Posted on 01/10/2006 8:25:43 AM PST by presidio9
The sex industry is big business, and getting bigger. World-wide profits from prostitution exceed $12 billion annually. Of course, the women generally see very little of this money. The sex traders, whether legal "sex entrepreneurs" or illegal pimps, are the biggest beneficiaries.
Many countries have tried different approaches to control or limit its growth, from legalization to regulation, with decidedly mixed results. But with the sex "business" spawning cross-border trafficking in women and children and boosting organized crime across Europe, we can no longer turn a blind eye to this problem.
* * * As prostitution becomes more prevalent, it's also becoming more accepted. During this summer's World Cup, the city of Bremen estimates an influx of 30,000 - 40,000 prostitutes to Germany for the four-week tournament. Taking a lead from the Athens Olympic Games, the authorities in Cologne put up a complex of custom-built cabins outside the city, so men can buy access to women's bodies without tarnishing the host's good reputation.
But where will Germany find those thousands of women? The growing demand for commercial sex in Germany and the rest of the Continent can't be met by women from within the European Union alone. According to a 2003 London Metropolitan University study, 60-90% of prostitutes in the EU are foreigners. Trafficking in women and children is a key element of the sex industry. In its newly released report on forced labor, the International Labor Organization estimates that there are more than 250,000 sex slaves in industrialized countries.
Some "progressive" campaigners have, especially over the past 15 years, argued that the legalization and regulation of prostitution could reduce trafficking and help combat organized crime and money laundering that usually come with it. By making
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Don't need to, I read enough.
I thought murder was the oldest crime when Cain bashed Abel's head open with a rock?
Unless Adam and Eve were pimping their sons out and we never knew about it.
Is that after taxes?
It shoule be legalized and regulated. Vice squads should be dealing with real crime.
Wait: You can READ?
But enough about politicians. . . .
Prostitution is a real crime.
Yeah, in fact the other day I read where Ozzie Osborne said the use of pot led his son Jack to be a user of harder more addictive drugs.
It should NOT be legalised. Once prostitution becomes an accepted societal norm - once you accept sex-for-pay as a legal transaction in society - then the relationship between men and women becomes distorted.
Five years after legalisation women wouldn't be able to walk the streets without being propositioned. "Hey, I paid her" would become a standard defence in rape. And (attractive) women on welfare would be legally forced into prostitution: pimped by the Goverment, so to speak. This is on the verge of happening in Germany, for instance.
Uh...monster.com?
If you're going to treat prostitution as a simple commercial enterprise (it isn't, but they're trying to) then the answer is an ordinary matter of market economics - the pay goes up. If you're a socialistic economy that also tries to treat access to sex as a human right you're going to have to subsidize or the supply dwindles. This isn't difficult.
Some things governments do reasonably well, but running whorehouses probably isn't one of them. Just my $0.02.
Next thing I know you're going to be telling me that societies who embrace nutty libertarian ideas like legalized prostitution have only themselves to blame when the look around at the cesspool they have created.
Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" was happy to glorify prostitution with an absurdly rosy false image of what it's like..... hey, it made her Hollyweird career so never let it be said that NO prostitutes make big money......
indeed... after all... isn't this a capitalist society and a so-called free country?
Maybe the girls should unionize. Unfortunately then seniority rules would kick in...
Damn! So where do you keep your flagellum?
I think the old saw goes that prostitution is the oldest profession, not the oldest crime.
who's the victim?
Old saggy, baggy and droopy seniority rulers!
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