Susan, I think that the opinion that prostitution is, on the whole, a
bad thing, is a very widespread one. Certainly not confined to the
US, nor even to Christian cultures.
Its badness derives, in my rather passionately held view (and I had
to do a lot of thinking on this as a teenager, when I saw that I
needed to establish my own set of values on this), from the
intrinsic beauty and value of the sex act itself. Sex is, ideally, the
most profound sign of love/trust/friendship/mutual liking between
two people. To do it with ten people a night for the purpose of
earning one's living; to do it with a stranger picked up on the street
rather than with a loving partner; these actions may have their
place in the order of things - inevitable, at least occasionally - but
to me, there is a deep sense of imperfection about them.
There is no need to translate this opinion into an argument for the
suppression of prostitution: on the contrary, it is something that will
always be with us, and of course it should be legalised and
safeguarded. (Abortion also needs to be kept legal and accessible;
yet no-one will argue that it is a good thing, rather than a sad
necessity.) There is also no necessary link with religious morality:
all modern atheist states, as far as I know, had outlawed
prostitution. (And thinking of sex as a beautiful, meaningful act, to
be shared on the basis of friendship and trust, is hardly the usual
religious view, either...)
I would say that the problem of religious sexual morality - including
homophobia - is a different, vast and murky subject. I have no
doubt that it will come up regularly on this list...
Barbara
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