The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men but rather their conqueror, an outlaw who controls the sexual channel between nature and culture. – Camille Paglia
Ignorance of a subject never stops fools from opining about it, but when the subject is prostitution the ignoramuses aren’t just wrong; they tend to actually turn the facts backward and upside-down, then proclaim their own ignorance to be knowledge and brand the knowledge of the real experts, the whores themselves, as propaganda. In the looking-glass world of the prohibitionists the real is unreal and vice versa; common situations are called “rare” and rare ones an “epidemic”, an independent businesswoman is a “victim”, a female-dominated profession is characterized as “exploitation of women”, ignorance is strength and freedom is slavery. To be sure, this isn’t a new problem; insecure men have been claiming their own lust is “really” female lust for at least three or four millennia. But the sick, twisted weltanschauung of neofeminists, born as it is out of their own wounded, frightened psyches, has found an ally in the fragile, infantile ego of the male politician and this marriage made in Hell has given rise to an anti-whore catechism which makes the myth of the wanton seem positively reasonable in comparison.
One recent morning two Georgia lawmakers did a remarkable thing…speak up for teenage prostitutes. Girls are manipulated and violated, held captive through violence, isolation, threats, economic dependence and emotional abuse, said…Edward Lindsey…”Right now there are hundreds of girls all across Atlanta and this region who are waiting in hotel rooms to be purchased by men on the Internet,” said state Rep. Buzz Brockway…Maybe there are some happy hookers, but they are a comparative few within a sea of misery that their outsized myth helps create. If you meet such a person, ask her how she started out in the business and how old she was. Increasingly, the prostitute is now understood to be a trafficked object, a slave to a pimp, a victim trapped in demeaning, dangerous servitude…
With so many conflicting views, it can be difficult to write laws to help people brutalized by those who buy and sell them. If she’s a victim, she should be protected. If she’s a criminal, she should be prosecuted. In grappling with such conflicts, states across the country have been rewriting laws to make it tougher on traffickers, pimps and johns and easier on those they prostitute…The Georgia House recently passed some of the most progressive legislation in the country on the subject. The vote was 168-1, and when it passed the lawmakers broke into applause. For traffickers, pimps and johns, the bill imposes higher fines and longer sentences, which get even longer if their victims are young. There would be a 25-year minimum prison sentence for using coercion to traffic someone under 18. Buying sex with a 16-year-old would bring a sentence of at least 5 years. Younger than that and it’s a 10-year minimum. At least as important, the bill would make it harder for the sellers and buyers of sex to defend themselves. Didn’t know her age? Wouldn’t matter…
On this issue, people usually on opposite sides came together: religious groups and feminists, Republicans and Democrats. The new Republican attorney general, Sam Olens, contributed ideas he picked up from the National Association of Attorneys General. Prosecutors worked on the bill with a group called A Future Not a Past, which aims at ending the prostitution of girls. Georgia Women for a Change suggested approaches from national anti-trafficking organizations. A Baptist group that last year opposed a bill that would have banned prosecuting underage prostitutes supported this one…
