Is it racist for a prostitute to reject black men?

[bilby]

This slippery slope argument is kind of a waste of time. Sex work is not a public accommodation.

You could take it to reductio ad absurdum extreme of say forcing a gigolo to take on male clients that would anally penetrate him. That is the end goal!

That isn't a reductio ad absurdum, that actually is the logical conclusion of those arguing that the prostitute should not be able to deny black Johns.

Indeed it is, as long as his current business model includes allowing women to anally penetrate him. With their penises. No, I can't see a flaw in your reasoning there at all.

 

[angelo]

This slippery slope argument is kind of a waste of time. Sex work is not a public accommodation.

You could take it to reductio ad absurdum extreme of say forcing a gigolo to take on male clients that would anally penetrate him. That is the end goal!

That isn't a reductio ad absurdum, that actually is the logical conclusion of those arguing that the prostitute should not be able to deny black Johns.

What if the black John wants to whip her, or choke her to almost unconsciousness? Should the prostitute not be the decision maker regarding her own body?

 

[credoconsolans]

That isn't a reductio ad absurdum, that actually is the logical conclusion of those arguing that the prostitute should not be able to deny black Johns.

What if the black John wants to whip her, or choke her to almost unconsciousness? Should the prostitute not be the decision maker regarding her own body?

That would cost extra and be a part of the arrangements up front. If they're not, then both parties have a differing opinion on what constitutes sex and the prostitute would be within her rights to stop the action if she hadn't agreed to the actions up front.

 

[fromderinside]

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.

When I wrote "...demonstrably in the agreed upon social interests of the group to do so ..." I put myself in the US constitutional moral universe which sets limits on inalienable rights and government's rights relative to them.

My disagreement is with the right of one withholding sex in a business about sex where there are constraints about withholding service because of race. Such is unjustified for both business reasons and constitutional reasons as they apply to businesses.

 

[repoman]

Has it actually happened yet, a case of discrimination brought up in the prostitution business?

This guy may have a case:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Deienqzw2bM[/YOUTUBE]

 

[ksen]

Has it actually happened yet, a case of discrimination brought up in the prostitution business?

That's weird, I googled "prostitute sued for discrimination" and a whole bunch of Donald Sterling links came up.

 

[Bomb#20]

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.

Violence is the sole basis upon which all laws are ultimately enforced. Threats of fines are meaningless without jail, which is meaningless without threat of physical force and violence to put and keep them there. Only by threat of physical violence can the State prevent a women from selling sex to white men but not black men. So what you are saying is that you are "perfectly comfortable" with the State physically attacking a women up to and including killing her, if she avoids starvation by taking money from white men when she has sex with them, but then refuses to have sex with black men who want to give her money.

Let's not overstate the case here -- that just plays into the hands of the unreasonable people. If the police shoot her because she pulls a gun on them to avoid arrest, that's a risk she chose to run separate from her choice to commit civil disobedience against an unjust licensing law; and Bilby hasn't indicated it's okay for police to escalate to deadly force first. So he's actually only saying he's "perfectly comfortable" with the State physically attacking a woman up to and including kidnapping her.

 

[Bomb#20]

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.

So, do you have a principled reason for believing that when a private employer tells her she has to have sex with one of a set of people chosen by him or else lose her livelihood, it's coercion, but when a government tells her she has to have sex with one (actually, several) of a set of people chosen by them or else lose her livelihood, it's not coercion?

Or are you simply applying a blatant double standard for what is or isn't coercive, in order to get the answer you want? Do you in fact have anything whatsoever to offer in defense of your absurd contention, that's an iota more substantive than "That you think this scenario has any bearing on the thread, is a truly sad reflection of the unpleasantness inherent in your society"?

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.

Funny, I wouldn't have thought that opposition to coerced sex, opposition to self-deceptive double standards, or opposition to unlimited government are American cultural oddities. To whatever extent these attitudes are cultural rather than mankind's common aspiration, our culture certainly inherited them from the same British forebear culture yours is descended from. And I've been to your country several times and the people I met there seemed like nice decent reasonable people. Are you telling me that actually Australia, as everyone knows, is peopled entirely by criminals? What exactly is it I've been treating as a universal truth in my arguments, that is actually a cultural oddity you think is commonplace in America and rare in Australia?

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.

Oh please. You didn't give enough information in your scenario to decide the issue you asked me to decide; and I didn't change the terms. Are you perhaps unfamiliar with the meaning of the word "maybe"? If you wanted to specify that her reason for saying "No blacks" was because she was a racist, you could have. We'll take it as read that you're adding that detail to your scenario.

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.

Oh, come off it! We are not debating the OP question. We are debating Tom Sawyer's follow-up contention from post #5.

"If they choose to run a business, they cannot discriminate in how they run that business. The fact that their business is sex shouldn't change that.

Are accountants forced to do the taxes of all who will pay if they do the taxes of anyone who will pay?"​

The great bulk of this thread has been devoted to that issue, not the issue of whether she's racist. You know this. You have been heavily participating in the debate over legality. And I didn't write to you. You wrote to me. You began our fight by challenging a post of mine that addressed the legality issue while stipulating she was racist. So you can hardly have been trying to convince me it's racist for a prostitute to reject black men. If that's what you think the issue to be settled is, why the devil didn't you wander off to find somebody to argue with who claims it isn't racist?

(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)

Excuse me? Do you seriously have the gall to tell me to go read all your posts in the same breath where you confess to not reading all of mine? I already explained why rules against rejecting customers are different, in my post supporting Athena.

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.

Why do you think I made bloody sure that the boss telling the janitor whom to put out for in my Bob&Alice scenario was only prohibiting rejection for the exact same reason that you already approved of the state prohibiting rejection for? If you're trying to justify your inconsistency by going on yet again about the distinction between prohibiting refusal and prohibiting a reason for refusal, epic fail. Bob at no time suggested that Alice did not have the right to reject any sex partner at all, for any reason other than race. And you already agreed that it was still coercion.

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.

No, it isn't bizarre in the least -- it follows directly from the criteria for coercion that you applied to the scenario you claimed had no bearing on this thread. You are simply committing a blatant equivocation fallacy. You are equivocating between two incompatible versions of the "forced to" concept. You are applying a broad definition of "forced to" to the business owner who threatens the janitor with losing her job unless she has sex against her will. And you are applying a narrow definition of "forced to" to the licensing authority who threatens the janitor with losing her job unless she has sex against her will. That you are able to casually shift your criteria for "forced to" back and forth case-by-case in order to get whatever answer you want, and never notice yourself doing it, is what's frankly bizarre.

 

[Bomb#20]

This slippery slope argument is kind of a waste of time. Sex work is not a public accommodation.

You could take it to reductio ad absurdum extreme of say forcing a gigolo to take on male clients that would anally penetrate him. That is the end goal!

That isn't a reductio ad absurdum, that actually is the logical conclusion of those arguing that the prostitute should not be able to deny black Johns.

Indeed it is, as long as his current business model includes allowing women to anally penetrate him. With their penises. No, I can't see a flaw in your reasoning there at all.

So, just to clarify, if a licensed male prostitute lets women pay him to put his penis in their mouths and let them suck on it until they reach orgasm, then do you think the terms of his license should require him to offer the same service to male customers?

 

[bilby]

This slippery slope argument is kind of a waste of time. Sex work is not a public accommodation.

You could take it to reductio ad absurdum extreme of say forcing a gigolo to take on male clients that would anally penetrate him. That is the end goal!

That isn't a reductio ad absurdum, that actually is the logical conclusion of those arguing that the prostitute should not be able to deny black Johns.

Indeed it is, as long as his current business model includes allowing women to anally penetrate him. With their penises. No, I can't see a flaw in your reasoning there at all.

So, just to clarify, if a licensed male prostitute lets women pay him to put his penis in their mouths and let them suck on it until they reach orgasm, then do you think the terms of his license should require him to offer the same service to male customers?

I think that gender is an important consideration in the context of sexual behaviour; so it is legitimate to discriminate based on this factor.

Eye colour and skin colour are not, so it is not.

Discrimination per se is a good thing; but it is so common and accepted that it is rarely discussed; the word 'discrimination' has, as a result, come to mean 'unreasonable discrimination' - ie discrimination on the basis of a factor that has no bearing on the situation at hand.

A person's gender has no bearing on their work as a ticket collector; so it is illegal to discriminate on gender grounds alone when employing ticket collectors.

A person's gender has a major bearing on their sexual behaviours; so it is perfectly OK to discriminate on gender grounds when selecting sexual partners in a business setting.

 

[bilby]

No.

So, do you have a principled reason for believing that when a private employer tells her she has to have sex with one of a set of people chosen by him or else lose her livelihood, it's coercion, but when a government tells her she has to have sex with one (actually, several) of a set of people chosen by them or else lose her livelihood, it's not coercion?

Or are you simply applying a blatant double standard for what is or isn't coercive, in order to get the answer you want? Do you in fact have anything whatsoever to offer in defense of your absurd contention, that's an iota more substantive than "That you think this scenario has any bearing on the thread, is a truly sad reflection of the unpleasantness inherent in your society"?

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.

Funny, I wouldn't have thought that opposition to coerced sex, opposition to self-deceptive double standards, or opposition to unlimited government are American cultural oddities. To whatever extent these attitudes are cultural rather than mankind's common aspiration, our culture certainly inherited them from the same British forebear culture yours is descended from. And I've been to your country several times and the people I met there seemed like nice decent reasonable people. Are you telling me that actually Australia, as everyone knows, is peopled entirely by criminals? What exactly is it I've been treating as a universal truth in my arguments, that is actually a cultural oddity you think is commonplace in America and rare in Australia?

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.

Oh please. You didn't give enough information in your scenario to decide the issue you asked me to decide; and I didn't change the terms. Are you perhaps unfamiliar with the meaning of the word "maybe"? If you wanted to specify that her reason for saying "No blacks" was because she was a racist, you could have. We'll take it as read that you're adding that detail to your scenario.

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.

Oh, come off it! We are not debating the OP question. We are debating Tom Sawyer's follow-up contention from post #5.

"If they choose to run a business, they cannot discriminate in how they run that business. The fact that their business is sex shouldn't change that.

Are accountants forced to do the taxes of all who will pay if they do the taxes of anyone who will pay?"​

The great bulk of this thread has been devoted to that issue, not the issue of whether she's racist. You know this. You have been heavily participating in the debate over legality. And I didn't write to you. You wrote to me. You began our fight by challenging a post of mine that addressed the legality issue while stipulating she was racist. So you can hardly have been trying to convince me it's racist for a prostitute to reject black men. If that's what you think the issue to be settled is, why the devil didn't you wander off to find somebody to argue with who claims it isn't racist?

(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)

Excuse me? Do you seriously have the gall to tell me to go read all your posts in the same breath where you confess to not reading all of mine? I already explained why rules against rejecting customers are different, in my post supporting Athena.

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.

Why do you think I made bloody sure that the boss telling the janitor whom to put out for in my Bob&Alice scenario was only prohibiting rejection for the exact same reason that you already approved of the state prohibiting rejection for? If you're trying to justify your inconsistency by going on yet again about the distinction between prohibiting refusal and prohibiting a reason for refusal, epic fail. Bob at no time suggested that Alice did not have the right to reject any sex partner at all, for any reason other than race. And you already agreed that it was still coercion.

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.

No, it isn't bizarre in the least -- it follows directly from the criteria for coercion that you applied to the scenario you claimed had no bearing on this thread. You are simply committing a blatant equivocation fallacy. You are equivocating between two incompatible versions of the "forced to" concept. You are applying a broad definition of "forced to" to the business owner who threatens the janitor with losing her job unless she has sex against her will. And you are applying a narrow definition of "forced to" to the licensing authority who threatens the janitor with losing her job unless she has sex against her will. That you are able to casually shift your criteria for "forced to" back and forth case-by-case in order to get whatever answer you want, and never notice yourself doing it, is what's frankly bizarre.

I do not accept your principle that any and all government behaviour is force; the tired old libertarian bullcrap that says it is is fundamentally flawed, because it starts from the false assumption that individuals are the only important entities, and that societies do not exist except as collections of individuals. This thread is not the place for a rehash of that silly discussion.

Suffice to say that any argument against prohibiting licensed prostitutes from racial discrimination, that is equally valid as an argument against governments regulating anything at all, is pointless in this context; It is like raising biblical creation in a debate between geneticists. Assuming that some laws are acceptable is a prerequisite for taking part in a discussion about which specific proposed laws are or are not acceptable. If you want to argue for no laws at all, on the grounds that any regulation is tantamount to making death threats, please start another thread for that.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

A person's gender has a major bearing on their sexual behaviours; so it is perfectly OK to discriminate on gender grounds when selecting sexual partners in a business setting.

Ya, tell that to my boss. He keeps saying that I'll be an unemployed homophobic bigot if I don't blow him in the conference room.

 

[ksen]

well? hop to it!

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

[bilby]

A person's gender has a major bearing on their sexual behaviours; so it is perfectly OK to discriminate on gender grounds when selecting sexual partners in a business setting.

Ya, tell that to my boss. He keeps saying that I'll be an unemployed homophobic bigot if I don't blow him in the conference room.

Sorry, I am not familiar with that euphemism; which part of his anatomy is his "conference room"?

 

[angelo]

A person's gender has a major bearing on their sexual behaviours; so it is perfectly OK to discriminate on gender grounds when selecting sexual partners in a business setting.

Ya, tell that to my boss. He keeps saying that I'll be an unemployed homophobic bigot if I don't blow him in the conference room.

That's farking blackmail!!! How bad do you need this job?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Violence is the sole basis upon which all laws are ultimately enforced. Threats of fines are meaningless without jail, which is meaningless without threat of physical force and violence to put and keep them there. Only by threat of physical violence can the State prevent a women from selling sex to white men but not black men. So what you are saying is that you are "perfectly comfortable" with the State physically attacking a women up to and including killing her, if she avoids starvation by taking money from white men when she has sex with them, but then refuses to have sex with black men who want to give her money.

Careful, when I made that same argument Tom Saywer said it was "creepy" and "insane". You don't want to publicly say that government exists by the threat of force, do you? That would be "creepy" and "insane". Oh, I wonder what Tom thinks all those cops and soldiers are for...

 

[Bomb#20]

So, do you have a principled reason for believing that when a private employer tells her she has to have sex with one of a set of people chosen by him or else lose her livelihood, it's coercion, but when a government tells her she has to have sex with one (actually, several) of a set of people chosen by them or else lose her livelihood, it's not coercion?

Or are you simply applying a blatant double standard for what is or isn't coercive, in order to get the answer you want? Do you in fact have anything whatsoever to offer in defense of your absurd contention, that's an iota more substantive than "That you think this scenario has any bearing on the thread, is a truly sad reflection of the unpleasantness inherent in your society"?

I do not accept your principle that any and all government behaviour is force; the tired old libertarian bullcrap that says it is is fundamentally flawed, because it starts from the false assumption that individuals are the only important entities, and that societies do not exist except as collections of individuals. This thread is not the place for a rehash of that silly discussion.

Suffice to say that any argument against prohibiting licensed prostitutes from racial discrimination, that is equally valid as an argument against governments regulating anything at all, is pointless in this context; It is like raising biblical creation in a debate between geneticists. Assuming that some laws are acceptable is a prerequisite for taking part in a discussion about which specific proposed laws are or are not acceptable. If you want to argue for no laws at all, on the grounds that any regulation is tantamount to making death threats, please start another thread for that.

So that's a no, yes and no, to my three questions above. You evidently have nothing to say in defense either of your position or of your previous arguments for it, or you wouldn't be attempting to take the heat off your own inconsistency by making me the issue.

I guess that's not so very blameworthy -- it's human nature to do that when you feel yourself losing an argument. But you're setting up a strawman -- you have zero basis for all those words you're putting in my mouth. I'm not a libertarian; I haven't advocated libertarianism here or on the old forum; I have in fact been quite critical of it. Not all government action is force; that doesn't change the fact that enforced licensing laws are force. It's a fact non-libertarians from George Washington to Mao can agree on; moreover the claim that they're force isn't a claim that it's wrong to impose them. As for whether societies exist except as collections of individuals, that's a metaphysical question with no bearing on observables; nothing I've written in this thread presumes an answer to that metaphysical question one way or the other. You're bringing it up purely as a distraction. Further, I haven't disputed that some laws are acceptable; neither have I made any arguments against prohibiting licensed prostitutes from racial discrimination that also apply to governments regulating anything at all. Go ahead, quote me if you disagree. You just made all that up in order to poison the well. Heck, I specifically pointed out that the regulation you're advocating is NOT tantamount to a death threat. You are systematically misrepresenting me, and you are doing it to such an overwhelming extent that it's scarcely credible that you're doing it inadvertently. You are, for all practical purposes, conceding that you've lost the substantive debate.

 

[bilby]

I do not accept your principle that any and all government behaviour is force; the tired old libertarian bullcrap that says it is is fundamentally flawed, because it starts from the false assumption that individuals are the only important entities, and that societies do not exist except as collections of individuals. This thread is not the place for a rehash of that silly discussion.

Suffice to say that any argument against prohibiting licensed prostitutes from racial discrimination, that is equally valid as an argument against governments regulating anything at all, is pointless in this context; It is like raising biblical creation in a debate between geneticists. Assuming that some laws are acceptable is a prerequisite for taking part in a discussion about which specific proposed laws are or are not acceptable. If you want to argue for no laws at all, on the grounds that any regulation is tantamount to making death threats, please start another thread for that.

So that's a no, yes and no, to my three questions above.

Actually, it's an "I don't accept the premise of your loaded question", "I am not doing that, so the question does not apply" and "Yes, but as you are ignoring it it is futile to continue".

You evidently have nothing to say in defense either of your position or of your previous arguments for it, or you wouldn't be attempting to take the heat off your own inconsistency by making me the issue.

I am not making you this issue; I am taking issue with the premises on which you base your arguments. If you feel like I am attacking you personally when I question your deeply held beliefs, that is not my problem; nor is it a problem for my argument.

I guess that's not so very blameworthy -- it's human nature to do that when you feel yourself losing an argument. But you're setting up a strawman -- you have zero basis for all those words you're putting in my mouth. I'm not a libertarian; I haven't advocated libertarianism here or on the old forum; I have in fact been quite critical of it. Not all government action is force; that doesn't change the fact that enforced licensing laws are force.

How can that internally inconsistent claim possibly be true? What makes enforcing a license force, but enforcing other kinds of laws not force?

It's a fact non-libertarians from George Washington to Mao can agree on; moreover the claim that they're force isn't a claim that it's wrong to impose them.

Well we can agree on that at least.

As for whether societies exist except as collections of individuals, that's a metaphysical question with no bearing on observables; nothing I've written in this thread presumes an answer to that metaphysical question one way or the other. You're bringing it up purely as a distraction. Further, I haven't disputed that some laws are acceptable; neither have I made any arguments against prohibiting licensed prostitutes from racial discrimination that also apply to governments regulating anything at all. Go ahead, quote me if you disagree. You just made all that up in order to poison the well. Heck, I specifically pointed out that the regulation you're advocating is NOT tantamount to a death threat. You are systematically misrepresenting me, and you are doing it to such an overwhelming extent that it's scarcely credible that you're doing it inadvertently. You are, for all practical purposes, conceding that you've lost the substantive debate.

The regulation is not tantamount to a threat at all, in the context of the claim that the government is instructing women to have sex with partners not of her choosing. The claim is absurd, regardless of whether it is under threat of death, incarceration, or fines; no such threat exists.

Right now in most of the US, prostitution is illegal - the government can and does fine or incarcerate women for voluntarily engaging in sex, simply because she does so as a business, rather than as a personal, transaction.

The proposed change to allow the exchange of sex for money under some circumstances includes the regulation of such transactions. All the usual government rules about doing business apply - Licensed prostitutes must pay taxes, and must not unlawfully discriminate (for example by placing advertisements that say "No blacks". There are also some regulations that are specific to the industry - use of condoms, requirements for regular health checks, rules about location etc.; failing to comply with any of the rules may result in fines, loss of licence, or other penalties.

If a prostitute is a catholic, and refuses to use condoms on religious grounds, her license is forfeit. But that doesn't mean the government is forcing her to use a condom; just that she cannot BOTH be a prostitute, AND refuse to use condoms.

If a prostitute is a member of the Klu Klux Klan, and refuses, upfront, to accept any black person as a customer on racial grounds, then equally, her license is forfeit. But that doesn't mean the government is forcing her to have sex with black men in general; just that she cannot BOTH be a prostitute, AND refuse to have sex with black men in general.

If a prostitute is approached by a customer and says "Sorry, I think you are ugly, no sale", that is perfectly OK; The government will not force her to have sex with that individual.

If a prostitute has a long history of refusing ALL black customers, despite having been approached by a wide range of customers of all races, and having refused few of other races, then the government can reasonably say "You are not providing the licensed service to the entire population in a non-discriminatory manner", and can cancel her license.

Not one iota of this is different from any other licensed and regulated business; and despite the appeals to emotion up-thread, mostly consisting of unsubstantiated claims that sex is 'different' from other personal services, I have yet to see any reason why in is, ought to be, or might be different.

Cancelling my liquor license because I refuse to serve blacks is not the same thing as forcing me to sell whisky to people I don't want to sell whisky to; Cancelling my prostitution license because I refuse to service blacks is not the same thing as forcing me to have sex with people I don't want to have sex with.

Hell, it is arguably more of an impost on the bar owner to take his license away - if he has a lot of stock that he has paid for, but can no longer legally sell. No-one ever said "Oh, damn, I lost my job at the brothel; Now what am I going to do with all this left-over sex?"

 

[angelo]

I knew a woman who lost her job at a brothel once, long time ago now. It was for exactly the reason stated in this thread. She refused to have sex with a couple of black African/American sailors who were visiting our fair city.

 

[Metaphor]

I think that gender is an important consideration in the context of sexual behaviour; so it is legitimate to discriminate based on this factor.

Eye colour and skin colour are not, so it is not.

Discrimination per se is a good thing; but it is so common and accepted that it is rarely discussed; the word 'discrimination' has, as a result, come to mean 'unreasonable discrimination' - ie discrimination on the basis of a factor that has no bearing on the situation at hand.

A person's gender has no bearing on their work as a ticket collector; so it is illegal to discriminate on gender grounds alone when employing ticket collectors.

A person's gender has a major bearing on their sexual behaviours; so it is perfectly OK to discriminate on gender grounds when selecting sexual partners in a business setting.

This is naked special pleading, but it's also very confused. What does it mean to have a 'major bearing' on sexual behaviour? I only have sex with men, and that has nothing at all to do with my gender, but rather my sexual orientation.

What does it mean for skin colour not to be important in 'sexual behaviour'? Do you imagine most people of any race have no differences at all in terms of their sexual responses to races?

I find the gender of a partner more important than the race of a partner in terms of sexual functioning, but that doesn't mean I don't have racial preferences in terms of sexual partners.

In fact, I have a pretty clear order of races I find attractive and ones I don't. But basically you're saying that, if I sold sex, it's okay for me to indulge my sexist preference (of selling sex only to men) but not my racist preferences (because you claim that isn't important for 'sexual behaviour').