Prostitutes and Politics Why is it still illegal to pay for sex?

Reason Online ^ | May 7, 2007 | Cathy Young

[Lusis]

The resignation of Randall Tobias, the chief of the Bush administration's foreign aid programs, for "personal reasons" following the revelation that he had engaged the services of two escort-service workers has provided rich grist for amusement on the punditry circuit. There was indeed plenty of material for humor in the situation, from Tobias's strong stand in favor of abstinence teaching in AIDS prevention programs to his "I didn't inhale"-style assertion that he never had sex with the women. But the predictable laughs have obscured a much larger issue than hypocrisy in the ranks of social conservatives. The reason Tobias's call-girl adventures became public is that the owner of the Washington, DC-based service, Pamela Martin, is facing prosecution and has turned her records over to news organizations to help pay for her legal defense.

Even those who feel a certain schadenfreude at Tobias's downfall should be asking the question: should there have been a criminal case in the first place?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Not true. When I was a teenager (over twenty years ago) the family I babysat did the filing for me. How kind of them, when I was only making three dollars an hour. Sigh.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Cohabitation is still illegal in seven states.

[grey_whiskers]

You are badly confused.

In set theory it is not required to give a rule or a generating function to define a set; enumeration is a perfectly acceptable way to do so.

Rights may be enumerated without necessarily resorting to an underlying rule.

The place where you get hung up is that this approach only succeeds from a sociological perspective (in more or less representative governments such as ours) when there is a strong plurality of voters who share a consensus on what the enumerated rights happen to be.

Once the Gramscian trolls and dilettantes exert a loud voice out of proportion to their numbers, or once enough members of the society engage in debauchery to break the consensus, *applying* the enumeration of rights becomes impossible.

But that is not the same thing as its being logically untenable.

Nice try, though.

Cheers!

[supremedoctrine]

OR, maybe when whores like politicians are discovered to be consorting with their own kind, like prostitutes, it’s just too much cognitive dissonance, or maybe, for a change, cognitive assonance, and things short-circuit, and one just has to resign.

[grey_whiskers]

People who are compelled to be virtuous because of law aren't actually virtuous.

Go toke another joint.

"You can't legislate morality" -- tired 60's creed.

"But it sure beats the hell out of legislating immorality" -- FReepers creed.

Cheers!

[aruanan]

Why is it still illegal to pay for sex?

The legal way to pay is called marriage, and that, at best, is only a promissary note.

[Loud Mime]

The Hite Report on Male Sexuality cited many Johns who made the same claim: You Pay for it anyway. Their stories were quite interesting and worth reading for the skeptics.

Just getting married doesn’t absolve a member of the pact from the act of prostitution.

I put such acts in the same class as a cop who lies to make a conviction.

[Loud Mime]

The men who wrote that Constitution would never allow legalized prostitution.

You may notice that the Constitution does not address prostitution. It was not made illegal; ergo: prostitution was legal. It was later addressed by the States.

I never paid for sex in my life, until my divorce. As the unabashed dictionary defines it - Divorce: The screwing you get for the screwing you got. If that isn't prostitution, tell me what is?

All that time I thought we were lovemaking.

[amchugh]

Actually, regulated brothels in Nevada have an almost nonexistent incidence of HIV, sharply contrasted to illegal prostitution.

[TheKidster]

Your bigotry and ignorance is shameful.

[wideawake]

I believe my point was that the Founding Fathers had a different attitude about prostitution than the evangelical view that developed during the early 20th century. While there were other evangelical movements before then none of those movements made prostitution largely illegal.

Prostitution was generally illegal in the US before the 20th century dawned.

[TheKidster]

The men who wrote that Constitution would never allow legalized prostitution,

Your eloquence doesn’t do much to flatter your ignorance. I see a pig with diamond earrings when I read your post.

In the time of our founders prostitutes were routinely encouraged to follow the armies on the march to provide thier services in the camps. This occurred up to the civil war and also occurred in much of the manifest destiny inspired push to occupy the American western frontier. They knew that this was something better left up to local goverments to decide through the officials elected by the stake holders of the particular area.
Of course you wouldn’t know that just as you wouldn’t know that libertarian ideals are much more closely aligned with the political hopes of our founders than the socialism we see rampant in the GOP. You’re a puppet and those who want to control you are using your morality as the strings. You should be ashamed that your virtue has been allowed to become a whip and a chain. You should only be wearing chains for the sake of Christ, not Uncle Sam!

[SubGeniusX]

There you ... bringing up those pesky FACTS again...

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Our government depends on people of virtue and, frankly, depends on the Church to be society's moral conscience.

Which Church, exactly? About the only thing our Protestant forefathers could agree upon was that it certainly wouldn't be the Catholic church.

Unfortunately, we are now in this situation where libertarians have difficutly advocated limited government type positions without also helping those who would use their freedom for immorality and debauchery. The Church, seeing this happen, feels obligated to do something to stop it, and since big government is the flavor of the century, mistakenly turns to legislation on some issues to solve it.

Helping? Dear God, the "it's for the children" argument rears its ugly head. Freedom is freedom, my friend; what you choose to do with it is of no concern to me, so long as what you do with it does not infringe on my freedom. I am not my brother's keeper. God save me from those who would save me from myself.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Yet, based on God's Word, we've come up with the most wonderful social contract in world thousands of years, or perhaps ever. It's there, in black in white. People can interpret in their own ways, but approaching it in humility takes care of that.

I'm always amazed at the naivete of True Believers---as if anything about the above presents a rational argument for anyone other than those who have drunk a similar flavor of Kool-Aid.

And yes, obfuscation of the truth is no argument.

Wonderful. Who's doing such a thing?

[JamesP81]

Which Church, exactly?

The Christian church, in general. Your supposition of the forefathers opposition to catholicism isn't correct, at least not in its entirety. Many of the original colonists left to escape anglicanism, not catholicism, and the only reason they did is because the state forced them to be anglican.

Helping? Dear God, the "it's for the children" argument rears its ugly head. Freedom is freedom, my friend; what you choose to do with it is of no concern to me, so long as what you do with it does not infringe on my freedom.

Legally, yes. However, the forefathers understood that without the Church's moral influence, liberty would be used for immorality and as Adams told us, our government is unsuited for an immoral people. So while you're advocating your positions on freedom, which are mostly right and I agree with many of them, do us all a favor and comment on how reprehensible many of the said activities we have the freedom to do are. Because if we don't set a moral example in this nation, we're finished.

[jmc813]

As George Carlin used too say, selling is legal, f@#&ing is legal. Why when you combine the two is it illegal?

[montag813]

There is no difference between a whore and a golddigger. Yet the latter is perfectly legal.

[TheKidster]

But the libertarians are wrong when they suggest that there wouldn’t be an increase in crimes committed by drug-intoxicated and/or hallucinating individuals.

How do you figure, what’s your proof that in countries that have decriminalized recreational drug use the crime rate related to drugs has increased?
And the imaginiary country in your mind doesn’t count, give us a real country.
If you don’t respond with actual documented facts we’ll all on this board know you are wrong, have no facts and have just responded out of emotion and prejudice.

Thanks, I can’t wait to read your documented examples.

[TheKidster]

Also there’s the irrational dangerous behavior of crack addicts that still needs to be dealt with.

Because we aren’t dealing with currently?