Private Porn Shoots

https://popehat.com/2016/11/06/private-porn-shoots-brilliant-no

by pavel_lishin • 10 years ago

126 115 10 years ago

joshuaheard2• 10 years ago

tldr: the article asks why is porn legal and prostitution illegal when both are being paid for sex.

I never really thought about that distinction before. The author's answer makes sense. What it really shows is that prostitution should be legal.

alicewales• 10 years ago

I guess in the case of pornography, both participants are being paid by a third party (the producer) for taking part in the sex act. This is different from a typical prostitute/client relationship, where one is paying the other for sex.

(I don't know if this is addressed in the article - the site seems to have fallen over.)

pavel_lishin4• 10 years ago

That's one of the criteria, yep.

Another one is legal forms required for producers and actors - there are forms that each actor must fill out, these must be verified and kept. Not doing so is a felony.

bashinator• 10 years ago

That might once have been true, but these days most of the public own a pocket-sized video production and distribution studio.

Avshalom2• 10 years ago

The article isn't about why is one legal and the other not so much as how the law distinguishes between the two cases.

finid• 10 years ago

What it really shows is that prostitution should be legal.

That's not going to happen easily. And that's partly because it will take away an avenue for filling up prisons. And undercover cops doing the prostitution beat are not going to like it.

But I'm sure if politicians see a tax benefit from legalizing it, they will show some interest.

ska• 10 years ago

Are prostitution related convictions actually representing a significant fraction of prison population? That would surprise me, at least.

BurningFrog2• 10 years ago

The undercover cop lobby is not actually that powerful.

Prostitution is kept illegal mostly because that's what the majority of voters strongly prefer.

thephyber3• 10 years ago

The site won't load, but...

In the USA, porn has been largely protected under the 1st Amendment. It is important to note that some pornography is not legal. This is usually called "obscene" and the standards are judged by your local community. There was a famous SCOtUS decision whereby the opinion used the test of "I know it when I see it"[1] to judge the threshold between legal porn and illegal porn, which I find problematic to the point of not being a useful law. You are at the whims of the delicate sensibilities of your neighbors on a jury when you are accused of consuming illegal porn.

Side note: there is a great scene in a movie on the Muhammed Ali SCOTUS case where the justices spend one day a week reviewing "evidence" of another ongoing case involving porn. [2]

Prostitution is usually prohibited because American protestantism (typically in the form of social pressure or local laws) is largely prudish. This is the same social pressure that brought about the alcohol prohibition (with the dubious distinction of being the only Amendment to have been repealed). It is hyperbolized in the movie Footloose in the form of drinking (which leads to unplanned non marital sex, of course!) and dancing (the horror!).

Prostitution, specifically, is usually outlawed because of the effects on public health (both medical health and the mental/social health of men who use prostitutes), and fear of the unknown (violence and other associated crime). Many communities in the US already legalize some forms of sex work (phone sex, video and still camera pornography, bikini waitresses, strip clubs, etc) or perhaps better worded, can not outlaw them. NIMBYs are largely to credit for the threshold of where a community draws a line on local sex work.

Nevada brothels are still legal in many of the less populated counties, but the legal brothels are regulated, the girls must register with the sheriff's office, and they are all tested for medical issues frequently.

The US has had a long history with using the law to outlaw "socially undesirable" behaviors (put another way, the prevailing social cohort is able to control other unapproved cohorts with the law, creating something of a tyrant of the majority). I firmly believe that marijuana is much less dangerous than many other, more acceptable drugs which have been legalized (like alcohol and tobacco). Even legal gambling is a much larger risk to public health than marijuana. But marijuana (which I don't use) prohibition has, in the past, been a convenient tool to outlaw to control non-white populations in the US and to prevent a drop in the insane work ethic protestants require of their community, similar to how the alcohol prohibition was sold to other WASPs by controlling those "unruly" Southern Europeans during a generation when the US was becoming increasingly fearful of its changing demographics.

Like many other prohibitions, prostitution is hard to police and the side effects of the prohibition are probably worse than if the action were legalized. Modern prostitution is a fund-raising tool for drug cartels, people smugglers, and has contributed to a rise in modern slavery.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

[2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2061756/

joshuaheard2• 10 years ago

All true. I actually took a class in Prostitution in college (no, there was no homework!). The main theme was the double standard for women. For instance, most prostitution laws are enforced against the prostitute, but not the "john". Also, historically, women were considered a man's property, but they could not sell themselves. It also studied legal prostitution in the Netherlands. There, the prostitutes are taxed, regulated, and protected. There is less disease, violence, and exploitation. Seems better all around to legalize it in my opinion.

davesque• 10 years ago

Just for the sake of debate, maybe there's an argument against prostitution since, presumably, it would take place on a much larger scale? This could lead to things like faster spread of STDs?

cheiVia0• 10 years ago

But the government can also mandate frequent STD tests and safety reqirements. AFAIR Netherlands, where prostitution is legal, has the lowest STD rates.

serg_chernata• 10 years ago

The fact that consenting adults aren't free to do whatever they please with their bodies is utterly bizarre.

fluxsauce• 10 years ago

Well, if you live in California, Proposition 60 is an important issue this election.

windlep• 10 years ago

Indeed, and that proposition is not at all what it appears to be at first glance. Voters in California should definitely do some due diligence researching that before voting or they're going to be in for a nasty shock at the outcome.

howeyc4• 10 years ago

That's true. And unfortunately the act itself usually gets tied to other issues every time it's discussed. Human trafficking for example.

I wish people were more willing to separate the act of "consenting adults doing a financial transaction" from all the surrounding "badness" but that rarely happens.

jessedhillon3• 10 years ago

You can't advocate for radical liberties without having a serious discussion about the externalities created thereby, and who's going to pay for them. Handwaving human trafficking as something inconsequential "that rarely happens" is the beginning to a position centered on "muh freedoms," than on personal responsibility.

verbify• 10 years ago

I believe prostitution should be legal, but I think the issue is still tied to trafficking.

It's a lot more difficult to ensure that people are there consensually when brothels are driven underground. How can we possibly police every single 'massage parlour'.

On the other hand, legal brothels could have an extra tax that paid for social workers that ensured the brothels were compliant - that sex workers weren't intimidated by their customers or bosses.

It will also lead to healthier outcomes - we can then test people to make sure diseases weren't being spread.

Unfortunately people learn nothing from sex-ed stats - 'abstinence only' makes thing worse.

yason• 10 years ago

The primary reason why human trafficking is often tied to prostitution is that human trafficking must happen underground.

In contrast, in countries which have legal bordellos the employment, management, taxation, and state governance of prostitution is much more transparent. If prostitution is legal and open it's more difficult to use it for human trafficking. Making prostitution illegal is like making rain illegal: there have always been and there will always be people who

Then, on the other hand, the cases where prostitution is abused for human trafficking we can actually ram down on the human trafficking issues directly as prostitution itself won't be another question.

chillingeffect• 10 years ago

Our culture has simply deemed us incapable of consent.

sandworm1014• 10 years ago

Saying that prostitution should be legal is like saying that drugs should be legal. Lots of people applaud because they only understand the issue in terms of their perspective.

It's one thing to say that pot should be legal, but ask a doctor about the thousand other drugs you don't know about. There are some scary things out there. The same is true of prostitution. There is a safe way of doing it, but there are some big areas that the general public doesn't think much about. That;s why those countries that do allow it, including a tiny part of the US, heavily regulate the trade. As with drugs, the end result of legalization shouldn't be the ability to pay anyone for anything.

Something to think about: Should prostitution be legalized, should people be able to settle debts with their bodies? Instead of paying rent, could a college girl just have sex with her landlord? Doesn't that create perverse intensives? The answer in many countries is to mandate brothels so that the girl is paid in money, not in relief of a debt held by the person having sex with her. That way you cannot suggest, or insist via contract, that anyone who owes you money might settle the debt via sex.

MichaelBurge• 10 years ago

Should prostitution be legalized, should people be able to settle debts with their bodies?

It would be indentured servitude if a court ordered it be done to satisfy a debt, which I believe is illegal.

Otherwise, it seems like it would be no worse than a glassworker being allowed to pay off his debts by making you a window. We do have reasonable bankruptcy laws and other tools for handling debt-related disputes.

SippinLean2• 10 years ago

The fact that we regulate markets that create a demand for human trafficking, however, is not.

snewk• 10 years ago

as with drugs, the illegality ends up driving more crime (in many cases violent crime) than straight legalization.

would human trafficking be so prevalent if it were easy to sell your own body?

Singletoned• 10 years ago

Making something illegal is not regulating a market. It is completely ignoring a market. I'm pretty certain that most people who are in favour of legalised prostitution are in favour of heavy regulation, which should help to stamp out human trafficking.

Note that I'm not myself in favour of legalised prostitution, I just think your argument is a bad one.

PopsiclePete• 10 years ago

Considering people trafficking and sex slavery are things, you can't ever be sure that the adults on those videos are consenting. Especially the women.

CptJamesCook2• 10 years ago

Do you think heroin should be legal?

DanBC• 10 years ago

Lots of people think heroin should be legal. I'm one of them. Keeping heroin illegal creates a lot of the harms associated with it - contaminated product; unsafe injecting; acquisitive crime and prostitution.

Plenty of harmful stuff is legal. The solution isn't to make it illegal, but to do better at educating people about harm reduction.

muad3• 10 years ago

TIL that most people have no idea how the porn industry operates.

Equating porn to prostitution is like equating a stunt driver to that crazy asshole that ran you off the road.

The porn industry is pretty heavily regulated, requiring std checks, identification, consent forms, and witnesses.

Legal prostitution would attempt to achieve the same level of regulation, but due to the scale it will just result in more trafficing and abuse.

boznz• 10 years ago

But there is a lot of porn I suspect that is not made in the USA or other countries with these legal frameworks in place and I suspect most people viewing it realistically do not really care where it is made (be honest!).

Prostitution on the other hand is always in the country where the service is provided. Big difference.

CptJamesCook2• 10 years ago

Porn is more pleasing when the girl sounds and looks like girls that you know. It gives it a more realistic feel. So consumers actually do care where the porn is made.

muad3• 10 years ago

I actually prefer amatuer porn made by couples.

Its authentic and everyone is having a good time.

stcredzero3• 10 years ago

Legal prostitution would attempt to achieve the same level of regulation, but due to the scale it will just result in more trafficing and abuse.

I would think there would be hard data on this by now.

muad3• 10 years ago

If you have it I would love to see it.

bcheung• 10 years ago

Great write up. Thanks for sharing this. Did you do any research into how states differ in terms of porn / prostitution laws? It seems like the porn industry has been having an exodus from California. Especially with prop 60. A lot are moving to Nevada so I'm wondering what the situation will be like there. My understanding is that prostitution is legal in certain counties but porn does not yet have enough precedent there. Anybody else know more?

vacri3• 10 years ago

courts that have considered the issue of porn v. prostitution acknowledge that you can't just add a camera to a crime and call it "art." Otherwise, criminals would just strap on a helmet cam and go act like super-predators that haven't been brought to heel, right?

This is a very weird argument to make. There isn't a legal form of videotaped burglary or murder. There is a legal form of videotaped paid sex. 'Strapping on a camera' theoretically turns prostitution into pornography, but turns burglary into... ? Murder into... ?

bzbarsky2• 10 years ago

Into performance art.

With murder, it's harder to make a case, but a videotaped burglary by someone who is a skilled burglar could certainly try to make the case that it's art. There is a number of film scenes that are basically that, except the burglary is faked, at which point you're left arguing that this one artistic expression involves harm to people and this other one does not... and the analogy to the porn/prostitution situation is pretty clear at that point, I think.

vacri3• 10 years ago

There is no legal form of performance art that destroys/takes other people's property without their consent. I can't smash up a corporate sculpture with a sledgehammer (without consent) and call it 'art' to avoid prosecution.

blubb-fish• 10 years ago

How about this:

The John has to audition for the porn shoot (which in practice will take 5 seconds) but an administrative charge of $200 has to be paid by him to the film studio company. The film studio pays then $100 to him and $100 to the actress as salary for the porn shoot. At the end the resulting porn flick is encrypted, stored in a super secured data vault and offered for sale at the price of $1,000,000,000 ... ?

I think I hacked the law!