Where selling/buying sexual services is allowed/illegal/criminal?

[nounours_]

Other threads have partially answered the question but I would be curious to see a list of countries and their different laws about seling and buying sexual services. This issue seems to have much more to it than is being argued by certain official discourse. From other threads, I gather this so far. Please correct me if I'm mistaken and feel free to add to the list.

Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Germany: legal (underwhat conditions?)
Sweden: criiminal to buy
USA: ?

Thanks.

 

[Gabriella Laurence]

A great place to start would be here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulated_prostitution

6 Worldwide laws
6.1 Summary of legal status
6.1.1 Prostitution illegal
6.1.2 Prostitution legal, but procuring illegal
6.1.3 Prostitution legal and regulated

6.2 Country details
6.2.1 Australia
6.2.2 Canada
6.2.3 China
6.2.4 India
6.2.5 Philippines
6.2.6 Scotland
6.2.7 Spain
6.2.8 Sweden, Norway and Iceland
6.2.9 United States
6.2.9.1 California


7 Enforcement

 

[daydreamer41]

From what I have read on these sites, about 50 percent of the world's countries, SPing is illegal and 50 percent decriminalized or legal in some form. In some places, like Thailand, it is illegal, but never prosecuted yet promoted, unless minors are involved.

Interestingly, most South American countries have some form of legal prostitution.

 

[gugu]

Hi nounours, the wiki page (the one in english) provided by Gabriella is quite accurate and up to date, the advantage of wikipedia. You can also look at the wiki pages by continent ("prostitution in Asia" for example) or by country ("prostitution in Spain" for example). The procon site is a pretty good effort but it contains some error, is sometimes inconsistent and not up to date.

 

[Siocnarf]

The number of countries where buying and/or selling is illegal is quite small. I think US is one of the rare ones in the western world, apart from the Nordic model countries (Sweden, Iceland, Norway). Prostitution is often controlled by banning brothels, solicitation, etc. And of course the de facto situation can be quite different from the legal one (i.e. Thailand).

It also depend what you mean by sex. In Japan, paying for full sex is illegal, but only intercourse. Paying for anything else, like blowjob, is legal. Whereas in Iceland, even stripping is illegal.

 

[nounours_]

Thank you for the links. Ineresting topic, more complicated than I ever thought.