My wife and I ran a tanning salon for nearly ten years.. A fair number of our clients were strippers, some of whom turned some tricks now and then.

The really nice looking women don't have to sell their bodies, all they have to do to make very good money is display their wares and men will shove money at them just to look.

If you are an exhibitionist anyway, which a lot of the strippers are, it's like getting paid to do a hobby you really enjoy. Our clients came from several clubs and in every case if a customer at the club touched any of them in any way she didn't like they were ejected by large and vigorous security guards who took a very protective attitude toward their charge, if the offense was egregious the customer could very well suffer some bodily injury during the ejection process.

Sure, some of the women had problems, but people in all walks of life have problems.. Why do they call it the Betty Ford Clinic? I was truly surprised at how many of the strippers were making plans for the future, saving money, getting an education, buying businesses and so on.

The very first rule of getting ahead in a capitalist society is that you have to sell yourself.. What better training to be a successful capitalist than literally selling your sizzle rather than your steak?

I did have one of the strippers tell me once that there was nothing wrong with men except for everything they say and everything they do. ;-)

I was not asking about your civics background nor for a government lesson but your own opinion which is unclear to me as it appears you were holding the voting public more responsible than the government who is in charge of law enforcement. However, that is OK, I don't need any further clarification, thanks.

This is nothing new. In the less-PC early 20th Century it was called "white slavery" and the victims were mainly either immigrant girls living alone in US cities, or girls fresh-off-the-farm coming to urban areas to make a living, and getting entrapped in the "trade."

For an informative and readable account of the anti-white-slavery movement and its battles with the Chicago vice business, check out "Sin and the Second City" by Karen Abbott.

Even the best bat at 0.400. GG struck out on this one. On to the next battle.

"Then answer me this: What are those women who are engaging in prostitution supposed to do when their source of income is removed?

Tina Schrier refuses to answer this question and I would be willing to wager serious money that you won't answer it either.

You moralists would rather someone else starve than violate one of *your* moral precepts, precepts that are by no means universal.

Right offhand I can't think of anything much more immoral than taking away someone's sole means of supporting themselves and leaving them to starve in the street just in order to satisfy your own sense of self-righteous indignation."

What pathetic bullshit. Really, there are ABSOLUTELY no other alternatives than prostitution and that really is someone's "sole means of supporting themselves"? In this day and age?! Give me a break. As long as society/gov't gets off its lazy ass and ensures that people have other means of employ available to them other than prostitution, then yes, prostitution can remain illegal. It's doing the hard work of providing a lifeline to education -- hell maybe even microfinance is needed in this country now -- and other resources to lead the way to alternative jobs than laying on your back. And Western gov'ts are doing the hard work now anyway (but could be better) with outreach programs, social services, addiction centres, shelters, employment training, etc. all to encourage people to get off the streets and into other jobs. Maybe various states/levels of gov't can make these opportunities more accessible, not arguing with that.

So yeah, no one's leaving anyone to "starve in the streets", not with this plethora of resources. Unless that's their own intention.

"Jane Hamsher is asking similar and additional questions about this very odd prosecution."

Spitzer is not being prosecuted. He has not been charged with any crime. His name was leaked in an apparent effort to destroy his political career and humiliate him personally.

it's not that I'm refusing to answer your question, its just that it's a diversionary tactic and as such is not worth my time.

In the time you took to write this post you could have answered my question easily.

Just because someone is driven to desperation by poverty doesn't mean prostitution is right. In fact, it's pretty much an admission of what I've been saying, that prostitution is not the Happy Hooker myth its proponents claim it to be.

Where do you get the idea that I'm a prostitution "proponent"? Where have I ever said jack about the happy hooker?

Why can you not understand that leaving people alone to do as they see fit with their own bodies does not mean that someone who advocates that completely agrees with what they might do?

So which is it now, are they desperately poor women on the verge of starvation or is it just another choice any woman can be happy with? Which? You can't have it both ways, now.

It can be either, both or neither. I have never in any way indicated otherwise.

I'm taking *your* *own* *position*, that prostitutes do it from desperation, and asking you the first logical question that popped into my mind. That question being, if prostitutes are prostitutes from desperation then what the hell are they going to do when that foul means of support is taken from them?

Own up to your own rhetoric, you made the claim that prostitutes are invariably prostitutes from desperation (and indeed I know that some large percentage are) then answer the question which inevitably arises from your stated desire to remove their means of support.

Let's impoverish you and then drop you on the ground of a society run by women whose most basic belief is that men are only good for what's between their legs, and good for only as long as the surrounding area is young, smooth, good-looking, and tanned.

Let's see how well and for how long you manage.

Of COURSE your stripper customers were well-protected by the bouncers at the club that employed them. They were a valuable commodity. For a very very brief amount of time. Then what? After they are no longer young enough to appeal to the typical male strip club audience? Then what do they do to earn a living? Then what protection do they find? They sure as hell will not get any respect from the men who formerly ogled them.

And if they tanned themselves unnaturally to make themselves look good for ogling men, they will have leathery looking skin even sooner than they should have in nature. You were taking simultaneously their money and reducing their working time in the overall scheme of things. How ironic. Yet you see nothing wrong with women selling themselves. Why should you? You profited from it.