is prostitution illegal in the US ?

is hiring a prostitute illegal in the US ?

is posting ads in the media for prostitution in the US illegal ?

are forums discussing using prostitutes in the US illegal ?

1) &2) It is illegal in all of US (at the state level, not federal level) except for some counties in Nevada, so there are legitimate brothels in the US if you're only concerned at the country level. There are no federal laws against it. From what I've heard, generally, they only prosecute the prostitute, unless you're blatantly out in streets handing money to the WG, a common trope on American sitcom that may or may not be reflective of reality/law. Some of the more progressive states has activist groups pushing for legalization, though I'm not sufficiently informed on how close they are in getting there. I didn't even realize marijuana was that close to legalization when it first got legalized in the US, much less did I expect so many states to do so. IMHO if any state legalizes prostitution after Nevada, it would probably be either California or New York.

3) I believe that's decided at the municipal level. Strip clubs are generally legal in the US, and some cities allow strip clubs to advertise, some don't. For Nevada counties that has legalized prostitution I think its legal to have flyers, but I don't think they technically can advertise over the internet.

4) Pretty sure its legal. The US freedom of speech means it is legal to discuss even share or instruct on all kinds of illegal activities including how to make bombs. Many sites like Reddit.com openly has numerous subreddits on such topics. The only subreddits that get shutdown are blatantly heinous/unethical things like child porn and snuff film. All the stuff you may read about websites getting shutdown or terminating US accounts such as Redbook or Escortbook.com are platforms that fascilitates providers and clients to engage in the business, not forums. None of the social media platforms AFAIK has ever been touched. Some US-based escorts even openly identify as escorts on Twitter, though i think most that I've seen only openly talk about their Las Vegas activities.

I should also mention that individual US states do not have the authority to negotiate or enforce their views internationally. States don't even get to extend their arm into another state even if they shared the same law. International deals/treaties/pressure is only done at the federal level. Sites like Escortbook took action as a result of FOSTA-SESTA not technically due to prostitution but to prevent human-trafficking. IIRC Escortbook wasn't asked by the US government to terminate US accounts, they made the decision on their own to mitigate their own risk of being prosecuted.

[ Last edited by  sexyloser at 18-3-2023 22:53 ]

State Laws dictate prostitution not the federal government


Nevada is the only state has legalized prostitution in brothels only and only in the following counties: Churchill County, Elko County, Esmeralda County, Humbolt County, Lander County, Lyon County, Mineral County, and Nye County.  The brothels are licensed and regulated by the State of Nevada.

Each State different laws regarding the hiring of prostitution are all slightly different, but generally speaking it is illegal to solicit sex for money and to offer sex for money.  By extension it is illegal to advertise "sex for sale".  It is rather explicit that it is for money.  It is a misdemeanor crime, mostly consisting of a fine, and possible jail time.  Jail time is not very unlikely and if it happens it would be well under a year.  Reputational damage for the personal soliciting sex can be sometimes worse than any criminal penalty.  Judges have a lot of flexibility on misdemeanor crime penalties.   

You will notice that you will find some websites that are very vague and will ask for "gifts" or leaves open for further discussion but will never explicitly say sexual services in exchange for money.  This is on the edge of "sex for sale".  The vagueness will require law enforcement to do surveillance operation to gather enough evidence to met probably cause for an arrest.  This really does become a cost benefit issue for law enforcement on where best to apply resources.  Lots of factors such as size of the crime, who are the victims and the level of criminal profile.  This will vary state to state, county to county, city to city,  

If the prostitute is a sex trafficker victim, many state have victim assistance services and in cases of undocumented immigrant sex trafficked victims, they are often provided temporary legal status as law enforcement prosecute the traffickers.  State have implementing on their own way for trafficked victims to reach out for help.  For example, in Nevada you can find multilingual sex trafficking assistance information public bathrooms where there are transit stations.

Pornography that is in entertainment industry and complies with the labor laws of the state it is located in is legal.  It is a first amendment freedom of speech to produce and sell pornography.

Discussion about sexual acts is protected under the first amendment right of free speech.  It is not illegal to talk about it as long as you are neither soliciting nor offering sexual services for money.  However, be aware that the police can use the information you post against you if they find you and decide you prosecute you.  Police do regularly check all forums.  You name the forum anywhere in the world, the relevant law enforcement agency with jurisdiction has visited. This includes hunting through the Dark Web.  While, the police will bust prostitution rings, they are focused on human sex trafficking, and child predators.  If it is low hanging fruit they will take it (there are news stories of people soliciting sex in line of sight of police), but the majority of resources will be used to take out the worse of the worse.

In the United States, the federal government does work to find US Citizens who go to other countries to have sex with children and/or engage in human trafficking.  They do work with other countries' law enforcement to find and bring them back to the United States for prosecution.

Prostitution is a State, not a federal, power. I am generalizing it because I do not want to try to explain all 50 states and US territories illegal prostitution laws.

[ Last edited by  anabikumi at 19-3-2023 14:36 ]

Thank you bros for your detailed explanation. As someone who has never lived, or punted, in the US, I guess my questions are just for academic interests. But the reason I, for one, have never considered punting stateside is because the laws over there are confusing (at least to me). No one wants to have a Hugh Grant situation when traveling, right? So, you guys' explanations are exactly what we need! So, more questions:

1. What exactly got Hugh Grant in trouble?

2. I am pretty sure that submitting reports to forums like this one is not illegal, but could reports on this forum get WGs in the US in trouble? In the early days of this forum (pre-2010), bros here were very discreet not to state the names and addresses of the places they reviewed. We tended to use codes such as Mxy for May etc. Some Chinese-language forums here still use this practice. Over time, bros here become more relaxed, posting names of premises and WGs and their links and photos. But should the US bros be more careful?

3. Is it safe for WGs in the US to advertise on the Global 141 database associated with this forum? You said the federal gov has no jurisdiction here but but everyone in the world can see those ads...

4.  On what legal basis were the personal and service sections on Craigslist shut down?

1) I didn't follow the news when it happened (I was way too young), but here's the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estella_Marie_Thompson

There's really only three things at play here: 1- The mere fact that prostitution is illegal. 2- He was probably driving drunk and tapped the brake too many times, flashing the brake lights and drew the attention of the cops. 3- He's too high profile and this would be too big of a story to keep under wraps; how many cops wouldn't want to go around brag to their friends about "guess who I just arrested?"

It only became news because Hugh Grant is Hugh Grant. Just because prostitution is legal in the UK doesn't mean its socially accepted back in the UK, and the controversy was whether or not he just ended his career. From the contemporary UK articles I read he seemed lucky that it didn't end his career, in part because it was already late stage promotion for the movie he just finished and everything is about to launch so its completely impractical for them to terminate contract with him at that point.

Note that the bail was only $250 and the fine $1,150. These are very small punishments in the grand scheme of things because its a misdemeanor. The WG was also imprisoned for 6 months, the maximum sentence for prostitution, which to be perfectly honest she probably only got the max sentence because she's black and the system is racist. A white male like Hugh didn't even get jailed despite the exact same no contest plea for the exact same crime from the exact same incident.


2) Yes, which is why us from the US had a thread discussing it that might be useful to get stickied. I posted an "RA Ettiquette Discussion" recently to encourage Reading Access controls for reports.

The primary vulnerability to WG's would be the Newbie reports section where all content is exposed. There's a mainlander-dominated Chinese forum US151.com which uses a double blind system; newbies cannot post in other sections until they have sufficient karma just like 141, but existing users also cannot read their posts without spending coins. This way it prevents lurker/leechers/LEO's who are not participating in the forum from reading even the newbie reports.

3) Probably about as safe as posting your Dongguang videos on PornHub while physically living in China; That is, pretty freaking stupid, but not going to affect PornHub in any way. Escortbook.com is a Cyprus-based website that probably never would've gotten into trouble, in fact they've been fine for 5 years since FOSTA-SESTA. The termination of US accounts 3 weeks ago may have been due to business plans to physically operate in the US, the owner's personal relation/travel/residency status with the US, or they hired a conservative lawyer who advised them to avoid the risk of the chance international anti-sex trafficking efforts being formed by the US - which seems exceedingly unlikely considering prostitution is legal in most of the world and the US method of applying the law upon prostitution is likely an overreach on the international scene, though there is some merits domestically mainly with illegal migrants at the border AFAIK.

4) The same reason Escortbook terminated US accounts, except that Craigslist is based in the US. There's no actual federal prosecution; the site management proactively terminated sections on their own because they don't want to take any chances, in response to FOSTA-SESTA which grants federal powers to prosecute websites that may be "facilitating sex trafficking". Could there have been sex traffickers using Craigslist? Sure, possibly much less than 1 in 100,000 chance, but they probably shut the entire section down under the legal advice of their lawyer because as soon as a federal prosecutor asks questions they'd be on the hook to investigate their millions of posts, which you can imagine can quickly become extremely expensive and most investigations being completely wasteful and useless. It would be too much of an administrative headache for them for a low-cost post-based revenue site, which would probably make them operate at a loss for each post.

I can't speak for other areas but if you ask any monger in the Bay Area or any WG it's fairly clear they are not being sex trafficked. For one, many are independent providers, obviously American girls,girls who are clearly not being pimped, or small groups with a retired or older provider becoming a mamasan/PO/manager managing the business side of things. Two, of the massage parlor girls I know they have ID/Driver's license and commute from other cities for work, motivated by the ability to make more money than the average white collar worker, and are sufficiently free that one manager ranted to me about how the girl I asked for was late or skipped out on work just like any normal worker who is not under some threat.

[ Last edited by  sexyloser at 19-3-2023 07:57 ]

Couple of comments. While it is not a violation of federal law, crossing state lines to commit a crime is a violation of federal law, so texting with someone in another state, then driving to that state do something illegal can be prosecuted in federal court. As a practical matter, federal authorities defer to local prosecution and it is very unlikely they would get involved in a case like this that is being prosecuted in a state. They do get involved when it is arranging for women to travel between states.

I believe Craig decided to shutdown the personal section of Craigslist on his own -- albeit under heavy pressure from some community groups and prosecutors.

Under a law referred to Section 230 (it's Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act) websites are not responsible for user generated content. Congress is under pressure to change this due to all the junk that is on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram. It does not provide absolute protection and US based websites have been seized when they move from providing forums to actively engaging in a crime.

For advertising, I would say it just as safe as other methods they use to get business. There is a risk of advertising, but it is less of a risk than being on the street.

Oh yeah, Hugh Grant -- which everyone in Los Angeles would recognize -- picked up a girl on Sunset or Hollywood Blvd while driving a very conspicuous car. Those were all bad strikes.

Couple of comments. While it is not a violation of federal law, crossing state lines to commit a crime is a violation of federal law, so texting with someone in another state, then driving to that state do something illegal can be prosecuted in federal court. As a practical matter, federal authorities defer to local prosecution and it is very unlikely they would get involved in a case like this that is being prosecuted in a state. They do get involved when it is arranging for women to travel between states.

This crossing state law to commit crime isn't really to target mongering for other stuff instead. If person had intent to harm kill or whatever and they were crossing state lines to commit the crime.


The so call crime to cross state like to see a girl wouldn't stick unless they can bring you to court and than juries find you guilty. In till than it is so call innocent in till proven guilty. Unless they personally see the transaction taking place and bring the SW it just gonna be a lot of "HEARSAY". Just like how we all know Johnny Depp take drugs and went admitted to doing in on live TV. No police is gonna come busted down his door to arrest him because they just a lot of "HEARSAY". As long as you don't flat out admit to the so call "crime" of paying to see a girl you can't be arrested for it. If they find the text just say you were just joking around with a friend  or whatever excuses. It not your job to prove yourself guilty it is the police job to do it.

The prosecutor can offer the SW not only a "get of of jail" card but also a green card/work permit

That is totally correct. Than it will be a lawyer battle. When the lawyer can argue that the person is being threat or bribe to say those things by the LEO. Honestly the case of that happening is VERY UNLIKELY but not impossible but honestly I see a higher chance of pig flying than LEO offering a SW a green card to keep working in the US just to prove a AVERAGE JOE guilty to a misdemeanor. The VERY WORST punishment that can happen to a 1st time offender is up to 2 yrs and $6,250 in Iowa. The punishment depends on the state but it seem Iowa is the harshest punishment out of them all. Mostly most of the time the court system would not care and just say pay the stupid fine and be done. It is the social backlash from judging family/friends that the worst part and not the legal punishment.


This is the link I got the information from.
https://prostitution.procon.org/ ... elated-punishments/

"Under a law referred to Section 230 (it's Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act) websites are not responsible for user generated content. Congress is under pressure to change this ..."

Congress has already changed this.  FOSTA/SESTA explicitly overrides Section 230 protections.

thanks to everyone for their input

Every time I read about a raid, there is a lot of talk about sex/human trafficking. I read that as the women are being offered services in exchange for testimony. While it is most likely aimed at the management and not the customers, it seems like a customer could get caught up in it.

I read someone else's experience. Cops raided an AMP that he was in. He was lucky that only his clothes were off and they haven't "gotten to business" yet. When the cops asked him what he was doing he just calmly answered getting a massage. When they asked why he's naked he said "Kind of hard to get a massage with clothes on." and they just let him go saying something along the lines that they're here to bust illegals.

Every time I read about a raid, there is a lot of talk about sex/human trafficking.

Yep.  And every time you look up the results in court, you find that there was no charge of human trafficking.  Why?  Well, the phrase "human trafficking" is triggering for voters who don't understand the sex trade, but prosecutors are not finding evidence of it.  You do not see the followup news stories admitting that there was only ordinary prostitution going on, because those don't get written.

Hmmmmm ... .

Hi!

I don't want too deep into the legality and try to answer your questions as best in the shortest and hopefully clearest way possible.  

Hugh Grant got caught with a prostitute on Los Angeles.  Sadly, I am old enough to remember when this happened.  Yes, he was arrested because he was engaged in an illegal activity.  Accepting an offer from a prostitute is illegal in California.  Him being a celebrity, it is an entirely different public perception as opposed to the criminal penalty which is nominal.

US law enforcement monitors a lot more on than people realize. It is not just the federal government. on the state level, there are cybercrime units not just looking for sex trafficking but drugs, fencing goods, potential acts of violence, etc.  A WG can get arrested for advertising on 141.com.  However, it has to be worth it for law enforcement to chase her down.  It is resource intensive to build a case.  I am aware that in person cases at a physical location can take months to gather sufficient evidence to determine who to charge in the establishment.  The time it takes to do the work reduces the possibility of error.  Let's say if the WG turned out to not a WG but actually a man who robbed and murdered 5 men, obviously law enforcement will chase it down the best they can.  The question is do they sledgehammer or scalpel their way through the Internet.

The federal government are involved in criminal and civil matters that are inter-state, international, military, immigration, federal recognized Native American Land (this one is very complicated), admiralty, intellectual property and patents, and criminal acts that the federal government deems under their jurisdiction.  There are more than this but these are the big ones. The state and federal government can have overlapping criminal and civil statutes.  The federal government can claim jurisdiction even thought there was a state arrest and charged under state law.  Examples of this happening are hate crimes, terrorism, and trafficking of alcohol.   You can be convicted on the federal level and the state can take up the case under state law and vice versa, if there is a jurisdiction.  

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 deregulated the United States telecommunications industry. The Internet did not look remotely what you see now.  The telecommunication decency sections 230 and 231 were conceived in the era of limited-graphical messaging boards, UNIX based peer to peer messaging, AOL and CompuServe internet providers, etc.  My UNIX based account ended about 4 years back when the provider went out of business.  In the middle ages of computers, they were heavy desktops, a square 7 inch screen with 64 bit colors is considered large, a 486 processor, 512k graphics board, 1 MB RAM and a 40MB hard drive, plus operating system and word processor could cost you $3,000 or more.  If you had a CD-ROM that added another $500. Your internet connection started at 1.2 kilobits per second to 56 kilobits per second and only through a regular copper phone line. (I am confident there are more than one of you knows what I am talking about waiting to download in JPG 8 bit graphical format because the GIF was too large.).  Not surprising Congress’ concern was what was content kids could get at which is dangerous while not limiting people's ability to express themselves on the Internet.  Internet predators are not new.  I actual had one find me via a UNIX messaging board posing as someone else.  The longer the chat went, I knew this was not going good places.

Platforms that serve commercial purpose for others is more complicated than just advertising. They self-monitor because of potential liability as it pertains to commercial transaction.  Advertising is a form of free speech.  Acting as an intermediary in a commercial transaction is different.  Think of it as people coming to your home to sell things.  Then you let the entire world to come into your home to buy stuff.  A customer buys food from one of the sellers, eats it there and drops dead from the food.  And, now there is a liability question, and the answer may change depending on changes to the scenario presented.  Does any business want to test how much liability they may or may not have?  Lawsuits and liability insurance are expensive.  Not surprising, different commercial platforms are pushing for laws specifically for their industry to setup standards to protect themselves from liability.  

Now, changing the facts, there is no commercial sale.  You let people into your home.  You can choose who and they just talk about whatever they want.  Just to keep this simple, we will say they are not trying to sell people goods or services.  You allow everyone in or the people you allowed in to speak to choose who to let into the house to see them.  The often-quoted sentence from section 230 is "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." The key words are “publisher or speaker”.  In this example, the homeowner does not own nor speaks for those in the house talking.  Therefore, since the homeowner does not own or speak the words then the homeowner is not responsible for the consequences caused by those words.  This sounds like an absolute liability protection for the platform from what people say, and it has been tested and held up in courts thus far.  But there are always new and different circumstances that will be tested in the courts and the platforms rather not test section 230 to discover under what circumstances in which they are liable.  Interestingly, there are court challenges against platforms by those taking steps can a platform is taking to protect itself from potential liability (such as fact checking warnings, removing users, demonetizing, etc.).

These cases are civil cases against the platform provider for liability.  Telecommunications by nature of crossing state lines and there is a federal law governing the industry, this places these civil cases in the federal court system. The United States’ federal and state civil systems is mostly based on the British legal system, except for Louisiana, which is French based civil courts.  Every state does have differences in the criminal court system, it is generally consistent with each other and federal criminal court.

These are more words that I thought I would use. Hopefully, I am clear enough in context and application through analogy.