- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Prostitution is the same as many other crimes in the US (and many other places). How it is treated by the legal system has a great deal to do with the socio-economic class of the participants. Rich people snorting a line of cocaine at a party are engaging in behavior that's just as criminal as a couple of guys sharing crack in a back alley. But the latter are far, far more likely to end up in jail than the former.
The behavior of Melissa Beech and her "benefactor" is arguably as illegal -- in the spirit of the law, at least -- as a streetwalker and a john. But the former are protected by the exchange of financial value for sex being less blatant ... and by it involving people who are financially much better-off.
