What We Can All Learn From Whores
Originally posted at Liquor, Loans and Love
I've known a few “whores” in my day. And not in the ha-ha-ha-OMG-you-did-what-with-your-boo-when-y'all-got-too-drunk-at-the-club-girl-you-such-a-hoe kinda whore. I mean real life, true-to-the-stereotype whores. Truth be told, you know some too. You've listened to their stories, probably dated one without divulging it to your friends, hell, you're probably closely related to one, but we can just Cupid Shuffle right on past that reality. The point is, there are hoes all around us, sharing sordid tales of their latest conquests over omelets and mimosas, not calling your homeboy back even though he bought her that Vuitton, walking through the party sizing up the crowd carefully.
How you judge their behavior is usually what gets the most attention; she's not even that cute. If her daddy had been at home I bet she wouldn't be slutting it up like this. Why is her dress so short? No one is ever going to love her if she carries herself this way. It all boils down to one simple root of all the judgment: she is unworthy.
But here is the thing about whores that I have come to know, that is so easy to miss in all the judgmental teeth sucking and condescending head shakes...
Whores have one very important thing that mere mortals like me and you do not have; freedom.
Now, if like me, you were raised to believe that bad girls may have more fun but good girls are the ones who win in the end, you're rolling your eyes at me. You're mentally tallying all the fine, upstanding gentleman with whom you've shared your time and your space and your body, you're thinking of all the trips you've taken with boos over the years, the parents and friends you've met, the times you've been trotted out to meet the bosses, the expensive dinners you've been treated to just by simple virtue of you being a respectable woman. But do me a favor... Next time you go out to dinner look around you.
Hoes go on $200 dates too.
If you could for a moment put aside years of lessons about appropriateness and respectability and, my personal favorite, “ladylike” behavior, you might find that every admonishment to not curse, every 90 day rule, every strictly forbidden sex act reserved for those girls, every edict about the length of your skirt and the fit of your shirt could very well be a shackle. It's a way to keep you in "your place." It is confinement. It's just enough leash so that you can explore a bit but not enough that you aren’t kept right where you're supposed to be, little lady. The interesting part is we have advanced beyond even the need for strict cages of decorum. Instead it's a new type of psychological reinforcement; look at this shiny carrot dangling over your head that promises nice things for you, if only you'd stay right here, little rabbit.
If you look at the whores in your life, it's true that they may be flagrantly damaged. They might be nursing deep pathological wounds. They may be searching outside themselves to fill emptiness that can't be filled. They might be hurt people who hurt people. They could be every bit as scheming and broken and heartless as every single cautionary tale you've ever heard about them.
But perhaps some of them are just free.
Free of expectations of "ladylike" decorum. Free of pretending and presenting themselves in a manner that may not edify them. Free of sex that does not please them in ways that do not satisfy them. Free of incessant worry about the way they are perceived, if they are misjudged, if they're still on the right track to get that carrot.
Or carats, as it were.
It seems to me that perhaps there is a certain kind of freedom in navigating the waters of your sexuality by your own charts.
And maybe that is something we could all learn from the whores.
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