I am often asked why men don’t get as worked up as they might about women — particularly poor women — having to use their bodies as prostitutes. Because most men unconsciously experience themselves as prostitutes every’ day — the miner, the firefighter, the construaion worker, the logger, the soldier, the meatpacker — these men are prostitutes in the direa sense: they sacrifice their bodies for money and for their families.
The middie-class man is a prostitute of a different sort: he recalls that when his children were bom, he gave up his dreams of becoming a novelist and began the nightmare of writing ad copy for a produa he didn’t believe in — something he would have to do every’ workday for the rest of his life The poorer the man, the more he feels this. To men, prostitution is not a female-only occupation.
Most men barely allow themselves even to think about the freedom to look within until after their families are as economically secure as they desire. But many a man finds that just as his goal is within reach, his family is wishing for a nicer home, a better car, a private college If he is one of the rare men able to satisfy his family enough to look within, he fears discovering the prostitute he has become in the process of providing for others. This is men’s version of subservience — of wife and children first, husband last.