I find it disturbing how close minded and parochial you are. I live in a liberal Western democracy. Several years ago our female Prime Minister pushed through laws completely legalizing prostitution. It's just a job; maybe not a very nice job, but a fairly high paying one. They pay tax, are protected by police, and have to follow health and safety laws. And given our generous welfare net, nobody is ever even forced into prostitution to eat.
Do you think getting a haircut at a barbershop is consensual? If so, then what's the difference?
Your idea of prostitution is filtered through the lens of your own experiences. In America and other repressed countries, it's probably a good idea to assume that prostitution is not consensual; there is indeed coercion and violence, which is absolutely inexcusable and disgusting. But America is not the world, and you need to drop the rediculous sweeping universal statements.
If a woman chooses to be a prostitute, and chooses to engage with a "John", then heck yes it's consensual. That's what that word means. And is there plenty of evidence that some women choose to be prostitutes (no gun pointed to their head, they have other employment options, etc.)? Heck yes. Not even controversial.
Are some women forced to do it? Yes, of course. So in those cases it is not consensual. If it's not consensual in one case it does not mean it's not consensual in all cases.
Even if the person is not trafficked there are consent issues around addiction: Can a person addicted to a substance make a free informed choice? Here's some research showing that many people involved in prostitution are also drug users. (While this research isn't great it also references a lot of earlier research)
Indeed there often are, and those problems desperately need to be solved. The first step in solving this problem would be to compare the situation in the US, with the situation in countries where prostitution is legal and in the open. Are things better there? If so are there lessons that can be drawn from this? Trafficking is abhorrent and must be fought at all fronts, but forcing things further and further underground is not the solution for bringing the problem to light. Make it legal, bring it out into the open and regulate it. It won't make things perfect, and I'm not so naive that I think it would completely end all trafficking, but I do believe it will make things a whole lot better.
Look, we get it, the US has an education problem, still doesn't use metric, has a high rate of incarceration that effectively enslaves cheap labour, and still can't have legal prostitution without human trafficking or drugs.
Meanwhile, in saner socialist countries prisons are for reform, prostitution is government sponsored for health reasons and subject to drug testing and checks for pimps or links to human trafficking.
Just because some countries can't do some things right doesn't mean the things they screw up are wrong.
This is one of those issues where things can get blurred, I have to confess I'm a little unclear as to your exact position as well so I'll try and be clear.
Firstly I'm pro informed consensual activity, whether or not that activity is distasteful to myself or society at large. As far as drug use and prostitution are concerned I'll go with history and note that humans will always be doing both.
Now, in response to someone raising prostitution, if consensual, being okay you responded with a link to a UN report on human trafficking and a US study on drugs and prostitution being highly correlated.
These are fair points to raise, my position would be that if various countries decriminalised drug use and prostitution then they could be regulated as many other activities and industries are which would lead to a strong reduction in health issues and unsavoury slave like conditions.
The tone of my post was to strike a response, if anything I was the one expressing an anti US (government policy) sentiment. I noted you cited a US report linking drugs and prostitution (although I note it mentioned drug use in London as well) and I reacted rather strongly to that. If you meant to imply that prostitution -> drug use + pimping then I disagree as I feel that correlation does not equal causation and personally feel that federal level policy that declares a war on drugs and regards the business of sex as immoral is more likely to be the root cause of problems.
"People trafficking is a huge business with profits for organised crime of over $30billion."
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that, if we have learned anything from the War on Drugs, then the solution to this problem is probably not increased criminal penalties for prostitution.
Perhaps the solution is to educate people - both young women who are at-risk of getting caught up in human trafficking, as well as men who may be likely to pay for sex and may not be aware of the problem of human trafficking.
Ah, yes, I was suggesting that criminalising prostitution is a good idea.
In general I don't have a problem with people selling or buying sex. There are some people who need strong protections - anyone under age; anyone who's being coerced; anyone who's being trafficked. There could probably be strong laws made around those areas, with extra help and support for victims.
Then there's a bunch of public health stuff. People addicted to drugs; people with STDs; people engaging in risky ('bareback') behaviour; and so on. Education and support would be good for these. Unfortunately drug addicted sex workers are not a sympathetic vote winning crowd.
The law in the UK is a bit odd. Exchanging money for sex is okay, but you're not allowed to offer sex for money or to offer money for sex. And then there are some newer laws which are "strict liability offences" (it doesn't matter if you know or not; even if you made efforts to find out) covering women who are forced into sex working. (This covers drug addicts paying debts for drugs using sex work.)
The UK has a stricter definition of trafficked than the UN. A person can voluntarily be trafficked into the UK.
You have a funny sense of logic then. Isn't it possible to be consensual in some cases and not in others?
If I said "In some cases it is legal to download a video and in some cases it is not", would you call that "never legal to download a video"? The fact that I can't legally download a movie currently in the theater shouldn't affect me from legally downloading a video licensed under a creative commons license.
