Shhh! It's a secret...?

[Guest031715-1]

Originally Posted by dannyboy13

I have carefully read and tried to digest all of the posts on this thread. The subject is fascinating and several posters are not only eloquent, but capable of provoking a good deal of thought, not only on this subject, but peripheral subjects as well. The bottom line for me, however, is that this small part of my life is private, and must remain so. Any provider that is unwilling or unable to ensure (as far as possible) complete discretion is not someone with whom I will be spending my time.

What's your definition or qualification of "complete discretion?"

[Mr Peabody]

As Toyz is fond of saying "I want what is behind door number 3".

Both EFN and Ms. Valentina have it wrong. Sex Provider Legalization is not a workers issue. I hope nobody wants to pay extra to support dues to Sex Union Local #189. Texas is not a socialist state like the EU (where you must petition to change your job). There will not be government pussy licensing requirements, or installed video cameras to ensure one shot per client visit.

Ultimately sexual freedom will come similar to what has happened in the porn industry. That used to be a well-regulated industry where just a few magazine owners prospered. Then, Danni Ashe read an HTML manual, and the porn industry exploded on the internet. She retired a multi-millionare. Has this unregulated porn market grown based on increased revenue and profit? Yes! Have the historic porn magazines continued to do well online? Hell yeah!

Existing sex laws will become insignificant due to financial pressures if freedom is just allowed to continue blossoming.

[chelseabean]

[QUOTE=harkontume;1055256235]My intentions were never to debate the existence of God on a Hooker board.
(that would be at the very least hypocritical and sill

silly, perhaps. Hypocritical, how so? I'm a hooker. I'm perfectly comfortable talking about such things without guilt. I don't want to derail the whole damn conversation again with an off the cuff comment, but just saying. Hypocritical? I wouldn't worry about that. It's not.

However , when it comes to "rights" , consider this.
"Rights" endowed by a Creator do not change when one political party or another takes office.
Yeah, they do, whatever you attribute them to. The 13th amendment probably would not have happened without the Republican party. Certainly not if had been a room of just southern democrats. How do you figure that? Deciding what is and is not a "right" is a social endeavor and all social endeavors are political endeavors. But, I can go on and on about that. My whole point is just this, simply put. Rights are a never ending process, not something that happens at one point in time and then is over. Defining or redifining those as our understanding of ourselves and what we think society is or should be is part of being a fully social human.

If they are inalienable they are permanent
If they are defined by men they are whimsical.
I don't believe that. Just because something is a socially constructed reality as opposed to one that is handed down or believed to be an absolute does not necessarily mean that the whole endeavor is not worthy of gravity and circumspect consideration. Think of the momentous struggle that came before the 13th amendment. That was anything but whimsical.

I think it is a much safer world viewpoint to consider "rights" as something more stable then an ever-changing social and political landscape.

Of course it's safer. It's just not the reality of the situation As far as I can see, the only constant is change and to rail against is futile. Also, that sounds a lot better in theory than in reality. If it's your rights you feel are being infringed upon then the idea of a changing social and political landscape doesn't sound so bad.

Harkontume, you responded to my quote that I found it strange that some of the posters somehow considered the fact that she considered it to be a "right" and the fact that they considered it not to be a "right" the truth. I was addressing that essential inconsistency. How do you determine which one is correct there? It seemed to me you were offering up an argument of authority, right? I just don't accept that authority in the same way you do. I think a less confusing construct to use here might be the idea of interpretation instead of muddying the waters with ideas of social constructivism. The constitution like the bible continues to have relevancy as a document because of interpretation. It lives not because it, as it is, is the last thing to be said on the matter of rights or morality, respectively, it lives because we continue to interpret it according to our ever shifting social constructs. I mention the two together, because people tend to use them both as position of absolute authority in the same way, that is all.

And that's pretty much all I have to say. I wish I could argue like sean he's so succinct and stays on message, not to mention he's clearly a philosopher, and I am a literary type. I have a little rambling, rhizoid head. I'm a very lateral thinker. When I'm really sitting down and writing seriously, I can pull it all together under one aegis with some amount of struggle. As a writer, it's great a great resource for TON of ideas, but terrible for staying focused. Also, I have been know to sacrifice clarity for the mere sound of the pretty words. I'm going to respond to Miss Valentina, and then I am done as well.

[Miss Valentina]

Just a few moments and then I'll let the subject rest.

Hark- Very simply and with very little time, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. To say a "Creator" imbued us with "Inalienable Rights" and to suggest they are superior is an extraordinary claim indeed.


Some will argue that rights must come from a greater source than humans in order to have any legitimacy. This presupposes that if human rights only come from people, they can be taken away from people and that rights manufactured by man are somehow inferior. The only way to assure stability and circumvent rights being taken away is to have this dictated by the "Creator". A Supernatural being of which there is no higher power must dictate what is right and what is wrong. Anything else is unaccountable and perhaps dubious according to this view.


The problem with this ideology is that we cannot determine what divine morality is. Millions of people through oceans of time have spoken for the Creator. You do so now. But what "Creator"? If your creator is he of the bible, or anyone else for that matter, you have made a personal choice about the ideologies of that creator; one in which many, including myself are likely not congruent. You are deciding on one source of rights for millions and declaring them to be divinely dictated . Can you say with any real intellectual or moral conviction that you have the knowledge and authority necessary to dictate what the divine source of "inalienable rights" is and what those rights are? A revelation and knowledge seemingly denied to myself and millions of others?


No, the "inalienable rights" of man are dictated by man. Yes, they are fallible, but they are also fluid and ever changing as our understanding of the world around us changes and our ideas of what constitutes the well-being of individuals and society changes. We no longer own slaves, women and children are no longer chattel, we no longer throw homosexuals in jail because largely we have rejected the ideologies of one particular "Creator" the Christian one, put forth by well meaning persons such as yourself.

Mr. Peabody, having reviewed a great deal of drafted legislation on the subject of legalization, a great deal of it looks like an approximation of German and Dutch models. That is to say, very "socialistic" to use your term. Of course there are many reasons for this, they are tried and tested models having been implemented for 20+ years. When testing the waters of new legislation it stands to reason to follow that which has already been established. Now, that said, we all know we are very far away from legalization, and these drafts are embryonic accordingly. How they will look in the end is beyond my conceit and may end up what you envision, and I most certainly hope you are correct when and if the Supreme Court hammer should ever fall in favor of this subject. If ever given the choice, I will work for, and always choose door 3!

[sean rider]

There's a confusion of terminology mucking things up. "Rights" can mean choices that one can actually put into action, or it can mean choices that one should have but may not. You can have the former without any further basis, but those rights are contingent on the situation. The latter have to come from some logically prior source, are not contingent, but may also be suppressed by force.

Rights as pure social constructions are of the former type. They have no inherent stability, nor do they have any force of reason behind them. They are arbitrary and little better than the law of the jungle where might makes right. At most there is the perception that "the good guys" won the battle and so the good guys dictate the terms. But "good" here is meaningless.

Rights given by God are of the second type. They aren't contingent free floating capabilities one happens to have. They have a foundation that keeps them stable and unchanging even if, as a practical matter, the powers that be do not respect them.

But there may be a basis for the second type other than God. For example, there may be a biological basis for empathy and altruism. In other words it may be man's nature to follow the "golden rule," and those who do not are in a real sense broken and less than fully human. From this view rights are not constructed, but rather they are essential to what we are. Those who are not living out this potential can, as a practical matter, suppress the practice of rights. But they can't take them away because they are coded in our very genome.