I was sorry the other letter was closed.

I wanted to comment on AKA Smith's experience "sleeping" at the rodeos - I did exactly the same thing - only in the military on field missions. And probably heard about the same level of ugliness she did when the "men" thought I was asleep. One of the married "men" bragged about raping some local girl behind a bar. It was chilling to hear - and to hear the joking my "buddies" did. (There were reasons that I never did anything - most of which was the woman would have been nearly impossible to find) Less chilling but just as abhorant was the discussions of the women working in the prostitution sector. Or the other women in my unit. I learned what men mean when they refer to a woman as a slut - it means she is having sex with someone who was not them.

So - was I hearing what men are really like? Or just the men I worked with were particularly loathsome in the male-female field? At that point of my life, I had a love-hate relationship with men - I neither trusted them, nor could I totally abandon the idea that I could find someone who was worthy of my trust.

My experience with johns came at an earlier time when I was pretty open about the whole thing - I didn't have opinions formed and was perhaps more libertarian in my view of prostitution. However, the level of vitriole piled upon me for walking down my street (this was daytime btw), the physical contact, the being chased, this pretty much crystalized an opinion that men are not really worthy of respect if they are the type who want to buy use of a woman's body. It literally changed the way I viewed men - because beneath the expensive suit was a slavering idiot who walks up to women and grabbed their breast. He was probably a respected man at the office - and in his home. Was the man I saw the "real" face?

They neither respected the women they were trying to buy, nor any woman in the vicinity who might be purchasible. They were threatening by their actions. I wasn't fearful and was mostly angry at the end, but I was scared enough to run like hell from some of them. It was a sexually charged warzone. At least I wasn't raped by gangs of paramilitaries like some women endure in other countries, eh?

When I make the rhetorical question - what would legal prostitution do for me? It is becasue I think it would do NOTHING. Men will continue to purchase women's bodies, whether it is legal or not, and will continue to be disgusted/angry/distainful of women who sell their bodies. Which means that any woman who is thought to be a seller will also receive that treatment. This is part of the problem I have with any talk of legal prostitution - it will change nothing for those of us who don't want to sell our body parts for use.

Asehphe - I take exception to you equating selling of a vagina for use to sex and the selling of a mouth for song. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I equate selling of ones body for sexual use by another to be akin to slavery. The selling of one's mouth for song, or muscles for construction, or brains for programming - this is different. Again, I can't quite put my finger on it. Because of sex? Perhaps. Do I think it degrades sex? Yeah - maybe because I look at sex as a form of conversation between men and women that can take many forms. Reducing it to a commodity, somehow makes a womans part in the "conversation" unimportant.

@ Asehpe,

Hey - I enjoy your posts and views. I enjoy the conversation if I may say that. I realise this post and yours should be in another letter.

A short thing - yes, there were johns in my neighbourhood that did not approach me, or follow me, or attack me. The point I was making (or trying) was that due the the number and nature of the harassment I endured, I looked at all men on that street who were not from there, as suspect. After all, if the "upscale" man in the suit was okay with grabbing my body, just becasue I told him to go away, what about that "shabbier" guy who looked at me?

The men who behaved so aggressively were from all walks and I presume, educational levels. They acted similarly bad. The effect of that behaviour made me look at the polite johns or just men walking down that street as potental problems to me. I developed a distain and dislike for them that seemed to mirror their own for me (or any woman on that street)

I would have been foolish, or naive, to give every man a clean slate of trust, just wait until he attacked me before slotting him. Unfortunately it meant I did group men who were decent human beings with the cretins. It seemed to me then (and at times now - though not as pervasively) that within every "mind their own business" kind of guy, was someone who would reduce a woman to subhuman status, if they felt the urge and thought the woman should provide the service.

I don't believe all men are like this. But the level of that belief is not all that deep. And as I said in some earlier letter - all it takes is this kind of subject (prostitution) to re-evoke some of those feelings I have, over the years, intellectualized away.

As far as legalising prostitution? Well, okay, but only if the attitudes towards women (and men) selling their body bits changes first. I just don't see that happening.