- ‹ previous
- 1440 of 8902
- next ›
More "News" About the Oldest Profession
This weekend, the New York Times Magazine made its contribution to the array of recent reports that some women are having sex with men for money, still, but now have the additional option of setting it up via the internets with websites like SeekingArragement.com. The piece contains some pretty interesting profiles of arrangement seekers of both sexes, from the math nerd with the Pygmalion complex to the businesswoman who doesn't even need the cash but is just a literally money-grubbing whore to the impossibly deluded finance exec who pays women for sex and then asks, inexplicably, "Would she still want to be with me even without the money?"
A year and a half ago, I went on a couple of dates with sugar daddies to report on the phenomenon for MoJo. But to me then, as now, the interesting story was not that people are using the Internet, as they were inevitably going to do, to make these arrangements and so transparently, but that the increased accessibility that the Internet provides has the potential to draw a whole new crowd into such arrangements. I do know some gals who have either considered sugar daddies or slept with them via these sites who wouldn't otherwise have gotten into sex work. And one of the girls in the Times piece, for example, would never have become someone's paid mistress had she not found the website and, subsequently, the man so easily. It's like the correlation between accessibility and usage that opponents of legalizing drugs are always going on about.
Seeking Arrangement has three times as many users now as it did when I filed my story. Today, it "pays to have its ads pop up on search engines whenever someone types in 'student loan,' 'tuition help,' 'college support' or 'help with rent,'" the Times article reports. That kind of visibility plus ease of opportunity plus a recession could add a whole new slew of applicants to the sugar baby pool yet. I wonder how long it'll take before they start linking their ads to searches for "classified" or "Monster.com" or "unemployment."
Prostitution should be legal
Prostitution should be legal. Someone once commented that using attractive women in advertising--magazines, billboards, etc. (what to speak of women stripping, working in topless bars or merely posing nude!) is a subtle form of prostitution--women using their bodies for income.
Tracy Clark-Flory writes in Salon.com:
"At $25-$30 per hour, prostitutes make approximately four times what they likely would outside of the sex industry. Of course, that doesn't take into consideration on-the-job risks like contracting an STD (condoms were used in only a quarter of dealings) or being assaulted; researchers estimate that sex workers are assaulted an average of once a month. There's also the threat of being arrested, but according to the Economist, 'Prostitutes are more likely to have sex with a police officer than to be arrested by one.'"
Problems such as contracting STDs, being assaulted, pimp violence, etc. would not exist if prostitution were legal. Prostitution was legal in ancient India for the same reason the Prohibition of alcohol failed in the United States.
Commenting on Srimad Bhagavatam 1.11.19, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami writes:
"By tricks of chance, one may be obliged to adopt a profession which is not very adorable in society...even in those days, about five thousand years ago, there were prostitutes in a city like Dwarka...This means that prostitutes are necessary citizens for the proper upkeep of society. The government opens wine shops, but this does not mean that the government encourages the drinking of wine. The idea is that there is a class of men who will drink at any cost, and it has been experienced that prohibition in great cities encouraged illicit smuggling of wine.
"Similarly, men who are not satisfied at home require such concessions...It is better that prostitutes be available in the marketplace so that the sanctity of society can be maintained."
Even some conservatives concede that prostitution can be victimless. In a 1995 column entitled "Prostitution as a Privacy Right," Robert Craig Paul, a syndicated columnist for the Washington Times, wrote:
"If a woman's right to control the use of her reproductive organs permits her to enter into a cash transaction with an abortionist, then how can this fundamental right of privacy not apply to other transactions involving her use of her body?
"...abortion has been against the law and restricted with greater intensity for more of our history than prostitution, reflecting social norms that abortion, viewed as infanticide, is more immoral than prostitution...
"In contrast (to abortion), prostitution is entirely an act between consenting parties that does not affect the bodily integrity, identity and destiny of a third party (the unborn)...
"It is legal nonsense that privacy conveys the right to abort, but not the right to ingest drugs or engage in sodomy...
"It will be interesting to watch the court sort out on the basis of Roe v. Wade why it is legal for a woman to contract for abortion but not prostitution."
Again, prostitution should be legal.
more to selling your body than making money
Making prostitution legal would certainly lessen some of the dangers such as STDs and lacking recourse to non-paying customers, but it doesn't address the real issues.
Why are women or men (and it's always more women than men) reduced to selling something so intimate in the first place? If there was more work equity and there were more jobs with dignity and respect, prostitution wouldn't be the choice for a lot of people in this position. This job is often the "choice" of drug addicts who cannot work any other way and for whom such personal intimacy was lost some time ago. Selling your body means you're selling the last thing you have to call your own.
The author of the article helps us to see that prostitution generally becomes a choice as people are more desperate and have fewer options in their lives. That is the point we should address. And the situation is not a good one. Clearly, prostitution is being put forward in ads as something to do when you have no other choice -- because that IS when people might make that choice. This has nothing to do with legalities.
Yes, prostitution is likely to stay. Yes, it seems to serve a function in society, for a very small number of people in relation to the whole of society. The fact remains that most prostitutes would rather survive by other means. This, too, has been the same throughout history. The current economic situation in which people might take this course out of desperation doesn't mean that we should facilitate the work. Those who would now turn to prostitution would do it because they have no other option. They need work that will pay them well and rely upon their capabilities, not the selling of their own bodies to strangers. Can't we help them do this?
And rather than look at legal issues or not, can't we feel (and give the people who are now so limited in their choices for surviving) some compassion, understanding and support?
Science and prostitution claims?
Should we cite the works of researchers like Dr. Kinsey, Shere Hite, or contemporary works of Dr. Wendy Chapkis on these questions concerning prostitution? Do we need current, scientifically rigorous sociological, psychological, economic research studies of this topic? Of course, politicians, law makers, prefer to rely on the old faithful 'demagoguery' when presenting their rationale for their votes on this issue.
Legal prostitution
It is interesting to note that among many of the documents surrounding the Council of Trent of the Catholic Church, is lists of things that the vendors were bringing in for the use of the Council's attendees etc. and on these lists are prostitutes. Personally I believe that prostitution should be legalized. If that were the case then we could establish health standards and test to help reduce stds and help to provide safety for both the workers and their customers.
oldest profession?
Prostitution is NOT the oldest profession--I get sick of it always being described as such. This is, in my opinion, male oriented propaganda. In so many societies the woman has no control over her body and that often includes no control over who she is ordered to have sex with. Some societies actually used a man's wife as a favor given to a traveler. In most places in the world we still have women being kidnapped and/or sold into the job of sex for money. These women are used up and discarded and do not get to keep the money they are ordered to work for. In my humble opinion the oldest profession should rightfully belong to the male gender. My second choice for this is pimp, my first is politician. (headman,clan leader,mayor,church leader,or even tribal chief,whatever it may be called) Humans have always been pack animals and have always looked to a leader. Leaders often prostitute/sell themselves for power,money and perks that often include the choice of sex partner. Whatever the times and local rules women, for the most part, have had to defer to the rules and guidelines set by their leaders,most often of course -men. Heaven forbid the oldest profession and all the negatives that go with the phrase get applied to the male of our species.
منتديات برامج ج
منتديات
برامج
جوال
العاب
اخبار انترنت
فوتوشوب
تصميم وتطوير المواقع
رياضة
مصارعة حرة
حواء
افلام كرتون وانمي
مقاطع فيديو
العاب كونصول
برامج بورتابل
Earn Money Online
العاب بنات
ديكور
توبيكات
مسجات ورسائل موبايل
هدف تيوب
اخبار رياضية
اهداف دوري ابطال اوروبا
اهداف الدوري الأنجليزي
اهداف الدوري الايطالي
اهداف الدوري الأسباني
اهداف الدوري السعودي
اهداف الدوري المصري
اهداف الدوري الالماني
اهداف تصفيات كأس العالم
اهداف كأس الخليج
رفع ملفات
تصميم فوتوشوب
برامج
العاب فلاش
games cheats
توبيكات
مقاطع فيديو
desktop wallpaper
اختصار روابط
اناشيد
اناشيد اسلامية
اناشيد افراح
اناشيد وطنية
اناشيد اطفال
اناشيد اجنبية
travel china travel costa Rica travel New York travel Egypt travel to Egypt Turkey Dubai job Japan travel Alaska travel
Morocco Travel new Zealand travel travel to Mexico kenya travel
China travel guide Travel to India Thailand Fiji islands
رسايل عيد الفطر 2009
مسجات عيد الفطر المبارك
رسائل عيد الفطر
مسجات العيد رسائل جوال تهنئة بالعيد
رسائل العيد
كحك العيد
رسائل العيد
رسائل موبايل
Ahh the internet is helping
Ahh the internet is helping the world get more sexually transmitted diseases Good for you internet!