One in nine men hire prostitutes - Want to talk about it?
Comments
But isn't that more like a thought-experiment, given that some 89% of prostituted women say - when someone bothers asking them - that they want to escape that situation? (Farley 2005, Violence Against Women - please read this exceptional article)
Also, what does this argument say about the political model that tries to entrench such a condition rather then end the oppressive conditions that define it and offer support out, not within these conditions?
This is why this thread was an attempt to get at male mindsets and the pressures a patriarchal society maintains on women to always be sexually available to them, if for money. We seem to end up, as always, rather discussing women, as if they were experimental subjects in our daedalus of allegedly good intentions... as long as the status quo is maintained.
P.S.: The choice of the word "hire" in the OP was that of Niagara Falls Review, not mine.
I first of all wanted to Thank Martin for his posts. This is an issue I have stayed away from commenting on except in this thread, because of post #9 (I still can't figure out how to go to particular posts) - I quoted it in it's entirety below.
The reason that I have stayed away from this is that it is a very emtional issue for me and if people want to argue about my post go ahead but after this post I will not be replying back to negative feedback because it would upset me to much.
When I was a teenager I was abused at home, thankfully not sexually but abuse is abuse. I was given an out. When I was sweet talked I was smart enough to see past the promises and knew what leaving meant - I would become a prostitute. My immediate response wasn't a yes, but it wasn't a no either. It was a tough decision. Stay and be abused or leave and become a prositute. It was like a rock and a hard place. I ultimately made the decision to stay because of one reason and one reason only - I knew that if I wanted a future I would have to stay and take the abuse, if I went I would also be abused but with no future. This is the reality of the prostitution industry today and in fact this includes strippers and porn stars as well.
After I escaped and started going to college I met two friends, both were prostitues, one on the street and one had started in stripping and doing porn but ultimately very shortly ended up in prostitution.Both of them had backgrounds similar to mine filled with abuse, fear and pain as well as neglect. It was a long hard road for them to even get to college and one of them didn't make it, dropping out after the first few months. They reflected everything that trishabaptie said in her post in the above thread.
Martin has a very good point when he says that it is nice to talk in what if and what could be's but the reality of the situation is that most of the women involved in prostituation right now are being revictimized everyday and even if you improve working conditions it doesn't take away the pain, the scars and the torture that brought them to the place where they had to make that decision to sell their body for sex or for porn and the constant revictimization of each women dealing with the pain, scars and torture of the past and the new pain scars and torture of the present. The industry is one of the worst things in our society in the way that it not only allows but encourages and rewards the victimization of women who are involved. Making it so that women can get workers comp or hire security is not going to help these women, they need on the ground support, they need to be taken out of the situation where they are allowed to see themselves as dirt, as worthless and as expendable. Once that is accomplished maybe then we can start talking about building an industry that is about the freedom of womens sexuality. But right now support of the industry is not support of the women it is encouraging and rewarding the victimization of the women who are involved.
I wanted to include the following quote which is trishabaptie's post in it's entirety, I feel it is important in this thread as well
As a former prostitute for 15+ years I thought I would wade into the debate. First off I have never met a sex worker, I believe the name stems from the movie Pretty women.. it also comes from the people who support and benefit from the comodification of women. I know prostituted women and was a prostitute and we were there out of poverty, racism, classism, sexism and a myriad of other reasons. I would have argued it was empowering and liberating and a great way to make money, I had too how else could I live with myself?Prostitution is a funny thing I thought all of those things, yet was always so sad to see a new girl enter into the "trade" and let me tell you I know of not one hooker who wants their daughter going into the horrific soul sucking industry that is prostitution. Whether I was in it to finance the "high life" or to feed my addictions at the end I was always greatly aware of the divide between me and the rest of the world.
I am against sex as work for it affects not only the women involved in it but all women and how we interact with the world. We also need to realize that the conversation affects women globally, globally women are trafficked here(Canada, Vancouver) to feed the demand. Globally women are forced, coerced, beaten and tricked into it. Globally the face of prostitution is brown and poor.I want ALL women to be free that is why I am against the sale of women to be used as masturbation toys.
http://orato.com/current-events/2008/12/16/challenge-prostitution-laws-will-not-be-heard
Quote "She's gotta pay the bills" seriously that is why we should allow the exploitation of women.. how about we provide them with education, opportunity, dignity, guaranteed liveable income, go after fathers for child support, make sure kids in government care have the tools and recourses they need when they live in care and move out of care the list of ways we can help just goes on and on.My friends who are still involved in prostitution know what I do, they know I am working towards making sure men cannot buy them anymore.. .they all support what I do. Even the ones who work to make their lives as a prostitute safer for they know they want no one else to enter into this lifestyle. So they work to make sure they are "safer" and I work to make sure the men are arrested before they buy them. I used to be beaten by my man, when I was beaten let's say because the dishes were not clean enough no one said let's go buy a better dish soap to make sure it does not happen again. They said "What he did was wrong" had him arrested and thrown in jail. That is the same argument we are having by trying to make prostituion "safer" it is the very act of prostitution that is the violence you cannot make it "safer" So let's do that as well with men who buy sex let's punish them throw them in jail, let them know they cannot do that. For what they do is rape, the money appeases their guilt. Do we really think all men are capable of doing is orgasming on demand? Will they really blow up if they do not orgasm? I think not.. at least none of my partners have. I am not anti woman nor am I anti man, I just do not understand why we want to institutionalize the worst in humanity. We live in a pornified culture that comes from a patriarchal view of women what if we live in a culture that did not demand women to have sex ALL the time, have surgery to make our breasts bigger to rip out all our pubic hair, to tower on 4 inch heels... what if women were allowed to be women with all of our beautiful differences and flaws? As a former prostitute I am sad to see just how much of society is based on women acting like hookers.
My last two statements.. as for the myth that women like to sleep with dozens and dozens and dozens of strange men why is it in men we would call this "sexual addiction' and get them help and in women we just exploit it?
Also why are women the only ones required to get health checks to make sure we are "clean" for me to buy and abuse? Why do we not make the men get checked to keep the women safe? I try to stay away from the individualistic agenda of "choice" and try to focus on the global argument that is recognizing the lealization of prostitution is an abysmal failure. There is no way to separate prostitution for organized crime, human trafficking, drugs and a myriad of other criminal activity.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/109373
I will end with a link to a satement by a group of ex-prostitutes that speaks volums as well as a link to a statement made by aboriginal women
http://www.womennet.ca/news.php?show&6300
Making it so that women can get workers comp or hire security is not going to help these women, they need on the ground support, they need to be taken out of the situation where they are allowed to see themselves as dirt, as worthless and as expendable.
Enfranchisement leaves the same bad taste in my mouth. It implicitly accepts prostitution. But what's the right thing to do - adopt a more principled stance that has less chance of succesfully delivering any help or tools for the majority of these women to escape? Or look to pragmatism and compromise, and swallow the bitter pill of acceptance for a chance (and not a guaranteed chance, by any means) of delivering something concrete here and now?
It was a tough decision. Stay and be abused or leave and become a prositute. It was like a rock and a hard place. I ultimately made the decision to stay because of one reason and one reason only - I knew that if I wanted a future I would have to stay and take the abuse, if I went I would also be abused but with no future.
"Between a rock and hard place" is a very apt description for what little personal experience I've had with prostitution, which basically consists of 2 experiences.
The first was a couple we were neighbours with. They lived very squalidly, and before we moved in to the apartment across the hall, they had their child taken by child services after a neighbour complained of physical abuse at the hands of the male. We also had to report him to the Humane Society when he cracked his dog's skull. So it's probable he didn't treat her any better, although we never actually saw or heard anything apart from the incident with the dog. Anyway, they apparently sold crack or something on commission, and didn't manage their money very well. They were threatened to pay up by their supplier and she was forced her to turn tricks to get the money (while he sat on his ass smoking crack with his buddies, of course). Not that we knew any of this at the time, but the story got around after they'd moved, and from what I'd seen, it wasn't difficult to believe.
My other experience is a little more personal (but thankfully far less tragic). I agreed to grow marijuana for a dealer in my apartment. Exploitation - I take all the risk, he provided the capital. I got busted. Fortunately it was a very small crop, that was supposed to be cloned and the clones planted outdoors, not a giant hydroponics op, just a few plants. $700 fine and probation (this was about 15 years ago - so I was very lucky). Plus they seized everything. Well now I "owed" this fellow for the loss of the seeds (c. $100) and lights ($150 or so). He came to my place with 3 other guys and said "Get me the money tommorow ... I don't care if you have to suck #### to do it ... I can help with that". It didn't come to that, I was able to scrape it together, but I'm not really sure what would have happened if I hadn't been able to.
So, my admittedly anecdotal experience pretty much concurs with yours - all that I've personally seen of it is people being forced into it.
"...adopt a more principled stance that has less chance of succesfully delivering any help or tools for the majority of these women to escape?"
And on what basis do you say that?
In fact, the multi-prong action plans adopted in Sweden, Norway, now Iceland and being considered in the U.K. do answer women's demands for alternatives to prostitution: detox, subsidized housing and child care, job market re-entry, psych support, erasing criminal records, etc., the kind of things women have been demanding here in Canada but not being heard over the din from pimps and their lobbyists.
ETA: It seems to me that the "principled stance" is the one that blames "these women" for unseen men's choices, and that touts "sex work" as the ultimate act of agency, regardless of most women's reality of survival sex. Make buying sex illegal and a decent living wage available, along with other essential tools, and you will see a very pragmatic change. In fact, buying sex is mere opportunism for us, the stuff of business expense accounts and macho camaraderie; set it out of bounds and most men will slink on to other prursuits, as they did in the Nordic countries where feminists and progressives egged allies and governments to take that route.
If you happen to be in B.C.
Monday April 20, 2009. 7pm. Montmartre Café;, 4362 Main St. -- Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter launches The Johns : Sex for Sale and the Men Who Buy It with author Victor Malarek and UBC law professor, Janine Benedet
Tuesday April 21, 2009. 7pm. -- Bean Around the World, 3598 Main St. Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter, YWCA Munroe House and Act II Safe Choice host Rewriting Our Own Futures: Words from Women of Vancouver Transition Houses with ex-residents from transition houses and singer songwriter Kate Reid
Wednesday April 22, 2009. 7pm. Montmartre Café, 4362 Main St. -- Battered Women’s Support Services and WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre host Community Engagement in Violence Prevention. Tough Guise: Violence Media and the Crisis in Masculinity Film/panel discussion applying a feminist analysis to involving men/boys in anti-violence work with Irene Tsepnopoulos-Elhaimer, Angela MacDougall, Hari Alluri and Curtis Clearsky and with performances by Kia Kidiri, JB The First Lady & Christie Lee
Thursday April 23, 2009. 7pm. Our Town Café, 245 East Broadway. -- Vancouver Rape Relief and Womens’ Shelter and WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre host Bad Dates, Campus Creepers and Drug Rapes with Aboriginal Women’s Action Network, Antigone Magazine and BC Women’s Hospital Sexual Assault Centre
Friday, April 24, 2009 3 pm Location TBA -- Battered Women’s Support Services host You Can Bet Your Maple Leaf On That - Violence Against Women & 2010 Olympics Battered Women’s Support Services announces anti-violence prevention strategy pre, during and post 2010 Olympics
Saturday April 25, 2009. 7pm. Our Town Café, 245 East Broadway. -- Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter hosts Olympics 2010: Women in Sport, women as Sport with Exploited Voices Educating, Aboriginal Women’s Action Network
"...adopt a more principled stance that has less chance of succesfully delivering any help or tools for the majority of these women to escape?"
And on what basis do you say that?
On the simple basis that it's always easier to get less done. The most principled stance would be one that tolerates nothing less than the immediate cessation of all exploitative sex-for-hire by removing everything that causes it. Thats a tall order. Curbing some of the impact of that exploitation is less ambitious, less satisfying to principle, and still leaves thousands of women (and a few male youths) trapped in a very hellish sort of exploitation, but it's probably alot easier to accomplish in the short term. There's all kinds of dilemmas. Would enfranchisement banish concerns about the sex trade from the public consciousness? That would sabotage other efforts to lift women out of prosititution. But likewise, could standing on principle be satisfying to the conscience but fail to deliver any relief? I don't know ... these things constitute my indecision on the issue.
In fact, the multi-prong action plans adopted in Sweden, Norway, now Iceland and being considered in the U.K. do answer women's demands for alternatives to prostitution: detox, subsidized housing and child care, job market re-entry, psych support, erasing criminal records, etc., the kind of things women have been demanding here in Canada but not being heard over the din from pimps and their lobbyists.
Perhaps ... I'm not really familiar with how succesful their policies have been or whether they address concerns of the prostitutes themselves, or just people who speak for them ... but in any case, is it a politically viable solution here in Canada in any timely fashion? You yourself said "Fat chance in Canada." Will we end up waiting a generation or two for social change before it's possible, with prostitutes suffering in a completely disenfranchised, criminalized, and dangerous environment in the meantime?
ETA: It seems to me that the "principled stance" is the one that blames "these women" for unseen men's choices
That seems principled to you?
In fact, buying sex is mere opportunism for us, the stuff of business expense accounts and macho camaraderie; set it out of bounds and most men will slink on to other prursuits
Well, count me out of the "us". I'm on a meager disability, not a business expense account, and almost completely uninterested in socializing; let alone "macho camaraderie"!
Wrapped up in that whole statement, I detect a stereotype and an oppressive social model, the tyranny of the extroverts who insist that the non-gregarious among us are somehow damaged or lacking.
Since most do not explicitly oppose the male values and privileges that create and maintain prostitution, I think it is accurate to speak of "us". Even if most men do not correspond to the stereotype, male privilege is real and ingrained enough to fuel an industry and stall women's attempts at creating gender justice. We may not be our "brothers' keepers," but we are, until actioned otherwise, their support group.
I don't determine my duty on that basis. It reeks too much of a behavioural stereotype based on physical attributes. Its self-contradictory, divisive, it others the victims, and its scope is restricted.
Class solidarity under the principle that "an injury to one is an injury to all" is, for me, a far more satisfactory perspective to view the issue.
That "us" is inclusive of the victims, rather than othering them. Moreover, it is expansive enough to include all forms of paid sexual exploitation - not simply the predominant form. It can include sex tourism by women, for instance, not just the more common phenomena of prostitutes and johns. And it does not stereotype anyone - nor does it seek to divide workers along gender lines.
Martin, seriously. How do you reconcile these two statements you made?
Either you think I was trying to mispresent what you said, or you don't. Which is it?
Disingenuous in your defense, after I clearly objected to your recasting of my words and you tried to strong-arm me into reposting, not in your initial post which I believe was not ill-intentioned.
Being disingenuous in my defence would imply that I was being disingenuous in my original post. You referred to my original post as a "pathetic recasting of what I shared.."
I firmly object to you repeatedly characterizing my post as a recast of your words. It was most certainly not. That you don't want your post to see the light of day is too bad, because it had real value to this discussion. However, what I wrote was certainly not an inaccurate reflection of what you wrote. Nor was it an inaccurate reflection of your actions.
Of course, you recast it. For the rest, we'll have to disagree. Also, one Martin point for your claim about what I "imply" (when I am saying the exact contrary).
And hey, how about getting off my case and telling us a little about how you try to reconcile your values, past and current behaviour, whatever, around prostitution if you are so admirative?
Sure. I've never used a prostitute. I don't really have a problem with people who have, or do.
However, I don't think we can ban the right for a person to barter their body. Doing that takes away from the fundamental right of the autonomy of self and that WILL be used by anti-abortion people as the crux in the argument to make abortion illegal.
interesting juxtaposition, however, don't see the 2 as being mutally inclusive. As then by that same notion no one could work either as that is bartering one's body too, eh.
If the anti-choice fetishists, are thinking they can use that they are sadly mistaken. me thinks.
The thread issue is men hiring prostitutes, not women's right to "barter their body".
Would you sidestep a discussion about exploitive working practices by insisting on the "right" of the exploited to work under any conditions, even a sweatshop, or to eschew union dues in a unionized shop? How about the right of starving Thais to sell their children to sex tourists? Focussing only on the alleged "rights" of the disadvantaged group tends to draw attention away from the profiteers, doesn't it?
Perhaps I wasn't clear Martin. I don't have a problem with it because I don't have a problem with any adult person having sex for money, provided they are capable of giving consent.
Then look at it from the perspective of a person's right to do with their body what they will. If we accept that the state can say to a person "You can't trade your body for sex" then it is a very small step for the state to say "You can't take that fetus out of your body" and use the first law as a precedence.
I believe that there will be some very ugly unintended consequences of trying to restrict through law the sale of sex.
I can't believe I'm reading this...
Would "Sell us your body orifices or we'll take your uteri" be an appropriate way to phrase this?
No wonder they call it a "happy ending"...
That people don't and perhaps shouldn't have the right to sell their labour under any circumstances doesn't necessarily imply or require that people have no right to sell their labour at all.
It should be said that legalization doesn't solve everything, as this column I happened across reminds us - the how of doing it is just as important as the why:
The Nevada counties prefer not to acknowledge the contribution made by licensed prostitution to their bottom line. Some counties and towns impose some extraordinary restrictions on commercial sex workers. The net effect of these regulations is to separate sex workers from the local community. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/apr/03/nevada-prostitution-tax"Legalization" should never be dscussed without making it clear whose acts are to be decriminalized.
It is absolutely imperative to get the State off the backs of prostituted people. NOW!
But tying that demand to an allegedly necessary legalizing of pimping, running brothels/'escort' agencies and soliciting women and children by johns is a sham. This all-or-nothing posture blocks progress on a crucial demand - one of many - about which almost everyone agrees, i.e. to stop criminalizing the people being prostituted.
Women's oppression by the State in the selective repression of prostitution's most visible figures is being treated as a Trojan horse. To embrace this problem and fix it, are we told, we must give even more power and licence to their exploiters. B-S!
Once more, allegedly progressive men are using that traditional yellow-bellied strategy : "Chicks up front!"...
Sorry if this is really out of left field --perhaps I´m tired after a long day of getting nothing done-- but I thought that perhaps "Canadian government hires Ari Fleischer" should have simply been part of this thread....
Really? This, from a guy who was pissing and moaning about how he felt that he was being misrepresented when he talked about his use of xxxxxxxxxxx and xxxxxx for xxx?
Talk about being disingenuous and, for that matter, putting words in my mouth.
Great news! With the help of the Left and the Greens - fat chance of this happening in Canada... - Iceland joins Norway and Sweden in getting off the backs of the prostituted and on the case of the prostitutors...
Found this on the Web...
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o(Icelandic) Minister of Social Affairs Ásta Ragnheidur Jóhannesdóttir presented an action plan against human trafficking yesterday (March 18), which includes placing bans on operating strip clubs and purchasing sexual services.
It is hoped that the ban will take effect before the parliamentary elections on April 25. (...)
"Human trafficking is the most disgusting form of international and organized crime that exists in the world," Jóhannesdóttir said while presenting the 25-point action plan, Fréttabladid reports.
In 2007, with an amendment to existing legislation, prostitution was legalized in Iceland as long as a third party doesn't profit from it.
After Jóhannesdóttir presented the action plan, MP for the Left-Greens Atli Gíslason presented a bill on banning the purchase of sexual services, which is backed by other MPs from the government parties and the Progressive Party.
"A complete victory has been achieved after many years of fighting by women's rights organization and other social organizations-and no less by MPs who have often submitted bills on this topic to Althingi [the parliament]," Jóhannesdóttir said. "I'm one of them and so this day is an especially happy day for me."
The new bill will not criminalize the solicitation of sex, which Jóhannesdóttir described as the "Swedish approach" to combating human trafficking.
(Iceland Review, March 19, 2009)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o This action plan and bill became law a few days ago in Iceland.
Janice Raymond. co-director of the Coalition Against the Trafficking of Women (CATW), writes :
« Congratulations to Gudrun Johannesdottir and the women of Stigamot who seized the moment of a woman Prime Minister to pass legislation on criminalizing the buyers in Iceland. This is the result of years of work by Gudrun and Stigamont and represents the determination and perseverance of a remarkable group of women in the face of not only governmental setbacks but outright threats from the sex industry in Iceland. This is a monumental achievement. Following the law in Norway, it gives us hope that other countries may soon see the light. »
(CATW distribution list: http://list.web.net/lists/listinfo/catw-l) For a summary of recent prostitution reform and attendant immigration issues in Nordic countries, notably Denmark: "Prostitution legislation: Will they go the same way?"
I agree. I'm pretty hesitant about this issue myself because I don't really understand it very well. It seems simple enough on the surface, legalize the prostitutes and criminalize the johns and the pimps. The johns is easy, I can't see any issues there. But the pimps ... or other third-party profiteers ... how do you distinguish someone providing security to a prostitute, and a pimp? Could it work to have prostitutes hire security firms for that?
As far as I know, prostitution is technically legal in Canada. Most forms of solicitation are illegal, as well as pimping -- defined as living off the proceeds of prostitution.
In fact, elsewhere I have recently been trying to initiate a discussion about whether prostitutes and other sex workers may be eligible for workers' compensation benefits. One barrier for many sex workers would be proving income. Another would be establishing an employment relationship. If both those conditions were met, I see no reason why some of those claims would not succeed.
To my mind this would be a powerful tool to facilitate further organizing, perhaps the formation of collectives, with the effect of lessening the power imbalance between prostitutes and johns.
It helps not to to think of prostitutes in an essentialist manner, as if that was a cast-in-stone identity, rather than being temporarily on the receiving end of sexual abuse by an entitled party, for lack of alternatives and social support, which is how most of the women involved describe it as they struggle to escape this situation.
And the men that systemarically take these women's money are very rarely "hired", I assure you...
Workers' compensation law does not require that the employment at the time of injury be permanent or even long-term.
If the prostitute-john relationship could rarely be characterized as regular employment (notwithstanding the term "hire" in this thread title), is that necessarily true of the relationship between prostitutes and pimps? I'm not sure. What about phone sex workers or dancers, and their employers (versus clients)? Some of those are certainly in regular employment.
If workers' compensation can be established as an area of social benefits entitlement for some sex workers, would that provide an impetus for others working in prostitution to organize into collectives, eg to ensure that their legal employment structure allows for statutory coverage in the event of injury on the job? Advocacy groups already exist. This would give them a really substantial way to try to help some of their most vulnerable members. It would bring them more money, increased legitimacy and exposure, leverage to demand legal changes that their members decide are important.
Of course, the idea of enfranchising sex workers in this way runs contrary to the vision of criminalizing all those who buy sex, martin. I'm guessing that's why you are opposed to it?
But isn't that more like a thought-experiment, given that some 89% of prostituted women say - when someone bothers asking them - that they want to escape that situation? (Farley 2005, Violence Against Women - please read this exceptional article)
Also, what does this argument say about the political model that tries to entrench such a condition rather then end the oppressive conditions that define it and offer support out, not within these conditions?
This is why this thread was an attempt to get at male mindsets and the pressures a patriarchal society maintains on women to always be sexually available to them, if for money. We seem to end up, as always, rather discussing women, as if they were experimental subjects in our daedalus of allegedly good intentions... as long as the status quo is maintained.
P.S.: The choice of the word "hire" in the OP was that of Niagara Falls Review, not mine.
Martin, workers' compensation coverage is one of the largest social welfare programs in the country. It offers extensive retraining programs, life-long pensions, and medical coverage including high-quality detox programs. I daresay that many of these women would be more than happy to find out that they are eligible for these services.
The point in relation to this thread is to place the women themselves, individually and as a group, in more of a position of strength to demand necessary changes.
[quote=triciamaTo my mind this would be a powerful tool to facilitate further organizing, perhaps the formation of collectives, with the effect of lessening the power imbalance between prostitutes and johns.
I was thinking about worker co-operatives too, in regards to the Icelandic law that prohibited third parties from profiting. It's extremely common for worker co-operatives to be legally constituted as corporations, who are entities or persons under the law - unless there was some exception for worker co-ops, that would prevent prostitutes from organizing into co-ops. Co-ops would seemingly be an ideal way for prostitutes, operating independantly of the pimps, to organize - they could pool resources to provide themselves with a workspace, which would give them better control of security etc ... they'd control the space they have to work in, instead of having to work in an uncontrolled environment.
I like the idea of enfranchising them, but ... with an eye to eventually phasing out prostitution. I think they're actually complementary concepts, rather than being at odds. Enfranchisement might provide some of them with enough control that they can look towards getting out. I'm actually sort of undecided about phasing it out, but I think most of it should be. If 11% or whatever want to continue in that line of work, though, I suppose it should not be utterly phased out. My gut reaction is to recoil from it and want to get rid of it altogether, but honestly, I suspect that at least some of that is the closet moralizer in me speaking. I'm, well, a bit prude and my feelings towards prostitution are confused, hesitant, and uncertain.