Oldest profession, dumbest prohibition
Posted in Jefferson D.C. by R Lee Wrights on September 21st, 2009 by Peter Orvetti
The world’s oldest profession is back in the headlines, and this time it’s not just because a hard-ass prosecutor turned governor got caught with his pants down, or because a moralizing southern senator forgot a couple of his commandments. No, this time it’s because the least-convincing pimp since Doctor Detroit, and a street walker who happened to be a contributor to the conservative website TownHall.com, took down the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, by getting the group to help them with their business — and by getting it on tape.
Prep school pimp James O’Keefe, and Hannah Giles, who presented herself as a hooker called “Eden”, were told by ACORN personnel to lie about their enterprise in order to get a loan. “Eden” was told to say she was a “performing artist” or a “freelancer”. When they asked for advice on how to handle the 13 underage girls from El Salvador they would be importing for their brothel, ACORN workers told the duo that they could declare some of them as dependents to receive child tax credits.
In other salacious solicitation news, Rhode Island is considering making prostitution illegal. Yes, that quiet little state has a legal sex trade — as long as you keep your business inside. In 1980, while amending an existing law against prostitution in order to expedite prosecutions, legislators accidentally deleted the section that addressed the actual prostitution itself, leaving just street solicitation against the law. The result: Prostitution is legal in the Ocean State, so long as it takes place indoors. Officials estimate there are at least 40 legal brothels operating in Rhode Island. The loophole went unnoticed for more than two decades. In 2003, an attorney representing several prostitutes acknowledged that they had offered sex in exchange for money to undercover police — but then pointed out that the state no longer had a law against that. The case was dismissed.
Legislators are now planning to close the loophole, partly in response to the so-called “Craigslist killing”, in which a woman who advertised on the “exotic services” section of the popular website was murdered by a client in Massachusetts. But Rhode Island’s semi-legal prostitution has some defenders. American Civil Liberties Union Rhode Island Affiliate Executive Director Steven Brown said, “If individuals are engaged in consensual sexual conduct, it shouldn’t be the state’s business.” Dr. Penelope Saunders of the Best Practices Policy Project, which advocates for sex workers in both legal and illegal businesses, said, “In our experience, the criminalization of prostitution forces women, men and transgender [people] who engage in commercial sex to the margins, away from service providers and advocates who could help them.” An August letter signed by 50 academics said that prostitutes who work indoors are less likely to be assaulted or raped, and less likely to abuse drugs, than those who solicit on the streets.
Still, it seems likely that Rhode Island House Bill 5044A and Senate Bill 0986A will pass, meaning prostitution will be left legal in just 12 rural Nevada counties. All this begs the question: Why is it illegal at all?
The ban on the voluntary exchange of sexual services for money is our dumbest prohibition — more so even than drug prohibition, in that it is even less consistent. Possession and use of heroin, for example, is illegal no matter how you acquire the drug. But prostitution is legal in many ways — we just call it different things. To wit:
You cannot be paid for sex. However, you can be paid for sex if someone is filming it for public distribution. You can also trade goods or services for sex — after an expensive dinner date, or in order to woo a wealthy suitor. This is fine, so long as the suitor does not actually give you cash. You can also legally trade money for sex so long as you agree to a long-term commitment, namely marriage. It is perfectly legal to become a trophy spouse to someone whose only attractive feature is her or his bank balance. For this sort of arrangement, it is also legal for your friends or even your parents to play your pimp.
More than 350,000 Americans are in jail today for victimless or consensual crimes, with 1.5 million more on probation for such “offenses”. The annual cost of arresting and punishing people for these consensual crimes is more than $50 billion. And like drug prohibitions, the ban on prostitution does not stop the trade - it just makes it less safe for those involved. Forget the hookers. When it comes to foolish prohibitions, the folks who write the laws are the real pros, and they’re turning their tricks against you.
Peter Orvetti was an early political blogger in the United States, running his Orvetti.com political news report from 1997 through 2002. He is a past editorial writer for the Cato Institute, served as Deputy Director of Communications for the Libertarian Party in the lead-up to the 2000 party convention, and has published commentaries in several major newspapers. Contact Mr. Orvetti at peterjorvetti@gmail.com.
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