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Archive for July, 2011

J’accuse

Posted in Current Events, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 21, 2011| 25 Comments »

Power without responsibility—the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.  –  Rudyard Kipling

I’m sure most of you have been following the whole Dominique Strauss-Kahn unpleasantness, at least in a cursory fashion; and I know some of you are interested in what I think about it, because several of you have asked me.  Unfortunately, I honestly don’t know what to think, so I’ll just settle for synopsizing the mess and concluding with my analysis of the way the media has covered it and the unpleasant conclusions I am forced to draw from that coverage.

The affair started on Saturday, May 14th when Dominque Strauss-Kahn, a prominent French socialist and manager of the International Monetary Fund since 2007, was arrested on charges that he had sexually assaulted a Guinean maid named Nafissatou Diallo in his room at the Manhattan Sofitel.  The police made a great Roman triumph of parading him before the cameras (as they are wont to do in these barbaric times), and he was thrown into a high-security prison and denied bail on the grounds that he was a flight risk.  He resigned from his IMF post on Wednesday, May 18th, and the next day he surrendered his passport and was released to house arrest (at his daughter’s New York home) under condition of electronic monitoring.

Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers insisted that the encounter with the maid was consensual, but as I pointed out in my column of one year ago today it is a rare woman who has sex with a stranger without some other motivation, and as Laura Agustín pointed out it is unlikely “that a migrant person who has managed to obtain a steady job with an employer of some reputation, Sofitel, would risk losing that job.  Her employment is important to the case because for a migrant it means legal security of a kind not easily available, and on the basis of this alone I find it hard to imagine Diallo would fabricate an accusation against a guest, or engage in a sexual romp with one, for that matter.”  I agree, but at the same time I also agree with Furry Girl that it is a big mistake to automatically believe in the truth of every allegation of sexual assault.  So when Kristin Davis attempted to capitalize on DSK’s misfortune by tattling on his supposed past behavior with escorts, I responded by inducting her into my Hall of Shame and pointing out that “just because a client is rough with a working girl does not…constitute evidence of rape any more than reading a book about explosives means that a person is guilty of a bombing.”

In other words, I was (and remain) extremely uncertain about the case and was therefore unwilling to say anything one way or another.  I remained silent when a French reporter accused him of trying to rape her in 2002 and when a new book accused him of raping a Mexican maid  and trying to “jump” at least 14 other women; then I waited to see if anything would come of Diallo’s hiring a French lawyer to dig these women up.  But on July 2nd the tabloid New York Post reported that prosecutors had told them Diallo was a “pathological liar and scam artist” who was accused of defrauding other immigrants from her country with a pyramid scheme, lying to prosecutors and on her immigration papers and tax forms, falsely claiming to have been gang-raped in Guinea and saying to her boyfriend (on a phone line monitored at his end, in an Arizona jail), “Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing.”  So why is all this pertinent to this blog?  She’s also accused of prostituting herself to Sofitel guests.

Needless to say, Diallo has sued the Post; it is equally needless to say that the case against DSK quickly unraveled after the counter-accusations.  If this woman really did subject an innocent man to an extortion scheme, she deserves whatever she gets; as I said in my June 4th column, being a sexually aggressive arsehole does not make a man a rapist, and false rape accusations hurt all women by making the “authorities” more cynical about future rape accusations.  But that’s not the most important feature of this whole thing, which is the way that our profession is being slandered yet again.  It wasn’t enough just to say she had been accused of fraud and extortion; oh no!  The Post’s headline screamed, “DSK MAID A HOOKER”, because as we all know that’s much worse than being a pathological liar and scamming one’s own people.  Considering that sources close to the case say the accusation isn’t even true (and that seems likely considering her libel suit doesn’t mention the other allegations), why would the Post use that particular insult (and other media follow it like lemmings) when there are other, more solid and serious accusations to choose from?  Well, for one thing, sex sells.  But more importantly, branding Diallo as a whore allows the media to evoke the filthy lie that prostitutes cannot be raped, thus letting Strauss-Kahn off the hook (perhaps a consummation devoutly to be wished by media bigwigs who embarrassed themselves by convicting him in the court of public opinion practically as soon as he was arrested).

This is the real story, and the real shame on the American people:  nobody would’ve dared to say Strauss-Kahn must be a criminal because he is French, or Diallo one because she is black; nobody but the most fanatical neofeminists would’ve  pre-convicted DSK for being a man, and none but the most bitter misogynists would’ve pre-convicted Diallo for being a woman.  Likewise rich or poor, privileged or underprivileged, politician or peasant.  But let someone be accused of being a prostitute, and there are still far too many in this country (especially among the police, religious fanatics and neofeminists) who instantly accept that as irrefutable evidence of innate moral corruption and pronounce that any woman who could “degrade” herself by {gasp!} having sex and making a living at the same time, is capable of any crime no matter how depraved.

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Bootlickers

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2011| 34 Comments »

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. – Thomas Jefferson

The greatest defect of any democracy lies in the tendency of a certain segment of the population to cooperate with the agents of oppression.  Some do it because they are simpering, spineless cowards; others are moral imbeciles who think “authorities” are wiser and better than they are, and others are badge-licking lawheads who actually believe in the masses of wastepaper they use for brains that the mere fact that a law exists makes it right.  But the worst and most dangerous of these are the amoral, narcissistic busybodies who believe not only that they have the right to decide what others can do with their own bodies, money or time, but also that they have the right to use public resources to enforce these dictates by siccing the police on those who offend them.  On July 7th the Edmonds, Washington Patch (by way of the Huffington Post)  announced that heroic local police, after a grueling nine-month undercover operation, had arrested four dangerous, vicious criminals…apparently for touching people’s hands and flashing their tits.  The owner and three employees of Java Juggs Espresso, a coffee stand staffed by bikini-clad lovelies, were arrested on charges of prostitution, permitting prostitution and “unlawful exposure”:  As the article bleats, “Most of the violations involved employees exposing themselves to customers for large tips.  Some of the violations involved physical contact with a barista in exchange for money.”

I have on many occasions pointed out that prostitution laws allow persecution of all women, not just whores; this is a perfect example.  Does anyone believe for one second that these girls did anything through the window of a coffee stand that any rational adult would honestly consider “prostitution”?  They flashed their tits in return for tips; whoopee.  And if  “physical contact in exchange for money” (letting guys feel them up, perhaps?) is now “prostitution” in Washington State, then medical professionals, manicurists and masseuses need to be very, very nervous.  The story also demonstrates the typical police pomposity and the vile sleaziness of “undercover” vice pigs, who no doubt chatted up these girls on a number of occasions so as to relax them before making their moves; it’s called “grooming”, and is the same tactic some rapists and most child molesters use to put their victims off-guard.

But it’s in the follow-up from July 10th that we see examples of all of the collaborator types I mentioned in the first paragraph:

The Edmonds Police Department is defending itself after its undercover investigation of a bikini barista coffee stand drew condemnation and sarcastic comments nationwide.  Most of the public comments centered on the investigation’s nine-month time frame, which the police say doesn’t accurately reflect the amount of time officers spent on the case…in October… the EPD…began its investigation…[which] ended recently with the arrest on June 30 of business owner Carmela Panico and three employees…“This investigation was a response to complaints from Edmonds citizens,” said Sgt. Don Anderson…“Frankly…I’m not concerned about what…the readers of the Huffington Post think”…Anderson said officers did not spend nine months staking out Java Juggs.  “The actual investigation…didn’t begin until the middle of April…[it] was conducted by a plainclothes street crimes investigation unit who were working on several matters at the same time.  This wasn’t their only ongoing investigation or their only priority, but enough complaints came in from the community that it was obvious we had an obligation to investigate…this matter involved three different businesses, several different employees engaging in illegal activity, and required a significant level of evidence to support prosecution…

A “significant level of evidence” my high-priced bottom; as regular readers know all cops have to do to “support” vice charges is to lie.  They only kept going there for months because they were enjoying their filthy little game of victimization.

The most morally degraded of the collaborator types appears in the story, in the person of the “upstanding citizens” who thought it was their right to put three girls out of work and an entrepreneur out of business (the stand is still open but the health department and code enforcement vultures are trying to remedy that).  But the other three types – the cowards, the moral imbeciles and the lawheads – appear in the commentary (both on HuffPo and the Patch).  I’m happy to report they’re a tiny minority, but a little digging will turn them up like puffy, white grubs under an overturned rock:  “Honoring illegal activity for your own personal gain and putting law enforcement down is weak!” and “…All complaints about free speach [sic] aside, the stands attract a very bad element to the neighborhood,” are featured in the follow-up, and “Anderson’s comment about not caring what Huffington Post readers think is great.  Good for him,” appears in the comments below it (you can practically hear the lip-smacking on that one).  But my favorite was this:

You GUYS don’t get it!  You guys are known for voyerism [sic] and getting your rocks off any way you can.  This is just an easy venue for you to do that.  Have you considered the women and children out there that have been hurt by their daddie’s [sic] affection for porn and worhtless [sic] garbage like this that they bring into their relationships, only to have them fall apart because the ol [sic] man can’t keep his eyes to himself or his hands off himself?!  This issue goes much deeper than all of these loosely thought out and uncaring for anyone else but yourselves comments!  I know, I had a marriage of 15 yrs fall apart because my ol [sic] man couldn’t “keep it at home”.  I can hear you now, that was my fault right?!  Not!  He had a history of this type of voyerism [sic] since before I met him and he promised he didn’t need it anymore after we were together.  An addiction is an addiction and you guys apparently have one to this!  Sow your seeds with a real woman and a real relationship… that will keep the need for these types of slut stands off the streets!  And, make you more of a man!!!

I think it speaks for itself, and what it says is pretty disgusting…but, alas, predictable.  One year ago today I wrote about the “myth of the wanton”, the notion that women are not only more lustful than men, but are actually responsible for male lust; this vile fantasy is behind many males’ support for prostitution laws, and even some women’s.  Though this commenter’s rhetoric is purely neofeminist (normal male behavior [including masturbation] is an “addiction” and a problem, porn and the male eye for beauty “hurt women and children”, a bit of “end demand” rhetoric, etc) it is clear where she actually places the blame.  She proclaims that sex workers (even “slut stand” workers) are not “real women” (which probably comes as a shock to my whore readers who menstruate and have babies and stuff like that) and is only too happy to see a female business owner and her employees persecuted in revenge for the wrongs this commenter imagines other women inflicted upon her in the past.  Women like this, who blame other women for their own intolerance and their husbands’ weaknesses, are among the worst of the prohibitionists because like neofeminists and religious fanatics they feel entitled to hold others responsible for their own problems and selfishly ignore the danger in which prostitution laws place all women, including themselves.

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Fictional Interlude: Concubine

Posted in Fiction, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , on July 19, 2011| 15 Comments »

One year ago today I published “The Trick”, the first of my “fictional interludes”.  I must admit that I’m surprised I’ve been able to deliver one every month; I always used to say that unlike my dependable and constant Muse of Nonfiction, my Muse of Fiction was like a sulky girlfriend:  when she wanted me she demanded my undivided attention, but when she didn’t want me I couldn’t even get her on the phone.  But ever since “The Trick”, she has visited me without fail at least once per month, usually without my even having to beg her.  Today’s installment, for example, came quite of its own accord less than two weeks after I wrote last month’s “A Decent Boldness” (and in fact two days before it was published).  I hope you enjoy it, though you may find it a bit…disquieting.

It had been a few weeks since the new Chief had moved in, but Desiree (the oldest member of the Harem, who had been there through two previous changes of power) said that it usually took at least that long for them to get settled in, familiarize themselves with the myriad administrative responsibilities of the position and have enough free time to sample the spoils of victory.  Olga, the youngest of the women, had finally stopped crying (she had become genuinely fond of the last Master of the House) and resigned herself to her duties, and the others constantly gossiped about the man with whom they would all become intimately acquainted in the next few months.  But Fatima, as usual, was pragmatic about the whole thing; in her mind one man was much like another.  They had a job to do and there wasn’t much point in their whining about their situation or wondering what other kinds of lives they might’ve had if things had been different.  Every woman here had been given a choice; each had chosen to become a Concubine in order to save her family from ruin, and each had vanished from the world of sunlight and freedom into the gilded cage of the Harem.

Viewed dispassionately, it wasn’t a bad life at all; they were treated to the best of everything, could do virtually anything they liked which didn’t involve going out in public, had servants to prepare their meals and keep their quarters clean, and only had to work once a week at most; those who were less favored for one reason or another might only work once a month.  And their pay was more than most of them could have earned on the outside; Fatima and Desiree made much less than they had as free harlots, but being relieved of the need to find new customers and the constant threat of police persecution made up for it.

The memories leapt unbidden into Fatima’s mind; four years ago she had been hunted down and trapped, and then a man had come to her cell to make her the offer.  Given that the alternative was relentless and lifelong pursuit of every person she had ever cared about on false charges supported by paid informants and fabricated evidence, how could she refuse?  She felt the anger rising and fought it down.  It doesn’t matter, she thought; the world isn’t fair.  Many women are raped, or end up with abusive husbands, or work themselves into early graves with drudgery, or develop terminal diseases and die in long-protracted agony; her life was pleasant and she was protected from all harm.  The only thing missing was freedom, and was she any less free than a woman with five children to support?  Freedom is largely an illusion anyway.

She decided that the best thing would be to simply immerse herself in preparations; she had been notified earlier that her services would be required this evening, and though the scheduled time wasn’t for hours yet she wanted to make a good first impression, and that required composing herself so her face would reveal no trace of disquiet.  She had no desire to offend this one as poor Ruth had offended his predecessor; after their first time together, he had only ever called her when he felt in a particularly sadistic mood.  No, far better to be sweet, accommodating and enthusiastic than to risk living like that until another rival took his place years from now.  So she took a long, hot bath, burned her favorite incense while meditating, took her time selecting a flattering outfit and then carefully applied her makeup before calling in the hairdresser, a chubby little lady with a maternal manner who could always make her smile.

Eventually it was almost time, and she went out into the common area where all of the other Concubines were waiting to hug and kiss her and wish her good luck.  Olga started crying again and Fatima reassured her that it would be all right, then told all of them that she would share her experience when she returned so they would have some idea of what to expect when their turns came.  The guard was waiting to escort her when she stepped outside the door, and together they travelled along carpeted corridors until they reached the elevator, in which she rode up alone.  Her heart was pounding as it had when she was about to meet her very first client almost a decade ago, but she took slow, deep breaths to calm herself and when the elevator doors opened she glided gracefully forward into the presence of the most powerful man in the world.  Dropping a deep curtsy, she greeted him:

“Good evening, Mr. President; I’m very pleased to meet you.”

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Social Construction of Eunuchs

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2011| 26 Comments »

The dream of reason produces monsters.  –  Francisco Goya

It is impossible to overstate the evil which springs from the dogma of “social construction of gender”, the discredited notion which teaches that the only natural differences between the sexes are physical ones, and that all psychological ones are “socially constructed”.  Those who believe in this mythology ignore the evidence of nature and the discoveries of science in favor of promoting the view that if one raised a boy as a girl he would grow up to act like a girl, and vice-versa.  The most shocking refutation of the doctrine was the case of David Reimer, a Canadian boy born in 1965 whose penis was destroyed in a botched circumcision and who, on the advice of “social construction of gender” fanatic John Money, was then raised as a girl.  Money repeatedly lied about the case for years afterward, claiming the reassignment was 100% successful and that David (then called “Brenda”) showed no male traits whatsoever.  In truth, the victim of Money’s evil, agenda-driven experiment was deeply maladjusted, bullied by both girls and boys and by the age of 13 was so deeply depressed that he told his parents he would commit suicide if they forced him to see Money again.  The parents eventually told him the truth about his sex and he started living as a boy, but never recovered from the torture inflicted in the name of this bizarre theory and, faced with a dissolving marriage, committed suicide in 2004.

But despite the Reimer case and volume upon volume of anthropological, biological, psychological, biochemical, neurological and anecdotal evidence, monsters all over the world are still willing to sacrifice their children’s happiness (and perhaps their sanity) on the altar of this mad belief.  The most vociferous proponents are of course the neofeminists, who simply don’t care how many lives they destroy in order to establish their asexual dystopia; this June 27th story from the Daily Mail describes a preschool in Sweden (where else?) which is trying to force children to be asexual, androgynous beings by means of a bizarre regime which bans both pronouns and books about heterosexual couples or biological families:

A pre-school in Sweden has decided to stop calling children ‘him’ or ‘her’ in a bid to avoid gender stereotypes…as part of the [country’s] efforts to engineer equality between the sexes from childhood…the taxpayer-funded school also carefully plans the colour and placement of toys and the choice of books to assure they do not fall into stereotypes.  The school opened last year and is on a mission to break down gender roles – a core mission in the national curriculum for Swedish pre-schools…“Society expects girls to be girlie, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing,” says Jenny Johnsson, a 31-year-old teacher.  “Egalia gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be”…Lego bricks and other building blocks are intentionally placed next to the kitchen, to make sure the children draw no mental barriers between cooking and construction.  Meanwhile, nearly all the children’s books deal with homosexual couples, single parents or adopted children.  There are no “Snow White,” “Cinderella” or other fairy tales.

Director Lotta Rajalin notes that Egalia places a special emphasis on fostering an environment tolerant of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.  Rajalin says the staff also try to help the children discover new ideas when they play.  “A concrete example could be when they’re playing ‘house’ and the role of the mom already is taken and they start to squabble,” she says.  “Then we suggest two moms or three moms and so on”…Staff at the school try to shed masculine and feminine references from their speech, including the pronouns him or her – ‘han’ or ‘hon’ in Swedish.  Instead, they’ve have adopted the genderless [and synthetic] ‘hen’…

Jay Belsky, a child psychologist at the University of California, Davis, said he’s not aware of any other school like Egalia, and he questioned whether it was the right way to go.  “The kind of things that boys like to do – run around and turn sticks into swords – will soon be disapproved of,” he said.  “So gender neutrality at its worst is emasculating maleness.”

So Egalia gives the children “a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be,” unless of course the girls want to be “girlie, nice and pretty” or the boys “manly, rough and outgoing.”  Obviously, encouraging children to be what they are is bad, but encouraging them to play at living in lesbian communes isn’t.  The child psychologist quoted at the end is completely right; the doctrine that all children start from a unisex baseline invariably presumes that feminine behavior is the norm, because the vast majority of preschool and grammar school teachers (not to mention the vast majority of people who feel compelled to inflict social engineering on schoolchildren) are female.  Male behavior is therefore automatically regarded as a deviation from the norm, a pathology to be “treated” with punishment and even medication.

Of course, that’s in the West; in India, rather than trying to emasculate boys they’re trying to masculinize girls.  And they’re not limiting themselves to brainwashing toddlers like the Swedes; oh, no!  The Indian approach is one of which Dr. Money would have approved, as described in this June 27th article from the Telegraph:

Madhya Pradesh state government is investigating claims that up to 300 girls were surgically turned into boys in one city after their parents paid about £2,000 each for the operations.  Women’s and children’s rights campaigners denounced the practice as a “social madness” that made a “mockery of women in India”.  India’s gender balance has already been tilted in favour of boys by female foeticide – sex selection abortions – by families who fear the high marriage costs and dowries they may have to pay.  There are now seven million more boys than girls aged under six in the country.  Campaigners said the use of surgery meant that girls were no longer safe even after birth…Doctors confronted in the investigation claimed that girls with genital abnormalities were being sent to the city’s clinics to be “surgically corrected” and that only children born with both male and female sexual characteristics were eligible for the procedure.  But campaigners said the parents and doctors were misidentifying the children’s conditions to turn girls into boys.

The surgery, known as genitoplasty, fashions a penis from female organs, with the child being injected with male hormones to create a boy.  Dr V P Goswami, the president of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics in Indore, described the disclosures as shocking and warned parents that the procedure would leave their child impotent and infertile in adulthood.  “Genitoplasty is possible on a normal baby of both the sexes but later on these organs will not grow with the hormonal influence and this will lead to their infertility as well as their impotency.  It is shocking news and we will be looking into it and taking corrective measures,” he said.  “Parents have to consider the social as well as the psychological impact of such procedures on the child”…

India is obviously far saner and more civilized than Sweden; whereas in the former this abomination is the result of base human traits like greed and ignorance, in the latter it is the result of a mechanistic social agenda.  While the intelligentsia of India recognize it as madness, the intelligentsia of Sweden are either too brainwashed or too frightened to protest.  And while the Indian government rightfully condemns mutilating children’s bodies and has ordered an investigation into the outrage, the Swedish government both encourages and finances a systematic attempt to mutilate children’s minds.  But despite the differences, both of these forms of child abuse are the unnatural outgrowths of the anti-humanistic doctrine called social construction of gender.

One Year Ago Today

On July 18th, 2010 I published the ever-popular “Modern Marriage”, in which I propose that modern marriages based in romance have a lot more in common with the extramarital affairs of the past than with traditional marriages based in economics.

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A Girl Who Can’t Say No

Posted in Biography, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , on July 17, 2011| 11 Comments »

I’m jist a girl who cain’t say no,
I’m in a turrible fix
I always say “come on, let’s go!”
Jist when I orta say nix.  –  Oscar Hammerstein II

Like Ado Annie from Oklahoma! I have trouble saying “no.”  Of course, she was singing specifically about male advances, while I’m not; it’s true that as a lass I was, well, highly amenable to suggestions of that sort, but that isn’t really what this column is about.  Whether due to nature or upbringing I’ve always been a “pleaser”; since a very young age I’ve always derived greater satisfaction from making other people happy than from concentrating on my own desires.  By my early twenties I had developed the ability to refuse people I disliked or whom I recognized as trying to take advantage of me, but I never really tried very hard to build up a resistance to people I liked or requests which appeal to my morals, sensibilities or vanity.  Yes, it has been suggested to me many times that I really should learn to worry more about my own needs than those of others, but as the song goes, “How can I be what I ain’t?”  It seems more important to me to be comfortable in one’s own skin than to conform to the notions promoted by what Philippa used to call the “Enlightenment Police”, so I’ll go on jumping up to wait on family or guests in my house, doing favors for people and sharing my time and/or money as seems right to me.

Durga would find my job a piece of cake, but she’s a goddess and all.

One of the things which “seems right” to me is sex work activism; people often ask how I manage to continue churning out columns every single day, considering that some of them take hours to write, and even the ones which flow quickly often require considerable research (including finding proper pictures and epigrams).  And then there’s the correspondence; in addition to moderating and replying to on-site comments I answer every single email I get (at length if necessary), and though some of my answers do double-duty as Q&A column entries others do not.  I also take the time to scan a number of websites for items I can write about, to comment on other blogs or news stories, and to call important or interesting items to the attention of those in my network so they can reply to them or write about them as well.  In addition to those daily activities, I am sometimes asked to give interviews like this one from last Thursday with blogger Nicci6; or to write guest columns, such as the prostitution essay I did for SWAAY and the guest blogging I’ve been doing for the libertarian blog Nobody’s Business, which the more observant among you may have noticed was added to “Friends of Whores” a few weeks ago.

Why do I invest 8-12 hours a day at all this?  Because I think it’s important.  Maybe it’s because the nuns managed to convince me that I have an obligation to use my gifts for a greater good,  or perhaps it’s just my nature.  But whatever the reason, I do derive a sense of satisfaction and rightness from my work, a feeling that it’s my small contribution to making the world a better place than it was before I started (I like to think so, anyway).  And besides, as my regular readers know my husband travels on business a great deal; my work gives me a worthwhile and productive way to spend my time while he’s gone.  That’s not to say I neglect it while he’s home; I get as far ahead as possible while he’s on the road, and do as much work as I can while he’s sleeping (I need about two hours less than he does), checking his own correspondence, reading his magazines and such.  So while I don’t fall behind exactly, I do tend to take longer to get to “extras”; if you ever have cause to wonder why it took me longer than usual to answer an email or moderate a comment, it’s probably because most of my time and energy is going to my husband rather than the blog that week.

But lest any of you take today’s column as some sort of veiled plea for fewer comments, letters, requests or anything else, please put that notion out of your mind; for all the hard work and demands on my time, I feel happier and more satisfied than I have since I retired, and my husband has often remarked on the difference.  I call your attention to the latter part of the song which forms today’s epigram:

Other girls are coy and hard to catch
But other girls aint havin’ any fun
Every time I lose a wrestling match
I have a funny feeling that I won.

One Year Ago Today:  The second part of my column on couple calls.  Enjoy.

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July Miscellanea

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 16, 2011| 29 Comments »

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.  –  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Short articles about those who believe images are more powerful than reality.

Secret Squirrel

I guess the concept of “trust” has gone out of style.  And perhaps I’m old-fashioned or idealistic, but I think it would irreparably shatter my relationship with a person if I found out he or she had used this nasty little Secret Squirrel gizmo on my computer (reproduced exactly as it appeared):

The P0rn Detection Stick is a thumb drive device that will search through all the images on your computer.  Scan them for p0rnographic content, and create a report of suspected p0rnographic images.  It even scans deleted images and Internet cache files so there’s no hiding Internet activity.  This means even if Internet Explorer cache files are deleted, many images can still be recovered and scanned for p0rnography.  Best of all, no software is installed on the target machine so they don’t know you’ve performed a search.  You can even securely delete objectionable images…Paraben’s P0rn Detection Stick allows you to find images that potentially can include p0rnographic contents.  Paraben’s P0rn Detection Stick scans an arrangement of images to determine attributes that indicate the image may be of a p0rnographic nature.  It uses sophisticated, analytical processes; consisting of thousands of algorithms.  These include 11 different detection methods to provide enough information to reliably distinguish between p0rnographic and non-p0rnographic images.

The thing that boggles my mind most about this ad is the repeated substitution of zero for lower-case “o”; seriously, it hurts my brain even worse than it hurts my eyes, because I cannot comprehend any possible reason for it.  Is it supposed to be “kewl”, like the substitution of “z” for “s” in “hip-hop” writing?  Or is it something even more stupid?

As annoying as that is, though, it’s inconsequential besides the morally bankrupt philosophy behind the device.  Since cops already have their own methods of doing this, the target purchasers must be wives and parents (who stand more to lose from spying than from their husbands or kids looking at porn) and employers (who are pretty desperate if they can’t think of a better reason to fire somebody than that).  Am I wrong, or is this a symptom of a serious social illness?

Second Verse, Same as the First

Are these guys like lemmings or something?  Well, at least this one was from someplace other than New York; here’s the story from the New Orleans Times-Picayune of June 28th:

Kenner City Councilman Joe Stagni admitted today that he sent a picture of himself in his underwear to a city employee 18 months ago…”I had an inappropriate but consensual relation (sic) with an adult female and we exchanged improper electronic communications which ended (in) 2009,” Stagni, 47, said in a prepared statement.  Stagni’s personal smartphone was used to send a text message and the picture to Annamaria Pizzolato, who was Kenner’s internal auditor at the time…”I do not know how a communication appeared on any public transmission or equipment,” Stagni said.

Pizzolato forwarded the image to the work e-mail account of Danna Morris, who was Kenner’s information technology director at the time…”Once you do that, it’s stuck in the city server,” said city attorney Keith Conley, who released the image as part of a public records request.  He said it is the only such image that he knows about.  Morris…abruptly resigned in April 2010 amid an investigation of computer irregularities.  Mayor Mike Yenni fired Pizzolato in September…

Fun Fact for my readers:  I was living in Kenner (home of New Orleans International Airport) when I started my escort service; it’s one of those little suburban towns (like Arlington, Texas or the various suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) which has a narcissistic obsession with its own self-importance.  This comment on the online story says it all:

No he shouldn’t resign.  And I disagree with those who say this is a personal matter- they should publicly embrace his behavior.  This man, who imagines someone wants to see his stout belly in a wife-beater in a grainy photo- this man EPITOMIZES Kenner.  He is the ultimate expression of that city, the living symbol of its values and class, and should be its next mayor.  Perhaps one day they’ll, um, erec- make that, construct- a statute of this photo outside City Hall.  Here’s to you, Mr. Stocky Half-Naked Kenner City Council Guy.

OK, Sure

Words fail me.

A 21-year-old woman from North London has spent thousands of dollars on surgical procedures to look like a drag queen.  Collagen Westwood told The Daily Mail she’s thrilled if she gets mistaken for a man dressing up as a woman.  “I’ve admired drag queens since I was a little girl,” she said.  “They’re glamorous and beautiful — what woman wouldn’t want to look like that?  I have a couple of different wigs that I wear when I go out, and people are always assuming I’m a transvestite.  I love it when people mistake me for a man.  It doesn’t offend me — I think drag queens look fantastic.”  Westwood has had her lips plumped and her nose straightened and says she plans to have some ribs removed so she can fit into smaller corsets.  She said she counts Dead or Alive singer Pete Burns as one of her idols.

A few random thoughts:

“Collagen”?  Ummmm….no.

“Glamorous and beautiful”?  Obviously, she and I aren’t thinking of the same drag queens.

“What woman wouldn’t want to look like that?”  {raises hand}

Westwood wants to be mistaken for a man, but since drag queens want to be referred to as “she”, which pronoun does Westwood use?

But no matter how outré I think this is, and no matter how much I think she’ll regret it in ten years or so, I insist that she has a right to do as she pleases with her own body, money and life.  Of course, I also have the right to mock her for it.

Another Small Victory

It is my stated position that decriminalization in the U.S. will arrive via judicial fiat, just as abortion and other sexual rights did; the political establishment won’t even let the issue onto the table, and prohibitionists dump millions per year into confusing the public with “sex trafficking” hysteria and myths about pimps, disease and “degradation of women”.  But courts aren’t supposed to take public opinion into account when considering issues of individual rights, and many (perhaps even a growing number) do not.  This story from July 6th tends to support my view:

A federal appeals court today ruled that the United States cannot force organizations…to “denounce” prostitution…as a condition for applying for or using U.S. international HIV and AIDS funding…The court found that the “prostitution pledge” or “anti-prostitution loyalty oath,” as it came to be known, was not constitutional because it compels organizations to adopt and espouse a government viewpoint, and that “[c]ompelling speech as a condition of receiving a government benefit cannot be squared with the First Amendment…because it requires recipients to take the government’s side on a particular issue.  It is well established that viewpoint-based intrusions on free speech offend the First Amendment.”

The pledge was originally inserted by…Congressman Chris Smith as an amendment to the 2003 U.S. Global Leadership Act Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria…as ultimately interpreted by the Bush Administration…the pledge required organizations to promise not to “promote or support prostitution” while implementing U.S.-funded programs…The Obama Administration, to the dismay of public health and human rights advocates, has kept the pledge in force.

The pledge…was and has continued to be criticized by the global public health and human rights communities for a number of reasons.  Among other problems, the language of the pledge is incredibly vague and does not effectively define what constitutes “promoting” prostitution…programs recognized around the world for their successes in working with marginalized populations such as sex workers…have been de-funded…[and] health workers [became] quasi-law enforcement agents, undoing years of work building trust among vulnerable populations…[the pledge] prevented U.S. organizations…from supporting the efforts of sex worker collectives to promote universal condom use, safe sex practices, to defend themselves against police violence and corruption, or to fight to secure their basic human rights…the ruling, while a critical step forward… applies only to U.S. non-profit groups and does not lift the pledge requirements from international…NGOs in other countries…

A small victory to be sure, but I think an important one; it’s another stone in the growing pile which will form the foundation of sex worker rights in the United States.

One Year Ago Today

My column for July 16th, 2010 was the first of a two-part column on couple calls, those in which an escort entertains an established (married or dating) couple.  If you haven’t read it already I think you’ll be interested, and the third picture is probably one of the cutest I’ve ever included in this blog.

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Head Games

Posted in Perception, The Dark Side, tagged , , , , , , , on July 15, 2011| 37 Comments »

Head games, always you and me, baby
Head games, ’till I can’t take it anymore, no more
Head games, instead of makin’ love, we play head games.  –  Lou Gramm and Mick Jones, “Head Games”

As I’ve written before on several occasions, some men simply can’t handle the truth that women are in control of the sexual sphere, so they invent myths and fantasies with which to convince themselves that it’s actually the other way around.  But other men prefer a more pragmatic approach, especially when dealing with escorts:  instead of just making appointments like normal men, they play head games so as to feel that they’re the ones in control of the situation.

Though I’m sure most of my escort readers already know what I’m talking about, I’m trying to come up with a good comparison for the rest of you and the best one I can think of is the games businessmen play to “psych out” their opponents.  Such a man might set up his office furniture in such a way as to make him seem more important than he is, for example with a huge desk and low chairs for the visitors so they have to look up at him.  Or he’ll make sure he’s on the phone when one enters his office, thus projecting that his time is more important than yours.  In Japanese culture the first person to actually bring up business is at a psychological disadvantage because he’s perceived as lacking patience and therefore nervous.  And so on.  But when one of these high-powered men deals with an escort, he’s in exactly the same position as anybody else:  he has to follow her procedures, filling out her screening form or going through the escort agency or whatever, and then waiting for her to get back to him to tell him if she’ll see him and when she can.  And that has to be a humbling, even a humiliating, experience for someone who’s used to being the Big Cheese, so he responds (perhaps even unconsciously) by trying to wrest control of the interaction away from her.

The sloppiest and most transparent control technique is of course haggling; I honestly believe that at least half of all men who haggle can easily afford the girl’s price, they simply want to get her to back down from it in order to feel as though they’ve won a victory over her.  I’ve heard many independents complain that men who have reviewed expensive escorts will still haggle with girls who charge half as much; this demonstrates that it’s not about the money but rather about getting the girl to accept a compromise.  More subtle types will accept an escort’s price, but will try to get her to compromise one of her other rules in some way; for example, if a girl has published hours they’ll try to get an appointment just before or just after those hours, or if she refuses same-day appointments they’ll try to get one.  A girl who only accepts certain forms of communication will be pushed for another form (for example, her personal phone number), and another common maneuver is “tell me your real name,” as discussed in my column of one year ago today.

The most subtle manipulators of all use tactics which may seem innocuous; the most definitive example of these is the “call me” client.  This is the guy who won’t agree to an exact time for an appointment or callback; instead he insists that the girl should “come over when she’s ready” or “call whenever you want to”.  A lot of these guys are nothing but time wasters who have no intention of being there when the girl drops by or of answering when she calls, but the more manipulative type merely wants to play the game of forcing the girl to keep him in mind until she calls him back; he of course won’t answer, and after that she’s unconsciously waiting for him to return the call.  Men like this achieve excitement or satisfaction from making a woman jump through hoops, and the more hoops the better.

When faced with a client like this, it is vitally important that an escort not give in; once such a man has won his little victory he may be satisfied, but more often than not will only become more aggressive once he has tasted blood.  And though most of these men present no physical danger, entering a call from a position of weakness makes it much more difficult to control the proceedings and the hapless escort may find herself struggling to manage the date for no reason she can adequately define.  This is because he has her at a psychological disadvantage and may keep breaking little rules, pushing her to do things she doesn’t want to do, asking personal questions and otherwise testing her limits and violating her comfort zone.

Short of simply refusing to communicate with a man who tries such tricks, the only thing one can do is to steadfastly refuse to play from square one.  Once I answered my agency line and a female voice asked if I could hold for Mr. So-and-So; of course I instantly recognized this as a power game we might call “My Time is More Important Than Yours.”  So I replied, “No, I’m afraid I can’t hold; please ask Mr. So-and-So to call back when he’s ready to talk.”  I probably don’t need to tell you that Mr. So-and-So called back within five minutes, and gave me no further problems.  Had I given in I probably would’ve had to endure a series of such head games both on the phone and in the resulting date, but since I let him know in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t going to put up with that kind of crap we were able to have a mutually rewarding interaction in spite of his effort to make it into a lopsided transaction.

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Sisters In Arms

Posted in Current Events, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 14, 2011| 23 Comments »

A free government is a complicated piece of machinery, the nice and exact adjustment of whose springs, wheels, and weights, is not yet well comprehended by the artists of the age, and still less by the people.  –  John Adams

I wonder how much longer it will be before it starts to dawn on most reasonably-intelligent women that neofeminist-sponsored male-chauvinist legislation has established (and continues to strengthen) a legal precedent that adult heterosexual women are morally and emotionally incompetent to make our own decisions, and that male legislators and prosecutors can and will use such precedents to control women and, if the process goes unchecked, reduce us all to lifelong wards of the state to be used and disciplined as it sees fit.  The Swedish Model, mandatory domestic violence prosecution laws, sexual harassment laws and anti-sex-work laws all establish that women are (as St. Peter expressed it) the “weaker vessel”, unable to make rational adult decisions on any matter involving sexual relationships with men, and that it is therefore permissible for the state to strip us of the right of decision in such matters.  This precedent is now being creatively applied by evil prosecutors in a way no neofeminist ever could have expected…though of course every cynic did.

The following is from a June 24th article in The Guardian:

Rennie Gibbs…became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006…when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy.  When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby’s death – they charged her with the “depraved-heart murder” of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.  Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby.  But her case is by no means isolated.  Across the US more and more prosecutions…seek to turn pregnant women into criminals.  “Women are being stripped of their constitutional personhood and subjected to truly cruel laws,” said Lynn Paltrow of the campaign National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW).  “It’s turning pregnant women into a different class of person and removing them of their rights.”

Bei Bei Shuai, 34, has spent the past three months in a prison cell in Indianapolis charged with murdering her baby.  On 23 December she tried to commit suicide by taking rat poison after her boyfriend abandoned her.  Shuai was rushed to hospital and survived, but she was 33 weeks pregnant and her baby, to whom she gave birth a week after the suicide attempt and whom she called Angel, died after four days.  In March Shuai was charged with murder and attempted foeticide and she has been in custody since without the offer of bail.

In Alabama at least 40 cases have been brought under the state’s “chemical endangerment” law…[which was] designed to protect children whose parents were cooking methamphetamine in the home and thus putting their children at risk from inhaling the fumes.  Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way…Six months [after her baby died soon after birth, she] was arrested at home and charged with “chemical endangerment” of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.  “That shocked me, it really did,” Kimbrough said.  “I had lost a child, that was enough.”  She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars…

Women’s rights campaigners see the creeping criminalisation of pregnant women as a new front in the culture wars over abortion…[by] stretching protection laws to include foetuses, in some cases from the day of conception.  In Gibbs’ case defence lawyers have argued before Mississippi’s highest court that her prosecution makes no sense.  Under Mississippi law it is a crime for any person except the mother to try to cause an abortion.  “If it’s not a crime for a mother to intentionally end her pregnancy, how can it be a crime for her to do it unintentionally, whether by taking drugs or smoking or whatever it is,” Robert McDuff, a civil rights lawyer asked the state supreme court.  McDuff…[said] that he hoped the Gibbs prosecution was an isolated example.  “I hope it’s not a trend that’s going to catch on.  To charge a woman with murder because of something she did during pregnancy is really unprecedented and quite extreme.”  He pointed out that anti-abortion groups were trying to amend the Mississippi constitution…[to] widen the definition of a person…to include a foetus from the day of conception…Paltrow sees what is happening to Gibbs as a small taste of what would be unleashed were the constitutional right to an abortion ever overturned.  “In Mississippi the use of the murder statute is creating a whole new legal standard that makes women accountable for the outcome of their pregnancies and threatens them with life imprisonment for murder.”

At least 38 of the 50 states…have introduced foetal homicide laws that were intended to protect pregnant women and their unborn children from violent attacks by third parties – usually abusive male partners – but are increasingly being turned by renegade prosecutors against the women themselves.  South Carolina was one of the first states to introduce such a foetal homicide law.  National Advocates for Pregnant Women has found only one case of a South Carolina man who assaulted a pregnant woman having been charged under its terms, and his conviction was eventually overturned.  Yet the group estimates there have been up to 300 women arrested for their actions during pregnancy.  In other states laws designed to protect children against the damaging effects of drugs have similarly been twisted to punish childbearers.

As I wrote in my column of one year ago today, I despise cocaine and I think it’s incredibly irresponsible to take it while pregnant, but Gibbs was 15 years old; thus we see yet another example of the Kafkaesque illogic which permeates modern law.  When it comes to sex Gibbs is classified as a “child”, a poor naïve innocent whose lover would no doubt be sitting in prison for “rape” right now if he were 18 or older.  But let her miscarry and Shazam! she suddenly changes from innocent “child” to an adult with a “depraved heart”.  And if that’s not absurd enough for you, consider that since late-term abortions are legal in Mississippi, had she taken a drug to cause miscarriage on purpose she would not be in any trouble; it’s only accidentally killing one’s baby that’s illegal.  By any stretch of the imagination that constitutes a total moral inversion.  Also note the popular absurdity (mentioned in three places herein, and pivotal to the whole “Caylee’s Law” hysteria) that a law can “protect” the weak from violence; it can do no such thing.  All a law can do is to provide for vengeance after the violence is accomplished.  These prosecutor’s aren’t “renegades” as the article calls them; they are doing exactly what they’re paid to do, instill fear of the government in the population.

It’s not going to get better by itself, ladies, nor will it get better at all if you continue to smoke the neofeminist crack and waste your time reading “women’s studies” texts and essays on “feminist criticism” of movies.  If you want to be treated as adults you’re going to have to fight for ALL adult women to be treated as adults, even when they do things you don’t like.  If you want to own and control your body, you’re going to have to allow ALL women to own and control their bodies.  Unless you want women punished for unhealthy or unwise choices during pregnancy, you’re going to have to allow others that option outside pregnancy.  And unless you want your body to be the property of the State, you had best forget your idiotic war against your allies, normal individual men, and stop getting into bed with the politicians who will tell you any pretty lie you want to hear so they can trick you into a position to be raped.

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The Proper Study

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2011| 7 Comments »

The proper study of mankind is Man.  –  Alexander Pope

I began my column of June 29th with a discussion of how most 19th-century “research” into prostitution was “nothing more than Christian anti-whore propaganda dressed up in scientific garb so as to support the dominant sociological view that normal women were pure and asexual, and therefore any woman who was sexual had to be some sort of monster.”  It was, in other words, merely a pseudoscientific rationalization of the old Madonna-whore duality, whose origins I examined in my column of one year ago today.  To “prove” this popular prejudice, educated men with impeccable credentials used the time-honored method of beginning with a theory, determining which “facts” would support that theory, examining a group most likely to generate the desired results and then discarding or explaining away any evidence which tended to disprove it. Unfortunately for the reputations of these scholars, scientific investigation was all the rage in the latter half of the 19th century, and before too long other, more honest investigators began to realize that the evidence was not as it had been represented and that the truth about prostitution was far more complex than they had initially thought.  Of course, by that point nobody was listening; the racket from the social purity bandwagon was drowning out any contrary voice, and before too long it became politically incorrect to dare question the notion that prostitution was a pernicious evil which could be stamped out by a combination of ambitious brainwashing and violent suppression.

For almost half a century after the social purity movement ebbed, sociologists and psychologists largely ignored prostitution; most were content to accept the party line and to direct their attention elsewhere.  But once Alfred Kinsey had published his groundbreaking study of human sexuality, a few researchers again began to turn their interest to the subject and soon discovered that due to the trade’s suppression it was not so easy to study as it had been in the days before criminalization made whores reluctant to speak to anyone they perceived as an authority figure.  The only prostitutes readily available were therefore those who were currently incarcerated, which due to their higher visibility and comparatively lower income (thus no money for bail) were mostly destitute streetwalkers.  By the 1960s any sociologists old enough to have personally visited legally-tolerated brothels (outside of Honolulu or the Far East) were already retired, and the 20th-century vice of overspecialization had led to most experts in any given field being shockingly ignorant in others (such as history); most of them were therefore content to accept the now-popular stereotype that prostitute=streetwalker, and to arrive at the erroneous conclusion that data collected on incarcerated streetwalkers could be held valid for all streetwalkers, and therefore all prostitutes.  Furthermore, most of the research grants then (as now) came from governments who were not particularly interested in having the basis of their prohibition laws challenged by studies demonstrating that prostitutes were not degenerate criminals, pathetic drug addicts, etc.

The ‘70s saw the rise of tailor-made “studies” designed to “prove” whatever the sponsors wanted proved; they first appeared in advertising, were seized upon by politicians and then spread like a cancer among those with motives for manipulating the public’s perceptions.  And so it should come as no surprise that governments fighting moves to decriminalize prostitution hired anti-sex activists like Melissa Farley to craft bogus “research” which would support their conclusions.  As in the 19th century they began with a theory, devised a means of proving that theory, examined a group most likely to generate the desired results (incarcerated streetwalkers) and then discarded or explained away any evidence which tended to disprove it.  And as in the 19th century, most people accepted their conclusions because they didn’t know any better.  But just as before, more honest investigators have in recent years began to study our trade, and as before these proper studies completely refute the false ones promoted by those with an agenda.

I’ve already mentioned the work of Ronald Weitzer of George Washington University on numerous occasions, and quoted from a number of other studies in my column of April 3rd.  I mentioned a recent study which debunked the idea that most underage prostitution is forced and one which demonstrated that sex crime rates are lower in countries with legal prostitution, and my columns of May 22nd, May 25th, June 9th and June 15th all covered recent studies which found exactly what we’ve been saying all along:  that the great majority of prostitutes are women who choose the work for valid reasons, that most of us work indoors, that we enjoy our work and are not coerced, etc.  And now here’s a new one from Wales, called to my attention by Brandy Devereaux.

I have to admit I find the attitude of the interviewed researchers amusing; they seem to have been surprised by their findings, which is to be expected since they were criminologists rather than sociologists and were therefore proceeding from a biased viewpoint revealed in their use of phrases like “sell their bodies”, “dangerous game” and “complacent about the risks of the job”, and acceptance of myths like the high incidence of venereal disease among prostitutes and the existence of large numbers of “trafficked women” (despite the fact that their study found neither).  But to their credit, they accepted their own findings rather than discarding them and even concluded in their report that “These women definitely don’t want to be saved – they have made a choice and we have to respect that choice – Government policy needs to recognise that the sex industry has been around forever and it’s not going to go anywhere.”  As studies like this accumulate, even the staunchest proponents of prohibition will no longer be able to hide behind bogus studies; they will eventually be forced to admit that their laws have nothing to do with “protecting” or “saving” anyone and are based on nothing other than a desire to impose a specific morality on society.

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Housewife Harlotry

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , , on July 12, 2011| 52 Comments »

There is all of the difference in the world between paying and being paid.  –  Herman Melville

Since the third day of my blog the topic of marriage as a form of whoredom has been a popular one, both in my columns and in the commentary.  Not that this is anything new to us; the observation has been made many times in history, as a perusal of my Quotes page will demonstrate.  One year ago today I wrote it this way:

The exact same arrangement (man contributes support, woman contributes sex and/or companionship) is completely legal in the long-term form we call marriage but illegal in the temporary form we call prostitution.  Now, don’t start screaming that marriage is different because it involves love; where is it written that a couple have to love each other in order to make marriage legal?  Throughout most of human history love had absolutely nothing to do with marriage.  Love certainly makes a marriage more pleasant…but any reader who asserts that nobody ever gets married for the bare-bones reasons mentioned above is hopelessly naive and might as well stop reading right now, because it isn’t going to get any better for him.

Or as I expressed it in a recent comment, “love is the icing, not the cake”.  Marriage is first and foremost a socioeconomic relationship, and the modern insistence that love is the be-all and end-all of marriage is one of the primary reasons for the skyrocketing divorce rate, because couples who share no bond other than the biochemical one we call “romantic love” have no reason to stay together when time and adversity weakens or destroys it.  True love is a much more complex emotional bond, but it takes time to develop and rarely does so between people who are not already bound together by other, more mundane bonds such as blood or mutual dependence.  Just because a man is another man’s friend doesn’t mean he can’t also be his doctor or business partner, and if he thinks their friendship means he can neglect the economic relationship he will find that neither lasts very long.  Similarly, a woman who thinks that “love” means she can neglect her defining contribution to the marriage, sex, may strain both interactions (the love-relationship and the socioeconomic partnership) to the breaking point.

Obviously, not all sex in a marriage is directly transactional; indeed, at the beginning of the relationship I daresay very little is.  The distinction is important, and came up in a recent correspondence with one of my regular readers.  He wrote,

For the past week or two I’ve been wrestling with the issues raised in the recent whores/marriage, speaking prostitute/speaking in Repressive Christian Archetype threads.  I was not scandalized or offended by the concept of sex in marriage as a transaction on a continuum of sexual transactions which includes prostitution (wife = whore)  But even though I’m trying to learn to speak Prostitute despite it not being my native tongue, I felt a sense of nagging unease with the argument if we leave it at that point.  Among the things that scratched at my mind:

1. If all sex is on a transactional continuum, why does sex within my marriage feel qualitatively different to me than sex prior to my marriage?

2. If all sex is on a transactional continuum, why do so many whores in their own blogging or writing make a sharp distinction between work sex and relationship sex?

I replied,

One has to be aware of the transaction, but one can’t be too concrete about the concept of gain…When a woman gives sex to a man, she doesn’t necessarily get cash or goods in return; she may get favors, or status in her group, or spiritual fulfillment, or a feeling of having done the right thing.  And if she loves the man to whom she gives the sex, she may get pleasure from the simple act of giving, just as all normal people enjoy giving gifts to those we love.  Love cannot be discounted; it’s a powerful and transformative emotion, and it can totally change the sexual experience because it changes “where your head is”, to express it colloquially.  Sex for anyone, male or female, amateur or professional, is absolutely different with someone we love than someone we don’t.

Another important thing to consider is that for married women, there are two kinds of sex; we might call them “love sex” and “duty sex”…many women will use different terms for it (one girl I knew differentiated them as “making love” and “screwing”) or even deny it completely, but all mature women know about it.  “Love sex” is what you have when you’re in the mood and want to be with that special person, whereas “duty sex” is what you give him when you’re not really in the mood but he is.  A sexually realized woman can perform the two so her husband can’t tell the difference, but women who are out of touch with themselves as women (that’s not meant as an insult to them, it happens to a lot of career women because they try too hard to be “neuter” at work and can’t let that go when they get home) usually can’t; a successful GFE escort is one who can make the two indistinguishable with almost anybody (this is one of my greatest skills as a whore).  The physical actions are the same, but “duty sex” is purely transactional whereas in “love sex” she gets a direct return, namely the feelings of affection and bonding with her mate (purely physical sexual pleasure may be present or absent in either form).

Every woman used to understand that this is the way the world is, but many modern women have been brainwashed into thinking that transactional sex is automatically bad, and that the only valid reason for sex is to please oneself, which is simultaneously selfish and self-destructive because it will invariably leave a man feeling unsatisfied since his wife isn’t providing to him as she should.  This of course drives him to look elsewhere and creates relationship-destroying tension between the two.  So when we talk about the housewife as whore, this doesn’t mean that the sex is always transactional; the best sex between married people, and indeed most of it in the first year or so of the relationship, isn’t transactional at all.  The whoring starts the very first time one’s husband starts to make overtures when one is absolutely, positively not in the mood and one gives it to him anyway because it’s the right thing to do in return for the financial, emotional and social support he provides, or because one loves him and wants to offer herself as a gift.

Of course, in a really good relationship it’s even more complicated than that; I still enjoy the transactional sex I give my husband precisely because I do love him, and as I said in the first paragraph of my response that giving is a joy in and of itself.  Years ago my husband and I went to Yosemite National Park, and stayed in one of the tent cabins; these are tents erected over permanent frameworks, so though they offer visual privacy one can practically hear the people in the next tent breathing.  I knew that in the morning we were getting up early to hike up Half Dome, so I wanted a good night’s sleep to prepare for a long and exhausting day.  But we had been together less than a year, and my husband loves Yosemite so he was feeling very amorous.  I was absolutely not in the mood; I can’t relax without privacy, and I wanted to go to sleep, but I knew he would sleep better after sex so I gave it to him, willingly and in good heart.  And I still treasure the memory of that night ten years later, not despite the fact that it was only for him but because of it.  Loving one’s husband and being his whore are not mutually exclusive; in the best marriages they are so tightly intertwined that the individual strands are indistinguishable.

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