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Why is prostitution illegal?

I understand streetwalking being a crime but why is prostitution more broadly illegal? It’s so archaic.

by Anonymousreply 55July 6, 2025 4:22 AM

You’re really asking this after the Diddy trial?

It’s often coercive & exploitative. A lot of people are trafficked.

by Anonymousreply 1July 5, 2025 8:14 PM

It's not illegal everywhere. Mostly in the "puritanical" USA (except for a few counties in Nevada).

If it is a CONSENTING adult, under no duress, selling their body, why does anybody care?

by Anonymousreply 2July 5, 2025 8:15 PM

I agree it’s exploitative but it’s not going anywhere. At least if it were legal it could be regulated and safer for the prostitutes

by Anonymousreply 3July 5, 2025 8:16 PM

I mean, it IS the oldest profession in the world, so they say.

by Anonymousreply 4July 5, 2025 8:18 PM

AI will advance enough that we won't have prostitution.

by Anonymousreply 5July 5, 2025 8:19 PM

Why does everyone repeat that oldest profession thing? Wouldn’t the world’s oldest john have needed a profession to get the money?

by Anonymousreply 6July 5, 2025 8:21 PM

[quote]if it were legal it could be regulated and safer for the prostitutes

Legalized prostitution increases trafficking.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 7July 5, 2025 8:22 PM

[quote]I mean, it IS the oldest profession in the world, so they say.

The world's oldest profession is more likely to be midwifery or tool-making.

by Anonymousreply 8July 5, 2025 8:25 PM

OP- My name is Fred Garvin and I'm a

MALE PROSTITUTE

by Anonymousreply 9July 5, 2025 8:27 PM

R6 Bitch please.

by Anonymousreply 10July 5, 2025 8:34 PM

That’s a shame r7 never mind that

by Anonymousreply 11July 5, 2025 9:13 PM

R7 R11 Yeah but “human trafficking” is all organized prostitution. Any third party that profits from sex work is labeled trafficking.

I mean from the Diddy case you can see what trafficking can be labeled as.

Any brothel or escort service is deemed human trafficking.

So yes places with legal prostitution are going to have an increase of “human trafficking” because that’s where businesses will be set up.

by Anonymousreply 12July 5, 2025 9:23 PM

Human trafficking sounds like its women who are abducted in the night and sold into slavery.

That 100% happens but any business where women voluntarily are employed for prostitution is also human trafficking under the law.

by Anonymousreply 13July 5, 2025 9:25 PM

Some people are too old for the oldest profession.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 14July 5, 2025 9:26 PM

Define voluntarily, R13. Kids don't prostitute themselves because they want to; they/re reduced to it because they have no other options.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 15July 5, 2025 9:39 PM

R12 and r13 are so spot on.

by Anonymousreply 16July 5, 2025 9:43 PM

R15 I’m not talking about them.

I am saying someone can consensually and voluntarily work as prostitutes for a brothel, agency, or pimp and it is considered human trafficking.

by Anonymousreply 17July 5, 2025 9:50 PM

I shit you not - I watched some nature program on TV years ago where prostitution was observed and shown among wild Chimpanzees 😂 Sure enough, a female Chimp was shown rejecting males who approached her empty-handed, while bending over for males who brought her something tangible - a piece of fruit, for example. The narrator called it by name: prostitution! It's imbeded deep in the genetics. Women engage in some form of prostitution all the time, and even during marriage. Quid pro quo.

by Anonymousreply 18July 5, 2025 9:52 PM

R18 You are a fucking liar. No narrator would refer to that as prostitution. All you gotta do is post the vid and prove me wrong. Never happened. Never. And if you did see such vid that was NOT the original commentary and narration. People just come on here and lie. Shit sad.

by Anonymousreply 19July 5, 2025 10:00 PM

Because sadly in many respects America still runs on the Puritanical code instilled by the founding fathers.

by Anonymousreply 20July 5, 2025 10:02 PM

Yes, R17, someone can voluntarily work in a brothel as an alternative to homelessness. The inability to say no doesn't mean someone is saying yes; that's coercion, not consent. We're seeing this now with people fleeing Ukraine and Afghanistan.

From the link at R7:

[quote]Countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited. The scale effect of legalizing prostitution, i.e. expansion of the market, outweighs the substitution effect, where legal sex workers are favored over illegal workers. On average, countries with legalized prostitution report a greater incidence of human trafficking inflows.

[quote]The effect of legal prostitution on human trafficking inflows is stronger in high-income countries than middle-income countries. Because trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation requires that clients in a potential destination country have sufficient purchasing power, domestic supply acts as a constraint.

[quote]Criminalization of prostitution in Sweden resulted in the shrinking of the prostitution market and the decline of human trafficking inflows. Cross-country comparisons of Sweden with Denmark (where prostitution is decriminalized) and Germany (expanded legalization of prostitution) are consistent with the quantitative analysis, showing that trafficking inflows decreased with criminalization and increased with legalization.

by Anonymousreply 21July 5, 2025 10:03 PM

What's hypocritical is that it's really no different from making porn.

by Anonymousreply 22July 5, 2025 10:06 PM

[quote]Mostly in the "puritanical" USA (except for a few counties in Nevada).

Unfortunately there are NO counties where MALE prostitution is legal.

by Anonymousreply 23July 5, 2025 10:06 PM

R21 – Yes, but you’re framing this as if trafficking only looks like slavery or destitution. That’s one part of it, and it’s very real but it’s not the whole picture.

What you’re not addressing is that any third-party business that profits from sex work, even when the workers are adults and say they’re willing, is also trafficking under law. It doesn’t have to involve chains or kidnapping.

So yes, in places where prostitution is legalized or tolerated, you’ll often see a surge in businesses setting up shop both legal and illegal — including gimmick operations, fake massage parlors, and exploitative intermediaries. That’s not proof that all sex work is bad, it’s proof that the structure is open to abuse and that the law treats organized profit as inherently suspect.

by Anonymousreply 24July 5, 2025 10:14 PM

I work in the beauty salon industry and post-Covid, they’ve opened up salon suites so basically instead of working at a hair salon or renting a chair there, you can have a suite in a building. And it’s for women who do hair, nails, spa, etc.

There’s already prostitution stings happening. Some of these places have only been open for a year. The last incident was from one building was a month ago and it was because people working in the building were suspicious of all the men entering the building because these types of places are majority female audiences.

by Anonymousreply 25July 5, 2025 10:19 PM

R19, you're about to get slapped black and blue in the eye with 10 inches of limp dick for approaching ME in such an unnecessarily aggressive way! If I said it, bitch, then it happened! Say no more to me, BOY!

by Anonymousreply 26July 5, 2025 10:21 PM

R26 😂 I ain’t got shit else to say to your troll ass. Thanks for the laugh though.

by Anonymousreply 27July 5, 2025 10:25 PM

By legal definition, what Diddy did to Cassie qualifies as human sex trafficking.

The reason he wasn’t charged or found guilty isn’t because it didn’t meet the definition — it’s because the legal standard is extremely narrow, and juries expect trafficking to look like chained-up, kidnapped girls in a basement.

That’s the disconnect. People think trafficking only means underage or abducted women, when the law also includes coercion, control, manipulation, and profiting off someone else’s commercial sex acts.

The only form of sex work that isn’t considered human trafficking under U.S. law is when someone works completely alone — no pimp, no agency, no brothel, no one else profiting. Just them, booking their own clients and keeping 100% of the money.

But even that is still illegal in most of the U.S. under prostitution laws.

Meanwhile, if there’s any third party involved, even if the worker says they’re consenting and making money — the law can treat it as trafficking because of the structure: a business profiting from someone else’s sexual labor.

So it’s really a lose / lose.

by Anonymousreply 28July 5, 2025 10:28 PM

[quote]any third-party business that profits from sex work, even when the workers are adults and say they’re willing, is also trafficking under law. It doesn’t have to involve chains or kidnapping.

You're right, but we have no way of knowing which category individual people fall into.

by Anonymousreply 29July 5, 2025 10:30 PM

[quote] Kids don't prostitute themselves because they want to; they/re reduced to it because they have no other options.

Same with bussing tables, mopping floors and mining.

by Anonymousreply 30July 5, 2025 10:36 PM

R29 Agreed.

But with all of this said at the end of the day, prostitution is somewhat legal in the US it’s just under the guise of escorting.

You can pay for an escort’s time, you cannot pay for their sex.

So there’s no real need to legalize prostitution - the act of paying for sex - when you can just pay for someone’s time via escorting.

by Anonymousreply 31July 5, 2025 10:43 PM

[quote]Same with bussing tables, mopping floors and mining.

You don't exchange bodily fluids when bussing tables, mopping floors or mining and there is no risk of being beaten, raped or murdered.

[quote]serious psychiatric illness resulting from exposure to physical danger is more common among prostitutes than among troops who have weathered combat duty.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 32July 5, 2025 10:46 PM

R32 But a fat manager might sit on you to death, merely working at 7/11.

by Anonymousreply 33July 5, 2025 10:48 PM

But there are women who are sex workers who want to decriminalize prostitution.

I think part of the push for decriminalizing prostitution comes from a deeper tension within the sex industry itself — a lot of sex workers don’t benefit from the “high-end” escorting model because they’re not seen as conventionally attractive or marketable enough to get through the door. So instead of gatekeeping access to privilege through beauty, they want to dismantle the entire system and call it feminism.

It’s not always about rights — sometimes it’s about leveling a playing field that’s been rigged by pretty privilege.

There’s a lot of this in the porn industry on Twitter too.

by Anonymousreply 34July 5, 2025 10:49 PM

R34 That’s an interesting take and I think you are probably right.

by Anonymousreply 35July 5, 2025 10:51 PM

R18, that’s common with birds- male birds will bring offerings to the females, the nicest one to the female will win her favor. And it’s not prostitution - it’s courtship.

by Anonymousreply 36July 5, 2025 10:59 PM

R36 Exactly. Thats how I know the narrator would not refer to it as prostitution. This person makes it seem like he was watching National Geographic or The Discovery Channel. Bitch must have been watching Howard Stern do some comedic take on an actual documentary. Or even more likely, just simply lying.

by Anonymousreply 37July 5, 2025 11:04 PM

R32 I think I think R30 was being sarcastic, showing us there ARE other options to prostituting for those boys.

by Anonymousreply 38July 5, 2025 11:05 PM

This mutha fucka HERE! Your ass is going on permanent block. You think you're cute, but youre not. And unless you're Teacake's crazy ass, I find your readiness to accost and accuse with no provocation to be both tiresome and ridiculous. Read it and weep, cunt! BYE! 😴

- R18

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 39July 6, 2025 12:29 AM

Damn! Here...

dnbstories.com/2017/01/animals-that-practise-prostitution.html

by Anonymousreply 40July 6, 2025 12:29 AM

Here's another

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_among_animals

by Anonymousreply 41July 6, 2025 12:32 AM

Most of the prostitutes in Amsterdam’s red light district are brought in from other countries.

by Anonymousreply 42July 6, 2025 1:48 AM

[quote]It’s often coercive & exploitative. A lot of people are trafficked.

^ Fat hysterical frau alert!

by Anonymousreply 43July 6, 2025 1:59 AM

[quote]By legal definition, what Diddy did to Cassie qualifies as human sex trafficking.

The law disagrees.

by Anonymousreply 44July 6, 2025 2:00 AM

[quote]Legalized prostitution increases trafficking.

Oh, please. They’ve broadened the term trafficking like they broadened autism. It’s meaningless at this point.

by Anonymousreply 45July 6, 2025 2:03 AM

People still see grown women as children who need protection. Ironically, these are mostly women who want independence but still taken care of and protected by daddy.

by Anonymousreply 46July 6, 2025 2:04 AM

Well, the jury disagreed.

by Anonymousreply 47July 6, 2025 2:12 AM

Then ban also psychiatric therapy, which seems to be “advice prostitution” that psychologically brainwashes patients into believing their doctors’ missives that they require being bled of large amounts of money for one-hour-limited weekly therapy sessions for years, if not decades, in order to resolve their mind issues. Just as exploitative, IMO.

by Anonymousreply 48July 6, 2025 2:12 AM

OP is upset because he now has to find a different career path that will make good use of his only skill set.

by Anonymousreply 49July 6, 2025 2:16 AM

In some ways I think it's a way for humans try to exhibit some control over their sexual drives. It's like... if we ban sex, and don't talk about it, we can pretend it doesn't have a great hold over us.

by Anonymousreply 50July 6, 2025 2:19 AM

"It’s often coercive & exploitative" That describes the job I had at a bank.

by Anonymousreply 51July 6, 2025 2:26 AM

R51, see R32.

by Anonymousreply 52July 6, 2025 2:40 AM

R52 - Hepatitis used to be considered an STI. Nowadays the majority of cases are picked up from restaurants ...

by Anonymousreply 53July 6, 2025 2:43 AM

R51 😂 right. I love you.

by Anonymousreply 54July 6, 2025 4:21 AM

Also a lot of us these looney white incel dudes could easily go into a government regulated whore house and get laid. Mass shootings would likely decline.

by Anonymousreply 55July 6, 2025 4:22 AM
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