> OK, prostitution is illegal in the States.
> Prostitution is being paid to have sex with a client.
>
> Now, porn actors/actresses are also paid to have
> sex with other porn actors/actresses. Why is being
> a porn actor legal and being a prostitute isn't?
and "Wojtek Sokolowski" <sokol at jhu.edu> speculates in response
> Would not that have more to do with the rules of
> admissible evidence rather than the act itself?
> It would be difficult to prosecute someone
> based on what he/she reveals about him/herself in
> a work of art or fiction (no matter how suggestive.)
> If the cops raided a place where such works of
> art are being shot, that would be a different story,
> I presume.
Why rely in trying intelligently to determine what is/isn't "illegal" on what one "presumes" at the apparent expense, as here, of reading whatever the applicable statute or other relevant authority says in/for whatever is the place in question?
E.g., and contrary to Mr. Doss, it is not always so that "prostitution" in the sense he apparently uses that term "is being paid to have sex with a client" but, rather, is (as noted) whatever the law of the applicable jurisdiction defines that act to be.
And even if he is correct to the extent that a common element throughout the U.S. of "prostitution" is what he summarizes (doing sex for pay), what each of the above persons evidently "presume" appears relatedly to be that there is not, in whatever may be place(s) of interest to them, a law that says, f'r'instance, that "prostitution" - even if otherwise "engaging in sexual conduct for money or other consideration" - "does not include sexual conduct engaged in as part of any stage performance, play, or other entertainment open to the public" . . . although that is exactly what, e.g., Calif. says why being a porn actor is (in this respect) "legal" and being a prostitute isn't. See Calif. Penal Code 653.20(a).
More basically, whether to prosecute criminally is in most places in the U.S. is a decision/prerogative relegated exclusively to the discretion of the jurisdiction's D.A. (or, as the case may be, to the area's U.S. attorney); and so prosecutors who believe that prosecuting porn actors/actresses for "prostitution" even if also provably paid to have sex with other porn actors/actresses would run afoul of constitutional First Amendment rights/protections or state constitutional analogs or, for that matter, who just whimsically do not want to prosecute even if they would reject an, "Its protected by the First Amendment!" or like claim if they did opt to prosecute, this reality (virtually not reviewable prosecutorial discretion) does much more to explain non-prosecution when/where there is not such than what the role or not of "the rules of admissible evidence" may be. What the sex-obsessed Meese probably would do, if he were presently U.S. attorney general, or what Gonzales may instruct his minions to do is another matter as, meanwhile, there have occasionally been attempts to do exactly what Mr. Doss speculates has not been done.
Re. which, incidentally, there is a hilarious 1994 decision by a N.Y. criminal court judge dismissing prostitution charges against a (even though: for fee) three-hundred pound "dominatrix" on the ground - expounded upon in the decision in some detail based on defendant's "educational" and "entertaining" testimony as having "provided insight into an area of behavior . . . not often talked about in public" - on the ground that defendant's whip-wielding and toe-licking, etc., behavior was a "performance" protected by the First Amendment (the D.A. didn't try to appeal).
.
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