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Archive 1

Article claimed selling of sexual services legal in two US states, provided no evidence of the second state

Article claimed selling of sexual services legal in two US states, provided no evidence of the second. The first, Nevada, is widely documented.

Any edits placing a second state in should provide some references (and certainly the state name).

Also does not explain how escort agencies operate throughout the US given that they are illegal. Why are they not shut down?

Because theres nothing illegal about going on a date. Theres a very fine line that escort services walk in order to be considered "legit" and that mostly focuses around what and how they advertise (do they explicitly advertise sex? is it assured?). The fact that the escort might choose to engage in sex with someone, of their own free will, does not mean they're "Selling sex", nor more than match.com or chemistry.com are "selling sex" if a couple who uses it services engages in sex after meeting online. This is one reason why escorts charge by the hour, as opposed to an explicit "per act" like many street prostitutes do; the hour could be for anything, legally. SiberioS (talk) 17:13, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

"in areas with a population of 400,000"?

Entry reads "In Nevada, prostitution is prohibited only in areas with a population of 400,000--Carson City Washoe and Clark Counties, (where the county seats are Reno and Las Vegas, respectively — Nevada's two largest cities), and heavily regulated elsewhere." That's confusingly stated. In areas with a population of at least 400,000? Under 400,000? Could someone please clarify? Bricology (talk) 18:11, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

It looks like that sentence was clarified. The fuller story is that the law was a result of 1971 Nevada legislation crafted by the City of Las Vegas. (Prostitution was de facto legal in Nevada before then, but with little formal regulation beyond the local level.) The "400,000" population limit was only true of Clark County, and basically enshrined the illegalization of prostitution in Las Vegas into Nevada State law. All other counties were left with the option as to whether to choose whether or not to allow brothel prostitution. Washoe County, where Reno is located, was and is smaller than 400K population (though its approaching that – the population was 340K according to the last census), but had long banned prostitution and continued to after 1971. Carson City and suburban Douglas County also opted against legalization. Lincoln County banned it in 1980, displacing two brothels that had been operating legally there. At some point, I'll have to properly source this info and incorporate it into the Prostitution in Nevada article. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 19:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Methamphetamines should be methamphetamine

I do not understand why this is such a problem on Wikipedia, under the 21 century section it says "methamphetamines" but it should be "methamphetamine". Methamphetamines would be correct if the guy was getting a bunch of methamphetamine analogues, but otherwise methamphetamine is not made plural. C6541 (T↔C) 20:32, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Child prostitution section

This section, except for the first paragraph, consists of mostly direct copy-and-pastes from US DOJ sources (which, of course, are not copyrighted) and other primary sources, like Redbook and The Village Voice. It seems to me that these sources give an overly localized and anecdotal version of child prostitution in the US.

For example, the paragraph that starts with "A convicted defendant initially..." is really a more-or-less word-for-word copy of the conviction notice of one person in Portland on July 11, 2008. How is the one line that says "Young girls are preferred because they are less likely to have STD’s" related to the rest of the article?

In my opinion, these sources do not give a balanced and encyclopedic viewpoint of all child prostitution cases in the US. The section reads like a miscellaneous list of possibly-relevant facts but it has no organization. Can anyone suggest more substantial, secondary sources, like any analysis or survey of all child prostitution in the US? In the worst case, should we delete all anecdotal material; that is, everything beyond the first paragraph? --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 14:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Mail Order Brides

Marrying someone from outside of one's country of residence is not a form of prostitution and has no place in this article. Spousal abuse, which is what is described here, belongs in its designated article. The section is clearly biased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:|User:]] ([[User talk:|talk]] • contribs) 16:29, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

40 billion women with syphilis!!!

under heading '20th century', sub heading 'other developments' "In 1916, 40,000,000,000 prostitutes died from syphilis in the US" i kind of think earth din't have a population of 40billion leave aside those may suffering from syphilis in US, couple of zeros to many!! :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aj4akshatjain (talk • contribs) 06:55, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Prostitution around the world

Why would this section be appropriate in an article called "Prostitution in the United States"? Ken (talk) 00:39, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


  • Well this section can not be merged with the prostitution article, that article already has a "legality of prostitution" section which redirects to Legality of prostitution, which is already complete; so there is no place to merge the "Prostitution around the world" section.

It can, however, be deleated from here, without merging it anywhere. However, I believe it sould stay here, to offer a comparison of the US legal system with those of other countries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.121.9.206 (talk) 06:32, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that the section, in its current format, is out of place. It could be summarized under a heading such as: "Comparison of US to other jurisdictions" or something of that nature, with a link to the section of the Prostitution article. The map would be a good addition in the Prostitution article. Sunray (talk) 16:35, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone couldn't resist the urge to explain how cultured Eurotrash are compared to American swine and their conservative views towards the selling of sex. Delete. 99.160.9.30 (talk) 00:47, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I see no reason why it shouldn't be removed, there are already dozens of articles regarding prostitution laws around the world, it's incredibly out of place in this article. If someone wants to make a single page with a table comparing the legal status of prostitution in countries around the world, that would make sense, but this needs to go. Hudude (talk) 04:58, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The map comparing the legality of prostitution to Mexico and Canada may be irrelevant, misleading and unnecessary in this article.

  • The topic is "prostitution in the United States" not "prostitution in North America (excluding Greenland), Central America, the Caribbean and Iceland" or "prostitution regulation regarding the NAFTA".
  • According to the map, in Canada and Cuba prostitution is legal and "unregulated", yet solicitation and brothels are illegal. As a general statement, this is both a logical and legal contradiction. Perhaps it would have been better to say "some forms of direct sexual intercourse for a fee are legal". Also the map implies that prostitution is illegal in the United States of America which is false as A.: there is no federal law that forbids prostitution and B: some forms of prostitution are legal and regulated in the United States. If Greenland is included on the map, why is it colored grey claiming "no data", it is rational to assume that Greenland either forbids, regulates or then de-facto allows the practice.
  • As the map expressly focuses on three large states (the United States, Mexico and Canada), using a graphic may be a bit superfluous, rather than just stating that prostitution is generally accepted as legitimate in Mexico and Canada , but illegal in all but a very few Jurisdictions within the United States.

Perhaps it would be better to have a map of the United States delineating states and counties by defined levels of acute legality of the practice rather than a vague and incomplete supra-regional graphic.

(Is this map even sourced, WP:V ?)

I am gonna take it off, revert it if I am out of line. (How, did I even get here?! John Williams-Superman-Daily Planet-Prostitution in Australia-Prostitution in the United States, WTF!)

66.108.243.166 (talk) 16:41, 6 March 2011 (UTC)Moi

Age of initiation.

"The average age at which girls first become victims of prostitution is 12-14."


Twice in the last few weeks, I've seen the claim that the average age of initiation into prostitution is twelve. Here I find a similar number again.

First, 12-14 is not an average. An average is a single value, computed from a population, so we know that the sentence is crap as it is. Second, and more generally, does anyone think before they write these things? If the average age was 12, or 13 or 14, then there would need to be many girls starting at both younger and older ages. Given that we can safely assume that many girls start at 16, 17 and 18, that would mean that to make the average between 12 and 14, there would have be to many girls becoming prostitutes at 6, 7, 8 and 9. Does that make any sense to you?

Whenever you find a topic like this, you get advocates making ridiculous scare statements to get attention. Remember when 50,000 children were being supposedly being kidnapped every year in America?

The truth is that the YOUNGEST age girls start is 12-14, with those being rare. As the article states elsewhere, most of these girls are runaways, and most runaways are high school age.

MarkinBoston (talk) 18:50, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

More information here: http://eminism.org/blog/entry/62 Long story short - reality is plenty bad enough without resorting to manipulating the numbers to make it seem even worse. A more accurate statement might be "The average age range at which girls under the age of 18 first become victims of prostitution is, according to some researchers, 12-14." What would really be needed is someone coming up with a well-sourced median or mode number, or simply the age at which "most" women become victims/enter into prostitution. The true scope of the horror of child prostitution will only be realized when you look at the absolute numbers of how many kids are forced into it every year, but I suppose that'd be too hard to make a soundbite out of.Pär Larsson (talk) 18:19, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Nevada

The first line -- "Prostitution in the United States is illegal except in some small rural communities in Nevada". Since when did Las vegas and Reno become rural? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.248.114.51 (talk) 19:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Well as the article says later, prostitution isn't legal in Reno or Las Vegas.... Nil Einne (talk) 10:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Need expanded History

Could use more of it, outside the well-worn areas. Newport, Kentucky, used to be "Sin City, USA", and Middlesboro, Kentucky, was "Little Las Vegas" in the 1930s. The article also somehow doesn't mention Memphis, Tennessee... — LlywelynII 03:47, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

False from the first sentence! "Prostitution in the United States is illegal"

"Prostitution in the United States is illegal"

Should be something like...

"No federal statutes prohibit prostitution in the US, but state laws everywhere make it illegal everywhere except in rural Nevada."

(I like the part where the it says the 10th Amendment allows states to regulate what a citizen does with his body in private. The same 10th Amendment protects the right of a woman to abort a fetus in private, as a right of privacy belonging to the people.)12.4.192.194 (talk) 17:13, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

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Maintenance tags

Too long and too technical tags have been added to the article

By WP:SIZERULE, the article is not judged to be too long. I can't see any justification for the too technical tag either.

Any thoughts anyone? --John B123 (talk) 22:51, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree, the tags don't seem to be justified. Unless the editor who added them explains the rationale, we should remove them. Eperoton (talk) 23:49, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
As nobody has objected, I've removed the tags. --John B123 (talk) 18:53, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

I removed the text

A useful list of websites available can be found at prostitution.freecluster.eu

I cannot believe it is WP’s job to enable prostitution.

Nick Levine (talk) 09:36, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

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