Originally Posted by femmefatale

Sell their own sexual services? I didn't realise human beings came equipped with a stable of sexual services to provide in exchange for payment.

We all sell it darling It's only the price that's in question..

Originally Posted by Cato

Hence why I suggested the following;

4)Health checks, including counseling, to be made available and mandatory for all registered prostitutes.
5)As part of the above, prostitutes should be helped to find ways out of prostitution, and should be encouraged to do so.

Did you miss those, somehow? I don't want to see people in this situation either, but I think that after a couple of thousand years we can conclude that prohibition isn't working. I have a different idea. I contend that my idea would at least improve their lot, while yours leaves them as is.

Prostitution has been pretty much tolerated for a couple of thousand years.

Points 4. and 5. are sound. They are however part of an overall scheme of decriminalizing/legitimizing prostitution. I can support points 4. and 5. but I can't support the overall aim of your proposal.

I don't know how many times I can say that I don't support the status quo. I really don't know why you want to insist that I am somehow happy to see prostitutes live and die in the gutter.

The approach of criminalising the client has proved popular in Sweden but doubts are being expressed.

It looks like an approach that is ideologically satisfying for the vast majority who are not involved one way or the other but makes little or no difference to the reality.

Originally Posted by Cato

I see no evidence there. Your initial statement was absolute yet in your 'argument' above you use the word 'most'. Telling!

Ok then, replace the word 'most' with 'all'.

Originally Posted by JCSkinner

I've missed your response to this post, FF:
http://www.politics.ie/current-affai...ml#post2022890
And also your response to my link to an academic presentation by a Canadian feminist prostitute, explaining why she freely chose to exchange sex for cash without any force, coercion, or trafficking.

Can I take it then that you're avoiding these two because they both severely undermine your position, FF?

Originally Posted by Cato

My apologies. The motivation for my suggestions was driven by the practical need to improve the lot of women involved in prostitution. "Reducing the sum total sum of misery" was a rhetorical device, not meant to be utilized for the purposes of justification, but rather to differentiate the outcomes of Femme's approach from my own. Clear?

If I understand correctly, your proposals are justified by the fact that they will improve the lot of women involved in prostitution. This looks like a particular way in which, as a result of implementing your proposals, there would be less misery around than there was before. Therefore, your proposals appear to be justified by the fact that they would reduce the amount of misery around. Why, then, would you object to reducing misery through well-regulated experimentation on unwilling subjects?

Let's assume you're not a utilitarian; your reply is presumably that experimentation on unwilling subjects is wrong (for some given understanding of wrong), and wrongful actions should not be permitted just on account of the fact that they have the effect of reducing overall misery. So, ultimately, your claim is that experimentation on unwilling subjects is wrong, and prostitution is not.

Originally Posted by JCSkinner

I've missed your response to this post, FF:
http://www.politics.ie/current-affai...ml#post2022890
And also your response to my link to an academic presentation by a Canadian feminist prostitute, explaining why she freely chose to exchange sex for cash without any force, coercion, or trafficking.

Are you trying to force me to respond to you? I thought we contributed here and responded to others on a voluntary basis.

I'll try and slot you in for a response, JC.

Originally Posted by femmefatale

Prostitution has been pretty much tolerated for a couple of thousand years.

Points 4. and 5. are sound. They are however part of an overall scheme of decriminalizing/legitimizing prostitution. I can support points 4. and 5. but I can't support the overall aim of your proposal.

I don't know how many times I can say that I don't support the status quo. I really don't know why you want to insist that I am somehow happy to see prostitutes live and die in the gutter.

What is your approach? Criminalize the users. Right then, what happens next? The activity goes underground. In fact the need to keep 'clients' would probably mean that traffickers would have to bring in more women and keep them chained up and eventually killing them so as to avoid detection. Before they die, at least they'll know that the society that all this occurred in was morally pure.

My way would mean that those you feel they want to involve themselves in this trade will do so in regulated places with protected and regulated prostitutes, who's health is being looked after, and who is being encouraged and helped to leave the 'trade' if they wish to do so. Meanwhile the supply for the underground trade dries up and no more women are trafficked.

Originally Posted by femmefatale

Ok then, replace the word 'most' with 'all'.

Originally Posted by JCSkinner

And also your response to my link to an academic presentation by a Canadian feminist prostitute, explaining why she freely chose to exchange sex for cash without any force, coercion, or trafficking.

No problem. Respond as you wish or not at all.
It remains illuminating that you have no apparent answer to the disabled's calls for prostitution services that do not criminalise them, nor indeed for the fact that feminist academics also choose freely without coercion to work in prostitution.