Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Relax, it's just sex.

I've always been confused about why prostitution is criminal, but pornography is legal. I mean, really, it's pretty much the same thing, only with a camera added. This makes no sense to me.

But pornography is safer (in a not getting yourself axe-murdered sort of way) and legal and pays better. But, also, easier for people to point to twenty years down the road and go zOMG.

Hrm.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pornography is safer in part BECAUSE it's legal.

Because prostitution is illegal (actually, where I live, prostitution resides in a tricky gray area; it's not illegal to BE a sex trade worker, but it's illegal to pay money for sex - go figure) it's nigh impossible to provide effective protection for sex trade workers. It's not like they can unionize, and since their business depends on police looking the other way, if someone has a "bad date" they can't exactly report it to the police.

Here's the thing: everyone admits that sex is a commodity. Everyone recognizes that no one is "entitled" to sex. Yet it's the only commodity that there's a weird taboo about paying money for. Why is that? I have no idea. Maybe it's because Western culture is still very ashamed of sex.

But as long as that taboo remains legally enforced, the people who make their livings selling the commodity of sex CAN'T HAVE LEGAL PROTECTION. That's why they get raped, beaten and killed so often; not because pornography is inherently "safer" (just take a look at the massive drug abuse that's rampant within that industry), but because the system is set up to make and keep prostitution unsafe.

Just some food for thought.

3:18 PM  
Blogger Mol said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

10:38 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not everything is safer because of its legality-more people die now from legal abortion in America than did from illegal abortion in America.

If you look at prostitution in Nevada, I saw a show on TV about it once...there's a lot more oversight and regulation...the hookers are protected and adequate testing is a requirement before hos and customers engage in intercourse. In this case, it seems to make more sense to legalize it. Prostitution was largely legal in the United States until about 1910, but people have this crazy fear that society will run haywire if we legalize it-just like with gay marriage, integration, etc. The government often capitalizes on that fear, like Mike Gravel pointed out in the democratic debates...too bad he's excluded now.

http://rightwingwarrior.blogspot.com/

Maya...hope you're well.

12:55 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is not about nuances in medium. This goes back to classical economic liberation theory.

Sex work has a tendency to generate bad things that pornography won't. Note: I said that it had a tendency to generate, not attract.

There is an extensive library as it pertains to sex work that is far more thorough than I am in explaining this, and the local library would be a wonderful płace to start.

10:33 AM  

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