Legal prostitution will hurt women, and that’s good, says allegedly pro-woman MRA
If only all women were whores!
A lot of MRAs maintain that they’re not anti-woman, just antifeminist. Heck, one new contributor to Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit has put that claim in the name he chooses to identify himself by: ProWomanAntiFeminist.
Alas, his comments don’t quite live up his moniker. PRAF (for short) launched his Reddit career a couple of days ago with a series of comments, all of them upvoted by the regulars, arguing that prostitution should be legalized - because he thinks that would be bad for women. “[L]egal prostitution reduces women’s economic advantage over men,” he argued in his second comment. Why? According to PRAF, because prostitutes offer men a better deal on sex:
[P]rostitutes give men no strings attached sexual satisfaction reasonably and anonymously for a set price. Without the man having to jump through arbitrary hoops to “impress” the girl, risking an “oops” pregnancy, or (god forbid) getting married.
When sex and female companionship is a man’s objective, prostitution is an efficient and cost-effective option that many women don’t want to have to compete with.
In other words, prostitutes break the back of the dreaded Pussy Cartel — or, as PWAF would call it, the “sexual trade union.” Not only are wives and girlfriends more costly in the long run for men, but they’re also not actually obligated to have sex:
Married women get unfettered access and control over male resources, and they don’t even have to put out. Girlfriends get some access to male resources, dependent on how attractive she is and how desperate he is.
Simply paying up front for sex is so much more convenient:
Prostitutes offer a dependable, no strings attached experience for men.
And so we come to what PWAF sees as the big payoff here:
Legal prostitution reduces the desperation of men, mandating that non-prostitute women have to bring more to the table to secure male resources.
I suggest you read that last sentence over again, because it’s a doozy.
Even by his own daffy logic, PWAF is advocating something that he clearly sees as anti-woman — or at least anti “non-prostitute women,” as he so charmingly puts it.
Might want to rethink that name.
Of course, given PWAF’s familiarity with MR lingo and logic, I suspect that this “new” commenter is actually a very old commenter under a new name.
I’d suggest he go back to his old one.
Posted on September 26, 2011, in $MONEY$, antifeminism, hypocrisy, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, pussy cartel, reddit, sex. Bookmark the permalink. 82 Comments.
Darksidecat,
I don’t know much about trafficking, so I could easily be missing something, but It doesn’t seem to me that it would be all that hard for someone interested to avoid trafficked workers. I mean, I look white/American, I have an east coast accent, and my clients tend to ask me questions like what college I attend and what my major is. My online profiles include information on art projects I’m working on and things I’ve designed.
I suppose there could be white trafficked women who’ve been around long enough and from young enough to have typical American accents, who pretend to be college students and who post movie reviews and art projects on their profiles, but it doesn’t seem very likely to me.
Shorter Orion: buy American!
(sorry, couldn’t help it, please don’t take it the wrong way!)
No, I get it, and I am a little worried that I may have some inaccurate, classist/racist ideas of what “trafficked women” are like. I know that people coerced into sex work probably look and act a lot more like “normal people” than TV would have you think. At the same time, class markings and education (the mother of all class markings) tend to be pretty obvious in even a casual social interaction. Maybe they’re fakeable, I don’t know, but intuitively I would think that checking for the signs of a middle class, college background would be a pretty good way to screen out the coerced.
Someone could come from a middle class background and still be coerced, especially if the prostitute is also a drug addict. Homeless teens, for one - they do grow up, and if prostitution is all you know, it’s all you know. Women turn to prostitution, more often than not, because their life circumstances are not good, which can happen at any time. Unfortunately, there’s really no good way to screen out people who are being coerced, unless you know the prostitute in question well, or go somewhere that you know is more reputable.
Honestly, I’ve always had a dream of running my own brothel, complete with health insurance (if we could get it), condoms only, exercise room and free offsite daycare, and good security to protect my employees. Because they’d be employees, not chattel.
AbsintheDexterous: They’re a little old now, but Spider Robinson’s Lady Sally* books (Lady Slings the Booze and Callahan’s Lady) are an excellent example of how a modern brothel ought to be run. But Lady Sally had… more advantages than a run of the mill person.
* A small warning: If you don’t like puns, don’t bother. Because they will drive you to distraction.
KathleenB - Thanks for the recommendations! I’ll check them out - they look like they’d be my cup of tea for interesting reading. And I’m not afraid of puns, as long they’re good!
Prostitution was decriminalised here in 2003 and surprise surprise! People are still getting laid, pairing off and marrying just like they always were.
Logic fail, that dude.
Obviously it’s in the interest of women who aren’t hookers to keep prostitution both illegal and criminalized. The reason so many women are outraged by (straight)porn is fairly similar: Men obtaining sexual gratification without having to pander to women’s needs and wants.
I’ve certainly heard plenty of sob stories trying to argue that women are “coerced” into doing it even if they aren’t actually FORCED into it(as in human trafficking). If a poor woman chooses to rent her body for easy $, that is her choice and she has to live with the consequences. A poor man could also choose to become a gay prostitute and rent his booty for easy dough….And yes, that does happen more than you might actually think. What it all boils down to is certain people who really can’t stand the idea of sex as a business transaction without any pretense of “wuve”.
What consequences do you think that should include, Frenchy?
Rape?
Disease?
Physical abuse?
Slavery?
People who have been sexually trafficked — even those who knew that they were going to be sex workers (as well as those who were told they would be domestic or factory workers, of course) — face all of the above. They are gang raped when they get to their new country, their passports taken away. They are beaten, humiliated, forced to have sex with one partner after another. Then, once they get familiar with the clients, the culture, and the language of one place, they’re sold to another owner, forced to work off whatever was paid for them, and the cycle continues.
NO ONE SIGNS UP FOR THAT, Frenchy. NO ONE.
Trafficked women have been forced to work even as they can no longer control their bowels. Or stand up. Are those the kind of consequences they should have to live with?
Actually no, I don’t give a shit about that. And if you, as a client, want to pay for sexual services in a system where the person serving you is safe, healthy, well-paid, protected, of age, and willing, I actually see no problem with that. I have a problem with the majority of sex workers who aren’t all those things. Because, as a fellow human, I think we should do better for them. And … you don’t?
Bee: Did I not make it clear that I was referring to VOLUNTARY prostitution rather than *human trafficking*(i.e. FORCED prostitution)?
I totally think you should DO IT. 4Realz.
So, by this
you mean to say that women who are coerced (through, say, their financial situation) into sex work, like women who are forced into it, also shouldn’t have to live with “the consequences” … whatever they are? Is that right? It sounded like you were making a distinction between those who were forced and those who were coerced, but if not I apologize.
Can you elaborate on what you meant by saying that those who become sex workers willingly deserve “the consequences”? What consequences do they deserve?
I should clarify, also … when I was talking about sex workers who have been trafficked, I meant that to include both those who were forced into sex work and those who were merely coerced, through their financial situations in their home countries, debt, violence at home, etc., as well as those who went willingly but found that the reality they had chosen was even worse than they could have imagined. So there may have been some confusion there, if you thought I was only talking about people who had been forced into it.