many thanks for the clarification on your last post, carolyn!  Although, as
Shan has spoken from a position of authority in response to your post also,
I will defer most of my response to her post, since, as she pointed out,
since I can't speak from personal experience I run a very high risk of
misrepresenting the important issues surrounding prostitution and doing the
'othering'-thing, despite my personal connections with individuals who
identify as prostitutes.



>
> I'm not against legalizing prostitution!  I'm against *promoting* it.  Whether
> or not they are able to unionize is a question for prostitutes themselves, and
> not for me.  I wish them the best, either way.

ah, this is one clarification I needed.  A question that I have then, is, in
cases where prostitution was legalized (or never mandated against), then was
this process of legalization painted as PROMOTING sex?  In this I have no
knowledge, but I would guess that, similarly to the idea that legalizing
abortion PROMOTES abortion, legalizing prostitution promotes prostitution is
a view held by some.  (I don't dare try to say who because I'm not much
involved in the politics around either, but I'm sure the viewpoint exists,
and is not one I agree with.)
>
>
>> sexually oppressive culture stigmatizes the social value of prostitutes
>
>
> Sexually oppressive compared to what?  I think the U.S. is kind of in the
> middle on that, but I don't know what people in other countries think of
> us.  I think we're more liberal than, say, Afghanistan, Libya, Korea, and
> Mexico, to name a few, and less liberal than others.
>

yes, and so I have tried to limit my discussion to the sexual oppression
that exists in U.S. (or perhaps 'western') culture, as it has arisen from
distinct conditions when compared with other countries.  (while I used
Holland as a tentative example, my focus was U.S.-centric.)  And I am also
aware of the more global implications of transnational prostitution,
although my understanding of how this works is skeletal.  In my last post I
did not seek to compare U.S. culture on a continuum of ideal---oppressive
countries or to rank the U.S. within this continuum...I was addressing the
U.S. in isolation from the global community.  (oops.)
>

>> From what basis are you devaluing prostitution?
>
>
> I think that prostitution infers casual sex and I think that casual sex, sex
> without emotional or psychological intimacy, is bad for human beings.  I think
> it further isolates people who already face tremendous isolation in our
> ever larger and more impersonal societies.  In other words, I think it is
> both a cause and a symptom of alienation.  I also don't approve of anything
> which promotes sexual irresponsibility, and I think that prostitution promotes
> irresponsibility in those who use the services of prostitutes.  Regarding
> prostitutes, I think that having to sell one's labor to other people is
> unfortunate, particularly when the labor is something so intimate as emotion.
> But when the commodity is the laborer's own body, and not just her body, but
> the *inside* of her body, I think it's maybe the most alienating thing
> possible.  I think that encouraging girls to do this is madness, at best.
>
(To this I will defer to Shan's posting)
>
>> I am curious, because in previous discussions, I have encountered religious
> ideology at the heart of what shapes our conceptions of 'good' and 'bad,'
> especially when it is an issue of sexuality.
>
>
> Do you summarily discount religious ideology?

no, of course I do not discount it, but I am interested in how it functions
within the legal process and I should, more accurately, refer to those
religious ideologies (plural) which may or may not inform how a person deals
with issues such as prostitution, welfare, abortion, etc.  Especially in
countries where there is no overt connection between church and state, I am
interested to see how religion factors into law or, I would argue, (without
any proof but a hunch) is rendered invisible but yet still is one of many
factors which determines law.  And, as this is a list which is looking at
gender and religion, I was making an attempt to draw this discussion of
prostitution into a framework where religion can be discussed in its
relation to the issue of prostitution...the legal process being one area I
thought of.
>
>
>> heterosexual religious moralizing
>
>
> Everyone is moralizing.  On what basis do you put homosexual
> moralizing above heterosexual moralizing?

I merely wanted to point out a heterosexual presumption in the last part of
my post, (which wasn't entirely related to the prostitution thread) not to
go so far as to rank homosexual and heterosexual in my personal value system
or promote one over the other (which, in my personal value system, I do not
attempt to draw from either as a system of morals).  My bone to pick is not
with hetero vs homo but with MORALIZING, in the many forms it takes.  And
what you say, 'everyone is moralizing,' is precisely what I am interested
in!  This is an intuitive leap here, (and forgive me for getting
philosphical again!) but if everyone IS moralizing BUT everyone promotes
rational and logical pursuit of (knowledge)/justice, then what does that
mean for the visibility of that moralizing within discussions?  And, how
does this relate to religiously-informed morals in a culture where religion
and government are supposedly separated?  (This is a question for the list,
not necessarily to you.)

and if anyone could help me distinguish the difference/similarity between
morals and ethics, I'd be grateful...having never taken a philosophy course
and having read only scant philosophical texts, I'm afraid my approach to
these issues is mostly home-grown susanism.  and yet I'm a loudmouth so I
tend to get into a discursive dance which I can't maintain on the precision
level I'd like to.  Ahhh, well.  *sigh*
>
>
> I'm the one who said I mourn the passing of feminism, and it *is* passing, if
> it has become everything at once.  If there is no such thing as the category
> "feminism", then it has passed.  If there are no boundaries on it, and if it
> means everything at once, then it is over, it does not exist, and it is
> indistinguishable from "not feminism".

hmmm...I'll have to give this one more thought and leave it to others for
now.  I'm getting confused with all the convolutions of logic involved in
that last paragraph...bye for now!
>
>
> Carolyn
>

Susan