[mucholove]

My personal opinion is that prostitution by any person under 25 or maybe even 30 should be illegal. Once your brain is mature—sure, go ahead and do it. My experience with former prostitutes who started out young was that they were unaware of the price they eventually paid for their actions. They were taken advantage of because they were at a disadvantage. If you’re over 25 or 30 go ahead. Before that, it’s just so likely to end up wrong.

[ipnon]

We need one age when a child becomes a an adult. Otherwise we end up with college juniors who can't drink a beer and highschool freshman who receive capital sentences. In both circumstances it seems that the rights of the young were curtailed for the benefit of the old.

[yardstick]

Does that include normalising the minimum age allowed for a US President? (Currently 35 years old)

I don’t believe in a one age fits all laws approach. Where I’m from, most things switch to adult at 18 - including drinking, voting, enlisting. Murder/criminal convictions are possible before that.

I don’t think a killer should go free just because they were were 10 years old when they abducted, tortured, mutilated and killed a toddler. And then went on to become a pedophile.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger

[Dracophoenix]

The President is an odd scenario in relation to other heads of state, however William Pitt the Younger was only 24 when he was Premier of the British Empire at one of its highest points. While the age requirement for the Presidency has been observed, that hasn't always been the case with senators (30) or representatives (25). The youngest senator in American history (John Eaton) was inducted at the age of 28, and the youngest representative (William Charles Cole Claiborne) at the age of 21.

[fritztastic]

I've seen a lot of discussions that tend to go with 25 as the age of maturity, based on studies of brain development. It seems to me that the ages for things (weapons, voting, marriage, joining the military, drugs [alcohol, cigarettes, etc], entering a strip club, being charged as an adult, and so on) have been determined/changed over time separately, and there are exceptions to each rule as well as different standards in different parts of the world. I agree that 25 is a good standard generally for many things- although I also think a very important discussion needs to be had about the subject.

[__alexs]

It's almost like it being illegal (and yet also in massive demand) creates a culture of exploitation that damages people more than the actual work does.

[badRNG]

> My experience with former prostitutes who started out young was that they were unaware of the price they eventually paid for their actions. They were taken advantage of because they were at a disadvantage.

It feels like this line of thought would apply even stronger toward military service.

[mantas]

Military is a necessity for a society. Actually, a mandatory service may be a good deterrence from questionable endeavours in foreign lands.

Meanwhile prostitution is a disadvantage to society as a whole when you take the whole surrounding business and expenses.

[danShumway]

> Military is a necessity for a society

Is the argument here that people are too young to make an informed decision about military service before 25, but that it's important for our national security that some of them make that decision anyway? This feels a bit less like a response to GP's point, and a bit more like a more general argument that national security sometimes requires us to take advantage of minors.

If the argument is that social benefit sometimes outweighs moral costs, then that seems to me to be an argument that we should also look at the social/individual/financial costs of criminalizing prostitution and approach the issue at least partially through an effects-based lens rather than a purely moral one.

On the other hand, if we're willing to take a hard stand that some transactions aren't really consensual when incentives are involved, and that (particularly for minors under 25) some people aren't really able to make fully informed decisions about some topics in general -- well, it's not that I'm against that conclusion, I do think that incentives and life situations and information/maturity do play into whether or not a contract/interaction can be actually consensual in a real sense. But it's just... that conclusion has implications, and I don't think those implications can be swept under the rug just because the military is important.

[PickledHotdog]

How is prostitution a disadvantage in a country where it's legalised and regulated, exactly? Seems like you're using your own prejudices and applying them broadly

[mantas]

Vast majority of voluntary prostitution services providers have major issues. Mental health issues, substances abuse and so on.

Looking at all sorts of research, having sex come with an emotional baggage for vast majority of people. Which is natural given the evolutionary role.

Can it benefit a society to push vulnerable people to provide services that are likely to cause mental instability? Can it even be seen as a neutral at bottom line?

Buying side is usually riddled with all sorts of issues too.

As a society, we should strive towards helping people to find mates organically and help to build lasting relationships.

[sofixa]

> Military is a necessity for a society

Citation needed. It's highly dependent on the country ( e.g. the Maldives sure as hell don't need an army, but a navy/coast guard is important), it's circumstances (nobody is endangering the US or Canada in any way).

[nomel]

Military is there to protect enforce the sovereignty of the society. Without it, the society is at the whims of its neighbors.

> Navy is important.

Navy is military, of course.

> nobody is endangering the US or Canada

Or, nobody is endangering the US or Canada because of the US military.

[feet]

Or they could try getting along with their neighbors instead of threatening them

[nomel]

Military is used, the vast majority of the time, as a deterrent to prevent threats. There's a war going on in Ukraine right now that is a good example of how sometimes "getting along" isn't an option, for one of the parties, who didn't have a sufficient deterrent.

You have to either accept that some humans are "bad", and have deterrents for them, or you have wait for a "bad" human to come and take what they want.

[jl6]

This idea that 25 is the true age of maturity... is it possible that the thing that makes a 25 year old mature is having had 7 years of adult responsibilities?

If we set the age of adulthood to 25, maybe people won't be mature until 32.

[nomel]

This is biological maturity, as in when the brain is done forming. But, to your point, I wonder how much of that formation is guided by “soft” constructs like social maturity. Assuming it was delayed, maybe you end up with a different brain formation.

[HKH2]

The brain physically reaches maturity at around that age. From memory, the last place to finish development is the prefrontal cortex (where decision making occurs).

[feet]

Tbh we should probably reform many of our laws to focus on ages ~25-26

[Flatcircle]

The comments here are surprising in regards to how many people assume all people in a major city are rational decision makers.

There's this utopian notion that sex workers are just like you and me, except their hard on their luck so they're choosing to do sex work and so we should make it as legal as possible for them.

The truth is nearly all sex workers are drug addicts that need serious help.

Like assuming gun owners are all rational people or motorcycle riders should be able to make the correct decision about protecting their head.

Some things in life, the state should deter people from doing in everyway possible because it's just extremely horrible for humans to engage in.

[grapeskin]

> The truth is nearly all sex workers are drug addicts that need serious help.

This isn’t true and it varies by region and country. It’s a very condescending view.

Some are people looking to pay for college. Some are drug addicts. Some are people who struggle academically and have untreated disabilities and found sex work is something that they can do. Some are people who want side money to buy a Gucci bag or something.

Most sex workers aren’t 80 pound meth addicts walking under a highway overpass at 3 am. In 2022, most sex workers are making deals online, in clubs, and various institutions. Plus there’s the whole sex streamer business which is absolutely massive.

[sofixa]

> The truth is nearly all sex workers are drug addicts that need serious help.

That's just bullshit. Maybe it's valid for some subset of sex workers in some jurisdiction where sex workers is illegal and dangerous so only few really desperate people do it, but it's a ludicrously bad sweeping statement.

In places where sex work is legal, regulated, safe and with healthcare, that's simply untrue, verifiably so.

[Flatcircle]

Not in America. In America there’s not enough workers for regular jobs. And academic studies should be taken with a grain of salt in this context. For one, sex workers are known to lie about their motivations. And two, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that a middle aged woman would rather not perform oral sex on a stranger in a back alley for 20 bucks. They only do it for a fast fix.

[andi999]

"The truth is nearly all sex workers are drug addicts that need serious help" maybe this correlation holds because prostitution is illegal. In the sense that non drug addicts wont choose it because of the illegality.

[elzbardico]

No. This holds even for countries where prostitution is legalized and widely accepted by society.

[andi999]

Check out claim 9 https://prostitutescollective.net/fact-and-fiction/

[PickledHotdog]

Source?

[elzbardico]

Real life.