Paying for sex, should it be illegal?

[Brian-M]

All this talk about legalised rape makes me want to say that rape is, and always has been legal...

Rape, also called colza, (species Brassica napus), plant of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to Europe. Rape is an annual, 30 cm (1 foot) or more tall, with a long, usually thin taproot. Its leaves are smooth, bluish green, and deeply scalloped, and the bases of the upper leaves clasp the stem. Rape bears four-petaled, yellow flowers in spikes. Each round, elongated pod has a short beak and contains many seeds. These seeds, known as rapeseeds, yield an oil—rapeseed oil, or canola—that is variously treated for use in cooking, as an ingredient in soap and margarine, and as a lamp fuel (colza oil).

Encyclopaedia Britannica

 

[arthwollipot]

You can call them what you like. Doesn't change what they are.

They are a long way from being equivalent terms.

 

[The Norseman]

Well obv I know why you've made the comparison to a cleaning job, but I expect that legislators take into account that offering yourself up sexually to a man (whom often you are initiating sex before barely a couple of sentences have been spoken between you....) is a far more sensitive and personal choice for a woman to make than cleaning someone's house.

Therefore it should be made illegal?

Working at Subway.

I mean, you're paying someone to do something your wife should be doing.

I am surprised to find this statement highly insulting. I wish I had thought of it first.

As a slight aside, the fact that (usually) both parties in a female prostitution transaction - the prostitute and her client - consent to the transaction and are happy with the commercial arrangement, is not altogether important.

Of course it's important. Where is all of the violence, coercion, and nasty side-effects and/or end results if both parties are happy with the arrangement? Who or what is harmed if, as isissxn has said earlier, a couple meet up and have sex versus that very same situation with the simple addition of a money exchange?

(Examine, for example, the touting of tickets for sporting events or rock concerts. Both parties in that sort of transaction - the tout and the buyer - are usually happy with the arrangement and the price. As indeed, usually, is the person who sold the tickets to the tout in the first place. Yet touting is legislated against in many countries.)

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.

While I partly agree - and I certainly disagree with the extremist feminist position that "all prostitution is rape" - I think it's short-sighted to define rape in the sort of narrow range that you seem to be suggesting. I think, for example, that there's a good argument to be made that a significant proportion of (female) prostitution is a form of violation, in that the woman may be giving consent, but only under a form of duress.

You want to broaden the scope of the definition of rape to include legalized prostitution because the prostitute is under a form of duress to give consent? I think that a huge portion of the legal jobs out there are accepted under that very same form of duress. But -- please develop more fully your concept of this duress and make a good argument. I'm honestly interested in hearing it.

Oh I know. I was just using that example to illustrate that even where all parties involved in an act give their ready consent and are entirely happy with the arrangement, it might still make sense (for society as a whole) to make that act illegal.

In what sense?

But once again, it's important to consider the context and the circumstances. Is there any form of consent under duress from any participants in boxing? Is there any form of implied exploitation? Is there any suggestion that many of the men participating in boxing find the act abhorrent, but that they do it because they feel it's their best life option?

I think so, yes, for many fighters this can be the case. But what if I had indisputable evidence proving my assertion? How would that change your mind? Would you then advocate strongly for making boxing/MMA/etc. fighting illegal?

And for this example, it's also relevant to consider the actual activity. If we look at the different activities where consent is not forthcoming from the other party, then those activities would be classified as (probably) assault occasioning actual bodily harm here (in England & Wales), and rape. The former carries a maximum prison sentence of 5 years upon conviction if it's a very serious incident, or a maximum sentence of 6 months if less serious. The latter (i.e. rape) carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, and regularly attracts sentences of 8-10 years.

But why then are these two examples to be treated differently when consent is forthcoming from all concerned parties?

Right now there is a huge issue in professional football (American) regarding concussions and brain damage suffered by the players. Knowing that these injuries are common, not easily avoidable, and permanent, would you now advocate a ban on football as well? I mean, football played for money; anyone can get all the brain damage they like as long as they play on the backlot, right?

 

[Edx]

Orly?

This "fact" sheet is nothing but absurd lies and indefensible feelings based ideologically driven propaganda. At best you will be able to say some of it can apply to "some" or a certain demographic of women in the sex industry, whereas they have decided to generalise it to ALL sex workers. I know "for a fact", that these are not facts. Again, go look on www.saafe.info and start telling these women they are actually damaged and raped and they need to be rescued from a job that enables them to earn in 1 hour or 2 what many earn in a week working full time.

It also says they choose it as a last resort. What does that really mean? If they have other options, such as stacking shelves at the local supermarket, that isn't the same as saying its a last resort to being homeless. Men of course don't get this option, even if they decide to "go gay for pay" (rather a lot more psychologically traumatic) they will still earn substantially less than almost any women will. A "last resort" seems rather hyperbolic to describe most cases. If men do this, did they have a choice? Should we feel sorry for them too? If men take a dangerous but low paid job we'd say that's what they have to do, if a woman takes a semi-dangerous job (and can make it as dangerous as she likes) and get paid a ton of money, we suddenly think it's a problem and she shouldn't be allowed to do that to herself. In reality many of these women choose to do it because the high sums of money they can earn in such a short time period. Maybe the women that don't like it should get "proper job", but then they would be earning fractions of what they were before and working almost all the time. If you take sex out the equation, it makes very little economic sense.

 

[Edx]

professional fighter. They are being paid to have their bodies harmed. By your logic it is legalized assault. I could think of a dozen more at least, your points are not very strong.

Or how about a Nurse? They risk all kinds of things every day being in contact with sick and diseased patients. There are a lot of dangerous jobs in the world, and many of them pay well, many don't pay well. Sex work can pay better than experienced inner city professionals. THEY can decide how risky they want the sex they provide to be. Will they only see men with feedback on the escorting website? Will they only see men that will show them a picture first? Will they see men in cars? Will they travel to their house or hotels? Will they give a blow job wihout a condom? Will they let them cum in their mouth? Will they swallow? Will they even offer penetration at all? Will they do anal? yadda yadda yadda. And they can decide the price they are prepared to do it for. It is up to them. It doesn't have to be that risky at all to sell sex and get paid a ton of money to do it, but you're sure as hell not going to be in any position to be calling the shots in plenty of other jobs with have a very high chance of death or serious injury. In those jobs you just have to suck it up (ha, pun) and do it, and hope you don't die or get a limb ripped off or something. Suddenly being able to hand pick a guy and sucking his dingaling for more money a professional in a city gets per hour doesn't seem to be such a bad deal, especially when the alternative would be to work 40 hours + a week in a crappy full time job. I wonder what else they could do with that time they have free to do other things? Maybe they could get an education and go do something they actually want to do, you know, follow their dreams rather than wasting it away on low pay work that takes up all of their time and energy.

 

[Edx]

That prostitution is "legalized rape" is a laughable false assertion. It is the exchange of money for a service. A person who doesn't think that having sex with strangers is worth the money shouldn't become a prostitute. And I fail to see how it is anybody else's concern if some people do think it is worth the money and decide to become prostitutes. Likewise, if prostitutes think it is worth the money, how exactly is it anyone else's business if people take them up on their offer? Certainly we shouldn't be wasting resources trying to catch them (undercover police stings are about the only way that ensure convictions).

Yup. Apparently most missed my post about how gold diggers shacking up with rich old men we'd have to say are "raped" as well for the same exact reason.

 

[Edx]

You're correct of course, and I'm sorry for only talking about women in the presentation of my arguments. The debate in this thread sort of springboarded from its analysis as a woman's issue. But naturally, male prostitutes are quite common too, and the same arguments apply as far as I'm concerned.

Again, sorry. I didn't mean to be sexist.

To be fair to the guy... most all prostitutes in the countries we are talking about will be women. Why? Because there is little to ZERO demand for women that will pay to have sex with men. Why would they pay when if they want to have casual sex they merely need to ask on the plethora of dating websites/reddit subs or Craigs List even, and then pick and choose from the barrage of men that will respond to them? You can even do that as a prostitute on these websites and still make a ton of money while still being just as picky as you might be on a regular casual sex website.

As for gay sex, there is some demand for gay prostitutes, however they still get paid substantially less than the most below average female will get. I suspect there is more demand for women paying to have sex with women than there is for women paying to have sex men. Male sexuality is almost practically worthless, it has no market value to women. There are a few very rare exceptions. However the man must always be extremely "perfect" from a body point of view and it would be still extremely rare he would get a female client. On the other hand women can look pretty much like whatever and still get work, and potentially even get more work with a good attitude and profile for an advert. It is weird that in the real world men really do have a wide variety of tastes and some even go for "unattractive" overweight pensioners with "saggy" breasts and are still prepared to pay lots of money for it, even when they could have chosen the size 8 20 year old charging the same or less. Female tastes in men seem to be rather a lot more "limited". Whenever I say this I get the claim that this isn't true but all the evidence to the contrary will be anecdotal, they will tell us not to generalise, but really we have plenty of hard real world evidence of what people find attractive.

 

[Slowvehicle]

To be fair to the guy... most all prostitutes in the countries we are talking about will be women. Why? Because there is little to ZERO demand for women that will pay to have sex with men. Why would you pay when if they want to have casual sex they merely need to ask on the plethora of dating website and then pick and choose from the barrage of men that will respond to them? You can even do that as a prostitute on these websites and still make a ton of money while still being just as picky.

As for gay sex, there is some demand for gay prostitutes, however they still get paid substantially less than the most below average female will get. I suspect there is more demand for women paying to have sex with women than there is for women paying to have sex men. Male sexuality is almost practically worthless, it has no market value to women. There are a few very rare exceptions. However the man must always be extremely "perfect" from a body point of view and it would be still extraneously rare he would get a female client. On the other hand women can look like whatever and still get work, and can even get more work.

Do you speak from experience? I do not want to go into it in too much detail, but my experience...differs.

 

[Butter!]

To be fair to the guy... most all prostitutes in the countries we are talking about will be women. Why? Because there is little to ZERO demand for women that will pay to have sex with men. Why would you pay when if they want to have casual sex they merely need to ask on the plethora of dating website and then pick and choose from the barrage of men that will respond to them? You can even do that as a prostitute on these websites and still make a ton of money while still being just as picky.

As for gay sex, there is some demand for gay prostitutes, however they still get paid substantially less than the most below average female will get. I suspect there is more demand for women paying to have sex with women than there is for women paying to have sex men. Male sexuality is almost practically worthless, it has no market value to women. There are a few very rare exceptions. However the man must always be extremely "perfect" from a body point of view and it would be still extraneously rare he would get a female client. On the other hand women can look like whatever and still get work, and can even get more work. It is weird that in the real world men really do have a wide variety of tastes and some even go for overweight, pensioners with "saggy" breasts and are prepared to pay lots of money for it. Female tastes in men seem to be rather a lot more "limited". The claim that it isn't is anecdotal of course, and they will tell us not to generalise, but really we have plenty of evidence of what people will find attractive.

I was referring primarily to male prostitutes for other gay males. I don't think they're as much as a niche industry as you may believe.

 

[Edx]

Do you speak from experience? I do not want to go into it in too much detail, but my experience...differs.

It is hard to go into too much detail as you might imagine. But I have a fair amount of experience on BOTH sides of the coin. Ie. Paying, and being paid, and being in an intimate relationship with someone who chose to become a sex worker while I was with her, and then stopped because I wanted her to. (She even recently said she resented me saying I didnt want her to do it, because it took away such a huge source of income. At the time she was being incredibly choosey and only seeing very, very, very few people in comparison to what she could have and what is typical of other girls) Not only do I know what goes on and can go on, but I also know various places like communities such as www.saafe.info which would go ballistic if they were told they are actually all being coerced and raped and they need to go out and get a real job because it is damaging them.

 

[Edx]

I was referring primarily to male prostitutes for other gay males. I don't think they're as much as a niche industry as you may believe.

It absolutely is niche in comparison to female on male. Go look at www.adultwork.com and compare. But be careful not to take a superficial glance because if you're not careful you might think it is telling you something it isn't. By all accounts this is the definition of niche. Gay men can get sex quite easily compared with men getting sex with women, this is why there is less market for it.

 

[Butter!]

It absolutely is niche in comparison to female on male. Go look at www.adultwork.com and compare. By all accounts this is the definition of niche. Gay men can get sex quite easily compared with men getting sex with women, this is why there is less market for it.

Well, I was just trying to be inclusive and say that I didn't mean to exclude males in my arguments throughout the thread, wherein I spoke mainly in terms of women's issues via prostitution. I certainly don't have any interest in throwing down about it.

If you've looked up the numbers and compared them, then I'm sure you're right. I'm not going to check.

 

[Slowvehicle]

It is hard to go into too much detail as you might imagine. But I have a fair amount of experience on BOTH sides of the coin. Ie. Paying, and being paid, and being in an intimate relationship with someone who chose to become a sex worker while I was with her, and then stopped because I wanted her to. (She even said she resented me saying I didnt want her to do it, because it took away such a huge source of income. At the time she was being incredibly choosey and only seeing very, very, very few people in comparison to what she could have) Not only do I know what goes on and can go on, but I also know various places like communities such as www.saafe.info which would go ballistic if they were told they are actually all being coerced and raped and they need to go out and get a real job because it is damaging them.

I may have been unclear--I was, simply, from personal experience (as you say, to much detail is problematic) taking exception to the generalization that males of negotiable affection get paid "substantially less" than females. But for that, I have no quibble. I am on record in other threads a stating that selling one's sex skills differs little from selling one's massage skills, or any other interpersonal skill.

 

[Edx]

I may have been unclear--I was, simply, from personal experience (as you say, to much detail is problematic) taking exception to the generalization that males of negotiable affection get paid "substantially less" than females. But for that, I have no quibble. I am on record in other threads a stating that selling one's sex skills differs little from selling one's massage skills, or any other interpersonal skill.

Ok, but I am still uncertain from your message whether you agree or disagree that selling gay sex is less profitable than selling heterosexual sex?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Ok, but I am still uncertain from your message whether you agree or disagree that selling gay sex is less profitable than selling heterosexual sex?

"Selling gay sex" is too limiting a phrase to describe a male niche worker with broad skills and flexible attitudes. As with any scarcity, niches, played skillfully, can be extremely lucrative.

 

[Edx]

"Selling gay sex" is too limiting a phrase to describe a male niche worker with broad skills and flexible attitudes. As with any scarcity, niches, played skillfully, can be extremely lucrative.

Well lets say... a gay guy who sets up a profile on AdultWork as an escort for gay men. We can talk hypotheticals, but that website has been around for some time and we can verify these things for ourselves. To make it as a male sex worker you also have to be a much higher standard. You basically need to be a "9" to get any hope, whereas it seems you can be a "2" as a female and still have a flourishing income.

Im not sure in any sense other than possible highly rare isolated individual cases where gay men can get paid more. Hell, in even regular modeling women get vastly more than male models make. Women's sexuality is simply worth more on an economic level.

 

[Puppycow]

[qimg]http://money.cnn.com/2003/10/13/pf/dangerousjobs/dangerous2.gif[/qimg]

Since "danger" seems to be a factor here, lets take a look at the careers that are the most fatally dangerous.

I dont see anyone saying we should not allow people to be loggers or steel workers because of the risk of death and injury is so great. If people want to use the logic to apply to sex work, you have to apply it here as well or accept your argument is intellectually bankrupt. Oh and I really don't think most men (and the tiny fraction of women that do these jobs) would choose to do them if they weren't high paying jobs either.

Even the most dangerous of those jobs seems to be less dangerous than prostitution.* (Source)

*However, that is under a regime where prostitution is illegal. I wonder how it is in a country like Germany where it is legal and regulated. For example, the risk of getting murdered seems to be high for prostitutes where prostitution is illegal, but if you could have some way so the clients' identities are known (but not to the public unless they commit a crime) then the odds of violence occurring should go way down.

 

[Edx]

Even the most dangerous of those jobs seems to be less dangerous than prostitution.* (Source)

Quite right. But even if a man had to take a job that didn't pay well but was quite risky, if he had "no other choice" we'd just say that's what he has to do, and with no ability for him to change the conditions of his job to make them less risky. Oh well he lost an arm, it's the nature of the job. Oh well he is permanently stressed and develops depression, well it's the nature of the job. But we're talking about the potential for pretty much any women to earn in 1 to 2 hours what they'd take a full time work week to earn otherwise and get paid more per minute than inner city professionals. And even when they are earning that money, they can further mitigate their risks further quite heavily by a few simple choices they can choose to make and I noted a few here.

*However, that is under a regime where prostitution is illegal. I wonder how it is in a country like Germany where it is legal and regulated. For example, the risk of getting murdered seems to be high for prostitutes where prostitution is illegal, but if you could have some way so the clients' identities are known (but not to the public unless they commit a crime) then the odds of violence occurring should go way down.

Here's the thing. You can take massive risks, or you can be very safe. It can be incredibly safe, or it can be incredibly risky. The actual prostitution itself is not inherently risky, it is the way one goes about it that determines the risk. It must not be thought of as one homogeneous thing, where street walkers are lumped in with very careful and safe independent women. They might both involve selling sex but they are really two entirely different things. These anti-prostitution people will however take this exact form of tactic in their argumentation, just watch, they are incapable of not doing this.

 

[rustypouch]

Of course it should be legal.

Do women lack the prerequisites and ability to allow them to decide what they should be allowed to do, and the amount of risk they're willing to take?

As long as they know what they're getting into, and make informed decisions without coercion, why not?

 

[marplots]

"Hey honey, could you pick me up a newspaper on your way home? There's a coupon for 25%-off sex."