One night stands and prostitution. (Political)

Its a religious thing and was deemed a crime by the Catholic church as an anathema to marriage, family group, etc etc.

Well you can either think.......

“An emancipation of women from the rule of overbearing men. A form of liberation from mans oppressions of the female gender.”

Or........

“A form of control opposed upon women by sexist “pimping” men. Another method of control devised by those of the “wang” gender to keep women in their place.”


Either way, if you a dude, you screwed......so to speak lol

I don't think it is illegal, is it? Or maybe its like assisted suicide (which we are NOT going into) - illegal, but not enforced.

If there are laws against it, I think they're there to stop women being taken advantage of (read: forced into prosititution by pimps). And I think as its set up now, the laws mainly incriminate pimps anyway.

I should do some research before I make claims like that though. Oh well.

escort services are legal as you dont pay for the sex, you get it free with the company, i think protatution is as long as the woman is over 18, concents and is working alone (so no brotheles or pimping).

Brotheles were made iligal a while ago and no pimping is to try and cut down on sex trafficing and forced prostitution. Also i think the victorian atitude to sex and also christianity and marrage help encorage the iligiality of prostitution. Personaly i'm fine with it.

I could be wrong but I think the technical term is 'soliciting' and its illegal. Escorts are legal as long as sex is not involved (because then its prostitution). Prostitution is illegal and merits a jail sentence, but the police ignore it because, lets be honest, there are bigger problems that they would rather spend their time on, and since jails are overcrowded as it is, they are hardly going to fill them up with scarlet ladies.

I think it's not government's job to forbid prostitution.

Also, no tax/insurance is paid from prostitution because it's illegal, not the other way around.

Anyway, in Poland, prostitution is legal, but pimping is illegal.

Largely in Britiain and to the best of my knowledge the whole process of prostitution is effectively illegal.

For my part, I don't see an issue. Well, there's the whole exploitation bit, but that strikes me as something best dealt with within a legal industry, not in an illegal blackmarket.

In terms of 'fairness to humans' and compassion, legalising prostituion still seems the best way to 'help the vulnerable'.

Indeed, the only downside seems to be the oodles of folks who have 'yuk' responses to the whole thing. Such responses can't exactly be neglected, but they can't exactly be reasoned with either.
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One Night Stands

This is an interesting tangent. I recently had a discussion with a few of my friends (mostly girls, all of whom are pretty/doable, all of whom are still good friends). One is fairly impressionable (i.e. you can persuade her to many things she's only vaguely interested in with little effort, but still not easily convinced on 'deep' issues), one is best described as prudish and fridgid (despite being also lovely and very similarly humoured to myself), one being best described as extremely promiscuous and entirely 'devil may care'.

The point I made to them, and which they seemed united in agreeing on (or at least not arguing with), was that 'one night stands' are still perfectly viable venues in which to have a relationship.

Sex is awesome (in general). As is kissing. And hugging. And general human company. Spending a night with someone doesn't require you to trample all over folks feelings, to 'not discuss' anything nor does it require you to ruin your relationship over mixed up messages.

The trick to such cases, in my experience, is always frankness (oh!) and a degree of honesty/sensibility. If folks are not invested in a longer relationship, if folks are happy in one another's company, if folks are sexually compatible, if folks aren't being arses and if folks aren't being duplicitous then what we're discussing is a mini-relationship with alot of the good and very little of the bad.

Especially if the sex is terrible or they're a bad kisser (etc).

This is not the singular basis for relationships or happiness, but it's a very convincing (IMO) basis from which to conside the viability of things. Not everything happens for a reason, but not everything is meaningless. A one night stand can be pround and life changing. It can be an afterthought. As can a 'long term' relationship.

One night stands can develop into beautiful things. For longer relationships the approach to a similar thing is often known as degradation.

Also, as it happens, when our cab-driver (Bogdan) took us on an impromtu tour of Auschwitz, he offered us also a guide to the Krakow Red Light District in which we were strongly recommended the 'Russian women at Polish prices!". Unsurprisingly we politely decline his offer.

Xisor wrote:In terms of 'fairness to humans' and compassion, legalising prostituion still seems the best way to 'help the vulnerable'.

Frankly, if 'fairness to humans' should be taken into account, most of jobs should be banned .

I don't have a moral problem with prostitution itself, but the business of prostitution is extremely grubby, ethically dubious and generally the sort of thing we should be trying to stamp out. The majority of prostitutes are not doing it to empower themselves as women, they're doing it because they have no other choice- either because they're effectively homeless and they can only earn a crust by selling their bodies or because they're forced into it by their pimp, and are in effect slaves.

I think it's very easy for us (who can all afford a computer, therefore placing us in a financial bracket above the majority of prostitutes) to look on the matter purely from an ethical standpoint and maintain this illusion that it is empowering. Yes, it might be considered empowering if the woman is doing it out of choice, but a vanishingly small proportion of them actually are. For them it's not about empowering themselves, it's about survival, and most of them would almost certainly consider their position to be degrading. The world of prostitution is not actually anywhere near as glamorous as we might like to believe.

Would legalising it help? Well, it's already partially decriminalised, in that it's not actually illegal to do it so long as you don't solicit. Anyone who pays money for sex is though I believe breaking the law. Legalising it altogether so that it can be controlled *might* help, but I don't think it would address the biggest problem of underground prostitution, which is more tied up with the drugs isse. Legalising drugs I think might actually go some way to addressing the problem.

That said, what I'm not a big fan of is the increasingly extroverted sexualisation of society, of which I think visible prostitution is one part. There is nothing immoral about sex, but I think we pay altogether too much attention to it as a society and are beginning to sexualise children too early. lAthough we like to think of ourselves as sexually liberated, we're actually still really repressed, and still going through our rebellious period of reaction against the prudish Victorian and pre-war attitudes towards it. Rather than being obsessed with not having sex, we're now obsessed with having it, and that preys on everybody's minds far more than is healthy. If we could treat it as a fun fact of life, which is really all it is, and nothing much more, I think we'd all be a lot better off.

Kiddies need to go to sleep with tied hands, so that they couldn't touch themselves .

Deuce wrote:I don't have a moral problem with prostitution itself, but the business of prostitution is extremely grubby, ethically dubious and generally the sort of thing we should be trying to stamp out. The majority of prostitutes are not doing it to empower themselves as women, they're doing it because they have no other choice- either because they're effectively homeless and they can only earn a crust by selling their bodies or because they're forced into it by their pimp, and are in effect slaves.

I think it's very easy for us (who can all afford a computer, therefore placing us in a financial bracket above the majority of prostitutes) to look on the matter purely from an ethical standpoint and maintain this illusion that it is empowering. Yes, it might be considered empowering if the woman is doing it out of choice, but a vanishingly small proportion of them actually are. For them it's not about empowering themselves, it's about survival, and most of them would almost certainly consider their position to be degrading.

So is almost any other job.

No. No, it really isn't the same. There's a difference between being forced into prostitution and doing any job that is actually legal.

I wasn't talking about being in sex slavery. I was talking about prostituting to get money to survive. It's not like anyone *wants* to work. People have to work or they'll end up on street.

What Therion is saying is that any job is taken as an alternative to living on the streets (I presume). Or not actually the streets, but in, well, unemployment.

Its just that Prostitution is a lot further down the "ideal job list" from banker, lawyer, engineer, etc. And then there's the other example you give which isn't like that at all. That example is just slavery.

It does pay more than working at Mc Donalds though.

For a while, Aberdeen ran a ‘tolerance zone’ next to the docks. This was set up to remove the working girls from the high street/town centre where they were touting for business (at all hours of the day). A lot of (male) late night revellers complained at the harassment (from hookers trying to sell themselves) and a lot of (female) revellers complained about being approached by blokes mistaking them as hookers. A lot of hookers complained to the police about being beaten up by drunken louts after the bars/clubs had shut (even though what they were/are doing was/is illegal, assault is still assault and the police are duty bound to arrest the drunken louts (of both sexes).

During the day a lot of parents complained about their presence in front of their kids.

So the tolerance zone was set up, allowing the girls to work without fear of arrest. This was a really good idea. It got the girls away from the drunken bully’s, stopped innocent girls on a night out from being mistakenly identified as hookers, meant that local charities could help/ support the girls better, enabled the police to keep an eye on things but direct their attention to where it was needed more (the drunken yobs) and provided a stable and safe environment for the girls.

It was actually a very good idea for all those concerned. The docks work 24/7 as most of the rigs are supplied from Aberdeen harbours, so most of the girls new the lorry drivers and indeed crane drivers, because they (we) drove past on a regular basis. One of my crane driving colleagues knows a lot of the girls by name because he had gone to school with them.

Also, if a girl was threatened by a customer, she knew she could escape to a quayside for safety, or flag down one of the regularly passing HGVs or cranes.

Aberdeen is not big; you can drive from one end to the other in less than fifteen minutes (except during rush hour!) so pretty much everyone knows or knows of everyone else.

The girls could also support themselves better, look out for each other and trade information on abusive customers, because they all operated in such a small area.

And those seeking the services of the girls also knew where to go, and with all the girls in such a small area, could ‘easily shop around first’ as it were.

It pretty much was a win, win situation for all concerned.

And then some law was passed (I think it was a European one) about two/three years ago that made what Grampian police had done ‘illegal’. So the tolerance zone was scrapped.

Now the girls are back on the high street at all hours of the day, women are complaining of being mistaken as prostitutes, the amount of prostitutes ending up in the casualty department of Aberdeen hospital has rocketed, along with the death toll.

And the outreach charities now find their job harder because they can no longer keep tabs on the girls.

Is that progress? I don’t think so.

Its the problem with any sort of super state.

The US has the same problem (to an extent). Federal Government advises something (like raising the drinking age to 21) and the states ignore it. So it adds it to the constitution*.

In the EU, its even worse, because we don't vote for the most powerful positions, and even if we did, Britain shouldn't be ruled by the EU.

*NB, I did no research into this example, I basically made it up

With regards to the Deuce/Firewind sides of the debate, I largely concur with Firewind's presentation of ideas. That is to say (expecting evidence to support the claim and not that evidence to the contrary would blow all my ideals out of the water) the whole setup isn't even an abstractly moral or ethical affair. These people *are* in a bad place. We might *want* to solve all the world's ills (i.e. to make a world such that prostitution isn't even a question, let alone an issue), but at the present time (and indeed possibly within all possibility!) we mightn't ever be able to achieve such a solution.

In terms of sheer pragmatism, surely the hope is to make is safer and more comfortable for people. In that sense: Improve the slaves conditions and 'terms' (i.e. our definition of and approach to what happens to the slaves) then perhaps slavery would no longer be an issue.

Okay, it's a badly explained line of reasoning, but if you'd care to gloss over some of my errors I think you might see what I am trying to get at. Maybe...

I understand what you mean - you have to negotiate with terrorists.

I know prostitutes aren't terrorists (necessarily) but the same logic (or absence of it) applies.

I've been staying out of this conversation, but in response to the United States: The Central Government offers "aide money" to the States. Should the states choose not to make something a law (like, for example, the illegalization of marijuana), then the Central Government takes away said money.

It also causes various wee issues and the like. For example: In various parts of the country (New Jersey, New York, and Virginia in particular) it's illegal to sell fireworks. However, it's perfectly legal in states along the border (Maryland in particular) and thus you get laws that go relatively unenforced unless someone ships something like a cubic ton of fireworks in (I kid you not, this has happened before!).

As for Prostitution... there are certain towns/cities that have in legalized particularly in Las Vegas, Nevada. While, for the most part in 99% of the country, it's illegal (Yes, cities/towns can reestablish laws just as easily as states... it boggles the mind!). Of course, that doesn't stop things like Craig's List from encouraging it and all.


Now that I've cleared that up about the United States, continue your debate!

The undeniable fact of prostitution, is that it has been around since, well the start. It won’t, nor will it ever, go away.

You can try and bury your head in the sand or stick fingers in your ears, but like King Canute, you are simply wasting your time.

For some of the girls, they do it because they have a drug habit that needs feeding. But for most of the girls, it was because they left school with no qualifications. Most of us here know how hard it is to get a job with qualifications, if you have none, then it’s almost insurmountable.

Prostitution is simply the only means they have at their disposal with which to feed and clothe themselves.

Ironically, by driving it underground, you are forcing the girls to look for pimps in order to protect themselves from abusive customers and the influx of eastern European (In Aberdeen its Polish) girls who are brought in by gangs looking to make a quick buck. These illegal immigrants are slaves in all respects. Because they are illegal, they can’t use the health service, banks, education system, and can’t escape from the cycle because there is no-where where they can go, and for many, their grasp of English is negligible at best.

Also, very little of their ‘wages’ ends up in the girls pockets but goes to the gangs who use it to fund drug empires and other criminal activities.

If you were to legalise it, it would be easier to regulate, easier to check on the girls health (and thereby actively fight against STDs) and with more of the girls earnings staying with the girls, it would enable them to fund training in which they could leave the profession- if they so desire.

As to the statement that prostitution is degrading to women, well, it’s up to the women in question to make that decision. Many would argue that ‘Page three’ is degrading to women, yet some, like Katie Price aka ‘Jordan’ have done very well for themselves.

Also, if you were to legalise it, then the girls would pay tax and national insurance. That’s more money for the government to fritter away on moat cleaning and duck houses.

Most of jobs for people that don't have qualifications is quite degrading. Yeah, and in Poland, payment (1 GBP for hour) is pretty degrading too .