2009-05-19 13:54:49.908957+00 by Dan Lyke 7 comments
Sociological Images: How Can You Tell If You're A Prostitute?
It’s subtle and confusing, isn’t it? When is it legitimate for women to take money or accept drinks? What about the customers— why is there no distinction amongst them? They take out their wallets in all kinds of situations— and that’s considered fine— except when they position themselves as victims of predators…
[ related topics: Sexual Culture ]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2009-05-19 14:39:11.997718+00 by: m
You know you are a prostitute when you give someone sex in exchange for a software patent.
#Comment Re: made: 2009-05-20 13:45:15.625515+00 by: petronius
I once heard a comedian saying that for him foreplay was 40 minutes of begging his wife for a roll in the hay. Maybe the buying of the cocktails and dinner can be redefined in that manner.
#Comment Re: Alternative Prostitution... made: 2009-05-20 14:37:46.264235+00 by: jeff
Here are some alternative forms of prostitution.
#Comment Re: made: 2009-05-20 15:57:13.990815+00 by: JT
I have a friend who lives in northern Alabama. She has two previous children from a different marriage and her current husband is an OTR truck driver. She near constantly complains about her husband and frequently says she wants to leave, divorce, or kill him. He buys strippers Christmas presents instead of his wife, disappears and turns off his phone for hours at a time in certain towns, and has other similar issues. In the end, he gives her a few hundred a month to live on while she goes to school (Pell Grant) and she takes care of her kids (disability, food stamps, living in her grandmother's house owned by her family). He comes home every few weekends and has sex with her and then leaves.
What would be the difference between that and a prostitute? Does it really matter if the money is left on the night stand or deposited through an atm somewhere? I've tried asking this of my friend, but she gets angry and stops talking to me for a few days if I bring it up. To me it sounds like she's acting like his personal prostitute for this guy that she just happens to be married to, but apparently she thinks there's something more to it. Although she talks about leaving him when she has the money or graduates school and finds a better job, it still just sounds like prostitution to me.
#Comment Re: made: 2009-05-20 16:04:21.842034+00 by: jeff
There are prostitutes with high levels of self-esteem, and those with very little. I'll leave it at that.
#Comment Re: made: 2009-05-20 16:40:38.693258+00 by: Dan Lyke
JT, yeah, the difference between marriage and prostitution can sometimes merely be the length of the contract. And I largely think the cultural prohibitions we have against prostitution are merely an attempt at giving the marriage contract a monopoly on sexual transactions.
#Comment Re: made: 2009-05-20 17:09:26.03597+00 by: m [edit history]
Two of the blue collar workers at my wife's previous place of employment went on one of those personal "confessional" type of TV shows. He claimed, and the wife agreed, that while he had to pay her $50 to have sex with him, she was giving it away to everyone else who would take it. I am not sure why someone would accept that, but what really boggled the mind was the guy would go on TV to announce it to the world. Or how either one could face their co-workers. Some time later, she almost killed him with a katana because he objected to the presence of another guy in his bed.
At one time I was on a split location project and had an office at a hospital and also my own lab. There was a drop dead looking accountant who worked at the hospital, but I would sometimes see her street walking late at night from my lab office. She hooked in the worst part of one of the worst towns in the county. I know she was arrested with some frequency because our lab also did the STD testing for the County jail, and her name was constantly popping up amongst the positives for GC and Chlamydia on the epidemiology studies I was doing at the time. Which also meant that she was having sex with high risk males without a condom at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Had she been in it for the money, she would not have been walking those streets. I was also sure she was swapping sex to maintain her employment at the hospital. HIV testing was anonymous and coded at that time in that area, so I couldn't determine if she was also HIV positive.
Were either of these women prostitutes? They both took money for sex, but I don't think they were having sex for money.