Posted by Amanda Marcotte March 25, 2008 in Asides
In this article, I originally read the quote to say:
Parents should be ready if children ask what a prostitute is, said Judy Kuriansky, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University Teachers College.
“If they ask,” she said, “You say, ‘Sadly there are some women who feel that when they have an intimate experience with someone they don’t need to get paid for it. This is something that is not healthy and I don’t accept it or condone it.’”
That is not what it said. But it would have been a lot cooler if it was.
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Amanda,
Are you a distant relative of mine? My mom and I always mis-read and mis-hear things. And when we do, what we heard/read is always far more interesting than the reality.
Kids take their cue from their parents. If the parents are making a big deal out of something, the kids are going to want to know what it’s all about. Otherwise, it just filters into the boring background chatter of lame “adult stuff.”
If parents are that upset that people are talking about prostitution on the nightly news because ZOMG little Timmy will want to know what a prostitute is, all they need to do is react to the story in the same fashion that they’ve reacted to the result of the 4,000th war casualty, or no-bid contract scandals, or any other completely outrageous bullshit that the Bush administration has performed. Chances are, little Timmy didn’t ask “daddy, what’s a warrantless wiretap?” or “Daddy, what’s a civilian casualty?” because he didn’t see his parents getting upset about it so it didn’t really register in his head as something he should be concerned about.
Gah. It’s 11:15am. Is it too early to pour myself a stiff drink and cry myself to sleep?
The point. She misses it.
Misreading is my middle name. It’s a practice that never fails to improve the quality of the news.
Because I’m sure Timmy knows what “condone” means…
Kyra, thank you for the laugh! I needed it. I also crack myself up as I waste work time to make an lolcats:
‘Splainin’. Ur doin it wrong.
If the parents are making a big deal out of something, the kids are going to want to know what it’s all about.
Yup. The thread below (and recent reading related to that original thread from last week) reminded me of various ways I overheard adults talking about AIDS when I was a kid (mid 80’s).
My parents, who work in the medical industry, talked about it pretty incessantly because my dad worked on some of the very first AIDS research back in grad school. Occasionally kindergarten me would get a chunk of “Well do you think it could have been developed in a lab?” and thought “blah blah blah boring grownup stuff; I will go play with my dress-up box now…”
But then I would also hear other adults, friends’ parents, teachers, people at church, ‘ordinary folks’, etc. talking about it, and it sounded SCARY!!!! Did you know you can catch it from toothbrushes???!!!! My sister is a receptionist at a doctor’s office, and OMG what if some AIDS person touched her!!!!
So of course I became completely freaked out at the prospect of some terrible plague you could catch from toothbrushes or routine checkups, and my parents had to give me the full shpeil. Which luckily, being well informed and sensible, they were fully equipped to.
Should be, “Sadly, many men feel the need to denigrate women and some men want to denigrate them sexually and pay for the “privilege”. Denigration of anybody is not healthy for anyone and I denounce those who engage seek to demean anyone whether for free or payment, sexual or otherwise.”
Which is not to imply that sex is demeaning, but I don’t think prostitution is all about sex - its about power & control, i.e., demeaning other people. ‘Course, many people don’t pay to demean others, but that’s a whole other conversation.
Why not just use the neutral definition of “a prostitute is someone who has sex for money”?
Oh, right, because then they’d have to explain what sex is, and that’s what they’re trying to avoid most of all.
I know that’s the current meme here at the P’gon, but some men no doubt just want a quick blowjob, hold the denigration.
Convenience is also control. Hey, and power too. But the form of pearl-clutching here is the “demeaning” angle. ::eyeroll::
That explanation makes it sound like prostitutes are indistinguishable from normal sex partners until they unexpectedly whip out an itemized invoice for the encounter, complete with suggested gratuity. Isn’t it usually more along the lines of “‘There are some men who feel that they need to pay in order to have the sort of intimate experience they want.”?
I have, in fact, explained prostitution to my pre-school aged child. I told him that sadly, there are some women who are so poor and need money so badly that in order to feed themselves or their children, and sometimes to take care of their families, they will have sex with people if those people will pay them for it.
He agreed that that is very sad indeed.
The point. She misses it.
By a very, very significant distance, IMO.
Preying mantis, men clearly are the innocent victims of evil, greedy, emotionally unavailable women. They think they’re having a nice, romantic tryst and then the woman says, I don’t think so, buster! You have to pay for access to the pussy.
Either that or the men are actually entitled to free sex on demand and women are teh evil for exploiting men’s natural, uncontrollable needs.
I’m not sure which presents the worse view of sexuality and women.
I think the second one, because I’ve actually read MRA types who made that argument, almost verbatim. They believe that the male sex drive is so uncontrollable that it’s “exploitation of men” when prostitutes ask them to pay for sex.
Hell, vulgar and sexist “sex-positive” types sometimes make that same argument.
At least the “women have sex with men and then ask for money out of the blue” thing is such a departure from the facts that even MRAs can’t quite bring themselves to claim it. (They’re more likely to whinge about how “you have to pay for sex anyway.”)
“blah blah blah boring grownup stuff; I will go play with my dress-up box now…” - the opoponax
It seems you and I are about the same age (maybe you are a bit younger). Your mentioning of the dress-up box is funny to me ‘cause I was always interested in science and medicine and I distinctly remember having actually in my toy-box (inexplicably shaped like a football) articles about GRID and then AIDS.
My parents never had to have “the talk” with me. They just had so many medical, etc., books laying around by the time they got around to wondering why I hadn’t asked them certain questions and raised the subject of sex with me, they found out (they were kinda taken aback, actually — although considering everything they shouldn’t have been) that I already knew everything they were going to tell me and then some.
When my friend’s little brother (age 10 at the time) asked him “What’s a prostitute?,” his answer was “It’s someone who you pay to have sex with. It’s illegal.”
“Oh, okay,” said the little brother, and moved on with his life.
The same day he also asked my friend what a condom was, to which he gave a similarly matter-of-fact answer (prefaced with “Aren’t you having sex ed in school this year? I’m surprised they didn’t tell you this”).
Discussions on morality and ethics are fine, and can be important, but there’s no need to make a big deal of it when all the kid asked for was a definition.
I know that’s the current meme here at the P’gon, but some men no doubt just want a quick blowjob, hold the denigration. - Eric, Rejector of Memes
Indeed. There is indeed a such thing as a Lonely John. Not all people are rich and/or young-uns who can just “hook up”. Some people do have desires and fulfilling them within the context of a relationship is actually rather expensive … it’s simply less time consuming and indeed cheaper to visit a prostitute.
Of course, there is a large aspect of patriarchical double standards involved here: what do Lonely Janets do? why is it that it is expensive for a man to date (e.g. because women are forced by society to be gatekeepers who must be wooed)?. There is also still a highly exploitative aspect to prostitution even when a “Lonely John” is just getting something out of it. And let us not forget (even if this should neither affect nor effect legislation) the moral aspect of turning God’s gift of sexuality into an I-It relationship. Prostitution is wrong on many levels and, while we feminists can and should work to ease the exploitation of sex-workers, we also must work to end that which is exploiting them in the first place.
But I still agree with Eric … pearl clutching about sex (especially when it seems to involve a sense of privilege that sex is for young and/or rich people) is problematic whether it’s being done by liberals or by conservatives. Actually, it’s worse when done by liberals — either erstwhile media liberals complaining about “teh kidz nowadays” or by presumed feminists — as we can’t expect any better from conservatives.
articles about GRID and then AIDS.
I was 5 or so when the US government and media FINALLY got around to mentioning that AIDS was a legitimate issue. Not really at the level of reading medical articles, as brilliant as I was back then.
As I got older, yes, I was able to follow it in the media. It kind of shocks me how not unconcerned I was about it, as a child. I was doing a little AIDS history refresher course over the weekend and was shocked about how much I just wasn’t aware of even though I was alive when it was all happening. I’m thinking about picking up a copy of And the Band Played On next time I run into it, because WOW.
I wonder if this is how a lot of kids growing up now will feel in 20 years regarding Sept. 11, the ‘war’ on ‘terror’, etc?
why is it that it is expensive for a man to date
I don’t think it’s so much that it’s expensive for a man to date, but that if a typical dinner date costs $50 (assuming heteronormative conditions where men always pay for women) and does not guarantee sex, and a typical blowjob from the neighborhood streetwalker is $20 and definitely guarantees sex, men who want sex and nothing else will prefer to save their $30.
Maybe I’m just a cheap bohemian freak, but I’m generally happy to pursue a relationship with someone I like even if she or he is broke.
Sadly there are McDonald employees who don’t believe that smiles are for free, and insist on being paid at least the minimum wage for cooking and serving food.
Whether johns consciously seek to denigrate women, or whether it’s an unintended consequence of an inherently exploitative practice such as prostitution would probably involve actually finding johns and asking them why they pay for sex, and how they see payment for sexual services as license in their treatment of the woman… But I don’t want to talk to johns because I’m kind of grossed out by the fact that they are johns, so I doubt I’ll ever have an answer to this question.
Just read the actual article…
Back to bed with me.
Old joke: Two little kindergarten girls are walking to school.
First girl: I found a contraceptive on the patio this morning.
Second girl: What’s a patio?
When I was a kid I wanted to be a “hooker,” not because I knew about sex or prostitution, but because I thought a hooker was a special kind of policeman, due to the evil influence of William Shatner. My teachers curiously dismissed my proud career aspirations. One of my buddies on the schoolyard let me know about my mistake a little while later– in the fifth grade. In this case, the “Lore of the Schoolyard” proved true.
Elinor, I thought I was exaggerating! How depressing.
I have, in fact, explained prostitution to my pre-school aged child. I told him that sadly, there are some women who are so poor and need money so badly that in order to feed themselves or their children, and sometimes to take care of their families, they will have sex with people if those people will pay them for it.
Of course, Ashley Dupree falls into none of that. And women never visit prostitutes. And people have all the sex they want making prostitution solely about sex. And we hear many college women stripping and prostituting because they are so poor and not because they find the experience pleasurable at all.
I thought you folks were beyond Victorianism.
I am glad that Amanda made it clear that she thinks that every sexual encounter demands some sort of payment.
I had thought Amanda claimed to be sex positive…. (A few days ago we found Jill making the statement that dating men was inherently contradictory to feminism.)
As a feminist myself, I think there is nothing wrong with feminist women dating men. And I think that prostitution should be legalized (not just decriminalized.) Of course, I also think that women are rational and effective and have agency. Someday you may too, but until then, I will try to promote feminism even in anti-feminist threads such as this one.
Does that include women who expect to be wined and dined prior to sex?
Wow, anti-feminist, because you can’t tell the difference between dating and hiring a prostitute doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t. Sorry you gotta pay for it; most men don’t have to.
Hmm, Maybe I can’t tell the difference, except of course, your quoted response only makes sense in the context of dating, and makes no sense whatsoever if you were only talking about prostitution.
(BTW, I think you’ve mistaken my handle, since I advocate for women having no restrictions placed on them, being in charge of their body, and acknowledge, celebrate, and respect women as rational, effective agents, I think it’s clear I am the feminist here. One day, you may be a feminist too
)
OMG is this some kind of hybrid between OMG YAY PORN WOO ‘feminism’ and libertarianism?
Because when I hear that someone wants to place ‘no restrictions’ on what women can do with their bodies, that’s kind of the sense I get.
Of course women should be able to sell themselves. The free market is god!
Perhaps you should read that again then, because I never wrote what you claimed to have read.
I advocate for women having no restrictions placed on them, being in charge of their body, and acknowledge, celebrate, and respect women as rational, effective agents,
Isn’t what I wrote just the basic plank of feminism?
I am glad that Amanda made it clear that she thinks that every sexual encounter demands some sort of payment. - Aren’t You Being Anti-Feminist
In High School English class did you have problems understanding what your teacher was talking about when s/he refereed to “tone”?
*
Wow, anti-feminist, because you can’t tell the difference between dating and hiring a prostitute doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t. Sorry you gotta pay for it; most men don’t have to. - Amanda Marcotte
I think you’d be amazed at how many woman have internalized the “I’m a gatekeeper” sexual role and how many men have internalized the “I need to obtain sex” role. I dunno how kosher (pun intended) it is to combine Buber with feminism, but all too many people, instead of building positive and healthy sexual I-Thou relationships, are stuck in gender roles that only allow them to build an I-It relationship. And if a relationship is built on the dynamic of “man takes woman out to dinner at expensive restaurant and then woman might have sex with him”, how is that, other than the lack of explicitness in the transaction and the lack of a guarantee of sex, any different than prostitution?
the opononax, IMHO, wins the thread re what passes among certain people for “sex positive feminism”. A real sex-positive feminism would point out the degree to which traditional gender roles are exploitative and work to erase those gender roles to ensure that people are better able to engage in I-Thou rather than I-It sexual relationships (would Booberism be too un-PC of a name here?). A real sex-positive feminism would also be cognisant of how both rigid gender roles (by effectively making sex an expensive transaction relative to prostitution … and then condemning those who seek companionship with prostitutes) and the “if you can’t afford kids, don’t have sex” ethos of the right are not only sex-negative but also extremely classist. And a real sex positive feminism would do all it can to help out exploited sex workers.
But a real sex positive feminism cannot countanance exploitation. And even though the sort of relationship that is “too expensive relative to going to a prostitute” is exploitative, prostitution is itself exploitative … just cheaper and hence a worse deal for those who get less reward for it. I can imagine for pragmatic reasons sex-positive feminists not wanting to criminalize prostitution to ease the punishment of already exploited sex workers, but I cannot imagine sex-positive feminism embracing the prostitute/john relationship as a positive one.
re: #31 the opoponax
The way I see it is, we need some major rewording, it’s not that “women shouldn’t be allowed to sell themselves”, it should be, “men shouldn’t be allowed to buy women”. In the first statement, it pins the /source/ of the problem on the victim again. Instead, we should address the systematic offenses that leads to women being forced to sell their bodies.
Better welfare, access to education, living minimum wage (very important since pink collar jobs pay much less than blue collar jobs), universal healthcare.
Jeez Amanda, are you a “sex-blogger” or a “pearl-clutcher”? Seems to me that you keep getting accused of both at the same time.
Can we all agree to this: Most women do not like to have sex for money, but some are forced into due to circumstances that are mostly out of their control. Alternately, there are some prostitutes that do it for sheer enjoyment, but they compose a minority of all prostitutes. Neither of these groups should be penalized, by the law or otherwise, but there should be help available for those who want out of the industry. The vast majority of prostitutes are women, and the vast majority of those who pay for sex are men, due to disputed reasons, but reasonably because of social attitudes about sex and various power distinctions. Many “Johns” visit prostitutes because they enjoy the power they hold over women in a less fortunate position (ie sexism and classism, and depending, racism). There may be some “Johns” who do it because they cannot get sex for a variety of reasons, and have no classism or sexism in them, however unlikely that is in a patriarchal society. Their ability or inability to get sex does not make them entitled to it. Some men’s lack of ability to get sex is not a compelling reason for the legalization of prostitution.
Anything wrong with that statement? No pearl-clutching about sex anywhere in it.
Mercurial Georgia,
Today’s “Hear and Now” touched on “repugnance”
http://realserver.bu.edu:8080/ramgen/w/b/wbur/herenow/2008/03/hn_0325.rm
Should women be allowed to sell their babies? Why is it okay to pay an adoption agency for a baby?
Should women be allowed to rent their womb? And yet, paying for a surrogate seems okay.
Or to quote George Carlin, selling is legal, fucking is legal, why isn’t selling fucking legal?
Regarding men buying women, please fill out the rest of the table for me: are you okay with men buying men? Women buying women? Women buying men?
How is buying a massage any different from an I-it relationship? What is it that makes a massage with a “happy ending” a social bad, but a massage with no happy ending a social good?
If Lonely Janets could more easily and acceptably purchase sex, would your views change? And how do you think the Lonely Janets would vote on this?
What is it about “money” that changes the equation so drastically?
Is a one night hookup between two people as facilitated by Craigslist on the casual sex page: bad or good? Is it I-Thou, or I-It? And if you peruse CL’s pages you’ll find many lonely janets there. They often identify as BBW (but not always.) You’ll find on those same pages many men that are seeking BBWs. What do you think is going on there?
Now how about those one night hookups between two people as facilitated by Craigslist on the erotic services page: bad or good? I-Thou or I-It?
A blowjob on that page is not $20. More like $80 to $200 which is in the same ballpark as that date, if not more so.
How do you determine who is being exploited?
Mercurial Georgia — yep, yep, and yep.
I’ve promised to ‘abstain’ from media on Tuesday and Thursday nights, which means my time is up. But I didn’t want it to seem like I just disappeared from this thread, which will probably run its course by tomorrow…
What is it that makes a massage with a “happy ending” a social bad, but a massage with no happy ending a social good?
Are you aware that if you really want a massage, you can just purchase one? Without the sex, I mean. No massage needs to end with a “happy ending”, or at least the type of “happy ending” that you’re implying. If that is not your intent, then that’s not very clear. And if it is what you mean, why not just say, “massage with sex”? Because there is a difference in just getting a massage and getting that massage with sex.
And I would say massages in general are social good. But I suspect you’re not talking about just getting a massage.
What is it about “money” that changes the equation so drastically?
The fact that money is being exchanged for something that’s not really a commodity. And if you really think sex is a commodity, you have a fucked up view of sex. As for two people “hooking up” from Craigslist, the thing is, two people looking for random sex are negotiating sex with each other - one person isn’t buying the rights outright to someone else’s body.
Antigone - I agree with your comment. Well said.
BAH! Blasphemed too soon!
I could not believe that quote. I hate to say it, but where’s the MEN in that quote? You know, the men that feel that they have to pay for the “intimate experience”?
Anti-feminist:
Should women be allowed to sell their babies? Why is it okay to pay an adoption agency for a baby?
You are not buying a baby. That’s called “slavery”. Even though we generally think of children in that way, they are not commodities, and parents don’t own them.
As for most of your questions, I think the general idea comes from the fact that you are selling your body, and that your body is inheirantly part of you (or is you, depending on what philosophy you fall under). Selling yourself (not your labor, not your skills, but you) is veering dangerously close to a VERY BAD THING (namely, slavery). Complicating this further is a long history of women not being able to “own” their own sexuality. A history where the women didn’t get to choose when and whom she had sex with, and then later the ridiculous idea that she didn’t actually enjoy sex. We still have this odd idea of sex as something that women have (or are) and something men need to get (or conquer). Man fucks woman- subject verb object; it is an extremely common idea of sexual intercourse, and that is further aggrivated by the idea of sex as a commodity.
When a man buys sex from a woman, he is furthering the idea that sex is something that a woman has, or is, and that deginerates every day sexual interaction. When two people negotiate on Craigslist for a hook up, they are defining each other as equals.
*This is redundant, but none of the above should be taken as supporting the criminalization of sex.
* criminalization of prostitution, sorry should preview better
sigh. I really wish the term “selling yourself/themself” would dry up and die. Most sex workers aren’t “selling themselves”, they are providing a service. the purchaser does not usually get a deed to them at the time of payment and does not get to put them in the closet or garage like other items he has purchased. and if we are thinking of “self” in more esoteric terms, well then the phrase reduces the supplier, and the whole of their worth as a human, to their genitalia. there is far more to “self” than that.
I really can’t see as not selling yourself any more than I can see selling an organ as not selling yourself. During sex, I am letting someone touch me, and insert themselves in me, and kiss me; all very intimate actions, and all extremely sensative on both a biological level and on a social level. The exchange I get out of this is I get to enjoy this, but I am giving over my body voluntarily.
If you don’t see it that way, so be it; thus the “it should not be illegal” part. But, I can’t call it something that I don’t believe it to be.
Re: If the parents are making a big deal out of something, the kids are going to want to know what it’s all about.
To add to everyone else’s stories: when I was about eight years old, I found some of my Mom’s old magazines in the floor of her closet, and decided to practice reading because they were shiny. Several articles later, I went downstairs and asked Mom, “What’s an orgasm?” She told me it was something adults got in good sex, and felt sort of like sneezing.
It was three years later that I bothered asking what sex involved.
“Aren’t you being an anti feminist” in #36:
The key element in all of these transactions is the element of purchase.
In the case of prostitution, what is being purchased isn’t the sex. What is being purchased is an informal agreement not to report the purchaser for rape. What has been purchased isn’t the option to have sex with the prostitute, but rather the option to demand sexual behaviour from them whether or not they is willing.
As for the massage with what you euphemise as a “happy ending”, I believe it depends on what the buyer believes they are purchasing. If they’re just after non-sexualised touching in the context of relaxation and physical therapy, the “happy ending” might not be welcome at all - particularly if the masseur doesn’t ask before supplying it. In such a case, what’s been supplied is a sexual assault. If, however, the purchaser feels they are purchasing the option to demand sexual behaviour from another person under the guise of “relaxation and physical therapy”, one would hope their masseur is aware of this assumption. Whether the masseur is or isn’t aware of such expectations, however, there is no consideration of the masseur’s happiness or otherwise regarding the service provided - and again, under such circumstances, what is being purchased is the informal agreement not to file charges against the person demanding the sexual behaviour.
As for most of your questions, I think the general idea comes from the fact that you are selling your body, and that your body is inheirantly part of you (or is you, depending on what philosophy you fall under). Selling yourself (not your labor, not your skills, but you) is veering dangerously close to a VERY BAD THING (namely, slavery).
I write software. I use my organs, hands and fingers and all my typing skill as well as my brain to write the best software that meet’s the client’s needs and eliminate the pains in their processes. (We refer to ourselves as whores.)
My dentist sells her dexterity in her hands and fingers and her eyes and her brains to figure out how to eliminate the pain in my teeth.
My masseuse sells her hands and arms and her strength training and her knowledge of physiology to eliminate the pain in muscles and help me relax.
My lawyer sells me his organs, his hands and fingers to type, his eyes to read, his brain to understand, all to help me eliminate the pains in my life. (He refers to himself as a whore.)
Most jobs involve selling our organs.
And there were several questions you did not respond to. How do you feel about men paying for other men to service them? For women to pay for other men to service them? For women to pay for other women to service them?
Why is a hookup on the casual sex page any different than a hookup on the erotic services page?
All of these relationships are somewhere between I-it and I-thou.
Bonus: I often hear CEOs and Economists say that certainly outsourced workers should have save jobs, and that child labor should not be used, and in fact, many CEOs and Economists support all sorts of restrictions on foreign labor and demand all sorts of benefits. But they all put their foot down when it comes to wages. It is simply outrageous to demand that foreign workers be paid at some minimum wage.
Frankly, I would rather not be engaged in any sort of relationship involving writing software. It was a terrible career choice. I am very good at it, but I hate it. But I am forced to do it to feed my children. It sucks away my life and keeps me from contributing usefully to society. But I need it to put a roof over our heads and pay for the heat. When the client that pays the bills asks us to write something I think is a social bad (privacy invading camera software for example), I look at the want ads, the lack of jobs, my children, and I say “fuck society” I am going to write what I am being forced to write.
In doing so, I am engaged completely in I-it relationships. And i ease no one’s pain but my own. Many people consider my form of whoring a profession and okay, because it didn’t involve me selling a forbidden organ. I don’t get it.
And I truly do not understand why a one hour hookup on the casual sex page is any different from a one hour hookup on the erotic services page.
The women there are using their organs vagina, breasts, mouth, anus, hands, fingers, eyes, brains, knowledge of physiology and knowledge of massage and knowledge of sex and knowledge of cultural mores and hangups to provide a service.
All of this is to say that this blog has many pearl clutchers, but not many sex positive feminists.
Meg, I disagree completely with you, but I do want to thank you for referring to me with the entire “handle.”
I do need to change handles though, it apparently doesn’t work well with either my browser or Pandagon’s software.
Ugh, this article has stuck with me the past few days - it is just so depressing that a shrink from Colombia on a major non-Fox news site manages to make prostitution all about the women and their cruel need to charge for “intimacy.”
As someone else (on a different site) commented, how about we just rewrite that for them: “If they ask,” she said, “You say, ‘Sadly there are some men who feel that to have an intimate experience with someone they need pay someone for it. This is something that is not healthy and I don’t accept it or condone it.’”
bitchphd, much as I’m glad that your kids get a slightly better view on prostitution I notice that, again, the women are the only ones mentioned while those poor johns remain conspicuously absent.
Of course, Ashley Dupree falls into none of that. And women never visit prostitutes. And people have all the sex they want making prostitution solely about sex. And we hear many college women stripping and prostituting because they are so poor and not because they find the experience pleasurable at all.
Women who make thousands of dollars per sex act as prostitutes are the very rare exception, and women who enjoy sex work are exceptional as well. We hear “many” stories about college strippers because such stories are titillating, not because they are typical of sex workers. And in answering questions from children, especially questions that are very loaded, I think it’s important to start with facts. The basic fact of prostitution is that most prostitutes are very, very poor, and very exploited.
I notice that, again, the women are the only ones mentioned while those poor johns remain conspicuously absent.
My child is a boy; it’s tricky to talk to boys about the problems of men exploiting women, because you don’t want to send the message that you expect or believe that they will grow up to be such men. And also, while I’m familiar with the basic facts of why most women who work in prostitution do so, I’m really a lot less hazy about why men purchase prostitutes–I don’t believe a great deal of research has been done on that. And as I said to anti-feminist, I think it’s important to start with facts, which in this case means things I know about, rather than things I’d be guessing on.
That said, I wrote a much longer explanation of what I said to him over on my own blog, including answers to questions like “but what about the men?” in the comment thread, if you’re interested.
Sorry, “lot less hazy” s/b “lot more hazy.”
My guess is that a preschool child (2-4 years old right?) sophisticated enough to have had sexual intercourse explained to him, is sophisticated enough to learn that prostitutes have many reasons for doing what they do. Most may do it for lack of another job, and some may do it because they feel it is a worthwhile human service to provide, and some may do it because for fun. I think a preschool child sophisticated enough to have had sexual intercourse explained to him is old enough to be misled by your statements that there is something sad and exploitive about sex, even if you only couched it in terms of the woman and not in terms of the man.
I think you have my handle incorrect, it’s not “anti-feminist” but “Aren’t YOU being an anti-feminist” which is what I often find myself thinking when I am at blogs that don’t ascribe rationality, and agency to women, or that place women on a pedestal assuming they are not interested in sex, or capable of deception or exploiting another human, or that feel a need to implement speech codes or have differential laws in order to somehow protect a fragile woman.
By the way, congratulations on your new (?) job with Broadsheet (if I have that correct) I am hopeful you will bring a much needed intellectual honesty to Broadsheet and a Ph.D’s sense of how research is performed and how it should be reported.
Can we all agree to this: Most women do not like to have sex for money, but some are forced into due to circumstances that are mostly out of their control. Alternately, there are some prostitutes that do it for sheer enjoyment, but they compose a minority of all prostitutes.
Yes and yes, but you are forgetting a third category: women who have alternatives, but find prostitution more attractive than those alternatives - whether because they can earn more, work less time, or find the work easier than the usual 9-5 office grind. I can’t speak for the States, but I suspect that this is the largest category of sex worker in NZ - which has a minimum wage, low unemployment, and a reasonable welfare system.
Many “Johns” visit prostitutes because they enjoy the power they hold over women in a less fortunate position (ie sexism and classism, and depending, racism). There may be some “Johns” who do it because they cannot get sex for a variety of reasons, and have no classism or sexism in them, however unlikely that is in a patriarchal society.
I have to object to the words “many” and “some” above. the article I have referenced earlier suggests that most of the clients the prostitutes encounter fall into the second group, and indeed many of them don’t even want sex.
“Clients ranged from 18 to 80 and came from a mix of backgrounds. Many were married, or in long-term relationships.
“It’s men looking for a bit of variety. In some cases we help spark up relationships which have gone a little stale. It’s not our place to judge whether the guys are married or not,” Lacey said.”
Some men’s lack of ability to get sex is not a compelling reason for the legalization of prostitution.
The fact that the women in question are adult and capable of making their own choices is a compelling reason for the legalisation of prostitution.
Meg T.: What has been purchased isn’t the option to have sex with the prostitute, but rather the option to demand sexual behaviour from them whether or not they is willing.
See here:
“It was always left up to each girl to decide which of the clients they had sex with, she said. “It is always the prerogative of the girl. Some girls won’t have sex with certain types of men. That is their choice and there’s no pressure from the club owner at all.”"
I’ll take a look at the blog. I really don’t understand your explanation, I have to say, but perhaps that’ll be clearer when I’ve read what you’ve written in more detail. I’m not sure why it’s OK to make women the only ones doing something sad/wrong and the only people acting out prostitution just because you have a son. That, to me, teaches a damaging message about women (largely unwarranted) in the hopes of keeping from him a damaging message about men (warrented). But I didn’t comment to get on your case anyway. I’ll check out the blog when I get a chance.
*warranted (le typo, sigh)
Aren’t you being anti-feminist,
It was not meant as a slur, it’s just general to drop handles to one word, mainly to the first or last word, and “aren’t” seemed like a bad handle.
Anyway, most of those examples you gave are in fact critisism of capitalism, not prostitution.
Again, and I need to make this obvious, I do not wish to make prostitution illegal. But to act like having sex is just like typing on a laptop is to overlook biology and social norms.
Oh, and by the way, I really object to the term “pearl-clutching”. To suggest that I because there are some moral grays in prostitution does not mean I’m against sex is insulting to me. Heck, the fact that people are equating sex to prostitution is about as insulting as one could possibly get. What I do with partners of my choosing is not for their pleasure, but for our combined pleasures.
Antigone, I don’t see a lot of grays in this discussion. I see a lot of very one-sided statements: it’s always men who do the wrong. It’s always women being exploited. It’s never about sex. It’s always about control. Women cannot avail themselves of a prostitute. Men do not care at all about the prostitutes themselves.
I don’t find any of that to be terribly nuanced. And I find none of that to be sex positive.
I don’t understand why you make the point about capitalism. Most wage slaves I know are not in an “I-thou” relationship with their employer. Most wage slaves I know would prefer to be doing almost anything else with the majority of their lives. As Renegage Evolution suggests (and I hope I have her point correctly), it’s basically a service provided by one human to another human.
If you folks want to argue that prostitution should be outlawed for the reasons you give here, if you believe as Amanda suggests that every sexual relationship with a man needs a payment or quid pro quo or that there is something inherently anti-feminist to be dating a man as Jill (or was it Jessica) claimed, then I think that you can certainly make those intellectual arguments.
I just don’t think you should be claiming to be a sex positive blogger.
When I was about 12 my Sunday school teacher started us into a lesson on ’sexual immorality.’ For some reason I couldn’t help but read it as ’sexual immortality’ every time. Lesson would have been so much cooler with my reading.