Beandip478
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2022
- Posts
- 265
America has, for the most part, legalized weed. We have legalized gambling, in the Indian gambling casinos, mainly because the state and federal governments make billions in tax revenue from that. But sex work...This "old profession," as they say, although now legal in other Western countries like Denmark, Finland, Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Spain, remains illegal in the U.S., with the exception of a few counties in Nevada.
Now I know what some of you are going to say: "That's because this country was founded by Puritans." That's the usual response. Actually, that isn't true, the Puritans were long dead well before this country was founded, but that is neither here nor there. It is true that the hysterical pseudo-Christians (the ones currently removing naughty books from public libraries) would be in an uproar at the suggestion of legalizing sex work.
However, a couple of generations ago, I think a majority of Americans would have had the same reaction to legalizing weed. It wasn't until the original, post-War Baby Boomers reached the age where they were the ones in charge of most sectors, that weed became decriminalized, because unlike their parents and grandparents who had been thoroughly sold on the "reefer madness" propaganda of their generations, the Boomers, who had spent their high school and college years smoking weed, knew that, first of all, weed was not going to turn people into communists or axe murderers, and, more to the point, that making weed illegal had never and would never stop people from smoking it, any more than Prohibition had stopped people from drinking it. So why not legalize it, tax it, and stop ruining people's lives by sending them to jail for smoking a joint.
Now, does anyone else feel that a similar moment will be reached with regard to sex work? I do. I don't think the Religious Right has the numbers to forever keep sex work illegal, and, as with weed, it is simply not practical to criminalize something which people have always and will always do.
Now I know what some of you are going to say: "That's because this country was founded by Puritans." That's the usual response. Actually, that isn't true, the Puritans were long dead well before this country was founded, but that is neither here nor there. It is true that the hysterical pseudo-Christians (the ones currently removing naughty books from public libraries) would be in an uproar at the suggestion of legalizing sex work.
However, a couple of generations ago, I think a majority of Americans would have had the same reaction to legalizing weed. It wasn't until the original, post-War Baby Boomers reached the age where they were the ones in charge of most sectors, that weed became decriminalized, because unlike their parents and grandparents who had been thoroughly sold on the "reefer madness" propaganda of their generations, the Boomers, who had spent their high school and college years smoking weed, knew that, first of all, weed was not going to turn people into communists or axe murderers, and, more to the point, that making weed illegal had never and would never stop people from smoking it, any more than Prohibition had stopped people from drinking it. So why not legalize it, tax it, and stop ruining people's lives by sending them to jail for smoking a joint.
Now, does anyone else feel that a similar moment will be reached with regard to sex work? I do. I don't think the Religious Right has the numbers to forever keep sex work illegal, and, as with weed, it is simply not practical to criminalize something which people have always and will always do.
