5 questions for people who advocate legal prostitution

dad

Nope still clueless...give me another clue

So, would you care to venture an opinion on why men don't offer up their orifices for penetration, when they're in need of a quick buck?

When my kids were little I once took them across a bridge to a tiny park by a river. I thought it would be nice but I had not been there before. After walking into the area and seeing what was littered on the ground, in the bushes and by the riverbank, I took them by the hand and marched us out of there just as fast as the youngest one could walk, which was still not fast enough for me.

Can you speculate what I found there and what the place was used for and how that unfortunate experience answers much of your question?

I do think the whole situation is getting worse, and not better though.

I was reading an article recently about the rise in women selling 'personal' interactions via webcam, where they entice punters into a private chat room, and then once in, do what the punter wants via video, for a fee.

The bonus side of this is that you don't have to physically touch someone who's so unappealing to you, that the only way you'll engage with them is for money. And so it's obviously a lot safer - no risk of GBH, gagging, tearing, STIs, pregnancy of course, etc, etc.

But the overall picture shows that the demand for sex from men is only increasing, thanks mainly to the internet.

I know some people don't like my idea that because men and women come at sex from such vastly different vantage points, it possibly goes some way towards explaining why men (as a group) feel able to buy sex.

It's fine if you disagree. But the only way we will understand why so many men - across countries, cultures, religions, upbringings, pretty much everything - feel comfortable and able to buy women's bodies for their sexual use, is if we try to understand what is going on their heads.

DWH, for example, sees mutual desire only as an ideal. That instead of trying to tackle that from perspective of teaching (Christ... ) men about consent, we should instead make it easier to access and use prostitutes. This is really enlightening. There's probably a zillion and one reasons why men feel able and comfortable having sex with a person whose consent they have to buy. I think we need to understand those reasons if there's ever any hope of eradicating prostitution, because I honestly see it getting a whole lot worse, not better.

Good point, DWH. I have thought before that one of the 'moral' dimensions to anti-sex-work thinking is this idea that it is women's job to prevent men having sex, as much as possible, and that there is something morally wrong with making it easy to encounter a willing partner.

So, would you care to venture an opinion on why men don't offer up their orifices for penetration, when they're in need of a quick buck?

What else did you learn DWH?

That some people desperately require prostitutes to be as unhappy, as endangered and as broken as possible so they can forgive what they do. For some no environment, where a prostitute might genuinely feel it was 'tolerable' plying her trade, can be allowed to exist either in their mind or in reality. Empowerment within prostitution is undesirable, only rescue from it. The alternative would be to hate prostitutes, apparently, for their services to patriarchy and its attendant ills.

Funny, isn't it, how the compromise is never a man who wants to have sex not having sex when there isn't a woman who wants to have it with him?

They don't see what I, and presumably other feminists, see - that they're buying someone's consent, who would otherwise not be in the slightest bit willing to give it, i.e. they're essentially raping someone

I think that depends on whether the woman is willing to do it or being made to do it.

If I choose to allow a man to have sex with me in exchange for money, I see that as my business and not as rape. If a woman is in a position where she feels it's her only option (or indeed if it is her only option), I see that as everyones business. I think decriminalising the industry would be a step forward, not a step backwards. You are never, in our lifetime anyway, going to stop it - the least we, as society, can do is make it as safe as possible and you cannot do that when it is illegal.

Yup, because trying to make things better is just stupid, isn't it?

Well, it is when what you're trying to make better is male entitlement.

This was interesting though Couples would share equal passions for one another, a couple happy only to drink tea with each other living next to a couple happy shagging each other from dawn to dusk.

So.... if a man thinks his wife isn't 'shagging' him as often as he likes, that's a justification for paying a woman to override her ability to consent, so that he can wank into her?

Nope, no feelings of entitlement there at all.

And er, yes DadWasHere, is it really that astonishing that people think that sex should always be mutually desired? Radical notion, I know, but it's based on the idea that human beings should have equal relationships rather than coercive, abusive ones.

Astonishing? No, not at all. The world would be a marvellously great place if people just acted better, prostitution would not exist, nor smokes, nor grog, nor abuse of any kind. Mutual desire, wonderful, as it should be. Couples would share equal passions for one another, a couple happy only to drink tea with each other living next to a couple happy shagging each other from dawn to dusk. Who could argue with that? But in absence of earth actually being Fantasyland its necessary to bring thinking down from the clouds into grubby human streets and make compromises that do the least damage.

Today I learned I think prostitution is much the same as stacking shelves.

Some people would rather suck dicks than scrub toilets.

That sentence isn't entirely accurate though, as it's not some people, that we're talking about.

It's actually really just women (rent and lady boys, who service men, aside), who would 'rather suck dicks than scrub toilets'.

Why don't men, when they find themselves down and out, financially screwed, needing to fund a drug habit, etc, etc, take to sucking dicks over scrubbing loos? Oh, hang on, that's a woman's job too; OK - suck dicks over [demeaning, menual job of choice] for a living?

Men would rather do pretty much ANYTHING - no matter how grim and soul-destroying - than suck dicks or be penetrated. Even for £€$£€$....

I think that flurry of posts has put paid to DWH's idea that being a prostitute is on a par with stacking shelves!

What I would like to know, and this is probably a whole other thread, is the effect of the existence of prostitution on the general non prostituted female population at large.

It is fundamentally, morally wrong that the DWP sanction anyone for refusing a job that conflicts with their own morals/worldview/health. ISTR there was a thread, or maybe even a case reported in the news or something, about a longterm vegan being threatened with benefit sanctions for refusing to take a job in a meat packing plant.
(Does anyone know, BTW, if you might be sanctioned for eg refusing to work for a legalized loan shark like Wonga or Provident on the grounds that you consider their business practices immoral?).

Some people would rather suck dicks than scrub toilets. Some people would rather work on a maggot farm than do phone sex. Some people would hate to work with children, or with the elderly; not many people would pick undertaking as their dream career. Some would absolutely never take a job that involved selling or serving or handling alcohol.
Every single job should generate a living wage, for starters. And if your job involves out-of-the-ordinary levels of danger, be that from clients (this does not just apply to sex workers: anyone who has to deal directly with people who may be very angry, very frightened or mentally unwell in a way that makes them aggressive is dealing with a higher level of risk than many other jobs) or from working conditions (emergency services, working in extreme weather conditions or whatever) employers should make the job as safe as possible and pay a premium for the increased risks.

I'm more than a little that it comes as a shock to someone to discover that sex which isn't mutually desired, is tainted.

Understanding a little bit more of the mindset of a prostitute user/rapist....

Just checking you saw that I was quoting dadwashere and the question wasn't for me Basil?

Also I agree that we need to accept sex work isn't the same or Jobseekersplus will start putting women and men on the poll or in brothels.

Not many people consent to work for free that I know of, why is sex a special case? No money must change hands? Sex cant be 'work' and must always be mutually desired otherwise its tainted?.

Genuine question Dad. If you were desperate to feed your children and the only way you could feed them due to not being able to find work for whatever reason, was literally to bend over and have a man fuck you or suck some penis that you had no idea where it had been.

You can't see the difference between that and cleaning toilets? WHen you were down the free clinic checking that you hadn't got AIDS or herpes you would still rate that with any other job?

nope-what she appears to be saying is that since humans have a concious awareness of their instincts they suppress them (due to socialization) without which men would be rapists, assailants and theives.

So Garlic-are you saying that biologically man is rapist, assaulter and thiever-only kept in check by socialisation? Ever heard of altrusim as an evolutionary concept?