Scott Swenson draws the link that needs to be drawn in all this sturm und drang about Spitzer and the prostitutes: Funny how this is going on while reproductive justice and health activists are fighting a pointless item in PEPFAR—put in by Democrats, mind you—that requires health organizations who do outreach to sex workers sign pledges condemning sex work. Why don’t some of the people defending Spitzer turn some of that energy to defending prostitutes? I can’t help but conclude, with sadness, that we’re looking at further evidence that both pro- and anti-legalization people tend to treat the actual prostitutes as an afterthought. I’m with Scott. Instead of asking health organizations to sign pledges that might alienate the very clients they’re trying to reach, how about we start by making politicians sign pledges swearing not to visit prostitutes?
I’ll show my hand up front—while I’m happy to play partisan Democrat a lot of the time, my sympathy for Spitzer is short to non-existent. I’m with Jeff. Sure, Spitzer is the victim of a double standard here, one that doesn’t apply to Republicans, but that mainly shows that the problem is that Republicans are being held to a too-low standard. First of all, prostitution is illegal, and public officials who help enforce the law against the rest of us need to be held accountable to that law. Second of all, doubly so when it comes to prostitution, because prostitutes are citizens, too, and deserve our protection. But it seems that Spitzer needed so much damn money for his hobby because he enjoyed doing things that were quite likely dangerous to prostitutes, probably asking to go condomless. Do you think, if one of the prostitutes he visited were arrested, he would have come clamoring to her defense? Yeah, neither do I. After all, he helped make his career by busting prostitution rings.
Invariably during these discussions, you get a push and pull between the “sex slaves” people and the “happy hooker” people, with some admitting that both kinds of women exist and most prostitutes are somewhere in between. The only thing I’ve concluded about that is that no one should be arrested for selling sex. Either they’re happy hookers hurting no one or victims of the system who don’t need the state to add to their misery, or some combination of the two, but either way, they shouldn’t go to jail.
For me, the jury’s still out on whether or not it should be illegal to buy sex. On one hand, I am convinced by arguments pointing out that vice laws don’t usually work well enough to justify the loss of freedom, and that there’s a weird nonsensical nature to the argument that it’s okay to sell but not to buy, and inverse of the already-ridiculous drug laws that make selling a worse crime than buying. On the other hand, I’m disgusted by some of the intellectual dishonesty employed by people defending prostitution. By that, I mean the invocation of the Sad Unfuckable John. You know the image—in any debate about prostitution, the pro-legalization ones will overplay their hand and argue that prostitution is this positive thing, because it makes sex available to men, who by virtue of being ugly or deeply nerdy or whatever, are basically unable to get sex from volunteers.
I’m often lured by this image, because it makes a rough sort of sense. Isn’t it rude of those who get sex pretty easily to begrudge those who need to resort to professionals their chance at sexual congress? My sense of equality and fairness and general sex-positivity is lured by these arguments, and then I remember two things:
1) No one is defending the idea that undersexed women should have a troop of hard-bodied men in their 20s ready to satisfy.
2) Most men who go to prostitutes don’t fit the stereotype of lonely men just looking for some attention.
There is absolutely no reason that the brothels in Nevada need to keep their workers virtual prisoners on premises, if it’s just about sex. But if it’s about creating this fantasyland for misogynists where they can feel like kings by virtue of their gender, then it’s essential. If it’s about sex and loneliness, why are whores displayed in Amsterdam like they’re in cages?
Every time something like this happens, the poor wife is dragged out on stage to do the stand by your man routine, and invariably, people twitter about how odd it is that he visited prostitutes when his wife is loyal and lovely and etc. The idea that men resort to prostitutes as a last ditch, desperate measure apparently has its teeth in the public. But it’s bullshit. Most men who go to prostitutes can get sex, even strings-free, no-commitment sex, from other women. They want something else. For some, like David Vitter, I think it might just be a need to have some weird kink fulfilled. But I suspect for many, if not most, it’s the idea of buying a woman that’s the allure. Which is why the “consenting adults” argument rings a bit hollow. If full, complete, 100% consent were there—if it really were a transaction between equals instead of the purchase of the right to feel like a woman’s master for a time—the prostitution would lose a lot of its allure for many, probably most, customers. Not that I dismiss legalization arguments outright, but there’s that snagging intellectual honesty issue that gets to me every time.
I think plenty of people would defend that idea, in principle, if the hard-bodied men in question were willing. It’s just that there doesn’t appear to be the same demand for that.
Yeah, funny how that works. You’d think if it was just a business transaction between equals, instead of a thrilling exploitation of male dominance, then there would be an equal number of male prostitutes to service women.
It’s just that there doesn’t appear to be the same demand for that.
There are sex tourism vacations for wealthy middle aged women to go and have no strings attached sex with young hot foreign men. There was a spate of article about it a while back. Make no mistake, the demand is there.
I don’t think the brothels are trying to create a fantasy of dominance - they’re trying to make damn sure they squeeze every penny out of the prostitutes. If you’re a prisoner you can’t go decide to be an independent contractor.
And I think the reaction to Spitzer would be quite different if he’d taken the approach that prostitution is a victimless crime but pimping isn’t.
Ballast, you’re mixing up supply and demand, by the way. The argument for prostitution is that there’s a great demand of lonely guys. Well, there’s a great demand of lonely women. But there’s not a supply of straight men available for that work, because, let’s face it, our society thinks it’s too debasing of work for men. Unless they’re gay, but that doesn’t speak much for the esteem we hold prostitutes in.
“If full, complete, 100% consent were there—if it really were a transaction between equals instead of the purchase of the right to feel like a woman’s master for a time—the prostitution would lose a lot of its allure for many, probably most, customers….. You’d think if it was just a business transaction between equals, instead of a thrilling exploitation of male dominance, then there would be an equal number of male prostitutes to service women.”
Yes, yes, and yes. Thanks for this Amanda.
Mythago, it just goes to show, either way, that when people say “legalize it so you can regulate it,” they mean regulate the women for diseases they could pass onto their johns. They don’t mean, so much, regulate for the health and safety of the workers.
It may indeed often be the latter, but I don’t buy that it could never be the former, in any context. And criminalizing it across the board would amount to a flat refusal that it could ever conceivably be anything other than exploitation, which is what seems problematic.
not until the advent of viagra that male can get it up whenever the external needs come.
Isn’t that obvious?
What, exactly, is the real difference between pornography and prostitution? Its very strange to me that its illegal to pay for sex unless its being videotaped, then its ok.
Ugly in Pink is right, and the justifications are just as delusional: that the hot poor guy is your “boyfriend”, you are “helping” him with your money, all of it. I work in the third world and it’s the same exact kink among women as men: the opposite gender back home doesn’t appreciate men/women the way the hey! surprise! really poor! men/women here do, etc. etc.
If you’re paying for it, it’s coercion, and that’s only okay if you think that sex is a bad to be coerced out of others or a bad they prefer to other options available (the argument for prostitution made via comparing it to working with toxins, or selling a kidney).
If you think sex is a GOOD to be enjoyed by all, then paying for it –ever — doesn’t make any sense. Therefore, conceding that paying for it might have a case to be made on good-producing-in-a-perfect-world rather than harm-reducing-in-the-world-we-know grounds is incredibly pernicious. I support decriminalization, but legalization? Absolute noes.
“They don’t mean, so much, regulate for the health and safety of the workers. ”
Ouch. Another illusion shot. I’ve always taken it for granted (as in, utterly unexamined) that the primary reason to legalize was precisely for the protection of the worker. Honestly never occurred to me that there was another view.
Hearing you say it, however, I sadly have to acknowledge that you are far more likely to be right. Even if the activists working for it were 100% worker-protection motivated, in practice, it would still turn around, privilege being what it is.
Still, messed up as that is, as long as it resulted in more protections for the workers, I think I would still support it - but I suspect the abuse of it would be far, far too common. Sigh.
“…if it really were a transaction between equals instead of the purchase of the right to feel like a woman’s master for a time—the prostitution would lose a lot of its allure for many, probably most, customers”
Yes! The impulse to make a woman do something she normally wouldn’t do is what the John desires. Its that nasty notion that they are getting over on a woman. Not only that, they are denigrating women who are not prostitutes in the process as well. It extends to dating behavior in which some men feel that when they buy dinner etc. it gives them rights. They want to own.
Ben, porn customers are not paying to actually have sex with the worker. Seems like a difference to me.
Fair enough, but there is actual sex-for-money going on among the porno actors.
So basically, you can pay to have sex with a woman (or man) as long as your videotape it and distribute it to complete strangers.
So you’re arguing that there is, in fact, a high demand for male prostitutes amongst lonely women, but it’s going unfilled simply because men find having sex with random women for money too demeaning? Really? Yes, there may be lonely women, but they don’t seem to be seeking out paid sex partners. Which might point to some issue of relative notion of entitlement, or whatnot, but I find the argument that the demand is the same hard to buy.
I think you could just as easily compare it to buying a massage, which I don’t regard as a Bad Thing. And that can arguably involve economic coercion as well.
Kathleen,
You have a very definite point. Probably an overwhelming one.
Without being argumentative, can you help me understand why other things being equal (and I know they aren’t, in practice), the difference between this and, say, housework?
Having a clean house is a good thing, and if someone is willing to provide it as a service, they should get paid.
Doesn’t your construction pretty much demand that sex (if seen as good) always has to fall inside a romantic relationship?
(Personally, I DO see it that way and cannot imagine hiring a prostitute, but I don’t see why it should be criminal. Mistreating a worker, as an employer or client, yes, but not the service as such.)
Help me understand why, in fact, your logic shouldn’t extend to it being morally wrong to pay anyone for doing anything that isn’t “bad.”
I do, absolutlely hop to the other side as soon as issues about pay, working conditions, and all those other real-world considerations (like some other situations, I may have to concede that something okay in principle can never be sufficiently okay in practice to allow it or support it.) But setting those aside for the moment, help me out with your broader premise.
Ben, I don’t know. I think, since men are being paid for sex, too, that it’s just a different model. That said, the porn industry borrows a lot of attitudes from the prostitution industry. But I do think there’s a stronger possibility of people making porn in non-exploitative ways.
Doesn’t your construction pretty much demand that sex (if seen as good) always has to fall inside a romantic relationship?
It’s utterly possible to have casual sex with a woman that’s equal and 100% consensual and eager. That’s the problem so many women are pointing out—our culture where men pay for “sex” (more the right to feel like kings of women, with sex as the action that affirms it) results in men thinking sex is something women have that you get. But that’s not true. Sex can be something done together for mutual satisfaction. I don’t think the law should ban everything else, but that strikes me as the feminist ideal, and it doesn’t necessarily indicate that casual sex is wrong.
Clarification: I withdraw the “romantic relationship” in my above post and change it to “personal relationship.”
Nothing wrong with unpaid casual sex among the mutually consenting.
My bigger point and question still apply.
I agree with all of the comments about the root desires of Johns. I don’t think that these desires are morally acceptable in any way, nor should they be encouraged or defended.
I think decriminalizing prostitution, while making pimping a somewhat serious crime, would be a good idea.
I’m living in Austria, where they have legalized prostitution, but brothels are illegal. In this system, brothels actually exist all over the place, but from what my girlfriend tells me, you pay for the room to the brothel owner, and “contract” separately with sex workers. This is a big loophole.
I think what would really be cool would be for sex workers to unionize and create institutions that to help keep them safe, while outlawing brothels (unless cooperatively run by sex workers themselves).
I am more than a little troubled by the many irrelevant arguments in favor of Spitzer. I’m glad you posted this, A.
Amanda, I was agreeing with you all the way until the last paragraph:
I read the escort rating boards from time to time for kicks. From that I find your assertion above completely contradicted. Do you have any support for that view of such men other than your own imagination?
Charlie Sheen was famously supposed to have said about call girls: “I don’t pay them for sex. I pay them to leave.” The point being that there rarely is truly “stringless” sex, even for (or maybe especially for) the physically attractive and wealthy male (of which I am neither, btw).
I don’t really give much of a crap about the arguments for and against prostitution. Pretty much all of you have reasonably valid points. I bet that as the imbalance of power between the genders gradually moves toward equilibrium, you’ll see more and more examples of older, wealthy or powerful women paying hot young men for sex. And as long as everyone knows what they’re getting into, that’s just fine with me. Whatever. Human trafficking, abusive and exploitive pimps, etc., are all serious issues and should be dealt with, but fundamentally, I don’t really see any difference between selling oneself to work at Wal-Mart and selling one’s body for sex. Again, whatever.
But what burns me is that people as involved in politics as y’all, and lots of others, are falling into precisely the Republican trap. This whole story and how Spitzer’s name got leaked smells to high heaven of the Republicans’ pollution of the DOJ. They’re doing to him what they did to the fellow in Alabama, only Spitzer at least did something arguably wrong. And the Republicans relied on our habit of wanting to put morality above the larger political struggle, and we and you are, and instead of rallying behind one of our team, even if we have to hold our noses while doing it, we’re fighting among ourselves.
Look at what happened to Vitter and even Craig. Um, nothing significant. The R’s made pro forma noises of disgust at most, but none of them said Vitter should resign and they shut up real quick about Craig. And you don’t hear a peep from them about it now, and both of those dudes are still in office wreaking havoc on the Constitution. And they’re doing that because they know that they owe loyalty to the party.
This isn’t to say that you should ignore what Spitzer did. But use the leverage you now have over him for a good cause. Make him do a few public mea culpas, use the opportunity as a way to talk about some of what are surely horrors in the trafficking business, leverage public declarations of support for reproductive rights or the rights of sex workers. Say “Look, we’ll stand behind you but you owe us now, dude,” instead of shooting the larger cause of progressivism in the foot in order to maintain a sense of moral purity.
I think some men aren’t really doing it for the sex. They’re doing it because its illegal. They’re doing it for the thrill. Its like billionaires making crooked stock deals even though they don’t really need the money. They just like some sick rush of getting away with something thats illegal.
After all, he helped make his career by busting prostitution rings.
It seems to me this should eliminate the “should prostitution be illegal?” question from the Spitzer discussion altogether. The Vitter/Craig exception applies here. Spitzer thought it should be illegal for everyone else; he advanced his career on that assumption. Thus, it should at the least absolutely be illegal for him.
By the way, I found the close juxtaposition between these two things in your post amusing for some reason:
2) Most men who go to prostitutes don’t fit the stereotype of lonely men just looking for some attention… Every time something like this happens, the poor wife is dragged out on stage
“But I do think there’s a stronger possibility of people making porn in non-exploitative ways.”
Might that be because of the possibility of higher earnings?
The crappiest and sleaziest porn still looks pretty exploitive, but (maybe?) there is a correlation to higher distribution of the better quality, bigger studio stuff and better treatment of the actors?
I know I always have trouble believing that the $5,000 hookers are being too terribly mistreated, but none whatsoever that the ones walking the streets, the helpless runaways, and the ones controlled by drugs are.
Huh? Sixties, I disagree that finding casual, free, no-strings sex is that impossible. Especially for a movie star like Charlie Sheen. In fact, that defies all common sense.
No, a guy can get laid. And since we have even a movie star claiming he can’t, we have good evidence that the “wah, wah I can’t get laid” argument is a cover story for a darker need to have the sensation that you own someone for a time.
It’s that intellectual dishonesty that galls the ever-living shit out of me. If prostitution is going to be legal, legalize it honestly.
SixtiesLiberal, I know more than one woman who has NSA sex; if you read an escort board surely you know what AFF is, let alone CL. Audacia Ray used to blog about trysts at hourly motels with strangers, and who are all these women that Jefferson chats up online and then fucks in bourbon-fueled romps? Lots of people are having lots of NSA sex. It really happens.
If Charlie Sheen really wanted them to leave, why did he induce Ginger Lynn Allen to violation the terms of her probation to visit him overseas, toy with her and toss her, contributing if memory serves to her substance relapse and custody problems? Why not just find some other woman and “pay her to leave?” Or did he get high on the power of being Charlie Sheen and having a famous porn actress take personal risks to cater to him? Giant asshole.
If you want to know about celebrities and porn stars, remember this: Shannon Wilsey was pregnant by Greg Allman at 16, and living with him; virtually moved in with Vince Neal and snorted everything that could be chopped, knew every rock star of the Sunset Strip scene when she was Savannah. The night she shot herself she had no money, nobody to call but her manager and no way to earn a living except to go back to porn. When they laid her to rest, the only celebrity who had the decency to stand in public, admit he was her friend or her sometime lay, and pay his respects was Paulie Shore. (And for that, I’ll forgive Paulie a lot of bad movies. At least he had the humanity to tell the world he mourned his friend.)
To clarify my post above, the reason men give on the escort boards for participating in the “hobby” include:
variety (such men are unwilling or incapable of fidelity, imo), the ability to have sex with women much more attractive physically than the men would attract on their own, and having an unsatisfactory sex life with their spouses. The desire to exercise control over a woman by buying her is never even hinted at.
That’s the reason they give in public, yes.
It comes out a lot more in their “reviews” of their experiences. Read those instead.
When looking at the question of male prostitution, I think one is failing to consider the dynamics of the marketplace. In our society, opportunities for men are greater than for women, and men have more money, on the average than women. That leads to a larger supply of women willing to prostitute themselves, and more money chasing those prostitutes. Lonely women do not have the same financial resources, and because the supply of willing men is smaller, that alone explains why there are fewer male prostitutes than female prostitutes.
There’s that, and then there’s the idea (which, incidentally, happens to be a favorite notion of people who are devoted to evo-psych) that sex is by definition a commodity bartered by the woman in turn for some other consideration (like companionship, jewelry or cash) which is extended to her by the man. There’s a certain frame or type of mind that really goes for the men-always-pay-for-sex-women-never-give-it-up-without-a-bauble meme, and to a man whose head is in that space, the act of paying off a prostitute must just seem like heteronormativity reduced to its pure grist.
This would explain why it is that women who buy sex from men can travel under the radar. When a woman purchases sex, that’s merely an incident; it’s just something she does. It’s not thought to figure forth any all-encompassing pattern or to tap into an eternal verity. But when a man buys sex, at the very least, he’s reinforcing his role as the one who has money and pays. I’ve never bought into the claim that says that without some form of prostitution men would just never get laid. The fact that there are now more than six billion of us sharing the planet seems to testify to the contrary. Which is why I agree that men who make a habit out of paying for sex aren’t interested only in the sex—there’s something else they want which the act of the purchase enables them to get.
That having been said, I don’t equate paying for stuff with coercion. Coercion is what happens when people who don’t feel like paying for stuff go ahead and rip off what they please. All of us pay for services all the time, and when I ask myself why payment for sexual services alone should be taboo, I can’t come up with a good answer.
There’s that, and then there’s the idea (which, incidentally, happens to be a favorite notion of people who are devoted to evo-psych) that sex is by definition a commodity bartered by the woman in turn for some other consideration (like companionship, jewelry or cash) which is extended to her by the man. There’s a certain frame or type of mind that really goes for the men-always-pay-for-sex-women-never-give-it-up-without-a-bauble meme, and to a man whose head is in that space, the act of paying off a prostitute must just seem like heteronormativity reduced to its pure grist.
This would explain why it is that women who buy sex from men can travel under the radar. When a woman purchases sex, that’s merely an incident; it’s just something she does. It’s not thought to figure forth any all-encompassing pattern or to tap into an eternal verity. But when a man buys sex, at the very least, he’s reinforcing his role as the one who has money and pays. I’ve never bought into the claim that says that without some form of prostitution men would just never get laid. The fact that there are now more than six billion of us sharing the planet seems to testify to the contrary. Which is why I agree that men who make a habit out of paying for sex aren’t interested only in the sex—there’s something else they want which the act of the purchase enables them to get.
That having been said, I don’t equate paying for stuff with coercion. Coercion is what happens when people who don’t feel like paying for stuff go ahead and rip off what they please. All of us pay for services all the time, and when I ask myself why payment for sexual services alone should be taboo, I can’t come up with a good answer.
There’s that, and then there’s the idea (which, incidentally, happens to be a favorite notion of people who are devoted to evo-psych) that sex is by definition a commodity bartered by the woman in turn for some other consideration (like companionship, jewelry or cash) which is extended to her by the man. There’s a certain frame or type of mind that really goes for the men-always-pay-for-sex-women-never-give-it-up-without-a-bauble meme, and to a man whose head is in that space, the act of paying off a prostitute must just seem like heteronormativity reduced to its pure grist.
This would explain why it is that women who buy sex from men can travel under the radar. When a woman purchases sex, that’s merely an incident; it’s just something she does. It’s not thought to figure forth any all-encompassing pattern or to tap into an eternal verity. But when a man buys sex, at the very least, he’s reinforcing his role as the one who has money and pays. I’ve never bought into the claim that says that without some form of prostitution men would just never get laid. The fact that there are now more than six billion of us sharing the planet seems to testify to the contrary. Which is why I agree that men who make a habit out of paying for sex aren’t interested only in the sex—there’s something else they want which the act of the purchase enables them to get.
That having been said, I don’t equate paying for stuff with coercion. Coercion is what happens when people who don’t feel like paying for stuff go ahead and rip off what they please. All of us pay for services all the time, and when I ask myself why payment for sexual services alone should be taboo, I can’t come up with a good answer.
Thomas and Amanda, OK I’ll yield on the NSA sex availability, though I still suspect that unexpected strings appear there often, emotional or economic. The boards do discuss AFF and CL. The former is said to have a high percentage of professional (i.e. hooker) among the women. The latter is only discussed as the low rent market for call girls, and the law enforcement or rip-off risk is said to be high. I browsed the personals section of CL once and was so grossed out by the explicit pictures I never went back. In some ways I am an old fuddy-duddy I suppose.
There’s that, and then there’s the idea (which, incidentally, happens to be a favorite notion of people who are devoted to evo-psych) that sex is by definition a commodity bartered by the woman in turn for some other consideration (like companionship, jewelry or cash) which is extended to her by the man. There’s a certain frame or type of mind that really goes for the men-always-pay-for-sex-women-never-give-it-up-without-a-bauble meme, and to a man whose head is in that space, the act of paying off a prostitute must just seem like heteronormativity reduced to its pure grist.
This would explain why it is that women who buy sex from men can travel under the radar. When a woman purchases sex, that’s merely an incident; it’s just something she does. It’s not thought to figure forth any all-encompassing pattern or to tap into an eternal verity. But when a man buys sex, at the very least, he’s reinforcing his role as the one who has money and pays. I’ve never bought into the claim that says that without some form of prostitution men would just never get laid. The fact that there are now more than six billion of us sharing the planet seems to testify to the contrary. Which is why I agree that men who make a habit out of paying for sex aren’t interested only in the sex—there’s something else they want which the act of the purchase enables them to get.
That having been said, I don’t equate paying for stuff with coercion. Coercion is what happens when people who don’t feel like paying for stuff go ahead and rip off what they please. All of us pay for services all the time, and when I ask myself why payment for sexual services alone should be taboo, I can’t come up with a good answer.
There’s that, and then there’s the idea (which, incidentally, happens to be a favorite notion of people who are devoted to evo-psych) that sex is by definition a commodity bartered by the woman in turn for some other consideration (like companionship, jewelry or cash) which is extended to her by the man. There’s a certain frame or type of mind that really goes for the men-always-pay-for-sex-women-never-give-it-up-without-a-bauble meme, and to a man whose head is in that space, the act of paying off a prostitute must just seem like heteronormativity reduced to its pure grist.
This would explain why it is that women who buy sex from men can travel under the radar. When a woman purchases sex, that’s merely an incident; it’s just something she does. It’s not thought to figure forth any all-encompassing pattern or to tap into an eternal verity. But when a man buys sex, at the very least, he’s reinforcing his role as the one who has money and pays. I’ve never bought into the claim that says that without some form of prostitution men would just never get laid. The fact that there are now more than six billion of us sharing the planet seems to testify to the contrary. Which is why I agree that men who make a habit out of paying for sex aren’t interested only in the sex—there’s something else they want which the act of the purchase enables them to get.
That having been said, I don’t equate paying for stuff with coercion. Coercion is what happens when people who don’t feel like paying for stuff go ahead and rip off what they please. All of us pay for services all the time, and when I ask myself why payment for sexual services alone should be taboo, I can’t come up with a good answer.
Interesting debate, you might want to check out Sex Workers Outreach Project. I’ve always been of the opinion that one should always talk to the people actualy involved in an issue.
Dude, you’re browsing a hooker board but you’re grossed out by genital shots on AFF and CL …?
To clarify my post above, the reason men give on the escort boards for participating in the “hobby” include:
variety (such men are unwilling or incapable of fidelity, imo), the ability to have sex with women much more attractive physically than the men would attract on their own, and having an unsatisfactory sex life with their spouses. The desire to exercise control over a woman by buying her is never even hinted at.
If one wants variety or is tired of unsatisfactory sex with one’s spouse, there are many many options outside of prostitution that one could engage in. It’s not that hard to meet people who are pretty much just looking for sex. As far as the desire to have sex with someone “much more attractive physically” than could be attracted on their own… I think that starts to fall into the desire to have control over women. Because that’s not just about wanting to have sex anymore, imo.
If this were the only factor, then we’d expect women and men of ample means to use prostitutes in equal numbers. Do they? I do not believe so.
From my perspective, it is a tempting idea, because I’m not all that far removed from some of the unattractive, shy guys that get hypothesized. But for something like that to be a good thing, we would need to completely change how we as a society think about prostitution, and about sex. And it still wouldn’t work as long as there’s a gender disparity in economic power.
I think the ideal they hold up for these cases is something like Inara on Firefly the “happy hooker” who chooses her clients (of course, this may mean that the Sad Unfuckable John is still unfuckable), has substantial bargaining power, and is in a professional/client relationship rather than a server/customer one. But that’s not going to happen in a society where prostitutes (and women generally) are regarded as inferior, and anyone who suggests that’s anything like the current state of affairs is just being disingenuous.
I’m not so sure this is a compelling argument. I believe that music is a good to be enjoyed by all, but there’s nothing wrong with charging admission to concerts.
There’s that, and then there’s the idea (which, incidentally, happens to be a favorite notion of people who are devoted to evo-psych) that sex is by definition a commodity bartered by the woman in turn for some other consideration (like companionship, jewelry or cash) which is extended to her by the man. There’s a certain frame or type of mind that really goes for the men-always-pay-for-sex-women-never-give-it-up-without-a-bauble meme, and to a man whose head is in that space, the act of paying off a prostitute must just seem like heteronormativity reduced to its pure grist.
This would explain why it is that women who buy sex from men can travel under the radar. When a woman purchases sex, that’s merely an incident; it’s just something she does. It’s not thought to figure forth any all-encompassing pattern or to tap into an eternal verity. But when a man buys sex, at the very least, he’s reinforcing his role as the one who has money and pays. I’ve never bought into the claim that says that without some form of prostitution men would just never get laid. The fact that there are now more than six billion of us sharing the planet seems to testify to the contrary. Which is why I agree that men who make a habit out of paying for sex aren’t interested only in the sex—there’s something else they want which the act of the purchase enables them to get.
That having been said, I don’t equate paying for stuff with coercion. Coercion is what happens when people who don’t feel like paying for stuff go ahead and rip off what they please. All of us pay for services all the time, and when I ask myself why payment for sexual services alone should be taboo, I can’t come up with a good answer.
Amanda Marcotte:
You’d think if it was just a business transaction between equals, instead of a thrilling exploitation of male dominance, then there would be an equal number of male prostitutes to service women.
Or, perhaps, that there are differences between men and women. Like certain anatomical asymmetries…
I disagree that finding casual, free, no-strings sex is that impossible. Especially for a movie star like Charlie Sheen. In fact, that defies all common sense.
No, a guy can get laid.
Suppose I were to say: What’s the problem with Texas’s ban on sex toys? It’s still possible for women to get off on their own. What would your response be?
The only way Charlie Sheen could have easy access to reliably no-strings sex is if the only willing women he encounters are ones who are fine with no strings sex. Even if every day he meets 25 beautiful women seeking casual no-strings sex, if he meets 75 other women who want a relationship, that means that 3 of 4 times he gets laid there are complications. (Maybe fewer if he’s able to distinguish well, but that takes work.) It sounds like prostitution is a screening mechanism, to get rid of the hassle of hurt feelings. What’s the problem with that?
It’s that intellectual dishonesty that galls the ever-living shit out of me.
Bullshit. “Intellectual dishonesty” is apparently your word for arguments you don’t understand.
Thomas, TSID:
I don’t pay attention to celebrity news, so I’ll take your word for it that Mr. Sheen himself is a jerk. My point still stands.
There’s that, and then there’s the idea (which, incidentally, happens to be a favorite notion of people who are devoted to evo-psych) that sex is by definition a commodity bartered by the woman in turn for some other consideration (like companionship, jewelry or cash) which is extended to her by the man. There’s a certain frame or type of mind that really goes for the men-always-pay-for-sex-women-never-give-it-up-without-a-bauble meme, and to a man whose head is in that space, the act of paying off a prostitute must just seem like heteronormativity reduced to its pure grist.
This would explain why it is that women who buy sex from men can travel under the radar. When a woman purchases sex, that’s merely an incident; it’s just something she does. It’s not thought to figure forth any all-encompassing pattern or to tap into an eternal verity. But when a man buys sex, at the very least, he’s reinforcing his role as the one who has money and pays. I’ve never bought into the claim that says that without some form of prostitution men would just never get laid. The fact that there are now more than six billion of us sharing the planet seems to testify to the contrary. Which is why I agree that men who make a habit out of paying for sex aren’t interested only in the sex—there’s something else they want which the act of the purchase enables them to get.
That having been said, I don’t equate paying for stuff with coercion. Coercion is what happens when people who don’t feel like paying for stuff go ahead and rip off what they please. All of us pay for services all the time, and when I ask myself why payment for sexual services alone should be taboo, I can’t come up with a good answer.
Peter — ask yourself this. Why is there no service whereby you can buy friends? A critique of frats, sororities, etc. is that you are buying friends but members would insist that’s not true, would in fact recoil at the suggestion, feel wounded by it, etc.
The reason: paying for friends would extinguish the point of friendship. Friendship is an expression of mutuality. It can take many forms. I’ve got nothing against casual sex — it can be an expression of mutuality and solidarity.
anyway, that’s what I mean about paying for sex — it’s paid for as a “bad”, and that’s not cool in so so so so so so many ways, about which feminism has quite a lot to say.
Sure, there are “goods” one can buy: candy, hip shoes, trips to the beach. But there is no expectation of mutuality there that is thwarted by purchase. Prostitution exists to thwart mutuality. Mutuality doesn’t have to mean heteronormative monogamous marriage. It can mean all kinds of things, but prostitution exists to sock mutuality in the face. That’s why it is not cool.
@jfpbookworm:
But for something like that to be a good thing, we would need to completely change how we as a society think about prostitution, and about sex. And it still wouldn’t work as long as there’s a gender disparity in economic power.
I’m not sure how that means that prostitution should still be legal. It sounds like you’re saying that prostitution isn’t the source of problem at all, but rather the gender disparity in economic power. Accepting that hypothesis, shouldn’t we evaluate whether to continue to imprison prostitutes and their customers on the basis of what good or bad it does now, rather than whether it lives up to some otherworldly ideal?
I mean, you could just as well say that sex is bad in a society with gender disparities.
There’s that, and then there’s the idea (which, incidentally, happens to be a favorite notion of people who are devoted to evo-psych) that sex is by definition a commodity bartered by the woman in turn for some other consideration (like companionship, jewelry or cash) which is extended to her by the man. There’s a certain frame or type of mind that really goes for the men-always-pay-for-sex-women-never-give-it-up-without-a-bauble meme, and to a man whose head is in that space, the act of paying off a prostitute must just seem like heteronormativity reduced to its pure grist.
This would explain why it is that women who buy sex from men can travel under the radar. When a woman purchases sex, that’s merely an incident; it’s just something she does. It’s not thought to figure forth any all-encompassing pattern or to tap into an eternal verity. But when a man buys sex, at the very least, he’s reinforcing his role as the one who has money and pays. I’ve never bought into the claim that says that without some form of prostitution men would just never get laid. The fact that there are now more than six billion of us sharing the planet seems to testify to the contrary. Which is why I agree that men who make a habit out of paying for sex aren’t interested only in the sex—there’s something else they want which the act of the purchase enables them to get.
That having been said, I don’t equate paying for stuff with coercion. Coercion is what happens when people who don’t feel like paying for stuff go ahead and rip off what they please. All of us pay for services all the time, and when I ask myself why payment for sexual services alone should be taboo, I can’t come up with a good answer.
There’s that, and then there’s the idea (which, incidentally, happens to be a favorite notion of people who are devoted to evo-psych) that sex is by definition a commodity bartered by the woman in turn for some other consideration (like companionship, jewelry or cash) which is extended to her by the man. There’s a certain frame or type of mind that really goes for the men-always-pay-for-sex-women-never-give-it-up-without-a-bauble meme, and to a man whose head is in that space, the act of paying off a prostitute must just seem like heteronormativity reduced to its pure grist.
This would explain why it is that women who buy sex from men can travel under the radar. When a woman purchases sex, that’s merely an incident; it’s just something she does. It’s not thought to figure forth any all-encompassing pattern or to tap into an eternal verity. But when a man buys sex, at the very least, he’s reinforcing his role as the one who has money and pays. I’ve never bought into the claim that says that without some form of prostitution men would just never get laid. The fact that there are now more than six billion of us sharing the planet seems to testify to the contrary. Which is why I agree that men who make a habit out of paying for sex aren’t interested only in the sex—there’s something else they want which the act of the purchase enables them to get.
That having been said, I don’t equate paying for stuff with coercion. Coercion is what happens when people who don’t feel like paying for stuff go ahead and rip off what they please. All of us pay for services all the time, and when I ask myself why payment for sexual services alone should be taboo, I can’t come up with a good answer.
Is this a warning shot across the bow of the Democratic Party by the republicans?
Showing how low and deep they are willing to further pervert the laws of this country to get their puppet installed as president. (As if Hillary’s recent performance has made things harder for them)
This whole thing stinks to high heaven but you just have to wonder, and just like 9/11/2001, there are so many coincidences and ’strange actions’ for it just to be a spur of the moment incident.
They have been planning to take Spitzer down for years.
To watch MSNBC’s Wall Street siren talking to some ‘Wall Street people’ you could see their glee and gloating in this nasty prosecution. Many people, many cruel, nasty, evil, rich and politically connected people are very ecstatically happy over this ‘convenient’ prosecution… And the message seems clear. Since Cheney now has full access to the ‘Justice’ Dept inner workings, I wonder if his fingerprints aren’t all over this thing.
Once again, Lady Liberty is prostituted for the pleasure of the GOP.
Benquo this may surprise you to learn, but sex not something that only men enjoy and therefor must wrest from women by hook or by crook. Lots of women like sex, seek sex, and want sex for sex’s sake and not with “complications.” Simply being in possession of a penis does not mean that a man is going to automatically be some sort of sex-hunting lothario, and lacking a penis does not mean that a woman does not want sex.
And you’re in no position to lecture on the definition of intellectual honestly when you go on to conflate a woman with an inanimate sex toy.
There’s that, and then there’s the idea (which, incidentally, happens to be a favorite notion of people who are devoted to evo-psych) that sex is by definition a commodity bartered by the woman in turn for some other consideration (like companionship, jewelry or cash) which is extended to her by the man. There’s a certain frame or type of mind that really goes for the men-always-pay-for-sex-women-never-give-it-up-without-a-bauble meme, and to a man whose head is in that space, the act of paying off a prostitute must just seem like heteronormativity reduced to its pure grist.
This would explain why it is that women who buy sex from men can travel under the radar. When a woman purchases sex, that’s merely an incident; it’s just something she does. It’s not thought to figure forth any all-encompassing pattern or to tap into an eternal verity. But when a man buys sex, at the very least, he’s reinforcing his role as the one who has money and pays. I’ve never bought into the claim that says that without some form of prostitution men would just never get laid. The fact that there are now more than six billion of us sharing the planet seems to testify to the contrary. Which is why I agree that men who make a habit out of paying for sex aren’t interested only in the sex—there’s something else they want which the act of the purchase enables them to get.
That having been said, I don’t equate paying for stuff with coercion. Coercion is what happens when people who don’t feel like paying for stuff go ahead and rip off what they please. All of us pay for services all the time, and when I ask myself why payment for sexual services alone should be taboo, I can’t come up with a good answer.
Benquo: absolutely we should be basing our policy decisions on the world we live in, and not some hypothetical utopia. My point was exactly that: that the utopian arguments where hypothetically prostitution isn’t problematic in the slightest, while interesting when discussing the topic as moral principle, are not relevant to a discussion of what the law should be here and now.
Guys get their self esteem from fucking attractive women or having power over women. Fucking women they think are unattractive? Fucking women who have economic power over them? They’d be regarded as totally emasculated.
Uh, how would the former not benefit the later? (Regulation is usually more about money/taxes too)
What you said made little sense to me.
If the workers are monitored for diseases, won’t that mean healthier workers?
As sick as it seems, probably legalizing it is the only way to deal with it. Not that I’d ever visit such a place but there should be for those people that need it. Maybe they can classify people that visit those places as ’sexual addicts’ and provide places for ‘treatment’.
Still, this is likely a product of 1) puritanical values, 2) ego, 3) anger, 4) control, 5) addiction and/or 6) convenience.
I had a catholic friend describe getting married as beating masturbation. Interesting viewpoint and I’m glad that I’m 1) not his wife and 2) no longer in contact with him but if it works for him then who am I to judge. BTW: He moved to another state…
@jfpbookworm:
Maybe I live a sheltered life, but the only pragmatic pro-legalization arguments I’ve heard have been on the grounds that legal prostitution, while still problematic, is less so that illegal prostitution, since at least prostitutes would have some kind of legal recourse when shit happens.
Maybe you’ve mainly heard arguments from people who imagine that if we just legalized it it wouldn’t be bad in any way ever, but I think we agree that those people are engaged in magical thinking.
Oh, and read this info here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/10/spitzer/index.html
before getting all righteous…
There is way to much political undertow in this to be believed at face value.
“Or, perhaps, that there are differences between men and women. Like certain anatomical asymmetries…”
What on earth does that have to do with anything?
Amanda, your overall points about prostitution are well-considered, but I find your assertion that there’s a strong demand for male hetero prostitutes, yet no men willing to deliver the goods, hard to swallow. Trust me, if the demand were there, somebody would come along to fill it. (And certainly, there is some demand — and precisely as much supply, I’d wager.)
The “patriarchal privilege” part is, in this case, not codified but strictly psychological, evidenced by the fact that some men apparently want prostitutes and even mail-order brides. Any women out there want’em a man fifty bucks for a throw, give me two hours to find one (no, not me; that would be cheating, wouldn’t it?)
Before you jump all over me, keep in mind that my observations hardly cast a flattering light on men, greasy purchasers of sex. Not most men, of course, not literally anyway.
Banquo: I’m not really arguing for or against legalization/decriminalization. I’ve heard folks defending the practice based on the Sad Unfuckable John argument Amanda cited above, and as much as I can identify with such a person I don’t find that a compelling argument with respect to the policy issue.
The “legalization protects prostitutes” argument is a much more convincing one.
Most men who go to prostitutes can get sex, even strings-free, no-commitment sex, from other women.
Oh for Christ’s sake. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve read all year. That’s like saying “any teenager can go to college.” Of course Charlie Sheen can get laid.Charlie Sheen is a Hollywood movie star! Charlie Sheen is charismatic, rich and famous. Don’t you know any losers?
However, regarding the “sex for the socially infirm” argument, hiring prostitutes is far worse for losers than for Charlie Sheen. Charlie Sheen gets done with his nasty business transaction and walks away whistling a happy tune, his self-respect largely intact. Charlie Sheen doesn’t get finished with his prostitute and look in the mirror and say to himself, “Jesus, look at me, I’m such a complete loser that the only way in the world I’m ever going to get next to a woman is to pay for it.”
(Yes, prostitution is also no good for prostitutes, but that does not contradict what I said above any more than “the sky is blue” disproves “the sun is bright.”)
Oh, by the way, to Hell with Eliot Spitzer. $5000 for a hooker! Die in a fire, you rich fuck.
jfpbookworm — to clarify why prostitution is not like music, ask yourself why no-one pays for friendship (or, if they do, they are in total denial about it — unlike a john hiring a prostitute or calling an escort service). Friendship is nice and enjoyable, yes? Like music? Like sex, too.
What is the difference? The point of friendship is mutuality. To buy a friend would be to vitiate the point of it. Prostitution exists to destroy mutuality. You can be into music, but music can’t be into you.
Mutuality and solidarity can exist in casual sex — mutuality and solidarity doesn’t mean fidelity, life-long commitment, any of that. What it does mean is for whatever moment you are interacting, you are both there uncoerced and the pleasure comes from the very mutuality of it: even if that mutuality consists of woo! let’s get it on in the bathroom of the pub and then never see one another again! If you’re both into it, right on.
The ways that prostitution destroys mutuality AND WHY THAT IS KEY TO ITS EXISTENCE IN SITUATIONS OF INEQUALITY (sexual or economic) — that’s, like, the point. That’s why it’s so incredibly popular, that’s what turns people on about it. That’s why while decriminalization is cool, legalization is not.
Anony,
Think of the bare minimum effort required of a female prostitute. On the other hand, it’s a little more difficult if a male prostitute just lies there.
I think it’s naive not to expect that the different physiological nature of sexual arousal in men and women affects the market for sex.
When we look up the economic ladder to more genteel and sophisticated arrangements, gender becomes more identifiably important.
Felgund and PinkyLeftBrain:
Who said that the Left needs to tie ourselves to a single person, or a few people? It doesn’t matter how we found out about Spitzer’s flaws; we know about them. If he won’t uphold our values, I see no reason not to allow his lieutenant governor, a man who has overcome a significant disability, an opportunity to show what he can do.
Kathleen,
The equivalent of paying for friendship would be paying for romance. The equivalent of paying for sex is paying for one of the incidents of friendship, like emotional support, or companionship.
Plenty of people go to psychologists and pay for conversation or emotional support.
The definition of AFF and CL being?
Just lay back and enjoy it, eh, Banquo? Yeah, somehow I doubt that’s what these skeezes are buying women to abuse want. If that was it, they could easily get it.
It’s not like women want to get laid or anythi—-Oh, yeah, wait. How inconvenient for that argument. If all a hooker has to do is lie there, then it makes even less sense that there’s prostitution. Bad sex that you pay for! Woo hoo!
Benquo — your attempted smackdown has no room for happy, satisfying casual sex which is not “romantic” at all. You lose.
What you seem to be arguing here is that the value and purpose of sex can only come from a satisfying emotional bond of some kind. But that’s only one possible source of pleasure in sex. There is the physical sensation, the experience of novelty, and other sources of pleasure as well.
To bring up massages again, a massage received freely from a lover, or a good friend, may be satisfying in particular ways that a massage received from a paid professional may not be. But that doesn’t make a paid-for massage devoid of pleasure. Nor does the lack of that mutuality make it inherently wrong. Nor does it necessarily mean that you, the recipient of the massage, are guilty of regarding the masseuse as something less-than-human - just a pair of hands to be used and tossed away.
“It doesn’t matter how we found out about Spitzer’s flaws; we know about them.”
If Spitzer is guilty, screw him. That’s a very simple decision.
However, it is absolutely critical to determine how Spitzer was found out.
If he was nailed as the result of Bush DOJ selective prosecution, this must be exposed. It’s logical to assume that if Democrats are being targeted, than Republicans are being ignored.
For the health of our nation, “Rovian Ratfucking” cannot be allowed as a “normal” practice. If that type of thing is allowed to continue, “crime” will be slowly defined down until consensual sex in the White House is considered a crime against the whole country - OPPS! Too late…
Amanda,
I can’t speak to whatever the heck the asymetrical physical things might be, but I think there is another asymmetry in play, at least to a degree.
Yes, there are women who are perfectly happy to have no-strings sex, but I suspect that there are far more men willing to. So it may be easier for women to find men who aren’t looking to get paid.
Add in women who have the wealth and power to both afford and ignore social consequences of keeping a boy-toy, whether in her home or effectively on call (still not prostitution, but definitely in the neighborhood).
You’d end up with whatever the female equivalent of “too unattractive to interest people who might want to have sex” is, and given the American male population, that sets the bar pretty low.
It may be that women who would otherwise be the equivalent of the men looking for prostitutes have an easier availability of free supply.
Not necessarily a utopia of consequence-free encounters, but the availability. That would skew the demand for paid workers, at least a bit.
Jeez, Kathleen, I went back to the lower string and saw you are in favor of decriminalization but not legalization. (The difference is well explained on this Coyote LA site here: http://www.freedomusa.org/coyotela/decrim.html)
The whole discussion was in the context of what Spitzer did and whether that should be illegal. You slammed us as disgusting for arguing that it should be legal, in that contex but you say you were in favor of decriminalization all the time? Are you insane or perverse?
OK. As explained by the Coyote site, I agree decriminalization seems to make more sense than legalization. I gather that’s what’s been done in Canada. So, as a value statement, what Spitzer did in calling an agency to arrange for an assignation where the payment was exchanged and the sex occurred in the privacy of a hotel room, should be legal (even if he induced her to cross state lines).
The fact that he engaged in illegal conduct where he built his career in large part on prosecuting such conduct is a hypocritical act serious enough to call for his resignation, imo.
Whew.
Spitzer betrayed every body who voted for him, and, in my opinion, should resign and just go away. But, if they are actually going to arrest the prostitutes in this case, and I feel strongly that Spitzer should be arrested! As in almost all high profile prostitution cases, I’m … stunned, although I shouldn’t be, by the double standard.
As making prostitution illegal has been stunningly unsuccessful in making the life of prostitutes better in any way, I don’t see any reason to support laws against prostitution. Of course, from the conservative point of view, making prostitutes miserable is the point. I guess it is supposed to be a disincentive to prostitutes, plus of course it allows us to put some woman on the bottom of the social chain where the police will laugh - representing all of us - if she is raped or murdered. And it is very important to have those negative figures on the bottom. But somehow, I’m against all that shit.
Not in the Caribbeans.
“What it does mean is for whatever moment you are interacting, you are both there uncoerced and the pleasure comes from the very mutuality of it: even if that mutuality consists of woo! let’s get it on in the bathroom of the pub and then never see one another again! ”
But again, can’t the mutuality (speaking in theory) be “Woo! One of us gets sex we’re willing to pay for and the other gets money we’re willing to have sex for!”
Sorry for the alphabet soup — CL is Craigslist, and AFF is Adult Friend Finder.
Ballast — a massage from a friend, a lover, whoever, is primarily intended to give pleasure to the recepient, though perhaps the massager gets some kind of satisfaction by proxy from providing that pleasure. The paid variety of massage replicates this form. It is, in its “free” and “paid” varieties, inherently unequal as regards pleasure.
That’s not how unpaid sex works, if done properly — it gives pleasure to both parties.
Paid sex changes this equation: one party gets pleasure, as in a massage, while the other gives it, as in a massage.
It’s interesting, actually, that you use massage as your example. It’s a perfect model of how sexist assholes understand all sex, paid or unpaid, which is why they don’t get what the big whoop is about prostitution — a pleasure for the man, from which a woman receives (perhaps) some satisfaction in giving, so that money is fair “compensation” in a situation in which she is not expected to get any pleasure even by proxy.
Care to try again?
Northern Virginia, if no one beats me to it
AFF = Adult Friend Finder
CL = Craigslist
These are web sites, remove the spaces and add .com and you will get there. The first is a dating/sex encounter site and the latter you undoubtedly know about but perhaps weren’t aware that it has a casual encounter section.
Thomas, “grossed out” perhaps was an overstatement, perhaps “seriously icked” is closer.
That would be fine, if the party behind the ‘discovery’ practiced by the same morals that they foist on others. THEY DO NOT! Vitter, Craig, McCain, Gingrich, Limbaugh, etc, etc, etc…
I remember a Star Trek episode that fits this well. To ‘eliminate’ war, two planets would draw random areas of the planet as ‘attacked’ and they the people in those areas would file into dematerialization machines to die.
I imagined the other planet not living up to their end of the bargain. Who would have known?
Elliott didn’t use public money to hire them, he didn’t use public areas to be with them. And the story is what? I’m sure that he threw out glass bottles and used plastic grocery bags too. The point is, if you read the Glenn Greenwald article that I linked to above, this has the incredible stench of a political prosecution. A stinking turd thrown into the middle of the dinner table. We are meant to be shocked. It’s part of the game.
Karl Rove called it ‘rat fucking’. He mailed letters slamming his own candidate on the opponents stationary just to manufacture and mold the publics opinion of his candidate and turn popular opinion against his heavily favorited opponent.
And come on, the Mann Act? Read up on it. Hell, Charlie Chaplin was prosecuted under it in an attempt to run him out of the country!
Beware in this overly politically perverted time, a sudden ‘gift’ to the hyperventilating base… Democrats find themselves fighting a firehose of vitriol and bile and the GOP (Vitter, et all) sit and laugh…
Peter — are you really willing to go to bat for that definition of mutuality? Cause it’s utterly crap, as a moment’s thought will tell you.
Roger, you’re kind of missing something. Prostitution is stunningly unsuccessful in making the lives of women happy.
Why don’t we ask Heidi Fleiss how well the free market argument worked for her when she proposed to open a stud farm (her name for it) in Nevada? People went apeshit, even though there are brothels in the state. Hell, Nevadans mourned when the Mustang Ranch closed a couple of years ago.
I would disagree that there is equal demand by women for hot, young men to have sex with, but I see this as the result of sexism and the denial of women’s sexuality. Our common cultural trope is that women do not have their own sexual desires, independent of men, but that they are vessels to fulfill men’s sexual desires.
Maybe that’s the main reason I see sex work as problematic in a way that other forms of labor are not. I can use my labor for myself or others, for pay or free but it is still mine. A prostitute is seen as selling something that she doesn’t inherently own– her sexuality– which justifies the ill treatment most prostitutes are afforded. Just look at the definition of “common woman” in medieval England– a prostitute was literally not allowed to refuse any man willing to pay them for sex. If your sexuality was not bought by a husband, and you ever had sex for money, you had to provide sex to any man willing to pay for it– you weren’t allowed to reserve your services for particular men. I honestly don’t think that, as far as mentality goes, we’ve progressed all that far from the common woman.
Pinky, there’s the unfortunate fact that Charlie Chaplin had a thing for underage girls. So, yeah….
“I think the ideal they hold up for these cases is something like Inara on Firefly the “happy hooker” who chooses her clients (of course, this may mean that the Sad Unfuckable John is still unfuckable)”
Beat me to it. The Companion model is the only one I find acceptable because Companions do not have to have sex with people with whom they don’t want to. I used to think that feminists saying prostitution is rape were spewing pure hyperbole, but it has since occurred to me that not being able to choose one’s sex partners severely diminishes the degree to which consent can be considered meaningful.
By the way, I don’t think anyone is unfuckable, it is just more difficult for some people to find sex partners that meet certain ideals of attractiveness.
And ‘Kathleen’. People don’t ‘buy’ friendship?
Since when?
Nobody gets sex for free…
Is there such a thing as ‘happy casual sex’? True some people treat sex like scratching their back or getting a haircut but usually there is somebody hurt in the process…
But that’s not why he was prosecuted, AFAIK. It was ’something’ that they could ‘get’ him with. Weak but it was ’something’…
Sad that laws like that exist and that government lawyers spend our tax money figuring out which ones they can stretch to fit their agenda.
Covering several bases:
Amanda: There is absolutely no reason that the brothels in Nevada need to keep their workers virtual prisoners on premises, if it’s just about sex.
Hadn’t heard about this - got a reference for edification? Legalized prostitution in NZ seems to have gone down a different path, possibly because we’re too small to isolate the brothels from the communities.
Most men who go to prostitutes can get sex, even strings-free, no-commitment sex, from other women. They want something else. For some, like David Vitter, I think it might just be a need to have some weird kink fulfilled. But I suspect for many, if not most, it’s the idea of buying a woman that’s the allure. Which is why the “consenting adults” argument rings a bit hollow.
An alternative perspective
Kathleen: If you’re paying for it, it’s coercion,
Do you ever pay for someone to cook for you, drive for you, clean for you, repair for you, or care for you?
Peter: I’ve always taken it for granted (as in, utterly unexamined) that the primary reason to legalize was precisely for the protection of the worker.
I got the impression during the debates here that that was the motivation, certainly as expressed by Beyer. I have no idea what the situation is now, but the Prostitutes’ Collective appears to be happy with the law change.
Jimbo: I think what would really be cool would be for sex workers to unionize and create institutions that to help keep them safe, while outlawing brothels (unless cooperatively run by sex workers themselves).
Or, alternatively, allow the prostitutes to act as free agents in dealing with brothels, letting them go where-ever they prefer to work or set up for themselves. Either they provide value to the worker or they go under. A bit like taxi companies, I guess.
That’s quite a leap you make there. I would never say that this is what “all sex” is, or even most sex. I do think some sex can be that - i.e. pleasure which one person gives to another, who perhaps receives some satisfaction in giving, as you put it. Indeed, I think it’d be very simplistic to say that no “properly done” sexual act could ever conceivably take that form.
Okay, it may be that some men have more trouble than others getting casual sex. That’s true across the board.
But the point is that Charlie Sheen, who has no problem getting casual sex, was hiding behind the “Woe is me, I’m so undersexed” argument.
Good evidence as any that the argument is bullshit used to distract from reality.
Wait, what? Anything more than speculation behind that lurid suggestion?
Yes, there are women who are perfectly happy to have no-strings sex, but I suspect that there are far more men willing to.
If you want to change that fact, then you need to join with those of us who promote sex as a mutual thing instead of something a woman owns and trades to a man as something else. Women are reluctant to have casual sex precisely because women are told that sex is their commodity that they exchange for other things, and so they’re hanging onto the milk to get the cow.
Until we get rid of that idea, then the sad sacks of men who occasionally—but not always—strike out in their absolute need to get casual sex will probably have some nights of going without. It’s really partially their fault, if they buy into the idea that women are items up for purchase instead of fellow human beings that may or may not want to have fun with them.
Sixties Liberal, if you follow the Spitzer thread, you will see that the shit storm started when Kathleen asked a simple question: Why are people so resistant to the idea that prostitution is exploitative? And really, even those who think selling sex is a woman’s right usually acknowledge that in most of the circumstances under which this occurs in our current society, it is exploitative. For her efforts, Kathleen was accused of hating women, wanting to control all women, hating sex, wanting women to be raped and brutalized, needing medication, being sick and twisted and being worried that her husband or boyfriend was getting some on the side. And about 90 percent of this bullying was coming from men. So, Sixties Liberal, that is the “context” in which she called some of you “disgusting.”
Personally, I’m probably on the decriminalization side, but not completely decided. But the level of abuse that commenters, some of them regulars on a feminist blog, were willing to heap on someone who finds paying for sex problematic really disturbed me.
From the Greenwald article:
PLB, fuck you. I was poly for a good part of my adult life; you can take your issues somewhere else. Some people can and do respect casual partners who are really just casual partners.
Quicksand, the warrant affidavit quotes a woman saying that Spitzer asked prostitutes to do things that were unsafe, “basic things.” Most of us are interpreting that as no-condom.
James said:
You seem to think you are making an argument for why its okay that many, many, many more women work as prostitutes than men. But you actually are making an argument for why IT’S NOT OKAY.
If men aren’t selling sex because they have other opportunities, that means that people with other opportunities don’t sell sex. That is not an argument for why prostitution is not morally problematic.
What do you think you have to pay extra for, Quicksand? Do you honestly, in your heart, believe that someone has to pay a shitload extra and have the prostitutes warned first because they want something that’s considered safe? In fact, the language in the warrant specifically states that he was asking prostitutes to do things they considered unsafe.
As Stephen Levitt demonstrated, the cultural traditions around prostitution in the U.S. include the extra-expensive sadistic pleasures of putting the prostitute at risk by going without a condom. It must be exciting indeed to do that, because whoever does is also risking an STI that he gets to bring home to his wifey.
I looked into my heart and realized I’d be screaming bloody murder if a Republican did it. If we don’t want them to have double standards, we can’t have double standards.
Hetero male prostitution exists, but the dynamic is different. I’ve seen it in the third world, where western female sex tourists visit and hook-up with local for the duration of her visit. It is not the cash on the table for services rendered type of prostitution but more like a temporary relationship wherein gifts and cash flow from the woman to the man. A good movie that depicts this is Vers Sud, with the incomparable Charlotte Rampling. Terry McMillian had just such a relationship. You can try to explain why it’s different through social and economic means, but i think you would be remiss to not consider that there may be real psychological or biological differences in the way men and women approach sex.
Thanks, Chingona. What’s come through for me is how unbelievably sex-negative the defenders of prostitution are — every parallel they can think of is to something just awful, like, what if I wanted to pay you 50 dollars to poke you in the head with a sharp stick and you agreed? Wouldn’t that be 100% fair, your choice to do what you want with your body, and ERGO the epitome (say in Vern voice) of feminism?
I mean, you’d reckon their sexual experience was rather a drearyish wasteland or something.
Sixties Liberal, if you follow the Spitzer thread, you will see that the shit storm started when Kathleen asked a simple question: Why are people so resistant to the idea that prostitution is exploitative?
I don’t have a problem with that question. Prostitution is exploitative (although, at $5,500 an hour, clearly not all prostitution is the same).
But any capitalist relationship is exploitative. Kathleen then went on to shudder oh so delicately at the special ickiness of sex.
Let me make this very clear to people who run to the defense of johns, any johns:
Spitzer, by