Prostitution should be legalized in the US

Thanks for the debate, Mikal. I'll start with my case and finish with rebuttals. NOTE: "johns" are "guys who pay for sex."== Trafficking == (1) Experience shows that when prostitution is legalized, sex trafficking increases. [A, B, C, D, E, F] Even in Nevada. [G, H, O] This happens because legalization increases demand. Not enough women want to prostitute, so the only way to meet that demand is through trafficking.(2) Most "legal prostitutes" are trafficking victims. [E, O] Unfortunately, police can't do anything about that, because police can't distinguish legal prostitutes from trafficking victims, or legal pimps from traffickers. Police also can't arrest trafficking victims, which is a huge problem, because most trafficking victims don't seek help. Pimps manipulate victims to think they're not victims, or to think they'll be killed if they seek help. [I, J, O] So, the only effective way to rescue trafficking victims is arresting them for prostitution.== Violence ==(1) Prostitutes are lucky to get out with their lives. More prostitutes are murdered than any other group. The few that aren't still experience an extensive catalog of violence, including assault and rape. Their hair is pulled, faces ejaculated on; they are slapped, pinched, verbally abused, threatened, beaten, cut with knives, burned with cigarettes, and gang raped. Victims of torture describe similar acts. And like victims of torture, prostitutes report mouth and teeth injuries, vaginal bleeding, internal injuries, head injuries, and broken bones. The average life span for prostitutes is four years. [E, K, L](2) The psychological harm is just as bad. Prostitutes measure higher levels of PTSD than combat veterans and victims of torture. PTSD results from going through atrocities you cannot mentally sustain. And PTSD isn't the only concern. Studies show prostitutes are at heightened risk of depression, mania, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, dissociative disorders, and drug abuse. This psychological damage stems from the act itself. Prostituted women simply cannot avoid the trauma associated with constant sexual degradation, and with having one's body sold as a commodity. In fact, studies find no difference in PTSD levels between street prostitution and brothel prostitution, which shows that the trauma is intrinsic to the act itself. [E, K, L] (3) These results are not limited to illegal prostitution. Even prostitutes working where prostitution is legal, in brothels with so-called “safety policies,” experience this extensive catalog of physical and psychological violence. The psychological harms are inherent, so no amount of improvement helps. And the physical harms also persist, because that's what the johns want, and they're willing to pay more for it. And prostitutes don't feel like they have a choice. And panic buttons usually fail. [E, K, L, M, O]== Rebuttal ==(1) RegulationRegulation doesn't reduce illegal prostitution. Over 90% of prostitution in Nevada is illegal. [B, G, H, M, O] Also, see my trafficking evidence from earlier. As Mikal notes, 73% of men will pay more for sex without a condom, and those men create a market for illegal prostitution. Regulating prostitution isn't going to change that.(2) SafetyFirst, since regulations don't reduce illegal prostitution, Mikal's "minimization" arguments regarding "safety" and "STDs" have no impact. Most prostitutes are still subject to all the harms. Second, "safety policies" don't work, because prostitution is inherently dangerous, degrading, and psychologically traumatic. [E, K, L, M, O](3) RapeIf legalization actually decreased rape, we'd see evidence of that in Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, and Nevada. But there isn't any such evidence. I'd argue that rape actually increases with legalization, because more prostitution means more prostitutes are raped. The reason we don't hear about it is because prostitutes almost never report rapes.Mikal's sources don't say otherwise. The study in [5, 6] used a regression model to analyze potential correlations between availability of prostitution and rape. The study made no claims about legalization actually reducing rape. Even worse, the study relied on the wrong definitions of rape (this fact was admitted in the study), and the study didn't consider unreported rapes (this fact completely skews the data). Taking those limitations into account, the correct interpretation of the data is that rapists target prostitutes over other women; other independent evidence supports that interpretation, including Mikal's [2] and [3]. When there's more prostitution available, more prostitutes get raped instead. Rape doesn't decrease, but reporting does, because prostitutes almost never report rapes.Mikal's [8] doesn't apply because it dealt with inadvertent decriminalization; Mikal's arguing for regulated legalization, which is completely different. Finally, Mikal's only other study -- the Queensland study -- is from 1959. It's completely outdated and therefore inapplicable to prostitution today.(4) CostsFirst, designating something as a crime shouldn't turn on enforcement costs and potential tax revenue. No one argues that trafficking, murder, or rape should be legal, even though legalizing them would generate massive savings. So too with prostitution. Money simply shouldn't factor into policy decisions about what to criminalize.Second, enforcement costs don't go down when prostitution is legal because legalization doesn't reduce illegal prostitution. If anything, enforcement costs go up, because trafficking increases.Third, Mikal's numbers are wrong. Mikal's [12] says the prostitution industry generates $14 billion a year. [12] There's no way to generate $20, $30, or $40 billion in taxes from an industry that only generates $14 billion. That's literally impossible. Mikal gets his numbers from [11], but [11] is wrong because (a) it assumes all illegal prostitution will be regulated, and (b) it assumes all prostitutes will earn at least $100,000 a year (i.e. earn just as much as the high-class prostitutes in Nevada). Both assumptions are wrong. Most prostitution would still be illegal, competition among brothels would bring prices down, and competition among states would bring tax rates down. So the actual tax revenue isn't even close to $20 billion. Of course, that's not surprising, since [11] isn't a credible source; it's just what some guy on the Internet said.(5) ConsentFirst, no amount of consent makes a crime acceptable, because the whole point of criminal laws is to determine which *choices* are acceptable to society. Murder, rape, and trafficking are crimes even if victims consent. So too with prostitution.Second, prostitutes don't actually consent because they have no real alternatives (or at least they feel like they have no real alternatives). Poverty, homelessness, and past sexual abuse are the top reasons women are prostituted. Pimps often recruit illegal immigrants -- especially Central American women -- into prostitution by stealing their money and threatening deportation. And many women are simply beaten until they "consent" to prostitution. The so-called "choice" is thus only a choice between two evils: homelessness or prostitution, starving family or prostitution, deportation or prostitution, violent beatings or prostitution. Of course, that's not a real "choice." Most prostitutes want to leave prostitution but they feel they can't or don't know how. [E, K, L, M, N, O]This is not just like every other job. Prostitutes don't decide to be prostitutes instead of doctors, engineers, lawyers, pilots. Those options don't exist for prostituted women. When intereviewed, prostitutes say prostitution chose them. And they say they'd prefer doing anything else if they could. In Nevada, there are countless stories of legal prostitutes who speak to the public "glowingly of how much fun prostitution was, how rich they were getting, how glamorous their life was." And then -- when the pimps aren't looking -- they ask for "help," "saying she was there under captivity, that he had a gun, had threatened her life," and so on. [O] I urge everyone to read, or at least skim, [O]. It shows that prostitutes don't consent; they're tricked, coerced, and brainwashed by pimps.In many ways, prostituted women are like battered women. Like battered women, prostituted women depend on pimps economically, fear for their lives, and don't know how to get out. So they stay in prostitution just as battered women stay in their relationships. Think about it this way: Would we say that a concentration camp survivor who collaborated with the guards to get food and stay alive had consented to his abuse? Would we say an enslaved African in the Americas who became a house servant had done so voluntarily? No. To say there was choice there is absurd. And prostitution is no different. == Conclusion ==Prostitution is inherently degrading. "It is the mouth, the vagina, the rectum, penetrated by a penis, sometimes hands, sometimes objects, by one man and then another and then another and then another and then another." Prostitutes don't want to have sex with those men. They do it solely because they're forced (literally or from financial necessity). And as a result, the entirety of their life is reduced to a few sexual orifices. The attendant harms -- harms on par with torture -- cannot be disputed. And legalization only increases those harms, because it makes enforcement harder while increasing trafficking. Only the pimps and johns benefit.[A] http://tinyurl.com...[B] Mary Jones, Making Sex Work[C] http://tinyurl.com...[D] http://tinyurl.com...[E] http://tinyurl.com...[F] http://tinyurl.com...[G] http://tinyurl.com...[H] Melissa Farley, Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada[I] http://tinyurl.com...[J] http://tinyurl.com...[K] http://tinyurl.com...[L] http://tinyurl.com...[M] http://tinyurl.com...[N] http://tinyurl.com...[O] http://tinyurl.com...