How is paying for food like paying for sex?

I'm sort of two minds about prostitution. On the one hand I think it should be legal. On the other hand, except in certain narrow circumstances, I wouldn't hire a prostitute.

Don't get me wrong. I've been acquainted with several prostitutes personally, and I admire people like Olympia and MonMouth. I don't have a particular problem with the professions. It's just that I'm not particularly interested in paying for that sort of companionship.

The main reason I'd prefer to see prostitution legalized is that in my part of the country serial killers have managed to murder three to five hundred prostitutes in the last 30 years, and throughout Western Civilization subsistence prostitutes -- forced to work outside the legal safety net -- are routinely robbed, raped, and beaten up by their customers, their pimps, their traffickers, random strangers and, sadly, often by law-enforcement officers.

If you gave me enough time I could bore you to death with: various misconceptions about prostitution (the vast majority seem not to be drug-addled or disease-infested streetwalkers), various reasons why legalization wouldn't cause a net increase in the number of prostitutes (it would mostly bring existing ones out of hiding), various reasons why legalization wouldn't allow employment agencies to cut out those who refuses to become prostitutes, and various reasons why it would tend to decrease rather than increase trafficking of sex slaves, and various reasons why I think it would tend to reduce rather than increase violence against prostitutes. (Actually I might bore you to death just listing the ways I could bore you to death!)

The whole legalization thing seems to be some kind of third rail for a lot of people. Unfortunately, and complicatingly, it's a split third-rail. Some people vehemently oppose it, others equally vehemently support it. I'm pretty sure if everyone thought about it as hard as they supported or opposed it, sensible compromises could be reached.

Over time I'll link to the best supporting and opposing arguments I can find.

For instance, here's a thought by Kinky Librarian's Nadia questioning a prohibition on prostitution that doesn't also prohibit commercial food preparation. This resonates with my intuition that prostitution isn't materially different from other hands-on service work such as nannying, physical therapy, psychotherapy, or medicine.

I wish to put forth that eating is the most intimate of necessary human processes. I say this because when you take food into your body, you not only place it inside but it also becomes part of you. It breaks down and your body takes on many components.

It would stand to reason that we like to prepare our own food so we know what's going into it, how wholesome it is, and how safe. However, we have a long history of paying others to prepare food for us. We very often go out to eat in our society. We trust other humans, strangers, with our well being by letting them feed us. When we look at corporations like McD****d's and how the food they serve is so far removed from real, wholesome food, you have to wonder why we trust strangers to nourish our bodies. But on the whole, it doesn't harm us terribly and it's a great convenience.

Sex. This is another necessary human process. Now, you may disagree with that statement, but my philosophy hinges on your agreement that sex is needed for a happy, healthy human life. It's fine if you disagree, but then of course you will disagree with the rest of my argument. Just like I disagree with the authority of the bible and therefore I disagree with people who use it to condemn others.

If we trust our basic physical nourishment (eating) to strangers who we pay, why is paying someone to help meet your sexual needs wrong? It is far more dangerous to consume possibly contaminated, possibly spoiled food than it is to fuck someone using a barrier between your most delicate bits. And yet we trust others with food preparation and it is not stigmatized in the least. But sex, well this society has way too many hang ups with sex. While it pains me to quote George Michael, he did say it best, "Sex is natural, sex is good. Not everybody does it, but everybody should."

I've quoted nearly the whole post but you should check out the post and the rest of Nadia's blog anyway. I've added her to my blogroll.