'I Chose Sex Work Because I'm Good at It'

That’s a quote from a short documentary from Reason profiling the Moonlite BunnyRanch, a brothel located in one of Nevada’s isolated counties—the only places in the U.S. where prostitution is legal and regulated:

Any thoughts on the Nevada model discussed in that video? The latest reader to say hello@:

In the context of this debate, I think we need to remember that not everything we disapprove of needs to be illegal. For example, there is widespread societal disapproval of adultery outside the context of e.g. open relationships (disapproval of other people’s adultery, at least!), but it’s not illegal.   

Also, behavior that’s harmful to those voluntary participants isn’t necessarily illegal. Someone drinking themselves blackout drunk every night is certainly harmful to the drinker, but unless they do something that harms someone else, it’s not illegal.

I think the question is whether making something illegal is an effective and appropriate way of dealing with a situation that we disapprove of or is harmful to the participants.  The Swedish model seems to be based on a feeling that we disapprove of buying sex more than selling it because the former is seen as exploitative, and maybe that’s a correct analysis of the situation.  But is the Swedish model an *effective* way of decreasing this exploitation relative to legalizing or decriminalizing both the sale and the purchase?  

Some analyses mentioned in earlier notes seem to suggest that it isn’t. If decriminalizing both buying and selling turns out to be empirically better for prostitutes than the Swedish model, then I’d argue that by adopting the Swedish model, we’d be hurting prostitutes for the sake of sending the message that we think buying sex is bad.

Similarly, the question of whether some (adult) prostitutes are being harmed by the act of selling sex is certainly important when considering whether buying and/or selling sex should be illegal, but it’s not the only thing to consider. We need to again ask ourselves what is the most effective way of helping the people who are being harmed, and experience has shown that making various forms of self-harm—be it drinking, drugs, or whatnot—illegal isn’t always the best way to help the person in question. Again, are prostitutes better off under the Swedish model than under legalization/decriminalization of both the buying and the selling?  That’s an empirical question, and if the answer is “no,” it seems hard to argue that our concern for the well-being of prostitutes should lead us to favor a model that leaves then worse off than the alternatives.