Corner Cases Example

[andrewducker]

Here's a perfect one:
1)German employment law states that if you've been unemployed for over a year then you must take any job offered to you.
2)In a bid to cut down on the trade in women and other mistreatment of prostitutes, Germany has legalised brothels.

Can you guess what the end result of this is?

Read about it here.

I'm looking forward to reading your responses to this one :->

Comments

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it makes me cruel and cold-hearted, but I don't see why my tax dollars should go toward supporting those who have special feelings that supposedly prevent them from doing useful work, rather than toward, say, building houses for homeless people or teaching kids.

[andrewducker]

I'm not saying it's simple - just that I believe most people would think it unreasonable to push people into prostitution. And that possibly it might cause mental damage to many people, making the drain on society worse, not better.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

"Most people would think it unreasonable" is not, on its own, an argument in favor of anything. And most jobs cause mental damage to people. This isn't an argument about social welfare, really, it's about trying desperately to preserve the idea that women are delicate flowers in need of protection from sex.

[andrewducker]

So you're saying that rape shouldn't be a separate crime from assault?

And 'most people would think it unreasonable" is how democracy works.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Occasionally, wrong decisions are made in democracies.

I think rape should be a separate crime from assault, but only for the same reason that hate crimes are considered distinct from other crimes: assault is a crime of violence against one person, rape is a crime intended to make all women feel less safe. (Rape committed against men should, without extenuating circumstances, be considered to be the same as assault.)

[robhu.livejournal.com]

How is rape inteded to make all women feel less safe? At least any more than violence can be intended to make all women feel less safe.

I would have thought that the main reason for rape is that a person wants to force a sexual act with another person for the perpetrators own gratification.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Rapists don't rape to experience sexual pleasure; they rape to exercise power.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there are a variety of reasons - however none of this changes the basic point which is that it is wrong for them to forcibly impose a sexual act on someone else.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

it is wrong for them to forcibly impose a sexual act on someone else.

I don't see where I disagreed with this.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it makes me cruel and cold-hearted, but I don't see why my tax dollars should go toward supporting those who have special feelings that supposedly prevent them from doing useful work, rather than toward, say, building houses for homeless people or teaching kids.
Here (given the context of this discussion about said article) you seem to be saying that you think the women should have to choose between the prostitution and no money (and hence starvation). As that act is imposed on them (well unless they choose to die) it is a forcible imposition of sexual acts.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

This only makes sense if you think that people are entitled to a living, and I would say not; I would say that the government grants people unemployment assistance if there are no jobs available to them, and if someone is unwilling to work at a job available to them, they aren't entitled to the privilege of public assistance. I think that anyone who has actually experienced rape would find the analogy you are making to be offensive.

[andrewducker]

There's a wide variety of reasons for rape. Sure, it's used as a form of oppression, but you seem to be saying that when some frat-boy idiot rapes a woman that they're doing it to spread terror.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

You know that for a fact do you?

If so, how?

I believe that there are statistics to prove that most rapes are comitted on women of breeding age (I haven't actually checked, so pull me up if you like, I'll welcome the data) - if it was just about power, surely there would not be this noticable age range?

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

Sorry, should have quoted. I was responding to:

Rapists don't rape to experience sexual pleasure; they rape to exercise power

[andrewducker]

It's "intended to make all women feel less safe"? Every time it's committed that's what it's intended to do? Really, I had no idea.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Surely it's more that for many women sex is a personal/private thing of which access should be (is?) protected by their basic human rights.

Perhaps most importantly though a vast majority of women (and men) find this law (or this consequence) abhorrent and so it'll probably get changed.

If 95% of people thought that forcing them to work for a defence contractor was abhorrent I'm sure they'd ban that as well, laws work (or should work) to create the kind of society that the majority want (well, that is one aspect of what laws are for - I am of course leaving out aspects that prevent mob rule etc).

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'm obligated to agree with a decision just because a majority of the population supports that decision.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Who said you were?

However no one should be able to force their sexual beliefs on other people. I think that's the problem here, the women (generally speaking) don't want to have to be prostitutes yet legally they are forced to (or they lose their income / food / ability to survive).

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Most people don't want to work at any of the jobs that are available to them, and would prefer not to work if they had the option of doing so and surviving. I still fail to see what makes it OK to force someone to spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for most of their life doing a job they don't want to be doing, but automatically not OK if the job involves sex.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

One good reason is a balance of the consequences. If forcing that sex act has a very bad psychological effect on that person then that is a good reason not to force them to do that. Mainly because I'd rather live in a society where people are not oppressed and forced into prostitution (for reasons that hopefully you don't want explained?) but also the cost to society of supporting people so affected would massively outweigh any financial gain of them taking such a job.

In my opinion this would not just apply to sex, quite how broadly I'd define the rules and so on I'm not sure.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Until there is data on whether people who work in the sex industry are more likely to later need psychological help than anyone else, I won't assume that sex work is more psychologically damaging than any other of the possibly-demeaning jobs people work at in industrialized society. If we're to avoid forcing anyone to work at any job that is psychologically harmful, we'd have a few professors, researchers, and artists, lots of people receiving public assistance, and nobody to clean toilets or write Visual Basic code.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I wonder why it is that the view you have of the psychological impact of forced sex work differs so greatly from that held by the majority of other people.

Perhaps your experience of peoples feelings in this area is just randomly not representative of the whole and so your viewpoint is very skewed, perhaps mine is.

Do you not recognise that the emotional and psychological impact of just talking about these kinds of things, nevermind actually being forced to do them has had a significant effect on the majority of us posting?

[andrewducker]

Hey - I _like_ Visual Basic.

And I've known several people who were raped who said that raping someone was worse than killing them. Indicating that the mental effects are significantly worse than, say, working in an office job.

[rainstorm.livejournal.com]

You are if you live in a democratic country.

[nirikina.livejournal.com]

useful work

Useful? It's the sex industry! The so-called pleasure industry. If there's a shortage of builders to build houses or farmers to grow crops or raise cattle etc then by all means those on benefits should be expected to do these jobs rather than sponge off society. But you can't possibly compare those sorts of jobs to forcing someone to work in the sex industry.

How would you feel if you were in this situation? Would you not mind being used for sex for the pleasure of other men and women? With no disregard for your feelings? How about being used for drug testing or other experiments?