Article for the UWEC Spectator

Prostitution vs. Prisoner

“The world’s oldest occupation” is being called into question. Where do you stand? What does it mean to be a prostitute, historically and now? What exactly is prostitution? And who in the world would think that a prostitute is a prisoner?

A prisoner. The “prison” of prostitution is highly debated. It is subjugated to the whims of moral relativism. A fancy term, eh? Prostitution and prostitutes have been religiously condemned by the religious, the ‘morally astute’, and has been embraced by many as a necessity of situation. After all, who’s to say something someone finds right is wrong? Only the self-righteous? Only the fanatics? That is the question.

This age old ‘occupation’ has come to the forefront of my mind, only because I have been forced to rethink how the world has told me to think about prostitution. The paradigm shift has been the result of two years doing basic research on the topic of Human Trafficking, aka Modern Day Slavery. If you don’t know about Modern Day Slavery, look it up; it will blow your mind. Beyond the facts of Human Trafficking lay the strange and ominous ideologies that allow this perverse practice to be a consistent force in the world, at here at home in the U.S. I have come to believe that one of these ideologies can, and most likely has, deeply corrupted our ability to view people in terms beyond the commodity. This may sound Marxist, but I think that politics or critical theory aside we must wonder at the power of sex on an individual. I had grown up thinking and feeling that sex is something that is natural and should not be suppressed, while thinking and feeling that somehow this is wrong. Over the last couple of years have I realized where the problem lies. It was not in that sex should or should not be suppress; the issue was the way in which the natural urges were addressed. I do believe that sex is a vital institution for all people who have ever lived, beyond procreation; there are other reasons why it is so engrained in all cultures of the world.

This month is Women’s History Month. A good month, after all women are amazing, specifically Astri Mikkelson is amazing (my fiancée). This month has been dedicated to women to show that we care deeply for women and the struggles that they have had to face. Admittedly men face struggles too, but history shows well that most months of the year are Men’s History Month. Since this month is supposed to be all about women and the lives they have lead, a group called HTA is doing a forum discussion on the idea of Prostitution vs. Prisoner: a look at the connection between prostitution and human trafficking. There are about 27 million people in a form of modern day slavery today. Of those 27 million, 80% are women and girls. That means there are 21,600,000 females in slavery today; of that number 70% are forced into sex trafficking, which equates to 15,120,000 women who are in sex slavery today. Prostitute or Prisoner? It may have never been a more important question, as it is today, this month, and this year. A month to celebrate women. And this is happening. Whew.

March 15^th, HTA will be in the Alumni room at 5:00pm and four wonderful ladies will be giving small presentations followed by an open forum. If you have any questions or comments or insights, for or against prostitution, you are welcome to join us. Don’t worry, I’ll keep my sometimes-overpowering passion for this issue in check and do everything I can to be civil and courteous.

I hope you enjoyed.

A response to Matt on Slavery in the Bible

This is a work in progress, just spent some time and would love some feedback.

Matt,

Thank you for your email, I would love to sit down and talk about how we can teach our campus about the horrific nature of slavery. I would also love to know more about Shared Hope. I would like to help with the article on explaining the presence of slavery in the Bible.

I have spent the last couple of hours mulling over your question. In studying marxist criticism I have come across a very interesting aspect of capitalism that I had not thought much about before. Just so you know I'm not a complete advocate for Marxist theories, just feel that there is some truth in what Marx talked about. There were a couple of points that became very intriguing. The first one is the ideas of use value, exchange value, and sign-exchange value. Use value is something that has value in its use and in its use alone. Like for instance a loaf of bread, its only value is in it being used for nutrition, most basic food items are in this category. Exchange value is something that is bought solely for the purpose of selling to make a profit, i.e. the idea of 'flipping houses' buying a house, fixing it up, then selling it for more than you bought it for. The only value of the house in this situation is the prospect of selling it. Sign-exchange value is the idea of buying a $100 pair of sunglasses. The value is not in the use or the resale of the product but in the symbol it represents, which in a capitalist community, is the representation of wealth. Connecting these ideas to the idea of commodification has some interesting connections to modern slavery and even the trans-atlantic slave trade. Commodification is the process in which an object or even person is transformed into a commodity through the apparent placement of exchange value, or sign-exchange value. The process of commodification has been deeply influential and has become a norm of capitalism. Where as in the barter system use value is paramount, people traded for the value of the product. Exchange value and sign-exchange value are held to specific arenas in a barter system, i.e. traders/merchants, and the government leadership, respectively exchange value and sign-exchange value.

From here you can easily make the logical leap to the difference between biblical slavery and more adverse forms of slavery. Trans-Atlantic slave trade, modern day slavery, and even Egyptian slavery of the Hebrew people. You can see that in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and in modern day slavery, the major value of a slave was and is in exchange value. There is a deep rooted connection to the commodification of a person as slave. Specifically the sex industry, the person has become a commodity to be bought or sold for hope of profit, or personal gratification, a touch on sign-exchange value. Beside this is the possible connection between the alienated worker and the type of work a modern slave is forced to perform. An alienated worker is someone who works to create a product that has no individual connection to the worker, therefore the worker has lost individuality and has become a commodity, the only value assigned is in exchange value, or possibly sign-exchange value. I do believe that any type of slave trade could be considered adverse, at least when applied to this formula. However, when looking at Exodus 21:7 specifically you have to look at cultural norms as well. In "The Two Princes of Calabar" by Randy Sparks, there is a cultural norm where if a male slave was let go, allowed his freedom, it was because he was untrustworthy or lazy as a worker. When this happens the male slave is then unable to find work and is reduced to becoming a beggar, because it is considered a disgrace to be 'let go'. This may seem strange, yet in this culture a slave is considered almost as if they were family. If this was also a practice in the middle east, which I am unsure of, it would make sense that God would command that a female slave is not to be let go, it would be for her protection instead of her oppression.

Well this is what I have currently as far as biblical slavery. I'll let you know what else I come up with. It would be good to collaborate on an article sometime, or write articles to compliment.

Caleb

p.s. I am not saying that capitalism is at fault for the commodification of people, what I'm saying is that like many ideologies that may have had a strong chance to produce a lot of good, it has been corrupted in the past and sometimes currently, into creating pain and evil.

Thank you for reading!

ODW - One Days Wages

I am truthfully irresponsible when it comes to things we all need to be responsible for. Like for instance, I smoked for two to three years (can't remember when I actually started) and when I thought about quitting six months ago I had a hell of a time doing it. In fact I didn't quit until the beginning of December. All that time between July and December I actually started smoking more. I know why I did it, but that is something I'll relate to you later. I also have been bad, and still have occasions where I am pretty lame, about being responsible with money. I have spent so much money on things that don't matter at all. I have bought expensive meals when I can't afford gas, I bought seven dollar packs of smokes and had to buy another two days later when I couldn't afford it. I have been, on top of all that, relationally irresponsible. I used people for my own gratifications, not so much because I wanted to hurt them or because I was obsessed with ruining peoples lives. Naw, I did it because I wouldn't think about what my actions meant to them. I would feel bad all the time afterwards. (I'm talking about being the kind of guy you warn your female friends about). These things have had deep control over my life. They have had.

They do not anymore. There are a few things that have driven these scum covered desires for the chaos all duress creates, duress in my experience can be created by the person under it. I have been freed! Very freed! I still have trouble with the money thing, I am getting better, but I have been so frickin freed from the other things, it is amazing. It has been a three and half year battle and I have been up to my ears in the lifeblood of demons slain. (I write poetry once in a while.)

About three years ago, after my beautiful God really shook me and created in me a clearer vision and showed me a deeply loving and ridiculous grace driven heart, I discovered the truth about Human Trafficking. Having just been shown, for the first time it seemed, a God whose heart was bigger than any I had ever heard about, bigger it seems than any possible logician could account for. I had, under impeccable logic and understanding begun to emulate his heart. (I'm just kidding about the impeccable part, logic seems to be a problem for me when it comes to faith. Either I have to have logic in order to understand the concept of God, or I can have faith and forget about logic and begin to know God.) Well I spent a lot of the first month with Human Trafficking as a point of sorrow, a point I didn't want to point out to anyone. I didn't talk about it for a long time. The place I discovered Human Trafficking was through a website for men called 'The Deadly Viper" or something cool like that, they even had a sweet website. Well on the bottom of the site they had links to other sites that the men of God who visited the vipersite would be interested in. Being that I was beginning this whole man of God stuff I thought I'd check it out. Little did I know that the Not For Sale Campaign website, i.e. http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/ (btw this is a really long url), was on this list. I didn't even know what it was. I sat there and looked at the banner at the top that read '27 Million People Are Enslaved in the World Today'. When I read it, I kind of chuckled, I honestly chuckled, I didn't think it was true, I thought it was a marketing gimmick for some sales pitch. It couldn't be true, there was no way I could be a little over 20 years old and there could be slaves. That ended a long time ago when our ancestors fought the great Civil War and the great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln took that fateful humanitarian step to free all the people of African descent from slavery. I spent half an hour looking through the site trying to find out what they were trying to sell. By minute 29 it began to dawn on me that this could possibly be real. By minute 30, my life began to be rocked with emotions I was not equipped to deal with. I sat there struck dumb for a long time, don't know how long, no one knows in those moments. Eventually I closed the firefox (I have since switched to Safari for easy rss access) and walked through my pastors kitchen to my bedroom in the lower portion of their house. (I lived at their house for a year and a half after being asked to move in for a month of recovery.)

It has been three years since I began to know about Human Trafficking, the polite term for modern slavery. I spent some of those months in bitter anger at all those who could possibly sell another human being, especially when it came to sex slavery. I became bitterly sad with the realization that girls as young as 5 were being exploited up to 30 times a night by johns, the polite term for men who visit prostitutes. I became enraged as I learned about the exploitation within my own country, I mean come on! "The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates that 50,000 people are trafficked into or transited through the U.S.A. annually as sex slaves, domestics, garment, and agricultural slaves." - http://www.gchope.org/human-slavery-statistics.html

After I was bitterly angry, bitterly sad, and enraged, I began a student org on my campus to deal with this issue, I did a lot of individual research. I talked to a lot of people about this problem I spent a lot of time delving the issues. I began to realize that the major factor that caused people to end up in the situation where they could be trafficked came when there was bitter poverty. Where the options were to sell themselves, or their children, or die of starvation.

One Days Wages (ODW). This is a cool place to cause great change. There are a lot of organizations out there combating poverty and I highly recommend ODW. The founders are Eugene and Minhee Cho. They have decided to donate one years wages, an amazing thing! I am so proud of the human race when I hear about people like Eugene and Minhee! Check out their site, they ask that we donate one days wage, a day of work to end poverty, to make an impact on taking away a cause for slavery. Go to http://www.onedayswages.org/ to learn more. This is an awesome opportunity to be part of something that demonstrates the new philanthropy of a new empowered generation. Btw, one days wage is only .4% of a persons annual wage.

"It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching." - St. Francis of Assisi