Is prostitution "immoral"?

[steelygreye]

I am aware that prostitution is legal in parts of Nevada. Still doesn't make it right.

And a lot of you are getting very defensive, insinuating that I said things that I didn't say. When did I call anyone a "lowly worm"?

Picking out a single little phrase in my argument and attacking that is just arguing semantics, and won't get this debate anywhere. It's also a fallacy to assume that an argument has no merit because someone used a fallacy.

I actually used to be for legalized prostitution, but actually reading on the experiences of prostitutes (even legal ones that are apparently safe from all harm and exploitation) led me to believe otherwise.

 

[Badran]

I actually used to be for legalized prostitution, but actually reading on the experiences of prostitutes (even legal ones that are apparently safe from all harm and exploitation) led me to believe otherwise.

You can be against legalizing it (for practical reasons) and still don't view it as immoral in principle.

For example, what are your thoughts on the point comparing others jobs and the stakes that are put in it, as mentioned more than once here? Stakes that can reach putting one's life on the line.

Also, can you share some of the things you read that led you to change your mind?

 

[Me Myself]

If tomorrow I wanted to sell sexual services for sex, there would be nothing wrong with it nor would it be any more slavig in principle than if I sold massages.

Any job which you are enslaved to do is wrong. Prostitution is not an exception to this.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

My feelings on prostitution are complicated. From Christianity, I have the notion that humans should not treat other humans as objects and to never reduce others to simply their body. So in that view, it is wrong since, many times, johns are just using the prostitutes for their bodies, reducing them to mere objects.

Then there's the sexual progressive part of me that believes that people should have the right to make their own choices. Some people really do enjoy being sex workers and do provide a needed service in their client's lives with their work. I saw a documentary about a sex worker who works with disabled clients. I cannot deny that the work she does is anything but positive. These are mentally and physically handicapped people who yearn for intimacy and she provides it to them. That is a good thing.

So, although I have personal qualms about it, I believe it should be legalized and regulated. We do much more harm by allowing pimps and sex traffickers to have all the power and punishing the prostitutes than we do by cracking down on the abusers and giving the workers rights. Let's concentrate on making these women safe and punishing those that abuse them.

 

[Darkness]

I saw a documentary about a sex worker who works with disabled clients. I cannot deny that the work she does is anything but positive. These are mentally and physically handicapped people who yearn for intimacy and she provides it to them. That is a good thing.

I reject this logic, because it is an illusory form of intimacy. I think we progressives often have a blind spot when it comes to sex. We treat it as a special category, because we are afraid of being labeled conservatives, especially if we are also (God forbid!) religious. It is the same as if there were a service that rented out friends for lonely people. The friendship would not be real. It would be smoke and mirrors. It would be a cruel mockery. In the same sense, unless we reduce sexuality to the sheer physical act (try to reduce it to a drug) the only thing prostitutes give is an illusory, alienated intimacy. It is a cruel mockery that only exists because of the alienated concept of money in our society.

Let me die a lonely death before I ever give into sexual alienation.

 

[Me Myself]

If johns were using the womans bodies most of them would tell them not to move at all not to scream at all, etc.

While some may do so, this is by large the exception.

I dont know why it sounds so complicated to people that humans dont really want to have sex with tables.

 

[Me Myself]

I reject this logic, because it is an illusory form of intimacy. I think we progressives often have a blind spot when it comes to sex. We treat it as a special category, because we are afraid of being labeled conservatives, especially if we are also (God forbid!) religious. It is the same as if there were a service that rented out friends for lonely people. The friendship would not be real. It would be smoke and mirrors. It would be a cruel mockery. In the same sense, unless we reduce sexuality to the sheer physical act (try to reduce it to a drug) the only thing prostitutes give is an illusory, alienated intimacy. It is a cruel mockery that only exists because of the alienated concept of money in our society.

Let me die a lonely death before I ever give into sexual alienation.

I dont understand almost anything you said.

Sex feels good, you buy their services, they give them to you you have great fun and stress relief and wish fulfilllment.

The difference between that and a massage is almost just the happy ending.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I reject this logic, because it is an illusory form of intimacy. I think we progressives often have a blind spot when it comes to sex. We treat it as a special category, because we are afraid of being labeled conservatives, especially if we are also (God forbid!) religious. It is the same as if there were a service that rented out friends for lonely people. The friendship would not be real. It would be smoke and mirrors. It would be a cruel mockery. In the same sense, unless we reduce sexuality to the sheer physical act (try to reduce it to a drug) the only thing prostitutes give is an illusory, alienated intimacy. It is a cruel mockery that only exists because of the alienated concept of money in our society.

Let me die a lonely death before I ever give into sexual alienation.

You make a good point, since the "intimacy" is not given out of complete freedom and love. It's a job at the end of the day. When viewed that way, it is very sad. I would not want to have to resort to paying for someone to express affection to me. So I can't rebut your argument here.

I'm very disillusioned with how humans treat sex.

 

[Badran]

Normally, a prostitute doesn't pretend to be your wife or girlfriend (or the flip if it was a male prostitute) for an hour. Rather, she offers what a single sexual experience can provide, physically and emotionally, if done the way you want it to be done (minus certain crucial elements).

If someone goes in there and imagines that the prostitute is the love of his life, that might be indeed sad. But it has absolutely no relevancy to the moral question of the issue, and it does not render the service provided meaningless or inherently degrading. Because the only reason it's sad is that the person would be in such dire need of the emotion in the first place. That he/she hasn't gotten it already from someone else they've met sooner, and without there being an element of business involved.

However, this is a matter of preferences. Someone may want to have such an experience and somebody else might not, depending on too many factors to list. It can only degrade him/her in the eyes of those who view it as degrading, including him/herself if it happens to be viewed that way by the person. It is, at least in most people's eyes, less ideal indeed (by far) than an actual spontaneous relationship, or even a one night stand.

And that's because in those scenarios, we get certain kinds of emotional satisfaction that is not present in the business scenario (such as the ego being satisfied of the sense of accomplishment, feeling accepted and appreciated by someone else, feeling desired etc.). However, we can't just dismiss anything which is less than ideal, or, not meeting of our requirements as inherently degrading let alone immoral.

 

[Me Myself]

You make a good point, since the "intimacy" is not given out of complete freedom and love. It's a job at the end of the day. When viewed that way, it is very sad. I would not want to have to resort to paying for someone to express affection to me. So I can't rebut your argument here.

I'm very disillusioned with how humans treat sex.

Sex can be more than sex, but it certainly doesnt need to.

 

[Me Myself]

Some say working at walmart or McDonalds is degrading.

That doesnt suddenly make it immoral to use the services of the people that work at McDonalds and Walmart.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Sex can be more than sex, but it certainly doesnt need to.

I disagree. I don't think sex should just be a physical experience, with no heart and no soul in it. To turn it into a purely physical affair is to debase it and yourself, imo.

 

[Darkness]

I dont understand almost anything you said.

Sex feels good, you buy their services, they give them to you you have great fun and stress relief and wish fulfilllment.

The difference between that and a massage is almost just the happy ending.

Sex can be more than sex, but it certainly doesnt need to.

Contemporary atheism has no conception of transcendence and therefore has become capitalism's *****. I am quite convinced that most progressives nowadays are capital's *******.

Some say working at walmart or McDonalds is degrading.

That doesnt suddenly make it immoral to use the services of the people that work at McDonalds and Walmart.

I find it absurd to say that sexuality is in any way comparable to handing out hamburgers. Read Sigmund Freud if you are not convinced. Besides, the argument only works if you abstract all the human qualities from sexuality. And, if the argument is that we should abolish capitalism and wage-labor I am all for it. Let's do it! However, I am not convinced that wage-labor is analogous to prostitution. The point where alienation is actualized in not the same as in prostitution. We can step outside the sphere of prostitution, but we cannot do the same with economic activity. People can easily choose not to be a john. Though, if it were up to me I would get rid of all fast food restaurants. I think they are an unnatural aberration. The Argument X is bad, but we do X all the time, so that means it is good to also do Bad Y is illogical. I am a committed Marxist, but wage labor is a common evil we must all bear for the time being. The same is not true for prostitution. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't boycott Walmart and MacDonalds, but we cannot step outside all wage-labor.

 

[illykitty]

I wonder how many would be prostitutes without money, drugs, alcohol...? A woman who simply enjoys sex would continue to do so but would it be different in any way?

And another question to ponder, is the use of prostitute any way related to our culture or human nurturing? Or is it human nature? Would it happen less in a society that doesn't emphasise sex so much (not suppressing but rather not be obsessed with it)? Why is there more men using prostitutes than women?

Also, I don't think sex is anything to be ashamed of. But I really question what makes prostitution something that people feel is their only choice, from either perspective and why they feel they have to do it. I want to know the root cause of it.

 

[McBell]

I wonder how many would be prostitutes without money, drugs, alcohol...? A woman who simply enjoys sex would continue to do so but would it be different in any way?

And another question to ponder, is the use of prostitute any way related to our culture or human nurturing? Or is it human nature? Would it happen less in a society that doesn't emphasise sex so much (not suppressing but rather not be obsessed with it)? Why is there more men using prostitutes than women?

Also, I don't think sex is anything to be ashamed of. But I really question what makes prostitution something that people feel is their only choice, from either perspective and why they feel they have to do it. I want to know the root cause of it.

The History of prostitution - William W. Sanger - Google Books

 

[Aupmanyav]

Why is there more men using prostitutes than women?

Because there are more men than necessary, whereas earlier they would get eliminated in hunts and wars. If the ratio was 1:5 or 1:10, prostitution would probably not have existed.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

The thing about tricks is that they have a huge sense of entitlement, they want to get their moneys worth, they want the prostitute to pretend that she likes it even when they know she doesn't, and they rate a woman on the internet like a product from Amazon. It blurs the line between consent and rape, as it also does in relationships where men use emotional blackmail to get what they want sexually. In this case tricks use money and often violence.