Sunday, November 29, 2009

Different Languages

That’s what it’s like when I talk to atheists. I did a post a while back about the sex trade in America. I found the attitude of atheists so profoundly sad that I can hardly stand it.

I tried to say that how we experience life as a child has an effect on the choices that we make as adults. It's not an excuse, but it is a reason. Because she’s talked about it openly I’m going to use as an example one of the atheists that passes through here on a semi-regular basis. She said that she was at one time married to an abusive controlling man. While I don’t know her personally, I would suggest that we have two main options in understanding why she made that choice.

1) She’s really stupid.

2) Events in her childhood made that particular individual seem comfortable and attractive - or dangerous and exciting.

I know that it’s not number one and I’m pretty sure that it’s number two. If I'm wrong P. please correct me. What I’m saying is that while she obviously chose to be with that man for a time, her choice was influenced to the point that it really wasn’t a fair choice. It wasn't a choice that could be considered equal to someone coming from a different home environment.

Now, here is where we seem to be speaking two different languages. I said that same thing about those who work in the sex trade. Through my counselling I came to know hundreds of those women and men intimately. Here is what they told me over and over again.

. Being raped by their dad or other family member had a HUGE impact on the choices they made as adults.

. Being addicted to drugs early in life had a huge impact on the choices they made as adults.

. Having parents who were addicted to drugs had a huge impact on the choices they made as adults.

. Not finishing school had a huge impact on the choices they made as adults.

. Being offered as a sex object to “friends” of the family had a huge impact on the choices they made as adults.

While these individuals may be out there, not once did I meet a sex trade worker who came from a healthy family.

That is why it’s hardly accurate to say that these people have "consented" to work in the sex trade. What would be surprising is if they worked anywhere else. My exact words were, "I explained to you why the kind of adults involved in the making of porn are no more able to give consent than are children."

You know what atheists heard me say?

. “Are you admitting you do want to keep women down?”

. “It sounds like you have a real hatred of women, a real desire to keep them down, that you disguise as "protection". Women are not subhuman.”

. I was even told that I “would like to see women wearing a burque”

Guess what guys. The thoughts of desire for you that you imagine these air brushed photos of women in magazines are thinking about you isn't what they are really thinking. They aren't perfectly satisfied after you're done jerking off. There is nothing sophisticated or high-class to what they're doing for a living. Most of them need to stay stoned just to get through the day.

But of course helping these precious souls find options to working in the sex trade smacks of puritanical thinking. And to an atheist THAT would be a tragedy.

There is no true communication possible between atheists and Christians.

7 comments:

Jill D said...

Your post wasn't about the sex trade in America. It was a stab at a person who posts here. It was a stab at him, using his real life name, accusing him of child pornography.
Don't try and make out you are the victim.

Thesauros said...

Ya, whatever.

theSpacemom said...

I am truly sad that you feel, for what ever reasons, that atheists can not have conversations with Christians (or Muslims or Jews or Olympians, etc).

Disagreement does not equal disapproval, nor does yelling the loudest ever make a person right.

Unknown said...

I would imagine it's largely a case of people either reading only part of the discussion or people reading into it what they want to see.

As for the claim that most people in porn and prostitution are "unable to give consent," I'm not so sure. I'm sure the overwhelming majority who are victimized by it and seek help or get in legal trouble because of drugs (which I am sure many pay for in this manner) will seem to be victims of circumstance, and perhaps many are. Of course, I don't think we should be punishing people in those situations, precisely because they clearly have enough heaped on them as it is.

Also, I sometimes feel that the stigma placed on sex makes incidents like child molestation even more traumatic than they need be. It's sad when an adult takes advantage of a child in any way, but it doesn't help when society tells that child over and over that it's horrible, or that they are damaged for it. Maybe I'm off the ball on this, but plenty of entire cultures don't have the sexual repression we have, and maybe they're better for it.

Chris Mackey said...

People can consent to things and make up their own minds about things... but if they make the wrong choice, they must lose the ability to consent and make up their own minds?

Thesauros said...

"Disagreement does not equal disapproval"

If this was disapproval I could understand. This is an inabiity to understand what's being said.

Thesauros said...

"plenty of entire cultures don't have the sexual repression we have, and maybe they're better for it."

450,000 Thai men purchase prostitutes daily. 5.4 million tourists arrive in Bangkok for sex tours each year.

Is this your vision of a healthy society?