Atheism and prostitution.
Offline In the absence of religious doctrine, do atheists have any moral qualms regarding prostitution? By and large atheists have no issues with sex between consenting adults. Why should a financial exchange suddenly change the moral compass?
I agree with eliminating coercive acts such as child prostitution, violence against women or any circumstance wherein a woman is forced into the profession. And I agree that the majority of prostitution world wide fits these descriptions. Yet similar acts of coercion also exist in marriage and in "committed relationships." And I don't buy the argument of the spread of STDs given that this also occurs in marriage.
I don't see how eliminating the financial exchange and replacing it with marriage or any other form of cohabitation makes consenting sex between individuals more moral.
A common argument put forth is that love is absent in prostitution. And who says sex between consenting adults has to include love? What about consenting fuck buddies who are casual aquaintances but are not in love. Even in marriage, a man is not suddenly thinking of "love" and "committment" when he's getting a blow job. And I would say the same for a woman on the verge of cumming as her pussy is being eaten.
Can anyone give a rational atheistic argument as to why a financial exchange between 2 consenting adults engaged in sex is wrong.
I know I can't. As far as I'm concerned, it's like going for a massage. That's assuming the adults involved are, in fact, consenting, and not under some form of duress.
Prostitution still has an undeserved bad rap after millenia, so there's the problem that it might affect a person's self-esteem. It's my opinion that it should be a regulated profession, so that whining moralists can no longer argue that spreading disease is a legitimate concern. It would also free up police to go after pimps who use children.
It should really be like any other form of therapy, with professional standards and at least a comfortable working environment. Mind you, I've never used the services of a prostitute. That's not to say I never would, it just hasn't been necessary, so I know very little about it. There's no reason, thought, that they shouldn't have the the same courtesy extended to them as any other health professional.
Will: no gyration without funkstification.
It's odd that we have no problem with paying people to go down on their knees to scrub floors or clean toilets... but give head for money? Now THATS a sin...
Put me in the 'if there's no harm, no foul' catagory...
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacrements of canibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
It kind of cracks me up that being up front about it in prostitution is somehow wrong, but a woman marrying a guy because he's rich is fine. A lot of guys will say they never paid for sex, but how many times did you buy a bitch a $50 dinner or some jewelry or whatever - and then a lot of times you don't even get any. With the hoe you pay a set price and you always get what you want. Maybe it's not all religion but women that are afraid it would make it too easy for guys to get so they'd have to put out more or not get so much if they wanted a guy.
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
Richard Dawkins
Why pay for sex if you can get it easily for free ? People don't stop to amaze me.
ummm... no girl is obligated to have sex with you because you spent $50 on dinner, you know.
Beltway Atheists "We're good people, just not god people."
Who can get it easily for free (other than women or celebrities?)
She's not?
<quickly hides the bling...>
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacrements of canibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
Yes. So if a guy's goal is getting laid it makes sense to say fuck dating and just get a hoe.
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
Richard Dawkins
A proper moral system. based on minimising harm and coercion, with due consideration to balancing long and short term effects individually and collectively, should have no problems with any acts between consenting adults which have no actual harmful effects on others, and 'moral' outrage suffered by a third party on contemplation of the particular activity should not count as actual harm...
'Commandments' inscribed in some ancient text should have no special place here - if they meet such guidelines, they are acceptable, otherwise not. And introduction of claims of 'harm' to some imagined entity such as one's 'soul', or assumed offence taken by a supposed higher being, in the absence of reasonable demonstration of their reality, should be firmly excluded.
I think that prostitution could easily fit within such guidelines.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I'd wager that anyone one of us, on being offered $1,000,000 to have sex, would accept with little hesitation.
Not that we've established what we all ARE... all that's left is to negotiate price...
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacrements of canibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
Know what cracks me up?
That I can pay someone to repeatedly punch me in the head until I fall unconscious and that's perfectly ok. We call them "boxing trainers."
But if I pay someone for sex, that's not ok.
Violence, yes. Pleasure, no.
Unless violence is pleasurable to you, in which case you're all set.
Boards don't hit back. (Bruce Lee)
You had me at "hello," LC.
Boards don't hit back. (Bruce Lee)
My only problem would be the working conditions and rights of the workers.
Coersion, drugs (as in people being trapped because they are using it to feed a drug habit), the potential violence and bullying of workers, etc. So there would need to be regulation and monitoring. These problems also exist in stripping, but that doesn't mean that everyone has those problems, we just need to protect the workers.
A lot of it comes down to the double standards of old-fashioned guys who don't realise we are in the 21st century (I like to refer to them as neanderthals). The type of guys who like to watch strippers then degrade them, who have sex with women and them call them sluts. You know, assholes.
Zen-atheist wielding Occam's katana.
Jesus said, "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." - Luke 12:51
To say that this has been covered recently is almost missing the point. Not that I mind a repeat topic, but everybody should read through THIS THREAD.
Credulity is much easier to sustain when we've been taught that facts are things to be memorized and repeated, rather than sought out and discovered.
-- Me
Prostitution is legal here in Denmark. Pimping is strictly ILlegal and obviously prostitutes not paying their taxes is also illegal. None the less pimping and prostitute tax-evasion is very proliferant here, as is human trafficing of girls from eastern Europe who are brought here under false pretence and ends up in what is literally sex slavery.
So, the many problems surrounding prostitution are as big here as they are anywhere else. That said I think we have the right idea in legalising it. At least this way we have a minimum of control, and can protect some prostitutes (the once who work legally) from some things. And it will be there no matter what, I mean prostitutes are EVERYWHERE, not just here. There's a reason they call it the world's oldest profession. I mean, I'm sure there are even a couple in Iran.
I thoroughly agree with the argument that women are "selling" their services in other situations, like some marriages, or when a girl sleeps with a guy who buys them drinks and gifts and such, so prostitution is IN PRINCIPLE no different. But is it okay then? Or are THOSE above mentioned situations problematic too? I think they are.
I think in a perfectly healthy society men will treat women with respect AND VICE VERSA (never forget that women call men pigs as often as men call women whores), and in such a society prostitution would work perfectly.
But at the moment strong, self confident young women who sell sexual favors to lonely, socially akward, but otherwise perfectly lovely men, and thus do a beautiful thing for them , for the general health of society, and indeed for humanity as a whole, are few and far between.
I think legalised prostitution does a little, but only a little, to help protect the rest of the sex workers out there; that is, the once who aren't like the ones described above. What REALLY needs to be done is an extensive change in our society, to a place where men and women are TRULY equal, and I don't see that happening in the near future.
To the quote above: firstly, you are NEVER obliged to do anything you don't want to, that goes for prostitutes too. If I provide a service, ANY service, like if I for example clean floors, I can always choose not to, if I have a personal reason not to, and I will not have broken the law. At worst I will just loose my job, which seems reasonable if I am not willing to do it. The only obligation is for my employer to pay me if I DO do the service. Not paying IS illegal. That is true for any job, also prostitution (here in Denmark at least).
But secondly, because society is what it is, there really ARE women out there who DO feel obliged to sleep with men if they buy them dinner, so there... Is that okay? Ofcourse not, and it is a terribly sad reflection of the society we inhabbit, but there you are. Just because it SHOULDN'T be like that, it doesn't mean it isn't.
But we can change that.
What we need to do is change gender roles so that both sexes stop pigeon-holling eachother into certain roles. But that is a HUGE undertaking, and not one I see finished in my lifetime, even on a small scale, like just in Denmark. But with small incremental steps in the right direction we'll get there eventually in 200 to 1000 years time (I hope).
To quote someone I can't remember: "I'm a short term pesimist, long term optimist". That's true for me in all respects, and especially when it comes to this subject.
There's little needs more to be said here, but I do have a funny related half a story here. Back in high school, a fundy friend of mine first read the expression "whore with a heart of gold" in a discussion of literary cliches. He was so shocked by the very concept that he mentions it to this day, apparently having ignored or missed how common the trope is in fiction and drama. They really. really have difficulty thinking about the sexual aspect of life outside the bounds of marriage. It's a forcibly crippled imagination and quite fascinating if you study it. I've recently gotten hooked on a site called sermonaudio.com. Thousands of free MP3 sermons from evangelical protestant nutjobs. While I'm obviously more drawn to the tinfoil hat, 13 Jew bankers kind of stuff, I found one guy who actually admitted that committing "the marriage act" was a means of expressing one's love for Christ. Just like I always thought, you're supposed to be pounding away and thinking about JC the whole time. I must ask if it works better than baseball.
"The whole conception of God is a conception derived from ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men."
--Bertrand Russell
"Anyone who does care should be getting ready to vote against this humiliating ticket, a team that so farcically and horribly unites the senescent and the puerile."
--The Hitch, on you know whom.
I completely agree. In the absence of coercion, degradation, substance abuse, etc.., is there a valid secular argument against a financial exchange for sex between consenting adults? There is none. Yet there are atheists (if you would even call them that) who uphold such a sacred view of sexuality that is bound to one's self worth and personhood. And that the commodification of an individual's body (eg. prostitution, pornography, stripping, etc) is degrading and objectifying. Furthermore, those individuals who do sell their bodies are not truly acting out of consent but are negatively conditioned by the prevailing "pornified" culture. Thus, in all circumstances is the selling of sex considered immoral because those individuals will always be victims. This is the common verbage used among secular groups opposed to prostitution (eg. feminists). This anti-libertarian view of sexuality is a strawman's argument and IMO no different from the sanctity of sex in religion.
Eddie Tabash is the only atheist (secular humanist) lawyer that I know of that advocates decriminalization.
-RR
Choose Reality - http://www.churchofreality.org
Desiree Alliance - http://www.desireealliance.org
$pread magazine - http://www.spreadmagazine.org
Here's a real controversial opinion!
I disagree nobody deserves to be raped. The real bitches that seriously mistreat gys do - preferably by someone with AIDS and then shove a broken coke bottle up their cunt. I fucking hate women that are bitches after being mistreated. Bitches aint shit. They deserve cancer of the cunt and to die a horrible, slow painful death.
And it isn't only men that are sexual harrassers - some people know this but a married woman a couple years ago when I was at my job tried to get me - she was cute but I'm not messing with a married woman. She kept flirting with me and trying to get me to come to a back room with her. I finally mentioned about Carla (who turned out to be a piece of shit bitch) and she said "well that's nice" and gave me an evil look. A couple days later she punched me in the arm hard enough to leave a bruise that lasted 2 weeks. If I knew what I knew now about Carla being a gaming bitch I'd probably have let her fuck me. She quit the job like 2 weeks after she hit me.
By the way am I living in the bizzaro world? Everyone says men are afraid of commitment and are the players, but I want a serious relationship and the only women that contact me are players or want to be fuck buddies. Where are the single women that want a monogamous relationship and to be together with something in common besides just sex????
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
Richard Dawkins
You think sex is ever free? HA!
I was with a woman, dating and married for a total of 7 years and relationships are never cheap, for them or us. Relationships are work.
I see nothing wrong with consenting adults exchanging money for sex. I do believe that like any other business, it should be safe and regulated. If I owned a legal bordello, the workers would be subject to drug tests and psychological evaluation, and I would do everything to make sure that they wanted to be there because they enjoyed it, and not because they were addicts or acting out because of prior abuse.
There certainly is a lot that could be cleaned up, but that could be said about a lot of other industries.
Deities do not follow a "method" because imagination is a whim, not a method.
Wow. I can't imagine any possible scenario where I would consider abuse, especially of this nature, to be justified. Some women are bitches and some men are assholes. Some people are fucked up regardless of their sex. Having been on the receiving end of an abusive relationship for 9 years, I still wouldn't wish something like that upon my ex-husband. You must be carrying around an awful lot of animosity towards women. We certainly advocate the right to an opinion and the right to express it, but this comment borders on disgusting. Who defines what a "real bitch" is? Why use rape as the penalty? Is it to reestablish dominance as a male?
I think it would be wise to contemplate the reasons why you feel this way and to think twice before publicly posting it. A comment like this could be very upsetting to any woman who has been a victim of rape.
I've gots ta git B-to-tha-izzack ta plott'n mah nefarious pizzle ta destroy tha public image of atheists n bitchez.We always said, a bitch is someone that will fuck anyone but you.
Ummmm....I don't know.
I might hesitate.
But if you throw in lifetime supply of strawberry ice cream then I'm good to go!
"The Bible looks like it started out as a game of Mad Libs" - Bill Maher
Damn it gets hard and lonely sometimes. I'm going through it now. The last bitch disrespected me so bad I almost felt like beating her ass. I never hit a woman in my life, but this was the first time. I knew she was unreliable over the couple years I knew her off and on. I had a crush on her initially but that weared off and I liked being around her. She did too although she liked being a cunt to have it her way. We had good social chemistry. There's something about a hustler's mentality that when your around another one your chemistry is amazing. Her last man beat her ass and sent her to the emergency room and destroyed her personal belongings, so I knew a normal man is not going to do something like that unless she provoked it. A woman that's hot and pushes a lot of buttons to get her way tends to get in trouble. A bad girl. Crazy bitch. It reminds me how watching on TV how nurse sharks mated - the female likes it aggressive. Some women need to be treated with aggression like they are a wild animal. I don't like getting that way but then again most women are more influenced through their emotions than reason.
The one good thing that I can say about that relationship is that we planned out a shroom trip which was one of the best experiences of my life. I spent quite some time finding the right person to trip with at the right setting. She happened to be available at the time and planned it out by staying out in nature. I treat strong psychoactives as sacred materials rather than something to party on or get fucked up. Anyone who hasn't tried a strong psychoactive is missing out on life and their own conciousness. Well we had an amazing few days and for me it was like a antidepressant. It's amazing how a few mushrooms that normally grow on cow shit can have a profound effect on your psyche. Makes me think of how the drug lords push all that SSRI meds for lots of $$$ when the best medicine is dirt cheap. Anyways I could do another trip again, but I'll have to find another trip partner.
I don't know most men that could handle the thought of their woman being with another man. To a sex worker it is just a job and some enjoy it very much. I find it hard to connect with other women because of my past. It ain't easy for me.
Well I found a black bitch (on Youtube) that is articulate, smart, and very reasonable!
Like this one pimp said: Sometime you need to go through 99 bitches to find that one REAL bitch. Gotta keep on trying...until I wear myself out. I'm gonna aim for the top for the one that make this atheist think 'goddess'
-RR
Choose Reality - http://www.churchofreality.org
Desiree Alliance - http://www.desireealliance.org
$pread magazine - http://www.spreadmagazine.org
I am almost 60 yrs young. I went thru all that traditional, cultural moral crap, of sexual judgment and wishful ownership of the other sex. You know , the heart breaks, anger, unanswered lust, and 24/7 chasing, resentment, and winning too, etc ....
Eventually I realized females have the "sexual attraction power" over most all us men. Virgins and prudy "selective" women became not the ideal of a quality FUN relationship for me. I stopped sexually judging women as in my old stiff prejudiced silly ways of "ownership enforcement".
Of all my young love affairs, the one women, mother of my daughter, was a prostitute, unknown to ME, rock n roller girl chaser me.. She liked me real extra special, and yeah she was so beautiful, lustful, a playful 24/7 tease, a screamer 3x a day! .... so sexy and wanted by most every guy.
We did 11 yrs as everyday live together lovers. We fell apart partly because of my silly ownership issues when I found out the on and off prostitution thing. She liked other guys, the easy money, and power, ...... and me.
She loved me special is my point, but that wasn't good enough. So then we went into "me hate and her guilt" mode for 10 yrs. Now I ask, why did we let tradition do this to me and her ????
Mick Jagger sang "Some Girls" .... Sting sang . "Set her free, see if she comes back to you".
If a girl says hey dude , "I have fucked and sucked lots of guys for fun and a buck too, and will continue too, but can I do you ?" What do you men say to her ???
Now, I say, yeah darling ..... help me do you good ! Your dildos or mine? "BOTH" she says ! WOW, YEAH ! I love you, you sweet slut whore !!!
((( GO Science, let's fix the problems with our natual sexual desires. )))
SHARE
Thanks for sharing GOD LOL. Yeah human sexuality is some of the most strange yet compelling behavior that really stirs up a lot of problems - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. When I say spiritually, it's the long term goals or commitment partners look for like having children, living together, monogamy, polyamory, etc. I was watching some Youtube videos on Water births and realized how hard it is for a woman to give birth to a child without the support of others. And for Youtube it has to be some of the most graphic stuff on there. George Carlin made a poignant joke about being offended by pussy (forgot the exact wording) - it's like wearing a little hat coming out of your mom's pussy. Maybe that's the best explanation of motherfucker!
Women that are whores and are confident and have self-respect have a lot of power. I think of Marylin Munroe as a prime example. She had all the elements that would make a most men go crazy over. Face value, sexy body, charm, charisma. And with the rumors she was ho-ing all the way to the top by boinking the President. Funny how where this one steakhouse I used to work at there were pictures of Munroe and Liz Taylor in front of the urinals.
Violence and sex is another interesting behavior. Ever heard of rape fantasies? Look it up - I didn't even know it existed until I did. Then there's the whole underworld of BSDM which I still don't quite understand the whole allure of but when you look at the mating habits of the lower life forms on the evolutionary tree there's a lot of violence behavior that still is a part of us.
Ahh then there are the songs about love n sex. Tears for Fears - Woman in Chains...Buckcherry - Crazy Bitch...Snoop Dogg - Sexual Seduction...and on and on.
Sex is so natural and is the source of a lot of heartache, fustration, jealousy, etc yeap you got the right idea GOD! Sharing stories can be a step of fixing our problems. If we could only be more open and real about the pains we feel. Anyways that black bitch has the right kind of ideas that I see in the sex industry. There's a lot more that can be said but sex is still a topic that is hard to talk about openly and freely.
-RR
Choose Reality - http://www.churchofreality.org
Desiree Alliance - http://www.desireealliance.org
$pread magazine - http://www.spreadmagazine.org
I can see no universal argument as to why prostitution is wrong.
However it is completely rational for a person to find prostitution wrong because he/she desires sex to be with someone he/she loves.
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