5 questions for people who advocate legal prostitution

[AskBasil]

genderdetective.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/five-questions-for-people-who-advocate-legalizing-prostitution/

Made me fink

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 £€$£€$....

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

What else did you learn DWH?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

dad

Nope still clueless...give me another clue

Not sure I want to go into details. . It would be more sanitary to simply say that the solid foundation for the sale of anything is based off people not giving comparable products or services away for free.

I can speculate that it was a pretty horrible experience - not something you'd want your children (girls? Boys?) to witness, nor something you'd ever want to be part of yourself.

That's all I can speculate, though.

Beyond that, as to why men don't offer their bodies up for sale the way women do, I'm none the wiser.

Do you quickly cover your children's eyes and rush them away from scenes of shelf stacking as well?

I think men don't take up sex service as a rule because 1) if they don't feed their kids someone else (their mother) will do it. So the only reason important enough to do it would be addiction.

2. why take a cock up their ass when they could just get a woman to do it for them and be her pimp.

Although maybe men go in to pimping because they are just better at management than women.

One of the things I have heard some women in prostitution say over and over again is - they were taking it/getting it for free, so I figured I may as well make money out of it.

I have read even pro prostitution "sex work" types saying this. Says it all for me.

"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."

The main one is not seeing women as quite as human as men though. That's really all there is to it.

DWH is horrified by the idea of men offering up their butts for the service of other men, to the extent that he'll cover his children's eyes from the evidence of it, even though elsewhere he asks why we shouldn't treat it as work like any other. Men know it's not work like any other when other men are doing it, because they respect men's basic humanity.

A vast number of men would quit their jobs in an instant if there was genuine demand from women to pay them for sex. There isn't.

Why can't they have sex with men sopranos? There are men willing to pay for sex with men.

Do you think female prostitutes are sexually interested in the men they are having sex with?

Sure but most people are heterosexual, for me having sex with a man I was unattracted to would be preferable to sleeping with a woman, but I do see your point.

Beyond that, as to why men don't offer their bodies up for sale the way women do, I'm none the wiser.

The public park we stumbled into was a night haunt of casual sex for gay men, leave it at that.

That out of the way I am not sure what you mean by 'the way women do'? From memory 97% of sex workers are female, 2% are males catering to male clients and 1% males catering to female clients. I suppose entire books could be written speculating as to why the ratios work that way. I suspect as long as women are less inclined/able to buy sex and men more inclined to supply it gratis, male prostitution will remain a tiny minority of the whole

But its hardly for a want of supply of willing young men, who on earth could think that? I had plenty of cougar claws in me when I was young, I was 'treated' by them I suppose but I was not paid, I doubt I could have ever made a living out of it.

why take a cock up their ass when they could just get a woman to do it for them and be her pimp.

I think this is a really important point: it is not necessarily an issue of women's agency.

It is too often an issue of exploitation - be it the organised criminal gangs kidnapping and trafficking women, the gangs grooming vulnerable girls in Rochdale, or migsy's "friend" lending her money when she's desperate, and then getting her into prostitution to pay back the debt.

It is this exploitation that bothers me - if you legalise it, you are legitimising men buying sex from women; the sale of women's bodies becomes a more attractive and lucrative prospect for traffickers. Women become a commodity.

There is evidence from the Swedish police that traffickers do not really bother with Sweden any more - it is not seen as an attractive prospect to them compared to other countries where prostitution has been legalised/decriminalised. IMO, that wins the argument for the Swedish Model: criminalise the buyer, decriminalise the seller.

There are plenty of lesbians who are paid by men for sex. There are not Het men being paid for sex with men.

Although poverty and homelessness is part of the issue, it is not the whole one. Otherwise more poor men would be being prostituted with other men for sex. The reality is it is poor and homeless gay men that this happens to, not poor and homeless Het men.