This WeekThis week at praxis... Working girlsHere is what we are reading and discussing the week of March 25, 2001When God first spoke through Hosea, God said to Hosea, "Take a whore for a wife and have the prostitute’s children, for the land commits prostitution when it forsakes its God." So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. ----Hosea 1:2-3 It is impossible to separate the story of Hosea and Gomer from the story of God and Israel because they are so intertwined....Gomer could not have felt very good about herself or about her husband in the midst of all the condemnations and the constant comparison between her and a faithless, whoring nation. Perhaps this was why she left her husband. Hosea sometimes speaks in tender terms, but he is so patronizing, and his mind seems more on God than on Gomer. Prostitution may have been Gomer’s way of simply looking for love. ----Miriam Therese Winter, WomenWisdom After Judah’s wife died, Tamar, disguised as a prostitute, secretly seduced Judah and secured some personal items as his pledge of future payment. When she became noticeably pregnant, Judah condemned her to death. Just as she was being dragged away she produced his personal pledges, and he accepted responsibility, not only for her condition, but also for the situation that compelled her to go about getting pregnant in that way...Tamar’s deception and prostitution are part of teh genealogical history of David, and her story is replete with patriarchal overtones. Bound by her widowhood to wait for an offer of marriage from her brother-in-law, Tamar devised a way to fulfill an equally important obligation, to perpetuate her dead husband’s name. Producing a child overrode all question of morality, for the woman’s duty here was to have a baby, or more specifically, a son. Judah, on the other hand, had complete freedom to seek out and enjoy the pleasures of a prostitute, secretly of course. ----Miriam Therese Winter, WomanWitness Rahab was a prostitute by profession. She had a house in the wall of the city and access to the secrets of the many men who came to sleep with her. What she learned she used to her advantage. When the Israelite spies came to her house, their reputation had preceded them...Cunning, quick-witted, assertive, she bargained with spies, lied to soldiers, and took charge of her own life. She professed her faith in Israel’s God and put her trust in strangers rather than in her own people and was thereby instrumental in Israel’s entering the land of Canaan. She was unmarried and quite capable of looking after herself. She also took charge of seeing to the safety and well-being of all her family members. Matthew lists Rahab in his Davidic genealogy along with Tamar... ----Miriam Therese Winter, WomanWitness Cast off all shame, and sell yourself in the marketplace; then alone can you hope to reach the Lord. Cymbals in hand, a veena upon my shoulder, I go about; who dares to stop me? The pallav of my sari falls away (A scandal!); yet will I enter the crowded marketplace without a thought. Jani says, My Lord, I have become a slut to reach your home. ----Janabia, (1298? – 1350?) What is a prostitute? There are lots of myths and stereotypes about prostitutes most of which are not true. Many people seem to think that prostitutes all come from the same sort of backgrounds (violence, drug addiction and abuse) and that all pros hate their work. Some do, some don’t (just like any other kind of work.) This booklet has been produced with and for street workers (one of many types of prostitution). The cartoon images of glamorous women used are stereotypes, but they are just as valid and just as real as any other. There is no such thing as a typical prostitute. ---- http://www.whoreact.net/lifeline15 Questions:
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