine and tell 'em "FREE!".  (Oh, and make sure there are NO both-
sugar-and-caffine-free options.)

        That works too, but it's not the same thing as hooking up an IV drip
of methancatinone.

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