Don’t do it. Some girls are open to it, but because you questioned it, you probably shouldn’t.
Stripper looks pretty good in a lot of respects. NO risk of disease if you don’t “do” men on the side, plenty of healthy exercise inherent in your job, even some chance for self-expression when you dance and when you design your costume, good pay, short hours, etc.
the major disadvantages: no health insurance, short term career, societal opprobrium, though not that much of it nowadays.
Beats the hell out of being an administrative assistant or a copy editor I bet.
Whores still have the problems listed above, but a lot of wives are not jealous of strippers, since they don’t compete directly in the area of sex.
If sex is no different than other activities, why is sex with children such a taboo?
If sex is no different than other activities, why is having sex with someone against their will (i.e. rape) such a horrible thing to do to a person?
If sex is no different than other activties, why does it matter so much to so many people whom they do (or do not) do it with?
If sex is no different than other activities, why is there such a mystique about it? Why have so many people thought that it was different? (See FairyChatMom’s post, for instance.) Why is it so often referred to as “making love” or “intimacy”? Is the mystique just a mistake?
I don’t know what the origin of the taboo against sex with children is. It used to be that the idea of children laboring in coal mines was viewed as acceptable. Now it’s not. The taboo against sex with children has no bearing on whether or not sex as a means of income is different from other labor as a means of income.
Rape is a violation of personhood. It has to do with consent. Forcing someone to work against their will (a.k.a. slavery) is also viewed as a horrible thing to do. Injuring someone in a non-sexual manner is considered horrible. That rape may considered somehow more horrible than, say, stabbing probably has to do with the sex mystique.
It matters to me for whom I work. I don’t see choice of employer having anything to do with the issue.
I don’t know the origin of the mystique around sex. Probably has a lot to do with religion. That there are euphemisms for sex acts don’ seem relevant to the discussion. And yes, I think that mystifying the sex act to the extent that it has been mystified is a mistake. I think that the secrecy and shame about sex has led to a lot of problems.
Christian theology also very much disapproves of usury (lending money & charging interest on it). Yet we seem to now have more respect for a banker than a whore. (Possibly because most people owe mortgage payments, etc. to a banker, who could foreclose on them. Not many whores can (or would) kick you out of your home.)
[hijack]That’s interesting. I have worked all of my adult life, but never because I wanted to, always to stay fed, clothed and sheltered. I agree, it is a horrible thing, and I’ve hated every minute of it, but this is the first I have ever heard that anyone ELSE considers it horrible, or slavery for that matter.[/hijack]
I suspect prostitution carries a lot of qualms that way pre-date modern Christian and economic forces, as Astro so aptly noted. It’d be hard (nyuk, nyuk) to out-do ancient Romans (and others) for blatantly, publicly exalting lust while still relegating whoring to the fringes. Sex and money have always been basic driving forces so don’t look to me to untangle the chaos.
And just FTR, I’m in favor of legalizing prostitution. That’s far from an endorsement, just a practical recognition of what IS. It ain’t called “the oldest profession” for nuthin’. No society has come close to eliminating it, even with the most draconian measures. Whatever’s driving it, why exhaust the resources of society trying to stamp out the inevitable when regulation and control can at least eliminate some of the worst side effects? It just makes sense to choose our criminals carefully. The underworld is all too often the greedy–and brutal–net for society’s rejects.
That said, I suspect whoring carries deep (mythic?) stigmas that cut way beyond laws. Evil Captor identified something basic in GBS’s pithy condemnation. Forget the window dressing (i.e. Churchill’s “just determining price”, bimbo trophy wives, etc.), something about sex-for-money strikes stays just wrong on some fundamental level. Maybe it’s just the forced/faux intimacy involved. I dunno. Artists, laborers, intellectuals, etc.-- workers of all sorts-- give of their bodies and minds in trade all the time. I honestly don’t know why, how or IF there is a difference really, but I can’t ignore my (notably wonky) gut instinct that yes, it exists.
Okay, blather aside, most people get by the best they can with what they have. Sex is primal and has power. How it’s used matters. It can be employed casually or for devotion; for kicks or gain. But on some level, it can’t leave even the most determinedly uninvolved actor…uninvolved. When push comes to shove, most people–not all-- can’t portion themselves out between faux/forced intimacy and commerce for the long haul. VERY few survive that bargain beyond the a pitifully short span of “glory” years. Fine. Short-term glamour choices shouldn’t be criminialized but the actual human impact of those choices shouldn’t be encouraged either. Most commerce-for-sex stock has a very limited shelf life. It shouldn’t be a criminal waste, IMO, but it’s still a waste.
Veb
I was really only offering this up as an analogy. Sex is to rape as work is to slavery.
That analogy doesn’t hold. Most people have to “work”, i.e. give back of themselves to survive. That’s far from removed from rape. Rape is a forced, brutal taking in one form dictated by a specific attacker. The giver has NO choice or alternative. Work is chosen; a deliberate, willing, conscious decision, with both the long-term and short-term effects firmly within the contol of the provider.
Workers have choices. Some–maybe many–of the choices may not be attractive or easy, but choices exist. Work is NOT rape.
Veb
I think FCM said it all with “sex is the ultimate sharing of self”. Even just casual sex with no money exchanged is something I just can’t do. It’s excrutiatingly uncomfortable to even imagine sharing that part of my self with a stranger, and for money? I wish I could put it into words, but it’s painful to contemplate such a thing.
It’s not that my private bits are a “holy land” as the quote from the OP so snidely accuses. If it were just my body, oh well. After all, we give our bodies to our bosses for money every day, in the form of typing for them, hustling trays of food, selling houses, programming computer programs etc.
I literally use my body in exchange for money when I teach people to dance. (of course I don’t get naked when I do that :D). Sorry, I wish I had a more elegant and elequent explanation.
Thus, by implication, these men value money more than they do sex…which is not a surprising trait, especially in America.
There is several levels to being a “whore”… the first being the classical version… that is, the women on the side of the street you pay to have sex with. Then there’s the social whore, the women who marries for money and knows nothing else than selling herself to gain social standings and wealth. In my opinion, the first is the lesser of the 2 and, if legal where it takes place then it should not be a big deal… the man knows what he’s getting in to and the women is obvious about herself being a whore… no big deal. The problem lies when the women masks herself as a loving girlfriend/spouse and uses sex a form of manipulation to get whatever she wants from her victim… surprisingly, it happens all the time and I see it all the time. Personally, I’ve never been with a type 1 whore, but thank God I have been with the second of the 2… a hard lesson to learn, but it will not happen again I assure you. I am now “immunized”.
So my personal, humble, opinion is that if you are up front with the idea that you are a whore and you have sex for money and that’s it then, it’s your life to live… personally, I think there are better things I think you could be than a whore, however.
Actually, all christian doctrine states that ALL SEX is a sin, but because there is so much of it, God gives you a way of curving your need by way of one partner and that’s it.
sexual thoughts, sex, masterbation… all of it… all sin. Marriage from a strict standpoint is also a sin, signifying a divorce from your “marriage to God” or devotion to God.
For your information, the Chinese culture too has scant regard for whore. Then again, ancient Chineses admit that it is normal for a man to have three wives and four concubines…
But drawing ridiculous conclusions to fit pre-existing biases is a trait common the world over. Obviously, men dislike the idea of paying for sex because it would seem to show they are not otherwise desirable as a mate.
Remember: First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women. Any man who puts money above sex is missing the point of having it.
I think you’re mixing Otto’s metaphor there. He’s not comparing work to rape, he’s comparing it to sex, with slavery being analagous to rape.
Saying that people have to work to survive does not make it slavery. There’s a big difference between going to your job because you need to make your car payments and being stuck picking cotton for nothing while some guy with a rifle makes sure you don’t run away. No matter how unpleasant or unrewarding a job may be, the worker still agreed to take the job of his own free will, and is perfectly capable of quitting whenever he wants. Wanting to meet financial obligations and buy neat stuff is not equivalent to forced labor.
I have to disagree. Slaves have a choice – they can always kill themselves rather than suffer slavery. Some in fact did. Granted, that choice is not attractive or easy, but it exists. So by those standards, slavery and work are still pretty much the same thing. Karl Marx really was on to something when he called workers “wage slaves.” (I don’t agree with all of his ideas, but he fucking nailed it on that one.) The only argument you have here is how dire the options have to be for the choice to be meaningful or not. And the difference between working or not working at all can be … fairly dire. Lotta homeless people out there can tell you that.
Glad to know someone still remembers how to read syllogisms from studying for the SATs.
So am I, and just wish it’d been me. Sorry, suffered a massive brain fart on that one. That’ll teach me to knock off posting when I’m too tired to think clearly.
Got your point straight now, Otto, and apologies to all for the sidetrack.
Veb
IAACE*, and I suspect it would have to beat my job: the hours would be considerably shorter, the pay would be considerably greater, and I wouldn’t have to read letters critical of my work.
*You’d be surprised how seldom I’ve been able to work that into a post here.