Once victim, always victim—that’s the law! – Thomas Hardy
The concept of a victimless crime is a theoretical absurdity; to be sure there are thousands of such crimes on the law-books of every jurisdiction in the world, but generally governments defeat arguments against such laws by defining the victim as some vague collective entity such as “the crown”, “the state”, “the peace” or my personal favorite, “public decency”. But since the Cult of Victimhood has become supreme in the United States (and to a lesser extent other Western countries) it has become less popular to define such entities as the victims; more often nowadays they are replaced with less vague (though equally collective) entities such as “children”, “women”, various minorities, etc. In my column of January 9th we talked about the shift from blaming prostitutes for leading innocent men astray to the Swedish Model’s blaming of men for exploiting poor helpless prostitutes; we pointed out that the two ideas are both equally absurd because both presume one malevolent criminal and one helpless victim when in actuality prostitution is a private arrangement in which no government has any legitimate interest. The attempt to define any phenomenon in inapplicable terms always creates such absurdities; if a mad dictator established a law that all moving entities on a farm are to be considered animals, how would you define tractors, irrigation booms and hay-balers? Incorrect assumptions inevitably engender nonsensical classification.
In general, governments love the Cult of Victimhood because it trains the sheeple to think of themselves as faceless members of some docile herd which can expect nothing but slaughter. This not only makes them more tractable, it also gives individual demagogues ready-made campaign rhetoric. All a politician need do is find a herd he feels comfortable with (women, homosexuals, ethnic minorities, child cultists, religious fundamentalists, the poor, etc), adopt their rhetoric wholesale, and promise them whatever it is they want to hear. Once he gets in power he can then push for cosmetic changes which convince his followers he’s on “their side” but actually change nothing, and he’s in business for life. But sometimes, reality gets in the way and such a politician’s promises of action are revealed as nothing but sand castles. What happens then? If you are a politician who has promised something which is literally impossible to deliver due to economics (“a chicken in every pot”), human nature (“an end to all prejudice against gay people”) or the physical laws of the universe (“protection of all citizens from natural disasters”), you might succeed in lying your way through an entire career but then again, you might not. Sooner or later the pigeons will come home to roost, and if you’re still above ground when they do, how can you keep them from pooping all over your roof?
The answer, of course, is to lie some more. But when an elephant has made itself at home in one’s parlor, no mere garden-variety lie will do; it’s time for a really BIG lie. One classic dodge in such circumstances is to blame some unpopular “them” (such as communists, Jews, “illegal aliens”, etc) for the problems and then declare war on that group. If the opposing political party has recently made some high-profile blunder they are natural scapegoats, but the best choice for this strategy is a group which by its very nature is secret (or better yet, nonexistent) so that one can accuse anyone who opposes the crusade as being a member of it. The problem with this strategy is that pedophiles and terrorists can only be blamed for so much; not even the stupidest voter is going to believe that Satanists are responsible for every mugging. So when politicians are confronted with a problem too large to be ignored and too widespread to be blamed on any one group, they resort to the biggest lie of all: redefinition.
In the 1980s the US Congress recognized that there simply wasn’t enough money to support the vast number of mental patients under state care any longer. So government-employed and government-subsidized psychologists were pressured to invent the new and improved doctrine of “de-institutionalization”; in other words the government paid them to lie and say it was better for mental patients to be let loose on the streets than to be confined in state institutions. So they were released, and the enormous population of “mental patients” was redefined practically overnight as “homeless people”. The insoluble federal government problem was thus redefined as a local social problem, and Pilate declared his hands clean. Similarly, “broken homes” were considered a major problem in the ‘60s and ‘70s, so we just redefined them as “single-parent homes” and declared them to be a good thing. Presto! The problem disappears. Only like a stage magician making some large thing vanish, it’s really still there; you just can’t see it any more.
As I said at the beginning of today’s column, the government sometimes finds it convenient to define people as victims who are not so as to justify the enforcement of laws against consensual crimes. But sometimes, it does the opposite; when faced with potential embarrassment over the inability to decrease crime rates, a government may define crime victims as not being victims at all. While some governments and agencies are busy defining voluntary adult prostitutes as a kind of rape victim, other governments and agencies have been equally busy defining rape victims as voluntary participants in sex. It has become clear that police departments in cities all over the United States, including but by no means limited to Baltimore, Houston, Milwaukee, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, St. Louis, St. Paul and Virginia Beach, routinely classify rape reports as “unfounded” after cops pressure women to recant via intimidation, accusations of lying and threats to “investigate” every aspect of the victim’s personal lives. Some of this behavior may be due to misogyny, good ol’ boy attitudes or just plain epidemic laziness, but most of it seems to be motivated by pressure from above to make it seem as though the police are actually doing their jobs (“see, the rape rates have decreased; vote for me!”)
Far be it from a silly whore to tell these heroic crime-fighting professionals how to do their jobs, but I do have one teensy suggestion: if police departments in all these cities would reassign their vice squads to rape duty, and spend the money they waste on “stings” to investigate rapes instead, they might be able to REALLY reduce the rape rate instead of pretending to. I realize protecting women probably isn’t as much fun for these big heroes as victimizing them, but maybe it’s time to start requiring cops to produce results for their pay like everybody else.
Of course, the situation is slightly more complicated because some of the people involved, even in the government or other superstructural bodies, may actually believe in the ideas they spread. I.e., some of them may sincerely buy into the idea of prostitute-as-victim or client-as-victim, and believe that they’re working for the betterment of society. (In a sense this is even tragic, because it means the best among them — the politicians who actually do “give a damn” — are giving a damn for the wrong cause. It would almost be better if they were just shameless liars like the others. Few things are as sad — and as dangerous — as a misguided idealist.)
Did this actually happen in such an obvious way? I mean, can the money and the governmental pressure be traced with evidence? (This sounds like the kind of thing opposition parties would love to use against the government.) I had heard this was a consequence of overcrowding, and that it would have been worse for patients to stay in understaffed mental institutions.
But why would the pressure be mostly on rapes, rather than on other crimes in general? Is it maybe because there are more doubtful, he-said-she-said, ‘dismissable’ cases of rape than of other crimes?
if police departments in all these cities would reassign their vice squads to rape duty, and spend the money they waste on “stings” to investigating rapes, they might be able to REALLY reduce the rape rate instead of pretending to.
Amen!
Not when it’s bipartisan. Unlike most countries the US doesn’t have true political parties, just two branches of one “Big Government” party.
Good excuse, isn’t it?
Perhaps, or maybe other crimes are being lied about as well.
Very Good Post,
I do not think Prostitution is a (Victimless Crime) when men are seeing street hoes. These men do not use protection, they get diseases and then take it home to their wife or girl friend. Is this fair?…..NO! I am also a nurse and I worked in an STD clinic several years ago. It was sad and shocking to see some of the things that I saw. I remember one girl who came in with her boy friend, who had cheated on her when she was out of town. The girl he cheated with called the girl friend and told her everything and told her SHE had just been informed she had HIV, and to go get tested. Anyway the girl friend tested postive right away, the boy friend tested postive 2 week later. The Girl friend had a weaker immune system, so she contracted AIDS much faster. She lived only 5 months. I never found out anymore on the cheating boy friend. It was determined that the girl that the boy friend cheated with had infected him, he then infected his girl friend. In my opinion this cheating boy friend and the girl he cheated with as well as the man that infected her, so on and so on are guilty of MURDER.
Just more info for the public.
Yes the cops love chasing working girls of upper end because they try to shake them down. It happen to me ONCE. I knew they were cops the moment I stepped into the room, but I played it out as best I could. The cop, who was totally naked at one point, I never was, told me “It was nice to watch you dance and I would like to get together with you.” “If you do not agree, You will go to jail, I will tow your car and hit you with three charges, including unlawful trespass” Well as it happened, I agreed, but he wanted two feebies a week and two thousands dollars per week to keep the cops away, tell me where they we set up etc…I went to dinner with him, played dumb about his gun and got him to show it to me. I memorized the serial #. The Police Dept name was stamped in the side of course. It was a Glock. I later called Internal Affaires and explained his plan and gave them the serial # from HIS City owned/assigned to him gun. This made the entire city and county go after me. They never could get past screening though.
Yes the police do this all the time to up scale call girls as well as Drug Dealers etc… It gets them extra money.
TO SERVE AND PROTECT….Yeah Right!!!
This thing with the cop is really horrible, Joyce! What happened to that cop, by the way, after you denounced him? Did they punish him or something, do you know?
I wished there was something you could do to about things like that. Maybe talk to a newspaper.
The story of the HIV-infected girlfriend is tragic, Joyce. She really got screwed by life. But I don’t think it was prostitution that was a crime in this case; it was the prostitute’s negligence in not taking care of STD risk (and perhaps his own for not wearing a condom, for not thinking of the possibility of getting an STD, especially with a streetwalker). Now, of course being a streetwalker is difficult enough, with cops after you and everything; you may argue that the circumstances under which she worked made it hard or even impossible for her to get herself tested herself regularly, I don’t know. But this does not make prostitution a crime, it only means that people who don’t get themselves tested regularly are running a risk.
Poor people in general have a higher risk of contracting all kinds of diseases (I suppose even HIV) than richer people. When they contract these diseases, they also pass them to others. Does that make poverty a crime?
The STD rate among university students is almost 5x what it is among streetwalkers, so if STDs are an excuse for criminalizing any kind of sex we should start with “free” sex between university students. 🙁
Nothing happened to the cop other than a reprimand. I could not get the other 3 girls to work with me in going to the press, so I guess they paid him weekly. I know Services pay the police off, but I always refused to be apart of that in my independent work.
Yes the Girl that was infected with HIV was truly sad and I still maintain she was a Victim of her Boy Friend. Other wise we have to say Congress Woman GIFFORDS was a victim of life and not JARED LOUGHNER.
Joyce
I meant to add that while STDs are indeed higher among Students. I think HIV is higher among those slapping the Bricks. Hiv is deadly, but who really wants to get ANY disease. There are places where Street walkers can get tested, but some have been caught working the streets knowing they have HIV. Yes they do it to mostly support their Drug Habit. Some have kids to feed and will do unsafe things for extra money. Some are controlled by pimps. Most men do not want to wear a condom, even Spitzer was black listed as a difficult client for offering extra for “Bare Back”, however the class of girls he saw worked around the situation.
I told my husband he could see a call girl, but not a street walker and PROTECTION must always be used, so he had to see the high end girls only. The ones that are not going to take a chance on their life for ANY man or extra money. I was making 14 Thousand Dollars per week and refused to ruin that or my health over some idiot that wanted bare back.
No proverty is not a crime, but unfecting the innocent with diseases is.
Both these post are in response to ASEHPE and MAGGIE. I hope it helps.
Joyce
Being a victim of stupidity does not equate with being a victim of prostitution. Man should of worn a condom, man should have stayed away from a street walker who offered to have sex without a condom. However, apparently it was a mutually agreed upon decision by two adults to engage in unprotected sex and be damned the consequences. The girlfriend was a victim of her idiot boyfriend, not prostitution because he could have had uncovered sex with some chick he met at a bar with the same results. Maybe therefore we should make illegal any sex (because really that’s what spreads STD’s is it not?)
Of course if the prostitute KNOWS she has AIDS and continues to have unprotected sex, I agree that is murder (either premeditated or attempted) and yes that crime should be punished.
Unfortunately in some places, a woman walking the street who has condoms in her purse are accused of being a prostitute (why else would she carry condoms?). This in turn increases the reasons why streetwalkers engage in unprotected sex.
Sorry Maggie, we kinda went off topic there. Wonderful posts as always my dear.
Sorry typed the above at the same time y’all were posting. Nevermind 🙂
I don’t mind threads going off-topic; conversations are organic and only a man could be silly enough to imagine they could or should be forced to adhere to a single topic. I’m therefore always astonished to see (invariably male) moderators on various boards closing threads for going off-topic or even threatening people to keep them on! Such people serve as a perfect example of how most allow power to go to their heads, and how lawheads confuse arbitrary rules with real issues.
Maggie,
You are one smart lady.
Is there a place on your site where we can post questions or offer advice, tell of personal situations etc… that might help us all?
Joyce
only a man could be silly enough to imagine they could or should be forced to adhere to a single topic
Hey! That’s sexism. I diverge from any conversation topic as much as anyone else! 🙂
@Joyce: Thank you! You can send me an email with questions, but WordPress doesn’t really allow for anything like a forum except for these comments. One of these days I’m going to get honestcourtesan.com running (I already own the domain) and a forum will be one of the features. In the meantime, please feel free to post as you like in reply threads!
@Asehpe: Of course it’s sexism. Considering that Nature Herself is sexist why shouldn’t I be? 😉
If I can be terribly male for a moment, there is a very good reason why, occasionally, it’s a good idea to keep a conversation on-topic.
This is because of the tendency of many people (it’s often considered a female trait, but I’ve encountered plenty of men doing it) to avoid having to say, “OK, you’re right. Thanks for setting me straight.” Instead they change the subject.
“Actually, according to the FBI violent crime among teenagers is down in the US.”
“What about that girl in the Ukraine who had to live with the dogs!”
“Um, she wasn’t a teenager, she wasn’t in the US, and she wasn’t committing any crimes. Can we stay on subject?”
“What have you got against Ukrainians?!”
Really, sometimes staying on topic is a good idea.
@ Sailor: And I have nothing against Ukrainians — I even married one! 🙂
@ Maggie: to be better than nature itself? After all, nature also doesn’t care about rights for prostitutes… 😉
Thank You Brandy,
Yes I agree had he not seen a Prostitute he would have seen perhaps a bartender or someone. That is what I mean when I say to women (Once a cheat always a cheat). Can you believe I broke the rule of never marry one of your tricks??? Well I did and guess what???
Also I was wondering on this Condom law. Is there a limit on the number of condoms a woman can carry before she is considered to be (Working)?
Joyce
But you see Brandy’s argument means this doesn’t mean prostitution was the crime, but the boyfriend’s negligence?
Maybe we should prosecute people who have HIV and still insist on having unprotected sex. But this is not the same as prosecuting prostitution. The two are independent things.
Can you believe I broke the rule of never marry one of your tricks??? Well I did and guess what???
You could have had the same result even if you married someone else, not one of your tricks. I hear some prostitutes did marry a client and had better luck than you.
Life isn’t simple.
I married my favorite regular, and in ten years he hasn’t given me cause to regret it. 🙂
Any number. They don’t use it as “Oh you have a condom? You must be a prostitute!” but more like, “Oh we think you are a prostitute and oh look, you have a condom on you so this helps us prove it!”
I’ve seen videos of prostitution stings where the cop is waving around a condom in front of a handcuffed woman yelling “Oh! You say you’re not a prostitute? Well then what is this for?”
Asshats….
I thought it was cases like O’Connor v. Donaldson and Addington v. Texas that invalidated many involuntary commitment laws and forced states to use stricter standards of proof and to adopt the “danger to themselves or others” standard that ultimately thinned out the population of the states’ mental institutions.
I’m surprised to hear this perspective. It’s always been my understanding that psychiatrists are responsible for too many unjustified commitments rather than too few. After all, they certainly have a finiancial incentive to do all they can to encourage the courts to feed them a steadily increasing supply of patients (all expenses paid, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, of course).
Court cases did help, but money always talks. After decades of very little motion, when did marijuana laws suddenly become unpopular? When there was a recession. And unless I’m forgetting one, there has never been a successful revolution which was sparked by anything other than economics.
Thank You Asehpe, Brandy and Maggie.
I started work in the late 90s and worked until 2007. Yes I married my favorite regular too and he never let me forget “The work you used to do”. So I then had to remind him of how HE met me. I think it always stays in there head. Yes I married one before I started work and he was a cheat. I guess I was just unlucky at marriage. I gave up on men.
It seems that the Condom law was just going into affect as I got out of the Mainstream of the business. I am just playing things differently now. I got to be too well known on the boards and in the business. I traveled near the end and the cops wanted me more than any other visiting escort no matter what city I was in. They only got past my screening ONCE though and that was before things got bad for us in 2002. I had to hire security and pay a screener and have someone answer my phone. I missed the good old days when all we had to see was an ID.
JOYCE
Being a man, I’m sorry to hear that. :-(… Lots of women (and men, too, for that matter) are unlucky at marriage, even without prostitution. Some people simply can’t wrap their heads around the notion of prostitution, and even if they fall in love with one they can’t stop getting angry. It’s like feeling attracted to a member of a group you are prejudiced against (Blacks, Jews, whatever) and having to grapple with both feelings. Total stupidity.
I wish you better luck in the future, both in work and in relationships! (Do you know this YouTube video with things sex workers wanted to say to their partners, spouses, dates, sweethearts and SOs in general? I thought in the end it was actually optimistic.
Thank You All. Asehpe I appreciate the video, but my issues were a bit different than those. Thank You for the help. I better just stick to loving females though. As Carly Simon once said “Haven’t got time for the pain”
Hugs……………Joyce
OK. Whatever gets you through the night is the best. Let me hope that your choices will make you happy! 🙂