The greens and prostitutes

[IceBeing]

Be gentle as I am new to thinking about this.

I found the Natalie Bennett's comments on decriminalising prostitution pretty persuasive - what am I missing?

She basically said that sex workers would like this policy (having contributed to it) and that research from other countries indicated it was the way forward.

For a society to see paying for sex as inconceivable by definition that society would have to put NO VALUE on sex

On the contrary a society that tolerates paying for sex is one that puts no value on something that is priceless and should be freely and willingly shared.

What Mary is basically saying is men are ravenous animals with no concept of self control, empathy or understanding, no concern for women whatsoever and who exist to get their rocks off whether it is with willing or unwilling women and whether they pay for it or not.

Funnily enough, as a feminist I have a much higher opinion of men than Mary has and her description of men fits so few of the men I know as to be unrecognisable.

It reads as if it comes from a painting by numbers description of biology for year 3.

Oh, and if it were accurate why are only about one in 10 men using prostitutes in this country? By that post's reckoning it should be 9 in 10.

Hi rivetingrosie,

Thanks for the reply and sorry i was not clearer.

I am interested in this if you have any material you think is relevant.

Some of your comments are quite telling so il try to be detailed on each i noticed.

I did not mean to imply we were ONLY products of evolution and socialization but it is certainly a factor and a very important one, and we do see similar basic behavior across all human societies its just that those who prefer not to over complicate it rather than looking at the basics.

Certainly we see some variation in the % of men who use prostitutes but the inverse is not true as no society has never had women do so in similar numbers to the low end % that men have and generally not for the same reasons.

So you feel the difference in the % is important and claim it indicates a lack of consistent behavior but on a basic level it is certainly true to also say that:

"consistently in every human society a varying number of men in a society will buy sex either by necessity or preference".

Examine your comment below:

"Sex within prostitution cannot be truly loving, intimate and mutually pleasurable because one party is not as willing as the other."

Do you honestly think that mens sexual drives favor "loving, intimate and mutually pleasurable" as much as ours do or to the same degree at least?

Mens sexual desires are grounded in the physical far more than ours are, now i am not saying they are entirely so just a hell of a lot more than ours are.

And this comment:

"In a society in which all people really valued sexual intimacy prostitution would not exist."

But every individual would have to value sexual intimacy equally but also have it equally available when they required it.

And how do i make myself feel more sexually attracted to Chris Christie (the US political) than Brad Pitt given them having the same personality type etc?

How do we stop our bodies from producing chemicals in certain circumstances and mens producing theirs when the events that stimulate that production are out of our control and a lot of the time we are unaware of the processes going on within us?

Culture can play a part certainly and go so far but only so far, i can no more totally dismiss the effect of the chemicals my body releases in certain circumstances than i can totally dismiss the effect of putting alcohol in my body has.

I can certainly limit the effect using willpower just like focusing when drunk lessens the effect slightly but i cannot consciously dismiss the entire effect of alcohol or any other chemical at will.

And unlike drinking all this goes on with me unaware for the most part.

Now as i said i am not saying we are total slaves to biology but we are effected by it regardless of how much we do not want to be and its unseen and subtle unlike alcohol.

As far as sexism is concerned (i know you said misogyny but i think that word is over and poorly used) to be free of it would require the perfect understanding of how the other gender sees and experiences the world as well as how their biology reacts to that stimulus.

Society sees paying for material things like kidneys or blood as inconceivable.

No they do not it happens all the time see "organ trade".

Society also sees paying for intangible things like 'happiness' or 'love' as inconceivable.

Again no we do not see it like that we are quite materialistic.

oh and here is a link to some of the material and it has links to other points i made.

www.webmd.com/sex/features/sex-drive-how-do-men-women-compare

Hi Mary - ok so first of all, an interesting read on this is 'Myths of Male Dominance' (1981) by Eleanor Leacock. Sherry Ortner also gives a good summary of the debate here - www.scribd.com/doc/228223979/Gender-Hegemonies-Sherry-Ortner#scribd
There is an ongoing debate within anthropology over the existence of a) matriarchies, and b) sexually egalitarian societies. It's interesting, as well as politically relevant, and suffice to say that the ways in which societies organise their gender roles are complex and variable.

Your claim that men have naturally higher sex drives is very problematic. Even if we could effectively measure this (which we can't), there's no way of knowing how far this is based on culture and how much on innate biological tendencies. What we can be sure of, however, is that this idea has not always been accepted fact - I'm not an historian so I don't want to be too bold here, but I believe that women were considered to have higher sex drives for most of the early modern period.
Thomas Laqueur has been very influential, so you might want to read up on his ideas - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_sex_two_sex_theory#Role_of_the_female_orgasm
This is also believed in some parts of the contemporary world, e.g. East Africa, and the desire to control rampant female sexual desire is part of the principle behind FGM. Again, East Africa is not my speciality, so you might want to look this up yourself.

I'm not arguing that biology does not affect our lives - of course it does - but any claims that x is 'natural' or 'inevitable' or 'just a product of evolution' require very firm academic backing.

I'm off our this evening, so I won't be able to reply until tomorrow, but I'd advise you to go off and do some reading.

"Funnily enough, as a feminist I have a much higher opinion of men than Mary has and her description of men fits so few of the men I know as to be unrecognizable.

It reads as if it comes from a painting by numbers description of biology for year 3."

Your first reply read as if it came from a child to be honest and a angry bitter one at that.

As a feminist i am sure you accept like most rational human beings do that consent cannot be given by somebody who is under the influence of perception altering chemicals, typically people use alcohol as a example.

This is because of the fact that no matter how much willpower we exert and no matter how sober and in control we think we are the perception of reality we have is not the same as it would be without it in our system.

So for people to even attempt to say that other chemicals released from inside our bodies that effect our perception can be easily and totally dismissed so they have no effect on us or our perception is simply absurd.

At this point do everybody a favor and do not start ranting about rape its childish and ignorant and best left for immature males to go on about ok?

What i am referring to is accepting the basic premise that we already accept and that is that our perceptions and reactions to a certain extent are influenced by the chemicals our bodies release and to dismiss that and not factor it in when figuring out how we best we deal with these issues will ultimately mean any system we setup will fail.

Thanks for the links rivetingrosie i started reading the first already, have a great evening.

i know you will not reply this evening but have you heard of Norah Vincent and her book "self made man" where she lived as a man among men who thought she was a man for 18 months?

So men simply must have sex because of urges? Or what, they die or start murdering each other or something?

Even if I thought that were true I still don't see why women should have to provide sex for them as a service whether women want to or not. What bullshit.

Hi Buffy,

That is a awesome question and one that can be answered with a clear affirmative for many countries.

Around 30 other countries have made provisions in regards to new mothers who kill their children within a year of giving birth.

England, Canada and Australia, for example, have special infanticide statutes that rule out murder charges against new mothers and typically impose sentences of probation and counseling. The maximum charge the woman can face is manslaughter.

Some nations' laws cover a woman who killed any of her children, while others only cover the killing of a newborn. "In the first year after birth,"

Michelle Oberman (DePaul Law School professor) points out that "the laws say the balance of the mother's mind has been altered."

Personally i think as we have a insanity defense and it is applied equally to women and men who commit horrific acts while deranged in the end a gender-specific law is a bad idea.

It is why i disagree with The National Organization for Women using Andrea Yates and other women like her for political gain in a culture war is not only repulsive it is being intentionally dishonest to the women they are supposed to educate.

I still fail to understand why women have to provide sex to men as some sort of duty. Why is it

...up to women to service men's needs come what may?

No Mary, not angry, bitter or a child. Just someone who has little patience with loads of quotes and zero citations.

I have long thought that anyone on MN who accuses other posters of being 'bitter' has lost what little argument they had.

The maximum sentence for infanticide under the special defence available in England and Wales for infanticide can be life imprisonment. Although admittedly unlikely to be applied. There's no equivalent in Scotland other than the general pleas of diminished responsibility.

But even if Mary is correct about men's urges we legislate against all sorts of urges for the good of society.

hi PetulaGordino,

Actually their are a lot of health conditions to us and men if we do not have sex and positive benefits if we do.

For us:

• Improved sense of smell.
• Reduced depression.
• Weight loss, overall fitness.
• Pain-relief.
• Less-frequent colds and flu.
• Better bladder control:
• Better teeth.

Oh and we are at no risk at all from overdosing from sex :).

Downside of not having sex for us is the opening of her vagina is narrowing from disuse. It’s a condition that can lead to dysparenia, or pain associated with intercourse.

For men:

• Improved sense of smell.
• Reduced risk of heart disease.
• Weight loss, overall fitness.
• Pain-relief.
• Less-frequent colds and flu.
• Reduced prostate cancer.

Most marriage counseling involves educating both parties about each others sex drives and how they effect them on a emotional level.

denver-marriage-counseling.com/2011/03/understanding-men/

"I still fail to understand why women have to provide sex to men as some sort of duty. Why is it"

Nobody has made that assertion so that is why you are struggling to answer it, it was not suggested.