Thought of the Day 05.05.08

In a recent study of 475 University of Michigan undergraduates not in committed relationships, 27% of the men and 14% of the women admitted to offering gifts as a way of securing sex, and 5% of the men and 9% of the women admitted to offering sex as a way to secure gifts. The study concluded that the prostitution instinct is hard-wired in humans, just like other animals.

Of course, since even the largest number is only 27%, one might more readily conclude that the real hard-wired disposition is the anti-prostitution one that seeks sex in a more meaningful context, like marriage. But there is a deeper mistake here. The impulse to exchange favors for sex isn’t fundamentally bad. All married persons do this if they’re smart. But there is a vast difference between giving gifts or sex as an expression of love in a committed marriage and giving them as a form of payment.

The offense of prostitution is not the exchange, but that it occurs in a relationship which is nothing more than just an exchange.