What is your opinion on prostitution? Should it be legal?

Discussion in 'Off-topic Discussion' started by Becoming Jasmine, Jul 26, 2020.

  1. Kaladin504

    Kaladin504 Fapstronaut

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    If there are no moral objective truths, then why are certain acts regarded with universal disdain? For example, I feel that we all know that heinous crimes such as murder and rape are horribly wrong. There are at least two objectively moral truths.

    I would also like to point out that this thread is in regards to express my opinion on the legalization of prostitution. Is it "imposing" my moral standards on others to say that I think it should be illegal? And I am only referring to prostitution. I also believe that premarital sex is wrong, but I don't think it should be against the law. Because this is different than buying and selling a person for sex.
     
    kropo82 likes this.
  2. Sure, but that wouldn't be prostitution but slavery. Sex can be a service like massage, haircut, etc. You wouldn't think of a massage parlor as a place where people are bought and sold for massage, would you?

    Wide consensus appears because on some levels, all humans are very similar. Even people who wish to die are scared of death. So it's no surprise that murder is not a popular candidate for legalization even though people often don't condemn and even welcome murders of people they don't like.

    When it comes to rape I'm afraid that you're wrong. Some people (men) don't really care and the only reason we don't hear that is that they're afraid to express such an opinion publicly. I learned that on internet forums and during very drunk guy conversations.

    Sexual promiscuity (as far as I understand that's what you find morally wrong?) is also a bad candidate for an objective sin. While murder and theft seem to be illegal everywhere, even in the most remote tribes, there are societies where people openly sleep around, often from an early age and the public does not mind.

    Our puritanism is a mere convention. That doesn't mean it's wrong but what I think it does mean is that you can't say it's an objective evil to have sex for money.
     
    AngelofDarkness likes this.
  3. Cathcart22

    Cathcart22 Fapstronaut

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    This ignores how bad so many who are sexually exploited have it. If massage workers were brought to massage parlors, forced to live in them, paid very little, threatened with violence daily, and not allowed to speak to anyone or ask for help - like many victims of sex trafficking are - then I would without a doubt say that yes, people are bought and sold for a massage. But, they aren't, so I don't.

    All this really confirms is that the feelings and opinions of people are not a good way of deciding if something is moral or not.
     
    Kaladin504 likes this.
  4. I just don't think this happens very often in the first world. The overwhelming majority of "sex workers" are volunteers who like sex and easy money. Besides, how does decriminalizing prostitution exclude the possibility of punishing trafficking?

    I'm afraid it's the only thing we've got. What else do you propose? A totalitarian system where YOU decide what's right and wrong?

    The point which I apparently didn't manage to get across is that the idea of objective morality is weak. There are things we'd want to keep illegal yet many don't consider them to be wrong thus they're not objectively immoral. What matters IMO is, as I already said, damage done. The reason why rape is illegal is not that it's part of some List Of Things That Are Bad but simply because victims of rape agree: it's a horrible thing to be subjected to.
     
    AngelofDarkness likes this.
  5. Last couple of observations I made about this topic. Since it's something I used to be curious about, I made my research. I scanned through tons of online ads, read about experiences of the customers, talked to guys irl who did it a lot and even tried it myself a few times.
    1. The girl has the upper hand. She doesn't like you? You're out. She doesn't want to do something? It's not happening. She decided she wants more money than had been arranged? You gotta pay.
    2. Work schedule is highly irregular, there are long absences and rather frequent changes of place of work.
    3. Many "work from home" solo. Another common way these businesses are run is a group of girls renting a regular flat together.
    4. Expensive clothes, cars, jewelry etc. are the norm for those who had worked for some time.
    5. Most are in their mid to late twenties and thirties.
    I think perhaps this paints a slightly different picture than what some of you had in mind.

    Anyways, my capacity to provide useful comments here is exhausted. I'll keep out now. Peace.
     
    AngelofDarkness likes this.
  6. Cathcart22

    Cathcart22 Fapstronaut

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    I would encourage you (and others who are possibly reading along) to see how this went in Germany back in 2002. The logic was then as it is now that legalization will reduce sex trafficking, but abuse was still extremely widespread - https://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1229&context=ilr . Despite heavy taxation and regulation so as to afford sex workers benefits like health insurance, of 400,000 workers only 44 registered. As sex workers there must be paid directly, brothels were rented out by the sex workers themselves at very steep rates. From page 685 "A second-rate brothel in Germany may charge a sex worker 175 euros for 24-hours of use, which means they may need to sleep with at least four men before they can simply pay the brothel back for the use of their room." To me that does not seem like something a person would subject themselves to for easy money. It is most often people caught in desperate situations who turn to such measures, and are swept up in it when they actually enter into further debt. To say that this is bad from a pragmatic or utilitarian standpoint is an understatement, never mind a moral standpoint.

    Peoples opinions are like the "raw material" of laws. They need to be sorted through and refined. In America we (in theory!) have various legislative processes to arrive at what is hopefully the best idea. The whole principle behind such a system is that certain opinions are better than others, and that moral opinions are not arbitrary. In theory, there is a "best opinion." Some people have bad ideas. Some people have good ideas. Just because I think certain people are very wrong (like people who think rape is okay!) does not make me a totalitarian - all it makes me is a realist.

    This will probably be my last post in this thread. If you think the highest good is for people to do whatever they want to whomever they want at whatever cost then there ain't much point.
     
    Ghost in the Shell likes this.
  7. I don't understand your logic. You're saying having casual sex for fun is not morally wrong. But it is morally wrong if you ask money for it? That makes no sense. Either ban Tinder and have police checking up on people at bars and clubs to make sure that they are not being used as sexual objects or let people decide on their own what to do with their lives. People start businesses all the time where they sell a product or service. If I enjoy cutting people's hair, then I can ask money for that kind of service since there is a demand for it. And I would just be a human object fulfilling the purpose of cutting hair, so would the hair of customers be an object, but that doesn't mean there is no mutual respect for one another as human beings.

    And as Ghost in the Shell said, making it legal to sell sex doesn't imply that there shouldn't be laws ensuring that nobody is forced into it and everyone is treated with respect.
     

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