Today's guest post comes to us from the man known as Obsidian, who can and will be found all over the internet slaying sacred cows feeding from the troughs of racism, feminism and unearned self-regard. If you start it, he'll finish it, but will often do so with humor. Agree or disagree he usually has something interesting to bring up. He makes his home base at http://obsidianraw.bravejournal.com/
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Zerlina Maxwell's recent appearance on Fox News and the events that followed, have seemingly ignited yet another round in what I refer to as the War on Rape - the fullcourt press on the part of the Feminist Lobby and their allies, to eradicate what they deem as "rape culture" - the beliefs, social mores and the like that purportedly enables rape itself - from our midst. To be sure, the actions of Ms. Maxwell and others are to be lauded, for they have done a goodly measure of positive things for our society over the past few decades; but if they are not careful, they run the very real risk of driving themselves into the same ideological ditch that another "war" currently finds itself.
That other "war" is, of course, the War on Drugs - and by all accounts, we are losing it. Badly. While the utter carnage of the Crack Wars of the 80s and 90s have died down - in no small part due to the grisly facts that many of that era's top competitors have taken each other out during tussles over "real estate", or that many crack addicts have smoked themselves to death, etc. - we still are faced with a culture that attempts to demonize the addict and criminalize the dealer (usually almost always small-time to, at best, mid-level "corner boys" who make a mere pittance), which explains the enormous bulge in the prison population, where it has been well documented that a majority of those incarcerated are there for victimless, nonviolent drug offenses. These people are burdened with criminal records on top of either their extant drug addictions or lack of economic prospects, and so the chances of their returning to prison is that much higher. And round and round the cycle of societal dysfunction goes.
The same can be said for "rape culture", because despite the fact that law enforcement has done a bang up job in locking rapists up, the fact remains that there are real limits to what the law can do, especially when it comes to the flavor of the month: date rape. And while the view of those like Ms. Maxwell and her allies is akin to what former First Lady Nancy Reagan said back in the day - "Just Say No" - the simple fact of the matter is that human needs, impulses and desires, aren't subject to a flip of some kind of self-help moralistic switch. Just as the drug problem needs to be seen in a public health and economic social injustice light, so too do we need fresh eyes with which to see our society's "rape culture" problem, because ultimately we will not be able to arrest, cajole or "consciousness raise" our way out of the morass. We need a resolution.
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And what would that resolution be? It would be a concentrated focus on legalized prostitution, along with continued widespread availability of pornography for men. Say what you will about my last statement, but the facts speak for themselves - in every country where both are widely accessible for men, sexual crimes against women - like date rape - go down considerably. Indeed, one such feasibility study conducted here in the USA, on the potential benefits of nationwide legalized prostitution, argues that legalizing prostitution would result in 25,000 fewer rapes a year. That's nothing to sneeze at, no matter how you slice it.
It is American to believe that we can do anything if we just put our minds to it - nowhere else on the planet is the "self-help" business more thriving - but I think the times are ripe for us Americans to incorporate just a wee bit more realpolitik into our worldview. The simple truth of the matter is that we're not going to stop people from getting drunk or high if they want to, and we're not going to stop guys from being horny and going to whatever lengths they have to to satiate themselves. Prostitutes do any society a serious service, by giving men what they want at prices they can afford. The sooner we get with the program of dealing with life as it is and not as we want it to be, the sooner we can put a real dent in "rape culture" - one that will be lasting and enduring.
We need a U.S. Dept. of Tricks & Hoes. I am dead serious.
That's change we can believe in.
That other "war" is, of course, the War on Drugs - and by all accounts, we are losing it. Badly. While the utter carnage of the Crack Wars of the 80s and 90s have died down - in no small part due to the grisly facts that many of that era's top competitors have taken each other out during tussles over "real estate", or that many crack addicts have smoked themselves to death, etc. - we still are faced with a culture that attempts to demonize the addict and criminalize the dealer (usually almost always small-time to, at best, mid-level "corner boys" who make a mere pittance), which explains the enormous bulge in the prison population, where it has been well documented that a majority of those incarcerated are there for victimless, nonviolent drug offenses. These people are burdened with criminal records on top of either their extant drug addictions or lack of economic prospects, and so the chances of their returning to prison is that much higher. And round and round the cycle of societal dysfunction goes.
The same can be said for "rape culture", because despite the fact that law enforcement has done a bang up job in locking rapists up, the fact remains that there are real limits to what the law can do, especially when it comes to the flavor of the month: date rape. And while the view of those like Ms. Maxwell and her allies is akin to what former First Lady Nancy Reagan said back in the day - "Just Say No" - the simple fact of the matter is that human needs, impulses and desires, aren't subject to a flip of some kind of self-help moralistic switch. Just as the drug problem needs to be seen in a public health and economic social injustice light, so too do we need fresh eyes with which to see our society's "rape culture" problem, because ultimately we will not be able to arrest, cajole or "consciousness raise" our way out of the morass. We need a resolution.
It is American to believe that we can do anything if we just put our minds to it - nowhere else on the planet is the "self-help" business more thriving - but I think the times are ripe for us Americans to incorporate just a wee bit more realpolitik into our worldview. The simple truth of the matter is that we're not going to stop people from getting drunk or high if they want to, and we're not going to stop guys from being horny and going to whatever lengths they have to to satiate themselves. Prostitutes do any society a serious service, by giving men what they want at prices they can afford. The sooner we get with the program of dealing with life as it is and not as we want it to be, the sooner we can put a real dent in "rape culture" - one that will be lasting and enduring.
We need a U.S. Dept. of Tricks & Hoes. I am dead serious.
That's change we can believe in.