[rayiner]

> Firstly, it's a human rights issue, people ought to be able to engage in the commerce of their choosing with only reasonable restrictions

You’re starting with a libertarian premise most people don’t accept. The vast majority of the world accepts that it’s proper to restrict individual freedom even to protect people from themselves. Society has a role to play to help people make good choices and to make it hard for them to make bad or dangerous choices.

Also, you’re incorrect about the prevalent morals. Even in the US, women—who bear the lion’s share of the cost of prostitution—oppose legalizing by a large margin (50% to 30%): https://www.vox.com/2016/3/11/11203740/prostitution-legal-me.... And of course the overwhelming majority would still say it’s a bad or immoral choice, even if they agree someone should be allowed to make that choice.

[maxbond]

> The vast majority of the world accepts that it’s proper to restrict individual freedom even to protect people from themselves.

As do I, and I said as much (I'm not a capital-L Libertarian, I meant it as an adjective). I argued this exceeded reasonable bounds.

I'm surprised to learn it's that unpopular, but I am comfortable arguing an unpopular position.

[clipsy]

> women—who bear the lion’s share of the cost of prostitution

Prostitutes bear the lion's share of the cost of prostitution.

[thaumasiotes]

> Even in the US, women — who bear the lion’s share of the cost of prostitution — oppose legalizing by a large margin

That's not a surprise. Amazon bears the cost of Wal-mart's operations and would probably like to outlaw Wal-mart too.

[rayiner]

I think a fairer analogy is worker protection laws. Workers understand how other workers can be coerced into accepting unsafe working conditions and think it’s okay to limit individual freedom to take that pressure off the table for all.

[AnthonyMouse]

That analogy would only fit if the workers suffering from the unsafe working conditions had the same views as the ones who don't, whereas it's suburban middle class women who favor prohibition and sex workers who favor legalization.

It's like saying "men, who bear the lion's share of the cost of the death penalty, support it more than women do." It's not the ones on death row who support it.

[rayiner]

If there was no minimum wage and no OSHA, would you look at the opinion of all workers or just the people who agreed to work for a low wage or in an unsafe condition? Obviously the former, because all workers are subject to coercion to agree to work for low wages and in unsafe conditions, and the point is to protect all workers from that pressure.

Similarly, sex workers don’t start out that way. All women are subject to the coercion and social pressure that pushes some into sex work. The daughter of that middle class suburban woman could be pressured into sex work by an abusive boyfriend, for example. They all have a stake in the situation.

[AnthonyMouse]

> If there was no minimum wage and no OSHA, would you look at the opinion of all workers or just the people who agreed to work for a low wage or in an unsafe condition? Obviously the former, because all workers are subject to coercion to agree to work for low wages and in unsafe conditions, and the point is to protect all workers from that pressure.

Obviously the latter, because the former includes a majority of people who aren't subject to such coercion, e.g. because they perform skilled labor and have negotiating power. But who may be in favor of such rules for perfidious and selfish reasons (e.g. because they're in a position to benefit from destroying smaller competitors) or because they're so separated from the lives of the people actually affected by the rules that they support them out of ignorance.

You can see this because people will answer polling questions like "do you support a rule that improves worker safety even if it increases production costs" without asking a single question about the details, like how much it improves safety and how much it increases costs. Even though it's obvious that rules with a poor cost/benefit ratio hurt everyone by making things cost more, and hurt the people nearest to the cost increase most because it comes out of the revenue the business uses to pay their wages.

Which is how we get "worker protections" that harm workers. Because prohibiting lead and asbestos are good rules, but there are also bad rules that people with cushy jobs nevertheless support because they sound good and the negative consequences don't affect them personally. Why should we put weight on their misaligned and uninformed views?

[dragonwriter]

> women—who bear the lion’s share of the cost of prostitution

What “cost of prostitution” do women who are not prostitutes bear?

The cost of criminalization of prostitution is clearly born primarily by prostitutes who are disproportionately women, but the vast majority of women are not prostitutes.

[rayiner]

Being coerced and pressured into prostitution. Most women aren’t prostitution, but any woman can be the victim of efforts to coerce her into prostitution, often as a result of earlier sexual abuse: https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/11907/

[dragonwriter]

> Being coerced and pressured into prostitution.

That is not a cost borne by women who are not prostitutes, but by a subset of those who are.

(It is a risk that other women might be exposed to, but being exposed to a risk and bearing a cost are different things, the former of which is often much less palpable than the latter.)

> https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/11907/

That’s a very weird link to attach to your comment, since the story in that article does not refer to anything related to prostitution, coerced or otherwise, on its face. Certain people (Dworkin among them) might describe all prostitution as rape, but inverting that to turn a rape narrative that the victim who is also the only witness relating it does not attribute to prostitution of any kind into an illustration of a claim about forced prostitution is bizarre.

[AnthonyMouse]

> You’re starting with a libertarian premise most people don’t accept. The vast majority of the world accepts that it’s proper to restrict individual freedom even to protect people from themselves.

Do they? The argument I always see is that it's to protect society from them e.g. imposing costs on the healthcare system.