Turnabout of Honesty

Beyond fabrications of fantasy...

Turnabout of Honesty

In the wake of recent furor... although, let's be honest, this furor is hardly novel, much less recent, with respect to virtually identical situations and contexts, now, then, and every when...

Let's talk about sex.

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Not our public position on sex.

Our private.

Because our public position on sex is dominated by flights of fancy.

While our private is real.

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Indeed:

Our public position is dutifully washed in consent and mutuality and respect.

And further hallowed by meaningful relationships and love and responsible decision making.

But surely we're not as naive as that?

Moreover, surely we're not as gullible as that to believe such naivete as that?

Especially:

In this age of prostitution and pornography as 'art', as 'music', as 'drama', as 'advertising', as 'social media', as 'entertainment', as 'news', etc.

That has furthermore been every age of time immemorial and will likely be every age of the future.

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Verily:

Prostitution and pornography is sex for sale and isn't sex what is bought and sold vis a vis prostitution and pornography as 'art', 'music', 'drama', 'advertising', 'social media', 'entertainment', 'news', etc.?

In the end, does it matter why we buy and sell sex?

Isn't sex for sale, still sex for sale, regardless?

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Notwithstanding:

If art imitates life...

... doesn't it stand to reason that the sex we're buying and selling is not 'art', 'music', 'drama', 'advertising', 'social media', 'entertainment', 'news', etc. per se...

... so much as dignifying sex for sale by relocating the platform and the context from which we buy and sell sex... from reality to fiction... (despite the blatant artificiality of such relocation)?

... whereby we legitimize buying and selling sex, via arbitrary determinations of acceptability (i.e. acceptability of prostitution and pornography vis a vis fiction as art versus unacceptability of prostitution and pornography vis a vis tangible realities, per se)...

... and perpetuate the delusion that sex for sale therefore does not exist as tangible realities in the real world, except insofar as sex for sale only exists as fiction as art?

(Or, at the very least, neither as pervasively nor as blatantly, as vis a vis 'art', 'music', 'drama', 'advertising', 'social media', 'entertainment', 'news', etc.)

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Surely, only those of us raised as groundhogs in burrows believe such tales spun from aether.

Yet, despite the vast majority of us having not been raised as groundhogs in borrows, we vehemently repudiate realities that are not only our own, but have been our own across time immemorial.

Needless to say:

Our wherewithal to manufacture 'realities' and 'truths' to advance our agendas (which are varied, when it comes to sex for sale), is convenient indeed...

... even as the vast majority of us have never been raised as groundhogs in burrows... ever...

... even as reality is still reality... regardless of where some of us patently live.

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The reality?

It is far more likely that prostitution and pornography thrive as pervasively as prostitution and pornography as 'art', 'music', 'drama', 'advertising', 'social media', 'entertainment', 'news', etc.

It is also far more likely that this reality is obfuscated to satisfy agendas that benefit from both the reality that prostitution and pornography flourishes tangibly in the real world and the delusion that relocating prostitution and pornography to 'art', 'music', 'drama', 'advertising', 'social media', 'entertainment', 'news', etc. legitimately dignifies buying and selling sex.

Thus:

It is far more likely that our public position on prostitution and pornography differs vastly from our private.

Otherwise:

How could buying and selling sex be as extraordinarily profitable as it is?

When our public positions vociferously glorify consent and mutuality and respect and hallow meaningful relationships and love and responsible decision making...

When we conspicuously buy and sell sex en masse as consumables vis a vis 'art', 'music', 'drama', 'advertising', 'social media', 'entertainment', 'news', etc...

When we furtively buy and sell sex en masse as consumables vis a vis tangible realities in the real world...

How could the truth be anything but ?

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Needless to say:

This disconnect between testified public positions and the enormous profitability of buying and selling sex reflects a blatantly endemic hypocrisy between words and actions that intractably impairs our ability to meaningfully resolve issues of sex across societies.

Until we're honest about buying and selling sex...

... we will continue to bombast incoherent vitriol with reckless indifference to the truth of sex.

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The truth?

Irrespective of our public positions of consent and mutuality and respect, revered per the appropriated virtue of groundhogs raised in burrows...

Irrespective of our meaningful relationships and loves and responsible decision making, exalted and honored per the dignity of delusions...

Prostitution and pornography, from tangible realities to 'art', 'music', 'drama', 'advertising', 'social media', 'entertainment', 'news', etc...

... without us... who would sell sex?

... without us... who would buy sex?

... without us... who would profit from both?

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Are we really that gullible?

That we believe that prostitution and pornography are but insignificant aberrations eking within the fringes of human societies?

Are we really that misguided?

That we insist that propaganda crafted from pretenses of virtue and facades of dignity, are ideal public positions of sex to be espoused by one and all?

Are we really that self indulgent?

That we condone the legitimacy of avowing public positions of sex that are illusions of self serving artifice, while concealing private positions that fuel the indisputable profitability of sex for sale?

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Surely:

We could be honest and reject the lies we ceaselessly perpetuate about sex and sex for sale.

Surely:

That we neither do nor have, is a testament to truths that far too many of us deny.

More

How we buy and sell sex is not always obvious.

That we do is.

In so many ways that defy belief, all of us do.

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Which is not to revile or defend...

... sex; or sex for sale; or prostitution; or pornography; or prostitution and pornography as 'art', 'music', 'drama', 'advertising', 'social media', 'entertainment', 'news', etc.

Rather...

... to illustrate the blatant incoherence of our incomprehensible obsession with reviling or defending...

... that which we are unwilling to face the truth of.

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Such that...

... revilement and defense, with respect to instances of sex, sex for sale, prostitution, pornography, etc., is less about interests of good or vice per se, than interests of agendas, including greed (as opposed to professed interests of nobility).

Such that...

... insofar as revilement and defense furthers interests, revilement and defense are tools of agendas to further interests including greed for money, power, wealth, influence, etc.

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Needless to say, unlike lies, the truth serves no agenda of any interest, except the truth.

And, like all truths, this truth cuts both ways.

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Addendum

There was a time, that many have forgotten, when looking upon the visage of one of a different class (or status), different gender, different religion, different nation (or ethnic ancestry)...

... was punishable by death.

Yet.

We evolved.

We acknowledged human frailty and human error.

We embraced compassion for our fellow human kind and understanding of whole truths.

Such that, we recognized that such punishment was indeed: Draconian and cruel. Vile and extreme. Unjust and merciless.

Yet.

Here we are.

Seeking the death of one another, literally and materially.

That we justify and legitimize by nothing more than our righteousness and our dignity.

As if, our righteousness is unequivocally always right. As if our dignity is inviolably always sacrosanct. As if, by virtue of both, we and we alone, are sufficiently and eminently qualified to appoint our selves: judges, juries, and executioners of justice.

Moreover.

Here we are.

Lest one of us possess the unbelievable nerve to defy such justice by ostensible consensus of mobs...

... the nerved one, the defiant one is cast as deserving of the same justice meted to the one for whom we seek death...

... as if, non compliance and non conformity too, are punishable by death; so too, dissent and refusal to acquiesce and accede...

... regardless of absence of actions that reasonably warrant penalties of death....

... such that, looking as though non compliant, looking as though non conforming, looking as though dissenting, looking as though refusing to acquiesce and accede...

... are all as deserving of the same justice as the one for whom death as punishment is justified and legitimized by nothing more than our self appointment as judges, juries, and executioners of justice...

... as if, our self appointment is irrefutable; as if, our fitness to determine guilt and innocence is unassailable; as if our knowledge of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is infallible.

Thus.

Justice evolves (verily, devolves) into injustice. Draconian and cruel. Vile and extreme. Unjust and merciless.

Thus.

Our hands devolve into weapons of tyranny with which we exact absolutism and effect fatalism, armed with swords and pens empowered by viciousness to execute all who stand in the way of our justice which is but tyranny of vigilantism masquerading as righteousness and dignity.

And, by doing so...

... we inexorably rob ourselves of true righteousness and real dignity in every kingdom of Good.

Such that...

... the mighty who have fallen are none other than us.

- M.