that most women, then or now, would support it's legalization if it were only between consenting adults, etc. etc. of course they wouldn't. If it's all just a gender neutral issue of respect, etc. etc. why are we not discussing the problems women have buying dinners/drinks/etc for men and then being disappointed.

Palestinians, and/or rule out a 2 state solution precisely because they couldn't do without American support. If the Arabs and Palestinians had been willing to make a deal when Labor was in they would got all of the West Bank and Gaza. Until the wall was built many people, both Arabs and right wing Jews, thought that the Palestinian and Jewish populations couldn't be seperated and that whoever held out longest would get everything their way, either permananet rule over/expulsion/displacement of the Arabs, or a secular state. Now everybody knows better.

200 years ago (almost)everyone worked at home, took care of their kids and was economically and socially functional all at the same time. Taking care of 2 kids from birth to 6, or whenever they go to school, is not a lifetime career/job for a woman with an 80 year life span. It's perfectly possible to create a system where people can have and take care of kids and have a life. The right people running the govt. would allow big steps to be taken in that direction.

this is escapist fantasy, the last thing anyone wants is reality

(before prostituion was made illegal). Obviously there were lots of other problems with that system, but what is so difficult to grasp in the concept that some women will WILLINGLY EXCHANGE SEX FOR MONEY. It isn't that complicated an idea, why is there so much trouble with it.

Lots of men want more sex than they can get out of whatever relationships that they have, and yes in many (but not all)cases don't have, and would pay for it in a willing exchange if they could. Some men could still not afford to even if it were legal, but many more could. Not everyone can live in Nevada. It isn't only women who support laws against prostitution but most do, and a higher percentage of women than men do.

the likelihood of prosecution. Vice stings are continuous. Maybe the price wouldn't change much (for the lowest cost product) but the cost(in a broad sense) and the options would change a lot if it were legalized. If it wasn't going to make any difference why would anyone other than a fundie worried about "sending a message" oppose legalization? It would and they do.

Obviously desperation, which men have more of than women. If we could get past the insane mental block against admitting this fact then the quality of the discussion, if not the ultimate outcome, would improve immesurably.

The real difference is that nobody feels the need to discuss what women have to do to improve their looks and personality to attract ANY man. Yes it is discussed what they have to do to attract more of the right kind of man but that isn't the same thing. This fact alone would demonstrate to anyone open to reality that there is a real difference in the situations men and women face. Sure men were worse off before, but the point is that women are better off, in this area, now. In any case all of mens' problems are ENTIRELY their own fault (or are the result of past of present oppression of women) so what more is there to discuss.

That's the difference, not really a complicated concept. I'm not saying women get everything their way, or men get nothing their way or anything of the sort, but can't we acknowledge that men don't get everything their way due to reasons other than personal defects or the effects of their or other mens current or prior attempts to keep women down.

When I said any man, I meant there wasn't any man, not she could pick any man out of the population. I see the ambiguity now. It really was not intentional.

are you sure you're not exaggerating, does anyone really do that when they first meet someone

maybe their influence will lessen. Then there is the issue of tax exemptions and govt. subsidies for this.

candidates this issue would not even be up for discussion. Maybe now they will get the message.

Of course they talk about "babies" to stir up the rubes and fantatics, but it is all about removing abortion as the necessary abolutely guaranteed "backup" in case birth control fails and by removing that guarantee scaring people out of having sex. No one who really cares about fewer abortions can rationally be against birth control

The country is not majority fundie, like Afgahanistan or Iraq, these people win because people who don't (comprehensively)agree with them let them win. It may be kind of like the Social Security debate, the right was all for govt. spending restraint(which the average voter went along with in principle) and cutting services for relatively small and margianl groups, but when it came to SS, which most people need, it was a different story. Maybe it comes down to what percentage of the female population buys into puritanism enough that they are willing to discount their own experience.

Which is, really, about how men alwasys screw women over. At least that is how a lot of women apparently interpret it. So what do you expect. Admittedly not everyone does a perfect, to say the least, job of relating their personal situation to the broader picture, but that difficulty isn't gender specific.

There was a reason for using the fathers name in the past, namely that the mother of a child normally is known with more certainty than the father, and using the fathers name helped keep track of things (although even so not everyone did it this way).