Quote:
Originally Posted by MRM
Yeah, I'm one if those First amendment lawyers, if you mean by that I spent years of my life prosecuting strip club owners, johns and prostitutes who were represented by lawyers who tried to defend what they were doing using the First Amendment. Yeah, a lot of the money spent on their defense came from organized crime. Yeah, if I could keep a prostitute in jail long enough that she kicked her habit and got away from her pimp, she had a pretty good chance of never going back to that profession. I spent a lot of time at the sharp end of the spear with women who disagree with you. The decision of whether to allow themselves to be objectified is not in the control of the women who are being objectified. That is my point. Andwhen you see the Inside of the sex industry the way I did, you see the lack of free will to make that decision. The new patriarchy agrees with you because it likes having cheap and easy access to female sex toys. That should concern you as a human and a woman.
As for McLoving, you know better than that. Kittens are good. They make a tasty soup but they don't have much meat and it's all stringy. Masturbation in public is already illegal because it is not protected by the First Amendment. Masturbation in private is protected by the Fourth Amendment, and has been since at least Griswold v Connecticut. Consensual sex between men and women who are married but not to each other is protected and gay sex is protected by the Fourth Amendment. There isn't much government in the bedroom these days.
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Again - your examples deal with illegal prostitution, you saw the inside of illegal sex trade - women who are kept zoned out on drugs, beaten and used by criminals, who never wanted to be prostitutes in the first place - coerced and then kept in 'bondage' by criminals who use the fact that prostitution is illegal as a 'guarantee' that the women won't go to the officials to complain. You see lack of free will in prostitution because it is illegal. Go to somewhere where it is legal and regulated, women enter into legal prostitution for many reasons, but lack of free will isn't often one of them. As far as violence - you should know that illegal goods markets are almost always characterized by increases in violence. There is no redress for the victims, they can't take the pimps to court for wrongs done to their persons, they can't even report the crime.
You seem to think that women are unable to make good decisions regarding sex for pay - that women are weak and 'need protection' from their own bad decisions. That women are 'less' than men with regards to deciding what they want to do with their own bodies. Women are not less than men with regards to their ability to make good and bad decisions, they can and should be allowed to make those decisions based on their needs and goals, not on your or some '90s 'feminists' projection of what decision they believe would be right for them.
The fact that you believe that women cannot, and should not be in 'control' is because you wish to leave prostitution under the control of men, criminals and pimps. Again, prostitution isn't going away - you should know this - did all those cases that you prosecuted result in prostitution going away - of course not. Yet, by insisting that prostitution remain illegal you are continuing to sentence woman after woman to the exact same treatment from those criminals. It will not go away - you can legalize it or you can keep women trapped as victims in what otherwise should be merely a transaction between consenting adults. Keeping it illegal is what removes women's control of their bodies - not legalizing it. "The decision of whether to allow themselves to be objectified is not in the control of the women who are being objectified" (your quote),
because you want to keep it illegal. As soon as it is legalized, women have a choice, yes or no, walk or continue.
Allow women the right to choose what they want to do, they will surprise you. Women's suffrage should go far beyond the right to vote, it should encompass the right to choose our own destiny - good or bad, let us chose. If you remove what you believe is a 'bad' choice, you have left us with no choice.
If women want to be 'cheap and easy sex toys for money' isn't that their decision to make - why are you so determined to make that decision for them? Are they children, unable to discern your 'right' and 'wrong' declarations from on high? If they don't want to be a sex toy - then they won't, if they see it as a means to an end, why remove their choice? Let us fall down and get up - let us fail and succeed, none of which can happen if you remove our choices.
You are now spending time with a woman who believes that women are strong enough, smart enough and 'good' enough to make their own decisions regarding sex for pay. And those 'sticks' wielded by women who believe other women are weak, ignorant, and apparently unable to make good decisions regarding their own bodies may be sharp - but brittle and misfigured with malice.
Edit - I want to thank some really amazing people (men and women) who have actually been reading this thread this evening. I have carefully edited some their thoughts, however, since a couple of them are currently dressed in full Klingon battle dress, and their pointy sticks look more like bat'leths and would probably do some real damage, I didn't think it prudent to let them type...
