Proposed Posting of Clients List In Prostitution Case Raises Privacy Concerns 533
An anonymous reader writes "An interesting case touching on privacy in the Internet age has erupted in Kennebunk, Maine, the coastal town where the Bush family has a vacation home. When a fitness instructor who maintained a private studio was arrested for prostitution, she turned out to have maintained meticulous billing records on some 150 clients, and had secretly recorded the proceedings on video files stored in her computer. Local police have begun issuing summons to her alleged johns, and have announced intentions to publish the list, as is customary in such cases. Police believe such publication has a deterrent effect on future incidents of the kind. However, the notoriety of the case has some, including newspaper editors, wondering whether the lives of the accused johns may be disproportionately scarred (obtaining or keeping a job, treatment of members of their families within the community) for a the mere accusation of having committed a misdemeanor. Also, the list of names will be permanently archived and indexed by search engines essentially forever."
Publish them all (Score:5, Insightful)
The more names of 'important' people who are on the list, the more it should be published. Maybe then someone will actually decide that prosecuting consensual crimes like this isn't generally worth the risk.
Though, waiting until she and her partner are found guilty might be a good plan.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Publish them all (Score:5, Insightful)
Though, waiting until she and her partner are found guilty might be a good plan.
That's the problem here, the consequences for people who are still innocent until proven guilty. Even in this seemingly straight forward case it is possible that some of them really are innocent, for example like all the people caught up in the Operation Ore paedophile cases whose credit cards had been stolen.
The media always publishes the names of people accused of murder, rape, paedophilia and various other crimes that will ruin their lives. When they are found innocent the same level of coverage is rarely given. Naturally they lose their jobs and probably most of their friends. The law could require that their employer gives them their job back, but often it takes years or even decades for them to be proven innocent.
Re:Publish them all (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem doesn't seem to be that Johns deserve privacy until proven guilty. The problem is that rich or important Johns deserve privacy until proven guilty, and potentially thereafter as well.
Why are the well-to-do and well-connected being protected from losing their board positions, when the justice system doesn't bat an eye at causing factory workers and office assistants to lose theirs in similar circumstances?
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I don't think you should assume all prostitution is consensual.
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I don't think you should assume all prostitution is consensual.
Then it would be rape, or sex slavery which is a completely different crime. Maybe if prostitution was a regulated business the black market of abuse wouldn't thrive.
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Re:Publish them all (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe then someone will actually decide that prosecuting consensual crimes like this isn't generally worth the risk.
That's not what would happen. What would happen is that other "important" people who happen to be political or otherwise enemies of those on the list would attack them for their own advantage while secretly thanking God that their own favorite prostitute wasn't the one raided.
Re:Publish them all (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as all the money in the safe is the property of the banker then your example seems fine.
However as the money is usually the property of other people, your example is ridiculous, unless all those other people also consent. Good luck with that.
If she videotaped it.. (Score:5, Interesting)
wouldn't it be pornography and be legal?
Re: (Score:3)
If she videotaped it..
wouldn't it be pornography and be legal?
My layman's understanding (insert beavis innuendo laugh) is that it's just porn and not prostitution when both people are paid by a third party to have sex but the third party does not engage in any sexual contact (e.g. they just run the camera).
Re:If she videotaped it.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, here is a business model that could make this legal:
1. Have a third party pay both prostitute and client.
2. Have the act videotaped
3. Have the client buy the tape as the sum or the original fees.
Of course, there must not be any coercion on 3. But this could be solved by the client buying another tape before (of professionals) and only getting re-hired if he buys his own tapes afterwards. Maximum amount of trust needed on the client-side: 1 act.
Has there been a trial? (Score:5, Insightful)
Invasion of privacy? (Score:2)
She was charged with invasion of privacy, among other things.
Sounds like the cops would be guilty of the same. If the Johns had an expectation of privacy, they still have that expectation. The videotapes she made will undoubtedly be used against the Johns, as the cops would have to prove their cases.
In any case, I agree with the article. If misdemeanors are regularly published, then publish it. If not, they should not. However, the list will be published one way or another, in full or piecemeal, unless they
Re: (Score:2)
If the Johns had an expectation of privacy, they still have that expectation.
They can have whatever expectation they want, doesn't mean anyone else agrees.
You sit at home at home and JOAC - you have a good expectation of privacy.
You walk a public street, enter a prostitute's apartment, pay on a credit card, rely on her not to film the encounter: you have lost all claims to privacy. At best you have a civil lawsuit against the women and the right to claim in public that you were just there to "save souls" or "help the fallen" or many of the classic defenses.
this whole story is just sad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
A john's life destroyed? Hardly, especially not by an "employer" with half a brain.
You're going to employ someone with a history of hiring prostitutes, and risk a sexual harassment suit (real or made up) where they'll claim that it's all your fault because you hired this man knowing he had dubious morals and therefore you should pay them millions of dollars in damages?
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Re:this whole story is just sad... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is America, sex is bad. Violence on the other hand is cool stuff.
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Indeed. As a matter of fact I'd say that most people who would commit sexual harassment probably can get laid without the cash.
Think of it like a shotgun approach - some women like jerks. Sad, but true, and realistically anyone who will commit sexual harassment isn't of the shy or quiet type. If you're a confident jerk that hits on a lot of women some percentage of them will fall for it. Doesn't mean most, but some will.
Now take the quiet guy who would never say such things to a woman, but he still has
Re: (Score:2)
Pimping is still illegal in most (all?) of Europe. So the result would have been the same. The fitness instructor would have still been arrested for pimping. His client list would still be made as evidence and be published.
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Re: (Score:3)
Replied above to the same point, but giving money for sex is not illegal in the UK unless the receiver is being coerced or controlled - i.e. has a pimp, is trafficked or being forced into it. It's strict liability, though, so taking her word for it that she is fully consenting and doing it of her own free will is not a defence.
Re:this whole story is just sad... (Score:4, Informative)
For bonus points, I grew in Wells, ME, about 10km south of Kennebunk
I guess you grew up there some time ago.
just make prostitution legal (and regulated) like most of Europe.
A very long time ago.
Maybe it is better if the US doesn't legalize prostitution like the !most of Europe, and the part of Europe where it is legal but being moved against?
French minister for women seeks abolition of prostitution in Europe [guardian.co.uk]
France's minister for women is to organise a consultation on ways to abolish prostitution in France and Europe, she has told the Guardian.
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the high profile women's rights minister and government spokeswoman, said in an interview that she would be organising a conference of experts on how to contain the sex-trade and human-trafficking and was seeking to meet the home secretary Theresa May for input from the UK.
"Since the 19th century and the role of [the Victorian feminist] Josephine Butler, Britain and France have been the core countries in the international mobilisation against prostitution. I really hope that these common roots are still alive," she said. She wanted a meeting with May on how Britain and France approach prostitution and human-trafficking. In France prostitution is not illegal, but activities around it are. Brothels were outlawed in 1946 and pimping is illegal.
In 2003 a controversial law against soliciting was introduced by Nicolas Sarkozy, then interior minister, making it illegal to stand in a public place known for prostitution dressed in revealing clothes.
Last year, the French parliament adopted a resolution on the abolition of prostitution saying its objective was a "society without prostitution".
The consultation would consider recommendations made last year by a cross-party commission of French MPs that it should be illegal to pay for sex. The MPs had suggested all clients of sex workers, meaning anyone who buys sex from any kind of prostitute, would face prison and a fine. Clients of sex-workers face prison in a handful of European countries, including Sweden, Norway and Iceland.
Spain, the world capital of prostitution? [independent.co.uk]
In Spain, Women Enslaved by a Boom in Brothel Tourism [nytimes.com]
LA JONQUERA, Spain — She had expected a job in a hotel. But when Valentina arrived here two months ago from Romania, the man who helped her get here — a man she had considered her boyfriend — made it clear that the job was on the side of the road.
He threatened to beat her and to kill her children if she did not comply. And so she stood near a roundabout recently, her hair in a greasy ponytail, charging $40 for intercourse, $27 for oral sex.
“For me, life is finished,” she said later that evening, tears running down her face. “I will never forget that I have done this.”
La Jonquera used to be a quiet border town where truckers rested and the French came looking for a deal on hand-painted pottery and leather goods. But these days, prostitution is big business here, as it is elsewhere in Spain, where it is essentially legal.
While the rest of Spain’s economy may be struggling, experts say that prostitution — almost all of it involving the ruthless trafficking of foreign women — is booming, exploding into public view in small towns and big cities. The police recently rescued a 19-year-old Romanian woman from traffickers who had tattooed on her wrist a bar code and the amount she still owed them: more than $2,500.
In the past, most c
The happy hooker does not exist (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in Holland where prostitution is legal, to the extend politicians had to decide on how to treat jobs in the sex industry in regards to job centers and people on benefits having to take any suitable job or loose their benefits. (Decision was that they are allowed to advertise but it can't be mandated as a suitable job or suggested by a consultant helping you to find a job.
The problem is that the happy hooker is a lie, pretty woman is not reality-TV. No mentally stable, non-self-loathing woman with options will choose to be come a prostitute. There is the idea of female students putting themselves through school by selling their body but lets face it, no woman who really has a future would do it, since having a history of being a prostitute will hurt your career and social future.
Be honest, would you date a hooker? Marry her? No? Well there you go.
There are women who want to be a prostitute but they do it for money/laughs. Problem with that is, they want to make a decent living with it and charge through the nose. High class escort really just means "you expect WHAT per hour", they don't come cheap. I know, I made websites for them. Think 2000 euro per night and then extra for extra's. These are NOT the women who walk the streets. Hell, some escorts even are picky as to who they take as clients. Do you think a street walker or a woman working behind the glass in Amsterdam has such options?
The reality of most prostitution is that the women has to do anything that any john asks and lets face it, nice guys don't use street hookers. And you might think a slut as being a woman who has men in the high double digits. For a hooker? Closing in on 4 digits. Think about it. Say it is 100 per fuck (a very high price). A developer might charge the same but can do it for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, all your long. That is 2016 johns in a year, just to get the same income as a crappy web developer. Remember, if prostitution is legal, you have to pay the same taxes as any other self employed person. You can do web development in a cheap t-shirt and jeans. An expensive hooker needs more expensive clothes.
And all the time, she risks some insane person coming along and killing her off. Really want the most dangerous job in the world? Prostitution, the favorite target of serial killers.
The simple fact is that in Holland, with legal prostition, human trafficking for the sex trade hasn't dropped at all. That is because the amount of Dutch women who have decent social protection who choose prostitution to make their living is far to low and isn't serving the low end of the market. You don't think a college girl putting herself through school who has any reason to want that diploma is going to work several johns a day for what amounts to minimum wage after they payed their pimp for protection and all the other costs?
The porn industry is probably better known on Slashdot, check income. (and remember, this is income of a self-employed person so the prices are pre-taxes with no benefits) of actresses, the majority not the statistically insignificant few who made it to the top. A picture shoot earns as little as a few hundred, maybe 500 if she does all the site asks. A VHS tape might earn 1-2 thousand back in the day. If you are self-employed in IT, would you even bother answering the phone for such amounts? Especially knowing that the porn industry is always looking for fresh faces, so it is not as if you can do 5 shoots per day, every working day of the year.
Yes, I know, cases such as this show rather decent amounts of money being made. They are the exception, same as some programmers on Wall Street make 1 million dollars or more. Do you make 1 million dollars or more? No? Well, then you are the street walker, no the high class pretty woman escort.
I am not saying making prostitution illegal is the answer but making it legal in Holland has not magically fixed everything. In fact, in some ways it has become worse. It used to be possible for the police to liberate women who were
Re:The happy hooker does not exist (Score:4, Insightful)
No mentally stable, non-self-loathing woman with options will choose to be come a prostitute.
I see, you know the mind of every women on earth. Or are you going to define "mentally stable, non-self-loathing" as one who does not want to become a prostitute, true Scotsman-style?
There are women who want to be a prostitute but they do it for money/laughs.
I see, you chose "blatantly disagreeing with myself". I suppose you will claim you didn't write any of the things I quote you for?
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From the Honest Courtesan (blog by ex-prostitute) -- "The Swedish Model of prostitution law is based on the premise that women are moral imbeciles who are psychologically incompetent to determine the conditions under which we will consent to sex, and the state therefore assumes the right to set those conditions for us."
http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/the-swedish-disease-spreads/ [wordpress.com]
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The effects in Norway have been that the prostitutes doesn't the police as a source of help, so they do not report crimes against them.
I don't know anything about the case of Iceland.
If the intended effect is to help the prostitutes, this kind of law seems the wrong tool.
I remember the old days when crimes had victims. (Score:2)
Ahhh memories.
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Handle The Crime (Score:2, Insightful)
If there is a criminal, prosecute them. Think no further and go no further. It is not anyone's place to preempt in such a manner. Just stay in your own lane.
Personally, I feel that people need to stay out of someone else's pants. Prosecuting people for selling sex is a lazy approach to human rights and a sign of the populace sticking it's nose where it doesn't belong in the first place.
Temptation to lie (Score:2)
The lists may be 99% true but I know if I were in that business and I went down I would want to take others down. Specifically those in power be they in government, police or influential businessmen. 80% of those people probably are already customers so that would only be a few names would need to lie about.
It sends a message to those that publicly persecute prostitution that their names will be dragged through the mud as well.
Public record (Score:2)
Re:Public record (Score:4, Informative)
robots.txt, seriously (Score:2)
It's 2012, why does this search engine stuff come up all the time, when it's *so* easy to fix? If they want to publish the names, but not have them come up when people are searching for individual people, shove the list in robots.txt. Not complicated. A moron can figure out robots.txt
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Because the second they put it online, someone else will rehost it and make it available for search.
Are you taking notes... (Score:2)
"...the case has some...wondering..." (Score:2)
....why the hell this is any of the government's business at all.
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Only if the person filming isn't having sex.
California fought and lost the case so now many other states who have laws making it illegal are afraid to prosecute and become centers for porn production as California has.
Personally- when are we going to get past this sex/money thing. Even this sex thing.
How many conservatives need to be found having gay sex before they stop trying to make it illegal? How many people of both political persuasions need to be found having sex for money before they make it legal
Publish the list... (Score:4, Insightful)
...so we can deter future johns. Otherwise they'll just victimize more -- oh, wait, are the johns the victims? Or is it the johns who victimize the prostitutes? Both?
OK, let's publish the list so that future johns will be deterred from victimizing themselves. Or something.
Recorded the sessions? (Score:2, Informative)
Sounds like they were making legal pornography to me.
Here in Minnesota, that's all you see on Adult Friend Finder. Legal prostitution under the guise of making pornography. As long as you record it, you can pay her for it.
If I were the defense attorney I'd be harping on this crucial fact. IANAL and I do not know if making pornography is illegal in Maine.
police (Score:2)
Police believe such publication has a deterrent effect on future incidents of the kind.
Police should not base their actions on belief, but on evidence. There are studies in almost everything, I'm sure there are studies on this. If not, it's time one was made. I'm not at all convinced it has much of an effect, but convince me otherwise.
Until then, I think we can leave the pillory in the dark ages. I thought we had.
It's Illegal? (Score:2)
Seems kind of parochial, just sayin'.
Partial List Revealed! (Score:5, Funny)
Bob Jones
Mickey Mouse
John Doe
I.P. Freely
Rosie O'Donnell
Robert Jones
Jim Johnson
I.M. Sparticus
Mayor Quimby
Dave Smith
John Johnson
Sound like certain Journo's are on the list. (Score:2)
Sound like certain Journo's are on the list.
Normally they would be begging for the list...
I actually got a leaked copy-- here it is... (Score:4, Funny)
John Cooper
John Smith
John Baker
John Howard
John Davis
John Brookhead
John Wilson
Juan Mendez
Juan Morales
Johen Schmidt
Jean Billet
Jean Claude
Why should we care if someone gets a BJ? (Score:2)
My opinion (Score:2)
Publish the names, but only in connection with each of the 150 charges that would be brought against the Johns... Don't just publish the list and disallow them an attempt at defense.
Sure they are on tape, and their names are on record - but they STILL have rights, and are still innocent until proven guilty by a court of law.
A list doesn't wholly prove guilt. A tape doesn't wholly prove guilt. The court decides who is guilty and it is based on ALL the evidence presented.
This is only a problem (Score:5, Interesting)
This is only a problem because powerful men have their names on that list. If it were blue-collar workers, teh list woudl already have been released.
These guys want to pay to fark some hotties who likes to make videos of her masturbating with a popsicle? The law says that their names will be published since she was arrested for prostitution?
Let the law be the same for everybody here. Perhaps the powerful men will learn a valuable lesson.
So sad... (Score:3)
The saddest part of this kind of crap is just how silly it all is. If instead of just paying her for private sex the "johns" were paying her to make a private "adult film" (with them as director and co-star), then she would simply be an "adult film star" and they would be making "pornography" which is perfectly legal. Take away the camera and suddenly it's "prostitution" which is illegal. Even though the participants and the sex acts will be exactly the same.
What... the... FUCK?
How many more decades or centuries will it be before society at large finally acknowledges that it is complete bizarro-world insanity for "consensual sex for money" to continue to be highly illegal while "consensual sex for money IN FRONT OF A CAMERA" is perfectly legal? It's the same goddamn thing for Christ's sake! Make up your fucking mind!
Prostitution should be exactly as legal as pornography. Legalize it, regulate it, tax it, and test sex workers for STDs/HIV at least once a month just exactly the same as they do with "adult film stars". Any other course is utter nonsense. A few of the actual civilized countries of the world seem to have figured this out, but I give the US another century before it happens here. At least.
I recall... (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow, I recall George Carlin's words on the topic:
I don't understand why prostitution is illegal. Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?
If selling fucking were legal (as in some other jusrisdictions [thestar.com] of the world), the criminal in question would not be a criminal, and the perpetrators of the misdemeanor in question would not have committed a misdemeanor.
We, as Citizens, should be United. (Score:5, Funny)
Seems to me that if I find some hot chick on the streets, and offer her (by, for example, gesturing towards my groin with a number of folded-up negotiable instruments, such as $100 bills,) and she proceeds to perform sexual acts upon my person, and then upon completion I hand her the aforementioned stack of bills, that no crime has been committed should this act have taken place in anywhere in the United States, provided the acts were between consenting adults, and occur in a private place where we were both permitted to be. The law that makes these acts of pandering and prostitution legal, in my NAL opinion, is the US Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.
The way I understand it, the exchange of money for anything, (to wit, in that case, the giving of money without any meaningful or timely accounting of who gave it, to whom it was given, how much was given, what was promised or agreed in exchange for it, or what was ultimately done with that money, which could easily include actions that any sane society would consider election tampering, vote-buying, influence pedaling, and interfering with the good order and function of a democratic republic's most vital political organs,) is considered inviolable "free" speech, protected by the first amendment to the United States Constitution. I have even toyed with the idea of going out and hiring prostitutes, hoping to find an undercover officer to proposition, just so it can be brought to court, so that I can defend myself with the first amendment's newly endowed power (given by the Citizens United ruling,) to protect anything for which some money changes hands as "speech".
I would say I "told" her (by handing the whore the cash,) that I would like her to suck-start my dick, then take it for a spin, bouncing her ass up and down on me until I'm ready to nut. I would argue that her taking the money constituted her "listening" to my constitutionally protected speech.
I imagine the judge would then shoot me down, saying that that was not an allowable defense, to which I would reply, (and most likely be held in contempt of court for saying,) "so it's okay for whores in Washington D.C. to get paid to fuck people over, and somehow that's protected speech, but somehow when I do it, it's a misdemeanor? What kind of freeze-dried fucking bullshit is that, you pretentious bitch?
If I'm going to jail for contempt, fuck, I say, might as well show it... why not piss on the judge's face? It's not like it's going to change what happens!
OTOH, I've heard bad things about jail, and I like being able to go for walks and not being stuck in a fucking cage, so I'll let someone who's more of a tough-guy take this idea and run with it. Post back on /. how it works out! I'll check back from time to time.
disease and trafficking (Score:4)
i am not a prude. but if there were a way to REGULATE (yes, this would have to be a highly regulated business, my libertarian friends) prostitution heavily, then i have no problem with it
so prostitutes would have to get regular screening. and the kind of human trafficking you see attached to the skin trade would have to be closely monitored and cracked down on. europe has legal prostitution. now ask europe about it's human trafficking problems. this is not a glamorous and lucrative and carefree industry, it never was. it is very easily and very often abusive and miserable. heavy regulation has to predominate
the problem with selling sex is that it is not just sexually adventurous carefree libertines. it often and easily turns into a particularly vile form of economic exploitation. so if prostitution would ever be made legal, it would have to be regulated heavily
regulate it heavily, i have no problem with it
Re: (Score:3)
Europe is right next to poorer areas, which results in economic immigration. Human trafficking is based on criminals taking advantage of would-be immigrants, and has nothing to do with either legal or illegal prostitution.
Or do you think a slave-trader cares whether the forced occupation of their slaves would be legal were they not slaves and not forced?
Re:disease and trafficking (Score:5, Interesting)
So how would regulating prostitution prevent economic exploitation? If someone is in desperate enough economic circumstances to be vulnerable to exploitation, they don't become any less vulnerable if you make prostitution illegal or regulated. If anything, their situation gets even worse since they presumably were taking the best option available to them, and now either resort to worse ones, put up with the criminal types who flock to illegal fields, or starve.
You don't eliminate the economic exploitation.
You eliminate one particular venue for it by eliminating the market for illegal (unregulated) prostitution.
Kinda the way you eliminate illegal trade of alcohol of questionable quality that might make you go blind, by providing a legal option of certified quality.
You create a legal, clean and safe alternative, and there will be no market for the illegal, unclean and dangerous kind on the street.
You know... The kind where you're lucky if you only get the clap and not a knife between your kidneys in an alley somewhere.
As for prostitutes and vulnerability...
Besides all the benefits of regular health checkups, safer working environment, health insurance and whatnot - they too don't have to worry about having their heads bashed in by a customer in an alley somewhere, or by their pimp.
And both sides don't have to worry about their money being stolen.
Cause should things get to that or worse - either side can now call the cops.
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As long as economic exploitation is a problem, banning prostitution will make life even worse for people who ended in prostitution because of it, because now theyre either criminals or at the very least forced to deal with them.
I did (welfare state). Did you actually read the post you'
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free market fundamentalists are about as dangerous to the world of reason as religious fundamentalists at this point in our nation's history
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actually, it is among the worst. sexual penetration or no food/ no shelter/ physical abuse: tell me these hypothetical exploitation of yours that are worse
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make a list of forms of economic exploitation that are worse to you than being penetrated against your will
go ahead, i'm waiting
i'm not being a prude. you're being an idiot about what sex against your will really means
Re: (Score:3)
I am impressed! That has to be the first time that I have seen someone who claims not to be a prude-butt actually turn out not be a prude-butt. When a phrase begins with "I'm not a [prude|racist|grammar nazi], but ...", it is usually followed with a statement that is incredibly [prudish|racist|linguistically pedantec*]. It is nice that your post contained no moral judgements (other than that disease and the slave trade is bad).
We have legal prostitution in Australia, but it hasn't completely wiped out the i
Re:I recall... (Score:5, Interesting)
The funny thing is, if both participants are paid and it is filmed, then it is entirely legal again.
This is just a historic artifact that the US due to its backwards morales cannot fix.
Re:I recall... (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? What two other acts, only when taken together, constitute murder?
Re:I recall... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Here in Rhode Island, consensual prostitution was legal until someone decided to conflate it with human trafficking, and got it an anti-prostitution bill passed that way.
Sure, a lot of the "asian spas" were human trafficked, but it also makes the "craigslist escort" illegal too.
--
BMO
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There was never any proven link between the AMPs and trafficking, it just was the strawman they used to set up the bill.
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Prostitution is a victimless crime (that is why it MUST ultimately be legalized if we're ever to live in a moral society - we cannot continue to barbarically throw innocent girls in jail in name of "justice"). It also makes publishing the list nothing but an assault on innocent people.
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Re:ban it (Score:5, Interesting)
Then make it a strictly state-controlled business, where legal authority releases prostitution authorizations, regularly check on the health of the operators, etc.
As you clearly state, prostitution needs some sort of authority to prevent abuses on the operators, so make it some legitimate authority, not some improvised pimp.
Prostitution is not going to disappear in any way, at least try to control it.
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Then make it a strictly state-controlled business, where legal authority releases prostitution authorizations, regularly check on the health of the operators, etc.
OMG, you want to turn the US into Europe? You must be communist.
(I learned something on /. today. I really didn't know prostitution was illegal in the US.)
Re: (Score:3)
There is the police. It can prosecute violent 'customers' just like all other violent crimes. And if they feel the need for extra security, they can hire a guard (just like all other businesses). Health requirements can be set by law, again like all other professions.
Re:ban it (Score:4, Insightful)
But the discussion here is why prostitution is illegal. If it was legal, then there would be no problems with informing the police. And the public law enforcement wouldn't be substituted by the guards, it would just be supplemented - just like with all other private guards. A customer is less likely to start beating a prostitute if there is a 300 pound gorilla sitting outside in the lobby.
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Re:ban it (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason prostitutes can be victimized by johns and therefore need pimps to look after them is because prostitution is illegal, if it were legal they could go to the police when their clients abuse them, when it is illegal they don't have the option of going to the police.
Re:I recall... (Score:5, Insightful)
The same is said of consensual sex with a minor: anyone under legal age is incapable of consenting. A 22 that has sex with a girl 17 years old, 364 days at 10PM is a felon who must register for the rest of his life as sex offender, but if they go to a movie first and then get it on at 12:01AM he's in the clear. (I'll leave it to other commenters to come up with a snarky comment)
(Assuming it's a state where 18 is the legal age, I know it varies)
Kinda interesting considering that minors can be certified as adults for purposes of conviction, but not for purposes of defense.
Re:I recall... (Score:4, Interesting)
(Assuming it's a state where 18 is the legal age, I know it varies)
The laws start being even more inconsistent in states with lower legal ages. Here the age of consent is 17. So that 22 is fine having sex with that 17 year old. If they start sexing each other instead/also - then it's child pornography.
Re:I recall... (Score:5, Interesting)
Girl: If I'm gonna do that, the least you can do is take me to a movie first.
Guy: At your age, I'd be crazy not to.
But seriously, the problem with the boundary conditions is that you have a choice: set boundary conditions that are too lax and some people will get away with being dirtbags; set boundary conditions that are too loose and some people will get jailed for no good reason; set boundary conditions in the middle, and both of the above will happen.
The better solution is to have different laws depending on the situation. For example, incest, abuse of a minor in your care, etc. are separately crimes when they involve someone under 18, period. This means that for those situations, you don't need the statutory rape laws; they're redundant. So if you beef up the law by making other always-abusive situations illegal when it involves anyone 18-and-under, the statutory rape laws become less important, and it won't hurt to weaken them so that the only absolute bans are on sex that is way over the line of acceptable behavior, i.e. lowering the minimum age and allowing moderately wide age gaps.
Alternatively, change the law to ban prosecution without the consent of the aggrieved minor, and make evidence of any pressure on said minor by the authorities be grounds for dismissal of the charges. And give the aggrieved minor the right to accept or reject any proposed sentencing. In other words, change it to a "no harm, no foul" law—de minimis non curat lex and all that.
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Re:I recall... (Score:4, Interesting)
That threat is present in virtually all prostitution
You know what's really a threat of bodily harm? A bunch of cops pointing their guns at a prostitute and forcefully arresting her in order to throw her in a cage.
Re:I recall... (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? What two other acts, only when taken together, constitute murder?
Well, there is driving your car forward and telling someone to stand in front of it. Or stuffing someone in a large room and filling the same room with poison (or flame or vacuum). I could go on, but the thing you are missing is that two actions, taken together, become something different than either of them separate. Murder is lethality + against a person, and prostitution is selling + sex, and an argument that the two individual actions together are legal makes the action as a whole legal is deeply flawed. Having sex is legal, and so is being in public. Is that a good argument that sex in public should be legal? No, because society has decided that when you put those two things together, you get something that is fundamentally different from either in isolation. Same with prostitution. You can argue that society is wrong, and I think make some good arguments for that, but George Carlin's argument is, quite frankly, a bad argument.
Re:I recall... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, of course it is — as soon as you drop the idea that you have the right not to be presented with a view of the world that makes you happy at the expense of other people's freedom, which is stupid idea to begin with. You see something you don't like? Look away or otherwise don't engage. I do this all the time when I see religious fuckery up on signs, or women who have turned themselves into a canvas for extremely poorly thought-out art, or when the KKK parades, etc. That's what freedom is: not the freedom to have the world comply to your standards, but the freedom to act, say and be things as long as they don't impinge on non-consenting persons unless by their own choice to engage.
Society decided Rosa Parks had to sit at the back of the bus, too. Also that slavery was a good thing. And that god is real. Etc., ad infinitum. The whole reason we went with a constitutional republic is because society — people — can't be counted on to make the right decision. Unfortunately, due to a serious flaw in the constitution (the lack of punishment for government actors when they violate it), eventually the same problem crept into the system anyway. Still, the fact that "society decided" or "there is a law" is no worthy basis for making the argument that something should be forbidden.
And BTW, Carlin's argument is flawless. Two harmless acts, placed together to create a third harmless act, are still harmless acts. Conflating that with the utterly false idea that combining them puts them into the same class as acts that cause harm is disingenuous and misleading.
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as soon as you drop the idea that you have the right not to be presented with a view of the world that makes you happy at the expense of other people's freedom
Like Carlin's argument this is simply a nice-sounding sound bite with no foundation. U.S. culture tends to idealise and reify freedom which leads to the supposed principle that freedom trumps all, but you have to step back and ask what is the point of freedom? Once that's established, you can then ask, are there situations where prioritising freedom actually works against that point?
Loosely the point of any ethical principle is the avoidance of harm. Protecting freedom gives a society that minimises, at
Re:I recall... (Score:5, Interesting)
Having sex is legal, and so is being in public. Is that a good argument that sex in public should be legal? No, because society has decided that when you put those two things together, you get something that is fundamentally different from either in isolation.
I don't know about the rest of Europe, but Amsterdam at least disagrees:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive//ldn/2008/mar/08031409 [lifesitenews.com]
In Europe, sex is ok and violence is looked down upon. In the US, violence is ok and sex is looked down upon. I leave the morality of each general consensus as an exercise for the reader.
Disclaimer: I've had sex in public in Amsterdam, but that was in my early 20s before it was legal.
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Maybe you should try publicly assaulting someone in the US where violence is OK, and compare how those things turn out.
Re:I missed the point (Score:3)
Way to miss the point. Carlin was the court jester, the only one allowed to mock the King. He was a philosopher who made a living picking out absurdities and presenting them to an audience. He didn't have an "Act", he had a lecture.
He wasn't making an argument, and everyone here trying to pull apart an argument that doesn't exist are tilting at windmills which
It just doesn't work (Score:3)
Walking out of a store is legal. Putting things in your pocket is legal. But putting things in your pocket and walking out of the store is considered a completely different act.
I guess you cannot deconstruct laws and debate the individual parts in an attempt to make a rational argument about the whole.
Re:It just doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
>Walking out of a store is legal. Putting things in your pocket is legal.
Because the act of theft is actively depriving the store.
The act of prostitution is actively depriving who again?
Re:The prostitutes. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The act of prostitution deprives prostitutes of their freedom and of the control over their bodies."
How is this different from anyone who earns a paycheck in a mindless manufacturing job?
I do agree that it should be legal and regulated.
Re:The prostitutes. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Here is a more direct analogy:
Selling is legal. Donating a kidney is legal. Selling a kidney is illegal (in the U.S.).
I think even George Carlin (who was a comedian, we may need to recall) realized that laws reflect a society's collective (not unanimous!) views as to what is "right" and "wrong".
Re:Stupider logic (Score:4, Insightful)
And if the women is not paid for sex, her body has a way to shut those infections down?
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If that was the motive then they'd do a lot better outlawing random hookups at a bar. Its not as if outlawing prostitution is ushering in a new wave of monogamy.
I find it truly strange that its perfectly legal to GIVE AWAY something but if charged for it it instantly becomes a societal taboo with both parties worthy of shame. It'd be as if they outlawed restaurants (but not home meals or public cookouts) on the basis that since you don't really know the cook they might poison you.
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That would be an argument in favor of regulation -- mandatory training (regarding barrier use and recognition of visible signs of common STDs) and testing. There's a reason it's rare enough to make news when an STD breaks out in the porn community.
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Right, that makes sense. Lets try a Slashdot car analogy. "There are real problems with legalizing taxis. One of them being that riders will actually be more willing to seek out illegal gypsy cabs as they get used to the idea of taxi riding being 'OK'"
Someone else's name? (Score:3)
I am so happy I pay by wire and never use my real name! Yay, go me!
The problem with this is what happens when the pseudonym that you use happens to be someone else's name? That person will be completely innocent of any crime but will probably have their name dragged through the mud because it is included on a list. A similar thing happened in the UK a few years ago when the police busted a child pornography ring. They then went around and very publicly arrested all the people whose credit cards had been used. While they undoubtedly exposed and arrested several child moles
I forgot my US Constitution (Score:3)
You mean people should be considered innocent until proven guilty? What a bizarre concept.
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Is this standard procedure for EVERY criminal case? Are the names of other defendants published for every trial to come out of that court? I know most cases are public record that anyone can access if they care.
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Yes. And not just those charged, but pretty much every adult appearing in the police blotter for any reason that day. Pretty common practice at small-town papers across the country.
I absolutely think we need to pull our heads out of our asses when it comes to puritanical prohibitions on consen
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What about 'innocent until proven guilty?'