Said prostitute/prostitute's rights activist Stephanie Klee, trying to explain why the World Cup competition hasn't done much for the prostitution business in Germany. Keep in mind, the prostitution in Germany is legal. The guys all go to bars together, she theorizes, and "It's difficult to say to your friends, 'I'm going to leave you now and go to a brothel for 20 minutes.' That's not normal behavior."
So much for sex. It's just too complicated. It keeps you from hanging out with the guys at the bar. You know, the normal behavior.
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World Cup fans are drunk 24/7. That's why they aren't interested in prostitutes and that is why they can stand to watch the most boring game in the world.
I guess if it's not forbidden it's not much fun anymore.
This is why Germany has the second lowest birth rate in the entire world. Sex is too complicated for a people who can hand build a Mercedes.
The only people having sex in Germany are the Muslims, and they do it for free.
"Why in the world do we criminalize prostitution"
Indeed. Everyone's daughter should aspire to be a prostitute.
Let's start with your"s, Roger.
As a matter of fact, prostitution is legal in some parts of Nevada. Not in Clark county (Las Vegas), but most of the rest of the state.
And I would agree with what most of you are saying here, in that keeping it illegal creates more problems than it solves. For one thing, all the business owners who complain about prostitutes trolling up and down the streets in front of their businesses wouldn't have that complaint if they were allowed to set up shop in some centralized location so that the rest of society could go on unaffected.
As far as soccer, the fanaticism for it in other countries is just something that Americans don't understand. Some examples: soccer riots are well documented, and in some cases fans have even followed referees home and beaten them senseless after they made a bad call. And the ultimate measure of fanaticism: in 1968, Honduras and El Salvador fought the 'futbol' war, in which several thousand people died, over a disputed call in a soccer game (so much for the idea that sports are supposed to be a non-violent alternative to war).
I don't advocate any of this (including I don't advocate having relations with a prostitute) but as soon as Ann put up her post I could understand where it is coming from.
And incidentally, if you are worried about undocumented immigrants from Mexico coming and taking away your job because they work harder, the answer is to put up a TV that is showing a match involving Mexico. None of them will be working. Booze won't do it. Sex won't do it. A wild party (minus soccer) won't do it. But turn on a soccer game, they quit working.
A guy gives something of value to a woman, and she gives him sex. Isn't this done pretty frequently in a variety of settings (even marital), and isn't "prostitution" just the label we give to certain categories of this behavior, so we'll feel better (or holier) about the rest? Isn't it all just an issue of semantics? Shouldn't we be throwing diamond rings, bracelets, trips to Bermuda, and even flowers into this equation?
"World Cup fans are drunk 24/7. That's why they aren't interested in prostitutes and that is why they can stand to watch the most boring game in the world.
It fascinates me how Americans can label sports like soccer and cricket "boring" when they watch American football, surely the most boring game ever invented. Whose bright idea was it to play a form of rugby broken down into five second segments where you stop and reset play every time someone gets tackled?! And all this in enough padding to kit out a whole psychiatric ward?!
As for the prostitutes, nobody is interested precisely because it is legal. Half the fun is in breaking the law, and if there is no law, well... you're just paying for sex really, aren't you?
At some stage in life and under certain circumstances a male will forego friends (and all that that entails) for sex, given a choice but I wouldn't expect this to be one of them.
If you're going to Germany to watch football and only have so much money, would you spend it on fake love or real beer?
A little jaded, Dave?
Because the rest of the world thinks soccer is a great sport, and America doesn't - that's somehow a sign of this country's failure, Dave? Not lousy foreign policy, rising cost of living, out of control urban housing markets, or spiraling health care costs, but a game?
As obsessed as America is with sports, especially at the youth levels, there is not the level of violence associated with big US sports as there is for soccer matches.
I am certainly including the rioting at the University of Maryland after the NCAA basketball tournament a few years ago, the rioting in Boston after the World Series in 2004, and the mess in Denver a few years before that. Even the snowball fights in Giants Stadium, the boorish behavior so well documented in Philadelphia and the fights in Oakland. Those are indeed sad events.
But nothing compares to the lives lost in soccer riots, not to mention the hundreds of unreported crimes. The hooliganism is still rampant in Europe, where some fans of teams actually travel to incite violence in other towns and countries, all in the name of "fanaticism." The European police agencies have done a good job in quieting such instances as merely violent crime as opposed to the dirty label of "hooliganism." They may be called "firms," but they're thugs.
Soccer is a great game, but my life isn't on the line when I watch the Baltimore Ravens at the stadium. For that, I hope America continues to ignore soccer and the bizarre violent fanaticism associated with it.
There is nothing on this Earth more boring than sports. Nothing.
Eli Blake,
They'd all be in one place if it were legal? Yeah, and if we made cigarettes and alcohol legal, they'd quit selling 'em in convenience stores on every block.
Ricardo,
Your point about marriage etc. has been a commonplace platitude for a couple centuries now, at least.
The problem with it is that marriage is an arrangement with open-ended and fundamentally different obligations; only by ignoring essential aspects of marriage can you pretend that the two differ only in scale. There's also the fact that it's not like buying a pack of cigarettes, because cigarettes are not where babies come from. For some odd reason, some people seem to attach importance to that. When you're done being offended by them, go yell at the law of gravity.
It's just a massively unserious observation.
This reminds me of a quote from a great episode of Strangers WIth Candy, where a popular jock expresses his conflicting feelings about dating:
Laird: "I dunno, Jerri, hanging out with the guys is cool, and having a girlfriend is so gay, you know?"
P. Froward:
With legality comes the possibility of regulation.
To cite your example, they no longer sell cigarettes from vending machines, because that is now illegal (except in bars.) They only sell alcohol in restuarants that have a liquor license. In fact, without regulation saying where alcohol could be sold(prohibition), illegal alcohol sales popped up in a whole lot of places (including in the back of schools and some regular businesses) that you wouldn't think of selling it out of now.
In Nevada (those places where it is legal) you don't have prostitutes standing on every street corner because the bordello has an address, so customers go there if that's what they are looking for, without bothering the rest of society.
Eli:
In Nevada (those places where it is legal) you don't have prostitutes standing on every street corner because the bordello has an address...
Have you ever been to Nevada?
You don't have prostitutes standing on every street corner because there aren't any street corners, it's hotter than Hell, and the vast majority of them are too busy working hard in the two places where it is illegal (Reno and Las Vegas).
Just kidding, Eli.
Eli,
Don't kid yourself, Las Vegas Metro PD has plenty of prostitution problems. Also look at the Yellow Pages under "Entertainment". It seems Huggy Bear delivers.
It seems the outlying cathouses are tourist destinations, etc. Last fall as my family were eating lunch on a THURSDAY across the 15 from the Strip a transaction took place -- looked to be a local. Hookers are like roaches (not existentially) -- where there's one there are many others
Legalizing a vice is not a declaration that it's healthy!
Some blog or other had coverage of a college "sex workers" event (sort of an extention of vagina monologs or something) where the professional sex workers talked about how empowering, etc., it all was. The idea being that this wasn't dangerous or unhealthy or bad for you. I guess it's just the patriarchy getting all bent for nothing.
So because it's "not bad for you" it should be legal.
Oh, balony. We'd all be better off if people got past the idea that everything bad should be illegal and everything good should be compelled. Legality is not a government guarentee of safety.
Some things that are *very* bad for you should be legal. There are practical reasons prostitution should be legal. But *nothing* is going to make prostitution safe or healthy.
I meant to say as my family and I were eating lunch at a Burger King... we saw the transaction take place -- thje exchange of info and money , not bodily fluids.
Legalizing prostitution might slow down human trafficking, but it's legal in Germany and the human slave trade is just as bad there as it ever was. As long as there are Thai gangs, a Russian mafia, and Chinese triads who will kidnap, ship, and "sponsor" "sex workers" as well as sick f*** European, Japanese, and American men who want to go "exotic", there will be illegal prostitution.
For every dave who talks to a "pretty woman" who actually showers and has an education and perhaps prospects (assuming she wasn't BS'ing him) there are scores who are afraid, abused, etc. And used up like old shoes by 30 -- legalization won't change that.
Internet Ronin and Troy:
It IS illegal in Las Vegas, so not surprisingly Las Vegas has the same problem with prostitutes that any other large city has.
But if you go to one of the 'cow counties' (and yes, I've lived in the west all my life so I've been to Nevada quite a few times) you won't see any.
(and yes, it's hotter than heck but that doesn't stop them from working street corners in Phoenix.)
I just know that if I owned a small business I'd much rather be down the block (or even next door) to a legal bordello where they would stay and remain out of sight than have to keep chasing prostitutes out of my parking lot.
Eli- Just a note to repeat that my comment was entirely in jest and not meant to be taken seriously, but thanks for your thoughtful response (with which I basically agree, BTW).
Yeah, but Marghlar, I only remember those things happening after the Finals, not during most of the regular season games. No, that doesn't excuse it one whit, but the point is that the level of violence, if you measured by frequency, was still far less.
Unless you happened to see some fights or riots I'm unaware of. No, I don't live in Chicago, so I'm not being sarcastic. I honestly admit I may have missed some episodes of violence simply by not living there. But still... I'd think that would make the news, right?
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