I've had the interesting luck to be the only female in some all male job situations - you learn a lot

I used to be married to a rodeo cowboy. I traveled with a bunch of men to and from rodeos. Often I would close my eyes and pretend to be asleep just to get away from the guy talk. When they thought I was asleep, it got much worse. Here's the thing: Men's attitudes towards women which objectify them as vaginas to score probably has nothing to do with anything that women do. These men were very fit, mostly good-looking and undeniably macho. They had no trouble finding women to have sex with and if any of them ever paid for it, I never heard them say so.

Men are as they are. Women waste a lot of time if they try to change men. Instead, women should go about their own lives, competing as necessary with men for education, jobs, and money. Let men deal with their own crap. As I told my daughter on the phone the other day when she was talking about how she way trying to "help" a male friend build his self-esteem, "Don't be his mommy, his shrink, or his available friend with benefits." This guy has made it no secret that he is attracted to my daughter. However, he is endlessly needy and perhaps looking for a bit of "pity." Women should offer men no more help or emotional support than they get in return. Women should not make men "their jobs" to assist, reform, or forgive. We will not reform misogynist culture by keeping our eyes on the guys. If women or society does X in expectation that men will do Y, both could be disappointed.

The men seeking prostitutes did not respect any woman in the neighbourhood because it was assumed (by them) that any youngish woman was available for purchase.

And any woman available for purchase was not a woman, or human, that was due basic respect. This was my take on the behaviour of the men.

Again - legalizing prostitution would do little to change the behaviour of the men - they would still regard any woman they could buy as not deserving of respect. And any woman on a street where hookers worked would be considered fair game.

I also lived in Europe in a city where there was legalized prostitution. It was somewhat more civil, but it was still nerve wracking to be in the area. Again - the behaviour of men made it so - not of the hookers. I also worked with a couple of men who made use of the legal services, and their attitudes towards women in general were not . . . good. One of those fellows hitched his trousers up at the end of a Friday work day and said to the "office", "Well, I think I will go fuck a bitch tonight".

Oh, how nice! It was so, uhm, unconscious, that it was kind of funny. (He was talked to and told to be more "polite" when a female was around. - I've had the interesting luck to be the only female in some all male job situations - you learn a lot. Fly on the wall.)

Legal prostitution did not make my life and work relationships with men . . . better.

Aqain, why should I want legal prostitution? Will I and any other woman be treated with the same respect as a man on that street would be? Will it help men develop more respect for women in general? Or would any woman in the vicinity where prostitution is being practiced be expected to experience some level of harassment as men seek to purchase vaginas?

Other women here who are feminists have asserted that prostitution should be legalized but regulated -- so your notions of universal feminist opinions are out-of-date to say the least.

Apparently, you are still obsessed with Andrea Dworkin.

I don't believe it is true, but it seems that a lot of women do, whether they are willing to acknowledge what the logical consequences of their stated views and policy preferences are is of course an entirely different matter.

at all

as long as male sexuality is not identical to female sexuality, or at least as long as men are not forced to behave as though it is, women are not secure and therefore not free

This is a disturbing collection of words from you.

I could be wrong - correct me if I am - but I imagine that the neighborhood you lived in was not heavily policed. I would imagine that would be a reason why prostitutes congregated there. I also imagine that that could be a reason why the men who came to that area seemed to feel that they could disregard the law with regard to harassment and assault.

If it were legal, and the prostitutes no longer had to fear police harassment, perhaps they would congregate in more heavily policed areas of the city, for their own safety. Or, perhaps, if men started harassing or assaulting them in a certain part of the city, they would more readily report such abuse to the police, bringing it to their attention. Or perhaps some of them, looking for more palatable customers, would move elsewhere, thus rendering that area not so much of a prostitution hotspot and spreading the trade out more equitably throughout the city.

You are indicating that the problem was not the prostitutes, but the harassment from the men who were coming to see them. The only way to solve that is police attention. However, the prostitutes themselves are going to avoid police attention so long as their trade remains legal. The way I see it, the only way to bring the police into that sphere is to legalize the activity.

I don't think anyone has ever said or implied otherwise. I certainly never have. Where are you getting this.

not just to preserve what a rational person would define as everyones rights but to force everyone to live the way they want them to in order to create a "moral" or in this case "non oppressive to women" society. The virtually universal feminist consensus in favor of using the law to suppress prostitution conducted IN PRIVATE by CONSENTING ADULTS is a perfect example of this mentality which is very little different in its essence, (and at least in one particular i.e heterosexual sex) from that of Moslem or Christian fundamentalists.