Will the advancing waves obey me, Bishop, if I make the sign?”
Said the Bishop, bowing lowly, “Land and sea, my lord, are thine.”
Canute turned towards the ocean–“Back!” he said, “thou foaming brine.
From the sacred shore I stand on, I command thee to retreat;
Venture not, thou stormy rebel, to approach thy master’s seat:
Ocean, be thou still! I bid thee come not nearer to my feet!”
But the sullen ocean answered with a louder, deeper roar,
And the rapid waves drew nearer, falling sounding on the shore;
Back the Keeper and the Bishop, back the king and courtiers bore. – William Makepeace Thackeray, “King Canute”
Lawheads are probably the single greatest obstacle to human freedom on the planet; it is impossible to estimate how much suffering and oppression come of the ludicrous notion that a government has the power to legislate reality. Modern lawmakers, unfortunately, are craftier than King Canute; they avoid demonstrating their impotence by attempting to command the moon and tides, and instead concentrate on forcing others to pretend that their pretenses are real by defining behaviors they wish to suppress as crimes and “social ills”. Using violence and force to compel others to give up their preferred lifestyle can then be labeled “rehabilitation”, and enslaving priestesses in sweatshops can be represented as “helping” them. The following appeared on May 11th on the website God Discussion.com:
Despite the fact that the tradition of Deuki temple prostitution was formally abolished in Nepal with the 1990 constitution which declared human trafficking and exploitation illegal, many women are still living in temples in the provinces of Western Nepal as Deuki Temple prostitutes. In the Nepalese Deuki tradition, common in western Nepal, a young girl, usually from a poor family, would be sold to a rich family by her parents. The rich family would then offer her to the gods to serve as a temple prostitute in exchange for the blessings and favor of the gods. Alternatively, a poor family might simply leave its daughter in the temple as gift to the gods and pray that the gods reward them with good fortune. Once a girl is so offered she is abandoned to her own means.
Deukis are expected to support themselves by providing sacred sex services to male visitors to the temple. According to a longstanding western Nepalese tradition, sex with a Deuki was spiritually cleansing and offered the man opportunity of remission of his sins. NGOs have been providing assistance to Deuki prostitutes in Nepal to start a new life, and provide education for their fatherless children. The NGOs have been working on self-employment programs in skill development centers set up for the Deukis. But a new report shows that the efforts at rehabilitating the Deukis in Nepal have not been entirely successful. A local NGO estimates the number of Deukis yet unreached by rehabilitation efforts in western Nepal at about 2000. The report states that the younger Deukis have benefited more from the program than older ones and that the greater proportion of women still living as Deuki prostitutes are older ones unable to acquire new skills and benefit from the self-employment and skill acquisition programs.
Dutta Ram Badu, manager of Swaraj Samajhikk Sanstha, one of the NGOs helping the Deukis says, “The young women have changed their lives for the better by taking advantage of the various trainings, but the government has not shown interest in the older women.” Some have suggested that the older Deukis could be helped by setting up homes for them where they may form self-help communities with cottage industries in such vocations as needle work. Child labor and prostitution remains a major social ill in Nepal and most of the human trafficking is across [the] Nepalese border into India.
It would be difficult to invent a better example of lawhead propaganda than this one. The stink of racist paternalism pervades the article from the very first sentence: an ancient religious tradition dating back into prehistory is defined as “human trafficking and exploitation”, and the author appears surprised that it did not obediently vanish upon being “formally abolished”; I am irresistibly reminded of the pundits who predicted that the 18th Amendment would magically remove the desire for liquor from the minds of Americans. Then in the second paragraph we are told that “rehabilitating” (brainwashing) the priestesses into factory and sweatshop workers “has not been entirely successful” (in other words, it hasn’t been at all successful). One of the “rescuers” who is “helping” the Deukis to “change their lives for the better” by becoming wage-slaves believes the only reason the older ones don’t “take advantage of training” is that the government has not “shown interest in” them (i.e., it hasn’t forcibly thrown them out of the temples as the “rescuers” desire).
Am I defending the practice of selling children to temples? No, of course not, but just because I’m opposed to agricultural slavery and sweatshops doesn’t mean I think farms and factories should be banned. The Nepalese law throws the baby out with the bathwater; it would have been a simple matter to outlaw slavery, require Deukis to be of the local age of consent and to enter the temple voluntarily, and then to provide “rehabilitation” to those who wished to leave. But no, as is typical of governments the world over Nepal instead prefers to define problems into existence and then attempt to “solve” them by brute force.
When I want to break an egg I do so on the side of a bowl, then discard the shell; if I need the yolk separated I crack the egg into a separator, then gently shift it around until the white drains into a bowl and the unbroken yolk is left behind. But if a government wishes to break an egg it does so with a sledgehammer, then has to laboriously pick all the bits of shell out of the egg, clean up the splattered mess on the walls and counters, frequently replace bowls shattered by accident and repeatedly sterilize the sledgehammer. And since it’s impossible to keep a yolk intact in the process, all recipes involving separated whites or yolks must be banned and meringues, macaroons, waffles and angel food cake must be labeled “contraband”. But lest citizens consider this tyranny, a modern regime then demonstrates its immense compassion by forcing those who create or enjoy such treats into “rehabilitation” by telling them that raw vegetables are much better…and proving the point by giving them nothing else to eat.
HA Total ROFLing at the image of the government sledgehammer breaking eggs.
Another item the article refuses to address relates to “older ones unable to acquire new skills”. Bullshit. Unable or unwilling? This is a religious tradition handed down over centuries so I am sure for some of the older women, yes it goes against the grain of their beliefs.
Being pagan and believing in the spirituality of sex and temple prostitution is not often understood or realized by an outsider, be they clients or prohibitionists. If I truly practiced my belief and set up a temple (church) in which to practice my belief system in regards to sacred sexuality, I would still be scoffed at and arrested even in this country of supposed religious freedom.
It would be an interesting legal case.
In the more mystical Christian traditions (I’m not talking Gnosticism here, but more mainstream Christian branches — at least Catholic and Eastern Orthodox and possibly Oriental Orthodox), sex is considered spiritual — it’s the covenant act of marriage, like communion is the covenant act of baptism.
It has already been tried and the woman arrested anyway. She says it was for sacred sexuality and healing, cops say it was simple prostitution. Guess who got their way (hint it wasn’t her). http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/amazing-goddess-arrested-0?CSAuthResp=%3Asession%3ACSUserId|CSGroupId%3Aapproved%3ABA4A9537C4BF4594E11F4B09D8217743&CSUserId=94&CSGroupId=1
There was a group that was trying the same thing but I do not know if they are now defunct as I can’t find any posts after 2009. It’s an interesting site though. http://www.sss-now.org/
Of course we could all call ourselves sex surrogates instead – http://nymag.com/nymetro/nightlife/sex/columns/nakedcity/n_8542/
Dr. Helena was talking tome about going into sex surrogacy, and if not for her untimely death I might’ve taken the certification. They don’t make as much as we do, though; only $100/hr in Louisiana at that time.
There was a case in Florida when I was a librarian. The woman was a legitimate priestess with an established temple and did not charge a set rate; she made an eloquent defense and even brought in expert witnesses. The result? “Nope, you’re a criminal whore. Guilty.” So much for freedom of religion. 🙁
How often I’ve wanted to take a huge balloon dildo and invade a church and beat the pastor over the head with it! Do you think I’d be lynched?
I’m guessing arrested, though you might get “in and out” quickly enough to avoid it. If arrested, think of the headline news on channel 5! A chance for some notoriety, if you wanted it. Probably better to fantasize and avoid, though, I suppose… 😉
The egg, separator and bowl all belong to Yours Truly, who also held the sledgehammer while Grace snapped the pic. I then used Microsoft Paint to remove the dirty-stove background for a starker effect. I’m sort of hoping it gets stolen and used by others, since there aren’t any other egg-sledgehammer images on the internet that I could find.
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C.S. Lewis
I love that quote; I used it for the epigram of my September 1st column, and it’s very apropos here as well. 🙂
I’m not surprised you’re familiar with it. You have a wonderful potpourri of quotes at the beginning of your posts. Do you use a source of epigrams, or are you so well read that you have dozens at your fingertips?
A little bit of both. Some of them I just remember, others I half-remember and look up, some come from collections I’ve copied into documents when I see them, and others (a minority, thank Athena) are laboriously searched out on the internet by topic; when I have to do that I may look at hundreds before I find one I like, so I’m glad it doesn’t happen more than a couple of times a month.
Thinking about the practical message behind Lewis’ insight. Busybodies genuinely believe they are “public servants” even as they suck out our blood and do their best to run our lives. Reason will not sway them; “God” or some similar abstraction has told them that the more they meddle, the more they are a blessing to the world. That leaves individuals who seek to run their own lives three choices: capitulate, confront, or subvert. The first is a non-option to anyone possessed of a backbone. The second should always be held as a possibility, but used sparingly for both moral and practical reasons. The third offers the best choice for most of our energies, I think. Render Leviathan impotent by hiding our lives, our choices, and our doings from it. You are a living example of how well that can work.
Humans trading or selling sex actually is older than humanity. My biologist friend informs me that in Antarctica Emperor penguins need rocks to build the nest. It’s the male who brings the rock, but rocks can be hard to find in Antarctica. If a male comes by with a rock at his feet the female will give him a roll for the rock.
Temple prostitution is also very old, dating back at least to the early dynasties of Egypt and Babylonia. These whores, like the hetaira or courtesans of Greece, enjoyed high status and were paid for their work. In India anything said must be qualified but this is certain: The status of widows in Hinduism was zilch. They had no claim to any of the family’s wealth and had no idependence either if they chose to remain under the thumb of their sons or brothers-in-law. There was an out, though. They could join a temple’s staff as a sacred whore. She’d earn a living, and get fed with shelter. India was full of young widows whose husbands were killed in war, and marrying again was forbidden. This choice gave women who wanted to have an active sex life the access to one.
By the 13th century the secret cult of Tantra employed temple whores during their sexual/spiritual exercises.
In Europe the Catholic Church defended whores for the first 1500 years. Bishops had brothels in which whores lived and worked. Bishops! Boy, those days are gone, smashed maybe forever by the always morally superior Lutherans and Calvinists and their Catholic apes.
I did columns on the penguins and the Church’s tolerance for prostitution last autumn. 😉
This guy tried teaching monkeys the value of money (not real money, he used tokens and taught them that tokens would “buy” them things). Guess what happened?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/05FREAK.html?pagewanted=2
Problem is Brandy alot of people are unwilling to admit that man is an animal just like all the rest
LOL that comment reminds me of The Mickey Mouse Club and Jiminy Cricket singing “You are a Human Animal”
Hysterical….a prostitute monkey!! LOL!!
Look. The fact of the matter will always be the fact of the matter. Us men happen to really like women. Well. Most of us. Society did not ‘oppress’ me to like women. I just like women. I also like chicken, fish, lobster etc. And I didn’t see society ‘oppress’ me into liking these either.
Pretty women. (that is the ones I find pretty) know full well they can get a meal or two and some nice holidays out of me in exchange for what they have to offer. I don’t see any difference between me being REQUIRED to part with some money in such things as a woman saying “Ok…I’ll skip the meals and holidays and nice treatment and just take the money.”
One of the reasons I have no particular opinion one way or the other about ‘prostitutes’ is that I see that ‘prostitutes’ are not doing anything different than ALL OTHER WOMEN with the possible exception that I believe ‘prostitutes’ to be more honest. Something I value.
If anyone tries to tell me that the ‘normal women’ out there do NOT trade sex for benefits I just laugh at them. Virtually ALL women do this. Us men? Women do not pay us to give them sex. So we have to find another job. Simple as.
Have monkeys been observed to engage in prostitution in the wild?
No, but chimps have.
If food for sex counts, prostitution exists in nearly every order of animals, down to insects and arachnids. Of course, they don’t bring boxes of chocolates when they come courting, but some male insects grow treats on their bodies. Other less fortunate ones (praying mantisses and many spiders) *are* the treats.
The significant thing about the monkey experiment wasn’t that the monkeys traded for sex, but that the exchange was for “money” – something of only symbolic value, rather than something desirable in itself. Symbolism is supposed to be something only humans understand, so it was unexpected that the monkeys would extend the use of their tokens to trade for things they’d never before seen exchanged for a token. Unfortunately, this isn’t proof that monkeys “get” symbols – they may have simply come to associate the desirability of a banana (say)with the token that buys a banana. (A whole lot of humans have a similar failing of understanding about money, particularly when in comes in shiny metallic form! Monkeys may have the advantage of us in that, having neither pockets nor lockboxes to guard their tokens, they won’t take the love of money too far. )
Great metaphors.
That sledgehammer thing may be one of the best metaphors I’ve ever read.
Thanks, Mike and Gorbachev! 🙂
Maggie,
FYI. At least ONE man is openly, in his own name, calling for all MRA/MRMs to openly state that prostitution is lawful.
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/06/08/the-spearhead-connection-to-weinergate-weiner-crushed-under-foot-of-civic-virtue/#comment-95480
I, too, like the hammer-egg image. The problem isn’t limited to people who think that Laws can redefine reality; it extends to everyone who thinks that the State has magical powers. Too many people vaguely imagine the Government as being a huge tool chest full of an infinite variety of tools for all occasions. History shows that the Government is much closer to being a large spiked mace. Now there are times when a large spiked mace is what is needed. Got an outbreak of genocidal national-socialism in Europe? Send in the government! But spiked maces are lees than useful when confronted with any task requiring judgement, subtlety, tact, or finesse. Which – to jump off at a tangent – is why Government funded Art tends to be so peculiar.
BTW; My Lady Wife downloads huge numbers of BBC documentary shows. I seem to recall one of them (Time Team?) saying that an examination of the King Canute legend indicates that the King didn’t expect the tide to obey; he was rebuking a court full of sycophants by showing that he was mortal and that his power had limits. I like that story much better than the commonly accepted version.
Yes, I’ve read that about Canute before and it sounds more sensible than the traditional interpretation; in fact that tone can be read into the famous poem quoted above. And it does make sense; after all, most politicians don’t really believe in the power of governments to legislate reality; they’re just looking for an excuse to use force to compel obedience. It’s the bureaucrats, statists, collectivists and badge-lickers who ascribe magical powers to leaders, much more than the leaders themselves.
There have been money experiments with monkeys before. It was on some documentary show twenty or more years ago. It was an accident, I think. Don’t remember the details. Have no idea if any money-based prostitution occurred (as opposed to the food-based version Maggie has described before).