Prostitution is analogous to pornography.

So I suppose I'll structure this debate in typical contention format. There's no real standard to be set, insofar as the question of the resolution is a case of logical equivalence, not of harms, although harms can be debated here. The implicit weighing mechanism, then, is a simple truth-testing calculus. If I prove the analogy false, CON wins. If not, you presume PRO. More broadly, one might say if I show the two acts to be more unlike each other than alike, then you would go CON; if not, PRO. Because I don't like logical incongruence, I negate the statement "The only difference between prostitution and porn is a camera and a contract." Definitions: Pornography: the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement. (via Merriam-Webster) Prostitution: the act or practice of engaging in promiscuous sexual relations especially for money. (Again, via Merriam-Webster) Contention One: Though prostitution and pornography fall under the broad umbrella of sex acts that involve currency exchange, there are multiple points of disanalogy between the two. 1) The first difference is there"s a camera involved. 2) The second difference is there"s a contract involved. (Yeah, I know, this is a dick move, but I think the fact that the statement above openly admits differences between porn and prostitution says something.) 3) In the case of pornography, it is two actors getting paid for having sex; they do not pay each other. Neither of the porn stars are incentivizing each other to have sex. In prostitution, the typical action taking place is one person paying someone else to have sex with him/her, which means one of the parties is involved is creating an active incentive. 4) In prostitution, the recipient of sex is not getting paid. 5) In the case of pornography, its purpose is visual stimulation, in the sense that porn"s inherent design is to watch sex from afar, not to actively participate in a sex act. I think the fact that a significant majority of people who watch porn probably wouldn"t want to be on a porn set says something about this disanalogy. 6) In the case of pornography, the sex act being filmed is entirely utilitarian. That is, the porn star isn"t getting paid to sleep with someone to pleasure the other porn star; rather, the act s/he is participating in serves the purpose of making someone else stimulated far away. Simply put, porn is a product, prostitution is an action. 7) In prostitution, the agent can chose what he/she wants his/her prostitute to do; this option does not apply to pornography. 8) Porn lasts forever; one sex act in Vegas hotel room does not. 9) Not all pornography is paid. People make their own home movies all the time; not an uncommon phenomenon. These points of disanalogy apply both to the concept of pornography itself and to those who participate in the making of the porn. I will focus on this for my second point. Contention Two: There can be pornography without prostitution. I think this point is particularly damning. Per the definitions provided above, a prostitute must necessarily be a promiscuous person. However, if I only have sex with one person in my life and I also happened to make a video of it, I think it would be quite wrong to call me a prostitute. See also point of disanalogy no. 9 above, which explains this further. The force of this argument here is that since pornography is such a broad category, and much of it can theoretically exist absent typical requirements of prostitution, there is more disanalogy here than analogy. Those are my opening remarks. I'm open to debates about alternative weighing mechanisms or standards, so feel free to bring them on.