Comments for The Naked Anthropologist

Comment on TIP: Trafficking in Persons, the No-Methodology Report by Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs « The Honest Courtesan

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs « The Honest Courtesan — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:19:08 +0000

[...] presumes to judge other countries on their response to so-called “human trafficking”, based on secret criteria which obviously include classifying all foreign sex workers in a given country as “trafficked [...]

Comment on Vocational training as Rescue so far mostly useless: sex workers in India by Maggie McNeill

Maggie McNeill — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:26:13 +0000

I agree. It just goes to show how little has changed, doesn’t it?

Comment on Vocational training as Rescue so far mostly useless: sex workers in India by laura agustin

laura agustin — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 18:07:49 +0000

I never heard or read a better exposition than that of the writer of the 1858 letter. One feels the case should have been done and dusted just with that, and forever.

Comment on Vocational training as Rescue so far mostly useless: sex workers in India by Maggie McNeill

Maggie McNeill — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:37:46 +0000

“Why waste your life working for a few shillings a week in a scullery, eighteen hours a day, when a woman could earn a decent wage by selling her body instead?” – Emma Goldman (1869-1940)

Activists have been saying this for the better part of two centuries, but moralists won’t listen and the “progressive” belief that government can just “create” make-work jobs which provide comparable income, flexibility and satisfaction is a total fantasy. But for control freaks, the idea that people should simply be allowed to run their own lives is like some alien tongue.

Comment on Vocational training as Rescue so far mostly useless: sex workers in India by useless workfare | Kevin Burctoolla's gaming world

useless workfare | Kevin Burctoolla's gaming world — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 16:13:12 +0000

[...] prostitutes pay is base on how much risk they is. getting a prostitutes to work in MacDonalds or Dominos prostitutes they will not like it and more likey to go back to work in the sex trade. [...]

Comment on Vocational training as Rescue so far mostly useless: sex workers in India by Rudie Rudegirl

Rudie Rudegirl — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 13:15:26 +0000

This sounds all too familiar – it seems that these programs almost always fail to offer practical alternatives for sex workers to change profession with positive results, even here in the UK – I totally agree with Flavia Agnes’ take on this – Where’s the dignity in working all hours in drudgery for lower wages – whatever country you live in

Comment on Sex at the Margins available as ebook by laura agustin

laura agustin — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:44:39 +0000

Many thanks, JR!

Comment on Letter from the prostitute that didn’t want saving, 1858 by laura agustin

laura agustin — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:43:13 +0000

I think we can take it they were all in one great long cultural conversation about prostitution, making points and seemingly answering each other without necessarily having read each other’s specific writings. The English term in law was common prostitute until quite recently.

Comment on Sex at the Margins available as ebook by JR

JR — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 06:19:11 +0000

I recently requested your book via interlibrary loan. But, much to my surprise, my university library informed me that they instead bought a new copy for our own library! Hope it gets many readers.

Comment on Letter from the prostitute that didn’t want saving, 1858 by JR

JR — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 06:10:54 +0000

Great post. Thanks. Reminded me of Walt Whitman’s poem, “To a Common Prostitute,” which was written, I believe, just a few years before this letter was published. Though it sounds like he was answering to her letter.

“Be composed–be at ease with me–I am Walt Whitman, liberal and
lusty as Nature,
Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you,
Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to
rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you.”