Prostitution: Thoughts On the Business of Pleasure

 Friday, January 25, 2013

by Miguel G.

Maria lives a simple life in a small town. She has a boyfriend, thoughts of kids in the future, and a mean strut in her step. Every day she wakes up, gets some dinner, squeezes into some booty shorts and a pair of tight leather boots, and leaves for work. She greets the policeman guarding the entryway with a warm smile and enters, mentally prepared and emotionally distanced for the clients ahead. A tall, dark and handsome figure walks in; her smiles come more naturally. The next man smells of sewage and dirt cakes his fingernails. No matter, both these men used condoms. With her shift over, she waves to the officer and starts her way back home. Hard to believe she could live a life so casual at a Mexican brothel.

Mexico's system is well regulated. Police will protect a brothel with the same dogged determination that they’d protect any other business. John’s use condoms, and the workers are in no more danger than many other professions. This serves as a contrast to the United States, where 82% of prostitutes report being physically abused since starting their job and 46% had reported being. These statistics show an immense level of fear amongst an entire group of individuals just trying to make a living. Who’s to care for them?

Mexico isn’t an isolated case. Most of Europe, South America, Australia and even Canada are on the prolific sex-wagon. Why is the United States, one of the most developed countries in the 21^st century, still adhering to a practice that is damaging to a mass of people?

People will often refer to prostitution as a morally reprehensible, shameful action. To these people, the act of marketing one’s own body would cause irretrievable damage to one’s being. The problem here is that these people aren’t putting themselves in the prostitute’s boots; while they’re imagining themselves in those positions, they’re projecting their own feeling into the situation. They don’t actually feel what a large portion of these workers feel. Much like a waitress or airline hostess (both jobs that require gross emotional control), a prostitute develops mental boundaries in order to distance them from the otherwise anxiety-inducing condition. This nifty mental trick effectively protects their emotional state. Most others fail to grasp this concept, thus misinterpret the group’s emotions. One conclusion to draw from this: some people actually like being prostitutes (shocking).

While we’re on the topic, when did prostitutes get such a bad rep anyways? Prostitutes do serve a vital purpose in society, providing comfort for whoever wants it. Sexual frustration can lead to a number of issues.

·       emotional distress

·       chronic anxiety

·       attachment issues

·       humiliation

These issues build upon each other; in some cases being a main cause of depression, in many other cases leading to dissatisfaction in life (or perhaps even more crippling, disinterest). How could anyone label a person who alleviates such issues as ‘bad’ or ‘amoral’? These people should be respected with the utmost regard, or at least be given the common decency of safety.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blind to the immense difficulty of setting up safe, socially acceptable, and institutionalized prostitution practice. Even in Spain-where prostitution is both legal and so popular that 39% of guys have report usage- the always abhorrent issue of human trafficking saw to the selling of 493 people in Spain's 2009 alone.

 Institution doesn’t mean complete safety. Workers report that while some institutions mandate the use of condoms, the regulation gets downplayed into more of a negotiable nuisance. Even when using condoms, violence between worker and client is bound to erupt sometime, and those sneaky STDs will still find some bloodline transit into infection station.

Despite the unfortunate presence of these baddies, I believe that over time these nuances can be reduced to negligible (but still unfortunate) levels.  Switzerland tried to abolish prostitution, and they paid dearly. Some effects were wanted (i.e. fewer johns), but violence increased, condom use decreased, and prostitution continued nonetheless.

What do you think? Should prostitution be legalized? Should morality enter into the argument, or is the effect all that matters? Is there some other way to reduce prostitution besides legalization/criminalization? Post a question yourself! Leave a comment below.

 Davidson, Julia. The Rights and Wrongs of Prostitution. 2. 17. Hypatia inc., 2002. 82-92. eBook. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810752?seq=4

Kelly, Patty. "Legalize Prostitution." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 13 Mar 2008. Web. 24 Jan 2013. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/13/opinion/oe-kelly13

Fotheringham, Alasdair. "Spain, the world capital of prostitution?." The Independent. The Independent, 05 Decem 2010. Web. 24 Jan 2013. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/spain-the-world-capital-of-prostitution-2151581.html

The Morals of Zoophilia

by Joey  E.

              Sex, as we all know, can spark a lot of discussion. For something that everyone does, and has done since humans first got here, it seems that people need a lot of help figuring out just how to do it. Of course, people don’t agree.  Is it all right to have sex before you’re married? Is it all right to have sex with different people once you’re married? What about while wearing women’s clothing? As if it wasn’t bad enough for your parents and your favorite magazine to contradict each other, sex has very different rules in different cultures.

Germany has had a recent argument on acceptable sexuality.  As most arguments on sexuality, it has gotten heated.  The current issue? Zoophilia. Zoophilia is the practice of sexual relations with animals.  Animal rights groups are arguing that zoophilia, more commonly known as bestiality, counts as a form of animal abuse and should be outlawed.  Zoophiles, on the other hand, counter that zoophilia should not be outlawed when it does not violate the animal protection laws already in place.

                As it stands, zoophilia is legal in Germany.  It is also legal in Denmark, Sweden and Thailand. However, in many other cultures it is seen as taboo- strongly taboo. While many sexual practices such as homosexuality earlier classed as ‘deviant’ are now becoming more accepted, zoophilia remains largely taboo. Why?

                Peter Singer, an animal rights philosopher, has several ideas on that.  He suggests that the taboo on human/animal relationships stems largely from our ambivalence towards animals.  He says that particularly in the Judeo-Christian tradition there is a strong line drawn between humans and animals: humans are made in the image of God, with immortal souls, and animals are not. Ergo, human/animal relationships cross a clear boundary (Singer, 2001).

                Interestingly, both sides of the argument in Germany seem to refute that ambivalence.  The animal rights groups do not agree with the Genesis statement that man was given total dominion over animal, or they wouldn’t work so hard to ensure animals have rights.  On the other hand, Michael Kiok, head of the Zoophile Engagement for Tolerance and Information (ZETA) group, claims that their relationships come from a belief that “we see animals as equal to people, and we want to stop the hate”. So both sides claim to have a closer relationship than Genesis might suggest. Yet they have taken opposite views of this matter (Monks, 2012).

                Astrid Behr, head of the German Association of Veterinarians, makes her stance clear: “Perpetrators go unpunished, but sexual acts with animals are always associated with great physical and psychological injury” (Monks, 2012).  ‘Great physical and psychological injury’ to animals would certainly be an excellent reason to outlaw zoophilia. Gradually more and more places are granting rights to animals and making sure they are protected from undue harm under their laws.  In recent years, laws are even willing to discuss psychological harm- a large step from behaviorist theories claiming animals were essentially machines with nothing inside to harm.  However, I tend to be leery of statements including the words ‘always’ and ‘never’; this sounds more like a good political statement than perhaps one strictly true.  I’m also curious as to which sexual acts specifically Behr means.  If humping a human’s leg is a sexual act, there are an awful lot of traumatized dogs.

                Kiok counters with the insistence that zoophiles do not harm or even go against the will of animals.  As animals can show if they are hungry or need to go out, he claims, so can they show if they wish to have sex (Monks, 2012).  Animals certainly can show if they are hungry or need to go out, but I’m not sure humans are always so good at reading these signs.  I spent several days over winter break mopping the floor when I failed to notice just how urgently my dog had to go outside.  In fact, it’s often difficult for humans to tell when other humans wish to have sex.  And with animals, we have the added disadvantage of being unable to ever ask the animal partner if it was indeed consensual.

                There may be something of a middle-ground between these two positions.  Singer mentions Otto Soyka, a rather less well-known contemporary of Freud, who wrote a book titled Beyond the Boundary of Morals.  Soyka pushed against moral dictates in a manner similar to today’s work.  He argued against the prohibition of non-reproductive acts, such as homosexuality, fetishism and bestiality. Bestiality was the only one he considered should be made illegal and only then in the case when it shows cruelty to an animal.  Singer gives two examples to illustrate.  In some situations, he says, men have sexual intercourse with hens.  However, the physiology of hens makes this a usually fatal act- and sometimes the hen will be decapitated just before ejaculation in order to intensify convulsions (this would be the ‘cruel’ example).  Singer also mentions a talk he had about Birute Galdikas, sometimes referred to as “the Jane Goodall of orangutans”.  When walking through the camp, which orangutans had come to regard as their own, a male orangutan grabbed Galdikas and made abundantly clear his intentions.  Galdikas, instead of screaming and ordering the King Kong-like slaying of this orangutan, assured her coworkers that she would not be harmed and added that “they have a very small penis”.  While the orangutan ultimately lost interest, it is a considerably different story than the first.  It is hard to see Galdikas’ calm acceptance as showing any cruelty to the orangutan (Singer, 2001).

                So which side do you come down on? Do you agree with Behr that all sexual acts with animals count as abuse? Do you think Kiok is right in stating zoophiles act only consensually? Do you think it’s somewhere in the middle? And what do you think about zoophilia being legal in twenty states in America (Wisch, 2010)?

Monks, Kieron. (2012, November 28). Bestiality banned in Germany, zoophile speaks out. Metro World News. Retrieved from http://www.metro.us/newyork/life/article/1157046--bestiality-banned-in-germany-zoophile-speaks-out

Singer, Peter. (2001). Heavy Petting. Retrieved from http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/2001----.htm

Wisch, Rebecca F. (2010). Overview of State Bestiality Laws. Retrieved from http://www.animallaw.info/articles/ovuszoophilia.htm