I don't buy the myth of the Sad, Unfuckable John. If that's true, then how is it all these movie stars, politicians, etc. keep getting caught with prostitutes? Don't tell me Eliot Spitzer was hard up. Men usually go to prostitutes for the pleasure of having a woman that belongs to you for a few hours.

There's actually some studies on this.

"The availability of premarital sex has largely crowded out standard garden variety prostitution," Levitt told the packed room. "What's left is a lot of stuff that the market of wives and girlfriends won't easily provide."

In other words, johns usually have wives and girlfriends who do provide sex. What those wives and girlfriends don't provide is a willingness to be choked, spat upon, or generally abused during sex. Or perhaps they just don't feel sex should be a one-sided thing where the woman performs for the man without getting satisfied herself. Prostitutes are available for that. Of course, the fact that the Sad, Unfuckable John is a myth means that many of these johns are cheating on wives or girlfriends and unwittingly exposing them to diseases.

Please don't be lulled by romantic images of men who visit prostitutes. They are scum.

Holland provides an interesting variation on this theme. In that humane and sensible society there is a push to have the state pay for prostitutes to have sex with disabled men and women. There are also reports, difficult to verify, that Holland also has a more informal version of this idea, with volunteers rather than paid professionals.

That's one side of the coin. But Cowen is right to see this as a "delicate" topic. I suspect that for some men prostitution might provide short term pleasure but hinder their ability to have meaningful relationships with (non payment accepting) girlfriends (or boyfriends). And of course some of the men who go to prostitutes are just into activities that wives and girlfriends won't do.

I'm glad to see you mentioning Fourier, by the way. A very interesting thinker. As Guy Davenport once said, he anticipated everything in Marx and Freud.

This is a minor (yet sincere) question about words more than any kind of comment on this post or thread. But what's the difference between "lonesomeness" and "loneliness?" I never have really used the former before, and when you did, you got me wondering.

In the past couple of days, we've had an influx of commenters who support both access to prostitution and mail order brides. I've been told I should get cancer and die, had PMS and other really tired misogynist jokes thrown at me, been accused of being ugly and unloveable, been called a nag and a shrew, and had the usual hysterical accusations that all women who say that a man beat them are lying.

These are not nice men who, by virtue of being ugly or something, can't get companionship. I'm not whining---I gave up being shook by the ranting misogynists a long time ago. But I am pointing out that misogyny is alive and well, and increasingly, the misogynist has trouble getting compliance from women in ordinary life. Prostitutes don't fill a sex gap so much as a hate-and-ownership gap.

Amanda's pegged it. The "genuine hunger" that people who patronize prostitutes are seeking to slake isn't exclusively --- and I suspect isn't primarily --- a hunger for sexual contact, and the abuse and degradation that prostitutes are subjected to isn't a "negative externality." The opportunity to abuse and degrade are a big part of what the johns are paying for.

I half agree with Amanda Marcotte: some of the men who go to prostitutes are scum, especially if they are using money to buy degradation. (Spitzer seems to fall into the scum camp, by the way. I was quite disturbed by reports that Spitzer tried to have sex without a condom, which is of course very selfish behaviour from a client).

But I suspect that there is a whole spectrum of clients out there. My disabled men and women example (from Holland) would fall into the non-scum camp. Also, what about migrant labourers (like Mexican farm workers in America), who exist in nearly all-male communities far from their families? Again, I'm not justifying their use of prostitutes but it's hardly something that exists without a socail context.

And we shouldn't assume that all prostitutes are male either.

The point is that we need to ackowledge the full complexity of this issue, not just go in for quick and easy stereotypes.

No one has the right to expect to get everything they want or long for from a society or other indivuduals, simply because they long for it. Not getting everything we want is the human condition, and although one could make an argument that we have a societal obligation to relieve suffering when possible, transferring the suffering from one party to another doesn't really accomplish much towards this goal, which is what I think would happen in this case.

I have a hard time buying the possibility of a situation where "everyone benefits". No matter what the monetary compensation, and even providing for the unlikely situation in which you were able to eliminate the influence of drugs or violence, prostitution would still be an unequal exchange. Actually, one could argue that both parties involved in the transaction pay a cost, although a higher one is paid by the prostitute.

So if our goal is to do our best to make sure that all members of our society have fulfilling lives, including fulfilling sexual lives, there are better ways to go about accomplishing it than legalizing prostitution.

Amanda -- you sound like a complete kook. (Guess I'm a misogynist now).

My guess is that most married john's aren't into choking, spitting and other gross things that their "wives won't do". They simply want some variety, and are willing to pay for it.

I'm sympathetic to the folks who crave seuxal (or physical or emotional) contact, and can't get it any way than through a prostitute. I suspect that those folks are a small minority of johns, but I'm sympathetic to them.

That said, however, it's important to be clear about what the experience of patronizing a prostitute provides. It's not "sex," full stop. It's a particular kind of sex. Specifically, it's sex with someone who's not interested in having sex with you. And I do think it's worth thinking seriously about whether it's an unalloyed social good to increase men's opportunities to have sex with people who aren't interested in having sex with them.

Pace Holland the general sympathetic "unfuckable or lonely John" story is, of course, utterly culturally bound. Those lonely mexican workers living in all male surroundings? I sympathize with them. But I'd bet my boots that their wives, mother's and girlfriends back home aren't extended any sympathy if *they* need sex.

Sex and comfort aren't things that men need more than women. They are just things that men *don't usually get killed for* when they purchase or steal them outside of marriage. women's sexuality is much more controlled and the very men on whose behalf we are urged to make a libertarian argument would be the first--and are the first--to react with shock and horror to the notion that their "own" wives and daughters might have similar physical needs.

That being said whatever happened to temporary homosexual liasons and masturbation? Just because its nicer to have sex with a live human woman doesn't mean you are entitled to it as a matter of civil right anymore than the welfare state is required to offer everyone a seven course banquet of caviar.

Plus, though Amanda and I have an ongoing argument about some of her beliefs/arguments about prostitution I'd urge everyone to go over and read the thread she is talking about where Men's rights advocates come forward and pretty clearly and unambiguously reveal that their interests don't at all lie in comfort, love, sex or marriage as we conventionally understand those terms. An angrier, more violent, misygynistic bunch of out and out would be tyrants and rapists is really hard to imagine. But if you read what they write, you don't have to imagine it. They are very upfront about what they want and how any kind of informed conssent is a threat to that.

aimai

I don't think that Eliot Spitzer, of course, is a spittle-spewing misogynist. But I can't help but point out that he built a career on throwing women like the one he fucked in jail. That willingness to fuck a woman and throw her in prison for it reveals a sadistic side that we can't just whistle away and ignore. Or do the hand-waving "what about the disabled!" thing.

BTW, the "what about the disabled!" argument is a favorite of another kind of misogynist, the anti-choicer, who resorts to images of women aborting disabled fetuses to argue for the loss of women's right to choose. It's a troubling argument, because it's about using the disabled as this red herring to pull on the liberal heartstrings and advance a disturbing agenda that's anti-woman to the core.

I have a friend who is working on his Phd thesis, which happens to be research into why men have sex with prostitutes. From tons of interviews, etc, he's found that one fairly consistent common thread is a view of masculinity which holds that frequent sex with different partners proves manhood. fwiw

I would say Spitzer girl did alot his wife wouldn't.

15 minutes of hard sex, followed by leaving him alone while he watched the game, didn't nag him to fix things around the house, made him a sandwhich and got him a beer before the last one was empty, and she did it all naked and in high heels.

What would you pay.....

Jesus God, Ezra, first pornography, and now prostitution. If you're not planning to do any serious thinking on these subjects, will you just stop writing nonsense that ignores almost any acknowledgment of - as Amanda, aimai and almost any woman points out - the fact that this is not some abstraction but businesses involving the sexual exploitation of women (and men, but let's just leave that aside for the moment)? Gee whiz. I'm sure there's a wonky, drawn out discussion to be had on the economics of desire. That's not a serious discussions of prostitution in our culture. And I think you know it. And I think you're better than this.

But that would eliminate acres of fertile ground for blackmailing and controlling those in power.

Weboy: If this kind of nonsense is the result of supposed "serious thinking" on "these subjects," we need a lot less of it and a lot more casual thinking.

I was first wondering why we should assume that some of the misogynists posting at Amanda's place aren't plants--sprezzaturas, if you will--there to demonstrate how many awful men are by the oh so scientific "look at my commenters" method. (If I read KOS comments may I infer that all liberal can neither spell nor think, too?) But now that I read her latest post, I'm thinking someone is posting as Amanda. I mean, her blanket disavowal of any significance to arguments about the disabled (lest they lend credence to the pro-life movement) could hardly be better confirmation of the suspicion that for some "feminists" the only societal good is the destruction of the foetus, to which all other considerations must be subordinated.

Thanks, "Amanda"--you're a hoot as a parody! (Even down to replicating the f-bomb as substitute for logic that so marks her "edgy" style...)

I'm not in a position to know what the percentages are of types of Johns looking for what types of experiences. Amanda seems to be suggesting that a majority of them are the mysoginistic animals who want to degrade and dominate, and I suspect that that ratio is somewhat smaller, but I'm confident that the type exists and makes up a significant segment of the population. And it's too bad that our society is still producing people like that. But people willingly put up with all manner of disgustingness in many other lines of work, so as long as both the prostitute is _willingly_ entering into the business arrangement what business does the government have to stop her? For me the line is drawn at willingness--I mean true willingness absent coercion, brainwashing, etc. There's an established body of law which dictates circumstances under which a person is incapable of consent, and it must be applied. A big part of the problem with making prostitution illegal is that it disempowers sexworkers to set and enforce their boundaries. Amanda is right that there are mysoginistic and paternalistic arguments on both sides of the debate, but on balance I think that allowing people (male and female prostitutes alike) to enter willingly into sexual business transactions is the best path.

Amanda,

To say that anyone who goes to a prostitute does so because they want to choke, spit on, and abuse them is at best a massive exaggeration. I am sure there are johns that do that, but to try and suggest this is the universal case is ridiculous. In fact if that was the true desire of the majority of johns why wouldn’t they be in the S&M scene? There are plenty of submissive out there looking for some one to top them. I think back a couple of sex scandals ago, there was a prostitution ring that specialized in TGE: Total Girlfriend Experience. They were quite specifically selling more then just sex, but a simulated experience of having a girlfriend, and they were charging a lot for it. My point is that people use prostitutes for a variety of reasons, and taking the extreme position that all johns are evil bastards who want to degrade and abuse women is intellectually dishonest.

I’m not arguing that men have a right to the services of a prostitute. But I am comfortable arguing that a woman has a right to control her body, and that includes selling sexual services (which include striping and pornography btw.) I believe we should do everything we can to make that a safe choice for them, and we should do everything we can to fight actual coercion. But the argument that anytime you get paid its economic coercion is ludicrous. Is a janitor coerced in to cleaning toilets? Is a garbage collector coerced? There are lots and lots of crappy jobs in this world, and choosing to do one of them because they are paying you is not coercion

Um, I'm not denying some johns might want to degrade women but a lot just want to HAVE SEX. Does anyone here understand the impact of working fulltime, raising kids and living with the same person for a long time on the libido? In my limited experience, its always women who decide when to have sex. That would mean they don't want it as often as men do. And they also seem more comfortable with the idea of going without entirely...

Plus, if you want to understand how men would like to get sex look at how (some) gay men go about it... they don't have elaborate, drawn-out seduction rituals, they cut to the chase. Heterosexual men can't do that for a variety of pretty obvious reasons.

Just because you want something does not mean you should get it but thats where the market steps in, I guess.

Amanda is just a pure sex hater who doesn't think that guys should have any sex that isn't pre-approved by the right type of feminists.

She is on crack if she thinks extra-marital no strings attached is freely available. Plenty of guys who just don't get enough from their wife and think a prostitute is easier than trying to pick up a girl with a ring on your finger.

She is working out her own puritanical attitudes in the guise of "feminism."

BTW- I don't think you should legalize prostitution in the U.S. we can't manage to regulate anything (see the meat packer catastrophe.) So its pretty much guaranteed legalization=more trafficking child prostitution, etc.

That doesn't change the fact that Amanda is a total loon who hates anything other than the most vanilla sex.

Anonymous (8:07) --

How does criminalizing prostitution in general -- adult prostitution -- cut down on, e.g., child prostitution? Seems to me the idea should be to do after child prostitution, without the distraction of worrying about consenting adults. (And -- to others -- spare us the BS about how there's no such thing as "consensual prostitution.")

To say that anyone who goes to a prostitute does so because they want to choke, spit on, and abuse them is at best a massive exaggeration.

You're right. To be fair, that's probably just a percentage. Like greg says, a lot of it might just be this self-delusional about buying yourself a manhood. And there's probably a lot in between.

Look at Anon, proving the point, by the way! What's nice about writing about the misogyny that drives these things is that the misogynists come out and prove the point for you.

And when I say "in between", I mean that a lot of johns probably have sadistic desires that are short of choking and spitting (though I suspect that the more this stuff leaks into "mainstream" porn, the more your average prostitutes are seeing requests for it), but it's mostly still about needing to control a woman for a few hours---something not available to a lot of men in regular life. That Spitzer asked to go condomless, to get that thrill of getting the prostitute to put her health in danger, at least symbolically, to get his money, is a telling detail. It may be short of choking and spitting, but it's a difference of degree more than of kind, no?

Amanda, resorting to name-calling right off the bat instead of dealing with the points. and you are really interested in sadistic stuff. Perhaps you have some issues that need to be worked out. Usually people who are so focused on this stuff do (see all the real homophobe preachers).

M. -The U.S. would not regulate any of the bad stuff. We just don't have gov't competent enough to do it. If the Netherlands is having a tough time, the U.S. would completely fail.

Seems to me, Anon, that the distinction isn't between vanilla sex and otherwise, but between sex in which all partners are enthusiastic participants and otherwise.

If you patronize a prostitute, you by definition are comfortable having sex with someone who has no sexual interest in you. Is the fight for men to be able to have sex with women who aren't interested in having sex with them really a matter of sexual liberation?

Amanda,

Using Elliot Spitzer as the prototypical John is fraught with peril. I don’t think rich politicians who come from a privileged background are in any way typical, and I’m not surprised that a power seeking personality would act the same way in a sexual encounter.

You keep using the work Misogyny, and you say it drives the whole prostitution thing. Here is the Merriam-Webster definition: a hatred of women. Do you really think any one that goes to a prostitute hates women? Do you really think even Elliot Spitzer hates women? Do you really think every prostitute hates women? That is an awful lot of hate going on.

Personally it seems like a lot of people are looking at an emergent behavior in a complex society and trying to assign motive. It seems there are much simpler explanations for why prostitution happens. People desire sex. Because it is desired, there is a market for people buying and selling it. Now this is overwhelmingly a trade where women are the sellers and men are the buyers. This seems to be where the Misogyny arguments come in. I have an alternative explanation. A male purchasing sex from a female has a reasonable expectation that they will actually achieve an orgasm (men are easy.) Conversely a women’s sexual satisfaction being dependant on more factors: the skill and attentiveness of their partner, an emotional connection, and feeling safe, doesn’t have that reasonable expectation that they are going to get their money’s worth. It’s not like there are never any cases of males selling to females, they are just rarer in comparison to the opposite case. For one of the counter examples see this reuters">http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN2638979720071126?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews&rpc=22&sp=true”>reuters article

hmm.. Apparently my HTML isn't working so good, sorry.

I always wonder why any guy would get riled about the suggestion that hiring a prostitute is exploitative--unless he, of course, is in the practice of doing same. Or just wants to keep his "options" open.

In a happy rainbow and unicorn-filled universe, perhaps prostitution could be conducted in a non-exploitative way...although in that universe, it would be moot, because everyone would be getting enough sex anyway.

In our world, it's an inherently problematic transaction, in which true equality seems either unreachable or vanishingly rare.

The life of a prostitute is not generally glamorous or happy. It is often filled with brutality and pain. At the very least, there are physical risks to having sexual contact with that many strangers every day that the money can't really make up for. Without even getting into the abuse by pimps and johns, high rates of drug abuse, etc. etc.

I can't imagine any man with self-respect and an ounce of compassion, no matter how long since he last had sex, to be ok with being involved in such an industry. The attitude that "we have to have a sex-trade because all men deserve to get sex sometime!" argument is just lame. Those not getting sex can polish their social skills or polish their knobs. Nobody ever died from lack of access to pussy.

Fair point

Fair point? Ezra, just because the guy is Tyler Cowen doesn't mean that he can't be batsh-t nutty and not worth taking seriously on a particular issue. Fair point, I don't think so.

emjaybee

I think you may be simplifying a bit. There are vast class differences between what a streetwalker goes through and what more middle or upper-class women experience. Also, what about gay prostitutes? Is that OK or not?

Relatedly, have you ever spoken to a sexworker? I wrote in a different comment stream yesterday that I once interviewed a gay male prostitute. He was very happy with his job - lots of free time, lots of money - and whenever he saw someone new he would give the time of the date, their name and address to a girlfriend - she did the same with her new clients and he in fact took such a call during the interview. So, they looked out for one another.

Obviously this is not about 'true equality' - it is a service relationship - but there can be respect. Equally obviously coercion and abuse are abhorrent. And finally admonishing all those sexless guys out there to just beat off is not going to help solve anything... I think they're probably doing that already, y'know?

Re: greg--

Interesting. By that argument it's not merely a direct function of a supply-and-demand logic resulting from the social construction womens' role as sexual "gatekeepers." Rather, the converse-- that the image of men as filling the "sex-seeking" role creates behavior that seeks sex from multiple partners as a means of reaffirming masculinity as a component of identity.

Spiffy.

Emjaybee,

The fact is there are a lot of transactions where there is a massive disparity in power. How many people are in an employment situation where it’s a sellers market? Pro athletes, A list movie stars, blockbuster directors and writers, and upper level corporate officers. That’s about it, most people are at a power and information disadvantage when entering an employment transaction. You think prostitution is exploitive? All labor is exploitive. That’s kind of what labor is. Most of us are economically forced in to doing things we wouldn’t otherwise do if we weren’t getting paid.

I don’t understand why people look at the horrible working conditions that exist for prostitutes, and assume they are intrinsic and not the result of the current regulatory environment. Being a logger, or a miner really sucked in the 1800s. It was massively exploitive, very dangerous, and they had little recourse. Is that an argument to make it illegal to work in those professions? No, it’s a reason to reform industry and address the massive power differential between employee and employer. It’s a reason for sensible regulation, for government standards on safety standards and working conditions.

You don’t decrease the power differential between a prostitute and her john by making it illegal, you increase it! The people living in the rainbow and unicorn-filled universe are the ones who think that by making prostitution illegal you will eliminate prostitution. That’s the fairytale, so you can stop pretending you’re actually helping these poor women, when all evidence is that you are making their lives a whole lot harder and a lot less safe. Making something illegal doesn’t magically make it all better. I would think the current “war” on drugs and our flirtation with prohibition in the past would have already brought that point home.

p.s. since we are now attacking anyone with a different point of view of being a john, for the record I have never engaged the services of a prostitute.

Amazingly women hire prostitutes as well. Amazingly couples hire prostitutes.

Bad men.

Good women. Or exploited women. But no bad women.

Don't we feel better now.

This reminded me of Ezra's recent post about Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational. The book describes a situation where a person offers to pay their in-laws for the dinner they just had, resulting in the in-laws becoming offended. While the post talks about this from the in-laws perspective, that the social relationship makes them willing to provide services for free, it doesn't talk a lot about the eater's perspective.

I think there's an argument to be made that the son-in-law might be trying to simplify the exchange by taking it from a social exchange and making it a market exchange. As a son-in-law he's expected to participate in a lively discussion at the table and to ask about his host's lives. But if he changes the exchange to a market exchange he's paying for simplicity. If their relationship isn't social then he doesn't have to become emotionally invested and can just eat his meal, like at a restaurant.

I guess I've always assumed that, while there are lots of terrible guys out there who want to use prostitutes for disgusting and misogynistic reasons, the majority of johns just want to simplify sex into a market transaction. Sex with girlfriends/wives is complicated and tied up in all kinds of (potentially great) emotional baggage. I figured johns are just trying to sidestep that baggage to have good feeling sex from time to time, even if they also enjoy the emotional sex they get at home.

I would also think that, rather than being some kind of power fetish of endangering the prostitute, Spitzer wanted to not use a condom because he prefers the sensation of skin to skin contact over the sensations achieved by using a condom. I always thought this was a fairly common, if extremely dangerous, preference.

Would it have been better for Spitzer to have had an affair or visit a prostitute? I would think the former would have been more difficult on his wife, since it would have implied an emotional bond. So, who was the bigger jerk, Sptizer or Henry Hyde? Hyde by a long shot in my view.

While no doubt there are jerks and monsters out there, I suspect that most married men frequenting prostitutes just want sex with someone different without an emotional entanglement. That his money could buy the services of a 22 year old who resembled Sandra Bullock made it all the easier.

"Amanda seems to be suggesting that a majority of them are the mysoginistic animals.."

From the posts that Ive read from her.. and those would all be here on E.K. .. she seems to suggest that a majority of men waling down the street as mysoginistic animals. ..as well as the majority at the market, reading this blog, breathing, or dead.

Brooklynite seems to believe that its the persons interest in their employment that holds the value in this trade. Does the guy working for min wage at the restaurant REALLY want you to have a nice day and enjoy your meal? ..likely not, but if he does a good enough show we may all return and continue paying his pittance of a living.

If employment is morally wrong because a person is asked to do unpleasant things, or to engage in actiities that they have 'no interest' in.. most of the capitolist worl other then actors, and pro football players are in trouble.

In college Ive met quite a few women that put themselves through school stripping, and a few that took that extra jump to the escort link. They were normal cool people...

Most of them participated in the normal 'rituals', and had the same barriers as any normal person I knew. (Note I said most, a few were pretty wacked.. :p )

For them it was all about the money.. it was a means to get their degree without working for the local dept store for 5 years to make the same $. For those people its pure economics..

..and I imagine the clientelle for these women varies wildly.. where they advertise, and where they live. The ones I met lived in a college town, and actually complained about how vanilla the sex was. Surely that is not the case everywhere.. but no readon to ignore that segment either.

Im mildly curious Amanda as to what your solution for this is. You think that calling every male misogynistic is going to eventually change the nature of man and end prostitution? Is there a place in your opinion for any system to exist which works towards 'happy prostitutes' and eliminating the negatives? ..because clearly sublimating the problem, and criminalizing it has done nothing to curb its appeal, or popularity.

The debate over prostitution is also raging in Denmark, where it is currently legal. A campaign by feminists and left wing groups is trying to force through a criminalization of the customer (but not the prostitute). Interestingly the Danish prostitutes have recently entered the debate in full force and to a large extent moved public opinion. One prostitute said it very clearly: "I simply prefer this job to working crappy hours for low salary at the counter in the local supermarket".

It really has an effect when you see a well articulated prostitute stand up and tell the feminists that she'd prefer if they'd stop:

- judging her
- assuming she is doing unhappy
- assuming that she is unable to make a free choice in her own best interest
- assuming that they know who her customers are and how they relate to her
- working for a ban on prostitution, which scares the prostitute because it will force prostitution underground and make it less controlled and less safe.

Instead she'd like them to support the sex workers (as they call themselves) on their own terms: They currently pay tax, but don't get all the labour rights normally given to tax payers. This is what their fight is about.

The newest idea in the Danish debate is to give prostitute's clinics official scores of some sort to give customers some guarantee that it is a safe place with no coerced women there.

"Most of them participated in the normal 'rituals', and had the same barriers as any normal person I knew."

Were we assuming prostitute's of any age aren't normal? What's normal?

Amanda writes "That Spitzer asked to go condomless, to get that thrill of getting the prostitute to put her health in danger, at least symbolically, to get his money, is a telling detail."



That she perceives his desire to not wear a condom is motivated by the cheap thrill of putting her health in danger rather than the cheap thrill of having increased sensation on his penis is telling as well.

of course those rituals and barriers were up when I was around them, which would be in their offwork persona.

Yes.. much of this conversation assumes that very thing, that they are not normal. that they are oppressed, abused, downtrodden people.

Heck I would say that most of us are not 'normal' on an individual basis. Im sure you know my meaning and are being technical, just cause.. but Ill humor you becuase its actually a point I was thinking of including anyway.

Mainly I meant 'normal' to mean you could not tell that they had any 'special' profession, that they did anything else other then working at a dept store or at the corner coffee shop. They weren't artificial, or overly promiscous when I met them.

The strippers.. sure there was something.. they were charismatic, had a confidence around others. but that doesnt mean stripper. Could mean future news anchor really.

I also mean normal in that I, met them, had conversations with them, even hung out for a considerable time before being informed of what they did. ..and was surprised. Im not naive, and wasnt unaware of their existence, I was just surprised at what these girls did. ..and a bit envious of their income.

David, neither Amanda nor I has any interest in seeing prostitutes behind bars. Based on what she's written recently, I think it's fair to say that she and I are both at least intrigued by the Swedish model, in which prostitution is decriminalized, while johns and traffickers are prosecuted relatively aggressively.

Speaking for myself, I don't see prostitution as morally wrong. I do have a moral problem with (most of? all of? I'm not sure) those who use prostitutes' services, but that doesn't mean I condemn the prostitutes themselves.

And as for Amanda "calling every male misogynistic," I think there's a huge difference between calling johns misogynists and calling all men misogynists.

If your notion of sex is that good sex simply requires the consent of all participants, then using the services of a (non-coerced) prostitute is morally unobjectionable. Consent given in exchange for money is still consent. But if you believe, as I do and I think Amanda does, that good sex involves the enthusiastic participation of everyone involved, not merely their acquiescence, then an encounter with a prostitute is --- at best --- bad sex.

As I said earlier in the thread, I don't see how it's a progressive act to increase men's opportunities to have sex with people who aren't interested in having sex with them.

Why not just let people themselves decide what is good and bad sex? As long as no one is coerced I really don't see how it's any of our business.

Government has a clear and valid purpose in protecting people against abuse and coercion, but it should NEVER enforce standards of "good sex".

what about male prostitutes for women? Perhaps if we promoted this use of prostitutes we could make everyone happier. Some men are young and in need of cash. If there were an Empress' Circle, would that make things less pervy and more equal -- like equal opportunity objectification through mercantile exchange? I'm not sure how many women would go for it, but I think it exists in very informal settings in old dancehalls in middle european cities I imagine where gigolos trawl the crowd. What do I know?

Married men are often harried men. Sex with a woman you feel nags you is not much to look forward to after the first decade.

Sex with a prostitute probably would not be very satisfying in a different way. As a poster said here, enthusiastic participation of all participants, by definition has got to be way more fun.

I like the comment that Sptizer is less of an ass than Hyde because an affair is more hurtful to the wife than a paid tryst. I think that's totally true.

In any case, this is the first worthwhile, extensive and relatively respectful discussion I've ever seen about prostitution. Thanks Ezra and all posters!

There are so many levels of exploitation wrapped up in prostitution, particularly when it's criminalized, but also when it's legalized and regulated, it's practically absurd. Discussing sexual dynamics and mores in society at large is like navigating a mine field. When we then consider a situation where money, class, labor-management, and politico-legal issues abound, it's almost guaranteed to get explosive.

It's almost like the meta-issues need to be resolved first, in order to provide some acceptable ground rules for the discussion, before there can be any sort of legitimate engagement on the underlying issues. I don't pretend to know how to resolve that, but it's clear that the antipathy between people who share Amanda's perspective and their opponents is an obstacle to a reasonable discussion.

I don't have an inherent problem with conflict--as my commenting history would bear out. But in this case, the conflict isn't resolving anything, in fact, it's entrenching the differences.

"I don't have an inherent problem with conflict--as my commenting history would bear out. But in this case, the conflict isn't resolving anything, in fact, it's entrenching the differences."

The whole discussion is really strange. It's like any kind of pragmatism flies out the window.

In most human behavior we accept a range of reasons for actions, but in the case of prostitution (or at least amongst people talking abot prostitution right now)motivation is apparently all good or all bad. This is ridiculous. Both Johns and Sex Workers run the same gamut of humanity as everyone else.

I'm actually pretty ambivalent abot whether legalization would help matters. I think there would be obvious benefits for many "street" prostitutes, but also a bunch of problems. And does anybody think that these CEO's and politicians would start frequenting "legit" sex workers? It's not just the illegality that drives it under the table.

Alzabo, I definitely think CEOs and politicians would frequent legal prostitutes, yes. Take Spitzers case. If he had access to legal prostitutes he would probably never have been caught. After all it was an FBI investigation that took him down.

Secondly even if he got caught it would be a scandal yes, but probably not enough to force him out of office (politicians survive infidelity all the time) and certainly not enough to send him to prison.

As someone who has paid women for sex in the past, I'll toss my two cents into this discussion.

No, I never choked, spat on or "generally abused" anyone. (Though as a side note, every decent person opposes coercion, so any such activity would have to be agreed to in advance. Or are dom-sub fantasies verboten as well? Or only when they occur within the context of commercial exchange?)

So, why did I do it? I was incredibly shy about approaching women, asking them out on dates, etc. I had a tremendous lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem. Anyhow, I did not have any interest in a romantic relationship at that time. I was not emotionally healthy enough for it. I certainly never got lucky on the bar scene.

Yet of course I had a strong sex drive. Sure, having sex was not a live-or-die situation, though if that were the standard for what could legally be bought and sold then I suppose that only farmers and doctors could charge for their services.

Anyhow, I did have the money to take advantage of the escort services advertised in the alternative newspapers and Yellow Pages, and to live in a part of the country that took a relatively light approach to cracking down on "indoor" prostitution.

I never got a hint that any of the women I paid to have sex with were coerced into it or drug-addicted or whatever. I never got a sense of the menacing pimp waiting outside. But, sure, I was clueless about what was really going in these women's lives and why they chose to have sex for money.

Some were supposedly working their way through college, or saving up to buy a home, and many said they were single mothers supporting their kids.

Given that there is no such thing as complete freedom -- no parallel universe where people do only what they absolutely want without the pressures of supporting themselves or their loved ones, balancing competing priorities, or adhering to social norms -- they seemed to be there as freely as I was. How, in the absence of legally enforceable contracts and regulations, could I possibly have known otherwise?

Were they interested in having sex with me? No, I cannot imagine they were. Neither was I interested in paying them! Yet we each fulfilled our half of the transaction. Were they worse off because of it? Then why did they do it? Why did they bear the medical risks, the unpleasantness, the awkwardness, the legal and physical danger of receiving money for sex? Why did I risk the same for ephemeral pleasure? I guess economists call it revealed preference.

I remember quite clearly the last woman I paid for sex. She called and made sure I was expecting someone on the chubby side. "That's just fine," I said.

I met her down on the street and we walked back up to my place. She had a zaftig figure, a freckled face, and a chipped front tooth. When it was over and we lay on the bed, I stroked her little belly.

"I just wish I could get rid of this," she said.

"No, no, don't," I said, playfully pinching her fat. "It's cute!"

"I'm addicted to Coke," she said. "I must go through like a 12-pack every day."

"Well, why don't you just drink diet? Some of them taste just as good as the regular stuff -- and no calories."

"No," she said. "I don't want my kinds drinking that stuff. Don't you know those artificial sugars cause cancer?"

"I'm not sure about that," I said, but didn't feel like getting into an argument about those rat studies on saccharine.

She got dressed, and headed toward the door, headed back to her kids.

Just as I opened the door to let her out, a crew of cops could have pushed in, yelling obscenities, pushing us down on the floor, wrapping us in handcuffs. I supposed that in a savage country we could still be in prison for what we did.

Proponents of decriminalizing or legalizing prostitution often ask, "Who's the victim here?" It's a good question, though if you make the definitions loose enough you can manage to scrape some up. But here's another way to look at it. If I were in prison, if the single mother I paid to have sex with me were in prison -- what good would it have done? Who would it have helped? What would it have stopped?

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""""Some individuals, both male and female, have a genuine hunger for sexual contact that they're not being able to fulfill on their own."""

Thus why we can't believe Hillary when she claims that Bill will never be boffing the interns in the White House again.

He simply can't help himself, you give him a position of power over women and he will use it to abuse them for his own sexual gratification.

It's just ridiculous to read the whines of neo puritan kill joys like Amanda. It's that kind of totalitarian "thinking" that was behind prohibition, bans on abortion, suppression of "pornography" (like James Joyce), etc etc.

If these neo puritans don't like prostitution, then don't become a prostitute and don't patronize one. Simple as that. Stop trying to smear people who have other beliefs and stop trying to control them.

One major reason that prostitution feels like misogyny to a lot of women, and is likely to for quite some time to come, is that we are not *that* far removed from a culture in which the majority of women were rendered more or less utterly dependent. Despite the grand gestures of the Hillary Clinton's run for the Presidency and the moaning and whining amongst a certain class of women about "how long it's taken," we are only in about the second generation of women working in gender neutral careers at (at least some percentage) of the traditionally male/ living wage.

College educated women are still a minority, of these only some percentage make it into careers that are not still rather distinctly feminized. The vast majority of women in this country work in feminized labor. Throwing legalized prostitution into an already pretty toxic mix that most women simply choose not to look at too closely, on the idea that men have some kind of "right" or "uncontrollable need" for sex, is not likely to go over very well. I find it astounding that so many of you think it would.

The truth is, too much of women's lives are built on coercion as it is. You just don't really see it because you think that's the way it should be. If I guess correctly, you'd sooner abolish marriage than legalize prostitution, at least in this country.

Amanda's comments on this thread remind me of why I could never stomach her blog for more than a few minutes a year. She seems incapable of recognizing that an argument she disagrees with could have been honestly made or have merit. If it runs counter to her beliefs, it must be a red herring offered in bad faith.

It's just ridiculous to read the whines of neo puritan kill joys like Amanda.

A good choice of words. While she argues for liberal policies for her pet issues, she would use the full force of government to suppress those with opposing viewpoints. She is everthing she says she detests.
Tell her to get a job and quit mooching off her man.

It's just ridiculous to read the whines of neo puritan kill joys like Amanda.

A good choice of words. While she argues for liberal policies for her pet issues, she would use the full force of government to suppress those with opposing viewpoints. She is everthing she says she detests.
Tell her to get a job and quit mooching off her man.

College educated women are still a minority, of these only some percentage make it into careers that are not still rather distinctly feminized.

Here's the Census data on high school and college degrees broken down by demographics from 1940-2000. http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/education/phct41.html

Very soon more women will be college educated than men, given that as of 2000 more women than men between the ages of 25-44 had college degrees.

Feminized labor is too complex an issue in its own right to bring in to this discussion. How much of it comes from the job seeking behavior of immigrants? Or in education, how much of it is because there are more women who want to teach than men? There are simply too many norms to address, when we already have more than enough with prostitution, to make that anything other than a distraction.

There is simply an astonishing level of prejudice on this subject. I doubt either side would be so comfortable inferring motives and divining intent so broadly for entire groups of people in other circumstances.

"I don't see how it's a progressive act to increase men's opportunities to have sex with people who aren't interested in having sex with them."

Due to the sexual revolution, we now have a roughly free market in sex and love--with the commodities being charm, wit, and physical beauty. But unlike other spheres, we don't make any attempt to redistribute this good.

This freedom works out very well for the high school quarterback, the poet, the natural gregarious wit, the guy or gal who has looks that are roughly in line with what get splashed across our TV screens and magazine covers. However, people who are unattractive, unfit, unarticulate, shy, or who are members of a visible ethnic minority whose looks are classified as "odd" rather than "exotic"--these people are of course equally free. Like the unskilled labourers in the ideal laissez faire market, they are free to play in and consistently lose in the free market of love.

I do not know if I favour legalizing prostitution. However, I do get a distinct impression from people of both genders whose immediate impulse is to condemn it because cannot possibly understand why anyone who doesn't hate women could ever be pathetic enough to need hire a dirty whore. They strike me as possessing an attitude that's awfully similar to the elite that Anatole France alluded to, when he sardonically noted: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

I will also add the huge edifice that was Marxism, one of the surviving chunks that retains some normative appeal with progressives is the following epigram, with which you may be familiar:
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Given the amount both good and bad pop music that's been written on the subject, I don't think I need to provide a rigourous proof that having sex with someone you're sincerely attracted to, on any level, is a rather deeply felt and widely shared human need.

emjaybee:

"Nobody ever died from lack of access to pussy."

So every year, a non-trivial number teenagers and other folks who aren't suffering from terminal diseases or guilty of horrific crimes for some reason decide to kill themselves. There's probably lots of reasons for this, ranging from untreated chemical unbalances, to anorexia, to sudden emotional trauma...but don't you think that it might be possible that being constantly shut out from fulfilling one of our most basic biological and socially ornamented desires could provide one such compelling reason?

I should add that I agree that it is true that most johns aren't sad, sensitive guys. But have any of the people on this thread who raised this point really considered the cause? Given that it's agreed among most of the major groups across the political spectrum that visiting a prostitute is something that is the province of degrading, immoral, and hatefully sexist men, is it any surprise that most johns are men who don't give f*ck as to whether their actions are degrading, immoral, and hatefully sexist to women?

Amanda's totally right about the issue of condoms-- it has been well documented that customers of prostitutes are often demanding or asking for or paying for fallatio without a condom, an act that throws the health risks almost completely on the woman. And clearly many customers want to own and degrade the prostitute.

But Amanda has missed the larger truth for the smaller truth. People go to prostitutes to get what they can't get at home. In some cases that may be any sex at all, in some cases it may be degradation. But it also may mean sex without a relationship, or sex without having to attend to the emotional needs of a partner, or sex without having to socialize, or sex without having to court, or sex without having to marry (in many cultures).

It's a complicated subject, and is resistant to Amanda's attempts to be reductive (just as it is resistant to anti-feminists' attempts to be reductive).

I'm glad Johnny B. Goode had the courage to speak the truth of his situation. Let me join him. I have paid for sex. I had ended a relationship where my sexual wants were specifically disregarded by my partner over a period of years, I was bitter, and I was not in any sort of emotional condition to engage in honest dating. Misogyny did in fact enter into the equation for me. I could not entertain thoughts of open, significant, romantic/sexual connection to a woman without recoiling in a blanket way towards all women.

I can say that my hormonal drive for sex was not diminished in the same way my willingness to be vulnerable with a supposedly loving partner was. Furthermore I had a very real sense of emasculation both from the aftermath of the relationship and from my emergent state of celibacy. In this state I did repeatedly pay women for their company, their touch, and their nominal permission for intercourse.

The sex, I'm sure you can anticipate, was lackluster. Aside from whatever abuse/coercion you assign to the underlying transaction, I did nothing more dangerous or degrading to these women than completing somewhat awkward and lackluster condom wearing intercourse. In picking the women I pursued for these transactions I showed a strong preference for women who were (as far as I could tell) working outside of "agencies" and did not have "drivers" or any other indication of a pimp. This was both for my own safety and in the (possibly vain) hope that I would not be funding a grossly exploitive situation.

I am conflicted about the morality of the money for sex transactions I engaged in. I cannot say for certain that I was not injuring the women I had sex with, but I can say I took whatever steps I could to avoid explicit negative impacts. This doesn't relieve me of moral ownership of my side of the transaction, but in my experience life is full of choices in which moral ambiguity is real and significant. I made my decision and don't actually regret it.

I don't doubt certain posters here will send much hate and disgust my way. Help yourself. I am happy though to provide anecdotal evidence of the existence of non violent, non hateful, morally aware Johns.

If you've already decided I'm a savage bastard and not fit for my skin, my place in the world, my genitals, or a seat at the table of rational discourse, do yourself the favor of moving to the next comment now. You won't care about what being a John did for me.

From my perspective hiring a few women for sex over the course of a couple years had some serious positive effects. During that time I would have pitied any women who dated me. I was a mess, and would have been a nasty distrustful partner. I have enough social skill that I suspect I could have found sexual partners without paying for them, but nothing good was likely to come of it, especially for the women who gave me a chance. Maybe I shouldn't have engaged in sex at all and I should have taken a complete sexual sabbatical along with my relationship sabbatical. Maybe.

I can say this though. During that time of my life I was employed well and performed well. I was helping to support (financially and emotionally) a family member abandoned by her husband with a child who was under supported by other people who should have been there for her. I was a good friend to a wide variety of people who value my presence in their lives and the support and love I give them. Furthermore with time and effort I've healed a lot and am dating no less successfully or lovingly than anybody around me. I can say from having been there that the relief of emotional stress provided by the women I paid for sexual favors was real and a very significant part of what kept me functioning in the rest of my life.

Was it worth it? That question hinges on measuring the damage done by prostitution, both to the sex workers themselves, and the society they're in. I find the question interesting for obvious reasons, but I don't know the answer. I can say this though: I'm generally a decent person who got through a tough period of my life with he help of paid sex. Could I have done ok without paid sex? Maybe. Maybe not. I have a history of depression, and I know that when the darkness comes it comes up fast and you don't always get a chance to brace for it. The commenter who speculated about the link between suicide and social/sexual issues isn't smoking crack. I got through, the world is still turning, and a lot of people are glad I'm here and glad I'm doing well. That's not trivial or irrelevant.