Research: Why men use prostitutes | Hacker News Reader

Research: Why men use prostitutes

guardian.co.uk

6 pointsMikeCapone13 comments

An upcoming new law will make it illegal for men to pay for sex with a trafficked or pimped woman – and a punter's ignorance of a woman's circumstances will be no defence.

This sort of law, what I believe is called "strict liability" in England is horribly unfair. I understand why ignorance of the law cannot be a defense to a crime, but ignorance of fact should always be. In certain situations, it may be reasonable to require that the person make a reasonable attempt to check the facts, but there's only so much a person can do.

The documentary Very Young Girls may change your viewpoint. In particular, the median age of [corrected: entry into prostitution] in New York is 13. Typically they are runaways or neglected/abused children kept in 'the life' by a combination of threats, violence, and pseudo-romantic attention. A John caught by police is sent to John school, with the possibility of getting off in a few months with nothing on his record. The girls are often times tried for prostitution as adults, even when they are held against their will, even when they're below the age of majority, even though were it not prostitution they would be, legally, the victims of statutory rape.

Much of this is possible because perpetrators have the easy out of saying that 'they didn't know.'

In general, I think that you're right, but there's a loophole here damaging enough that it might merit a special case.

> the median age of prostitutes in New York is 13.

Has this been confirmed by other sources? Any URLs or studies you could point to?

Firstly, I quoted the average age of prostitutes as 13; apparently the claim, even in the documentary, is that of the age of entry into prostitution. My mistake.

Secondly, I've been trying to track down the original reference. The Justice department has a page here:

http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/prostitution.html

Listing a reference to a report by Estes et. al. which was located here: http://caster.ssw.upenn.edu/~restes/CSEC.htm

But is now not available. The specific claim is supported to be on page 92.

The entire system, as described is horribly broken. Underage girls working as prostitutes should be treated as victims, not criminals. Statutory rape should be an available charge in that situation, but there needs to be a state of mind with respect to the defendant's knowledge of the victim's age. Criminal negligence (a reasonable person in the defendant's situation would have known) seems appropriate.

With strict liability, even examining a seemingly authentic government ID card or passport wouldn't serve as a defense. That's wrong.

Edit: this is an issue of policy and mechanism. The policy of trying to punish those who don't care that they're abusing very young or enslaved girls is a good one. The mechanism of strict liability is extremely flawed, and the precedent of having any strict liability laws on the book opens the door for less clearly black and white policies to be applied using that mechanism.

I would posit that having strict liability laws, in this case, might be the best of bad options. If you can get an out by looking for an authentic looking ID, pimps will find ways to issue fake IDs. It's not hard.

The person punished in that case should be the pimp. I realize that's sometimes hard to accomplish, but I can't see any amount of harm as justification for punishing people who weren't aware of their actions.

The survey in the O.P. seems to indicate that most of those surveyed where quite aware of the possibility that they were participating in a harmful and coercive relationship. They thought it was more likely than not. And yet any of them will claim that they were not aware of their actions, were not aware of the possibility, were they to arrive in court.

In Canada, if I don't clear the ice on my side of the sidewalk, and someone slips and gets hurt, I am liable. As a result, people clear their sidewalks.

If one is engaged in soliciting prostitution, which is already illegal, one should accept and avoid the risks that they are participating in something highly unethical. Those who won't should at the least be forced to avoid doing something highly illegal. People already do this. Bar Bouncers. Medical Doctors. Military Officers. Public Officials. Heads of Public Companies.

It is a philosophical argument, but I just don't buy the idea that we are responsible only for what we know about, only what we intend, only for the consequences of our actions that we do anticipate. I believe we're responsible for the consequences of all of our actions, whether we like it or not. And, legally, I think that there's much potential value in stating that, if you engage in an activity that risks creating or perpetuating serious harm, then it up to you to make sure that you aren't.

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As a related matter, have you heard of the Seven Dwarves of Big Tobacco?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQUNk5meJHs

And the testimony of Jeffrey Wigand

http://jeffreywigand.com/pascagoula.php

> The documentary Very Young Girls may change your viewpoint. In particular, the median age of [corrected: entry into prostitution] in New York is 13.

It's unclear how that's relevant if the woman in question is 20+. After all, it's quite possible that she didn't become a prostitute until she was 18+.

The fact that early teen prostitution is a bad thing. does not imply that every possible response is a good idea.

In fact, bringing it up looks like an attempt to bully the conversation.

It is possibly less obvious to see how becoming a victim of prostitution at the age of 13 reduces one's skills and prospects at 20, but I assure you if you watch that documentary you'll have a better sense of it. Such girls are unlikely to have a home to go often, having often been thrown out, and it's very unlikely that they'll have made it through high school, without which job prospects are even worse. They are also likely to have become addicted to drugs, which, while they make their work less intolerable, grip their desires for a long, long time.

If your argument is that someone could have, consciously and without any coercion, decided to engage in sex work, then yes, it is possible, it is not even necessarily wrong. But to turn a blind eye to the situation because it might not be harmful in every case, where there is ample evidence that it is very harmful in many or most cases, strikes me as more hopeful ignorance than rational policy.

Injustice usually begets injustice, but that shouldn't be the case in a court of law.

The actual study [1] is only of 103 men in London and was conducted by Eaves [2] a London-based charity which describes itself in the paper as "a feminist organisation committed to working to curb demand for commercial sex acts." This all leaves me highly suspicious of the results.

[1] http://www.eaves4women.co.uk/Documents/Recent_Reports/Men%20... [2] http://www.eaves4women.co.uk/

The CBC recently aired a related documentary profiling Johns: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/01/11/f-prostitution-cur...

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