This is apropos of nothing in particular. I just happened to be poking around in the FBI's crime statistics:
Since I assume prostitution itself isn't dying off, this means that apparently the police are hassling sex workers less. However, they're hassling customers slightly more. Since 2017, the ratio of prostitution arrests to customer arrests has gone down from about 10:1 to 3:1.
Good to know Kevin. I’ll drop that little factoid at my next Christmas cocktail party
If you think prostitution is a bad thing, then this chart in the time of Covid is an illustration of the maxim "it's an ill wind that blows no good."
Based on the title of this post, I was hoping for information about use of safe sex in prostitution.
Prostitution is a crime because it hurts women and girls. Many of the prostitutes are drug addicts or runaway teens who are too young to legally work. Prostitutes are more likely to be physically abused and more likely to be murdered than other women. The Pretty Woman image of prostitution is a fantasy. Women who work as prostitutes may also be slaves who are being sex trafficked, after being lied to and transported to another country against their will.
Drum's assumption that prostitution itself isn't dying off has a "boys will be boys" tone to it. There is no reason to assume that law enforcement efforts are not successful because sex is involved. Other crimes are not treated so cavalierly. I think Kevin needs to reexamine his attitude and support the right of women and girls to safety outside their homes.
This might sound a bit strange coming from me, but ... Prostitution should be legalized. And taxed. And thoroughly regulated. And unionized, with all that entails, including collective bargaining, pension funds, etc.
This might sound a bit strange coming from me, but ... I agree with you.
Mark the day on your calendar! We've been disagreeing since the days of the Greek financial crisis!
Very well stated.
When I was just a wee liberal I believed talking points like "banning gambling just moves it underground". But the reality of legal gambling has been a shocking increase in the ability of capitalism to promote and maximize betting.
The latest data on daily marijuana use shows the same.
Decriminalization should be sufficient.
Yes giving tax deductions for advertising of formally illegal conduct is utterly insane.
Many of the prostitutes are drug addicts or runaway teens who are too young to legally work.
Any facts to support this assertion?
...so they should just go homeless and starve instead?
Your logic is not very good.
The way to make prostitution safer is not with harsher policing of the prostitutes, but like ScentOfViolets correctly states, by legalizing and regulating it as much as possible.
It's the need to operate in the shadows what exposes the women and men in the profession to abuses and crimes of all kinds.
Why does it need to be legal and why should the government be in the business of selling sexual consent?
Just decriminalize it and give the women police intervention as a resource.
"Why does it need to be legal and why should the government be in the business of selling sexual consent?"
Because of the "selling" part. Just the same as every type of "selling" whether you are selling shoes, cars, medications, food, washing machines, or whatever.
The taxing and regulation bit is what reduces workplace abuses of workers by employers, and sets protections for the clients no matter what type of business you are looking at.
Well you got one thing right, people who advocate for legalized whoring really do see the women as no different than a shoe or washing machine.
Oh go fuck yourself you miserable piece of shit.
You know who are the most common buyers of said whoring? Sanctimonious creeps like you who feel the need to denigrate sex workers with terms like "whoring".
If the person is providing a service, then it should be regulated for the betterment of all involved. Simple as that.
So you can buy women safely?
As for the rest of your whining:
hit dogs will holler!
Perry is right.
If prostitution is down in the decades before 2002 (And I think it is) it will have nothing to do with police actions but changes in mores and culture. Expect prostitution to roar back under Trump.
"Many of the prostitutes are drug addicts"
What do you imagine follows from that?
People with substance abuse issues work a wide variety of jobs. What do you suppose is the significance of the fact that some sex workers have substance abuse issues?
I can't speak for the rest of Nevada, but in my former home of Churchill County brothels were regulated thusly:
1) All "business" must be conducted within a licensed brothel. No streetwalking, no outcalls.
2) The workers must be paid at least 50% of gross revenue.
3) The workers have the right to refuse any client.
4) The workers must get medical checkups with full STD tests every 30 days.
5) Nothing goes in anywhere without a condom.
Perry's statement that prostitution fuels abuse and sex trafficking is based on the assumption that the business is illegal. Sex workers are far, far less likely to be abused when their workplaces are being visited in a professional capacity by sheriffs, doctors, and county health inspectors on a regular basis.
Of course, a lot of the reason it’s dangerous is because it’s illegal.
Kind of like saying that gay people are security risks and therefore not fit for certain jobs because they can be blackmailed. Well, yeah—until no one cares, because the stigma has been expunged.
Four points: (1) if the present legal framework had the slightest legitimacy, the two lines in Kevin's graph would be interchanged. Jailing desperate women and girls (and I note that "desperate" only applies to some sex workers) is exactly the wrong approach to the problem. Jail their customers if you want to prevent the evils you refer to. (2) People should have bodily autonomy. That includes performing sex work. (3) There are plenty of gay or bisexual men and boys engaged in prostitution, and are just as subject to exploitation. (4) Slavery is illegal. Trafficking people for sex might seem especially odious, but human trafficking is a major problem for even greater numbers of domestic and agricultural workers.
Adults who perform uncoerced sexual acts for money should be allowed the privacy and bodily autonomy to do so.
Would you suggest that drug problems could be dealt with by jailing buyers of illegal drugs rather than the sellers? Street level drug dealers are often desperate, drug-addicted, etc.
It's not the prostitution, it's the human trafficking that should be the focus.
Another industry decimated by AI
😄😄
This comment is beyond good and evil.
Just saw this,
https://old.reddit.com/r/self/comments/1h4jylj/23f_here_none_of_the_men_in_my_age_group_are/
suggesting that dating apps have apparently soured a large percentage of people on dating at all, which made me ask, if that is the case is there a generational trend away from in-person hook-ups with anyone, including prostitutes?
Certainly I think some seemingly popular porn fads may turn off a lot of people from even trying to engage with others, particularly if they're younger and think that's what they're required to be into.
I would suggest that prostitution IS a shrinking business. I'm only a couple of years older than Kevin; he should remember as well as I do social attitudes toward extra-marital sex prior to the sexual revolution. My observation, which for the last several decades has relied on publications rather than in-person field research, is that the sexual revolution did not end; attitudes toward sex have gotten steadily more liberal (or libertine if you're REALLY old-fashioned) pretty much every decade since the '60s. That greater sexual freedom means that more men than previously can get sex for "free", which means less demands for paid sex.