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When Is Paying for Sex Acceptable?


Charlie
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Many people have issues with the English language, however, those people do not repeatedly take this thread off topic or rant over such a trivial matter.

I am pleased that we have only three posters in this thread that “went off the deep end” about the alleged “insult.”

 

Hey man,

 

It's no secret that I am one of those for whom English is a hard thing to grasp and I make mistakes in comprehension quite often. It's also clear, I hope, that I have no beef with you whatsoever. We have never quarrelled and see no reason why we should. I will write this once and then will exit this discussion.

 

I too cringed when after admiring the writing you then wondered who had written it. At that moment I moved on and chucked it off to poor writing. It's only after reading your profuse defensive posts with many veiled attacks and misquotes that I am actually wondering whether there was malice intended. If there was none, may I in the spirit of civility suggest that you acknowledge that your post -to a few of us- came across as a backhanded compliment, accept the facts, face the music and move on? It's no big deal, really.

 

Shit happens. We all make mistakes and what really matters is that we learn from them.

 

We are not here to agree on everything, may God forbid! We are not here to be Little Miss Manners... how boring. But the forum flows more generously with rich ideas when there is at least a modicum of civility amongst its members.

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Hey man,

 

It's no secret that I am one of those for whom English is a hard thing to grasp and I make mistakes in comprehension quite often. It's also clear, I hope, that I have no beef with you whatsoever. We have never quarrelled and see no reason why we should. I will write this once and then will exit this discussion.

 

I too cringed when after admiring the writing you then wondered who had written it. At that moment I moved on and chucked it off to poor writing. It's only after reading your profuse defensive posts with many veiled attacks and misquotes that I am actually wondering whether there was malice intended. If there was none, may I in the spirit of civility suggest that you acknowledge that your post -to a few of us- came across as a backhanded compliment, accept the facts, face the music and move on? It's no big deal, really.

 

Shit happens. We all make mistakes and what really matters is that we learn from them.

 

We are not here to agree on everything, may God forbid! We are not here to be Little Miss Manners... how boring. But the forum flows more generously with rich ideas when there is at least a modicum of civility amongst its members.

 

 

You are correct. We have “no beef” between us.

 

There was no malice intended in my response.

 

We all have different writing styles. Looking back, considering the reaction to my response, I realize that my choice of words was not the best, although my words were well intended.

 

The thing that bothers me is the outlandish response by two posters that repeatedly distorted and misquoted what I wrote. One has to wonder why someone would behave like they did over such a trivial issue.

 

Although you stated that you also felt that my response was inappropriate, I did not see you come to this thread and repeatedly make foolish and misquoted attacks like two particular posters did.

 

Thanks for your opinion.

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"When is paying for sex accetable?"

As one or two posters said---on this Forum and by the members---almost always or the Forum wouldn't exist.

 

As for the "general" public, if there is such a thing: In 21st century America, there still seems to be a hesitation in accepting purcahsing sexual services openly. Not sure why. We have accepted divorce, abortion cohabitation, non-married couples producing children, etc., etc. etc. Perhaps it's only a matter of time before we see sex as just another service which can be offered in the free market. But then I suspect I am preaching to the choir.

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The media have been mentioned frequently in this thread, as seems to be the case with almost any topic these days, but I don't know whether they are more important because they reflect the general culture, or because they lead it.

 

I was thinking last night about attitudes toward divorce. When I was a boy, divorce was considered a disgrace in most respectable circles, and it was considered a killer for political ambitions. I remember a lot of grumbling when the Democrats nominated Adlai Stevenson, a divorced--but not remarried man--for President in 1952; whether it played any role in his overwhelming defeat by Eisenhower is debatable. Ten years later, the media had a field day over the scandal of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller's affair with Happy Murphy, his friend's wife, and their subsequent divorces from their spouses to marry one another. Everyone predicted his career was over, but ten years later Congress confirmed him as Vice-President, and the objections to him were almost entirely political. The only person at the top of the Ford administration who was not divorced was Ford himself (Betty was a divorcee when he married her). Reagan, the first divorced President, was given a pass by both the media and the voters, who seemed to think that leaving that nice Jane Wyman to marry Nancy Davis was forgivable because he had been a young man trapped in that amoral Hollywood culture. But after that, divorce seemed to become a non-issue even for conservative Republicans: few seemed to notice or care that Bob Dole had different wives when he was nominated for V-P in 1976 and for Pres. in 1996, and the snide comments about McCain's wife were about her wealth, not about him abandoning his first wife for a younger woman. It is an interesting question how much these changes were the result of the media coverage of divorce tending to normalize it in the American consciousness, or the media recognizing that the public attitude toward divorce had shifted and changing the way they covered it. Probably it was a symbiotic interchange.

 

Something similar seems to have happened over the same period with the attitude toward homosexuality, in the media and the larger culture. My original post was prompted by my curiosity about popular attitudes toward sex for money.

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A few posters here have said that their own attitude toward sex for money is positive, it's all good, live and let live, etc., but I'm sure that there are some escorts and clients who feel shame and guilt about their activity. There are many posters who, over the fifteen years I have been on the board, have made it very clear that they would not want anyone outside this site to know that they have paid or been paid for sex, which indicates that they think acceptance of the activity by others--even other gay friends--is unlikely. Most gays nowadays seem to have no hesitation about being photographed by the media with their same sex spouse, but what about being photographed with an escort or client? Of course, sex for money is illegal in most places. but acceptance of homosexual relationships preceded their legality, and was really necessary for the legal change. Where is public opinion on the former, and why?

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Hi Gman. I have heard the terms wh*re-monger or wh*re-mongering and seen them both in writings in reference to those men who frequent prostitutes. I do believe they are now considered somewhat archaic words/terms.

 

Truhart, I've checked out several straight P4P forums online. Monger and mongering are the standard terms used. (For example, someone will link to a monger's map of London that shows the locations of all the brothels.)

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One among the many things that I realized during this entire "discussion" is that people on this site use the IM system much too infrequently. Had the controversial question been done by IM, this post would probably have been half as long. Please bear that in mind for the future.

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I was thinking last night about attitudes toward divorce. When I was a boy, divorce was considered a disgrace in most respectable circles, and it was considered a killer for political ambitions. I remember a lot of grumbling when the Democrats nominated Adlai Stevenson, a divorced--but not remarried man--for President in 1952; whether it played any role in his overwhelming defeat by Eisenhower is debatable. Ten years later, the media had a field day over the scandal of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller's affair with Happy Murphy, his friend's wife, and their subsequent divorces from their spouses to marry one another. Everyone predicted his career was over, but ten years later Congress confirmed him as Vice-President, and the objections to him were almost entirely political.

 

Yes, public concerns about divorce have changed completely since I was a child. There was one divorce woman (and her son) in my neighborhood in the 1950s, and she was treated well to her face but not behind her back.

 

I believe that Dwight Eisenhower was such a strong presidential candidate that Stevenson, or any other Democrat, had no change of defeating him in 1952 or 1956. I remember the '52 election; Stevenson did not remarry, so it was not the defining issue in the campaign. The Republicans may have made it a stronger issue, if Eisenhower was not so far ahead in the polls.

 

I also think that that Lyndon Johnson was unbeatable in 1964, even if Rockefeller had not been divorced. The results would have been a lot closer though if Rockefeller had been the candidate. The Republicans did have moderate alternatives to Goldwater, especially Gov. Bill Scranton of Pennsylvania and early on Henry Cabot Lodge and Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, although a women would never have been nominated back then.

 

Politics and homosexuality have lagged behind divorce. Yes, Barney Frank was easily reelected in 1990, despite being caught hiring a male prostitute, who moved into Frank's residence and saw other clients there. I once lived in Frank's congressional district, which is strongly Democratic. But even I was surprised by his large margin of victory. But, it should be remembered that Frank followed Father Robert Drinan, who was arguably the most liberal member of the U.S. House.

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One among the many things that I realized during this entire "discussion" is that people on this site use the IM system much too infrequently. Had the controversial question been done by IM, this post would probably have been half as long. Please bear that in mind for the future.

 

 

 

The voice of reason - - how refreshing!

-

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I don't think imrthr's reply read as an insult either. I think the reactions to it was over sensitive. I think if he said that there wasn't any malice, the OP should've taken it for what it's worth (at poorly written compliment, at most) and kept it moving.

 

I don't know why it's gotten do easy to hurt people's feelings here.

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I don't think imrthr's reply read as an insult either. I think the reactions to it was over sensitive. I think if he said that there wasn't any malice, the OP should've taken it for what it's worth (at poorly written compliment, at most) and kept it moving.

 

I don't know why it's gotten so easy to hurt people's feelings here.

 

 

 

Another person is nominated to the voice of reason. Thank you very much (and thanks also to purplekow).

-

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Truhart, I've checked out several straight P4P forums online. Monger and mongering are the standard terms used. (For example, someone will link to a monger's map of London that shows the locations of all the brothels.)

 

That's true, but they are using it as a short-hand for "wh*re-mongering", which is a common term. It was shortened for the same reason it can't be spelled out in this forum.

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One among the many things that I realized during this entire "discussion" is that people on this site use the IM system much too infrequently. Had the controversial question been done by IM, this post would probably have been half as long. Please bear that in mind for the future.

You're right. Instead of allowing my annoyance to prompt me into an immediate response, I should have PMed imrthr and asked him what the fuck he meant by that comment. That would probably have prevented the unpleasantness that side-tracked the thread. I'll try to remember that next time.

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Interesting how this thread keeps lurching from one topic to another. Sex for money, legalization (or not), insults (or not), mongering of various sorts . . . so much fun in so short a space.

 

But Juan, if you don't mind, may I come back to this comment you made?

 

In the long run, laws will more and more reflect an understanding on what is ethically correct and will veer away from what is morally acceptable.

 

I'm not a philosophy guru. It could well be that my question has been hashed out for centuries without being solved, but would you (or anyone else who wants to participate) please give me examples of

 

 

  1. An action that is both ethically correct and morally acceptable
  2. An action that is ethically correct but is not morally acceptable
  3. An action that is not ethically correct but is morally acceptable
  4. An action that is neither ethically correct nor morally acceptable

 

What are the criteria for ethical correctness and for moral acceptability? Where do they come from? Do we trust the sources? Why? If the criteria change from time to time or from place to place, is there any solid basis for correctness and acceptability? What is the difference between ethics and morals in the first place?

 

The more I ramble on here, the more I think that one of our local philosophy gurus is just going to point me to some Major Philosopher and tell me to come back when I'm a big boy and still think I have questions.

 

In any case, I really wish, Juan, that we could be talking about this in the universally accepted way, that is, over beers at 2:00 AM in a college dorm, but no matter, I would like to hear your thoughts.

 

Regards,

 

--Jerry

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I have been reading this thread with some interest. Maybe I am looking at it from a much simpler point of view. For me paying for sex is acceptable when two people have agreed to spend time together. For me as long as both are consenting adults agreeing as to what will happen then I say enjoy. There are allot of great guys out there and a whole range of things to choose from when spending your money.

One of the nicest seems to be Juan. I have not yet had the pleasure of his company, but his comments show that thought has been put into them.

We can talk all day about what is legal and not legal. To me that was not part of the question. It is as I have already said, I pay for sex when I find the right guy for what I want at that moment and if it is a good time, have no problem in paying for it.

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Not all clients are married. Not all *****s break homes. Not all women are worried about the paternity certainty and the male monogamy. And in order to make correct laws none of this really matters. I see how in certain sectors of the population this may be a very heated topic but this shouldn't have (and won't have) absolutely any effect on whether things are regarded as ethically correct or not. In the long run, laws will more and more reflect an understanding on what is ethically correct and will veer away from what is morally acceptable.

 

But in any democracy, lawmakers have to take into account the preferences of their constituents. If women account for half the votes in any particular state, their preferences are very relevant to what laws are passed.

 

And like I argued in another thread, what does your average legislator get out of voting to legalize sex work vs what would he lose from doing so? There are a number of secular and religious groups who oppose the legalization of sex work. On the other side, who is willing to put their names and money behind the legalization of sex work? Many clients (gay and straight) are married, so that leaves the escorts, who are relatively few in numbers and who, in some cases, don't want to publicize what they do for fear of harassment.

 

So regardless of what any of us believe, unless someone can argue that anti-sex work laws violate some part of the Bill of Rights (maybe the First or Fourteenth Amendments), I doubt that sex work will be legalized anytime soon.

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And I'll add what I've said before. Many posters here seem to think that more "enlightened" countries have legalized sex for pay. Canada, Germany and some of the other countries often mentioned here are hardly the paradigm of progressive countries, except maybe when compared to the US. Quite the opposite, truly progressive countries such as the Scandinavian countries which had decriminalized sex for pay have now made it illegal again because of all the problems that went along with it. Even France is revisiting the topic. So although it's easy to say that two consenting adults should be able to do what they want that argument doesn't hold water when the rest of society is stuck with the problems that it creates. Of course if one is a total libertarian, maybe none of that matters.

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Many posters here seem to think that more "enlightened" countries have legalized sex for pay. Canada, Germany and some of the other countries often mentioned here are hardly the paradigm of progressive countries, except maybe when compared to the US. Quite the opposite, truly progressive countries such as the Scandinavian countries which had decriminalized sex for pay have now made it illegal again because of all the problems that went along with it. Even France is revisiting the topic.

 

You wouldn't make a good diplomat, newtothis.

 

I don't know where you hold your concepts of "truly progressive" or "enlightened" countries from, but here are the facts: prostitution is legal almost everywhere in the European Union (except Sweden, Lithuania and Romania).

 

"In Sweden, Norway, and Iceland it's illegal to pay for sex, but not to be a prostitute (the client commits a crime, but not the prostitute)"

 

"Other countries which have restrictive prostitution policies and officially affirm an anti-prostitution stance are the UK, Ireland and France."

 

"In eight European countries (The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Hungary, and Latvia) prostitution is legal and regulated."

 

"Very liberal prostitution policies exist in the Netherlands and Germany."

 

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Prostitution_in_europe_corrected_2.svg/680px-Prostitution_in_europe_corrected_2.svg.png

 

[green] Prostitution legal and regulated, brothels are legal and regulated

[light green] Prostitution legal and regulated, but brothels are illegal

[blue] Prostitution legal but not regulated, brothels are illegal

[red] Prostitution illegal: the prostitutes are criminally prosecuted

[pink] Prostitution illegal: the clients are criminally prosecuted, not the prostitutes

[gray] No data

 

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Europe

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... Has paying for sex become more acceptable than ever?

 

Using prostitutes now seems commonplace among top football stars, while research suggests the number of men paying for sex is increasing. Are attitudes towards prostitution changing?

 

You get an interesting perspective on changing social attitudes towards sex from the bottom of an 18ft (five-metre) fireman's pole used by lap dancers as part of a complicated choreographed display. Oscar Owide, proprietor of the Windmill Club in Soho, is distracted by how to achieve the best lighting on the girl in black knickers who is descending head first from the top of pole, gripping on with her thighs, dancing upside down with her arms.

 

"It's ever so difficult to do that," he says, and asks a waiter to get the spotlight changed so her performance is less hidden by shadows. When a flattering pink ray has been switched on to the dancer, Owide, who has been running Soho clubs for decades, reflects on how much more open society has become to this form of entertainment.

 

His clients no longer need to hide the fact that they visit nude dance clubs, he says. Most of the stigma has disappeared and a night out at a lap-dancing club now qualifies as respectable corporate entertainment (with receipts provided so expenses can be recouped from the company). There is no prostitution here, but clients can stay until 5.30 in the morning, watching individual erotic dances from workers at £20 a go.

 

By midnight, a cashier is busy processing debit card payments from men who want a solo dance from one of the 30 or so women who are waiting in their knickers and bras by the bar. A well-spoken man wonders aloud if he can leave his Bar Council membership card as security. To the right a young man sits in a booth by himself, his suit jacket off and top buttons undone, his legs splayed wide apart so there is space for a woman in a black thong and suspenders to touch her toes and wobble her naked buttocks no more than 10 centimetres from his face.

 

An observer of the mutating sex industry in Soho for most of his life, Owide has an unexpectedly censorious view on the sex scandal of the week: Wayne Rooney's alleged liaison with a sex worker. He isn't shocked in the least by the fact that Rooney slept with a prostitute, but he disapproves deeply of Rooney's decision to be unfaithful to his wife when she was pregnant.

 

Clearly Owide's views are shaped by his long involvement in what he describes as "the business", but his position chimes with the broader response to Rooney's behaviour. There has been indignation at his betrayal of his wife, a lot of outrage that an expensively educated girl like Jennifer Thompson would decide to become a prostitute, and considerable bafflement that an England footballer can't get as much sex as he wants for free. There has been much less moralising about the central transaction: Rooney's readiness to employ a prostitute.

 

So far, Rooney's sponsors are apparently ready to overlook the event, dismissing it yesterday as a "private matter", indicating that in the hierarchy of corporate morality use of a prostitute is viewed as a much lesser evil than taking drugs. When Kate Moss was filmed taking a line of coke it had an immediate impact on her advertising contracts.

 

Does this indifference suggest that prostitution no longer disturbs anyone very much? Has the explosion in the easy availability of internet porn, men's magazines, stag nights, lap-dancing clubs and sex tourism begun to erode our perception of prostitution as an enduring taboo?

 

Club-owners like Owide are seeing a stark shift in attitudes, but campaign groups, academics, prostitute collectives and men who use prostitutes notice it too. Research documents highlight the difficulty of grasping any accurate statistics about the prevalence of prostitution in the UK. Home Office papers cite 1990 research which suggests that there might be about 80,000 prostitutes in the UK, and a more recent calculation that there could be between 876,900 and 2.4 million men who pay for sex – stressing that the data is unreliable.

 

However, a 2005 study estimated that the numbers of men buying sex had doubled in a decade, an increase prompted by " a greater acceptability of commercial sexual contact".

 

Premier League footballers exist in a bubble, behaving in a way only distantly connected to normal life. Ex-footballers this week have described how girls routinely target players, hiding in their rooms. "There were nights we went to the strip club and there was loads of money flying around and all the girls were going the extra mile just for the cash," one player recalls.

 

Even beyond the cash-laden world of the Premier League, there is no shortage of supply. During the 1990s, the number of men paying for sex acts in the UK is estimated to have doubled. It has never been difficult to find an escort, but men who have used prostitutes recently describe how technology has made things dramatically easier. In just the same way that the internet has simplified the way we buy flights and books, finding someone to pay for sex has become a headache-free process online.

 

"Before you'd have to look for coded messages in the lonely hearts columns or in the newsagents' window: women who wanted to meet 'generous gents' was a signal that they were looking to be paid. On the internet it's much easier to find where to go and there's no pretence; you have greater choice," Peter, 54, a volunteer charity worker, (who, like most men interviewed for this piece, did not want his full name printed) says.

 

The new availability of free internet porn can also have the effect of stoking an appetite, he adds. "The analogy might be, I suppose, that it's like watching Match of the Day, and then being inspired to go out and play football, and try out something you've seen."

 

Websites where men can post reviews of named, and often pictured, prostitutes are easily accessed through Google. Speaking openly about using prostitutes remains unusual but the anonymity of the web means users can be as frank as they like in their discussions. (A typical exchange on a site yesterday runs: "Natasha can be particularly recommended for her figure and her oral technique." "Natasha isn't particularly busty. Only a C cup." "True true, but I'm willing to overlook a shortcoming if the remainder is exceptional.")

 

The lap-dancing industry is at pains to make a distinction between what they provide and the illegal sale of sex in massage parlours, but for men who go to their clubs, the line is often more blurred. For a generation of men in their 20s and early 30s, strip clubs have become an unremarkable, fairly uncontroversial nightclub option – forcing them to reassess their own attitudes towards the exchange of money for titillation.

 

Harry, 26, an advertising executive, visited a brothel twice on a recent holiday in Greece. "Most guys have gone to a strip club and have probably had their fair share of dating and casual sex or whatever," he says. "There's not a great divide between strip clubs and brothels. And I think that's why people like us would consider it, because it doesn't feel like a massive departure."

 

His attitude was also shaped by his frequent use of online dating organisations. "I've been using internet dating sites quite a lot recently and the mindset is very similar. You meet up with people with no real anticipation of anything happening, and you end up having casual sex because it's easy. So there's a sort of laziness to it. It doesn't really mean anything, it's ready and accessible – and that's exactly how it felt in this place in Greece," he says.

 

Dan, 28, an online marketing executive, visited strip clubs while he was abroad and came away unsettled by the experience. "I was on holiday, it was fun. It wasn't that big a deal. I didn't feel I was part of that exploitation," he says. "It wasn't sexy. It was just so transactional. Everything that that kind of intimacy shouldn't be. And obviously you know what it is, it's just business, business, business – but it was almost like a vending machine …"

 

Peter Stringfellow, owner of Stringfellows, another central London table dancing club, also makes it clear that there is nothing to connect prostitution and the light entertainment his club provides, but agrees that taboos around his industry are disappearing. The people who visit his clubs are now "affluent and successful – doctors, lawyers, people travelling on business, City workers." "Professor Stephen Hawking has been to the club and I've had a few drinks with him. My view is that if Professor Stephen Hawking has been, then the door is wide open for anyone in the world," he says.

 

Women's groups are split on how to respond to the growing indifference towards the idea of women selling their bodies – for sex and pornography.

 

Niki Adams, of the English Collective of Prostitutes, says she welcomes what she sees as a widening acceptance of women working in prostitution because she believes it will "reduce the stigma discrimination that many sex workers face", and because it means that the public are now viewing this as a "reasonable" employment choice.

 

But other feminist organisations warn that an emerging readiness to portray women who sell their bodies as making empowered choices is very misleading, while anti-pornography campaigners are uneasy about the long-term consequences of this increasing acceptance of pornography and lap dancing.

 

"It has never been easier or more acceptable to buy or sell women's bodies for sex acts," says Kat Banyard, author of the Equality Illusion, a portrait of modern feminism. "The scale of prostitution, pornography and lap-dancing industries is unprecedented. Much of this is driven by the development of technology. Now porn can be acquired cheaply, immediately and anonymously in your bedroom.

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"Meanwhile, the porn industry has cleverly marketed itself though men's magazines as a world where women are sexually liberated and empowered. The reality is very different. The effect of being in that industry is devastating, with 68% of women suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder."

 

Television programmes like Billie Piper's Belle de Jour are prone to romanticise the profession, emphasising the glamour. Most of Britain's prostitutes are drug users, girls who grew up in care, women who are very vulnerable, and who are passing a large amount of the money they receive on to the men who run them, campaigners stress; women who have more in common with the profile of the five sex workers who were murdered in Ipswich in 2006.

 

Matt McCormack Evans, an activist who will launch the Anti Porn Men Project on Monday, is concerned that the growing consumption of online porn among adolescents is fostering a new, more open attitude towards paying for sex. McCormack Evans is 22 and dismayed by the speed with which his generation has been presented with enormous, unprecedented access to cheap porn.

 

"A decade ago, pornography might be something borrowed from cousins, hidden under your mattress; it was difficult to get hold of. There was a feeling that it was something that needed to be kept secret. It is not like that now. There is a sense that you don't need to pretend that you don't consume this," he says.

 

There is a school of thought that argues that pornography use has no greater correlation with paying for sex than the link between smoking cannabis progressing to injecting heroin, but McCormack Evans worries that the growing scale of porn consumption could have unexpected effects. "Pornography encourages certain attitudes towards sex, a vision of women as objects that are acted upon. There is reason to fear that this will translate into more men seeking sex from prostitutes and that there will be a desire to match the aesthetics of pornography in everyday life."

 

In Windmills, Owide is nostalgic for the Soho he knew 50 years ago. "When I first came here women used to walk the streets. It was lovely," he says. "The atmosphere …"

 

Now his club gives clients the chance to look at girls "far prettier than they would ever be able to marry, in front of them with their legs wide open," he says. "It's amazing."

 

A bleaker snapshot of the modern face of Soho's sex industry comes from David Miles, 45, a former drugs project worker, now unemployed, who says he has been buying sex for the past 10 years.

 

Prices here have stayed down over the decade and the going rate remains between £20 to £100. "You can have quick sex with a beautiful woman for £20, with £2 for the maid. That's very quick – it's called a walk-up; £100 is for half an hour.

 

"I sometimes feel guilty about it. You are having sex with a young woman for that. Some of these girls are not making much money. That's the sad thing. The arrival of girls from eastern Europe meant that the prices have stayed down."

 

source: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/sep/11/paying-for-sex-prostitution

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Quite right Steven, I may not be a diplomat but I'm also not pedantic. The title of the thread is about paying for sex, not who commits the crime (the john or the prostitute). The Nordic countries make paying for sex illegal because in their view paying for sex inherently exploits the prostitute and leads to all sorts of societal problems with crime, drugs, disease and so forth. Why would I call them the most progressive countries? Well, compare their citizens' level of happiness, social mobility, per-capita income, life spans, lack of wealth inequality and economies to other European countries such as Belgium and it's pretty clear that they're doing something right...at least if these are qualities you value.

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Truhart, I've checked out several straight P4P forums online. Monger and mongering are the standard terms used. (For example, someone will link to a monger's map of London that shows the locations of all the brothels.)

 

That's true, but they are using it as a short-hand for "wh*re-mongering", which is a common term. It was shortened for the same reason it can't be spelled out in this forum.

 

Very interesting Fresh and Irtwo…thank you both for clearing up the meaning of those terms. The shortening of certain words is sometimes a result of internet short-cuts in this modern age of social app’s!

 

TruHart1 :cool:

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