Most males have an unhealthy tendency to obey laws. – Robert A. Heinlein
I once posted a comment on Brandy Devereaux’s blog in which I apologized for being like one of those friends who comes over to one’s house, goes through the cupboards and helps herself to the tastiest snacks. Brandy has a nose for news and often posts on sex work stories before I’ve even heard of them; I then get a little email alert from my subscription to her blog, go over and read it and then if I find it interesting enough I steal it. I don’t only take news stories, either; sometimes she just thinks of things which inspire me to write on the same ideas. I excuse this wholesale theft on three grounds: 1) she insists she doesn’t mind; 2) I always give her credit; and 3) since our writing-styles are very different my verbose philosophizing often provides a nice counterpoint to her straightforward good sense (and vice versa).
Anyway, on the 30th of March she posted a very nice column about a subject on which I’ve written before: feminine pragmatism. As Kipling points out in his poem “The Female of the Species” (one of my personal favorites), because the future of any species rests squarely on the backs of its female members, “the female of the species must be deadlier than the male”. In humans, this manifests itself as the well-known female disregard for arbitrary rules on which so many males have commented. As I wrote in my column of December 12th,
…a woman with two children to feed, clothe and house and no husband to help her does not have the luxury of obeying a stupid, arbitrary law written by men which says that she can’t get money to support them in the way which works best for her and doesn’t hurt anyone…A woman is more likely to rely on her own internal moral compass than on laws imposed from outside, which is why the vast majority of the female prison population in any country are incarcerated for consensual crimes such as prostitution, drug use, etc – in other words, things which are arbitrarily defined as “criminal” but are not in any real sense evil. Essentially, prostitution law punishes women for not being men; the whore is an outlaw because she will not submit to external, paternalistic authority which forbids her using her natural advantages to improve her situation.
That’s the way I expressed it, but Brandy (who, coincidentally, has three children to feed, clothe and house and no husband to help her) wrote about it from her own personal perspective; I wish I could download it directly into the brains of every damned cop, neofeminist and anti-whore politician in America so they could at last grok what we’re talking about:
…This is how I came up with what I call practical prostitution. All the posturing, theorizing, comparing, name calling, etc can be done but it doesn’t make my car payment and it doesn’t put food on the table. We can argue back and forth all day long about why this and why that and we should this and we should that but it doesn’t fix my car should the fuel pump go out. I really don’t feel that it is necessary to go get a part time job, apply for welfare or a loan, or go back to college for a better paying job in the future simply because my vehicle needs new tires or because the plumbing in the bathroom broke…
…a few years back where I was in some serious financial difficulties. I had a full time job that paid my bills. It didn’t leave much if anything for savings but I was able to live comfortably. I forget what started it all…[but due to a cascade of bad-check fees I started to] panic…because I know that this can spiral downhill fast if not taken care of now but I still have two more weeks until my next paycheck…One date, $250, DONE. Caught up and back on track within one day…Did I feel exploited? Honestly I didn’t care, my bill had to be paid. Did I feel raped? Only by the bank.
…I remember reading stories of women turning to prostitution in Haiti after the earthquake. They needed to eat NOW. They didn’t care whether the abolitionists thought they were being degraded, de-humanized, exploited, blah blah blah. They were hungry and dammit you gotta do what you gotta do at the time that you gotta do it. Fine we need more opportunities for women, women need access to better education, women need this and women need that in order to not look at prostitution as a viable alternative for employment. That’s all hunky dorey but in the mean time are you willing to give every girl who needs it $5 for a sandwich to make it through today? I didn’t think so…
Whether a woman becomes a whore due to dire need as in Brandy’s example or merely because it’s the work she’s most comfortable with is immaterial; we all need to pay the bills somehow, and a woman has as much right as a man to use her natural gifts to earn her bread. From a philosophical standpoint anti-prostitution laws are tyranny, and from a practical standpoint they are ineffective because, as I pointed out in the aforementioned December 12th column, “…women who are going to be whores do so whether it’s illegal in their region or not…Prostitution laws therefore have no demonstrable deterrent value whatsoever, because the illegality of the profession has no observable effect on women’s choice to practice it. The fact that so many men fail to recognize this demonstrates how little they understand women.”
“Whether a woman becomes a whore due to dire need as in Brandy’s example or merely because it’s the work she’s most comfortable with…”
I may have come to it because of a dire need but I have stayed with it 1) because I am comfortable with it and enjoy it and 2) it made me discover that everything I thought I knew about prostitution (it would be gross, it would be degrading, blah blah blah) was blatantly untrue.
This blog, and this particular truth has completely changed my thinking as well.
As a man, I of course could never be pregnant, therefore never pregnant and abandoned…but regardless of a situation involving children, I would depend on my back to work myself out of it, or my mind if my creative powers brought me more money.
Since I worked fast food to get through my first college degree, I have to say that it’s one of the worst jobs in the world. High stress, extremely low pay, access to a poor diet, and little to no respect in society at large.
After reading about both Maggie & Brandy, it’s begun to occur to me…when you have your own mouth and possibly other mouths to feed right now, what do you do? I then thought about how women have had to FIGHT with all they’ve got just to be ABLE to work in every traditionally male dominated field, never mind excel in it.
But the biggest change has come through a phrase that is now part of my personal lexicon: “Arbitrary Law.” I was raised in an abusive religious background, so you know what that means, and what it’s done to my thinking…but after hearing that phrase, it’s revolutionized my life, because I’ve realized how. true. it is.
An athlete just got busted for having non-prescription viagra…*headdesk.* Who is the victim?
I see now, like I’ve never seen before, how those in power just make up whatever they want, with the understanding that it doesn’t apply to *them or their families,* and use their resources to enforce, enslave, and commit extortion through these arbitrary laws solely on those who can’t fight back. I recently found out that children of Congress Members don’t have to pay their student loans back; I’m still paying mine back however.
I also, as a result of this blog, have become an even more staunch defender of father’s rights, men’s rights, and male behavior, in terms of natural tendencies, not irresponsibility or abusiveness.
So it’s occurring to me after reading today’s column…what must it be like to be a woman, at any point in history? What must it be like to live in a country/world/system that tells you that you cannot use your natural strengths to support yourself, and you cannot have the same jobs as men do, and if you by chance DO get them, you cannot get paid the same wages as a man? And if you do get them, you are almost guaranteed to be sexually harassed? And also, no matter what you do or how you use your sexuality, SOMEbody’s gonna call you a whore, unless you’re a virgin when you get married and you stay married to that same man until he dies, regardless of how he treats you.
Starting to see why it’s earned the title of ‘The World’s Oldest Profession,’ especially after I learned that the Wanton Woman is just a role that women play because men like it; there is no physical or psychological basis for it to actually or naturally occur in females.
This is not to say that I support golddigging or those ridiculous child support laws or false accusations of rape or no fault divorce; quite the contrary. But it is to say that there has been considerable growth in my male thinking, because unfortunately chauvinism is very natural to men until we choose to be educated out of it.
Just as an aside…I’ve often wondered; if someone were willing to pay me to have sex with them, if I’d do it….
Please note that I was (am) a single mom in every sense of the word. It was not due to a divorce or purposeful abandonment. I did not have someone to turn to when the kids misbehaved, no one to ask to help out when they needed school supplies, no breaks during the summer or every other weekend when their financial care was his responsibility. Government funded survivor benefits didn’t pay squat as he was mostly self employed for his adult life and had not paid a lot into social security when he was alive.
My best advice to men with wives and children? Invest in life insurance, no matter your age.
Scorch, if you were in this room right now I would kiss you. 🙂
Ahem. I’m surprised to see you frame this as men victimizing women. I’m pretty certain that laws against prostitution are championed by women at least as enthusiastically as men, though probably for different reasons.
In fact, if women were of one mind, I’d venture to say that state prostitution laws could be dispensed with by the end of the week.
The prostitution laws in effect right now date back to the early 20th century, before women could even vote. That they were framed by men is a fact, but it doesn’t mean men victimizing women because most of those laws resulted from pressure from female-dominated “social purity” organizations. All I’m saying is that the laws themselves were written by men who had never been in women’s shoes.
I was looking for a “contact me” link to email you this gem and not to litter your posts with the off topic. But I appear to be blind today. I was curious about your analysis of this “Dear Women: An apology from men” video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_uRIMUBnvw
I’m not one to discourage sensitivity, awareness and cooperation between men and women but the words “neofeminist skin flutes” flashed in my mind as the music twittered along.
That thing must really be getting around, because you’re the third person to call it to my attention so far! Here’s my opinion on it from yesterday’s column. 🙂
If prostitution had been perfectly legal when I was in college, I might have considered it as a reasonable option for paying my bills. Not out of DIRE financial need, but financial need nonetheless.
Instead, I worked as a bartender/waitress in a bar where a pitcher of beer cost $9.75 and I routinely had to fetch my 25 cent tip out of the bottom of a wet pitcher from a bunch of asshole frat boys who would have paid $100 to fuck me.
And I worked every fucking weekend, too. It was fun, I have to admit. I spent every weekend at the bar, and instead of spending money, I was earning it, but it would have been nice to have the option of working a couple hours at a much higher rate of pay and being able to dance the night away.
There are legal brothels in Australia, where my husband did his doctorate, and the majority of women working in them are 1) totally fucking hot and 2) paying for college. We should have that option, especially given that our hottest years coincide with our university years.
We’re getting screwed! And not getting paid! That’s bullshit.
We’re not only getting screwed, we’re getting gangbanged. It’s really messed up. What’s worse is that most people are too brainwashed to understand that 🙁
I would have much rather hooked my way through college and come out without having loans to pay back PLUS interest (even though interest was low). I think it should be an option too but think of all the student loan companies that wouldn’t make any money…. LOL
Scorch – thank you for saying all that, it was really nice.
As I just mentioned at Brandy’s, the rat race that society expects all of us to run sucks ass. I’m glad that I didn’t bother. Does that make me an outlaw? Perhaps. A criminal? Hell no.
Brandy – really, really good article 🙂 love ya!
Love ya too! And thanks!
According to “Age of Consent: Victorian Prostitution and its Enemies” by Michael Person, men led the movement against prostitution, but the foot soldiers in the movement were women.
In my personal experience, men tend to be more rebellious while women tend to be more rule-conscious. That may be why girls are more disturbed by early sexual experience. Boys see the violation of rules as a heroic act of independence.
That is true today as well.
You might think that Farley and Hughes and the lot actually head the Anti movement. They don’t. It’s actually run by the State Department and other branches of government. The female “academics” are merely receiving a paycheck.
Boys see the violation of rules as a heroic act of independence.
Girls do, too. Our acts are just a little different. Swiping that first tube of lipstick comes to mind. How many of us were GIVEN our first “not appropriate” shade (my was black)? We had to use our babysitting money or steal it, and wipe away every trace before we got back home.
First push-up bra?
First thong?
First cigarette (thankfully, not a popular thing to do anymore)?
First copy of the Story of O?
I don’t think a rebellious heart is gender specific, but how we express it undoubtedly is.
Yah I gotta go with Andrea on this one…I agree completely about the pragmatic thinking of single moms, but jails are full of more men than women.
Scorch, that’s because (as I discussed in my post of December 12th) women tend to rely on our internal moral compasses. Discounting violators of arbitrary laws of both sexes, most men in jails are there for crimes of aggression rather than mere “rule-breaking”. If not for arbitrary laws, every woman in American prisons could be housed in one large facility.
Andrea, you’ve given me an idea for a column for next month. Thank you! 🙂
My pleasure, Miss Maggie.
A good column, but I have to say something about this:
“…women who are going to be whores do so whether it’s illegal in their region or not…Prostitution laws therefore have no demonstrable deterrent value whatsoever, because the illegality of the profession has no observable effect on women’s choice to practice it. The fact that so many men fail to recognize this demonstrates how little they understand women.”
There is nothing here that is peculiar to prostitution, nor to women. Men who hire prostitutes do so whether it is illegal or not. Men and women alike who want to smoke pot do so whether it is legal as the day is long or illegal as, well, as pot smoking. There’s no reason to present it as gender-polarized.
Hhhmmmnnn……
I’m not sure if I’m saying that you’re right or that you’re wrong. Well, you’re certainly right about the laws having little or no deterrent value.
It’s not like I’m the only one who’s noticed it, love; male writers have commented on it for centuries, and it’s the basis of Islamic doctrine of the “moral inferiority” of women. The latter is most amusing to me, since who’s the moral inferior: the one who trusts her own moral compass above arbitrary laws imposed from without, or the one who trusts others to make his moral judgments for him?
I’m… not sure I understand what you’re saying here. Then again, I’m not sure what I’m saying, so…
Maggie,
you are surely aware that 90% of the prison population is men and something like 80% of them in the US are there for victimless crimes like non-payment of child support or spousal support, being in possession of some of gods own produce like dope, not paying ‘speeding fines’ because they paid for the kids food and cloths and housing instead. SOME women are incarcerated for the crimes you mention. But 10x (easily) as many men are incarcerated for just as bogus things.
I would also assume you know that 90% of the homeless are men. That there are NO ‘DV Centers’ for men. And with all that? A MAN who is homeless or down on his luck does not even have the CHOICE of becoming a prostitute to feed himself.He just has to go hungry.
And in Haiti? The UN handed out food to WOMEN ONLY and held men back at gun point with threat of death while the women sang and danced in the streets and laughed at the men because they got food and the men didn’t. Oh..by the way. Some bimbo woman journalist from NYC went down there to ‘report on the plight of the women’ and claims she was ‘raped’. The question in the MRA are was ‘I wonder if she was raped by one of the men who was denied food at gun point and laughed at and humiliated by women as he was starving for food’.
From what you say on your blog prostitutes are getting pretty much the same deal as men. And I have every sympathy with that. But many more many (at least 10x if not 100x) are getting a far worse deal. There are 2.5M men incarcerated in the US. It is outright slavery.
I also get the feel that OTHER women give prostitutes about the same treatment as they are giving us men nowadays. We seem to have much in common the more I read.
[…] also want to thank Mags for her post here. I broke 100 views! I’m so excited, humbly so compared to her 100,000 […]
Still the best argument I’ve ever heard.
From one Korean GF who worked as a “night girl” for an agency; admittedly, my only contact with anyone I knew who worked as a professional:
“Why do you do this?”
“Because I can. Why not?”
What’s the source of the Heinlein line?