Omar

I'll get to this article later. As you can imagine, my opinion hasn't budged.

Pimping, human trafficking, child abuse, STDs, assault, drug abuse, stress, trauma. List goes on. Pimping relies on the fact that prostitution is illegal. Sex workers can't defend themselves because they're "criminals". It's like saying we should not end alcohol prohibition because bootlegging would go unbridled. Assault is due to the same thing. In fact, the same thing could be said of strip clubs, but because they're legal, owners have an incentive to provide protection for the workers, because otherwise fewer people would be willing to work and earn them a profit. Child abuse: I have to admit I'm a little behind on human trafficking, but I don't intuitively see causation between that and sex work. Drug abuse is contingent on drug laws, and you can imagine my position on that front. Maybe in another thread. STIs: Been through this already. You don't have to work with anyone who's not willing to provide a test, and you don't have to hire a sex worker if you don't know how safe it is. If you get infected from a sex worker, it's your own fault. Sue whoever lied to you, but maybe you should have checked. Stress and trauma: the same applies to any line of work. Corporate office workers become sleep deprived and suffer higher rates of heart disease, but no one is thinking of making it illegal. At what point does it start to become illegal to do something you otherwise wouldn't in exchange for money? That's the definition of having a job.

There's enough undesirable things that surround prostitution Like what?

So your position is similar to Range's? Again, I'm opposed to prohibition regardless of whether it works or not. It just conveniently happens not to work.

I'm not quite sure what you think the benefits of keeping it regulated (in the sense that it's not allowed) are if you think that legalization and regulation is problematic.

The fee is (partly) passed on to the consumer through higher prices. It's like when you tax a good; no matter who is taxed, the producer or the consumer, price and quantity remain the same.

The government has neither the desire nor the incentive to do what's best for sex workers anyways.

Well, for clarification, I still want it legalized, just not regulated.

I'm pretty sure you're on my side here.

Tim, you should read Existentialism is a Humanism (or philosophy bro's summary) and tell me what you've learned and how it's related to what you just said.

That's okay though, there's no objective morality. I'm sure many people do, just like many people get jobs at McDonalds because there are no other options. Clearly, sex workers think the sex trade is a lesser evil than poverty, or else they would rather be poor. The government is already regulating it. If I had it my way, the sex trade industry would not need much regulation anyway. But I don't want to save the sex workers from the trade. I think they have the same rights as anyone else, and that's all. @sees: I'm willing to bet the problems with illegal distilling you refer to are either not really problems or still the government's fault (alcohol is still regulated). @highlander: Read the story about Jim, Sally and John I posted in reply to Tyler. Property rights are the only way to clearly define what you can and can't do. There's no difference in nature between stopping people from having naked people in their displays and stopping them from having anything else on their property.

And sex workers are not acting? For what it's worth, money isn't useful in and of itself. You have to use it to buy other goods. So really when you buy sex, you're trading a good for another, in the larger scheme of things. But all of this doesn't matter, because you still haven't explained what it is about being paid by your client directly instead of through the intermediary of a company that makes prostitution so much more damaging. @Tyler: How would the "problem" become worse in the short run? The government isn't controlling the sex trade in any way to prevent broken windows, just like it isn't controlling the drug trade, and just like it didn't control the alcohol trade during Prohibition. By making prostitution illegal, the government is decreasing its supply, thereby making sure that pimps, instead of more law-abiding citizens, control it, and increasing their incentive to do so by driving prices up.

Anything that is subject to law is in the hands of bureaucracy, but trying to regulate it subjects it to even more bureaucracy. I'm not trying to impose family values on anyone here. My point was that a daughter or son who turns to prostitution will probably be less likely to be accepted by his or her family. A husband or wife who engages in prostitution will probably cause harm to the marriage as well as subject the hypothetical children to social embarrassment. To go back to this, my point was that if you're stopping people from going into the sex trade because they'll lose their family's acceptance, you're telling to value the first less than the latter, and stopping them from doing otherwise. This doesn't jive with your claim that nothing is objectively valuable. On the distinction between pornography and prostitution: obviously those two things aren't the same. That's not the question. The question is whether the grounds on which prostitution is kept illegal are applicable to pornography. Now, I don't see what it is about the distinction you made that doesn't allow me to replace "prostitution" with "pornography" in your arguments against the former and end up with anything other than nonsense. To whomever pointed out the broken window theory: the windows are already broken, and we're trying to fix them. If crime creates more crime, making something legal won't increase the amount of crime. If, rather than crime, it's behaviours that are frowned upon that favor crime, legalizing prostitution wouldn't make things worse. On top of this, saying that you shouldn't implement a policy because it could affect other innocent people (essentially the "harm principle") is misleading. Let's take this for an example: Jim has been trying to win Sally over for the past two years. He is just about to propose to her, and he knows that she will accept to marry him. But seconds before, John comes in, sweeps Sally off her feet, and off they go. Jim has clearly been harmed, but the reason why no one thinks this shouldn't be allowed is that Sally is not Jim's property. He doesn't decide where she goes and with whom. The same is applicable here. Those who engage in the sex trade aren't responsible for the broken window effect. No one has a claim on their behaviour--it's not their property. Those responsible for the broken window effect are the ones responsible for the crimes, and there's no reason why anyone else should be punished in their place. @Assume: You underestimate the amount of males in gay porn who are heterosexual. To be at the "top" of the ladder in that industry, a great deal of sacrifice is required.

I think it was one of the last debate threads we had and it didn't turn out too good IIRC.

Intuitive, rather simple. Great piano roll, which is indispensable for people like me who don't play the keys and like to have a flexible way of sequencing. Most of the built-in instruments and effects are of poor quality, but the latest versions have been adding better ones. When I'm collaborating with friends, I usually use it as a plugin with Ableton using ReWire. I've been working on this (on and off) for about a year and a half now: http://tindeck.com/listen/bmxl

I used to make electro house à la Justice. Moved to prog rock, I guess. I'm still using FL Studio to compose but I'm having trouble finishing songs.

Anything that is subject to law is in the hands of bureaucracy, but trying to regulate it subjects it to even more bureaucracy. I'm not trying to impose family values on anyone here. My point was that a daughter or son who turns to prostitution will probably be less likely to be accepted by his or her family. A husband or wife who engages in prostitution will probably cause harm to the marriage as well as subject the hypothetical children to social embarrassment. It can also pose serious health concerns to the community. Not only that, but many people enter prostitution as a means for paying for a drug addiction. I use drugs myself (alcohol, tobacco, marijuana) so I'm being slightly hypocritical here, but I think we all know that heroine, crack, and meth are commonly used by prostitutes. Those drugs are ridiculously harmful to the human body. Perhaps if those drugs weren't illegal, it wouldn't be such a problem. For what it's worth, I have a friend whose mother stripped when he was very young in order to feed her family, and although he won't set foot in a strip club, he's still in favour of legalizing prostitution, despite the fact that some people are "forced" into it. As for the bureaucracy issue, read the article. Prohibition already ruins lives.

Actually, "not in my face" would be "not on my property", which every street corner is not. :roll: Can't say I've missed these. Best interest is a given in this anecdote; kind of difficult to apply that to real life. I can't think of an example that doesn't fit my "people do what, as far as they know, is in their best interest" point of view, so try something with prostitution. In addition, there's a difference between telling somebody they need to stop eating so much KFC and forcing them to. We don't have the same goals in this debate. You care about what happens to sex workers; I care about what happens to liberties. I feel like my high horse is actually more productive a means to this end. I assume this is due to the misunderstanding we had earlier on, but we're not. Or at least, I don't think the morality of prostitution in particular should have any bearing on its legality. Yes they do. Again, that's like saying I don't have the freedom not to work (which I despise), because if I don't, I'll starve and die. If they're not coerced as I explained earlier, they're free. And that makes it a whole other issue, because it means no one is responsible for their plight (although there's nothing wrong about giving them help if you so desire). People are free by default. Legislation stops them from being free. I'm not looking for people to be able to exit the sex trade; I want them to be able to enter the sex trade. This way, if what they desire is to work temporarily and achieve the means to a higher living standard, they may; and if what they desire it to stay in the sex trade, they may.

I wasn't talking to you; you posted while I was replying to Range. I'll get back to you in a few hours; sorry for the confusion.

I don't want it placed in the hands of a bureaucracy. It already is. Now, don't get me wrong, prostitution can be a very big mistake. But keeping it illegal makes the consequences of that mistake much more dire (as pointed out in the OP article). Also, if objective morality doesn't exist, then there's reason to impose community/family values on people.

I still agree with it. You can't know what's in somebody's best interest.

What he said. The primary argument for legalizing anything, the way I see it, is that it doesn't affect anyone else but those involved (affect as in infringe upon property rights and rights to life). The secondary argument is that proposed solutions to the problem are counterproductive anyway.

The circumstances can, however, limit your options so that the only/best option is to work for that person. Yes. That's the same thing pushing everyone else to do things they don't necessarily like in exchange for pay. @Lang: It's not the same issue though. Coercion implies the initiator of force is responsible. In this case, either the prostitute is responsible, or no one is.

No one is coerced by circumstances. That doesn't mean anything. Coercion is the initiation of force to bend someone to your will. Circumstances don't use force or will. It's like saying hurricane Katrina coerced people into doing X. It didn't. Katrina isn't a person, it doesn't have a will, and it isn't moral. You can't be forced to work by anyone else than humans.

Yes. Hypo means "too little" (as in hypothermia). If you don't act, you're an object. I don't think this has much to do with beta vs. alpha. It's a gender issue. That being said I don't think I buy her theory. I need to watch the video again. There's so much broken thinking in feminism/post-feminism/masculism it's overwhelming.