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Proposed Posting of Clients List In Prostitution Case Raises Privacy Concerns
An anonymous reader writes "An interesting case touching on privacy in the Internet age has erupted in Kennebunk, Maine, the coastal town where the Bush family has a vacation home. When a fitness instructor who maintained a private studio was arrested for prostitution, she turned out to have maintained meticulous billing records on some 150 clients, and had secretly recorded the proceedings on video files stored in her computer. Local police have begun issuing summons to her alleged johns, and have announced intentions to publish the list, as is customary in such cases. Police believe such publication has a deterrent effect on future incidents of the kind. However, the notoriety of the case has some, including newspaper editors, wondering whether the lives of the accused johns may be disproportionately scarred (obtaining or keeping a job, treatment of members of their families within the community) for a the mere accusation of having committed a misdemeanor. Also, the list of names will be permanently archived and indexed by search engines essentially forever."
wouldn't it be pornography and be legal?
just make prostitution legal (and regulated) like most of Europe. You can even tax the income, while ensuring the safety of the workers and the clients. For bonus points, I grew in Wells, ME, about 10km south of Kennebunk ... and this kinda of ridiculous attention to foolish stories/details like this is one of the reasons I left (small town politics, anyone?) A john's life destroyed? Hardly, especially not by an "employer" with half a brain.
Somehow, I recall George Carlin's words on the topic:
I don't understand why prostitution is illegal. Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?
If selling fucking were legal (as in some other jusrisdictions of the world), the criminal in question would not be a criminal, and the perpetrators of the misdemeanor in question would not have committed a misdemeanor.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Seems to me that if I find some hot chick on the streets, and offer her (by, for example, gesturing towards my groin with a number of folded-up negotiable instruments, such as $100 bills,) and she proceeds to perform sexual acts upon my person, and then upon completion I hand her the aforementioned stack of bills, that no crime has been committed should this act have taken place in anywhere in the United States, provided the acts were between consenting adults, and occur in a private place where we were both permitted to be. The law that makes these acts of pandering and prostitution legal, in my NAL opinion, is the US Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.
The way I understand it, the exchange of money for anything, (to wit, in that case, the giving of money without any meaningful or timely accounting of who gave it, to whom it was given, how much was given, what was promised or agreed in exchange for it, or what was ultimately done with that money, which could easily include actions that any sane society would consider election tampering, vote-buying, influence pedaling, and interfering with the good order and function of a democratic republic's most vital political organs,) is considered inviolable "free" speech, protected by the first amendment to the United States Constitution. I have even toyed with the idea of going out and hiring prostitutes, hoping to find an undercover officer to proposition, just so it can be brought to court, so that I can defend myself with the first amendment's newly endowed power (given by the Citizens United ruling,) to protect anything for which some money changes hands as "speech".
I would say I "told" her (by handing the whore the cash,) that I would like her to suck-start my dick, then take it for a spin, bouncing her ass up and down on me until I'm ready to nut. I would argue that her taking the money constituted her "listening" to my constitutionally protected speech.
I imagine the judge would then shoot me down, saying that that was not an allowable defense, to which I would reply, (and most likely be held in contempt of court for saying,) "so it's okay for whores in Washington D.C. to get paid to fuck people over, and somehow that's protected speech, but somehow when I do it, it's a misdemeanor? What kind of freeze-dried fucking bullshit is that, you pretentious bitch?
If I'm going to jail for contempt, fuck, I say, might as well show it... why not piss on the judge's face? It's not like it's going to change what happens!
OTOH, I've heard bad things about jail, and I like being able to go for walks and not being stuck in a fucking cage, so I'll let someone who's more of a tough-guy take this idea and run with it. Post back on /. how it works out! I'll check back from time to time.
The reason prostitutes can be victimized by johns and therefore need pimps to look after them is because prostitution is illegal, if it were legal they could go to the police when their clients abuse them, when it is illegal they don't have the option of going to the police.
So how would regulating prostitution prevent economic exploitation? If someone is in desperate enough economic circumstances to be vulnerable to exploitation, they don't become any less vulnerable if you make prostitution illegal or regulated. If anything, their situation gets even worse since they presumably were taking the best option available to them, and now either resort to worse ones, put up with the criminal types who flock to illegal fields, or starve.
You don't eliminate the economic exploitation.
You eliminate one particular venue for it by eliminating the market for illegal (unregulated) prostitution.
Kinda the way you eliminate illegal trade of alcohol of questionable quality that might make you go blind, by providing a legal option of certified quality.
You create a legal, clean and safe alternative, and there will be no market for the illegal, unclean and dangerous kind on the street.
You know... The kind where you're lucky if you only get the clap and not a knife between your kidneys in an alley somewhere.
As for prostitutes and vulnerability...
Besides all the benefits of regular health checkups, safer working environment, health insurance and whatnot - they too don't have to worry about having their heads bashed in by a customer in an alley somewhere, or by their pimp.
And both sides don't have to worry about their money being stolen.
Cause should things get to that or worse - either side can now call the cops.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"The act of prostitution deprives prostitutes of their freedom and of the control over their bodies."
How is this different from anyone who earns a paycheck in a mindless manufacturing job?
I do agree that it should be legal and regulated.