There is no more defiant denial of one man’s ability to possess one woman exclusively than the prostitute who refuses to be redeemed. – Gail Sheehy
Every whore who has worked for more than a few weeks has met them: The ones who want to “save” us. They come in four main types, but they’re all characterized by the same delusion that sex work is “degrading”, “disgusting”, “filthy”, “sinful”, etc, and the same unwavering belief that we all really want to be out of it no matter what we say or how eloquently we say it. Some of them really do believe that we’re victims, so their efforts are earnest albeit wrongheaded; others just want to use us as pawns to further their agenda, whatever it may be. But all of them are characterized by the bizarre yet prevalent notion that sex is somehow intrinsically different from every other human activity even when it has no chance of resulting in pregnancy.
A chart of concentration camp identification badges; prostitutes were classified as “work shy” (i.e. lazy) because the Nazis, in common with so many moderns who have never actually worked as whores themselves, characterized our work as “easy” despite the fact that most of them couldn’t put up with half of what we do.
The worst of the four types of self-appointed messiahs is of course government, because it is both the most powerful and the only one which can get away with enforcing its edicts by violence. At many times in history prostitutes were classified as “undesirables” much as Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals or members of other minority groups were; for example, whores were rounded up by the Nazis and shipped to concentration camps along with all the others the “master race” wished to purge from its ranks. They were identified by a black triangle, and forced to do hard labor in order to “cure” them of their “aversion to work”; whores were among the first inmates of Auschwitz and were forced to help build the camp, laboring through the winter in evening gowns which the Nazis mockingly issued them instead of work clothes. Unsurprisingly, most of them died. But in one way, the Nazis were more moral than many modern Western governments; at least they weren’t hypocrites. They were a fascist state which taught that individuals were only parts of society, so their evil, tyrannical treatment of “asocial elements” was at least consistent with their evil, collectivist rhetoric. The majority of modern Western governments, on the other hand, pay lip service to individual civil rights yet harshly suppress the right of women to do as we like with our bodies and have sex on our own terms, justifying their actions with the excuse that they’re “protecting” us from our own choices.
The typical 21st –century Western governmental rhetoric against prostitution can be summed up by this statement issued to the Secretary-General of the U.N. by the soi-disant “Coalition Against Trafficking in Women”:
Prostitution is inherently degrading and humiliating to the woman or girl who is being sexually exploited. When a woman or girl is reduced to a commodity to be bought and sold, her fundamental human rights are violated. Traffickers, pimps, and buyers degrade her humanity. Men purchase the right to insult, slap, and rape women and girls. These acts include forms of sexual violence that women’s advocates and human rights groups have long sought to eliminate from women’s beds, homes, workplaces and streets. A survey of 854 people in prostitution in nine countries (Canada, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, United States, and Zambia) revealed that 71% experienced physical assaults in prostitution, and 62% reported rapes in prostitution.
It would be difficult to cram a more absurd collection of logical fallacies, propaganda and fake “statistics” into one short paragraph if one tried. From the very first unsupported statement (“humiliation” is a wholly subjective condition, and “inherently” is a very strong term which must be supported by objective proof) to the idea that danger makes a profession immoral, every sentence is either factually, logically or morally fallacious. The second choppy little sentence is a restatement of the persistent and absurd idea that it is a woman’s body that is bought in prostitution rather than her services, the next equates voluntary actions with slavery and assumes all whores have pimps, and the one after it makes the utterly ridiculous assumption that all clients are violent; finally, we’re asked to accept that 854 hand-picked survey respondents in nine countries (with a combined population of over half a billion people) constitutes a meaningful survey. Yet asinine collections of nonsense exactly like this one are taken seriously by “authorities” all over the supposedly-enlightened Western world, particularly in Norway and Sweden. If I were to say “Religion is inherently degrading to the child who is being socially exploited,” or “When an employee is reduced to a commodity to be bought and sold, his fundamental human rights are violated,” or “Women purchase the right to insult, rob, and exploit men through modern marriage,” or “A survey of 854 people in sports in nine countries revealed that 71% experienced serious physical injuries in sports, and 62% reported permanent disability from sports,” my statements would be dismissed as prejudiced, false, extreme or statistically absurd, but when people make equally ridiculous statements about prostitution they are magically conferred with an aura of sanctity which excludes any attempt at rational scrutiny.
Now, I don’t believe for one minute that governments really give a damn about us; a few years ago we were the dregs of humanity, and now suddenly we’re poor victimized angels? Governments care only about power, and the oppressive and often conflicting laws about prostitution are actually only a way to control us while buying the support of the second and third groups of “rescuers”, religious puritans and neofeminists. Government rhetoric about “protecting” whores from “exploitation” is therefore nothing but the latest politically correct rationalization for controlling us, just as branding us “asocial elements” to be imprisoned and worked to death was the politically correct rationale in Nazi Germany. The repression continues; only the excuse changes.
But what of those other two groups? I don’t think I need to say much about religious prudes; the austere, desert-dwelling Hebrews were so scandalized by the sexually liberal, goddess-worshipping Canaanites that they established a set of anti-sex laws and mores which became deeply entrenched in the Judeo-Christian tradition. To the devout Judeo-Christian all sex outside of marriage (and most of it in marriage) is inherently sinful, so the harlot automatically becomes a merchant of sin. Her refusal to submit to male dominance only makes her worse to the patriarchal Christian or Muslim, and the fact that she is an avenue of pleasure seals her fate in the eyes of the fun-hating puritan. For the past two millennia Western religion has alternated between reviling us and attempting to “save” us, but even the latter is usually pursued by subjecting repentant whores to imprisonment accompanied by torture and hard labor, the better to wring our sinfulness from our bodies. To be sure, there have been periodic attempts to wean us from harlotry by providing other means of support, but these invariably fail because there isn’t enough money to support more than a few “born again” whores in anything like the manner we can easily support ourselves.
Then there are the neofeminists, whose rhetoric has largely been adopted by both government and religious groups because so many men are afraid to challenge it for fear of being branded “sexist”. You want a real example of sexism? When a man uses his natural, physical, gender-based abilities to make money as a bouncer, bodyguard or boxer, everybody thinks it’s just great and he might even become a big “hero”. But when a woman does exactly the same thing she is insulted, demonized and persecuted by governments. Nobody claims using size and toughness to make large sums of money is “inherently degrading and humiliating to the man or boy who is being physically exploited,” or agitates to ban police work because men run the risk of injury or death in it; this is because nobody questions a man’s right to make these decisions for himself, not even the so-called “feminists”! And this, of course, is why I refuse to use the term “feminist” to describe the type I call “neofeminists”; they are far more sexist against women than the vast majority of men are. Lesbian neofeminists hate sex workers because they hate men and therefore oppose anything which might make men happy, and heterosexual neofeminists hate us because we provide modern men with an option to escape the rigged game of sexual extortion practiced by childish, self-centered modern women and enforced by the tyranny of divorce and paternity law. But if they admit the truth they will alienate the majority of normal women, so like the government they must cover up their campaign to control and suppress whores with the excuse that they are trying to “protect” us from the bad old patriarchy which wants to “exploit” us. Apparently, neofeminists exploiting us to further their ends is perfectly acceptable.
The last and least annoying of the types are found among our customers. Men who suffer from the Madonna/whore duality are often confused when they meet an intelligent, charismatic, educated prostitute; I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked something like, “Why do you do this?” or even told, “You’re too good for this!” And often when I referred to myself as a whore I got an almost-angry “You’re not a whore!” The Madonna/whore fallacy instructed them that good, sweet, noble women could not be harlots, therefore they had to reconcile the dilemma by either denying I was one or somehow explaining the “paradox”. Some of them apparently did this by deciding that I must be somehow victimized, either by circumstances or a specific person; their predictable response was to offer to rescue me, either by “keeping” me or by actually proposing. Obviously, such proposals came from their hearts rather than their heads; they were the product of the male drive to protect women directed against a condition propaganda calls a degrading and humiliating one, therefore acceptable for whores but not for Madonnas such as they perceived me to be. Of course, some men who issue such offers do so out of the simple desire to own something they see as valuable with no real concern for the girl as a person, which makes these specimens exactly the same as the leadership of the other three groups.
This:
“heterosexual neofeminists hate us because we provide modern men with an option to escape the rigged game of sexual extortion practiced by childish, self-centered modern women and enforced by the tyranny of divorce and paternity law. ”
…made my whole day.
And yet I’ll bet some of them really think they’re helping. Oh, I’m sure the ones who hate whores are also there, no matter how they disguise their language; but some actually do think that this is a case of men forcing women to do something they don’t want — the bad johns and bad pimps who force the poor girls into prostitution. And they aren’t even all women; why, a couple of weeks ago I had a conflictuous online encounter with a gentleman who called himself a feminist and espoused precisely these views. (“You think prostitutes have a choice? Would YOU ever chose to let some stupid smelly guy stick his PENIS into your ANUS? Go do that and come back to tell me how you support ’empowered prostitutes’!” Except that instead of PENIS and ANUS he used what neofeminists tend to call ‘patriarchal oversexualized language’ [several words in each case, actually], apparently oblivious to the irony.)
Oh, I’m sure some do. For men this can even be a defense mechanism against overly-independent women; in prostitutes he has found women who really do (in his mind, at least) need him to “rescue” and “protect” them.
Sometimes it’s a form of the “White Knight” syndrome: I like women, so I want to help them be happy by rescuing them from some dragon; I’m told prostitution is a big dragon that forces women to do unspeakable things, so I’m going to wear my shining armor and go rescue them right now!
Reminds me of some of the characters in Orwell’s Animal Farm.
I thought you might; I just calls ’em like I sees ’em. 🙂
The “you’re not a whore” thing might not be, or at least might not always be, the madonna/whore complex at work. Outside of your profession, the word “whore” is used almost exclusively as an insult. Women are much more often called whores in the pejorative than the professional sense. If I like a women, I tend to get miffed when an insult is directed at her, even if she’s the one doing it.
I understand that prostitutes, hookers, harlots, working girls, etc. have taken to calling themselves whores, and that they don’t find the word insulting (at least not in the professional sense).
But I know that I’d be tempted to say “you’re not a whore” if I heard you called one, not because I somehow think that you don’t exchange sex for money, but because you aren’t the other things “whore” implies to almost everybody except, well, whores.
Dishonest, dirty, a predisposition to be both drug-addicted and disease-ridden, too dumb to do anything else, oh and you have sex with people you are not married to and may or may not charge money for it. You are none of that, except the very last.
I certainly think you’re right, but when they did that I always responded “what am I, then?” and rarely got an intelligible answer. It’s just that people so often use the word “whore” to mean things it doesn’t mean, that when someone uses it to mean what it actually does mean they get confused.
I get much the same reaction when I refer to one of my dogs as a bitch.
That dog seems nice enough to me!
Yeah, I see what you mean.
I have a friend who seems disappointed that her Rottweilers (including the bitch) are so nice to me. Not that she wants me rended limb from limb (I hope!), but just because she thinks they should be a bit hostile unless she’s calming them down. But they actually seem to like me, heh heh.
I have no doubt that if I ever made a threatening move towards her, they wouldn’t take long to let me know that they like her better, which is as it should be.
Isnt there another type? The person who isnt a client, isnt necessarily against it, but still doesnt understand why people would choose that as a profession over something else when society demonizes it.
Well, I did say four main types. But I’m not sure what you’re actually asking; one can’t be a “rescuer” unless one fancies that he’s saving somebody from something bad or dangerous.
I’ll answer your implied question with a question: Why do so many people use marijuana when society demonizes it?
They use it because, um, ah…
Whoa, I can’t EVEN remember!
j/k
well let me apologize up front, because if i offend you with what I say, i know it is very self centered, and i am not meaning to be offensive, i just do not understand…
i am not against prostitution and believe that a lot of governments are misdirected in criminalizing one of the most basic of human actions. but by the same token because it is criminalized there is some level of danger, both from the government in terms of being arrested and the stigma that may attach to it, as well as from some people in and involved with the profession at some levels who aren’t, well…, ethical about their actions.
taking that into consideration, i m a bit hard pressed to understand why someone would enter into that profession knowing the associated risks. now in countries/areas where it isn’t criminalized i can understand it more readily, but not as much so here.
more to the point though, and at least for me, if i see that someone has the potential to do so much more (in my subject opinion), i have a bit of a hard time understanding why they don’t. now objectively i know that people are better off doing something they enjoy for work than doing something they don’t enjoy as much, but subjectively sometimes i don’t.
i have an ex-friend in a particular line of work, she’s very good at it and when we were friends i was very proud of what she did and thought very highly of the work she did. however, i also saw that she had the smarts to be a doctor and actually make a difference in people’s lives. to this day i still don’t understand why she didn’t go that way, and would still try to talk her into going to medical school (if we were still talking). that’s the kind of saving i was talking about.
and i know it’s being very self centered to think that i know whats a better line of work for another person than they do, but i still wonder sometimes.
are there people you know who are in a line of work, and yet sometimes you think to yourself “why aren’t they doing [enter job] instead?”
[blockquote]she had the smarts to be a doctor and actually make a difference in people’s lives.[/blockquote]
The above was of course posted ages ago, but I feel it’s indispensable, remarking that the whores I’ve met over the past couple of years, did make a deep difference indeed.
They actually so much as saved my life, or at least, they made me value life again after a relationship gone wrong. Those whores have been the best doctors, I’ve ever met in my life. I don’t know, where I would have been now, had it not been for whores, but I’m quite sure, I would at least not have been better off, putting it mildly. They even made me appreciate womanhood more fully and more warmheartedly than ever before. And I do admire whores for the way they combine gentleness with toughness, and for the way they can enjoy what they’re doing. In doing so, they make a hell of a difference in people’s lives. They deserve so much more respect than they are getting.
Why does a person become a cop despite the associated risks, which are much higher than in high-end prostitution? You seem to consider doctors to be one of the highest professions; you understand that there are also considerable risks (both medical and financial) associated with that profession as well, right? Women enter prostitution for the same reasons anyone enters any profession: The perceived benefits outweigh the perceived risks, and the financial and self-determination benefits in prostitution are extremely high.
You just answered your own question; “more” is only in your opinion. Should every nurse have tried to become a doctor instead? Should every shopkeeper have tried to become a college professor? People are not required to fulfill the job others believe they should (which they very well might be miserable doing), and every job which makes money is one for which there is a demand. If you believe whores aren’t doing work which is important to society, you’ve been listening to too much propaganda and not reading my columns carefully enough.
Of course, but that isn’t only true of harlotry; I think it about every single politician I’ve ever seen. They could be using their energy and drive to do something meaningful, but instead choose to be social parasites.
OMG I so love your response!
again, i am really sorry if i offended you. i didn’t mean to.
i do believe that there is a need for that profession, even if society demonizes it for what i think are incorrect reasons.
and i know it’s all subjective opinion of whats better than what. i don’t think that all people should try to be things they may not be able to do, (ie the nurse trying to be a doctor).
I guess what i was trying to say is that sometimes those comments aren’t meant as a slight, or in a derogatory way. people just see things based on their own schema. just as you ask why anyone would become a cop or a doctor based on the risks you see, and maybe you would be concerned if someone you liked was in one of those professions, so others may have the same opinion of harlotry. not because they think less of you, but simply just don’t understand the choice based on their own life experiences.
but the road to hell is built on good intentions…
Thank you, Ant; you didn’t offend me at all (don’t worry, if you had I would’ve let you know in no uncertain terms).
Absolutely. However, there is a vast difference between failing to understand someone’s choices and trying to remove her right to make them. And worse still is lying to others in order to trick them into believing that one has the right to deny her choices “for her own good”.
“there is a vast difference between failing to understand someone’s choices and trying to remove her right to make them. And worse still is lying to others in order to trick them into believing that one has the right to deny her choices “for her own good”.”
agree completely! i would never trick or force someone into doing something different (well maybe the SO or my kids), but by the same token i would try to convince them and even try to help if they made that decision.
That’s because you’re a moral person; such behavior is just business as usual for politicians.
The truth is, somebody has to make laws, enforce them, oversee regulations, build bridges, etc. I believe that their are talented and moral people who enter politics for the most noble of reasons…
And then get submerged in the corruption. Responses to this seem to be that they either
adopt it (perhaps hoping they can sneak something good in from time to time, but now they’ve struck the Faustian bargain),
remain pure but get little done because the more corrupt won’t work with them, or
leave the profession.
And of course sometimes they are seduced by the benefits corruption can bring (wealth, privilege, power over others, and, if you remember to condemn the OPENLY sexual, lots and lots of pussy).
I’d love to take the corruption out of politics, but I don’t think it’s doable. Reducing it, perhaps, but not eliminating it. Politics is by its very nature corrupting, and by its very nature attracts people who want to be corrupted (and don’t have far to go).
While I believe that women who choose to be prostitutes f their own volition should have every right to do so, I can’t help but think: what about the millions of men, women and children [especially children] who are forced into the sex trade every year? I see where you’re coming from, but you’ve completely glossed over the fact that many, MANY people are “whores” and don’t want to be.
It’s not “millions” and never has been, Hannah. You may find Laura Agustín’s blog on the subject illuminating. The Asia-Pacific Network of Sex Workers considers so-called “rescue organizations” a far larger problem than trafficking (see this protest video from December), the numbers here in the US are dramatically inflated and the age figures contaminated by lies, and both law enforcement agencies and “anti-trafficking” groups ignore the repeated offers of help from the sex worker community.
We want to stop the trafficking; it’s the cops and “antis” who don’t. They want to suppress ALL prostitution, and just use “child trafficking” as a sympathetic excuse, which is utterly reprehensible. See also the commentary by Jill Brenneman after this column.
Hi, Maggie–I just discovered your site today. It’s one of the best blogs I’ve seen in a while–nicely written and thought-provoking.
I had a couple of quibbles or questions about this particular post. First, where you say “[g]overnments care only about power,” I’d say “politicians” rather than “governments.” As a loathsome bureaucrat myself, I like to point out that governments are made up of all kinds of people, very few of who are actively out to inhibit people. (Of course, there are obvious creeps as well.)
Also, I’m a little confused about the idea that “lesbian neofeminists…hate men.” I know from experience that the old line that *all* lesbians hate men is untrue. Perhaps I just haven’t met the neofeminist type yet, but I’d suspect that it’s more complex than just hatred.
Anyway–please don’t take any of that as criticism. Like I said, your site is thought-provoking. I like a lot of your points about criminalization itself causing danger, which is something I’ve wrestled with for a long time now.
Welcome to my blog, Scott! When I say “governments” here I don’t mean “individuals in government” but rather governments as collective entities. I realize that governments can’t literally “care about” anything, but they act as though they do; I was anthropomorphizing, which I’m afraid I do too often.
I’ve known enough exclusive lesbians to know that they virtually all have issues with men, but by “lesbian neofeminists” I mean those neofeminists who hate men so badly they can’t even have relationships with them. I explain my concept of “neofeminism” in a text box in the right column, and you might also look at this post from March 27th.
I hope I continue to give you a lot to think about! 🙂
>>Of course, but that isn’t only true of harlotry; I think it about every single politician I’ve ever seen. They could be using their energy and drive to do something meaningful, but instead choose to be social parasites.<<
I frequently find your blog mildly stimulating, not because you intend it to be, but because my imagination fills in a lot of blanks when reading about beautiful women and sex. As you can see from your comments, I am not alone in this. The above, however, may be the sexiest thing you've written. 😉 I think it no accident that your Twitter stream seems to have a lot of overlap with mine.
I caused a fair-sized flap in a mixed-gender social gathering of people from church a couple of years ago when the usual tut-tutting about short skirts and slutty clothes and cleavage and modern pop stars and their questionable morals was going on, and someone (of course) said something about the "role models" who dressed and acted like whores. I remarked that I preferred whores, because at least they were honest enough to deliver what they were promising.
I never have been good at that "go along to get along" business. Too many annoying facts get in the way. 😉
I’m not sure what’s particularly sexy about that comment, but I’ll accept the compliment anyway. 🙂
It’s those huge tracts of . . . freedom. 🙂
How would some of these “rescuers” react when you told them you were married, out of curiousity?
I never told them. Most clients do not like to hear that a hooker is married; it ruins their fantasies.