I read the other day that less educated men are less likely to marry nowadays that the economy's not moving so well:
I also read that some scientists now estimate that the cost of a single murder to society is roughly 17 million dollars:
Which has gotten me to think that maybe it's time for prostitution to be more widely legalized in this country.
Before you recoil in horror, hear me out.
Sometimes, men either need to get laid, or to talk their problems out with a professional. Traditional psychotherapy is expensive and less effective, because it tries to substitute the need for physical human contact with talking and often drugs. Think of men's sexual drive as a need that must be met, just as powerful as hunger or thirst, and not something that can be deferred indefinitely without profound emotional or psychological consequences. In some men it manifests as a loss of vitality as they just dissociate from that aspect of themselves, and in others it manifests as mental instability or violence against themselves and others.
I think people tend to underestimate, especially nowadays with the interwebs, the power of human contact. There were those studies a few years ago that showed that when babies aren't touched as children their brains don't develop properly. That need doesn't magically disappear in adolescence.
There was also the study recently that showed that socially awkward men given spritzes of oxytocin behaved like socially normal human beings.
So unless we as a society are willing to find the socially awkward men amongst us and given each of them a good long hug every day (and I'm certainly not), we should probably provide a healthy, legal way for young unemployed men to blow off steam, develop emotionally, and connect with real human beings without hurting themselves or anyone else.
Moreover, when you consider how much time young men spend trying to get laid in clubs (spending money on bling and "peacocking") instead of working on useful or productive shit, even when they are employed, it's clear that prostitution is the world's oldest profession for a reason: it serves a valuable social function.
We could think of it as a way of cheaply expanding the "social service system" (which liberals would go for) while SHRINKING the government, which could potentially help reduce crime, not only by taking current prostitution out of the underground economy, but also by potentially keeping young men from becoming emotionally unstable and resorting to expensive crimes like rape or homicide.
Unfortunately, our stupid, gutless politicians lack the balls to stand up for what's right instead of what's politically expedient. They are the true whores of society.
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
-Langston Hughes
Some possible objections:
1. What about the women's mental health?
That is an excellent point, but I honestly don't think we can generalize across all people. I do know that there are women who work as prostitutes now in "massage parlors" who may very well be psychologically healthy. I also think it is a fallacy to think that keeping something illegal is equivalent to stopping people from engaging in a behavior, such as with the criminalization of pot and hard drugs.
By analogy, some studies find that many strippers are well-educated and often feel empowered by their professions, because they make a large amount of money in a short amount of time off of lonely men...so it's open to debate as to who is being exploited.
2. Prostitution may be immoral, but that does not make them expendable to the violence committed against them on the streets.
I don't consider prostitutes immoral or expendable, and I feel that many regions of the US, could stand a bit of sexual liberation and acceptance. Just because you find something distasteful, doesn't make it morally wrong.
I agree that many street prostitutes have hard lives, are addicted to drugs, and live dangerous lives. However, labeling these women as criminals and forcing them underground does little to protect them from exploitation by pimps, drug dealers, and violent clients.
So, instead of pretending that this doesn't happen because it's illegal, shouldn't we accept that it does happen so we can maybe stop persecuting them and start protecting them? We're not doing these women any favors by keeping prostitution illegal, just adding one more entity out to get them instead of protect them: the state.
And for the often well-educated women who work in brothels or for escort services instead of the street, isn't it a little overly paternalistic of the state to tell them what they can and cannot do with their bodies, minds, and emotions? Would it be possible for a psychologically and emotionally healthy, educated woman to choose to sell sex for money?
Furthermore, masturbation is insufficient, because men need human contact, even though we are told by our culture to be completely independent and not at all "gay," which hinders the development of close male relationships, especially for underprivileged men with no familial support system. Many men go to prostitutes to talk, and have some human contact. Without human contact, our genes and bodies break down.
This is possibly one reason why people watch so much TV and spend so much time on facebook. There isn't nearly as much social facetime in modern society as their would have been in our ancestral environment, so people are desperately trying to fill that hole.
I honestly believe we teach men to not be in touch with their emotions, and empathy is considered "gay," liberal, and effeminate in our society. Empathy is a skill that must be practiced and developed, but we don't teach it in schools, which is a damn shame.
I also don't think the hookup culture in American colleges is always healthy for young men or young women. The young men have to waste time and resources "peacocking" and competing/putting each other down to get women, and both young men and young women often have to have sex while pretending not to develop emotional attachments.
It is that alpha-male culture in which only the top men get sex and so they can afford to be callously and emotionally indifferent to the women who give it to them which causes so many problems. This is emblematic of the US economy in which only the top earners (and men college graduates in this case) get sex or recognition from the state.
It is wrong for the men at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder to not get sex because they were dealt a bad hand in life, and I ask you to consider that it is possible that making it more difficult for those men to obtain sex leads directly to more crime, which is extremely, extremely expensive for society. (See the NYT article above.) Also see: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200706/ten-politically-incorrect-truths-about-human-nature?page=2
Some feminists who are opposed to prostitution say that men are pigs, but it's not our fault that we're born children and then chained to our sexuality in our adolescences. In some men, it's empowering, and in others, it's devastating. Sex is one of the most powerful motivators on the planet...all I'm saying is that it can have literally explosive impacts upon society if we don't acknowledge it and harness it effectively and justly.
So, given that keeping prostitution illegal doesn't necessarily help women and may in fact hurt them, and that it probably isn't good for men at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder either, and that keeping it illegal can possibly be devastating for society as a whole, just as the war on drugs is, I dunno. Maybe it's time we accept human nature by ditching the Judeo-Christian value system that tells us that sex is a bad thing that we should be ashamed of before marriage.
3. The poor men at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder need to sack up, cut their hair, and get a job, and possibly go through therapy and develop some social skills. That is what it means to be man.
From my experience, the idea that men who use women just for sex through therapy and acquire some social skills in order to get laid is extremely naive.
Suppose, for example, that I'm a bright young kid growing up in Harlem. Maybe I 'm being raised by a single mother. Maybe my shitty diet and social environment trigger schizotypal personality disorder, or cyclothemia, or unipolar depression. Maybe it triggers the onset of schizophrenia when I'm in my early twenties, or my thinking becomes disorganized and I have no idea why. Maybe there is a persistent mental fog or learning disability that has gone on for so long that I've forgotten what it's like to be able to think clearly or learn anything. Or maybe I have some sort of attachment disorder from not having had any stable, loving relationships in my life. Any of those things are plausible when you're growing up in poverty. On top of that, it's not as though the other people in my life are exactly mentally stable.
So there's all that stuff going on, and then I hit adolescence, and the mess hits the fan. Not only did my other issues prevent me from functioning normally, now I have to worry about carrying around this insane sexuality all the time. Think of "not getting laid" as a stressor, just like not getting water. I'm saying, it's messed up that the guys who need sex the most are the least likely to get any.
It's just like with banks: if you have money, you get money. (reminds me of this Louis CK bit about being broke: http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/114975/detail/, also the Grameen bank, which flips this logic on its head:
Now, at any given time, Harlem guy can do something socially productive, or he can work on developing "game," which I suggest to you is barely productive at all. I'm telling you that guys in Harlem, many of whom probably don't have the mental stability to choose long-term benefits over short-term gratification in the first place, will spend more time developing "game" rather than getting an education or improving themselves. I'm saying that letting men have easier access to sex will at least serve to take some of the pressure off.
And for another perspective on "game" and how messed up it is because it forces men to treat women like sex objects, imagine that you were extremely thirsty, and there was one guy who would give you water but only if you danced like a chicken. Now, you're not this guy's friend, and you definitely see this guy as a "water object," and maybe that sucks for him, but you need this water or you will die. So you play his stupid game, get the water and leave. If you're really good, maybe you'll get the water guy to develop an emotional attachment to you so you can get some water regularly. All I'm saying is that if water was more readily available to people that needed it, men would spend less time playing stupid fucking games and maybe men and "water guys" could actually get to know each other and develop a healthy fucking relationship.
My point is that sex is a need, not an option, so what some see as dickish behavior (wham bam thank you ma'am) is exactly what you would do in the same situation. If you say you wouldn't, then you obviously lack empathy, which proves my point.
I recommend reading some Thorstein Veblen if you ever get the chance. The fact that women choose who to sleep with has been a driving evolutionary force: sexual selection creates competitive pressure on men to either excel against each other, or harm/kill their competitors. Competition isn't a purely good thing: I can win a game by destroying my competition, and I can make some money by getting other people hooked on drugs. I can also stack the deck so heavily against my competition that they don't really stand a chance of escaping their shitty life conditions.
So while some may see sexual energy as basically a good thing, my point is that it can have very destructive consequences if we don't provide some sort of release for the guys who are either unwilling to be content with masturbation (millions of years of evolution didn't wire us to be content with masturbation) or those who don't have the mental stability to make good choices (which contributes to extremely expensive crimes against society, if you actually read the NYT article.)
4. What is wrong with masturbation?
Understand that sex, not orgasm, has beneficial mental and emotional health consequences. Sexual Healing is a beautiful song. To my knowledge, there is no equivalent "Masturbatory Healing." Social stress can trigger all kinds of mental health problems, and I think sex can be a great way to heal some of those problems. So, just like oxytocin can improve people's social skills, and spending some money is necessary to get out of an economic depression, I dunno, maybe getting laid is a great way for some dudes to get their shit together. That's been my experience, at least.
5. Is sex for young men really that big of a deal?
I think women think about sex differently, because first off they don't need it as badly, in the sense that women have two x chromosomes and their cerebral hemisphere's are more balanced so they're less likely to become unstable when something goes wrong. Second, as the sexual selectors, they don't feel as strong of a competitive selection pressure.
Honestly, I think it's possible that some insecure women see prostitution as a threat, because if men don't need them for sex then they'll be less valuable because they feel they don't have anything else to offer. There's no socially acceptable equivalent to the feminist movement, which I think accounts for some of the growing disparity of male-female ratios in US colleges, because social pressures are being increasingly stacked against young men.
I recommend the book "The Sexual Paradox" by Susan Pinker, which talks about how much of the income disparity between men and women may be due to the fact that men have to compete in wasteful tournaments to prove their sexual worthiness ("peacocking") but it makes no sense for women to engage in the same behavior, so they drop out.
You can't talk about marriage and college without also talking about sex, status, and the factors that go into the decision to get married, but those are often taboo in this country.
It's sad that they don't teach any of this stuff in public schools, and they don't teach people how to empathize or integrate what they know into a bigger picture. Actually, we don't teach people to think in pictures period, which is another big problem.
I think people's personal sexual experiences are highly varied and unique, and none of us has any more authority to speak on the topic than anyone else, but at the very least I think the legalization of prostitution is a position worth considering.
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