(Emotional) Intimacy For Hire: Civilization's First Therapists
And, why you should stop using the word “bastard”
When you go to see this professional, you are paying to be alone in a safe, private place with them where no one has to know you're there.
You are paying for the privilege of their time; their caring attention; and their willingness to keep your thoughts, feelings, and actions confidential between you.
You are purchasing a temporary relationship, on your own terms, that could last an hour, once, or could be weekly for years, or anywhere in between, all on your own terms.
This temporary relationship is at once incredibly intimate, and also, all about you. You know very little about the other person, except for what you ask, or what they deem to share with you if it is relevant to the focus on you and your needs.
This temporary relationship can in many ways mimic what one might get from a healthy, close relationship with a romantic partner. It can often be a substitute for exactly that. It can go a long way toward easing loneliness. If utilized well, the relationship between the professional and their client can help model for the customer what a healthy intimate relationship could be. It can help them work through areas where they lack the confidence and skill to express themself well. It can give them an opportunity, in a safe space, free of judgment, to try on and practice different approaches to connecting meaningfully with other people.
The relationship also becomes a container for shame, for inner conflict, for split-off parts of the psyche, for confessing the failures in one's marriage and the abuses of parents and past partners and how these have hindered one's ability to find happiness in relationships.
I’m talking, of course, about prostitutes.
Throughout ages and civilizations, prostitutes have existed at all levels of society, ranging from cheap, debased and enslaved, to high-end courtesan mistresses of their own destinies. They have been submissive, dominant, and everything in between. They have both inherited cycles of abuse, and broken them. The autonomous elite among them harnessed their power well and were sought for their ability to guide well-paying, respectful admirers of their own choosing.
Prostitutes lacking this power - whether due to slavery, poverty, or mere mediocrity - may have, wittingly or not, enabled their clients to become worse human beings, dependent on paid services for fulfillment of base needs, no more capable of being in an intimate relationship than they were before, perhaps at risk of abusing non-consenting partners outside of the professional relationship. The worst therapists are like this, to a lesser degree: blindly coddling undeveloped adults to keep them comfortable, selfish, and infantile, leaving clients to forever suck on the figurative tit, ungrateful for the mother and unaware of the world. By contrast, a talented therapist can be an incredible ally not terribly dissimilar from a noble, sovereign courtesan who wields her power to shape clients for the better, wake them up, and teach them how to love.
Similarly, too, both professionals may walk the path of the Wounded Healer. The behavior that earns them a living may have been learned as a survival strategy. They may have been groomed from an early age to fulfill others’ needs for gratification, emotional or physical, at their own expense. The artistry with which they sublimate their suffering and transmute their trauma into psychic giftedness makes the difference between those who perpetuate cycles of abuse and those who sever them.
To be clear, the advanced art of modern day psychotherapy is protected by many legal and ethical guidelines, not the least of them prohibiting any sexual involvement. I stand with and by the numerous important reasons for these professional boundaries, and am in no way suggesting that therapy and sex work should overlap. However, sometimes our reluctance to step within ten feet of a taboo means that we neglect important dialogues, thereby missing out on the insights and innovations that can only be discovered through them. Heretical investigations, then, must occupy their awkward seats at the table if civilization is to evolve.
Psychotherapy as we know it is said to have originated with Sigmund Freud. But for millennia humans have sought counsel from wise elders, medicine men and women, religious figures, hairdressers, bartenders, and, yes, prostitutes. Historically, prostitutes have primarily been women, and their roles have been denigrated. This is among the reasons it is important to identify the uncomfortable similarity between these two professions, one exiled, the other exalted.
I’ll end on a tangentially related note that’s been on my mind for some time now but hasn’t found its way into any of my public work. Personally, I do not ascribe to the immature, self-righteous and reductionistic belief that “All Cops are Bastards.” But we’re not going to get into political polarization right now. We’re just going to talk about the word “bastard.”
“Bastard” means the child of an unwed mother. Throughout history, prostitutes have had bastard children, their fathers often unknown, uninvolved, neglectful, abusive, or, if known, ostracized for their illicit behavior. Given its historical context, to use the word “bastard” as an insult is to, at once, contribute to the shaming of sex workers; dismiss the role of fathers in creating bastard children, by pinning the error on the mother; and to stigmatize that child for the rest of their life based on who their parents are. If you care about what words mean and how they impact social justice issues, you may wish to reconsider your approval of this term.
