Holier Than Thou: Musings on Certainty in a Search for Truth, Justice, and a Loving World

Last year I had one of those NPR driveway moments they mention during their pledge drive. I sat in my driveway and couldn’t get out of the car because I didn’t want to miss a word. This was a show broadcast during a particularly energized time of the #metoo movement — about sex workers, sex trafficking and the decriminalization of sex work. The neurons in my brain just started firing.

I have seen and felt the devastating effects of bodies being sold — primarily women and children. I try to ‘hear out’ people I respect and care about, for instance colleagues who are sex therapists, who tell me that some adult sex workers choose and are empowered in their work.

But in my core, I feel there is something deeply inhumane about bodies being bought and sold and sexuality being commodified (primarily for the ‘use’ of men). Especially because the bodies used are disempowered in the first place — women and children. If I think of children, I am enraged and murderous. If I think of adult women, I feel deeply heavy in my heart and soul. It is like a bereavement for the human condition.

So, I listened to this woman who is a sex worker talking about rights, and all these thoughts swirled in my head. And, I had this thought: “Prostitution will always exist.”…