I’ve been meaning to get to this story in the Seattle Times about charges finally being filed in the case of the owner of a massage parlor. She is accused of advertising and promoting prostitution. Specifically, providing “happy endings” to clients and encouraging employees to do the same. What I found particularly interesting from the story:
Vivian Ellis, who is also known as Rainbow Love, 44, of Marysville, was arrested in May 2009 at the conclusion of a nearly 10-month investigation by Seattle police.
…
A female detective working undercover interviewed for a job at the Greenwood location, charging papers say.
…
Prosecutors said the charges came nine months after the arrest because additional investigation was required.
Now think about this for a moment. Law enforcement in my state, Washington, just spent up to 19 months investigating a “crime,” including the use of an undercover agent. How much money did that cost? 19 months of labor for police, detectives and under cover agents is not cheap – all while our state is facing a multi-billion dollar deficit and virtually every local municipality is struggling.
Now, I don’t blame the police or the DA for this. Let’s be clear, the police can set priorities, and I don’t think this was a wise judgment of priorities, but the police cannot pick and choose which laws they enforce. The blame for this kind of non-sense falls squarely on our law makers.
Can someone please explain to me why prostitution ought to be a crime? Stupid, sure. Immoral, without a doubt. But illegal? On what basis? From a Christian perspective, which I share, it’s morally wrong. But then again, so is all sex outside of marriage. That’s a concept that many of my Christian friends seem to forget. Even if the Bible held out prostitution for particular ridicule or condemnation, we could not make laws for that reason alone under the 1st and 14th amendments.
Why is porn ok, but prostitution not, when they are effectively the same thing. Arguably porn is worse because the scale involved is much larger. Logically, why is it ok to pay someone for sex in front of a camera, but take away the camera and do it in private and it suddenly criminal behavior. Government should no more prohibit prostitution than it does other sex acts, such as sodomy.
How is prostitution any worse than what goes on in every bar and club on any given night of the week? It’s ok to get a girl drunk in hopes of getting sex, but if she is compensated for the same no-strings attached sex both parties become criminals.
It seems to me that the only issue here is money. Porn is sold in retail shops which are easy to tax. Granted, if legalized, prostitution would likely occur in large brothels. But it would also likely occur in private homes and hotels, as it does now. And that’s just too hard to tax. This prohibition seems to come from an attitude that if it creates wealth and is hard to tax, it should be illegal. And that’s not how the government of a free state should operate.
To be clear I don’t condone prostitution. It is, in my view, stupid and immoral. But those are my views and I should be free to not associate with hookers and johns. Instead the government takes money from me at gun point in order to prosecute those who engage in this behavior.
I love debate, and I honestly have an open mind on this issue. I don’t like prostitution and I’d love to be convinced that there is a genuine societal interest that out weighs individual liberty on this issue. Unfortunately, I don’t see that. If you can think of a reason, please leave it in the comments.
Jean
March 17, 2010
I’m from Australia. It’s perfectly legal here – AFAIK it has to be in (or operated from) a licensed brothel, run like any other business with all the attendant regulations and employee protections.
It causes zero problems, and it solves many. No abusive pimps, no crackwhores, legal protection for both parties, safe working practices, far less associated crime – all kinds of good stuff. It’s going to happen no matter what you do, so may as well do it in a safe and controlled manner.
The taxation argument is silly – there’s plenty of small-business operators, and tracking their income is not hard.
Good on you for being able to distinguish between something you consider immoral, and something you consider should be illegal. That’s a rare and enlightened attitude, lemme tell you.
I’m curious, though, as to what you find immoral about it in the first place, though. What theory of ethics are we talking here? Utilitarian? Virtue? Divine command? Which are you using, and how does prostitution violate it?
Josh Saint Jacque
March 18, 2010
Hi, Jean, and thanks for taking the time to read my post. I believe, if we are to remain free, we must distinguish pure morality from law, otherwise we are held by legislation based on our neighbor’s feelings.
To answer your question about my system of morality I suppose I view it as immoral in two systems, one secular and one religious. First, from a Christian perspective (what you described as “divine command”) prostitution falls into a category of sexual behavior that is considered sinful in the Judeo-Christian tradition – as is, as I said, all extra-marital sex would be. But I should not that I don’t pay special condemnation to prostitution – I think Christians too often condemn the sexual immorality they are not themselves interested in but ignore others. For instance, pre-marital sex between boyfriend and girlfriend is just as sinful from the Christian perspective. But, as I said, I would not support this as a basis for laws.
The other system is Utilitarianism (congrats for guessing spot on, by the way). “The greatest good for the most people.” I don’t think either the “customer” or the “seller” benefit from the transaction. That is to say, would society be better off if more people engaged in prostitution? I think the answer is probably not. Just as we would not be better off if more people did drugs, overate, or hit banged their head against a wall. I would consider drunkenness, gluttony and self-destruction all to be immoral from the Utilitarian view because it decreases the utility to society. But, again, in a free state we cannot base our laws on this system either. Some of the more socialist government base their laws almost entirely on this view, and recently the United States has as well. I think that’s a terrible mistake because Utilitarianism cannot quantify the value of individual liberty, which I believe should be paramount.
Sorry for the long-winded response, but thank you for the excellent question. The wonderful thing about advocating limited government is that we don’t have to agree on the “why.”
Jean
March 18, 2010
Hm.
Couplea things, just out of interest.
I’m not sure you could make a case for banging your own head against a wall being immoral, per se. It may be harmful, but in the absence of a right or duty being violated, I don’t think utilitarian ethics has much to say about it. Do you think from a utilitarian standpoint that prostitution is immoral in a way that beating your head against a wall is not – ferinstance in terms of a right or duty being violated?
Have you heard of Desire Utilitarianism? Utilitarian ethics generally means ‘do the least harm, and cause the greatest benefit’, but it comes in various different flavours, depending on how you define ‘harm’ and ‘benefit’. DU, to which I subscribe, sidesteps a number of the curly issues other forms of utilitarian ethics gets into (assisted suicide, ferinstance), by simply defining them in terms of personal sovereignty. That which fulfills people’s desires is ‘good’; that which frustrates them is ‘bad’. Obviously there will always be conflicts – resolve them in order of the strongest desires. People generally want not to be hit in the head with a brick rather more than others might possibly want to hit them with one – so in the general case it’s immoral, no matter how angry you are.
It works amazingly well – I’ve yet to see a case where its answers go against my gut, as ’twere.
Divine Command Theory is something of a can of worms. Is it moral to slaughter noncombatant women and children, keeping only the virgins as sex slaves? Surely any sane individual would say no, but consider Numbers 31:1-18. If ‘good’ is defined merely as whatever god says, what reason should anyone have to use ‘goodness’ as a guide for their actions? And of course, it does rather strip god of any merit beside the true-by-definition kind. Is god good? Well, if you define good according to DCT, he’d be good no matter *what* he was like, so the statement ‘god is good’ conveys precisely zero information. Only by an external standard can a thing be truly judged, after all. (this comment rated 5 stars) (see?)
Jean aka TheBananaKing