This morning before I woke up, I had a really bizarre dream. Immediately upon waking up, I felt the urge to transcribe it here. Alas, my computer was miles away. I didn't want to drive across town without at least taking a shower first. After contemplating for a minute, I decided that I could write about it later, and went back to sleep.

As has happened with so many of my dreams during the past few months that have gone unrecorded, by the time I finally arrived at my computer hours later, the inspiration had faded. The memory, though still there, was not as vivid. My motivation waned.

I tried again tonight, but only ended up with a crummy paragraph or two, which didn't come close to doing it justice. Try again, shall I? Now that I have simultaniously built up expectations (if it's that important to write about, it must be good, right?), while deflating the usual element of heightened mystique caused by disorientation that typically accompanies dream entries.

Oh well. One more shot it is. Don't get your hopes up.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Sun coming in the window. The clock on the shelf reads 9:36am.

Fuck. This is where I am? No way.

...

It took a few minutes for my consciousness to reassert itself.

No, actually, it didn't.

But I wanted back in. It was a Cypher moment. Eventually, I got over it. This one had left me with much to think about.

To me, it also served as a clear signal that it's time to revisit this issue in my online writings. A matter I have been putting off for too long.

So... Now being as good a time as any, I'll attempt to coalesce my thoughts.

Starting, I suppose, with a quick "for those just joining us" bit. Quick version: Last year, back when Bitscape still had a good job and a steady income (or so it seemed), he decided to try something different for a change, and hired a call girl one evening. Longer version here.

Since then, my thoughts and feelings on the matter have forged the spectrum. Occassionally, those have been documented here, but usually they have not. From gratitude, to righteous indignation at society, to guilt, to uncertainty, to a rethinking of my principles (with no firm conclusions as of yet), and back and forth, to a deeply held suspicion that Solomon may very well have been right when he said, "All is vanity."

On the issue of prostitution itself, strange as it may sound, I have seriously had to reconsider whether I believe keeping it illegal might not be such a bad thing. Stranger than strange for me to say? Perhaps. Though I haven't completely yet sorted it all out, I'll attempt to express a few points.

Mini-tangent time.

Last fall (like over a year ago), I was having a conversation with someone who was involved with human rights awareness campaigning. (How I got to talking to this person, and the circumstances surrounding it are beyond the scope of this. But believe me, it happened.)

He was telling me about how they are trying to bring more people's attention to atrocities that happen around the world. I was right with him, and already knew about a good deal of what he was talking about, as he brought up issues like third world sweatshops, children being forced to work in factories where they make clothes to sell at Wal Mart, farmers being driven off their lands, and prostitution running rampant in places like Thailand.

I winced at the last one. It wasn't that I disagreed. I'm sure the conditions are horrible there, and I'm stridently against anyone, especially children, being forced into the sex trade, either through physical force, or because they have no other economic recourse. Still, I winced at the way it was stated as an overbroad generalization, implying that all prostitition anywhere is inherently wrong.

I, being annoyingly shy and introverted, didn't at that moment say anything. I wished I would have. Had I had it to do again, I would have politely challenged this sweeping implication, and pointed out that there is a valid distinction to be drawn between the tyranny of third world slave labor, and an honest call girl who willingly enjoys what she does as much as any employed person.

I knew his heart was in the right place, as was mine. At that moment, I didn't know how to make it clear without appearing antagonistic. Also, I wasn't ready to steer the conversation in a direction that might lead to talk about my own very personal choices with someone I had just met a few minutes earlier. So I stayed silent.

But it did leave me with something to think about. More on those thoughts in a bit.

Fast forward a few months.

Working in the grocery store deli. One of my coworkers, an older man, was going to go on a long-planned vacation. He had been saving his money for years, I would imagine. It was to me a month-long trip. To Thailand.

It was no secret to anyone why he had chosen this location as a vacation spot. In fact, the $5 blowjobs he would receive became the running joke of the workplace. He smiled, and did not deny it. The women in the deli, especially those with more hardcore feminist leanings, feigned mock outrage at the whole idea, kidding on the square* about what a pervert he was.

(*In Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them, "kidding on the square" is defined the act of uttering something as a joke, when in fact, beneath the joke, one is actually serious.)

Where was I in all this? An innocent bystander. Or so they thought.

No. Shyness or not, I had absolutely no grounds on which to judge this man. Knowing what I knew about the conditions in Thailand, I would consider it out of the question for myself to go on such an excursion. The idea of using the misery of the people of an impoverished country to benefit in such a way is an idea I find repulsive. Still, I couldn't blame him.

We're talking about a fairly elderly guy who probably doesn't have that many more years left ahead of him. Having worked there for years, and made his way up the wage ladder, he was probably making a fairly decent living. Not enough to be able to afford much in the way of sex services around here, but in Thailand? The biggest expense would likely be the plane ticket.

Never married, and his only living relation (to my knowledge) being a sibling, and no obligations. Why not have a little fun with life while it lasts?

No, I couldn't blame him. Certainly not after my own decisions, which were known to no one there but me. But I couldn't endorse him either.

When he returned from his trip, I asked him how it had been. He said it was excellent. They really know how to treat a guy well there. I nodded, and I understood.

...

I suppose I have avoided writing about these things here up until now because my own thoughts and positions have become so mixed as to be unintelligible, even to me.

I envision a possible world in which policy decision makers do exactly what I have advocated, and it ends up as a disaster anyway. Make a profitable activity legal, and the corporations will inevitably get involved.

Do I really want a world where sex has been turned into the latest Wal Mart commodity? Haven't rampant advertising, sales, and profiteering taken over enough of our lives already? Why throw yet another facet of human existence -- one which might arguably be considered the most sacred and intimate -- into the monster grinder of corporate capitalism?

But it's already been done. By me, him, her, and others like us. Do we stop to ponder the long term effects of our actions?

I don't know where to draw the lines anymore.

There is more that I could say. I have more thoughts about this. But at this moment, my brain has run out of energy to write any more. I don't know if or when I'll get back to it. Hate to be abrupt, but...

That's all for tonight. Peace.