Prostitution is different

Sir, – Harvey Weinstein’s implicit offer to some of his victims was wealth, fame and career advancement in exchange for acting and sexual favours.

I challenge those who argue that prostitution is just like any other type of employment to explain what is wrong with such a contract.

If it is morally acceptable to exchange sex for money, to seek to recruit women into sex work, and to combine different types of work within a single contract, what’s the problem?

The women that he is said to have preyed on would have become aware of the tacit deal he was offering. One could object that he was not open about the terms of employment until the women were isolated and under pressure, but surely that doesn’t capture the entirety of his transgression.

The reason we are appalled by his behaviour is that we know that providing sexual services in exchange for material gain or career advancement is wrong.

Our conscience screams that adding sexual services to an otherwise attractive contract is not a valid open market transaction, but exploitation.

Giving sexually is too high a price to demand or to pay in exchange for goods in a less than committed faithful, exclusive, reciprocal loving relationship.

Through its output, Hollywood preaches against this principle, routinely depicting sex as casual, inconsequential and cheap.

While it thus erodes the moral system of societies worldwide, the film industry reaps what it has sown within its own ranks. Richard Lucas. Scottish Family Party, 272 Bath Street, Glasgow.