Throw out 'bizarre' prostitution laws, court told

[Mr.Canada]

There's the fantasy illusion held by a lot conservatives and Libertarians that social barriers don't exist. I have no idea where they get it from, because it certainly has nothing to do with history or with economics.

These women end up at the margins for a great many reasons, but it's universally true that the one commodity that will sell even if you're on hard times, or your whole environment is coming down, is sex. Yes, you choose whether you're going to be a prostitute or not, but historically it's been a choice between selling your body or starving.

A great many choose to be prostitutes because of drug addiction. Funny how girls in the suburbs and outer regions don't feel the pull of the street but urban girls do. I suppose drug addiction is the fault of society as well. It cannot be the fault of the person who made the choice to do drugs in the first place. I've been offered coke when I was younger but I said no, it's easy.

People can make their own choices.

Topaz, that's like saying that urban thugs who are in gangs and kill someone is the fault of society as well thereby should go free. Thank goodness this is a minority opinion of people in the real world. Rabble is only a fringe group of people not the majority.

[Dave_ON]

A great many choose to be prostitutes because of drug addiction. Funny how girls in the suburbs and outer regions don't feel the pull of the street but urban girls do. I suppose drug addiction is the fault of society as well. It cannot be the fault of the person who made the choice to do drugs in the first place. I've been offered coke when I was younger but I said no, it's easy.

People can make their own choices.

Topaz, that's like saying that urban thugs who are in gangs and kill someone is the fault of society as well thereby should go free. Thank goodness this is a minority opinion of people in the real world. Rabble is only a fringe group of people not the majority.

This serves to prove TB's point. You've clearly demonstrated the social barriers that exist. Nice sweet suburb girls don't become prostitutes only urban trash does? Come on man. Anybody can fall into destitution, even sweet suburb girls, and when the chips are down you do what you have to, to survive.

Is a choice between prostitution and starvation really a choice at all? Are all people who fall into prostitution in this situation? No of course not, no more than all who fall into prostitution urban drug addicted city girls. People aren't that easily defined in the real world nor are situations as very black and white as you would have them be.

[Mr.Canada]

This serves to prove TB's point. You've clearly demonstrated the social barriers that exist. Nice sweet suburb girls don't become prostitutes only urban trash does? Come on man. Anybody can fall into destitution, even sweet suburb girls, and when the chips are down you do what you have to, to survive.

Is a choice between prostitution and starvation really a choice at all? Are all people who fall into prostitution in this situation? No of course not, no more than all who fall into prostitution urban drug addicted city girls. People aren't that easily defined in the real world nor are situations as very black and white as you would have them be.

Most prostitutes are drug addicted and /or have mental health issues. Most people who do not have these problems go out and get jobs or go to school. Everyone can get OSAP in order to better themselves, however sadly some choose not to.

Same thing in strip clubs many of those girls are drug addicted.

[Dave_ON]

Most prostitutes are drug addicted and /or have mental health issues. Most people who do not have these problems go out and get jobs or go to school. Everyone can get OSAP in order to better themselves, however sadly some choose not to.

Same thing in strip clubs many of those girls are drug addicted.

I think this is largely an assumption on your part. Unfortunately I don't believe any has taken actual statistics on the proportion of prostitutes that are drug addicted.

I can't speak to stripers but that's a good example of part of the sex trade that is quite legal and highly regulated. It's not much of a stretch to extend these laws to prostitution.

I suppose the question we must ask is does banning prostitution do any good? Does it stop the drug use? Does it prevent people from using the services? If the answer is no then we need to ask ourselves if we should be using valuable police resources trying to stop something that can't be stopped when we could reallocate those resources to more serious and violent crimes.

[M.Dancer]

I believe a lot of prostitutes end up in the big cities coming from smaller communities that they are running away from...which is why predators lurk at bus stations.

It's an old story, kid in Cambridge runs away to Toronto, meets more kids on the street....out of money no place to stay and then meets the friendly stranger...

...the story goes down hill from there.

[wyly]

lot's of bad reasons why women go into the business, but sometimes it just for the money...there are very expensive escorts you will never see on the street or in a brothel, referral only and many are very well educated women who are not forced or have no need to do it but they still do...

[ToadBrother]

lot's of bad reasons why women go into the business, but sometimes it just for the money...there are very expensive escorts you will never see on the street or in a brothel, referral only and many are very well educated women who are not forced or have no need to do it but they still do...

There have always been different tiers of prostitution. At the bottom end have always been the women who, through destitution or substance abuse (and often enough both) are forced into the trade. At the top end are the call girls and escorts, or as they used to be known in the olden days, the courtesans.

The face of prostitution we inevitably see is the one on the streets. And yes, there are all sorts of reasons why women end up there; raw necessity, drug addiction, maybe a few with mental health issues, although I've never really heard that as being a major factor. However it is they get there, those women represent the bottom socio-economic rung on the ladder. Like a lot of things, I doubt any of these women ended up there through one bad decision, but through several steps, and I don't think it's easy to say "This is the main reasons".

But the fact remains. Prostitution can be found in every urban civilization from the very first ones until now. It has survived some extraordinarily harsh punishments, and I fail to see how the Victorian-era campaigns, which have somehow survived for 150 years despite every effort by law enforcement in the UK, the US and Canada, to stem it. It seems a strange sort of law that has its supporters ignoring its utter and complete failure, and, in fact, its apparent retrograde effects on the prostitutes themselves. I don't know about anyone else, but I think when a law has shown itself to have failed in every claimed goal it was created to achieve, it's probably time to think of some other solutions.

Unfortunately, between the moral majority types and the police, both of which, one way or the other, are the only beneficiaries of these laws (the former through continued political and social influence, the latter via vast amounts of public money put into various forms of "vice" squads), these laws have remained long past any chance of their supposed effectiveness being demonstrated.