Is prostitution a vice?

[wise acre]

So Wise acre your argument is that all women or that most women who are prostitutes have been sexually abused.

Not a single time did I assert that all women were this. You assumed it for some reason. I see here you say 'or that most women...' and I suppose I should be pleased you are presenting the option. But I find it odd that this is presented as an or, when in fact I clearly stated it was not all several times.

And so? They still have made a choice to be prostitutes and as long as they are making adult decisions I think they should be supported and protected by the law until they for whatever reason decide to do something else.

The people I am not supporting are those who would think they can buy continued abuse. I definitely want the women protected.

Few women enter the trade for all their lives in the West. saying women are sexually abused and are therefore prostitutes doesn't deal with the issue at all.

Look. Given what you said to SAM, I am not sure you understand what sexual abuse can lead to in terms of behavior. One thing that both SAM and I have done is point out that prostitution is often in part the result of abuse and therefore an ongoing abuse. People who read the thread may now know this and that is important. Regardless of what legislation we have some minimal effect on.

It wont change sexual abuse nor does that perspective change women who choose the trade, its a side issue, some are and some are not, some use drugs and some do not etc.

It is not a side issue for the men who pay for the services. Or to put it another it is a non-issue for them that they are paying for women to repeat abuse, not in all cases, but in many cases. I think it is immoral to think you can pay someone to do that to themselves.

To put this in some sort of context, I think a lot of things that employers can do to their workers is immoral. In this case an employer, however temporary, who thinks because they give you money they can enter your genitals immoral to me, unless we have unless we have the kind of society that really presents viable options for everyone. Unless I really think it is a choice. I feel the same way about the way miners were treated for years by mining companies. Sure, the men had the choice of not feeding their families.

Once a woman is a prostitute what do you do? What do you suggest therapy?

I have repeatedly said I would focus on the johns and the pimps. Please don't make up suggestions for me.

I find it interesting that you would prefer to see them as victims instead of women who have made choices, even though there are women who claim that they are doing this with the fullest consent, or women who claim they were not previously abused, and I am not talking of the underage women here, I am talking about young women who are sexually active who enter the trade.

I am looking at the facts. The facts are a high % were sexually abused or otherwise abused by men. A high % were homeless before entering the trade. A high % are on drugs.

I look at this and think it is wrong that men can go out and pay them to do something that for some significant portion of these women will be a repeat of their abuse.

I am focused on the men. I do not think they have this right.

You suggest that johns are arrested for prostitution? What will happen to the income of these women who enter the trade?

The men will pay for something else with their money. The money will enter the economy in other ways and there will be options. That money does not just disappear.

The first issue is that women who choose to be prostitutes are not trafficked they are willing sex workers.

This 'willingness' is a complicated issue. I am not sure if you are aware of that or not.

These women are arrested by Khmer police because they are carrying condoms, which the police erroneously believe is a 'sign' of a prostitute. They rip them off of their jewelry and money and then keep them in jails where they are further mistreated and so of course these women complain.

None of which I support, obviously. I don't know why I should find myself having to respond to something that COULD NOT POSSIBLY be a consquence of the legislation I would like to see.

They have even protested on the streets of Phnom Penh because their brothels are being closed down somethng that is seen as foreign interference and an attempt to take away their work. This law has increased homelessness of women who are taken from the brothels and have no where to live and also no private place to ply their trade. Then there is the issue with the bar girls, many bars in Cambodia have young women, these women are not paid by the bar owner to be there but since the girls attract the men they allow them to stay. These bars have been closed down under the anti-trafficking law and its been detrimental because some of these girls are not prostitutes at all but looking for foreign boyfriends who they believe will give them a better life and occasionally do. Anway these bar owners are now labeled 'traffickers' which they are not. Most of these arrests are part and parcel of the corruption inherent in the country which is why this law doesn't work. Its an opportunity to shake down the women and now bar owners. Meanwhile the actual trafficking of women goes un-noticed. You should really watch the video because it outlines the issue from the women's perspective very well and allows them to speak for themselves and tell their stories.

And the same goes for this.

I'm done. I think you are not really responding to me, given, for example, the last third of this post, and many of the points above.

I've read what you said and I think there is a lot of merit to supporting these women and their perspectives.

Me, I am focusing on the men and what they think they have the right to buy.

I actually do not think this makes us opponents, but I am going to leave it at that.

Peace.

 

[Orleander]

Is that why its called the Vice Squad?

generally includes narcotics, alcohol (including sales to minors), prostitution, pornography and gambling.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

The people I am not supporting are those who would think they can buy continued abuse. I definitely want the women protected.

Look. Given what you said to SAM, I am not sure you understand what sexual abuse can lead to in terms of behavior. One thing that both SAM and I have done is point out that prostitution is often in part the result of abuse and therefore an ongoing abuse. People who read the thread may now know this and that is important. Regardless of what legislation we have some minimal effect on.

It is not a side issue for the men who pay for the services. Or to put it another it is a non-issue for them that they are paying for women to repeat abuse, not in all cases, but in many cases. I think it is immoral to think you can pay someone to do that to themselves.

To put this in some sort of context, I think a lot of things that employers can do to their workers is immoral. In this case an employer, however temporary, who thinks because they give you money they can enter your genitals immoral to me, unless we have unless we have the kind of society that really presents viable options for everyone. Unless I really think it is a choice. I feel the same way about the way miners were treated for years by mining companies. Sure, the men had the choice of not feeding their families.

I look at this and think it is wrong that men can go out and pay them to do something that for some significant portion of these women will be a repeat of their abuse.

I am focused on the men. I do not think they have this right.

The men will pay for something else with their money. The money will enter the economy in other ways and there will be options. That money does not just disappear.

This 'willingness' is a complicated issue. I am not sure if you are aware of that or not.

Peace.

Excuse me if you feel I am mis-representing your position. Here I will explain this way because we are not opponents.

The Johns are not going to prostitutes thinking 'ah here is a woman who was sexually abused let me go abuse her again'. They have their own reasons for seeking out this service and its not a matter of them using their money differently. The women are their plying their trade so its the women who are presenting the service in the first place. In other words the women create the market with their presence and willingness not the men.

I understand that some women have had prior experiences that cause certain behaviours, that could be said for everyone to whatever degree. When I say its besides the point, a side issue, I mean that it doesn't do anything either way to change the situation, the acknowledgment wont change women going into the trade nor men seeking the service. That is why I said its a side issue.

When a man seeks a prostitute he isn't creating the situation, the offer is what creates the situation. Much like with drugs, if the pusher isn't there then the clients won't be either regardless of what is desired. It in not a 'right' that men take its something that is being offered in exchange for something else (money). Rape is a situation where someone takes what they have no right to have but most of these johns are not rapists. So I am saying there is a distinction here, for example we can say no one has a right to beat another human being with a whip, but we will make a distinction when someone goes to a dominatrix and pays to be whipped., in that case she isn't abusing him at all but fulfilling a desire. Same with the prostitute, she is offering her body, time and companionship in exchange for money so its not a right the man takes but something given and she gives repeatedly to clients she accepts, because unless she has a pimp she isn't working for the client she is contracting her time with a client so he's not like an employer or anything. If you think that its basically immoral for her to offer and him to buy the service then fine, that's a personal opinion. If we take away the johns we take away the source of income for the woman. I know you are focused on the men and say they don't have the right but its the women who are giving them the right.

The only thing I don't understand because its not clear is this:

"This 'willingness' is a complicated issue. I am not sure if you are aware of that or not."

The only way to gage willingness on a free person, and by free I mean someone who isn't being forced by another person, is through what they state as their desire and wishes. So if a woman says I want to do what I am doing (for whatever reason) then we have to submit that she has made a choice. If you want to say she isn't making a choice she just thinks shes making a choice because of some psychological glitch imposed from some childhood abuse again I would say that it still doesn't change the situation unless she chooses to self-analyze through therapy. We cannot be each other's mindreaders and know motive all the time.

 

[nirakar]

Women have some economic disadvantages when compared to men therefore I think it is unfair to thwart women from maximizing the economic value of their attractiveness to men by denying to women the right to sell their permission for men to be intimate with them for a period of time.

One economic disadvantage of women is their careers get side tracked by their greater commitment to their families. Another is the reduced prevalence of the relentless aggressive drive to win that is so common in "successful" men. Another is the stigmatization of female aggression. Another is the various lingering affects of patriarchy which I believe arose partly as a system to stop men from killing each other in squabbles over access to women and partly as a system that codifies letting men have their way because men are physically stronger therefore it was not necessarily safe for children, women and old people to not let men in their physical prime have their way at all times. The codification of letting men have their way was necessary to reduce the undermining of codification for property rights. This whole bit about law and order and rights and the need for permission was a restriction on the instinctual understanding that the best fighter gets to take whatever they want. In human at the beginnings of codified culture denying the best fighters all percs would have led to a rebellion against all social codes more complex than the "law of the jungle".

We can try to achieve a higher happiness for both men and women now because over the last 50,000 years our ability at impulse control and social code learning have improved.

The ban on prostitution probably came about partly because allowing prostitution would undermine the stories told to create support for the social codes enforcing marriage and monogamy. Marriage and monogamy stop men from killing each other and creating anarchy over the emotions that their attractions and feelings for women create. Marriage also helps to insure a more equal distribution of resources to children. Having some man loyal to the child is better for the child than having no man loyal to the child.

Wives and mothers will never be happy with their men giving resources to prostitutes rather than to their wives and children.

Then their is Syphilis which was a perfectly good reason to Ban prostitution and promiscuity all by itself. It seems harsh to stone the adulterers to death but whole villages could have been wiped out by Syphilis if promiscuity was tolerated.

It seemed that thanks to antibiotics STDs were no longer a valid reason to ban promiscuity then along came AIDS. Then came the the medicine for AIDS. Now the wealthy can afford to be promiscuous but poor villages around the world might be better off stoning adulterers to death rather than to allow prostitutes and truck drivers to infect each other and allow truck drivers to infect their wives and their neighbors daughter and thereby infect all the sexual partners of their wives and their neighbors daughter with a deadly disease like AIDS. The medicine to stay alive with AIDS medicine is unaffordable for the majority of the World's people the world's governments and charities are only willing to pay for a minority of the poor who have the disease to receive medicine.

AIDS won't be the last deadly STD to threaten mass death so at least for the poor this may be too soon to end the bans on prostitution and promiscuity. The poor may need stonings and ridiculous religious doctrine just to scare them enough so that their communities do not get wiped out by STDs.

If we apply a little game theory to this we can see that for a community to survive not everybody needs to be monogamous. If 80% are Monogamous the community should do OK. Their are certain Darwinian advantages that go to the polygamous. It might be correct Darwinian strategy to be secretly polygamous while still hypocritically condemning and persecuting the promiscuous who get caught.

But all these anxieties and phobias and confusion and greed around sex is taking something that is like a gift to humans and turning into a source of suffering. Maybe we should try consciously constructing better understanding of sex and social codes for managing sex instead of continuing to pass on to our children the chaos, phobias and ignorant cultures that we unconsciously adopted from the past.

In this Prostitution Drama the characters in order of importance are:

1: the Prostitutes
2: the Johns
3: the Pimps
4: the Wives and girlfriends of those Johns who have wives and girlfriends
5: the friends and families of the Prostitutes
6: the friends and families of the Johns
7: the friends and families of the pimps
8: Sexaphobes and nonmonogamyaphobes
9: People who live and work near wear prostitutes do business
10: law enforcement
11: everybody else
12: libertarian ideologues

The Internet has changed prostitution. It allows Johns to network with other Johns, prostitutes and pimps in a much less intimidating environment for the Johns. The internet has also vastly increased the Marketing of prostitution. These changes have increased the number of Johns and moved a lot of prostitution off the streets and into hidden places. This in turn has increased the opportunity for pimps to use kidnapped slave labor which is the most immoral form of prostitution.

Law enforcement will not be able to stop the trend of pimps increasingly using slave labor. The only approach that I can think of to stop this trend is to mass market moral appeals to the whole population or maybe specifically advertise on porn websites that Johns should turn in Pimps that they suspect of using slave labor to law enforcement.

I think legalizing prostitution would reduce slave labor in prostitution lowering the profits for slave owning pimps. Legal prostitution would increase the quantity and quality of free prostitutes thereby driving down prices to Johns which would drive down profits for pimps and decrease the return on their risky illegal slave owning enterprise that may wind up getting them thrown in Jail. Pimps would find another business if society could change the risk to reward ratio of their business.

Legalizing might not have the effect that I expect in reducing slave labor prostitution. If legalizing prostitution lowers the price of prostitution then more people will become Johns which will create a need for more prostitutes. I think these additional prostitutes will be free prostitutes but this will only be the case if significant effort is made to crack down on slave owning pimps.

There have been garment factories in the USA staffed by slaves and I heard local rumors that a particular Chinese landscaping company in the SF Bay Area was staffed by slaves. Slaves can be in any business and slave owners can always find ways to rationalize slave owning. But the high revenues produced by slave sex workers makes this business particularly vulnerable to the practice of slavery.

Next question: does prostitution damage the prostitutes?
I have read web sites were ex-prostitutes discuss this question. They don't agree with each other. They do agree that being a street working prostitute is damaging. They lean towards saying being a prostitute is damaging. I suspect that being a prostitute is damaging.

I have never used a prostitute but there was a time in my life when I had contact with street working prostitutes, and their pimps and Johns in San Francisco's red light district. I hated the pimps. Many of the Johns made me practically sick just to have contact with them. The prostitutes did not disgust me but they seemed seriously damaged. These women tended to have drug problems and they were probably damaged before they entered the business.

I knew one woman who was a classical musician and then became a stripper for extra money. I don't know if she was prostituting also but her vibe really went down hill while she was a stripper. She seemed to recover when she quit the business.

I am not sure if humans are designed to be able to have sex with people they don't want to have sex with without being damaged. Many of us do jobs we don't like and any job can be destructive if we are working with creeps. The Boxing shown on the other page does seem like it might be as sick and destructive as prostitution. Muhammad Ali seemed spiritual, psychologically healthy, funny and classy despite boxing so maybe prostitutes can be spiritual, psychologically healthy, funny and classy despite prostituting.

My suspicion is that most women can not be prostitutes without it ripping them up psychologically. There might be some women who can do this job without being damaged. The stigma of prostitution might be a big part of the problem. The psychological disgustingness of most of the Johns might be part of the problem.

Back to Darwin I can see why men might be wired for meaningless casual sex. I can see why women might be wired not to have meaningless casual sex. I hear more and more women saying they like meaningless casual sex but I don't hear women saying that they want meaningless casual sex with people that they are not attracted to on some level. I try to imagine if my job was to have sex with 80 year old women and I am not sure if I could do that job. When I was a teenager a long time ago a guy wanted to pay me to have sex with him and I could not do that job.

I don't think prostitution should be banned to protect the prostitutes. Probably there should be an age limit but women can figure out for themselves whether prostitution is something they want to try and whether it is making them sick and not worth the money. probably there should be health inspections and licenses for both the prostitutes and the johns.

Prostitution should not be done in secret from the wives and girlfriends. This is not fair to the wives and girlfriends. If the wives and girlfriends don't want to tolerate their men going to prostitutes they should not be duped with secrecy. Therefore every john's name and photo should be posted on the internet. The downside of this policy is that it would create a demand for covert illegal prostitution even after prostitution has been legalized.

The friends and family of the prostitutes, pimps and johns become victims of prostitution if the prostitution damages their people. It might damage the people less if it was legalized and regulated.

The street working prostitution business definitely damages the neighborhoods that it operates in. The Johns pimps and prostitutes attract drug dealers because they tend to be drug and alcohol users. The drug dealers attract drug dealer wannabes and drug users. Drug users and drug dealer wannabes steal cars and mug people walking on the sidewalks. Drugs also need to be legalized because the side affects of the illegality of the drugs is causing more problems than the drug use is.

Law enforcement does what they are told to do. There jobs would probably bee more pleasant if drugs and prostitution were legal but less of them would have jobs.

Sexaphobes and nonmonogamyaphobes are going to feel traumatized will believe civilization is being destroyed if prostitution is legalized or even if the stigma against prostitution gets weaker.

The larger population that has no connection to prostitution gets to decide if Prostitution gets legalized and they get to decide whether prostitution is a vice because they are the majority and the majority forms public opinion. Prostitution is a vice if it hurts the majority. Prostitution hurts the majority if it hurts a minority without helping the majority. Prostitution does not help the majority. Prostitution does hurt a minority. Therefore prostitution is a vice. But this vice can not be eradicated. We have tried. Even the Taliban could not stamp out prostitution. Prostitution is a vice but overeating is also a vice. Prostitution is a vice but the illegalization of prostitution is a bigger vice that causes more problems than prostitution does. The reason that prostitution can't be regulated and managed to make it less harmful is because it is illegal and therefore done in secret. But really it is not done in secret. Law enforcement does not prioritize fighting prostitution so it is obvious on the street and on the internet.

I say end the stigma on sex including prostitution and promiscuity and homosexuality but increase the stigma on unsafe sex as much as possible while not stigmatizing sex outside of monogamous marriage even though nonmonogamous sex is by definition unsafe.

Prostitution is a vice but it should not be stigmatized.

 

[S.A.M.]

Thats a great post nirakar

Therefore every john's name and photo should be posted on the internet

I'll agree to that, the major problem with prostitution are the unsuspecting victims.

 

[John99]

 

[John99]

hmm. thats weird, i was responding to jayzons post,.

 

[nirakar]

Thanks Sam.

 

[ili]

Prostitution is a profession-- the oldest one.

It is equivalent to a soldier. One dies and the other sighs.

 

[swarm]

it's a dreadful way to make money, why sell your body? can't you go and get a decent job?

Is that really any different?

 

[scott3x]

it's a dreadful way to make money, why sell your body? can't you go and get a decent job?

Is that really any different?

Who's defining decent ? With the few jobs outside of the family that I've had, I've ended up leaving or being fired, essentially because I didn't like some aspect of the job from a moral perspective and either essentially didn't follow 'direction' and was fired or didn't like the direction and left. The only job outside of my family that I've held on to for a year is a volunteer position; I've found that there, atleast, I can do what I think is right (I volunteer at a food bank). Atleast up until now.

I haven't personally talked to any hookers about their choice of profession but I firmly believe that if they felt they could get a better job, they'd be out looking for it; perhaps some are, but if they're still working the streets or at an escort agency, it seems clear that they haven't found it. I do remember reading 2 stories from past hookers; in one story, her pimp was clearly abusive; she finally reported him to police and that was that.

In the other case, she worked at an escort agency and apparently liked it, up until she dealt with a violent client, whereupon she bailed.

I remember hearing a story, I believe from the Netherlands, where there was a nurse who was a sex therapist or sex surrogate I suppose; basically, she'd have sex with old men who really didn't have much prospects elsewhere and it would be paid for as a medical service. I think I'd appreciate that type of a service in the event that I become an old man like that myself ;-).

 

[swarm]

Generally the ratio of old men to old women is very favorable.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

I don't think he would be interested in those

 

[swarm]

Is prostitution a vice?
It depends on how much you charge.