At Bitch PhD, there's an intelligent approach to prostitution(Whore Fri,21st Jan). I especially liked the part about how she was both upholding the patriarchy and fighting it at the same time. There's always an interaction of different forces in everything- your cultural programming, your personality, and tons of other things combine to create the situation. There's a huge difference between becoming a prostitute because you need to make money or your whole family will starve and becoming one because you want to study sexual dynamics between males and females. There's even a million different distinctions in these situations- are you proud to help your family or do you feel coerced? That's why I can't get with the whole what I call empty set thing- assuming that all things are always equal, and that there aren't any forces that might change things. That sort of thinking is actually really hurtful.