We’re all prostitutes, we’re all selling ourselves for something, no matter to what culture, society, class, nation we belong, no matter how normal, moral, or mature one takes oneself to be. (R.D. Laing)
This little story about a whorehouse in Texas is more than just a frivolous take on the “girls” who live and work there. It starts with Miz Suze Campbell from The Old Country Store and Post Office and The No-Name Story (where we encounter her as the child Suzy Bell) heading to Texas to start a new life after she learned her supposed husband was a bigamist. She was pregnant, but as we just learned, she must have lost the child. And in Texas she found, not the teaching position she envisioned, but a schoolroom in a saloon/whorehouse where she was expected to set up shop, evidently supposed to teach the children of the town as best she could. And it sounds like she adapted beautifully! But we already knew from Suzy Bell’s story that she more than had in her what she needed to survive and thrive.
And now, in The Yella Rose Schoolhouse, we meet another young girl, BessieJune Pruitt, a compassionate, loving, lonely, and imaginative child, through whose eyes we’re allowed to see the stories of the women who live and work where she goes to school. Although we barely skimmed the surface of those lives, I hope it gave you a sense of the souls that live behind the “oldest profession in the world”, what might motivate them and cause them to make the choices they do.
We perhaps falsely judge the “prostitute”, for she/he lives in all of us. We live out of that part of ourselves every time we trade or barter ourselves, our bodies or our mind or our spirits, for money or security of some sort. It may be in our jobs, our professions, our relationships, our families, our activities, but somewhere in your life you will find an arena in which you negotiate your integrity or spirit for financial or other gain, or maybe even survival. If we’re honest, we’ll all find a place in our lives where we compromise our moral and ethical integrity.
Perhaps this is nowhere more apparent than in our current rancorous political climate, as we see how our political persuasions and religious principles have become intertwined and confused. Moral and ethical considerations that seemingly have long been important, and even sacred, are sacrificed in the service of achieving some political gain. When the “ends justify the means” in a way that sacrifices our personal integrity, we have prostituted ourselves.
We all do it. Maybe that doesn’t make it right, but BessieJune would say it makes it understandable. Have you ever remained in a situation or job only for money or financial protection? Have you been, or are you, in a relationship for safety or security? Have you sold out to people or organizations or activities that you truly didn’t believe in or respect in order to get something you wanted?
Prostituting ourselves is not necessarily bad or dysfunctional. It’s normal. Maybe the key is, if we’re gonna sell out, to do it consciously . . . to be aware of why you’re choosing to lessen your moral and ethical integrity. Be honest with yourself. And be aware of the consequences and the price you will have to pay.
And maybe along the way to increasing consciousness, we’ll dredge up the self-respect and self-esteem to say Not For Sale. But until then? Be careful, as BessieJune would say, not to go judgin’ nobody else.