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

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

Oh sure, but at that point protecting people's choice not to have sex is a much better deal.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

More important than protecting other people's choice to use their time in the way in which they desire?

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

I'd say so.

In any case, surely there are some sexual acts you would draw the line at? What about being beaten with a riding crop on live national television, or submissive behaviour, or something? I doubt any of that's illegal in Germany to accept money for.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

I think that being beaten with a riding crop as part of one's job would probably be banned under laws about safe working conditions. So if you wanted to have people pay you so they could beat you with a riding crop, I guess you would have to be self-employed...

The "live national television" part gets into humiliation, which isn't necessarily sexual. If somebody had to take a job that was humiliating in a non-sexual way -- like, I don't know, being filmed running up to random unsuspecting people in the street and asking them for cookies and having it shown on national TV -- perhaps some people might think that objectionable, but presumably the reasons for that would be different than the reasons why some people would find having to take a job as a prostitute objectionable.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

I've seen pornography that involves people beating each other. It's not hard to do this without more than reddening the skin.

Humiliation might not be sexual, but there is such a thing as sexual humiliation, and being shown having sex on TV might cover that. Should we deny benefits to those who refuse to do that?