Okay, I wasn't going to post over the long weekend, but I just stumbled upon this while browsing through the "for sale -> barter" section on my local Craig's List.
Complete Home Computer System....Ladies only
Date: 2006-07-03
I seem to have an abundance of fully working P C systems available to the right lady............contact me if there's any interest and we can go over the details..........thanks
Now, setting aside the absurd use of ellipses (or whatever it is when you use 10 in a row rather than just punctuating your damn writing) this is just sleazy. The subtext is clearly along the lines of, "Hey, I bought you dinner, so you owe it to me to put out." Presumably, or, I hope, at least, that going over the details would clarify this point before it gets too far, but I'm totally grossed out by the whole thing.
It's not, however, the idea of trading goods and services. That seems fine to me, and always has. It's the unspoken trading, here and in larger social settings, that gets me, because of all the social subtext it supports. If you want to give a woman a computer setup in exchange for getting your cock sucked, great! Go for it! But say so. Implicit in the hints and dancing around are two ideas that I'd like to see wither and die:
First, the idea that sex is shameful and dirty: Sex, like any human activity, can be healthy or unhealthy, depending on how you do it. We don't have a lot of opportunities to approach sex in a healthy way in our society, though, because it's so bound up in socioreligious underpinnings that we don't often think about. Even broadly sex-positive people such as yours truly often come across buried assumptions and opinions that show how hard it is to get away from thinking of sex as either something dirty or something sacred. When we whisper about using sex as a piece of barter trade, we keep our confused notions active and damaging. If you want to make a trade, by all means, do. But if you think it's shameful, think twice about it.
Second, the idea that women are property: Oh, sure, the sex is a service, provided by a person, who happens to be female, but because women are generally objectified, especially in sexual settings, in our society, their service is, in fact, a good, to be bartered. And because it is less okay for women to be freely sexual than for men, the sexual marketplace puts women in the position of holding something of value in their orifices, which they can then trade for goods. This is great for the individual who takes advantage of the demand, but bad, in general, for both men and women, as it prevents us all from approaching sexuality as equals with equal power and desire.
So, to celebrate Independence Day, I encourage you all to confront your desires honestly, feel good about them, and go get laid (or whatever you'd like to do).
