Intemediate's Debate Competition R1: Prostitution Ought to Be Legalized.

Good day TrueScotsman and fellow DDO members. I will now present my arguments. For the purposes of this debate, since a vast majority of prostitutes are female, I will refer to prostitutes using feminine pronouns and customers using masculine pronouns. No sexism intended. ========== I. Prostitution is a right and is inherently victimless. A. In the case of prostitution, both the supplier and the buyer have to consent. As rational adults, this right should not be taken away; people should be free to do with all their body parts as they wish. The Declaration of Independent states that all humans have the right to “life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness,” and the U.S. Constitution gives the people the right to peaceably assemble and conduct business, as well as the right to privacy [3]. Even if an event is not beneficial to society, as long as it doesn’t violate individual rights, there are still no grounds to ban it. Prostitution can be compared to plumbing; in the case of the prostitute, she uses her vagina to satisfy a customer in exchange for money; in the case of the plumber, he uses his toilet sucking skills to fix someone’s toilet in exchange for money. Prostitution is a profession that has risks and benefits, and can be taxed and regulated like any other profession. B. Most confusingly, pornography, or prostitution on cameras, is legal. If porn is legal, and is demonstrably victimless, then other sex work like prostitution can’t be considered any different. C. The main reason that prostitution is banned in the U.S. is not because it is inherently bad; it is because of the cultural stigma associated with religious beliefs that view sex as a taboo [4]. Religious “moral” reasons are no grounds to ban any profession. II. Decriminalizing prostitution reduces the negative impacts associated with it. Prostitution is said to be the “oldest profession”. The fact is, it’s one those things that is simply impossible to completely ban. 15% of men admit to having paid for sex [5], and more than 70 000 illegal prostitutes are arrested each year in the U.S. alone [6]. Yet, the state governments have opted to completely ban prostitution instead of putting regulations on it like boxing or MMA. A: legalizing decreases prostitute abuse: A large majority of prostitutes report abuse [7]. If prostitution was legal and regulated, abuses would be less frequent, since the johns know they can be prosecuted under the law. Legalizing prostitution would also reduce rape, because sex is more readily available. “A study conducted in Queensland... show[ed] a 149% increase in the rate of rape when legal brothels were closed in 1959…” [8] B: Reduce pimping and human trafficking rates: A majority of prostitutes are forced into their profession by pimps [9], and 80% wish to get out of prostitution [7]. These pimps use force and abuse to traffic women into unfamiliar territory and manipulate them into becoming sex workers. If prostitution became legal, these pimps would no longer have a market, and there would be a lower demand for sex slaves; instead, all sexual activity would be directed toward better regulated brothels. An analogy could again be made to plumbers. Imagine a certain country in which plumbing is illegal despite the high demand. If people wanted their pipework fixed, they had to do so through illegal means. Since few people would want to do something that is illegal, crime bosses force people to become plumbers; these forced workers would be inhumane as well as charge more money. On the other hand, if plumbing were legalized, more people would legally do it, and plumbing would have no shares on the black market. Legal prostitutes will have better opportunities to switch out of their profession, unlike illegal prostitutes. Legalizing prostitution would also free up time for law enforcement to deal with the human trafficking, the real problem; trafficked girls who are forced into prostitution would also have a better incentive to speak up to authorities, since they would no longer be penalized for their work. Even if the government fails to detect illegally trafficked sex workers, the life quality of these sex workers would still be better because of the other regulations on prostitution that do not involve trafficking. C: STD rates: Only 6-8% of all STDs in the U.S. are related to prostitution [7]. Most STDs are spread by general promiscuity. Legalizing prostitution would provide better avenues for regulating health and cleanliness, such as requiring frequent STD tests and condoms, thereby reducing the rate at which STDs are spread. “In one Australian study carried out in 1998, the prevalence of sexually transmitted bacterial infections was 80 times greater in 63 illegal street prostitutes than in 753 of their legal brothel counterparts” [10]. Banning prostitution can be compared to Prohibition. Prohibition failed, so there is little reason to think that continuing to ban prostitution will succeed. III. Prostitution increases utility. A: Customer satisfaction: Humans are among the only animals to have sex for fun. Studies show that having sex increases happiness; in fact, Blanchflower and Oswald finds that “sexual activity enter strongly positively in happiness equations,” (not to be confused with affection or human companionship) even more so than money [11]. Prostitution is a perfectly legitimate source of sex. Economics tell us that selling sexual service from one reasonable and consenting adult to another must be usually beneficial for both parties, or else the transaction would not occur. B: Profit: $200 million are spent per year busting the underground sex industry [12], while $18 billion of untaxable and uncirculated money are generated by the sex black market. The city of Amsterdam makes $100 million off of prostitution alone, and that’s just ONE city. [13]. $10 million are collected in taxes Nevada brothels [14]. The sex industry would generate tax revenue in the tens of billions for the U.S. government if legalized. Prostitution could fund NASA. Summary: I. Renting one’s body is a right. II. Decriminalization will decrease abuse of women, sex slavery, and STDs. III. Prostitution is a utility increasing job. ========== [3] http://www.archives.gov... [4] http://www.gallup.com... [5] http://abcnews.go.com... [6] http://www.pnas.org... [7] http://sex-crimes.laws.com... [8] Reichmann, Linda M. Rio. “Psychological and Sociological Research and the Decriminalization or Legalization of Prostitution”. 1991. [9] http://www.fbi.gov... [10] Loff, Bebe; Gaze, Elizabeth; Fairley, Christopher. “Prostitution, Public Health, and Human-Rights Law”. 2000. [11] http://www.dartmouth.edu... [12] http://www.11points.com... (This source may be unreliable, and is unconfirmed by official statistics.) [13] http://money.msn.com... [14] http://www.jour.unr.edu...