*but somehow men are never mentioned let alone judged for their moral behaviour.*

That is clearly not so Fractelle. Think of Clinton or Spitzer for
instance, to name a couple of many.

But there is a good biological explanation. In nature its always
the gender which makes the largest investment in raising the offspring,
which is the fussy one. David Attenborough, in his
"Life of Birds" showed a species where the males raise the chicks
and build the nests, the females merely lay the eggs. Those males
are pretty fussy, about who they mate with and who can lay their
egg, in their nest!

In humans its not much different. Males will commonly freely
volunteer an ejaculation if asked, as long as females don't want
commitment :) So to obtain sex as a female, as long as you agree
to say yes, that is all that you need to obtain a bit of nookie.

For males generally, a little more talent is required. They have
to bluff, lie, cheat etc their way into womens loins a good deal of
the time, some are better at it then others. So some talent is
actually required

Thank you Fractelle, and yes you are so right, the cultural double standard (that is, the standard that its natural and even praiseworthy for men to have indiscriminate sex but that slutty women are aberrations).

This cultural double standard continues to be fueled by the sort of biological/evolutionary argument that Yabby proposes - which I tend to agree with, those animal studies are very revealing - there is definitely a hormonal difference between males and females but with humans its hard to know how much of that is just biology and how much is also cultural conditioning playing on peoples' psychology.

I do agree with Cornflower though that this standard is upheld by women just as much as men (maybe even more so?) - we are all products of our cultural conditioning. I think a lot of men understand that its possible to have sex without emotional connection but they too have been taught that that's something that only men can do and that women who do it are just abnormal. A lot of men will say they like hookers, but not many want to marry one. Women on the other hand, may envy the freedom and money, but generally look down on sex workers for bringing the feminine standard down

Candi - well, I don't know. Some of these ideas seem just a tad dated to me. Particularly Yabby's contention that all women need to do if they want sex is to ask while many men "...have to bluff, lie, cheat etc their way into womens loins a good deal of the time..." I found that as puzzling as his idea that men don't want committment. It also seems a somewhat sad and disparaging comment on the "many" men who engage in such games.

To me it appears that the tables have been steadily turning: so many women are deciding that committment carries with it far too heavy a price while men over 25 are looking to propogate the species and not finding too many comers. Also, post-divorce, more men seem to want to jump back from the frying pan into the fire while growing numbers of women have decided not to get burned again.

In fact, on numerous other threads on OLO bitter gender wars have been played wherein this very argument has been bitterly and rancorously laid at the feet of the feminist movement.

None of which has any bearing, of course, on the original injustice which was the cause of this article - except insofar as many respondants still discuss sex-workers as though involving one gender only.

I am at a loss to see why this situation (i.e. the refusal of visas) is still ongoing and can only conclude that the majority of non sex-workers are simply unaware of it. So I applaud the writer for bringing it to public notice and encourage more awareness of the fact that, once again, Government policy seems contradictory and not in compliance with current mores.

*Particularly Yabby's contention that all women need to do if they want sex is to ask while many men "...have to bluff, lie, cheat etc their way into womens loins a good deal of the time..." I found that as puzzling as his idea that men don't want committment.*

Romany, there have actually been many experiments done with this one.
Now I'm not sure about China, but as a female, go to any Australian
pub and ask the blokes if anyone would volunteer for a bit of sex and
I bet you that you would have plenty of volunteers. Ask the females
the same question and your result will be quite different.

There is an old saying that women need a reason to have sex and blokes
just need a place. There is some truth in that :)

If that was not the case, the people like Candi would be out of a
job.

*A lot of men will say they like hookers, but not many want to marry one*

Candi,the evolutionary psychologists that I have read, such as Buss
and Wright etc, suggest that this is due to what they call the
Madonna/whore dichotomy, IIRC. In other words, it is of evolutionary
benefit for a male to spread his genes far and wide, as his only
investment is an ejaculation, she is left holding the baby.

OTOH if the deal involves commitment, its in his interest to make
sure that the kids are his and he is not raising somebody elses kids.
If he's going to invest all those resources over many years, its
in that case best to marry a Madonna, where the likelyhood is far
higher, that she was faithfull and the kids are in fact his.

We'll be here forever discussing the apparent differences between men and women's sexual selectivity - its obvious that sex is tied to reproduction therefore there must be 'selfish gene' impulses and all that. Yabby all those evolutionary theories do make sense to me but also with humans one has the influence of culture - we are sentient and we are social, which alters everything, people act emotionally, in the West we believe in love and men do often invest in supporting other men's children. I think age makes a big difference too - young males and females fit with the evolutionary models much better than older people, where the tendency seems to reverse somewhat. Older men seem to want commitment more than older women, maybe this is happening with younger men now too? As Romany says, things are changing - cultural roles are starting to even out a bit - but males are still the huge majority customers in the sex industry. Male escorts who see only women charge a lot less - women just don't seem to be prepared to pay as much and the bookings are longer and tend to include much more social/emotional activity. Make of that what you will, it could change as women become more economically independent and sexually demanding (if that happens).

However, we've gotten off the topic of Australian visas for foreign sex workers - the majority of those would be females and the customers are male.

"However, we've gotten off the topic of Australian visas for foreign sex workers"

Candi, frankly I don't like your chances, for the following reasons.
To bring about change, you would need the support of politicians,
but politicians are largely hypocritical, self interested individuals,
like most of humanity.

The married with children, family doting politician, might well
pop down to his local escort service as instinct kicks in, but he
would keep it a secret. Not wanting to upset those little old ladies
in his electorate who are against prostitution, he would be seen to
do nothing to encourage it. Thus your problem. Human nature.

*but also with humans one has the influence of culture - we are sentient and we are social, which alters everything,*

I don't know why you think that other species don't have culture,
you have clearly never read much about primatology :)

What is learned and what is instinctive in humans and other species,
is much debated and we can argue to death if its 50/50 or 60/40 or
whatever.

The thing is, psychology got it very much wrong in the 70s, with their
tabula razza theory, where they thought that the mind is like a blank
slate and everything is learned. That is clearly not the case, as
neuroscience has since then shown.

What we do know is that we humans are aware of only a tiny portion of
what is actually going on in those brains of ours and only a small
section of the human brain is there for thinking. There is huge
competition within the mind, from various centres and it depends on
many things, including neural wiring, which dominates at the time.

Hormones, peptides, neurotransmitters, all interacting.

Yes we fall in love, in the animal world its called pair bonding.
That is very much instinctive