The crossover between Polyamory, Swinging and Sex work

[Vinccenzo]

I'm a bit confused how one believes dating for the seeking of sex is similar to paying a sex worker for sex. I'm not going to pretend there are not still people who feel one gender over the other ought pay for the expenses of a date, but it isn't a rule or a law. If it makes you feel its no different than paying for sex from a sex worker than just don't foot the bill or date people who feel you should.

[Scott]

Originally Posted by Vinccenzo

I'm a bit confused how one believes dating for the seeking of sex is similar to paying a sex worker for sex.

I think the real issue here is our concept of money. In an ideal world, all people would aquire money in the same fashion; through honest work. However, this simply isn't the case. -Some- people get it from honest work, but bankers create it out of thin air; where's the fairness of that? Because of this, money justifiably seen as something that is unclean. But if, for a moment, we could remember that he essence of money is basically a token from society that you are deserving of a favour, then dating and giving someone money aren't incredibly different. Sex at Dawn puts it this way:

*************
As attentive readers may have noted, the standard narrative of
heterosexual interaction boils down to prostitution: a woman
exchanges her sexual services for access to resources. Maybe
mythic resonance explains part of the huge box-office appeal
of a film like Pretty Woman, where Richard Gere’s character
trades access to his wealth in exchange for what Julia
Roberts’s character has to offer (she plays a hooker with a
heart of gold, if you missed it). Please note that what she’s got
to offer is limited to the aforementioned heart of gold, a smile
as big as Texas, a pair of long, lovely legs, and the solemn
promise that they’ll open only for him from now on. The
genius of Pretty Woman lies in making explicit what’s been
implicit in hundreds of films and books. According to this
theory, women have evolved to unthinkingly and
unashamedly exchange erotic pleasure for access to a man’s
wealth, protection, status, and other treasures likely to benefit
her and her children
*************

Originally Posted by Vinccenzo

I'm not going to pretend there are not still people who feel one gender over the other ought pay for the expenses of a date, but it isn't a rule or a law. If it makes you feel its no different than paying for sex from a sex worker than just don't foot the bill or date people who feel you should.

The way I see it, if you love someone and they love you, you work as a unit; so the one who pays is the one who has the cash to spare (if both are equal, both can pay equally). This is a principle I've used in the past and it's worked fine for me (I was the one with the cash to spare at the time).

[feelyunicorn]

Originally Posted by Scott

Could you or someone else link to that thread?

http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1720 You`d have to sift through there.

Originally Posted by Scott

Could you not summarize this alleged counter-argument?

Sure.

The argument is that in chimps, especially, but (perhaps) even in bonobos, the female is routinely intimidated and battered (i.e., "coerced") to have sex.

Chimp females do not normally copulate with betas. That is, they are sexually selective and "hypergamous" (seeking stronger/taller, richer/more status). Typically alphas will control most, if not all, of the female population, whereas betas will be forced to compete in order to copulate. And, whereas in gorillas there is a lot of rape, in chimps (as in humans) rape is rare, whereas battery is common.

The reason he cites Jane Goodall is because she initially had no clue why betas randomly attacked chimp females for apparently gratuitous reasons. It was only later that they observed that the females who were battered became submissive to the beta males, and did not reject their sexual advances in the small windows of time when alphas were not watching their females (mate-guarding).

As in humans, most chimps are pair-bonded and socially monogamous.

It is true that in bonobos there is more "sperm competition", in other words. Females copulate with several males and there is more ambiguity as to whom the father is.

But, even in bonobos there is some controversy. In either case, chimps share more DNA with humans than any of the other great apes, and our social systems around sex are closest.

So, the back-to-nature argument runs against the chimp evidence.

[feelyunicorn]

Here`s an outline back when I studied those videos. I don`t know how intelligible it is. Feel free to ask me questions.

Great Apes --- evolutionary biology on the level of individual competition (vs. species/group cooperation)



a) greater sex dimorphism;



b) gorillas - pair-bonding and sexual competition (rape, etc.): small testis; silverback alpha; infanticide;



c) bonobos - polygyny: sperm competition; (copulation calls?); lice-grooming; bisexuality;



d) chimps - large/external testis; sexual coercion of female (battery); alphas attacked by packs of betas; mate guarding; male polygyny; female hypergamy; sexual selection (fitness); mating displays; infanticide



e) homosapiens - medium-sized testis; altricial infants; serial pair-bonding? (related to weaning?); greater mutation;

[redpepper]

Originally Posted by feelyunicorn

I`m surprised you would ask, since "sex-negative" is in this site`s terms and definitions thread you helped compile..

I was looking for YOUR definition as you referred to it in terms of some poly people being sex negative.

I find it hard to vote as they all three have a sexual component, yet sex work and swinging are typically for work or sport... then again some poly people have sport sex and I have friends in the sex trade that are poly identified. Hmmm, difficult.

[feelyunicorn]

Originally Posted by redpepper

I was looking for YOUR definition as you referred to it in terms of some poly people being sex negative.

I find it hard to vote as they all three have a sexual component, yet sex work and swinging are typically for work or sport... then again some poly people have sport sex and I have friends in the sex trade that are poly identified. Hmmm, difficult.

Got it, I`m sorry.

Yeah, I too find it difficult to make a clean distinction between them all. Especially because, to me, there is always some level of feeling to sex, and vice-versa. Easy though to make a distinction in terms of emphasis: polyamory - relationships; prostitution - work; swinging - casual sex.

I also seem to identify some sex-negativity in swinging too, though, believe it or not. Or, to put it another way, it`s very gendered sex-negativity whereby, understandably, male libido is held in scorn and female libido is put on a pedestal...If for no other reason than the law of offer and demand.

So, to a man, the rhetoric is that you should be looking for "friends", that it isn`t "all about sex", etc. Also, extreme hypocrisy concerning prostitution. As I later found out, prostitutes posing as wives are the lifeblood in many a swinger club, yet kept hush hush.

So, since we`re talking about married couples mostly in search of unicorns, the female is your price of entry (as it is in porn). In my 20s, I tried to "penetrate" the swinging world as a lifestyle single man; I felt I was basically denied entry without trial. Although, I am admittedly uncompromising concerning gender double-standards and passive-aggressiveness around sex.

[Scott]

Originally Posted by feelyunicorn

http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1720 You`d have to sift through there.

Found it (post 40):
Sex Negative adj : a person with the belief that sexuality in general dirty or distasteful to including their own sexuality

Originally Posted by feelyunicorn

Sure.

The argument is that in chimps, especially, but (perhaps) even in bonobos, the female is routinely intimidated and battered (i.e., "coerced") to have sex.

I decided to watch the first video in its entirety to see what sources of information he brings up. In the first video, he only mentions the research of Goodall, which is why I brought up Sex at Dawn's summary of Margaret Powers research, not to mention certain things that Goodall herself said. Perhaps you skipped over it, so I'll repeat Goodall's words:
“The constant feeding was having a marked effect upon the behaviour of the chimps. They were beginning to move about in large groups more often than they had ever done in the old days. They were sleeping near camp and arriving in noisy hordes early in the morning. Worst of all, the adult males were becoming increasingly aggressive. ... Not only was there a great deal more fighting than ever before, but many of the chimps were hanging around camp for hours and hours every day [emphasis added].”17

Originally Posted by feelyunicorn

Chimp females do not normally copulate with betas. That is, they are sexually selective and "hypergamous" (seeking stronger/taller, richer/more status). Typically alphas will control most, if not all, of the female population, whereas betas will be forced to compete in order to copulate. And, whereas in gorillas there is a lot of rape, in chimps (as in humans) rape is rare, whereas battery is common.

The professor in that first video you put up doesn't seem to agree with you at all; the guerilla tactic of non alpha males in the gorilla population seems to be infanticide, whereupon the female gorilla who just had her infant killed will go off to seek the gorilla who just killed her offspring and live with him, apparently because her protector couldn't protect her so she's going off with someone who (presumably) will be able to. Regarding chimps, that is what that professor said, but remember the quote I made above, and hopefully you'll read and absorb the rest of what I wrote concerning Goodall's research in post #13.

Originally Posted by feelyunicorn

The reason he cites Jane Goodall is because she initially had no clue why betas randomly attacked chimp females for apparently gratuitous reasons. It was only later that they observed that the females who were battered became submissive to the beta males, and did not reject their sexual advances in the small windows of time when alphas were not watching their females (mate-guarding).

Alright, I can believe this, but again, we have to remember the conditions of Goodall's research area, all well covered in post #13. Again, the bottom line here is that if you create a hellish environment, hellish things will happen.

Originally Posted by feelyunicorn

As in humans, most chimps are pair-bonded and socially monogamous.

The issue here is who's having sex with who, so I don't really care whether chimps are "socially monogamous" or not; the bottom line is that no social primate other then (ostensibly) us is sexually monogamous, and there are tons of signs that for most of our history, we weren't monogamous and even now, with all the societal pressures to be monogamous, many people still rebel from this system, either surreptitiously (cheating) or openly (polyamory/swinging).

The other issue is that humans are -not- socially monogamous. To find someone who only socializes with their spouse is extremely rare. I'm also highly doubtful that chimps are socially monogamous as well, though I can't recall if Sex at Dawn gets into this that much.

Originally Posted by feelyunicorn

It is true that in bonobos there is more "sperm competition", in other words. Females copulate with several males and there is more ambiguity as to whom the father is.

It's also true that only humans have a penis that's actually designed to scoop out the sperm of previous sperm donors, making us perhaps the most competitive in the sperm wars.

Originally Posted by feelyunicorn

But, even in bonobos there is some controversy.

I wouldn't be surprised, as the notion that one of the 2 closest species to humans competes genetically at the sperm, rather then the individual, level, makes short work of the notion that humanity is a sexually monogamous creature in general. But I'd like to see the source or sources of those who proclaim that bonobos aren't engaging in sperm wars, as I have a feeling that the "research" done in this regard was just as sloppy as the research done regarding another element of bonobos, their alleged "war like" tendencies (again, please consult my post #13 if you missed it).

Originally Posted by feelyunicorn

In either case, chimps share more DNA with humans than any of the other great apes, and our social systems around sex are closest.

We're actually about equidistant between chimps and bonobos, which are both classified in the pan genus (we're in homo):


However, I'm not surprised that you were unaware of this. As mentioned in post #13, bonobos, as well as certain researchers who have researched them, are frequently neglected in the scientific literature, precisely because their polyamorous lifestyle doesn't fit in with cultural views that humanity is essentially a monogamous species.

[Vinccenzo]

Originally Posted by Scott

I think the real issue here is our concept of money. In an ideal world, all people would aquire money in the same fashion; through honest work. However, this simply isn't the case. -Some- people get it from honest work, but bankers create it out of thin air; where's the fairness of that? Because of this, money justifiably seen as something that is unclean. But if, for a moment, we could remember that he essence of money is basically a token from society that you are deserving of a favour, then dating and giving someone money aren't incredibly different. Sex at Dawn puts it this way:

*************
As attentive readers may have noted, the standard narrative of
heterosexual interaction boils down to prostitution: a woman
exchanges her sexual services for access to resources. Maybe
mythic resonance explains part of the huge box-office appeal
of a film like Pretty Woman, where Richard Gere’s character
trades access to his wealth in exchange for what Julia
Roberts’s character has to offer (she plays a hooker with a
heart of gold, if you missed it). Please note that what she’s got
to offer is limited to the aforementioned heart of gold, a smile
as big as Texas, a pair of long, lovely legs, and the solemn
promise that they’ll open only for him from now on. The
genius of Pretty Woman lies in making explicit what’s been
implicit in hundreds of films and books. According to this
theory, women have evolved to unthinkingly and
unashamedly exchange erotic pleasure for access to a man’s
wealth, protection, status, and other treasures likely to benefit
her and her children
*************



The way I see it, if you love someone and they love you, you work as a unit; so the one who pays is the one who has the cash to spare (if both are equal, both can pay equally). This is a principle I've used in the past and it's worked fine for me (I was the one with the cash to spare at the time).

Okay, well it may just be me but over here living in my ideal world, but the fact that my husband makes a bit more than I doesn't mean its evened out with whats between my legs. People have more to offer than that and I've never heard of those things being for purchase from a prostitute. Or if two make the same, that the sex isn't happening because she doesn't need his money? Perhaps marriage or pairing up once did mean sex in exchange for resources but it doesn't have to be.

I don't see sex as dirty and personally I'd call an ideal world one without a need for money. But no, what rubs me (and not in a good way) its the belief that having more money means you can buy anything - even a person to do with whatever since they have less than you is something a-okay. Or that it can be looked at as no different from marriage or dating because of your money/their lack of money and a history of men controlling resources. I feel this attitude and the one behind bankers making money out of thin air and fraud are more closely linked than any consenting sex or relationship has to do with prostitution. Its the idea that forking over some money means the fact that they are a person won't be too "in your face" while you get off on them. It means you won't have to risk rejection by her like a non sex worker might turn someone down for having a crap attitude or unkempt body or just plain not being attractive to them.
I have met one sex worker who said she intended to become a prostitute before she became one. She didn't seem a very happy or mentally healthy person and it seemed the statement was bravado. I do not have enough personal data to say no one ever wants to be a prostitute but I have often wondered how many prostitutes we would have in a world where money wasn't a factor.

[feelyunicorn]

I`m sorry, but I`d rather conclude the discussion here, Scott. As I feel we would be going around in circles. I simply wanted to present a scientific argument I was exposed to that seemed to go against SBD; and I summarized it to the best of my ability when you asked me to.

Like I said, at this juncture I am more interested in the specifics of my experience and my feelings. To the extent that I needed those feelings explained by outside evidence, I have done research to my heart`s content.

I am actually trying to be polyamorous, rather than establish whether or not humans in general are polyamorous. And, that in-itself has been a lifelong struggle.

If ever I feel I need more research done, or if my experience contradicts what I`ve researched at some latter date; I`ll pick it up again and take your points into consideration.

Thank you.

[Scott]

Originally Posted by Vinccenzo

Okay, well it may just be me but over here living in my ideal world, but the fact that my husband makes a bit more than I doesn't mean its evened out with whats between my legs. People have more to offer than that and I've never heard of those things being for purchase from a prostitute.

Did you read the article excerpted from and linked to in the OP of the thread? I'll quote the last excerpt in it, as it provides the very evidence you claim you've never heard of:
*******************
Page 414 (Conclusion):
Commerce is but a manifestation of the more general exchanges that occur 
within human sexual and intimate relationships. Some systems refuse to endorse sex and commerce as a legitimate relationship that should be facilitated, protected or even acknowledged. Other systems take a serious position on the social role of commercial sex and the ordinary characteristics of the relationships, preferring to provide an avenue where these relationships can be established with minimal harm and destruction. The relationships between sex workers and clients can be nurturing, respectful and mutual. This experience of the commercial relationship can
enhance the quality of life of men who buy sex (see Sanders, 2007b) whilst at the same time provide sex workers with safe customers who will not breach the contract through sexual misconduct, financial exploitation (e.g. not paying), abusive language, or aggressive behaviour. A system that recognizes the emotional consumption that is integral to some forms of commercial sex and the possibilities for emotional mutuality between sex worker and client could be a framework that distils negative images of women as disposable victims and clients as unruly sexual beasts to be controlled. The current climate of criminalizing men who buy sex
(Brooks Gordon, 2005) and the impetus to block a regulated indoor market
(Sanders, 2007a) prevent policy intervening to reinforce the male client role as an accountable active participant who has responsibilities to himself, the sex worker, other sexual partners and a wider responsibility to respect women in all areas of society. Policy designed to manage sex work markets should be informed by evidence that understands the micro-relationships that form commercial sex alongside the fluidity of male and female sexualities.
*******************

Originally Posted by Vinccenzo

Or if two make the same, that the sex isn't happening because she doesn't need his money? Perhaps marriage or pairing up once did mean sex in exchange for resources but it doesn't have to be.

I think it's a mistake to limit this discussion to sex. I think that, in all three of the sexual relationship categories in this thread, they can (and in my view, should) involve more then just sexual interactions.

Originally Posted by Vinccenzo

I don't see sex as dirty and personally I'd call an ideal world one without a need for money.

I agree with you, in part. In essence, I think the current form of money is spiritually tainted by the fact that the banks can essentially print off as much as society lets them, charges interest on this money they create out of thin air, and then has the tax payer foot the bill when their bank sheets say they're broke.. which, ofcourse, necessitates the government to borrow yet more money from these same bankers, which, ofcourse, the bankers collect interest on. Money should be based on something of actual value, as it was in the past (gold, silver, or any other commodity that's actually worth something to people regardless of whether or not you can pay your taxes with it).

This being said, the concept of money, which is basically "i owe you" pieces of paper isn't, in my view, a bad one. The beautiful thing about love, ofcourse, is that it's not a zero sum game. I also think that sex can frequently be seen as something like dessert; it's great, but in order to be in a place where it's great, you have to do hard work; you need money (or commodities) in order to survive and work has to be done to get them. If you've done what you can in order to survive for the day, and you happen to have a partner, then the couple (or couples) can treat themselves.

Originally Posted by Vinccenzo

But no, what rubs me (and not in a good way) its the belief that having more money means you can buy anything - even a person to do with whatever since they have less than you is something a-okay.

I also agree that this isn't good, and it's why I'm so against the current monetary system. For more information on my views on this, you may want to see documentaries such as Money as Debt or The Money Masters.

Originally Posted by Vinccenzo

Or that it can be looked at as no different from marriage or dating because of your money/their lack of money and a history of men controlling resources. I feel this attitude and the one behind bankers making money out of thin air and fraud are more closely linked than any consenting sex or relationship has to do with prostitution. Its the idea that forking over some money means the fact that they are a person won't be too "in your face" while you get off on them. It means you won't have to risk rejection by her like a non sex worker might turn someone down for having a crap attitude or unkempt body or just plain not being attractive to them.

Again, I agree with your view that making money out of thin air is terrible. That being said, I think that for many in today's society, finding a woman that wants to be with them sexually without a money inducement can be difficult if not impossible. As you say, some of the reasons for this may be a crap attitude, an unkempt body or them just not being attractive to women. People can certainly improve in these areas. That being said, I think that a large part of the problem is our society itself, with all these notions that you can only be in love with one person. Personally, the fear that a woman will become possessive with me is a large part of the reason that I frequently don't even try with most women.

Originally Posted by Vinccenzo

I have met one sex worker who said she intended to become a prostitute before she became one. She didn't seem a very happy or mentally healthy person and it seemed the statement was bravado. I do not have enough personal data to say no one ever wants to be a prostitute but I have often wondered how many prostitutes we would have in a world where money wasn't a factor.

I agree. Think about it this way; even things like being attractive, having a good attitude and such can be seen as a form of currency. If a person has it, they could find a partner. The reason that prostitution has taken off, in my view, is because money has essentially come to mean resources. Most people don't actually hunt and/or harvest their own food, so they need it simply to survive. In a sense, you could say that the concept of money is a very old one; in essence, it represents something of value. The real problem is that right now, the bankers can make tons of it out of thin air and everyone else has to live off of their dregs; it's an unfair system and it simply can't continue.