SAINTS AND SINNERS

Long ago, I read an article in The New York Rocker daring to suggest that salvation could be found in the locations some of us frequented in our desperation to find release in rock 'n roll. Could a kind of saint, or perhaps even Jesus himself be discovered in these dives?

I was one of their patrons, moving back and forth in the strange dialectic of its time from the conservative restrictions of a corporate secretarial job to the weekend exhilaration of the thumping, dissonant, arrogant insistence of what has since been condensed into the word 'punk.' At first blush, there was only the largely indifferent population of students from the nearby learning institution, but the jukebox melody that was a favorite captured my imagination, promising much more. I moved through this bar, and eventually more, in an inevitable dreamlike state. Here was the ignored underbelly of daily routine, both the fear and fantasy of what might take its place. The music gave us certainty. If we were bold enough, we devoured it; it made us all stalkers of the unknown.

In the long history of the Church, desert monastics searched through empty days, finding in this silent focus evidence of spiritual oases. The redemption elaborated by saints was a withdrawal from the world, a hermetic ism that promised security if only we could face away from urgency.

In the exact obverse, we went defenseless. In our determination, we trampled what was expected in order to encounter life head on. The surprises that ensued changed history, and is always the case, this groundswell only reached public awareness after the initial excitement had transformed itself into philosophical and artistic statement. The discovery of anyone living on this edge was the excitement of the edge itself in all its excitement, and our desert was a romantic insistence on crossing over its boundary. If one was in despair, one need only be bold enough to take a final risk of living or dying.

Covered in glitter and dog poo, we had our sadhus, those who had given up on convention. What had become a self-conscious construction of trendiness was eradicated by defiant guitar chords, insulting in their spontaneity. In our intoxicated fandom, we crowded around these stages, looking for the spark of redemption.

THE GLOBAL SEX TRADE

Once, while still in The City, en route to some unremarkable location, I fell into a state of shock passing the street hookers who had positioned themselves on 10^th Avenue alongside what I can only imagine was the welcome heavy traffic of the West Side Highway. It was a young, shapely, attractive woman who remains in memory, wearing an elastic waist thong, gartered stockings and high heels. These women had remained unperturbed by law enforcement, no doubt because they were not an obstruction to local residents.

Further, in my skid row courtship with my late Ex, I would listen to the stampede of street hookers up and down the stairs of the Elton Hotel. I don't know what would set them off, but I did once witness a passer by solicit their trade, and was struck by the brashness involved in being one of their Johns.

To get to the point, globally, the sex trade, rather than just the cottage industry of the street, has become big business, including the availability of sex vacations. These would inevitably include the Asian peninsula, where I can only guess prostitution is nothing more than a common, acceptable way of life, for those pushed aside as the brackish residue of globalization. Women can be rooked, abducted and then trafficked across borders, with the returns of a villainous, unregulated income for those in charge; but always by the ancient and unending need men have to put women into subjugation, offering money in exchange for the intimacy of their sex organs. It is only in Western society where the fantasy of the high end hooker can have some basis in reality, turning what might otherwise be considered sordid into a business proposition. (I couldn't pass up the temptation of reading Xavier Hollander's The Happy Hooker when it was first published in the '70s.)

So instead, here I am, in the 21^st century in a mid-Hudson city riddled with crime and prostitution, saddened by the occasional woman in dowdy dress in freezing weather, perhaps looking for $15 to turn a quick trick. Too, for protection, prostitutes also tolerate a male figure in the background, taking their chances that the relationship will be a mutual windfall and not something than will compromise their safety or quality of life.

There needs to be more than one answer to this worldwide double standard. While marriage is considered the benchmark of stable society, it only masks the insatiable need for a greater license in pursuit of sexual gratification. The prostitute, otherwise frowned upon, upholds the standard of the woman unbound by considerations of convention, promising unconditional acceptance, and opening the door to the unqualified encouragement of the sex act.