Retro Raunch Revisit

PROSTITUTION is the world's oldest regarded profession. Authorities say that escort agencies are call girl rings in disguise -- nothing short of prostitution -- with the agencies skirting the law by saying they provide escorts, not prostitutes. Most working girls demand payment upfront before services rendered, and there is a traditional bias of targeting the girl (illegal business operator) and not the 'john' even though in the eyes of the law both are equally guilty of transactional course (money to satisfy libido). Over time while a wrong message can/has been sent to some that being a call girl is a glamorous lifestyle with prostitution a victimless crime, it is ultimately about sex; with pro advocates citing the right of adult women to choose for themselves what they want to do with their bodies and push for legalization of sex work. The crime of pandering (arranging for service) is sometimes hard to prove in court so vice squads often get their evidence through undercover investigation. Police may often work with girls who want to escape an abusive pimp but because of their vocation they can tend to be less than credible on the witness stand. In the US, those who pander are oddly considered more serious criminals than the girls themselves as they just as much as a pimp or madam are deemed the real victimizer for their own commercial gain. Those for prostitutes' rights have at one point stated as many as 2 million American middle class women have sold their bodies either as a career or supplemental means to make ends meet. Most however have not operated on the streets but through escort agencies or massage parlours, and yet are rarely the ones facing punishment as police overwhelmingly go after the streetwalkers. With prostitution as in any big business, there is a wide range of suppliers: with pricing from expensive high end escorts down to lowly girls turning tricks in back alleys & cars. The more vulnerable women inhabit a world of violence, drug addiction, disease and poverty. Their encounters with law enforcement follow the routine pattern of arrest, jail, fine and release for the cycle to repeat. Many of the girls have been runaways escaping abuse, family dysfunction and sexual assault. Unlike their high class counterparts, selling their body is more a desperate last resort than it is a career choice. Violence & rape is rarely reported due to fear of reprisal. With police who show little sympathy, its estimated that 85% of the girls are disproportionately rounded up and as they are the most visible offenders, for those lucky & courageous enough to beat the streets, their problems are far from over. STD's, AIDS, criminal records, drug & alcohol issues and longtime negative community stigmatization have made it an uphill battle with little chance to market whatever few skills possessed to find & maintain a steady job.

Over the centuries, the attitudes toward prostitution have waivered dramatically: Puritan colonies saw it as a punishment against God subject to public whipping. Sin was a crime but at the turn of the century as anti-laws endured, they became much harder to enforce with some trying to have it both ways -- calling it illegal while at the same having rules on how to run brothels/bordellos or where an establishment could be located. Most notable in Chicago it was about keeping prostitution under control. By the early 20th Century, many Americans were frightened by what they saw as the country's hastening moral decay and rebelled by going after the principal targets of alcohol & prostitution. With these social evils believed to be ruining the USA, zealot reformers became known as progressives in their drive to keep prohibition steadfast and call to tear down red-light districts. Panic climaxed with sensational (and largely unsubstantiated) claims of white slavery rings capturing the public imagination. Congress responded to the hysteria by passing the Mann Act making it unlawful to take women across state lines for prostitution & other immoral purposes. This put the spotlight of activity on men, and perhaps no more so than on NY mobster Charles 'Lucky' Luciano who the in the 1920's & 30's built a criminal empire on the earnings of his vast prostitution racket. Nicknamed "the king of the pimps" he was imprisoned in Jun 1936 after many of the girls he had long been extorting & threatening testified against him. In the decades afterwards, a more relaxed & changing view of sexual matters took hold placing prostitution on an almost permanent backburner but the unpleasant specter of the occupation can never disappear as history has disturbingly shown that streetwalkers & male queer hustlers because of living on the margins of society have existed as the special targets/victims of serial killers. Jack the Ripper, the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, the Hillside Stranglers Kenneth Bianchi & Angelo Buono, Joel Rifkin, the Butcher Baker Robert Hansen, the Pig Farmer Killer Robert Pickton, the Green River Killer Gary Ridgway, and the Long Island Killer have all murdered prostitutes. Prostitution is still illegal in all 50 US states except Nevada where it flourishes, and Maine having decriminalized it. Whatever one's thoughts on sex work, it has played a role in many aspects of American reality including the military: The word "hooker" comes from Civil War Union General Joseph E. Hooker who wanting to keep his men satisfied, sent orders to Washington demanding prostitutes for the soldiers. Wagon loads were sent to him and the ladies were quickly coined with the term. While always in the face of argument and still considered shameful, prostitution no longer sees a crusade against it for in a current age of rampant violent crime, it sees limited police resources launched in opposition. While neighborhood watchdogging may succeed in running off streetwalkers from time to time, it certainly isn't overnight and all they end up doing is pushing them into next surrounding areas. With the case of pro initiatives to regulate & protect the women, this is seen as much more of an exception largely accepted in Europe.