Is it racist for a prostitute to reject black men?

[Bomb#20]

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

...
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.

Are you under the impression that Athena claimed it's reasonable for a prostitute to refuse to have sex with black people?!? If that's what you think she said, work on your reading comprehension. If that's not what you think she said, then why are you bringing up the issue of whether the fact that it's sex is a reasonable rationale? Are you deliberately introducing a red herring, sweeping Athena's actual issue under the rug, which is the person's right to refuse sex? Or is it your view that nobody has a right to do anything unless they have a reasonable rationale for doing it?

 

[bilby]

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.

I'm noticing a trend; In this thread, there are those who wish to remove a woman's choice to be a racist when advertising her business; and those who wish, for no clear reason, to make an exception when her business happens to involve sex.

I could understand (but would not agree with) someone who argued that any business of any kind has the freedom to be racist; but the reasons why it is OK to be racist and to sell sex, but simultaneously perfectly fine to remove a woman's (or man's) choice to be racist and sell hamburgers, elude me.

I have yet to see anyone actually advocate controlling a woman's vagina in this thread; I for one am advocating no such thing - I am advocating controlling a woman's advertising and discrimination practices when running a business.

I make beer. The government is fine with that; I don't need to tell them about it, and they don't care about it. But I am not permitted to make and sell beer without reference to government rules and regulations. If I want to make my hobby into a business, I have to have a license, meet labelling regulations, and not discriminate between my customers based solely on their race.

A woman can have (or not have) sex with whomever she chooses. But she is not permitted to sell sex without reference to government rules and regulations. If she wants to make sex into a business, she has to have a license, meet health regulations, and not discriminate between her customers based solely on their race.

If I got a liquor licence, the government would take it off me if I refused to serve blacks, or put a 'no blacks' sign up at my place of business. But that wouldn't mean that they were forcing me to sell beer to black men; I have the right to make beer for myself, and my friends, and to freely choose to whom I supply it - just as long as I am not selling it.

The fact that it would be racist and illegal for me to advertise my beer with 'no blacks' in the ad, in no way constitutes the government 'controlling' my brewery. I can make (or not make) as much or as little beer as I want. But I can't sell it.

The fact that it would be racist and illegal for a prostitute to advertise her business with 'no blacks' in the ad, in no way constitutes the government 'controlling' her vagina. she can have (or not have) as much or as little sex as she wants. But she can't sell it.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

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.

No. Some of us are just not commenting. And I think you wrongly ascribed a whole bunch of assumptions, there.

There are underlying social factors that feed into prostitution that don't relate to other industries. These have caused deep rifts between intelligent people in other threads.

A prostitute as a freely choosing business person is an ideal that I think most of us aspire to, but it doesn't represent past or present realities for many people in the industry.

Personally, I think a regulated sex industry is the best way forward for the society and for all the individuals involved. Demarginalise those who engage in this profession and acknowledge and respect their skills and training. The world will be a much better place.

Racists have no place in such a profession. Similarly, people who go into psychology, nursing, any of the helping professions, should not be bigotted in their approach to any segment of the population. Works fine if we live where there is 0% unemployment and nobody is coerced by poverty and desperation or force majeure into an industry they would avoid if they could, because they wouldn't choose the work, or because their racism involves some tricky choices. So much for the IDEAL.

Realistically, prostitution has been engaged in by those who can't support, themselves, their children or their habit in any other way. Increasingly, prostitutes are the homeless, of both sexes, the victims of human trafficking, those without employment choices. Defending the right of those people to choose their customers is ignoring the much greater kerb on their freedom, that given the choice they wouldn't be servicing anyone.

I argue that anyone entering the profession by choice should be held to business standards, it is a step in the right direction in growing a civil society.

Anyone who is prostituting themselves against their will has overreaching problems that the law needs to address long before their racist choices come into the picture.

Emotionally, I get that sex work is a special case but the line is being drawn in the wrong place.

 

[Bomb#20]

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 <blah blah blah>

Look, the mistake you are making is very simple. You are missing the distinction between being misunderstood and being disagreed with. Quote one goddamn sentence in my post that would lead a rational person to imagine that I need a lecture from you on what your argument is. I understand your reasoning perfectly. I don't reject it because I'm missing the distinction between enforcing an action, and enforcing justification for that action. I reject it because a moral compass capable of embracing your position appalls me.

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".

Yes, yes, that's what their demand is. And no doubt you'll keep saying that over and over, to people who regard that distinction as utterly immaterial in the case of the sex business; and you'll keep telling yourself that the problem is that we're just confused about what you're arguing and we need to have your distinction explained to us yet again. What a pile of garbage. By what possible leap of logic would you imagine that the fact that the government's demand is X and not Y has any bearing on the whether the power relationship is the overriding issue?

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;

I.e., you're throwing it in here as an ad hominem. "Your distaste for governments doing their job of telling citizens where the boundaries of their freedom lie" is a slur any opponent of any human right can throw at anybody standing up for that right. It's not a substantive criticism. You have no observational basis for imagining that I object to governments doing their job of telling citizens where the boundaries of their freedom lie; you have merely observed that I think governments should draw those boundaries in different places from where you think they should.

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.

I'm going to lay out a scenario for you, and then I'm going to ask you a simple yes/no question.

Suppose Bob Smith owns and runs a medium-sized business with hundreds of employees. Suppose Alice Jones is one of those employees, a janitor. Suppose she's a high-school drop-out with very poor alternate job prospects, a kid, and no husband. Suppose she got this job in the first place over the other twenty would-be janitors, after having applied to twenty other companies and being turned down. Suppose she was turned down by the others because she had less experience as a janitor. Suppose she had less experience because she got turned down for janitor jobs, the only thing she's qualified for, in a typical economic vicious circle. Suppose she got her current job because, uniquely among all the bosses of the companies she applied to, Bob Smith thought she was a hottee. Suppose she got her kid and no husband because she's promiscuous, she's had sex with twenty different men, and contraception fails sometimes. Suppose Bob Smith, like every other man in his company, knows all about her sexual proclivities, since people talk and she isn't exactly discrete about it. Suppose Bob's son and employee Chuck shares Bob's tastes, and propositions Alice. Suppose Alice isn't attracted to him in the least and politely declines. Suppose Chuck gripes about this to his coworkers at lunch. "What have all those other guys got that I haven't got?" Suppose his coworkers point out the obvious pattern. Suppose Alice has had sex with half the black guys at Bob's company and none of the white guys. Suppose they all have a good shared gripe around the lunch table about how unfair that is. Suppose the gripe gets back to Bob. Suppose Bob makes inquiries, confirms in his own mind that Alice is a cheap slut, propositions her himself, and gets shot down like every other white guy who propositioned her. Suppose Bob is annoyed by this. Suppose Bob tells Alice that just because she's a cheap slut doesn't mean she has to have sex with him, and it doesn't mean she has to have sex with his son; but she sure as hell must not use racism as her criterion for selecting partners. Suppose he tells her she's annoying the white male workers, if she wants to be a racist slut she can do it somewhere else, and if she won't put out for him then she has one week to have intercourse with at least one of his white employees or else she's fired.

So my question to you is: Is Alice being coerced to have sex with someone she doesn't want to have sex with?

 

[bilby]

Look, the mistake you are making is very simple. You are missing the distinction between being misunderstood and being disagreed with. Quote one goddamn sentence in my post that would lead a rational person to imagine that I need a lecture from you on what your argument is. I understand your reasoning perfectly. I don't reject it because I'm missing the distinction between enforcing an action, and enforcing justification for that action. I reject it because a moral compass capable of embracing your position appalls me.

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".

Yes, yes, that's what their demand is. And no doubt you'll keep saying that over and over, to people who regard that distinction as utterly immaterial in the case of the sex business; and you'll keep telling yourself that the problem is that we're just confused about what you're arguing and we need to have your distinction explained to us yet again. What a pile of garbage. By what possible leap of logic would you imagine that the fact that the government's demand is X and not Y has any bearing on the whether the power relationship is the overriding issue?

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;

I.e., you're throwing it in here as an ad hominem. "Your distaste for governments doing their job of telling citizens where the boundaries of their freedom lie" is a slur any opponent of any human right can throw at anybody standing up for that right. It's not a substantive criticism. You have no observational basis for imagining that I object to governments doing their job of telling citizens where the boundaries of their freedom lie; you have merely observed that I think governments should draw those boundaries in different places from where you think they should.

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.

I'm going to lay out a scenario for you, and then I'm going to ask you a simple yes/no question.

Suppose Bob Smith owns and runs a medium-sized business with hundreds of employees. Suppose Alice Jones is one of those employees, a janitor. Suppose she's a high-school drop-out with very poor alternate job prospects, a kid, and no husband. Suppose she got this job in the first place over the other twenty would-be janitors, after having applied to twenty other companies and being turned down. Suppose she was turned down by the others because she had less experience as a janitor. Suppose she had less experience because she got turned down for janitor jobs, the only thing she's qualified for, in a typical economic vicious circle. Suppose she got her current job because, uniquely among all the bosses of the companies she applied to, Bob Smith thought she was a hottee. Suppose she got her kid and no husband because she's promiscuous, she's had sex with twenty different men, and contraception fails sometimes. Suppose Bob Smith, like every other man in his company, knows all about her sexual proclivities, since people talk and she isn't exactly discrete about it. Suppose Bob's son and employee Chuck shares Bob's tastes, and propositions Alice. Suppose Alice isn't attracted to him in the least and politely declines. Suppose Chuck gripes about this to his coworkers at lunch. "What have all those other guys got that I haven't got?" Suppose his coworkers point out the obvious pattern. Suppose Alice has had sex with half the black guys at Bob's company and none of the white guys. Suppose they all have a good shared gripe around the lunch table about how unfair that is. Suppose the gripe gets back to Bob. Suppose Bob makes inquiries, confirms in his own mind that Alice is a cheap slut, propositions her himself, and gets shot down like every other white guy who propositioned her. Suppose Bob is annoyed by this. Suppose Bob tells Alice that just because she's a cheap slut doesn't mean she has to have sex with him, and it doesn't mean she has to have sex with his son; but she sure as hell must not use racism as her criterion for selecting partners. Suppose he tells her she's annoying the white male workers, if she wants to be a racist slut she can do it somewhere else, and if she won't put out for him then she has one week to have intercourse with at least one of his white employees or else she's fired.

So my question to you is: Is Alice being coerced to have sex with someone she doesn't want to have sex with?

Yes she is.

That you think this scenario has any bearing on the thread, is a truly sad reflection of the unpleasantness inherent in your society, and the way that that colours your perceptions. I am very sorry for you, and for your fellow Americans.

Let's try a simpler scenario:

Alice Jones is a prostitute. She puts an ad in the paper that says "No blacks". Is Alice a racist?

 

[fta]

New Zealand

Can a Dutch brothel or independent escort put a sign on their door or in their advertisement saying "NO BLACK MEN"? Yes or no?

A brothel can't; but like I already explained earlier, that doesn't matter since the individual prostitutes working for the brothel CAN at all times refuse service to someone.

I suspect that legal situation would be the same in New Zealand, where prostitution is decriminalised. Business are not allowed to discriminate on the grounds of race (among other criteria) but prostitutes are allowed to refuse to "service" a client, apparently for any reason.

I can't wait to see the first class action lawsuit against the prostitute that won't fuck black guys.

An NZ prostitute could probably get around that by just telling the client she didn't want to see him, without stating a reason. If she openly stated "I don't want to see you because of your ethnicity" then theoretically he might be able to lodge a complaint with the authorities.

Now, before you say that no client would want to face the embarassment of a public legal case, let it be noted that there has been at least one case of a client who tried (unsuccessfully) to sue a prostitute - although that was because he felt he didn't get his money's worth, not because he was being discriminated against.

Funny this should come up here wrt prostitutes. The discussion's been more reasonable than the ones at the porn forum I post at about female performers who don't do interracial scenes(which in porn-keyword-speak means "sex with a black man"). Some are racists themselves, some have been said to have possibly been sexually assaulted by black men in the past and thus developed negative associations or triggers, and a lot seem to avoid IR for career reasons, mainly because of this idea that doing IR will tarnish their image in the eyes of a lot of potential viewers from certain parts of the US. Performing in porn is legal, and AFAIK a performer doesn't have to sign up to do an IR scene anymore than an actress in mainstream cinema has to accept a role in a film where they play someone in an interracial relationship. This results in a lot of people complaining that their favorite white performer won't do IR, but I wouldn't say there's much of a shortage of performers who are willing to do it.

That reminds me of this Onion story (NSFW). :laughing-smiley-014

 

[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?

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.

Which if you will recall, was my original point. The transactions between prostitutes and johns are PRIVATE transactions be their very nature.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

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.

And where you are is not where I am. And laws are not the same in every jurisdiction on the planet. And a legal precedent seet in the UNITED STATES would have consequences under our current laws that might not have such consequences under laws of another country.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Which if you will recall, was my original point. The transactions between prostitutes and johns are PRIVATE transactions be their very nature.

And that's the heart of the disagreement. Once you are paid to provide a service to a client in a legal business, I see it as stopping being a private transaction and becoming a business transaction and thus subject to a different set of regulations. The service being sex doesn't change that.

Let me ask you the question from a slightly different perspective. If the government legalizes prostitution, can they enact a set of health and safety regulations for the industry? Things such as all sex requiring a condom, that sheets must be changed between each client, that the prostitute must shower between each client, that the prostitute must get STD tests a certain number of times during the year, etc. Would the government be within its rights to enact that kind of legislation, or would that be a case of the government infringing on private transactions between individuals and telling women what to do with their vaginas?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Which if you will recall, was my original point. The transactions between prostitutes and johns are PRIVATE transactions be their very nature.

And that's the heart of the disagreement. Once you are paid to provide a service to a client in a legal business, I see it as stopping being a private transaction and becoming a business transaction and thus subject to a different set of regulations. The service being sex doesn't change that.

Let me ask you the question from a slightly different perspective. If the government legalizes prostitution, can they enact a set of health and safety regulations for the industry? Things such as all sex requiring a condom, that sheets must be changed between each client, that the prostitute must shower between each client, that the prostitute must get STD tests a certain number of times during the year, etc. Would the government be within its rights to enact that kind of legislation, or would that be a case of the government infringing on private transactions between individuals and telling women what to do with their vaginas?

can you legalize prostitution? Yes

Can you impose health restrictions on the now legal industry? Yes

here's why

Your future sex partners (and their future sex partners) are, in effect, sleeping with all your previous sex partners and any critters they may have left behind.

it's a public health issue.

I refuse you sex in a private transaction, who outside of us, is effected?

And in the US, Trick and John, would most likely be considered a private business transaction and not necessarily covered by anti discrimination law.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

And that's the heart of the disagreement. Once you are paid to provide a service to a client in a legal business, I see it as stopping being a private transaction and becoming a business transaction and thus subject to a different set of regulations. The service being sex doesn't change that.

Let me ask you the question from a slightly different perspective. If the government legalizes prostitution, can they enact a set of health and safety regulations for the industry? Things such as all sex requiring a condom, that sheets must be changed between each client, that the prostitute must shower between each client, that the prostitute must get STD tests a certain number of times during the year, etc. Would the government be within its rights to enact that kind of legislation, or would that be a case of the government infringing on private transactions between individuals and telling women what to do with their vaginas?

can you legalize prostitution? Yes

Can you impose health restrictions on the now legal industry? Yes

here's why

Your future sex partners (and their future sex partners) are, in effect, sleeping with all your previous sex partners and any critters they may have left behind.

it's a public health issue.

I refuse you sex in a private transaction, who outside of us, is effected?

And in the US, Trick and John, would most likely be considered a private business transaction and not necessarily covered by anti discrimination law.

So, just to be clear, your position is that if I'm on my own time and want to go and have unprotected sex with ten people in a day without changing the sheets between them, the government is within its rights to ban me from having sex? If not, why is there a difference between how it acts in a private transaction on my own time and a private transaction when I'm seeing clients as part of my business?

Just to remove some variables, assume that I'm totally upfront with my partners in all cases and tell them about the unprotected sex I've had on these same dirty sheets and they don't care and still consent to the sex knowing this.

 

[fromderinside]

...
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.

Are you under the impression that Athena claimed it's reasonable for a prostitute to refuse to have sex with black people?!? If that's what you think she said, work on your reading comprehension. If that's not what you think she said, then why are you bringing up the issue of whether the fact that it's sex is a reasonable rationale? Are you deliberately introducing a red herring, sweeping Athena's actual issue under the rug, which is the person's right to refuse sex? Or is it your view that nobody has a right to do anything unless they have a reasonable rationale for doing it?

What I said is that no one has the 'right to refuse anything if it is not demonstrably in the agreed upon social interests of the group to do so. We are talking about discrimination. The US position on discrimination is that it isn't in our social interest to do so. Introducing sex does not change that since it is demonstrably in our social interest to reproduce. If there are two persons to chose from and one is gray and the choser always rejects the gray one that is discrimination. If there were only gray people from which to choose there would be no reproduction. QED.

The right of women to chose ends when there is no choice among candidates. This is particularly true in the US since we are now about 50% other than white and those who are not white are more than 50% partly black. Even among whites there is up to a quarter who have recent black ancestry. So picking a color of skin seems a ludicrous way to choose one to service. This doesn't even get into the business laws against discrimination which are substantial whether legal or illegal.

My point that it is sex, that it is a prostitute engaging in sex, are moot with respect to interpretation with respect to socially rejected discrimination.

I am argue the same for legal choices of whom to have intercourse. If John Dong can demonstrate that he was clearly discriminated against when a woman refused his advances he should have the right to publicly say so without sanction.

That is not to say that a woman does have a right to choose. She does. She also has the right to claim unwanted advances and receive legal recompense with evidence of such whether she is a prostitute or no..

 

[Bomb#20]

So my question to you is: Is Alice being coerced to have sex with someone she doesn't want to have sex with?

Yes she is.

Next scenario: Suppose prostitution is legal and Dorothy is a prostitute who always turns away white would-be customers. Suppose just like Alice, Dorothy has a kid to support and no prospect of alternate employment. Suppose a white john complains, and after investigating, the government confirms that she is racially discriminating. Suppose the government tells her she has to start having sex with white men or else lose her job.

Next yes/no question to you: Is Dorothy being coerced to have sex with someone she doesn't want to have sex with?

That you think this scenario has any bearing on the thread, is a truly sad reflection of the unpleasantness inherent in your society, and the way that that colours your perceptions. I am very sorry for you, and for your fellow Americans.

In other words, you are saying you don't have to apply any critical thought to your own ideology because my mama's so fat.

Let's try a simpler scenario:

Alice Jones is a prostitute. She puts an ad in the paper that says "No blacks". Is Alice a racist?

Yes, probably. (Maybe she's under the thumb of a racist pimp. Whatever.) What's your point? Does that settle the debate in your favor? Is your point that you feel the fight against racism trumps any and all other considerations, and your feeling on this trumpage proves that our disagreement must be due to the unpleasantness inherent in American society and not due to the unpleasantness inherent in your hierarchy of priorities?

(If your point wasn't that Alice should have to have sex with white men or lose her livelihood, but was merely that she shouldn't be permitted to put an ad in the paper that says "No blacks", then it's way too late for that. The rest of us are talking about rejecting customers, not about advertising regulations. And you wrote:

"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."​

which shows you aren't talking about advertising regulations either.)

 

[ksen]

(If your point wasn't that Alice should have to have sex with white men or lose her livelihood, but was merely that she shouldn't be permitted to put an ad in the paper that says "No blacks", then it's way too late for that. The rest of us are talking about rejecting customers, not about advertising regulations. And you wrote:

"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."​

which shows you aren't talking about advertising regulations either.)

I'm really having a hard time seeing how some posters aren't seeing that if you force prostitutes to abide by anti-discrimination laws then you are forcing her to have sex with people she normally wouldn't have sex with. She is being coerced into having sex if she wants to keep using the sex trade to make her livelihood.

And guys, really, choosing between the lucrative sex trade and a minimum wage job is not really a choice.

Also the fact that this is dealing with sex and a woman's body is what makes me come down on the side of not enforcing strict anti-discrimination laws against prostitutes.

Sex is kind of a singular commodity.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

(If your point wasn't that Alice should have to have sex with white men or lose her livelihood, but was merely that she shouldn't be permitted to put an ad in the paper that says "No blacks", then it's way too late for that. The rest of us are talking about rejecting customers, not about advertising regulations. And you wrote:

"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."​

which shows you aren't talking about advertising regulations either.)

I'm really having a hard time seeing how some posters aren't seeing that if you force prostitutes to abide by anti-discrimination laws then you are forcing her to have sex with people she normally wouldn't have sex with. She is being coerced into having sex if she wants to keep using the sex trade to make her livelihood.

And guys, really, choosing between the lucrative sex trade and a minimum wage job is not really a choice.

Also the fact that this is dealing with sex and a woman's body is what makes me come down on the side of not enforcing strict anti-discrimination laws against prostitutes.

Sex is kind of a singular commodity.

That's not coersion. She can choose to not keep using the sex trade to make her livelihood. The factor upon which the demand is being made is her right to be employed as a prostitute. That is not actually a right.

There is similarly no right to have a lucrative job over a non-lucrative job. If an accountant is cooking the books for one of his clients and his CPA licence is about to be revoked, his defence of "Hey, but that will mean that I need to get a minimum wage job instead of this lucrative accountant one I now have" isn't a valid defense or a good reason to let him continue working as an accountant. The more lucrative jobs tend to entail more responsibilities and regulations than less lucrative jobs and if you're not willing to abide by those responsibilities and regulations, you end up doing less lucrative work.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

can you legalize prostitution? Yes

Can you impose health restrictions on the now legal industry? Yes

here's why

Your future sex partners (and their future sex partners) are, in effect, sleeping with all your previous sex partners and any critters they may have left behind.

it's a public health issue.

I refuse you sex in a private transaction, who outside of us, is effected?

And in the US, Trick and John, would most likely be considered a private business transaction and not necessarily covered by anti discrimination law.

So, just to be clear, your position is that if I'm on my own time and want to go and have unprotected sex with ten people in a day without changing the sheets between them, the government is within its rights to ban me from having sex?

no. That is not my position. My position doesn't enter into it. Established law and legal precedent within the borders of the US as i have come to understand it is what I have been talking about. I haven't stated my position on the matter one way or the other.

If not, why is there a difference between how it acts in a private transaction on my own time and a private transaction when I'm seeing clients as part of my business?

if I am spreading typhoid or some other contagion be it in my business or leisure, existing public health law gives the govt authority to quarantine me. It is a matter of public health not the civil rights of a person to be able to infect or be infected.

Just to remove some variables, assume that I'm totally upfront with my partners in all cases and tell them about the unprotected sex I've had on these same dirty sheets and they don't care and still consent to the sex knowing this.

and?

 

[Bomb#20]

... Or is it your view that nobody has a right to do anything unless they have a reasonable rationale for doing it?

What I said is that no one has the 'right to refuse anything if it is not demonstrably in the agreed upon social interests of the group to do so.

So you're simply rejecting the concept of inalienable rights, full stop? A creationist can't demonstrate advocating creationism is in the social interests of the group; therefore he can't refuse to endorse Darwin, First Amendment be damned? A homeowner can't demonstrate that it's in the social interests of the group for the cop with a hunch not to come into his house to check for bricks of cocaine; therefore he can't refuse a warrantless search, Fourth Amendment be damned? A defendant can't demonstrate that it's in the social interests of the group for him not to take the stand and be cross-examined; therefore he can't refuse to testify against himself, Fifth Amendment be damned?

If that's your position, I think there's a larger issue here than the boundaries of a prostitute's control over her vagina, and the rest of us can't really have a useful discussion of the latter point with you until you come closer to the moral universe we live in, or vice versa.

I am argue the same for legal choices of whom to have intercourse. If John Dong can demonstrate that he was clearly discriminated against when a woman refused his advances he should have the right to publicly say so without sanction.

So who the heck said otherwise? Is that what you think the point in dispute was? I'm pretty sure Jason and Athena would agree with me that there should be no law against calling a racist prostitute a racist prostitute. It's that whole inalienable right to free speech thing.

 

[bilby]

Yes she is.

Next scenario: Suppose prostitution is legal and Dorothy is a prostitute who always turns away white would-be customers. Suppose just like Alice, Dorothy has a kid to support and no prospect of alternate employment. Suppose a white john complains, and after investigating, the government confirms that she is racially discriminating. Suppose the government tells her she has to start having sex with white men or else lose her job.

Next yes/no question to you: Is Dorothy being coerced to have sex with someone she doesn't want to have sex with?

No.

That you think this scenario has any bearing on the thread, is a truly sad reflection of the unpleasantness inherent in your society, and the way that that colours your perceptions. I am very sorry for you, and for your fellow Americans.

In other words, you are saying you don't have to apply any critical thought to your own ideology because my mama's so fat.

No, I am saying that you are treating your cultural oddities as though they were universal truths, and that it is commonplace and rather sad for people, particularly in your culture, to do this without ever realising that they are.

Let's try a simpler scenario:

Alice Jones is a prostitute. She puts an ad in the paper that says "No blacks". Is Alice a racist?

Yes, probably. (Maybe she's under the thumb of a racist pimp. Whatever.)

No probably, no maybe; this is a thought experiment; you don't get to add your own cultural expectations, or to change the terms of the question.

What's your point?

My point is the OP.

Does that settle the debate in your favor?

Yes, yes it does. The OP question is "Is it racist for a prostitute to reject black men?". If you agree that it is, then that pretty much settles the debate.

Is your point that you feel the fight against racism trumps any and all other considerations, and your feeling on this trumpage proves that our disagreement must be due to the unpleasantness inherent in American society and not due to the unpleasantness inherent in your hierarchy of priorities?

No.

(If your point wasn't that Alice should have to have sex with white men or lose her livelihood, but was merely that she shouldn't be permitted to put an ad in the paper that says "No blacks", then it's way too late for that. The rest of us are talking about rejecting customers, not about advertising regulations.

Yes; but you are not explaining why these are different, or how the difference is important. Note (and if necessary, please review all of my posts so far in the thread to confirm) that I have at no time suggested that a prostitute does not have the right to reject any customer at all, for any reason other than those reasons set out as illegal in the anti-discrimination legislation.

And you wrote:

"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."​

which shows you aren't talking about advertising regulations either.)

It also demonstrates my point very clearly. In most of the US, people are prohibited right now from being prostitutes, whether they are racists or not. I am arguing that non-racists should be given the freedom to choose prostitution as a lawful career; and your response is to claim that this implies that racists who wish to become lawful prostitutes would thereby be forced to have sex against their will. That is, frankly, bizarre.

 

[bilby]

What I said is that no one has the 'right to refuse anything if it is not demonstrably in the agreed upon social interests of the group to do so.

So you're simply rejecting the concept of inalienable rights, full stop? A creationist can't demonstrate advocating creationism is in the social interests of the group; therefore he can't refuse to endorse Darwin, First Amendment be damned? A homeowner can't demonstrate that it's in the social interests of the group for the cop with a hunch not to come into his house to check for bricks of cocaine; therefore he can't refuse a warrantless search, Fourth Amendment be damned? A defendant can't demonstrate that it's in the social interests of the group for him not to take the stand and be cross-examined; therefore he can't refuse to testify against himself, Fifth Amendment be damned?

If that's your position, I think there's a larger issue here than the boundaries of a prostitute's control over her vagina, and the rest of us can't really have a useful discussion of the latter point with you until you come closer to the moral universe we live in, or vice versa.

I am argue the same for legal choices of whom to have intercourse. If John Dong can demonstrate that he was clearly discriminated against when a woman refused his advances he should have the right to publicly say so without sanction.

So who the heck said otherwise? Is that what you think the point in dispute was? I'm pretty sure Jason and Athena would agree with me that there should be no law against calling a racist prostitute a racist prostitute. It's that whole inalienable right to free speech thing.

There really are no inalienable rights.

You might be interested to find that the First, Fourth and Fifth amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America have absolutely no applicability for the 95% of the world's population and 93% of the world's land area that are not in the jurisdiction of the USA.

What your constitution describe as 'inalienable' rights are, in fact, artefacts of that constitution itself; they are a nice propaganda 'pat on the back', saying how the document isn't really defining rights de novo, and is merely enumerating natural laws that already existed. This is, of course, a lie. But the authors wanted the people to follow their new rules, so they felt that it was perfectly acceptable to lie in order to achieve that goal - after all, that is pretty much true of all politicians.

I realise that most Americans consider these truths to be blasphemous; but they are truths none the less. Rights are created and granted by governments; and governments can (and do) destroy them and take them away.

Ask any North Korean how his inalienable right to free speech is going; he will tell you it is perfectly fine, but only because he dare not say anything different while the government minder is watching him speak to the dangerous foreigner.

 

[abaddon]

"Is it racist for a prostitute to reject black men?"

Yes, but so what? If she can get away with avoiding people she doesn't like then more power to her.