No not always, however generally speaking acceptable ideas tend to be legal in a society, unacceptable ones are not. Were most people in the Us ok with prostitution then it would be legal everywhere, if most people in the countries where it is legal to decide that it was no longer acceptable it would eventually become illegal. Lets be honest here for an example, Gay marriage is not acceptable to most people here in the US and it's not going to be legal anytime soon, despite the fact that it should be.

Rather than get into one of Colinism's weird nitpicky point-scoring semantic debates, let me restate what I'm objecting to.

This has nothing to do with what's "acceptable" in one or other country, in some generalised way.

This is about the tone a paid writer on a supposedly sex-positive nudie/porn site uses when talking about sex workers. Let's keep in mind that there exists a group for sex workers on this very site, at least some of whom would be professional "whores".

FearTheReaper gets paid (we are led to believe) to make people laugh.

Prostitutes get paid to make people feel good in their pants region.

I see no basis on which to claim moral superiority for either one over the other. (I'm sure some prostitutes are horrible people, but then so are many comedians.)

ok short short version because wireless is really crapping out.

Sarcasm, look it up my comments were obviously not meant to be serious. and I am not going to get into a debate over something this stupid because people lack the ability to see an obviously sarcastic comment and take it seriously.

However to the person who compared use of the word whore and use of the word nigger, clearly you do not understand the meaning of the second because if you did you would not have made such a stupid comparison.

It's hard to know exactly where you think you were being sarcastic and how that was meant to be obvious. But, oi vey, let's move on.

My point was and is that FTR was using the word "whore" quite nastily, and he's since admitted that he feels superior to "whores"; in fact not only that he feels superior but that he needs to make a point of implicitly expressing that feeling of superiority when he writes an article about something where prostitutes are somehow involved.

princkly is a regular user of brothels. This is pretty obvious from his journals and not something he hides at all.

I've never been a brothel client, or used a hooker's services, but I've recently hung out with an SG friend who's a hooker (with a total heart of gold, as per the cliche) and had a great time doing so. It might behoove FTR to think who he's writing for.

EDIT, Just FTR ("for the record"), I'd be making these posts even if I hadn't hung out with a hooker-friend. I'd still be writing this stuff on principle. As it is, now I also have a personal perspective, different to princkly's, but personal nonetheless.

None. Know why? They're whores.

And?

[Emphasis added]

This thread indicates to me that careless misogyny for teh lulz is far less acceptable to Australian men that it is to Americans.

Makes me proud. ::tear::

Dear FearTheReaper et al,

Plz GROW THE FUCK UP and figure out that sex work is not intrinsically better or worse than any other form of employment. Even if it does have some higher risk factors, and worse benefits than some industries.

Kthnxbai

Well you obviously have some extraordinary insight here. So why doesn't the white boy with no experience with sexworkers enlighten us.
Please tell us: Why is it less hurtful and unacceptable to be called a "whore" than a "nigger" ? Please don't respond that it is because one chooses to be a "whore" but one does not choose to be black. I trust your logic will be more than skin deep.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/whore
Main Entry: 1whore
Pronunciation: 'hor, 'hur
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English hore, from Old English hOre; akin to Old Norse hOra whore, hOrr adulterer, Latin carus dear -- more at CHARITY
1 : a woman who engages in sexual acts for money : PROSTITUTE; also : a promiscuous or immoral woman
2 : a male who engages in sexual acts for money
3 : a venal or unscrupulous person

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/nigger
Pronunciation: 'ni-g&r
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of earlier neger, from Middle French negre, from Spanish or Portuguese negro, from negro black, from Latin niger
1 usually offensive; see usage paragraph below : a black person
2 usually offensive; see usage paragraph below : a member of any dark-skinned race
3 : a member of a socially disadvantaged class of persons <it's time for somebody to lead all of America's niggers...all the people who feel left out of the political process -- Ron Dellums>
usage Nigger in senses 1 and 2 can be found in the works of such writers of the past as Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens, but it now ranks as perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English. Its use by and among blacks is not always intended or taken as offensive, but, except in sense 3, it is otherwise a word expressive of racial hatred and bigotry.

Sorry but you clearly do not understand the meaning and use of the word here in the US.

Being offended by a word or words varies by who is on the receiving end.

To say one is more offensive than another is just your opinion. Other people's opinion may vary.

I cannot begin to count the number of women I know who will call a guy a "dick" but are horrified if they are called a "cunt."

You are an idiot.[1]

It's precisely because he does understand the ramifications of the word, that he made the comparison. If you paid attention, you'd realize that it wasn't simply the word "whore" to which Prinkly objected, so much as the way in which it was employed in the article. I.e. some white guy using it to sound edgy.

This is not to say that the word 'whore' doesn't have negative connotations, which your dictionary excerpt clearly shows, and that we shouldn't use the less derogatory words available, such as 'prostitute' and 'sex workers'.

To call women 'whores', even when they are sex workers, shows as much misogyny and insensitivity as calling black people 'niggers' shows racial hatred.

Just from my own perspective, I objected less to the use of the word "whore" which on its own could have been left open to interpretation, and more to the tone in which it was used.

It was clearly meant to be demeaning, something the author of the piece has unapologetically owned up to.

I kind of regret that that issue has been derailed into a more abstract debate about the relative offensiveness of one decontextualised word against another decontextualised word.

There need to be several million more people who think like you.

While the derailing is a shame, it's still kinda interesting to note that people feel bad about racism and homophobia these days, but misogyny is still perfectly acceptable to them.