Do we really need to create a black market for burgers and fries? – Jeff Stier
Texas is finally beginning to realize that it has better ways to spend millions per year than locking up whores:
…a 2001 Texas law…allowed prosecutors to charge prostitutes with a felony…after three misdemeanor prostitution convictions…but now, with more than 350 prostitutes…occupying bunks in the state prison system, and dozens more serving time for drug and theft charges…questions are being raised about…the…waste of money. For about one-fourth the cost, such nonviolent, low-level criminals could be rehabilitated in community-based programs aimed at curing their addictions to alcohol and drugs…
The tone of the article can be judged by the fact that it describes Melissa Farley as “a recognized national expert on prostitution.” This Agitator guest post on the subject by Eric Sterling of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is far more satisfying:
…Consider the utterly unseemly entrapment of women by members of a vice squad. Think of the state of mind of the undercover police officer doing this work. Actually don’t think on this too long, it is disgusting…Assume that many prostitutes don’t like the work. So what? I know lots of lawyers who don’t like the work, too — renting their mind for thousands of hours a year for clients they find disgusting…Why do we judge this work to be illegal, other than on the basis of legal tradition? How are these women…[their] families…[or] society benefited by sending prostitutes to prison? How are their…employment prospects improved by arresting them?…
Actually, I do believe they’re telling the truth; pathetic attempts to get it for free aren’t Vitter’s style:
Sen. David Vitter’s spokesman…denied the Louisiana Republican was responsible for sending and quickly deleting a message from the senator’s official Twitter account to a young woman…Joel DiGrado [said]…Vitter “never personally tweets — in fact, he doesn’t even have the Twitter account set up on his Blackberry…The only explanation would seem to be an inadvertent staff button hit, perhaps related to the fact that, at various times the senator’s account has automatically followed whoever follows his account”…
Second sign that a human behavior is natural rather than cultural: it’s observed in other primate species:
When offered the choice of playing with either a doll or a toy truck, girls will typically pick the doll and boys will opt for the truck. This isn’t just because society encourages girls to be nurturing and boys to be active, as people once thought. In experiments, male adolescent monkeys also prefer
to play with wheeled vehicles while the females prefer dolls — and their societies say nothing on the matter. The monkey research, conducted with two different species in 2002 and 2008, strongly suggested a biological explanation for children’s toy preferences…
The article goes on to discuss other studies which demonstrate that infant testosterone levels correlate with the amount of time they spend looking at balls or trucks vs. dolls, and even baby girls exposed to abnormally-high androgen levels in utero (a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia) prefer the “male-typical” toys.
Clearly, prohibitionism is a kind of mental illness:
…Deborah Cohen…suggests that some of the policies we use to control alcohol consumption could help beat back obesity. “People realized…that alcohol was a problem…so they developed all kinds of regulations to make it less convenient…Perhaps now it’s time to rein in our easy access to food,” Cohen said…[measures] could include warning labels for foods high in fat and sugar, or maybe restrictions on where in the grocery store foods are displayed to curb impulse buying…Cohen [also] likes New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to ban the sale of large-sized sugary drinks…
There’s nothing wrong with this in theory, but it will take much more than a week to have any effect:
The female wing of a civil rights group is urging women in Togo to stage a week-long sex strike to demand the resignation of the country’s president…Isabelle Ameganvi, leader of the women’s wing of the group Let’s Save Togo…said…her group is following the example of Liberia’s women, who used a sex strike in 2003 to campaign for peace…
A Swedish booklet from 2007 (described in Oscar Swartz’ A Brief History of Swedish Sex) helpfully explains that begging equals rape:
…The…144 page booklet…gave a message that could not be misunderstood: Girls should always and only think of themselves…[and] boys…should only think of the girl and her emotions and wishes and never of themselves. Girls are encouraged to put on provocative clothing, drink, flirt, fool around, join boys from the pub, lie down in their bed, excite them – but at the last second say no. She must never question whether…[it is OK] to act in such ways, since it is her legal right…If something did not feel good, girls are reassured that they must report their boyfriends, dates or lovers to the police…“If sex is achieved through begging and pleading…then it is rape”, says…psycho-therapist Monica Mardell…
In other words, if a Swedish man does anything other than mutely and passively submit to a woman’s sexual advances, he is a rapist.
Welcome to our world, chemists:
Last May, Deborah Blum…published a column pleading with…Nick Kristof to stop writing about chemical risk…[now] Kristof is at it again, [claiming]…“Big Chem” is preventing the Federal Government from protecting Americans from dangerous, endocrine disrupting chemicals…it appears that [Kristof] only reads [research] produced by a very, very small group of scientists – all on the farthest reaches of the environmental left. He applies no statistical or experimental criticism to these studies: they always “really” find what they claim to have found; and he seems unaware of the many non-industry funded studies or regulatory agency assessments that contradict them…
If you’re anything like me, one Kristof-bashing session is never enough; so, here’s Melissa Gira Grant in Jacobin:
…“True, many of the prostitution ads on Backpage are placed by adult women acting on their own without coercion,” writes…professional prostitute savior Nicholas Kristof. But, he continues…“they’re not my concern.” He would like us to join him in separating women into those who chose prostitution and those who were forced into it; those who view it as business and those who view it as exploitation; those who are workers and those who are victims; those who are irremediable and those who can be saved. These categories…fail to explain the reality of one woman’s work, let alone a class of women’s labor…But happy hookers, says Kristof, don’t despair, this isn’t about women like you – we don’t really mean to put you out of work. Never mind that shutting down the businesses people in the sex trade depend on for safety and survival only exposes all of them to danger and poverty, no matter how much choice they have…
Metaupdates
A Tale That Grew in the Telling in October Updates (Part Three)
The claims of “sex trafficking” fanatics get more outlandish all the time:
The Internet has created the golden age of the sex industry. It’s an $87 million a day business and it’s growing…Working in the commercial sex industry is the most dangerous job in the world. Most of us think we understand the business of sex: what it is and what (if anything) should be done to control it. But the reality is complex and sinister. Caught up in it are young men and women who are trafficked…Some opt in by choice. But most don’t. Unsuspecting victims fall prey to the elaborate schemes of predatory pimps who…know that a girl can generate upwards of $300,000 a year…
For perspective: I used to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and I owned an escort service in addition to my own work, yet I still never made $300,000 in one year. In fact, I think that all the living whores who can reliably exceed that every year could comfortably fit in my house. But I guess for a mind stupid enough to believe that a hooker can see 50 men a night, $300,000 a year is quite reasonable.
The Crumbling Dam in TW3 (#20)
All over Canada, support for decriminalization continues to grow:
Giving the children of Vancouver’s missing women financial compensation and decriminalizing sex work, heroin and cocaine are just some of 37 recommendations set out by a new Missing Women inquiry report…the Independent Counsel recommendations detail a comprehensive list aimed at stopping another serial killer from preying on marginalized sex workers…“At the core of the difficulty is a set of police attitudes that are influenced by the unlawful status of sex work and drug use,” said the report’s author, lawyer Jason Gratl…“Sex workers and drug users are afraid to approach police because they fear persecution and arrest, even if they’re victims of serious physical or sexual crimes.” When investigating the missing women, police rarely interviewed victims’ friends or family because…[they believed] the sex workers didn’t have friends or neighbours…
Reading Between the Lines in TW3 (#26)
“Oklahoma City police joined with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and the FBI to arrest 44 people in a prostitution and human trafficking sting. The arrests include people accused of prostituting themselves, aiding a prostitute and soliciting the services of a prostitute. This is part of an ongoing nationwide investigation into human trafficking called Operation Cross Country…” Total number of minors or “trafficked persons” arrested: zero.
The Pro-Rape Coalition in TW3 (#30)
This was already a done deal, but now it’s official:
A Monday press release from faith-based advocacy group Morality in Media celebrates the Republican Party’s platform as now targeting all…pornography, not just illegal child pornography…“Distribution of obscene or hardcore pornography on the Internet is a violation of current federal law,” explained MIM’s President Patrick A. Trueman. “Yet, most children in America have free access to obscene pornography as soon as they learn how to use a computer. The average age of first exposure to obscene Internet pornography is now eleven.” Trueman also suggested that…the federal government should police “obscenity,” not only…on the Internet, but also on hotel…TVs, cable or satellite television, and in retail shops…
Eleven as the average age of first exposure to the sex industry…now, where have I heard that before?
The Course of a Disease in TW3 (#31)
Apparently, prohibitionists have a very weird idea of what words like “support” and “help” mean, and have learned absolutely nothing from the catastrophic failure of the “War on Drugs”:
A new poll…has indicated that only 20 percent of the Danish population supports the government’s proposal to outlaw sex purchases, while a full 67 percent…are against it…But despite [this] politicians like Rasmus Horn Langhoff…contend that it must be done in order to support the women in the sex industry. “…We must send a clear message that it is not okay to buy sex because of how negative it is for the women,” Langhoff [said]…“If we target the customers then we help the prostitutes who don’t need to go underground”…But…law group Gadejuristen (the Street Lawyer)…painted a…different picture. “It’s completely wrong if you think that you can solve serious social issues by criminalising them. Doing this will only worsen the situation,” [said] Nanna Gottfredsen…“You push the sex workers further into a grey zone. They will hide themselves and their activities and social workers will no longer be able to contact those in need of help.”
This Week in 2011
Maslow’s Hammer; the inevitability of Nature getting her way; the counterfeit comfort of “sex offender” registries; how reality can only be fit into simplistic belief systems by ignoring most of it; questions on polyamory, penis size and racial preferences; language patterns of New Orleans; and Michael Weinstein’s campaign to turn porn movies into commercials for his product.
This Week in 2010
Several of my most unusual calls and my favorite New Orleans eateries; three columns about very special girls who touched my heart; the original “sex trafficking” hysteria of a century ago; and my first column on the “condoms in porn” controversy.
“[measures] could include…restrictions on where in the grocery store foods are displayed to curb impulse buying”
This one actually sounds halfway sane. Much like modern advertising, the sort of deliberate manipulation of the hindbrain grocery stores use in their floor design feels like mental assault to me. It’s hard enough keeping my hands off the metabolic poison without being compelled to walk past it every time I go to the store.
I dunno if I’d vote for restricting sales displays — I’m in the look-three-times-before-attempting-to-regulate-*anything* camp — but it doesn’t strike me as a particularly stupid or evil idea.
I agree that this is profoundly annoying. When my girls were little it was always a chore getting past the checkout line without a candy purchase. Now the local supermarket has going to self-checkout. About six months later they realized we didn’t have to pass the candy gauntlet when we used the self checkout machine. The store responded with freestanding candy displays. But the self checkout area was not designed for the displays, so they are completely in the way when trying to approach the scanner with a heavy basket.
That being said, I am not one of those people who think that stuff that annoys me should be illegal.
I don’t think that people make up figures to support their cases; rather I think that these numbers are half-remembered figures, taken totally out of context. Thus, you have said above, I paraphrase, that there are whores who earn more than $300,000 per year. Ergo, goes the reasoning, many if not most earn at least this. And as for 50 clients a night; well, I can vaguely remember reading about the brothel services provided during WW1. There were two, red light for the men and blue light for the officers. The men were lined up outside, marshalled by a senior warrant officer. And yes, they had 10 minutes or so, and the warrant officer would move them on after their time slot was up. So 50 ‘clients’ in a shift was quite possible. Ergo, all whores can see 50 clients a night, and if they work every night in a year — as they might well have been forced to in WW1 — it only equates to a fee of $100 or so, which seems very reasonable, in order to earn the $300,000 per annum. By conflating two pieces of ‘evidence’ people will reinforce their beliefs — no matter that the original stories are unrelated; Some people’s beliefs are totally resistant to facts, evidence and reasoning — the sort of people who ‘know’ that they are right and that you are wrong. The definition of psychosis: a fixed false belief, one that is unshakeable by reasoning (and, medically, out of keeping with the person’s background).
The only problem with that theory is that it doesn’t fit the history of the lies and the MO of the “trafficking” movement. The “50 per night” didn’t appear until the beginning of the summer; before that the usual claim was 15. I suspect some fanatic or careless reporter attended a presentation and misheard “fifteen” as “fifty”, creating a new myth. As for the $300,000 figure, I suspect that’s the product of the fake math prohibitionists are so enamored of.
“Girls should always and only think of themselves#[and] boys#should only think of the girl and her emotions and wishes and never of themselves. Girls are encouraged to put on provocative clothing, drink, flirt, fool around, join boys from the pub, lie down in their bed, excite them – but at the last second say no.”
My now ex wife was a morning person and I am a night owl. Our eventual compromise was that I’d stay with her when she went to bed and get back up after she had gone to sleep.
This, of course, was a natural setup for sex. And, often, when she wanted sex, that’s exactly what happened. But when I wanted sex? Well….no. Except, sometimes, she’d (actually!) say “Poor Bill, I’ve neglected you for weeks, let’s do it”. No, that did not make me feel loved. 😐
But it got worse. More than once, and then with increasing frequency, she’d act willing but, once I was ready, tell me she was sleepy. As you can guess, I was not happy about that!
Actually, I ended up with so much anxiety about sex that merely climbing into bed with her made me feel awful and the prospect of sex with her made me actively nauseous.
And then she was surprised when I told her I wasn’t going to have sex with her anymore….
Which is to say, those girls and their guys are in for a heap of misery if those are the rules they apply to sex. Sex must involve equal responsibility and respect or it is profoundly destructive.
The article goes on to discuss other studies which demonstrate that infant testosterone levels correlate with the amount of time they spend looking at balls or trucks vs. dolls, and even baby girls exposed to abnormally-high androgen levels in utero (a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia) prefer the “male-typical” toys.
I would be a good study for the nature v. nurture argument. I was playing with my older brother’s toys as soon as I could walk. To the point where the “threatened” to run away if my parents didn’t, and I quote, ‘get that child away from my toys’. Heh. Although, as I got older, he didn’t mind as long as I didn’t break anything and certainly once the two-player video games became more popular, I was a worthy co-player/opponent. Ditto for rpgs; he usually practiced his gm skills with me. That said, I still loved my Barbie dolls and even though I’d play Laser Tag with my brothers and friends, I did so in a dress with whatever glittery makeup and nail polish my parent would let me get away with.
In other words, if a Swedish man does anything other than mutely and passively submit to a woman’s sexual advances, he is a rapist.
Amazing how that would make him a rapist and not her. If it was vice-versa, it most definitely would be considered rape. So, here’s a question putting that mentality in a slightly different context, is a child begging for toys from parents considered domestic abuse? I mean, that’s just silly.
Or, is a parent begging their children to put away their toys child abuse? If so, my mom abused me thousands of times.
The “begging equals rape” notion isn’t just in Sweden, it’s sprouted up in America too:
http://www.cotwa.info/2012/03/legal-infirmities-to-punishing-sexual.html
Incredible but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Thanks for the link.
Aspasia expressed my sentiments exactly.
It’s a logical progression… attacks on professional sex, drunk sex, surprise sex, pleading sex. Each term can then be expanded ad infinitum, incrementally nearing the goal of an absolute ban on all heterosex.
“If sex is achieved through begging and pleading (…) then it is rape”, says the campaign expert and psycho-therapist Monica Mardell.
I think that Monica Mardell might want to make the acquaintance of the psychology of “rape rape” (to quote noted expert Whoopi Goldberg). It might… might give her a reality check.
In a Ramadan sermon that has outraged Muslim women leaders, Sydney-based Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali also alluded to the infamous Sydney gang rapes, suggesting the attackers were not entirely to blame.
While not specifically referring to the rapes, brutal attacks on four women for which a group of young Lebanese men received long jail sentences, Sheik Hilali said there were women who “sway suggestively” and wore make-up and immodest dress … “and then you get a judge without mercy (rahma) and gives you 65 years”.
“But the problem, but the problem all began with who?” he asked.
The leader of the 2000 rapes in Sydney’s southwest, Bilal Skaf, a Muslim, was initially sentenced to 55 years’ jail, but later had the sentence reduced on appeal.
In the religious address on adultery to about 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, Sheik Hilali said: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?
“The uncovered meat is the problem.”
The sheik then said: “If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.”
He said women were “weapons” used by “Satan” to control men.
“It is said in the state of zina (adultery), the responsibility falls 90 per cent of the time on the woman. Why? Because she possesses the weapon of enticement (igraa).”
I’m sure that there is an underlying linkage in the psychologies of these two exponents of absurdity. I just can’t quite put my finger on it…
“I’m sure that there is an underlying linkage in the psychologies of these two exponents of absurdity. I just can’t quite put my finger on it…”
Not sure if being sarcastic, but…
Both basically place the average woman in the space of legal responsibility and competency usually reserved for the comatose, inanimate objects, and some of the more adorable varieties of kittens; they’re not really people and therefore can’t make decisions (and shan’t be held responsible for the consequences of said decisions).
…and that’s degrading to women.
😉
Re: $300,000. I think I see where they are getting that. If $300 is a typical fee, that works out to about 3 clients a day, no? I realize that assumes working girls are seeing three clients a day every day and taking home all their fee. But what would say is a “typical” income for an escort? Or the typical number of clients she sees in a year? (Obviously 50 a day is ridiculous; even Messalina couldn’t manage that).
PS – regardless of their math, it’s a bit silly. There are perfectly legal mistresses, trophy wives and other “arrangements” that make far more than $300,000.
*pulls out abacus*
$300,000 per year is $822 per day. Divided by 50 clients per day, that’s roughly $16.50 per client.
That’s bull. Or a bargain for the apparently infinite customers of whatever parallel reality this makes sense in.
I suspect they’re going with the “15 clients a day” trope which was usual until this past spring; that would make it $60/client, which is a low (but not bottom) streetwalker rate.
Groupon, apparently.
Tee Hee. One wonders if redeeming a groupon coupon requires, in this case, redeeming it as a group…
Let’s see, SuperBowl commercial. Distance shot of writhing organic mass. Zooming closeup of groupon coupon affixed to naked buttocks. Tag line…
Get Your Group On
I’m in Germany and all I can say is “Fkk’s RULE”. I thought my heart was going to stop working yesterday and I have another two days of this! 😛
But I always have time for my favorite blogger, Maggie McNeill!
Let me comment on the Republican Party – which I feel infinitely qualified to give an honest opinion on since I was a Republican for more than two decades …
First – you MAY see a shift in GOP leadership soon from “establishment” types who’ve controlled it for over the last 50 or so years, maybe longer. Those guys are quickly being replaced by “Tea Party” or “GrassRoots” guys … who are more ideological.
The establishment GOP has been at war with it’s own base since the time of Goldwater. In order to secure the blessings of the base, the GOP has always had to endorse, in spirit, some of the ideological issues the base holds dear. However, such endorsement was only “lip service” in most cases, and rarely manifested itself in establishment legal support.
Let us take the issue of abortion for example.
Not really sure what Nixon and Ford’s position on abortion was – but every GOP POTUS since then has called himself rabidly PRO-LIFE. But, let’s look at this …
What has the NATIONAL GOP ever done to curtail abortions? Nothing really except a ban on partial birth abortions. That law was enacted only after it was clear in the polls that the vast majority of Americans (even non-Republicans) were against the procedure anyway. It went into effect with little outrage and that is the kind of the law the GOP establishment likes because it doesn’t cost them the votes of independents. Remember here – that not that many GOP voters identify themselves as “Republican” – so the GOP has to go hard and heavy for “indie” votes.
In spite of all the hype on abortion – no GOP POTUS has ever tilted the scales of the SCOTUS to a degree that would support a reversal on Roe-V-Wade. Every time the issue comes up … voila! There’s a Republican appointee there joining the liberals in the majority to re-validate the legality of Roe-V-Wade!
It’s the same for most of the more “contentious” laws – like ObamaCare – John Roberts, Bush appointee saved ObamaCare.
So – saying that the GOP is going after pornography now – is technically correct, but while the establishment is in control they’ll only go after the forms of porn that Americans have a demonstrated an overwhelming disdain for.
A better name for the GOP would be … “The Play It Safe Party” … other names … “Lack of Ballz Party” … “Eunuchs United” … etc … you get the point!
Congressman Ron Paul has been very consistent in his votes about abortion plus has put forward bills against it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctity_of_Life_Act -see “legistlative history” section. I’ll always admire his consistency in this area. Even 1 Republican who DOES instead of JUST TALKS in regards to the abortion issue COUNTS. Paul proves again the power of the individual. It’s wonderful that he doesn’t JUST talk. He tries to changes things at the LEAST which is so much better than the Republicans who just talk and do nothing else.
I suppose that having a Republican put forth an abortion ban from time to time, knowing that it will fail, could be just playing politics. Sort of like having a Democrat put out a single-payer health-care plan from time to time, knowing that it will fail. Such actions score points with conservative and liberal bases, respectively.
Let me add, before I’m leapt upon in an unpleasant way (Laura, in particular, is always welcome to leap upon me in a pleasant way 😉 ), that it’s also possible that the Republican and/or Democrat in my examples are actually trying to ban abortion/get single-payer going, or at least considered.
A lot of things are just playing politics, but not everything.
Some people seemed absolutely obsessed with sex. And many of them campaign against it.
I just can’t understand the “everything is rape” crowd.
Sometimes, if a man is begging and seems needy enough, one can give him a pity fuck. The biggest risk there is gaining a “boyfriend” who will follow you like a hungry puppy.
And if one is talked into sex, or is a bit too drunk and has sex with someone, or someones, well, what of it? We’ve all been there. The next morning, you wake up hung over and say “I shouldn’t have done that” and get on with it. Whining doesn’t undo the past. It’s not as if anything awful has happened.
Sometimes, i think some of these women lead boring lives and want some drama to make them feel special. I’ve no time nor patience for that.
And some people have this attitude of “Oh, I’ve had sex I didn’t particularly fancy now my life has changed forever, wha, wha!” Please. It hasn’t. You’ve most likely had dinners that weren’t good either, that you wished you hadn’t, too. That’s life. It’s not always quality.
I’ve had arguments with women who tell me that, since I’m such a whore, I don’t “get it”, that sex is nothing special to me, that I don’t treat my vagina like some sacred vessel I guard as I should. No, I don’t. It’s a body part, just like a hand or foot.
Sometimes I think this world needs a big dose of “Get over it.”
That’s interesting because I think most men have the attitude that “it’s only sex” also. I think the only thing that men think will “ruin” them sexually is a homosexual experience. Other than that – whatever happens, happens and you just pick up and move on with life.
I fell in love with this girl in bootcamp who was tall, skinny, and had a face with the complexion of a pepperoni pizza. We couldn’t hook up in boot camp but we did in some training after that. A couple of my friends had an “intervention” of sorts to point out to me how ugly she was – which I had to admit that yeah, she was no “Ginger Grant” for sure, and naked, she had the body of a space alien species that was half female, half flamingo but she somehow turned me on. And I had to admit – yeah – if she looks like this at the age of 19 one can only dream of how horrific she’ll look at 40! LOL
Fortunately we both got reassigned to different duty stations after the training pipeline and we lost touch. 😀
It’s hard for me to believe that there is any biological preference for wheeled toys, because wheeled toys haven’t been around that long. Something else must be at work. I know that apes don’t have “dolls are for girls, trucks are for boys” cultural programming, so something other than THAT must be at work.
I could maybe buy that girls (even girl apes) are predisposed (not stone tablet destined) to like ersatz babies, and boys to like anything but.
According to the article, it’s that girls prefer hominid shapes and boys things that move.
If I had to guess, I would say it has to do with the distribution of cognitive styles across genders. Among humans, males women tend to be more empathetic information processors (driven to identify others’ thoughts, feelings, and motivations) and men more systematic processors (driven to understand the underlying physical rules of a system or process).
This is a statistical tendency rather than hard rule, but if it carries over to our relatives in the animal kingdom it plausibly explains why young female apes might prefer toys reflecting social entities while young male apes prefer toys with moving, mechanical parts.
Should have read your reply before making my own. But hey, now it’s been said twice. 😀
Now that I could buy. On my Fry’s credit card. 😉
IF we remember that these are general tendencies. The little girl who likes blocks and Hot Wheels isn’t some perverted aberration, nor is the boy who likes dolls.
I know you’re always saying, “We all know that there are exceptions,” and generally I agree, but when we start getting into these biological explanations, it needs to be pointed out more often.
[…] Maggie Mcneill writes of a Dallas News item, “Dallas officials are trying to push their “prostitution diversion” scheme on the rest of Texas as a replacement for locking women up. While any move away from incarceration is good news, the motivation is a desire to save money rather than a recognition that criminalization of consensual adult behavior is wrong; whores are still regarded as “criminals” to be “rehabilitated”, and all are assumed to be miserable victims who want out of sex work.” Mother Jones magazine, which really should know better, sings the project’s praises while painting the most condescending picture of street sex workers we’ve read in weeks. Betrayed by the left? Must be a Friday. Meanwhile, SWOP protested Tucson’s Project Raise, a similar project that gives sex workers the non-choice of arrest or diversion into the system for forced “rehabilitation”. […]
Hi,
My husband suffered from erectile dysfunction after a motorbike accident impaled his penis. We got married.
He had a very active libido, and the first year of married life our sex life thrived.
My husband passed away last year.
But I have since discovered that he used an Escort to give him blow jobs whilst we were still married! He also went to a tantric sex expert.
I am trying to understand why he would do this behind my back rather than discuss his erectile dysfunction problems with me.
I feel so hurt with his secret, betrayal and him disrespecting me as as a loyal, committed wife. I feel he didn’t truly love me if he couldn’t share his problems with me and had to stray.
I do remember him once saying after I gave him a bj that he didn’t expect I would do that act!
I am distraught.
Katie, it’s entirely possible that having ED made him very insecure, both about “being a man” and not pleasing you too. In that set of circumstances, the more deeply he felt about you, the worse that feeling would be.
Given that, a fear of rejection by the most important person in his life and those insecurities, he may have literally been unable to raise the subject with you. The anxiety may have been crippling. The more he cared about your reaction the less able he would be to talk about it.
That’s a guess, mind, but not outside the realms of possibility.
You mentioned his suprise at you giving him oral sex. Maggie refers to a concept called the Madonna/whore duality : it’s the (socially implanted) idea that “only bad girls have nasty dirty filthy sex”, “a wife is by definition not a bad girl”, and “bad girls are never wife material” so that “wives don’t do anything thought of as filthy”. It’s complete horseshit, but people get sucked in by it all the time, and it leads to a kind of marital sexual repression.
The other thing that his suprise suggests, was that both of you hadn’t talked about that aspect of your sex life beforehand.
So, since he has virtually zero-risk in his (for pay, non-emotionally invested) dealings (I avoided “relationship” deliberately) with sex workers, it’s entirely likely he could be sexually open with them, even about things he’d be ashamed to talk to you about. Especially those things he’d think you would reject him for.
To restate, it’s entirely because his emotional relationship with you was *the most valuable* to him, you were the *last person* he could be open with; risking your relationship was a huge gamble in his mind, and rejection would be devastating. That’s a profound disincentive to openness.
Made moreso, since he had ED, his confidence would be rock bottom anyway.
The fundamental : sex workers didn’t matter to him; therfore rejection/reaction wasn’t an issue; so he could work out his confidence issues free of anxiety if things didn’t work.
It sounds like, if I may be so bold, that they did, giving him confidence, and your sexual life was, in spite of the damage from the accident, a happy one.
Even anxiety alone, never mind physical damage as well, can inhibit a guy, as Maggie can no doubt tell you. So this vital step to giving you what you need is something that has to be held secret.
I can totally understand your anguish. I can also understand his potential thoughts from a male point of view.
If I had ED, and a loving fantastic supportive wife, I’d get tied in absolute *knots* with the issue, and it would be almost unsurmountable. If I can overcome the anxiety like that, to get things back on track, and have confidence that i’m capable of pleasing you, it all unknots in my mind.
I sincerely hope this helps.
Thanks Lee and Maggie.
What hurts is the fact that he didn’t trust me enough to share in his problems. He had told me about the incident and I would have helped, and even attended couples (tantric) sex counselling with him.
Also, the fact that I found an email requesting owo to an Escort which shocked me, as he couldn’t have really loved me if he was willing to risk passing on a STI to me.
He was a very proud man, and like many strong independent women, I thought he was different from other men and would be as loyal as me, but I guess I was wrong.
Finding out these secrets has actually helped ease the grieving process, and allowed me to let him go. It will be a year in July since his death, when I will be able to let the past hurt and betrayal go and hopefully move on.
It has however put a dampener on my trusting a man ever again…
Whoa, sweetie, I know you’re hurting, and I’m sorry to hear that. But you have it backward; the fact that he went to a pro is a sign he DID care and love you. There are all sorts of reasons men can’t keep it in their pants, and no offense to my male readers but most of ’em just can’t. The guys who pick up chicks in bars or fuck the girl next door are the ones not exercising due diligence, but the ones who see escorts are using harm reduction techniques. Sex professionals aren’t interested in breaking up marriages; it’s just a job for us. In fact, I’ve even given clients marital advice (believe it or not). And the chance of getting an STI from a professional is DRAMATICALLY lower than getting it from an amateur; some figures say the rate in amateurs is literally dozens of times what it is in pros.
A lot of women think that for a man to cheat is a sign he doesn’t love his wife, but that simply isn’t true; I hope you can accept that, so the memory of your husband isn’t tainted. Like everyone, he was a flawed human being, and it seems to me that he was doing his best to keep those flaws from hurting you. I hope you can find peace.