Wednesday, July 27, 2011

On legalization of various things 1

Looking at yesterday's post about buying and selling sex I see there is a point I added at the end that is not very well argued. I wrote:
I should come out of the closet on this and admit that I think it is very good thing that there are laws against prostitution. I think it would be a very bad thing for women if there weren't such laws. I appreciate that things are often very bad for some women under the current approach but I think it would get worse for a lot more women if prostitution was legalized.

A big part of the reason for this is because there is so much non-prostitutional sex trade. Not everyone does but an awful lot of people do and it is a very useful thing to have a line in the sand law that everyone can see.
What I mean by that  is that it is a very natural thing for women to trade on sex and for men to respond to this trade. And by "natural", I just mean that if you observe just about any culture where women have significant freedoms you'll see a lot of low level trading on sex that does not rise to the level of prostitution. (Or is that sink?)

Consequently, the move to prostitution is a very easy one to make. It would be very easy to slide into and we need to remind ourselves that prostitution is a very bad thing for women. And this is where I am in complete agreement with Prostitution Research & Education. Legalize the trade and you are just going to make it possible for a lot of people to put a lot of pressure on women to start selling their bodies.

That is something legalization advocates miss. There are already quite enough pimps in the world thank you. Most pimps don't look like Jay Z. Most pimps are nasty little pieces of work who turn to their girlfriend and tell her to start earning some money. Legalize prostitution and you are going to have a lot more of them.

These are not equal requests:
  1. Hey honey, we need more money so I think you should consider getting a job.
  2. Hey honey, we need more money so I think you should allow men to have sex with you for money.
To pretend they are the same is to debase women.

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