Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Will you pay for sex?
cook99
Explorer
What are your thoughts on people who pay for sex?
I am not talking about men/women/children who are forced into sex work. I am talking about the morality of paying for sex with a willing partner.
In Holland, there are women who choose to become prostitutes. It is a relatively quick way to make money. Are the men who patronize them breaking any Buddhism precepts?
What are your opinions of such men?
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I have never thought about it from a Buddhist perspective I guess.
I don't have an issue with it if both parties are consenting adults.
Like Holland it is legal in Australia and brothels are common place for the protection of both parties.
Doesn't seem to be an issue about morality at all, if morality is about causing harm to people. Maybe if it's unprotected and spreads diseases... or if it's anything other than fully consensual. This is where Buddhism parts ways with some other religions of note, because while sex for the sake of sex is still based on ignorance/greed (and is in that way unskillful to indulge in), it's not inherently any worse than paying for maid service. IMO anyway!
Other religions love to wallow in the idea of "sin", which I think is an unskillful obsession.
I don't think it is immoral, but, it seems that wherever you have a significant amount of consensual prostitution, you also have a significant amount of forced prostitution. Thailand is the perfect example.
@vinlyn Countries with a significant amount of prostitution probably have some deep social issues. :-/
I agree with that. Unfortunately, at least in the case of Thailand, there's no apparent awareness that it is a problem.
I don't see this as immoral at all. But there are species wide 'taboos' and applied ideas/conditions around the sex act. Free Willy Sex in a civilized society needs conditions, limitations, right contexts -- all understandable. Once you get grabbed by it and all you can think about is . . . relief, we aren't exactly in great conscious control of ourselves.
Has anyone here heard of the upscale services that provide excessively wealthy older men the company of a twenty-something in paid exchange -- like, paying for college tuition? Basically, a young attractive woman is paid by a sometimes much older man for sex and companionship, at his beck and call. That's the deal. The relationships can last quite a while, and according to the young women interviewed, they are fond of the sugar daddy. The men and women undergo intense screening, and the men pay a premium membership. It looks like a great way for a smart young woman to 'utilize' her youthful beauty while it lasts, in exchange for college tuition or help with student loans. Sounds OK to me.
We humans can pervert and overdo anything besides sex, that will always be there. But it matters what the intentions are, if one needs to make a decision about it based on personal morals.
The way sex issues became taboos especially women having sex outside marriage (with double standards like "slut-shaming" while guys get cheered on for sleeping around) and how it's so centered around male domination, wanting to control female sexuality and "keep" women, it turns my stomach that it took so long to move forward from that. It doesn't help that some religions really focus on that, even today. Men don't own women; God didn't give women to men as property (or anything else but that's another story)...
I just really wanna slap people who think in those terms, and I know that makes me a bad Buddhist or whatever. I want people, especially men, to put the caveman mentality down and slowly step away. If existing traditions are slowing that down, then those traditions need a swift kick too.
@cook99
Anybody here ever consider how many forms of socially acceptable behavior is actually an attempted payment for sex.
If some actions manifest a wake of compassion, love or wisdom, then you can say that those actions are moral.
If some actions manifest a wake of greed, hate or delusion, then you can say that those actions are immoral.
Sex is just one of countless commodity exchanges that are better judged for the type of wake that they leave behind than whether some payment was a part of that exchange or what genders were involved in it.
The Buddhist precepts are guidelines for how to walk as directly as possible along the path towards sufferings cessation. Any manifestation of greed, hate or delusion is a perceptual breakage.
I guess my question for you would be
"are the actions described in your opening post a manifestation of greed, hate or delusion?"
fuck knows
As far as I am concerned, it is completely irrelevant. People Suffer. They require compassion. If people resort to prostitution out of a personal need, they have a need and a right to compassion.
as a woman, I can equate with women who decide to prostitute themselves, to survive.
It is not an immoral act on the part of these women, necessarily.
It's an immoral action on the part of those who seek to profit or take advantage, with selfish intent.
My heart goes out to all of them.
From a Buddhist perspective, the N8P rests on three pillars: morality, concentration and wisdom.
For the system to work, no part can be sacrificed without jeopardizing the balance of the whole.
And though we can get away with drinking a glass of wine socially now and then, the precept of not indulging in "unlawful sexual intercourse" is harder to circumvene.
As @how said above: what is the motivation behind it?
No matter how much I ponder on the subject, I can find no rightful motivation for either party.
In the lighter shade of the spectrum, there is Greed, in the darkest, different kinky shades of Hate, and a huge Delusion component all along.
Does the illusion of "consensus" make it less immoral?
One consenting party is fooling herself to believe that she is consenting to an intercourse she would not have if money as transaction was not a viable option.
Another consenting party is getting another human being to do whatever it is they want them to do by enticing them with money, and fooling himself to believe that the other party is consenting just because she's a prostitute.
I find that prostitution gives sex a bad name.
A wholesome conception of sex is totally opposed to the idea of prostitution.
Whichever way we want to see it, behind the notion of prostitution there is always a stench of coertion, therefore unlawfulness, therefore degradation for two human beings.
As a young soldier I have done, in Germany, Holland and in Belize. At the time it was kind of a 'blokey' thing to do. A squad of us would go out on the drink and we'd all end up in the brothels. The night before we deployed to Northern Ireland (during the Troubles) I spent a whole months wages in one night there. I had five ladies and had to pay extra for two of them (they complained I was taking too long, so charged me double). I was eighteen at the time.
In Belize though, we got to know the working ladies quite well and it was probably there that I realised that they were human too, not just objects for sex. About a mile from our barracks was a place called Raul's Rose Garden (google for it) and often the ladies there would come to our parties on camp. Some of the guys befriended the ladies and would take them for all-expenses paid weekends to the Cayes.
And once you became a regular with one of the ladies there, none of the other ladies would have you, which was annoying. I can't remember the name of 'my lady', but she wasn't exactly stable - and she drank more than me, which was surprising.
One guy, Jock Bennie, even approached me to find out how to marry his girlfriend who worked at Rauls. We had a moment in the bar when one of the REME guys shouted over the bar, "Hey, Jock, I had sex with your girlfriend last night!" and Jock Bennie shouted back, "Well she is a prostitute isn't she?" She was from Honduras and he even travelled there with her to meet her parents (who thought she worked in a boutique in Belize). It didn't turn out well though. Jock Bennie was determined to marry her so the army sent him back to Germany pronto. In Germany he sent his fiancée the air fare to fly to Germany and he never heard from her again.
Many of the girls came from poor countries, like El Salvador, Honduras and Guatamala, and they were usually heavy drinkers. I'd be surprised, thinking about their lifestyle, if they're alive today.
Now I'm a lot older (I'm talking nearly 20 years since I paid for sex), my feelings are it's wrong. I don't think many can work in the sex industry, in this way, and not end up damaged in some way. I'd rather not encourage it.
thanks for your honesty Tosh.
I really appreciate it.
Many former prostitutes in Thailand are now happily married, some in other countries.
I dont know whether the Thais tolerance of prostitution has anything to do with buddhism.
probably not, it probably has more to do with poverty.
In the Phillipines, prostitution is common too. and they are catholics.
most men can accept that some men frequents prostitutes.
most of the women i know cant accept men who frequents prostitutes.
just to add, my cousin's wife was a prostitute from thailand, and they are happily married.
I suppose I'm conflicted on the subject. Would I pay for sex? No, no more than I could pick up a woman at a bar and take her home for the night. But that's just me. I can't relax enough around a stranger to get in the mood, no matter how pretty she is. Got to get to know her first.
But I don't see anything inherently hurtful about an open exchange for sex, anymore than I see something evil in being paid to be in a porno movie. Different strokes. Pun intended.
But on the other hand, I was stationed in Korea for a few years, young, single and living off base, and had to deal with the many prostitutes in the bars around the base. These were mostly orphans, girls with American soldier fathers who, in that country, could not even be citizens or allowed to work or go to school without a Korean man to claim to be her father. Certainly good Korean families wanted nothing to do with them. This was their desperate attempt to earn a living and maybe find an American to marry and take to the USA. At least, they could hope to move in with me and provide exclusive service for the duration of my tour. I couldn't play the game like my buddies because I kept thinking of the girl's desperation no matter how much they smiled and acted like they found me fascinating. It took the girls months to accept I wasn't interested and even sent some boys my way to see if that was my problem, but eventually I was able to relax and have a beer and not have a girl start pawing on me.
So I guess as a way to make a living, prostitution ranks up there with a lot of what seems to me really lousy careers, but a lot of people work jobs they don't like to pay the rent. Paying a girl for sex to me seems to require that the fantasy of engaging in a forbidden encounter with a stranger turn you on, and for some guys it does and some it doesn't. I knew one guy who loved to have sex in public places like elevators and parks, while the thought of being caught is a turn off to me. So as I said, different strokes.
Traditionally, the Buddhist view is that an exchange of money for sex doesn't break the precept.
I agree with the point a lot of people here have been making about prostitutes who are there against their will and the type of psychological harm that living, even voluntarily, such a life can cause.
Test
Talking about what is moral and immoral for every one of the billions of human beings on this planet, is futile. Unless someone is getting hurt, the answer is always that it depends on the situation. A married person going to a prostitute and lying to his wife about It Is one thing. Someone dying from cancer getting a call girl Is quite another. All I can talk about is me.
I have subscribed to adult sites so I guess you could say I have paid for sex. After struggling with this for years, on and off, I have come to the conclusion that it is not skillful action for me. Not once have I felt fulfilled from this activity. Instead, my mind would become muddy and I would make a mess of my day. Nearly always I would be worse off after than before psychologically.
So I try to stay away from this stuff as much as I can. Not because I think it is wrong but because I experimentally established it is not good for me and hinders me from realizing my potential. But it is tough to harness sexual energy, especially that now we are surrounded with sexual imagery and messages almost wherever we go. So my sympathies to all those who struggle with sex. There is a lot of suffering in that and may we all have the strength and the wisdom to live harmoniously with our natures.
Is it immoral to facilitate a 'paradigm' (?) of sex-for-pay when that paradigm includes individuals who are compelled by force or threat to do the sex work? Simply because the whole sex-trade includes the subjugation oppression of individuals along with willing individuals?
Tricky. Isn't Prostitution "Business in human beings"?
In that case it is an unskillfull action.
/Victor
Ditto @shadowleaver. I too struggled for a long time with this. I have now pretty much got it under control though. Glad you've been able to as well.
Good point, IMO that would certainly include pimps and traffickers, whether it would include the independent call girl selling herself its not so clear to me.
NO
I thought that a business in human beings was about slavery.
That seems to include many forms of work where workers feels obliged to engage in activities they wouldn't normally choose to but for the fear for losing their job if they didn't.
Sales jobs for one. The caste systems for others.
This is not to diminish the seriousness of trafficking in human beings but is to point out how many businesses (outside of some levels of prostitution) also partake of aspects of forcing humans to do what they would prefer not to do.
I have not and will not pay for sex! @How are you condoning this trade by justifying our normal lives as a form of slavery, and the sex trade as part of normal life?
Please don't feel the need to answer this one BTW? It's purely conjectural!
I don't condone any kind of coercion and I'd bet @how feels exactly the same. However if someone chooses to engage in sexual activities for money... I'm having trouble finding anything particularly wrong with that, @anataman. It's their body, their life. Where exactly does the wrong come in?
One way or another ...
@anataman
Mostly I am interested in softening the boundaries we draw between our selves and others.
Not to justify what others do but to examine more carefully where we also do much of what we castigate others for doing.
Those are the activities that we can actually do something about rather than just pretending to be outraged by that which just makes us feel smugly superior.
A man taking a woman out on dates and paying for everything in the expectation of sex, an expectation that the woman feels as pressure, seems almost like a socially acceptable form of paying for sex. And of course marriage, but that's another thing.
There is no wrong, as there is no RIGHT! It's the slavery aspect I find troubling - if you are a slave to a trade - that's a very very big problem! If selling your self in any form brings you a life that makes you happy - so be it!
ooh it seems like there were a number of posts posted simultaneously!
@anataman Yes that's the aspect in some cultures that I find troubling too. Or even having a pimp that's basically an enslaver instead of PR for a service.
regardless - the sex trade is a commercial enterprise. Banking has it's own negativities. There is no answer to this one apart from yes or no and mine is NO! Unless she's really so god damn sexy and good looking that my mind really has no control over my bodily functions!
now I know when I need to have a piss or shit, and can make my arse and bladder wait for an appropriate time - but to be in a position where I desire sex and the money slips out of my fingers inter her un-oiled hand - means I WANTED it in the first place!
I think you're right. The meaning over thousands of years has changed, but I suspect the original teaching was about forms of slavery.
Then I propose there are millions of slaves in this world - slaves to finance, IT, gaming, hospitality..................... Anyone who works their proverbials off due to fear of not earning enough is a slave................
And that's the quandary, isn't it? Coerced prostitution is so woven throughout its history and in our so-called modern world that we can't really separate it from the evil of slavery, can we? Not every prostitute is a slave or coerced, but many are in the world.
There are passionate people trying to stop prostitution in the name of women's rights, and passionate people trying to end making criminals of the prostitutes and regulate it as any service industry in an attempt to make the prostitute's life better and end the stranglehold of the pimp. I don't know enough either way but I suspect a lot depends on the culture and the particular circumstance the prostitute faces. I suspect there is not a "one size fits all" solution.
In the case of the Korean prostitutes I talked about, the Korean government rightly points out it's the Americans who can't keep their hands off the local girls getting them pregnant in the first place so if we really cared, we'd bring these half-American kids back to the US and live up to our responsibility in taking care of them. The American government is not about to open that can of worms and start a debate about the behavior of our (often married) soldier stationed overseas. We tell the Korean government they need to update their laws since it should be that a Korean mother is enough to give a child citizenship in their own country. And in the meantime, without prostitution the children once they grow up and leave the orphanage can only beg or be taken advantage of in other ways like undocumented workers in our USA.
So in this case the girls are not slaves, but neither can you say they have much choice. They're free to starve, I guess.
Fourteen per cent of searches and 4% of websites devoted to sex really are very significant numbers, when you stop to ponder it."
the demand for porn is huge. so there are many many many people who likes porn.
how many of them are addicted?
probably the same as other addictions,
about 1-2% of the population.
The issue of prostitutes was a problem for me when I first went to Thailand, because as a single older man it is assumed that I am a sex tourist, one, and two, I felt as though I might be tempted by the easy and cheap access to beautiful young women, and three, I felt that maybe I should try it to see how I would feel about it.
Then, after joining a friend for a visit to Nan plaza then Pat Pong and Pattaya, I learned that Asian hookers, while they are prettier and perhaps more wholesome than western hookers, are still hookers. Some of them dress like schoolgirls or any other way that I would expect prostitutes to look. I guess I thought they might somehow be different. I couldn't muster up any enthusiasm for it. Maybe if I was a drinking man...
Now, I have pretty much resolved that I won't participate in the sex trade. I'm not going to start having sex with prostitutes just because they are Asian.
I've tried to keep an open mind about it and those who buy into it, but I find myself feeling more and more disdain for them. The johns mainly not so much the girls. The turning point for me was seeing a middle aged western guy with a skinny little, obviously poverty stricken, Cambodian girl in Phnom Penh. They weren't much different than hundreds of others I had seen, but for some reason it seemed more pathetic.
I can tolerate feeling smugly superior sometimes in the name retaining my self respect.
I, too, was assumed to be looking for prostitutes when I went to Thailand so often, although I never partook. Actually, it was the one thing I disliked most about Thailand.
What stunned me were the American men (as well as Europeans), some of whom would extol the virtues of using prostitutes in Thailand because it would allow the prostitute to send money back to their families in the village. Made me want to vomit.
I wonder if those people who are addicted to the porn industry know anything about relating to sex in a wholesome way.
Going out, really connecting with another human being and having an honest, straightforward and fulfilling sexual intercourse.
I bet these are the men who can't even stare a woman in the eyes.
I would say the Buddhist stance is to do no harm, including harm to yourself. Prostitution may be seen as harmless if both parties are willing. But harm doesn't have to be physical, it can be psychological which is just as devastating. Surely it harms someone to use them like an object instead of cherishing them as a whole person. It harms someone to allow their body to be used in such a way. Many sex criminals start out hooked on pornography and prostitutes. Years of loveless sex can dehumanise the opposite sex, make it easier to cross the line into abuse and violence.
I have thought about it and will have to say no.
Not primarily because I think that the presented scenario is unskillful action but because the entire concept seems a bit unhygienic.
I mean sharing bodyfluids with one person is one thing. Co-sharing with an entire cadre is another.
/Victor
They've invented something called condoms, @Victorious. It's probably safer to have sex with a prostitute who takes care of her physical health (in Germany, for example, by law they have to have regular medical check-ups) with a condom, than it is to sleep with a non-prostitute we don't really know without a condom.
No country is ever going to stamp out what's called the 'World's oldest profession', and where they try, they marginalise it and make it even more unsafe for the sex workers, but with education, with things like condoms, we can lessen the harm caused.
I sponsor an alcoholic who is also a member of Sex Addicts Anonymous. He's a gay guy and although I thought I was pretty much unshockable, this guy has some stories about his sexual misconduct.
I just did not know that someone could spent eight hours at a time, watching porn. I was like, "Man, it must've been sore!" and he was looking at me with baleful eyes, sadly nodding his head.
And remember it's not just about the opposite sex. My gay sponsee said he could even watch 'straight porn' if it was violent.
When you mix this with alcohol, it's gotten him into all kinds of trouble. He's even followed male co-workers to the toilets (during work functions) and embarrassed himself. It really can be an addiction - it has all the hallmarks.
He's a lovely bloke, btw, very gentle and caring, university educated with a job that regularly takes him overseas. You'd never think that under his calm-looking exterior lurks a monster. He didn't harm any children (though he himself has been sexually active with adults since he was 13 years old), but he's indicated he was heading down that route.
Oh you are into safe sex! Kinky!
.
Tosh said:
Quite. I meant the object of one's desire, whichever sex they are. The point is turning a person into an object is damaging psychologically. And objectifying your own body in pursuit of relentless sexual gratification is damaging too.
I agree criminalising doesn't work. As you say, prostitution is the oldest profession. And objectifying ourselves and others is only one manifestation of our material culture.
If it's illegal, you could definitely say it's a broken precept. If it's not illegal, you could definitely say it's unskillful.
Japan has a sophiscticated sex industry,
and increasing number of young people uninterested in realationships.
porn is a form of escape just like certain computer games.
real life can be quite harsh, so many people escape into fantasy world.
some scholars argue that without prostitution , rape cases will increase.
do you agree?
If you are saying breaking a law is always breaking a Precept, then I don't agree.