15th
In defense of prostitution
In case you’ve been living under a state-controlled media dictatorship for the past few days or something and haven’t heard, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, the woman who worked as a booker at the prostitution service that Elliot Spitzer was a fan of, just plead guilty to charges of money laundering and promoting prostitution yesterday.
Now I’m totally anti-exploitation. And I’m anti-trafficking, anti-misogyny and anti-women-having-no-other-option-than-to-use-their-bodies-to-make-money situations. But goddamn it, these women were making more than I do. Sure, in some sense their bodies were being exploited. But you can’t tell me they were being forced into this, at least not in a literal sense (all overarching theories on how living in a patriarchy and growing up having your body sexualized affects your decisions aside).
And yes, it sucks (at least for me and lots of other women) that we live in a society where women can still make a hell of a lot more money selling sex than they can in most other jobs (link to pdf). BUT. If a girl wants to make a little cash by charging the men she sleeps with, who the hell is anyone else to stop her? And really, who is it harming? Most women regret at least 30% of the men they sleep with anyways, and everyone’s slept with at least one asshole (Ok ok, I know it’s not exactly the same thing).
I totally get why pimping women should be illegal — the whole beating women, taking their money and forcing them to do things part of it really turns me off. And I can even kind of see why buying sex might be outlawed, in the same kind of way that some blue-law counties won’t let you buy alcohol on Sundays. But really? You’re going to tell me if I want to sleep with someone and then ask them for some cash afterwards that I can then be arrested? The only difference between that and a girl dating a rich guy so that he’ll buy her things is that prostitution is less passive aggressive.