General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Prostitutes Are People, Not Criminals' by Belle Knox [View all]Shoulders of Giants
(370 posts)That doesn't make any sense. Both involve having sex for money, one involves a camera and the other in most circumstances doesnt. Therefore, we do live in a society that allows people to sell sex for money already, I do want to point that out, before I get address your point.
However, the correct argument that you are making would be to ban people from working all together. However, we live in a society where low wages are subsidized by the government. Whenever someone is paid 7 dollars an hour (or 50 cents an hour in your example), they don't have enough to live on. Therefore, the government has to support employees of low wage employers through various welfare programs. Therefore, we as a society, have "skin in the game." After all, we are all taxpayers, and we can demand the corporate welfare queens pay their employees their fair share, because when they dont, we as a society suffer.
The same argument cannot be made for prostitution. When prostitution is legal, discrete, and consentful, we as a society do not suffer. Infact, when Rhode Island legalized certain forms of prostitution, rape rates went down. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/17/when-rhode-island-accidentally-legalized-prostitution-rape-and-stis-decreased-sharply/
Also, porn usage (which as I pointed out is very similiar to prostitution) is believed to cut down on sexual assault as well.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/08/24/239656/-Study-As-Porn-Goes-Up-Rape-Goes-Down Therefore, I believe you are making an invalid comparison. The choice of working for 50 cents an hour burdens society as a whole. The choice of seeing a prostitute consensually does not burden society. I am making an argument for freedom of choices that do not harm society as a whole. And I have yet to see how consensual prostitution harms society. The way to solve this issue is to increase government safety nets so people don't feel they have to be a prostitute out of economic necessity. However, government banning of consensual sexual activities is not the way to go about it.