Originally posted by Awayze
I thought prostitution was legal in England lol. I've seen "massage parlours" and hookers getting into cars and cop cars go past them at night and no one cares :/
There's a very strange loophole in British law. Soliciting isn't legal but prostitution is. What this effectively means is it's illegal for someone to actively go looking for a prostitute (curb crawling), and it's illegal to advertise prostitution but the act itself isn't illegal. I'm not sure exactly why the laws ended up this way but what it effectively means is if a female friend of mine offered me sex for money in her own home and I agreed that would be fine, but if I went to a specific street to pick up a woman I've never met who is advertising herself as a prostitute using whatever method is standard, we could both be arrested. I know stupid isn't it.
---------- Post added at 01:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:43 PM ----------
Originally posted by xdiiversive
I think it could be legalized but the problem is that it is demoralizing to women, therefore it sort of is affecting others. Plus prostitutes are often targeted for murders, rapes, and other crimes. So having it illegal could attempt to minimize this crime.
Actually the exact opposite is true. By making prostitution illegal it's driven underground and therefore outside of the juristiction of law. A prostitute can't call the police is she's attacked or raped because she'll get herself, and her pimp arrested as well. She needs a pimp to ensure she's safe because the threat of having a pimp beat the shit out of you makes the clients pay up and not take things too far, but it doesn't always work, and the pimp isn't bound by any guides. The pimp may beat her, take a rediculously excessive share of the money, rape her as part of the "deal" etc.
If you make prostitution legal, now the woman can have reasonable protection, bodyguards etc. rather than a pimp as she no longer needs to hide what she's doing. People won't be so quick to attack, mug or rape her because she can report them to the police safe in the knowledge that something would be done. Put simply, if you make prostitution legal, it becomes about as risky as being a private trainer or violin tutor, only with sex instead of treadmills and missed notes.
As for it being demoralising, shouldn't that be for the person in question to decide, not you. Also, is it any more demoralising than porn, which is entirely legal? No, not at all, in fact I'd say less so.
Interesting side point. If you hire a prostitute but instead hire her as an "actress" and film the sex, in which you list yourself as director and actor, it stops legally being prostitution and become private hire pornography, at which point it's legal... even if you never publish the video.
---------- Post added at 01:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:54 PM ----------
Oh, and, just as an additional point. Has anyone else noticed that we're ALL assuming the prostitute is a woman and the customer is a man. There are male prostitutes as well, so can people please stop the "it's degrading to women" bullshit, it's a unisex profession.