But We’ll Always Have Tarren Mill

I don’t care if it’s her pr0n website or her mortgage refinancing website, she shouldn’t be advertising it in WoW. Blizzard, on the other had, probably cares more about the former than the latter; they do have certain requirements to keep WoW a “T” rated game. Then again, back in the early days of WoW, I know of someone who did get banned (or at least quit playing that toon) after a bunch of people reported him for advertising mortgage refinancing in 1k Needles.

The point is, she didn’t just go and play WoW like any other gamer. She used her professional name for her character. She told people who she was. The word on the street is she offered people free passes to her website in exchange for help. She was the one to make an issue of it. Nobody would ever have guessed who she was, or what she did for a living, if she’d named her character Cissara and just played the game. I played for 3 years (not just WoW) with people who didn’t even know I was female! Even now, I think only two people in my guild actually know my name. It just never comes up, y’know? (the two who do know it are fellow top-level officers; it’s on our emergency contact list)

She wanted to have her cake and eat it too. She expected to be treated like anyone else when she wanted that, and treated like a pr0n star when she wanted that, and she gets to decide which, and when. Well, life doesn’t work that way.

And no, I wouldn’t be hitting on her in a bar. I’m straight. :-p I’ve got nothing against what she does for a living, but I do have something against her dragging what she does for a living into WoW. I don’t want to see someone advertising their website, whether it’s adult videos or mortgage refinancing. The mortgage guy got insulted up, down, and sideways in zone chat. Why should this be any different? Keep your work the hell out of the game.

How is working as a whore any different from working at any other job? It’s selling your skills, whatever they may be. At least whores make people happy, which is more than you can say for bill collectors, IRS agents, or WoW community managers.

There is no such thing as an undignified job, only an undignified person. Someone can shovel manure with pride and self-respect, or be President of the United States (your choice of which one) with no dignity at all. I’ll take a high-class whore over a sleazy politician any day; at least she gets her money honestly.

Did they attack Tseric’s looks? No, because his looks were not what he made his money from. They attacked his intelligence, his competence, and his integrity, because that’s what he made his money from. Both with Mia Rose and with Tseric, their detractors are saying “You know those special qualities you think you have? Well, you don’t have them.” It’s your common, garden-variety insult, nothing to see here, move along.

As for the pr0n star at the heart of all of this, I’m reminded of a comment I read by a stripper who was asked how she felt about men exploiting her. It was something to the effect of “They just paid me a lot of money to take my clothes off, and you think I’m the one being exploited here?” Why should getting paid, and paid well, for what you do be inherently less dignified than doing the same thing in exchange for nothing more than room and board?

Dignity comes from who you are inside and how you choose to behave, not from what job you work at or who you do it for. Sex is like any other skill: some people do it only for themselves, some people do it for love, some people do it for a few friends, and some people do it for money. Such is life.

Advertising your business in WoW, though — that’s a banning.

Ever notice that male porn stars are to some extent admired (at least privately) by many people, and their female equivalents are generally reviled? And yet they’re both doing exactly the same thing: getting paid to have sex in a movie. Understand the reason and you’ll understand the male/female dynamic in the way that many people (including most “leaders” of any stripe) do not.

Personally, I think a world in which an actress like Mia Rose was granted the same respect as a mainstream movie actress would be a better place. If more people were competing for the jobs, we’d get better pron.

As in many species, the human male/female mating practices are a ritualized predator/prey relationship. Even though it might directly contradict the reality of the situation (also the case in many species), traditionally the male behaves and is viewed as the hunter, the female as the hunted. This, in a nutshell, is why a man who has sex with many women is seen as a “stud” while a female who has sex with many men is seen as a “slut”: The male is perceived as a highly successful (ritual) predator, while the female on the other hand is failed prey. He was supposed to catch females, and he did; she was supposed to escape males, and she didn’t. That is also why there is a difference in many people’s reactions to adult/child sexual relationships (for example, the teacher/student pairings that have made the news) depending on whether the adult is male or female: A man is seen as hunting illegal prey, whereas a woman in the same situation is (rightly or wrongly) only seen as allowing herself to be too easily caught.

Sad but true, our human traditions have more in common than we would like to believe with a couple of squirrels running through the trees. Yes, the one in hot pursuit is usually a male chasing a female, because female squirrels will only mate with males who can keep up with them in follow-the-leader (after all, when you’re as tasty as a squirrel, breeding for speed is an advantage).

That’s why “stud” is a positive term and “slut” is a negative term for two people who behave exactly the same way — the difference being only in their sex. Think about it: can you think of any term at all for a woman who has multiple sexual partners which is not perjorative? Any at all? Can you think of any term for a man who has multiple sexual partners which is perjorative and is not one which is more commonly applied to a woman? If you know that someone (the stereotypical gamer) is 25 years old, living in their mom’s basement, and a virgin, does whether they’re male or female make a difference in how you view them? Honestly?

Mind you, none of this has much in common with what really happens in a male/female relationship. It probably doesn’t with the squirrels, either. It’s all about how society conventionally sees things. Human societies are extremely conservative in that regard — “conservative” in the non-political sense, meaning that they are very slow to change the actual beliefs, no matter how many people claim, and even convince themselves, that they believe differently. Change at that level takes many generations. Even though today’s young people may be the grandchildren of the hippies of the generation of Woodstock and free love, a stud is still a stud, and a slut is still a slut. A woman can still get as much sex as she wants just by being “easy”, and a man still has to do it the hard way.

Female porn stars get better billing, yes, but that doesn’t determine respect. Even a well-paid slut is still a slut. Still failed prey, even if she gets paid to fail. A stud, on the other hand, is a stud, even if the rituals are totally false and he’s only a successful predator because his prey is being paid.

Does a ditch digger have to be a great ditch digger to be respectable? Does he have to be the Madame Pompadour of ditches? Or does he (or she) just have to put in an honest day’s work?

Maybe I’m too much of a child of the 60′s myself, or maybe it comes from my lifelong outsider’s viewpoint on the human species, but I see little difference in digging ditches, stocking shelves, or having sex for money: It’s all renting out the use of your body, just different muscle groups.

Sure, the passion is phony. But then again, do you really think that kind and pleasant customer service person actually thinks you’re a great guy and it’s making his day to help you configure your router? Are tech support personnel also unworthy of respect because they don’t scream “RTFM you moron” at you no matter how much you deserve it? Do you spit on Wal-Mart greeters? Snarl at cheerful cashiers? Order fast-food workers to wipe the smiles off their faces? They’re all phony too. What they’re really thinking is “52 minutes until my break … 51 minutes … 50 minutes …”

I whore out my mind and my skills and my art to my clients. I pretend to like them even when I hang up the phone and call them every foul name I can think of in three languages because they want the impossible and they want it yesterday, and free.

No, I’m not a prostitute; I’m a consultant.

I think you’re missing the difference between what people do because they feel it is right and what they do because they fear the social or legal consequences of doing so. Take Mia Rose, for example: since she does after all make a living from having sex where other people can watch, it’s unlikely that she would have any reservations about having sex on the sidewalk (or at least on the lawn). However, it’s also highly unlikely that she would actually do so, due to the probability of someone calling the cops.

Taking sex out of it entirely, there are times I would just love to scream “Keep your little apes under control!” at the parents of the shrieking brats playing tag in the aisles of the otherwise quiet bookstore. I’ve avoided doing so, however, because of the social consequences. I think the parents very much need to be told off, but the resulting confrontation would get me tossed out of the bookstore. Do I think it’s wrong to tell other people that they should require their children to behave in a civilized fashion? No … but they do, and any interference with their God-given right to let their children act like wild animals in public places would provoke far too much trouble, and have too little effect, to be worth it.

I have only rarely heard the term “cad” used outside of a literary context. Also, it doesn’t really equate. No sex is required, nor even a large number of partners; cad-ship stems from the misleading and deceptive nature of the relationship. A man who, say, goes to Burning Man and sleeps with every woman who’s looking for a one-night stand is not a cad. Neither party expects anything m A man who has an online relationship with a woman he’s never met and promises he’ll divorce his wife for her is a cad, even though they have never been in the same city, let alone in the same bed.

I think we are in agreement, though, about the actual topic of this thread: It was her actions, not her profession, that led to the reaction to Mia Rose. She wanted and sought out attention, but she wanted it only on her terms. Most people (even without recognizing it) resent unequal relationships like that, whether they’re with real-life friends or multi-national corporations. She brought her real-life business into the game, and people resent that, too. (I don’t advertise what I do, despite the number of people who clearly need it, so why should she be able to?) And she caused drama. People (with the exception of a few drama queens) play WoW to relax and have fun, not get stressed out by drama, so they resent the people who start it. If she’d been anyone else well-known — Bill Gates, Bruce Willis, Hillary Clinton, Richard Garriot, Scott Jennings — and did the same thing, the reaction would have been very much the same. The details of the attacks would have differed, as the attackers sought out the real or perceived vulnerabilities of their target, but the root causes would have remained the same.