A Voice Calling in the Wilderness

It always seems to me that there are 2 arguments about why we should legalize prostitution. I'll deal with the second in a few days.

Argument 1: It's the world's oldest profession. You are never going to get rid of it. Quit trying and use our tax dollars for something that you can make a difference at.

William Wilberforce became interested in eliminating slavery in the Commonwealth in around 1789. For what it's worth, the act to abolish slavery throughout the UK was not proclaimed until 1807 (18 years later) and the act that abolished slavery throughout the commonwealth was not proclaimed until 1833( 44 years later, and Wilberforce died 3 days after)

Perhaps because I am interested in politics, I have an idea of what 44 years of political work and activism looks like. Countless meetings with people who don't care. Ridicule. Excuses from the other side. Dissimulation. Exhaustion. Standing in the House of Commons, again and again, to talk about the same point, while those around you ignore you or scoff at you. 44 years is a very long time. Very long. I'm sure, at times, he felt alone and unequal to the task. But, I do not think he ever thought of giving up. This was his calling. But more than that, he knew he was a lamp, held up to the evil that was slavery. He knew he was a voice calling in the wilderness, calling people to stand up for right and good.

Prostitution is not the world's oldest profession. That dubious distinction likely belongs to slavery. And yet, no one would for a moment think that anyone who can't pay their bills should voluntarily enter into slavery. No, we say, that's wrong, it's morally repugnant, and we won't let you do that. When you read through the annals of slavery in the American south, certain themes begin to emerge - the economy would fall apart, the Africans are just like children, slavery "takes care of them", the Bible condones slavery, says it's ok. It's the natural order of things.

Now, we look at those "justifications" and we think, quite rightly, that they are crap. We see them for what they are, pathetic justifications of an unholy thing. We reject them as false. I bring up slavery when I talk about this myth because the roots are the same. For a long time, far too long, the world looked at those justifications and we were lazy. We said that well, we didn't think it was nice, but it wasn't hurting anyone. We only need to look at race relations in the US to see how wrong we were. We know deep within us, our ancestors have blood on their hands.

I doubt we will ever rid the world of the scourge of murder, the scourge of child abuse, the scourge of slavery. But we still try, don't we? You don't often hear of people who say that we should stop trying to police ourselves, protect our children. I suspect we will always, this side of heaven, live in a world where babies die (and there's Jen, Marching with the March of Dimes for Gabriel). But out of the best that it is to be human, a child of God, we keep trying to make our world a better place. As Christians say, Gods will done on earth, as it is in heaven. We try out of what is pure and noble and good in humans, to make our world a better place. We don't always succeed.

The point is this: when we say we will never eliminate prostitution from our world, we are giving in to laziness. When we say that we should stop trying, we cease to care for the woman on my street corner, on Christmas Day. We say that she doesn't matter. We say that we are too busy to help those who need our help, to consumed by our families and our things. We keep the small parts of the law, while ignoring the call to justice and mercy and love. We are a cup that is clean on the outside only.

And I'm sorry, but she does matter. She has a family. There is someone out there, who loves her. And I'm sorry, but I have to stand up and say that she's my neighbour. I owe her a duty of care, and that duty of care means that I have to stand up and say that she is already enslaved, and it is both wrong and every single kind of morally bankrupt to say that we should further enslave her with legislation.

Perhaps the easiest change we can make is this. It doesn't involve volunteering with a soup kitchen, donating money, handing out condoms to sex workers. Do you have a son? A brother? A husband? Any men in your life? Teach them it's not ok to "buy a woman". Teach them that women are people, and they deserve respect and protection. Teach them that prostitutes aren't out there because they like their job, and that they are some one's daughter, mother, friend. They too are our neighbours. And if they are good and honourable men, men like Mr. Spit, affirm that. Be a light against evil and a voice calling in the wilderness.

Laziness. It's not ever going to be a valid excuse for ignoring the marginalized. At least not in any kind of world I want to live in.

prostitution

I have been thinking about writing a post about why prostitution is wrong. I have been thinking about the ways I could engage you all in my passion for the subject, in my quest to make a difference for the girls living this life.

And the problem is that I don't quite no where to begin. But maybe it's by saying this:

When I moved into my neighbourhood 4 years ago, I didn't know much about prostitution. I knew it existed. I had a classmate that put herself through University working as a call girl. But street level prostitution, well, I knew it existed, out there somewhere. If you asked me about it, I might have said something like "Well, I don't like it. I don't think it's a good idea, but really, it's between the women who do it, and then men who hire them."

And then I moved to somewhere.

Just the words I have used give me pause now. The women who "do" this, and the men who "hire" them. As easily and casually as if they were hiring someone to clean their house or watch their children. Except, not really.

One of the things that astounded me about the entire subject was to realize that prostitution isn't about sex. Mostly it's about possession and control and power. It is exactly what those John's say it is - it's about buying a woman. That's the term they use "buying a woman".

Now, I know someone will come along, sooner or later and point out that maybe selling sex is a viable economic prospect for these women, and who am I, with my moral puritanical-ness to tell them what they can and cannot do with their bodies.

And I suppose that's why I haven't written a blog about it. Because I know, deep within me that selling sex may be big business, but it's not ever going to empower women to sell their bodies and not their minds. I think we can all agree that men aren't hiring any woman: be she on a street corner, in a massage parlour, in a high priced hotel, or in a yellow pages ad for "escort services"; for her mind. Frankly, if they wanted someone for her mind, they could go and strike up a conversation with a woman. You know, have a relationship.

No, there's a problem with saying that it's ok for women to sell their bodies, but frankly, I'm still not sure how to articulate it, other than to call it a form of slavery.

But really, that's not what strikes me most about prostitution. You see, when someone asks me why prostitution is wrong, I think of the woman I saw, standing on a street corner 2 years ago, on Christmas Day.

She was standing kiddy-corner to my house, at about 8:30 am. It was cold, I think. She was standing there, waiting for a man to pick her up. On Christmas Day. Now, you can tell me that women might consider this to be empowerment, a valid way to make a living, but the truth is, did you work outside on Christmas day? When I was going to open presents and have eggs Benedict, she was standing, looking, waiting for a John.

Did you stand outside, looking for work on Christmas?

And lest you start thinking of this as a terribly Dickensian scene, she was standing there, freezing, stoned out of her mind. Frankly, the girls in my neighbourhood usually are stoned. I hardly wonder why, I'm sure I would have to be too.

Could we all just agree, irregardless of what you think of women's rights, irregardless of your position on empowerment, that she probably, in whatever lucid bit of her was left, she probably didn't want to be there either.

Could we leave the issue of whether she should be there, or wants to be there, or even if this is an economically viable method of supporting yourself aside. Could we say that when you have to be stoned out of your mind to do a job, when your job supports being stoned out of your mind, and when that job has you performing risky work on Christmas Day, that we have an obligation to stand up and help you?

Irregardless of the politics, could we make it about the people - the women? And could we be their voice?

Perspective

I went to John School last Saturday, to teach (And C. I think I might have met your friend from EPS).

I taught my bit, and then sat and waited until the break. And then I decided to stay for the rest of the afternoon. From an honest but maudlin point of view, I didn't want to be alone, and there was no one around who seemed to want me - Mr. Spit was out of town, my best friend was out of town, other friends that I might have called were in another city. Woe is me.

There are only three things that happen after I speak. There is a video called Stolen Lives: Children in the Sex Trade. Then a survivor speaks about getting out of prostitution, and the sorts of horrible things that happened to her. (And trust me, they are horrible) Finally, two mums speak. And I have thought about those mothers in the last months. I thought about what their lives must be like. I asked a few, tentative, hesitant questions about life after the death of a child.

Both of the mothers say this - that their daughters became caught up in a world that they didn't understand. And they were powerless to get them out of. It was a world full of pain and sorrow and agony and drug addiction. Their daughters went from bright young women, to women who became old, long before their time. And these mums became old. Worn, tired, pinched, devastated at the lives their precious children were living. Unable to comprehend how this happened. Sure, we can have a debate about whether prostitution should be legalized. (And I'm happy to tell you why I think it shouldn't). But this, this life of horror, these young women weren't out their willingly. Please understand, they didn't choose this life.

Someone asked me how you could tell the prostitutes in my neighbourhood. And it isn't their clothes. These women don't dress like Julia Robert's in "Pretty Woman". I could give you a sarcastic answer, that someone who chose to do this wouldn't be out there on Christmas day, in a blizzard, at minus forty, in the pouring rain, covered with blood. I'll tell you how you know if she's a prostitute. It's not the drugs that mask their pain, the deadness seeps from their soul. when you look in their eyes you realize, that these girls, they are the walking dead.

The first mother, I'll call her Arete for her life's work, she speaks of the last photo she has of her daughter. It was on the front page of our local paper. It was the medical examiner's office, taking her out of a cold, lonely field in that terrible time in fall, when all is grey and brown. Taking her out of this field, where she had died at the hands of a serial killer, taking her out of that field, far from her family, in a white body bag.

The other mother, I'll call her Elos. She speaks at John School because she wants to talk about humanity. She wants to talk about who her daughter was, before she became, forever branded as a mere sex trade worker. I'll call her Elos, because she wants to look at these men who come to John School as human. Elos talks about her daughter, and how she came to be in the sex trade. She talks about addiction as a disease, and wonders what kind of a world that we live in, that these men at John School are old enough to be her daughter's father, but they didn't see her as a person. No one cared to say "Look you are sick. Where do you live, let me take you home. You belong with people who love you".

Elos doesn't know where her daughter is. And I heard her story, and I thought about where Gabriel is. I know. He's in heaven. His ashes are between an angel of courage, and an angel of remembrance. His tree is in my backyard. His photo is by the front door.

Elos doesn't know where her little girl is. Not if she's warm, not if she's safe, not if she knows she is loved. Not if she's still on this earth. She comes to remind us that everyone is loved by someone. Everyone belongs to someone. My little boy was held by family. He was sung too, cried over, prayed for. Loved by everyone who touched him.

It's raining tonight. It's wet, it's windy, and there is a child, who is not at home. And we don't know where she is. I needed to remember: I walk a hard road without Gabriel. Arete and Elos, they walk a much harder one. When I need to know about courage, about pain, about perspective, I will remember these women. Who live each day with sorrow and sadness that surpasses my understanding. Who out of their brokenness, teach others a better way. Who quietly stand up for truth and justice and mercy and compassion. Who see everyone as a person, with inalienable rights. Who turn on their porch lights every night, hoping their children find their way home.

My lesson for this week was this: courage is not a big bold act, it is not defying statistics, or living in spite of statistics, it is this: It is the hope that turns on the porch light - and waits. It is the act of saying "I love you means forever and always".