This is an interesting John Stossel clip that I had never come across previously. John Stossel interviews the sex workers of the bunny ranch and asks them if they should have the freedom to have sex, like everyone else does, except they will get paid for it. While I personally view such a life as despicable, of course, all of the girls are doing this because it is their best alternative in the marketplace. Stossel also interviews an authoritarian, busybody ex-prosecutor who says, ”We don’t want to sell access to the intimate self,” and she refers to the voluntary selling of “access” as slavery. She even opines that is is criminal to “subject humans to market forces.”
I have never been able to understand why anyone would care about what others are doing in their own private realm, yet there is a world of buttinskies who continue meddle in the lives and moral arrangements of others, and they enthusiastically endorse the use of the prison state to house these people like criminals. Here’s a quote from an old article by Paul Armentano on the Future of Freedom Foundation website:
Of course, the most important argument for the legalization of prostitution services is that such prohibitions violate one’s most basic and inherent rights. Prostitution is the voluntary sale (or rental) of a labor service. Individuals own their own bodies and their own labor services and have the absolute right to decide how those labor services should be used. As long as the prostitution transaction is voluntary, there is no justification for governmental interference. Indeed, such interference constitutes an infringement of the privacy and personal liberty of the individuals involved.
