This and that
Swarm said:
I think you are over simplifying.
So you said. I've never seen Christians self-report as a hate group°, either; and, frankly, while I
have heard a porn star self-identify as a prostitute, it wasn't explicit In fact I recall it an the old joke:
He told me I was a cheap whore, and that pissed me off. I'm not
cheap.
You are still ignoring every one and everything else involved.
Actually, I'm not. But if it makes you feel better to say so, go for it. In truth, I remember snorting at whatever your example was then. And, frankly, the corrected form doesn't do much better:
You are still ignoring every one and everything else involved. A hit man and a doctor both cut people for money. Are doctors hit men?
Revisit the post you responded to the first time you made this post.
The similarity is
essential. The word
essential is
defined, in this context, "of, relating to, or constituting". Synonyms include
fundamental,
vital, and
cardinal. The jobs are
fundamentally the same. The
vital similarity is that they both fuck for money. The
cardinal aspect (
e.g., without which the practice disappears) is the idea of sexual acts in exchange for money.
The problem with comparing doctors and hit men is that the purpose is essential. If a hit man
healed his victim, the
cardinal aspect of what constitutes hit man—e.g. contract
murder—evaporates. If a doctor cut a patient with the intent of causing death at someone else's behest, the cardinal aspect of why one is a doctor—e.g., healing—disappears.
Likewise, if you take the sexual act out of prostitution, it becomes something else entirely, such as massage or performance art. Take the sexual act out of pornography, and it becomes mere drama.
• • •
JDawg said:
You keep repeating that, but there is no basis for the claim on the pornstar's side of it.
Consider a contract in which a female porn actress stipulated specifically that she will not perform with Ron Jeremy. Beyond that,
generally it didn't matter. Pay attention to modifiers such as adverbs. You seem to be reading certain sentences as if they were absolute declarations, as if modifiers like
generally and
essentially aren't there.
If that's the case, so is your relationship to your significant other.
While there are certain aspects of my last significant relationship° that contribute to your point, those circumstances are generally deviations from significant relationships.
Of significant relationships in general, what is—nodding to CM89's point—the tangible profit exchanged, and from which party to the other, in significant relationships in general?
So doctors and dentists have essentially the same job? Football players and baseball players do essentially the same thing? Barbers and manicurists? Breeders and trainers?
I suppose it largely depends on where and how you identify the cardinal aspect of the occupations.
The question of this thread was not "are there similarities", but "Is there really a difference". And as I've already said, yes, there are similarities. But similar does not mean the same. Nor does it mean they are "essentially" the same. Again, doctors and dentists both treat physicals ailments, so are their jobs "essentially" the same? Of course not. There are fundamental differences between these jobs, just as there are fundamental (read: essential) differences between prostitution and pornography)
The cardinal aspect—that without which the prostitute stops being a prostitute and the porn star stops being a porn star—is the sexual act in exchange for money. Certainly, you can introduce "amateurs" who film themselves and then try to sell DVDs, but also in that, you need to account for the number of prostitutes circulating as objects of pornography. As a seriously-intended questions for your own consideration (I don't need a specific answer): How much pornography do you look at? And where do you get it? And what does it look like? For instance, if I said, "Go get a Gnutella client and search for video of
prostitute,
amateur, or
crack whore", would I be recommending a new experience for you? If so, well, take the time. Once people have a world's worth of free porn at your fingertips, many will take the grand tour and peek in on things they
never would have looked at otherwise.
But what you have been saying up until now is that there is no difference between prostitution and pornography.
And you even bothered to tag the italics around the word "no". Which is only so cute because it's
so wrong.
I'm attractive. There is no pre-sexual dating.
Well, that would explain your strange presumptions about courting.
_____________________
Notes:
° Christians self-report as a hate group — Westboro Baptist Church, for instance.
° certain aspects of my last significant relationship — It was a bit of a mess, and it really is difficult to figure who was the prostitute and who was the client, as roles and currency, by this outlook, switched repeatedly. Was she fucking me for a place to live? Was I fucking her for drugs? Even as such, the questions aren't so clear-cut; I wasn't the primary lease-holder, and she wasn't the only person buying drugs. Nonetheless, very little about our relationship was not statistically deviant, unless you're willing to assert that the general nature of significant relationships is people so sharply dissatisfied with one another over a period of years continue to torture themselves like that. There is broad consensus from literally everyone who observed that relationship and cared to comment that it was abnormal.