pornagraphy VS prostitution

[lemur]

It is very difficult to have a discussion when one post argues on a totally theoretical level comparing sex with eating and ridicules all normative values regarding pornography and prostitution, while another post radically normativizes the theoretical differentiation between commerce and non-commercial speech in terms of legal traditions. Generally, I find it interesting to explore all sides/views on a topic, but it seems like with things like sex and politics, these threads are often heavily weighted toward undermining conservatism. The only reason I complain is because I only started exploring the conservative side of things because I got tired of one-sided leftism, which I used to do myself a lot. I guess this is my karma getting repaid.

[Moontanman]

It is very difficult to have a discussion when one post argues on a totally theoretical level comparing sex with eating and ridicules all normative values regarding pornography and prostitution, while another post radically normativizes the theoretical differentiation between commerce and non-commercial speech in terms of legal traditions. Generally, I find it interesting to explore all sides/views on a topic, but it seems like with things like sex and politics, these threads are often heavily weighted toward undermining conservatism. The only reason I complain is because I only started exploring the conservative side of things because I got tired of one-sided leftism, which I used to do myself a lot. I guess this is my karma getting repaid.

 

Sex is highly distorted by both sides of the so called right and left, in reality sex is indeed just as normal as eating or anything else we are compelled to do due to our biology. Your views and mine or any one else's are artificially distorted by what were taught as children and by what ever ideology we happen to follow. I think it is dishonest to say that either side has the wrong views on sex or absence of sex. Our society is heavily influenced by a primitive value on female virginity, FV is highly prized in primitive cultures and this artificial value has been passed down to us. Nearly everything we believe that is connected with sex is somehow based on this idea that females must be pure or inexperienced for them to have sexual value. There is no way to justify this idea that females must be sexually inexperienced for them to have value as human beings. In fact primitive humans often view females as property and only virgin females have the highest value, quite often youth is also a big part of this value. I think it is disingenuous to say the least to claim that only Conservatives are influenced by this or that Liberals are not or the reverse either for that matter. I am not convinced that this idea is not, at least to some extent, part of our biology as well. The idea that your ideas of sex is only "wrong" if you are a member of one or the other group is simplistic at best and simply wrong at worst.

 

I have honestly heard people, men mostly, claim that their belief in a deity and or the punishment they might receive in this or an after life is the only thing that keeps them from raping at will but i think this is false bravado caused by immature males who are afraid of females and their sexuality. I honestly doubt that being Conservative or Liberal makes you morally or sexually superior to any one else no matter how much both sides seem to believe it. Personally i cannot accept either label of Liberal or Conservative due to my own perception that these labels are artificial and designed to allow a few to control the many. i also think that the idea of "normative values" concerning sex is as fluid and difficult to show as real as a hand full of mercury is to squeeze and not spill. Your ideas of normal are not universal, nor are mine or anyone else's and to suggest they are ignores a huge number of people who feel just as strongly that you are wrong (I don't mean you personally lemur)

 

In some societies child molestation was considered ok if the girls were the spoils of war, some consider women to be mere chattel. Western values seem to be evolving away from women being property and being real humans as much as men are. For some women this means something different than it does to others but normative would seem to be a personal view point mostly influenced by the societies they grew up in. For me the most important thing about sex is to insure that children are protected from the sexuality of adults and that sex is between consenting adults, any further restriction of sexuality is a violation of human rights IMHO.

 

Some one mentioned the laws concerning sex in Canada, i was told my erotic stories would be illegal in Canada, this disturbed me greatly since the idea of a story being harmful in some way because it concerned sex is just weird to me but if i am honest i have to admit that my ideas of sexuality are not universal and if the people of Canada have made this into law i would do well not to take my stories to Canada no matter how unreasonable i think they are.

[lemur]

Everyone who is comparing sex with casual everyday activities may be right in theory, but I wonder if anyone would dare to tell a victim of sexual harassment that she should just look at unwanted sexual advances as she would view an offer of undesired food. Who would tell a rape victim that what she experienced shouldn't be any more traumatic than a force-feeding session? Who would tell a spouse who was ending their marriage due to adultery that s/he is over-reacting? I can understand saying that in theory, any of these examples could be viewed much differently in a cultural context where sex was viewed as comparable to any other basic biological activity. However, the fact is that prostitution and pornography only exist because of the high cultural barriers to sexual access and the ethics/laws regarding prostitution/pornography may address the allure created by the social-restrictions surrounding sex itself. Stealing the Mona Lisa wouldn't be such a big crime if its value was $10 because everyone could paint one for themselves in a couple hours. When sex is as accessible as home art-kits, prostitution/pornography would have entirely different meanings and values but in the meantime, I think commodified sex should be considered as a powerful addictive drug, maybe just because of the level at which people control access to it. There is no way to eliminate this access-control effect, either, unless practically anyone was willing to have sex with anyone else who wanted it with them. In that case, prostitution/pornography would be valueless because if someone told you no you could just move on to someone else who was willing. If you wanted to see people naked or having sex, you could just watch it on youtube. It wouldn't be commercially viable, in other words.

[Moontanman]

Everyone who is comparing sex with casual everyday activities may be right in theory, but I wonder if anyone would dare to tell a victim of sexual harassment that she should just look at unwanted sexual advances as she would view an offer of undesired food. Who would tell a rape victim that what she experienced shouldn't be any more traumatic than a force-feeding session? Who would tell a spouse who was ending their marriage due to adultery that s/he is over-reacting? I can understand saying that in theory, any of these examples could be viewed much differently in a cultural context where sex was viewed as comparable to any other basic biological activity. However, the fact is that prostitution and pornography only exist because of the high cultural barriers to sexual access and the ethics/laws regarding prostitution/pornography may address the allure created by the social-restrictions surrounding sex itself. Stealing the Mona Lisa wouldn't be such a big crime if its value was $10 because everyone could paint one for themselves in a couple hours. When sex is as accessible as home art-kits, prostitution/pornography would have entirely different meanings and values but in the meantime, I think commodified sex should be considered as a powerful addictive drug, maybe just because of the level at which people control access to it. There is no way to eliminate this access-control effect, either, unless practically anyone was willing to have sex with anyone else who wanted it with them. In that case, prostitution/pornography would be valueless because if someone told you no you could just move on to someone else who was willing. If you wanted to see people naked or having sex, you could just watch it on youtube. It wouldn't be commercially viable, in other words.

 

 

Lemur, you are completely missing the definition of consensual and the artificial value that society puts on sex and the things associated with sex.

Edited May 21, 2011 by Moontanman

[lemur]

Lemur, you are completely missing the definition of consensual and the artificial value that society puts on sex and the things associated with sex.

How so? Lots of non-consensual things go on all the time that don't carry the emotional weight of sexual activities that circumvent consent or otherwise play with power (e.g. harassment). Isn't the distinction made between sexual harassment and teasing someone about their office habits part of the "artificial value that society puts on sex?" What about mandatory professional social attendance at parties, dinners, etc. Why shouldn't managers be able to require their employees to perform mandatory sexual favors for others as part of maintaining good collegiality? If people can assent to authoritarian mandates and expect the same of others in non-sexual matters, why can't they overcome the "artificial value that society puts on sex" and extend the same authoritarianism to sexual activities? Would it be too much like prostitution?

[mississippichem]

But on the same note lemur the gov taxs alcohol arguable that its just as bad as prostitution and drugs. So why the ok for one and demonized for other? So its not really turning the gov into pimps or dealers but they pick and choose what they feel is correct in society?

 

Vice law in the US makes absolutely no sense. You can drink alcohol or smoke tobacco, but can't smoke marijuana. Tobacco is a smoking activity [like pot] and alcohol is an intoxicant [also like pot].

 

So evidently you can pay to watch sex [pornography or strippers] that you derive enjoyment from. Which to me means that you can pay someone to have sex with someone else, and you enjoy the watching. But you can't pay a prostitute directly for sex.

 

So what happens if someone pays a prostitute to have sex with someone else? That is really the same phenomenon as the pornography. Pornography photographers/directors have to pay an employee to have sex with someone else every time they film. I think this is what we get for basing our social laws on religious morality [illogical soup]...but that's another thread.

[Mr Skeptic]

Shouldn't free speech only protect non-commercial trading of media-products then? I.e. you should be able to make pornography and give it away, but once you start selling it, wouldn't it become prostitution?

 

You think free speech shouldn't also protect commercial speech (like newspapers)?

 

I've heard these arguments for legalizing prostitution or drugs many times. My question becomes why it is better for the state to become the pimp or dealer, instead of anyone else? Isn't the basic exploitation involved with selling and profiting off of addictive-pleasure the same, however it is regulated or taxed?

 

 

First of all, there is no need for the government to become involved when something is legalized (quite the opposite; they need to be actively involved to make it illegal). As for pimps, why do you think pimps exist? Their main function and power would vanish were prostitution to be legalized, since then the prostitute is protected by the rule of law like everyone else.

[lemur]

Vice law in the US makes absolutely no sense. You can drink alcohol or smoke tobacco, but can't smoke marijuana. Tobacco is a smoking activity [like pot] and alcohol is an intoxicant [also like pot].

The history of alcohol legality basically involves the government giving up fighting bootlegging in the 1920s. Presumably if the bootleggers, mafia, and speakeasies would have given up first, alcohol would be as illegal as cannabis. From what I read, cannabis supporters are pushing equally hard for legalization as was done for alcohol so they may get their way soon. That does not mean they are morally right.

So evidently you can pay to watch sex [pornography or strippers] that you derive enjoyment from. Which to me means that you can pay someone to have sex with someone else, and you enjoy the watching. But you can't pay a prostitute directly for sex.

Maybe there is something specifically sadistic about directly offering someone enough money to have sex against their wishes just because they can't stand to refuse the money. I read recently that Pippa was offered a porn contract for some ridiculous sum, which would be hard to turn down, but somehow that seems less offensive than directly approaching a woman that you want to have sex with her and to name her price.

 

So what happens if someone pays a prostitute to have sex with someone else? That is really the same phenomenon as the pornography. Pornography photographers/directors have to pay an employee to have sex with someone else every time they film. I think this is what we get for basing our social laws on religious morality [illogical soup]...but that's another thread.

I don't understand when people say that laws shouldn't be based on morality. What other basis is there for laws except morality. If you weren't morally opposed to total mayhem, exploitation, and sadism of anyone by anyone else, what purpose would laws serve in the first place? Job creation? What would be the purpose of that even if you didn't have a moral value that it was better for people to have jobs than be unemployed or perform labor in other forms?

 

You think free speech shouldn't also protect commercial speech (like newspapers)?

You're comparing apples and oranges on a very abstract level. The issue was that prostitution was commerce and pornography was expression/speech. So the question becomes whether pornography is more like a commodified good/service or more like an informational medium. Sure, you can get pleasure from reading a newspaper, but it has the function of informing and facilitating public discourse. What democratic discourse does pornography facilitate? It is more like art than speech. But then is prostitution art? I think prostitution is more like selling sex as a drug, as is pornography to a lesser extent, to the extent it causes physical arousal, like viagra.

 

First of all, there is no need for the government to become involved when something is legalized (quite the opposite; they need to be actively involved to make it illegal). As for pimps, why do you think pimps exist? Their main function and power would vanish were prostitution to be legalized, since then the prostitute is protected by the rule of law like everyone else.

Pimps regulate and control the prostitute and her activities and take a cut of the money. Government would do the same thing. If a legal prostitute wanted to hire a legal security guard, manager, and/or talent agent, how would that be different than a pimp?

 

 

 

 

[Marat]

Have you ever seen the documentary film, 'Titicut Follies,' which shows patients in a lunatic asylum being force-fed? It actually looks a lot like a rape, so I'm not sure that that type of physical compulsion is worse than rape. But while forcing anyone to do anything physical is illegal as an assault, I think it is only the highly inflated fear value that society puts on sex that causes sexual compulsion to be viewed as so much more serious than other kinds. I would feel less exploited if I had to earn my keep by being paid for sex than if I had to work as a soldier during wartime, a prize fighter, or a construction worker on a skyscraper, yet for some reason the last three professions are legal but not the former. The concern about exploitation is thus obviously based on irrational aesthetic fears about sex rather than about any real harms or dangers it involves.

 

Why is it that women, even those who take a liberal view of most things, are so incensed about pornography while even highly repressed and conservative men are not as concerned about it women are? I think it can be understood in terms of the artificial sex economy (Wilhelm Reich's term). Women enhance their social power by making sex available only in a highly restricted way, preferably at the price of a man having to share his wage for life with them, support their social status, and consent to act in the father role for their children, though often in modern times for the lower cost of flattery, expensive gifts, ego-gratifying gifts of romantic rituals, etc. This artificially enhanced social power that comes from making themselves precious heterosexual sex partners in a completely unnecessary and unnatural situation of a shortage of heterosexual sex partners women have conjured into existence allows women to neglect to develop their personality, their intellect, and their humanity, since they have value as bodies rather than as persons. But if men seek to escape, at least in limited degree, the rigors of the sex economy which enhances women's social power by resorting to pornography, women react vehemently because their power is threatened. That is also why they dislike prostitution, which is another escape valve operating against their monopoly market power over sexual cooperation.

[lemur]

Marat, I agree with you partially about the professions you mention yet I also think each of those professions allows the worker to go home and have a sexual relationship with their partner without being literally drained from doing it at work. Of course this is true of other kinds of paid work as well. I suppose if people didn't put such central value on sex as a special aspect of intimate relationships, it would not be such a big deal to do it for money. On the other hand, though, there is also the issue that people, women more than men mostly perhaps, have trouble separating sex and the reproductive function. So while women can divorce themselves from emotional attachment to the idea of a fetus becoming a baby, I think many may still associate sex with potential children at some basic level that makes casual sex for money or not a dramatic issue. If you even for a moment think, "I could be having this person's genes in a baby" while having sex, it could be a pretty intense thought - more so maybe then when you're building a skyscraper for Donald Trump thinking, "billions of dollars will change hands in these offices I'm building." Idk.

[mississippichem]

The history of alcohol legality basically involves the government giving up fighting bootlegging in the 1920s. Presumably if the bootleggers, mafia, and speakeasies would have given up first, alcohol would be as illegal as cannabis. From what I read, cannabis supporters are pushing equally hard for legalization as was done for alcohol so they may get their way soon. That does not mean they are morally right.

 

Maybe there is something specifically sadistic about directly offering someone enough money to have sex against their wishes just because they can't stand to refuse the money. I read recently that Pippa was offered a porn contract for some ridiculous sum, which would be hard to turn down, but somehow that seems less offensive than directly approaching a woman that you want to have sex with her and to name her price.

 

Good Points. I don't necessarily believe that the marijuana legalization advocates are morally right; but I think they have a point that the law is inconsistent. Which being the efficiency nazi that I am bothers me .

 

I don't understand when people say that laws shouldn't be based on morality. What other basis is there for laws except morality. If you weren't morally opposed to total mayhem, exploitation, and sadism of anyone by anyone else, what purpose would laws serve in the first place? Job creation? What would be the purpose of that even if you didn't have a moral value that it was better for people to have jobs than be unemployed or perform labor in other forms?

 

That is a great point that I honestly don't have a great answer for. However, I tend to be the type that thinks social regulation should be designed to impede freedoms as little as possible. I think it is morally wrong to commit any act that coerces others. But then I run into the dilemma that I'm basically advocating anarchy. So I'll stick with that and add the caveat that moral perfection in a society is a goal at odds with our concept of organized society, and is thus attainable or not worth it. I would use coercive acts when the benefits outweigh the moral costs, realizing that that requires subjectivity. That's why we need a robo-government that only makes decisions based on statistical analysis. If it gets out of hand, Arnold Schwarzenegger will "be back".

[Moontanman]

The history of alcohol legality basically involves the government giving up fighting bootlegging in the 1920s. Presumably if the bootleggers, mafia, and speakeasies would have given up first, alcohol would be as illegal as cannabis. From what I read, cannabis supporters are pushing equally hard for legalization as was done for alcohol so they may get their way soon. That does not mean they are morally right.

 

It does not mean they are morally wrong either, where do you get the idea that alcohol and cannabis are immoral or that keeping people from using them is morally correct?

 

 

Maybe there is something specifically sadistic about directly offering someone enough money to have sex against their wishes just because they can't stand to refuse the money. I read recently that Pippa was offered a porn contract for some ridiculous sum, which would be hard to turn down, but somehow that seems less offensive than directly approaching a woman that you want to have sex with her and to name her price.

 

 

None the less not only is it anyones right to refuse or agree to have sex for what ever reason if they are consenting adults, who gives any one else the right to judge them for their decisions?

 

 

I don't understand when people say that laws shouldn't be based on morality. What other basis is there for laws except morality. If you weren't morally opposed to total mayhem, exploitation, and sadism of anyone by anyone else, what purpose would laws serve in the first place? Job creation? What would be the purpose of that even if you didn't have a moral value that it was better for people to have jobs than be unemployed or perform labor in other forms?

 

What is your source of morality? Are you saying that with out artifically imposed morals everyone woud be exploiting everyone else and all we would have is total mayhem?

 

 

 

 

Pimps regulate and control the prostitute and her activities and take a cut of the money. Government would do the same thing. If a legal prostitute wanted to hire a legal security guard, manager, and/or talent agent, how would that be different than a pimp?

 

 

The person who is selling sex has no choice if their pimp is in control, the pimps gets the money, all of it or very nearly so, and the prostitute gets nothing. if it was legal the governments involvement would be no more than it's involvement in any other self employed person and would amount to only collecting taxes the same way the gov collects taxes on everyone else. The prostitute would have the free choice to hire body guards if they needed them or not, pimps are not known for allowing their prostitutes to have any choices or money nor would a legal prostitute need a pimp to bail them out of jail when they were arrested.

Edited May 22, 2011 by Moontanman

[lemur]

It does not mean they are morally wrong either, where do you get the idea that alcohol and cannabis are immoral or that keeping people from using them is morally correct?

I believe the temperance movement that advocated prohibition did so because it was thought that men would be better husbands and fathers if they weren't out at bars drunk.

 

None the less not only is it anyones right to refuse or agree to have sex for what ever reason if they are consenting adults, who gives any one else the right to judge them for their decisions?

When behavior has a social effect, it affects people beyond the person engaging in the specific actions in question, no?

 

What is your source of morality?

Evaluation of the consequences and assessment whether they are good or harmful.

 

The person who is selling sex has no choice if their pimp is in control, the pimps gets the money, all of it or very nearly so, and the prostitute gets nothing. if it was legal the governments involvement would be no more than it's involvement in any other self employed person and would amount to only collecting taxes the same way the gov collects taxes on everyone else. The prostitute would have the free choice to hire body guards if they needed them or not, pimps are not known for allowing their prostitutes to have any choices or money nor would a legal prostitute need a pimp to bail them out of jail when they were arrested.

But then maybe prostitutes and their clients would never question engaging in prostitution if it was a legal activity. Look how many people never question other legal activities that have detrimental effects.

 

 

[Moontanman]

I believe the temperance movement that advocated prohibition did so because it was thought that men would be better husbands and fathers if they weren't out at bars drunk.

 

Are you saying that is either true or a reason to restrict the individual rights of humans? Are you saying that not only do all men drink alcohol if given the choice but that it makes them bad fathers and husbands because men always drink to excess as well?

 

 

When behavior has a social effect, it affects people beyond the person engaging in the specific actions in question, no?

 

Yes, but no one has the right to not be affected in any way by someone else, in a society of people all people actions affect others even actions some deem moral have adverse effects on others.

 

Evaluation of the consequences and assessment whether they are good or harmful.

 

So eating cheese burgers is immoral and should be outlawed?

 

But then maybe prostitutes and their clients would never question engaging in prostitution if it was a legal activity. Look how many people never question other legal activities that have detrimental effects.

 

 

Are you suggesting a nanny state where no potentially harmful actions are allowed? Not many decades ago oral sex was illegal and immoral as was sex between persons of the same sex, how far does the right of one person to not be affected by the actions of other go? What detrimental effects would legal prostitution have? What detrimental effects does pornography have? 100 years ago sex outside marriage was a fate worse than death, just how moral do you want things to be and who decides and based on what effects? Does lying awake at night unable to sleep because you fear that somewhere some how some one is is having a good time constitute a detrimental effect?

Edited May 22, 2011 by Moontanman

[lemur]

Are you saying that is either true or a reason to restrict the individual rights of humans? Are you saying that not only do all men drink alcohol if given the choice but that it makes them bad fathers and husbands because men always drink to excess as well?

I was just giving the reason for prohibition of alcohol during the temperance movement. I do, however, recognize that alcohol often facilitates abuse, though it obviously can't be the root cause. No, I don't think ppl always drink to excess and I think we should start another thread if you want to discuss the nuances of alcohol ethics and legality.

 

Yes, but no one has the right to not be affected in any way by someone else, in a society of people all people actions affect others even actions some deem moral have adverse effects on others.

Right, so that means that people also have the right to pursue social control over others in the form of law (formal) and non-legal (informal) means. People also have the right to dissent from each other and engage in civil conflict. Democracy = checks and balance among conflicting powers.

 

Are you suggesting a nanny state where no potentially harmful actions are allowed? Not many decades ago oral sex was illegal and immoral as was sex between persons of the same sex, how far does the right of one person to not be affected by the actions of other go? What detrimental effects would legal prostitution have? What detrimental effects does pornography have? 100 years ago sex outside marriage was a fate worse than death, just how moral do you want things to be and who decides and based on what effects? Does lying awake at night unable to sleep because you fear that somewhere some how some one is is having a good time constitute a detrimental effect?

Yes, it concerns me that some people are able to have happy lives while others are unhappy and I wonder what can be done to facilitate better access to happiness for more people. That doesn't necessarily mean forbidding things, but I don't exclude it as a potential means. I think you have to allow people to make a case for things instead of just brushing them off as having ancient/primitive ideas. Punishment for adultery is, for example, now ridiculed as a primitive exercise of jealousy and marital ownership/slavery, but what about the right to invest in your spouse's future without someone else taking that future away for their own benefit? I dislike the idea of a nanny state, but I also dislike a government that protects exploiters/abusers. Maybe the solution is to go back to duels as a means of conflict-resolution.

 

 

[Edtharan]

I've heard these arguments for legalizing prostitution or drugs many times. My question becomes why it is better for the state to become the pimp or dealer, instead of anyone else? Isn't the basic exploitation involved with selling and profiting off of addictive-pleasure the same, however it is regulated or taxed?

It is all about regulation.

 

The state, in a democracy, is answerable to the people. When legalised, the state becomes responsible for the welfare of the prostitutes and thus the need regulation.

 

With illegal prostitution, the pimps are not answerable to anyone but themselves and there is no regulation.

 

Think of this analogy:

Imagine if owning a TV was considered illegal. If you wanted to buy a TV you would have to go to an unregulated market where you could not be guaranteed a fair deal, or even that the TV would world. IF you bought it and then found that it had a problem, you could not go to a consumer commission and demand that the seller have legal action taken against them.

 

Or if you sold the TV, and someone came into your store and smashed the place up because you wouldn't give them all your profits, then you would have no legal defence.

 

The point of this is to show that be making something, even as mundane as TV illegal, then the unregulated nature and inability of someone to get legal defence is what makes what happens bad. When you look at it, it is not the act that is bad, but the things that go on around it (reliance on drugs, virtual slavery, etc) because of the unregulated nature and connections to organised crime.

 

Now, government regulation is not a "Nanny State". Regulation is because the government is accountable to the people and thus the people requier this of the government (so basically regulation is a Nanny to the state, and not from the state). A Nanny state is where the government says that you can't do something (like have legalised prostitution) because a small groups within the society. It would be like the government saying that TV is illegal because some people think it could be slightly harmful (and think of this: Watching too much TV can be bad for you because it reduces the amount of exercise you could be doing, and you are exploited by the TV stations as the force feed you ads that try to convince you to buy things you don't need - and there could be programs on there that you morally object to, for example violent movies, or pornography - and if it is on payTV then would that be similar to prostitution?).

 

As you can see from the above. If you apply your arguments to something like TV it becomes an immoral activity. Does this mean that TV is immoral, or that your arguments are somehow incorrect? As your arguments are based on an emotional reaction programmed into you by the beliefs of the society you grew up in, rather than on evidence (the evidence is that legalised prostitution is better for the sex workers and their clients), then I can say that your arguments are wrong.

 

And, if you want to use the emotional arguments: Is it more morally objectionable to allow organised crime and virtual slavery to operate and without any safety for those that do choose to participate (or are forced to), or to allow those people in the society who which to engage in prostitution (both the clients and the workers) and the right to do so safely.

 

Because there is a measurable increase in the welfare, quality of life and the freedoms of legal sex workers as compared to the illegal sex workers, then to state that you think prostitution shold be illegal is to advocate for the suffering caused by illegal prostitution and the organised crime that goes with it.

Rremember, you (or the position you are arguing for) might object morally to prostitution for cultural reasons, but you must remember, other people don't. They see sex between consenting adults (for fun or profit) as morally unobjectionable.

 

The problem is that when you make prostitution illegal, because of the control the pimps have over their prostitutes (through threat of violence, poverty, drugs, etc), those prostitutes are not exactly consenting (they may say "yes", but that is only though coercion and threat and to me that is just as bad as rape).

 

So, looking at it like this, it is far more morally objectionable for the continued illegalisation of prostitution as opposed to legalised prostitution.

[lemur]

So, looking at it like this, it is far more morally objectionable for the continued illegalisation of prostitution as opposed to legalised prostitution.

Pragmatically, I agree. The problem arises when you think about the moral message legalization sends out that prostitution is a legitimate service and means for people to attain sexual gratification. Would you prompt an unemployed daughter, sister, mother, or wife to work in prostitution? If not, why would you legalize it?

[Doc. Josh]

Looking at it in another light, Their are countrys who allow legal sex for money and these do not have an adverse affects in which some state. So if our Gov would see that then why not follow suit? IMO it seems silly to not condone consenting adults to have sexual relations out side of marriage. There are are things much worse than illegal sex, besides the system we have is strained as it is i feel the arrest of prostitutes and pims and all involved are just wasting tax dollars for what end result? To be good ( pilgrams) For the sake of morality? thats the problem we have today, the Gov has put things in place to rev up revenue and court fines cost etc.. What they dont look at is now they are turning people into products of the institution and becoming less proactive. I do not agree with sex for money in my personal life however it is still a business and and not to be demonized buy the way of morality and being decent. The goverment dosent care about these poeople on a ( moral) basis then why should they demonize acts that are boud to fail? TAXS! Its a sure way to insure revenue, I think the gov has hide behind the face of morality and religous based freedoms for ther own benifit for to long. If They erase the the morality based laws in affect and let the free fair market come into place i dont think we as a nation would be hiding under the covers at night awaiting our death of a prostitute! Life would go on and go on so regularly because with the free choice of legal sex there would be laws to protect and punish those who do not follow the regulations put into place such as with any employment. Bars can be a ( scary place) to be in a pilgram world but we have managed to deal with it and its not bad at all in the big scoope of things, so as the same with almost every job in the world when done wrongfuly and askew the result is negative same would be in legal prostitution. Just my 35 cent worth.

 

Lemur, I agree with you at apoint however you can argue the same point with strippers, am i wrong? there are current ( career ) that are still taboo and not equally correct in a by standard world. So how is it diffrent?

[mississippichem]

Pragmatically, I agree. The problem arises when you think about the moral message legalization sends out that prostitution is a legitimate service and means for people to attain sexual gratification. Would you prompt an unemployed daughter, sister, mother, or wife to work in prostitution? If not, why would you legalize it?

 

I would never prompt a friend of family member to go into prostitution (no 401K plan). But adjustable rate mortgages are a comparably bad idea and those are perfectly legal. I don't think it is the governments place to decide what is best for our lives. As far as social/vice/moral law is concerned they should only not allow us to do things that infringe on others rights to life/liberty/pursuit of whatever.

 

By legalizing currently illegal vice activities like drugs and prostitution, we can turn all the illegitimate "black money" into real GDP. I don't think prostitution would solve our debt crisis; but we have to be willing to drop our silly social ideals in the name of revenue generation. I say we legalize everything and tax the hell out of all of it.

[Moontanman]

Pragmatically, I agree. The problem arises when you think about the moral message legalization sends out that prostitution is a legitimate service and means for people to attain sexual gratification.

 

Why would that be a problem?

 

 

 

Would you prompt an unemployed daughter, sister, mother, or wife to work in prostitution? If not, why would you legalize it?

 

 

Lemur, if a reasonably attractive woman approached you and offered you $1,000,000 to have sexual intercourse with her would you do it?

[Marat]

Lemur makes a good point about society's obsessive fear and concern about sex perhaps arising from women's historical feeling that sex has to be very important, since it can mean pregnancy, the birth of a child, and all the emotional entanglements of child rearing, having a husband to share the parenting roles, etc. But the fact that these sacredness assumptions regarding sex have now persisted a good forty years after the invention of easy methods of birth control suggests that our morality is anachronistically lagging behind our technology. Since sex now no longer necessarily risks bringing with it all these truly special, emotionally significant implications, there is no longer any objective empirical basis for society to assume that either pornography or prostitution are immoral by carrying cheapening implications for genuinely sacred things like new lives coming into being. So since it is so expensive in terms of all the costs of social regulation and sexual frustration to preserve this now ungrounded sacredness of sexuality, let's stop it -- even if we are 40 years late drawing the necessary conclusions leading to this insight.

 

If your wife normally makes your dinner for you (this usage persists even in the modern world, often at the woman's insistence!), there is clearly some added emotional dimension to the experience of sharing a meal with her than if you eat a meal prepared by a stranger in a fast food restaurant. But just as it would be ridiculous if your wife divorced you if she discovered you had been eating at McDonald's, so too it should be absurd if your wife were to divorce you if she found that you had visited a prostitute, or lusted over photos of a Big Mac while away on a business trip.

[lemur]

I would never prompt a friend of family member to go into prostitution (no 401K plan). But adjustable rate mortgages are a comparably bad idea and those are perfectly legal. I don't think it is the governments place to decide what is best for our lives. As far as social/vice/moral law is concerned they should only not allow us to do things that infringe on others rights to life/liberty/pursuit of whatever.

 

By legalizing currently illegal vice activities like drugs and prostitution, we can turn all the illegitimate "black money" into real GDP. I don't think prostitution would solve our debt crisis; but we have to be willing to drop our silly social ideals in the name of revenue generation. I say we legalize everything and tax the hell out of all of it.

When people suggest legalizing and taxing drugs and prostitution, I wonder if they think about what it means to have an economy where the motivation to work is to be able to afford to feed addictions like sex and drugs. It's practically the same as having an economy of slave labor and coming up with ways to make the slaves happy without raising their awareness of their condition of servitude, their right to self-determine their own free existence etc. Instead, you just allow them to spend all their money on getting the fixes that get them through another week of miserable work. I'm not saying that this doesn't already occur through other kinds of legal "comforts" that people spend their money on to divert them from their miseries, but I just think there's something to be said for doing something about that culture. If anything the government should be working to control more addictive comforts instead of liberalizing the ones that are already illegal and thus taboo for a great deal of people. The problem is that people are so desperate for comfort that they are practically at the point of revolution to gain access to their various fixes. So the question is what needs to change so that people won't feel such desperate desire for these diversionary pleasures. What does it take to give people access to happy productive lives where they have very little pain to soothe in the first place?

[mississippichem]

When people suggest legalizing and taxing drugs and prostitution, I wonder if they think about what it means to have an economy where the motivation to work is to be able to afford to feed addictions like sex and drugs. It's practically the same as having an economy of slave labor and coming up with ways to make the slaves happy without raising their awareness of their condition of servitude, their right to self-determine their own free existence etc. Instead, you just allow them to spend all their money on getting the fixes that get them through another week of miserable work.

 

That sounds nice. But people have had vices since the dawn of recorded history. You've yet to establish that a society without vices can even exist. So instead of the government listening to the people...you think the people should listen to the government?

 

IMO, it's not about allowing people their fixes. It's about not locking people up for victimless crimes and us not spending our valuable resources on prosecuting these people. We are biologically engineered to desire sexual intercourse. I can't in good conscience send someone to jail or fine them for doing what they can to fulfill this need as long as it isn't rape. Drugs are a bit of a different story. But look how effective the government has been at stopping illegal drug trade. They can't do it! Whenever there is demand for a product, legal or not, there will be a supplier; Always! One of my economics teachers told me about black market French cheese sold in Moscow back allies during the height of soviet Russia. Why not just make that supplier a legitimate tax payer?

 

By the way. If you want sex after a long day at work, and the wife refuses; Is it prostitution if you promise to buy her new shoes in exchange for a good time? What about strippers? You are paying to see them naked which arouses you and is therefore a sexual act and not illegal.

Edited May 23, 2011 by mississippichem

[lemur]

That sounds nice. But people have had vices since the dawn of recorded history. You've yet to establish that a society without vices can even exist. So instead of the government listening to the people...you think the people should listen to the government?

Obviously these are very deep-rooted desires; but does that mean it is good to allow and even promote them to run wild unchecked no matter the consequences for the users themselves or anyone else?

 

IMO, it's not about allowing people their fixes. It's about not locking people up for victimless crimes and us not spending our valuable resources on prosecuting these people. We are biologically engineered to desire sexual intercourse. I can't in good conscience send someone to jail or fine them for doing what they can to fulfill this need as long as it isn't rape. Drugs are a bit of a different story. But look how effective the government has been at stopping illegal drug trade. They can't do it! Whenever there is demand for a product, legal or not, there will be a supplier; Always! One of my economics teachers told me about black market French cheese sold in Moscow back allies during the height of soviet Russia. Why not just make that supplier a legitimate tax payer?

Regulating things isn't about uniformly treating everything from cheese to prostitution as either bad or ok. It's about looking at the specific causes and effects for individuals and deciding if it makes sense to intervene in some way and how. Sex is obviously a natural desire - and drugs may also fulfil natural desires, which is the cause of their popularity. Still, when you look at what happens to people whose lives become overwhelmed with sex or drug use, do you really think it's a positive lifestyle? Do you think there is not some other way of life that could leave people happier and healthier if they had access to whatever it is that is preventing them from achieving more constructive lives? Or do you think it's just that some people come from good families and others don't and are therefore doomed to a life of fixes and addictions?

 

By the way. If you want sex after a long day at work, and the wife refuses; Is it prostitution if you promise to buy her new shoes in exchange for a good time? What about strippers? You are paying to see them naked which arouses you and is therefore a sexual act and not illegal.

If you loved a person, why would you refuse them sex unless they gave you something? If you loved yourself, why would you make yourself have sex when you didn't want to to get something in return? If a person and their spouse play with sex in a prostitution-like way because they find it an erotic game to do so, that's something else entirely. But there is something to be said for two people loving each other enough to be legitimately concerned for each other's feelings enough to avoid exploiting the other person to their own benefit and the spouse's detriment. If the family budget would be better off by foregoing new shoes, a woman would want to do so and she would also not want to deprive her husband to his detriment. I think there's a reason the marriage vows include "for richer and for poorer." I.e. love is not about how well a person can provide for you or take care of you. It's about working together to achieve common goals and for each other's benefit as individuals. When the individual or common goals become detrimental at the individual level for whatever reason, you have to question if there's love involved and, if so, how - imo.

 

 

[Marat]

When you express concern that people's lives may decline in quality if they are 'overwhelmed' by indulgence in sex, it also has to be considered that there can be enormous loss of life quality, even to the point of neurosis, from insufficient indulgence in sex. Similarly, overindulgence in chess (Fisher), mathematics (Nash; Erdos), philosophical psychology (Fechner), or sociological research (Max Weber) can make people somewhat damaged, but few seem ready to call these activities 'dangerous addictions' or fret about the need to regulate and control mathematics, sociology, chess to prevent such pathologies. The reason, again, is that we have an irrational fear of sex but not of these other activities.

 

Some argue that marriage is itself just a more elaborate form of prostitution, at least in society prior to recent times, when the woman exchanged sex for a share of her husband's income and his labor as the father figure for her children. It is interesting also that it is a commonplace of anthropology that prostitution comes into existence only in societies where there is marriage, so it is dialectically generated by the artificial restriction of partner availability.

 

In some societies, there is a complete blurring between marriage and prostitution. Thus in Iran, for example, a man can have four permanent wives and any number of temporary wives, with whom he can legally contract to have sexual relations for a month at a time. Iran is an extremely pious society, furious about violations of marriage by adultery, about pornography, about women scantily clad in public, or about frank prostitution, but it seems in effect just to redescribe much prostitution as temporary marriage.