Legal prostitution will hurt women, and that’s good, says allegedly pro-woman MRA
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. 77 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.