Is it so much fun to be a prostitute ?

[SRW]

Well, look at Cuba. Prostitution was virtually eliminated in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, then returned in the 1990s when the country was impoverished following the desintegration of the socialist countries that used to support it.

dann, You made this claim in response to your assertion that eliminating poverty will eliminate prostitution. The one article you posted (without reference) did not prove your claim.

I have goggled this and the only reason I have found for the reduction in Cuban prostition is that Castro crimianilized it.

I do not doubt that when a dictator wants to stop something he can; and eliminating poverty has little to do with it.

I will attempt to make is simple for you.

Please provide evidence that:

1. Poverty was eliminated in Cuba

2. That and that alone eliminated prostitution.

 

[dann]

Thinking that elimination of poverty will eliminate prostitution is extremely naive and demonstrative of a basic ignorance of ecnomics. The only way to eliminate prostitution would be to eliminate demand for prostitution (like THAT'S ever going to happen!).

I don't really know if your naivety and basic ignorance concerns economics or the sex life of humans. There's a difference, a very basic one, between the basic need for sex and your 'need' for prostitution. (And since, so far, you have only considered hiring a prostitute, I hope for your sake that you are familiar with the fact!)

Even in a completely deregulated sex market, the equillibrium price for sex acts would probably be high enough that an independent escort could live well above the poverty line. I do, however, think the prevelence of streetwalkers would drop with the poverty rate.

A "completely deregulated sex market"? The "equilibrium price for sex acts"? Are you so basically ignorant of the option that sex markets could simply be eliminated?

I also can't believe that in this day and age, we're still placing moral significance on what one chooses to do with one's body. As far as I'm concenred, even if someone stood on a busy street with a placard reading "WILL F*** ANYONE! JUST ASK!" (and actually was doing so just for the asking), what that person was doing would have no moral significance either way. It's just someone who wants to engage in a consensual activity, as far as I'm concerned. Adding money to the equation doesn't change that.

Removing money from the actually existing and not just imaginary "equation" called prostitution, however, would not only change but eliminate the phenomenon. Maybe you haven't noticed, but in the real world you won't find anybody in the street with a sign reading: "WILL F*** ANYONE! JUST ASK!" Not even in the rather promiscuous gay community do they have something like that, I think. NOBODY wants to engage in that kind of "consensual activity" - without the money!

Are you serious? I freely admit I've considered hiring a prosititute(haven't gone through with it, still might in the future), but given the prices escorts charge, I would certainly want to have sex with someone I hired. I wonder why those people who are willing to pay $200/hr+. for company don't just join a dating service. You would probably get more minutes of company per dollar by doing that.

Did you ever consider having sex with somebody who simply felt attracted to you and wanted to have sex with you - for free? It's so much cheaper! Think of all the $$ you'd save!
(I do hope that you are joking, but I guess you probably aren't.)

Originally posted by El Greco
It's just another fine feature of religion: Demeaning people for the way they choose to dispose themselves. Fortunately, Christianity has left behind the Holy Inquisition days but will still not let it go completely (hence the "moral significance"). Other cultures still stone prostitutes.

And you don't find RPG Advocate's ideas demeaning?

 

[El Greco]

And you don't find RPG Advocate's ideas demeaning?

Ideas ? I don't think he expressed any ideas, he just worded an opinion that prostitution will never be eliminated. Personally I don't get into this debate because I find it too theoretical for my tastes.

I also don't see how your question which relates my disgust for religious "morals" to whatever RPG Advocate said is any relevant. You could also ask "and you don't think Maradona was the best player in the world" ?

 

[dann]

dann, You made this claim in response to your assertion that eliminating poverty will eliminate prostitution. The one article you posted (without reference) did not prove your claim.

I trust it wasn't too difficult for you to find using google?

I have goggled this and the only reason I have found for the reduction in Cuban prostition is that Castro crimianilized it.

I find that very hard to believe! You have had enough time to come up with something better. Will you please provide evidence for your claim?

I do not doubt that when a dictator wants to stop something he can; and eliminating poverty has little to do with it.

And why do you think "a dictator" doesn't want to stop prostitution anymore? No, even a dictator cannot stop prostitution if a woman has the choice between starving (or letting her children starve) or prostitution - which is the reason why prostitution reemerged in Cuba in the 90s. (By the way, why do you think your glorious, democratically elected president Bush hasn't put a stop to prostitution?)

I will attempt to make is simple for you.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Please provide evidence that:
1. Poverty was eliminated in Cuba
2. That and that alone eliminated prostitution.

Since we are talking social studies now and not science research laboratories, the only evidence I can come up with is the arguments I have already presented:
Nobody seems to deny that the kind of poverty that existed in Cuba before the revolution was eliminated in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Illiteracy was overcome in the first couple of years, health care for everybody was a fact by the late 60s and so was a balanced diet and jobs for everybody. This, and not a dictator who simply decreed that there be no prostitution, eliminated sex as a marketable commodity in Cuba.
When I was in Habana in 2000, I met a young girl from Brazil who enjoyed being able to walk through the streets of that city - alone - at night - as a woman! Something that she wouldn't be able to do in Brazil! So what enabled her to do so? The severe sentences for attacking tourists? Well, that is something to consider, but if you starve you really don't have much of a choice, do you? Or the lack of the kind of desperation that you find in other Latin American countries? What do you think?

 

[gnome]

Now I won't claim that it doesn't take quite a bit of willing suspension of disbelief to think of Pretty Woman as more than a piece of very bad fiction, but on the other hand: The women mentioned by Cain do have "a lot bigger problems than looking up to Julia Roberts' character", which is probably the reason why they, as Randi would put it, need to believe in Juliet Roberts' sugar-coated whore - the same way other people need to believe in Sylvia Brown and other very implausible characters.

I don't believe the comparison is quite valid... because Sylvia and others represent themselves as the real thing. IMO the movie quite clearly does not. I would liken it instead to someone that was putting on an act for entertainment, and let you know it. I wouldn't criticize the act just because some people believed it anyway.

(Did you actually enjoy that crappy movie?!!)

I can't lie about it, much as I'd like to. I thought Julia Roberts was charming and endearing, I thought Laura San Giacomo was hot, and I engaged in a willing suspension of disbelief and enjoyed the story. I'm not claiming it's a Great American Film, but that's a different question than whether I liked it.

 

[SRW]

I trust it wasn't too difficult for you to find using google?

I will attempt to make is simple for you.

Please provide evidence that:

1. Poverty was eliminated in Cuba

2. That and that alone eliminated prostitution.

I did not find anything that proved your claim. Your opinion is not proof of anything.

Here is somthing intresting I did find:

Castro's resopnse to prostiiution in Cuba
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Official Response and Action

Castro appears to be contributing to prostitution and the increase in prostitution tourism by his own tolerance. He remarked that Cuban women are prostitutes not because they needed to be but rather because they liked to make love, and that they are the most educated and the healthiest prostitutes on the market. (Jeszs Zzqiga, "Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean," Independent Journalists’ Cooperative, 18 June 1998)

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I think that we can take your whole arguement that poverty is the only reason for prostitution and set it up on the shelf, looks good up there I guess we will just leave it there.

 

[jay gw]

I also don't see how your question which relates my disgust for religious "morals" to whatever RPG Advocate said is any relevant.

Why would someone be disgusted with religious morals?
Why else is prostitution illegal? Name one reason.

 

[Gulliamo]

Are you so basically ignorant of the option that sex markets could simply be eliminated?

I, for one, do not believe this to be possible. As long as someone has something that someone else wants, and that someone who has has the desire for sex from the someone who wants, there will be a sex market.

Let us remove money from the conversation to simplify...

In an environment where everyone, yes everyone, has plenty of money...A college professor is able to give a grade... a student needs that grade... the professor desires sex from that student...

I have just created a fertile environment for a blossoming sex market.

I could describe a dozen others, with jobs, glamour, popularity, etc.

Did you ever consider having sex with somebody who simply felt attracted to you and wanted to have sex with you - for free? It's so much cheaper! Think of all the $$ you'd save!
(I do hope that you are joking, but I guess you probably aren't.)

There are many advantages to paid, consensual sex. First and foremost, lack of attachment.
Example: If one is in a new city on a business trip and would prefer some companionship, but does not want their phone ringing off the hook for the next three weeks, an escort is perfect.

And you don't find RPG Advocate's ideas demeaning?

No. Why?

 

[Jas]

Are you serious? I freely admit I've considered hiring a prosititute(haven't gone through with it, still might in the future), but given the prices escorts charge, I would certainly want to have sex with someone I hired. I wonder why those people who are willing to pay $200/hr+. for company don't just join a dating service. You would probably get more minutes of company per dollar by doing that.

People spend money on wierd things, what can I say? For some people, it might be worth $200 an hour to have someone watch a movie with them, flatter them, listen to their opinions, whatever. Of course, I could probably think of tons of things I would much rather spend my money on, but that's just me.

 

[El Greco]

Why would someone be disgusted with religious morals?
Why else is prostitution illegal? Name one reason.

First question: Go back and read my post where I reply to RPG Advocate.

Second question: Huh ? Are you talking to me ? Another completely irrelevant question, since I never personally discussed in this thread whether prostitution should be legal or not. BTW, prostitution is not illegal everywhere, so the question is wrong as well.

Ok, what was Maradona's first team ?

 

[dann]

Thank you for the interesting article, SRW. I think that the very first paragraph may actually have contributed to your knowledge of the real world since you no longer want me to find “evidence” for the lack of prostitution in Cuba in the decades following the revolution. You asked for proof that:

3. There were no hookers in Cuba (or very few) in the 60-80's.

”Cuba, considered to be free of prostitution since the 1960s, is experiencing an increase in prostitution and prostitution tourism as a result of the poor economy. (Jeszs Zzqiga,"Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean" Independent Journalists’ Cooperative, 18 June 1998)”

As a result of poor economy!
You still have some questions, however, so let us look at them:

I will attempt to make is simple for you.

You’ve said that before, and it does not get any better the second time. Let me try to make it simple for you:
We are not dealing with a lab experiment! We cannot simply introduce the elimination of poverty into an ‘environment’ with prostitution and then see what happens, right?! What we can do, is see what actually happened when prostitution was virtually eliminated in Cuba in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s – only to return in the ’90s, coinciding with the impoverishment of Cuban society and thus of the Cubans. And we can compare that situation with countries where prostitution does not disappear even though it is illegal. And we can try to look further for countries where prostitution has been eliminated even though poverty hasn’t.
And I can’t think of any of those. Neither can you, apparently. Your idea seems to be that “a dictator” can accomplish anything, so what you are saying is that prostitution in Cuba was eliminated because prostitutes were persecuted by the state (or by El Jefe). Or, rather, it was just one of the things that contributed to the elimination of prostitution in Cuba, but it takes both prohibition of prostitution and the elimination of poverty to eliminate prostitution. Is that your hypothesis?

I think that we can take your whole argument that poverty is the only reason for prostitution and set it up on the shelf, looks good up there I guess we will just leave it there.

Because if it is, then you have come a long way on this issue too, since you used to believe this:

I have goggled this and the only reason I have found for the reduction in Cuban prostition is that Castro crimianilized it.
I do not doubt that when a dictator wants to stop something he can; and eliminating poverty has little to do with it.

Now you appear to have learned from your google search that []your[/I] “only reason” was not so “only” after all, and, as I’ve already said, I give you credit for that.
But let us look at the rest of the article:

In Cuba, the new generation of prostituted women vary in age between 15 and 25, although some can be found who are 13 or 31." (Jeszs Zzqiga, "Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean" Independent Journalists’ Cooperative, 18 June 1998)

Not much arguing there. My guess is that you can probably find prostitutes who are older than 31, but it is just a guess. I very much doubt that you can find prostitutes who are any younger, since Cubans care so much for their children that they simply would not allow it to take place. (And don’t ask me to prove it!)

Women in prostitution reported an increased demand for adolescents and even little girls. One pimp reported that a man from the Dominican Republic offered him $2,000 for an ‘unblemished’ girl under 14 to work there in a brothel." (Jeszs Zzqiga, "Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean" Independent Journalists’ Cooperative, 18 June 1998)

It is probably true that “a man from the Dominican Republic” gave a Cuban an offer for a prostitute under 14. However, it does not say that anybody actually accepted his offer and started dealing in trafficking of Cuban minors!

In Cuba, legislation effective August 1997, sets fines, prison sentences of 2 to 5 years, or up to 8 years for public health, education, tourism, law enforcement or government officials and confiscation of property for pimps, madams and those who rent space out for prostitution. ("Cuba to crack down on abettors of prostitution," Reuters, 20 July 1997)

This, of course, implies that these things have returned with the “Special Period”.

Although there has been an increase in prostitution in Cuba, the women continue to be penalized. Cuba has revived an old law against vagrancy, using it against the women in prostitution who get three warnings before they have to face a sentence of up to eight years in prison. (Jeszs Zzqiga, "Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean" Independent Journalists’ Cooperative, 18 June 1998)

Did you pay attention here, SRW? An old law has been revived to fight prostitution. Apparently prostitution has returned (or increased considerably, from being almost eliminated) and now the state of Cuba is reviving old laws to do something about the problem. What made it virtually disappear in the meantime? Well, apparently not the laws against it, since they now have to be revived.

Castro appears to be contributing to prostitution and the increase in prostitution tourism by his own tolerance. He remarked that Cuban women are prostitutes not because they needed to be but rather because they liked to make love, and that they are the most educated and the healthiest prostitutes on the market. (Jeszs Zzqiga, "Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean," Independent Journalists’ Cooperative, 18 June 1998)

I don’t belong to the people who consider Castro to be a divine being beyond reproach. He has made some mistakes in his lifetime. (Inviting the Pope to Cuba was one of them!) But I find it hard to see how his “tolerance” should contribute to prostitution – in particular when the article has just mentioned that laws are being tightened. If he actually said that Cuban women become prostitutes because they like to make love, then he is being too bloody stupid. (But many of you would agree with him, wouldn’t you?) I know (almost) for a fact that he once said that Cuban prostitutes were the best educated in the world, not as prostitutes, but as teachers, doctors, nurses etc. But in my opinion it was a question of impotence (no, not the sexual kind) on his part: In a situation where some of the achievements of the Cuban revolution were slipping away, he wanted to point to the two fields where Cuba has shown the rest of the world what its socialist revolution is all about: poverty might have returned, and with it prostitution, but the health care system and free education for everybody were still intact!

Cuban citizens should fight prostitution and other crimes by joining neighborhood vigilante groups says a government official. Crimes, such a prostitution and drug-use, have increased since the Cuban economic crisis and the influx of foreign tourism. ("Cubans urged to join fight against rising crime," Reuters, 27 September 1998)

This, of course, is a way of ‘fighting prostitution’ that we know from North America or Europe, and unfortunately it only serves to move prostitution away from the neighbourhood with the vigilante groups and not to eliminate it. It is a way of ‘cleaning up’ your own neighbourhood and sending the prostitutes and their customers somewhere else.

Please provide evidence that:
1. Poverty was eliminated in Cuba
2. That and that alone eliminated prostitution.
I did not find anything that proved your claim. Your opinion is not proof of anything.
Here is somthing intresting I did find:
Castro's resopnse to prostiiution in Cuba (…)

Apparently poverty was eliminated in Cuba, thus eliminating prostitution!

- - - - - - - - - - - -

A friend of mine who is aware of the ongoing discussion here sent me the following links:

Brief report about sex tourism in Cuba, allegedly written by female sociologist:
"Cuba presently has a great deal to offer the sex tourist. Such men can
contemptuously command Cuban women and girls with the same ease that they
order cocktails. Their power to do so rests not only upon the obscene
disparity in wealth between the developed and underdeveloped world, but also
upon American foreign policy. Under Batista, the US indirectly organised Cuba
as its brothel and gambling house. Today, its punishment of Cuba is helping
to recreate the conditions under which Cuban women and girls must become the
playthings of economically advantaged, white, male Europeans and North
Americans."
http://www.ageofconsent.com/comments/sextourism.htm

Polemic contribution about sex tourism and US foreign politics:
"So that's why our government stopped allowing visits to Cuba. Sex work is not
to be outsourced. Even free trade has it's limits. When it comes to hookers,
Buy American."
http://www.politicalpuzzle.org/archives/2004/12/an_intersting_f.php

A not very recent article about the media coverage written by a journalist who has lived in Cuba for several years:
"There is the sad fact that, faced with grave shortages of almost all basic
staples, not to mention luxuries, a number of Cuban women-often young and
well educated-have chosen to milk tourists in the easiest way available to
them. The numbers are far smaller than in similarly economically strapped
countries. They are also much smaller than in pre-revolutionary Cuba, when
hundreds of thousands of women were forced to rely on prostitution for
subsistence. How ever, today's situation is very disturbing in a country that
prided itself at having wiped out the underlying social and economic causes
of prostitution. And it is certainly a topic for sociologists, women's
activists, and other researchers to be concerned about. But is it "news"?
Does it warrant becoming a standard item in every newspaper account of Cuba?"
http://www.converge.org.nz/lac/articles/news990523d.htm

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
And to Gulliamo:

I, for one, do not believe this to be possible. As long as someone has something that someone else wants, and that someone who has has the desire for sex from the someone who wants, there will be a sex market.
Let us remove money from the conversation to simplify...
In an environment where everyone, yes everyone, has plenty of money...A college professor is able to give a grade... a student needs that grade... the professor desires sex from that student...
I have just created a fertile environment for a blossoming sex market.
I could describe a dozen others, with jobs, glamour, popularity, etc.

What you describe is pretty ugly, but try to get your 'facts' straight: A college professor abusing his power to grade his students to get sexual favors from some of them hardly qualifies as a market. Nor does having the same students write or just type reports published in his name only constitute a market. You are talking about somebody in a position of power, which enables him to use that power in ways it was not intended by the institution who gave him this power. Wrong concept!

There are many advantages to paid, consensual sex. First and foremost, lack of attachment.
Example: If one is in a new city on a business trip and would prefer some companionship, but does not want their phone ringing off the hook for the next three weeks, an escort is perfect.

Make it clear to the woman you meet at the bar that you don't want to marry her, you are only interested in casual sex, no strings attached, your place or hers!
Or find somebody who is not interested in having sex with you but are willing to let you because you pay her. That would be the "advantage"! If you have money and somebody else does not and needs it enough, you can take advantage of that person, be it as a john or as an employer!

 

[dann]

I don't believe the comparison is quite valid... because Sylvia and others represent themselves as the real thing. IMO the movie quite clearly does not. I would liken it instead to someone that was putting on an act for entertainment, and let you know it. I wouldn't criticize the act just because some people believed it anyway.

I am sorry, but I don't see any signs of a tongue-in-cheek attitude in that movie. Could you please be specific and point out examples of the movie Pretty Woman trying to let its viewers know that it is only putting on an act for entertainment. It does not try to pose as a documentary, but it also does not go out of its way to point out to the viewers that they are idiots if they 'try this at home'! I could be wrong, but I think that it actualy tries to help the viewers' willingness to suspend their disbelief more than once.

I can't lie about it, much as I'd like to. I thought Julia Roberts was charming and endearing, I thought Laura San Giacomo was hot, and I engaged in a willing suspension of disbelief and enjoyed the story. I'm not claiming it's a Great American Film, but that's a different question than whether I liked it.

You shouldn't lie about it. You didn't harm anybody by watching it. And I hope that you wouldn't recommend it as careers guidance for young girls - in the USA, Eastern Europe or anywhere else.

 

[gnome]

I am sorry, but I don't see any signs of a tongue-in-cheek attitude in that movie. Could you please be specific and point out examples of the movie Pretty Woman trying to let its viewers know that it is only putting on an act for entertainment. It does not try to pose as a documentary, but it also does not go out of its way to point out to the viewers that they are idiots if they 'try this at home'! I could be wrong, but I think that it actualy tries to help the viewers' willingness to suspend their disbelief more than once.

I am thinking of the Cinderella reference in particular.

You shouldn't lie about it. You didn't harm anybody by watching it. And I hope that you wouldn't recommend it as careers guidance for young girls - in the USA, Eastern Europe or anywhere else. [/B][/QUOTE]

Certainly not.

But, what I will say at this point is that the movie does not deserve further deliberation on its merits... at least by me.

 

[SRW]

Thank you for the interesting article, SRW. I think that the very first paragraph may actually have contributed to your knowledge of the real world since you no longer want me to find “evidence” for the lack of prostitution in Cuba in the decades following the revolution.

Nothing in this article I provided says anything about the economy. So you still have this statement you made hanging over you.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

No poverty, no prostitution. No matter how horny the men are, the horny man doesn't lead to prostitution without the woman to whom it seems lucrative to oblige him - for money - wether she finds him attractive or even likable or not.
Without her reason for becoming a prostitute, her poverty, the man can be horny as hell - it remains his problem.

All I have been able to find is the fact that Castro controlled the people of Cuba. It seems to me that when Castro was getting money from the USSR, he cracked down on prostitution, then when he need another source of money he started to encourage it again.

I knew almost nothing about prostitution in Cuba prior to the start of this thread. Other than the rumor I hear that Russian Sailors used to frequent hookers in Cuba. So yes I did learn something but nothing I learned proved your strange delusion.

In my opinion you can leave Cuba out of the equation as you cannot seem to prove your point.

Now please show evidence for your claim

Eliminating poverty would eliminate prostitution.

I would suggest you read the following before you answer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Callgirl

Callgirl - A memoir of the three years the author spent as a call girl while also working as a college lecturer. A story of strength and survival.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The question we are debating here is prostitution. Others here who are familiar with prostitution, havening known them personally or studied the question have provided evidence which proves you wrong.

 

[Gulliamo]

What you describe is pretty ugly, but try to get your 'facts' straight: A college professor abusing his power to grade his students to get sexual favors from some of them hardly qualifies as a market. Nor does having the same students write or just type reports published in his name only constitute a market. You are talking about somebody in a position of power, which enables him to use that power in ways it was not intended by the institution who gave him this power. Wrong concept!

What you describe is not the situation I intended to portray. I was referring to a student who justly earned a solid B but, for whatever reason, decided to "make an offer" to get an A. I would call this a "market" as it has all necessary market qualities: supply and demand.

 

[dann]

Nothing in this article I provided says anything about the economy. So you still have this statement you made hanging over you.

This is the very first quotation from the article you provided:
”Cuba, considered to be free of prostitution since the 1960s, is experiencing an increase in prostitution and prostitution tourism as a result of the poor economy. (Jeszs Zzqiga,"Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean" Independent Journalists’ Cooperative, 18 June 1998)”
As a result of the poor economy!!! What is the matter with you? Can't you or won't you read what the article says?!!!

All I have been able to find is the fact that Castro controlled the people of Cuba.

No, it isn't all you have been able to find: YOU found that article and posted the link here!

It seems to me that when Castro was getting money from the USSR, he cracked down on prostitution, then when he need another source of money he started to encourage it again.

Yes, apparently that is the way you want to see it! But even your far-fetched idea that "when Castro was getting money from the USSR" seems to be an economic issue. And the question remains: Why do the Cubans (or in your conception: "Castro") then come down hard on prostitution, why the prison sentences when they are this exquisite "source of money"?

I knew almost nothing about prostitution in Cuba prior to the start of this thread. Other than the rumor I hear that Russian Sailors used to frequent hookers in Cuba. So yes I did learn something but nothing I learned proved your strange delusion.

It isn't that hard to see who's delusional here!

In my opinion you can leave Cuba out of the equation as you cannot seem to prove your point.
Now please show evidence for your claim
Eliminating poverty would eliminate prostitution.
I would suggest you read the following before you answer.

Yes, I can see why you would want to leave out of the equation an example that proves you wrong!
I'll come back when I have read about your story of "strength and survival" (I don't know why many Americans are so fond of stories about strength and survival ... Oh yes, I think I do know!

Callgirl
Callgirl - A memoir of the three years the author spent as a call girl while also working as a college lecturer. A story of strength and survival.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The question we are debating here is prostitution. Others here who are familiar with prostitution, havening known them personally or studied the question have provided evidence which proves you wrong.

Good for you, since you haven't! What was the evidence again?

 

[dann]

What you describe is not the situation I intended to portray. I was referring to a student who justly earned a solid B but, for whatever reason, decided to "make an offer" to get an A. I would call this a "market" as it has all necessary market qualities: supply and demand.

"Would you please hand me the salt?"
"Yes, would you in return please give me some more sauce!"
Supply? Demand? Market? Ridiculous! (Call it whatever you want!)

 

[dann]

OK, I have read the excerpt from the first chapter of the book you recommended. (I am not going to buy and read the whole book, sorry!) Your request was:

Now please show evidence for your claim
Eliminating poverty would eliminate prostitution.
I would suggest you read the following before you answer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Callgirl
Callgirl - A memoir of the three years the author spent as a call girl while also working as a college lecturer. A story of strength and survival.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The question we are debating here is prostitution. Others here who are familiar with prostitution, havening known them personally or studied the question have provided evidence which proves you wrong.

As far as I can tell from the excerpt, the book tells a very different story:

"My personal life was screaming for attention. Loudly. I needed
money. I needed a lot of money, and I needed it quickly.

I needed the money because Peter, my most recent boyfriend,
had not only decided to fly to San Francisco to meet up with some
ex (whom he had been f—ing behind my back the whole time we
were together, as it turned out), but had also emptied my checking
account before leaving. A prince among men.

Rent was due. The decimated bank account had held all the money
I had to live on until the end of the semester. That was when the two
community colleges where I taught sociology elective classes would
be paying me. I had to live within those parameters, with budgets planned
well in advance and no extra or surprise expenses allowed.

Peter's desertion decidedly qualified as a surprise expense.

In any case, the end of the semester was two months off.
Which was why I needed a lot of cash, and needed it quickly.

So I dealt with the crisis in my usual way. I spent one night getting
very drunk and feeling very sorry for myself, and I got up the next morning,
did what I could to deal with my hangover, and made a list. I love lists,
I always have. Lists give me the illusion of being in control. I listed
every possible way I could get the money I needed.

It was a depressingly short list.

Yeah, sure! Hookers are only in it for the love making, aren't they. Come on, SRW! Get real!

Eliminating poverty would eliminate prostitution!

 

[gnome]

Eliminating poverty would eliminate prostitution!

I think that it's clear that it would HELP... but I honestly think some would choose to make money that way, because they can... not just because they were poor. Granted, it would be a lot more rare.

 

[dann]

PS

I don't believe the comparison is quite valid... because Sylvia and others represent themselves as the real thing. IMO the movie quite clearly does not. I would liken it instead to someone that was putting on an act for entertainment, and let you know it. I wouldn't criticize the act just because some people believed it anyway.

gnome, could we agree that to most sane people Sylvia Browne presents herself as something quite clearly NOT the real thing: It happens the very moment she claims to be able to talk to the dead!
Some people are very susceptible to the message delivered by Sylvia Browne. Others are more susceptible to the movie Pretty Woman. (And I mean those who consider it to be a story about the real world and the way it works.) Both groups consist of people who need their illusions.