Now that the Eliot Spitzer hullabaloo seems to have died down a bit, I want to talk about it. Frankly, the last few weeks have been damn near intolerable media-wise. And, frankly again, this is why I’m writing now: In spite of the media frenzy—pesky flies zig-zagging over steaming ordure—two things still rankle.
Let's take a look at the first one...
Hookers, Whores, and Roustabouts
Shame on you David Letterman.
I love this man. Of those guiding cultural forces in my life, I count him amongst the most influential. Though I would like to claim that I started watching Letterman earlier than I did, I have to admit that his switch to CBS was really the turning point—the point at which he became a staple in my nightly television diet. At one point, I cut out his charming mug (from the February 1993 cover of Rolling Stone) and taped it over the hole in my college apartment's bathroom door. Why? Because it was an appropriate place for that face, of course!
The interplay between his off-beat humor (canned hams raining from the sky) and his awkward-but-sharp and honest interviewing skills, mixed with the debacle of his NBC/CBS feud, really resonated with my growing sense of cynicism. My world view was nourished by Dave's television trials and tribulations.
Now I am a man.
Er, well, I should say that Dave's place in my life has receded. I've gone through long periods of not watching the Late Show. It was only after the wife and I sold our soles (har har) to Time Warner Cable and hooked up the DVR that we started taping Letterman (because we're too old to stay up past ten!). Months ago, I found myself refreshed by re-introducing Letterman to my television routine. With the aid of the DVR, I can even by-pass interviews that are less than stellar!
Anyway, when the Spitzer scandal broke, it broke hard on late night television. And since the Late Show tapes in New York, I should not have been surprised to find Dave's monologues and desk banter peppered with references to the scandal. Suffice to say, it got old pretty quickly.
Then it turned on me: Dave unabashedly tossed out those terms—"whore" and "hooker." Each time he used either term, I found myself inwardly cringing. To be fair to Dave, he's gained a certain level of tenure and has the right to say and do as he pleases. In fact, part of what I love about the man is his fearlessness (most brilliantly tipped with his "Oh no! We're Gonna Get Sued!" bit).
But the verve with which he ennunciated those words…
In the end, I don't know if it was Dave's rampant use that led to my hyper-sensitivity, but I found myself continually jarred by others' use (overuse) of those two words.
Why?
Part of it. No, I take that back. All of it has to do with my pro-feminist moral compass. It falls in line with that other pack of words we don't say for fear they will turn back the civil rights movement. While reclamation seeks to make lemonade out of lemons, I just don't think it works.
Words have power. And despite our efforts, that power is not something we can harness or dilute. While we can, through knowledge, experience, acceptance and forgiveness, adapt and amend our personal senses of words, we cannot do the same for the collective social consciousness.
It's like our computers. When we delete files, they disappear from our consciousness. But those files don't wholly disappear. Sure, a computer may at some point completely erase the deleted file if it needs the space, but there's no guarantee of that. In fact, as our computers come closer and closer to becoming infinite in their capacity, we risk ever truly removing information.
So it's still there. Those negative connotations of words still exist—to greater and lesser degrees—and, despite our best efforts we cannot eradicate them without smashing our collective (cultural/historical) hard drive.
This is the problem with words that we've tried to reclaim.
But this is not the problem with hookers and whores.
Why? Because unlike those reclaimed words, no one that I am aware of has tried to reclaim "hooker" or "whore." True, we see "whore" in certain contexts that seek to be positive (or at least the word is used consciously to identify a personality trait), but even these instances carry baggage: the derivation of the term supposes a sale of something. Even in an instance of the term's conscious application to entrepreneurial behavior there is an implied unscrupulousness.
Let's look at this interesting di(con)vergence.
Dictionary.com's first result (Random House Unabridged) for "whore" notes, "a woman who engages in promiscuous sexual intercourse, usually for money." While we are not likely to disagree with this definition, I must point to the inclusion of "promiscuous" in the definition. Had this term not been included, we might be inclined to write off "whore" simply as an occupation like any other!
Discovering this meaning push, I jumped over to Merriam-Webster Online and found this: " a woman who engages in sexual acts for money." This definition leaves out "promiscuous," which might satisfy my hypothesis above, but adjacent to this first defining phrase is the synonym "prostitute." Merriam-Webster's "prostitute" has no refuge, as she is "a promiscuous or immoral woman." In this instance, this definition, we don't even have room for a midnight cowboy!
Now, I should probably point out that definition number two re-genders whore ("a man who engages in sexual acts for money"), but the damage is already done. I'll add that M-W's third definition removes economics and gender from the equation, noting that a whore is simply "a venal or unscrupulous person."
Even if we were to invert the definitions, as colloquial practice some hundred years hence may do, the evidence of the word's origins would still be present. And just as I borrowed unscrupulously from these dictionary providers, future wordsmiths might easily steal a backward glance…
But I'll say it again: The damage is already done.
My concern here is with the gender issue. Mind you, I'm not taking up the age-old argument (go read/see George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession for that debate). Rather, I'm circling around issues of proper usage and reclamation: If we are to divorce "whore" from negative connotations, then we have to be cognizant of how those connotations are gendered and seek to remove those connotations.
We're not doing this. I have two examples: Hustle & Flow and Pimp My Ride. Both of these cultural artifacts seek to elevate and exonerate the "pimp." Terrence Howard's performance in Hustle & Flow is deeply affecting. While we are not likely to befriend his ho-hustler-turned-rhyme-hustler, we can absolve him (or we are asked to by the writer and director). Can we say the same for the women he pimps? True, we see the softer side of pimping, but…
Pimp My Ride isn't in the same aesthetic ballpark as Hustle & Flow, but in regards to exploring the word "pimp" and its place in the American lexicon, it is worth pointing out the connection. Pimping has gained enough vernacular momentum to be accepted on television. Pimp is not one of the seven words you can't say on television. And while MTV is a cable television station, it pervades the American cultural spectrum.
My next point should come as no surprise: A watered-down version of "pimping" has become socially acceptable (even Oscar-worthy), but "pimping" is inherently gender-biased. What logically follows is the notion that pimping is acceptable because it is masculine. Heirarchically speaking, then, this is thinly-veiled sublimation of the feminine. The pimp is a man. The whore answers to the pimp.*
But let's face "whore" is still a nasty little word.
All of this to say: It's one thing to deride Eliot Spitzer. It's another thing to call a whore a whore. Spitzer deserves the derision. He clearly should have known better. The prostitutes in this case are also not blameless. But what is ultimately problematic, is trading jokes on terms that infer gender bias. As an elected public official, Spitzer has shown more than just poor judgement. By patronizing a prostitution ring, he not only chose to fund the "world's oldest profession" but helped reinforce traditional gender roles that treat women as objects for purchase.
That bugs me.
* The supposition "pimp controls whore = man controls woman" does not leave much room for madams. I concede that my comments are based on 21st century conceptions of the pimp/whore relationship. Arguably, this is not an issue: The late 20th - early 21st century attitude that begot Pimp My Ride is founded upon the gendered heirarchy I've noted above. A hold-over, maybe, from exploitation films?
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