Is it racist for a prostitute to reject black men?

[Jason Harvestdancer]

So then stop using the passive voice. Say "She should be forced to have sex with the black guy even though she doesn't want to or she should starve."

Dude, your argument started as weird and nonsensical and has gotten worse as it went along.

It's your argument, I'm just putting it bluntly. Every time you say "she should change her business plan or find another line of work" that is what you are saying.

I know this because:
1. Every time I say "find another line of work" in threads about corporations, unions, regulations, wages, etc., I am told that my argument is the worker should take what the business offers or starve. Therefore the progressive belief is "find another line of work" is synonymous to "starve".
2. If you say "change her business plan" you are saying "accept black clients." Since she is a prostitute, "accept black clients" means "fuck the black guy."

Therefore, "change her business plan or find another line of work" means "fuck the black guy or starve."

But the way I say it is so not pretty. You need to dress it up in euphemisms to make it appear acceptable to your delicate tender sensibilities.

"She needs to change her business plan or find another line of work" = "She needs to fuck the black guy or starve." You just don't have what it takes to say it.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

"She needs to change her business plan or find another line of work" = "She needs to fuck the black guy or starve." You just don't have what it takes to say it.

Your argument is insane. It's not just invalid, it is literally insane. You have gone beyond using an irrelevant straw man and are now just being creepy.

I won't be responding to you anymore because your posts are too unrelated to anything I'm saying and are also very weird.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

So now "stating your own argument" = "unrelated to anything I'm saying".

You are such a logical relativist.

It is always funny when someone has been backed into a corner and they respond by saying the argument is nonsense. They think it is a free pass to ignore the points made in the argument. It's good to know you accept "your argument is insane and nonsense" as a counter. I'll be sure to use that on you next time you come up with some typical conservoprogressive nonsense in some other thread.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

So now "stating your own argument" = "unrelated to anything I'm saying".

You are such a logical relativist.

It is always funny when someone has been backed into a corner and they respond by saying the argument is nonsense. They think it is a free pass to ignore the points made in the argument. It's good to know you accept "your argument is insane and nonsense" as a counter. I'll be sure to use that on you next time you come up with some typical conservoprogressive nonsense in some other thread.

Whatever, dude

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In a world that contains both bigots and their victims, we can have laws that defend victims from the bigotry; or laws that defend bigots rights to be assholes.

This is not a complex moral dilemma; a racist can choose to be racist or not; but a black person cannot choose his skin colour - Michael Jackson notwithstanding.

So we protect the victims by punishing the bigots. If we choose not to punish the bigots, then harm instead comes to their victims.

If you have a system that's 100% effective at detecting bigoted actions then I would agree with you. In practice, however, I think hiding the bigotry causes more harm than requiring it to be open.

It is morally worse to allow a business or it's employee to reject customers based on race, than it is to penalise businesses or employees that do this - even if that means prohibiting certain bigots from working in a given profession or professions.

I have yet to see a single valid reason why, of all transactions, prostitution should be exempt from this general principal.

I think it's akin to the fact that we don't apply the anti-discrimination rules to roommate situations. I find forcing a prostitute to see a client she doesn't want to see to be a greater offense than allowing her to exclude certain clients. Sex is a *FAR* more intimate act than the other businesses you are talking about.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

It kinda has to be that way. And considering the govt right now is already intruding way too much in a woman's vagina as it is, I'm glad it's that way.

It has nothing to do with a government intruding on a woman's vagina. It has to do with a government regulating how business is conducted within their jurisdiction. There are rules she needs to follow in order to conduct business and the fact that she uses her vagina in her business is irrelevant to that.

If she doesn't like paying taxes, tough shit. If she doesn't like operating in a clean and sanitary manner as required by the health code, tough shit. If she doesn't like not discriminating based on race, tough shit. Legalization of prostitution provides her with many benefits but it also incurs her some costs. If she doesn't want to pay the costs associated with working within a given business, then that's not the business for her.

What happens if the sex worker admits to racism, and takes the case to court?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What happens if the sex worker admits to racism, and takes the case to court?

She'd be fined and barred from running her business in that manner. This means she loses her job and doesn't get to be a sex worker anymore and has to do something else.

She has an absolute right to do what she wants with her body. She does not have an absolute right to be employed as a prostitute. It is the latter which the government is regulating, not the former.

You can give anyone any type of stock tip that you want but that's not the case when you're giving them investment advice in your role as their stock broker because there are rules and regulations about how you're allowed to communicate with clients. You can tell anyone how to handle himself in regards to a crime they committed but that's not the case when you're giving them legal advice in your role as their lawyer because there are rules and regulations which govern your profession. Neither of those things are infringements on your freedom of speech because it's your business activities that are being regulated, not you as an individual. It's the same thing with prostitutes - it's the business transactions which are being regulated, not the individual interactions.

 

[credoconsolans]

It kinda has to be that way. And considering the govt right now is already intruding way too much in a woman's vagina as it is, I'm glad it's that way.

It has nothing to do with a government intruding on a woman's vagina. It has to do with a government regulating how business is conducted within their jurisdiction. There are rules she needs to follow in order to conduct business and the fact that she uses her vagina in her business is irrelevant to that.

If she doesn't like paying taxes, tough shit. If she doesn't like operating in a clean and sanitary manner as required by the health code, tough shit. If she doesn't like not discriminating based on race, tough shit. Legalization of prostitution provides her with many benefits but it also incurs her some costs. If she doesn't want to pay the costs associated with working within a given business, then that's not the business for her.

What happens if the sex worker admits to racism, and takes the case to court?

Why would she take it to court? It's rather the other way around isn't it?

 

[bilby]

Well since we have decided that bigots can all get jobs working in a closet, or jobs that never ask them to leave home, now could someone answer this little problem.

so the sex worker is found guilty and the right of the John to be serviced without racial discrimination is found of greater import under the law than the sex worker's right to refuse having sex with someone she doesn't want to sleep with.

Laws do not exist in vacuums and every law and every right must be balance against other laws and rights. Do you feel the right of a John (or Jane) to not be discriminated against out weighs the sex worker's right to control entrance into his or her body? And this whole s/he-should-quit argument makes no more sense here than it does with regard to low wages and bad working conditions.

Of course not.

But it does outweigh her right to be a sex worker.

She should not quit if she is a racist; she should be fired. Like any other racist who can't keep their bigotry to themselves at work.

It really is that simple.

Except that most prostitutes are self employed, so there is no one to fire them, so it isn't that simple at all.

I am perfectly comfortable with the government requiring sole readers to cease trading (in the absence of any boss to fire them) if they refuse to comply with the law.

So if that is your only objection, it is indeed simple.

 

[Bomb#20]

Right, nobody has a right to a job. They can choose to starve if they want. Is that what you're arguing?

The reason it seems that I'm asking you the same question over and over is because I want you to stop using the passive voice. Don't say "she has to change her business plan." If you really believe what you are arguing in favor of, say "She should be forced to have sex with the black guy even though she doesn't want to."

Look, the mistake you're making is very simple. You are equivocating between private arrangements and lawful authority. When a private employer tells a woman who doesn't have a lot of good options "Have sex with this man you don't want to have sex with, or else lose your job.", that's obviously coercive. She is being coerced to have sex, because of the unequal power relation between the employer and the employee. Duh! Even some crazyass libertarian should be able to see that. But when a government tells a woman who doesn't have a lot of good options "Have sex with this man you don't want to have sex with, or else lose your job.", that's not coercive. In that case she has a free choice about whether to have sex with him -- because it's the government, not a private employer, see? Besides which, the government doesn't have power over her, because if she doesn't like it she can vote them out. And they deserve their power over her because they represent the Will of the People. And even if it is coercive sex, that can't possibly make it rape, because rape is immoral; and what they're doing to her isn't immoral because nobody whose opinion matters feels sorry for racists. Q.E.D. I can't imagine why you're having so much trouble with this concept!

 

[Bomb#20]

Here's the problem.


S. E. X.

^^^ This ^^^

Sex is what makes this scenario different from any other sort of worker who discriminates against customers. Most of us are okay with coercing people to do all manner of things in order to social-engineer a better society. We're okay with coercing people to fix pipes, or to dispense pharmaceuticals, or to decorate cakes, or whatever other analogy any doofus could produce an argument equating sex with. But most of us are not okay with coercing people to put out.

The act of penetration itself has statutes already attached to it. And the rights of privacy insure a person the right to be a bigot. Also in the US, discrimination laws are not all encompassing and never have been. In the US, for example, if you are a business of under fifty employees and no govt contracts, AA does not apply to the hiring practices of such a business. Private transactions here can and do include all kinds of discriminatory practices that if they were public would bring down the Halls of Justice. And it is all legal.

It kinda has to be that way. And considering the govt right now is already intruding way too much in a woman's vagina as it is, I'm glad it's that way.

 

[bilby]

Right, nobody has a right to a job. They can choose to starve if they want. Is that what you're arguing?

The reason it seems that I'm asking you the same question over and over is because I want you to stop using the passive voice. Don't say "she has to change her business plan." If you really believe what you are arguing in favor of, say "She should be forced to have sex with the black guy even though she doesn't want to."

Look, the mistake you're making is very simple. You are equivocating between private arrangements and lawful authority. When a private employer tells a woman who doesn't have a lot of good options "Have sex with this man you don't want to have sex with, or else lose your job.", that's obviously coercive. She is being coerced to have sex, because of the unequal power relation between the employer and the employee. Duh! Even some crazyass libertarian should be able to see that. But when a government tells a woman who doesn't have a lot of good options "Have sex with this man you don't want to have sex with, or else lose your job.", that's not coercive. In that case she has a free choice about whether to have sex with him -- because it's the government, not a private employer, see? Besides which, the government doesn't have power over her, because if she doesn't like it she can vote them out. And they deserve their power over her because they represent the Will of the People. And even if it is coercive sex, that can't possibly make it rape, because rape is immoral; and what they're doing to her isn't immoral because nobody whose opinion matters feels sorry for racists. Q.E.D. I can't imagine why you're having so much trouble with this concept!

Look, the mistake you are making is very simple. You are missing the distinction between enforcing an action, and enforcing justification for that action.

There is no law that says anyone has to have sex with anyone else. But there is a law that says that a person who has a business selling anything to anyone may not refuse to do business with somebody for one of a handful of defined reasons - and race is one of those reasons.

The law does not coerce prostitutes into having sex with any individual; but it does say that it is illegal for her to decide, in advance, to refuse to have sex with people solely because those people are black.

The offence is not the refusal, it is the reason for the refusal. The power relationship is not at issue; the government is indeed imposing its demands on prostitutes - but those demands are not "You must have sex with partners other than those you would choose for yourself"; they are "You must not use racism as your criterion for selecting clients".

Your distaste for governments doing their job of telling citizens where the boundaries of their freedom lie, (and enforcing those boundaries), is a separate discussion; if we accept that governments can and do set some rules, then there is nothing in this anti-discrimination law that endorses rape, any more than laws prohibiting bank robbery endorse poverty. If we do not accept that governments can set any rules, then this entire discussion is moot - In that case, the government can't tell anyone not to have sex with anyone they like, consenting or not.

People can engage in any business they choose; but if they wish to also be racists, the government can and will debar them from bringing their racism into the business environment, and gives them a choice between being racist and being in business.

You can be an overt racist OR a restaurateur. If you try to be both, the government will shut your restaurant.

You can be an overt racist OR a shopkeeper. If you try to be both, the government will shut your shop.

You can be an overt racist OR a bus company. If you try to be both, the government will prohibit you from operating bus services.

You can be an overt racist OR a prostitute. If you try to be both, the government will prohibit you from engaging in prostitution.

Notice that nobody is forced by the government to cook a meal, sell a product, operate public transport, or have sex. But they cannot provide any of those things for sale on a 'whites only' basis.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Either a person has the right to refuse sex or not.

And rights are not conditional. They can be taken away, but as long as you have them, they are yours to use as you will.

If I have the right to say no, once I say no, the reason why is irrelevant. If it is fully documented that a person has been propositioned by a thousand people, half of the white half of the black, and the person being propositioned turned down every black person and refused no whites, so what? If money was offered, so what? And then to have the courts decide that saying no earns you a guilty verdict and a fine makes your right to say no conditional. And if you can make racial discrimination a condition, why not gender discrimination? Why not handicap status? And since we are adding conditions, why stop with discrimination? Why not include fraud? S/he ate the dinner, watched to show, dropped it like it was hot on the dance floor, surely s/he owes payment for the good time had, right? And what about marital obligations? If the no of a individual is only valid under certain conditions, can a spouse really have the right to refuse the other spouse?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I have pointed out, there are all kinds of exceptions to discrimination laws in the US, and I will wager if you really went looking in other countries, you would find exceptions there too.

 

[bilby]

Either a person has the right to refuse sex or not.

And rights are not conditional. They can be taken away, but as long as you have them, they are yours to use as you will.

If I have the right to say no, once I say no, the reason why is irrelevant. If it is fully documented that a person has been propositioned by a thousand people, half of the white half of the black, and the person being propositioned turned down every black person and refused no whites, so what? If money was offered, so what? And then to have the courts decide that saying no earns you a guilty verdict and a fine makes your right to say no conditional. And if you can make racial discrimination a condition, why not gender discrimination? Why not handicap status? And since we are adding conditions, why stop with discrimination? Why not include fraud? S/he ate the dinner, watched to show, dropped it like it was hot on the dance floor, surely s/he owes payment for the good time had, right? And what about marital obligations? If the no of a individual is only valid under certain conditions, can a spouse really have the right to refuse the other spouse?

Everyone has the right to refuse sex.

A person who refuses to have sex with black men is not debarred from making that choice; but she is debarred from selling sex to white men.

It isn't a matter of forcing a prostitute to have sex with black men; it is a matter of saying that if she rejects men because they are black, and for no other reason, then she may NOT have sex for money with anyone of any colour. Which makes her not a prostitute any more.

If not being a prostitute any more is a hardship for her, then tough shit.




A person who refuses to drive a bus with black men on board is not debarred from making that choice; but she is debarred from diving buses for a living for the sole use of white men.

It isn't a matter of forcing a person to drive a bus for black men; it is a matter of saying that if she rejects passengers because they are black, and for no other reason, then she may NOT have drive a bus for money for anyone of any colour. Which makes her not a professional bus driver any more.

If not being a professional bus driver any more is a hardship for her, then tough shit.


Note that any person, no matter how racist, may own and drive a bus, with any passengers on board that they choose to allow - but that they may not collect fares, or receive payment, unless they are prepared to avoid racial discrimination in the choice of passengers. This doesn't mean that the driver can't refuse service to a passenger who is roaring drunk, or wearing no pants, or eating a burger, or any one of a million things that the driver is allowed to use as criteria for rejecting passengers. It just means that skin colour is not one of the criteria they are allowed to use.

 

[fromderinside]

Either a person has the right to refuse sex or not.

If there are only blacks from which the prostitute can choose and she refuses them consistently she would be aberrant if she were just dealing with the objective of sex, produce children, and she would be aberrant among prostitutes by failing to service males (or if male, females).

Consequently, I find no way to justify one pointing out it is sex as a reasonable rational for one to refuse having sex with blacks.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Either a person has the right to refuse sex or not.

And rights are not conditional. They can be taken away, but as long as you have them, they are yours to use as you will.

If I have the right to say no, once I say no, the reason why is irrelevant. If it is fully documented that a person has been propositioned by a thousand people, half of the white half of the black, and the person being propositioned turned down every black person and refused no whites, so what? If money was offered, so what? And then to have the courts decide that saying no earns you a guilty verdict and a fine makes your right to say no conditional. And if you can make racial discrimination a condition, why not gender discrimination? Why not handicap status? And since we are adding conditions, why stop with discrimination? Why not include fraud? S/he ate the dinner, watched to show, dropped it like it was hot on the dance floor, surely s/he owes payment for the good time had, right? And what about marital obligations? If the no of a individual is only valid under certain conditions, can a spouse really have the right to refuse the other spouse?

Everyone has the right to refuse sex.

A person who refuses to have sex with black men is not debarred from making that choice; but she is debarred from selling sex to white men.

It isn't a matter of forcing a prostitute to have sex with black men; it is a matter of saying that if she rejects men because they are black, and for no other reason, then she may NOT have sex for money with anyone of any colour. Which makes her not a prostitute any more.

then a prostitute can't be raped.


Your argument is, that sex is not the issue, but the business is. Sex is not a special act under the law, but a generic service like hair dressing, plumbing, or chauffering. The prostitute's body is not a body but her place of business. Places of business can be broken into and entered, vandalized, and stolen from, but they can't be raped. Sex now is commodified so it is a service that can be forced, but forced sex is no longer a sex crime. Now that the transaction of prostitution is purely defined as business, which is the legal precedent being established with this argument, crimes and now torts involving prostitution and not personal but crimes against property.

If not being a prostitute any more is a hardship for her, then tough shit.




A person who refuses to drive a bus with black men on board is not debarred from making that choice; but she is debarred from diving buses for a living for the sole use of white men.

It isn't a matter of forcing a person to drive a bus for black men; it is a matter of saying that if she rejects passengers because they are black, and for no other reason, then she may NOT have drive a bus for money for anyone of any colour. Which makes her not a professional bus driver any more.

If not being a professional bus driver any more is a hardship for her, then tough shit.


Note that any person, no matter how racist, may own and drive a bus, with any passengers on board that they choose to allow - but that they may not collect fares, or receive payment, unless they are prepared to avoid racial discrimination in the choice of passengers. This doesn't mean that the driver can't refuse service to a passenger who is roaring drunk, or wearing no pants, or eating a burger, or any one of a million things that the driver is allowed to use as criteria for rejecting passengers. It just means that skin colour is not one of the criteria they are allowed to use.

If prostitution were legalized in the US, such a business would by its nature (because having sex is a unique act in culture and law and can not be equated to driving bus no matter how many times you say it is) be governed and regulated under its own laws which could or could not include general interpretations of anti discriminatory law.

and those laws could not in anyway shape or form be such that they weaken or threaten to weaken existing sex crime law.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Either a person has the right to refuse sex or not.

And rights are not conditional. They can be taken away, but as long as you have them, they are yours to use as you will.

If I have the right to say no, once I say no, the reason why is irrelevant. If it is fully documented that a person has been propositioned by a thousand people, half of the white half of the black, and the person being propositioned turned down every black person and refused no whites, so what? If money was offered, so what? And then to have the courts decide that saying no earns you a guilty verdict and a fine makes your right to say no conditional. And if you can make racial discrimination a condition, why not gender discrimination? Why not handicap status? And since we are adding conditions, why stop with discrimination? Why not include fraud? S/he ate the dinner, watched to show, dropped it like it was hot on the dance floor, surely s/he owes payment for the good time had, right? And what about marital obligations? If the no of a individual is only valid under certain conditions, can a spouse really have the right to refuse the other spouse?

The right to refuse sex remains unconditional. What's conditional is the right to be employed as a prostitute. The government is regulating a business transaction, not a private transaction, and the fact that this business transaction happens to be sex doesn't limit the government's ability to regulate industry within its jurisdiction.

You also have the right of freedom of speech and can use that to tell anyone to buy a stock. If, in your role as a stockbroker however, you tell someone to buy a stock that's part of a ponzu scheme you're running to rip off your clients, you can't work as a stockbroker anymore. This isn't the government infringing on your free speech rights simply because you used speech to make that business transaction. If you fire a trader who does this, you're not using the welfare system to subsidize lying. It's simply the case of the government saying that businesses have certain rules and you need to follow those rules if you have a business.

It's the same for someone who warns to run a business as a prostitute.

Your other examples involve private transactions. Those aren't relevant to a discussion about the government regulating business transactions.

 

[bilby]

Everyone has the right to refuse sex.

A person who refuses to have sex with black men is not debarred from making that choice; but she is debarred from selling sex to white men.

It isn't a matter of forcing a prostitute to have sex with black men; it is a matter of saying that if she rejects men because they are black, and for no other reason, then she may NOT have sex for money with anyone of any colour. Which makes her not a prostitute any more.

then a prostitute can't be raped.

I am quite impressed that you could leap to that conclusion, starting from what I wrote. I thought that was a vast, unbridgable gap.

Your argument is, that sex is not the issue, but the business is.

Yes, for the purposes of determining whether a person is a racist, it is. If people want to use race as the criterion for selecting sexual partners, they are free to do so; however race is not acceptable as a criterion for selecting customers.

Sex is not a special act under the law, ...

Of course it is; under the law as it pertains to rape. But it is not under the law as it pertains to racism in business environments - because that part of law is completely silent on the irrelevant topic of sex.

... but a generic service like hair dressing, plumbing, or chauffering. The prostitute's body is not a body but her place of business.

It is both.

Places of business can be broken into and entered, vandalized, and stolen from, but they can't be raped.

They can if they are a person's body.

Sex now is commodified so it is a service that can be forced,

No, it can't. Nobody is forced to be a prostitute.

but forced sex is no longer a sex crime.

Of course it is.

Now that the transaction of prostitution is purely defined as business, which is the legal precedent being established with this argument, crimes and now torts involving prostitution and not personal but crimes against property.

Why do you imagine that they can't be both? The transaction of prostitution is defined as business for the purpose of anti-discrimination law; it is defined as sex for the purposes of sexual violence law. The two areas of law have no overlap, because anti-discrimination law doesn't say you MUST serve customers; it simply says you MUST NOT use race as a criterion for selecting which customers to serve. If a persons racism prevents them from complying with anti-discrimination law, then the opportunity to become a prostitute is denied to them.

Quite how "not being allowed to become a prostitute" is equivalent to rape is beyond me.

If not being a prostitute any more is a hardship for her, then tough shit.




A person who refuses to drive a bus with black men on board is not debarred from making that choice; but she is debarred from diving buses for a living for the sole use of white men.

It isn't a matter of forcing a person to drive a bus for black men; it is a matter of saying that if she rejects passengers because they are black, and for no other reason, then she may NOT have drive a bus for money for anyone of any colour. Which makes her not a professional bus driver any more.

If not being a professional bus driver any more is a hardship for her, then tough shit.


Note that any person, no matter how racist, may own and drive a bus, with any passengers on board that they choose to allow - but that they may not collect fares, or receive payment, unless they are prepared to avoid racial discrimination in the choice of passengers. This doesn't mean that the driver can't refuse service to a passenger who is roaring drunk, or wearing no pants, or eating a burger, or any one of a million things that the driver is allowed to use as criteria for rejecting passengers. It just means that skin colour is not one of the criteria they are allowed to use.

If prostitution were legalized in the US, such a business would by its nature (because having sex is a unique act in culture and law and can not be equated to driving bus no matter how many times you say it is) be governed and regulated under its own laws which could or could not include general interpretations of anti discriminatory law.

Indeed.

and those laws could not in anyway shape or form be such that they weaken or threaten to weaken existing sex crime law.

Of course not; and in places (like where I am) where prostitution is legal, neither existing sex crime law, nor existing discrimination law are weakened.

There is nothing about banning advertisements that say "No blacks" that requires any person to submit to rape. There simply isn't. I can't grasp why you imagine that there is.

Do you think that racists have an inalienable right to run any business they choose in a racist manner? If you are a racist, you are debarred by law from running any business in a racist manner. Why would or should prostitution be different?

If you refuse to sell hamburgers to blacks, then the law says you may not sell hamburgers to anyone. Your choices are to sell hamburgers to anyone, OR to not sell hamburgers at all. Nobody can say "I was forced, against my will, to server a hamburger to a black man". For the EXACT same reason, nobody can say "I was forced, against my will, to sell sex to a black man".

If you refuse customers for illegally discriminatory reasons, then you cannot be in that business. NOBODY is forced by law to be in any business, whether it is selling sex or selling Big Macs.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I'm noticing a trend.

In this thread, all of those who are trying to control a woman's vagina are men.

There are men on the other side too, saying it is her body and therefore her choice. But all of those removing her choice are men.