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Around the world, there's a growing movement to decriminalize sex work. Last year, Amnesty International, the largest human rights group in the world, came out with a recommendation that governments should decriminalize consensual sex work and develop laws that ensure workers are "protected from harm, exploitation and coercion." A United Nations commission has also come out in support of legalizing prostitution.
But the idea is a divisive one, stirring impassioned debates and concerns about the ways varying approaches could harm sex workers. Amnesty's recent policy drew strong support from public health advocates and intense backlash from those aiming to end prostitution completely.
Understanding the scope, harms and public health implications of policies addressing the world's oldest profession is really tricky. While prostitution - the buying and selling of sex - is a multibillion dollar industry, the sex trade is clandestine by nature. It's taboo. That makes it really hard to study, especially in the United States.
That's most often the case, except in this one part of the country, where the laws of prostitution were totally upended. It's a peculiar story that's largely left out of the current discussion. The place in question is not Nevada, where there's a small number of regulated brothels in certain rural counties.
It's a whole state - Rhode Island.
For several years, ending in 2009, indoor prostitution such as in massage parlors, strip clubs and through online escorts, was not a crime in this tiny New England State.
The whole thing happened somewhat unintentionally. But at the time, it fueled a heated public debate about sex, crime and health.
Years later, some are revisiting the lessons learned.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 10 2017, @02:40AM
my poor friend tells me her worst "bad dates" would choke her out, hit her, threaten to break her bones, or even threaten to kill her. They got off on her fear and pain. And she says the worst of them were clergy, law enforcement, and even professors.
The ones in law enforcement don't surprise me one iota. Probably at least half the people in law enforcement are there because they lust for power over other people.
The ones in clergy make me curious: how many were Roman Catholic, and how many were evangelical Protestants, and how many non-evangelical (I'm sure you don't know the answer, this is rhetorical). Seems like the Catholic clergy tend to mostly be into boys and young men, probably because going into the priesthood was, for a long time, a convenient way for a gay man to have a socially-respectable profession which also conveniently eliminated the need to try to explain why he wasn't married. Inevitably, some small fraction of these men lose control after too many years of celibacy and take advantage of teenage boys they're in contact with, or were harboring such tendencies and intentionally went into the priesthood knowing it'd give them contact with potential victims.
The one about professors kinda surprises me. Most professors do a lot more than just teach college students, in fact that seems to be almost an afterthought in their job description; if they really wanted contact with vulnerable kids they'd become high school teachers as that job path is much easier.