Monday, January 18, 2010

Why men use prostitutes?

The Guardian: Why men use prostitutes:

One of the most interesting findings was that many believed men would "need" to rape if they could not pay for sex on demand. One told me, "Sometimes you might rape someone: you can go to a prostitute instead." Another put it like this: "A desperate man who wants sex so bad, he needs sex to be relieved. He might rape." I concluded from this that it's not feminists such as Andrea Dworkin and myself who are responsible for the idea that all men are potential rapists – it's sometimes men themselves.


Hmm, the woman writing the article, Julie Bindel, already admits she's a biased researcher. She, like Andrea Dworkin, believes "all men are potential rapists." Then she finds a couple of men who will confirm her bias, not so hard to do, I'm sure. If you start out with a biased hypothesis and look for confirmation, what do you expect?

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39 Comments:

Blogger TMink said...

I wonder what the ration was between the men who said they needed prostitutes to keep from raping women and the ones who said they were lonely.

We will never know as it does not fit the men as rapists narrative. Actually, I was surprised to see that the lonely man's quote was included.

Trey

8:30 AM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger TMink said...

ratio not ration. More coffee.

Trey

8:31 AM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger dienw said...

So, childless women, who are desperate for (a) child(ren) will eviscerate a pregnant woman and steal the baby. Hmmm. sounds so logical.

8:45 AM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger Unknown said...

"Then she finds a couple of men who will confirm her bias"

Or she lied.

10:15 AM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger ChrisA said...

With research such as this, Ms. Bindel can soon start working on global warming.

10:17 AM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger JohnMcG said...

So then if all men are potential rapists, and about the only way around that is prostitution, then all men are either johns are rapists by this logic, correct?

This does not mesh with my anecdotal experience.

10:29 AM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger Larry Sheldon said...

"If you start out with a biased hypothesis and look for confirmation, what do you expect?"

I expect to do what any modern scientist with the right answers does--fabricate, twist, "adjust", lie, ....

11:37 AM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger GawainsGhost said...

The significant flaw in this line of thinking is that men do no pay prostitutes for sex. They pay for discretion, and pay them to leave.

Also, rape is not about sex. It's about violence and brutality.

The simple fact that feminists cannot understand this reality is a testament to how truly ignorant they really are.

11:39 AM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger DADvocate said...

I like Charlie Sheen's take on prostitute, like GawainsGhost said, he doesn't pay them for sex. He pays them to go away.

GG also makes the point feminists often make, rape's about violence and power, not sex. The feminist use of prostitutes position directly contradicts itself.

Having lived in Tennessee, I've never had to pay for sex. All the women are Volunteers.

11:56 AM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger Trust said...

Feminists have done immeasurable damage to innocent men and to victimized women by diminishing words like "rape." Now, when we hear a woman has been raped, rather than recoil in horror at the thought of a brutal crime, we have to ask "what happened?" It may very well mean she regretted it a day or two later, or felt violated a month later when he ended the relationship.

Dennis Prager wrote two columns about women having sex when not in the mood:
http://www.dennisprager.com/columns.aspx?g=652609e7-f8fe-44d7-834c-7ad9904e41c0&url=when_a_woman_isnt_in_the_mood_part_i
http://www.dennisprager.com/columns.aspx?g=1fe5a8b3-daae-4edc-bcce-7042b43a2837&url=when_a_woman_isnt_in_the_mood_part_ii

He was berated by a feminist columnist who says he favors marital rape in a column titled "Nothing says "I love you" like marital rape."
http://www.feministing.com/archives/012869.html

Applying that logic, any wife whose husband buys something for her he doesn't want to buy because he wants her to be happy, that wife would be guilty of marital theft. I don't see such feminists taking that position.

Absurd. Feminists are so clueless about men. Then again, there is no movement that has lead to the easier exploitation of women than feminism.

11:58 AM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger J. Bowen said...

I love some of the reasons that men who participated in the study gave for buying sex:

"Prostitution is like masturbating without having to use your hand."

"It's like renting a girlfriend or wife. You get to choose like a catalogue."

"I found her on punternet.com and she looked at me with the look of a puppy dog in the Christmas window."

"Prostitution is being able to do what you want without the taxation."

All kidding aside, this "study" is full of bias. The Summary & Recommendations section at the end is priceless. If you've not read it I recommend following the link and doing so. If a study about prostitution and rape can be funny, they've certainly done it.

For example, take this recommendation:

The disappointment expressed by men seeking the ‘girlfriend experience’ in prostitution should be highlighted in any awareness campaign. There are men who are sold the idea that ‘buying’ a partner is possible and that prostituted women can fulfil that role.

I imagine this recommendation doesn't extend as far as public awareness campaigns to get men to stop buying women jewelry, clothes, flowers, and other fancy things in hopes that they'll win the hearts of what are essentially legal prostitutes.

The youngest interviewee was 18 years of age, confirming the need for public education programmes aimed at boys. Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE) sessions should contain content to deter young men from becoming buyers.

Why?

The new UK legislation needs to be enforced extra-territorially. Almost half of the men had paid for sex in other countries, mostly in legalised regimes such as the Netherlands.

The UK is fast becoming a police state. As far as I know, there are few other governments that purport to own their citizens; the US is one of them.

UK policy and deterrents like those adopted by the United Nations during the Balkan crisis are advisable.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't UK forces constantly being implicated in cases of rape?

More than three-quarters of interviewees acknowledged that greater criminal penalties would deter them from paying for sex, and yet only 6% had ever been arrested for soliciting prostitution. New and existing legislation needs to be vigorously implemented. A public awareness campaign to accompany enforcement of laws against buying sex might be modelled on the 2006 anti-smoking campaign.

The anti-smoking campaign is essentially just the anti-drug campaign rehashed. We all know how well that has turned out.

Currently in London, ASBOs are routinely issued to women in street prostitution but rarely to men apprehended as kerb crawlers. Such measures need to be used against buyers.

Look up ASBO.

the next logical step would be to move forward with stronger legal and social deterrents for the sex buyer.

That approach is the same approach taken in the War on Drugs That Pharmaceutical Companies Don't Manufacture. It's worked wonders...

Overall, I wasted about 15 minutes of my life by reading this study. It's full of erroneous assumptions and terrible policy suggestions. The authors were clearly biased. As ChrisA noted, these "researchers" might find themselves welcome in the global warming research community. They seem about as qualified as any over there.

1:24 PM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger Unknown said...

I'm surprised that no one has pointed out that all women are potential prostitutes. They are all naturally equipped for the role and all that needs to occur would be for them to have sex in return for material gain. A dinner and movie, perhaps, or a couple of drinks at the bar. More expensive ones would require a jewelry such as a diamond or even a house.

1:26 PM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger Trust said...

@Alan said... "I'm surprised no one has pointed out that all women are potential prostitutes. They are all naturally equipped..."
_______

One could also point out that they are all potential gold-diggers, and marital bait and switch thieves (or paternity fraudsters) with the assistance of the law of the land and the (so-called) family courts. That statement would be equally as true as the "all men are potential" statement, but not as politically correct. Using a few bad men to trash all men is a-ok. Mentioning the fact that the laws and courts provide incentive for women to be bad to men is misogynist. (the logic behind the misandry has not been explained)

1:32 PM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger BobH said...

As one cynic put it: All women are prostitutes trying to be expensive prostitutes. I'm not sure I would say all but that description certainly fits a lot of women, including a lot of wives. Tiger Wood's wife comes to mind.

2:16 PM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger Quasimodo said...

Feminists have done immeasurable damage to innocent men and to victimized women by diminishing words like "rape."

Do you mean "rape" or "Rape-rape" ?

2:29 PM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger J. Bowen said...

Then again, there is no movement that has lead to the easier exploitation of women than feminism.

Feminism is the abolitionism movement of the 20th and 21st centuries. The abolitionists, while possibly well-meaning, did more to entrench slavery than anyone except Eli Whitney. The radical feminists, while possibly (however unlikely) well-meaning, have done more to harm women than anyone. Their pitting of women against men is as destructive as the pitting of northerners and blacks against southerners was to blacks.

2:48 PM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger J. Durden said...

Clearly, you expect to arrive at "the truth."

4:00 PM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger jabrwok said...

How is rape not about sex? If it was just about violence, then beating a woman half to death would do just as well, and not put one's dangly bits at risk. I can see it being about *both* sex and violence, but saying it's not about sex strikes me as unsupportable.

4:12 PM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger JohnMcG said...

Don't be silly -- rape is about sex in the precise amount required to sustain whatever argument about how bad men are is currently being proffered.

When the argument is that rape is a symptom of the patriarchy, then rape is not about sex, it is a tool used by dominant men to keep women in line.

When the argument is that all men are potential rapists, as in this article, then it's a case of men's "normal" sex drive taken to an extreme.

In either case, the point is that me are bad, bad, bad.

4:26 PM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger EKatz said...

I just skimmed through the article. I agree that when the author said "many" men would need to rape, she should have provided the percentage of men out of the 700 interviewed and whether those men tended to come from a particular culture or background.

Otherwise the article was pretty interesting and discussed a number of reasons that men see prostitutes. I remember a while ago reading interviews given by prostitutes (though I think more of the escort service than streetwalker kind) who basically said that by and large the men who see them are lonely, curious, want sexual release with another person, want a bit of adventure (not necessarily in terms of outrageous sexual acts, but just the adventure of the 'forbidden'), or were looking to overcome some sexual inexperience. Invariably there were cases of men who were violent/bad-tempered/freaky, some of whom were screened out by the escort service or blacklisted afterwards, though these seemed to be in the minority. I imagine though that a streetwalker would be more likely to encounter violence/rape than a prostitute working for a service.

The part of the article that disturbed me most, as I've also read about this elsewhere in a book on modern-day slavery, deals with trafficked prostitutes (slaves, as they're forced into it and don't earn a share of money). A lot of the men who visit them do know either outright about their condition or strongly suspect it, and while most of these men are not violent towards them, they still have sex with them even though - seeing as they're trafficked and have no choice about when to work and whom they will see or refuse - this is rape. No question about it, it's rape.

In regards to violence, these trafficked prostitutes are also likely to also face the most of it - the scum who traffic these women, girls (and also boys) also go out of their way to cater to johns who do want to act out a violent fantasy and the prostitutes have no say in stopping it.

4:58 PM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger Cham said...

There are different types of prostitutes. Men who solicit women from a street corner might have completely different motivations for hiring a street worker than a man who discreetly scours ads for sex workers from an escort service and pays a little more for someone to meet him in a hotel room. Nobody has died yet from lack of sex, either male or female. The "need" argument doesn't hold water.

6:35 PM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger Doom said...

Even if everything they said was correct as they present it, considering they are starting with men who use prostitutes as a base-line, they have already skewed the data. Simply put, most men do not use prostitutes. As a single, straight (and very interested in women), man, I will not pay for those services. Beyond the risk is the moral issue. I will not even have extramarital affairs. To be quite honest, I do not think I am alone on this.

Prostitutes are more of a secular thing. It goes along with not being tied down in marriage, instant gratification, and feeling good about oneself (regardless, it seems, how bad one acts). Those type of men ARE more likely to rape. Oddly, even there, rape is a rather rare event, at least among whites. Go figure. Still, they must offer whatever red meat they can to keep the victimhood of the sisterhood as alive as they can so they can pull in every nickle possible in order to put the people in power who will continue to expand the real victimization of all society. Can't blame them for falsifying and distorting, it's what they do professionally. (if we can note it and put out real data, like you are doing)

9:45 PM, January 18, 2010  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What do men pay prostitutes for? To leave.

10:37 PM, January 18, 2010  
Blogger Unknown said...

"Prostitutes are more of a secular thing."

History is rife with priests, bishops and other religious leaders throughout history using them. There were also temple whores and nuns sleeping with priests. Please, it transcends the religious.

1:13 AM, January 19, 2010  
Blogger Doom said...

Oligonicella,

I do not have that data, however, I proffer this to counter that. There were periods when the Church became quite secular. When Bishoprics were bought, when even the Popes were married, and when many dark things happened. There was even a great period of time (probably a similar period) when the Church had civil power, pretty much a branch of world government, with it's own armies.

Those times have passed, thankfully. Those things have never been and never will be acceptable to the pious. It was a secular time of the Church. That is, of course, if anything you have said is even remotely true. I am argueing other issues on other sites and know how wrong people can be for certain. One question should clear this up, was that Bushes fault too?

2:18 AM, January 19, 2010  
Blogger Unknown said...

so all women are potential vampires?

9:51 AM, January 19, 2010  
Blogger I R A Darth Aggie said...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't UK forces constantly being implicated in cases of rape?

If you meant UN forces, you would be correct.

10:12 AM, January 19, 2010  
Blogger Michael wears a hat said...

"Nobody has died yet from lack of sex, either male or female. The "need" argument doesn't hold water."

This assumes that an individual treats "needs" as being needs of the body. However, all needs are really the physical expression of the gene's intent to make more genes. As such, procreation is a need. Sex alone is not a need, however sex is a middleman for procreation.

It doesn't matter in the slightest that a human can survive without sex. The body and the mind treat lack of sex the same way it treats lack of food, water, or shelter: as something that absolutely must be addressed. The only difference is timeline.

1:27 PM, January 19, 2010  
Blogger TMink said...

"The body and the mind treat lack of sex the same way it treats lack of food, water, or shelter: as something that absolutely must be addressed. The only difference is timeline."

Michael, you write like someone who has never experienced a serious lack of water or food. Lacking those two, sex is not a consideration.

Trey

2:51 PM, January 19, 2010  
Blogger Topher said...

On a different note (apologies for thread hijack)...I logged onto Slate to try to read them eating crow and got linked to this story:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9598134

http://slatest.slate.com/id/2241989/entry/3/

"A new study from the Pew Research Center finds that women earn more than their husbands in one out of every five marriages, and in 28 percent of marriages, women are better educated than their spouses. This is a radical shift from forty years ago, and it means that men are more likely to benefit economically from marriage than ever before, the Associated Press reports. Accelerated by the recession (which has disproportionately affected men), education and earning trends "have contributed to a gender role reversal" that is increasing the number of women who are the primary breadwinners, the study concludes. The Washington Post reports that men still out-earn their wives, but the gap is beginning to close. The trend is also going hand-in-hand with an overall decline in marriage. _In 1970, 87 percent of people between the ages of 30-44 were married. In 2007, that number dropped to 60 percent._"

I don't have any problem with who outearns whom, but
"men are more likely to benefit economically from marriage than ever before"...sure, and these are the same women who argue their ex-husbands shouldn't ask for alimony because it's not "manly."

I think the phrase "beginning to close" is editorializing, since these are static statistics...it's especially difficult to tell when statistics "begin to close."

Although it's clear to those of us watching that as women dominate higher education and smart men continue to tell marriage to take a flyer, alpha-women may become the typical marital profile.

I also wonder to what degree widespread use of birth control and/or abortion has "evaporated" the causus belli of marriages that would have happened forty years ago.

10:25 PM, January 19, 2010  
Blogger Topher said...

Then there's this gang of fools:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/expensive-marriage/story?id=9513737

"How Expensive Is Your Marriage?
Sometimes Our Marriages End Up Costing Us More Than We Expected

Fifteen years ago, my employee Greg and his soon-to-be wife, Susan, opted to take a pre-marital course that would help them prepare for life as a couple. They had talked about their plan for their marriage before stepping into a counseling room, but they both knew there were aspects they hadn't considered. There were several other couples in that course and Greg was shocked when he realized that most of them had never discussed their life goals--let alone their financial ones--until that day, which in some cases was just weeks before their wedding date. "

In the already-expensive (in every way) prospect of marriage, going in blind is a compound mistake.

Or how about this refreshing change from the entitled princess role?

"Economic Reality: Scaled-Down Engagement Rings
Forget the Giant Diamond, Maybe It's Time to Go with a Sapphire Ring Instead

...
But thanks to the recession, Perez didn't get a sparkling diamond engagement ring. Instead Nino gave her cubic zirconia.

"Like any girl I always dreamed of getting a big, beautiful engagement ring from Tiffany & Co., but as the recession started and we had started to talk about marriage I knew it would be too much to ask for," Perez, 23, said.

So now she has a ring, although not with a real diamond. It doesn't matter, Perez said, and "no one can tell the difference." "

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=7710554&page=1

11:30 PM, January 19, 2010  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

For a while, I made the ocassional trip to the greater Vegas area.

All things considered, even with the round trip air fare, the expense is much less than the cumulative effects of marriage.

And yes, as one hands over the money, they simply go away.

4:26 AM, January 20, 2010  
Blogger tim said...

why do I even read this stuff? Any man who can't or deoesn't patronize whores will rape to satisfy the urge? People who come up with stuff are the sick ones.

8:42 AM, January 20, 2010  
Blogger The Interface said...

Ah, the quinessential error of the agenda driven:

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."
-Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia (1892)

11:04 AM, January 20, 2010  
Blogger Dr.Alistair said...

and yes, they do go away, like the waiter after the tip....but i guess i`m missing something here...what about conversation, laying together imagining, dreaming, loving.

and i don`t mean the with the waiter.

is there something missing in some men here that they don`t feel for those experiences, or do they feel as if they must be off and running like some square-jawed lumberjack. and that, if they stay for even the briefest of moments, she will drain thier very masculine essence?

3:17 PM, January 20, 2010  
Blogger Unknown said...

^^^

Not all men are manginas. Some are, some aren't. Amazing that a middle aged man wouldn't have realized that yet.

7:24 PM, January 20, 2010  
Blogger Michael wears a hat said...

"Michael, you write like someone who has never experienced a serious lack of water or food. Lacking those two, sex is not a consideration."

Is food and water a consideration when you're suffocating?

Priority always comes first to the need with the shortest timeline. Just because you don't care about food and water when you're suffocating, doesn't mean they aren't a need. Same thing goes with sex when you need food and water. Different timelines, shortest timeline is the one that matters.

7:50 PM, January 20, 2010  
Blogger kentuckyliz said...

The study could have supported the opposite conclusion: legalize prostitution, license, regulate, and tax it, so the state can supervise it and keep screening the professionals for risks to the clientele.

That way, men will have access to prostitutes and it will be safer for the women they would otherwise rape.

12:41 PM, January 24, 2010  
Blogger kentuckyliz said...

Keep Prostitution Legal and Safe!

Hey, sounds like a slogan!

12:42 PM, January 24, 2010  

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