Who saw Randy Pausch’s interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC last night?

It is phenomenal what effect one professor’s lecture has had on the entire world.

My prevailing emotion was gratitude.

The most surprising emotion was envy. I envied the romance in his life.

Then came resolution. I resolve to live my life in a more present way. I’ve been making a concerted effort to be present in my life of late – this lecture gives me even more motive.

Lately, I’ve heard a lot of people say “the planet is experiencing an awakening right now.” I hope it’s true, and I’m loving the experience.

Did you see the interview? What were your prevailing emotions? Are you experiencing an awakening?

Post from: Blisstree

The Last Lecture

If you haven’t seen The Last Lecture, a man’s last words to his family, and humanity, after he received a grim diagnosis of terminal cancer, you should watch it right now, here.

Won’t you watch it with me tonight? We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Bring tissues.

Post from: Blisstree

He Lived! He Lived!

I have to say prior to seeing her piece,, I would have given a pat, academic response about how women should have a right to sell sex if it’s their choice.

Then I saw in full color what the reality for these women really is. Diane Sawyer, other reporters like Elizabeth Joseph, spent two years researching and taking a very in-depth look at the reality of prostitution in America.

My mind keeps going back to it over and over, examining my old academic argument and finding flaws in my perception.

This ABCNEWS link, does feature a few videos from the special.

After watching the special it is clear these women have no more freedom than a black slave of generations past.

In fact if a woman goes into a room and has sex with a man because her pimp will beat her if she doesn’t and the pimp gets all the money and she’s not allowed to leave – how is this not slavery? Pimps are very rarely prosecuted.

From the ABCNEWS report, “Kristof explains that for law enforcement, the difficulty in prosecuting pimps begins with the victim’s reluctance to help. “You would have to show force, fraud and coercion, and the argument is that if the pimp is essentially a financial manager to a young woman, then that is not so serious a crime, while if he’s forcing the girl to sell herself, that is. The problem is that to prove force, fraud and coercion, you pretty much have to get this young woman to testify against her pimp. That means her life will be in jeopardy, [the lives] of her family will be in jeopardy, and also there really is often an emotional bond in a very weird way between her and that pimp.”

Who are these prostitutes? Homeless women, who had no where to go and no food to eat and find their only commodity is sex. Divorced women who were left with little way to support themselves and their kids. Ex-military servicewomen who had a hard time finding a job after being discharged for a disability. Foster kids who aged out of the system and find themselves alone and homeless. Drug addicts the pimp keeps high because he knows she’ll do anything to get her fix. Many, many prostitutes are still children.

Over and over the prostitutes all said they didn’t want to do it but felt they had no way out.
Over and over and over they spoke about how “I got robbed at gunpoint, beat in the head with a gun [and] I’ve been stabbed — [I needed] 127 stitches,” also from the ABCNEWS online article.

It seems the prostitutes are regularly murdered, beaten, kidnapped and tortured – so regularly it alarmed me there was such a high number of men who get off on such behavior walking around the planet – and they can’t go to the police for protection.

These are disposable women.

The current system it seems is set up so that johns, men who pay for sex, pay a fine, some take Johns School and the charges are dropped.

The prostitute spends 180 days in jail and charges stay on her record forever.

Pimps are rarely prosecuted at all. Law enforcement says it’s too difficult to prove the coercion and force and it’s a Catch 22 because testifying against them will get a working girl murdered.

Johns they interviewed said it wasn’t really about being horny. I have to wonder just how much of it is the violence? Which part is really turning these guys on? The beating, knifing, degrading, hurting of women? That’s my suspicion. The more sexualized violence I see on TV, not to mention the recent turn toward violence in the porn industry, the more afraid I’ve become about our society’s appetite – not for the sex, but for the violence.

Violence shouldn’t give anyone a hard on, and it’s profoundly disturbing to realize it’s increasingly becoming an aphrodisiac. Now we’ve created this sub-class of disposable women, where deviants can act out their violent fantasies without consequences.

At the end of the program, experts said countries that have completely legalized prostitution have a very serious sex slavery problem. Parents even have been known to literally, not figuratively, sell their daughters into the sex slave industry. Obviously, I am against any and all forms of human slavery.

However, some of the experts did say there is a potential solution in legalizing the sale of sex and criminalizing the purchasing of it.

This, they say, allows our currently disposable woman to seek protection should she be raped, beaten or attacked.

In this scenario, I wonder, what are the consequences for the slave owner pimp?

Here are a list of resources for helping women escape prostitution.

Post from: Blisstree

Prostitution = Slavery