Letters to the Editor
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Thank you!
Thank you for bringing attention to the ugly side of prostitution. Too many people lose sight of the violence, trauma, and trafficking that are entwined with prostitution.
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This is a key argument for legalization
... because it can get the police and other govt. infrastructure on the girls' side.
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the problem is the black market
...and the associated crime around it. Battery, slave labor, assault, threats -- those are all crimes, and will be in a world where prostitution is legal. The difference is that the girls themselves are criminals right now, and can't go for help from the authorities (or think they can't).
Legalizing prostitution rips away the veneer of criminality that covers they fact of their victimhood. That is the first step to getting them out of the horrible situation they are in.
Prostitution would probably still be dangerous compared to some professions, and perhaps unpleasant. But we have other dangerous and unpleasant professions, which we allow via careful regulation and monitoring, and they are relatively much, much safer than being a streetwalker is today.
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Correct, DC
The problems of most vice crimes could be reduced significantly with legalization.
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no one would need a pimp or would have to put up with crap if it were legal
(though as long as there is a social stigma and the "employees" have more emotional problems than the general population "employers" will get away with more than they normally do) and of course illegal immigrants working as prostitutes will face the same kinds of problems that all illegal immigrants face now. Actually, thanks to prohibition, the situation that ALL prostitutes face is similar to what illegal immigrants face because of their illegal status.
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Pimps
Prostitution is legal in pretty much all the countries of the world except for the US, Sweden, and a number of Muslim countries.
As far as I know it is legal in just about every country in the Western hemisphere, including the NAFTA neighbors, Canada and Mexico, but excluding some countries in the Caribbean, especially the colonies that were formerly or remain British. I think it is legal in all central American countries and South American countries, but I have not researched this, so feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
It is also legal in most countries in Europe except possibly The Vatican. Even Iran allows "temporary wives" for a few hours, which is the Islamic equivalent of prostitution. We can also add in Australia and New Zealand, which have very liberal laws, and many parts of Asia.
Now in all of these countries I am sure that there are men who are living off immoral earnings in some way, whether it be by running the bars where prostitutes meet clients, or by being boyfriends who are supported by the women, or by being professional pimps, but this does not seem to be a huge social problem in those countries, as far as I know.
Better adjusted women who go in for prostitution to earn money tend to have female support groups and friends that they socialize with and exchange professional intelligence with. The drug-addicted and mentally ill women with abusive boyfriends and pimps are often the women who have abusive criminal boyfriends even if they are NOT prostitutes.
The relationship between pimps and prostitutes is a complex one.
In some cases the women are drug addicts and the pimp acts as drug supplier, banker, and money lender. Sometimes such pimps may beat the woman, but violence among drug dealers and customers with unpaid debts is not unusual in the US, or so I believe.
Many hard working women here in the US support lazy good-for-nothing boyfriends and husbands, but we don't call them pimps if the woman is selling some service other than sex. One of my tenants is a woman on disability who supports a good-for-nothing lazy boyfriend who is an unemployable drunk and chain smoker. No doubt he would be pimping her if there was the slightest chance that anyone would pay for time with her. Maybe he does, and I don't know about it. It would not surprise me. One of my prior female tenants used to sell tricks to Mexican guys on a mattress in the attic, I was told, for $25 a pop, while her husband was at work, so anything is possible. She was one of the foulest women I have ever met. No doubt some of the money went to buy drugs for her husband and some of it paid rent to me, so maybe I am a pimp too.
But all this behavior is to do with how the criminal and sub-criminal alcoholic, drug addicted underclass lives in the United States. It is the culture.
It would be nice to think that as soon as you cross the borders of the US you enter territory ruled by pimps and that by keeping prostitution illegal the United States is keeping out the pimps who are scratching at the fence that we are planning to build to keep out pimps, but the truth is that they are already here under prohibition, and there is no reason to think that there would be more with legal prostitution.
In fact having legal prostitution, but creating an offense of "living off immoral earning" would surely make it easier to protect women from pimps, not harder.
I have drunk alcohol in the past, but I don't drink now. I would be happy to see alcohol made illegal, but I can go along with the idea that prohibition has failed already, and that alcohol should be available, but taxed and regulated. At least less people will die from poisoning with home made brews.
I have smoked cigarettes in the past, but I don't smoke now. I would be happy to see smoking banned, since it kills so many people, but I can live with it being regulated and taxed. (Personally I would be happy to personally assist at the legal executions of executives of tobacco companies, but that may be an extreme view.)
I have paid for sex in the past, but have no plans to do so in the future, so I have no particular dog in this fight, but it seems to me as a matter of public order that it is better to tolerate an evil and regulate it so as to mitigate the worst excesses, than to drive it underground to a point where the most vulnerable women in our society have no protection of the law.
I can see, though, as the other side will argue, that legalizing prostitution in the US would lead to an increase in prostitution. I think this is probably true, though there would be some mitigation as it would mean more cash flowing from wealthier men in the direction of poorer women and the children they are raising, which is not all bad.
Hell, stone all the prostitutes and the johns to death if you really want. It is no skin off my nose, and we already have too many people, but it seems to me that in a liberal, democratic society we want to control the worst aspects of social ills and wean people away from alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, crime,and prostitution by making it attractive to move to better alternatives, rather than just put even more people in prison or ruin their careers in yet another unwinnable "war".