AHC: prostitution legal in at least 20 U.S. states by 1990

. . . Alot of the sex-negative wings of even modern feminism come off as just being updated for modern day purposes variants of the late 19th/early 20th century's "keep nonwhite men away from pure, innocent white women". . .
Just to show that people are really different, I like most branches of feminism.

For example, I’ve gotten a lot out of the writings of Gloria Steinem. And not that it’s hugely consequential, but I think for a while she dated an African-American man. Plus, I think she and Florynce Kennedy, who was an African-American lady, teamed up and gave a number of lectures together. They would field questions for a while and then point out that the general feminist questions were mostly being directed at Gloria, whereas Florynce only seemed to getting the questions specific to African-American women.
 
Last edited:
One factor helping with legalization/decriminalization of Prostitution will be WW II. During the war the girls and brothels of Hotel st, as well as looking the other way districts in San Francisco and San Diego , are a framework. Hawaii as well as Nevada fully legalize and regulate prostitution and Brothels. California, New Jersy and New York decriminalize their existing red light districts. New Orleans re opens Storyville.
 
One factor helping with legalization/decriminalization of Prostitution will be WW II. During the war the girls and brothels of Hotel st, as well as looking the other way districts in San Francisco and San Diego , are a framework. Hawaii as well as Nevada fully legalize and regulate prostitution and Brothels. California, New Jersy and New York decriminalize their existing red light districts. New Orleans re opens Storyville.

I know i've brought up Dropshot in other threads, but maybe a dropshot WWIII, or a WWIII over a Korea that escalates into a long conventional war might do this.
 
. . . The POD for your thing would probably have to be socialists get big instead of progressives in the first few decades of last century. . .
I’d like to really test drive labor unions.

Most people here probably know that, while courts have been pretty indifferent regarding enforcing anti-trust against corporations, they’ve been very energetic against unions and very cooperative against in favor of the powers that be. And police have been against unions in a pretty knee-jerk fashion, the curious exception of course being police unions.

So, give me laws and norms, say, favoring corporations 53% and unions 47%. That is, almost a level playing field, but tilted slightly in favor of corps. Still be absolutely transformative.

That is, I’ll take labor unions, flaws and all! :p
 
Last edited:
I’d like to really test drive labor unions.

Most people here probably know that, while courts have been pretty indifferent regarding enforcing anti-trust against corporations, they’ve been very energetic against unions and very cooperative against the powers that be. And police have been against unions in a pretty knee-jerk fashion, the curious exception of course being police unions.

So, give me laws and norms, say, favoring corporations 53% and unions 47%. That is, almost a level playing field, but tilted slightly in favor of corps. Still be absolutely transformative.

That is, I’ll take labor unions, flaws and all! :p

Could the Supreme Court be of any help ?

The US Supreme Court legalised same-sex marriage, abortion, and numerous other positions based on the 14th amendment. Perhaps prostitution can be gradually legalised or decriminalised at the state level over the course of 10 or 20 years in the mid-to-late 20th century before becoming legalised or decriminalised nationwide by like 1990 via SCOTUS
 
One factor helping with legalization/decriminalization of Prostitution will be WW II. During the war the girls and brothels of Hotel st, as well as looking the other way districts in San Francisco and San Diego , are a framework. Hawaii as well as Nevada fully legalize and regulate prostitution and Brothels. California, New Jersy and New York decriminalize their existing red light districts. New Orleans re opens Storyville.
That works in an environment where society's first priorities (building to win a war) takes precedence of nitpicking over enforcement of the letter of the law. Of course, the intense need to catch up the consumer economy into the fifties also created an environment where red light districts were tolerated if not ignored. The Dropshot war, if confined to the early fifties, might kill fewer people than the OTL conflicts (political and military) of the next decade or two. By taking away most Interstate highway development, suburbanization and the Cold War, America might develop in a more Euro-fashion.

What we see today if very much the opposite. We use red light cameras to ticket people for stopping an inch too far. Prosecutors and police enhance their conviction records with strict enforcement. In other countries, drug addicts are sick people first, criminals second. Here, it's the other way around.
 
Could the Supreme Court be of any help ?

The US Supreme Court legalised same-sex marriage, abortion, and numerous other positions based on the 14th amendment. . .
Umm, I'm actually anti-Supreme Court!

Hey, I used to have the view such as you describe: believing Brown v. Board of Education (1954) to be central. Believing, that if an issue comes to the Court's attention, if they think the country is ready, and sometimes even if they think it's not! , the Court will do the right thing. They want to side with the underdog, if they can do that in a legal way.

Now, I think the Court sides with power most of the time. I even did a whole thread:

WI: U.S. Supreme Court loses credibility from pair of child labor decisions in 1918 and 1922?
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...hild-labor-decisions-in-1918-and-1922.383840/
(these were real decisions, as much as I wish they weren’t!)

---------------------

Besides that . . .

It's bad alternate history! If the supreme Court were to make an abrupt, clunk move (which they do sometimes do, and which is how it would happen) it would be too much like the Deus ex machina (God in a machine) from Greek theater. We'd get the perfect move just because we need the perfect move.

And even though that does sometimes happen in real life, it makes for unsatisfying fiction.
 
Last edited:
. . . We use red light cameras to ticket people for stopping an inch too far. . .
Which is clearly the wrong way to use them. Now, the UK has been successful in using traffic cameras to reduce deaths and injuries.

If the argument is that America’s more religious, and because of that, more puritannical, I agree,

but it’s kind of not my main thing is this thread.

I’m more looking at a declining middle class, from about 60% of the adult population in the early 1970s to about 50% today. Even with much of that decline moving into upper income, it’s like you have to play a much more carefully-planned game as far as your own economic advancement,

and much less time and sympathy for any kind of person who’s on the outside.
 
Last edited:
Which is clearly the wrong way to use them. Now, the UK has been successful in using traffic cameras to reduce deaths and injuries.

If the argument is that America’s more religious, and because of that, more puritannical, I agree,

but it’s kind of not my main thing is this thread.

I’m more looking at a declining middle class, from about 60% of the adult population in the early 1970s to about 50% today. Even with much of that decline moving into upper income, it’s like you have to play a much more carefully-planned game as far as your own economic advancement,

and much less time and sympathy for any kind of person who’s on the outside.

You would like Edward Luttwak's "turbo-capitalism" ALOT. That book is pretty relevant to your arguments.
 
Well in that case, you need to make America more socialist or at least left wing. American left-wing feminism (unlike the loud UK/Canada TERFS/SWERFS) are much more in favour of sex worker rights and decriminalisation.

Here is OTL New York City Democratic Socialists favouring sex worker decriminalisation and afterwards, receiving death threats from right-wing trolls :

upload_2019-8-3_11-2-38.png


American socialists are, by far, in favour of sex workers rights and decriminalisation. Somehow shift America to the left; avoid Reagan; and build up from New Deal Democrats in the 1960s would probably do
 
You would like Edward Luttwak's "turbo-capitalism" ALOT. That book is pretty relevant to your arguments.
Yes, I see that he’s against it, as I am! :openedeyewink:

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/turbo...n-the-global-economy_edward-n-luttwak/591341/

‘ . . . Led by the United States, closely followed by Britain, turbo-capitalism is spreading fast throughout Europe, Asia, and the rest of the world without the two great forces that check its enormous power in the United States: a powerful Legal system and the stringent rules of American calvinism. . . ’
Overview of this 20-year-old book. All too true. :teary:
 
Interestingly enough, he predicted revivals of fascism/nationalist populism in response to turbo-capitalism. This wasn't in the book, but in some article he did years later I saw online once.
 
. . . he predicted revivals of fascism/nationalist populism . . .
No great shakes predicting that! I mean, I wish the guy would have focused his efforts on finding solutions and improvements, and ones which are doable and practical.

For example,

What we almost got in Dec. 2016, that if a person makes less than $47,000 for the year, he or she gets time-and-a-half for overtime, regardless of whether they’re classified as hourly or salaried. I think this would be surprisingly good at spreading out available jobs. Plus, might even contribute to a social norm that if you work too much more then 40 hours a week, people look at you somewhat askance, as in, wow, you’re a little bit over your head in this new position, are you, or . . . maybe you don’t have too happy a home life.
 
Last edited:
Top