Who owns your body?

This question make out the very center peace of all things discussed about society, economics and politics. Almost everything you can think of that has one or several political or philosophical viewpoints comes back to the fundamental question of corporal ownership.

Whose responsibility is it to care for, decide over and have authority over your body?

If we assume the position of pro government on this question, which most of you do, we automatically say that government must have the power to approve or withhold drugs, healthcare or no healthcare, sex or no sex. In fact, governments supersede anything you can or want to do with your very existence. Take such a thing as your death. Sure you can decide some stuff surrounding your funeral that the state have allowed you to, but you cannot spread your ashes wherever, funeral services need to be kept within certain boundaries and even your headstone can be subjected to some debate. At any moment some or all of this may change, it only takes a whim from certain officials, a change in the law or some important lobby-group to alter how we conduct funeral services.

Your birth is almost totally controlled. Although a slight difference between countries, most of us do give birth at public hospitals, get a publicly recognized social security number, we get to be enlisted into several programs and written onto lists even before delivery, we do check-ups, get vaccinations and so on, all curtsey of state officials.

This goes on and on and the examples are endless.

However, one issue kind of stands out, the issue of sex. Maybe you think you can fuck whomever, whenever, in whatever way you please. Think again.

Government and laws may dictate that certain acts of sex are to depraved for us mere mortals to perform. And I’m not taking about necrophilia, bestiality, pedophilia or different sorts of rape. There are many countries or states that also have outlawed homosexuality, analsex, oralsex or even masturbation. But even if we leave those topics we end up in very arbitrary rules regarding age and places. The age for consent varies with everything from 12 years up to 21 years, depending on country, religion and so on. Most (all) countries have harsh penalties for performing sexual acts in public, but even if we ignore the act itself, only the showing of flesh may get you thrown in jail, in some countries even executed.

All the things mentioned can be argued around, debated through notions of religiosity, feminism, psychology and so forth, but how about apparent adults having “normal” sex? Surely such act is up to the individuals? Nah, not at all.

If we ignore massive campaigns about AIDS, hepatitis, getting forced to pay for publicly distributed condoms and such inventive schemes as government allocated funds paid for each child, we still end up with government saying you cannot have sex with whomever during whatever agreement. For instance you cannot charge your companion, no matter how good you have been. Even if the best orgasm is reached during the best sex of a lifetime, no money can ever exchange hands, because then you are a criminal. This goes even if you know each other or even are long time companions, no money. You can pay for dinner, drinks, pay for the movie, buy an expensive gift, and then “lure” you’re attended into bed, but there cannot be an explicit thought of payment for sex behind it all.

It does not matter if you are old enough and rational enough to make own decisions, the choice of what to do with your body isn’t yours. In a moral world with free people living within the confines of a democratic state that protects human rights, your choice would be final, you would be your own king. Accepting payment for sex should be an individual option, but it’s not.

So ask yourself, if you are not the one deciding over your own body, if the situation of your very being is that of servitude or as the property of the state, what does that make you?