Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 242 Editor's Choice: 13
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@Jr. Brown
[Read the article: U.K. to criminalize johns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Look if you legalize drugs, there are fewer problems , fewer gangs, and underground marketing, because supply can expand to demand.
Doesn't work with sex, because there are not enough women who want to do this work. Legalization explodes demand, and instead of the price going up on the very few who do want to do this work, criminals move in to increase supply. Sex is not a crop you can grow more of, and healthy happy women rarely want to do this work. So women/children from countries that are less economically well off be enslaved to satisfy demand in a wealthier country."
The legal sex industries - pornography and stripping - have no problem at all with meeting demand. Why would prostitution be any different? The only difference between stripping and pornography, on the one hand, and prostitution on the other, is legal status. Making pornography was only legalized 20 years ago, and the number of women willing to work in that industry has done nothing but rise since then.
Also, look in the back of your local weekly paper. There are plenty of women who currently are willing to meet that demand even in its current, illegal status.
I took a look at the links that you provided and none of them seem to support the statements you contend above. Furthermore, simple economic logic speaks otherwise: why are you willing to accept the premise that legal prohibition would dampen the demand for something, but not have any effect on the supply?
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Yes AKA, you were just asking questions.
[Read the article: U.K. to criminalize johns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Simple, neutral questions, rooted solely in your selfless concern for Knetch's well being. None of your questions were loaded. Nor did any of them imply any kind of a judgment on your part toward the legitimacy of the particular choice in question, or the legitimacy of someone's willingness to accept the possible consequences of that choice. None of your questions made any assumptions whatsoever regarding what likely would or wouldn't happen to someone who made such a choice. I should not have read any of that into your questions, and certainly shouldn't have responded accordingly. This was all just a big misunderstanding on my part. I apologise.
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@Asehpe
[Read the article: U.K. to criminalize johns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Call me crazy, but I don't see why prostitutes need to be regulated. They're big girls, and as long as the police aren't harassing them, they can take care of themselves. I think it should be straight up decriminalized, and I see no reason why, in a legal context, the prostitute, her client, and her boss or agent (if any) wouldn't be able to work out their own arrangements for themselves without the government sticking its nose into it.
Regarding street prostitution vs. other prostitution: I don't care if they do it in the street. I don't care if they do it in the alley. I don't care if they do it on the balcony. I don't care if they do it behind the wheel of a large automobile. And no, I don't care where the arrangements are made. Just so long as they are mutually agreed to by all parties.
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@asehpe
[Read the article: U.K. to criminalize johns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In what way, shape, or form, is voluntary street prostitution not voluntary?
The man asks a price. The woman quotes it to him. The man pays it. They proceed. Once again, how is this not voluntary?
You can tell me all of the sad personal anecdotes in the world about how many street prostitutes were abused when they were young, and how many of them are addicted to drugs, but that doesn't change the fact that their situation is the result of a series of choices that they voluntarily made - including the choice to start prostituting themselves.
Even if they have chosen to be with a pimp instead of on their own, that, once again, is a choice that they have voluntarily made. A choice perhaps made more favorable by the outlaw nature of their business and the constant harassment of the police, but a choice nonetheless.
I am not denying the fact that these are some sad realities, nor am I denying the fact that these sad realities do, in fact, exist in the world of prostitution. But lets call a spade a spade. Sad realities may color your experience and make life harder for you, but they do not render you incapable of choice. Nor do they absolve you of responsibility for the choices you have made.
P.S. - I reject the dichotomy between "street prostitution" and other prostitution. There are only prostitutes who make a lot of money, and prostitutes who don't make that much. And there is no qualitative moral difference between one and the other, or the choices that all parties involved have made.
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@asehpe
[Read the article: U.K. to criminalize johns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So are you telling me that earlier you were conflating forced prostitution with "street" prostitution? If so, that's not fair. They are in two separate categories, both legally and morally.
"In other words: sad realities may do more than simply color your experience; they may make real choice practically impossible. In these cases I would still speak of exploitation, of being "forced"."
I disagree. Once again, you are conflating things. There is a very real, and very important, difference between "impossible" and "difficult." Freedom hangs in the balance. Your contention that a slate of seemingly bad choices is no choice at all is the real oversimplification of the choice continuum.