You’re not talking from a place of knowledge. I accept that there are probably some happy hookers out there. But that doesn’t make what they do any less disgusting.
**
But it is a vile and digusting occupation unworthy of respect. You certainly haven’t provided us with any information that would change anyone’s mind.
Well maybe if you provided new information that would help. I think legalization would improve things for hookers, johns, and the general public in certain ways. I think the positives of legalization would outweigh any potential harm of legalization.
But blowing strange men for a living isn’t a respectable occupation and is actually quite disgusting. I think many people here have explained to why they find it repulsive. I believe the opening topic has been answered multiple times.
Oh come on, YOU are the one who said "it is they who are exploiting the men who pay them. Look who ends up with money in their pocket and tell me again who got exploited. "
Then you went on to say:
Obviously forgetting that it was YOU who made the statement " And it doesn’t make them a bad person, it makes them a lonely, desperate person. "
It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see how a lonely, desperate person can be hurt by someone (in your words) “exploiting” them.
And in the end, a women charging a man to stick his dick in her is a woman charging a man to stick his dick in her, no matter what the price.
I will. I don’t have it in front of * me *, Norma Jean (my stepmother’s name, I’m tired of typing “my stepmother”) has it and says she will get back to me with the page cites later today.
You have already admitted that prostitutes exploit johns. “Take advantage of” is a fine working definition of “exploit.”
Oh, right, since we cannot claim to be best friends with prostitutes, we must not know what we’re talking about. :rolleyes: Good plan, STOID; if you can’t convince people they’re wrong then fall back to implying they’re stupid.
Or you might take a look at http://www.prostitutionresearch.com and explain how ignorant the feminists and former prostitutes who run that site must be, too.
It is offensive to claim that because we disagree with you our opinions must have been formed from “movies and TV shows.” If you want to change our minds then cough up some statistics or verifiable facts tending to prove that prostitution is the bed of roses you claim it to be. Otherwise, kindly stop claiming the high ground of “personal experience,” as if I can’t judge that shooting people is wrong simply because I’ve never shot someone.
WTF, did you even read my words? Strange, I don’t recall ever giving a timeline, I simply made the comment that she was pretty “fucked up”.
Aren’t you the poster who feels that society as a whole needs to better understand these things you hold in such high value? I don’t know how you define it, but I usually consider “society as a whole” to be pretty similar to “majority”.
Huh, it does? Really? I wasn’t aware that people who disagree must always be pissed off as opposed to having their own views, but whatever.
I didn’t realize it was so hard to understand. There is a difference between enjoying sex and being sexually open compared to dehumanizing yourself to become nothing more than a hole for another person to use in order to get their rocks off. I consider myself very open when it comes to sexual matters, but I have enough dignity, self-esteem, and class to not be reduced to nothing but an object. It is dehumanizing and degrading.
Ya know, it comes down to the fact that people have, by and large, simply judged prostitution to be funadamentally repulsive. Are there some people who don’t feel this way? Sure. That doesn’t change the simple fact that most people do. Now you can cry out “There’s no logical reason to feel like this!” You can try and convince everyone that the “hooker with a heart of gold” is a truer Hollywood stereotype than “lonely and abused crack whore.” You’re simply not going to convince anyone. They have a value system that is different from yours.
You can rationalize anything, taking a swim in your septic tank for instance. “It’s just a collection of atoms and molecules, and it’s organic. Why should you react with disgust towards them when you happily swim in other collections of molecules?” Well, the fact is we do make distinctions between your septic tank and the local YMCA pool. While you may not agree with the reasons why or the values underlying the distinctions, they are certainly non-arbitrary. If the septic tank swimmer wants to tell everyone else that they have fecal hangups, or that they are needlessly repressing the dung lovers, then they have that right. To society at large he’s still a nut with shit in his hair.
I can speak from personal knowledge. As a manic-depressive, I’ve been in quite a few hospitals. I’ve met quite a few women who have been prostitutes. Their story usually went like this,
raped by dad or other male relative.
rationalise that ‘it’s just my body. My body is
unimportant.’
run away.
can’t find work (lack of proper documents, emotional
problems, lack of training and various other reasons)
since they’ve already decided that what a man does
to them sexually is unimportant, they become street walkers
I cared deeply for some of these women. They were my friends. They were also massively scarred emotionally. One even told me that when she is hooking, she denies even to herself that her job is anything less than wonderful. When she can stop, the barrier comes down and she feels disgust, hatred and fear that she'll have to go back to prostitution.
That said, I am strongly in favor of legalising prostitution. Regulate it. Tax it. Most of all, set up programs so that any prostitute who got into the profession as a last resort can get another job. I see the situation as the pre-union sweatshops of the Industrial Revolution.
I am aware that not all prostitutes are streetwalkers, a quick glance in your Yellow Pages will show that. Yes, “escorts” might have higher pay and safer working conditions, but their decision to become a prostitute is often based on the same things.
Well, okay. I’m not going to ask anymore, but I will say that your position here strikes me as circular and inconsistent. Kinda boiling down to “It shouldn’t be sold so we don’t like it when you sell it”, without really clarifying for me why an activity that can be pursued “for fun” suddenly becomes abhorrant to pursue for profit. Using that logic, enjoying one’s work is wrong, and that just seems weird to me. The only way the logic you are presenting seems to hold up is if you always view sex as something sacred to be shared between people who love each other-exclusively. Then I can see why you would find prostitution wrong. But if you can accept sex as something people who do NOT love each other do just because it’s fun…well, then, your logic falls apart.
I brought up the fact that I am related to a prostitute in my OP to give a thumbnail sketch of where I was coming from. Diane seized upon the situation and pressed me for details of my fathers’ marriage, which I provided.
See earlier in the post…if you expect sex to be a sacred act only between those who love, fine. If you are ok with recreational sex, then…bzzzzzz.
If “he” wants to purchase said counterfeit, so what? (and again, there often is a caring, even a loving relationship between hookers and their johns. Definitely not all, but frequently with regulars, and sometimes they even marry their johns!)
Well, hell, you could say that about 80% of the work available in this country! That doesn’t mean we revile it. And unlike most of the rest of that work, this work pays well. Additionally, most hookers hook for a short period of time as a side line to their main job or career.
Well, you won’t be providing the honor, certainly. Doesn’t mean there’s none to be had. Whether you approve or agree or not, Norma Jean and many other hookers feel what they do is very honorable. You can rant, but it’s a fact. Again, not all hookers all the time. But I make no claims for all hookers all the time in any of what I’m saying. My goal is to enlighten you all to the fact that prostitution and other sex work is not “all” * anything * all the time.
Again, sez you. Certainly this is true sometimes…but not all.
Doesn’t’ have to be if you do it right. And other professions are even more dangerous, by a mile. Do we revile them?
And perhaps that belief is mistaken, or unnecessarily harsh? And again… if you just revile promiscuity in any form, under any circumstances, then it is absolutely logical and consistent that you would find prostitution reprehensible and I can’t argue with that. But if you think it’s ok for someone to have recreational sex and your objections only come into play when the money comes into play…well… <shrug>
And I didn’t say it did. Read the quote again.
Well, it kinda is. I know that there will always be people who despise sex work and sex workers, but I think it is healthier for society to be accepting of it. Look at it this way, there’s a reason it’s called “The World’s Oldest Profession” – it has always been with us, it will always be with us. Apparantly it serves a purpose, fills a need. What’s to be gained in despising it?
Well, if you can honestly make no distinction between having sex with an animal and having sex with someone after they have given you $100, then I’m definitely wasting my time debating with you. You’ve got bigger issues than I can ever hope to make a dent in.
My guess is that you don’t actually have one. The fact that marriage has been, throughout history, and remains today, in many cultures, an economic arrangement, is irrefutable. Not only has it been an economic arrangment, it has been a political one. Historically, in virtually all cultures, women have been considered possessions to be bought, sold and traded, and all of that activity was generally done in the form of marriages. Prostitutes are women who have simply decided to take control of the situation.
Why do people use crack? 1) because it feels good; 2) because it helps them escape their misery for awhile.
Why do people visit hookers? See above.
Although I did have to smile when you ensured us that your stepmom doesn’t use drugs. What was your point in telling us that? That using drugs would be beneath someone of her impressive political and social status?
Unless you can correct my assumption that prostitution involves allowing strange men to insert their penises inside a hooker’s body in exchange for cash, then you won’t change my mind. I wouldn’t let a stranger put his FINGER into my mouth for twenty bucks.
REmember, I’m the one who actually knows a significant number of sex workers.
**
You keep telling us that “street walkers are not the only prositutes” - yes, of course we know that, however, you keep assuring us that they are (and here you give a number) only 10% of the prostitutes. Bull. Let’s see the documentation. We’ve heard your assurances, based on your step mom’s life. I’m on the line here - I would believe that the high end call girl type accounts for no more than 10% of the total number, certainly world wide, probably also in the US. Now, I would consider the person who hangs out on the streets and does the client either in the street or in the local 2-hour Inn to be a street worker. and I would believe that they account for roughly 90% of the prostitution trade.
Yes, I’ve admitted that some of the higher end call girls make a lot of money, apparently aren’t bothered by what they do. So what? This still leaves the great quantities of steet walkers whose lives are filled with dispair.
**
I disagree that you haven’t said that - you say it again here. Some people have held both a personal distaste as well as a generally held principal, some only a personal distaste. You keep making assumptions that our opinions are only based on “tv and movies” or that we “haven’t thought honestly about it”. What gall. How dare you presume to tell me or anyone else here that we 'haven’t thought about it honestly", while also chiding us for ‘being judgemental’ about other people.
**
:rolleyes: nice personal attack there. I don’t think that I’ve been rude to you - I’ve not even joined in on the nasty comments about your dad and step mom. But, be that as it may, my comment was in response to your assertion that going to prostitutes was the ‘only sexual outlet available for many’, and obviously, it isn’t. Masturbation is a sexual outlet. While we all have various desires, they are not always possible. But that doesn’t mean that the only sexual outlet is prostitution. Your original assertion (as I quoted) is flat out wrong
Nice sidestep of the whole arguement. My comment was in direct response toyour** quote: “Until the last 40 years or so in this country, and to this day in many others, marriage was an economic pact.” so, you asserted that marriages up until the last 40 years was an ‘economic pact’, and went on to define it in less than loving terms. So, my comment stands - you asserted that marriages were ‘economic pacts’, I replied that it seemed to me that people, yes, even those more than 40 years ago, often married for love. Are you backing off of the ‘economic pact’ now?
Once again, you quote me without showing what I was responding to. Your original assertion was: “I was listening a talk radio host blathering on yesterday about how women are “obliged” to fuck or otherwise “sexually service” their husbands, even through pregnancy, and that if she doesn’t he has a right to cheat or leave her. Because, after all, he’s out there earning a living and asks for nothing else! And he had plenty of callers chiming in to agree. So please, tell me, how and why is simply asking for the cash up front so very different?”, to which I replied the above - ‘getting the cash upfront’ doesn’t have to be the goal in an interpersonal relationship.
In response to the “oldest profession” arguement, I’d also point out that historically womens’ roles were specifically related to child bearing/sexual objects/providing hearth and home. There weren’t a whole lotta “head of the council of elders” positions available for women. It has only been recently that women have been able to break out into other occupations. So, for me at least, the 'it’s always been there 'cause it’s a needed profession" arguement doesn’t work - it’s always been the available last resort for women to avoid starvation is more likely to have been the truth.
Stoid - Just a suggestion. READ the entire thread each and every time you respond. You seem to be making a lot of denials and contradictions of things you previously said.
At this point, I frankly don’t really care how it strikes you. There is nothing “circular” or “inconsistent” with saying that some things should not be for sale.
Sex, for most people, is not an activity pursued just “for fun;” it is a way of connecting with others on an emotional level (sometimes a deep emotional level); of experiencing true intimacy (which requires a high level of trust); and of establishing and/or maintaining connections on of the most basic and human type. It also, incidentally, is lots of fun if done correctly. That does not mean it should be for sale, or that I am required to respect those who sell it or those who buy it.
But this is your logic, and not mine, so any “weirdness” you perceive can only be fixed by you.
Sorry, STOID, but it’s not that black and white. Just because sex is not always between two people who are in love with each other does not mean it is not MOSTLY between people who are trying to connect with each other on a personal and human level. If it was just about climax, then a vibrator or a good right hand would do just as well (and cheaper), and prostitutes would be out of work. I do not think that personal connection – that reaching out for closeness – should be sold. When you try to sell that connection, you are selling an illusion and you are cheapening the reality. I’m sorry if you don’t understand this POV, because I’m at a loss to explain it any better, but the fact that you do not understand it does not mean it is illogical.
Wrong. Recreational sex still involves intimacy and human contact. The only bzzzzz is the noise made by the truly impersonal sexual contact – a vibrator.
“Often a caring loving relationship between hookers and their johns”? Are you for real? This is a statement so ridiculous on its face as to hardly merit a reply. The very fact that you mistake the relationship of the average hooker and john with a relationship of care and love only underscores why sex should not be sold. I find this argument absolutely laughable. I mean, even most people who think prostitution should be legal because it is a matter of personal choice do not think hookers love their johns.
Actually, I don’t think you can say of 80% of the work in this country that it is the sort of worthless, dead-end profession that hooking is. Even if I’m the fry-guy at McDonald’s I may someday be the manager. And of course it pays well – that’s because 99% of women have too much self-respect to do it. The fact that a job pays well doesn’t mean it’s not distasteful.
Yeah, I bet they do. :rolleyes: Certainly sex work is a profession perceived to be oh-so-honorable to society, isn’t it? You might proudly tell me about the porn flicks you’ve made, but that doesn’t mean I or society at large with think your pride is justified.
I haven’t ranted at all; I have tried my best to answer your questions as you have raised them. I have never said prostitution or sex work is “all” anything all the time. You asked why people revile sex work; I answered (multiple times). Now you want to argue that my answers (which are only my own opinions anyway) are “wrong” – and argue that without a single citation tending to show they are wrong. So how about I say this: Sex work (and, more specifically, prostitution) is mostly worthless and degrading and mostly provides no net benefit to society at large and is mostly very dangerous and mostly viewed with contempt. Is that better?
Sez me??? HA! YOU solicit people’s opinions and then when they give them you say “sez you”? That is priceless! If you don’t want to know what people think, then don’t ask. If you want to argue about their opinions, fine, so long as you recognize that a response of “sez you” is tantamount to an admission that you have lost the argument.
Name me one other profession that a woman could engage in where she would routinely face the prospect of being raped, beaten, contracting a deadly disease, cheated out of her money, and forced to emotionally disconnect in order to perform tasks she personally finds distasteful to do with strangers.
“Shrug”? Listen, my personal opinion is that SEX SHOULD NOT BE SOLD. I realize you don’t get this – though why, I can’t imagine, since I’ve explained it, what? 40 times? – but the fact that I draw a distinction between promiscuity and prostitution is hardly illogical or inconsistent. Since it is the SALE of sex I object to, it is absolutely consistent that it is PROSTITUTION I object to. You see how the one follows the other? If you don’t get this by now, I can’t help you. So “shrug” right back atcha.
I said “And as long as I don’t actively try to stop you from doing what you want, I am not repressing you. Disapproval is not repression.”
To which you respond:
This makes me a tad impatient. If you think “disapproval” is synonymous with “repression” I suggest you invest in a dictionary.
Wait a second – just because people have always done it, therefore it must be necessary? Would you care to explain the logic of that? Because it reads like “A” is to “B” as “up” is to “bicycle.” You might also take a stab at explaining what it is “healthier” for society as a whole to be accepting of prostitution, but then that would require a response more complicated that “sez you.”
I said “In attempting to argue that sex-for-money is okay, you face the exact same problem of inherent distaste that you would face if you argued that sex with a German Shepard is okay.”
To which you respond:
Are you familiar with the the concept of an analogy? Open that dictionary back up again. I said you faced the same problem justifying prostitution as you would justifying bestiality – namely, the ingrained, inarticulate social belief that both are “icky” (though admittedly with different degrees of ickiness). I did not say that bestiality was the same as prostitution. If you cannot follow parallel reasoning without confusing the parallels, then you’ve got bigger issues than I can ever hope to make a dent in.
I said “Your argument that marriage is in fact a form of prostitution is so specious and, incidentally, insulting to every person in a love-based relationship (married or not), that it does not deserve a response.”
To which you respond:
My guess is that you don’t actually have one, either. And why would you, with that opinion of it?
The assertion that marriage is not or has been throughout history only an economic arrangement, devoid of affection and respect and akin to prostitution, is absolutely refutable. Is, in fact, ridiculous and insulting.
Prostitution as empowerment, huh? :rolleyes: Women in our society are not possession to be “bought, sold, or traded.” Therefore in our society, they have no need to become prostitutes, do they?
You have made your feelings abundantly clear. I recognize that there is absolutely nothing I could say that would ever make the slightest difference in your feelings about this subject. And you have devoted a great deal of energy to telling me what I asked. Thanks.
The only last objection I make is regarding this:
"“Often a caring loving relationship between hookers and their johns”? Are you for real? This is a statement so ridiculous on its face as to hardly merit a reply. The very fact that you mistake the relationship of the average hooker and john [sub](not what I said, by the way)[/sub] with a relationship of care and love only underscores why sex should not be sold. I find this argument absolutely laughable. I mean, even most people who think prostitution should be legal because it is a matter of personal choice do not think hookers love their johns. "
You cannot fairly make this assessment. You are in no position to judge other people’s relationships, especially when you do not know the people involved. Contrary to your assumption, the fact that money passes between two people does not completely define their relationship to the exclusion of everything else. It seems to, to you. All you seem to see in it is money. That doesn’t make you right. If the fact of money defined the beginning and end of all relationships in which it played an important role, there would be an awful lot of empty relationships in the world.
I know hookers who stopped charging and became involved with their johns. I know hookers who have married their johns. I’ve known women who were supported completely by men they adored who adored them. Happens every day. I’m sure you familiar with the saying “It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one.” Are women who live by that rule prostitutes who do not and cannot love? Most women factor a man’s money into the equation of whether they are interested in being with him…hookers are just more straightforward about it. It doesn’t prevent them from loving, any more than it prevents the average woman.
Just because you have strong feelings and judgments about prostitution does not mean you understand the people involved or what they are experiencing, and that is my basic complaint with your attitude. You can stand outside it and say what you feel about it… but understand that you are making that judgement from outside of it and that severely limits your ability to accurately understand what it is for the people involved. You are basically saying what it would be for you, and that’s fine. But YOU are not the standard by which all things are measured.
I never said that nothing could be said that would make the slightest difference in my feelings. I will admit that there is apparently nothing you can say that will change my mind, but then you are remarkably fact-free when it comes to statistics or citations that would tend to prove that your postitive view of prostitution is a valid one.
Hoping I don’t cross some Great Debates line but – Bullshit. You ask for my opinions; when I give it to you, you try to argue me out of it; when you find you can’t do that, you tell me I’m “not in a position to judge.” If you have some evidence that prostitution is generally a transaction based upon affection between the parties, then trot it out. Unless or until you do, I will continue to exercise my perfectly valid opinion that it is almost always a bloodless, hearless, money-based transaction where the hooker would not care in the least if the john was hit by a truck, so long as he paid her first.
Again, if you have any evidence that prostitution is anything more than just what it appears to be – emotionless sex for money – then trot it out. Otherwise, don’t presume to tell me that I am wrong in assuming that it is exactly what it appears to be.
And it doesn’t make me wrong, does it? If you want to persuade me that I’m wrong, you’re going to need to dredge up some facts – not your opinion, but actual facts tending to show I am wrong.
Relationships that are based on money are all most always “empty,” arms-length transactions. If people delude themselves into thinking they are buying love or affection (in any context), they are setting themselves up for some major disappointment. Money defines my relationship with my banker. It’s pretty much an empty one, and that’s the way I prefer it; I don’t pay him to be my friend but to cash my checks.
Yeah, your a veritable font of unverifiable anecdotes on how marvelous it is to be a prostitute. I assure you I’ll give those stories the merit they deserve.
Really? I don’t. But then I’m looking for a man to love me, not a sugar daddy. I can support myself. Most women do not give themselves sexually to men solely for money. Only prostitutes do.
And my basic complaint about your attitude is that you actively solicity people’s opinions, but if they don’t agree with you, you retreat to the assertion that they don’t know what they’re talking about, because they are “outside” the situation. Baloney. As I have said, I don’t need to shoot somebody to know that shooting people is generally indefensible. If you don’t want people’s opinions, then for God’s sake don’t ask for them.
Twaddle twaddle twaddle. I have every right to judge that prostitution is essentially a degrading and worthless profession. I do not need to be a prostitute, or know bunches of prostitutes, to make that sort of objective assessment of the profession.
I never said I was the standard by which all things are measured. I will say (and I doubt you would argue) that my position is more in line with the beliefs of mainstream America than yours are. But, again, if you don’t want my opinion that don’t effing ask for it, 'kay? If you post a question “why do people believe X?” then you have the obligation to be respectful of everyone’s answers, regardless of whether you agree with them. And – news flash – “you don’t know what you’re talking about” is not respectful.
Well, yeah, Jodi, I’m making everything up. I just woke up one morning and decided: “I’m gonna go over to GD and tell a bunch of lies about prostitutes! Yeah!”
:rolleyes: indeed. Is that all the response you have?
I think wring, Jodi, Pundit Lisa and several others have presented valid questions and comments. As Jodi has said, you started this thread, you asked the questions. And they have been asked, and answered.
So what was the point of this thread? A fact-finding mission, and way to find out what people think out there? Or just a way to preach your point of view to everyone, while telling them that they don’t know what they’re talking about when they disagree with you? (And another thing - I think wring’s experiences are pretty valid. He knows prostitutes, a lot of them, in his line of work. Why should we believe your view of things over his?)
:rolleyes: back atcha, STOID. I never said you made anything up. I said (and say) that you present anecdote instead of fact in an attempt to argue that you are right, as if we should believe that your experience of prostitution (or, rather, your stepmother’s) is indicative of what the experience of prostitution generally is, even from a prostitute’s point of view.
And this is what the experience of prostitution arguably is:
From a 1997 survey of Los Angeles street prostitutes:
– 75% had histories of chronic drug and/or alcohol abuse, with 33% being long-standing heroin addicts.
– 73% had an average of three children (that’s not one, not two, but three kids) in custodial care.
– 70% had been raped apart from prostitution activity.
– 100% (as in all of them) had suffered child abuse and/or neglect.
The Mary Magdalene Project Newsletter, Did You Know?, Spring 1997.
From a 1997 survey of 130 San Francisco prostitutes:
– 57% reported that they had been sexually assaulted as children; 49% reported that they had been physically assaulted as children.
– 82% had been physically assaulted as prostitutes.
– 83% had been threatened with a weapon.
– 68% had been raped while working as prostitutes.
–84% reported current or past homelessness.
Farley, M. and Barkan, H., “Prostitution, Violence Against Women, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” Women & Health, vol. 27(3) at 37-49.
In the face of statistics such as this, all you can say is “Well, my stepmother liked it.” Forgive me if I don’t find that very compelling.
But that’s not what irritates me (to the extent I’m irritated at all, which is not very). What irritates me is your rationale, which appears to be:
Why do people think this? Reasons X,Y, and Z are given.
Well, if you think X, Y, and Z, then you’re wrong. No valid argument as to WHY we’re wrong is given, and no minds are changed.
Well, if you still think X, Y, and Z, then you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Whyever would I be bothered by that, I wonder? :rolleyes:
Stoidela skipped right past a big part of my question–sex work all over the world (and throughout history). I think that we can reasonably say that the US and the 21st century is probably one of the better places in the world (along with Canada and Northern Europe) to be a hooker. In other countries, it is vastly worse for women. Slavery, disease, and violence are far more common, and that’s saying a lot, because there are plenty of those things here. Can anybody really say that hooking is an OK profession when only the luckiest women aren’t regularly beaten, raped, and taken advantage of, or carrying awful, life-threatening diseases? When many of the participants are little more than children?
As to answer Stoid’s original question: I think sex work in general is a terrible disease in this world. Porn can be as addictive as any drug for many people. Hooking hurts both john and hooker. Sex is meant to be (and you may not think this, but I do, and this is my opinion) a loving, even sacred, act that takes place within marriage. And lots of fun. Sex for money is reprehensible and dehumanizing, and turns the prostitute into an object to which the john can do anything he wants. It’s terrible for all women, not just those directly involved.
My body is an intrinsic part of me, and I don’t open my most intimate parts of myself, physical or emotional, for just anyone. I hate to think of anyone having to do it. Women around the world who have found themselves in this terrible situation, who do it only because they have no other options or because it’s the only thing that will earn them enough money to get their next hit, in order to forget the awful things they are doing deserve better, and I can only applaud those who are trying to help them. If I knew anyone who was a hooker, porn star, whatever, or thinking of becoming one, I would offer them a lot to stay out of it. As for the people who think it’s a perfectly OK profession, they’re welcome to do it. But I don’t have to think it’s anything but really icky and sad.
At least I have anecdotal evidence from the actual people involved, you present nothing at all that proves you “know” what prostitutes and their johns are * feeling *. You just make pronouncements based on your opinion of their lifestyles.
Yeah, what would a prostitiute know about her own life, right? Much less thousands of prostitutes that Norma Jean has known personally. I’ve known dozens. I’ll be sure to tell them when next we meet that their assessments of their own feelings and experiences is meaningless, they should go check someone else’s statistics, taken * from other prostitutes reports of their feelings and experiences* to see what they really feel and experience. What, you say you feel good about what you do? No, you dont’, most streetwalkers don’t, therefore you don’t. What, you say you really care about your regular clients? No, it says right here that streetwalkers in LA feel differently, therefore you don’t feel the way you think you do. See, it’s right here. Streetwalkers speak for all prostitutes, didn’t you know that? Their bad experiences are the only ones that count. Just remember that!
And by the way, there is no “generally” in regards to experience
See, Jodi, that’s all you want to hear or consider. Surveys of the lowest strata of prostitution. I have never argued that all prostitutes have great experiences or choose it freely or are happy, and I have specifically conceded several times that streetwalkers have the worst experience as prostitutes. But again, for the 12th time, streetwalkers are not representative of the entire range of prostitution, and to continue to use them as your example is inaccurate and unfair. That is exactly ** my point **.
And I have given you the source for the numbers of streetwalkers vs. other, if you want to go back to arguing that. Norma Jean said she would look it up and get back to me with it later.
No, I’ve said lots, thousands of women, are known to be happy with their choice. I have told you why and how I know this to be true, which is direct, personal knowledge of prostitutes that I have come to know through my stepmother. What’s your source? Why is my direct, personal knowledge of actual human beings engaging in this less believable than your pieces of paper reporting what others have learned from asking? Why is my asking less valid than theirs? If I take down the information and publish it, will you accept that?
Really, I don’t get it. Why is some reseacher going out and asking questions of streetwalkers more valid that the reports of a woman whose entire life has been devoted to prostitutes, the legalization of prostitution, and education of the public about sex work? One more time: she’s not just sitting at home thinking: “Gee, I like it, it must be great for eveyone and I’ll tell the world that!” It’s much, much more than that and you keep dismissing it. Could it be because it is * positive * rather than negative? Because you cannot legitimately dismiss what Norma Jean knows. She knows more than anyone you’ll ever meet about this subject because the cause of legalization and legitimization of sex work and the people who do it is her life’s work. She has been devoted to the subject for almost 20 years. But she’s not a legitimate source of information? Give me a break!
You’ve just summarized virtually every debate on this board.
stoid
PS: On the phone with Norma Jean.
Re: Melissa Farley is anti prostitution and was looking for negative information. She is a dishonest researcher. Norma Jean contacted Kaiser Permanente regarding her because her research is not unbiased. She set out to prove that prostitutes are miserable, and she did so in part by lying to people about being friends with Norma Jean. She made connections in sex worker organizations by claiming she was friends with Norma Jean and then distorted the facts she was given.
Tomorrow I will provide E-mails that NJ received from the associations in South Africa, where Farley did some of her research and misrepresented herself and went on to take the information she got from them and completely distort it. (NJ is tired and off the computer for tonight)
As for the Mary Magdalene project, that is a Presbyterian organization and the only prostitutes they deal with are streetwalkers. Norma jean actually worked with them to help them contact streetwalkers.
SEE:
Hastings Women’s Law Journal Volume 10, #1 Winter 1999 Symposium Issue Economic Justice for Sex Workers - For their Own Good, The Results of Prostitution Laws as Enforced by Cops, Politicians and Judges. By Norma Jean Almadovar (that would be my stepmom, writing for the law journal)
Also: Whore and Other Feminists, First Person Accounts of Women in the Sex Industry, Rutgers University Press. (Norma Jean also has a chapter in there)
HA! YOU solicit people’s opinions and then when they give them you say “sez you”? That is priceless! If you don’t want to know what people think, then don’t ask. If you want to argue about their opinions, fine, so long as you recognize that a response of “sez you” is tantamount to an admission that you have lost the argument.