Sex In The Public Square - Forum topic - Comments

Give it time

Spaced Out — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:19:35 -0700

Someday we will be so overpopulated they will be giving them out like Smarties at an Easter egg hunt.

Secondary effects of sexually-oriented businesses

Elizabeth — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:33:39 -0700

The assertion that sex-oriented businesses are linked to such problems as property crime, drug dealing and other illegal activities is often made as support for isolating such businesses away from downtowns and high traffic areas. The problem with this strategy is that it is the isolation away from Main Streets and downtowns that facilitates the illegal activity that is used to justify their isolation. Examples of sexually oriented business that are integrated into neighborhoods and mainstream commercial districts do not in fact find such effects. In other words it is the isolation and not the sex that is the problem.

Strip clubs and sex clubs that serve alcohol may be associated with fighting and rowdiness and public nuisance offenses but that is also not a product of the sexual nature of the business. Rather it is typical of bars and clubs more broadly, especially those that attract large numbers of younger people who are more likely to fight than are older drinkers. Cluster enough such establishments together away from other kinds of businesses and of course you have a recipe for all kinds of trouble. Again, not because of the sex but because of the combination of alcohol and the isolation of the businesses away from where others are watching.

I've written at some length about this problem before. You can find some of that writing here and here.

Sex oriented businesses,

feliduca — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:59:18 -0700

Sex oriented businesses, although protected under First Amendment guarantees, can facilitate and support undesirable and detrimental patterns of activity in their vicinity. These secondary impacts are incompatible with activities and uses in residential areas, or near educational, recreational, and religious facilities. They also have negative impacts upon local businesses in their immediate neighborhood. When combined with additional sex oriented establishments or establishments serving alcoholic beverages1 the evidence indicates that there are additional increases in undesirable and harmful patterns of activity.

It is important to point out that secondary impacts of sex oriented businesses is not a recent problem. Secondary activities associated with sex oriented businesses have historically included personal and property crimes as well as solicitation for prostitution, gambling, organized criminal activity, illicit drug transactions, shanghaiing/kidnapping, disorderly conduct, and other public nuisance activities. The work of many municipalities in examining the impact of sex oriented businesses buttresses the historic record providing ample evidence in support of regulation and restriction of the location and concentration of these types of business enterprises.

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Submited by : Nutricion

I agree with profesor Alan

daniel — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:38:00 -0700

I agree with profesor Alan Dershowitz that a 4000 dollars/hour escort is not a slave coerced with prostitution, but there is many people obliged to work that way.

Vetting the wiki

Chris OSullivan — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:39:11 -0700

As with any public forum the misinformation available far exceeds the accurate information available, however the controls available in a wiki give the tools for weeding out intentional instigators and correcting inaccuracies that come to light. Giving privileges as earned to editors and contributors is the basis for an accurate wiki.

For instance a first time contributor might have their contribution vetted by an editor before being published

An inaccuracy or simple misspelling can be corrected by the contributor or an editor.

A biased or inaccurate piece can be removed or corrected by an editor.

etc.

Laura Agustin, thank you for dropping by!

Elizabeth — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:02:22 -0700

These issues are such important ones, and ones that are so often oversimplified or distorted, as you point out, by policy makers as well as by the press and by the rescue industry. It is so important that people keep writing and speaking about the real complexity of migration and labor. Your book, Sex at the Margins, is a thoughtful and careful exploration of these issues and I'm so glad to know now about your web site. Thank you for dropping by!

Border Thinking on migration, culture, economy and sex

Laura Agustin — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 18:18:51 -0700

Those interested in these issues might like to visit my website devoted to going into them in detail and trying to dispel notions propagated by the media and the Rescue Industry.

Laura Agustin's Border Thinking at

http://www.nodo50.org/Laura_Agustin

Will the information be vetted?

CelticWarrior — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:55:27 -0700

If we are here, it says that we have a positive attitude about sex and sexuality. That works to begin a core data/information set and bias the information in a positive direction.

The question I ask is in regard to the mis-information available at the click of a mouse. The net is rife with information running the gamut from inaccurate to out right falsehood. How does a sex wiki ensure the articles and information are reliable and accurate?

If that can be done, I'm in love with the idea and will offer what ever knowledge a person who has known sex from every aspect from the expression of love to sex as a client to sex as an occupation (Okay, a side job, but I enjoyed myself and got paid too.)

What an interesting idea

CelticWarrior — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:22:56 -0700

Having spent my life in research, I found myself an observer. In the process of going blind (a field of study I had only the experience of the sighted to observe) very interesting. I am now inside the experiment and am the experiment as it were. I am the stable isotope looking out at me trying to make inferences about me from observations of me and sniggering at me for my vague conclusions (is that too much a Rumsfieldism?)

Let's suggest a work with aspects of general 'run of the mill' porn production, i.e. woman-man, woman-woman, woman-man-woman, man-woman-man, dominance (implied), fetish (impolied), oral, vaginal, anal... Gather overall impressions and specific impressions. The data can reduce in both a pure statistical nature and weighted by 'feelings' as a value.

I 'think', hali...

CelticWarrior — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:55:33 -0700

cogni ergo sum

I think you orbit around what I wonder. Your argument is good, and I think, correct. The hetero sex industry is an effect rahter than a cause. This is a patriarchal society. In the case of the dominant sex industry, I find art imitating life.

The focus on this society is one of male dominance. A place where women have been seen, and existed for the most part, as objects. The market is not focused on a female or non-patriachal audience. Thus, the object d' art is the female form in the perception of the target market. You will never sell a lot of cars designed to cross the atalntic because the market does not perceive a car as having theat function.

Still, I wonder. Is the form and function of pornography a function of the market? I wonder if there is an intrinsic difference between men and women based on some inate quality of maleness and femaleness in a Men are from Mars and Women are from Venuse sort of way, or is the difference based on social perception/training?

I wonder how male and female would develop in their attitudes about sex in the absence of conditioned response in upbringing? Is there a difference in pornography in a matriarchal society? Does pornography exists in a matriarchal society?

I hope you don't find this a nonresponsive post. In my career in research, I have discovered that any answer that does not ask more questions than the original question is the wrong answer.

Is it the way we raise our sons and daughters

CelticWarrior — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:19:11 -0700

Stop me if I'm off track, or just skip to the next comment. Pornography, in the public mind, seems to bring images of nude (or nearly so in the more restrictive mind) female bodies with any male body or part being an adjunct to the central image.

Does that come from the way we raise our sons and daughters? When little Johnny got out of diapers, he was put into jeans and a T-shirt and sent out to face the world. When little Suzy got out of diapers, she was put into a dress and frills, told how to sit and how to keep her skirt down, and led by the hand to be protected from the world.

Worse, when little Johnny needed new tennis shoes, he was sent out to mow the lawn and clean the garage to 'learn the value of money'. Conversely, when little Suzy came home depressed because litttle Sally just got new shoes, she climbed into daddy's lap and cuddled and whined her way into new shoes, a new skirt, a new blouse, and a new ribbon for her hair.

Little Johnny got bigger and got the keys to the car and a nod and a wink from dad when he introduced his new girlfriend. Immediately after, growing up little Suzy's boyfriend pulls up for his weekly lecture about what will happen to him if he so much as touches the Vestel Vrigin.

Now that Johnny and Suzy are no longer little, Johnny is looked at by all the Suzies like a dog. He is just a creature of instinct and available at the drop of a hanky. Somehow, little Suzy wins the game. How many men in a relationship have had to wait 'to get lucky', because Suzy has been trained to surpress her natural human desire and make its expression a treasure to be hoarded rather than an experience to be shared.

I might be off the mark when it comes to the question, but I don't think I am far off the mark. The sex industry is mostly female in nature because society, at least American society, wants to insulate itself from it the same way they insulate thenselves from everything else, with money. Culturally, American society is patriarchal, men control the money. The American society that is visable outside the closet is predominantly straight. Thus, the sex industry is predomimantly female.

A side bar: Ever wonder why this homophobic society is willing to pay more for proscribed sex/pornography such as woman/woman etc?

Just my nickles worth.

you are so right i have so

katy — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:43:04 -0700

you are so right i have so many friends who want fit guys in porn. i am from England and we are desperate for it. We go on the amateur sites to find the fit guys we like and we watch a lot of gay porn.

people always bring out porn for girls that loads of girls dont like like romantic or softcore stuff. Where is the hardcore for girls with the fit men? if someone did this they would make a killing because there is nothing in this market to cater for us!!

Tugger

Lou FCD — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:20:00 -0700

I actually read that statement as cautiously critical, with maybe a pressured nod to "benefits", to appease someone. I didn't give the "benefits" any serious weight, given the phrasing.

Hugh

Lou FCD — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:14:51 -0700

Thank you for that.

Benefits as meant in Policy Statements

TLCTugger — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 21:41:20 -0700

When you read a medical policy statement referring to "potential benefits" of circumcision you need to understand that the statement ignores the fact that a benefit of remaining intact is having an exquisitely delightful foreskin that feels REALLY good.

Benefits - the way they seem to be defining them - are very nebulous. If they were writing about head injury, one of the potential benefits of having all your teeth knocked out would be no cavities nor need to brush your teeth.