On The Morality Of Prostitution.

TBH, drunkscriblerian, I have more respect for the prostitute. She's at least showing a level of sincerity.

Chagen, you see the difficulty in basing laws on notions of "sacredness" in a secular country, I hope?

Sex is a sacres act. One that cannot be thrown around and given out just for money.

Then we should ban porn, sodomy, premarital sex, and start imposing penalties on anybody that has sex for fun. Those are all generally held to be "corruptions" of sex.

@nightwyrm: "as a profession" can apply to gold diggers as well. They get pretty things and fancy clothes in exchange for fucking their husbands. That sounds like a job to me.

@Pykrete: You're accepting a rather narrow-minded definition of the sex industry. "Sex Work" covers a wide ground; streetwalkers, call girls, escorts, dominatrixes, strippers, etc. etc.

Where are we going to draw the line?

@Chagen: okay, so a few degrees of separation make everything hunky dory?

Besides, sex being sacred is merely your opinion, which is not shared by everyone. Also, such a blanket statement flies in the face of other systems of belief. Which in this country is against a shitload of really good laws.

@Taoist: So do I. I'd rather have a whore than a gold digger if I had to choose, for the same reasons you listed.

Like I said, prostitution is one of a rather large subset of sexual acts I'd consider immoral, not something I just draw out of the crowd and say "this, THIS is wrong above all else!"

@Pykrete: Well, do you merely dislike them or think they should be illegal? There's a big difference, especially as it applies to this discussion.

EDIT

Okay, now define "as a job". If a woman occasionally has sex for money but has something else she puts down on her W-2, would that be all right?

edited 19th Feb '11 1:36:13 PM by drunkscriblerian

^^^ Well, I guess I could consider golddiggers to be prostitutes who managed to "strike it rich" as it were.

But I think what I really wanted was to distinguish between somebody who has sex as a job and the "I gave my gf some gold bling and pretty flowers on valentines day and she was so happy that I got laid" kinda thing. After all, females choosing to have sex with males who can provide her with certain (possibly monetary) things is kinda how the whole mating thing works.

edited 19th Feb '11 1:37:49 PM by nightwyrm_zero

But what about girls that don't want to marry and have kids? I dated a guy once because he gave me money and took me out to do stuff in exchange for sleeping with him. Does that make me a prostitute?

@Drunk I don't approve of those activities either.

@Chagen Sex may be sacred, but opinions aren't. Learn how to put some subjectivity in your statements please.

Subjectivity and "sanctity" don't go together.

well I can’t speak for you or your situation DG, but I wouldn't say that's not applicable to prostitution. Lets just leave it to that. I would rather us not to go into personal anecdotes.

*♫whistles innocently♪*

But really I think that there are a lot of people here (myself included) who have at one stage or the other, either woo or been wooed into bed with material incentives. Even if it is just some thing as innocuous has paying for an evening out.

edited 19th Feb '11 2:35:58 PM by joeyjojo

I don’t approve of prostitution outright, just because it sits a bit uncomfortably with me. Yes, it’s just sex, but it’s something special that you do with someone you care for. At least that’s how I was brought up.

Of course, I’m not deluded enough to believe that someone’s job prescribes their attitude, personality, or core belief structure. A job’s a job. Besides, as it’s been said, some people are forced into it, no need to rub salt in the wound, let’s help these people out.

I sadly haven’t had any good experiences with anyone who holds sex in a high regard, and that’s being retroactive on my part. And that’s both a good and bad thing I suppose; women I’ve dated hadn’t thought too highly of it to want to jump in the sack right away, and those I’ve been friends with who hold it in high regard (both positively and negatively) usually are people I wouldn’t and didn’t ever want to get close to in the first place.

I don’t know about making prostitution legal, but I would believe that protecting prostitutes and hearing them out on the issue (since it is very touchy to a lot of people) would be a good thing all around.

Are we limiting this topic to female prostitutes here? Coz there are male ones. Or do we treat them differently?

Absolutely not. Prostitutes are prostitutes. Gender should not be taken into account.

@KCK: I ask you the same question I asked Pykrete: does disapproval extend to thinking they should be illegal?

Example: Not a fan of guy-on-guy anal sex. Wouldn't do it. Do I think it should be illegal? No. How far does your dislike extend?

@nightwyrm: Forgive the imprecision of my language. I'm discussing prostitution as it applies to both genders.

EDIT: Nice ninja, Taoist. Got to it before I could.

edited 19th Feb '11 2:37:17 PM by drunkscriblerian

While I do see prostitution as somewhat worse than general (legal) promiscuity on the basis of being anonymous and exploitative sex, again that's not my call from a moral standpoint.

The question of secular legality is mostly about the baggage that comes with it, and whether that would be mitigated to an appreciable degree by oversight, or if legally condoning the profession would cause the field to expand enough that whatever abuse remains actually happens more frequently.

If the Netherlands is any indication, the latter is likely to be more significant. Legalizing prostitution there caused human trafficking to balloon out of control, not diminish.

edited 19th Feb '11 2:47:16 PM by Pykrete

While I do see prostitution as somewhat worse than general (legal) promiscuity on the basis of being anonymous and exploitative sex, again that's not my call.

I disagree with your generalization on promiscuity, but that's a matter for another thread. So, you find it distasteful but not outrageously so. As in "all right for some, not my ball of wax"?

As in "not my place to forcefully impose my beliefs." "Alright for some" wouldn't be accurate, as I think it's a prime way to damage oneself or others rather badly.

edited 19th Feb '11 2:42:45 PM by Pykrete

@Drunk It extends to a form of legal apathy; I don't really care whether it's legal or not.

Well there is a difference between 'not my cup of tea' and 'that's just sick'.

For example I share drunkscriblerian's views of gay anal sex. I personally find it icky but don't believe there's anything morally wrong with it and I have no problem socialising with people who engaged in it on a regular basis.

Other may consider sodomy an inherently immoral act in and of itself.

"That's just sick" is just a more vehement version of "not my cup of tea"; pity the ones espousing that view fail to realize it.

@MRDA: No, actually, it isn't. One viewpoint seeks to eradicate acts that the holder finds objectionable. The other merely expresses an opinion. I don't like the idea of anal sex, but I wouldn't try and prevent anyone from having it (so long as they're not trying to have it with me).

People who find "sodomy" immoral don't want anyone to have it.

You have a point but there are those who said that's just sick while taking a slip from the tea cup.

The popular image of a conservative 'family values' M.P. being caught arse deep inside a teenage rent boy springs to mind.

edited 19th Feb '11 3:45:48 PM by joeyjojo

Well, one can be disgusted by something, yet, still not want to interfere with it. I find the idea of rimming disgusting, but if people wanna "eat da poo-poo"....

edited 19th Feb '11 3:53:24 PM by MRDA1981

@Drunk But wanting no one to do a certain thing that is out of one's moral standards does not equate to attempting to stop someone from doing the thing in question.

I remember once having a conversation with a man in which he outlined exactly how many dollars worth of drinks it took on average to get a woman at a club to go home with him or conversely for him to go home with her. Generally he said that it took around thirty dollars and two hours of conversation. At his hourly wage that was around seventy five dollars worth of effort all told.

I wondered for a long moment what the difference between every day human dating and prostitution.

Showing your body for money is okay. Having sex on camera for money is fine. Giving someone a massage for money is fine. Paying for sex in the form of dinners at nice restaurants and pretty trinkets is okay as well.

We pay for our relationships day in and day out and recieve compensationnin many forms. One of them being sex. That we think that prostitution constitutes a crme is just plain insane. A endemic insanity.

Not to mention it is a public health nightmare to drive sex workers underground and the illegality of the business prevents people from taking legal action to settle grievances andncreates the culture of violence and exploitation.