Every man wants a woman to appeal to his better side, his nobler instincts and his higher nature – and another woman to help him forget them. – Helen Rowland
In the United States and many other countries around the world, today is the day on which mothers and the concept of motherhood are honored; even most nations which don’t celebrate it on this particular day do so on some other date, usually at some point in the spring. Celebrations of motherhood aren’t anything new; many ancient cultures had them, often in conjunction with festivals of the Mother Goddess (such as the Roman Hilaria). The modern observances are not directly descended from these ancient ones, though of course the principle is the same. In any case, I thought that on this occasion a few observations about the connection between harlotry and motherhood might be in order.
Yes, I said connection; though the fallacy that whores and mothers are as different as chalk and cheese is still a popular one, both prostitution and motherhood are natural results of the sexual impulse, and many (probably most) whores are also mothers. In fact, as I pointed out in “Whore Madonnas”, “Mecca”, “Feminine Pragmatism” and “Collaboration Horizontale”, many women become hookers specifically because they are mothers. The Madonna-Whore duality is an outgrowth of every young man’s need to separate women about whom he is forbidden to have sexual feelings (such as close female relatives) from all others, and as long as it is recognized as such it’s harmless. Alas, such reasonable men are in the minority; most project their own defense mechanism upon the entire human race, and imagine that sex somehow defiles a woman. Even worse, women (being the accommodating creatures we are) often internalize this product of purely masculine psychology, and condemn other women (or worse, themselves) for the “sin” of being sexual. And though second-wave feminists succeeded in attacking the idea that sex makes women dirty, they were not interested in dispelling it entirely, but rather merely carving out an exception for entirely selfish sexual behaviors. In other words, women who are sexual for their own pleasure are now Madonnas; those who are sexual for any other reason, including monetary gain, are still whores (though the whore is now cast as a “victim” rather than a succubus).
The tenacity of this poisonous dogma is evident not only in the way that neofeminists divide all women into “good” and “bad” on the grounds of sexual actions, but also in the fallacy at the core of “sex trafficking” hysteria: the irrational and absurd belief that women cannot choose to have sex for any but “pure” motives, so all prostitutes must have been forced into it. The ease with which trafficking mythology and its bastard twin, the Swedish Model, have infiltrated cultures which seem on the surface relatively sex-positive is further proof that the Madonna-whore duality has not gone away, but is in fact lying just beneath the surface of human consciousness in all but a very few places.
Lately, I’ve even noticed the increased popularity of one of the classic logical fallacies by which prohibitionists attack decriminalization: “Would you want your daughter to do it?” People who use this old saw aren’t concerned with the danger of prostitution, because if they were we’d hear it used as an argument against women joining the military, doing police work or participating in dangerous sports like boxing. No, it’s all about the stigma. Let’s set aside for a moment the obvious point that there are lots of things people wouldn’t want their daughters doing (smoking, excessive drinking, getting pregnant out of wedlock, working at Wal-Mart, going into politics) which aren’t illegal, and the equally obvious fact that we don’t get to choose our offspring’s occupations (though some certainly try). Let’s consider only that people do lots of things their parents wouldn’t like, and that most prostitutes have parents who would be upset and appalled at the choice. It’s not your decision whether your daughter becomes a hooker; it’s hers. And if she does make that choice (which 1% of all Western daughters do for some portion of their lives), do you really want her hounded by cops, forced into dangerous situations, unable to seek legal recourse if she’s robbed or raped, and branded as a pariah for life because of it? Or would you rather she have the ability to repent what you see as her mistake and leave the job later if she chose? Finally, is it worth rejecting your own flesh and blood for making a decision with which you disagree, and which hurt nobody except (in your opinion) her? My mother thought so, which is why she doesn’t speak to me any more, and therefore doesn’t know about all the people I’ve helped and the respect I’ve earned in my field.
Women’s sexual choices don’t make us “bad” or “polluted” or “criminal” except in the minds of sick, twisted people. Every whore is some mother’s daughter, and most are mothers themselves. The Madonna and whore are not exclusive, and those who insist otherwise put themselves in a position to be hurt as badly as their warped belief hurts women…including, in many cases, members of their own families.
One Year Ago Today
“Another Friday the Thirteenth” was my second essay on the subject.
I’m not entirely sure this is fair “Even worse, women (being the accommodating creatures we are) often internalize this product of purely masculine psychology”
I’ve heard plenty a woman refer to another woman as a slut, but I’ve never heard a man say it (at least in a bad way). I think there is more inter-female competition at work here than acknowledged.
Just when I was beginning to think this site wasn’t of the “It’s all mens fault deep down. Men are responsible for everything bad if you look closely enough” school of thought. Shame.
So, to you there’s no difference between “some cultural norms derive from a male psychological mechanism” and “everything is men’s fault”? Shame. If you’ve read this site for a while you’ve seen me derive explanations for various cultural institutions from biology-based male behavior, biology-based female behavior, biology-based human behavior, the sick need to dominate others, pure pragmatism and a host of other behaviors…yet you somehow see this one as different. Moreover, you ignore the fact that women’s pliability and often self-destructive readiness to absorb male standards (which, I might point out, is the root of neofeminism) is at least as much to blame here as a male psychological defense mechanism. I suspect I may have somehow inadvertently stepped on your toe in this post, so that you read it with less than the usual scholarly objectivity.
Indeed, the essence of neofeminism is masculine. Whether they are taking concepts from Karl Marx, or the entire objectification nonsense from Immanuel Kant, the male origin of this doctrine is apparent.
They value a masculine appearance, only appreciate power when manifested in masculine ways, and clearly think femininity is in some way inferior. So it is no surprise when some neofem writes a blog post about how she wished she had been a boy…
I’ve seen plenty of men refer to women as sluts. I had a friend of mine, when I was on submarines, laugh about my romantic philosophy of women. He referred to women as the “brainless” of he species.
I think the danger in arguments is we tend to eliminate “balance” from them in order to highlight and promote OUR own views of a subject. The U.S. is either “all good” or “all bad” – depending upon which side of an argument we are on. Cops are always “all good” or “all bad” – depending upon how we feel about them.
The truth – is almost ALWAYS in between. The US does good things as well as bad. There are good Cops – and bad ones. There are good men and bad ones …
You can’t fix the problems without understanding the shades of gray.
krulac,
I don’t know if you’ve read any of Larry Niven’s “Known Space” stories, but one of the ET species, the Kzin, actually bred their females toward brainless status. In one story, an isolate population with intelligent females makes contact. Hilarity ensues.
No I haven’t seen it but I kind of consider men who can’t deal with women the way nature created them to be serious beta males. Of all he women I’ve dated and broken up with, many might tell you that I wasn’t the one for them but none of them would say anything bad about me.
The problem is – if you treat women like shit, or show them that you really don’t even respect yourself – then they will treat you like shit.
Krulac, the Kzin are a super-aggressive catlike warrior race who consider all other life forms as meat for their tables. I didn’t know they bred their females that way, though; in the stories I’ve read I got the impression it was natural. Guess I need to read more Niven!
Maggie,
That little tidbit showed up in one of the Man-Kzin War series. The canonical narratives did show that Kzin females’ deficient intelligence was considered natural; what this story did was to retcon that narrative with the idea that it was selectively bred for in the early days of the Kzin patriarchy and that that knowledge had either been lost or suppressed.
I suppose I ought to have included a spoiler alert but the story has been out there for about 8 years now.
Even though retconned, if you read the “Known Space” series with that knowledge in mind, it is still consistent with suppression or lost history. And the isolate population was one put together by some alien collector or zookeeper who kept his specimens in stasis, including some Neanderthal and early pre-modern humans and then exited the scene long before spacefaring humans show up.
There are certain female Kzinti behaviors that trigger a sexual response in the males that over-rides the cerebral cortex – or whatever analogue the Kzinti have. And the intelligent females do it constantly to distract the modern Kzinti males who have landed on the planet and are hunting down the human that released the females Kzinti and to whom these same females have given their loyalty. Oh, and by the way, the modern Kzinti males don’t know that the females are sentient. It’s rather funny in a highbrow sort of way.
Hi Darren! Women do not call each other “sluts” to police their sexuality. Women call each other “sluts” in order to denigrate women who are not in their social class. Here’s a link: http://globalnews.ca/news/1373537/study-examines-why-girls-call-each-other-sluts-its-not-about-sex/
i really wonder how would my parents react if i told them im a pso for a living.my father told me vulgar jokes since i was about 14 years old and never really scolded me when i used swear words.he had also showed me various times drug addicts on the streets and warned me against the dangers of drugs ,without trying to protect me from the sight, like other parents do,even though i was very young.my mother also told me since i got my first period(11 years old)about condom use and when i told her about an one night stand i had shortly after moving out ,she only told me that this was dangerous and i cant trust people i met in a bar to be alone in a room with,no moral freaking out.yet i know that the only reason my mother seems not to care about morality releated stuff is because shes always worried first and foremost for my health and my fathers jokes is how greeks express themselves anyway,but still they are not open minded at all.my father has said that if he had a gay son he would get a heart attack,that the reason i dont tell them im bisexual,im afraid that if i told them im a pso a greek tragedy would follow.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Harlot Mom’s out there!
And a Happy Mother’s Day to you too Maggie, seein’ as how you are kind of a Mom to all of us here online!
I hope your Mom comes around to her senses one day. I only know that if I had a daughter who was as intelligent and fucking rock hard tough as you are I’d be the proudest Dad in the world!
Thank you, Krulac; compliments like that mean a lot to me. 🙂
+1
I wish I were closer to my mother. She’s up in years now, and although healthy, I know that won’t last for ever. But there’s a lot of complicated issues between us.
Yes, I am the “black sheep” of the family.
Laida, all I can say is I think if your family is ever to know, it’s best you tell them yourself. In my case, I had left home several years previous, hadn’t really been in much communication with them. A neighbor got one of the movies I was in and showed them. And it’s not one I would have chosen as an introduction. Suffice it to say, that didn’t go over well.
Your parents’ neighbors sound utterly charming. /sarcasm
Maggie,
I followed up on your picture, “The Outcast.” Wikipedia linked it to “Past and Present,” a triptych showing the destruction of a Victorian family precipitated by the wife’s infidelity.
I understand the issue of genetic issue; the cost of raising another’s offspring is a niche exploited as brood parasitism in the animal world to the detriment of the hosting species as evidenced by cowbirds and cuckoos.
So my question to you is this; Do you think that the emphasis on female fidelity springs from male based biology, female based biology, human based biology, or social norming? In other words, does it spring from nature or is it imposed by nurture?
And as humans get further away from eking out a survival level existence, do such actions move from existential threat to issues of deception and contract?
I think it’s equal parts human biology and economics. Clearly, a man whose resources are expended in raising another man’s offspring loses in the genetic lottery, and obviously from an economic standpoint nobody wants to build an estate for five decades in order to surrender it to a stranger. In the long one, however, for highly self-aware individual men the latter motivation outweighs the former, as evidenced by men who prefer to leave their estates to adopted sons, sons-in-law or other genetically unrelated men rather than to their own unsatisfactory offspring; such individuals value a spiritual or intellectual legacy above a genetic one, and in a modern society those are far more important.
The answer to the final question is “absolutely”; I’ve always considered female infidelity (traditionally) a greater betrayal than male for exactly that reason. Breaking one’s word is bad, but it isn’t nearly as breaking one’s word and indulging in a decades-long, resource-stealing deception. I might point out, however, that in the age of paternity tests and compulsory child support that goes both ways; a woman who screws around and forces her husband to support another man’s bastard causes the same damage as a man who screws around and is then forced by the state to divert his resources to support another woman’s.
Yet the “bastards” play a very key role in “Game of Thrones”. 😀
They’re always “shat” upon – by everyone – even the dwarfs in GoT crap on the bastards.
But when the shit goes down – the call goes out to all the bastards to save the day – and they damn sure come through every time!! 😛
Don’t know if I believe them to be equally accountable but well said. I must say though I still weld a very strong alliance with the idea of genetic legacy. Listening to my grandfather talk of his father and his father’s father has a certain probity to it. Knowing that your’e the flesh and blood of generations of great men Inspires you to be great man. I admit its a level of masculinity that’s not usually understood by women or men of lesser men.
Mother’s Day in the US is the second Sunday in May. Things are a bit different in the UK. Originally (whenever that was) the festival was called Mothering Sunday, and was held on the fourth Sunday in Lent. It was the day when young girls in domestic service could return to their home town. But the Mother in Mothering seems to have referred to the girls’ mother-church, though they could expect to meet their families as well. Today, Mothering Sunday has more or less taken on the American meaning.
Before it was a domestic girl’s day off, it was a holiday to visit the mother church — your diocese’ cathedral.
Long time reader – most often lurking. Oddly enough I suspect that women who condemn prostitution are afraid that the women who have the courage to go their own way have more power than they do. Which they do – going your own way is empowering and that threatens some people. The lead in statement is true and that scares some people who feel powerless. It is easier for people to believe that prostitutes are ‘forced into it’ than that people can choose a path they can’t conceive of, approve of and or control. It seems to be a matter of a world full of control freaks who are afraid someone else is having fun and there is nothing they can do about it 🙂
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I don’t see women who condemn other women who are whores or even just sluts as being a symptom of powerlessness or envy no more than I condemn liberals for condemning conservatives for their ideals as being powerless. Just on different side of the margins, at least as I see it.
Interesting points. Here are my opinions. Men seperate women into good girl(possibly wife) and bad girl(whore or slut) because of men’s needs and wants. Note that most men can not tell the difference between a whore, a woman who gets paid for sex work, and a slut, a woman who gives sex away for free. Men should be able to tell the difference between a whore and a slut. No man wants to unwitingly raise another man’s child. Men also want loyalty and fidelity just like women do, and also that the other person tell the truth and not lie. The other part of the problem is that getting sex for most women is fairly easy whereas for most men it is not so sex is a scarcity for most men but not for most women. Most men have a two track mind when it comes to sex in that there is the “wife” and the mother of my children who must be greatly provided for and greatly protected and then there are the whores and sluts who do not get the efforts to provide and protect. I’m not saying most men wouldn’t provide and protect whores and sluts, but they will not do it as much as they would for their wives or serious long term relationships. All people be they male or female need to categorize to make sense of this world. You are correct that there is seldom black and white and more often varying shades of gray.
I would argue that there are still a great many people who would say they wouldn’t want their daughters “joining the military, doing police work”. The “Would you want your daughter to do it?” argument can be a topic/debate all its own which I’m not entirely sure you haven’t already covered being new to your blog, nevertheless I’ll still share my view.
It’s obvious why you didn’t touch on the father-daughter aspect of this briefly mentioned subject having written this on mother’s day but I’ve found that some of the most progressive and open minded men can be very rigid when it comes to their own daughters. They tend to proudly apply a double-standard upon them (as also done with sons to a different degree) out of a since of one’s own family being “deserving of more”. Now that’s a very subjective term and we could debate the meaning of that phrase another time but for now I’m fairly sure you’d be in agreement with me that this lies is within the psyche of most fathers. A father wants to be proud of his children profession. Not at all to imply that this is solely an act of anathema toward the harlot profession, he may very well proclaim his profound respect and love for it, while in the very next breath explain why it is not a profession that suits the skill sets of his own daughter. Parents always dream for their children obtaining employment that they can be proud of, prestigious employment. Doctor, attorney, engineer, entrepreneur … careers that are regarded as requiring great skill and intellect to perform. Now I’m sure their are some top self whores who may provide tremendous “skill” as well as being very adept but parents, particularly fathers, regardless of generation aren’t known for being that malleable. I only say all this to say I don’t think that will ever change. Most fathers will always push their daughters toward more “wholesome” endeavors, our epistemology up to this point doesn’t allow for a break in that pathology.
I want children to do what will make them–not their parents or society–happy. If that means warrior, so be it. If it means Professional Sex Provider, more power to them. The big problem is that we are asking them to make these decisions at the age of 18, before the prefrontal cortex is fully formed, and then expecting them to carry on with that same profession for 50 years. My Greatgrandpappy the dairy farmer/rancher used to use that to fertilize the north quarter section before he planted hay.
There’s no reason she has to stick with her made-when-I-was-eighteen decision for fifty years. There’s no reason she can’t be a stripper when she’s eighteen, a harlot when she’s twenty-two, and an aerospace engineer when she’s forty. That stripping and harlotry will pay for a lot engineering school, which isn’t cheap.
Really, don’t strippers and harlots need something to switch to as the get older? There are some pretty hot pentaganarians out there, but I suspect the twenty- and thirty-somethings do more business.
My point was if they want to be a professional sex provider now and a college professor later there should be nothing to stop her. Society wants us to make-and stick-with our decision now and forever.
I agree there should be nothing to stop her. If she wants it and can do it, she should be able to.
I think it’s expected that people change careers. But some careers
EEP! I suck today.
But some careers do stay with you forever, and make it hard to take up one you might want to switch to. Ask any former porn starlet trying to be a school teacher.
Yeah. I won’t say life isn’t fair, because I haven’t seen the rulebook yet. However, for a “Christian Nation,” there certainly isn’t much Christian Forgiveness going around.