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+--- Thread: Hookers for the one percent (and John Edwards) (/showthread.php?tid=133866)
Hookers for the one percent (and John Edwards) - Grace62 - 03-22-2012
Really, you thought the John Edwards story couldn't get any seedier?
Now he's the first publicly named client of the latest Wall Street/Manhattan high-end prostitution ring to be busted, this one led by a 44 year old married Scottish mother named Anna Gristina. She's made millions and finally got arrested while meeting with a banker from Morgan Stanley about expanding her business. (Hey, who says there's no credit out there for entrepreneurs?)
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/the-wall-street-tie-to-a-prostitution-case/?scp=2&sq=anna%20gristina&st=cse
http://www.dnainfo.com/20120322/upper-east-side/john-edwards-first-name-uncovered-millionaire-madam-investigation
Re: Hookers for the one percent (and John Edwards) - $tevie - 03-22-2012
I don't think prositution should be illegal. I think it should be regulated and the hookers should have to have a medical certificate posted on the wall just like a liquor license in a bar. As for publicizing who uses hookers, it's funny all right but it is like something the Puritans would do.
Re: Hookers for the one percent (and John Edwards) - rjmacs - 03-22-2012
$tevie wrote:
I don't think prositution should be illegal. I think it should be regulated and the hookers should have to have a medical certificate posted on the wall just like a liquor license in a bar. As for publicizing who uses hookers, it's funny all right but it is like something the Puritans would do.
:agree: mostly.
I still think we should discuss more candidly what prostitution is, and how and why it arises, instead of pretending that it is sexual immorality or empowerment. It is neither.
Re: Hookers for the one percent (and John Edwards) - Grace62 - 03-22-2012
I don't agree that prostitution should be legal, there is too much room for exploitation. I don't think it should be a high priority for law enforcement either and generally it isn't as long as the participants are willing adults. In our country very often they are not. This case involves underage girls and drugs and money laundering and high level cover-ups, there's a lot more than the hooker-john encounter going on here.
As for exposing johns, I would much rather see them exposed than the women. I'd like for the law enforcement to focus on the customers, I think that would be a better deterrent, especially where children are involved. (which they are in very high numbers in this business.)
This is the approach in Sweden and other places and I think it makes sense.
I don't know where people get their romantic notions about prostitution, maybe it's just lack of information.
Re: Hookers for the one percent (and John Edwards) - $tevie - 03-22-2012
IF it isn't illegal and isn't in the shadows, that is going to begin to change things right there.
It's the same thing as saying that smoking pot is bad because you have to deal with criminals to do so. Get the criminality out of it and begin regulating how and where it happens.
Re: Hookers for the one percent (and John Edwards) - rjmacs - 03-22-2012
$tevie wrote:
IF it isn't illegal and isn't in the shadows, that is going to begin to change things right there.
:agree: wholeheartedly.
Re: Hookers for the one percent (and John Edwards) - Grace62 - 03-22-2012
$tevie wrote:
IF it isn't illegal and isn't in the shadows, that is going to begin to change things right there.
I would be the first to take a open-minded approach on that if there were evidence anywhere in the world that legalized prostitution lessens exploitation, but there just isn't. Holland, which has legal, regulated prostitution, is a good example. They have been shutting down brothels due to high numbers of underage illegal immigrants (many of whom are sex slaves) and drug traffickers involved in the brothel business, and violent, abusive pimps. Holland became a center for international sex tourism, a growing cause of exploitation.
Again I don't think this should be a big deal between consenting, non-exploited adults. It's just that male customers (and that's most of the customers for prostitution) want very young females (or males) and there are enough vulnerable people to meet that demand. I think legality actually promotes the exploitation instead of fighting it.
It won't help anything, I don't think, to turn the country into Clark county Nevada, where sad older ladies (for that business anyway) sit in run down houses waiting for customers to show up. That's not what most of the customers want, and they are the ones who make this business happen.
Re: Hookers for the one percent (and John Edwards) - rjmacs - 03-22-2012
Grace62 wrote:
Again I don't think this should be a big deal between consenting, non-exploited adults. It's just that male customers (and that's most of the customers for prostitution) want very young females (or males) and there are enough vulnerable people to meet that demand. I think legality actually promotes the exploitation instead of fighting it.
Aside from the Amsterdam example (prostitution is legal in zones of that city, not in Holland broadly), i haven't seen anything that supports your point that legalization promotes exploitation. And the Amsterdam example demonstrates what happens when prostitution is poorly regulated and controlled. Like any other badly regulated industry, it devolves into shortcuts and law-breaking. Hence the current crackdown. The same thing happens at bars and liquor stores that don't check ID, or sell to teens out the back door. Enforcement works.
Most 'johns' are not pedophiles nor do they want to exploit underaged prostitutes. It's a gross mischaracterization to say so, and i'm not sure why you'd suggest it. Most prostitutes are not underaged. You're making the same conflated claims that critics make who dislike prostitution as evidence of moral or sexual degeneracy. It's a Puritan argument, and it's shortsighted. Yes, underaged people are exploited in prostitution rings. Yes, there are clients for young, vulnerable victims. This is not the totality (or the majority, or the plurality) of prostitution activity, however. It's like focusing on murderous heroin addicts and dealers exclusively when talking about illegal drugs. It's distorted and misleading.
Re: Hookers for the one percent (and John Edwards) - cbelt3 - 03-22-2012
I'll toss a sideways idea into the mix for Grace's fertile mind...
Is prostitution a long standing 'solution' to the inequity in income earning potential between the genders ?
If so, would prostitution be considered a woman enabling rather than a woman disabling job ?
Re: Hookers for the one percent (and John Edwards) - Grace62 - 03-22-2012
What jurisdiction has legal, regulated prostitution that allows prostitution to exist as a business (i.e. third parties are involved) but no increased problem with exploitation of minors or other related criminal activity? I would like to look at that, but I don't know where that is.
I do know that I live in the the only city in the country that seriously addresses the real needs of teens who end up in this business.
I don't need the lecture about puritanism, why do feel the need to go there?