Ion’s blog

America has a long standing tradition of this sort of behavior, going at least as far back as WWII. Although the term “Charity Girl” is/was generally used in reference to women who had sex for gifts and/or fun, its also used in a more specific way. I found this via a9.com in “No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease’ by Allan M. Brandt (p. 81):

Physicians and social workers frequently commented that the professional prostitute had given way to the so-called “patriotic prostitute” and “charity girl.” As one CTCA social worker wrote: ‘The peculiar charm and glamour which surrounds the man in uniform causes an unusual type of prostitute to spring up in time of war. Girls idealize the soldier and many really feel that nothing is wrong when done for him. One such girl said she had never sold herself to a civilian but felt she was doing her bit when she had been with eight soldiers in a night.’ The “girl problem,” as it became popularly known, seemed even more ominous to reformers than commercialized vice because it so often included youngsters from respectable, middle-class backgrounds. “Girls apparently of good families drive up in their cars and invite the soldiers who happen to be along the roadside near the camp to come to supper to a roadhouse or the nearest city,” explained Dr. Jennie H. Harris. “The results are the usual ones.”

I’m not a particular expert or even particularly interested in this field, its just that I remember reading about this in college and it always stuck with me as one of those “Aha” moments where you realize references to the “good old days” should be treated with large skepticism. My college read was “Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America” by John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman (p. 260-261):

The response of moral reformers points to the changes that had occurred since the previous generation. Whereas those of the First World War focused on the dangers of prostitution, by the 1940s it was the behavior of “amateur girls”–popularly known as khaki-wackies, victory girls, and good-time Charlottes–that concerned moralists.

Here’s an exciting career opportunity you won’t see in the classified ads. For the first six to 10 years, it pays less than $20,000 and demands superhuman levels of commitment in a Dickensian environment. Forget about marriage, a mortgage, or even Thanksgiving dinners, as the focus of your entire life narrows to the production, to exacting specifications, of a 300-page document less than a dozen people will read. Then it’s time for advancement: Apply to 50 far-flung, undesirable locations, with a 30 to 40 percent chance of being offered any position at all. You may end up living 100 miles from your spouse and commuting to three different work locations a week. You may end up $50,000 in debt, with no health insurance, feeding your kids with food stamps. If you are the luckiest out of every five entrants, you may win the profession’s ultimate prize: A comfortable middle-class job, for the rest of your life, with summers off.

Welcome to the world of the humanities Ph.D. student, 2004, where promises mean little and revolt is in the air. In the past week, Columbia’s graduate teaching assistants went on strike and temporary, or adjunct, faculty at New York University narrowly avoided one. Columbia’s Graduate Student Employees United seeks recognition, over the administration’s appeals, of a two-year-old vote that would make it the second officially recognized union at a private university. NYU’s adjuncts, who won their union in 2002, reached an eleventh-hour agreement for health care and office space, among other amenities.

Grad students have always resigned themselves to relative poverty in anticipation of a cushy, tenured payoff. But in the past decade, the rules of the game have changed. Budget pressures have spurred universities’ increasing dependence on so-called “casual labor,” which damages both the working conditions of graduate students and their job prospects. Over half of the classroom time at major universities is now logged by non-tenure-track teachers, both graduate teaching assistants—known as TAs—and adjuncts. At community colleges, part-timers make up 60 percent of the faculties.

Una pareja hablando entre beso y beso, a pocos cent