Why I'm Right

5150 made a comment on my Spitzer post pointing out that she does things even though she feels guilty about them. That's a pretty significant objection to my claim that Spitzer was buying sex because he didn't feel guilty about it.

As a matter of honesty, I feel obliged to list the reasons why I may be wrong. First, I quoted a statistic that said that twenty percent of the US population doesn't see anything wrong with paying for sex. That statistic came from an Internet poll. There are lots of problems with Internet polls. I won't go into the problems, but polls where the respondents are self-selected are considered less than perfectly reliable. I've seen other polls with similar statistics, but it's been a long time and I don't remember where. And I quoted the statistic from memory, and my memory may be faulty.

Second, I quoted a statistic from interview with a sociologist that said that one fifth to one sixth of the male population has paid for sex. I don't know whether that's the sociologist's opinion, or whether it's backed by research. Even if it's backed by research, an interview is not a peer-reviewed publication. There could be problems with the research.

Third, I made the assumption that the guys who were buying sex where the same ones who didn't feel guilty about it, and the guys that didn't buy sex were the ones that would feel guilty about it. The assumption was based on the fact that the statistics were roughly the same, and the assumption seemed to be carried out in the posts on the Letters From Johns blog, a very small and self-selected sample of johns. And note further that this unproven assumption was also my conclusion, that Spitzer bought sex because he didn't feel guilty about it.

Fourth, even if my data and my assumptions were correct, they were correct for most men. That doesn't mean that every individual acts that way. As 5150 points out, she has done something she felt guilty about. And when I think about it, so have I.

I did point some of this out in the post, but not all of it. One thing I didn't talk about in detail was the importance of which aspect of an act one feels guilty about. I worry about pollution, but I don't feel guilty about the specific act of buying a car, and so I own a car. On the other hand, I do feel guilty about frequent unnecessary use of the car, and so I use public transportation to get to work. My guilt affects the specific acts I feel guilty about, but not associated acts.

However, I'm not perfectly consistent. I feel guilty about driving too fast, because that is a risk to myself and everyone else on the road. But sometimes I drive too fast. Guilt has caused a marked decrease in the amount of speeding I do, but it hasn't eliminated it entirely. 5150 felt guilty about prostitution, but did it anyway. And most of us can think of things that we feel guilty about, but do anyway.

I still believe that there's a good possibility that Spitzer bought sex because he didn't feel guilty about it. But I have to admit that it's far from proven.

The title of this post is Why I'm Right, and I'm obligated to explain why, in spite of everything I've just written, I'm still right. The reason is that it's my blog and I'll be right if I want to. Dammit! ;)