Redstate

Honestly...banning prostitution is a complete bow to the nanny state "I know best" mentality.

It should be legalized. I'll still look down on people to use prostitutes and pity the prostitute, but making it illegal is just too paternalistic for me to really stomach.

Wind up in the trade before they have reached adulthood. Usually before the age of consent. By the time they could legally choose they no longer have the psychological option.

This is a point where libertarian principles collide with the reality of the way things work.

Now If you include the death penalty for anyone pimping an underage girl, Mandatory Health and drug testing (weekly), civil liability from cases resulting in divorce (Help break the marriage contract). Then maybe we could talk. I still think it would be a bad idea but at least at that point there would be something to debate.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

Wind up in the trade before they have reached adulthood. Usually before the age of consent. By the time they could legally choose they no longer have the psychological option.

This is an issue because of the lawless nature of the enterprise. This is not the case with legal brothels in Nevada.

If you include the death penalty for anyone pimping an underage girl,

Doesn't really seem congruent with our criminal punishments for other offenses, since molesting a 5 year old doesn't yield the death penalty, nor does supplying crack to an 8 year old.

Mandatory Health and drug testing (weekly)

Obviously some kind of health monitoring scheme would be a requirement for any kind of legalized prostitution regime (as it is in NV).

civil liability from cases resulting in divorce (Help break the marriage contract)

This is just ridiculous. Should we add girlfriends to the list? Employers who ask for a lot of hours? Bartenders who serve drinks to someone who promised he'd quit? Black jack dealers who serve somebody who said he was at work? Car dealers who sell a guy a new Corvette without checking with the wife? There are a whole lot of people who can provide an excuse contributes to the break up of a marriage, knowingly or not. The list is pretty much endless. Luckily all the responsibility lies on the parties involved in the marriage... as it should.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

This is an issue because of the lawless nature of the enterprise. This is not the case with legal brothels in Nevada.

Lets face it, thats a subset and probably a small subset.

This is just ridiculous. Should we add girlfriends to the list? Employers who ask for a lot of hours? Bartenders who serve drinks to someone who promised he'd quit?

Injuries due to negligent operation of a public conveyance would be more appropriate a model.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

Lets face it, thats a subset and probably a small subset.

It's pretty much all we have to go on for legal and regulated prostitution in the US.

Injuries due to negligent operation of a public conveyance would be more appropriate a model.

I can't see any connection. Possibly hurting someone's feelings (someone that may not even exist) is not any kind of "injury."

As far as offloading blame for failed marriages on other parties goes, that simply redirects responsibility from those who are really to blame: those inside the marriage. Marriages don't fall apart from outside forces acting upon it, leaving two innocent victims with a dissolved marriage. Marriages fall apart because of things the people involved in the marriage do or don't do. 100% of the time.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

When the state recedes to a pure libertarian place, then I'll consider your argument valid. Until then, there are a multitude of public policy positions that enable all kinds of undesireable behavior.

Such as inexpensive home morgage policy. Or reduced rates for college loans.

Neither should exist in a pure market/libertarian view. Yet we have them.

So when you enter into libertarian arguments regarding something like legalized prostitution, you need to be able to defend against "offloaded blame".

Why can't I counter that failed marraiges export a cost to society, and society recovers part of that cost through making prostitution illegal?

You have to look at the whole stack when taking a policy position.

Now if you were to ask me if the - say - thickness or depth - of the regulatory state should be minimized to the greatest extent possible, then I'm with you. But in this case I think its bad policy. And immoral - not because of the prostitution but because so many are intentionally trapped into doing it.

Why can't I counter that failed marraiges export a cost to society, and society recovers part of that cost through making prostitution illegal?

Because that would be a poor argument that goes to some pretty scary places. It's a poor argument because the cost of someone's marriage failing is impossible to quantify and may not even be negative. Much better arguments would be for governmental regulation of all sexual contact, since the spread of STDs like HIV and unplanned pregnancies have a significant and measurable impact on society. The same goes for stuff like what kind of food we eat. There's no limit to where you can go once you start to depend on these arguments, and no guiding principle as to how to determine what regulation is going too far and what regulation is just right.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

However, it is inappropriate to always round in the same direction with this type of argument.

The guiding principle is federalism. Learn about it. You create a market of towns each calculating a bunch of fuzzy things that are difficult to untangle.

And market mechanisms - equilibriums - tease the optimum solutions out.

That's the guiding principle.

Which is why I don't think the feds should be able to tell Las Vegas that they can't have legalized prostitution. But if you want me to guess at the fuzziness, I'm voting no.

...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...

---Thomas Paine---

Which laws are not a complete bow to the nanny state? Using the kind of thinking I'm seeing here, 99.9% of all laws should be stricken from the books.

The "Golden Rule" of libertarianism is that everyone should be able to do whatever they want as long as it causes no immediate physical harm to anyone else. I'm not alone in regarding this rule as childish as best. No human society has ever been or can ever be constructed on this principle. It defies human nature.

Are you including things like theft, impairment of trade, breach of contract, etc. under physical harm?

...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...

---Thomas Paine---

To my mind, women being brutalized through prostitution is the same kind of problem as people being killed through consuming drugs that were cut with hazardous substances. In both cases, the victim has no legal recourse because of the state's legal opinion of their original actions, and if the original activity was legal, it would be less likely to happen because the perp could then be charged with a real crime. If you drank alcohol nowadays and got ill because the manufacturer cut corners, you could do something about it; however in that time frame between the 18th and 21st amendment, if that had happened to you, you would have just been boned.

How many women that work in the various legal brothels in Nevada have been brutalized? If there are any at all, the proportion has got to be far less than girls on the street.

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

However:

If you look, in some parts of Europe during the late Middle Ages, prostitution was legal de jure or de facto. Aquinas actually speaks about it at some length (concluding, famously but incompletely, that it's necessary in almost exactly the same way a sewer is necessary to a city), and whether his work moved the trend toward tolerance or was representative of it is a question for historians with much more patience than I.

With that said, anyone who spends inordinate time reading late Medieval ecclesiology (because they're so cool, they do this in college) also finds related works decrying the abuse -- by which the authors refer to striking, beating, punching, kicking, and forcing children from the womb by violence) in those tolerated dens.

Now, Medieval Europe is not modern America. Modern Thailand is not Modern America. But where conservatives and libertarians split is this: One group believes men make no real progress in terms of their inherent moral character, where the other sides with liberals and believes we can all begin anew.

By the way:

In both cases, the victim has no legal recourse because of the state's legal opinion of their original actions, and if the original activity was legal, it would be less likely to happen because the perp could then be charged with a real crime.

I speak with personal experience on this. I have represented precisely two hookers in my time. One was brutalized regularly by her pimp. He is now in jail, and she went through rehab in about three facilities and is, so far as I know, well now and working at a Dollar General. She was not prosecuted. The pimp was.

The john who raped the other is out under a plea agreement and restraining order. She was not prosecuted either.

While it may be -- and often is -- true that hookers avoid the police for fear of criminal charges, let us not treat this as a blanket rule.

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

But where conservatives and libertarians split is this: One group believes men make no real progress in terms of their inherent moral character, where the other sides with liberals and believes we can all begin anew.

I don't see that at all. In fact, my view of libertarianism makes no statements about morality whatsoever. It merely states that we should have the fewest number of laws covering the least scope possible while still maintaining a sufficiently ordered society. That's right in line with small-government conservatism.

I'll grant you the 'not a blanket rule' bit and amend my previous to "the victim often has no or little legal recourse".

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

coming from either the objectivist camp or the natural law side.
But mostly they are in line with what some conservatives believe.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

In fact, my view of libertarianism makes no statements about morality whatsoever.

It makes certain implicit assumptions -- one of which is that in the absence of laws prohibiting bad behavior, people will do good (and sometimes will do good more often). This implies either (1) the belief that humans

Alternatively, it assumes that the cost of stopping those bad things outweighs the benefit. However, as that's an argument that could be applied to every law ever, about everything from murder to riding donkeys shirtless.

It merely states that we should have the fewest number of laws covering the least scope possible while still maintaining a sufficiently ordered society.

I don't disagree with that at all; where we differ is how much law, covering what, at what scope, is necessary for ordered liberty, which is the only kind of liberty that is truly liberty.

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

It makes certain implicit assumptions -- one of which is that in the absence of laws prohibiting bad behavior, people will do good

Alternatively, it assumes that the cost of stopping those bad things outweighs the benefit.

I'll admit to being ignorant of any real academic definitions of "libertarian philosophy" or "libertarian morality". But neither of these really seem to follow from what I'd understand the typical libertarian positions to be.

I don't believe any libertarians believe that in the absense of laws prohibiting murder, that we'd see a massive drop in homicide rates. I also suspect that libertarians wouldn't object to enforcement of anti-murder laws (investigations, courts, incarceration) on the grounds that such an enforcement regime undoubtedly costs more than simply letting people kill each other and leaving their families to clean up afterwards.

where we differ is how much law, covering what, at what scope, is necessary for ordered liberty, which is the only kind of liberty that is truly liberty.

I think libertarians quite expect some people to behave "badly" in the absence of government coercion. But you're right insofar as differences in balance - and I usually look at these things in terms of striking the right balance between liberty, justice, and security.

Decriminalizing (adult) prostitution recognizes that adults are moral agents capable of making decisions and taking personal responsibility (for themselves and in the eyes of their God) for their outcome, so it seems to maximize liberty. I see no argument being advanced that decriminalization will decrease justice for either party of prostitution, nor persons who are not party to the activity. I see no argument being advanced that decriminalization will decrease security for either party of the activity, nor for those who are not party to it.

Contrast this with murder. We might say that de-criminalizing murder increases liberty in the same manner as de-criminalizing prostitution, but since murder is not an act into which both parties freely enter, we would have to say it's a serious blow to the liberty and justice of the (unwilling) party. Security suffers as well: if we believe that murder will increase as a result of de-criminalization, it's reasonable for a citizen to feel less secure where they may be more likely to be on the unwilling side of the murder. With regards to prostitution, de-criminalization does not increase the likelyhood that a person will find themselves an unwilling participant of the activity, even if the activity is practiced more often.

So, it's a different way to look at the issue. Is this a libertarian way to look at it? Probably not exactly, and if libertarians are really only concerned with "liberty" then definitely not. But I'm pretty sure your characterization of libertarians is a inaccurate as well...

Decriminalizing (adult) prostitution recognizes that adults are moral agents capable of making decisions and taking personal responsibility (for themselves and in the eyes of their God) for their outcome, so it seems to maximize liberty. I see no argument being advanced that decriminalization will decrease justice for either party of prostitution, nor persons who are not party to the activity.

That's because you weren't looking.

The reason conservatives should be down on their knees in thanks to our neoconservative brethren is that we found in them people who could express what we'd always known, but had never had to express before. Putting to the side Achance's note that prostitution inherently makes an object out of a woman, and putting to the side the side effects of allowing a man to make an object of a woman on the man itself, because I gather you don't think the first is true, and can't imagine what I'm talking about with the second, consider the non-parties argument. Let's take the idea behind broken windows, and see it from a conservative perspective: Allowing the exchange of something private and special for money degrades the act, and creates an atmosphere that gives rise to even further degradation, social, moral, political, and criminal. Now, I know you're going to disagree with the first premises there, but then again, if we're arguing first premises, this is not the thread in which to do it. Put more directly: Private acts have public consequences. Without laws that limit behavior, even some kinds between and involving consenting adults, other laws and social norms begin to decay.

This is why so many conservatives curse the sexual revolution. It's not because we hate sex; it's because we see the loosening of sexual mores as the beginning of an avalanche of trouble; a terrible error that either caused or exacerbated a whole host of social ills with which we're dealing today. You may or may not think it did, and you may or may not think it caused or exacerbated those ills, and you may not think they're ills, but there it is. Similarly, the free availability of prostitution carries and creates social ills, and creates an atmosphere in which social ills (and individual ills that give rise to social ills) breed.

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

Putting to the side Achance's note that prostitution inherently makes an object out of a woman, and putting to the side the side effects of allowing a man to make an object of a woman on the man itself, because I gather you don't think the first is true, and can't imagine what I'm talking about with the second

I have a very hard time accepting the first as true, unless I'm willing to extend the logic you're using and declare that all paid labor makes objects of the laborers, and objectifiers of the customers or employers. I don't believe that's the case so I have to ask why a person performing a [sexual] service with his/her body is fundamentally different in terms of the "objectifying nature" of the activity than a person selling themself as a typist, a physical therapist, or a dental hygenist? You may tell me that it just is and claim any intelligent conservative will just inherently know this as an absolute truth, but that's not an actual argument for the position you and Achance take.

I understand what you're getting at with regards to the second. The gist is we should protect the potential consumer because he causes some calcuable harm to himself, perhaps unknowingly and in subtle ways, with regards to his changing attitude towards women. And that maybe because he grows more callous from "practice", it's likelier that he'll act out on that attitude in the future in a way that actually does violate someone else's justice or security. Well, that's a very compassionate viewpoint. Do you think we should protect citizens from themselves by criminalizing hate speech - you know the more often a person professes animosity toward some group, doesn't it get easier and easier for them to become more vocal, more vicious and perhaps lapse into physical violence at which point they actually do violate someone else's justice and security? Isn't free speech less important than protecting the focus of that speech from the speakers, and the speakers from themselves?

Allowing the exchange of something private and special for money degrades the act, and creates an atmosphere that gives rise to even further degradation, social, moral, political, and criminal. Now, I know you're going to disagree with the first premises there

Only in the sense that I don't see it as inherently degrading as opposed to inherently "valuating" - the value of the activity in monetary terms becomes calcuable through sampling and averaging. If you placed a financial value on intercourse at millions of dollars, you will find that the true financial value appears significantly degraded from your perceived value. If you're of the position that some activities are such that they defy financial valuation - and that we should actively prohibit such financial valuations - then I'd have to ask by what objective mechanism do we separate those activities that we allow people to place financial value on and then exchange using currency, versus those things that we allow free exchange of but deny to the participants the freedom to negotiate some transaction using a financial balance.

Without laws that limit behavior, even some kinds between and involving consenting adults, other laws and social norms begin to decay.

This is really the strongest argument I've seen, perhaps it was unfair to assert no one has made an argument with regards to a loss of security, as I take it you're suggesting that even though the activity of [de-criminalized] prostitution in and of itself poses no threat, it is possible that an increase in prostitution will lead to an increase in, let's say, incidence of sexual assault, which clearly involves at least one party being unjustly deprived on their liberty and security.

But I find that position analogous again to hate crime legislation, and I tend to agree with the professed conservative viewpoint that it's un-necessary to prohibit and punish "hate speech" when we have laws and enforcement regimes already in place to handle any indirect injustices that occur afterwards - assaults, murders, and so forth. Given that we can punish and enforce actual harm committed against someone, the value of free speech and the liberty of citizens to think what they will and say what they will is far more important. I happen to extend what I believe is a conservative position to encompass prostitution: granting greater importance to free will and the liberty of citizens to negotiate services between themselves involving the exchange of property - even those services where the use of one or both parties' bodies is a factor in the exchange - appears to be more compatible with conservative philosophy than is the prohibition and restriction of such activities between adults. Or any philosophy where liberty, property rights, freedom to associate, and so forth are held in very high esteem.

It's not because we hate sex; it's because we see the loosening of sexual mores as the beginning of an avalanche of trouble

I know this (I don't think anyone hates sex) and I understand your reasoning. But just as I'd reject the "good intentions" of a probably-liberal citizen who wants to restrict the liberty of others on the basis of the avalanche of trouble that hate speech may cause, I'd reject yours (in the absence of a more compelling argument) for the same reasons I've tried to lay out above.

But where conservatives and libertarians split is this: One group believes men make no real progress in terms of their inherent moral character, where the other sides with liberals and believes we can all begin anew.

It is your comment, but I like to see it as thus: Where we split is that Conservatives believe a) in the existence of moral absolutes in certain areas of mankind's behavior (whether from Natural Law or of God) and b) we can know and understand those absolutes, while Liberals deny the existence of moral absolutes - all values are equal - and each person can hold their own individually determined truth.

Where one stands on the issue of absolutes tends to define how you approach these arguments.

not even the Objectivists hold that there is no good or evil. nor any truth.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

and ambivalent on this area of vice crimes, would watch the documentary "Pimp" by the Hughes brothers. It shows you in no uncertain terms the very real differences between prostitutes in a legal environment and in an illegal one.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

You are arguing for a new regulatory regime paid for by the The People.

And it WILL be paid for by the people because sufficient taxes to impliment the regulatory regime it will never be collected directly from consumers.

They never are. And if you have a solution for that little problem then why are we talking about a chump change issue like prostitution.

And it WILL be paid for by the people because sufficient taxes to impliment the regulatory regime it will never be collected directly from consumers.

There are plenty of activities that become huge profit centers for government, despite a regulatory regime being in place. Things like alcohol, tobacco, and gambling come to mind. The regulatory costs are a tiny portion of the huge government take on a whole lot of things. It simply depends on how the government structures the fees and taxes.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

However, let me counter that if it is a viable profit center:

1) It will be encouraged just like Lotto gambling

2) The extra income will not be used for something that is needed. In fact, the only way for stuff that needs to be paid for to actually get paid for is if the entire budget is so crunched that the politicians have no choice but to fund the important stuff. Otherwise the cash is used to avoid the ugly stuff.

You, me and all of us pay to enforce the laws. The government gets no money at all from enforcing the law, except in asset forfeiture cases, which I find highly disturbing (and you should too, unless you like the idea of the government seizing everything you own because someone planted some drugs on you or your property).

However, I haven't ever seen a government license that was free. Furthermore, legal activities are usually taxed, providing more money to the government instead of to a black market. Plus it's less effort to regulate something than to enforce its illegality.

So how can regulating something cost more than making it illegal?

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

Would it change your opinion at all if brothels before servicing a married man got the consent of his wife (or married woman, husband, same thing)? Just curious.

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

This is like the immigration bill dealing with all the illegals who surface. Rock solid idea. Every man that wears a wedding ring will be required to get consent. Never mind the guy that puts his ring in his pocket. Ooops.

Just because you have the right, doesn't mean you should.

Look for every happy hooker with a nice upscale clientel that she sees on her terms there are hundreds of brutalized women. Women are at a very serious disadvantage in this transaction. Legitimizing it does not help them. The flesh peddlers use frightful means to control their stock. This won't go away with legalization.

This is due to its illegal status in most jurisdictions. The same could be said about sweat shops, drug dealers, mobsters, or any other illegal enterprise. When you are in the business of crime, there isn't much disincentive to beating, imprisoning or killing your employees to keep them in line. Legitimate businesses don't do that kind of thing. Those aspects are all connected to the illegal nature of the operation, not the fact that we are talking about prostitution.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

One thing I've become convinced of in following these prostitution debates (and the same holds for drugs and some other topics) is that the modern libertarians have a completely different understanding of what it means to be a human being than conservatives do, or even than the older generations of libertarians did. The two sides end up talking past each other because they don't acknowledge what really seperates them. And its not different views on prostitution.

As you allude to here, the neo-libs tend to regard people as being discrete things, which should be able to interact with other discrete things according to a certain set of rules, primarily based on economics. Every human interaction is a "transaction", for example. If you don't accept that underlying way of looking at people then the whole argument falls apart.

that holds that the Universe is divided into people, places, things, and that which we don't understand. Think that makes me old-fashioned?

In Vino Veritas

Where you draw the line at government intervention. Obviously people's individual actions, even when they don't affect others directly, have some sort of impact on society as a whole, but when does that become the government's business? I can see a whole continuum here and we are certainly at the libertarian end of it. That other end of the continuum (where everything that might have a "negative impact on society" is the government's business) is a whole lot more ugly IMO.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

It is that "reserved to the people and the States" thing. I'm a "consent of the governed" guy. Unless there's some Constitutionally protected right involved, I think a majority of the people have a right to regulate it. If a majority of the people in a locality think that prostitution is a bad thing, it is a bad thing, and the people have a right to regulate or prohibit it.

In Vino Veritas

Unless there's some Constitutionally protected right involved, I think a majority of the people have a right to regulate it.

Sure... I agree with that. If it's not explicitly in the constitution, it should be up to the whim of the majority whether they want to allow an activity or not. I don't believe in any (unmentioned, yet somehow constitutional) right to privacy hanging out in some penumbra or emanation.

Anyway, society here in the US has become much more lenient about what it thinks is its business over the decades. I think we will continue down that road. Overall, I don't think that is a particularly bad thing.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

It's a sign that society is ceasing to function. A society whose members are indifferent to each other is well on its way to ceasing to be a society. The logical and inevitable outcome is when people cease to care if somebody else is kidnapped and/or murdered. And we are closer to that than you think. There is no real reason in the libertarian outlook to object, after all. I mean, its not like it costs me anything.

libertarian thought, it is a caricature.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

Downthread he had the unmitigated gall to try to tell me what I believe. As if.

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

I think of it differently: libertarians have a different idea of what the law means than some conservatives and most liberals. The anti-libertarian view is: if you don't like something and want it to go away, pass a law against it. This is the primary source of most of the bad laws in the United States, and almost all of the really insane ones, like when the state of Utah made it illegal for the Great Salt Lake to be more than a certain depth.

Jon, you may not like Adam Smith's invisible hand, but you ignore its effects at your own peril. Making something illegal doesn't mean it disappears or can't happen (see: the Great Salt Lake)-- it just drives it underground. For crimes with victims, this is the best the legal system can do, and usually it's enough: nobody wants to encourage murder or kidnapping or the like, because nobody wants to be a victim. But when there isn't a victim, one has to be invented, because none of the people actually involved in 'victimless crimes' are injured.

Once you can accept that, then anything can be made illegal, because it can always be claimed that 'it hurts society' or some such. And that's where I draw the line. The solution isn't to outlaw it, the solution is to regulate the harm out of it as much as possible: for example, with prostitution, require sex workers to be tested for STDs regularly to avoid spread of disease, that kind of thing. If you can't come up with anything more specifically wrong with something than 'it harms society', you're just asking for a wildcard to outlaw what you don't like, and not liking something isn't sufficient justification to make it illegal.

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

Jon, you may not like Adam Smith's invisible hand, but you ignore its effects at your own peril. Making something illegal doesn't mean it disappears or can't happen (see: the Great Salt Lake)-- it just drives it underground.

Actually, it demonstrably decreases its incidence, too. It cannot completely stop it -- only a cultural change can do that -- but to deny that the law has a serious impact on behavior is to overlook use and rates on almost anything you can name before legalization and after. Prohibition, to take an easy and oft-cited example, demonstrably reduced alcohol intake. The criminalization of abortion and the end of that criminalization show the exact same data.

Conservatives are not idiots; we do not believe that the law can stop people from doing bad things. What we believe, to go all Smithian on this, is that it can provide a negative incentive to bad behavior, and thereby arrest (no pun) that behavior as marginal choices are made.

But when there isn't a victim, one has to be invented, because none of the people actually involved in 'victimless crimes' are injured.

One of the great insights of a group of scholars in the 1980s, some of whom called themselves libertarians, was that many crimes traditionally called victimless are, in fact, not -- they create the conditions for more, and worse crimes. It's called the broken windows theory, something taken largely as gospel in law enforcement because of how effectively it's worked.

Now, you're arguing that prostitution, say, is victimless in an ideal state. I disagree for a whole host of reasons, but put that to the side. The problem is that you're asserting that an act such as prostitution, if legal, has no effect on society -- one of the two reasons for which we have laws, the effect on the individual being the other -- where I see great deal of evidence to the contrary. (I find it curious to see libertarians arguing for government regulated prostitution, by the way.) Unless you can convince the mass of people -- and keep them convinced -- that prostitution has no undesirable, incidental side effects, you are speaking a different language.

Once you can accept that, then anything can be made illegal, because it can always be claimed that 'it hurts society' or some such. And that's where I draw the line.

But you see, when you enter society, you gain goods, but you sacrifice others; and one of those things you sacrifice is some of your preeminence as an individual. If the greater society perceives there to be a harm to it, it is within its power, and should be, to try to eradicate that thing.

Again, this is a place conservatives and libertarians differ: We're leery of "social harm," as a justification for each and every thing; but we're also aware it exists.

The solution isn't to outlaw it, the solution is to regulate the harm out of it as much as possible: for example, with prostitution, require sex workers to be tested for STDs regularly to avoid spread of disease, that kind of thing.

With no disrespect intended, this is part of why I think most libertarians are at heart libertines. This kind of regulation is bad, so let's have a kind where I get to do this thing instead.

If you can't come up with anything more specifically wrong with something than 'it harms society', you're just asking for a wildcard to outlaw what you don't like, and not liking something isn't sufficient justification to make it illegal.

Prove it.

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

Conservatives are not idiots; we do not believe that the law can stop people from doing bad things. What we believe, to go all Smithian on this, is that it can provide a negative incentive to bad behavior, and thereby arrest (no pun) that behavior as marginal choices are made.

I won't deny that there is some negative incentive provided in making something illegal. However, there has to be a point where if there are too many negative side effects, then we're all better off without that law. I run into a lot of denial of the negative side effects when I argue with folks that want to keep things illegal. If you want to keep prostitution illegal, you need to weigh that against the side effect that illegal prostitution is a disease vector waiting to happen, and having all prostitution be illegal maximizes the amount of illegal prostitution; whereas some amount of regulated legal prostitution would diminish to some extent the amount of illegal prostitution, and have virtually no transmission of disease, thus making for less spread of disease. If you want to argue continuing the War on Drugs, you have to be able to live with cops occasionally busting down the wrong door and killing an innocent bystander. It's that way with almost all the 'victimless' laws; there are non-obvious costs that demand to be justified all over the place.

But you see, when you enter society, you gain goods, but you sacrifice others; and one of those things you sacrifice is some of your preeminence as an individual. If the greater society perceives there to be a harm to it, it is within its power, and should be, to try to eradicate that thing.

But at what cost? Is it really always worth it when you analyze all of the factors?

One of the great insights of a group of scholars in the 1980s, some of whom called themselves libertarians, was that many crimes traditionally called victimless are, in fact, not -- they create the conditions for more, and worse crimes. It's called the broken windows theory, something taken largely as gospel in law enforcement because of how effectively it's worked.

I've heard that theory, but never applied to legality vs. illegality. The application was to the nonprosecution of minor crimes, of which prostitution is one, actually. The theory is as I understand it: if you have an empty building which has a window broken, and you don't fix it, you'll get more and more broken windows-- whereas if you fix it, it stays fixed. So, if you don't enforce the small crimes on the books-- vagrancy, littering, jaywalking, prostitution, public drunkenness, disorderly conduct-- you breed a general disrespect for order and the law in general, and end up with vandalism, burglary, assault, carjacking, armed robbery, shootings, and eventually, murders.

Applying this theory to legalization instead of lack of enforcement is a novel one to me. Were there any such effects when the 21st Amendment was passed and alcohol became legal again? That's the only actual data we'd have for the United States for such an effect.

"If you can't come up with anything more specifically wrong with something than 'it harms society', you're just asking for a wildcard to outlaw what you don't like, and not liking something isn't sufficient justification to make it illegal."

Prove it.

Huh? The first half is the application of a basic principle: regulation of something should be the minimum necessary to achieve public safety, and the way you determine what regulations are necessary is that you figure out what specific harmful things happen lacking regulations, and you tailor regulations to minimize or ameloriate those effects.

If you can't come up with specific objections to why something shouldn't be legal, then you don't really have much of a case, do you? All you have a general 'this is wrong' feeling. While that is great for keeping individuals out of trouble, it's not such a good basis for legal theory. Feelings don't make good laws.

Which leads directly to the second half: not liking something isn't sufficient justification to make it illegal.

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

I run into a lot of denial of the negative side effects when I argue with folks that want to keep things illegal.

I'm not one of the ones in denial. Every act has negative side effects, as does every inaction.

If you want to keep prostitution illegal, you need to weigh that against the side effect that illegal prostitution is a disease vector waiting to happen, and having all prostitution be illegal maximizes the amount of illegal prostitution; whereas some amount of regulated legal prostitution would diminish to some extent the amount of illegal prostitution, and have virtually no transmission of disease, thus making for less spread of disease.

There are a lot of cogent arguments to be made for your position, and you've made some, but this is not one of them. There are two great venereal disease vector points on planet Earth: Amsterdam and Bangkok. In neither of these places is prostitution de facto illegal. AIDS B is tracked with giant arrows coming out of the Netherlands, circling across the globe. God alone knows how many arrows begin in Thailand.

If you want to argue continuing the War on Drugs, you have to be able to live with cops occasionally busting down the wrong door and killing an innocent bystander. It's that way with almost all the 'victimless' laws; there are non-obvious costs that demand to be justified all over the place.

Of course this is true; conversely, if we remove the restrictions on the sale and possession of coke, don't be surprised when your daughter is run over by a 17 year-old cokehead out for a drive. (Which would of course be a crime, right? But having and using the coke...)

You're firing at a straw man. No conservative of any brain mass, not even stupid old I, asserts that laws are without negative consequence. The difference is that you have a different set of priorities than the majority of your fellow citizens.

But at what cost? Is it really always worth it when you analyze all of the factors?

Of course it's not always worth it. That's why you should do what I did when I lived in Maryland and move if the laws become too onerous.

I've heard that theory, but never applied to legality vs. illegality.

I'm not trying to apply it to legality or non-legality; the next paragraph was expositional, not surplusage. My apologies for the confusion. I was asserting it went to the question of victimization, which in turn goes to legality.

Were there any such effects when the 21st Amendment was passed and alcohol became legal again?

I'm not sure any of those studies would be meaningful -- crime rates increased during the Depression for so many other reasons it's hard to pin down what caused what.

Huh? The first half is the application of a basic principle: regulation of something should be the minimum necessary to achieve public safety, and the way you determine what regulations are necessary is that you figure out what specific harmful things happen lacking regulations, and you tailor regulations to minimize or ameloriate those effects.

No, the first half presupposes that "harms society" is not the same in some ways as "decreases public safety." It further assumes that "minimum necessary to achieve public safety" is the correct criterion to determine whether a law is just or not. I'd say that's the starting point in judging a law (and, I should add, ideally frequently the ending point), not the totality of it.

In other words, you begin with an unproven first premise, and go on to conclude that based on that first premise, anything more is bad (again, without proof), then move on to a bare assertion of unproven principle.

So, you know, since you're the one arguing for change, prove it.

If you can't come up with specific objections to why something shouldn't be legal, then you don't really have much of a case, do you?

Actually, I have plenty. As you're now either debating a strawman or expounding on grand principle, however, I suspect we're formally speaking past each other.

All you have a general 'this is wrong' feeling.

There is no reason, as we're now really afield, to why brother-sister sex should be illegal, as long as they're both consenting, except for reasons we socially shun (but probably agree with) involving their offspring. Justify laws prohibiting consenting brother-sister sex. Justify laws prohibiting bestiality. Justify laws prohibiting abortion to someone who thinks it's just tissue until it escapes the birth canal. Justify laws prohibiting infanticide until the little beggar can actually enunciate a word.

This is wrong is sometimes the inchoate, arational, entirely correct response to a bad or horrible thing, that you don't know how to express in words or logic, but nevertheless know to be true. Yes, it's feeeeeelings, whoahwhoah feeeeeeelings, but the only people who oppose legislating on feelings are the people who want to do what the majority doesn't want them to do.

While that is great for keeping individuals out of trouble, it's not such a good basis for legal theory. Feelings don't make good laws.

Which leads directly to the second half: not liking something isn't sufficient justification to make it illegal.

Again, a series of unproven assertions.

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

Happy Hooker myth notwithstanding, a prostitute is at minimum a victime of objectivization. Most were victims of many other things before taking up "the life" and almost all are victims of all sorts of other things while in the life. Did their own bad choices lead to their victimization? In many cases, probably yes, but there is a correlation to juvenile abuse that can't be denied.

To the other part, here is where I depart with libertarianism: if there isn't a Constitutionally protected right involved, if a majority of the governed "don't like" something, that is all the "justification" I need to make it illegal. Last I looked, there isn't anything in the Constitution about a right to sell ... well, you know - unless you're into penumbras and emanations. It's this democracy thing, you know.

In Vino Veritas

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

You believe in a Ninth Amendment which does not exist in the real world. The actual one does not say what you want it to. It does not say, for example, that everyone has a "right" to do what they want and nobody can say otherwise.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

By the way, I really resent someone else telling me what I believe. You don't speak for me, you don't know me.

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

It doesn't guarantee them, either. The Ninth Amendment doesn't enshrine additional rights in the Constitution; it only says that they aren't, therefore, verboten. (Or, at least, this seems both the plainest reading, and the most common interpretation by the courts.)

If the people give up a particular unenumerated "right" by means of passing a law (whether by plebiscite or by representative government), it stands to reason that the Ninth Amendment does not forbid them the right to do so.

I'll confess that I haven't been following this whole discussion, but! Supposing that prostitution were legal, do you suppose that there would be more of it, or less of it? And, given that, do you suppose that is a net moral positive or negative? It seems to me that there would almost certainly be a great deal more of it, and that this is probably a net moral negative. Presumably, the state of Nevada would have something useful to say on this point.

"It doesn't guarantee them, either."

The rights enumerated in the constitution are rights the Federal Government cannot regulate except where they interfere with one another. It is not a Positivist group of rights, it is a prohibition of regulation.

The individual states are then not bound by them. Having past the 14th - which was a power grab by racist southern senators and northern industrialists, btw, the Federal government then had control of how those rights were expressed by the states - But supposedly only to keep them equally expressed.

That is a step in the positivist direction of an interpretation of the Bill of Rights and of Federal power and is the source of virtually all of our problems. Along with the 17th.

Positivist libertarianism is marxism if it argues that the source of those rights is the constitution. I don't believe you have taken it that far. Regardless, I'm not a fan of positivist thinking. It's not Randian.

Supposing that prostitution were legal, do you suppose that there would be more of it, or less of it? And, given that, do you suppose that is a net moral positive or negative? It seems to me that there would almost certainly be a great deal more of it, and that this is probably a net moral negative.

This sort of depends on the moral weight you give to various things. What's the moral plus/minus when an individual patronizes a prostitute? Is the plus/minus different in magnitude for the individual versus the society at large - in other words, do you measure the morality of a society by the sum of its citizens' actions, or by a more collective take on the society as an entity by itself? What's the moral plus/minus of a society that maximizes individual choices, the exercise of free will by moral agents?

Whats the moral plus/minus when an individual wants to patronize a prostitute but ultimately doesn't for fear of punishment? The intent was no different, only the outcome changed. So is morality a measurement of action, or intent, or both, and which is more important in your morality calculus - intent or action?

So you ask an interesting question, my gut reaction is when a person's own morality is measured by their compliance with some operative moral code, then individual morality is determined solely by individual choices, and cannot be affected by the choices of others so long as the person remains un-coerced with regards to making their own choices. We might measure the morality of society by the degree to which the latter remains true - in other words, isn't a society that maximizes the ability for people to be moral agents and exercise free will without coercion a more moral society, even though the sum total of immoral acts by its citizens may actually be greater than we might find in a society that uses government coercion to restrict choices through fear of punishment?

If not, you don't get to say that those words mean what you want them to. The actual SCOTUS has disagreed with your interpetation.

A majority of the People can do what they damn well please absent an explicit Constitutional prohibition. They can require burkas or mandate nudity; all it takes fifty percent plus one, and if you don't like it, you can move.

In Vino Veritas

If you can't come up with anything more specifically wrong with something than 'it harms society', you're just asking for a wildcard to outlaw what you don't like, and not liking something isn't sufficient justification to make it illegal.

You really and truly do not get it, which is exactly the point I made above. And the "invisible hand" stuff seems designed to prove my point about you seeing life as nothing but a series of economic transactions between economic actors. That's a very stunted way of seeing people and the world. But if you believe it, as I'm sure you do, then all the rest falls into place as you describe it.

It remains true that no human society ever has been or ever will be built on the principles you outline, because they defy actual human nature just as much if not more than communism did.

I'm going to turn things around on you.

Imagine for a minute that I'm a Muslim, or at the very least living in a society sufficiently influenced by Islam.

I argue to you that women should be required to wear burkas.

Now try to convince me otherwise.

I can easily give you a hundred arguments, all based on morality and good government, as to why women should be required to wear burkas. A lot of them will look very much like arguments why prostitution should be kept illegal: it protects women, it keeps them from objectification, it reduces male lust and immorality, it helps maintain and protect marriage, etc.

Your response?

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

So long as a majority in our community are against mandatory burkas, that's all that matter in this democracy (since I'm not aware of any constitutional principle is involved).

And if some community does pass such a law requiring burkas, then they have to compete with other communities that don't have such a law. And I'm perfectly free to vote with my feet if I'm not willing to abide by the law.

And Rightly So!

If the majority of people in your society think women should wear burkas, then women in your society should wear burkas. Why should I argue the matter one way or another?

A lot of them will look very much like arguments why prostitution should be kept illegal: it protects women, it keeps them from objectification, it reduces male lust and immorality, it helps maintain and protect marriage, etc.

Ok, you've convinced me. Now what?

As I keep pointing out, and you keep missing, the issue here is that you are working from certain basic presuppositions which a lot of us don't share. As I said in my first comment here, that is why the debate consists of people talking past each other. And you seem determined to keep proving the point for me.

Let me say this to you: what you're saying to me is "My mind is made up and don't confuse me with the facts."

I guess for you, dead men do bleed.

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

The elf and the other guy go to separate corners now, please.

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

If the majority of people in your society think women should wear burkas, then women in your society should wear burkas. Why should I argue the matter one way or another? [emphasis mine]

So if the majority of people in America decide citizens should no longer smoke cigarettes, then citizens should no longer smoke cigarettes? And you and no one else should argue the matter one way or another? Does majority opinion become moral obligation - you do use the word "should" implying some degree of responsibility for compliance, but maybe you simply mean they "should" or else they'll be punished?

You're not the only one to set aside actual philosophical debate in favor of just resting on "majority rules":

If the greater society perceives there to be a harm to it, it is within its power, and should be, to try to eradicate that thing. [Thomas]

Last I looked, there isn't anything in the Constitution about a right to sell ... well, you know - unless you're into penumbras and emanations. It's this democracy thing, you know. [Achance]

So I'm not singling you out but you really boiled it down to what it is with your statement - not a very substantive position to take and really off the path in terms of the topic of this thread. Majority rule is a function of our system of government, a system we theoretically all agree to live by, and so on one hand it's fair to assert that our government should do what the majority asks. But libertarianism, conservatism and liberalism are concerned with sussing out what it is people should actually have the government do, aren't they?

So in a thread ripe with possibilities for people to explain why citizens should use the government to criminalize prostitution based on conservative principles, it's unfortunate that the most strident anti-decriminalization voices are only throwing out the nod to the status quo, majority rules takes all stuff.

and what it should do are two different things. What it should do is the product of reasoned, hopefully, debate. What it can do is simply a question of law, and absent express limits, it can do what the majority wants.

I would try to convince my fellow citizens that prostitution should continue to be nominally illegal; they might agree, they might not, but if a majority were to vote to make it legal, they can, and if they vote to make it illegal, I don't think there's a Constitutional limit on their ability to do so.

In Vino Veritas

So if the majority of people in America decide citizens should no longer smoke cigarettes, then citizens should no longer smoke cigarettes? And you and no one else should argue the matter one way or another? Does majority opinion become moral obligation - you do use the word "should" implying some degree of responsibility for compliance, but maybe you simply mean they "should" or else they'll be punished?

In order:

(1) Yes.
(2) What a silly question.
(3) No. But it does become law, which is something altogether different.

Our entire notion of government is underpinned by the consent of the governed, and the highly imperfect way in which we measure that is through the laws enacted by the representatives elected by a majority of the people. As long as the laws stand and there is no rebellion, consent may be comfortably inferred.

If you're not a big fan of our system, there are other approaches out there which I invite you to sample.

You're not the only one to set aside actual philosophical debate in favor of just resting on "majority rules"

You're right; everyone in this thread, on both sides, has set aside actual philosophical debate in favor of enunciating asserted first principles, pretending they're proven, then proceeding logically from there.

Majority rule is a function of our system of government, a system we theoretically all agree to live by, and so on one hand it's fair to assert that our government should do what the majority asks. But libertarianism, conservatism and liberalism are concerned with sussing out what it is people should actually have the government do, aren't they?

Sort of; but on the other hand all this means is, We get to argue. Well, duh. The relevant question is not whether you get to argue, but whether you have anything to add to convince the decision makers -- the majority -- that they're wrong. So far, all I've seen out of your side is An ye do no harm, etc.

So in a thread ripe with possibilities for people to explain why citizens should use the government to criminalize prostitution based on conservative principles, it's unfortunate that the most strident anti-decriminalization voices are only throwing out the nod to the status quo, majority rules takes all stuff.

It was also ripe for libertarians to do something other than to yell, "Nyah nyah, victimless crime, nyah nyah," again and again. Let's all walk away disappointed.

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

(1) Yes.

And if a majority of citizens decide that all pharmacists should dispense abortifacients - then all pharamcists should dispense abortifacients, right? None of them should put their own moral judgement ahead of what the majority thinks?

I don't want to belabor it, if you're just answering yes to be obtuse and you don't really believe that majorty rules implies moral obligation then we've nothing to argue about on this point!

(2) What a silly question.

My point exactly.

If you're not a big fan of our system, there are other approaches out there which I invite you to sample.

Now really, how did you gather than I'm not a fan of our system? Because I observed that majority rules does not imply moral obligation, and that the outcome of a democracy does not define what is "right", only what the majority thought was "right"?

Your reply is an alternative expression of my basic observation - standing pat of majority rules isn't a good argument. I think we agree that "we get to argue". I think we agree that the point of such arguments - given the context of the form of government we have - is to persuade the majority.

Finally, we agree that no one had presented a very compelling argument based on their professed political philosophy. As a conservative site, I expected a more conservative-philosophy-based angle to the discussion whether from someone supporting or opposing it, what I interpreted was "majority rules, case closed".

It was also ripe for libertarians to do something other than to yell, "Nyah nyah, victimless crime, nyah nyah," again and again. Let's all walk away disappointed.

I wouldn't disagree that much of the pro-legalization opinion being expressed, theoretically by libertarians, wasn't terribly compelling either. Then again you told Finrod earlier that "There are a lot of cogent arguments to be made for your position, and you've made some" so I gather you're mostly making an in-kind response to my blanket statement about the poor anti-legalization arguments, and that's fair since mine could be accused of being a bit far-reaching too.

Your newer post above gets back to the kind of reasoning I expected from the conservative perspective, and I appreciate it.

Is that there are actually two hands.

In Vino Veritas

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

Destroys Achance's argument about it being more enjoyable.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

A $25 crack whore in a parking lot isn't quite the same as some of the other products on the market.

In Vino Veritas

Paying for what you get.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

Bottle of wine: $30, on the low end. Dinner, unless we're talking Mickey D's: $30, for Applebee's, Chili's, TGI Friday's, what have you. Movie, evening, first-run theater, two tickets, popcorn, soda, candy: $40 and you're lucky to escape with your liver.

Trick comes in under $100, and you've saved some walking around money.

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

Outcall around here runs 300 just to get them to show then add on for services. Or so I have heard
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

Or so I've heard.

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

pretty much sets the price - $300 - $500 in a twenty four hour period is the limit for most, and that is the lingua franca of bad habits. After that you're in the Gold Card world and you'd better have a good accountant or take real good care of your wife - both is better.

In Vino Veritas

You don't just pass a law on the basis of whether something is bad for society. You also pass a law if you think the majority of citizens will obey it, and you can enforce it.

Prostitution is illegal in every state (except Nevada). But, it also exists in every city in the country.

The primary deterrent to prostitution is not that it is against the law. It is how much does it cost? Will somebody know it? How available are women who will do it for nothing? Will you get a disease?

As long as a small minority uses the services of prostitutes, it can be controlled. However, if enough do it, it becomes a bad law because it is ignored and un-enforcable. This has happened with juvenile pre-marital sex, adult adultery, and various "blue laws."

Prostitution is illegal in every state (except Nevada). But, it also exists in every city in the country.

You could say the exact same thing about burglary, assault, auto theft, and murder. They are all illegal everywhere, but they still keep happening. Clearly we need to discard those useless laws.

The primary deterrent to prostitution is not that it is against the law.

Sure it is. That and negative connotations it has.

Come on....all forms of illegality are not equal. My logic has less to do with crimes still happening, and more with the types and numbers. Burglary, assault, theft, and murder occur less often than prostitution, and other forms of vice crimes.

I know what law enforcement and the courts do about prostitution...very little. It is de facto legalized in some cities, as long as it occurs in the right neighborhoods. . Besides the persons can afford more legal fees and fines if they are on the street doing "tricks."

In many cities, there is a very direct connection between illegal immigration and prostitution(sometimes white slavery). However, the police are rebuffed when they try to turn the people over to the feds. If the feds take them, they have to give them room and board. It costs the taxpayers too much money.

Some persons are regularly involved in vice. The primary deterrent is not that they will get caught and punished. It is being embarrassed, ashamed, or doing something immoral.

"However, were it to be well-regulated like any other business (eliminate the unchecked STDs, pimps, brutality) and run with health standards, records, and safety protocols... well, I don't see what's wrong with it."

It is run this way in most East Asian and European countries. They have licenses which are revoked for violations of the rules. They usually only restrict prostitution to certain geographic areas and have peridioc health inspections. In these countries, the penalty for violating the rules is much more severe than what illegal prostitutes get in the U.S.

If prostitutes are "objectified" then why do we speak as if most regular "dates" are expected to lead to sex? Why is there such a tendency to stigmatize people who don't have sex all the time? Why do we continue to send these and other mixed signals to each other and to our children?

I don't mind telling you all that this is something I absolutely hate about my country and its culture. I'll be interested to see what reactions I get with this comment.

lesterblog.blogspot.com

lead to sex? If your buddies told you she put out or you got her number off the bathroom wall? Sure there's lots of first date sex and bar pickups, but if you base a relationship on that, you'd better find something in common with her to do after the first six weeks or so. I know it's a macho boy sounding thing, but there are women you take to bed and there are women you take home to meet your mama. If you took her to bed on a first date, think twice about taking her home to meet your mama.

In Vino Veritas

Don't you know.

When I was 17 it seemed like it would be great to just hook up anytime with anyone. I now look at what we have unleashed in digust. We're falling apart.