Is prostitution just another service, like hiring an electrician?

[shadowplay]

Thanks, BP. Do you think those costs would be reduced if the social stigma is reduced? If we all considered prostitution to be like working as an electrician, and I could go to a party as say "Hi, I'm shadowplay, and I'm a prostitute", in the same way as I might say "Hi, I'm shadowplay, and I'm a firefighter", would that make any difference? Or is there something about the act itself of prostitution that makes the costs so high?

[Hoagy]

Many of us prostitute ourselves in some way sometimes, not just for sex. We do jobs we hate where our boss abuses us and customers treat us like crap but we don't quit because we need the money. We tolerate bad relationships but we don't walk out because we're afraid of being on our own. At least escorts get to work indoors.

[Blue Spiral]

As long as it's illegal, it's not just another service. But if it was regulated and strictly monitored (and taxed, it's stupid not to make money off it), it'd be different. More and more low-level prostitution is popping up, in terms of Craigslist and women doing it for rent and stuff like that. I think legalizing it would be a lot safer.

 

In the end, prostitution is like porn--it's sexual stimuli that doesn't have a social component. There's a significant subset of men that are "socially challenged" or simply don't want to include a sexual partner in their (public) lives, but still need to deal with certain needs. Men are extremely good at compartmentalizing their lives. This is reflected in our fiction--mythic American men like Tony Soprano, Don Draper, and Walter White all have public personas and private personas. There are parts of their lives that are socially acceptable, and parts of their lives that aren't. They're fine with both, but they have to keep one half hidden, so don't blame them if they're getting better at it...

[amipushy]

I do agree that some women do it through choice but for many women it is not a choice, its a necessity. For example, many street sex workers are drug addicts.

[itsallgrand]

Yes, that's kind of what I'm wondering - is it primarily a value based question based on how you view sex.

 

I think so.

 

I think because it is such a varied service, with such variety regulation and lack of it, that it can not be compared to the regular service sector. Even with every conceivable regulation in place, by its very essence, it will always remain a service that borders on criminal.

 

If I were to compare to other services I would be more prone to say it comparable to gambling, fighting matches, that sort of service.

 

How would you classify it? Is it entertainment? Personal services? A for-profit small business?

 

I find it interesting watching attempts to regulate fighting in particular. One great example: the rise of UFC. I remember seeing it at its conception and watching it grow as a very profitable and glitzy business. Because it is a business first and foremost, and because the people behind it are smart (even if you don't agree with how they make their money), a lot of effort is put into it to keep it above board and "clean".

 

Yet, you can't ever make "clean" what isn't at its core. It sort of thrives on some less than savoury parts of human nature.

 

Same with prostitution. You can regulate it, make it as "clean" as you want. But at the end of the day, it will remain what it is because that is what makes money. Prostitutes and johns and pimps will figure out ways to beat the legal system, even if it is through loop holes. Because it makes money to do that! A prostitute is catering to the gross needs of people - and not only sexually.

 

I do like comparing it to fighting Mostly because it's pretty obvious at the end of the day, if you want fighting, even if you admire the skill and smarts etc etc of it, a part of you is watching it cause you like to watch two guys beat the crap out of each other.

 

Men will always go to prostitutes to get what they can't in "regular" society. And a lot of the reasons they have to go there, are good ones - I mean, good reasons it is not acceptable and available to them.

 

Good reasons too it is not acceptable and available to most of us to go and pay two guys to beat each other to pulps. lol.

[BryanPain]

Thanks, BP. Do you think those costs would be reduced if the social stigma is reduced? If we all considered prostitution to be like working as an electrician, and I could go to a party as say "Hi, I'm shadowplay, and I'm a prostitute", in the same way as I might say "Hi, I'm shadowplay, and I'm a firefighter", would that make any difference? Or is there something about the act itself of prostitution that makes the costs so high?

 

The social stigma is part of the equation, in my opinion the bigger costs are related to the deceptions involved and becoming an object for another's enjoyment, as opposed to a person to be treated with a level of respect. Sex and intimate contact are very personal things, they are one of the strongest tools we have to express caring and love between two people. Ask yourself, when you have sex and you feel the other person is not enjoying it, do you? Except in rare cases, for the people involved in the act, it's not just about the physical contact, it's about the real or perceived emotional connection that makes sex something we all crave.

 

Prostitution takes this very personal expression and turns it into a commodity that can be sold, at the same time turning themselves into a commodity that can be sold. The person that uses the prostitutes' services sees the prostitute as an object to be purchased, and the expression of sex, once a powerful driver, becomes something less, more an itch that needs be scratched to give a moment's relief as opposed to the powerful expression it had once been.

[BritterSweet]

The answer also depends on this question: Do you see sex as a product that can/should be bought and sold, or as an activity that two people share?

 

I can't see prostitution as "just another service" and compare it to hiring an electrician for this reason. To me, sex isn't something that's given/received/taken. It would be too personal to me. To be honest, while I do like the idea of prostitution being taxed, screened, regulated and protected, I would never want a man who hires prostitutes. That would be a deal breaker for me.

[Fudgie]

I personally value sex more and wouldn't date someone who sees it as a "service" but hey, to some it's a service. I personally don't care about hookers. If someone is depraved enough and desperate enough to buy sex, let 'em. I think it's freaking disgusting but I don't stand in the way.

[chickydoodle]

In Australia, sex workers are legal, however this recognition has not altered the perception that it is something to be frowned upon.

When ex cheated on me while I was away I asked him why he couldnt just hire a prostitute?

 

His answer was that men want women to want them and a sex worker wouldnt do it for him.

 

It made me question the whole industry.

It must be demeaning for people to have to pay for it knowing the person giving service is doing it as a job not out of care or Love or attraction and it must be demeaning for the person giving service.....Not many winners in the whole game.

Unless

Society's perception about the whole thing changed .- then maybe....

[tiredofvampires]

It's as degrading as the person doing it believes it to be. I have felt more powerful in the sex industry, and degraded in a minimum wage employment situation.

 

If you'd care to share...what made you feel empowered/powerful in the sex industry, and why would that be a good or preferred method to reach that feeling of empowerment?

[tiredofvampires]

I like this video, below. And interesting that in several places, this speaker cites the negative experiences of the bunny ranch type call girl. I think a lot of that type of scenario gets glamorized, misleadingly.

 

I really believe that, unlike the electrician, prostitution as a "career" choice is coming from a place of damaged history (including emotional and/or physical abuse) and interpersonal dysfunction/disconnection, lack of self-respect, desperation, feeling lost, and not seeing better options. One has to -- HAS to -- become disconnected with their own body, mind and spirit in ways, to provide a service which turns the most vulnerable and intimate act into an impersonal, robotic transaction filled with pretense. Massage therapists do not make such compromises by "renting" out their hands, just as physical therapists, artists, and anyone in a profession using their hands (a body part that is used in just about every job) isn't making such compromises.

 

At present, I think prostitution should be legalized (as the libertarian-leaning person that I am), and I can see some situations -- such as a disabled person seeking their services -- where it may be a beneficial service to the customer. But the impact on the worker, and its toll, is the same. So even if it seems like it might be considered a win-win (dollars for services), there is a hidden "soul tax" that is unique to this profession.

 

Worth a watch:

 

link removed

 

For anyone who considers prostitution just another job (when freely chosen), ask yourself -- even social stimga removed -- how you'd feel if your son or daughter chose prostitution as a profession.

 

One has to ask which came first, the social stigma or the reason for the social stigma. I'd say the stigma exists because of what prostitution inherently does to a person.

[Lonewing]

It depends on the circumstances, if one is forced into prostitution at a young age due to external factors then I feel it is wrong on so many levels. When you look at the girls at bunny ranch in Nevada you don't really get the same sense of wrong as else where. These women are interviewed and hired, they are protected by laws, have health benefits, are taxed, and get paid quite niceley. Vastly different then a women who "works" on the streets forced into her situation due to extreme poverty.

 

But then, who amongst us can honestly say the reason we don't go to work every day is because we do not want wish to descend into dire poverty?

 

In the end we're all somebody's indentured servant, one way or another.

 

I'd say prostitution is the easiest trade a woman could get into if she did not have any sexual hangups, the only easier trade is stripping - And when I mean "easiest," I mean in terms of how much you earn versus how much physical time you actually spend "working." Minimum wage around here is around $7-$10 [i don't even know anymore], so a stripper making $20 for a 15 minute lap dance seems like a pretty good deal. A prostitute bringing in $500 for a couple hours, again, he just made more than I might make in a week. And I say he because I met a male prostitute once, and the tales he could tell about life and the business. His clients included everything from the woman who couldn't get laid otherwise [unless COPIOUS levels of alchohol were involved] to the woman who just wanted to get laid but really had no desire [or time] for a relaitonship.

 

Once it's "Just Sex," well, it's just sex.

 

Prostitution is no less wrong than abortion... ponder that point.

[Wayfara]

But then, who amongst us can honestly say the reason we don't go to work every day is because we do not want wish to descend into dire poverty?

 

In the end we're all somebody's indentured servant, one way or another.

 

Not all servitude is the same. Teenagers living at home are sometimes forced to do chores around the house and as boring the chores might be it's hardly traumatic. Now let's say these teenagers were instead forced to receive one sex buyer a day ... Very traumatic.

 

I'd say prostitution is the easiest trade a woman could get into if she did not have any sexual hangups, the only easier trade is stripping - when I mean "easiest," I mean in terms of how much you earn versus how much physical time you actually spend "working." Minimum wage around here is around $7-$10 [i don't even know anymore], so a stripper making $20 for a 15 minute lap dance seems like a pretty good deal. A prostitute bringing in $500 for a couple hours, again, he just made more than I might make in a week.

 

Prostitution is a job that creates sexual hangups, they are many prostitutes who can't enjoy sex because it feels like job. There are more factors to a job than just time and pay. One could get paid to be tortured. A sadist paying one thousand dollars for each finger/toe/limb they are allowed to cut off and each limb taking ten minutes to remove would make a wage of six thousands dollars a hour. Easy job too, one would only have to stretch out the hand, still not a job one would want unless one was desperate. A big paycheck might not be worth the cost in limbs/health/sanity.

[itsallgrand]

Thanks for posting that Vampy.

 

And I really like that term "soul tax".

[Mercurial Girl]

If you'd care to share...what made you feel empowered/powerful in the sex industry, and why would that be a good or preferred method to reach that feeling of empowerment?

 

I don't think I have these intense emotional ties hang ups about sex that most people commenting here do, so bear that in mind.

 

I haven't done anything that involves touching, (always been in a relationship and worried about HPV which seems uncontrolled by condom use, mainly) so I can't say that this is all necessarily true for women exchanging money for sexual touching but I have worked in the trade and spoken at great length to women in many different sex trades so I'm combining my own experience and what they have shared with me.

 

With what I've done, there is a huge disconnect between doing it for money and doing it for my boyfriend. They seem like two different worlds, nothing alike. I do these things with my boyfriend because I love and desire him and want him to be happy. At work, it's a job, plain and simple. I've heard and very much believe that this is the same when it comes to sex acts for money as well. If I became a full on escort I would come into it with the exact same mindset.

 

I don't believe, for me, that it's giving away a "part of yourself" or a "piece of your soul" - it's a physical act, and it carries as much emotional heaviness as you assign to it.

 

A GOOD call girl honestly has most, if not all of her clients wrapped around her finger. She makes the rules, she calls the shots, she sets the pace, she demands respect, she thoroughly checks out her clients before even meeting them, and she can cancel/leave at any moment. She makes more money for her time and effort than anyone working behind a desk. Those people all have bosses, who have bosses, who have bosses. And you must kiss up to your boss, you must say the right things at the right time, you must go to the Christmas party (sure it's not mandatory, but try skipping out), you must be at work on time, you must get on with your co-workers, you must be an enthusiastic team player, you must be available at a moment's notice to work overtime or take business travel.

 

Even if you're self employed, in say house cleaning since I've done that I can speak to it, you're still at the mercy of every single home owner, stooping over their toilet to clean their dried poop and pee, making sure everything is perfect so they'll cut you that cheque. Telling them that their awful 60's burnt orange floral print sofa is just lovely, and their evil cat is just such a lil sweetie pie, in order to build up a sense of relationship in them and ensure their happiness.

 

I'm not trying to glorify prostitution, just giving a perspective from someone who has been in the industry. There most certainly are big issues in the industry. People doing it for the wrong reasons, with the wrong mindset when it comes to sex (wrong for the industry, that is), those who do it because they can't find another way to feed their children or fuel their drug habit, they're new immigrants who can't get hired for any other job the risk that is run of being raped or abused, reproductive health, so on - but this is more of a reflection of society as a whole rather than prostitution itself. I'm just speaking of the (thriving, successful) side where this is a decision made mindfully and fully aware of the risk and reward that comes with it. There are plenty of happy successful prostitutes, but they probably aren't the gaunt street workers with sullen eyes and sunken in cheeks. Those women are products of something more sinister at work.

 

Plus it is one of the biggest female fantasies for a reason!

[itsallgrand]

^ That's interesting. And I'm not going to counter any of what you said, because it is nice to get a different opinion in here and different experience.

 

But I have to say this. When I hear someone say "A GOOD call girl honestly has most, if not all of her clients wrapped around her finger."....to me, that sounds so incredibly naive.

 

Which brings up something important:

 

Where for you, you say being in the industry can be empowering.

 

For me, I think of it as being something that by its very nature (and not having anything at all to do with how a woman approaches it either, simply its nature) as something that could NEVER be empowering. Well, beyond some initial ego rushes a woman may have in perceiving that she is in control of a situation.

 

Strippers, call girls, hookers, other women in the industry can talk away all day about how "empowering" it is, but I just don't buy it. It seems to me to be a sort of "trick" - look how empowering this is, you are always in control....when really, the whole point is that men are buying you as an object of sex. It may feel empowering if you can detach, block off, not have some feeling about that being degrading to you as a person....

 

but to my mind, that doesn't stop it from being degrading.

 

Literally, you are de-graded according to your perceived cash value. If you are "high" on the cash value, you can be a call girl or stripper.

 

But if you have this mind set and you are that 40 year old hooker on the streets. She's not different. She is just "lower" on the cash value. She isn't worth as much anymore. So she has to blow truck drivers for ten bucks.

 

Eventually, if you stick around, you are going to be degraded. I just think it happens from the start.

[BryanPain]

In my opinion, the feeling of empowerment is an illusion based on a lie. The prostitute is "nice" to the client, who feels he/she must truly like, care for, be attracted to, the client more then all the others. The lie creates an illusion of attraction and the client seems compliant to the service providers requests. But this is also an illusion, as the client will only be friendly and compliant as long as the illusion holds and the providers requests are inline with the clients expectations.

 

This is a risky game, and there is no empowerment what so ever. When the illusion fails, or expectations are not met, the provider is just an object that has not served it's purpose.

 

The other poster in the business tells how the paid act and the "real" act can be compartmentalized. I agree, in the short term this is true, even required for the provider to do the job. Again, this is also an illusion, feelings are buried and lies built upon lies are created to protect the provider from harsh realities. At some point, true feelings surface, and the illusions, even those created for themselves, begin to fail.

[tiredofvampires]

Interesting POV. For the record, though, I think there are people here who attach a lot of emotion to sex by nature, yet they don't have "hang-ups" per se. I don't really think a lack of sexual hang-ups correlates to someone being more likely to go into prostitution.

 

I wonder if it might have been a different experience for you if you actually had gotten into all the sexual acts that prostitutes gets paid for, as opposed to being in a position where you were not being touched. I think there's a big difference between acting out an exhibitionist streak on stage, for instance, and being reamed by an obese old misogynist smelling of alcohol, who gets off on calling you every disrespectful name in the book, not because he's your love and you're enjoying dirty talk, but because he really does hate you and wish to degrade you for money. If you're in a position to personally choose only handsome, respectful, decent johns, kudos to you...but that would cut out most of your business.

 

I think you can only speculate how such a scenario would be -- until you do something, anything in life, it's just speculation how you'd feel, especially when this was a lifetime occupation.

 

And I'm still not sure how/where you felt empowered, so uh, I'm not sure my question feels answered. The only thing that remotely suggests it is the "having clients wrapped around their fingers" part. Is that what you were referring to by the empowered feeling you had? If not, maybe you can clarify what you meant, as it played out for you.

 

And also, why would you want to use this route to feel empowered? Why would you prefer or need it over some other method of getting that same feeling? Because empowerment can be derived from many sources, so I'm interested to know why you would need/want/choose this way.

[Lonewing]

All these same arguments are used against women having abortions...

 

I think, at the end of the day, women [and men] need to let other women live own lives and stop measuring themselves up against their peers and getting hissy when people who don't follow their own moral values some how end up "doing better well off." This would end most of these discussions, of course, including the issues concerning makeup, perfume, implants, [and yes, tattoos], stripping, prostitution, polygamy, bigamy, and so forth. There's be no shortage of upset hens, but that's life...

[Dragunov-21]

Speaking as someone relaying info from someone who does use the services of prostitutes, yeah, pretty much. So it's said, most sex workers view it as a job; some enjoy it, some will do favours for good customers, few see any similarity between selling their body and being intimate with a partner, and the clients who think otherwise are fooling themselves and probably not having a particularly healthy attitude to it long-term.

 

I think you also really need to distinguish between someone who's chosen to enter the industry and someone who finds themselves trapped because of financial/drug problems.

 

My mate has been single by choice since his last relationship, is in his forties, and pays for sex occasionally, when he feels the need/want, and doesn't see it as anything more than a service. It requires a lack of innocence and naivety to view sex that way and that's not a place most people on here would find themselves, I imagine.

[Dragunov-21]

Serious questions to consider.

 

Firstly, the definition of "degrade". That has nothing to do with "reducing" a person to their financial value as a resource, but technically, treating them with contempt or lowering the character or quality of a person. Do not confuse one with the other.

 

I am an electrician, but lets make it even more obvious and say I'm a builder. I am worth, judged and paid on my body, hands and the skill with which I use them. Is that degrading?

 

Is being used as a sexual resource any different to being used as any other type of physical resource? A builder? A professional fighter or other sportsman? It would seem so, but I don't buy that sex-workers are being used, but other workers are providing a service and more empowered in any way shape or form.

 

I think it's also necessary to make a distinction. You say that men are buying a callgirl. They are not. They are buying a service that she provides. They hold no sway over her, no ownership, no power beyond the physical held by virtue of being a male in close proximity to a (presumably) physically weaker individual. If a callgirl sees a client on her own terms, able to choose, screen and dictate the scope of services to a client, then is she any more "bought" than a lawyer or financial advisor?

 

Finally, how does this feeling of degradation and being bought, as a woman, relate to male sex workers? Are they degraded?

[Animal]

It really is a service. When you think about it, you're paying for sex any way you cut it. In fact, a $30-$50 tryst with a hooker is actually cheaper than dinner and wine at most restaurants nowadays.

[itsallgrand]

Serious questions to consider.

 

Firstly, the definition of "degrade". That has nothing to do with "reducing" a person to their financial value as a resource, but technically, treating them with contempt or lowering the character or quality of a person. Do not confuse one with the other.

 

So you do not see contempt nor lowering of character or quality of a person here? When people are used solely as a sexual object? I see it as part of the entire transaction. By it's very nature. Whether this occurs with a transaction of money or not.

 

We can call it sex work, and that is fine and accurate. But to say it is the same as any other type of work is false. There are other cases of 'work' being technically 'work' yet it is still can also be degrading.

 

The thing about sex work is...is there ever a time when it is not degrading? I really don't think so.

 

Of course it is no different if the sex worker is a female or male. IMO.

 

There will be different views on this and that is ok. I don't think it is something that is "this is the way it is, this is the way it isn't". I can understand yours. Even though it's not where I stand. I fail to see the advantages of believing that sex work is like any other kind of work....the same as building a house. I don't see the value in it.

 

I also think you are glossing over a lot of important details about the reality of hooking for a lot of women. It's not a simple providing of services - there is a whole s/tload of baggage and real issues. Everything from slavery, being forced into sex work early, girls who are abused and later become sex workers, drug addicts who will do anything to get their next hit, girls with pimps hovering over them actively abusing them, plain old lost souls who don't know how to survive nor make good choices in life...

 

there is this entire power dynamic involved and you don't think it comes into play also one on one between 'client' and 'service provider'?

 

Not so long ago, near where I work, there was a friendly neighborhood hooker (he was male, but hooking as a female) who was talking nonsense to me and later I found out her friend (also a man who was hooking as a female) had been killed last year and left in a field after being treated in a way no person ever deserves to be treated and left to die. Who else? A john. Apparently it really f/d up the friend s mind (and why shouldn't it? she could be the next. IT's not exactly low risk).

 

Because we all know all johns are going to be perfect gentlemen. And are in it for the right reasons. Whatever those are? . And it's never ever a sick transaction or ill intent in these situations. It's never degrading?

 

And how will you protect sex workers then? With unions? How ridiculous can we get now? In order to protect prostitution? Why? Gov't pimps? Because that dynamic isn't going to go away. The whole demand is for something that can not ever be properly regulated...doesn't fit into a neat moral box like building does...where there are codes, policies, supervisors, regulations in place to make sure workers are not used or abused...and that the work being done is at least broadly within some moral code...

 

you just can't simplify it this much, is my point. IT isn't the same as any other trade.

[Seraphim]

Um yeah. In other lines of work you don't really have the risks of being raped and beaten to death...........so I don't call it "work". I call it being taken advantage of and degraded and treated like garbage.

[Animal]

Keeping prostitution illegal certainly isn't legal. All that does is give more power to organized crime, tie down law enforcement resources that are badly needed going after real criminals, clog up the courts even further than they already are, and further overfill our jails and prisons. Overall, history proves that prohibition of anything popular, be it alcohol, gambling, drugs, tobacco, prostitution, pornography, guns, etc, doesn't work. As long as there's a demand for something, there will always be those willing to supply it, whether it's legal or not, regardless of the risks or consequences if caught. Prohibition only makes the banned good or service more expensive and its illegal suppliers rich.