Should the government regulate morality?

[Matt]

Just wondering what y'all think...

I would like if you wouldn't reply to each other, just post what you think if need be.

[JeffreyS]

It is to broad a question. Murder is immoral and should be regulated. Lying about someone being home when a friend calls is immoral but should not be regulated.

[Springfielder]

It's a wide open, yet vague question.

[samiam]

There are many parents that do not teach there children the difference between right and wrong and they do not teach them any manners what so ever. There should be a code of conduct in schools that is strictly enforced. I also believe all schools should have uniforms. Mobile Alabama adopted school uniforms and it made a big difference. Having a strict dress code decreases the distractions caused by the parents that let there children attend school wearing inappropriate cloth.

[tufsu1]

the question is who defines morality?

[Midway ®]

Riversidegator.

The question in this poll is framed in a very vague and peculiar way.

[urbanlibertarian]

All transactions and other relations between competent adults not involving violence or coercion should be legal.  Competent adults should also be able to make risk/benefit evaluations for themselves and choose behaviors that a majority of people would not choose.  People should also be completely responsible for the consequences of the choices they make.

[Springfielder]

Well stated, urbanlibertarian

[NotNow]

All transactions and other relations between competent adults not involving violence or coercion should be legal.  Competent adults should also be able to make risk/benefit evaluations for themselves and choose behaviors that a majority of people would not choose.  People should also be completely responsible for the consequences of the choices they make.

So you think that the Bernie Madoff's should go free?

[chipwich]

So you think that the Bernie Madoff's should go free?

Nope.  Madoff is not a question of morality or libertarian beliefs.  He should go to jail because he committed fraud (securities fraud to be more specific). 

Yes, he was willingly commissioned to hold investments by patrons (with no duress).  There is nothing wrong there.  Where he went wrong was sending them statements that lied about how he allocated their assets, his returns on those assets and how much wealth was actually left for his clients.

There is nothing wrong or immoral about investing with a moron, just as long as that moron is not falsifying information regarding your investment.  You cannot fault a hedge manger who returns a neg. 90% return as long as he sends you statements that acurately back up that return. 

Its a free country, and with the proper licenses, you too can set up a hedge-fund and run it into the ground.  The only requirement is that you have to honestly tell your investors what is going on with their money.  Whether they keep their investment with you is their decision and you would in no way be liable for their decision.

[Deuce]

Way to vague to vote on. One person might argue that prostitution is immoral and thereby should be regulated (as it currently is). Another person (maybe urbanlibertarian based upon their screen name and statement) might argue that it's not. My take is immorality should be regulated to the degree that harm is directly caused to another. I know that's a bit vague too, but to sum up: murderer goes to jail, so does Bernie, pimp does to, but not the prossy or John.

BTW, what does the last option translate to?

[CMG22]

Amen, urbanlibertarian!

[Ocklawaha]

ANNIE LOBERT, former prostitute, Hollywood - Las Vegas

Certain acts are not with the consent you might think!

As most of you know, back in the "hippie era" I lived with (or rather they lived with me) a couple of girls that were professionally unemployed in Hollywood California. They were so emotionally damaged that neither would make rational decisions, and in fact, no longer had the self respect to care. Enter the world of the beautiful (and I mean DROP DEAD beautiful) throw away woman.

Of course the wording would suggest that big brother is going to tell me if I can inspect a private area of my body for ticks, whilst hiking in the Ocala National Forrest. In that respect I certainly don't want some Yankee yahoo telling me to leave that tick there until I get home and lock myself in the bathroom.

But this is such a loaded question, especially when prostitution comes into play. 99% would simply say, it's a consensual deal between two (or more) adults for a fee, or favors. The man or woman in prostitution can simply quit anytime they feel like it, and move on to another job.

If any of that sounds like your opinion then sorry to say, you need to educate yourself on this very distructive subject. Here's just a few notes:

INTERNATIONAL STATE OF PROSTITUTION:

ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEMS -

PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE
Research findings show that most prostitutes are from broken dysfunctional homes and a large percentage of them (at least 80%) were victims of rape and incest early in life. The specific reasons for their involvement in prostitution are varied. Economic pressures top the list. Some prostitutes are addicted to drugs or alcohol and prostitution is the way they support their addiction. Others suffer from emotional frustrations; a husband or lover has deserted them, or their homes are dysfunctional or they are rebelling against their parents. Worldwide, extreme poverty is the single greatest cause. Prostitution scars a woman's character so deeply, and creates such a gap between her and normal society that few women ever manage to get out of it.

INTER OUTREACH MINISTRIES (a group working with prostitutes) has found in spending time with the women we work with, that there is a lot of emotional damage done to their lives. Very often they share with us in tears and are extremely traumatized by some of the experiences they have been through, sometimes even with the clients. Of not being paid and left to walk long distances after being dropped off. Some have been abused and even raped by clients, some by their pimps. We know of a number of cases in South Africa as it happens in other countries, of prostitutes being murdered. Another problem we have frequently come across is prostitutes robbing their clients without providing them with any sexual service. Sometimes these clients want to retaliate with violence and we have had to inform the police. We have been involved with prostitutes and pimps who were in legal cases of this nature, of robbery and violence, or have counselled those involved in these practices.

AIDS
1 in 5 people between the age of 15 - 49 have AIDS in South Africa. Most adult deaths are AIDS related in South Africa (Headlines -Cape Times Newspaper August 2001)

There has been an increase of the problem of prostitution in South Africa in the last few years, since the new Democratic Government came into power. Unless these problems are addressed, there could be an increase in the AIDS epidemic, which is predicted to claim millions of lives. It is estimated statistically, that 70% (see article details below) of the prostitutes are HIV positive. According to Doctors for Life, a group of 700 Christian Medical professionals, prostitutes and their clients are high-risk population for HIV/AIDS or of sexually transmitted diseases. This will have very serious ramifications on the economy of this Nation In an article called "Prostitutes don't care about safe sex as long as the money rolls in" By Cascarino Valintine and Reginald Nkholise. I quote: "The male & female prostitutes who ply their trade in this ghetto (Hillbrow) sometimes cynically refer to what they do as "the death warrant". If they know that (according to reasearch by the Commission for Gender Equality) 70% of the sex workers in Hillbrow are HIV positive or have full-blown AIDS, they simply don't care. October 10/11 1998.

(I'm not sure what newspaper but it was probably the Cape Argus)

UNITED STATES OF PROSTITUTION

Human sex trafficking and involvement in the sex industry either through choice, force, or coercion is a sad world, full of broken dreams, battered, shattered, sexually abused women, men and children. It is destroying our families. And it is causing alarming divorce rates, teen pregnancies, drug usage, STDs-AIDS and oher sexually transmitted diseases, not to mention altered views of what sex truly was intended to be!

HUMAN TRAFFICKING IS A CRIME... and we need to DO something about it! Only our ACTION against it... by truly helping others will MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Buckle your seatbelts, here below are the stats on prostitution in the United States.

AGE FACTORS

Average age of entry: 14-16 yrs
Average mean age: 31
Average years in prostitution: 11
Percent younger than age 18 at entry: 42 percent
VIOLENCE IN PROSTITUTION

Traumatized individuals tend to minimize or deny their experiences, especially when they are in the midst of ongoing trauma, such as war combat or prostitution. This leads to a decreased rate of reporting violent crimes. Please understand these girls are afraid of their pimps, and if they told everything that is actually going on behind closed doors, they fear violent retaliation from the pimp or death. I can personally relate to this myself!

Threatened with a weapon: 78 percent
Physically assaulted: 82 percent
Raped: 82 percent
Many women in this business are confused of the definition of rape. If rape is as unwanted sex act or coerced, then the statistic would be a much higher percentage. Some women in prostitution assume there is no difference between prostitution and rape, and they only call it rape if they were not paid, regardless of the violence of the actâ€"asking them is like asking someone in a combat zone if they are under fire. A significant percentage of women currently prostituting deny rape and other violence because it would be too stressful to acknowledge the extreme danger posed by johns and pimps!

Raped more than five times: 73 percent
Current or past homelessness: 84 percent
As a child, was hit or beaten by a caregiver until injured or bruised: 49 percent
Sexually abused as a child: 65-95 percent
PROSTITUTION AND PORNOGRAPHY

Upset by an attempt to make them do what had been seen in pornography: 32 percent
Pornography made of her in prostitution: 49 percent
DRUGS AND ALCOHOL USAGE

Drugs: 75 percent
Alcohol: 26 percent
HOW DO PROSTITUTES RESPOND WHEN ASKED WHAT THEY NEED?

Would you leave prostitution: 87 percent
Need home or safe place: 78 percent
Need job training: 73 percent
Need health care: 58 percent
Need peer support: 50 percent>
Need legal assistance: 42 percent
Need alcohol and drug treatment: 67 percent
Self-defense training: 49 percent
Need child care: 28 percent
Need physical protection from pimp: 28 percent
Note: Most women will not say that they need protection, because they are mentally still “in love” and in denial that their pimp will come and look for them. Based on my own personal experience and understanding of the capabilities of pimps, I believe the percentage is as high as 80 percent.
Need individual counseling: 48 percent
Quick to note from experience with myself and friends, most women are in denial of the fact that they need counseling, and when they do find out they need it, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder sets in, this then will involve severe alcohol and drug abuse, not to mention other additions to cover up the memories of pain.
POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is defined as the psychological consequences of exposure to, or confrontation with, stressful experiences that the person experiences as highly traumatic. The experience must involve actual or threatened death, serious physical injury, or a threat to physical and/or psychological integrity.

People most likely to develop PTSD include PROSTITUTES, PORN STARS, rape victims, battered women, childhood sexual abuse, a person experiencing psychological or physical torture, witnessing the death of a loved one, natural catastrophes, bad trip on drugs, and WAR or COMBAT EXPOSURE.

PTSD has been called “shell shock,” “battle fatigue,” “accident neurosis,” and “post-rape syndrome.” It has been often misunderstood or misdiagnosed, even though the disorder has very specific symptoms that form a definite psychological syndrome. In some cases, the symptoms of PTSD disappear with time, but in most cases, they will persist for many years, and cause severe depression. Many need professional help to successfully recover from the psychological damage that can result from experiencing, witnessing, or participating in an overwhelmingly traumatic event.

These girls experience rape, pimping, psychological torture, physical abuse, medical conditions that threaten death, and addictive behaviors such as drug usage, cutting, bulimia, poor self-image issues, suicidal tendencies, anxiety attack, and mood swings.

These girls need OUR help to recoverâ€"they need pastors, family, and friends to support them as they “walk out” their pain.

Diagnosis of PTSD per country of prostituted respondents:
Canada: 74 percent
Colombia: 86 percent (get thisâ€"this is where it is LEGALIZED)

Germany: 60 percent

Mexico: 54 percent
South Africa: 75 percent
Thailand: 58 percent
Turkey: 66 percent
USA: 69 percent
Zambia: 71 percent
Diagnosis of PTSD for combat war veterans: 69 percent
This is very interesting to noteâ€"these women in the sex industry are just as traumatized as someone in combat on the front lines!!!

A Canadian woman says: “What rape is to others is normal to us.”

A Thai woman said, “I hate that I have to have sex with someone I don’t like or love!”

For the vast majority of the world’s prostituted woman and me personally, prostitution and trafficking are experiences of being hunted down, dominated, sexually harassed, and assaulted. We are treated like commodities into which men masturbated, causing immense psychological harm to the person acting as their receptacle.

There is widespread misinformation about prostitution, based on the media that neutralizes the harms described above. This is then spread throughout organizations that present prostitution as legitimate, that it is merely “unpleasant labor” for the women involved.

It’s a LIE people!!!

Prostitution is MULTITRAUMATIC whether its physical location is in clubs, brothels, hotels/motels/john’s homes, motor vehicles or on the streets. Women have said that they felt safer in street prostitution compared to legal Nevada brothels, where they were not permitted to reject any customer. Others commented that on the street they could at least refuse customers that appeared either dangerous or intoxicated. Raphael and Shapiro (2002) found that women in Chicago reported the same frequency of rape in escort and in street prostitution. Also reported there was no difference in the incidence of PTSD in the two types of prostitution, suggesting that the trauma that results in prostitution is the same for ALL who are in it.

What are we to do, as citizens of the United States and the world?

There are no accidents; the harm of the sex industry outweighs the good. The institution of prostitution is carefully constructed and promoted. Those of us that are concerned with global human rights MUST ADDRESS the social invisibility, the MASSIVE denial regarding its harms.

If you think that prostitution is not affecting you or your life, then maybe you haven’t been in Las Vegas lately to see all the girls being pimped at the bars. Maybe you haven’t noticed all the ads in magazines, newspapers, and on billboards. Maybe you haven’t noticed the “pop ups” of pornography on your computer. Maybe you haven’t noticed that it is considered “cool” to be a porn star. Maybe you haven’t noticed our little girls dressing sexier at younger ages. Maybe you haven’t noticed that the media throws the term “pimping” out there like it is acceptable and cool. Maybe you haven’t noticed that our music is filled with themes that degrade women. And if you have, what are you going to do about it? It will continue to grow into a larger MONSTER if we continue to “accept” this social behavior.


“I feel like I imagine people who were in concentration camps feel when they get out….It’s a real deep pain, an assault to my mind, my body, my dignity as a human being. I feel like what was taken away from me in prostitution is irretrievable.” (Giobbe, 1991, cited by Jeffreys, 1997 w/permission of Melissa Farley)

“I felt lied to, cheated, and violated. I felt that sex was an evil act of domination, not real love. There were times that I wanted to really hurt my customers, because if I could give them back with the abuse that they were forcing on me and my friends, then I could at least appease my pain and insanity, and justify revenge for all the girls that have been hurt or killed.” (Annie Lobért, former prostitute and stripper, 2006)

“I felt like I couldn’t go anywhere, I couldn’t function socially as a human being, and when I did go somewhere, I felt everyone knew what I used to do for a living. I felt like a dirty, cheated, disrespected, violated, and worthless individual to society. I didn’t know who “Annie” was anymore. I often wanted to end my very own life. This is a battlefield of the mindâ€"and if you don’t get out and get help, you will lose your very own soul and go completely insane.” (Annie Lobért , former prostitute and stripper, 2006)
There is one thing that I ask of all of you. Please do not judge these girls or men any longer that are in the sex industry. Know that most of them are being “forced” to do it physically or mentally by manipulation of people around them. Please open your eyes and see that we are ALL being lied toâ€"that most of these girls do not like what they are doing, and that it is all “acting.”

Every time you pick up a dirty magazine, watch a dirty video, click onto that website, or listen to music that degrades women (most hip hop). Every time you go to that bachelor party or strip club, know that it could be your sister, your mother, or your best friend’s girl. And then think, is it all really worth the “thrill” of self gratification that is only a couple minutes of pleasure? You are destroying lives of countless women while you do itâ€"feeding the monster the sex industry has become. And now YOU are part of it too….for their must be victims as well as enablers.

OCKLAWAHA

[civil42806]

ANNIE LOBERT, former prostitute, Hollywood - Las Vegas

Certain acts are not with the consent you might think!

As most of you know, back in the "hippie era" I lived with (or rather they lived with me) a couple of girls that were professionally unemployed in Hollywood California. They were so emotionally damaged that neither would make rational decisions, and in fact, no longer had the self respect to care. Enter the world of the beautiful (and I mean DROP DEAD beautiful) throw away woman.

Of course the wording would suggest that big brother is going to tell me if I can inspect a private area of my body for ticks, whilst hiking in the Ocala National Forrest. In that respect I certainly don't want some Yankee yahoo telling me to leave that tick there until I get home and lock myself in the bathroom.

But this is such a loaded question, especially when prostitution comes into play. 99% would simply say, it's a consensual deal between two (or more) adults for a fee, or favors. The man or woman in prostitution can simply quit anytime they feel like it, and move on to another job.

If any of that sounds like your opinion then sorry to say, you need to educate yourself on this very distructive subject. Here's just a few notes:

INTERNATIONAL STATE OF PROSTITUTION:

ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEMS -

PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE
Research findings show that most prostitutes are from broken dysfunctional homes and a large percentage of them (at least 80%) were victims of rape and incest early in life. The specific reasons for their involvement in prostitution are varied. Economic pressures top the list. Some prostitutes are addicted to drugs or alcohol and prostitution is the way they support their addiction. Others suffer from emotional frustrations; a husband or lover has deserted them, or their homes are dysfunctional or they are rebelling against their parents. Worldwide, extreme poverty is the single greatest cause. Prostitution scars a woman's character so deeply, and creates such a gap between her and normal society that few women ever manage to get out of it.

INTER OUTREACH MINISTRIES (a group working with prostitutes) has found in spending time with the women we work with, that there is a lot of emotional damage done to their lives. Very often they share with us in tears and are extremely traumatized by some of the experiences they have been through, sometimes even with the clients. Of not being paid and left to walk long distances after being dropped off. Some have been abused and even raped by clients, some by their pimps. We know of a number of cases in South Africa as it happens in other countries, of prostitutes being murdered. Another problem we have frequently come across is prostitutes robbing their clients without providing them with any sexual service. Sometimes these clients want to retaliate with violence and we have had to inform the police. We have been involved with prostitutes and pimps who were in legal cases of this nature, of robbery and violence, or have counselled those involved in these practices.

AIDS
1 in 5 people between the age of 15 - 49 have AIDS in South Africa. Most adult deaths are AIDS related in South Africa (Headlines -Cape Times Newspaper August 2001)

There has been an increase of the problem of prostitution in South Africa in the last few years, since the new Democratic Government came into power. Unless these problems are addressed, there could be an increase in the AIDS epidemic, which is predicted to claim millions of lives. It is estimated statistically, that 70% (see article details below) of the prostitutes are HIV positive. According to Doctors for Life, a group of 700 Christian Medical professionals, prostitutes and their clients are high-risk population for HIV/AIDS or of sexually transmitted diseases. This will have very serious ramifications on the economy of this Nation In an article called "Prostitutes don't care about safe sex as long as the money rolls in" By Cascarino Valintine and Reginald Nkholise. I quote: "The male & female prostitutes who ply their trade in this ghetto (Hillbrow) sometimes cynically refer to what they do as "the death warrant". If they know that (according to reasearch by the Commission for Gender Equality) 70% of the sex workers in Hillbrow are HIV positive or have full-blown AIDS, they simply don't care. October 10/11 1998.

(I'm not sure what newspaper but it was probably the Cape Argus)

UNITED STATES OF PROSTITUTION

Human sex trafficking and involvement in the sex industry either through choice, force, or coercion is a sad world, full of broken dreams, battered, shattered, sexually abused women, men and children. It is destroying our families. And it is causing alarming divorce rates, teen pregnancies, drug usage, STDs-AIDS and oher sexually transmitted diseases, not to mention altered views of what sex truly was intended to be!

HUMAN TRAFFICKING IS A CRIME... and we need to DO something about it! Only our ACTION against it... by truly helping others will MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Buckle your seatbelts, here below are the stats on prostitution in the United States.

AGE FACTORS

Average age of entry: 14-16 yrs
Average mean age: 31
Average years in prostitution: 11
Percent younger than age 18 at entry: 42 percent
VIOLENCE IN PROSTITUTION

Traumatized individuals tend to minimize or deny their experiences, especially when they are in the midst of ongoing trauma, such as war combat or prostitution. This leads to a decreased rate of reporting violent crimes. Please understand these girls are afraid of their pimps, and if they told everything that is actually going on behind closed doors, they fear violent retaliation from the pimp or death. I can personally relate to this myself!

Threatened with a weapon: 78 percent
Physically assaulted: 82 percent
Raped: 82 percent
Many women in this business are confused of the definition of rape. If rape is as unwanted sex act or coerced, then the statistic would be a much higher percentage. Some women in prostitution assume there is no difference between prostitution and rape, and they only call it rape if they were not paid, regardless of the violence of the actâ€"asking them is like asking someone in a combat zone if they are under fire. A significant percentage of women currently prostituting deny rape and other violence because it would be too stressful to acknowledge the extreme danger posed by johns and pimps!

Raped more than five times: 73 percent
Current or past homelessness: 84 percent
As a child, was hit or beaten by a caregiver until injured or bruised: 49 percent
Sexually abused as a child: 65-95 percent
PROSTITUTION AND PORNOGRAPHY

Upset by an attempt to make them do what had been seen in pornography: 32 percent
Pornography made of her in prostitution: 49 percent
DRUGS AND ALCOHOL USAGE

Drugs: 75 percent
Alcohol: 26 percent
HOW DO PROSTITUTES RESPOND WHEN ASKED WHAT THEY NEED?

Would you leave prostitution: 87 percent
Need home or safe place: 78 percent
Need job training: 73 percent
Need health care: 58 percent
Need peer support: 50 percent>
Need legal assistance: 42 percent
Need alcohol and drug treatment: 67 percent
Self-defense training: 49 percent
Need child care: 28 percent
Need physical protection from pimp: 28 percent
Note: Most women will not say that they need protection, because they are mentally still “in love” and in denial that their pimp will come and look for them. Based on my own personal experience and understanding of the capabilities of pimps, I believe the percentage is as high as 80 percent.
Need individual counseling: 48 percent
Quick to note from experience with myself and friends, most women are in denial of the fact that they need counseling, and when they do find out they need it, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder sets in, this then will involve severe alcohol and drug abuse, not to mention other additions to cover up the memories of pain.
POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is defined as the psychological consequences of exposure to, or confrontation with, stressful experiences that the person experiences as highly traumatic. The experience must involve actual or threatened death, serious physical injury, or a threat to physical and/or psychological integrity.

People most likely to develop PTSD include PROSTITUTES, PORN STARS, rape victims, battered women, childhood sexual abuse, a person experiencing psychological or physical torture, witnessing the death of a loved one, natural catastrophes, bad trip on drugs, and WAR or COMBAT EXPOSURE.

PTSD has been called “shell shock,” “battle fatigue,” “accident neurosis,” and “post-rape syndrome.” It has been often misunderstood or misdiagnosed, even though the disorder has very specific symptoms that form a definite psychological syndrome. In some cases, the symptoms of PTSD disappear with time, but in most cases, they will persist for many years, and cause severe depression. Many need professional help to successfully recover from the psychological damage that can result from experiencing, witnessing, or participating in an overwhelmingly traumatic event.

These girls experience rape, pimping, psychological torture, physical abuse, medical conditions that threaten death, and addictive behaviors such as drug usage, cutting, bulimia, poor self-image issues, suicidal tendencies, anxiety attack, and mood swings.

These girls need OUR help to recoverâ€"they need pastors, family, and friends to support them as they “walk out” their pain.

Diagnosis of PTSD per country of prostituted respondents:
Canada: 74 percent
Colombia: 86 percent (get thisâ€"this is where it is LEGALIZED)

Germany: 60 percent

Mexico: 54 percent
South Africa: 75 percent
Thailand: 58 percent
Turkey: 66 percent
USA: 69 percent
Zambia: 71 percent
Diagnosis of PTSD for combat war veterans: 69 percent
This is very interesting to noteâ€"these women in the sex industry are just as traumatized as someone in combat on the front lines!!!

A Canadian woman says: “What rape is to others is normal to us.”

A Thai woman said, “I hate that I have to have sex with someone I don’t like or love!”

For the vast majority of the world’s prostituted woman and me personally, prostitution and trafficking are experiences of being hunted down, dominated, sexually harassed, and assaulted. We are treated like commodities into which men masturbated, causing immense psychological harm to the person acting as their receptacle.

There is widespread misinformation about prostitution, based on the media that neutralizes the harms described above. This is then spread throughout organizations that present prostitution as legitimate, that it is merely “unpleasant labor” for the women involved.

It’s a LIE people!!!

Prostitution is MULTITRAUMATIC whether its physical location is in clubs, brothels, hotels/motels/john’s homes, motor vehicles or on the streets. Women have said that they felt safer in street prostitution compared to legal Nevada brothels, where they were not permitted to reject any customer. Others commented that on the street they could at least refuse customers that appeared either dangerous or intoxicated. Raphael and Shapiro (2002) found that women in Chicago reported the same frequency of rape in escort and in street prostitution. Also reported there was no difference in the incidence of PTSD in the two types of prostitution, suggesting that the trauma that results in prostitution is the same for ALL who are in it.

What are we to do, as citizens of the United States and the world?

There are no accidents; the harm of the sex industry outweighs the good. The institution of prostitution is carefully constructed and promoted. Those of us that are concerned with global human rights MUST ADDRESS the social invisibility, the MASSIVE denial regarding its harms.

If you think that prostitution is not affecting you or your life, then maybe you haven’t been in Las Vegas lately to see all the girls being pimped at the bars. Maybe you haven’t noticed all the ads in magazines, newspapers, and on billboards. Maybe you haven’t noticed the “pop ups” of pornography on your computer. Maybe you haven’t noticed that it is considered “cool” to be a porn star. Maybe you haven’t noticed our little girls dressing sexier at younger ages. Maybe you haven’t noticed that the media throws the term “pimping” out there like it is acceptable and cool. Maybe you haven’t noticed that our music is filled with themes that degrade women. And if you have, what are you going to do about it? It will continue to grow into a larger MONSTER if we continue to “accept” this social behavior.


“I feel like I imagine people who were in concentration camps feel when they get out….It’s a real deep pain, an assault to my mind, my body, my dignity as a human being. I feel like what was taken away from me in prostitution is irretrievable.” (Giobbe, 1991, cited by Jeffreys, 1997 w/permission of Melissa Farley)

“I felt lied to, cheated, and violated. I felt that sex was an evil act of domination, not real love. There were times that I wanted to really hurt my customers, because if I could give them back with the abuse that they were forcing on me and my friends, then I could at least appease my pain and insanity, and justify revenge for all the girls that have been hurt or killed.” (Annie Lobért, former prostitute and stripper, 2006)

“I felt like I couldn’t go anywhere, I couldn’t function socially as a human being, and when I did go somewhere, I felt everyone knew what I used to do for a living. I felt like a dirty, cheated, disrespected, violated, and worthless individual to society. I didn’t know who “Annie” was anymore. I often wanted to end my very own life. This is a battlefield of the mindâ€"and if you don’t get out and get help, you will lose your very own soul and go completely insane.” (Annie Lobért , former prostitute and stripper, 2006)
There is one thing that I ask of all of you. Please do not judge these girls or men any longer that are in the sex industry. Know that most of them are being “forced” to do it physically or mentally by manipulation of people around them. Please open your eyes and see that we are ALL being lied toâ€"that most of these girls do not like what they are doing, and that it is all “acting.”

Every time you pick up a dirty magazine, watch a dirty video, click onto that website, or listen to music that degrades women (most hip hop). Every time you go to that bachelor party or strip club, know that it could be your sister, your mother, or your best friend’s girl. And then think, is it all really worth the “thrill” of self gratification that is only a couple minutes of pleasure? You are destroying lives of countless women while you do itâ€"feeding the monster the sex industry has become. And now YOU are part of it too….for their must be victims as well as enablers.

OCKLAWAHA

Your right about this Ock, not a nice profession, very rough and most have emotional/drug problesm.  But I do know personally a couple of escorts that have a life I'm quite envious of.  These aren't street walkers, but very high priced women.  One travels the world constantly, the other makes quite a nice living in jax.