It's Saturday night, and myself and boyfriend T have come out for dinner with lapsed blogger HBH and his boyfriend who's called C. I'd started talking about our recent holiday in Thailand, and it turned out that C had lived in Thailand for 6 months when he was younger."How come?" I ask, mildly amused by the idea.
"It was all rather odd!" says C, "because it was 7am in the morning and I was heading home after a long night out, and all of a sudden there was this ladyboy running down the road after me. He/she had a fistful of money in his hand, and he was shouting 'Look, I make all this money last night, I buy you breakfast'!"
"Wow," I reply, "he must have fancied you! Was he cute?"
"I wasn't interested," answers C, "I was just so tired that all I wanted to do was to fall asleep in my own bed!"
"Awww, don't you think that it would have been interesting?" I reply sounding disappointed, "I mean, if he'd bought you breakfast, do you think he'd expect that he'd be entitled to get to know you a bit better?"
"Maybe," says C, "that actually didn't occur to me. But I also had concerns about how he'd earned that money. I mean, if he was earning a lot of money at night then he must have been a sex-worker of some sort, wouldn't you think? So would you be happy being bought things with prostitution money?"
"Well if he was a ladyboy, I wouldn't be interested," I reply, "I'm into guys, not ladys and not boys either!"
"But what if it had been a cute guy who'd earned all that money by selling his body, offering to buy you breakfast ... ?"
"Well there's not a problem if he'd earned all that money legally, is there?" I answer, "Obviously if things progress, then one would need to play extra safe, given that one doesn't know where he's been!"
The conversation moves on, but later I start wondering whether C had a point. If one accepts things bought with prostitution money, is one implicitly participating and encouraging it? If any readers have any views on this, please let me know :-).
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11 comments:
Well, you are not less of a whore working in the bank industry and selling your soul which it'd be even stronger than just selling your body!
LOL A-Philosophical, but I reckon I still own my soul :-). And yes, before any witty person makes a jibe, I do have one!
GB xxx
Your friend C could definitely have the right to decided whether he should accept the offer or not, but I don’t think that is his place to judge the ladyboy. If the ladyboy really broke the law then he should be judged by the law, not by your friend. Moreover, I don’t see the relation between accepting the breakfast offer and if prostitution is illegal in Thailand. Is that mean he would accept the offer if he is from Amsterdam? I wonder. I think its okay that your friend decides to not to go because he doesn’t like to hang out with a lady boy/sex-worker, which is his personal preference, but just don’t make the whole thing political to justify his chose.
That's a huge question actually, and could be extended beyond just prostitution. Should I buy Ed Hardy shoes at extortionate prices since they are made in Vietnam, where the labourers are possibly paid next to nothing?
The question I would raise is whether participating or encouraging prostitution is seen as a bad thing? I had a very interesting discussion with a sex worker towards the end of last year that put the profession in a very different light to the one engrained in me through upbringing. Outside of the trafficking of women and children for sex work I don't have a problem with it, and really think it's time to break down the negative stigma.
I must be a terribly immoral person - if someone offers o buy me a meal, I don't enquire too closely into how they got the money :-)
The best way of communicating with people is to spend time with them. If you object to something they're doing, talk to them about it, have breakfast and then pay for your own if you want. Keeping distance never helps to improve understanding nor develop tolerance.
And in any case, you can find the most interesting things about yourself and others by taking a step outside your comfort zone.
A wise man once said: we all pay for sex... One way or another...
There is a great Italian book where somebody interviewed at least 20 gigolos (male to male prostitutes)... It was an amazing collection of stories, and the two main insights were that (like often) things aren't as easy as they appear, and one shouldn't look down upon them. Some had really heartwrenching stories - they came from the Balkan or some other poor country and were literally sold into slavery (they all were injected a drug to make them addicted and thus dependent) but others were straight guys just earning a few extra bucks to feed their kids and again others were gay guys who simply enjoyed the kick and the idea of being paid to engage in the best thing of the world. So many of them actually prostituted themselves out of free will - and I think for them it would matter much more that both their customers and societary at large treat them with dignity and respect than that we get moralistic about their profession...
how do I become a gigolo...
http://franklingervacio.tumblr.com/post/355767248/this-is-what-i-think-about-you-making-me-take-down
anyone wanna chat hit me up
franklingervacio@gmail.com
LOL I would take the money if the guy is not my boyfriend lol... really don't care if it's prostitution money or not haha.....
GB do you really talk in your characteristically euphemistic way when you're with friends, or is it purely for the benefit of the delicate flowers that are your faithful blog readers ?
On the rent front I'm terribly soft-hearted and like to give the lads a night off by paying them but missing out the sex part.
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