I am truly surprised that almost no one else on this thread thinks there is a mind/body connection. That allowing oneself to be physically penetrated, and intimately phsyically caressed (or otherwise) has some kind of effect and impact that other kinds of work do not.

If this was really the case then why would rape be in such a different category to other kinds of assault? Why wouldn't we just have a cup of tea with a man or woman we were romantically in love with rather than desiring sex with them?

And what about class? It's not just physical attractiveness that makes a high end call girl what she is, it's her 'breeding'. The right accent, clothes, etc etc. And yet nevertheless her job will 'time out'. Unlike being a dentist or neurosurgeon where one's physical appearance and age are not factors.

There's an awful kind of blindness I often encounter here at Salon. And a double vision that means people can countenance sex work as a good choice for some young women but yet I truly doubt whether they would ever consider for their own daughter. Truly - if you knew your beloved 18 - 23 year old daughter was having sex and being manhandled for money wouldn't it make you, even slightly, sad?

And for all the interesting wonderful filmmakers and professors who used to be sex workers I say - that is most unusual. I lived with a stripper once. She was a smart wonderful woman with a learning disability. This was the case with a lot of her colleagues. A lot of the posters here need to take a peek behind the curtains of their ideology and admit to themselves that the body does mean something. It's not just a tool. We're not just brains sitting in a lump of matter. And that what happens to us physically has an emotional, mental and spiritual impact.

Maybe they've never had great, loving, mind blowing sex. Maybe they've never had terrible, cringe inducing, awful sex. Maybe they've never been really sick. Maybe they've never endured hours and days of hard manual labour. Maybe they've never experienced the joy of engaging intellectually with their work and becoming better and better at it over years. It just amazes me that so many people don't believe that what we do with our mind and our body matters.

When you read this kind of thing ...

" The ability conceive of a separation between mind and body is one of the hallmarks of humanity. It is one of the things that separates us from the rest of the beasts of this world. It is also what allows us to delay gratification, and to subvert and sublimate our own natural drives and instincts."

... you know you're in for some pompous far fetched theory that can only be back up by calling in the 'what's natural' argument or 'what separates us from the animals' argument. Neither of which ever hold any water. How would we know what other animals can and can't conceive of or do? And what do they have to do with this topic anyway?

Actually the mind body split is a Cartesian notion that's been ethusiastically ascribed to in our culture for a long time. I'd say it's older than that actually - it's very Christian, very body hating, very cut off. It's lead to all kinds of phenomena, including an epidemic of obesity, remote control living, buying everything rather than experiencing it, in this case, sex. Although of course I know prostitution is the world's oldest profession and respect it as such.

However - just because I'm talking about the mind body connection is no reason to patronise me.

BTW: And have you ever noticed that a lot of the people who don't believe in it are the ones who are the fattest, the most unhealthy, the most unhappy and they don't know why?