Re: Self-fulfilling prophecies?

We as humans should know by now what sexual oppression causes, and believe it or not, it's responsible for some of the very things you're so against. In fact, I'd say things like porn and prostitution are actually responses to sexual repression. If you allow people (not just adults of a magical age) to freely receive the sex they need in a healthy, consensual manner, then I think you'd ultimately see a decrease in something like pornography.

Agreed. Prostitution, wherever it has been a large industry, has arisen because of an unmet demand for sex, usually due to some form of sexual repression. This has been true in East and West alike, rich and poor countries alike. Sometimes that's due to the strictures of monogamous marriages (as in Classical Rome and Victorian Britain), sometimes to large populations of unmarried men like soldiers or seamen (such as in pioneer America and the Golden Age Caribbean).

Ultimately, of course, prostitution thrives on this sexual repression. It even becomes a second form of market manipulation regarding sex - on top of the first one from monogamy, religion, or whatever is causing it. So it doesn't provide an ultimate solution. Much like smuggling, bootlegging or counterfeiting become alternatives when a market is artificially limited, but do not provide a real solution equal in outcome to a free market.

But of course, prohibition is even worse - whatever its effects on the sexual market, it's worse for both prostitutes and clients and makes it all more unsafe for both and more likely to involve exploitation of every kind.

I will also notice the twin phenomena of sex tourism and people smuggling. In both cases it is a prostitute of a poor (or comparatively poorer) country and a client of a rich (or comparatively richer) country. Why? This is not because there are no poor women/children in North America or Western Europe who could make a living through prostitution; and this is not because there are no rich men in Eastern Europe, Latin America or Southeast (and parts of East and South) Asia who have the money to hire a prostitute. No: this is because North Americans and Western Europeans are comparatively sex repressed, so men are undersexed and women/children are averse to work in prostitution. At the same time, Eastern Europeans, Latin Americans and Southeast Asians are comparatively sexually liberal, so men are not undersexed, and women/children are not averse to work in prostitution. From there it's half a step to use that as a magnet for either sex tourism or people smuggling (which, true enough, would probably not sustain if there wasn't an income differential. For instance, most of Africans seem to be as sex repressed as Westerners are, but they are simply not rich enough to sustain smuggling or tourism - indeed, in most places they are poorer than the prostitution providing regions. I think this accounts for the astronomically high rates of rape in parts of sub-Saharan Africa).

And yes, in the end, if you want to eradicate prostitution, the only way to do so is to have a true sexual free market. That is not going to happen, though, as long as we stick into sex such a large baggage in every way. We need something like the "Sexual Revolution" of the 1960s but that didn't work because when it happened it was more a reaction against the perceived values of the time than a truly new idea. We need a new idea, not a reaction against the old order.

[I am personally opposed to prostitution, but I cannot and do not lay any blame on either prostitutes or clients when I know the market is not free, anymore than I can and do in other market facilitators in other markets, whether that's cigarette smugglers, software pirates, pot gardens or made-in-China Prada handbags]