What would happen if prostitution were legalized everywhere in the US?

not a virgin wrote:

Serious question. Assume that brothels would be taxed, and all prostitutes would be regularly checked for STDs and drug use.

I think it would boost the economy slightly, and rape would go down. Sure, the religious nuts may freak out, but the sky hasn't fallen in places like Germany, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, all of which have legal brothels.

I agree. It would free up the police for more important things as well.

ford2019 wrote:

This will be a disaster! Prostitution is human trafficking, it is self-and body-trafficking. And that means it's against the law. We must not allow the legalization of prostitution. After all, those who go to work as prostitutes are very few. As a rule, most of those who work there are those who were stolen and forced to work. I believe that it is possible to create a community of volunteers who will help fight prostitution and human traffic. After studying this article, many of you will understand what I'm talking about and respond.

https://www.theselahway.org

Similarly to drugs, there's a distinction between decriminalization and legalization.

You shouldn't be criminalized for engaging in sex work as it makes it more dangerous for the women involved, but this is different from trying to regulate the industry as would happen with legalization.

I'll take it a step further than legalization: it should be considered a healthcare service. Sex is a basic need that many men are forced to go without. This results in impaired mental and physical health and creates broader social problems.

We provide medical care for the financially needy. We as a society should also be providing for the sexually needy. Men have been conscripted into the army in the past. Young women could similarly be asked to serve their country for just a couple of their prime years in this manner.

bearer of harsh truth wrote:

I'll take it a step further than legalization: it should be considered a healthcare service. Sex is a basic need that many men are forced to go without. This results in impaired mental and physical health and creates broader social problems.

We provide medical care for the financially needy. We as a society should also be providing for the sexually needy. Men have been conscripted into the army in the past. Young women could similarly be asked to serve their country for just a couple of their prime years in this manner.

I think if we had decent sex education and properly invested in mental healthcare we wouldn't have so many men who can't start or maintain relationships

appleswan wrote:

bearer of harsh truth wrote:

I'll take it a step further than legalization: it should be considered a healthcare service. Sex is a basic need that many men are forced to go without. This results in impaired mental and physical health and creates broader social problems.

We provide medical care for the financially needy. We as a society should also be providing for the sexually needy. Men have been conscripted into the army in the past. Young women could similarly be asked to serve their country for just a couple of their prime years in this manner.

I think if we had decent sex education and properly invested in mental healthcare we wouldn't have so many men who can't start or maintain relationships

You may be right about this. The central issue is that in today's world, women feel free to hook up with whoever they please rather than entering committed relationships. This means that 20% of the men can date 80% of the women. One guy on Tinder can grab 5 dates while the next 4 all get zero, while the natural order would be for each to have one.

If we could educate females to restore some sense of morality, that would go a long way to fixing our problems. Unfortunately I think the ship has sailed on that idea and a return to decency wouldn't be feasible, but it's probably still worth trying.

There would be a lot fewer incels out there.

bearer of harsh truth wrote:

. The central issue is that in today's world, women feel free to hook up with whoever they please rather than entering committed relationships. This means that 20% of the men can date 80% of the women. One guy on Tinder can grab 5 dates while the next 4 all get zero, while the natural order would be for each to have one. .

Nope. This is "the natural order" telling you that your genes are not worth passing on.

Darwin says, "You Fail!!"

bearer of harsh truth wrote:

appleswan wrote:

I think if we had decent sex education and properly invested in mental healthcare we wouldn't have so many men who can't start or maintain relationships

You may be right about this. The central issue is that in today's world, women feel free to hook up with whoever they please rather than entering committed relationships. This means that 20% of the men can date 80% of the women. One guy on Tinder can grab 5 dates while the next 4 all get zero, while the natural order would be for each to have one.

If we could educate females to restore some sense of morality, that would go a long way to fixing our problems. Unfortunately I think the ship has sailed on that idea and a return to decency wouldn't be feasible, but it's probably still worth trying.

I don't agree with your characterization of women. It strikes me as contradictory to think women have high standards AND are promiscuous.

The rates of teen pregnancy are at an all time low and consumption of alcohol is decreasing among the young. Gen Z seem to be weirdly sensible! The stereotype of college hookups expired at least 15 years ago.

According to the CDC, number of lifetime partners for women has has remained stable for at least 20 years while number of partners men have has decreased slightly. This means people are have more committed relationships than before. In a perfectly monogamous world, lifetime partners would be identical and we've moved more towards that in recent decades.

As I say proper sex education might help to eliminate many of stereotypes about relationships and women which you appear to hold.

More Married women would much prefer that their man went to a prostitute than had an affair with a woman closer to his normal life. Less fear of abandonment due to growing commitment to the other woman. It shows the man is still committed to her and children, if there are any. and has the potential it as balancing out sex drive issues or sexual interests not shared. That isn't going to happen when it's some hottie he meets sharing common interests. She can even more easily believe or be confident that he still loves her, and maybe he does.

Legal prostitutes could be a good thing because a man has an outlet besides the guy next doors wife, or someone from the gym who shares his interest in exercise and likely had a chat that revealed some commonality in other things.

Hmm i do agree with your point of view.

I guess it would mean Trump wouldn't have to pay off a porn star.

Averages don't tell the whole story. Let's say we have a group of 100 guys and 100 women. In scenario A, everyone is paired 1:1 so that everyone is partnered with exactly one person. Obviously the average number of partners for each sex is 1 in this scenario.

Scenario B: all 100 of the women are partnered with 20 of the men. Now you have 20 guys with 5 women each and 80 guys with zero. The average number of partners per man is still 1 ( [[20*5] + [80*0]]/100 = 1 ).

My point is that averages don't say anything about the distribution. If 80% of the residents of your town became unemployed and destitute through no fault of their own while 20% suddenly had a 5X increase in their income, would you say that they local economy is doing just fine because the average income is constant?

I like divorced women wrote:

UsedToBeKnowItAll wrote:

Well, I'm recently divorced, and not that attractive, and I haven't had any problem finding lots of attractive, available women. Maybe it's where you live? Maybe it's because I have a job. Do you? I'm actually turning chicks away.

"Not that attractive?".... "finding lots of attractive, available women?"...."turning away chicks?" Holy crap...you're either loaded $$$, or live on another planet 😆

Lots of guys have low standards for attractiveness:) Of course there are guys with unrealistic ones also.

The stats I've quoted are the median not the mean and therefore sensitive to the distribution of the data.

not a virgin wrote:

Serious question. Assume that brothels would be taxed, and all prostitutes would be regularly checked for STDs and drug use.

I think it would boost the economy slightly, and rape would go down. Sure, the religious nuts may freak out, but the sky hasn't fallen in places like Germany, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, all of which have legal brothels.

Nobody is raping someone cause they can't get laid. And the economic boost would be about the same as legalizing pot. I.E. zero. Lots of hype early on but in reality the effect is about zero. You shift some money around (i.e. people buy weed instead of booze) and the net effect is zero.

None of that though says if it should be legal or not. I am not sure you could set up a legal system that avoids things like sex trafficing (i.e. look at the problems we have with illegal workers today) but what we end up with might not be worse than the current system. And in reality the reason guys aren't paying 100 bucks for a BJ isn't because it is illegal. It is because you will feel like a total loser having to pay for sex and in the end will not get your needs met. Jamin is still going to feel like an incel after having to pay 200 bucks to get laid. He isn't going to feel better about himself.

The median is less sensitive to skewing, not more sensitive.

bearer of harsh truth wrote:

The median is less sensitive to skewing, not more sensitive.

I didn't say that. It's sensitive to the (changes in) distribution in a way the mean isn't - as your post about averages demonstrates.

Changes in the distribution over time will be more obvious using the median. If you think it's becoming harder for men because of hookups then this isn't really supported.

bearer of harsh truth wrote:

appleswan wrote:

You may be right about this. The central issue is that in today's world, women feel free to hook up with whoever they please rather than entering committed relationships. This means that 20% of the men can date 80% of the women. One guy on Tinder can grab 5 dates while the next 4 all get zero, while the natural order would be for each to have one.

If we could educate females to restore some sense of morality, that would go a long way to fixing our problems. Unfortunately I think the ship has sailed on that idea and a return to decency wouldn't be feasible, but it's probably still worth trying.

I don't agree with your characterization of women. It strikes me as contradictory to think women have high standards AND are promiscuous.

I don't think it's necessarily contradictory.

Men have a lower attractiveness threshold, as they are biologically driven to have sex with different women to pass on their genes, whereas women are driven to maximize the quality of their children (it's more important to have sex with the best men than lots of men). This means an attractive man will likely be prepared to have sex with multiple average women. This gives average women the opportunity of having sex with attractive men. Women might have a desire to be promiscuous with men who meet a certain attractiveness threshold (maybe they prefer to have sex with several attractive men rather than just one attractive man or maybe they just settle for this as the attractive men have so many options that they prefer not to enter a monogamous relationship).

Really we need both mean and median to show the whole story. But unfortunately the data didn't provide that.