Prostitution

Yesterday was International Women's Day, and, well, my good friend's birthday. We didn't get to go out and celebrate, which I regret, but maybe I'll text him later and let him know. This post, however, is going to be centered on all that is undignified when it comes to the topic of "prostitution" and once again I want to go over how pervasive and subversive sexism is in our society, and basically I'm just in the mood for a long rant.

Firstly, what the fuck is society's deal with shaming prostitutes. Why is there so much GRIEF and GUILT attached to selling your body for money. Firstly, let's look at the group of people who WILLINGLY prostitute themselves. Maybe they can choose another job, they wouldn't starve and die without the money- but they rather make money by having sex with others. I'm positive that these people exist. Perhaps I am being too 2-dimensional, but to me there is nothing inherently wrong with consenting adults engaging in sexual activity, even if it is for an amount of money. Like, if they're competent to make their own choices, then it's whatever. From a public health stand-point, it's probably not a good thing to have sex with very many different people, because that's how STDs spread- but that's not a moral issue, is it. It's more like, health advice, and with correct protection it's less of an issue.

There's this perception that having sex makes you dirty. Really, it's more of a double standard- you're only dirty if you've had sex with multiple men. If you've had sex with multiple women, it's because you're attractive and you have a great personality and you're a player. If you sleep with multiple men- you're apparently a low-life and you should be fucking ashamed of it. Then we create this strange scenario, where men sort of actively seek out sex, and women are taught to "preserve" themselves. Then if you're like, homosexual or bisexual or whatever, you're just out of the picture because you're not straight, and there'll be someone around to give you grief for that.

At this point I'd just like to point out that VIRGINITY IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT and if you want to be valued for more than your sexuality, you gotta get over it. I mean, our sexuality is part of who we are, so we shouldn't ignore or deny it (I think), but it's bullshit and unfair to tie our entire self-worth to JUST that. I was learning about child abuse and someone offhandedly mentioned that it was SUCH  a relief for the family of the victim, to see that their young daughter's hymen was still intact, after she'd been sexually assaulted. Now THAT, made me feel all gross and dirty on the inside. Like, I get it! I'm Chinese, raised in Chinese culture. Modesty is nice, but modesty is another way of describing "female oppression" in Chinese. You gotta stay a virgin, stay "clean" for your husband, but there's nothing like that for the guy. If you lose your virginity, you're "damaged goods" and you're infinitely harder to marry off and basically it's like, "you are now worth less".

That sounds archaic and messed up, yeah? Well, it's still a modern belief. Girls are still being told, today, not to "mess around" because they'll regret it and then they'll be damaged later. Now, conservative Chinese culture doesn't believe in psychology- they're not talking about the psychological damage of a break up or "feeling" used, they're talking about how because a penis once entered your vagina, or because people THINK a penis once entered your vagina, it's now okay for people to shame you for it. I bring up the Chinese context because I grew up in that culture, but if you think it's exclusively Chinese, you are so, so wrong. Before you say, "Japan and Korea are pretty similar to China"--- I'm not even talking about just the East Asian countries. I mean ALL OVER THE FUCKING WORLD, THIS IS HOW PEOPLE THINK. I don't know why it's such a universal trend to oppress women. It blows my fucking mind.

Like, if you ever want to read world literature, over and over again, whichever culture you look at, female oppression is ALWAYS a theme. At first I thought it was weird- what a nasty subject to repeat in these books. I always thought that my teacher picked them for that theme--- then I realized---it wasn't that they were picked for this alone, it was that sexism was a prevalent factor in the history of nearly all modern societies, and everywhere you go, you'll see it.

So what I'm trying to say is- virginity may be important for personal reasons, but whether or not you are a virgin should NOT be a factor in your value as a person. The stuff we should be condemning people for are cruelty to other humans, denial of climate change, wanting to start another war--- not whether or not someone has a ruptured hymen or whether they bled enough on their wedding night.

My original point about prostitution- I'm saying that it's O.K. Exploitation of vulnerable people and sex workers is NOT, but the thought that someone might be WILLING to have sex for a bit of money, is certainly FINE. You might make a point that "most people wouldn't do that if they had a choice", and thus it's a dirty profession, because if you end there you're at your lowest point of life. Well, people have done FAR WORSE when they are NOT at their worst in life. Remember how the banks fucked over the economy in America, and that effect rippled across the globe? What was that for? Money. Remember how wars were started, and people died, for the most mundane reasons? Doesn't matter, we hail our soldiers as heroes, but we are going to give desperate people a hard time, because they need to blow some guy to pay for next month's rent.

Most people would agree that sex is a HUUUUGE part of human nature. It's how we propagate our race, after all. Maybe some day we'll achieve a Brave New World, where sex and reproduction are separated- but for something so important to so many people, we don't talk about it and we don't think about it. Well, we think about the actual act of sex, that's a given. But the implications of sex, the topics surrounding the sexual acts, is something we're weirdly uncomfortable with. Sex is fun, sex is great, but sex is dirty and sex is disgusting.

Sex is personal and private, but everyone is allowed to gossip. Sex is only physical, but lovers will still want sex to be a part of their lives. Sex is good for men but bad for women, but women MUST have sex as their "reproductive duty" and men- well men are men so they are expected to be wanting sex all the time.

None of this makes any sense and it triggers a sense of disgust for me on a visceral level. What does it take, to remember that someone is human. It takes a LOT of optimism- and maybe you'd call it faith at this point- to see someone for their potential. What they COULD become- but it doesn't take much to see someone for more than their sexuality. Maybe someone is a sex worker and they also kill puppies- then yeah they're a terrible person- but not because they have a lot of sex. It's not hard to understand, is it?

Sometimes I think it'd be so much easier to just ignore all the sexism around me, like so many before me have done. Pretend it's ok to treat women are inferior beings, or just go ahead and deny it like everyone else. But if I did that, THAT'S what would mark me as a bad person, and THAT'S exploitation. I'd need far less empathy and a non-functional sense of morality before I could succumb to those things. I pride myself for being a thinker, and I'm glad I think about how fucked up our societal structure is- because we can only change the flaws we recognize.