Sugar daddy parties - "It's almost an inspirational thing."

[fewcloudy]

At least it is according to the last line of this article.

www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/15431565

Can't wait...

This kind of arrangement is not as old as humanity.

It's only as old as patriarchy.

Humanity existed for centuries before patriarchy

Skanky - sordid, lacking in dignity, lacking in integrity, contemptible.

That would be my interpretation of the word skanky.

The problem with saying this is OK because everyone consents, is that you are saying that hideous old men have the right to fuck beautiful young women who don't want to fuck them, as long as they pay them enough to overcome their repulsion.

This is wrong. Nobody has the right to intrude on the body of another human being who doesn't want them there, however much they pay them.

Giving men the message that it's OK to shag anyone who doesn't really want them to shag them, is a very bad message to give men. It is a very low aspiration to give men - one day you might have enough money to buy someone who would otherwise not touch you with a bargepole. I think men deserve better messages than that, they need to be treated as human beings, not monsters.

Really? What society didn't have women entering into relationships where they exchanged sex for material or economic security, in some form or another?

Every society prior to patriarchy?

Prior to that, sex was something human beings did with each other because they wanted to.

I know, I know, silly idea.

Anyway, am off to bed, so not being rude if I don't reply tonight. Good night.

Eleanor - I doubt we're going to agree, although in a sense we already do. I already said I wouldn't want to have one of these "relationships". I personally find the whole thing pretty off. But really that's all you're talking about - personal emotional value judgments about it. Of course we all have the right to react emotionally to various ways of doing things however we do, including being repulsed and choosing not to do them.

At the same time, we live in a pluralistic society where other people will feel differently and make other choices.

The problem with saying this is OK because everyone consents, is that you are saying that hideous old men have the right to fuck beautiful young women who don't want to fuck them, as long as they pay them enough to overcome their repulsion. This is wrong. Nobody has the right to intrude on the body of another human being who doesn't want them there, however much they pay them.

Well really, the old men (I don't think your blanket application of "hideous" to all of them is either helpful or justified by the information in the article) have the "right" to fuck them because they have consented to fuck them. Where such consent exists, and is truly freely given without coercion of any kind, there's no basis for accusing the men of "intruding" on anything.

What you're exploring is the question of why they've consented. We're assuming that in most cases at least, they'll be consenting not because of sexual reasons themselves, but because of something else that they can get in exchange for the sex. You think there's something wrong with this, although you seem to attach all the blame for it to the men rather than the women, and I'm not sure why.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with it (in the sense of "wrong" that is anybody else's business, as opposed to what I simply don't want for myself). It's their bodies and their money, and up to them what they do with them. Your asserting the existence of a "right" about it doesn't make it so.

Every society prior to patriarchy?

Example?

Not trying to be disingenuous, it's just that "patriarchy" - if I understand the term correctly - extends at least as far back as everything I know about ancient history.

I've read about various White Goddess-type pre-patriarchal theories but many of them have been largely discredited, and I'm not sure we actually have the information to say that societies existed where this type of exchange didn't occur.

Anyway this is kind of off the point. I was responding to the statement that this is a symptom of "the last 60 years". That's clearly ridiculous when you consider how old these kinds of arrangements are - even if it's not strictly true that they're as old as humanity itself.

You've been reading the wrong books, then. Try some that talk about the origin of private property. Turns out it's closely related to oppression of women. Don't think 'individual', 'personal' choice is a very useful way of analysing the social/economic structures that create prostitution.

I think it's interesting to see how people simply assume that the exchange of sex for shelter, money etc., is a "natural" human arrangement.

It is only natural, in a society which a) imagines that women don't want sex for its own sake rather than a means of exchange and b) oppresses women and doesn't automatically include them as part of the tribe or kinship group. Women didn't need to trade sex for shelter, they were part of the kinship group and as such, automatically had shelter, food etc. - they were not some vague inferior "other" members of the tribe and plus they did most of the food gathering anyway, the patriarchal notion of men going off to hunt and bringing home food, has long been discredited.

As for my views being a personal, emotional value judgement, that's only correct in that every political position is an emotional decision by the person who holds in, based on their value judgements. My views are a political stance based on the belief that human beings should behave decently to each other and if you penetrate somebody else's body when they don't want you to, then you are not behaving decently and society should stop you because the bodily integrity of a human being is one of the basics of human dignity. In the same way, I totally disagree that rich people have the right to buy the kidneys or any other body parts, of poor people (except hair because it grows back). A society which says that the decision to fuck someone else for money, is just another lifestyle choice, is not a decent society and needs to be changed.

Oh and of course all the men are hideous. If you use your money to gain access to the body of someone you would otherwise not have access to, you are hideous.

What's depressing given that this is aimed at youngsters (I read the babestation piece too) is that there is absolutely no critique within the article. I can't imagine it would be THAT difficult to find someone who would say "Umm, no way, sounds shit" for a bit of balance.

Yes funny, THAT is a big part of the problem - it's just so normalised in the reporting.

Excellent posts from Julia and Eleanor btw.

Julia - Can you give any examples (of books, I mean)? That is a subject I would be very interested in.

Eleanor - I hear what you're saying, and it's consistent and coherent. But the problem I see is that the kind of answer you're describing could only exist in a society without any form of industrial capitalism; without any concept of personal property or trade for personal advantage, only of one's identity as part of the "kinship group".

Do you really see this as the project for a solution?

Do you think the benefits would necessarily outweigh the disadvantages?

It's worth noting that in the few societies we've observed that DO function much like this, with no personal property whatsoever and everything defined by kinship group, the position of women is not nearly as rosy as your picture suggests, and is often a great deal worse than that of women in modern capitalist economies. The Australian aborigines when first contact was made were an extreme case of a society with no capitalism whatsoever (and yet the women were still basically treated as chattels), but similarly strong "kinship" can still be observed in various areas of the developing world.

Also I'm not sure that your analysis is that relevant because we're not talking about women in the depths of poverty here. You talk about trading sex "for shelter", but that's not really the issue in this case. We're in a situation where for many people in our capitalist societies, the basics of life are taken care of pretty easily. The structure of our economy is such that those people then have the freedom to go out and trade for the non-essentials.

It seems to me that as soon as you allow for this freedom, you allow for the possibility that some people may CHOOSE to trade sex for those non-essentials. Pretending that all those people would be sleeping under a bridge otherwise when it's patently not the case is a bit distracting from the issue.

Incidentally I'm not actually an unreconstructed freemarket capitalist. I'm just interested in the real implications of what you're pointing to as an alternative to patriarchy when it's embedded in so many economic factors we take for granted.

"Do you really see this as the project for a solution?"

No. Life's moved on. We have to start from where we are now, not from where we were 10,000 years ago.

Look, you talk about some people choosing to trade sex. Why is it that mostly, those people are the female half of the species? You talk about trading sex as if women are on an equal playing field with men. How come men don't trade sex as frequently as women?

My proposal is this: let's tear down patriarchy, have a genuine equal playing field where women are accepted as full human beings and then see how many women versus men, choose to go out and sell sex. You only have people selling sex where they occupy a place in society which is defined as for the sexual use of the group who occupy a higher place. So Victorian working class boys sold sex to upper class men who wouldn't have thought it right to sexually abuse boys of their own class.

And I didn't talk about trading sex for shelter btw, I was picking up on something you asserted, which is that women trading sex for food, shelter etc, is as old as humanity.

In answer to your questions: I think personally it's mostly women who choose to trade sex for the simple reason that men want simple, impersonal, casual sex more than women do. It's easier for men. So it's supply and demand. A woman who wants an uncomplicated shag can go to any bar and find plenty of men willing to give one for free, so there's little market for men to sell it.

OTOH this also explains the few exceptions, eg where an older and less attractive, but wealthy, woman wants sex with an extremely attractive younger man that she probably wouldn't normally be able to get, so DOES pay for it from a male prostitute, or indirectly by keeping a toyboy.

And of couse men sell plenty of sex to men too. How does that fit in, when men are the patriarchy so should have no need to do so? Not all gay male prostitutes are working class, from what I understand.

Perfectly on board with your proposal though. But I think we have to accept that sex means different things to different people, and we can't assume that noone would still see it as a potential means to an end, under the level playing field you suggest. Lots of people will always get what they can however they can.

"the simple reason that men want simple, impersonal, casual sex more than women do|

Bullshit. Sorry, bullshit. That is something men and women are told, to justify men's abuse of women and to make sure women stay in line and don't transgress sexual cultural requirements - slut-shaming is a very effective way of ensuring that women don't feel free to shag around if they feel like it.

Will now read the rest of your post

Listen if we have a level playing field, I don't give a shit who sells sex to whom.

But if we had a level playing field a) Prostitution would be less gendered, it would be roughly even numbers of men and women prostituting themselves and

b) I bet it would far less prevalent. In a society where people had a healthy attitude to sex, the idea of paying someone to use their body when they wouldn't do it for free, would be really unattractive to most people.

How do you know that?

I don't know it. I believe it to be true but as we haven't yet dismantled the patriarchy, I can't prove it yet.

Thanks Dandy