The Morality of Prostitution

[Metric]

"Law does the trick" - Five years ago prostitution was decriminalised

A fairly balanced look at the decriminalisation of prostitution in New Zealand.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4600063a6482.htm

A Justice Ministry review committee that completed an assessment of the legislation in May found no discernible increase in prostitute numbers.
A re-estimate by the Christchurch School of Medicine has put the figure at 2332, though that estimate covers only Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hawke's Bay and Nelson.

"The effect of excluding the smaller urban centres and rural districts in the current estimates is considered to be minimal," the committee said.

"The committee endorses the findings of the [school of medicine] that the enactment of the [law] has had little impact on the numbers of people working in the sex industry," the report concluded.

Committee chairman Paul Fitzharris, a retired police assistant commissioner, said decriminalisation had in effect removed prostitution from the police agenda.
"The police basically lost interest in the sex industry in terms of their work."

Is the industry now safer for workers?

It is now a requirement for condoms to be used and for safe sex to be promoted in brothels.

Decriminalisation has also meant sex workers now have the weight of the law behind them when dealing with violent clients or punters who do not want to use protection.

Ninety per cent of sex workers now felt they had rights and 65 per cent felt able to refuse a client, Mr Fitzharris said.

Associate Justice Minister Lianne Dalziel said: "It is positive that 65 per cent felt able to refuse a client since the law change but I would like to see that increase over time."

"If clients don't want to wear a condom, sex workers say they find the law quite effective in dealing with that," Ms Healy said.

[Dickhead]

They just don't care as long as its not happening to one of their own.

I completely disagree with you, writers are constantly writing articles on subjects they don't have first hand knowledge of, like war and yes even neurosurgery. Difference between a good and a bad writer is how much they're willing to confront their prejudice and set aside their bias for the truth.

Some other differences between good writers and bad writers are that good writers know how to use a semi-colon and understand the difference between its and it's, and the difference between your and you're.

[Rubber Nursey]

JD: I'm starting to develop a serious crush on you. If Bango didn't keep stimulating my activist erogenous zones and distracting me, you'd have a serious stalker on your hands. How do you feel about writing ex-prostitutes?

[Rubber Nursey]

Well that's the hypocrisy I denote as a sign of awareness (on some level) that johns do indeed objectify. degrade and commodify women. They just don't care as long as its not happening to one of their own. Isn't what they do then the definition of exploitation?

You may think that you're insulting clients with those words, but you're not. Every term you've used to describe prostitution thus far - exploitation, degradation, objectification, suffering, etc - completely denies sex workers' agency and autonomy. You make it sound like sex is something that's done TO a woman, not WITH a woman. Like we're just pathetic playthings, blow up dolls, staring at the ceiling while some selfish, uncaring misogynist pounds away on top of us. That's not how it is at all. You've got the power dynamic all wrong.

If you understood how it all works, you'd know that clients aren't predators or exploiters. They don't 'objectify' women or 'commodify' sex, either - if anything, sex workers themselves do (that's why the feminazis hate us!)

You know, I'm one of the few people on this site who can say they've been both hooker AND client. The first time, I was still working as a hooker myself and paid another female hooker for a service. I'd be interested to know how that fits with your ideas of exploitation and objectification?

[Brazil Specialist]

There is a lot of confusion in this topic.

Well, there are double moral standards. Men want to father their children with a virgin girl friend, and want to fuck everyone else with no maior commitment. I am one exception, I respect girls with loose sexual morals and don't mind relating to them.


On the other hand, would you want your son to be a champion boxer, a freestyle fighter, a foreign legion soldier of fortune, or a toilet cleaner? Would you want your daughter to be a lawyer that defends genocidal dictators or mafia bosses? People can legitimately have wishes.

Now this absurd notion of prostitution work being demeaning uttered by people who have never done it or seen it, is ridiculous.

Of course, sex slaves exploited by the mafia, or Thai 11 year olds sold to a brothel by dad in exchange for a water buffalo or to pay off a gambling debt, that is a criminal problem that does not have much to do with prostitution. If the 11 year old is sold into 18 hours a day housework with daily beatings is pretty much the same problem.

I think it is demeaning for a poor sap to put up a few weeks savings to go to a cold men-hating prostitute in the US or Europe. I have pity on the exploited Johns. Paying too much for a lousy service. Even if it is a good service, for most men it is a financial sacrifice.


It is also very demeaning for nerdy, socially clumsy or plain ugly and dumb guys to spend a life yearning for sexual release and having no chance to do so. I read that in Denmark (?) social security pays 2 brothel visits a year for mental hygiene. Even if it were a false rumor, it would be good policy.

I think it is demeaning to have to spend one's life staring into people's dirty stinking rotten mouths. Still it is a honored profession: dentist. Cleaning toilets is fairly demeaning. Serving in the army without having chosen to do so is extremely demeaning.


Luxury prostitutes who make much more money as they would make otherwise, and who apply their money well, who meet guys well above their social level, I don't think that is a big problem. Whatever problem arises stems from society's prejudices, from lack of social support, discrimination, etc.

Personally I think it is great for a girl to earn her college money doing a little luxury prostitution. Much better then to stay without a college education and slaving in demeaning badly paid jobs.


It seems our friend Millz has some honest concerns and at least a somewhat open mind. Are you male, Milz?

If I had an expense account and took you to termas Centaurus in Rio de Janeiro, offering you a free session, would you resist? Or better to to Cafe Foto in Sao Paulo, where all girls come totally voluntarily and whenever they want in total freedom, where some girls arrive in BMW cars (in Brazil the price and status equivalent of a Rolls Royce in Europe or US), you might actually get corrupted and change your mind. Having the opportunity of having a tryst with a girl that is more gorgeous then you ever dreamed, would you resist?

If someone, unbeknownst to you, paid 400 dollars to a Cafe Foto girl to go out with you, would you not? And if you met such a girl in a bar, would you not take her to great restaurants and spend a few hundred dollars in the hope of getting laid?

And if you are like a typical Brazilian, you might even want to have a wife at home, but twice a month go to a luxury brothel where the girls do things your wife would not want to do with you.

[Jelly Donut]

So in a world where prostitution was legalized and not stigmatized, you'd have no problem with your partner or daughter being prostitutes?

That's not what I said. I would have all kinds of issues with my children, that's just the nature of parenting. I'd try to keep most of those issues to myself.

However, for what it's worth, in my experience, having gone out with both prostitutes and writers, the prostitutes have more interesting stories and are often more stable partners.

As for Thomas Sowell, while I like the title of the last book I tossed out there, if you are actually going to read him I'd recommend A Conflict of Visions.

[Bango Cheito]

I think it's right on topic.

Well, I've already gone on record as saying I don't object on any moral grounds to people close to me, even my own family, working in prostitution. My current wife works on the webcam sites as I've also said before, and I have ZERO problem with it, beyond the fact that business seems to be way off this year (but that's not the only industry in the shitcan right now). BTW it seems to me that a good 50% of the worlds countries have legalized prostitution by now.

RN as usual is right on the money when she points out that the REAL problem is that society just seems to have a big stick up its ass when it comes to women behaving in an overtly sexual manner. It MAJORLY saddens me because a lot of times women are the ones who denigrate other women (and THEMSELVES) much more so than do the men IMHO.

SEAJ, what I'm saying is that BY DINT OF being a cog in the wheel you are not doing anything good for greater society, because every society on the planet is SEVERLY FUCKED UP and NEEDS AN OVERHAUL. So the only people IMO who are acting for the greater good today on this planet are those who are trying to take societies apart and put them back together again. The status quo at this moment in time is a sure path to the destruction of the human race, perhaps with many of the other higher-functioning species being taken with them. I think that by standing out from the pack and leading instead of following you take a greater risk but also stand to gain a lot more, and you have a much more satisfying life doing such, instead of just doing what society wants you to do.

I've basically rejected societies' values WHOLESALE, and don't subscribe much to any of them. To me, they really are just one big steaming pile of shit. I don't think my kids should have to be subjected to them either, beyond knowing where the boundaries are and being PRUDENT with them, while always looking for a way around them. When one says a kid must be raised with "values" I ask myself what are those fucking values supposed to BE? What's valid anymore? To me absolute morality is a crock of shit to begin with. What you should do DEPENDS on CIRCUMSTANCES and there can be no blanket statements regarding what is "right" and "wrong." That's the narrow-minded view of the monotheists!

[Chocha Monger]

Why is everyone giving so much credibility and article fodder to this troll Mill Millz 1? All of your responses will be quoted or paraphrased for said article.

In the meantime, he or she has effectively hi-jacked the thread by throwing out provocative bombs to which everyone reacts.

Stop ceding control to the troll! Ignore Mill Millz 1!

I thought she was banned?
http://www.internationalsexguide.inf...ead.php?t=2585

[George90]

Why is everyone giving so much credibility and article fodder to this troll Mill Millz 1? All of your responses will be quoted or paraphrased for said article.

In the meantime, he or she has effectively hi-jacked the thread by throwing out provocative bombs to which everyone reacts.

Stop ceding control to the troll! Ignore Mill Millz 1!

[Mill Millz 1]

It's like having a child who tells you they are gay or evangelical. You may not have anything against gays or evangelicals in the abstract. You may even respect certain aspects of their respective lifestyles. Colorful parades, family picnics. Whatever.

But it's different when it's your kid. You know enough about the lives of gays and evangelicals to know they are at odds with simple conventions in society. Some people have strong negative feelings about gays; some folks can't stand evangelicals. You see your child is going down a path in life that's hard, difficult. Why would you wish that on someone close to you?

So in a world where prostitution was legalized and not stigmatized, you'd have no problem with your partner or daughter being prostitutes?

I can't believe you have not gone out and purchased The Scarlet Letter. "my perfect world". Good God. Maybe a copy of Tom Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy for good measure. You remind me of Eliot Spitzer.

Well since you've insisted I have put it on books to get when I head to the library next. As to the Eliot Spitzer comparison, that's stupid, he was against prostitution and persecuted those involved in the industry but engaged in it. I am not against prostitution, legally speaking, and never have (and NEVER will) engaged in it, and I am not interested in persecuting anyone involved in it either unless they're not consenting adults. Lets keep the debate on the morality and not on trying to box me with you guys, ok? OK

[Jelly Donut]

Whats so difficult about answering this question?

It's like having a child who tells you they are gay or evangelical. You may not have anything against gays or evangelicals in the abstract. You may even respect certain aspects of thier respective lifestyles. Colorful parades, family picnics. Whatever.

But it's different when it's your kid. You know enough about the lives of gays and evangelicals to know they are at odds with simple conventions in society. Some people have strong negative feelings about gays; some folks can't stand evangelicals. You see your child is going down a path in life that's hard, difficult. Why would you wish that on someone close to you?

I can't believe you have not gone out and purchased The Scarlet Letter. "my perfect world". Good God. Maybe a copy of Tom Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy for good measure. You remind me of Eliot Spitzer.

[Mill Millz 1]

Thank You also Rubber Nursey for answering my question. At least someone had enough balls to truly confront the morality of prostitution, instead of pretending to be able to debate it honestly.

[Mill Millz 1]

It's not about prostitution. They're opposed to female promiscuity, period. They subscribe to the idea that women should consider sex sacred and save themselves for the one they love...therefore, there is something inherently 'wrong' with a woman who would fuck strangers for money. They grade a woman's respectability according to her chastity/purity and nobody likes to think of their own mother/sister/daughter/wife as anything less than respectable, hence they wouldn't want them to work in the sex industry.

That said, I firmly believe that these men would treat the women they pay for sex with respect and kindness. I highly doubt they would see themselves as 'exploiters' and I don't think they look down on individual sex workers, as such ...they just see them as a different 'type' of woman. That age-old male double standard of 'Some you fuck, some you marry'.

Well that's the hypocrisy I denote as a sign of awareness (on some level) that johns do indeed objectify. degrade and commodify women. They just don't care as long as its not happening to one of their own. Isn't what they do then the definition of exploitation?

And I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but I have to say it: Please, for the love of whatever God you do or do not believe in, DON'T WRITE THAT ARTICLE. As someone who has never been a hooker or a client, you're about as qualified to write about the sex industry as I am to write about neurosurgery. The only reason we still have people like yourself talking about 'exploitation' and 'degradation', is because other people like yourself are constantly writing papers and articles about something they have absolutely NO understanding of. Sex workers can tell their own stories.

I completely disagree with you, writers are constantly writing articles on subjects they don't have first hand knowledge of, like war and yes even neurosurgery. Difference between a good and a bad writer is how much they're willing to confront their prejudice and set aside their bias for the truth. In my perfect world, prostitution wouldn't exist - my perfect world would also not be religious as I adhere to no faith btw - but the reality and truth of the matter is that prostitution will always exist and its better for the safety and well being of everyone that it be legalized and regulated. You should be happy, there is a writer that is concerned primarily with the truth of the industry and not trying to enforce their utopia on others.

[Rubber Nursey]

Well said, Dinghy! Although, I would disagree with you on one point...pimps. If sex work really is a job like any other, then why do we question the 'morality' of a person who earns third-party profits from prostitution?

A hairdressing salon contracts hairdressers to work for them. The hairdressers do all the work, but a large chunk of the price of each haircut goes to the salon. Those hairdressers could run their own businesses from home if they wanted to, but they choose to work in the salon.

I see brothel owners as no different to any other contractor. I've worked for brothels and independently and my personal preference is definitely brothels. Brothel work allows you to simply walk in, do your job and walk out at the end of the day with a paypacket. My employers provided me with a safe working environment, advertising, clean laundry, established clientele, power, water, phone, etc - all of which I would have had to arrange and pay for myself if I was working independently. Running your own small business can be hard work.

(Obviously the stereotypical street-corner pimp who beats girls and takes all their money is a whole other story. But for me it would be his violent tendencies and the fact that he treats other human beings as slaves that makes him 'immoral', not the sexual nature of the job he's profiting from).

[Dinghy]

Morality - by "morality" it's meant as a "judaeo-christian-muslim extension of dogmatic adherence to what is considered correct under that tradition". (After all, it all boils down to RELIGION at the bottom line.)

I know that's a lot of words, but pure and simple it boils down to this - "One shouldn't assess any more of a moral code to prostitution than any other type of employment"

The "morality" is assigned based on the repressed sexual nature of certain puritanical religious groups. THEY chose to assign what might be considered a "moral quotient" based on THEIR religious values.

Remember - "homo sapiens" is little more than a slightly evolved ape, a primate with cognizant ability. That ability has the power to assign "right" and "wrong" designations to what is nothing more than a basal urge ("to reproduce" - or at least to "enjoy trying") as an "employment" (it isn't called "the world's oldest profession" without cause)

Now if we want to address "morality", let's ask "what about the PIMPS?" - those who would live off the earnings of another human being. Is it "moral" to prostitute one's self if there is little else that one can do for "employment"? Is it wrong to expect that someone who provides sexual services to support someone who isn't a family member with the proceeds from those services? That's a MORALITY question - not the morality of "basic" prostitution.

Is it "immoral" to sell sexual services? Does anyone get physically harmed by those services? (and I would probably include transmission of STD into the "harm" category) If "no harm no foul" then WHY is there such a hubbub about a matter of individual commerce? Are the legal prostitution services offered in parts of Europe IMMORAL?