What is the moral status of cam sites?

[I <3 b00bs and coffee]

I'm speaking of the kind where you pay someone to strip on camera. Is this like prostitution, or is it somehow different in principle?

[FeatherFall]

I guess it's similar to prostitution. There is much less risk involved, but I don't see a difference in principle.

[Reidy]

What do you mean? - i.e. if you didn't have this fancy phrase "moral status," how would you have worded your question?  In my observation it's usually a way of asking "do I have Rand's permission to do this?"  In my further observation, if you have to ask the answer is virtually always no.

 

One feature that this case and prostitution have in common is that they evoke a misunderstanding of what Rand said.  It wasn't "you shouldn't" but rather, "if you've gone to the effort of creating a good character you won't be interested."  My own response in either case would be that I don't condemn the act, but neither do I admire somebody for wanting it.

 

As a preliminary exercise, try rephrasing your question without any Objectivist jargon.

[FeatherFall]

I like what Reidy said. It also might help if you explained what you think the "moral status" of prostitution is.

[Nicky]

I'm speaking of the kind where you pay someone to strip on camera. Is this like prostitution, or is it somehow different in principle?

If all it is is paying someone to strip on camera, then it's not like prostitution, it's like softcore porn or going to a strip club. It's looking at a beautiful stranger naked.

 

The main reason why prostitution (as it is usually practiced) is a bad thing is because it divorces sex (a physical and emotional act) from emotion and from values (at least on the part of the prostitute - the client is of course free to allow himself to be convinced that there are emotions involved, and that's also a problem). Finally, the fact that it's illegal allows for the easy victimization of sex workers.

 

So long as you don't engage in the same kind of evasion (you don't treat the person on the other end of the camera as a sex partner), there's nothing immoral about looking at a naked woman. You should also make sure that the site you're using is a legal establishment, and the women on the other end of the camera are in a country that legalized and polices their porn industry.

 

P.S. Please note that I don't have any personal experience with prostitution. While I am confident about what I said (that my description of prostitution is usually true), I can't say that it is always true, and therefor I can't provide you with a reason why prostitution would always be wrong. But, so long as you can have sex with a real, emotionally involved partner, seeking out prostitutes is definitely always immoral. 

 

If you can't have a real partner, for objective reasons, then, under certain conditions, a prostitute might be a moral way to achieve greater physical pleasure than just masturbation. Again, I have never tried having sex without emotional involvement, and I'm not convinced that it's even possible, but I won't tell someone else to never try it.

 

If anyone ever tried it, please let me know how it went. It's hard to find people who had this experience and are at the same time equipped to understand what the difference is between real sex and just plain physical contact.

Edited April 6, 2013 by Nicky

[FeatherFall]

If we can look to works of art to provide concrete examples about how prostitution could be, consider the TV series Firefly. The companions on that show seemed to develop some sort of emotional connection with their clients.

[Nicky]

If we can look to works of art to provide concrete examples about how prostitution could be, consider the TV series Firefly. The companions on that show seemed to develop some sort of emotional connection with their clients.

Firefly was a good show, but a bit unrealistic (theft was also a good thing, if I remember correctly). Instead, I prefer this Charlie Sheen quote as a concrete example: “I don’t pay hookers for sex…I pay them to leave.”

That, in a nutshell, is why most men who can have women without money choose prostitutes. And it is wrong.

[FeatherFall]

I agree with that. I brought up Firefly because, however unrealistic, it offers some concrete starting points to explore different types of prostitution that may be moral.