Prostitution
Prostitution--how to write about it?
There's the positive image of prostitution as evinced by the sex worker movement--and the horrific side manifested by every gruesome report from the world of trafficking. I personally approve of sex work (at least I think I do), but the things I hear make my hair stand on end.
Since it deals with sex, of course I find myself drawn to write about it. And yet that seems to be such a fall-back for writers (think Frank Miller WHORES WHORES WHORES), slapping in a prostitute or two (with or without a heart of gold) in order to amp up the titillation.
Certainly sex for sex's sake has value (and I know there are those would disagree with me). For me, however, writing about sex is more than that--it's also a way of writing about feminism, feminist issues, human concerns. The two poles of postitution contain so much more than "just" sex that from one angle they're hardly about sexuality at all--more about violence, society, self-determinism, economics, workers' rights.
Your thoughts?
There's the positive image of prostitution as evinced by the sex worker movement--and the horrific side manifested by every gruesome report from the world of trafficking. I personally approve of sex work (at least I think I do), but the things I hear make my hair stand on end.
Since it deals with sex, of course I find myself drawn to write about it. And yet that seems to be such a fall-back for writers (think Frank Miller WHORES WHORES WHORES), slapping in a prostitute or two (with or without a heart of gold) in order to amp up the titillation.
Certainly sex for sex's sake has value (and I know there are those would disagree with me). For me, however, writing about sex is more than that--it's also a way of writing about feminism, feminist issues, human concerns. The two poles of postitution contain so much more than "just" sex that from one angle they're hardly about sexuality at all--more about violence, society, self-determinism, economics, workers' rights.
Your thoughts?