End Legal Prostitution? Or, Decide to Get Real About It?
Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at 10:38 One of the things I always admired about Nevada - being the pragmatic realist that I am - was that the people of this state seemed to understand that certain activities exist, have always existed, will always continue to exist and therefore, Nevada legalized them and regulated them.
So where has that good common sense gone? Yesterday, Sen. Harry Reid, who grew up around bordellos in Searchlight, Nevada back in the day wants to make prostitution illegal again. Following along in righteous lockstep is today’s Reno Gazette-Journal. They don’t want to be left off the boosterism, holier-than-thou train.
Some days, you have to ask where the grownups have all gone.
It seems some business person, considering a move to Storey County - home to famous brothels - got all queasy and said he wouldn’t want his little tykes looking out the school bus window to see a brothel. I suppose this means that little tykes aren’t traumatized by gambling, and seeing their grandma blow her Social Security monthly allotment is alright.
Gee, Harry Reid … RG-J editorial staff … let me know how it is to have it both ways.
But let’s get back to whoring. We know a few things about that around here.
Why do women choose to even do that? For the fun of it? For the money? They might tell you that, but more often it’s other reasons.
A 2009 survey identified the following main vulnerability factors for German sex workers (in the order of importance):
- Financial problems, including debts and poverty.
- Violence and abuse by clients, police and pimps.
- No professional identity; lack of self-confidence.
- Stigma and discrimination.
- Exploitative personal dependencies.
Hmmmm. Those all seem to be problems that could be solved organically with really good education, that would in turn attract better, higher paying jobs. And, as some wag mentioned earlier, only when a society has little else to offer in the way of education or jobs, does a legal whorehouse trailer on the outskirts of town become a real deal breaker for incoming business.
Way back in the day, before Mr. Capt. Maven became an airline pilot, he flew plenty of charters from Idaho down to Wells, Elko and Winnemucca for nice, upstanding men. You buzzed the whorehouse, and they’d come out to the airport and pick up the Johns. Mr. Maven got to wait in the saloon with a coca-cola so he could later fly a bunch of puking, battling drunks back to their irate wives. It was a way to build up time in the logbook.
Despite this, Nevada seemed to thrive and stumble into the 20th century, albeit with some ‘baggage’ in tow.
Today, citizens and policy makers alike can too easily fall into the trap of self-righteous urban folk legend moralizing and hand wringing when it comes to prostitution. All they see are caricatures of the glamorous urban Hollywood Madams or the pitiful Crack Whores - when in reality either is merely a tip of the sex trade iceberg.
To merely assume that businesses flock to other cities - due to the supposed absence of prostitution is naive at best. You’d have to have been living on another planet to really believe this.
Most large U.S. cities - Dallas, Boston, New York City, Miami, San Francisco, Portland - have, if not exactly legal prostitution, then unofficially sanctioned prostitution. It is often spatially segregated to low-income areas, tolerated at convention centers and events (including fancy hotels), or sea-port towns. This localization works for the sex consumer - easy availability of goods ala one-stop shopping - and allows for police/social services to more easily monitor and control the trade and it’s attendant risks.
My point here, is that other cities, states and localities also offer prostitution - free trade zones, if you will - via zoning ordinances. The same can be done in any city, town, county or locality in Nevada as it is done today.
See, problem solved. Zone it away from middle-class school bus routes. The poor kids with drug addicted Mom’s already get it. The rich kids go to private boarding school in economic powerhouse Switzerland - where prostitution is legal and regulated.
Making prostitution less visible does nothing, zip, nada to make it go away. Make the regulated, controlled environs of the Bunny Ranch go away, and you’ll still have to deal with the problem as it exists in alleyways, backrooms, run down hotels, high rise apartments, glitzy hotel convention centers and high-crime areas in the poor areas.
I might just be a silly housewife, but I think gambling sort of comes hand in glove with social problems like prostitution and drug/alcohol addiction.
If Senator Reid and the Reno Gazette-Journal are truly on a mission to get rid of prostitution, then perhaps they should start by getting rid of gaming. Then Nevada can stand in line to become more like Wyoming - with not much more than sagebrush, skiing, minerals, world-class homophobia and right-wing self-righteousness to offer.
In the meantime, let’s tax the girls and buy us some ed-u-ka-tion.
-maven
