Question

What you would recommend to law makers regarding policies and regulations related to sex work (i.e. pornography) and illegal sex work in Texas? Provide a brief overview of laws and regulations already present please.

Answer 1

Ans) There are long-running debates about the level of harm resulting from illegal commercial sex, and its proper legal status.

- At one end of the spectrum is the position that prostitution is inherently harmful and should be treated as a crime.

- At the opposite end are arguments that prostitution involving adults is victimless and should be legal and regulated like other businesses, and that commercial sex workers choose to exchange their time and services for money, as in any legitimate employment
arrangement.
- Evidence can be marshaled in support of either position, and sometimes the same evidence is used to support opposing conclusions.

- For example, prostitution opponents point to drug abuse, community deterioration, and ancillary crime that invariably accompany street prostitution as evidence supporting
criminalization.

- Those supporting legalization argue that these same dysfunctions are driven not by
prostitution itself, but by the criminal status of the enterprise, much like alcohol prohibition fosters black markets, organized crime, and street crime.

- Legalization proponents generally assume that prostitution cannot be stopped, and argue that legalized prostitution would allow commercial sex to be taxed and regulated, and the conditions for prostitutes improved by the same kinds of oversight and legal protections provided in other workplaces.

- However, substantial empirical evidence finds sex trafficking and prostitution to be damaging, and that deregulation and legalization do not ameliorate those harms for more than a small portion of providers of commercial sex. The negative consequences of prostitution and sex trafficking for all parties directly and indirectly involved are well documented. Those working in the illicit sex trade, their “customers,” and residents and businesses in areas in which prostitution occurs all suffer
tangible harm.

- Sexually exploited persons typically enter the illicit sex trade as minors, 32 are
frequently coerced or forced to engage in prostitution by pimps or traffickers and are frequent victims of violent crime committed by pimps, traffickers, and sex buyers.

- Although they are often the perpetrators of violence, the customers of commercial sex
are also vulnerable to being victimized34 and are at elevated risk of contracting sexually
transmitted diseases.

- Businesses are harmed when prostitution is visible, and residents suffer from the vast array of felonies and community blight that invariably co-occur with prostitution nearby.
- The market forces of prostitution also drive demand for victims of human trafficking.