The Morality of Prostitution

[Joe Zop]

RN, well, thanks. Mostly for me it's just a "judge not lest ye be judged" kind of thing -- I'm well aware of my own large flaws, how difficult it is to work on getting past them, and I'm also well aware of the enormous privilege I operate under versus many folks I know and have worked with, in that I know I'm judged differently because I walk through the door as a tall white male who's got at least some degree of intelligence and education. I've watched my wife, who is far brighter and more talented than I am, struggle for years to be taken seriously not only because she's female but because her personality type gets her classified as an airhead by people who can't keep up with her mental leaps and complex syntactical constructs. I've seen the same thing happen over and over with people I've worked with in different cultures, and people I grew up with, which was a poor, black urban neighborhood. It frankly pisses me off that I can stand up and quiet a room simply by standing, because I'm a big guy, whereas lots of those other folks have to shout for attention. It pisses me off because I want to quiet things based on my personal command of the room and not because of the skin I'm born into, because I then get cheated -- I can't know if it's me or what I represent socially. And, of course, that statement is itself grounded in privilege. (Sorry, that got rather long -- I seem to be verbose this morning.)

I'm curious as to how clients end up reacting to that stigma, presuming they feel it, when they're with a sex worker, in particular whether they talk about it (as Philip notes, this isn't the kind of locker-room conversation that tends to go on between clients) and what they have to say about it. We've talked a lot about how that social stigma affects sex workers, but not a lot about how it affects clients. Clearly, there are legal consequences, and it the US in particular it's been a trend over the past two decades in certain area to focus on the customer to try to alleviate prostitution as opposed to (well, really in addition to) the sex worker. Impounding of cars of clients arrested for solicitation, for example, is now a pretty common approach to trying to cut down on street prostitution. (In contrast, for example, to busts in massage parlors, where the clients are rarely hassled, perhaps because with the massage front it's harder to prove anything.)

It's interesting, as well, to think about how brothels or massage parlors handle clients in different ways, and what that implies. In the US, for example, great care is usually taken to keep clients separated and anonymous. That same separation isn't usually the case in Nevada brothels or in Thailand massage parlors. I'd say that's largely because there's an understanding that people don't want to be recognizable when engaging in something that's criminalized, but it certainly also adds to the overall sense of furtiveness as well. How are things handled in OZ?

Your point about guilt by association is an interesting one, in that not only does it reflect the whole deviance issue in terms of sexual acts, it also reflects what I was saying above regarding criminal activity -- a criminal is a criminal in terms of social stigma, we as society don't tend to make distinctions when someone's locked up -- they're a law-breaker, and they're in with their own kind. (Of course, this references the whole discussion on victimless crimes.)

Despite the fact that I'm a believer in equality and lots of feminist agenda politically, in general I find feminist theorizing has lots of holes regarding sex, mostly because talking in terms of feminist theory is like talking about philosophy in general -- there are lots of available perspectives, and they're not necessarily harmonious. The reference you make is a good example -- men as victimizers, women as unable to be anything but victims as opposed to being intentional and empowered in regard to their use of sex. It's interesting in that there's a dichotomy of thought here that enters in as soon as the discussion moves to a paid sex sphere which, as you expressed in your last response to Spencer, doesn't generally come out in feminist thought outside of that context. It's the old debate that's been raging for years -- if one chooses to "be an object" does one subvert, control and change the process or reinforce it? Rather like Sartre's whole thing about "being" a waiter as opposed to being a waiter.

Philip -- I've had a similar kind of upbringing, and similar kind of process, though I think the falling and self-loathing process was related to sex as a whole, and I thank heavens for the evolution of the social climate in the sixties/seventies for getting past that. I think that self-loathing process is very much on point in this discussion, as if you're "bad" then so is the one you're with, and that circular process is one where you can eventualy get off and just leave an object of blame spinning around. Personally, I think it's a phyrric war scenario, but that pretty well goes with the general theme of the times, unfortunately.

Sorry my questions were vague -- I'm not completely sure how to develop this discussion, but I did want to try to move toward a more constructive debate and a newer topic. What's your take on the relative weight each of the three categories has in the equation (acknowledging, of course, that they're entertwined)?

[Philip Augustus]

to joe:
i think there would be three things not two: upbringing, (current) personal morality and social environment. upbringing could be further subdivided into parental and peer. for example, i think a lot of sexual hang-ups come not from parents but from schoolmates -- the cruelty of teenagers is unbelievable.

speaking for myself, i started with the classic pattern of "falling" and "self-loathing", but that was quite a long time ago. how much of that was sexual shame per se that was imprinted on me by an unfortunate upbringing in a regrettable culture and how much was prostitution-specific isn't easy to say.

regarding the country i mentioned, i'm not at all sure what the male natives think and feel, whether they agree that they are the depraved monsters as which they are portrayed in the media and by any passing female, or whether they are rebels against the pc orthodoxy in their secret hearts. don't think i ever discussed it with any of them.

sorry to be vague, but i found your questions rather foggy too!

rn:
yes, in the country i was talking about, the (non-working) women want the men to go to prison as victimisers on the lines you describe. no other paradigm is available or permitted.

[Rubber Nursey]

Joe,
Firstly just let me give you a heartfelt thank you for what you said in your last few posts, more specifically the last one in the now archived old forum. Along with being very articulate and intelligent, you are a truly good man with a kind heart. I just wanted to tell you that.

As for clients, my opinion is that the stigma placed on "Johns" is a direct result of the stigma placed on sex workers. There is the section of the community that believes that any man who would have lower himself to having sex with that "type" of woman, must be a certain "type" of man. And the misconception that sex workers perform bizarre and degrading sex acts for all their clients, probably points at those clients being perverts or sexually deviant. Guilt by association.

On the other hand, there is the feminist view that clients demean and humiliate and degrade prostitutes by "using" them for self gratification. Sex workers are victims and you, dear sirs, are the victimisers. This attitude, mind you, seems to be particular to "Western" cultures...places where women are empowered and treated as equals. In Turkey for example, sex workers are treated like dirty wh*res and have no place in society, and yet men do not seem to be looked down on for visiting them. It appears to be commonly understood that it is a man's "right" to use women as he sees fit, simply because he is a man. In western cultures men are no longer "allowed" to think of women in that way, and any man that feels he has a god-given right to abuse women is looked down on by society.

I'm not sure that the legality of prostitution in any given locality actually affects public perceptions of prostitutes. In many countries where sex work is legal, wh*res are still considered the bottom rung of society. I think it comes down more to a community's understanding and acceptance of sex itself...anal retentive countries such as yours and mine that insist on seeing sex as "sacred" and not to be had outside of a loving relationship, will always have a problem with sex for money. As long as the sex industry is subject to the "seedy, dishonest and depraved" stereotype that the community and the media perpetuates, clients will always be subjected to the same stigma as sex workers are.

...If you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.....

[Rubber Nursey]

Spencer,
I have absolutely no issues of self acceptance. I would have thought that would have been obvious after the hundreds of posts I have made defending the sex industry, and my attempts to dispel the myths regarding sex workers. I only fight these issues as vehemently as I do because I feel I deserve the right to choice, and the right to be heard, as much as anyone else does. Fighting for something you feel you "deserve" and demanding that people hear your views, are actions that take a degree of self respect...a person who feels they have no self worth is willing to settle for second best, because they feel it is all they deserve. What I do take issue with is people who feel they have the right to cast judgement on me and assess my character according to a cruel and ill-conceived stereotype. According to your last post, I am the "type" of woman that you like. How exactly did you work out what "type" of woman I am? If this was a debate on another board about politics or sports or the Celtic Otherworld...would you have come to the same conclusion about my "type". A sex worker is not a certain "type" of woman. She is a woman doing a certain type of job. And that is not enough to base a character assessment on.

Anyway, your last post seems to have made the shift from seperating "normal" women from prostitutes, to the "all women who have casual sex are easy" angle. (Note: I have NEVER heard the term "easy" applied to men, regardless of how many partners they have). There are two problems I have with the term easy being used on women, apart from the obvious fact that it is laughable in this day and age of sexual equality, and that the term is never used on men. One is the way people say easy women "allow" lots of men to have sex with them...as if they lay back and let men "use" their bodies for their own self gratification. If I say to a man in a bar "I'm horny. Will you please take me home and shag me senseless"...who is using who? Is it so unbelieveable that women may actually "use" men for their OWN self gratification? And do you think that perhaps it's even possible that casual sex between two adults could be MUTUALLY satisfying? Without either party being taken advantage of??

The other is that it is said like it is a BAD thing. Why is it so bad for a woman to have a high sex drive? The "boys are studs and girls are sl*ts" labels are surely a thing of the past. People need to recognise that women have casual sex for all the same reasons as men...and that it is NOT something they should be ashamed of.

What interests me most about your post is the way you classified both "sluts" and hookers as "easy"women. A sex worker is not easy in that sense of the word. Sure, they sleep with multiple partners...but they put a price on their availability. A so-called sl*t may sleep with someone because they are bored or horny or drunk or looking for love (which I don't have a problem with by the way), but a hooker will only sleep with someone for money. How many times have you gone to a hooker without any cash in your pocket and had her say "It's ok, let's do it anyway...I'm horny"??? Many sex workers I know do not even HAVE a sex life outside of work!!! You are confusing sex work with promiscuity, when in fact they are very different things.

[Joe Zop]

Philip -- to pick up on the other thread, do you think the misgivings of clients are based in issues of personal morality, societal disapproval, all of the above, what? Is this a stigma that's specific to those places where prostitution is illegal, to specific issues of culture or class, or does it carry further? For example, do clients who live in the Netherlands have the same level of misgiving? (I've seen some TV interviews that imply not, but it's hard to tell how trustworthy that information is, given that they were in the context of comparing to the Us scenario.) Are there some qualitative differences in the types of misgivings based on what codes get applied?

I'd also be curious to hear from RN not only about those issues but about how client misgivings manifest themselves from the sex worker perspective, beyond (but including, I'd imagine) the need to be punished for "bad" urges or to try to punish others.

[Joe Zop]

Spencer -- again, you misread my post, so I guess there was still some degree of subtlety after all. First, all I did was parrot back to you the things you'd been accusing prostitutes of being, since you basically placed yourself in the same boat by defining yourself (and by extension me) as a scumbag. My little crack about affirmation was meant as an echo of your counseling poke a few messages back. To reference again something you said to RN, you're more sensitive about this than I thought you'd be, given that all I did was turn the same lens you've been using back in your own direction. As far as high horses go, we're all riders at one time or another, and I'm sure I've left some hoofprints here and there, but I'm far from alone in that regard -- looked behind you lately?

I don't happen to work within your definitional framework, in that I simply don't think in terms of sluts or scumbags, and I don't think people need to either place themselves or be placed within categories. I think in terms of people who have needs that they try to meet, with those needs running the gamut from money to sex to drugs to possessions to love, and I think in terms of their difficulties in managing to get what they want. As long as those needs don't damage other people I see nothing wrong with them, and don't think people having or not having them is of great significance. I don't happen to think of people wanting to have sex in whatever manner they choose as making them deviant or slutty or anything other than essentially alive and human. I don't feel the need to define myself or anyone else as deviant or normal; I've got enough trouble dealing with life already, thank you, and I think that's pretty much the same for everyone else.

I'm not looking to judge you, as I don't know you and can only understand you by what you've posted here, and how you've accordingly defined yourself. I'm not much into judging in any regard; I prefer trying to empathize and place myself in other shoes, as I learn more from it. I'm certainly not silly enough at all to expect you to agree with my opinions -- I have my quixotic streaks, but it's been crystal clear from the beginning that's not going to happen, as our perspectives and approaches are too largely divergent. Read elsewhere -- I get disagreed with all the time; that's part of the turf, and besides, total agreement's no fun in a discussion in any event, for the most part.

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