On Nov 23, 2004, at 11:29 PM, Ritu wrote:
Warren Ockrassa wrote:
It's healthy in *any* society that treats prostitutes with respect, doesn't stigmatize the trade, etc.
But does any society treat prostitutes with respect? Even if you don't stigmatise the trade, or stone /condemn them when they appear in your view, it still isn't the same as respecting the group. It is merely an absence of disrespect.
Well, perhaps it depends on the fees and the venue. Escort services, for instance, I suspect are thought of quite differently than streetwalkers.
(BTW the compare/contrast of courtesans with prostitutes was interesting.)
I'm unsure, furthermore, how you make the jump from paying for sex to treating the sex partner as an object.
I guess it might be a matter of the amount of choice enjoyed by the
women. Do they get to set their own price? Do they get to choose between
prospective customers? I dunno. I think it would be hard to avoid
feeling like an object if one is selling one's body for money, after all
one is accepting money for the use of one's body. There is no guarantee
of mutual attraction, and nothing else is included in the transaction -
not your thoughts, not your feelings....
But when you work at any job at all you are doing exactly the same thing. You're selling your body for money. Even if your work is strictly intellectual, since there is no way to separate mind from body, you are *always* trading your body for money.
Unless your employment now makes you feel like an object, I think you might be able to see how I can question why employing a prostitute is necessarily objectifying him/her. That is, a prostitute when plying his/her trade is no more an object than I am when I'm teaching (college! no one panic!), editing or writing.
So again: How does paying for sex automatically make the sex partner an object?
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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