Women are weird creatures. While one cries foul over being violated in a moving vehicle and garners national support, the other stands in the dark corners of the city’s sub streets, willing to get violated for a few hundred bucks.
There is nothing inviting about either of these women. One is (or was) a promising student at the threshold of reviving her lower-middle-class life, the other a hapless widow who wants to ensure that her children’s education continues uninterrupted.
Dressed in her usual salwar-kameez, she does not make an extra effort to look attractive, nor would you notice her making the obscene gestures expected of ‘these type’ of women. She quietly waits in the by-lanes, ready to hop into the car of a complete stranger, not knowing if this is just another dead-tired man looking for instant gratification before he reaches home to wife and kids or a ravenous psycho out for a hunt.
Nonetheless, our lady here is oblivious that she may be doing an important service to mankind, to us. So are the women peeping out of obscure brothel windows, the high profile escorts who throng luxury hotels looking for affluent nocturnal adventurers or the young girls sold for a few thousand bucks by moms and dads and loving aunts.
This one is for the almost 3 million unethical, invisible women making a living out of selling themselves.
By making yourself available, you are making an unsaid contribution to the safety of our girls. Because of you, perhaps a little girl playing on a street somewhere will be spared the agony of dislocating her intestines. Although consensual sex is definitely not as gratifying as forced sex, we are hoping someone somewhere may choose to bed you and not the 8-year-old who lives next door.
In your dark and dingy rooms, our pent up desires find a comfortable space to ejaculate themselves, which perhaps would look for other vulnerable avenues if you did not make yourself available.
We have no clue why you chose to make a living out of selling yourself. Why you did not become a tailor, a beautician, or domestic help. Nonetheless, we are grateful that you are around to service and gratify our society’s unfulfilled carnal aspirations. When we sigh and see the brutalization of young women and innocent children, we would rather not know how much of it is a part of your everyday life. There is only so much grief we can take, we have our own lives to live and our own battles to fight.
We love it when our movies showing you off as shameless, street smart, cleavage flaunting protagonists receive critical acclaim. We love to watch you, know more about you, your spirit, your sheer grit, it’s a thrilling two-hour experience which leaves us saying, wow, that’s some woman! What we don’t like is to acknowledge you, to be associated with you, to interact with you. Even then, you are a part of our lives.
Legalizing Prostitution – Do You Really Care?
In our country, prostitution is not a criminal offense, but soliciting or procuring prostitution, prostitution in a public place, facilitating prostitution, and living off earnings is punishable.
Will making it legal glorify prostitution as a means to earn quick money? Will it make your lives less miserable? We can only speculate.
In countries where the sex trade is legal, sex workers are required to register themselves and are mandated to undergo regular health checkups. The most positive outcomes have been the regularization of a thriving industry which shows no signs of dying down in the next 100 years, control over mistreatment, trafficking, the spread of STD / HIV to some extent.
If the Indian sex trade is legalized and recognized as any other industry, close to 3 million faceless sex workers in the country will hopefully have laws safeguarding their interests, get access to medical aid, education for their children, and perhaps a chance to create a better life. In return, the government gets to earn taxes from accountable income.
By recognizing prostitution as an economic activity, this grossly marginalized community may be able to earn the right to be accepted as a part of society. Err… that’s expecting a little too much from us lesser mortals, but some of us could definitely give it a try.
We abhor you. We respect you. And some of us even secretly admire you. When you are trafficked from faraway places to faraway places, our prayers are with you. You are woven into the fabric of our civilized society, just like those who solicit you.
Someday, we hope your dingy rooms will be filled with sunlight.