Should the Sex Trade be Legal? w/ Kate D’Adamo
In this episode, we take a look at the oldest profession. Like it or not, sex work and to some extent drugs (intoxicants) have been around as long as humanity. The question for our modern era is should it be decriminalized, legalized and regulated or should police crackdown even harder?
Known as the world’s oldest profession, prostitution has been around almost as long as humanity. In this modern era, we try to use more positive and people-friendly terms such as sex traders, however, the premise remains the same. The fact is there are some people who live among us who are forced, coerced or voluntarily enter the community of sex traders.
For a variety of reasons, there are people who oppose sex traders. Reasons may range from the perspective of morality and ethics to those who wish to stop the spread of disease and of course, there is the religious community who oppose based upon their interpretation of their holy texts.
In any case, law enforcers are often asked to step in and be the barrier for the community at large and arrest the participants in the illicit trade.
The attempts to get people to stop sex work were so extreme that in some states they passed laws that allowed the state to seize the vehicle of any “john” soliciting sex. The point was simple, shame the solicitors into not wanting to patronage the ladies of the evening. I mean, after all, having one’s vehicle confiscated by the police with all the tow and storage fees was one problem that men didn’t need. And try explaining to your wife or children where your car was and why the police had taken it. Of course, who knows if people who have their vehicles returned to them at all.
Strangely enough, none of this stops the participants. It does not stop the solicitors nor the “johns”. It’s time we as a society looked at the reasons why people are “forced” into that line of work. Are people engaging in prostitution because they have no other financial means of getting by, are they feeding their drug habit or forced by someone else to sell their body?
Regardless of the reason for entering the sex trade, we should ask if the state has the right to further victimize and traumatize the participants. Those engaging in sex work may need drug treatment, psychological counseling form past traumas, job training, mental health care or a host of other options. Throwing them in cages, humiliating them, and branding them with the scarlet ”A” has not and does not work.
Check out my convo with Kate D’Adamo.
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