Brad Plumer offers up the comprehensive, thoughtful prostitution policy rundown you've been craving. In essence, none of the different policy options seem to work very well. Given that legalize-and-regulate, even with a clear-eyed look at the problems involved, seems no worse in its overall impact than criminalization, I think it makes sense to err on the side of liberty.
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Prostitution Policy Brief
11 Mar 2008 01:13 pm
Comments (30)
You tell them, Fred! If only we could have private education in the United States, then we would fix all of the problems with education! Why is everyone forced to attend public schools?!
Oh wait, you are talking about spending public dollars on private schools, aren't you. Frickin' socialist!
I think that's the case in Australia and they seem to have a pretty decent country.
I don't know that the issue is precisely one of the effect on the country as a whole. The linked piece makes mention of problems that Australians have run into, including an increase in prostitution that overwhelms the existing number of regulators.
If you're a utilitarian, anyway. If you have a principled objection to prostitution as inherently exploitative, then you'd still defend its illegality.
I'm still on the fence about whether the trafficking/violence etc. makes it so awful that a decent society just can't legalize it.
But the solution to the Australian dilemma is clear: issue a certain number of permits to cap the total number of prostitutes. Spend all the police resources on non-permitted prostitutes.
Quick test:
Your 10 year old daughter comes up to you and says: When I grow up, I want to be a whore!
Your response:
A) Of course, honey, you can be whatever you want!
B) Over my dead body!
In essence, none of the different policy options seem to work very well.
Maybe, but some of the criteria Plumer uses strike me as tendentious. In several places in his analysis he suggests that the mere failure of some policy choice to decrease the prevalence of prostitution is a mark against that policy choice. Thus he seems to regard prostitution as inherently a kind of vice, public menace or destructive personal behavior - like the use of harmful narcotics - and treats the debate on criminalization vs. decriminalization as concerned mainly with the best policy strategy for reducing prostitution.
While I think we can agree that prostitution, like drug use and gambling, is the sort of thing that can lead to different kinds of addiction, economic losses, family problems, personal debt and bankruptcy, etc., I don't know that we want to assume that any increase in the amount of prostitution automatically makes some regulatory policy a failure.
It is also overly simple to just look at the mere prevalence of pimps, booking agents and other workers in the prostitution industry - as Plumer seems to do - and not the distribution of income within the industry. Whether their work is legal or illegal, prostitutes will often find it beneficial to work with agencies, drivers, bookers etc. The problem with the illegal system is that because they have no legal recourse against being cheated, and no collective bargaining power, the prostitute's labor is exploited, and the various middle men reap more rewards than their services merit.
Finally, one needs to evaluate these policies in the context of differences in labor protections. Making prostitution legal will not automatically make prostitution, at all levels, an appealing or easy line of work. Some prostitutes will continue to experience very poor working conditions. The same is true of chicken pluckers, even though the latter is a legal profession. If a country has shitty labor laws and working conditions, decriminalization will only help marginally.
Scott P.,
If your ten year old daughter told you that she wanted to grow up to have three kids out of wedlock by three different men, you'd be similarly horrified (I assume). Does that mean you think such behavior should be illegal?
Your 10 year old daughter comes up to you and says: When I grow up, I want to be a whore!
And I'd say, "Good choice, honey. I'm very proud of you! With the continuing decline of American industry, whoredom, like plumbing, is one of the few areas where demand is fairly certain to remain high in years to come. I'm so glad you're prudent about your future, and not flakily pursuing some job like "journalist" or "college professor," prospects for both of which are dimmer than a 10-watt lightbulb."
Scott P.: Thanks for the memorable illustration of "false dichotomy." I'll have to remember that one.
Can you think of some other answers?
While I put the likelihood of this whole scenario up there with "Hey Dad! I just planted a ticking nuclear time bomb and you're going to have to torture me to find out where it is." I would probably handle it the same way as any other ill-thought-out career choice (e.g. professional dog groomer). I.e., are there other choices that might be more rewarding or where you would be more likely to succeed?
Unless the answer to any expression of your child's preference is "Over my dead body." I don't see how you can advocate either answer.
Scott P,
Long, much harder test:
You are a single mother and a waitress. Your 16 year-old daughter, whose father ran off when she was 1 year old, comes up to you and says: when I get out of high school, I want to work at the Cathouse like I saw on HBO, make a lot of money of my own. I don't want to go to college, I don't like school, but I don't want to get married either and be dependent on a man. I'll save and invest the money I make and be able to do something else when I get too old to do that. Maybe I will get into the production side of the sex industry, like sex toys or lessons or something like that.
If you have a principled objection to prostitution as inherently exploitative, then you'd still defend its illegality.
Why? Immorality, I could understand. But a lot of legal things could be described as "inherently exploitative." I've never been able to figure out why the two extremes are supposedly Yay for Prostitution College, and Ban It. Its illegality hasn't done much for stopping it. Perhaps there are underlying social factors making prostitution inherently exploitative that one could focus one's principled objections on instead.
It is notable that Plumer and his sources do not actually discuss real legalization much. Instead, they discuss "legalization" which means some legalization with heavy regulation. Nevada is one example -- prostitution is highly constrained there. For another example, consider this passage from the Scottish report:
Legalisation of brothels places a considerable administrative burden on local government, highlighted by the Queensland Prostitution Regulation Report, (Office of the Queensland Parliamentary Council, 2000). Local government is required to develop detailed rules on the operation of the legal sector. Prior to the brothel opening, the licensing committee is responsible for the following:
· developing and administering planning policies for local sex industry
· accepting advertising and deciding on development applications from sex industry businesses
· administering food and health policies.
The committee, once the brothel is in operation, has a responsibility for overseeing the following: customers' car parking; external lighting; signs advertising the brothel; health and safety; entrances and exits; brothel siting and design; noise and disturbance; litter from the premises; quality of condoms, lubricant and towels; and all financial interactions. Although it is a legal requirement that local authority inspectors regularly monitor brothels, evidence suggests that this does not always happen.
This is prostitutional socialism, albeit I suppose at a local level. But certainly the idea that some bureaucrat is responsible for overseeing lubricant quality is not suggestive of anything like a real free market approach.
Instead, they discuss "legalization" which means some legalization with heavy regulation.
Yeah, Leonard, I'm sure you'll gain the upper hand in the argument against prostitution's inherently exploitative nature by advocating no oversight whatsoever. Poor women can breathe a sigh of relief that instead of worrying about the heavy hand of the government even attempting to look after their well-being, they can simply gain safety on the free market by providing a portion of their proceeds to some sort of Protective Intercessory Management Provider, or P.I.M.P.
The big issues here are what polices so that sex workers are:
Alive
Disease free
Free from physical coercion
Free to make other occupational choices
Criminalization fails on all of these accounts. Decriminalization and providing services will not guarantee that all of the above issues will be resolved but it looks like the only way to start. Besides forcing bureaucrats to mind a prostitute's sex life will give them less opportunity to mind our non fee based sexual transactions
It's the same trade off as you see with a lot of legalization questions (drugs). Average conditions for the participant in the market improve, but there will be many more participants in the market. On pure utilitarian grounds, the call seems easier with drugs than prostitution.
I think for prostitution you really need to ask how you feel about it on principle.
Adding insult to injury here...
"The big issues here are what polices can be put into place so that sex workers are:"
blah blah blah
If I hate read (reread for errors) my own stuff who will ??
All the stuff on prostitution kind of misses the point. Prostitution is mostly illegal, but let's just say enforcement of the law in this regard is rather spotty, and the spottiness of the enforcement is part of the scheme.
Most people don't want to see prostitution, either in the proverbial whorehouse or by a streetwalker, or by the nicely dressed lone woman nursing a drink at the end of the bar of a hotel businessmen stay at. There's no way to abolish it though, short of a stalinist police state. Making it illegal makes it necessary that it be conducted discreetly though, and in such a manner that a 'good faith attempt' at discreetness isn't good enough, one must succeed.
Without commenting on the goodness of the policy, it's just like when the army banned gays. Were there gays in the army? Sure there were, the ban on gays made it necessary that one be discreet, and that one succeed at being discreet, a good faith attempt wasn't good enough. This was known as 'in the closet' and gays didn't and don't like that though.
Laws against prostitution aren't any different.
Yeah, and it's unlikely we'd come up with anything decent here. But based on Plumer's post, I have a hard time seeing how you could decide that our current solution is the best bet. Police, gangs and pimps abusing women just doesn't seem like a great solution. Even if there is still some level of violence in the Netherlands, or Nevada, it seems that quantitatively it would be far less of a problem. I think Dan Kervick gets this part of the issue right.
As regards the Australian difficulties... have they heard of taxation? What regulatory costs are implied by a brothel should be covered by said brothel.
The problems in the industry with its poorest members will persist, b/c they will always have the least bargaining power in an industry inevitably run by the scum of the earth. The upper class division won't have to deal with the occassional bust anymore and the middle class division would probably see a huge benefit in terms of sex worker empowerment. That seems like it would be worth.
1) Prostitution will always be a secretive "market," because social mores dictate that people will always have an aversion to other people who have to pay for sex.
2) There is a significant portion of the prostitution "market" that desires things that almost no liberal would find acceptable (forced sex, child prostitution, etc.).
3) Almost nobody enters prostitution out of desire; they become prostitutes because of economic coersion. Last time I checked, one of the goals of social justice was to reduce economic coersion, and to prevent people from making life-changing mistakes based upon economic coersion.
4) Unless you're increasing the amount of resources devoted to enforcement by a significant amount, legalization will always result in an increase in the amount of "undesirable" prostitution referred to in 2).
5) Its amazing how different the attitudes of flabby, middle aged males are on this subject from (most) women.
"Almost nobody enters prostitution out of desire; they become prostitutes because of economic coersion."
Whereas, on the other hand, women who become customer service reps, waitresses, DMV clerks, etc. enter those fields out of desire. Are you planning to outlaw every job women do for the money instead of "desire"? Half the economy would shut down.
There's an easy solution here, everybody. If you hire a prostitute, film it with a camcorder. Then it's pornography, not prostitution, and perfectly legal.
I'm sorry but isn't this an obvious answer to this whole dilemma?
Re: There is a significant portion of the prostitution "market" that desires things that almost no liberal would find acceptable (forced sex, child prostitution, etc.).
True, but so what? I'm sure we could continue to ban child prostitution and rape. I don't approve of drunk driving either but that doesn't mean I support prohibition.
Re: Almost nobody enters prostitution out of desire; they become prostitutes because of economic coersion.
News flash: that's why most of us are working.
JonF, I appeal to you as a fellow Christian to agree that prostitution is inherently a degredation of the human person and a degredation of the gift of sexuality. I'm sure that as a Christian you agree with me that prostitution is evil. We are called to be the light of the world, that means that we should try not just to live by values of the Gospel in our own lives but also to spread them to the broader society. In this case, that can best be done by the powers of the state.
To all those others who argue that prostitution isn't the only form of exploitative, alienating or degrading labor, yes, you're right. Prostitution is the most extreme form of alienating labor, since it involves the alienation of a very intimate and personal aspect of our natures. Other forms of exploitative labor relationships can be criticized, quite rightly, on the ground of their similarity to prostitution. Marx was very clear about that link, and so were many of the other great historical critics of established wealth and power structures. Once you don't see anything wrong anymore with prostitution, then you lose your ground for criticizing alienating labor in general. If being on the Left means anything, it should mean believing that society can be fundamentally reconstructed to embody (at least in large part) a perfect ideal of virtue. It should mean being idealistic and optimistic about at least the possibility of social transformation. Let's leave 'the whores ye have always with you' rhetoric to the conservative.
As a matter of fact, I _don't_ think that we ought to have a society in which a great deal of work is alienating and degrading. I believe in a society of syndicalist workers' and farmers' cooperatives in which people work for themselves, or for a group that includes themselves, or for their close associates, or in a few cases for the government, not where they hand over all control over their labor to a remote private employer. As long as human society exists people will have to do harsh and demanding physical labor, and probably more in the post-Peak Oil future than today. But we can largely reduce _alienation_ and the _degradation of personhood_ through reconstructing our social and economic structures so as to value labor and to value the people who do it.
It's partly for this reason that revolutionary movements all over the world have often so used the metaphors of prostitution and rape to try to convince people of their narrative of exploitation and oppression. It's no accident that most of them have striven to do away with prostitution as soon as they were in power- it was one of the first changes to happen in Republican Spain in the mid-1930s, or in Cuba in the '60s, or Viet Nam in the '70s.
Ultimately Scott P's argument in this thread says it best. If you don't think that prostitution is a fitting fate for your sister or daughter, than you should not accept that it is a fitting role for anyone, at least if you believe in a modicum of equal dignity. No one should be allowed to degrade and alienate themselves in such a way.
I have to say the article made zero sense to me.
(1) Legalizing prostitution resulted in an expansion of the sex industry. OK, and this is bad why?
(2) This overwhelmed the ability to regulate. So either hire more "regulators" or reduce whatever this regulation is to some minimum that makes sense.
(3) "child prostitution and the trafficking of foreign women also increased dramatically". I find this statement bizarre and unlikely, unless there is a whole lot going on that we have not been told.
a) Those remain illegal. Why can't the vice squads that now aren't wasting time on petty busts concentrating on this?
b) Assuming the regulatory system is not completely fscked up, the bulk of your clientele will presumably prefer to go to a regulated establishment where they know what they are getting and have some recourse if cheated. So the demand for dubious situations will go down.
c) If these children and slaves are in regulated establishments, why aren't they immediately obvious to the system? If they are underground, well, what's this got to do with regulation?
I suspect that what has happened is that what these countries have created is a system ripe for corruption --- for example situations like a limited number of "brothel licenses" which are then used to prevent competition and which invite the mob (think taxi licenses in NYC); and that the cops have, one way or another, been encouraged to turn a blind eye when independent operators (eg some woman working from her home and advertising in the paper) are threatened by the local thugs who own the license.
And now back to the story that got us started on this:
Seems Spitzer spent really big bucks ($80,000) on hookers. Funny, his wife looks pretty good, but you gotta believe she was a frigid bitch. And if she wasn't, she is now.
Seems Spitzer spent really big bucks ($80,000) on hookers. Funny, his wife looks pretty good, but you gotta believe she was a frigid bitch. And if she wasn't, she is now. Posted by kafka | March 11, 2008 9:58 PM
So you've led a sheltered life? Never heard of someone becoming sexually excited by the forbidden, by being "naughty" or "bad," and getting off doing things not countenanced by society?
Simple answer: eliminate the word "prostitute".
Refer to all those who sell sex as "courtesans" or "erotic services professionals".
Offer college courses in sexual mores and technique leading to a Doctorate of Eroticism, or maybe an "MBA" - Masturbatory Business Analysis".
The bottom line: "prostitution" is a negative term which is reflective of the average chimpanzee's inability to deal with the nature and social meaning of sexual desire.
There's nothing "moral" involved with it. The only reason you have negative social aspects such as various forms of criminality is because of the entire social taint placed on trading sexual services for money - which is entirely due to religion. Societies where Christianity, Judaism or Islam are not dominant do not have such issues.
I read an article today that claimed one in four teenage girls has a sexual disease of some sort. I can assure you that most "prostitutes" are far more protective of themselves than the average teenage girl, if that article is true. Most hookers - those who aren't crack whores, at least - insist on condom use and carry their own supply.
Sweden has virtually eliminated prostitution by making hiring or soliciting a prostitute illegal, but allowing prostitution itself.
http://www.justicewomen.com/cj_sweden.html
Michigander: "Its amazing how different the attitudes of flabby, middle aged males are on this subject from (most) women."
No kidding. I think this issue (and these conversations) might be very different if men and women were truly on the same footing in this country - politically, socially, and economically - but it's just not the case. Fix that and maybe hot MBAs who objectively weigh their options and choose prostitution as a viable career path can exist somewhere other than HBO and in the fevered imaginations of horny libertarians.
Exhibit A, from kafka:
"Seems Spitzer spent really big bucks ($80,000) on hookers. Funny, his wife looks pretty good, but you gotta believe she was a frigid bitch. And if she wasn't, she is now."
Very nice. According to kafka (and Laura Schlesinger), it wasn't Spitzer's fault that he spent $80,000 on prostitutes and developed a rep as a "difficult" john who made demands that would make a hooker "feel unsafe." It's clearly his wife's fault, for not being suitably submissive and service-oriented.
Comments closed March 25, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
This is a typically liberal stance: favor liberty when it comes to prostitution but not when it comes to education. That said, I agree that prostitution should be legalized, regulated and taxed. I think that's the case in Australia and they seem to have a pretty decent country.
Posted by Fred | March 11, 2008 1:36 PM