Here We Go Again or Goodbye Spitzer

Well, here we go again, a politician who can’t control his sexual urges. This time it’s our governor of New York, Elliot Spitzer. He was caught procuring a prostitute (I’m not gonna glamorize it with ’call girl’) for $4,300.

I’m pissed off right there, before we go any further. Do you know how many months of rent that is for a lot of New Yorkers?? We have people evicted cause there is no affordable housing in NYC; but the rich have it so good that they can spend 4K on hookers?

When I first heard about Spitzer’s skanky little trysts (he was a regular, they asked if he’d be paying the same way he usually did); I knew what was going to happen. "I’m sorry, I let my family down, I apologize, the old Jimmy Swaggart/Bill Clinton/Jesse Jackson whine.

There would be a newspaper pic of the humiliated yet loyal wife standing beside him; supporters crying "framed"; the old platitude that prostitution is a victimless crime and demands to "legalize it". The young prostitute would get offers to appear in Playboy, perhaps a book or movie deal.

It happened as I said.

But what really surprised me this time was the response, from many people whom I’d considered progressive, mostly male but a few women; who overwhelmingly took the view that basically there’s nothing wrong with prostitution if we could only keep them regulated and disease free. There was discussion on how so many men are sexually unfulfilled because of problematic wives and there was almost the idea that the society owes it to men to provide women to service them if they can’t have sex at home; they can’t find or keep girlfriends; if they only want women for sex alone and can’t find fuk buddies; if they cannot get aroused without a partner engaging in degrading or violent practices; or if there is some flaw in their appearance or character that is so bad that they are just not viable.

I feel their pain. Boohoo. But that still doesn’t entitle them to require a percentage of women and girls in the society to aspire to a life of prostitution whether it’s because it pays well or because its one of the few unskilled jobs available in the current crashing downhill economy.

We’re in 2008. No woman or girl (or boy or man) should have to sell themselves to live in this society anymore than they should sign on to be slaves, serfs or indentured servants. Thats supposed to be over. My community shouldnt have women even in their 40’s and 50’s as well as young teenagers who are prostitutes because they are trafficked. We shouldn’t have women who are prostituting themselves because welfare benefits are deliberately created to pay less than it takes to live. We shouldn’t have women (girls, men or boys) who have to sell their bodies because of their drug addictions or homelessness or their regular jobs pay so low that they qualify for social services.

Our culture fights hard for prostitution at the same time that it shuns them. It’s a schitzophrenic situation. We’re told its wrong morally and its illegal as we are bombarded with stories about about the Mayflower Madame, Heidi Fleiss and other women from upper class families, "callgirls" who make fortunes of money for having sex with the rich and famous. There are the arrests or public exposure of famous, good-looking men, who could have "any woman they want" but prefer prostitutes. Why is there such a continuous flow of front page stories like this in the press; instead of the stories that happen more often; prostitutes killed by johns; prostitutes killed by pimps, the drugs and overdoses, the trafficked women held hostages and living not in luxurious penthouses but on side by side mattresses on a floor. But those stories lack the glamor that allows young women to see it as a viable way out, an "easy" way to success. Without the fairytale, prostitution the exploitation is just too visible.

Ok some will say, its unfortunate but what can we do about it? It’s the oldest profession. It’s been with us forever.

It hasn’t been with us forever. Perhaps its been a staple of capitalist society, but not in all societies, not in societies where women were of worth and respected in the culture. And even in countries that did have prostitution; it was not considered like drugs, to be an unstoppable fact of life. Chairman Mao proved that with both prostitution and drugs.

If a society has the will to stop it, they can, and not by legalization, unless we legalize prostitution and criminalize the johns.

Arresting the johns would have a major effect on ending or greatly diminishing prostitution. During the year I lived in Brighton Beach (early 1990’s); just the photos of johns arrested on the front page of the local press cleared the streets for several weeks. The majority of the prostitutes who solicited there at that time were Black and Latina; the johns who were picked up and made the cover of the paper were White, and there were several rabbis, though on my own I saw a few Mexican laborers trying to pick up girls. Several times I was solicited on my way to the store, the beach, the library.

Public outcry (probably from johns and wouldbe johns) against the invasion of privacy, innocent until proven guilty, yatta yatta, and the newspaper stopped the "hall of shame" photos.

I don’t think the U.S. will pass the Swedish law. The idea, even among "progressives" that somehow men have a right to have access to prostitutes for whatever sob-story reason they give; seems to be too ingrained here. And I don’t think its out of respect for "sex workers" as being equal to any other work; or misguided feminists who feel its a form of freedom. I think prostitution in America is linked instead to the power of the rich over the poor; and the slavemaster over the slave.