Kaz*CheesyDoritoBomb* wrote:
I'm still lost on how you made the jump between hiring prostitutes and making laws about rape and sexual harrasment. Just because someone has to pay to get some nookie doesn't mean they are unfit to make decisions about rape and harrasment, both of which (in my view) are very serious actions to commit.
And why the hell don't we have legalized brothels... oh wait yeah thats why.
Because they take advantage of the desperation of poverty, emotionally and physically ravage the people working therein, and encourage other kinds of vice and moral callousness? That's the classical theory, and while I do not fully agree with it, it has plenty of solid evidence on its side.
Throughout history, sex with young women has been one of the standard perquisetes for men who attain wealth and power, along with higher quality food, drink, comforts, and entertainment. In most societies, men and women inhabitant linked but partially separated cultural circles. Often, powerful men form elite cultural circles ("the Old Boys Network") where they can accumulate more of the perks I noted above and raise themselves above the laws and customs of the lower classes--this by itself is a common perk of the wealthy. They also cultivate relationships with others of their kind, distribute favors and wealth among themselves without interference from the rest of society, and mutually reassure each other of their rank, power, and superiority.
Women are generally not part of these OBNs, and one of the superiorities these these elite male circles assure themselves of is their domination of women, freedom from the control other men feel women have over their emotional and sexual lives. Hence, a man who routinely engages prostitutes (as opposed to someone "wanting a little nookie") is likely to also be a mysogynist, lacking basic empathy with women and resenting them when they rise above their "place." He is likely to wish to enforce traditional social rules that disempower women relative to men and to wish to think as little as possible about social issues that might challenge his sense of superiority.
Whole treatises have been written on this topic, and many more will be written. I am just sketching the typical form the OBN takes in most civilized societies.