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© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Lawsuit seeks to legalize prostitution in California
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GalapagosnoGairaishu
Or as actor Clark Gable was once allegedly quoted: "I don't pay women to have sex with me. I pay them to leave."
nath
If people want to drugs, they should be able to. Keeping them illegal has simply created a black market, financing criminal organizations, and preventing people from getting help when they really need it.
This as well. Why shouldn't people be able to marry 2-3 people if that's what they want?
No one is asking you to do otherwise.
Alphaape
For once, I am with an action group from San Francisco. Make it legal to keep the trafficers out of it and make them do health checks and let them face CAL OSHA like the rest of the businesses in CA do, and they will all move across the border to Nevada.
But if consenting adults want to do the sex for cash deal, then let them do it.
Commodore Shmidlap (Retired)
The sexual behaviors between consenting adults are none of the government's business. Sex workers provide an outlet for a basic need or needs for a number of people who have no other outlet. As a society we value sexual prowess and accomplishment and also the making of money, but we look down on people who try to combine the two. That seems silly and contradictory to me. I'm in favor of legalizing prostitution.
nath
And yet large parts of Europe do it and I don't recall anything in the UN Human Rights Declaration about prostitution. I hear there are male gigolos for female amusement, too.
Speed
100% agree.
nath
Who says 'have to'? Many guys prefer to. Less hassles.
Bartholomew Harte
legalise the prostitutes,Jail the Pimps & set aside Districts for Adult activity there has to be a way to put out the garbage(Pimps)& allow these ladies a choice & a voice. It's not called the World's Oldest Profession for nothing!
Commodore Shmidlap (Retired)
True equality of women will exist when women are allowed to do anything they wish with their bodies in private, including accepting payment for sex without being judged as either degraded by the act or immoral as a result. Also, legalizing prostitution would necessarily include male prostitutes as well. Some men seek sex with other men, for example, and would be willing to pay for certain acts offered professionally that are difficult to ask for or frowned upon socially. The current system degrades women-- and some men-- much more than a legalized, non-stigmatized form of prostitution ever could. And we're not talking about human trafficking or sex slavery, both of which are by-products of the current unequal system. We're talking entrepreneurship, taking ownership of self and using a specific skill set to meet a very high demand. If anything that's empowering.
nath
As it should be.
Because it's not a human rights violation when there isn't coercion or exploitation.
From a purely human rights perspective, if a woman chooses to sell her body of her own volition, that should be her human right.
No, but neither does keeping it illegal help these women. It simply creates an environment where they are more likely to be exploited, or hurt, or raped. Having it legal creates an environment of increased safety.
Madverts
Look at Holland and Germany. Legal and clean. And more pertinently, less sex crimes.
Case closed really.
Time to do the same for drugs and get the tax revenues in.
Banning the sale of sex and drugs has been a costly failure.
Black Sabbath
It is already legal. Just film it, and pay the 'actress'.
nath
While my views are mostly liberal, I don't identify with any party (mainly because I'm not American). I identify with views I can agree with. This is why I can find a lot of common ground with Rand Paul - he thinks a lot like I do on many topics.
slumdog
People should be allowed to use their bodies however they feel like doing as long as they are of age and they are not harming anyone else, just like any other adult oriented entertainment.
I have never been able to figure out how so many have legalized adult material (ie: pornography) and yet those some places often make prostitution illegal. Isn't it really the same thing? Just in the case of pornography, the 'performers' are performers for larger audiences. Both are doing it for pay. I don't the difference.
Live and let live.
nath
All sorts of wrong in there. Let's go through a few of them:
First, there are male prostitutes as well, which basically blows everything you said out of the water right from your first sentence. But ignoring that fact, forbidding women to use their bodies if they so want to keeps women from being equal.
Again, men can be prostitutes as well. But ignoring that fact, there are plenty of things that contain inequality be gender, class and race that have nothing to with women, or prostitution.
I've never heard of prostitution being a violation of international law. Can you please show some evidence of this?
How is prostitution a human rights violation?
Your whole post is a run-on string of incorrectness, that sounds basically like a regurgitation of something you've read that doesn't have a lot of basis in reality.
Commodore Shmidlap (Retired)
All of which are the result of its criminalization and serve more as an argument in favor of legalization.
nath
Haha
Novenachama
@ scipantheist I don't recall anything in the Human rights declaration about prostitution.
An international convention was drawn up under the auspices of the United Nations and these instruments regard prostitution as a human rights violation only if it involves overt coercion or exploitation. However they are silent concerning the human rights implications of prostitution per se. Accordingly, the work of international human rights organs has focused on traffic in person and exploitation of prostitution as slavery-like practices but until recently has not addressed the problem of the fundamental causes and meaning of prostitution from a human rights perspective.
SuperLib
The key word is consenting. Some prostitutes work as a choice, some have their passports withheld or do it under the threat of violence. You also have others addicted to drugs and do it because it's the only thing their mind/body can handle....because of the drugs. Just legalizing it doesn't make those problems go away.
Kabukilover
I presume that if this law is enacted it was also legalize male prostitution. There would be a rough equality between the genders in the profession in that case. I am for the legalization of prostitution. It has worked well in countries where it is legal (New Zealand, parts of Australia, Germany, for example). But don't think that in a country with a high crime rate like the United States the criminal element will vanish from sex work. The good thing is that sex workers will have rights and a voice.
I must note that in Japan prostitution is illegal but it is given a wink and a nod by the police (unlike the vagina artist). It is time to legalize sex work in Japan.
Wc626
Aren't there soaplands? Legally, the girl & client usually engage in "Sumata" in soaplands . But wink wink-there are scenarios when the customer actually gets to bang the girl. So that is semi-legal "sex work" in japan. Right?
slumdog
Exactly. I would love one of the people who is against prostitution, but for pornography, to explain why one is legal and one is not.
If one wants to argue about the freedom of women, they should be arguing that they, and men who wish to do that work, should be free to do as they wish.
toshiko
Not legal yet. That is why they are proposing. Then they have to get business lawyers to formulate appealing documents to each local govt for business license. If they are accepted without local other business associations, local govt officials will proceed discussion and may be licensed to operate in area or not. Ditto with pornography, This is business so more likely freedome of men than freedom of women. Porno business do not work well in USA. Girls pose to porno and sue millions for appearing to promote porno business man. Don't forget IRS.
toshiko
Tje promoters must be willing to pay sex tax to local or state govt. It is sex discrimination if the organization does not include male prostitutes = usually male customers. Many states, local govt has weeds legal and collect tax money from weed house owners - medical weed, Colorado for example.
nath
oh h*** yeah. Finally a reason for going to that desert (in all seriousness).
MarkG
Stranger! You sounding like a Libertarian now. Imagine that.
MarkG
What about private and consensual drug sales and use? Private and consensual multiple partner marriage?
Silly reasoning but if you choose to pay for sex, go for it. To me I'll take no part and have no interest in meeting any prostitutes.
Novenachama
Legalized prostitution cannot exist alongside the true equality of women period because the idea that one group of women should be available for men's sexual access is founded on structural inequality by gender, class and race. Moreover it is a violation of international law, In fact, the failure to challenge legalized prostitution undermines every human rights norm mandating the dignity of the person and equality for all. Therefore decriminalizing or legalizing prostitution would normalize and regulate practices which are human rights violations, and which in any other context would be legally actionable.
SuperLib
Just keep the laws on the books and selectively enforce it, like if minors are involved.
Wc626
If you gota pay for sex in CA, you're a loser period.