Is it wrong to pay for sex? Tom Smith

Probably, but it is OK to pray for sex.  It's less reliable but also less likely to get you into trouble.

With that silly beginning, I would like to weigh in on the subject Professor Rappaport introduced below.  I read part of the transcript of the debate he alludes to, and of course think that they are all wrong and I am right.  It is interesting to note, first of all, how much it is about how you frame the issue.  Just by putting the question as "Is it wrong to pay for sex" you invite disagreement over what is even being talked about.  This is probably in the interest of those who want to provoke debate.  The anti-prostitution gals argue reasonably enough that human trafficking, especially of children and the deceived, is indefensible.  Lionel Tiger notes, also quite reasonably, that everybody pays for sex one way or another. Both of these are true but don't really address the central question.  We all agree I hope that kidnapping anyone and selling them into the sex trade is very evil, and so is exploiting someone by way of fraud for the same purpose.  Similarly, everyone except for a few nutty feminists think it is just fine if a woman (or a man for that matter) wants to get married and provide services including sexual services outside of the formal market in exchange for financial and one hopes emotional support.  The notion that thinking marriage is an economic relationship somehow demeans it just shows many people have an overly narrow conception of economics.  Moreover, if a man, for example, expected his wife to have sex with him even though he is unwilling to work or otherwise bring anything to the table, he is just a pig.  Somehow it would be more moral for a man to expect sex even though he was a complete lazy slob?  Of course there are exchanges involved.  But that hardly makes marriage prostitution.

Professor Tiger seems to think that just because the Oingo Boingos buy their wives with goats, marriage is just the same as prostitution.  But this is silly.  We have as much right to our customs and mores as do the Oingo Boingos.  If you suggested to them that a wife ought to be purchased with a camera instead of a goat, they might put you in a pot and cook you.  Similarly, we have every right to take umbrage at someone suggesting the upright hausfrau is in the same category as the dancer available for other services.  We think with good reason that the former set up is conducive to good order, the good bringing up of children, and the regular upkeep of residential real estate.  None of these are things to be scorned.  You can't expect some dancing girl to stay up all night with a puking five year old.  She is probably going to be too busy throwing up herself.  Or himself.  In such a topsy turvy world, you'd probably have male dancers as well.

The issue is whether prostitution between willing and reasonably well informed adults ought to be legal, not kidnapping and not marriage.  The latter we should agree should be illegal and legal respectively.  Some people think prostitution as defined here ought to be legal, while others disagree.  I think it's an empirical question.  If prostitution narrowly defined in this way would undermine marriage and the family, spread disease and do the other things attributed to it, then I am not going to lose much sleep over banning it.  Yes, it would be a limitation on freedom, and hard core libertarians would object.  But there are lots of rights we give up so we can live in a minimally civilized society.  That we do not live in such a society is, I would argue, not to do with laws against prostitution and drugs, but more to do with limitations on freedom.  This is as it happens, but it is not an argument for going out and legalizing the more benign forms of prostitution.  On the other hand, who knows, maybe legalizing prostitution would have social benefits that outweigh the costs.  I've heard arguments that it would reduce the incidence of rape, raise tax revenues, and make ugly men less grumpy.  If it really would have social benefits that outweigh the costs, then purely moral objections would seem not to have much weight.

I don't think the argument that something seems to be going wrong with our sexual culture should be dismissed either.  Today at my son's preschool I saw a little girl of five wearing what appeared to be a low cut pair of pants, giving her that bare midriff look. The bare midriff look is sexy, without a doubt, but should a five year old girl be sporting it?  I don't think so. Humans are sexual animals and you can't just throw out standards and expect to like the results. But what standards and what results, I don't pretend to know.  I just know I see a lot of stuff I don't like. It could be that legalizing prostitution would make our society even more sexually crass and confused, and increase the number of girls who find themselves trapped in the sex industry, however rationally they thought they were making those decisions when they were 18, because of the culture they grew up in.  Or just the opposite might be true.  Those are the questions one would have to know about to know whether to legalize prostitution.  Neither one is illuminated much by observing that the trade in sex slaves is evil, or that the Oingo Boingos pay bride prices.

Comments

[David Schwartz]

Well then why not ban skiing? The cost to society of the accidents is high. The benefits could all be achieved from safer activities. Is it an empirical question whether we should ban skiing or not? Should we weigh the benefits and the costs and make the societally-optimal decision?

And, of course, we should prohibit overweight people from eating fast food.

If you want to make the argument that prohibition is an empiric cost/benefit analysis, you can certainly try to do so. But I don't think you'll succeed, and I don't think you'll find too many rational people who agree with you once they see where that road leads.

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