The Case For Legalized Prostitution

The Case For Legalized Prostitution
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
- Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)


What we consider a sin forms from our morality. Religion has, for many centuries, dictated morality. Religion tells us that prostitution is wrong and we made laws to support the claim.
Prostitution fundamentally is sex (coitus) between two consenting adults. Sex is the means by which each of us reading this came into existence. True, the rules differ in some societies that demand marriage or other relationships for sex and procreation, but sex between two consenting adults is still the foundation.
In the situation of prostitution, money or some other form of compensation is exchanged. That makes it illegal. Why is it illegal? Because prostitution is immoral. Why is prostitution immoral? Because...well...everyone says it's immoral. And why is that?
That last question brings us to a murky part of our past that most of us in the modern world would rather not think about. But you and I must because that's why you are reading, so stay with me.
In prehistoric times, our ancestors lived in families that were part of groups known as bands. These bands might have been from 15 to 30 people. Some bands might have been nothing more than large families, in many cases with the most fit males fathering children with as many females as could produce children.
Sometimes bands grouped together to form alliances known as tribes. By themselves, band life was rough, subsistent, based on hunting and gathering. Bands carved their own territories for hunting and gathering, but sometimes boundaries were crossed as food was scarce. Stealing food from another band's territory brought risks. Sometimes a band would overcome that risk by attacking the band that occupied an adjacent territory, killing the adult males, taking the females into their own band and assimilating them into the new and larger band. We must assume that the males of the victorious band did not ask permission to impregnate the captured females. That would be typical of our species and its cousin species.
For obvious reasons, a band wanted to expand as quickly as it could so that it could defend itself from attack or attack other bands as this became necessary. The morality of which males had sex with which females is unknown to us, but we may be certain that it varied from one band to another.
When bands formed into tribes, codes of behaviour were necessary. One important one was that a woman must not have sex with a man who was not part of her own tribe. That would maintain tribal integrity. Genetic diversity resulted from males and females breeding with members of other bands within the same tribe. If a woman got pregnant by a man from another tribe, that would mean the woman would produce a child who would be the product of an enemy tribe. She and the child might have been killed.
If a man conceived a child with a woman from another tribe, this might be frowned upon, but not punished. After all, the child (if it was allowed to live) might enhance the numbers of the father's tribe, not the mother's tribe. Ownership of women and children rested with males in the case of most tribes. That is, if the father could steal the child back after birth. But the woman's tribe (if it didn't kill the child) might want to adopt the child, raise it and enhance its own population, which might work against the welfare of the father's tribe.
In matters of tribal population numbers, size mattered. So developed the rule against a man having sex with a non-approved woman. That rule has remained with us to the present day, though its form has changed.
Prostitution, illegal in most countries (but not all), exists because of unfulfilled human needs. Often the woman needs money and the men need a way to satisfy their hormone-driven compulsion for gratification with a member of the opposite sex (let's stay with the male-female pairing for this discussion). "The oldest profession" has existed as long as our species has been around. Because of unfulfilled human needs our societies have refused to address.
Instead they pass laws which have always been flouted and ignored and always will. The needs of nature almost always take precedence over the laws of a culture or society in matters of behaviour, but not in matters of law or morality.
Illegal sex (prostitution) opens a large opportunity for organized crime participation. Organized crime gangs exist to fulfill human needs that societies would like to pretend do not exist. Of course they don't pay taxes. They take risks, but the benefits are tax-free. We law abiding citizens foot the bill for taxes, including for police, courts, legal staff and jail administrators so prostitutes may be "brought to justice." Judging by history, members of organized crime gangs risk more from fellow gang members, from other gangs and from poor nutrition habits than from prosecution under the law.
Prostitutes risk beatings, disease, drug use to get them past the worst parts of their job and time in jail. Because the law does not recognize their job as real, nor does it happily defend prostitutes against the dangers they face. In name the law offers protection to everyone, in practice not so much to prostitutes. The law also does not collect taxes from prostitutes, pimps and organized crime gangs.
Here we, as societies, face situations where human needs for sex with willing partners are ignored, we pretend they don't exist (even though we know they do) and our cost for health care is much greater than it should be because some people we would rather pretend don't exist require more health care than most of us do.
A couple of years ago a study in the USA (respondents were assurred anonymity) showed that 85 percent of married men had sex outside of their marriage at some point. With women, the number was 65 percent. Marriage failure sits around 54 percent. One of the most common causes for failure of marriages is that one partner had an affair outside of the marriage. Those affairs almost inevitably involve sex, the fulfillment of a need for sexual gratification the one partner could not get from the other.
Moreover, humans are not monogamous, as religions (the descendants of tribal morality administrators) would have us believe. Rare indeed is a bisexual species that remains strictly monogamous after pairing (science has trouble identifying a handful). We are naturally programmed to spread our genes as widely as possible. That means males and females together, as often as possible. As our species has males always ready and females fertile and able to reproduce many more times each year than most mammalian species, sex and the desire for it are part of who we are. Hormones rule, no matter what our religions and our laws say.
But sex must not, by law in most societies, be with another consenting adult if money is involved. Let's remember that our species has existed for about 150,000 years, while money or its equivalent has been around for only a few thousand years.
Something is wrong and few countries are doing anything about it. Because of religious dogma, we stick with tribal morality so old that it predates history. But without justifiable rationale in modern society, except that "everybody says so."
Let's remember where we see tribal morality in action today. In Afghanistan, where the Pashtuns (many of whom are Taliban) have been at war among themselves for over 3300 years, since four of the ancient Twelve Tribes of Israel left the Holy Land when they broke up and took up residence in a mountainous land no other tribes wanted. Similar tribal customs are practised in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, where people associate more with their tribe than they do with the nation where they were born.
We can see tribes in action in many parts of Africa, especially where there is violence. Libya is essentially a war between tribes. Same in the Congo (DRC), Nigeria and most of the Arab states experiencing disruption at this time. What is now known as the genocide of Rwanda was a war between the Hutu and the Tutsi tribes. Tribal law is harsh, protectionist and its punishments severe. Some of our modern laws in "free" democratic countries are legacies of tribal laws.
Which brings us back to severe punishments for two people engaged in consenting sex where money is exchanged. I do not claim to be an expert, but I have studied the subject enough to know that some men visit prostitutes because they want more sex than they are having with their wives and they want to save their marriage, not destroy it, by visiting a prostitute (in private). Male prostitutes with female clients exist in every major city, but with lower numbers.
We are, in fact, paying more in taxes and our governments are effectively supporting organized crime activity by not setting up prostitution under controlled legal environments. Note that I have said nothing about girls who run away from home and turn to prostitution as the only way they can find to support themselves, or about the sex slave trade that exists because it can easily be hidden, or about single mothers who support their children by prostitution because they can't make ends meet otherwise. Or about mass murderers of prostitutes who manage to kill dozens of them before they are caught. These problems wouldn't have a place to be if prostitution were legalized and controlled by supervised government facilities.
Prostitution exists as a social problem because we persist in supporting ancient tribal rules instead of making our societies into ones that can function safely and more inexpensively in the 21st century. We no longer live in tribes. Our laws and our moralities have not caught up.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to prepare their children for their whole life ahead, not just with what they will learn in school.
Learn more at http://billallin.com When all the criticism of prostitution is distilled down to its core, the result comes out as "prostitution is a sin because it has always been considered a sin." A tautology, "proved" by constant repetition but no evidence.

I Grew, I Learned, I Showed Them All

I Grew, I Learned, I Showed Them All

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.

- Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, author (1934-1996)

I disappointed my father because I was poor at sports. As a result of brain and nerve damage at birth, doctors had predicted that I would never run and would not likely ever walk without a prosthetic device such as a cane or brace. The fact that I learned to walk and run without a limp did not impress him.

I learned through experience that I could not keep up with my peers in ice hockey (my father's best sport). Only after I quit hockey in my mid teens did I learn about problems at birth that would impair my abilities both physically and mentally. I learned that I never had a chance at equality in sports.

I disappointed my father because I was unable to become an avid fan of sports. It took decades for me to learn that a chemical problem in my brain caused me to endure devastating stress when I became excited while watching a game. He took my cousin (a quarterback on his high school football team, but a young man with a bad attitude) to a Grey Cup game (the Canadian equivalent of the US Superbowl) because he thought I wouldn't be interested. He didn't even ask me when he was given free tickets. My father had died in later years before I learned of my brain chemical problem and tried to learn strategies to combat it. My maternal grandfather had the same problem, but no one took notice.

I disappointed my mother because I was not good at school. I just got by. As many times as she read on my report cards that I was "not working to [my] potential", neither she nor any of my teachers ever twigged to the fact that my poor performance was because I could not read and a brain impairment meant that I had trouble remembering anything for exams. To them I was just "lazy."

I disappointed my mother, an excellent and entertaining pianist, when I studied piano for many years yet was unable to reach her level of competence because I was physically uncoordinated (small motor muscle problems) and could not read music. I learned to be a great appreciator of recorded and live music through my experience with them, but this did not impress. I could have become an orchestra director, except that I could not read music fast enough.

I disappointed my greatest supporter among my high school teachers. As head of the music department he guided me into leads in music activities and musical plays and delighted when I entered the Faculty of Music for my first year at University of Toronto. He would not speak to me when I left the faculty program after one year because I was physically and mentally unable to do the work. I learned that I had a head for directing music, which benefitted and excited many children over the years in choirs and musicals when I was a teacher.

I disappointed most of my immediate superiors in my jobs. They could not understand why I did not pick up on how to do the jobs easily, though none of them made the slightest attempt to show me what I needed to know, not even once. Years later I learned to teach others what I knew because I understood how helpless it felt to be given responsibilities to do something but not the tools to do them with.

I disappointed the principals of the schools where I taught. I directed my teaching attention in different ways from other teachers because I thought it important to raise a whole child--including social and emotional skills and development--rather than to just each to a curriculum. I was often in trouble for being "different" in my methods. As it happened, my methods tended to be five years ahead of their time, as five years after I got into trouble in several cases the school board began to insist on all teachers teaching the way I had--because the "new" methods were in use in California, not because I had succeeded with so many children.

I disappointed my first wife--a very good teacher and a reader--because I never read books. She didn't understand that I was functionally illiterate due to my childhood problems. She was not impressed that I got a master's degree from the University of Toronto although I was functionally illiterate and never read a book the whole way through. While I muddled my way through teaching and she was a resource teacher--a teacher whose sole purpose was to help other teachers--in a different part of the school board, she never offered to give me the slightest assistance. She divorced me because she thought I lacked potential.

I disappointed some of my staff in the small business I ran for several years. They resented my insistence on quality and consistency, while they wanted to do things the easiest way, and they begrudged my coaching them to do their jobs in the best ways possible. Most left my employment to take jobs in places where working conditions were far worse. I learned that quality standards mean a great deal to many people who want to get their money's worth when they buy something. In turn, I learned how to look for quality and durability in my purchases as well.

I disappointed my neighbours for many years before I moved a couple of years ago. One group wanted me to drink and take drugs on weekends, which I would not do. Another wanted me to ignore local and provincial laws to give them favours. I knew that these were wrong for me, so my wife and I researched to learn what we believe is the best community in our country in which to live. We were right. Life has never been better for us since we moved.

Along the way I learned that disappointment is part of life. People will always be disappointed in us when we don't do what they want us to do and when we refuse to do things the wrong way. I have even had my life threatened twice. I learned that I can easily avoid and ignore people who are just plain bad for me.

I learned that to gain the respect of many people you need to be good at something. It doesn't really matter what so long as it can impress them. Everybody can be good at something. If they learn at what they can be good with the help of others who care for and about them, it will come sooner than it did for me. We can all help by teaching that lesson to children.

I began my lifelong learning mission at the age of 15. Until I learned to read better at age 44, I listened a great deal. When I began to read, I read things that made me more knowledgeable. Eventually my "encyclopedic knowledge" frightened some people. I learned that I could teach the ones who cared about what I knew and ignore the ones who refused to learn.

In recent years I have learned that helping others (the Dalai Lama calls it "compassion"--I am not a Buddhist) is the secret to happiness and to finding our purpose in life. May you be blessed with this knowledge as well.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to give children what they need rather than just what the school curriculum offers or what they can learn from television and video games.

Learn more at http://billallin.com/  

My Country: Free But Not For Every Citizen

The most certain test by which we can judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
- Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton), historian (1834-1902)

Canadians have viewed the claim by US President George W. Bush that the US is fighting the war in Iraq for "freedom" with skepticism. For one thing, Canadians are not certain what the measure of freedom would be when Mr. Bush achieves it.

However, we Canadians are confident that we live in a free country. Unless, of course, you happen to be of Middle Eastern origin.

Maher Arar, a naturalized Canadian citizen born in Syria, travelled to various countries as part of his business. With his Canadian passport, he felt confident that he could move freely, even into and out of his native country.

On one trip back to Canada from Syria, Arar was stopped at Canada Customs and held on suspicion of terrorist activities or connections. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the national police of Canada) and the Canadian Security and Investigation Service (spy agency) could get nothing of interest from Arar, they sent him to the USA.

When their equivalent agencies in the US could also not get any worthwhile information from Arar, they deported him to Syria where he spent a year in prison being tortured every day. The Syrian authorities also got nothing from him.

It had never occurred to these agencies that Arar had nothing to tell them because he had nothing to do with terrorism, terrorist cells or with arrnaging finances for terrorist organizations. He was born in Syria (an "Axis of Evil country), he visited Syria and he phoned people in Syria. That was enough for them.

Arar did, however, have a beard (as all Muslim men do), olive coloured skin and Syrian heritage, which seemed to be enough to make him guilty in the eyes of Canadian and US security agencies.

Neither Canadian nor US agencies had the legal right to send Arar to another country, least of all Canada because he was a Canadian citizen. The US deported him to Syria without even telling Canada about it.

Maher Arar survived, returned to Canada, suffered through successive thorough investigations and eventually was given about 10 million dollars to go away and shut up by the Canadian government. He was removed from the Canadian list of suspects relating to terrorism.

The Canadian government, pressured by the media who were now firm Arar supporters, asked the US to also remove Arar from its watch list. The US refused, declining to give any reason.

After all, that would be tantamount to admitting they broke their own and international laws.
Maher Arar continues to live in Canada with his wife and family, trying to cobble together a life after a year of torture and daily expectations of death in a Syrian prison. Nights, for him, are the worst time of the day.

Meanwhile, three other naturalized Canadian citizens in situations amazingly similar to that of Maher Arar want to be absolved of any accusation of association with terrorism, receive compensation and build new lives after their own extensive bouts with torture abroad.

These four men have a right to wonder where in the world they could live now where their lives and those of their families would not be at risk.

Certainly not in any country that is fighting in Iraq. Or in any country whose government knows how to find Iraq on a map of the world.

Free countries, yes. But how free when the national police break the law and destroy people's lives without fear of being held accountable?

Are we in the "free world" fighting for freedom for everyone or just for those with the same skin colour, religion and nationality as us?

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make a complex world a little clearer to understand.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

One Tactic of Successful Liars

Several excuses are always less convincing than one.
- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

It's an odd characteristic of human nature that we tend to accept one excuse that someone gives for not doing something or for doing something incorrectly or late, but the more excuses that person offers the less likely we are to believe him.

Mostly likely that tendency is based on our own experience. We have, in most cases, one reason for doing something. At any given moment, we may be able to think of one good reason why we didn't do what we promised to do or did incorrectly or late what we were supposed to do.

Our experience tells us that some people have the ability to think up a steady stream of excuses just as a lawyer in court can think quickly on his feet. However, we may feel that a person with a string of excuses is simply fishing for one that will work, whereas a simple excuse, though lame, might be passable. We accept from others what we might give ourselves in similar circimstances.

When someone offers us one excuse for doing something or for not doing something he should have done or for doing it incorrectly or late, we are quite capable of finding justification that will fit around that one excuse to make it plausible. At that point, though reluctant, we may be prepared to move on and forget or ignore the offence.

The most effective excuse that someone convicted of murder has ever given to elicit sympathy and assistance from others on the "outside" to free him is "No matter what the evidence given in court says, I didn't do it." That one simple yet inadequate (for legal purposes) explanation tends to gather support from others who believe the legal system may have failed an innocent man.
Give one excuse, stick with it and don't embellish.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to give a break to those who don't know how the system of human nature works.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Civilization Progresses As We Help Each Other

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. - John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)

This opinion enters the realm of morality. Only in part does it involve legal repercussions if inaction causes injury to others. Morality and law often overlap (by design), though mostly in the area of criminal law.

If you were to stand by watching another person being beaten or killed, you might be charged if you could have done something to prevent it but did not.

At its core, this dual responsibility (guilty by action or inaction) raises the question of to what degree we are each our brother's keeper. That is, what is our responsibility to help someone who may not have helped us if the roles were reversed? Are we both responsible to and for each other and what are the consequences of not acting?

In an urban environment where helping others has become less common than it was in pioneer days or when people were spread across the land more evenly and people helped each other because they knew that one day they were need help themselves, many of us give little thought to the possibility of helping others.

Charities must beg for donations because people do not have a natural inclination to give money to help others. Yet stories of heroism where one person has risked death or made a great commitment to help another reach the news media as well.

Today someone who helps another is considered to have done so out of goodness. In the past, it was more of a social obligation for everyone. Mill considered it duty.

In movies, on television and in newspapers we give unintended social lessons that each of us must look after our own best interests because no one else will help us when we most need help. In general, we have responded to this with me-first selfishness.

Yet the good examples, the role models, are with us every day. With each passing day, especially as the world experiences increasing numbers of natural tragedies, more opportunities to help others present themselves. At the same time, more people than ever before complain about the selfishness, the greed and the thoughtlessness of others.

People will tire of the ethics of reality TV programs and realize that the world should not be that way. It's part of a cycle.

In the past, such cycles were traditionally broken by war, where people need to help each other through catastrophe. Most countries of the world are not at war today, but their people take a greater interest in the welfare of people of others countries than ever before. When people hurt and die, others will care.

Civilization advances only when people help each other. This opportunity presents itself today as more of us take an interest in an earthquake in Iran, a tsunami in Sri Lanka or a flood in Bangladesh. They all kill people. We feel the need to help the survivors. In doing so, we learn about the lives of people we previously knew nothing about.

More of us than ever before no longer stand by and watch tragedy and wrong as spectators.
Mill said it was an obligation. We see it today as more of a necessity to help others in need in the global village that is our home.

The lessons of civilization are learned slowly and painfully, but they happen and we do progress.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light through the dark smog that some people view as life today.
Learn more at http://billallin.com