Moonage Political Webdream

I got a whiff of this exchange from Captain’s Quarters in the form of a rebuttal of a rebuttal. In this exchange of rebuttals, they got very deep into the ethics of placing a value on personal services or something like that. It was too heavy for me at this moment in time. So, I searched out the original article. I finally found it in another Captain post referring to an article where Glenn Reynolds points to an article by Cathy Young. She gets rather complicated as well, citing all kinds of facts and lofty philosophical opinions.

My thoughts on prostitution are rather mundane compared to the dialogue all those people have gotten themselves mired in. It’s very simple. Follow me if you can. If not, I’ll try to elaborate more clearly in the future. Okay? Here goes:

• If a man or woman can bounce a ball up and down and aim it a goal, we pay them to play basketball.
• If a man can hold a ball and knock other guys down to get where he wants to be, we pay them to play football.
• If a man or woman looks good enough, we pay them to act.
• If a man or woman uses his vocal cords well enough, we pay them to sing.
• If a man or woman can hit a small object coming at him at 90 miles per hour with a small wooden stick, we pay them to play baseball.
• If a man or woman is big and strong enough, and can pummel another person into a catatonic state lying helplessly on a mat, we pay them to box. If they’re good enough to fake being pummeled into a helpless catatonic state on the mat, we pay them to be “professional” wrestlers.
• If a man or woman is good enough to convince another person to give up their last penny to purchase something they don’t need, we pay them to be sales reps.
• If a woman is particularly good at sex, it has more value for me than any of those other talents that we pay a lot of money for. However, it’s illegal to use that one, very specific talent.

Go figure.

I know where the roots of this mentality came from. However, I don’t agree with it. Prostitution is no more immoral than paying any person to perform what they are good at, or choose to sell. Ashlee Simpson can’t sing, but she’s allowed to try to sell it anyway. So, why is that one talent singled out as being bad? We pay women to look really sexy, but selling the sex itself is illegal. We buy movies out the wazzoo promoting promiscuity. The internet would still be dial-up with CGA text screens if it weren’t for sex. It’s everywhere, and it’s illegal. To me this is extremely counter-intuitive for society. Rather than trying to convince every single person that their sexual fantasies are bad and ruining their eternity, we should be satisfying those most-basic human urges in a way that mentally rewarding, as well as medically safer. Then, according to that hierarchy of needs, we can then promote the next level. Instead, the oldest industry known to man is left to amateurs usually strung out on drugs and infected with a host diseases just itching to be spread en mass. So, I’m not going to get into the value of self-worth here or eternal damnation. It’s a basic human function no different than eating food. We can cater that need safely and in a rewarding fashion, or, we can continue as we have promoting an illegal subculture that thrives on being bad. Keeping prostitution illegal is a lose-lose proposition that can only be supported by emotion. And, obviously, I’m not an emotional kinda guy.

• And, for what it’s worth, before I get bitched at by “the right”. Eliminating a restrictive law is conservative ( smaller government ). Passing laws telling me what I can or can not do is liberal ( more government ). Until we get those core values back to where they were for 150 years, people will continue to be “polarized” since they are obviously confused by mixed messages.

• And, secondly, before people toss my anti-drug stance as a rebuttal, the consequences of the illegal drug industry are costly to society as a whole. Therefore it merits the attention of the law. Prostitution on the other hand, if done safely and legally, in theory would present no issues to society as a whole. Therefore merits no attention from the law. If I am proven wrong, then I’d rethink the legalization of it for either issue. I doubt I am tho. Satisfying a sexual urge when money’s not available is handled rather easily. Satisfying a drug withdrawal with no money is not.

Technorati Tags: Comments from the Host, prostitution

Tags: Comments from the Host, prostitution

3 Comments »

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed