If We Decriminalize Prostitution

I saw some scene in a movie or something where a prostitute has a Rabbi as a client. Not her problem what his religion or boss or whatever would think of that.

I bet his people wouldn't feel the same about it.

Let me start by saying that while I do, in fact, believe you should be allowed to "sell your body" (AKA sexual services) if you so choose, my primary reason for being for the decriminalization of prostitution is so it's harder to traffic women and it's easier for women to leave The Life and change careers.

The current state of the world is all this heteronormative stuff and most prostitutes are women and most of their clients are male because heteronormative culture SAYS "Men are entitled to get their sexual needs met and women aren't."

Not because women have lower sex drives or something, but because men make money and Remember the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.

I have reason to believe men tend to generally run ALL statements about women's lib through their heteronormative patriarchal privileged brainwashing and go "I heartily endorse your desire to allow women to say YES to me more freely!!!!!!!"

That's a super old trope and they don't get that it's not meaningful consent if she can't meaningfully say no. 

When my then husband was in a hotel basically as part of attending military school and I was staying at my Mom's house and bringing him dinner and then having sex with him before going back to my Mom's house, he had the gall to complain to me that some guy down the hall was picking up a different woman every night successfully "because the rat bastard was good at giving women what they WANTED." Or words to that effect.

I'm MARRIED to him and he's bitterly telling me he PERSONALLY objects to MEN being good to women and meeting their NEEDS and this is apparently a betrayal of some man code where we all AGREE to be chronic assholes so women will accept being USED for sex by sorry bastards who are paying their bills and otherwise doing the minimum to maintain the relationship.

So I later made friends with a guy who probably didn't believe women shouldn't get their needs met. His mostly platonic friendship helped me stand up to my husband and go to school, but I never had an affair with him and he was quite explicit he wished to be faithful to his wife.

So in my thirties, Tom was the first man I was intimate with who felt I had a right to get my sexual and emotional needs met.

Anyway, the point I really want to address is that people seem to frequently IMAGINE that the statement "I'm for the decriminalization of prostitution." SOMEHOW has nothing whatsoever to do with promoting women's rights and gets plugged into that patriarchal mindset and spit back at me as that meme that "Men should be entitled to all the sex they want! After all, they can afford it!"

It seems like men view that as "Aah, Doreen Traylor is a woman who APPROVES of ME doing ANYTHING I want!!!! Huzzah!!! Planet Earth needs more doormats and sluts like her!!!! That would work FOR ME!!!"

Reality: If we decriminalize prostitution, we open up a can of worms ethically in terms of "Can a married man purchase sex? If so, does he need his wife's permission?" 

Or his husband's permission? 

For that matter, can a married woman purchase sex? If so, does she need her spouse's permission? 

Because I am pro gay marriage and gay rights and women's rights, so the first question is STILL too rooted in current cultural assumptions and norms.

I had some conversation on Cyburbia a LOT of years ago where people were dragging some politician who was caught with a hooker. And to their SHOCK, I rebutted their assumptions that he was being unfaithful to his wife and pointed out that he could have had her permission and neither is going to say that because then she's an accessory to his crime.

I additionally pointed out that people would think less of him if he talked about masturbating while away from his wife. Real men HAVE SEX. Losers jack off in a motel.

I think everyone shut up at that point and did the Internet version of crossing the street and pretending to not know me.

So there's a lot to unpack if planet Earth is going to get over its sexual hang ups and stop being completely INSANE generally. And I don't PERSONALLY have answers to all those questions.

I've been CELIBATE for medical reasons for 21 years and I'm long divorced. This stuff mostly isn't relevant to MY LIFE.

I'm just confident that if you value women's rights, then the way to go is make no law forbidding exchanging money for sexual services for legally competent legal adults.

Because it's always the women who get arrested and harmed in myriad ways by this. It's uncommon for them to charge men for buying sexual services or even for being a PIMP.

This is entirely about the most corrosive aspects of heteronormative culture insisting on insane bullshit where women are supposed to be paragons of virtue AND ALSO are obligated to meet the needs of men and we are shafted no matter what we do.