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[split] damn you, Whedon
The Cat
Registered User, ClubPA regular
Registered User, ClubPA regular
Dracomicron wrote: »He should have just legalized prostitution so that what he's accused of doing wouldn't be illegal.
Seriously, the only bad thing about prostitution is that its illegality contributes to the spread of disease and other crimes, such as abuse of women.
paying women for sex is abuse of women, genius. Paying anyone for sex is abusive. And don't give me the 'happy whores' lecture, because a) the vast, vast majority of sex workers really really aren't and b) Firefly ain't real.
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I understand where you're coming from, Cat. I have a friend who, as a teenager, got involved with some serious shit involving drugs and prostitution, and she nearly died. Don't think I that I'm unsympathetic to the horrendous nature of most prostitution as it currently stands in American culture. It's just that you're conflating the act itself with the factors surrounding the act in our country at the moment.
I simply can't assume that women aren't free-willed beings or that they have no choice in the matter... except when coerced. Paying for sex with a prostitute who is "managed" by a scumbag that will beat her if she doesn't make money for him/her, that's abuse. Paying for sex from a woman who was kidnapped by human traffickers and sold to brothels in countries where they don't speak the language and are held captive is abuse, too.
Paying to have sex with a prostitute that is not coerced into the life isn't wrong, and it does happen (HBO did a documentary on a brothel in Nevada that seemed very legitimate). The very fact that it's illegal actually encourages the abuse, as I said before. Make it legal, you take the pimps and the human traffickers out of the equation. You set up official health standards and make sure all practicioners are tested for STDs regularly. Tax the income like all respectable businesspeople and make sure that there's counciling required when someone goes out for their "escort licence" to ensure that they're not making a drastic mistake.
This is why I say that Spitzer would have been better off acting as a reformer in fixing prostitution in this country, or at least his state. He would have had credibility as the guy who had prosecuted multiple rings previously. From what I'm hearing on the TV news, he'd been conflicted about his role in hounding sex workers. That way, not only would he have been less likely to be discovered in his indiscretion, but he would not be seen as a hypocrite. It would be something for him to work out with his wife.
Treating sex as somehow taboo and different than any other human function is a fundamental idiocy in American culture. We'd be better off getting the fuck over it (so to speak), because the business of sex isn't going away anytime soon. Like drugs and abortion, prostitution is going to happen no matter what, and the sooner we stop demonizing sexuality, the sooner our culture can move on to serious issues like housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, and getting along in the world without tripping into armed conflict. Removing sources for desperation in the world also removes a lot of the reasons that women (and men, too, of course) get into sex work in the first place.
I've seen that doco. There was still plenty of fucked-uppedness going on, if you didn't spot it I don't know what to say. All I can say is that if all the structural problems that drove women towards prostitution disappeared, prostitutes would be far, far rarer than they are now. Even most of those women in that Nevada brothel would be elsewhere, because being forced to line up at the ring of a bell so someone can inspect you for fuckability isn't something anyone in their right mind should regard as remotely acceptable.
As for your final paragraph, I disagree entirely. There's a lot of stupid nonsense surrounding sex, sure, but attempting to treat it like going to the gym is fundamentally stupid. I don't believe anyone who's actually had sex really feels that way.
At any rate, I guess this is it for ol' Spitz.
Prostitution is a vice that does not tempt me. Because I used to think that of alcohol, I do not want to experiment with prostitutes.
I'll agree with you that the vast majority of sex worker aren't in good situations, but definitively disagree with your sentiment that paying for sex is inherently abusive. Regardless of Firefly, Nina Hartley gets paid to fuck and she says she's pretty happy: for the time being I'm going to take her word on the subject over yours.
Practically speaking, though, it never seems to work out well at all. That documentary someone mentioned-those didn't really seem like happy, together people to me.
It may be an entirely cultural thing-but how can you tell?
(corrected bolded word, I don't want to START demonizing sexuality, that's already going on... I'd like to stop it.)
Cathouse was the name of the documentary, now that I think about it. And yes, there was some fucked up things about it; I'm pretty sure that Airforce Amy is borderline retarded despite being one of the most famous and successful prostitutes in modern memory. The "manager" of the place really needed to not fuck his staff. They would have been better off with the older female accountant running the show; she was professional and competant. Some of the staff weren't happy, that much was clear, but some of them seemed happy to be there and enthusiastic about their work.
While I agree that, if society wasn't fucked so hard that some women see no way out but to sell their bodies that there would probably be fewer prostitutes, I'm not sure what you mean by the bell comment: first, nobody's "forced" to do anything; second, in a capitalist environment, the customer has to be able to look at the offered product, whether it be cars, clothes, or sex partners. That might seem callous, but if we're entertaining the idea of legal prostitution, the customer has to have a method of selecting your sex worker based on personal preference. Some places, like the Emperor's Room VIP (note: not legal due to location, not method), use a website with pictures; the Bunny Ranch has the employees line up. If you remove the bias from the sexual component, this is no more or less demeaning than a cattle call for a stage or screen production.
My problem with the Bunny Ranch is that they treat it like an Amway pyramid scheme. The blatant, manipulative capitalism is what bothers me, not the sex.
Er, are you calling me a virgin? If so, that's kinda silly, and not in any way accurate. Just because I take a clinical and sociological approach to the subject of prostitution does not mean I don't understand why people invest so much emotion and interest in sex. Do I need to be a drug addict to think drugs should be legalized, too? Do I need to have had an abortion to think that Roe vs. Wade should be upheld? I get it, seriously. Sex is a wonderful and essential aspect of human life. I just think that the attitudes are not helpful in dealing with cultural problems stemming from our sexual mores.
I don't see how you can disagree with the entire paragraph. Do you think that prostitution will somehow magically disappear? I don't. Do you think fighting prostitution is more important than helping those without food or housing? I don't. Do you think that sex is somehow a magical phoenominon, and that human sex is somehow more cosmically important than mammal, fish, frog, or bird mating practices? I don't. I've had mind-blowing sex before, but I know that I didn't actually see the Face of God, in retrospect...
If we didn't have such stupid prostitution laws, Governor Spitzer would have made his name pursuing money launderers (which is what they were originally investigating when they stumbled upon the prostitution rings), and his need for extramarital sex would have been something that he would have to work out with his wife, rather than see splashed across all tabloids and television news media. His teenage daughters would probably not have had to deal with the public humiliation. Frankly, the circus involved when an outspoken critic of non-mainstream sex practices gets found doing just that is starting to make me a little sick. I'm not saying it's wrong to point out hypocricy, but I'd rather remove the attitudes that influence these people to become hypocrites.
I'm sure you feel all superior doing that too, but one can point out false consciousness without denying the sentience of another, and frankly, I find the way you're burying concern for women in terrible situations under the rhetoric of personal freedom shortsighted and kind of gross. Quintessentially american, though. You guys have raised ignoring a non-level playing field to an art form.
As this post points out,
I think she's on to something there, and since that post deals with a couple of sex-related power issues that parallel prostitution to some degree, I think you really ought to read it.
@ the other guy: oy vey. Your 'clinical approach' is so much bullshit. I really wish I had the time to delve into the deep, deep, fuckedupedness of your approach here, but I got to work. Just,
I would be happy to debate it when and if you have time. I think I made some good points about how the way to fix social problems is not to demonize them, but to understand that there are issues with human nature that aren't going to simply disappear because some find them distasteful. The ostrich strategy just doesn't work, if you ask me.
I suspect that both of us have the same goal of making sure that women (and a rising number of men) aren't being forced to do things, by circumstance or intimidation, that they don't want to do. I'd like to hear what your suggested methods of doing this are.
Perhaps that'd be worthy of another thread, though, with respect to Mr. Spitzer's troubles.
What... where are you getting that? It looks to me like he has plenty of concern for women in terrible situations.
In fact, I'll just stop there. Where did he say anything like that?
Think of it this way: when Marx was writing, factory conditions were universally terrible. But nonetheless, he was wrong when he claimed that working for a wage was inherently degrading.
I don't think that being a sex object is inherently wrong or degrading, or that power derived from being sexually desirable is less legitimate.
Edit: well, reading Twisty on 'animal welfarists' pissed me off. I see more invective than substance.
I don't know that The Cat will ever concede that there are case when someone chooses to be an adult star or escort or that even for some who do it just for the money it's no different than working at a shitty job, no matter how rare those cases may be. So maybe that's why The Cat thought that's what he said maybe not but I'll hazard a guess anyway.
I do agree however the VAST majority of women in the sex business be it prostitution or pornstar or stripper got there from some form of patriarchal oppression/abuse (either on the micro or macro level) and should that core problem ever change universally there would be a lot of pervs hard up for their sicko BangBus-level porn dosage.
can we split this? because this is actually a really interesting conversation.
although im not sure where i stand on this yet, i do think there is something here.
is power derived from being considered a useful tool really the same as power derived from actually being smart, independent, etc.? i'll admit, one does seem more legitimate than the other.
If somebody believed through lack of education, economic opportunity, or a history of abuse that they're not capable of working a job that doesn't involve selling their bodies, it might not be coercion, but that alone is not sufficient to make it morally - or legally - acceptable. Presence or lack of physical coercion should not be the only litmus test by which we measure if an arrangement is exploitative.
You're referring to prostitutes as a "product" here. You managed to capture the dehumanization of prostitutes without even realizing it. At best prostitutes are offering a service, not a product. If somebody is interviewing for a data entry position, you don't inspect the flexibility of their typing fingers. If hiring a contractor for heavy construction work, you don't measure the size of their biceps. Why would the analogous behavior be acceptable for prostitutes unless prostitutes were essentially objects?
Here's the problem with prostitution (and this also is in response to MrMister's above comments regarding sexual objectification) - right here and now, in the time and culture in which we live, prostitutes are considered to be something less than human. Even if a woman comes into the profession willingly and happily, even if she acts as her own madame placing her own ads on Craigslist and picking and choosing her own clientele a'la Inara Serra, there is a deeply pervasive myth that prostitutes are unworthy of respect. Maybe this myth doesn't exist quite so much in other countries, I dunno. But eventually that myth starts to seep in - no matter how sex-positive and confident a call girl starts out to be when she enters the business, eventually she looks in the mirror and thinks, "I'm a whore." Male prostitutes don't have to contend with this to nearly the same degree because men do not have to deal with the same stigmas against sex with multiple partners and sex without emotional attachment. Very, very few women are detached enough from the zeitgeist to be able to keep that demon at bay for very long. And yeah, I believe that some women are capable of being highly-paid elite call girls for much of their prime years without it eroding their self esteem... but just laws are not written to protect the elite few, just laws are written to protect the powerless many.
Hypothetically, someday, somewhere, women are going to be empowered enough to have sex with whomever they want, for whatever reason they want, any time they want, without feeling like a piece of meat. I would love to live in that world and not merely for the obvious prurient reasons. Unfortunately, this world is not it and we have to base our laws on reality, not on a utopian ideal.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
In the current state of affairs, however, it strikes me as far more effective to make it punishable to buy sex than sell it. The demand drives the industry. Johns should be punished far more severely than prostitutes, in much the same way that a store cops a fine for selling age-restricted items but the purchaser gets into equal or more trouble. Spitzer should be facing criminal charges for his conduct. The escort should be fined at best. Unfortunately it'll likely wind up the other way around.
That's what they do in Sweden. It's illegal to hire or employ prostitutes, it's illegal to collect money from prostitutes, but it's not illegal to be a prostitute.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Sweden pretty much is perfect except for the rampant S.A.D.
and lutefisk. seriously, what the hell.
I instinctively disagree.
I'll explore why. Maybe I'm wrong.
It seems to me to be several orders of magnitude (simply observing the money involved) different from most things that would be regarded as obviously abusive, insofar as it doesn't seem like it's something the women involved in it are entangled in something they can't get out of.
Perhaps I should have just asked Feral.
Also, I don't think I'm looking for a high horse- I'm asking if you think your arguments apply equally to all genders. As a male, I don't feel like there would be a stigma attached to my being a prostitute, or if I chose that career it would be because I was coerced to, or that I would be unable to get out. That isn't a claim that most male prostitutes feel the same way.
I don't think it's ridiculous to ask if you think the general situations of male and female prostitutes are different- though I wouldn't actually support any legislation that treated them unequally, as it's a bad precedent.
Hold on, I'm'a split this
The vast majority are women, are poor and railroaded into the work, are faced with more coercion and violence than any other group.
I don't see how that is axiomatic.
With respect to your comments about male prostitutes- does the illegality of prostitution help those problems?
That being said, sometimes I think about the coercion that the average woman experiences in regards to sex, whether that coercion is social (pressures and expectations) or psychological (arising from unresolved issues, etc). For example, a friend of mine is clinically depressed and taking antedepressants. Is she able to make good choices about whether or not she should have sex with someone? If I sleep with her, am I as opportunistic as a john hiring a prostitute?
To put it in other words, the main problem with prostitution is that in almost all situations it is tainted consent. Yes, she has the choice, but that choice is not entirely voluntary.
But this issue of tainted consent is not only found in prostitution, and I think between any two people there is a risk of tainted consent. Maybe it's the implicit pressure a woman experiences when she brings a guy back to her place ("Well I guess now I have to sleep with him"), or maybe she had a horrible self-image and uses sex to try to stave off the negative feelings she has about herself. Are either of the men who consent in these situations any better than a john? Even if they aren't as bad as the person hiring the prostitute, the only difference is the degree to which the consent is tainted.
By NO MEANS am I suggesting that, well, fuck it, all consent is tainted so you don't have to worry about it, duders. I'm just trying to point out that while it is easy to point at an exchange of money and go "Hey, I don't know if she has such a voluntary choice...", sex in other contexts can be comparatively ambiguous.
T lykoragh: not quite catching your meaning. If you're arguing that legalisation can't hurt, I'm hard-pressed to oppose that. There are ways and ways of legalising, though. Complete lack of regulation would be really silly, and hell, no no other industry is run like that.
So what is to be done about that?
Unfortunently the law hasn't done much to improve the lot of swedish prostitutes, they are still pretty much off the grid because if the government finds out you are turning tricks for cash you are going to run into problems with everyone from the cops to social services. Even though I don't agree with the law it is not that terrible by itself but when thrown in with all the other laws and regulations that intersects this issue the prostitutes end up in a much scarier place than the miniscule number of johns the cops pick up.
While I don't have any hard numbers it seems like trafficing is on the rise with organised crime is getting more and more involved. And those are the areas I personally think the police should be cracking down on hard.
Er, but if the vast, vast majority really really aren't, then you seem to accept that the tiny, tiny minority maybe maybe are...so how can you say that paying for sex is certifiably abusive 100% of the time?
If you get paid for a job you are quite happy to do, and do so voluntarily, is that an abusive job? I thought it was a good job.
In what mythical world has there ever been anything other than 'normal' sex?
(By which I mean, if the vast vast majority of [non-prostitute] women really really think they are having normal sex by free choice and are quite happy about it - as at least in the nice western cosmopolitan places we live, seems to be pretty much the case - isn't your disagreement rather like just telling them they're living in the Matrix?)
Moving on, my argument is that cultural paradigms are not always ready for change, but making changes helps to affect the paradigm. Was the American South ready to end slavery or, later, desegregate? I'd be willing to bet that there are plenty of folks (especially judging from the extreme racial split of the Mississippi Democratic primary yesterday) who think that they are still not ready for desegregation. Does that mean that we shouldn't have ended slavery or pulled the teeth from Jim Crow laws?
In many cases, and, indeed, this case, the current paradigm of illegal prostitution and taboo-izing sex is feeding the problem. I'm not going to make any judgements on prostitutes or the people who frequent them except to say that the phoenominon is not going to go away, period. Just making it illegal to solicit a prostitute will not help in any way: the only way that this gets fixed without castrating any male who has ever paid money for sex is if prostitution is legal, contract-bound, and regulated by the government.
First, up the enforcement and criminal penalties for any illegal "management" of prostitution services. Pimps, in my mind, are the biggest problem with the institution as it stands. Intimidating women, keeping them dependant and often hooked on drugs, these are inexcusable. If a prostitute has a manager, then she (just assume that I mean "he or she" to include male and transgendered prostitutes from now on, even though I'm just going to use "she" for brevity) must have a contract that always allows no-fault default in cases of the prostitute not being comfortable working and clear standards in terms of how much of the represented sex worker's income can be taken. If a prostitute chooses to employ a manager, the relationship cannot be any more predatory than that between an agent and an actor or singer. If a manager abuses a prostitute, make sure that not only is there legal recourse but civil breach-of-contract penalties.
Secondly, set up a licencing department for sex workers; the required licence is free but requires that the woman see a social worker first to determine if she has really thought it through and if her problems can be resolved in another way. This department would also distribute condoms, offer free STD testing, regulate pricing and confidentiality guidelines, and would be partially paid for by a tax on services provided by the sex workers.
My initial thought was that customers of prostitutes would have to get a licence and provide a clean bill of health, but then I realized that this would be going too far in terms of cultural readiness, and shame would just keep them off the reservation regardless of the penalties. My thinking is that the advantages provided by the sex workers bureau to the sex workers themselves would increase the likelihood of keeping the workers on the radar.
Thirdly, start enforcing penalties on customers who frequent a non-licenced prostitute. If a young woman is, through ignorance or intimidation, selling sexual services and there are johns that take her up on it even knowing that there are official guidelines, they deserve what they get. I'm thinking being listed on a website is a good start. If that young woman is caught selling services illegally, then she would be taken to the department social worker to either evaluate her for a licence or determine what else should be done to resolve her situation. Fines would come into play only on denial of a licence and repeated refusal to stop unlicenced activity.
I figure these would be a good start in affecting change in the culture's perception of prostitution. Is it perfect? No. Would some slip through the cracks? Certainly, especially at first, but no societal change is worth making that isn't worth struggling for. I don't think burying our heads in the sand and letting all these people suffer because nobody cared enough to make laws that were sensitive both to the underlying causes and to human nature itself. Just because some women have been abused and taken advantage of because of prostitution, women shouldn't be allowed to do as they please with their bodies, up to and include selling sexual services. Your body, your choice.
Some people say this leads to more severe problems though:
This law has driven prostitution underground.
Social workers have a harder time reaching out to prostitutes.
The dependance on pimps has increased because it's become harder to get into contact with clients, to rent a place etc as an independent prostitute.
Fighting forced prostitution has become harder because the clients are now unwilling to be a witness in a case against a prostitution ring cause this results in their own prosecution. Also, if clients find themself with a prostitute who is being maltreated, they are less likely to report this to the police.
Because clients are scared and nervous, prostitutes are forced to make quick deals resulting in more std's and less time to guess if the client is an abusive fuckhead.
Prostitutes who are dependent on prostitution to finance their drug habit have been forced to cut back prices and to do more 'kinky' work as the availability of clients has been cut back.
The National Board of Healthcare in Sweden published a report in which they say that this law lead to more problems (more std's, less safe work environments, more abuse) and affected the already socially marginalised prostitutes negatively. The State Criminal Department has said this law lead to more violent sex trade.
Let me try this another way, the amount of money charged for prostitution does not directly correlate to the abusive quality of that particular group. Hell he could have been paying TO physically abuse the woman for all we know, and that kind of service tends to be more expensive and yet not uncommon.
basically
economic size of organization does not equate to whether the women involved have been or are being abused.
I suppose, but given previous high-end prostitution scandals that I've heard about (the D.C. Madam scandal from last year, for example), it seems just as, if not more likely that it's a case of a company connecting willing and attractive girls with wealthy men.
Your assertion that I was objecting to was that the greater the money involved, the greater the possibility for danger. I still don't see how this is axiomatic. The cost for violence is extremely low, and greater amounts of money involved mean at least the possibility for a far easier means to manage workers (keeping them happy with a fat paycheck) than abuse.
Its legal/effectively legal in some European countries like The Netherlands and Germany. This helps weeds out the bad problems associated with it, namely pimps, violence from johns, drugs, and minors. It allows the trade to be taxed, regulated and monitored. There are many large brothels in Germany where women rent out a room for their services. No pimps, security is provided to enforce the law, the prostitutes get to do their own things sans interference (except for tax and other government regulations, of course). I dont know the ins and outs of the system (so to speak) but it seems like a good idea at least. I believe Nevada also has some stuff like that.
Is prostitution fundamentally and unavoidably abusive? No, I don't think so. There are plenty of prostitutes in any country who do so willingly and happily; these would presumably be the ones who get very well paid and are not subject to violence and other stuff. On the other hand I could throw out some Marxist arguments saying that any work is fundamentally abusive; there are plenty of physical labour jobs that effectively destroy your body, but people (one could argue) are coerced into working for those jobs because they are desperate for the money. Is it the same thing as sex for money? No, but so long as the prostitutes are having sex out of their own free will, and not some defacto enslavement by pimps, then I have no problem with it. Just because work involves a vagina doesn't make it inherently abusive.