Prostitution in the Federation
- Thread starter Takomaguy
- Start date
Excellent point. It's the holodeck that would make prostitution not necessarily *illegal*, but obsolete.
Holodeck??????? Holodeck!!!!!!! LMAO! A holodeck, at best, would be nothing more than a glorified wank!
Look, I don't care how far into the future you get, no way in hell are they EVER going to replace the feel, sensory preception, and enjoyment of flesh against flesh! Simulate it, perhaps, but never, ever replace it. And if it can't be replaced, it will never, ever, be obsolete.
Also, what do you do when cost, energy comsumption, or whatever prohibits the cost of a holodeck?
Here's another holodeck issue. Take DS9. I've always wondered if time in a holosuite meant you pick a Dabo girl, go into the suite, and imagine up some exotic locale or situation in which to have sex.
This would explain Bashir and O'Brien spending all that time fighting Krauts in the Battle of Britain. Flew a couple of sorties and then dressed the Dabo girls up like a couple of RAF nurses, and then
!
I'm assuming here that the holodeck is accurate...if it wasn't, no one would ever use it for sex, and we've seen (or heard about) it being done, several times.
Well, that's not Capitalism, though. That's corporatism, the deliberate valuation of large corporations over other political actors. (Alternately, one could define it as classical Fascism, in the sense that Fascism, capital-F, originally referred to the merging of the corporation and the state.) Either way, though, the phenomena of no-bid contracts and corporate legislation is actually incompatible with the principles of Capitalism, which is supposed to be all about a neutral government and genuine competition.
Yes, and that episode contained so many dramatic flaws -- "Oh, yes, we've not even unfrozen this person but we'll go ahead and perform a psychological diagnosis on his entire life because we can detect that he died of alcohol poisoning" -- that I'm more than willing to ignore it.
Re: Quark. The thing to remember with him and the Daboo girls -- even if he was their pimp -- is that DS9 isn't actually Federation territory. It's a Bajoran station that the Bajorans allow the Federation Starfleet to administer as a Starbase. But it's Bajoran law that applies, not Federation law.
By that logic, masturbation would have made prostitution obsolete before it began, but that's obviously not the case. I can certainly see holosuites -- remember, it's only a holodeck if it's on a ship -- making prostitution less common, but there are always going to be people who want the real deal, who want actual flesh and blood, not a simulation. Further, consider that with the holosuites, the holographic characters are actually projections of light and forcefields. Think about that -- you'd be having sex with a forcefield. Sounds dangerous to me! What happens if there's a power surge?!
But, there again, some people also like that kind of kink...From TOS to DS9, was prostitution legal?
Is there a reason you didn't include Voyager or Enterprise in the question?
I'd think most people would find the simulation far superior to the real deal. The actual "purist" group would probably consist of people who would find it imperative that they be dominating and possibly violating a living person. The vast majority would find satisfaction in the mechanics of the act, which a hologram would provide in superior quality and quantity, while the folks who seek positive emotional feedback rather than the extrahilation of either physicality or domination would not be looking for prostitution in the first place.
I rather wonder about the possibilities of using holographic sex in a flesh-flesh relationship, both as a sex aid and as a socially accepted form of "fill-in" sex when the spouse is unavailable.
Timo Saloniemi
Dude! Think about it. How many sickos today buy those "rubber woman" and female body part things from the sex stores????? Even when it is not accurate, there is still someone out there who will do it. Just thank God no one is like that here.....errr....right???? (I hope
)
From TOS to DS9, was prostitution legal?
Is there a reason you didn't include Voyager or Enterprise in the question?
No slight intended. Voyager was supposed to concurrent with DS9. But, got anything from either show that would tend to support or refute?
From TOS to DS9, was prostitution legal?
Is there a reason you didn't include Voyager or Enterprise in the question?
No slight intended. Voyager was supposed to concurrent with DS9. But, got anything from either show that would tend to support or refute?
I haven't ever watched Enterprise and I'm no Voyager expert, so I'm not the right guy to ask. I was just wondering why those series were excluded. I interpreted the exclusion of Voyager being a result of the fact they spent hardly any time in Federation space.
From TOS to DS9, was prostitution legal?
It was definitely implied to be so on Wrigley's Pleasure Planet and Argelius II.
And Risa.
About the Dabo girls: I seem to remember at least one ep where one of them complains that Quark had claimed that sex *with him* was part of their contract. Nothing about doing it with customers, though. A Dabo girl just has to charm the customer so they'll spend money at the gambling table. They're not whores.
Bajor wasn't in the Federation. I don't think Risa was either.
Now waitaminute. Bajor was in the process of applying for membership in the UFP, was it not? While we have no detailed form of process, it would seem reasonable that the process would not be too unlike the process for entering into NATO, or maybe the process territories used prior to becoming states of the USA. In any event, DS9, by the very virtue of it's name, was a Starfleet installation, and under Federation control. Think of one our bases in Guam, Germany, or Korea.
This raises another question I raised. I wonder if prostitution was alloweed on post in general, or was it at the discretion of post command. The Sisko did ask Mack Daddy Quark to stay. Maybe he figured, if Quark stays, his hos will be here. If his hos are here, men will show up. Where there are people congregating, other goods and services will find there way to DS9 and by extension, to Bajor. With improved commerce and trade at DS0 and Bajor, with Starfleet to swat away any flies, the economy in that region of space becomes solidified. Peace and prosperity grows.
Interesting...
Interesting...
This is an issue Trek has, ahem, skirted a few times.
First, TOS had a few examples of women who certainly seemed to do their best to make themselves available.
In "Wolf in the Fold," while there is no mention of payment, the women in the bar certainly seem to throw themselves at the men.
The three women in "Mudd's Women" where the equivalent of mail order (Male order?) brides in outer space, but certainly seemed to have no compunctions about using their charms to get what they wanted out of people.
The Dabo girls are certainly suggestive of prostitutes despite some comments to the contrary.
Malcolm and Reed on Risa, while not stating it outright, seem to be pretty sure they will get lucky with the locals.
I cannot think of an outright mention of prostitution, but the writers get their point across when they want to.
First, TOS had a few examples of women who certainly seemed to do their best to make themselves available.
In "Wolf in the Fold," while there is no mention of payment, the women in the bar certainly seem to throw themselves at the men.
The three women in "Mudd's Women" where the equivalent of mail order (Male order?) brides in outer space, but certainly seemed to have no compunctions about using their charms to get what they wanted out of people.
The Dabo girls are certainly suggestive of prostitutes despite some comments to the contrary.
Malcolm and Reed on Risa, while not stating it outright, seem to be pretty sure they will get lucky with the locals.
I cannot think of an outright mention of prostitution, but the writers get their point across when they want to.
Y'know writers in American TV tend to be such damn cowards. Sensors or not, they are such wussies. Think back to "Gunsmoke." The Madame of Dodge City was the Marshalls squeeze. They couldn't or wouldn't come out and say it, but then they turn around and give her a name like, "Miss 'Kitty'."
Give me a break.
As for Mudd, who we've discussed in a parallel post, these girls did not start off as mail order brides. Big Pimpin' Harry sold them off to the miners to get out of non-prostitution related trouble with the law, didn't he. And if he was selling them off, I wonder what else he had in his stable.
I was always sorry old Harcourt Fenton Mudd never made a cameo in one of the films. Seems like he would have fit right in on STIII.
Funny though, prostitution was legal, but intellectual piracy gets you thrown in jail. I hate intellectual piracy by the way!
It wasn't. It was jointly controlled by Bajor and the Feds. Hence the amalgamated command.
Our bases in Guam, Germany, or Korea don't have civilian restaurants and shops on them.
It's been a LONG time since I wathced DS9, a show I really enjoyed (except for the last episode which really stank.) That having been said, I always had the impression, from the pilot I believe, that the Bajorans made the station available to and for the Federation as a deep space base.
Now correct me if I am wrong , and I probably am, but aren't foreign workers eligibel to work at US bases, i.e., Germans at our bases in Germany, etc.? If true, Starfleet may have or could have gone the next step, after security clearance, they allow small business to function on base. I could see why they would do this. Help the local economy, provide secure shopping environments on base, etc., and in the event of an emergency, you have all Starfleet personnel back to their duty stations quickly.
As the Bajorans wanted entrance into the Federation, as well as Starfleet protection and training, I can't see them saying, No Emissary, this our tree, as far as we are concened the Federation is nothing but squirrels looking for nuts."
The other point of course is why would Starfleet agree to a joint control agreement? In the event of an emergency Starfleet would need total control, as well as the right to determine what constitutes an emergency. Nope, an agreement like that wouldn't even pass the giggle test with Starfleet CNC, let alone the Federation's version of the DOD.
They did, but numerous epsiodes also made it clear that the station remained Bajoran territory that the Federation was allowed to administer as a starbase only at Bajor's pleasure. (Hence Kira's lodging a formal complaint about Starfleet's refusal to hand the station over to the Bajorans prior to the Dominion attack in the Season 5 finale -- though that was a false formal complaint filed to give the Bajorans political cover so that they wouldn't look like they were taking sides when they were supposed to be neutral.)
Yeah, but the fact remained that the Bajoran government always retained the option of kicking Starfleet off the station if it so chose.
But the canonical evidence is that it did, especially since we saw members of the Bajoran Militia serving in the command structure alongside Starfleet officers.
Because it'd be another case of computers eliminating jobs!
(What kind of jobs, you ask? You dirty, dirty trekkies you!)
Right, but let me try nd make my point another way. Fundamentally you and I agree. The Federation and Bajor DID have some kind of agreement to let the Fedeartion use the hall. I got that. There were members of the Bajoran Defense Force working along side Starfleet officers and enlisted personnel, in what I believe, (rightly or wrongly), was some kind of program to train the Bajorans--get them up to speed so that a) they could stand on their own, and b) if and when Bajor was admitted to the Federation, they would already be familar with Federation/Starfleet rules, regs, policies, proceedures. I got it. I understand that the Bajorans, in keeping with Federation law, could kick Starfleet, and Federation DOD civilians out at any time, and the Federation would leave, no fuss, no muss. My question remains how the agreement was framed. I don't know, and if you have particular episodes you want me to go back and watch I will. But I think that the agreement was set up so that 1) the Federation was in control of the station and 2) would remain in control unless the Bajorans got pissed off and told the Fedeartion to get out.
Remember the incident in Japan a few years ago when a marine raped some girl, and they were pissed off and want us out. I think the Federation has that kind of agreement with the Bajorans.
Like I said, I could be wrong. All I'm asking is that you point to which episodes I need to watch to give me a different perspective.
Sure, sure, I can see how and why on paper and for public relations and the self-esteem of an emerging nation-state the Bajorans needed to appear like they had equal status with the Fedeartion. But I bet if we could dig deep into the mechanics of the agreement, DS9 was a Federation base.
Practically that would have been the only way it could have worked.
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