“I sincerely hope that Peter Hume is not defining marriage as, "...women accepting material consideration in exchange for agreeing to sex..."

I’m not saying marriage is defined by it, I’m saying heterosexuality is characterised by it.

“ Our marriage is so much more than that. Heck, I even occasionally agree to sex with my wife - at no cost to her!”

The issue is not men providing sexual services to women, it’s women providing them to men.

“Sorry, Peter, but I found you argument(s) very hard to follow and the bits I did follow, seemed unrelated to the article.”

Sorry, all I’m saying is that prostitution, of itself, is no more violent than any other kind of consensual relationship; and that women stigmatise prostitution as much as, and perhaps more, than men do.

“ I believe there is no place for prostitution in a civilised world.”

How about casual sex?

“The justifications for its existence, and there are many, fail to prove much to me.”

Do other people have to prove the justifications of their consensual relations to you?

“When you think, even a little deeply, about the impact it has on all concerned, it's hard to come up with a good result for anyone.”

Hmm. This is apparently from the sex-is-intrinsically-abusive school of thought. But if sex of itself is not intrinsically abusive, and selling services is not of itself intrinsically abusive, then why do you think prostitution is?

This might get really interesting or fall flat on its face, if the girls do not stir the pot.

Banning prostitution or criminalising 'clients' would only drive the practice underground. The inevitable consequence of that is simply that more people would get hurt. I also agree that prostitution is not 'essentially' a form of male violence against women. It depends on the specific context. A woman driven to prostitution as a matter of material desperation is experiencing a form of violence. A woman who embraces the culture of prostitution under different circumstances can actually wield power over men.

Tristan Ewins
"A woman who embraces the culture of prostitution under different circumstances can actually wield power over men."

That’s actually an interesting concept. Do a search under “prostitutes + attitudes towards men”

The only studies appear to be on the attitudes of men towards prostitutes, but no studies on the attitudes of prostitutes towards men.

So the situation is all lopsided as usual.

I’m sure this discrepancy has not been overlooked by the numerous feminists that fill our so-called universities and social-science departments.

I wonder if feminists get a felling of power when they carry out misinformation, or distorting of information, or hide information.

They probably do.

Tristan I agree with the points you made but wish to take up on the point you make "A woman driven to prostitution as a matter of material desperation is experiencing a form of violence"

Is it any less valid to argue that "A man driven to use the services of prostituts as a matter of emotional/sexual desperation is experiencing a form of violence"?

There are people for a variety of reasons who don't have access to physical intimacy in their lives. Probably in many cases the reasons are similar to the causes that drive material desperation. In many way's it's easy to argue that maintaining a consentual, not for profit sexual relationship which is mutually satisfying is a far harder task in our society than holding down a paid job.

My own view is that prostitution is a hollow shadow of the intimacy in a healthy relationship but sometimes a hollow shadow is far better than nothing.

R0bert

Yeah girls, come and stir the pot.

Because it seems to me, that the fundamental problem with this article is its appeal to the concept of "stigma". The author does not make any attempt to establish that this concept actually applies to the situation at hand. Instead, her presumption that it stands as given not only damages her argument, but betrays much about her own views on sex workers.

It may be the case that a "stigmatised" group is at a disadvantage of some sort. However the very status of stigmatisation, which requires that other people regard them as such - and thus can never be more than a subjective judgement, which in the absence of consensus remains just that - subjective.

I would suggest then, that the author herself considers sex workers, or "prostituted women" to use her terminology, as stigmatised, dirty, inferior, subhuman, and is simply projecting this view of hers onto the "johns". Meanwhile, these men (I mean the vast majority of them who engage in a mutually beneficial transaction with the sex workers), could quite conceivably regard the women they pay to have sex with as equals, entitled to the same level of respect and consideration as anyone else. This perspective is what the Scarlet Alliance, for example, is seeking to promote, by advocating for safe work environments that reduce the level of risk for sex workers from the small but significant minority of potentially dangerous clients.

I don't dispute that the men who murder prostitutes hold unhealthy perspectives on the value of other people. However to claim that sex workers are somehow stigmatised is to both dehumanise sex workers and the victims amongst them of the small number of serial killers mentioned, and also removes some of the responsibility of the serial killers for their crimes, and places it at the feet of their victims.

Oh, and then there's the issue of saying that, if an apparently regular joe just happens to murder prostitutes, then it must follow that all regular joes have a propensity to do the same - which doesn't warrant serious commentary