Letters to the Editor
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I don't see giant photos of men cavorting on beds in lingerie (well, outside of Abercrombie...), nor do I see a male equivalent of Victoria's Secret (
The only reason you don't see those things is because only gay men consider those things worth paying for. I was hoping that once it became clear that gay men are interested in men in the same way that straight men are interested in women that the female belief that male sexuality is a conspiracy against women would abate. Obviously this hasn't happened. If this level of denial can be maintained in the face of such overwhelming public visible evidence seen every day by everyone it is difficult to say what can break through.
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It's hard out there for a pimp...
"Pimping or buying services from a prostitute needs to remain criminalized so that vulnerable women of any sort are not exploited by pimps (and yes, Dupree had one) and johns who prey on them."
It's amazing how hard you are trying to fit this situation into your "typical" stereotype. It's like you are sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la, la, la... I can't hear you". An Elizabeth Smart "free will" comparison? Serious? Wasn't she kidnapped and held hostage? Boy, that's just like this situation. Let's see, not running away from your captor vs hooking to finance a high end lifestyle. You're right! It's the same thing!
Is there any evidence whatsoever that she was exploited by her pimp but I guess by your reasoning the fact that she had one at all means that she was exploited and preyed upon by johns. It's become terribly amusing how you want to avoid the strong probability that although Ms Dupree had jobs at high end Manhattan nightspots, she chose to hook in order to work less and make much more money and afford fancy bags and trips to St. Tropez a nice apt and so on. You so need her to fit your stereotypical definition and it's becoming pretty clear that she doesn't. Oh well....
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@SB4609
"KStone, I share your evident dislike for the girl. She reminds me of too many I've known, and I think you're spot on with your assessment."
Thanks but actually I don't dislike her. I just don't think she is the victim that some here are patronizingly trying to make her out to be. Also, while we disagree on this issue, your points are well considered and thought out.
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I still fail to see the distinction between prostitution and most male/female relationships out there
Why is it more acceptable for a woman to be compensated for spending YEARS with a man than it is for her to be compensated to spend an hour with him?
It is all whoring. Make them both illegal in this case then.
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neilpaul:
To continue your line of thought, do laws against prostitution completely prevent prostitution? No. So what's the problem?
If you want to pay for sex, you can. It's just illegal. That means it's a little harder to find, and it's a little riskier.
Speeding is also illegal. I do it everyday. But I don't do it with impunity. Moreover, I don't argue with the principles of the law when I get a ticket.
Call it a market intervention, if that's how you have to deal with it, and recognize that there's no such thing as a free market. The prostitution ban serves a public good, like speed limits, by creating a marginal deterrent for prospective cutomers, employers and employees.
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Create choices, don't abolish them.
Many prostitutes are working the streets because they face massive medical bills, or they face blacklists, or worse. They're getting exploited, not because they can't make good decisions, but because they don't have as much power as the state, the insurance racket, the pharma racket, or various government-sponsored union-busters. Cracking down on prostitution can push people from bad jobs as prostitutes to worse jobs as day laborers, or can pressure them into paying more protection to their pimps. (Similarly, cracking down on day laborers can push people from bad jobs as day laborers to worse jobs as prostitutes; it's somewhat subjective).
Other prostitutes see the occasional trick as a chance to make some extra cash.
Other prostitutes have their own reasons.
All these people would benefit from changes which increase their bargaining power (decriminalization, legalization w/o brothels, unionization, improved working conditions in other trades, etc.) and would suffer from changes which reduce heir bargaining power (crackdowns, ID laws, etc.).
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the only "public good" that antiprostitution laws serve is to keep (straight) mens sexuality even more under the control of women
than it would otherwise be (in violation, by the way, as many have pointed out, of every principle of individual rights, free choice, and personal autonomy that exists).
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@ Alecsmom
Yes I know far too many married guys who get no "marital relations" from their wives which is emotional blackmail period...and/or have to earn the opportunity for a blase encounter with gifts/trips...how are the WIVES in that scenario not basically greedy "hofessionals"? And no they aren't unattractive.
Before I sold my soul to work in IT I did free-lance journalism, got kinda fascinated by the whole pay to play concept and ended up writing several articles til my various editors said "enough!" And no my research didn't involve actually purchasing services, just interviewing providers...met one woman who was putting herself through Emory Medical School, debt-free, by having a select list of clients - basically ten hours of "work" per week and she was making thousands. She'd have been better off going deeply in debt or trying to work full-time?
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But sex-for-money it IS legal
if you're making a movie. Implied, simulated or real, hetero-, homo-, bi-, tri- or whatever, all you have to do is be an "actor" or a "producer", or both (and not involve underage people or coercion).
IOW, A cannot legally pay B to have sex with A. In fact A cannot legally even ask B for a price. Except in Nevada.
But A can legally pay B to have sex with C (and D, E, F, etc.) while A watches and films/tapes the encounter(s).
There's a punch line in there someplace but I haven't figured it out yet.
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The circle closes; men absolved at both ends of the continuum
One thing I've observed from both the Spitzer/legalization of prostitution threads and the "gray rape" threads: women are always responsible, no matter what happens to them, but the men who are having sex with them have no moral agency in the equation whatever.
The arguments come from the same ends of the political spectrum and often from the same posters. A woman is responsible if she is raped because she was drunk, or put herself in that situation, or went to that tatoo parlor (hello Amerigo). Faced with heaping mountains of evidence that prostitution in all price ranges is very harmful to women, these posters, almost all of them men with only two exceptions, then launch into the argument that prostitution is a choice and people should have the right to harm themselves or make dumb choice.
If you didn't keep it in mind, you'd almost forget that there is another person (or multiple people) involved when a woman is prostituted or raped. And that is the john (at least; I'll leave out pimps for the moment), who is conveniently never discussed. The john has no moral responsibilities; Amerigo suggests that it is no violation of ethics to sleep with a homeless, mentally ill woman for money. I mean, he was propositioned by her, why should he have turned her down? (I know you did turn her down, Amerigo, but you didn't really seem to grasp the reason why you should have beyond that you were meeting your girlfriend and she didn't strike your fancy)
Leaving out all discussion of the john strikes me as veering too close to the rape apologist argument that all men are nothing but walking dicks and incapable of making decisions themselves.
This self-serving and very wrong assertion is behind both the liberal and conservative arguments that rape and prostitution are all the women's fault. The conservatives start talking about sluts and the liberals start blathering about "exercising poor choices". In both cases, the men, the ones who paid to fuck a person much less fortunate than themselves, often in what can be described only as degrading ways, or who perpetrate the "gray rape", are standing off to one side, nobody talking about them or holding their behavior up for examination.
How nice for the guys. Women have to suck it up, "take responsibility", "make better choices", etc. etc., and if anyone suggests that the woman's agency is not the only factor in the equation these same people pile on you for "wanting to turn all women into victims", for "infantilizing women", and so on.
And what agency can be assigned to the men who are sticking their dicks into the women, into their mouths, their anuses, their vaginas, who are climbing on top of them, who paid the money, who pulled her pants down after she passed out, and who can therefore not exactly be called inactive participants in any sense?
None. They aren't responsible, they had nothing to do with it. NOTHING, you understand. Men are not responsible. It's all the woman's fault, the woman, you understand. I am sticking my dick in her but this is her fault, her bad choices. I have no moral agency. I can't make a decision not to do this. I am a dick-sticking machine; she can be homeless, obviously crazy, unconscious even, but I can't be expected not to do this. It is even morally and ethically right for me to do this. She's the only one who has to worry about ethics and morals.
Like I said, this starts sounding exactly like the conservative slut-shaming argument if you follow it to its logical conclusion. However my real question is:
Isn't this type of thing a huge insult to men? Or is the convenience of being absolved of moral agency so necessary that this myth has to kept up?
Too convenient. Let's start talking less about the prostitute's poor choices and more about the john's, about the choice to pay somebody for sex who is much more disadvantaged than yourself, when the power imbalance is part of the attraction and the sex frequently degrading by any defintion. What does making such a choice say about the man?
I say it's a choice that's so poor it makes him an abuser, and abusers--of women, men, children, or animals--should be charged with a crime. It should never, ever, be right to abuse another person.