Prostitution

[the_std]

Boozy, I'm not trying to say that, because people like anonymous sex, that prostitution should be legal.

I'm saying that prostitution would help people who like to have anonymous sex be able to get what they want in a different way that might be easier for some. I don't see how that's related to pedophilia, as anonymous sex is LEGAL, even if prostitution is not. Pedophilia will be illegal whether or not prostitution is legalized.

Two different things altogether.

[Boozy]

I apologize for using the example of pedophilia, since its usage has caused everyone to miss what I was saying. I can assure you that I am not so obtuse as to confuse anonymous sex with pedophilia.

Let's try this again.

Correct me if I'm misreading you: You are saying that helping people have anonymous sex is one reason for legalizing prostitution.

I argue that is a bad reason.

There are better reasons for legalizing prostitution: Increased tax revenue, safer working conditions for women, lower costs of policing, etc. The fact that some people like anonymous sex and are having trouble getting laid is a pretty lame reason in comparison to these.

Besides, in a prostitution scenario, presumably only one person is into the anonymous sex thing - the john. If the prostitute was into it, the john wouldn't have to pay her to screw him, would he?

The more I think about it, the more I'm sort of against legalization. It almost seems more degrading to the john than to the prostitute.

[Saydrah]

Some people like anonymous sex between two or more consenting adults. There is a HUGE difference.

I've said on here before that I'm bi and polyamorous, and I'll say it again. That does NOT make me akin to a pedophile.

There IS an absolute moral standard when it comes to sex. Consenting adult humans is that moral standard. The ability to give consent is a complex question, but for the purposes of simplification, I will just declare that I'm using the word consenting to mean someone with the capacity to give consent; in other words, the mental capacity and wakefulness to comprehend the sex act and its significance, and to agree to it. The only other caveat is that sexual actions that require the abuse or non-consenting involvement of any other living thing should be illegal, and sexual actions that will result in one or more partners involved being unable to give consent by the end of said actions should be illegal. In other words, no killing or lobotomizing even a consenting partner.

Pedophilia is not okay. It is abuse. Bestiality is not okay. It is abuse. But anonymous sex, prostitution (in situations where the prostitute is NOT being abused and is happy with her job), polyamory, swinging, and the like, ARE okay, because what two or more consenting adults do in bed is THEIR business, not the government's.

A better comparison than pedophilia would be the anti-sodomy laws recently abolished after the Lawrence v. Texas supreme court ruling. Like prostitution, sodomy is only harmful when it happens without consent or in an abusive way. Like prostitution, the government assumed the authority to regulate it for moral reasons, rather than on the basis of an actual public health or safety need. And, hopefully like prostitution, the prohibition did not stand the test of time as Americans became more acceptant of one another.

[the_std]

There are better reasons for legalizing prostitution: Increased tax revenue, safer working conditions for women, lower costs of policing, etc. The fact that some people like anonymous sex and are having trouble getting laid is a pretty lame reason in comparison to these.

I agree that the reasons you gave are good reasons to legalize prostitution, but why hurry to dismiss the example I gave as a bad reason to legalize it? Don't these people deserve to get off with another person, too? If they can afford it financially but maybe not socially, why is that less valid?

Like I said, horniness and sex do not require a deep level, or any level, of emotional attachment. Many people might prefer to have this attachment present, but that does not make it a requirement. So, if someone has the money to hire the services of a prostitute for an hour, but does not have/want the emotional capacity to dedicate to a lover, I don't think that's invalid.

You're right, I should have given the reasons you suggested first, as they would benefit the majority of people, but just because the "anonymous" thing does not apply to everyone doesn't mean it does not apply to some.

[Amethyst Hunter]

But, Amethyst, not all prostitution is misogyny and abuse and hatred.

Way too much of it is. I've read too many horror stories to be convinced that there is much of a section of prostitution that is genuinely 'safe' and 'fun' and not abusive.

I think, again, that my true argument with what you're saying, Amethyst, is it seems that you're saying that lust cannot happen if you don't know the person to some degree.

Not at all. I'm well aware that lust can exist without there being any emotional connection at all. But there are safer and IMO saner ways to satisfy that lust rather than going to a prostitute and helping perpetuate the vicious cycle - sex toys, masturbation, even playing role games with a partner to achieve that sense of anonymity (even if only in a limited sense) all offer reasonable options to getting off.

One more thought. Someone who doesn't even want to talk *at all* - and by that I mean stuff like just simple polite 'hi, how are you' bits, not necessarily Deep Existential Ponderings - but just goes right to the screwing sounds pretty machinelike and cold to me, and I would seriously wonder how that person treats the people that he's actually involved with, if there are any.

Other than that, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree here and move on.

[LadyMage]

Way too much of it is. I've read too many horror stories to be convinced that there is much of a section of prostitution that is genuinely 'safe' and 'fun' and not abusive.
:

But if there is someone running things that has the safety of the workers in mind and if its regulated by the law and abuse toward anyone in that business is reported and jailed as if for rape or assault.... then it becomes fun and safe. Legalizing prostitution would actually make it harder for people to abuse women, since there would be security and if you messed around with the women well.... lets just say I bet the security guard knows how to give some less then fun feelings. There is a legalized 'whore house' for lack of a better term at the moment in Nevada, and their security is tight for both the safety of the clients and of the women who work there. I also restate the main argument, if the woman or man wants to sell their body, why not? Its their body, we have no say in what they can or can't do with it!

[Saydrah]

Amethyst- Most johns do not want a machine-like experience like you described. From the sex worker blogs I read, it's apparent that nearly all men who see escorts are looking for the experience of a friend with benefits or a girlfriend whose needs he can satisfy merely by paying by the hour- the relaxation of knowing that they will both have their needs met by a simple agreement, a certain number of hours, a certain sex act, and a certain amount of money paid for that time and those actions. Many men who see escorts like to cuddle and talk, and sex workers of the positive, happy, self-actualized, love-my-job variety often blog about clients they've seen on a regular basis for years and years, and who send them gifts for birthdays and Christmas, and in some cases who even find themselves part of the escort's life outside the bedroom eventually.

However, there ARE people who like totally anonymous sex, and like most fetishes, that has little bearing on who they are socially. Some of the most sadistic tops in the BDSM community are friendly, casual guys and gals in non-BDSM situations, many swingers are sweet, nerdy schoolteacher types, and many women who like to be verbally degraded and humiliated in bed are empowered feminists in the rest of their lives. Similarly, many people who like anonymous sex are upstanding and caring partners and members of their community.

Not to say there aren't tops who act like tops out of bed and are total assholes for it, nor women with obvious daddy issues who seek out abusive partners, nor people who confuse a fetish for anonymous sex with a right to live their lives in a detached way. BUT, that's not the fetish- that's crazy, and whatever fetish crazy comes with, you STILL shouldn't stick it in crazy.

[Seshat]

I completely understand and appreciate what you're saying about dehumanising, Amethyst Hunter. People sell their bodies a lot. Cashiers. Warehouse stock-pickers. Builders' labourers. People sell their minds, too. Programmers. Writers. Artists. Clerical workers.

There are only two differences I see between people in the sex industry selling the skills of their bodies/minds, and people outside the sex industry. Firstly, people in the sex industry are involved in an industry which involves sex. A powerful drive which can generate extreme emotional responses. Secondly, that some parts of the sex industry involve touch.

There are few jobs which require touch. Hairdressing. Many medical jobs. Very little else - even in the cosmetics industry, most touch is by brushes or sponges, not direct. So a job which requires touch also generates strong responses.

So yeah, I can see why people react very strongly to the sex industry in the first place, and even more so to touch-based jobs in the sex industry.

But let's think about prostitution. Or at least, what it takes to be good at the job. If your sexual experiences have been limited to the lady lying there while the man grunts away, then rolls over and goes to sleep (or leaves a few dollars on the dresser and walks out), then I'm sorry for you.

A good experience involves both parties discussing what they want, what they like - not necessarily verbally. It involves interaction, communication. Much more communication than your average cashier gets with customers in a grocery store.

To me, prostitution done well acknowledges the humanity of both parties. It has to - without that, it cannot be done well. Even people whose kink is inhumanity (and yes, that happens) need to talk before and after the session.

What about other forms of the sex industry? Stripping is entertainment. Like all forms of entertainment - or anywhere you have contact with the public - there are idiots and asshats. Like many forms of entertainment, you have exploitation. It's worse in the stripping industry because society supports it. Declares that abuses like the one you mentioned earlier are 'okay' because 'she's just a stripper'. However, I've read the blogs of strippers who were good and skilled and could work in the stripping bars where that sort of behaviour isn't tolerated. Those strippers have regulars, who know and appreciate them. Some come just to look, some like to talk. Some like to laugh at the asshats.

I could go on - but it's all like that. Some good places to work, some bad. Some people who enjoy the work, some who hate it.

It's misogynistic at the moment because the culture is still partly misogynistic. The culture continues to cling to the madonna/whore dichotomy and the double standard, though both are gradually dying.

It's demeaning and dehumanising only if the culture permits it to be. It has the potential to be a highly skilled and highly respected profession. It's hard, difficult work to be good at it: and it requires a great deal of human connection.

My strongest reasons for legalising it, though, are for the protection of the whores, the customers, and the victims of human trafficking and slavery.

Instead of vice cops, the legal brothels can get visited by medical professionals and maybe a social worker doing the rounds to ensure everyone working there is a consenting adult. The whores will have access to OHSA, workers' compensation, and all the other protections society offers.

The vice cops will then have more time available to work specifically on the illegal sex trade, and every illegal brothel will have a high chance of having a connection to human trafficking, slavery and/or rape: cutting down on false leads.

[Rapscallion]

Had to search for this thread. Thread necromancy for the win!

A couple of weeks back I visited three different brothels.

That's not as bad as it first sounds. Uncle Rapscallion didn't inhale (apart from cigarette smoke). I was pretty much the wingman for a chum who wanted to take advantage of the legal prostitution elsewhere. He wouldn't go in without me. I was also the raconteur, and the full write-up has been described as 'bloody hilarious' and other such laudatory terms.

It's available via PM for those who have strong stomachs.

Anyway, there were three different types involved, as it turned out. Chum was more than happy to spend money, since he has much more than me, and it cost me a pretty penny.

The first place was in the main tourist area of the city (not naming names here - city or 'club', but it should be obvious to CSers). They don't half make their coin there. £10 ($15) in, diet cokes about £3.50 (nearly $5), and beers a bit more. You get approached by the ladies if you're not too offensive to the eye. 'Lady Drinks' as they are called are about £20 ($30). They try for the GFE (girlfriend experience) and to get as many drinks out of you as possible before you blanche. They're good.

When a man's hard he's soft, and when he's soft he's hard.

Remember that. It makes a lot of sense. Also, good advice for the ladies. *nods*

Anyway, a shower beforehand (based on chum's reports) and condoms are required, once you go up to a room. From looking at the site and the employment available, there's a distinct cut for the workers there for the happy ending work and for the massively overpriced drinks (pretty mch all fruit juice, from what I could tell).

One of the more interesting aspects was how a particularly offensive-looking guy paid to enter while chum was involved in cardio exercise. He reminded me of Gravekeeper's 'meat owl' of yesteryear. Looked a bit like Michael Moore without anything other than psychopathy on his face, and he was pretty damned heavyset. Made me look slender. He was walking up and down in front of the girls, apparently astounded that he wasn't swarmed (it was low tourist season, so low trade) by workers. The young lady with me noted that there would be nobody going upstairs with him. He wandered around for a while, his presence acknowledged by none but us (we were taking the piss off in a booth), and he wandered around with a price list muttering before stalking out.

In short, the workers worked on commission and had a choice of clients, as long as they could attract them.

The second night involved the place across the street and it was more expensive. Lady drinks were about £30 ($45), and happy endings cost approximately 30% more from memory. Again, I declined, but this was far more business-like. Instead of pumping you for a drink (200ml diet coke about £10, or $15), it's straight to business with a series of women who took, "We're just going to have a drink first," as a statement of puppy-killing intent. We noted a couple of guys who weren't approached at all, so we can't be that ugly.

Both these two places reminded me of a conversation I'd had with a colleague who used to be a taxi driver on another continent and had worked the graveyard shift. He'd picked up many working girls over the two years he'd worked that job and got them home safely. He'd not met any who were other than doing it to set themselves up for life. The money was bloody good, and most of them were able to buy a house outright by their mid-twenties. None of the ones he met were addicts.

The last place was more for the locals - well away from the tourist regions. It was a sort of pick your preference from the workers available (didn't approach you, or even acknowledge your presence) and drinks were bar prices. Far more perfunctory - didn't try and pump chum for another drink after (lady drinks being £7 or just over $10). Just buggered off back to the group of women to one side.

What did I take away from all this?

I'm sure that there is illegal sex trafficking going on, and I'm also pretty certain I didn't see any in any of the three places. Conditions were pretty good for people in the sex trade, though being a tourist area for the first two then you'd expect so. There were unobtrusive chaps who could stand toe-to-toe with the best of them for protection for the workers.

In that sort of situation, I have no problem with prostitution. It's legal, taxed, voluntary, and in the first two places highly remunerated by the local wage standards. I'd have some concerns about health issues from the sheer number of cigarettes smoked, but it was the workers themselves for the most part doing that.

Who was being taken advantage of? Chum hasn't had any success in the tilting lists of romance for some time and was willing to exchange spare cash for a half-hour of fun. On the second night as he approached the room he was accosted by someone upselling a rose for the young lady in question, which he bought. Hard soft, soft hard - all that jazz.

Was he being taken advantage of? In a way, yes, but he reckoned that for him (single, no hopes in romance) it works.

Were the girls being taken advantage of? Protected, clean clients, higher than the average local wage income - not a bad combination. They were good at causing horny men to spend more on drinks etc.

Under those circumstances I don't have any problems with the situation I saw at arm's length.

Other circumstances - I have no idea. However, I've seen something that can set young women up financially. Is it degrading? That's in the eye of the beholder. Would it be better if the practice was legalised elsewhere?

Quite honestly, with the stigma attached in the prudish countries such as the UK and US, I don't think it would work so well, but I figure it would be worth a try.

Rapscallion

[Ginger Tea]

I told captain dickhead a girl he knew in a TL;DR backstory would never go to bed with him no matter what he did, say or buy for her, in the end he bought her 2 iPod touch's (she alegedly lost one) mobile phone credit, paid money into her dads account (?!?) and god knows what else, all whilst having £15k credit card debt to boot.

I don't know the going rate or where to look in Cambridge, nor do I care to look, I'm single, I'm happy that way and if needed I have porn, but I wonder what you could get on average for the cost of one let alone two iPod touch's, hell I'm sure he could have bought a realdoll with the money wasted on her

Also last year or one before, he was hard up for cash and his mum was thinking of evicting him due to back rent, must be bad if your own mother is thinking of evicting you. He ended up getting a part time job driving escorts, when he first said that, I thought it was the lead in to a crappy ford joke, he would drive women of unknown attractiveness*, to domestic locations, hotels and the like, he would wait outside for however long, drive her to the next client or home when she had enough, then she would give him his cut and the agencies which he would hand in to their office. The stinger is he had to pay his own petrol, so if he had to drive in the sticks (which he did alot) he could loose alot of his cut in petrol alone, nor did he get any perks of the job.

*I jokingly said when they had no callers they should pop into my local to chill out, woman in the attic said he was in once with one odd looking woman.

[telecom_goddess]

I believe the same way. I saw that episode also

same here. It's called the oldest profession for a reason, and it's NOT going to go away. Outlawing it just makes it less safe for everyone involved. Legalize it and it would make life so much simpler.

[Rageaholic]

The way I see it, as long as it's two consenting adults, there should be no problem. I think it's total bull that it's illegal in so many states and even more bull that people go to jail for it. Again, how does it affect me if Mark hires someone for sex? It doesn't, it only affects Mark and the prostitute. Both who have willfully consented to it. So why should they be arrested for that?

[telecom_goddess]

The way I see it, as long as it's two consenting adults, there should be no problem. I think it's total bull that it's illegal in so many states and even more bull that people go to jail for it. Again, how does it affect me if Mark hires someone for sex? It doesn't, it only affects Mark and the prostitute. Both who have willfully consented to it. So why should they be arrested for that?

exactly! I agree with this sentiment.

[BlaqueKatt]

I'm going to go out on a limb here because many people are not aware that yes, BlaqueKatt used to be a stripper. Working there for 4 months put my ex-husband through college, had I lasted 6 months I'd have had the option for insurance, an hourly wage rather than tips, and paid vacation. As far as it being "degrading", it ultimately depends on what club you work in. Just like any company there are good ones that care about the employees, and those that only care about he money. The club I worked in was a very tight run ship, closer to burlesque than out and out stripping. The owner was very adamant about "keeping the riff raff out", both workers and clients. If someone had thrown money on the floor rather than handing it to us or stuffing it in our shoes(clients were NOT ALLOWED to stuff money in our outfits), he would've been shown not so nicely to the door.

The owner, saw us as a reflection of him, it was his name on the club and we were not allowed to do anything that would tarnish his reputation. He approved our costumes and dance routines, if you showed too much skin, the costume was not allowed(thongs were sometimes ok, g-strings were not), he sent bouncers with us when we did bachelor parties, to not only protect us, but to keep some girls from making "private arrangements", If you were caught doing so, he'd call the cops on you himself. His main thing was, "you girls are someone's daughter, wife, girlfriend, sister, or mom, you are not trash and I will not let anyone treat you like you are, you are my girls, my responsibility while you are on the clock." And by "his girls", he meant we were his "daughters" and he was fiercely protective of us.

[Ladeeda]

I'm going to go out on a limb here because many people are not aware that yes, BlaqueKatt used to be a stripper. Working there for 4 months put my ex-husband through college, had I lasted 6 months I'd have had the option for insurance, an hourly wage rather than tips, and paid vacation. As far as it being "degrading", it ultimately depends on what club you work in. Just like any company there are good ones that care about the employees, and those that only care about he money. The club I worked in was a very tight run ship, closer to burlesque than out and out stripping. The owner was very adamant about "keeping the riff raff out", both workers and clients. If someone had thrown money on the floor rather than handing it to us or stuffing it in our shoes(clients were NOT ALLOWED to stuff money in our outfits), he would've been shown not so nicely to the door.

The owner, saw us as a reflection of him, it was his name on the club and we were not allowed to do anything that would tarnish his reputation. He approved our costumes and dance routines, if you showed too much skin, the costume was not allowed(thongs were sometimes ok, g-strings were not), he sent bouncers with us when we did bachelor parties, to not only protect us, but to keep some girls from making "private arrangements", If you were caught doing so, he'd call the cops on you himself. His main thing was, "you girls are someone's daughter, wife, girlfriend, sister, or mom, you are not trash and I will not let anyone treat you like you are, you are my girls, my responsibility while you are on the clock." And by "his girls", he meant we were his "daughters" and he was fiercely protective of us.

I'd love him as a boss in ANY industry!