A Litte Bit of O_o
Sometime it really baffles me how little I understand people. I was having a conversation with a few old classmates from my univeristy days today over a coffee and somehow ended up on the topic of prostitution.Being my wonderfully INTJ-ish, pragmatic self I just shrugged and said that I didn't mind. For me, prostitution is most likely always going to be present in society as long as there are men and women who are willing to pay for sex as there are people who are willing to offer themselves. It's an transaction of a very basic need and monetary compensation. Everybody has urges and everyone does not hold their bodies in sacred, virginal regard. Where there's a need there will be someone there to fill it, one way or another. So why spend so much energy condemning what will always be there instead of using our resources and try to make it into something controllable and sanitary? I know the downsides of this business, but if you can't stomp it out then the best you can do is in my opinion to keep it clean.
Of course, this blows up in my face when one of my classmates, who from my memory had been a rather outish party-girl, decided to start a moral rage fit over all the WRONGNESS and GROSSNESS and zOMFGLIDIANOOOO-NESS of this heinous practice that turns women (seriously, why is it never about the guys in this business?) into mindless, doped sexdolls for the entertainment of male chauvinists.
This escalated with her getting louder and louder while I was tirelessly sipping tea and stating my same point over and over again. I probably should have just pulled out and realized that it had since long stopped being a debate and devolved into one of those "take a stand!" situations that western society seem to be so fond of (I really missed being in China at this point, where ironically you are actually allowed to have a practical opinion and will even be respected for it.).
So yeah, I did what 20 years of western influence has taught be is the proper thing to do. I took a stand. And now I have seeminlgy declared myself a supporter of the wanton spreading of STDs, trafficking and the existence of third-world sex tourism, because apparently between the Axis of Prostitution-evil and my earlier point, there is no grayzone. You're one or the other, either the dark side or light side of the force. This baffles me but alas, such are the state of things.
So in the end, this is how I will become a supervillain and a sith: because I'm practical.
Then so be it.
***
Of course, then I remember that beneath all this tiring moral ga-ga, I am still Chinese and I am allowed to do what those before me has done for thousands of years: Be like water. Be soft, be strong, yet unyielding. Find new ways when faced with obstacles. Find the middle way.
Of course, this blows up in my face when one of my classmates, who from my memory had been a rather outish party-girl, decided to start a moral rage fit over all the WRONGNESS and GROSSNESS and zOMFGLIDIANOOOO-NESS of this heinous practice that turns women (seriously, why is it never about the guys in this business?) into mindless, doped sexdolls for the entertainment of male chauvinists.
This escalated with her getting louder and louder while I was tirelessly sipping tea and stating my same point over and over again. I probably should have just pulled out and realized that it had since long stopped being a debate and devolved into one of those "take a stand!" situations that western society seem to be so fond of (I really missed being in China at this point, where ironically you are actually allowed to have a practical opinion and will even be respected for it.).
So yeah, I did what 20 years of western influence has taught be is the proper thing to do. I took a stand. And now I have seeminlgy declared myself a supporter of the wanton spreading of STDs, trafficking and the existence of third-world sex tourism, because apparently between the Axis of Prostitution-evil and my earlier point, there is no grayzone. You're one or the other, either the dark side or light side of the force. This baffles me but alas, such are the state of things.
So in the end, this is how I will become a supervillain and a sith: because I'm practical.
Then so be it.
***
Of course, then I remember that beneath all this tiring moral ga-ga, I am still Chinese and I am allowed to do what those before me has done for thousands of years: Be like water. Be soft, be strong, yet unyielding. Find new ways when faced with obstacles. Find the middle way.