Should it be illegal for men to pay for prostitution?

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

Should we criminalise all men who pay for prostitution, alongside help for women to leave prostituion?

Is that what you do Hedidit, visit prostitutes for sex while your "missus" is in hospital?
That just goes to show the mentality of men who buy womens' bodies - their partner's body is not available to them so they simply use a substitute, because that's how they view all woman, as just a conventent hole to stick their cock into.

I think legalisation would have positives (ie tax and safety increased for some) but the negatives on the women who would still engage in street prostitution would out way this.

the street illegal / unregulated prostitutes would have to charge less/ take more risks and be far less likely to report abuse.

if you regulate it - what would the under age prostitutes/ HIV positive / illegal immigrant ones do? would they stop?

no they wouldn't. they would be abused even more and exploited more than they are already.

those of you who believe it's a choice and empowering must lead a very naive and sheltered life- IMHO.

No its not a choice. But making it illegal for men to buy sex has to go alongside exit programmes to help women get out of prostitution. Otherwise you are right, they will just face increased risk. 90% of women surveyed wanted to leave prostitution - but they need help to do so. But without making it illegal, every woman who is helped to leave prostitution, will be quickly replaced by another young woman or girl.

The average age women enter prostitution is 14.

www.disabled-world.com/disability/sexuality/
www.tlc-trust.org.uk/advice/page13.html
www.iusw.org/2010/11/note-to-anti-prostitutionists-sex-worker-movements-are-nothing-to-sneer-at/

If we are going to have this debate yet again, and people are going to start talking about who can and cannot have sex in terms of disability, let us just have a bit of Balance. I doubt many of the posters on here will like these links, but thats a shame as most are women friendly, perhaps not feminist friendly but then thats the point. Feminism is political and seeks to promote a view from it's view. It is not a view that speaks for ALL women.

Nobody has the right to use women for sex, disabled or not.

Has anyone argued otherwise?

Being able to do something is not the same as having a right to do something.

I'm not saying who can and can't have sex. I questioned the idea of a right to sex, and most importantly in the context of this thread, the role of prostitutes as a way of fulfilling that right.

I am afraid that's what you are doing Fact, you and others are dictating something you have a choice in to others who do not have that choice. Where we could agree is in the method of how that choice is actioned. Should it be the case that especially trained care workers, or health professionals are able to satisfy the needs of women and men with impairments?

Or perhaps non disabled people should be encouraged to "experiment" with consenting participants in a "swingers" type environment set up with disabled people?

No one has the right to sex.

The idea that men should have the right to sex is misogynistic.

It's arrogant, violent and makes men out to be animals with no ability to control their urges.

I'm not 'dictating' anything. Please don't put words in my mouth.

Dont utter them then! You said "I questioned the idea of a right to sex, and most importantly in the context of this thread, the role of prostitutes as a way of fulfilling that right"

Your interpretation of a "right" is that someone is free to make another choice. That no impediments, or barriers exist. I am saying that in the same sense that you can choose to use stairs, others do not have that choice and have only one path to follow if they wish to as the World Health Organisation says "?Sexuality is an integral part of the personality of everyone: man, woman and child; it is a basic need and aspect of being human that cannot be separated from other aspects life.? The integral part is not a right but for anyone to say that someone else should just get on with not being able to have an integral part of what is enjoyed by other people in their lives is exclusionary.

Good point suffolk, how would you see the diffrence?

Seriously...you don't know what you are talking about. You are spouting your ideals as you see them but that doesn't mean you are correct. Do you know anyone who has been in that industry or are you just gleaming the little information you have from the media?

No actually they can't, they can do what the girl allows them to. They all offer different services. Do you know the window box girls in Amsterdam have panic buttons linked to the police in every room
? Most places have some kind of security as a just in case. Seriously, you are getting shit holes mixed up with places run as a professional business . There is a difference

EVERY ONE has the right to have sex...but only with a willing participant paid or unpaid

no, if a person chooses to sell their ability to have sex then I don't see the problem with it. Where the problems arise is people being exploited/forced. Making buying sex illegal won't solve those problems, as the the people doing the exploiting/forcing wont give a shiny shit if buying sex is illegal. Would rather see money spent on helping people out of the sex industry and really combatting/clamping down on the exploitation/forced sex problems.

Mm most able bodied women will not want to have a sexual relationship with a severely disabled person yet they feel they have the right to dictate wether that person should be granted access to a girl who will offer that in exchange for cash and treat him like a human bring at the same time. Strange

I don't have any issue with consenting adults having sex in exchange for cash.

There are parallels with marriage - or a partnership where one party brings in the bacon and the other offers sexual and other domestic services - which is a socially sanctioned form of prostitution, reduced to its bare bones.

However, it is disturbing and often horrific that women and vulnerable (includes men) are forced into prostitution. Heddit, do you have any thoughts on how to reduce this sordid side of the equation?

I agree with this. Children for one..a lot more money should be spent on helping the victims of child prostitution

wether that person should be granted access to a girl who will offer that in exchange for cash and treat him like a human bring at the same time.

So he gets to be treated like a human being while she gets to be treated like a commodity to which he is 'granted access'? How revolting.

I think there is so much dodginess around the idea of consent here. Yes, some women choose to have sex with men for money but what are their alternatives? Women with a wide range of choices rarely opt for it. I

If we didn't have a benefit system in this country, there'd be more prostitution, I'm sure.

blueshoes I wish I did. Most girls are trafficked from their own country by their own countrymen. Fighting the problem has to start there but with so many corrupt people out there in positions of power, possibly even profiting from it themselves I dont hold out much hope for the slave trade to ever ever go away...just further underground than it already is. Its not just prostitution, kids are brought in to tend cannabis farms and to work as cheap labour in all sorts of industries, I know of a woman who owns a nail salon in a town I used to live in who was convicted of bringing in people to work for no wages in her NAIL BAR of all places. Its endemic, its horrific but its not the side of the sex industry that I knew and worked in.