Li Yinhe talks about sex

Chapter 26 How to View Male Sex Work

Sex should not be sold, it should be free, out of love and consent.If there is no love and consent, it is prostitution, whether it is inside or outside marriage.

The basic principle of a modern legal system is that laws should not be made on the basis of the moral standards of some people in the society to punish the behavior of other people in the society that does not infringe the rights of others.As the Wuffington Report pointed out: Private immorality should not be the object of criminal law sanctions.

The so-called male sex work refers to the work in which men sell their looks in exchange for a certain amount of remuneration, including jobs of varying degrees from emotional escorts to sexual services.According to sociological statistics, male sex workers account for about one-tenth of all sex transactions.In fact, this kind of work has existed since ancient times, but in modern society, due to the improvement of women's economic status and the ability to spend money to buy sexual services, this kind of occupation has become more prosperous.In Western countries, there have been a large number of women's clubs that mainly consume men's bodies, as well as men's escort companies.The image of male sex workers is more dramatic because men provide commercial sex services to women than women provide commercial sex services to men. It stimulates the nerves of the society even more, so the images of male sex workers have been put on stage in large numbers. Everyone is familiar with the image of "duck" that appears in large numbers in Western films "American Gigolo", "Midnight Cowboy" and Hong Kong and Taiwan films.

There are two perspectives on male sex work.One is the perspective of equality between men and women; the other is the evaluation of sex work itself.

From the perspective of equality between men and women, if one society has only women providing sexual services to men, and another society has two-way sexual services, it is obvious that the latter is more equal to men and women than the former.Feminists argue that traditional anti-prostitution laws are discriminatory against women because it assumes that men are not naturally prostitutes and only punishes women.

From the perspective of the evaluation of sex work itself, Marxism has a classic view.Engels once pointed out in the book "The Origin of the Family, Private Ownership and the State" that the monogamous marriage relationship of the bourgeoisie is essentially a prostitution relationship.He compares the wives of the bourgeoisie to prostitutes, and believes that the difference between them and prostitutes is only the relationship between retail and wholesale.Just as two negations make one affirmation, so, in the morality of marriage, two prostitutions make one morality.The prostitute is retail, the bourgeois wife supported by her husband is wholesale.This is because, including the property relationship in this kind of marriage relationship, it is the exchange of money and sexual services expressed in the form of marriage.According to this logic, there is only a formal difference between prostitution on the street and a marriage relationship including property relations, but the essence is the same. Both use money to exchange sexual services, except that one is short-term and the other is long-term; One is retail and the other is wholesale.According to the critical logic of Marxism on marriage relations including property relations, prostitution relations include not only commercial personal sexual services, but also wives in husband-wife relations in exchange for economic support, and should even include the relationship with " Rich woman" married man.The key factor that distinguishes prostitution from non-prostitution is whether marriage includes a maintenance relationship.A marriage concluded only because of love is a moral marriage, and only a marriage that continues to maintain love is a moral marriage.

In conclusion, at a high level, this view holds that sex should not be sold, but should be free, loving and voluntary.If there is no love and consent, it is prostitution, whether it is inside or outside marriage.According to general social moral standards, free and consensual sex is morally high, while non-free sex is morally low.But an adult, a citizen, has the right to choose his own moral standards.If he chooses an immoral way of life, social morality can criticize him and educate him, but he has no right to use criminal law to punish him.Using the form of law to punish citizens' immoral behavior is a kind of legislative morality.The basic principle of a modern legal system is that laws should not be made on the basis of the moral standards of some people in the society to punish the behavior of other people in the society that does not infringe the rights of others.As the Wuffington Report pointed out: Private immorality should not be the object of criminal law sanctions.

(End of this chapter)