Miami cops arrested Carlos Rodriguez for soliciting prostitution on November 9th. Under the heading of unique physical features, the arrest report notes, “Half a Head”. What would we do without our Blue Knights saving society from those who want to get laid?
While I write endlessly about the persecution of women who sell sex, it’s much more rare that I comment on the other victims of society’s war on sex, the customer.
It’s no secret that anti-prostitution crusaders advocate the state injecting itself into and regulating our most intimate and private relationships. While they rant about how all prostitution is coercion, they don’t give it a second thought when they use the threat of jail to force everyone to follow their narrow intolerant moral code. They summarily decree that the moment money is involved, women are being coerced or exploited. To them the only acceptable terms for a sexual relationship are mutual attraction.
They dismiss the idea that that puts millions of people, of which Mr Rodriguez is only one, at something of a disadvantage. Laws against prostitution sadistically deny one of humanity’s most pleasurable and intimate interactions to a class of people who are only likely to experience it through the services of a prostitute. That would include many handicapped people, those who have been maimed by war or accidents, those with serious birth defects, the home bound, the bed-ridden, and the just plain ugly (such as myself).
To spell it out, laws against prostitution specifically single out disadvantaged people for persecution. As long as man has walked the earth society has been defining the powerless as throwaways, unworthy of the rights and privileges that the rest of us take for granted. Every generation of Americans self-righteously proclaims their abhorrence of witch hunts, moral crusades, and lynchings of past generations, even as they enthusiastically engage in the current ones. Like the very people who perpetrated that history of marginalizing those they didn’t like, they don’t recognize what they’re doing. It’s never called persecution by those who doing it.
As one commenter so eloquently wrote a while back, no “normal” person needs to buy sex. The implication is that sex is a privilege reserved only for so-called normal people. If you’ve ever been in a discussion about the demand side of prostitution, some moron will invariably make the remark, “I’ve never had to pay for it”. The implication is that, “I’m among the class of people that women will have sex with without having to pay for it”. The pure naivety of such an assertion is stunning. I don’t know too many people who would dispute that wealth (coupled with generosity) usually plays a part in the dynamic between men and women, regardless of whether an explicit transaction occurs.
The war on prostitution is not just a crusade against a woman’s right to own and control her own body. It’s also a systematic program of persecution aimed at a minority of the population that no one gives a shit about. It’s the tyranny of the majority in action. And there is nothing moral, benevolent, or heroic about it.
If you don’t mind, Dave, I’d like to link my post on this very subject: http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/no-other-option/. I think your readers may appreciate some firsthand experiences with these gentlemen.
I welcome it. The topic of a man’s right to buy sex (from a voluntary provider of same) is probably the single issue that motivated the creation of a website dedicated to sex hysteria. I don’t write about it very often simply because the argument of legalized prostitution centers much more on women’s rights. Of course, that may change if the U.S. starts to swing more toward the Swedish Model of Idiocy.
This is one of the most insightful posts – of the many on this site! The ignornace and arrogance of hysteric crusaders against sex is astounding. My Flickr account was deleted yesterday (along with my Yahoo email account I had for 12 years), because my latest upload included a fully-clothed 11-year-old painting her toenails, with a brief discussion of the films and novel the image imitates. Nothing sexually suggestive in the image, and no mention of sex or nudity in the text. But any calm and dispassionate mention of the classic (and highly acclaimed) story of “Lolita” is enough to drive hysterics wild.
I certainly agree that somebody who is disfigured, disabled, or as you put it, “just plain ugly” should be able to buy sex from somebody who is willing to sell it. In fact, I can’t think of any reason why a nation which boasts of its freedom and is founded on secular law should ban even the handsome and charming from buying sex from somebody willing to sell it.
But there is one handicap which often makes sex hard to get and for which prostitution does nothing: poverty. Even relative poverty, in which a person has plenty to eat and shelter and even something like cable TV. I’ve joked about the government providing “sex stamps” for those who can’t afford prostitutes, but let’s face it: that is a joke.
Hi, Sailor Barsoom, and welcome.
An enthusiastic supporter of the welfare state could certainly make an argument that a healthy sex life is among the minimal requirements for people to be happy and the state should therefore subsidize it for the poor. I, on the other hand, believe that it’s the promise of better and more abundant sex that motivates people to lift themselves out of poverty. Hell, if it weren’t for the promise of sex, man would probably have never progressed past the cave dwelling phase. haha!
To me there is no doubt that wealth plays a part in attracting sex partners, but I never actually thought of poverty being a barrier to obtaining sex. Of course, it’s really two sides of the same coin. If one were to assume that would be a problem almost exclusive to men, what does that say about women?
Of course, after millions of years of evolution, women have no doubt learned that sex can be traded for security. Leave it to modern moral civilization to condemn a practice that helped ensure the survival of the species.
I think poverty is an obstacle to sexual interaction precisely because traditional culture mentally castrates females to create scarcity. If children received accurate, balanced and comprehensive sex education they wouldn’t become fixated on buying objects made of metal and plastic. I agree that people should have the freedom to engage in prostitution if they want to, but I’m afraid that the culture of castration is what makes prositution feasible.
I’m sorry, Frank, but I completely disagree. Prostitution has been around since the beginning of human civilization, not since the advent of consumer culture. And the neofeminist idea that prostitution derives from patriarchy is disproven by the fact that it was both more common and more respected in the ancient matriarchal cultures. Mental castration of women makes prostitution rarer, not more common.
Thanks for your reply. I don’t dispute that prostitution has been around since the beginning of civilization, under both patriarchy and matriarchy, and I’m not surprisied if it was more common and more respected in matriarchal cultures.
In some third world countries where little girls are still physically castrated, it is the women who organize and perform the barbaric operation. See “Mutilée” by Khady (OH ! Editione, 2005).
I can’t imagine what purpose is served by castrating females, physically or mentally, except to make sex scarce and hence increase it’s exchange value.
“I can’t imagine what purpose is served by castrating females, physically or mentally, except to make sex scarce and hence increase it’s exchange value.”
In my column of July 18th (http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/176/) I pointed out that since the most powerful social forces (sex and motherhood) are controlled by women, any government which wishes to control society must control women. “Breaking” a person mentally and emotionally, such as by forced submission to degrading rituals, is one of the oldest and most effective methods of control known, and since control of women is more important virtually all overlords, male or female, reserve the harshest and most degrading treatment for women.
I enjoyed reading your insightful post on “Modern Marriage,” but I think historical analysis doesn’t go deep enough into the past to explain human sexual behavior. For example, the incest taboo predates civilization.
In most lower mammals males have little to do with females and offspring except during the brief act of mating. Among higher mammals (e.g. primates) social organization is more complex and males play a greater role in the group as a whole. Mating takes place only during estrus and appears “instinctive,” but individuals who grow up isolated from the group in a laboratory have difficulty mating even when they have the opportunity.
Non-human primates like the Bonobo have “natural” sex education because the young can watch older members of the group playing, bonding and mating. Young bonobos even engage in sex play with mature members of the group but they don’t grow up to become sex maniacs on account of early sex play and witnessing the “primal scene” on a daily basis.
In other species like the Chimpanzee the young witness mature males mating with mature females as well as with reproductively immature females. Immature female chimps (adolescents) frequently present themselves in the mating position to mature males. Males reportedly prefer mature females, but if none are in heat at the moment will copulate with immature females even during the sub-fertile period of early adolescence. Immature female chimps have been clocked at 3,000 copulations before they reach reproductive maturity.
Are Chimpanzees or Bonobos sex maniacs? No. They are able to work, play, fight and survive despite their lack of sexual inhibition. But they do live a rather primitive lifestyle in the wild, unlike us civilized and inhibited humans. Is there a necessary connection between inhibition and civilization? Considering that high levels of civilization are reached by individuals and cultures of widely varying degrees of sexual inhibition, there is no clear correlation. Is Prince Charles sexually inhibited? Bill Clinton? Silvio Burlusconi?
As a teacher I may be somewhat biased, but I suspect that modern marital and sexual problems are due to mis-education of children, who are – in effect – isolated from mature members of the group and denied the opportunity to learn about healthy sexual relations. The rescue industry has promoted sex hysteria to cultivate demand for their services, but many young people who have grown up during the sex hysteria of the past 30 years tell me they are having great difficulty forming relationships with the opposite sex, and they’re amazed to hear that many kids who grew up in the 1960s became sexually active at nine.