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Rant Number 582 22 April 2014
‘Tax collectors and harlots enter the Kingdom of God before you’. Gasp! Jesus’s words must have given pious hearers an apoplexy. Bad enough for a Jew to praise traitors who gathered taxes for hated Roman rulers but…harlots? Prostitutes?! Women who sold themselves for sex? Ye gods!
‘Master…Which is the greatest crime, buying or selling sex?’ A possible question for Jesus. Also one discussed on LBC radio this morning. Hot stuff because last month Britain’s MPs and Peers contended that ‘sex workers’ should not be criminalised – their clients should be. The EU Parliament leads the way - Sweden already does that.
Some ladies of the night disagree. An English Collective of Prostitutes believes pursuing their clients is not the way. Huh! Can you blame them? When a courtesan’s livelihood is at stake… It is like a sweet shop owner getting agitated over a law against gluttons! Besides, isn’t this a capitalist, free market society? Buying and selling, isn’t that what it is all about? And now EU puritanical interlopers, surely egged on by feminist ‘sisters’, seek to transform honest if lustful buyers into… outlaws?!
It is integral to the feminist narrative that prostitution is about guilty, rapacious men exploiting innocent, vulnerable women. As far as pimps and traffickers are concerned that may often be true. Yet, it was sobering to hear a chirpy, practicing harlot from Hounslow stating candidly to presenter James O’ Brien that a) she enjoys the job and b) she is well paid for it. The lady did not feel at all ashamed or exploited by her customers. Presumably she could get a more conventional job as a cleaner or domestic helper but then she would not earn 125 pounds an hour, as she does. So, a well-paid hooker, happy and with a good relationship with her clientele. OK, maybe she was an odd one but…maybe not.
It is unclear whether the Law of Moses forbids prostitution to the unmarried as well as the married. Yet Judaism was not soft on fornication. St John the Baptist, Jesus’ forerunner, called all of Israel’s people to repentance. That is why Jesus’ statement in the Jewish Temple as to the priority of harlots over the self-righteous Pharisees was so shocking. (St Matthew, 21:31) It is not that Jesus is praising the act of prostitution, mind you. He is saying that the despised harlots who yet heeded St John’s call and hence changed their lives thereby pushed their way into Heaven ahead of good, holy people. No wonder Christ made the good guys hopping mad!
By the way, some uninstructed person on radio mentioned St Mary Magdalene, implying she was a harlot. That is bullshit. Mary was a follower of Jesus. A bit fragile because out of her, St Luke says, the Lord cast out seven devils. She later ministered to him, stood by the crucifixion, discovered the empty tomb and saw the risen Lord. There is no ground whatever for mixing up St Mary Magdalene with another woman in St Luke’s narrative. One who was a sinner and who washed the Lord’s feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair and anointed them with oil. A wonderful figure but not St Mary Magdalene.
Yes, Israel’s prophets could shock. Hosea reports that God told him to marry Gomer, a prostitute, and to have children from her. A somewhat murky passage but commentators argue that an allegory lies behind the factual description. Israel, the chosen One of God, has been playing the harlot. She has strayed from the path, gone whoring after alien, pagan divinities. Despite that, the Lord has not repudiated her. Indeed, the prophet portrays God like a faithful lover pursuing his faithless beloved. Does it disturb you? Good!
The catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that prostitution ‘does injury to the person who engages in it…The one who pays sins gravely against himself: he violates the chastity to which his baptism pledged him and defiles his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit.’ Golden words but unlikely, short of God’s grace, to sway the happy whore on LBC or her customers. What’s new? From Thais, a harlot favoured by Alexander the Great who went on to marry Ptolemy, the conqueror of Egypt, to Theodora, Queen to the Emperor Justinian, to Evita Peron, members of the oldest profession have often gone far. As Scripture reminds you, in this world the wicked flourish like the green bay tree…
The priest feels he ought to record that he knew a youth who, aged 16, along with an older friend once visited a prostitute. The experience was unmemorable. It was something culturally expected, a rite of passage to be embraced by most young men in that now remote society. Was it a wicked act? It was certainly sinful and that’s that.
‘Sex work is just work. Like any other work. It is a matter of choice.’ Thus spoke a former lady of the night on TV. Choice, eh? Sounds like a rotten New Labour mantra. Give people choice. More choice. Choice is good. No, it ain’t. Not all choices are. There are good choices and bad choices. Invoking the law of God sadly won’t suffice in a godless, debauched culture like Britain’s. But there is another law. It is the law of conscience. That little, quiet, whispering voice inside every person who is not totally corrupted. A voice that answers straightaway if you ask: ‘Would you like your daughter to be a prostitute?’
Revd Frank Julian Gelli
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