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With a service, someone is performing something, not having something done to them The idea that sex is having something done to you, as opposed to something y

With a service, someone is performing something, not having something done to them The idea that sex is having something done to you, as opposed to something you're doing for or with someone, strikes me as a rather old-fashioned and sexist attitude. I'd like to believe that my wife and I share something better than that. Of course, there are a lot of personal values tied up in this question, so I don't think that either your opinion or mine necessarily prevails. That being the case, I think the best indicator is what each individual chooses to do of their own free will.

jordigh 12y ago
Sex can certainly be done to someone, and comparing prostitution sex with marital sex is a bit disingenous. I imagine you don't pay your wife each time you two want to have sex, nor that she would have sex with you only if she had few other options left. The problem with "what each individual chooses" and prostitution is that it's extremely difficult to get an accurate reading of what people truly want. There's lots of coercion, pressure, and outright threats. I think it's fair to say that given the opportunity, most people would not choose prostitution. It's very important to have a society where no one ever feels the need to become a prostitute. The whole "consent" argument also tries to ignore the question of harm. If someone consents to be harmed, should we harm them? If a drug addict wants to keep drugging themselves, should we not do anything about it? I'm not outright saying that prostitution harms every prostituted person or not, just that this question should be considered, not elided with the "consent" argument.
- humanarity 12y ago
  The implicit assumptions that ones' choice to have sex with strangers for money is coerced, wrong, constitutes self harm, and must be protected against are telling a story that denies the people who make that choice the very same autonomy such a statement pretends to protect against. I'd say that is incorrect and based on incomplete understanding. I'd say it's a choice, made, no matter how incomprehensible, for money. Like other choices people make, eg choosing such and such career path, or such and such relationship, sometimes there's peer pressure. And because it's connected with orchestration by criminal enterprises, tainted by that association. However, when you come down to it, people could sell themselves before criminals wanted a cut. It works to consider how you might come to make that choice, and whether your assumptions about prostitutes are filtered through the landscape of what you perceive as your own possible choices. So before I pronounce prostitutes as victims to fit a narrative of exploitation I've chosen (seductive also for it suggests my moral superiority that I would never make such a choice! :), maybe I'll remember it doesn't work to victimize the people I'm talking about by pretending they had no autonomy. Isn't that, the very same hypocrisy I'm trying to accuse others of? Using a person for a purpose? And when that person may have done the choosing, and I in my argument may be doing the using, haven't I neatly reversed the roles all by myself, and undermined the very argument I was making? Tl;Dr - when you're talking about people you want to paint as victims it works to consider them as autonomous, choice making beings, to gain more accurate insight, even tho it's seductive to pretend that somehow you've more autonomy than they. Stl;Dr - fantasising that prostitutes have no autonomy is trying to use them for an intellectual "dry sex", without paying, for the sake of argument without their consent! Definitely only for scoundrels!! :)
- CWuestefeld 12y ago
  Being a stripper and being a hooker are different things, but I think there's a high degree of correlation. I've known three strippers (for reasons unrelated to their careers), and I know for certain that in all cases their choice of profession was absolutely a personal choice. The cost/benefit opportunity was the best one open to them, and they took it. Like I said, stripping isn't the same thing, and of course anecdote isn't the singular of data. But my experience personally, and what I hear second-hand elsewhere, makes it difficult for me to believe that violence and force are significant factors in that world. And to the extent that they are present, it seems more likely that they enter the picture precisely because it's an outlaw black market lifestyle, and if allowed in the light of day that aspect would likely disappear.
- csomar 12y ago
  I think it's fair to say that given the opportunity, most people would not choose prostitution. Given the opportunity, most people would not choose to work. That being said, from my neighbourhood, women who did chose prostitution could have done some other work instead. They picked prostitution because it was 1. easier and 2. it paid better.
fluidcruft 12y ago
I don't understand your point... at all. The relationship between a client and a prostitute is nothing like the relationship between a romantic couple. Do you really equate your relationship with your wife to that of a sex worker? Come on.

jordigh 12y ago

Sex can certainly be done to someone, and comparing prostitution sex with marital sex is a bit disingenous. I imagine you don't pay your wife each time you two want to have sex, nor that she would have sex with you only if she had few other options left. The problem with "what each individual chooses" and prostitution is that it's extremely difficult to get an accurate reading of what people truly want. There's lots of coercion, pressure, and outright threats. I think it's fair to say that given the opportunity, most people would not choose prostitution. It's very important to have a society where no one ever feels the need to become a prostitute. The whole "consent" argument also tries to ignore the question of harm. If someone consents to be harmed, should we harm them? If a drug addict wants to keep drugging themselves, should we not do anything about it? I'm not outright saying that prostitution harms every prostituted person or not, just that this question should be considered, not elided with the "consent" argument.

humanarity 12y ago
The implicit assumptions that ones' choice to have sex with strangers for money is coerced, wrong, constitutes self harm, and must be protected against are telling a story that denies the people who make that choice the very same autonomy such a statement pretends to protect against. I'd say that is incorrect and based on incomplete understanding. I'd say it's a choice, made, no matter how incomprehensible, for money. Like other choices people make, eg choosing such and such career path, or such and such relationship, sometimes there's peer pressure. And because it's connected with orchestration by criminal enterprises, tainted by that association. However, when you come down to it, people could sell themselves before criminals wanted a cut. It works to consider how you might come to make that choice, and whether your assumptions about prostitutes are filtered through the landscape of what you perceive as your own possible choices. So before I pronounce prostitutes as victims to fit a narrative of exploitation I've chosen (seductive also for it suggests my moral superiority that I would never make such a choice! :), maybe I'll remember it doesn't work to victimize the people I'm talking about by pretending they had no autonomy. Isn't that, the very same hypocrisy I'm trying to accuse others of? Using a person for a purpose? And when that person may have done the choosing, and I in my argument may be doing the using, haven't I neatly reversed the roles all by myself, and undermined the very argument I was making? Tl;Dr - when you're talking about people you want to paint as victims it works to consider them as autonomous, choice making beings, to gain more accurate insight, even tho it's seductive to pretend that somehow you've more autonomy than they. Stl;Dr - fantasising that prostitutes have no autonomy is trying to use them for an intellectual "dry sex", without paying, for the sake of argument without their consent! Definitely only for scoundrels!! :)
CWuestefeld 12y ago
Being a stripper and being a hooker are different things, but I think there's a high degree of correlation. I've known three strippers (for reasons unrelated to their careers), and I know for certain that in all cases their choice of profession was absolutely a personal choice. The cost/benefit opportunity was the best one open to them, and they took it. Like I said, stripping isn't the same thing, and of course anecdote isn't the singular of data. But my experience personally, and what I hear second-hand elsewhere, makes it difficult for me to believe that violence and force are significant factors in that world. And to the extent that they are present, it seems more likely that they enter the picture precisely because it's an outlaw black market lifestyle, and if allowed in the light of day that aspect would likely disappear.
csomar 12y ago
I think it's fair to say that given the opportunity, most people would not choose prostitution. Given the opportunity, most people would not choose to work. That being said, from my neighbourhood, women who did chose prostitution could have done some other work instead. They picked prostitution because it was 1. easier and 2. it paid better.

fluidcruft 12y ago

I don't understand your point... at all. The relationship between a client and a prostitute is nothing like the relationship between a romantic couple. Do you really equate your relationship with your wife to that of a sex worker? Come on.