Here are the talking points we've got thus far. Comments (pos & neg) are very appreciated. The best way to win a battle like this is to know as much as possible going in, know your opponents, and to never be put in a position to have to back down (eg, get caught exagurating and then have to backtrack) - you and your argument loose alot of credibility.
With regard to prostitution
- Prostitution is not illegal in the US, but is controlled by states laws.
- All states except Nevada and Alabama have some type of law against prostitution.
- All European, many Asian and most South American countries allow legalized prostitution as well as Canada, Israel, and Australia.
- Approximately 2.2% (Higher?) of US women will, at some point in their lives, engage in prostitution.
- Approximately 17% of US adult males procure the services of a prostitute in any given year.
- Approximately 67% of adult males will procure the services of a prostitute at least once in their lives.
- An estimated 8% of prostitutes operate as streetwalkers, 77% as call-service (eg escorts or courtesans), and 15% as massage therapists.
- An estimated 13% of prostitutes are in a forced situation and 87% of their own free will.
- There are no indications that there are any higher occurrences of STI’s within prostitution than in society as a whole.
With regard to current laws
- Are believed ineffective at reducing incidents of prostitution itself or of controlling less desirable related activities (pimping, streetwalking).
- Dis-incents prostitutes and customers from reporting related crimes (drug dealing, slavery, extortion, pimping) for fear of their own arrest.
- Dis-incents prostitutes and customers from reporting child prostitution and similar victim based crimes for fear of their own arrest.
- Dis-incents prostitutes and customers from reporting criminal acts against themselves for fear of their own arrest.
- Increases both the need for pimps and their ability to function.
- Drives activity into the street and into neighborhoods where it otherwise would not exist.
- Enhances the ability for more undesirable industries such as child prostitution and kidnapped/enslaved prostitution to exist.
- Wastes law enforcement, prosecutorial, defense, justice, prison, and rehab resources that might be better directed towards more serious crimes.
- Eliminates the ability (some would say ‘escape route’) for prostitutes to move on to other careers due to having a criminal record, causing not only more pain for the prostitute, but creating a long-term increase in criminal and drug activity.
- Creates false criminals out of otherwise respected and law abiding members of many communities without the commission of a crime against a victim. Result is that many (both providers & clients) develop a negative view of law enforcement in other areas.
- This is a moral issue (for some portion of the population) with no legal foundation for criminalization.
- This should be fought as a moral issue, not as a legal one. The Union Gospel Mission (private non-profit) has had over 100 times the success rate in successfully removing people from the drug and prostitution industry over the past 15 years than all local and state law enforcement in Minnesota put together and have done so with less than 1% of the financial investment.
- Current laws are not effective in achieving their intent, we need to try a different approach.
Pro-Criminal Positions
- Prostitution is immoral.
- Prostitution has a lasting negative impact on the prostitutes, especially those forced into it against their will. Will legalization have a positive or negative impact on this?
- Prostitution is a contributor to the high divorce rate in the US.
- Prostitution is a blight on many neighborhoods, especially in larger cities.
- Prostitution contributes to the spread of STI’s.
- Legalization will increase the overall occurrences of prostitution.
- Is it victimless? Need to get better information. Will legalization have a positive or negative impact?
Pro-Legal Positions
- Assist in reducing and/or eliminating child prostitution.
- Reduce the amount of street and enslaved prostitution and pimping by providing a legal and more accepting (or less offending) alternative.
- Provide for a career future for prostitutes by removing criminal aspect of their career.
- Allow better relationship between advocacy services and providers. Advocacy services help with financial planning, emotional counseling, and career planning (eg, what do I do after this career?). A significant number of prostitutes report ongoing emotional issues after leaving the industry, however many learned numerous ways to eliminate or significantly reduce current and future emotional issues by better managing various aspects of their business such as the types of clients they see, services they perform, and possibly most important, limiting the number of clients they see over a given period. Those that limited themselves to 1 or 2 customers per day generally had far fewer problems than those who regularly or occasionally saw more.
- Reduce the incidents of serious crimes against prostitutes and customers that currently go unreported.
- Provide for a safer and better environment for prostitutes including allowing them to obtain medical insurance and other typical employment benefits that currently must be covered by state and federal agencies.
- Reduce the general incidents of rape and related activities by providing a legal alternative for sexual release. An estimated 18% of rapes are violence based (vs purely sexual) and would not be impacted by this.
- Prostitutes are more cautious with regard to protection from STI’s and therefore help reduce the spread of STI’s
- It’s a victimless crime. (needs more study).
- Because of it’s own illegality, Prostitution is a heaven for gang and other illegal activity. Legalization would help to push this portion out into the open.
- Reduce costs of investigation, prosecution, defense, judgment, incarceration, and rehab. Does average taxpayer want their taxes used finding out what’s going on in some hotel room that’s having no negative impact on anyone?
- Provide additional tax revenue.
- Increase convention and similar business.
- We’ve allowed the amount of sexual stimulation in society to increase exponentially, but are forcing closed the only safety valve many men have.
- A significant segment of the adult male population needs an avenue for sexual release. Legalization will provide an alternative to Rape, Child Molestation, Date Rape, and what we’ll call Date Force (The guy convinces the girl, against her will, to have sex. This is legally consensual, but morally and ethically wrong). Women don’t need to be put in this situation.
- Continue to prosecute pimps, child prostitution, and street solicitation (except in designated tolerance zones).
JTH
From JustTryingHarder:
- Approximately 17% of US adult males procure the services of a prostitute in any given year.
- Approximately 67% of adult males will procure the services of a prostitute at least once in their lives.
Holy crap. These numbers sound wacky. That means that more than 170,000 men IN THE TWIN CITIES ALONE are doing business via street/escort/massage THIS YEAR. That can't be right, can it??? The statistics sound reasonable until you get to the raw numbers.
numbers can be skewed. maybe it is one guy doing it 170,000 times?
I somewhat agree, but when you really start to look down into the numbers it begins to make sense. Below I asked for people's guesses as to how many providers there are in the larger metro area which is what drives these numbers. The purpose of this is to see if the numbers that myself and a couple of others have developed over the past 3 years are accurate.
Thoughts?
I'm still havin' trouble with the numbers. I think that 17% is fully an order of magnitude off the scale. The previous reply said maybe it was skewed by repeaters, but that doesn't work into the "17% of adult males" wording.
"...how many providers there are in the larger metro area which is what drives these numbers"
Ooops - there's a problem there; Not even Art Laffer (the architect of Laffer Curve, and father of supply-side economics) would imply that supply drives demand. The number of providers would only drive the number of hobbyists in the event that provider access was constrained to a level that drove some hobbyists away.
You apparently know stats so you also realize how complicated the answer is. I'll try to write something in detail this week.
I wasn't implying (or at least didn't intend to) that supply drives demand, although it certainly affects it.
The only way I've been able to get any kind of reasonable stats on the market is to start with the providers by estimating the number of providers in the market, finding out about how many clients they see and what the frequency of the clients is. 460 providers in metro area with an average of 26 engagements per month = 11,000 engagements per year. If every one of these was someone who sees a provider once per month we have about 996 clients. But, some are weekly, some are once a year so it has to be adjusted. It's also different for Indy's, Agencies, and Street.
More later,
JTH
...pro, con, or othwerwise, MN (and the US in general) is still far too inundated with religious whackos who insist on pushing their fairy tales on others to ever allow legal escorting on a wide scale.
Do you always lay down your sword as soon as you realize that an enemy even exists? 
Historically you are correct about the religious right. However, times are changing:
- There is a growing backlash within the Christian community against legalism. Too many people have grown up under their parents legalism only to find out that too much of it isn't even biblical. 2 Sunday's ago I sat in a Baptist church and heard the pastor say that drinking is OK (as long as you don't get slopping drunk!). A Baptist church! Same is happening elsewhere.
- A growing number of Christians are realizing that moral placebo's have no value. As the arguments above state, outlawing prostitution is nothing more than that. Many Christian leaders, including the pastor at Wooddale (Pawlenty's church) are starting to realize that it's better to attack the real problems that are solvable and where victims are involved (pimping, child prostitution, etc.)
- Religious/Community groups are having a significantly higher success rate in dealing with these 'problems' than gov't. There's a growing belief within the Religious community that it's better to deal with moral issues in a ministry and not with laws.
- Many Christians believe that the Christian community has gone too far with political and legal agenda's and lost sight of the centrality of Christianity - Jesus Christ.
- Oregon has apparently stated that at least until June 30th they will no longer investigate or prosecute simple prostitution (though I'll believe it when I start hearing reports from out there) due to budget issues. This exact same idea has been discussed in the MN Leg, St Paul Council, and Mpls Council.
JTH
-- Modified on 2/26/2003 8:22:19 AM
....a concept of which the Commander in Chief of this country has no clue.
"- There is a growing backlash within the Christian community against legalism. "
Is there really now? How about the backlash against the myth of virgin birth? Or that backlash against the fallacy that an invisible omniscient being created the universe and oversees the events?
Not so much? More or less? Come on. Christians are the very LAST people in society to forward legalization of so-called 'vices.'
"A growing number of Christians are realizing that moral placebo's have no value."
A 'growing number"?? What is that number....3?
"Religious/Community groups are having a significantly higher success rate in dealing with these 'problems' than gov't."
I've never heard a statement further from the truth. Ever. How about the problem of "Let's kill/conquer/oppress those who hold beliefs in different fairy tales?" You tell me how far we've come with that concept and then take a look at world events. Please.
"Many Christians believe that the Christian community has gone too far with political and legal agenda's and lost sight of the centrality of Christianity - Jesus Christ."
This pretty much happened about 5 minutes after the man called Jesus died and people (men mostly judging from how women are portrayed in the bible) in power bastardized his teachings for their own purposes of control and the creation and preservation of wealth. For pete's sake, look at the Commander in Chimp's tax plan.
"Oregon has apparently stated that at least until June 30th they will no longer investigate or prosecute simple prostitution (though I'll believe it when I start hearing reports from out there) due to budget issues. This exact same idea has been discussed in the MN Leg, St Paul Council, and Mpls Council"
Good for them. Tell me: Do you think for a second that as soon as they get funding they won't go back to shaking down escorts in Oregon or anywhere else? You even have the nerve to mention St. Paul, a city that posts the names and PHOTOS of people merely *accused* (not convicted) of engaging in prostitution.
Come on. Do better than this. Look at what's happened throughout the ages and look at what's happening in the world today.
Christianity (or any other myth driven "-nity" or "ism") has never held the answer for mankind.
Until the human race is ready to really look within itself for the answers to it's very simple problems of prejudice, prejudgement, egocentrism, and hatred, can we truly begin to solve our problems.
That is the task that lies before us: To take a brutally honest look at where we are and why we got here. That is the real battle we must fight - the one that starts from within.
Until that conflict is recognized and taken up, we can not move forward. To realize that is not to "lay down your sword" but to acknowledge where the battle actually lies.
-- Modified on 2/26/2003 10:32:54 PM
-- Modified on 2/26/2003 10:34:59 PM
now, this is what I call bringing back the spirit of the forum!
Good to see you back to your old self! I'm logging on very remotely and using remote software so this will be short (assuming my connection stays up).
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"A growing number of Christians are realizing that moral placebo's have no value."
A 'growing number"?? What is that number....3?
"Religious/Community groups are having a significantly higher success rate in dealing with these 'problems' than gov't."
I've never heard a statement further from the truth. Ever. How about the problem of "Let's kill/conquer/oppress those who hold beliefs in different fairy tales?" You tell me how far we've come with that concept and then take a look at world events. Please.
JTH: Here's where I was trying to go (and apparently not very well). If people want to curb prostitution (or almost any other 'vice') and 'rehab' people, they are better off doing it from a moral rather than a legal standpoint. If you don't want someone to be a provider or visit one you are much better off appealing to them from a moral (rather right or wrong) standpoint than from a legal.
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"Many Christians believe that the Christian community has gone too far with political and legal agenda's and lost sight of the centrality of Christianity - Jesus Christ."
This pretty much happened about 5 minutes after the man called Jesus died and people (men mostly judging from how women are portrayed in the bible) in power bastardized his teachings for their own purposes of control and the creation and preservation of wealth. For pete's sake, look at the Commander in Chimp's tax plan.
JTH: Exactly! There is a very significant backlash happening within the church over this. If you can, read the sidebar in Sunday's STrib about Evangelicals.
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"Oregon has apparently stated that at least until June 30th they will no longer investigate or prosecute simple prostitution (though I'll believe it when I start hearing reports from out there) due to budget issues. This exact same idea has been discussed in the MN Leg, St Paul Council, and Mpls Council"
Good for them. Tell me: Do you think for a second that as soon as they get funding they won't go back to shaking down escorts in Oregon or anywhere else? You even have the nerve to mention St. Paul, a city that posts the names and PHOTOS of people merely *accused* (not convicted) of engaging in prostitution.
JTH: In Oregon, maybe, maybe not. If, during this period, there are no significant issues, I can definately see them saying that 'until further notice' they will not allocate funding to prosecute prostitution arrests. Budgets are extremely tight and at some point even Gov't has to prioritize what's really important.
Regarding St Paul - My point was that this issue was apparently discussed as a serious option and is still under consideration. They and others may be watching Oregon to see what happens.
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Come on. Do better than this. Look at what's happened throughout the ages and look at what's happening in the world today.
JTH: Well, throughout the ages prostitution has generally been legal. In the US it was legal up until the Comstock laws at the turn of the century (Note that every single one of the Comstock laws except prostitution has now been overturned.)
Today, it is legal (or openly tolerated) in virtually every country in the world except the US.
Good discussion. I'll respond to the rest when I can get to a better connection.
I really liked twisted's subject line...
I think in some cases it's even simpler than that. Congressman So-and-so has to go home and explain his vote to the little woman, who isn't likely in the mood for some intellectual discourse about libertarian principles.
Books have been written about how much American political thinking is influenced by the family dynamics of the decision makers, especially presidents.
Great point. Now, how do we deal with it?
Tsk Tsk,
think of all the potentially unemployed housewives. they wouldn't get a lexus for christmas anymore. If protistution and or mistresses were legal and socially accepted here, a whole segment of the population would lose its worth. Where would the rich housewives and even the not so rich ones get the money their Audis? they would be forced to get careers or enter the profession or actually work...
and for the career women, if they had to provide physical affection in the evening to maintain a relationship, they might lose their professional edge. and if we were all open about folks might realize the sorry state of american sexual and emotional relations... and lies of television might be laid bare. the whole system could unravel.....
i think only more men will drawn to use escorts. it is sort of like how being able to surf for houses (and low interest rates) enabled a real estate boom. in the old days it was complicated business to look at houses (you had to drive to them) and to get mortgage quotes. now, just sit bach and surf.