Legal Prostitution and Book Reviews in NYT

The Economist Debates have been centered on the legalisation of prostitution lately and it caught my attention since they talk about world issues. It turns out that prostitution is a world issue.

Ahh one must not belittle prostitution. They are as much about women rights like the yester-years of bra-burning feminists. Generally, I prefer the comfortably creamy clean pages of my books to soiling my fingers in newspapers, but in a bid to not look like a total airhead, I’ve retreated to reading news online instead. Of course, I still read the occasional Jane Austen book review (@austenprose) to keep myself updated in the literary world. So perhaps feminists would tsk at my striking a balance between the “serious” male sphere and airy-fairy female sphere.

So back to The Economist Debates. About 80% of the readers agreed with the proposition that prostitution should be legalised all over the world (Incidentally, The Netherlands and New Zealand have legalised prostitution). The Economist claims to have received these votes from several prostitutes, but I honestly doubt that they have had the time to read The Economist online (given my rather shallow knowledge and acquaintance with any prostitute. There I go again, I’m stereotyping!) because shouldn’t they be working?

The proposition claims that legalising prostitution would actually lower the rate of prostitution and stop demeaning these girls because they would not be embarrassed to report violent abuses to the police. I would think that it is similar to reverse-psychology. Of course, I think that this argument is really lacking because “reported statistics” do not, of course, reflect the real status of the issue. My professor discussed “legalising pornography” drastically reducing sexual crimes in class today and he highlighted that because one was used to watching indecency, outrage of modesty became a social norm. Similarly, me thinks that it is the same with these poor prostitutes.

However, I really do not want to debate about decriminalising prostitution because this is wayyy out of my league. It is also interesting that none of the debaters have raised how legalising prostitution would threaten the family, but I guess it isn’t very important in the debate.

In other news (ooh me sounds like a newscaster), Slate.com recently wrote about how male writers have been dominating the New York Times’ Best-Seller Reviews and I hardly blame Picoult for trying to start a little literary mutiny (even if  hiding in the Twittersphere seems rather cowardice. Not to mention that I don’t appreciate her book much). Their complaints are not directed at the fact that men dominate the best-seller charts but rather that their reviewers tend to be sexist, thus not varied in their tastes.

Picoult and Weiner were not contesting the lack of female influence in book reviews, but rather, that they idealised and made certain books “literary cultural objects” and seemed to scorn their lesser commercial counterparts. After all, more women write commercial literature that appeal to the masses than men. Entertainment, allegedly, does not equate to literary genius.

Not that I intend to compare these two pieces of news, but it’s funny how feminism seems to crop up. Even in books. Personally, I find it a little ridiculous that they want the New York Times to recognise their literary ‘genius’. Genius is not a matter of recognition by some spiffy old newspaper. It is touted by the masses! Literary “vanity” is their folly, me thinks. Prostitution, on the other hand, is like victimising and idealising women at the same time. I’m not sure which is better, but both sound uh bad to me.

One of the few things I like about blogging is that I don’t have to make a point. Perhaps I’d rather let my readers think I’m slightly delusional.