A companion to the TNZ poll asking the same question. Straight up or down, should prostitution be legalized?
Misc Poll: Should Prostitution be Legalized?
- Thread starter Data Holmes
- Start date
I'll repeat my answer from the TNZ poll.
Yes, it should be legal. If so, it should also be taxed, conducted in a legitimate place of business rather than on the street or with a pimp, and with heavy regulation and testing to make sure the prostitutes are healthy adults who are not being exploited or coerced.
Yes, it should be legal. If so, it should also be taxed, conducted in a legitimate place of business rather than on the street or with a pimp, and with heavy regulation and testing to make sure the prostitutes are healthy adults who are not being exploited or coerced.
I agree with this person.
I'm not saying that it should be illegal. I'm all for de-regulation in many instances. The question I've got, however, is what the private sector can do if there isn't any prohibition. The answer is, short of violence (which is also prohibited) nothing. For this reason, street prostitution is something which I think needs to stay illegal. Regarding other forms of prostitution, what people do behind closed doors in places of business and homes is not any concern of mine.
Real world example: One stretch of Highway 7 - a 4-5 lane road that I drive on all the time. It goes through the standard city middle class residential grid and is lined with normal businesses like Walgreens, KFC, and Antique Shops. It doesn't look like an adult district that you'd see depicted in a movie. It's Suburbia. It is also a place where prostutes seem to appear; it has been written up in the paper, and police have had to work to keep the problem to a minimum. Even so, when I drive by, I spot unusual numbers of women just walking... and I can't help thinking that it looks suspicious. Without prohibition, it would be much worse.
I'm going to lay this down straight. Nerds on the internet might not think that prostitution is a big deal, but the vast sum of America doesn't want prostitutes walking through safe neighborhoods that have little children playing in them, and they don't want prostitutes walking back and forth infront of the grocery store that the family visits all the time. Private property should be as free as the wild west... but while in public, there are certain things that we as a society won't tolerate. Prostitution is one of those things, and that is why the law exists.
I vote nay.
Real world example: One stretch of Highway 7 - a 4-5 lane road that I drive on all the time. It goes through the standard city middle class residential grid and is lined with normal businesses like Walgreens, KFC, and Antique Shops. It doesn't look like an adult district that you'd see depicted in a movie. It's Suburbia. It is also a place where prostutes seem to appear; it has been written up in the paper, and police have had to work to keep the problem to a minimum. Even so, when I drive by, I spot unusual numbers of women just walking... and I can't help thinking that it looks suspicious. Without prohibition, it would be much worse.
I'm going to lay this down straight. Nerds on the internet might not think that prostitution is a big deal, but the vast sum of America doesn't want prostitutes walking through safe neighborhoods that have little children playing in them, and they don't want prostitutes walking back and forth infront of the grocery store that the family visits all the time. Private property should be as free as the wild west... but while in public, there are certain things that we as a society won't tolerate. Prostitution is one of those things, and that is why the law exists.
I vote nay.
Same question. Same answer. Different forum. Yes.
Yes.
Yep, prohibition did a bang-up job with alcohol and drugs. Wiped those problems right out in a heartbeat.
Thanks for laying it out straight by insulting people who disagree with you while simultaneously projecting your own opinion on the vast majority of Americans. Way to make your point.
I don't doubt that a majority of Americans in certain parts of the country disagree with legalizing prostitution or marijuana use (for another example), but it's not quite the overwhelming majority across the entire country that you make it out to be, nor do most people use your convoluted reasoning to support their viewpoint.
I've been all over Nevada, where prostitution is legalized (outside certain counties), and for the life of me I can't recall ever seeing a prostitute (legal or not) working a residential neighborhood or the front of a grocery store. Especially not in the middle of the day when *gasp* THE CHILDREN *gasp* might see them. Turns out, even when legal, people generally don't want to be seen soliciting a prostitute in broad daylight in their own neighborhood or the grocery store they frequent.
Besides which, when people advocate for legalized prostitution, I would imagine most of them are assuming a brothel-type system instead of just a pimp and a prostitute on the streets where abuse would be rampant and regulation damn near impossible.
I also agree.
I am in agreement about the person we all agree with.
Yep, prohibition did a bang-up job with alcohol and drugs. Wiped those problems right out in a heartbeat.
Thanks for laying it out straight by insulting people who disagree with you while simultaneously projecting your own opinion on the vast majority of Americans. Way to make your point.
I don't doubt that a majority of Americans in certain parts of the country disagree with legalizing prostitution or marijuana use (for another example), but it's not quite the overwhelming majority across the entire country that you make it out to be, nor do most people use your convoluted reasoning to support their viewpoint.
I've been all over Nevada, where prostitution is legalized (outside certain counties), and for the life of me I can't recall ever seeing a prostitute (legal or not) working a residential neighborhood or the front of a grocery store. Especially not in the middle of the day when *gasp* THE CHILDREN *gasp* might see them. Turns out, even when legal, people generally don't want to be seen soliciting a prostitute in broad daylight in their own neighborhood or the grocery store they frequent.
Besides which, when people advocate for legalized prostitution, I would imagine most of them are assuming a brothel-type system instead of just a pimp and a prostitute on the streets where abuse would be rampant and regulation damn near impossible.
QFT!
+1
You've said it much better than i could have so all i'll say is ... this.
I agree as well.
It is after all the oldest trade in the world, it will continue to exist, so why not regulate it?
My sentiments exactly.. nothing to add.
You would eliminate (in theory) pimps, you wouldn't have it on the street corners and back alleys but brothels and other license and certified 'store fronts', curtail drug use and stds through mandated testings, routine physicals for the prostitutes, those sort of things.
Of course you'd have to stiffen (no pun intended) the penalties for "unlicensed" (re: illegal) prostitution for those that fell out of compliance. And no system is 100% and 100% invulnerable to exploitation.
Last edited:
Similar threads
