The Morality of Prostitution

[DavePhx]

. You know or you can assume that the girl has some sort of help to get to Thailand; maybe an organisation she stills goes to your room voluntary but you don't know what kind of pressure she has from the people who brought here there, she could have been tricked etc. So is it voluntary?

Probably 90%+ of the bar girls, independants on the streets etc are adults trying to make a living often to send money upcountry to poor family members. Many Raids in Thailand and Manila that were media hypes for "sex trafficking" were very happy adults choosing sexwork as a legitimate occupation to earn relatively good money. Yes 10% might be forced. , [CodeWord902] that should go after. But most efforts are wasted doing a media hype for the victim industry.

In Canada, the Russian mafia was connected to many large Russian agencies that were very popular. The women paid their handlers a fee and agreed to work long hours to pay off the handlers who got them fake visa's etc to get into Canada. But for the most part they were very willing since after maybe 2 years of working and paying off the mafia, they were totally free go join other agencies. I have a friend who knew such a gal and after 2 years became happy married and went on to a good life in Canada.

In recent years this has it seems gone away with more crackdown on immigration into Canada. Where visa's use to be issued for strippers since clubs could not find enough Canadians that ended a few years ago with pressure from conservatives.

Maybe 10 years ago, a "bad" mafia pimp kidnapped some escorts doing outcall and locked them into a house with sealed doors and windows. Since the police are not feared in Canada and prostitution is / was legal (at least outcall until 2013 when incall also made legal. Old bawdy house law violated the harm reduction idea and the Canadian Charter of Rights), the women locked themselves in a bedroom and called 911 for a robbery in progress so police would break in. LE arrested the bad mafia pimp and gals had no problems (even though bawdy house was illegal at the time).

[Member #4446]

I think prostitution is ok if its between adults and volunteer. But here is the dilemma. If I meet a girl from Africa or another poor country in Thailand for example. You know or you can assume that the girl has some sort of help to get to Thailand; maybe an organisation she stills goes to your room voluntary but you don't know what kind of pressure she has from the people who brought here there, she could have been tricked etc. So is it voluntary? I don't think guys do a background check on every girl they bring to the room. What do you think? Whats your moral responsible in this case?

[Chocha Monger]

I read a lot about... and forced prostitution. Do you guys ever think about that or do you just don't care? I understand that its hard to tell what is what, but sometimes I wounder how common it is. I met some girls in Angeles City that could not go home because they owe the bar money for clothes and flight tickets etc. Just want to discuss this. Just wounder what is your moral in this topic? If you go in a privat brothel how the hell can you know who is forced or not?

Don't believe everything you hear from Angeles City bar girls. When the girls say that they can't go home because they owe the bar money, it does not mean that they are being coerced into working at the bar. This is just a pitch to get sympathetic newbies to pay permanent bar fine. This is about a year of the girl's salary. She gets half of the amount and the bar gets the other half. The girl can then pay off any debts to the bar, coworkers, and pawnshops. After she has settled her business in Angeles City, she is free to go home with a nice chunk of cash. However, in almost all cases the girl will wait until her foreign sponsor leaves town and go right back to working at the bar. Some may take their ID and health permit and go to work at a different bar or go into freelancing.

Some girls borrow money from the bar and leave town without repaying the debt. The only consequences they face is not being able to work at the same bar again. So, there is no coercion at the bars catering to tourists. The girls' families also know exactly where they are and what they are doing. Who do you think sent them to work in the bar in the first place?

Many Filipino families send their daughters to work abroad as domestic workers in head chopping countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We could argue that their families are forcing them to work in these places. At the end of the day all forms of employment are nothing more than compensated restrictions of privileges. Employees are economically coerced to exchange their time and labor for money. In modern economies most people are forced to work for businesses and governments in order to survive. Except for the extremely wealthy and a few uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, very little freedom is left in this world.

[Member #4446]

I read a lot about [CodeWord908] and forced prostitution. Do you guys ever think about that or do you just don't care? I understand that its hard to tell what is what, but sometimes I wounder how common it is. I met some girls in Angeles City that could not go home because they owe the bar money for clothes and flight tickets etc. Just want to discuss this. Just wounder what is your moral in this topic? If you go in a privat brothel how the hell can you know who is forced or not?

[The Cane]

http://www.ozy.com/wildcard/point-ta...tm_campaign=pp

[Koperen Klaas]

This issue becomes confused when the issue of "trafficking" enters the discussion. NO ONE should condone trafficking involving forced prostitution, enslavement, child prostitution, etc. However, what two CONSENTING adults do in private should not be a matter for government involvement or interest. If a woman freely chooses to offer sexual services in exchange for compensation, it is hard to find a "victim" in this activity.

Sex traffickers forcing women into prostitution and sexual slavery are scum. They should become the sex toys in prison.

A woman's reasons for selling sexual services are hers alone. If she freely makes that decision, government should not intrude.

One has to wonder how many police resources are focused on busting women who freely offer such services versus the gangs that force women and children into sexual slavery.

One could argue that a properly regulated sex industry (medical checks, prevention, etc) if freely available, would put the illegal traffickers out of business.

Completely agree. I know a number of sex workers who went into the trade completely of their own free will.

One likes the work and occasionally even orgasms with clients. She used the proceeds from her work to buy a house, where she occasionally entertains clients. Mostly she works in clubs and "behind the windows" (sorry, don't know the proper English expression).

Another one thoroughly enjoyed her work behind the windows in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and was furious when the red-light area was closed down. At first she resorted to receiving at home, until she found another red-light area to work in. I was a regular client in Utrecht and she really loved DATY, as shown by the fact that she became soaking wet.

Both loved barebacking because it felt better inside them.

I could go on, but this will have to suffice for now.

Regards,

Ko.

[D Cups]

QUOTE=Intransit;1891441 The steady creep of "sex work" into 21st-century vernacular is neither incidental nor accidental ENDQUOTE.

Very interesting article. I have a brown sugar that visits me 2 - 3 times a week for $40/ pop (BBBJ / video). I don't think she's pro but I could be wrong. She has a regular job but of course likes the extra cash. It's a real quick blow and go arrangement. Stress management for me.

[Intransit]

Jackson: passages in all caps are from the original text and were formatted in that manner there.

Apologies that the text is all mashed together. I re-formatted it from the webpage, but that was screwed up when I pasted it here. The URL for the original article is just below if you'd prefer to read it there.

http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016...tution-economy

A growing number of young people are selling their bodies online to pay student loans, make the rent, or afford designer labels. Is it just an unorthodox way to make ends meet or a new kind of exploitation? Nancy Jo Sales investigates.

By Nancy Jo Sales.

July 7, 2016 8:00 am.

DADDY DEAREST.

The waiter with the handlebar mustache encourages us to "participate in the small-plate culture. " Geraldine's, the swank spot in Austin's Hotel Van Zandt, is brimming with tech guys, some loudly talking about money. The college student at our table recommends the ribs—she's been here before, on "dates" with her "daddies. " "There are a lot of tech guys," she says. "They want the girlfriend experience, without having to deal with an actual girlfriend. ".

"The girlfriend experience" is the term women in the sex trade use for a service involving more than just sex. "They want the perfect girlfriend—in their eyes," says Miranda, the young woman at our table. * "She's well groomed, cultured, classy, able to converse about anything—but not bringing into it any of her real-world problems or feelings. ".

Miranda is 22 and has the wavy bobbed hair and clipped mid-Atlantic accent of a 1930's movie star; she grew up in a Texas suburb. "I've learned how to look like this, talk like this," she says. "I work hard at being this," meaning someone who can charge $700 an hour for sex.

Her adventures in "sugaring" started three years ago when she got hit on by an older guy and rebuffed him, saying, "Look, I'm not interested, so unless you're offering to pay my student loans," and he said, "Well. . . ?" After that, "he paid for stuff. He gave me money to help out with my living expenses. ".

It ended when she went on a school year abroad and started meeting men on Seeking Arrangement, the Web site and app which match "sugar daddies" with "sugar babies," whose company the daddies pay for with "allowances. " Now, she says, she has a rotation of three regular "clients"—"a top Austin lawyer, a top architect, and another tech guy," all of them married. She adds, "Their relationships are not my business. ".

She confesses she isn't physically attracted to any of these men, but "what I'm looking for in this transaction is not sexual satisfaction. Do you like everyone at your job? But you still work with them, right? That's how it is with sex work—it's a job. I get paid for it. I do it for the money. ".

And not only the money. "I'm networking," Miranda maintains, "learning things from older men who give me insights into the business world. I've learned how to do an elevator pitch. I've learned so many soft skills that will help me in my career.

"ALMOST ALL OF MY FRIENDS DO SOME SORT OF SEX WORK. . . . IT'S ALMOST TRENDY TO SAY YOU DO IT—OR THAT YOU WOULD. ".

"While in college," she goes on, "I've had the ability to focus on developing myself because I'm not slaving away at a minimum-wage job. I reject it when people say I'm oppressed by the patriarchy. People who make seven dollars an hour are oppressed by the patriarchy. ".

"She's in control of the male gaze," says another woman at the table, Erin, 22.

"I thought about doing it," says Kristen, 21, tentatively. "I signed up for Seeking Arrangement when I couldn't pay my rent. But I was held back because of the stigma if anyone finds out. ".

"What right does anyone have to judge you for anything you do with your body? Miranda asks.

"Just Another Job".

The most surprising thing about Miranda's story is how unsurprising it is to many of her peers. "Almost all of my friends do some sort of sex work," says Katie, 23, a visual artist in New York. "It's super-common. It's almost trendy to say you do it—or that you would. ".

"It's become like a thing people say when they can't make their rent," says Jenna, 22, a New York video-game designer. " 'Well, I could always just get a sugar daddy,' 'I guess I could just start camming,' " or doing sexual performances in front of a Webcam for money on sites like Chaturbate. "And it's kind of a joke, but it's also not because you actually could. It's not like you need a pimp anymore. You just need a computer. ".

"Basically every gay dude I know is on Seeking Arrangement," says Christopher, 23, a LOS Angeles film editor. "And there are so many rent boys," or young gay men who find sex-work opportunities on sites like RentBoy, which was busted and shut down in 2015 by Homeland Security for facilitating prostitution. "Now people just go on RentMen," says Christopher.

As the debate over whether the United States should decriminalize sex work intensifies, prostitution has quietly gone mainstream among many young people, seen as a viable option in an impossible economy and legitimized by a wave of feminism that interprets sexualization as empowering. "People don't call it 'prostitution' anymore," says Caitlin, 20, a college student in Montreal. "That sounds like ****-shaming. Some girls get very rigid about it, like 'This is a woman's choice. ' ".

"Is Prostitution Just Another Job?" asked New York magazine in March; it seemed to be a rhetorical question, with accounts of young women who found their self-esteem "soaring" through sex work and whose "stresses seem not too different from any young person freelancing or starting a small business. " "Should Prostitution Be a Crime?" asked the cover of The New York Times Magazine in May—again apparently a rhetorical question, with an argument made for decriminalization that seemed to equate it with having "respect" for sex workers. (In broad terms, the drive for decriminalization says it will make the lives of sex workers safer, while the so-called abolitionist movement to end prostitution contends the opposite.).

The Times Magazine piece elicited an outcry from some feminists, who charged that it minimized the voices of women who have been trafficked, exploited, or abused. Liesl Gerntholtz, an executive director at Human Rights Watch, characterized the prostitution debate as "the most contentious and divisive issue in today's women's movement. " "There's a lot of fear among feminists of being seen on the wrong side of this topic," says Natasha Walter, the British feminist author. "I don't understand how women standing up for legalizing sex work can't see the ripple effect of taking this position will have on our idea of a woman's place in the world. ".

A ripple effect may already be in motion, but it looks more like a wave. A string of feminist-sex-worker narratives have been weaving through pop culture over the last few years, as typified by Secret Diary of a Call Girl (2007–11), the British ITV2 series based on the memoir by the pseudonymous Belle de Jour. Belle, played by the bubbly Billie Piper, is a savvy college grad who hates working at boring, low-paying office jobs, so she becomes a self-described "working girl," a lifestyle choice which always finds her in fashionable clothes. "I love my job," Belle declares. "I've read every feminist book since Simone de Beauvoir and I still do what I do. " And then there is The Girlfriend Experience (2016–), the dramatic series on Starz, a darker take on a similarly glossy world of high-priced hotels and high-end shopping trips financed by wealthy johns. "I like it, okay?" snaps the main character, Christine, played by Riley Keough, when her disapproving sister asks why she's working as an escort. Christine likes sex work so much she leaves law school to do it full-time. Both shows feature graphic sex scenes that sometimes look like porn.

"We talked a lot about agency" when conceiving The Girlfriend Experience, says producer Steven Soderbergh (who directed a movie of the same name in 2009), "and the idea that you have this young woman who is going into the workforce and ends up in the sex-work industry, where she feels she has more control and is respected more than she is at her day job," at a law firm.

.

PRETTY WOMAN 
"My friend who does it says, 'I do it for the Chanel,' " a young woman told the author.

Since Seeking Arrangement launched in 2006, practically a genre of sugar-baby confessionals has emerged. I WAS A REAL-LIFE "SUGAR BABY" FOR WEALTHY MEN, said a typical headline, in Marie Claire. The anonymous writer made clear, "I'the always had personal agency. ".

Meanwhile, sugaring has its own extensive community online—also known as "the sugar bowl"—replete with Web sites and blogs. On Tumblr, babies exchange tips on the best sugaring sites and how much to charge. They post triumphant pictures of wads of cash, designer shoes, and bags. They ask for prayers: "Pray for me, this will be great to have two sugar daddies this summer since I quit my vanilla job! I'm trying to live free LOL!

On Facebook, there are private pages where babies find support for their endeavors as well. On one, members proudly call themselves "hos" (sometimes "heaux") and post coquettish selfies, dressed up for "dates. " They offer information on how to avoid law enforcement and what they carry to protect themselves (knives, box cutters, pepper spray). They give advice on how to alleviate the pain of bruises from overzealous spanking and what to do when "scammers" refuse to pay. They ask questions: "How do you go about getting started in sex work? I'm honestly so broke. ".

In interviews, young women and men involved in sex work—not professionals forced into the life, but amateurs, kids—in Austin, New York, and LOS Angeles, talked mostly about needing money. They were squeezed by college tuition, crushed by student loans and the high cost of living. Many of their parents were middle- or upper-middle-class people who had nothing to spare for their children, derailed by the economic downturn themselves. And so they did "cake sitting"—a specialty service for a fetish that craves just what it says—or stripping or Webcamming or sugaring. Some beat people up in professional "dungeons"; others did "[CodeWord100] play," involving sex with [CodeWord113]. They did what they felt they had to do to pay their bills. But was it feminism? And no, that isn't a rhetorical question.

Landing a Whale.

'It just seemed so normal, like no big deal," says Alisa, 21, one night at Nobu in LOS Angeles, a place she's been with her daddies. She's talking about how she started sugaring when she was 18. "People kept telling me and my friends, 'There are rich daddies who will take care of you. ' ".

She had profiles on Seeking Millionaire and Date Billionaire when she landed a whale on Seeking Arrangement. He was a high-profile venture capitalist in San Francisco and founder of a major tech company—"the real deal. " (Friends confirm their connection.).

"THERE ARE A LOT OF TECH GUYS. THEY WANT THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, WITHOUT HAVING TO DEAL WITH AN ACTUAL GIRLFRIEND. ".

Soon after they met he flew her to New York and installed her in a chic hotel. Alisa says he was busy most of the time, but she and her friends ran up $60,000 in room service and spa services while he worked. To make up for his absence, he took her shopping at Alexander McQueen, "my obsession. ".

"Being in the L. A. Atmosphere, and at the age of 16 or 17 going out in nightlife—it's all very based on appearance," Alisa says. "Out here, as long as you're wearing Saint Laurent and the newest items, that's all people care about, so my friends and I were obsessed with fashion. I think with our generation, Instagram also has a lot to do with it—people are constantly posting what they have. " She's explaining that she became a sugar baby in order to buy luxury goods.

"My friend who does it says, 'I do it for the Chanel,' " Alisa says wryly. "We both come from upper-middle-class families, but we never felt right asking our parents to buy us designer handbags or something, to put that burden on them financially. I was already working full-time," at a clothing store, "and all my money was going towards helping my parents to pay for school. " So there was nothing left for shopping.

Her assignations with the billionaire went on for two years. "It was purely for financial purposes," she says. "he was not my type whatsoever. " She's reluctant at first to say whether they had sex, but finally admits their relationship was physical. "If anyone tells you they're not sleeping with these guys, they're lying, even if it's just a blow job, because no one pays for all that without expecting something in return. ".

It ended when he started dating a famous beauty; Alisa read about it on a celebrity blog. She had other daddies, during and after him, but then last year she stopped sugaring. "I haven't done it in a really long time," she says, "solely because of how it made me feel. Like it just makes you feel worthless 'cause they don't pay attention to your brain, they don't care what you have to say. They just care that you're attractive and you're listening to them. I don't want to ever have to look back and think, like, I made it to this point just because I used my body to get there. " A friend who got "envious" of her postings on Instagram also told Alisa's parents what she was doing. She says, "She called me a prostitute. ".

"It's Transactional".

'She's a pro," murmurs the young guy at the bar at Vandal, the hot new restaurant on New York's Lower East Side. "And so is she. " he's cocking his head toward some women in the room who are drinking alone. "How do you know? I ask. "You know," says the guy. "They let you know. ".

"The thing is, nowadays," says his friend (they both work in real estate), "there's the hidden hos. Like they're hos, but they pretend to be just some regular girl hitting you up on Tinder. ".

"I hate that," the first guy says. "The hidden hoochies. ".

"The ho-ishness," the second guy says, "is everywhere. I used to take girls out to dinner, but then I'the see they'the eat and bounce—they just want a free meal—so now it's no more dinner, just drinks. ".

"IF ANYONE TELLS YOU THEY'RE NOT SLEEPING WITH THESE GUYS, THEY'RE LYING. . . NO ONE PAYS FOR ALL THAT WITHOUT. . . SOMETHING IN RETURN. ".

Their complaints are of a type commonly heard online, on social media and rampant threads: "All women are prostitutes"; women just want to use men to get money and things. The Internet holds a mirror to the misogyny doing a bro dance in the background of this issue.

I ask the guys why they think some men pay for sex, especially when dating apps have made casual hookups more common.

"It's transactional," the second guy says. "There's no one blowing up your phone, demanding shit from you. You have control over what happens. ".

I tell them how Seeking Arrangement promotes itself as feminist. ("Seeking Arrangement is modern feminism," says founder Brandon Wade, 46, an M. I. T. -educated former software engineer, on the phone. His InfoStream Group includes a number of other dating services, such as Miss Travel, where a woman can find a traveling "companion" to "sponsor" her vacation.).

"Oh, come on," the first guy says. "They call them 'daddies. ' They call women 'babies. ' ".

"You can't tell who the hookers are anymore," says another guy at the bar, a well-known the. J. In his 30's. "They're not strippers, they're not on the corner, there's no more madam. They look like all the other club girls. ".

He tells a story of a young woman he let stay in his hotel room one weekend while he was working in Las Vegas. "She met up with this other girl and all of a sudden they had all these men's watches and wallets and cash. They were working. " he laughs, still amazed at the memory.

"It's like hooking has just become like this weird, distorted extension of dating," the the. J. Says. " 'he took me to dinner. He throws me money for rent'—it's just become so casual. I think it's dating apps—when sex is so disposable, if it doesn't mean anything, then why not get paid for it? But don't call it prostitution—no, now it's liberation. ".

$50 for the Powder Room.

Jenna says that a friend of hers was sexually assaulted by a man she met on a sugaring site. "She didn't want to report it," she says, "because she didn't want her parents to know what she was doing. " Women in sex work reportedly experience a high incidence of [CodeWord123], as well as a "workplace homicide rate" 51 times higher than that of the next most dangerous job, working in a liquor store, according to the American Journal of Epidemiology.

"If prostitution is really just physical labor," says the Canadian feminist writer and prostitution abolitionist, Meghan Murphy, on the phone, "if it's no different than serving coffee or fixing a car, then why would we see [CodeWord123] as such a traumatic thing? If there's nothing different about sex, then what's so bad about [CodeWord123]?

Jenna, the video-game designer, did Seeking Arrangement for two years, between the ages of 19 and 21. As with other young women I spoke to, the catalyst for her was when she couldn't pay her rent: "I had like negative $55 in the bank. My mom was guilt-tripping me about asking her for money. ".

The night Jenna Googled "sugar daddies," she says, she'the also just come home from a "very bad date" with "a guy who smelled. " "I was like, I can't take this anymore, these guys are horrible. I just want someone who's going to have some manners, or at least some better hygiene. " It was a refrain I'the heard from others, including Miranda in Austin, who complained, "The dude bros are infantile, they're rude. " "Wish you could send an invoice" to a "fuck boy that used you," said a young woman on a sugaring page on Facebook.

"So I was like, If I'm going to spend my time with some guy and have it be horrible," Jenna says one night at a dark East Village bar, "then if I get some money at the end of the night, at least I get something. ".

The guys she met on Seeking Arrangement weren't horrible, she says, but some of them were "weird. " "Because I know a lot about video games I tend to attract, like, the nerdier (Brooklyn) tech guys. Like the ones who are looking for someone who can talk to them, like, 'Oh, you're into Harmony Korine? You like Trash Humpers?

"They're actually profoundly lonely guys," she says, "and think this is the only way that they can meet women. ".

There was the guy who just wanted to brush her hair, for hours, as she sat watching television in a hotel room. He brought his own brush. And there was the guy who was "fat—not like morbidly obese, but big. " he liked to take her out for long dinners.

She usually charged around $400 for an encounter. "The guys don't like talking about money, so they'll just like leave money in your purse. " What Holly Golightly called "$50 for the powder room" was discreetly offered, she says, "because then it can feel more like real dating to them. ".

But it wasn't real dating, and after a while it began to bother her, as she realized the men, although "generally nice," didn't actually respect her. "I think the sugar daddies just see the sugar babies as working girls," she says. "They would never consider a monogamous relationship with someone who would need to do this to survive. It's like a class thing. They see you as beneath them, desperate.

"Sometimes I think, Did I really have to resort to this?" she asks. "Or was I being validated in some way?" She was a "late bloomer," she says, and wonders if part of her felt reassured of her attractiveness by having someone pay to have sex with her. "But that's crazy. ".

She stopped sugaring when she got into a serious relationship; now she lives with her boyfriend in an apartment with four others. "One day, one of our roommates was watching porn, and he says to me—he had no idea what I'the been doing—'Do you think there are sex workers who are really into it?' I think it's, like, a male fantasy. ".

Wish Lists.

Interestingly, the young men I talked to who do sex work voiced few qualms about whether what they were doing was empowering or disempowering. One straight guy I spoke to who's on Seeking Arrangement (the company claims to have more than 400,000 "mommies") did say that he was sometimes uncomfortable with "not being in control of the situation. ".

One night at Macri Park, a gay bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Derek is having a drink with friends. He's 20 and an art student from New Jersey. "I do RentMen, I do dominating," he says. "People want to be hit, beat up—mostly older guys. One's a Broadway actor. I work for dungeons and I have private clients. I don't have to have sex with them—just whip them with devices, or beat them with my hands. Or I do muscle worship"—where guys ogle and touch his body.

"If I do it two or three times a week," he says, "I can make my rent, I can eat, I can make my art. ".

Once upon a time, young artists and musicians came to New York looking to find a creative community where they could thrive, but now, as David Byrne noted in a piece in The Guardian in 2013, the city has become virtually unaffordable to all but the 1 percent, inhospitable to struggling artists. "One can put up with poverty for a while when one is young, but it will inevitably wear a person down," wrote Byrne.

"Especially with the intern culture—like New York runs on interns—it's impossible to get a decent job," says Katie, the visual artist, at Macri Park. "I was sending out 20 e-mails a day for the first five months I lived here," looking for jobs, "and I was like, This isn't working. " Now she does Webcamming. She says she "feels okay About it," and uses it to "fuel my art. " She dresses up as a Disney princess for men to explore "the effects of princess culture on my sexuality. " If a client turns out to be a "creep," someone whose attitude she can't abide, she'll just "nuke them," or turn the Webcam off.

"IF I DO IT TWO OR THREE TIMES A WEEK, I CAN MAKE MY RENT, I CAN EAT, I CAN MAKE MY ART. ".

She and her friend Christopher start talking about the Amazon "Wish Lists" that sex workers set up for their clients. In lieu of money (which is sent through PayPal or Venmo), clients can pay with gifts. "I know guys who've gotten iPhones, laptops, a flat-screen TV," says Christopher.

"A lot of people have the really practical ones—like 'I want silverware, a blender,' " says Katie.

"I've seen people put furniture, even like shaving cream and razors," Christopher says. He pulls up one of his friends' Wish Lists on his phone. The young man wants a stuffed PokéMon. Doll.

Travis, 27, a porn actor from Virginia, has been a professional escort for years. He says he bemoans the way social media has made it so easy for anyone to do. "There's a lot of people with day jobs now who are making good money and doing escorting on the side—you'the be surprised. " Why do they do it?, I ask. " 'Cause they're greedy," Travis says. "The market is flooded. I'm so over it. ".

Benefactors.

At the Seeking Arrangement Party 2016, a masquerade ball, babies and daddies crowd into Bardot, a lounge in the Avalon Hollywood nightclub, in LOS Angeles. Exotic dancers writhe around on risers. General-admission tickets are $100, the drinks aren't free, and many babies aren't drinking. Some seem antsy. Many have spent the day at the Seeking Arrangement Sugar Baby Summit, hearing how they should expect to be "spoiled" and have men pay for things. So they've gotten dressed up, put on Eyes Wide Shut-like masks, and come here to meet their potential "benefactors. ".

"I'm just looking for someone to pay for my boob job," says a small blonde woman who flew into town from Utah; she's a Mormon. "I thought I must be doing something wrong because all the guys I've met on the site so far have been sending me dick pics and hairy-butt pics. ".

The place is filled with guys who resemble John McCain. "My daughter's 36," I hear one saying to two rapt young women. He pulls out pictures from his wallet to show them—actual photo printouts.

There's another type of guy here, the jumbo-size Danny DeVitos. "I thought they said these girls were going to be 10's," I hear one of them telling some other guys. "But this is like a buncha 5's and 6's. Maybe they'll take an I. O. you. " The other men chuckle.

"Why do men pay for sex? I ask a young man, the handsomest in the room. "Sometimes in Vegas if you're drunk," he says with a shrug. I ask him why he's here. "I work all the time, and I don't have time for a girlfriend. " he says he works in tech. "But I like to flirt and have company, not just sex," he goes on. So he does Seeking Arrangement. I ask him how much he pays the women. "Depends how much I like them. ".

There are a lot of young black women here. "I'm kind of surprised," says a young black woman named Nicole, 25, "but not really. They're probably here for the same reason I am, which is there's a lot of racism on the site, like guys will just openly say, 'No black women,' so maybe they thought they'the have a better chance in person. ".

Nicole is lovely and has a job as an executive assistant. I ask her why she's seeking an arrangement. "I want to start a handbag line," she says. "I have all these great designs and ideas. And I just don't see how I could ever get together the capital. So an investor would really help. ".

She seems to truly believe the Seeking Arrangement marketing, that she might find that supportive, encouraging person here. We look around the room. There's a John McCain with his hand on the behind of a young black girl. Her smooth skin looks so young and fresh in the lamplight, next to his wizened face.

*The names of the young people in this story have been changed to protect their identities.

[Intransit]

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...tion?CMP=fb_gu

The steady creep of "sex work" into 21st-century vernacular is neither incidental nor accidental. The term didn't just pop up and go viral. The Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), an organisation that openly campaigns for brothel-keeping and pimping to be recognised as legitimate jobs, credits itself as largely responsible for "sex work" replacing "prostitution" as the go-to terminology for institutions such as the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV / Aids (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

"More than mere political correctness," the NSWP proudly states, "this shift in language had the important effect of moving global understandings of sex work toward a labour framework. " The fact that prostitution involves sexual acts and some kind of payment is a given. However, engaging with it first and foremost as a labour issue, using the term "sex work" as if it was an adequate and appropriate shorthand for what takes place in strip clubs, on porn sets and in brothels, serves a deeply political goal. Not only does this framework shrink the field of analysis to the seller (to the exclusion of men's demand and its social impact), it hides what should be front and centre of our response to the transaction: the inherent sexual abuse.

The notion that being paid to perform sex acts should be recognised as a kind of service work is the rationale underpinning legalised prostitution regimes. It's an idea that has managed to unite an eclectic mix of left and rightwing voices. Peter Frase – a member of the editorial board of Jacobin, a magazine billed as a leading voice of the American left – is in favor of "legalising all forms of sex work for adults". He claims: "Not only does sex work destabilise the work ideology, it also conflicts with a bourgeois ideal of private, monogamous sexuality. " Tim Worstall, writing for British rightwing thinktank the Adam Smith Institute, shares Frase's policy conclusion, though his reasoning contrasts somewhat. As a type of commercial activity, Worstall insists the prostitution trade is "obviously free market" and that "renting out body parts is and should be no different from lending them out for fun or for free".

The whole point of the sex industry is that it offers men the chance to buy sexual access to women who do not want to have sex with them – otherwise they wouldn't have to pay. Masking its fundamental purpose thus becomes the primary PR challenge for the prostitution, pornography and strip club trades if they are to survive – maybe even thrive – in a society that has decided, at least in principle, that women are not subordinate sex objects and [CodeWord123] is a bad thing.

Perhaps the single most effective strategy hit upon so far is to pump out the myth contained in the term "sex work": the myth that it is possible to commodify consent.

How can sexual consent be a thing that can be bought and sold, yet we can still talk with a straight face about there being such concepts as healthy sexual relationships and meaningful consent? If, while having sex with someone, you feel repulsed by them touching you, afraid of what they might do, degraded and humiliated by the sexual acts, hurt by the hateful words they're whispering in your ear, sore because he's the fifth man you've had sex with today, exhausted from it all, traumatised, abused – the fact that you'll get a bit of cash at the end does not change anything. There is no invisible hand in the prostitution market that magically disappears the lived experience of sexual abuse.

Poverty can, of course, play a highly influential role in women's entry into prostitution. However, bluntly asserting that poverty is the singular cause of the prostitution trade fails to acknowledge that men's poverty has not begot a global demand from women to pay them for sex acts, that without men's demand there would be no trade at all, or the highly specific abuses that so commonly characterise women's entry into it.

Research by the British Medical Journal found that, in three UK cities, half of women in outdoor prostitution, and a quarter of women in indoor prostitution, reported having been subject to violence by a sex buyer in the previous six months. Of the violence they had ever experienced at the hands of sex buyers, women on the streets most frequently reported being kicked, slapped or punched, while women in saunas or flats most frequently reported attempted [CodeWord123] (17% of women based indoors had experienced this, as had 28% of women on the streets). A separate study, in Sociology of Health and Illness, involving more than 100 women engaged in flat-based prostitution in London, highlighted how an indoor setting can have its own particular coercive influence. Each day women had to pay up to £250 in rent, as well as up to £60 a day for a maid (who, in practice, often operated like a pimp, sometimes controlling which sex buyers the women saw), plus a range of other expenses. On average, a woman was paid for sex by 76 men each week.

The Economist's 2014 article, titled A personal choice, warding off "puritans and do-gooders" from meddling with the sex trade, insists that governments should "leave consenting adults who wish to buy and sell sex to do so safely and privately online". This builds on the claim that prostitution is sex work by attempting to frame that work simply as a series of individual, private exchanges set apart from the rest of society. Milton Friedman, the late economist and proponent of unbridled free-market capitalism, implied much the same when asked about prostitution in 2006. "You put a willing buyer with a willing seller, and it's up to them. You can argue with them that it's foolish, you can argue with them that it's a bad thing to do, but I don't see any justification for bringing the police into it. " But the sex industry, like any market, doesn't operate in a vacuum, leaving the rest of society miraculously untouched by its presence. Markets are, as philosopher Debra Satz says, social institutions:

"All markets depend for their operation on background property rules and a complex of social, cultural, and legal institutions. " Markets are a matter for everyone.

Trades weave themselves into the fabric of society. We know this. We place all kinds of restrictions and prohibitions on markets precisely because of this. Because the risks, particularly to the most vulnerable and marginalised in society, are just too high. Commercial exchanges that people may agree to participate in without a gun being held to their head – such as sales of human organs, voting rights, bonded labour contracts – are nonetheless deemed legally off limits. It's the line in the sand that societies draw to say that the harm to those directly involved, to third parties, or to the bedrock principles necessary for equal citizenship, is simply too great. Some trades are too toxic to tolerate.

A basic principle that is utterly indispensable to ending violence against women, not to mention to our fundamental concept of humanity, is that sexual abuse is never acceptable. Not even when the perpetrator has some spare cash and the person he's abusing needs money. Cheerleaders of brothels, porn sets and strip clubs would have us believe that the sex trade levitates above the level of social values and cultural beliefs. But no one can opt out of its effects. A market in sexual exploitation, accepted and tolerated, influences who we all are as individuals, and who we are as a people.

A society that acts in law and language as if men who pay to sexually access women are simply consumers, legitimately availing workers of their services, is a society in deep denial about sexual abuse – and the inequality underpinning it.

Pimp State: Sex, Money and the Future of Equality by Kat Banyard (Faber & Faber, £12.99).

[Yanqui69]

This issue becomes confused when the issue of "trafficking" enters the discussion. NO ONE should condone trafficking involving forced prostitution, enslavement, child prostitution, etc. However, what two CONSENTING adults do in private should not be a matter for government involvement or interest. If a woman freely chooses to offer sexual services in exchange for compensation, it is hard to find a "victim" in this activity.

Sex traffickers forcing women into prostitution and sexual slavery are scum. They should become the sex toys in prison.

A woman's reasons for selling sexual services are hers alone. If she freely makes that decision, government should not intrude.

One has to wonder how many police resources are focused on busting women who freely offer such services versus the gangs that force women and children into sexual slavery.

One could argue that a properly regulated sex industry (medical checks, prevention, etc) if freely available, would put the illegal traffickers out of business.

[HappyGoLucky]

Interesting article:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/wor...m_medium=email

"Public opinion on sex work has liberalized rapidly. A recent New York magazine story revealed that in 2012,38 percent of Americans believed it should be legalized; by 2015 the share had grown to 44 percent, and the wave shows no sign of having crested. At the same time, we've seen an explosion in the number of services like TheEroticReview.com, Ashley Madison, MyRedBook, Adam4 Adam, and Peppr — which markets itself as the "Uber for escorts" — connecting potential workers to potential clients. (One of those services, Backpage.com, was once affiliated with the Village Voice, but after a change in ownership last October, the paper no longer accepts such advertising.)".

[The Cane]

I think this whole debate about prostitution is framed the wrong way. Because nobody seems to care much about what the sex-works have to say for themselves. Which is strange. Because everyone is talking about either giving them freedom or taking away their freedom, or protecting them in some way. But nobody is asking them what they want.

This whole debate is strange because people keep talking about sex-workers as if they are children or mentally incompetent adults, who are incapable of deciding on their own what's best for them. And this clearly isn't true.

If you recognize the fact the both women and men in sex-work are full adults with full freedoms and rights, then nobody has any business interfering with their freedom to do as they wish with each other. The only concern for anyone, is when people rob, or threaten, or coerce each other in some way. And this a concern in every type of interaction between people, even within families, when there is domestic violence. And there are plenty of laws to deal with this kind of thing..

What you're saying Dan is pure truth! The fact of the matter is that all of the "moralists" who claim to be acting on behalf of sex workers really don't give a damn about the very ones they say they want to protect. If they did, then as you say they would recognize that sex workers are intelligent human beings too who most certainly hold their own views about what they do for a living and what they want in connection with their own work. If the moralists cared, then they would directly include the sex workers in the debate versus shutting them out. But as we all know, they really don't care. They just want to hinder and harry the sex workers and ultimately (but haplessly) try to shut prostitution down wherever it exists, and that's it. That's a moralists end-game, and we all know it!

[Dan7373]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/econo...orkisagoodidea

On August 11th Amnesty International, a human rights charity, announced its support for decriminalising prostitution between consenting adults....

I think this whole debate about prostitution is framed the wrong way. Because nobody seems to care much about what the sex-works have to say for themselves. Which is strange. Because everyone is talking about either giving them freedom or taking away their freedom, or protecting them in some way. But nobody is asking them what they want.

This whole debate is strange because people keep talking about sex-workers as if they are children or mentally incompetent adults, who are incapable of deciding on their own what's best for them. And this clearly isn't true.

If you recognize the fact the both women and men in sex-work are full adults with full freedoms and rights, then nobody has any business interfering with their freedom to do as they wish with each other. The only concern for anyone, is when people rob, or threaten, or coerce each other in some way. And this a concern in every type of interaction between people, even within families, when there is domestic violence. And there are plenty of laws to deal with this kind of thing.

Nobody is banning marriage, just because there is some domestic violence and coercion. Society just deals with it, as it comes, and leaves the rest of the people alone. And that's the way it should in other kinds of interaction between people, including sex-work.

This debate shouldn't be about the morality of prostitution. It should be about the immorality of those who take away people's rights and freedoms without a good reason. Because only then change will happen.

[Intransit]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/econo...orkisagoodidea

On August 11th Amnesty International, a human rights charity, announced its support for decriminalising prostitution between consenting adults. Laws over prostitution differ by country: in Britain the sale of sex is legal, but pimping and brothels are not, while in America it is illegal in all states but Nevada. Increasingly, however, human rights campaigners are calling for it to be decriminalised, as it is in several European countries. Amnesty's recommendation follows on from similar ones made by the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS. Is decriminalising sex work a good idea or not?

Amnesty's decision has found fierce opposition: a letter from the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, an NGO, signed by a few former sex workers and actors including Meryl Streep and Lena Dunham argues that it "will in effect support a system of gender apartheid". Those opposed to decriminalisation argue that prostitution as a trade inevitably leads to the trafficking of vulnerable women: the letter from the coalition says that since sex work was legalised in Germany the number of women trafficked to the country has boomed and that it has become the "Bordello of Europe". Rather than prosecute women for selling sex, many think that the "Swedish model", which made buying sex illegal in 1999, is one which should be followed. Norway, Iceland and France have adopted similar models, and the European Parliament has championed it. The Swedish model attempts to wipe out prostitution by reducing demand.

But it is not completely clear that the Swedish model has worked. Those who support decriminalisation—which includes this newspaper, along with many sex workers—point to the fact that pushing prostitution underground can have ugly consequences. Violence against prostitutes can go unpunished, as women may be less likely to go to the police if they are considered to be at the margin of the law. Street work, which had declined in Sweden, increased again after the law was passed, putting many women in more danger than before. Prostitutes may also be less likely to seek medical advice. When Rhode Island accidentally decriminalised prostitution in 2003—a legal loophole from 1980 was found to only criminalise the sale of sex outdoors—the state did see an increase in the amount of indoor sex work. But, according to one paper, the number of [CodeWord123] offenses also dropped by 31% between 2003 and 2009, when the trade was once again made illegal, while there were 39% fewer cases of female gonorrhoea. Making the purchase of sex between two consenting adults illegal is also deeply illiberal.

Fears over [CodeWord908] and child abuse should not be dismissed lightly. But laws against both exist and should be strictly enforced. And prostitution, even if made illegal, will not be eliminated: old estimates put the value of the trade in America at $14 billion annually (it is now likely to be far higher). Rather than chase the elusive goal of stamping out a trade, the safety of prostitutes who do their work willingly should be made paramount. Countries, as well as human-rights organisations, should look at the evidence.

[ItsMyPiv]

Gents, this is a really interesting thread, thanks for some of the great thoughts and very interesting links. To add to the discussion, here is an article on the failure of the Swedish "ban on johns". I somewhere read the original research paper that is referenced in this HuffPo article, but I can't find it this moment. Here is a citation from that original research paper:

"Not surprisingly, the experiment has failed. In the 13 years since the law was enacted, the Swedish government has been unable to prove that the law has reduced the number of sex buyers or sellers or stopped trafficking. All it has to show for its efforts are a (contested) public support for the law and more danger for street-based sex workers. Despite this failure, the government has chosen to ignore the evidence and proclaim the law to be a success; it also continues to advocate that other countries should adopt a similar law. ".

And from a UN report:

"There is very little evidence to suggest that any criminal laws related to sex work stop demand for sex or reduce the number of sex workers. Rather, all of them create an environment of fear and marginalisation for sex workers, who often have to work in remote and unsafe locations to avoid arrest of themselves or their clients. These laws can undermine sex workers' ability to work together to identify potentially violent clients and their capacity to demand condom use of clients. ".

Alas, while I have some problems with the idea of prostitution, I think it is just part of the human condition. Hundreds, if not thousands, of years of history of trying to make it go away shows that it never will. It just IS. I think any monger has a duty of care towards his ASP, to ensure that they are not controlled or being forced. But once reasonable caution is exercised, I don't see any universal moral case against prostitution.

Besides that, men in Sweden and other Western European countries with restrictive laws can just go over to the nearest EU country with more liberal laws. Apparently Germany and Spain have big brothels in border towns to cater to French visitors. Europe isn't very big. A flight from Stockholm, Sweden to Hamburg, Germany, only costs about 65 euros and probably doesn't take more than 1 or 2 hours.