Legalizing Prostitution

Juice, I can only repeat what I have said umpteen times here and elsewhere: nobody on this forum is suggesting that prostitution is good, that they would encourage it, or that they want more of it. We are all on the same page here. Understood?

We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.
Victor Hugo

I have read one persons admission that he would not discourage his daughter from having a career as a "legal prostitute". This also from a grandmother.

It's Saturday night, my son came home at a reasonable hour from hanging out at a friends house, and my daughter asked if I wanted a cup of hot chocolate, which I poured a little rum into. My wife should be home shortly from work and my dog is lying at my feet, raises his head whenever I stop typing and lean back, for the obligatory pat on the head. I think I'll hold on to my emotions and just damn any system which tries to take them away.

PJ-We are not on the same page. I think some of us are working through the acknowledgements.

Nobody wants to "take your emotions away" Juice. That's crazy.

Sounds like a nice night at the Juice family home. I could tell how my day was too, I could describe myself in intimate detail so you would know that I am also a human being with a life and a family and friends and interests. But it's not what I'm here for. I'm here to do philosophy. If you're not here to do philosophy, then you're right, we're not on the same page.

PJ-Like the new avatar. The old one reminded of this tough (sadistic) Irish Brother (Catholic) who taught ninth grade math, when I was in High School.

I think you missed the point. I believe that "LOVE", is in some way part of philosophy and we are supposed to love one another. I love you PJ, and I am the better person with you in my life, especially in this ethereal format, can you feel the irony. I am sure you know of the animosity resulting in some other sites, it just doesn't exist here. There is no way atheists and theists get along this well on other sites. I have yet to see one person lose their cool. It's as if people just naturally comport themselves to a higher standard of discourse. Unusual among all the possible variations of positive and negative dialectics and tones. Especially given the anonymity factor.

Anyway, I think family has become a philosophy. Once I married all I wanted was the white picket fence, kids and the dog. Don't get the impression it was all a bed of roses, but we have endured and continue to do so.

As stated, it seems we all agree that the world would be a better place without prostitution (and other human faults as well). It seems we all value humanity. What I think is missing is a high level of moral norms which lends to a higher expectation of ethical standards. In this, and to that end, I believe we must see what gives itself to the highest ideas of the human endeavor. And in that we must foremost love our fellow man even to the point of force, in some instances and willing self sacrifice.

We have learned enough from the human experience to make quantified choices on how best to achieve and taking any step in the wrong direction means that those who have come before us, the good and the bad, were a wasted effort. Hitler and Hugo.

I find it interesting, in many respects, that any fifth grader today knows much more than Darwin. It's like generational computers. I mean we have to be learning something for some reason and to some end. Don't you think?

pjkeeley

Of course. And if I only knew what prostitution is like, I wouldn't want my (hypothetical, non-existent) daughter to become a prostitute? Maybe so. But it won't affect whether or not I think prostitution should be legal. As I have apparently struggled to make clear to you, my personal feelings aren't relevant here. They inform my thoughts about prostitution, yes, but not on whether or not prostitution should be made legal. You could show me all the horrendous pictures of aborted fetuses you want, and yes, they might make me not want to abort a fetus, but they wouldn't make me want abortion to be illegal. I'm not suggesting that a clear, reasoned argument on public policy grounds couldn't change my mind. It could. But an appeal to emotion alone never will. All it could change is my personal feelings, which, I will repeat, have very little to do with my feelings about public policy.

The metaxu that enbales us to willingly accept the value of obligations in support of a free society is emotional, Yes, I am appealing to your emotions.

We don't kill because it is illogical. It is very logical to kill when we know we won't be discovered. We don't kill becuase we feel that it is wrong.

I've been trying to make the point which is impossible for increasing secularism. Can we learn from our own emotional experience why we should willingly and collectively deny legalized prostitution? Can we feel why it is wrong at the same time intellectually open to new understandings of sex, sex energy, and the body? It doesn't seem so.

Your way is dominant now which reveals just another reason why our free society must collapse into socialism. When we cannot appreciate the value of obligations from a human perspective, the government enforeces their own sense of obligations from the perspective of the "Great Beast."

"Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand." Simone Weil

We are unwilling to "feel" the results of prostitution so logically we justify it culturally. The only way we can feel it is to become one ourselves or experience it in the eyes of those we love. We prefer logic so are incapable of understanding the effect of sexual prostitution on those still having something to prostitute as well as in society as a whole.

When a society loses its values it no longer has a sense of the value of obligations and instead sinks into the demand for rights. This is what is happening now in America. IMO if we no longer can appreciate the devestating effects of legalized prostituion on societal metaxu, it just means that we no longer appreciate the necessity of welcoming obligations to preserve freedoms we once respected.

I am not sure where this mention of government brothels comes from.

When prostitution becomes legalized, what would prevent it? It would be a good source of tax revenue. When it becomes legal you can be assured that the government will have a hand in it as well as other appropriate appendages.

[Scott]

Here is something Juice wrote in another thread that reminded me of this one:

I am for as little and even no government intrusion into the freedoms and lives of humanity at all. All government is inherently corrupt and should be limited to keeping the citizenry free from force so that they can conduct their business according to their own rational will.

Essentially speaking, I share that political philosophy iterated in those two sentences, which I would call anti-statism. I believe it calls for the legalization of prostitution between consenting, competent adults particularly in cases where neither party is poor.

I would be interested to read Juice's explanation of the apparent contradiction between those anti-statist remarks and his statist position in this thread.

You only read that line Scott contextual to that thread, in other threads I have stated that in order for the individual to be free from force that certain inherent societal ills must be curtailed.

Note that I included the term "rational will". Engaging in prostitution is not rational. Particularly in terms of its effect on a free society in the same way that drug prostitution is not rational.

While I "cannot", by force stop an individual from believing that the prostitution and illegal drug industries are avenues of the actionable exercise of will, I can reason that such activities lead to corruption and disparities in import, and as such place a negative value to its willed participation.

In a "fair" free society any individual should participate in that society according to their own will and beliefs, but we must also be able to reason that an individual who participates in certain activities does not contribute to the ultimate value of themselves, to which they are capable, when harming themselves and therefore does not allow that individual complete freedom, of mind, body and spirit.

If the rational step is to move past base concepts of corruption into a more egalitarian concept of society, and if we are to believe in virtue, and expect virtue to be a product of reason, rationality, productiveness and honor, then we must also be willing to define those terms with meaningful, intentional action.

It may be that prostitution has been prejudiced by its relationship to drug abuse, rape and slavery, but that is already part of history, which cannot be changed. That may change in the future, if a society can manage prostitution without those links.

I have to say that as a Christian I must be allowed to apply my own reasoned beliefs to the concept of prostitution and allowed to be free from any influence on my nature it may have.

Furthermore my idea of freedom is based on Christian perspectives. While I know it impossible and highly unlikely that such a society would be accepted, and I accept the conditions which preclude its formation, like the one I envision, would be best served by the "voluntary" following of Christ, not as in a theocracy, but through the acceptance of a personal God through which freedom and peace come.

Personally, I don't believe sex should be polluted with emotions and mind games. That's why I only have sex for money.

I agree with what Scott says about anti-statism and free-trade, however, I question how many sex-workers actually do it for the love of the work.

I also question the credibility of 'witnesses' in this thread who have never taken part in the sex trade.

Unfortunately "sex" is polluted with emotions and mind games and so is "money", therefor you have the double misfortune of contending with "minds games".

Love of sex, or love of money. Love of surviving with the portability of both the purse and the strings in one body, either through the view of self or the view of self through another.

Judging by your intellect, Billy, I very much doubt you would deny yourself to not be thought more of by anyone, either way.

Love of sex, or love of money. Love of surviving with the portability of both the purse and the strings in one body, either through the view of self or the view of self through another.

This sounds like sexism to me. Domestic work usually goes unpaid, and so does sex. If someone in society is producing a desired commodity, they ought to be paid for it, whether or not it is just 'woman's work'. Once you get this, it's no surprise that men and "Daddy's girls" (to use Solanas's phrase) are usually the ones who want to suppress the sex trade. The man just thinks he deserves sex like he just deserves to have his shirts cleaned and his dinner cooked. Did you really think women like being banged and groped by sweaty disgusting men?

Once again with the labeling Billy? What are you going to do in your society? Make everyone wear a patch on their lapel, or a tattoo on their forearm? Or, are we just going by color and what kind of shoes and watch a person wears? I've worn lot's of shoes. If I try real hard I can remember my first pair of shoes!

So what's the difference between the label maker and the labeled?

You obviously live in the past, or want to. Today most people conduct their lives as they see fit, trying not to get in anyone's way or step on anyones toes as best as possible. Gender roles are slipping into the past like the neighborhood hardware store and beauty parlors. Men can be just as pretty as woman, and plenty woman carry guns and badges. "Metrosexuals" spend just as much time at grooming as woman do and I've seen just as many woman on the gun range out shooting men. "The times they are a changin'."

The only sexually repressed people are the ones who have more of an interest in themselves than anyone else, not even withstanding plain old ineptness, since Viagra, and even KY makes over the counter arousal jell, for men and woman, that you can damn near buy at a church revival.

Hell even my wife will curl up beside me and smoke a cigar, and have a couple of brews, as long as I let her drag me to restaurants I have to wear a jacket and tie for.

Every human interaction is based on a little give and take, and intimate relationships are no different. Unless one has something to hide, and there in steps the prostitute and the john, or the joan, school teacher, priest, Beggarman and thief.

"Sexism" has gone the way of the manual typewriter and Velcro zippers, at least in this part of a world view.

What's the difference between being married and single?
Clean sheets, and having less room to avoid the wet spots.

What's the difference between being married and single?
Clean sheets, and having less room to avoid the wet spots.

Why pay for it if you can have it for free?

Sounds less like an oppression machine when you cloak it in patriarchal protectionism: 'just keeping my daughter pure'.

I told my daughter that all men are the devil, too.

I told my son the same about women.

Neither listened.

Probably the best way for everyone to be safe is for all of us just to be handcuffed together, boy girl, boy girl, and armed with the same high caliber handgun, but who gets to hold the key when someone decides to step out of line and things get out of control?

There is always chastity belts. Which leaves the same problem of who holds the key.

No, this way is better, for now. Be thankful for sexual dimorphism, since, unfortunately you were born before the of age of androgyny and symmetry, then what will we have to fight over?

Sex is the key.

[quote="BillyDomestic work usually goes unpaid, and so does sex. If someone in society is producing a desired commodity, they ought to be paid for it--[/quote]

There are currencies other than money (and often better ones, as well.) Domestic work may not be compensated via cash, but can be (and often is) compensated in cars, housing, heating, cable TV, vacations, education, etc.

Sex between willing partners is payment; should I pay my partner in dollars, only to be likewise paid in return? (Frankly, I prefer the very real currency we exchange via our mutual participation in the act of love itself!)

There are currencies other than money (and often better ones, as well.) Domestic work may not be compensated via cash, but can be (and often is) compensated in cars, housing, heating, cable TV, vacations, education, etc.

Sex between willing partners is payment; should I pay my partner in dollars, only to be likewise paid in return? (Frankly, I prefer the very real currency we exchange via our mutual participation in the act of love itself!)

You're a man right?

Thought so.