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gjm comments on Open Thread August 31 - September 6 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: Elo 30 August 2015 09:26PM

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Comment author: gjm 06 September 2015 10:35:44PM 1 point [-]

would get out of prostitution immediately if they could

I wonder what you would find if you surveyed ordinary workers and asked how many would stop working immediately if they could?

"Would get out immediately if they could" might mean that they're being kept prisoner at gunpoint. Or that they are addicted to a drug that they can only get from the pimp who's insisting that they keep working as prostitutes. Or that they don't have any other way to earn as much money as they need (or want). Or just that like many other people they don't like their job much.

I suspect there's quite a lot of the third of those; in such cases I suggest that the underlying problem is poverty more than it's prostitution, and maybe legalizing and destigmatizing prostitution makes those people's lives better by giving them one more viable way to earn a living. (Only maybe: it could be, e.g., that prostitution is in almost all cases a much worse way to earn a living than it seems from outside, in which case making it an easier option could be doing them a big disservice.)