Paying For It
The sins of Amsterdam were still a recent surprise
And we were flying over Scandinavian skies ...
Not much surprises me there anymore except rudeness: some tourists, of course, and the portion of the large expat community that seems to believe Amsterdam would be a much nicer place without all those uppity Dutch people. (This is seriously a thing. Not Dutch uppityness, but snarking the Dutch while living in their city and enjoying their tolerance. It reminds me of tourists who pee on Bourbon Street and then complain that the French Quarter smells.) Visiting for the first time as a young rock star in the '80s? Yup, that'd exhaust your supplies all right. So anyway, we've covered one of Amsterdam's two major "sins," decriminalized weed. What do we think about prostitution? Not just in Amsterdam, but anywhere? The topic has intrigued me lately, in part due to reading the excellent graphic memoir Paying For It by Chester Brown, whom I've admired for years and whose work was a big (though maybe not obvious) influence on Drawing Blood. I agree with Brown's argument that adults should be able to trade sex for money (or vice versa); that's just plain old bodily autonomy. And leaving aside (for the moment, anyway) terrible situations like human trafficking, it seems to me that the prostitute is very much in control of the encounter.
What do you think? Have you ever visited a prostitute (of any gender or orientation; again, I'm not just talking about the Red Light District ladies here)? Would you? Should others be able to? Discuss at leisure.
And we were flying over Scandinavian skies ...
Not much surprises me there anymore except rudeness: some tourists, of course, and the portion of the large expat community that seems to believe Amsterdam would be a much nicer place without all those uppity Dutch people. (This is seriously a thing. Not Dutch uppityness, but snarking the Dutch while living in their city and enjoying their tolerance. It reminds me of tourists who pee on Bourbon Street and then complain that the French Quarter smells.) Visiting for the first time as a young rock star in the '80s? Yup, that'd exhaust your supplies all right. So anyway, we've covered one of Amsterdam's two major "sins," decriminalized weed. What do we think about prostitution? Not just in Amsterdam, but anywhere? The topic has intrigued me lately, in part due to reading the excellent graphic memoir Paying For It by Chester Brown, whom I've admired for years and whose work was a big (though maybe not obvious) influence on Drawing Blood. I agree with Brown's argument that adults should be able to trade sex for money (or vice versa); that's just plain old bodily autonomy. And leaving aside (for the moment, anyway) terrible situations like human trafficking, it seems to me that the prostitute is very much in control of the encounter.
What do you think? Have you ever visited a prostitute (of any gender or orientation; again, I'm not just talking about the Red Light District ladies here)? Would you? Should others be able to? Discuss at leisure.