no, lol, of course the main issue (if we are talking about wider issues of gender/ society) is not my authority at work lol. but (again) i'm talking about a much smaller scale of operations.
my subordinates use of sex workers appeared to make no difference to the way they treated me (a woman) at work. it appeared to make no difference to how they treated their wives and children (those that had them), girlfriends, or, women they picked up in bars for free sex. that was kind of my point though - yes it made me feel extremely uneasy, but, on the face of it, there were no noticeable repercussions.
what made me uneasy, of course, were the invisible repercussions - you know, that bigger picture stuff.
not, interestingly, the welfare of the women themselves (again, most of whom appeared to fall into the 'happy hooker' category - largely in bigger european cities. i saw no evidence of any compunction, although do realise that would have been neatly tidied away ). no, i don't know whether the buildings were owned by a co-operative of happy hookers, or a violent landlord/ pimp lol. i say interestingly, because again, with hindsight, i may or may not think differently now.
tbh at the point of most of the transactions, i was more worried if the lads were going to show for work the next morning, and how i was going to explain losing a member of hm forces in the red light district to my boss, if they didn't. with a good dose of 'ffs, keep it in your trousers' on the side.
so, ok, clearly i fell/ fall short of certain idealist principles because i didn't, well... what, exactly? i didn't condone their behaviour - they knew my feelings on the matter (a certain sheepishness of glance as they sidled off, and a refusal to look me in the eye the next morning) but ultimately, i couldn't get the job done by refusing to work with men who use prostitutes. and getting the job done, was, well... my job.
did it bother me? well, obviously it did. i didn't see much of their wives and children, but i was always fascinated by how different they were with their families than out on the razz. ultimately it's why i left. (not use of prostitutes as such, but gender issues as a whole). various allegedly wise senior officers told me i could only change the service from the inside. what they really meant was that i couldn't even change the service from the inside, but that i was a reasonable worker when i wasn't on my high horse, so hang around and do a bit more work, love. but keep your gob shut.
attempting to unravel a single ideology of gender or even prostitution from that trivia is obviously daft. feel free to come up with a good criticism and a much more sensible idea of what i should have done in those circs though (although resigning immediately would have been momentarily satisfying, it wouldn't have a- paid the bills, or b- made much difference to the institution as a whole 'can't take a joke, shouldn't have joined' etc etc.)