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Today's
Stories
January
27 / 28, 2007
Ralph Nader
Democracy
in Crisis
January
26, 2007
Charlotte Laws
Are
You the Terrorist Next Door?: AETA and the New Green Scare
Mike Ely /
Linda Flores
The
Workers at Smithfield
Joe DeRaymond
Paying
for Health Care and Not Getting It
Phil Donahue
Get Sarah Olson!
Zia Mian
The Three US Armies in Iraq: Grunts, Contractors and Laborers
Jeb Sprague
Haiti Struggles to Defend Justice
Evelyn Pringle
Eli Lilly, the Habitual Offender
Missy Beattie
Inside the Criminal Mind of George Bush: He Thinks; Therefore,
It is So
Martha Rosenberg
Cloned Food: From Designer Hens to the Transgenic Omega-3 Pig
Website of
the Day
Save Grand Canyon from Glen Canyon Dam!
January 25, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
What's
Really Going on in Baghdad
John Ross
Mexico
Under Calderon: Fake Left, Rule Right
Jeremy Scahill
Our Mercenaries: Blackwater, Inc and the Privatization of Bush's
War Machine
Frida Berrigan
"Hearts Ruptured with Sadness:" Protesting Gitmo
Paul Craig Roberts
Bush's State of Deception
Jason Yossef
Ben-Meir
Iraq Reconstruction Failure
Christopher Brauchli
Why Bush is Arming Fatah: When in Doubt, Start Another Civil
War
Holger W. Henke
Cuba at the Crossroads?
Dave Lindorff
Falling Dominos and Failing Presidencies
Julia Landau
From Your Young Cousin
Website of the Day
The Mighty Edwards Sisters
January
24, 2007
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews:
a Filmed Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry
Lt. Gen. William Odom
What Can be Done in Iraq?
Sharon Smith
Health Care Reform for the Insurance Industry
Brian M. Downing
Two Americas: the Grunts and the War Profiteers
Heather Gray
Surviving War
Ron Jacobs
SOTUS Quo
James Brooks
Out of Europe, Out of Time
Robert Day
Translating Snow
Website of
the Day
Defend Sarah Olsen
January 23, 2007
Trish Schuh
Lebanon
on the Brink of Civil War, Again
Robert Bryce
The
Politics of Cheap Oil
Stephen Soldz
Aliens in an Alien Land
John Blair
King Coal's Latest Con Job: Clean Coal is Not Clean
Gloria La Riva
Miami: a Place of Refuge for Anti-Castro Terrorists
Joshua Frank
Turning Silence into Gold: Hillary and Israel Lobby
Patrick Cockburn
In Iraq, All Foreigners are Targets
Ralph Nader
Questions for Bush on Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Pelosi and Iraq: Blunder or Treason?
Uri Avnery
Israel and Apartheid
Website of the Day
Down By the River
January
22, 2007
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
China's
New Chip in Space War Poker
Jen Marlowe
Trapped
in Darfur: the Ordeal of Suleiman Jamous
George McGovern
War of the Belligerent Professors: Get Out of Iraq
Paul Craig
Roberts
Only Impeachment Can Save Us from More War
Norman Solomon
The Pentagon vs. Press Freedom
Amira Hass
Life Under Prohibition in Palestine
Mike Whitney
A Fool's Errand in Baghdad
Ramzy Baroud
The Things We Take for Granted
John Walsh
Support Jimmy Carter in Boston!
Website of
the Day
The Hagelian Dialectic
January
20/21 2007
Alexander Cockburn
First
Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran!
Gail Dines
I
Was Ambushed by Paula Zahn
Newton Garver
Evo
Morales' First Year
Gilad Atzmon
100
Years of Jewish Solitude
Seth Sandronksy
New
Push For Social Security "Reform"
Raphaelle Bail
Where
Nicaraguans Go to Work
Jim Goodman
Round
Up the Usual Experts: Make Them Live on a Dollar a Day
Larry Portis
Chouraki's
Oh Jerusalem
Website of
the Weekend
Press
Poodles Play it Safe
January
19, 2007
Jonathan Cook
Jimmy
Carter Doesn't Tell the Half of It
Glen Ford
Barack
Obama: The Mania and the Mirage
Dave Lindorff
Bush
Blinks on Illegal Spying - Don't let him off the hook
Larry Portis
Zionism
in the Cinema: Part Two
Website of
the Day
For
Whistleblowers
January
18, 2007
William Peace
Protest
From a Bad Cripple
Virginia Tilley
The
Steady March to War on Iran: What It Would Take to Stop It
Michael Donnelly
The
Real Reason I Can't Stand Obama
B.R. Gowani
Democracy:
Everywhere and Nowhere
Larry Portis
Zionism
in the Cinema: Part One
Jason Hribal
A
Horse is Worth More than Riches
Website of
the Day
Baghdad
Clampdown
January 17, 2007
Franklin Spinney
Why
Time is not on Bush's Side
John Ross
Oaxaca's
Rising: Vibrant as the Paint on the Walls
Susan George
Can
World Trade Ever Be Fair? Back to Keynes!
Paul Craig
Roberts
Attacking
Iran: What's In It For Bush
Joshua Frank
Obama
and the Middle East
David Lindorff
Towards
Oil at $200 a Barrel
January 16, 2007
Col. Sam Gardiner
Escalation
Against Iran
Marjorie Cohn
Stimson's
Outrageous Threat
Saul Landau
Gore
Vidal in Havana: Part 2
Ron Jacobs
Welcome
Back to 1965
Susan Block
From
Snowjob to Blowjob
Ken Couesbouck
Year
of the Pig
Website of
the Day
Amazon's
Hit on Jimmy Carter
January 15, 2007
Roger Morris
Another
War the Voters Hoped to End
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush
Must Go
Kathy Kelly
Umm
Heyder's Story
William Blum
The
Anti-Empire Report
Ralph Nader
The
Class War's New Map
Saul Landau
Gore
Vidal In Havana
January 12
/ 14, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
"21,500
More Troops": Will America Ever Leave Iraq?
David Rosen
Bush's Domestic Sex Policy: the Teen Abstinence-Only Crusade
William S.
Lind
Less Than Zero
Laith al-Saud
The
Ironies of Bush and Iraq
Paul Craig
Roberts
Surge and Mirrors: What Bush Really Said
John Ross
Celebrating the "Sum of the World" in Chiapas
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Case of Venezuela's RCTV: Not About Free Speech
Christopher Brauchli
How to Avoid an IRS Audit: Become a Millionaire!
Robert Buzzanco
Rogue State, Redux
Evelyn Pringle
The Secrets in Eli Lilly's Cabinet
Peter Rost,
MD.
Promises, Promises: Playing Politics with Drug Reimportation
Mike Whitney
Baghdad Crackdown
Yifat Susskind
Beyond the Surge: Demanding an End to Bush's Wars
Saul Cohen
Latin America's Real Mr. Danger: Negroponte's Latest Gig
Missy Beattie
A Day of Action and Questions
Stephen Lendman
Holiday Hypocrisy
Website of
the Weekend
Bruegel on Bush War Plan
January 11,
2007
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The
Profits of Escalation
Paul Craig
Roberts
Carter's Inconvenient Truths
Kathy Kelly
Refugee Dreams
Dave Lindorff
Blood for Face
Jeff Leys
The War Widens
Richard W.
Behan
Barrels and Bodies
Col. Douglas MacGregor
Surging Right Into Al-Sadr's Hands
Website of
the Day
An Explanation from Google
Speech of the Day
Is There Even One Politician Alive Who Could Give This Speech?
January 10, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
Walk in Oaxaca
Robert Fantina
Punishing
Deserters: Prosecution or Persecution?
Patrick Cockburn
Why Troop Escalation Won't Bring Peace to Iraq
Paul Craig Roberts
Distracting Congress: Troop Escalation and Iran
Col. Dan Smith
Why U.S. Policy is Failing
Ben Tripp
The Politics of Bad Karma
Evelyn Pringle
How the FDA Protects Big Pharma
Ron Jacobs
Coalition of the Lunatics: Trying to Create the Next World War
Mike Ferner
If Not Now, When?
Dave Zirin
Judgment of the Juiced: Why McGwire Wasn't Elected to the Hall
of Fame
Website of
the Day
Revolting Students!
Bootleg of the Day
Bob
Dylan: Live at Scotia Bank Place
January 9, 2007
R. T. Naylor
The
Somalian Labyrinth
Jonathan Cook
Israel's
Purging of Palestinian Christians
Mike Ely and Linda Flores
The Smithfield Strikers: No Longer
Hidden, No Longer Hiding
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: More Bellicose Than Bush
Norman Solomon
The Headless Horseman of the Apocalypse
Sen. Russell
Feingold
An Open Letter to President Bush: So Now You Want to Snoop Through
Our Mail?
Joe Allen
Justice for the Omaha Two: Black Power, Racism and COINTELPRO
in the Heartland
James T. Phillips
"Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate": The Hell
That is Iraq
Brian Concannon
Resolutions for Haiti
Leonard Peltier
When the Truth Doesn't Matter: 30 Years of FBI Harassment and
Misconduct
Website of the Day
Kick Out the Jams, MFers!: Meet the New RRC
January 8,
2007
Werther
Why
We Fight
Jeff Leys
The Occupation Project: a Campaign of Civil Disobedience to End
Iraq War Funding
Paul Craig Roberts
Nuking Iran
Shulamit Aloni
Israeli Apartheid: Sorry, This Road is For Jews Only
Dave Lindorff
The Party of Invertebrates Reverts to Form
Sunsara Taylor
The Democrats' First Day: Same As It Ever Was
Seth Sandronsky
Syndicated Error: George Will and the Minimum Wage
Dr. Susan Block
Baghdad Cockfight Ends in Snuff Film
Website of the Day
Watch CounterPuncher Sunsara Taylor Take on Bill O'Reilly!
January 6 / 7, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
The
War and the NYT
Franklin C.
Spinney
Stalingrad
on the Tigris
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Urge to Surge
Ralph Nader
Democrats in the Spotlight
Walden Bello
Globalization in Retreat?
Marleen Martin
The Needle and the Damage Done: Tortured in the Death Chamber
Brian Cloughley
We Do What We Like: Return Our Rapist or Else ...
Uri Avnery
The Kiss of Death
Saul Landau
Fidel Castro in the Fields
Ron Jacobs
From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act: a Legacy of Torture
Joseph Nevins
Crimes Against Humanity from Ford to Saddam
William S. Lind
A State Restored? Somalia and 4GW
Gary Leupp
Attention John Conyers: Impeach the President!
Elisa Salasin
Bringing Life to Numbers
George Ciccariello-Maher
Beyond
Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution
Stefan Wray
Confronting Recruiters: the Story of the Bush Street Raiders
Michael Leonardi
Toward an International Moratorium: Italy's Crusade Against the
Death Penalty
Richard Rhames
Reality TV: Triumph of the Thugs
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Barbara LaMorticella
Two Poems
Website of the Weekend
FBI Witch Hunts
Song of the
Weekend
End Times: a Soundtrack
January 5, 2007
Jorge Mariscal
Growing
the Military: Who Will Serve?
John Walsh
Clash of the Elites: Beltway Insiders vs. Neo-Cons!
Christopher Brauchli
The Great Relaxer: Bush and Federal Regulations
Travis Sharpe
No More New Nukes, Please
Tom Barry
Hawk for Hire: Roger Noriega's New Gig
Linda Schade
/ Kevin Zeese
Americans Voted for Peace: Has the New Congress Already Let Them
Down?
Tiffany Ten Eyck
Workers' Centers and Unions: a New Alliance
Mahmoud El-Yousseph
A Challenge to Pelosi
Lucinda Marshall
3003 Funerals: "And They're Still Burying Ford!"
Website of
the Day
Van the Man: Warm Love
January 4, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
The
Martyrdom of Saddam Hussein
Winslow T.
Wheeler
A Guide to Earmarks: Will the Democrats' Reforms Do Anything
to Curb Pork Barrel Spending?
M. Shahid Alam
Has Regime Change Boomeranged?
Raed Jarrar
So This is Plan B? The US Attack on Saleh Al-Mutlaq's Headquarters
Bert Sacks
Can the US Legally Kill Iraqi Children?: a Challenge to the Supreme
Court
Kathy Rentenbach
Report from Oaxaca
Stephen Fleischman
The Rain of Riches: Bonuses, Then and Now
George Bisharat
Carter's Truths
Peter Rost, MD
Hail the Hangman, Jail the Cameraman!
Evelyn Pringle
Can Eli Lilly be Held Criminally Liable for Zyprexa?
Website of the Day
Courage to Resist
January 3,
2007
Kathy Kelly
Wrapped
Around a Bullet
Paul Craig
Roberts
His Last Hurrah: Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason
William Johnson
No Worker is Illegal: SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change
Its Policy on Immigration
Stan Cox
Under a Brown Cloud: Money vs. the Monsoon
Trita Parsi
A Lose-Lose Situation with Iran
Declan McKenna
Ireland's Slavish Hostility Toward Cuba
Joe Bageant
Dispatch from the Chinese Landfill
Nicola Nasser
Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism
Missy Beattie
Dead Wrong
Website of
the Day
Pharmed Out
January 2, 2007
Michael Watts
Oil
Inferno
Amina Mire
Return of the Warlords: Death and Destruction for Somalis
James Brooks
Pushing the Wedge in Palestine
Alevtina Rea
The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ?
Al Krebs
Global Food Security: a Call to Action
Peter Rost
Invitation to a Hanging: the Saddam Hussein Execution Video
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
A Deadly December
John Stanton
Appetites for Destruction
Website of the Day
Out Now: Petition
January 1,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Iron
Man, Tin God: the Meaning of Saddam Hussein
Uri Avnery
What
Makes Sammy Run?
Joshua Frank
Eliot Spitzer's Constitutional Hang Up: Architect of New York's
Patriot Act
|
Weekend
Edition
January 27 / 28, 2007
Pay-to-Play
The
Double Life of Prostitution in America
By DAVID ROSEN
Around Thanksgiving 2006, the bodies
of four female prostitutes were found decaying in a drainage
ditch along an abandoned roadway outside Atlantic City, NJ. Since
its release in March 1990, "Pretty Woman," a Cinderella
morality tale about a streetwise hooker starring Julia Roberts
and Richard Gere has grossed nearly $465 million in worldwide
theatrical ticket sales (not counting ancillary markets) -- and
cost only $14 million to produce. One can only wonder whether
the four dead prostitutes ever saw the flick.
In America, money matters.
Relative personal security, emotional stability, interpersonal
civility and the belief that tomorrow will be better than today
are middle-class conventions, taken-for-granted luxuries denied
those living from day to day. No matter what fantasies Hollywood
fills the heads of women (and men) with, living a precarious
life is merciless. And, not surprising, a good number of our
fellow Americans fall off the edge only to end up like the Atlantic
City victims.
Prostitution is as American
as apple pie. It has been a part of the social fabric since the
earliest British settlers first colonized the Atlantic Coast.
While often tolerated as a necessary evil, prostitution has rarely
been regulated or accepted as an economic feature of civic life.
It is either constantly denounced by preachers, politicians and
others in authority or turned into a caricature, a glamorous
indulgence of commercial exchange. For the good of these women
and the thousands of others who are forced to sell their bodies,
its time America got beyond this false polarity.
* *
*
The bodies of the four murdered
women were found on a desolate stretch between the Black Hawk
Pike and the Atlantic City Expressway near the East Coast gambling
mecca. The victims were Molly Jean Dilts, 20; Tracy Ann Roberts,
23; Kimberly Raffo, 35; and Barbara Breidor, 42. To date, no
progress appears to have been made capturing their killer. Each
woman's story is not unlike that of tens, if not hundreds, of
thousands of other women with similar life stories.
According to press reports,
all of the women were white and, while each had confronted the
legal system, only three of the four had previous prostitution
records. All suffered drug addiction. Trying to minimize risks
to potential Atlantic City gamblers who have no trouble securing
companionship from hotel call girls, Atlantic County Prosecutor
Jeffrey Blitz emphasized that three of the four had high levels
of drugs in their systems: Breidor's heroin level and Raffo's
and Roberts' cocaine levels were "exceedingly high."
With rare exception, like a
compassionate story in the "New York Times" [December
5, 2006], little is made of the desperate lives of these women,
of how they slowly but inevitable fell off the edge. Each women
came from a relatively secure, workingclass, if not middleclass,
background. Dilts grew up in Black Lick, PA, but seems to have
fallen apart with the recent losses of loved ones; Roberts grew
up Bear, DL, and was an Atlantic City exotic dancer who got hooked
on cocaine; Raffo, a Brooklyn native who came to Atlantic City
from Pembroke Pines, FL, was a waitress who drifted into prostitution
after succumb to crack; and Breidor, who grew up in an affluent
Philadelphia suburb, was a waitress who got hooked on painkillers
and moved down the drug ladder while hustling.
In keeping with the myth of
the happy hooker, a year or so ago the media celebrated a very
different story than the four dead-end Atlantic City hookers.
This tale was about "Natalia," a 25 year old woman
from Montreal, who was featured in a cover story in "New
York" magazine and appeared on CNBC and CNN.
Working trough the NYC Confidential
escort agency (which later was busted by New York's finest),
she got up to $2,000 an hour and could gross $25,000 a night!
She received 10-out-of-10 ratings from the politicos, captains
of industry and pro athletes who used her services.
"Macleans" magazine
reports that Natalia got into the life while trying to hold on.
"I was raised in a good family, with good morals,"
she insists. "But I was stuck in a bad position and had
to find a way to take care of myself." She was recruited
by Jason Itzler who ran NYC Confidential and was eventually arrested
on charges of money laundering and promoting prostitution.
Nevertheless, Itzler's escort
service offered her access to a prescreened clientele of upscale
men. As she found, "the guys were really nice, they treated
me well. We'd talk a lot about their lives." She admitted,
"I have no regrets. Ö I'm pretty happy with all the
choices I made."
The story of Natalie, like
that of "Pretty Woman," is part of the happy hooker
mythology. It's the glamorous cover story for the ugly reality
of commercial sex. These stories join the growing body of popular
media celebrating acceptable, wink-and-a-nod prostitution. HBO
documentary shows like "Taxi Diaries," "Real Sex,"
"Cathouse" and "Pornocopia" regularly profile
the lives of such sex workers.
When Jenna Jameson, the "Queen
of Porn" and a former stripper at Las Vegas' Crazy Horse
Too, published her autobiography, "How to Make Love Like
A Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale," it became a best seller.
A handful of other personal memoirs add to this mythology. Among
these are: "Callgirl: Confessions of an Ivy League Lady
of Pleasure" by Jeannette Angell; "Diary Of A Legal
Prostitute: Nevada Brothels" by Michelle Maverick; "Working:
My Life as a Prostitute" by Dolores French; "Been There,
Done That" by Carol Snow; and "Cop to Call Girl: Why
I Left the LAPD to Make an Honest Living As a Beverly Hills Prostitute"
by Norma Jean Almodovar. Each reiterates a similar tale of selling
one's body, having kinky sex and writing a book to cash in on
the story.
* *
*
Prostitution in the U.S. is
older than the nation. Grietjen Reyniers is considered to have
been New Amsterdam's -- thus, New York's -- first "bawd"
or "doxie." And, as Benjamin Franklin famously quipped,
"That hard-to-be-governed passion of youth hurried me frequently
into intrigues with low women that fell my way."
The hey-day of prostitution
was between 1880 and 1920 concomitant with the rise of the U.S.
as an industrial, urban nation. It was time in which heterosexual
prostitution was transformed from a business into a factory system.
During the early 20th century, numerous local governments attempted
to (either formally or informally) regulate it, and there were
approximately one hundred and twenty-five "red-light"
districts operating throughout the country. Among these were
San Francisco's Barbary Coast, Denver's Market Street, Baltimore's
Block, Chicago's Levee and New York's Bowery, Five Points and
Tenderloin. The most famous district was New Orleans' Storyville,
a regulated zone of legal prostitution, drinking and gambling
that operated between 1898 and 1917.
With the rise of the 3rd wave
of evangelicalism and the Progressive movement in the decade
preceding WWI, a frontal assault on prostitution got undertaken.
It culminated in 1910, in the middle of a "white slavery"
scare, with the passage of the Mann Act that outlawed interstate
sex commerce, and the closing of red-light districts under the
requirements of "war discipline" prior to the U.S.
entry into the War.
But is also witnessed the arrest,
forceful medical testing for syphilis and/or imprisonment of
some 30,000 alleged prostitutes who were considered "domestic
enemies" undermining the war effort. And, lest we forget,
it saw the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919 that not only
halted alcohol consumption, but fostered the "speakeasy"
culture that laid the foundation for modern organized crime.
The period between the onset
of the Depression and the conclusion of WWII witnessed a significant
decline in public prostitution. However, the pendulum swung back
as the post-War consumer revolution got underway, launching a
new sexual culture. As two sociologists of the day, Charles Winick
and Paul M. Kinsie, note, "prostitutes and madams report
substantial more customers who are seeking oral satisfaction
(ëmuff divers' or ëface men')." Writing in "The
Lively Commerce: Prostitution in the United States," they
argue that "[t]he trend toward greater orality has been
continuous, with a substantial increase after World War II."
Today, Nevada remains the only
state to have legal whorehouses. Prostitution was decriminalized
in the early 1930s and formally legalized in 1967. By the late-90s,
there were nearly forty legal brothels ranging from the famous
Mustang Ranch (which recently closed) to cribs in and around
Beatty, Carson City, Elko, Ely, Reno and Las Vegas. Today, at
a license fee of $135,000 to $5 million, there are thirty-six
legal bordellos across the state. Each legally employs between
one and fifty female prostitutes and, together, they generate
an estimated $35 to $50 million annually.
A 2005 University of Las Vegas
study by Kate Housbeck and Barbara Brents found that in Southern
Nevada, twenty adult shops and thirty strip clubs were operating.
Clark County had approximately 100,000 registered erotic dancers;
about 2,500 worked daily and 4,000 perform on the weekends. As
the authors note, "Las Vegas is the symbolic center of the
sex industry in the United States."
* *
*
Prostitution has reemerged
as a growing local and national political concern. Stories like
that of the four Atlantic City victims and of the upscale hooker
Natalie frame a deeper debate as to how to deal with an apparent
increase in commercial sex throughout the country.
This debate is driven by Christian
conservatives' efforts to limit sexuality to marriage and is
embodied in Bush administration domestic and foreign sex policies.
It is also fueled by a rising concern over the global sex slavery
trade. Equally important, it reflects the rise of ever-more anonymous
means to connect for both commercial and noncommercial sex through
the Internet, phone services, weekly newspaper ads and other
means. Finally, there is a growing recognition by many localities,
whether Atlantic City or San Francisco, that prostitution is
a "victimless crime," a commercial enterprise, which
requires an enlightened approach to dealing with the hookers.
Relying on CIA research, the State Department estimates that
sex trafficking is an $8 billion international business. The
government estimates that approximately 600,000 to 800,000 people
are trafficked across international borders each year, of which
80 percent are women and girls. It also estimates that about
14,500 to 17,500 find their way to the U.S. and that one-third
of these are children; advocacy groups argue that the number
of U.S. victims is much higher.
Trafficking victims come predominately
from Asia, Latin American and Eastern Europe. In addition to
prostitution, people trafficked to the U.S. end up working in
private homes, sweatshops, agricultural fields, construction
projects and restaurants. Leading destinations for sex traffickers
are New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas.
Invaluable insight into the
sleazy world of sex slavery is provided in a recent exposÈ
in "The San Francisco Chronicle." It found that female
sex slaves work as escorts, outcall girls, erotic dancers and
street prostitutes. Women are also placed in "AAMPs"
-- Asian apartment massage parlors -- that resemble earlier cribs
and cowyards, the sex factories of San Francisco's Barbary Coast
days.
The Chronicle series is based
on data from the online site, myredbook.com. The site hosts more
than 55,000 reviews of Northern California sex workers. The reviews
are used by johns, but also by area police to monitor the sex
scene. The Chronicle estimates that there are at least ninety
massage parlors where sex is sold -- with more than 700 Asian
female sex masseuses -- operating in San Francisco.
Like myredbook and craigslist,
a growing universe of online sites provides people with easy
access to the fantasy of their choice. Industry pundits estimate
that between 100,000 and 400,000 sites are pornographic and many
of these offer easy access to the sexual service one most desires.
And "altsex" at Google groups is a virtual cornucopia
of illicit desires.
Since the first British settlers
colonized America, each subsequent generation has played out
its own version of the nation's profoundly ambivalent, deeply
unresolved attitude toward sexuality. This ambivalence is rooted
in a false assumption that too much sexual freedom results in
a decline in personal morality and an increase in sex crime.
This ambivalence is reiterated today in the confusion between
a fictitious consumer hedonism pushed by Hollywood and an informed
consensual eroticism that fosters not only a healthy sexuality
but self-confident participants -- participants who can say "No!"
America has witnessed a decline
in crime, including prostitution, over the last decade -- even
though the prison-industrial system, with the complicity of elected
officials, keeps building more prisons and, with judges, keeps
giving out ever-harsher sentences. FBI data for prostitution
arrests in 1999 was 92,200; by 2004 it had declined to 87,872;
and by 2005 it has fallen to 84,891 -- a nearly 8 percent decline
in six years.
But life for those at the edge,
the proleteriat of the sex industry, is dangerous, if not horrendous.
A 2004 study in the "American Journal of Epidemiology"
of the murder rate among prostitutes from 1981 to 1990 found
that an average of 124 hookers were murdered each year in the
United States. One can only wonder if the rate will change with
the new millenium.
One should not forget that
the nation's most notorious prostitute killings were committed
in the Pacific Northwest by the Green River Killer. In pleading
guilty in 2003 to the murders of fourty-eight prostitutes, Gary
Leon Ridgway told a judge he targeted street walkers "because
I thought I could kill as many as I wanted to without getting
caught."
Like everything in America,
class structure configures prostitution in its own image. And
for the sex proleteriat, little has changed since the hey-day
of prostitution in America at the end of the 19th century. Working
in New York in what was then known as a "50-cent brothel,"
three women reported having intercourse over a two-week period
with 120, 185 and 273 men, respectively. Another sex worker reported
having copulated with 49 men, while still another woman, working
in a brothel on Delancey Street, reported having had sexual encounters
with 58 different men in one day. These examples do not seem
either isolated or exaggerated. Nor does anything seem to have
changed over the last century.
Finally, as a sad commentary
on the disposability of sex workers in the U.S., at around the
same time as the discovery of the Atlantic City victims, five
prostitutes were found murdered near Ipswich, England. The UK
police immediately mounted a major, country-wide manhunt and
media blitz, and quickly caught the two apparent perpetrators.
Two months later, the Atlantic County, NJ, authorities have nothing
to report.
David Rosen is completing the manuscript for "Perversions:
America's Secret Passion for Deviant Sexual Pleasures" and
can be reached at drosen@ix.netcom.com.
|
Coming
Soon from
CounterPunch
Books / AK Press
The Gang's
All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert
Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!
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"The Case Against Israel"
Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz
WHAT'S
INSIDE
Grand
Theft Pentagon:
Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror
by Jeffrey St. Clair
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The Occupation
by Patrick Cockburn
Bruce Springsteen On Tour
By Dave Marsh
The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced
as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"
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