Amen, Stoid, Amen.
So wring, reading through your snootiness there, I guess you have no evidence whatsoever that what happened in Victoria, Australia would be the experience were prostitution nationwide, open and legal in some country. Common sense indicates it would not be.
You disagree with my earlier stated opinion, then? Why? You didn’t say. Explain why you think your cited scenario would happen if prostitution were nationwide, open, legal, with heavy governmental regulation.
Exactly. Even if a lot of/most women who become prostitutes do so because of childhood abuse, I don’t see how keeping prostitution illegal is going to improve the lot of such women. Even though it’s already illegal, how has that solved their problem? It hasn’t stopped them from ending up as prostitutes. And the fact that it’s illegal makes it easier for pimps & criminals to prey on them, and johns to force them to perform acts they don’t want to because the prostitutes have no control of their job, and themselves criminal, have little recourse. The idea is to put the job under their control and take it away from the pimps. Were prostitution to become legal, then prostitutes could expect more protection against on-the-job violence.
The fundamental problem is that some people want to eliminate behavior they don’t like by making it illegal, but this doesn’t necessarily end the problem; it often makes it worse. Those who think like this want to protect others from their own foolish choices. But where does it stop? Not to mention the fact that there are women who like being prostitutes. They should have a right to practice their trade.
Poor even sven. All that effort, but nobody pays any attention. And now here I come to say that I don’t find the race, class and sexuality argument very compelling. Although I doubt that Chapkis is racist in the conventional sense, all this focus on “white” sounds racist to me. My impression is that where other “races” are the majority, “yellow”, “red”, “brown”, or “black” (or any other color of the rainbow) prostitutes are not held in very high regard, either. That said, I can’t say that I can come up with any more compelling argument about the fascinating question of why women don’t frequent male prostitutes other than “women don’t enjoy the physicality of sex, anyway”
No, no, no…I think the reason most women do not find male prostitution appealing is simple. It is not uncommon for men to be ( * relatively *) indifferent to whether a woman sincerely finds them sexually attractive or not. That’s not part of the male/female “thing” - men have money, women are sexy. So many men don’t care if a woman sleeps with them for cash or for expnsive dinners and presents… it’s all the same. She’s being nice to him for what he can give her. His appeal doesn’t enter into it.
Women? We need to know we are desired for ourselves. I could NEVER enjoy sex I had paid for. I’d be embarassed to take off my clothes! Who knows what terrible things he’s thinking about how I look? What if he can’t get an erection? Will he laugh about me later, after he leaves? Does he think I’m repulsive and pathetic?
That’s why women don’t patronize male hookers nearly as much. But they do…older women, mostly. Because women LOVE the physicality of sex, are you kidding? We are sensual creatures, we dig being touched, touching, and having orgasms! I think we derive more pleasure from our bodies than men do, really. Remember: all the nerves that are spread around a big fat penis in a man are concentrated into a little bitty clitoris in a woman. 
stoid
Common sense? Let’s see, your first start was “I think” and now it’s common sense. Sorry, I’m still looking for data from you. We can’t know what would happen if it was done world wide unless we do it world wide. Our best guess as to what might happen is to look at what has happened in those places where it has been legalized. And, it appears, not only have the negatives not decreased, but some negatives have increased. Where’s your evidence, or logically supported arguments (other than ‘I think’ ‘common sense’) that it would be different?
Re: any occupation can have a rape. If you have a difficult time seeing that rape is much easier to accomplish in an occupation where the intended actions include sexual contact between customer & worker, then there’s no particular way to prove it to you.
Stoid yea, yea, I’m sure your step mom is hard working etc. I’m just quite as certain that her experiences are not the norm, or median or anywhere near it.
Again - think disposable income folks - for example How many more movie theater tickets are sold (at $7 - 10 per ) than concert tickets (at $30 and up) than Barbara Striesand tickets (at whatever the hell), and you’ll get some idea of the relative numbers involved.
Re: it’s ‘their body’ etc. well, yes, of course it is. But we also don’t allow the selling of a kidney. Why not? well, for one, it allows for an exploitation of folks at their most desperate. I’d rather see work done to remove folks from desperation.
Tuckerfan yes, you can demonstrate that people are kidnapped and forced into prostitution. Gee, thought I’d already established that (and that it happens even where it’s legal).
Prostitution has existed (as has crime, farming etc and a number of other things some of which we deplore, other stuff we need). Fact that it’s existed is not an argument that it’s necessary or right.
Ok. let’s try another point. Y’all seem to agree that there’s quite the problem with folks being coerced into the trade, right?
Do you really believe that there’s a corresponding number of people who would be prostitutes but the fact that it’s illegal is stopping them? If so, please demonstrate that this is so.
If not, do you see the problem? as long as at some level sexual contact is considered to be a commodity that one can buy, there will exist folks who believe it is their right to purchase it from whomever, regardless of circumstances, conveniently ignoring the numbers/percentages/ newstories about people being forced into it.
Well, wring, I’ll toss this out at you: How do we stop prostitution? Let’s have your suggestions. I’ll back any idea you come up with that doesn’t violate any civil rights. Surely you must have some solution to the problem. Let’s hear it.
Wring, did you ever hear about Prohibition? The U.S. government determined an activity people enjoyed was immoral, and made it illegal.
Now, would you say the amount of illegal commerce in this activity increased because of Prohibition? Would you say it decreased by about a hundred-fold once drinking, liquor stores, bars, etc., were made legal once again?
Common sense.
If you want, though, I can post six or seven impressive looking Prohibition links off the Internet.
I think the very fact of prostitution being illegal is a violation of a prostitute’s civil rights. And HUMAN rights. The state has no business telling me what I can do with my body.
So would I. But how making desperate women into criminals is in any manner helpful to them, I fail to understand, as do most people in this thread, it appears.
And you can’ “yeah, yeah” all you want, and you’ll be right: most people do not have the experience of Norma Jean: they don’t have the experience of meeting, talking to, and becoming friends with prostitutes from all over the world, from Asia to Africa to South America and everywhere in between, as well as all over North America. Most prostitutes are not spokespeople for prostitutes in general. Which is why I trust what she tells me. Her agenda is to better the lives of the women at all levels of a profession she herself participated in, without infantilizing them. She really does care about these women, she relates. So what’s your agenda, besides making sure despearate women are thought of as criminals and victims as well as desperate?
stoid
Yes, I’ve heard about prohibition. what’s that got to do with this? You’re assuming (once again) that it’s somebody’s right to have another person have sexual relations with them. I don’t.
As to what I would do. Different countries have different issues. I’m not familiar enough with the situations in, for example, Denmark or Egypt to make any kind of rational suggestion.
For the US
I’d focus attention of the supply side. Work on arresting the johns. Post their names/crimes in the paper, just as is done with other crimes. There’s been some success with confiscation of cars used, as well. There was a reduction locally after an underage prostitution ring was busted. Seems a few of the local johns may have been committing CSC against a minor. Slowed the trade for a while.
Instead of simply arresting the prostitute, look to the reasons they’re there. Is it drug addiction (often the case in the US), treat that. Lack of other marketable job skills? Treat that symptom. etc. Are they immegrants? check out how they came into the country, and prosecute the hell out of the folks that imported them for prostitution (if that was the case).
For those (and there will be some, but IME, **Stoid’s ** stepmom notwithstanding, few), there 'cause they don’t want to earn a living in another way, treat 'em the way you would any one else who would knowingly break the law.
Would this cure all? No. But then again, we don’t cease attempting to deal with other criminal behavior because we can’t stop/prevent all of it. Why do you demand that standard in this?
Stoid it may be your body, but the government does regulate quite a bit of it.
Only certain people are allowed by law to give you a shot, do medical treatments.
You are not allowed to sell a kidney, or skin grafts.
you are not allowed to rent your womb.
you are not allowed to rent your vagina.
This is the crux of the problem with the way you approach this, wring. You insist on viewing the existence of prositution as though it is men deciding who they get to have sex with by virtue of the money in their pocket. You seem to have the completely bizarre belief that if we say it’s ok for prostitution to exist legally, that men will suddenly conclude that all women are prostitutes, and not only are all women prostitutes, but that men can take their pick, force money into their hands, and fuck them at will.
Join us here in the Real World, ok? You can calm down, this will not happen. All men are not morons and rapists that need to have the society structured in such a way to protect us all from their animal natures.
What prostitutions means is that ** women ** have the right to have sex with anyone they want (just as they do now) and charge cash for it. Period. Legalizing prostitution gives ** women ** the power, not the men, wring.
Maybe because most of us don’t view prostitution as crime?
stoid
Yes I am, people do it all the time.
stoid
I’ll respond to the other later, but cite? Where is it legal to rent one’s womb ? (a surrogate is allowed to have their medical expenses paid for, which is different than payment. I can also choose to have sex with some one. Just not get paid to do so.
wring, I happen to believe that if I want to have sex with someone and they’re willing to have sex with me, its my God-given right to have sex with them! (Not exactly what you said, but its how I feel about the matter.)
Who says that this is the only case where I demand that standard? I’m personally not happy with much of the criminal justice system in this country. The areas other than prostitution are Off-Topic for this thread, and I see no point in dragging them out here.
Strikes me as being unconstitutional. I know that the Supreme Court disagrees with me, but considering some of the flaky decisions they’ve handed down in the past, I’d say that there was a good chance in their being wrong in this case as well.
I support any kind of programs which provide free education, drug treatment, health care, and prosecution for those who force women into prostitution, but those won’t eliminate it.
Snort. Ever known a surrogate? I have. She was supported throughout the pregnancy with cash, car, clothing, and anything else her little heart desired. It wasn’t in the contract, but it didn’t have to be.
And yes, wring, I know I can’t legally rent my vagina. That would seem to be the debate, remember? The government is ** wrong ** to make that law, and the government ** creates problems ** with that law. That is what we are debating.
We can also debate the whether the anti-kidney sales law is valid, as well. Personally, I don’t know that I’d have a problem with it. Liberal that I am, I dislike my government making law that to me amounts to babysitting me. I’m an adult, I can decide what to do with my body, thanks anyway.
stoid
What you see as ‘babysitting by the government’ I see as a protection for those who may be exploited. As in the kidney thing. It’s very nice that you or the other folks here say "it should be the right of someone to rent out their vagina if they choose’ from the comfort of your safe life, without recognizing what the effect is for those at the bottom of the rung. and choice, tucker is the element that I’m not willing to concede is freely given in most circumstances.
Please, someone give me an anatomy lesson. In talking about prostitution it is not the womb that is in question or am I wrong? Of course I’m just an average male, so maybe that explains my thinking this way.
Also wring suggests that we treat economic, drug and immigrant problems that lead women to become prostitutes. Again, am I off base thinking that we have been for years trying to correct those problems? And if they were corrected it still wouldn’t mean there would not be other reasons that women become prostitutes.
It has been a long time since Economics 101 but it seems like the prostitutes would be the supply side and the johns would be the demand side. But again maybe that is just the male way of looking at things
So, in other words, I’m not choosing to post here freely? I’m being compelled to post here? Where’s the guy with a gun pointed at my head? I don’t see him.
Are you proposing the government protect us from all possible exploitation? That’s impossible, unnecessary, and dangerous! Who are you to decide if I’m being exploited? What if you think I’m being exploited, but I’m really not? Perhaps I don’t mind being exploited in some circumstances! Shouldn’t I have the right to choose that?
So you ARE in favor of governmental babysitting.
Well, I’m not. I don’t need to be protected from myself by drug laws, prostitution laws or gambling laws. I need to be protected from ** others **.
If you are really sincere that your motive is about protecting the ones at the bottom, why not just confine yourself to making exploitation and abuse of others, in whatever form, a crime? Why does the mid-level hooker who does it freely have to pay the price of being a criminal to protect her sister who is doing it out of desperation and being exploited by a pimp in the process? How does that make any sense? That is ** precisely ** the wrongheaded and ultimately destructive logic of prohibition. Some people end up as drunks who can’t control themselves, so everybody had to become criminals in order to moderately enjoy a drink? That logic is no logic at all.
Make and keep the real crimes, the ones people commit ** against each other ** , crimes. But people who are doing what they want to be and hurting no one else should be left alone. It’s no one else’s business.
stoid
An excellent point, Tuckerfan.
Indeed, who are we to say what is exploitation and what is love? There are plenty of women in the world supporting lazy ass men that treat them badly, by waitressing, working in factories, being secretaries, whatever. Why is it only pimping when she supports him being a hooker? And if she’s dumb enough to hang with that, who are we to step in? People do dumb shit all the time.
Now, if he beats her, that’s a crime. That we can step in and say “no”. But as to anything else… ain’t nobody’s business.
stoid
PS: Not to mention the fact that most forms of sex work as it is practiced in the US is really an exploitation of the male weakness for female flesh. Ask any ten strippers and hookers and phone sex chicks who the exploited party in their transaction is, and 9 of 'em will lauigh and tell you the man is.