Vices: Head to Head

As we’re all likely aware, a good portion of the world frowns upon prostitution. There are legal issues, religious issues and no end to the people who want to label it as immoral, degrading and offensive to women. For every escort who seems perfectly happy doing what she does, there’s a hundred newspaper articles detailing how horrible her life really is, and how she’s being forced into drugs and victimized by a pimp and so on and so forth.

While it may be true there are a number of women around the world forced into the sex industry, it’s also a fact that humans like to look at everything as black and white. Everything must be this way or that way, no in between. So if one woman is victimized as a prostitute, all are. But alas the world has shades of grey and some escorts really enjoy both the money they get and a hell of a lot of sex.

That said, suppose we agree for just one second that prostitution is somehow bad. If it is bad, how bad is it? How bad is it compared to say, gambling? Smoking? Drinking? Overeating? 

According to a US government survey from a few years back, alcohol was a contributing factor in 75,000 deaths in the US alone and is the third leading cause of preventable deaths. 32% of all traffic fatalities are alcohol related. The odds on some dude getting road head from an escort hitting your car are far slimmer.

The CDC tells us that tobacco is responsible for upwards of 440,000 deaths per year.   Do you know how much fucking the average escort would have to do to kill that many people? And to somehow sustain it beyond the inevitable chafing? It boggles the mind.

In 2005, the CDC reported that drug overdoses killed 33,000 people. The number of lives conceivably ruined by drug use that didn’t end in (or haven’t yet ended in) death are most likely much higher. Conversely, if you’re a hobbyist there’s always the chance you’re going to alienate your family and ruin a marriage, but you probably won’t spiral into depression and start sucking off strangers so you can afford your next fix. Hopefully.

While gambling losses are a little harder to pin down than you might think, Australian statistics show that, in 1999, Aussies lost $13.3 billion to casinos and other forms of gambling. That’s billion. In Australia. The US has 15 times the population of Australia, so try to imagine just how much money gets left in Vegas each year, and compare that to what you drop per visit to an escort. Not hard to see who’s really fucking you.

Elsewhere in the world of vices, overeating leading to obesity is a tricky one to get ahold of but can be linked to anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 deaths per year from obesity related conditions. Given what we know of the obesity statistics, with 38.8 million Americans in the year 2000 qualifying as obese, again it becomes clear that eating ho-hos may be far more dangerous for your health than eating just a single ho.

People can trash talk prostitution all they like, and admittedly there are issues that need to be sorted out regarding legalization, the prevalence of drugs and violence, but the act itself, the idea of exchanging money for sex, is probably one of the most harmless of acts amongst the myriad of horrible things we do to ourselves each and every day. And with that in mind, next time you want a Scotch, a cigar, a joint, a game of poker or a pizza, try a blowjob instead. It’s better for you.