pelican,

My point was that Paul McCartney experience is very much indicative of all men. Maybe not in money terms but very much in how women see men as just a meal ticket.

I remember when Rudd changed the retirement age to 67. A women I was watching the news with said, for women too? I laughed. She would have called herself a feminist and been 'outraged' at any suggestion of inequality. But when it actually came to actually working longer, like men, she was mortified. You can imagine she wasn't very pleased when I told her women lived longer than men, worked less hours for less years and so I thought they should have to retire at 70. After all women live for 6 years longer than men anyway and keeping people alive at that stage of life is the most expensive of all. Why should men continue to subsidise women's long, idle lives?

Maybe we should start to define this as violence against men?

Yabby:”Pelican, a number of men, me included, are simply sick of the
old "men are evil, women are victims" routine, which is regularly
parroted out on OLO, by some rabid feminists.”

I never understood this but I think I’m getting it. Women write articles and then men go nuts at feminists but they forget and talk about women and grrls and the female posters here defend themselves and on it goes.

So really it is the female article writers the men are always attacking?

Drifting off topic maybe. Prostitution, no big opinion here or probably along the same lines as Divine.

My husband told me men can die if they don’t have sex every few days so I think there should be more women doing it.

pelican, "RObert using his paternal 'I am surprised or disappointed' approach means he is also not reading the written word but has gone into full defence mode." that's BS and I think you know it. It's not paternal, it's someone who generally respects you a lot finding that you are playing some pretty unpleasant gender games on this thread.

I've tried very hard to understand your point of view on this and so far it seems to have been about attacking men for being upset with the proposal. In this case I think that it's you who has dropped into defense mode without reading what's been said.

Jewely "My husband told me men can die if they don’t have sex every few days" - he's taking a big risk leaving it that infrequently. No margin for error in that.

R0bert

Dane
Then there was the one about the South African miner who lost a leg in a mining accident. The occupational therapist was talking about rehabilitation.

“But how am I going to find someone who wants a one-legged gold digger?” he asked.

“Paul McCartney?” asked the OT.

Jewely
“My husband told me men can die if they don’t have sex every few days…”

LOL. My brother had a name for this terrible affliction: “MSB” – “Massive Sperm Buildup”.

Pelican
“My argument is if you imprison the sex worker then you must also imprison the user if the activity is deemed illegal.”

So as long as the sexes are persecuted equally, you have nothing against them being persecuted unjustly?

Let’s cut to the chase. Do you support anyone being punished for participating in prostitution?

Tristan
I do not mean to suggest that you are in favour of any kind of sexual violation.

I mean only that you are in favour of the systematic physical violation of other human beings so as to expropriate the fruits of their labours to fund all the forced redistributions you are in favour of.

The *real* class struggle is between those who get their money by voluntary production and exchange, versus those who get it by force and threats of force.

Starting from the basic moral position that one has a right to the ownership of one’s own body, without which any talk of liberation is meaningless, any kind of coercive socialism – the kind you advocate - is immoral right from the get-go.

Rather than justifying it, you should correct the errors in your theory! People aren’t herds of cattle owned by government and if you want to redistribute wealth, do it voluntarily!

“But I'd imagine visiting a prostitute … would be a physcial act without emotional intimacy.”

Has it ever occurred to you that you might just be projecting your sexual ignorance onto other people?



All
Notice the double standard by which women’s interest – even non-consensual - in reproduction is sanctified, legitimized, and subsidized, while men’s interest in sex is castigated and vilified?

This debate over or about prostitution or sex workers has been going on for more than a century.

Yawn.

Sometimes it is associated with the criminal element, porn, drugs, theft, murder, etc etc.

Oh lets not forget blackmail.

Peter; The bottom line is that capitalism is based upon a system of private property. That idea of property was enshrined in the bourgeois liberal revolutions as an 'inalienable right'. But that property itself is backed by threat of violence by the state power.

Of course we all deserve a private sphere, and private property within that sphere. But we live in a world where some possess billions: others nothing. The bourgeois liberal revolutions only saw the perspective and needs of their leading class; and now that perspective is proclaimed ‘universal’.

But in reality those who have nothing are forced to sell their labour power - and have surplus value extracted - lest they face destitution. With a minimal welfare state - let alone a completely voluntary system as you suggest - millions over the world 'fall through the cracks'. Hence the many homeless in the United States. The violence of malnutrition, homelessness, social exclusion - is much greater than the 'violence' of progressive taxation mandated in the liberal and social democratic context to ensure the essential social needs and rights of all.

But when we speak of 'violence': What of the increasingly intrusive regimes of labour conscription which force people to take some of the most menial jobs and poorly paid in a largely deregulated labour market? Or even ‘work for the dole’? And then the ultimate hypocrisy - to criminalise the collective and *voluntary* withdrawal of labour because it is the only way workers can fight back? (enforced by the 'prisons' and 'bodies of armed men' Lenin talked about - not that I'm a Leninist - but he makes the point well) (more coming)