Last week, self-described sex hotline operator Ellie Lumpesse published an Open Salon (“Editor’s Pick”) commentary about the conflicting, but not mutually exclusive views that she feels feminists cling to concerning the sex industry.
If you have not read her piece, do check it out. It is worth your time.
She competently argues that when it comes to the sex industry, people generally form opinions based on two somewhat accepted claims:
Claim #1: The sex work is wrong.
Claim #2: There is something wrong within sex work.
Ellie proclaims that, “nearly all sex workers concede the latter,” but that the real contested argument stems from the former claim.
Many (but by no means all) OS commentators backed Ellie’s position: which essentially states that the sex industry does have its problems, but it generally exists as a positive and pro-feminist element in our society.
In the comments section, some took it a step further and lobbied for the legalization and government regulation of the entire sex-for-profit spectrum.
Those who defend the liberal status quo and advocate for the further liberalization of the sex trades wrote that, despite the inherent problems, the concept of sex-as-a-commodity fills a need within our society.
To a limited extent, Ellie and company are right. The sex industry does seek to fulfill an obvious need in modern life. However, it does so in a way analogous to treating a potentially correctable terminal disease with nothing more than narcotic pain relief.
In my opinion, the sex industry continues to grow and rake in massive profits because we live in an increasingly solitary and sexually repressed society.
As we grow distant from actual human interaction and depend more and more on technology and the oversexed mainstream media to define ourselves and our culture, the sex industry’s ultimately unhealthy drug seems like an acceptable “solution” to our overlying problems.
I contend that the liberalization of the sex industry is not the truly progressive answer to this alarming situation.
The obvious healthy answer is rooted firmly in education and free thought.
First off, the troubles within the sex industry are well documented. Slavery, prostitution, pornography-tainted lives and relationships; as well as physical abuse, drug addiction and disease have all been closely and accurately tied to this industry.
Defending, protecting and rehabilitating those who have suffered through the painful elements of the sex trades is one of our utmost collective moral obligations.
The simultaneous moral corollary to the above statement is the active promotion of open dialogue among adults and the push for comprehensive pubescent sex education.
I believe that if we fully educate our children about sex—complete with lessons that address a wide range of topics that the majority of public education systems in this country currently shy away from—we will nurture a more sexually healthy society that generally rejects the idea of sex as a commodity.
These lessons must include gender equality, consent, sexual harassment, homosexuality, sexual assault, STDs, the transgender community, birth control, condoms, prostitution, pornography, fetishes, the internet, the largely negative concept of sex as a commodity and sex’s role in different cultures throughout history.
I feel that with a more sexually educated populace, the role of the sex industry will diminish.
I am not naïve enough to believe that the world’s oldest profession can be eliminated, but I do contend that with a progressive sex education system in public schools, the sex industry will ruin far less lives and relationships.
In concert with truly worthwhile sex education, the prosecution of human traffickers, pimps and “johns” (but not necessarily prostitutes) remains a legitimate enterprise that our law enforcement agencies should eagerly pursue.
The liberalization of the sex trades is not a long term answer. The liberalization of our education system is.
To be clear, I am not heaping blame upon Ellie and the sex workers like her.
But, Ellie, you do work as a narcotic. You may ease the pain with some of your for-profit phone calls, but you ultimately give credence to an industry that time and time again ruins lives. You are far from the root of the problem, but you are definitely not part of a sustainable solution.
For what its worth, here’s my claim #3: The sex industry exists as a mostly negative symptom of a greater problem within our society.
As usual, the truly progressive answer resides in the less popular and more difficult long- term plan.
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I'm also not sure that your premise that sex work is bad is true. Would I want my daughter involved? Hell no! But I wouldn't want her to be a test pilot, or a dog catcher, or a bill collector either.
Also, I don't say that sex work is all bad. I wrote that it is an ultimately unhealthy outlet to deal with a real problem.
If you don't want your daughter in the sex industry, why would you support other people's children going down that path?
You don't explain how it is "unhealthy" . Nor what type of information might be supplied to change behavior. And what is the "real" problem that you speak of.
I go back and forth on the issue myself, because I don't necessarily agree that "sex is a commodity" is an untrue or bad thing. I think the problem is perceiving the person selling the sex as a commodity, an object to be used and purchased, whose human dignity you don't need to respect. The sex act itself I don't mind being bought and sold.
Just the briefest amount of research points to the massive "unhealthy" problems with this notion. Sex should not be treated as a commodity and progress can be made through more open dialogue and better pubescent sex education. All of this stuff is in the original post, John.
And I do appreciate the comments.
More education and more sexual freedom is never going to eliminate sex work. There are more reasons than loneliness or wanting an uncomplicated fuck like I mentioned above to pay.
Some like the transgressive nature of the act. Its very illegality and the danger created by possible discovery are the draw. Some seek something they cannot get from their spouse or partner like bondage, golden showers, etc. Some want the power inherent in what they perceive to be an unequal relationship. The reasons are as varied as the johns and joans.
At least you are willing to address the topic and for that I rate you even though I don't agree with many things you wrote.
(rated)
Working toward a society with a more open and accepting attitude about sex would, most likely, do more than change the nature of the sex trade. It would also have a lot of beneficial changes in other important areas of society as well.
Your ideas also address, obliquely but it's there, the ways in which sexual repression is used as a tool to oppress people in other ways. As long as there's shame involved in the act of sex, shame in our bodies, in our desires, and so on, it will be used as a tool to oppress women. There's just no doubt about it.
It is, as you say, not more acceptance of the sex trade we need, but more acceptance and openness in understanding sex and sexuality.
I couldn't agree with you more. Thanks for reading and leaving a comment
On the one hand, a man and a woman should have the ability to consent to any kind of sexual relationship, and exchange both bodily fluids and cash as they choose. The problem is, we don't live in a frictionless world -- when it comes to sex, and particularly sex for money, the parties involved in the bargain are not on equal footing. There is an inherent power imbalance that nearly always leaves the woman exploited, and her "choice" not as much an exercise of free will as a giving in to circumstance. Some sex workers manage to avoid this trap, but they are the exception, not the rule.
It is true that some of this has to do with how we have been socialized to think about sex and sexual roles, so yes, Edgar, education is something of a missing link in this. But I don't think it is education so as to eliminate the "need" for sex work. The education we're talking about has to do with creating a sexual landscape where every sexual transaction, whether for money or not, is made in true consent and with respect on both sides.
But education is not the only issue. It's not like people take advantage of other people because they don't know better. They do it because they are self-interested, self-absorbed and for whatever reason, unwilling to to conisder another person's needs and feelings in the equation. I'm not sure you can educate people out of selfishness and greed and lust for power and possession.
The part of me that beleives in a soul believes that there is an inherent brokenness in a relationship where human intimicy becomes a commodity. I am not sure that any amount of education really enlightens us as a people past the point where that is true. What is wrong in sex work is what is wrong with humans generally -- greed, lust for power, selfishness. Which means, that it may be impossible for sex work to not be flawed, as much as, as a liberal, I would like to think we could reach a point in our evolution where we could transcend that, but I'm not sure what that would look like.
Thanks Edgar. Gerat post.
How do you feel about surrogates, btw?
Liz, I agree that we cannot feasibly expect to remove greed, lust for power and selfishness from the human condition. But, I do disagree with your statement, "It's not like people take advantage of other people because they don't know better."
I think that in the sexual realm, just that situation happens over and over again. Teenagers aren't properly educated about matters such as consent, sexual harassment, sexual assault, pornography, etc., but they are fully tuned into the oversexed MSM and are likely exposed to pornography via the internet. People get hurt and/or develop damaging sexual habits because of this. We can't get rid of the greed, lust for power and selfishness, but we can get rid of the ignorance. We can also teach people how to identify that sexual greed/lust for control in others.
RickyB, tooting my own horn, I think that my comparison of the sex industries to narcotics in the original post is a workable analogy.
For the ugly, ostracized and socially inept, pornography and prostitution may ease the pain temporarily, but it won't cure the loneliness. If the loneliness really is terminal, than I guess the narcotic is all you really have.
And I don't know what to think about surrogates. I'll have to get back to you on that.
Claim #3 is much more satisfying than the first two.
That is a good observation, Liz.
I don't understand the need for a definition, actually, of any of this. 'Sex education' is pretty self-explanatory. Sure, you can dress it up or down (pardon the oblique puns) with more terminology, but I believe sex education can be defined as being educated about sex. Really educated. Not "it's evil!" "Don't do it until marriage!" "And then only the missionary position!" That's not education.
Where else can we go with that?
As for 'openness' I suppose that could be up for interpretation, but generally speaking, we'd have a better society, I believe, if we weren't so repressive and repressed about sex. Thus, you know, more open.
There. Those are the definitions I thought we must be working with, give or take some specifics. Feel free, ANYONE, to correct me or add to my thoughts.
And your arguments would be better served if you'd knock it off with the generalizations. There do seem to be some men here talking about all of this, too. Also, aren't there male prostitutes that sleep with women for money? Why would my standing as a woman mean I didn't understand prostitution? That seems ... really dumb, I'm sorry. But it does. You're acting like someone smacked your puppy. We're just talking about wishing sexual repression would stop. And that the present sex trade, with all its very serious problems, is a result of that repression.
Changing the subject a little, could there be a healthier sex trade if we had a healthier society? I think that's a possibility myself. There might always be a need for sex workers, but with a stronger, less repressed and conflicted (about sex and gender) society, the sex trade could well become a job that anyone would be proud to have their daughter or son engage in.
Although, I could be speaking in terms of 'that which will never happen.' I don't see us changing any of these Puritanical values anytime soon.
http://www.lumpesse.com/2008/06/what-about-the-johns-an-audio-plea/
Ultimately, I feel that the relationship I have with my clients is positive because I go out of my way to affirm their sexuality in the same way I would with any lover or partner.
But, you are right that a lot of the sex industry is predicated on shame. However, I don't think that it would go away if shame and repression disappeared tomorrow, we would just have a new sex industry. (One that I can't fully imagine but would be excited to have revealed to me.)
Is the sex industry (especially in its current state) a negative symptom? Perhaps. But are there elements within that industry that are working to make sex more open and less shameful? Absolutely.
Liz, you said "There is an inherent power imbalance that nearly always leaves the woman exploited, and her "choice" not as much an exercise of free will as a giving in to circumstance."
You have never used a sex worker have you? As one who uses the services of a sleeper leaper every so often I can tell you they are the one in charge. They will either ask you what you want and when you tell her she will tell you what you are going to get and how much they charge or they just start off by saying this is what I do and this is the fee.
Finally, why not pay for it up front? Most men take a woman out, buy her dinner, drinks and a movie and hope they get laid at the end of the evening. Women, has the thought ever crossed your mind that maybe I should sleep with him now?
Heck, paying for it up front may be more honest!
Sex and sexual interaction suffers exponentially with people learning about sex not from a delighted partner but by way of the internet, or porn which offers (often) unrealistic encounters from which people (men typically 'cause they watch more porn) learn about fucking, but not really about great sex (which includes, but not exclusively, great fucking).
I feel bad for the younger generation who you read about having sex too early, too often, mostly blow jobs and intercourse (12 year olds for those of you who are in the dark), and I assume, will need weirder and more extreme methods to get themselves off.
I'm not one of those who says, "Oh you must be in love to have great sex." NOT AT ALL! But to eliminate it entirely from the equation is sad, and by love I mean communication, laughter, playfulness, mutual experimentation; the stuff that comes from the slow, gradual growth of a human relationship.
I think a great movie that illustrates this is "Carnal Knowledge" wherein the character played by Jack Nicholson, goes through his young life having as much (cold) sex as he can get, full of disdain for his many partners, and ends up at the end of the movie alone, sad and responsive only to a carefully choreographed sex encounter with a paid professional.
The largest problem with the sex industry from my view is the need to protect young people, not only from predators but from themselves at certain points in their lives.
For those of us that had their first sexual experience at the hands of an older person before puberty the situation gets to be very complicated. Your choices in relationships seem to be viewed through a fun house mirror, kind of a reflection but with some odd distortions.
On a global basis there are many different cultural situations where sex is introduced too young, I'm referring to serious dangerous sex activities, not Sexting as is the lastest fad among teens.
Nick Kristof of the NYT does great work in this area, providing a view into the problems of the sex trade around the world and the lives that are stolen through the deep impressions left on anyone forced into a sexual act with before they are mature enough to be able to understand.
It's actually a twofer.
Can you tell us exactly when, after there was a human society that there actually were no sex workers and, can you tell us exactly when, in human society there will BE no sex workers?
Happy with home cooking, I can't speak from personal experience. But persons I know who hire the services of sex workers say they do so specifically because the transaction is impersonal and doesn't involve the complications of genuine human relationships. In other words, they do it because they want to *embrace* a solitary experience, not because they want to *escape* one.
That is where you're wrong, even though most of your prescriptions are good ones.
Sex is not just one thing to all people. It's not "a commodity" nor is it "not a commodity". Sex is a central aspect of human nature, and like all others - emotion, friendship, trust, emnity, love, language, gesture, and so on. - it can play many roles simultaneously. There's no one right place for sex in our lives.
People get advice, counsel, and help for personal growth from their good friends. People also get these same things from professional counselors, in exchange for money. Is personal counseling solely the province of friendship? Is professional counseling merely a "narcotic" for a society which lacks adequate friendship? Absolutely not. In some cases, people pay for exactly that: for the professional relationship with a counselor that they by definition *cannot* have with a friend.
Is the expression of deep emotion "a commodity"? Because if it isn't, why are we paying actors to give it to us on demand in theater and movies and television?
You're half-right: Our society is sexually dysfunctional (though some subcultures are much less so). Many of the things you call for will improve our lives.
But one thing they will not do, by any stretch, is come anywhere close to eliminating "sex work". On the contrary, a sexually healthy society would likely have *more* sex work - though much of it would be different from some of the forms we have today.
There are so many ways that people fantasize about having sex and yet most, educated or not, feel woefully inadequate when trying to ask a partner to indulge in something, that they perhaps learned as a child was base or just plain weird.
Socities and people all over the world are going to have to change a whole lot in order for the taboos that surround sex to be eliminated by education or any other progressive thought on the issue. We are individuals, and as such, how we think and feel about sex is something that education, that is, raw knowledge, can change. Perhaps the elimination of poverty would be a start? Perhaps the notion that women, shoes, underwear, oysters, etc. can each or collectivelt be sex objects to people, makes sex the type of issue that education cannot address?
But do you really think that this education will affect the sex industry..I am not so sure about that!
There is an element of definition here regards sex for money. The only difference between a prostitute & a wife, is the time spent with one man & the amount of sex partners..it is still the exchange of sexual services for material support.
The forward-thinking, 19th century English sexologist, Havelock Ellis, described the difference between a wife and a sex worker this way: "The wife who marries for money, compared with a prostitute, is the true scab. She is paid less, gives much more in return in labor and care, and is absolutely bound to her master. The prostitute [on the other hand] never signs away the right over her own person, she retains her freedom and personal rights, nor is she always compelled to submit to man's embraces."
Though this is impalatable for many, it nontheless is the truth.
Love is another issue & even though it is not mentioned, love is something that emerges with knowledge of another.
Taboo`s around sex are ongoing & this in turn can affect the reasons why somebody visits a sexworker, the fear/thrill factor.
Nobody though as far as I can see has mentioned the fact that despite this new world that is envisaged of a newly sexual educated populace, there are those who for many reasons cannot or it is difficult for them to have a sexual relationship at all ie: invalidity, looks, personality problems. These men have used the services of sexworkers who have been much kinder to them than the female masses.
Also there are those who have fetishes & not all women know or understand the nature of fetish, in the same way that an experienced sex worker does.
Also there is the honesty of transaction. With a sexworker you know exactly what you are getting , how much this will cost & how long this will last. Which is not always the case with non-sexworkers.
Knowledge of sex does not always denote control. The very nature of sex itself, shows at some point contro is lost..not something you can educate yourself out of always!
If anything we need to re-take our views on sex & get real, only 2% of all species are monogamous. We need to truly understand our own sex drive & what we are capable as a species, rather than what we think we want due to morals & ethics.
Its this denial of the whole picture of sex that causes many of our sex problems rather than the sex industry itself.
Sex for procreation has become a real over burden on our worlds resources, creating far more damaging global problems than what the sex industry has.
Only until relatively recently have people been exposed so via the internet to the sex industry in this way..now we`ve all become experts!
As camille paglia says:
"Feminists like to quote these absolutely specious statistics, a typical trick of the feminist movement of the last twenty years. For example, they'll say the majority of prostitutes have been sexually abused as children. But there's no evidence for this! The most successful prostitutes are invisible, because the sign of a prostitute's success is her absolute blending with the environment. She's so shrewd, she never becomes visible. She never gets in trouble. She has command of her life, and her clients. The ones who get into the surveys have drug problems or psychological problems. They're the ones who were sexually abused. Feminists are using amateurs to condemn a whole profession. This is appalling!"
Healthy sex for hire may be a contradiction in terms, since we all want love and caring and responsibility to attend sex. But they are the social dimensions of sex we may be able to influence, not the bio-genetic urge itself. That urge seems to be getting refined and intensified in our current American society--we're becoming connoisseurs of fuck and suck and maybe happier for it (at least the younger generations are). We're certainly happier than the repressive puritans that started this society--Hester Prin and all that. It's the secrecy, hypocrisy, and guilt around sex that distorts its beneficial power, so that legal regulated prostitution could cure it of some of its social ills.
Not too many of us, right?
So, while we're not literally spreading our legs and letting someone have their way with us, we are figuratively doing it.
I agree with #3 and I will take it a step further: it is a negative symptom of a greater spiritual problem within the human condition. If, as we've been told, prostitution is the oldest profession, then this is not a new debate, but certainly a worthwhile one. I think that the sex industry is an outgrowth of what I must admit reluctantly, is still a male world dominated by male thinking--whether women or men run the business or not--it is a man's sexuality that rules the sex industry and the women are the objects. This is a complex not easily unraveled and many will think that I am judging or moralizing, but not so. It is not a judgment on the participants but more on the real question: why are both parties there in the first place?
Yeah, let's turn into Pleasure Island. Oh, we're already there.
As I read through this post, the logical errors that occur are many; I will point out a few and leave it at that.
Firstly, everything the author presents is based on one primary assumption; the sex trade is “ethically wrong”, as if that is just understood to be true. It isn’t, of course.
Next, the so-called solutions offered by the author solve absolutely nothing the author points to as causation. Education will not remove the author’s purported “cause” of the “need” that the sex trade serves, nor will continued prosecutions of traffickers. Consider the following statement from the author:
“In my opinion, the sex industry continues to grow and rake in massive profits because we live in an increasingly solitary and sexually repressed society.”
The author clearly indicates that the source of the “need” that is served by the sex trade is that our society is “an increasingly solitary and sexually repressed society”. And what solution does the author offer? Education and continued prosecution of “traffickers”.
Interestingly, and logically speaking, neither so-called solution the author offers does anything to alleviate the author’s supposed cause of the need to which he refers; solitude and sexual repression.
The author states, “…the sex industry’s ultimately unhealthy drug seems like an acceptable ‘solution’ to our overlying problems.” The logical fallacy employed here is a type of straw man argument, as the sex trade is not offered as a solution to anything, anymore than is going out to a restaurant for dinner. Instead, the sex trade is merely a service responding to a market, not intending to solve a problem. Also, the ethical rightness or wrongness of that service is not resolved, although the author presumes it is when he describes it as an “unhealthy drug”.
The author states, “…the troubles within the sex industry are well documented. Slavery, prostitution, pornography-tainted lives and relationships; as well as physical abuse, drug addiction and disease have all been closely and accurately tied to this industry.”
In the above quote, the author engages in another logical fallacy known as “Questionable Cause” or “Confusing Cause and Effect”. The main problems to which the author refers exist outside the sex trade just as abundantly as within it, which implies a correlation, not causation. The correlation would be more directly related to the illegal components associated with the sex trade, as well as with other greater societal ills, rather than with the sex trade, itself. And, once again, neither “education” nor “prosecution of ‘traffickers’” offers a solution to those problems.
One last thought; the author avoids reference to the primary source of the sexual repression to which he refers, indeed, the primary obstacle to the very education he sees as a necessary component to a “solution”: religion.
The list of illogical thoughts in this post is much longer than what I’ve presented here.
"In concert with truly worthwhile sex education, the prosecution of human traffickers, pimps and “johns” (but not necessarily prostitutes) remains a legitimate enterprise that our law enforcement agencies should eagerly pursue."
Huh? or WTF?! That statement fits the rest of your piece like a fur coat at a PETA meeting.
Now, Ric Lucke:
feel free to call me "Edgar." This piece wasn't a thesis submitted for academic review. However, I do challenge a few of your identified "logical errors." You wrote that you agreed with my assertion that “we live in an increasingly solitary and sexually repressed society,” yet you went on to challenge my theory that education will do anything to alleviate that situation. I think that teaching our kids about sex, supervising their internet use and talking about masturbation will in fact go a long way in leading children toward a more healthy adult/adolescent sexual life. While ignorance about the sex trade did not create the environment we have now, I argue that it does perpetuate it. A child's first encounter/lesson with pornography shouldn't be an unsupervised internet expereince without prior knowledge. It's like the DARE program (which has proven to be effective). With DARE, kids are taught about drugs before they encounter them and therefore better understand the dangers involved. We could easily do the same thing with pornography and the over-sexed MSM. You don't have to teach that pornography is ethically wrong--just that it's completely artificial, for-profit and not representative of reality.
Also, Ric, in my original post there is no primary assumption that sex trade is “ethically wrong,” I see it as a legal and moral gray-area. And just as I should have been reprimanded if I had declared it as totally wrong, you would be remiss to say that "of course isn't" [ethically wrong at all]
You went on to attack my original statement that follows as a "strawman argument": “…the sex industry’s ultimately unhealthy drug seems like an acceptable ‘solution’ to our overlying problems.” You continued, "the sex trade is not offered as a solution to anything, anymore than is going out to a restaurant for dinner. Instead, the sex trade is merely a service responding to a market, not intending to solve a problem." But again, here is where you are wrong. I believe (and I'm sure I will have lots of support here) that sex is more than a commodity like some meal at a restaurant. It is an integral component of life--the means by which humanity marches onward. Proponents of porn and legalized prostitution do in fact prop up the industries as market-friendly solutions for a sexually repressed society. They claim that porn/prostitution is at least part of a broad societal solution for an entire host of problems including rape, incest, child molestation, underage prostitution, etc. I argued that porn/prostitution is not the optimal means to an end in those fights.
Further, Ric, when you accused me of employing “Questionable Cause” or “Confusing Cause and Effect.” You followed it up with a logical blunder by claiming that the problems I referred to "exist outside the sex trade just as abundantly as within it." An outlandish claim that is somewhat of a "Red Herring"
And Ric, you capped off your lengthy comment by trotting out that old whipping boy of yours: religion. Ever the zealous atheist, you claimed that the incredibly huge umbrella of "religion" is both the primary cause of sexual repression and primary roadblock standing in the way of better sex education. This, of course, is a textbook example of "questionable cause" or "confusing cause and effect." While some religions do frown upon sex as a topic of discussion or childhood education, not all religions do.
Also, religion can do a part to help out. Being actively involved in a church/mosque/temple that meets one's spiritual and social needs can help on the "increasingly solitary society" front. And liberal religions that teach children about sex, pornography, etc. can help on the "sexually repressed" side of things. Even the Jehovah's Witnesses promote discussion of masturbation. As much as you want to, you can't put all the blame on religion on this one.
You reasonably write, “You don't have to teach that pornography is ethically wrong--just that it's completely artificial, for-profit and not representative of reality.” On this we are in nearly full agreement and I agree wholeheartedly that fully educating people about sex is a benefit to society. The one question I have for you is, “How do you define ‘artificial’ and ‘not representative of reality’ in all of this?”
Your assertion is that sexual repression represents causation for the “unhealthy drug” that is the sex trade. Education will possibly help alleviate sexual repression, but there is no evidence to support your assertion that it will eliminate the sex trade, or even reduce it. History refutes your assertion, as prostitution (the sex trade) has existed throughout virtually every society known, whether sexually repressed or not. There is no solid evidence that sexual repression creates the sex trades. One could just as easily argue that sex education would remove some of the inhibitions about the sex trade, thereby increasing its viability. Ultimately, the likelihood is that better education about sex would benefit society, but would have minimal, if any, effect on the sex trade.
Also, much of the isolation to which you refer is not a result of sexual repression, but rather the result of other societal shifts that have changed the manner in which citizens relate to one another. Industrialization pushing society into an urban rather than rural existence is far more responsible for the isolation we experience. Capitalistic competition for livelihoods is prominent in that equation. There is a general sense of distrust among people, which creates a definite sense of isolation, even among a group of people. (Given the immensity of that particular issue, you’ll have to settle for my generality on it. I’ll assume you understand the larger point there.) You have presented no evidence to support your supposition that sex education would alleviate the sex trade or social isolation.
On the issue of whether or not you indicate that the sex trade is ethically wrong, first let me make clear what my comment, “It isn’t, of course”, was in reference to; it was in reference to my own comment “as if that is just understood to be true”, which immediately precedes it. The sex trade is not just understood to be wrong or bad; that is merely the assumption from which your essay proceeds. It is your prerogative to proceed from that assumption, but it weakens your position. Another presumption you make is “the liberal status quo” regarding the sex trade. What exactly is “the liberal status quo”? I’m not sure how “liberal” that status quo is.
You write, “…the sex industry’s ultimately unhealthy drug …”, and later, “the sex industry will ruin far less lives and relationships”, which clearly infers it is bad/wrong, yet you offer nothing that supports the claim of “unhealthy”.
You consistently refer to the sex trade in a negative light throughout your post, so it seems foolhardy to deny such.
You write, “The sex industry exists as a mostly negative symptom of a greater problem within our society.”
“Negative”? How so? On what do you base this claim? The negative aspects you have cited are a problem not because of the sex trade, but because of the elements that exist illegally. Legalize it, regulate it, bring it into the light, and those problems are significantly affected in a beneficial manner. Leaving them as they are currently merely perpetuates them as problems, doing nothing to change their effects.
Your references to the sex trade supposedly harming society, making it less healthy, are inferring the moral and ethical view in which you hold the sex trade. You do not state it in two words, as I did, but the premise is there in your words, nonetheless.
You write, “…when you accused me of employing ‘Questionable Cause’ or ‘Confusing Cause and Effect.’ You followed it up with a logical blunder by claiming that the problems I referred to ‘exist outside the sex trade just as abundantly as within it.’ An outlandish claim that is somewhat of a ‘Red Herring’.”
Heh …, an “outlandish claim”? Let’s examine this a little more thoroughly.
You wrote, “…the troubles within the sex industry are well documented. Slavery, prostitution, pornography-tainted lives and relationships; as well as physical abuse, drug addiction and disease have all been closely and accurately tied to this industry.”
There are two glaring problems with your above statement. First, again you refer to prostitution as “trouble”, and you leave unexplained your concept of “pornography-tainted lives and relationships”. What does that mean? That phrase essentially offers nothing of substance in this discussion. Beyond those two items, your entire list exists outside of the sex trade; slavery, physical abuse, drug addiction, disease all exist not solely within the sex trade, not because of the sex trade, and not even primarily in the sex trade. Is it your intention to suggest that these issues result from the sex trade or that they do not exist outside of the sex trade?
There is no “red herring” in my original statement. You categorize your list as “troubles within the sex industry”. This is a misleading statement, a fallacy of omission, which my statement exposes. You suggest that these issues exist within the sex industry, stating that they “…have all been closely and accurately tied to this industry”, leaving open the suggestion of causation. I have not changed the subject, merely added the omitted information that these same issues exist elsewhere, as well, which would logically suggest that there is an underlying cause for those issues that is unrelated to the sex industry directly, but rather to other commonalities among the differing lifestyles in which these issues exist. Not changing the subject at all, I’ve merely pointed to a weakness in your statement. No fallacy.
Illogic is also seen in your own contradictory statements: “I am not naïve enough to believe that the world’s oldest profession can be eliminated …”, and then later, “The liberalization of the sex trades is not a long term answer.”
Logically, a long term answer to a problem requires minimizing the elements that cause its problematic components. In the case of the sex trade, which as you note is not going away, continuing on the current path is analogous to continuing the current path in the ridiculous “war on drugs”. Your suggestion, “…the prosecution of human traffickers, pimps and “johns” (but not necessarily prostitutes) remains a legitimate enterprise that our law enforcement agencies should eagerly pursue”, corresponds perfectly with those who contend we should continue our current approach to the “war on drugs” rather than eliminating the illegal components that are the real problems.
History (Prohibition) offers support for the legalization approach, while simultaneously refuting your own suggestions. “The liberalization of the sex trades”, as you put it, removes the most problematic aspects of the sex trade, which result primarily from the illegal components. Efforts to eliminate sex trades are futile, wasteful, and harmful to society.
Now, …religion. For a bright guy, Edgar, your occasional lack of clarity in your thinking is surprising. My assertion that religion is the primary cause of sexual repression in America, as well as the primary obstacle to the very education to which you refer, has nothing in it that you can refute. Your categorization of my statement as a “questionable cause” argument is dumbfounding. Perhaps you can point to a more dominant cause of sexual repression in America and a more dominant obstacle to sex education. I know of none.
Your objection that I used the word “religion”, rather than delineating which religions, does nothing to diminish the point I was making, which is that you did not even address that major component in the issue at hand. And your objection does not reveal a “questionable cause” argument on my part. My point was clearly stated; it was that you did not address religion at all.
You write, “While some religions do frown upon sex as a topic of discussion or childhood education, not all religions do.”
Yes, okay, and … What is your point? The truth of my original statement still stands. I know that atheists are not creating sexual repression or obstructing sex education. Are you seriously going to attempt to argue that religion is not the primary source of sexual repression and obstruction to sex education? If so, good luck with that.
Also, your assertion, “…religion can do a part to help out” is erroneous. The particular elements that you suggest might be acquired via religious organizations will not be a product of “religion”. You reference “education” and “socialization”, not religion. If those attributes can be found within religious organizations, it is of no real consequence in the larger scheme of things because of the otherwise socially divisive elements that comprise actual “religion”. On a larger societal level, religion will not provide any relief to those who work within the sex industry, which is really the issue unless one seeks to eliminate the sex industry.
In the end, we agree that sex education is a good thing. You think sex education will diminish the sex trade; there is no evidence to that effect while historical evidence seems stacked against your assertion. We disagree that maintaining the current status quo regarding the legal status of the sex trade is a good thing; you think it is: I do not. I think you have good intentions with this post, but it does not really hold up logically speaking.
I enjoy sparring with you. Take care …