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Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

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Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#61

Post by shadowfox »

patio11 wrote: post #21

I hear quite often that prostitution would be a wonderfully pleasant industry if it were only legal, which does not square with the experiences of countries where it is legal or tolerated. You pretty much have to be running schoolgirls out of homeroom to get the Nagoya police to so much as glance in your direction, but Japanese prostitution is a very, very ugly place to be, and much of it is based on trafficking. I l…

> You always have the option as a merchant of sex slaves to one-up what the "morally upright prostitutes" allow, safe in the knowledge that they will cover for you because an investigation into what you are doing harms their business interests

Out of curiosity, why would they cover for you? Isnt it in their best interests to not allow sub-legal tactics to ruin their income?

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#62

Post by pessimizer »

johnrob wrote: post #44
patio11 wrote: post #21

I hear quite often that prostitution would be a wonderfully pleasant industry if it were only legal, which does not square with the experiences of countries where it is legal or tolerated. You pretty much have to be running schoolgirls out of homeroom to get the Nagoya police to so much as glance in your direction, but Japanese prostitution is a very, very ugly place to be, and much of it is based on trafficking. I l…

It's capitalism - not prostitution - that is based, root and branch, on exploitation.

Completely agreed. Why would there be either an elimination or explosion of either sex-trafficing or child sex exploitation if prostitution is brought into the fold of legitimate commerce? Sewing shirts is legal, yet we still have sweatshops in America full of immigrants with limited communication skills and limited options forced into labor with illegally low compensation and dangerous working conditions. The more secure and more knowledgeable will always be in a position to exploit the less secure and the less knowledgeable. This is the basic operation of capitalism.

I think the question is do we ban manufacturing or agriculture because of the exploitation rife in both industries? Or do we set minimum standards as a society for the treatment and compensation of labor and the ability of minors to consent to labor, and treat violations of those standards as criminal behavior to be punished? Why is sex so special that we can't find a standard to apply?

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#63

Post by derefr »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #19
derefr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the perspective of the police force, prostitution being illegal is 1% moral uptightness, and 99% pragmatism. Having prostitution be a misdemeanor helps catch people in the act of other, more serious crimes, as the "crime" of prostitution justifies search warrants to otherwise-unassailable places. It's a workaround for a permissions issue, basically, and has no ethical justification.

>It's a workaround for a permissions issue, basically, and has no ethical justification. I think you mean no ethical justification that you agree with. For example, take as an axiom "sex should only be allowed between partners in long term monandrous relationships" and it follows logically from there. This is an ethical justification. You just apparently disagree with the premise. Most theistic ethical systems have s…

If you're starting with complex axioms like

> "sex should only be allowed between partners in long term monandrous relationships"

then what you've got is a moral justification, not an ethical one.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#64

Post by derefr »

TGJ wrote: post #43
raganwald wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am struggling with the notion of a country that will defend to the death the rights of its citizens to purchase guns and use hateful speech, but simultaneously attack sex with such fundamentalist zeal. I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance.

The country defends the right to speech, whether you are hateful with it or not is your choice. The country defends the right of guns to remind the government that the population is armed and willing to stand up to oppressive regimes. Proliferation of sex outside of the family unit, destroys the family unit. Seems straight forward to me.

Why does the government care about defending "the family unit?" That's not its job.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#65

Post by sliverstorm »

korch wrote: post #27
sliverstorm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> send one hundred or more paid lobbyists to DC. With what money? Not only does Craigslist not really have any profitable business interests to protect, but they don't have the money to do that even if they wanted to.

Craigslist makes over $100 million a year. And they have just 60 or so employees. And I bet they have dirt cheap fixed costs. The website hasn't fucking changed in a decade, and it's more popular than ever! They're probably the Internet company with the highest profit margins! Craiglist is the fucking showcase example of Metcalfe's law. But like bank robbers who foolishly think they wouldn't get caught on the 10th ro…

Ok, I didn't realize they make that much money, but looking into it they still seem to make $0 from personals, so why would they hire a hundred lobbyists to protect their $0 source of income?

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#66

Post by weeksie »

patio11 wrote: post #55
weeksie wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't paint every country with the same brush. In Australia it's legal and regulated. Sure, there are dodgy brothels (usually the asian ones) but the normal ones are mostly college girls who are earning a bunch of extra cash.

Sure, there are dodgy brothels There are "dodgy" brothels like the American South had "dodgy" cotton plantations in the 19th century. the normal ones are mostly college girls who are earning a bunch of extra cash This is a myth which society uses to let it sleep at night about them. (The same myth is widely held about strippers in the United States, and is equally false there.) Prostitution, nice clean business, step…

You should probably add the row Diploma to the Degree row since in Australia it is very common to get a trade certification rather than attend a typical 4 year school, where most Americans would get a Bachelor's degree for something like communications Aussies will do a shorter certification. If you do that, the totals for brothel workers and private (callgirl) prostitutes are not that bad at all.

The main problem is enforcement though, the illegal brothels are the ones that cause problems. Making the industry illegal would just put more women at risk as it would remove regulation and oversight. There's not a country in the world where you can't find a prostitute, despite it being illegal in most places.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#67

Post by jawngee »

patio11 wrote: post #21

I hear quite often that prostitution would be a wonderfully pleasant industry if it were only legal, which does not square with the experiences of countries where it is legal or tolerated. You pretty much have to be running schoolgirls out of homeroom to get the Nagoya police to so much as glance in your direction, but Japanese prostitution is a very, very ugly place to be, and much of it is based on trafficking. I l…

Amsterdam allows pimps (I believe someone mentioned this below) which contributes directly to their particular woes.

Prostitution is illegal in Japan.

It's not really a question if legalizing it will end exploitation, it's a question of legalizing activity between two consenting parties, and with it being legal, better affording protection from exploitation. In other words, licensed and regulated prostitution is a better tool to fight human trafficking and exploitation than keeping it illegal.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#68

Post by jawngee »

patio11 wrote: post #55
weeksie wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't paint every country with the same brush. In Australia it's legal and regulated. Sure, there are dodgy brothels (usually the asian ones) but the normal ones are mostly college girls who are earning a bunch of extra cash.

Sure, there are dodgy brothels There are "dodgy" brothels like the American South had "dodgy" cotton plantations in the 19th century. the normal ones are mostly college girls who are earning a bunch of extra cash This is a myth which society uses to let it sleep at night about them. (The same myth is widely held about strippers in the United States, and is equally false there.) Prostitution, nice clean business, step…

You keep quoting numbers, but you never talk about why those numbers exist.

In Queensland, the reason that number is so high is because the government has made it very hard and very expensive for brothels to go legal, and the majority that do go broke. It is more profitable to run an illegal one, than it is to operate a legal one. So though you are statistically correct, your reasoning is not.

Additionally, your own myth about strippers is demonstrably false. I know this because I used to be married to one and was involved in that scene on a personal level for many, many years. Here in NYC, some girls pull six figures. My ex-wife did. At one point she was making more than I was. While prostitution of some variety does exist in the legal strip clubs in NYC, it still was a relatively small number of women. Most of the girls that I've met and interacted with, which probably numbers in the 100's, fell into four broad categories: college students, party girls, single mothers and poorly educated immigrants. I would call none of them victims, nor would I ever call them exploited. Most of them are very shrewd, very business minded and are capitalizing on the only resources really afforded to them given their individual situations. In fact, the only sadness I feel about the entire thing is for the lonely men lining up to swallow whole the illusion that within the walls of these places they are wanted, sexually attractive, etc. It is pretty depressing to watch.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#69

Post by protomyth »

thailandstartup wrote: post #10
thailandstartup wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100% - in the unregulated environment, the real evils of sex-traffiking and prostitution of minors exist side-by-side with quasi-legal adult prostitution. Properly regulated brothels don't have traffiked workers or minors, do have STD testing and are safer for the workers and the johns. As with drugs, many of the problems are created by prohibition, and those who insist on prohibition are responsible for the…

Interestingly, the one area where prohibition works very well is prohibition on firearms, but this is not a popular prohibition in the US.

North Dakota in 2008 had 2 murders (both by stabbing) and has a pretty high percentage of the population owning guns. People who look at the "how" in political matter instead of the "why" really bug me and do not serve society well. People who want to kill others will find a means.

// I have a cousin who would not be alive today if he didn't have a gun in his youth (damn city people dropping off dogs after they are no longer cute)

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#70

Post by yummyfajitas »

kelnos wrote: post #56
thailandstartup wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gun_owners... Countries that have prohibitions on firearms have fewer firearms. It's a huge difference in the numbers and that's an example of prohibition working. I don't know that countries that have prohibitions on drugs reduce drug taking by the same amount, or countries with prohibitions on prostitution reduces prostitution by a similar amount. Mexico is an outli…

> Countries that have prohibitions on firearms have fewer firearms. It's a huge difference in the numbers and that's an example of prohibition working. Who cares? You're working from a premise that having fewer firearms is a good thing. I'm not going to say I disagree, but I'm not sure I agree either. The real metric is whether or not firearm-related crimes are significantly reduced in countries where there are prohi…

The real metric is whether or not firearm-related crimes are significantly reduced in countries where there are prohibitions on firearms.

No, the real metric is whether or not firearms cause a net increase in the amount/severity of crimes - firearm crimes are not the only relevant ones.

There are all sorts of factors which make it a tricky question. Deterrence (burglar is afraid to rob a house, since homeowners might shoot him) is a fairly big effect. Substitution (criminal 1 wants to kill criminal 2, since no guns are around he uses a knife) are some of the biggies. If criminals stab 20 people instead of shooting 15, that's not a good thing.

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