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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1951959" data-attributes="member: 7240">In the pre-modern world, very few people's jobs were a matter of choice. Have the peasants in your campaign freely decided to be peasants? Probably not. For them, it's probably till the land or starve. Should the paladin not purchase their barley because they are oppressed? How about metal, any idea what working conditions were like for pre-modern miners? Most miners were convict labourers or other types of slaves with abysmal life expectancy and a quality of life that made the poor life expectancy as positive upside of the job. Should the paladin not purchase metal weapons and armour? The idea that the paladin should not purchase things tainted by conscript labour and oppression would effectively transform him into a hermit clad in skins in many fantasy worlds. Second, in what universe is this vast generalization about prostitutes true? Most women who became prostitutes in the past chose to do so because, given their personal tolerances, talents and tastes, prostitution was the best available option. Certainly there were female prisoners sold into slavery but there were a lot of other ways women got into the job. For a woman escaping an arranged marriage, the idea of having carnal relations with someone she found unattractive and potentially despicable was probably one she was already very used to. For other women, the rewards of urban over country life, a higher income, fewer hours of work and greater personal freedom might have prostitution seem tolerable in comparison to back-breaking marginal hoe agriculture in the mountains of Greece. Certainly it is true that the majority of women in arranged marriages and daily agricultural toil found that type of suffering and disrespect preferable to the types associated with prostitution but this experience was not universal.Perhaps you might do well to look at the wide variety of experiences and motives for modern sex trade workers. Not all are there to pay for drugs. Many are but many credibly articulate reasons why, to this day, women choose to work in this field.Third, there are, of course, the honoured prostitutes. In the Roman world, in some cults, working as a temple prostitute was something that brought respect, power and ecclesiastical rank, and in some cases, carnal pleasure. Then we have the esteemed order of the Geisha in Japan; really, just the simple invocation of the term "geisha" should shut this debate down.</blockquote>

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