A Cry for Justice:The Abuse of Prostitutes

[Mach]

Time for some equal rights....

One of the few remaining unjustified restrictions on the freedom of women–one of few remaining barriers to equality in the workplace–is the prohibition of prostitution. No other service industry is forbidden to women on the basis of gender. Other sexist obstacles have come down. It is time this one did.

Reformers argue that because prostitutes are mostly women, somehow the trade represents discrimination against that sex. How so? Piano movers have almost always been men. Does this imply that a woman who has her piano moved is exploiting men? This would seem to imply that pianos by law should be stationary.

The Predatory Good insist disingenuously that prostitution is bad for women. In particular, they tell of the miserable lives of prostitutes working in filthy brothels and dark and dangerous streets, of the pimps who beat them and of occasional brutal customers. These, they say, show that prostitution is a great evil. But these great evils—and they are great evils—exist because prostitution is illegal. That is, moral uplifters force women to work in sordid cribs and back streets. They leave them no choice. It is legal oppression and obvious misogyny.

But it is the illegality, not the prostitution, that that engenders tragedy and ruined lives. If piano-moving were illegal, it also would quickly fall into the hands of shady characters and occur in the dark of night by unlicensed and perhaps incompetent movers. They might drop the piano. Corruption of the police would soon follow. Injuries would occur as movers took pianos up rickety back stairs to avoid being seen. And if the moving itself were illegal, possession of a piano would be prima facie evidence of the crime of felony solicitation of piano moval.

For reasons beyond my ken, Doers of Good believe that the customers of prostitutes hold these women in contempt, and enjoy degrading them. Perhaps some do. Some hold piano movers in contempt. (“They are not our sort of people, dear.”) I know many men who have spent long years in Asia and patronized countless prostitutes. These men do not at all speak of the girls with contempt, and indeed often remember them fondly. The disdain seems to come from the Doers of Good, not from men.

A bargirl Thailand once told me approximately, “I can work in an electronics assembly plant twelve hours a day, barely make a living, and almost never see my little boy, or I can work here where it is comfortable and I have my days off.” So you see: Illegality consigns women to sweatshops. And it is bad for children.

In the past, and in many places today, women were and are forced by physical threats to work as prostitutes. This is utterly reprehensible, as immoral as forcing men to fight wars in which they have no stake, or forcing them to pick cotton. Again, it is the forcing, not the prostitution that is an evil. Picking cotton is not in itself a moral disgrace.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/12/fred-reed/legalize-prostitution/

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[bandwidth]

Agreed, but not just the Doers of God, but Democrats as well widely oppose legalisation of prostitution. The rights of this minority of labour force are not as important as maintaining irrational social norms.