O.k., I just read a post on legalizing sex work and de-stigmatizing it. My immediate response was a negative one...but then I stopped and thought about it; Legalization would:
- Severely reduce human trafficking
- Allow people (Men & Women) to unionize and better protect themselves
- Restrict abuses of sex workers-as they would not have to rely on pimps in any way
- Put more money back into the economy as taxes could be collected
- etc (add anymore here)
Either way, it destroys the influence of the violent enforcers and would drop the crime rate. People being victimized could report abuser and the money would stay with the actual workers, not people who seek to control them.
I realized I don't have to agree with it (sex work), but it could actually benefit society by destroying the criminal elements surrounding it. This realization of the good out weighing the negative unnerves me still, but I would want safety for anyone-even someone selling their body, for whatever reason. I would love to read stories of the pimps served with class action lawsuits by the women they had formally controlled for lack of adequate pay or theft of wages. I would like to see them ticketed for running illegal shops and fined heavily (in New York a pimp can make over a million dollars in a year...in Vegas even more; the prostitutes tend to disappear or be found dead with no justice ever afforded them.)
Many unsavory people profit greatly from the exploitation of women, men and children; the simple step of legalizing and registering sex work could end all of that very quickly.
Maybe I am being naive, but criminalizing sex-work and sex in general has certainly NOT helped this country.