Neither partner, male or female, should have the 'power' to 'grant' sex.

It should be something desired to be shared by both people.

The key word there is "should".

I want you to do a little thought experiment: compare what you would think the success rates would be for a guy simply going up to a random girl and saying "I want to have sex with you", and a girl doing the same to a random guy. Until feminists agree to acknowledge that there would be a disparity (read: imbalance of power) and give honest consideration to it, no progress will be made.

"a sex worker isn't trafficked, coerced, under a pimp's control or selling her body to pay her drug dealer," then maybe you should keep it in your pants. Unless you think getting off is more important than the welfare of another human being.

Good point. I will no longer shop at the grocery store or go to the bank. After all, how do I know for sure that the cashiers aren't being kept there as slaves? Certainly my eating or having money isn't as important as the theoretical welfare of another human being.

You are brilliant. That is all.

"Complex female characters"? If you'd done any research, like reading the review of the book series on this very site, you would know that this is precisely the opposite of what is the case with Twilight. As nearly everyone has noted, the female character there is an empty shell devoid of any personality, placed there specifically so that housewives and pre-teen girls can project themselves into her. Furthermore, passage after passage is devoted to describing how beautiful and charming and wickedly appealing the vampire dude is. So in this case at least, it is very clearly a wish-fulfillment fantasy targeted at women, and given how popular it is, it seems to have correctly identified the wish.

This is a poor form of argument you use - take some speculation about possible psychological causes behind cultural phenomena, reduce it to the most literal and ridiculous reading, and then dismiss it not with any argument but simply because it could be interpreted in a way that doesn't jibe with your ethical imperatives. Just like the people who dismiss Freud with "well, I certainly don't want to have sex with my mother!" I suppose it would be fairly threatening to your worldview to admit that there exist, if not outright rape fantasies, complex desires of power and submission within both genders (see: succubus, Red Sonja, etc.).

So does this mean she no longer thinks that talking to Iran is equivalent to appeasing Hitler? Or that pre-emptive invasions are in general a good idea just as long as they're "well-executed"? Maybe it does, but I wouldn't know, because this entire article and every other article talking about the appointment reeks of the typical politics-as-sports coverage that is all about how a particular 'move' will be perceived rather than what consequences it will have. The media, including Salon, has its head so far up its own ass that it can't even tell anymore.

Oh how silly we on the "far left" must be to have thought that the Clinton years were anything but a perfect Golden Era of our Glorious Empire! I mean being opposed to things like the Defense of Marriage Act or the global gag rule or the War on Drugs or the School of the Americas is just silly ranting that's beneath all you Serious Bipartisans, right? Fuck you.

Honestly, why is prostitution judged so harshly? I think it's because we're still stuck in the same old-fashioned attitudes about sex that people had in Victorian times: sex is shameful and dirty and should never happen except to procreate, and then only reluctantly.

Wow, what an original thought. Yea, we should all treat sex as something to be indulged in indiscriminately and with any random person - just a "fun" activity no different than eating a piece of cheesecake, right? Heaven forbid that anyone should suggest that being alone with another person, completely exposing yourself to them, and letting them enter your body to engage in one of the most pleasurable experiences humanly possible is a pretty intense act that necessarily carries with it huge issues of trust, vulnerability, and human connection. To say this, or to object to the idea of such an act being turned into a material commodity - that would be Oppressive Victorian Patriarchy.

Right, because sex is NEVER made into a commodity in our Healthy Capitalist Society today. *cough*

http://www.thestar.com/article/461408

I don't understand what you're trying to say. Are you arguing that this is a good thing and is the way it should be? After all, if sex is no big deal and just another activity we can do for fun and money, what's wrong with kids doing it?

If sex is really no big deal, wouldn't that mean that rape is no big deal? I mean if sex really is just a fun and pleasurable physical activity that should not be intrinsically associated with any emotional or moral baggage, then we can just consider rape to be on the same level as getting beaten up or, like that idiot politician said, being force-fed a delicious cake, right?

To all of you who wish they could be escorts, please consider that your customers would likely be people like Brightstar. Still interested?