Prostitution

I saw in the news today that a retirement home - the first of its kind - had opened for former prostitutes in Mexico. It broke my heart to hear that these women had been simply aging on the streets, or living with people who were abusive toward them.

I'm reminded of a documentary about the military prostitutes based at Pearl Harbor. So many soldiers saw these women, but there was so much stigma associated with the whole situation. It seemed clear that the women were critical to the military effort, but also that they were a "dirty little secret."

I also read this morning about the beheadings of two women thought to be prostitutes in Pakistan, and about the campaign against "obscenity" there. This is the kind of situation that can develop where women don't actually have any kind of parity with men as far as power is concerned.

I would never imply that women usually have a kind attitude toward prostitutes. But violence toward them comes from men. I have never understood how, if men think prostitution is so awful, its practitioners are able to stay in business.

There is some kind of giant gulf in the lives men lead and the lives they're willing to confess to openly. Is it because they're afraid of upsetting the women in their lives? If so many men want sex so much, and with so much variety, that they'll pay for it, why does this have to entail shame and violence toward the women who are providing it? It is as if with one voice, a man says, "I need you to do this for me - you're important" and with another, he says, "You are scum for being willing to indulge this base desire of mine."

This double standard has infuriated me for many years. I know it speaks of man's self-hatred, shame at himself, disgust with his desires, fear of losing social standing, fear of losing the companionship of women that care for him. But men are bigger and stronger, and sometimes they have weapons. If they also have the power in a society, then they can apparently give women a way to survive, but at the same time marginalize them and see to it that they live in a state of disgrace.

The concept of not having power in a society is foreign to me, growing up in a comfortable nation where women are generally treated as equals, being raised as a human being with no attention to my gender as such. I know my mother had vestiges of sexism - she tried to encourage me to marry and bear children and never spoke to me much about a career. But my lack of confidence stemming from being female was only an undercurrent, and it clearly hasn't prevented me from trying to pursue a challenging occupation in the long run. And nothing in the world stands in my way. But there are places in the world with such a disparity of expectations of men and women that I cannot comprehend the net effect on a woman's self-image, particularly if she is in sex work. Especially if that is the only work available to her.

I don't like government regulation in general. But legalizing prostitution, even if it then has to get just as regulated as any other line of work is, seems vastly preferable to keeping it illegal. Illegality just adds one more level of misery for the women involved and implies that the world would function better without prostitution at all.

I just don't understand the differences between men and women, I think. Why do there have to be two worlds, one for the ignorant wife at home to believe, and one for the streetwalker to know from daily experience? It is not right that those who understand the truth ought to be made to suffer for it.

"National Coming Out Day"

I watched and heard the festivities on campus today - the spray-painted neon T-shirts, the pink badges, the heartfelt testimonials... I sat close enough to be exposed to the atmosphere, but not close enough to be associated with it.

I'm not sure why I have never made a big deal to other people about being bisexual. I haven't advertised it widely, nor seriously tried to hide it. I see it as something to be careful about exposing, given the social climate, unless one intends to be an activist - and I don't - not about that, anyway.

I have been thinking about this Sam Harris talk at the Atheist Alliance conference in Washington D.C. last month, of which I have an edited transcript. He makes the case that advertising one's atheism is mostly a good way to keep the nonreligious/nonspiritual element of society marginalized, instead sitting back quietly and forcing the religious to defend their viewpoints in logical/evidential terms. He likens it to the battle against racism in the South fifty years ago. The illogic of their position, all by itself, erodes respect for racists, given lots of time and calm argument. The same could happen for the religious - with patience.

I could not help but analogize this idea to these very vocal GLBT advocates. I'm not saying that being gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered is some kind of superior moral position or statement of rightness over wrongness. But I think the same marginalization results from advertising sexual preferences different from "the norm." It becomes "them" and "us." You're in, or you're out - but you have to take a position. It buys into the idea that sexual preference is somehow important. It reinforces the position of the adamantly heterosexual that sexual preference is a legitimate characteristic to devote thought to.

What about the perspective that sexual preference is a very gray area? Or the concept that sexual preference ought not to matter fuck to anyone? Why would sexual preference be an issue, except for the fact that the generally religious segment of society has had to make it one? I don't see that an atheist would have cause to say anything beyond, "Hey, it's not for me, but if it floats your boat, more power to you!"

To parade and keep close-knit as a community can be helpful psychologically. But I don't see how it is going to bring sexual preference into the same category as hair or eye color. Sexual preference should be irrelevent.

I think I understand better why I have never wished to align myself too closely with any group whose sole purpose is to draw attention to itself as a minority and to "raise consciousness" about its particular quirks. I'd rather quietly go about my business, confronting statements of hostility toward the GLBTs of the world with calm questions and serious interest in influencing a person's thoughts in a different direction.

It might be said that all this activism has indeed raised consciousness. But I would rather live in a world where I didn't have to be in a subculture to get a date. It would be nice to ask a girl out, and not hear, "I'm not a lesbian," but simply, "Oh, I'm not really into women - can we be friends?"

Why God, but not Santa Claus?

How can you know that there is no Santa Claus, but not know that there is no God?

Is it because your parents told you after a time that there was no Santa Claus, but they never told you there was no God?

What if your parents were misled, and their parents, and their parents before them - all misled by people who knew better, who wanted power, who wanted to make people more pliable, who wanted to push good feelings on the hopeless for the future business of feeding that addiction?

Why would anyone lie to a child and tell them there was a Santa Claus? Why would you? To have an incentive to offer them? To be able to play on their fears? To have the fulfillment of satisfying their hopes? Isn't that a grand sense of power?

Can you see how the religious would love to have that kind of power over everyone?

Calling

I always had a strange brew of interests. Especially, I was always attuned to "the world's suffering." I had a vision of how people ought to be, how society ought to be, and from an age I do not even recall, I learned it was not so. I have wished to fight it ever since. But only recently have I had a way to make a dent.

It has happened in the form of teaching math. It doesn't sound like saving the world, but to me, it is. It has both personal and cosmic significance. It's personal to me, of course, because it's a matter of facing demons I had for years. But it's also personal in the sense that I'm helping people find confidence, the same confidence I lacked, myself. Why is it cosmic? There is certainly a need of things to help the world. Need of food, medicine, housing. These are obvious, but supplying them has never held interest for me. However - give me a person's mind to expand, a process of logic to instill and enhance, and I feel that I am Wonder Woman.

Add to this the fact that most of the people I help are female - going back to school, frustrated, scared, thinking less of themselves because of their gender, because of only being appreciated for their femaleness and not for their minds. I feel like I'm helping with a huge social issue. It's no wonder my love for my work is obvious and that I teach with passion and intention.

Lately I realize I could not care less about solving mathematical problems for its own sake. I know that if my work does not have an impact on the world around me in a tangible way, I will waste into nothing. My entire purpose in life will go unfulfilled.

In the middle of a graduate program is not the best time to have come to this realization. But it's probably good that I did come to this realization, anyway.

I need to start pursuing my calling, where it leads me. In the absence of much of the type of security I thought life would afford me, I have got to have the one kind that matters more than anything: being true to myself. Knowing I do that will warm my life in ways that nothing else can. Lacking it will empty me of significance and meaning.

Life is half over - thinking optimistically. I have got to leave my mark.