Canada Legalizes Prostitution

[Charles]

[Jaded Issues]

The world's state of constant moral decay is a huge source of depression for me. What is wrong with some people, like this judge? She's doing far more harm than good.

[Autobrots]

Alright, I'll bite. Please explain the 'harm' that is being done here...

Also, please explain how the world is in a state of 'moral decay' because I'm really not seeing that myself...

[Charles]

He's a troll.

[Jaded Issues]

She. I'm a she. I am a female, not a "he".

And if you need to convince yourself that I don't feel the way I do so that you can ignore everything I say than fine, I don't care, but don't tell it to other people. It's untrue and it really hurts to see it said.

[Autobrots]

Hmmm, good answer to my question there...

Oh, wait, I see you completely ignored it...

[Kenmore Thompson]

The West has been 'decaying' from a moral standpoint for centuries. The reason it isn't obvious to you is because you've grown up in a society that has subverted any absolute moral framework. To someone from 1800, the West today might as well be Sodom or Gomorrah. (Note, I'm not trying to make any judgment of you here, only trying to explain why you and Jaded see things so differently)

Martin Luther's insight all those centuries ago can be boiled down to one concept: our thoughts and minds should match our outward piety. Martin Luther lived in a world where people would live pious lives in public, but live completely different lives behind closed doors. Protestantism evolved out of an abandonment of the legalism of the Catholic Church, in favor of striving for piety in our thoughts and deeds.

It didn't take many generations for the "outward piety should mean inner piety" attitude to effectively reverse. Being "true to oneself" soon became the highest calling of a human being, so if you were simply honest about your private life and your public life, and they both lined up, that became the golden standard.

As inner wants and desires replaced external religious legalism, what "morality" constituted was thrown into question. Until you get to today, and moral frameworks are nebulous in the best circumstances, and completely absent in the worst. Hypocrisy can now only apply to individuals (an environmentalist buying a Hummer, for example) because the wider culture does not agree on a moral framework ('sexual deviancy,' for example no longer means much, because so much has become acceptable culturally).

So is there a moral decay? "Decay" is the correct word from an 19th century standpoint, but perhaps for a contemporary westerner "moral deconstruction" would be the better term. But what does that mean? It means that we have questioned old-style cultural assumptions with regards to what constitutes 'good' or 'right' behavior. It is possible we have questioned ourselves into a corner, where very little is objectively morally reprehensible, but that might not be a bad thing. At the very least, it is a convenient place from which to re-build a concept of cultural morality over the next decades and centuries: hopefully a one that is of benefit to all people, and offers greater freedom from judgmental legalism.

[Luke N. Handsomeface]

He's right you know.
In my view, prostitution is wrong, sex shouldn't be something that has to be paid for, it should occur when two people love each other and engage in it because they want to please the OTHER person, not just themselves. Prostitution is like high school cafeteria food. Yeah, it's nourishment. But it's not food, nor will it ever be.

Everybody has a different "moral compass" so to speak, so i guess people should march to their own drum, it just makes me sad that people we all have perverted such a beautiful, righteous thing.

[Kenny]

In my view, prostitution is wrong, sex shouldn't be something that has to be paid for

I could not agree more. It should be free. But hey, a girl's gotta eat, ya know?

Prostitution is like high school cafeteria food. Yeah, it's nourishment. But it's not food, nor will it ever be.

Traditional marriage is like eating nothing but potatoes for the rest of your life. Sure it's nourishing, but it's just potatoes.

Everybody has a different "moral compass" so to speak, so i guess people should march to their own drum

The difference is when you try to live your lives the way you want to, no one tries to force you to have a threesome, or put it in her pooper, but when we try to live our lives how we want to laws are made to stop us and we're called perverts and sinners.

it just makes me sad that people we all have perverted such a beautiful, righteous thing.

Actually, throughout European history sex was something that people had all the time, and loved it. Then Christianity came along and took a beautiful,natural, and most importantly fun human act and perverted it into something that you were only ever allowed to have with one person, and was to be looked at with shame. Society is really just taking sex back to what it's supposed to be.

[Kenmore Thompson]

I would like to see where you're getting your history of European sexual habits. Yes, people have been having exciting, 'deviant,' and extramarital sex for millennia. And yes, for a period in European history it has been viewed as sinful (although, that's more of an artifact of the so-called Catholic Conscience than any specific attack on sexuality). But I'll skip past the profound doubt that you have regarding monogamy and address your assertion that "Society is really just taking sex back t what it's supposed to be."

Really? I would agree with you if you said that sex should be fun, or if you told us that the state, or the church has no business poking their nose into an individuals bedroom. I would consider your point if you argued that society is bringing sex into a new realm that can liberate us all (although in all likelihood, after some meditation I would disagree ... but that hearkens back to the doubt of monogamy: a subject I suggested we skip for now).

From a individualistic and hedonistic worldview, the purpose of sex might be to be consequence-less fun, sure. But from a societal view? You might argue that we shouldn't take the societal view, but if you are arguing that society is taking sex back to what it should be ... well, then that can of worms is open.

What is society if it isn't an organism? You see that cultures interact and evolve much like animals in a biosphere do. The term 'ethnosphere' was coined to describe this exact phenomenon. If a society wants anything, then, it is to survive. To continue on in the ethnosphere. If it didn't want to survive, it would die: it's that simple. Then one of the core components of a real society is that it struggles to continue on into the next generation, and then the next, and then the next, etc.

What say you, then, to the fact that every nation that has embraced a sexual revolution has seen a radical decline in birth rates? And not just a decline. These countries are hemorrhaging population. The replacement rate for human beings is 2.1 births per woman. Pick a 'liberated' country, and look it up. It will be below 2.

Actually, I looked it up for you. Look at this data. The U.S. is THE exception, and if I could find you an appropriate map, I would show you that the only reason that it's the exception is because of the conservative states. Utah has a Fertility Rate of 2.8 or something, but New York's is near 1.5 (both of those are from memory though, so I might be off by a few tenths).

So if you look at things from a hedonistic standpoint, then yeah. Society is taking sex back to what it's supposed to be. Or if you don't think one of the main functions of Society is to sustain itself, then maybe it's not taking sex to what it's supposed to be, but it couldn't hurt anything. But if you believe that a society's function IS to perpetuate itself, then the West just got drunk and committed suicide.

Maybe a low birth rate is a good thing, since we already know that we're living on finite resources. Or maybe there are ways to perpetuate ourselves without giving up our newfound sexual liberty. Really, it's way too early to tell on that front. But making a claim about what sex is 'supposed' to be is both shortsighted and simplistic in the extreme, and betrays nothing but culture-eating hedonism.

[Kenny]

But I'll skip past the profound doubt that you have regarding monogamy and address your assertion that "Society is really just taking sex back t what it's supposed to be."

For the most part I meant that (consensual) sex should be completely guilt free. Polygamy, homosexuality, furries, if you like it, do it, and don't ever feel an ounce of shame for loving it.

What say you, then, to the fact that every nation that has embraced a sexual revolution has seen a radical decline in birth rates? And not just a decline. These countries are hemorrhaging population. The replacement rate for human beings is 2.1 births per woman. Pick a 'liberated' country, and look it up. It will be below 2.

Almost 7 billion people on the planet. We could use some depopulation.

But if you believe that a society's function IS to perpetuate itself, then the West just got drunk and committed suicide.

If we continue to expand our population to much then society will screw itself over. If we reduce our population through having less kids then it will be about 1000 years (actually did some math, using a calculator even) before we fell under 100 million people (at a birthrate of 1.5).

[Kenmore Thompson]

For the most part I meant that (consensual) sex should be completely guilt free. Polygamy, homosexuality, furries, if you like it, do it, and don't ever feel an ounce of shame for loving it.

Alright, I think we're in agreement Re: guilt and sex, then, even if we don't quite see eye to eye on monogamy, but that would better fit in another thread, so I won't go there here.

Almost 7 billion people on the planet. We could use some depopulation.
...
If we continue to expand our population to much then society will screw itself over. If we reduce our population through having less kids then it will be about 1000 years (actually did some math, using a calculator even) before we fell under 100 million people (at a birthrate of 1.5).

But the human population isn't declining. Only the west is. Africa and Southern Asia already have checks on their population in way of famine and war, and since we aren't having babies, then a pile of them are immigrating to the west. I don't think immigration is a bad thing, mind you, but this trend does end in a simple truth: we are being crowded out of our own countries.

At current birth rates, Europe will go from 750 million today to about 220 million by 2100. But that isn't going to actually happen, because Europe has a high standard of living, which Europeans want to keep (which needs a large workforce) and which others want to attain (by immigrating). Those immigrants that assimilate, and come to share our views on sex and family will decline with us. Those subgroups who hold on to their no-freedom-for-women, no-birth-control-for-us ways will expand. And as they grow, so too will the confidence and expectations of fresh immigrants, and by the time 2100 rolls around, Europe might actually be much larger than today's 750 million, and almost entirely unrecognizable (to us).

Maybe that's an argument to export the sexual revolution to countries with more conservative views on sex, then. Maybe if we can spark a sexual revolution in Iran, or Sudan or Pakistan (I picked three that rhymed, just for fun) then we'll finally defeat world hunger and sectarian violence.

But seriously. Good luck with that. The rest of the world is getting wise. They see the West, and our abandonment of our traditional morals, and are not so quick to do the same.

[Hah. I just realized the irony in this post. I started off by saying that I wouldn't talk about monogamy because it's a little bit off topic, and then continued to ramble on about shifting demography for three paragraphs. I think it's time for sleep.]

[Poindexter NZ]

Prostitution was made legal here in NZ ages ago. Its resulted in much better health and wellbeing for the workers.