Society/Culture Prostitution: Another angle...

[Gen Y]

I'm going to keep this intro short, because I don't want to colour the discussion too much...

Documentary that came out on SBS a few weeks ago called Scarlett Road.

Here's the trailer:

[YOUTUBE]das1SkOvUkc[/YOUTUBE]

And an article which gives a little more background to the story:

A new documentary tells the story of a remarkable woman.
Mark Manitta loves sex. Can't get enough of it. But being confined to a wheelchair with cerebral palsy has cramped his style. So, for the past seven years, he has been a client of Sydney sex worker Rachel Wotton.
''People do not understand the difference that sex makes,'' Manitta explains in the new SBS documentary Scarlet Road, speaking through a voice machine that makes him sound like a randy Stephen Hawking. ''Part of having cerebral palsy is *******ity and muscle spasms. I need sex all the time to make my muscles relax. And I like sex.''

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/sexual-healing-20111125-1nxkc.html#ixzz1ghRRb8O1



Now much of the debate on prostitution tends to portray it as exploitation and an undesireable aspect of life. This story gives another aspect.

I'd like to know your thoughts and reaction to the documentary, and additionally what you think of prostitution. Has this changed your opinion?

 

[Pie eyed]

Have no probs with prostitution.
Someone provides a service that someone is willing to pay for.

The problems start when third parties get involved whether that be pimps, the Government or the do-gooders. (I restrained myself from including the religious as a separate group.)

 

[skilts]

A more provocative title might have been: 'Prostitution: Another position...'

Personally, I see nothing amiss with people who like sex. I can't handle the idea of cripples or old people doing it though. They should know their place. That place is somewhere they can be ignored by those who determine what is sexy and fashionable. You know the ones. Those who are obsessed with appearance, and uncomfortable with 'difference', or any form of intelligence.

 

[Funkalicous]

I'm sure for some clients it adds relief and balance to their lives, whereas for others it's an addiction and warps their ability to have a serious relationship. Personally I think if you need a prostitute you have an issue. Like the OP's example, that issue could be physical, or it could be a myriad of mental issues.

Having said that, it's a subjective topic and raises moral, not legal question. Good on the Government for not outlawing prostitution and instead trying to regulate it. Sex is such a basic primal instinct. - Impossible to contain.

 

[Donners]

No issue whatsoever with legalised prostitution where it is run ethically. The problems arise through street prostitution (particuarly the substantial number of underage prostitutes) and unethical brothel owners who use debts to force people into sex slavery.

 

[KnobHead]

As long as people have free choice to enter the industry (ie. not enslaved) then don't have an issue with it, although i doubt it would be very intimate but each to their own.

As for those who want to ban it because it isn't the greatest job in the world for women, well if you're going to start banning jobs because it isn't the greatest work going round then you could ban most of the jobs in the world. Besides, that video shows that some women like the work so it's another "each to their own."

 

[Bomberboy12]

I think it is despicable. That we have degraded a basic human interaction into something to be sold and profiteered off of does not sit right. I find it very hard to believe that street walker has the interests of the disabled man at heart.

I have had the displeasure of living in an area which had plenty of street walkers - often they would be doing it in a car in broad daylight while a families' kids played not 6 feet away in their yard. They have no shame. Prostitution is one of the worst exploits glorified by the west.

Sahih al-Bukhari, 3:34:439:

"Allah's Apostle forbade taking the price of a dog, money earned by prostitution and the earnings of a soothsayer"

 

[blackcat]

I believe sex involves two people, and if it is a financial transaction, the physical benefit is clearly one person's domain. I have a caveat, some prostitutes, male/female, do take pleasure in some (all?) couplings.

If you put money down, you are missing out on alot. Money cant buy the partner's love and enjoyment. And putting the transaction as means for the physical, rmortal and ephemeral pleasure you never open one's eyes to the more ethereal. That is experience above and beyond genetailia I posit.

Anyone else read Kate Holden's In My Skin. Highly recommended. read prologue here

 

[saintsrfreak]

What's the difference between a prostitute and a pr0n star? Both are paid for sex.

 

[blackcat]

small independnt film made in melbourne on asian sex slaves in collingwood or some inner north 'burb. The Jammed. Need to revisit it, but for mine, tackled a weighty subject, overall product was wishy washy.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-flesh-trade
legal brothels linked to international sex trafficking rings
http://www.theage.com.au/national/m...-scrutiny-over-sex-slaves-20111014-1lpcm.html

4 Corners Sex Slavery

[YOUTUBE]JtM7KC9MECY[/YOUTUBE]
[YOUTUBE]Ji8eU3pP3Dk[/YOUTUBE]

 

[blackcat]

What's the difference between a prostitute and a pr0n star? Both are paid for sex.

15k silly cone boob job.

Waiting for John Waters next b movie "Attack of the Silly Cones".

 

[blackcat]

A more provocative title might have been: 'Prostitution: Another position...'

Personally, I see nothing amiss with people who like sex. I can't handle the idea of cripples or old people doing it though. They should know their place. That place is somewhere they can be ignored by those who determine what is sexy and fashionable. You know the ones. Those who are obsessed with appearance, and uncomfortable with 'difference', or any form of intelligence.

How about we introduce your incorrigible boor, that is, two "o"'s, no "e" Skiltze , that is Bob's German spelling btw. Let's introduce incorrigble boor that 'e iz, Mannie Kant, on the tension between price and dignity.

Think Wilde's quote`of the cynic and "man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" derived from Kant's tension of price abrogating a dignity

#grelling_&_spammer_Nazee's(sick)
#blackat_puts_the_bore_into_boor_in_3rd_person

 

[Truckosaurus]

A more provocative title might have been: 'Prostitution: Another position...'

Personally I was disappointed that the title didn't lead into "...one that provides for greater penetration of the issue" in the OP.

 

[rayven]

Had some profound conversations with strippers and hookers....

One lass used to be an escort for telstra when I met her in a strip bar stripping. She hated the way she was tret by the executives she was paid quite handsomely to entertain.

Another was a topless barmaid trying to pay for uni and actualy was an instructer for latin ballroom dancing and topless barmaidimg was quick cash after school....

One hooker got beat up by her boyfriend and chose hooking cause she got paid to have sex in a controlled enviorement where if the bloke got nasty there was clear channels to adress the abuse. She liked sex just not what comes with blokes in her socio-economic situation

Then there's the ones with a drug issue masking abuse of some sort they grew up around.....

Humans surviving the best they can...World is made up of all sorts of animals who all provide something, humans are the same...it takes all sorts to support all sorts...

 

[Wallaby]

One of the major problems is that it requires no skill whatsoever on the part of the prostitute - provided they were born with the appropriate equipment, they can perform the service to a reasonable level.

Which means that, unfortunately, a lot of desperate people (male and female), fall into the preofession because there is simply nothing else for them. Some are drug-dependent, some are homeless, some are simply unemployable (for various reasons). And that leaves them open to exploitation by criminal elements.

 

[Monniehawk]

I'm sure for some clients it adds relief and balance to their lives, whereas for others it's an addiction and warps their ability to have a serious relationship. Personally I think if you need a prostitute you have an issue. Like the OP's example, that issue could be physical, or it could be a myriad of mental issues.

Killers, shoplifters, smokers, drinkers, gluttons, cyclists in lycra and babysitters have issues. So do most posters on BF.
Brothel users may just have to unload every now and then. (Sorry!)

I think it is despicable. That we have degraded a basic human interaction into something to be sold and profiteered off of does not sit right. I find it very hard to believe that street walker has the interests of the disabled man at heart.
Prostitution is one of the worst exploits glorified by the west.

So what do the mummy and daddy bits equate to? Are they somehow sanctified areas to the glory of a god, tools of procreation, objects of shame or just pleasurable pink bits?
Since when has prostitution been glorified in the West? Know any rock-star pros who are held in high social esteem? Your blurt is a bit jihady isn't it?

One of the major problems is that it requires no skill whatsoever on the part of the prostitute - provided they were born with the appropriate equipment, they can perform the service to a reasonable level.

Spoken like a true student of human nature! Like any job, if you are no good at it, you soon find yourself unemployed.

Which means that, unfortunately, a lot of desperate people (male and female), fall into the preofession because there is simply nothing else for them. Some are drug-dependent, some are homeless, some are simply unemployable (for various reasons). And that leaves them open to exploitation by criminal elements.

Some might feel they can provide a needed service, some just might like the sex or the lifestyle. They aren't all low-brow losers with nowhere to go.
Exploitation comes from lack of protection from the law or society.
It isn't called the world's oldest profession for nothing. It has been simultaneously overtly scorned while covertly embraced since Adam was a lad.
The criminal element thrives in such an ambivalent society.

 

[Bomberboy12]

So what do the mummy and daddy bits equate to? Are they somehow sanctified areas to the glory of a god, tools of procreation, objects of shame or just pleasurable pink bits?
Since when has prostitution been glorified in the West? Know any rock-star pros who are held in high social esteem? Your blurt is a bit jihady isn't it?

Clearly they are to pro-create with. They are not without shame if exposed in the wrong way however. Prostitution is glorifed because the west is obsessed with sex. I think we can all agree whether we are Christian, Muslim or Jew that western culture is so saturated and pre-occupied with sex that it has de-mystified it to the point where it has been reduced to nothing more than a perversed past time rather than a special moment between people.

 

[skilts]

One of the major problems is that it requires no skill whatsoever on the part of the prostitute - provided they were born with the appropriate equipment, they can perform the service to a reasonable level.

Which means that, unfortunately, a lot of desperate people (male and female), fall into the preofession because there is simply nothing else for them. Some are drug-dependent, some are homeless, some are simply unemployable (for various reasons). And that leaves them open to exploitation by criminal elements.

All of what you say has elements of truth. I'd think somebody who was more skilled at the mechanics of sex would be more likely to earn more money, if only from return business.

As you have rightly pointed out there are aspects of the business which leave you with a sense of sadness, for client and prostitute. However, if even one person is not r*ped because of the availability of an alternative outlet, that seems slightly good. Not all prostitutes hate their work and not all of their clients abuse them. Not all prostitutes are drug addicts or no-hopers, though a disproportionate number are.

I spent a couple of years at a job in St Kilda, which required me to arrive there at 6 AM. I never came to terms with seeing 14 year-olds plying their trade, as I drove to work down Gray St. Being the simpleton I am, no matter how much thought I brought to this issue, I could find no solution. Maybe there isn't one.

 

[skilts]

Clearly they are to pro-create with. They are not without shame if exposed in the wrong way however. Prostitution is glorifed because the west is obsessed with sex. I think we can all agree whether we are Christian, Muslim or Jew that western culture is so saturated and pre-occupied with sex that it has de-mystified it to the point where it has been reduced to nothing more than a perversed past time rather than a special moment between people.

This is rich. Few people on earth are more obsessed with sex than christians, or for that matter Muslims. At least Jews have something of a sense of humour about it.

I'm not talking about those who do the rumpy-pumpy. I'm referring to those insufferable, judgmental prigs who have the temerity to think that they are in a position to tell other people how to conduct their lives. As if anyone should take advice about sex from the scum that is the 'priest caste'. Don't even bother to get me started about the hypocrisy of such vermin.

 

[cancat]

Bomberboy12 is a troll. If he was really a Muslim he would know about
Nikah Mut'ah

Nikāḥ al-Mutʿah (Arabic: نكاح المتعة‎ "Contractual marriage"), is a fixed-term marriage in Shi'a Islam. The duration of this type of marriage is fixed at its inception and is then automatically dissolved upon completion of its term. The marriage is contractual. Mutah has the same rulings as that of conventional marriage and 'Mahr' (which is the financial support to the female)also fixed at the inception.

It might also be seen as a cover for legalized prostitution, as the nikahu l-Mut'ah can last as short as half an hour, and the woman receives financial compensation but in accordance with the Quran must still wait three months (iddah) before the next contract.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

Three months between clients? Unless she was earning twenty grand a lay I can't see how that would be financially viable...

 

[cancat]

Three months between clients? Unless she was earning twenty grand a lay I can't see how that would be financially viable...

They don't strictly stick to that rule

 

[skipper kelly]

I long for the day when hookers actually hooked. The great hookers like Kelly and Walters were a sight for sore eyes. People would travel a long way and pay good money to see them hook.

Now the balls go straight in behind the hooker and they basically just stand there.

 

[skilts]

I long for the day when hookers actually hooked. The great hookers like Kelly and Walters were a sight for sore eyes. People would travel a long way and pay good money to see them hook.

Now the balls go straight in behind the hooker and they basically just stand there.

Let's not forget Keith Stackpole.

 

[KnobHead]

A lot of people do all types of work they don't want to do because there is simply nothing else for them.

And it's also a big presumption to say that everyone who gets involved in prostitution is because there's nothing else for them to do. There may be a whole range of reasons they do it, one is perhaps because there's nothing else for them to do, another that they may make a lot of money from it, another is that, just perhaps, they really enjoy sex.

Now i don't quite get "doing the deed" with someone where there's probably no sensuality and they're only having sex with you for money, but I'm also not going to tell someone else how to run their lives, whether that be telling a christian they should be a muslim or vice-virsa, an investment banker they should be a charity worker, or a collingwood supporter that they should barrack for carlton.

As long as it's well regulated and people aren't forced into it, then each to their own. As for the youtube clip, good on her - she's providing some form of enjoyment for people who would otherwise find it difficult