No it's not.

There is no such thing as a "sex worker".

Prostitution is what is known as a moral hazard.

This is when a contractual situation is set up where one party ends up taking high liability while the other takes none.

In this the case of prostitution the man, if he has anything to his name, stands to lose all.

Should the male victim have greater courage? Yes, but at the same time we shouldn't leave manhole covers off the streets and then complain that people were too dumb to see where they were going.

It comes down to the demonization of female sexuality. Women who enjoy sex are threatening enough; those who sell it are evil, or so the story goes. They'll "lure" your husband, break up your family, the list goes on.

The issue of sex trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls is completely separate, but even there I've encountered the "evil sexual (often black) female" meme. People think disgusting things about trafficked girls and their "morals".

you speak from personal experience, @2?

Due to latency, I had not read @1 when I wrote @2. But you can all see what I'm talking about, writ small on Slog.

@1: What the fuck are you talking about?

"In this the case of prostitution the man, if he has anything to his name, stands to lose all."

Are you seriously suggesting that, to the extent that the "crime" of prostitution has a victim, that it is the man? That some middle-class curb-crawling John who goes downtown, gets a quick blowjob in the front seat, and goes on home to the wife and kiddies, is more at risk from prostitution than the sex worker on the street corner?

Do you find it hard to keep up such a level of misogyny, or does it just come naturally to you?

#3

Nope.

But I do think this:

Pimps are drug dealers.
Prostitutes are drugs.
Clients are addicts.

Clearly, sex in human society is designed to be mediated by things like personal relationships, love, hierarchies...cool clothes...whatever!

Removing those safeguards and allowing unlimited access simply by the use of money subverts those firewalls. Hence the comparison with the unlimited pleasure of drugs.

I feel the same about pornography. Both victimize men because we are susceptible to their lure, and drain.

Yet another reminder that Michael Bloomberg is a piece of shit who puts on a liberal facade to hide how much of a complete fucking misogynist and racist he is. If that fucker was drowning, I wouldn't toss him a life preserver.

I think something that's often overlooked in these stories is the fact that the women involved, having been sex workers, lack both social and financial capital; whereas the men are often both well-respected, and well-off - they had enough money to frequent escorts, after all.

When the women are found out, they lose both respect, and the means to earn money. When the men are found out, they might lose respect - maybe enough to lose their job as governor or attorney general etc - but investments don't care about your depraved lifestyle.

What happens to male sex-workers in similar situations? I'd wager it's very similar to what happens to women. Not to say that misogyny doesn't exist, but that class is so often overlooked.

@5: I am starting to see every Bailo post about women as simply a flashing sign that says "I can not get laid and hate women because of it."

Bailo, you're outdoing yourself in this thread. Never has an avatar so suited.

@6: It is interesting that the only object in your list is a prostitute while the other two are human beings? It is clear how this has deformed your view on prostitutes. If you started to think of them as human fucking beings then you might find that your "men are the real victims" diatribe is misplaced.

@3 personal experience volunteering for an organization to help sexually exploited children in NYC. At one point we were canvassing for legislation to provide minors arrested for prostitution with social services instead of charging them with crimes. The organization is called GEMS (www.gems-girls.org) and I highly recommend donating to them.

@6: I find it telling that in your (deeply flawed) analogy of prostitution to drug addiction, men are people and women are objects. Objects to be consumed.

Have you reflected on what might have caused your deep-seated misogyny?

There has always been sex workers and there always will be. Why? Human nature. Men need the sex and women need the money. They are consenting adults who do not need anyone dictating their sex lives. It has never been illegal until the prohibitionists decided our tax dollars could be thrown away trying to stop it. Their morality is the biggest fraud of all.

Colbert had Spitzer on last week. Dan has met Colbert--maybe he can suggest Colbert give the author a guest slot?

While I do think criminalizing sex work is often about punishing women (and clinging to fairy tale religious moral bullshit).

In the case of Vitter and Spitzer, though, it's about who has wealth and power - the politicians have it, the prostitutes don't.

In the U.S. (and most other capitalist nations), those who have wealth and power can do whatever they want, regardless of laws.

In fairness to the Tiger Woods, David Vitters and Elliot Spitzers (fuck that hypocrite) of the world, men in general see what they did as some combination of both normal and stupid. Even if we men pretend to be shocked in public or when our wives are around, it doesn't really do much in terms of causing us to question whether these men are qualified for a job.

Safe to say the stigma against sex workers comes from women, right? How can we change that?

#11, 13

Finally, you see!

It's the act that objectifies!

Try and treat all females better guys, the way I do!

@1 Must you troll every single thing Dan posts? It's tiresome. Your overwrought prose does nothing to disguise the utter irrelevance of your posts. Go bother 4chan some more.

@Tim Horton:
I would think it's safe to say that the stigma against women who have sex for money comes from both men and women. It's a deep, deep cultural thing.

People like to feel moral and virtuous when they consider the sex worker who is clearly victimized--sold into sex work by her family, a child, seduced and then forced to work by her boyfriend-cum-pimp. We have self-righteous visions of saving the poor, exploited, fallen woman (and we can get just a little titillated, too), but we don't know what to do with her once we've "saved" her. We don't really want her around.

As for women who choose--or seem to choose--their sex work willingly, we have contempt for them (mixed with even more titillation). We ignore any social causes that may be a bit further out of sight, we ignore the fact that for a lot of women sex work pays better than other sorts of work and requires less of an investment of time and/or money to prepare.

At bottom we are still a culture that is uncomfortable with female agency in sex. Men who cling to the madonna/whore dialectic (and there are many who do), are the worst hypocrites of all.

@14,

The majority of prostitution throughout history has been sex slavery. That's what happens when women have no choices, when women who have had sex are considered damaged good (so might as well enslave them since no one wants them now anyway), and when women are largely unable to own their own property. *That* is the reason prostitution was made illegal. Haven't you heard of the term "white slavery"?

I'm actually for decriminalizing prostitution for a number of reasons, but fuck you for making shit up and for lying about the prevalence of enslaved prostitutes.

#19

Dan and SLOG are welcome to delete anything I post, or remove my account for violating the terms of service.

This is private property.

Ok, I sympathize with the double standard and that if you want women to transition out of being prostitutes you can't fire all those who do or it won't work. But:

"I had brought this scandal upon myself, but I could have never anticipated the fallout."

Why not? What part of "public school teacher" (or any teacher, even community college for adult students) said "people would be totally down with an ex-hooker teaching their kids?" When Dan wrote about a ballet dancer a bit ago even he specifically cited teaching kids as, okay, the thing where you could predict and understand people getting upset about porn even if you didn't agree with it.

I don't agree with what befell her, but I absolutely see it as so predictable as to be banal. I'd have been shocked if the piece DIDN'T inspire huge blowback against any teacher, including immediate removal from the classroom and eventual firing.

Also: if when she was prostituting herself she was also addicted to both alcohol and sex and (timeline isn't clear) in an abusive relationship, it throws some shade over decision to be a spokesmodel for adults making their own decisions.

@21: Agreed.

Purely anecdotal, but in a previous discussion of prostitution I remember a comment from someone whose wife was a doctor working with sex workers all over, and even in countries where it was legal huge numbers of women were trafficked: they thought they were heading out to be waitresses and wound up stuck with no money and only one possible job open to them. The demand for cheap sex workers is greater than the supply of women who would choose that life with their eyes open, so you need to con people from desperate backgrounds who are then stuck with no resources or support. (He actually saw self-employed escorts like the original writer, regardless of legality, as the ones most likely to be doing this for the money with their eyes open, rather than because the people around them conspired to make them feel they had no other choices.)

@24 Regardless what people (that is loathsome prudes) are 'totally down with' it should be completely illegal to fire someone due to disapproval of their former career.

I'll agree with Mr Savage; this feels downright Victorian.

@1: for fuck's sake. "Moral hazard" is a phrase with an actual meaning. And it has nothing to do with your deranged analysis of the relative legal and social risks to the buyers and sellers of sex. Prostitutes are not insurance agents.

@26: And yet it is not illegal. (Hell, it's not even illegal to fire people because you find them too sexy.)

So yes, I still maintain that public school teachers (and all school teachers) should find it easy to predict that a past turning tricks, performing in porn, selling drugs, robbing banks, or working as Rachel from Cardholder Services should be kept on the down low lest you get fired.

Mr. Savage is wrong in this case. Just because people are treating this woman unfairly doesn't mean that sex work isn't degrading to those who perform it.

I don't approve of prostitution and don't think it should be legalized. I also don't approve of treating ex-prostitutes like trash and driving them out of their legal jobs. Ex-prostitutes getting legal jobs is what we should all want. It's not like she was a current prostitute or advocating immoral behavior to her students.

@30, so if a man or woman looked you in the eye and said, "I get paid to have sex with people. I have a small but regular clientèle, and follow all health protocols. It's a pretty decent gig. The pay and hours are great, my work makes people happy, and I get to be my own boss," it would be your view that, not only is this person amorphously "degraded," but that charges should be brought against them?

If so, Why?

The need to cultivate this false victimhood of men ("I couldn't help it!") seems to directly correlate with the need to punish women ("You know what you did") for being desirable to men. You know, Eve was evil, Adam was seduced. IMHO, Eve wanted agency and Adam was a follower.

you are right on the money, @9. and no, you do NOT treat women better, Bailo. I saw you sexually harassing a young woman at the 4th and Pike bus stop a few years ago.

@32, the promethean serpent said, "Hey, have some knowledge." Then the asshole Nobodaddy had a complete hissy-fit.

@31 Yes. To answer the question as you phrased it, because the activity is illegal. To get to what you were probably trying to say, also because it's immoral. There are ways to be one's own boss that do not involve selling something that is too personal to be monetized.

To answer it even more realistically, why is this person getting in my face and talking to me about his or her sex life in the first place? I don't want people to do that even if they're not prostitutes. If they don't want my disapproval, then they shouldn't tell me what they do with their genitals.

@34: Nice.

@35, "... because it's immoral."

I am failing to see how that is not simply your subjective valuation. What is the objective basis for that term?

"...too personal to be monetized."

[see above]

"why is this person getting in my face and talking to me about his or her sex life...?"

Why do you support a criminal code that makes his/her sex life the business of the state? I am not arguing that you should like or approve of sex-work, but on what basis do you think we need to involve cops and courts in what two consenting adults do?

@34:

I don't approve of prostitution and don't think it should be legalized.

Wrong. What you need to say is that prostitution should be made illegal for X, Y, and Z reasons, not that something should be kept illegal. And then you need to explain why the state should be able to use force, restraints, fines, and imprisonment to support your view, what the above would accomplish, and why regulation would not work. Just because you don't 'approve' doesn't mean that you can call on the state to wield its enormous hammer to smack people. That type of thinking is what got us Prohibition and the War on Drugs.

Might I also suggest you look at it from an ethical point of view, such as the Harm Principle? It is fairly easy to analyze: if two informed and consenting (not intoxicated or suffering acute effects from a mental illness) persons agree to an act that harms nobody else, then it should not be outlawed. And the further your argument gets from direct harm, the less any enforcement method should be (or the validity of it itself).

@34: Sorry, I meant for my response to be directed to @30.

I know several ex-prostitutes. In case you assume (did you? Why?) that I hang around with low lifes, I can tell you that one of them is a senior lawyer, the others are boringly middle-class. I doubt the lawyer would be offered a judgeship, possibly because of her "past"

I think the whole thing ridiculous. It is a job. I view people who sneer down at prostitution the way I view homophobes........what are they hiding?

@37 If you want to see how this isn't just a subjective valuation, then read the rest of my post. It sells what should not be sold. Or even more clearly, the introduction of money into the sexual relationship invites power imbalances and exploitation. We don't allow the sale of vital organs for the exact same reason, though you will note that we do allow those organs to be given away. Let consenting adults perform what sex acts they want on each other, but when they make it an economic exchange, it ceases to be a private matter.

@38 Why shouldn't I say that it should be kept illegal? As for the harm principle, see above.

If you're saying that the various states' current enforcement of laws against prostitution are ineffective, then we are in agreement. Few states have ever seriously tried to eliminate prostitution, but there is a simple way to do so: Punish the people who buy sex and not just the people who sell it.

Put a prostitute in jail, and the supply is diminished while the demand remains the same. Then the price goes up, and hey, maybe a person who wouldn't degrade him or herself for $100 would do it for $200. The problem is still there. But add more risk for the customers and the demand is reduced. Simple. Of course, to see if it would work, someone would have to try it.

DRF @41, "It sells what should not be sold."

I am confused by your use of "should."

"...invites power imbalances and exploitation."

The former is a primary source of the richness and vitality of human sexual expression. The latter is a reality that is not at all mitigated by criminalization.

" Let consenting adults perform what sex acts they want on each other, but when they make it an economic exchange, it ceases to be a private matter."

Why?

@42: Ophian, DRF is trying to build an objective argument out of personal distaste. That this happens all the time- even becomes the basis for law in certain instances-does not make it any more logical or correct.

@42 By "should not be sold," I'm referring to the idea that, ideally, sex is about connection between two people, that it has a spiritual side and an emotional side. Putting a price tag on it cheapens it.

"Not at all mitigated by criminalization"? You truly believe that the fact that prostitution is illegal doesn't mean that it happens less often, is less institutionalized and less accepted by society? All of those things would make the problem more widespread and would put more pressure on people to become prostitutes. Right now, a landlord who says to a renter, "Can't pay your rent? Do some prostitution for me" can be rejected out of hand. Even people who don't think that prostitution is wrong would say that the renter is absolutely right for not wanting to do something illegal and the landlord is absolutely wrong for suggesting that the renter risk arrest. That means it happens less often and people in the more easily exploited position can use law and society as their shield.

Why isn't economics a private matter? When someone accepts money for performing an act, they are asking the rest of society to endorse that act by accepting said money for further goods and services. If I sell a car, the buyer must pay a tax. I list my profession and side jobs on my tax forms. Even wait staff have to report their tips. Can you think of a case comparable to habitual prostitution that wouldn't be a matter for regulation?

@43 Regardless of how I feel emotionally about prostitution, the points that I've made are still valid. I imagine that you have a distaste for homophobia, but that doesn't mean that everything you say against it should be dismissed. If you like logic, wouldn't your time be better spent refuting my arguments than by implying that I'm just a big fuddy-duddy?

Go ahead, make prostitution, drugs and undocumented immigration illegal. But if you really want to stop those things, you punish those responsible: the ones with the money. That would be the johns, the users and the employers. Instead, we punish the prostitutes, the dealers and the immigrants themselves. Which shows you we don't really want to stop these things, we just want to stigmatize and marginalize the providers.

DRF @44, "...the idea that, ideally, sex is about..."

I can assure you that those are your ideal ideas, not mine. You are still in the realm of your preferences. Why do you think the state should use criminal penalties to enforce your preferences in my life?

" Putting a price tag on it cheapens it."

*chuckle*

"You truly believe that the fact that prostitution is illegal doesn't mean that it happens less often..."

I truly believe that prostitution exists, that no criminal penalties will ever change that fact, and by forcing it into a black market you do nothing to minimize victimization. It seems I need to point out that I want to minimize victimization, which I think we both agree is bad; you want to minimize sex work, which only you agree is bad. Your argument is great for convincing yourself, but is otherwise logically and rhetorically useless.

Your argument ad landlord is absurd sophistry. My landlord can't demand that I fix his car, walk his dog, or give him a mani-pedi [most of which, BTW, are currently legal].

"When someone accepts money for performing an act, they are asking the rest of society to endorse that act..."

No. That is not how money works.

"Can you think of a case comparable to habitual prostitution that wouldn't be a matter for regulation?"

You are getting closer to solid ground here. The whole point--whether you like/approve of prostitution of not--is to legalize, regulate, tax-it-if-you-want-to. As a matter of public health, revenue, human rights, &c. criminalization does not help. You have not shown any collective good done by our laws as they are.

Remember: as long as prostitution is illegal, only criminals will have/be prostitutes.

@45 We are in complete agreement. I don't support decriminalizing prostitution, but the current state is hypocritical. Politicians give lip service to ending prostitution but they don't take the actions that would really punch it in the face—punishing the buyers and giving ex-prostitutes an easier time switching to legal work, as Ms. Petro did.

If you believe that making prostitution illegal does nothing—your word—to minimize victimization, Ophian, then you are in denial. The public and the police forces can get behind preventing someone from being forced to do something illegal far more readily than behind preventing someone from being forced to do something that is legal but distasteful.

No, but if your landlord told you to rob a store for him, another illegal act, then you'd have a lot more recourse than if he merely told you to walk his dog or fix his fridge. If you could prove he said it, then you'd be able to get him in trouble. A landlord can say, "What's the big deal? I just asked my tenant to pay me by doing a few chores" but "What's the big deal? I just asked my tenant to break the law" is a lot harder to make fly.

Yes, I have shown collective good: By keeping prostitution illegal there is less of it. Case in point: There is more prostitution in places where it is legal than in places where it is not. That means more people degraded and used.

@DRF "Degraded and used" - again, that's *your* perspective. I think people are capable of deducing whether they feel used and degraded without your help. There is an entire spectrum of things that one can do that others might find degrading - making dinner for your man, giving blowjobs, cleaning the house naked, getting spanked for being bratty - that others do not. Legislation based on feelings and not logic is bad government.

On that note, do you know what's degrading? Being forced to give blowjobs to cops who are supposed to help you, and knowing there's not a damn thing you can do about it - because you are "degraded" and therefore less human. Making prostitution illegal sets up these exact power dynamics you purport to be reason for criminalization.

And you are conflating prostitution with sex trafficking. Which is STILL illegal where prostitution is not. Making prostitution legal actually makes it easier to prevent sex trafficking - where women do not have to run and hide, where they do not fear the police, where they don't have to worry about being criminalized for being victims, and feel safe reporting abuse - THIS is the only thing that is *actually* effective.

And your landlord argument is specious. Any idiot can ask you to do whatever he wants - legal or illegal - that doesn't change the terms of your contract. Making something legal does not put it in some giant grab bag of "things I might have to do". Weird illogicality there.

If this is something you feel passionately about, which it seems to be, I would encourage you to talk to some actual prostitutes about it. They are in it, and they know what needs to happen to make them *actually* safer.

That is, if preventing victimization is actually your concern, rather than legislating your moral beliefs.

"If you believe that making prostitution illegal does nothing—your word—to minimize victimization, Ophian, then you are in denial."

Victimization occur with an imbalance of power. Crimalizing sex work enforces this imbalance. It gives the sex workers no recourse, and no where to turn.

"The public and the police forces can get behind preventing someone from being forced to do something illegal far more readily than behind preventing someone from being forced to do something that is legal but distasteful."

Shouldn't we then make dog walking illegal? After all, the landlord might make you walk his dog. Your also forgetting that being forced into sex is rape, not prostitution.

Also, if your reasoning only applies to specific circumstances, then it's merely ad hoc blather.

"Case in point: There is more prostitution in places where it is legal than in places where it is not."

Do you have any actual evidence of this?

"That means more people degraded and used."

Hold on. You said back in 35 that the reason prostitution was degrading was because it was illegal. Look: "To answer the question as you phrased it, because the activity is illegal." So you don't actually believe that then. You did mention that it was also immoral, but you can't actually tell us why, can you?

@44: Or I could let my friend Ophian do it for me. For the record, I don't think you're a fuddy-duddy; I just think you're wrong.

@48 "Degraded and used" is the perspective of many people who've actually been prostitutes, though not all of them. If they don't need my help then they don't need you telling them that they're not degraded either.

The solution to prostitutes or other criminals being abused by police is not to decriminalize prostitution but to create a system in which the prostitutes can report the crime and reasonably reliable ways for their statements to be confirmed. Again, the answer is to punish the customer or in this case the police officer. Or, to use your words, we need to give them a damned thing to do about it. How do you know that your solution is the only thing that would be effective if no one has seriously tried punishing the customers or giving the prostitutes places to report corrupt police?

I am not conflating illegal prostitution with sex trafficking. I am describing a third scenario in which legal prostitution may allow people to put under pressure to become prostitutes. "Oh, you're unemployed? Quit complaining and quit collecting unemployment insurance, you lazy slug; there's an escort service down the road that's hiring."

@48/51 You know what else creates an imbalance of power? Money. Charging for sex introduces unnecessary power imbalances into the sexual relationship.

I'm not saying that the current ways in which our laws treat prostitutes don't need to be fixed; they do. I am saying that "Let's may prostitution legal! It's the only way" is shortsighted. It ignores solutions that would treat ex-prostitutes fairly without requiring legal endorsement of their former activities. Arrest the people who buy illegal services and not just those who sell them. Punish corrupt police. Consider ex-prostitutes who get legal jobs to be EX-prostitutes with legal jobs.

@47, "Yes, I have shown collective good: By keeping prostitution illegal there is less of it."

[from @46] "It seems I need to point out that I want to minimize victimization, which I think we both agree is bad; you want to minimize prostitution, which only you agree is bad. Your argument is great for convincing yourself, but is otherwise logically and rhetorically useless."

[emphasis added]

And since we have now actually gone around in a circle I'll leave you with: *derisive shake of the head*

I actually think it is about cultural anxiety and distaste around sex. There's misogyny, yes, but I'll bet that male prostitutes with male clients get the same kind of hate.

I think it's anxiety around penetration and pollution, and the concept of penetration actually *being in itself* a pollution of the body. Because we have a screwed up attitude towards sex.

In some cultures, gay men who are strictly tops are not really considered to be gay, but those who are bottoms (ever) are considered not only gay but feminised and degraded.

Show me where I said they aren't degraded? I said they can decide that for themselves. Some may feel that they were. Some don't. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's subjective, and also none of your business.

Create a system for reporting abuse, and a way to reliably confirm this abuse, whilst in an illegal and dangerous profession? HAHAHAHAHA. There are so many, many impossible things about that supposition. Should they record their sessions? Do you know that in NYC, condoms are used as "evidence" against sex workers? How do you think that's going to go, exactly? The reason I think decriminalization is the answer is because it is the most rational solution, and I haven't heard of any reasonable alternative that will protect sex workers instead of persecute them.

In what manner, exactly, is one to "confirm" a crime against oneself like rape or sexual abuse? Do you know that the majority of rapes are unreported, that many that are reported are not prosecuted, and that many that are prosecuted fail to elicit guilty verdicts. What system are you going to create to make these basic truths, against even more vulnerable women, not apply?

Re:unemployment - ummmm, no. That's not even remotely how that works. And it never will. There's no great push for people to work at McDonalds if they're unemployed, and sex work is no different. But I'm sure you know that.

Re:imbalance of power - that is present with or without prostitution. Those with money have it, those without must do something for it. What kind of work it is doesn't change this. As far as power imbalances in a sexual relationship, those exist already too. Those are also none of your or the legislature's business, unless it crosses over into abuse. Which again, is easier to report and determine if you are not already labeled the "criminal".

And they already do punish johns. Not enough, not everywhere, but that doesn't really matter anyway. Prostitution always has and always will exist. There is a demand for sex that does not match the supply. No laws, no punishments, and no impossibly idealistic "system" will change that - we will just continue to allow women in this business to suffer unnecessarily because of our own confused morality.

@44: And I don't see how prostitution and homophobia are even remotely analogous. That you do explains a lot about your perspective.

@21: "White Slavery" was a hoax, a moral panic drummed up by newspapers capitalizing on fear of the city during our industrial transition from rural, agrarian communities to metropolitan, capitalist ones. It tied in nicely with racial tensions - and especially xenophobia - during Reconstruction; the White slaver was rendered as a Black or Jewish or 'Oriental' man (Jews were not considered White, and in fact, the Jewish claim to racial privilege is still tenuous or non-existent in many areas of the USA, in a way that is no longer true of the Irish, Italians, or Polish, for example) tricking the naive country girl into a life of sexual servitude (see the atrocious early USA novel Sister Carrie for an over-celebrated example of this particular exploitation genre). In fact, most of this panic was centered on nightclubs, vaudeville revues, dance halls, etc. as these were 'promiscuous' locales where (unmarried!) men and women interacted in public, something itself still seen as scandalous in the late 19th and early 20th century in the West.

Throughout human cultures and history, prostitution has been considered holy, profane, empowering, dehumanizing, celebrated, maligned, anything and everything. "The majority of prostitution throughout history has been sex slavery" to the exact same extent that the majority of labor throughout history has been slavery. Sexuality isn't particularly special - if you're making the argument that economic systems and circumstance coerce, force, or enslave people in sex work, that same argument applies equally well to every form of labor, while also presupposing that no one could possibly get the same kind of job satisfaction from sex work as other forms of labor. In some eras of coercive economic systems, sex work is actually vastly preferable in many ways to marriage and domestic labor/slavery for women. Prostitutes have tended to be free to decline pregnancy and procreation through contraception or abortion, while wives were expected and/or legally forced to endure unwanted pregnancies. Prostitutes, generally being unmarried, owned property at much higher rates than married women where coverture marriage was the law (brothels, for example - successful women prostitutes were able to buy commercial properties from which to operate). Prostitutes, already branded as "fallen" sinful women in e.g. the Victorian period, were free to enjoy sexuality, while lust of any sort was seen as deeply dangerous. There have certainly been downsides as well (social and legal marginalization, exploitation, higher risks of being targeted with violence or contracting STIs), but I would classify most of these as functions of prohibition, and "prostitution" as chattel slavery is the exception, not the norm.

#1 Get help. You are pathetic.

Melissa Petro is just a crybaby who desperately wants to be seen as a victim after she purposefully courted media attention and created her own scandal. Fuck her. She's the one who trades on stigma and shame.

http://www.feminisnt.com/2013/the-lies-w…