This is not an article about how every corporation uses sexist imagery to sell you products you don't need, or how big pharma is preying on everyone's sexual insecurities to sell enhancements of all kinds, or how women are under the false impression that they need to wear make-up, perfume and new clothing to be sexy. Or even how our society has been flooded with ultra hard-core pornography in order to dehumanize and isolate us, or how sexual slavery is still a huge problem in many developing nations and that many girls who haven't even hit puberty yet are being pimped out to sex tourists.

I'm not writing an article about any of these topics specifically because we all already know that they've reduced us to consumer whores by making us feel unsexy and unwanted. Pharmaceutical companies have clearly proven that they would rather sell us sex pills than find cures for cancer or AIDS. We may be addicted to computer-sex, but deep down we know that pornography is mental pollution and that it lowers our respect for ourselves and other human beings. Surely we can agree that it is this very dehumanization and disconnection that leads many computer-fuckers to sexual numbness and eventually to perversion and sexual deviances.

Sex Sells: are you selling?

No really, are you? Because if you are you don't need to be ashamed, you shouldn't have to hide it and you definitely shouldn't be considered a criminal for doing so.

Prostitution is the oldest profession on the planet. It has existed in every society human beings have ever created. This doesn't mean that people should have to buy or sell sex. Sex should, like all other things in this world, be free. Sadly, in our scarcity economy, we've been forced to sell ourselves in some way. We sell our skills, we sell our energy, we sell our time, we sell our bodies and we sell our souls. So if we sell all of that, why not sell sex?

You are already in the sex trade and don't even realize it. Every time you wear something because you think it makes you look ‘sexy,' you are marketing your sex to potential partners. You sell sex every time you force yourself into the mood even though you don't feel like it. If there were nothing else in it for you, you wouldn't bother humouring your partner. Ever feel like you owe somebody sex because they did something for you or bought something for you? Have you ever had sex with somebody because you needed something from them, or because you thought it could ‘take you places?'

Let's be honest here, we are all prostitutes pimping ourselves out for the best deal we can get. We buy and sell sex all the time. Have you ever done something for someone specifically because you knew it would get you laid? Have you ever bought a gift for your partner expecting some action in return? Do you ever put up with things that bother or annoy you because if you don't put up, they won't put out? If you still don't believe you've ever traded sex, you must be celibate.

Like everything in this world, sex has become a legitimate trade. So like all trades in this world, the workers deserve human and labour rights. Keeping prostitution illegal only helps the pimps. It creates needlessly hazardous working conditions for the sellers, an unhygienic and physically dangerous situation for the buyers, while making criminals out of people consenting to a trade. Trading sex is no worse than the other trades that this system permits and protects.

To have a good sex life don't trade it: give it freely whenever, however, wherever and with whoever you want to, and never if you don't. Don't force anything. Don't take pills or other enhancers. Don't compromise, as compromise is a trade. Have sex with people not computers.

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.