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October 3, 2004
I'm not impressed by, or much taken with her music, but Madonna has created, and performed, a new paradigm of womanhood: power wrapped in sexuality.
She has portrayed herself as the high-priced prostitute, the dominatrix, the stripper toying with the impotent voyeur, the unwed mother, the naked slave girl. In doing so she has pushed the power of female sexuality to the forefront of the public eye.
Good on her. What went before was pretty feeble.

The Bettina Rheims Sessions 1994
This session has stylistic links to Rheims Bettina's 191-2 Chambre Close project
Madonna is a French prostitute in a seedy hotel in 1930s Paris.

The Bettina Rheims Sessions 1994
The madonna-whore complex. Rather neat. A woman is either put on a pedestal, protected, taken care of, treated as a goddess or the mother of my children; or she is used for sex, emotionally and perhaps physically abused, and seen as nothing more than "a slut." In a patriarchal culture , women must fall into one of these two categories.
The clandestine prostitution subculture of the 20th century is more into the limelight prostitution is coming out into the open. Do we accept prostitution as a purely economic exchange, inherently no more or less degrading for either buyer or seller than any other professional relationship? Can we same the same arguments against prostitutionbuying or sellingcan be made against any professional service: psychologist, psychiatrist, doctor, lawyer, priest, minister?
Athletes, actors, actresses, and construction workers "sell" their body. The body is what is needed to engage in physical work. It would be difficult to engage in any profession without the use and therefore "sale" of one's body.
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I would say that prostitution is an exchange of services much like the services exchanged by any of the professionals you list. So, yes, of course this argument can be made.
But... since most people link sex with intimacy it strikes them as offensive to traffic in intimacy, or worse yet, the *illusion* of intimacy.
Also, when someone asks you what you do, try saying, "I'm a whore" (or if you wanna be nice, "escort") without silencing all conversation in the room. Unfortunately, not the same as any of the aforementioned professions.
btw, thanks for linking me.