Jephthah & Polonius: What’s prostitution got to do with it?
When Hamlet tells Polonius he is a "fishmonger" (which many read as also meaning "flesh-monger" or pimp), and later associates Polonius with Jephthah (son of a harlot or prostitute), we might paraphrase the title of the Tina Turner song, "What's Love Got to Do With It?" In our case, we might ask: What's prostitution got to do with it? At least one way of viewing prostitution is that it takes what may be at best relationships of mutual and reciprocal gift-giving, and corrupts them by reducing them to market transactions, this-for-that, without nurturing ongoing and transcendent bonds on which communities depend if they are to have a future. Some may view this reading of prostitution as moralistic and oppressive, as if to assert that sex belongs only in marriage, and that perhaps all transactions of the marketplace are evil, whereas only gift-exchange that builds community is good. That is not my objective here, as I hope will become more clea...