The Oldest Profession In The World: Yea Or Nay

[Stevicus]

You asked.
(OK, you didn't....but you should've.)

I didn't know porn theaters had separate positions for janitor.

I'm also surprised that the guys who clean and service port-a-potties weren't on the list.

Most of the jobs listed appear to not have to deal with angry customers or a disgruntled public. If one is working at McDonald's and a customer goes ballistic and starts tearing up the place because they're out of Chicken McNuggets, working as a crime scene cleaner might not seem so bad by comparison.

 

[Polymath257]

Who on Earth buys his wife spendy gifts?
No one I know.

Mistresses, on the other hand.....

 

[Polymath257]

Because it's a reasonable and necessary public service.

Those supporting prostitution could say the same thing.

 

[Revoltingest]

I didn't know porn theaters had separate positions for janitor.

I'm also surprised that the guys who clean and service port-a-potties weren't on the list.

Most of the jobs listed appear to not have to deal with angry customers or a disgruntled public. If one is working at McDonald's and a customer goes ballistic and starts tearing up the place because they're out of Chicken McNuggets, working as a crime scene cleaner might not seem so bad by comparison.

Porta-pottie cleaning doesn't look all that bad a job.
Those honey bucket guys in India have it the worst.

 

[Polymath257]

The unredeemed humiliation.

As opposed to someone doing brazlillian waxes for a living?

 

[Revoltingest]

Mistresses, on the other hand.....

That would be a social stratum far above mine.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

For it, assuming the full, informed consent of all parties, and adequate legal protections of practitioners.

 

[Stevicus]

As I wrote earlier, I know NO woman (or man) who put 'prostitute" on the list of things s/he wants to be when s/he grows up.

When I was in school, I knew one kid whose career aspiration was to become a pimp. I don't know if he ever realized his dream, though.

I could see it nowadays, especially since some aspects of our culture might tend to glamorize prostitution to some extent - at least when portraying some of the high-class escorts who make a lot of money and have a client list of rich and powerful men. I can see where some might be attracted to that kind of lifestyle, not to mention the notoriety. Some prostitutes bring about scandal, can cause governments to erupt in chaos and even bring down ruling dynasties.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

The unredeemed humiliation.

I've heard that as an argument against prostitution many times before. Honestly, some of the stuff I had to do pretty regularly as a nurse was at least as humiliating as stuff prostitutes do. The difference is prostitutes can a. pick and choose clients, b. get paid more than nurses.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Not so much, no. a huge percentage of the prostitutes around did not voluntarily get into the life, and cannot leave it. As I wrote earlier, I know NO woman (or man) who put 'prostitute" on the list of things s/he wants to be when s/he grows up.



You have spoken to all the 'sex workers" who 'do it legally, have you? Did THEY grow up thinking that "prostitute" was a profession they aimed for?



Eating raw or undercooked meat is generally dangerous only to the one eating it. Sashimi is generally considered safe, actually. Prostitution is dangerous to the provider, the consumer...and everybody either one encounters sexually after that, especially the unknowing ones who trust that their sexual partners have not been dipping in that particular pool, so have no reason to take extra precautions...or to tell their prospective partner to take a hike.

Do you know many people who grew up wanting to be garbage men? Or proctologists?

 

[Revoltingest]

Do you know many people who grew up wanting to be garbage men?

The children of women's shoes salesmen hoping for a better life.

 

[Stevicus]

Porta-pottie cleaning doesn't look all that bad a job.
Those honey bucket guys in India have it the worst.

Yeah, especially since they don't wear any protective suits or equipment.

 

[Brickjectivity]

...and do you think that regulating prostitution in the USA will stop human trafficking?

This question was directed to someone else. If it is regulated there has to be a clear vision. Is it to regulate an immovable social reality? Is it intended to create a new tax base? Is it for the purpose of decreasing the sex trade? Is it to decrease human trafficking? Is it to help with crime prevention? Is it for recruiting spies? Is it to help with some other thing? If you don't have a concerted and agreed upon vision then sex trade regulations will simply be spaghetti code. If you regulate sex trade you need a bureau that handles it. You need General McArthur, FCC or Greenspan type governance, not a board of trustees. Its got to be done by an institution built for purpose with a commission. Otherwise I don't see any gains from regulation by the addition of a few laws. You will be stuck then with wishy washy representatives voting about things they aren't experts in.

Personally, I think that HIRING prostitutes should be made a felony with real jail time, but BEING a prostitute should result in mandatory retraining, half way houses and real help to get out of the life. And their pimps/owners should be shot.

I consider that a form of regulation. My only objection to that limited regulation is that we need to find ways to catch and prevent human trafficking of children. Its a pervasive problem. Regulations should work to change that. Some things are facts. You can't get rid of alcohol and drugs, true. Sex trafficking? We have to, somehow eventually. We shouldn't let that become an accepted social truth. I don't know if regulating sex workers will help with that. I agree with you that sex workers should not be criminalized for being sex workers.

That's circular. Of course harmless prostitution is harmless. However, that's begging a rather large question. First establish that there IS such a thing as 'harmless' prostitution. Because from where I sit and view stuff, there ain't no such critter.

The OP title is "the oldest profession in the world," and what I meant was to question whether harmless prostitution could be the same thing as implied by the thread title.

Prostitution, however, has got to be up there. If not at the top, certainly close to it. Any patriarchal society that thinks of women as 'lesser,' (and that's most of 'em) is going to have prostitution in the mix.

I think the oldest profession must be fishing. I don't know much about the concept of patriarchy, but I believe it begins when the sizes of baby heads gets too large for the birth tract and the young require six years of nurturing. Then you have a high female mortality rate and so much work for them to do that they can barely think. Add to that their physical slightness.

Matriarchies that we know of don't really seem to favor women more than patriarchies. Somebody was talking to me about a Native American tribe that was a matriarchy. The women did all the work. They raised the children, chewed all the leather, grew all the crops. All the men did was go play and hunt and be taken care of by the women. Men ran the religion, so who do you suppose had the power? I don't see a lot of difference for women between it and patriarchy. Sometimes people on RF remark about female viking warriors. I think its sad that in Viking society you were a nobody unless you were a warrior which no doubt made it that much worse to be a female with slight build or with hopes of being a mother. What if you wanted to have babies? Unless you were a warrior first or somebody's wife you were nobody. I also hear this thing about Egypt being a great place for women, but that is all silly too. Among the priest culture inheritance comes through the women, but those women are this <> close to being slaves themselves. Everybody is, because all Egypt does is raid and take slaves. Its not a recipe for a good life or equal life for women. When we allow some people to be slaves we prepare our selves to be enslaved just as easily as them. A matriarchy with slavery seems (just casting about not really a historian) no better than any patriarchy. A matriarchy where women do all the work? That also seems not too different.

 

[dianaiad]

This is the point where we agree to disagree.
And I'll admit that libertarian thought disgusts & frightens normal people.

Actually, I am a libertarian. Really. Right leaning, yes, but I really don't like either side of the major political split. I just dislike the Republicans a leetle less than I dislike Democrats, especially those on the far left.

I go by the axiom that your freedom to swing your arm around is inviolate--unless it reaches my nose. Prostitution does that. It hits everybody in the nose; especially the prostitute's. It hits MY nose because of the dangers his/her customers bring to others, including me, if I trust my partner and allow myself to have intercourse with him, and he forgets to tell me of his previous encounter with the germ and virus carriers they are. Never mind the immoral/unethical side of it. Just look at the sheer physical danger he has subjected himself too, and is, without thought, subjecting his other partners to.

THAT sort of permissiveness isn't what libertarianism is about. Perhaps you should read this: Key Concepts of Libertarianism to see the sort of libertarianism I hold to; especially the "rule of law" heading. "Libertarianism is not libertinism or hedonism. It is not a claim that “people can do anything they want to, and nobody else can say anything.” Rather, libertarianism proposes a society of liberty under law, in which individuals are free to pursue their own lives so long as they respect the equal rights of others."

Prostitution is the antithesis of this idea. It does nothing BUT harm, and certainly doesn't respect the 'equal rights of others,' that is, the rights of the prostitutes who so often are forced into that life, the equal rights of the people their customers encounter after they deal with prostitutes...you know, the right to choose, knowingly and freely, to enter into sexual relationships in full understanding of what dangers they may be encountering. I pity the prostitutes who have to live that life, I empathize and am angry for, those innocents who get those STD's and emotional betrayal by having sexual encounters with the 'johns' and 'janes' who have purchased those services, and received more than they paid for. I am truly condemning of those 'johns' and 'janes' who have such incredible and casual disrespect for both sides.

 

[dianaiad]

Actually, there was journalism professor at Ryerson University in Toronto a bunch of years ago who cheerfully admitted to prostituting himself on the side. Was quite proud of it, actually. I won't mention his name here, but you can easily find it on Google.

I notice that he is proud of being a prostitute 'on the side,' and that he is cheerful about it...because he is a journalism professor. Those guys will admit to anything to get noticed.

 

[dianaiad]

Do you know many people who grew up wanting to be garbage men? Or proctologists?

....actually, since people seem to be throwing out all sorts of anecdotes here, I'll add one. I have a cousin (well, I have an amazing number of cousins...first, second and third...but anyway) whose mother died of cancer of the rectum. He actually did want to become an oncologist specializing in the diseases of the digestive system, especially the large intestine, sigmoid area and rectum. He spent many years doing so, and saved a bunch of people from dying, like his mother. Now...what do they call what he does, again?

Oh. Yeah. He's a proctologist.

.........and my son is a HazMat technician and driver, cleaning up foul and extremely dangerous messes, from oil spills to exploded sewer treatment centers, to vehicle crashes that leave benzene and other carcinogenic substances all over the road. He's in that field because his father died of cancer when he was not even fifty, from having worked at the Lockheed Skunkworks. Lockheed did not even follow the hazardous waste procedures of the time, never mind the rules my son is absolutely death about enforcing. He has spent his life aiming for just that; to clean up that sort of mess.

But I don't know of any cousin who thought that being a prostitute or pimp was at all that clever an idea.

 

[Stevicus]

Do you know many people who grew up wanting to be garbage men? Or proctologists?

 

[dianaiad]

This question was directed to someone else. If it is regulated there has to be a clear vision. Is it to regulate an immovable social reality? Is it intended to create a new tax base? Is it for the purpose of decreasing the sex trade? Is it to decrease human trafficking? Is it to help with crime prevention? Is it for recruiting spies? Is it to help with some other thing? If you don't have a concerted and agreed upon vision then sex trade regulations will simply be spaghetti code. If you regulate sex trade you need a bureau that handles it. You need General McArthur, FCC or Greenspan type governance, not a board of trustees. Its got to be done by an institution built for purpose with a commission. Otherwise I don't see any gains from regulation by the addition of a few laws. You will be stuck then with wishy washy representatives voting about things they aren't experts in.

I consider that a form of regulation. My only objection to that limited regulation is that we need to find ways to catch and prevent human trafficking of children. Its a pervasive problem. Regulations should work to change that. Some things are facts. You can't get rid of alcohol and drugs, true. Sex trafficking? We have to, somehow eventually. We shouldn't let that become an accepted social truth. I don't know if regulating sex workers will help with that. I agree with you that sex workers should not be criminalized for being sex workers.

The OP title is "the oldest profession in the world," and what I meant was to question whether harmless prostitution could be the same thing as implied by the thread title.

I think the oldest profession must be fishing. I don't know much about the concept of patriarchy, but I believe it begins when the sizes of baby heads gets too large for the birth tract and the young require six years of nurturing. Then you have a high female mortality rate and so much work for them to do that they can barely think. Add to that their physical slightness.

Matriarchies that we know of don't really seem to favor women more than patriarchies. Somebody was talking to me about a Native American tribe that was a matriarchy. The women did all the work. They raised the children, chewed all the leather, grew all the crops. All the men did was go play and hunt and be taken care of by the women. Men ran the religion, so who do you suppose had the power? I don't see a lot of difference for women between it and patriarchy. Sometimes people on RF remark about female viking warriors. I think its sad that in Viking society you were a nobody unless you were a warrior which no doubt made it that much worse to be a female with slight build or with hopes of being a mother. What if you wanted to have babies? Unless you were a warrior first or somebody's wife you were nobody. I also hear this thing about Egypt being a great place for women, but that is all silly too. Among the priest culture inheritance comes through the women, but those women are this <> close to being slaves themselves. Everybody is, because all Egypt does is raid and take slaves. Its not a recipe for a good life or equal life for women. When we allow some people to be slaves we prepare our selves to be enslaved just as easily as them. A matriarchy with slavery seems (just casting about not really a historian) no better than any patriarchy. A matriarchy where women do all the work? That also seems not too different.

Well, darn. There really isn't a whole lot here to argue with. You're no fun.

 

[Polymath257]

Also, nothing in the OP stated that prostitution had to be the *only* source of income.

The question is whether there is a problem with someone accepting money to have sex. it could easily be a one-time exchange.

 

[Revoltingest]

Actually, I am a libertarian. Really. Right leaning, yes, but I really don't like either side of the major political split. I just dislike the Republicans a leetle less than I dislike Democrats, especially those on the far left.

I go by the axiom that your freedom to swing your arm around is inviolate--unless it reaches my nose. Prostitution does that. It hits everybody in the nose; especially the prostitute's. It hits MY nose because of the dangers his/her customers bring to others, including me, if I trust my partner and allow myself to have intercourse with him, and he forgets to tell me of his previous encounter with the germ and virus carriers they are. Never mind the immoral/unethical side of it. Just look at the sheer physical danger he has subjected himself too, and is, without thought, subjecting his other partners to.

THAT sort of permissiveness isn't what libertarianism is about. Perhaps you should read this: Key Concepts of Libertarianism to see the sort of libertarianism I hold to; especially the "rule of law" heading. "Libertarianism is not libertinism or hedonism. It is not a claim that “people can do anything they want to, and nobody else can say anything.” Rather, libertarianism proposes a society of liberty under law, in which individuals are free to pursue their own lives so long as they respect the equal rights of others."

Prostitution is the antithesis of this idea. It does nothing BUT harm, and certainly doesn't respect the 'equal rights of others,' that is, the rights of the prostitutes who so often are forced into that life, the equal rights of the people their customers encounter after they deal with prostitutes...you know, the right to choose, knowingly and freely, to enter into sexual relationships in full understanding of what dangers they may be encountering. I pity the prostitutes who have to live that life, I empathize and am angry for, those innocents who get those STD's and emotional betrayal by having sexual encounters with the 'johns' and 'janes' who have purchased those services, and received more than they paid for. I am truly condemning of those 'johns' and 'janes' who have such incredible and casual disrespect for both sides.

To oppose legal prostitution would make you a libertarian rarity.
I don't know if I've ever met one like you before.
Favoring prohibition of voluntary relationships over the less intrusive
regulation for public health is the more big government approach.
Instead, our approach is to avoid interfering in voluntary relationships
to the extent possible.
Your standards (demeaning, STD risks) would also apply to promiscuity.
Should that be illegal too?