Foreigner – "Feels Like the First Time" (1977)

I know it must be the woman in you

That brings out the man in me

Facebook works in mysterious ways.  

I recently shared a Washington Post article that one of my friends had posted, not realizing that the article had been published in . . . June 2015.  

That article – which was headlined “Report: U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti had ‘transactional sex’ with hundreds of poor women” – may not be timely, but it’s still worthy of comment.

*     *     *     *     *

Here’s one paragraph from that Post story, which summarizes the findings of an internal United Nations report that found that members of the U.N. peacekeeping force that went to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake there had paid 225-plus Haitian women for sex:

The women traded sex for basic needs, including food and medication.

For rural women, hunger, lack of shelter, baby care items, medication and household items were frequently cited as the “triggering need,” the report said.  In exchange for sex, women got “church shoes, cell phones, laptops and perfume, as well as money” from peacekeepers.

U.N. troops in Haiti

Since when did cell phones, laptops, perfume, and especially church shoes qualify as “basic needs”?

*     *     *     *     *

I’m sure you’ve heard prostitution described as  “the world’s oldest profession.” 

The origin of that phrase is a Rudyard Kipling short story titled “On the City Wall,” which opens with these words:

Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world. . . . In the West, people say rude things about Lalun’s profession, and write lectures about it, and distribute the lectures to young persons in order that Morality may be preserved.  In the East where the profession is hereditary, descending from mother to daughter, nobody writes lectures or takes any notice; and that is a distinct proof of the inability of the East to manage its own affairs.

Church shoes?

Whether prostitution is literally the world’s oldest profession is a question that can’t be answered with certainty, of course.  But what is clear is that once a human society develops any form of material wealth, people start exchanging that wealth for sex.

*     *     *     *     *

Did you know that animals as well as humans exchange wealth for sex?

From an article on the Slate.com website:

Female chimpanzees living in the Ivory Coast have been observed to trade sex for meat.  In one experiment capuchin monkeys were taught to use silver discs as a sort of money (they could be redeemed for grapes), and it wasn’t long before one monkey exchanged one of the tokens for sex.  Dr. Fiona Hunter, a researcher at Cambridge University, observed female penguins in Antarctica trading sex for stones and pebbles.  Adélie penguins need rocks to build their nests . . . .

Female Adélie penguin offering sex for pebbles 

It seems that prostitution among humans and prostitution among animals have one characteristic in common: it’s the male who pays the female for sex, not vice versa.

All this suggests that it’s probably futile to try to legislate prostitution out of existence.  If monkeys trade sex for food, is it any surprise that humans trade sex for food?  (Or cell phones.  Or perfume.  Or church shoes.)

*     *     *     *     *

“Feels Like the First Time” was Foreigner’s first big hit, but it was far from their last.  

Foreigner’s eponymous debut album

Between 1977 and 1988, the group had no fewer than nine singles that peaked at #6 or higher on the Billboard “Hot 100.”  

My personal favorite is “Hot Blooded,” but “Feels Like the First Time” – which was featured on the soundtrack of the movie I, Tonya – is purt near as good:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: