Let's Talk About Sex Baby

No, this is not THAT kind of thread, you pervert. How do you feel about certain sexual subjects like strip clubs, prostitution, pornography? What should be illegal? Even if it should be legal, what is harmful to society and why? Let's see some good old fashioned controversy.

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One of the biggest myths told is that being intelligent is the absence of the ability to do stupid things.

My morals are strong. So my mind says **** you to strip clbs, prostitution, and pornography. Though I wouldn't mind going to a strip club for good times...and well pornography is everyone, so meh...but the prostituion, I'd never EVER drop down to those low lifes. Yes they're low lifes. You can't change my opinion, so go back to sucking your thumb. It pisses me off how people sell themselves off for sex, which I believe should be between two people at all times. It's morally correct (don't give me the ****ing **** of morals right or wrong now either), and well it's just a solid good thing. I'm not a fan of one night stands as well.

Either that or I'm a scorpio.

Dun dun dunnnnnnnn!

In Other Words: You can do whatever you want, just don't involve me.

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We're soldiers. Soldiers don't go to hell. It's war. Soldiers, they kill other soldiers. We're in a situation where everybody involved knows the stakes. And if you're gonna accept those stakes... You gotta do certain things. It's business, we're soldiers. We follow codes... Orders.

I'm afraid I can't really make that message out too well. Was it entirely ironic? Entirely serious? I'm hoping it was a mixture...

Lets talk about Sex baby,
Lets talk about HIV,
Lets talk world pollution, prostitution..Pregnancy,
Lets talk about Sex.
Lets talk about SEX.

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Pumpkins scream in the DEAD of night!

As long as it all takes place between consenting adults, makes no never mind to me.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

"I take full responsibility for what I've done... My experience with pornography that deals on a violent level with sexuality you become addicted to it...the barriers to really doing something were being tested constantly, and assailed through the kind of fantasy life that was fueled by pornography...pornography, which was an indispensable link to the chain of behavior, the chain of events that led to the behavior, to the assaults, to the murders. I have met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence just like me. Without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography..." ~ Ted Bundy

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I believe that sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five, it’s fantastic.

Woody Allen

I agree. But we do have many places in this country that ban porno and/or strip clubs. Prostitution is illegal in most states. Why? Prostitution is safer when legal. When it is legal, it tends to be well regulated, making it less connected with disease and crime. If I want to go and have sex with a total stranger right now, I can, but if that someone pays me, I am at least commmitting a serious misdemeanor, and possibly a felony. Why? Can anyone please explain WHY?

They were also completely nuts, of course.

Because society is based on religious values according to which prostitution is a sin. Legalizing prostitution would also work diametrically opposite to the de-objectification of females that (parts of) modern society is involved in, or should be involved in. If you can buy a woman, then she's a commodity, and I don't think human beings should be viewed or treated like commodities. Then there of course the issue of economic and social class. The day we see fashionable ladies with poodles and iPods join the 12-year old african children on the sidewalks, I'll shut up.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

There are all classes of prostitutes. Class just determines where you will find them, not whether they exist or not. And as far as the objectifying, why would legalizing prostitution objectify women? Anyone could be a prostitute, regardless of gender. If women did it more than men, or were demonized more than male prostitutes, that would indicate an attitude of objectification already existing in society, not something that legal prostitution is playing a part in causing, would it not?

Edit: And why the hell should ANY religious rules determine whether we have a law or not? That doesn't sound like separation of church and state to me.

Prostitution, for the absolute most part, is not an "occupation" you choose because "the trade's always fascinated you", but something you've been driven to because of reasons most likely connected to poverty and/or drug addiction. In parts of both the Third and the First Worlds prostitution is sometimes the only income option for young girls and boys. I think that it would be very hard to find facts or statistics supporting the opinion that prostitution is not overrepresentated in the lowest of the low classes.

As for why legalizing prostitution would objectify women, I just told you. Because if you can buy a woman (or a man for that matter), that person is automatically being turned into a commodity, a thing or an object you can buy. I don't like the idea of people being able to buy other people.

And, yes, of course anyone can be a prostitute. The objectification is there in any case. But let's be honest; how often does a woman buy sex of a man compared to the other way around? There is, as you're saying, an existing objectification of women in society, but prostitution is one of the ways through which this objectification is being expressed. Is this objectification fair and in any way positive? Without asking any women, I would definately say no. Is prostitution helping in the process of de-objectification of women? Again, no.

Now, the question of who's the most demonized, male or female prostitutes, that's a totally different issue all together. Male prostitutes are probably even more taboo than female prostitutes which, my guess is, has a lot to do with homosexuality not being fully accepted in all layers of society. So, the demand for discretion when a man buys sex from another man is even higher compared to when a man buys sex from a woman, I would guess. I've met guys who seem to think that going to a (female) prostitute is almost a part of growing up. That's something you have to try at least once. [The thing that seemed to making them want to go to a prostitute was the opportunity to "do whatever you wanted to do to the woman".] I doubt that buying sex from a male prostitute is something considered by men as part of growing up.

Even the most secular society has some kind of religious roots. There was a time when law was not only based on religion but when religion was the law. But just because state and church are separated does not mean that the values change. And the values and norms and the opinion of what's right and wrong are the foundation of the law. And some people have values that are very influenced by their religious beliefs.

Sex should be shared between two people for a damn good reason, not necessarily love, but a good reason. But when it comes to "look but don't touch" i find it distasteful, but it's the right of the person in question to display themselves.

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This is true when prostitution is illegal, not very often when it is legal. Go to Nevada and let me know how poor the average prostitute is.



This already happens without prostitution being legal, and not just illegal prostitution, but with plenty of people spending tons of cash on someone to keep them. Happens all the time, and I don't see how this human ownership thing can get worse just by legalizing prostitution. Even if it were true though, something having bad effects is not a good enough reason to illegalize it. Smoking is harmful, eating tacos is harmful; let's make them illegal?

So one of the ways that people express this objectification is what should be banned, and not the cause? So what about how men buy women fancy jewelry or an expensive dinner with the hope of keeping her or having sex with her? Write that down on the books as a misdemeanor? And prostitution not helping the de-objectification of anyone has nothing to do with whether it should be legal or not. You have to show me the incredible harm legalizing prostitution would have. And how about some examples? In what country or state or whatever has this harm taken place?

No major disagreements here.

Yes, but I believe that any law that is based on a religion should be REMOVED. that WOULD be separataion of church and state. And by the way, prostitution is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments, yet coveting your neighbor's wife is. So, one of the ways that women are objectified in society (a way I'm sure you wouldn't like to make illegal) is one of the top no-nos in the bible, but prostitution isn't. Kind of interesting to me.

I have to add something. What about a stripper? What about a door person, or a chauffeur, or a butler? Should all of these professions, and many more, be banned because it is like buying something? And no, paying for a prostitute is NOT like buying a person. It is like buying a SERVICE, and the only reason that service is considered bad, is because that service is sex, which I find completely silly.

Let's not be coy, here; we all know there'd be far more demand from men than women.

I do not think a demand for prostitutes indicates a preexisting objectification of women, but a preexisting tendency to objectify them; a tendency which is heavily reinforced when the state all but sanctions the idea by formalizing and legalizing it. It's possible that legalized prostitution could contribute to an an immeasurable degree of societal degradation. Whether or not it'd be the cause or symptom of that degradation, though, I'm not entirely sure.


Would you agree or disagree that prostitution is a profession that a healthy, well-adjusted person would willingly enter? If so, do you believe a person can remain well-adjusted and emotionally balanced as a prostitute? To answer no to either of these questions makes a fairly decent argument against its legalization, and to answer yes to either of them would indicate a rather shallow view of sex, in my opinion.

That's what this all comes down to, I think; is sex just another activity, like jogging or Frisbee? I say no. In my experience (which is neither vast nor sparing), even the slightest bit of physical contact can result in emotional attachment. I'd argue that anyone who can avoid any such attachments can do so merely out of jadedness and desensitization, rather than any kind of emotional maturity.

Common sense can tell us a great deal here; if it were our child, we'd all be terribly concerned if they exhibited an interest in becoming a prostitute, even if it were safe and regulated, I think. The argument in favor of a legalization is a lot stronger when it concedes the destructive nature of prostitution, and defends it on purely legal grounds.

I've always had this in the back of my head, too: if you take your body, which is your own, and use your attributes (beauty, strength, etc.) in order to make money, is this selling yourself? What about models or professional athletes -- or, if we want to take it to the laborers, how about a contruction worker who's employed for his/her strength (not all are, I'm aware, but some, surely)?

No, the social stigma on the stripper/prostitute comes from sex, partly because society -- and I'm speaking pretty much in terms of the U.S. here -- tends to tie sex and sexuality so closely to emotions and the psyche. Add in that Puritanical morality we've been saddled with since... I don't know, the Puritans?... and a whole lot of repression, and that just elevates that stigma to gargantuan proportions. Basically, if you're not selling sexual favors (whether in actuality or in fantasy), then you're not selling yourself, in the eyes of the masses.

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You were a demon and a lawyer? Wow. Insert joke here."

Oh my God. Mary Lo. We should talk about prostitution more often if it brings back members from MOFO past.

Lets try talking about AIDS and see who comes back!

Or you go to Nevada and tell me how rich they were before they became prostitutes. And you mean that the prostitute business in Nevada, thanks to the fact that it's legal, attracts a higher number of well-educated upper middle- and upper class women than in states where it is not legal? Show me one Nevada prostitute that wouldn't take a conventional job for the same money if she could. Making prostitution legal doesn't end the fact that it's mainly a last way out for people in deserate need of cash.

No, I know that you can't see why those things will be worse by legalizing prostitution but that is because you don't see any bad things with prostitution period. I don't know exactly what you mean with "keep them".... Men are keeping women?

And I've always thought that bad effects were in fact the reason why we illegalize things. And smoking is actually being banned more and more in public places. As for tacos.. well... what can I say...

You mean instead of going through all the trouble of buying jewlery and dinners you would prefer to pay them up front for sex? I can in a way understand that. If jewlery and dinners worth a fortune is their defintion of fore-play they damn well belong at home in the kitchen as well.

However, it's hard for me to demonstrate any contemporary examples where legalization has harmed the society since not that many societies allows it. In Sweden, for instance, we had some very confusing laws up until a few years ago. I think selling sex was not illegal but buyin sex was, or something like that. It might have been legal in some form, but I doubt it. Now it's not legal at all but the conditions for the prostitutes have not, to my knowledge, become better. My point is that prostitution, legal or not, is something that is mainly a bad thing. And historically, this I know, the "village whore" was not exactly a member of high society. Instead she was an outcast not included in the village community, her bastards banned from school and herself doomed by the priest to burn in hell (even though he probably paid her a visit or two). I seriously doubt that, even if it had been legal for a hundred years, you would be cool with taking your prostitute fiancé home to meet your folks for the first time. Or to have a mom or a daughter who worked as a prostitute. You say you view it as any other service but I think if you a) put yourself in that position, or b) put a female family member in that position, you would realize that it is not so.

I'm sure I could find someone who gladly would sell me his liver or one of his kidneys. There's a big black market for this (inner organs), but it's not legal for obvious reasons. You think that would be ok too?

I'm not a biblical expert but didn't Jesus tell Maria Magdalena something like "Stand up, and sin no more"?

I am not talking about actual laws, like the Ten Commandments, I am talking about more complex set of values and moral and ethics. Don't you think there is a difference in people's values between protestant, catholic, jewish and muslim secular states?

A stripper dances without clothes, a door person opens doors, a chauffeur drives cars and a butler drives cars and open doors. A prostitute takes a penis in the mouth, in the vagina or up the ass every day, and probably several times a day. I am not only surprised, but also worried, that you don't realize the difference between these services in terms of personal intimacy and integrity boundaries being challenged.

Which of the jobs above would you prefer to do for a year? The rest of your life?

Ah, Django. As Marv would say, those were the bad old days, the all-or-nothin' days...

Does anyone else feel sorry for the horse in that pic? He looks like he's just been cursed with the knowledge that there's a total chode on his back...