Edit to add my opinion so I’m not just replying “I agree” to 90% of comments. I think it should be legal, properly regulated, taxed and viewed as a profession. I haven’t personally engaged in it but I have no moral objection to it. I do hate the common sentiment that it was the individual’s “only option” though.
Even in countries were it is legal and has some kind of regulation, it still has exploitative character. Not for all but for many. And I think forced labor, of different degrees, is more common then you think.
Even when regulated and legal, we need to think about the careers after sex work. Can those people freely transfer into a new position without discrimination?
And since there is discrimination, worker rights, and often women and gay rights, are neglected.
To establish a safe working space for sex workers it is not enough to regulate and make it legal. You need to actively support each group individually and make it clear, that as for every other form of employment you have rights and someone else is actively fighting for it. It is not enough to tell people they have rights and they have to fight all by themselves. Especially when we have established that human trafficking, exploitation, femizide, and so much more are common.
So I think the answer should not be: just make it legal and write regulation. It should be: what actually is a safe working space for all, no matter if selfemployed or working in a brothel.
Regulated with provisions for safety. I’m all for the idea it should be in a specific license location, like love hotels or massage parlors or something like that. No going to someones house or a different hotel.
And unionized, and the employer pays for (without touching employee pay):
- PPE (including gloves, dental dams, and male and female condoms, which are mandatory for any and all physical contact that includes genitals, mucous membranes, feet, or non-intact skin).
- regular STD testing
- vaccinations
- optional pharmacologic prophylaxis
- building security
- both bedside and wearable panic alarms
- identity monitoring and protection / assistance removing their personal information from publicly accessible records.
Every room should be required to have a poster listing employee rights.
Aside from pricing differently for specific services (handjob vs blowjob etc) tipping is illegal.
No employee (particularly owners or supervisors) are allowed to receive service at their own location or any owned by a same parent company.
The owner and any shift supervisors are required to take a class on these regulations and sit for and pass a licensure exam.
Independent workers can receive a special, less restrictive license (that includes basic sex ed but mostly focuses on informing them of their rights and that independent means independent not “your boss just doesn’t want to get a license” and keeping people with intellectual disabilities or low educational level from being misinformed of their rights as a sex worker).
They worker will never face charges for not having a license but their boss or any John (Jane?) / client who can’t prove the sex worker or company was licensed (or that they were significantly or intentionally misled) can.
Much of what you said I agree with, but let me say that an independent license with less restrictions will be way more favorable and harder to secure than a location license. An independent license should not remove regulations, but remove security. Being licensed through a house should guarantee the availability of condoms and such, security personnel, testing, and so on. An independent license should require std testing regularly, but also means a John/Jane has to sign a waiver that they understand this is an independent.
I also would like to state that a house should never be run like strip clubs are where the strippers are independent contractors who have to pay the club. Workers should be employees just like ia regular job. Just a license.
Another point should be that a worker needs to be responsible for their own license renewal. The license for renewal (on time) should be free if you are in a house, and tied to the company that owns the house. If a worker gets a better offer at another company, a new license is required, but not if it’s a transfer of locations within a company.
And in the point of the company, there should be limitations on how many houses they can own, and how many workers in each house. Maybe that can be at a local level, like I can’t have a house called Billy’s House of Poon right across the street from another place I own called Madam Sapphire Day Spa. Zoning laws. I live in an area that saw an explosion of dispensaries after weed went legal, and now most of them are all owned by corporations that have no problem opening new shops in the same market. Avoid that.
I could go on, build out a framework for all the legal stuff, but I’ll keep it simple.
And honestly a lot of these would probably need to be tested top see what works best, but the core point is that in an ideal world there would be an ongoing effort to make sure the worker is given as much power over the situation as possible.
It would be a fine profession if it weren’t for capitalism
You know what would give women power over men? Allowing them to charge money for sex. This is why it’s so demonized. It should be legalized so it can be regulated with health standards, and standards of engagement that protect everyone, like condom use, and having to do monthly or weekly STD/HIV checks. Make it 21+ ID is required to buy and sell services.
Nah, that’s not it. Germany has legal and - theoretically - regulated prostitution, and society is not meaningfully different than, say, France in that redgard as far as I can tell.
There are other issues associated with it, but just that one argument alone doesn’t seem to work based on what I’ve seen.
As a dude, i sucked a dick for big money to some rich old guy. With inflation, over 900 dollars for like nothing. So im biased
I think it needs to be legalized world wide to give it an opportunity to be regulated. If its already happening might as well capitalism the industry. Its going to happen either way, or the world will continue to have deep state sex clubs.
If you buy a hooker you are a pathetic fucking loser and worthless piece of shit. I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.
That’s a pretty strong stance damn
So long as it’s regulated and all parties are safe and consenting then it’s none of my business. It’s not something i’d be interested in however. To each their own.
Absolutely should be legal and taxed, with rules and regulations in place to protect clients and workers.
I pretty much do have moral objections to it, its fundamentally gross to me, but its not going to stop and id rather these prostitutes work in a safe place and pay their taxes like the rest of us than get their passports taken by a guy named The Scorpion with a spider Web tattooed on his neck.
Based ❤️ Great take IMO
Should’ve called himself the Spidion
As a former prostitute its work and legitamite work but it needs more protection
Username checks out bless
It should be legal, safe, and taxed
no tax on just the tip
Looking at the pros and the cons, it must be the opposite of CONstitution.
…I’ll see myself out.
Honey, go back in the other room and play Twister with the other kids.
So long as everyone is able to legally and safely consent I don’t see an issue.
I think it should be legalized. The only thing wrong with sex outside of procreation is absolutely nothing. I have a hunch it would help with a lot of social ills out there. Why, in most depictions of the old west, you could go to town and get a prostitute. Eventually, powerful people with sexual hang-ups and twisted morals restricted the activity and pushed it underground where it’s dirty and dangerous.
I’m not going to read through to find where Carlin was already quoted, but I stick with "selling is legal, f****** is legal, why isn’t selling f****** legal?
One of the commenters said it was fundamentally gross to them…
It’s fundamentally depressing to me: intimacy’s … unending.
There’s no such thing as “a 1-night stand”, or “just a fuck” … you’ll never be unmixed with that someone…
& doing it as mere-transaction, or mere-physicality … ??
but apparently that view that most of a someone isn’t physical, & most of sex isn’t physical either, is deemed to be nonsense,
& pretending that merely-physical is “all that exists” is actually common …
so, my perspective is deemed lunacy or idiocy by this world.
But seeing women being used for mere-physical sensation by random strangers, as a purchased-transaction … that’s depressing…
I wish the world didn’t work that way.
I’m with all the people who want prostitution not-criminalized, who want it taxed & regulated, & I’d add that I want pimping criminalized: let women form cooperatives, or something, but nobody should coerce anybody into the biz of being used bodily.
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