Yes Migeru I did mean it seriously, though it may have seemed satirical... what I was trying to point out was the disconnect, not in every person but in very many "liberal" persons (especially males) who defend the instutition of prostitution and insist that it be normalised, and yet in daily discourse, in online postings, in jokes, etc., repeatedly use prostitutes as a metaphor for dishonesty, venality, cowardice, etc. this kind of "prickspeak" is particularly common in all-male venues where it seems to serve as a kind of male-bonding mechanism, cementing solidarity among the securely male and dominant by making a joke and laughingstock of the Other.  it is trendy right now in mainstream media and the slang of college students, at least where I live.

in a related note I have heard people who think of themselves as liberal or progressive joking about how they hope Bush and his henchmen "go to jail and get cosy with Bubba" -- a not very veiled allusion to prison rape.  few people could dislike W more than I, but imho rape is not something I would wish even on him.  (the corresponding trope on the Right I suppose would be the openly expressed wish that war protestors, especially women, get kidnapped and beheaded by Islamist fanatics.) anyway the use of vivid metaphors of rape, forcible penetration, voluntary fellatio and, implicitly and explicitly, prostitution, to describe anger, domination, submission, misfortune, or contempt are endemic to colloquial speech.  and these attitudes are inevitably carried onto the street and into the brothel -- not to mention the bedroom, the kitchen, and the boardroom -- by the "customers".  such speech is not merely "pungent," "colourful," or "salty."  it encodes and expresses deep cultural beliefs about sex as a ranking behaviour.

consider for example the glee with which even liberal bloggers may announce that "Fitzgerald rips Cheney a new one," (an allusion to violent anal rape), or "Hirsh  bitch-slaps Bush in new article" (allusion to the calculated beating of a prostitute by a pimp so as to inflict maximum pain with minimum visible damage).  the language of rape, forcible prostitution, and contempt for women and prostitutes is the common jargon of the times, as common as "Jew him down" or "works like a n*gger" or "lies like a Welshman" were in my grandfather's day.

when self-professed liberals start to challenge this neverending stream of deeply misogynist phatic utterance, then I may start taking seriously the liberal claim to respect and care about the lives and dignity of prostituted women...

btw I think the anecdote about Churchill tells us what he was, more than anything else: a misogynist jerk.  what kind of conversational opener is that anyway, "how much would you have to be paid to sleep with me?"  I've heard better pickup lines from construction workers on lunch break...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...