LostInTheCosmos:

Armitage Shanks:

LostInTheCosmos:

You can't possibly tell me that human sacrifice, pedophilia, gang rape, and other cultural norms are actually good things? Or does "white guilt" tie your hands so badly that you aren't even willing to put a judgment on such practices?

At some point, almost all of those things were practiced or accepted by Western Civilization.

And we shall again if no one is willing to stand up against it.

Ugh?

I'm not connecting the dots between dominating other cultures and people heroically speaking out against gang rape.

Indigo_Dingo:
Am I the only liberal minded guy who is actively and fiercly against both prostitution and pornography?

Erm, okay......this statement kind of stomps on it's own toes, but nevermind.

A woman's body is just that, hers. If she wants to be a prostitute for whatever reason, let her. We don't stop lawyers doing their job because of how soul-dirtying it is, do we?

Jackie Smith is one of the stupidest females with power today. NOT really an advert for women in politics. She's now saying that hookers are fine as long as they're on their own, no pimps or anything.

It's a good job that our streets are a nice safe place; with faeries, streams of chocolate and a trouble free society. Otherwise hookers would be kinda screwed (ha!) without someone other than the gov. looking out for them.

I think we should have a public, televised sacking of Smith. That'd be the first bit of reality TV that I'd watch! Or at least replace her with a corpse................we'd see some improvement.

Just shifting a little bit in a different direction... and I haven't done much research on this.. I'm hoping to tap into the infinite wisdom the Escapees have..

I was wondering if there's prostitution that is catered towards women? I don't think I've ever seen men standing behind windows in a red light district..

.. Just wondering. No, I'm not looking for anything like this. Really.

Mariena:
Just shifting a little bit in a different direction... and I haven't done much research on this.. I'm hoping to tap into the infinite wisdom the Escapees have..

I was wondering if there's prostitution that is catered towards women? I don't think I've ever seen men standing behind windows in a red light district..

.. Just wondering. No, I'm not looking for anything like this. Really.

Haha, someone's looking to get herself a man-whore! :P

Have you never seen 'Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo'? Great film dealing with the funnier side of man-whoring.

There are these services for women but they're not as aggressively 'advertised' as their boobed counterparts - I.E. Look at the difference between male and female adult magazines, our magazines are always much more 'LOOK AT THEEEESE!' and sticking it in your face.

So yeah, they're called Gigolos and are probably in the yellow pages ;)

Hope that helped.

Armitage Shanks:

LostInTheCosmos:

Armitage Shanks:

LostInTheCosmos:

You can't possibly tell me that human sacrifice, pedophilia, gang rape, and other cultural norms are actually good things? Or does "white guilt" tie your hands so badly that you aren't even willing to put a judgment on such practices?

At some point, almost all of those things were practiced or accepted by Western Civilization.

And we shall again if no one is willing to stand up against it.

Ugh?

I'm not connecting the dots between dominating other cultures and people heroically speaking out against gang rape.

In case you missed the link:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20876,21275620-25132,00.html

The problem in Australia is that they are *not* speaking out against gang rape because they don't want to dominate another culture:
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1126/context/archive

Make it legal. This way its safer for the people who have to do it.

LostInTheCosmos:

I really don't know where you'e coming up with this assumption that I think of a "stereotype" when it comes to prostitution. You like to put the words "all" or "every" to my statements when you should realize by now that I realize that there are many circumstances where one becomes a prostitute or not......... etc

i agree with everything you say in this reply about supporting your fellow man. i agree with everything you say about morals, my language and tone may seem harsh but it isnt ment to be i dont think your judgmental or intend harm when you DO judge. i know this because everything you think i think the same way usualy. i feel the same way about love and i also feel the same way about people being used.

in fact the only thing we dont seem to agree on is wether or not it should be legal to have sex for money. there is no doubt in my mind that if more people felt like we do than the wold could be a much better place. but the simple fact is alot (dare i say the majoirty) of people DONT feel the way we do, and while i agree we have a certian duty to speak up in moral situations and express our opinions about right and wrong, what we DONT have is the right to force compliance from others to OUR moral code.

the ultimate Judge of morality is God and even He gave us free will, who are we too try to take that gift away from others? if God Himself doesnt take a direct hand in moral situations i just dont feel that im capable of standing in his stead. im more than willing to offer my opinion and my guidance what im NOT ready to do is to force a person to behave as i think they should.

Typhusoid:
I heard that Jackie Smith (U.K politician) has passed a legislation stating that if a prostitute has been coerced into it then their client is guilty. To me this just doesn't make sense I was wondering about your views.

Prostitution will always exist, legalising it just removes the pimps (which is a good thing).

Immagine if they did the same for drugs.
The person selling the drug is safe, only the buyer goes to jail.
Everyone would be a dealer I guess.

EzraPound:
I appear to be part of the minority that doesn't believe prositution should be legal, in absolute terms. This is a somewhat sensitive issue, as I find it hard to stomach that so many women still (perhaps I'm misspeaking to say 'still'; women are far from equal) willingly sell sex as a service, even in light of perhaps not having more lucrative options. However, I also sympathize with the extent to which the illegality of prostitution places the women involved in a vulnerable position, and so I here I am: wanting to have my cake and eat it too.

What I think is probably best, then, is to do things the way they do in Rhode Island: for the operations of brothels (which are highly exploitative) and street solicitation (which often involves women putting themselves in dangerous situations) to be illegal, while advertised prositution services ('escorts') are permitted. Additionally, I believe 'escort services', which often leech off their employees, should be illegal. There are two positive implications of this approach: 1) that the legality of women working off the street in the sex trade could be contingent upon them receiving STD checks, etc., and that 2) the 'middlemen' who seek to line their pockets off prosititution - pimps, managers of escort agencies, etc. - would hopefully be cut out of the equation.

Gee, I dunno. Agencies exist in fields other than prostitution. There are placements agencies, which get some money, model agencies, contracting agencies, and they all make a cut, yet nobody wants to eradicate them.
The problem is not the agency, it is the treatment they give to the people they deal with.

Back in the day when people had fancy brothels it was most likely a little safer than picking up a prostitute from the street.
I truly don't understand why prostitution is illegal but pornography isn't even though the only difference is that they are getting paid for taping sex not having sex (though they wouldn't have sex if they weren't getting paid)

I'm a Nevada resident. I think my state got it right. Put prostitution in a place where it can be regulated, where the girls have some control over their clientele (a girl can refuse service to anyone for any reason), and where condom use is mandated by state law (since that law was passed in 1987, not one prostitute has ever contracted HIV from a legal brothel). They've also banned it in Washoe (Reno) and Clark (Vegas) Counties, so whorehouses don't blight the cities and ruin any chance at cultivating a family-friendly community there (in neither instance are city dwellers more than an hour's drive from a brothel).

Furthermore, neither Reno nor Las Vegas enforce the laws that ostensibly prohibit things like call-girl services; if it doesn't happen on the street, the vice squad doesn't want to know about it. More states need to follow the example of Nevada, or of the Netherlands.

Wyatt:
the ultimate Judge of morality is God and even He gave us free will, who are we too try to take that gift away from others? if God Himself doesnt take a direct hand in moral situations i just dont feel that im capable of standing in his stead. im more than willing to offer my opinion and my guidance what im NOT ready to do is to force a person to behave as i think they should.

We do have a lot of common ground and I'm glad for it. :)

You know, there is a "Devil's Advocate" argument to your last paragraph. You could argue that God doesn't even care to enforce any of his morality. So why stand up for anything at all?

LostInTheCosmos:

We do have a lot of common ground and I'm glad for it. :)

You know, there is a "Devil's Advocate" argument to your last paragraph. You could argue that God doesn't even care to enforce any of his morality. So why stand up for anything at all?

because hes judging you on how you treat your fellow man. God COULD have stoped the whole system of Sin and morality in its tracks, do you really thing that God coudnt have stoped Adam from eating the apple? the test is in ourselves. free will is so importiant because it shows what kind of a person we are and God is interested in how we are as a person, whats in our hearts, not what we are forced to do.

God would want that hooker to stop on her own, if YOU jump in and force her too stop than he gets no reading on HER as a person, all he sees is shes forced by someone else instead of change coming from within. and all he sees from YOU is that youd rather let the law act for you than take the time to get involved yourself.

God isnt interested in our systems of law hes interested in US as people. God doesnt care what our policys are He cares what we actualy DO.

im pretty sure im not gunna be judged when i die because i didnt support a human rights vote in Ziares parliment. im gunna be judged for things like this very conversation here. in other words ill be judged for how i acted in my life and the situations and most importiant the people i was actualy involved with, not on what policy i may have had for something that was outside my reach.

you dont change the world by passing a law, you change the world one person at a time, starting with yourself and moving out too those around you. those you can actualy reach.

Billions of dollars of potential federal revenue are lost due to prostitution being forced into the black market. If we viewed things objectively without rhetorical morals we would legalize and regulate the industry in order to create another avenue for taxation.

It's better to make money off of it rather than spending money to futily stop it.

Wyatt:
because hes judging you on how you treat your fellow man. God COULD have stoped the whole system of Sin and morality in its tracks, do you really thing that God coudnt have stoped Adam from eating the apple? the test is in ourselves. free will is so importiant because it shows what kind of a person we are and God is interested in how we are as a person, whats in our hearts, not what we are forced to do.

God could have stopped Cain from killing Abel, but he didn't. So who are we to stop murderers? As Christians, we were told to "turn the other cheek", so why stop the rapist? Why not do as Lot did and offer our daughters to perverts?

I am playing Devil's Advocate because I believe that this line of reasoning is absurd in practice - to take parts of scripture and mash theology into non-action and complacency with evil.

Legalizing and taxing prostitution would be the best thing ever. It would put a huge dent in the current financial crises.

Legalise it, regulate it, cut the middlemen out.

Mariena:
Just shifting a little bit in a different direction... and I haven't done much research on this.. I'm hoping to tap into the infinite wisdom the Escapees have..

I was wondering if there's prostitution that is catered towards women? I don't think I've ever seen men standing behind windows in a red light district..

.. Just wondering. No, I'm not looking for anything like this. Really.

Areas in Japan have "male host bars". In these bars, male hosts, have figured out how to package and sell the flirtatious opening phase of a relationship without the sex. Ironically, most of their clientel consists of high priced prostitutes.

Female prostitutes sell the sex... male prostitutues sell the emotional context that has been purged from the sex act practiced by the female prostitutes. There's a film called The Great Happiness Space that documents this bizarre relationship between the two industries. I highly reccomend it.

I rellay have ZERO problem with prostitution. I mean lets face it, its going to happen no matter what and if its legal who know's maybe my poor US economy could get some help...look we need everything we can get.

LostInTheCosmos:

God could have stopped Cain from killing Abel, but he didn't. So who are we to stop murderers? As Christians, we were told to "turn the other cheek", so why stop the rapist? Why not do as Lot did and offer our daughters to perverts?

I am playing Devil's Advocate because I believe that this line of reasoning is absurd in practice - to take parts of scripture and mash theology into non-action and complacency with evil.

i dont think it is absurd. ive often thought bout this. when you really think about the power of God to create have you ever wonderd why he created life as it is?

why all the rigamaroll with Adam and the Apple and Cain and Able, lot or Noah, Moses, or even Jesus? why such a complex system? why let man fall in the first place? why not just cast satan into the pit from the start?

the answer i believe is because we as people need to grow and be shaped. would yopu take as much pride in your babys first steps if you could simply program him to walk? or is it beuse hes grown and learned about his enviroment has became his OWN person not what you programed him to be.

i DO think that pretty much anything that happenes to you in this world is ..... not so much a test, as a lession. the burned finger teaches best, love is the highest thing we can aspire too ...... these are lessions that need to be learned in order to have any real value. good things happen , bad things happen, most of the time nothing at all is happeneing or so it seems but even in those 'empty' times we are stil being tought a lession even though we may not relize it. God created the Universe for us to learn and grown in and the lessions we need to learn arent just good ones or bad ones but rather how to adapt to strainge situations.

if you truly believe in heaven and an after life than how can you look on the world as anything but a class room? of what importiance is there in what may seem to us now even the most life and death situations when we have forever to look forward too? i truly understand why so many Jews went to their deaths in Nazi Germany with gladness in their hearts. life is a gift from God, the only question is how do you repay that gift? didnt their deaths buy a situation where the world truly doesnt accept mass murder as OK anymore, perhaps their deaths bought us freedom from a nuclear war that would have wiped out humankind by making all the people in all the nations capable of launching that war look back on the death camps and decide in their hearts never again?

the pint though im stressing is that God doesnt have a policy for dealing with people, there is no Bureau of human relations in heaven. we are all his children and he wants us to treat one another not as distant relations but as one family. every hooker is your sister, every killer is your brother, the same thing can be said of anyone on the planet, there is no 'other' there is no single person on this earth, good, bad , or in between that isnt worthy of your love and respect as a fellow child of God. and yet you still advocate a law locking your sister up in Jail for prositution? how would YOU deal with a sister that was a hooker? would you write her off and simply put her in a cell someplace? or would you HELP her?

obviously this kind of a system only works if everyone believes the same thing, and wont be made perfect untill Jesus comes and takes his Crown in the Flesh, so that no man can doubt anymore that there IS a God, he DOES love us and we are ALL special in His eyes and diserving of not just a policy like you would have for dealing with a herd of cattle but a connection , a bond with our fellow man, too truly LOVE him as ourselves.

as i said God cares more about how you treat those in your reach than what you think about a civil rights policy in Mongolia. ill let God rule the world, i just do my best to learn his lessions for me in the small corner he placed me in.

I am amazed at how many 13 year old nerds voted 'yes'. I thinks its more to with STDs rather than just 'ew, its a dirty thing that shouldnt be talked about'

ANTI-SANTA:
I am amazed at how many 13 year old nerds voted 'yes'. I thinks its more to with STDs rather than just 'ew, its a dirty thing that shouldnt be talked about'

Condoms anyone?

In NSW during the height of AIDS fear and transmission, prostitutes were actually used by the government to make condoms acceptable and common, something that badly needed doing.

To quote the Late Great George Carlin: 'selling is legal, F*cking is legal, why isent Selling f*ucking legal, cant figure out the logic on that, why is it illegal to sell something thats perfectly Legal to give away'

Wyatt:
i dont think it is absurd. ive often thought bout this. when you really think about the power of God to create have you ever wonderd why he created life as it is?

I don't know if you are a Christian or not, but from the Christian perspective, God did not create people as they are now. We are fallen creatures and thus prone to many failings of will, memory, and intellect.

The fall was not a test of intellect, but of will - did we love God or did we love ourselves over God? And from generation to generation, we make that same choice our ancestors did long ago.

Half the news we read about crimes and evil in the world are in the end, stupid things. Was it really that important to trample a man to death and nearly kill a pregnant woman just to buy discounted electronics? Why would we assure our own mutual destruction in a nuclear holocaust?

That is our fallen nature - it is not God's design, but our own.

the answer i believe is because we as people need to grow and be shaped. would yopu take as much pride in your babys first steps if you could simply program him to walk? or is it beuse hes grown and learned about his enviroment has became his OWN person not what you programed him to be.

i DO think that pretty much anything that happenes to you in this world is ..... not so much a test, as a lession. the burned finger teaches best, love is the highest thing we can aspire too ...... these are lessions that need to be learned in order to have any real value. good things happen , bad things happen, most of the time nothing at all is happeneing or so it seems but even in those 'empty' times we are stil being tought a lession even though we may not relize it. God created the Universe for us to learn and grown in and the lessions we need to learn arent just good ones or bad ones but rather how to adapt to strainge situations.

The funny thing was that the point of view that all the world's suffering was some sort of "lesson" for humanity was something that drove me to practical atheism when I was in college. I could not imagine a God who would use people being burned in ovens as some sort of object lesson for humanity - which didn't work. We still stood idly by as millions killed each other in Rwanda.

One of my friends, in near tears said that she couldn't believe in a God who would tell her that she needed to learn about God's love so that is why she was date raped. What kind of God would teach lessons with people's lives like that? Am I to believe that all those people happily drowned in Indonesia when the Tsunami hit because God was giving them a big "love hug lesson"?

the pint though im stressing is that God doesnt have a policy for dealing with people, there is no Bureau of human relations in heaven. we are all his children and he wants us to treat one another not as distant relations but as one family.

I also believe that God deals with us personally. I too don't believe that God has wholesale policies that can be used in each and every situation. But I do believe he gave us some pretty good guidelines. I believe that God is not just the Father of humanity, but also the Lord of families and the God of Nations. He not only deals with us individually, but also how we act collectively as a community - just as he did so with Israel. And as a Christian, I don't believe that God left us high and dry without any clue on how to deal with one another.

every hooker is your sister, every killer is your brother, the same thing can be said of anyone on the planet, there is no 'other' there is no single person on this earth, good, bad , or in between that isnt worthy of your love and respect as a fellow child of God. and yet you still advocate a law locking your sister up in Jail for prositution? how would YOU deal with a sister that was a hooker? would you write her off and simply put her in a cell someplace? or would you HELP her?

I think you will recognize that sometimes the best way to help someone is to chastize them. As a father, I have to put my son in timeout when he is being bad. This is not out of hate and being judgmental, but out of love so that he learns what is good from what is bad. For me not to do so is a failure for me being a father, and my responsibility to help raise him.

Would that not also apply to persons who are in charge of the well-being of the state?

obviously this kind of a system only works if everyone believes the same thing, and wont be made perfect untill Jesus comes and takes his Crown in the Flesh, so that no man can doubt anymore that there IS a God, he DOES love us and we are ALL special in His eyes and diserving of not just a policy like you would have for dealing with a herd of cattle but a connection , a bond with our fellow man, too truly LOVE him as ourselves.

Amen.

In the immortal words of George Carlin (RIP, buddy):

Selling is legal,
Fucking is legal,
Why isn't selling fucking legal?

Hell yeah!!!!!!! nah just kidding it shouldn't

i think it should not be legal.. hahah its like saying its legal to spread diseases and virus, and besides it fun if its underground hahaha

what does 1 in ten people not enjoy?...

gang rape.
SORRY! TASTELESS! MY ENGLISH FEMALE FRIEND TOLD ME! AND A RAPE VICTUM EVEN LAUGHED AT IT!
forced sex is bad, and if you pay a prostitue for sex then... well if she does not "enjoy" her job then one could argue that she was raped because she did not whant to have sex.
but i am still the big V so i can't rally talk

what about mail order brides by the way? is that simmiler to protitution? or more like slavery? what is the difference? maybe it is life a very enjoyable massage?...

LostInTheCosmos:

I don't know if you are a Christian or not, but from the Christian perspective, God did not create people as they are now. We are fallen creatures and thus prone to many failings of will, memory, and intellect.

The fall was not a test of intellect, but of will - did we love God or did we love ourselves over God? And from generation to generation, we make that same choice our ancestors did long ago.

Half the news we read about crimes and evil in the world are in the end, stupid things. Was it really that important to trample a man to death and nearly kill a pregnant woman just to buy discounted electronics? Why would we assure our own mutual destruction in a nuclear holocaust?

That is our fallen nature - it is not God's design, but our own.

ok your not seeing my point.

everything you say here is true, but you have stoped too soon to see what im saying clearly.

lets try it this way, do you think that God CANT see the end from the begining? that God didnt know BEFORE he created the Universe that he would put Adam in it and that Adam would fall? im not saying that Adam lacked free will and that it was Gods fait that he would eat the Apple. what im saying is that God created the whole system of the Universe, Adam, and the Apple, when he COULD have created prof plumb in the study with a pipe wrench get my meaning?

God could have creaed a system of life that didnt involve any such thing as testing with an Apple, or a fall, or a path back to Him for man, at a bare minimum he could have simply not added the tree to the Garden in the first place, no apple, no fall, he could have simply removed free will totaly from Man and surrounded him with trees and Adam would have starved to death before he ate an apple from any of them.

but he chose to set up the begining in such a way as there was an Adam, there was free will, and there was a tree that would cause the fall. the 'test' is in fact what Adam would chose to do, the NATURE (details) of the test isnt whats importiant, the importiance is in what Adam DID (or DIDNT do).

life is like that. the Nature of your life isnt whats importiant the 'test' is what you DO (or dont do) in any given situation. every day all us billons of Adams have before us uncounted Apples with a chance to eat them or refuse, what God cares about is our Choice not the color of the apple or the size and shape of the Adam in question.

for me, all these moral questions i see as simply a long string of apples, and the only question i have to really answer is do i eat it or not. not wether i should become the apple police and run around telling others what to do with THEIR apples. thats between them and God as mine is between God and myself.

now this doesnt exclude helping people in my life with their choices or them helping me with mine, if your in my life we can share a common apple tree and can and do make decisions together about wether or not we eat. but at the bottom line we each eat (or not) alone.

God doesnt expect me to stop others from eating Apples, he may expect me to help them as best i can with the decision but the ultimate test that he gave Adam is still in full effect with his sons, the choice to eat or not is still in each individual in each situation and no one but OURSELVES are responcable for the final choice.

the only thing that matters is the choice. do you trust God and do it his way or not?

there is loads of other things that could be talked about here. but at its core this is what i believe about the nature and relationship between man and God. its not complicated, it doesnt require years of study and thousands of books and long winded theorys. its very simple.

i trust that God has a plan when it comes to dealing with moral issues like prostitution. God has placed before that hooker an Apple tree, the choice to eat is up to her. im not responsable for her choice, if God wants ME involved he will cause my steps to bring me into contact with her, then we will share the same tree but again each choice to EAT even then is a personel individual choice. i COULD simply stop that hooker from eating her apple by holding a gun to her head or putting her in jail, but then IM just eating my OWN apple by doing violence to her, im refusing her the chance to take part in Gods grand plan, God cares much more about her own choice than he does in how well i can dream up ways to take that choice away from her, im not only not helping her by refusing to let her make her own chocies im HURTING myself by getting between God and her and sticking my nose into something that is between God and her.

that isnt to say we cant help her, or that that we shouldnt even try. but the nature of the help must be education NOT force. she MUST face the choice and decide what to do about it all by herself. simply refusing to let her decide at all isnt what God wants. God doesnt WANT a policy of law forbiding prostitution God wants the prostitute AND her customer to decide of their own free will to NOT do it.

thats my views anyhow.

Wyatt:
God doesnt WANT a policy of law forbiding prostitution God wants the prostitute AND her customer to decide of their own free will to NOT do it.

Aw come off it. I am religious too, maybe not Christian but religious none the less, and even I can't fathom an almighty being who really gives a shit about whether some hairless monkey (AKA-Human) has a quick ten minute roll around in a bed with some stranger and then parts with a few bucks afterwards.

I mean... what's the big deal?

Bright_Raven:
forced sex is bad, and if you pay a prostitue for sex then... well if she does not "enjoy" her job then one could argue that she was raped because she did not whant to have sex.

Not true. Rape is not sex you don't enjoy, rape is sex you don't want/choose. If you choose sex and don't enjoy it, that's just life.

Oh, and let's lay off the religion talk everybody. It's getting annoying.

santaandy:

If you choose sex and don't enjoy it, that's just life.

Choosing sex and not enjoying it, is called marriage I believe.

cuddly_tomato:
Aw come off it. I am religious too, maybe not Christian

you answer yourself.

Yes, the introduction of laws against whatever social faux pas is in the current headlines has worked well in the past; in fact I have yet to hear of any crime ever getting committed ever. While that is a completely retarded statement, the mere act of illegalisation of any act will do nothing to prevent its occurrence, it will just introduce yet more people into the legal system, without being too liberal, help the people in this situation instead of spending ridiculous amounts of money attempting to prevent it.