Rename: Bring Your Halter To The Slaughter

Yeah, "comfort woman" has a lot of other connotations, as seen on the Other Wiki.

^That's why Military Comfort Woman was what was suggested (which itself is one of those pre-existing variants on Comfort Woman).

Any use of "comfort woman" brings the WWII connotations in, and "military" does nothing to alter it - those women were used by soldiers.

Ugh.

Can't believe I forgot that they were forced into that. Yeah, probably not a good name.

^Uglier forms of this trope are mentioned in the examples, just so we know.

I'd prefer Camp Follower rather than Military Comfort Woman, since "comfort woman" pretty much always implies coercion.

While Camp Follower strictly means any civilian following an army, in common speech it usually just refers to the prostitutes, so it's not like we would change the meaning.

I suppose as a fictional trope, the prostitute may be following the camp entirely by choice and think that it is a great way to make money (in reality, I think anyone that thinks that is deluded). Military Courtesan is also an existing term, but of course courtesan doesn't capture the uglier parts - I'm not sure any one term does. Does anyone like GI Ho?

(the Urban Dictionary has it as GI Hoe, but that doesn't look right to me)

edited 3rd Dec '10 10:26:46 AM by MoCellMan

There's still a qualitative difference between a prostitute who has a choice (even if it's just a choice between selling her body and starving to death), and a comfort woman/Joy Division prisoner who's locked up somewhere for the purpose of being raped.

I quite like GI Ho. It's a bit crude, perhaps, but not more so than some other trope titles.

Didn't someone else say that they would've liked to keep a Punny Name for this one? GI Ho would be the perfect pun for this.

Honestly, I like Military Comfort Women because it implies the uglier aspects. I mean, can anyone think of the trope played positively?

"Positively" as in "not forcing a woman into this"?

Well, yeah, in fact, several examples on the page already involve prostitutes who weren't forced into sex with soldiers. Full Metal Jacket, Catch 22, and so forth.

The phrase "military comfort woman," taken literally, invokes the more positive image, that of a woman who voluntarily attends to the sexual needs of military men, (most likely) charging a nominal fee for the service. The fact that the phrase is used almost exclusively for women forced into sexual slavery for the military is indicative of how likely people think the more literal scenario is, though how likely the real scenario is doesn't matter for a fictional trope.

I feel like Military Comfort Woman captures the most positive side, and the most negative side, with its literal/euphemistic senses, but it may not capture the middle.

edited 3rd Dec '10 12:57:59 PM by MoCellMan

I'd prefer to not use a term that originated as a euphemism, simply because the fact that it's used as a euphemism implies a level of indirectness and confusion that we should probably avoid if possible.

I myself did not realize the term's actual etymology was as a euphemism. I think Military Comfort Woman will only reasonably serve as a redirect.

Brothel Battalions?

Military Comfort Woman sounds exactly like Comfort Woman would, with the rape prisoner origins. It just sounds like a specific kind, as opposed to, say, Pirate Comfort Woman or something. As a redirect it's fine, since if the trope allows for actual comfort women to be listed something like GI Ho sounds a bit too flippant.

In any case, I like GI Ho the best.

I'd go with the pre-existing Camp Follower, or failing that War Camp Prostitute, as the most directly literal term.

GI Ho is funny, but I have to wonder if this is the trope people would think of when they saw it. As opposed to, say, a GI who sleeps around.

Tropes with Punny Names occasionally require an extra step to really clarify what it's supposed to mean (Bloody Murder, Colon Cancer, etc.), but when it sounds clever, it hurts to pass on the opportunity. It actually hurts.

I don't know that there is a name that will decently capture (relatively) free prostitutes that go where the johns are, women who are forced to by their pimps, and women who are imprisoned and forced into sexual slavery by the military itself. I'm even uncomfortable lumping them together...which I think is why the term "sexual slavery" has entered the public consciousness as of late, as a way of recognizing the difference between a schoolgirl in a mall who listened to a pimp and decided she'd like the extra money and to strike back at her dad, and a woman who paid to immigrate and was stuffed into a shipping container, unpacked into a building, and forced to have sex uncompensated. Perhaps even as fiction, these should be different tropes.

War Camp Prostitute could work for the continuum of not-obviously-sexual-slavery base/camptown hookers, or maybe for everything, I don't know.

edited 4th Dec '10 9:27:08 AM by MoCellMan

Speaking of which, Camptown Prostitute is another existing term, which from my reading seems to include both (somewhat) willing and unwilling individuals. Or maybe Military Camptown Prostitute.

After further consideration of inclusion of unwilling, I would, myself, prefer we not to go with anything punny or glib (like GI Ho) as it seems to be minimizing and unkind, if it's all one trope (maybe even if it isn't one). Now that I understand the term better, I wouldn't like the idea of a "comfort woman" being referred to as a GI Ho.

edited 4th Dec '10 9:32:47 AM by MoCellMan

Personally, I don't think "ordinary" military prostitutes and comfort women should be in the same trope. In fact, if we have a Sex Slave trope, it would probably cover comfort women as well.

It seems we do. I will try to add some reasonable mention of comfort woman there (as at least the term itself is not there).

EDIT: Added this fictional example to Sex Slave (page thankfully excludes real-life examples):

In Nora Keller's Comfort Woman, Akiko was forced to serve as a military "comfort woman," a sex slave provided to troops, during WWII. Her daughter Beccah does not know of this history, and as she learns of it, she comes to understand her mother's apparently strange ways.

I also set the Main / Comfort Woman entry as a redirect to Sex Slave, and set Literature / Comfort Woman to cover the book.

edited 4th Dec '10 3:35:48 PM by MoCellMan

So, this still needs to be changed.

To compound the awfulness of Bring Your Halter To The Slaughter's title, I've seen it misused as a clothing trope about halter tops. (Only once, but still.)

edited 13th Mar '11 5:39:50 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

so, crowner time?

bump. Are we going to do anything about this terrible, terrible name? I'll make a alt name crowner if ya want.

edited 3rd Sep '11 1:31:36 PM by Tyoria