Yeah, and then I saw this. And that was enough to change my mind. Do not click on that link if you're at work or have children nearby. The still photo is probably okay, but the video won't be.
There is a sex act which is commonly referred to as "dry humping", where a guy and girl who "really love each other very much" rub their genitals together through their clothing in search of gratification. It's fallen out of vogue since the notions of monogamy, chastity, and abstinence have been dumped into the sewer by the "free love" idiots--and since cheap birth control and abortions have made consequences of full-on intercourse all but nonexistent--but the practice has found a new life in strip clubs.
Now it is called a "lap dance". And you pay a stripper to do it. The distillation of all that is pretty plain: if you get a lap dance, you are paying for sex. The stripper is a prostitute and you are a "John". It's as simple as that.
There are plenty of people who will argue with me that it's not the case, that it's "not sex"--and they may be right if they agree with Bill Clinton's definition of sex: "It wasn't sex. Yes, she gave me a BJ and I put my cigar in an unlikely place, but it wasn't sex...."
People who are not into deconstructionism will argue--correctly--that any time someone rubs or touches your genitals with the intent to generate sexual pleasure, it is sex. Okay? What Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton did in the Oval Office was sex. What the stripper is doing to that guy, out in public, on a golf course, is sex--and because it's sex, and because she is being paid to do it to him, it is prostitution.
Now, I am not against premarital sex per se; I am not opposed to the idea that two responsible adults can choose to have sex without being married. And in general I tend not to be critical of other peoples' choices with regard to how they comport themselves "in the bedroom". I figure it's not my business, and as long as what they do with their genitals has no effect on me or my life, I could not care less.
Up until the point I saw that video, I didn't really think anything of strip clubs or "lap dances". My attitude was pretty simple: I have no desire to patronize such places--I'm not interested in paying a woman to take off her clothes for me--but I can understand that other people enjoy it, and I'm not the do-all-be-all of moral perfection, so I'm not going to judge.
Now, however, I have changed my mind. I think any strip club which allows "lap dances" is the moral equivalent of a bordello. The only difference is that the prostitutes and the "Johns" keep most of their clothes on. Because the participants are clothed, to one extent or another, it "lowers the bar". Paying a woman to have full-blown sex with you is one thing; this woman is just rubbing herself against your clothing, right? It's not that big a deal. Okay, so she's mostly nude, but so what? It's not like you're having sex with her or anything.
Well, except for the fact that you are paying her to rub herself against you in hopes that you'll have an orgasm. Except for that, it's not sex; not at all.
Prostitution has long been established by Western Civilization as a bad thing, for many reasons. It's not a "victimless crime"; if nothing else it cheapens the entire notion of sexual congress; it lowers public morals and contributes to a lot of negative outcomes. I doubt I need to list them. (Do I?) Places which have legalized prostitution have higher crime rates and greater incidences of all kinds of other illegal and immoral behavior.
Many men who get lap dances wouldn't be caught dead having intercourse with a prostitute. But there's no difference.