LETTERS.

• Date: 01 August 2022
• Published date: 01 August 2022

Rights or Wrong?

Hallie Lieberman's apologia for profitable immodesty, "Sex Workers Fight for Their Rights" (June/July issue), gave me pause. We may laugh up our sleeve at Freudians nowadays, but our society is still pathetically tardy in giving up our ancient totems and taboos. So the Victorian waif who had to kiss for her bread has metamorphosed into the self-assured and politically shrewd businesswoman? Quite a transformation in rather few generations, and soon to be socially accepted and condoned? Alas! Lingering doubts about exploitation and violence remain to haunt our collective and conventional sensibilities. Drug abuse, alcoholism, and of course venereal disease get in the way of glib argument and sophisticated gabble.

--William Dauenhauer

Willowick, Ohio

Editor's note: We also received a threepage response to Hallie Lieberman's article. We are unable to reproduce the entire response, but here is an excerpt:

The left has trouble with women's rights. Prostitution is the ultimate culmination of colonialism, racism, and sexism. It is not a path to freedom. It is neither "sex" nor "work"; it is exploitation. It is the buying and selling of human beings in the marketplace. It is the ultimate commodification of women for profit. It is a system of organized violence and profitability in which often women never get paid except for room and board. Even the author of the earlier article supporting it admits to her own trauma and PTSD--"We're fodder. We're seen as usable and abusable"--and to the trauma of others, such as Bella, who would like to call the police when her pimp or clients beat or rape her. Laws already exist to protect anyone, including prostituted women and trans...