is prostitution morally right?

dolgan

hiya guys this is my first post here.
i would like to discuss this issue with anyone that's interested in participating. i know that there's another thread which kinda deals with this issue, but it kinda doesnt aswell because it is more about trafficking and the potential for it.

so, leaving the issue of trafficking aside for a moment:
does anyone consider prostitution to be morally right? if so, why?
does anyone consider prostitution to be morally wrong? if so, why?
discuss.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Morally acceptable\right if properly regulated. No one's being harmed but the people involved(if even) and they don't have to do it if they don't want to. Where's the moral objection?

Tar.Aldarion

Completely fine, in my opinion.

Faith

As long as it's consensual and nobody's getting hurt, then I see no problem with it.

DOLEMAN

Easy money!

/morals are in the eye of the beholder!

dolgan

well i must say that i think it is morally wrong. my own moral standpoint is that people should not be forced to do things that they would not in an ideal world. are others different?
think that the argument that people do it from "choice" is slightly misleading. what options are they choosing from if selling their body for money is a legitimate option?

doleman, i agree that many people have different morals. is your stand different from the one that i outline above?
reading between the lines of your reply i would have to conclude that you believe anything to be morally justifiable if the monetary compensation is large.

coffee_cake

dolgan wrote:

well i must say that i think it is morally wrong. my own moral standpoint is that people should not be forced to do things that they would not in an ideal world. are others different?
think that the argument that people do it from "choice" is slightly misleading. what options are they choosing from if selling their body for money is a legitimate option?

What options are people choosing from if being a binman is a legitimate option? Maybe they just don't think of it as badly as you do.

dolgan

i see a big distinction between collecting trash for a living, odious as im sure it is and having your body used by a large number of people in one day. if your closest female relative were to become a binman would you object as much as if she announced that she were to be a prostitute?

Faith

dolgan wrote:

my own moral standpoint is that people should not be forced to do things that they would not in an ideal world. are others different?

That's a far too broad statement. In an ideal world, I would have had a large team of very strong men to move all my stuff from my apartment to another today, but I was forced to do it myself.

I stand by my opinion that there's nearly always another option available to women who choose to prostitute themselves, but I've already expressed my views in the other prostitution thread and I'm not nearly bored enough to retype them.

coffee_cake

dolgan wrote:

i see a big distinction between collecting trash for a living, odious as im sure it is and having your body used by a large number of people in one day. if your closest female relative were to become a binman would you object as much as if she announced that she were to be a prostitute?

I'd strongly question why she would want to be either since she has a lot of other options, tbh.
Also, my personal distaste shouldn't dictate what other people want as careers, they can choose what they like
unless it's like serial killer

Anyway why does it have to be a female relative? Are women not supposed to have sex?

Rockerette

i dont think its morally wrong, as Faith said there, i also believe that theres almost always another option somewhere for them.

i think theres worse things in the world.

is working for a completely corrupt company any better?
is that morally right?
just cause you wear a suit to work?


it doesnt affect most of us direcetly, unless youre into that kinda thing, so i say let it be.

dolgan

you make my point for me bluewolf. your sister has a lot of other options and so she is unlikely to be prostitute. yet you think it fine for people who do not have your sisters options to be prostitutes. so, bearing in mind that this thread is supposed to be on the moral dimension of it, you contend that it is morall fine as long as you and yours are not involved in it. does this not strike you as problematic?

Faith

Obviously I'm not bluewolf, but I don't think she was specifially referring to her sister. I think she was just using her as an example to represent all women.

coffee_cake

I don't even have a sister

These threads are great - in the last, the OP asked me about my wife and now it's my sister

Anyway, did you completely ignore where I said
"Also, my personal distaste shouldn't dictate what other people want as careers, they can choose what they like"
I would find it unusual for any relative of mine to want to do so for various reasons, but I wouldn't sit there and condemn them
As long as it was consenting and most importantly, safe, fine by me

I mean if I'm going to judge them based on what I personally find squeamish, where's it going to end? Am I going to wish I had no gay relatives, eg? That's just a little silly don't you think?

Bottle_of_Smoke

dolgan wrote:

i see a big distinction between collecting trash for a living, odious as im sure it is and having your body used by a large number of people in one day. if your closest female relative were to become a binman would you object as much as if she announced that she were to be a prostitute?

Why does it have to be a large number, if you were good you could do 1 rich guy a week & you'll easily command 50K a year.

If you're not quite that good you could do 4 guys a week for 50K a year.

And so on....

Stop insisting on focusing on the lowest common denominator

Faith

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote:

Why does it have to be a large number, if you were good you could do 1 rich guy a week & you'll easily command 50K a year.

If you're not quite that good you could do 4 guys a week for 50K a year.

And more. If you get a few select rich clients and treat them well, you could be getting accomodation paid for, a clothing allowance and all sorts of nice things. It's not always seedy, street walker stuff.

DOLEMAN

dolgan wrote:

reading between the lines of your reply i would have to conclude that you believe anything to be morally justifiable if the monetary compensation is large.

???

No... Prostitution is a job which pays well. As I said in a different thread, I don't find sex immoral/have guilt issues with sex, so I have no problems with sex for money.

Most people are forced to work. It is not confined to prostitutes. Everyone needs money.

Having sex for lots of money is not so bad. They are being used just as much as my brain is used for my programming job. Except they earn about 5 times more money than me. And they don't pay any tax.

Dades

dolgan wrote:

reading between the lines of your reply i would have to conclude that you believe anything to be morally justifiable if the monetary compensation is large.

Reading between the lines = making up assumptions with no factual basis.

dolgan, the fact that you like to pose questions, twist answers while never giving their own stance so it can't be questioned - makes me think you are a troll.

dolgan

i am not sure what a troll is, but so that i am not confused with one i will outline my stance on prostiturion here.
i condemn nobody.
i have no knowledge of the circumstances in which people choose to become prostitutes beyond what i have outlined above and have no doubt that to their mind it is the right choice given their options and their circumstances. however, despite this i am able to assert that the business of prostitution is morally reprehensible because it involves the objectification of people, their domination by others and them giving up their sexuality, which should be for their own personal enjoyment to any comers who have the money. thus, i think that prostitution is a dehumanizing occupation and not something which people would do if they had better options.
i do not accept the argument that prostitution is just another job because there is a qualitative between it and most "regular" jobs. hopefully, a topical example may illustrate this. any of you who were watching the news last night would have seen the report on sexual abuse by aid workers in liberia: people distributing aid to young girls in exchange for sexual favours. let us consider this. the girl in this example has options. it could be construed as a fair economic exchange the aid worker has something the girl wants and she has something he wants, so they exchange. and yet the UN is investigating this. if the aid worker got the girl to, for example, write a computer programme for him in exchange for food, would there be similar outcry? that is prostitution. the players and the stakes may change but the business is the same.
another observation on objectification. in amsterdam where prostitution is legal and regulated,women parade in windows, like commodities on display. the raduction of people to commodities is wrong in my view.

bluewolf: i asked the personal question above because it is true that everything is personal for somebody. it is ok to say something is fine as long as it is happening to someone else. by critically reflecting on what our attitude would be were it to happen closer to home we can truly judge how right/wrong it is.

bottle of smoke: your point is well made. i must concede that, in all likelyhood, not every prostitute is in the dire straits i outline. but you would be naive to think that many, if not most, are servicing multiple clients in a days "work."

atheist: i do not accept your equation. the question in the original post:"does anyone consider prostitution to be morally right? if so, why?"

doleman's response:"easy money
morality is in the eye of the beholder"
here he refers to two things: the first is money
the second is that morality is subjective, which is no doubt true.
so, i deducted that a) dolemans system of morals may be different from mine.
b) money somehow comes into his morality as he mentions money in answering a question on the morality of prostitution. he also mentions morality which means that he did not misread the question.
using these two deductions, reading between the lines as i said, i produced the statment which you consider to be a misrepresentation or twisting of his views. i think i made a statement which was logically congruent with the information i had at hand.

that's all for the moment. i look forward to continuing our discussion.

Dades

Welceme back

dolgan wrote:

i am able to assert that the business of prostitution is morally reprehensible because it involves the objectification of people, their domination by others and them giving up their sexuality, which should be for their own personal enjoyment to any comers who have the money.

Again, this boils down to the use of the body. A masseuse or even a stuntman all essentially sell their bodily services - but I suspect you don't have a problem with their objectification. It's only because it involves sex, that you object.

dolgan wrote:

thus, i think that prostitution is a dehumanizing occupation and not something which people would do if they had better options.

There's always a better option, no matter what job you're in.

dolgan wrote:

people distributing aid to young girls in exchange for sexual favours. let us consider this. the girl in this example has options. it could be construed as a fair economic exchange the aid worker has something the girl wants and she has something he wants, so they exchange. and yet the UN is investigating this. if the aid worker got the girl to, for example, write a computer programme for him in exchange for food, would there be similar outcry? that is prostitution. the players and the stakes may change but the business is the same.

This analogy is simply false because the aid does not belong to the aid worker, by rights it belongs to the intended receipient. So the worker withholds something of theirs for sexual favours. That is not a transaction.

dolgan wrote:

another observation on objectification. in amsterdam where prostitution is legal and regulated,women parade in windows, like commodities on display. the raduction of people to commodities is wrong in my view.

Again, in many jobs people are commodities. Simply an expense on a balance sheet. As long as nobody forces you to do it - thats how the free market works.

padser

dolgan wrote:

, i think that prostitution is a dehumanizing occupation and not something which people would do if they had better options.

Exactly, 'I think'. Not everyone thinks this way.

In UCD yesterday (Im told - I wasnt actually there) Red Bull sent around 'Red Bull Angels' to the residents on campus. These were essentially hot girls wearing tight clothes and giving out free cans red bull. These reason they chose hot 20 years old girls who wore skin hugging clothes was essentially to objectify women.

Now of course I realise that this is not the same as prositution. However many of the arguments used against prostitution would apply to this type of operation as well. Provided the principles behind the arguments against consentual prostitution are valid.

These women also parade around like commodities. They are reduced in a sense to mere objects. Yet most people dont have a major problem with this. In my opinion prostitution is simply a further evolution along that same path.

dolgan wrote:

people distributing aid to young girls in exchange for sexual favours.

Comparing this is a massive distortion of the facts.
1) As The Atheist has pointed out its not a transaction since the goods are not the aid workers to give
2) The girls here are underage. Certainly sex is not something which I think can be morally bought from someone who is below a certain age, they are not old enough to consent to the transaction in my opinion
3) These girls HAVE NO OPTION so do not fall into the catogary of people 'choosing' prostitution. They must do this to eat.

In Ireland we have a social welfare system which can support people. We also have full employment (or are verging on full employment) so most people who choose prostitution, in doing so, reject another 'regular' job.

Imoral??///? Maybe! But I cant see a victim here so from my POV I dont see a problem.

Dades

padser wrote:

3) These girls HAVE NO OPTION so do not fall into the catogary of people 'choosing' prostitution. They must do this to eat.

Just a quick comment on this before it is picked up.

The fact that circumstances exist where people have no choice but to prostitute themselves is not relevant to the actual morality of the "profession". The morality of the people or society that forces women to be in a profession not of their choosing is what should be called into question.

aniascor

Although it is never a career path I would choose for myself, I don't think there is anything "morally" wrong with someone choosing to sell their bodies. Where the immorality comes into it (imho) is when someone else profits from that transaction. As long as prostitutes are free to work independently, and free to make their own choices about what is moral or what isn't, let them off. But when a pimp starts making their choices for them, it's crossed the line.

Zombrex

I have no moral problem with the act of prostitution (a man or woman sleeping with someone and getting paid for it)

I do have moral objectsion and issues around the industry itself though, and there is a difference between the industry and the individual acts that take place with in it.

dolgan

how do you quote people? whenever i try i just end up quoting the whole message. if someone could post a message saying how to do this it would be a great help and i'll be back later to take up some of the points ye make. cheers.

BuffyBot

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