Bachmann, Paul and Prostitution

The Iowa straw poll gave an interesting result, with Michele Bachmann squeaking out an insignificantly tiny win over Ron Paul. The two are almost polar opposites in all ways.

It's hard to gauge the real significance of the Ames straw poll, because the candidates are basically buying votes -- candidates ship their people in on buses, there is a registration fee, which the candidates pay, and the candidates usually provide lunch. My guess is that the real reason Pawlenty withdrew from the race was because he paid for many more votes than he actually got. If you can't even buy votes, your campaign is in serious, serious trouble.

The mainstream media have completely ignored the Paul result, which has been noted in niche media such as the Daily Show.

The reason Paul is such an embarrassment to mainstream Republicans is that he illustrates perfectly what a disaster Republican laissez-faire policies would be if carried to their logical conclusions. Paul is opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our involvement in Libya. The rest of the Republican field believes military spending should be increased. Paul believes drugs and prostitution should be legal. The rest of the Republican party wants stricter government controls on all social activity, even restricting divorce laws.

While a group of us, four men and three women, were discussing Paul and Bachmann, two of the men concurred with Paul that prostitution should be legalized (is it a coincidence that one weighs upwards of 250 lbs and the other more than 350 lbs?). The more fervent advocate for prostitution has libertarian leanings, and he stated that in the places where it's legal and well-regulated, there are few problems.

Prostitution is handled in four basic ways: illegal outright, legal but regulated, legal but unregulated, and in places like Sweden accepting money for sex is legal, but paying for sex is illegal. That is, it's legal to be a prostitute, but illegal to be a john.

In countries where prostitution is legal and regulated, prostitutes typically work in highly-controlled brothels, are subject to regular testing, and safety precautions such as condoms are required. The problem with regulation is that it's limiting. Not using condoms is illegal because of the risk of infection, but most men don't like using condoms. Certain practices (anal sex) carry a higher risk of condom failure. Many johns like rough sex, including spanking, slapping, hitting, biting, whipping, etc.

This is the inherent contradiction in the legalization of prostitution. The more you regulate it to make it safer, the more incentives you create to get around those regulations. For example, Elliot Spitzer, former governor and attorney general of New York, was himself put away for soliciting prostitutes. His proclivity for going "bareback" has made him the object of much ridicule.

Thus, attempting to legalize prostitution creates a new class of prostitutes that will operate outside the limits of legal prostitution. This is borne out in countries where prostitution is legal. Human trafficking is a serious problem in those countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Turkey. Foreigners -- usually from Eastern Europe -- are abducted, shipped into the country and forced to have sex.

Illegal prostitution almost always involves some kind of coercion. Proponents of legalization claim it would eliminate this. I am unconvinced. How much latitude do prostitutes have to refuse to service clients that they find objectionable in some way? If prostitution were legalized throughout the US, how long would it take conservatives like Rush Limbaugh to start complaining that women on welfare should get off their asses and get on their backs and starting earning their keep?

But if you ignore all that, the real coercion in prostitution is the repeated exposure of workers to parasites and diseases like syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV, and hepatitis multiple times a day. Testing prostitutes does nothing to protect them from an HIV-positive man who "accidentally" breaks his condom.

If you're serious about making prostitution safe, all johns would have to be licensed, registered and tested, just like prostitutes. Since there are incubation times, a waiting period would be required after testing. All the johns' sex partners would also have to be registered and tested. All sex acts in this network would have to be recorded in order to track the vector of any infections. Johns would have to be certified psychologically stable (violence against prostitutes is common) before being licensed, and prostitutes would have to be undergo training in conflict management.

To achieve this Libertarian ideal of safe and clean prostitution, a tremendous amount of regulation would be required of both johns and prostitutes.

But that's the rub, so to speak. "Libertarian regulation" is an oxymoron.