this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
229 points (91.9% liked)
Asklemmy
43858 readers
1709 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Do you know something I don't? From what I hear both sex workers and johns continue to exist, just like in the old abolitionist/prohibitionist model.
The point isn't to prohibit it, it's to give the prostitute the legal advantage when reporting the john (and thereby rein in the behavior of johns with the tacit threat)
Well that's nice, but I feel like it could also be abused. What if a prostitute (which is one kind of sex worker) threatened to report a john as a form of blackmail?
It'd probably be best to regulate the entire thing as a legal industry and put in place some sort of watchlist for suspected bad johns.
They already can and sometimes do, usually as honeypots (here I mean the criminal kind). "Blackmail is illegal" and also blackmailing someone being very dangerous are two major elements preventing it. I don't think making buying legal would be a significant factor since usually the blackmail is on the level of social standing, not getting charged with a relatively minor crime (generally a misdemeanor). Furthermore, especially because prostitution exists more in the open in these societies, the prostitute who blackmails would also have her reputation damaged quite severely, to the point that it might not be viable for her to continue her profession if it gets out that she even attempted blackmail -- to say nothing of the fact that, not to beat a dead horse, having someone who absolutely hates your guts (the victim) makes being a prostitute much more dangerous: What if this is one of the old john's friends or someone he hired to hurt you?
"The plight of the johns" is also just not a very moving cause because anyone who is worried about getting blackmailed even given all of these factors can just not buy sex. Prostitutes are much more likely to be desperate -- though less likely in these countries than in a place like the US.
Well, there's some good arguments there. But making something you want people to do illegal is certainly counterintuitive and doesn't seem like a sane approach to me.
Ah, so you do want to prohibit sex work. I get that's not what you think you're saying, but prostitutes can't exist without johns, and so it doesn't fall under "support sex workers". Now, abolishing sex work is a thing intelligent, well-meaning people argue for as well, but that's a different conversation.
No, because a) blackmail is just a very poor business model in this case and b) most people don't stand to lose that much over a misdemeanor, especially since the prostitute would also need to prove her case, the John can sue for libel if she fails to, etc. etc. Anyone scared of the fringe chance can just not go, but most people who otherwise would want to go would probably still want to go.