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.

Yesterday I spent the day in the GUM getting a full sexual health check as a result of finding out my partner and father of my child used prostitutes when I was pregnant. I found an 'Adultwork' account on his phone - I requested a reminder of his password by asking the website to send to his email address. And a password reminder came back. I logged in and there were all his messages booking prostitutes for sex.

He claims he used a condom. But condoms don't protect against everything. For example if he had got something like 'syphillis' my baby could have been born stillborn as a result if he'd passed it on to me.

Adultery of any form is devastating. Prostituion is worse to me due to the sheer amounts of individuals sharing sexual parts and thus diseases. It makes me sick the risk he put me and our baby at. Someone mentioned - what about the poor people who get taken advantage of working at Macdonalds. What a ridiculous statement. I worked at Macdonalds many years ago when I was a student and last I heard I was not at risk of picking up disease by flipping burgers.

Someone else also compared prostitution to accountancy. Please spare me the insult. Its well known that over half of men who visit prostitutes are not single. Choosing a profession that helps break up families is immoral and wrong. I blame both sides. The men and the prostitutes.

My life is broken as a result. I wish he'd gone into accountancy.

Solar

I am sorry, Solar

Solar that is absolutely awful. What a total shit.

I do not agree with you about the fault being equal on both sides. in your situation I would not give a flying fuck what some randomer on the Internet thought about your view on prostitutes though

Best of luck with the new baby.

Solar - That is truly terrible, I hope you find a way to get through this very sad time.

It certainly puts a abstract philosophy debate into perspective.

I do agree, TBR, though as ANO says, now isn't the time that Solar would want to think about that.

What additional perspective do you feel you've got, DrM?

How horrible for you solar.

Interestingly though, it opens up the OPs question again - would it have been better or worse (for the devastated and betrayed wife) if he had been meeting women off plenty of fish or tinder for sex and not paying them?

Nosey

It would have been utterly shitty either way.

DrMorbius, for me, this was never an "abstract philosophy debate." Because this is the world I live in, a world where my body is seen as an attractive commodity that men will pay to use. For you, it's just an intellectual argument. For me, it's about my humanity and how I and my fellow women are viewed. I live in a world where "newspapers" print pictures of women's bodies as entertainment. I live in a world where men shout offensive things to me on the street, grope me in public, call me a "whore" if I reject their advances. This isn't theory, this is practice. I live in a world where I am a woman and men rent women.

YY cailin

Of course both are to blame. My partner is to blame wholeheartedly. Wonder if the hooker knows he has herpes....guess she could have it too now.

This is my point about prostitution - its based on too many unknowns and risks.

He spent £50 for 30 minutes. That money was ours. It could have gone towards something for the baby etc. Instead, some woman, has MY hard earned money (and it is hard earned, I've lived hand to mouth in the past, I've done every crap job going, including night shifts in factories packing frozen pies) for 30 minutes with MY partner.

I now have her mobile number - perhaps I should ask what she spent it on and inform her to check her vagina for herpes lesions.

Anyone who says 'normal' adultery is worse - they need to experience that heart shuddering moment you realise your supposed loving partner chose a over used worn out vagina over you. Its like living a nightmare.

I am sorry cailindana, sometimes (often) I lack empathy. Apologies if I came across somewhat uncaring.
As for your situation I do not understand, I have a DW and DD and lots of nieces (>15) and what you describe is totally alien to me. Obviously I know of global differences (I work in the ME) but groped, called names etc in the street is horrendous!!!

Solar, if there weren't men out there like your partner willing to pay for sex then prostitution simply wouldn't exist. It's men who are there with their grubby £50 in their hand offering it to a woman who clearly has few other options in life but to risk herpes in order to get some cash.

I am really sorry for what has happened to you. It is absolutely awful. But I stand by my assertion that it was your partner in the wrong. He was the one in a relationship willing to offer another person cash in order to have use of her body. I feel sorry for the woman who is in that situation. I know you don't and I totally understand that.

here you go DrM

www.everydaysexism.com/

Here's one story
I went to a party with a boy I'd been seeing for a couple of weeks only. We hadn't been there for more than half an hour when he took me by the hand and led me to an upstairs bedroom, where he unzipped and tried to force my hand onto his genitals. There had not been any kind of sexual contact between us before this, apart from a little kissing; I was about 17, which is equivalent to 13 or 14 by today's standards! I refused to do as he wanted, and so he took me by the wrist - not the hand, notably - and dragged me downstairs, where he shouted out to his friends: 'Anyone want this girl? She won't "go".' Funnily enough, 'go' is exactly what I did, straight out of the door and that was the last he saw of me.

I've not just been groped Morbius, I was raped multiple times as a child and twice as an adult. Ask your DW tonight if anyone has ever grabbed her ass (or other part of her body) or shouted something at her in the street. I will be absolutely shocked if she says no. I know lots of women and every single one of them has been assaulted in some way. Many of them have been raped. For some women, the shouting in the street is a weekly occurrence.

This might be a real eye-opener for you.

ANd here's one re public groping:

This is a great idea. Sexism exists.

Here are just some of the more major sexist driven events in my life. I've gotten cat calls and propositions walking down streets since I was about 12, though honestly not as many as my friends would get. I've been fondled by a guy on a crowded bus when I was 14, a similar situation was repeated when I was 21. I've been followed and cornered into an ally behind an office and had my ass grabbed and propositioned by a stranger and only after repeatedly telling him I wasn't interested did he grab my ass again and then leave. It took until I was about 30 to realize that all of these things were not ok, because it's all just so normal. Moreover, I'm the fat girl so I get told more than most women I should be grateful for any sexual interest in me no matter whatever awful form it comes in, I didn't even respond to the guy on the bus when I was 14 primarily for this reason. I'd also been raped/molested by the girl next door when I was 5 when she was only about 10 that I can only imagine someone had been doing a lot worse to her.

So yeah sexism is still pretty prominent in this world and I've had a rather privileged upbringing otherwise.

x post cailin!

X-post Yonic :)

In terms of public harassment, I've been followed, cornered on a bus (though thankfully got away with the assistance of a fellow teenager who I will be forever grateful to - I dread to think how that would have ended), pushed face-first against a wall in a club while my ass was groped and forcefully kissed by a guy after I told him to stop. I can't remember how many times I've been told to "smile" or "cheer up" on the street. I've also been told to "suck my dick" and "come for a ride" (with appropriate hip action) among other things.

DrM you are blinded by the reality you choose to see. With a wife and > 15 nieces, they have come across everyday sexism for absolute certain and not unsurprisingly have not discussed it with their no doubt caring uncle/partner. I cannot think of a time where I mentioned too many of the casual sexism I have encountered in the past, it was mostly though not always, low level but frequent and it barely registers as news since most women encounter the same. Have you never seen pictures of women spread across newspapers/magazines for men's titilliation? That sounds like nonsense.

Also DrM if you live in the ME I'm sure you've seen plenty of women in burqas. Why do you think it is that women are expected to cover up from head to toe and not men?

I have met a reasonable amount of sex workers (I've worked in both advertising and web design.) All of the sex workers I have dealt with have worked out of their own homes and in most cases have managed themselves. Some of them sounded lovely and caring, some of them came across as hard and cynical, but not a single one came across as desperate or unhappy and in need of rescue.

Several that I had in depth conversations with about the industry prided themselves on their skills. Not their bedroom techniques, but their ability to put a customer at ease and deliver what the customer wants.

Sex workers tend to share information on customers who get abusive or threatening. One of the workers I knew would not take on a new client unless he gave a reference from another escort! Many workers keep a security guy with them. Those who do out calls (i.e. client's home or hotel) tend to take a driver. Most that I dealt with would only take one booking per day maximum.

As I said, my experience is with women working for themselves or sometimes for another woman manager. This experience will be completely different from someone who works the streets or who has been trafficked. It's important that we don't minimise the concerns of women who want to get out of the industry and need help to do so. However, blanket statements about "they all need saving from themselves" are insulting and very patriarchal.

In case you haven't seen it, DrM

whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/

I don't think prostitutes need saving from themselves.

But I absolutely refuse to believe that as a human being it is possible to separate yourself from your body and be ok, longterm, with people using it for their own pleasure. We know enough about human psychology to know that such dissociation is extremely damaging. A person might carry on doing the job, earning money, being ok with it, but I would be very very surprised if a person working as a prostitute for any length of time could come out of it totally mentally intact. Not with all we know about how the human mind works.