Prostitution and Morality
Bawd, call girl, camp follower, courtesan, harlot, scarlet woman, streetwalker, strumpet, tart, whore: whatever you want to call them, Mumah wants you to be able to do it legally.
Mike Mumah
It’s February, the month of superstitions involving hibernating rodents and national soup and Black History. It’s also the month of the most commercial of holidays, Valentine’s Day, so I want to talk to you about the most notorious of commercial lovers: the Prostitute.
Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, though that claim could be challenged by Motherhood. I guess that would depend on how that woman became pregnant in the first place. Famed as it is, prostitution is also considered by many to be the lowest form of manual labor and is outlawed in most cultures in the world. But is this necessarily a good thing? Is the world really a safer place because we’ve outlawed the vicious and terrible…hookers?
Prostitution is one of those “victimless crimes” that somehow wind up in the law books and cost far too much money to enforce, with seemingly no effect. A Prostitute, for those of you who have never watched “Pretty Woman,” is a person, most often a woman, who offers sex in trade for money. For whatever reason, this is a bad thing. To this writer’s eye, it’s merely an act of commerce, labor for wages. To me, paying to have sex, while not the biggest ego boost in the world, is no different than paying someone to clean your house, or to plunge your toilet.
In America, prostitution is illegal in all states except for Nevada. But don’t go to Vegas expecting to find a call girl without having to worry about the law, because while the yellow pages are thick with ads for escort services, it still ain’t legit in Sin City itself. To borrow a line from Vincent Vega, “It’s legal, just not 100% legal.” Meaning that in Nevada, only counties with a population smaller than 400,000 is prostitution legal, and that does not include Clark County, home of Sin City.
Like Vega’s hash bars in “Pulp Fiction,” prostitution is only allowed in licensed brothels, and all the “sex workers” must undergo weekly STD checkups and monthly HIV tests. The point is that it’s regulated, and under control. Prostitutes must use condoms for all oral, anal, and vaginal intercourse, and since the regulation and checkup of all prostitutes working legally in Nevada, not once has a legal, licensed prostitute tested positive for HIV.
Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Aside from the whole, “but they’re whores!” diatribe that might be shooting through your brain like a bolt from Jesus, it seems to run a lot like any restaurant, complete with a health inspector to make sure everything is as good as it is written on paper. Hell, the FDA, the people that put the Grade A stamp on your beef used to be the governing body in regards to Nevada’s sex trade. Wouldn’t it be nice to see that sort of brand of quality on the ass of your favorite working gal?
In the rest of the country, where prostitution is a misdemeanor offense, an estimated 1 in 5 men have engaged the services of a prostitute. Jails are flooded with prostitutes and several police departments are devoted to “cleaning” the streets of hookers. Los Angeles alone spends over $100 million combating sex workers. In Washington D.C. and New York City, estimates peg around half the street-walking prostitutes with either HIV or full-blown AIDS. Do the math. If one in five men engage in the services of a illegal prostitute, they run a 50% chance of contracting HIV, leaving a potential 10% of the American population open to infection.
You can’t judge these women too harshly. Either through circumstance or lack of opportunity, their survival instincts naturally default the one service almost anyone can provide. Some are press ganged by pimps with no one to protect them or provide another way out of their situation. They’re shunned by society, harassed by police, often beaten by both pimps and clients, and there are few options left for them.
The comparison is simple, continuing with the food theme. In Nevada, where Prostitution is regulated, it’s like dining at your favorite Olive Garden. It seems clean, you’re reasonably certain your not going to catch an infectious disease, and most likely, you’ll leave satisfied. Outside of Nevada, it’s like trying to eat at a 7-11 hot dog while walking down the streets of Iraq with a sign that says, “Fuck Allah.” It’s just so risky on too many levels. If the food doesn’t get ya, you can be sure that something else will.
So who’s the real victim? It’s a choice to engage in the services of a prostitute. If you want to argue that Prostitution should be kept illegal simply for moral and health reasons, I think it’s obvious that that sort of logic is skewed. Without regulation, more people are harmed, more diseases are spread, and the health risks for both the client and prostitute herself. Morally, you should lean toward regulation.
You can’t stop prostitution; that much is obvious. Shouldn’t people be free to do whatever they want with their bodies? Shouldn’t the “moral right” mind it’s own business for once for the betterment of society? Stop looking down your nose at people who live the lives differently from yourself. Your “moral fiber” doesn’t make you right, it just tends to make you a snob. Prostitution, like drugs, while reprehensible to you, does have the potential for real damage. But like a wildfire, unregulated, does much more damage without some safeguards in place. That said, keeping it illegal just gives the wrong people, the bad guys, more money, more power to do greater acts of evil than if society would just tolerate a little more “sin.”
Prostitution should be legalized. Just remember, you don’t have to like it. Don’t hire a hooker. Just don’t throw her in jail for renting out her body and performing a physical labor, just like you do every day. Some people in the world may think your job is just as disgusting. Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody.
Grow Your Brain:
The Case for Legalized Prostitution - http://www.fff.org/freedom/1293e.asp
Legalized Prostitution: Regulating the Oldest Profession - http://www.liberator.net/articles/prostitution.html
Prostitution in Nevada – as of 10 Jan 2007 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Nevada
Other Posts
That’s our Mumah, he loves him some whores.
Cuz even whores need some lovin’ too.
NIce job, Mumah. I think you hit all the bases. You can’t stress enough that the victims come because it’s illegal. We should do more research on the subject
Dood! It’s just like Marijuana, it’s never gonna get legalized for two reasons: 1) Legalizing it would be synonymous with condoning it, which no politician in or out of his mind would do and 2) All of that money that is being spent to suppress the “Sex Trade”, you think the precincts that get that money want to give that up and switch to enforcing on some of the more dangerous vice law breakers? It’s always easier to spot and bust a prostitute than a dealer or a pimp.
And as for ‘covering all the bases’. What about those that are under the age of consent? I saw no mention of how legalizing prostitution would protect those kids out on the street. What are the odds that some legalized brothel has a few behind the counter ’specials’ for the twisted connoisseur? Legalizing prostitution isn’t gonna solve any problems. If you want to change the laws, add more protections for the prostitutes and opportunities to get out of the profession. Counseling or a relocation program to get them away from their pimps and suppliers.
Really what most of these kind of ‘articles’ that address prostitution in this way are doing is trying to build support for a way to alleviate the guilt (something instilled by their Christian based upbringing, they are covering up with an over-obvious criticism of ‘religion’) someone is feeling about either: having paid someone for sex or thinking of women as a commodity, a piece of equipment they’d like to rent not buy.
What a murky subject from such a small town perspective, with no substance just mental masturbation.
Well thanks, Justin. Nice to hear one of my oldest friends railing against my “nut position.” You ought to know that I didn’t ahve a Christian upbringing, so there’s no guilt there. I clearly point out that women as a commodity is the exact issue of prostitution, not so much my view of them, and lastly, I’ve never paid for sex. Well, that’s not true….I got married.
But you do bring up a valid point which I did not address. Underaged prostitutes. It’s possible, though unlikely, that legal brothels have any need to break the law when it comes to minors. They already sell sex. There aren’t that many brothels and they are heavily, heavily watched, not just by the government agencies who regulate the industry, but also right wing activists and evangelicals on a righteous crusade. Any of these brothels slip up and any one of these watchdogs would have them shut down in a heartbeat. Now where do you think you’d more likely find an underaged hooker? In a legal brothel, or on the back streets of Washington D.C.?
I know you won’t see this Justin, but I’m posting it for posterity, and for anyone that may read this following your tirade. Much love, brothah.
I definitely see both sides of the issue. But regulating prostitution will not help society. By legally nationalizing prostitution, a whole big arena of other problems will spring up. First, prostitites that get checked every week for std’s and every month for HIV are not protecting themselves but trying to protect their costomers. Costomers should get checked also, because let’s say a prostitute contracts and STD from a customer on monday, by friday when she gets her next check up she probably would have slept with about fifty other guys that now have the STD, so the issue that it is helping regulate STDs is irrelevant unless the prostitute gets checked after every customer she entertains. Second, Rape will definitely increase and crime will definitely increase. Why? Buying sex is like gambling, you can easily get addicted to it. Let’s say a man comes with money every week, as a loyal customer because he just can’t get enough of sex, but lets say this time he’s short on money. Because he is mad and raging with hormones he might end up raping an innocent girl, or the prostitute herself when she leaves. Or as another approach he could easily go to a local store and rob them or he could rob a civilian or a bank for that matter just to obtain the money to go and have sex with this prostitute. At the same time, if prostitution was legalized, advertising a “profession” or business isn’t illegal, so innocent children would be exposed to things like sex and porn at very young ages, when they should be watching sesame street to learn their ABC’s. The issue of rated movies come to mind also, there would be no need to rate movies anymore, so an eight year old could walk in and watch an R-rated movie without the consent of his or her parents. To end my comment, things will definitely get out of hand in society, and i wouldn’t want to hear my young girl say, ” Mommy, I want to be a prostitute when i grow up.”
While I can follow some of the logic you’ve put forth, Bonnie, I’m afraid your conclusions fall a bit short. Firstly, prostitution is all around us, in every major city in the world. It’s there now, and it’s always been there. Granted, even in regulated brothels, no one is sending the Johns in for checkups, but at least the sex worker is. In my book, the percentages still play a lot better.
I’m also unsure about your reasoning behind increased frequency involving rapes. In a legalized brothel, there is security. Management is monitoring all activity in the room, and if any John (who has to pay in advance) gets out o hand they’re booted out on his ear in a heartbeat.
Regarding the advertising. Open any phonebook or read any newspaper, and you’ll find there are ads for escorts in your home now. You can’t advertise pornographic videos on television or on billboards, nor can you find ads for cigarettes on TV. The FCC has control on that end. I agree, you don’t ever want to hear your child say they want to grow up to be a streetwalker, but I also think that’s a bit of a stretch in your reasoning.
Porn is out there. Sex is just that. Sex. Your child is more likely to want to grow up to be a murderer with the amount of violence that passes for family programming these days. Why is violence so much more acceptable in this society and sex is so taboo? No one is expected to ever have to kill or harm another human being, but it’s a foregone conclusion that you will fuck another person. Why is this such a big deal?
i am learning to love prostitutes. Jesus loved them
The way you have described this is very thorough. I will link your blog page to mine.
verynice
desi Indian girls pics and videos desi phudi desi scandals desi indian girls and much more
http://desipixs.com
http://desipixs.com
http://desipixs.com
love this