michel said:
Cal, I think you are rather being hard on our friend. I agree with his statement that prostitution is amoral...Prostitutoion, though, on the whole is a maladaptive trait in life...
Hunh? In what applicable sense does the notion of "adaptation" present any confluence of thinking in qualified moral behavior/acts? In what way is prostitution (or it's indulgence as service) an "adaptive trait"?
At it's core, prostitution is simply "
the act or practice of engaging in sexual intercourse for money."
What "maladaptive trait" does prostitution supposedly reflect, propagate, or reveal?
Perhaps, it might be...
The spread of STDs, the risks run by prostitutes because of their need to persue their profession in a "cover" way - thus endangering themselves; the ruination of marriages when the husband (or wife) has been found out by the partner as being one who uses the services of prostitutes...........I could go on.
You
could....
...but is prostitution (as an entity unto itself) presumedly "risk free (or risk averse)"?
Does prostitution serve as the primary conduit/cause of STD transmissions?
Are most adulterous affairs to be found engaged in the services of a prostitute?
Is prostitution a driving statistical cause of marital divorce? Is prostitution the proximal cause of such outcomes, or merely an adjunct and/or opportunistic "service" catering to otherwise (albeit perceptually) "immoral" choices/behaviors?
C'mon.
Is the concept of offering, or paying for sex with a professional that "sells" such a service...morally "good", "bad", or "indifferent"--in and of itself? Yes, there are personal accountabilities and resultant consequences to bear upon offering or paying for such a service...and such choices/consequences may manifest undesirable/unintended, or untoward results [being estimably considered as "good", "bad", or "inconsequential"]...
Does the concept of societally/culturally, legally-enabled, wagered gambling therefore present a "moral", "immoral', or "amoral" enterprise of personal choice/accountability? For every loss (or "victim"), there is a concomitant gain (or "victor") in the mutually agreed transaction. Is "gambling" a "good thing", a "bad thing", or an indifferent concept beyond moralizing assignations of personalized accounting? To be sure, placing any wagered bet presents the assumptive risk of loss, alongside the prospects of inordinate/opportunistic gain.
Perhaps it may be that presented choices of indeterminate consequence themselves are "amoral", and it's the consequential outcomes borne of those choices that ultimately earn the moralistic labels/attributes one might equate/label regarding catastrophic monetary loss, or the "chance" fortunes of windfall monetary gains.
If you "lose your shirt"...then gambling is "[morally] bad".
If you win enough to buy a new home for your extended homeless family, then perhaps...gambling is "[morally] good".
Put another way...if the assumptive risks (in agreed mutual consent) are both known and understood before an act of prospectively unknown consequence is summarily indulged...of what part or influence should assessments of personal (or subjective) morality play, or intervene?
If whores aren't (inherently immoral, or) "bad people", and if patrons of whores aren't inherently immoral, or) "bad people", then wherein lies any inherent "sin"? What measure of morality--objectively considered--should apply?
As far as your waitress, bartender, personal nurse can practice their profession with much less danger of ill-health, of being attacked, or of being treaterd badly by a pimp; they also would (most of them) bein paid employment with rights covering periods of sickness and the benefits, a pension, etc...
As noted by another contributor beforehand, only societally-imposed prohibition of prostitution (presented as being "morally bad") artificially introduces the added risks of untoward circumstance, or unpleasant outcomes.
As we live in a democracy, I would suggest the Government, at the behest of the voters.
*shudder*
I hope not.
Mob rule, especially when empowered by self-affrming bureaucrats, is the most prejudicial and and mindless form of impressional morality ever embraced and accepted by an unaccountable and and strictly emotional majority of like-minded, group-think, moralizing adherents of proscribed standards of limited "moral values".
I would put to you, straightforward...
If you could prohibit (or criminalize) prostitution, would you? If prostitution (as you would seem to suggest) is veritably/substantively "amoral", then what compelling "amoral" argument would you offer in support of such an enacted legislation?
If a nineteen-year-old, unmarried virgin pays to have sex with another nineteen-year-old prostitute, is that chosen act more, less, or otherwise neutral in moralistic terms?
If a married man of 38 years cheats on his wife by having adulterous sex with his workplace secretary, is that then a greater or lesser act of immorality? Is it perhaps moral? Is it amoral? If that man pays to have sex with a prostitute
instead, is there any moral difference (or ambiguity) between the two choices? Is it "better", "worse"; or estimably "ambivalent [ie, "amoral"] within a removed and objective conscience-driven moral perspective? Is that an example of a "
maladaptive trait in life"?
Is smoking cigarettes better, worse, or morally equivalent to sexual prostitution in consequential outcomes?
What's the difference?