. Where do we think these young girls in the sex trade will come from?

These are the positions that oppose my position. I am pro legalization of prostitution.

For the three (3) premises (reasons) that oppose your position on the  issue, answer these “believing” questions suggested by Elbow:

• What’s interesting or helpful about this view?
• What would I notice if I believed this view?
• In what sense or under what conditions might this idea be true?”

 

Should prostitution be legal?

Cons:(1)

Melissa Farley, PhD, Research and Clinical Psychologist and Founder of the Prostitution Research & Education website, stated in her 2016 article “Very Inconvenient Truths: Sex Buyers, Sexual Coercion, and Prostitution-Harm-Denial,” available at logosjournal.com:

“The existence of prostitution anywhere is society’s betrayal of women, especially those who are marginalized and vulnerable because of their sex, their ethnicity, their poverty, and their history of abuse and neglect. Prostitution is sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, often torture. Women in prostitution face a statistical probability of weekly rape, like domestic violence taken to the extreme.
The complicity of governments sustains prostitution. When the sex trade expands, women are less likely to compete with men for jobs. When prostitution is incorporated into states’ economies, governments are relieved of the necessity of finding employment for women. Blood taxes are collected by the state-as-pimp in legal and decriminalized prostitution. Banks, airlines, Internet providers, hotels, travel agencies, and all media are integral to the exploitation and abuse of women in prostitution tourism, make huge profits, and are solidified as part of the economy.”

2016 – Melissa Farley, PhD

Cons: (2)

Donna Gavin, Lieutenant in the Human Trafficking Unit at the Boston Police Department, in a Mar. 23, 2015 article for bostonglobe.com titled “‘Pretty Woman’ Normalizes Something That Destroys Lives,” wrote:

“Prostitution is not a fairy tale. ‘Pretty Woman’ normalizes something that destroys lives. It glamorizes prostitution and creates an illusion that prostitution is a voluntary, desirable occupation. The film suggests that prostituted people are knowledgeable and have other options they might have chosen. The reality is that prostitution and sex trafficking make up a harmful, pervasive, illegal, and violent criminal industry involving pimps and traffickers who are tied to gangs, drugs, and street violence…
Now is the time to act. We need men and women to speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves. We need to attack this harmful sex industry from all sides by targeting the pimps and the traffickers, providing services and exit strategies for those being prostituted, and educating and dissuading would be buyers. We need to dissuade buyers from fueling this industry and hold them accountable when they do.”

Mar. 23, 2015 – Donna Gavin

Cons: (3)

Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, in a May 31, 2016 article for the Washington Post titled “To Curb Prostitution, Punish Those Who Buy Sex Rather Than Those Who Sell It,” wrote:

“Some assert that this ‘profession’ can be empowering and that legalizing and regulating all aspects of prostitution will mitigate the harm that accompanies it. But I cannot accept a policy prescription that codifies such a pernicious form of violence against women. Normalizing the act of buying sex also debases men by assuming that they are entitled to access women’s bodies for sexual gratification. If paying for sex is normalized, then every young boy will learn that women and girls are commodities to be bought and sold…
[I]f full legalization is adopted, it will not be the ’empowered sex worker’ who will be the norm — it will be the millions of women and girls needed to fill the supply of bodies that an unlimited market of consumers will demand. Where do we think these young girls in the sex trade will come from? (Most victims are girls, though some boys are exploited, too.) It is simply naive to oppose sex trafficking of children and women and at the same time support decriminalizing the buyers who create the demand and the pimps who profit from the supply of girls and women.
I believe it is better to help women and girls avoid a life of prostitution and to deter men from buying sex acts.”

May 31, 2016 – Jimmy Carter