>>>>I'm not saying anyone is asserting this, but I don't buy the idea that there's such a thing as "good" prostitution.
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>>I guess you're not quite old enough to remember Wimin loudly proclaiming that all housewives are prostitutes?
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>>Sheesh, prostitution is legal in more places than the Netherlands and while you and I may not partake, the reality is that it happens wherever there's a market and if it's illegal, it goes along with drugs, vice and crime. But markets aren't just low class and seedy either- consider the ex-New York Attorney General who paid over a thousand dollars per episode. As long as he had the $, where was the victim in that transaction? One day, perhaps going with a prostitute will be as disreputable as a man going with another male used to be.... society reared back in horror and people were blackmailed or lost plum posts not so long ago.
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>The fact that I had to look up "Wimin" tells you the answer on that one :)
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>Here are my views on prostitution, "take it or leave it"
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>Topics like prostitution and pornography are what many conservative-libertarians view as "tests of our loyalty to principles". I don't think they should be outlawed (except for age-content laws), but I think prostitution in particular is morally wrong, period. It's an abdication of one's decency. Ayn Rand pegged it when she talked about her moral opposition to these things - it's not because she was a prude, it's because she viewed sexual relations as very important in human lives, TOO important to be debased.
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>On "who was the victim in the transaction"...from a legal standpoint, no one. But from a moral standpoint, I'd say both parties. I would hate myself if I paid $$$ like the ex NY Attorney General did.
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>So that's what's said about the entire topic. The issue of whether it's legal is really peripheral to the bigger issue - of doing things contrary to one's esteem.

I find myself of two minds on this subject. For the most part, I agree with what you said. OTOH, I can't help but wonder if this is yet another place where our moral judgments are based on being disturbed by women expressing their sexuality.

Tamar