Rodando a bolsinha: dinheiro e relações de prostituição

Abstract

In this work a series of discussions is made on the relationship between money and prostitution in a way of overcoming its merely economic aspects, in the perception of both being social, cultural and historical phenomena, and taking them as symbols, whose study aids to unveil the reality. In this context it is looked for revealing its forms and contents to make it possible to understand them beyond the rationality, calculability and mathematical elements presents in them; beyond apparentness, taking them in their complexity. The discussions encompass theoretical elements, based especially on Georg Simmel s theoretical analyses, allied to a specific empirical frame that regards the life experience of the women of Praia do Meio, pedaço of the city of Natal-RN-Brazil, where the data were collected from. Fundamentally, prostitution is perceived as an exchange activity, which is not depleted in the economic elements, but, contrarily, starts on them and surpasses them in diverse aspects. It deals about a money-mediated relationship between human beings that possesses in itself a full complexity, which demands an accurate and keen attention to be comprehended. Since money has transformed the world and the men and women in it, the discussions in the text are conducted in a direction to attempt to encircle and understand the relationship between money and prostitution. Prostitution, in turn, aids to understand such a transformation as it is also a symbol of our times and it makes us to face the true essence of our society: the transformation of human beings into merchandise, into negotiable objects. In the money-based society it is possible to picture the phenomenon of double prostitution: negotiation of the human being, through labor, and negotiation of sex, the last being dramatically stigmatized and the former strongly encouraged. This may be demonstrating that the paid sex is, in the money-ruled society, a limit of commercialization, widely accepted provided it is camouflaged and surrounded by an aura of sensuality and legitimacy