Friday, March 14, 2008

The Oldest Profession For A Reason

Thanks to Eliot Spitzer, the media's ablaze with the subject of prostitution. But most people don't have a clue what they're ranting about.

Is prostitution about an uncontrollable desire for sex? Men are uncontrollable horn-dogs, starved to the point where they'll pay through the nose for the kitty, right? Hardly. There are very, very few cultures in the world where prostitution is even grudgingly accepted and sex out of wedlock (for men, at least) is forbidden or even difficult. The fact is, if you want to bang, there's always someone else out there who wants to bang. It's all a matter of a) how much you're willing to put forth effort towards it, and b) the standards you're willing to apply to your partner. This is why, near any military base, there will be at least one well-known dirty watering hole, whose only real purpose is to match up smelly, tired young single sailors who have neither the cash to woo a real girl nor the private room to bring her back to, with Brunhilda the ham monster, who thoughtfully has already put fresh blankets on the seats of her van in the parking lot.

So, is it about sex with really, really hot chicks? No, not really either. First of all, there's the long record of Hollywood stars, who can already bang hot bimbos at will, paying for sex from rather homely whores. Second, if you actually go down to the Red Light District, you'll see most of the girls, they're not exactly 9's and 10's. Let's face it; a serious knockout can get plenty of men to give them cash and shiny things without a contractual obligation to respond with blowjobs (although that sort of attitude predisposes them to become prostitutes - see below). And most of what you do with an everyday hooker is going to be in the dark, probably while drunk, and whether or not she could model in Vogue is not going to be the subject on your mind.

Then there's the meme that it's all about power. See, men get a thrill from the sex trade because of its denigration of women: he makes a call, she shows up, he shows the cash, she does the business. He owns her. Yeah, OK, no. It's a popular idea because it reinforces the feminist notion that all prostitutes, no matter how willing, are victims of gender slavery, subject to the whims of the stronger sex that keeps them subjugated. My, they're almost as trapped as stay-at-home moms. Look, you need to stop watching blaxploitation films. Read the Pajamas Media artlicle as it tries to defend this - it masterfully contradicts itself. Girls become prostitutes because they want to, not because they have to. They could make a living doing something else, but they don't want to. They like hooking. They generally enjoy sex, and they really like hoodwinking dumb men.

The reality is, it's about attention. Married men aren't running off to corner skanks (or college interns) because they're devolved sex fiends, drunk with the human form, or control freaks. They do it because their wives aren't paying any attention to them. It's not Jack Spratt, whose wife has always domineered him, looking to turn the tables on some unsuspecting floozy. It's Clark Kent, who knows Lois used to worship him in public and in the bedroom, but now only seems to want to talk about how the Parkers down the street refinanced their house to put in a new bathroom. It's not about getting fucked. It's not about getting fucked by a hot 20-year old. It's about getting a hot 20-year old to act like they think you're groovy. Ask any guy: which would you really rather be, Governor of New York, or college football star quarterback? You want to know why? Because hot chicks swoon over quarterbacks, not politicians.

And this is why the girls get into it. Girls a cut above have generally been snookering men to get what they want since they left junior high school. They didn't have to take it up the ass, they could just play with their hair a little, maybe invade personal space a bit, and once they got the concert tickets / diamond earrings / 3rd period math homework they needed, a giggle about being such a good friend and twirl on the heels and they were off to the next sucker. Think about the hottest couple you knew in school; the guy was in it because he got so much face time from a really hot chick, the girl really, really enjoyed her friends seeing her with a good catch. (This is a big part of why even young men sneak around and women almost never do.)

Prostitution, then, is just the distilled version; by pretending to be impressed and interested by the client, sometimes for as little as a few minutes, the hooker gets an immediate cut of cold cash. The highest cost service, almost without fail, is vaginal penetration, not because it is brings more physical joy than a masterfully played rusty trombone, but since its inherent risk of pregnancy lends the illusion of commitment the most sincerity. (Fun fact: if singing karaoke carried the same pseudorandom chance of dramatic, permanent life change as sex, men would pay girls to come up to dirty hotel rooms and belt out Showtunes. Ok, they might masturbate too.)

This is why the kinkier stuff, even if it's devoid of any recognizable sexual content, makes sense. Sure, you can use the power argument for men that pay to be tops. But what about the ones that want to be bottoms? What about the ones that want a handjob from a girl dressed like a panda? What about the ones that want to have belts pulled tight round their necks while hot wax is poured on their nuts? It all boils down (literally, in the last case) to having a girl so willing to please you that she'll go to those lengths. Well, except for the furry stuff; that shit is just wrong.

So is prostitution wrong? I'd still say yes, but probably not for the reasons you'd think. Prostitution still tends to bring the charming halos of drug abuse, assault, child kidnapping and slavery (especially outside the US.) But then again, those are vices of the girls themselves, or between the girls and their pimp/madam, not between the girl and the client, and the enabling factor for such evil behavior is not the sex, but the fact that it is illegal and unregulated. Go to Rotterdam (or even Vegas) and try to pick a fight with a call-girl, and it's not the pimp's enforcers you need to worry about, it's the Long Arm of the Law, which is far, far more effective. Prostitution being illegal, or even stigmatized as immoral, lends more to the actual negative consequences than any amount of paid ATM does.

Really, the biggest downside to prostitution is that it is a youth-limited industry, as much as professional sports, pop singing, and acting. There are no genuine, long term marketable skills involved. Sure, some people get really good or really lucky and can make a career out of it, usually by branching into management and coaching. But for most, as discussed in the Pajamas article, after a while, their physique and their charms fade, and even if they can hit a baseball 300 yards, or cram it in their cooch, no one's interested any more, and their career is over. And any industry where most of the participants are doomend not to stagnation but to abject failure is inherently stupid. Then again, prostitution actually is excellent training for an acting career, although I think it usually works the other way 'round.

Plus, let's face it, the total insincerity of it nullifies the benefit. If the same amount of cash gets the same treatment, regardless of the man involved, then the woman's not really paying any attention at all. In the end, prostitutes really are just for virgins in a mighty hurry to back up their lies.

(Oh, and sailors on shore leave. But let's face it, after a few months at sea they're subhuman anyway, and you should be happy to have any of them boosting the local economy at the brothel, and not out crudely humping your daughter, your wife, or your mailbox.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

men go to whores when they either A) can't get any poon the normal way or B) are stuck with old poon or poon that won't put out anymore. sometimes C) when they're looking for variety and a little danger.

btw, this post gets the award for most links ever. and runner-up for weirdest links. going out tonight. you coming into the city?

Lemmonex said...

I agree with a large amount of this.

Prostitution should be legal, but this, of course, is not a revolutionary comment.