Risky Business
The director of the 1983 movie, Risky Business, Paul Brickman,
says:
"I was writing it in the time just after Reagan had taken office and
everyone wanted to be a capitalist, get their MBAs... It’s tough out there.
Capitalism takes its toll on a lot of people."
Yes. This point was made with subtle humor. Like the scenes where Joel's
parents are away, so Joel (Tom Cruise) turns his house into a brothel for
the weekend with the help of call girl Lana (Rebecca DeMornay) to raise the
money he needs to repair his father's Porsche.
The college recruiter from Princeton shows up to interview Joel, and when he
asks Joel what his major will be: and Joel responds, "Business."
(wasn't it obvious?)
Subtle humor.
Pornography (arguably a subtle form of prostitution) for both men and women
flourishes, and is arguably capitalism taking its toll on women and men.
Pro-choice feminist Tracy Clark-Flory writes elsewhere on Salon.com:
"At $25-$30 per hour, prostitutes make approximately four times what they
likely would outside of the sex industry. Of course, that doesn't take into
consideration on-the-job risks like contracting an STD (condoms were used in
only a quarter of dealings) or being assaulted; researchers estimate that
sex workers are assaulted an average of once a month.
"There's also the threat of being arrested, but according to the Economist,
'Prostitutes are more likely to have sex with a police officer than to be
arrested by one.'"
Rose Evans, a pro-life Episcopalian and editor and publisher of Harmony:
Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent-ethic" periodical on the religious
left, says problems such as contracting STDs, being assaulted, pimp
violence, etc. would not exist if prostitution were legal. And if any sex
workers were abused or attacked, they could report the crime to the police
without the fear of being arrested themselves.
I’m a pro-life Democrat (Republicans treat non-Christians like second-class
citizens), but even some conservatives concede that prostitution
can, depending upon the circumstances, be completely victimless.
Hey, Heidi Fleiss was pretty good at it!
And Reverend Glenda Hope is known as "the Mother Teresa of San Francisco"
because her ministry gets prostitutes off the streets. Would Reverend Glenda
Hope be respected and/or revered or instead reviled if she were merely
persuading young women not to pose nude?
A Playboy pictorial from the late '70s called "Ladies of Joy" featured
working girls from Nevada's *legal* brothels.
Conservatives are free to argue that there wouldn't be any exploitation of
women (subtle or gross), what to speak of women risking rape and being
passive victims of men's lust if they weren't movin' about and freely mixing
with men in our society...
...and if instead women were kept chaste and protected by their fathers in
their youth, their husbands in married life, and their sons in old age as
taught by lawgivers like Manu in the ancient Vedic (Hindu) civilization,
but, hey, that's another story!
(among the higher castes: brahmanas, kshatriyas, and vaishyas, known in
Sanskrit as "dvija," or "twice-born," the boys are expected to study in
the gurukula, or school of the spiritual master, as celibate monks until age
24, when permitted to marry.)
Women writers in Back to Godhead in the '70s and '80s pointed out along
these lines that the cosmetics and fashion industries rake in billions of
dollars, so women can't claim to merely be passive victims of men's lust...
...and one woman writer in Back to Godhead cited the scene in
the Mahabharata where the Kauravas try to disrobe princess Draupadi, by
pulling off her sari.
(According to Vedic civilization, the only time a woman appears naked is
before her husband.)
The writer commented that in this day and age, women are eager to pose nude,
and that Draupadi could have campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment or
some other futile course of action, but instead prayed and surrendered to
Lord Krishna, and He immediately and miraculously provided Draupadi with an
endless supply of cloth, so they would never be able to see her naked, no
matter how hard they tried.
In a 1995 column entitled “Prostitution as a Privacy Right,” Robert Craig
Paul, a syndicated columnist for the Washington Times, wrote:
“If a woman’s right to control the use of her reproductive organs permits
her to enter into a cash transaction with an abortionist, then how can this
fundamental right of privacy not apply to other transactions involving her
use of her body?
“…abortion has been against the law and restricted with greater intensity
for more of our history than prostitution, reflecting social norms that
abortion, viewed as infanticide, is more immoral than prostitution…
“In contrast (to abortion), prostitution is entirely an act between
consenting parties that does not affect the bodily integrity, identity and
destiny of a third party (the unborn)…
“It is legal nonsense that privacy conveys the right to abort, but not the
right to ingest drugs or engage in sodomy…
“It will be interesting to watch the court sort out on the basis of Roe v.
Wade why it is legal for a woman to contract for abortion but not
prostitution.”
Subtle humor, but I get the point, and I must similarly comment: "It will be
interesting to watch mainstream American society and our elected officials
sort out why alcohol is socially acceptable but marijuana isn't."
... having contributed $1,008 to the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington,
DC in 2008.
I see pot-smoking as nonviolent civil disobedience, but if the right-wing
sees cracking down (no pun intended) on pot-smokers as "gang-busting" (will
jaywalkers be next?), then, there's no reason we can't use the political
process to end marijuana prohibition.
It's like the difference between illegally blockading abortion clinics in
protest against abortion Vs using the democratic process: (free speech, free
press, elected officials) to bring about change and extend rights to the
unborn.
"It's tough out there," says Paul Brickman.
"I'm sure there's some way we can be even tougher..."
Go on to: Rose Evans (1928 - 2015)
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