The Dutch government hoped to play the role of the honourable pimp, taking its share in the proceeds of prostitution through taxation. But only 5 per cent of the women registered for tax, because no one wants to be known as a whore — however legal it may be. Illegality has simply taken a new form, with an increase in trafficking, unlicensed brothels and pimping; with policing completely out of the picture, it was easier to break the laws that remained. To pimp out women from non-EU countries, desperate for a new life, remains illegal. But it’s never been easier.That reminds me: How's the marijuana legalization experiment going? Because that's the Dutch experiment that's catching on in the U.S. It's appealing to think that if we legalize something, we can regulate it and tax it, and the bad people will withdraw and cede the commerce to upstanding entrepreneurs who will abide by the regulations and pay their taxes punctiliously.
Legalisation has imposed brothels on areas all over Holland, whether they want them or not. Even if a city or town opposes establishing a brothel, it must allow at least one — not doing so is contrary to the basic federal right to work. To many Dutch, legality and decency have been irreconcilably divorced. It has been a social, legal and economic failure — and the madness, finally, is coming to an end.
The brothel boom is over. A third of Amsterdam’s bordellos have been closed due to the involvement of organised criminals and drug dealers and the increase in trafficking of women. Police now acknowledge that the red-light district has mutated into a global hub for human trafficking and money laundering. The streets have been infiltrated by grooming gangs seeking out young, vulnerable girls and marketing them to men as virgins who will do whatever they are told. Many of those involved in Amsterdam’s regular tourist trade — the museums and canals — fear that their visitors are vanishing along with the city’s reputation.
I got to that article via David Frum, who quotes Friedrich Hayek: "To say we cannot turn back the clock is to say that human beings cannot learn from experience."
Posts
144 comments:
Only way it could work is if the government licenses the pimps, or becomes the pimp itself. Nothing more than we expect from a government these days.
If you haven't wandered through the Rijksmuseum after an hour or two sampling the...ahem...menu at The Grasshopper Coffee House, then I highly recommend it.
...because no one wants to be known as a whore...
Excuse me..."Sex Worker", please! Didn't the Dutch get the memo?
"If you haven't wandered through the Rijksmuseum after an hour or two sampling the...ahem...menu at The Grasshopper Coffee House, then I highly recommend it."
When I went to Amsterdam, I was the woman-traveling-alone kind of person and I would not set foot in such a place. Nor would I do anything that would impair my vigilance getting around and back to my hotel at night.
Nowadays, I have a husband-bodyguard, a man who has never left the United States. And nowadays, you can just go to Colorado if you want to consume marijuana and insist on doing it in a quasi-legal manner.
Pick your level of adventurousness. Me, I'm pretty self-protective!
This is why legalizing most drugs will not in fact lower criminality. But will increase social problems.
My in-laws are Dutch: lots of family there, and I speak decent Dutch. The nation is an emerging disaster, and many of its residents have belatedly come to a slightly-panicked realisation of the magnitude of problems they now face.
It's not just drugs and sex, but an inchoate understanding that all this stuff about peace, love, and soybeans does not work with Muslims, as van Gogh, Hirsi and others have discovered to their great danger (and repeatedly, death).
Perhaps too late they have discovered that complete freedom in drugs and sex leads to nowhere good, and that most Muslims bear no semblance at all to the beloved Moroccan 'Zwarte Piet' still so common at St. Nicholas day.
Very grudgingly the Dutch are beginning to understand that Geert Wilders is not too far off the mark. Unfortunately, it may already be too late, since the Dutch stopped having children forty years ago and their Muslim immigrants continue to breed in astounding numbers -- to the point militant islamists proclaim that the Netherlands will be the first Shari'a nation in Europe.
I doubt that the effort to tax failed because nobody wanted to be known as a whore. I suspect it failed because nobody wanted to pay the taxes.
Making money without paying taxes is one of the main attractions of whoring. So, strike that as irrelevant.
I have never expected legalization of whoring and pot smoking to fix all the problems associated with either enterprise. It might result in fewer people who really haven't done anything harmful going to jail.
The "trafficking" thing is a lame old theme. People have a difficult time accepting that women want to whore because they like the money and the sex. So, they look for a way to blame it on men. The usual.
Popular aphorism: "You can't legislate morality."
The Dutch prostitution case seems like an attempt at legislating amorality-- just tax it and ignore how it's perceived. According to the article, that didn't work, because prostitution is still perceived as immoral.
The American marijuana cases are somewhat different. The majority of voters in Colorado, for example, essentially voted against the proposition that smoking weed is immoral. That might work.
The popular aphorism is kinda backward. You can try to legislate morality, but you probably can't create morals or get ahead of cultural mores with legislation. That's why abortion is such a sticky subject.
Anyone who had been in Philadelphia in the 70s and remembers the phrase, "victimless crime", knows how it turned out.
Ann Althouse said...
When I went to Amsterdam, I was the woman-traveling-alone kind of person and I would not set foot in such a place. Nor would I do anything that would impair my vigilance getting around and back to my hotel at night.
Smart girl.
I don't doubt it's worse now, the Moslems feeling the sense of entitlement that comes from dhimmitude.
Here in California, I'd say the marajuana thing is doing OK.
I don't know a single person who decided to try weed after it became legal, but I'm sure there are some, so that scare did not materialize. I would say that it has been a net good in that many people who would go to very seedy characters in bad neighborhoods to get it, now walk into a regulated and taxed store. I would say the worst problem for some is that it's just much more visible than before, and that bothers some.
I don't see any other real negatives. Yes, the medical angle is mostly bullshit, but it is for most enjoyable legal prescription drugs. There certainly must be a lot less nonviolent people being put in prison now, and that's a big plus. The products are more powerful, varied and expensive than before.
In short, our dirty hippies are less dirty now.
"prostitution through taxation"
Sounds like Washington DC.
The tour guide in Amsterdam looked at us funny when my wife said we wanted to go to a coffee house.
Looking for the Starbucks in Amsterdam meant to him that we were seeking a drug dealer.
We did seek cheese dealers and got some "good stuff."
I don't see that drug legalization is much different than selling alcohol. There is a moral element in any case and many people will not buy and will not work at a job where they sell alcohol.
As much as some people want to normalize (not legalize) prostitution it's not normal to sell your body to people you don't like and aren't attracted to. You know, at least a slut is acting in a biologically rational way. If you think about it, prostitution is biologically irrational, no matter if we can sympathize with the economic necessity.
Yes, I know, someone will say they knew a prostitute and she loved the job and loved all the men and loved the sex and that proves that the idea that there is something damaging about prostitution (or porn) is bogus... it's about as bogus as underage Dominican girls having sex with ugly, old, American Senators instead of hot, young, Dominican boys.
Ann Althouse said...
a man who has never left the United States.
Wow! Not even Canada? It's right there!
bagoh20 wrote:
I don't know a single person who decided to try weed after it became legal, but I'm sure there are some, so that scare did not materialize. I would say that it has been a net good in that many people who would go to very seedy characters in bad neighborhoods to get it,
YOu don't think there are shady characters involved in the weed game now,despite it's legality?
The French have allowed open, legal prostitution for centuries. Take a walk down Rue St. Denis.
Prostitution will always be a rather dirty business. That's part of the attraction.
Not everybody wants the safe, soft, clean life.
It seems quite clear the Dutch merely went extreme in their support of whores, and it backfired.
Requiring on in every town, even if they don't want it? Way to set up a backlash. Open on the street windows? Great way to lower property values. Those lefties really shot themselves in the foot.
It would be easier to fix. Just remove "right to work anywhere" laws and cede power to local cities and towns to choose how to regulate. For those towns that do choose, restrict advertising (no window shops, private areas only, no street walking). Make licenses cheap. Ruthlessly raid illegal ones.
The U.S., with it's more local control, probably would run it better. Like in NV. But those lefties with their totalitarian states---FAIL.
Funny that NO ONE EVER talks about how Germany has legalized whores. It's closer culturally with the US that the Netherlands or Thailand, but I never hear any articles, pro or con, on it's sex trade. It's always Thailand and the Netherlands.
Maybe men just aren't fantasizing about German prostitutes. I dunno.
I suppose what I didn't quite manage to say was that I think that while drug use is considered immoral, it's the users that people will look down on more than the sellers, because the thing being sold isn't a person.
I really don't know any way to get around the "selling a person" aspect of this.
I really don't know any way to get around the "selling a person" aspect of this.
It isn't "selling a person." It's "selling a person's services."
You don't need to get around it. The person selling his/her services made a decision to sell those services.
I've heard at least one story about legal prostitution in Germany... it was about the question, if a person was required to take any available job before she could be on the dole, could she be forced to take the entirely legal job of being a prostitute?
The marijuana and prostitution issues are similar, I suppose, but have one huge and decisive distinction--which is curiously itself a sign of their similarity.
Both are about selling a commodity.
Marijuana is the commodity for marijuana but sex is not the commodity for prostitution.
Sex is the act. The commodity is women.
That's the objection to prosititution, it de-humanizes and commodifies a real human person to become just a vessel for ejaculation.
So, if a commodity is in high demand and there are many places where products must be provided, then suppliers flood the market trying to get their share. It de-humanizes the whole society as everyone is in the market of human buying, selling, gathering.
Marijuana doesn't have that problem. That's a big reason why I'm--even as a social conservative--open to legalizing marijuana. I want it to be cheaper and easier for people with their own land to grow marijuana, so that the criminal gangs don't take over national parks, forests or rural areas. They won't need to, so won't bother. The commodity would be easier to get elsewhere.
In contrast, there's only a very, very, very small percentage of women willing to be prostitutes and so if the market demands it, suppliers have to start taking the unwilling.
Sex is the act. The commodity is women.
Incorrect. The commodity is the woman's services.
. Even if a city or town opposes establishing a brothel, it must allow at least one — not doing so is contrary to the basic federal right to work.
Yeah, this strikes me as one of the bigger errors in this case study.
This sounds like an enforcement issue from the article. 95% are not licensed and the police have backed down after it became legal. This is when they should have stepped up.
In contrast, there's only a very, very, very small percentage of women willing to be prostitutes...
You've got to be kidding.
When was the last time you took a walk outside?
When I went to Amsterdam, I was the woman-traveling-alone kind of person and I would not set foot in such a place.
The Rijksmuseum is really quite safe.
It isn't "selling a person." It's "selling a person's services."
This is like saying smoking marijuana isn't the marijuana it's about using marijuana's services to get high.
If Dutch legalization of prostitution failed because no one wanted to register as a whore, it doesn't teach us anything about marijuana legalization.
To be safe and legal, prostitution would need additional safeguards no one would want or would be impossible to administer, e.g., mandated condom usage, cameras in the rooms to reduce violence and ensure compliance with the contract, frequent STD testing, etc. Given the government's seemingly unquenchable thirst for power, there would be additional licensing requirements, burdensome continuing hooker education courses, disciplinary committees, and all sorts of fees and taxes for the privilege of screwing for a living.
We're getting into Heartiste terrritory in this thread.
The ability of men to con themselves into believing in the chastity and saintliness of women is one of the most remarkable things I've witnessed in this life.
This is like saying smoking marijuana isn't the marijuana it's about using marijuana's services to get high.
No, it isn't.
"The person selling his/her services made a decision to sell those services."
Did he?
Did she?
That's assuming a whole lot.
Not even in the illegal, seedy, criminal side of selling drugs is there much coersion, but the criminal, seedy side of prostitution doesn't define the prostitute as the "pusher", the prostitute is the baggie of meth... and he or she often enough has the level of "choice" similar to the bag of meth.
Traffic in drugs or guns or people... the "people" take the same function in those equations as "drugs" or "guns".
If there is a way to do it so that it's the freely chosen selling of services, it's apparently not the Dutch model.
Funny that NO ONE EVER talks about how Germany has legalized whores.
And Austria! A "gentleman's club" discretely street-level in the next building to the right of the front door of my old student residence in Vienna.
Couldn't myself afford the "membership fee" and drink minimum on my stipend. Some of the other Americans who could said the girls, naked as the day they were born, would sit in one's lap and pour one's champaign, they would. sigh
For the brief time the woman is in the man's company, he owns her. She does what he wants if she wants the money.
And she is at his mercy.
See Ripper, Jack T.
Synova poses a good question. Legalization of prostitution and laws requiring taking any job available, before getting unemployment or welfare, what would happen?
There will always be a need for whores, no? I can see the unwilling being pressed into "service". I recall the nursing assistants that flooded into the health care system when W2 was instituted in Wisconsin, there were thousands of unhappy surely CNAs. Not a good thing if one is pressed into taking a job as a prostitute.
You've got to be kidding.
When was the last time you took a walk outside?
Every day! In Southern California.
First, there are a whole lot of women in this world, so a very small percentage can still be a large actual number.
Second, women who choose prostitution by choice are a subset of women who are prostitutes through desperation or being forced to through some means.
Your reaction reminds me of the scene from Friends when Joey and Chandler were getting free porn.
That should be *surly*.
God, you guys need to read Henry Miller.
The vast majority of whores are girls who receive a few customers a week in their house in the suburbs or small town.
You're living next door or in close proximity to one of these girls.
In contrast, there's only a very, very, very small percentage of women willing to be prostitutes...
You've obviously never passed by the players' entrance to an NBA arena after the game's over.
Please note that this article is solely a complaint about "street" prostitution. That's the Red Light windows that occupy the Red Light district of Amsterdam and a few other places around the city. The brothels they are talking about are simply shared window spaces.
The UK has thriving legal prostitution, but that trade is more "discreet", with women working out of private apartments or visiting hotel rooms. Many other countries have legal prostitution, but crack down severely on streetwalking.
The Dutch really just need to crack down on "unregistered" prostitutes, which they should do if they are concerned about the women's health and safety.
All the women who get arrested are addicted to drugs, badly. The pimps get them addicts to control them. The girls are very much trafficked, as initial runaways. Many of them have homes, in which they are missed and loved. Not all homes they run away from are abusive.
No, it isn't.
Yes, it is.
Second, women who choose prostitution by choice are a subset of women who are prostitutes through desperation or being forced to through some means.
What utter bullshit. Are you blind, deaf and dumb?
Whores exist on every level of the economic ladder. There are rich whores out there who only cater to wealth and influential men.
No topic brings out more bullshit than whoring. Half the people (or more) who are making these stupid negative comments in this thread, I guarantee you, frequent whores.
Usually we hear cases in the media, of pimps using hotel rooms for their trafficking. With use of craig's list and other forms of media, the need to 'street walk' isn't there for pimps.
The street walkers may be older women, with their addictions.
"God, you guys need to read..."
You need to meet the great majority of women who live in all the other houses.
And probably learn about the background/stories of the women who are in the houses you mention.
"YOu don't think there are shady characters involved in the weed game now,despite it's legality?"
My point is that the 50 year old woman who still likes her weed is much better off in a store with bright lights and people milling about than she would be in an ally or parking lot buying from some guy called "Mad Trigga".
The vast majority of people I know with medical marijuana cards are mild mannered grand parents past child rearing age, and the people I see selling it are regular people who have discovered a way to make a legal living, and who take it seriously in terms of making their customers happy, safe, and informed about what they are buying. Every industry has creeps.
I give up. Half of you fuckers are just lying through your teeth, and you'll be visiting your whore tonight.
I haven't got a clue what makes normally sane adults behave this way. Hell, you're commenting anonymously here. You don't need to lie.
it was about the question, if a person was required to take any available job before she could be on the dole, could she be forced to take the entirely legal job of being a prostitute?
That would explain free-contraception mandate in the Afforable Care Act: just what career do they have in mind for us? one of the ladycommenters (I assume) asked in an earlier thread.
"What utter bullshit. Are you blind, deaf and dumb?"
ST summarized: Some women choose to be prostitutes. Thus, all women who are prostitutes choose to be prostitutes. We can conclude then that since some women choose to be prostitutes and thus all women who are prostitutes have chosen to be prostitutes that a large percentage of women are prostitutes.
If you disagree with such logic you are a sheltered moron.
And probably learn about the background/stories of the women who are in the houses you mention.
Jesus Fucking Christ!
Yes, whores are very good at telling sob stories! That's a big part of the profession!
If they actually policed it, maybe there wouldn't be pimps in charge.
In Munich, there are 4 story whore houses.
If you disagree with such logic you are a sheltered moron.
Yes, Paddy, you are a sheltered moron and a hellish do-gooder.
I don't know which is worse.
Pull your head out of your ass and quit saving women from the bad men.
I give up. Half of you fuckers are just lying through your teeth, and you'll be visiting your whore tonight.
Awwww, don't go away mad.
Just go away.
As a matter of interest, I wouldn't trust Julie Bindel (whom this report comes from) very much. She's a well-known prohibitionist who distorts what prostitutes say about themselves, invents narratives and has been trying to get prostitution banned in the UK as well (where, mysteriously, it doesn't have the awful problems; nor does it have them anywhere else it's legal).
The CDC is dealing with super gonorrhea strains though.
"Satterwhite emphasizes the need for safe sexual practices. “Wear a condom correctly, think about abstinence, practice monogamy, and get appropriate screening if you’re high risk,” she said. Left untreated, STIs can wreck havoc on the reproductive organs, causing severe medical problems and affecting the ability to have children later in life."
It takes a special kind of man to masturbate inside a woman, who's only doing her job, and think he's having a good time.
Nope, no whores in my life. Porn is free, both money and disease-wise.
Plus, if you've seen any of the 2nd Street whores around here, you'd join a monastery first.
I've saved thousands of dollars in recreational, medical expenses and attorneys fees with porn.
ST, you're assuming that everyone here sees things the way you do. Prostitution is not simply women having male visitors in their apartment a few times a week. You can't deny that there aren't young runaways Who are taken in by pimps and foreigners who have been trafficked into prostitution thinking they were going be someone's housemaid.
Human trafficking for sex is a huge, real issue.
Having sex with a prostitute who doesn't want to be there, AND it's legal?
That takes all the fun out of it. Sounds like a marriage
This is why America is doomed, Shouting Thomas.
Not merely because of the leftist bullshit.
Because the so-called "right" are such pussies who refuse to see reality.
Most women would willingly hook to make a few bucks if they could get away with it and not have anyone know.
Most women are complete whores, as most established history dictates.
The whorehouses in Frankfurt are huge, old hotels, "brownstones", whatever. The ones I saw in Amsterdam were of the shopfront variety. There are coffee shops (weed shops) in decent parts of town, one right across from the main train station called Smokie's I think. If someone does get stuck there alone and wants to indulge, the Grasshopper is right next to the Rijksmuseum, get a buzz, do the museum, grab a (marijuana-infused, if you so desire) pastry and a coffee, take taxi or train back to room. Safe and easy.
Men fantasizing about playing the White Knight and rescuing the women from the Bad Man!
You can always count on this shit.
It's why feminism triumphed.
There is no way to drive this stupidity out of men.
It's wrong to conflate marijuana with prostitution. A better analogy is alcohol. Alcohol is legal most places but we still have moonshiners and bootleggers, and Discovery Channel makes TV shows about them.
"you are a sheltered moron and a hellish do-gooder."
Oh sure, now you want to crucify me...
the Grasshopper is right next to the Rijksmuseum, get a buzz, do the museum, grab a (marijuana-infused, if you so desire) pastry and a coffee, take taxi or train back to room. Safe and easy.
Bet the Grasshopper sells alot of (non-infused) pastries.
Shout, you know as well as the rest of us that a lot of women do it to feed a habit.
And who says Henry Miller told the unvarnished truth?
Your experiences may have been more positive than average, but you're starting to sound like jimbino (which reminds me, what happened to the man who thinks the Euros are so much more sophisticated in such matters?).
Some houses probably do protect their girls, but a lot probably don't - the old line, "A woman is like a war, there's always another coming along", applying in many cases.
Calm down a bit. You may like your life of "excitement", but I recall a line from Louis L'Amour (who also had a very lively younger life), "Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble. It sounds swell when you write about it, but it's Hell when you meet it face to face in a dark and lonely place".
Yup. Pastries, chocolates, sandwiches are all very popular. If there's such a thing as a failure-proof business, it must be the weed shop/bakery.
The vast majority of women who whore do it because they like the money and they like the sex.
Most hookers ply their trade privately and without too many noticeable negative consequences for their entire lives.
If they have a pimp, it's their husband or boyfriend, and they chose him precisely because he wanted to be a pimp and he was good at the role.
Now, I'm going to the gym.
The CDC is recommending abstinence?
Monogamy?
ROFLMAO!
How positively conservative.
Obamacare can't afford the STD cost.
The only shocking thing about this is David Frum quoting Friedrich Hayek.
Who needs weed when you can have a chocolate eclair? Or have some weed and then have two eclairs? Lots of chubby relaxed Dutch folks.
ST: backing off a bit from the confrontation. You're arguing a different topic than this post.
You're arguing that prostitution happens, that it can be a mutually beneficial exchange, and that its a fact of life in human society.
Yes, prostitution happens. Yes, it can be mutually beneficial for two willing adults. I disagree with the morality of it, but I disagree with a lot of people's choices in life. For that matter, I disagree with a lot of moral decisions I've made in life, so I'm not above the fray.
The issue here, the key one, is that the Dutch are finding that their enlightened views which led to a situation in which women were being forced to be prostitutes and held captive for that work.
This is the core issue of this present post. You are arguing that some women want to be prostitutes. But that's not the issue in the Netherlands or in this post.
Do you think that women who do not want to be prostitutes should be forced to be prostitutes?
That's the challenge of this post, that the market isn't being filled by women who are volunteering for the job.
The only shocking thing about this is David Frum quoting Friedrich Hayek.
There's a nice straightaway in the mountains about a half an hour from my house.
I like to ride my Harley out there because it's so isolated that I've never seen a cop patrol it.
I crank my Harley up to about 100 mph and joyride for about two minutes before I hit the curves and switchbacks again.
It's not safe! I could die!
It's a hell of a lot of fun. You can't believe the way the adrenalin courses through your body. It's all triggered by the fear of imminent death.
When I get home, I feel like I've conquered the world.
You guys should try it.
Who needs weed when you can have a chocolate eclair?
Why choose? Chocolate eclair tastes even better after a reefer!
"You guys should try it."
I'm in. Can I borrow your bike? I'll need to drink a couple beers first.
In the interest of full disclosure, I ate a lot more "McSnack" than I did pastries of any variety. (The McSnack was a mini-McDonald's, open all night, just a walk-up window. Nothing like a Chicken McNuggets and a Big Mac at 3 AM.)
I do a lot things people think are dangerous, even though I'm pretty much a pussy, and very conservative about it, but the scariest thing is riding my motorcycle fast. I've never been seriously hurt, but I've had enough crashes to where I feel completely helpless when going really fast. It's like having your life on the line playing roulette. It is exhilarating, and afterward the feeling of calm, confidence is very sweet, but I rarely do it. Like I said, I'm a pussy.
I knew one secretary who moonlighted as a call girl. She wasn't crazy but she had a fair number of problems that I don't think were diminished by such a life.....She used the extra money for plastic surgery. The surgery was a success. She looked better. I suppose if you're dysmorphic having cosmetic surgery and sex with appreciative strangers can offer some kind of symptomatic relief.....I didn't see the whole arc of her life, but the guess here is that it did not have happy ending.
@Paddy O,
Second, women who choose prostitution by choice are a subset of women who are prostitutes through desperation or being forced to through some means.
This sentence doesn't make any sense.
Your statement is that all women who choose that professions are also inside the set of women who were coerced into the profession. (If you don't understand why...the phrase "A is a subset of B" means "all members of set A are also members of set B".)
I'll be generous. You started with this statement: women who choose prostitution by choice are a subset of... and apparently jumped to an obvious-to-you conclusion while tacking on a statement about a different subset. (...women who are prostitutes through desperation or being forced to...)
For clarity, let's look at a pair of statements.
A. Women who choose to be prostitutes are a subset of all women who are prostitutes
B. Women who are prostitutes due to desperation or external coercion are a subset of all women who are prostitutes.
I can't disagree with either statement. Even if one of the subsets is empty (as in, no actual women fit in that subset), the statements are obviously true.
And neither statement favors one side or the other of this side-discussion about prostitution.
I'm assuming that any society which allows/encourages women to be coerced into prostitution is a worse society, ethically, than a society which doesn't allow or discourages such. You appear to agree with this statement.
One strand of argument appears to be about the size of Subset A relative to the size of Subset B. And about whether it is possible to decrease the size of Subset B by policy/law-enforcement/social work/etc.
Another strand of argument appears to be about whether Subset A has any members at all.
I applaud you for sticking to your principles. I hope you can keep from further mangling your arguments.
Reminds me of what Margaret Thatcher said:"The facts of life are conservative."
It's nice to think that legalising something will expunge the criminal element. But many of the criminals involved with these ventures are involved with more than one kind of crime.
Shouting Thomas,
You know, sex typically involves some level of emotional investment. Selling that investment for money suggests something distasteful.
I imagine that's a root reason for the notion that its immoral. People who sell their emotions are, ultimately, untrustworthy.
Once again the problem here is that the people in charge must convince us that the process of defining an activity as legal, or illegal somehow changes the inherent core of that activity.
Smoking weed has both benefits and detractions, as does whoredom. At the end of the day it's only the people who choose to engage in various activities.
Politicians seem incapable of making the choice of doing nothing. So the best we can hope for is that when they make laws to control the activity of free people is that they make the least bad choice.
It's appealing to think that if we legalize something, we can regulate it and tax it, and the bad people will withdraw and cede the commerce to upstanding entrepreneurs who will abide by the regulations and pay their taxes punctiliously.
It is appealing to think that if we make something illegal, we can regulate it and the bad people will comply with the laws.
Like gun control. Only those law abiding citizens [dopes] will surrender or register their guns. The 'bad people' will continue to reject the regulations and not be punctilious about turning in their weapons.
Like Prohibition. Like the War on Drugs.....like almost everything our elected morons choose to do.
Insanity....doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
You guys should try it.
I've had my V-Star over 90 a few times. It starts to feel unstable at that point - not sure if it's me or the bike that goes wobbly.
It's rock solid up to about 85, though.
"It takes a special kind of man to masturbate inside a woman, who's only doing her job, and think he's having a good time."
I once talked to a sailor about prostitution in Asia and this is pretty much what he said. Though he added the issue of VD as part of the comparison. It's easier to masturbate without the help and you don't catch a disease you have to see the ship doctor for.
This is why the Left calls whores sex workers. So that they can introduce them everywhere, by law, into every retrograde family centered neighborhood and end the "privilege" that accrues to the nuclear family forever.
Legalization, regulation and taxation have kept the manufacturing, distribution and marketing of cigarettes completely above board...wait...what smuggling...counterfeiting tax stamps...black market...not possible
Cheers
Legalization just gives the government another area in which to fuck things up beyond all recognition. "The Dutch government hoped to play the role of the honorable pimp." Right. Sure. They wanted a new revenue stream. Decriminalization of marijuana is the way to go.
edutcher 10:17 AM "I don't doubt it's [Amsterdam] worse now, the Moslems feeling the sense of entitlement that comes from dhimmitude."
Writer/blogger Bruce Bawer wrote in While Europe Slept that unchecked Muslim street violence against gay men was why he left the Netherlands.
I was in Amsterdam in 1986 with a friend. We took the requisite canal tour, and on rounding a corner, were confronted with a church on one side of a courtyard and the “windows of prostitution,” where women show off their wares for prospective clients, immediately across from the church. It was morality juxtaposed with lust. Actually, it was jarring. It reminded me of Rod McKuen lyrics for a poem he titled “God Damn Amsterdam.”
Do any of you old, dessicated prudes have a pulse?
Shouting Thomas said...
Do any of you old, dessicated prudes have a pulse?
Yes, but, as The Blonde (she with 5 years in communicable disease) says, screwing around "is a great way to get bugs".
There's a big difference between brave and stupid; if you know some stay-at-home ladies you can trust who put out for a little wampum, that's your biz, but most of us are a little more circumspect.
Or, at least, careful.
Shouting Thomas has watched too much Lifetime Channel or maybe old Phil Donahue reruns. It is the vanity of men to believe the prostitute likes the sex and is an enlightened women who has chosen him as a sophisticated customer.
I believe Daniel Patrick Moynihan called this the "dumbing down of deviancy" and warned of its unintended consequences for a society.
I just heard this morning -- maybe mentioned above -- that Colorado has a whole host of other problems now -- as in can non-residents purchase weed? How much? Can they take it acorss statelines (no). Who is checking? hat about dealers who are smuggling it out? Etc. Etc.
Unintended consequences.
I hope you can keep from further mangling your arguments.
You're right in your correction.
I share the hope but am realistic about future manglings. May grace abound for all.
Meet the Fokkens: Amsterdam's oldest prostitutes
Amsterdam's oldest prostitutes have been thrust into the spotlight with the release of their memoirs and a documentary film about their lives. The film, Meet the Fokkens, follows 70-year-old identical twins Louise and Martine Fokken as they share secrets of selling sex in the city's famous red light district.
"I always say that my husband beat me into it. He was violent and said he would leave me if I didn't sell sex to make us more money.
"He was the love of my life…" [Louise] says."
"Once there was a man and there was something I didn't like about him. So I made him take off all his clothes. Then I sat on the bed and I felt under the pillow he'd hidden a huge knife."
Good times, no, Shouting Thomas?
Lydia,
You could recite the same story about marriages and romances... like this South African guy who murdered his girlfriend.
Good times, huh...
How do men feel when they have sex with someone who disgusts them?
God, you guys need to read Henry Miller. The vast majority of whores are girls who receive a few customers a week in their house in the suburbs or small town. You're living next door or in close proximity to one of these girls.
ST, don't take this personally, but you live in New York (Woodstock, if I'm not mistaken), and hang around with musicians. That doesn't even resemble Earth in any normal way.
Maybe this stuff happens near you, but I guaran-damn tee you it doesn't in most places.
Jesus, Mary Beth, get a grip.
You're obviously disgusted by sex and you're projecting that onto other people.
Let's hope I never meet you.
Woodstock has a resident population that's just good old boy.
I grew up in a town of 6,000 people in central Illinois.
Every place is the same.
Jesus, you guys aren't just half dead. You're boring as hell. And, cowardly, too.
In you imaginations, sex is all about disgusting encounters, hatred and disease. I've got to thank God tonight when I go to bed that I'm not in your shoes.
No, sex doesn't have to be full of disgusting encounters, unless that's the only way to pay your bills.
Would a client pick a prostitute who repulsed him?
Maybee, you've got some real problems.
Listen, I know that a lot of people don't have the social skills or the personality to make their relationships with other people fun and enjoyable.
That's your problem.
Other people don't have your problems.
How do men feel when they have sex with someone who disgusts them?
Before, during, or after?
Nothing brings out the murderous hatred of the prudes like this subject.
I dunno, how's it working in Nevada?
I thought hiring prostitutes was to avoid relationships.
Anyway, I've no doubt some encounters can be quite enjoyable for a prostitute.
Would you pick a prostitute that disgusts you?
Hove you had sex with someone who disgusts you?
How did you feel afterwards, or how do you imagine other people feel when they have sex with someon who disgusts them?
Any of the above, Scott M
Nothing brings out the murderous hatred of the prudes like this subject.
Who's a prude? Fidelity means something to me so I don't go to whores.
I don't particularly care if adults whore themselves or partake in whores, as I have a wide liberatarian streak like that, but I will say that of my circle of military and college friends, the only one's that have visited and revisited whores are toward the loser end of my friend spectrum.
Any of the above, Scott M
Horny, busy, then hungry.
Shouting Thomas wins the Unintentionally Hilarious Comment Of the Day Award for "Listen, I know that a lot of people don't have the social skills or the personality to make their relationships with other people fun and enjoyable."
Sometimes, men have an ongoing relationship with a prostitute for a lifetime.
A prostitute's job is to be a cheerful, friendly hostess. A good one doesn't feel disgust for anybody.
Digust seems to obsess you. As I said, I suspect that's your problem, not sombody else's problem.
I can't help you with that.
Scott, you really don't know what your friends are doing.
You're just assuming.
Really, Scott M? Men never feel disgusted with what they've done sexually?
Maybe that's the difference between men and women.
Scott, you really don't know what your friends are doing.
You're just assuming.
Neither do you. You're also assuming.
Prostitute relationships, I'm willing to speculate, run the gamut from good to bad to indiffernt, depending on the people involved and the situations, just like everything else in life, including marriage.
Since it's a huge worldwide biz, I would guess that any simplistic assumptions about it would be foolish.
MayBee,
You need to abstain from sex and leave men alone.
Do us the favor.
Really, Scott M? Men never feel disgusted with what they've done sexually?
Sure we do. We just cover it up with the base fundamentals, like reproduction, action, and food.
LOL
In all honesty, the last time I came close to what you describe, it was with a, shall we say, "roomy" young lady. I didn't feel disgusted with her, more at myself because the only reason I did it was because I could.
I took a personal vow of abstinence after that which lasted for about six months. I got tricked into a blind double date which ended with me meeting my future wife.
So...you could say my marriage is based on disgust.
A prostitute's job is to be a cheerful, friendly hostess. A good one doesn't feel disgust for anybody.
That is simply not human
A prostitutes job is to not let her client know she feels disgust for him
MayBee,
Stay a long way away from men.
Really, you'll be doing every man on earth a favor.
In all honesty, the last time I came close to what you describe, it was with a, shall we say, "roomy" young lady. I didn't feel disgusted with her, more at myself because the only reason I did it was because I could.
Exactly! Disgust with yourself can be hard to live with. That can be the degrading part of the prostitutes job.
But of course, you still chose her. Your livelihood didn't dictate you have sex with her the first time, or ever again.
Reading about your attitudes disgusts me, Maybee.
Talk about degrading!
I'd suggest lesbianism, if you aren't already there, or surgically removal of your vagina, if you're hetero.
ST-
So it is really your contention that prostitutes do not have to have sex with men they don't want to, or who disgust them?
Why does my belief they do mean I should stay away from men?
You are just an awful prude with a general disgust about sexuality, Maybee.
Do yourself and men a favor. Leave men alone.
murderous hatred of the prudes
Oh, jeez. Overreact much?
I think that ST and Maybee's comments are the two opposite ends; the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Not all prostitutes are disgusted with their clients, and not all city blocks have prostitutes.
ST said:
//I crank my Harley up to about 100 mph and joyride for about two minutes before I hit the curves and switchbacks again//
What a pussy, and idiot, trying to lean over a fat pos bike, and think it's living the Louis L'Amour adventure.
I cranked my box store bicycle up past it's design limits, and........ crashed. I don't wear a pussy helmet, use all those damn led lights to allow others to see me.
When I regained consciousness after hitting the curb, I thought, what a pussy, let's try that again, without losing consciousness.
Shouting Thomas, the legend in his mind, the adventure of the pussy man riding a big thick bike between his legs.
What we need is someone who has extensive experience with prostitutes.
Where is Cedarford when you need him?
Get him to tell you the story about the one he had dress up like the Grand Rebbe.
That one is hilarious.
Where is Cedarford when you need him?
C4 only visits Jewish prostitutes.
On a roll today, Scott.
The article is a bit of a bait and switch. It condemns legal prostitution, but almost immediately concedes that only a few percent of the trade is operating legally.
Why, yes, if you require whores to work for brothels, you get two results:
1) Non-brothel prostitution continues to have all the problems of any black market.
2) Brothel owners have massive relative power over the whores who want to work legally, since they must work in brothels.
Most "legalization" schemes for prostitution have similar, predictable-in-advance, repeatedly-demonstrated-in-practice, defects.
And then such defects get shouted to the rafters by those (like our writer Julie Bindel here) who object to any prostitution ever happening anywhere under any conditions.
"To say we cannot turn back the clock is to say that human beings cannot learn from experience."
Individuals learn from experience. Sometimes. Peoples in aggregate? They learn, and apply the lesson for a while. Then forget it. Hard experience teaches the lesson again, and it's forgotten, again, more quickly than it was learned. Dogs, vomit, you know the drill.
Re the topic I notice the same thing other people noticed here - why no comparisons? Lots of countries have legal prostitution. What about, say, Australia? You legalize it, you have problems; you make it illegal, you have the same problems?
Not all prostitutes are disgusted with their clients
I did not say nor imply this.. I am asking about those who are.
Maybee: Why does my belief they do mean I should stay away from men?
Maybee, when you're at the zoo, do you earnestly enquire of the shit-flinging monkeys why they're flinging shit? Of course not, that would be silly. They're monkeys.
And it's easy to spot the ones outside the zoo, too: words like "racist", "bigot", "prude", "[fill-in-the-blank]-phobe", are, 99% of the time, just monkey-shit. Have a laugh at the monkey-shines and move on to the giraffes.
I do like giraffes, Anglelyne
In Nevada, brothels are legal in rural areas. The girls are required to be medically checked monthly to prevent the spread of STDs. State law mandates the use of condoms.
These brothels haven't caused any real harm to Nevada.
After 11,000 years of human civilization, we ought to have figured out by now that men will always be willing to pay for sex.
And hence the best thing to do is regulate the practice, not try to ban it and drive it underground.
as van Gogh, Hirsi and others have discovered to their great danger (and repeatedly, death).
Pim Fortuyn. I thought his death ended a movement that could have been extraordinary for Europe. A sober defense of freedom without the nonsense attributed to many who believe the same. Of course he wasn't killed by a radical Islamist, but rather one of their allies, a conventional western leftist.
Shouting Thomas thinks that prostitutes all want to have sex with him. Probably thinks they never fake an orgasm either.
Nevermind that it's their jobs, just like the sex, to lie and make a client feel good. It's part of the service.
The eastern half of Australia has legalized prostitution. My reading of the matter is that it's only a problem with those who want it to be a problem.
And I can't help but quote Nigel Powers: "There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch."
Nevermind that it's their jobs, just like the sex, to lie and make a client feel good. It's part of the service.
Apparently, Synova, you've been busy in your spare time?
Post a Comment