Is there anything wrong or shameful about prostitution?

[Rezzy]

2 hours ago, Rex Glacies said:

Assisted suicide, yes I guess that's what I meant. But my point was that the initial statement was "It's OK if both people are willing," and I was asking if that logic applied to anything else presently illegal, such as murder.

So, I guess my initial question remains - are things such as murder justifiable if both parties are willing?

Perhaps you could start another topic for that, since to give that the proper attention, it would derail the thread so far the train would go into the next time zone.

[Shoblongoo]

6 hours ago, Rezzy said:

As Mr Spock once said, "I do not approve.  I understand."

Wise words.

7 hours ago, Lushen said:

If it were legal and regulated, how would it be regulated?

 Personally, I think there's a clear distinction between someone who is 70+ hiring an 18-year-old prostitute and someone in their twenties doing so.  The 70+ year old is a creep.  Should customer-service be regulated so they are within certain age brackets?

 

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

I wouldn't fault a brothel for firing an employee who refuses to sleep with certain clients. If they have qualms with sleeping with people they don't find attractive then they're in the wrong line of work.

 

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think there's something immensely problematic about "have sex with this person or you'll be fired". I feel like a "make at least $X per month or you'll be fired" would be a far more sensible model, since it would give prostitutes freedom to refuse the more egregious cases. But I haven't studied how this actually works in places where it's fully legal, so I dunno, maybe somebody else should weigh in on this point.

....so something to bare in mind as we work through these "hypotheticals" is that these are not novel questions of law previously unencountered by our jurisprudence, and which the current law is uniquely unequipped to contend with.

The production and distribution of pornographic films--which is completely legal and has been for quite some time now--regularly confronts these issues. There is an accompanying, well-settled body of law governing how they go about it.    
 
I have a little bit of insight into how this works, because a few years back I actually had an amateur pornstar for a client. The firm I was working for at the time represented her in a labor dispute against her employer; a certain adult film company that shall herein not-be-named. (Nothing too terrible. It was a straightforward breach-of-contract case.)

As part of my work on the case, I became privy to certain business records and internal documents from the adult film company. Most notably--for the purposes of this discussion--their employment contracts and scope-of-work agreements with their "actresses."

The way they were doing it was they had a contract. The contract had a checklist of things that the company wanted to put in their films (i.e. all the category tags you would find on a standard porn site). Next to each item on the list was two columns: [agree to perform] and [do not agree to perform]. The actress to-be-hired would check off one of those columns next to each item.

...that was the agreed upon scope-of-work...

And then the amount the company agreed to pay the actress scaled to the scope-of-work she had agreed to perform.

So one woman may check off [agree to perform] for the three most basic items on the list: (1) masturbate on camera; (2) perform oral sex on a man; (3) have vaginal intercourse with a man. She may stipulate that the man must be white and under the age of 40--she does not consent to interracial sex or sex with an older man. She may stipulate that she does not consent to having sex with multiple men at the same time. She may stipulate that she does not consent to having sex with a woman. She may stipulate that she does not consent to anal sex. She may stipulate that she does not consent to being choked, spanked, flogged, bound-and-gagged, etc.

For this limited scope-of-work, the production company may agree to pay her $800 per film. Because she is doing less valuable work for the company, and is considered a less valuable employee.

Another woman may check off [agree to perform] for absolutely everything. Any age. Any race. Any sex. Any number of partners. Any form of penetration. Any fetish. w/e

For this greater scope-of-work, the production company may agree to pay her $2,600 per film. Because she is doing more valuable work for the company, and is considered a more valuable employee.

This strikes a balance between protecting both the rights of the actresses and the business interests of the industry.

The actresses are protected because once they enter a signed written contract with checked items of [do not agree to perform]--that's it--the terms are binding upon the production company. She cannot be forced to perform those acts as a condition of continued employment or receipt of agreed-upon payment. And if someone tries to do it to her anyway--that's sexual assault. She can bring charges. Its in writing that she didn't consent to those acts.

The business interests of the industry are protected because they can still provide strong payment incentives for actresses to agree to a more expansive scope-of-work. And because they can terminate employees for-cause or withhold payment, if an actress refuses to perform an act that she agreed to perform in her contract.
_____

...this can all be applied to prostitution. Have an express-written employment contract between the prostitute and the brothel. Put a negotiated scope-of-work and corresponding tier of payment in its terms. Explicitly put it in the contract when the prostitute has the right to refuse service, without breaching the terms of her employment.  Explicitly put in the contract when the prostitute can be fired for-cause.

And have any labor disputes later arising be adjudicated under applicable principles of contract law.








 

Edited October 27, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Rex Glacies]

32 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

Perhaps you could start another topic for that, since to give that the proper attention, it would derail the thread so far the train would go into the next time zone.

I was trying to use that logic - saying its OK if the two parties are willing - to refute the claim that prostitution is OK. Many times I have seen arguments of "Well, if it doesn't affect you, then why should you care?" or "If they're both OK with it, then what right do I have to judge?" and I don't understand them. Take my initial example of assisted suicide. If prostitution is OK when the participants agree with it, then surely murder is OK when the participants agree with it, correct? I mean, their actions don't affect us. They were both willing to participate. Does this mean that murder is moral in these circumstances? Or any other potential crime, for that matter?

[Rezzy]

10 minutes ago, Rex Glacies said:

I was trying to use that logic - saying its OK if the two parties are willing - to refute the claim that prostitution is OK. Many times I have seen arguments of "Well, if it doesn't affect you, then why should you care?" or "If they're both OK with it, then what right do I have to judge?" and I don't understand them. Take my initial example of assisted suicide. If prostitution is OK when the participants agree with it, then surely murder is OK when the participants agree with it, correct? I mean, their actions don't affect us. They were both willing to participate. Does this mean that murder is moral in these circumstances? Or any other potential crime, for that matter?

In a word, yes.  Maybe our resident lawyer can weight in, but killing a person is not always murder.  If a person is killed by accident, it might be manslaughter, or even non prosecutable, if the victim brought it about themselves.  The definition of murder need not always apply to the killing of a person, but only when there is malicious intent to end another's life.

If a party is suffering to the point they want to die, I think it is acceptable to help them end their life.  You get into a gray area, where a person might be having a psychotic episode or not be in their right mind, and therefor can't give consent, but if someone has a terminal illness and just wants to die to end the pain, I don't think the government should stand in the way of that.

Now the train is shaking a bit, but I think it should stay on the tracks, though another swift wind might knock that sucker right off the rails.

[Rex Glacies]

30 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

In a word, yes.  Maybe our resident lawyer can weight in, but killing a person is not always murder.  If a person is killed by accident, it might be manslaughter, or even non prosecutable, if the victim brought it about themselves.  The definition of murder need not always apply to the killing of a person, but only when there is malicious intent to end another's life.

If a party is suffering to the point they want to die, I think it is acceptable to help them end their life.  You get into a gray area, where a person might be having a psychotic episode or not be in their right mind, and therefor can't give consent, but if someone has a terminal illness and just wants to die to end the pain, I don't think the government should stand in the way of that.

Now the train is shaking a bit, but I think it should stay on the tracks, though another swift wind might knock that sucker right off the rails.

I understand that murder can be legally justified in certain circumstances, and I do understand that some people are in such pain that death may be better, but that wasn't my point. My point was refuting the claim that "It's OK if the participants are willing," and I was using the example of murder (a universally acknowledged crime, as opposed to prostitution) to show that while people may be willing to do something, that doesn't mean it is morally right or should be legal.

... All those questions were rhetorical, by the way. I thought it was obvious, but maybe I should have clarified.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Rex Glacies

[Shoblongoo]

14 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

In a word, yes.  Maybe our resident lawyer can weight in, but killing a person is not always murder.  If a person is killed by accident, it might be manslaughter, or even non prosecutable, if the victim brought it about themselves.  The definition of murder need not always apply to the killing of a person, but only when there is malicious intent to end another's life.

If a party is suffering to the point they want to die, I think it is acceptable to help them end their life.  You get into a gray area, where a person might be having a psychotic episode or not be in their right mind, and therefor can't give consent, but if someone has a terminal illness and just wants to die to end the pain, I don't think the government should stand in the way of that.

Now the train is shaking a bit, but I think it should stay on the tracks, though another swift wind might knock that sucker right off the rails.

I agree with pretty much everything you just said. A lengthy explanation of the reasons why would be the final nail in the derailment coffin, so I'll save that for another thread if one is made.

For the record: you don't NEED [malicious intent] for murder. [Willful indifference] and [reckless disregard] get you there.

A drunk driver who swerves onto the sidewalk and fatally hits a crowd of pedestrians has no malicious intent towards his victim. He's still going to get hit with murder charges.

[Rezzy]

15 minutes ago, Rex Glacies said:

I understand that murder can be legally justified in certain circumstances, and I do understand that some people are in such pain that death may be better, but that wasn't my point. My point was refuting the claim that "It's OK if the participants are willing," and I was using the example of murder (a universally acknowledged crime, as opposed to prostitution) to show that while people may be willing to do something, that doesn't mean it is morally right or should be legal.

... All those questions were rhetorical, by the way. I thought it was obvious, but maybe I should have clarified.

I suppose my answer to that hypothetical would be to reject the premise.  If both parties consent, it is not murder, but assisted suicide.

If one party is not in their right mind, they can't give consent.

It's a bit of a circular diagnosis if you don't have a terminal illness for wanting to die.  If you want to kill yourself, you must not be of a sound mind, and you must not have a sound mind, because you want to kill yourself.

In my field, having suicidal behavior is a big red flag by itself.  Mentally healthy people simply don' want to die, so consensual murder simply can't happen unless it is assisted suicide for the terminally ill, and at that point, it is no longer murder, at least by the classical connotation.

11 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

I agree with pretty much everything you just said. A lengthy explanation of the reasons why would be the final nail in the derailment coffin, so I'll save that for another thread if one is made.

For the record: you don't NEED [malicious intent] for murder. [Willful indifference] and [reckless disregard] get you there.

A drunk driver who swerves onto the sidewalk and fatally hits a crowd of pedestrians has no malicious intent towards his victim. He's still going to get hit with murder charges.

True

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

....so something to bare in mind as we work through these "hypotheticals" is that these are not novel questions of law previously unencountered by our jurisprudence, and which the current law is uniquely unequipped to contend with.
[snip]

And have any labor disputes later arising be adjudicated under applicable principles of contract law.








 

I imagine the client would need to sign a contract too. Which would mean with all those  contract and violation possibility from so many different parties, legalizing prostitution could be a gold mine for lawyers.

[Lushen]

18 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

<snip>

Interesting.  That would make sense here as well.  Does current law when it comes to pornography prevent the "classical liberal v conservative" argument I referenced earlier regarding how white females are paid significantly more than, say, Hispanic males?  I could see this as being an issue because it goes against income equality very directly but it is also foolish to assume that everyone should have the same racial preference.  Let's be honest, humans are not perfect and almost all of us have certain racial preferences when it comes to sexuality.