Resolved: Prostitution should be legalised

Deconstruction of Pro's argumentP1The fact that coerced prostitution is actually rape is a point I made, but prostitution isn't consensual by definition. It is also true that legalising prostitution hasn't ever succeeded in separating the consensual prostitution from the coerced prostitution. This is largely due to the increase of human trafficking caused by legalised prostitution.P2Pro misunderstands my political philosophy; I share the sentiment of 'allowing people to do anything, so long as it doesn't hurt others', but I argue that we shouldn't allow Johns to visit a prostitute, because this contributes to the overall sex industry. If the sex industry is increased, then this does hurt others due to the increase in both human trafficking and ordinary prostitution.To summarise, I agree with P2, but since buying prostitutes contributes to a harmful industry, I contend that buying a prostitute does hurt others and therefore shouldn't be allowed.P3The reason that rape, assault and violence are somewhat disguised as 'occupational hazards' as opposed to blatant crimes is because legalising prostitution legitimises the industry. If prostitution is illegal, the prostitute is considered unemployed by the law, because the profession in which she works isn't a legitimate one. Therefore, if she is raped or assaulted then this is treated as the rape or assault of an ordinary citizen, and consequently treated very seriously. But if prostitution is legalised, the prostitute is considered employed and so, if she does get raped or assaulted as a direct result of her work, then the crime is treated as a work-related occurrence. Since work-related occurrences are generally sorted out by the employer, and the legitimisation of prostitution also legitimises the employers (pimps/brothel owners), the crime report would generally go through the employers before it goes to the police, and the police won't step in unless the employer reports the crime (because they expect the pimps to report crimes, which is a result of legitimising the pimps' position). This gives the pimps and brothel owners the chance to cover up any assaults or crimes.So there, that's the (lengthy) explanation of how legalising prostitution can lead to cover ups.Pro writes that:'As for the STIs, porn stars also run that risk and many other workplaces are at high risk for getting a disease (e.g. miners).'The 'porn-stars' reference is irrelevant because I also disagree with legalising porn production. The reference to miners is also irrelevant, because whilst being a miner may be near as a harmful as being a prostitute, mining is a useful profession, whereas prostitution is not.Pro disputes my source that reported the frequent cover-ups by brothel management, seemingly because the source I cited in turn doesn't cite a source. But this is not a valid argument against sources, as then any given source would require a further source, which itself would require a further source, and so on ad infinitum. But since an infinite regress cannot exist, this would mean that all sources are invalid. Generally, a source that comes from a distinguished observer (the writer is a former executive director of an association of lawyers) who appears to have conducted extensive research into the topic (he writes a whole paper on it) can be trusted as a valid source.Pro uses another tenuous analogy:'If a bank is committing fraud, it doesn"t mean we shouldn"t have banks.'Banks are necessary, brothels are not. If banks weren't necessary, and it was found that many banks commit fraud, then there would indeed be a good reason to abolish banks.Regarding STDs, Pro dismisses the problem that many prostitutes go to great lengths to avoid testing because 'it's their fault'. But this doesn't avoid the problem; there is still a risk for non-prostitutes because they may inadvertently sleep with infected prostitutes that have evaded testing. Whilst I would not sympathise with the John (person who buys the prostitute), he could then pass it on to other people, including other prostitutes.Moreover, Pro's argument only works if condom policies are enforceable, which they are not. You won't get fired for not using a condom (1) and there is no realistic way for brothel-management to check whether the customer is using a condomonce they're in the room. Therefore, condom policies may be good in principle, but aren't enforceable in practice.Regarding the Victoria case study, it is irrelevant that the STD rates of Victorian prostitutes are very low, the fact remains that STD rates increased overall. If anything, all this goes to show is that legalisation increases the risk to the general public, even if it doesn't increase the risk to prostitutes. I don't argue that legalisation would make it more risky for prostitutes, I argue that legalisation won't substantially reduce the risk, and that legalisation would increase the amount of prostitutes meaning that more people will be open to that risk.I would conjecture that the reason STD rates for Victorian prostitutes are said to be lower than the general public is that the general public are more likely to report STDs (they have much less to lose, compared to prostitutes where they stand to lose their jobs if they report that they have an STD).The next point is another about condom policies. Pro writes that if both parties agree to sex without a condom, 'nothing bad is occurring'. I would disagree, as I have said before, men offer more money to have unprotected sex and so this is a form of monetary coercion in which the prostitute is threatened with a reduced fee if she insists on using a condom. This is not valid consent, because it is a form of coercion. Whilst it may be true that Dutch prostitutes won't work without a condom, this is a personal work policy and therefore is unaffected by official legalisation. A prostitute can still insist on using a condom - she doesn't need prostitution to be legal.Even if some STDs can be treated if found early, it is obviously preferable for them to have never been contracted at all. Therefore it is preferable for less people to work as prostitutes, which also means that it is preferable for prostitution to not be legalised.P4Pro argues that the Swedish system (which is my counter-proposal), is more dangerous for prostitutes because they have to 'work with riskier clients. However, the claim that this system is dangerous for the prostitutes is not supported by reports, which actually suggests that 'there is no evidence of [this] phenomenon'. (2)A point of discussion in this debate is over the correlation between rape rates and prostitution-legality, but I think Pro is making the mistake of thinking that prostitution can noticeably affect the national rape rate. 1 in 6 women are raped (3), whereas a far tinier proportion are involved in prostitution. This suggests that the national rape statistics cannot be noticeably affected by the state of prostitution in a country and so it is misleading to base an argument on these correlations.Pro tries to distance himself from a study that he says he 'never cited'. The study referred to is entitled 'Prostitution and Sex Crimes' by Kirby Cundiff (4), and concludes that legalising prostitution reduces rape rates by 25%. I dismiss this poor study because its conclusion is based on a very weak correlation that does not entail conclusive results. Pro tries to say that he never cited this study, but he does! In Pro's round 2, his tenth source takes its conclusions from Cundiff's study. Therefore, Pro's whole premise that legalising prostitution would reduce rape by 25% is based on Cundiff's study. Pro doesn't realise this, and shoots himself in the foot by criticising the study for using a 'pretty useless stat'.Next, in regards to the stat that 80% of Nevadan prostitutes want to leave, it is a red herring fallacy for Pro to say that it was only 80% of the reported amount interviewed. An interview is a perfectly valid form of gathering statistical data, and so Pro cannot refute my stat by pointing out that it comes from an interview. I also never said that they can't leave their job, my source says that brothels and pimps make it very hard for them to leave, which is near as effective for coercing prostitutes to remain prostitutes even if they don't really want to be.Pro says that the police won't be able to solve abuse if prostitution is illegal, since the 'police can't do anything about it'. Yet the opposite is true - if prostitution is legal, pimps are legitimate employers who can legally set working conditions for workers, the police won't be able to do anything because the pimps are legitimised by the government.TraffickingPro's whole rebuttal is based on a faulty utilitarian calculation. It doesn't matter that he 'already weighed the data heavily in [my] favour' if the actual calculation is wrong.His initial calculation was:Decline rate*(Number of Prostitutes*Rape Rate)=Drop in RapesThe problem with this calculation is it treats the number of prostitutes as a constant. This is wrong because even Pro concedes that legalisation would increase the amount of prostitutes. Taking into account the increase in prostitutes after legalisation (around 4x the amount before, see my R2 sources 12-14), these are the actual changes in rapes (using Pro's numbers).Before:Rapes = non-prostitute rapes before + (prostitute rape rate x No. prostitutes before)= (1,000,000) + (0.8 x 1000000) = 1,800,000After:Rapes = non-prostitute rapes after+ (prostitute rape rate x No. prostitutes after)= (750,000) + (0.8 x 4000000) = 3,950,000Therefore, we see that legalising prostitution would increase the number of rapes, by virtue of the fact that there will be more prostitutes. This refutes Pro's sole rebuttal to my human trafficking argument.My human trafficking argument stands._(1) http://bit.ly...(2) http://bit.ly...(3) http://bit.ly...(4) http://bit.ly...