Sometimes that’s enough.

“You’ve a good heart. Sometimes that’s enough to see you safe wherever you go. But mostly, it’s not.” –Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

There are days when it feels like my job is to say no to people who won’t be able to handle hearing “no” one more time. Many of the clients I speak with are in the midst of discovering the difference between morally right and legally permissible, and the realization is painful. Our legal system is not actually designed to provide justice– it’s our flawed attempt to achieve fairness, an unquantifiable entity, in a measurable, widely applicable way. The discrepancy means that even if you have been wronged, even if you have the money to pursue legal action, and even if you have found an attorney who understands your side of the story, there may not be laws with which you can build a case. The most skilled, most empathetic attorney in the world will not take your case if no laws have been broken. Most will not take your case if they feel that the laws that have been broken are not enough to lead you to a victory, or if the cost of pursuing the case, financially and otherwise, is not worth even the best of its potential outcomes.

The distinction between legality and morality is unexpectedly subtle in America, but maybe that should come as no surprise. Our cultural ethos is built on “liberty and justice for all,” with the word justice itself often standing in to represent the law and its consequences. We are raised to believe that if we are good people, or at least if we try to be good people, that justice, and implicitly the law, will be on our side. I’ve lost count of how many times a client has recounted their story, then asked me, “Why isn’t anyone doing anything about this?” I still can’t answer that question. I usually opt to murmur in agreement, but the clients are never satisfied with my speechlessness. I can’t blame them. Ultimately they are asking me to answer why we are not able to achieve justice, even as we claim to mete it out. I think our country could benefit from honest, blunt recognition that the pursuit of justice is noble, crucial, and as close as we seem to get to the thing itself.

Perhaps the only people I’ve encountered who struggle with this gap more than the clients are the attorneys. Their livelihood exists in the gap. Whether they are struggling to bridge it or simply operating within it, the reality of our systemic moral shortcomings builds the foundation for their careers. So many attorneys enter the field guided by their good hearts, sure that this profession will put them in contact with justice in its purest, most powerful form. And sometimes, very briefly, they are right. Every attorney I’ve spoken with has at least one cherished moment of achieved justice, of legality aligning perfectly with morality, that they keep close and revisit often. Most of the time, though, each day that passes drives them further away from the possibility of that justice. The worst of humanity thrives in the gap, and attorneys live within it, day in and day out. I’ve developed more compassion in this job for the ones who teeter into the chasm, their good hearts no longer able to keep them balanced on the tightrope they walk above it.

The choice that Gaiman’s observation brings to light lies between safety and goodness. In childhood, I never questioned why storybook heroes would brave torture, exile, ridicule, and even death to fight for what is right. I had to learn later that in real life, “right” is not an absolute value, and the hero’s good heart does not always carry him through to a happy ending. The attorneys and clients I work with are faced with this reality daily, and few come to the end of their stories unscathed. Some even find themselves leaning away from morality in favor of the more concrete system of legality, which at least they can grasp, define, and cite. Some, though, find the strength to keep following their good hearts. Their moments of achieved justice are scarce and fleeting, but sometimes that’s enough.

Using your sexiness to make money.

“I would never point a finger at a woman for her actual sexual behavior, and I think all women have the right to express their desires. But I will look at women with influence—millionaire women who use their “sexiness” to make money—and ask some questions…Like I said, I’m not criticizing anyone’s real sex life; as George Michael tells us, “‘Sex is natural, sex is fun.’ But the poles, the pasties, the gyrating: This isn’t showing female sexuality; this is showing what it looks like when women sell sex.” ~“Rashida Jones on the Pornification of Everything,” Glamour Magazine

I almost didn’t write this post, and I’m going to be up front about why: talking about sex makes me uncomfortable. This is not because it feels unnatural or wrong, and I like to think that I’ve surpassed the middle school level of maturity where you giggle through your fear of the unknown. What makes me nervous about sex is that I don’t feel like I have a good moral barometer for it. Raised as a methodist in a lower class family with upper-middle class aspirations, I had the freedom to question, doubt, and explore the nuances at the intersection between emotion and ethics. Sex, though, lived in this murky area that I avoided the way kids avoid the neighborhood ramshackle house rumored to be haunted by ghosts. I knew it was there, and I knew it probably wasn’t what I imagined it to be, but fear of discovering the truth kept me from further investigation.

My morals are very important to me, and I tend to fall back on them when I need any kind of guidance, even when I’m not totally sure what my moral stance is. In fact, my morals tend to be in a constant state of flux based on my situation, information, and understanding. My friends say it’s because I think too much. Maybe that’s true, but usually my changes of opinion are sparked not by an intellectual problem, but an intense emotional reaction. I do think a lot, but my thoughts respond to emotional stimuli, not the other way around. Because I react to the world this way, the guiding morals that hold steadfast in my life, above all else, are love and empathy. In my experience, I can’t make a good decision without deference to these two values first.

From this point of view, the tricky thing about sex is that at its best, sex is an expression of both love and empathy. Who am I to judge anyone’s expression of these things, regardless of what seems right to me? The religious aspects of my upbringing had a straightforward answer to that question– no sex until after marriage, then it’s between you and God– which was open-minded in its own way but dissatisfying nonetheless. For their own reasons, my parents were unavailable for comment when I was starting to ask these questions, and for my own reasons, I soon decided that they weren’t the resources I needed anyway. In fact, my growing discomfort with the subject made it pretty much impossible for me to discuss sex with anyone, even my closest friends. Sex education classes were a joke, as anyone who went to my school can attest, often because the teachers were just as uncomfortable as the students. That meant that, like many other kids my age, I learned most of what I knew about sex from pop culture.

As far as Jones’s argument about the responsibility that comes with being a public figure, I wholeheartedly agree that anyone in the limelight should recognize that their actions influence the less experienced. I learned a lot of things about dating and relationships from sitcoms and pop hits that even just a couple years of semi-adulthood have proven false. However, that’s not where my confusion lies with this article. I’m more interested in the idea of selling sex as a morally reprehensible offense. I had a conversation about strip clubs the other day in which my objection to them was the commodification of sex, precisely because the line between sex as a business transaction and people as objects of gratification is so blurry. Then I was asked the following question: so if there were a person who used stripping as a form of self-expression, as a kind of artistic outlet, and they sold tickets to performances the way a traditional performer does, would I object to that?

My gut reaction was no– as long as everyone was consenting and respectful, I couldn’t see the problem. Art solely as a means of income feels wrong to me, but art as expression is a central tenant of humanity. So if you take that one step further, what if someone expresses themselves through sex, regardless of whether other factors like money, spirituality, or empowerment are involved? I automatically got tense in response to the idea, but I still can’t put my finger on why. Is it really all that different? Sure, I know that I personally wouldn’t be interested in or comfortable with that, but the more I think about it, the less I feel I can object to someone else doing it– at least not on moral grounds. If someone uses sexual activity as a form of self-expression, and everyone involved understands the situation, then why does adding money to the equation suddenly make it feel wrong to me?

As often happens in these posts, I don’t have an answer, just more questions. What is the difference between sex, sexiness, and sexuality? If an artist can sell paintings and a musician can sell records, why does our culture have such an immediate and harsh reaction to a stripper selling dances, or even the “classier” idea behind an escort selling an evening of her attentions? Whatever the reasons, I don’t feel like I have the tools to find these answers. I’m too embroiled in this culture, and I’m still figuring out these definitions for myself. I do think, though, that this is maybe the best of what feminism has to offer. Feminism has been a pretty terrifying buzz word on the internet lately, so to clarify, I mean feminism in the sense of gender equality, in the idea that sexual acceptance supersedes any ingrained ideas about traditional gender roles, new gender roles, or attempts to subvert either one of them. If the subversion is itself an expression of identity or of love, then how can I approach that expression with anything but love and empathy?