Yes We Can Can
A series of sexual perversions, infidelities and indiscretions committed by several elected representatives of the People…some of whom have simultaneously championed legislation disfavoring other citizens based on sexual criteria…obliges the People and Government of a Just Society to review all Law pertaining to sexuality and morality, with an eye on rectifying the inconsistencies that are hallmarks of hypocrisy.
Once an institutionalized inequity is recognized, regardless whether it makes certain of us squirm or blush or cringe or revolt, a Just Society has no alternative but to review all Law underpinning the inequity. A Just Society has no choice. America proclaims itself ’round the world…including, fantastically, by force of arms…to be a Just Society. It is just, therefore it is necessary and right, to redress injustice. Principles only…moral relativism and shades of gray need not apply. Some things ARE black and white.
Whether the Law that contrives for prostitution to be illegal is worded to connote the equal guilt of both parties of the willing if temporary partnership established by outright monetary payment for sex, there is no question that the repercussions of the outlaw of prostitution fall disproportionately…indeed, overwhelmingly…on one half of the transaction’s participants. A prostitute is, by definition, a criminal. Prostitution, selling sex, is a crime…therefore, a prostitute is a criminal.
By contrast, the client of the prostitute…the one who buys the sex that the prostitute is selling…has historically, euphemistically, discreetly and oh-so-anonymously been referred to as A John. Presently, it is even fashionable to speculate, with a good deal more compassion than is commonly afforded victims much less perpetrators of crimes…as to the textured troubles that torment the complex psyche of a man who pays for sex when he “has it all.”
Prostitution is a crime that cannot be committed without both buyer and seller and yet, simply and unmistakably, there is not routinely a matching prosecution of the buyers who noted lawyer/journalist Greta Van Susteren referred to on national television…where products are sold…as Consumers.
Whether because of or in addition to a regular absence of prosecution, these Consumers, generally male, are also regularly spared persecution. Whereas a hooker is widely viewed as an inferior class of person, granted not so much honor as even the label of Labor, Customer John or Client Nine is largely at liberty to resume his version of normal affairs. While there may be hell to pay on the home front if, say, a wife learns that he has has been lavishing community assets on hookers, the husband is scarcely scorned by the society in which his marriage thrives, security-wise if not sex-wise. Far be it from Country Club Existentialists to cast the first stone.
It bears mention that the gender inequity that is evident in Prostitutional Law is, predictably, accompanied by class inequity. Consumers tend generally to be of a higher socioeconomic group than the hookers they patronize…that is why they are paying the hookers and not the other way around. The gross lopsidedness of prosecution and persecution reinforces the mounting impression that justice in America is a matter of affordability.
The State cannot oblige its citizenry to regard hookers and Johns equally, even were it to issue edict that hookers shall henceforth be called Janes. Society’s views of Janes and Johns differ in no small part BECAUSE of the variance in their respective statures before the Law. Inequities in administration of Prostitutional Law that favor John over Jane exacerbate rather than mitigate a historical prejudice, which is counterintuitive to the essential precept that Law is intended to protect one from another, not to benefit or penalize one over another.
It is incumbent upon us to either legalize prostitution, or criminalize infidelity. It is.
Instantly upon objective consideration of the hypocrisies and inequities that have been institutionalized via Prostitutional Law, one recognizes that the same fundamental injustice underlies illegality of prostitution concurrent with legality of pornography.
Pornography, a multi-billion dollar industry, is predicated on the outrage that a woman’s body may lawfully be employed as suits the fancies, fetishes, wants and needs of men while it is unlawful for a woman to employ her OWN body as suits HER wants and needs.
On its face, its is garishly sexist and altogether unjust.
The Inhibited, the Prudes, the Gladys Kravitzes, the Parents, the Preachers, the Holy Rollers and the Holier Than Thou’s will prefer, no doubt, to criminalize pornography than legalize prostitution, but the task would be fiscally ruinous as well as futile. Guys have been secreting girlie magazines between their mattresses since they were, what, twelve?
Besides which, even those who nay-say the nay-sayers are in agreement that the American economy is in shambles. What we need are additional sources of revenue, not additional costs of authoritarian and moralistic heavy-handedness.
It stands to Reason that American prostitutes shall organize into a labor union that will maximize both revenue to the state and reputability to the individual…what is known in contemporary parlance as a win-win. It is a non-marriage, to be sure, and it is perhaps not made in heaven, but it is absolutely rendered in the halls of Justice.
All of our clamoring for change notwithstanding, it can be supposed that there will be initial resistance to a legitimate, unionized prostitution class of labor. There will be the usual moralizing. As well, there is the crucial question of public health. But the truth is that Infidelity is already an established hobby, practically a national pastime, including is it the documentable hobby of some people who would confer the title of Convict upon others who practice similarly. Unionization and regulation of the Prostitution class is likely to heighten and standardize such precautions as may best protect the public health…again, considering that nothing is 100% safe and people are avidly engaged in screwing around anyway. Professionalizing the oldest profession on earth is liable, I contend, to have a mitigating affect on the divorce rate. Spouses are much more likely to withstand the damage inflicted by infidelity if it is a crass service rather than an emotional involvement.
A just society is obliged to recognize the feasibility, indeed the inevitability, of the American Coalition of Cocksuckers. Plus the acronym ACOC will slip right in to our line-up of alphabet agencies.
Copyright 2008 Implausible Endeavors