Sex Work?

Is being a sugar baby prostitution, or just extremely cynical dating?

I have a friend who, for a good part of our senior year of college, had a sugar daddy. She was 22, bright, but terminally lazy and incredibly underachieving. He was in his 30s, a consultant stationed near our college for 5 days a week, and incredibly bored and lonely. If they'd met at a bar, it would have been sketchy but eye-roll worthy. They didn't meet at a bar though; there was nothing innocent and coincidental about it-- because they met on seekingarrangement.com, a site where people post classifieds looking for sugar daddies or sugar babies. The ads-- my friend's included-- often say that they aren't offering for sex, but that its a possibility like in any normal relationship.

Once a week, my friend drove out to the suburban hotel her sugar daddy stayed in, and they went to a fancy dinner followed up by sex. She told me she wouldn't have slept with him if he hadn't been funny, nice, and moderately attractive. But she also told me that she probably wouldn't have slept with him if there hadn't been some sort of monetary incentive involved.

At the time, her casual attitude towards sex work bothered me-- but it bothered me even more that she refused to accept it as sex work. It still bothers me that she refused to accept it as sex work-- and yet, I see many other women who don't think this arrangement is sex work either, because it does mirror a more traditional dating scheme. But the difference between a prostitute who specializes in "the girlfriend experience" and a sugar baby seems very small to me-- and as if it mainly consists of smugness that she isn't a prostitute.

I can't deny that the thought of having a sugar daddy would be incredibly appealing if I were single-- I'm a broke grad student who would love some free meals and pricey clothing-- but as checkered as my dating past might be, I don't know that I could bring myself to enter a "relationship" where I'd be basically getting paid to flatter someone. I don't have a problem with sex work (though my future legal career does mean there's no chance in hell I'd do it), or people who do sex work, but the fact is, entering into a sugar relationship is not the same as entering into a regular relationship. In normal dating, you can be fairly sure that both parties genuinely like each other and want to spend time with each other-- or at least, you can pretend that's true. In a sugar relationship, it seems that compatibility standards lower considerably. He might not actually like you-- but if he flatters you over dinner and gives you money, you'll sleep with him. You might not actually like him, but if you flatter him over dinner, and sleep with him, you can pay rent, or buy a nice new dress. Its using each other and, while some would say that the pleasure we get out of regular dating is still using each other, this seems more... heartless, more mercenary, more of a lie.

I like truth. Genuine people. Honesty. And romance.

And the romantic in me just... can not accept that sex and money should be more important in a relationship than a true meeting of mind and heart. Yet, I totally get casual sex. Contradiction, yes, but one I'm willing to own up to.

Virtual Reality

Child porn is bad. This is obvious.

Porn involving consenting adult individuals is a 1st amendment right-- for the adults viewing it, the adults selling it, and possibly even the adults making it. And it's something many people are very enthusiastic about loving.

So... what happens when the porn involves consenting adults who either look, or have been digitally altered to look, much younger than the age of consent? A stickier situation-- if only because its an ickier situation.

Right now, I'm researching some issues involving the 1st amendment. One of the cases I ran across is Ashcroft v. The Free Speech Coalition, 535 US 234. The case involves a statute that bans depictions of minors engaged in sexual situations-- even if no actual minors are involved in the making.

A gut, visceral reaction might be that this is not ok, and that people who want to wank to images that appear to be of teens or kids shouldn't get to. The Supreme Court disagrees. They talk about the fact that this statute would also inhibit artistic depictions, like Romeo and Juliet, or American Beauty, or Traffic... or Gossip Girl. But limiting the discussion to classy movies/plays takes the easy way out-- and ignores the ick factor of porn involving people who look like minors.

The idea of youth as beauty and as the sexual peak is pervasive in modern society. That's a given, I'd say. People counted down to the 18th birthdays of the Olsen twins and Emma Watson; adults get "crushes" on the characters of Gossip Girl and whatever else is on TV these days. So... it's almost a given that at least some people are seeing in their heads women or men who play the roles of teens on TV shows, if not actual teens. So, if we as a society are ok with deceptions of teenage sexuality in our entertainment... and if watching/making virtual teen sex with adult actors or computer modelling is a first amendment right... then is virtual minor porn... good? bad? indifferent?

Child porn-- or teen porn-- is bad because it involves a lack of consent and, unless its homemade porn by a couple teens, sexual abuse. Even if teens say they consent, they legally can't--hence a lot of the lawsuits surrounding the Girls Gone Wild franchise. In America, at least, there's a general moral approbation against minors and sex. So, while watching virtual-minor porn is a legal right-- is it morally right? I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. But I'm also not sure that it's any worse than porn that shows adults as adults. I don't think that masturbation, or watching porn are bad things. Yes, I know porn can be exploitative, and that it can lead to negative attitudes towards women, a sense of entitlement, and confusion over what to really do in the bedroom. But the people that are really effected that way are going to get similar messages from the rest of society, even without the overt sexuality. And watching porn is done by... I'm sure more than half the population. Hell, I'm sure more than half the female population watches porn-- though as least from anecdotal evidence (which yes, means approximately nothing) they tend to like different kinds.

And people like all kinds of porn! I don't have a problem with people who want to watch S/M porn, or doctor/patient, or porn where the characters seem to have questionable consent, or tentacle porn, or... well, you get the point. Other people's kinks don't bother me-- especially when they stay in the realm of fantasy. So what's the harm with someone who wants to jack off to it? Yeah, the thought is on the gross side. But so are a lot of things-- to a lot of people. And maybe your imagination would be on the sick side to someone else. You never know.

Sex Offenders in Church

Apparently there's been some discussion on whether or not sex offenders should be allowed free access to churches, rating an article in Time, and even discussion in court cases-- but I heard about it in an article at Jezebel.

My reaction to this is basically to wonder how there is even a question here.  Yes, I'm very much against sexual assault, and don't think someone who assaults someone else should just be able to go back to their life as if nothing happened-- but not all sex offenses are actually harmful (public urination, statutory rape committed by a teen to hir close-in-age significant other), and I believe in a deterrence and rehabilitation model of justice, rather than a retributive one.

As both a Christian and a feminist, the double bias is going to show.  But I believe that churches should not only be for those upright citizens who are paragons of virtue.  You shouldn't have to be as "good" of a person as the minister to take part in worship, and you certainly don't have to be blameless to ask God to "lead you not into temptation".   Granted, a large part of church is the community, and adults do have a lot of interaction with children in a church setting-- but unless that adult is a youth group leader or Sunday school teacher, chances are they don't have much one-on-one time with kids.

Note, I also do not think that sex offenders should be ministers (exception-- teenage mutually consenting statutory rape and teenage/college public urination type activities, as long as, you know, that sort of disregard for public spaces didn't stay with them as an adult.).  Ministers should be devoted to living a Godly life in a way that really can't be expected of ordinary people-- that's why it's a calling, instead of just a profession.  That's why they're ministers, instead of parishioners.

But, a regular member of the congregation?  Someone who comes to church to worship in community and who tries to better hirself?  Well, I totally and completely think that sex offenders ought to be allowed to do that, if they're out of jail and living in general society.  And I think that disallowing them, even out of concern for children, is rather unChristian.  Jesus wouldn't shun someone for the crimes ze's committed, and leading people out of lives of sin is supposed to be one of the main functions of churches.

Ugh.  This ties into my problem in general with many modern churches-- the expectation that everyone coming is there to celebrate their own comparatively sinful lives, rather than to unite as sinners who are trying to be good to others and help lift others up.  Part of being Christian is extending love and help to the unloveable, after all.