Letters to the Editor
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Legalization in Nevada didn't change anything
This reminds me of the argument that legalizing drugs will end organized crime. Prohibition may have fueled the rise of organized crime, but it didn't disappear when Prohibition ended. Legal prostitution only means that the prostitutes and pimps won't be arrested. It won't change their working conditions.
Germany legalized prostitution a few years ago. However, the laws only apply to German citizens who register as prostitutes. The 75%-90% of prostitutes who aren't German citizens have no legal rights.
Bob Hebert has written quite a few pieces about prostitution in Nevada. Prostitution is still illegal in Clark County (Las Vegas) and Washoe County (Reno), but plenty of prostitutes work there. Legal or illegal, prostitutes in Nevada are still controlled by their pimps. They have to give 50% of their earnings to their pimp, they often have to live on the "ranch", in the middle of nowhere, and they usually aren't allowed to own cars. Because prostitution is legal, there are very few resources for women who want to get out of prostitution.
The Nevada Coalition against Sex Trafficking has some interesting statistics about legal prostitution, in Nevada and elsewhere. Their website: http://www.nevadacoalition.org/
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The Definitive Article
Amerigo and others:
Did you read Nicholas Kristof's column? I have followed this excellent reporter's stories for the past several years, and he is a consistent and insistent voice for the voiceless in the sex slave trade industry around the world. (which amounts almost exclusively to this front, unfortunately).... Anyway, I was wondering if you'd read the full article. It forces a rethinking of the issue, even if you've been on the side of less government interference.
Yes, I have read the full article and I don't think there is much difference between his opinion and mine.
He says that statistically the number of prostitutes in the US who are underage and controlled by pimps dwarfs the number of young women who voluntarily sell sex.
I will take his word on that, though his single source may not have the whole picure. If that is the case, it is the RESULT of prostitution prohibition that the vast majority of prostitutes in the US are both a) underage, b)controlled by brutal criminal pimps.
I would much prefer to see a situation where the vast majority were young women who voluntarily sell sex, with underage girls controlled by pimps being a small problem.
Having worked in a maximum security prison myself (for a few months, I am certainly very familiar with the kind of men who espouse the gansta culture, regard all women as ho's, belong to street gangs, and make their living by selling drugs and pimping under age girls.
I am very happy for laws against pimping to be made stronger and to make it easier to lock these guys up for long periods. Very happy.
He also says:
Sure, there are young women who voluntarily sell sex; some of them have posted lately on my blog, nytimes.com/ontheground. Reasonable people can disagree about whether the police should devote resources to such cases.
I don't think police resources should be dedicated to such cases. I am all in favor of putting police resources into prosecuting criminal pimps, protecting and rehabilitating teenage runaways, and prosecuting all johns who have sexual contact with girls who are under age. Why would I not be?
Where I might disagree with the author of the article, though he does not explicitly state this, is that a continued across the board ban on any payment for any kind of sexual service would do anything to help teenage girls who are victimized by vicious criminal pimps. That ban already exists and it is not helping.
As far as Tina's question about women imported from Nigeria, Vietnam and other parts, my answer is this. It is already pretty difficult to get visas for single women from immigrant countries to come to the US.
For example, any man who applies for more than one fiancee visa is automatically entered into a database that creates an alert. Of course criminal gangs might use all kinds of means, such as forging I-20 forms so as to obtain student visas, but then we are talking about organized crime, and organized crime is not bothered about what is legal and what is not.
Practically the only way you can get a woman from Africa or Vietnam to the US is by air travel, which in turn requires a lot of documentation to be recorded and entered into databases, especially since 9/11, for example who pays for air fares, and I am all for law enforcement enforcing laws. Why would I not be?
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Bribery?
The thing about bribery is that it is robbery. An official is using his/her powers to extort favors (which may be money, or sex, or something else) from civilians. POWER is just as corrupting if they want their plumbing fixed as if they want money or sex.
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Amerigo doesn't give a shit about the women, but here goes:
In order to view prostitution as a job, and in order to keep the business of sexual exploitation running smoothly, we can not know that when prostitution is legalized or decriminalized, it gets worse. And we can not know that there are some excellent laws that are aimed squarely at abolishing the institution of prostitution while at the same time supporting the women in it to escape.
Quote from Melissa Farley who has studied prostitution for 35 years. She concludes that prostitution is a human rights issue and that most prostitutes struggle with, among other things, PTSD and eventually, most turn to drugs to escape the pain.
But Amerigo you do not care about what anyone says who has studied the issue for 35 years because you are admittedly a john and you have a vested interest in justifying yourself. As such everything you say is tainted.
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No one is saying hooking is a necessary and social good
They're saying it's a grey area, which in some circumstances, represents both a victimless crime and an economic opportunity.
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Amerigo...
what, you think they have visas? What does "illegal immigrant" mean, pray tell? Fuck, anything to argue, isn't that right? You're just making shit up and not even trying to make sense.