Selling sex – The one selling sex could do so without experiencing much physical pain. There could be negative affect/cognition associated with the act. But it could well be that these associations are just learned, and that there could exist prostitutes that do not experience any negative valence regarding their occupation.

Saying that, i might have a particularly strong view about what sex should be and what prostitution entails. To cut a long story short, my dad, who is an ex franciscan (who became a troskyst and left the order) is currently involved with a retired prostitute whom he met many years ago, when she was still active. He is the first one to say that she isn’t the smartest, but she buys me channel glasses, so i can’t hold it against her. Apparently he stil pays her, but they have a strange sort of agreement, i guess. She is married to her ex-pimp who beats her up and caught my father in their closset a few months ago! The man is sixty and i say to myself. is that it, is that all there is to love?

Prostitution is not usually a life time career, most women move onto other jobs, while a few, might enjoy it and do it until they decide to retire, or because old age affects their profitability.

the thing about prostitutes (the escorts i met in ireland) is that you can’t choose your customers. you might get the odd young guy being curious, but most of the time is farmers that stink and older men.

You might think that this particular woman whom you saw had no qualms about her job, i doubt it. Most working girls i saw might appear to be fine, but it is more illusory than real. Also, she was probably relieved to have a young, clean and well spoken customer who doesn’t make her toe nails curl.

Decrepit man? Stale saliva? Are you sure there aren’t normalish guys who are johns? When I was 21 I tried a prostitue. I really just wanted to see what it was all about. We talked for about fifteen minutes, we groped a bit and then I ended up not getting excited and sending her home act undone. But I have to say that she seemed like a decent and normal girl. Nothing to indicate an emotional hardness.

We run into problems when we think that everybody values things the same way that we do. It is pretty clear that you have some strong values attached to sex. What I am wondering if someone doesn’t hold those same values (which is quite conceivable, I think), then is sex for money an inherently damaging practice?

Let me put it another way. You like movies, right? Ever watch a movie with erotic content? I doesn’t have to be porn, but say something like “The Piano” with Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel (both brilliant actors) where they are naked and touching each other erotically. At what point is what they do damaging to their emotional health? At what point are they degrading themselves? Is it penatration? Why penatration? Isn’t that arbitrary?

My point is that you are trying to be politically correct, which as an egalitarian is commendable. But i rather be a peasant woman with integrity than pulling my knickers down for a living. SEx as a commodity is the ultimate symptom of a rotten capitalistic state where everything is for sale, even its members.

Understanding Marxist allienation theory i can see that a lot of people are to a certain extent dehumanised by their jobs, not just dishwashers, but lecturers and bank managers too…in this society more and more people creates their self image in relation to their job. people identifies with what they do and this becomes their social function, their servise to the world…it is wrong and i try not delimit myself by my occupation. But it happens.

Prostitution is not easy money but it is fast money. And i don’t think that it is healthy, not just in terms of STI’s but in terms of mental health. How could a person tolerate to be touch for money, to feel a decrepit man’s foul breath upon your sacred temple. His stale saliva falling on your skin…it most be the most horrific experience on earth, you could never desentisised (spell) yourself to that. It would be like rape every day, every twenty minutes. You might be able to create greater walls to cover up for the pain and humilation that such action may produce, but you can’t oblitarate it.

This is a reduction/simplification that I can’t entirely follow. Psychologically, I find that the disparity between would be best (healthy sexual relationship) to what would be less (safe sex while drunk with someone else accomplishing mutual pleasure) to what would be worse (selling sex for a living where ones pleasure is secondary to another gaining pleasure); these considerations make the case for me. Sex doesn’t make sense to me if it isn’t with intent for the other person to gain pleasure both emotionally and physically. It becomes an escape and a lesser thing that in being lesser only emphasizes its lack when done. The degradation of something one may hope to have function in a more fulfilling environment, this contrast, discourages me from thinking the sex industry is healthy if it can be avoided.

Now…is cleaning dishes good or fulfilling as a job, it depends on the options one finds available. If it is work that pays it isn’t all bad, people need to live. And neither is sex work all bad. It is only hurtful and something ultimately destructive both mentally and relationally to others. Is it culturally determined, this damage to ones mental health? I wouldn’t pretend to know.

I suspect that this is a value discussion. What is best for humans to accomplish certain ends and what are good habits and character attributes that will help them accomplish those goals? I do not believe it likely that sex work has a role in accomplishing any ideal “healthy” functions individually or socially.

I will be honest. This is partially a subjective emotive reaction on my part. From my perspective and for me, I would not feel good about paying someone to do the deed with me. I would feel disgusted with the whole thing. Disgust most of all with myself, for I feel it is a major departure from where sex belongs in any relationship I would have with another. I may idealize sex and relationships…and maybe for others they may have a different disposition. It is hard for me to think this likely and I do what most people do, presume what I would find unhealthy is more humanly unhealthy than only unhealthy for myself.
Perhaps we would want to look at the conditions that would lead me so desperate for money that I’m going to wash dishes for cash or her to have sex for cash. Many would argue that capitalism itself is exploitative and that washing dishes and have sex (while tending to remain poor) is pathological. Nonetheless, the point I have is that sex is effectively just like any other activity, as far as selling it is concerned.

I don’t entirely agree with this. We have created this abstraction that certain things are worth such and such, this is not exploitative, it is a natural. It is not so different than the guy in the jungle that hands over his goods to a friend in exchange for some other goods. The exchange and accumulation of goods/services that acquire the money for other goods is capitalism (as well as many other particulars…but you get my gist).

Paying someone to wash dishes is a service we all acknowledge necessary if restaurants of any kind exist. Sex is a type of good when purely instinctually recognized, but it is a part of a relationship’s “whole good” when not compartmentalized outside a relationship. People don’t usually think of their relationships in a capitalistic sense. I give you this good for that good. It is in the “our good” compartment of life, that is the emotive relationship to sex in a healthy relationship. It is not something given to gain. I think this is the origination of my disgust with sex for money. It makes it something less than what it can be. But maybe I am a romantic.
Under the same rational, one could argue that any activity is inappropriate in the context of acquiring money. For example, you say that prostitution exists because of the frustration of purchasers in being thwarted in finding a sexual relationship, so they then hire a sex worker. But you see, in the same way a woman who works all day and doesn’t have a stay-at-home husband to clean her house while she’s at work might hire a maid. How is that different?

Let me explain this analogy in other words:

Pretend there exists a girlfriend and her boyfriend. She works all day, and he stays at home doing house-work such as cleaning. Then, she gets out of work, comes home, and they have sex. Now, pretend they break up. She hires a maid, and he hires a prostitute. How is his purchase relevantly different than hers?

I appreciate your perspective on this. I find this does point to an unhealthy nature to being paid for our work in life. In the end this points to a lack of health in the capitalistic system. It is demeaning thing to be paid for what society needs and fulfills needs that are given in a reciprocal interconnection that speaks more of completeness with others than self-sustaining separate agents together.

Ideally, we would all do our tasks that would be best suited to our abilities and potentials and this should provide a necessary niche in the whole community of interconnected and interdependent people (but have we left earth and gone to heaven). I will not pretend capitalism is the answer…I am just wary of anything else because nothing else has presented itself in history that has proven as “successful.” (Maybe an arguable assertion)

If men were in need of sex and a woman fulfills that need for men that are lonely, if this then enables the woman to eat food, gain shelter, and maintain herself in the world as a result, well I guess that doesn’t seem all that bad. However, I find myself wondering if there wouldn’t be more fulfilling work for that person but maybe taking on the role occasionally really wouldn’t bother that person regardless. Usually it seems like pretend for myself when in a purely sexual foray, because I am searching for something greater than just sexual release. But maybe in some circumstances sex work is the easiest/only route one sees presented to them for some security.

Something else that needs to be considered is that psychological pathology is normative. Homosexuality was pathological many years ago, and now is considered a healthy form of sexuality.

In regard the increased health risks of sex work, I am certain that the average oil worker (I live in an oil town) has much more serious health concerns than a legal sex worker. The health risks involved in the illegality and ’shadyness’ of prostitution are serious and I don’t mean to minimize them though. The task itself is much less physically harmfull or dangerous than what many people do for a living.