Prostitution and adultery

[TwentyBore]

Ethical question:

I have a question on the matters of prostitution and adultery which is interesting me and perturbing me at the same time.

Why is it that various aspects of prostitution are criminalised whereas no aspects of adultery are illegal? This disconnect makes no sense to me at all and strikes me as very unfair to women, especially to working girls.

Here is the logic:

• Adultery involves (inter alia) breaking promises, lying, cheating, wrecked families and utter misery.

• Prostitution involves the exchange of agreed services for cash between consenting adults and there is therefore a degree of honesty about it completely lacking in adultery (provided there is no coercion or trafficking involved of course).

Were I a newcomer to this world, I should conclude that adultery should be punished far more harshly than any form of prostitution.

The criminalisation of aspects of prostitution seem to place the working girls involved in a far worse position socially than any adulterer, but do working girls really do as much damage as adulterers? I conclude that they do not and for any working girl to get a criminal record for their profession strikes me as manifestly unfair to them.

In short, I regard it absurd to punish any form of prostitution without first punishing all forms of adultery.

I would be very interested in a polite and respectful debate.

Adultery usually involves willing participants. When a man goes to see a prostitute he is taking advantage of his economic position. She wouldnt be having sex with him if she wasnt being paid ergo she is an unwilling participant. You seem to have overlooked this OP

Both parties in adultery are consenting adults and not committing a crime. The 'punishment' I suppose is divorce by the innocent party.

Nobody has been coerced into having sex in this situation.

Prostitution can involve coercion, when money is exchanging hands it is hardly an equal relationship. Even if a prostitute agrees to engage in certain sexual acts, he/she is only doing so in exchange for money or drugs.

Prostitution also involves the very ugly face of pimps who absolutely should be criminalised.

I thought that most clients were married so therefore it is adulterous .

In some Arabic states adultery is illegal. It's usually the women (even the unmarried participant) that get stoned. The UN argue for the decriminalisation of adultery as it's enforcement is typically oppressive of women.

The difference as someone said above is that adultery is usually consensual. Given that families other than 1 husband and 1 wife are now socially acceptable (eg. single parents, unmarried parents, gay parents), the social imperative to criminalise adultery is virtually nil.

Rationally, you could only criminalise adultery it if the starting point was that marriage was inherently so objectively socially important that there was a strong social reason to make acts that interfered with the stablility of marriage illegal. That is not where current society sits.

Conversely, there are powerful social and public policy reasons to make prostitution illegal - the protection of vulnerable women who may be coerced into prostitution by men or forced into it for financial reasons and sexual disease risks. There is also an argument that buying sex in itself is socially harmful and should be banned.

However, prostitution is not illegal in the UK in general terms; it's only running a brothel and public soliciting that is illegal. A private transaction of money for sex is not against the law.

I do think adultery is worse than paying for sex, that said I would never be with a man who had ever paid for sex.

With what others have said, please remember these women are not forced into prostitution, some are, but OP was talking about those who make a choice. We cannot call them victims, in doing so we are trying to rationalise a choice they made because we don't like it. I have no problem with somebody who wants to earn money that way but I know I couldn't. Saying it is forced is the same as saying a woman who marries for money or only dates men with a stable income is objectified and had no choice in her marriage simply because she wanted stability over romance. It happens every day and is an acceptable norm that women like a man with a good income, it doesn't mean she is an unwilling participant in the marriage.

My response isn't as educated as others but I think there would be evidential problems in criminalising adultery. Too difficult to prove or too easy to prove if it wasn't happening. Also how would you define the offence... Would it extend to an emotional affair. Legally, I think, beset by problems. Also, marriage is a contract therefore the proper remedy when it is broken eg by adultery is through financial penalty I.e. Division of assets.

There is usually coercion involved in prostitution so it not usually an act between consenting adults. Paying for sex is not illegal - its the associated offences that are illegal. I think it's unhelpful to describe people as "working girls" and having a "profession". It's neither and they are victims.

> There is usually coercion involved in prostitution

Have you got a cite for that? Some sort of research etc.?

There is usually coercion involved in prostitution

I don't know statistics on the subject but, apart from high-class call girls, between people trafficking, drug addiction, or just trying to feed their children in those parts of the world where there is no social safety net, I would see prostitutes as very vulnerable human beings who are usually working for someone else.

Ditto, nobody in school decides they'd like to be a prostitute as a career. It's something that's a last resort.

Do you think both adultery and prostitution should be illegal, OP?

Or should they both be legal?

Under the circumstances you're talking about, with no coercion etc, then adultery is worse. As you say, broken promises.

As it actually is here and now, the reality is that both are generally very destructive. I forget how the Swedes handle it but their model is supposed to be about the best for dealing with it, iirc. The Netherlands used to be good but trafficking has destroyed the rather better model that worked here, as far as I'm aware (don't know any prostitutes here, whereas I did a few in the UK some years ago).

Prostitution itself isn't illegal in the UK, it's activities round it such as soliciting and running a brothel.

90-95% of street prostitutes in the UK have drug or alcohol addiction or both, and they're controlled by pimps. So I don't agree street prostitutes are making a free choice. Trafficked women aren't making a free choice. Teenagers groomed into the trade aren't making a free choice.

So then you're left with a bunch of escorts and high class prostitutes who are.

The idea that legalisation leads to happier, safer prostitutes is a myth. If you look at Holland and Germany, it has simply led to an explosion in trafficking and organised crime; illegal prostitution has snowballed, as it makes sense for crooks to run prostitution rackets in countries where the trade itself is legal. It has not led to prostitutes registering themselves with the state as anticipated because a) many women don't want to have it known they're in the business and b) registration means they have to pay tax.

Personally I think it's the punters who should be criminalised, not the prostitutes, as per the Swedish model where it is illegal to buy sex but not to sell it.

> Ditto, nobody in school decides they'd like to be a prostitute as a career. It's something that's a last resort.

This is a very emotive point, but the same is true of accounting.

> If you look at Holland and Germany, it has simply led to an explosion in trafficking and organised crime; illegal prostitution has snowballed

Again: Citation? Research? Article?

GrumpleMe asks:

Do you think both adultery and prostitution should be illegal, OP?
Or should they both be legal?

Good question. Thanks.

Suggested answer:

Adultery is worse than prostitution. It is so common that making it unlawful is unworkable. The matter can only be dealt with in the civil courts.

Should we outlaw prostitution and fill up our jails with clients and prostitutes? No, it would be a waste of taxpayers' money. Should their activities be legal? Yes, but remembering that the concepts of legality and morality are not linked easily. That is to say there are many lawful acts which might not be consistent with one's own ideas of right and wrong.

Footnote:

I would say that traffickers and anyone involved with forcing women into prostitution should feel the full force of the law in the criminal courts. To me, such crimes are an analogy of rape.

Prostitutes and clients, where neither side has clear compulsion to act, should be dealt with by civil courts where there are cases to answer (eg in the negligent transmission of disease, in the failure to settle agreed fees).

Prosecuting clients but not prostitutes does not seem equitable though. The Swedish model seems profoundly unjust to both men and women. Here is the logic: Imagine that you have a DS who finds himself tempted beyond belief by a beautiful and attractive prostitute. Imagine that in a moment of weakness DS pays for sexual services and is caught and charged for his crimes. Imagine what a criminal record means in practice for DS for the rest of his life. Imagine what you might then feel about the beautiful temptress who, unlike DS, has no case to answer. Again, such laws serve to undermine prostitutes and make them figures of hatred since they will inevitably be blamed for ruining DS at no risk to themselves.

Final thought: inciting someone to murder, steal or to exhibit racial hatred is rightly a crime; it would be inconsistent not to apply that logic in the case of a prostitute tempting a potential client. So laws brought in to punish clients without the symmetry of punishing the prostitute fail to weigh evenly in the balances of justice. If we want to protect the uncoerced prostitute, the cost is to leave the clients alone.

Err, so in your world OP, how do you define adultery?
Do both parties have to be married? Or just one of them? Or both cohabiting with others? Or in long term relationships?

I'm not sure that the relationships board is the right place for your agenda. But you knew that when you posted, didn't you ?

My husband left me for the OW in Aug but he also told me he had been sleeping with prostitutes for two years (and other women he had met on plenty of fish.com).

The one that causes me the most pain is the OW because emotions are involved. I'm angry and disgusted with the other stuff but the thought that he got emotionally involved with someone else hurts like nothing else.

In the case of a prostitute tempting a potential client? What a load of self serving twaddle. Brain or dick?

haha omg poor "ds" being tempted by the seductive beautiful prostitute. Poor men, to live in this world constantly lured by sexual female predators.

What world is this OP? It never works that way irl.

A man > Me got boner. Me want a woman who will do me. Me pay for pussy as a wank wont do and I don't have the bother with dealing with a whole womsn with like, needs and feelings of her own and junk.

That is how your 'ds' ends up paying for sex.

It is immoral because the majority of women only sell sex in desperation.

At least in adultary two equal people consent to the act and are both complicit in the consequences.

In paid for sex, the woman is exploited and used by the man. Every time.

It isn't illegal to be a prostitute. It is illegal to buy sex. We criminalise the person buying sex. If someone is paying for sex that is coercion. That is why it is and should be illegal to purchase sex.
Adultery is consensual sex. It is also a personal issue between people in relationships. I don't think it should be illegal to have consensual sex.
Some people have open relationships would that be illegal?
I think government involvement in people's personal relationships would be terrible.

The Swedish model makes the purchase of sex illegal, but not the selling of it. The only problem I have with that is that both sides of the transaction should be illegal. Otherwise it's like legalising drug dealing and making use illegal. It's clear that it's the dealers that perpetuate the problem, and even spread it. If the supply wasn't there the demand would soon fizzle out. The sooner the laws are brought up to date in the 21st century the better. I don't understand why we have to wait so long.

"It is immoral because the majority of women only sell sex in desperation."

But many people (the majority I would think) only work in Mcdonalds [or substitute any shitty low-paid job] in desperation. What are doing to free these poor slaves?

As PP have said, people don't choose prostitution as a career because it's degrading and dehumanising. That's why it's so lucrative, it has to be to compensate for the damage it does psychologically and emotionally.
If women actually enjoyed prostituting themselves, they would be happy to do if for the minimum wage instead of working in retail. They don't, they do it when they are desperate, or full of self loathing to the point where being abused for money seems acceptable.

OP who would be punished? The adulterer or the person who they committed adultery with, who may be single, or both? I'm not sure you are seeing this clearly. Presumably your married partner has been unfaithful to you?