Prostitution: A User's Manual

here's some interesting facts and analysis about legal prostitution in Nevada.

http://www.nevadacoalition.org/factsheets/LegliznFactSheet091707c.pdf

If prostitution is such a fab career, then why do Canadian prostitutes have 40 times the mortality rate of the general Canadian population? Why do prostitutes worldwide have PTSD rates approaching 70%? And finally, why did 90% of the 900 prostitutes interviewed by Melissa Farley say they wanted out of prostitution, immediately? Prostitutes are the most raped and abused women on earth, and you're deluding yourself when you say otherwise. Do some actual ACADEMIC research into the matter before you lecture anyone. And one night in the Bunny Ranch does not constitute research, dude.

All statistics are from Farley's "Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress and oneangryglrl.net/antiporn.html

It seems to me two issues (or three) are being confused. One is human trafficking and exploitation of the weak/poor by the strong/rich (and in all its other variations), the other is the personal behavior of consenting adults.

Human trafficking and exploitation violate civil rights. This is abhorrent and a matter of enforcement of laws that virtually everyone will agree with.

I imagine people who believe in 'live and let live' might agree also that the rights of the individual extend to consenusal relations of whatever type between adults. (Not living in a vacuum, I accept that persons of strong religious beliefs may not agree to 'live and let live'. Many seem to wish everyone would subscribe to their own personal beliefs, a position that seems to me not only foreign to a modern state, but also rather arrogant. )

The waters may get muddied when one tries to add 'provided no outside party gets hurt'. I suspect married men who use prostitutes do not include this as an item in pillow talk with their wives: that is, there is no intent to hurt. (One can make the argument that a man who is sexually unfulfilled in his otherwise healthy marriage believes he is strengthening his marriage by fulfilling his need without trampling to pieces the entire stock of porcelain in the shop. Maybe this is an argument that would not appeal to many wives!)

Amongst the flood of comment about the Spitzer case, I have not heard any evidence that the federal investigation that spawned it and the press barrage that blew it up had or has anything to do with human trafficking or exploitation. What, then, was the purpose of the investigation and the masive press response?

This article still leaves the mystery of what could possibly make any woman, doing anything, worth $31,000 for one day?

If a woman truly makes the decision to exchange sexual favors for money - free of any sort of coercion whatsoever - then she should have the legal right to do so.

There is an uglier side to this profession that is never discussed. Most grils who service clients have a whose who of top judges, lawyers, law enforcement, CEO's, high paying lobbyists, musicians, ballplayers, actors, high profile politicos. That is a fact. Keeping those names out of the public view is something they pay high prices for. That protects the cleints, but when a girl chooses to leave that profession keeping it hidden is another matter. Blackmail is one reason women either stay in, or leave, praying nobody will learn thier past history. In this society, if you are or were a call girl, for all practical matters, your life is over. You are branded with an X on your ass the size of a buick which never happens to the men. Its a double standard nobody talks about.
My co worker whom I met at a company in the midwest,(not a call girl ring, a legit company), spoke to me and my fellow coworkers about this. To say she was brave is an understatement. She has said how she must look over her shoulder every day of the week in hopes she can lead a normal life. The money she made went to paying off people who wanted to ruin her life, blackmail her. Sure, she entered that profession, knew the risks, but men don't get this sort of double standard, they are a protected species. Unless they get caught in a sting, most remain hidden. If she files a protection order against the blackmailers, its her word against thiers. Nobody trusts a hooker, so the guy walks. Like I said, its not all black and white.

Europe has brothels. Every town has at least one brothel. The interesting thing is that men still will
get a street walker rather than go to a brothel. I guess it's easier just to pick up someone with your car go to a parking lot or a quiet street and get a quick blow job. Bring her back where he picked her.up.
Women work in brothels in Europe, have a physical check up and a card to prove it, pay taxes and social security.

Quit raggin on the Ho's! Who do you think helped pay for the Balkans?

I lived next door to a prostitute for more than a year. I asked her on a date once, and she told me she didn't date except for money. Oh?
She didn't look like Hollywood's idea of a prostitute. Few of them do, and the ones who fit the whore stereotype are probably undercover cops and should be avoided like the venomous snakes they are. My neighbor was pretty, but in no way looked promiscuous. She had short blonde hair, glasses, and dressed in jeans and T-shirts most of the time. She was a student trying to pay for college. She did confide in me that the word was out at the college that she was a pro and was in danger of being expelled so she had to lay low for a while (read: drop out because of inability to pay the tuition).
Money was kind of tight at the time, so I never partook of her services. But we developed a platonic friendship and she was very up front about what she did. She said she rarely had intercourse. Many men she saw wanted to partake of fetishes they were too ashamed to do with their wives and GFs. A client of hers -- a good-looking man in his early 30s, she said -- only wanted to hogtie her and tickle her feet and belly. She didn't even have to be naked -- just barefoot and tummy exposed. Bondage was big with the clients, although she had to be 100 percent certain that nothing beyond light S&M would be performed. She often turned down customers whose preferences were not worth the $$.
Was this woman in her late 20s, so normal in appearance and mannerisms to the general public, some kind of criminal? I think not. Who did she hurt?

The separation between church and state means little if the distinction between legality and morality is not equally observed. And yet, too often in this country morality is enforced through the law.

I haven't heard a single argument against prostitution that is anything other than an expression of moral creeds.

"Selling your own body" is not against the law - in fact, that is an integral part of the capitalism system: anyone that does not own the means of production sells his body as workforce.
"Emotionally unhealthy activities" are not illegal either - again, I would argue that's the case for most jobs.
"Sex without love" is not illegal - or are we going to throw in jail everyone living in a loveless marriage? For some reason I believe that many people condemning prostitution or other sexual behaviors are the same ones living in unfulfilling relationships. And, just to to provoke those hipocrites, I would add that often times people stay in loveless marriages precisely because of financial reasons (hmmmmmm - would that make make them some sort of full time hookers?).

Jokes aside, I would say that America criminalizes prostitution for the same reason the Taliban criminalizes music: prejudice, superstition, obscurantism and society's inability to rise above darkness.

Way back when, I was a young sailor stationed in the far east. I used prostitutes,but never abused them or treated any different that any woman I have ever dated or my wife, whom I am married to. I have only believed that a person is a person, no matter what their beliefs, morals, all the way to the job, or work field that they are in. I was a 17 year old lad, in a grownup's world. I dated prostitutes, paid prostitutes and had prostitutes as friends. They taught me very well, not only pillow language and ettiquite, but their languages, histories of their countries and their culture. I knew that I would never marry while I was in the service, and that meant that in order to find a sexual release when you were in port or in a new port, you talked to the old hands, those who had been there before and learn to use common sense and a level head and you would come ashore with a lot more knowledge of the situation in the port you were in.

If I were stationed in a country, I usually found a lady that I had known from before who was willing to move in and share the house and everything. When I was in one of those relationships I had no need of services by a prostitute as in Asia, sex is something to be enjoyed and fun, passion is there and even tho there wasn't love there was friendship and companionship..

When I married, I was 39 years old, and put the old ways behind me, I have now been married for 30 years, and the only sex I have had is with my wife. Sure it isn't the same as when I was young and totally free, but neither am I. My wife and I still have glorious sex, and, as far as using prostitutes at my age...... We don't have any on the island that I live on, the girls give it away. If they are interested in you, you will know about it very quickly.. If they aren't interested you need to move on... But that is the way it is in the outer islands....

Just this old chief's 2¢

I agree with Cowman. Having sex with a prostitute does not tag you as "involved in a prostitution ring."

Now, I'd like to know about lesbians and gays and and their experiences with prostitutes of the same sex.

And last but not least, are their "brothels" for same sex prostitutes?

I find the statement in your article that one in three men will engage a prostitute at some point in their lives to be unsupported by valid research or any other type of evidence beyond anecdotal. Prostitution is the most disgusting human act that is imaginable. Prostitution is the absence of love. It is no accident that genocide always involves sexual oppression. It is no accident that slavery always involves sexual oppression. I live in Austin and in past years complained vigorously about the advertising for prostitution shops in the pages of what is otherwise a very progressive publication, the Austin Chronicle. The percentage of that advertising has diminished over the years. In New York however the opposite is true. The Village Voice, otherwise a well respected publication, is devoid of any redeeming social value because so much of its revenue comes from advertising sales to prostitutes. How can a publication promote progressive candidates and social progress in general while taking so much money from known crime syndicate operations that derive large amounts of their profit from human slavery and drug trafficking?

There is room in the Huffington Post for discussion of the human libido; but if you move in the same direction as the Village Voice you will lose my participation.

I'm responding as the daughter of a man, an attorney, who taught me that I should respect myself, try hard in school, and never get discouraged by the challenges that women in our society face.

Then, after I graduated from Harvard and started to struggle with professional life, I learned that this man, my father, had been living a lie. I found out when he gave my mother an STD. An STD that he got from a whore.

I have little to say to anyone about the rightness of their sexual behaviors or preferences. But I think that lying is wrong, publicly misrepresenting one's values is wrong, giving people false hope is wrong, and exacerbating the foul conditions faced by young women in our society is wrong.

Actions and transactions speak louder than words. If you pay your whores more per hour than you pay your female staffers, you are making a statement about whose services are more valuable to you. And if you think that being a good father to your daughters is compatible with participating in the sex economy, you are deluding yourself even beyond the delusion that it took to spend this kind of money on hookers and expect not to get caught.

As if the whole ritual of dating isn't a form of prostitution in itself. Women constantly and consciously judge whether they'll have sex with a man or not solely on the basis of how much money a guy is willing to spend on them.

The reasons why men visit prostitutes are typically (1) to do things sexually that they can't get at home (wife thinks is disgusting, not turned on by it, etc.) and (2) to have sex with beautiful women without having any strings attached.

Many of the clients of expensive prostitutes could have mistresses if they wished to, but mistresses are more work and more risk -- they need wooing, they want romance, they expect emotional engagement, they threaten the marriage, they require a lot of more sneaking around and so forth. A prostitute gives you the sex without the hassle that a mistress entails, which is why it is the more sound option for many men who are looking for sex outside their marriages.

................and then there are those darned hormones....

To the people on this blog who say prostitutes are down, out and exploited, you are deluding yourselves. There is such a huge range that you can't generalize. I was with a Taiwanese hooker at Kit Kat in Nevada who told me she would be able to retire in a few months time and she couldn't have been over 30. She must have had at least half a million to a million dollars in her bank account, tax fee. I'm in the SF bay area now and there is a lot of talk about AMPs, or Asian massage parlors. What the press says about these places that the girls are jailed, imprisoned against their will or trafficked over from the far east are just rubbish, absolute rubbish. These girls make upwards from $120000 per year tax fee. They vacation when they want, many of them travel back home to their families for a few weeks before coming back. Many of them get in, spend a few years in the profession and then get out and retire or do something else. High end hookers in the Bay Area charge $300+ for an hour.

When I was a young punk overseas in the military, I frequented a fair number of prostitutes. It was simple, cheap, quick, satisfactory and I never got a disease. Most if not all of those women were just working and supporting either their parents or their children or their boyfriends and their pimps. I had a lot of respect for those gals and always treated them decently. As a result I was very popular wherever I went. Obviously things have changed some over the years with drugs and AIDS, but good prostitutes taught me a few things. A great one once even shared her dinner with me. Coming from an uptight Catholic background had it not been for those charming women, I'd probably be having lousy sex today.

yes.Prostitution has been a part of every civilised soceity and there is nothing wrong about it . Most sophisticated of people are inclined towards it and find no qualms about visiting or inviting the so called prostitutes to regale themselves . Prostitution by definition is paid sex with the consent of the opposite partner and therefore the element of coercion is never there . It is better than the illicit relationship in the form of extra marital associations . The ancient socieity was more assertive about it and the oriental world or say where sex is still a taboo or not discussed openly prostitution serves as an alternative to the sexually starved . Though in the most parts of the world the prostitution is seen as a violation of the established ethical code but it does not realise that prostitution at times is the real succour . The Arabian soceity is a case in point .
Most of the Arab worlds have a complicated system of marriage and girls are much adored commodity and the suppression of an institution like marriage culminates into the emergence of an invisible system of prostitution . It has an economic dimension also . It fetches money to the women who are in prostitution . Flesh trade has been an inherent part of the human society and given the contradiction of the social texture where a whore is the most despised creature and is condemned by all including those responsible for the growth of such obnoxious institutions . Hypocrisy governs every human society and the so called harlots provide the much needed stimulus to a life in disarray .It is in the fitness of things to sanction it the legal status so that the stigma attached to it is done away with .

Lets see if i have this right .I paint a piece of art that takes 60 hours ,sells for $5,000 and last for more than a life time and people of wealth and privilage want a deal (like give it to me for nothing) but think nothing of paying $5,000 for sex which might last an hour if their lucky and leave them nothing but a cheap/expensive thrill,something is screwed up with this picture.and America
www.williamcain

by the way, the person who wrote on Dr. Laura , Usually I identify with Chrisitianity but even as a Christian I ignore women whose self appointed jobs are telling women what to do. It is usually negative and oppressive.

Look here. I am pissed about the excuses you used for men using prostitutes while married. We need to expect more out of marriage in 2008 where information about sexual enjoyment/erotica thankfully is not taboo. If my man come home with excuses on why he used a prostitute... I am punching his lights out. Sorry for this unacademic tirade, but whoever wrote this isn't thinking hard either. But I do still, if prostitution is done without marriage being involved have a problem getting excited about victimless crimes. Yawn Yawn.