Prostitutes & sin - Halacha is not bean counting

shoshi - comment to "Non-Jewish prostitutes - how serious a sin?":

The original question was:

"what is worse: a married jewish woman who does not always cover her head in public or a jewish man who has sexual relationship with a person to whom he is not married?"

And this ex-kolelnik's answer was:

A woman who does not cover her hair is worse, since she openly rejects part of the halacha, while the poor guy just is not able to restrain himself momentarily. So he would not trust the woman who does not cover her hair for kashrut (since all her standards are lower), but he would have no problem in trusting a man who occasionally uses the services of prostitutes as far as kashrut is concerned.

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Soshi in response to my list of eight alternative understandings of her question wrote:

Well the questions that particularly intrigues me would come right before your question 3):

3.1. Is it worse to have sexual relationships with a jewish woman who is not married and not nida (she went to the mikve) or with a non-jewish woman?

3.2. In the above case, (if a jewish woman who is not married and not nida and a jewish man have intercourse) who does the worse aveira, the Man or the Woman?

3.3. So why should the woman be shunned if she gets pregnant?

And of course the subject that was raised in an answer earlier:

Is going to see a prostitute really less a sin than masturbating.

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You are asking very solid and reality oriented questions. I will try to deal with them individually after a more general discussion of the significance of the questions.

These questions are reflections of either an academic or scholarly attitude or a minimalistic concern for yiddishkeit. Instead of focusing on what is the best way for self improvement and becoming closer to G-d - the questions reflect - "what is the most efficient way to sin so that I get maximum pleasure and minimum punishment." However questions which asks "which is better?" are different than questions of "is something permitted or forbidden.? Hierarchies depend upon context which are dependent on the goals the posek sees for the person as well as realistically what is in the questioner's best interest. Thus they would be answered differently for different people. It is not simply based upon which is the way to incur the smallest punishment. Sometimes greater punishments should be incurred to bring about a greater future good.

That is why I have put up a number of posts on related issues such as the nature of Chazal. Psak is not bean counting. Halacha is the path to serving G-d. That is why I posted the comment of Rav Yaakov Kaminetsky that a nidah is preferable to a non-Jewish woman - the psak being based on the non-halachic issue of Jewish identity.

To return to your original concern, I am in the middle of answering your original question as to the halachic status of non-Jewish prostitutes - is it true that there is no Torah prohibition and that it is at most a rabbinic prohibition. I will post soon on the Torah basis for prohibition of a non-Jewish prostitute as well as the nature of the rabbinic prohibition.

However, let me illustrate this non-halachic or agadic nature of psak with the following gemora
Sanhedrin (75a):

Rab Judah said in Rab's name: A man once conceived a passion for a certain woman,3 and his heart was consumed by his burning desire [his life being endangered thereby]. When the doctors were consulted, they said, ‘His only cure is that she shall submit.’ Thereupon the Sages said: ‘Let him die rather than that she should yield.’ Then [said the doctors]; ‘let her stand nude before him;’ [they answered] ‘sooner let him die’. ‘Then’, said the doctors, ‘let her converse with him from behind a fence’. ‘Let him die,’ the Sages replied ‘rather than she should converse with him from behind a fence.’ Now R. Jacob b. Idi and R. Samuel b. Nahmani dispute therein. One said that she was a married woman; the other that she was unmarried. Now, this is intelligible on the view, that she was a married woman, but on the latter, that she was unmarried, why such severity? — R. Papa said: Because of the disgrace to her family. R. Aha the son of R. Ika said: That the daughters of Israel may not be immorally dissolute. Then why not marry her? — Marriage would not assuage his passion, even as R. Isaac said: Since the destruction of the Temple, sexual pleasure has been taken [from those who practise it lawfully] and given to sinners, as it is written. Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.