Prostitution Discussion

Rubito, moderator at ColombiaBlog and someone I frequently lock horns with on PBH, has sent me some rather respectful, thoughtful and insightful emails on the subject of Prostitution, which of course is seperate and distinct from International Marriage Brokerage and Sex Tourism (though it can be linked of course).

He writes:

The one big difference is that in those countries prostitution is illegal, which is what gives the pimps room to work. Legalizing it in Colombia and Brazil not only made the pimp obsolete, it changed the whole demographic of the prostitute as well, attracting a higher class of worker to the industry. It's the same with the drug game, the very illegality of it will attract all the scum of society to it, but no matter how illegal we make it we can't make it not lucrative, as a matter of fact we probably make it MORE lucrative because the illegality increases the risk and difficulty in doing business.

The Tao Teh Ching would say on issues like this to be completely flexible and yielding like water and acheive your goals though non-action and complete serenity and acceptance of the true nature of the universe 8) I dunno if that's too much for your very actively Catholic brain or not, I used to think the same way a good 12 years ago :P But at any rate I don't think your problem is with prostitution per se, it's with exploitation in general. Even if you could figure out an airtight way to prevent any people with a high potential to be exploited from EVER working in prostitution, you would not only still have prostitution, but those people would get exploited in other ways.

Well, well done Rubito, you've blown my "cover" : but please bare in mind that I don't agree with everything the Man in the White Dress says ok? I do have an independent mind...

You are absolutely right that my problem is with injustice: exploitation, of which the standard types of industrialised prostitution is a form. Basically, I few the kind of no-strings sex-on-tap culture to be wrong and damaging ...

...So my view is this. Its wrong, really wrong, for your average Scottish girl to get really drunk on a Friday night and have a one night stand with a complete stranger. If that complete stranger leaves £50 beside her bed as he leaves in the morning, or even if she asks for £50, its the same amount of "wrongness". Its not that "kind" of prostitution I have a problem with per se, (other than distaste for something nasty cold and callous). My problem is when prostitution becomes the only way out for poor women, or the only "feasible" way out. I told a pimp who offered me work sucking dicks as a student to go to hell. A couple of weeks later, facing eviction and an empty fridge, I probably would have said yes. And I lived - then - in the rich north. Now cut to the poor South.

But prostitution exists and will continue to exist - which is why I think we should have tolerance zones and (where needed ) drug rehab centres in the middle of them. Why, like you, I think that a well patrolled tolerance zone will do away with the need for pimps. It won't stop sex slavery or human trafficking - sex slavery is NOT prostitution, or not the same kind away, I prefer to use the word "slavery" or "bonded labour" to describe this. If anything, good tolerance zones will highlight the differences between bonded labour and prostitution.

Women who are bonded labourers are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse. A slave is not a prostitute. Not really. But you should also remember that poverty can bind as much as iron.