War stress wears out prostitutes

lol Askel, you're my favorite poster on FR
your ideas always perk me up and give me something to think about
maybe when push comes to shove government's laws can't alleviate human suffering
I think our Founders were right when they saw government's purpose to protect our liberties
I tend to think sex is always love
there are so many taboos in our culture, that it prolly causes sexual problems
(thanks for your friendly wishes, same to you)
Love, Palo

Let's try looking at this from another angle. Another way to drive home the point that whoring's bad for you is to have another look at Lord Chesterfield's famous epigram. Chesterfield was a man of the world, in a position to know what he was talking about, and certainly no prude. Taken in context, his comment -- supposedly on the disadvantages of fornication as a hobby -- reveals itself as an expression of his robust contempt for politics: "The pursuit of office is like the pursuit of women - the position ridiculous, the expense damnable and the pleasure fleeting."

Need I explain the point? Both acts are shameful not because they're immoral but because they're degrading. This is not a moral argument, nor did Chesterfield pretend to be a moral man (Dr. Johnson condemned his Letters to his bastard son opining that "they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing-master"). But even an unbelieving libertarian should be able to appreciate the Enlightenment sentiment that whoring is to be discouraged (and certainly not to be cheered and celebrated) as base, unmanly, self-destructive and infra dig.

Dig?

One is certainly umpteen-times more repulsive, however, I was responding particularly to your comment: "The priests were victimizing unwilling people." and merely pointing out that if you were trying to insinuate that by visiting prostitutes, a married man was not victimizing anyone, that you would be wrong.

Were you implying that a married man visiting a prostitute isn't "victimizing an unwilling person"?

I see your point. The married servicemen in particular are guilty as you say. The two offenses hardly compare though.

Oh, I think I understand perfectly. Understanding is not the problem. Or maybe it is. Let me see if I understand.

So then, we are no longer making the argument that prostitution and the patronizing of prostitutes is wrong because it is immoral, we are arguing that it is wrong bcause it is shameful, and it is shameful because it is degrading, yes?

But now, it seems to me, we've gone even farther off the deep end - at least before we could try to make some appeal to objective morality, but now we're reduced to discussing how someone should feel about the things they do. What if the madam of the house at Langtree's manifestly refuses to feel as though she is being exploited? Indeed, her employees may very well feel that it is they who are doing the exploiting, and not society or their customers. And hence, what happens when they then fail to feel properly degraded by what they do? How then can they feel the shame that we insist they must? And if they fail to feel properly shameful about their acts, does that mean that it is no longer wrong? Do we still insist that it is wrong, and feel shameful on their behalf? And by the same token, a client who fails to feel degraded will feel no shame about his actions, and hence his actions must be right, as they are no longer shameful, yes?

This doesn't seem to be too much help to us - a particularly brazen wench is right off the hook for failing to feel the way we think she must. In fact, we've more or less excused what she does by setting some hopelessly subjective standard for how people should feel about particular things.

I have often wondered why liberals felt an affinity for Chesterton also, and now, I think I finally understand. We have taken a large step towards formalizing the notion that the rightness or wrongness of an action is dependent, in large measure, upon how we feel about it. ;)

Great points.

It would be interesting accolades for women at home relieving the stress of months on end without sex by going out and finding a their own "adult male companionship".

Forgive me, general, but it's you who's appealing to subjective standards. I'm suggesting that whoring is objectively degrading - to all parties, in case you're interested, though in my last post I was thinking of the johns in particular. Objective truth needn't be metaphysical, so even you should be able to subscribe.

I care nothing for the johns' feelings - or what's left of them, I mean. These former men have launched themselves on a self-coarsening career whose end will be the substantial impairment or even loss of empathy, introspection, or self-awareness of any sort higher than animal appetite. I can understand how this New Man can be useful to a secular technocracy that uses and discards all human beings as the need arises. Men capable of empathy, introspection, and self-awareness (not to mention a sense of objective morality) can be a nuisance, especially in the military. (I haven't forgot the awkward fact that we're still technically a republic constituted by free citizens. They're working on it.) What I can't understand is how a libertarian can view this as compatible with the dignity implicit in citizenship.

I had some notion that you wouldn't be receptive to a religious view, but anytime you're ready to entertain a Christian argument, I'll be happy to essay one.

Speaking of irony, I wonder if you see any in the fact that the Navy's common name for this periodic exercise in mutual exploitation and sexual slavery (with a tip o' the hat to Bertholt Brecht) is "liberty."

Gee, how do you feel about wives using sex with strangers as a "recreational" or "therapuetic" outlet while their husbands are off at war? I hope you think it's acceptable.

I think that it is primarily the business of the husband and wife, and not yours nor mine. However, double standard or no, it does certainly happen. That is the whole reason for the Chastity Belt, used by some of the Lads who followed Richard the Lion Hearted off to the Holy Land.

Of course, there are physiological differences between men and women, which really makes your comment less than apt. But my comment in the paragraph above, is answer enough. This thread was about a bit of bawdy reality. You apparently want to inject a bit of sanctimony into it. I really think that when you are dealing with War stress that is inappropriate.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

Forgive me, general, but it's you who's appealing to subjective standards. I'm suggesting that whoring is objectively degrading - to all parties, in case you're interested, though in my last post I was thinking of the johns in particular.

Not if we're going to appeal to someone's sense of shame or degradation, we're not appealing to objective standards. If shame and degradation are the standards for wrongness, what are we to do with someone who experiences neither? Can we define "degrading" in any sort of a universal way? When degradation is largely a matter of perception, how can it ever be objective?

You simply cannot shame someone who refuses to be shamed - as exhibit "A", I direct your attention to one William Jefferson Clinton.

Objective truth needn't be metaphysical, so even you should be able to subscribe.

I agree - some things are true whether we believe them or not. The question is, is this one of them?

These former men have launched themselves on a self-coarsening career whose end will be the substantial impairment or even loss of empathy, introspection, or self-awareness of any sort higher than animal appetite.

As should be obvious from my previous posts, I am not enamored of the argument that we are in danger of being enslaved by our passions. Morality is only meaningful in the presence of temptation. What does it mean to say that so-and-so is a "moral" person, when so-and-so has never really had to choose between morality and immorality.

You made one choice, probably the best choice, when confronted with the potential for hiring a prostitute - I assume, of course. I do not yield to such temptation myself, despite the fact that there are a dozen pages worth of "escort services" in the Yellow Pages here. But what justification do we have for making that choice for others? Do we fear that they will be immoral more often than not, and that perhaps the run of men is somehow inferior to you and I?

I do not think that to be the case. Some will fall, but I think most will do what you and I have done - the randy adventures of 19 year old sailors on leave are hardly representative of the human condition, I think.

Men capable of empathy, introspection, and self-awareness (not to mention a sense of objective morality) can be a nuisance, especially in the military. (I haven't forgot the awkward fact that we're still technically a republic constituted by free citizens. They're working on it.) What I can't understand is how a libertarian can view this as compatible with the dignity implicit in citizenship.

Hmmm. Although I can see why you might feel an affinity for the "duck test" on reading many of my posts, I should note that I explicitly disclaim the label of libertarian - I have spent too much time studying economics to sign on to the full-blown libertarian/objectivist/anarcho-capitalist/whatever viewpoint. Probably, it is also partly due to the fact that I find many self-avowed libertarians to be rather abrasive and annoying on a personal level as well ;)

In any case, "dignity" seems to be another matter of perception. You are obviously an educated and thoughtful man, and would no doubt find it undignified, perhaps even degrading, to accept some menial job that demanded far less than you were capable of. Yet suppose that job were the only way to feed your family? Is there not a nobility inherent in such self-sacrifice, that belies any loss of dignity or any degradation?

But of course, no matter why you do it, the act is the same, particularly to outsiders - how am I to know what your motivations are for accepting such an apparently menial, degrading job? How are we to know whether these women and their customers are truly degraded and robbed of their dignity by their acts? After all, my dignity is surely my own, and it is not for you to say whether I lack it or not, isn't it? You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but how does your opinion trump mine, particularly when I'm the person in question?

I had some notion that you wouldn't be receptive to a religious view, but anytime you're ready to entertain a Christian argument, I'll be happy to essay one.

My approach to universal truths and universal morality is primarily a pragmatic and utilitarian one. One need not accept the actual existence of universal morals to recognize the fundamental usefulness of behaving as though they exist. The advantage from my point of view is that this leaves me unfettered by any particular set of cultural baggage - I may appeal to the rational, enlightened self-interest of all men, without having to resort to cultural mores that they may very well neither understand nor accept. Arguing for morality with Hindus is likely to be a spectacular failure if your argument is ultimately buttressed by Christian principles, but all men understand their own self-interests. I neither require nor expect that my neighbors accept Christian morality in order to be what I would consider moral men.

So, I am not proceeding out of some particular attachment to prostitution, but my standards for persuasion are high. I believe personal freedom to be inherently good in and of itself, and I demand much evidence and reason from those who would restrict it in the name of some greater good. If you think that's too high an obstacle to overcome (I'm willing to bet you don't, but anyway), then I assure you, it can be done. Some years ago, a very clever person was able to persuade me of exactly what you wish me to accept - that the harm of prostitution outweighed the freedoms realized thereby, and should therefore be restricted in the name of reason and the greater good. It was a fiendishly brilliant argument, flawless to my way of thinking, but alas, I have forgotten it in the years since, and so has she.

Fortunately, I still retain one thing from those days - I had little choice but to yield, and marry that person ;)

General, I can understand why you keep returning to the straw man of a sense of shame, but the fact remains that I’ve never mentioned it. Understand please, that whoring is shameful whether everybody or nobody knows or “senses” it.

Degradation also is objective, for the same reason that “grade” is. Some men are objectively wiser, more perceptive and prudent, more in control of themselves, and more intent on the protection of their long-term interests. They are, simply and indisputably, better men. On the scale of manhood, they rate a better grade.

You baffle me with your comment about my supposed encounters with prostitutes: what can I have said that made you think I was referring to such a thing? Searching my memory, I can think of only two times that I’ve conversed with whores. The first was in the Elefante Bianco, a posh but affordable piano bar just off the Via Veneto in Rome, when I was 21. In those days, to maneuver thereabouts after dark, you had to run a gantlet of whores parked in FIAT 500s, who’d beep at prospects as they walked past. One of them was inside our nightclub -- on her break? We bought her a drink, for which she repaid us by launching into a rambling tale about her grievances with one of her clienti. The only time I was solicited, a year later, it was by a common streetwalker in lower Manhattan. I was stopped at a red light (!) around the corner from my hotel and for some reason had the window rolled down. A hooker strolled up and said Hello young man, would you like to have some fun while you’re in town -- or something like that. There was no menace in the come-on, but as I hadn’t carved out time for funny business of any sort, while meeting her eye to decline her proposition, resting my arm on the car door, I pushed down the lock with my elbow. I’ll never forget how hurt she was (or affected to be -- can you ever tell with whores?) by the suggestion that I saw her as a possible threat. I felt sorry -- not only for her, but for the discourtesy I had to show in holding her off. It’s a terrible thing to see how human alienation derives from human predation.

But what justification do we have for making that choice for others? Do we fear that they will be immoral more often than not, and that perhaps the run of men is somehow inferior to you and I?

You and me. I justify not the choice but the recommendation, and I do so precisely because I’m not indifferent to their happiness or welfare. Apart from the damage to the moral fiber of my fellow citizens (an area in which I do have a legitimate interest, since we have the power to control each other’s lives), I really have no patience for radical selfishness masquerading as high-minded indifference.

You are obviously an educated and thoughtful man, and would no doubt find it undignified, perhaps even degrading, to accept some menial job that demanded far less than you were capable of.

An undemanding job is the only way I have so much time for daytime (and evening) FReeping. What’s your excuse? ;-)

Here’s the thing, general: I know who I am. I get my dignity from my upbringing, my attitude to life, and my faith. I have never defined my essence by what I do for a living, and I pity those who do, because they’re existentially hollow men, trapped -- enslaved -- by the idea that man is purely an economic agent, and that beyond getting and consuming there’s no meaning in life.

Perhaps the clever person you married was able to make you understand, if only intuitively, that the freedom to visit prostitutes is illusory. There’s no freedom in being allowed to calcify in patterns of behavior that are dangerous and degrading. There’s no freedom to be found in habits of dependence and slavery to appetite.

General, I can understand why you keep returning to the straw man of a sense of shame, but the fact remains that I?ve never mentioned it. Understand please, that whoring is shameful whether everybody or nobody knows or ?senses? it.

And what am I to make of that argument, exactly? One might as well say that invisible dragons exist, whether or not anyone knows it or senses it. If we do not know it, or cannot know it, what sense does it make to behave as though we do? Does that not strike you as somewhat irrational?

Ultimately, what I'm left with is a sort of unsupported universal assertion on your part - prostitution is shameful, whether anyone believes me or not. That's fine, but how am I to separate your opinion from actual universal truth? Do you only speak in universal truths, or are we to leave open the possibility that this is merely your opinion after all? ;)

Degradation also is objective, for the same reason that ?grade? is. Some men are objectively wiser, more perceptive and prudent, more in control of themselves, and more intent on the protection of their long-term interests. They are, simply and indisputably, better men. On the scale of manhood, they rate a better grade.

Argument-by-analogy is only as good as the analogy with which we are presented. Positing a gradation of one type does not imply that all such gradations are similarly universal or objective - or valuable.

You baffle me with your comment about my supposed encounters with prostitutes: what can I have said that made you think I was referring to such a thing?

Ah, I have failed to make myself clear - I apologize. My intent was to assume - correctly, as it turns out - that you had been presented with the opportunity to partake of the services of prostitutes at some point, and declined. And, of course, so have I. If we are capable of such a thing, why must we assume that all or most other men are not?

You and me.

This would be the substantive portion - my grammatical lapses - of your argument, then? ;)

I justify not the choice but the recommendation, and I do so precisely because I?m not indifferent to their happiness or welfare.

But what does that mean? We may recommend a course of action to others while not depriving them of their freedom to choose for themselves? If so, I heartily agree, of course.

Apart from the damage to the moral fiber of my fellow citizens (an area in which I do have a legitimate interest, since we have the power to control each other?s lives), I really have no patience for radical selfishness masquerading as high-minded indifference.

Tut, tut - I never claimed indifference. I grant that it may well do harm to some of those involved. But we do not ban things simply based on the fact that they do harm to some - we ban things because they do more harm than is done by the act of banning.

As for the rest, I must say that it seems to me that you are dancing perilously close to asserting that you have the right to choose for others because you know their best interests better than they themselves do. Unless we are talking of children or the mentally deficient, such assertions are rightly rejected out-of-hand in free societies. Were they not, they could hardly be free societies composed of free men.

An undemanding job is the only way I have so much time for daytime (and evening) FReeping. What?s your excuse? ;-)

General fecklessness and shiftlessness. Idle hands, you know ;)

I have never defined my essence by what I do for a living, and I pity those who do...

A remarkable statement, and one I find most worthy. However, you will forgive me if I see something of a disjunct here. You are not defined by your occupation, and are not degraded or robbed of your dignity by performing what society-at-large might consider to be a menial job. As I said, a worthy and wise sentiment.

But I cannot help but notice that you show no qualms about defining prostitutes as degraded and undignified persons, based entirely on their occupation. You define yourself in other terms, beyond your occupation, but that is a convenience and a luxury you seem unwilling to extend to prostitutes. Is it not possible that they define themselves in terms beyond simply what they do for a living, just as you do? Why do you permit yourself this abstraction, while simultaneously denying the possibility within others? Why do you hesitate to define yourself in terms of your occupation, yet show no hesitation to define others in terms of theirs?

Perhaps the clever person you married was able to make you understand, if only intuitively, that the freedom to visit prostitutes is illusory.

No, as I recall, it was more along the lines of competing and overriding harms. Intuition is notoriously unreliable - we intuit all sorts of things that are not actually true. It was a damn clever argument, too - if I could remember it, I wouldn't be here ;)

There?s no freedom in being allowed to calcify in patterns of behavior that are dangerous and degrading. There?s no freedom to be found in habits of dependence and slavery to appetite.

I agree. But I assert that there is even less freedom to be found in robbing men of the opportunity to be moral of their own accord. We can force men to do good things, but we cannot force them to be good. And even if we travel that road, and force men to do only good things by removing the choice to be immoral, we have gained nothing - it is an empty victory, hollow and meaningless. They have triumphed over nothing, and so have we...

"I can see the ground pounders being stressed out after endless patrols in freezing temps and high attitude...but cruising around on the ocean....I don't get it."

Yeah, a little too much was made of the stress issue.

However, have you ever worked a flight deck? Ever finish your regular job in the boiler room only to stand another watch in that inferno? Ever spent so many hours in a Command Information Center, you forgot what the Sun looks like? Sailors are mostly the hardest working people in the Armed Forces. Contrary to popular belief, they don't lay in hammocks all day while floating around at sea.

They work around the clock in something that is best described as a big tin can. Twenty hour work days are common while underway. So yes, these sailors were not as stressed as the ground pounders, but they can do whatever they like when they get in port as far as I'm concerned.

Well, you certainly earned the right to voice your opinion of blue water sailors. I salute you, sir.