10.2 Discussion topics.

Discuss this problem as a group. Is Ahmet doing the right thing? Do prostitutes offer an important service to the community? What effect do you think that prostitution has on marriage? Can it be positive like some people claim? Is Ahmet’s wife’s dilemma a different case?

What we are exploring here are the moral aspects of prostitution and students will doubtless have differing opinions. As most couples are against the idea of sharing their partners with a prostitute, we could conclude that he’s not actually doing the right thing … or his wife.

There is little difference in their cases. It could also be argued that both are using the other’s faults (i.e. the other’s unfit, scruffy appearance and laziness) as a justification for sleeping with another. But there is always going to be someone else who is better looking and in better physical condition than your partner. That can’t be used as a reason to sleep around.

Whether the third parties have a positive effect on the marriage is highly questionable too. Surely if you are spending time with someone that you consider to be more attractive and more exciting, then that logically means that you will find your own partner less attractive and more boring when you return to them. Ahmet is not going to return home thinking, ‘I’ve just slept with a prostitute, I feel fantastic, now a I’m going to be extra nice to my wife and children.’ Or is he?

The fact that he is sleeping with another woman is a demonstration of marital discontentment, and not a way of saving it. Their problem is that they have both given up looking after themselves, and have stopped making an effort with each other. By the same token, the prostitute’s line that they offer ‘a valuable service to the community’ sounds rather like a poor way of justifying doing what is not a very good job.