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rfmcdonaldLest my Monday post congratulating the British government for going after prostitutes' clients be misinterpreted, let me just say that I strongly favour the legalization of prostitution as such.
My arguments are fairly simple. What, exactly, is wrong with a client paying a prostitute a set amount of money, usually agreed upon in advance, in exchange for certain sexual favours? There's certainly abundant potential for abuse, particularly when there's very unequal power relationships involved. If, as Pearsall Helms noted, people are being imported from poorer country under false pretenses and forced to become sex slaves, this is a crime and all the criminals involved--pimps, clients--should be punished accordingly.
Do I think that prostitution is value-neutral? Not necessarily, no. I'm not interested in being a client since, to be frank, I don't want and don't need the services of prostitutes. I'm not interested in being a prostitute myself since I really don't want to "walk the streets for money" and sell my body to the night for so many reasons (the integrity of my body, my relationships with other people, a certain amount of justifiable pride, et cetera). I just don't want to partake in this occupation, at any end.
I'm not alone. The fact that so many prostitutes in First World countries are immigrants suggests very strongly that prostitution is one of the 3-D jobs that relatively privileged people don't want. If, after appropriate legal actions against the people importing sex slaves and otherwise abusing prostitutes, there's a shortage of sex workers, that's fine and dandy: Prices will go up and prostitutes will have that much stronger a bargaining position relative to their clients. Valerie Scott's recent interview with Todd Klinck in fab about her experience of prostitution goes more into this vein of thought.
The current treatment of prostitution--the punishment and stigmatization of the prostitutes, even the most vulnerable ones, while their clients go free and crime against prostitutes goes unpunished--is simply morally untenable. Forcing people or allowing people to be forced into the sex trades, whether by forcing immigrants to become sex slaves or by telling the unemployed that there's no functional difference between working for McDonald's and servicing johns, is as sure proof as any that capitalism as such is not any kind of a viable moral system at all, at least capitalism as seen by the consumer. Workers' rights are needed.
My arguments are fairly simple. What, exactly, is wrong with a client paying a prostitute a set amount of money, usually agreed upon in advance, in exchange for certain sexual favours? There's certainly abundant potential for abuse, particularly when there's very unequal power relationships involved. If, as Pearsall Helms noted, people are being imported from poorer country under false pretenses and forced to become sex slaves, this is a crime and all the criminals involved--pimps, clients--should be punished accordingly.
Do I think that prostitution is value-neutral? Not necessarily, no. I'm not interested in being a client since, to be frank, I don't want and don't need the services of prostitutes. I'm not interested in being a prostitute myself since I really don't want to "walk the streets for money" and sell my body to the night for so many reasons (the integrity of my body, my relationships with other people, a certain amount of justifiable pride, et cetera). I just don't want to partake in this occupation, at any end.
I'm not alone. The fact that so many prostitutes in First World countries are immigrants suggests very strongly that prostitution is one of the 3-D jobs that relatively privileged people don't want. If, after appropriate legal actions against the people importing sex slaves and otherwise abusing prostitutes, there's a shortage of sex workers, that's fine and dandy: Prices will go up and prostitutes will have that much stronger a bargaining position relative to their clients. Valerie Scott's recent interview with Todd Klinck in fab about her experience of prostitution goes more into this vein of thought.
The current treatment of prostitution--the punishment and stigmatization of the prostitutes, even the most vulnerable ones, while their clients go free and crime against prostitutes goes unpunished--is simply morally untenable. Forcing people or allowing people to be forced into the sex trades, whether by forcing immigrants to become sex slaves or by telling the unemployed that there's no functional difference between working for McDonald's and servicing johns, is as sure proof as any that capitalism as such is not any kind of a viable moral system at all, at least capitalism as seen by the consumer. Workers' rights are needed.
