[RD] Prostitution

[EgonSpengler]

I agree that decriminalization or legalization will probably result in the activity increasing, but it isn't the activity that's the problem, per se. On the contrary, the legal status of prostitution makes it hard(er) for sex workers to get medical care and law enforcement protection, and empowers violent parasites like pimps, drug dealers, and slavers. If there's anything good that comes from making prostitution illegal, I don't what it is.

 

[red_elk]

Right, we have to define what we consider negative consequences - the behavior itself, or some problematic outcomes of it. Because if we want to reduce the activity no matter what, there's obviously no need to legalize it. But I believe that's not what most of people want.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Right, we have to define what we consider negative consequences - the behavior itself, or some problematic outcomes of it. Because if we want to reduce the activity no matter what, there's obviously no need to legalize it. But I believe that's not what most of people want.

Yes, I agree. Furthermore, legalization alone wouldn't correct all the problems, which is why regulation is almost always the next word out of people's mouths. Tobacco, alcohol, and gambling are obvious things to look at for some guidance. There's also some parallels with certain types of performances, like strippers and pornography. None of those things is free from lice, but I see no evidence at all that anything would be better if they were made illegal.

Another thing economic theory tells us, along with "activity will increase if it's legal", is that consumers will tend to choose the legal, regulated version over the illegal, anarchic version where both are available, mostly out of self-interest. And I think that usually works out in reality, not just in theory. Therefore, most of the violent pimps and slavers wouldn't even need to be caught by law enforcement, they'd simply go out of business. Of course there'd still be some illegal activity, but I think making a lot of sex work legal would help law enforcement catch the pimps, pedophiles and slavers who persist.

 

[Arwon]

From the NZ parliamentary library

Abstract: "Research suggests that the Prostitution Reform Act has had little impact on the number of people working in the sex industry."

In NSW the Kirby Institute researchers came up with about 3000 sex workers active in Sydney which they report is comparable with numbers from the 1980s before decriminalisation in 1995.

The Kirby people for the record ran their study in three cities with different laws - Perth (criminalised) Melbourne (licensing that leaves most sex workers criminalised) and Sydney (decriminalisation). They naturally found much better health and engagement with outreach services in Sydney. They also describe the sizes of the industries in each city as commensurate with population. As natural experiments go, Australian federalism gives us a pretty good one.

These are the two actual jurisdictions globally that have decriminalised and not merely selectively legalised the industry.

 

[Arwon]

Also regarding old mate back there's "basic economic theory". Do you know what in theory happens to supply of labour when the price a service obtains goes down?

If legal repression creates a premium and demand is inelastic, it could easily be the case that illegality attracts more people into the industry than would be willing to supply labour at a lower price under decriminalisation, each working less. And that under decriminalisation there'd instead be less people, working more, to meet the same fairly static demand.

(This is leaving aside that preferring a smaller but more unsafe, unhealthy and oppressed population of sex workers is a cruel and stupid policy anyway of course)

 

[Cutlass]

One thing people have to understand about the sex industry is this: There is not a single damned thing which can be done to stop it. So, since it can't be stopped, how do we best mitigate the problem? Doing so requires that it be legal and in the full light of day.

 

[innonimatu]

I must object to trying to apply "basic economic theory" to sex.

Sex is not some kind of factory-produced commodity. Not is it an objectively measurable service, like painting a wall or producing an artifact. If you want to compare it with anything else that is bought and sold, compare it to art. Its production and its assessment are intrinsically idiosyncratic. There can be no rules for "value assessment", and any rough consensus that emerges is temporary, a succession of fads that exhaust themselves as they become "common" and "old". And sex, unlike art, cannot be preserved and resold, it is a performance thing. Each instance is one-of-a-kind to the participants even if it can be fit into "types".

Economic theory in itself (the reduction of social like to "the market") is wrong, bit it is especially wrong when it gets applied to activities such as art - or sex! "Sex work" is not that simple. It is not an industry and the tidy rules of supply and demand do not apply. Side by side with the "sex market" is "free sex" for the offering, also: what industry produces stuff that is usually, mostly, given for free everywhere?

 

[Old Hippy]

The Kirby people for the record ran their study in three cities with different laws - Perth (criminalised) Melbourne (licensing that leaves most sex workers criminalised) and Sydney (decriminalisation). They naturally found much better health and engagement with outreach services in Sydney. They also describe the sizes of the industries in each city as commensurate with population. As natural experiments go, Australian federalism gives us a pretty good one.

These are the two actual jurisdictions globally that have decriminalised and not merely selectively legalised the industry.

I had not read the Kirby report before.

that's interesting, I will have to read more. Coming from Melbourne I naturally did not know about what Sydney had done. I also have a strong interest in prostitution (?), living in an area undergoing 'gentrification' and renowned for sex work, I even took part in round table debates with the local sex workers trying to come to a compromise about basically town planning issues and have helped set up a local drop-in centre with outreach to help solve other problems sex workers encounter along with Tim Costello. When he was mayor here, and was running his Friday night street tours to bring locals and sex workers into dialogue on the issues affecting each group, but with our council area having been amalgamated into a larger one, things have gone down hill with different attitudes now in charge
I will have to send it around to a few others .... thanks

 

[Cutlass]

I must object to trying to apply "basic economic theory" to sex.

Sex is not some kind of factory-produced commodity. Not is it an objectively measurable service, like painting a wall or producing an artifact. If you want to compare it with anything else that is bought and sold, compare it to art. Its production and its assessment are intrinsically idiosyncratic. There can be no rules for "value assessment", and any rough consensus that emerges is temporary, a succession of fads that exhaust themselves as they become "common" and "old". And sex, unlike art, cannot be preserved and resold, it is a performance thing. Each instance is one-of-a-kind to the participants even if it can be fit into "types".

Economic theory in itself (the reduction of social like to "the market") is wrong, bit it is especially wrong when it gets applied to activities such as art - or sex! "Sex work" is not that simple. It is not an industry and the tidy rules of supply and demand do not apply. Side by side with the "sex market" is "free sex" for the offering, also: what industry produces stuff that is usually, mostly, given for free everywhere?

If everyone could get all the sex they wanted for free, no one would pay for it. But people do pay for it, and that proves that people can't get all that they want for free.

 

[Arwon]

I think this is a subset of "labour markets are weird" to be honest.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Sex is not some kind of factory-produced commodity. Not is it an objectively measurable service, like painting a wall or producing an artifact. If you want to compare it with anything else that is bought and sold, compare it to art. Its production and its assessment are intrinsically idiosyncratic. There can be no rules for "value assessment", and any rough consensus that emerges is temporary, a succession of fads that exhaust themselves as they become "common" and "old". And sex, unlike art, cannot be preserved and resold, it is a performance thing. Each instance is one-of-a-kind to the participants even if it can be fit into "types".

There are plenty of other services which don't produce definite "products", or which don't require much (or anything) in the means of raw materials to provide. Garden maintainance services or carwashes spring to mind. These are services you require occasionally which produce no tangible lasting artefact where you're essentially buying someone else's labour. I'm pretty sure those kinds of jobs would fit into any basic economic theory just fine. There's no real need to compare it to some sort of artistic performance.

 

[Old Hippy]

There are plenty of other services which don't produce definite "products", or which don't require much (or anything) in the means of raw materials to provide. Garden maintainance services or carwashes spring to mind. These are services you require occasionally which produce no tangible lasting artefact where you're essentially buying someone else's labour. I'm pretty sure those kinds of jobs would fit into any basic economic theory just fine. There's no real need to compare it to some sort of artistic performance.

why not; the best would be earning high incomes and have property portfolios comparable with doctors and lawyers, send their kids to the best schools
Why the need to make them appear only deserving of low entry level job pay when some are artisans of their profession who could earn more in a week than some workers earn in a year

just ask Heidi Fleiss or Charlie sheen

 

[innonimatu]

There are plenty of other services which don't produce definite "products", or which don't require much (or anything) in the means of raw materials to provide. Garden maintainance services or carwashes spring to mind. These are services you require occasionally which produce no tangible lasting artefact where you're essentially buying someone else's labour. I'm pretty sure those kinds of jobs would fit into any basic economic theory just fine. There's no real need to compare it to some sort of artistic performance.

One of the dirty secrets of basic economic theory is that it is very bad at dealing with labour. Still, some times of labour have been more amenable to the dealings of economists than others. It is relatively easily to make up metrics to measure the productivity of a car washer or a gardener, as evidenced by the fact that there's not much variation in price between hiring any given car washer A or car washer B.
But how do you measure the productivity of a prostitute? There you will find big variations, "the market" is a hard one to analyze. But hey, perhaps that's a fault to be remedied by state-regulated brothels, offering a list of forms of standardized sex? It has been done - just one more aspect of reducing life to commodities.

 

[Hygro]

You can measure the productivity by income earned.

 

[innonimatu]

You can measure the productivity by income earned.

Ah yes, I forgot how much in ****ooland current economics lies.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

why not; the best would be earning high incomes and have property portfolios comparable with doctors and lawyers, send their kids to the best schools
Why the need to make them appear only deserving of low entry level job pay when some are artisans of their profession who could earn more in a week than some workers earn in a year

That wasn't my point at all, I was just saying that it's still work like any other work and that you can find examples of other such work to directly compare it to. It isn't some special artistic expression that defies economic analysis. And I never said anything about pay at all, let alone the kind of pay it "deserves". I fear you may be projecting your own opinions of gardeners and car washers here

 

[Hygro]

Ah yes, I forgot how much in ****ooland current economics lies.

I'm serious. This is an example in which income earned is a good measure of overall productivity. Repeat customers, word of mouth, advertising, price premiums are all evidence of a "productive" sex worker—one whose product drives quantity or quality of sex purchased. You can't particularly measure an individual performance but you can measure them in aggregate.

 

[innonimatu]

Ok, I didn't intend for the conversation to drift to the issue of how labour is evaluated in economic theory - that would make a different thread! Was just trying to point out that sex is not among the things most amenable to attempts at economic analysis. You man "measure" anything if you are free to set the parameters and make the evaluation; it's just a matter of making up the rules and slicing the reality to fit into categories with indexes associated; it doesn't make it less subjective.

 

[Verbose]

I tend to think as long as everyone is in agreement any kind of commodification is fine, then sex work is not a problem.

Question is if there still might be aspects of life that shouldn't be commodified like that?

Potentially part of the problem with sex, since it seems kind of in-built, is that commodification of it also commodifies vulnerability (actually on both sides of the transaction) to an extent in the process? (On the other hand that IS likely in favour of the argument that the sex workers should be a licensed profession, holding itself to the higherst code of standards.)

But sex work is one of these weird situation where it is testified from inside the business, that what customers often pay premium rates for is not the kind of expertise that comes with experience. In fact, it's the reverse, the rank beginners first offerings that goes top prices — is if there's some kind of quality there being used up. Which would seem to be because what the customer is paying for is not altogether clear. Obviously they pay for a certain experience. Except again, it would seem by its very nature, the customer is paying possibly less for the external manipulation of body parts, and more for what goes on in his or her head. (Which would be why it seemingly involves such hefty doses of wishfulfilment fantasies and faking.)

In the end, is it unreasonable to regard sex as after all somewhat qualitatively different from shovelling coal of any old kind of sausage making?

As for comparisons with licensed professions, I seem to recall the old Swedish 17th c. medicial offical Urban Hiärne passing on the distilled wisdom of life to his son:
"Beware of young doctors and old whores."

 

[Narz]

One thing people have to understand about the sex industry is this: There is not a single damned thing which can be done to stop it. So, since it can't be stopped, how do we best mitigate the problem? Doing so requires that it be legal and in the full light of day.

Why call it "the problem", this just creates the stigma that puts in in the dark. It is what it is. It's only a "problem" is someone is being exploited.