The news of these days tells us a story we have already heard in the past. But it comes back periodically. An escort and prostitution ring has been discovered in Milan in which very young women are offered to men of great prestige and wealth, who during their visits to the city decide to indulge in an evening in which the fun is based on sex, euphoric chemistry, transgression. On the one hand, we could say that the world has always been like this. Whoever has the money enjoys it. It is known that man is a hunter. If you can, live in the moment. They are all slogans that recall the various “Just do it” and “Enjoy it” which advertising communication is also full of.
But this news should lead us to reflect more deeply on some aspects regarding the values that are passed on to our children today. The news says that the people mainly involved in the investigation are dozens of Serie A footballers. These are athletes who represent an inspirational and aspirational model for many of our children. They arrive in Milan for their sporting challenges and in their free time they need to arrive in protected places, with women who, for a fee, declare themselves available to accompany them in and out of bed. Of course they must be very young and beautiful. And as reported in the intercepted conversations between the two managers of the company that exploited this prostitution ring, they must be able to “catch” and be awake in this.
Contemporary culture pushes us to think that everyone does what they want in their lives. In this culture the woman who sells her body is a “sex worker”, the man who pays her for that body is a rich and wealthy man who can afford it. Economic privilege transforms into privilege over the bodies of those who, in order to aspire to the same privilege, make those bodies available for a night. In this story the protagonists are all very young subjects, men and women. All stuck in the logic of success, money and sex. These are the fateful three “S” that become the fulcrum of a life project that is the mirror of a culture that no longer nourishes the dimension of internal values, but only that of external values. “To be” means to appear and enjoy, to mate for pleasure in exclusive environments by paying money. One wonders how they did it, young adult men at the peak of their careers and in the midst of their human journey to choose to make happiness coincide with a night with an escort.
But then the “Epstein files” come to mind and we can only conclude that the world is losing its soul. Bodies to be put up for sale for a night you can call them “sex work” but they are also the symbol of an existential void that at 18 years old makes “having sex” a life project to have money and success. Serie A footballers who at the height of success dream of mating with young bodies available to pay, are the manifesto of an educational and growth path that makes pleasure coincide with enjoyment. The high gaze on life, the search for a broader existential horizon in which “making love” is preferred to “having sex”in which human beings are not only body, but also soul, mind and relationship seem dissolved ingredients in a contemporary narrative that instills much, much sadness.
We need to put back into the lives of our children another idea of existential successwhich does not coincide with the dimensions of power, pleasure, luxury, but with those of commitment, project, inner growth. the problem is that if you say these things they mistake you for a bigot. The problem is that when you condemn the false narrative and contemporary rhetoric that wants prostitution worthy of the definition of “sex work”, they call you chauvinist and sexist. Once upon a time, however, affirming these principles made you a philosopher. And certainly wise.
