Porn and Prostitution
"If the argument is that prostitution is violence against women and that
the men who contract prostitutes must thus be criminalized for women's
safety, then the only logical extension of this ideology is that a woman who
chooses to work as a prostitute... cannot be judged as a full, adult human
being in possession of the full rights of citizenship."
- Thaddeus Blanchette
Prostitution can, depending on the circumstances, be completely victimless.
Sydney Biddle Barrows is an American businesswoman who was introduced to the
world of high-class prostitution and started her own escort service, Cachet,
in New York City from 1979 to 1984.
Cachet offered superior service for its time, focusing on delivering a
classy and elegant experience to the wealthy and powerful who either visited
or lived in New York City. Clients included industrialists, high-powered
business executives and lawyers, foreign diplomats, Arabian oil sheiks,
priests and rabbis.
If prostitution can, depending upon the circumstances be victimless (hey,
Heidi Fleiss was pretty good at it!), are women voluntarily entering the
line of work to be denied their rights?
Pornography is arguably a subtle form of prostitution -- women using their
own bodies for income. Some feminists oppose pornography, others do not.
At the end of the '70s, when Playboy was doing nude photo spreads of college
women, including Vicki McCarty (described as a Phi Beta Kappa playmate...
can intelligent people be sexy?), some feminist groups, opposed to
pornography, protested Playboy on campus.
(I don't know if this is comparable to protesting military recruiters on
campus, but hey, free speech!)
At one of the feminist protests, a woman was carrying a sign which read,
"Would you choose to be masturbated on?"
Eric Mills of Action For Animals, based here in Oakland, CA, once carried an
article in his monthly newsletter against animal testing by Reverend Glenda
Hope of San Francisco Network Ministries.
Eric Mills is a partisan Democrat (and I don't think this is entirely due to
animal issues, like myself!). My friend Greg in San Diego similarly said
when a pro-choice activist told him not to vote Republican, Greg told the
activist he votes Democrat out of his own self-interest, because of his
sexual orientation.
When Reverend Jim Wallis of Sojourners fame was saying God is neither
Democrat nor Republican, Eric produced a bumper sticker saying, God Is A
Democrat.
But Eric refers to Reverend Hope as "the Mother Teresa of San Francisco."
(This should debunk the myth that animal activists are all misanthropes
valuing animal life over human life, and/or are all antagonistic toward
religion... actually, we'd like to have organized religion on our side!)
In the late '90s, I asked Reverend Janet Regina Hyland (author, God's
Covenant with Animals, it's available through People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals, or PETA) to send a copy of her book Sexism Is A Sin:
the Biblical Basis for Female Equality to Reverend Hope.
Regina (who refused to send a copy of her Sexism book to Jonathan Ross and
his Jehovah's Witnesses for Animal Rights group in Sunnyvale, CA, saying the
Jehovah's Witnesses are too patriarchal), told me later that Reverend Glenda
Hope had written to thank her, saying her ministry is involved with getting
prostitutes off the street. Regina's book was inspiring these women to have
a positive image of themselves.
Would Reverend Glenda Hope be "the Mother Teresa of San Francisco" if she
were merely trying to persuade women not to pose nude?
Speaking of porn and masturbation: in 1985, Diane (a friend of my college
roommate John Antypas), mentioned the story from the Old Testament of Onan
spilling his seed, and said conservative Christians see it as proof that
masturbation is sinful.
My friend and roommate Chris, responded, no, Onan's sin was disobeying God's
order to impregnate a woman... not spilling his seed.
But Christian conservatives don't see it like that!
Even liberal Christians don't!
Regina Hyland wrote in the January 1998 issue of Humane Religion (her
Christian vegan periodical at the time) about "The Compassion of a 'Pagan',"
referring to Ovid, whose Metamorphoses was clearly inspired by Pythagorean
doctrine (reincarnation).
Regina quoted Ovid decrying the slaughter of cattle and sheep:
"But why have you deserved to die, you sheep, you harmless breed... Why have
the oxen deserved this?... From whence such hunger in man after unnatural
and unlawful foods? Do you dare, O mortal race, to continue to feed on
flesh?... To what wicked habits does he accustom his palate... who cuts the
throat of a calf, turning a deaf ear to its piteous moans? Or, who has the
heart to pierce the throat of a kid which utters cries like those of a
child, or who can feed on the bird whom he has fed with his own hand?"
Regina even commented in a footnote: "...in his earlier years, Ovid wrote
the ultimate, erotic 'love' poems, beloved by countless generations of
college undergraduates with raging hormones."
In a 2006 or 2007 phone conversation, Regina Hyland (then in her early 70s)
told me she was celibate. I asked her, "What about masturbation?
If you're masturbating, you're not truly celibate. To be a guru or a
spiritual master in Krishna Consciousness, one must control the tongue
(which refers to gossip, mundane or secular conversation, as well as diet),
the belly (diet again, not just vegetarianism based on nonviolence and only
eating foods offered to the Lord, but gluttony as well), and the genitals.
(Jewish writer Mark Matthew Braunstein, in his 1981 book, Radical
Vegetarianism, similarly writes: "Like monks masturbating, milk-drinking
vegetarians are imitating the very thing they wish to avoid [animal
cruelty].")
So I asked Regina, "What about masturbation?"
Regina became indignant, and refused to answer the question!
On the other hand, Regina was amused when I told her that on the late '80s
television show China Beach, depicting nurses serving in Vietnam in the late
1960s during the war, the nurses were joking among themselves that, "Women
who use the 'rhythm method' are known as mothers!"
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