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Thread: Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

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    Veteran Member lethalsoul's Avatar
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    Default Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...y_prostitution
    lethalsoul

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    God/dess RoseDelight's Avatar
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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    Hm, Now that's interesting.


    --Georg Christoph Litchenberg



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    God/dess AinNY's Avatar
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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    Very interesting....i dont know where i stand on that issue....if its legal or not...i dont see much changing...

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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    Wish it was legal down here...



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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    Eh.. In my opinion, I think it should be legalized. It goes on anyway. This way, if they legalize it, they can tax it... LOL.. They're always up for taxing things, yes?

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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    Sure thing, and maybe hookers will get regular checkups so to minimize the risk of diseases.



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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    might as well, it will continue forever, why not regulate it ?

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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    Exactly.. Isn't it a um.. requirement in some of the brothels in Vegas, to get a health checkup regularly or something like that? So why not do something like that for all of them and legalize it?

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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    People do it anyways.


    --Georg Christoph Litchenberg



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    Veteran Member Sparkell's Avatar
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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    Quote Originally Posted by Rhiannon link=board=1;threadid=10424;start=msg128300#msg128 300 date=1088211052
    Eh.. In my opinion, I think it should be legalized. It goes on anyway. This way, if they legalize it, they can tax it... LOL.. They're always up for taxing things, yes?

    i totally agree...i think it should be leagalized...its gonna happen wether people want it to or not... so lets get it off the streets....and let people do it in thier own homes or hotels...


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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    so lets get it off the streets....and let people do it in thier own homes or hotels...
    or in strip clubs ?

    What is it going to hurt? Not too much that I can see
    It's very likely to hurt the income potential of dancers who do not choose to also provide sex to customers.

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    Featured Member polecat's Avatar
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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    Being a local resident as well as more attuned toward this measure, I hope I can bring a bit more spirit and momentum towards what this act truly means and it's actual intention.

    This current measure has less to do with acceptance and tolerance of prostitution as it has to do with bringing humanity and a level of human decency towards sex workers.

    Of all regions in the Bay Area, where this writ is being established has the least to gain. Berkeley has been a leader of progressive and liberal idealism more than through actual necessity. Berkeley has been a leader towards compassionate use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, women's rights, and other processes of humanizing what other ideals may purposely neglect the humanity found wherein. This particular example has little appeal in Berkeley compared to how much it stands to gain in other nearby regions.

    The important founding message of this particular effort is not so much the acceptance of prostitution or the behavior of consenting adults behind closed doors as it allows a degree of social compassion for victims of violence, crime and theft. Every day (several times, actually), sex workers are the victims of violent crime, but allowed no legal recourse due to the choice they have made for vocation.

    What this writ actually establishes is the right of all women, regardless of vocation, the same legal rights and recourse as any other. While Berkeley has one of the lowest track records of such things, it still becomes a good target to voice a public appeal as a token to wake-up the legislature in Sacramento towards a growing problem in the nearby regions. It in no way creates a pro-prostitution formulated ideal, but instead defines a woman that has been a victim of violent crime should have the same rights regardless of what she may choose to do as a profession.

    From this angle, the ballot item decriminalizes prostitution to help try and create an outlet without self-incriminalization for sex workers abroad so as situations that have occured in other states (read Green River Killer) may not be allowed to occur here. This is a far cry from legalizing prostiitution as current guesses here might suggest. It's simply a means that allows victims to get the same results from local law enforcement without fear of self incriminalization that so many victims suffer from today.

    So while one's feelings towards sex for sale, sex as a commodity, or other purposes of the sex industry may vary, solidarity for such legislature should become more common. A woman that has been beaten and raped should have the same legal rights and considered the same kind of victim regardless of the situation involved. It is lunacy how the current system works to somehow define such a victim of a violent act lesser regarded for legal representation and recourse simply due to surroundings of such an act. There are violent criminals abroad and regardless of their choice of target, they belong punished and behind bars... regardless of what element they decide to prey upon.

    What this piece of legislature will bring is a local territory where victims of violent crime that happen to be sex workers a place of refuge. It also gives them a voice at the capital that violence amongst sex workers will no longer go unheard and without notice. It's not saying Berkeley wants brothels and houses of prostitution to be formed within city walls, it's simply stating the local residents have had enough of finding prostitutes bodies washing up in the bay, and pimps/hookers caught into depency cycles with little outlet for relief or liberation. It grants decency and humanity to those in this cycle and points the nation towards this issue so as what has happened in other regions may not be repeated again... and definately not here.

    Just my $0.02
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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    The important founding message of this particular effort is not so much the acceptance of prostitution or the behavior of consenting adults behind closed doors as it allows a degree of social compassion for victims of violence, crime and theft. Every day (several times, actually), sex workers are the victims of violent crime, but allowed no legal recourse due to the choice they have made for vocation.
    IMHO this is another one of those lofty "ideals" which has a lot of appeal in theory but which has the potential for massive unintended "real world" consequences. From the news article ... "Beyond its symbolic value, the ballot initiative would order the police department to give the "lowest priority" to enforcing anti-prostitution laws."... certainly sounds like it might cause quite a few changes inside local strip clubs !

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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    Yet another meaningless symbol. Unless there is a quirk in California law, the statute that controls it is State.

    Why not pass a law requiring the sun to shine during the day and it only to rain at night between 3 and 5 am?

    I propose a consitutional amendment banning stupid meaningless laws. The perfson proposing them would be banned from government.

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    Featured Member polecat's Avatar
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    Default Re:Berkeley Weighs Legalizing Prostitution

    Melonie-
    I don't think there are even any stripclubs in Berkeley. A $2 toll over the bay bridge and you're smack dab in the middle of SF. Oakland and Berkeley are pretty much anti-stripclub regions. So while it will have no direct effect on stripclubs, it will have indirect effect on nearby San Francisco, but Harris has already illustrated she's on board with this ideology already without the bill.

    It is totally a 'lofty' ideal which will do little more than increase public awareness. It's the 4th or 5th draft of something that started out as complete decriminalization, but the current compromise is now something that just grants some degree of legal immunity to prostitutes or sex workers reporting violent crimes against themselves.

    The Green River killing spree really stirred a lot of local emotions since in that case, for months- pimps and other prostitutes with information leading to the killer either were silent due to fear of self-incrimination, or were not taken seriously by law enforcement since they were just "hookers and pimps"..

    This writ is just trying to build a basis that would make such a thing less likely to occur here.

    Monty-
    No doubt even if these kinds of laws wound up in the law books, they are more symbolic than productive. But the entire focus is not more letters of the law to be followed, but to identify with local officials the public opinion, awareness and outcry.

    If this initiative landslides at the ballot, regardless if Sacramento court-locks it for months, it will send a message to local law enforcement and appointed officials how the voter pool feels. It points to the fact that most voters feel priority needs to go towards violent crimes. It makes no sense that local law enforcement is consuming resources busting incall/outcall escorts while there is still a great deal of assault, murder and rape going unchallenged.

    This is what infuriates the local population. It's not so much the locals are pro-prostitution, they are pro-humanity. If some guy wants to pay some woman cash for an hour fling in a hotel room somewhere, it's of less a priority for police to try and capture those two "criminals" versus a guy going around and raping and beating women.
    It doesn't matter if you're somebody in this world, it rather matters you mean the whole world to somebody.

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