To the delight of civil libertarians and libertarians alike, the Canadian courts have been leading the world in dealing with conflicts between privacy principles and morality legislation. I am serving as an expert in the review of Canadian polygamy laws in British Columbia. In the meantime, the Ontario Superior Court may allow three prostitution laws to die this Saturday.
In September, the Court struck down the laws. The federal government is charging that this is nothing short of a “social experiment unprecedented in this country.” However, it is also a frank acknowledgment that consenting adults came engage in sex for money as a consensual choice. Currently, an individual can have sex with any number of partners but can be arrested if they accept anything of value in exchange for sex. They can receive gifts as part of a “relationship” no matter how fleeting but not as payment.
The Court previously noted that criminal laws force prostitutes in the shadows where they are easy prey for abuse and even homicides. Once legal, protections and regulations can apply to the world’s oldest profession. With the demise of the laws, street walking will be legal.
Source: Star
Jonathan Turley
@Lottakatz: Thank you, katz! But I haven’t refrained entirely…
Argh. I should proof before I Post. I meant libertarians object that store and restaurant owners should be *allowed* to deny blacks food and water because libertarians believe that private property is sacrosanct. I disagree with that logic, generally I find suspect any philosophy of government or society or law that claims everything can be reduced to one simple idea (like “private property”).
P.S. And in my view when there *are* identifiable victims being done personal harm, then even if that is legal there is a moral crime and a new law is needed. This is why I disagree with libertarians on the civil rights act, where they object to stores and restaurant owners denying blacks food and water. They object because they think private property is sacrosanct, and I disagree. Provable, quantifiable harm was being done to *people* that were innocent of everything except waking up black. To me that called for a new law, and one was passed.
@reader: No, and I don’t think prostitution is “good,” you seem incapable of comprehending the concept that what I think should be *legal* is different than what I think is *good*. Therefore, by dint of force, let me say:
I think it is *legal* to ride a motorcycle, I don’t think it is a *good* thing. I think it is legal to be obese, I don’t think it is good. I think it is legal to smoke cigarettes, I don’t think it is good. I think it is legal for a woman to sleep with a different guy every night, I don’t think that is good. I think it is legal (in some places) to drop out of high school and panhandle for food and live down by the lake in a sleeping bag, I don’t think that is a GOOD idea.
I think prostitution should be ****LEGAL****. I make no judgment on whether it is a good idea, I think that is a personal decision of the prostitute. I don’t pretend to know whether s/he has the mental fortitude to endure the social stigma of her job, heaped upon her by authoritarian moralists such as yourself. It is right of society to have moral opinions, I do not subscribe to any theory of government that makes it the right of society to make their morality law, EXCEPT in the case of outlawing an act by one person that harms another person financially or physically or by depriving them of property, or coerces them to act against their free will. (If you sign a contract of your own free will and were not tricked or defrauded into signing it, you have agreed to be coerced by the state into meeting the terms of that contract.)
That does NOT include the “harm” of being morally offended or outraged or pissed off because somebody did something of which you disapprove, or the “harm” of somebody else not contributing to your general welfare or some amorphous and ill-defined “economy” or “productivity” or “growth.” The reason these are not included is because they are impossible to quantify and therefore can be used to outlaw *anything*, and that brings us back to no freedom in an authoritarian state. We use a definition of “harm” that can be proven and usually quantified.
And besides that, adults are equal. Your expression of outrage or distaste or moral repugnance has no weight because you are not above anybody else in this society. They are not above you. I express moral repugnance at your moralistic stance, but that carries no weight with YOU. Why should your moral repugnance at prostitution carry the weight of LAW? What gives you the right to tell adults what they can do?
You may have the legal right but I don’t think you have the moral right, nor do I. I say prostitution should be legal. I did not say I thought it was “good,” that is a decision to be made by somebody contemplating the profession (or sideline), not me.
What I think is “good” is letting people have the freedom to make their own choices, when those choices do no harm to anybody else. There should be no such thing as a victimless crime, if there are no victims then in my view there is no crime.
Dear Tony
So the only reason you think that prostitution is good is that you think that prostitutes get paid well?
Canadian Eh
So you have 0 evidence that there are any happy hookers in Canada because you have only met them at publicly funded mental health facilities, it shat right?
@reader:
>> The assumption of Tony C [..] seems to be that for the majority of prostitutes their years in the profession were overall good.
That is not true. My assumption is that it is a job they tolerate for the money (like me cleaning toilets), not that they are having a good time. They may find it demeaning, degrading, insulting, whatever. It is a job. Like everybody, they have to weigh how much they dislike a job against how much the job pays. In the professional fields there is a phrase for this called “golden handcuffs.” It refers to highly paid programmers or engineers or lawyers or doctors that desperately wish they could leave or work less, but feel forced to continue because the money is good. Or in the case of still-vesting stock options is expected to be good, but not if they quit or slack off. The professional’s short-hand for such situations is “golden handcuffs.”
Prostitutes are in a similar position. I don’t think they have a good life, I think they have a job they may well hate but cannot leave because they can’t make that much money doing something else. I think the things that would make most people hate the job demand a premium in their pay, and because of that I think their overall years in the profession were more highly paid than had the done a job where the pay did not carry that premium, like waiting tables or answering phones or clerking at a department store. Prostitutes (and strippers) are paid more per hour than those people *because* those people are not willing to do the prostitute’s *job*.
Higher pay doesn’t make the job satisfying or “good overall.” It is more money to meet greater responsibilities.
>>> Given the number of prostitutes out there, if that is true then it should be easy to get validation of that theory.
I don’t understand this insistant focus on whether they are happy or like their job or expect it to lead to great things. We don’t apply that standard to other jobs. Do you think your building janitor is *happy* being a janitor, that this was his life’s dream? Do you think the maid at the Motel 6 always *wished* she could be a maid at a low cost motel? Do you think the 7/11 night clerk or liquor store attendant always aspired to his current position of risking his life by holdup eight hours a day in order to ring up a late night Slim Jim or bottle of Thunderbird?
Why aren’t your principles consistent? If you think extreme unhappiness or real danger in a profession is sufficient grounds for outlawing it, about a third of the legal jobs in this country should be outlawed, and some of them more dangerous by far than prostitution.
Several commenters have brought this up, including you and Kay. I don’t think it is a valid argument in the least. Unhappiness, physical danger and poor long term outcomes are something we are entirely comfortable with in hundreds of *other* currently legal positions, and none of you are advocating a blanket prohibition on all such jobs.
Which means it is just a convenient excuse you think you can use, and your real problem is nose-in-the-air prudishness or puritanical religious fervor you want to impose on all of society by law. I think you want to oppress others so you can feel more comfortable, and you can’t justify that logically so you are grasping at straws. That’s my opinion.
WW, I just got back to this thread and read the last 60 postings, WoW.
Tony, your arguments have been well thought out, clear and consistent. I’m amazed at your stamina. Considering that your primary opposition (as well as Canadian Eh’s) has been reduced to speculating that you are a john, a pimp, pay for vagrant blow jobs, cast aspersion on the patrilineage of your daughter… well, I guess that’s how you can tell exactly when you ‘won’ the debate. LOL. Your forbearance from resorting to the verbal nuclear option in the face of such foolishness is astounding.
Damn, your good!
Babysitting for a call girl removed my prejudices and negative assumptions about call girls, their motives and objectives. I had believed what other people said about prostitutes, and they were people that judged them without ever having met one or even spoken to one in any context, and certainly not in a social context. It was stupid of me, and even then I despised stupid. I should have known prostitutes were people like any other doing what they felt was necessary to survive. It doesn’t require any special psychology, or lack of moral fibre, or lack of willpower. All it requires is a lack of any viable options or acceptable alternatives. For the call girl I knew, I think her choices were poverty and raising her kids in slum-like conditions, or selling the one asset she controlled for which people were willing to pay a lot of money: her body.
Nobody was willing to pay her more than minimum wage for her labor as a worker, or her appearance as a hostess or receptionist, or for her 11th grade education. So I think she sold her sexual services because it was that and the middle class for her and her kids, or ‘dignity’ and poverty and hopelessness instead. I believe she did it for her family, herself and her kids.
Go actually read the link ‘reader’ provided, and you will read a view of relatively happy hookers in Canada, Thailand, England and other countries.
Besides those accounts, my view is based upon my beliefs in social liberty and the bounds of law that must be observed to prevent a servant of the people (government) from becoming the master of the people. These bounds are not being observed, and we are becoming a totalitarian police state and a citizenry without any real rights at all.
reader I heard Tony C say that but Canadian Eh. She said pretty much the opposite. Tony C seems to have a homespun view of prostitution based on his babysitting experiences many years ago.
@ reader….
you may want to re-read my posts right from the get go and stop misrepresenting my stance on the subject
ps I don’t count madams and female pimps as prostitutes even if they did turn some tricks in their day, their perspective and interests became different when they went into management.
People like to talk about themselves. If we were to interview ex legal prostitutes they would be able to prove their status and would probably do so for a financial consideration. Then they could be disguised for a video tape.
The assumption of Tony C and Canadian Eh seems to be that for the majority of prostitutes their years in the profession were overall good. Given the number of prostitutes out there, if that is true then it should be easy to get validation of that theory.
@Kay: I’ve never had sex with a prostitute. As a young man I had a completely accidental one-night-stand with a girl I had met less than an hour before (I was single and unattached at the time). Complete stranger sex was actually quite good, to tell the truth.
I cannot speak for all of Canada because I have never done the research, however here in Ontario prostitution has always been illegal. There are ” Escort Services ” that openly advertise their services in newspapers and even phone books….however, on the books the services offered are simply that ” an escort “. Off the books, we all know that some of the people who work for these Escort Services serve as far more than a dinner date and for an additional price they provide desert.
Absolutely it would be difficult to find a former sex worker who would be willing to testify as to how the profession left them financially, emotionally, physically etc. There is a great deal of social stigma attached to anyone working in this trade, and I would imagine that will remain the case for many years to come. As I have previously stated, any interactions I have had with current and former sex workers have not brought with them testimonies as to how great the working conditions were. Hence the reason that I am still on the ” no decriminalization ” side of the fence. However, I do believe that Tony C. has made some very valid points. I have no doubt that there are people who have or still do work in the sex trade who don’t have the horror stories that I have heard….but then, those people wouldn’t be seeking mental health services.
As far as I know, I have only had interactions with sex workers in my profession in the mental health system. As Tony c. pointed out however, if a person works in the sex business to put her/himself through college/university and goes on to a mainstream career it is very unlikely that s/he would make their previous career a topic at the office water cooler.
Dear Canadian Eh
According to the website link above there is already a lot of effectively legal prostitution in Canada and has been for a long time. Do you think it would be difficult to find a number of 40-50 year old prostitutes who would testify as to how it left them financially, emotionally, physically, and in terms of general resources both tangible and intangible?
If you can find a prostitute who is willing to be interviewed will Professor Turley set up a contact location?
Do you only know prostitutes and ex prostitutes through your counseling and other mental health jobs or since you don’t purchase sex, do you know prostitutes in another capacity? If so, what and how?
@Tony C.
I must say you make a LOT of really great valid points and almost having me hopping back over the fence on this subject. I’ve also done something that I typically avoid and have watched the local news over the past 2 nights. There have been reports regarding this issue as we are in the center on the controversy. As I mentioned above a local organization opened their doors on Tuesday ( Sex Workers Advocacy Group )offering services to people who want to remain in the business. The woman operating the organization talked about the benefits of de-criminalization from the ability to make extended health care and dental benefits available to employees, safety services, counselling services and even unionization. For the moment they are simply offering support type services to sex workers.
@ reader…..
I can honestly say that I have never purchased a BJ!
Yes I lived in NYC.
The cost of opening hair salons varies a lot. Sometimes it is as simple as someone maintaining a regular location where they have clean scissors. I read of single people doing that after earthquakes and actually getting businesses established in a few weeks.
Why wouldn’t it be possible to fine the men and women who offer to pay for sex as they do in some countries?
How would you and other readers compare the sexual experience with a purchased prostitute with that of sex with a woman who does it with you for free because she likes to be with you?
Don’t you think it would be perfectly feasible to get women in various locations that are comparable in birth status and compare their over well being at ages 40 -50 after having worked as a prostitute with a similar cohort who during the same period worked exclusively as hair dressers? I bet that if you advertised that you would pay for interviews you would get many hair dressers and many ex prostitutes to come forth. You could ask them a series of multiple choice questions that you have pre tested and enter answers immediately into a computer, either directly of if the woman can’t read or can’t operate a computer, then thru an assistant. (If they can’t read, they could be referred to a literacy program and other services.)
At the interviews you could have a selection of hats, veils, scarves, jackets, gloves etc. and they could go before a mirror and arrange their appearance however they wanted. Then their interview would be digitally recorded. If they wanted to show scars they could.
There could even be a third control profession — something else that the majority of women who became prostitutes could have succeeded at. That could be the major employment in the geographic area — sewing, auto assembly, agriculture, non sex tourist services etc.
@reader: And where would they get the free training to work as a hairdresser at the beginning of their lives? Being a beautician in the USA requires a license, which requires a school, which requires money. Are you willing to provide that money for any prostitute that comes forward and asks for it?
As I know from my own business experience, I would expect opening a salon to require in the neighborhood of $50K to $100K, the deposit on a small salon (1000 sf) would be in the neighborhood of $3000, the equipment would be in the neighborhood of $30K, plus finish out, plus advertising, plus labor, plus reserves to keep operating for six months or so until they had enough clientele to break even.
The vast middle class with regular jobs could not swing a $100K hit-or-miss investment like a salon, and wouldn’t if they could. I never claimed a prostitute could get rich, in fact if you read my post I estimated their income around $50K. I don’t know about you, but I would be reluctant to drop a FULL YEAR of my gross salary on an all-or-nothing 50/50 bet, and I have an extensive technical education, mad math skills, decades of business experience and a proven ability to market my services.
Of course New York is fucked up, have you ever BEEN there? Prostitution is illegal when it shouldn’t be, thus it is run by criminals and sociopaths that destroy woman that should be protected by the law but cannot be, because they exchange sex for money they are unfairly lumped into the same class as the rapists and slavers and murderers that coerce and exploit them.
That is YOUR fault, it is you and your moralizing tribe that are at the root of this oppression and slavery.
http://www.sexwork.com/coalition/whatcountrieslegal.html
This link, to an organization I had not heard of before, claims that prostitution is legal in many countries. If what the web site represents there must be millions and millions of prostitutes and ex prostitutes who have no worry about arrest for divulging their profession.
What do we know about this demographic? How many of them have found reemployment and doing what? I saw some that were being trained as hair dressers. The reports didn’t say they had opened a salon with their earnings, it sounded like they were flat broke after working as a prostitute.
Wouldn’t these women have been better off if they worked as hair dressers their whole lives and not as prostitutes?
The article in the New York Times about the woman who said she came to New York to work as an accountant and then was forced into prostitution due to extortionist threats directed at her family in China plus beatings of her in New York, doesn’t suggest that the system in New York as currently set up is working does it? Personally, Where is that cite, someone posted it above.
@reader: So you are saying we should make it illegal for people to do something because it might embarrass them later. You are a dolt.
College girls working as waitresses do not earn enough to support themselves AND pay for tuition and books. I happen to know that about 40% of the *average* college student’s money is provided through subsidies of their parents; most college students that own cars had help in acquiring it from their parents. But of course not all students that want to go to college have parents with excess capital or income to make that happen; some are orphans, some are children of single working mothers that live paycheck to paycheck.
Strippers earn a high wage per hour; for some more than ten times the minimum wage. Stripping costs a girl dignity but gives her TIME, time she can spend on attending classes, studying, working on school projects or, if she chooses, relaxing, working out, or just having personal time to do as she pleases, as is her right as a citizen. Same goes for a prostitute.
Taking it upon yourself to make a girl “more marriageable” is treating her like property, exactly the thing you are railing against. Taking it upon yourself to keep a girl from embarrassing herself is treating her like a ward of the state, or a child, or a mentally disabled person incapable of comprehending the world for herself, so fuck you asshole mind your own fucking business.
I trust my wife and believe she is in love with me.
I want my daughter to survive by whatever means she deems necessary. I don’t own my daughter, she is not my property. Whether I want my daughter doing something makes no difference to the law, I am not so stupid that I think the law should reflect how I want independent, competent adults to act. I don’t own her, I don’t tell her what to do, she is a mentally and sexually mature and sexually active young woman that can do as she pleases.
When a prostitute earns $1000, how do you know that she didn’t invest it, or spend it on advertising, or whatever? Again, you are an idiot: Just because nobody comes forward and says “Hey I’m a call girl and I made a fortune on Google!” doesn’t mean it didn’t happen! Being a call girl is illegal and socially stigmatized by moralizing assholes like you, and call girls know that, so what in your damaged brain makes you think they should be loud and proud about their profession? I also didn’t see any embezzlers advertising, “Hey, I’m a thief and I made a fortune on Google!”
Legalization does not mean the state condones or endorses anything, it means the state recognizes it does not have a right to prohibit it. Gang bangs are legal if all the participants are willing. So you say the state condones gang bangs?