Why Is America Still So Often Puritanical ?

[Homo Aestheticus]

One passage especially struck me:

"Many types of bodily wage labor used to be socially stigmatized. In the Middle Ages it was widely thought base to take money for the use of one's scholarly services. Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, tells us there are "some very agreeable and beautiful talents" that are admirable so long as no pay is taken for them, "but of which the exercise for the sake of gain is considered, whether from reason or prejudice, as a sort of publick prostitution." For this reason, he continues, opera singers, actors and dancers must be paid an "exorbitant" wage, to compensate them for the stigma involved in using their talents "as the means of subsistence." His discussion is revealing for what it shows us about stigma. Today few professions are more honored than that of opera singer; and yet only 200 years ago, that public use of one's body for pay was taken to be a kind of prostitution. Some of the stigma attached to opera singers was a general stigma about wage labor. Wealthy elites have always preferred genteel amateurism. But the fact that passion was being expressed publicly with the body — particularly the female body — made singers, dancers and actors nonrespectable in polite society until very recently. Now they are respectable, but women who take money for sexual services are still thought to be doing something that is not only nonrespectable but so bad that it should remain illegal.

Here is the full piece by Nussbaum:

http://www.ajc.com/search/content/opinion/2008/03/13/spitzered_0314.html

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I never really gave much thought to the 'sliding stigma scale'... Interesting.

I think it's pretty clear that violent misogyny is what lies behind a lot of American moralism.

[karlhenning]

I think it's pretty clear that violent misogyny is what lies behind a lot of American moralism.

I think it's pretty clear that such a remark is mistaken, peculiarly ideological, and is itself a type of 'moralism'.

[Josquin des Prez]

I think it's pretty clear that violent misogyny is what lies behind a lot of American moralism.

It's not hatred for women, it's knowing how to put them in their place.

[Bulldog]

I think it's pretty clear that violent misogyny is what lies behind a lot of American moralism.

I think it's pretty clear that you don't know what you're talking about.  But if you feel you have a case here, try to make it instead of just writing an unsubstantiated condemnation.  You might also want to make comparisons with Muslim practices toward females.

By the way, the first sentence of Nussbaum's article puts her in the "disregard" category.

[Bulldog]

It's not hatred for women, it's knowing how to put them in their place.

I guess this type of thread is going to bring out all the crazies on the board.

[Cato]

"American moralism" needs to be defined.    

"Violent misogyny" cannot ipso facto be moral, and does not keep prostitution illegal: violent misogyny promotes prostitution and immorality.

Nussbaum = "nut tree" in German.   0:)

Crazies indeed!   

[knight66]

Well Eric, you are on a roll, aren't you.

Apple of discord anyone?

Mike

[Homo Aestheticus]

I think it's pretty clear that such a remark is mistaken, peculiarly ideological, and is itself a type of 'moralism'.

It's neither mistaken nor ideological.

H.L. Mencken put it beautifully in one line:

"Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time..."

[Homo Aestheticus]

It's not hatred for women, it's knowing how to put them in their place.

Are you saying that a woman does not have the right to do with her body as she pleases ?

[Homo Aestheticus]

Violent misogyny promotes prostitution and immorality.

What rubbish!

Every employed person, in the entire world, is working out of 'economic necessity'. Sex workers are no more 'forced' to work than anyone else is. FORCED is being kidnapped, beaten, locked in a brothel and made to service others against your will.

[knight66]

Eric, You go round these topics as though they were some kind of distorted and truncated rosary.

Mike

[Homo Aestheticus]

Eric, You go round these topics as though they were some kind of distorted and truncated rosary.

Not at all, Mike.... The sliding stigma scale was it.

[knight66]

What rubbish!

Every employed person, in the entire world, is working out of 'economic necessity'. Sex workers are no more 'forced' to work than anyone else is. FORCED is being kidnapped, beaten, locked in a brothel and made to service others against your will.

This really is crap and we have been round this argument with you several times. I can't be bothered rehearsing yet again all the forced economic arguments that push people into this way of life. Clearly you have learned exactly nothing on the subject since you first introduced it on the old board. Either that, or you are being disingenuous in the hope of creating conflict.

Knight

[Homo Aestheticus]

I can't be bothered rehearsing yet again all the forced economic arguments that push people into this way of life.

Excuse me ?

Right now, there are tens of thousands of lawyers, teachers, barstaff, soldiers, crying themselves to sleep because they're desperately unhappy in their work but can't leave because they have to feed their families.

Do we pity the doctor who hates his work, but is 'trapped' by his $500,000 mortgage?

Do we feel guilty about 'forcing' the broke waitress to serve us our food, or 'abusing' the hotel cleaner who scrubs our toilets?

Why is job satisfaction only critical when the work involves the intimate parts of one's body ?

[Bulldog]

Is this thread really just about prostitutes?  If so, perhaps it would be best to hear from one of them, because I wouldn't want to rely on The Unrepentant Pelleastrian for the scoop on the "ladies of the evening".

As an aside, am I the only one who thinks the OP searches the internet to find stuff he can dump in GMG?  

[Homo Aestheticus]

Is this thread really just about prostitutes?

No, it's about individual liberty.

[Bulldog]

No, it's about individual liberty.

I wish you'd make up your mind.  As it is, you're all over the place.


Concerning individual liberty, I'm beginning to think that you have too much.

[Cato]

What rubbish!

Every employed person, in the entire world, is working out of 'economic necessity'. Sex workers are no more 'forced' to work than anyone else is.

FORCED is being kidnapped, beaten, locked in a brothel and made to service others against your will.

(My emphasis above)

"Violent misogyny" is not involved in the latter?

And exactly how is "violent misogyny" not involved among the customers of the former?

Talk to some police officers about this "victimless" crime!      The ones I have known in my life have attested that just the opposite is the case.

[Josquin des Prez]

Are you saying that a woman does not have the right to do with her body as she pleases ?

Precisely what i'm saying. Give them an inch and the first thing you know they'll be discussing how to best express their inner slut, that is, when they are not offing their own unborn children for being such a nuisance (how dare the baby get in the way of her career!).

[Homo Aestheticus]

"Violent misogyny" is not involved in the latter?

And exactly how is "violent misogyny" not involved among the customers of the former?

What on earth does wanting to engage in sexual behavior with another human for a fee have to do with either misogyny or misandry ?

Yes, for some it's a choice they did not want to make and, perhaps, one they regret making. Yes, some sex workers hate their job and wish that they could leave it... but so do millions of other people in millions of other occupations.

Sex workers offer a service and clients purchase that service. They are not 'bought' and 'used'