Rocco D’Ambrosca: 12/17/2008
The United States was founded on the belief in individual liberty and freedom. Two major freedoms that are denied in the United States are the use of illegal drugs and prostitution. Even though these two things are both illegal they both stem from the same principle of liberty. The principle of liberty in question is the right of ownership to your own body to use as you see fit. The United States by making these two things (drugs and prostitution) illegal, claim ownership of your body as a citizen, telling you what you are and are not allowed to do with it for your own good. This is an outright assault on the true essence of liberty. While both illegal drugs and prostitution should be legal, the following will only make a case for the legalization of prostitution.
The first thing that should be addressed in the argument for the legalization of prostitution is whether it is inherently a crime. Governments were created to protect the individual rights and liberties of its citizens. A crime occurs when one citizen violates the rights of another. For example, when someone robs someone else they are violating that person’s right to property. Or when someone murders another they are violating that person’s right to life and therefore, just as with robbery, they have committed a crime. When a person decides of her or his own freewill to engage in sex acts for money, there is no violation of either person’s rights. It is purely a business transaction for service rendered like any other service industry, whether massage therapy, haircut, or other services involving bodily contact. Obviously much more is involved with sex acts than the other services given as examples, but essentially in terms of criminal nature they are just as benign. It all comes down to the degree in which the woman or man decided to sell this service, the conditions they take place under, and the treatment the seller receives.
Presently there are many professions that are borderline prostitution, if not completely prostitutional in nature. The most obvious of these professions are pornographic actors and exotic dancers or stripers. In both cases they are selling their bodies for entertainment of an overtly or direct sexual nature. In the case of exotic dancers or stripers they are paid to dance in the nude and perform lap dances. Lap dances essentially being sex with clothes on or “dry humping”, where the woman grinds across the males groin while he is wearing clothes and she is almost always at least topless. This comes close to crossing over into prostitution but not even as close as pornography. In hardcore pornography women and men are essentially paid to have sex for money on film. The only major difference from direct prostitution being that the person paying for the sex to occur is not the one receiving the money, but rather a director, producer, or other surrogate; quite the loophole. In both cases sex is being paid for legally; either directly or indirectly.
Arguments against prostitution almost all circle around the degradation of the woman or man in question but also include health risks, violence, and other forms of possible abuse. The funniest thing is that all of these inherent problems or dangers with prostitution are almost guaranteed to be much more of a problem and far worse when forced underground into an illegal black market. This is the case with everything that is made illegal and goes underground. This was the story with alcohol prohibition in the 1920’s, the current drug war, and definitely with prostitution. Whenever a governmental body makes a certain act, practice, or substance illegal, they give up all rights and privileges to regulate and monitor. During alcohol prohibition the sale of alcohol became controlled by Al Capone and others in the mafia or other organized crime syndicates. The government lost all kinds of tax revenues and even more money trying to stop its distribution; the same could also be said of the drug war and prostitution. The other danger that arose was homemade liquor, or moonshine, being made in higher frequency with sometimes lethal consequences after ingestion. With no regulation on quality, alcohol and drugs cannot be monitored for the health of those consuming them. Whenever something is made illegal it only becomes worse for all involved.
The health risks that are used as a defense for the criminalization of prostitution are almost self defeating. The health and wellbeing of a society can only be controlled through regulations and stringent health standards. Sterilization techniques and all kinds of other safe guards and precautions are evident in every aspect of civilized life: hospitals, restaurants, farms, food manufacturing facilities, etc. These standards and regulations can only be held in place and enforced because they are open for all to see because they are legal. If prostitution were legal it would undoubtedly be subject to just as stringent health standards as anything else. And this has been the case where prostitution has been legalized.
Currently prostitution is legal in many countries including England, Scotland, France, Germany, Denmark, Canada, Mexico, Israel, the Philippians, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and even in the state of Nevada in specific counties (DPNC). In almost all of these cases very strict rules, regulations, and testing occurs. In many cases mandatory condom use for all sex acts including oral, vaginal, and anal is required along with weekly STD testing and monthly or quarterly HIV testing. By setting these standards the health risks involved with prostitution and sex in general are greatly reduced. In fact, “16 years of mandatory testing, over 100,000 tests — there has never been one case of HIV in a Nevada brothel. The ladies are checked weekly for gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, and monthly for HIV…. Nevada only contributes one half of one percent of all the sexually transmitted diseases in America, partially attributed to the success of the brothel…. There’s prostitution everywhere, the choices are you’re either going to legalize it, regulate it, tax it, and make sure there’s proper health checks, or you’re going to turn your head and pimps are gonna take 14 year-old girls and put them on the streets or in massage parlors with no background or health checks.”, says Dennis Hof, owner of the famous Moonlight Bunny Ranch in Nevada (HealthChecks). Dr. Umberto Tirelli, MD adds, “The opponents of compulsory health check-ups should bear in mind that in our country there are many categories of employees that are obliged to undergo medical check-ups at regular intervals which means they cannot work if their health conditions are not found to be sound. On the contrary, it seems like in our country no one worries about the fact that HIV-positive prostitutes can go on working without anyone being able to stop them….[T]he health check-ups would have an educational effect in that prostitutes could be more easily convinced to use condoms at all times, even when clients offer higher prices to have unprotected sex, and they would be induced to do so because they would be aware that if the regular check-ups determine that they are affected by a sexually-transmitted disease (not only HIV), they would have to stop working. This is exactly what happens in Berlin and Amsterdam where it is virtually impossible for a client to have sex without a condom, because the prostitutes, who are obliged to undergo regular health check-ups, definitely refuse to do so” (HealthChecks). So these standards of health check and mandatory condom use act as a system of checks and balances, so to speak, to insure that all prostitutes and customers remain healthy without furthering the spread of HIV or other STDs. As Dennis Hof mentioned, when prostitution is driven underground and made illegal there are no health checks or any other regulations including age, creating a far worse and more dangerous situation.
Violence and abuse of the prostitutes is also a major concern and is used as an excuse for making prostitution illegal. But again, just as with health risks, driving it underground only makes things worse and far more dangerous. With legal brothels, the prostitutes are able to have a safe location to service customers. They are not out on the streets at the mercy of pimps, abusive prostitute bosses who collect from the prostitutes and often mistreat and beat them. Prostitutes working the street are also subject to robbery, rape, beatings, and even murder. Without a safe location to use as a work place, a brothel, they have no safety net and are taking major risks by putting themselves out on the street for anyone to take advantage of them and abuse them.
With legal prostitution almost all problems associated with violence and abuse are removed. The owner of the brothel and other security are always around to protect the prostitutes and insure that the customers don’t rob them by paying in advance and prevent violence by closely monitoring. Worst of all when the women are out on the street they have no one to turn to for protection or help, since the very act of calling or talking to a police officer would directly incriminate them of the “crime” of prostitution. Dr. Ronald Weitzer, PhD says, “there is evidence that some systems of legalization provide a relatively safe working environment. Although no system is risk free, women working in legal brothels and window units in the Netherlands experience very little violence. Workers and managers have instituted elaborate procedures to respond to violent customers quickly and effectively. Similarly, in Nevada’s legal brothels, the risk of violence is very low.” (Violence). Dr. Melissa Ditmore, PhD adds, “Decriminalization would better protect people in the sex industry from violence and abuse.… Police cannot and do not simultaneously seek to arrest prostitutes and protect them from violence. Currently, under New York Criminal Procedure Law, sex workers who have been victims of sex offenses, including assault and rape, face greater obstacles than other victims. Indeed, women describe being told, ‘What did you expect?’ by police officers who refused to investigate acts of violence perpetrated against women whom they knew engaged in prostitution. The consequences of such attitudes are tragic: Gary Ridgway said that he killed prostitutes because he knew he would not be held accountable. The tragedy is that he was right – he confessed to the murders of 48 women, committed over nearly twenty years. That is truly criminal.”(Violence). The very reason so much abuse and violence occurs to these women is the very fact that it’s illegal.
Finally, any questions of degradation of women or the immorality of prostitution should be dismissed almost immediately. The question of morality surrounding prostitution is irrelevant because just because something is deemed immoral does not produce the need for its illegality. Many call gay sex, masturbation, alcohol consumption, and even some forms of clothing as highly immoral, yet all of these things are perfectly legal. The question of degradation of women is slightly touchier. Many state that prostitution affects the mental health of the prostitutes. But according to Dr. Sarah Romans, MD, “There were no differences in mental health… or in self-esteem… between the two groups [female prostitutes and females who weren’t prostitutes]….” (Psychological). The fact is that the illegal nature of prostitution would add to this possible problem much more so than if it was legal. By working in a brothel as a real employee, they would get more self confidence and see it as a real profession rather than seeing themselves as a piece of trash that their pimps and street customers may treat them like. Furthermore, according to The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, CEDAW, prostitution is a legitimate profession for women that should be free from legal prohibition and discrimination (UNTreaty). The treaty created at this convention makes both abortion and prostitution legal. Regarding prostitution, Article 11, section 1(c) of the treaty upholds, “the right to free choice of profession and employment.” The Committee has included “voluntary” prostitution in that “free choice”—to the benefit of needy women around the world. It has called upon China to “decriminalize prostitution,” expressing concern that it is often the, “result of poverty.” Also, while it urged Germany, “to recognize that trafficked women and girls are victims of human rights violations in need of protection,” it also expressed concern, “that although they are legally obliged to pay taxes, prostitutes still do not enjoy the protection of labor and social law.” Even more blatant, its report on Greece stated, “While noting positively the fact that prostitution is decriminalized and instead is dealt with in a regulatory manner, the Committee is concerned that inadequate structures exist to ensure compliance with regulatory framework.” (UNTreaty). This treaty has been signed by 165 countries but as of yet has not been ratified by the United States, most obviously to prevent the legalization of prostitution.
Prostitution along with illegal drugs should both be legal because of our right to privacy and control over our own bodies. By making prostitution and drug use illegal, the governing body makes a direct claim to ownership of its citizen’s bodies, deciding what they should or should not be allowed to do with their bodies. This is the highest assault on individual freedom and liberty. Whenever things are made illegal the problems surrounding them are only intensified or even created because of their illegality. The only practical solutions to all social issues are education and regulation. Prohibition never works.
Works Cited:
“Is prostitution psychologically harmful to prostitutes?” Prostitution ProCon.org. 15 Feb. 2008. ProCon.org. 17 Dec. 2008 <http://prostitution.procon.org/viewanswers.asp?questionid=106>.
“Should health checks be mandatory for prostitutes?” Prostitution ProCon.org. 12 May 2008. ProCon.org. 17 Dec. 2008 <http://prostitution.procon.org/viewanswers.asp?questionid=113>.
“U.S. may have to decriminalize prostitution per U.N. Treaty.” Sex Work Cyber Resource & Support Center. Sex Work Cyber Resource & Support Center. 17 Dec. 2008 <http://www.sexwork.com/coalition/untreaty.html>.
“What countries have legal prostitution?” Decriminalize Prostitution Now Coalition. 2005. Decriminalize Prostitution Now Coalition. 17 Dec. 2008 <http://www.sexwork.com/coalition/whatcountrieslegal.html>.
“Would legal prostitution better protect prostitutes from violence?” Prostitution ProCon.org. 16 May 2008. ProCon.org. 17 Dec. 2008 <http://prostitution.procon.org/viewanswers.asp?questionid=120>.
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