Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Honest Whore

The whore is despised by the hypocritical world because she has made a realistic assessment of her assets and does not have to rely on fraud to make a living. In an area of human relations where fraud is regular practice between the sexes, her honesty is regarded with a mocking wonder.

-Angela Carter

Posted by IOZ at 11:11 AM | email »
Labels: ,

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Read this twice is my advice. Good stuff.

For fuck's sake when will Prostitution be made legal??

Feds get a cut of it (on the up and up) and prostitutes get benefits. (Pimps disappear forever, hopefully.)

Poor Mrs. Spitzer. I know she signed on for Poltics, gave up her career, etc., but she didn't bank on this excercise in excessive hubris.

The former Gov. should have stuck to wanking at home like all "good husbands" do.

Pitiful presser....

TT

1:05 PM
Thomas Daulton said...

Doesn't have anything to do with Spitzer, but your Carnter quote reminds me of a conversation in the old indy comic "Cerebrus", the comic about a talking aardvark in medieval times.

The effete, elitist hereditary nobility of the nation were discussing the prospect of Athenian-style democracy with Cerebrus. One noble kept using phrases like, "So if we give a vote to all the rabble and the whores and the livestock, how will the country comport itself? The government would behave like the vulgar masses."

Cerebrus replied, "It might actually be an improvement, fiscally speaking. I, for one, have yet to meet the whore who could abide a debt..."

1:26 PM
Steve Muhlberger said...

This quote sounds like something Rousseau might have said -- and that's no compliment. Who says there is no fraudence in prostitution?

2:27 PM
Anonymous said...

Did you mean Angela Carter, the British novelist?

3:29 PM
Anonymous said...

This quote sounds like something Rousseau might have said -- and that's no compliment. Who says there is no fraudence in prostitution?

Cynic. You're gonna tell me she was lying when she said she came?
-- sglover

3:31 PM
TGGP said...

Reihan Salam is one of my new fave bloggingheads and discusses the issue here.

Lots of lefties hold the Swedish system to be great and are disappointed it hasn't worked out so well, but to me it just seems idiotic. Okay to buy but not to sell? An illegal transaction is an illegal transaction and you've done zero favors. It's true they have work-training programs (though I don't know how many take advantage of them), but that's a separate issue from legalization/decriminalization and is also used here when people get scared that furriners dirk er jerbs. I also can't stand the "dignity" argument. I'm sure these people with few enough options really appreciative you taking away their livelihood in order to preserve your freedom from disgust, whoops, I mean, their dignity.

3:59 PM
Saurs said...

Angela Carter also wrote a lot of fruity stuff about werewolves doing it with little girls. Might have been a metaphor in there, somewhere, but mostly I think it was an excuse to make cherry popping sound mysterious and academic. Not that it isn't, mind you. It's awful good fun.

7:35 PM
Dano said...

we are all whores. the difference between the whores in the sex trade,and the whores in the legal trades is that the sex whore risks humiliation and possible contact with disease.the whores in many of the legal trades risk dismemberment and death.all in service to.....yeah.

10:16 PM
Dano said...

by legal, i don't mean litigious, but constitutionally valid. Oh shit, that does'nt work either. Go figure.

11:19 PM
daveg said...

People don't like whores because they undercut the market, so to speak.

That said, I don't think people would like what they ultimately see if prostitution was made legal. Nor would they like it if drugs were made legal.

Would you want advertising for these products and services? Would you want college or high school job recruiters?

Could communities keep these establishments out of their neighborhoods?

We go nuts on smoking, which has only mild effects. Think about what would happen with these vices.

3:25 AM
daveg said...

What I mean to say is that opposition to legal prostitution will ultimately come from the left at least as much as the right, given time.

3:27 AM
Jolly said...

Interesting. I'm currently in Amsterdam, where not only prostitution is legal, but so are cannabis, magic mushrooms, absinthe, etc. are legal. Surprisingly, people are very happy because they don't have to live in paranoia and the govt isn't spending billions arresting people for stupid, harmless stuff.

As far as the prostitutes, they are their own bosses. For about 100 Euros a woman can rent a window for an 8-hour shift, and the good ones make around $800. They are their own bosses, and they are not subject to huge human rights and safety/hygiene abuses. It is well-regulated as far as STD protection and testing, protection of the women's safety (including a ban on taking pictures of the women, protecting their image).

It works. It's safe. The women are willing and happy, not slaves. The government of the Netherlands prides itself on being unafraid to confront tough issues.

Interesting, no?

4:06 AM
Anonymous said...

What jolly said...

Interesting, yes!

Tom Truthful

7:53 AM
Anonymous said...

Interesting reading over at the Times site if you have some spare time: the 207 (so far) questions being posed to the intrepid reporters who "broke" the story.

I can imagine that our good Monsieur would have one or two of his own to post. Eh?

TT

8:10 AM
mikee said...

The Amsterdam model is fairly new, and hasn't worked out as planned or hoped. The city council is now contemplating rolling back some of the 'freedoms' allowed in the original laws.
Mainly they were hoping by legitimizing the trade, the organized crime aspect and sex trafficking would lessen. Unfortunately it hasn't. In fact, it's done the opposite. The crime syndicates have pushed out the mom and pop's. Violent crime in the area hasn't really subsided any either. Actually, its pulled in unsavory characters (like British Bucks parties) that have made the neighborhood worse than ever to live in.
They haven't given up on trying to make it work, but they will tweak the model a little to see if they can make it better than it is currently.

8:31 AM
Ash said...

heck, just bring a video camera along. You haven't hired a prostitute, you've hired an actress, and you're making a movie.

10:25 AM
daveg said...

If is so good then why don't the Netherlands allow it throughout the entire country?

(Actually, I was just in Amsterdam last summer and the red not the most pleasant thing to look at. Even the locals have very mixed feelings about it, but they don't want to go back on it now.)

In the abstract, I don't care about who does what to whom.

However, I also fought against having a Hooters put in my city about two years ago.

And those most opposed to the Hooters where from the "left" as they felt it exploited women, so I can't see prostitution getting much better treatment.

10:46 AM
Ash said...

A thousand bucks an hour for some slap and tickle...who's getting exploited?

10:47 AM
Anonymous said...

I've always loved Angela Carter, and "Wise Children" has been a perennial favorite of mine. She also wrote many essays/reviews, collected in "Shaking a Leg" -- worth reading to see a truly first-rate mind carving through nonsense or drinking in the world and giving the rest of us a fresh look.

Actually Monsieur IOZ's posts here remind me very much of her incisiveness and utter lack of regard for normative, groupthink bullshit.

10:41 AM
Anonymous said...

"Actually Monsieur IOZ's posts here remind me very much of her incisiveness and utter lack of regard for normative, groupthink bullshit."

Whereas your cliche- ("carving through nonsense," "drinking in the world," "a fresh look") and jargon-laden ("incisive," "normative," and "groupthink") post makes you sound like a moron. You do know perennial modifies something that occurs annually (per annum), right?

7:38 PM
Anonymous said...

Yes, I do know what perennial means. I've read or re-read something of hers at least yearly since I discovered her as an author. Wise Children is still my favorite, but there's Shaking a Leg, Heroes and Villains, The Infernal Desire Machines, Honeybuzzard...

How about I just rephrase? I like Angela Carter quotes.

One of her book reviews in "Shaking a Leg" pointed me towards Christina Stead. "Letty Fox: Her Luck" and "For Love Alone" floored me, they're awesome. I haven't found many of her books in print, unfortunately.

How about you, anonymous? Have you read any Angela Carter?

6:23 PM
Saurs said...

That's as may be, other Anonymous person, but that isn't how you used perennial the first time round. You wrote, "perennial favorite." You meant "favorite," but felt, incorrectly, that you had to tack on some ten-dollar adjective, otherwise we wouldn't get how much you hate, what was it? Normative, groupthink bullshit, I think. Quite a mouthful.

Pontificating like an embarrassing creep about an author is one thing, admitting you enjoy her work is quite another. I like to do the latter.

4:05 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)