Okay, so as I was riding home tonight and wondering what I failed to say or failed to express correctly in my earlier response, it occurred to me that I missed several things. On the one hand, perhaps I shouldn’t have even posted that contribution; on the other hand, perhaps these additions will clarify my thoughts or provide more things for the OP to consider. Or maybe this will just bury me further…
The world in which our religions took root and grew was very different from today. The prohibitions against female promiscuity were very much concerned with offspring and inheritance issues, not to mention the patriarchal habit of treating women as chattel. It’s also worth noting that some religions either encouraged or just didn’t address prostitution. As societies grew more complex and, quite frankly, stratified, recording unions and understanding heritage rights was very much about solidifying (or at least not diluting) power, control, property, etc.* Thus, prostitution was prohibited or discouraged because it was a form of promiscuity that could dilute the lineage with bastard heirs and illegitimate claimants. The introduction of venereal diseases occurred after religions were well established and simply provided more ammunition against the practice+. Conception-prevention technology could conceivably nullify concerns about illegitimate heirs and the age-old condom$ could conceivably nullify concerns about venereal diseases – except that [a] medical experts pretty much agree that they don’t prevent transmission of the HIV virus and ** some people persist in (insist on?) having sex (even with people they don’t know very well) without them. Again, I won’t digress into discussions of the legality or morality or psychology or sociology of prostitution but it’s important to understand [1] Venereal diseases (even HIV) can be transmitted from mouth to genitals, and [2] you never know who the previous customer was or what occurred# with the person you’ve selected for your latest tryst.
There was a thread on these boards a week or two ago that discussed a news article about a fraternity on campus that got busted for setting up a competition in which the boys scored points of some kind for bedding women on campus who were deemed fat or obese. I’ll admit I did not contribute to that thread but perhaps I should have. It seems a bit late and no-longer trending now. Nevertheless, I would imagine, the campus administration’s position is not about faulting the young adults for having consensual sex. Nor, for that matter, would I fault the guys for objectifying^ their conquests (provided those conquests were informed prior to receiving such a designation which, I’m guessing was not the case in the newsworthy situation). Instead, were I the administration, I would fault the guys for treating other human beings as one-dimensional objects worthy of disrespect.%
As with my previous post I caution the OP against focussing on just the hot young body of his girlfriend because, if he is treating the rest of her with disrespect, she cannot be faulted for treating him in a similarly rude manner and WHEN things like her body, her mind, her emotional needs, her financial desires, etc. change he is likely to find himself losing that girlfriend – and being mystified (if not pained) by her decision to leave.
TLDR: Grow up, if only for your own sake.
–G!
*…for the rich. If you were poor, not only did YOU not matter, but your meager property and inheritors didn’t matter either.
- And, yet, the profession continued and has even been respected in history.
$ The device has a fascinatingly twisted history of its own. Cosmopolitan republishes historical articles once in a while and there are probably other magazines for men and for women that have their own versions. It’s probably on Wikipedia by now anyway.
^ I say this because I’m well aware that there are some people who are eager to be objectified in whatever ways. In just the sexual arena, I was involved with a submissive who quite enthusiastically and explicitely wanted me to treat her like a sex object. However, we established that fact well before she flew into town to meet me. And, in another anectdote, I overheard a girl talking to another about a third, saying, “She told me later that she managed to sleep with every guy in that fraternity!” and when I asked, “Did the guys object?” she shook her head and said, “Hell no!”
I’ll assume a vendor worth visiting will tend to be too discreet to divulge. Even if that’s not true, how can you be sure what the vendor says is true?
% Or, perhaps, it is the disrespect that fosters the treatment of others as one-dimensional objects.
The point is that women like this are quite common in the sex industry, and they don’t fit either of the two stereotypes being portrayed in this thread.