Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin
Oh, I don't think there's any way to completely control it, but I do think that offering prostitution from legitimate, tested, regulated business establishments will drastically cut down on the sort of illegal prostitution which ends up getting girls killed and leaving 'Johns' with STDs.
I imagine folks who utilize the service won't stop being unsavory and generally slimeballesque, but as far as an 'efficient market' goes, I would assume that those principles would lie here, just as they lie just about everywhere else. I'm also quite sure that there would still be a significant amount of illegal prostitution, but the illegal stuff would be highly disincentivized due to readily available, legal, safer alternatives.
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It would really take a sea change in the way we view prostitution on a societal level for these effects to really take root - I'd love for this line of thought to be completely correct, but it seems like there's little incentive for a prostitute to "play ball" and fall in line with the system. Indeed, there's probably incentive for the prostitute to
not follow (increased profits) - and unlike, say, business regulations, we have (like you pointed out) two centuries of evidence that any law enforcement repercussions will be of limited utility.
I guess I just doubt the john's willingness to call an agency and report a hooker for not following the rules, the hooker's trustworthiness in following mandatory-testing procedures (or their ability to self-regulate against the vigilante), the government's ability to tax/regulate it, and society's willingness to bring the act out of the alley and into the strip mall. It seems like all of those things have to happen for regulation to actually have the positive effects we'd like.