Is prostitution a vice?
- Thread starter S.A.M.
- Start date
It doesn't have to be harmful if reasonable precautions are taken. I think it should be legal. The harmful aspects are due to illegality and the connection between it and drug abuse.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
No I don't think its a vice, I would classify it as a profession legal or otherwise. I think prostitution could be a vice for the customer who pays for it. The profession itself could be used to serve a vice like drug addiction for example.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
Geez SAM 20 people a day? Unless she is chained to a bed in some sleazy underground Asian brothel I don't think the average prostitute in the West is banging 20 clients a day.
Found some stats:
Women's practices
At the baseline survey, many prostitutes (40%) reported having more than five different
customers per day, and 37 per cent reported between four and five customers. At the follow-
up survey, 52 per cent reported having 0-5 customers in the last two days. Forty-nine per cent
reported more than five customers in the last two days. The most common sexual practice for
prostitutes was vaginal intercourse (97%). Very few reported other sexual practices.
Nearly half (47%) of the prostitutes at follow-up reported having worked in commercial
sex for 1-2 years, and 38 per cent had worked for less than one year.
http://htc.anu.edu.au/pdfs/Esuwill1.pdf
I was basing the figures on what I know:
So if anyone in your family wanted to take it up say, to support their expenses, you'd tell them to go for it?
http://africa.kongotimes.info/news/217/ARTICLE/1789/2009-04-22.html
So if anyone in your family wanted to take it up say, to support their expenses, you'd tell them to go for it?
Prostitution tends to erode the family unit (unless one has a wife who is a prostitute I guess) , be the subject of a host of malignant social ills (money laundering/drugs, etc, visa evasion/human trafficking, child labour/sexual engagement with minors).
Of course it fulfills a need (namely the desire men to have sex on call ... and also the need of women, who are generally in some state of social distress, to make a living).
When a need happens to be a vice, the standard response is to heavily regulate it (like they do with, say, the sale and consumption of alcohol).
Prostitution proves remarkably resistant to such regulation however ...
Of course it fulfills a need (namely the desire men to have sex on call ... and also the need of women, who are generally in some state of social distress, to make a living).
When a need happens to be a vice, the standard response is to heavily regulate it (like they do with, say, the sale and consumption of alcohol).
Prostitution proves remarkably resistant to such regulation however ...
As long as I can be her pimp, it is fine with me! 
:xctd:
:xctd:Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
SAM: I was basing the figures on what I know:
What you know is not stats for the West but for Africa which is why I said those figures of 20 people a day is not indicative of the trade in the West but in developing countries where its a completely different issue altogether. A woman in a brothel in Asia or Africa turning 20 a day for a pittance probably doesn't have too many choices if she had a choice in the profession at all. Many are sold into it by family, abducted, etc. and do it by force, in this case we cannot see this as a vice but a victimization.
SAM: So if anyone in your family wanted to take it up say, to support their expenses, you'd tell them to go for it?
Well it would probably not be in my power to stop them if someone chose prostitution as opposed to something else. But if someone in my family did choose to do such a thing I would first want to know why, after that I would then want them to be smart about how they do it if they insist on doing it. For example many girls (especially college girls) or women enter into escort services where they are more protected, make more money from a better clientele etc and are not out in the streets or working from a brothel. They supplement their income and usually leave after two years or less and enter into something else. A young woman who is over 18 is free to do with her body what she likes and I am not sure if there was anything anyone could do about it if that was a personal choice.
What you know is not stats for the West but for Africa which is why I said those figures of 20 people a day is not indicative of the trade in the West but in developing countries where its a completely different issue altogether. A woman in a brothel in Asia or Africa turning 20 a day for a pittance probably doesn't have too many choices if she had a choice in the profession at all. Many are sold into it by family, abducted, etc. and do it by force, in this case we cannot see this as a vice but a victimization.
SAM: So if anyone in your family wanted to take it up say, to support their expenses, you'd tell them to go for it?
Well it would probably not be in my power to stop them if someone chose prostitution as opposed to something else. But if someone in my family did choose to do such a thing I would first want to know why, after that I would then want them to be smart about how they do it if they insist on doing it. For example many girls (especially college girls) or women enter into escort services where they are more protected, make more money from a better clientele etc and are not out in the streets or working from a brothel. They supplement their income and usually leave after two years or less and enter into something else. A young woman who is over 18 is free to do with her body what she likes and I am not sure if there was anything anyone could do about it if that was a personal choice.
So whether prostitution is a vice or not depends on which geographical location the woman is choosing for her profession?
The number of clients she entertains? The example I gave you is of tribes where it is customary and natural for women to work as prostitutes. Its their traditional profession.
The number of clients she entertains? The example I gave you is of tribes where it is customary and natural for women to work as prostitutes. Its their traditional profession.
You tell me, whats harmful about it?
The men AND the prostitute are all fully aware of the risks involved.
I am not talking about rape or child prostitution here, obviously thats a completely different story.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
I answered this which you seem to have overlooked:
"No I don't think its a vice, I would classify it as a profession legal or otherwise. I think prostitution could be a vice for the customer who pays for it. The profession itself could be used to serve a vice like drug addiction for example."
What I was highlighting is that many women in the West can enter it as a choice or do it because they are runaways or drug addicts. There are very few cases of underground human trafficking (save eastern europe) where women are stolen and forced into the profession. If a woman is forced into the profession it is not a choice or vice but a victimization. A 'choice' as in traditions like that of the courtesans of old Europe were professionals, some became famous and rich like Veronica Franco.
Cora Pearl was an example of a professional:
"Cora Pearl was part of the demimonde, the “half-world” between respectability and prostitution inhabited by the luxury courtesans of 19th century Paris. Bewildered as to how Cora, an Englishwoman, managed to become the Queen of Paris courtesans, one of her contemporaries admitted that she was “a specimen of another race, a bizarre and astonishing phenomenon. And perhaps this is what explains her notoriety and was the cause of her prestige.”
Read more: "Famous Courtesans of the Second Empire: Cora Pearl in Paris – French Fashions and Displays | Suite101.com" - http://historicalbiographies.suite1...urtesans_of_the_second_empire#ixzz0FRBewMma&A
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
Why would she be in bed with SEVERAL men? Even prostitutes tend to have a customer at a time. If he found her in bed with several men then he should probably think something else is going on other than sex for money.
Of course I would, because if I personally care about the person and am fully aware of the risks involved with prostitution, I would have to find it a big deal
I guess you have a point, maybe it is a vice, in a way...
Hypothetically speaking, if there were no STD's, no risks of pregnancy, two consenting single adults involved, one paying the other pleasing... I would see nothing wrong with it.
(Of course the world doesnt always work so nicely...)
You made me change my stance, a little. I still think it should be legal though.
I'd say they have better options than manual labor. Where I live, it would be illegal and thus dangerous. I don't have a problem with the act itself.
