Eki Quotes

The trans issue is repeatedly used as a pretext to stop discussing sex and power. Suddenly, it is 'sensitive' to speak about men and women. But is it a new thing, or is it the same old misogynist sentiment returning in a new guise.

The new political figure known as the cis woman really only has one task: to come in second place. This is a task that all cis women must approach with the utmost seriousness and they must understand that not even feminism is for them.

And here we arrive at the core of prostitution: the buyer’s paradox. He both wants and doesn’t want prostitution to be work. He wants to be able to buy sex, but he doesn’t want the woman to behave as if she is being paid to perform the act. The buyer wants prostitution to exist, but he doesn’t want it to resemble prostitution. The more it resembles a routine chore—the more the woman acts like a cashier at a grocery store—the more displeased he becomes. No matter how much he wants her, he knows that she is doing it for the money. He therefore constantly demands something more, something genuine, something real. He wants to possess her whole body, her whole person, her whole Self. The buyer finds himself in a constant state of self-deception, which continually leads him to desire possession of what cannot be bought.

What characterizes the neoliberal definition of the victim, however, is that victim has become a characteristic. It means that a person is weak, that we can be either passive victims or active subjects. We cannot be both. In this way, the victim is depicted so negatively that the concept must eventually be abolished completely.

One doesn’t own one’s body, one is one’s body. ‘My body is me’. Not an object, an instrument, separated from the self, something that can be sold, rented, abandoned, or kept to oneself—but being itself. One does not belong to oneself, one is oneself. This is why the prostitutes’ claims that they own their own bodies seem to me to reflect this very same alienation.

Başka türlü olamazmıydı?" Soru eki mi bitişik olmalı. Ayrı yazarsam gözüne batar. Scotland Yard'da filan mesleki görgü bilgi artırma kurslarına katılmış, kendisine lazım olan ingilizceyi iyi kötü kıvırmıştır Uluçmüdürüm. ama Türkçesi zayıftır. Hem köküne kadar milliyetçidir bunlar, hem kendi dillerini bilmezler. Ayrı yazarsam cümlede bir tuhaflık olduğu hissine kapılır. Anlam yerini bulmayabilir. Eğer dilbilgisi sağlamsa (değildir ya) hoşlanmaz. Bu türden iktidarlı ilişkilerde kadınca marifetlerin dışında, kadının erkekten daha iyi bildiği hiçbir şey olmamalıdır. Olsa bile kadın asla belli etmemelidir. İktidar her yerdedir, her andadır. Sözcüğün içinde, anlamın kenarında, doğasında, dilbilgisinin ayrıntısındadır. (Tanrım, deliriyorum!)

The male space is constructed as homogenous, monolithic, exclusionary and violent. The women's space is for the leftovers - women, trans people, non-binary people - and is required to be inclusive yet not in need of protection. This model also neatly summarises gender identity theory: the male name, male sport, male spaces, all are retained intact while female spaces are opened up.

Prostitution is, essentially, not a capitalist phenomenon but a patriarchal one. It did not automatically occur when people began to buy and sell but is instead rooted in the relationship between men and women. But when prostitution is incorporated an advanced, highly developed market economy, this complex power struggle itself becomes a commodity. Sex is separated from the person and becomes supernatural.

Sexually loaded terms like 'bastard child', virgin and promiscuous are therefore meaningless when decoupled from their roots in the organisation of reproduction, since it is woman who gives birth and thereby channels male inheritance and surname from father to son. She bears the cultural burden of sexuality precisely due to the lethal mixture of biology and patriarchy; of being the one who gives birth and thereby the one who the result of sexual intercourse stays with, while the man leaves it behind, while at the same time not having the power to decide anything about the offspring. Carrying the future but not having a say about it, such is woman's predicament under patriarchy.

Attempts to narrow the referents of the term woman - which refers to half the world's population - to a politically obsolete elite consisting only of privileged, ignorant, upper-class white women are often made by those who belong to this group themselves, so-called 'white cis women'. This can seem odd - are they not pulling the rug out from under their own feet? On the other hand, it may be a smart move, in that a seemingly self-critical attitude allows them to secure their position, symbolically distancing themselves from their identity. Striking first, they anticipate the critique that could be directed towards them, by being the harshest critic of their own circumstances. Thus they are no longer the 'white cis woman' but the 'critic of white cis women'.

Usually, rebellions are about saying: We are sick of the way things are— we want to create something new! What happens here, though, is: let’s accept the prevailing order— since we have suddenly realized that it is already subversive. If you feel uncomfortable about the state of things— just keep quiet! As it turns out, things are organized so rationally that resistance happens to be built into the status quo— all we have to do is realize it! Accordingly, pornography will do its own fighting for us since, in and of itself, it challenges the masculine hegemony, transforms society and reshapes our desires! (We must read at least one academic dissertation in order to understand this, however.) The purpose is not to initiate a revolt, but to legitimize the status quo. Saying that something has ‘subversive potential’ in this context is to give it a stamp of approval— not to demand action.

US trans activist Sam Dylan Finch lists 300+ "Unearned advantages" that cis people benefit from. These include being spared questions on how one has intercourse, being able to move freely around without being stared at, receiving competent healthcare, not being discriminated in the workplace, not being bombarded with articles about how many people of their gender are murdered, being allowed to wear clothes and uniforms which align with ones' gender, not being sexually objectified and potential partners knowing what their genitals look like and what to call them. Sound familiar? Finch has just described what most women go through on a daily basis. Receiving poorer healthcare due to ones' sex, being groped, subjected to sexual violence and inappropriate, probing questions, reading articles about how women are killed by their partners because they are women - this is unfortunately well known territory for us women. The text thus turns the very harassment and injustices the women's movement fought against into undeserved privileges. We should feel pleased that we are allowed to dress in alignment with our gender, despite us having done nothing to deserve it. We should be thankful that we are permitted to wear high heals and veils, since these 'align' with our gender. If we follow this analysis to its logical conclusion, even a girl who is genitally mutilated at nine and married off at twelve is a cis person and thereby privileged - her sexual partners know what they are to call her genitalia: CUNT! Similarly, a homosexual man in Saudi Arabia or Uganda would, according to this interpretation, be considered the 'normal, natural and healthy' - and privileged.

Ben, 'Her şey Tanrı'dır' diyorum. Halbuki siz, 'Her şey Tanrı'nındır' diyorsunuz. O küçük iyelik eki büyük fark yaratıyor.

El territorio primitivamente ocupado por Garai, vulgarmente llamado Kara, es el que actualmente se denomina República del Ecuador, de la que es capital Quito, ciudad construida por ellos llamándola Ekitu = Solar, ciudad del Sol, cuyo Templo con su gnomon sagrado, encontrábase colocado bajo la línea del Ecuador” // “Como todos los hombres de la Raza Roja los Garai adoraban como su dios al Sol = Eki, llamándolo además Sua i Syri

Suddenly, the philosophical discussion about what makes men dangerous is absent: now they are without question extremely dangerous and no woman should have to be in the same room as a man. The authors imply that a perpetrator of violent crime who is a biological man can, by identifying as a woman, renounce his violent tendencies. Yet, if it were this easy to do so, why is it not possible for all men to just do it?

Where does this leave women? In the mentioned philosophers' text, three categories emerge: the perpetrator of violence (man), the one requiring protection (trans woman), and the one who does not perpetrate violence but does not require protection either (woman). The trans man is not mentioned at all. What, then, does the opening up of the category 'woman' mean for women's status? It means that a woman remains a woman no matter what she is called: her being and room for manoeuvre is not expanded. In the trans economy she will be ignored and trampled upon whatever gender she identifies with.

The arch patriarchal and highly illogical rule regarding nudity tells us: men want to see naked women, women do not want to see naked men; men want to show their naked body to women, women do not want to be naked in front of men. The age-old male practice of indecent exposure has been revived on the internet where millions of men shamelessly send images of their genitals to women they have never met and enjoy the idea that women are looking at their penis. When she sees his penis, patriarchal logic dictates, he has power over her. Yet this power also manifests when he sees her naked, for a man who sees a woman naked is able to ruin her life. He can, in certain cultures, wreck her chances of marriage and he can publicly ridicule her so that she is beset by horrific shame. He can spread her image at school, to her colleagues and parents and bring her to the verge of suicide. A woman, on the other hand, has no power over a man she sees naked: the only meagre vengeance she could possibly mete out is to spread the rumour that he has a micro penis. Opening women's changing rooms to anyone who wishes to call themselves a woman changes absolutely nothing in this power dynamic. In the meeting between the post-modern patriarchy and traditional patriarchy, women are left in the firing line with only themselves to rely on to resolve their predicament.

All patriarchal systems subscribe to a set of moral norms. These can be: men should be bread winners, women should be stay-at-home mums; men should behave like gentlemen, women should not put out; men should be strong and not cry and so forth. Many mistakenly believe that these rules are patriarchal, but their moral rules themselves do not necessarily constitute oppression - had they really been applied. Differing roles are not in and of themselves a sign of oppression. What actually characterises patriarchal systems is the fact that men are free to break the rules, while women are punished both when they comply and when they resist.

For women, gender identity theory makes sex that which we cannot flee from and that which we are not permitted to keep.

If sex-based oppression really was only a cultural construct, would it perhaps go away if we ceased naming it - is that why other systems of domination, such as racism or homophobia, still insist on naming their oppressed subjects, whereas patriarchy knows it doesn't have to name - women will still be women anyway?

Banning of the concept of biological sex has turned out only to apply to the category of 'woman'. When 'trans' and 'cis' are to be defined, the biological dichotomy between sexes resurfaces and reigns unfettered - now it must no longer be questioned. It is no longer fluid and shifting but fixed. A biological woman cannot decide to call herself a trans woman: to be one, she must have been born a man. She is dispatched to the category cis woman and becomes privileged as a consequence. Unless of course she decides to change sex and become a trans man - in which she will be considered privileged because she is a man. In this new gender structure, no platform exists from which women can speak without being labelled privileged.

The category woman is expanded to include men and the word woman in the sense of the political subject of feminism now also comprises men and women. It has become taboo to say 'woman' if one means only biological women, yet there is now a different word to refer to this group, one with the obligatory prefix 'cis', which equals privilege. Thus, according to gender identity theory, it is only possible to speak of the group biological women as a privileged group. At the drop of a hat, women as an oppressed group have been reinvented as privileged and the definition of the most oppressed has become... those born with a penis.

For all that is said about male privilege, trans men do not seem to get any of it. The only thing conceded to them are the pronouns; other than that, males do not share power, spaces, brotherhood, prizes or political offices with them. They are not allowed to really be men, which leaves us with the following equation: men can be women, but women cannot be men, men can be men, but women cannot be women, men can be trans women, but women cannot be trans women. Men can be everything, women nothing.

Regardless of the structure a society has, certain consequences exist as a result of biological sex. Women's bodies tell them when they are going to be mothers, while men become aware they are going to be fathers when a woman informs them. No mother can doubt her motherhood, while a father can never be fully sure. Men can abandon a foetus by walking out the door, women require a doctor and abortion rights. Men can have hundreds of babies a month, women can have one baby a year. Becoming a mother involves physical pain, becoming a father does not. Being a mother alters one's body, being a father does not. Women can feed babies with their bodies, men cannot. Women bleed every month, men do not. A penis can injure a vagina, a vagina cannot injure a penis.

Yet if we are to understand matrilineal society seldom become matriarchies, a simple answer is not necessary for a woman to lock up a man and deprive him of his freedom in order to be certain that a child is hers. She can transfer her religion and property to her children without needing to control her husband. Patrilineal systems with private ownership of property have, on the contrary, tended to result in patriarchy and sexual oppression of women.

Orang hidup melawan ketika disakiti; orang hidup tidak menyerah kepada takdir dan nasib; orang hidup tak memikirkan predikat yang nantinya didapatkan akibat pilihan yang ia ambil.

The central issue is, as Janice Raymond pointed out already in 1989, that what is provocative, rebellious and subversive is now found within the status quo, not outside of it. And, more importantly, that the notion of what needs to be transformed is left out of the conversation. Usually, rebellions are about saying: We are sick of the way things are— we want to create something new! What happens here, though, is: let’s accept the prevailing order— since we have suddenly realized that it is already subversive. If you feel uncomfortable about the state of things— just keep quiet! As it turns out, things are organized so rationally that resistance happens to be built into the status quo— all we have to do is realize it! Accordingly, pornography will do its own fighting for us since, in and of itself, it challenges the masculine hegemony, transforms society and reshapes our desires! (We must read at least one academic dissertation in order to understand this, however.) The purpose is not to initiate a revolt, but to legitimize the status quo. Saying that something has ‘subversive potential’ in this context is to give it a stamp of approval— not to demand action.

What characterizes the neoliberal definition of the victim, however, is that victimhood has become a characteristic. It means that a person is weak, that we can be either passive victims or active subjects. We cannot be both. In this way, the victim is depicted so negatively that the concept must be abolished completely.

This is what happens when sex becomes work. Because this 'work' isn't something that is produced and walked away from. Instead, the 'work' is one's own Self and body. The consequences are that the body shuts down, becomes numb, and disowns its own functions.

This is always concealed in discussions about surrogacy - that it is not only a desire to raise a child, but also a demand that the mother be absent.

Surrogacy is ongoing for at least nine months, day in and day out. During this time, the woman must abide by a host of restrictions. She is not allowed to exert herself, smoke, drink or take drugs. She must, if the buyers wish, submit to medical tests. Her body goes through numerous changes, she deals with morning sickness, her stomach grows, she can suffer various complaints such as back pain - not to mention the labor and birth itself. She can't escape from any of this; she can't take a break from it for even one minute. She is in it, and it is in her. 'The work' is her very existence, 24/7. For although she lives in symbiosis with the child, she doesn't have the least bit of power over it because the child belongs to someone else. Indian surrogates, it seems, are sometimes not even worthy of knowing what country the child will live in. Surrogacy is thus not something one does, it is something one is: a being who can be bought.

Instead of the vulnerable person (who has now disappeared), the illusion of the invulnerable person is created - the person who, by definition, cannot become a victim. No one - not women, drug abusers, people subjected to human trafficking, people living in poverty, illegal immigrants, or even children with no other option but to dig in the trash for food - can be called 'subjugated.' The ideal of the superman/superwoman becomes the natural condition of the human. For whatever this invulnerable person's fate - to be screwed by multiple men per day, take drugs and contract HIV/AIDs at ten years of age, have her body covered in bruises, lie passively and let herself be used, or turn other children into slaves - she is, by definition, an active subject who exercises opposition and control. The only possible violence that can be exerted against her is by calling her a victim. It is worse than any other physical or psychological violation to speak of her as subjugated - only then does she become a victim. A consequence of this belief system is the conviction that if there are no victims, there can be no perpetrators. The unmentionables, the men, are completely exonerated in a highly convenient, imperceptible way.

In order to sell a part of herself, the surrogate, like the prostitute, must distance herself from it. Anyone familiar with prostitution who listens carefully to what the surrogate is saying will notice the many similarities between their coping strategies. But where prostitution research has put words to these emotions, surrogacy research has hardly noticed them. No one has expressed any concern about surrogate mothers dissociating. On the contrary - researchers state that this distancing is exactly what proves that surrogacy works. The best surrogate is the one who feels the least.

Neraca keadilan itu milik semua orang, termasuk mereka yang dikucilkan, diabaikan, dan dianggap tidak berarti di dunia ini.

Kesedihan cuma milik yang ditinggalkan, keluarga terdekat. Yang kalau makan terasa hambar, minum bak menenggak duri, tidur tak nyenyak, sedikit-sedikit menangis karena melihat semua tinggal kenangan.

Tanah ini adalah darah dan napas kita. Tanah ini ialah mata pencarian kita. Selama ini dia menghidupi kita yang miskin dan menyumpal perut kita dengan tanaman yang ia tumbuhkan di atasnya. Bukan mereka. Siapa mereka itu? Siapa kita ini? Apakah kita dianggap dan diperhitungkan di negeri ini? Kita tak lebih dari sampah yang diinjak-injak dan disingkirkan.

Cinta tidak boleh berhenti pada satu orang.

Bagiku menikah bukan kewajiban, melainkan pilihan. Maka, aku tidak mau salah memilih pasangan. Andai setelah ini aku tidak memiliki jodoh di dunia, aku masih akan baik-baik saja. Hidupku tidak diukur dari itu.

Penulis sejati dengan keberaniannya memanjat tembok-tembok tinggi yang dibangun penguasa dan mencoba menarik perhatian sejumlah pembacanya agar melihat dunia lain di luar tembok itu. Ia dengan lantang menyuarakan kegelisahan-kegelisahan yang bergejolak di kepalanya. Dengan ujung mata penanya yang basah, ia mengusik dan membangunkan segenap pembacanya sehingga mereka tergerak melakukan segenap aksi, melebihi sekumpulan teks yang dibangun si penulis.

Si prescindimos de la base material que antes constituía el fundamento del sexo, es decir, las células sexuales, nos queda poca cosa más aparte de los estereotipos y las normas culturales que ahora tienen que sustituir a las células sexuales como el armazón que sustenta el concepto de sexo

Whore' is more than just a pejorative; it is a cultural fantasy. With the word 'whore', a male desire is transformed into a female characteristic. When we say that a man 'goes to see a whore', it sounds as if he does so on impulse, stopping by in all innocence. In spite of the fact that it is the man who creates the demand for prostitution, no label adheres to him. The woman, on the other hand, is labeled something: a 'whore'. The entire sex trade rests on this fantasy: that women can be whores, and that the whore is a particular type of woman who is perpetually available to men. The word 'whore' is a male invention transferred onto the women and transformed into an attribute that adheres to her.

When the ILO recommended legalization of the sex industry in 1998, the main argument was that governments should be able to garner a share of a lucrative industry. But in order to assert this, it was, of course, necessary for prostitution also to be legitimated as morally acceptable. The narcotics trade and murder-for-hire are other lucrative industries from which governments can also profit, but few international organizations would recommend totally legalizing them. By renaming prostitution "sex work", explaining that it can be the result of free choice, that society has to "admit the individual's right to work as a prostitute," and then fight for better working conditions, the ILO gave the governments the moral legitimacy to profit from prostitution. The story of the sex worker has replaced earlier biological and eugenic myths. Today it is the primary story used when the porn industry wants to advance its interests. It is used by men who defend buying sex. it is used by governments and lobbyists to legalize the trade in women.

In the El Raval district in Barcelona, this phenomenon plays out every evening. El Raval is a prostitution-dense, bohemian quarter that is both home to many immigrants and a destination for certain types of tourists. Some people who live there like to think that they live in the midst of a crowd, a carnivalesque melting pot, but the boundary is razor-sharp. On the narrow street Carrer d'en Robador, African women with tired eyes and fanny packs stand selling themselves while a sour-faced pimp hiding in a doorway supervises everything. This goes on all day and all night, with only a short break between seven and ten in the morning. In the pubs, 'alternative' people party. They love prostitution and filth, despise authorities and censorship, speak adoringly of the quarter's charming character and pretend that some of it has rubbed off on them. The existence of prostitution is important to them. But people never exchange places: the African women never go into the pubs, and the pub patrons never go out and prostitute themselves. They pass each other every day, but the crowd is only an illusion - there is no common, shared experience. Everyone has an established role and no one speaks to anyone else.

In an absolute sense, whores do not exist. People end up in prostitution for a number of reasons; some for a shorter time, others for longer. They are not 'types', not characters. They are people who end up in this particular situation. The fetishized transgression of boundaries is hailed as subversive, but it reduces people to objects. The dissolution of boundaries, on the other hand, has revolutionary potential. Dissolving boundaries means recognizing humanity in every person; recognizing that each and every one of us is a human being. There is nothing exploitative or slimy about this; it is objective solidarity founded on subjective understanding. I observe another person in the flesh and realize that this other person is simply me in a different situation, under other life circumstances. It is looking into another's eyes and seeing yourself. With this insight comes the recognition of a cruel system that has reduced a 'whore' to a 'type'.

Saka sözü Türkçe Yaka (kıyı, kenar) kelimesinin İran dilinde aldığı biçim olmalıdır. Nitekim bugün de Yakut Türkleri kendilerine Saha demektedirler ve Saha, Genel Türkçedeki yaka'nın Yakutçadaki karşılığıdır. Skit ise Saka sözünün Türkçe ve Moğolcada kullanılan +t çokluk ekiyle oluşturulmuş Sakat veya Sakıt biçiminin (krş. Oglan-oglıt, tarkan-tarkat, Kerey-Kereit) Yunancalaşmış şeklidir. Askuz(ai) Asur dilinde, İşkıgulu ise Urartu dilindeki çokluk biçimleri olabilir. Zeki V. Togan, Saka boyları olan Targutae, Skolot ve Paralat'ların adlarını Türk, Çigil, Barula boy adlarıyla bir- leştirir (Togan 1981: 35). Dikkati çeken nokta her üç boy adında da Skit'te olduğu gibi +t çokluk ekinin kullanılmış olmasıdır. Kavim ve boy adlarında geçen +t çokluk eki, Sakaların bir Altay kavmi olduklarının en önemli delillerinden biridir. Zeki V. Togan karım paluk ve Temerinda kelimelerine de dikkat çeker. Bunlardan birincisi Karadeniz İskitleri dilinde bir balık adıdır; ikincisi ise İskitlerde Azak denizinin adıdır ve Plinius Secundus tarafından kelimenin ilk yarısının "deniz" demek olduğu açıklanmıştır (Togan 1981: 35). Paluk sözünün Türkçede balık ile, temer sözünün de eski Bulgar Türkçesindeki teŋer/teŋir (deniz) ile aynı olduğu açıkça görülmektedir. "Bütün cesaretlerin başı" anlamına gelen Artimpaşa ve "denizin babası anlamına gelen Thamimasadas tanrı adları da (Çay-Durmuş 2002: 489) Türkçe ile açıklanabilir. Artimpaşa açıkça erdem başı'dır. Erdem, Eski Türkçede "hüner, yiğitlik ve fazilet" demektir. Thamimasadas, teŋir ata olarak açıklanabilir. Teŋir, eski Bulgar Türkçesinde "deniz" demektir. Aynı şekilde Herodot'un İskitlerde "ev ve aile tanrısı" olarak belirttiği Tabiti (Çay-Durmuş 2002: 490) ile Türkçe tap- fiili arasında açık ilgi vardır. Üstelik aynı fiilden türemiş olan tabu, Karaçay-Malkar Türklerinde ocak tanrıçasıdır (Tavkul 1997: 145). Saka veya Massagetlerin kadın hükümdarı Tomiris ise P. Wittek'in ihtimal olarak düşündüğü temir (demir) kelimesiyle açıkça ilgili olmalıdır (Togan 1981: 409). Sakalardan kalan cartasis adı da "kardaş" şeklinde açıklanmıştır (Togan 1981: 406).

Complaints about women who openly show their indifference are quite common. The woman should give the impression that she is enjoying it just as much as he is, and many men actually believe that she does: they brag on forums about prostitutes "coming several times." The reason is not that the man cares about her orgasm, as some romantics might believe. It's more than that. It is in part a question of pride: if he believes that she has enjoyed it, he is satisfied with his manliness and goes away even more pleased with himself. But more importantly, when she fakes pleasure, she helps him forget that the whole thing actually is prostitution.

Millions of men have posed the same question: Why can't I kiss you? The absence of the kiss is the red flag signaling that she doesn't want him. The absence of the kiss reveals the lie he so desperately wants to forget.

This is what is so tragic about turning sex into a job. For the person doing the selling, it becomes impossible to have a whole, indivisible sexual relationship. It's all the same no matter whether the surroundings are a filthy car or a bed at a luxury hotel, no matter whether it happens in South Africa or Norway. In order to survive in prostitution, one must reify one's sexuality, see it as a function separate from the Self, and maintain the distinction between "the sold" and the Self.

If the prostitute of the eighteenth century was feeble-minded, lazy, false and mentally retarded, the 'sex worker' of today is described as independent, strong, truthful and liberated - everything her earlier version wasn't. She is not a woman to be pitied - she is a role model for us all. With this image as a security blanket, both the neoliberals and the postmodern leftists sleep well, without needing to consult the murder statistics.

And yet, at the end of the story nothing has been said about what prostitution is, why it exists, or how it works. Instead, we have heard a contemporary saga of progress, a romantic tale of how an old, decaying tradition long tried to keep people down and tell them how they should live - until some brave individuals rebelled in order to gain the right to live as they wanted, standing up for freedom and sexuality! It is a story we know all too well. It fits into an even larger story: the revolt of sexuality against morality, Romeo and Juliet against their parents' narrow-mindedness, romantic love against arranged marriage, lust against the church, and also the sexual revolution, the 1968 revolt, anti-establishment rock and hippie cultures and their accompanying promotion of freedom and sex. In just a few quick rhetorical turns, prostitution became a contemporary story. Voilà, the total makeover of prostitution: once considered the world's oldest profession, prostitution is now the world's most modern one.

Prostitution is by far the deadliest situation a woman can be in. For women and girls in prostitution, the death rate is 40 times higher than the average. No group of women, regardless of career or life situation, has as high a mortality rate as prostituted women. The research is irrefutable: the pattern repeats itself in studies from Canada, USA, Kenya and England. The causes of death vary from murder to accidents, drug abuse to alcoholism. [...] The studies show no difference in mortality rates between countries in which prostitution is legal compared to those in which it is not, in spite of the fact that increased safety is one of the most common arguments used by advocates of legalization.

For what is the real goal of these 'organized revolution'? The proponents never enumerate what demands these unions should make or what conditions they think should apply to prostitution. Is it a reasonable expectation that a woman should have intercourse with 10 men per day, or should the line be drawn at 5? What is one act of intercourse 'worth' - 15 dollars or 1,500 dollars? How do you enforce legally binding contracts with the heavily armed mafia? Is 'sex work' where women and girls are hit and urinated on in compliance with legislation for safe work environments? And what about the law against sexual harassment? How does that fit in?

Enough is enough. I don't want to play games, I don't want to hide, I am not a whore, I am not a Virgin Mary either, I am a person, and I have the right to feel. I am not either/or, I am both-and. I have a right to the children I give birth to. I don't need to go and meet up with men I don't like. My body is alive and I am going to listen to its signals. It is not my possession, it is not an object for me to use - it is my opportunity to be in the world.

The division has deeper roots in patriarchal society: between reproduction and sexuality, the virgin and the whore, image and text, practice and theory. It is women being forced to bear male psychological complexes, complexes that have become industries. When one makes large industries out of psychological complexes, the psychological complex stands out in all its absurdity. Never before has the desire to separate 'the whore' from 'the Virgin Mary' made such a clear imprint on the physical geography of the Earth. Thailand delivers women for having sex with. India delivers women for bearing children. The Earth is structured, literally, in man's own image, according to man's desires. And because the need to separate is so strong: the whore may not become pregnant, the surrogate may not have sex; women all over the world are denied their complete humanity. We are limited, imprisoned, turned off, made numb.

If the 'happy hooker' can be said to be an enterprising and clever woman, the 'happy breeder' would describe herself as a generous and self-sacrificing Madonna figure.

Surrogacy is ongoing for at least nine months, day in and day out. During this time, the woman must abide by a host of restrictions. She is not allowed to exert herself, smoke, drink or take drugs. She must, if the buyers wish, submit herself to medical tests. Her body goes through numerous changes, she deals with morning sickness, her stomach grows, she can suffer various complaints such as back pain - not to mention the labor and birth itself. She can't escape from any of this; she can't take a break from it for even one minute She is in it, and it is in her. 'The work' is her very existence, 24/7. [...] Surrogacy is thus not something one does, it is something one is: a being who can be bought.

Sastra sejatinya ruang riuh dan bebas bersuara. Ruang yang tidak membesarkan satu toa dan menyumpal toa orang lain. Siapa pun berhak membicarakan diri mereka dan berhak mengobarkan geliat dalam diri mereka untuk berkarya. Mau kau seorang konservatif, liberal, jelata, hina, dsb. Sastra sesungguhnya adalah milik kita semua.

On the one hand we have the ‘free’ individual, on the other hand, his manpower that gains the form of “a commodity belonging to him, a thing that he possesses” (p. 91). This relationship means that he comes to see his functions—which can mean his abilities, his strength, his intelligence, and his quickness—as possessions. He becomes alienated: not only from society, but also from himself as a Self.