Owning a person

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

  1. Bells Staff Member

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    Even more interesting.

    Your link implies the use of a dildo as being somehow abnormal or deviant sexual behaviour.

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    In other words, from your link, if it's not in the missionary position, then it probably makes you a deviant.

    So you think that a prostitute needs to be told the difference?

    Do you view child sexual abuse as being in the same category as two consenting adults having sex, with one being paid for the service by the other?

    Both provide a service, and both consent to the act. Both are able to consent to the act. What part of that is so hard to grasp?

    Prostitution involves the rendering of a sexual service between two consenting adults. Without that consent, it becomes rape, regardless of whether money or goods exchanged hands..
     
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  3. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    What women willingly consents to sleep with an average of 10 men a week for an average of two hours a day for an average of 300 dollars a week unless she feels she has no other choices? You're a woman, how long do you think you could do it?
     
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  5. PsychoTropicPuppy Bittersweet life? Valued Senior Member

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    Nobody forces her to be a prostitute. She can always find an other job.
     
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  7. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    If you're going to take that approach, what person willingly consents to spend 40+ hours per week doing something boring that they don't enjoy unless they feel they have no other choice?

    It is a generally-accepted reality that people do things out of economic necessity that they would prefer not to do. Would you take the position that these people aren't willingly consenting to their jobs?
     
  8. Cowboy My Aim Is True Valued Senior Member

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    And the Mad Max movies, right?
     
  9. Cowboy My Aim Is True Valued Senior Member

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    So anyone we don't have a relationship with is not a "person" to us?
     
  10. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Which is probably the single best argument for legalizing, or at least decriminalizing, prostitution. Take the criminals out, and there's a lot less concern for coercion. This has been observed first and foremost where prostitution is legal, but similar results have been observed in places which recently decriminalized off-street prostitution.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2009
  11. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Some do, some don't. Some call themselves "working girls," and others prefer "whore." Most of the people I hear using "sex worker" are not prostitutes themselves, but PC types on the sidelines.

    In point of fact, "sex worker" is a more general term encompassing porn stars, strippers, phone sex operators, dominatrices, house wives, etc.

    Prudes will try to put a negative connotation onto anything, but I don't see "prostitute" as particularly stigmatized.
     
  12. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    3,634
    That is true in many purchases of personal services, unless you consider there to be something "special" about the sex act. If I pay you to give me a legitimate massage, I am paying you to use your body in close contact with mine in a way that gives me pleasure and does nothing for you.

    Worse than that, I might pay you to clean my house, including my toilets, and then your body has to come in contact with the filth that I myself don't want to touch. That is worse than having to touch my clean skin by far. And when you have scrubbed that toilet clean? Then, I would like you to go home.

    I am not necessarily all that interested in having a deep and meaningful relationship with my cleaning lady. I do not think that is surprising, anmd it doesn't make people who hire cleaning ladies "predators". Why should anyone expect that, just because I have sex with you, that the remainder of our relationship should be any different than that between me and my cleaning lady? Of course I should be civil, and all, but we are not emotional intimates just because we have done the deed, and there is no reason why anyone should be made to feel that they are a "deviant" just because of that. The only real issue is that some people feel deeply that anyone they have sex with should be a close and intimate person in their lives, that they forget that is a personal preference and not an law of nature.

    What matters if that both the man and the woman are open with one another so that they understand the nature of the relationship and can form accurate expectations. The same is true between a man and his cleaning lady. A man should not invite a woman in on the pretense of intimacy, use her, and then turn her out onto the streets, but so long as both he and she are agree in advance on what the relationship is, then the relationship is healthy and perfectly legitimate.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2009
  13. John99 Banned Banned

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    you are dreaming. decriminalizing will work for the top tiers of prostitution and leave poor\disadvantagd in an even worse situation.
     
  14. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    In what sense would it be worse? Right now is a prostitute is beaten or raped she can't do anything about it since the legitimate authorities can't be brought in.
     
  15. John99 Banned Banned

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    worse because there will always be a market for the illegal prostitutes only they will work under the most dangerous conditions because they have to as the legitimate clients will seek out legal prostitutes.

    Prostitutes can refuse a client based on a feeling they get or if the client is visibly intoxicated or high on drugs because there are more 'legit' clients and they have more choices of who they go with.

    Even in areas where prostitution is legal you see illegal prostitution not far away from the legal.
     
  16. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    How is that an argument against legalizing prostitution?

    Would it be better if all of the prostitutes worked in dangerous conditions, instead of just the most vulnerable ones?
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Replace "prostitution" with "waitressing" and you make every bit as much sense.

    Or "housecleaning". Or any number of such service professions.
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    No, it doesn't.

    It explains why I recommended you switch to marriage for your example of men treating women as if they owned the women's bodies. Because you would start making a little bit of sense, with an example like that in which actual parallels of some significance exist, and you wouldn't have to resort to fogging by switching between child rape and adult prostitution, you wouldn't have to bring in universals like limited options and financial need to disparage particulars like prostitution, and you wouldn't be confusing your own somewhat parochial and limited appreciation for human differences with moral absolutes relevant to the concept of "ownership".

    As far as I can tell, you regard ownership of people as bad, prostitution of people as bad, and therefore prostitution as equivalent to ownership. You are not going to get anywhere with that approach - in particular, you will make no progress toward understanding people different from yourself.
     
  19. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    A basic difference of perspective

    I think part of the problem here is a basic difference in people's views of prostitution.

    Ideally, I don't have a problem with prostitution. But idyll and reality rarely coincide, and in the case of prostitution, the two aspects generally keep miles between them.

    The reality is that the flesh trade is vicious and brutal.

    If you pay a neighborhood kid twenty bucks to mow your lawn, that's fine. But what if, at the threat of bodily harm, you then force him to paint your house? That would be a crime, right?

    If you pay a hooker fifty bucks for fellatio, that's fine. But what if you then choke her, smack her around, flip her over, and sodomize her? That's the flesh trade.

    Last year in Seattle, we had an episode in which a man befriended a twelve year-old girl. He then raped her and turned her to the market. As far as the johns were concerned, we might be able to establish the argument that a number of our neighbors are making that questions S.A.M.'s outlook and premise. But as far as the prostitute is concerned? S.A.M. has a point.

    And, furthermore, I don't think the drudgery of working in a corporate mailroom compares to the danger, fear, and loathing of the flesh trade. I think the comparison of a mundane forty-hour work week doesn't work.
     
  20. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    6,231
    I suspect you're responding to me here.

    Obviously some jobs are more dangerous and unpleasant than others. But SAM seemed to be using the reasoning that since prostitutes are "forced" to be prostitutes out of economic necessity, they aren't really consenting to have sex with their clients - even if on the face of it, it's a transaction that all parties willingly agree to. My point was that under her logic, virtually all jobs that people don't enjoy but do anyway because they need the money are being done "without the consent of the employee." There is a difference in degree of unpleasantness, sure, but that doesn't change the underlying principle of people doing things out of economic necessity that they would prefer not to. So if SAM wants to make an argument that even seemingly-consenting prostitutes aren't "really" consenting, I think she needs to come up with something else...
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2009
  21. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    This and that

    Side note: It is now legal in Nevada for men to be prostitutes.

    Frankly, it had never occurred to me that they couldn't.

    It's a strange circumstance. Dan Savage explains:

    The state of Nevada has made a change to health regulations that used to prevent men from working in Nevada's legal brothels. The Nevada State Board of Health once required regular cervical exams for all licensed prostitutes and since men don't have cervixes (cervices?), gee, men couldn't be prostitutes. At the request of a brothel owner, Bobbi Davis of the five-bed Shady Lady Ranch, Nevada's board of health has added urethral exams as alternative to cervical exams and since men do have urethras (urethrae?), gee, now men can work at Nevada's brothels.

    • • •​

    True 'nuff. I'm trying not to pick any specific fights, but I really do think that people are trying to view prostitution too simplistically. For instance:

    Few and far between are the people who wake up one day and say, "I think I want to be a prostitute." Many, if not most, come from broken homes; a good number of these are already accustomed to abusive or exploitative sex. Some are coerced by people or circumstance. Many become prostitutes to support a drug addiction.

    And you know how people often say, "I would do anything for my kids"? What is the line on that? If you're out of work, filing resumes, living out of a motel, running out of money, and looking for a way to keep your family off the street and feed the children, what would you say if someone offered you enough to get them through another night if you just open up and do the deed?

    Additionally, in S.A.M.'s corner of the world, there is a higher incidence of parents putting their kids up for rent, which generally begins a lifetime (however long or short) of prostitution.

    That resume might get a callback next week. And an interview a few days after that. And maybe you'll start work on the following Monday. Two or three weeks later, you might have a paycheck that may or may not cover necessary expenses.

    Opening your legs and letting someone come inside? That gets you paid now.

    There are myriad inroads to the flesh trade. Few of them are glamorous, fewer desirable, and even fewer yet are safe.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Savage, Dan. "Boys For Rent = Pearl Harbor for the Brothel Industry?". Slog. December 14, 2009. TheStranger.com. December 17, 2009. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/ar...or-rent-pearl-harbor-for-the-brothel-industry
     
  22. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    And some do have choices and do it anyway, for a hell of a lot more.

    There are women and men who willingly consent to sleeping with others for cash or services. Emphasis added because I think at this point, it is vital to this debate. Prostitutes willingly consent. When they do not consent, then it is rape.

    There is no ownership of anyone involved.

    I don't. It was not a career option that I wished to get into. But some do. I know of some escorts who get paid ridiculous amounts of money and they are happy doing it. They have bought their own homes, sent their children to the best schools and many are even happily married and their spouses don't have an issue with it. As an outsider, I really don't think it is my place to tell such individuals that they are lacking in morals or somehow 'bad' for what they choose to do for a living.

    I would like to ask you a question. What do you think of sex therapists who have sex with others for money for sex therapy? Do you think they are owned as well?
     
  23. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    39,397
    SAM:

    We don't accept that young children are capable of giving informed consent to sex with adults at all. That has to do with their presumed capacity to understand what is going on.

    You really can't see a difference between that and an adult who freely chooses to earn money from sex?

    That's because people on the minimum wage often have no choice but to accept low-paid jobs or live on the streets. But I've explicitly distinguished between prostitutes who freely choose the profession from those who feel they have no choice due to financial need. You keep assuming that all prostitutes are the same. They are demonstrably not.

    I guess we're done, then.

    Here's what I think: I think that you're having a kind of conditioned revulsion reaction to the idea of prostitution. It's a bit like the kind of revulsion people tend to feel when confronted by a glass full of something that looks like yellow pus. Maybe it's a banana smoothie, but you can't be sure, so you're not touching it. Maybe it's vomit.

    Now, somewhere in your upbringing, you've been fed the idea (or developed it yourself) that prostitution is a "dirty" form of sex, and anybody who does it is "unclean". The idea that somebody would willingly become a prostitute is like the idea that somebody would willingly drink a glass of pus, as far as you're concerned. So, you just can't and won't consider the possibility that prostitution is not "dirty" for other people.

    Clearly this is not something that any simple explanation will cure you of.

    How ironic.

    Not on this matter. But I know you won't take my word for it. So.

    You're making your usual mistake of lumping together a disparate group into one homogeneous blob. Some women are pushed into prostitution unwillingly. Some hate every minute of it and desperately want to get out. Some are pressured and threatened. Some feel they have no choice.

    But others enter into it freely with eyes open. They can quit any time they like, but they like the money and they don't mind the work.
     

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