Soapland

[miteyak 0]

I lived in Pakistan for a while. Not too many brothels there, nor porn or alchohol, but rape and battery, of both male and female, hardly insignificant.

 

I also lived in England for a while ...

[Ocean11 0]

Actually, all that silly shit about women being seen by men as objects is just silly shit peddled by whacky left wing psycho lesbians who don't like men and never talk to them and ask them what they think. I'd wager that most women in Soapland don't see themselves as objects, nor do most of their customers (and that would be because they're human beings - surprise!) And no amount of saying it will make it so.

 

Many of the problems of prostitution can be solved with regulation (such as exists to a large extent in Soapland), and all that prevents such regulation is the absurd influence of totally uninformed and ignorant 'morality' of the sort that supposes (other) people are too dumb to realise that women are human.

 

Mr Matthews, you should read some of the job ads for the Japanese 'pink trades'. They are far more polite, specific, and transparent, and containing more guarantees than anything you'll see put out by a big Japanese company. Maybe take a less lesbo-maoist-theoretical position and look at some real life.

[Stefan 0]

Miteyak, alcohol etc your point is valid. bUt maybe in Pakistan religion has a bit of an influence?

 

Jared, yes porn is part of the sex trade....

 

Ocean left wing moaist softy whoofters rule!

 

Take a look at recent attempts to 'regulate' prostitution in the Netherlands......go the dutch.

 

I don't believe the sex trade should be stopped or banned, though not all people who work and take part in it have such a balanced view as those represented here........it is exploitation so is porn etc. It's fine by me, as long as there are women willing to do it. Most women aren't.

 

We've also forgotten that the sex trade is totally discriminatory, if you are overweight, disabled etc you won't be allowed a job. This itself is a world of debate.

 

I'm trying take an objective point of view.

[miteyak 0]

Matthews, take a look at Australia.

 

As for religion, granted, the Koran is full of instruction on battery, assault and rape...

(Muslims, note the sarcasm, I could do without a fatwah... )

 

Pakistan, in case the reference was missed, is an example of what happens when men are denied access to women as an object of sex. Pretty much the same as when given full access, commercial un all.

 

Prostitution, drugs, et al are always more dangerous when illegal, not to mention easy money for the underworld. Some of the horrific sex slavery that goes on in your own fair motherland is due to the illegality of prostitution.

 

As for degrading to women, I always considered paying for sex to be more degrading to the man. Rape is about men overpowering women, Women charging for sex is about female control over the male.

Now if we could just legalize the sport and loose those foul little pimps...

[damian 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by Mr Matthews:
if you are overweight, disabled etc you won't be allowed a job.

You obviously have not stumbled into the brothels that I have on the northern beaches of Sydney. I swear one girl that introduced herself was slightly retarded. The rest were most certainly rather large.

[Ocean11 0]

Mr Matthews obviously has a totally theoretical appreciation of the whole issue.

 

If all prostitutes were young and/or beautiful, the world would be a much better place. Can we introduce some discriminatory legislation please?

[Stefan 0]

Your damn right. Never paid for sex, never will. It's a truly sad individual who has to hand over cash for tash! " title="" src="graemlins/cry.gif" />

[mikazooki 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by Ocean11:
Can we introduce some discriminatory legislation please?

what like singapore or switzerland, where u gotta do your time in the army?

compulsory soapland duty??

well, its a thought...

[Ocean11 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by Mr Matthews:
Your damn right. Never paid for sex, never will. It's a truly sad individual who has to hand over cash for tash! " title="" src="graemlins/cry.gif" />

Fair enough, but it doesn't excuse you regurgitating bits of undigested Andrea Dworkin all over everybody.

[Stefan 0]

Germaine Greer....ahem.

 

I remember piping-up in the middle of one of my 'Issues in Gender Representation' lectures in Uni once, the look I received made me guffaw and mumble the point i was so keen on making through a laugh, the tutts of all the hypo-fems was audiable three miles away.

 

You might actually be right Ocean, I've been conditioned by the femo's!!

[damian 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by Mr Matthews:
It's a truly sad individual who has to hand over cash for tash! " title="" src="graemlins/cry.gif" />

what is your reasoning for that statement?

[Davo 1]

The world is full of sad individuals who fork out "cash for tash"-spending money on things in order to get laid. Ever heard the phrase "wine me dine me 69 me" ? Personally I always thought that any girl who didn't want to shag me pretty quick without any pecuniary benefits thrown in was...umm how shall I say...not my type. It's on or it isn't right? And what is so different from straight up prostitution and expecting to have money spent on you before you agree to have sex?

I'm happy that prostitution has been legalized in NZ as it removes all the bullshit hypocracy and provides the sex workers with a lot more protection-they no longer have to fear the police.I don't see it as a matter of right or wrong, it's a matter of choice. However there are plenty of people forced into prostitution. If I was paying for it I'd like to think the girl was (a) doing it out of her own free will, and ( getting the cash. Something to consider before you go and spend a lot of money for something that should be free.

[indosnm 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by Mr Matthews:
It's a truly sad individual who has to hand over cash for tash! " title="" src="graemlins/cry.gif" />

if ya reckon

Whats the difference between say going on a holiday and meeting a nice local girl, buying a few dinners, & styling her abit, yes of course you would get a bit back but both of you had a pretty good time.

or

taking out a chick from home, forking out a shitload on everything just to be left high and dry.

who are the scammers?

the J chicks are just doing it because they want Vitton everything.. material to them.

[DumbStick 13]

Wine me dine me 69 me - never heard that one before

[Stefan 0]

the difference between what your suggesting fellas is that it takes F7CK all personality to throw money at some girl who'll hitch up her skirt and give you a ride, while wining dining etc, you gotta use your skills

[MothaChucka 0]

And so....?

 

[Stefan 0]

Well persoanally I enjoy a challenge, stimulating conversation, fine wine, food, a dance etc etc and a woman who really wants to shag me!

 

Nice contsructive comment there MothaChucka, did you think of that one all by yourself?

[Davo 1]

Shagadelic mutual attraction is the way to go-if that isn't the case then some form of prostitution is occuring in my opinion. There's a lot of it going on in Japan, but then again it happens all over the world.

 

Here's a story for you. A friend of mine starts talking to a nice looking Japanese girl in a bar. They get on well and she's a cool girl. He thinks he's in as they continue drinking and talking. He is stoked when she agrees to accompany him back to the hotel he's staying at. Not so stoked, however, when she says to him upon arrival at the hotel "That'll be 20,000 yen for the night". He's like "I think you'd better leave". So she's just an opportunist, an entreprenuer of sorts with no moral dilemas. No harm done just a bit of a putdown for my mate who thought he'd come right.

 

Moral of the story? None-just that things are not always what they seem, and not all women are on the game under some form of duress. I'm not denying that many are, but for many "normal" women (not to mention schoolgirls) sex for money (either cash or a naff designer handbag) is "normal" in Japan. I agree that in many ways women are treated as 2nd class citizens here-viewed through a Western lens the state of gender relations in Japan seems bloody awful. But women here are stronger and often more powerful than things appear on the surface.

 

I think you have some valid points Mr M but I'm not against the existence of soaplands , and I don't think closing down every last one of them would do jack s::: for the empowerment of women in Japan. Equal employment opportunities, a modern approach to maternity leave, a lot of affirmative action and a change in the sociocultural mindset, whereby ,little girls are brought up to be as ambitious as little boys would be of more use. In terms of these issues I read recently an analogy that economically Japan is fighting with one hand behind it's back because of the way women are held back.

 

Whoever's right for the job should be doing the job and Japan is behind in this respect. I think in the next 10 years there will be a lot of changes in this society. The realities of Globalization economics not to mention the deep shit this country is already in will hopefully sweep away a lot of the archaic workplace inequalities.

 

Another thing worth considering is how Japanese society is considerably more sexually permissive than the Judeo-Christian influenced societies of the West. There are also boy pros out there working for women as well. Anyway thats enough ranting-interesting topic.

[sweetaz 0]

you guys are mad!!

 

If you really think chicks just want you to dish out the dosh and then they'll give it up - you've all missed the boat.

I am a really independent woman...but i still like to be treated like a lady.

Taking a chick out on a date to a nice restaurant...or not...maybe to the beach with fish'n chips, or Whatever!- is nice....no matter what you do...women can see whether you've put any thought into your date or not.

I think some women are more impressed by money than others(perhaps because they have none??)...but i don't think that you should make such sweeping generalizations!!

It makes you all sound like a bunch of sulky boys who spent some money on a chick a few years ago and then she dumped you without putting out.

Relating buying a woman dinner to a form of prostitution shows just how clueless you all are!!!

[badmigraine 0]

In general I'm with Ocean on this one. I've had a range of jobs from no collar to blue and then white collar...from grinding physical labor for minimum wage, telemarketing, bartending, cash register work, office job, teacher and lawyer. Granted, I've never had a sex industry job.

 

But in general I observed that all of these jobs were about me selling my body and mind for a certain sum. Frankly speaking it would not have mattered to me if the certain sum were in exchange for providing sexual services. I really wouldn't mind that. It's just another job.

 

And (this is my personal opinion only, true as regards me--I can't speak for others here), I would have found providing sexual services to unattractive, ageing women a lot less degrading than my manual labor job, my cash-register job and, believe it or not, the sh**-ass work I did at my law firm.

 

At the law firm, I was required to give 1000% effort, to use all of my mental powers, stamina and ultimately physical endurance to focus full attention on the most complex, mind-numbingly boringly tedious crap you could imagine, all for the benefit of a giant faceless conglomerate client and ranks of cringing, favor-currying partners and senior associates that expected absolute perfection as the minimum standard.

 

It was horrible, a nightmare. I lost my girlfriend, dropped out of my family for 5 years, my hair began to turn gray, I got an ulcer, and all the while I was driving around in a crappy beat-up used car and wearing monkey suits and kissing butts to try to get to the next level, where my workload and responsibility would have INCREASED...and all around me in L.A. I saw people dripping with money and smiling and loving life and working a lot less for a lot more.

 

I would have been glad for an easy, high-paying job. What is more important to me is Time and Relationships and My Own Goals.

 

Selling body and mind is simply that. You do what you can to make your living. If you are of a moralistic bent or have this or that religious background, then maybe things like selling services or substances deemed illegal will bother you so much that you cannot do it.

 

But there will always be someone that it doesn't bother so much, who can do these things. Look at contract killers. Look at corrupt corporate types who embezzle. Look at govt. officials who sell drugs for arms. Look at prostitutes, look at drug dealers...

 

I am not advocating these activities, merely pointing out my observation that, from an experiential point of view, selling sexual services for big dollars would have been an easier, more pleasant and rewarding job for me than hard manual labor or attorney.

 

Not exactly the point Ocean was making, but nearly on the same page.

 

As for women's lib in Japan, it is little-known and when I first got there and looked into it with a female friend, it appeared to me to exist as an ineffectual, tediously academic and doctrinaire incarnation of a species of feminism long extinct in the west: the overweight, ugly, mannish female trying to act as un-female and weirdly, androgynously Male as is surreptitiously possible, while picking up amputated contextless nuggets of French Marxist deconstructinist theoretical gender-politicized radical feminist thought from the 1960's that nobody in the west even bothers to include in college courses about feminist thought anymore.

 

Japenese feminism and women's lib... Another totally irrelevant and ultimately disappointing Japanese costume-play iteration of "foreign" countries' once-real situation, era and effects, a la Japanese hip-hop/L.A. inner-city gang/rapper style, weird fake church weddings with actor priests and odd Jiminy-Cricket tuxedos from Mozart's era, and giant auto-camp camping grounds where you keep your car running while you barbeque on the asphalt.

 

It seemed a kind of grab for difference, a costume-play identity with zero originality and even less currency.

 

It used to be that straight people imagined gay couples would have one person acting the male role, and one acting the female role...why the need to impose a traditional straight template on a relationship that has nothing to do with straight?

 

It used to be that feminist neophytes imagined that for women to be truly liberated in a man's world, they needed to act more like men...hairy armpits, masculine haircuts, etc.

 

It used be that people expected someone accused of using illegal drugs was some sort of lowlife dangerous addict who'd thrown everything away and would shoot or stab you for his next fix. Now we wonder over a beer and ciggy about the sense of the "War Against [some] Drugs"...

 

These ignorant stereotypes are nonsense and ancient history--in some places at least.

 

What is a good prescription for feminism in Japan?

 

Well, first of all it needs to be Japanese, not some adopted, imitative style or costume.

 

Second of all, it should be by the women, for the women.

 

Where in all of this is it written that for women to be liberated, they should seek 50% participation and representation in all the things MEN do? Yes, the world is the way it is and business, power, money, commerce and social life will not be rebuilt in a day with a new and distinctly female apparatus, so women do need to do a lot of the things that men do in a "man's world"...

 

But to a certain extent simply trying to get women to do the things men do and calling it "feminism" or "liberation" is merely the same as asking them to stop shaving armpits, get a man's haircut and amputating all that is currently deemed feminine (a concept that we are welcome to question). This is cutting off the nose to spite the face.

 

Do Japanese women really want to get into Japanese companies and be Salarywomen, riding 2-hour trains to work, sitting in a smoky pit, becoming black-toothed buchous and doing "service zangyo" until all hours of the night?

 

That doesn't sound very liberating, empowering or attractive to me.

 

It may be that the liberation of Japanese women will be achieved through alternate activities. Who knows what these will be. I doubt the final stage is soapland and prostitution work, but there is some power and money for women in those positions, to go along with the danger, moral taint, and short career span.

 

I am not saying these jobs are the path to women's liberation in Japan. My point here is that women should/will not attempt to merely duplicate the current Japanese male role and call it "liberation"...it is going to come from somewhere else and the process should/will by definition turn some current ideas of morality, power, work and propriety on their heads.

[badmigraine 0]

 Quote:

We've also forgotten that the sex trade is totally discriminatory, if you are overweight, disabled etc you won't be allowed a job. This itself is a world of debate.

Mr. Matthews, really! You've made some great points, but this one is a red herring indeed. I had too much coffee and I can't let this one go without voicing my opinion on it.

Are you suggesting that the ideal we must strive for in thought, practice and legislation is to make all jobs do-able by anybody/everybody?

There is no world of debate to be had here. The fact of nature is that people don't want what they don't want.

Nobody is going to pay for a fat, ugly, or old prostitute (except a few who prefer that type)

Are you suggesting that anyone--average, anorexic, non-native speaking, obese, stupid, ugly, large-breasted, 3-meters tall, super-smart, whatever...should have the right to any job?

A deaf and blind cop, a dyslexic proofreader, a 400-pound jockey, a slow-witted memory-deficient stock floor trader, an under-educated socially disadvantaged research scientist, a squeamish surgeon, a 62-year-old female infantry soldier, a sumo-sized flight attendant?

Professional basketball: it discriminates against those who are short, slow and/or obese.

Company president: discriminates against those who have memory problems, dyslexia, speech impediments.

Firefighter: discriminates against the obese, physically or mentally handicapped, and those not strong enought to climb latters and lift heavy hoses.

Fashion model: discriminates against unattractive people.

Mother: discriminates against men.

"Discrimination" has been given a bad name. Discrimination is a great and valuable thing. Yet there are those who observe that something is "discriminatory" as if this proves that it is bad or wrong.

Shouldn't we be glad that every job and industry discriminates against undesirable characteristics?

Shouldn't we acknowledge that we are constantly discriminating and that the elimination of discrimination is not only undesirable, but impossible?

When I left the mall yesterday and entered the parking lot, there were many cars. Mine is a blue SUV. I was able to find it by discriminating among the other cars of different type and color. It was a discriminatory act.

I used the powers of discrimination to find my wife among the crowd.

I was captain of the cross country team and I got into Yale University because I was smarter, faster, better and luckier than some others...the world and the process discriminated against some others...not fair, is it?

In some countries there exists legislation such as the U.S. "affirmative action", whereby society makes a positive effort to alter underrepresentation of certain groups in certain places or activities, such as schools and jobs. This may or may not work in the long run to ameliorate the underlying problem. But even inside of such legislation, there is a common-sense notion that the concept is a temporary, hopefully-corrective measure to fix a problem.

As far as I can tell, it's not a problem that customers expect/pay for sex trade workers that are physically attractive.

There is no underlying problem to fix here. The concept of sexual attractiveness is not determined by principle, not capable of being legislated. The sex trade exists for the commodification of human sexual activity and desire...something that may wander through the generations from this or that ideal, but which cannot be "fixed" or changed because of its purely biological, hormonal foundations.

[sexy-northerner 0]

Great name, "Soapland".

[sweetaz 0]

Badmigrane

 Quote:

And (this is my personal opinion only, true as regards me--I can't speak for others here), I would have found providing sexual services to unattractive, ageing women a lot less degrading than my manual labor job, my cash-register job and, believe it or not, the sh**-ass work I did at my law firm.

How can you say this?? It seems very egotistical and presumptuous of you to think you can relate to sex trade workers and what they go through.

The sheer fact that many of them are junkies says there must be some seriously detrimental mental and emotional effects on them.

 

I actually agree with everything else you said...nice to see an intelligent,objective response to this topic.

 

On the topic of discriminatory employment... political correctness has a lot to answer for. I believe who ever is best suited for the position should be hired. Remuneration should be based on performance not how many pints they can drink with the lads. I know first hand the latter is more often the case.

Being a woman in business is a fine balancing act. Every good business person knows they need to use all the benefits they have to achieve the required results. However, when you are if you are attractive is often easy to get to levels one or two...but then you must work twice as hard as the men to get any further.

This has been a sore point for me, but i acknowledge this is simply the way things are...men will be men. So now if I seal a deal because the guy i'm dealing with wants to get in my pants....let him want away....I still secured the results. Tit for tat...lol

I've no guilt about it.

As for the he-she's they truly have destroyed chivalry....bring back door opening I say.

[badmigraine 0]

Sweetaz, I suspect the fact that many sex trade workers are "junkies" is not a result of their jobs as sex workers, but rather, a result of the fact that a significant percentage of people who end up in the sex trade end up there because their other habits make "traditional", office or 9-to-5 employment either unworkable or motivationally out of the question.

 

Meaning their drug habits are not a symptom of their jobs, but rather, their jobs are a symptom of their drug habits. In statistics, we call this a "self-selecting sample".

 

As an additional note, I found a number of "junkies" among my white collar lawyer and investment banking cohorts. Cocaine, prescription painkillers, pot, X, acid, mushrooms, weekend drinking binges, you name it...all to manage the stress and get through somehow.

 

A sex worker who managed to have a white collar job might have had the same drug habits, but because they didn't use needles or the cheap stuff, we'd never call them "junkies". Naturally we "normal" people woulc never call such intelligent, proper white-collar workers junkies...rather we would say to each other, they "sure know how to party!"

 

Ahem.

 

Mr. Matthews, THIS is a type of discrimination against which we should properly rail.

 

As for me relating to sex workers and knowing something about them, look how wrong you can be. Maybe they don't have much action down there on the South Island. As for me, I spent 4 years moonlighting as a semi-nude go-go dancer in gay L.A. clubs, dressing in rubber at S/M fetish parties on 3 continents (see my picture on page 35 of "O" fetish magazine issue #25, summer 1995), have attended orgies in English, Italian and Japanese, and lived for 8 months in L.A. as the evening/weekend sex slave/toy of a Colombian Japanese dominatrix stripper/escort and her assorted kinky friends, eating and drinking and suffering things you can hardly imagine, and taking things in various holes that are larger than you have ever taken, believe me.

 

I've had a number of sex worker, gay hooker and "marginal" club, biker and naughty entertainment acquaintances. I haven't really hung out with them since the mid-90s due to living in Tokyo, but I was there and I did that.

 

Well, I guess I should thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt, and assuming I was some lily-white prat naive Yalie lawyer, but really, I'm not what you think.

 

In closing, I note that I injected a lot of my own personal history into my posts, so it's fair game of you to adopt the ad-hominem approach and say my arguments are invalid because I don't know any sex workers and am not a sex worker myself.

 

But in this case I think you tapped the wrong person. It looks like you don't have any idea what I am.

 

And really, even if I hadn't done these things, I don't need to fall of the roof to know something about how it feels and whether or not I want to do it.

 

Really.

 

You can talk about things without having done them.

 

Nice try though.

 

[barok 0]

I am under the impression that prostitution is illegal in Japan - but that like so many other lawbreaking activities, it is ignored by the cops. Is this right ?

 

Anyway. . .

 

Gotta disagree with you badmigraine, not based on any personal experience, but saw a doc where a long-time porn industry worker was talking about all of the people that he has known and worked with, and how he doesn't even try to make friends in the industry anymore, because almost everyone he had known had as a result of their jobs, turned in to pathetic junkies and crack-whores. The guy just got fed up watching all of his friends turn into zombies.

 

I would imagine that alot of sex industry workers develop drug problems, other addictions, because of a quick fix, instant gratification mentality that they gain by getting paid more money than they have ever had before, right after sex, repeatedly, over and over again. just a guess though.

 

Ocean 11, as for women as objects, why is that so hard to imagine - for hundreds of years, black men and women were seen and treated as property here in America. No thought was paid to their humanity. And slavery is still rampant in the world today. I don't know about Japan, and it's sex industry, but I would imagine there are plenty of sex slaves all across the country, given the demand for sexual services in Japan, and Japan's proximity to the countries that export slaves.

 

And I would disagree with sex workers being paid respect in most places in the world, although in Japan they probably do get more. Why bother respecting someone who A) needs only cash and not respect in order for them to perform their job does a job that anyone can do ?

 

As for taking a girl out vs. paying her, this whole analogy is just pointless. First off, if you just want to sleep with some girl, wining and dining isn't the right way to do it, buying expensive dinners, spending money on a girl, wining and dining her is the most surefire path to rejection in my book.

 

womens lib - i dunno - seems like most of these gals are more luis vuitton - realized/actualized, than self-realized/actualized.

 

I didn't meet any sex workers while I lived in Japan, but my gf's cousin is a sex worker. My gf said she got into it because of her low self-esteem developed as a result of her father's abusing her. She didn't do anything useful with the money. She only bought brand items, vuitton, gucci, etc. I am not sure if this story proves anything except that some of these girls mentality's are pretty screwed up, and that they could be much healthier, much more self-realized if they sought some form of professional help.

 

I do agree that if a good way can be found to regulate the sex industry, it can serve a valuable role in society. As for Japan, some condoms or an STD testing program might be a good start.

 

Another story - a friend of a friend married a japanese guy and had a couple of kids. The guy was a typical businessman and went to the soaps. He got some nasty disease, and brought it home, and now the poor gal can think of nothing else but leaving this fool and getting the hell out of Japan with her kids. This kind of thing doesn't just affect the seller and the buyer.