I read in my local paper today that the council are planning 4 zones in the city where prostitution will be 'Tolerated'. They are keeping the locations secret but they do say that the zones will be away from residential areas but still accessable by foot, and away from late night businesses like 24hour garages and off licences.
BTW I'm from Liverpool, England.
Big gay Kirk> How do YOU know that prostitution will always be with us. Maybe 200 years ago people would say “slavery will always be with us”, and they were wrong. Just because something has haunted society for a long time, doesn’t mean it always will… OR that we should just throw our hands in the air and say “Can’t be changed.”
I’m not too concerned with what other people things about prostitutes. I wonder how the prostitutes themselves are faring. Unless someone can prove to me, that people actually WANT to prostitute themselves, I say society should NOT condone reducing people (and especially women) to consumer goods. It’s bad enough as it is.
Im glad that TheOmega agrees with me. I most certainly opossed legalising prostitution. Women rights would be reduce to dirt! Not only that but also certain males would increase their abuse on women alreday involve in prostituion. There is already too much violence against women by males. Can you gentleman imagine what would happen if prostituion gets legalize? More abuse for the women, and certainly worst of all "CONTRACTS"!
Yes! Those PIMPS would force women to sign documents that would make it imposible for them to ever get out of the business! Certain women are force to do things like prostituion, and can you imagine if they cant get off the business because of contract agreement?
Is that the type of world that males want for women? I certainly hope not.
Ya know i just wrote a long post and after remembering what i read in the last 5 pages I decided it was pointless to try and sway the moral majority.
They don't call it the oldest trade in the world for nothing, it's thousands of years old and men and women have sold their bodies all that time. It will always be with us maybe one day there will be an ideal solution but until then, the men and women will be forced underground and some will suffer.
Originally posted by The Omega
Ush> Nope. It’s not my job to GUESS what you mean.
Actually, Omega, no, that was so darn obvious it was simply petty to query it. It was in direct reply to what you had just said about two inches above the comment.
And what sort of study do you want? There are plenty of them that say they are happy doing it, you either believe them or you do not but no study can prove that either right or wrong. For many of them it is simply a job, and 'enjoying' your job is always a rather fuzzy thing to say.
Regardless of whether it should be legalised or not, it is simply blind to pretend that everyone who does it does it because of drug addiction or from being forcibly kidnapped or what-not- some simply find it the best way to sustain themselves. Would they be happier if theyt did not have to do it? Well, very possibly, but that is a loaded question- any of us would be happy if we did not have to work work for a living.
This is the chosen occupation of some people. I don't agree with it, but it is not all people who do not want to do it, as becomes pretty obvious when it is legalised.
Here are some interview extracs with a prostitute named 'Amy'
-----
Since Amy said she had been friends with twenty or thirty prostitutes, I ask her why most of them went into prostitution.
She thought about it and said:
"I guess maybe there are four groups. There are those who are forced into it just to survive, like me; there are those who do it for the money, because they can make more money doing that than anything else [that's available to them]; there are those who want to meet men in hopes of getting married; and there are those who just like to party. All this can change over time, of course."
Did it change with you?
"Yes, definitely. Since I came from a very conservative religious family, I started out being full of guilt over what I was doing. That's all I could think of. I was really miserable. But, it's not like I had a choice... We were taught to be very modest in my family, so going into bed with a man I had just met was pretty difficult at first.
...But, I got used to it, and after a few weeks I found that I was enjoying the dates, the sex, and the social life. And then I felt guilty about that too. Some guys were shy, some were aggressive. Each guy was a different experience; I mean it was all sex, and most of that was the same; still it was different each time. "
What most worried you about it?
"Getting some disease."
What about the police?
"I never had any problem with them; but, then again, I wasn't street walking."
What didn't you like about it?
"Being seen as a prostitute. People don't think much of prostitutes. Guys view you different once they know what you are or were. There was always that. Now, I can't tell people about those times; I know it would really change the way they see me. [Amy now has a responsible job with a major corporation.]"
Looking back on it, do you wish you could have avoided having to use sex for money.
"Not really. "
Are you serious?
"Yes, I am. Some girls had some bad experiences, and some felt they were trapped and had to do it, but once I came to terms with it, I had to admit I generally liked what I was doing. "
Did drugs or alcohol play a part in you life?
"I don't drink, and I've never gone near drugs."
-----
Only a single example, Omega- but not atypical, I assure you, and so as I said- it is known.
Originally posted by The Omega
Yerssot> Are you aware that this is the 21st Century? Your comment to Xena_Fans post belongs in the late 19th century.
So working for equality between the genders is in your opinion an overly feministic idea? Why are you so scared of women?...
Buh!
Yerssot's comments were in the context of other things XF has said over time and it is hard not to agree that XF has been overly feministic sometimes. yerssot is by NO means a man with Victorian views on women; I know him to be a great champion of equality.
Originally posted by The Omega
Yerssot> Are you aware that this is the 21st Century? Your comment to Xena_Fans post belongs in the late 19th century.
So working for equality between the genders is in your opinion an overly feministic idea? Why are you so scared of women?...
Buh!
A friend of mine became a prostitute... nobody forced her... she just decided one day that she could make more money selling sex than in her factory job... she has no pimp, no drug habit, and several regular customers... My ex-wife also tried it for a time... The thing is there's prostitutes and there's prostitutes... you will have exploitative behaviour in any profession, but in one which is legal and run in the open, there is more chance of the workers having rights and protection than in one which is illegal and run, in the main by organised crime...
Originally posted by big gay kirk
A friend of mine became a prostitute... nobody forced her... she just decided one day that she could make more money selling sex than in her factory job... she has no pimp, no drug habit, and several regular customers... My ex-wife also tried it for a time... The thing is there's prostitutes and there's prostitutes... you will have exploitative behaviour in any profession, but in one which is legal and run in the open, there is more chance of the workers having rights and protection than in one which is illegal and run, in the main by organised crime...
Wow, where abouts the UK is this?
I used to study in King's Cross, quite a few worked around there (not that I could tell)
Krosus> Mankind also had slaves for millennias. Until we realised it was wrong. That “it’s always been so” is, in my opinion, the cowards way. It is NOT impossible to change mankind. For millennias kings and emperors ruled supreme, and the aristocracy laughed at the idea of giving the peasants a vote. That has also changed.
Ush> Maybe obvious to you. I wasn’t certain what you were talking about, why on Earth do you think I posted the above???
Amy doesn’t convince me. I’ve seen my share of documentaries where prostitutes sit and claim they are “happy” (might loose customers if they say, they HATE it), and then later on in the show they have nervous breakdowns. And she doesn’t seem to be just the picture of the movies “happy hooker” to be frank. “Once I came to terms with it…”
Hm.
Sure, I dunno if the garbage-removers always sing when they take out our trash. But they’re not being intimate with it. And the trashmen are not being treated as consumer goods.
And pardon me, for not realising Yerssots post was dealing with several replies.
Yerssot> As said above. The post by Xena_Fan that preceded your reply I could personally agree with. Men do misuse women. One in every three women (worldwide) will at least once in their life be assaulted by a man. Every 90 seconds a woman gets raped in the US. (Danish news this evening commemorating today).
I’ve never heard of a woman raping a man. Or men fleeing house and home, because their wives beat them to a pulp. The – unfortunate – idea that still persists among some men, that this fact, and voicing such, somehow make me a yelling feminist gives me a mental short-circuit.
I’ve written “women (and some men)” repeatedly throughout this thread, in recognition of the fact, that some men DO prostitute themselves, too. But we probably both know, that the number of female prostitutes supercedes the amount of males by the thousands and thousands.
If your reply to Xena_Fan was meant in a humorous manner, I apologise for flying off the handle. Being a woman in a “men’s world” I’ve had my encounters with mental dinosaurs of the opposite gender, and trust me… You actually have to be “there” to know what it’s like.
Originally posted by yerssot
it was ment to humerously point out that XF has done nothing but post very feministicly-tinted posts in threads such as these and in a few where it has nothing to do with the subject.
It wasn't an attack on feminism in general or something
You just don't let go off the past? I made it clear that I apologize for the things I said before. Unfortunally you dont see it that way. Anyways this is a serious thread I dont see the reason why you may want to post humoristic comments here?
Back on topic.....As TheOmega has alreday explain, crimes against women are very high all over the world. Take a look at the work place. so many sexual discriminations lawsuits are file everyday in US and Europe! Males harrasin women, and also discrimination! Is it fair for females to just quit a job, and go somewhere else? No! like I mention before some of these women are single mothers with no choice! What else can they do? Their only option is to tolerate abuse, because to quit and leave a job is not easy for a woman!
I have made the point that if prostituion is legalize, individuals like pimps would just abuse women even more! In certain third world countries women are sold as wives!!!! Isn't that awful??? So do you think prostitution will solve a problem like that??? NO! It will make it worse!
Males talk about equality! But when will they give women their fair share of equality?
please take my comments seriously! This isnt a joke! Is time for women to be treated equally NOT as sex toys! Which is what prostituion is all about! SEX and abuse for females!
Well, there is not much I can say back to that, Omega. Like I say, I can hardly provide scientific evidence that they are happy doing their job, as it were. All I can do is state the fact that many of them say they are, or were, and if you do not believe them or are not convinced then there is very little I can do about that! It is a position I cannot alter simply by providing evidence. Personally, bearing in mind everything I know about people, I do not find it at all objectionable that some people might enjoy the lifestyle and hence I believe people like the girl I quoted.
Yerssot> Good to know. 🙂
Xena_Fan> Ah! John Cleese once said that we MUST be able to joke about everythng. If we cannot do that, the "thing" has got too much power over us. And you DO run the risk of being made fun at, using "All men", as if there aren't representatives of the male species that don't feel a need to abuse and harrash women.
However - I think I know where you're coming from. That is just hard to explain, because this is still a "man's world".
Ush> I wasn't asking for a scientific study. Maybe a sociological study or a psychological one. Anything, that studies and generalises the "Group", since Amy is just one woman.
Perhaps it is the mere fact that YOU as man, believe that hookers can be happy and enjoy their job, and I as a woman, ave my sincere doubts, that is the point here. Generally men DO believe that prostitutes don't mind - generally women do not.