Continuation Prostitution part 2

[Thermal]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

I hope none of the people who think sex is so special and should only be done when both parties achieve orgasm through it never realise that 80% of women fake orgasms.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna38006774

Only because 90% of men don't give a **** if they do or not.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

You're the one claiming sex is something "special", so it's not much of a strawman, and the suggestion that sex should be mutually satisfying has been made.

You went quite a bit farther than that. And while mutual satisfaction is certainly a good thing, the significance of sex doesn't depend upon that in any way, and I never claimed it did.

Quote:

Probably should have read the article:

I don't know why you think that changes anything I said.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Emily's Cat

From where I'm viewing this, dann seems to have a whole lot more care and respect for females as a whole than many of the other posters in this thread do.

Well, from where I am viewing this, if he was as caring as you claim, he would not be advocating for the idea that women should not have bodily autonomy... You cannot argue that women have the absolute right to bodily autonomy, while you also argue that they are not allowed to be a prostitute. These are contradictory and mutually exclusive positions to hold.

People have the absolute, human right to do whatever they want to with their bodies... women are not an exception to this right. It is neither your place, nor dann's to make those decisions for anyone else - it is their decision, and their decision alone. If that means they want to be paid to have sex, then it is their absolute right to do so...... End. Of. Story.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

Well, from where I am viewing this, if he was as caring as you claim, he would not be advocating for the idea that women should not have bodily autonomy... You cannot argue that women have the absolute right to bodily autonomy, while you also argue that they are not allowed to be a prostitute. These are contradictory and mutually exclusive positions to hold.

People have the absolute, human right to do whatever they want to with their bodies... women are not an exception to this right. It is neither your place, nor dann's to make those decisions for anyone else - it is their decision, and their decision alone. If that means they want to be paid to have sex, then it is their absolute right to do so...... End. Of. Story.

Then you oppose the minimum wage too, I presume. Because that implicates bodily autonomy just as much as prostitution does.

Unless bodily autonomy doesn't quite equate to complete economic freedom too, that you don't have the right to engage in any possible financial transaction you want to. Because that's the normal lefty position, which does self-consistently allow for outlawing prostitution and permitting abortion. You can do whatever sex acts you want with your body, but you can't do it for money, just as you can't choose to work for less than the minimum wage.

Note that I'm not arguing my position in this post. I'm pointing out that I don't think your position is quite as consistent as you think it is, or that other people's positions are as inconsistent.

[lionking]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Then you oppose the minimum wage too, I presume. Because that implicates bodily autonomy just as much as prostitution does.

Unless bodily autonomy doesn't quite equate to complete economic freedom too, that you don't have the right to engage in any possible financial transaction you want to. Because that's the normal lefty position, which does self-consistently allow for outlawing prostitution and permitting abortion. You can do whatever sex acts you want with your body, but you can't do it for money, just as you can't choose to work for less than the minimum wage.

Note that I'm not arguing my position in this post. I'm pointing out that I don't think your position is quite as consistent as you think it is, or that other people's positions are as inconsistent.

I’ve seen tortured to near death arguments on this forum, but this sets a new standard. Congratulations I suppose.

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

THIS! If you are pro-abortion rights, and the basis for your position is that it is a woman's right to choose what happens with their own body, you MUST also be pro the legalization of prostitution. If you are pro-abortion rights, but against legalized prostitution that means you MUST believe that women's rights should be limited.

It is that simple.

Originally Posted by Thermal

Our social welfare system, in keeping with the threads theme, sucks dick.

Yes, I'm aware of that. It always seemed strange to me that the world's richest country has the weakest welfare system, but those Commies gotta be put down!

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Then you oppose the minimum wage too, I presume. Because that implicates bodily autonomy just as much as prostitution does.

Rubbish!

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Unless bodily autonomy doesn't quite equate to complete economic freedom too, that you don't have the right to engage in any possible financial transaction you want to. Because that's the normal lefty position, which does self-consistently allow for outlawing prostitution and permitting abortion. You can do whatever sex acts you want with your body, but you can't do it for money, just as you can't choose to work for less than the minimum wage.

More rubbish. Financial discretion has nothing whatever to do with bodily autonomy!

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Note that I'm not arguing my position in this post.

Then don't argue it!

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

I'm pointing out that I don't think your position is quite as consistent as you think it is, or that other people's positions are as inconsistent.

My position is perfectly consistent.

Either a person has bodily autonomy (the right to do whatever they like with their body) or they do not. There is no nuance.

Originally Posted by lionking

I’ve seen tortured to near death arguments on this forum, but this sets a new standard. Congratulations I suppose.

Yup, it takes a whole new level of pretzel twisting to make that argument

What was it Francis Wade once said... "The Bible is like a person; if you torture it long enough you can get it to say anything you like". Well, Zig's argument fits that bill.

[Thermal]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

Firstly, I never said they vanished, I said they have dramatically diminished. You only have to be old enough, and I am, to remember what the streets Auckland (K'Road in particular) were like in the 1970s and 1980s and what they are like now, to realize that there would not be more than a few percent of the street corner hookers there now that were there back then. In my own town, the west end of Hardy Street was well known as the red light district. It was rife with street walkers, you couldn't miss seeing them if you drove down there on a Friday or Saturday night. There is still a well-known brothel down that end, but the street walkers are all but gone - I haven't seen one there for at least decade.

Secondly, I'm sure its easy to find information that contradicts the opinions of others on the web - its the nature of the beast. Take crime for example. Looking at some sources, you'd be forgiven for thinking that all policemen are criminals, all airplanes are death-traps, and everyone is being murdered. But the reality is that your chances of having an encounter with a criminal cop, of dying in a plane crash or being murdered, while non-zero, are extremely small.

You are, to some extent, making yourself a victim of some cognitive bias - if you go looking for information that will confirm your existing opinions, you are going to find it, and while you are doing so, you tend not to see that which contradicts your pre-existing bias.

"We demand strict proof for opinions we dislike, but are satisfied with mere hints for what we’re inclined to accept"
- John Henry Newman

The information about NZ streetwalkers I am citing is from Wikipedia,articles featuring NZ streetwalkers, and other NZ correspondents right here in this thread. The only claim that they "don't exist" anymore is from you, claiming to not see them. Consider which of us is relying on less evidence.

[Thermal]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Yes, I'm aware of that. It always seemed strange to me that the world's richest country has the weakest welfare system, but those Commies gotta be put down!

Yeah, it's super ******* weird. But for now, it is what it is, and it's why I'm confident that the coerced/desperate worker would remain if we legalized tomorrow. So I'm trying to work out a way to provide a safe and legal venue for sex workers,without rubber-stamp approving what amounts to raping the poor. Not even sure it is do-able over here, even after all this chatter about it.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

More rubbish. Financial discretion has nothing whatever to do with bodily autonomy!

Then prostitution has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Nothing a prostitute does is illegal if they aren't getting paid. There is your bodily autonomy. The financial component is central to the prohibition. You too don't want people to get paid to do certain things. You only disagree with others about what things. You are no different.

[TragicMonkey]

You can donate an organ voluntarily, but you can't sell one legally (at least in the US). I would say bodily autonomy is one principle, and it involves just one person. Economic transactions necessarily involve more than one person and therefore can have additional burden of regulation. Prostitution, of course, involves both. So I'm not seeing a conflict of principles here -- you can be for bodily autonomy and against prostitution as an economic transaction.

But of course just because one recognizes prostitution is an economic transaction and agrees that economic transactions can be regulated doesn't mean one believes this particular economic transaction should be forbidden.

Bearing that in mind, I'd say the minimum wage and bodily autonomy digressions contribute no insight to the central question of the thread which is whether prostitution should be legal or not.

[Thermal]

And to recreationally pour gas on the fire, abortion rights are not about the woman's body, they are about killing the developing human life inside her, and where it's rights begin.

[Thermal]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

Attitudes change.

As I stated earlier, there is no-one in New Zealand under the age of 20 who has grown up in a time when prostitution was a crime. In a few decades, there will be no-one alive who has lived in a time when it was a crime. Later Gen Z members would mostly just roll their eyes at this thread, and say "OK, boomers" and move on.

They also have a much less prudish attitude to sex than previous generations. For them it is more a part of a fun lifestyle - they regard it as just another part of the social interactions along with drinking and partying. They, and the generation before them were the genesis of terms like "friends with benefits"

Critically important point: my fellow GenXers invented "friends with benefits" when Millennials were busy in kindergarten and GenZs weren't even a twinkle in their daddy's eye yet. See the work of renowned social philosopher Morrisett, A.circa 1995

[TragicMonkey]

Originally Posted by Thermal

Critically important point: my fellow GenXers invented "friends with benefits" when Millennials were busy in kindergarten and GenZs weren't even a twinkle in their daddy's eye yet. See the work of renowned social philosopher Morrisett, A.circa 1995

Well, you oughta know.

[Thermal]

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

Well, you oughta know.

Isn't it ironic?

[TragicMonkey]

Originally Posted by Thermal

Isn't it ironic?

All I really want is for these uninvited song title jokes to be forgiven.

[Thermal]

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

All I really want is for these uninvited song title jokes to be forgiven.

Thank U.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Thermal

Isn't it ironic?

Until TM's response, I actually thought you were trying to start **** with this post. I totally missed the references.

[Thermal]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Until TM's response, I actually thought you were trying to start **** with this post. I totally missed the references.

You can still start **** even with one hand in your pocket.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Thermal

You can still start **** even with one hand in your pocket.

You learn to keep your hands clean.

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Ah, this smells like actual progress.

I'm surprised you're so against it.

Don't be absurd. I'm not at all opposed to consenting people having sex. I am opposed to exploiting a person's desperation to coerce them into having sex when they would not voluntarily choose to do so if they had any other choice.

The fact that you seem incapable of acknowledging the coercive and exploitative element of this, in favor of the happy-hooker myth, smacks of ideological bias. The fact that you frame my objection to rank exploitation as being "against sex" compounds that bias to astronomical levels.

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Is having sex a basic human right?

Sex is also absolutely NOT a human right.

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

That information ends up on a government database. As anyone who lives in this country knows there have been numerous privacy breaches of government databases - a massive one recently!

https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/05/10/p...est-data-hack/
1,037,000 New Zealand driver licence numbers exposed
34,000 passport details.
90,000 had their personal banking numbers + income and expense information used to assess loan applications exposed.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300...than-100-times

Massive government database had rules breached more than 100 times. The number of breaches appears to be accelerating: there were 24 between 2015 and 2018, Between 2018 and November 2022, there were a further 79 breaches.

All very interesting, but utterly irrelevant to what I am talking about here.

If there is a data breach, and your details become public, no-one is going to out you to your family or anyone else as an "electrician, plumber, builder, police officer, firefighter, accountant or tax advisor!!

Here's an idea for you. Since you think there are no worries with private information being shared willy-nilly with the public, maybe you'd be be happy to have the names, home addresses, workplaces and telephone numbers of battered women, or women being housed at a women's refuge, or those being treated at a rape crisis centre, on a government database?

Your entire argument is absurd, cooky. Seriously.

Data breaches are absolutely bad, across the board. They're a massive problem, and if your government can't figure out how to keep their systems safe, that's a big problem that your country needs to fix.

But the risk of a data breach is not a good argument for why we should hand-wave away something that would reduce the risk of underaged and trafficked people being exploited.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Emily's Cat

Sex is also absolutely NOT a human right.

I think that's too ambiguous a phrasing.

I would say sex is not a positive right, but it is a negative right. Nobody should ever be compelled to engage in sex (no positive right to sex, you can't get it from someone else just because you want it), but mentally capable adults who want to have sex with each other should not be prohibited from doing so (a negative right). I think that part is a basic human right. And in those terms, I think you might even agree.

Prohibitions on prostitution do not prohibit sex. They prohibit an economic transaction associated with sex.

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

So, if someone is unable to find a partner - as many disabled or disfigured people are - they can just miss out on this wonderful, special part of human existence.

No worries.

You've got to be kidding me. This is absolute incel logic, where males believe that their desire to have sex should compel someone else to fulfill their desires.

This detestable view is completely antithetical to the idea of consent and agency in sexual encounters. The idea that people have a right to have sex - even if nobody wants to have sex with them - is foundationally supportive of coerced sex.

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Colour me extremely amused that this subject has gone to a second thread.

I would have expected half a dozen posts, not the religious-zealot-level opposition being posted.

The really hilarious part is that prostitution isn't going to go away, and being illegal makes every facet of it less safe for the workers who choose to become prostitutes.

But those opponents really care about chicks, amirite?

Originally Posted by smartcooky

Indeed! Evidence for prostitution as an occupation dates back to at least 2400 BCE in Mesopotamia. That was almost 4,500 years ago. If it was going to go away, it would surely have done so by now!!

You know what else dates back at least that long and is still around? Slavery. Rape has been around since forever too. So has murder, and theft and any number of other abuses.

"Oh it's been around a long time, and we haven't gotten rid of it... so let's celebrate it instead!" is some piss-poor argumentation.

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost

Considering how often I see right wing reactionaries freaking out when they find out that their lowly UPS man or other presumed wage slave is making a decent union living, I think that the low wage itself doesn't explain why "burger flipper" is seen as derogatory. Every McDonalds' employee could be making $80/hr and there would still be plenty of contempt for this line of work I suspect.

The stigma surrounding well paid, glamourous sex workers is complicated. Hell, one was the first lady. Money and success seem to make a big difference in how respectable this line of work is.

I'd like to see some support for this extraordinary claim. My (subjective of course) experience is that support and respect for tradesmen, manual laborers, and similar lower-education jobs is higher among conservatives than among liberals.

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost

Probably because your trope of the easy path to riches through sex work is plainly not true. Otherwise every street walker would be rich rather than living in pretty clear poverty. Some lucky or otherwise special sex workers seem to hit the high life, many others do not.

That's a large chunk of my objection. Survival sex shouldn't be a thing. Nobody - of either sex! - should be expected to **** people they don't actually desire to ****, just so they don't starve. And nobody, absolutely nobody, should feel entitled to exploit someone in poverty so they can get ****** by someone who would otherwise reject their advances completely.

Coercion negates agency.

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost

I don't think it's rape, I think it's the common exploitation of labor from the poor.

If you think that unwilling consent is not rape, I have to question what your view of consent actually is.

If someone only "consents" to have sex because failure to do so means they die or suffer, do you actually consider that to be legitimate consent?

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

I'm more thinking of physically disabled people - of both genders - who can't find a willing partner.

If partners are not willing, that makes it rape.

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

I hope none of the people who think sex is so special and should only be done when both parties achieve orgasm through it never realise that 80% of women fake orgasms.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna38006774

How long do you think it will be before the figment of your imagination that you're talking to starts talking back?

Sex is special enough that it should only be done when both parties ENTHUSIASTICALLY CONSENT to it.

I will however take a moment to point out that the fact that 80% of females fake orgasms is a really sad commentary on the woeful performance of males. If a higher percentage of males viewed females as actual people rather than just an object for their sexual gratification, then those males might bother to be invested in providing satisfaction to their partners.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Then prostitution has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.

Wrong. Prostitution is the very definition of someone exercising their bodily autonomy

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Nothing a prostitute does is illegal if they aren't getting paid. There is your bodily autonomy.

A prostitute is someone who is paid for sex. If they are not being paid, they are not even a prostitute. Q.E.D.

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

The financial component is central to the prohibition. You too don't want people to get paid to do certain things. You only disagree with others about what things. You are no different.

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Two things occurred to me as I was driving along this morning:

1 Women's desperation driving them to it, and putting them in danger.

I cast my mind back to when I had a team of 300 women staffing betting terminals at the races. All casual employees with zero job security, and almost exclusively solo mothers desperate for the cash. They were abused, spat at, and occasionally sexually assaulted, all to earn a paltry extra few dollars the week they got some work.

So you managed a team of 300 females, who were routinely abused and sexually assaulted... and you think that's okay?

Originally Posted by The Atheist

2 The moralist attitude.

I trust those making moral arguments against prostitution are also anti-abortion, because women's bodily autonomy either does or does not exist, and there are a lot more - and far better - moral arguments against abortion than prostitution.

I don't think I've seen a moral argument against prostitution. So have fun with that windmill, I guess.

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

THIS! If you are pro-abortion rights, and the basis for your position is that it is a woman's right to choose what happens with their own body, you MUST also be pro the legalization of prostitution. If you are pro-abortion rights, but against legalized prostitution that means you MUST believe that women's rights should be limited.

Nah buddy, this is just your own inability to consider this from any viewpoint other than your blatantly biased perspective. You're very clearly on the side of "males should have the right to purchase the use of other people's bodies for sexual gratification".

What you seem to be missing is that a whole lot of people are pro-choice, but are ANTI-EXPLOITATION AND PAID RAPE.

You've got so much "happy hooker" smoke in your brain that you seem willfully ignorant of the fact that most of the prostitutes in your own country are engaged in survival sex. You only seem to accept the anecdotes from high-end escorts who already had a stable and well-funded life who can afford to be choosy about their clients and can demand a high rate. You accept the narrative from pro-prostitution views.

And you dismiss out of hand any information from actual prostitutes in NZ who have been abused, coerced, and exploited.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

You can donate an organ voluntarily, but you can't sell one legally (at least in the US). I would say bodily autonomy is one principle, and it involves just one person. Economic transactions necessarily involve more than one person and therefore can have additional burden of regulation. Prostitution, of course, involves both. So I'm not seeing a conflict of principles here -- you can be for bodily autonomy and against prostitution as an economic transaction.

Well, by the same logic, you could also argue this applies to abortion - its a financial transaction (abortions cost money) and involves more than one party, and even in the case where the abortion is achieved by medications, the medication still costs money.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Emily's Cat

Nah buddy, this is just your own inability to consider this from any viewpoint other than your blatantly biased perspective. You're very clearly on the side of "males everyone, regardless of their sex should have the right to purchase the use of other people's bodies for sexual gratification, and have the right to offer themselves for such".

Fixed that for you!

Originally Posted by Emily's Cat

What you seem to be missing is that a whole lot of people are pro-choice, but are ANTI-EXPLOITATION AND PAID RAPE.
<nonsense snipped>

What you seem to be missing is thing called "consent". Any person who consents to engage in sex for money is not being raped by any definition you can come up with.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Thermal

Critically important point: my fellow GenXers invented "friends with benefits" when Millennials were busy in kindergarten and GenZs weren't even a twinkle in their daddy's eye yet. See the work of renowned social philosopher Morrisett, A.circa 1995

What part of "the generation before them" did you fail to understand?

[Thermal]

Originally Posted by Emily's Cat

How long do you think it will be before the figment of your imagination that you're talking to starts talking back?

Sex is special enough that it should only be done when both parties ENTHUSIASTICALLY CONSENT to it.

Eeeeeeh...I don't know that it has to be enthusiastic. Unencumbered seems like a fair bar.

Quote:

I will however take a moment to point out that the fact that 80% of females fake orgasms is a really sad commentary on the woeful performance of males. If a higher percentage of males viewed females as actual people rather than just an object for their sexual gratification, then those males might bother to be invested in providing satisfaction to their partners.

From what I gathered in the article, many of the women were faking when they were just looking for a quickie, or wanted to ego-stroke their partner. That's not the worst thing in the world, as long as communication is open. I mean, a woman can have desires that run the spectrum, right? From a maintenance quickie, to the Full Cadillac Treatment? No? As long as she gets what she really wants when she wants it (ie not getting short changed as a matter of course or negligence), I don't see the harm in a caring partner putting on a bit of a show once in a while.

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

Well, from where I am viewing this, if he was as caring as you claim, he would not be advocating for the idea that women should not have bodily autonomy...

He isn't advocating that.

Originally Posted by smartcooky

You cannot argue that women have the absolute right to bodily autonomy, while you also argue that they are not allowed to be a prostitute.

That isn't what's been argued.

Originally Posted by smartcooky

These are contradictory and mutually exclusive positions to hold.

You're missing the point entirety. Probably because you keep sticking your virtual fingers in your ears and digitally hollering "la la la I can't hear you"

Originally Posted by smartcooky

People have the absolute, human right to VOLUNTARILY AND WITHOUT COERCION do whatever they want to with their bodies...

Key element added.

Originally Posted by smartcooky

women are not an exception to this right. It is neither your place, nor dann's to make those decisions for anyone else - it is their decision, and their decision alone. If that means they want to be paid to have sex, then it is their absolute right to do so...... End. Of. Story.

This is not the end of the story. This is nothing more than the narrative that you have told yourself.

Let me be clear:

NOBODY HAS A RIGHT TO COERCE OTHERS INTO HAVING SEX WITH THEM WHEN THOSE OTHERS WOULD BE COMPLETELY UNWILLING TO DO SO WHEN GIVE TRULY FREE CHOICE IN THE MATTER.

I am not arguing that females (or males) shouldn't be allowed to prostitutes themselves. In fact, I've explicitly said that prostitution shouldn't be a criminal act.

What I have said, and which you keep pretending not to hear, is that nobody should have the right to purchase sex.

It should never be legal for the following scenario to play out:

John: Hi, I want to have sex with you. Do you want to have sex with me?
Jane: No.
John: But I really, really want to have sex with someone, I really want to get my rocks off. Please have sex with me!
Jane: No.
John: But I need it, I really need some sex. I want you to want to have sex with me - don't you want to have sex with me?
Jane: No.
John: I notice that you're struggling to get by, that you're close to being evicted and don't have a lot of food.
Jane: So?
John: I'll pay you $50 to **** me, then you can afford some food.
Jane: Fine.

That's not enthusiastic consent. That's not consent to a sexual interaction at all. That's entirely apposite to the notion of consent.

On the other hand...
Betty: Man, I really love getting laid, I mean I just can't get enough dick in me.
Bob: Oh? How picky are you, because I'd really like to stick my dick in you.
Betty: Meh, I'm not super picky, but momma needs some new Chus. Tell you what - you give me $500, and we can have a great time.
Bob: I'm in, let me hit the ATM.

That's an entirely different situation. And I don't particularly have an objection to it. I'd be fine with it... But ONLY if the first scenario didn't come wrapped up with it. ONLY if Betty represents at least 90% of the situations, and Jane is virtually nonexistent.

And the sad fact is that despite your happy hooker snake oil, the majority of the prostitutes people in NZ are asian and maori females, who are near destitute, engaging in this "trade" for survival.

[Thermal]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

What part of "the generation before them" did you fail to understand?

You said GenZs and the one before them. The one before Zs was the Millenials. We Xers are their parents, like Professor Morrisette.

Eta: I'm starting to dig this argument by emoticon thing. Channeling my inner schoolgirl and all that.

[Emily's Cat]

Originally Posted by Thermal

Yeah, it's super ******* weird. But for now, it is what it is, and it's why I'm confident that the coerced/desperate worker would remain if we legalized tomorrow. So I'm trying to work out a way to provide a safe and legal venue for sex workers,without rubber-stamp approving what amounts to raping the poor. Not even sure it is do-able over here, even after all this chatter about it.

One of the most fundamental questions that should be included in this debate is who benefits the most from this.

It is my position that completely legalizing prostitution for both the prostitute and the john has a significantly greater benefit for the john than for the prostitute. Unless there is a means by which we can absolutely ensure that prostitutes will not be sexually assaulted or raped, are there because they absolutely love getting some dick, and have the financial means to walk away from the job, and aren't engaged in it solely for survival... then I don't support it.

Because as long as the majority of cases are that the prostituted individuals are engaged in survival sex, then the reality is that legalization is tantamount to making it legal to exploit people, and exploited sex is not consensual sex.

Nonconsensual sex is rape.