Poll about Legalized Prostitution

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Correct. So what is wrong with a man paying a woman do engage in sexual activity with him if she agrees to it? Commodities include services as well as goods. A service can be engaging in a shared activity with someone in exchange for payment from that person.

Like it or lump it, sex is fungible. Plenty of women use sex to manipulate the men in their lives by withholding it if they don't get their way; which I find as contemptible as you find Johns.

That should be obvious.

Social relationships do not inelectuably lead to sex. Also, in a date, the relationship is expected to be relatively equal and reciprocal.

How is selling sex fundamentally different from selling a massage?

You can't get STDs, internal injuries or pregnancy from giving a massage.
There really aren't many especially demeaning or painful ways to give a massage, either. And yes, sex can be painful and demeaning because I've been there. I've given massages when I didn't really feel like doing it, and it was fine. I've also had sex when I wasn't really into it and it felt awful. I realise that if I had partly-unwilling sex on a regular basis, like a prostitute or a woman in a repressive culture does, I'd get 'used' to it - but I think that would involve a lot of repression and I'd probably be even more messed up mentally as a result.

You can't get STDs, internal injuries or pregnancy from giving a massage.

I realise that if I had partly-unwilling sex on a regular basis, like a prostitute or a woman in a repressive culture does, I'd get 'used' to it -

but I think that would involve a lot of repression and I'd probably be even more messed up mentally as a result.

I would imagine that the problem of STDs, internal injuries and pregrancy would be better dealt if prostitution were legal. It's like any job: there are laws to make factories, stores, warehouses, office buildings, etc., less dangerous, or to compensate workers injured at work. At the very least, these could be made to apply to sex workers, or adapted to deal with their specific issues.

I don't inted to banalize prostitution, but being unsatisfied of one's work isn't exceptionnally abnormal. Prostituion may be extreme in this regard, but many jobs are alienating. In any case, I don't think prositutes choose this line of work because they feel it fulfils their lifelong ambitions. Rather, for some, it's a way to make enough money to get through. No doubt, it is not a good condition, but I don't see how making prostitution illegal makes it any better for these women. We must "solve" the socio-economic reality, not the moral bankruptcy.

Lots of jobs involve repression and getting mentally messed up.

...Inside the police station’s tactical room, the officers are scouring thebackpage.com for sex ads, cross-referencing the numbers listed with the ads. They come across titles such as “Double the fun” and “Cutie with a big bootie.”

Officer Jeff German checks a list of phone numbers already investigated during Operation: Room Service II. He calls across the room to Sgt. John Stefanski, who’s looking over recent arrests at his own desk. Stefanski asks German for the number and name on one particular ad and takes a disposable cell phone from a manila envelope. He dials.

Hi. You got time for me in an hour?” he asks in a voice reminiscent of actor James Woods’ sleazier roles. Stefanski smiles as he says he always brings enough money and doesn’t like to talk specifics over the phone. The rendezvous is set and the tactical unit prepares to make its first arrest of the night.....

As another cop circles the building to hold the door open, Stefanski is buzzed in to meet “Unique,” who advertised using cell phone photos of herself wearing tight pants in front of a bathroom mirror. “The crime occurs when she agrees to have sex for money,” Stefanski said.

He is inside for only about a minute before he calls for everyone to come in. The 31-year-old woman sits in handcuffs on an armchair and watches as officers search the apartment. It appears she intended to take him into a candle-lit bedroom for sex. Her four children — ages 13, 10, 9, and 8 — are watching TV in the next room.

The woman tells Stefanski she doesn’t sell drugs and has been looking for other work since getting laid off from her job. “I got to pay the rent somehow,” she said.

Unique is arrested but told she will be released on a recognizance bond because she had no previous prostitution arrests. Previous arrests would have turned the misdemeanor into a felony. The officers don’t find any drugs and they are just as relieved when her record comes back clean because she’s been unable to find anyone willing to watch her children if she had to go down to the station....

She is released from the handcuffs and sits down at a table while Stefanski completes the complaint form.

Unique is warned of the consquences if she is arrested for prostitution again and remains calm. But is upset to learn her cell phone will be seized.

She allows officers to search the contact list, where approximately 125 people are listed as “BP (Backpage)” clients with their names and information the kinds of encounters they paid for....

Now, I think there is a a lot of abuse of sex workers but the majority of that is the result of it being illegal and the stigmatization that goes with it.

I think the feminist perspective(whatever school we're dealing with) is that no well of mind woman could consent to sex work. Honestly at the core of it it's a very anti-woman viewpoint in my opinion given that implication despite trying to reconcile it with being 'anti-john'. Even if a woman willingly participates she is being raped on some level.

It's impossible for a woman to enjoy it or find the work preferable to other lines of work. There is a weird valuation of sex, how is having sex for money any different than flipping burgers for money? As mention, what's the difference between a massage and sex work? Really, what is the difference between any line of work?

No, my position is that no well-of-mind person would buy sex.

I think the majority of it is the result of men abusing sex workers, to be honest. I think they will do it even if it's legal, it's just that legalising it would provide the women some protection.

I think that people who are well-of-mind do purchase sex. Do you have any argument based upon the DSM? It used to be that no "well-of-mind" person would engage in homosexuality.