| | > Okay, I get the signature now -- vagina lips with a clitoris in the middle and "stand forth!" for a client's erection. I suspected it previously but wanted to make no assumptions. I should have checked the profile the first time to get the answer to my question.
Luther-
Certainly, no faults on ignorance.. especially when I precisely did not speak explicitly, much as I might wish to. Please understand neither shame nor deception has anything to do with it; as an indication of the statist conditions under which I must operate, please keep in mind that the following notes are purely academic, as I describe myself as an escort, and of course us escorts ain't prostitutes. In fact, I have not a clue what on Earth I might do for a living.
Anyway, your observations are quite reasonable and accurate in the conclusions you reach. But the wierd thing is, your interpretation doesn't follow the patricular references I had in mind at all.
With regards to {))(*)((}, the exterior calligraphic brackets are a common method to denote one's status as property orginating in certain BDSM subcultures, while the symbol within is one version of a transcription of ancient marks of goddess-worship. Such symbols marked sacred prostitutes in ancient European and Near-Eastern Pagan cultures; they are the reasons for Biblical prohibitions on tattoos, as a clear distinction of the Hebrew priesthoods from the cults of Ba'al and Ishtarte among the neighboring Caananites. Incidentally, the tradition has continued to this day among contemporary sex workers in various forms; I met a sister last night who was marked in the same manner, or specifically the Celtic form of
* I don't doubt that the reference to the female
v sexual system is intended in the orginial, but it wasn't the
))O(( conscious reason for the reference. I'm shortly to get myself facially tatooed in a similar manner; all of the above are recollections of the proper stature of prostitution via classical references, much as this forum uses a famous painting of Plato and Aristotle in the Symposium to evoke the aesthos of philosophical discussion.
As for "stand forth!", it is an antiderivation of the Latin prostituta from which comes the English "prostitute". The term derives from the Latin pro (for) + steti, or irrregularly prostiti, the passive of stare (to stand). A prostitute is literally "one who is stood forth", referring specifically to Roman streetwalkers who would stand in certain areas of the city; the Greek equivalent was peripatetike, "walker"; "streetwalker" or "stroller" (our lingo) might better capture the sense. Incidentally for Objectivists, with their Aristotelian heritage, peripatetic was the term that stuck in the classical world for "Aristotelian", due to the fact that the disciples of the Lyceum used to stroll on a prominent covered walkway on the school's grounds. I'm not absolutely sure of this, but I always did wonder why the Church Fathers (e.g., Tertullian) writing against Aristotle loved to use the term "peripatetic" so much.
It's also a reference to a line from the movie _Dangerous Beauty_, considering the Renassaince courtesan Veronica Franco, that's been recommended to me; I'll wave off that comment until I watch the move sometime in the next 24 hours ('twas hard to find on DVD). The line in the movie is "Stand!", so I syncretized the references by putting a trangressive active voice to the term; it's a sistren's form of "Black is beautiful", and courting presumption, appropraite for a selfish independent capitalist. "Veronica", by the way, is a favorite stage name for people in the Industry, such as Veronica Monet, as escort and sex-worker activist, and Veronica Hart, a pro-sex feminist pornographer.
"Stand forth" honestly wasn't intended as a reference to male sexual response pattern, and I totally missed that potential allusion... though it does lay on another correspondence nicely. Your literal interpreation is entirely valid, but it's not literally entirely accurate in my case; I after all have 7 months or so to go before my own male-to-female transition is complete (I am currently an androgyne), and patriarchal social realities aside, I certainly do accept female clients; in fact, I commit libertarian heresy and practise affirmative action on the matter! I have had two so far.
sigh... Apolgies for an unforgivably lengthy response, but I confess I tear at cloth a bit to shout "we can read, y'know" to the world. Sex work is, after all, a form of honest, noncoercive aristocracy in the classical sense, in that one has the liesure to develop aesthetic talents in return for the expectation to present a sublime persona- and unlike the dukes and duchesses, no coercion is involved. A significant number of prostitutes- those who love their work, at least- are performance artists, painters, musicians, photographers, actresses, or "perpetual grad. students" in their spare time, except that it's all really part of an art of personality that is the essence of the erotic vocation. I assure you that while my philosophical and libertarian bents are a bit unusual among today's sex-work culture, they are far from unprecedented, and my historical, literary, and artistic knowledge is an embarassing pretense compares to that of some other girls out here. In fact... every time I bring up history with serious sex workers (with one exception), I get something between an amused maternal understanding and amused impatience with the prima donna who thinks she's the first one to get inspired by these things. The world may think what it may about the Life, but we're wiser and smarter than it thinks, and more importantly than being the first profession, we were the first professors; the first class with the liesure to learn and teach the liberal arts. Diotima taught Socrates.
my regards,
Jeanine Ring {))(*)((}
stand forth!
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