Yeah, it's complicated... Given the clandestine nature of human trafficking, it's difficult to compile comprehensive data on its prevalence.
Prostitution and the study of prostitution are further complicated by religious and cultural conditioning--not to mention biology. Sex, the desire to have sex, the desire to control sex--all of these things are powerful forces. Don't believe it? Just look at the 7billion people that surround you, all the product of sex.
That being said, there's nothing inherently evil about prostitution as the author of one of those studies suggests. Some people just decide to have sex for money. To be honest with you, for the right price I'd ***** myself out too. Most people i've talked to about this subject would do the same. That's because tbh, its just sex and while i find some sexual acts repulsive or the idea of having sex with some people repulsive, there are countless things i do on a daily basis that I don't want to do. But many don't see sex as sex because they've been conditioned to view it as something more or different. Honestly, this is why i loose respect for religious people, because they don't think objectively. a bunch of guys make up some stories that get modified over centuries and eventually written down, then are further modified by other guys, and religious people with their simple minds just accept it as the word of some god or deity or multitude of gods.
if you think objectively it's easy to derive certain values that are necessary for society to function and prosper. chief to this is that people should be free to the extent that their freedom does not infringe on the freedoms of others or cause them harm. so it's NOT okay to abduct someone, transport them, and force them to have sex with someone else (i.e. human trafficking). it's a different story if the two parties decide by their own accord to exchange money for sex. and in this case what gives government or someone else the right to jail you for exercising this freedom? i understand this is not the way of the world but i think it's the world we should be moving to. it's a joke that the OP be labeled with a scarlet A for the rest of their life because they decided to screw or be screwed by someone for cash.
I appreciated the article from @Darth Doc .
I think it was the way you segued from people who think of sex as something more than a "potentially repulsive" thing they might do on a daily basis like any other casual but distasteful act in a way somehow linking such beliefs to idiotic religious values that really got me upset.
There is some evolutionary behaviorism science & anthropology that would suggest that some people's feeling that sex is something more than "just sex" and potentially not like any other chore, is not just a result of conditioning.
I read a very interesting psych piece once on why rape is such a particularly traumatic type of violence to go through, why any violence is. It centered around the concept that a big part of our ego boundaries and sense of safety are built around the perceived "integrity" of our bodily boundaries, to not be destroyed, invaded, or subjected to torture from the environment. This touches on ontological security. Only makes every bit of logical evolutionary sense for organisms and cultures to give a hoot about the "integrity" of our bodies with respect to our environment.
They went on to say, that from the "integrity" of our personal space bubble, to the "integrity" of you not ****ing with my arm throwing spitwads at it on the school bus, to the integrity we feel about our sexual organs - not all violations of bodily integrity is experienced the same way and some are considered more "personal" than others. (It was implied that this holds true to some extent for both men and women. Although, whatever I read so long ago, did put forth the theory that the fact the the most frequent violation of the self that occurs in females being sexually assaulted is penetrative and the pain may be felt more internally than externally, that it may hold more traumatic meaning or may be experienced as a "greater violation of the self." This last part is pure conjecture.)
To what degree do you associate your personal self with your eyes? Your head? Your knee? Your scrotum? We identify with different parts of our bodies in different ways. Some of this is conditioned, but if we are conditioned rather than born to feel very close to/protective of our genitals, can we really ascribe that to ignorant religious belief or something more rational? I still suggest there are some biological underpinnings to some of this.
I bring all this up to say, there is no good reasoning to just dismiss the potential for serious psychological implications of being alone & naked with someone who intends to do things to what are considered private, and to what are with certainty, sensitive areas of the body that have profound biological implications in the "grand scheme of things," as simply some silly socially constructed phenomenon that we can dismiss if we just "socialize" people enough and get everyone having sex like one might go for a run or shake someone's hand.
My point is that to put an end to the prostitution debate with "sex is no big deal unless you believe in religious hooey" seems to vastly underestimate what I think we can observe rationally and scientifically. As the poster points out, all of us are the product of sex, 7 billion of us. I think it's a pretty big deal.
So, my point so far is really, sex is a big deal for a lot of reasons including what I consider legitimate sociobiological reasons fundamental to survival, and of course anything that important will have cultural and religious commentary on how best to deal with it. Ignoring that commentary, still what people do to each other with their genitals is no inconsequential psychological matter either for many.
I think if we want the sex that people are having to be the least damaging to all parties involved, it should happen for free between two people who are willing to get that physically close with another for the purpose of sharing pleasure. Sure free sex happens all the time and doesn't meet my snuff test here, and I'm sure you can exchange cash and accomplish all this with the exception of "free."
My argument is that once you add an enticement such as money to the decision-making of giving consent, (so I'm assuming NO pressures on the prostitute besides perhaps financial desire, true consent) I still wonder if we are fostering an exchange that is less healthy for the parties involved and society as a whole, than what is achieved with a culture that does more to discourage prostitution.
We understand to some extent how money = power, and how when unequal power plays becomes part of sex, there are frequently bad outcomes.
No, I'm not citing a bunch of studies about STD risks, arrests, etc.
I'm defending the fact that as a feminist my gut doesn't like being told that the extent to which I identify with my vagina as a precious, personal, private, and sensitive part of my being that I feel close to, that occasionally the stimulation of it causes me intense emotions and psychological responses, is just a product of ignorance, social conditioning, or superstition.
Basically, I'm being told by my society that's it's more "normal" or somehow better to objectify my vagina, and pass it around with the same consideration I might give my hand in a handshake. I don't think it makes any sense on so many levels that have nothing to do with religion.
As physicians, the science around STDs alone makes the best medical advice, "protected sex with a limited number of partners."
Anyway, my gut tells me that encouraging people to rent the use of genitals is a bad idea.
