Owning a person

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by S.A.M., Dec 13, 2009.

  1. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    So what? most miners in the 18th century were 12 year olds who died from the carbon build up in there lungs and were basically sold into the mines by there own parents because everyone was staving. Does that mean that BHP automatically is exploitive of its workers?
     
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  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Sam's has a point that prostitution is (in real life) bad. She also has a point that ownership of people is bad. She has no case that prostitution is equivalent to ownership.

    And the fact that you must also turn to rape of children for illustration, more or less an irrelevancy to Sam's ostensible or original point, points to the problem with the approach.

    Again, if this is your issue, why not choose a more sound and illustrative example of ownership involving sex, of men treating women as things or commodities with impunity, of ( in Sam's vocabulary) men acquiring ownership of women to use and dump cum into: marriage?
     
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  5. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Yes. Or was in the 18th century, anyway.
     
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  7. fellowtraveler Banned Banned

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    I feel prostitution is repeatedly presented in the worst ways in this thread. MANY WOMEN CHOOSE TO BE PROSTITUTES AND DO VERY WELL FOR THEMSELVES AS SUCH, to one degree or another. Also, many are not very NICE people themselves. Very willing to steal money and such from their clients and are quite good at it.
    I spent about one year as as MP on OKINAWA during the Viet Nam War and do have first hand knowledge of what went on there. It seemed to me most of the women had a fairly good time MOST of the time. Any troublemaking, abusive soldiers or marines, quite frankly, got a good ass kicking, and were sent back to base. These incidents were NOT common. Many soldiers and marines were robbed by prostitutes and some fell in love with these women and were cleaned out of any money they had saved. This idealization of prostitutes as some pitiful victums just does not ring true with me. NOT AT ALL. That is not to say that it never happens and I know it does. But it is not the usual course of events from my experience. ...fellowtraveler
     
  8. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    But this isn't about sexual slavery nor is it about child labour. This is about consensual sex for money or companionship for money. You never properly addressed my post. Since there are no victims in consensual brokering of sex or companionship for money I don't find it particularly immoral even if you want to say its unsavory.
     
  9. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I do not believe there are no victims in "consensual sex brokering". So the point is moot.

    I'm not really worried about unsavoury, there are more unsavoury acts like consesual sex with animals. Just the marketability of sex as a commercial product.
     
  10. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    You give no indication of why there are 'victims' and who those 'victims' are. There are women who do this for a living and don't consider themselves victims (like sex workers in Denmark and Holland for example). Are you saying that you are in a position to speak for these women? Or are you simply calling them liars or self-deluded? Victims are defined by lack of consent. So if a woman decides to willingly enter this particular type of work she can hardly be considered a 'victim'.
     
  11. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I've clearly stated why there are victims. The idea of "consensually" considering sexual intercourse as a commodity is one that is an oxymoron. Its like saying motherhood is a commodity and hence a woman who consensually gives birth to a child every year to be a surrogate for those who do not have the time or ability to carry their own children is simply earning a living, as if this is representative of something other than her twisted self perception of herself as a baby making factory. Some things should not be for sale, a woman who sleeps with strange men for money is as much a victim as one who agrees to sleep with strange horses for money. The basic idea that she consents to put herself in that position [ie screwing a horse] does not make it normal or valid that she does so.
     
  12. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    This is boilerplate. Do you have an argument in support of this, or are you simply going to keep restating your conclusion? If it's the latter, why would anyone care?
     
  13. PsychoTropicPuppy Bittersweet life? Valued Senior Member

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    So..now we went from prostitution, to putting a dick into a child's mouth, to women using themselves as babyfactories, to bestiality, etc...this is truly an amazing development.
     
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The people pointing to the key moral factor of consent are treating sexual intercourse as a service, not a commodity.

    One of the differences is that commodities can be owned . Your entire silly conflation of everything bad with "ownership" is at the center of the incoherence of your arguments.

    If you want to discuss the morality of "ownership" in sexual matters, the obvious starting example is marriage. If you want to introduce the subject of prostitution, some key differences between marriage and prostitution involve the ownership issues in many cultural forms of marriage, which are not present - or only at much less significant levels - in prostitution.
     
  15. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, these are all instances of using the body of a person as a commodity [except for the dick in the kids mouth which was an example of not knowing the difference between right or wrong]

    In bestiality for example, I consider both, the woman [are there men?] who is used as the object of sexual intercourse [even if she is paid for it and consents to it] and the animal, who is trained to become the a party to it [no question of consent here] as victims.

    The idea I am trying to express is why I consider this form of usage of the person [even when they are paid for it and use it as a source of income] as exploitation.
     
  16. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Do you know what the word "commodity" means?

    You've made that abundantly clear. What is your reasoning? What differentiates sexual services from other types?
     
  17. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    The personal nature of it. Its a kind of self dehumanisation, which is what I see in poor people who sell their children for begging or sex. A devaluation of themselves as human beings. The fact that prostitutes consent to be used as such, is for me a symptom of the problem. Its inherently undignifying their selves.
     
  18. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    So wait its the money that counts? :bugeye: What if she sleeps with 'strange' men for no money? There are women who sell their eggs for money and women who become surrogates for money, I don't see it as any more immoral than selling or buying sex. You have a right to your opinion of course but you really haven't made a moral argument against sex for sale. I understand that women are exploited in situations (pimps, trafficking etc) but I am not referring to these cases as its been shown that running the industry underground does not protect women nor does it end the industry. If you want to see less pimps and traffickers then the best thing to do is legalize it as the Dutch have done and regulate the industry. Hell sex workers in Holland even have their own union.

    If there are those who believe that prostitution is immoral then what is the best course of action? Make it illegal? Its illegal and it continues.

    If there are those who believe that it shows a lack of self-respect (the dehumanization of self as you put it) then what is the course of action when the sex worker in question doesn't believe they have low self-esteem but a money issue?

    And yes by the way there are male sex workers, large amounts of them that service men as well as women but they are usually never included in these kinds of debate precisely because we don't see men who willingly sell sex for money as being 'exploited'.

    Is it sexist to assume that women are always being exploited when they choose to enter the sex trade? If so why don't we have the same concern for men?

    Would you have said that a man who sells his sperm is as immoral as the surrogate or egg donor?
     
    Last edited: Dec 23, 2009
  19. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    That's all fine and good, but these are your own personal philosophical convictions. Not everyone shares them. There do exist people that do not consider prostitution to be dehumanizing, etc. Who are you to insist that someone is degrading themself, if they do not find what they are doing degrading?
     

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