Well, I agree that it's analytically wacky, but it's still tolerable for this purpose.

It just occurred to me how few models there are of "responsible" sex purchasing — some analogue of Dan Savage's "Good, Giving, and Game" model. That absence is probably very influential on this debate. It makes the slippery slope arguments so much more prominent here: Anyone who purchases sex has criminal tendencies,…

I have a boyfriend but if I didn't, I'd have needs. Sex needs. And you know what? Trying to get laid is fucking miserable.

it seems to me it's the responsibility of the person seeking honesty to create an environment in which it's safe to be honest.

Well, let me try and frame the issue here in the most potentially substantive way.

Well, the "villainization" you describe does exist, we can all agree on that, I think.

Okay, but if you say "every expression of regulatory intent" = "morality," then how is that different from a tautology?

This post needed a comment like this. Kudos.

Well said. Could we perhaps agree that backing away from the "Hypocrisy!" charge is a good idea here, too? I think we can all tolerate a certain amount of self-interest in Jezebel's analysis of hot-button topics like this. Usually Jezebel's interest is in stimulating an interesting discussion, which is closely aligned…

all governance is an assertment of morality.

Ambivalence sounds like a fair way of describing this feeling. I'm ambivalent about modern theater, France, and eggplant myself.

And that's enough "Heartland News" for me today.

How...how did you do this?

I'll allow it. +1

Well...again I find myself admitting that your logic is unassailable. I just suggest you might be setting the bar a little too high. Trying to impose that high standard might destroy some of the things that are great about Jezebel.

Interesting point. Care to add any more?

Seconded. Us guys too.

Jezebel, don't you complain about media coverage of certain things, how patriarchal institutions warp the results of studies to further their own agenda? Do you really, truly, honestly not see how this is the exact same thing?

I do think, however, that the attitudes of the men who purchase these services is pretty similar across the board.

Easy, easy. I know what you mean about the knee-jerk anti-stripperism here — but experience has taught me that plenty of pro-stripper women read Jezebel too, even if they don't comment very frequently.