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Posts Tagged ‘Middle East’

My Favorite Musicals

Posted in Favorites, Miscellaneous, Music, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 26, 2012| 27 Comments »

Goblets they carved there for themselves,
And harps of gold where no man delves.
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by Man or Elves.  –  J.R.R. Tolkien

Show of hands:  how many saw this one coming?  It was inevitable, really.  Though I’m not obsessed with them like some people, I do like a good musical now and again (and I include rock operas and revues in that classification).  However, I tend to be pretty particular; I don’t care for songs that seem shoehorned in, or that throw off the pacing or tone.  Furthermore, I’m far more forgiving of dramatic inadequacies than I am of musical ones; since the very idea of people bursting spontaneously into song and crowds of strangers performing perfectly-choreographed dances together is completely absurd in the first place I’m willing to suspend my disbelief much more than usual, but too many uninteresting numbers kills it for me.  Keep that in mind when looking over this list, which I’ve illustrated (like last month) with embedded videos; in each case I tried to choose what I considered the most representative musical number rather than the best, though in some cases I was constrained by the poor variety and/or quality of available selections.  These are listed alphabetically by title, with a short list of three honorable mentions thereafter.

1)  Aladdin (1992)  The first of the revived Disney studio’s films to employ intentional anachronism, and the only one to do it well.  I chose this song rather than the marvelous “Friend Like Me” because I just love the dancing and the use of counterpoint, especially the three girls on the balcony (starting at 1:45).

2)  Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)  I have no idea why so many film critics dislike this wonderful movie, why they praise the Sherman Brothers’ work with Disney but pan it here, and why they insist on obsessing about minutiae like Dick Van Dyke’s lack of an English accent (see comment about absurdity of musicals above).  In fact, this musical number plays with the convention in that Van Dyke’s character, who is not part of the song-and-dance troupe but merely using it to hide from a pursuer, is totally out of sync with the others.

3)  The Hobbit (1977)  When this first appeared on television I strongly disliked the heavily stylized animation, but it grew on me over the years and now barely misses being on the list of my favorite movies.  I’ve actually read some ignoramuses complaining about the lyrics to the songs, not realizing that they’re all straight from Tolkien’s text.  I’m especially fond of John Huston’s recitation of the ballad of the Coming of Smaug, starting at exactly 5:00.  And because it was available, I decided to include the whole soundtrack.

4)  Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)  This has been among my favorites since the first time I heard it in 8th grade; I’ve already mentioned it a number of times in a number of places on this blog, so we’ll just leave it at that.

5)  Man of La Mancha (1972)  The fact that the lead female character is a whore has nothing to do with its place on this list, though I fully admit it helped to get my attention the first time I heard the album in my early teens (which actually predated my seeing the movie by several years).  I picked it out of a budget record bin for “The Impossible Dream”, a song I still love but have chosen not to feature today in favor of the less-overexposed “Dulcinea”.

6)  The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)  What can I say?  The subject matter would’ve predisposed me to like it even if it hadn’t had such an infectious libretto, catchy tunes and fun characters.  This one is a regular at our house every autumn.

7)  1776 (1972)  Another one I’ve loved since high school, and as you can probably guess we watch it every July 4th; though it takes dramatic license with some of the details, it still adheres more closely to the facts than is typical for Hollywood.  I would’ve preferred to feature “But Mr. Adams”, but there was no available movie clip for it so this one will do (sorry for the poor picture).

8)  Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)  I know Roald Dahl didn’t like this adaptation of his book, but I do; in fact there’s very little about it I don’t like from the sets to the casting to Wonka’s weird, quotation-heavy dialog.  This is a perfect introductory clip not merely because it’s a great song, but because it presents virtually the whole cast to Wonka’s world and demonstrates a bit of his eccentric style as well.

9)  The Wizard of Oz (1939)  Most Americans of my generation or thereabouts will remember that for many years this movie was played annually on broadcast television, but I’ve never grown tired of it.  One of the true greats.

10) Yellow Submarine (1968)  I first saw this on television as a child and was absolutely blown away; though I knew and liked several Beatles songs already, I can probably trace my real love for the group to that viewing (which also affected my drawing style for months).  I love animation, and I love the Beatles, so naturally this is on the list.  Of the available clips, I thought the theatrical trailer gives the best feel for the show.

Honorable Mentions

Musically, these three are up there with the others, but in each case the rest of the film outside the songs doesn’t quite measure up.

1)  All That Jazz (1979)  Great songs and fantastic choreography by director Bob Fosse make this semi-autobiographical picture watchable, but the story is slow, repetitive and ultimately a bit depressing.  But the musical numbers…well, judge for yourself:

Fun fact:  Paula Abdul’s video for “Cold Hearted” was intentionally patterned after this one; it was obvious to me the first time I saw it and I’m sure it will be to you as well.

2)  Godspell  (1973)  The only thing that keeps this one out of the top 10 is that I have to be in the right frame of mind for it; the fact that all the songs are based on sayings, parables and incidents from the Gospel of Matthew is not so much the issue as the fact that I have to be in a sort of nostalgic mood to watch early ‘70s hippie-flavored stuff.  I really wanted to share “Turn Back, O Man” with you since that was the number I did in our little CYO production when I was 15, but alas that one’s only available in poorly-recorded stage videos.  This was my second choice, though, and you may recognize the setting of the finale.

3)  Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (1975)  What I said for Godpell is also true here; it’s a sequence of vignettes which were visually very avant-garde and unusual at the time, but seven years later could easily have been shown as music videos.  Jacques Brel’s music, however, I can listen to almost any time; I linked a couple of examples in “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody”.

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Bride of the Agitator

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 22, 2012| 43 Comments »

There’s a broad gulf between what should happen and what does happen in the criminal justice system.  –  Ken White

As you know if you’ve been reading for the last two Sundays, Radley Balko is taking a sabbatical from his blog, The Agitator, to write a book entitled Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces.  In the meantime he’s asked Ken and Patrick of Popehat, Baylen Linnekin of Keep Food Legal, Drew Johnson of the Chattanooga Free Press and a certain harlot to fill in for him, and every Sunday I’ll catch you up on what went on there during the week.  This is not to say Radley doesn’t ever look up from his grindstone; he still takes breaks to check Twitter (thus supplying me with some of the links I post in my guest columns), to make short posts (such as this video clip in which Sheriff Andy Taylor explains the 4th amendment to Opie), or to appear on Stossel.  One of those quickie posts was a comparison of two recruiting videos for two police departments which couldn’t be more different; the absurd video from Newport Beach, California (which made police work look like an action movie) went viral as a result of his posting it …and if he can do that with something he just slapped together in his spare time, just imagine what he can do when he tries (as with this post on how police fatalities have dropped while police murders of citizens have risen sharply).

Due to a few vacations and other prior commitments some of my fellow guest bloggers were a bit quieter this week than last; Ken posted “In Which You Discover Only What The State Thinks You Should”, explaining why the ACLU is suing the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office over a “special directive” ordering prosecutors to violate the United States Constitution by hiding exculpatory evidence from criminal defendants.  Patrick posted a links column, several music videos, a mock obituary of the fictional detective Encyclopedia Brown  (in observance of the death of his creator, Donald J. Sobol), and a wickedly Swiftian satire on the tendency of politicians and the media to blame senseless murders on elements of the shooter’s background that have absolutely nothing to do with his homicidal tendencies.  Drew posted a links page, a story about rescuing a bunny, and a strong criticism of racists in Tennessee who are angry because their governor appointed a Muslim woman as director of the state’s export bureau.

My contributions for the week started with “Range of Experience”, an argument that there is no such thing as a “typical whore” (supported by links to all of my harlotographies).  On Wednesday I cross-posted “Pull the String”, on Friday I featured a video of “Killer Queen” and today I shared pictures of my dog Lady.  Finally, here are the links I posted this week:

The next three came via Jesse Walker:

This one came from Grace:

The rest came from all sorts of places:

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That Was the Week That Was (#25)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Q & A, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 23, 2012| 34 Comments »

There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough.  –  William James

Sixteen updates and two metaupdates.

Rough Trade (Part One) (July 25th, 2010)

Ah, synchronicity; the same week this early essay was featured on Debatbond to introduce the topic “Can a prostitute be raped?”, two California lawyers presented their own views on the subject in court.  Representing the “no” position:

Prosecutors dropped rape charges…against…Michael Stanford…[Defense attorney Roberto] Dulce said…the alleged victim was a prostitute and…the sexual contact between her and Stanford was consensual…In a dispute over money, the woman accused Stanford of rape…Dulce said he had witnesses who would testify that they, too, had engaged in sex with the woman…

Yet she didn’t accuse the other “witnesses” of rape, probably because they didn’t rape her.  I think we can guess what happened; “dispute over payment” means he cheated her, but since Fresno isn’t Cartagena he got away with it.  The story says the charge was dropped because “the alleged victim could not be found for Stanford’s trial”; she was probably afraid to go into a building full of cops.  It might have been different in Modesto:  “[Judge Linda McFadden]…denied a motion to overturn a grand jury indictment against…police officer…Lee Freddie Gaines…The alleged victim…testified…that she was working as a prostitute…[when Gaines] handcuffed her and demanded oral sex…”

Amsterdam (November 1st, 2010)

Despite a total lack of evidence, Dutch police and anti-whore politicians keep beating the “sex trafficking” drum:

…Amsterdam…plans to force brothel owners to submit a business plan to the city describing what measures they are taking to ensure sex workers are healthy and not being exploited…in recent years both the city and national government have become increasingly critical of the industry.  [They claim] many prostitutes are victims of human trafficking or coerced by pimps…

It’s impossible to prove a negative (“whores are not coerced”); that’s why the burden of proof is supposed to be on the accuser.  And greater legal restrictions will only force whores into the shadows, providing greater opportunity for coercion as they always do.

December Q & A (December 28th, 2010)

Not even doctors and scientists are immune to idiotic male-ego-boosting myths:

…A stem cell expert is looking to treat sex workers with their bodies’ own stem cells, so they can have tight, toned vaginal muscles…“The idea…was tried…by a team of scientists in Japan.  They recruited commercial sex workers who wished to give up the trade and get married…” said Dr Himanshu Bansal…The clinical trial involved mostly young women, some of them mothers, who were worried that their vaginal muscles were too lax…

I hate to break this to you, guys, but your penises are not as big as babies.  Not even close.  No amount of sex, commercial or otherwise, can loosen the vaginal muscles; only babies do that.  Notice that “some of them mothers?”  The truth is “most of them.”

I Really Shouldn’t Even LOOK at an Issue of Cosmopolitan (January 18th, 2011)

I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s willing to say out loud that Cosmo’s “sex advice” is ludicrous; Ben Reininga writes “Ridiculous Tips for a Miserable Sex Life”, which this month features his hilarious picks for Cosmo’s 44 most ridiculous tips of all time.  Enjoy.

A Narrow View (April 29th, 2011)

An organization of young Chicago sex workers fights for their rights against a system which treats them as infantilized victims:

When youth who live on the streets and work in the sex trade…are victimized…often the institutions that are supposed to help them…do more harm than good.  [Leaders of]…the Young Women’s Empowerment Project…said, “We don’t dictate a young person’s future and make decisions for them, we support them to make it on their own”…While many organizations dealing with sex workers aim to help them leave sex work, YWEP maintains that it is a valid individual choice and practices a harm reduction philosophy…

Social Construction of Eunuchs (July 18th, 2011)

Apparently forced feminization of little boys isn’t enough for Swedish neofeminists any more:

…Vänsterpartiet, [a feminist socialist party,] tabled a motion that would require office washrooms to be genderless with a sit-down-only requirement…Party speakers cited medical research they said shows men empty their bladders more efficiently while seated…[which] reduces the risk for prostate problems…[motion author] Viggo Hansen…[said] the move does not represent an attempt to meddle in the bathroom habits of citizens…

Wholesale Hypocrisy (October 12th, 2011)

It’s always refreshing to see judges slap witch-hunters down:

Instead of presenting prostitution-related charges against former University of New Mexico President F. Chris Garcia and others to a grand jury this week, prosecutors are now discussing the future of the case…[after] Judge Stan Whitaker…ruled that neither a website, an online message board nor a computer amount to a “house of prostitution or a place where prostitution is practiced, encouraged or allowed”…Garcia’s attorney, Robert Gorence…last month called on District Attorney Kari Brandenburg “to…[exonerate] Dr. Garcia” after owning up to “the mistake she made when she bought in to APD’s flawed investigation and exaggerated charges…[Garcia] never received a penny from any such activities nor did he control or direct the activities of women who advertised as escorts”…

As another legal expert stated, “Connecting people to do whatever they want to do is not illegal, it never has been.”  And as Melissa Gira Grant succinctly put it, “Data is not prostitution.”

Forward and Backward (November 22nd, 2011)

While American prohibitionists continue to demand that whores’ advertising be censored, Spain has moved into the 21st century:  “…the Spanish parliament reversed a 2010 ban on advertising by…prostitutes and brothels…[in order] to stimulate Spain’s poor economy.  The sex industry spent approximately €40 million annually on advertising, according to a 2007 report…”  Perhaps if the economy continues to worsen, American politicians may eventually wake up; this is, after all, the same reason alcohol Prohibition was repealed in 1932.

The More the Better (January 9th, 2012)

This article about University of Wyoming students who work as strippers is not only fairly sensible, but includes these encouraging words from Women’s Studies (!) professor Susan Dewey:

“It is a reality that some women see sex work as a form of liberation…in recent years…trafficking has become conflated with sex work…I have many students who will use [the] terms prostitution and trafficking synonymously, interchangeably.  This is very, very problematic because when you say to someone ‘you do not have the right to do something legally’ that’s one thing…but when you say to a person ‘you think are making a choice but you’re actually not, because no person with self-respect would make that choice,’ that’s a real problem.”

The Course of a Disease (February  16th, 2012)

This week Scottish Labour MP Rhoda Grant was defeated in her attempt to fast-track Swedish Model legislation without allowing opponents to speak:

The proposal…must now go out to consultation, instead of taking a quicker route through the Scottish Parliament.  Ms Grant argued a previous attempt to pass such a law meant the issues had already been aired…A similar proposal in 2010 was opposed by ministers, who feared it would push the sex trade underground.  Critics of such legislation believe that making workers in the sex trade less visible to the authorities would place them in greater danger…

Here’s an example of how different the US and UK can be sometimes:  one of the groups opposed to client criminalization is the Association of Chief Police Officers.  Dr. Brooke Magnanti’s excellent essay on the issue concludes with the eminently-quotable line, “It’s time we started acting like grownups and stopped pretending that making something illegal makes it cease to exist.”

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (March 3rd, 2012)

The new “Trafficking in Persons Report” has been released; Algeria, Central African Republic, Congo, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Kuwait, Libya, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Zimbabwe are now on Tier 3, “Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so” (those “standards” are defined by the US via methods it neither discusses with anyone else nor even explains).  Several other countries were raised to Tier 2 after they stepped up pogroms against whores (as Malaysia did in 2008), and Israel was promoted to Tier 1 (probably due to its flirtation with the Swedish Model).

The Immunity Syndrome (March 5th, 2012)

Parents in Onalaska, Washington are reportedly “furious” that a school principal honestly answered students’ questions in a sex education class; apparently, the parents expected her to lie, and one of them said that talking about sex in a sex education class is “just the same as raping somebody.”

Above the Law (March 8th, 2012)

The British government has finally admitted that cops are allowed to trick women into having sex while spying on them:  “[Home Office Minister Nick] Herbert said it was important police were allowed to have sex with activists because otherwise it could be used as a way of outing potential undercover officers…” In other words they’re allowed to do whatever they like, including rape, in order to accomplish whatever it is they want to do.

Little Boxes (April 29th, 2012)

The inevitable result of trying to make artificial distinctions between consensual behaviors:

The owner of a [Las Vegas] massage business…says she’s losing crucial business because of a [new] city law requiring her to close at 10 p.m…”If we don’t get an extension, I’ll be closed within a month…The daytime does not pull in what we need to cover.  It is barely paying the rent for that space and utilities.”  Mayor Carolyn Goodman said changing the ordinance for the Johnsons would set a precedent for more than 50 other “massage establishment” licensees…

As I’ve said before, “attempting to define sexuality…as being in the… ‘legal’ category rather than the…‘illegal’ one is a tacit acknowledgement that such lines of demarcation are valid and that government has the right to draw them…even if one wins the battle, the government can simply re-draw the line to include one’s entrenched position.”  The Johnsons are learning that the hard way.

Naked Truth (May 23rd, 2012)

I’m going to use this title for articles written by current or former sex workers in mainstream sites or publications.  This time, two outstanding pieces by Tits and Sass contributors:  “The Ways We Don’t Talk About Wealth” by Charlotte Shane in The New Inquiry, and “Can Sex Workers Transition to a Cashless Economy?” by Susan Shepard (AKA Bubbles Burbujas) in Forbes.

Reframing (June 20th, 2012)

My friend LilyRose sent me a link to this “reframed” trailer, which is exactly the opposite of the Mrs. Doubtfire one and just as clever:

Metaupdates

Law of the Instrument in TW3 (#20) (May 19th, 2012)

Think about these stories next time you hear some “authority” blathering about how “trafficking” has increased.  The first one comes via Wendy Lyon:  “A 30-year-old man…[was] charged with an offence under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act…[after] travelling to Ireland [to meet] a child, having…communicated with that child on two or more previous occasions with the intent of doing an act that would constitute sexual exploitation…” And here’s another one from Minneapolis, Minnesota:

[Mickey Cupkie]…has been charged under Minnesota’s new Sex Trafficking law for having sex with two teen prostitutes, ages 15 and 17…The girls were runaways, says Minneapolis Police Sgt. Grant Snyder…He says pimps picked the girls up…and then placed an add [sic] on Backpage.com…Ramsey County Attorney John Choi says he hopes the charges send a message to the Johns…

Said message being, “’trafficking’ means whatever we want it to mean, and if girls act alone we’ll just invent pimps and ‘traffickers’ to fit the narrative.”

See No Evil in TW3 (#21) (May 26th, 2012)

Even Sweden gets it right once in a while:  “Swedish news outlet The Local  reports that their Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of manga translator Simon Lundström on child pornography charges…The court’s decision reflects the viewpoint of free speech advocates…that sexually explicit manga images are…not child pornography…”

One Year Ago Today

“Lola Montez” was one of the most colorful courtesans of the 19th (or any other) century.

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The Schizoid State

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2012| 21 Comments »

For men…, however apparently contradictory to common sense, and the very principles of all their knowledge; have let loose their fancies and natural superstition; and have been by them led into so strange opinions, and extravagant practices…that a considerate man cannot…avoid thinking them ridiculous, and offensive to a sober man.  –  John Locke

The human mind is an astonishingly complex system which contains so many separate and often conflicting schemata and cognitive mechanisms, both conscious and unconscious, that there will inevitably be times when the mind holds two contradictory thoughts, ideas or feelings at the same time.  This induces cognitive dissonance, an unstable (and emotionally unpleasant) state which must be remedied in order to restore psychic equilibrium.  The rational person usually resolves the dilemma by conscious introspection, while the typical person generally clings to his beliefs or emotions and denies the facts which conflict with them.  But some deeply delusional individuals are such masters of doublethink that they can accept two completely contradictory cognitions at exactly the same time, and when they reveal these schizoid thought processes to the world via word or deed the rational person cannot help but feel a sort of fascinated pity mingled with fear, disgust or contempt.

Take, for example, the Ukranian protest group Femen, which protests topless because according to founder Anna Hutsol, women “have the right to use our bodies as weapons”.  So far, so good; people have the right to use their bodies as they please.  So why does Femen oppose sex work?

The controversial women’s rights group known for their provocative protests of world affairs, has taken to the streets of Hamburg…armed with…wearable sex toys…their bodies painted with Swastikas and Hitler mustaches, gesturing their way down the streets in similar fashion to Hitler’s regime nearly 70 years ago…chanting, “Sex slavery is fascism”…

So according to Femen, it’s OK to use one’s sex appeal to get in the news, but not to make a living; even by neofeminist standards this is psychotic.  But the cognitive contortions involved are no worse than those in this article about male strippers from The Independent, whose writer (one Francesca Steele) manages to convince herself that male stripping is “empowering” while female stripping is “demeaning” (she tells us that male strippers are “gods on stage”, but female strippers are “objectified”, presumably because the girls make a lot more money than the guys do).  The funniest part?  Steele seems completely oblivious to the fact that most of male strippers’ clients are other men.

The police are another group who are masters of schizoid thinking:

Police in Ottawa are calling a case in which two 15-year-old girls are charged with human trafficking “shocking.”  They say they have never seen anything like it before…[they] allege that on three separate occasions, the girls lured three female victims ranging from 13 to 17 years of age to a city residence…[from which they] were driven to other locations for the purposes of prostitution.  The accused girls face multiple charges, including human trafficking, robbery, procuring, forcible confinement, sexual assault, assault, uttering threats and abduction…the victims were confined and somehow forced to engage in prostitution.  Police said there was no indication pimps or men played any role…

In plain English:  the two 15-year-olds figured out how to place escort ads and talked their three friends into it.  But since anyone under 18 is an innocent, asexual “child”, they couldn’t possibly have gone along for money and kicks; they must have been “forced” by “traffickers”.  Remember:  breaking a law, no matter how stupid or arbitrary, is the one thing which can cause the magic Shazam lightning to strike even one second before midnight on a person’s 18th birthday, thus transforming an innocent child into a ruthless adult criminal.  The Kanadian Kops claim they’ve “never seen anything like it before”, so they must not communicate with their American counterparts; teens here are often arrested for “sexually abusing” their consenting partners and prosecuted for “child porn” when they take nude pictures of themselves.

But the undisputed champion of contradiction, the Schizoid Sultan, the Duke of Doublethink, is New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.  Regular readers are familiar with the way he criticizes others for restricting women’s sexual choices while advocating the restriction of those choices, decries the “exploitation” of women while using lurid “sex slave” porn to sell ads for his employers, and attacks some instances of government meddling while praising others and simultaneously stating that it’s natural and good for government intrusions into private affairs to continually increase.  Even so, I think he surpassed himself last week:

I’m generally an admirer of Obama’s foreign policy, but his policies toward both Syria and Sudan increasingly seem lame, ineffective and contrary to American interests and values.  Obama has shown himself comfortable projecting power — as in his tripling of American troops in Afghanistan.  Yet now we have the spectacle of a Nobel Peace Prize winner in effect helping to protect two of the most odious regimes in the world…[Sudan’s] leader has been charged with genocide, has destabilized the region, has sponsored brutal proxy warlords like Joseph Kony, has presided over the deaths of more than 2.5 million people…and the Obama administration doesn’t want him overthrown?  In addition, the administration has consistently tried to restrain the rebel force here…Likewise, in Syria, the United States has not only refused to arm the opposition but has, I believe, discouraged other countries from doing so…we should make clear that unless the security forces depose Assad in the next 30 days, our Middle Eastern allies will arm the Syrian opposition.  We should work with these allies, as well as with major powers like Russia and China, to encourage a coup…That’s not too much to expect of a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Yes, you read that correctly:  Kristof says that Obama should prove he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize by starting two new wars.  I can’t believe that absolutely nobody outside the libertarian press noticed the glaring contradiction, so I suspect that nearly everyone who read any of these stories recognized the conflicts in them immediately…and then promptly discarded such realizations as sources of cognitive dissonance when juxtaposed with their fawning respect for self-proclaimed authorities.

One Year Ago Today

“Whores in History Revisited” is an extended review of a fantastic book I cannot possibly recommend enough.

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The Suppression of Virtue

Posted in History, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on June 14, 2012| 59 Comments »

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.  –  Mikhail Bakunin

Though most modern people consider the duality of good and evil to be a universal concept, nothing could be farther from the truth.  Since time immemorial there have been concepts of right and wrong, but the idea that there exists a morality untied to the pronouncements of leaders or deities is a comparatively new one (and indeed, one that still appears to lie beyond the understanding of most humans).  In ancient times (and for a majority of modern people) “right” or “good” behavior is that which obeys the dicta of some authority figure, however arbitrary or contradictory; for example, in the Old Testament Yahweh often orders the Hebrews to break his own commandments, yet that obedience is viewed as virtuous (consider also the story of Abraham, who would’ve obediently sacrificed his son had Yahweh not countermanded the order at the last second).  But during the 2nd millennium BCE, some philosophers began to recognize that there are universal principles of morality which do not depend on laws, and that moral decision is a matter of higher judgment rather than mere mechanistic obedience.

But when personal ethics conflict with laws enforced by violence, something has to give; what is a moral person to do when the right action is prohibited by law or immoral behavior demanded by it?  Even if a person is so dedicated to Good that he is willing to accept state-inflicted violence as the price of being a moral person in a deeply-flawed world, state-sponsored malefactors will inevitably  prevent or undo his good actions as soon as they are discovered, possibly at great cost to those he cares about.  Consider the classic villain trick of compelling the hero to evil actions via threat of grievous harm to someone he cares deeply about; the state uses this monstrous form of compulsion every day by threatening to abduct the children of those it wishes to intimidate and subjecting them to life-destroying abuse and neglect.  Such forms of compulsion are by their very nature evil because they remove the capacity for free moral choice, thereby making good impossible.  A computer, a lower animal which functions purely by instinct, or an inanimate object under the influence of natural laws is capable of neither good nor evil; morality requires free choice, and a sentient being robbed of that choice is reduced to the level of a mechanism or a vegetable.  The act of compelling action therefore exists in the same moral realm as imprisonment, lobotomization or mutilation; it forcibly removes an intrinsic capacity of the sentient being without its consent.

In Gnostic theology, God created the universe in order to make a space where the angels could be away from Him so that they could have free will; the Divine Presence is so overwhelming that no creature can choose to do anything but obey when confronted by it.  And even though that action resulted in the creation of evil, it also brought goodness into existence because without choice there can be neither.  An example of the inverse appears in the novel and film A Clockwork Orange:  when the Ludovico Technique conditions the sadistic young criminal Alex against sex and violence, he becomes unable to defend himself from murderous attacks or sexually contact a consenting woman.  He “ceases…to be a creature capable of moral choice”; he is neither good or evil, but merely a sort of organic robot (hence the title).  All the government cares about is that he refrain from prohibited types of evil; the fact that he can’t actually be good is immaterial (thus proving that politicians are far less wise than 1st-century philosophers).

Modern tyrannies pretend that paternalistic laws coupled with harsh punishments make people “good”, but this is nothing but a low-level, society-wide application of the Ludovico Technique and those oppressed by it are robbed of moral choice.  As Sheldon Richman wrote in a recent Reason article, “social engineers think they need to deprive us of freedom in order to make us moral or in some way better…so they use the law to keep us from discriminating, gambling, eating allegedly fattening foods, taking drugs, smoking in restaurants, abstaining from helping others, leaving our seat belts unbuckled, you name it.”  The article discusses “On Doing the Right Thing”, a 1924 essay by anarchist philosopher Albert Nock, who was nevertheless thoroughly Victorian in his ideas about sex; he clearly held extramarital activity (including sex work) in the same low esteem he afforded to habitual drunkenness.  But despite his personal aversion to “loose living”, he specifically rejects the notion that morality can or should be compelled by law:

…I remember seeing recently a calculation that the poor American is staggering along under a burden of some two million laws; and obviously, where there are so many laws, it is hardly possible to conceive of any items of conduct escaping contact with one or more of them.  Thus, the region where conduct is controlled by law so far encroaches upon the region of free choice and the region where conduct is controlled by a sense of the Right Thing, that there is precious little left of either…living in America is like serving in the army; ninety per cent of conduct is prescribed by law and the remaining ten per cent by the esprit du corps, with the consequence that opportunity for free choice in conduct is practically abolished…a civilisation organised upon this absence of responsibility is pulpy and unsound.

…freedom seems to be the only condition under which any kind of substantial moral fibre can be developed…we have tried law, compulsion and authoritarianism of various kinds, and the result is nothing to be proud of…in suggesting that we try freedom, therefore, the anarchist and individualist has a strictly practical aim…the production of a race of responsible beings…our legalists and authoritarians…keep insisting…[that] freedom [allows one] to drink oneself to death.  The anarchist grants this at once; but at the same time he points out that it also means freedom to say…”I never drink.”  It unquestionably means freedom to go on without any code of morals at all; but it also means freedom to rationalise, construct and adhere to a code of one’s own.  The anarchist presses the point invariably overlooked, that freedom to do the one without correlative freedom to do the other is impossible; and that just here comes in the moral education which legalism and authoritarianism, with their denial of freedom, can never furnish…

Even if it were true that an authoritarian nanny-state was a “safer” society (an assertion with which anyone to whom a cop or prosecutor takes a dislike would disagree), that still would not make it a better society.  Moral progress does not begin with authorities bringing stone tablets down from mountains, but with individuals who are free to act openly on their personal principles, thus providing a good example to others.  The more freedom a society allows, the more new ethical concepts enter the marketplace of ideas; the less freedom, the fewer.  People learn by doing, not by being done for; unexercised muscles do not grow, but rather atrophy.  And it is impossible to develop a moral sense without the opportunity to make free moral judgments whose consequences are those which result from the decision itself instead of those arbitrarily inflicted by the state.

One Year Ago Tomorrow

“June Miscellanea (Part One)” reports on the beginning of the Canadian prostitution law appeal, CNN’s bizarre definition of “expert”, more nanny-state cheerleading from Kristof and Mother Russia’s attempt to prove she can be just as pigheaded as Uncle Sam.

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Willful Ignorance

Posted in Current Events, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 11, 2012| 44 Comments »

Ignorance is not innocence but sin.  –  Robert Browning

One year ago today I published “Handy Figures”, a synopsis of numbers relating to prostitution issues with links to where that information can be found.  None of that information is esoteric; most of it can be found online with a few minutes’ search, and the rest would be available in any decent library.  So while the average person might lack the research skills to locate it, or the critical thinking skills that would enable him to realize he should look for it in the first place, one would hope neither of those things would be true about journalists.  Alas, that would be a vain hope:  with a few notable exceptions, investigative journalism is a lost art, and the bulk of the Fourth Estate is happy simply to swallow any lie put forth by politicians or special-interest groups; nor would the average reporter know how to find the proper information if he had a notion to.  Still, even if that’s true of small media companies it’s almost inconceivable it could apply to the BBC, or Reuters, or The Australian; so when these sources release stories that 45 minutes of research would’ve invalidated, I have no choice but to assume they didn’t find the truth because they didn’t want to, which is a serious moral and ethical lapse.

The least of these sins is that of The Australian, both because it lacks the hefty reputation of the others and because the misinformation isn’t quite as obvious to the uninitiated or obtuse:

Drunken lads’ holidays in Thailand and Indonesia, involving unprotected sex with prostitutes, are boosting Queensland’s HIV rate.  And men from north Queensland are picking up the virus from trips to nearby Papua New Guinea, a country with one of the world’s highest HIV rates.  The alarming hike in the rate of human immunodeficiency virus, a forerunner to AIDs [sic], has led for calls to again push the safe-sex message amid fears young people are becoming lax…Australian Medical Association Queensland president Dr Richard Kidd said the increase in WA and Queensland was likely due to the mining boom in those states.  “Young men, isolated from their families, earning lots of money – and whether they are going to Thailand and having sex with prostitutes or whether prostitutes are coming in from other countries, the data doesn’t quite tell us.  But they are both legitimate concerns”…

Only they aren’t:

Absolute total rubbish, was the response from Sexual Health Services specialist Dr Arun Menon to [newspaper claims]…that the rise in syphilis cases in the North West was due to dubious sex practices in illegitimate brothels in Mount Isa.  “The problem isn’t with sex workers or brothels; it’s with young people aged 15 to 30…” Dr Menon said…

Now, HIV is not syphilis, but protection is protection and the condoms that prevent one will prevent the other; if the rise in syphilis isn’t due to hookers we can be relatively sure the rise in HIV isn’t either.  And how does Dr. Kidd know the “drunken lads” got it from prostitutes?  Did he see the viruses under the microscope wearing microbial fishnets and infinitesimal spike-heeled pumps?  As usual, amateurs who just fall into sex without protection (because “good girls” don’t carry condoms) get a free pass while those “dirty whores” get the blame.

Reuters’ offense is far greater because its reputation demands it consult facts which have been fairly well-publicized rather than repeating urban legends:

Ukraine will use fighters and helicopters to guard its air space and put security and health services on full alert during the European soccer championship, but officials said on Tuesday they could do little to stem a likely flood of prostitutes…social and feminist watchdog groups like the Kiev-based Femen…say the Euro soccer tournament will only give a spurt to the already booming sex industry in Ukraine which demeans the international image of Ukrainian women…

Here, Reuters, let me help you:  The myth that there is some lost tribe of harlots  which wanders the Earth in pursuit of major sporting events is total and utter bullshit which has been disproven by researchers time and time again.  Got it?

But the BBC’s behavior goes beyond the merely sinful; the garbage vomited out in this recent “investigation”  rises to the level of full-scale criminal negligence in its reliance on rumors, repetition of US State Department “estimates” of unexplained derivation, willful misinterpretation of migration and sex work, use of inflammatory language, and embrace of “end demand” rhetoric, when all it had to do for the facts was contact the English Collective of Prostitutes or Dr. Laura Agustín.  This is not new for the BBC; it sponsored the infamous one-sided “debate” at the “End Human Trafficking” event held in Mubarak’s Egypt (without a hint of irony) in December of 2010.  But that was a year and a half ago, and the facts about “trafficking” have become much more accessible to the general public since then…yet the world’s largest news broadcaster continues to promote myths and lies rather than reporting politically-unpopular facts, thus demonstrating its commitment to propaganda and ignorance rather than information and truth.

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Rhodopis

Posted in Biography, Harlotography, History, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 7, 2012| 12 Comments »

The Egyptians relations affirm that Rhodopis was a most beautiful Curtizan; and that on a time as she was bathing her self, Fortune, who loveth to doe extravagant and unexpected things, gave her a reward…  –  Aelian, Various Histories (XIII, xxxiii) (tr. Thomas Stanley)

As I pointed out in my biography of La Belle Otero,

…the details of [the] lives [of courtesans] tend to be vague and often contradictory…[because] when one is in the business of selling an illusion, the details of one’s life may become as fluid and embellished as advertising copy, and one’s biographers are forced to choose between conflicting reports from letters, rumors, the rose-tinted memories of favored clients, the gossip of rivals and the propaganda of moralists.

But though many fanciful tales are told of courtesans from Acca Larentia to Mata Hari, none are as romantic and enduring as the story of Rhodopis, which eventually became one of the world’s most beloved fairy tales.

She was a Thracian enslaved in Samos sometime in the first half of the 6th century BCE; her birth name may have been Doricha, but since the source of this information is Strabo (who lived 500 years later), we cannot be certain.  She was the slave of Iadmon, who also owned Aesop, the great fabulist; by this we may infer that Iadmon was an enlightened man who educated his slaves well and allowed them considerable freedom.  Sometime in her teens she was sold to Aesop’s original owner Xanthes, a merchant who traded extensively with Egypt (one of the traditions of Aesop’s life is that he was Ethiopian, which would make sense in the context of Xanthes’ business).  It is unclear whether she started working as a hetaera for Iadmon or if it was her second master who first employed her thus, but the fact that she was educated (as other Greek women were not) indicates that this was the career for which she was intended from the start.  Her stage name, like those of many hetaerae, was based on a physical feature:  “Rhodopis” means “rosy cheeks”.

Xanthes took her to Naucratis, the first permanent Greek colony in Egypt, where she quickly became very popular.  She had not been working a very long time when she was hired by the merchant Charaxus, elder brother of the poetess Sappho; he soon fell in love with her and purchased her freedom for a very dear price, for which he was scolded by his sister in verse.  It is from this now-lost poem that Strabo derived the name Doricha; some sources say the lyric also chided Rhodopis for taking advantage of her brother’s good nature by stealing his property (i.e. accepting her freedom rather than becoming his slave).  This helps us to pin down the time somewhat; Herodotus tells us that the reigning pharaoh was Amasis II, whose reign began in 570 BCE, and Sappho is believed to have died not long after that.  Rhodopis remained in Naucratis and became very successful; she was religiously devout and tithed to the temple at Delphi, which had to be rebuilt after being destroyed in a fire (the Pharaoh also donated 1000 talents of gold as a gesture of friendship toward the Greeks).  Large contributors were commemorated by iron spits engraved with their names; Herodotus (who lived a century later) said that he counted ten inscribed with hers, which gives you some idea of her wealth.

This is all that can be considered historical about Rhodopis; the rest belongs to the realm of legend and fantasy.  The first of these stories, which began shortly after her death, claimed that she had built the third of the Great Pyramids.  This is of course ridiculous; it was actually built by Menkaure in the 4th Dynasty, about 2500 BCE.  The story may have arisen through confusion of Rhodopis with the legendary 6th dynasty Queen Nitocris, possibly due to the name of her city (Naucratis); Nitocris was herself confused with Menkaure because her throne name was said to have been Menkaura.  Herodotus thoroughly debunked the idea that Rhodopis had anything to do with pyramid-building, but did repeat the legend of Nitocris…who may not have existed at all.  Historians believe that she appeared in the historical record due to a mistake in a catalog of pharaohs compiled during the reign of Ramses II, and that previously independent legends were then attached to her.  Incidentally, Herodotus’ account of Nitocris’ life inspired the young Tennessee Williams’ first published story, “The Vengeance of Nitocris”, which appeared in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales; this story in turn inspired H.P. Lovecraft to mention her in two of his tales, thus bringing her into the Lovecraftian tradition drawn on by many writers since.  And Ramses II, who inadvertently created her legend, himself inspired Shelley’s “Ozymandias”.  It’s almost like I planned all this to fit together, isn’t it?

The confusion of Rhodopis and Nitocris (a lady of very different background and temperament) was no doubt facilitated by the legend that the former also became the Queen of Egypt.  Strabo repeats the story, already old in his time, that after Rhodopis had become successful and wealthy she bought a fine house with a pool in the garden.  And while she was bathing there one day, an eagle swooped down and stole one of her sandals, carried it to nearby Sais, and dropped it in Pharaoh’s lap.  The monarch was of course fascinated by this strange omen and by the richness and beauty of the sandal, and so sent men throughout the capital and other nearby cities to discover who the owner of the dainty lost shoe might be.  Rhodopis’ maids had of course gossiped about the singular occurrence at their mistress’ bath, and by this word came to Pharaoh, who summoned the hetaera to the palace.  When he beheld her beauty he interpreted the omen as a sign he should marry her, and she therefore became Queen of Egypt and they lived happily ever after.

Though there is no clear historical record of the latter part of Rhodopis’ life, we do know the names of Amasis II’s consorts and she is not among them.  It’s certainly possible that she became one of his concubines; she would be neither the first nor the last courtesan to become a royal mistress, and an earlier folk tale may have become attached to her name because of it.  But in the end, it doesn’t matter because the magical romance of a king and a commoner enabled by a lost slipper proved greater than either of the living people who inspired it, and Rhodopis – or as we have called her since 1697, Cinderella – is undoubtedly the only whore ever to inspire a Walt Disney movie.

One Year Ago Today

“Full of Themselves” reveals the incredible pomposity of certain women who would be considered sex workers but for the existence of an arbitrary legal line.

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My Favorite Poems (Part One)

Posted in Favorites, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2012| 20 Comments »

I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.  –  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Since last month’s column on my favorite books proved so popular, I figured an encore was in order; today and tomorrow I’ll present my favorite poems, arranged alphabetically by poet.  As is my custom, I’ve limited the selections to one per poet and listed others as honorable mentions.  I’ll share short selections within the column, but longer ones as PDFs, and in cases where I was fortunate enough to locate an illustrated version of an honorable mention I used it as the illustration; just click on it to enlarge.  Those blessed with good memories or burdened with English degrees have probably noticed my preference for 19th century literature, especially of the Romantic period (roughly the first half of the century and the end of the 18th); even most of my 20th century selections cluster in the first half.  I’d say 75% of all the fiction and poetry I’ve ever read was written between 1766 and 1966, with the remaining quarter divided evenly between the pre-1766 and post-1966 periods.  Why?  I have no clue; maybe it’s related to the fact that I always get a profound frisson when writing or reading about Catherine Eddowes.

1)  “The Tyger” (1794) by William Blake (HM “A Poison Tree” & “The Sick Rose”)

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Blake was a poet, engraver and visionary; he had visions from the time he was a small child and they often inspired his work.  He developed an entire personal mythology as complex as that later created by H.P. Lovecraft, and used it throughout his oeuvre…which often, as these selections demonstrate, contained an undercurrent of horror (consider the theological implications in the penultimate stanza of “The Tyger”).  He’s my favorite poet and I’ve quoted him (usually from “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”) and used his illustrations in a number of columns.  I also have the honor of being distantly related to him.

2)  “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” (1842) by Robert Browning (HM “Porphyria’s Lover”)

Yes, it’s doggerel; some of the rhymes are almost painful!  But Browning did it on purpose to maintain a light tone in what would otherwise have been a mighty grim fairy tale about the consequences of not paying what one owes for a service (apparently Agent Huntington didn’t learn the lesson).  The Piper is of course one of the Fair Folk, and dealings with such beings are always fraught with danger (as demonstrated in two more of my selections tomorrow).  The legend dates to shortly after the original incident in 1284 (and as Browning tells us was commemorated in a stained-glass window a few years later), but his version (re-dated to 1376) is the most memorable.

3)  “The Destruction of Sennacherib” (1815) by George Gordon, Lord Byron

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

The topic is of course Biblical, a retelling of 2 Kings 19; I like it for the beauty of its language and the power of its imagery.  I’ve always suspected that the climactic scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark was inspired by this poem.  Bonus:  A very funny parody of it by Ogden Nash.

4)  “Jabberwocky” (1872) by Lewis Carroll (HM “The Walrus and the Carpenter”)

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jujub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two!! One, two!! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

The most amazing feature of Carroll’s finest short piece is that despite the sheer number of nonsense words, one still has absolutely no problem understanding what is going on here.  The poem is from Through the Looking-Glass; if you haven’t reread it lately you really ought to.

5)  “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge     (HM “Kubla Khan”)

Almost everyone knows that the title character brings doom upon his ship by shooting an albatross, but if you’ve never actually read the poem (or if it’s been a long time) you owe it to yourself to get the full story, which would make a fantastic horror movie exactly as written (it even has monsters and zombies, no joke).  Of course, that’s not unusual for Coleridge, who also wrote a poem about a lesbian vampire (“Christabel”). Oh, and Rush fans:  if you haven’t before, you really, really want to read “Kubla Khan”.  Trust me.

6)  “Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening” (1922) by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

My second-grade teacher probably would not have had me memorize this had she realized what it was actually about.  If you don’t understand, contemplate the eighth line and ask yourself why the last one is repeated.  I usually sing this one rather than reciting it; a friend of mine at UNO wrote a lovely tune for it.  Incidentally, this isn’t the only one of these I know by heart; I can also recite #1 (and its HMs), #4, #9 (and HMs), #10 and #11 (plus the first of two HMs).  However, you’ll have to read tomorrow’s column to discover what those are.

One Year Ago Today

“Nell Gwyn” was born in a brothel, became an actress and courtesan, and was eventually the mistress of King Charles II.

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The Daughters of Shamhat

Posted in History, Perception, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 24, 2012| 52 Comments »

She was not ashamed to take him, she made herself naked and welcomed his eagerness; as he lay on her murmuring love she taught him the woman’s art.  For six days and seven nights they lay together, for Enkidu had forgotten his home in the hills; but when he was satisfied he went back to the wild beasts.  Then, when the gazelle saw him, they bolted away; when the wild creatures saw him they fled.  Enkidu would have followed, but his body was bound as though with a cord, his knees gave way when he started to run, his swiftness was gone.  And now the wild creatures had all fled away; Enkidu was grown weak, for wisdom was in him, and the thoughts of a man were in his heart.  –  The Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet I)

While I understand why many activists and allies argue decriminalization from human rights, libertarian or harm reduction viewpoints, and indeed use these arguments myself because they are all valid ones, it’s sad that almost nobody wants to acknowledge another, equally important factor:  human society needs whores every bit as much as it needs farmers, soldiers, physicians and builders, and far more than it needs preachers, academic feminists, politicians and 90% of the other control freaks who work so assiduously at rousing the rabble against us.  Our ancient ancestors understood this; it’s not accidental that in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the temple harlot Shamhat is the one who tames the wild man Enkidu, turning him from a beast to a man.  But in the 5000 years since that powerful myth was first pressed into clay, Man’s world has forgotten its debt to us and has generally succumbed to the hubris of believing it no longer needs us; even in areas where our trade is legalized or decriminalized there is the self-important pretense that we are merely being tolerated as a magnanimous landlord might allow stray cats to eke out a marginal living on his property.

The change was very gradual; it wasn’t until about half the time between the writing of Gilgamesh and that of this essay had elapsed that someone first conceived of the idea of bringing the civilizing power of whores under the control of the state.  As discussed in one of my earliest columns, the Athenian politician Solon passed laws to reduce the relatively high status of Greek wives, and attempted to undermine the power of both independent prostitutes and the cult of Aphrodite by establishing cheap state-run brothels staffed by Asian slave girls; the failure of his attempt is a demonstration of the futility of proposals by certain historically-ignorant academics to establish a similar system with machines in place of slaves.  The Romans, Japanese, Catholic Church and other powers of the next two millennia did not even attempt to replicate Solon’s scheme, but rather contented themselves with taxing, regulating and socially isolating whores in order to establish patriarchal dominance while still allowing us to perform our vital social function:  giving men, whose demand (as Paglia put it) “always exceeds the female supply,” an outlet for that surplus libido.

Wise whores all know what feminists, preachers, politicians and pundits vociferously deny:  our trade saves far more marriages than it endangers, by allowing men the sexual variety they crave without endangering the social, emotional and economic arrangements of marriage.  In fact, I would even say that it was the emergence of commercial prostitution in the first millennium BCE which made widespread monogamy feasible; I predict that an historical study would reveal that few if any cultures abandoned polygamy before hookers were widespread in that society.  Nor are wives the only women whose safety and happiness are protected by harlots; prior to the late 19th century everyone from saints to kings understood that whores allow male passions which might lead to rape or other unsavory sexual behaviors to be siphoned off harmlessly in a manner which helps support some women while simultaneously preventing harm to others.  A 2004 study by Kirby Cundiff showed that the rates of rape and other sex crimes decrease in societies where prostitution is decriminalized or otherwise tolerated, and Swedish statistics document a sharp rise in rape after the implementation of their much-vaunted client criminalization model.

In some parts of the world, prostitution is already widely viewed as a job like any other, and most non-totalitarian governments recognize the need for our trade despite a refusal to publicly acknowledge it; even the United States pointedly ignores the existence of escort services and massage parlors except for periodic raids designed to “keep us in our place” and to please the stupider elements of the Great Unwashed.  Some very limited groups (such as the more educated and/or wise among both sex workers and clients, the majority of sex therapists and the more enlightened among advocates for the disabled) already recognize the vital role whores play in human society, and I can envision a future (depicted in the story I published one year ago today) where even most governments understand it at least as well as they did for most of history.  But for now, I’ll have to content myself with urging activists and allies to stop ceding ground to prohibitionists by pretending that prostitution is an evil to be tolerated rather than a good to be celebrated.

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Mythbusters

Posted in Current Events, History, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 22, 2012| 12 Comments »

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie–deliberate, contrived and dishonest–but the myth–persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.  –  John F. Kennedy

Yesterday I defined a “myth” as “a framework or paradigm used to explain and interpret observable phenomena in the absence of (or contrary to) hard data, usually via the involvement of a supernormal force or entity which is not discernible by ordinary means and therefore must be taken on faith.”  Some myths arise naturally, while others are specifically designed by rulers, priests, politicians or other would-be dictators as a means of social control.  For example, Alexander the Great’s successor Ptolemy I of Egypt combined the Greek god Hades and the Egyptian gods Apis and Osiris into a new god named Serapis, so as to have a deity all his subjects could worship; half a millennium later the Roman Emperor Elagabalus combined the Roman Sol, the Persian Mithra and the Syrian El-Gabal into a single god named Sol Invictus for much the same reason; and 13 centuries after that Catholic priests combined the Blessed Mother with the Aztec mother-goddess Tonantzin to produce Our Lady of Guadalupe in order to convert the Aztecs.  Similarly, the modern Swedish government has created a mythology of “state feminism” to control brainwashed “feminist” women and to suppress men and uppity women.  In my column of one year ago today I discussed a study which busted that particular myth wide open (though as I discussed yesterday, that won’t stop true believers from embracing it); today I’d like to observe that anniversary by sharing two other articles which bust modern myths, and one in which ignorant modern busybodies “bust” an ancient one.

Let’s start with one I myself have busted before: the “disease as punishment for sin” narrative, which holds that prostitutes and other people with “immoral” lifestyles carry more venereal diseases than those who simply “fall” into extramarital sex on occasion.  This is of course related to the ridiculous notion that only “bad girls” make rational decisions about sex, with predictable results:

[According to a new study] people who cheat on their partners are more likely to have unsafe sex than those in open relationships who don’t need to hide their sexual straying…[they] were less likely to use condoms, and less likely to discuss their history of sexually transmitted diseases…compared with people in open relationships who had sex with someone other than their primary partner…The results suggest those who are unfaithful have a higher risk of acquiring a sexually transmitted disease, and possibly transmitting it to their partner, than those in open relationships…The researchers found that 48 percent of unfaithful people reported using a condom  during their sexual digression, compared with 66 percent of individuals in an open relationship…34 percent of unfaithful individuals reported talking about their sexual history and previous STD testing before engaging in sex, compared with 63 percent of those in open relationships.  The cheaters were also less likely to cover or sterilize sex toys before using them, compared with those in open relationships.  Previous research has shown unfaithful people do not accurately perceive the effect their cheating will have on their partners’ mental health, and the new results suggest those who cheat also misperceive, or do not accept, the physical health risks of sex outside their relationship…

A great deal of the basis for “trafficking” mythology lies in myths about international migration, which are more prevalent now than at any time since the 1910s.  For example, everybody knows that the US is being flooded with ever-increasing numbers of Mexican immigrants, right?  Wrong:

…Douglas Massey, the founder and co-director of  Princeton’s Mexican Migration Project…[demonstrates] that…

• We are not being flooded with illegal Mexican migrants.  The total number of migrants from Mexico has varied very little since the 1950s.  The massive influx many have written about never happened.

• Net illegal migration has stopped almost completely.

• Illegal migration has not stopped because of stricter border enforcement, which Massey characterizes as a waste of money at best and counterproductive at worst.

• There are indeed more undocumented Mexicans living in the United States than there were 20 years ago, but that is because fewer migrants are returning home — not because more are sneaking into the country.

• And the reason that fewer Mexican citizens are returning home is because we have stepped up border enforcement so dramatically.

…If Congress had done nothing to secure the border over the last two decades…there might be as many as 2 million fewer Mexicans living in the United States today…heightened border enforcement…[shifted] the problem.  Unable to cross where they traditionally had — into California and Texas — Mexican migrants instead…[made] the dangerous Sonoran Desert crossing into Arizona…then moved on to other states.  Arizonans who complained during the 1990s and early 2000s about a surge in illegal migration were not imagining things.  But it was the American government…that…had channeled the flow of migrants into their backyard.

…migration traditionally was seasonal and cyclical.  Young men would head to El Norte in search of agricultural or construction work, earn money, and then return home.  But when it became too risky and too expensive to migrate seasonally, migrants simply chose to stay in the United States.  Because they no longer were returning home regularly, they could look for work farther from the border.  They also settled down and had families, which made them even less likely to leave…

Behold the Law of Unintended Consequences at work.  It is literally impossible for a government to stop or even control complex and widespread social phenomena by passing laws, especially prohibitionist laws; such legislation never stops what it’s intended to stop, and invariably creates a host of new problems.  But that never stops lawheads, who are always looking for something to ban…even if their target has been around for thousands of years before they were born:

A photograph of a naked woman and a swan was taken down after a police officer complained that it appeared to “condone bestiality”…the Scream gallery in Mayfair had exhibited the [depiction of the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan] for a month with no complaints from the public…But a Metropolitan police officer…saw the Derrick Santini image from a bus…and two uniformed officers went to the gallery…“They said the photograph suggested we condoned bestiality, which was an arrestable offence”…said [Jag Mehta, the gallery’s sales director].  “It’s crazy.  Perhaps the cultural references were lost on them.”  As the exhibition was already over, they took down the artwork…“We would of course have fought to keep the piece up otherwise.  If anyone wants to view it, we still have it at the gallery” [said gallery owner Jamie Wood]… Miss Mehta said the myth of Leda’s rape by Zeus was an acceptable form of erotica in Victorian times.  However, this argument failed to impress the police.  “They said they didn’t know anything about the myth,” she said.  “They asked if we had had any complaints and we said quite the contrary.  Lots of people were intrigued by it”…

Somehow I’m not surprised that the coppers were unfamiliar with the myth, or that their perverted minds saw only ugliness and sin where everyone else saw art.  But that’s what happens when two mythologies clash…especially when one set of believers is willing to threaten the other with violence in order to impose its own mythology on everyone.

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