I would try this, but every man around these parts (midtown) looks like that! Bravo on another entertaining post. It had pathos, and it had LOLs.

 

wow! he IS an asshole! i have to admit, though, i was a little confused by the fact that his hooker spent the night. really? do you think they cuddled afterward? did she wait around in her micro mini and fur for him to shower and get dressed for work?
so, so, so strange.
do you think prostitutes still think of it as the walk of shame? or the commute home from work?

 

Yeah, I also have to wonder if it counts as a walk of shame if it's really part of the job. But this post is awesome, and totally makes me want to find someone with a BlackBerry, kick him in the shin, and run away.

 

if there's one thing i love, it's russian hookers with mishaped, blue breasts. are blue breasts like blue balls? hmmm....

 

Colleen- it's okay. Verbally assault now, ask questions later. We'll be fine.

Kelsi- She totally spent the night. I go to work early, but he was definitely leaving for his day. Briefcase and all. I think he rushed her out after he woke up and showered at the club later. And you're brilliant. It IS the commute.

Jamelah- Kick away!

Lozo- DRAWING. IS. HARD.

 

Why the fuck doesnt Melania Trump know where Madison is?

 

This makes me wonder just how often and how many prostitutes the Trump building doormen have to deal with on a daily basis. I imagine lots...

 

Is is bad that I sport the style you call "I Slept In This Makeup" pretty much every Friday to work. Ahh Corporate America has yet to catch on to my ways.... great post by the way!

~Irish

 

You rule. :]

 

I have to take issue with the section in your blog that states, "I actually think prostitution should be legal and if that's how she chooses to make her living, fine by me."

From all of the secular literature I have read, and from various news magazine features on television, the majority of women who work in prostitution rarely "choose" to work in that profession. The vast majority of prostitutes work in their profession to support drug habits. Many of them have been sexually abused as children and have never received counseling. Often times it's both, and they have children of their own to support.

While madams such as Heidi Fleiss may put a glamorous touch on the world's oldest profession, it is one of the most dangerous professions in existence.

Legalization of prostitution in Nevada has cut back on violent crime and the STD transmission rate for those who work in brothels, but has done nothing to protect women who walk the streets of Las Vegas.

Instead of spending countless hours drafting legislation to legalize prostitution, perhaps a greater effort could be made to alter the manner in which prostitutes are processed through the legal system. The current method of incarcerating prostitutes for one evening in order to appear before a judge the next morning does absolutely nothing to curtail repeat offenses.

In the end, prostitution is nothing more than a vicious cycle of abuse. Legalizing it has only proven to provide a safe haven for the select few.

 

CS, my brother-
Believe you me, I refuse to glamorize the worlds oldest profession. At the same time, I also refuse to allow women who will be entering into this field (you are right- due to lack of opportunities, support, and a feeling of being without alternatives) to fend for themselves. If prostitution were legal and regulated, it would allow (in theory, natch) the government to require medical testing, provide support, and help prevent the spread of STIs. Women could be more easily afforded legal recourse if they were harmed during what would be considered a voluntary exchange. And honestly, I feel that the reduction of crime and STI exchange in the one legalized forum is a powerful support of my point, and no small coincidence indeed. Even if the women who "walk the streets of Las Vegas" haven't (depending on what reports you are reading) reaped the benefits that those in legalized brothels have, does that mean that you are advocating an all-or-nothing in terms of progress? The quality of life and integrity of health has improved for one population. How is that not progress? I see it as a first step.

That aside, as well as the fiercely libertarian argument allowing individuals to conduct their lives as they choose (because I don't like using that voice) I believe MORE inherent in the practice than the vicious cycle of abuse is a vicious double standard- the frequency of prosecuting prostitutes is far greater than the prosecution of men who pay them for sex. With this tradition, we are in fact punishing the victim.

I have worked with teenaged prostitutes, and please don't misconstrue my words to mean that I want them to continue in their career paths. Trust me. More than anything, I want them to be protected and since I can't follow them outside nor can I make their choices for them, the one thing I wish they had was more access to prophylactic healthcare and health education.

Simply put (and as you iterated), punishing them is really not doing anything to curb the practice of selling one's body. Pretending it doesn't happen is NOT going to make it go away. After thousands and thousands of years, it might be time to try a different approach, no?

Thanks for your comment :-)

 

First of all, prostitution isn't even legal in Clark County which could account for the dangerousness of walking the streets in LV. As always, you guys are aiming for the same goal from different directions.

What are the drug addicts going to sell if they can't sell their drug-infested bodies? A legalized brothel is about as likely to hire or retain a drug addict as any other legitimate business. So that drug addict will sell her body on the blackmarket where prostitution isn't legislated and she doesn't have to worry about keeping clean or making her Pap appointment. Most countries that DO legalize prostitution have some regulation against streetwalkers but that doesn't mean streetwalkers cease to exist in those countries. The danger is still there, albeit even more out of sight. The problem is this: Once the government gets involved in prostitution, it's going to become as bureaucratic as every other governmental endeavor. There will be standards put into place that the woman you are trying to protect will rarely meet.

L&F: though the "quality of life and integrity of health has improved" for workers in legal Nevada brothels, are these women the abuse victims and drug addicts we're trying to help? That would be a great public health article, in my opinion. In Canada, most of the sexworkers who choose to enter the profession do it for reasons different from our vulnerable populations here in America - because they enjoy their work, not because they have a drug habit/baby/abusive childhood to take care of.

 

I don't see how legalizing prostitution would require the government to provide testing and medical support for prostitutes. It doesn't do that for anyone now except members of the military.

I understand the issue at hand regadarding health care education. But with the teenage prostitutes you worked with, why were they there in the first place? It seems to me that most of them work in the business due to a general lack of education and treatment for other issues.

I realzie that ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away, and the criminial abuse and spread of disease needs to be put to a stop. From a logical standpoint, if people didn't engage in promiscuous sex we wouldn't have this problem. Unfortunately, the tax-free, beureaucracy-free, responsible, moral solution is more antiquated than marriage.

Legalizing it takes it too far. In the last 40 years we've taken sex to its lowest common denomniator, and then some. While I understand the Libertarian viewpoint of being able to do what you want to do, but with free will comes responsibility. Legalizing prostitution is free will with responsibility left to the governing body.

Why should my tax dollars fund STI testing (when did it change from STD?) when they could be better spent on education infrastructure, which could possibly keep a few more girls and boys off of the streets.

The easiest solution is to stop fucking around. I don't know why that viewpoint is considered invalid. It's sad people with that viewpoint are fighting a losing battle.

 

Legalizing it could force men and women who sell sex to maintain a clean bill of health in order to keep their license. The girls that I worked with were prostitutes for a myriad of reasons: some were runaways, some had family members who pushed them into prostitution, some wanted to support their drug habits, and for some it was the ticket to independence. There are comorbidities for all of that, to be sure. What I can tell you is that being judgmental (at least externally) got you nowhere with them. No matter what I thought of their choices I had to keep all of that inside if I wanted to help them at all. So I did.

You can't be serious in equating promiscuity with prostitution. They are unrelated. One hundred percent. People don't go into prostitution because they have a penchant for casual sex. Obviously, it goes without saying that when you say "moral" solution you really mean YOUR morals. That's totally fine. Everyone has to put something in the perspective in which they'll understand it. My moral code allows for multiple partners over a lifetime, in the form of consensual adult sex. That practice is really very different from selling sex.

Legalizing it protects several different parties who will engage in certain risky behaviors, regardless. To use your phrasing, from a logical standpoint, our condemning it and ignoring it and double standarding it is exactly what has allowed it to reach the depths that it has. To me, legalizing and regulating it is along the same lines of sensical as a government providing a needle exchange program. In fact, I think it's even clearer- I don't believe this is the kind of commerce people engage in when they feel as though they have other options. If they knew better, they'd do better. I'm all for continuing to help them in any way I can but I'd just LOVE to protect everyone in the process.

Your tax dollars should fund STI testing (it changed a few years ago, not all sexually transmitted problems are actually diseases, DSM IV speaking- semantics) because you choose to live here and it is a public health problem affecting you, your family, your community, and your country. It's as simple as that to me.

The easiest solution for YOU is to stop fucking around. The ideal is hardly ever the easiest. Your viewpoint is hardly considered invalid, at least by me. But what I consider even sadder is the fact that some people are too married to their moral ideals and too scared to deviate from them to allow us to make a radical change that, just maybe, could make things a little bit better. It certainly couldn't make things worse. My experience has shown me that.

Again, thanks for commenting. I really do like debating.

 

The only difference between promiscuity and prostitution is the exchange of money. Indiscriminate sexual behavior is the very definition of promiscuity and indiscriminate sexual behavior is an integral part of prostitution, so to say they are unrelated is a fallacy. It may not be the reason they went into it, but it is that indiscriminate behavior that keeps the money flowing.

As far as tax funding: For me, this is why charitable donations are a fantastic write-off. That way, I can choose which private social policy programs I want to support without allowing the federal government to decide for me.

Man, I miss debate class. muah!

 

OK...I probably made a mistake throwing the moral issue in there. That usually does nothing but draw well defined borders.

So, let's look at it from a day-to-day standpoint.

Let's look at the licensing issue. I understand the reasoning for licensing based on medical testing. Let's say it was performed on a weekly basis. (I would hope it would be weekly.)

What happens when they don't show for the test? The obvious choice is to rescind their license, but how do you enforce that AND alert the community? You can't get them to stop having sex. How do you tell a potential john their license is, in effect, suspended?

On top of that, what do you do about a positive HIV test? The last time I checked, the minimum incubation period for HIV was 6 weeks. What do you do about people possibly infected during that time? Do johns sign waivers, and if not, is the government liable? Are the prostitutes liable?

This is a license that is far different than any other type of licensing. Lives are literally at stake and at a far greater risk than food poisoning.

I think your comparison to the clean needle program is apples to oranges. Condom distribution would be the appropriate comparison in this case.

You really can't guarantee clean sex. Clean needles and clean condoms are one thing, but you would have to create some rapid STI testing device for every licensed sex worker.

What happens when BCDs fail? When that happens, more than one life is affected.

Again, I understand your urge to protect people like teenage sex workers. But this program poses alot of risk and acountability issues due to complications surrounding enforcement.

(You and I need to consider creating a seperare op-ed blog.)

 

Hm. I left another comment before the weekend, and it didn't post. I don't really remember what it said, but I do remember commenting on the fact that I enjoyed the part of the day when D and i were loudly discussing johns in fiscal. I got the giggles from that.

The rest of the post said something like this, to paraphrase: I don't think your condom comparison is more relevant than a needle-exchange one because sex, generally speaking, is not illegal and intravenous drugs are. But that's an aside. The bottom line is that I see you vascillating between the argument that people just shouldn't be doing it (which they're going to anyway) and that any action I'm suggesting is just too hard to enforce. What is the alternative, then? Believe me, I realize it is a radical suggestion. But I'm pretty sure that every other option and suggestion has been exhausted. Deviation from suggested protocols occur in every single facet of existence. I understand that prostitution is illegal because it is considered wrong to sell sex, and we're all hoping to curb that behavior so we make engaging in it punishable by law. Lots of people engage in sex. Lots and lots and lots. It's the framework around it that is the issue, apparently. Our government has tried before to control the recreational habits of Americans. It was one of the most public failed experiments in our history- prohibition.


I still believe that legalization would protect more people than it would hurt. It would offer women and men who choose to sell sex more recourse if they were being abused. They'd be far more likely to go to the police after a nasty incident. That in and of itself is enough of an argument for me.

I don't really buy your suggestion of rehabilitation because (the fact that I've seen the practice fail aside) even if a woman is arrested, "rehabilitated," returned to society, and tries to pursue a job, her arrest and conviction of a sex crime shows up on her record. And to further reinforce the double standard we discussed earlier, that stigma follows a woman for.ev.er. She can't escape that. It will seriously affect her career options.

Finally, I believe that tax dollars devoted to law enforcement could be better spent in a myriad of ways other than catching hookers.

The difference is that you see legalization as perpetuating victimization, and I see it as perhaps one step closer to empowerment.

I think you're right- we definitely need to go into business. I'd love it.

PS- Did you have fun with your dad this weekend? And at the birthday party? Sorry I couldn't make it. I had to babysit.