The Morality of Prostitution

[NicFrenchy]

A hooker speaks out:

http://us.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2

/video / us / 2012/05/24 / drew-taylor-prostitute-cheating-men. CnnVideo's about some guy catching a girl who fell out a window. ?

[Errol Flynn]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2012/0909/[CodeWord909] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord909)-a-misunderstood-global-scourge

Let's treat the real problems.

[Param Ahmad]

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/6606/

See also my report in this section on 09-20-2010 quoting a former prostitute, Rubber Nursey.

[Sausage King]

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/6606/

See also my report in this section on 09-20-2010 quoting a former prostitute, Rubber Nursey.Whether it is a myth or not I have no idea, but that website isn't a reliable source. It also 'debunks' man made climate change. Scientists don't debunk it however, just websites like this. I wouldn't trust it.

[MrManGuy]

I think international sex tourism is plainly exploitative. However, the women get what they deserve, they should just get a job and work like everyone else in their misery ridden nation.

Remember that women are wired differently and it is basically in their nature to be prostitutes, so overall I don't see a problem.

[MrAdams]

Hi Guys!

I have experience of both P4P and freebies and I will have to say that in most cases the Pros are so much better than the average girl.

The absolutely best thing is to find a P4P Girl that you have some chemistry with. Thats gold.

I dunno what you say, have you guys made the same experience as me or have I just been unfortune to pick inexperienced (virgins?) freebies?

[Param Ahmad]

....I'm visiting Madrid in April, its my first time there and I'm going to be on my own! I'm 21 and I consider myself to be good looking. I am fluent in English but can barely say a word in Spanish....If you're 21 and good looking, are you sure you need to be paying For pretty young women's intimate company? If you're short, say, under about 5'9" (175cm) , or overweight, or unemployed, or have a low-status job (eg, working at McDonalds) maybe you do. But if you're 21 and good looking, and fairly tall, and not especially overweight, even if you're just a waiter or server in a nice restaurant, or even a coffee shop, you can probably do okay with pretty young women if you have the appearance Of better job prospects or future financial success. It's a lot more meaningful and emotionally fulfilling if she seems to find you Attractive rather than being with you because she's being paid. As I once wrote: "A disadvantage of sex with prostitutes is the intimacy and companionship that are more likely to exist in a long-term relationship with one woman." Furthermore, what will you say if you meet the girl-of-your-dreams (if you think in those terms) and she asks you if you've ever paid for sex? Will you lie? She may want to know how many there were, and she's more likely to accept you if your answer is none or only a few rather than many. Plus, that way you can be with women who speak your language, English, fluently: Free-flowing verbal communication adds enormously to the value of a relationship. Sex gets you only so far. To enjoy a woman's company after enough time has gone by, you will need to be able talk with her freely and fluently.

I suggest trying to have relationships with pretty young women who don't have to be paid while you're still young enough for it to be possible. Then, if you're single or divorced in your late 40s or older, and all you hear from pretty young single women is "I can't, I have a boyfriend" or "You're too old" or "You're not my type" or the like, then Start paying for pretty young women's intimate company.

But be leery of marriage and parenthood because of today's unfair divorce and child support laws. See:

http://www.angelfire.com/dragon/paramahmad0/prostitu.htm

(This web site's automatic editing software automatically capitalizes the first letter after italics, and inserts a space after a closing parenthesis and before a comma. I didn't write it the way this web site's automatic editing software makes it appear.)

[TonyIndian]

Is this guy full of shit, or are most of us stuck at the bottom level (image attached)?

Personally I think a lot of us may just have somehow circumvented the part of sex as a physiological need at either bottom level, or as a psychological need at a higher level. I'm not claiming to be at the top of the pyramid in the chart but I don't think that I'm stuck at level 0 either. Thoughts?

[Wolvenvacht]

Is this guy full of shit, or are most of us stuck at the bottom level (image attached)?

Personally I think a lot of us may just have somehow circumvented the part of sex as a physiological need at either bottom level, or as a psychological need at a higher level. I'm not claiming to be at the top of the pyramid in the chart but I don't think that I'm stuck at level 0 either. Thoughts?All the trouble and unhappiness in the world comes from being attached to something. Only true detachment can bring you true happiness. Hence a "piramid" of needs is indeed bullsh*t. None of these needs are better or worse than any other need. Attachment to any of these will make you unhappy in the end. There is a good argument to make that people on the top of this piramid will be the most unhappy as they have fullfilled all the lower level needs.

[Dickhead]

If only true detachment can produce happiness, it would seem like masturbation would be the way to go, not prostitution. Prostitution is merely a step along the road to true detachment. That's one of the things I like about prostitution. It can be whatever YOU want it to be. I've had sex with women whose names I did not know and at whom I barely looked, and I've had long-standing relationships with a high degree of intimacy with prostitutes. Either way, I paid them and they went away and none of their problems were my problems between when they left and the next time I saw them, IF I saw them again. I saw one gal a couple of times and she started to tell me her name and I said,"No, don't; it's perfect this way." Saw her three or four more times and then ciao. In a relationship like a marriage you are implicitly and subtly negotiating and compromising all the time. I would rather negotiate explicitly and overtly, and I dislike compromise as it leaves both parties unsatisfied.

[D Cups]

There is a hole in Maslow's theory called the starving artist syndrome. Case-in-point: Van Gogh's timeless paintings now sell for millions while the artist died penniless (and earless purportedly due to being jilted by a prostitute).

Perhaps we should create a Monger's theory with sexual gratficatiom on top, money and security below, and work on the bottom. American women would no longer be part of the pyramid because they have been replaced with foreign women in Asia and Latin America. What think ye?


Is this guy full of shit, or are most of us stuck at the bottom level (image attached)?

Personally I think a lot of us may just have somehow circumvented the part of sex as a physiological need at either bottom level, or as a psychological need at a higher level. I'm not claiming to be at the top of the pyramid in the chart but I don't think that I'm stuck at level 0 either. Thoughts?

[TonyIndian]

Perhaps we should create a Monger's theory with sexual gratficatiom on top, money and security below, and work on the bottom.This should be interesting. https://infogr.am

[Paul Kausch]

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is of historical interest, but it is irrelevant in contemporary intellectual thought. However, as you bring it up, what Maslow was describing is an order of needs people strive to meet. First, people are preoccupied with the basic biological needs necessary for survival. Sex, as it appears in this level of the pyramid, does not refer to the insatiable quest of those most sublime sexual experiences that motivate a true monger, rather it refers to nothing more than the primordial drive to perpetuate the species. Maslow believed once a more basic need is satisfied we are free to pursue satisfaction at the next and then the next and then the next levels of the hierarchy: the pursuit of bourgeois interests such as the acquisition of a family, property, and debt; cluttering our lives with social attachments to so called friends and loved ones; inflating our sense of self worth by deluding ourselves into thinking we are impressing others; and reaching ones full potential. Whatever the hell that means.

I would argue that some of us have attained a degree of clarity that enables us to recognize this for what it really is, a bunch of poppy cock. Mongers not only know where to find their next meal, but can plunk themselves down anywhere in the world and quickly identify the best watering holes. We understand that only peasants who are driven to produce a large litter to help them meet their quota confuse sex with procreation. Our appreciation for anal sex clearly illustrates that we understand that sex has nothing to do with contributing to the over population of the planet, a realization that came upon the Marque de Sade as he watched, from the window of his cell, the noble class being culled by the guillotine. We understand that anyone who claims to love us is either crazy and not to be trusted or a blood sucking leach who is really not to be trusted. We could give a rat's ass about impressing anyone. And we realize ones full potential is only about fucking as many women as we can, preferably in all three holes. And we prefer women who understand that sex is a simple economic transaction and are willing to briefly rent their bodies to us to satisfy our depraved lusts.

In short, Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a bunch of bull.

[MS Clive]

Wow: Did not realize that child prostitution was prevalent in US.

http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-says-arrested-150-three-days-child-prostitution-154521080.html

Why do people become so sick? Are there no boundaries?

[DavePhx]

wow: did not realize that child prostitution was prevalent in us.my guess is maybe 2000 consenting adults also arrested as in the past, but this is the largest. the "rescue" industry is a huge money maker for catholic charities, federal and local law enforcement.

the stats on how rare "child prostitution is. maybe 1 in 5000+ ads

yet this is a huge money raising scheme to "rescue" that results in mostly in arrests of private consenting adults. legal in almost all the world and no big deal except in the u. s, because christian groups behind repressive laws just know what is best for us. or,"conservatives" who are against big bad government except when it comes to intrusion in personal sex lives, sexual orientation, or reproductive women's rights.

just how serious is the crisis of **** prostitutes nationwide? here are some arrest / rescue statistics from the fbi 2008 to 2012 [these are the numbers and stats provided by the us government, and are not estimates or guesses- but the number of persons actually taken into custody by law enforcement agents]

operation cross country vi (june 2012) fbi / local busts including phoenix.

2, 500 state, local, and federal officers in

57 cities us cities resulting in:

79 children "rescued" [**** 18]

104 alleged pimps arrested.

total of 183 arrests or 3. 2 persons arrested per city and approximately 14 law enforcement agents per arrested individual.

if there were only 79 children arrested (rescued) that means that each child rescue / arrest required 31 law enforcement agents per arrest; and if those 104 alleged pimps shared 79 child prostitutes, how did they make any money at all? that would be. 75 prostitutes per pimp- how on earth did any of those alleged pimps make any money off their pimping efforts? did they have some sort of child prostitute time share program?

the cops had 4 days to find more victims and pimps.

does this sound like there is a crisis?

how old were the 'children'? the ages of the arrested / rescued children were not noted in the press release of this rescue operation. but we know from the arrest stats from the fbi that the majority of **** persons arrested were 17. which, in many states, is over the age of consent.

so why are they still considered 'children' unless the persons who call them 'children' have a vested interest in making people believe that most prostitutes are children? perhaps because they get more money from the gullible public and the government when they are called children rather than teenagers or just 'minors'?

previous sting operations multiple agencies result in very few child arrests- plenty of adults

69 children rescued. 885 arrests in operation cross country v 2011 (40 cities) = 954 total arrests / 23 arrests per city total and 1. 7 minors arrested per city.

50 children rescued. 700 arrests in operation cross country iv 2010 (36 cities) = 750 total arrests / 20. 83 arrests per city total and 1. 3 minors arrested per city.

48 children rescued. 571 arrests in operation cross country iii 2009 (29 cities) = 619 total arrests 21 arrests per city total including adults / 1. 6 minors arrested per city.

47 children rescued. 642 arrests in operation cross country ii 2008 (29 cities) = 689 total arrests 23. 75 arrests per city including adults / 1. 6 minors per city arrested.

21 children rescued. 389 arrests in operation cross country i 2008? (16 cities) = 410 total arrests 25. 6 arrests per city 1. 3 minors per city.

there are more cops who diddle children each year than are found through all these sting operations combined:

http://www.policeprostitutionandpolitics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=100:****-and-child-porn-cops-all-years&catid=1:latest-news&itemid=50

for more stats from the government which expose the lies these politicians tell, http://www.policeprostitutionandpolitics.com/pdfs_all/truth_about_sex_trafficking/cops_prostitutes_child_sexual_exploitation_sex_trafficking.pdf

stats shared by norma jean almodovar (cop to callgirl book fame)

[Hind31]

Well, we are animals. Like it or not. The idealism and morality chaining men and women to a single person is against nature.

Now, having said that, can exploitation be accepted or tolerated? No. We must not.

Independent providers are available throughout the world. And there is, to my mind, nothing wrong if that is between two consenting and mature adults.

My two cents.

[Oliver Kitsoff]

It is the 'criminalization' of prostitution that makes for fertile ground of exploitation.

Even in Australia where it is legal (but getting a work visa to be a prostitute is not an option) well guess what? That's right, sex-slaves brought in from SEA countries. This would end overnight if they gave working girls a visa like any other professional, talk about dumb and dumber! 'Morality', is exactly the issue that turns a fair exchange of sex for compensation into a twisted crime-infested cesspit where the most vulnerable suffer needlessly and dreadfully.

Women should be free to choose to sell their time and affection without all this hypocritical bullshit and judgement. Without working girls, many of our lives would be very much less joyful. They should be made the heroes of society!

[Intransit]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/01/19/think_again_prostitution

why zero tolerance makes for bad policy on world's oldest profession.

by aziza ahmed.

january 19, 2014.

"prostitution is bad."

depends on what you mean and whom you ask.

prostitution may be the world's oldest profession, but there is still little agreement on the social and moral legitimacy of commercial sex. there are, of course, those who consider sex sacred and its sale a sin, and there are libertarians who are willing to accept nearly any degree of sexual freedom. but plenty of people have views that lie somewhere in between, and they are fighting over the fairness, regulation, and even the precise definition of what advocates and practitioners increasingly refer to as "sex work."

take france, for instance, where a debate erupted last fall over a proposed law that would fine people $2, 000 for purchasing sex. all sorts of protesters took to the streets: women arguing that the law was necessary because violence and coercion are endemic to the sex industry, and sex workers, hoisting posters with slogans like "la repression and'est pas la prevention," who condemned the law. a group of men also insisted in a letter that the government take its hands "off our working girls." ultimately, on dec. 4, the lower house of parliament adopted the measure.

the french case is but one example of a global dispute about what constitutes exploitation in the sale and purchase of sex. and it also shows that one side of the argument often has the upper hand. that side, a group of odd bedfellows frequently called abolitionists, thinks that because all prostitution is inherently degrading and dangerous, it must be eliminated. the group draws from, among others, religious and faith-based organizations, both liberal and conservative political ranks, and some outspoken feminist camps. (the driving force behind the controversial measure in france is women's rights minister najat vallaud-belkacem.)

so strong is the influence of this group that it has shaped the language typically used to describe the global sex industry. in common parlance, sex work is a dangerous phenomenon that routinely violates women's rights and perpetuates their subordination to men. there is hardly a distinction drawn between sex work and [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908), which involves controlling someone through threats or violence with the express purpose of exploitation. this conflation leaves no room for sex workers who make decisions for themselves; they are all just victims."the term 'sex worker' is false advertising," says the coalition against trafficking in women.

this is more than a semantic issue. since george w. bush's administration, the usa government has required that international organizations receiving funding for efforts to combat trafficking and hiv / aids must not "promote, support, or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution." in an october 2013 call for project proposals, the state department reiterated,"the usa government is opposed to prostitution and related activities, which are inherently harmful and dehumanizing, and contribute to the phenomenon of trafficking in persons."

this stance has put sex workers and their advocates*. who support the idea that some people choose, although perhaps from a range of poor economic options, to sell sex. in an impossible position:

they must make a choice between compromising their principles or missing out on opportunities for much-needed money. such was the case with sangram, a sex workers' collective in india that refused to adopt an anti-prostitution pledge required by the usa president's emergency plan for aids relief, or pepfar. (the usa supreme court struck down the pledge as a violation of free speech in june 2013, but this was only a partial victory: foreign, as opposed to usa-based, ngos could still be barred from receiving funds, and the court did not address pepfar's ban on advocating the legalization of prostitution.)

to make matters worse, the influence of prostitution's vocal opponents has contributed to a dearth of good data on the global sex industry, including its most harmful aspects. in july 2006, the government accountability office (gao) acknowledged that usa-cited statistics of people trafficked around the world are questionable. the gao highlighted a figure, cited by the usa agency for international development (usaid) , that there are 80, 000 to 100, 000 trafficked women and children in cambodia. but that number came, originally, from a publication by cambodia's ministry of planning that discusses the total number of sex workers in the country; there is no breakdown of who is an adult or who is a victim of trafficking.

to better understand and address enormous wrongs like trafficking, we need good data. but that first requires grasping the dangers of targeting sex work. which involves women, men, and transgender populations. writ large for elimination. abolitionists say they want to protect human rights, but their efforts often undermine those rights: campaigns and programs to end prostitution in fact lead to violence, stigmatization, and other problems for the exact people they claim to be helping. &65532;

"we can abolish prostitution by making it illegal."

no.

laws regulating sex work vary widely among countries. it's illegal to buy and sell sex in the united states (with some exceptions). germany legalized prostitution in 2002, and in december 2013, canada's supreme court struck down the country's anti-prostitution measures. thailand, meanwhile, has long outlawed sex work, yet the industry operates quite openly there.

abolitionists typically insist that criminalization is imperative. some have pushed for making the sale of sex illegal. others, however, including feminists who oppose prostitution, support a different model: outlawing only the purchase of sex. they argue that criminalizing clients will force the sex industry out of business, liberating sex workers but not treating them as criminals.

already, this model has achieved legislative success. sweden outlawed buying sex in 1999; norway and iceland later followed suit. france is on the verge of joining the club, and a debate on the issue is even gaining steam in germany. feminist kathleen barry, author of female sexual slavery and co-founder of the coalition against trafficking in women, has even called for an international treaty that would mandate "arresting, jailing and fining johns." (she first introduced the idea in the early 1990s, but has recently revived it.)

in reality, there is no convincing evidence that punishing "johns" decreases the incidence of commercial sex. troublingly, sweden's sex workers report that criminalization has simply driven the sex industry underground, with dangerous consequences: clients have more power to say when and where they want to have sex, inhibiting workers' ability to protect themselves if need be.

evidence shows, too, that criminalization of sale or purchase (or both) makes sex workers. many of whom come from marginalized social groups like women, minorities, and the poor. more vulnerable to violence and discrimination committed by law enforcement. criminalization can also dissuade sex workers from seeking help from authorities if they are raped, trafficked, or otherwise abused. these problems have been identified in many countries: a 2012 report by the open society foundations documented sex workers being harassed, extorted, and intimidated by police in the united states, russia, south africa, zimbabwe, namibia, and kenya. and in sweden, sex workers have reported that they are still targeted by police, including for invasive searches and questioning.

sex workers, their advocates, institutions like the global commission on hiv and the law, and a growing number of experts in health and law argue for removing all criminal prohibitions for consenting adults. after all, sex will be bought and sold no matter a country's laws. the question, then, isn't how to get rid of sex work. it's how to make it safe for those who do it. decriminalization would allow sex workers access to government and international resources so they could better respond to threats like violence and trafficking, while also helping to ameliorate the social stigma and prejudice they so often face.

&65532;

"we should rescue prostitutes from brothels."

not necessarily.

on top of arguing for criminalization, some abolitionists agitate for actively removing people from the sex industry. that is, entering brothels in "raids," pulling sex workers out, and placing them in rehabilitation programs. proponents of rescues, whose views dominate many anti-trafficking organizations, have secured substantial international funding. the usa government, for example, has given grants to organizations like the international justice mission (ijm) , a faith-based group headquartered in washington, d. c, and the anti-trafficking coordination unit northern thailand, both of which actively promote rescues.

but rescues are often far from heroic. ijm has been criticized for failing to distinguish between sex workers and trafficking victims. describing the response among people pulled from a thai brothel in a 2003 ijm raid, a sex worker advocate told the nation,"they were so startled, and said,

'we don't need rescue. how can this be a rescue when we feel like we've been arrested? '" more recently in thailand, law enforcement has scrambled to respond to usa criticisms of the country's anti-trafficking record by stepping up raids."[in 2012], the royal thai police ordered all police units to spend at least 10 days each month doing anti-trafficking work," gen. chavalit sawaengpuech told public radio international (pri) this past october. in effect, pri noted, the police are "trying to meet a quota. even where there isn't data or evidence indicating the sex workers they are rescuing are victims after all."

violence perpetrated by local authorities during raids has also been documented from south asia to africa to eastern europe. in 2005, the world health organization (who) wrote in a bulletin that "research from indonesia and india has indicated that sex workers who are rounded up during police raids are beaten" and "coerced into having sex by corrupt police officials in exchange for their release." the bulletin added,"the raids also drive sex workers onto the streets, where they are more vulnerable to violence." so rampant have these problems with police become in cambodia that, in june 2008, more than 500 sex workers rallied in phnom penh, chanting,"save us from saviors."

also troubling are some of the rehabilitation centers. run by ngos, churches, or governments. where "rescued" sex workers are placed. these centers profess to offer medical care, counseling, and vocational training. yet many are known for perpetrating violence, detaining individuals, and separating them from their families. the who bulletin stated that some indian and indonesian sex workers are "placed in institutions where they are sexually exploited or physically abused." in cambodia, human rights watch (hrw) has documented beatings, extortions, and [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123) at government rehabilitation sites. and in the state of maharashtra, india, in addition to holding women for long periods of time, a rehabilitation home has suggested that marrying them off is a mode of rehabilitation.

the rescue approach certainly makes for good optics. it has been covered, notably, by nicholas kristof of the new york times, who live-tweeted a brothel raid in 2011. and the impulse to protect is surely a noble one. but in addition to ignoring that some people choose to sell sex, rescues have subjected sex workers to a whole host of abuses. a fact certainly problematic for the abolitionists who champion such interventions in the name of human rights.

&65532;

"but kristof writes about child sex slaves. and we have to save them."

of course, but hold on.

during the brothel raid kristof covered in 2011, which took place in cambodia, the columnist tweeted,"girls are rescued, but still very scared. youngest looks about 13, trafficked from vietnam." his discovery highlighted an abhorrent reality that concerns both advocates and opponents of sex work: many in the sex industry endure forced migration, torture, captivity, and other wrongs. some of these people are adults, but others are young girls and boys. we should do all that we can to end these horrors, and no child should be involved in the sex industry.

to that end, international laws and standards explicitly condemn child prostitution, including a protocol to the convention on the rights of the child and another to the convention against transnational organized crime. unicef has expressed a "zero tolerance" policy on the issue. the united states, meanwhile, has taken its own legal stand with the trafficking victims protection act (reauthorized in early 2013) , and many countries have their own anti-trafficking legislation.

yet, ironically, current efforts to end the sexual exploitation of children often endanger them. in many countries, authorities victimize trafficked children the same way they do adult sex workers. raids to save children are engulfed in the same sort of challenges as the ones seeking to "liberate" adults; hrw's report on cambodia found that children pulled from the sex industry were forced to pay bribes to the police and faced mistreatment at a government rehabilitation center. moreover, governments frequently adopt "blanket solutions" to address trafficking, failing to acknowledge that each child's circumstances are different."while policies are evidently needed which can be applied to all children," mike dottridge, former director of anti-slavery international, has written,"if they do not take account of the huge variations which occur in reality, they are likely to harm children."

these problems don't just exist outside the united states. children in the usa sex industry are often arrested and put into the juvenile detention system "instead of in environments where they can receive needed social and protective services," noted a 2011 congressional research service report. a september 2013 report by the institute of medicine and national research council also found that, as of early 2012, only nine states had enacted laws ensuring that minors accused of prostitution are exempted from prosecution.

currently, then, many efforts to save children from the sex industry are neither safe nor fair to them. correcting that poor record will mean improving laws that target [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908), dedicating more resources to quality interventions, addressing the social and economic conditions that make minors vulnerable to exploitation, and making sure their voices are heard. it also means respecting and engaging adult sex workers and their advocates as part of the solution, not the problem. after all, sex workers are often the first to notice those being coerced into selling sex. including children. or they are the first individuals whom trafficking victims reach out to for help.

&65532;

"prostitution spreads disease."

wrong way to look at it.

sex workers have long carried the stigma of being vectors of infection. in the 1940s, usa government posters discouraged soldiers from purchasing sex with slogans like "she may look clean. but" and "disease is disguised." throughout the hiv epidemic, governments have targeted sex workers for spreading the deadly virus. crackdowns on places and people who sell sex have been routine, carried out under the auspices of protecting public health. recently, in countries like greece and malawi, authorities have arrested sex workers and forced them to undergo mandatory hiv testing, a clear violation of health and privacy rights.

to be sure, there are public health concerns surrounding sex work, including high rates of sexually transmitted infections. but punishment and humiliation cannot possibly be the answer. similarly, criminalization only impedes access to medical care. in 2012, the who stated,"laws that directly or indirectly criminalize or penalize sex workers, their clients and third parties. can undermine the effectiveness of hiv and sexual health programmes."

what's more, in the united states, police in several major cities harass or arrest sex workers carrying multiple condoms, citing them as evidence of illegal activity. in response, some sex workers have told reporters, activists, and others that, fearing police, they sometimes do not carry condoms. and thus end up having sex without them.

what we should be doing instead is focusing on protecting, not persecuting, sex workers. grouped under the banner of "harm reduction". and supported by the who and unaids. are programs that distribute condoms, educate sex workers about hiv and other health risks, and provide them checkups, medicine, and counseling. these programs are sometimes run by sex workers themselves.

in india, sangram monitors condom use, cares for sex workers with hiv, and even works to bar violent customers from brothels. anti-trafficking initiatives can also be built into peer-to-peer programs of harm reduction, as sangram has done."sex worker rights groups should be involved in the genuine anti-trafficking work because, at the end of the day, they know their industry and their spaces and they're better at it," sangram's meena saraswathi seshu told the u. n. news agency irin in 2013.

the results of harm reduction can be dramatic. in the ivory coast, a 1990s prevention campaign at "clinique de confiance," where women received counseling, clinical exams, and testing for infections, contributed to a decline in hiv prevalence from 89 to 32 percent among participating female sex workers. in southern india, between 1995 and 2008, an increase in health interventions that supplied condoms led to a drop in the prevalence of both hiv and syphilis among sex workers.

yet despite these successes, harm reduction receives insufficient support; according to unaids in 2009, less than 1 percent of global funding for hiv prevention was being spent on hiv and sex work.

at least in part, this is due to abolitionists, who have at times disrupted important health initiatives. for example, durjoy nari shangho, a bangladeshi organization, shuttered drop-in centers for sex workers after the international ngo from which it received funding signed the usa anti-prostitution pledge. similarly, doctors without borders distanced itself from a project on the cambodia-vietnam border after usa congressional testimony criticized it for promoting sex work.

harm-reduction programs, if more widely accepted, spread out, and scaled up, would go a long way toward protecting sex workers' health. but they shouldn't exist in isolation. they should be coupled with decriminalization and broader legal and social efforts to normalize the sex industry.

&65532;

"a sex workers' union?"

that's right.

during demonstrations against france's proposed bill to criminalize the purchase of sex, some protesters carried signs that read "sexwork is work." this is true. and because it's work, it should treated as such. today, a camp of legal experts contends that the many problems sex workers face can be addressed with labor laws. if sex work were considered a legitimate economic sector, the argument goes, where work conditions, fair wages, injury compensation, and other basic employment issues were matters of law, the sex industry and those within it would be less exposed to violence and other harms. *

under a labor model, usa sex workers could report health risks at brothels to the occupational safety and health administration. they could unionize and lobby for stronger protections against police harassment. in the long run, they would be viewed as citizens like any other, and their industry as a safe and acceptable one. what's more, law professor hila shamir at tel aviv university has argued that respecting labor rights in all sectors could help address many of the social and economic forces that lead to trafficking. the same goes for the sex industry: ensuring safe work environments would decrease exploitation and make it less enticing for sex workers to migrate abroad based on the promise of more money or other benefits.

provocative? perhaps. but early research already shows that the labor model can work.

already, trade unions of sex workers have launched in the united kingdom and other european countries, and new zealand has applied labor protections to the sex industry. advocacy groups have also begun to use courts to defend their labor rights. in south africa, an appeals court ruled in 2010 that a sex worker who said she'd been unfairly fired from a massage parlor ("for refusing to perform oral sex, spending time in her room with her boyfriend, choosing her clients and failing to book enough customers," according to the mail & guardian) had a right to a hearing before a government body that settles labor disputes. assisting with the case was the cape town-based sex workers education and advocacy taskforce.

in lieu of formal unions, sex workers' collectives also assert power vis-à-vis brothel owners and police.

in lieu of formal unions, sex workers' collectives also assert power vis-à-vis brothel owners and police. according to unaids, service workers in group, a collective in thailand, was able to improve relationships with the police force by introducing an "internship" program, in which police cadets learn about hiv prevention and get to know collective members. this has helped improve police attitudes toward sex work. moreover, researchers found in a 2009 study that sex workers in collectives in south india have been able to deter arrest and call on one another for assistance when faced with police harassment and other issues.

all these examples show the ways in which a labor approach can improve sex workers' lives. yet moving public favor toward this model won't be easy. beyond changing minds and diminishing support for abolishing sex work, it will require reallocating resources and amending or throwing out harmful policies. it will also require managing backlash, like the international protest that opponents of prostitution threatened the united nations with last september, in response to the body's various reports supporting the decriminalization of sex work.

as research and experience show, however, change is essential for the rights of sex workers. the very thing abolitionists claim they wish to protect. sex workers deserve not only the right to choose how they make a living, but also the right to be free from the fear, mistreatment, and. at the root of it all. misconceptions that have long plagued their industry.

*correction: the print version of this article in the january / february 2014 issue incorrectly stated the date of the rally by the more than 500 sex workers in phnom penh who chanted "save us from saviors." the rally was in june 2008, not june 2013. *

[Intransit]

http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/economics-sex-work/

A landmark government study issued earlier this week finds that the sex trade can be a very lucrative business.

The report, commissioned by the Justice Department from the Urban Institute, compiled data from eight cities: Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Miami, San Diego, Seattle and Washington, D. C. According to the report, the trade is most lucrative in Atlanta, where it rakes in $290 million annually—more than the underground drug and gun trades combined.

The study also examined the sex trade in the internet age, where advertising sites like Craigslist have radically changed the business. Robert Kolker, an editor at New York magazine, examined this issue in his book,"Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery." Kolker began his research by exploring a string of prostitution murders on Long Island.

He uncovered a range of economic issues that push many women into the sex trade, topics familiar to Melissa Gira Grant, author of "Playing the working girl: The Work of Sex Work."

Grant and Kolker discuss the economics of sex work and the challenges facing many women in the industry.

[Intransit]

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599351-laying-bare-supply-and-demand-oldest-profession-sex-lies-and-statistics?fsrc=nlw|hig|3-20-2014|8090612|119826733|AP.

'IT'S hard out here for a pimp, ' complains the Three 6 Mafia, a rap group. A new study by the Urban Institute, a think-tank, casts doubt on this assertion. After investigating the sex trade in eight big American cities, researchers concluded that pimps can do rather well for themselves. Some in Atlanta bring in $33, 000 a week, the study estimates.

Tracking the sex trade is hard. It is legal only in parts of Nevada. Elsewhere there are no receipts; researchers relied instead on interviews with lawyers, police, prostitutes and pimps. Their fat report, commissioned by the Justice Department, brought squeals of pleasure from journalists everywhere, who tended to play up evidence that the oldest profession is booming.

But it doesn't appear to be. In five out of seven cities, the underground sex industry shrank between 2003 and 2007, the study found. (In one place, Kansas City, Missouri, there was not enough evidence to decide.) In Washington, DC, takings fell by 34. In Denver, with a population of 2. 5m in 2007 if you include the suburbs, the sex trade grossed a mere $40m. The demand for sex probably does not change much over time, but other things do.

A century ago, when sexual mores were stricter, prostitution was more common and better paid (see table). Men's demand for commercial sex was higher because the non-commercial sort was harder to obtain—there was no premarital hook-up culture. Women were attracted to prostitution in part because their other job opportunities were so meagre. And they commanded high wages partly because the social stigma was so great—without high pay, it was not worth enduring it.

The price for a trick today ranges from miserable ($15) to ample ($1, 000 or more). Prostitutes have many options besides street-walking. The internet makes it easier for them to set up 'dates' and negotiate prices, and harder for the police to catch them. They feel less vulnerable using social-media sites than doing the 'stroll'. But 36% nonetheless report that some clients were violent or abusive.

Pimps, who are often women, tend to follow a business plan. They impose rules, such as 'no drugs' or 'no young clients' (who are more likely than older men to be violent). They are flexible with pricing, offering special deals for loyal customers and swiftly adapting to economic downturns. A third of pimps delegate management, training and even recruitment to an experienced employee called a 'bottom girl'. About 15% admitted to beating up their staff. Others, however, thought violence was bad for business. One pimp said: 'One bad girl can knock your whole stable loose. Get rid of the bad apple. If I needed to hit them, I didn't need them. '

[SavePros321]

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff.

Posted Mar 21, 2014 4:18 AM CDT.

(NEWSER) – Cops in Hawaii are fighting to keep what they describe as an important legal protection: Permission to have sex with prostitutes. A state bill cracking down on prostitution originally scrapped an exemption allowing undercover officers to have sex with prostitutes, but it was controversially restored after police testimony, the AP finds. Police won't say how often the exemption is used, but critics argue that it leaves the system wide open to abuse, noting that there have been many cases nationwide of police officers extorting sex from prostitutes.

The chief of Honolulu's vice squad argued the exemption is necessary because prostitutes and pimps are otherwise "going to know exactly how far the undercover officer can and cannot go." A former FBI agent who trained vice squads around the country for 20 years, however, says he doesn't know of any other state or federal law that allows undercover officers to do what the Hawaii law allows."Isn't one of the biggest questions here just why, exactly, Hawaii needs a exemption like this for their sex sting operations and none of the other law enforcement agencies in other states need one?" asks Rebecca Rose at Jezebel."They seem to be able to bust prostitutes and pimps in other states just fine without allowing their officers to engage in sexual acts."

http://www.newser.com/story/184122/hawaii-cops-dont-stop-us-having-sex-with-prostitutes.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=clearchannel&utm_campaign=story

[Luckyguy7198]

http://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Prostitution:_What%27s_the_Harm%3F

In this BBC documentary Billie JD Porter goes in search of the human face of the prostitution business in Britain, talking to the young men who routinely pay for sex about why they do it, and to the young women who sell their bodies about what's in it for them.

[TonyIndian]

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is of historical interest, but it is irrelevant in contemporary intellectual thought. However, as you bring it up, what Maslow was describing is an order of needs people strive to meet. First, people are preoccupied with the basic biological needs necessary for survival. Sex, as it appears in this level of the pyramid, does not refer to the insatiable quest of those most sublime sexual experiences that motivate a true monger, rather it refers to nothing more than the primordial drive to perpetuate the species. Maslow believed once a more basic need is satisfied we are free to pursue satisfaction at the next and then the next and then the next levels of the hierarchy: the pursuit of bourgeois interests such as the acquisition of a family, property, and debt; cluttering our lives with social attachments to so called friends and loved ones; inflating our sense of self worth by deluding ourselves into thinking we are impressing others; and reaching ones full potential. Whatever the hell that means.

I would argue that some of us have attained a degree of clarity that enables us to recognize this for what it really is, a bunch of poppy cock. Mongers not only know where to find their next meal, but can plunk themselves down anywhere in the world and quickly identify the best watering holes. We understand that only peasants who are driven to produce a large litter to help them meet their quota confuse sex with procreation. Our appreciation for anal sex clearly illustrates that we understand that sex has nothing to do with contributing to the over population of the planet, a realization that came upon the Marque de Sade as he watched, from the window of his cell, the noble class being culled by the guillotine. We understand that anyone who claims to love us is either crazy and not to be trusted or a blood sucking leach who is really not to be trusted. We could give a rat's ass about impressing anyone. And we realize ones full potential is only about fucking as many women as we can, preferably in all three holes. And we prefer women who understand that sex is a simple economic transaction and are willing to briefly rent their bodies to us to satisfy our depraved lusts.

In short, Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a bunch of bull.Chuckled and found myself agreeing with every word. You sir are a genius.

But how do asexuals fit in to this worldview?

And, though as you've rightly stated that sex has nothing to do in a mental sense, with procreation- one can't possibly ignore the instinct that motivates the act. Testosterone. We are no different from rats, dogs and other mammals. To think so is a fallacy. And I am not sure if the three holes theory that you have put forth is defensible in that, dogs (for eg.) in heat have been known to masturbate by rubbing themselves on a human's leg.

[Sly One]

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is of historical interest, but it is irrelevant in contemporary intellectual thought. However, as you bring it up, what Maslow was describing is an order of needs people strive to meet. First, people are preoccupied with the basic biological needs necessary for survival. Sex, as it appears in this level of the pyramid, does not refer to the insatiable quest of those most sublime sexual experiences that motivate a true monger, rather it refers to nothing more than the primordial drive to perpetuate the species. Maslow believed once a more basic need is satisfied we are free to pursue satisfaction at the next and then the next and then the next levels of the hierarchy: the pursuit of bourgeois interests such as the acquisition of a family, property, and debt; cluttering our lives with social attachments to so called friends and loved ones; inflating our sense of self worth by deluding ourselves into thinking we are impressing others...Once you have had a good feed, and then sucked and fucked. You are free to go to the pub and enjoy a few beers with the boys.

Sly

[Jp Slicky]

I spent half my money on gambling, alcohol and wild women, the other half I wasted.

[Errol Flynn]

"WITH a sensational story of surviving child sex slavery in Cambodia, Somaly Mam became a worldwide icon, the best-selling author of a memoir and the head of a foundation raising millions in the name of saving girls and women from the sex trade...But all this wasn't true.".

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/opinion/the-price-of-a-sex-slave-rescue-fantasy.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0

[Donovan7]

Prostitution is morally wrong behavior, but I'm all for legalizing it. I think if it's regulated and taxed relentlessly it would be a lot safer and provide some financial gain.

It's going to happen regardless is illegal or not.

[Jp Slicky]

Prostitution can be nothing more than an agreement between two consenting adults.

It becomes a problem when kids or making others do it against their will.

[Rio D]

Somaly Mam & the Cult Of Pretty Victims

http://news.yahoo.com/somaly-mam-cult-pretty-victims-172000455--politics.html;_ylt=AwrBEiGjGY5TG2kAUvLQtDMD

[NoWahalla]

A very interesting article on the bbc.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26261221

[Pahllus Maximus]

The reality is that most women grow out of sex by about 30, and many men do not. Part of this is because we get close to 100% orgasm rate and get about a 20%. This mismatch is answered by financial handcuffs, frustration or P4 P, overt or covert. It is certainly the case in the West and in Asia, given the number of Asian mongers I come accross. I think its part of the human condition. Sure, the demands of children / career creep in, but the typical male still wants it and does not get it. Women assume their lack of urge is the same as ours. A fatal error.

So rather than starve, we hunt, and hence this forum. It's natural, and few percent of women have catered to that need for thousands of years. Eventually the male gets smart and realises marriage is a con, or they don't have go without. We often deceive to segment real emotions. And often guilt mistaken for love. From a very real physical need that is unmet. Its not just going to a restaurant for a change: its a question of starving and no food at all.

This duality and tension is why women hate P4 P: power, freedom of the male and clarity of what relationships really mean if they fail to meet basic needs and we are not enough of a priority. The P4 P girls are catalysts for this epiphany. That is an existential issue and so why their reaction is so strong.

Like so many here, I'm transitioning from the fairytale that underwrites female power to being a free agent, real friends for emotional and intellectual needs where I find them and P4 P other bits, decoupling the notion a female can cover it all. Some might, but the majority do not.

Let's celebrate our freedom and choice. Tell the feminazis to sod off with their jedi mind games. Enough said, time to focus on hotties having their tonsils massaged and skin tingling pleasure. We only live once.

[Pahllus Maximus]

The reality is that most women grow out of sex by about 30, and many men do not. Part of this is because we get close to 100% orgasm rate and get about a 20%. This mismatch is answered by financial handcuffs, frustration or P4 P, overt or covert. It is certainly the case in the West and in Asia, given the number of Asian mongers I come accross. I think its part of the human condition. Sure, the demands of children / career creep in, but the typical male still wants it and does not get it. Women assume their lack of urge is the same as ours. A fatal error.

So rather than starve, we hunt, and hence this forum. It's natural, and few percent of women have catered to that need for thousands of years. Eventually the male gets smart and realises marriage is a con, or they don't have go without. We often deceive to segment real emotions. And often guilt mistaken for love. From a very real physical need that is unmet. Its not just going to a restaurant for a change: its a question of starving and no food at all.

This duality and tension is why women hate P4 P: power, freedom of the male and clarity of what relationships really mean if they fail to meet basic needs and we are not enough of a priority. The P4 P girls are catalysts for this epiphany. That is an existential issue and so why their reaction is so strong.

Like so many here, I'm transitioning from the fairytale that underwrites female power to being a free agent, real friends for emotional and intellectual needs where I find them and P4 P other bits, decoupling the notion a female can cover it all. Some might, but the majority do not.

Let's celebrate our freedom and choice. Tell the feminazis to sod off with their jedi mind games. Enough said, time to focus on hotties having their tonsils massaged and skin tingling pleasure. We only live once.

[Drive]

Prostitution is morally wrong behavior, but I'm all for legalizing it.I'm for legalizing it because it's not morally wrong if a woman chooses that profession. It's her body, her choice. What's morally wrong is when anyone, regardless of gender, is forced into it. Also, the subtle implication is that a woman is not strong / smart enough to be able to choose prostitution, that there must be coercion via, usually a pimp or gang, behind it. In short, male dominated societies fear strong women in control of their own lives.

[KaveMan]

the reality is that most women grow out of sex by about 30, and many men do not. part of this is because we get close to 100% orgasm rate and get about a 20%. this mismatch is answered by financial handcuffs, frustration or p4 p, overt or covert. it is certainly the case in the west and in asia, given the number of asian mongers i come accross. i think its part of the human condition. sure, the demands of children / career creep in, but the typical male still wants it and does not get it. women assume their lack of urge is the same as ours. a fatal error.

so rather than starve, we hunt, and hence this forum. it's natural, and few percent of women have catered to that need for thousands of years. eventually the male gets smart and realises marriage is a con, or they don't have go without. we often deceive to segment real emotions. and often guilt mistaken for love. from a very real physical need that is unmet. its not just going to a restaurant for a change: its a question of starving and no food at all...agree 100%.

however, a huge % of members here are actually still married in sexless marriages and refuse to end them!

over, on the moscow forum there are a number of american guys celebrating their 20th, 30th, even 40th anniversary to a woman they no longer have sex with.

its really bizarre, these guys are either financially unable to leave these women (ie, divorce is too expensive? are supported by them or are terrified of facing loneliness every-night coming home to talk to no-one, have no prepared food, or clean clothes / linens?

i don't understand it? i get societal pressure; but, after your kids are gone, does it really matter to your neighbor or boss that your not married to some old woman?

the standard answer i always hear is "oh we are together for the companionship, that will come in old age". i have news for them, your spouse will be not changing [CodeWord131] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord131) or bedpans, once your money or health ends.

lots of older gentleman i know say "only person who will take care of you is you!

reality, is you can always attract a female (and hire cooks, maids, nurses for less than a wife) if your in a dead-end marriage; and few of the mongers on this board realize that; and subside on random monger trips.

[Intransit]

http://www.economist.com/node/21611063/print

Prostitution.

A personal choice.

The internet is making the buying and selling of sex easier and safer. Governments should stop trying to ban it.

Aug 9th 2014.

From the print edition.

STREET-WALKERS; kerb-crawlers; phone booths plastered with pictures of breasts and buttocks: the sheer seediness of prostitution is just one reason governments have long sought to outlaw it, or corral it in licensed brothels or "tolerance zones". NIMBYs make common cause with puritans, who think that women selling sex are sinners, and do-gooders, who think they are victims. The reality is more nuanced. Some prostitutes do indeed suffer from trafficking, exploitation or violence; their abusers ought to end up in jail for their crimes. But for many, both male and female, sex work is just that: work.

This newspaper has never found it plausible that all prostitutes are victims. That fiction is becoming harder to sustain as much of the buying and selling of sex moves online. Personal websites mean prostitutes can market themselves and build their brands. Review sites bring trustworthy customer feedback to the commercial-sex trade for the first time. The shift makes it look more and more like a normal service industry.

It can also be analysed like one. We have dissected data on prices, services and personal characteristics from one big international site that hosts 190,000 profiles of female prostitutes (see article). The results show that gentlemen really do prefer blondes, who charge 11% more than brunettes. The scrawny look beloved of fashion magazines is more marketable than flab—but less so than a healthy weight. Prostitutes themselves behave like freelancers in other labour markets. They arrange tours and take bookings online, like gigging musicians. They choose which services to offer, and whether to specialise. They temp, go part-time and fit their work around child care. There is even a graduate premium that is close to that in the wider economy.

The invisible hand-job.

Moralisers will lament the shift online because it will cause the sex trade to grow strongly. Buyers and sellers will find it easier to meet and make deals. New suppliers will enter a trade that is becoming safer and less tawdry. New customers will find their way to prostitutes, since they can more easily find exactly the services they desire and confirm their quality. Pimps and madams should shudder, too. The internet will undermine their market-making power.

But everyone else should cheer. Sex arranged online and sold from an apartment or hotel room is less bothersome for third parties than are brothels or red-light districts. Above all, the web will do more to make prostitution safer than any law has ever done. Pimps are less likely to be abusive if prostitutes have an alternative route to market. Specialist sites will enable buyers and sellers to assess risks more accurately. Apps and sites are springing up that will let them confirm each other's identities and swap verified results from sexual-health tests. Schemes such as Britain's Ugly Mugs allow prostitutes to circulate online details of clients to avoid.

Governments should seize the moment to rethink their policies. Prohibition, whether partial or total, has been a predictable dud. It has singularly failed to stamp out the sex trade. Although prostitution is illegal everywhere in America except Nevada, old figures put its value at $14 billion annually nationwide; surely an underestimate. More recent calculations in Britain, where prostitution is legal but pimping and brothels are not, suggest that including it would boost GDP figures by at least £5. 3 billion ($8. 9 billion). And prohibition has ugly results. Violence against prostitutes goes unpunished because victims who live on society's margins are unlikely to seek justice, or to get it. The problem of sex tourism plagues countries, like the Netherlands and Germany, where the legal part of the industry is both tightly circumscribed and highly visible.

The failure of prohibition is pushing governments across the rich world to try a new tack: criminalising the purchase of sex instead of its sale. Sweden was first, in 1999, followed by Norway, Iceland and France; Canada is rewriting its laws along similar lines. The European Parliament wants the "Swedish model" to be adopted right across the EU. Campaigners in America are calling for the same approach.

[Mascarado]

http://www.economist.com/node/21611063/print

Prostitution.

A personal choice.

The internet is making the buying and selling of sex easier and safer.

But everyone else should cheer. Sex arranged online and sold from an apartment or hotel room is less bothersome for third parties than are brothels or red-light districts. Above all, the web will do more to make prostitution safer than any law has ever done. Pimps are less likely to be abusive if prostitutes have an alternative route to market. Specialist sites will enable buyers and sellers to assess risks more accurately. Apps and sites are springing up that will let them confirm each other's identities and swap verified results from sexual-health tests. Schemes such as Britain's Ugly Mugs allow prostitutes to circulate online details of clients to avoid...Amen. One way or the other men pay for sex. Why not make it accessible, cheap, regulated, safe, and enjoyable. I'm jealous of future generations that won't be bogged down by the stupidity and down-right ridiculous attitude America and many Western "civilized" nations have about something that men need / want as much as they do food, sleep, and habitation.

[Intransit]

is one of the most-cited statistics about sex work wrong?

by chris hall.

if you've followed public debate over sex work and trafficking in recent decades, you've probably seen some variation on this sentence: "the average age of entry into prostitution is 13. ".

statistics have a reputation for being dull, but this one packs a punch. in only nine words, it conjures up a story worthy of dickens. hear that statistic, and you can't help but imagine the faces of children, as fragile and guileless as porcelain dolls; you imagine, too, the fear on those faces, and the violence that will be done to them to feed the greed and perverted desires of figures lurking in the shadows. those nine words tell you that this is not a story that is the exception, but rather, the norm in the industry. a person would have to have a rare degree of monstrousness not to feel their heart break, just a little, on hearing such cruelty described so starkly.

except for one thing: there is little basis for the claim that 13—or 12, as is sometimes asserted—is the age that most sex workers begin working in prostitution.

it's hard to pin down where exactly the age-of-entry claim originated, partly because it's so often repeated without a citation or context, but also because it's become such a ubiquitous part of sexual politics. "i can't really remember a time when i didn't see it used, so i think it's been in circulation for quite a while," says audacia ray, of the red umbrella project in new york. "and it's definitely used really broadly and without citation. ".

most organizations, if they refer to a source at all, reference a study released in 2001: the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the usa, canada and mexico, by richard j. estes and neil a. weiner.

thinking of sex work as work.

as such studies go, it was a pretty extensive one. estes and weiner covered 17 major cities in the united states, four in canada, and seven in mexico. but the data samples they wrangled up with weren't very large. they sent out 1,130 surveys to various organizations that dealt with abused and exploited children in the target cities. of those, 288 came back completed—a 25.5 percent response rate. most of the organizations just didn't have the information that estes and weiner were looking for: "difficulty in accessing information concerning the number of sexually exploited children in their care was one of the factors cited by many agencies for not completing the formal questionnaire," the report says.

they also did interviews directly with children, both on the streets and in the custody of law enforcement or social services. here, the information collected was even sparser; in 17 major usa cities, they interviewed a total of 210 children.

the age-of-entry statistic seems to originate in a quote on page 92 of the report, summarizing the data from those 210 interviews:

average age of first intercourse for the children we interviewed was 12 years for the boys (n=63) and 13 years for the girls (n=107). the age range of entry into prostitution for the boys, including gay and transgender boys, was somewhat younger than that of the girls, i. e. , 11-13 years vs. 12-14 years, respectively. the average age of first intercourse among minority boys and girls was younger than that of the non-minority youth we interviewed, i. e. , 10-11 years of age for minority boys and 11-12 years of age for minority girls.

since then, that single paragraph has morphed into something much shorter and much different. the estes and weiner passage isn't a conclusion about sex workers at large, or even abused and exploited children; it is a description only of their sample group. but for almost 15 years, governmental and non-profit organizations have turned to it to make broader claims about people who work in the sex trades and how they came to be there.

most current government and nonprofit policies on sex work define their goals as "rescue," which makes perfect sense if the age-of-entry statistic is central to your understanding of the sex industry. child abuse and trafficking are crises that require certain types of interventions. but these crimes do not characterize the sex industry more generally. in reality, many sex workers come into the industry as adults and without coercion, often because of economic necessity. by seeing the sex industry through the lens of the misleading age-of-entry statistic, we overlook the people who are most affected by discussions about sex work—the workers themselves.

* * *.

one of the strongest and most thorough critics of the statistic is activist emi koyama. koyama says that even when applied only to **** subjects, the stat doesn't hold up, which does a disservice to the most vulnerable in our society.

"it conceals the reality that most of the young people in the sex trade come from families affected by poverty, racism, abuse (including homophobia and transphobia in families), parental imprisonment or deportation, or from broken child welfare systems, and do not have safe places to return to," she told me in an interview. "in fact, many young people are trading sex as a way to escape from violence and abuse that they have experienced in their homes and child welfare systems. by treating them as innocent and helpless 'children,' we fail to listen to the young people who are struggling to survive in hostile circumstances. we also fail to address the root causes of their vulnerability, and instead promote further surveillance and criminalization of street culture—which actually harms young people who survive there. ".

even by mathematical standards, the numbers don't add up. in order for 12 or 13 to represent the national average age of entry, there would need to be a significant number who enter at ages younger than that. "the vast majority of young people who are 'rescued' by the law enforcement during operation cross country sweeps are 16- and 17-year olds," koyama says, "and there are rarely any under the age 13. for the average age to be around 13, there needs to be many more 5-12 year olds that are forced into prostitution than are empirically plausible. " if the massive numbers of children exist in quantities enough to offset those who enter in their late teens or as adults, they're not showing up in the arrests made by the federal government, even high-profile ones like operation cross country.

in addition, koyama says, the age of entry statistic flatters americans that their own communities are safe, while playing on the fear of outsiders: "it gives the impression that children were safe until 'bad people' came into their communities to take them away, and therefore we must arrest and prosecute these 'bad people' (often racialized). ".

researcher and activist melissa ditmore agrees with koyama that the statistic is invalid: "this has been debunked but no one will let go of it," she says. "they used to say 13, now they say 12. if that's the average age, we'd see people younger than that in the business, and i have not ever met pre-adolescent children selling sex. ".

but the biggest problem with the claim is that it automatically remakes any discussion about sex work into its own image. when you start the conversation believing that prostitution is rooted in the [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123) of children, any suggestion that sex workers can be adults who have made an economic choice sounds like an attempt to provide cover for the [CodeWord127] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord127).

"it distorts the dialogue because it's a very narrow view of how the sex industry functions," audacia ray says. "it also means the impulse is that all people are in the sex industry are victims of their situation who are disempowered and have no autonomy and no other skills. that's really damaging. and also, when you treat a whole population as victims, that very process is victimizing because it takes away agency and individual narratives about how they got there. ".

kristina dolgin, a former sex worker and activist with the san francisco chapter of the sex workers outreach project (swop-bay) agrees: "by framing the discourse around sex work—and prostitution specifically—around children, you are taking away the agency of people and instilling a moral panic. ".

the result is policies that are ostensibly intended to help people in the sex industries, but are created and implemented without input from the workers themselves. as an example, dolgin points to the case act (californians against sexual exploitation), which was voted into law in the 2012 elections as proposition 35. the law expanded the definition of [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908) much more broadly than previously existing guidelines to include virtually anyone gaining financial benefit from someone else's sex work. "it does not differentiate between the various kinds of people engaging in the work," dolgin says. "[CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908) could incorporate a manager, it could incorporate staff, it could incorporate a friend who is looking out for your safety, it could incorporate partners who are sharing a living space with you—there is no statutory end to that definition. ".

although the rhetoric of advocates depicted the case act as a tool that would improve the lives of people in the sex industries, it was strongly opposed by sex-worker activists. it was, however, endorsed by a long list of law-enforcement organizations, like the california statewide law enforcement association and the fraternal order of police. in the end, proposition 35 passed with an overwhelming majority of 81.1 percent.

more recently, in june, 2014, the fbi raided and shut down a well-known website in the bay area called "myredbook" that hosted ads from escorts and massage parlors. press coverage of the raid claimed the site was "linked" to trafficking and child prostitution. the national center for missing and exploited children issued a press release congratulating the fbi: "we know that one of the main ways children are sold for sex in this country is via the internet," president and ceo john ryan said. "we are very encouraged by all of the efforts to help stop the online sex trafficking of children and help survivors reclaim their lives. " al serrato, an assistant the. a. in san mateo county, was quoted in the san francisco chronicle praising the operation as a great step for preventing exploitation: "in my experience prosecuting these types of cases, the site is associated with the setting up of dates that often involve women who are being exploited or are victims of [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908)," he said. "i view it as a positive development that the federal authorities were able to take such strong action against it. ".

however, neither of the two owners, eric omuro and annmarie lanoce, has been charged for trafficking offenses; the indictment against them lists 24 charges of money laundering and one charge of "facilitating prostitution. " the response of the local sex-worker community was not one of relief or gratitude; instead, most saw the loss of myredbook as a catastrophe. not only did the raid eliminate an important source of income, it also eliminated some of the workers' best tools for keeping themselves safe.

"there was a whole section of myredbook that was chat rooms and forums," says shannon williams, a sex worker who is also active with swop-bay. "some for clients, and then a whole bunch for sex workers. and that's really important for sex workers because the vast majority really work in a very solitary way. they work alone, they don't tell anyone in their lives, so their friends and family don't know and other people don't know. they may hold down straight jobs and they're just moonlighting in the sex industry, so no one knows what they do, they're very isolated. as you can imagine, for the kind of work it is, that's an unhealthy way to work, and it's lonely. so redbook, and a site that was linked to it called mypinkbook, created a community for these sex workers who didn't have community in real life. " the community didn't just give emotional support to people who couldn't find it anywhere else; workers also exchanged information about dangerous clients and tips about how to keep themselves safe from predators and law enforcement. they were also able to screen clients based on references from people who had seen the client before.

"a lot of sex workers i've talked to are really devastated by the loss of redbook, because they've lost their online community," williams says. "they've lost this way to share information that made them feel safer, and the reference system doesn't work as well when you don't known where the reference is coming from. ".

* * *.

at its heart, the reality of sex work is rather dull and pedestrian. the main reason that people go into sex work is neither because of predatory gangsters, nor to indulge some uncontrollable nymphomania: it's all about money. it's about the need to pay your rent, put gas in your car, and buy groceries. like becoming a waitress, a store clerk, a plumber, or a mechanic, going into sex work is driven by the economics of everyday life. if we were start to think of it as being primarily about work instead of sex, the headlines would quickly become much less sensational. "i think that media coverage needs to be less of a dichotomy between people who freely and happily choose the sex industry and people who are coerced into the sex industry," ray says. "because there's a vast gray area of economic circumstances in between. economic circumstances are the reason most people enter the sex industry. i think coverage and conversations about that need to be much more complex. ".

the age-of-entry statistic continues to hold its grip on the public imagination in part because mainstream society can't imagine it being any other way. why would anyone sell sex unless they were coerced or suffered such extreme trauma that they lost all self-respect?

"i have talked to people who really, really chose to do it. they thought about it for a while, it felt like it was something that was really intriguing and fun to them, and they chose it even though there were other options," williams says. "but for most people, i think it's a quick fix to a financial problem. and so most people, i think, go into sex work because it fits their current needs. maybe they can't work a 9-to-5 job because they're in school, or they have young children so they need a really flexible job. that's why i started doing sex work. i was in school, and i had a child, and i needed something that i could work nights. i think that a lot of people do sex work for the time that they need this flexible situation, and then as soon as they're done with school, or their children are now in school, or whatever the initial situation was is over, they move on to another job. ".

of course, some people do get stuck in prostitution when they really want to move on. just like any other field, there are people working crappy, unrewarding jobs in the sex industry. the irony of sex work, however, is that the same legal policies and social stigma that drive "rescue" efforts often make it difficult for people to transition into a regular job. williams herself isn't trying to stop doing sex work, but if she was, her options are much more limited than they once were.

in 2003, williams was teaching high school in berkeley, california, when she was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of soliciting prostitution. she was never convicted, but simply having a rap sheet ended not only her job at berkeley high, but any chance that she would ever teach again. even in berkeley, with its reputation for radical bohemianism, a prostitute isn't considered fit to teach the community's children.

the stories of sex workers like williams are never straightforward or easy. they aren't contained by the narratives we've been told about ravished children or liberated outlaws. for those of us who write about sex workers and those who make laws that determine their lives, they are a reminder of our responsibility: to quiet the voices in our heads and listen, rather than repeating numbers without knowing what they mean or where they came from.

this article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/is-one-of-the-most-cited-statistics-about-sex-work-wrong/379662/

copyright © 2014 by the atlantic monthly group. all rights reserved.

[Mascarado]

At its heart, the reality of sex work is rather dull and pedestrian. The main reason that people go into sex work is neither because of predatory gangsters, nor to indulge some uncontrollable nymphomania: It's all about money. It's about the need to pay your rent, put gas in your car, and buy groceries. Like becoming a waitress, a store clerk, a plumber, or a mechanic, going into sex work is driven by the economics of everyday life. If we were start to think of it as being primarily about work instead of sex, the headlines would quickly become much less sensational. "I think that media coverage needs to be less of a dichotomy between people who freely and happily choose the sex industry and people who are coerced into the sex industry," Ray says. "Because there's a vast gray area of economic circumstances in between. Economic circumstances are the reason most people enter the sex industry. I think coverage and conversations about that need to be much more complex. ".

"I have talked to people who really, really chose to do it. They thought about it for a while, it felt like it was something that was really intriguing and fun to them, and they chose it even though there were other options," Williams says. "But for most people, I think it's a quick fix to a financial problem. And so most people, I think, go into sex work because it fits their current needs. Maybe they can't work a 9-to-5 job because they're in school, or they have young children so they need a really flexible job. That's why I started doing sex work. I was in school, and I had a child, and I needed something that I could work nights. I think that a lot of people do sex work for the time that they need this flexible situation, and then as soon as they're done with school, or their children are now in school, or whatever the initial situation was is over, they move on to another job. ".Prostitution is just a job. Sure, it has a load of negative association, e. G, child / [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908), disease, infidelity, etc. , but these associations are not causal.

Like any other industry, from securities, to food, to aviation, etc. , when regulated, they offer value to society in a significantly safer manner.

People are going to hire prostitutes just as they will drink alcohol, eat heart congesting foods, smoke cancerous cigarettes, and drive potentially dangerous vehicles.

Just regulate it in an efficient manner, and let the rest take care of itself.

Though, child prostitution is something that should always be illegal, given the child's maturity level, lack of choice, education, development, and innocence, apart from physical / mental harm.

[Naked Gunz]

If America is serious about stopping domestic violence, the simple solution is to legalize prostitution. I think if a man were able to get sexual release from prostitutes instead of locking himself in a marriage or relationship. The fighting and arguments (violence) usually comes from the frustration of joining two completely seperate lives together. The divorce rate is 50%! It just does not work.

[Errol Flynn]

What an f'in a hole.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/us/politics/investigator-in-secret-service-prostitution-scandal-resigns-after-being-implicated-in-own-incident.html?google_editors_picks=true

[GF Experience]

http://www.******************************.com/Know_your_rights.html

Know your Rights.

Q. What to do if you are visited or stopped by the police. First, and most important, in an encounter with the police:

A. Know your rights!

What to do if you are visited or stopped by the police. First, and most important, in an encounter with the police:

* DO NOT physically resist or threaten the officer (s) in any way.

* DO NOT try to leave until an officer tells you that you are free to go.

* DO NOT give the officer any information about any of your activities.

* DO NOT consent to any search.

The bottom line:

IF YOU ARE NOT FREE TO GO, YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. WHEN YOU ARE UNDER ARREST YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT.

KEEP IT SIMPLE. Don't lie. Don't be a smart ass. Don't try to be friends with the officer.

Simply refuse to answer any of the officer's questions. Each time he / she asks a question, respond with the question "Am I free to go?" This will probably result in such frustration for the officer that they may arrest you anyway. But better to be arrested with little or no evidence, than to give the officer information they may use to file charges and for those charges to stick!

It's all a game. But the rules of the game (the Constitution of the United States) are in your favor. You cannot be punished more severely, just because you refused to risk incriminating yourself during a police investigation (no matter what an officer says).

REMEMBER:

If you are not free to go, then you have the right to remain silent.

Know what to expect if stopped or visited by the police!

You will be asked for identification (if you are driving, you may be asked for your registration and insurance info, as well). You are required to provide this information. Then the "investigation" will start. The conversation might go something like this:

Officer: Do you have any I'd on you?

You: Yes sir. (or ma'am).

Officer: May I see it?

You: Certainly Officer. May I reach into my pocket to get it?

Officer: Yes. Is this your current address?

You: Yes sir.

Officer: What are you doing out here tonight?

You: Officer, am I free to go?

Officer: Not yet. What are you doing out here tonight?

You: If I'm not free to go, then I'm going to exercise my right to remain silent.

The officer will then try everything he / she can think of to get you to start talking. They'll try to convince you that you'll be in more trouble if you don't cooperate. They'll try to convince you that you're not under arrest, so there's nothing wrong with cooperating. They may yell at you, or play good cop / bad cop. Most police officers are moderately skilled interrogators. One thing is sure: they practice interrogation techniques a LOT more than you practice being interrogated. So don't try to outsmart them.

Your refusal to cooperate will be very frustrating to the officer. He / she wants to put a prostitution bust on their arrest stats. Particularly if they are assigned to any Vulnarable area's. They will pull out all the stops to get you to tell them what they need to arrest you. Below are some of the interrogation techniques they may try:

1. Appeal to your innate desire to be honest and "come clean. " They'll tell you that they already know a crime has been committed (they may tell you that the other person is spilling their guts) and that if you simply tell the truth, they'll let you off the hook, or that they'll still have to arrest you but they'll "put in a good word for you with the prosecutor or judge. " This is complete crap. Police officers do not influence judges. They investigate crimes, and then provide testimony to a court regarding that investigation.

2. Intimidate you. The officer or officers will gang up on you. Get in your face. Surround you. Tell you that you have no choice but to cooperate. They may even yell at you, or knock you around a little. Yelling at, and / or using ANY kind of physical force on a detainee who is not physically resisting, is unprofessional behavior and can get the officers into deep doo-doo. Get at least one of their names and I'd #s and report them to the Professional Standards Division of the department they work for!

3. You may find yourself in a "good cop / bad cop" situation, where one officer will pretend to be your friend and give you advice about how to get out of this mess, while the other officer pretends to pressure the friendly officer to arrest you and get it over with. This is just a combination of the first two techniques described above. Sometimes a single cop will play both roles. He / she will tell you that if you don't do what he tells you to do, that he won't be able to be such a nice guy and you will force him to arrest you.

4. Threaten to embarrass you. If you're married, have a GirlFriends, kids, job, friends, etc. And it would be hard to explain why you were arrested, the police will use this to scare you into talking. A police officer detained me once and then called my wife at 2:00 am to "verify my address," telling her that he had stopped me on Brigade Road. Of course, what he was really doing was trying to embarrass me into talking.

The main tool the cops use is interrogation technique #4 (threaten to embarrass). If you've got six cops surrounding you and you think you're going to jail, and a wife is waiting at home who will eventually find out what you got arrested for, most people will panic and do anything they think will get them out of the mess. Unfortunately this will backfire on them and they will be prosecuted even more vigorously because of the info they will give the officers. Then, not only will they have to explain getting arrested, they'll also have to explain getting found guilty of the charges!

Know the law!

While some of this discussion is about street hookers which we do not support due to the public nuisance element the ideas apply also to private consenting adult sexworkers.

"Prostitution" means engaging in or agreeing or offering to engage in sexual conduct with another person under a fee arrangement with that person or any other person.

"Sexual conduct" means sexual contact, sexual intercourse, oral sexual contact or sadomasochistic abuse.

In order to arrest you, the police officer must establish that a reasonable person would believe a crime has been committed. Even if you DID make an offer for prostitution, unless the officer actually heard the conversation, then the only information the officer has, is that a person driving down the street, picked up another person who was walking down the street; or that a person was inside another person's home for a period of time; or maybe that there are many male visitors to a female's home; etc. You may have gone to a hotel with someone, or maybe just pulled off on a side street and spent some time in your car. You may even have gotten caught in the act of having sex with the other person. Having sex (even with strangers) is NOT illegal!

However, the police may suspect that you made (or accepted) an offer of sex for money, especially if any of these things occurred in a "known high-vice area" like Brigade Road or MG Road. Detaining you at this point is already skating on the ragged edge of violating your rights. Don't stand for it!

When the police stop, detain, and interrogate people, without having any real knowledge that a crime has been committed, we get a little closer to being denied the basic freedom to conduct our lives as our conscience guides us. Freedom is not just won in wars. The fight for freedom begins with each citizen and his or her daily response to government oppression.

If you engaged in an act of prostitution (as defined by the statute, above), then you DID break the law. However, you are under NO obligation to admit to a law enforcement officer that you broke the law, or to cooperate with any investigation aimed at finding out if a law has been broken.

We are not a lawyer and this is not intended as legal advice. However, I have shown this to several lawyers who agree that its contents are true and useful. I decided to produce this document after having my own civil rights violated by a group of police officers. The information here is not intended to encourage illegal activity. We simply mean to exercise my right to free speech by educating as many people as possible on ways to avoid being taken advantage of by the police.

Additional suggestions:

Paying for sex is illegal in India. Unlike most of the world. But paying for time and companionship, exchanging non sexual massage, hugging, lying together naked non-sexually caressing body is not sex and not illegal under the law. Separately from the paid session and for no compensation as consenting adults you can enjoy the natural desire for sexual sharing. As long as no money is paid for the sexual activities.

If I was a provider I would say upon meeting a first time clients, "I just want to make it clear for our legal protection I don't accept money for sex, my INR 2000/ fee is for my time and companionship. I might decide to enjoy sex with you but if so, there is no cost, we would just be friends. Is that agreeable?

In most police agencies it is against their policy to get naked with you or even more if they initiate sexual contact which may be entrapment. You might ask, would you like to get more comfortable. You might even lay in bed nude with him, give him a massage but don't touch genitals. Let him take the imitative on anything sexual not you. He is not paying you for sex just for being with him.

Even if you are arrested by aggressive cop, if you didn't get paid for sex but time and companionship based on what you said and did with undercover, your case may not be prosecuted if the facts aren't clear. Prostitution is usually a relatively low priority case and often the cases are tossed unless they are obviously easy convictions. Courts, Judges and other public resources should be directed more towards real crime with victims vs. In private morality crimes. Yet often is aggressive in enforcing morality crimes but prosecutors are not as aggressive unless again looks like a easy win.

Being arrested of course is traumatic for the non criminal just sharing pleasure in private but even if caught in a sting chances are good that if you are careful in what you have said and done the case will be dismissed.

[TonyIndian]

Men have stronger libidos than women and polygamy is only natural. We need to fuck multiple women. These are facts of nature.

Most women do not want to be prostitutes or are only in it for the money. They disassociate when having sex with a customer as opposed to for free. It is a more emotional experience for women. But purely physical for most of us, at least most of thetime.

Please weigh in with your ideas on how we can reconcile these opposing agendas. I don't think that it can be sustained in the long run and certainly isn't a healthy environment if only one party (the man) is really gaining. Especially with the women's rights movement they have more ways than any other time in history to make as much money as a male without whoring themselves out. We need to think about this rationally and ensure that they are satisfied or have a real incentive, in order to ensure a steady supply of pussy for ourselves in the future.

[Intransit]

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/faithbased/2015/03/christians_and_sex_trafficking_how_evangelicals_made_it_a_cause_celebre.single.html

How Sex Trafficking Became a Christian Cause seelbre.

Evangelicals made it less feminist and more mainstream.

By Ruth Graham.

When evangelicals picked up the issue of sex trafficking around the turn of the millennium, they drastically expanded the existing movement's influence and reach.

Every January, tens of thousands of Christian college students from all over the world attend the conference Passion, where they sing, pray, and hear from a variety of pastors, authors, and activists about issues resonating within evangelical culture. For the last several years, conference founder Louie Giglio has made the issue of [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908) an increasingly central part of these activities. In 2013,60,000 students gathered at Passion in Atlanta for a late-night candlelight vigil dedicated to celebrating "Jesus, the ultimate abolitionist, the original abolitionist," Giglio told CNN. The organization's anti-trafficking project designated Feb. 27 as "Shine a Light on Slavery Day," encouraging young people to raise awareness by taking selfies with red X's drawn on their hands.

[CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908)and sex trafficking in particularhas become something of a Christian cause seelbre. There are prayer weekends, movies, magazine covers, Sunday school curricula, and countless church-based ministries. More unusual efforts include lipstick sold to help "kiss slavery goodbye" and tattoo alteration services for victims who say they have been "branded" by their captors. An extraordinarily complex global issue has somehow become one of the most energetic Christian missions of the 21st century.

Many of the new anti-trafficking advocates compare their work to the 19th-century abolitionist movement against chattel slaverywith some leaders in the movement referring to themselves (and, apparently, Jesus) as "abolitionists. " But, according to Gretchen Soderlund, author of the 2013 book Sex Trafficking, Scandal, and the Transformation of Journalism, 18851917, the better comparison may be to the "white slavery" panic of the late 19th century. Like the current rhetoric around anti-trafficking, "white slavery" engaged both feminist and Christian activists. It also focused primarily on protecting female virtueoften depicting prostitution as "slavery. " The phenomenon of women being forced into selling themselves on a widespread scale was mostly malarkey, as it turned out. But the movement was triumphant anyway: The 1910 White Slave Traffic Act, which made it illegal to transport women across state lines for "immoral purposes," effectively ended an era of commercialized prostitution (and criminalized plenty of consensual sex along the way).

Today's anti-trafficking cause again finds evangelicals and feminists in wary cahootsbut it has also earned plenty of skepticism. Second-wave feminists began driving the current conversation about trafficking in the late 1970's, when a book by sociologist Kathleen Barry, Female Sexual Slavery, brought the issue to many people's attention for the first time and argued that it should be a feminist cause. Meanwhile, some feminists were finding common ground with conservatives on pornography, another issue defined by some as the sexual exploitation of women. Though it's not in fashion these days for mainstream feminists to be categorically opposed to pornography, conservative Christian anti-trafficking advocates often connect trafficking to porn:

As one prominent pastor writes in a new book, "Every time someone views pornography. They're contributing to a cycle of sex slavery. ".

"Once the evangelicals got on board, it became a much more mainstream issue, and less feminist. ".

Gretchen Soderlund, author.

Feminist organizations including the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women were active in the 1990's but had little support within the USA Government. That began to change in the late 1990's, when a confluence of factors encouraged evangelical NGOs to become increasingly involved in global issues. Christian conservatives at the time were more known for domestic issues: opposition to gay marriage and abortion and support for prayer in schools. Meanwhile, as government funding for foreign development was shrinking, NGOs of all kinds were increasingly taking on that work. In 2001, President George W. Bush established the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which gave religious organizations new access to federal funds for causes including anti-trafficking work.

By 2004, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals characterized sex trafficking as a cause that "just jumped off the pages of the newspaper. " Based on the popular image of sex traffickinginnocent victims, usually female, forced into something like literal slaveryit seems obvious why it quickly became a marquee issue. Who could possibly dispute the travesty of helpless women and children forcibly sold into sexual bondage? For Protestants, it's particularly resonant, said Yvonne Zimmerman, an associate professor of Christian ethics at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio and author of the 2012 book Other Dreams of Freedom: Religion, Sex and [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908). "Evangelicals on this issue were working out of really deeply held values," she said, including the notion that sexual morality is a powerful window into a person's true character.

Justin Dillon, a Christian filmmaker who directed a 2008 "rockumentary" about trafficking and spoke about the cause at the Passion conference in 2012, has another explanation for why sex trafficking in particular may have caught on as a Christian issue. "Christianity is centered around one word: redemption," Dillon said. "It's about taking something that's going down a path of perilyou could say slavery, spiritual slaveryand redeeming it, Christ redeeming it into something free. . It's not hard for the Christian church to get that idea of freedom. ".

When evangelicals picked up the issue of trafficking around the turn of the millennium, they drastically expanded the existing movement's influence and reach. By now it has spawned major institutional efforts by nonprofits like World Relief, not to mention both state and federal legislation. According to some critics, however, Christians also changed the movement's character. "It wasn't until this evangelical coalition emerged that sex trafficking became this huge everyday issue," said Soderlund. "Once the evangelicals got on board, it became a much more mainstream issue, and less feminist. You had innocent victims, and you had evildoers, and it wasn't as much about patriarchy. ".

The contemporary anti-trafficking movement has attracted plenty of criticism. Some point out the disproportionate focus on sex trafficking, when labor trafficking is a much more common phenomenon. (Many evangelical organizations do tackle labor trafficking as part of their missions, even though the issue doesn't attract as much attention. Dillon now runs a nonprofit, Made in a Free World, which focuses on labor trafficking.).

The strategy of "rescuing" supposed slaves has also been criticized as paternalist, moralist, and ineffective. Then there's the numbers of the forcibly "enslaved," which seem to be wildly overestimated by many sources, although the numbers are also hotly disputed. Meanwhile, some of the most prominent trafficking stories of this century have come under intense scrutiny. An alarming 2004 New York Times Magazine cover story was eviscerated for exaggerations and unproven claims by critics including Jack Shafer at Slate. Somaly Mam, a Cambodian activist championed by American advocates, including Nick Kristof, turned out to have fabricated significant elements of her heart-rending personal story.

One of the most persistent criticisms of the movement is that it's not opposed only to explicitly forced prostitution and child prostitution, but to prostitution as a whole, even when it's engaged in by adult women who say they are sex workers by choice. That's one point that some activists have no problem acknowledging.

"FAAST and all of our partners are very intentional in that we say that all prostitution is inherently harmful," said Mandy Porter, coordinator at the Faith Alliance Against Slavery and Trafficking, a Baltimore-based Christian coalition whose members include World Relief and the Salvation Army. "Whether or not it's consensual, whether or not they want to do it, if it's high-end or streetwalking, it's harmful, and it's not good. " She is careful to say that not all prostitution is trafficking, but adds that the "chains" in most trafficking situations are psychological, not physical.

Under that definition, almost any sex worker could indeed be classified as a victim of trafficking.

As the contemporary anti-trafficking movement matures, it shows no signs of slowing down. This month, FAAST will launch a seven-week anti-trafficking curriculum aimed at 8- to 13-year-olds in Sunday schools, home schools, and other religious settings. "Change Agents" includes lessons on topics like Internet safety and sex trafficking and frames certain Bible stories as*"abuse stories," including the tale of Abram accepting rewards from the Egyptian pharaoh who has taken his wife. *As evangelicals continue to champion the cause, the next generation of activists will view trafficking through this lens, making a political and economic question a religious one, too.

[The Old Teaboy]

Men have stronger libidos than women and polygamy is only natural. We need to fuck multiple women. These are facts of nature.

Most women do not want to be prostitutes or are only in it for the money. They disassociate when having sex with a customer as opposed to for free. It is a more emotional experience for women. But purely physical for most of us, at least most of thetime.

Please weigh in with your ideas on how we can reconcile these opposing agendas. I don't think that it can be sustained in the long run and certainly isn't a healthy environment if only one party (the man) is really gaining. Especially with the women's rights movement they have more ways than any other time in history to make as much money as a male without whoring themselves out. We need to think about this rationally and ensure that they are satisfied or have a real incentive, in order to ensure a steady supply of pussy for ourselves in the future.TonyIndian,

It is true that there are many more job opportunities for women now because of equal rights. I do not, however, think that this will lead to a decrease in the availability of women for paid sex, for three reasons:

(1) There will always be a number of women who don't want the hard work of a "normal" job.

(2) Money is an aphrodisiac for many women. The idea of earning money at the same time as getting pleasure will always appeal to a certain type of woman.

(3) When our good Pope visited the Philippines recently he re-iterated that the use of contraception is a deadly sin. The Pope's teaching will ensure that the Philippines will continue to be a supplier of pussy to the rest of the world.

[SuperJock]

Hi people,

Liked the idea of this forum.

I feel prostitution is a great noble profession. No pun intended.

The word Prostitute / Hooker. They have negative associations with them. But do they deserve such associations.

For me, I term them as therapists. Like doctors. Why is that.

1. Having sex / being intimate is a physiological need (Maslows hierarchy teamed it that way). What if a guy does not have a relationship or is stuck in a sexless marriage. Is he expected to just live life without this basic need fulfilled. I have tried. And hell. Its not been good.

2. If it weren't for these therapists, I would just wonder how terrible existence would be especially for such guys.

3. Its a pity that its illegal in so many places. Why is it? Its between two consenting adults. Nobody is being forced. We have two happy people at the end of it. A satisfied guy and a richer girl!

Some might find what I wrote BS. And pardon me if you feel that way. But these are my 2 cents.

Cheers

[ItsMyPiv]

Hi people,

1. Having sex / being intimate is a physiological need (Maslows hierarchy teamed it that way). What if a guy does not have a relationship or is stuck in a sexless marriage. Is he expected to just live life without this basic need fulfilled. I have tried. And hell. Its not been good.In a perfect world, everyone would pair off at a young age, and then the partner would fulfill each other's needs for life. That would really cut down on the spread of STDs. But in real life genders aren't always balanced (more men than women, or more women than men), girls all fuck the same men (players) and exclude others (losers).

In marriages, men get tired of banging the same woman, and wives get sick of sex with the husband. So prostitution thrives.

[BubbleJab]

Gents, this is a really interesting thread, thanks for some of the great thoughts and very interesting links. To add to the discussion, here is an article on the failure of the Swedish "ban on johns". I somewhere read the original research paper that is referenced in this HuffPo article, but I can't find it this moment. Here is a citation from that original research paper:

"Not surprisingly, the experiment has failed. In the 13 years since the law was enacted, the Swedish government has been unable to prove that the law has reduced the number of sex buyers or sellers or stopped trafficking. All it has to show for its efforts are a (contested) public support for the law and more danger for street-based sex workers. Despite this failure, the government has chosen to ignore the evidence and proclaim the law to be a success; it also continues to advocate that other countries should adopt a similar law. ".

And from a UN report:

"There is very little evidence to suggest that any criminal laws related to sex work stop demand for sex or reduce the number of sex workers. Rather, all of them create an environment of fear and marginalisation for sex workers, who often have to work in remote and unsafe locations to avoid arrest of themselves or their clients. These laws can undermine sex workers' ability to work together to identify potentially violent clients and their capacity to demand condom use of clients. ".

Alas, while I have some problems with the idea of prostitution, I think it is just part of the human condition. Hundreds, if not thousands, of years of history of trying to make it go away shows that it never will. It just IS. I think any monger has a duty of care towards his ASP, to ensure that they are not controlled or being forced. But once reasonable caution is exercised, I don't see any universal moral case against prostitution.

[ItsMyPiv]

Gents, this is a really interesting thread, thanks for some of the great thoughts and very interesting links. To add to the discussion, here is an article on the failure of the Swedish "ban on johns". I somewhere read the original research paper that is referenced in this HuffPo article, but I can't find it this moment. Here is a citation from that original research paper:

"Not surprisingly, the experiment has failed. In the 13 years since the law was enacted, the Swedish government has been unable to prove that the law has reduced the number of sex buyers or sellers or stopped trafficking. All it has to show for its efforts are a (contested) public support for the law and more danger for street-based sex workers. Despite this failure, the government has chosen to ignore the evidence and proclaim the law to be a success; it also continues to advocate that other countries should adopt a similar law. ".

And from a UN report:

"There is very little evidence to suggest that any criminal laws related to sex work stop demand for sex or reduce the number of sex workers. Rather, all of them create an environment of fear and marginalisation for sex workers, who often have to work in remote and unsafe locations to avoid arrest of themselves or their clients. These laws can undermine sex workers' ability to work together to identify potentially violent clients and their capacity to demand condom use of clients. ".

Alas, while I have some problems with the idea of prostitution, I think it is just part of the human condition. Hundreds, if not thousands, of years of history of trying to make it go away shows that it never will. It just IS. I think any monger has a duty of care towards his ASP, to ensure that they are not controlled or being forced. But once reasonable caution is exercised, I don't see any universal moral case against prostitution.Besides that, men in Sweden and other Western European countries with restrictive laws can just go over to the nearest EU country with more liberal laws. Apparently Germany and Spain have big brothels in border towns to cater to French visitors. Europe isn't very big. A flight from Stockholm, Sweden to Hamburg, Germany, only costs about 65 euros and probably doesn't take more than 1 or 2 hours.

[Intransit]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/08/economist-explains-13?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/ee/st/whydecriminalisingsexworkisagoodidea

On August 11th Amnesty International, a human rights charity, announced its support for decriminalising prostitution between consenting adults. Laws over prostitution differ by country: in Britain the sale of sex is legal, but pimping and brothels are not, while in America it is illegal in all states but Nevada. Increasingly, however, human rights campaigners are calling for it to be decriminalised, as it is in several European countries. Amnesty's recommendation follows on from similar ones made by the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS. Is decriminalising sex work a good idea or not?

Amnesty's decision has found fierce opposition: a letter from the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, an NGO, signed by a few former sex workers and actors including Meryl Streep and Lena Dunham argues that it "will in effect support a system of gender apartheid". Those opposed to decriminalisation argue that prostitution as a trade inevitably leads to the trafficking of vulnerable women: the letter from the coalition says that since sex work was legalised in Germany the number of women trafficked to the country has boomed and that it has become the "Bordello of Europe". Rather than prosecute women for selling sex, many think that the "Swedish model", which made buying sex illegal in 1999, is one which should be followed. Norway, Iceland and France have adopted similar models, and the European Parliament has championed it. The Swedish model attempts to wipe out prostitution by reducing demand.

But it is not completely clear that the Swedish model has worked. Those who support decriminalisation—which includes this newspaper, along with many sex workers—point to the fact that pushing prostitution underground can have ugly consequences. Violence against prostitutes can go unpunished, as women may be less likely to go to the police if they are considered to be at the margin of the law. Street work, which had declined in Sweden, increased again after the law was passed, putting many women in more danger than before. Prostitutes may also be less likely to seek medical advice. When Rhode Island accidentally decriminalised prostitution in 2003—a legal loophole from 1980 was found to only criminalise the sale of sex outdoors—the state did see an increase in the amount of indoor sex work. But, according to one paper, the number of [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123) offenses also dropped by 31% between 2003 and 2009, when the trade was once again made illegal, while there were 39% fewer cases of female gonorrhoea. Making the purchase of sex between two consenting adults illegal is also deeply illiberal.

Fears over [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908) and child abuse should not be dismissed lightly. But laws against both exist and should be strictly enforced. And prostitution, even if made illegal, will not be eliminated: old estimates put the value of the trade in America at $14 billion annually (it is now likely to be far higher). Rather than chase the elusive goal of stamping out a trade, the safety of prostitutes who do their work willingly should be made paramount. Countries, as well as human-rights organisations, should look at the evidence.

[Dan7373]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/08/economist-explains-13?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/ee/st/whydecriminalisingsexworkisagoodidea

On August 11th Amnesty International, a human rights charity, announced its support for decriminalising prostitution between consenting adults....I think this whole debate about prostitution is framed the wrong way. Because nobody seems to care much about what the sex-works have to say for themselves. Which is strange. Because everyone is talking about either giving them freedom or taking away their freedom, or protecting them in some way. But nobody is asking them what they want.

This whole debate is strange because people keep talking about sex-workers as if they are children or mentally incompetent adults, who are incapable of deciding on their own what's best for them. And this clearly isn't true.

If you recognize the fact the both women and men in sex-work are full adults with full freedoms and rights, then nobody has any business interfering with their freedom to do as they wish with each other. The only concern for anyone, is when people rob, or threaten, or coerce each other in some way. And this a concern in every type of interaction between people, even within families, when there is domestic violence. And there are plenty of laws to deal with this kind of thing.

Nobody is banning marriage, just because there is some domestic violence and coercion. Society just deals with it, as it comes, and leaves the rest of the people alone. And that's the way it should in other kinds of interaction between people, including sex-work.

This debate shouldn't be about the morality of prostitution. It should be about the immorality of those who take away people's rights and freedoms without a good reason. Because only then change will happen.

[The Cane]

I think this whole debate about prostitution is framed the wrong way. Because nobody seems to care much about what the sex-works have to say for themselves. Which is strange. Because everyone is talking about either giving them freedom or taking away their freedom, or protecting them in some way. But nobody is asking them what they want.

This whole debate is strange because people keep talking about sex-workers as if they are children or mentally incompetent adults, who are incapable of deciding on their own what's best for them. And this clearly isn't true.

If you recognize the fact the both women and men in sex-work are full adults with full freedoms and rights, then nobody has any business interfering with their freedom to do as they wish with each other. The only concern for anyone, is when people rob, or threaten, or coerce each other in some way. And this a concern in every type of interaction between people, even within families, when there is domestic violence. And there are plenty of laws to deal with this kind of thing..What you're saying Dan is pure truth! The fact of the matter is that all of the "moralists" who claim to be acting on behalf of sex workers really don't give a damn about the very ones they say they want to protect. If they did, then as you say they would recognize that sex workers are intelligent human beings too who most certainly hold their own views about what they do for a living and what they want in connection with their own work. If the moralists cared, then they would directly include the sex workers in the debate versus shutting them out. But as we all know, they really don't care. They just want to hinder and harry the sex workers and ultimately (but haplessly) try to shut prostitution down wherever it exists, and that's it. That's a moralists end-game, and we all know it!

[HappyGoLucky]

Interesting article:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/work-study-manhattan-style-thousands-of-ny-students-turn-to-sex-work-to-make-ends-meet-8626389?utm_source=Newsletters&utm_medium=email

"Public opinion on sex work has liberalized rapidly. A recent New York magazine story revealed that in 2012,38 percent of Americans believed it should be legalized; by 2015 the share had grown to 44 percent, and the wave shows no sign of having crested. At the same time, we've seen an explosion in the number of services like TheEroticReview.com, Ashley Madison, MyRedBook, Adam4 Adam, and Peppr — which markets itself as the "Uber for escorts" — connecting potential workers to potential clients. (One of those services, Backpage.com, was once affiliated with the Village Voice, but after a change in ownership last October, the paper no longer accepts such advertising.)".

[Yanqui69]

This issue becomes confused when the issue of "trafficking" enters the discussion. NO ONE should condone trafficking involving forced prostitution, enslavement, child prostitution, etc. However, what two CONSENTING adults do in private should not be a matter for government involvement or interest. If a woman freely chooses to offer sexual services in exchange for compensation, it is hard to find a "victim" in this activity.

Sex traffickers forcing women into prostitution and sexual slavery are scum. They should become the sex toys in prison.

A woman's reasons for selling sexual services are hers alone. If she freely makes that decision, government should not intrude.

One has to wonder how many police resources are focused on busting women who freely offer such services versus the gangs that force women and children into sexual slavery.

One could argue that a properly regulated sex industry (medical checks, prevention, etc) if freely available, would put the illegal traffickers out of business.

[Intransit]

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/06/prostitution-sex-work-pimp-state-kat-banyard-decriminalisation?CMP=fb_gu

The steady creep of "sex work" into 21st-century vernacular is neither incidental nor accidental. The term didn't just pop up and go viral. The Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), an organisation that openly campaigns for brothel-keeping and pimping to be recognised as legitimate jobs, credits itself as largely responsible for "sex work" replacing "prostitution" as the go-to terminology for institutions such as the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV / Aids (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

"More than mere political correctness," the NSWP proudly states, "this shift in language had the important effect of moving global understandings of sex work toward a labour framework. " The fact that prostitution involves sexual acts and some kind of payment is a given. However, engaging with it first and foremost as a labour issue, using the term "sex work" as if it was an adequate and appropriate shorthand for what takes place in strip clubs, on porn sets and in brothels, serves a deeply political goal. Not only does this framework shrink the field of analysis to the seller (to the exclusion of men's demand and its social impact), it hides what should be front and centre of our response to the transaction: the inherent sexual abuse.

The notion that being paid to perform sex acts should be recognised as a kind of service work is the rationale underpinning legalised prostitution regimes. It's an idea that has managed to unite an eclectic mix of left and rightwing voices. Peter Frase – a member of the editorial board of Jacobin, a magazine billed as a leading voice of the American left – is in favor of "legalising all forms of sex work for adults". He claims: "Not only does sex work destabilise the work ideology, it also conflicts with a bourgeois ideal of private, monogamous sexuality. " Tim Worstall, writing for British rightwing thinktank the Adam Smith Institute, shares Frase's policy conclusion, though his reasoning contrasts somewhat. As a type of commercial activity, Worstall insists the prostitution trade is "obviously free market" and that "renting out body parts is and should be no different from lending them out for fun or for free".

The whole point of the sex industry is that it offers men the chance to buy sexual access to women who do not want to have sex with them – otherwise they wouldn't have to pay. Masking its fundamental purpose thus becomes the primary PR challenge for the prostitution, pornography and strip club trades if they are to survive – maybe even thrive – in a society that has decided, at least in principle, that women are not subordinate sex objects and [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123) is a bad thing.

Perhaps the single most effective strategy hit upon so far is to pump out the myth contained in the term "sex work": the myth that it is possible to commodify consent.

How can sexual consent be a thing that can be bought and sold, yet we can still talk with a straight face about there being such concepts as healthy sexual relationships and meaningful consent? If, while having sex with someone, you feel repulsed by them touching you, afraid of what they might do, degraded and humiliated by the sexual acts, hurt by the hateful words they're whispering in your ear, sore because he's the fifth man you've had sex with today, exhausted from it all, traumatised, abused – the fact that you'll get a bit of cash at the end does not change anything. There is no invisible hand in the prostitution market that magically disappears the lived experience of sexual abuse.

Poverty can, of course, play a highly influential role in women's entry into prostitution. However, bluntly asserting that poverty is the singular cause of the prostitution trade fails to acknowledge that men's poverty has not begot a global demand from women to pay them for sex acts, that without men's demand there would be no trade at all, or the highly specific abuses that so commonly characterise women's entry into it.

Research by the British Medical Journal found that, in three UK cities, half of women in outdoor prostitution, and a quarter of women in indoor prostitution, reported having been subject to violence by a sex buyer in the previous six months. Of the violence they had ever experienced at the hands of sex buyers, women on the streets most frequently reported being kicked, slapped or punched, while women in saunas or flats most frequently reported attempted [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123) (17% of women based indoors had experienced this, as had 28% of women on the streets). A separate study, in Sociology of Health and Illness, involving more than 100 women engaged in flat-based prostitution in London, highlighted how an indoor setting can have its own particular coercive influence. Each day women had to pay up to £250 in rent, as well as up to £60 a day for a maid (who, in practice, often operated like a pimp, sometimes controlling which sex buyers the women saw), plus a range of other expenses. On average, a woman was paid for sex by 76 men each week.

The Economist's 2014 article, titled A personal choice, warding off "puritans and do-gooders" from meddling with the sex trade, insists that governments should "leave consenting adults who wish to buy and sell sex to do so safely and privately online". This builds on the claim that prostitution is sex work by attempting to frame that work simply as a series of individual, private exchanges set apart from the rest of society. Milton Friedman, the late economist and proponent of unbridled free-market capitalism, implied much the same when asked about prostitution in 2006. "You put a willing buyer with a willing seller, and it's up to them. You can argue with them that it's foolish, you can argue with them that it's a bad thing to do, but I don't see any justification for bringing the police into it. " But the sex industry, like any market, doesn't operate in a vacuum, leaving the rest of society miraculously untouched by its presence. Markets are, as philosopher Debra Satz says, social institutions:

"All markets depend for their operation on background property rules and a complex of social, cultural, and legal institutions. " Markets are a matter for everyone.

Trades weave themselves into the fabric of society. We know this. We place all kinds of restrictions and prohibitions on markets precisely because of this. Because the risks, particularly to the most vulnerable and marginalised in society, are just too high. Commercial exchanges that people may agree to participate in without a gun being held to their head – such as sales of human organs, voting rights, bonded labour contracts – are nonetheless deemed legally off limits. It's the line in the sand that societies draw to say that the harm to those directly involved, to third parties, or to the bedrock principles necessary for equal citizenship, is simply too great. Some trades are too toxic to tolerate.

A basic principle that is utterly indispensable to ending violence against women, not to mention to our fundamental concept of humanity, is that sexual abuse is never acceptable. Not even when the perpetrator has some spare cash and the person he's abusing needs money. Cheerleaders of brothels, porn sets and strip clubs would have us believe that the sex trade levitates above the level of social values and cultural beliefs. But no one can opt out of its effects. A market in sexual exploitation, accepted and tolerated, influences who we all are as individuals, and who we are as a people.

A society that acts in law and language as if men who pay to sexually access women are simply consumers, legitimately availing workers of their services, is a society in deep denial about sexual abuse – and the inequality underpinning it.

Pimp State: Sex, Money and the Future of Equality by Kat Banyard (Faber & Faber, £12.99).

[Intransit]

Jackson: passages in all caps are from the original text and were formatted in that manner there.

Apologies that the text is all mashed together. I re-formatted it from the webpage, but that was screwed up when I pasted it here. The URL for the original article is just below if you'd prefer to read it there.

http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016/07/welcome-to-the-new-prostitution-economy

A growing number of young people are selling their bodies online to pay student loans, make the rent, or afford designer labels. Is it just an unorthodox way to make ends meet or a new kind of exploitation? Nancy Jo Sales investigates.

By Nancy Jo Sales.

July 7, 2016 8:00 am.

DADDY DEAREST.

The waiter with the handlebar mustache encourages us to "participate in the small-plate culture. " Geraldine's, the swank spot in Austin's Hotel Van Zandt, is brimming with tech guys, some loudly talking about money. The college student at our table recommends the ribs—she's been here before, on "dates" with her "daddies. " "There are a lot of tech guys," she says. "They want the girlfriend experience, without having to deal with an actual girlfriend. ".

"The girlfriend experience" is the term women in the sex trade use for a service involving more than just sex. "They want the perfect girlfriend—in their eyes," says Miranda, the young woman at our table. * "She's well groomed, cultured, classy, able to converse about anything—but not bringing into it any of her real-world problems or feelings. ".

Miranda is 22 and has the wavy bobbed hair and clipped mid-Atlantic accent of a 1930's movie star; she grew up in a Texas suburb. "I've learned how to look like this, talk like this," she says. "I work hard at being this," meaning someone who can charge $700 an hour for sex.

Her adventures in "sugaring" started three years ago when she got hit on by an older guy and rebuffed him, saying, "Look, I'm not interested, so unless you're offering to pay my student loans," and he said, "Well. . . ?" After that, "he paid for stuff. He gave me money to help out with my living expenses. ".

It ended when she went on a school year abroad and started meeting men on Seeking Arrangement, the Web site and app which match "sugar daddies" with "sugar babies," whose company the daddies pay for with "allowances. " Now, she says, she has a rotation of three regular "clients"—"a top Austin lawyer, a top architect, and another tech guy," all of them married. She adds, "Their relationships are not my business. ".

She confesses she isn't physically attracted to any of these men, but "what I'm looking for in this transaction is not sexual satisfaction. Do you like everyone at your job? But you still work with them, right? That's how it is with sex work—it's a job. I get paid for it. I do it for the money. ".

And not only the money. "I'm networking," Miranda maintains, "learning things from older men who give me insights into the business world. I've learned how to do an elevator pitch. I've learned so many soft skills that will help me in my career.

"ALMOST ALL OF MY FRIENDS DO SOME SORT OF SEX WORK. . . . IT'S ALMOST TRENDY TO SAY YOU DO IT—OR THAT YOU WOULD. ".

"While in college," she goes on, "I've had the ability to focus on developing myself because I'm not slaving away at a minimum-wage job. I reject it when people say I'm oppressed by the patriarchy. People who make seven dollars an hour are oppressed by the patriarchy. ".

"She's in control of the male gaze," says another woman at the table, Erin, 22.

"I thought about doing it," says Kristen, 21, tentatively. "I signed up for Seeking Arrangement when I couldn't pay my rent. But I was held back because of the stigma if anyone finds out. ".

"What right does anyone have to judge you for anything you do with your body? Miranda asks.

"Just Another Job".

The most surprising thing about Miranda's story is how unsurprising it is to many of her peers. "Almost all of my friends do some sort of sex work," says Katie, 23, a visual artist in New York. "It's super-common. It's almost trendy to say you do it—or that you would. ".

"It's become like a thing people say when they can't make their rent," says Jenna, 22, a New York video-game designer. " 'Well, I could always just get a sugar daddy,' 'I guess I could just start camming,' " or doing sexual performances in front of a Webcam for money on sites like Chaturbate. "And it's kind of a joke, but it's also not because you actually could. It's not like you need a pimp anymore. You just need a computer. ".

"Basically every gay dude I know is on Seeking Arrangement," says Christopher, 23, a LOS Angeles film editor. "And there are so many rent boys," or young gay men who find sex-work opportunities on sites like RentBoy, which was busted and shut down in 2015 by Homeland Security for facilitating prostitution. "Now people just go on RentMen," says Christopher.

As the debate over whether the United States should decriminalize sex work intensifies, prostitution has quietly gone mainstream among many young people, seen as a viable option in an impossible economy and legitimized by a wave of feminism that interprets sexualization as empowering. "People don't call it 'prostitution' anymore," says Caitlin, 20, a college student in Montreal. "That sounds like ****-shaming. Some girls get very rigid about it, like 'This is a woman's choice. ' ".

"Is Prostitution Just Another Job?" asked New York magazine in March; it seemed to be a rhetorical question, with accounts of young women who found their self-esteem "soaring" through sex work and whose "stresses seem not too different from any young person freelancing or starting a small business. " "Should Prostitution Be a Crime?" asked the cover of The New York Times Magazine in May—again apparently a rhetorical question, with an argument made for decriminalization that seemed to equate it with having "respect" for sex workers. (In broad terms, the drive for decriminalization says it will make the lives of sex workers safer, while the so-called abolitionist movement to end prostitution contends the opposite.).

The Times Magazine piece elicited an outcry from some feminists, who charged that it minimized the voices of women who have been trafficked, exploited, or abused. Liesl Gerntholtz, an executive director at Human Rights Watch, characterized the prostitution debate as "the most contentious and divisive issue in today's women's movement. " "There's a lot of fear among feminists of being seen on the wrong side of this topic," says Natasha Walter, the British feminist author. "I don't understand how women standing up for legalizing sex work can't see the ripple effect of taking this position will have on our idea of a woman's place in the world. ".

A ripple effect may already be in motion, but it looks more like a wave. A string of feminist-sex-worker narratives have been weaving through pop culture over the last few years, as typified by Secret Diary of a Call Girl (2007–11), the British ITV2 series based on the memoir by the pseudonymous Belle de Jour. Belle, played by the bubbly Billie Piper, is a savvy college grad who hates working at boring, low-paying office jobs, so she becomes a self-described "working girl," a lifestyle choice which always finds her in fashionable clothes. "I love my job," Belle declares. "I've read every feminist book since Simone de Beauvoir and I still do what I do. " And then there is The Girlfriend Experience (2016–), the dramatic series on Starz, a darker take on a similarly glossy world of high-priced hotels and high-end shopping trips financed by wealthy johns. "I like it, okay?" snaps the main character, Christine, played by Riley Keough, when her disapproving sister asks why she's working as an escort. Christine likes sex work so much she leaves law school to do it full-time. Both shows feature graphic sex scenes that sometimes look like porn.

"We talked a lot about agency" when conceiving The Girlfriend Experience, says producer Steven Soderbergh (who directed a movie of the same name in 2009), "and the idea that you have this young woman who is going into the workforce and ends up in the sex-work industry, where she feels she has more control and is respected more than she is at her day job," at a law firm.

.

PRETTY WOMAN 
"My friend who does it says, 'I do it for the Chanel,' " a young woman told the author.

Since Seeking Arrangement launched in 2006, practically a genre of sugar-baby confessionals has emerged. I WAS A REAL-LIFE "SUGAR BABY" FOR WEALTHY MEN, said a typical headline, in Marie Claire. The anonymous writer made clear, "I'the always had personal agency. ".

Meanwhile, sugaring has its own extensive community online—also known as "the sugar bowl"—replete with Web sites and blogs. On Tumblr, babies exchange tips on the best sugaring sites and how much to charge. They post triumphant pictures of wads of cash, designer shoes, and bags. They ask for prayers: "Pray for me, this will be great to have two sugar daddies this summer since I quit my vanilla job! I'm trying to live free LOL!

On Facebook, there are private pages where babies find support for their endeavors as well. On one, members proudly call themselves "hos" (sometimes "heaux") and post coquettish selfies, dressed up for "dates. " They offer information on how to avoid law enforcement and what they carry to protect themselves (knives, box cutters, pepper spray). They give advice on how to alleviate the pain of bruises from overzealous spanking and what to do when "scammers" refuse to pay. They ask questions: "How do you go about getting started in sex work? I'm honestly so broke. ".

In interviews, young women and men involved in sex work—not professionals forced into the life, but amateurs, kids—in Austin, New York, and LOS Angeles, talked mostly about needing money. They were squeezed by college tuition, crushed by student loans and the high cost of living. Many of their parents were middle- or upper-middle-class people who had nothing to spare for their children, derailed by the economic downturn themselves. And so they did "cake sitting"—a specialty service for a fetish that craves just what it says—or stripping or Webcamming or sugaring. Some beat people up in professional "dungeons"; others did "[CodeWord100] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord100) play," involving sex with [CodeWord113] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord113). They did what they felt they had to do to pay their bills. But was it feminism? And no, that isn't a rhetorical question.

Landing a Whale.

'It just seemed so normal, like no big deal," says Alisa, 21, one night at Nobu in LOS Angeles, a place she's been with her daddies. She's talking about how she started sugaring when she was 18. "People kept telling me and my friends, 'There are rich daddies who will take care of you. ' ".

She had profiles on Seeking Millionaire and Date Billionaire when she landed a whale on Seeking Arrangement. He was a high-profile venture capitalist in San Francisco and founder of a major tech company—"the real deal. " (Friends confirm their connection.).

"THERE ARE A LOT OF TECH GUYS. THEY WANT THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, WITHOUT HAVING TO DEAL WITH AN ACTUAL GIRLFRIEND. ".

Soon after they met he flew her to New York and installed her in a chic hotel. Alisa says he was busy most of the time, but she and her friends ran up $60,000 in room service and spa services while he worked. To make up for his absence, he took her shopping at Alexander McQueen, "my obsession. ".

"Being in the L. A. Atmosphere, and at the age of 16 or 17 going out in nightlife—it's all very based on appearance," Alisa says. "Out here, as long as you're wearing Saint Laurent and the newest items, that's all people care about, so my friends and I were obsessed with fashion. I think with our generation, Instagram also has a lot to do with it—people are constantly posting what they have. " She's explaining that she became a sugar baby in order to buy luxury goods.

"My friend who does it says, 'I do it for the Chanel,' " Alisa says wryly. "We both come from upper-middle-class families, but we never felt right asking our parents to buy us designer handbags or something, to put that burden on them financially. I was already working full-time," at a clothing store, "and all my money was going towards helping my parents to pay for school. " So there was nothing left for shopping.

Her assignations with the billionaire went on for two years. "It was purely for financial purposes," she says. "he was not my type whatsoever. " She's reluctant at first to say whether they had sex, but finally admits their relationship was physical. "If anyone tells you they're not sleeping with these guys, they're lying, even if it's just a blow job, because no one pays for all that without expecting something in return. ".

It ended when he started dating a famous beauty; Alisa read about it on a celebrity blog. She had other daddies, during and after him, but then last year she stopped sugaring. "I haven't done it in a really long time," she says, "solely because of how it made me feel. Like it just makes you feel worthless 'cause they don't pay attention to your brain, they don't care what you have to say. They just care that you're attractive and you're listening to them. I don't want to ever have to look back and think, like, I made it to this point just because I used my body to get there. " A friend who got "envious" of her postings on Instagram also told Alisa's parents what she was doing. She says, "She called me a prostitute. ".

"It's Transactional".

'She's a pro," murmurs the young guy at the bar at Vandal, the hot new restaurant on New York's Lower East Side. "And so is she. " he's cocking his head toward some women in the room who are drinking alone. "How do you know? I ask. "You know," says the guy. "They let you know. ".

"The thing is, nowadays," says his friend (they both work in real estate), "there's the hidden hos. Like they're hos, but they pretend to be just some regular girl hitting you up on Tinder. ".

"I hate that," the first guy says. "The hidden hoochies. ".

"The ho-ishness," the second guy says, "is everywhere. I used to take girls out to dinner, but then I'the see they'the eat and bounce—they just want a free meal—so now it's no more dinner, just drinks. ".

"IF ANYONE TELLS YOU THEY'RE NOT SLEEPING WITH THESE GUYS, THEY'RE LYING. . . NO ONE PAYS FOR ALL THAT WITHOUT. . . SOMETHING IN RETURN. ".

Their complaints are of a type commonly heard online, on social media and rampant threads: "All women are prostitutes"; women just want to use men to get money and things. The Internet holds a mirror to the misogyny doing a bro dance in the background of this issue.

I ask the guys why they think some men pay for sex, especially when dating apps have made casual hookups more common.

"It's transactional," the second guy says. "There's no one blowing up your phone, demanding shit from you. You have control over what happens. ".

I tell them how Seeking Arrangement promotes itself as feminist. ("Seeking Arrangement is modern feminism," says founder Brandon Wade, 46, an M. I. T. -educated former software engineer, on the phone. His InfoStream Group includes a number of other dating services, such as Miss Travel, where a woman can find a traveling "companion" to "sponsor" her vacation.).

"Oh, come on," the first guy says. "They call them 'daddies. ' They call women 'babies. ' ".

"You can't tell who the hookers are anymore," says another guy at the bar, a well-known the. J. In his 30's. "They're not strippers, they're not on the corner, there's no more madam. They look like all the other club girls. ".

He tells a story of a young woman he let stay in his hotel room one weekend while he was working in Las Vegas. "She met up with this other girl and all of a sudden they had all these men's watches and wallets and cash. They were working. " he laughs, still amazed at the memory.

"It's like hooking has just become like this weird, distorted extension of dating," the the. J. Says. " 'he took me to dinner. He throws me money for rent'—it's just become so casual. I think it's dating apps—when sex is so disposable, if it doesn't mean anything, then why not get paid for it? But don't call it prostitution—no, now it's liberation. ".

$50 for the Powder Room.

Jenna says that a friend of hers was sexually assaulted by a man she met on a sugaring site. "She didn't want to report it," she says, "because she didn't want her parents to know what she was doing. " Women in sex work reportedly experience a high incidence of [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123), as well as a "workplace homicide rate" 51 times higher than that of the next most dangerous job, working in a liquor store, according to the American Journal of Epidemiology.

"If prostitution is really just physical labor," says the Canadian feminist writer and prostitution abolitionist, Meghan Murphy, on the phone, "if it's no different than serving coffee or fixing a car, then why would we see [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123) as such a traumatic thing? If there's nothing different about sex, then what's so bad about [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123)?

Jenna, the video-game designer, did Seeking Arrangement for two years, between the ages of 19 and 21. As with other young women I spoke to, the catalyst for her was when she couldn't pay her rent: "I had like negative $55 in the bank. My mom was guilt-tripping me about asking her for money. ".

The night Jenna Googled "sugar daddies," she says, she'the also just come home from a "very bad date" with "a guy who smelled. " "I was like, I can't take this anymore, these guys are horrible. I just want someone who's going to have some manners, or at least some better hygiene. " It was a refrain I'the heard from others, including Miranda in Austin, who complained, "The dude bros are infantile, they're rude. " "Wish you could send an invoice" to a "fuck boy that used you," said a young woman on a sugaring page on Facebook.

"So I was like, If I'm going to spend my time with some guy and have it be horrible," Jenna says one night at a dark East Village bar, "then if I get some money at the end of the night, at least I get something. ".

The guys she met on Seeking Arrangement weren't horrible, she says, but some of them were "weird. " "Because I know a lot about video games I tend to attract, like, the nerdier (Brooklyn) tech guys. Like the ones who are looking for someone who can talk to them, like, 'Oh, you're into Harmony Korine? You like Trash Humpers?

"They're actually profoundly lonely guys," she says, "and think this is the only way that they can meet women. ".

There was the guy who just wanted to brush her hair, for hours, as she sat watching television in a hotel room. He brought his own brush. And there was the guy who was "fat—not like morbidly obese, but big. " he liked to take her out for long dinners.

She usually charged around $400 for an encounter. "The guys don't like talking about money, so they'll just like leave money in your purse. " What Holly Golightly called "$50 for the powder room" was discreetly offered, she says, "because then it can feel more like real dating to them. ".

But it wasn't real dating, and after a while it began to bother her, as she realized the men, although "generally nice," didn't actually respect her. "I think the sugar daddies just see the sugar babies as working girls," she says. "They would never consider a monogamous relationship with someone who would need to do this to survive. It's like a class thing. They see you as beneath them, desperate.

"Sometimes I think, Did I really have to resort to this?" she asks. "Or was I being validated in some way?" She was a "late bloomer," she says, and wonders if part of her felt reassured of her attractiveness by having someone pay to have sex with her. "But that's crazy. ".

She stopped sugaring when she got into a serious relationship; now she lives with her boyfriend in an apartment with four others. "One day, one of our roommates was watching porn, and he says to me—he had no idea what I'the been doing—'Do you think there are sex workers who are really into it?' I think it's, like, a male fantasy. ".

Wish Lists.

Interestingly, the young men I talked to who do sex work voiced few qualms about whether what they were doing was empowering or disempowering. One straight guy I spoke to who's on Seeking Arrangement (the company claims to have more than 400,000 "mommies") did say that he was sometimes uncomfortable with "not being in control of the situation. ".

One night at Macri Park, a gay bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Derek is having a drink with friends. He's 20 and an art student from New Jersey. "I do RentMen, I do dominating," he says. "People want to be hit, beat up—mostly older guys. One's a Broadway actor. I work for dungeons and I have private clients. I don't have to have sex with them—just whip them with devices, or beat them with my hands. Or I do muscle worship"—where guys ogle and touch his body.

"If I do it two or three times a week," he says, "I can make my rent, I can eat, I can make my art. ".

Once upon a time, young artists and musicians came to New York looking to find a creative community where they could thrive, but now, as David Byrne noted in a piece in The Guardian in 2013, the city has become virtually unaffordable to all but the 1 percent, inhospitable to struggling artists. "One can put up with poverty for a while when one is young, but it will inevitably wear a person down," wrote Byrne.

"Especially with the intern culture—like New York runs on interns—it's impossible to get a decent job," says Katie, the visual artist, at Macri Park. "I was sending out 20 e-mails a day for the first five months I lived here," looking for jobs, "and I was like, This isn't working. " Now she does Webcamming. She says she "feels okay About it," and uses it to "fuel my art. " She dresses up as a Disney princess for men to explore "the effects of princess culture on my sexuality. " If a client turns out to be a "creep," someone whose attitude she can't abide, she'll just "nuke them," or turn the Webcam off.

"IF I DO IT TWO OR THREE TIMES A WEEK, I CAN MAKE MY RENT, I CAN EAT, I CAN MAKE MY ART. ".

She and her friend Christopher start talking about the Amazon "Wish Lists" that sex workers set up for their clients. In lieu of money (which is sent through PayPal or Venmo), clients can pay with gifts. "I know guys who've gotten iPhones, laptops, a flat-screen TV," says Christopher.

"A lot of people have the really practical ones—like 'I want silverware, a blender,' " says Katie.

"I've seen people put furniture, even like shaving cream and razors," Christopher says. He pulls up one of his friends' Wish Lists on his phone. The young man wants a stuffed PokéMon. Doll.

Travis, 27, a porn actor from Virginia, has been a professional escort for years. He says he bemoans the way social media has made it so easy for anyone to do. "There's a lot of people with day jobs now who are making good money and doing escorting on the side—you'the be surprised. " Why do they do it?, I ask. " 'Cause they're greedy," Travis says. "The market is flooded. I'm so over it. ".

Benefactors.

At the Seeking Arrangement Party 2016, a masquerade ball, babies and daddies crowd into Bardot, a lounge in the Avalon Hollywood nightclub, in LOS Angeles. Exotic dancers writhe around on risers. General-admission tickets are $100, the drinks aren't free, and many babies aren't drinking. Some seem antsy. Many have spent the day at the Seeking Arrangement Sugar Baby Summit, hearing how they should expect to be "spoiled" and have men pay for things. So they've gotten dressed up, put on Eyes Wide Shut-like masks, and come here to meet their potential "benefactors. ".

"I'm just looking for someone to pay for my boob job," says a small blonde woman who flew into town from Utah; she's a Mormon. "I thought I must be doing something wrong because all the guys I've met on the site so far have been sending me dick pics and hairy-butt pics. ".

The place is filled with guys who resemble John McCain. "My daughter's 36," I hear one saying to two rapt young women. He pulls out pictures from his wallet to show them—actual photo printouts.

There's another type of guy here, the jumbo-size Danny DeVitos. "I thought they said these girls were going to be 10's," I hear one of them telling some other guys. "But this is like a buncha 5's and 6's. Maybe they'll take an I. O. you. " The other men chuckle.

"Why do men pay for sex? I ask a young man, the handsomest in the room. "Sometimes in Vegas if you're drunk," he says with a shrug. I ask him why he's here. "I work all the time, and I don't have time for a girlfriend. " he says he works in tech. "But I like to flirt and have company, not just sex," he goes on. So he does Seeking Arrangement. I ask him how much he pays the women. "Depends how much I like them. ".

There are a lot of young black women here. "I'm kind of surprised," says a young black woman named Nicole, 25, "but not really. They're probably here for the same reason I am, which is there's a lot of racism on the site, like guys will just openly say, 'No black women,' so maybe they thought they'the have a better chance in person. ".

Nicole is lovely and has a job as an executive assistant. I ask her why she's seeking an arrangement. "I want to start a handbag line," she says. "I have all these great designs and ideas. And I just don't see how I could ever get together the capital. So an investor would really help. ".

She seems to truly believe the Seeking Arrangement marketing, that she might find that supportive, encouraging person here. We look around the room. There's a John McCain with his hand on the behind of a young black girl. Her smooth skin looks so young and fresh in the lamplight, next to his wizened face.

*The names of the young people in this story have been changed to protect their identities.

[D Cups]

QUOTE=Intransit;1891441 The steady creep of "sex work" into 21st-century vernacular is neither incidental nor accidental ENDQUOTE.

Very interesting article. I have a brown sugar that visits me 2 - 3 times a week for $40/ pop (BBBJ / video). I don't think she's pro but I could be wrong. She has a regular job but of course likes the extra cash. It's a real quick blow and go arrangement. Stress management for me.

[Koperen Klaas]

This issue becomes confused when the issue of "trafficking" enters the discussion. NO ONE should condone trafficking involving forced prostitution, enslavement, child prostitution, etc. However, what two CONSENTING adults do in private should not be a matter for government involvement or interest. If a woman freely chooses to offer sexual services in exchange for compensation, it is hard to find a "victim" in this activity.

Sex traffickers forcing women into prostitution and sexual slavery are scum. They should become the sex toys in prison.

A woman's reasons for selling sexual services are hers alone. If she freely makes that decision, government should not intrude.

One has to wonder how many police resources are focused on busting women who freely offer such services versus the gangs that force women and children into sexual slavery.

One could argue that a properly regulated sex industry (medical checks, prevention, etc) if freely available, would put the illegal traffickers out of business.Completely agree. I know a number of sex workers who went into the trade completely of their own free will.

One likes the work and occasionally even orgasms with clients. She used the proceeds from her work to buy a house, where she occasionally entertains clients. Mostly she works in clubs and "behind the windows" (sorry, don't know the proper English expression).

Another one thoroughly enjoyed her work behind the windows in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and was furious when the red-light area was closed down. At first she resorted to receiving at home, until she found another red-light area to work in. I was a regular client in Utrecht and she really loved DATY, as shown by the fact that she became soaking wet.

Both loved barebacking because it felt better inside them.

I could go on, but this will have to suffice for now.

Regards,

Ko.

[The Cane]

http://www.ozy.com/wildcard/point-taken-should-paying-for-sex-be-a-crime/69977?utm_source=AOL&utm_medium=pp&utm_campaign=pp

[Member #4446]

I read a lot about [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908) and forced prostitution. Do you guys ever think about that or do you just don't care? I understand that its hard to tell what is what, but sometimes I wounder how common it is. I met some girls in Angeles City that could not go home because they owe the bar money for clothes and flight tickets etc. Just want to discuss this. Just wounder what is your moral in this topic? If you go in a privat brothel how the hell can you know who is forced or not?

[Chocha Monger]

I read a lot about... and forced prostitution. Do you guys ever think about that or do you just don't care? I understand that its hard to tell what is what, but sometimes I wounder how common it is. I met some girls in Angeles City that could not go home because they owe the bar money for clothes and flight tickets etc. Just want to discuss this. Just wounder what is your moral in this topic? If you go in a privat brothel how the hell can you know who is forced or not?Don't believe everything you hear from Angeles City bar girls. When the girls say that they can't go home because they owe the bar money, it does not mean that they are being coerced into working at the bar. This is just a pitch to get sympathetic newbies to pay permanent bar fine. This is about a year of the girl's salary. She gets half of the amount and the bar gets the other half. The girl can then pay off any debts to the bar, coworkers, and pawnshops. After she has settled her business in Angeles City, she is free to go home with a nice chunk of cash. However, in almost all cases the girl will wait until her foreign sponsor leaves town and go right back to working at the bar. Some may take their ID and health permit and go to work at a different bar or go into freelancing.

Some girls borrow money from the bar and leave town without repaying the debt. The only consequences they face is not being able to work at the same bar again. So, there is no coercion at the bars catering to tourists. The girls' families also know exactly where they are and what they are doing. Who do you think sent them to work in the bar in the first place?

Many Filipino families send their daughters to work abroad as domestic workers in head chopping countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We could argue that their families are forcing them to work in these places. At the end of the day all forms of employment are nothing more than compensated restrictions of privileges. Employees are economically coerced to exchange their time and labor for money. In modern economies most people are forced to work for businesses and governments in order to survive. Except for the extremely wealthy and a few uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, very little freedom is left in this world.

[Member #4446]

I think prostitution is ok if its between adults and volunteer. But here is the dilemma. If I meet a girl from Africa or another poor country in Thailand for example. You know or you can assume that the girl has some sort of help to get to Thailand; maybe an organisation she stills goes to your room voluntary but you don't know what kind of pressure she has from the people who brought here there, she could have been tricked etc. So is it voluntary? I don't think guys do a background check on every girl they bring to the room. What do you think? Whats your moral responsible in this case?

[DavePhx]

. You know or you can assume that the girl has some sort of help to get to Thailand; maybe an organisation she stills goes to your room voluntary but you don't know what kind of pressure she has from the people who brought here there, she could have been tricked etc. So is it voluntary? Probably 90%+ of the bar girls, independants on the streets etc are adults trying to make a living often to send money upcountry to poor family members. Many Raids in Thailand and Manila that were media hypes for "sex trafficking" were very happy adults choosing sexwork as a legitimate occupation to earn relatively good money. Yes 10% might be forced. , [CodeWord902] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord902) that should go after. But most efforts are wasted doing a media hype for the victim industry.

In Canada, the Russian mafia was connected to many large Russian agencies that were very popular. The women paid their handlers a fee and agreed to work long hours to pay off the handlers who got them fake visa's etc to get into Canada. But for the most part they were very willing since after maybe 2 years of working and paying off the mafia, they were totally free go join other agencies. I have a friend who knew such a gal and after 2 years became happy married and went on to a good life in Canada.

In recent years this has it seems gone away with more crackdown on immigration into Canada. Where visa's use to be issued for strippers since clubs could not find enough Canadians that ended a few years ago with pressure from conservatives.

Maybe 10 years ago, a "bad" mafia pimp kidnapped some escorts doing outcall and locked them into a house with sealed doors and windows. Since the police are not feared in Canada and prostitution is / was legal (at least outcall until 2013 when incall also made legal. Old bawdy house law violated the harm reduction idea and the Canadian Charter of Rights), the women locked themselves in a bedroom and called 911 for a robbery in progress so police would break in. LE arrested the bad mafia pimp and gals had no problems (even though bawdy house was illegal at the time).

[Member #4446]

Hard to tell the numbers how much that is forced or not but it must be easier to have volunteers than monitor girls 24 hours. And today when everybody have a cellphone and could easily write to a family member or if you are in the street to stop a cop. But I think girls from Africa in Thailand probably have to pay hard for their tickets. And their pimps take most of the profit. Hard to tell. Saw that they busted 60 African girls the other day nobody claimed that they where forced. Just regular tourists right!

[DreddPaul]

I support prostitution as long as it is not directly forced. If prostitution stops then [CodeWord124] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord124) will increase in third world countries.

[Member #4446]

I support it but there's grey scale that I don't like. I mean when people put girls girls in debt and makes a lot of money from it. Think about all girls that sell themselves abroad far from home. Someone paid for their expensive tickets etc and let the girls pay double back. I think it's very common. I know it's a free choice but I prefer to pay the girl directly. How do all african girls end up in Thailand. Dominicans in South America etc. Who paid for?

[AllTooHorny]

I support prostitution as long as it is not directly forced. If prostitution stops then "CodeWord124" will increase in third world countries.I'm not sure forced intercourse would increase anywhere if prostitution did not exist. By your logic, forced intercourse would be more frequent among populations that can't afford to buy sex, but that's not the case. Men (and women) are lead to violate others by compulsion, not "necessity" or dry spells or blue balls. There would be just as many [CodeWord127] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord127) whether or not prostitution existed. What do you think came first? Forced intercourse or prostitution?

[Intransit]

http://www.playboy.com/articles/should-you-pay-for-sex?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=em_hero_image&bxid=57d94d8dd9cb9453098b4ace

Should You Pay For Sex Before You Die?

By Andrea Werhun.

Ah, to be a millennial in 2017. You're young, you're beautiful and tonight, you can walk into any bar and have your pick of the finest sweet things in the room. You pick the hottest one, engage in some harmless negging and ask in your classic cavalier way if this lucky lady would like a drink. Without hesitation, the answer is a self-assured yes. Another easy ask: her number. She gives it freely and with abandon. One "Netflix-and-chill?" text later and she's at your place, ready to fuck. For you, life is full of these easy, non-committal lays with attractive woman who have nothing to lose, right? Life is good. And when life is this good, paying for sex seems out of the question. Why pay for it when you can get it for free?

Speaking as someone who for two years worked in the industry as an agency call girl, perhaps you need to reconsider.

Picture this: after years of living the good life, your career takes off. Work is stressful, so your hair begins to thin. Your sedentary office lifestyle downgrades that once-emerging six-pack into a pre-fatherhood beer belly. You finally choose a girl from the revolving door of babes and continue your American dream, settling down with a couple of kids. After fucking the same woman for a few years, you start to look at yourself and wonder, Who am I? What have I become? What happened to that strapping young buck who fucked a different hot chick every month? Sex used to be easy. Now you can barely get it up.

You yearn for those days of easy, non-committal sex, but look in the mirror: You're not the stud you used to be. Your relationship with the "old lady" suffers. There's daily bickering, a blasé sex life and one too many disagreements on how to discipline the children. One day, without warning, she leaves and takes 50 percent. To alleviate the pain, you download whatever app the cool kids are using nowadays and upload your most deceptively attractive pictures of you at the beach, the club and the game. It takes some time to conveniently crop your ex-wife and kids out of frame. A week later, no matches. For the first time in your life, the reality of being a perennial left-swipe sets in: your peak days are behind you.

You find yourself absentmindedly perusing the adult classifieds where hundreds of women are offering a plethora of sexual services. Seeing a sex worker never occurred to you when you had your pick of the hot-babe litter, but now, well, you've come to accept that free and easy non-committal sex may just be a vestige of the past. There's a sting of humiliation as you realize that an attractive woman's body, the smell of her sweet pussy, her focused attention on your body and your pleasure altogether are all luxuries and privileges you no longer have access to at whim. What exactly do you have to offer a beautiful lady besides your money?

Here's the scoop: You don't need to be a newly divorced bachelor reliving his glory days to enjoy the fruits of a sex worker's labor. In fact, why not pay for sex while you're young—while life is good? Everyone—young or old, male, female, trans, straight or queer—has plenty to gain from the focused attention of a sex worker, whose ability to produce pleasure can do wonders to alleviate loneliness, stress and general discontent. Maybe you're happily single, but experience an occasional longing for physical intimacy. Perhaps there's something sexual you've always wanted to try, but have been too afraid to ask. Sex workers to the rescue! Why not pay a professionally open-minded and non-judgmental lover to satisfy your sexual needs? After all, it could be me at your door.

I can attest to the benefits of seeing a sex worker. Like you, I enjoy having easy, non-committal sex, but unlike you, I enjoyed it as my job. Fucking for money benefited my life in myriad ways: I made a ton of money, paid off my debt, covered my rent, traveled around the world, met fascinating people and lived to tell the tale. Sure, not every day was honky dory—how could it be when [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123) and murder are occupational hazards?—but on the whole, it was a great job.

In my experience, the vast majority of my clients were men between the ages of 35 and 65. They were professionals and businessmen, artists and nerds, the broken-hearted and the differently-abled—oh, and almost always married, but that's another story. Only a few men were under the age of 30, whose lack of manners, sexual prowess and conversation abilities left a little more to be desired. But hell, I was being paid to fuck the youngin's. What of all those hot babes they were having mediocre sex with for free?

While my older clientele tended to be polite, respectful, fun to talk to and skilled in lovemaking, millennial men fucked as if they were filming their big porno debut: Little to no eye contact or conversation and a lot of bravado amid the nausea-inducing haze of Axe body spray in the bedroom of their parents' basement.

You can do better than that. Let a professional lover teach you how.

If you already enjoy the occasional, daily or breakfast-lunch-and-dinner viewing of pornography, consider this: you already rely on the labor of sex workers to meet your sexual, mental and emotional needs. The only difference between watching porn and paying for sex is human connection—and in this day and age, connecting with a real life human is a hot commodity. The bread and butter of a sex worker's job is connecting with her client via listening, eye-contact, touch and sexual pleasure. Talk about bang for your buck.

But I know what you're thinking: Isn't paying for sex unethical? Aren't all sex workers victims of abuse, coerced into exploitative labor that only financially benefits their pimps? That's the stigma talking, baby. You see, as it often happens when sex workers speak for themselves—not as disempowered victims but as people who value their work—our opinions are misconstrued as exceptions to the rule. This so-called "rule" is actually prejudice serving to further disempower sex workers by ignoring their lived experiences.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't to say that some sex workers aren't disempowered victims—not when most of their work is criminalized, they are forced to live and work in hiding, and a predator can abuse them with little legal impunity—but that shouldn't diminish the value of their points of view.

So, should you pay for sex before you die? Sure, if having great sex with a professional—no matter your gender, orientation or perhaps most importantly, your age—is your idea of a good time. You may even wish you'the done it sooner.

But for god's sakes, lay off the body spray.

Andrea Werhun is the author of the forthcoming book Modern *****, a collection of memoir, fiction and photography created in collaboration with filmmaker Nicole Bazuin. Based on her two years as an escort in Toronto, the book is set to be published by Impulse: be in October 2017. Follow Andrea on Twitter: at andreawerhun.

[Dickhead]

"Lay off the body spray. " LMAO!

[Chocha Monger]

I support it but there's grey scale that I don't like. I mean when people put girls girls in debt and makes a lot of money from it. Think about all girls that sell themselves abroad far from home. Someone paid for their expensive tickets etc and let the girls pay double back. I think it's very common. I know it's a free choice but I prefer to pay the girl directly. How do all african girls end up in Thailand. Dominicans in South America etc. Who paid for?You would have to ask the girls who provided the financing for their sexual entrepreneurship. That is the only way to find out. There is no independent certification for sustainable sourced or fair trade pussy. Frankly, I am not a feminist and don't own a pussy, so I don't stay up at night wondering how someone else's pussy arrived on the market at a particular geographic location. When we see a Dominican or African women in the United States, we don't suddenly start wondering who paid for their expensive plane tickets or how they managed to get a visa to enter the country. So, why should this arouse curiosity in Thailand or South America? After all, this the Age of Globalization and Americans now eat fish and shrimp raised in ponds located in China, and how they manage to get it to supermarket freezers in the United States at lower prices than locally sourced seafood is far more fascinating than how hookers get their pussies to international markets.

[Intransit]

https://www.playboy.com/articles/amnesty-international-prostitution

Culture.

Can Amnesty International Help Legalize Prostitution in America?

By Jessica P. Ogilvie.

Illustration by Jun Cen.

May 10,2017.

When Eileen, a former prostitute, was working the streets of Seattle, she dressed more like a mall rat than a sex kitten: jeans, a T-shirt, Chuck Taylors. She chose this look not to attract a certain type of customer, or even to make her days of wandering the streets more comfortable.

"I didn't wear high heels or a negligee," she says, "so I could run from the cops. ".

Now 53, Eileen (who asked that we withhold her last name) is a social worker. Thinking back on her time in the sex industry, she's emphatic in her belief that she would have been safer if her work hadn't been criminalized. In addition to worrying about the police, she was harassed by clients, robbed of her few belongings and unable to access health care for fear of being stigmatized or reported. And too often, law enforcement did worse than make arrests.

"I've had cops tell me that if you do this or that"—I. E. , perform sexual favors—"they'll let you go. It happens every day. There's probably some woman getting shook down while we're having this conversation. ".

For centuries, law enforcement, government and religious organizations have criminalized prostitution and other forms of sex work. But the oldest profession in the world doesn't seem to be going anywhere, and according to both sex workers and a range of experts, keeping it illegal serves only to endanger those engaged in the practice. That's why, in August 2015, Amnesty International—one of the largest human rights organizations in the world—announced it would join the effort to decriminalize sex work.

In May 2016, the group released its official policy paper on the issue. The 17-page document states that continuing to treat sex work as a crime infringes on the human rights of consenting adults. It recommends repealing laws that penalize sex workers, educating law enforcement on how to protect sex workers and providing health care that's free of stigma and discrimination.

Patricia Schulz, a United Nations gender-equality expert who sits on the organization's Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, lays out the cost of ignoring those recommendations.

"When prostitution is criminalized, sex workers risk being abused," she says. "They risk being manipulated. They risk being forced to have sex with police workers. If they're brought to detention, they might be raped by other inmates. They might be raped by other workers. There's a whole series of violations of their rights arising from the situation. ".

This insight comes after years of hearing from sex workers in many countries, studying the issue and, she says, "traveling a long way" from her initial view on the matter.

"When there's no penalty, it means sex workers can have an apartment; they can have an alarm system, a guard to make sure nothing happens," she says. "From a pragmatic position, there's no benefit of criminalizing the activity. ".

Schulz's line of thinking, however, has some surprising detractors. Amnesty International's 2015 announcement was met with a Change. Org petition signed by, among others, Lena Dunham, Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson, asking the organization to reevaluate its position. The petition states that "the sex industry is predicated on dehumanization, degradation and gender violence. " It calls prostitution "a harmful practice steeped in gender and economic inequalities. ".

In January, a dispute erupted among organizers of the Women's March on Washington over the inclusion of sex workers' rights in their official platform. Reportedly intended to embrace all groups marginalized under the new presidential administration, the platform initially included the phrase "we stand in solidarity with sex workers' rights movements. " Then, on January 17, reporters covering the March discovered that the phrase had been quietly removed. Following an uproar on social media, it was put back in and currently reads "we stand in full solidarity with the sex workers' rights movement. ".

March organizers made no formal statement about the removal or reinstatement other than to tweet the phrase in question on January 19 with the hashtags #WhyIMarch and #WomensMarch; they did not respond to playboy's request for comment. But the surrounding controversy indicates that even among highly progressive women advocating for their own bodily autonomy, sex work is still a lightning rod.

Savannah Sly, president of the USA -based Sex Workers Outreach Project, has worked for more than a decade in the sex industry. She argues that those who oppose her profession, while perhaps well-intentioned, disregard the basic rights of sex workers to do their jobs and do them safely.

"God forbid something does happen and I'm assaulted or robbed," she says. "I am an outlaw. ".

Opposition to prostitution is as old as prostitution itself. As far back as the year 596, the king of the area now known as France and Spain declared that sex workers should be flogged and banished. Sex work has been frowned upon in the United States since the Pilgrims first set up shop in New England, and by the early 1900's, prostitution was officially criminalized in most USA States.

"There was such social stigma to it," says Melinda Chateauvert, author of Sex Workers Unite. "Prostitutes were considered to be ruined. ".

In recent decades, things have changed. Measures introduced by lawmakers that are based on morality alone—think opposition to marriage equality—tend to face a steeper battle in the court of public opinion than legislation with an eye toward, say, protecting vulnerable members of society. In response, the movement to shut down the sex industry hasn't died; instead, it has grown more subtle offshoots whose rhetoric often conflates all prostitution with sex trafficking.

"Before, sex workers were seen as dirty working girls," says Sly. "Now, these women are victims who need to be rescued. ".

One of the largest antiprostitution outfits is the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, a New York–based nonprofit founded in 1988. CATW's goal, according to its website, is to "end [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908) and the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children worldwide. " The group asserts that all sex workers need saving, regardless of how or why they engage in their work. A 2011 paper published on its website claims, "Prostitution is a sexually exploitive, often violent economic option. " (CATW declined to be interviewed for this article, stating, "Please don't take this personally, but we don't interview with playboy or any other pornographic magazine as a matter of policy. ".

The basis of this position—that all sex workers are victims—makes no distinction between consenting adults and [CodeWord902] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord902) or otherwise vulnerable people who are forced into sexual labor. Amnesty International states clearly and repeatedly throughout its 2016 policy paper that the two are not interchangeable: "Forced labor and [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908). Constitute serious human rights abuses and must be criminalized. . [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908), including into the sex sector, is not the same as sex work. ".

Schulz clarifies the point further: "The notion of selling sex services is really within the context of a decision made by two adults who negotiate a certain price for certain acts. If a person is being trafficked and is obliged to perform sex acts, it's a form of [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123). ".

The stigma that all sex workers are damaged, traumatized or victimized spills over into the lives of those engaged even in legal work, with very real and serious consequences.

Porn actress Bonnie Rotten—in 2014, at the age of 20, she became the second-youngest woman to win the AVN Award for female performer of the year—encountered this problem while trying to report a sexual assault to police. Several years ago, she discovered she had been raped in a particularly gut-wrenching way: Her attacker filmed it and posted the video on the internet. She says the man drugged her before assaulting her. "I didn't really know what happened until the video came out," she says.

Rotten hired a lawyer, but by that point she had already become famous for her work in pornography. When she went to the police, they recognized her. "They acted like I was a scumbag for trying to do something about it," she says. She eventually settled two years later, succeeding in having the video of her [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123) taken offline. But the ordeal wasn't without trauma.

"It's very hard for any of us to go to the police when this stuff comes up," she says. "The legal system doesn't look at us as an equal in the community. It's like, 'You guys agreed to this by spreading your legs once on camera. How are we supposed to differentiate?8201;.

Nowhere in this discussion is anyone making the argument that all sex workers love their jobs. Some women (and men—sex workers are predominantly, though by no means exclusively, female) enter the field because of financial problems, a lack of educational opportunities or a dearth of other job prospects. What makes sex work stand out from other lines of employment, though, is that while plenty of people don't like what they do for a living, few industries inspire the formation of nonprofits intent on outlawing them.

With that in mind, it's hard to accept that much of the antiprostitution platform isn't built on the same puritanical values that inspired the criminalization of prostitution. Sex work, after all, touches on some uncomfortable truths about sexual desire—truths that perhaps not everyone wants to acknowledge.

"There is a difficulty in accepting that if there are prostitutes, there are clients," says Schulz. "It's not very comfortable for many women to ask themselves whether their partner goes to see other women, and if so, what does he do that he doesn't do with them?

But sex work's threat—or its power, depending on how you look at it—runs even deeper than that. Emboldened sex workers represent a significant challenge to the current balance of power between men and women. If women are legally able to capitalize on their sexuality and the female body is no longer controlled by male-dominated governments, power will shift. The sex industry will go from a buyer's market, if you will, to a seller's.

"If women can make these choices for themselves," says Chateauvert, "men no longer control the world. ".

Amnesty International's position remains unchanged. "The policy is still as it stood last year," says a spokesperson for the organization, and it "will guide all future actions we take on this front. ".

But the battle for sex workers' rights is still an uphill one. In April 2016, France enacted legislation modeled on a Swedish law that criminalizes buying, rather than selling, sex; though well-intentioned, it effectively stigmatizes and pushes sex work further underground. Stateside, an August 2016 Department of Justice investigation of the Baltimore Police Department found that some officers had targeted "people involved in the sex trade. To coerce sexual favors from them. " Similar acts were discovered during a scandal involving the Oakland Police Department and an [CodeWord902] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord902) prostitute in June of the same year.

Lawmakers seem to be aware of the problem but unable to find solutions. A bill that California legislators introduced last year would have allowed individual police officers to decide whether to send prostitutes to jail or offer them counseling, advancing the assumption that they need either mental health care or a prison cell instead of access to the same support systems as other workers in the state.

It took Schulz a while to come around to Amnesty International's point of view, but after learning about the experiences of sex workers around the world—from Kenya to Thailand to the you. K. To Canada—the choice became clear.

"This is my personal view," she says. "You can't on the one hand say that every woman has the right to decide whether or not to have children, to decide about the spacing of the birth of their children, to decide on an abortion, and on the other hand say that no woman can decide for herself to engage in whichever activity she decides to engage in. There is an element of autonomy that I have recognized. Who am I to say this is a choice they should not have?

[Intransit]

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/should-prostitution-be-a-crime.html?_r=0

Should Prostitution Be a Crime?

A growing movement of sex workers and activists is making the decriminalization of sex work a feminist issue.

By EMILY BAZELON.

MAY 5, 2016.

Last November, Meg Muñoz went to LOS Angeles to speak at the annual West Coast conference of Amnesty International. She was nervous. Three months earlier, at a meeting attended by about 500 delegates from 80 countries, Amnesty voted to adopt a proposal in favor of the "full decriminalization of consensual sex work," sparking a storm of controversy. Members of the human rights group in Norway and Sweden resigned en masse, saying the organization's goal should be to end demand for prostitution, not condone it. Around the world, on social media and in the press, opponents blasted Amnesty. In LOS Angeles, protesters ringed the lobby of the Sheraton where the conference was being held, and as Muñoz tried to enter, a woman confronted her and became upset as Muñoz explained that, as a former sex worker, she supported Amnesty's position. "She agreed to respect my time at the microphone," Muñoz told me. "That didn't exactly happen" — the woman and other critics yelled out during her panel — "but I understand why it was so hard for her. ".

Muñoz was in the middle of a pitched battle over the terms, and even the meaning, of sex work. In the United States and around the globe, many sex workers (the term activists prefer to "prostitute") are trying to change how they are perceived and policed. They are fighting the legal status quo, social mores and also mainstream feminism, which has typically focused on saving women from the sex trade rather than supporting sex workers who demand greater rights. But in the last decade, sex-worker activists have gained new allies. If Amnesty's international board approves a final policy in favor of decriminalization in the next month, it will join forces with public-health organizations that have successfully worked for years with groups of sex workers to halt the spread of H. I. V. And AIDS, especially in developing countries. "The urgency of the H. I. V. Epidemic really exploded a lot of taboos," says Catherine Murphy, an Amnesty policy adviser.

Onstage, wearing a white blouse with lace, her face framed by glasses and straight brown hair, Muñoz, who is 43, looked calm and determined as she leaned into the microphone to tell her story. She started escorting at 18, after she graduated from high school in LOS Angeles County, picking up men at a dance club a couple of times a week and striking deals to have sex for $100 or so, at a hotel or their apartments. She had a part-time job as a restaurant hostess, but she liked feeling desired and making money on the side to spend on clothes and entertainment. "I really, really did love the work," she told her Amnesty audience of more than 100. "I was a little reckless. " The same recklessness led her to methamphetamine. When her parents found out she was using, they sent her to rehab. She stopped escorting and using drugs and found a serious boyfriend. When she was 24, the relationship ended, and around that time her parents sold their house. Muñoz started living on her own for the first time. With rent and car insurance to pay, and a plan to save for college, escorting became her livelihood. "I was moving toward a goal, and sex work helped me do that," Muñoz told the crowd.

A few years later, however, another ex-boyfriend, with whom she was still close, started to take advantage of the underground nature of Muñoz's work. At first, she told me, he asked her to pay to get his car back after it was towed. Then he started demanding more money and dictating when she worked and which clients she saw. Muñoz didn't exactly seem like a trafficking victim; she was driving her own car, going to school and paying her expenses. But looking back, she says that's the way she sees herself. "Because the work I was doing was illegal, he started to hold it over my head. He blackmailed me by threatening to tell everyone, including my family. ".

The man was violent, and Muñoz extricated herself with the help of a friend, whom she later married. Haunted by the control her ex-boyfriend had exerted over her, she founded in 2009 a small faith-based group called Abeni near her home in Orange County, to help other women escape from prostitution, as she had. A couple of years later, Muñoz, who now has four children, started letting herself remember the period earlier in her life when escorting served her well, as a source of income and even stability. Struggling internally, she had a "crisis of conscience," she says, and came to regret her assumptions about what was necessarily best for Abeni's clients. She stopped taking on new ones, and then turned Abeni into one of the few groups in the country that helps people either leave sex work or continue doing it safely.

At the Amnesty conference, Muñoz told the crowd that she thinks decriminalization would have benefits for many people by bringing the sex trade out from underground. "I believe in the empowered sex worker," she said. "I was one. But the empowered sex worker isn't representative of the majority of sex workers. It's okay For us to be honest about this. " She was referring to the social and economic divide in the profession. Activists in the sex-workers' movement tend to be educated and make hundreds of dollars an hour. The words they often use to describe themselves — dominatrix, fetishist, sensual masseuse, courtesan, sugar baby, working girl, witch, pervert — can be self-consciously half-wicked.

Some of their concerns can seem far removed from those of women who feel they must sell sex to survive — a mother trying to scrape together the rent, say, or a runaway teenager. People in those situations generally don't call themselves "sex workers" or see themselves as part of a movement. "It's not something people we work with would ever talk about," says Deon Haywood, the director of Women With a Vision in New Orleans, an African-American health collective that works with low-income women and trans clients. Some of them sell sex, Haywood says, because it's more flexible and pays better than low-wage work at businesses like McDonald's.

Human rights advocates tend to focus on people in grim circumstances. "Like many feminists, I'm conflicted about sex work," says Liesl Gerntholtz, executive director of the women's rights division at Human Rights Watch, which took a stand in favor of decriminalization four years ago. "You're often talking about women who have extremely limited choices. Would I like to live in a world where no one has to do sex work? Absolutely. But that's not the case. So I want to live in a world where women do it largely voluntarily, in a way that is safe. If they're raped by a police officer or a client, they can lay a charge and know it will be investigated. Their kid won't be expelled from school, and their landlord won't kick them out. ".

Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, along with other groups that support decriminalization — you. And. AIDS, the World Health Organization, the Global Commission on H. I. V. And the Law and the Open Society Foundations — acknowledge that there can be grave harms associated with the sex industry, but say that they see changes in the law as a precondition to reducing them. Last year, an analysis in The Lancet predicted that "decriminalization of sex work could have the largest effect on the course of the H. I. V. Epidemic," by increasing access to condoms and medical treatment. Governments can free themselves to crack down on trafficking and under-age prostitution, human rights advocates argue, if they stop arresting consenting adults.

It's a pragmatic argument. But the sex-workers' movement also hinges on an ideological conviction — the belief that the criminal law should not be used here as an instrument of punishment or shame, because sex work isn't inherently immoral or demeaning. It can even be authentically feminist. "Once you've done it, you always know: When it comes down to it, I have everything I need to survive," says Anna Saini, a former sex worker who is now a sex-worker activist and law student living in Brooklyn. "That's powerful. " This view poses a deep challenge to traditional Western feminism, which treats the commercial sex industry as an ugly source of sexual inequality.

The activists themselves are a fractious bunch. They belong to a variety of small and sometimes competing groups and question one another's bona fides on social media and a blog called Tits and Sass. Women who publicly argue the case for decriminalization tend to be white. Women of color say that it's harder for them to get an audience; they also don't want white women to speak for them. Trans women raise similar objections. "Don't tell my story in support of a CIS woman's story," Monica Jones, who is black and transgender, cautioned me. She did sex work without qualms to help pay the tuition for her social-work degree at Arizona State University. "If you want to be with me, you're going to pay me or buy me a ring," she says frankly of her partners. Two years ago, she accepted a ride to a bar with a man and was found guilty of prostitution; her case became a cause seeélèbre when she challenged her conviction, saying she was just going out for a beer that night, and won her appeal.

Some opponents of decriminalization call themselves abolitionists, consciously invoking the battle to end slavery as well as the one for equality. "If prostitution is legal, and men can buy women's bodies with impunity, it's the extreme sexualization of women," says Yasmeen Hassan, the global executive director of Equality Now, a women's rights group that campaigns against trafficking. "They're sexual objects. What does that mean for how professional women are seen? And if women are sex toys you can buy, think about the impact on relationships between men and women, in marriage or otherwise. ".

The United States has some of the world's most sweeping laws against prostitution, with more than 55,000 arrests annually, more than two-thirds of which involve women. Women of color are at higher risk of arrest. (In New York City, they make up 85 percent of people who are arrested.) So are trans women, who are more likely to do sex work because of employment discrimination. The mark left by a criminal record can make it even harder to find other employment. In Louisiana five years ago, 700 people, many of them women of color and trans women, were listed on the sex-offender registry for the equivalent of a prostitution misdemeanor. Women With a Vision, Deon Haywood's group, won a lawsuit to remove them in 2013.

Because abolitionists see these women as victims, they generally oppose arresting them. But they want to continue using the criminal law as a weapon of moral disapproval by prosecuting male customers, alongside pimps and traffickers — though this approach still tends to entangle sex workers in a legal net.

Last July, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, an abolitionist group, accused Amnesty of supporting "a system of gender apartheid," in which some women are "set apart for consumption by men," in a letter with 400 signatories, including Gloria Steinem, Lena Dunham, Kate Winslet and Meryl Streep. Anna Saini, the Brooklyn sex-worker activist, went from feeling betrayed by the celebrities to feeling victorious. "They threw all this fame and name recognition at us, and Amnesty is still doing what's right," she said. "That was super exciting. " The fight has become, Liesl Gerntholtz of Human Rights Watch says, "the most contentious and divisive issue in today's women's movement. ".

The battle lines among American feminists over selling sex were drawn in the 1970's. On one side were radical feminists like the writer Andrea Dworkin and the lawyer and legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon. They were the early abolitionists, condemning prostitution, along with pornography and sexual violence, as the most virulent and powerful sources of women's oppression. "I've tried to voice the protest against a power that is dead weight on you, fist and penis organized to keep you quiet," wrote Dworkin, who sold sex briefly around the age of 19, when she ran out of money on a visit to Europe.

Other feminists, who called themselves "sex positive," saw sex workers as subverters of patriarchy, not as victims. On Mother's Day 1973, a 35-year-old former call girl named Margo St. James founded a group in San Francisco called Coyote, for "Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics. " Its goal was to decriminalize prostitution, as a feminist act. In its heyday, Coyote threw annual Hooker's Balls, where drag queens and celebrities mixed with politicians and police. It was a party: In 1978, a crowd of 20,000 filled the city's Cow Palace, and St. James entered riding an elephant.

By the 1980's, Dworkin's argument condemning prostitution moved into the feminist mainstream, with the support of Gloria Steinem, who began rejecting the term "sex work. " St. James and the sex-positivists were relegated to the fringes.

The abolitionists moved into the fight against global labor trafficking in the 1990's, focusing on sex trafficking, though most estimates suggest that the majority of trafficking victims are forced into domestic, agricultural or construction work. The abolitionists wanted to erase the traditional legal distinction between forced and consensual prostitution by cracking down on all of it as trafficking. In 1998, they tried to persuade President Bill Clinton — and Hillary Clinton, who was the honorary chairwoman of the Clinton administration's council on women — to adopt their broad definition in an international crime treaty and a federal trafficking bill. It was a striking effort to expand and stiffen criminal punishment, a strategy Elizabeth Bernstein, a Barnard sociologist who studies sex work and trafficking, termed "carceral feminism. " Abolitionists "have relied upon strategies of incarceration as their chief tool of 'justice,8201;" she wrote in 2007. They lost the fight to define all prostitution as trafficking during the Clinton administration. "Those were depressing years," Donna Hughes, an abolitionist researcher and women's studies professor at the University of Rhode Island, said in an interview in National Review in 2006.

When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, Hughes and other abolitionists formed a coalition with faith-based groups, including evangelical Republicans, to lobby the new president. The Bush administration funded Christian groups, like the International Justice Mission, to rescue girls and women abroad. I. J. M. Helped to raid brothels in Cambodia, Thailand and India, working with local police officers who broke down doors while American TV cameras rolled. Donations poured in to I. J. M. From the United States.

But local human rights and women's groups complained about the tactic. After some raids by police forces in India and Indonesia, girls and women were deported, detained in abusive institutions and coerced into sex with the police, according to a 2005 bulletin by the World Health Organization and the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS. Two years earlier, when I. J. M. Reported that there were minors in a brothel in Thailand, the police raided it and locked the women who were working there in an orphanage. The women strung together bedsheets to escape from a second-story window.

Françoise Girard was director of the public-health program at the Open Society Foundations when she met with Gary Haugen, the leader of I. J. M. , and Holly Burkhalter, a senior adviser, in 2007. "I. J. M. Said, 'If we can save one girl, it's worth it,8201;" says Girard, who is now president of the International Women's Health Coalition. "I said, 'What happens to the girls?' And they couldn't answer. " Burkhalter says she doesn't remember Girard's question, but the police did not permit I. J. M. To go on the raid in Thailand. "If we had, it would have gone much better," she says, adding that now, when I. J. M. Helps with raids, "each victim has a case worker. ".

The Bush administration also funded abolitionist research on the harmful effects of prostitution, prominently featuring references to that work on the State Department's website. Hughes, the abolitionist women's-studies professor, denounced strip clubs and lap-dancing in a 2005 report on trafficking that was funded with more than $100,000 from the State Department. Melissa Farley, a psychologist who received Bush funds, wrote in 2000 in the journal Women and Criminal Justice that any woman who claimed to have chosen prostitution was acting pathologically — "enjoyment of domination and [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123) are in her nature. " Non-abolitionist researchers criticized her for presenting the brutal harm of some experiences of prostitution as the near-universal reality without solid evidence.

In part as a response to lobbying by feminist abolitionists and evangelicals, in 2003 Congress barred groups that aided trafficking victims from receiving federal funds if they supported the "legalization or practice of prostitution. " The same year, President Bush committed $15 billion to the international fight against AIDS, but required all recipients of the funding to sign an anti-prostitution pledge. The result was a head-on collision between AIDS prevention and abolitionist ideas. Brazil turned down $40 million in American funds. Sangram, a public-health and human rights organization that was distributing condoms in Sangli, a red-light district in rural southern India, refused to sign the pledge and returned American funds in 2005, at a time when you. And. AIDS cited it as a trusted source on H. I. V. And human rights. "We were distributing 350,000 condoms a month," says Meena Seshu, the director of Sangram, who has a master's degree in social work and has published in The Lancet and won an award from Human Rights Watch. "Do you actually work with people, or do you give them morals? That was the choice. ".

The Obama administration continues to fund organizations involved in rescue missions. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down the anti-prostitution pledge for groups in the United States, ruling that it violated their free-speech rights. But the decision didn't apply to foreign groups, which still cannot receive federal funding to fight AIDS if they support the sex-workers' rights movement.

The current debate over sex work in the United States is often framed as a choice between international legal systems. Abolitionists embrace what they call the Swedish (or Nordic) model. In 1999, at the urging of feminists, Sweden's Parliament passed the Sex Purchase Act, making it a crime to buy sex. Prostitution itself had not been a crime, but the new law deemed it "a serious harm both to individuals and to society," giving the legislation a moral underpinning and aiming to "flush the johns out of the Baltic," as a media campaign declared. A decade later, Sweden announced a reduction in street prostitution by as much as 50 percent and proclaimed the law a success. Though no one had recorded data on street prostitution before the law passed, the claimed drop became the chief selling point for a system that punished men. Yet online advertising for sex increased in Sweden, leading researchers to conclude that the small market was shifting indoors. Norway and Iceland adopted the Swedish model in 2009, and in the last two years, Canada and Northern Ireland enacted modified versions.

Sex-worker activists reject this model. "People think the Swedish state criminalized clients, and not us, because they cared about us, but that was not the case," says Pye Jakobsson, a Swedish sex worker who is the president of the Global Network of Sex Work Projects. "The law is about protecting society, and we're seen as a threat. " Some sex workers say that criminalizing male behavior pushes them to take greater risks. "Women who worked on the street used to have safe spots where they would tell the client to drive," Jakobsson explains. "Now clients say no, because of the police. They want to go someplace else remote. How can the woman be safe there?" In December, a Bulgarian sex worker was found brutally murdered in a deserted parking lot at the harbor in Oslo. Her friends — also migrants from the Balkan States, like many women selling sex in Sweden and Norway — looked for her when she went missing. But they did not go to the police until they found her body.

When the police investigate whether a man has bought sex, "they use it as a reason to check women's documents," says May-Len Skilbrei, a criminology and sociology professor at the University of Oslo. She says that these inspections can lead to deportations. Sex workers also face the possibility of losing custody of their children and being evicted. "If the police tell the landlord they think you're escorting out of your apartment, he has to evict you, or he could be prosecuted," Skilbrei says. The Norwegian police called a long-running Oslo crackdown on prostitution Operation Homeless.

The Swedish government has been clear that it considers the problems the law causes for sex workers an acceptable form of deterrence, reporting in 2010 that the negative effects "must be viewed as positive from the perspective that the purpose of the law is indeed to combat prostitution. " When France adopted the Swedish model in April, the bill's sponsor in Parliament said one goal was to "change mentalities. " On social media, American sex workers poured out their sympathy for their French sisters, who were marching in protest.

Sweden may not be a relevant model for the United States, where the kind of hardship that often pushes people into street-level sex work is more widespread and the safety net much weaker. The difference is relevant, says Rachel Lloyd, the founder and see. E. O. Of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), based in Central Harlem, which helps about 400 girls and young women in New York annually who have been involved in prostitution. She opposes legalization, because she thinks it will increase trafficking. She visited Stockholm two years ago and found it significant that there are so many family services, that few teenagers are in foster care and that most have access to state-funded universities. "I came away thinking: In the USA, we're not there," she says about adopting the Swedish model. "We don't have the social services. " Lloyd says that not enough of the tens of millions of dollars in government funds and donations in the United States that go to fight trafficking are used for services, like housing for teenagers leaving foster care; 70 percent of GEMS members have been in that system. "When you're trying to move forward, you need an apartment," Lloyd says. "You need to go to school. " (In Sweden, she was also surprised to learn that men who are caught buying sex are fined rather than arrested, paying an amount that depends on their income and generally ranges from $300 to $4500, according to a news report.).

Australia has adopted a very different legal model from Sweden's. In 1999, the Australian state of New South Wales repealed its criminal laws against prostitution, freeing consenting adults to buy and sell sex and allowing brothels to operate much like other businesses. (Other Australian states have a variety of laws.) Four years later, New Zealand implemented full decriminalization. Abolitionists predicted explosive growth of prostitution. But the number of sex workers stayed flat, at about 6,000 in New Zealand and somewhat more in New South Wales. Condom use among sex workers rose above 99 percent, according to government surveys. Sex workers in brothels in New South Wales report the same level of depression and stress as women in the general population; rates are far higher for women who work on the street, who are also often intravenous drug users. While the New Zealand government has found no evidence that sex workers are being trafficked across the country's border, last November, the Parliament of New South Wales gave the police more power to monitor brothels, after reports that some were linked to organized crime and prosecutions for "sexual servitude" and exploitation. One involved a Thai woman who was recruited in Bangkok and told she would learn to be a hairdresser.

A couple of years ago, a Seattle dominatrix and outspoken activist who goes by the name Mistress Matisse flew to Australia for three weeks and spent a week working. "I just had to see what it was like," she says. At home, she writes for The Stranger, Seattle's alternative weekly, and frequently tweets about the practice and politics of sex work to her 27,000 Twitter followers.

In Australia, Matisse worked at a small brothel called the Golden Apple (small bar, six bedrooms) in Sydney, which is in New South Wales, and a larger one called Gotham City. "I thought: I won't be Mistress Matisse. I'll just be a girl doing full service" — intercourse — "which I hadn't done for years," she says. She saw three or four clients a night and then went to the beach.

Matisse contrasted working in Australia with working in a brothel in Nevada several years ago. She much preferred Australia. Nevada limits legal prostitution to a small number of brothels in rural areas, and they are subject to strict licensing requirements. "In Australia, you go home every night, and you can have a cigarette, go on a date, stay in a normal head space," Matisse said. "In Nevada, you had to be in the brothel 24/7. It was like a cross between summer camp and a women's prison. " Most prostitution in the state takes place illegally outside the brothels, in Las Vegas and Reno, with more freedom but also more risk.

Germany has a similar two-tiered market. The country became a growing destination for sex tourism after introducing in 2002 new regulations for the legal sex trade, with an estimated 400,000 sex workers. Migrant women working underground, some of whom are lured into crossing the border, face the same threat of deportation as in Sweden. Meanwhile, licensing requirements raised the cost of setting up brothels, favoring chains and big businesses, including a 12-story, neon-lit brothel in Cologne. "What's strange is how industrial the brothels are," says Skilbrei, the professor at the University of Oslo. "They control the women, for example with health checks. " That's not the model sex workers are fighting for, because it diminishes their autonomy.

Amnesty distinguishes the laws in Germany (and the Netherlands, where sex work is legal but regulated by local authorities) from those in New Zealand and Australia, which place "greater control into the hands of sex workers to operate independently, self-organize in informal cooperatives and control their own working environments," the human rights group states. Melissa Farley, the psychologist and abolitionist researcher, rejects all of these models. "The state functions as a pimp, collecting taxes, which I consider blood money," she wrote in an email last December. In the most recent government research, a 2008 survey of 770 sex workers by the New Zealand government, most reported that they were not likely to report violence to the police, which the government attributed to their sense of stigma. Farley sees this as proof that "wherever prostitution exists, the harm goes with it, regardless of legal status. ".

To Amnesty, the lesson is that decriminalization isn't like flipping a switch — it takes time for attitudes to shift. There are signs that this has begun: In the 2008 New Zealand survey, 40 percent of sex workers also said they felt a sense of camaraderie and belonging, suggesting that their relationships with one another may provide an antidote to stigma. Annah Pickering, who does street outreach for the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective, describes a more recent dynamic with the police that would be unthinkable almost anywhere else. "We used to wave the police down for help, and they'the keep driving, but now they take sex workers' complaints seriously," she said. She told me about an incident in South Auckland last year. "One client negotiated with a street worker; she did the act, and he refused to pay. She waved a cop down, and he told the client he had to pay and took him to the A. T. M. To get the money. ".

Sixty years ago, after Gloria Steinem graduated from Smith College, she spent two years in India on a fellowship observing village-based land reform. Returning to the country in 2014, she called prostitution "commercial [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123)," making headlines. Until recently, Indian feminists shared Steinem's views of prostitution, but many have gradually shifted their thinking. In 2014, Lalitha Kumaramangalam, the chairwoman of India's National Commission on Women, came out in favor of decriminalization, saying it would help protect sex workers from violence and improve their health care. Reaction within India was mixed. But the refusal of Americans like Steinem to rethink their broad-brush condemnation of sex work, or the wisdom of rescue tactics, angers some feminists there. "Why have you locked yourself into saving sex workers in India and not engaged with the larger women's movement?" asked Geeta Misra, who runs the human rights group see. Are. E. A. In New Delhi, which tries to build feminist leadership and expand sexual and reproductive freedom.

The debate shifted in India largely because of the role of the country's sex-worker collectives, which are among the largest in the world, and which exert a social and political force that has no parallel in the United States. Founded in the early 1990's, the collectives first proved adept at helping to slow the spread of H. I. V. Melinda Gates went to Sonagachi, the red-light district in the city of Kolkata, in 2004 and wrote in The Seattle Times about a sex worker named Gita and her peers, who "have helped to increase condom use from zero to 70 percent in their district, and to reduce H. I. V. Infection rates to 7 percent — compared with rates as high as 66 percent among sex workers elsewhere. " Gates concluded by announcing that the foundation she created with her husband, Bill Gates, would spend $200 million to fight H. I. V. In India, an amount later raised to $338 million.

The sex-worker collective in Sonagachi, the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (D. M. S. See. , the "Unstoppable Women Committee" now has 65,000 members and runs schools for the children of sex workers, who often face discrimination, and has established banks where sex workers can open accounts. In rural Sangli, 6,000 people belong to Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (or VAMP, "Sex Workers Fight Injustice" an offshoot of Sangram, the public-health group.

While it's illegal to own a brothel or sell sex on the street in India, indoor prostitution is not against the law. Enforcement is uneven, and the police sometimes demand sex or bribes. Nevertheless, the relationship between the police and sex workers can approach a tenuous theétente that allows the collectives to assert themselves. A project of the Gates Foundation, from 2005 until 2011, used the collective model to organize 60,000 sex workers in Karnataka. They brought in peer educators to talk to the police and lawyers to teach sex workers about their rights not to be harassed and, often, not to be arrested. As arrests dropped, so did violence by the police, pimps and clients, along with the H. I. V. Rate, according to a study last year in The Journal of the International AIDS Society.

Human rights advocates, including Amnesty, think the sex-worker collectives are a far better means of preventing trafficking and under-age prostitution than brothel raids. The. M. S. See. And VAMP run screening boards in Sonagachi and Sangli, which interview women who are new to the district, asking if they've entered the sex trade willingly and sometimes checking birth certificates for proof that the women are at least 18 (partly out of self-interest, because older women often don't want to compete with younger ones). It's not a perfect system by any means. Among other shortcomings, high-end brothels in Sonagachi, run by people called agrawalis, don't participate in the collective's condom distribution, say researchers, including Prabha Kotiswaran, a faculty member at King's College, London, who conducted months of field work in Sonagachi for her book "Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor. " "The agrawalis are a source of under-age trafficking," Kotiswaran says. At other brothels, however, she saw the. M. S. See. 's staff trying to help girls leave and find better options than state-run protective custody, where they often wind up after raids. "That's a nightmare, like prison," Kotiswaran says.

Indian feminists want poor women to have alternatives for making a decent living, but they are hard to come by. Kotiswaran found that women could make roughly six times as much doing sex work in Sonagachi as they could at a garment factory. In one study in 2011 of more than 5,000 women across India, only 3 percent said they were "forced" into the sex trade, and only 10 percent said they freely chose it. The rest fell into the gray area in between, giving reasons related to poverty or issues like domestic violence or desertion.

In any other context, American feminists would celebrate tens of thousands of women organizing to improve their lives. But Steinem expresses deep suspicion of the Indian sex-worker collectives. The. M. S. See. Has enabled "the sex industry to attract millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation," creating "a big new source of income for brothel owners, pimps and traffickers," she wrote in the newspaper The Hindu in 2012. Last fall, in an interview with Esquire, she called the foundation's work in India a "disaster" and said there was "no evidence that women have the power to make men use condoms. " (Through a spokesman, the Gates Foundation declined to comment.) Yet studies have shown large jumps in condom use when sex workers organize, and the annual rate of new H. I. V. Infections in India has fallen by half.

Steinem's guide in Sonagachi, and during part of her 2014 trip, was Ruchira Gupta, an Indian former journalist who founded a group called Apne Aap, which tries to help women leave sex work and has helped the police raid brothels. Gupta has strong ties with American abolitionists. She received funding from the State Department during the Bush administration, won a Clinton Global Citizen Award in 2009 and is scheduled to receive an honorary degree from Smith College this month. Steinem is on Apne Aap's advisory board. Nicholas Kristof, an opinion columnist for The New York Times who has gone on brothel raids (including one in Cambodia that he live-tweeted), has called Gupta a "brilliant social entrepreneur. " When I asked Gupta about the Gates Foundation's work preventing AIDS, she said: "They're thinking about the 45-year-old man who is the client. Instead of protecting women and girls from [CodeWord127] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord127), they protect the men from AIDS. " Gupta similarly denounced Amnesty and Human Rights Watch: "They see a little girl in a brothel and think it's fine, if we give her a condom. " Rachel Moran, author of the recent memoir "Paid For," who calls herself a survivor of prostitution in Ireland, also says that "Amnesty International has taken their views directly from pimps and traffickers. " Amnesty categorically denies these accusations, explaining that it consulted sex workers along with doing extensive research. "We recognize that harm can occur in sex work, but to characterize the sex-workers' rights movement as a front for pimps is really shocking," Catherine Murphy of Amnesty says.

Steinem declined to talk to me. Her assistant said she would defer to Gupta as "her source on this subject. " Human rights advocates question Gupta's approach because of the complexity of sex work in India. Many women who sell sex do so alone or in small groups, out of homes or in side streets, truck stops, parks or railway stops. Some rent rooms from women who have done or continue to do sex work. Those women are often the ones arrested on charges of brothel-keeping or trafficking, says Siddharth Dube, a public-health expert and former senior adviser at you. And. AIDS who writes extensively about sex work in India in a memoir, "No One Else. " he adds, "And this is a disaster, because this is a helpless impoverished woman in her 40's or 50's trying to survive. ".

There is another side to prostitution in India, which Dube says is far less prevalent: Small rural communities in which, for some families, prostitution is intergenerational, and women or girls are expected to enter the trade. These are some of the most difficult places in which to fight trafficking. "You must try," Dube says. "But you're walking into a very complex and explosive situation where you can make huge errors of judgment in identifying who is a trafficker. " Like everyone I spoke to, he opposes under-age prostitution. But to address it, "you can't just have raids in a slipshod way or seek publicity. You have to really painstakingly try to solve these problems with the community. ".

Apne Aap concentrates much of its work in these kinds of communities and has brought in the media to cover raids and intergenerational prostitution. But one TV segment, "The 'Fallen' Women of Perna," which was broadcast on the TV show "India Today," provoked beatings by some family members of some of the girls and women who appeared on the show, according to former American and European interns and Indian staff members of Apne Aap who wrote letters criticizing the organization in 2014. They sent the letters to Apne Aap's main funder, the NoVo Foundation in New York, founded by Warren Buffett's son Peter.

Gupta questioned whether the beatings occurred and said that if they did, "it wasn't because of Apne Aap. " She told me she hated the show's title, but the group promoted the segment, which included an interview with her. "Through the use of occasional media," Gupta says, "we frighten the local authorities not to collude with the traffickers, and we frighten the traffickers to think what they're doing will go public. ".

The former Apne Aap employees also wrote that "there is a disconnect" between the organization's head office and the "needs and voices" of the field offices and the girls and women they aim to serve. After the letters, Apne Aap ended the international intern program. It also stopped renting an expensive office and house in Delhi, far from its field work, and hired Dalberg Development Associates to assess its impact over the previous five years. Dalberg praised Apne Aap's work bringing women together, providing legal training and, in particular, helping to place children at risk of prostitution in residential schools, but recommended that the group "reduce or delink direct involvement" in brothel rescues.

Apne Aap is halfway through receiving a two-year $700,000 grant from the NoVo Foundation. In an email, NoVo said it continued to support the organization out of concern for the "marginalized girls and women who rely on Apne Aap for essential services. " The American support, in particular by Steinem, for Apne Aap's model saddens and frustrates Indian feminists who promote the sex-worker collectives. "Gloria Steinem was one of our icons," says Meena Seshu of Sangram. "We really looked up to her. Why doesn't she come and listen to the people here, with respect and dignity?

A few years ago, VAMP, the Sangli collective, made a short film, "Save Us From Saviors. " On camera, a leader in the collective named Shabana says: "I started doing sex work when I was 12 years old. One of my sisters was burnt to death. I might also have been killed, so I ran away. " In the next shot, dressed in a bright yellow sari, she sits with her two children, and one of them kisses her on the head. "It is only recently that I've started thinking it's good that I'm in sex work," Shabana says. "I don't have to depend on anyone for anything. ".

What would decriminalization in the United States look like, if the sex-workers' rights movement got its way? It's hard to apply lessons from other countries. Some activists think the best way to find out would be to start with a local experiment. "You need one place to try it," Meg Muñoz said to me, mentioning the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. "You need the right testing environment. " It's not clear where that would be, though; San Francisco voters rejected a decriminalization referendum by a wide margin in 2008.

The way decriminalization might play out probably lies in the unsexy details of implementation. Cities could use zoning ordinances to address concerns about the effects on residential neighborhoods by confining brothels, like strip clubs, to industrial areas and limiting their size. Trafficking and promoting under-age prostitution would remain crimes. People could work discreetly in their own homes or hotels without fear of reprisal. The sex industry could become safer, as activists hope. It's also possible that the sex trade would grow, as abolitionists warn, especially if one area turned into a sex-tourism hot spot.

Until now, abolitionist ideas about punishing men and treating women as victims have dominated legal reform in the United States. Seattle, for example, has announced a shift toward arresting male clients and connecting sex workers with services. But sex workers I spoke to around the country, in a variety of life circumstances, raised questions about how punishing buyers would make their lives better; they would still be participating in illegal transactions and have something to hide. An older escort told me that if she didn't dread exposure and losing her business, she would report under-age prostitution and trafficking to the police if she witnessed it.

Three years ago in New York, abolitionists encouraged the establishment of [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908) Intervention Courts for people arrested on prostitution charges. Judges mandate services like counseling to address trauma and can dismiss charges against those who attend and aren't rearrested. It's better than having a criminal record, sex workers and their advocates say, but women who don't comply can still end up in jail, and some of those who attend say they resent being forced into the mandated counseling. The courts also authorize pretrial detention, sending women to jail to protect them from men in their lives, if a judge deems it necessary, or simply to prevent their immediate return to prostitution. These courts are an experiment in "penal welfare" because they repackage criminal intervention as social services, argues Kate Mogulescu, the founder and supervising attorney of the Exploitation Intervention Project at the Legal Aid Society. A few months before the trafficking courts opened, New York State passed a "bawdy house" law, making it easier for prosecutors to institute eviction proceedings for prostitution if landlords do not.

Last spring, with support from abolitionists and conservatives (the same coalition from the days of the Bush administration), Congress passed the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, which makes the crime of buying sex from a trafficking victim equivalent to sex trafficking itself. The maximum sentence is 99 years in prison. Rachel Lloyd of GEMS thinks the emphasis of reform should be on helping girls and women, not increasing penalties for men who pay for sex. In 2008, she helped pass a safe-harbor law, which treats juveniles in prostitution as victims, rather than criminals, in New York. (More than half the states have such laws.).

Talking to sex workers across the country, in a variety of life circumstances, I heard a range of feelings about what they do. A self-described East Indian courtesan in New York said she loved "playing a role, developing a fantasy we can both walk into out of our mundane lives. " A dominatrix who lives on the Upper East Side told me she sometimes felt good about making an emotional connection. Then her tone changed. "But God, I hate putting on the strap-on. " A woman in Brooklyn said her clients meant nothing to her. "I only care about my kids," she said. "This is about providing for them. " Mistress Matisse, the Seattle dominatrix, treats some clients as friends; one does her taxes, and another, an exterminator, checks her house for bugs. She raised thousands of dollars from clients and online donors to help a woman named Heather in West Virginia, who told me she hated sex work but was doing it to buy heroin, pay for living expenses and go into drug treatment. "If you don't want to do this work, you shouldn't have to," Mistress Matisse told me. "I can see how it would bruise your heart. " Other women, sounding numb or even traumatized, said that they had to dissociate to get through their time with clients. Ceyenne, an activist who was arrested a few years ago while doing "fetish work" in New Jersey, said, "Mentally and physically, it's a lot to carry. " She wrote a memoir, and she speaks regularly to L. G. be. T. Youth groups. "When I talk to these girls coming up now, I tell them to reach for more. ".

The traditional feminist argument against decriminalization is that legitimizing prostitution will harm women by leading to more sexual inequality. The human rights argument for it is that it will make people's lives better, and safer. In this fight over whose voices to listen to, who speaks for whom and when to use the power of criminal law, the sex-workers' rights movement is a rebellion against punishment and shame. It demands respect for a group that has rarely received it, insisting that you can only really help people if you respect them.

Correction: May 22,2016.

An article on May 8 about prostitution misstated the legal status of prostitution in the Netherlands. It is legal throughout the country — not just in Amsterdam — though subject to local regulations. The article also misidentified the academic field of Elizabeth Bernstein, a Barnard professor who studies sex work. She is a sociologist, not an anthropologist. And the article described Bulgaria incorrectly. It is a Balkan State, not a Baltic State.

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer for the magazine and the Truman Capote fellow at Yale Law School.

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Is Prostitution Just Another Job?

By MAC MCCLELLAND.

Chelsea Lane was a freshman at Reed, the esteemed liberal-arts college in Portland, Oregon, when she first became *interested in sex work. Someone in her humanities class had a Tumblr about being a prostitute, prompting a lively debate among fellow students over whether they could ever sell their bodies. "I started reading sex workers' blogs," Lane explains. The women behind the blogs sounded confident, financially secure. "And within Reed, it was like, 'That's cool. That's edgy. '8197;.

Lane describes herself as "fat and hairy" and is so pale she almost glows. She grew up poor but "had a zero-trauma childhood" in a conservative Northern California town. "My parents were the most supportive," she says. "They've been married for 35 years and still love each other. They did tell me I'm beautiful and awesome. '8197;" But she still felt insecure about her body and about sex. "They're your parents, so they don't say, 'You're a beautiful sexual creature. ' Because that's creepy and weird. There's a disconnect between thinking I can do anything in life versus thinking I'm beautiful physically. " Lane, who had lost her virginity to another virgin at Reed in what she describes as "really disappointing and bad" sex, started contacting the sex-work bloggers, asking if curvy girls could be strippers. "I didn't feel attractive or wanted, but these ladies told me that everybody has beauty and that there is someone out there who will appreciate it — who'll even pay for it. ".

The more she learned, the more appealing sex work became. She had visions of going to grad school and liked the idea of having wealthy men fund her education. Later in her freshman year, she posted a personal ad on a sugar-daddy website. She met her first client at a hotel. "The sex was really bad," she says, "but he was a decent guy. He was in his mid-40's. He told me that I was the second person he'the ever slept with, other than his wife. He put the money in my purse. As soon as I got in my car, I counted and was like, 'Holy shit, that's $300!' At this point, I'm 18 and working at Sears. I was excited. ".

From there, sex quickly became a side job. She'the meet about ten clients a week, making $1,000 to $1,500. "The first several months of me escorting was like, 'I relish their worshipping my body. ' It's amazing. There have been two clients throughout my entire time that made me feel dirty, and that's because it was obvious they didn't see me as a person. But that was two out of hundreds. " And anyway, she says, "I can think of personal partners who treated me like that. ".

She has her own Tumblr now. On her first anniversary of escorting, in February 2015, she wrote that, at 20 years old, she is less isolated, better paid, in contact with "wonderful" people, and "getting laid on the regular. " Her story has been added to the body of personal accounts that changed her own perception of sex workers years before. "They're people," she says she realized then. "Not sad drug addicts walking on the street. ".

The stereotype of prostitutes as streetwalkers is indeed somewhat dated in the United States, where for decades an estimated 80 percent have done business indoors. More recently, the internet has fostered unprecedented acceptance of sex work among the public, as it did for Lane, with sex-workers-rights hashtags and grassroots social-media campaigns that make visible women who are working by choice. Sites like SeekingArrangement.com, which connect sugar "babies" with sugar daddies, technically forbid prostitution, but have also helped normalize sex work; currently around a million USA College students have accounts with the service, according to the company. In 2012,38 percent of Americans thought sex work should be legalized; last year, amid growing support for legalized marijuana and increased personal freedom, that number went up to 44 percent.

The issue made news last summer, when Amnesty International, one of the world's most prominent human-rights organizations, voted to campaign for the decriminalization of all aspects of sex work, from buying to selling. After two years of research and deliberation, it said, it had concluded that full decriminalization would better empower and protect sex workers. In response, more than 300 human-rights-organization representatives, writers, activists, and actresses including Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep signed a heavily footnoted letter arguing that full decriminalization would lead to an increase of involuntary sex slaves, "who are mostly women," and "support a system of gender apartheid" in which resourceless females become objects of consumption. These opponents to decriminalization support the "Nordic model," which punishes buyers, brothels, and pimps but not the sex workers themselves, a system pioneered by Sweden that has since been adopted in some form in Iceland, Norway, Northern Ireland, and Canada. The idea is to ultimately end the trade without harming the women, who are seen as its victims, by targeting the more powerful economic agents, namely men.

Of course, "it's not just women" in the industry, points out Barb Brents, a professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "But so much of the anti-decriminalization argument is about the symbolism of protecting women. " In the open letter, men were mentioned only as consumers and peddlers. Brents chalks up the relative disinterest in male sex workers — with the notable exception of last year's federal raid on Rentboy.com — to the "gendered norms of sex: Men are active and have a tireless sexual drive. Women are passive and don't. " Savannah Sly, the president of Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) USA, a national grassroots advocacy network, calls the "hysteria" around "women and girls, women and girls, women and girls" a strategy for justifying "the war on working girls. ".

The debate has highlighted a rift among feminists, pitting two deeply held beliefs against each other. One side argues that women should be free economic agents, capable of making choices in their own self-interest, empowered to own their sexuality and use their bodies however they choose. If Chelsea Lane wants to become a sex worker, why shouldn't she be allowed to do it legally? Those on the other side believe that the Chelsea Lanes of the world are a tiny fraction of sex workers and that many who "choose" this life are not choosing freely or choosing at all. And, even for someone like Lane, how can that choice ever be untangled from society's persistent cultural misogyny and inequality?

But for both sides, the issue boils down to whether decriminalization makes women safer. The little research that exists doesn't definitively settle the dispute. Some studies show that legalization, as enacted by Germany and the Netherlands, is associated with higher rates of trafficking — people being coerced or conscripted into sex work against their will. Decriminalization advocates, along with some researchers, argue that this is due to onerous regulations that can unintentionally push sex work to underground markets. (In Nevada, where prostitution is "legal," but only in strictly regulated brothels, there were nearly 4,000 arrests for prostitution in 2014.) Some studies have found that the decriminalization of selling, but not buying, sex has led to less street prostitution; other studies have not. There's research that finds that criminalization leads to more abuse of sex workers and research that finds an overwhelming number of sex workers want out, are traumatized, and suffer from addiction. And other research that doesn't.

One area where there seems to be a lot of consensus is in sex workers' desire to be able to seek the protection of the law without fear of prosecution. A 2012 report by the you. And. Cited research that found an "overwhelming majority of (female sex workers) interviewed wanted sex work to be legalized or decriminalized. " Many other current sex workers, from the Caribbean Sex Worker Coalition to swop to the 50,000 members of Calcutta's Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, agree.

Chelsea Lane does, too. Lane was adamant that she didn't want to contribute to the "white happy hooker" narrative: "So many people think sex work is only acceptable if you do it because it's fun and empowering," she says. "And I've seen this other set of dialogues, on Tumblr mostly, where sex workers are saying, 'No, it's a job like any other, and we don't necessarily enjoy our jobs, but we still deserve safe working conditions. ' Personally, my self-esteem is soaring. Sex work really allowed me to grasp hold of my sexuality and to embrace myself. " But even if she weren't so white and happy, she maintains, it would still be her right to do it. "I used to love Anne Hathaway. She's still classy, but maybe I have like ten less respect points for her. ".

This was, by and large, the response of sex workers all over the internet after the open letter to Amnesty International was published: We don't need anyone else to speak for us—much less privileged actresses who are far removed from our experience. But advocates on the other side say there are plenty of sex workers who do need someone to speak up on their behalf, because they are marginalized and essentially voiceless. The argument is whether it's condescending and paternalistic to let others decide what's best for sex workers, or irresponsible not to.

Reagan is not a white happy hooker — she is not white, for one, and her feelings about sex work are complicated. "When I first started doing this, I was raped," she says. "That's what I mean when I say working in this industry is bad for your personal life. Because I was in the industry, I knew this could happen. I didn't like it by any means, but it didn't traumatize me the way that it probably should have. ".

Reagan — who is not really named Reagan (her name has been changed, as have the names of almost everyone in this story) and who has "been 29 for like five years" — tells me this as she drives west across the state of North Carolina one Friday night after dark, toward the more rural areas where she prefers to work. In cities, "if you have an over*abundance (of workers), you have to fight for a price and market yourself in a different way or cheaper, and I'm not about cheap," she says, barreling further away from her home in Charlotte. "Like with any other business, if you want to be an entrepreneur, you look for a need. There's not a lot of black girls out here. " Most of the time, Reagan's job is surprisingly mundane — identifying the markets, assessing rates, doing cost-benefit travel analyses. Her wardrobe is low-key: "I probably look like a schoolteacher," she says.

The night she was raped, Reagan had gone by herself to meet a client. "It seemed like a nice area, and it was my first time there, and it was close to downtown. " She'the used Priceline to find the hotel. "I get there, and it's a dump. I thought, I'll just do this one appointment, and I'll go to a better area. When the guy came, he robbed me at gunpoint, and then he decided he wanted a little action. ".

Reagan was not aware of the decriminalization debate until I mentioned it to her, but despite her mixed feelings about sex work she believes it should be legal. Her opinion is influenced by what happened that night. "When I called the cops, they were just like, 'Ah, okay. ' They didn't do anything. I don't dislike cops — they're just doing their job — but if the law allowed them to be more accepting, maybe they could help more people. If I were ever to get raped again, I wouldn't call the police. At all. For what? Because of the profession that I chose to work in, you are considered less than. It's almost, 'You asked for it because you work in this industry anyway. You're already having sex with people — what's the big deal?8197;.

Raised a Southern Baptist, Reagan "didn't come up in the lifestyle," and says she freely chose this line of work. "I probably have better degrees than a lot of people," she says. "I do this part time, and I double my salary as a paralegal. " That's why she does it. "I'm not saying there's not a lot of drug addicts who do it and people who've been victimized. I know for a fact that lots of people who work in the sex industry were molested. I was not. For the most part, the girls on the internet have probably never walked the streets. That type of hustle I wouldn't even understand. Either you really devalue who you are or you've really been beat up in life to hustle for $20. " That's what the street workers, who local police say are almost exclusively substance-addicted trauma survivors, charge in the Blue Ridge Mountain town where she's headed. Reagan charges ten times that, per hour. "When I first started, I charged $400. There's no way in hell I'the screw somebody for $200. I don't actually offer sex anymore, but I used to. Because I don't offer sex" — she does erotic massage, domination, "touching" — "I'm okay with these rates now. ".

Reagan stopped offering sex to clients to appease her boyfriend. They recently broke up, "but I think we're working on it, so I chose to give up the sex part of it. " But she didn't want to give up escorting entirely, even though it gets to her sometimes. "Some things don't matter if it's illegal or not; it's about the ethics. I'm probably the most ethical prostitute who ever was. I didn't want to know if (clients) were married. I made them take off their ring — I don't want to know because I feel bad. There are days when I think, Jesus, is all I can offer in life sex? I wasn't raised that way. So what the hell brought that across my mind? It's very degrading. " Reagan's clients don't make her feel that way; it's the message she gets from everyone else. "It's taught from a very young age in America that this is not acceptable behavior. ".

A month before this conversation, Reagan was arrested. This, she says, is the worst thing that's happened to her as a sex worker. "It traumatizes me more to walk into a man's hotel room and think he's a cop than that he's going to [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123) me. I'm more concerned about a criminal record. I almost have a panic attack every time I walk into someone's hotel room. " She worries that if she ever left her job as a paralegal — or if her employer found out about the arrest and fired her — she wouldn't be able to get another straight job. "It'll never go away. I definitely hurt myself, in a sense. I sacrificed some of the other things I wanted to do later in life. I'll never be able to work for a company. I'll have to build my own. ".

Tonight, in western North Carolina, Reagan has "some things" scheduled. After a two-hour drive, she pulls up to a hotel, where she has a reservation. "I don't intend on working in this industry much longer," she says, walking through the hotel parking lot. "I'm working on a group home for children, and also a car lot. ".

For Anna, a 22-year-old who recently moved to New York, decriminalization is a practical matter. She started a limited-liability company pretending to be a graphic designer, "because I needed a way to pay taxes. I feel really guilty evading taxes; I make a really good living. Paying taxes is also good for your future. " This way, she says, "I have an income history," which will be important "if I want to buy property down the road or apply for credit cards. ".

Anna is petite, with fine hair and delicate features and a high, whispery voice. She started working in the industry three years ago. "I listened to Dan Savage's podcast in high school, and I remember him talking about sex work and sugar babies. So that's how I got the idea. " Her parents were wealthy but square. "If I hadn't been listening to those podcasts" — Sex Nerd Sandra was another favorite — "I wouldn't have started. They exposed me to a lot of stuff and kind of made me more comfortable with sex in general. " When she moved out of her parents' home for college, she put an ad on Backpage. "I started for fun, to make money on the side. ".

Her parents found out, though, cut her off, and stopped speaking to her. "That's when I transitioned to doing it as a source of income. I couldn't pay tuition. " She ended up dropping out of school anyway, working full time, and she still doesn't have any contact with her parents. "We had a pretty close relationship," she says, sounding resigned. "It was a big deal. It was hard then, but I've definitely gotten over it. ".

It was one of Anna's clients who helped her professionalize her operation, suggesting she meet with another woman he patronized who could help her make a website, improve her pictures, and start making way more money. "he knew I was really young and didn't know what I was doing," she says. "I wasn't charging very much at all, and this girl helped me raise my rates—more than doubled them. " Now she charges a $500-an-hour minimum.

For the most part, Anna likes her job. "I've gotten really used to it, so it almost seems much less scary than doing other things. " The biggest frustration she cites is one shared by many online businesses: "I'm frustrated with the review system," she says. Websites like the Erotic Review let clients write their version of an encounter — like a sex workers' version of Yelp. "I feel like one bad review could ruin your business, so that's been stressful. ".

Other than the family difficulties, Anna's stresses seem not too different from any young person freelancing or starting a small business. She doesn't talk about legal troubles or violent clients, abuse or addiction, nor does she have any existential issues with the work she does. "Ninety-nine percent of everyone is really sweet. I've only had to ask someone to leave once, because the guy was really drunk. I didn't feel threatened. I was just a little bit scared. " Eventually, she tells me, she'll quit escorting and use her saved up earnings to go to beauty school. "If I had unlimited money, I might work toward getting my bachelor's degree. I wouldn't say (being a beautician) is my dream job. It's just feasible for me to do when I get out of escorting. " She's not desperate to get out, though. "Overall it's not been bad, or I wouldn't have been doing it. ".

Cherie Jimenez says that she used to say that, too. That she was fine. The 65-year-old spent some 20 years on and off in the sex trade, and to sex workers who say they're fine, she says, "maybe for now you're fine. " If many active sex workers support full decriminalization, this former sex worker, like plenty of others, has much more negative feelings about the industry. "It almost destroyed me," she says. And that was then. She thinks the sex trade's problems are only getting worse.

Jimenez, who now runs the Eva Center, a sex-work exit program in Boston, is not talking about Anna's small-business concerns. The internet may have made it easier for sex workers to operate like independent entrepreneurs, but it also seems to have increased clients' demands. "Men want more," Jimenez says. "Men's and young boys' introduction to intimacy is gonzo porn, where you play out the fantasy of brutalizing women. " The women who come through her program tell her that the industry "is more violent because pornography is more violent. (Johns) want extra shit, or they don't want to do it safely. ".

In addition to her work at the Eva Center, Jimenez is a member of SPACE (Survivors of Prostitution-Abuse Calling for Enlightenment) International, which advocates for the Nordic model, with the ultimate goal of the total abolition of the sex trade. "We have to get to where men are not buying people to get off," she says. "It's just a harmful practice. " She concedes that the perspective she has from running an exit *program is "skewed. " The women who come to her are in absolute crisis to get out of the business, but she maintains that in general, "to use your body, to sell your body — it does something to you. Not very many people come out of it whole and in a very healthy way. Even under the best circumstances. How many young women do I talk to who have trouble having relationships?" She says the women in her program will ask her if she's married. She says they want to know if they can experience love.

"The further you get away from mainstream life — catch a few (arrest) cases, you have no employment skills, you don't know how to be in the world — the harder it is to get away and feel like you can do something else. " Though she was 20 and sober when she started, she eventually became a daily heroin user. "Horrific things do happen," she says. The homicide rate for prostitution vastly outpaces any other profession's in the USA The industry is especially dangerous for transgender women. Many of the staggering number of trans women who were murdered in the USA Last year were sex workers.

Plus, there's the struggle of "after a while just being a commodity and being a body and trying to hold onto yourself," Jimenez says. In the case of her clients, their efforts to get out are often complicated by addiction and isolation. "They have no viable skills, they have no one to support them," no home, no education, no areésumé; about half of them have been through the system, aged out of group homes. Even with the support of the Eva Center, many of her clients take years to get a straight job.

Sex workers with, say, "master's degrees — they know that they can do something else. Most of us don't have that. " (But even for them, Jimenez doesn't buy the notion of harmlessness: "Those women, do they want their children in this? According to the International Labor Organization, 4. 5 million people worldwide work in forced sexual labor. But Jimenez says the line between being a consenting sex worker and being trafficked is not always clear. Those with boyfriends who pimp them out or beat them, or who have pimps who give them quotas, are they really consenting?

"You can't end the trafficking piece without addressing it as a whole thing, as a sex trade. Decriminalization, which is what Amnesty is calling for, would make this an open market," Jimenez says. "So these women that I meet, it would be legal for them to become completely exploited. The sex-workers people" — by which she means decriminalization advocates within the industry — "say, 'You reduce us all to victims. ' And I get that. But what is it to have a good life? And be healthy and productive and contribute and have access to things? We don't have equal access" to opportunity and education, she says. "That's what Amnesty should be fighting for. ".

Abolitionists, says Jill Brenneman, "equate everything to sex trafficking. ".

That is something that Brenneman, now 49, knows about firsthand. Kidnapped and sold as a sex slave when she was just 15, she was held in a basement and raped by a revolving clientele of sadists for three years until her captor was arrested. One gang [CodeWord123] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123) during that period damaged her vocal cords so severely that her voice still comes out hoarse. She later became a spokesperson for anti-trafficking organizations, ones that happened to be vehemently anti-decriminalization.

Then, in her 40's, she found herself unemployed, laid off from her career as a flight attendant, and she decided to become an escort. "What happened to me as a teenager and what happened as an adult is completely different," she says.

It was "not really" a hard decision, she says. "I needed the money, and if anything, I went from having very little money to having more than enough immediately. I could go to the grocery store and get whatever I wanted. I could go to Starbucks every day if I wanted to. I didn't really mind it. It is a performance. You have a set playlist, and I would literally breathe with the song. For the crescendo I would fake an orgasm. ".

Some of her acquaintances couldn't believe that she chose to become an escort, and there were moments when she couldn't believe she was doing it either. "It sometimes triggered back to the experience as a teenager, but for the most part I really compartmentalized it pretty well. ".

Brenneman describes herself as "a very strong proponent of decriminalization," as long as the paid sex is "between consenting adults. " For one, she thinks the resources that go into arresting sex workers would be better spent pursuing traffickers like her enslaver, who was arrested on unrelated charges — she was discovered and freed by chance. And like Reagan, she thinks that if sex work weren't illegal, she could have gone to the police when a client got violent. Once, when Brenneman was working for an escorting agency, "they sent me on a bad outcall to a federal air marshal. Soon as I got there, I saw his graduation stuff on the wall, and I was like, 'Oh, no; they sent me to a cop. '8197;" She says he asked for anal sex. "That wasn't part of the deal. After 15 minutes, he said he was going to get a drink and came back with handcuffs and a trash bag and forced it. " She had to go to the hospital because he gave her a concussion. The need for protection from law enforcement is a frequent argument of decriminalization proponents. In one survey of New York City sex workers, 27 percent reported police had used violence against them.

Aside from Jimenez, Brenneman was the oldest woman I talked to. She had the distance of having been out of the game for a few years and had had some truly terrible experiences while escorting. I also learned during the course of our conversation that she's dying. She has a rare blood disease; in May 2014, she was given a year to live. I asked her if she had any regrets.

"I do, I do," she said. "The first two years, I didn't charge enough. ".

Can we, should we, let sex workers speak for themselves? No matter how young? Or how disadvantaged? Or what they've been through?

"Who's to say a sex worker's life isn't fine?" says Jimenez. "I was there once. I can say that. " But more than a dozen current and former sex workers I interviewed, some of them selected randomly off the internet, were in favor of decriminalization. I contacted Jimenez specifically because I knew she was against it and no one else had made the argument.

Skylar, a 20-year-old New Yorker, technically fits Jimenez's description of women who do not exactly choose sex work. She was orphaned at a young age by drug-addicted parents and became a sex worker because she couldn't figure out another way to get money for food. She had a boss, whom most people would consider a pimp, and she had no control over clients — or services, if she wanted to get paid. Also, she was a child, with children of her own.

"I was about 15," she says. "My foster mother was giving me $5 a day, just enough to get to and from school, not to get lunch. " The decision to do sex work "came from not being able to do things with my kids, wanting to buy things but not being able to. " Skylar had had her first child at 13. When she was 14, a friend of a friend asked her if she wanted to work at dancing parties thrown by a guy she knew. "She introduced me to the guy, who is now incarcerated because he was trying to solicit 12-year-olds online, and when I got there, he was like, 'Yeah, well, we do dancing parties, but if you want to make extra money, you'll do x, why, and z. ' So he took my body measurements and took pictures and they ultimately decided that I was a good candidate for full-service escorting. ".

Skylar knows this reads like a cautionary tale, yet she doesn't consider herself a victim, and she didn't consider herself a child at the time. "Young women who have survived trafficking, that doesn't fit my experiences," she says. "At 15, I wasn't a 15-year-old. More like a 21-year-old. My circumstances after having a child were totally different from average 15-year-olds'. It's a certain level of responsibility that you have to have. Although being a sex worker probably wasn't my No. 1 pick at 15 years old, that's what was open to me. That was the only option I had because, what, Payless is going to hire a 15-year-old who's going through school and has a kid?

Skylar didn't think of the man who was running the business as a pimp, either. They had their disagreements — "he didn't like the fact that I didn't want to engage with him when I was in school" — but he wasn't abusive, she says, and he never took money from her. "The guys went through a website to select girls. So he got paid from them visiting the website, and then once I was sent to the clients, the client was responsible for paying me. ".

That's where problems would arise sometimes. Clients would refuse to pay the agreed-on amount, or they'the leave because she would try to place limits on what they could do. Two out of five clients would leave, she says, because she didn't seem young enough. "I was only 15 at that time, but I looked a lot older. I had babies by then, so I had stretch marks. ".

Skylar quit escorting for a while, after she found a high school that had a jobs program. But by the time she graduated, she had three kids to take care of, so she went into business on her own. Now, she sets the boundaries when she enters a client's room. "Be aggressive with them," she says. "Because if you're not aggressive with clients, they'll just think they can take advantage of you. The moment you let them step up on even the littlest boundary, then it's like they think that they can overpower you. The power should always be in yourself. ".

She takes as many precautions as she can. At first contact on the phone, she listens to clients' voices to see "if they're saying things that are weird" or give her "that feeling" in the pit of her stomach. Before agreeing to meet them, she Googles their addresses and looks at their houses. (Anna also requires the info on clients' driver's licenses, or two references from other "reputable providers. ") She makes sure a friend knows where she is. For the first meeting, "I have a driver, so when I say, 'Okay, your session is 45 minutes,' then I will open the window and show them that the car is parked right outside their house. That's the way of putting them into the mind-set that people care about me. ".

She considers herself very lucky. "I've never really walked into a situation that was super, super terrible," she says. "I don't want to make it seem like I know for sure that this person is safe, because safety is, like, not real. ".

After high school, Skylar enrolled in college, but she got arrested right before orientation. She was jailed overnight and assigned to a program for sexually exploited children — she was 17 at the time. Attendance was required for getting the arrest off her record, and it conflicted with her class schedule. "I had to drop out of school to finish the program," she says. "Being arrested and being put into this particular program that was designed to help me actually damaged the life course I had set for myself. ".

Escorting is still not Skylar's No. 1 pick for a job. "I'the much rather make great money helping my community and changing laws and changing people's lives than dealing with my clients," she says. "I hate clients. They suck. I don't care about their life, I don't care about their daughters, I don't care about their wives — I don't care," and she hates having to pretend to. "It's a lot of emotional labor. ".

For now, she works in community organizing but continues escorting to pay the bills. "When I get into the apartment that I want, when I have cars, when I can do anything and everything for my children that I want on my own," she says, "that will be my end date. ".

In the meantime, she keeps her client list small. "I do not feel like it's safe to advertise on Craigslist or Backpage anymore. That's pretty much all cops, and legit I can't get arrested again. " Besides, her current clients already know her and want her. "No matter how young I am, some clients are like, 'Oh, you're not foreign, you're not from Japan, you're not European — you're black. You're regular,8197;" says Skylar, who is half African-American and half Puerto Rican. She says her rates are "average" — she's charged as low as $80 for a service, though her highest and preferred fee is $200 per hour. "Prices," she says, "are about privilege. ".

These days, Chelsea Lane works in the Bay Area and charges $400 an hour and $2,000 a night. She has a slick website with professional photos. She's attending a nearby college and works at a corporate firm in addition to seeing clients. Doing both makes her "busy, busy, busy all the time. " She'the drop the day job, but, she says, "I don't want to have a gap on my areésumé. " Financially, she doesn't need both incomes. "My salary more than pays for living expenses. Escorting income is to reach my savings goals: tuition, law-school tuition, and travel. " Plus, she enjoys it.

She does notice a difference in her private life. "When I have sex with personal partners, it's robotic at first. When I'm with a client, I am super enthusiastic and loving it most of the time. But with a personal partner, I realize I don't have to do those steps, or if I don't like something, I can say that. ".

It's been most disruptive to her relationship with her parents, whom she came out to in January 2015. "They were devastated. They consider themselves hippies, but they're weirdly conservative in so many ways. They think sex is something super special, and that's not how I see it at all. " At one point, she stopped speaking with them for a month or two. "But my mom was like, 'I'm your mother, damn it; we're going to have a relationship. '8197;" Now, she doesn't talk to them about her work. "They've convinced themselves I've stopped. They don't want to talk about it at all. I wish I could continue to educate them. ".

Lane hopes to become a lawyer and represent other sex workers. "I despise the stigma attached with my work, though the upside to that is that I've found I'm really passionate about sex-work-rights activism," she says. She thinks she'll probably have to stop before law school. "If I'm a lawyer, there's some ethical questions," given the current laws. But if she could, if the laws were to change, she would like to keep escorting, if for no other reason than to push herself to meet people. "I see myself doing it for the rest of my life. ".

*This article appears in the March 21,2016 issue of New York Magazine.

[Milfotronic]

The idea of the stereotypical buyer is a guy buying sex, oftentimes in some developing or underdeveloped country, from some poorer woman. It has become more common though that white women travel, particularly to Africa, to buy sex from poor guys, in the African case from black guys. I don't see this as a problem. The problem as I see it is that our culture is blind to this fact. We have a hard time admitting that this is occurring. We still want to believe that women somehow have a different and more "pure" sexuality and wouldn't engage in this kind of activity. In other words, we don't believe female "johns" exist. We have seen rich female celebrities finding themselves toyboys, like Madonna, but the thought of women engaging in sex tourism is still a blind spot in our culture.

[The Cane]

The idea of the stereotypical buyer is a guy buying sex, oftentimes in some developing or underdeveloped country, from some poorer woman. It has become more common though that white women travel, particularly to Africa, to buy sex from poor guys, in the African case from black guys. I don't see this as a problem. The problem as I see it is that our culture is blind to this fact. We have a hard time admitting that this is occurring. We still want to believe that women somehow have a different and more "pure" sexuality and wouldn't engage in this kind of activity. In other words, we don't believe female "johns" exist. We have seen rich female celebrities finding themselves toyboys, like Madonna, but the thought of women engaging in sex tourism is still a blind spot in our culture.I've read about German women traveling abroad to Africa for sex. I'm sure they aren't the only ones to do it.

[Shark5]

The idea of the stereotypical buyer is a guy buying sex, oftentimes in some developing or underdeveloped country, from some poorer woman. It has become more common though that white women travel, particularly to Africa, to buy sex from poor guys, in the African case from black guys. I don't see this as a problem. The problem as I see it is that our culture is blind to this fact. We have a hard time admitting that this is occurring. We still want to believe that women somehow have a different and more "pure" sexuality and wouldn't engage in this kind of activity. In other words, we don't believe female "johns" exist. We have seen rich female celebrities finding themselves toyboys, like Madonna, but the thought of women engaging in sex tourism is still a blind spot in our culture.My last two trips to the Philippines I've seen Women Mongers at the bars in AC. I spoke to several of the working girls and they told me it happens quite often. They are usually European women.

[Sabor]

My last two trips to the Philippines I've seen Women Mongers at the bars in AC. I spoke to several of the working girls and they told me it happens quite often. They are usually European women.I've seen it many times in the DR too. But it's ignored and not given any attention by SJWs.

[George90]

I've read about German women traveling abroad to Africa for sex. I'm sure they aren't the only ones to do it.I have read about German and British women going to the Caribbean to pay men to have sex with them. The destinations I read about were Jamaica and Dominican Republic. I first read about this 15-18 years ago!

I found this in the Daily Mail from England:

They are called 'bumsters' in Gambia, 'Rastitutes' or 'beach boys' in the Caribbean and 'sanky pankies' in the Dominican Republic.

These are the men who, in increasing numbers, are providing sex in return for money or goods to women who want a holiday 'romance'.

The men are invariably from impoverished families, have little or no education and are sometimes illiterate.

Most of the women are white, middle-aged or older and come from Europe and North America.

They travel alone or with female friends and often have a history of unhappy relationships with men at home.

They are looking for attention and excitement but end up, often without realising it, being one half of a prostitution deal.

Barbara is one such woman. In her late 50's and divorced, she travelled to Jamaica for her first holiday alone last winter. She had fantasies about sunbathing on white sand and swimming in a clear blue sea, but no plans for a holiday romance.

Her destination was an all-inclusive resort in Negril, on the western tip of Jamaica, one of the biggest destinations for female sex tourism.

[Seamaster811]

As the title states, what is everyone's opinion on continuing to seek paid company after marriage?

I've been a frequent customer since I was introduced to P4 P in my college days. That was about 15 years ago. And during this time, I have frequently paid for sex while being in a relationship with different girlfriends and never really thought much of it. I figured it wasn't cheating since there were no emotions involved and that all interactions ended as soon as the time was up. Just some innocent fun with no strings attached. A business transaction, even. I never gave it a second thought in 15 years. But now I'm recently married and for some reason it's holding me up. On the one hand, I know that I should ideally not be paying for such services out of a higher respect for a wife compared to just a girlfriend; but on the other hand, the habit is proving to be very difficult to give up because as we all know, there's certain things these ladies do that we just can't reasonably ask of our significant others. Not to mention the endless variety, excitement of being with someone new, the girls making you feel like a man, etc. And from my previous experience of mongering while having an established girlfriend, in many ways it actually helps to make our relationship better.

So for the married men out there who still continue to seek paid company (or not), what is your take on the situation and how do you justify the action? No trolling. Looking for some serious discussion here. Opinions from those other than married men are welcome as well. Thank you in advance.

[Intransit]

http://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/jazz-egger-model-prostitution-fashion

It's possible that you've previously read rumors of models essentially doubling as escorts for wealthy clientele. But without specific details, it's hard to delineate what gossip has some basis in reality, and which is merely the stuff of urban legend.

Jazz Egger, a 20-year-old London-based model who has previously railed against her industry for its alleged practices, recently came forward with her claims that prostitution is widespread in the fashion game.

According to The Daily Mail, Egger says that "established models" from "big agencies" have partook in these shady operations for as much as $2 million per night. She further goes on to claim that a pair of young supermodels who are "household names" have dabbled in prostitution in order to get a jump in their career.

As for her personal experiences with these propositions, Egger says that the first offer somebody made to her came last summer at an exclusive club in London, where she was told that the "image modeling job" she was being presented with would involve a trip on a yacht in Greece with a trio of millionaires. Though she declined that getaway, she says that soon afterward a second person came up to her to invite her to have dinner with a "famous" Iranian actor, adding that she'the need to be comfortable with the "natural intimacy" that came afterward. After answering that request by saying she's a "model, not an escort," the man offering to facilitate the transaction said, "It's the most normal thing in the industry. Everyone does it. ".

Some of the text messages from this person, only known as "George," told Egger that "models realize the value of money and how much of a difference it can make. And everyone enjoys having sex, especially with good-looking guys. What is the shame? Society creates double standards that make women feel guilty. ".

While that just sounds like a grooming tactic, he also said "all of these modeling agencies are owned by hedge fund managers wanting to meet girls. ".

"This is how the fashion industry works," he added.

While it's not quite clear who "George," is, and what exactly his specific role within the industry is, Egger did add that some of her colleagues seemed to verify his take on the business.

"I know some models that have done escort work and experienced unwanted sexual advances," she said. "When I shared the article, many of my model colleagues messaged me, telling me about their experiences. It was sad to see that it's such a common and usual thing. ".

Previously, Chrissy Teigen has talked about this grimier side of the profession, saying that models have turned to having sex for lots of money.

"Did you know there are hookers in Cannes who charge $30,000 a night? She said to Du Jour Magazine in 2014. "A lot of models go there to make their side money. I'm definitely not worth $30,000. I don't really have much to offer. ".

As for Egger, who has previously been a finalist for Elite Model Look, in addition to participating in Germany's Next Top Model, she says, "There's so much wrong with this industry and I am going to do whatever it takes in order to change it. It might take centuries, but you have to start somewhere.

[Travv]

"Did you notice there is not one prohibition on sex with a prostitute back in the Law? That's almost a trick question because it doesn't appear on the list, but idolatry is forbidden and part of many of the idolatrous practices was having sex with cult prostitutes for money or with ordinary individuals for free. Deuteronomy 23:17-18 condemns and prohibits both male and female cult prostitutes. But not ordinary money-for-sex prostitution. So actually, what would be perfectly legitimate sex, if done in the context of idolatry is now a sin. Because of the idolatry. But the Easter Bunny needs the idolatry separated from the sex to claim that sex is sinful. The Easter Bunny hates sex. Notice there is not a single reference, anywhere in the Law, that prohibits a man from having sex with any woman he is eligible to marry, whether he is married or not. It is not a sin. ".

https://artisanaltoadshall.wordpress.com/2016/05/23/zanah-church-history/

Interesting discussion. The Old Testament law did not prohibit hiring prostitutes, with the exception of temple prostitutes of heathen gods. Therefore it is not a sin. Adultery (Men sleeping with other men's wives) or relations with relatives was prohibited.


As the title states, what is everyone's opinion on continuing to seek paid company after marriage?

I've been a frequent customer since I was introduced to P4 P in my college days. That was about 15 years ago. And during this time, I have frequently paid for sex while being in a relationship with different girlfriends and never really thought much of it. I figured it wasn't cheating since there were no emotions involved and that all interactions ended as soon as the time was up. Just some innocent fun with no strings attached. A business transaction, even. I never gave it a second thought in 15 years. But now I'm recently married and for some reason it's holding me up. On the one hand, I know that I should ideally not be paying for such services out of a higher respect for a wife compared to just a girlfriend; but on the other hand, the habit is proving to be very difficult to give up because as we all know, there's certain things these ladies do that we just can't reasonably ask of our significant others. Not to mention the endless variety, excitement of being with someone new, the girls making you feel like a man, etc. And from my previous experience of mongering while having an established girlfriend, in many ways it actually helps to make our relationship better.

So for the married men out there who still continue to seek paid company (or not), what is your take on the situation and how do you justify the action? No trolling. Looking for some serious discussion here. Opinions from those other than married men are welcome as well. Thank you in advance.

[Dickhead]

I did not monger when I was married. But, my wife would do anyfuckingthing in bed, and I mean anything. If I could think of it, she would try it, and the shit she came up with on her own was way weirder than my shit. So that helped. I never mongered when I had a steady girlfriend, either. At least for me, if I started thinking about needing hookers, it was usually a sign that the relationship was on the way out anyhow. Personally, I would not be very comfortable with having to hide shit from a serious GF.

The European model of stay married and have a mistress has always intrigued me, but seems awfully expensive.

[Chocha Monger]

The idea of the stereotypical buyer is a guy buying sex, oftentimes in some developing or underdeveloped country, from some poorer woman. It has become more common though that white women travel, particularly to Africa, to buy sex from poor guys, in the African case from black guys. I don't see this as a problem. The problem as I see it is that our culture is blind to this fact. We have a hard time admitting that this is occurring. We still want to believe that women somehow have a different and more "pure" sexuality and wouldn't engage in this kind of activity. In other words, we don't believe female "johns" exist. We have seen rich female celebrities finding themselves toyboys, like Madonna, but the thought of women engaging in sex tourism is still a blind spot in our culture.Women buy sex but less frequently than men do, because in the developed world even lower class unattractive women have access to free sex from young men. Take for example, the recent case of a 31-year-old single mother in the UK who met her 16-year-old toyboy lover on Facebook. She asked him to come over and help sort out the Bush in her garden. He parted her whiskers and planted his seed. Nine months later, he was taking delivery of the harvest.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/3780143/mum-fell-pregnant-by-16-year-old-toyboy-lover-now-happy-family/

Even a 39-year-old mother of three in the UK can be impregnated by a 24-year-old toyboy, becoming a "4 x 4" (4 children from 4 different men). Therefore, purchasing sex is not a necessity for women unless they are particularly frowsy hags or have cravings for exotic cock.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/3652416/heartbreak-for-mum-of-four-42-who-fell-pregnant-two-months-into-dating-a-guy-15-years-her-junior/

[Rocinha]

I have read about German and British women going to the Caribbean to pay men to have sex with them. The destinations I read about were Jamaica and Dominican Republic. I first read about this 15-18 years ago!

I found this in the Daily Mail from England:

They are called 'bumsters' in Gambia, 'Rastitutes' or 'beach boys' in the Caribbean and 'sanky pankies' in the Dominican Republic.

These are the men who, in increasing numbers, are providing sex in return for money or goods to women who want a holiday 'romance'..On this subject watch the film "Heading South" starring Charlotte Rampling- released in 2005. It is about middle aged American and European women holidaying in Haiti in the 1970's. Haiti was a popular tourist destination during the regimes of Papa Doc Duvalier and later his son, Baby Doc. It is a superb film which handles the topic with care. These women are seeking adventure and fun in exotic Haiti with young Haitian men. There is a book of the same title by Haitian writer, Dany Laferriere

[Intransit]

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-41349301

For most of her life in prostitution in New Zealand, Sabrinna Valisce campaigned for decriminalisation of the sex trade. But when it actually happened she changed her mind and now argues that men who use prostitutes should be prosecuted. Julie Bindel tells her story.

When Sabrinna Valisce was 12 years old her father killed himself. It changed her life completely. Within two years, her mother had remarried and the family had moved from Australia to Wellington, New Zealand, where her life was miserable.

"I was very unhappy," says Valisce. "My stepfather was violent, and there was no-one to talk to. ".

She dreamed of becoming a professional dancer and set up a lunchtime ballet class at her school, which proved so popular that a well-known dance group, Limbs, came to run lessons.

But within months she found herself on the streets, selling sex to survive.

Walking through the park on her way home from school, a man offered her $100 for sex.

"I was in school uniform so there was no mistaking my age," she says.

Valisce used the money to run away to Auckland, where she checked into the YMCA.

"I tried ringing someone to ask for help in the phone booth which was outside the hostel, but it was engaged, so I waited," she says.

"The police stopped and asked what I was doing. I said, 'Waiting to use the phone'. ".

The officers pointed out that no-one was using the phone, so there was no need to wait. They thought they were being "terribly clever" Valisce says. But didn't seem to understand when she explained that it was the telephone she was calling that was engaged.

"They searched me for condoms thinking I was a prostitute because the YMCA was behind Karangahape Road, the infamous prostitution area.

"Ironically, that was what gave me the idea to go get some money. The police scared me but I knew I was going to be on the streets if I didn't get cash, and the act of leaning against a wall was all it took to be searched and threatened anyway, so I figured it made no difference if I was or wasn't. ".

Valisce walked over to Karangahape Road and asked one of the women working there for advice.

It felt like there was a revolution coming. I was so excited about how decriminalisation would make things better.

She pointed out two alleyways where Valisce could work. "She also gave me a condom, told me basic charges and advised me to make them fight for services I was prepared to do, to avoid fighting against services I wasn't prepared to do. She was very nice. Samoan, too young to be there, and clearly been there for too long already. ".

In 1989, after two years working on the streets, Valisce visited the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC) in Christchurch.

"I was looking for some support, perhaps to exit prostitution, but all I was offered was condoms," she says.

She was also invited to the collective's regular wine and cheese social on Friday nights.

"They started talking about how stigma against 'sex workers' was the worst thing about it, and that prostitution is just a job like any other," Valisce remembers.

It somehow made what she was doing seem more palatable.

She became the collective's massage parlour co-ordinator and an enthusiastic supporter of its campaign for the full decriminalisation of all aspects of the sex trade, including pimps.

"It felt like there was a revolution coming. I was so excited about how decriminalisation would make things better for the women," she says.

Decriminalisation arrived in 2003, and Valisce attended the celebration party held by the prostitutes' collective.

But she soon became disillusioned.

The Prostitution Reform Act allowed brothels to operate as legitimate businesses, a model often hailed as the safest option for women in the sex trade.

In the UK, the Home Affairs Select Committee has been considering a number of different approaches towards the sex trade, including full decriminalisation. But Valisce says that in New Zealand it was a disaster, and only benefited the pimps and punters.

"I thought it would give more power and rights to the women," she says. "But I soon realised the opposite was true. ".

One problem was that it allowed brothel owners to offer punters an "all-inclusive" deal, whereby they would pay a set amount to do anything they wanted with a woman.

"One thing we were promised would not happen was the 'all-inclusive' says Valisce. "Because that would mean the women wouldn't be able to set the price or determine which sexual services they offered or refused. Which was the mainstay of decriminalisation and its supposed benefits. ".

Aged 40, Valisce approached a brothel in Wellington for a job, and was shocked by what she saw.

"During my first shift, I saw a girl come back from an escort job who was having a panic attack, shaking and crying, and unable to speak. The receptionist was yelling at her, telling her to get back to work. I grabbed my belongings and left," she says.

Shortly afterwards, she told the prostitutes' collective in Wellington what she had witnessed. "What are we doing about this?" she asked. "Are we working on any services to help get out?

She was "absolutely ignored", she says, and finally left the prostitutes' collective.

Until then, the organisation had been her only source of support, a place to go where no-one judged her for working in the sex trade.

It was while volunteering there, though, that she had begun her journey towards becoming an "abolitionist".

"One of my jobs at NZPC was to find all of the media clippings. There was one thing I read: it was somebody talking about being in tears and not knowing why, and it wasn't until they were out (of the sex trade) that they understood what those feelings were.

"I had been through that for years (thinking), 'I don't know what's going on, why am I feeling like this?' and realised when I read that: 'Oh God, that's me. '.

For Valisce, there was no turning back.

She left prostitution in early 2011 and moved to the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, seeking a new direction in life, but was confused and depressed. When her neighbour tried to recruit her into webcam prostitution, she politely declined. "I felt like I had 'working girl' stamped on my forehead. How did she know to ask me? I now know being female was the only reason", says Valisce.

Afterwards the neighbour hurled insults at Valisce whenever she saw her.

Valisce began to meet women online, feminists who were against decriminalisation and described themselves as abolitionists. The abolitionist model, also currently being considered by the UK's Home Affairs Select Committee, criminalises the pimps and punters while decriminalising the prostituted person.

Valisce set up a group called Australian Radical Feminists and was soon invited to a conference. Held at the University of Melbourne last year, it was the first abolitionist event ever to be held in Australia, where many states have legalised the brothel trade.

Melbourne itself has had legal brothels since the mid-1980's, and although there is a lot of vocal support for the system, there is also a growing movement against it.

She describes this period, when she became a feminist activist against the sex trade and began to feel free of her past, as "the start of my new life".

"I exited first emotionally, then physically and lastly intellectually," she says.

After the conference Valisce went to a doctor and was diagnosed with PTSD.

"It was as a result of my time in prostitution. It had affected me badly, but I was good at covering up the effects," she says.

"It takes a long while to feel whole again. ".

For Valisce, the best therapy is working with women who understand what it's like to go through the sex trade, and those who also campaign to expose the harm prostitution brings.

She is also determined to ensure that the women who are usually silenced by their abusers have a voice.

"It's not my goal to trap people in the industry or tell anyone to go get out," she says. "But I do want to make a difference, and that means speaking out as much as I can, in order to help other women. ".

Julie Bindel is the author of The pimping of prostitution: Abolishing the Sex Work Myth.

[Milfotronic]

Women buy sex but less frequently than men do, because in the developed world even lower class unattractive women have access to free sex from young men. Take for example, the recent case of a 31-year-old single mother in the UK who met her 16-year-old toyboy lover on Facebook. She asked him to come over and help sort out the Bush in her garden. He parted her whiskers and planted his seed. Nine months later, he was taking delivery of the harvest.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/3780143/mum-fell-pregnant-by-16-year-old-toyboy-lover-now-happy-family/

Even a 39-year-old mother of three in the UK can be impregnated by a 24-year-old toyboy, becoming a "4 x 4" (4 children from 4 different men). Therefore, purchasing sex is not a necessity for women unless they are particularly frowsy hags or have cravings for exotic cock.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/3652416/heartbreak-for-mum-of-four-42-who-fell-pregnant-two-months-into-dating-a-guy-15-years-her-junior/It may be true what you say that women don't need to buy sex like male sex mongers do. However, sex tourism is more than just fucking the neighbor or inviting someone over on Facebook. It's about new experiences and excitement, and getting away from home. A white middle-aged woman on a Gambian beach might find herself surrounded by black guys, all eager to make her happy for a cheap buck, or free drinks and dinners. It's a fantasy many women can't resist. We all have sexual fantasies.

[Chocha Monger]

The latest Oxfam scandal in Haiti reveals that the charity is full of relief workers who gorge on cheap sex in disaster zones. Charitable johns regularly purchase sex and host orgies in their luxurious accommodations in countries such as Bangladesh, Chad, Nepal, and the Philippines. Oxfam claims that 41 percent of donated funds go toward emergency response operations. However, it gives no mention of the percentage of that money expended on orgies and other sexual services for staff.

Apparently, some of the Oxfam relief workers operated on a "fuck for food" model where hungry survivors got a mouthful of cock and their guts full of sperms before getting food to eat. Ironically, the charity claims its mission includes the elimination of poverty and inequality in all its forms. Meanwhile, those who depend on the charity are learning that there is no such thing as a free meal.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5389027/Oxfam-bosses-need.html

[Dickhead]

hungry survivors got a mouthful of cock and their guts full of sperms before getting food to eat.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5389027/Oxfam-bosses-need.htmlGas, ass, or grass; nobody rides for free.

[Swpc10]

Women buy sex but less frequently than men do, because in the developed world even lower class unattractive women have access to free sex from young men. Take for example, the recent case of a 31-year-old single mother in the UK who met her 16-year-old toyboy lover on Facebook. She asked him to come over and help sort out the Bush in her garden. He parted her whiskers and planted his seed. Nine months later, he was taking delivery of the harvest.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/3780143/mum-fell-pregnant-by-16-year-old-toyboy-lover-now-happy-family/

Even a 39-year-old mother of three in the UK can be impregnated by a 24-year-old toyboy, becoming a "4 x 4" (4 children from 4 different men). Therefore, purchasing sex is not a necessity for women unless they are particularly frowsy hags or have cravings for exotic cock.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/3652416/heartbreak-for-mum-of-four-42-who-fell-pregnant-two-months-into-dating-a-guy-15-years-her-junior/Not always.

The Gambia is a sex tourism destination, but for women, not men. They go for the local beach boys.

[Travv]

I've heard the same about Jamaica. The local beach boys are known as "Rastatutes" - black "Rasta" dudes with bad eyesight and need for Landwhale cash; and the sex tourist women are known as "milk bottles" that want to be filled up!


Not always.

The Gambia is a sex tourism destination, but for women, not men. They go for the local beach boys.

[Pahllus Maximus]

What a concept. Intelligent, free men of all ages enjoying each other's company and intellect whilst we ogle beautiful young women. That is what the bull dykes and sexually invisible sisters and their nihilistic cliches are jealous and fearful of. Because takes male eyeballs and resources away from their cloying grasp. And also because women mostly lose their looks after 40 and grannies ogling young guys at FKK's is just not what women generally do, and why there is no market for it. In essence, they lose their sexual force and a key part of a woman's identity and power, namely looks. Women do not dress up and put on makeup just for the hell of it. And of course, there are many women who do not have this female character flaw.

Women are jealous that we are men and are able to get lucky when they cannot or are not interested. It is our life force they resent. We can have gret hair and be senior and still have pretty young things smiling at us. Not so with the older, ordinary, chubby female.

I am coming round to the idea that the men's groups are angry for the wrong reasons. Those guys invested too much emotionally and financially in trusting a single point of failure (a western woman) rather than the ancient way of when men formed strong and close social groups and spread their trust and emotional bets with each other. The traditional society saw men in engaged in fun things, whether a coffee, fishing are chasing pretty girls. The Masons, Lion's and Rotary Clubs were more or less a cover story to hang out and do useful things. Women certainly spread their bets and whining amongst other women (and in the West, do not spare their male partner from their whining and complaining).

This lost art of masculine society what we as men forgot and why we feel marooned by feminism; the West lost sight of the best part of being a man: having fun and trusted relationships with other men unpolluted by sexual tension and haveing some time out from being a captive breadwinner for ungrateful women and their often ungrateful brood. Just ask any parent about teenagers if you doubt that.

And so when marriages break up, and statistically they are biased at doing so, men get fucked over, not just by the legal system, but aso emotionally. They forgot to build redundancy. Back up. Into their lives. Whining about women and feminism and blaming it or the entire femail population is not the answer. The answer is to act like a man, be emotionally stong and open, but well in advance, and with trusted male friends. We need to teach young men and ourselves this ancient art.

I have a theory that insecure women are terrified of us figuring this, being resiliant out and not needing them so much, or at all. Hookers are the perfect bit of fluff for men, we get the best of all worlds: NOT being under the pussy monopoly or foolishly having ivested our whole deck of emotional cards with a single point of failure woman.

So, what this has to do with P2 P is this: rather than living under tyranny of P2 P unfriendly countries (in fact anti-male, but dressed up as trafficking, itself caused by artificial scarcity and supra profits = crime), leave them be.

Join the talent and money exodus from our failed social experiment in the USA that is now just a market, and one with highly repressive laws and militarized cops who shoot and arrest indiscriminately, like unpaid $50 parking tickets in many places.

Those in control take offense that as living, functioning red-blooded males, we like pretty women and engage in the oldest tradition that was invented about the same time when people started trading food and shelter. The reasons are deeply rooted in economics and controlling and channeling male energy, talent, wealth creation toward reproductive enslavement.

We have anti-P2 P laws abut ignore kooks with assault rifles and regular mass slaughter. The only thing I want to shoot is my seed into the hot mouth of a pretty girl. It strikes me as inherently deranged that it is legal to buy assault rifles (that are inherently anti-social and deadly) but frown upon and spend resources trying to cock block and lecturing us about male entitlement.

I'd wager 95% of the guys here and elsewhere will show chivalry very naturally and automatically when put the position of needing to protect women and kids. We don't need their condescending bullshit lectures or dictating who we can consensually sleep with.

[Aussie Fella]

I've heard the same about Jamaica. The local beach boys are known as "Rastatutes" - black "Rasta" dudes with bad eyesight and need for Landwhale cash; and the sex tourist women are known as "milk bottles" that want to be filled up!And in Bali they're known as Kuta Cowboys.

I saw a documentary once about a couple of late middle aged British women who save all year to go on their annual sex trip so a third world country where they have a young stud pleasuring them for the length of their stay. It seems that sex tourism for women operates a bit differently than it does for men. For us, it's generally a straight financial transaction but for the women it's more 'payment in kind' where they buy the guys gifts and treat them to dinners and a bit of luxury during their time together. Either way, it amounts to the same thing; a redistribution of wealth from people in the first world to people in the third via a mutually beneficial arrangement. As long as all parties are consenting to the activity, there's nothing wrong with it.

[Engine Driver]

And in Bali they're known as Kuta Cowboys.

I saw a documentary once about a couple of late middle aged British women who save all year to go on their annual sex trip so a third world country where they have a young stud pleasuring them for the length of their stay. It seems that sex tourism for women operates a bit differently than it does for men. For us, it's generally a straight financial transaction but for the women it's more 'payment in kind' where they buy the guys gifts and treat them to dinners and a bit of luxury during their time together. Either way, it amounts to the same thing; a redistribution of wealth from people in the first world to people in the third via a mutually beneficial arrangement. As long as all parties are consenting to the activity, there's nothing wrong with it.The film "Heading South", starring Charlotte Rampling is about this subject. Three American women go to Haiti for sex with local male prostitutes.

[Mr Enternational]

The film "Heading South", starring Charlotte Rampling is about this subject. Three American women go to Haiti for sex with local male prostitutes.There are plenty of them here in the Dominican Republic. I saw one walking with a guy earlier and I wanted to tell her to forget him, come with me. She was nice! Here the guys are known as Sanky Panky. They made 2 comedy movies about it. Sanky Panky 1 and Sanky Panky 2. They are in Spanish of course.

[Run Mann]

A sex trafficking bill that is more harmful to the victims it purports to protect?

https://reason.com/blog/2018/02/28/fosta

https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/sesta-anti-sex-trafficking-bill-fosta.html

[XMen2099]

And in Bali they're known as Kuta Cowboys.

I saw a documentary once about a couple of late middle aged British women who save all year to go on their annual sex trip so a third world country where they have a young stud pleasuring them for the length of their stay. It seems that sex tourism for women operates a bit differently than it does for men. For us, it's generally a straight financial transaction but for the women it's more 'payment in kind' where they buy the guys gifts and treat them to dinners and a bit of luxury during their time together. Either way, it amounts to the same thing; a redistribution of wealth from people in the first world to people in the third via a mutually beneficial arrangement. As long as all parties are consenting to the activity, there's nothing wrong with it.I met those Cowboys during our trip last year in Bali. Some local boys came to my wife asked her if she wants to have fun with them at their place. I think we can find these cowboys all over the world especially on the beaches (third country or not) because we have got same experiences in Thailand, Turkey, USA, and Spain.

[JenSj]

Hi guys,

Did you notice that backpage was closed because of some investigations? I read a newspaper article saying that this is because backapge supported trafficking which is illegal and immoral in the US. What a pity I used it often.

[WyattEarp]

And in Bali they're known as Kuta Cowboys.

I saw a documentary once about a couple of late middle aged British women who save all year to go on their annual sex trip so a third world country where they have a young stud pleasuring them for the length of their stay. It seems that sex tourism for women operates a bit differently than it does for men. For us, it's generally a straight financial transaction but for the women it's more 'payment in kind' where they buy the guys gifts and treat them to dinners and a bit of luxury during their time together. Either way, it amounts to the same thing; a redistribution of wealth from people in the first world to people in the third via a mutually beneficial arrangement. As long as all parties are consenting to the activity, there's nothing wrong with it.I've seen young professional women (and not necessarily unattractive) discreetly go down to the Caribbean and shack up with a handsome, local man in a hotel room for their entire stay. I do believe money exchanges hands, but that's just an opinion. I've had interesting conversations with these women when we both know we are their for the same reason. They come from different cities than mine so they're relatively anonymous and they probably don't tell me their real name.

I think what is interesting many are traveling solo and already have a man waiting for them. So it's basically monogamous for a week or two and the allusion of romance is probably intact. I suppose they met on-line or a previous trip. It's also possible a discreet network of female mongers share experiences and recommend to each other Caribbean boy toys.

[WyattEarp]

The latest Oxfam scandal in Haiti reveals that the charity is full of relief workers who gorge on cheap sex in disaster zones. Charitable johns regularly purchase sex and host orgies in their luxurious accommodations in countries such as Bangladesh, Chad, Nepal, and the Philippines. Oxfam claims that 41 percent of donated funds go toward emergency response operations. However, it gives no mention of the percentage of that money expended on orgies and other sexual services for staff.

Apparently, some of the Oxfam relief workers operated on a "fuck for food" model where hungry survivors got a mouthful of cock and their guts full of sperms before getting food to eat. Ironically, the charity claims its mission includes the elimination of poverty and inequality in all its forms. Meanwhile, those who depend on the charity are learning that there is no such thing as a free meal.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5389027/Oxfam-bosses-need.htmlThis is an interesting story. It's certainly wrong for aid workers to use charity funds to host sex parties and / or use aid to coerce local women.

However, it would be extremely naive (and hypocritical of many of us) to expect aid workers, doctors without borders, peace corps volunteers, etc. To resist temptation strictly because they have a primary mission. I thought it quite a bit of bullshit when those Secret Service agents were ostracized for hooking up with Colombian women. I don't remember if they were fired or only suspended.

[NewImage]

I look at it like this. If a lady comes to clean my house she is providing a service I pay her. I don't force her to do it and she can say no.

A lady gives me a non sexual massage she is providing a service using her body I pay her. I don't force her to do it.

A lady decided to use her body in another way she is providing me a service I pay her. I don't force her and she can say no.

From my anecdotal evidence and research the vast majority of WG choose to do it. People who get all high and mighty think that their moral compass should be set on everyone. The exploitation argument went out years ago.

I am always respectful, polite and if the girl shows signs of being not into it I pull the pin because I don't want that. I have on at least 4 occasions tried to talk the WG out of it or counsel them on why they are in it. The last time was at the TC in KL where an older Viet was pimping her 19 year old naive sister around who had no idea and was like a lost lamb. I scolded the older sister.

To me its a business transaction. Why is it because you use your body in a sexual way do some get all high and mighty? Many would say marriage is a business transaction. A business transaction that I never have or never will partake in.

Just my 2 ringgit.

[Travv]

Ass, grass, or cash, no one rides (Oops, eats) for free?


This is an interesting story. It's certainly wrong for aid workers to use charity funds to host sex parties and / or use aid to coerce local women.

However, it would be extremely naive (and hypocritical of many of us) to expect aid workers, doctors without borders, peace corps volunteers, etc. To resist temptation strictly because they have a primary mission. I thought it quite a bit of bullshit when those Secret Service agents were ostracized for hooking up with Colombian women. I don't remember if they were fired or only suspended.

[WyattEarp]

I look at it like this. If a lady comes to clean my house she is providing a service I pay her. I don't force her to do it and she can say no.

A lady gives me a non sexual massage she is providing a service using her body I pay her. I don't force her to do it.

A lady decided to use her body in another way she is providing me a service I pay her. I don't force her and she can say no.

From my anecdotal evidence and research the vast majority of WG choose to do it. People who get all high and mighty think that their moral compass should be set on everyone. The exploitation argument went out years ago.The Abrahamic religions are all influenced by each other and greatly influential around the world. For reasons of health, the promotion of marriage and the major point of promoting procreation to increase the flock of initially small religious groups, Abrahamic religions view sex from very traditional and conservative views.

While all cultures and countries generally look down on sex workers even at the risk of terribly hypocritical and sexist perspectives, the hostility towards sex work varies. It would seem on the surface Buddhist and Hindu cultures are more tolerant of sex workers.

[Intransit]

https://ishamcook.com/2018/06/11/expat-and-the-prostitute/

The expat and the prostitute: Four classic novels, 1956-62.

By Isham Cook ON June 11,2018.

A walk down old Wuchang's Tanhualin historic pedestrian street takes you past boutiques, cafés and nineteenth-century Western consulates and missions, before ending at grimy Deshengqiao, more alley than street, where a left turn plunges you into a more authentic China of milling crowds and open-front shops selling fish, vegetables and hardware items, a timeless street precisely because it couldn't be more ordinary. A right turn further down and you'll see the high school I've visited on a number of occasions regarding an English-teaching business I won't go into here. Street-side stands sell deep-fried chicken patties injected with processed cheese, a popular snack with the students. Further on south is the landmark Yellow Crane Tower, dating to the third century AD, destroyed and rebuilt countless times. It traditionally overlooked the Yangtze River; its present incarnation sits a kilometer inland. Like almost all Chinese cities, Wuchang used to be walled. City walls were employed to protect the inhabitants, but in September of 1926 the walls turned the city into a death trap when it was shelled by the Kuomintang Nationalist army, and the warlord in control of Wuchang, Wu Peifu, requisitioned all food supplies to the army. The siege lasted six weeks and thousands may have died of starvation, judging by the many bodies witnessed being tossed over the walls. An all too-common occurrence: most civilian deaths in wartime China were due to famine or deliberate starvation rather than guns or bombs; the siege of Changchun by the Communists in 1948 starved 150,000 civilian to death. The wall exists no longer, and the moat that once surrounded it is now Zhongshan Avenue. Most residents probably couldn't care less. Old Wuchang is a mere afterthought amidst the vast urban sprawl of contemporary Wuchang, which along with Hankou and Hanyang across the river form the megacity of Wuhan (pop. 20 million), the largest city in Hubei Province and one of the largest Chinese cities you have probably never heard of.

Hankou is the most bustling of the three cities. Many of the stately buildings of the former British, Russian, French, German and Japanese concessions still stand. Now interspersed with elegant restaurants and cafés, the riverfront has some of the feel of Shanghai's Bund. I have walked the 3. 5-kilometer stretch of the Hankou Bund many times. Between the main boulevard and the river is a pleasant park built on reclaimed land; there is a ferry for crossing the river. A steady procession of cargo ships pass by day and night, which I took a short video of one evening, with bats flying about, from a spot facing the river in what was once the Russian Concession. In the autumn of 1926, while Wuchang was being shelled, you saw a very different sight. Spaced along the river facing Hankow (as it was then spelled) were British and American cruisers and destroyers pointing their six and eight-inch caliber guns down the streets as a warning to would-be Chinese rioters. If you happened to angle one of these guns upward and fired it, the shell would have sped past the rear wall surrounding the concessions, once again now named Zhongshan Avenue (the Communists' favorite street name), and the parks and sports clubs beyond (which up until a decade ago had been a warren of unmarked brothels whose sliding doors revealed to my curious eyes girls on sofas in gaudy lingerie), and well past the 2nd and 3rd Ring Roads to land somewhere between Jinyin and Dugong Lakes some fifteen miles to the northwest. If instead you fired the gun straight into the concessions, it would have effectively cleared the rabble all right, so effectively that much worse rioting would likely have followed, defeating the purpose. Not that there wasn't precedent for the use of heavy guns on massed crowds. Back in 1842, with just three rounds of a howitzer at close range, the British turned a street in Ningbo packed with hundreds of Qing troops into a "writhing and shrieking hecatomb" (Julia Lovell, The Opium War).

The timeworn suspicion and contempt the Chinese felt for the outside world only deepened over the century (1842-1949) that Western warships controlled the Yangtze. Stray yangguizi, or "foreign devils," were "constantly under menace from local populations who — given the slightest opportunity — would kidnap, mutilate and murder foreigners who wandered more than a safe distance" from the camps or concessions (Lovell). The hostility flared up in periodic attacks and massacres, notably the thousands of Western soldiers and civilians killed, along with tens of thousands of Chinese Christians, in the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901). Things remained tense even after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 and up through the outbreak of war with Japan in 1937. Paradoxically, anger toward the West regularly coincided with the far greater brutality of Chinese-on-Chinese violence. The mortality figures are beyond comprehension: 30-70 million in the Taiping Rebellion of 1850-64,10-13 million in the Chinese Civil War of 1927-37 and 1946-50, and 20-30 million in the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45. Chinese casualties at the hands of the foreign powers, with the obvious exception of the devastation wrought by the Japanese, are minuscule by comparison, amounting to some 50,000 from the First and Second Opium Wars.

Over the past decades, China's political stability, economic growth and maturing international outlook has greatly improved life for everyone, domestics and foreigners alike. The timeworn hatred and suspicion seems to have largely died down, hopefully for good, with serious outbreaks of anti-foreigner violence, such as the 1988 Nanjing riots against African students (after some had been seen cavorting with local women) now quite rare. For the first time in China's history, we can safely wander its streets at leisure. Thugs are still known to rob drunken foreigners outside bars at 3 am, but the problems we encounter these days are relatively trivial affairs — the company that doesn't pay your final month's salary and the landlord who likewise disappears with your security deposit when they know you're leaving the country. I'the rather be living in China now than in 1926, when for example we observe a foreigner struggling with his luggage in Hankow's British Concession after refusing the rickshaw drivers' outrageous prices, as described in Richard McKenna's The Sand Pebbles (Harper & Row, 1962):

"They walked along Honan Road. Rickshaw coolies cursed them in English and Chinese. A fat white man up ahead was having it even worse. He was carrying a heavy suitcase and losing face with every step. He wore a straw hat and he was sweating through his white coat. His left arm stuck out stiffly, to balance the suitcase. Yapping coolies followed him. One ran and kicked the suitcase and it spilled open. The coolies began snatching and throwing socks and drawers and paper. They were not stealing it, they were just throwing it around. The man went to his knees, trying to grab his gear and repack it. A laughing crowd formed. ".

Recall this was the British concession, subject to British law. The Sikh policemen hired to keep order stayed out of the way, mindful not to incite the mob over petty matters, who could easily and often did get out of hand, for there were plenty of volatile Chinese laborers around. Foreigners were strongly discouraged from venturing outside the concessions into the native city, where they risked being outright assaulted or worse, and where the protagonist seaman Jake Holman and shipmate Frenchy Burgoyne of the USA S. San Pablo, frequently stole under cover of darkness armed with revolvers. There were looking after the Chinese girl Maily, whose freedom Burgoyne had purchased from a riverfront brothel in Changsha but had been prevented from marrying due to miscegenation laws. The menacing atmosphere of the locale is well captured in the feature film (1966, dir. Attenburough). I first saw it as a child and it has long haunted me, particularly the scene in the Red Candle sailor bar in Changsha. The beautiful Maily (played by Thai actress and uncanny Gong Li lookalike Marayat Andriane) is stood on a table and auctioned off to the highest bidder. You may recall the scene, as her dress is rolled higher up her thighs with each bid to the chants of "Strip her! Strip her!" and is then ripped off her shoulders (in the novel it's torn down to her hips), before mayhem breaks out and Holman and Burgoyne ferry her away to safety. For cinematic purposes the love story is greatly simplified and compressed. A local family take her in. Burgoyne sneaks off the ship and swims across the freezing river to visit her one night and dies in her arms of exposure. When Holman finds Maily with the dead body, they are surprised by nationalist militia, who kill Maily as Holman escapes through the window.

The events in the novel are at once more mundane, pathetic and moving. Maily is not killed but is eventually smuggled to Hankow, where Burgoyne manages through a local contact to rent a room in the native city, "above a kind of hardware store, with the stairs inside. It was small and shabby and the single window had no glass. Holman opened the wooden shutter and looked down into a short blind alley filled with beggars. " With "a clay stove and a rickety table," the room was "dismal. A few bright scraps of cloth" are hung up to offset the brown wallpaper hanging off the walls: "When Maily served the food, it was rice and fried peppers and pork in gingery sauce. They had only the chair and chest to sit on, so Maily ate standing, bowl and chopsticks in hands, like a Chinese woman. She brought them acrid Chinese wine, heated. The hot food and wine made the room steamy warm and good-smelling" (presumably the dish was 肉19997;28818;38738;26898; and the wine 黄37202. The only problem is, Maily doesn't love Burgoyne, isn't even attracted to him. It's Holman she wants. Loyalty to his friend and other inner conflicts prevents him from reciprocating. Neither has the guts to tell Burgoyne directly. Burgoyne does make that final swim ashore and is found dead by Holman, watched over by a Maily in a deserted alley. That's the last we hear of her.

McKenna's fine novel has much to commend it, above all the richly observed first-hand period details. It was a deft move to set the story ten years before the author himself was stationed in Hankow and Changsha in a USA Gunboat, in that flashpoint moment of 1926 and early 1927, when the Nationalists were poised to kick out the Communists and Wuhan was a microcosm of the country as a whole, and the river a microcosm in its own right, two great antagonists thrust together on a symbolic stage, the Chinese shoreline, so easily traversed across a small portion of the river yet so far away. The river throws up a barrier of junks and screaming students and nationalists hurling refuse at the foreign devils, and one day a bizarre procession of Chinese college girls who protest the Americans' presence by going naked (the story is too unbelievable not to be true). They don't quite get their point across to the mind-blown San Pablo crew, who have been confined to the ship for months and denied their working girls.

1936 too was a tense, key year. Despite the return of the international concessions to the Chinese, as long as the gunboats remained on the Yangtze so did the anti-foreigner enmity, albeit this was shifting to the Japanese upon their escalating attacks on Shanghai and other cities; in 1938 Wuhan would see calamitous war and half a million dead. The Hankow of 1936 would not have appeared all that different to the Hankow of a decade before: the same bars, the same tales and gossip, the same glimpses into life outside the concessions, an era so mysterious and entrancing now; and the same forlorn females to be wooed or rescued by expats, upon whom McKenna must have modelled Maily and Burgoyne. But even writing well in retrospect in the 1960's, the author seemed conceptually unable to surmount the entrenched stereotype of the doomed expat relationship. By definition the subject matter plunged his story into the realm of tragedy. The novel's ideology further required that Maily be tainted, her fate sealed at the outset, by her status as prostitute, even if an enslaved and victimized one. It's easier to make a character go away and the audience to forget her, if she has known low society.

With Richard Mason's The World of Suzie Wong (Penguin, 1957), the expat relationship is freshly conceived, and we emerge into the sunnier world of comedy. There are several factors enabling this. Mason sets the story in wartime Hong Kong, a decade and a half prior to his own stay there, but the details of the setting are clearly drawn from his contemporary experience of the place. We are also in relatively free and safe British territory. There is no fearsome walled or "native" city, no dangers or threats, no need to be armed. When the protagonist Robert Lomax first arrives on Hong Kong Island after crossing over from Kowloon by ferry, he is politely told there are more appropriate places for a gentleman to stay than in the seedy district of Wan Chai. Wan Chai today is no longer seedy, at least in one sense of the word. It's clean, orderly, with gleaming office buildings and respectable English pubs. The women riding the elevator in the hotel on Hennessey Road I stayed in last December were locals, not Mainlanders, judging by their Cantonese and their poise; one had a see-through blouse and an areola that peeked out from the edge of her bra. They got off on the third floor, which had a single door and a "Members Only" sign.

Lomax goes there anyway and picks a hotel at random, the Nam Kok, which turns out to have a lively sailor bar. The most popular of the girls is a Shanghainese who fled the chaos of the Mainland, Suzie Wong. She lives with her baby in a shanty flat not far away and is frequently seen outside the hotel. Significantly, then, she's not enslaved or confined but has freedom of movement and plies her trade by choice. Unlike the Red Candle in The Sand Pebbles, the Nam Kok bar is not a brothel. In fact, to maintain appearances the hotel forbids sex workers from entering the bar unless accompanied by a male. The setting is playfully raucous and comic, and Mason transparently conveys the idiom of the times in all its chauvinistic quaintness. Suzie is seen frolicking with a drunken American sailor, who "had been seized by sudden violent passion and was thrusting her back into the corner to kiss her and the girl was struggling, though only half-heartedly as if she found it no more than tiresome. There was not much to be seen of her but her kicking legs and her thigh through the split skirt. " Lomax remarks with a laugh, "Well, she's got beautiful legs, anyhow. " To which the girl opposite him replies, "But don't you think she is the prettiest girl in the bar?

Though a bestseller at the time, the novel has not been regarded as particularly funny by subsequent audiences, above all feminists. Part of the problem is the language, the penchant for referring to Asian females as "little" and similar diminutives. To list a few examples: "'It's that little ***** of mine. She's with a sailor' "There had been lashings of whiskey to wash down the fabulous food, and the usual little Chinese hostesses to joke and flirt with the guests"; "The tiny luscious Jeannie came out, ushered by a gangling American sailor"; "An elderly amah with tiny slit eyes and huge prognathous mouth with gold teeth. " And my favorite: "the little blown-up football of a Suzie had appeared. " It wasn't just Mason, the vernacular was widespread. Time magazine wasn't immune, describing Nancy Kwan, who played Suzie in the feature film (1960, dir. Quine) as a "Wonton-sized" 5 ft. 2 in. , 104 lbs. And "the most delicate Oriental import since Tetley's tender little tea leaves. The new 'yum-yum girl' has saved the movie" (April 11,1960).

In one scene, the Englishman "that little ***** of mine" Ben impersonates a policeman and kicks open a door at the Nam Kok to catch Suzie in a room with another American sailor: "Ben leaned over without effort and caught her ankle. He dragged her back across the bed like a lizard by its tail (and) began to spank her. He spanked her long and hard. Suzie lay there crying like a child. " It should be noted that that decade indeed had a thing about spanking. I recently chanced upon a 1950's New York Daily Mirror clipping, "If a woman needs it, should she be spanked? Inviting male readers' opinion on the topic. All were unanimous: "Why not? If they don't know how to behave by the time they're adults, they should be treated like children and spanked. That ought to make them grow up in a hurry. " "Yes," another wrote, "most of them have it coming to them anyway. " For Suzie, the spanking "had become one of the proudest events of her life. " But soon she leaves Ben for Lomax. He himself refrains from properly putting her in her place, causing Suzie some consternation. He seems torn: uneasy at the established practice of spanking and beating yet not wholly critical of it.

All this, of course, was guaranteed to turn the novel and the moniker "Suzie Wong" into a signifier of White misogynist racism, and perversely, a certain exotic chic, e. G. , the Beijing nightclub called Suzie Wong that drew brisk business in the early 2000's (until shut down a few years ago in a neighborhood renovation). The feature film of Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Club (1993, dir. Wang) spread the message by lambasting the Suzie Wong movie as a "horrible racist film. " Nancy Kwan had actually been invited to play one of the mothers in The Joy Luck Club but turned down the role when they refused to excise this line. It's all a bit ironic and unfair, since the Suzie Wong movie greatly toned down the sexist language and violence of Mason's novel. There are no spanking scenes or turning girls upside down in their bar booth; Kwan's Suzie gets roughed up by a sailor at one point but fights back. Fans of the novel cite its charm — Lomax's earnest love of Suzie, his capacity for introspection, his commitment and marriage to her — and its progressive vision of interracial coupling in a racist milieu. True, he's not entirely sure why he's marrying her. A voice inside him nags: "'Don't be a fool — you know you'll regret it! You only want to marry her because her ignorance inflates your ego — because she makes you feel like a god. ' 'Well, what's wrong with that?' I asked the inner voice defiantly. " In England where they settle and where in the 1940's-50's they would have presented quite the sight, she acquires in his eyes, finally, a quiet dignity: "Soon she was sitting up proud and straight in the Chinese way. And she looked so proud and poised as we entered the gallery (where Lomax's Hong Kong paintings were on exhibition) that you would have thought twice before calling her a working girl. ".

If the idea of "Suzie Wong" still attracts ire, long after this minor novel from a bygone era jogs few people's memories, it must have something to do with the name itself, the power retained in the name. One of the most common English female given names, it's yoked to one of the most common Chinese surnames. From old Hebrew Shoshanna and later Suzanne, Susan, etc. , and originally evocative of purity (the Persian lily flower), it's now whorish-sounding in its unnatural juxtaposition. What is the particular allure of "Suzie," which makes it any better than her native Mee-ling (Mason's spelling of 美29618;, "beautiful jade") or Mei-ling in the correct transliteration? We can hardly imagine the novel having as much appeal if it had been entitled The World of Wong Mee-ling. Is it that the inscrutable language is all too complicated for us? Is it simply a matter of clarity, to gender the name so that English readers know it's about a woman? Or is there something more nefarious going on in the profoundly symbolic act of renaming, to remind the subjects of the formerly occupied country that they can never wholly remove the traces of their colonization, that the name cannot be uttered without having the illocutionary force of a summons? The Sand Pebbles represents an earlier era, before this business of substituting English for Chinese names began, but Maily the brothel slave is shorn of her native name as well, inasmuch as it's been fully anglicized and domesticated for Westerners: it could be an English female name (the original is presumably 美20029;, or Mei-li); meanwhile, her Chinese surname is simply excised.

Or is there something inherently threatening about the Chinese female who assumes an English identity? The Hong Kong Chinese have long done this (the present Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam, the actress Maggie Cheung), but we don't seem bothered when Hong Kong males adopt English names (Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan). Yes, they all have their native names as well, and the surname unaccountably goes first. Today on the Mainland too, it's common practice for most students to adopt an English first name, again for the reason of taking on an English persona, but also to make it easier for foreigners they come into contact with to say their name (some Chinese phonemes are unpronounceable to people unacquainted with the language). In any case they don't seem to have a problem with adopting a dual identity, Chinese and Western. And I wonder why it is that we have a problem with it. Could it be the vague discomfort the Anglo world experiences at the sound of "Suzie Wong" is indicative of its own racism? Is there a collective sense that the Chinese do not have the right to an English name? Or to put it more bluntly, that Suzie has no business mixing with people outside of her race, and neither does Lomax?

On the subject of names and naming, it gets more complicated in the case of our next author, Emmanuelle Arsan. Born Marayat Bibidh into a wealthy family in Bangkok in 1932, she was by her own account highly sexed from childhood. At the age of sixteen while attending school in Switzerland, she met her future husband Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane, a French diplomat fourteen years her senior. They fell in love and it's assumed she lost her virginity to him immediately, but they held off marrying until he managed to get a post with UNESCO in Bangkok eight years later. There they mingled with the expat jet set and made the acquaintance of the Italian aristocrat and libertine Prince Dado Ruspoli. They fell under the spell of his writings on sexual freedom. The three became inseparable, and there were freewheeling parties and orgies and frequent trips between Bangkok and Paris. Three years later, in 1959, Marayat and Louis-Jacques published a novel anonymously in France entitled Emmanuelle and circulated it privately among friends. It's understandable they were cautious about publicizing the book at the time. It's a shocking read and more importantly, well written, which makes it even more shocking.

The semi-autobiographical novel recounts the author's sexual coming of age, and I don't mean merely losing her virginity but becoming liberated to a radical extreme, with acts of outrageous, if fictionalized, public exhibitionism. A few real-life details are altered or reversed. Emmanuelle's husband is a Frenchman named Jean who is already established with a job and house in Bangkok, while Emmanuelle herself is French, not Thai, and arrives in Bangkok for the first time to join him. There is a literary tradition of trains and planes symbolically serving as vehicles for sexual transport (most memorably the. M. Thomas's The White Hotel), and the excesses begin on the flight to Bangkok. Emmanuelle is in a curtained-off first class cabin; next to her is a man and across from them an English boy and girl, both "only twelve or thirteen. " The lights have been dimmed; she is touched and fondled by the man; he pulls out his penis and ejaculates over her. She receives the "long, white, odorous spurts. Along her arms, on her bare belly, on her throat, face, and mouth, and in her hair. " Suddenly the lights come back on as the plane starts its descent. The stewardess steps inside and she and the two children, who were "less than three feet away," stare at the semen-splattered Emmanuelle: "She looked at the damp spots that spread out in both directions from below her collar. She rolled back the lapels of her blouse and the pink tip of a breast appeared. Her neckline remained open and four pairs of English eyes were glued to the profile of her bare breast. " The stewardess helps clean her up in a private kitchen area, whereupon Emmanuelle is fucked by a handsome steward — all before the plane lands.

The next portion of the story involves Emmanuelle's lesbian encounters at an exclusive sports club in Bangkok's foreign community, including one thirteen-year old who instructs the heroine on the art of public masturbation (to a select audience). She spends much of the latter half of the narrative with Mario, a wealthy Italian expat modeled after the Prince Dado Ruspoli, who tutors her in his erotic philosophy. His discourses supply the theory to the sexual practice of the novel's former half. There are highly quotable lines like, "Your horizon will always be shamefully restricted if you expect love from only one man. " And: "Adultery is erotic. The triangle redeems the banality of the pair. No eroticism is possible for a couple without the addition of a third party. " And: "A woman who makes the first move, at a time when a man isn't expecting it at all, creates an erotic situation of the highest value. " Bangkok is often regarded as the Amsterdam of the East not only for its red light districts but also its canals, notably the Klong Saen Saeb, a shabby experience for first-timers but whose mysterious lairs and lodgings along the banks grows on you and makes it one of the most romantic canals in the world. I need its water taxis to get to Khao San, which has a more interesting range of massage shops than Sukhumvit where I prefer stay when I'm in Bangkok, because the city's confounding layout has no other convenient means of transportation to the old city. One of the lodgings along the canal is Mario's residence in the novel. Another is the famous house built in 1959 by the American architect and designer Jim Thompson; the intrigue around his disappearance in 1967 has helped turn his house into a major tourist attraction today. He was possibly known to Marayat and Louis-Jacques back in the late 1950's (more research needed here). The couple were well known and increasingly notorious for their sex parties, indeed singlehandedly gave Bangkok a reputation as one of the first locales for swinging.

The canal and its exotic atmosphere is lovingly captured in the Emmanuelle film (1974, dir. Jaeckin), with a screenplay by the author and Sylvia Kristel in the main role. The film, of course, was hugely popular and spawned numerous sequels. I find the movie disappointing next to the novel. While there is plenty of nudity, explicit sex, so essential to the story, was unfeasible at the time. The film needs to be remade with a bigger budget and better acting, by a daring producer or director in an X-rated version that's true to the novel (I can envision Lars von Trier doing it). But I'm jumping ahead.

The popularity of the novel as it privately circulated among its decadent readership convinced the couple to have it republished under the author's name in 1967 (the English translation was launched by Grove Press in 1971). By this point, Arsan had ventured into acting, and her beauty and reputation had gotten Hollywood's attention. At the seasoned age of 34, she was offered the role of Maily in The Sand Pebbles, under her cinematic name Marayat Andriane; Chinese actresses were hard to find and a Thai actress would have to do. She's nonetheless memorable in the role, but ironically so, for while her character is the epitome of tragic female virtue, the actress was one of the indelible faces of the sexual revolution — or depravity, depending on where you're coming from. Hollywood prudery allowed her dress to be yanked off no further than her shoulders and a full slip revealed underneath, but she surely would have had no problem being stripped completely naked. After all, in the film she later directed and acted in, Laure (1976; based on her novel of the same title), she engaged in sex scenes with full-frontal nudity. The ironies abound. The director of the Suzie Wong film, Richard Quine, evidently had a terrible time convincing Nancy Kwan to wear a half slip and bra rather than a full slip in the scene where an angry Lomax rips off her Western-style dress (she relented). Not that Kwan's reputation was entirely unblemished; she was rumored to have had a fling with Marlon Brando (who had driven the actress originally given the Suzie Wong role, the French-Vietnamese France Nuyen, to a nervous breakdown). Arsan was rumored to have had her own affair with Steve McQueen, and the delectable possibility is that it was sparked by their joint reading of the novel, in which, as recounted above, his character Holman was the real object of Maily's passion.

Eventually it came out that Arsan's husband Rollet-Andriane was the author of Emmanuelle. He had apparently used her name as a cover to protect his working reputation. Equally likely, they collaborated on the story and he polished the French, or it was a three-way collaboration with Dado Ruspoli; it's hard to imagine she had no input into the novel. In this new configuration, "Emmanuelle Arsan" is more of an authorial idea, or ideal, than a person: the deftest of marketing ploys — the Oriental femme fatale authoress — to captivate a prurient audience. It worked, and the reclusive couple cultivated their enigma and mystique to the end, sheltering themselves in a retreat in the remote French countryside from the 1980's (Arsan died in 2005 and Rollet-Andriane in 2008). For my part, I can no longer watch Marayat Andriane, or Emmanuelle Arsan, or whoever this figure as elusive as a female in a Picasso painting is, play Maily in The Sand Pebbles without imagining her face thirsting for jets of semen, to the chants of "Strip her! Strip her!

In the same year Rollet-Andriane arrived in Bangkok to marry the 24-year old Marayat Bibidh, a curious novel entitled A Woman of Bangkok came out by an Englishman, Jack Reynolds (Secker & Warburg, 1956, originally published under the title A Sort of Beauty), which in many ways is even more striking and shocking than Emmanuelle, though for different reasons. An intrepid traveler, the author had worked as an ambulance medic in Chungking (Chongqing) in China from 1945 until his capture and release by the Communists in 1951, whereupon he found work with UNICEF in Bangkok. There he raised a large family with a Thai woman. After a stint in Jordan from 1959-67, they settled back in Thailand, where he died in 1984.

Bangkok has undergone numerous changes since the 1950's. The Klong Saen Saeb canal and the charming old city with the famous palaces and temples on the Chao Phraya River are thankfully still intact, but there was little sex industry to speak of, compared to the neighborhood upon neighborhood of red light districts today. The cult of sexual freedom propounded by the Andrianes was confined to elite circles. Not until the Vietnam War did Thailand begin to erect its notorious recreational industry, and then not really until the expansion of the war to Laos in the 1970's; the Thai city of Udon Thani, 50 miles across the border from Vientiane, was one of the early prostitution destinations catering to USA Servicemen. Back in the 1950's, however, Bangkok's nightlife wasn't much more than a sleepier version of Hong Kong's Wan Chai, with a handful of sailor bars and brothels. It's in one of these bars, the Bolero, that the hapless protagonist, Reginald Joyce, a young naif recently posted to Bangkok by his UK firm, becomes ensnared in a tortuous relationship with a prostitute named Vilay.

Reynolds has a knack for strategic focus, and the fateful setting when Reginald first meets Vilay, or "Wretch" for Reg as she calls him in her thick English, is sharply etched in odd, surreal details, which serve to adumbrate the subsequent story. The open-air bar is "like a share-cropper's shanty on Brobdingnagian scale. A raised wooden floor, acres in extent; no walls; a low gloomy roof. From the gloom hang dozens of tawdry paper lanterns, all very dim and dusty. In the middle of the floor is a circular space waxed for dancing; this is flanked by the rows of tiny desks at which the girls sit like amazingly exotic schoolgirls in a kindergarten. " She had caught his eye on a previous visit and he was back to see if he could make her acquaintance. She avoids him until he approaches her, and charges him by the hour merely to make conversation with him at his table. Ten minutes into the session, she affects boredom and indifference and gets up to go mingle with others in the bar. He forbids her to leave since he's paying for her time. This makes her visibly upset, and she "leans far back in the armchair with her body almost supine and her head at right angles to it, propped up by the back of her chair. There is a frown on her low rather narrow forehead and her rather small eyes have gone smaller and are black with resentment. Her lips, tomato-red, are pushed forwards like a sulky child's. " When she refuses to fill his beer glass, he gets upset and splashes the beer over the table and on her. She leaves his table again and returns. He pays for several more rounds of drinks. She makes him buy flowers from a flower lady, and when he's not looking returns the flowers to the lady and pockets the money. She demands a bar fee to leave the bar with him and another large fee to take him back to her flat.

There is no letup. The hard-sell tactics are repeated in anguished negotiations over the course of the entire narrative. The more entangled they become, the more refined her techniques of extracting money; the more he pays her, the fewer crumbs of affection she throws at him in return, until yet more banknotes are peeled off his wallet. He only becomes more obsessed, and soon he's giving her most of his salary. At first we recognize the sheer callousness of a manipulative sex worker in the tradition of Zola's Nana, but that doesn't fully account for Vilay's perverse behavior. Something else is going on. Their relationship has a more complex dynamic which seems to feed on itself. It's almost as if his abject and revolting helplessness drives her to a sadistic extreme, if only to shock him into recognition. At one point her son is hit by a car and she refuses to go to the hospital to see him, seemingly in denial over the gravity of the situation, but also in sheer defiance of his rectitude, who pays for everything and watches over the dying son. In another episode, Vilay convinces Reginald to rob a family closely acquainted with him, claiming she is greatly in need of a large sum of money, and he actually attempts it. He is on the verge of physically assaulting one of the family members in their home when he is caught, but as it's unclear exactly what his intention was, they desist from calling the police and let him go.

I'll refrain from divulging any spoilers, except to say the ending of this study in psychological destruction has got to be one of the most humiliating imaginable for a male protagonist at the hands of a sex worker — the sort of brutal reversal or poetic justice that might appeal to certain feminist readers. Others may find it an exasperating read, given how unbelievable it is a man could so prostrate himself before a woman who treats him like a dog. And I suspect that is indeed the point the author wished to make: such men are a dime a dozen.

[Intransit]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/29/fosta-sex-workers-leave-twitter-switter-after-us-law/744989002/

Sex workers leave Twitter for Switter after controversial US law.

"This bill means any site sex workers use, even in their personal life, can be held liable. In reaction to this, we have already seen sites like Reddit, Craigslist and Skype begin to change their terms and silence or ban us from their platforms. Particularly in the USA, these sites are absolutely vital to sex workers. This will only force many more workers into the hands of exploitation and street work. There is a much higher chance of ending up in a potentially life threatening situation," explained a spokesperson for Assembly Four, the Melbourne, Australia-based firm that runs Switter and its associated site, Tryst, through an Austrian domain.

This setup is because while any. Com domain could in theory be targeted by the new USA Law, in Austria, where prostitution is legal, escorts can maintain their privacy and safety without breaking any laws.

The Assembly Four spokesperson, who asked to remain anonymous, also warned that this law has far-reaching consequences even for those who have nothing to do with sex work, as it paves the way "for a potentially fully censored and manipulated internet in the future. ".

Although the company's servers have not yet been fully moved to the European Union and Switzerland, according to Assembly Four that's the plan for the future, not only because of the legal status of sex work there but also because in Europe "data privacy is held in higher importance. ".

The homepage of Switter looks a lot like Twitter's TweetDeck, and allows members to search for clients or escorts based on location, as well as providing a means of communication for the sex work industry, enabling life-saving conversations like sharing client lists.

"Switter is run by sex workers and technologists who have sex workers at the front of their mind when developing new features. Shadow banning sex workers on Twitter has been around long before FOSTA / SESTA. Since the introduction of the law it's only become worse. ".

Assembly Four maintains that its platform is also much safer than Twitter ever was. The organization underlines that it takes "very minimal information from our users, we actively remove any known pimps, cases of [CodeWord908] (http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord908) or anyone seen as harassing workers. Twitter runs in a very different way and has a different set of priorities on its platform. ".

The company right now has around 100,000 escorts and allies on its site, and continues to grow every month. Back in the USA, resistance to FOSTA / SESTA has also been growing.

Besides its impact on sex workers, advocates for free speech and small businesses have voiced their concern over the new law.

Referring to Section 230, the privacy law nixed by FOSTA / SESTA, Nuala O'Connor, the president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said: "Anything controversial, unpopular or outside the mainstream could (be viewed) as a major risk of liability that many intermediaries simply couldn't afford to take on. An internet without Section 230 is one that diminishes the voice of the individual online. ".

This article originally appeared on DW.com. Its content was created separately to USA TODAY.

[Smoke Light]

BBC News article Last call for Nevada's brothels?

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-45486174

Same shit, different day feminism: pimps, trafficking, slavery, crime allegation, etc, etc.

[DavePhx]

Sex workers leave Twitter for Switter after controversial US law. I have found Switter fairly useless to find someone in a particular city. Other better options of sprung up but everyone is scattered all over sadly making it much harder to find real reviews etc.

[Param Ahmad]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/7945785/Councils-pay-for-prostitutes-for-the-disabled.html

"Councils pay for prostitutes for the disabled.

Taxpayers' money is being spent on prostitutes, lap dancing clubs and exotic holidays under schemes designed to give more independence to the disabled. ".

[Star2019]

Prostitution in earlier days probably 1000 - 2000 years ago was considered as a respectable job in many countries in Europe and Asia. It was considered as a service. In Europe prostitutes were invited to test the potency of the prince before his marriage to a princess. In Asia prostitutes were invited by the king to serve his special subjects during a special ceremony. But now a days it is considered as a corrupt and immoral practice where as monetary corruption is a recognized as a normal practice. It looks like its just a matter of thinking. Certain necessities which were legal once have become illegal and vice versa.

The mind gets caught in a dilemma. Right or not not right. Ultimately man does what he feel right, if immoral, then its done under cover.

[PedroMorales]

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/unhappy-nt-sex-worker-clients-can-sue/news-story/aa618891ffa21ad587e35b94e2f819db

Prostitutes in Australia can now be sued for bad or incomplete service. This is a good thing for humanity and a bad thing for this board as it will cut down on complaining.

[Smoke Light]

NY Times: Stamping out online sex trafficking may have pushed it underground.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/technology/fosta-sex-trafficking-law.html

Many interesting comments from readers under this article.

[Intransit]

Some seasonal material, from 2007. The title and choice of the W word is the author's, not mine.

https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-*****-on-christmas/Content?oid=464318

The ***** on Christmas.

The Ups and Downs of Being a Sex Worker During the Holidays.

By Mistress Matisse.

That's sadder than a working girl on Christmas. ".

The first time I had sex for money on Christmas, I was 21 and I'd been a call girl for a little over two years. I don't care a whole lot about Christmas. I have no objection to a one-day holiday, but I hate being beaten over the head with stockings and carols and Santa Claus for eight weeks, and I hate being told when I should feel jolly or giving.

However, contrary to the sad-and-lonely working girl stereotype, I have a large extended family. I may be the black sheep, but my family is determined to gather me into the fold—whether I like it or not. It's not that my relatives aren't nice people. It's just that when we all get together to have a Christmas celebration, it's as if the punch bowl was spiked with 151-proof banality and tedium.

Granted, at 21 I was still baiting my Southern-conservative family with my spiked hair, goth clothing, and sweeping pronouncements about the virtues of nationalized health care and gun control. I was used to being the target of some teasing. But attempting to be patient throughout a day of speculation about why I was the only female grandchild not married and pregnant left me deeply envious of orphans.

I was sitting in a plaid recliner in my grandmother's living room, hoping the rum in my Coke would deafen me to the screams of my cousins and the roar of the football game my uncles were watching on TV, when my mother said, "Honey, something in your purse is beeping. ".

My pager? The only person who had that number was the owner of the escort service I worked for.

"Must be the alarm on that sports watch I got," I offered. "I'll go turn it off. ".

I took the phone from my grandmother's bedside table, dragged the long cord into her closet, closed the door, and dialed my service.

"Hi, sweetie," said my boss. "Thanks for calling back. Listen, I'm sorry to bother you on Christmas, I know I said we'd be closed. But this guy I know called, he's really nice, and he's stuck here on business. He wanted to know if we had anybody who'd come down to the Hyatt to see him. Any chance you'd do it? He'll tip you big time. ".

An automatic, "No, I can't" rose to my lips, but before I said it, a piercing wail penetrated the closet door, as the effects of too much sugar and too little sleep took their toll on the Fisher-Price set. I heard my Aunt Alice calling me to come to the kitchen and whip the cream for the pies. I thought about my options for a moment: kitchens, football, and screaming children—or go fuck a strange man for money.

"What's his room number?" I said. "I'll be there in half an hour. ".

I told my family that my neighbor thought she'd smelled smoke by my apartment door, and it was probably nothing, but I just had to run home and check. The client was pleasant and uncomplicated, and the sterile beige serenity of the hotel, with its silent hallways and clean white sheets, was a balm. I returned to my grandmother's house to have some pie—someone else had whipped the cream—and then it was time for everyone to go home.

It was the best family Christmas party ever.

The expression "sadder than a working girl on Christmas" is based on the notion that working girls, presumably ostracized by loved ones (not always the case), are also deserted by their customers on December 25. While I am a pro domme now, I spent the first 10 years of my sex-work career straight-up fucking for money. And my experience says that while other people's Christmases may be white, Christmas can be nicely green for working girls.

That's because I'm not the only one who needs relief from the pressure of enforced family togetherness. Whenever I've worked on Christmas, most of my clients have also been ducking out of family gatherings and they've fallen through my door like men pursued by wolves. And most of them have said something like: "I gave presents to everybody else, this is my present to myself!

"Oh yeah, they say the same kind of thing to me," said my friend Jae as we stood surveying the buffet at a holiday party. Jae works as a call girl, and she's had similar experiences working on Christmas. "So I started putting long ribbons and bows around myself—if I'm a present, unwrap me. ".

And, yes, she really does that.

"Some years I get the sexy-Santa outfit request a lot," Jae added. "Especially if there's some kind of TV special with chicks in sexy-Santa outfits. Guys get triggered by the visuals. Guys will bring over those big, fat candy canes and want you to put it up your ass—or his ass, for that matter. Particularly if they've been drinking. You do have to watch out for that on Christmas—guys who've been hitting the eggnog all day. " She shrugs. "But the tips are usually good. ".

When my friend Natalie was an escort we had weekly vent-about-work sessions over dinner. She's since left the business, but we still do weekly dinners, and she still has plenty of opinions about sex work.

"I may be a Jew," Natalie said when I asked about her experiences on the holidays, "but I didn't work on Christmas. The way I see it, if you've got nothing else to do on Christmas, then you're nobody I want to deal with. All the good clients have other places to be. ".

Even the Jewish ones?

"Christmas is a secular holiday, too, now," said Natalie, "not just a religious one. Only weirdos and losers call on Christmas. ".

Natalie has a point. I've been to Christmas gigs where it was clear that the guy wasn't escaping from a family gathering—because he didn't have a family. Some of them were contented loners, just looking to be entertained. But some of them—well, Jae pretty much nails it:

"Sometimes you show up at the guy's house on Christmas and you feel sorry for him, you know? Like there's this sort of Charlie Brown-ish Christmas tree with one present under it, and it's for you. ".

Now that's sad.

I remember one particular Christmas client.

It was midafternoon on Christmas Eve. The client and I had never met before, but I showed up at his house at the appointed time, and he quickly ushered me inside. The man of the house was thin and pale, with faded blond hair, and he looked nervous. I could understand why: There's a reason married guys rarely have working girls come to their homes.

How could I tell he was married? Well, the fact that the house was decorated in a nauseatingly cutesy-country-crafty style was a big tip-off. Not just decorated—the place was stuffed full of ruffled chintz and gingham, designer teddy bears and American primitive wooden plaques with bunnies and angels and hearts burned on them. There was a flowered platter of homemade iced cookies sitting on the hall table. And there were a lot of family portraits on the foyer wall, with Mom, Dad, and three little rug rats.

"So you can be gone by six, right?" he asked.

"Sweetie, I'll leave whenever you want," I replied.

I paused before asking the obvious question.

"Is your wife coming home?

He nodded jerkily. "She and the kids are at church. ".

I couldn't believe it. This guy had a hooker come to his house on Christmas Eve while his wife and kids were at church? He is so going to hell for this, I thought, and I'll undoubtedly see him there.

"Well, let's not waste playtime," I said, moving toward the stairs. "Where would you like to. ?

"No, not upstairs!" he said, practically panicking. "I don't want to mess up the bed. Let's just—do it in the living room. ".

Easier said than done. We edged around the eight-foot Christmas tree that dominated the room and sat down on the powder-blue couch. He handed me an envelope with the cash in it. I tucked it into my purse and then looked at him, waiting for him to give me some sign of how he wanted to proceed. But he just stared at me like a trapped rabbit. The room was dim, and the lights from the tree threw alternating red and green splotches on his face. The effect made him look like he had some kind of facial tic, and I doubted that it was enhancing my complexion, either.

"Okay," I thought to myself, "if I have to be gone soon, I am going to have to take control of this fuck. ".

I stripped down to my tarty black lace lingerie and stockings, got his pants around his knees, and started unrolling a condom onto his dick with my mouth. He moaned and leaned back on the couch—and then we both gasped and jumped as the tinkling strains of "White Christmas" suddenly rose into the air. He looked wildly around the room for a moment, then relaxed and said, "Oh, wait, it's this pillow. It's got a music box in it, when you lean on it, it plays. " he fished a red-and-green throw pillow from behind his back and tossed it away. It played on for a minute, before ceasing abruptly with a mechanical click.

He lay back again, but it seemed that our musical interruption had made his little Saint Nick unhappy. Or maybe it's this house, I thought, as I sucked him. It's completely antisexual. Interior decor as visual saltpeter.

I stood up, pulled off my panties, and bent over the couch. I knew I should give him some dirty verbal encouragement, but my vast repertoire of porn talk had deserted me, and the best I could manage was a come-hither expression that felt as painted-on as the faces of the knee-high nutcrackers flanking the fireplace. I watched him maneuver into position behind me in the gilt-framed, holly-draped mirror over the mantel. In my black bra and stockings, I was jarringly out of place in the room, an affront to the relentless, smothering cozy cuteness. It was hard to even breathe. As he fumbled around behind me, the bowls of cloyingly sweet potpourri that sat on both end tables began to make my eyes water and my nose itch. I was going to start sneezing uncontrollably in a minute, I thought, and my mascara was going to run down my face in black streaks. It was like a Stephen King Christmas house, where it looks all sweet, but if you don't behave, it kills you.

It certainly killed our date. After 45 minutes of unsuccessful fumbling, he looked at the clock and announced that I should leave.

"Thanks anyway," he said, holding the door open for me. "And, uh—Merry Christmas. Would you like a cookie? They're gingerbread. ".

Like any customer-service job, sometimes whoring is a breeze, sometimes it's a grind. But there's one thing that always makes the season bright: the money. Because Christmas—secular and otherwise—means presents, preferably expensive presents. Every sex worker I know drops a lot of cash at Christmas. Especially when she's new enough to still be astonished by how much money she's suddenly making. The urge to share the wealth with your loved ones at Christmas is strong.

I was 19 the very first year I was working. My mom had separated from my dad a few months before, and she was down about her first Christmas alone. So I bought her a ton of presents—a VCR, obscenely expensive bed linens, and blue topaz earrings that matched her eyes. After we opened them and she stopped crying, I took her to one of those ridiculously extravagant buffets with ice sculptures and hand-carved roast beef. She cried a little more, and then we laughed at how silly it was and ate too much.

The Christmas I was 23, my lover had just won custody of her two daughters, aged 4 and 6, after a lengthy battle with their father. She weighed her staggering legal bills against her low-paying job, and said to me, "I want to do what you do. " The tricky thing was that Martina was a butch dyke, not exactly a sought-after look in the sex industry. But under her auto-shop jumpsuit, she had long legs, a narrow waist and the-cup breasts, and with a little makeup, we figured we could femme her up enough to get by.

She grudgingly agreed to practice walking in high heels, but she flat-out refused to wear dresses. We bleached her crew-cut hair platinum blond and told my agency to describe her as a Brigitte Nielsen type. Martina didn't have much of a knack for the prefucking chitchat, but as she put it, "Once I can take those stupid girly clothes off, I'm fine. " A surprising number of guys found her unstudied tomboy manner quite attractive.

Martina took the cash and bought her two little girls so much stuff at Toys are Us that she had to make two trips with the car to get it all home. We could hardly see the tree on Christmas morning, with all the boxes stacked around it. I have never seen two children so shiny-eyed with gratified toy lust.

"I would even wear a dress if I had to," Martina told me later that morning, "just to see them happy. ".

What do people mean when they speak disparagingly of "a working girl"? Someone who sells her or his body? I have news for you: Unless you're a ghost who still draws a paycheck, you use your body to make a living, too. Ever been nice to a customer you really didn't like, or acted enthusiastic about something you really didn't care about, just because you were getting paid? Congratulations, you're a working girl, too. You're just not getting paid as much as I am.

I got into sex work thinking, as everyone does, that it would be something I'd do for a little while before I went on to a real career. The culture of sex work was different then. This was preinternet, and most sex workers were isolated from one another. The popular media presented sex work as a one-way ticket to hell. Clients and workers were both much warier, each fearing violence, disease, or exposure at the hands of the other. I dealt with a lot of disapproval from friends and lovers who I came out to. In spite of all that, somewhere along the way, I realized I wanted sex work to be my real career. I liked the money, I liked the independence, and I liked using my sexual skills.

There's still a lot of stigma. Even now, my mother would be distressed if I gave her exact details of what I did to get the money I used to buy her all those gifts. Martina's daughters might be disgusted to find out their mother was once a call girl. But the world of sex work looks very different now. The lonely-working girl stereotype has been replaced by the hooker who snags a book deal by blogging about her exploits. Buyers and sellers talk to each other and among themselves online; escort-review websites allow clients and working girls to hold each other accountable. Since everyone is a bit less fearful, we're all a bit more relaxed and kind and human with each other. When I first began working, I usually saw a client only once, maybe twice. Now I have guys who I've been seeing frequently for years. The relationships have their boundaries, but I am my real self when I am with them, and they are my friends as well as my clients.

The vast increase in the visibility and dialogue of real sex workers has changed my nonworking life as well. The misconceptions that I have to overcome on a daily basis have gone from massive to manageable. I have sex-worker pals who I can talk to when things get stressful. I have two committed partners who love me and understand and support my career. And I have a wide circle of friends who think I'm a good person. My family? Well, I'm still the black sheep, but they love me anyway. I am about as far as you can get from lonely, at Christmas or any other time of the year.

I'm not on the run from any big holiday parties this year, so I'll be spending a mellow Christmas at home with my lovers. If you're a sex worker doing dates on December 25, I wish you happy clients, heavy tips, and an equally sweet Christmas of your own to go home to.

Ho, ho, ho.

[Smoke Light]

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/living-in-red-light-district-amsterdam-netherlands/index.html

I am in shock! CNN reports how the entire neighborhood of Amsterdam's De Wallen red-light district, including children, has no conflict with the presence of sex workers. Did CNN feminists fell asleep at the wheel? Where is the usual negative shit? Or does the attitude towards sex work in the US starts to change?

[Intransit]

https://supchina.com/2020/01/30/chin...pX5tKnOcus3EKw

Normally I would post the full text of an article like this, but removing the formatting will take too long. It's a good story, especially for China veterans who are hoping to recapture their glory days in Beijing / Dongguan / Shanghai at an American AMP.

Key quote: "None of the women I spoke to said they had been forced into sex work."

[Intransit]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/28/sex-workers-are-falling-through-cracks-coronavirus-assistance-programs-around-world/

By Miriam Berger.

April 29,2020 at 12:10 am GMT+8.

Beth Reid's financial prospects are bleak. Her work is banned under Sydney's shutdown. Her limited savings are dwindling as bills accumulate. The 36-year-old is preparing to apply for Australian unemployment benefits, which have increased in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

It's a familiar story. But Reid faces an added obstacle: While her line of work — as a dominatrix — is legal where she lives, it remains highly stigmatized. To receive benefits, she would have to register as a sex worker with the federal government, creating a record that could have implications for her future.

Still, she knows she's among the lucky ones: In all but a handful of countries, the sex industry is illegal. That means millions of sex workers, mostly women, are excluded from government programs meant to address widespread unemployment and economic hardship as the coronavirus continues to spread.

Even in Australia, where sex work is legal in some states, Reid said she has seen an increase in "precarious housing situations, and also super precarious mental health" among colleagues left out of the system.

"There are loads of sex workers who don't have access to either of the welfare measures," she said, referring to the federal government's two unemployment programs, "like migrant workers or those who don't have a fixed address. ".

Sex workers in Australia and around the world, she said, are in dire need of the same support that other people are set to receive for loss of income, health care and housing.

"Many sex workers come from communities that already face high levels of marginalization and social exclusion including people living in poverty, migrants and refugees, trans people and drug users," the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE) said in a statement. "Sex workers who are the primary earners in their families, or who don't have alternative means of support, are at risk of being forced into more precarious and dangerous situations to survive. ".

Workers without recourse.

Tens of millions of people work in the sex industry, according to some estimates — in brothels, strip clubs and massage parlors, or through escort agencies and on the Internet.

Only New Zealand and two states in Australia have completely decriminalized sex work, meaning there are no specific criminal penalties for engaging in it. Other Australian states, as well as a few countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, have legalized it, meaning the state regulates sex work and permits it only in certain state-sanctioned ways, with more parameters and policing.

The World Health Organization has advocated for the decriminalization of sex work. The question of decriminalization and legalization, however, is polarizing: Critics see laws that allow sex work as a cover for human trafficking and sexual exploitation, while advocates say it's a valid profession in need of protections, not policing. The countries that permit sex work follow a few different models, such as regulating brothels or allowing the selling of sex but not buying.

Even in the few places where sex work is allowed, applying for unemployment benefits is unlikely to be straightforward. Many sex workers lack the paperwork to document their employment status. In Germany, migrant workers from countries including Bulgaria, China, Nigeria and Romania make up about 80 percent of the sector, according to Luca Stevenson, coordinator of ICRSE. These groups have been particularly hard hit by the closing of brothels where many lived, and many have been stranded by border closures. Some are now homeless and without access to assistance.

In the Netherlands, recently unemployed independent workers are eligible for only about $1,000 a month — those in sex work included, said Nadia van der Linde, coordinator of the Netherlands-based Red Umbrella Fund, which supports sex workers worldwide. Not all sex workers, though, will receive that money. Many people in Amsterdam's red-light district are migrants who are undocumented or from elsewhere in Europe. Even some Dutch sex workers chose not to register, as the process is complicated and the designation carries stigma, van der Linde said.

Demands for inclusion.

Sex workers are used to being excluded from government services, said Reid, who has been in the industry for 17 years. To compensate, they have built tight support networks that are springing into action to set up emergency funds for assistance, in the forms of cash, food and health care.

In some countries, the coronavirus crisis has created a new impetus to look out for sex workers. In Bangladesh, Thailand and Japan, countries where most sex work remains criminalized, although forms of it are regulated, governments have made efforts to include the sector in aid programs.

Bangladesh shut down legal brothels on March 20 along with most other businesses in the country, leaving destitute residents with no income. After workers appealed, the government agreed to provide cash, rice and a rent freeze to women and families living in 12 brothels, Reuters reported.

A few weeks later, when Japan announced a new subsidy program to help with child care during the outbreak, the country's labor minister expressly excluded the adult entertainment and sex industry.

Two days later, on April 9, the government reversed course in the face of criticism. Determining eligibility for financial aid remains convoluted, CNN reported.

In Thailand, adult entertainment venues employ an estimated 300,000 people and bring in around $6. 4 billion a year, according to Empower Foundation, a Thai sex workers advocacy group. The government ordered these venues closed on March 18. Days later, it announced an emergency relief, including $150 monthly for the newly unemployed.

Most Thai workers who lost their jobs in entertainment venues qualified. Those who made money selling sex cannot apply, as that remains illegal, but workers such as dancers in bars were included.

Even those without a contract could apply as a freelancer, said Liz Hilton, a member of Empower. Still, only about 60 percent of Empower's several thousand clients have applied, according to Hilton, who attributed the gap in part to the industry's high density of ineligible migrant workers.

In Mexico, the coronavirus-related closure of hotels meant many sex workers suddenly lost their homes and income. Left with nowhere to go but the street, they were offered by Mexico City's government temporary shelters and cards with 1,000 pesos, or around $42, for emergency food and medicine.

In Bolivia, France, South Africa and elsewhere, advocacy groups have been lobbying governments for similar measures, so far without much success.

"Very few governments are actually taking positive steps to ensure the inclusion of sex workers in emergency steps that they are taking," said Ruth Morgan Thomas, global coordinator of the Edinburgh, Scotland-based Global Network of Sex Work Projects. "Nobody in this world can survive if they can't find an alternative way of feeding themselves or their families. ".

[Intransit]

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/inside-medieval-brothel

Inside the Medieval Brothel.

What was life like for medieval prostitutes? A case in the German town of andördlingen reveals a hellish world of exploitation and violence.

Jamie Page.

Published in History Today Volume 69 Issue 6 June 2019.

In the winter of 1471, the municipal council of andördlingen in southern Germany got word of a scandal in the town's public brothel. It prompted a criminal investigation into the conduct of the brothel-keeper, Lienhart Fryermut, and his partner, Barbara Tarschenfeindin. After interrogating all 12 of the prostitutes working in the brothel at the time, the council learned that the brothel's kitchen maid, a woman named Els von Eystett, had been forced into prostitution and as a result had become pregnant by one of her clients. When Barbara discovered this she had forced Els to swallow an abortifacient.

Drink that she had mixed herself, with the result that Els miscarried a male foetus whom the other women reckoned to have been about 20 weeks old.

After forcing Els back to work only a few days later and swearing her to secrecy, things had returned to normal in the brothel for a couple of weeks. But it was not long until some of the prostitutes began to speak among themselves about what had happened. One, Barbel von Esslingen, had brought a pail of water into Els' room as she lay in agony and had seen the child's body laid out on a bench. After Barbara overheard her speaking about what she had seen, she sent Barbel away to work in the public brothel in nearby Ulm. But it was too late to stem gossip about the incident. Some regular clients had even begun to talk about what had happened, wondering aloud how it could be that Els, 'who had been big, was now so small'.

Things came to a head when two officials from the city council in charge of monitoring the brothel paid a visit. They told the women that rumours of what had happened had reached senior members of the council and that an investigation was imminent. In a furious confrontation, Lienhart burst in on the women while they were eating and delivered a savage beating to Els, while she screamed defiantly back at him that he would have to hack off her arms and legs to keep her quiet. Later, as it finally became clear to Barbara and Lienhart that their cover-up had failed, they approached Els secretly to offer her a bargain.

In exchange for her silence, they would agree to drop the debt she owed them and she would slip away quietly the next day while the women were eating dinner. Els agreed and, when the time came to enact the plan, Barbara sent her into the kitchen to fetch a jug of milk. As Els left the brothel and headed for the city gate, Barbara made a show of asking where she had gone and ordered the women to search the brothel for her. But, as one of the prostitutes, Margrette von Biberach, later testified, Els had already told them all about the secret plan. Even while they joined in the search, 'all of them knew how things really were'.

The business of brothels.

Sitting halfway down the Romantic Road, a stretch of some of Germany's most well-known tourist landmarks, andördlingen today is a quiet and prosperous place. Its most distinguishing feature is the wholly intact medieval ring wall that encircles the town, a testament to its past significance in the region. Among other notable events, andördlingen is associated with two of the bloodiest battles of the Thirty Years War and with a particularly savage witch craze, which made a heroine of one of its citizens, the innkeeper Maria Holl, who withstood 60 sessions of torture without confessing. In 1932, the town would host Adolf Hitler, who gave a speech there several months after losing the presidential election to Paul von Hindenburg.

In the Middle Ages, andördlingen grew wealthy on the back of the textile trade, fuelling a significant population expansion and placing major demands on the town's council to provide peace and stability for its citizens. Like many other towns across western Europe, the provision of a public brothel was one part of this equation. In an argument still used today, licensing prostitution and concentrating it where it could be seen and regulated was regarded as a lesser evil than allowing it to flourish unchecked. This rationale was endorsed by no less a figure than St Augustine, whose treatise De ordine noted that 'if you remove harlots from society, everything will be unsettled on account of lust'. In parts of western Europe where licensed prostitution was the norm – a region that includes southern and central Germany, northern Italy, southern France, the Low Countries and Iberia, though not England – prostitution was thus assumed to provide an outlet for young and unmarried men who might otherwise endanger 'honourable' women. In some cities, most notably Florence, prostitution was also assumed to dissuade men from sodomy.

Although there were some regional variations, most German towns that had licensed brothels followed a similar model. The brothel was purchased by the town and leased back to a brothel-keeper (in many places a man, though sometimes a woman), who was responsible for its day-to-day running. The keeper paid a tax to the authorities in return for the right to charge board and lodging to prostitutes living in the brothel and to take one third of the fee they charged to clients. Further income might be generated by selling food and drink. After paying for room and board, prostitutes were able to keep what remained of their earnings, as well as any tips a customer might give them.

Broad acceptance of the social utility of prostitution ensured that it was a highly visible part of late medieval urban life. In many cities the social role of prostitutes extended to civic pageantry, where, as participants in dances, weddings and the entry processions of great rulers, they could be seen as part of the city's hospitality. The entourage of the Emperor Sigismund supposedly enjoyed the hospitality of brothels opened up by towns on his way to the Council of Constance in 1414, while an anecdote attached to Frederick III saw him greeted at the gates of Nuremberg in 1471 by prostitutes who captured him with a golden chain, only freeing him after the payment of a one florin ransom.

Despite this recognition of their role in society, in comparison with respectable wives and daughters, prostitutes were considered dishonourable and sinful. Increasingly throughout the 1400's, any woman suspected of illicit sex risked being equated to the working girl of the brothel and might even find herself forcibly placed there by the authorities. This was not necessarily a one-way journey, though. Women who found themselves in brothels might hope to leave by saving up enough for a dowry that allowed them to marry and 'turn to honour'. In doing so they might follow the example of one of Christianity's most powerful symbols of redemption, Mary Magdalene, often portrayed as a prostitute in late medieval sermons.

Like many of those in the Middle Ages who were not part of the social elite, the lives of prostitutes are known to us almost exclusively from accounts given by literate, mostly male observers. As the historian Ruth Mazo Karras has noted, although the concept of *****dom played a major role in policing the sexual behaviour of women at all levels of society, the voices of prostitutes themselves are virtually unknown. The testimony given by the andördlingen women is therefore unique in offering us a glimpse into the world of late medieval prostitution from the perspectives of prostitutes themselves.

What do the andördlingen women tell us about this world? And what parallels might be drawn between their experiences and those of women working in the sex trade today?

Exploitation.

The criminal investigation carried out by the andördlingen town council proceeded along two primary lines of enquiry. First, there was the alleged abortion of Els von Eystett's child. Abortion (an act often conflated with infanticide at the time) was a serious crime, which could merit a banishment from the town; unlike some other parts of western Europe, it was not yet common in southern Germany to execute those convicted of it. Interestingly, Els herself seems never to have been under suspicion of aborting her child. From the start, the council seems to have accepted the story told by the other women in the brothel, which portrayed her as the innocent party. Most of the details of this narrative were actually supplied by just three of them: Els and two others, Margrette von Biberach and Anna von Ulm. Both women appear to have been special confidantes of Els throughout the traumatic events and described supporting her and comforting her as she lay in agony. Els herself actually testified in the nearby town of Weissenburg, where she had gone after being allowed to leave the brothel in andördlingen. This necessitated some co-operation between the two sets of authorities, revealed in correspondence attached to the trial record – a testament to the seriousness with which the andördlingen town council treated the matter.

The second half of the investigation took the form of a general enquiry into the working conditions in the public brothel. Here, the council set out to discover whether and how Lienhart Fryermut had broken the terms of his oath as brothel-keeper, sworn when he began the job in 1469. Such oaths were a common means of regulating brothels in German towns. Because brothel-keeping was such a disreputable occupation, comparable with what the historian Kathy Stuart refers to as the 'defiled trade' of the hangman, binding an individual to his duties by an oath sworn to God provided a strong form of regulation that allowed authorities to dismiss easily those who abused their position.

As became clear once the andördlingen women began to give their testimonies, there was more than enough evidence to suggest that Lienhart had done just this. Unlike the abortion enquiry, in which a small number of key witnesses provided much of the relevant evidence, evidence for this part of the investigation was spread across the testimony of nearly all the women. Their statements show that, although most of them simply answered questions put to them by the council, a number of the women took the chance to offer additional incriminating details about the ways in which they had been exploited and abused by Lienhart and Barbara.

The first to come before the council was Anna von Ulm. Anna began her testimony by stating that 'the brothel-keepers treat her and the others very harshly' and that 'they compel and force the women to earn money at inappropriate times, namely on holy Saturday nights when they should honour Mary, the worthy mother of God, and should avoid such work'. She added to this that she, and almost all of the women, had been sold into the brothel, including one from as far afield as Italy, and were all heavily in debt to Lienhart. She said that he and Barbara 'force the women to let men come to them, and when they do not want to they are beaten'. In a similar vein, she claimed that 'when the women have their womanly sickness (menstruation) they are forced to earn them money and to let men come to them'.

Anna then went on to explain how she and the others had got into debt. As soon became clear, Lienhart had subjected them to a range of arbitrary charges that not only wiped out their ability to earn, but ensured that they were trapped by ever-increasing debts, which he used as a pretext to forbid them from leaving his employment. Although this was not strictly illegal – numerous employers in this era imposed restrictions on their workers' freedom of movement and might confiscate property to prevent them absconding – the sheer scale of Lienhart's exploitation made this an exceptional case.

His practices included confiscating their tips and forcing them to pay cash gifts at certain times of year, including Whitsun and Christmas. He also sold goods to them at inflated prices. As Anna said, 'when he had something to sell to them, whether cloth or other things that were worth half a florin or a full florin, he sold it to them for two, three or four'. She also said that the women were made to exchange whatever 'even' pennies they had for uneven ones of a presumably lesser value. Upon entry to the brothel they had had their clothing confiscated and pawned to Jewish merchants, which for Anna meant that she was forced 'to go about miserably and almost naked, having no more than a skirt and no undershirt', with the further consequence that 'she can hardly cover herself, and is unwilling to go out among honourable people'.

Those who came after Anna added to the picture. Els von andürnberg stated that when she first entered the brothel she had given Lienhart a veil with a value of two florins and told the council that 'for the skirt which she wears, she has to give him money'. Enndlin von Schaffhausen and Adelhait von Sindelfingen both said that they had had their clothes confiscated by Lienhart; according to Enndlin, this happened 'whenever one of the women has good clothes'. When it came to paying for their food and drink, Wÿchselbrünn von Ulm said that Lienhart overcharged the women by providing them with meals for 13 pennies when the same was available elsewhere in town for 12. Chündlin von Augsburg said that wine was sold to the women for a penny more inside the brothel than outside it. Enndlin also described a practice by which Lienhart charged the women double the normal amount of 'sleeping money', a fee levied when a customer wanted to stay overnight in the brothel. Margrette von Biberach said that, when she informed the brothel-keeper in advance that she had an overnight customer who subsequently failed to turn up, she was still made to pay the full amount of sleeping money.

Prisoners.

On top of these exploitative arrangements were further practices intended to squeeze yet more income from the women. These included supplementary labour, primarily spinning, a task which brothel-keepers in some towns were permitted to demand of prostitutes, although not in andördlingen. Anna von Ulm reported nevertheless that the women were made either to produce two large spindles per day, or to pay Lienhart four pennies. There were also restrictions on the women's freedom of movement. Anna also told the council that Lienhart had 'taken their churchgoing from them', denying them the chance to hear mass. She also said that he habitually did not let them leave the brothel, with the consequence that they were 'unable to earn their food'. On the subject of food, she pointed out that the women were usually given disgusting meals and were denied extra portions during menstruation, as was required, and were not given bread and meat during the week.

Some of the women also told the council about the fraudulent ways in which Lienhart deprived them of an income. One practice common in brothels across the region involved depositing all of the money paid by clients into a central strongbox, which was then distributed among the women at the end of the week according to how many clients they had seen. Catherin von andürnberg said that, when this was done in andördlingen, she had suspicions that several women were paid less than they had earned, while Margrette von Biberach told the council that she had sometimes seen Barbara deliberately undercount the amount of money contributed by a particular woman, with the result that Lienhart would become angry and tell the woman in question that 'he has no use for her, and they earn him nothing'.

The consequence of all this was that, in Anna von Ulm's words: 'They are all poor women and cannot save money, and the debt grows for each one although they do not know how, and they cannot pay off anything. ' But Lienhart's regime was not restricted to financial exploitation. The deprivations suffered by the women were made worse by frequent use of violence and intimidation. According to several of them, both Lienhart and Barbara beat the women frequently, often when Lienhart claimed that they had earned less than they should have. Margrette von Biberach said that such violence was arbitrary, since Lienhart 'hit them more for innocence than for guilt'. At times the violence appears to have a sadistic edge. Many of the women said that Lienhart beat them with a bullwhip, while Wÿchselbrünn von Ulm said that he sometimes used a rod or a belt. To make things worse, Adelhait von Sindelfingen pointed out that Lienhart had even been known to assault customers in the brothel, 'preventing them from earning', thus perpetuating a cycle of violence.

Truly hellish.

One prevalent image of late medieval prostitution, sometimes repeated in popular culture via fantasy settings, depicts the brothel as a sensuous environment in which good cheer and innocent revelry are the order of the day. There is some evidence to suggest that brothels in fact sought to cultivate this kind of image for themselves by providing luxurious furnishings, a warm oven and the opportunity to eat and drink in the company of women, a setting which aped the ideals of courtly love.

Images like these, however, use the notion of the 'luxury' brothel as a sanitised version of prostitution to draw a veil over exploitative working practices and the privileging of male sexuality. In the case of andördlingen, the women's testimony indicates that life in a municipal brothel could be truly hellish. In one of several such claims in the case record, Chündlin von Augsburg told the council that 'she has been in other houses before, but has never seen women kept more harshly or despicably than here', while Wÿchselbrünn von Ulm claimed that 'the women are not kept here as they are elsewhere'. Catherin von andürnberg seems to have had much the same impression, stating that the women's treatment in andördlingen 'exceedingly harsh'.

Like all exceptional incidents, it is important to question how representative a single case can be. It is possible that the women exaggerated the scale of abuse – or even lied about it – to secure more favourable working conditions. But it is also striking how readily they seem to have been believed by their interrogators. As dishonourable women, the testimony of prostitutes ordinarily counted for very little in a legal setting and yet the council had no difficulty in accepting their accounts over those of Barbara and Lienhart. At the conclusion of the investigation both were dismissed from their posts and banished from the city forever. In Barbara's case the council took the additional step of branding her across the forehead for her part in aborting Els von Eystett's child.

It was the abortion, ultimately, which made this such an extreme case. Financial exploitation and violence were common enough in municipal brothels, but the forced abortion of a prostitute's child – as the council evidently came to see it – was an act of brutality well beyond the norm. It was this act which also produced some of the most distinctive parts of the women's testimony. In both of their statements, Anna von Ulm and Margrette von Biberach describe acting as confidantes to Els in the aftermath of her miscarriage. They told the council how Els had wept bitterly, saying that the sight of Barbara had filled her heart with misery and that she had 'taken my child from me and killed my flesh and blood'.

Els perceived Barbara's actions in the wider context of abuse and exploitation, by which Lienhart claimed virtual ownership of their bodies and their capacity to earn. Viewed in this way, the forced abortion of Els' child can be seen as an instrumental act of terror, one which made clear that the brothel-keepers had absolute control over the women's bodies.

But, if the record shows evidence of trauma, it also communicates the women's defiance. Els' own determination to speak out is manifested in the descriptions of her facing down Lienhart. And when their day in court finally came, the evidence provided by the andördlingen women was enough to prompt the council to take action against Lienhart and Barbara.

In the year following the investigation, the city council drew up a new set of regulations for andördlingen's brothel which forbade many of the exploitative financial arrangements that had made prisoners of most of the women working there. Unlike most brothel regulations used by towns in this era, the rules also included an explicit clause requiring a given woman working in the brothel to report to the council immediately any kind of abuse or breach of the rules so that corrective action could be taken – a further sign of the impact made by those who testified in 1471.

Beyond cliché.

It is tempting to think of the events described here as part of a depressingly familiar picture. Exploitative working conditions, violence and danger are often thought to accompany prostitution, even in regulated and thus theoretically safer forms of commercial sex. A modern observer of prostitution might recognise in andördlingen's brothel a certain model of prostitution catering for low status clients, designed to keep costs low and drive up profits by exploiting its workers. Such a response also seems to affirm the old cliché of prostitution as the 'oldest profession' – an unchanging and ever-present phenomenon in human society.

But this cliché is not a harmless one. Thinking about prostitution in this manner is not merely ahistorical, blinding us to what was distinctive and local about the conditions in a place like 15th-century andördlingen; it also obscures the individuality of the women involved. As the historian Judith Walkowitz has argued, it is important that we regard prostitutes themselves as complex individuals, whose experiences and life stories are distinctive and worthy of hearing. Prostitutes are not merely ciphers of a larger historical trend; this is difficult to deny, whatever one's own position on prostitution as a social and economic phenomenon.

We know little else about the women who worked in andördlingen's brothel in the years after the 1471-2 investigation. A second, smaller collection of judicial records suggest that by the early 1500's another brothel-keeper by the name of Bartholome Seckler was in trouble with the council for exploiting the women working for him. In any case, it was only a few decades until the sea change of the Reformation saw municipal brothels swept away en masse across southern German towns, as civic authorities grew increasingly uneasy about the moral compromise required to sustain them. By the mid-16th century an institution that had been characteristic of late medieval urban life had vanished, one into which the testimony of the andördlingen women offers a brief yet vital glimpse.

Jamie Page is a research fellow at the University of Tübingen. He is writing a book on prostitution and subjectivity in late medieval Germany.

[PedroMorales]

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/inside-medieval-brothel

Inside the Medieval Brothel..I enjoyed this post. Very interesting. The more contemporary ones were also good reads but obviously contrived.

[The Cane]

During a pandemic: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-fragile-existence-of-sex-workers-during-the-pandemic.

[Intransit]

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/video-games-sex-work

Lockdown sex workers are flocking to Animal Crossing and Second Life.

Legislation has pushed sex workers to the darkest corners of the internet, but during lockdown they've found an unlikely home in Borderlands, Minecraft and Animal Crossing.

By DAISY SCHOFIELD.

Kiara is a financial dominatrix from Michigan. Her clients get a thrill from the power-play relationship and from relinquishing all control to her – both financial and otherwise – from acting as the 'sub' to her 'domme'.

Before the pandemic, she made most of her earnings through 'cash meets'. "I'the usually take money out of a sub's wallet, maybe say something humiliating, and walk away," she says of a typical day's work.

Now the risk of Covid-19 has made this impossible, and to make matters worse, Kiara's partner was laid-off from his job because of the pandemic, leaving her with the responsibility of supporting them both.

So, at the start of lockdown, Kiara started using the video game Animal Crossing to keep a close relationship with her clients from a safe distance, using the in-game mechanics to subdue and order them around. On Animal Crossing, subs may pay a fee to go to Kiara's or another domme's virtual island, and carry out various chores for them, such as weeding their gardens, tidying their homes, or planting flowers. In-game spoils are also welcome, with cash meets finding their virtual equivalent in the form of 'bell meets'.

Video games are booming in lockdown, and they're providing a much-needed cash injection for sex workers like Kiara. She and other dommes offer similar services on Minecraft, charging their subs to shower them with diamonds, or carry out "grinding" tasks, such as collecting resources from the game's map and crafting. Another domme, who goes by the moniker Princess Void, says she charges $10 for players to join her Minecraft server, and an additional $25 to play with her. It may not sound like much, she says, "but it adds up. ".

The games also act as a form of promotion. "Animal Crossing is definitely helping me get out there more, and drive traffic to my AVN Stars (a popular adult platform)" says Madeline, a domme from LOS Angeles. Any additional service a sex worker can offer, or marketing they can acquire, is likely to give them a competitive edge in what is becoming an increasingly saturated online market. As offline sex workers are forced to go digital, adult sites Charturbate and OnlyFans have both reported a 75 per cent uptick in subscribers since the start of lockdown.

The pandemic has made the adult industry more precarious, exacerbating the deep harm already inflicted on sex workers by Donald Trump's FOSTA-SESTA bill. The legislation was intended to curb internet sex trafficking, but a number of websites – such as Craigslist and Backpage – barred posts from sex workers entirely to avoid any potential legal issues.

The legislation has shut sex workers out of sites like Tumblr, Patreon and Instagram, often forcing them to resort to either more dangerous types of work – partly, because it hampers their ability to vet clients – or platforms which take an exploitative cut.

OnlyFans takes a relatively low 20 per cent (most take 40 per cent), but largely tends to benefit performers who already have big audiences online. As it garners mainstream appeal, social media influencers and minor celebrities are now clamouring to sell their explicit content on the platform.

"I think it is a problem," says Heather Berg, an assistant professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality studies at Washington University in St Louis, of the "tourists" who are flooding sites like OnlyFans. "But sex workers are just more shrewd than non-sex workers when it comes to figuring out alternatives. ".

"Flouting terms of service agreements, or using platforms in a way they weren't intended to be used, has a long history among sex workers," Berg continues. "But as conditions get worse, because of FOSTA-SESTA and the pandemic, their creative strategies have to get even sharper. ".

When it comes to video games, which more than often have a limited capacity for sexual activity, the need for creativity becomes even more acute. On Animal Crossing, dommes might spank their subs with a butterfly net as "punishment", or use the in-game wheel to determine whether their client should orgasm, or pay a fee.

On Borderlands, where Princess Void charges subs $10 a mission, clients might be made to take off a piece of clothing, or 'edge' (getting close to climaxing and stopping), when their character dies. "Clients on Borderlands are more fetish people," she explains, "whereas Animal Crossing is really wholesome. " To get around Nintendo's strict terms of service, kink chat will usually take place over a third-party platform while playing a game, such as Discord or Twitter.

There are other well-established options for sex workers looking to escape the limitations of these games. The simulation game Second Life is a "perfect storm for sex work," says Bonnie Ruberg, an assistant professor of digital games and interactive media. "I'm sure Linden Labs (the creators) would say it's designed for human interaction and the creation of community, but sex cultures have always been at the heart of Second Life. ".

Meela Vanderbuilt (as her avatar is known) is well-acquainted with Second Life's erotic underworld. In 2013, she founded The Monarchy: a virtual brothel where clients can receive animated lap dances, sex and fetish exploration from one of the club's performers. Meela believes Second Life offers sex workers a safer option amid a harsher online climate – particularly when it comes to payment.

"Because Second Life has its own currency (the Linden Dollar), you don't have to worry about providing a PayPal to someone and potentially exposing who you are or your address," she explains. What's more, doing business with Linden Dollars circumvents the growing discrimination against sex workers from payment platforms such as PayPal and Venmo.

Second Life is also providing a solution to some of the problems around advertising that sex workers face after FOSTA-SESTA. Sarabi, a self-described 'stay at home mom' from Arizona, used to do private dancing, but since 2012, she's worked full-time as a Second Life sex worker, and more recently, she's been leveraging the platform to drive traffic to her OnlyFans. "It's introduced me to all types of clients," she says, "and those who have never purchased sex before. ".

A few years ago, Sarabi set up her own academy to train other women in Second Life sex work. She says she's had escorts approach her whose businesses were "greatly affected" by FOSTA-SESTA and another surge of interest from people – mostly online sex workers – looking to sell virtual sex on Second Life as a result of Covid-19. She'll teach clients how to drive traffic to "literally any platform – OnlyFans, NiteFlirt, AVN, to name a few," by purchasing in-game adboards.

But not even Second Life is immune from the censorship that is seeping into almost every corner of the internet. Meela said she's noticed a growing pushback from the game's moderators, which include having her in-game advertising blocked. "The platform generally doesn't have as healthy of an outlook on sex work as the residents," she says. When it comes to promoting the service on Facebook, she'll often run into similar problems, because it "sounds too much like real escorting".

"Game creators are scared FOSTA-SESTA is going to be used on them," explains Ruberg. "Second Life is also moving to rebrand itself from this fun, shady place to go on the internet, to something more educational and kid-friendly, like Minecraft. ".

Sex workers are subject to discrimination wherever they go. When it comes to video games, part of this arises from the conflation of sex workers with sexual predators. Ruberg gives the example of Twitch's policy documents, which group sex work and sexual interactions with children together. "Sex workers are very careful about age verification," says Berg, "for their own legal and ethical reasons. And not to mention, kids generally can't pay. ".

The threat of being shut out of a platform – gaming or otherwise – is a real and constant one. "It's about being really savvy," says Berg "and making sure your customer base travels with you so you're not tied to one app".

Sex workers are currently facing serious consequences for their health and livelihoods, but if history is anything to go by, this community's resilience will always lead them to find new and often unexpected ways to survive.

[Easeien]

Wow Intransit, that is one of the odder articles I've read this year. Who would have thought of being an Animal Crossing Dom? Certainly not me.

[D Cups]

ED in the PI forums has got me into re-reading The Bible with his newfound interest in religion. It seems the Old Testament and the New are loaded with examples of successful blokes having several wives and concubines (just like modern-day). Jesus himself was said to have married former callgirl Mary Magdalena. Age gaps? Hell, ya. There is the story of 75 year old Jacob bonking and marrying 19 year old Rachel who he fell in love with. But first he had to bonk Rachel's slightly older sister Leah as arranged by the the sisters' papa. Hell, the whole book of Song of Solomon is pre-porn. Thanks, ED, for reigniting my religion! It will likely be very helpful when I move to the extreme Catholicism of PI next year! Cheers, fellas!

[Smoke Light]

CNN Naked female statue meant to honor feminist icon Mary Wollstonecraft met with public derision.

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/mary-wollstonecraft-statue-london-intl-hnk-scli/index.html

Feminists trying to express themselves.

The sculpture comprises a small figurine of a naked woman, who many said doesn't resemble Wollstonecraft, perched on top of a larger, twisting mass of silver. It all sits on a black base engraved with a famous Wollstonecraft quote: "I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves."

Writer Tracy King also decried the statue as "a shocking waste of an opportunity that can't be undone."

[PedroMorales]

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/video-games-sex-work Now the risk of Covid-19 has made this impossible, and to make matters worse, Kiara's partner was laid-off from his job because of the pandemic, leaving her with the responsibility of supporting them both..I feel sorry for Kiara but why doesn't "partner" pimp his ass as well as hers?

[Engine Driver]

ED in the PI forums has got me into re-reading The Bible with his newfound interest in religion. It seems the Old Testament and the New are loaded with examples of successful blokes having several wives and concubines (just like modern-day). Jesus himself was said to have married former callgirl Mary Magdalena. Age gaps? Hell, ya. There is the story of 75 year old Jacob bonking and marrying 19 year old Rachel who he fell in love with. But first he had to bonk Rachel's slightly older sister Leah as arranged by the the sisters' papa. Hell, the whole book of Song of Solomon is pre-porn. Thanks, ED, for reigniting my religion! It will likely be very helpful when I move to the extreme Catholicism of PI next year! Cheers, fellas!Always happy to guide mongers on the path to redemption. Why stop at the Bible? In the Hindu epic the Mahabharata, the five Pandava brothers all shared the one wife Draupadi! What would be the morality of that nowadays? Hahaha.

Cups, if you are moving to PussyLand, please do brush up on your Bible verses. The Pinay hookers love god fearing men. Religious knowledge is a real panty dropper there.

[ChuchoLoco]

Always happy to guide mongers on the path to redemption. Why stop at the Bible? In the Hindu epic the Mahabharata, the five Pandava brothers all shared the one wife Draupadi! What would be the morality of that nowadays? Hahaha.

Cups, if you are moving to PussyLand, please do brush up on your Bible verses. The Pinay hookers love god fearing men. Religious knowledge is a real panty dropper there.I was bored at a baptism once and decided to read some Old Testament. Only time but I found this. It won't be word for word but went something like this: her sister lusted for the Assyrians for they were hung like horses. Yeah, I know, most of you guys are part Assyrian now.

Sex is sex. We are all animals and nothing wrong with that. If there's something more physically pleasurable please let me know.

[Engine Driver]

I was bored at a baptism once and decided to read some Old Testament. Only time but I found this. It won't be word for word but went something like this: her sister lusted for the Assyrians for they were hung like horses. Yeah, I know, most of you guys are part Assyrian now.

Sex is sex. We are all animals and nothing wrong with that. If there's something more physically pleasurable please let me know.The Philippines is a paradox. A country of contradictions and hypocrisy. A devoutly Catholic nation, its women are are the most promiscuous on the planet. Chocha Monger once wrote that for a Pinay, fucking a foreigner for money is like taking a shit. That is, she faces the same ethical dilemma in either activity.

[JohnReter335]

Wow Intransit, that is one of the odder articles I've read this year. Who would have thought of being an Animal Crossing Dom? Certainly not me.Even I'm not one of them and nobody thought about this earlier.

[UweHertzog459]

Over the past three decades, the sexual morals of many Western societies have changed beyond recognition. Most of the prohibitions that shaped the traditional, highly restrictive view of sex that prevailed until the 1950's. The ban on masturbation, premarital and extra-marital sex, promiscuity, and homosexuality. Were no longer seen as very serious, strict or, in fact, binding at all. In any case, a couple of customary forbiddances are still with us. The moral ban on prostitution, in particular, does not appear to have been drastically abolished or relaxed. Certainly, some of the old arguments against prostitution are rarely made these days; But then, many of the newer programs are very popular, at least in certain circles. Prostitution is no longer seen as the most extreme form of moral corruption; But the view that it is morally flawed at least seriously, if not obnoxious and intolerable, remains widely prevalent. In this paper, I would like to consider some of the main arguments in support of this view and try to show that none of them is convincing.

[Intransit]

"*****phobia" Is a Real Word. Here's What It Means and Why You Should Care.

https://www.insidehook.com/article/sex-and-dating/*****phobia

The demonization of sex work and sexual liberation has been around for. Ever. Will we ever care about the damage it causes?

BY KAYLA KIBBE at KAY_KIBBE.

A few weeks ago, comedian Anya Volz had the distinct yet relatable misfortune of revisiting some of her favorite films from the early aughts, only to discover that they are, in fact, pretty problematic.

"Trying to enjoy the comedies I grew up watching while now seeing how incredibly racist, homophobic, sexist, *****phobic, and ableist they all were," Volz wrote in a tweet accompanied by an old photo of Britney Spears flashing a pained grin paired with an unmistakable look of terror in her eyes on some red carpet years ago, probably around the same time many of those problematic jokes from Volz's favorite early-21st-century comedies were being drafted.

In a subsequent tweet, Volz noted that she had mistakenly left out "transphobic," which, she added, was perhaps a more prevalent offense "than all the other things combined!" But it wasn't Volz's belated nod to transphobia that got most people's attention. Rather, her mentions filled with replies from users puzzling or chuckling over the term "*****phobic," including one who, it feels worth noting, currently goes by the name "Shit Balls" on Twitter who insisted that "*****phobic is not a thing. ".

Click the link at the top if you'd like to read the rest of the article. If you do, you'll need to replace the "*****" string with the real word in the URL. The article has too many Instagram posts and other formatting issues to copy and paste it here conveniently. Thank you.

[Jny88]

Don't let anyone make you feel bad for mongering, in the USA Mongering is illegal but you are allowed to go to a strip club and throw money at a girl dancing naked on stage, you can throw as much money as you want, she can lead weak men thinking they'd get the chance to bone her so they can throw more money. If you and her (two consulting adults decide to BARTER sex for money, the American system was built around BARTER and its all of a sudden Illegal.

By the way, I used America for my example because most other countries really don't give two F*cks about mongering.

[DoomBringer321]

Over the past three decades, the sexual morals of many Western societies have changed beyond recognition. Most of the prohibitions that shaped the traditional, highly restrictive view of sex that prevailed until the 1950's. The ban on masturbation, premarital and extra-marital sex, promiscuity, and homosexuality. Were no longer seen as very serious, strict or, in fact, binding at all. In any case, a couple of customary forbiddances are still with us. The moral ban on prostitution, in particular, does not appear to have been drastically abolished or relaxed. Certainly, some of the old arguments against prostitution are rarely made these days; But then, many of the newer programs are very popular, at least in certain circles. Prostitution is no longer seen as the most extreme form of moral corruption; But the view that it is morally flawed at least seriously, if not obnoxious and intolerable, remains widely prevalent. In this paper, I would like to consider some of the main arguments in support of this view and try to show that none of them is convincing.There is in my opinion a flaw in your logic, let's look at the way the world works in the west and the power dynamics that according to some women men have, women, get to choose which humans come into the world, they choose who they give their bodies too, in the west over 60% of college enrolled are women, women today in certain areas make more money than men, they hold more political power as well most voters are women, so it's clear just by reading the statistics it's not men who are "winning" and clearly the argument of my body my choice falls on deaf ears when it comes to prostitution.

What I believe is going on and this is a trend in the west, is an effort to restrict men's choices let's be clear about one fucking thing, it's literally almost criminal to approach women nowadays in some areas of the west "laws against catcalling" come to mind, why would men risk embarrassment, humiliation and possible criminal prosecution for striking up a conversation with girls who look like men and act like they have no interest in men, however, there is one reason and it's not moral against prostitution, it's an effort to restrict men's choices, women hate it when men have an advantage in the sexual market place and prostitution is just that, a choice it has always existed even in biblical times it's not "new", it's a power dynamic of the highest degree to restrict your freedom to choose. If prostitution existed for ex. In the US in all 50 states and territories, they would force women to do something they have not done in generation compete for your attention so yeah prostitution will not be legalized any time soon but the reason is not moral, clearly when a woman for ex. Cardi Bi an entertainer of sorts can publicly talk about drugging men and robbing them (illegal behavior) yet Bill Cosby gets canceled and thrown the book at for said behavior it's clearly not about morality it's abut about power my 2 cents.

[SeaBeeJoe]

Don't let anyone make you feel bad for mongering, in the USA Mongering is illegal but you are allowed to go to a strip club and throw money at a girl dancing naked on stage, you can throw as much money as you want, she can lead weak men thinking they'd get the chance to bone her so they can throw more money. If you and her (two consulting adults decide to BARTER sex for money, the American system was built around BARTER and its all of a sudden Illegal.

By the way, I used America for my example because most other countries really don't give two F*cks about mongering.Bro you are spot on, that's why I never felt bad going to the clubs in Tijuana and other parts of the world. Our puritan values of old really need to be removed in terms of prostitution and mongering. Making mongering a felony in Texas. Wtf? That is completely retarded.

[Upikey]

I'm interested in having sex with prostitutes abroad but there's no way in hell I'm going to to be unethical about it. How do I know which women are being forced to prostitute themselves or being controlled by pimps? Is there anything else I need to make sure to stay ethical?

[PedroMorales]

That was a good and thoughtful post of yours. You are lucky to be in Ecuador where there is a large reservoir of willing female flesh. We, being unable to travel, are stuck with the women you describe and which Cardi be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardi_B#Controversies typified. I had never heard of this joker but her type is the high priestess women aspire to.

In the current economy, women don't need men. It is better to stay at home, to ponce off parents, to then move into their own rented dive, pay and fortune for it and party, party, party.

We are left with little choice as you say. No wonder men (and women) fall for online scammers as there is nothing for them and all educational propaganda is geared to saying being a man or a boy (climb trees) is wrong. One can be a LBSM+ degenerate and scare the pants off kids, but woe betide the middle aged + man who just wants a romp and a bonk.

Isn't it amazing about half the world have vaginas and we cannot get into one or more of them?

Meaningful mongering ravel seems off the menu for a long time. Besides paying over priced locally based hookers, the only way is to get among groups of them and pick one or more off. But that is almost impossible without having the attributes the pussy possessor have been groomed to admire. Hard times.


There is in my opinion a flaw in your logic, let's look at the way the world works in the west and the power dynamics that according to some women men have, women, get to choose which humans come into the world, they choose who they give their bodies too, in the west over 60% of college enrolled are women, women today in certain areas make more money than men, they hold more political power as well most voters are women, so it's clear just by reading the statistics it's not men who are "winning" and clearly the argument of my body my choice falls on deaf ears when it comes to prostitution.

What I believe is going on and this is a trend in the west, is an effort to restrict men's choices let's be clear about one fucking thing, it's literally almost criminal to approach women nowadays in some areas of the west "laws against catcalling" come to mind, why would men risk embarrassment, humiliation and possible criminal prosecution for striking up a conversation with girls who look like men and act like they have no interest in men, however, there is one reason and it's not moral against prostitution, it's an effort to restrict men's choices, women hate it when men have an advantage in the sexual market place and prostitution is just that, a choice it has always existed even in biblical times it's not "new", it's a power dynamic of the highest degree to restrict your freedom to choose. If prostitution existed for ex. In the US in all 50 states and territories, they would force women to do something they have not done in generation compete for your attention so yeah prostitution will not be legalized any time soon but the reason is not moral, clearly when a woman for ex. Cardi Bi an entertainer of sorts can publicly talk about drugging men and robbing them (illegal behavior) yet Bill Cosby gets canceled and thrown the book at for said behavior it's clearly not about morality it's abut about power my 2 cents.

[CrowExplorer]

I'm interested in having sex with prostitutes abroad but there's no way in hell I'm going to to be unethical about it. How do I know which women are being forced to prostitute themselves or being controlled by pimps? Is there anything else I need to make sure to stay ethical?Short of psychic ability, I don't see any way you could "know" whether a woman was being coerced somehow. However, I doubt that in poorer countries where prostitution is legal, they have to "coerce" women very often.

Even in the USA where prostitution is illegal (except Nevada), I've got a local Korean massage parlor I frequent, I know the owner (an older Korean lady), over the years she has had some good girls who really like the work, others that clearly aren't that into it, and don't stick around for very long. I've never gotten a vibe, like these girls are being "forced" into this line of work somehow. At most I've had a few girls who don't seem very enthusiastic, and as I said, it's not long before they quit. If they were being coerced they wouldn't exactly have an option to quit, would they?

These girls have the option to make the same amount of money in 4 hours as they would in 40 hours of legit work. I doubt there's much "coercion" taking place.

[PedroMorales]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tBXhEy5P2M

This young American lady knows it all. 18 and a hardened hooker. You won't sweep her off her feet. Her take on Jesus is something else.

"£Once a trick, always a trick". She has more sound bites than Sun Tsu.

[BbqMushrooms]

I've been looking for this article about prostitution and mongering and why they would never be widely accepted in society. It went through each societal demographic and from their perspective on prostitution and its morality. For example. A newly married husband would be against it because they don't have the option since they are married to one woman for the rest of their life. A grandmother wouldn't want it because it means that either the young men in her family aren't meeting good women to marry or the young women in her family are working in this line of work that's unbecoming.

Anyone know what I'm talking about? I thought I saw it on stick man's blog but I emailed him and it didn't ring a bell for him.

[CitizenX1]

Hey, as a secret mongerer for quite some years I ask this question here.

I am a 41 years old man with a good job.

That found a beautiful lady of 28 years old.

The first date I had with her I took her to a dinner and a show and then we had sex.

I've paid her for this 500 euro.

This is my and hers first experience at this dating app (seeking), so as we had fun we decided to continute together and we logged off the site.

I never paid her any more money except from clothes meals and perfumes.

We both have feeling for each other.

I just don't really understand what is the morality stand on this issue.

Did I use her? As I am much wealthier than her.

Is it a relationship?

Answering the question will she be with me without my money. Well she didn't ask any more money, and to some extant every woman marry up to a promise of a better life.

I've never had this experience so forgive me for the naive questions.

Thanks in advance.

[SubCmdr]

Hey, as a secret mongerer for quite some years I ask this question here. I am a 41 years old man with a good job. That found a beautiful lady of 28 years old. The first date I had with her I took her to a dinner and a show and then we had sex. I've paid her for this 500 euro. This is my and hers first experience at this dating app (seeking), so as we had fun we decided to continute together and we logged off the site. I never paid her any more money except from clothes meals and perfumes. We both have feeling for each other.Here are my answers:


I just don't really understand what is the morality stand on this issue.There is none. It was consensual.


Did I use her? As I am much wealthier than her.No, financial status does not factor in it was a consensual relationship.


Is it a relationship?It most certainly is brother. You want proof. I also made a connect with a girl from Seeking. Paid encounter the first visit. After that I just paid for the good times we shared together (picked up all the trip expenses). We shared many interests together. She went on trips with other men from seeking, keeping in touch with me and often telling me how bored she was with these other guys but she needed the money. She broke up with me because I wanted something more serious and she did not think I would be the type of man that she wanted for a long term relationship. She started dating someone else. It got serious. Then they broke up. She has kept in touch with me the entire time we have known each other. Now she is facing a serious illness and I check on her everyday. We have remained in touch for over 15 years.

So, my personal answer to your questions are that you are overthinking it. And my suggestion is to not do that.


Answering the question will she be with me without my money. Well she didn't ask any more money, and to some extant every woman marry up to a promise of a better life. I've never had this experience so forgive me for the naive questions.Enjoy what you have. But my suggestion is not to get to serious about it. There is something to be said about how you two started. And if you want to get serious there will have to be some intense discussions about expectations. I don't know her, but human incentive is to be deceptive if you are truly offering to bring "life changing money" into her life.


Thanks in advance.You are welcome.

[Dan7373]

I've spent some time with a P4P lady in Thailand. I wasn't just giving her money and banging her. We also stayed together, and we did everything together for several weeks. We got to know each other really well. And we trusted each other well enough to talk openly and sincerely about everything.

So, one day we were walking around the place where we stayed. And my lady was suddenly surprised to see her lady friend, with whom she worked before at a hotel. Both my lady and her friend used to work as cleaning ladies at a hotel. Her friend was walking around with a European guy, just like my lady was walking with me. But my lady didn't want to approach her friend and say Hi to her. My lady said that her friend was busy working with her European guy, and she didn't want to distract her from that.

So, they went their way, and we went our way. But my lady kept telling me just how surprised she was to see her friend obviously doing P4P work with a guy. Because when both my lady and her friend worked together as cleaning ladies at a hotel, then her friend often criticized the P4P ladies at the hotel for doing something shameful and dishonorable. This lady friend told my lady many times that she would never ever do something like this. P4P work was beneath her.

That's why my lady was so surprised to see her morally protesting friend now doing P4P work with a guy. Her friend was now doing something that she said she would never do.

But my lady didn't have anything negative to say about her friend for being morally inconsistent or being a hypocrite. She just accepted that her friend changed her mind, and she understood why her friend might want to change her mind this way.

They both worked as cleaning ladies. It was a lot of work and not too much money. And they were basically stuck in that situation. They were at the bottom of the social ladder. And they couldn't make it better, unless they did something different. P4P work was the obvious choice for both of them. Because they could make a lot more money, and they didn't have to work nearly as much or as hard.

And then on a different occasion, I was telling my lady that I came to Thailand to meet P4P ladies like her. And I said to her that in my own country I could get into a lot of trouble for doing this kind thing. So, were talking about the people who want to end prostitution and put ladies like her to work on regular jobs. And my lady got angry. Because she used to work at a regular job, and she knew what it was like. Basically she saw that regular work as a kind of exploitation that permanently left people in a bad situation.

Instead of seeing these people, who want to end prostitution, as being on her side and speaking for her interests, she saw them as a kind of enemies who want to violate her freedom and choice and return her back to unhappiness and exploitation.

I think the debate about prostitution nowadays comes down to debate about people's freedom to decide and to choose for themselves. And the people, who are trying to end prostitution with prohibitive and punitive laws, don't have a moral leg to stand on. So, instead of saying openly and honestly that that want to put some limits on the freedom of women and men to prohibit prostitution. They lie and pretend that all P4P ladies are forced and unfree, and there is no such thing as P4P by choice.

That's what their position basically comes down to. They claim that there is no such thing as P4P by choice. And to uphold their position, they do everything they can to ignore any objections from P4P ladies and not allow them to speak for themselves. They bring out only P4P ladies who suffered some kind of abuse and injustice to support their view, and they ignore the rest. And most P4P ladies aren't eager to speak out publicly and make themselves known. Because they can suffer from discrimination and abuse as a result of such revelation. Which enables opponents of prostitution to get away with their lies and propaganda.

In an honest debate about prostitution, the morality of prostitution comes down to the morality of freedom. Because the question is: Should consenting adults be free to choose and to be with each other as they wish? Or should there be limits on their freedom to make it better for society or for some other people?

Everything else is a red herring that distracts people from the issue of freedom. Because exceptions don't make the rule. Just because you can find some P4P ladies who are abused and who aren't free, doesn't necessarily mean that all P4P ladies are like that. Such cases are exceptions that exist mostly in countries that are trying to prohibit prostitution and as a result drive such women into the underground economy into the clutches of criminals and abusers.

[Golfinho]

I've spent some time with a P4P lady in Thailand. I wasn't just giving her money and banging her. We also stayed together, and we did everything together for several weeks. We got to know each other really well. And we trusted each other well enough to talk openly and sincerely about everything.

So, one day we were walking around the place where we stayed. And my lady was suddenly surprised to see her lady friend, with whom she worked before at a hotel. Both my lady and her friend used to work as cleaning ladies at a hotel. Her friend was walking around with a European guy, just like my lady was walking with me. But my lady didn't want to approach her friend and say Hi to her. My lady said that her friend was busy working with her European guy, and she didn't want to distract her from that..As long as the woman is willing and came to the decision on her own, it's fair play. Luring and exploiting one into prostitution ought to be the red line.

[Dan7373]

As long as the woman is willing and came to the decision on her own, it's fair play. Luring and exploiting one into prostitution ought to be the red line.When I was walking alone in the streets of Pattaya, lots of P4P women there tried to lure me into bed with them and exploit me for the money I had.

It was for me to decide whether to go with a lady or not. But these ladies tried their best to persuade me and influence my decision in their favor.

Was this luring and exploitation? And was it wrong for these ladies to do that?

And what if the roles were reversed? What if it was guys who were trying to persuade some hot lady to do P4P with them?

I can understand and agree with the words consent, willing, and voluntary. But luring and exploitation are often used to describe normal P4P business between ladies and guys. And with such description I don't agree.

I think the words consent, willing, and voluntary are enough to describe legitimate and ethical P4P interaction between ladies and guys. Because proper consent is informed consent where both know and understand the terms of their interaction. And when you have that, then the words luring and exploitation have no place here.

Luring and exploitation happens only when there is some kind of deception, or harassment, or intimidation, or use of force to make it happen.

Just because a P4P lady is calling out to me and showing me her tits doesn't make it luring or exploitation. And the same can be said about a guy calling out to a P4P lady and showing her his money. And no lady is born P4P. They need to get into the business one way or another, once they become adults. So, it's legitimate for people to suggest and offer such opportunities for ladies who might want to do it, including showing the lady the kind of money she can potentially make.

When I was walking alone in Pattaya and P4P ladies were calling out to me, then I said 'No' many times. But some of these ladies were persistent. And they kept at it with me as long as I stayed nearby. I had to say 'No' many times. Some people might call this harassment. Because these ladies wouldn't take 'No' for an answer.

But there were times when I wanted to say 'Yes', and I said 'No' out of habit and not being sure right away. So, the persistent lady eventually got me to go with her. And I'd say that my consent was informed and voluntary, even though the lady was persistent with me.

I wouldn't call this harassment, because I chose to stay and listen to the persistent ladies. If had tried to walk away, and they pursued me, then this might qualify as harassment. And I think it works the same way for ladies too, when guys try to persuade them to do P4P with them. I believe in equality of freedom and rights for both men and women. So, anything that's fair for men is fair for women too.

[XViking]

I'm interested in having sex with prostitutes abroad but there's no way in hell I'm going to to be unethical about it. How do I know which women are being forced to prostitute themselves or being controlled by pimps? Is there anything else I need to make sure to stay ethical?There are 2 worlds, mass media world specializing on brain washing and the real world. Forced prostitution exists in the former world. Even if a girl does not like you but cannot decline a client by contract, she would give you such a service that you would never ever come to her again.

[SubCmdr]

I'm interested in having sex with prostitutes abroad but there's no way in hell I'm going to to be unethical about it. How do I know which women are being forced to prostitute themselves or being controlled by pimps? Is there anything else I need to make sure to stay ethical?We all see our bodies, minds or both to get money. In those jobs we are all faced with making ethical choices. During my time of work, I was faced with making choices that could cause be to lose favor with my bosses or even my job. But each time I made the choice to hold up my code and risk the loss. A girl in a bad situation can do the same. It may be a hard choice and cause her some pain, but the choice can be made.

[Dan7373]

I'm interested in having sex with prostitutes abroad but there's no way in hell I'm going to to be unethical about it. How do I know which women are being forced to prostitute themselves or being controlled by pimps? Is there anything else I need to make sure to stay ethical?I'm familiar with getting informed consent in a medical situation. Informed consent is something that's routinely obtained from patients practically every time patients come for treatment.

So, medical workers just have to make sure that the patient understands and agrees to have the medical procedure done. And medical workers do that by explaining to the patient and asking for agreement and consent.

Medical workers don't need to worry that some family members have somehow tried to influence the patient's decision at home or at some other place. And they don't need to worry that the patient's life circumstance have somehow influenced his or her decision.

When the person is legally capable of making their own decisions, then asking them for consent is sufficient. That's normal practice in every field where consent is required. And sexual consent is no different. When people make porn-movies in western countries, then they obtain consent more or less the same way as it's done in medicine and in every other field. The ethical standards are same in every situation.

It's only when people aren't legally capable of making their own decisions, then asking them for consent isn't sufficient. And you have to make sure that this isn't the kind of people you are dealing with, before you ask for consent.

The ethics of consent are already well worked out. You don't need to invent anything special for obtaining consent in P4P.

It all comes down to trusting and believing the person, when they say that they consent and agree.

You don't need to have God-like knowledge of the other person's life and try to decide for them. In fact, having such knowledge and deciding for them on the basis of such knowledge would be unethical. Because it's an invasion of privacy and a violation of the person's right to decide for themselves.

[SubCmdr]

When the person is legally capable of making their own decisions, then asking them for consent is sufficient. That's normal practice in every field where consent is required. And sexual consent is no different. When people make porn-movies in western countries, then they obtain consent more or less the same way as it's done in medicine and in every other field. The ethical standards are same in every situation.
It's only when people aren't legally capable of making their own decisions, then asking them for consent isn't sufficient. And you have to make sure that this isn't the kind of people you are dealing with, before you ask for consent.The ethics of consent are already well worked out. You don't need to invent anything special for obtaining consent in P4P. It all comes down to trusting and believing the person, when they say that they consent and agree.I personally don't see consent as a bright line issue as you describe it. Because consent given under the threat of receiving a penalty from force unseen by the individual asking for the consent, but being experienced by the person giving the consent clouds the issue. I would not go with someone who knew was under threat of some kind.

Let's take for example, Pattaya, Thailand. I have been told that if you bar fine a girl she has to go with you. Is that consent given by her? She can refuse. Then she loses her job. That is why if a bar girl is not into me I don't bother to buy her drinks and I just don't bar fine girls as a personal principle. But in my mind this is a perfect example of the shades of gray that exist in this arena.

[Dan7373]

I personally don't see consent as a bright line issue as you describe it. Because consent given under the threat of receiving a penalty from force unseen by the individual asking for the consent, but being experienced by the person giving the consent clouds the issue. I would not go with someone who knew was under threat of some kind.

Let's take for example, Pattaya, Thailand. I have been told that if you bar fine a girl she has to go with you. Is that consent given by her? She can refuse. Then she loses her job. That is why if a bar girl is not into me I don't bother to buy her drinks and I just don't bar fine girls as a personal principle. But in my mind this is a perfect example of the shades of gray that exist in this arena.I've been at such bars in Pattaya. I've experienced it myself, rather than heard about it from someone.

The way it works there is that a guy needs talk with ladies there and ask some lady he likes if she wants to go with him. And if they have mutual agreement about the time, the place, and the money he will pay her, then they go to the Mamasan of the bar, and the guy pays the bar fine for the lady.

The lady can refuse if she doesn't like the guy, or the money, or the amount of time he wants to spend with her.

There is some racism in Thailand against dark-skinned people. And I've seen with my own eyes how many bar ladies were ignoring an African American, who came to the bar to chat with the ladies. A lot of them wouldn't even make eye contact with him, and they were giving him all kinds of negative vibes with their non-verbal behavior. And it wasn't just one lady. It was most ladies there. And the Mamasan had nothing to say about it to the ladies.

So, the ladies there are totally free to refuse a guy and give him a cold shoulder, if he turns them off in some way.

Rumors and hearsay aren't always true. Quite often they get exaggerated and distorted, as they are passed from one person to another. And by the time you hear it, there might be very little, if any truth left in it.

I'm sure medical workers also wouldn't accept consent, if they knew that the patient they are asking is under some kind of threat. This is just common sense, that's true in every kind of consent, regardless of what the consent is for.

Established businesses in Thailand are licensed and regulated by some government agencies. And they themselves have to follow rules and regulations. If someone complains about them breaking the rules, then they can lose their business license and go out of business.

But in Western countries, where P4P isn't allowed, there are no regulations or rules for P4P. And P4P is run unofficially by people whom the government considers criminals. And in such a situation you do indeed need to be suspicious that the sex-workers aren't totally free and they aren't being treated well. They have no independent arbiter to make sure that everything is fair and square. And they are all afraid of turning to the courts and the police, when they have disagreements. So, they have no law. And that's what can make it bad.

[SubCmdr]

I've been at such bars in Pattaya. I've experienced it myself, rather than heard about it from someone.Well how about that. Since I am writing this reply to you from the lobby of my hotel in Pattaya. Perhaps I too have experienced it myself. LOL!


The way it works there is that a guy needs talk with ladies there and ask some lady he likes if she wants to go with him. And if they have mutual agreement about the time, the place, and the money he will pay her, then they go to the Mamasan of the bar, and the guy pays the bar fine for the lady.

The lady can refuse if she doesn't like the guy, or the money, or the amount of time he wants to spend with her.Sitting in the bar with my friends, they told me different. But maybe I will test your theory out during the remainder of my visit. You in town? Want to meet on Soi 6 and show me how it is done?


There is some racism in Thailand against dark-skinned people. And I've seen with my own eyes how many bar ladies were ignoring an African American, who came to the bar to chat with the ladies. A lot of them wouldn't even make eye contact with him, and they were giving him all kinds of negative vibes with their non-verbal behavior. And it wasn't just one lady. It was most ladies there. And the Mamasan had nothing to say about it to the ladies.Well, I don't consider that racism. And I am one of those dark-skinned people you spoke about. I have experienced seeing a girl that I was interested in and then they failed to come over to me after good eye making contact. Lots of pussy out there my fellow ISG brother. Don't feel sorry for me. So far this trip have found enough Thai girls willing to get on THIS black dick to keep it completely occupied. So, I do not know of what you speak. Although I do understand that my experiences do not invalidate yours. If a girl is not interested in you for any reason, move on. Many more certainly will be.


So, the ladies there are totally free to refuse a guy and give him a cold shoulder, if he turns them off in some way. Rumors and hearsay aren't always true. Quite often they get exaggerated and distorted, as they are passed from one person to another. And by the time you hear it, there might be very little, if any truth left in it.That is certainly true. Your post illustrates that. I was told before my trip that Thai girls were not into black men. I have found that to be a myth busted when I went to the first place where all the girls ignored me except one. For whatever reason, she decided to come up to me and start a conversation. Not really my type. But she was a lovely girl. So, I made a deal with her and she got a room. She was into me sexually and got hers. And when I say she was sexually into me I mean that she let me go head in naked and flood the zone. I guess that is what you call informed consent.

Windmill 1 was a place where the girls were all over me. Of course I am not a cheap charlie when I go out. I buy a bottle and make it rain. Seems to eliminate any biases. Especially since the Mamasan moves the cheep Charlies out of my spot when I arrive. Take notes.

When it comes to consent, I stick with my original post. I would not buy a girl a drink or bar fine her if she was not into me. I'll talk to Mamason and see if I can verify what you have written about consent in the bars here in Pattaya. Would you like for me to report back?

[Dan7373]

....

When it comes to consent, I stick with my original post. I would not buy a girl a drink or bar fine her if she was not into me. I'll talk to Mamason and see if I can verify what you have written about consent in the bars here in Pattaya. Would you like for me to report back?I don't think you can bar fine a lady, if she says 'No' to you. Because in my experience, it's the lady herself who tells the mamasan about her agreement with the guy to go with him, and she tells the guy to pay her bar fine to the mamasan. This was the procedure for me and for other guys I've seen.

So, your idea of a guy trying to bar fine a lady without her consent is totally ridiculous. That's not how things are done there.

[SubCmdr]

The idea was consent. So stop attacking me and focus on the subject.

Girl has to make drink quotes and bar fine quotas. Penalty for not making them. That is the unseen force I spoke of. Apparently you are unaware of that. I am in Pattaya. Right now. Currently dating a girl worked in a bar. She explained how it works from the inside. Facts.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But not their own facts.


So, your idea of a guy trying to bar fine a lady without her consent is totally ridiculous. That's not how things are done there.

[Dan7373]

The idea was consent. So stop attacking me and focus on the subject.

Girl has to make drink quotes and bar fine quotas. Penalty for not making them. That is the unseen force I spoke of. Apparently you are unaware of that. I am in Pattaya. Right now. Currently dating a girl worked in a bar. She explained how it works from the inside. Facts.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But not their own facts.Every workplace has its rules that workers agree to. And as long as workers are free to quit any time they want, then there is no problem with consent. They agree to abide by the rules of their workplace. And they can tear up this agreement any time they want, by quitting their employment.

Practically all workers in all occupations work in such conditions. And if you can say that these workers are free, and they give their consent, then the same applies to work in P4P.

Every worker in every occupation works because of need for money to pay for living expenses and other things. So, there is nothing especially bad or mysterious about your so-called unseen force.

It's perfectly okay to work to fulfill your needs and wants. This is the main reason why most people work in every occupation. And for most people there will be bad consequences if they quit their job and lose their income. This is the reality for most people. And it's ridiculous to suggest that you shouldn't use the services of such workers.

A janitor also has a quota and a deadline when he or she needs to do a certain amount of work. So, does this mean that this janitor is a slave or is being trafficked in some way? If this janitor is free to quit and look for other employment, than I would say 'No' this janitor has given his or her consent, and I shouldn't feel guilty about using the services of this janitor. The same is true in P4P.

[SubCmdr]

So you are going to hang your hat on "if a worker agrees to take the job, they agree to consent to all orders given by the wage slave owner". Fuck that shit!.

Unfortunately for you that is incorrect. You see even a person in the military can refuse to execute was is considered to be a illegal order. And a military person cannot quit.

The first slave that got off the boat to told master to "suck my mother fucking black dick" when told to go pick that cotton. He was shot in the head in front of all of the other slaves on the boat so they could see it. When master told the next slave to get off the boat and go pick some cotton, that slave ran up to master and said "just tell me where is and pick it clean". That is the unseen force that I refer to. That second slave gave consent. Did they not?

If I am understanding you correctly, I can put a gun to your head and tell you to open the safe. If you open the safe you have given consent to my request. Think that is an extreme example, better think again. The loss of a income stream by a sole provider of resources to a family unit can be devastating economically.

Let me finish up by saying you can rationalize your exploitation of sex workers in Pattaya, Thailand any way you like. Just don't lie me about it, nor yourself, nor get me to buy into your lame opinions on the matter. I am not buying your arguments.

But you do what you like. And I will do what I like. You want to be right. You keep using the word ridiculous to describe my arguments. Just let it go. I am not going to agree with you. If you are comfortable being a sex colonizer (as many have before you and will after you) knock yourself out. I can fuck as much as I can humanly fuck without pulling one girl out of a gogo bar on Soi 6. That is how I choose to get my fuck on. Get your fuck on however you choose my ISG brother.

May I as a grown man have an opinion that is different from yours and choose not to use those facilities without being told I am being ridiculous?

[Dan7373]

So you are going to hang your hat on "if a worker agrees to take the job, they agree to consent to all orders given by the wage slave owner". Fuck that shit!.

Unfortunately for you that is incorrect. You see even a person in the military can refuse to execute was is considered to be a illegal order. And a military person cannot quit.

The first slave that got off the boat to told master to "suck my mother fucking black dick" when told to go pick that cotton. He was shot in the head in front of all of the other slaves on the boat so they could see it. When master told the next slave to get off the boat and go pick some cotton, that slave ran up to master and said "just tell me where is and pick it clean". That is the unseen force that I refer to. That second slave gave consent. Did they not?

If I am understanding you correctly, I can put a gun to your head and tell you to open the safe. If you open the safe you have given consent to my request. Think that is an extreme example, better think again. The loss of a income stream by a sole provider of resources to a family unit can be devastating economically.

Let me finish up by saying you can rationalize your exploitation of sex workers in Pattaya, Thailand any way you like. Just don't lie me about it, nor yourself, nor get me to buy into your lame opinions on the matter. I am not buying your arguments.

But you do what you like. And I will do what I like. You want to be right. You keep using the word ridiculous to describe my arguments. Just let it go. I am not going to agree with you. If you are comfortable being a sex colonizer (as many have before you and will after you) knock yourself out. I can fuck as much as I can humanly fuck without pulling one girl out of a gogo bar on Soi 6. That is how I choose to get my fuck on. Get your fuck on however you choose my ISG brother.

May I as a grown man have an opinion that is different from yours and choose not to use those facilities without being told I am being ridiculous?When I was with a Thai lady in Pattaya, I asked her what was her opinion about people trying to get her and other P4P ladies out of the P4P business and get them to work on regular jobs. And she had some hostile words to say about such people. Basically, she considered regular jobs as a form of exploitation without any reasonable way out. It's a life-long exploitation. That's the way she described it. And P4P work she saw as a way out of a life-long exploitation. It's a possibility to gain financial independence by investing money in business, buying a home, buying land, and so on.

That's why it's worthwhile to talk to P4P ladies themselves and see what they want, rather than impose your opinions and your views on them.

Speaking for these women, rather than letting them speak for themselves is a form of colonialism, when a foreigner does it. And when local people do it, then they are just a bunch of scoundrels who want to impose their opinions and views on others. It's a way of taking away people's freedom and choice. Which can be described as a modern form of enslavement.

If you really care about people's freedom, then let these people speak and decide for themselves, rather than impose your views on them. It's wrong to impose your views on other people without their consent.

Who are you to say that these women shouldn't have the freedom and the right to go with whomever they want in any arrangements they want? This is their decision and not yours or anyone else's.

And trying to discourage customers of such women is just an indirect way to ruin the business of these women, so that it's not worthwhile for them to do it anymore. It's a sneaky way to violate their rights and freedoms. And people, who do that, should be ashamed of themselves.

If you are going to violate people's rights and freedoms, then at least do it openly and honestly, rather than do it in some sneaky way, and then deny that you've done anything wrong. Doing it in a sneaky way is victimizing people twice. It's like stabbing someone in the back, while pretending to be their friend.

[Dan7373]

Is it moral to impose your moral values on others by force, without the agreement of others?

This is the question that has been missing in discussions of morality throughout human history, and even now.

Human history is full of examples where crusaders, missionaries, and religious or political fanatics destroyed whole cultures and ways of life to impose their values on others by force.

For a lot of westerners, it doesn't sound too bad that western Christians destroyed the cultures and ways of life among the native inhabitants of North and South America. Because Christian values were and to some extent still are western values.

But Muslims did something similar in the Middle East earlier in human history. And muslim values of modesty and strict control of women's sexual behavior still upset many westerners. Because these muslim values are neither christian nor western values.

So, it might feel okay to impose your values on others. But when others impose their values on you, then that's obviously not okay.

This is a double standard in the thinking of people who believe that their values should be universal values. They are okay with imposing their values on others, but they are outraged when others, with different values, impose their values on them.

Can morality be moral, when it's imposed by force, without the agreement of others?

This is the question that needs to be asked and answered in any debate about the morality of prostitution.

Because nowadays, many moral opponents of prostitution routinely use force and coercion to put and end to it. Or they do it in some sneaky way, where they attack the customers of women to take away their P4P business and force them to abandon prostitution that way.

I think the use of force against consenting relationships and people is immoral in itself. And any morality imposed on others this way is automatically immoral. Because this is like trying to achieve good by evil means and doing a lot of evil in the process.

Moral values should be universal only by consent and not by force. Because when force is used against consenting relationships and people, then it's no longer about who is right and who is wrong. It's about who is stronger and who is weaker. Might is right. That's what imposing morality by force amounts to. Which is immoral and wrong.

This kind of morality is immoral. Because this is doing to others that which you wouldn't want to be done to yourself.

If you don't want others to impose their values on you, then don't do this to others. Or else you have a double standard of morality that makes your morality immoral.

[Smoke Light]

Fox News: Florida teacher, Disney employees among 219 arrested in human trafficking operation.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-teacher-disney-employees-arrested-human-trafficking-operation-authorities

[Dan7373]

Fox News: Florida teacher, Disney employees among 219 arrested in human trafficking operation.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-teacher-disney-employees-arrested-human-trafficking-operation-authoritiesThere is a saying, "You don't know the truth, until you hear both sides."

In this case, only one side is talking. And that's how it usually is in such cases. The authorities throw around all kinds of accusations, while the other side is handcuffed, gagged, and threatened with biased juries and judges.

First, the authorities and the media bias the community against the accused. And then the accused don't get a fair trial.

Being accused is the same as being found guilty. Because the authorities talk all the want, while the other side is forced to stay silent. It's a form of modern lynching disguised as law and order.

[Smoke Light]

Being accused is the same as being found guilty. Because the authorities talk all the want, while the other side is forced to stay silent. It's a form of modern lynching disguised as law and order.Yes, and today I noticed since yesterday the article has undergone some censorship. The original version had mentioned that some detained sex workers were supporting their families. That part has now been deleted, otherwise god forbid the readers might think sex work is just work without stigmatization. No, we don't want that!

Quote: "human trafficking operation. " End quote.

Perfectly laid out opening line of the article. Who would doubt that?

Quote: "out of 119 prostitutes who were arrested during the operation that began last week, 21 were possible victims of human trafficking. " End quote.

Wow, this is a whopping 10%. Only a suspicion, but who cares?

Quote: A pimp "told detectives he had "several females that he worked," or who paid him to transport them and keep them safe. " End quote.

The article, of course, doesn't tell the truth that illegal sex work drives sex trade underground, forcing women to work for stomach-turning pimps.

Quote: "83 suspects were arrested for soliciting prostitution. " End quote.

83 innocent people who's crime was simply a desire to have sex, which is imbedded in humans by evolution.

Quote: "The valuable relationships that we have with the social services organizations who join us in these operations make it possible for these women to get help and be emancipated from this way of life. " End quote.

Wow, what a breath-taking bravura-heresy, while organizations like Amnesty International and WHO advocate for full legalization and decriminalization of sex work. And the whole "emancipated from this way of life" stupidity is a clear demonstration of moral concerns prevailing over safety and health of sex workers.

Quote: "Rogers is an athletic director at Vanguard School and a teacher at Auburndale High School REAL Academy. " "This dude now is coaching in the county jail," Judd said. "I can't believe we want somebody like this around our children. ". "Rogers, according to the district, was hired in April 2013, and worked for Real Academy since 2017. Polk County Public Schools told the station it is moving forward with the process of terminating Rogers' employment with the district. ". End quote.

Obviously, this man could just cannibalize people around him, super dangerous individual. Thank god his life is ruined and the world is safe again.

Quote: "Rogers is married with three children. " End quote.

Aha, wonderful! Now the childhood of his children is also ruined, just like well known "war on drugs" had ruined not only lives of thousands of men, but also their families. Excellent approach.

Quote: "three suspects were Disney employees. " End quote.

By definition, Disney employees can only be sexless, ambisexual, or neuter. Or robots.

[Dan7373]

Yes, and today I noticed since yesterday the article has undergone some censorship. The original version had mentioned that some detained sex workers were supporting their families. That part has now been deleted, otherwise god forbid the readers might think sex work is just work without stigmatization. No, we don't want that!

Quote: "human trafficking operation. " End quote.

Perfectly laid out opening line of the article. Who would doubt that?

Quote: "out of 119 prostitutes who were arrested during the operation that began last week, 21 were possible victims of human trafficking. " End quote.

Wow, this is a whopping 10%. Only a suspicion, but who cares?

Quote: A pimp "told detectives he had "several females that he worked," or who paid him to transport them and keep them safe. " End quote.

The article, of course, doesn't tell the truth that illegal sex work drives sex trade underground, forcing women to work for stomach-turning pimps.

Quote: "83 suspects were arrested for soliciting prostitution. " End quote.

83 innocent people who's crime was simply a desire to have sex, which is imbedded in humans by evolution.

Quote: "The valuable relationships that we have with the social services organizations who join us in these operations make it possible for these women to get help and be emancipated from this way of life. " End quote.

Wow, what a breath-taking bravura-heresy, while organizations like Amnesty International and WHO advocate for full legalization and decriminalization of sex work. And the whole "emancipated from this way of life" stupidity is a clear demonstration of moral concerns prevailing over safety and health of sex workers.

Quote: "Rogers is an athletic director at Vanguard School and a teacher at Auburndale High School REAL Academy. " "This dude now is coaching in the county jail," Judd said. "I can't believe we want somebody like this around our children. ". "Rogers, according to the district, was hired in April 2013, and worked for Real Academy since 2017. Polk County Public Schools told the station it is moving forward with the process of terminating Rogers' employment with the district. ". End quote.

Obviously, this man could just cannibalize people around him, super dangerous individual. Thank god his life is ruined and the world is safe again.

Quote: "Rogers is married with three children. " End quote.

Aha, wonderful! Now the childhood of his children is also ruined, just like well known "war on drugs" had ruined not only lives of thousands of men, but also their families. Excellent approach.

Quote: "three suspects were Disney employees. " End quote.

By definition, Disney employees can only be sexless, ambisexual, or neuter. Or robots.Every country has its advantages and disadvantages. I'm just glad that USA doesn't control the world so much that they impose the same rules and the same conditions on everybody else. There are other countries, where people are more free regarding this issue.

When you have a diverse world, where local people decide how they want to live, then you have a choice where to go and where to enjoy the kind of freedom you want.

In the past, western countries have colonized much of the world and destroyed many cultures. They destroyed human cultural diversity and tried to make everybody like themselves. And we still have remnants of such western behavior even now. They are still trying to 'civilize' the rest of the world and make everybody like the people in the West.

I just hope that this doesn't happen again. I'd rather have a diverse world, than a world re-made in the image of USA.

[SubCmdr]

Is it moral to impose your moral values on others by force, without the agreement of others?

This is the question that has been missing in discussions of morality throughout human history, and even now.

Human history is full of examples where crusaders, missionaries, and religious or political fanatics destroyed whole cultures and ways of life to impose their values on others by force.

For a lot of westerners, it doesn't sound too bad that western Christians destroyed the cultures and ways of life among the native inhabitants of North and South America. Because Christian values were and to some extent still are western values.

But Muslims did something similar in the Middle East earlier in human history. And muslim values of modesty and strict control of women's sexual behavior still upset many westerners. Because these muslim values are neither christian nor western values.

So, it might feel okay to impose your values on others. But when others impose their values on you, then that's obviously not okay.

This is a double standard in the thinking of people who believe that their values should be universal values. They are okay with imposing their values on others, but they are outraged when others, with different values, impose their values on them.

Can morality be moral, when it's imposed by force, without the agreement of others?

This is the question that needs to be asked and answered in any debate about the morality of prostitution.

Because nowadays, many moral opponents of prostitution routinely use force and coercion to put and end to it. Or they do it in some sneaky way, where they attack the customers of women to take away their P4P business and force them to abandon prostitution that way.

I think the use of force against consenting relationships and people is immoral in itself. And any morality imposed on others this way is automatically immoral. Because this is like trying to achieve good by evil means and doing a lot of evil in the process.

Moral values should be universal only by consent and not by force. Because when force is used against consenting relationships and people, then it's no longer about who is right and who is wrong. It's about who is stronger and who is weaker. Might is right. That's what imposing morality by force amounts to. Which is immoral and wrong.

This kind of morality is immoral. Because this is doing to others that which you wouldn't want to be done to yourself.

If you don't want others to impose their values on you, then don't do this to others. Or else you have a double standard of morality that makes your morality immoral.My ISG Brother, your post is a straight stand at the plate and watch walk off grand slam. I applaud you my brother.

[SubCmdr]

Being accused is the same as being found guilty.In what criminal justice system are you speaking of? And while I am asking questions, please tell us all the role in that criminal justice system that you played?

Because I can tell you that without of a doubt in the criminal justice system of my country of origin that is not the case, in theory nor in reality. Juries are remarkably independent and prosecutors fear them. They think for themselves and look at the evidence however they chose once in deliberations. Many in my county of origin use every excuse in the world to avoid jury duty. Not me, I relished the opportunity to serve my fellow citizens in one of the most important institutions of democracy in my country of origin.

If I did not do the thing I am accused of, I want a judge to hear the evidence. If I am guilty, I want my case to be heard by a jury of my peers. Better to be judged by twelve (12) than carried by six (6)!

[The Cane]

In what criminal justice system are you speaking of? And while I am asking questions, please tell us all the role in that criminal justice system that you played?

Because I can tell you that without of a doubt in the criminal justice system of my country of origin that is not the case, in theory nor in reality. Juries are remarkably independent and prosecutors fear them. They think for themselves and look at the evidence however they chose once in deliberations. Many in my county of origin use every excuse in the world to avoid jury duty. Not me, I relished the opportunity to serve my fellow citizens in one of the most important institutions of democracy in my country of origin.

If I did not do the thing I am accused of, I want a judge to hear the evidence. If I am guilty, I want my case to be heard by a jury of my peers. Better to be judged by twelve (12) than carried by six (6)!This is often how it is in the United States in the "Court of Public Opinion", which may be what he was referring to. Luckily, or more accurately as a matter of law, it's not that court which gets to determine our fate in the United States, where the law holds you innocent until proven guilty. Thank God!

[SubCmdr]

Dan,

You got big balls (which are probably blue by now since you are no longer in Pattaya) making the accusations you have made in the portions of your post I will quote below. I will take them on one by one. It should be noted: I live in Pattaya.


When I was with a Thai lady in Pattaya, I asked her what was her opinion about people trying to get her and other P4P ladies out of the P4P business and get them to work on regular jobs. And she had some hostile words to say about such people. Basically, she considered regular jobs as a form of exploitation without any reasonable way out. It's a life-long exploitation. That's the way she described it. And P4P work she saw as a way out of a life-long exploitation. It's a possibility to gain financial independence by investing money in business, buying a home, buying land, and so on.Well my brother that is quite a pivot and your moon walk is quite smooth. And that spin was so strong, that if I was tying to tackle you would have only been able to grab air. Bravo. Maybe American Politics is in your future.

The subject was consent. But now you want to talk about economic freedom and human rights. Neither of which exist except what is granted by the individual with the trigger finger on the gun. I thought you understood this by now. But, I am up for the conversation. The world is controlled by two forces: 1. Violence 2. Money.

What you need to do is read the actual Pattaya forum instead of simply referring to your memory if you want to know how things actually work in Pattaya. And since you are citing antidotal incidents can you tell me who are the: "people trying to get her and other P4P ladies out of the P4P business and get them to work on regular jobs?


Another lady in my rotation just reported that she is back in Isaan with a new house, courtesy of a customer sponsor. She's a good fuck for her age (40), and provides GFE, so it's no surprise that she conned some PLM into giving her a pension so she can live at home with her Thai husband.Dan, why don't you find her sponsor and talk that shit to him? Here you have a guy complaining about loosing a prostitute. Makes me laugh cause in Pattaya all you have do is hire another one.

You think the sponsor of this girl was trying to get her out of being a prostitute? Here a Thai husband is not only comfortable with her being a prostitute but is also willing to share her with her sponsor when she needs to meet him when he returns. Her sponsor is paying her bills. Her sponsor is paying her more to be his personal prostitute than she could probably earn as a prostitute 26 days a month. I am not trying to get anyone to make any decision they are not interested in making. So, you ned to STFU about that shit!

Let us now review your own words:


Every workplace has its rules that workers agree to. And as long as workers are free to quit any time they want, then there is no problem with consent. They agree to abide by the rules of their workplace. And they can tear up this agreement any time they want, by quitting their employment.

Practically all workers in all occupations work in such conditions. And if you can say that these workers are free, and they give their consent, then the same applies to work in P4P.Did you explain that while engaging in pillow talk with the prostitute you hired? Did you explain that since working a prostitute is the same as any other type of work she should be willing to work a regular job just as she is willing to work as a prostitute? After all it is called sex work. Why is it that you are so concerned with how I source my prostitutes? Is it simply because I do it in a different way than you do?

And I can tell you that I have met two prostitutes this week that have told me they are tired of freelancing. They are getting older and they need to find some other way to make money or develop a steady income. They want to become my personal prostitute and they offer me a deal that seems pretty good. Take care of my basic needs. I will "give" you all the sex you want and you can fuck anyone else you want along as you take care of me.


Had a TF chick come over the other night. Usual 1200 LT. She said she worked on a factory assembly line before the pandemic. That job sucked standing in the same spot doing the same thing for hours on end for less than 500 baht per day. Turns out she now works on Beach Road and had a lot of stories to tell.Sex work pays better. It is simple as that. There also may be other benefits that come with it also. Why in the fuck do you think I want to have anyone quit a gig that is paying good for them? I don't!


That's why it's worthwhile to talk to P4P ladies themselves and see what they want, rather than impose your opinions and your views on them.Sorry, Charlie. I don't spend my time talking to prostitutes. I hire them to suck my dick, take it in their pussy and ass and let me cum in one of their holes (preferably their mouth). After they have performed the services I seek, and they want to hang around then I will talk to them. But that is not my primary objective. I let them speak on what they wish to speak. You handle your prostitutes however you like.

And while we speaking on speaking how about you speak, from where you get the mother fucking idea I am trying to impose my views on anyone else.

It is my RIGHT to hire my prostitute from any source that I choose as it is yours. And that is all I have ever said. I am not comfortable with the bar model that is used in Pattaya (I think they are exploitive and I have plenty of evidence first hand from bar girls themselves) and so I don't go bars, by drinks, pay a bar fine just to hire them to be my prostitute. I go to enjoy the girls, buy them a drink (helps with their drink quota), listen to music and hang out out my friends. Exactly what is your fucking problem with that?

There are plenty of prostitutes available on Thai Friendly that are freelance, pretty, reasonable fees, and don't involve all the extra expenses.

Right now we are exchanging these posts in the "opinion" forum. I have a friend that says: "My opinion has no dominion over another grown man". I believe that. But I also can express my opinion here within the rules allowed on this forum without being accused of forcing my opinion on anyone else. A girl from Soi 6 bar is allowed to freelance on Thai Friendly. And if I find her there and we make a deal then she will have the opportunity to provide sexual services to me as my prostitute.

In fact, I can tell you (since I am actually in Pattaya writing this on the balcony of my condo with a ocean view) that I have found several girls on Thai Friendly that have asked me to come by and buy them a drink to help with their quota as part of a meet and greet before the sex actually occurred. I made it clear to them that I would not be bar fining them. They had to come see me outside of their work in the bar. Those meetings have worked out quite well for me and my Big Black Dick. I only mention this to let you know I can be both supportive of the girls and hold my principles in order. Thank you!


Speaking for these women, rather than letting them speak for themselves is a form of colonialism, when a foreigner does it. And when local people do it, then they are just a bunch of scoundrels who want to impose their opinions and views on others. It's a way of taking away people's freedom and choice. Which can be described as a modern form of enslavement. Now you are talking. All capitalism is based on slavery! That is why I tell people I am an emancipated wage slave. For years I took my master's whip, poverty wages, discrimination and disrespect. I leaned the ways of capitalism at my masters knee. Until I built up enough knowledge and capital myself to take advantage of the "free market" system. And after I figured it out I was like a slave off the chain: I ran like a mother fucker being chased by the police and never looked back. LOL!


If you really care about people's freedom, then let these people speak and decide for themselves, rather than impose your views on them. It's wrong to impose your views on other people without their consent. Look mother fucker, I don't care about anyone's freedom other than my own and those close to me. You nor any other mother fucker in ISG or life in general is going tell me that I cannot buy pussy how I mother fucking choose to buy pussy. I am going to hire my prostitutes in the way that I choose. You do whatever you mother fucking want to do.


Who are you to say that these women shouldn't have the freedom and the right to go with whomever they want in any arrangements they want? This is their decision and not yours or anyone else's. I don't say this mother fucker. Show me where I have said this. I make decisions for myself. I express my own opinions. And I have spent money hiring prostitutes here in Pattaya. In my opinion, much of what you write is designed to make you feel better for the obvious guilt you must feel for doing what it is you do and how you do it. I feel fine about hiring prostitutes for sex. I even have a girl friend (one of many) that is comfortable with it.


And trying to discourage customers of such women is just an indirect way to ruin the business of these women, so that it's not worthwhile for them to do it anymore. It's a sneaky way to violate their rights and freedoms. And people, who do that, should be ashamed of themselves. I don't do that. And if you think I do, prove it.


If you are going to violate people's rights and freedoms, then at least do it openly and honestly, rather than do it in some sneaky way, and then deny that you've done anything wrong. Doing it in a sneaky way is victimizing people twice. It's like stabbing someone in the back, while pretending to be their friend. Oh you mother fucker. Those are fighting words. I spent a large part of my adult life placing my life on the line protecting the rights of my fellow citizens and the constitution of my country of origin. You just made yourself irrelevant in my eyes. What you are going to do is back up your accusation with some quotes that I have written during our exchanges that show I am engaging in the actions you accuse me of.

Otherwise you are just talking out the side of your mother fucking neck. A critic. I am a "man in the arena". And we all know that critics do not count.

There are pimps in Pattaya


Don't know if I reported on it, but I did have a TF chick last month that told me that was the case. Definitely did not pay her 5000. I think I arranged the usual 1200 LT. But when the girl was about to leave early is when I found this out. It seems she had no idea what our agreement was. I told her to look in her phone at our messages. Well our messages were not in her phone. She said there are several phones and it was her girlfriend that makes the arrangements then send her or other chicks. She said it is common for chicks on TF to work that way. Have anything else to say with your brilliant intelligence and extensive knowledge of sex work in Pattaya? By the way, let me know when you are going to make your next trip. We can meet up and you can show me the ropes. As you can see I have a lot to learn.

This is my outro


I only post about Lonely Guys sponsors when the lady I am with complains about them, which is happening now. Despite her complaints, she hopes he will give her enough every month so that she can stop working bar, and go home to live with her husband.

As for cavorting with ladies with Thai boyfriends or husbands, you do it all the time, you just don't know it. The vast majority of bargirls aren't gay or asexual, they need a man to go home to. Unless they are too old, too fat, too flat chested, or too poor. Thailand has an interesting culture. Does it not?

[Dan7373]

In what criminal justice system are you speaking of? And while I am asking questions, please tell us all the role in that criminal justice system that you played?

Because I can tell you that without of a doubt in the criminal justice system of my country of origin that is not the case, in theory nor in reality. Juries are remarkably independent and prosecutors fear them. They think for themselves and look at the evidence however they chose once in deliberations. Many in my county of origin use every excuse in the world to avoid jury duty. Not me, I relished the opportunity to serve my fellow citizens in one of the most important institutions of democracy in my country of origin.

If I did not do the thing I am accused of, I want a judge to hear the evidence. If I am guilty, I want my case to be heard by a jury of my peers. Better to be judged by twelve (12) than carried by six (6)!The politicians, the police, and the prosecutors turn public opinion against the accused, while the accused are forced to stay silent. Because anything they say can be held against them.

This is clearly an unequal playing field. And juries are known to go along with widely held public opinion.

So, the government first biases the public and then says let the public be the judge. I don't see how this can be fair or just.

There is no truth and no justice, when only one side is talking, while the other is forced to stay silent.

Because you don't know the truth, until you hear both sides. And the public is so biased, by the time the government is finished talking, that nobody wants to listen to the accused, when they are finally allowed to talk.

And the thing about the accused talking is that the media won't report what they say, the way they report sayings and words of government representatives. Few if anybody will hear the unedited version of what the accused have to say, even if they choose to talk, against the advice of their lawyers.

[SubCmdr]

Not guilty your honor

Anyone from the (Dis) United States of America has heard of the OJ Simpson Trial. Can you tell us the jury verdict on that trial?

Anyone familiar with Robert Kraft? He was charged with soliciting a prostitute. What happened to the charges?

The justice system is biased towards those who have money. They can hire the lawyers to work the system. Most of whom were successful prosecutors making chump change working for the government. Made their bones and then decided to become defense attorneys and rake in the big money.

No justice system is perfect. And those with complaints about it can move to a country like China, Thailand or any other country in the world that has a Justice system that is more to their liking.

The defense rests.

https://www.texasclarkfirm.com/blog/2021/may/do-prosecutors-want-to-go-to-trial-/

[Dan7373]

....

No justice system is perfect. And those with complaints about it can move to a country like China, Thailand or any other country in the world that has a Justice system that is more to their liking.
When it comes to P4P, the best country is where you don't even need to deal with the law. Because consenting adults there are free to have P4P relationships with each other as they wish.

I'd rather be in Thailand or even China, than in USA, when it comes to P4P. Because it's better not to deal with any kind of accusations at all, and be free to do this by mutual consent, than having to defend yourself against the police and the government in a court of law.

True freedom is where you don't need to fear unfair accusations by the authorities and be constantly prepared to defend yourself against them. True freedom is freedom from fear and accusations. And that's what USA doesn't have in this issue, compared to some other countries.

[SubCmdr]

True freedom is where you don't need to fear unfair accusations by the authorities and be constantly prepared to defend yourself against them. True freedom is freedom from fear and accusations. And that's what USA doesn't have in this issue, compared to some other countries.I do not know how one can be free of that if you live in the (Dis) United States of America where prostitution is illegal. Unless you obey the law. I suppose that is why ISG exists. Because men want to escape the sexual prisons society and their governments impose on them. You can travel the world to seek out legal avenues for hiring prostitutes. But I bet that most cannot escape the social stigma that goes with it. I bet most keep the fact that they travel the world to hire prostitutes a secret. Only to be shared with an inner circle of people who also do it.

[Bango Cheito]

When it comes to P4P, the best country is where you don't even need to deal with the law. Because consenting adults there are free to have P4P relationships with each other as they wish.

I'd rather be in Thailand or even China, than in USA, when it comes to P4P. Because it's better not to deal with any kind of accusations at all, and be free to do this by mutual consent, than having to defend yourself against the police and the government in a court of law.

True freedom is where you don't need to fear unfair accusations by the authorities and be constantly prepared to defend yourself against them. True freedom is freedom from fear and accusations. And that's what USA doesn't have in this issue, compared to some other countries.I just heard about a guy who went to China and the first night had a girl come over for some p4 p. The next morning, police were knocking at his door. He was three months in prison there before they let him out, and people say he hasn't been the same since.

[D Cups]

Fellow Mongers,

How drab my life would be if not for P4P. Yeah there is meaningful work but let us face it: we work to get laid, and that is a much better thing than being married. After all, it is the working girl's JOB to get us off! And many of them do a great job! After almost 50-some years of horndogging I am 68 now, never married, with a body count of 650 plus or minus 25. I would say most of them are amply endowed as is my preference. Banged girls from approximately 25 countries so I consider myself quite lucky. And an equal opportunity employer, for sure <wink . Some would accuse me of being shallow or hollow without strong familial ties but from the stories I hear that road is a bumpy one, too. Anyway, counting my blessings and especially for willing women of wanton desire despite their circumstance to polish my knob one way or another. Cheers from the Cups, Merry Christmas and to the best ever in 2024! If hope to add another 40 or 50 notches.

[Newton York]

Cause I just want to say that if not for prostitution, my life would be miserable. Way, way more than it already has been and continues to be. Having sex with chicks is the only bright spot in my sad, sad existence, and since I'm too old, and have always been very ugly, getting civilian chicks to bang me has been a challenge to say the least. If it weren't for paid sex, if it weren't for pros, I would've killed myself ages ago. The next sex trip, it's all I live for now and it's all there is, and you know what? That's how it should be, cause why else does anyone do anything? People accumulate power, get wealth, all of it and then some, so that in the end, they can fucking fuck hot chicks. Morality? More like service. A very useful service provided. Prostitutes provide an incredible service, and I salute and applaud each and every one of them. Without them, loser fucks like me would never know real, sweaty, hot, nasty, awesome, gooey sex.

I too have traveled to over 20 plus countries, and have fucked chicks in them, and without p4p, it would have been damn near impossible for a guy with my face. I'm only at a few hundred chicks, but I'd be willing to fuck my way to destitution if it meant I could hit 1000. But I'm so old now, will there be enough time?

[SubCmdr]

Go to the many of the countries in South East Asia and you will realize that the very question of the morality of prostitution is a very western concept.

Why do I say that?

My experiences in Thailand. Everyone just approaches the issue differently. A freelancer once told me, price is dependent upon what the girl needs right now. If a girl needs 500 THB right now. She is going to go with you. When usually she might ask for twice that. In some cities it seems like every girl is willing to slang that nasty thing. It is both amazing and refreshing at the same time.

[WaltoDerri]

I do not know how one can be free of that if you live in the (Dis) United States of America where prostitution is illegal. Unless you obey the law. I suppose that is why ISG exists. Because men want to escape the sexual prisons society and their governments impose on them. You can travel the world to seek out legal avenues for hiring prostitutes. But I bet that most cannot escape the social stigma that goes with it. I bet most keep the fact that they travel the world to hire prostitutes a secret. Only to be shared with an inner circle of people who also do it.TL DR: Morality is subjective. Who cares what the nay sayers have to say? Are they fucking you or getting you laid? Nope. Do they care if you are lonely? Also no.

Imagine how much the US economy would thrive if this was legal. "it can't be taxed" you could argue the same for any cash heavy business. Yet they are taxed. For a country that champions capitalism and the sale of dam near anything and everything, and price gouging with disregard to how it affects the every day person, I am genuinely surprised it hasn't been legalized yet. What two consenting adults do behind closed doors is their business. I say the following assuming we all feel mostly the same about our shared hobby, but I'm sure there are lurkers who hate us and read this anyway.

To those "woke" progressives out there who have twisted their own brainwashing to call this hobby "paid rape" you are wrong. "Consent can't be bought" you are not buying consent, you are paying for the service, just like you pay for any other service. Even a (pro sex work) feminist will tell you this. I promise you these same people still clock into jobs they hate, and there are jobs far worse than getting paid to get laid (working in sewage, war zones etc). A hot college co-ed enthusiastically sucking me and enthusiastically participating in sex is by definition, not being raped. "She wouldn't do it if not for the money" yeah well I wouldn't do it if she was unattractive. Just like a civvie wouldn't sleep with someone she didn't want, or have a connection with. The only difference are the conditions. An SB whose pussy is WET for me is NOT someone who does not want it. Please. We just cut to the chase of paying her bills like a husband pays the bills in his household to care for the wife without the drama and social rituals.

A woman can still decide to do with her body as she pleases. In a society where it's legal and the client is a prick who comes crazy, hostile, unhygienic, etc she still has the right to say no and change her mind. He has the right to refund or legal recourse. This is not so in a country where it is not. Both have something to lose. Nothing is stopping her from applying to any other job or going back to school in a country with opportunity.

Others will bring up unideal situations as arguments against it and say legal work makes it worse and justifies "abuse and trafficking" elsewhere. Hold your horses, when it crosses into the territory of messed up things, then it ceases to be sex work and becomes trafficking. Just like there is a difference between fisherman and miners in legal jobs in those industries and unfortunate souls in Africa and Asia duped into modern slavery thinking they got a real job in those same fields. No one here is celebrating human suffering, but fishing and mining jobs being legal doesn't justify abuse elsewhere. Dumb logic.

What we are doing is enjoying ourselves with consenting adults. The way I and many men see it, many women would not date or marry let alone sleep with a broke man unable to provide. Providing costs money. Most of society does mental gymnastics to say "oh I don't pay for it" or " I don't charge for it" but lets be real. At the end of the day who do civilian women choose? They choose the man with the funds to pay for a lifestyle. They just don't charge you directly, but see how long your relationship lasts if you refuse to pay for dinners, dates, trips, or other activities and especially the bills.

You always pay for it, the only difference is how you pay, how much, and the specific conditions.

The divorce stories I hear are nightmarish and in the US your wife can cheat on you in your home and take half of your assets. Other countries don't have these goofy laws. It makes me not want to get married unless its somewhere a prenup is enforceable. The goofies will say "men are always worried about us taking their money, what money?" the money they make us spend on them LOL. All in all a one night stand is cheaper than the wedding, the bills for 2,your mental health with someone who's never happy, the possible divorce, the alimony, and so on.

This is where the hobby comes as a relief. Just straight to the action. We have fun. Go home. No Drama. No losing your assets. No leading anyone on and hurting feelings just to get laid. Its a win-win. Sure, a traditional relationship and sharing your life with someone is nice, but it is harder and harder to find a good woman willing to have a grown mature relationship. Especially with how shallow women are these days and they talk about us LOL. For those of us who struggle in dating, we will enjoy ourselves. To each their own.

[SubCmdr]

Nice write up WaltoDerri. We agree on much more than we disagree.

[KingStannis2]

WaltoDerri, you make a lot of great points and I don't really disagree with any of them. I would just add two things to points that you raised:


Imagine how much the US economy would thrive if this was legal. "it can't be taxed" you could argue the same for any cash heavy business. Yet they are taxed. For a country that champions capitalism and the sale of dam near anything and everything, and price gouging with disregard to how it affects the every day person, I am genuinely surprised it hasn't been legalized yet. What two consenting adults do behind closed doors is their business. I say the following assuming we all feel mostly the same about our shared hobby, but I'm sure there are lurkers who hate us and read this anyway.

To those "woke" progressives out there who have twisted their own brainwashing to call this hobby "paid rape" you are wrong. "Consent can't be bought" you are not buying consent, you are paying for the service, just like you pay for any other service. Even a (pro sex work) feminist will tell you this. I promise you these same people still clock into jobs they hate, and there are jobs far worse than getting paid to get laid (working in sewage, war zones etc). A hot college co-ed enthusiastically sucking me and enthusiastically participating in sex is by definition, not being raped. "She wouldn't do it if not for the money" yeah well I wouldn't do it if she was unattractive. Just like a civvie wouldn't sleep with someone she didn't want, or have a connection with. The only difference are the conditions. An SB whose pussy is WET for me is NOT someone who does not want it. Please. We just cut to the chase of paying her bills like a husband pays the bills in his household to care for the wife without the drama and social rituals.I've donated and supported libertarian legalization efforts in the past. Unfortunately, for us mongers in the United States the politics of legalization in our country mean we are attacked from both sides of the political spectrum. Feminists / progressives on the left are either anti prostitution or for "decriminalizing sexwork" with the intention that the US would adopt the Nordic model. For those unaware the Nordic model is implemented in many countries and it essentially criminalizes buyers like us, but says sellers (the girls) won't get punished. Meanwhile, on the right we have moralist conservatives whether they are Christian evangelicals or "anti-degeneracy" types similar to Matt Walsh that see prostitution as an affront to traditional family values and "degenerate behavior".

As far as taxation, I think you're indeed correct that it would add a lot of revenue to state, local, and federal coffers. However, a member of the sister website USASG once argued that this could also mean a huge spike in the cost of girls similar to the effect of marijuana legalization. Marijuana is legal in many states in the United States, but since it is so heavily taxed the prices have gone up significantly. So we could potentially see the same with legalized, but heavily taxed prostitution. Perhaps, the high rates of girls at legalized brothels in Nevada is a good example of that. I believe full legalization needs to be done that includes low taxes and various legal means (brothels, red light districts, independents) competing with each other to help ensure the rates for girls don't increase exorbitantly.

[SubCmdr]

USAGOV could legalize Prostitution across the country. It would still fall to the states to regulate it unless you were transporting girls across state lines in order to conduct business.

Of course prices will go up. The independent girls must pay taxes on the record, the business must pay taxes on the record for their income and employees. There will be costs to incur to be compliant with regulations. You cannot institute price controls. The market will dictate.

Alright so your weed is more expensive. Compare that with defending yourself against a drug charge.

The Defense Rests

[WestsideGuy89]

How do the Canadians handle this? I spent time in a place in Montreal. Straight up cat house. It was 160 for 30 min inclusive, This is comparable to AMPS in the states. Since the dollar is weaker in USA, I would say this is not a high price. So how much are these places getting taxed? The girls should be like waitresses and responsible to report their own tips so it can be less of a burden on the consumer not to mention maybe there could be ways to make it so if your dissatisfied with the service you can change how much you "tip".


WaltoDerri, you make a lot of great points and I don't really disagree with any of them. I would just add two things to points that you raised:

I've donated and supported libertarian legalization efforts in the past. Unfortunately, for us mongers in the United States the politics of legalization in our country mean we are attacked from both sides of the political spectrum. Feminists / progressives on the left are either anti prostitution or for "decriminalizing sexwork" with the intention that the US would adopt the Nordic model. For those unaware the Nordic model is implemented in many countries and it essentially criminalizes buyers like us, but says sellers (the girls) won't get punished. Meanwhile, on the right we have moralist conservatives whether they are Christian evangelicals or "anti-degeneracy" types similar to Matt Walsh that see prostitution as an affront to traditional family values and "degenerate behavior"..

[WestsideGuy89]

How do the Canadians handle this? I spent time in a place in Montreal. Straight up cat house. It was 160 for 30 min inclusive, This is comparable to AMPS in the states. Since the dollar is weaker in USA, I would say this is not a high price. So how much are these places getting taxed? The girls should be like waitresses and responsible to report their own tips so it can be less of a burden on the consumer not to mention maybe there could be ways to make it so if your dissatisfied with the service you can change how much you "tip".Meant to say Canadian dollar is weaker. I spend 160 here its 160. I spend 160 there and it only cost me 120 US.

[PayForIt]

Cause I just want to say that if not for prostitution, my life would be miserable. Way, way more than it already has been and continues to be. Having sex with chicks is the only bright spot in my sad, sad existence, and since I'm too old, and have always been very ugly, getting civilian chicks to bang me has been a challenge to say the least. If it weren't for paid sex, if it weren't for pros, I would've killed myself ages ago. The next sex trip, it's all I live for now and it's all there is, and you know what? That's how it should be, cause why else does anyone do anything? People accumulate power, get wealth, all of it and then some, so that in the end, they can fucking fuck hot chicks. Morality? More like service. A very useful service provided. Prostitutes provide an incredible service, and I salute and applaud each and every one of them. Without them, loser fucks like me would never know real, sweaty, hot, nasty, awesome, gooey sex.

I too have traveled to over 20 plus countries, and have fucked chicks in them, and without p4p, it would have been damn near impossible for a guy with my face. I'm only at a few hundred chicks, but I'd be willing to fuck my way to destitution if it meant I could hit 1000. But I'm so old now, will there be enough time?Interesting post. Would be hugely interested to know how old you are? When is "too old". I have a business associate whose Dad lost his wife after many years of happy marriage during covid. About a year after her death his Dad spoke to me and asked if I thought it would be terrible for him to take a prostitute as he was longing for intimacy and sex again. He was 85! I told him that life is too short, that at 85 he may or may not have a lot of it left and to enjoy every day. He had no reason for guilt, and should not hesitate to go enjoy a lovely young woman, treat her well and with respect (as he would have done anyway) and pay her. His face lit up. A few weeks later he said he's been to a terrific club on the Costa Del Sol in Spain and had a terrific night! That was 3 years ago just after the first Covid lockdown. Well, he's still with us, I see him from time to time, he beams a smile, winks and tells me "If I am here and capable, I'll still be doing this at 100". Not sure any age is "too old" provided the body can still perform (with or without medicinal assistance!

I'm early 60's now. My only issue as I've gotten older is not desire or ability, it's finishing. I find it significantly more difficult with time to get off even if I'm totally up for it, with a hot girl, and into her. I'm hoping that doesn't get worse! Keep punting Sir.

[WestsideGuy89]

Interesting post. Would be hugely interested to know how old you are? When is "too old". I have a business associate whose Dad lost his wife after many years of happy marriage during covid. About a year after her death his Dad spoke to me and asked if I thought it would be terrible for him to take a prostitute as he was longing for intimacy and sex again. He was 85! I told him that life is too short, that at 85 he may or may not have a lot of it left and to enjoy every day. He had no reason for guilt, and should not hesitate to go enjoy a lovely young woman, treat her well and with respect (as he would have done anyway) and pay her. His face lit up. A few weeks later he said he's been to a terrific club on the Costa Del Sol in Spain and had a terrific night! That was 3 years ago just after the first Covid lockdown. Well, he's still with us, I see him from time to time, he beams a smile, winks and tells me "If I am here and capable, I'll still be doing this at 100". Not sure any age is "too old" provided the body can still perform (with or without medicinal assistance!

I'm early 60's now. My only issue as I've gotten older is not desire or ability, it's finishing. I find it significantly more difficult with time to get off even if I'm totally up for it, with a hot girl, and into her. I'm hoping that doesn't get worse! Keep punting Sir.Nothing wrong with paying for it. Doesn't matter your reason. Or your age. I'm in my late 40's and I enjoy it. If you enjoy it, run with it. Isn't it said variety is the spice of life? You arent going to get that with civilians. They want invested time. Stuck to one pussy? No way. Every blow job is different. When you get a good one, enjoy. Then you get tired of it. Move on. Ugly, good looking, young, or old. Enjoy it!

[Newton York]

Interesting post. Would be hugely interested to know how old you are? When is "too old". I have a business associate whose Dad lost his wife after many years of happy marriage during covid. About a year after her death his Dad spoke to me and asked if I thought it would be terrible for him to take a prostitute as he was longing for intimacy and sex again. He was 85! I told him that life is too short, that at 85 he may or may not have a lot of it left and to enjoy every day. He had no reason for guilt, and should not hesitate to go enjoy a lovely young woman, treat her well and with respect (as he would have done anyway) and pay her. His face lit up. A few weeks later he said he's been to a terrific club on the Costa Del Sol in Spain and had a terrific night! That was 3 years ago just after the first Covid lockdown. Well, he's still with us, I see him from time to time, he beams a smile, winks and tells me "If I am here and capable, I'll still be doing this at 100". Not sure any age is "too old" provided the body can still perform (with or without medicinal assistance!

I'm early 60's now. My only issue as I've gotten older is not desire or ability, it's finishing. I find it significantly more difficult with time to get off even if I'm totally up for it, with a hot girl, and into her. I'm hoping that doesn't get worse! Keep punting Sir.There's never too old. Never too old at all. As long as a guy still has the capacity to get it up, and there's a hot girl willing to bang him, then I say go for it. We literally only live once, and I don't believe in reincarnation or the afterlife. There's no such thing as heaven or hell and I can promise you there's no such thing as god.
So why bother with the morality of it all right? Life is nothing but a roll of the dice. Bad things always happen to good people, and bad people always win. How does one know there really is no god? Look at the slums of India and the Philippines. The things people have to do there just to see the next day. There's no justice. There's no god. There's only chance. And dumb luck. And a tiny percentage of people have most of the luck, while the rest of the world have almost no luck.

It was nothing but a black void of limbo before we were born and it'll be that again when we die, and in between while we live this shitty life, let's just fuck chicks. Cause it's all I've got now. Aside from that, I wish I was dead. As a matter of fact, I try to keep myself somewhat healthy, because I want to travel to Thailand again to keep fucking. By Beelzebub's balls, it might be the only thing keeping me from jumping in front of a bus.

At my old age, pharmaceutical help does wonders for me. When I'm in Thailand, it's sidegra all the way, every day. Of course, nowadays the best I can manage is 2 to 3 girls a day, but I don't care anymore. If my ticker explodes while I'm banging a babe, I'll go with a smile on my face. Can't think of a better way to say adios to this shitty world, this shitty life of mine. Though the odds for me are pretty high that I'll be dead in a ditch somewhere, I'm hoping I'll go with my dick rock hard in a hot babes pussy. Sure, that'll traumatize her for the rest of her life, but I'll be dead, so I won't care.

By Satan's ball sack, I wish I was in Bangkok right now.

[Smoke Light]

There's never too old. Never too old at all. As long as a guy still has the capacity to get it up, and there's a hot girl willing to bang him, then I say go for it. We literally only live once, and I don't believe in reincarnation or the afterlife. There's no such thing as heaven or hell and I can promise you there's no such thing as god.
So why bother with the morality of it all right? Life is nothing but a roll of the dice. Bad things always happen to good people, and bad people always win. How does one know there really is no god? Look at the slums of India and the Philippines. The things people have to do there just to see the next day. There's no justice. There's no god. There's only chance. And dumb luck. And a tiny percentage of people have most of the luck, while the rest of the world have almost no luck.

It was nothing but a black void of limbo before we were born and it'll be that again when we die, and in between while we live this shitty life, let's just fuck chicks. Cause it's all I've got now. Aside from that, I wish I was dead. As a matter of fact, I try to keep myself somewhat healthy, because I want to travel to Thailand again to keep fucking. By Beelzebub's balls, it might be the only thing keeping me from jumping in front of a bus.

At my old age, pharmaceutical help does wonders for me. When I'm in Thailand, it's sidegra all the way, every day. Of course, nowadays the best I can manage is 2 to 3 girls a day, but I don't care anymore. If my ticker explodes while I'm banging a babe, I'll go with a smile on my face. Can't think of a better way to say adios to this shitty world, this shitty life of mine. Though the odds for me are pretty high that I'll be dead in a ditch somewhere, I'm hoping I'll go with my dick rock hard in a hot babes pussy. Sure, that'll traumatize her for the rest of her life, but I'll be dead, so I won't care.

By Satan's ball sack, I wish I was in Bangkok right now.Beautifully said, Newton York! The only thing I can add is that an ugly old man like yourself is still a lovely creation of nature, because a porno flick featuring you having sex with a girl 3 times younger would be a delightful scene to enjoy. Cheers.

SL.

[Newton York]

Nothing wrong with paying for it. Doesn't matter your reason. Or your age. I'm in my late 40's and I enjoy it. If you enjoy it, run with it. Isn't it said variety is the spice of life? You arent going to get that with civilians. They want invested time. Stuck to one pussy? No way. Every blow job is different. When you get a good one, enjoy. Then you get tired of it. Move on. Ugly, good looking, young, or old. Enjoy it!In my youth, there were 3 occasions when I almost got hitched. One was quite serious. But looking back decades later, how would I feel now if I was stuck with just one pussy, and an old one at that? If she looked like Cherie Deville, absolutely, but all the chicks in my past were my age then, so they'd be my age now, and that's just a no go. I'm now at least a few years away from dying, what time is left, I got to fuck as many different hot chicks as I can. That's right, enjoy it!

[Hargow20]

In my mind prostitution is simply about paying for a good time with the kind girl a the kind sex you want. There is nothing wrong with it so long you are forcing the girl and being nice to her.


Nothing wrong with paying for it. Doesn't matter your reason. Or your age. I'm in my late 40's and I enjoy it. If you enjoy it, run with it. Isn't it said variety is the spice of life? You arent going to get that with civilians. They want invested time. Stuck to one pussy? No way. Every blow job is different. When you get a good one, enjoy. Then you get tired of it. Move on. Ugly, good looking, young, or old. Enjoy it!

[WaltoDerri]

WaltoDerri, you make a lot of great points and I don't really disagree with any of them. I would just add two things to points that you raised:

I've donated and supported libertarian legalization efforts in the past. Unfortunately, for us mongers in the United States the politics of legalization in our country mean we are attacked from both sides of the political spectrum. Feminists / progressives on the left are either anti prostitution or for "decriminalizing sexwork" with the intention that the US would adopt the Nordic model. For those unaware the Nordic model is implemented in many countries and it essentially criminalizes buyers like us, but says sellers (the girls) won't get punished. Meanwhile, on the right we have moralist conservatives whether they are Christian evangelicals or "anti-degeneracy" types similar to Matt Walsh that see prostitution as an affront to traditional family values and "degenerate behavior".

As far as taxation, I think you're indeed correct that it would add a lot of revenue to state, local, and federal coffers. However, a member of the sister website USASG once argued that this could also mean a huge spike in the cost of girls similar to the effect of marijuana legalization. Marijuana is legal in many states in the United States, but since it is so heavily taxed the prices have gone up significantly. So we could potentially see the same with legalized, but heavily taxed prostitution. Perhaps, the high rates of girls at legalized brothels in Nevada is a good example of that. I believe full legalization needs to be done that includes low taxes and various legal means (brothels, red light districts, independents) competing with each other to help ensure the rates for girls don't increase exorbitantly.The main problem with both parties is that they're full of shit and get almost nothing of consequence done. We need more diversity and to finally break away from their political dominance and emulate more efficient democracies. Those same republicans are fucking teens like Matt Gaetz. They shouldn't be in power depriving us from legal paid sex when not only do they do it, they chase minors and judge us! (Not that I condone that last part, always 2 adults).

Now as far as pricing, the prices have already gone up astronomically. I remember the golden years of the 2010's where I could fuck actually attractive girl next doors and hood rats for like 60-80 quickies. Seeking was around and 150-300 for a full GFE and maybe even rawdogging was affordable for guys with better jobs. Now they scoff af anything under 500 just to show up.

The caveat though, is that the surplus of pussy on the market will force their hands to bring prices down to be affordable. Is it better to make $1 K a month off 2 clients or much more seeing many more for less each?

We see this in Europe. We see it happening in real time in Colombia where it was cheap, it began to sky rocket, and now going back down because those dumb girls got too greedy. But the US itself where we wouldn't have to leave the country anymore? Ooo wee. Those strip clubs would have lines around the block!!

[WaltoDerri]

In my youth, there were 3 occasions when I almost got hitched. One was quite serious. But looking back decades later, how would I feel now if I was stuck with just one pussy, and an old one at that? If she looked like Cherie Deville, absolutely, but all the chicks in my past were my age then, so they'd be my age now, and that's just a no go. I'm now at least a few years away from dying, what time is left, I got to fuck as many different hot chicks as I can. That's right, enjoy it!I'm only 30 and I feel like I'm "too old" to find a wife now and missed my window in my 20's. The gag was no one wanted to date me then and I coped with working girls. Of course they didn't love me, some liked me even as a friend but I was at the very least fucking the shit out of them. Even this past year I tried my hand again and it seems only milfs want to give me a shot but I have zero interest in raising someone else's kids. I want to have my own one day but it's looking like I'll have to hire a surrogate LOL.

In the mean time, since I have been rejected yet again I guess I have no choice but to make more money to keep this up, especially with quality SBs. Seeking is international and I have yet to fuck my way through Europe and other countries on that side of the world. I've run through the US and Latin America and it was a blast.

[Sirioja]

I'm only 30 and I feel like I'm "too old" to find a wife now and missed my window in my 20's. The gag was no one wanted to date me then and I coped with working girls. Of course they didn't love me, some liked me even as a friend but I was at the very least fucking the shit out of them. Even this past year I tried my hand again and it seems only milfs want to give me a shot but I have zero interest in raising someone else's kids. I want to have my own one day but it's looking like I'll have to hire a surrogate LOL.

In the mean time, since I have been rejected yet again I guess I have no choice but to make more money to keep this up, especially with quality SBs. Seeking is international and I have yet to fuck my way through Europe and other countries on that side of the world. I've run through the US and Latin America and it was a blast.At 30, you should better make a family with children, much better than even the prettiest Russian escorts with wow look and turning fire in bed.

[WaltoDerri]

At 30, you should better make a family with children, much better than even the prettiest Russian escorts with wow look and turning fire in bed.Believe me Bro I want to but no woman I meet does. I got into this world because no one wants me. Even the girls on seeking who claim to like me don't want that future with me LOL.

[Sirioja]

Believe me Bro I want to but no woman I meet does. I got into this world because no one wants me. Even the girls on seeking who claim to like me don't want that future with me LOL.Girls on seeking are also prostituting. Sad for You at 30 , to find only prostitutes. I find guys who are younger than in 40's should not pay for paid sex, but find a girlfriend, when many women want safety and a family with children.

[WaltoDerri]

Girls on seeking are also prostituting. Sad for You at 30 , to find only prostitutes. I find guys who are younger than in 40's should not pay for paid sex, but find a girlfriend, when many women want safety and a family with children.I'm sure they do but not with me. Zero matches on bumble and hinge etc. No one's interested in even entertaining a convo in person. So, getting my rocks off with working girls is the next best thing.

[Artisttyp]

https://nypost.com/2024/12/20/lifestyle/experts-reveal-the-dangers-of-going-without-sex-masturbation/

[SubCmdr]

I'm sure they do but not with me. Zero matches on bumble and hinge etc. No one's interested in even entertaining a convo in person. So, getting my rocks off with working girls is the next best thing.Bro, if you are willing to have an unconventional relationship you can goto the Dominican Republic and set up a family. Real easy. But, remember this is not a traditional relationship. You girl is going to be fucking local men when you are not there. So, you have to open your mind.

It is possible to have the best of both worlds. Do not let an individual with 25 K+ posts on a site focusing on having sex with girls give you relationship advice. Especially when they have not provided any information on their relationship status.

I did 10+ years of boots on the ground living in the Dominican Republic

It is fine for everyone to have their opinions but I can tell you Bro that if you explore the world there is a girl somewhere that will be HAPPY to have you in their live to support them. In fact you have have one or many in every country you choose. Right up to the limit of your willingness to support them. I speak from experience. Just make sure the children are yours and that you WILL be have a paternity test once the baby is born.

Much success and remember you cannot make a ho into a housewife. But you can impregnate her and be responsible for her child for the rest of your life. That child is yours (if you get the paternity test and you know) and nothing changes that. No matter how big of a ho their mother is.

[AntonySun1996]

What are better cures for winter blues than banging a 19 yo Russian girl with an innocent beautiful face and a body to-die-for, letting her tight pussy squeeze out the last drop of your sperms, after a long walk in the city covered with snow, and a warm bath in a Banya afterwards?

I'm glad I traveled to the most sanctioned country in the world, which most people choose to avoid visiting.

[Newton York]

There's no doubt that this hobby helps with depression. The issue is when there's not enough cash to make it happen on a consistent basis. By Satan's ballsack, during one of the lowest periods of my life I went to Prague and had an awesome time banging chicks half my age. Young and fresh, rimming me, swallowing my cum. Tongue kissing. It was sublime.

I'd give anything to make it happen more often again. Nowadays for monetary reasons, it's going to have to be Thailand, but even then it's time and money again that's getting in the way.

[SubCmdr]

Why is that OG Vets have a problem with me talking about my stack and flow when all you find over in the Pattaya Reports are mother fuck arguing over how much it costs to hire a prostitute. If any of them ACTUALLY hired a prostitute they would not be making an argument.

Can anyone up in here deny the most basic of fact of life that MONEY is base requirement to engage in the International Trickin activities of your choice?

If you cannot afford the numbers laid out below then you need to stay your broke ass self at home and create a flow that builds your stack BEFORE you ever get on a plane to start your International Trickin activities.


Pricing for the Ladies

1. Lady Drinks: Cost: 150-250 THB ($4-$7) per drink. Buying a lady drink allows you to chat and get to know the staff. Often you can feel them up, fuck around with them and dance.

2. Bar Fines: Cost: 500-2,500 THB ($9-$28), depending on the bar and time of day you want to take the girl out of the bar. This fee is paid to the bar to take a lady out.

Short-Time: Cost: 1,000-2,000 THB ($28-$56) directly to the lady plus approximately 500 baht paid to the bar for the short time room. Typically for 1-2 hours with the lady and one shot unless you negotiate more. Long-Time: Typically starts when you bar fine the girl until the next morning. Cost: 2,500-5,000 THB ($70-$140). Normally includes 1-2 shots before bed and one in the morning.Can your stack support the following budget?


Daily Budget:

Drinks: 1,000-2,000 THB ($28$56).

Bar Fines + Lady: 1,500- 3,000 THB ($42-$85).

Soi 6 can offer a memorable experience if you approach it with a friendly attitude, set clear boundaries, and enjoy responsibly as there are tons of ladies and different style of bars.Finally we have words of wisdom written by the most renown philosopher on prostitution of our age:


There's no doubt that this hobby helps with depression. The issue is when there's not enough cash to make it happen on a consistent basis. By Satan's ballsack, during one of the lowest periods of my life I went to Prague and had an awesome time banging chicks half my age. Young and fresh, rimming me, swallowing my cum. Tongue kissing. It was sublime. I'd give anything to make it happen more often again. Nowadays for monetary reasons, it's going to have to be Thailand, but even then it's time and money again that's getting in the way.If you don't have 16,000 THB+ to spend up in Heaven Above then don't spend it. Stick to your budget. But that goes back to having the flow to build your stack so if you want peel off a a half a stick for a party one night you can.


ONE LAST POINT. DO NOT BUY 40 DRINKS UNLESS YOU ARE KOREAN OR YOU HAVE MONEY TO BURN JUST LIKE ME LOL Can I get a mother fucking witness up in dis *****?