If that was true, I'd have an actual job instead of being on benefits. I've been to University, so I am qualified for jobs, but due to the fact that I haven't had a job outside work or volunteer experience, I can't get a job. Does that make me scum of the earth, despite how hard I try?

Your words just make me feel that you don't know how hard it actually is to get a job...

I agree with you in that it should be private between two people who love each other. However, sex is not like that anymore. Sex is now just something 'fun' to do with your romantic partner, or even with some random person, not anything special. While this is not true for everybody, in the society we live in it has become a norm.

In my opinion, prostitution should not be illegal. I may disagree with it completely, but it is not any of my nor the government's business to tell them what to do with their body. There are much more serious things that the government should be worrying about. Like others have said, how is prostitution any worse than sex tapes and other pornographic images? Women can strip for money legally, so why can't they legally sell sex?

Yeah but I think the state that does operate legal Brotherls is Nevada? I don't think hardly one Legalized State would hold them all! LOL. I personally would like to see the traffickers and pimps decreased by atleast offering women a safe legal place to operate if they are indeed going to sell the commodity of sex. However the relationship between Pimps, and some , not all pyschological issues and standards associated with prostituion will not dissapear due to legalization. However a legal brothel would definitely be easier than young women lured in to prostution by force, kidnapping, drugs. I mean if a woman was approached by a low down Pimp Promising to make her cash atleast there is an alternative that's not on the dirty streets facing drugs, rapists, arrest and drug addiction. Not all Hookers live that life and I'm sure some would even say that have great lives with out drugs, pimps or rapists. However they still face jail time, criminal record and STD's. STD's aren't being tested for on a regular basis by those selling and buying sex.

Yeah, I ment to include that is it only in Nevada.
With the STD thing, the brothels test the women coming in and give them regular exams. Thats the best thing about it.

I'm sorry, but it sounds like you don't really understand the realities that push people to prostitution. It is very rarely an issue of, "Well, I couldn't get a job today, so I guess I'll just make money having sex instead." Many prostitutes are pushed into the industry and kept in the industry against their will by very vicious, manipulative people that would as soon kill them as look at them if they don't do what they're told. Many of them are sex slaves, and an increasing number of them are under aged children kidnapped from third world and politically unstable countries under the ruse of getting a better life and finding work.

Talk to some prostitutes sometime. It is not easy money. They are routinely beaten, raped, and sodomized by clients, and the police do not take prostitutes seriously when they try to report crimes committed against them. You seem to have this idea that they just lie back and enjoy "the fun" while raking in the money. In most cases that is far from the truth, and in many cases they don't see a dime of what they make. The pimp comes in and takes it all. The issue is even more complex and terrible when the prostitute is a child or has children. Life is not black and white, no matter how much you'd like for it to be.

As a man whose mate dated an ex-sex worker can I just say you have NO idea what you are talking about. The end.

Do not presume to know people's motives... to draw an extreme parallel that is how the Nazi's justified the holocost.

And to SlickC33... all those examples you have drawn... they have one MAJOR difference... prostitution is a consentual act... robbing a bank, etc involves one person not consenting to the act that is what makes it wrong. NEVER draw comparisons between that which is consensual and that which is not... otherwise you are saying that two loving parents acted in a fashion tantamount to rape when they consumated their love and brought life in to the world through having a baby.



Not everyone wants to move to Nevada. :P

Seriously though I think Nevada is one of the only places in the US where sex working is legal.



That completely misses the point of what Carlin is saying (and the man is a God incidently... God rest his soul).

Morphine is a controlled substance, a substance which can be abused and cause death. Sex on the other hand is not. THAT is the difference... and don't raise STDs in response to this because GUESS WHAT... you can catch an STD in a long term monogomous relationship.

Don't compare drugs to sex... it is flat-out offensive.

I have no problems with people being opposed to prostitution... that is your right as a human being to disagree with it. But some of the arguments being raised in this thread are so incredibly ignorant I find it offensive that human beings could think in such a fashion.



Remind me again at which stage does someone other than myself gain from me having a good slurp of ye olde H2O or wetting my eyeballs with a wipe of my lids?

Out of curiosity... how many people discussing this topic are of consensual age? I'm certainly seeing a lot of arguments that suggest the folks behind them have very little sexual experience of their own. Not saying that is a bad thing but it is amazing how ones attitude to sex changes once they are an adult (for a lot of, not all, people - certainly not suggesting that an adult must agree with my views on prostitution, just saying there are some childish outlooks on sex in this thread).

Yes, I know that prostitution is a consensual act. So is selling drugs. So is pirating music, games, and movies(Its consensual in the way that someone is offering it up for download and I am willingly downloading it). So is paying girls to wear skanky outfits and having them walk around on leashes at an awards ceremony(Google Snoop Dogg leash)
I must admit that I didn't really like my examples anyway but I didn't focus too much on them because the point I was making is that if I find something wrong just because the person is over twenty one doesn't mean I shouldn't voice my concerns over it.
I honestly could care less if you are a prostitute or not unless you are someone I know(and care about). If my sister came to me and told me she was becoming a prostitute I know my mouth wouldn't be closed, be it she is an adult or not.

You're right in that regard and I certainly wasn't suggesting that you keep your mouth shut if you feel you have an argument to make or want to warn loved ones from lifestyles you consider dangerous, immoral, etc.

I was really just having a go at your examples.

And for the record pirating is not consensual. It is a consensual act between the parties involved in the illicit activity but the reason it is an illicit activity is because the owner of the copyright did not consent to the handing out of their material.

For the first part of your post:
Unless you are a burglar or a sex worker, no.
I didn't say the people without jobs are scums, did I? If I did please quote it.

The second part:
The quote you pulled doesn't help your last statement. There are many jobs, you may not be able to get the job, due to the job taken, cutting back etc.


Did the person want to be a prostitute? No. They were forced.
So really it's like rape for money or have sex so you don't get beat by someother person.

I didn't say all people who do it are after drug money, but some are.

I've hear of people doing it just because they need extra money, and do it as well as a job.

Pux, just for the record, it took me three years just to get my current job. While I would never choose to prostitute myself or become an escort, I am also not in dire need to. There are some people out there who just feel that dire need to, at least until they get a new job (but I'm talking more about escorting).

Pretty much this. I think people should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies.

The OP was changed after I posted, so I'll come back and answer the additional points.

Do you think it's alright how sex workers are shunned by society.
No. I think that on the whole, these are desperate people resorting to desperate measures. Who would willingly put themselves at risk of rape, violence, exploitation, and so forth, every time they go to work if they felt that they had any other option? (Leaving aside high-class escorts and the like)

Do you respect someone who has sex for money, the same way you would respect someone of a different occupation
I'm not sure actually. I respect them for doing what they have to do to survive, but I'm not sure if it's the 'same' respect. I think more than anything, I feel sorry for them

What you think of people who use those services.
They are among the lowest of the low.

I don't see why it's legal for people to get paid for having sex on camera, yet prostitution is illegal. I think it should be legalized.

You painted all prostitutes with the same broad brush stroke, which was why I said what I did. There are very, very few people who choose prostitution thinking it's going to be some "easy money". A lot of people who wind up as street prostitutes are also drug addicts who are so physically and psychologically addicted to a drug that they will do anything for their next high.

True, those people chose to take that first hit of whatever drug they're addicted to. Most of them had no idea what physical effect the drug would have on them. I have yet to meet an addict who didn't think they'd be able to control their addiction when they took that first hit. I think it's pretty shallow and self serving to revile an individual for making a mistake and paying terribly for it. Shunning them does nothing but help to keep them in a cycle of debasement and self loathing.

You can never know why somebody made the choices they did without asking them. Judging them before you even ask in my opinion is far lower than a desperate person doing something just to survive. It's easy to get on a high horse. Just remember the fall is usually a very painful one when it comes.

Mollypog, very well put. I hate it when people when think they are better than others because they aren't the ones shunned by society. It truly does take an open mind to understand certain things. And all your examples are very valid points.

First off, my intention was not to cause offence. I'm not even sure what you're taking such offence at.

Likening drugs to sex was used just as a point that selling either of those liberally on some street corner or an alleyway is a vice and it's destructive to society. I understand that you find comparing drugs to sex is offensive, but I find that selling them on street corners is offensive, so I think that comparison is entirely justified.
Getting STD in a stable, monogamous relationship is something like getting MRSA infection from a diabetic injection - yes, it happens, but it's so very rare and frankly just bad luck. And I'm assuming we're talking about STDs that are purely sexually transmitted, rather than those like HIV, which are can be transmitted from exchange of any body fluids?

And sex can indeed be abusive and prostitution can cause death. It's not the case of two people who know each other going off for a roll in the hay, it's two strangers and it wouldn't be a complete surprise if a prostitute runs into a complete psychopath somewhere along the line.

In any case, I'd like an explanation as to why I can't liken drugs to sex.

That aside, looking at the way the industry regarding those two - how can you miss the similarities? It isn't just whether selling sex is right or wrong and whether selling drugs is right or wrong (though, yes, that too clearly features), but also the world in concern to that. Legalise the sex industry and people will exploit it even more. I get that some women choose to sell sex, but how many had that choice made for them instead? Making prostitution illegal offers legal protection against this exploitation.

I'd contend that selling anything "liberally on some street corner or an alleyway" is undesirable. Even hotdog vendors should be regulated and inspected, to ensure they are not ripping people off or selling potentially dangerous meat. And, if hotdogs were made illegal, people would go underground for their hotdogs, and people would die from food poisoning. :p

Lol, it's still legal to sell hotdogs to the general public :P

Contrary to popular belief, prostitution is no longer legal in Nevada. Now you know.

Anyway, yeah.. I don't see what's wrong with it.. Legalization would benefit everyone involved. Except pimps. But who cares about them.

In all seriousness, not only is sex 'not like that' anymore....sex was never like that. Religious and cultural taboos aside, human beings have been having sex for entertainment reasons for....well, longer than religion has existed, we can be sure of that. And there's a reason it's called "the world's oldest profession".

We might be stunned by the extent of sexual slavery, but you have to keep in mind an adage that is frequently true--if you think it was bad now, you should have seen it two thousand years ago. Entire communities ethnic populations were taken as sexual slaves and forced into prostitution as a common consequence of war.

I'm torn on the subject--I don't think I object to prostitution on the normal moral basis, but on the notion that the popular 'rosy' view of it is over-optimistic. Would legalizing prostitution put an end to sexual slavery? Pimping and the violence and depravity that are inherent in it? I personally don't think so, but I'll admit that our current system is hardly resolving the problem either.

Too many people assume that prostitution is a "victimless crime"--tell that to the prostitute who sees none of the money from the transaction, and is regularly beaten until she dies by her pimp. Pimping might be less common in a less urbanized, interconnected society, but it is the norm here in the United States, make no mistake.

Put it this way--it's not just women from abroad either. I think people refuse to recognize that tens of thousands of domestics, American citizens and nationals, are in sexual slavery. There are hundreds of thousands of cases of runaways in the continental US, after all.

Prostitution, both in this country and abroad, has a long, historic connection with violence against prostitutes. If someone can demonstrate that legal, organized prostitution would mean a decrease in that violence, I would be more in favor of it. All the same, it would still take generations before the violence would decline extensively. Legal or illegal, cracking down on general violence and abduction into slavery is going to have to remain a priority--right now, the legal system, particularly in small towns in the Midwest and the South (where I live) is absolutely totally unprepared to deal with the issue.

I agree. I do think it would at least take pimps out of the equation, but the question remains if the government as pimp would be any more humane overall. Abuse can occur in a number of ways, and officials are by no means exempt from it.

Not only is the legal system across most of the US ill equipped to deal with it, they refuse to acknowledge that it's even a problem, at least in the way you're discussing it. Oh, yes, they'll readily admit their cities have a morality issue and that prostitutes are dragging down the values of good citizens, property, and apple pie, but to get them to view the women, children (and sometimes men) as people who are being victimized and brutalized is a near impossibility. I tried it from the inside, and I was treated like I was hopelessly naive and idealistic. God forbid anybody in uniform shows compassion toward "common criminals", and what were the johns? Hapless dupes who fell for their feminine wiles. It's disgusting the way law enforcement approaches this problem, truly disgusting.

The problem would be, of course, it wouldn't be the government doing the pimping (though I doubt that'd work too well either). I am so confident that I could guarantee, in the event that prostitution was legalized, the same pimps would be pimping out prostitutes just like they'd been doing the year before. The only difference is that they'd file a license once a year or something, and probably be slightly more discreet about beating the life out of their prostitutes when they don't make the quota.

When alcohol was decriminalized at the end of prohibition, bars were not run by the government. They were run by the same people who were bartenders before prohibition and during it. Obviously, being a bartender is not the same as being a pimp, but I fail to see why suddenly abusive pimps would suddenly just throw up their arms and resign just because prostitution was legalized, especially when it could be even more lucrative than before.

That's a good point. Unless there was very strict regulation and oversight (something the government has never been very good at, even with issues such as food safety) there probably wouldn't be too many protections for the prostitutes. I think the most criminally inclined of the pimps, the ones who were also heavily into drug dealing and the like, might not risk getting licensed for fear of tighter scrutiny, but the rest, well, you're probably right. I know law enforcement wouldn't want to take a more active role in protecting prostitutes, even if it were legalized. The contempt is deeply entrenched and wouldn't go away. Unless there were some very stringent protections put into place and adequate funding for oversight, inspections, etc., and perhaps making pimping illegal altogether, legalization probably wouldn't solve the bulk of the problems with abuse. On the plus side, you could easily get that funding by heavily taxing the service. People who are going to pay for sex would probably not balk at having to pay a high tax for the privilege.

How is it handled in countries where prostitution is legal? Anybody out there living somewhere that prostitution is accepted want to chime in? Do you have lots of violence being committed against prostitutes by those overseeing the brothels or the clients? What is law enforcement's attitude toward it there?