A certain Dr McGrath spoke up for the doctor a week or so ago, and last night at a packed public meeting in Mangonui Julian Pistorius put in a word or two for the hookers -- or at least the erstwhile Dr Benson's freedom to hire them. (Apparently Sue Bradford, a strong promoter of the Prostitution Reform Act was "very sympathetic," but alas apparently washing her hair last night and unable to attend).
Here's just some of Julian's words:
Dr Benson should enjoy the right to do with his private property what he wants, as long as he does not violate the equal rights of his neighbours...I can't argue with him. You might disagree with what Dr Neil Benson is doing with his business, but the crucial phrase in this sentence is just two words: "His business." Not yours.
The issue at stake is a crucial one. It is one of morality as opposed to law. Maxim Institute busybody Scott McMurray] has already admitted that one can't change human nature by force. Assume, however, that you are forced to behave in a certain way by restrictive laws, laws that dictate morality. Firstly, who decides what's moral? The majority? The minority that claims to be most offended? Everybody is offended by certain things they consider immoral.
Secondly, if due to morality laws, you are not free to choose between a moral action and an immoral action, then can you really be moral? Only a free choice, can be a moral choice. Immoral choices have negative consequences, but you can only learn what is moral by looking at other people's examples, and by learning from your own mistakes.
So the only way for you to change society for the better, is not to ban things you don't approve of, but to live morally, set a good example, and to let people be free to make their own mistakes, to learn from the consequences of their own actions.
A free society has to be a tolerant society.
And now it's surely time for some gratuitous pictures of prostitutes.
LINKS: Switch to brothel gains GP notoriety -NZ Doctor
Libz Back Benson's Beach Bordello - Dr Richard McGrath
Dr Neil Benson's Brothel - Julian Pistorius
11 comments:
It may be the 'free market' - but that is someone's daughter involved in pornography and prostitution. Someone has been drawn into that world.
Do you really want to be financing, promoting, and applauding that - no matter if it is 'libertarian' or not. I know trailer park 'trash' with higher moral standards.
Julian said"It is one of morality as opposed to law. Scott had already admitted that one can't change human nature by force."
It goes MUCH further than 'morality'
Why do women and girls “enter’’ prostitution? Different studies from around the world have shown that combinations of factors increase the likelihood of women and girls being drawn into this exploitative condition. Such factors include poverty, pervasive gender inequality, homelessness, lack of family support, and prior sexual and physical violence by male relatives or intimate partners.
The body of research suggests that at least a majority of women and girls involved in prostitution have been victims of male sexual violence as children or adolescents
http://www.women21.or.kr/news/W_English/W_News/W_News_View.asp?ENID=13&page=1&Rpos=5
But it's all good according to you people. And you wonder why you get so few votes. Sigh. Double sigh.
You shouldn't presume that women are in the game against their will. I use to have a tenant that was a prostitute, she loved it. She got great money and didn't have to work 9-5 in an office. She certainly had the smarts to do very well in a 'normal' job, but she didn't want it. Just because you would only become a prositute if your children were about to starve to death, doesn't mean it's the same for all women.
No one is saying it is against their will. But look at the background which leads them to it. No one wakes up one morning and says "Hey I think I will be a prostitute"
And you people applaud and encourage such exploitation (Oh here are some pics of prostitutes- yay!!) and decry Christians like Chesswas as immoral.
If prostitution and pornography were empowering women would do it for free. The fact that an educated man like a MD would support and finance this is utterly disgusting.
I recall a converstion with a prostitute on the subject of exploitation.
She said "I don't feel nearly as exploited at $100+ per hour, as I did getting $5.75 working in an office."
Contrary to popular opinion, many do go in with both eyes open...
Ruth, Ruth, Ruth. Assuming there are women who wish to be gainfully employed there, any who do choose either to work for Mr Benson or to practice prosititution elsewhere are presumably choosing to do so because to them -- to them -- the choice to do so is obviously better than all the other alternatives they might have, or they wouldn't have chosen to do so. Who gave you the right to try and deny their right to choose?
If you are right in what you say -- if prostitution is as bad as you say it is -- then the alternatives open to them may be few and far between. Do you wish to deny them the right to make what (to them) is a better choice? If this choice is really as bad as you say it is, then just how bad are the other alternatives open to them that those who choose that path clearly see it as more attractive than anything else they can be doing?
If you really had your way and you had prostitution criminalised again (because as I'm sure you know, making it illegal won't make it stop), are you really prepared to see people either forced into those other, less preferable alternatives (to them), and how much worse do you make it for those women who do still do choose to undertake that path for themselves?
And why, pray tell, is their business your business anyway? Just who made it so?
"And you people applaud and encourage such exploitation (Oh here are some pics of prostitutes- yay!!)..."
They do seem to be very popular. Tell me you haven't had a peek. :-)
"... and decry Christians like Chesswas as immoral."
Well, isn't he? Isn't it immoral to deny yourself? To chastise as sin one of our greatest pleasures? To suggest worldly pleasures are somehow less worthy than those to be found in some non-existent other dimension? To meddle in other's affairs like some auto-didact stickybeak?
Quite why you would want to argue his corner I really don't know?
I hear tell that there is a problem down Papatoetoe way with street-walkers hocking their wares and servicing customers on private property.
Being a prostitute is one thing; expecting others to clean up after you've finished and pay for the the concrete-catwalk you to advertise on is another thing entirely.
Half the problems we are currently experiencing with legalised prostitution would go away if the cops enforced two valid-laws: (1) No sex with minors and (2) Don't trespass on Private property. Unfortunately law-enforcement is too busy to do anything about this sort of trespass and the other crimes with a victim.
Peter, I don't expect you to agree with me and quite frankly I'm sick of people hating me.
But I wouldn't normally give a fig if a consenting adult wanted to work as a prostitute, except for the fact that most sex work is gender apartheid, with women as the sex service industry workers and men as the consumers.sex work is not just another job. It may be work, but it's still sex, and even anonymous sex carries with it an intimacy that does not exist in most kinds of work Most women can't do sex work without it eating away at them.And make no mistake about it, women who are sexual are referred to as sluts, slatterns, tramps, whores, skanks, hos, and all sorts of other charming epithets. Men who fuck around are just men.It's far more powerful to be in the class that can buy and pay for sexual services than to be in the class that provides them. Women are placed in convienient Madonna and Whore roles, and this puritanical, anti-sex and misogynist double-standard necessitates sex work and female servitude. Large portions of the market are exploitative, paying low wages to the women, co-ercing women into participating, and often include minors. Women are often manipulated, inebriated or just plain doped.I was going to mention Papatoetoe but Winefield beat me to it.
In regard to Chesswas - I agree that sex should be discovered and invented by two people in an act of intimacy. Insofar as the proliferation of porn and prostitution weakens sex as a weapon of human connection and intimacy, it threatens us all.
I don't expect you to agree, so don't bother tellimg me you don't.
... and the other half of the problem will go away when the government stops meddling in every single fascet of the lives of the citizens it is supposed to serve.
If that ever happens you may finally find that working a 9-5 office job pays as much or more than working as a prostitute.
I'm a scientist working in the field of Cancer Research. I have three University degrees and 10 years experience and ~I~ can't earn as much in a year as some prostitutes earn in three months.
Cut through the thickets of taxes & government red-tape and then maybe I could start a Bio-tech company in NZ and make some $$. Then I could employ people to help me, thus giving ~real~ options to those considering prostitution as a career.
I don't know why I wrote this because Ruth has her fingers in her ears. What a dismal way to conduct a debate...
Men do sex work as well Ruth and I agree that, by and large "women who are sexual are referred to as sluts, slatterns, tramps, whores, skanks, hos, and all sorts of other charming epithets. Men who fuck around are just men" and I don't go around using such terms about women who are simply being themselves and happily so.
Women like Xavier Hollander do not deserve to be degraded, and books like "The Ethical Slut" aim to provide a moral basis for being sexually open, although it does have some flaws.
Don't for a moment think that PC or myself think that women beaten, drugged or trafficked into this business are to be ignored, or minors. Far from it, this is exactly where the law SHOULD step in. It should be better at that, but getting in the way of those who make the choice to be prostitutes is not the role of the law.
Sometimes use of prostitution is life fulfilling, I once heard a radio documentary which interviewed quadraplegics who had little chance to find a sex partner, and who used prostitutes - and were some of the best clients (being grateful). Pornography equally can provide entertainment and arousal for couples and can educate, although much is totally banal. A lot of people want to watch sex or see naked people. Both have existed for millenia, and always will.
I don't think that sex should be just some quick fix commodity of instant gratification, but I also think that cultural change comes from people, not the state - and sex should be part of intimacy and play, a joy - not some self sacrificing act merely meant for breeding. I think Chesswas has as warped a view on sex as those who think it is just about getting the next orgasm.
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