Thread: Should it be legalized - Part Deux

Let's try this again since you didn't like my last answer.

Originally Posted by citizen

The point I tried to illustrate was that some prostitutes never wanted to be prostitutes. The whole reason this is a slavery issue is because people are kidnapped or duped by a false promise, and suddenly find themselves part of a "business" they had no intention of being in. How will we honestly know the people who are happiest simply being prostitutes and not the ones being trafficked around against their will?

Sex slavery is bad, and it is a black market business driven by the demand for prostitutes and the illegality of prostitution.

There is evidence that the prostitution business isn't simply filled with young twenty-somethings who've made their own descisions. I highly recommend at least looking at the problem of human trafficking before you consider legalizing prostitution. I mean some of the facts (which I picked up here) are startling.

See above.

The latest U.S. Government figures indicate that between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States for forced labor every year. The United Nations reports that United States is one of the top three countries to which people are trafficked into modern-day slavery. Look up any happy statistic to let you know that a good chunk of those people are going to work in the sex industry (I use the word loosely). You might argue that it's a business but it's impossible to tell apart willing participants, and what exactly brought them into the business.

See above. Black markets go away when their product is removed from the illegal list.

What would become of current victims? That might seem silly too, but we need the ways and the means to make sure that current victims had a recourse, and you would need one hell of an application process. I don't think legalization is practical and I think it undermines the minimum standard we have set with the current statutes for sex crimes.

I don't know, but I have to ask if you had the same concern for young people forced into dealing drugs as a way of living in the other thread?

Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

Don't even compare the two... most of the supporters for legalization of marijuana in the other thread related it to the fact that there is taxable income to be made there. It's completely naive to think that because prostitution is made legal that a majority of it still won't be done under the table. Unlike marijuana the legalization of prostitution would not benefit the government (to any significant extent). The ends will simply not outweight the means.

Nonsense. It would be a taxable business like any other. And as far as being "under the table", you're begging the question. There is no more stigma associated with prostitution than there is with drug use, maybe less.