Kudos to The Observer for this stunningly well thought-through column on sex and prostitution, inspired by the British Government’s impending move to ‘crack down’ on sex work.
Quote: “…(If prostitution blighted communities) human civilisation would have collapsed thousands of years ago.”
In some parts of the world, it’s already collapsed or collapsing, so it really doesn’t answer the question or white-wash prostitution in any way or form. I find that todays portrayal of prostitution - the glamor version, especially on the Internet- is one part fantasy and ninety nine parts bullshit, because, if you read closely there are never any negative aspects, and we all know (as far as Sir Isaac Newton is concerned) that there is always an equal and opposite force to the applied force and I think there are many women in poorer countries (not New York, London, Paris or Sydney, where women make money describin their perfect ‘prostitute’ tales) who don’t have nicer lives, their societies aren’t ‘civilized’ in the way we think our societies are supposed to be, and the question mark remains as to whether they’ll be civilized.
I think, sometimes, that sex, like religion, is getting all one sided lately. Instead of politicial correctness (in every day life, non sex related), in the sexual sphere there is the rise of the term ’sex positive’, which is the sexual form of ‘political correctness’.
Prostitution can blight a family, it can blight a person, and just because Belle de Jour (if she’s existant, because she doesn’t have the balls to write her name on her book) glamorizes prostitution doesn’t make it all 100% perfect and ‘civilizing’, not when pimps, in some cases, are involved.
From nuclear physics and science in general we obtain nuclear power (which is cheaper) and we can manufacture isotopes that can reduce cancers (this is the positive) but we also have the negative in the form of the nuclear warhead - positive and negative, but when it comes to anything sexual, no one has the balls to write about the negative, which has to exist, in order for their to be a balance.