For $ale

Ok, so I mentioned it before in a very tongue-in-cheek manner. Time to be serious.

"Am I capable of being serious?" You ask? Well screw you! I am most certainly capable of serious thought and discussion.

This time it's going to be about Barney the Pink Dinosaur. No, wait, no. Got nothing to say on that. Although, if I tried I probably could. And it would be nothing positive.

I've mentioned Prostitution before. Here's the official Manx endorsed opinion. I will write this while listening to classic Disco Italo tracks. No relation to the link, mind you.

I had a female friend at one point in time who I can quote as having said "I'd have sex for money. What do I care? It doesn't degrade me, it degrades him." I remembering asking what she'd charge. The answer? "Whatch'a got?" While I've managed to loose touch with all my friends of ancient yore, every so often I wish I hadn't. For the record, I'm "really very sure" she was kidding.

Before you think poorly about this girl from yesteryear, consider this. Is it wrong to use your body to make money? Give me an answer. Now. I demand it.

Ok, I'm going to assume you said "Yes," meaning it is wrong to use your body to make money. Then, through that assertion, bodybuilders, who work there bodies to near freakish proportions, are wrong. Athletes, similarly, put themselves hard to the grindstone to get paid unreal amounts of money, and are also wrong. Those who practice Reiki, a holistic healing practice that involves touching those who heal, are also wrong. (I never took Reiki seriously until my ex-girlfriend did some on me and turned me into a believer. She even showed me a thing or two and it was totally unreal the kinds of spiritual things I felt.) Surgeons, who not only have to be smart, but skilled enough to manipulate their instruments with precision, use their bodies and skill to make money, and heal people in the process, are also wrong, apparantly.

Therefore, no reasonable person could say that it's wrong to use your body to make money. So there's got to be more to it than that to make people so adamantly opposed to selling sex.

Is it the sex itself? That would be the easy answer. But, no, that doesn't seem to be it. Pornography is mainstream these days. Who hasn't heard of Jenna Jameson? She is a poor example of the best the industry's got to offer, but I only know that because I'm a certified pervert. I mean, nobody is putting those people in gleaming lights of approval, but the only people opposed to this in an active fashion of getting laws passed and things like that are kooks.
Besides, everyone wants a love with an insatiable sexual appetite. (Think I'm wrong? Someone I know got married right out of high school and stayed married for 10 years in a relationship where he wouldn't touch her AT ALL. And she marks that time as the saddest in her life.) So it isn't exactly the fact that there's lots of sex going on, right? Is it that someone is getting paid for it? See point #1.

Well, the only real problem is the way it's implemented. Here's where I agree it's horrible. Girls get kidnapped and sent to faraway lands to prostitute in bondage to earn money for their criminal "owners". Or, domesticly, runaways turn tricks to earn money that would otherwise be impossible to make and would therefore leave them homeless in the street. Many put themselves at risk and don't take precautions or anything and get a death sentence. Then there's the pimp structure. Guys who "rescue" these ladies, give them a place to stay, which seems ok at first but soon enough they get them hooked on drugs and keep them as permanent endentured servants. It's subhuman bondage. And that just makes me sad for humanity.

The other side of that coin is the market. There's obviously a demand for paid sex. Numbers, obviously, aren't kept. But, married men and those in relationships shouldn't even think for a moment of partaking in those services. And if you want to, you best involve your lady too. If you want to think you've got an open relationship, that's cool and all, but if you try and hide it then it's not so open after all, now is it? Then again, the same argument is made for cheating in general. No special adjustments, no epicycle changes needed.

If it were legal, so many problems would disappear. Regulations make sure food is prepared in a hygenic manner. Regulations make sure your car doesn't spontaneously burst into flames. Regulations would make sure that workers protect themselves from contracting and spreading disease, not to mention prevention of pregnancy which opens a whole slew of additional concerns. And while managers are probably going to stick around, they won't be hitting the independant contractors formerly known as "His Bitches". Everything out in the open, suitable for inspection and critique.

Some say it'd be cool to legalize it because we can tax it. I don't necessarily believe the motivation should be exclusively to tax it. That would be a sin tax. And like other sin taxes (cigarettes, alcohol, etc.), it makes the government income reliant on sin and the goal is to let responsible people do with their lives what they will, not to eventually create an environment that encourages people one way or another. Which is also a good reason for separation of church and state.

And so, with that, I'm going to put away my soap box. Oh, wait, there's a question? I didn't know I was answering any. Yes, you in the back. With the funny shaped head. Kinda looks like a lopsided pear.

"Would you?"

Hmmm... would I pay for it? Nah, I don't think so. The kind of money I'd be willing to spend is well below the money I'd be willing to spend on just going out on a date with a cool girl. I value the notion of a nice date with a nice gal well above the value of a "sure thing". And that lower value of money can't get me anything good these days. And the whole illegal thing kind of creeps me out, as does the potential that I could unknowningly support modern day slavery.

Plus, right now, more than getting rocks off or anything, I want to go on a nice date. I want to smile like a dork with something stuck on his gums, try to hold hands and take a minute and a half to fit my fingers correctly, and whisper something from the depths of my soul casually that, unknown to me, makes her heart melt. It's been a long time. I miss it. And it gives me an excuse to eat out instead of the junk I've been shovelling down my maw.

*kick soap box*

Besides, after we give each other our respective bills, I don't think she's going to take kindly that I'm deducting my fee from her balance due. Hey, baby, don't get mad: I've got a business to run.

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