Jun
10
This is the second part of the series “Legal or Illegal”. Please read that article first if you want to understand the base of these arguments.
Today in almost all the societies, modern or otherwise, western or eastern, world’s oldest profession is illegal. In the conservative societies, choosing this profession is like living the worst form of life, it is suppose to be he last resort of poor women.
But the question arises, if having sex with a partner of your choice is legal, how come exchanging money for sex is not? What changes when money is exchanged between two people for Sex? Its definitely not exchange of money because there is nothing wrong in exchange of money between two people. Its not sex either because two consenting adults are allowed to have sex (except for countries like India, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan where there are some restrictions).
So coming back to the killing kittens example, when I suggest people that in a society of pure Liberty, prostitution will be legal, people just revolt, the first knee-jerk reaction “but won’t evil people force women to work as prostitutes?.”
Well first of all, forcing women to work as prostitutes in such a society will still be a crime, irrespective of whether you make prostitution legal or illegal. Just like forcing someone to work in your fields is a crime, forcing someone to do computer programming for you on a gun point is a crime, forcing someone to work as a prostitute will be a crime. Like forcing someone to work in your house as a maid is slavery, forcing some girl to work as a prostitute will be slavery too.
So you see there is no change in status for that act which is certainly a crime. Now if prostitution is made legal, then only the women who wish to work as a prostitute will be in the profession. If there will be enough number of women in such a profession, there will be no incentive for those criminals who force women to become prostitutes do continue doing it. The prostitutes will be well paid, kept much more healthy, and be less exploited.
There will be a licensing of prostitutes by voluntary unions, monthly checkups by doctors and numerous disease prevention measures will be taken.
The second knee-jerk reaction I get from people is “Oh so would you like to see your sister or mother work as a prostitute?” People, people! There is a big difference between supporting the decriminalization of a voluntary act, and wishing to see my own family members do the same act without consent. Despite of the fact that prostitution is illegal, there are prostitutes all over the world; your sister might be working as one without your knowledge. Oh do you find that idea disgusting? Why not? Because you think you have given your sister some values? Well then why would they be becoming prostitutes just because it’s legalized now?
Objective Perspective: Let’s have an objective perspective of what prostitution is really. When you gift your girlfriend precious gifts and she returns it back with sexual favour (which could be making out with you, or even full intercourse), that is prostitution in objective terms according to the definition of prostitution. Would you really be in a relationship with a girl (or marry one) if it’s made clear that you are NOT getting any sexual favours from her? Or if you are a girl, then would you be in a relationship with a man (or marry one) if its made clear that he is never going to give you any gift or material benefits, you both have to pay your rent separately, you will have to buy your own clothes, jewellery etc, and just keep on giving sexual favours to him?
This, my friend is prostitution from a pure Objective viewpoint. A girl is merely being a prostitute if she accepts gifts from a guy, and then is at some point obliged to return sexual favours. Having a marital contract does not changes anything because if you don’t have sex with your spouse then that can become a grounds for cancellation(divorce) or even nullification(annulment) of the contract(marriage).
A voluntary trade benefits both the parties, take for example a milkman gives a baker his milk, and baker gives milkman his cake. Both the parties are not better off without the voluntary trade. Baker now has milk which he needed; milkman has cake, which he wanted to eat. Similarly, prostitution is a voluntary trade, and it benefits both the parties, and it’s no more just or unjust than a milkman-baker transaction. A prostitute has her sexuality; her client has money, after the trade both are better off than before. We never hear a guy being pushed into heterosexual prostitution against his will, not because everyman loves to be in that situation, but because the supply greatly outweighs the demand.
When there is a demand, somehow it will be fulfilled by the supply, whether you make it legal or illegal. In former case it will be met out there in open, in latter case, it will be met in a black market, in closed alleys. Whether you live in Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan or USA, prostitution is everywhere, do not take a moralistic viewpoint that our culture does not support these things. India has highest numbers of AIDS patients despite of its glorious 5,000 years old moralistic culture, its all because of back-ally illegal prostitution.
Pre-empting arguments:
- Chaos! Legalizing prostitution will create chaos everywhere - I am sorry but this is a de facto argument given to whatever I suggest. It comes basically because of what psychologist describe as “Fear of the unknown”. If you think legalizing prostitution will create chaos in the society, well then think again because according to psychologists you are saying that because you are unable to envision such a scenario.
- Girls will be immoral, guys will become corrupt - I don’t know where you come from, but prostitution is pretty wide spread in contemporary society, its just that girls won’t admit it to anyone because of its in-acceptance in the society, and guys won’t admit it because its emasculating to admit.
written by renegade_division
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668 views23 Responses to “Legal or Illegal : Prostitution”
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Zoe Brain Says:
June 10th, 2008 at 9:30 pmI live in a jurisdiction where sex work is not illegal, though heavily regulated.
“Now if prostitution is made legal, then only the women who wish to work as a prostitute will be in the profession. If there will be enough number of women in such a profession, there will be no incentive for those criminals who force women to become prostitutes do continue doing it. The prostitutes will be well paid, kept much more healthy, and be less exploited.
There will be a licensing of prostitutes by voluntary unions, monthly checkups by doctors and numerous disease prevention measures will be taken.”
That’s an accurate summation, but add in zoning laws too to restrict such activities to Light Industrial areas. When I was working at Ausspace, making satellites, we had a furniture store on one side, a brothel on the other.
Canberra may be boring, but it’s not exactly a den of sin and depravity. The main concern for us is to make sure foreign sex workers get informed of their rights under Australian law.
apeetha Says:
June 11th, 2008 at 1:18 amthe whole thing was an eye opener. I am from india too. and i guess there is truth behind the changes that would happen if prostitution was legalised. personally, i am not against them but the stigma is hard to remove from the society, and i dont understand why ppl blame only the prostitutes, it takes two to a tango after all!
great write, i actually listened to the whole thing.
and your template deserves mention, it looked so magical when i first looked at it.
keep more coming.
renegade_division Says:
June 11th, 2008 at 2:31 am@Zoe
I too live in a jurisdiction where sex work is not illegal, though heavily regulated, just too heavily, the govt controls the price of prostitution, to ZERO. You cannot pay or ask money a price lower or higher than Zero Rs.
Oh come on, there is no need of zoning laws, I can write an article on Zoning laws too, but our readers here don’t understand what zoning laws are because its non-existent in India. But you can read this:
Zoning is Theft - Mises blog
Nalin Bakshi Says:
June 15th, 2008 at 10:51 pmI agree with you on what all you wrote. It couldn’t have been written any better. An eye opener for many I hope.
Adding your blog to my list.
Meenakshi Janga Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 12:42 pmI share a lot of difference of opinions to what u’ve written. You’ve made words like love,care,etc. sound very cheap.I agree with you when you say that prostitution will exist no matter if its legalised or not.But not when you say that “A girl is merely being a prostitute if she accepts gifts from a guy, and then is at some point obliged to return sexual favours.”
Donot compare LOVE with PROSTITUTION.
I hope the criticism will be taken in a healthy manner.
cheers! ;]
renegade_division Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 1:00 pm@Meenakshi said:
Well Objectively speaking Love and Prostitution are the same, the only difference between them is on Subjective level. One involves more exchange of love than other.
Have you not heard of a Prostitution terminalogy called “GFE” or “Girl Friend Experience” where a prostitutes would give you an experience so that you won’t be able to differentiate between making love to her or to your Girl Friend. And as much surprising you may find it, GFE is a recent phenomenon. Most prostitutes traditionally won’t let you cuddle them, or even kiss them(from a fear of disease and disgust). In fact if you go to a Hooker review sites(yes they are there, Internet is a classic example of a govt less spontaneous society, if there is a need of Information, Internet will fulfill it), they provide you numerous ratings on customer satisfaction, and most customer ratings go for a girl who gives GFE and is really safe. So this is causing more and more hookers to jump the GFE bandwagon.
I am not saying that Love is as degrading as Prostitution, but Prostitution is catching up with Love. In fact today you can become Sugar Daddy of any girl with consensual exchange of money and sex.
Both people benefit from this exchange, usually its like a young college girl being a companion of a rich old man who needs some physical pleasure. But then whom are we fooling, she is a hooker, with a bit more exclusiveness.
So there you go, a perfect legal form of Prostitution which erodes boundaries between love and prostitution. You cannot say that there is no love involved in such a relationship, because its for women to judge. I think a proper Hindi/Urdu term for that would be “Rakhail”
Shiva Says:
June 20th, 2008 at 7:20 amHello frnd!! your article is fine…
couldnt get onething why we need to compare it with Love.
Love is NOT prostitution, In Love you care your partner with heartfull feelings and in prostitution its just a physical satisfaction…
make it clear if i’m wrong in this
Cheers Shiva(Hyd)
renegade_division Says:
June 20th, 2008 at 7:30 amHey Shiva buddy, glad to see you here.
Well if you really think that Love is different than Prostitution then you gotta separate Love and Physical pleasure.
Can you really marry a women with the prospect of never having sex with her? Never Ever! Not the first night, not the last night. Because according to your definition that would be pure love.
I to be honestly speaking am practical, I know no matter how much Love you are feeling for your partner right now, sooner or later it will blow away without any physical gratification.
Second question is, if in Love you have true heartful feelings for your partner, then how come people breakup? Does that mean either it was not Love(then perhaps nothing is love) or it was merely an extended Prostitution.
So if you broke up with your gf, without ever having sex, that proves my first point, no love lasts without physical gratification.
If you broke up with your gf, and you had sex regularly(without any problems) then it wasn’t the lovey-dovey love you describe, because if it was the heartful feelings you describe then how did they went away?
renegade_division Says:
June 20th, 2008 at 7:33 amI think the reason why so many people are complaining about my comparison with Love is because this article destroys the pre-conception of Love from the minds of people. But that definition of love is purely the Bollywood definition. And we live partly in the world created in our minds by Bollywood.
I would say its time to get real.
Freesoul Says:
June 20th, 2008 at 12:08 pmLove is not prostitution.
Yet love is value aided. you cannot love a girl or a boy because he has no skills, no beauty, no characteristic qualities which you admire.
Sex is the simplest and most effectively important way to tell someone that you care and respect and understand the value of his characteristic existence.
Love is surely not prostitution, because in love, sex is not brought or dealed over. In love sex becomes a mere medium to express the most sensitive and reasonified feelings.
It is just an illusive way of the writer to compare love with Prostitution. But his intentions weren’t wrong.
How and why will you love a girl who is ugliest you saw in your life(on your view) who has no skills, who can neither talk properly nor walk. who is fatty, unattractive and abusive and keeps trying to bully you. You cannot love a person because he/she is ugliest, poorest with no skills.
You can love only that person whom you consider is worthy for you.
Love is always value aided.
Freesoul Says:
June 20th, 2008 at 12:46 pm@Shiva
For more clarity read this http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5298
Freesoul Says:
June 20th, 2008 at 1:15 pm@Shiva
To love is selfish.
Let us discuss the old movie Satyam Shivam Sundaram of Jeenat Aman and Shashi Kapoor.
Jeenat Aman’s face gets a burnt and she becomes ugly. What does the movie depicts?
Does that movie say that love is selfless and one should not love a person for his/her qualities but should love him/her just because he is a person?
No. The moral of movie was different. The movie says that irrespective of her face being burnt, irrespective of being ugly on skin and facial counts and standards, Jeenat Aman proves to be irresistibly attractive and beautiful for Shashi Kapoor because of her excellent singing voice and skills. Because of her singing abilities and excellently beautiful voice, she wins heart of Shashi Kapoor, and irrespective of all illusionary ideas of Shashi Kapoor about facial beauty, the inner beauty of Jeenat Aman, her characteristic voice makes her worthy enough to be loved and respected.
That is, you cannot judge the worth of a person on behalf of his/her facial beauty and skin colour. You need to understand his/her inner and inalienable characteristics including good behaviour honesty, bravery, loyalty etc, whatever you look for, if you get it in a person, you obviously fell in love with him/her. That is why we say beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.
Now, every person has some quality or other which we may love. Hence it is said that we should love all and each other. Not because it is altruistic nature, but because it is very selfish nature. We should love each other because everyone has got some or other worthy quality/qualities, and those qualities should be respected and admired.
But then again, every person has got some quality/qualities which we may not like/love and actually we may hate.
Thus, it makes it an overall value aided relation. We tend to love the person with whom we feel great and enthusiast.
Just like the case of the movie “Tare Zameen Par”. Ishaan meets many teachers and people. But he avoids them; he actually hates them and finds them repulsive. While on other hand, Amir Khan (Nikumbh) wins Ishaan’s heart, and trust, and Ishaan starts loving him, respecting him, which improves the self-confidence of Ishaan and he becomes excellent.
Same is case with the recent movie Sarkar Raj you saw some days ago.
Aishwarya Rai finds Hasan Qazi as repulsive and wrong, hence she rejects to work with him, while she finds values and ethics of Abhishek Bachchan worthy enough. She finds herself safe, secured and respected with Abhishek; hence she chooses to work with him.
In fact, even Bollywood movies tell the truth in best way possible. It is just our brainwashed view that we do not realize the hidden truth that all are selfishly motivated.
Shiva Says:
June 21st, 2008 at 7:50 pmit is an eye opener for me, able to understand many things..
thank you frndz
one more clarification req… may be it is out of scope..
if we go with this logic then people will be having multiple *** partners.. is it ok?
Then what can be difference between us and animals?
Unpretentious Diva Says:
June 21st, 2008 at 10:36 pm@shiva
so you think the difference between human and animal is that animals are polyandrous/ polygamous and humans are not polyandrous /polygamous?
Umm don’t you feel your question is ridiculously wrong?
You want to say that any human who has married two times or three times (may she was a widow) is not human but animal.
You want to say that all Islamic males are animals because they are allowed to have four marriages.
You want to say that Krishna was not human but an Animal because he had many wives.
You want to say that if guy/girl has had sex before marriage, then he/she is animal.
Quite confusing your idea of difference between animal and human is.
Why don’t you read some biology to find the real difference between human and animal?
The major difference between human and animal is THE RATIONAL FACULTY OF HUMAN, THE MIND OF HUMAN, and HIS CONSCIOUSNESS.
Anyways, you need to read these
Dowry- The Other Facet
and more importantly this Emotions, Hedonism, Rationality and Morality in The Dreamland–Part 2
By the way, it is Individual’s choice. Why do you think sex is so important for you? Do you live for sex? Why will your sexual activities show that you are animal or human?
renegade_division Says:
June 22nd, 2008 at 12:06 am@Shiva Said
Isn’t it a very weak argument for anything “If we do ___ what will be the difference between us and animals?”
Buddy we became different from animals the first time thousands of years ago when we first used tool. No animal has brains to use tools. Is there?>
Unfortunately we haven’t have stopped having sex like animals yet. And funny thing this animal-human argument is only heard in Indian culture, nowhere else.
We are animals, just in a more sophisticated manner. We can form groups, talk, think about our existence, cry, laugh, enjoy pain, pleasure, invent, discover, among the other things we do different from animals.
Mere act of having multiple partners cannot be termed as animalistic behavior because it cannot be specifically attributed to animals. We have an act of being married to someone, it does not stops you from talking to other people, it does not stops you from living with other people(you can be living with a room mate in other city), but it stops you from having sex with other people. The question is why only sex?
In fact here is a bigger more important question, if you are suppose to be married to a person you love, and you feel like having sex with another person, but still love your spouse, does that mean the marriage is null from now on? It happens more than you think. OR, if you are married to a person, and you now love someone else, what are you suppose to do? Forcing you to be still married would be slavery. If you are suppose to divorce and remarry, then what is the point of Marriage at the first place, why not call it simply “love”.
Hunter000 Says:
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:57 pmIts not sex either because two consenting adults are allowed to have sex (except for countries like India,…
Looks like you knowledge about countries is limited! For Christ’s sake, India IS NOT another Saudi Arabia!!
Unpretentious Diva Says:
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:28 pm@Hunter
Looks like your knowledge about India is Nill.
Do you want me to mention the cases of Rohtak where a married couple was forced to depart and leave there only child alone under Panchayat’s care, just because the parents were of same gotra?
or do you want me mention the case opf Rizwan murder in Kolkatta where Rizwan was killed just because he was 8in affair with a Hindu girl?
Or do you want me to mention why movies like “fire, and Water were banned and opposed violently?
or do you want me to mention case of bhopal, where not only a girl (who decided to love and marry a muslim) but every other hindu girl were tried to be tortured just because of her love with a borne muslim chosen atheist guy?
Get brains and stop using that fake word “Christ”.
renegade_division Says:
July 9th, 2008 at 1:54 am@Hunter000
Sex with people of same sex can land you in jail for 10 years.
Oral sex in India will also land you in jail for 10 years(with a person of either sex)
Anal sex too will land you in jail for 10 years
Read Article 377 of Indian Penal Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_377_of_the_Indian_Penal_Code
So tell me mr Hunter, how did you feel when you found out that India is actually not very different from Saudi?
landy Says:
August 12th, 2008 at 7:01 ambrilliantly written article. I should probably bookmark this website. done
well to be frank, me and my friends have been having discussions on legalising prostitution in India and we did arrive at the same logical conclusion as yours…
what i further like to point out is the chaos point. yes if you legalise prostitution chances are that it may lead to chaos, as a matter of fact you dont want to see a sight of girl soliciting you in open area when you are with your family, but then there are ways to prevent it by regulating the prostitutes to a specific area. Not only will it save the exploitation today faced by many girls who are forcefully bought into this trade but it will also help in controlling the spread of diseases because you know what actual numbers of workers are there and you can plan the health policy depending on that.
and regarding your point the indian mentality, i couldnt agree more on it.been there done that, but still when it comes to admitting in open everybody tries to hide himself under a mask. prostitution is a reality, the more we tend to deny it the more problematic it will become. Infact regading the mentality point i will tell you a short story, i just came back from 2 months of internship for a MNC in some other country. it boasted of a flat structure in company. as a matter of fact it was, you can bang into your senior office and talk to him straightaway, but i am sorry to admit it was not quite the same for indian co-workers, they *cough* *cough* had a desire to make themselves feel important and wanted me to actually send a meeting request before even if they were free…guess it is something to do with grooming(it was not an exception with indian colleagues rather a generality)….
and finally, a request i would like to make, rather than referring to them as prostitutes i would prefer if you use the word CSW(Commercial sex worker) because the former sounds too degrading and is more of an opinion forming word when we dont have any idea why they came to this profession. CSW may not be legally correct term to use but i would still prefer it..
landy Says:
August 12th, 2008 at 7:40 amone more point i would like to make, shamelessly copied from some other author but made a lot of sense to me….in a country where prostitution is illegal, what CSW fear the most? getting arrested by the police and they end up paying bribes or giving their services for free to them and if they dont they end up in jail. so this also leads to exploitation where they have no where to run and also society also treats them as outcasts. so what can be the logical conclusion: is it better not to have a law rather than having it when it is not properly enforced or is being used to further exploit CSW’s??
stuntman mike Says:
August 12th, 2008 at 11:47 ami have read quite a few pieces supporting the legalisation of prostitution, none so far which is so freakin close to my own views…..
to all those going ga ga over love … i know not what love is. humans like all other species are born to multiply , watever we do is supposed to be directed to our getting some more sex. intellect arouses my sexuality , thats why i think and write, cos my conscience believes that that among other things will increase my sex appeal. and love is maybe just another excuse … as paulo coelho describes ….. its the ability to give 11 minutes of pleasure.
and a nation is not homogeneous …. niether is it a haven like the internet
hey diva .. i’ll come back for more !
renegade_division Says:
August 12th, 2008 at 12:44 pmNote: Written by Renegade Division, not Unpretentious_diva.
stuntman mike Says:
August 12th, 2008 at 4:14 pmya sorry again renegade ….. extremely sorry….
unfortunately thats all i can do to cover up for my folly … so please bear with me … but i really enjoyed reading your views on Hypocrisy Of Anti-Reservation Activists … keep writing and enlightening ppl !
until next time ….