Prostitution As A Healthy, Wholesome Occupation

Anything that involves contact with another person's bodily fluid is going to have a risk of disease, so if you're referring to particular sexual acts, I think I would disagree. If you're referring to stuff like gloves and condoms, then yes.

And even if there are sexual acts that would have a low risk of STD transmission, one must wonder how often customers request those specific acts, and how business would be affected negatively if one simply refused to do anything outside those specific acts.

I've never really understood why the risk of STD transmission is cited as a reason why prostitution shouldn't be legal. Lots of professions pose risks to both the workers and anyone in the vicinity, and we as a society allow them to exist without complaint...

I wouldn't cite it as a reason to ban prostitution, but I would cite it as a reason I am against allowing prostitutes to function simply as free-agents and instead support legally requiring the brother model or some variation of it so that the industry could be tightly regulated to very strict standards of sanitation and security. Mostly because STD outbreaks pose a strong possible health risk to society at large, from devastating things like HIV/AIDS to more innocuous but still irritating diseases.

We regulate other industries, and punish those who operate outside said regulation. It makes sense that if prostitution were legal, individual prostitutes would have to conform to some basic standards regarding health, safety and good business practice.

It's because ST Is are, well, diseases. If you drop a cinderblock on your foot and break your toes... that's not contagious. You're not going to pass broken bones on to every customer you see for the rest of your career until it's fixed. And then, any partners of those customers.

I guess from a risk point of view, it's more comparable to doctors and paramedics, or people who donate sperm or blood. We expect medical people to be extremely careful with the hygiene of their instruments, because if they aren't, they can give all of their other patients diseases.

edited 20th May '12 12:07:29 AM by LoniJay

@Loni: My point was not about the risk but about society's view of it. Lots of professions have risks associated with them (like what you pointed out), and society just says "okay, how do we minimize the risks so these people can do their job safely?"

Instead of what society says about prostitutes, which we all know and I won't bother reiterating.

I made my point about this about a page ago. The lack of STD countering is exactly why prost-ing should be legal. So the more data and cases we can collect. We have to break down the stigma and get it going before we can invent an immunity against them. Until then, everything said about not allowing prostitutes to operate on a larger and legal scale are just excuses

I mean, just think about it. Not only can the law hear more from the prosts, but the health care can also tap in as an opportunity. But it is just TOO BAD for America because lately, I receive Move On mails that Republicans just want to nail the coffins to women healthcare. I need not say more about what they might do to prosts

The question is, I guess, will the precautions prostitutes have to take in order to be safe be too expensive to allow them to make a living?

I don't know, myself. It's an issue that I'd never thought about before this, but it does seem to make sense to me.

And of course there's the issue of compliance. Will customers comply with the health precautions and pay the money needed to buy them? Or will they go to an illegal brothel that won't make them wear a condom and is cheaper?

Regardless of the pros and cons of legalization, I think it's wrong to sugar-coat the horrors of prostitution. It is not safe, healthy, and it's inherently degrading to sell your body to be used that way.

I take issue with the "inherently" part. Why is it demeaning to have sex for money, exactly?

I'd agree that it is demeaning to be forced to have sex for money. In the same way it is to just be forced, full stop. But... I'm not seeing the inherent part in doing so as an active choice.

Nor do I see a prostitute being defiled forever for having worked to earn a buck that way, either: forced or not.

edited 20th May '12 4:00:52 AM by Euodiachloris

I'll be blunt about one thing:

Prostitution is a sexualized form of being a beggar. It's what people do when push comes to shove and there's nothing left to choose

I see it as a form of begging and therefore it shouldn't be taxed. But since it IS taxed, I don't see why the government can't take care of this source of taxmoney in exchange. It's like a one-way downward spiral

I'm not sure about the equivalence with begging - I've heard of people who want to be prostitutes, don't mind being one or who choose it as a quick, casual way to get spending money (especially on holiday). No idea what percentage of the total they are though. Your idea of not taxing them (or requiring minimum taxes) is an interesting one, but I can't imagine any government daring to go there, fearing the Moral Guardians . I daresay the myriad sex worker organisations will be doing whatever they can to keep taxes low.

how is it begging? It's paying for a illicit service.

edited 20th May '12 6:48:49 AM by joeyjojo

Aaaand how many people think like you?

As long as people think 'Ho crap I'm gonna pay to screw a hoe, it's so filthy' and relate it to guilty pleasure then it's no wonder prost-ing is not a wholesome occupation

For prostitution to have a chance of functioning as a legal institution, it needs that people stop thinking of it as demeaning and horrible. This requires that they experience examples of it that aren't demeaning nor horrible. Which means healthy clean co-op type brothels, either legal or illegal-but-tolerated.

I'm sorry, but I do think that prostitution is demeaning and horrible. I would be horrifically ashamed if I thought that a member of my family was a prostitute; and I would be even more ashamed if I thought that a member of my family — or, Heaven forbid, I personally — employed a prostitute's services.

Obviously, I will not judge people who, out of hardship or of sheer coercion, became prostitutes; but the fact remains that making what I believe is one of the most sacred acts that a human being can commit into something that can be bought and sold greatly demeans both the participants to the transaction, and shames the whole of humankind.

There are good arguments both in favor and against the legalization of prostitution, and I admit I am not entirely sure of what is the best idea here; but I see no possible way in which prostitution may be considered "wholesome".

edited 20th May '12 9:53:03 AM by Carciofus

So, you would judge people who became prostitutes on purpose and because they like it?

I would think that they made a less than healthy, wholesome or just choice, yes. I would not think that I am better than them; but I would certainly not approve of their decision.

That's the same as saying you think less of them (which is equivalent of saying you're better than them) for not following your moral standards, but you're just trying to convince yourself you don't by saying you don't.

edited 20th May '12 10:28:41 AM by Ekuran

Except that I don't follow my moral standards, not in full. I sorta try, some of the time and not nearly hard enough; but I am certainly not as good as I could be, not even close.

Also, I think that what guilt an act carries depends on a lot of factors, such as the personal history of the person and so on, which are simply not available to me.

So no, I cannot say that I am better than them. But I can say that if they hadn't made that choice, they would be better than they are now; and that if they decided to repent and switch to a more honorable occupation, they would become better than they are now.

edited 20th May '12 10:34:32 AM by Carciofus

So you think you're better than them in this specific case, because they don't follow your moral standard on prostitution. So you still think less of them than yourself in someway, even if you admit you're not perfect.

What does it mean to be better than them "in that specific case"?

If you mean that a hypothetical hybrid which shared my opinion towards sexuality but that, otherwise, had all of the good qualities that this hypothetical person has and that I perhaps lack would be better than them, then yes, I think that to be the case.

But it is nonsense to say that I think that they are less than me. People are complex beings, and the culpability of an action depends on a number of circumstances, most of which are well beyond my knowledge or understanding. It is easily possible that, as it is written, prostitutes will come before me in the Kingdom of Heaven; but, I think, these people would be even more better than me if they didn't make commerce of their own sexuality.

What about sex workers who service those that can't really make it in dating culture, like the disabled or mentally challenged?

Is that wholesome and uplifting enough to be a profession?