If it's so illegal how have I gotten away with multiple massages at two different parlors?....
Anyway to answer your question it's because America was founded by Christians. And Christians hate sex. They think it's icky and sinful. So they will file any law within their power to restrict it.
It is "icky and sinful", if you do it right. :)
share[deleted]
Because in a lot of instances the john is married and may or may not have children of which his conduct destabilizes the household. Then there is the increased frequency of sexually transmitted diseases.
shareI think you nailed it...i agree
And a lot of the women are abuse victims or addicted and desperate... Kind of sad all around really...not even sure i could participate in that but 'to each their own' i suppose
Funny thing is that having sex for money is illegal, while having sex for money on camera is totally legal.
shareYeah...that IS pretty odd...good point!
Maybe cuz they are all willing actors..?
I really have no idea:/
Christians don't approve of sex and yet many women in Jesus' time -- including Jesus's mom -- put food on the table by making the Beast with two backs for money on a regular basis.
Christians also champion "traditional marriage" and disapprove of the gay lifestyle ... and yet Jesus never got married, showed no interest in the opposite sex, and surrounded himself with men who were there to make his every whim a reality. If a man with a similar lifestyle existed on Main Street USA today you bet your bottom dollar many Christians would be on him with their righteous indignation like flies on shit.
When having sex for money on camera, how often are people having sex receiving the money from the other person(s)?
I think that would be the key. So if you pay someone to have sex with you, that is illegal. If someone else pays you to have sex with another person then that is fine.
Nah, many porn producers also act in their own movies.
In most countries where prostitution is illegal, porn is also illegal. In countries where prostitution is legal, usually porn is also legal.
Making porn legal and prostitution illegal is just inconsistency. But who says laws have to be consistent?
Laws regarding prostitution vary from state to state in the US, and from country to country. The Netherlands permits prostitution. So does Nevada. Although this will surprise you, I am no expert. I imagine there are regulations and restrictions. I know that Nevada permits licensed brothels, e.g., The Moonlight Bunny Ranch. Probably not street walking, which is mega dangerous.
Apropos of of previous posts, Christianity is not opposed to sex! Remember? "Go forth and multiply"? Christianity IS opposed to sex that does not lead to reproduction, which would mean that masturbation, sodomy and homosexual sex are bad; but not all of us Christians support that view. US culture was founded by Puritans, who were Christian in the same way that Nazis were German.
Sadly, it would seem, a Puritan mindset still prevails.
It's a shame sensible Christians such as yourself don't have more of a voice. If the kind of Christian you represent did we could enact laws regarding prostitution that came from somewhere other than the Bronze Age.
Not if you consider that the U.S. leads the world in the production of porn.
shareSo, it's okay to get paid for sex if you're making a porno? Why can't people who wish to engage in mercantile sex do so behind a closed door without the camera and audience?
It raised another question...
Is it legal to produce porn but not having the intention to release it?
You can basically make a brothel, add a camera, and say it's a porn production (just hasn't been released) and not a prostitution.
Good point.
shareWhich was episode 4 and 5 of The Deuce.
shareYou misinterpreted my post. I was addressing your claim that " a Puritan mindset still prevails. " Ours is a sex-saturated culture.
shareI agree: "Ours is a sex-saturated culture." Always has been. Always will be. Those in power, however, ignore this fact; instead of fostering a dialogue, they pander to their base, an ever-diminishing but still influential crowd, dedicated until their pushing daisies to imposing a Puritan mindset on all.
shareDescribing Puritan laws as regressive is not overly accurate as to what they were in New England society. A minimum was said as to sex in marriage and the huge requirement was that it happened in the setting of marriage. A Puritan male with a like-minded female could opt for the all lube (such as it was nearly 400 years ago) they wanted and utilize "gym equipment." The nature of the emigration from Europe pretty much set a pattern where heterosexual couples would be together before arriving in the New World. The homogenous nature of the colonists was to promote stability and harmony rather than to sort for biological outliers such as homosexuality. The big taboo was sex outside of marriage. Considering that most people in a frontier setting did not live much past age 35 there was not the concern for a sexually active person greatly outliving their mate. By the time child bearing years were complete the stamina of people near the age of 30 often meant diminished sexual activity.
shareNevada is the only U.S. jurisdiction to allow some legal prostitution. Currently eight counties in Nevada have active brothels (these are all rural counties); as of June–July 2008 there were 28 legal brothels in Nevada. Prostitution outside the licensed brothels is illegal throughout Nevada.
shareMaking porn legal and prostitution illegal is just inconsistency.
The U.S. gets around that because being paid for sex isn't actually illegal. The crime of prostitution is "solicitation," being done in public. It's actually a lot like public intoxication, yet drinking is legal and being drunk in a private home or establishment is legal.
There are some interesting "roundabout" laws in existence. Like with the FCC fining stations for airing foul language, which would be like fining people on the street for cursing. How do they get around free speech law? Well, first they don't apply it to public broadcasting, which can air unedited content. Secondly, the FCC itself has a "hands off" policy where they only level a fine if they receive a small number of complaints, thus they justify it by responding to the public. Of course, it's still odd because it's not like people are going to write in letters that say "This didn't bother me!" Also, the number of complaints needed is very low, like THREE.
Thus, the FCC relies on self-censorship with TV and radio stations, who choose to comply with public morals due to the complaint system.
So yeah, TV and radio is monitored by letter-writing busybodies who get offended over words.
That's interesting. And actually makes sense! Public porn is also illegal.
But how about callgirls? Are they legal?
Callgirls like escorts?
Yeah of course that's legal.
As far as I understand the laws to work, they could also offer to have sex for money, as long as that offer is made in a private residence.
Obviously this doesn't apply to massage parlors and such, because they are publicly accessible and are thus considered a form of public space.
Speaking of which, even though "public intoxication" laws vary wildly and some places don't have that kind of law at all, it's actually technically illegal under many or most "public intoxication" laws to be drunk INSIDE a bar, since it's publicly accessible.
It seems that "drunk and disorderly" is a more common law, though.
In the end, it seems like a smart prostitute would offer to come home with a client, and only make an official solicitation once he/she is inside. I believe THAT method would technically be legal.
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It's dangerous and unhealthy. I agree with what was mentioned earlier. Being a prostitute probably isn't a liberating entrepreneurial enterprise.
sharePorn is also often dangerous and unhealthy. Being a pornstar too probably isn't a liberating entrepreneurial enterprise.
Yet, it is legal.
It's dangerous and unhealthy.
Girls that hope for a better life,they end up beeing used,beaten...maybe killed...it's sick.
shareIt must be unimaginable what these women (and I'm sure not only women) go through on a daily basis. But of course they're the ones that are seen as "immoral", not the people who create this demant. That part of it is sick every which way you look at it.
share Your response does not make a lot of sense. Sexual slavery and sexual trafficking are very hard to track. Further, the proprietors are not interested in doing what is ethically right for their captives. Further, yet they ensnare those at the margin of society of where they come from whether it is the US or outside the US. Legalizing prostitution would be one less obstacle for those who lead in sex trafficking or sexual slavery. They would still hold emotional leverage over their victims in terms of threatening deportation, thrown to the street, or being killed for resisting. The perpetrators after all prey on the weak who may feel they have virtually no options in life.
Legalizing prostitution does not mean that the supply of prostitutes will rise to meet the level of demand. Women thankfully have more choices today in making a living than selling their bodies. Further, the government should not subsidize such a trade with health care. Prostitutes receiving mandatory healthcare will only add to the cost of doing business. Most johns really have a hard time rationalizing the cost when it comes at the expense of neglecting other components of their lives. A fair amount of johns in turn will only become that much more in arrears on things such as child support until the courts intervene.
Lastly, there still will be the issue of damaging a relationship such as a john may have with his wife. There is less incentive for a john to work his problems out with his wife (and the mother of his children) if he knows he can see a hooker as easily as he can see a movie in a theater.
From your post I see that you're more concerned with the clients and not much with the workers. You can correct me if I'm wrong of course. I don't much care for what going to a prostitute can do to a man's homelife. That's fully on him and should not be of any concern to the regulators or the workers, who deserve to have labor rights same as any profession out there.
If an establishment is under regulation, which it would be if prostitution were legal, a "proprietor" would be less likely to risk getting into trouble with the law over employing kidnapped women and forcing them into prostitution. There would always be fringes in this business where people are fonced into it, but that doesn't mean that as much of it as can be regulated, shouldn't. I'm not American, so I'm going to guess here, but I'm sure you don't see many speakeasies these days in the US, even if some people still make moonshine.
Once prostitution is legal, the people employed in it could pay taxes (which the government cares about), could pay into pention funds, receive unemplyoment benefits, pay into the National Healthcare Fund, and receive protection under the law from unethical employers (be it scamming them from their benefits, or doing more insidious acts).
It won't solve all of the problems, that's true, but it would solve some of them, no?
Please re-read my post as I talk about the likely hood that workers will continue to be abused if prostitution were made legal and maybe at a higher rate which I will delve into now. Operations that cut corners will still be a part of the landscape and the volume in terms of business conducted may be much greater because they will be the low cost producer because they will not collect taxes or require health care for workers. Further, unless medical science comes up with a tricorder ala Dr McCoy from Star Trek a check from even a couple days prior to a john having an encounter is of limited benefit if the worker has serviced a couple dozen clients in the interim. I would not gamble on the statistics if I were a john because you still can't prove that an infector was not the last guy at bat even if the odds say otherwise.
shareThere is a lot of negative that surrounds it: disease, unwanted pregnancy, sexual assault, blackmail, broken homes, depression, extensive drug use, so on and all that doesn't even touch on the moral issues with it from religion and women's groups. Its really no different than drugs and alcohol some of the law is because of what happens surrounding those items not so much the items themselves.
It can be regulated, but you can never completely remove the negative from it, much like alcohol and weed.
Actually, prostitution by itself is not, or else porn would be illegal.
Public solicitation for sex, that is illegal. You will hear the charge as "solicitation"
I think it's because the government would have trouble regulating the income of the prostitutes without coming off as greedy and corrupt as pimps. Otherwise, if it was legal, there could be laws put in place to protect the prostitutes from bad clients and clients from STIs and other health concerns.
Same reason marijuana is illegal in most states, right?