A Manhattan judge has determined a legal distinction between prostitution and paying someone to participate in sexual activity to make an adult video, law.com reported.
Prostitution, as traditionally defined, requires person A paying person B for sexual activity to be performed on A, Supreme Court Justice Budd G. Goodman wrote in People v. Paulino. Porn, on the other hand, involves person C paying B for sexual activity performed on A, the report said.
"In other words, prostitution is and has always been intuitively defined as a bilateral exchange between a prostitute and client," Goodman said.
The common ground between prostitution and pornography was at issue in the case, the ongoing trial of an Upper East Side woman accused of running a multimillion dollar prostitution ring, because the defendant argued that the decision to prosecute her but not the "Goliaths" of the adult industry constituted selective prosecution in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, according to the report.
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