Hacker News Reader

Comment by CaveTech | Hacker News Reader

I don't think the issues are as cut and dry as you make them seem. I'd be willing to bet many of the prostitutes who are providing their services illegally would never be able to do so legally - as much more desirable people would begin to offer competing services. Believe it or not, many people also choose to be homeless; whether or not this is a result of another issue like drugs or mental illness is irrelevant. Many mentally ill people would rather deal with the disease than the treatment.

No doubt we could do more to aid societies issues, but it's unlikely that we'll ever fully resolve many of them.

View on HN

I am by no means an expert on prostitution, but I don't think it's the illegality of prostitution that keeps many women from entering the market.

It could be the reason of many, while not being the reason of most.

If comedy central has ever taught me anything, it is that there is still illegal prostitution in Reno, Nevada. ;)

Oddly enough, prostitution is illegal in Reno, Navada and Las Vegas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Nevada

Which probably increases the amount of illegal prostitution in those areas.

Oddly enough, if you read the link that you posted, you'd learn that contrary to your statement, prostitution is illegal in Reno and Las Vegas, and in fact in great swathes of Nevada (in particular, it's illegal in the areas where most NV residents live).

You may have read his link, but you certainly didn't read his comment.

Hmn. Apparently you are correct.

Huh, I knew it was illegal in Vegas but I thought it was legal in Reno. TIL.

knew it was illegal in Vegas but I thought it was legal in Reno.

I'm sure the Reno Sheriff's department hears that a lot...

I believe the state law is that in any county where the population is under 400,000 residents, prostitution is legal, which rules out the main large cities in Nevada. I live in neighboring Utah, so I learn some interesting factoids about our neighbor once in a while.

Illegality also leads to a potentially unsafe operation. Without legalizing something, there can't be any regulation of the industry. Prostitutes are obviously wary of calling the cops in the event that they are abused, mistreated, robbed, or whatever else.

Legalizing prostitution allows its workers to fall under police protection.

Illegality also leads to money hiding endeavors and tax fraud. Illegal sex workers are wary of setting up a real shop where they could implement security methods, or a guard to stand at the door in a brothel type operation.

Legalizing prostitution allows for better taxation, and less in the way of illicit venues.

I'm sure you're right in that every woman wouldn't turn to prostitution just because it became legal, but at least part of that should be attributed to the inherent danger of working in an illegal market with zero marketplace or police protections. We (hopefully) wouldn't see a huge spike in legitimate prostitution if it were legalized, but we would almost certainly see an uptick.

> I'm sure you're right in that every woman wouldn't turn to prostitution just because it became legal

Prostitution is legal where I live (Australia) and I can confirm that not every woman has turned to prostitution.

> Prostitution is legal where I live (Australia) and I can confirm that not every woman has turned to prostitution.

Indeed! It's the same in New Zealand.

As attractive as it may be (in terms of income) there are always inherent risks that come with every occupation.

And here in Holland.

It even stimulates tourism. I wonder what would happen to the Amsterdam economy if legalization of softdrugs and prostitution becomes the global norm.

> We (hopefully) wouldn't see a huge spike in legitimate prostitution if it were legalized, but we would almost certainly see an uptick.

Maybe in the short-term; it would probably somewhat increase the rate of entry. But removing the powerlessness that comes from illegality would probably also make it much more common for people to be able to move up and out of it and one to other things once they'd entered.

Germany fully legalized and regulated prostitution some years ago. The last thing I've heard is that it's lead to an increase in illegal prostitution practices (taffickin, coercion) because the regulation is not enforced well and it's easy to have illegal practices behind a legal front.

Obviously, this should be solvable through better regulation enforcement - but there doesn't seem to be the political will to pay for that...

You'd hear that whether it was true or not, unfortunately; there are a lot of anti-trafficking activists who are ideologically wedded to banning prostitution and don't care too much about facts or whether it's actually benefical.

  many people also choose to be homeless; whether or not this is 
  a result of another issue like drugs or mental illness 
  is irrelevant.

This statement is an oxymoron. If anyone chooses to be homeless their reason is relevant: otherwise they haven't made a choice.

  Many mentally ill people would rather deal with the disease than the treatment.

This is hyperbole. It is also plain wrong.

Mental illness is not a lifestyle choice. No-one who has experienced mental illness would choose to live with it. Those that do live with it often don't live for long.

Many mentally ill people are incurable. Many mentally ill people are too ill to find treatment.

Nobody chooses to live on public transport. The mentally ill are vastly more likely to be the victims of crime: assault, battery, rape. If you were confused and persecuted and in fear for your life: where would you go to seek safety?

Seeking refuge from persecution and violence is not my idea of 'choice'.

There's already very "desirable people" working as prostitutes. Most likely, if you're meeting up in a public bathroom, and it's not part of the thrill, it's because of economic issues.

It is legal here in the UK. I have heard that it is common for women working as prostitutes to declare themselves unemployed in order to get free housing.

They use this free housing as their "business premesis".

It's not really legal in the UK.

True it's legal to pay for sex, but it's illegal to offer sex for payment, or to live off immoral earnings.

It is only illegal to live off somebody else's immoral earnings (i.e pimping / running a brothel). It's also illegal to solicit in a public place (i.e kerb crawling).

It's certainly not illegal to respond to an advert offering paid sex or to place such an advert. I have no idea what the law would be regards propositioning people at random.

Edit: Paying for the services of someone who is coerced into prostitution against their will is also illegal.

Source: http://sw5.info/law/punters/

Immoral earnings? Based on who'se morals? I hope it's not actually worded that way.

It actually is! I presume it implies the morals of the Church of England.

Or the inherent moral view of legislation.

I know. A shocking concept: law has underlying moral values like "it's bad to kill people" and "stealing people's cars is wrong" and so on.

Yeah but murder is written into the law directly and so is theft, not some abstract notion of morality that differs from person to person and culture to culture.

So if paying so sex is made illegal, what happens if you pay your wife for sex? Not sure how this works in other countries, I guess it must be clarified somehow? In the UK it's very common for laws to be vague.

Here's the act (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/part/1/crosshead...)

Paying for sex, and being paid for sex, are not illegal in the UK. But there are some very strict laws that people need to be aware of.

Both people need to be over the age of 18.

There needs to be no element of coercion. The paying person is guilty of an offence if the sex worker is coerced even if the payer is not aware of any coercion.

There needs to be no trafficking. The UK uses a stricter definition of trafficking, which can include someone voluntarily coming to the UK. It also includes travel within the country.

There's some other stuff too about premises used as brothels and about pimps.

Your comments about use of Housing Benefit are weird and wrong and not worth responding to.

I only have hearsay to go on, but why do you think it is wrong?

Others points I believe are correct.

Because housing benefit doesn't work like that. It's idiotic to think that it does.

Most HB fraud is criminal gangs using fake id, or individuals who are cohabiting but claiming as singles.

Huh? I have claimed housing benefit when genuinely unemployed in the past (though not for some years). All they need is proof of address, some form of ID ,a statement of earnings/benefits and details of any dependents etc.

If you operate a cash only business with no paperwork there will always be a temptation to under report earnings.

So yeah, a certain proportion of those who operate cash-only businesses - gardeners, builders, whatever - fraudulently under-report their earnings. A proportion of those will also fraudulently claim benefits, though less than you might think - if you're going to do benefit fraud it makes more sense to do it on a larger scale, you're risking the same penalties and getting more income. But in any case, it's misleading to talk as though this were in any way specific to prostitution.

If those people can't be legal prostitutes because they are out competed, that doesn't mean that they will continue being illegal prostitutes in public bathrooms. It's certainly plausible that having legal and more desirable options will drastically reduce the number of them using free toilets.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com