This "woke" society still can't figure out what to do about prostitutes

 

“Personal responsibility” and taking ownership of one’s statements and actions should come natural to a person who truly believes what he or she believes and willing to defend, regardless of how other people respond to it. There are of course limits to what is defensible; Donald Trump’s calls to “action” and those who carried out his desires on January 6 are an example of what goes over those limits. Not surprisingly, all of those involved have declined to take “personal” responsibility for what they did. Others might prefer to just walk out like a petulant child, like Piers Morgan did when confronted by the terrible truth on live television, or launch into juvenile tizzy fits like Tucker Carlson, or merely expand on one’s psychotic beliefs like Marjorie Taylor Greene. And lest we need to belabor the point, the “buck” never stopped at Trump’s empty desk.

One thing all these people have in common is that they view themselves as the real “victims” in one way or the other. With people who do not take responsibility for what they do or say, we would of course expect that those with an outsider’s perspective to set the record straight for them, but that is not always the case—especially when the “outsider” views themselves as an “insider,” and in seeing themselves as “victims,” project their own definitions on another. Often this is done to “explain” why people, say in impoverished circumstances, only commit crimes because they can’t find any legitimate means of support; they are thus “victims” of society. I don’t sympathize with this view (much) because although I have frequently found myself in a bad situation since I stopped being “dependent” on family, there was never legitimate work that I found too menial to do to stay alive.

Of course, what constitutes as a “crime” is not always understood in the same way by everyone, especially when people are allegedly “forced” into illegal occupations that social and political activists find convenient to use to advance their own purposes. Gender activists seem to be most adept at this kind of thing. Take, for instance, the issue of prostitution, once called the “oldest profession in the world,” but in recent years the term “sex trafficking” is in vogue, since it makes it sound more “sinister” and takes away any personal responsibility for the persons engaged in it, or at least those of an age where you would expect them to make “adult” decisions about their career choices. “Trafficking” means the “recruitment”—forced or not—of people to perform some sort of “labor,” and it is a big problem in certain parts of the world; but in the U.S., it is a term used a bit more injudiciously by victim advocacy groups, perhaps in some case exploiting the term to attract more donations to their “causes.” Yes, I am a very cynical person when I see hypocrisy at play.

I’m bringing this subject up because of a report that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is pushing to dismiss all current prostitution cases, and to “decriminalize sex work” after the law against “loitering for the purpose of prostitution” was repealed last month. This was done, according to ABC News, because it “too often targeted women, tans people and people of color based solely on their appearance.” That of course is a lot of hypocritical bullshit if those are in fact most of the people who are “streetwalking” out in the open. The piece goes on to say that “The request came as prosecutors across the country are rethinking their views of prostitution. It is no longer viewed entirely as a crime, but often as a consequence of sex trafficking.”

So there you have it. Prostitutes and “sex workers” are to be judged as having no responsibility for their career decisions; they are all to be judged solely as “victims” of society. It doesn’t matter how many entered the trade on their own initiative, a “job” where they might “work” for an hour a night, expect to get cash up front, and virtually tax-free. Isn’t it “odd” that people who insist that people who are in the sex trade are “victims” don’t actually think they might consider these “perks” as a reason to be in it?

But if we insist that sex workers are actually “victims,” then someone has to be the “victimizer.” That of course are the people sex workers sell their “wares” to make their money. Isn’t “odd” that the buying of “sex” is considered as much a crime as selling illegal drugs, while the selling of sex is more a social “problem,” no more criminal than being a pot smoker? For Melinda Katz, district attorney in Queens, New York, tireless fighter for gender victims and a supporter of the change in the law, this is not really about “justice” but about personal politics. This is her standing outside somewhere; I think she telegraphs fairly well that “fair and equal justice" for all is not her strong suit.

Nevertheless, I actually agree that prostitution should be decriminalized and people who engage in it should have the same rights—and responsibilities—as any working person in this country. The problem of course is the insistence of gender activists to keep at least the male end of it illegal just so that they can use it as a political cudgel. To these people, prostitution is virtually the only “occupation” where the people in the “business” expect to be “victimized” by the very people they make their living off of, meaning “johns.” Who are “johns”? Are most of them just “lonely guys” who other women ignore, or just looking for a quick “good time” from someone who won’t say “no” if you got the cash?

It doesn’t matter, since if prostitutes are “victims,” there has to be a “victimizer,” and to this purpose many jurisdictions are employing what is called the “Nordic” model, called such because it was first employed in Sweden. According to this system, prostitution is legal—unless, of course, you are caught “purchasing” the wares, the “idea” being that once the “buyers” are  all scared off, the sellers will have to find other employment. Since prostitutes are really “victims,” the law regards as them as “bait” to arrest anyone who is desperate or fool enough to take the bait. Whether the law is “fair” or not, or fraught with the worst kind of hypocrisy is not the point; very little about gender victim politics is about what is “fair” or not.

Perhaps it should not be surprising, then, that there has been a “damned if you do, damned if don’t” discussion in regard to the “Nordic” approach. For example, it is observed that “transactions” are more likely to conducted via phone or Internet rather than on the street, and those who choose to “streetwalk” have less time to negotiate with “clients,” which does not allow them to safely “access” the client, thus making them more “vulnerable” to “exploitation”—as if prostitutes are not doing the “exploiting” themselves by taking advantage of a “natural” need of some men. Here, even if you declare prostitutes acting “legally” yet treat “johns” as “criminals,” prostitutes are still somehow the “victims.”

The solution to all of this is that both prostitution and its “purchase” is either legal, or it isn’t; you can’t “mix and match" it. A 2011 study in the UK claimed that most “sex workers” are not “trafficked” and chose to sell sex because “it earns more money than other jobs,” according to The Evening Standard. The story went on to say that “The majority of sex workers questioned believe that working conditions were better than in other occupations and gave them more free time.” The principle “negative” about the business was the “stigma” placed on their profession, and being forced to live a “double life.” One suspects that most prostitutes, if asked in a nonjudgmental environment, would say that they are not the “victims” that their advocates claim them to be; they might actually just say “leave us alone.” This is probably especially true of those who work on their own and not through a “third-party”—i.e. pimp or “madam”—and account for 90 percent or more of those who work in the “trade.”

Which of course brings up another sticky point: prostitutes are more likely to call themselves “victims” if they are put in a position of, say, the threat of incarceration, or if gender victim advocates put so much shame on them that in order to “defend” themselves they must also agree that they are the “victims” they are told they are supposed to be—although some might employ the caveat that it isn’t being prostitutes that is the source of their “victimization,” but the lack of other easy-paying job opportunities.

Child sex trafficking, is of course a much worse circumstance; the problem is that there is in fact no real evidence that this is as serious or widespread a problem in the U.S. as media reports claim; in the past, the numbers produced by human-trafficking advocates were exposed to be based on a revolving number of underage children (meaning anyone under 18 qualifies as a "child") who are identified as missing or runaways at any giving time who may or may not be “at risk”; but there was no proof provided how many of these runaways were actually involved in the sex trade. 

A Georgia case last year  found what were called 39 "missing or endangered" children, the oldest 17; the U.S. Marshals Service only claimed that they "feared" they might be victims of sex trafficking, or at least they were at "high risk" of being so. Even assuming that some of them were victims, it didn't help that the Service further deflated the claims by admitting that an unspecified number of them were located because of requests to "ensure their wellbeing." Efforts that were made in the past to “track down” child sex workers in major cities had such difficulty finding any that researchers on the subject could only “postulate” that there could be “hundreds” in the U.S. as a whole.

The fact is that when victim advocates don’t really know what they are talking about and employ knowingly exaggerated or false “facts,” no matter how important the issue they are speaking of may be, they make it easier for them to be seen as self-promoters of the “feeling good about feeling bad” stripe and thus not credible. I’m probably like most people on the existence of prostitutes: don’t bother me, and I won’t bother you. I’m not even sure why it was declared illegal in the first place; after all, are we not constantly told that women can do whatever they want with their own bodies—especially for money? Either make it legal on both ends, or not, but this “mixing and matching” shit doesn’t work.  It is probably better to just legalize adult “sex work” and insure that sex workers are protected by the same labor rights as anyone else. Only arresting “johns” is just as dumb as only arresting purchasers of illegal drugs; the “trade” will just go further “underground,” because there are just as many willing to “sell” as there is to “buy.”

Perhaps it would be useful to mention that although my encounters with prostitutes have been few are far between, they did have an effect on my life.  I encountered one when I was in the Army, while I was waiting for a Greyhound bus to take me from Fort Hood to Los Angeles. I had this idea that LA would be a “neat” place to live, and I had a little money saved-up to start out with. While I was waiting outside for the bus at the Killeen terminal at around 10 PM, a slightly-built young women approached me and proposed a transaction. I told her I couldn’t comply because I had to catch a bus in 30 minutes, to which she kind of laughed and said the proposed transaction wouldn’t take that long, which I suppose meant that her place of business was just around the corner. She didn’t really look the “type” to me, and I figured she needed the money; but I’m no “wolf” and I just wasn’t interested, although I was sort of “flattered” that even if in desperation I wasn’t repulsive enough to at least be consider a possible “customer.”

But the fact that I turned down the offer did have consequences that I could not have foreseen; if I had missed that bus and was obliged to take the next one, my life would have taken a completely different trajectory.  That old adage “a fool and his money are soon parted” would come very much into play. I might write something about that sometime.

The other encounter I had with a prostitute happened when I moved to Seattle permanently. I had $600 on me and didn’t know anyone, but I put on a sport coat and convinced the manager of a rundown apartment in Capitol Hill to approve my credit right on the spot, using almost every cent I had to pay the first and last month’s rent—leaving me with just enough change to livd on hotdogs and water for the next four weeks until I found work to pay the bills. It wasn’t long before I had some rather bizarre encounters with my new neighbors; one night I heard some muffled banging sounds next door, and the next thing I knew there was someone knocking on my door, and there in the hallway was this scrawny little black guy wearing nothing but his briefs covered literally from head to toe with what was either scratch marks or cigarette burns. He wanted to use my phone to call the police about his girlfriend.

I had a Brother word processor (purchasing a $2,000 Mac was out of my “range” until those credit cards started piling up) with a 80-character LED screen, spellchecker, floppy drive and a built-in printer (actually a very useful machine for its limited purpose), and I proceeded to work on my “manuscript,” which after all these years I still have in .doc form on my laptop; maybe one of these days I can find something in it that’s “salvageable.” Anyways, I was busy typing away when a couple days after the first incident I heard another late night knock on my door. This time I resolved not to open the door again, but there was this female voice wailing on the other side about wanting a drink of water. I should have told her that I didn’t have any cups, but she kept wailing away and wouldn’t go away. What was going on here?

Unfortunately I had not yet reached the point where cynicism had erased all hope for humanity, and I allowed myself to get sucked into this ridiculous situation and opened the door just enough to see what was going on, and before I knew it, this woman had invited herself inside. Okay, I found a cup, put some water in it from the kitchen faucet and gave it to her, and sat down at the table and hoped this was the end of it. She took a sip, put it down and moved closer so that I would get a better look as she proceeded to lift her shirt to present her pleasure pillows. I was equal parts embarrassed and uncomfortable with this display, not because I hadn’t seen a real, live woman’s bare breasts before (I spent seven years in the pre-woke military, after all), but because it was clear that she expected something in return. To quote Henry Fielding from Tom Jones: “A generous man is a fool in the eyes of a thief”—and not that my “guest” had gotten her foot into the door, it was time to get down to the true purpose of this visit.

This woman, sensing that the trailer hadn’t been enough to entice me to see the movie, attempted to reduce my discomfort with flattery and embracing; when she sensed I was weakening a bit, she got down to “business” and asked me how much money I had. I told her that I only had $9, thinking that would be the end of it; however, I don’t think she believed me. I just sat there looking blankly at sheets of paper on the table that had been ejected from the word processor. She didn’t seem to intend on leaving, and I was loath to put my hands on her. Maybe I could have threatened to call the police, but it never entered my mind. I would have preferred to just  walk away, except that was a little inconvenient because it was my “house.”

Unfortunately, this person was fixated on doing whatever was necessary to exit wealthier than when she entered. She apparently was a “pro” at this kind of thing, because she knew what buttons to push on a timid procrastinator. It didn’t take long before I felt the only way I was going to get out of this mess was to let her do whatever  she felt was the minimum “service” after perusing the contents of my wallet, which at least covered the cost of the prophylactic she produced; needless-to-say the “service” provided was in keeping with the purchase price, and I didn’t derive any “pleasure” from it at all. She wasn’t done, of course; she proceeded to rifle through some drawers to see what spare change I had laying around, and in her haste she tripped over the electrical cord of the word processor, knocking it on the floor. Suffice to say I couldn’t believe this was all happening, sitting there watching in dazed amazement; fortunately she made an inquiry about the bathroom, and I was able to steer her out of the room and toward the communal bathroom in the hallway. After that every knock passed unheard.

To be honest I didn’t want to share this story with anyone, accept to say that my opinions on certain “hot-button” topics are usually derived from personal experiences; I have a “tougher” standard about who qualifies as a “victim,” and there are plenty of hypocrites in this world, even in “progressive” Seattle where you find people who don’t “get” that you only have to “shit” on one group to be a “shitter.”