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| Can you turn a ho into a housewife? Ed Wood has some thoughts. |
NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021).
The article: "Prostitutes as Wives." Originally published in Orgy (Pendulum Publishing), vol. 3, no. 4, November/December 1971. Credited to "Dick Trent."
Excerpt: "The full time prostitute has become bored with the whole sex scene. It has meant nothing to her. And when she finally gives it up as a lost cause she is giving it up happily. Nothing is going to make her more happy then to know she has the same man coming home to her every night and it will be the same man she will wake up to the next morning."
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| Andy Kaufman marries a hooker on Taxi. |
Reflections: When I was reading Ed Wood's 1971 article "Prostitutes as Wives," I could not help but remember what actor Peter Fonda, star of Easy Rider (1969), told Rolling Stone writer Elizabeth Campbell about the title of his most famous film:
"Easy rider" is a Southern term for a whore's old man, not a pimp, but the dude who lives with a chick. Because he's got the easy ride. Well, that's what's happened to America, man. Liberty's become a whore, and we're all taking the easy ride."
"Prostitutes as Wives," I suppose, is Ed Wood's take on these "easy riders," the ones who decide to make the arrangement permanent, but he seems to view them more favorably than Peter Fonda did. In fact, this article weighs the pros and cons of marrying prostitutes and concludes that the former outweigh the latter. Yes, Ed says, men should marry prostitutes!
Ed begins this piece by describing the same sexual double standard that was at the heart of yesterday's article, "A Look at the Nymphomaniac." Namely, young men are expected to be sexually experienced by the time they marry, but young women are not. A girl is supposed to be virginal and pure until her wedding night. But this brings with it its own set of problems, as Ed explains:
But here comes the rub! Even though she must be a virgin, he expects all the pleasures of a professional. If she doesn't know what it's all about he feels cheated. She is just a 'dumb broad' who doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground. How can women be so dumb? He might just as well do what he has done for years . . . masturbate. It would be just about as exciting.
This is an unworkable and unfair system that is quite cruel to the ladies. Incidentally, Ed provides us with a list of derogatory terms directed as sexually-active young women—not just the usual ones like "tramp" and "bitch" but obscure ones like "turkey," "gobbler," and "clap trap." That last one is kind of clever, I must admit. Mean but clever.
So if marrying virgins is impractical, how about marrying hookers instead? Ed informs us that, after years of taking on male clients, many prostitutes are looking to get out of the business and settle down with a nice guy. They're experts when it comes to pleasing a man, after all, and they're very unlikely to cheat on their husbands and ruin a good thing. You don't have to worry about them getting pregnant unexpectedly either, because ex-prostitutes are very careful about birth control. You might worry about venereal diseases, since they've had so many partners, but Eddie says it's not a problem. He writes:
As any doctor, who has examined these prostitutes will tell . . . they are among the cleanest agents around. This is because the professional prostitute has learned early that her body is the only thing she has to sell . . . to use for making a living. And she is not going to sell a diseased or crippled body. She learns all the protections there are and she practices those protections thoroughly. And she generally has her own personal physician who takes care of her regularly. Few ever become unknowing, unwilling carriers.
So everything's coming up roses for the man who sees a streetwalker and decides to put a ring on it. According to Ed, this type of gent "has everything, sexually, going for him." This is actually one of the more focused and coherent articles in When the Topic is Sex. Ed might've even been sober or semi-sober when he wrote it.
What's great about Ed Wood as a writer is that he will approach a topic from an angle that I had not anticipated. I assumed, for example, that this article would be about men who marry experienced prostitutes, i.e. women who have been employed in "the world's oldest profession" for years and are looking to retire. And that is what "Prostitutes as Wives" is mostly about. But Ed also writes about housewives who become prostitutes either out of boredom or to supplement their husbands' meager income. This is an entirely different situation.
Ed Wood does not seem to approve of these "amateur" housewife prostitutes. Unlike the professionals, these silly women don't know how to protect themselves against diseases or unplanned pregnancy. Men are liable to end up with a child who looks suspiciously like the blond-haired milkman. No, says Ed, what you want is a woman who used to be a hooker, not one who aspires to be a hooker. Just one of the many valuable life lessons to be found within When the Topic is Sex.
Next: "The Pimp" (1972)