Discussion for article #238056
I am concerned. I have very mixed feelings about prostitution and sex work. On the one hand, I feel very strongly that a person has full rights over his or her own body. Criminalizing an adult man or woman for profiting from sex or pornography seems like an overreach of state power, much like criminalizing abortion or elective surgery. However the very real lack of consent in many of these transactions is a problem the state should address. When most of the profit goes to middle men who sell young men and women to others, and those who are performing the work are trapped by force, psychology, or drugs, the state has a very real responsibility to protect them.
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If activists are really concerned with trafficking, targeting internet-based escorts (and their ads) isn’t going to make much of a difference.The violence thing also is a non-starter. Actual trafficking usually involves settings like massage parlors or places that are completely off the obvious radar screen. People who claim to be against trafficking seem to use it as a pretext for going after other forms of sex work and usually they make no effort to ally with grassroots organizations with real ties to sex workers themselves.
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Probably good news for Bitcoin.
I have very mixed feelings about this, because on the one hand trafficking of human beings. On the other hand, very narrowly targeted government crackdown posing as a business decision. Other than wikileaks, whom else have prosecutors pressure card processors to cut off? Sweatshops? scam telemarketers? Anyone?
(And, of course, this decision also highlights the control a few intermediary companies have over the financial health of every business.)
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This is bad. There are only a small number of credit card companies. It’s infrastructure.
If Backpage is breaking the law, then Backpage should be sued or prosecuted. The system shouldn’t be that a county sheriff pressures credit card companies.
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Prostitution should be 100% legal.
It should be taxed so that its revenue doesn’t go to “dark places”. It should be regulated, so that the sex workers themselves are volunteers who get regular health screenings. Keeping it illegal is just another throwback to Puritan “ethics” of suppressing society - which results in disasters like Prohibition, the War on Drugs as well as the current state of Prostitution in this country.
Bring it into the light and it becomes controlled and safe. Hell - you could even take your teenage son to get his cherry popped. Just my $.02.
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massage parlors advertise in backpage.com so i don’t know that this distinction you’re making actually holds water.
Looks like another seedy market where the parties don’t want anybody to know what they buy or sell, a tremendous opportunity for Libertarians and Bitcoin.