In this fantastic article about prostitution, Sebastian Horsley makes as romantic and convincing argument against the legalization of the world’s oldest profession as I’ve heard from an Englishman or any other man. Yet Horsley is himself a proponent, perhaps the most vocal and viscerally connected supporter of prostitution, and his unabashed love of paying for sex is genuinely poetic. He also seems to be undefatiguable, having slept with more than 1,000 prostitutes in a twenty-five year period.
Observe his rather inverted reasoning for keeping prostitution illegal:
When I ask if she wants prostitution legalised, she reacts violently: ‘No way! I tried to take a regular job a few months ago. After tax and national insurance I was left with practically nothing. So I came back here. On a good day here I can take
Prostitution was legalised in New Zealand (where I live) this year – or as they say “decriminalised”. It hasn’t made much difference for the working girls though – as we see when we go out on street outreach in the redlight district. The hope I take from bible characters such as Rahab is that God can and does liberate people. The problem I have with people like Horsley is that they glorify and romanticise something that in reality is degrading and damaging to a person’s dignity and spirit. Interesting post.
I would imagine Horsley’s romanticization of prostitution is based more on his experience with the high class call girls rather than the gutter workers who more accurately typify the profession. I have no doubt that were Horsley himself a prostitute relegated to the back alleys and seedy red light districts, he might have a different view of it.