How to regulate the online advertizing of sexual services.

[Machjo]

How to regulate the online advertizing of sexual services.

I think we can draw a parallel between purchasing sexual services and consuming alcohol. Given the harm alcohol can cause, one can make a rational case for its prohibition in principle, presumably if the prohibition were reasonably enforceable. The experience of the 1920's showed that it was unenforceable and merely pushed alcohol underground.

The next best option in that case is legalization and regulation. Though alcohol consumption is legal today, at least now we see signs on pub walls informing women of the harm alcohol can cause fetuses. Since I'm an alcoholic and have been a teetotaler for many years now, I do not know what kind of advertizing exists on alcohol bottles, but including the AA website would make sense. None of such educational advertizing would be possible under prohibition since the Government can't regulate what is not supposed to exist.

The purchase of sex is even more harmful to society and ought to be a fineable offence in principle, but again only if the law can be adequately enforced.

I do not know how effectively the new laws relating to the purchasing of sex have been enforced, but I can say that the online advertizing of its sale have not been enforced at all. Though the reason is not clear to me, I would guess either police incompetence, lack of manpower, or more likely a legal loophole (one can legally advertise one's own services and the sites on which providers advertize are located beyond Canada's jurisdictional boundaries). To prohibit sex workers from advertizing their services online would likely be struck down for potentially endangering the safety of sex workers, yet to not do so allows them to advertize on foreign unregulated websites resulting in the government being unable to do anything to inform anyone in the industry of their options.

One possible solution I could see would be the following:

Sex workers would be allowed to advertise only on sites that submit to Canadian sexual advertizing guidelines (to which foreign websites could voluntarily choose to submit), violation resulting in a fine; and advertizers being allowed to post such ads on the condition that they submit to the Government's sexual advertizing guidelines requiring pages on which these ads are posted to also advertize STD information, government-funded skills training programs, crisis help lines, mental health services, 12-step groups, and other remedies for both providers and clients with the aim of guiding participants out of the industry, and requiring such ads to appear first and take at least as much space as the sex ads.

Another possibility that I can see would be to make offering to pay for sex a fineable offence but not accepting an offer of sex for money. This would essentially protect those who are not in the industry from being propositioned by would-be clients.

[Scott Mayers]

Why are you so against sex and drugs here? Are you some religious fundamentalist who has some preference to dictate your moral imperatives?

[G Huxley]

Good luck with 1 in 5 people in Ottawa using Ashley Maddison. haha

[Scott Mayers]

Good luck with 1 in 5 people in Ottawa using Ashley Maddison. haha

Machjo is probably one of them too! ....

I'm guessing that most people who most aggressively seem to act with almost near hatred as a type of self-reflected guilt. In contrast, I argue FOR things like legalizing drugs and the sex industry while I have no particular interest in them personally. I'm not a teetotaller of them but would prefer that my personal choices should not be shaped or restricted in acts that don't directly affect others uninvolved. While we should still maintain measures in policies that prevent abuses, I'm tired of hearing advocates feign to be concerned for others when they'd actually cause more harm if they had their way.

It is the very restrictions or moral tabooing of some of these things which entice others as it represents a novel risk especially by those who normally lack sufficient variety in their own lives. I agree to vocalizing concerns but have known people in this industry (sex trade) of which all of them I've been aware of has personally opted into this business by choice. I've still never actually seen or heard of actual slave trading of people into this industry although it seems rationally likely to occur to some degree in some places. But I doubt it is so prevalent that it demands removing the whole trade. If this was the case, we'd be better off abandoning the more overt abuses of those in a self-absorbed preference to profit through things like private corporations. At least there, we actually CAN see such abuses with more obvious destructive intents.

[Vancouver King]

Careful, your policy towards hermaphrodites might come under scrutiny.

[G Huxley]

Scott agreed. It's usually the fanatical 'moral' crusaders who end up being found in a bathroom stall with a couple of tranvestite hookers snorting crystal meth.

Edited August 19, 2015 by G Huxley

[Scott Mayers]

I'm also against proposing measures that penalize consumer-end people as the OP in this thread is suggesting. What should be recognized is that everyone at some time or place is 'guilty' of thought crimes. As such, only the actual availability by those exploiting it think in kind to such haters.

For instance, if you smelled a chocolate factories odors, if you should naturally be favorable in thought to like it, is this a 'sin' owned by the nose smelling it? If chocolate was a tease for such people, AND we deem it 'bad', shouldn't we attend to trying to shut the factory down rather than penalize those who were enticed by its scent?

The only reason such people reverse this is because they believe that creating fear into people to feel 'guilt' as deviants as a preventative does not solve the problem but only acts to foster the violent reactions that actually favor the very people willing to create the objects of desire.

This is similar to how con artists interpret their targets. They too actually think that the consumer is the criminal, not themselves, and so justify their own acts as merely taking a worthy advantage of the ones who feed them. This encourages pimp mentality with regards to the sex trade who actually have zero compassion for both their prostitutes AND the johns. This is identical to those who actually believe in punishing the john and dismisses how even the prostitutes actually value their profession. Only the pimps gain more power here as the con does for their disrespect of those they con.

[G Huxley]

Canada has a big problem with cons in Ottawa.

[Derek 2.0]

One possible solution I could see would be the following:

Sex workers would be allowed to advertise only on sites that submit to Canadian sexual advertizing guidelines (to which foreign websites could voluntarily choose to submit), violation resulting in a fine; and advertizers being allowed to post such ads on the condition that they submit to the Government's sexual advertizing guidelines requiring pages on which these ads are posted to also advertize STD information, government-funded skills training programs, crisis help lines, mental health services, 12-step groups, and other remedies for both providers and clients with the aim of guiding participants out of the industry, and requiring such ads to appear first and take at least as much space as the sex ads.

Interesting idea, in effect "normalizing" prostitution, well still not completely forgoing some measure of moral due-diligence for both providers and clients........In effect saying go here if you must, but these are potential consequences fyi.

[BC_chick]

Where there is a demand, there will always be a supply and let's face it, there will always be a demand for sex as a commodity. It's fairly simple economics.

It's useless trying to fight it, it's never going away and it exists all throughout the world and in every generation that ever was.

Legalization is the only way to go about protecting the men and women who are involved in the sex-trade.

[Scott Mayers]

Interesting idea, in effect "normalizing" prostitution, well still not completely forgoing some measure of moral due-diligence for both providers and clients........In effect saying go here if you must, but these are potential consequences fyi.

The problem with this is that it still perceives prostitution as something actually 'abnormal' and wrong. Some argue for legalization while others for 'decriminalizing' which has similar arguments with drugs. I know as a smoker, I felt betrayed by our government's tactics that penalizes the smoker by how it has done just what some concerned with legalizing prostitution fear: that the government than simply replaces the original abuses that came from the source of abusive 'suppliers' (the tobacco companies) by the way they can use taxes in an extortion-like way. For prostitution, the fear is that the government, if against prostitution, like smoking, may optimize their power to act as the very pimps they're replacing.

Yet the 'decriminalization' of prostitutes ("normalizing" as you termed it) only decriminalizes the sex worker but still disrespects the clients by still penalizing them as 'criminals'. Such risks to clients will still encourage risk. It may discourage some otherwise 'good' clientele but attract the more deviant ones who could resort to harming the sex workers instead.

I would thus still prefer full legalization as our government would still be held accountable even where they may act with remaining prejudice. In time, we could at least evolve the laws where we find anyone, including government, from the abuses that occur all from any part.

I also believe that legitimate prostitution can function as an extension to psychology in some future time as both sex counselors and services. Society really could use a social function like this not simply for mere entertainment but as an aid to help minimize ALL the problems associated with sex and foster better human relations between people.

[Derek 2.0]

The problem with this is that it still perceives prostitution as something actually 'abnormal' and wrong. Some argue for legalization while others for 'decriminalizing' which has similar arguments with drugs.

Without speaking for the OP, I'm to assume his intent was a legalization of prostitution, combined with regulatory devices aimed at education in the potential pit-falls.

[Machjo]

Without speaking for the OP, I'm to assume his intent was a legalization of prostitution, combined with regulatory devices aimed at education in the potential pit-falls.

Exactly.

[Machjo]

Without speaking for the OP, I'm to assume his intent was a legalization of prostitution, combined with regulatory devices aimed at education in the potential pit-falls.

Exactly.