Post #1041310

“¿Quién peca más, el que peca por la paga o el que paga por pecar?” – Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz It translates to: "Who is more to blame, the one who sins for pay or the one who pays to sin?" It's a very interesting short poem, because it's deceptively simple. In just one sharp, rhetorical question, it flips the whole power dynamic that surrounds the double standards when it comes to men's and women's sexual activity. It highlights the hypocrisy, power, social complicity, but is rooted deeply in a historically accurate and unfortunately still ongoing shaming of the person "selling their body" (aren't we all?), while the one buying remains free of guilt and condemnation. And the brilliance of the poem lies in what it doesn't do – that it doesn't provide an answer. It only shifts and destabilises the very framework of moral judgement, inviting the reader to draw their own conclusion in turn. Truly a spectacular work by a poet living in the 1700s and became a nun, yet felt like it was written today. That's what one could call 'timeless art'.