Paying for sex, should it be illegal?

[luchog]

Yes, scalping is illegal in many countries and there are still people who fight the legislation forbidding it as they see that there is no harm arising from a scalping transaction.

Scalping is illegal because of the problem of bulk purchasing and resale, which prevents the original seller from controlling prices and distribution, and violates the terms of the original transaction.

Nothing there even remotely comparable. Except insofar as it's the reverse of prostitution, where legalizing it would give the service provider more control over the terms of the transaction, and his/her participation in it.

 

[Aepervius]

God's a prude.

How many prude do you know are having sex with the future wife of other men ?

 

[luchog]

I think the basic situation is biological...Men seem to have a much higher libido generally than women and simply want to do it much more often than the partner does.

Nope, this is not true. There was a study to the effect that men and women both have roughly equal libidos and desire for sex posted in the Science etc. forum not to long ago.

What the researchers on that study found was that after controlling for cultural stigmas regarding sex and promiscuity, the differences disappeared.

This is one of those few areas where "because patriarchy" is the right answer. It isn't about harm, particularly since all the harm is caused by prohibition. It's about controlling female sexuality because of religious proscriptions and demands. It's about preserving a worldview of women as subservient to men, whose bodies and sexuality are owned by men, starting with their fathers and eventually transferred to their husbands. It's about preserving some religious ideal of "purity" which commoditizes female sexuality in a way that prevents women from controlling or benefiting from it, except in a very narrow and limited way.

To prohibit prostitution is to deny women agency over their own bodies and sexuality.

 

[phiwum]

Just as with other sorts of activities; the illegality of the practice promotes the involvement of organized crime, human trafficking, sex slavery, and all the ills that go with the "trade".
Were commercial sex a simple business proposition as it is in some areas, we might assume that many of these ills could be greatly limited or removed.

Commercial sex has been around a very long time, in all cultures, legal or not. So far as anyone knows, no amount of regulation has ever had the slightest effect.

Boy, that sure seems obviously false to me.

You seem to suggest that there is no difference in the per capita number of prostitutes in a locale in which it is legal and one in which it is illegal, strictly enforced, and punishable by death. I sure would be surprised if there wasn't a single bit of evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps regulation has not eradicated prostitution, but I'm pretty darned sure that some forms of regulation have noticeable effects on its prevalence.

 

[mgidm86]

Wait let women make their own decisions? Crazy talk.

Bingo!

Men are just jealous because women wouldn't pay to have sex with most of us. This is one thing women absolutely have over men, and some people just don't like it.

If men could get pregnant, imagine how different abortion laws would be! We'd have drive-thru clinics

If money weren't in the equation, how many of those women would be willing to let perfect strangers have sex with them?

A lot more than the people who have "normal" jobs would do theirs without getting paid.

 

[Edx]

Please don't read this in a rude tone, because I do not mean it that way at all. I'm just curious. Why is everyone agreeing on this distinction so important?

What distinction?

 

[Butter!]

Whether or not male-for-male prostitutes are as common or well-paid as female-for-male prostitutes. (And again, I personally have no idea, I just spoke of it in the context of a woman's issue because that's how it's usually brought up.)

I do see Arcade22's point about there being a lot of variables to account for that might make gathering the actual numbers difficult. But in the context of legality, the gender of the sex worker or the customer wouldn't necessarily matter much.

 

[Edx]

Based on what? Do you have any other studies where a randomly selected portion of high-schoolers are anonymously allowed to report on their own experiences about prostitution?

Based on the fact that all evidence we can see does not fit with these figures would imply therefore that there must be a problem with the methodology. I have not see the studies in question, but I know enough about how atrocious social studies like this often are to already know the sorts of reasons that could have lead to the results.

Last thing i knew that webpage wasn't the one and only site where you could find prostitutes. In my experience male prostitutes tend to be found on regional websites that cater to homo/bisexuals.

You really have no idea just how popular that website is or how much money changes hands. I suppose you can direct me to a similar website for gay men that shows more traffic? I didn't think so. Gay men use that website as well, I know, because I've met them. Why wouldn't gay men use such a popular website? You forget I've seen this from both sides, yet you still seem to want to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about because some study that doesn't match reality seems to have figures that say something different. You can also find plenty of gay men on there, but you will see they don't get to charge anywhere near as much and they have to be rather a lot better looking than a woman would have to be. All your "evidence" will be in hypothetical's, rather than hard facts.

It's still prostitution even if they don't make it into a career and just do it opportunistically as far as I'm concerned.

If a stole a few pick and mix sweets when I was 10 that may still have been theft, but that doesn't mean there is any legitimate reason to include me in statistics that include armed robbers.

Sure. It's reasonable to keep "professional" or "career" prostitutes separate from those that only do it once in a while or if they are asked. For example if someone gets hit on and they turn them down, and then get asked if they are willing to do it for money.

Oh good so you do understand that there is line to draw somewhere. Now if you would just start trying to make reality fit those figures you quoted you'd realise the discrepancy between the two must lead us to conclude the method used to collate those figures are must not be drawing enough dividing lines either.

So "real" prostitution is only when one is paid money? Gifts, favors and other rewards given, implicitly or explicitly, in return for sex don't count?

There is prostitution and then there's "prostitution". If we included everything you're talking about we'd have to include every girl who wanted her boyfriend to buy her dinner and have a car before she would go out with him. We'd have to include all the gold diggers marrying old rich men, we'd have include porn stars. But that isn't helpful when we are talking about a specific form of prostitution. Do you want to get an accurate helpful understanding of society or not?

 

[Aepervius]

Whether or not male-for-male prostitutes are as common or well-paid as female-for-male prostitutes. (And again, I personally have no idea, I just spoke of it in the context of a woman's issue because that's how it's usually brought up.)

If I may still chip on that a bit :

It is difficult to tally. But let us put it that way , even if you count sex preference as being fuzzy (and not binary) the vast , overwhelming majority of people are majorly hetero. It would kind of surprising to find out more men prostitute themselves to men than women to men. Also, the few bordel I know of, between hamburg and frankfurt, have vastly more prostitute for hetero taste (men and women).

What *could* happen though, is that women *buy* the service of young men far far more often than everybody assume, and the 1.8% boy having been paid for sex, actually include a vast majority of women which would never admit to do it.

See how the assumption from all was that immediately it was men buying those service.

Sexist pigs .

ETA: also I was never paid for it, in fact I felt at the time i got lucky, but it was very easy to pick up middle aged women when I was a teen.

 

[Edx]

Whether or not male-for-male prostitutes are as common or well-paid as female-for-male prostitutes. (And again, I personally have no idea, I just spoke of it in the context of a woman's issue because that's how it's usually brought up.)

I do see Arcade22's point about there being a lot of variables to account for that might make gathering the actual numbers difficult. But in the context of legality, the gender of the sex worker or the customer wouldn't necessarily matter much.

I consider myself a mens rights advocate, I should be biased to think men are just as affected, or more, than women with selling sex. I should look at those figures and uncritically hold onto them for dear life and say this proves conclusively that more boys than girls sell sex/are prostitutes. I mean look it says it right there in the figures, doesn't it? Then I can go argue about how this is just more evidence we only care about women, even though men are more affected.

But I actually care about what is true. Those figures simply do not match reality. I guarantee if you look at those studies there will be several rather obvious reasons for why it seems like the figure is more for the boys than girls. Lets imagine you have 2 groups of 10 people. One group is male the other is female. Each group has been paid for sex in some way or is engaged in sex work. Of the 10 males only 1 is a gay male escort, he has a great body, he "performs" well, and see's mostly gay men. The rest have been at one time in their life once been offered some kind of money or form of compensation (such as staying at some guys house) for some sexual favour. Of the 10 women, 6 are all full time prostitutes and they see at least 10 men a week, and 4 are drug addicted semi-homeless street walkers. If we are talking about the potential harms or not of prostitution do YOU believe we should group all of these people into the same figures? Because if we do, it means it comes out at an equal number. Yes, all of them have indeed been compensated/paid for sex, but what good does that really do us to look at the information this way?

I believe that women are being lumped into all one category indefensibly and unjustifiably as it is. Such as putting street walkers having sex for £20 or a hit of crack in the back of a car, vs a very safe health conscious picky escort in the same category charging hundreds an hour. When you include men being lumped into it in the same way it becomes a caricature of absurdity.

If we want to have a conversation about prostitution and potential harms to individuals and society, we need to have a more rational look at what is actually going on. That is never going to be possible if we see the subject represented this way, you might as well be looking at meaningless numbers and thinking you can make sense of them.

 

[Edx]

This is one of those few areas where "because patriarchy" is the right answer. It isn't about harm, particularly since all the harm is caused by prohibition. It's about controlling female sexuality because of religious proscriptions and demands. It's about preserving a worldview of women as subservient to men, whose bodies and sexuality are owned by men, starting with their fathers and eventually transferred to their husbands. It's about preserving some religious ideal of "purity" which commoditizes female sexuality in a way that prevents women from controlling or benefiting from it, except in a very narrow and limited way..

And yet there's a whole section of feminism that is totally against prostitution and want it all banned for the good of women. One very outspoken feminist in the UK Kate Smurthwaite was recently forced to stop her talk at a university because some feminists there didn't think she was the right kind of feminist for being against prostitution. Just look at Mudcat in this thread who has literally said that if a woman gets paid for sex she is being raped. Are people like Kate and Mudcat enforcing the patriarchal values to want to keep women "subservient to men, whose bodies and sexuality are owned by men"? Perhaps there is another reason why people would be against prostitution.

 

[Butter!]

I consider myself a mens rights advocate, I should be biased to think men are just as affected, or more, than women with selling sex. I should look at those figures and uncritically hold onto them for dear life and say this proves conclusively that more boys than girls sell sex/are prostitutes. I mean look it says it right there in the figures right? Then I can go argue about how this is just more evidence we only care about women, even though men are more affected.

But I actually care about what is true. Those figures simply do not match reality. I guarantee if you look at those studies there will be several rather obvious reasons for why it seems like the figure is more for the boys than girls. Lets imagine you have 2 groups of 10 people. One group is male the other is female. Each group has been paid for sex in some way or is engaged in sex work. Of the 10 males only 1 is a gay male escort, he has a great body, he "performs" well, and see's mostly gay men. The rest have been at one time in their life once been offered some kind of money or form compensation (such as staying at someones house) for some sexual favour. Of the 10 women, 6 are all full time prostitutes and they see at least 10 men a week, and 4 are drug addicted semi-homeless street walkers. If we are talking about the potential harms or not of prostitution do YOU believe we should group all of these people into the same figures? Because if you do, it means it comes out at an equal number. Yes, all of them have indeed been compensated for sex, but what good does that really do us to look at the information this way?

I believe that women are being lumped into all one category indefensibly and unjustifiably as it is. Such as putting street walkers having sex for £20 or a hit of crack in the back of a car, vs a very safe health conscious picky escort in the same category charging hundreds an hour. When you include men being lumped into it in the same way it becomes a caricature of absurdity.

If we want to have a conversation about prostitution and potential harms to individuals and society, we need to have a more rational look at what is actually going on. That is never going to be possible if we see the subject represented this way, you might as well be looking at meaningless numbers and thinking you can make sense of them.

But for most of the thread we were talking about primarily the traditional arrangement of female prostitute-male customer. Then Arcade22 pointed out that men can be prostitutes too, and I essentially said, "Yeah, true, my bad, and same rules should apply in their case."

So how is that creating a caricature of absurdity or hurting the rationale at the root of the issue?

I'm in strong favor of legalizing no matter what parts the sex worker may or may not have. Gender doesn't enter into that side of it at all, not as far as I'm concerned anyway. I can't see how it'd make a difference.

 

[banquetbear]

You really have no idea just how popular that website is or how much money changes hands. I suppose you can direct me to a similar website for gay men that shows more traffic? I didn't think so. Gay men use that website as well, I know, because I've met them. Why wouldn't gay men use such a popular website? You forget I've seen this from both sides, yet you still seem to want to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about because some study that doesn't match reality seems to have figures that say something different. You can also find plenty of gay men on there, but you will see they don't get to charge anywhere near as much and they have to be rather a lot better looking than a woman would have to be. All your "evidence" will be in hypothetical's, rather than hard facts.

...I just looked up my home city on that website and there are a grand total of two people on it. There are only 45 in the country. So I don't think that the website you keep promoting here (are you getting paid for it?) is very popular at all, and I'm confused as to what point you think you are making.

 

[Edx]

...I just looked up my home city on that website and there are a grand total of two people on it. There are only 45 in the country. So I don't think that the website you keep promoting here (are you getting paid for it?) is very popular at all, and I'm confused as to what point you think you are making.

And what country are you in? It is a UK based website. If you notice the UK is rather small. This is how popular this is just in the UK.

 

[banquetbear]

And what country are you in? It is a UK based website. If you notice the UK is rather small. This is how popular this is just in the UK.

...so your conclusions only apply to the UK then?

 

[Edx]

...so your conclusions only apply to the UK then?

The UK is somehow that different from all other countries? Are there website services that show evidence it is different in other countries?

Just what is your argument? That more men are prostitutes than women? Or is this just another pedantic nitpick waste of time like on the Gamergate thread?

 

[Edx]

What *could* happen though, is that women *buy* the service of young men far far more often than everybody assume, and the 1.8% boy having been paid for sex, actually include a vast majority of women which would never admit to do it.

See how the assumption from all was that immediately it was men buying those service.

Sexist pigs .

Except if you look at AdultWork you can see that there is literally no evidence of this happening. So while I am sure it occasionally happens, and I mean very very very very very occasionally, it is so rare as to be totally insignificant. You will also need to have a great body if you had any chance. Seriously if you go on AdultWork you will find men so eager they will do it FOR FREE, because they are apparently so delusional they believe it will actually happen.

Also you may have had an easy time picking up older women when you were younger, but women actively seeking out and paying men to have sex with them is a whole different thing.

 

[Butter!]

The UK is somehow that different from all other countries? Are there website services that show evidence it is different in other countries?

Just what is your argument? That more men are prostitutes than women? Or is this just another pedantic nitpick waste of time like on the Gamergate thread?

But you're the one nitpicking about it.

As far as legal concerns go, it shouldn't make a lick of difference what the gender ratios are. I'm sure we can agree on that much.

In my opinion, it should be legalized and regulated, and as with any other job, the genders should not be permitted to be licensed or otherwise treated differently.

 

[Edx]

But you're the one nitpicking about it.

How so? He is claiming that AdultWork is somehow irrelevant because it is a UK website and so doesnt cover the entire world. They have their own websites and sources. I am not familiar with them all, but I do know they do not have different outcomes that are the opposite to what Im talking about. The only countries where boys might face more prostitution is those like the Bacha Bazi boys in Afghanistan. It has for a very long time been a predominately women's industry because female sexuality has always been in higher demand and therefore economically worth more. Any women pretty much no matter what she looks like or how old she is can make a lot of money with sex work, a man has to be a very good looking or be very "skilled" to be able to get anywhere which will still be with men as paying customers.

As far as legal concerns go, it shouldn't make a lick of difference what the gender ratios are. I'm sure we can agree on that much.

Sure, but if one side is going to include statistics with trafficked street walkers along with safe and careful independent escorts, and someone else is going to include figures that include anytime someone did some sexual favour for some form of payment to show more men are prostitutes than women are, then we're always going to have a skewed picture. That will affect the policies and could mean it stays illegal. We're dealing with ideological biases here, not people that want to get a true picture. That is why we have such ridiculous statistics and arguments like Mudcat's everywhere.

 

[banquetbear]

The UK is somehow that different from all other countries?

...ummm, yes?

Are there website services that show evidence it is different in other countries?
Just what is your argument? That more men are prostitutes than women?

As I said in my original post: I'm confused as to what your point is. I wanted you to clarify your point. Are there more female sex workers than male? I don't think that is an unreasonable assumption to make. Does linking to a single website in the United Kingdom prove anything? Its anecdotal support for our assumption, but it does no more than that. Is gender relevant to the question "should paying for sex be illegal?" I think not.

Or is this just another pedantic nitpick waste of time like on the Gamergate thread?

Let it go dude. If you want to discuss Gamergate, then go do that in the Gamergate thread.