Legalization of Prostitution

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Abstract

The legalization of prostitution, would not only help with medical issues, it would save money. It is said that prostitution causes inconvenience and troubles to general public. Does the general public have the right to live without prostitution, or do prostitutes have the right to make money. If prostitutions are located in some low-population-density areas, the harms or inconvenience caused by prostitutions will be smaller. The right to be a prostitute or the right to stop prostitution should be granted to general public. Is a legal prostitution system an impossibility because the rights are too difficult to be decided? Government regulations are the only ways to solve this problem. The government should evaluate the total benefits of each side before making any decision. Peoples minds are more and more open, and it is believed that the advanced technology will enhance the protections sexually transmitted diseases and the benefits monetarily by less law enforcement and taxation should also be considered. This is a very hard decision to make and will never satisfy everyone.

Legalization of Prostitution

One of the oldest legal debates comes from prostitution, there is no denying that the sex industry has taken international dimensions and is recognized as an economic motor for many countries. Prostitution defined as promiscuous and mercenary sexual behavior with emotional indifference between the partners. There isn't a more specific definition because people perceive it in different ways. Some view it as a dehumanizing act while others see it as an occupation that performs a useful service to society. Because people aren't always able to act out their sexual feelings how they want, prostitution allows them to express these desires. Most people think that the actual sex act is what is illegal. But it's actually the solicitation to perform that sex act for money or other valuables that is illegal. Prostitution is one of the oldest professions in the world and should be legalized in the United States like it has been in other countries.

As countries around the world discusses the merits of the legalization of prostitution. The following questions should be addressed. Would legalization reduce some of the inequalities and abuse suffered by the women involved? On the other hand, by legitimizing prostitution, would society reverse decades of work to promote human rights and improve the status of women? On the surface, this looks like a rehashing of a timeless debate. However, it is not. The question is no longer about morality is prostitution a vice and are those involved evil or somehow lacking in judgment? There are many reasons why prostitution is illegal in 4 U.S. states today. First, and foremost, many people feel that prostitution should stay illegal in order to preserve morality. Parents do not want their children to grow up thinking that prostitution is acceptable. Worse yet, parents do not want to hear their children say, When I grow up, I want to be a prostitute. Christianity also looks down upon prostitution because according to their beliefs, the act of sex is only to be done when a man and a woman are in love and married. Monogamy is to be practiced in the marriage, and any violation of this is considered a sin. Another reason why the preservation of morality is so important is that peoples morals shape the future of our nation. Many people feel that if prostitution is legalized, then its long term effects would be detrimental to the United States. The divorce rate in the United States peaked at an all time high in 180 (Institute for First Amendment Studies [IFAS], 16, Page 1). By the legalization of prostitution, this would allow room for husbands and wives to commit adultery. Thus, leading the marriage to a divorce. The divorce rate has really increased over the centuries. In the U.S. today, the divorce rate is fifty percent of the U.S. itself (Holland, 18, p.1).

It is said that prostitution causes inconvenience and troubles to general public. Does the general public have the right to live without prostitution nearby, which will prevent prostitutes from making money, or do prostitutes have the right to make money, which will prevent the general public from living in a more enjoyable environment? The right to be a prostitute or the right to stop prostitution should be granted to general public. However, it is very difficult to decide such rights. What should be considered as prostitutions? If a female who provides a male with sex service for returns is said to be a prostitute, then is a wife who provide sex service for her husband for his love said to be a prostitute? Is having sex before marriage called prostitution? We can see that it is very costly to decide such rights.

Now the question should be asked is prostitution a form of exploitation to be abolished or an occupation to be regulated? By decriminalizing prostitution, laws would protect prostitutes, enable prostitutes to prosecute for abuses, and finally, health concerns would be regulated. For decades, scholars have speculated why women would go freely into prostitution. There is a large difference in the education level among prostitutes. The average is sixth grade for streetwalkers; ninth grade for dancers/ prostitutes, the mean grade completed is ninth. (Usry, 1, p.85) Latent lesbianism, low intelligence, a home life of abuse, and desperate poverty head the list of possible reasons. Nevertheless, no one has been able to isolate a specific set of social factors that leads to prostitution. If in fact, prostitution is looked upon as another occupation, then why not create a win-win situation. Prostitutes would contribute monetarily to society and would have in return rights to health benefits and retirement would be ensured. According to the "World Charter for Prostitutes' Rights," prostitutes themselves believe that they should "pay regular taxes on the same basis as other independent contractors and employees, and should receive the same benefits." As well as being able to contribute to society, prostitutes will be safer under the umbrella of the law.(International Committee for Prostitutes Rights [ICPR], 000, p.40) One argument against prostitution is that women and children are forced into the sex trade. Although this can be true, especially in Asia and other third world countries, it should be noted, however, that most prostitutes do not consider themselves to be victims and claim to freely choose prostitution as their occupation.

One prostitute, in the book Vindication of the Rights of Whores insists, "They get hysterical about us! I am tired of all these people who lie all the time. It is not right to call prostitution a threat to humanity. It is ridiculous to mix up child prostitution, and slavery, and exploitation with us I am a free and conscious adult" (Pheterson, 18, p. 14). Serious crimes, such as child prostitution, are harder to monitor in the general climate of criminality. If an industry is unregulated and criminalized then it's going to be run by criminals. Legalization of prostitution will bring more safety, legitimacy and autonomy to the industry as a whole. Laws would distinguish between voluntary and forced prostitution. The pimp or brothel owner would be open to prosecution for abuses. Examples of violence, from the book A Vindication of Rights of Whores, tell of police providing no protection to prostitutes. Even when reports came to the police in Sydney, Australia, of "women being lassoed and dragged behind a car," and of women disappearing, police did nothing (Pheterson, 18, p.60). When these men finally killed a nurse who was an ex-beauty queen, the men were arrested in a matter of days. When prostitutes saw the three men accused in the paper, the women said "That's the guy, those are the men who have been committing violence against us" (Pheterson, 18, p.10). The Australian Prostitutes' Collective went to police and told them these men were responsible for the violence against them in the last few months. The attitude from the police was "Look, if these women weren't here in the first place, this sort of thing wouldn't happen" (Pheterson, 18, p.15) It is easy to see the contrast between the attitude of the police toward violence on all the street women and the murder of the one single woman. In a matter of days, after the murder of a beauty queen, the police had three men in custody.

There is a good deal of evidence to show that the amount of victimization prostitutes experience in the course of their work is very high. For example, according to The International Handbook on Trends, Problems and Policies, "Mimi Silbert's survey of 00 prostitutes in the San Francisco area indicates 70 percent of her sample were victimized by customers" who raped them or who went beyond the work contract. The majority of women have been victims of robbery, physical and verbal violence, and theft of service; "two�thirds of them claimed to have been beaten regularly by their pimps". "Seventy-eight percent reported being victimized by perversion an average of seventeen times each" (Davis, 1, p.0). Prostitutes can also be abused in similar ways by police officers and other officers of the court. In all these cases, prostitutes find it almost impossible to press their cases because of their vulnerability to prosecution and because of their lack of resources. If they do press their case, it is doubtful that they will be believed. For instance, it is often said a prostitute cannot be raped. Legalization would also allow officials to give up the farce of upholding anti-prostitution laws. According to a counsel person in New York, quoted in Whores in History Prostitution in Western Society, "the actual situation in this city is that prostitution is accepted by everyone police, judges, clerks, and lawyers. Arrest and prosecution are purely gestures that have to be made to keep up the façade of public morality" (Roberts, 1, p. 1). The first prostitute in the United States to speak publicly for rights of sex workers, Margo St James, states in A Vindication of the Rights of Whores, "By legalizing pornography and keeping prostitution illegal, the government legitimizes white men selling women's sexuality while criminalizing women for selling sex on their own terms" (Pheterson, 18, p. 5). Except for a few counties in Nevada, prostitution is illegal in the United States. However, there is a growing movement across the country to bring to this old profession certain rights and privileges that are already afforded the rest of the country. Following in the steps of Margo St James, a Palm Beach county woman is launching her own such crusade challenging the constitutionality of Florida's laws against prostitution. The woman, whose identity is confidential, is trying to follow in the path of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. "Government just has to get out of the bedroom," says Jane Roe II. She continues, "If Roe v. Wade gave women the right to privacy and the right to do with her body as she chooses, why isn't prostitution legal?" (Decker, 15, p.). Of course, this is a sensitive issue with the feminists in Florida sharply divided.

"Prostitution, whether by choice or not degrades women," says Shena Moss, president of the South Florida chapter of the National Organization for Women (Decker, 15, p. 4). However, Siobhan McLaughlin, the Florida State Director of NOW, supports Jane Roe II's arguments. In the same article, "Ex-Call Girl Tries to Legalize Prostitution" in the Christian Science Monitor, Ms.McLaughlin says, "Certainly if a woman decides on this career of engaging in the sex industry, that is essentially her business. If she's not being coerced, and if she has other options, then maybe in some ways she does find that empowering" (Decker, 15, p. 4). In fact, empowerment of prostitutes holds the greatest promise of the prevention of the spread of AIDS and venereal diseases. From the health point of view, it is surely self-evident that an open and above-board sex industry, in which workers are not stigmatized and outlawed, would be to the benefit of all concerned, prostitutes and clients alike. The state could and should provide health facilities for sex workers. Health advocates, quoted in Politics of Prostitution, argue that legalization allows prostitutes to work without fear and implement safety measures. Prostitution is a great health risk to the U.S. because of the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STD's). The U.S. Department of Health reports that -5% of the sexually transmitted disease in this country is related to prostitution. There are no statistics in the U.S. that prostitutes are vectors of the HIV virus. A small percentage of prostitutes may have HIV but there are no proven cases that a prostitute transferred this disease to one of there clients. (Lambert, 188) A major concern about STD's is the spread of AIDS, which is currently a deadly STD because a cure has not yet been found for the disease. The transmission of STD's is already on the rise due to many uneducated teenagers having unprotected sex. In addition, most of theses teens are not going to a physician to be screened for them. Because of this, many curable STD's are going untreated and being spread throughout a community. Prostitution only adds to this problem because prostitutes have sexual contact on a daily basis, and rarely have themselves screened for STD's. Most of the time, prostitutes will not go to a doctor because they cannot afford it, they are too afraid, and/or they just do not want to deal with it. Unfortunately, simply ignoring the problem does not make it go away. Studies have shown that since the requirement for legal prostitutes in Nevada to use condoms, the cases of venereal disease have dramatically decreased to the point of being nearly nonexistent (Bastedo, 1). In Nevada, prostitutes are required to register with the state. These prostitutes are required to appear twice a week at a special clinic to be examined for venereal diseases. This health supervision and care of prostitutes, including hospitalization when necessary, is borne entirely by the state. Although some rules the prostitutes have to endure are excessive, such as not being able to go into town during the week and not being allowed to have relationships with anyone outside of the brothel, Nevada has managed to control the prostitution issue (Bastedo, 1).

With prostitution being illegal, many violent crimes against prostitutes go unreported every year. Prostitutes are often too frightened to report the crime to police. Most of the time, the crimes perpetuator is a pimp or a client. Several of the crimes committed against prostitutes include robbery, kidnapping, rape, battery, and/or homicide. The current system, where prostitution is repressed but not substantially punished, is clearly not working. ). Many citizens feel that police efforts should be directed towards more serious crimes, such as drug trafficking. With the cost of court fees, enforcement, and jail housing for the convicted prostitutes, some citizens are beginning to wonder if the government is approaching the problem correctly. "The average arrest, court and incarceration costs amount to nearly $000.00 per arrest. Cities spend an average of 7.5 million dollars on prostitution control every year, ranging from 1 million dollars (Memphis) to million dollars (New York)" (Pearl, 187 p. 76). Society should learn from other countries that have decriminalized adult sex work, yet resist street prostitution. Another benefit of legal prostitution is the reduction of violent crimes. Almost all brothels located in Nevada provide security for their workers. This creates a safe working environment for the prostitutes. Crimes against prostitutes such as robbery, kidnapping, rape, battery, and/or homicide are greatly reduced. Security is not only for the prostitutes, but it is also for the customers. This decreases the chances of prostitutes rolling their clients. Other countries, such as Germany, have shown that decriminalization and even legitimized prostitution can work under specific circumstances. State regulation has reduced prostitution-related crime and venereal diseases, and it has even increased state revenues, as prostitutes and brothels have to pay income taxes. If prostitutes were to be taxed like any other place of business, millions of extra revenue dollars would become available to the government, for it to spend as it sees fit. Although the monetary concerns are overwhelming one of the most debated issues is the health and safety of prostitution. Government regulation would also mean the elimination of pimps. Street prostitutes are normally controlled by a pimp, who usually keeps the prostitute dependent on drugs so that he or she can control the amount of money that the prostitute makes. While many critics may maintain that prostitution is immoral and unethical, the issue cannot be denied. Prostitution happens all over the world and in most cities. A great deal of money and time is spent attempting to stop illegal prostitution. When a prostitute is picked up by the police, she or he usually spends a night in jail, goes to court, pays a fine, serves a short time in jail and/or completes community service. Then, the prostitute is released and is back on the streets in no time. If prostitution were to be decriminalized, the profession of prostitution could become a healthy, publicly sanctioned place of business.

An experiment of decriminalization is worth the risk, however regulation would be necessary. It is important to stress that prostitution legislation reform needs to go hand and hand with other social policy reforms, including the female poverty problem and child welfare. Unfortunately, the fact remains that a politician's support for the decriminalization of prostitution would be political suicide. Public opinion does not bode well for any politician who is perceived to be soft on crime, much less someone that is a supporter of prostitution. One can only hope that political courage and public education will allow reform to occur. The benefits to both the prostitute and society are hard to ignore. By the decriminalization of prostitution, the life of sex workers will be greatly improved because legal workers are more able to resist exploitation and to report offenses committed against them. They will be able to access health, welfare and legal resources. Society will have greater say in their health habits and regulation will be possible. Society as a whole will be safer, just as a restaurant will lose its reputation and eventually its license if the food isn't fresh and health codes aren't met so will the free market regulate health standards of working women. Prostitution cannot be judged using preconceived notions, but rather by viewing all of the facts and determining logistically whether or not prostitutes are receiving lawful treatment. The answer to this question is that they are not. Prostitution in the 0th century in Western society is an illegal act which if were to be legalized would profit and preserve not only the prostitutes but society as a whole. Legalizing prostitution is economically profitable for governments in dire need of resources. The anti-prostitution laws which are intended to help the prostitutes and society, instead force prostitution underground and without these laws prostitution could become a clean and safe occupation. Present day prostitution laws are unconstitutional and should be abolished because of their unconstitutional nature. Prostitution and prostitutes are issues that few individuals have taken the time to fully understand, and so the issues are misunderstood and their voices go unheard. Some issues, like prostitution, have been around for thousands of years and will never go away.

Nowadays, peoples minds are more and more open, and it is believed that the advanced technology will enhance the protections against AIDS and other diseases and with the possible savings from law enforcement the consideration of decriminalization of prostitution begins to seem possible. Prostitution is an issue which has caused controversy cross-culturally and historically and which has many individuals reexamining the logistics of it. If prostitution is decriminalized it will become economically profitable and feasible for not only the prostitutes, but also western society as a whole. Without the 0th century western laws, which force prostitution underground, the profession of prostitution could become a clean and safe occupation. Prostitution is one of the oldest professions in the world and should be legalized in the United States like it has been in other countries.

Reference

Bastedo, M. (1, May 1). The politics of prostitution. www.toptown.com. Retrieved April 0, 00, from the World Wide Web http//www.toptown.com/hp/MIKEYB/prosfem.htm

Committee for Prostitutes Rights (000, January 5;). World Charter for Prostitutes Rights. www.walnet.org. Retrieved April , 00 from the World Wide Web http//www.walnet.org/csis/groups/icpr_charter.html

Davis, N. J. (1). Prostitution An International Handbook Trends, Problems, and Policies. Westport, CT Greenwood Press.

Decker, J. P. (15). Ex-call girl tries to legalize prostitution. Christian Science Monitor, 6, p. .

Holland, B. (18, March). The Long Good-Bye. Smithsonian Magazine, 86, p.1. www.smithsonianmag.si.edu. Retrieved April 5, 00 from the World Wide Web http//www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues8/mar8/divorce.html

Institute for First Amendment Studies (16, July 16). National divorce statistics. www.ifas.org. Retrieved April 6,00 from the World Wide Web http//www.ifas.org/fw/607/statistics.html

Lambert, B. (188, September 0). AIDS in Prostitutes, Not as Prevalent as Believed. New York Times, , pp. 7, , 17.

Pearl, J. (187, April). The Highest Paying Customers. Hastings Law Journal, , p. 76.

Pheterson, G. (18). A Vindication of the Rights of Whores (1st ed.). Seattle, WA The Seal Press.

Roberts, N. (1). Prostitution in Western London. London, England HarperCollins.

Usry, B. (1). Sisterhood of the Night (5th ed.). Far Hills, NJ New Horizon Press.

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