I’m finding it kind of interesting that this thread has focused almost exclusively on prostitution, rather than the variety of sexual occupations mentioned in the OP. And almost strictly female prostitution, at that. Does this mean that those of you who disapprove of family members going into prostitution don’t have any problem with male family members doing the same? Why is that? Are we getting into the double standard, here?
Also, we’re focusing on this in a very Western-centric fashion; most Geishas were not exactly prostitutes, but I think it can be said that they were in a form of sexual occupation. They also were expected to have skills; I don’t know if they were objectified or not, but the couple of books I’ve read suggest that they were mostly seen as people.
As far as objectification of women or people in general, well, I covered that in my discussion of my problem with pornography in general. I’m certainly not fer it. I’m not sure that I agree that prostitution has to carry that sort of objectification with it, however. I think that it certainly does as it stands, but as I’ve said before, there’s a lingering puritanism in this country that’s going to keep things as they stand, because if we don’t have the prostitutes to look down on we’re going to have to look down on the kids working at McDonalds - oh, wait. We already do that.
Well, I didn’t mean for it to sound like I think it would be gross if my sister did it, yet not gross when someone else does. The level of undiscriminating intimate contact involved in prostitution is gross (to me) whomever does it. However, I don’t really have to think about it much until it involves someone I know.
I can’t think of any other social act that people engage in that is as personal and intimate as sex. There has to be, for me, a certain level of trust involved before I would consider engaging in sex with anyone. The idea of lowering social barriers and extending that level of trust and intimacy to any slob with $20 is what I find repulsive.
I think this is an issue of enthusiasm versus apathy. While there may be a majority of people in favor of/just don’t care about prostitution, the people who are against it are very against it. I don’t think I would be falsely accusing anyone if I said that quite a few religious groups with sizable congregations would present vocal and united front against any politician who tried to legalize prostitution. And with our election atmosphere? The only politician who would be able to bring this one up would be one who was planning on permanent retirement and didn’t give a damn what people remembered him for.
As I understand it, the solicition is what is illegal. I know in most areas, one just has to look in the yellow pages for sex under the “guise” of massage or escort services. We all know what is going on. What becomes a problem for many people are half naked provocatively dressed girls uttering profane language to motorists passing by in full view of their impressionable little ones. Is this what they have to look forward to when they grow up? The laws on the books right now at least allows authorities to control it somewhat. Lets face it, we have controls on nearly every form of business to some degree, and some people would want more.Phone solicition for any purpose is an example.
There are two moral extremes here. The “sex is bad” attitude and the “free love” attitude.
I don’t believe in either. IMHO, sex shouldn’t be something to be ashamed of, but it shouldn’t be a passtime between aquaintances, either. I think it should be something meaningful, which causes me to oppose prostitution.
This is not to say I’d condemn someone who does work in that field, but I would realize their morals are extremely different from mine and would be uncomfortable. Stripping (again, IMHO) trivializes sex, and while I have read OpalCat’s site and am glad she finds topless dancing gratifying, but I don’t think the customers see it that way.
Porn starts getting closer to the gray line. Human bodies are beautiful, but once you start going into S&M, bondage etc…
Basically, these are my morals and why I would not do any of the above, and why I would have problems with people close to be doing any of the above. That isn’t to say I condemn the practices, because I realize there are different viewpoints from my own.
I know I haven’t made any concrete arguments, but I figured an explanation could give some perspective on the other side.
It’s certainly interesting reading all the responses. Although I must say I’m surprised at the number of “hey, cool by me!” type answers. I have to take you all at your word, but I do tend to agree with ** The Moongazer ** who pointed out that if everyone is so openminded, why is prostitution still illegal, why are strip joints closed down, etc.?
There were a few items that caught my eye I’d like to respond to.
First, I don’t even wanna go there in terms of discussing legalities. Except to say that it is * infuriating * to me that anyone DARES to tell another person the circumstances under which they can agree to have sex (I mean really…the GALL… you can fuck him for dinner, but not for the cash instead? Please…) This thread was intended to be about each person’s individual response to other people doing sex work.
The point has been made several times that our society condemns sex work and those who do it, therefore those who do it will suffer psychologically from being socially rejected/judged/ostracized. Well, this strikes me as a bit circular. Perhaps if we were more openly accepting (if that is what we believe in our hearts) of people who choose to do this work, the society as a whole would stop being so harsh,etc. You know the drill.
Some of you seem to feel that sex is or should be “special” in some way, that it is such an elevated experience that it should be above commerce. Well, I hate to break it to ya, but you are living in a dream world. Whatever sex * “should” * be, how about we make our decisions based on what it actually * ** is ** *, and that would be: the single most pleasurable physical experience of which human beings are capable. (as well as being the means of reproduction, but our * experience * of sex is about the pleasure, not the reproduction.) As such, it influences everything. It can be experienced as anything, ranging from torture/punishment (in the form of rape) to the ecstasy of making physical the most profound and deeply felt commitment between two unrelated human beings. (sex as an expression of true love). It is also everything in between, including recreation. Just because some of us only wish to experience it as the profound ecstasy of love expression…sex belongs to all of us, it is our gift as human beings. How dare we tell anyone else how they should be experiencing it? I mean you have your sex, I have mine, right? You gonna tell me how I should be experiencing food? Should all my meals only be the finest gourmet type? What if I * like * McDonalds sometimes? It’s MY meal, right? Well, it’s MY sex life, and if I can use my sexuality to make a buck, who are YOU to in any way interfere or judge me for it?
Anyway…
I’m not meaning to pick on you, Pee, I’m just using this as an example of some mistaken thinking about sex work.
I probably know more real, live prostitutes than anyone else who has answered this thread. I’ve also done phone sex, and have known a number of people doing different kinds of sex work.
While it is certainly true that many forms of sex work can be utterly mindless, requiring nothing more than showing up (porn acting and posing comes immediately to mind) prostitution, phone sex, and even stripping can all be quite challenging, as well as very rewarding. They can also provide a great deal more than mere sexual release to the people who are paying for the service.
Certainly there are men and hookers who are simply “Blow job, $50, thanks, see ya”. But there is alot of it that is much, much more than that. Hookers, even relatively low-level hookers, truly do provide a service that goes beyond merely bringing someone to orgasm. Lots of men who go to hookers are in fact very lonely, and do find the hookers a way to feel less so. Now, you and I may say to ourselves “Huh?” but it is not for us to judge, now is it?
I’ve heard some very sad storied from my stepmother, believe me. She no longer works as a prostitute, but let me tell you, she was and is proud of what she did, because she knows better than any of us what kind of human connection and compassion she was offering so many of her clients. Not all, but many. If you could ask, you’d find that all prostitutes do a whole lotta * listening *. And the rest…she was happy to oblige their fantasies. She liked what she did. She cared about them, too. She had regulars that she saw for years. They paid her for her time, but she had real relationships with them. She made a real and profound difference in the lives of some of these men. How many of us can say that we’ve done that at the end of the day, hmm? And to do this effectively requires an understanding of human nature, a certain amount of raw intelligence, compassion, sensitivity…it actually takes alot out of a person. Not because it’s degrading, but because you are giving of yourself to another.
I did phone sex off and on for years, and it was a very similar experience. There were certainly men who just wanted to hear me talk about my long blonde hair and giantic tits for 2.7 minutes so they could get off, but most of the calls were more complex than that, and it could be draining. I ran into a great deal of neediness, and gratitude that I was there and willing to listen. And for some of them, the shame of their fantasies was deep, and that I would listen and participate with them in these whacked out fantasies without being judgmental was very important to them.
So, don’t be so quick to judge, folks. There’s a real need for sex work that is much deeper than simply helping people come, and the people who are willing to provide that service should be appreciated for their willingness to do it.
** Really? I’ve worked with convicts for 20+ years, and for 14 years of that ran a correction center for females. A good portion of my (female, and some male) clients were, at least some of the time, prostitutes.
So, while I don’t know the Heidi Fliech set, I certainly knew the ones hanging out at the street corners in urban areas. Yes, I also knew women who stripped etc, even one who ran an out call business. Yes, some of the relationships they spoke of with fondness. Of course, many cannot speak now, because they were murdered, or died of a drug overdose, but I digress.
You wish us all to think of how we feel about this subject as if it weren’t illegal, but chastize us for having the rosy glasses on about what sex can be with some one we love vs. a commercial enterprise. Well, please make up your mind. Either we’re talking about the very real world in which we live, or we’re talking about ideals. The very real world in which I live, the great majority of the people selling their bodies are doing so to cover a drug habit (theirs or some SO’s), etc. in a place where it is not only illegal, but morally repugnant to many of the people that care for them.
Yes, many were able to make more than they would have otherwise at the local Mickey D’s. However, since in most cases that I knew, they were also living on the street or in flop houses etc, the great quantities of $$ they were making wasn’t going to improve their lifestyle or their stock portfolio.
And, so, in the very real world in which **I **live, a prostitute runs serious risks of being murdered, beaten up (by johns, pimps and cops), robbed etc. than the average person. The risks of diseases also is higher (even with safe sex practices, by the number of partners and encounters, you’re raising your potential for infection). I’ve seen cases of gonnoreah where the person’s abdomen was extended as if they were 5 months pregnant, and they were doubled over in pain. Yea, all jobs have risks, but that’s one I’d rather avoid, thank you. Again, that’s in the real world.
As for the ‘wonderful relationship’ etc. and ‘fufilling a need’ etc. yes, indeed, sometimes things can work out nicely. But again, you could also meet the local serial killer, or some examples in my little town - the van full of 6 college guys who thought it’d be fun to beat, rape and rob the hooker; the guy who thought ‘helping’ the hooker was tying her up in a chair in his house for a few days; the one who then called the cops and complained she robbed him (she faced 13 years in prison for that one), and the one who would not go back to school for her GED since many of the teachers there had been clients.
You say your step mother is proud of the work she did. Fine and dandy. Please don’t think that means that all former prostitutes have such a warm glowing memory of their past. One in particular that I knew, we’d talk over the years (I’ve known her 10 or more), and at points when she was sober, but broke, she’d have people wonder why she wouldn’t just ‘turn a few tricks’ to get the money for her bus pass or whatever. Her response was always - I have to be high in order to turn a trick - other wise, it hurts my soul.
Yes, I also knew some of the ones that ‘developed a relationship’ etc. and you know what? it always stalled around going out in public where others could potentially meet them. “Gee, Bob, how did you meet Jane?” enough encounters like that and the relationship was gone.
So, while there may indeed be some folks some places who feel as you do, desire to sell their sexual services, without all of the issues etc. that I’ve seen, from the stories I’ve seen, the majority are not making as free, liberated, and informed decision. I see real damage to real people.
As far as the strip bars, phone sex etc. my only response is that it makes for a difficult time later on if you’re trying to fill out a job app (I should know, I’ve helped enough folks do that). Prejudice exists Stoid. Yes, you can get work various places, but past a certain point that kind of employment history can hurt your chances. And I don’t like to see people limit their future, so I do things like encourage them to stay in school, if they’re wanting to get a tattoo, consider getting small ones that won’t show (and not, as two of my clients have done, get a giant marijuana leaf tattooed on their necks), stay out of jails and prisons, not work under the table etc.
I’m with WRING. You start a thread purporting to ask why people dislike sex work, when what you really want is to argue with people about whether sex work is or is not okay. And your inconsistent in doing that: on the one hand, you argue that prostitue-sex can be “just sex” and not some rosy emotional ideal that indicates we live in a “dream world” but in the same breath you admit that many people who purchase sex do so to attempt to purchase, be it ever so briefly, a counterfeit of an emotional relationship.
Oh, right, prostitution, stripping, and talking dirty are oh-so-challenging. :rolleyes: And fulfilling, too, I’m sure, giving young men and women ample opportunities to use their gifts, make something of their lives, and make a difference in the world. I don’t think so. There is a prostitution-outreach program in San Francisco run by a former hooker; I believe her experience of street-walking was not that it was either challenging or rewarding, but that it was lonely, dangerous, degrading, and exploitive – the perfect breeding ground for addiction, which became a viscious cycle, in that it offered an emotional respite from the streets, but not an escape because addicted hookers keep hooking to support their drug habits. You may have some ideal of the Happy Hooker, doing good and loving her work, but I seriously doubt that describes the majority of low-end working girls.
So, by extension, sex with children or animals, or sex without consent must also be okay. It’s not for us to judge, now is it? I realize that these acts are not truly comparable to consensual sex for money, but we as a society are certainly able to judge when a profession, as a whole, does not provide a beneficial service to the community nor a positive experience for those who engage in it. Is this a moral judgement? Sure. But one I, you, and everyone else has a perfect right to make if we choose.
Well, I can. And I do it without spreading my legs, too. Do you seriously think that you make a “real and profound diference” in the lives of people by marketing pornography? To me, it’s like a candy-bar distributor attempting to glorify his profession by enshrining the temporary emotional high some people can get from a Snickers bar. There is nothing wrong with earning a living, but that doesn’t mean every job makes the world a better place. A lot of people would argue that being a lawyer does not. A lot of people would argue that being a hooker does not.
Oh, right, because what customers are looking for in the sex industry is intelligence, compassion, and sensitivity. That’s why the girls who are small-breasted and homely, and the boys with chicken-chests and small dicks, but who are smart and sensitive, do so well. :rolleyes:
Sort of like “Have You Hugged Your Hooker?”, huh? As a dedicated capitalist, I have no problem with marketing pornography to consenting adults. The illegality of prostitution is not an issue that concerns me in the least – legal or illegal, I don’t really care. I wouldn’t lift a finger to legalize it, but if it was legalized tomorrow, I wouldn’t turn a hair. But I refuse to act like sex work is a generally worth-while profession, compared to virtually every other profession, that does some great service to our society. It scratches a primal itch, and that’s okay, but it ain’t brain surgery, and I refuse to enshrine it as such.
From Andrea Dworkin, with whom I do not always (or even ususally) agree:
“Now, we understand about male labor. We understand that men do things they do not like to do in order to earn a wage. When men do alienating labor in a factory we do not say that the money transforms the experience for them such that they liked it, had a good time, and in fact, aspired to nothing else. We look at the boredom, the dead-endedness; we say, surely the quality of a man’s life should be better than that.”
Same with women engaged in prostitution. There may be a few who think that cleaning toilets is the acme of social usefulness and personal achievement, but not many. That doesn’t mean that cleaning toilets is a job to be scorned, but it is what it is, and nothing more.
There are a couple of other nations where prostitution is legal, like Germany and Sweden, and they don’t seem to have any big problems with it. Sweden used to have a very lucrative porn industry, where men and women freely worked from time to time to earn a bit of extra cash, similar to delivering a paper route. No one cared.
Over here, adult movies use prostitutes of both sexes, are technically illegally made, but legally sold all over the world. Now, that is an interesting loophole in the laws. The ‘actors and actresses’ are paid to perform sex, but it is called acting, so they slip through the laws. Plus, so long as there is a feeble story plot and the people mumble a few words, often against a background of crappy music, it seems not to be considered prostitution, can be packaged and shipped and taxed.
I’d love to know how someone like lighting assistant Dik Loong’ files his taxes or actress Backdoor Betty, for that matter.
It bothers me how a small but vocal group of morality nuts can scare enough people into going along with them against sex workers, among other things, that politicians dare not put up a fight. It’s even in for people with gobs of money, like movie stars, to date adult film stars and be admired and envied for it, even though, technically, they are publicly going with a prostitute and no doubt will be getting serviced before the night is over.
Power guys have no problem with encouraging career women to f**k their way up the corporate ladder, but will not vote to legalize local cat houses.
There were a couple of nationally known swing clubs operating across the nation for years, Plato’s, I think they were called, legally operating as members only night clubs. They also provided willing, paid professional companions for single swingers. These places went along happily for ages, then suddenly the moral morons started pushing the penile politicians, forcing the press to get involved and blab everything about everyone involved and they started shutting these places down.
I don’t know if any are left open.
It worries me how so many people just cave in when the morality morons start calling on that ol’ time religion, bring out the hatchet faced, black clad, torch bearing bible thumpers growling about hellfire and damnation and happily restricting everyone else’s freedom of choice.
If the government would just legalize prostitution, the drop in crime and in the spread of disease alone would be dramatic, plus the taxable income would be a boon to the politicians who never seem able to tax people enough.
I just got back from the Venetian in Las Vegas and they’re having some sort of cyber porn convention there. Did you hear of it?
**
Well this is certainly a large onion to peel. Let’s start off with prostitution.
I don’t care how clean the girls are or whether or not it is legal. I wouldn’t fuck a hooker with someone else’s dick. The idea of going someplace where thousands of other guys have been isn’t very appealing. Add to that the higher risk of sexually transmitted diseases and that only heightens the gross out factor. (I don’t care how safe she practices her trade she’s still at higher risk then I am.)
I wouldn’t want to associate with a prostitute and I’d certainly want my children to stay away.
You know I’d find it really disturbing if my daughter’s husband didn’t mind her selling her body for cash.
Leaving out crackwhores plying their trade on the streets for drug money, and turning to professional ladies of the evening…you are actually * safer * with them than you are with some babe you picked up in a bar. Precisely because of what they do, they are far more careful about their sexual practices than the average sexually active woman is likely to be. The chances that some babe you pick up at a party has had unsafe sex with a guy she doesn’t know the status of are far higher than that a prostitute has had unsafe sex with anyone at all. It is also far less likely that the random babe has ever been tested, whereas the average prostitute tests once a month or even more.
These are not figures I made up. My stepmother is very political, and she has all these facts and figures at her fingertips and has shared them with me.
I’m not saying you should have sex with a prostitute if you don’t want to…just don’t assume that they are more likely to carry disease. Lowlife drug addicts selling their bodies for drugs are very likely to carry disease, whether they sell it or give it away, but professional call girls are not.
I’m a bit surprised that the health aspects of prostitution haven’t been explored more.
I believe you’re right here, but careful doesn’t mean “safe.” Condoms break and leak. You can never be completely protected from the AIDS virus.
But it can take years for the body to develop antibodies to the HIV/AIDS virus. How many clients has she been with between tests before she came up positive? How does she go about contacting all of these clients and warning them that she has been tested positive, and they have been exposed? Does she stop working at this point? The prostitutes that do it just for extra money might, but the ones with no marketable skills who are drug-addicted and deperate might not. There isn’t exactly health insurance, or an Old Whores Retirement Fund.
And do protitutes check for all STDs? Chlamydia? Gonorrhea? Herpes? Some of these diseases don’t necessarily always show symptoms. Testing for all of these could get quite expensive.
Men that patronize prostitutes are generally not first time customers. So each prostitute that an infected man visits is exposed, and exposes all of her clients and the other women that they may patronize as well.
What about the wives of the men who patronize the prostitute? While I know that these men would be putting their wives at risk even with the “random babe” the prostitute gets more “traffic” than she, and thus, statistically is at a higher risk than the bar-fly, even if the prostitute does get tested frequently.
How would you know that this is a fallacious assumption? Do you have knowledge of my sex life that I am unaware of?
**
I don’t see why we need to leave them out. But as you please.
**
Baloney. The average sexually active woman probably isn’t having sex with hundreds or thousands of men a year.
**
What does this have to do with my sex life? You claim that I made a fallacious assumption about my risk vs. the risk of “professional” prostitutes based on my sexual practices. Since I don’t go around picking up babes at parties this hardly applies to me, does it?
**
I suppose here in the states the average brothel worker in places where it is legal might get tested. But I seriously doubt that most of those working in the areas that are illegal get tested all that often.
**
I didn’t see any figures presented made up or otherwise.
**
Let’s see. Woman has sex with hundreds or thousands of men per year. I have sex with 3 women in the past 8 years. Hmmmm…I’m pretty sure she’s more likely to catch something she can’t throw back.
I do think it should be legal, by the way. But it is a disgusting occupation and I wouldn’t expect the general public to embrace it.
CDC, which tracks this stuff consistently, reports that STDs in general are transmitteed thusly:
3-5% sex workers (with no distinctions drawn between streetwalkers and call girls, and such distinctions should be drawn because the behavior of the two groups is very different.)
20-21% via one night stands, non-commercial (someone you picked up in a bar)
75% highschool-college age kids
So, even including the trashiest hookers, you are more likely to get an STD from some yummy little college babe than from a whore.
Also:
Rand Corporation did a study 7 years ago, which my stepmother helped put together and which was never publicly released. They were looking at HIV in prostitutes, and they DID make the distinction between streetwalkers and what they called “off-street” sex workers. The “off-street” sex workers had NO HIV whatsoever. ZERO.
That finding is one of the reasons, my SM fwas told, that the study was not released. That was not the answer the gummint was looking for, and they commissioned the study.
and while we’re waiting for Stoid to come with a cite vs. her step mom’s memory:
From: http://www.path.org/outlook/html/15_2.htm
(from Outlook,which features news on reproductive health products and drug regulatory decisions of interest to developing country readers.
Outlook is made possible in part by a grant from the United Nations Population Fund. Content or opinions expressed in Outlook are not necessarily those of Outlook’s funders, individual members of the Outlook Advisory Board, or PATH)
"Targeting High-Risk Groups . STD management programs in low-resource settings often target high-risk groups in an effort to ensure that available services have the maximum impact. The general aim is to cure infections in clients who are most likely to transmit the infection to othershigh-frequency transmittersand therefore prevent many other STDs. Some specific strategies that have been implemented are:
training sex workers as peer educators and providing them with educational materials and condoms for distribution.
providing diagnosis and treatment of STDs in brothels. Sex workers often prefer brothel-based services because they are private and confidential and are open at convenient times.21
basing STD service delivery sites in workplaces. In the Philippines, for example, dockworkers in Manila who frequented sex workers were targeted for an STD/AIDS and family planning education program using peer educators and specially designed educational materials (see Outlook, Volume 14, Number 3 ). "
Note that although these discuss world wide programs, the programs aiming at “high risk” groups pretty much are directed at prostitution related activities.
Other information re: the numbers provided by Stoid STD’s include a wide range of stuff from Chlymadia (sp), Herpes, all the way up to AIDS etc. Some are much more prevalent in certain groups, so while quoting numbers of “STD’s” and the various rates of infection, it’d be helpful to have the full data available, so we could see, for example, the percentage of sex workers infected with say AIDS, vs. high school students, and the specific numbers involved, as well. (there are lots more high school and college students around than sex workers, or at least in my town)
Here’s some more info:
From: http://www.libchrist.com/std/2000aidsrpt.html
it quotes a CDC 1997 report on HIV, that “We have a huge number of prostitute studies from all over the world that clearly show, while many prostitutes are infected (often from drug use), it is clear they are not passing HIV or AIDS to their male clients.” so that while the individual client of the sex worker may not be at risk of AIDS, it does seem that the sex worker themselves are.
Now, a discussion of relative risk factors - in that even with a relatively small poplutation of sex workers, and even if there’s relatively few sexual contacts with them, and even with a relatively low percentage of infected sex workers, it still remains that a high percentage of the STD’s could be traceable back to the prostitute: “On a population level, consider a situation where only 1% of all sex in a society is with prostitutes and only 5% of all gonorrhea is in prostitutes, but these prostitutes form key links in the chain of transmission that keeps an agent like gonorrhea circulating. Say that each infected prostitute infects 10 other individuals. Only half of these individuals may in turn infect another individual. If the chain of transmission that these individuals start never gets back to the prostitute population, the chain of transmission will eventually end. If it does get back to the prostitute population, it will start 10 new chains. If this idealized example were really the case, it might be possible to completely eliminate an agent like gonorrhea from that population just by affecting the 1% of all risk behavior that involves prostitutes. Thus, an intervention that directly reduced the risk of only 1% of the population that experiences only five percent of the gonorrhea would reduce gonorrhea at the population level not by 5% but by 100%.” (from : http://www.sph.umich.edu/~jkoopman/Web606/Ex2606/Exer2.htm )
and from http://www.nap.edu/books/0309062322/html/10.html
the National Academy Press, 1997 report on the hidden epidemic, “STD’s disproportionately affect disenfranchised populations, including** sex workers**…” (emphasis added)
So, it still seems to be an accurate statement that in the real world, sex workers as a group have a realitvely higher risk for contracting STD’s, despite the step mom’s memory and good fortune.
Assuming your numbers are correct what does it prove? I’d wager that most men don’t have sex with prostitutes so of course most of them won’t get STDs from them. It doesn’t show that that prostitutes aren’t at a higher risk then the general population.
It is a generally accepted fact that multiple sexual partners increases the risk of catching a sexually transmitted disease. Why would you think that prostitutes are magically immune? Sure I can accept that some of them take great care to ensure that they remain disease free. But I doubt that represent the majority.
**
It’d be nice to have an independent source for all of this information.
Marc
