Resolved: Prostitution should be legalised

Defense of my Argument:P1:Con mentions that one can be coerced, threatened, or forced into prostitutional sex. However, I’d classify that as rape, which is already illegal.P2:I think the primary difference in Con and I’s beliefs is that Con believes that people shouldn’t be allowed to do something that potentially harm themselves, while I more support allowing people to do anything, so long as it doesn’t hurt others. I’ll address this is my rebuttal of Con’s case.P3:Con first asserts that things like rape, assault, violence, and STIs would simply become workplace occupational hazards, and that disguises what they truly are. This argument, in it of itself is completely meaningless. For example, policemen can be shot and killed, meaning that can be considered a workplace hazard. It’s not a normal part of the job, but it can happen. The person who shot the cop is still most likely going to be punished though. The same thing can apply to prostitutes who are raped or assaulted. It’s not a normal part of the job, but it can happen. The person who did that to the prostitute would still most likely be punished. 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).Con then asserts that rapes and assaults are being covered up in Nevada, However, I find this whole claim questionable. It came from a clearly one-sided opinion peace and this was all that was said on the cover ups, “And, contrary to the common claim that the brothel will protect women from the dangerous, crazy clients on the streets, rapes and assaults by customers are covered up by the management." (Con’s 4th) No evidence of this was actually provided and simply stated. Even if some did though, it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be legal. If a bank is committing fraud, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have banks. There obviously just needs to be more regulation and oversight on them and the victims also need to remember they can call the cops as well. Con then asserts that it’s harder to punish those who assault the prostitute in any way because selling one’s self for sex is no longer illegal. There’s no evidence of this happening though and the articles only real support for this was “sexual abusers can use excuses like, “she’s just a ho who wanted more money” to discredit anyone in the sex industries who tries to get legal support.” (Con’s 3rd) That really doesn’t explain anything though. Con says STDs and AIDs increase in Victoria, Australia. He mentions how many went to great lengths to avoid testing. That’s their fault. However, in Nevada brothels are responsible if a customer becomes infected with a disease, so that could greatly help avoid that problem. (1) Even so, the statement by Con isn’t even true. His source didn’t provide any statistics, just simply stated it. However, Victorian prostitutes actually have very low STD/HIV rates. In fact, it’s an even lower rate than the average in Victoria. The LASH Repot found that the rates of STD and AIDs for Victorian sex workers are: “0.1/100 person-years for HIV, 0.1/100 person-years for syphilis, 3.3/100 person-years for chlamydia, and 0.7/100 person-years for gonorrhoea”. (2)Con mentions Nevada changed its laws, but it doesn’t matter that they no longer do it (for the debate), what they did do can still be a model.Con then asserts that condom use cannot be realistically enforced. He shows that most prostitutes have been offered more to have sex without a condom. If both parties agree to it, obviously nothing bad is occurring though. However, Con then mentions how some men become abusive when asked about condoms. This could be avoided in a legal setting though. For example, many brothels in Nevada include negotiations before anything is actually happening, so before anything began a guy would be required to put on a condom. (3) Plus, like I mentioned last round, most prostitutes in the Netherlands won’t work without a condom being used, even though it’s not actually required.As for protection regarding the STD tests, it allows them to be found and possibly dealt with. In fact, bacterial STDs can only possibly be treated if found early enough. (4)1-http://read.bi...2-http://bit.ly...3-https://en.wikipedia.org...4-http://www.webmd.com...P4:Con first mentions how you can simply decriminalize prostitution without legalizing it. There a few problems with that however. For instance, a john could potentially be punished simply for wanting to pay money to have sex (which the other person would have agreed with), which isn’t even wrong. Another is that it could lead to prostitute having to work with riskier clients. The University of Gothenburg said regarding the issue, “some women take greater risks, get into cars where there is more than one man and accept lower prices...the people in Malmö say that the clients are so few that women have to accept those they would have refused earlier, in order to make enough money for drugs.” (5) The Norwegian Ministry of Justice says a similar thing, “The Swedish street prostitutes experience a tougher time. They are more frequently exposed to dangerous clients, while the serious clients are afraid of being arrested.” (5) Problems such as these would be a lot prevalent in a brothel. Con points out I said rape was legal in Rhode Island. That was a mistake on my part (for some reason I made that same mistake twice), I meant when prostitution was legal there was a large drop in rape. (6) Con mentions how Germany has a high rape rate compared to Europe. However, that can be misleading. For one, rape may be defined differently in different countries. Also, rape may simply be reported less in other countries because German prostitutes are more willing to contact police. Plus, when you consider Germany is much larger than most other European countries. Even though it is per capita, it is being compared to relatively smaller sample sizes, which can overall be less reliable. Plus, organized crime is more prevalent in larger areas. (7) When compared to countries of similar population (notably, France and the UK) the rape rate is much lower. (Con’s 8th) Also, it may be noted some of the countries with the lowest rape rates on Con’s source are Switzerland and Greece where prostitution is legal. (Con’s 8th)Con then criticizes my “2nd study”. He seems to be referencing his own source though since that scatter graph only exists in his source (and I never cited that study). Regardless, I already pointed out the flaws in comparing rape rates from other countries. Plus, the study itself is making reference to the cost of prostitutes. (Con’s 8th) That’s overall a pretty useless stat and doesn’t help prove or negate the resolution. Con says 80% of Nevadan prostitutes want to leave. However, the article only said 80% of the reported amount interviewed. Also, Con’s source doesn’t say they can’t quit their job, so realistically if they want to, they can. It does however say that many of these brothels are abusive and put lots of restrictions on the women. However, that alone doesn’t mean prostitution shouldn’t be legal. Similar restrictions would exist with a pimp, except the police can’t do anything about it. Increase police enforcement and many of these problems don’t exist. If a business in any legal industry was doing this in the US, they wouldn’t try to ban the service or product they provide, they’d just punish that business. 5-http://gup.ub.gu.se...6-https://business.baylor.edu...7-http://www.encyclopedia.com...A1:I disproved all of Con’s rebuttals.P5/A2:I proved that legalizing prostitution would on balance not be harmful. A3:I proved that prostitution should not be a crime.Rebuttal 1:P1:This will essentially come down to whether or not prostitution is a benefit if legal, which won’t be discussed in this premise.P2:Sex Tourism: I’ll address the human trafficking later. Otherwise, having a large sex tourism benefit is only a benefit, as it brings more money into the country.Divorce: Con says that divorce could go up. Lots of thing hypothetically could happen anytime laws are passed or repeal. Considering there has no evidence of divorced increasing due to prostitution, this point is irrelevant.Drugs: Legalization likely would help improve drug abuse (although considering the fact it is already the way it is with illegal prostitution, it’s really an irrelevant argument for Con). The reason it could help is because drug abuse is higher among street prostitutes and if it were legal more could work in brothels. (8) However, Con says that is still harms the prostitutes and I responded to that elsewhere.8- http://www.johnhoward.ab.ca...Rebuttal 2:Con never really rebutted anything here. I already weighed the data heavily in his favour, but I also calculated that the decrease would just be among prostitutes. However, it was Rhode Island’s total rape rate (by the way, I made the same mistake saying they legalized rape here) that dropped (keep in mind, no other states had similar results, nor any other crimes in Rhode Island), not just prostitute rape rate. (6) The reason for this could be that because people can pay for sex legally, they may be less inclined to rape someone illegally. I’ll drop the drop to 15% (which was less than half of what it was in Rhode Island) and I’ll just apply that number to total number of rapes because that was what the 31% number was accounting for. Government statistics on this may be unreliable due to unreported rapes. Studies suggest about 1.3 million people are raped a year (I’ll be conservative and drop it to 1 million). (9)-0.15*(1,000,000)=-150,000 rapesStill a much larger drop than the increase in human trafficking would be. 9-http://www.huffingtonpost.com...