#40 | Windy | November 5th, 2009 at 5:39 pm

As a hetero and married woman, I have no objection to prostitution. As a libertarian, I support legalization of prostitution on two standards — economic liberty on the one hand, and individual liberty on the other. A woman’s body belongs to herself, alone, and she has every right to do with it as she sees fit, regardless of how what she chooses to do with her body may offend others.

That’s ’cause yer a rarity.

#38
I would be interested in hearing what you come up with in your internet search.

Not much, though I admittedly didn’t look too hard because I don’t care too much (spent about 15 minutes).

I found a bunch of online surveys, which will all skew in favor of legalizing due to response bias (or whatever it’s called when responding is voluntary so only people who care respond), which I didn’t bother looking at, and several articles that alluded to some survey that was done, but which only present the final tally, and nothing breaking any of that down by demographics.

There is one state, Nevada, that has legalized prostitution, so I don’t think public opinion is nearly as one sided as you think (the few final tally statistics I saw support this too), but I do suspect that the social taboo of suggesting it is partially responsible for the lack of any decent statistics to be readily found.

Please whisper into Larry’s ear, “He doesn’t seem that interesting to me.”

#33 MDGuy

I’m sure there are also some women who think prostitution should be illegal because they feel it is inherently exploitative of women.

Yes, that is true. I think exploitation can and does exist in many areas of human activity, but no one considers banning every activity where people can be exploited. In fact, making something illegal merely pushes the exploitation underground. Arresting the exploited victims to save them isn’t an answer.

But, my main objection to the exploitation argument, and this is common to many women’s issues, is the implicit suggestion that women need special protections because they are weaker and more vulnerable than men. I think it tends to undermine their argument of equality and, beyond that, it doesn’t accurately characterize most women I know.

By the way, I am not trying to imply that you are arguing the exploitation angle. I’m only using your mention of it to comment on the exploitation point of view. I think you made an excellent point. I lived in Nevada for a number of years and was under the impression that prostitutes who worked the brothels there were generally satisfied with the income and working conditions. I think they would scoff at the idea that hey were exploited.

#31 Zargon

Do you mean an evolutionary perspective? I haven’t heard anthropological used in that context before.

Think Helen Fisher. But, you’re correct. Who does or doesn’t sympathize isn’t all that important and it may have been kind of a cheap shot on my part.

Laws banning prostitution aren’t exactly controversial. I know of no significant activity toward seeing them repealed by any major group, male, female, left wing, or right wing. I would be interested in hearing what you come up with in your internet search.

The most sympathy I see towards prostitutes comes from those who generally view it’s practitioners as exploited victims rather than willing merchants. They tend not to line up on the side of legalizing it.

Disclaimer: I don’t dispute the existence of exploitation. I only dispute the need to ban the entire profession because of it.

Are you certain that the reason that, putting morality aside, the reason that men don’t favor the legalization of prostitution is that men don’t like the competition?

“Can a female prostitute marry a woman in most states?”
Some, what does this have to do with legalizing prostitution?

If you are questioning my inclusion of hookers into the sexual liberty debate, say that instead.

“Yet somehow, Goldman Sachs, Best Buy, and your neighborhood barbershop somehow remain in business.”

Barely (since when has GS been a capitalist?). The for-profit nature of prostitution provides an easy victim argument that is remarkably similar to the Marxist argument against capitalism. Hooking, afterall, is an amazing example of capitalism in many, many ways.

I believe, snark aside, that you’d find considering the connection revelatory unless you already have all the answers and have stopped exploring.

Morality aside, women prefer prostitution to be illegal simply because it undermines their ability to use sex to influence men. It’s essentially the use of legislation to gain an edge over the competition.

I’m sure there are also some women who think prostitution should be illegal because they feel it is inherently exploitative of women. Of course, much like the war on drugs, prohibiting the practice doesn’t make it go away, and really makes it more dangerous (and probably exploitative) than it would otherwise be. I wish I could find it – I remember reading about a survey among sex workers in Australia, where prostitution is legal, that found they had fairly high job satisfaction.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/42157.html

The beauty of taxation and licensing is that the number of activities that can be taxed and licensed is infinite. Must control all facets of human voluntary interaction. When will people rise up?

#24
From an anthropological perspective, I would have to differ from that.

Do you mean an evolutionary perspective? I haven’t heard anthropological used in that context before.

I hadn’t considered looking at it from an evolutionary standpoint, but that does seem very plausible. In any case, who has sympathy for whom isn’t usually a very interesting question to me, I just thought about it a bit and ended up at a counter intuitive answer, which may or may not have any truth in reality.

I still intend to see if I can find a few surveys along the lines of who believes prostitution should be legal, sometime later when that won’t involve doing a google search including the word prostitution at work.

#27 RobZ

Women generally prefer that prostitution remain illegal because it prevents competition? Seems to me that you’ve just unfairly insulted every woman I know.

Are you certain that they wouldn’t find your insinuation that they don’t even have a basic understanding of behavioral science the real insult?

As far as the Princess Jesus Boobies story, it’s not blackmail because the sex tape video is legitimate court evidence that she engaged in activity explicitly outlawed by the Miss Calipornia CALIFORNIA USA pageant.