Sex for Sale
Whose Body Is It?: Part 1 of 3
by Kim Petersen / February 17th, 2014
For most people, it is probably taken for granted that what they decide to eat; if they have a beer with dinner and relax with a cigarette or a reefer afterwards; whether they exercise, engage in sports, or live like a couch potato; whether they ride a bike to work or drive a car; and whether they will undergo invasive medical procedures or opt for homeopathy is a matter of choice. People will assert that they have sovereignty over their corporeal selves. Right-wingers should have few qualms with such as a notion, as it is in line with their ideal of “rugged individualism” – that government should butt out and allow individuals to pursue their own fates. Nonetheless, there are clear instances when right-wing religious fundamentalism will clash with right-wing political ideology; for example, proclaiming the right to legislate against forms of entrepreneurship when it comes to sexuality and commerce. Right-wing governments (are there any other kinds in most western states?) will assume the right to declare illegal the ingestion of certain substances, and government will intrude into the sphere of individual end-of-life decisions. This three-part series examines colloquially the question of whether we have, and should have, dominion over our own bodies.
*****Dawn has broken on late winter day as a family of three sits around the breakfast table. The mother is pouring coffee, and the father is enjoying his blueberry waffles with melted butter. The son is eating plain yogurt to which he has added fresh berries and nuts. He scans his parents’ newspaper.
“Get a load of this,” recommended Sam, laying the sparse pages of that moribund medium down on the kitchen table. “It says here that ‘The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down the country’s anti-prostitution laws in a unanimous decision, and given Parliament one year to come up with new legislation —should it choose to do so.’ It’s about time.”
Sam’s father, Mr. Sykes, seated across from him at the table, wrinkled his forehead and shot back: “What are they going to do about all the prostitutes then?”
“Why nothing! Nothing against them. Isn’t the government supposed to do good for all its citizens?” replied the son.
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Sykes who was seated between the two men. “Why not go after the customers? The Johns?”
Sam smiled at his mother’s use of the term John. “Why should they go after anyone?” asked Sam. “Except those people who are exploiting the sex workers.”
“Hookers destroy the neighborhoods. What about the kids who see them?”
“I think they prefer to be called sex workers,” Sam gently corrected his father. “First, why should the reality of society be hidden from anyone, including kids? Second, kids see it all over the place anyway. The see it on magazines, in music videos; they see it in movies; they see it all over TV. So they know sex is out there all over the place”
“But it is shameful,” protested Mrs. Sykes.
“Is sex shameful? Was it shameful that you and Dad had me?” Sam immediately regretted his choice of example.
“Well, we were married,” said Mrs. Sykes defensively.
“Yes. And some of the sex workers may also be married, and,” he hastened to add, “I know you’ll say that is even more shameful. But sex and marriage and exclusivity is a question of morality. I think it is something all partners have to decide for themselves. This whole issue speaks to morality. Should one group impose its morality over another group? Besides, haven’t you always impressed on me to always have a job, and that not wanting to work was shameful — although I do not totally agree with this because most people want a job, but they want a job that is stimulating and pays fairly?”
Sam continued, “Doesn’t everyone need money to pay the rent, put food on the table, put clothes on their back, and whatnot? You know there are not enough jobs out there for everyone. That’s why they have something called unemployment, and the unemployment rate is a fictitious representation of actual unemployment because, as you know, people starting out in the job market are not counted, people who have been out of work for over two years are not counted, people who are in school to upgrade themselves to get a job are not counted, people who are working part-time and just barely scraping by are not counted, and people who have given up are not counted. So should we blame the sex workers for working or should we blame the society for not providing decent jobs for all its people?”
The parents nodded their heads. They saw that their son, a third year anthropology student, had a point, and they found that he often had good points.
“Yes, I agree that everyone should have a decent job,” said the father. “So if the government made sure that everyone had a decent job, then we could outlaw prostitution?”
“Still I disagree,” said Sam. He sat back in his chair. “Is sex dirty? Whose body is it? Does your body belong to you, or does it belong to the government? Didn’t prime minister Trudeau say a long time ago that the state does not belong in the bedrooms of the nation? Which, to me means government shouldn’t be meddling in the sexuality of its consenting adults. I think it is very much less likely that a lot of women would be sex workers — and men, too; I know that there are male sex workers as well — but still there might be some who choose to be sex workers.”
“Someone would want to be a sex worker?” asked Mrs. Sykes.
“Sure, you know I once had a roommate who was a stripper. She didn’t have to be a stripper, but she said she did it because it paid so much more than being a secretary. It was a choice.”
“Should anyone be able to tell you what you can or can not do with your body? Is that right?” asked Sam.
The parents sat quietly for a while and contemplated. His mother bit into a slice of whole wheat toast.
Sam’s father tipped back his coffee mug and set it back down on a coaster. “I guess you are right, but what about diseases and drugs?”
“You mean STDs and such? I can not know for sure. But if the government will not ensure that the society provides decent jobs — and decent is a key word because minimum wage slavery at McDonald’s is hardly decent – then it has to stop stigmatizing and criminalizing those people that fend for themselves. It would seem far more reasonable for everyone if sex workers were employed at sex centers – I don’t know what to call them, but ‘brothels’ doesn’t seem like the right word – so that the women and men who are sex workers are off the streets. Sanitation, health, prophylactics and such could all be controlled in such a center, kind of like what they do in Europe, and heck, the government could even get back money in taxes. The workers would be like independent contractors, empowered — and the pimps and their drugs would get the boot.”
“Now,” proposed Sam, “what sounds better? To have sex workers standing outside on freezing street corners with minimal attire and breathing in exhaust fumes to take a chance with strangers – johns, jills – and after to be bullied and robbed by pimps who introduce them to addictive and controlling drugs. Add onto that the allotment of resources to police sex work, and the time wasted by politicians to legislate against sex work, laws which are, in fact, granting the state dominion over our bodies.”
He continued, “Contrast that with sanitary centers with a staff that includes health professionals, sex workers who are free from diseases and protected from contracting diseases and protected from bodily harm and protected from customers who welch on payment. The pimps are gone; the police and courts can focus on genuine crime, and the government has a new revenue stream. And people have dominion over their own bodies.”
Which choice ought it to be?
Kim Petersen is co-editor of Dissident Voice. He can be reached at:kim@dissidentvoice.org. Read other articles by Kim.
This article was posted on Monday, February 17th, 2014 at 8:56am and is filed under Economy/Economics, Employment, Human Rights, Labor.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/02/sex-for-sale/
The High Ground
Whose Body Is It?: Part 2 of 3
by Kim Petersen / February 18th, 2014
Part 1 of “Whose Body is It?” probed whether the government has a right to outlaw the commerce of sexuality. Part 2 of this three-part series focuses on the issue of whether the government has the right to determine what citizens may consume, specifically drugs.
*****Frank passed the joint to his raven-haired partner Tarte. She drew in a drag and coughed. Then she complained, “I don’t feel anything.” It was her first time trying weed. As a curious, exploratory type she felt she had to try.
“I didn’t feel anything my first few times either, and then suddenly one time I had this high,” related Frank.
“But how do I do this?”
“I’m not an expert, but you’re supposed take a drag and hold it in for a while and then release it slowly.”
Frank took a drag to show her, and then he passed the joint back to Tarte. They were at a beach marijuana bar on a tropical island in Thailand. Frank was surprised to find such a bar in Thailand as he understood Thailand to be very strict about marijuana and drugs.
Frank wasn’t feeling much in the beginning either, but later he felt a little mellow. Tarte didn’t know if she was influenced. Frank told her she was mellower.
At the next table was a man who looked right out of the 1960s with shoulder length thinning hair and a tie-dye t-shirt; he held an enormously thick joint. Tarte and Frank laughed when they saw that. Not everyone, however, looked to be toking up; others were imbibing another popular drug: alcohol.
Frank railed at the hypocrisy of laws regulating the taking of certain drugs while having, what he knew to be a much more destructive drug, alcohol legally available to anyone of age.
“Are you sure that marijuana is safe?” asked Tarte.
“From what I know it is safer than alcohol, and supposedly it is non-addictive.”
“Then why is it illegal?”
“Well,” began Frank, followed by a clearing of his throat. “There is a reason why it is called ‘weed,’ and that is because it grows everywhere like a weed. But answer this question first…”
“What question?”
“What kind of world is it? How does the world run?”
“Huh? What do you mean? This isn’t going to be your capitalism, socialism talk, is it?” Tarte was apolitical, and talk about politics bored her.
“Well, sort of,” admitted Frank. “You are a teacher, right? You even said that teaching is not a passion of yours, so why do you do it?”
“Because it is not a bad job, and I get paid okay,” answered Tarte matter-of-factly.
“What do you do with your money?”
“I buy things.”
“You like chocolate, I know. If delicious and healthful dark chocolate grew in your backyard, would you go to the store and pay money for it?”
“Of course not.”
“How do you think the chocolate sellers would feel if chocolate grew everywhere freely available?”
Tarte got the point. The chocolate sellers would be out of the chocolate selling business. “So you mean the marijuana sellers would be out of business if people could just get their own growing freely all over the place?”
“Well, I’m looking at it a little differently because marijuana is illegal to grow for sale in most countries. Let’s look at what is legal — alcohol is legal, and cigarettes are legal. And this is big money business we are talking about. Many people drink alcohol for the same reason people smoke marijuana — to get a buzz. Well, if marijuana were a free buzz, could you imagine what impact that would have on alcohol and cigarette sales?”
Tarte nodded her head affirmatively. Playfully, she suggested, “Let’s go for a swim!” And she started running toward the ocean.
“Very funny. You don’t know how to swim.”
Tarte wanted a diversion. She stopped and turned around; soon she returned to the topic again: “Isn’t the government just trying to protect the people because marijuana is bad for people?”
“That requires a longer answer. First, are alcohol and cigarettes good for you?” Frank answered himself, “No, so hypocrisy is part of the government agenda. Second, is it really true that marijuana is as harmful as the mass media and government tell us? From what I have read, it is just so much disinformation. Third…”
Tarte interjected, “But they say marijuana leads to harder drugs.”
“Yes, they do say that. But what do the scientific studies say about that? You see, I prefer to go to the academic literature for my answers. Apparently, there is minimal evidence that marijuana, itself, should lead to hard drugs. Marijuana is not addictive, unlike cigarettes and alcohol. And third, even if marijuana is bad for us, whose decision is it what we put in our bodies? The government doesn’t outlaw alcohol, cigarettes, French fries, cola, and it is well known that these things are not good for our health. The government even subsidizes junk food. At the very least the government needs to abolish its hypocritical stance.”
“But people on drugs commit crimes, don’t they?”
“Some people under the influence of alcohol commit crimes and kill people when drunk. That doesn’t mean I think people shouldn’t be allowed to drink, or smoke, or toke, or snort, or inject. Ingesting anything should be a person’s right, but people must still be held responsible for their behaviors when they choose to come under the influence. Most people when they drink or toke don’t harm others. It is the same with driving. Most people don’t run over pedestrians, but some do. Should driving be outlawed then?”
Tarte pondered the analogy.
“So what is best for society? Is devoting resources to policing and jailing so-called users of drugs good? Wouldn’t the government be better off to control the sale of drugs, regulate the supply and quality, and collect taxes? The tax revenue could be used to educate, not propagandize, people about drugs and their effects, and it could also be used to treat addiction, and think about the money that could be saved by emptying the prisons of people who really committed no crime, and how police could focus their energy on protecting people from genuine crime and serving the community. Okay, alcohol and cigarette businesses would be unhappy about this, and so would the drug cartels, and even the CIA.”
“The CIA? Why the CIA?”
“The CIA is a major drug runner. Giving us complete dominion over our bodies would end a lucrative sideline for the CIA. And don’t think the CIA is the only governmental body involved in trafficking.”
“So these right-wingers…” Tarte shook her head at Frank, knowing that he was starting in capitalism and politics. “These right-wingers need to decide whether they support their rugged individualism or is it to be big government watching us and telling us what we should think and what we can do with our own bodies?”
Tarte laughed and waded knee deep into the water and began splashing Frank.
Kim Petersen is co-editor of Dissident Voice. He can be reached at:kim@dissidentvoice.org. Read other articles by Kim.
This article was posted on Tuesday, February 18th, 2014 at 6:25am and is filed under CIA, Drug Wars, Human Rights.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/02/the-high-ground/
To Live or Not to Live
Whose Body Is It?: Part 3 of 3
by Kim Petersen / February 20th, 2014
Part 3 of the three-part series “Whose Body is It?” takes on the controversial topic of the right to end one’s life. (Read Part 1 and Part 2.)
*****Melinda had never seen anyone die or even seen a dead body, and she had only been to one funeral in her 43 years on the planet. Her view of death had come mainly from television and shows she downloaded from online.
However, now she was face-to-face with the specter of dying. Her best friend Peter had Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and he was severely afflicted by dementia as a result. They said that only one in a million contract CJD, and Peter was the unfortunate odd person out. Melinda was taken aback by Peter’s calm outward demeanor as he broke the news to her. Peter and Melinda never held anything back from each other. After he had explained what the disease was and what it meant – that his brain would become like Swiss cheese rendering him intellectually impaired, later becoming comatose, and then dead – he stoically quipped, “Those are the cards we are dealt. I could become angry, but it wouldn’t help any.”
There was no known cure. Melinda was crestfallen. They weren’t married, and they weren’t a couple, but they had been lovers. What had always survived was their deep friendship, sharing confidences, and acting as sounding boards for each other, and through it all was a deep emotional attachment.
Because of their special relationship, Peter had asked Melinda that when the time came and he was no longer mentally there that he be allowed to depart peacefully. Peter had always been cerebral. He had learned all he could, and he had shared his knowledge with all who were interested. He was a college professor of psychology, so imparting knowledge and encouraging curiosity, rational inquiry, and problem solving had been his livelihood. He had been blessed.
“Don’t let me become an empty skeleton that requires constant care of others, especially you,” Peter had implored. “You know in many ancient cultures, when the time came that a person became a burden to the social group, they remained behind to await the end. I don’t want to be a burden.”
“But you wouldn’t be a burden. You could never be a burden to me,” countered Melinda.
Peter knew she believed that, but he also knew that when he might no longer recognize her, when he was incapable of toiletry, when he was completely dependent that she might regret taking responsibility for his care. This he could not accept for himself or for Melinda.
“Burden or not, what would my quality of life be? Having you in my life would make it rich, but it wouldn’t be the same. If it is up to me, then I don’t want to go out with a whimper.”
“Melinda, we both agreed that a person has a right to decide for himself when the pain or incapacity for life becomes more of a negative than a positive, then a person has the right to arrive at an informed decision on whether to continue or end life.”
“But you don’t suffer pain.”
“It is not just a matter of pain, I also said an ‘incapacity for life,’ where the quality of life is abysmally low.”
“What about anti-prion trials?”
“It is just that a trial, and while I would consider it, the truth is that I am beyond being accepted for such a trial. Look, I have given careful consideration to what my decision means, not just for myself, but for those who know me.”
Melinda didn’t want to concede anything about Peter departing the world, but in her heart, she knew he was right.
“I’m 60,” said Peter.” I’m not old, but I have lived 60 years. I have loved. I have experienced. It has been a good life. I’d like it to be longer, but not as a dependent shell of who I was. Don’t I have that right? Is it not my body and my life to decide as I choose? What right does the state have over the bodies of its citizens?”
After all, the major entity that truly stood in the way of Peter’s decision to go out on his own terms was the state.
“The state’s obligation is to protect its citizens, to ensure a quality of life for all its citizens, and to uphold the dignity and respect the human rights of all its citizens. I am a human, and I have rights. Dignity and respect demands that I, as a human, have the right to determine what is best for myself. That is all I am demanding. I am only demanding for myself what is my right.”
“When I am of sound mind, does the state or any politician have the right to deny me my right to decide for myself?”
Kim Petersen is co-editor of Dissident Voice. He can be reached at:kim@dissidentvoice.org. Read other articles by Kim.
This article was posted on Thursday, February 20th, 2014 at 9:38am and is filed under Health/Medical, Human Rights.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/02/to-live-or-not-to-live/