I just stole this topic from another forum because, well because it inflamed my passions and it’s hard to find people that want to talk about these things in earnest.

I will post the OP made by someone of another forum, and then my response.
I don't think it is going to go anywhere in the other forum, and I would love to talk with anyone interested.

Oh and I do a bit of grandstanding in it. I do it in reaction to how I feel about the people of that place right now, just so you know that I am not quite as arrogant as I sound, not quite anyway. LOL The first poster, I will call Alan, who is a great guy.

Subject: Sex workers and the free market.


Folks

I have recently been pondering free market economics and am interested in what others think about the position of sex workers from this political viewpoint.

There is a proud tradition of prostitutes working to buy property and put their children through college. There is a less proud tradition of pimping prostitutes and of madams running bordellos. It seems to me that there is a prima facie case for a free market proponent to say that these are all operations of the free market and therefore acceptable in that system.

However, others may have doubts about this view, and it is at least open to discussion. Some people might believe that all free market scenarios are free exchanges, entered into purely voluntarily and of benefit to all concerned. This may or may not be true. In the case of the three way exchange between the prostitute, client and pimp, each one does gain something from the exchange, but it could be argued that the exchange is neither free nor fair, depending on the level of coercion or violence used by the pimp against the prostitute. We should also consider the level of economic pressure involved in a young woman becoming a prostitute in the first place, depending on the opportunities available in that society for other employment.

From a different perspective, but still within the purview of right wing thinking, prostitution has been condemned as unacceptable within ‘decent’ society. I don’t know how far this condemnation conflicts with the free market ethos, for proponents of that system.

Liberal thinkers tend to accept the existence of prostitution, but with some regulation for health and safety of the sex workers, and protection from pimps. I don’t know how far a free market proponent would see this as unnecessary government interference.

I hope some posters can shed light on this tricky issue.

Alan

and my reply:

Sex workers and the free market Jesus, LOL, you are a mad man.
You are blurring the lines between political thinking and religious thinking with this questioning and making them one thing. Which affirms for me that those are only systemic concepts of perception that our society exists through religiously. I think you can't help but think dangerously in relation to people’s comfort zones. You devil.
I guess that is one of the reasons that you are interesting to read as a philosopher. But this is a can of worms man. At least, it is if we are interested in really examining it for ourselves. I know I am, but I am probably just a sicko or something. I guess we will find out about the others around here.

Here is my opinion, and labeled as so, for those wishing to forgo it.

There are no politics or economics in the end, only the human condition in existence and as divided and labeled with the modes and paths to understanding and or non-understanding which ever the choice of each of us. This perspective outlines for me the very real OTHER purposes and actions of our severely limiting our exposures to the truth of our human condition, which I find is the norm for many people, in this kind of subject matter.

Most people think they have a reasonable opinion about this topic and line of questioning; very few have much in the way of realistic information to base it on because they don’t want to have a relationship with the natures of that information.
This is a dangerous line of thought man. This may be an opportunity that is more than some want. I LOVE IT!

I will not be able to help but take notice as people respond to this post of yours and reveal how much of their energy is put forth of their own wills and their chosen realities offered by our societies medias to maintain their ignorance and safety zones that are insulted by the more realistic scenarios of truths that are possible.

This is going to open up a very gruesome set of realities that we all participate in, if I can help it, and if my wife will let me have the time to do the writing. LOL. People think they are far removed from the crimes on humanity in this subject. We are not, and thin veils of will, choices of media, and most importantly our contrived systems of belief only hide the proofs we willing turn away from automatically.

Anyway, you have the clout here to get away with this without appearing a rabble-rouser, good job on the clout. As is obvious, I am still trying to learn about the value of clout and how to get and maintain it amongst the people that trade it on the “free and open market” that is valued by our religious thought and regulated in ways that I will get into. There is an oxymoronic statement “a free and open market.”

A market is a valuation and process of goods, their owners and their non-owners relatively. People choose to not be too aware of the second because it finds a large number of us as worthless in the end and that goes against the comforts of believing our morals as realistic. The bum on the corner two blocks from my house remind me of this all the time, he is a smart man, in some ways anyway. The market is called free in spite of the very focused and capable greed that maintains its qualities, manipulations, and authorizations of those.

The market as is, assigns the processes of ability to our wills as disseminating powers over one another’s abilities for providing each our sustenances' in our fights and trials of survival.
The word “free” would connotate a lack of human cost, constraint, or widespread, systematic and devious manipulation. None of which is realistic in our case as a lacking.

Freedom in our markets is a fairytale that we tell ourselves to hide our crimes against each other from our immediate thoughts and I base that on our own stated morals as a society.

There is a study that proves that nine out of ten people will pull a lever that kills, murders one person in order to save five others.
The same study proves that the same people nine out of ten times will not push to their death the same victim to save the five.
My point in saying this is that just because our market, and morals authorizing it seem rational to our socialized moral dynamics as perceived, doesn’t mean that they are. We are fooled by our needs to be good, into being blind to where we are not good.
Gee, who in their right mind would use love for the purpose of evil? That is another topic… but I think it is someone not in there right mind and we elevate those, through our system, to our governers.

This study shows a large hole in our ability to create our morals appropriately; our morals are far more subject to manipulation by focused reasoning wills that understand our weaknesses, and as so, use them against our greater welfare, and simply for profit. Am I blaming just the rich? Hell no! I am blaming us! More discomfort, but whose fault is that?

We are more open to manipulation than we would like to think, and those that believe we are doing the best we can in our free market, are selling us all down the river just to maintain that belief. I would venture to guesse that many also do it to make a mint through skimming slight bits of welfare off of the masses that amount to huge losses for us all and for the large and growing number of people that are doing it very well. and the rest are just comfortable in their pathetic natures, rather than striving for something...else.

Throw in the natures of prostitution, and then the social slavery aspect of what I have been saying here gains a lot of focus, even if still most don’t want to look at things this way it remains with or without them.

An example of circumstance:
Last weak, the 4rth of July, when we were all watching and lighting fireworks, and just two blocks from my house, a 12-year-old girl was taken right in front of her family and friends.
A van pulled up next to her on the street, the door opened, and a couple of men grabbed her and sped off.

They got half the plate number, we all participate in amber alert for the next 24 hours or so, and we didn’t get her back.

As we that were more detached from the family and friends speculated on the girls fate, I found that most people believed that she will be dead soon. I then speculated further that this was because they needed to believe that a sicko, that is conveniently unlike themselves in their religiosity, did this.

I believe and to the increased discomfort of my piers, that this girl is more likely off to a slavery ring because their were two of them. This is part of a very large free market that has only one difference from ours, our legal and local authorizations. The dynamics are no different and our pasts prove this. How? Because it used to be part of this present market in still is part of the world market. The girl has value and people are willing to trade it. We don’t want to think our markets trade all of us but they do. That’s why ad executives make so much, they creatively valuate and manipulate out minds as properties that are for sale. Only we don’t see the large profits of our contrived worth’s.

Now here is where we come the “we are doing the best we can speeches”. I would re-label them as the, “we are doing the least that we can”, speeches and by the influence of many things, but for the most part, by our own attitudes of hopelessness and lack of faith in ourselves.
I would point to this response here, a similar opinion that elaborates further, and to keep from typing it over and again. It describes my opinion on some of our beliefs as a society and my loose interpretation of how we arrive at them.

Iam

anyway hope this is interesting to you

DRTL, can you please summarise it...

I am sorry guys, I think someone misrepresented the context of this forum when they invited me here. They said people here were really into social issues. Maybe they meant like what kind of songs you all like or something.
I'll keep looking else where.

We are into social discussion/issues. Its just that when you write something so big it takes to long to read. And you begin to forget parts, or the entire point of it entirely.

Its better to write the subject, your opinion and why in summary. Thengo into detail when you are asked specifically or need to reply specifically. Imagine asking a question that was 5minutes long, people wouldnt answer, same thing applies for text.


Id consider the first post in length to be equal to a large but readable post. Any larger post will onyl attract a dedicated group. While I for example have a passing interest in this, I have much deeper ones in the sciences, and could for example read something about theoretical life on Titan for many posts long. This on the other hand its hard to remain attentive.

This is obviously an important issue for you, Iam. You make many good points in your response to Alan's OP. There are many things that touch me in raw ways, and it is so difficult sometimes to generate what I see as relevant responses from others because my feeling are so strong.

Your right about the 'free market system' being so unworthy of our trust. I don't think this is about prostitution at all, but rather the injustices visited upon too many of us through this 'dog eat dog' culture we have been and are creating.

This is a difficult subject and I need more time with it.

@PWill: Lame, he was trying to start a discussion, and you come with lolcats?

I think what he is saying is that we are not as free as we think, because we are being manipulated. I think it depends, if you are economically very dependent on your job, you may be forced to take any job open to you. But i think many people do have freedom to leave their job and find another without going hungry, not being able to pay rent, etcetera. However I think job-centeredness is a caveat of capitalism.(some other here, not sure i covered them all, though)
But the fact is that capitalism is closest to something that works yet, so the caveat must be dealt with somehow, this is usually done by governments.(and IMO works quite well for governments that are reasonably corruption free)

That said, i do not think prostitution equals slavery. It just could, just like any other job the job-owner does not make enough money on. Slavery is horrible and often includes prostitution, but it does not equal it.
I am not against prostitution/porn, but i think there should be some kind of registration, and prostitute-passport. To make sure it is done morally. More things should be a separate (much)higher minimum wage, requiring organizations of it to be non-profit, and open.(including non-prostitute paychecks)

I believe there was also an aspect of manipulation, unability of self control in your post. Ill assume that you do not mean lack of economic freedom, but lack of freedom because manipulated by stuff like advertisements? I am not sure what you mean by this really, i feel perfectly independent on that.(i do not live in the US, though.) I guess some idiots are overly influenced by MTV and such.(retards)

About actual forced slavery as in abducted. Bad. Of course police should investigate, but i do not know what to say about that. Slaves being transported through is a problem in the Netherlands too.(although i have never heard of abductions by them in the Netherlands)

iam: you raise a lot of good points and cover a lot of ground. I meant to reply the other day, but it took me a while to think about your points...

One thing I would add is that the term 'prositution' has a very negative connotation, but in effect most kinds of market exchanges are forms of prostitution. In a free market everyone is selling themselves for money (if they are not selling money).

That some would choose sex, and other would choose writing software for example, I don't see a whole lot of difference.

One thing that complicates the issue though is the current legal and social attitudes towards sex workers. Since sexual prostitution is illegal, the working conditions and pay are really bad. I think the laws prohibiting prostitution actually make life for the prostitute worse, since there's no standard pay, regulations, or union.

So what I mean is, I think our current system is the worst possible one for sex workers. Either a free market or a controlled economy would be better. I do think that in a free market though, there is more potential for abuse.

Edit: It's interesting though the differences in U.S. attitudes over the same thing. What's the difference between a gold digger (legal prostitution) and a sex worker?

A health and early retirement plan, steady client? LOL

Hi all, I appreciate your responses. I am swamped to the maximum right now so I just wanted to say sorry for the delay, and I will read them in a few days.

Thnx
Iam

Heh, this thread made me sign up for this forum.

There is an interesting example in Sweden. A couple of years ago it became illegal to buy sex but it is still legal to sell it. This made it more dangerous for the prostitutes to sell them self because the family fathers that frequented them got scared and the prostitutes had to take on the more dangerous clientèle.

And now to my opinion of the subject.

First I make the assumption that sex is an commodity as it has sellers and buyers. And as a commodity I see no reason why it should be regulated since there are consenting human beings that engage in the transaction.

In my opinion it should be legalized and if the government greedily wants a cut from the winning they can tax it too. Which should make the slavery problem decrease since there is an easily available legal option that is open for inspection, as long as there is an unregulated black market the slavery problem will be significant.

If I recall correctly then the prostitutes created an union in Holland, where they have to go through monthly (I believe) health checkups. This decreases the problems of venereal diseases and minimum wage.

Now as to who it is that works as a prostitute, whether it is the lower class or higher, does it really matter? If you take another occupation as an example it puts it in perspective. Do you really think that the rich person really would even consider to work as a janitor in a school? Probably not. But that is another question, one about societies classes.

So to summarize, in my opinion the most healthy policy on this subject is that it should be legal, perhaps taxed, with monthly free health checkups and open for public scrutiny.

And when it comes to who will work as a prostitute I suspect that bored housewives would perhaps try it for the thrill of it.


But that just my opinion, I may be wrong.

F-J

In Australia, the exact law varies from state to state, but its legal in all states in some way. In my state it is legal for anyone over 18 to sell sex to anyone else over 18. Brothels are also legal but must be approved (theres one in most large towns), and theres all the usual protections for health and against pimps etc.

Im fully for it as I beleive it is not immoral etc., and that legalising it makes it safer for all parties, and can also reduce the crime around it.