One of the great articles from lovely Tracy Quan:
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/03...vada-quan-1-2/
Stop scapegoating sex workers
Harry Reid's bid to close bordellos is a petty public-relations move
BY TRACY QUAN WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2011
U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid is certainly audacious. His recent foray into anti-prostitution rhetoric — his call for Nevada’s licensed brothels to be outlawed — is an insult, not only to women like his mother, who at one point made her living taking in laundry from a local brothel, but to the intelligence of his constituents. He seems to have lost touch with the concerns of working women.
Reid has a family connection to the sex industry, a fact often shared with the public, so his enthusiasm for banishing sex workers to the margins of society is reminiscent of a self-serving character in a 19th century novel who, for the sake of his reputation, shuns a cousin born out of wedlock.
The Nevada senator has argued that schoolchildren need to be protected from licensed sinners — a guaranteed panic generator — but the reality is more mundane. Melissa Ditmore, policy analyst and author of a recently published textbook "Prostitution and Sex Work," points out that "in rural counties, revenue from licensed prostitution supports public schools and other essential services working families need." The brothels themselves are remotely located and hardly obvious to schoolkids.
In fact, Reid is playing fast and loose with the welfare of people in less-populated parts of his state. Prostitution is licensed only in counties with populations under 400,000. It’s these locales where brothels would be eliminated, in order (he claims) to attract new business ventures. Without having secured these hypothetical investors to replace existing revenues, that’s irresponsible.
Reid sounds like a casino tout, but I’m guessing that Nevadans are too savvy to fall for that.
Brothels are run on more realistic lines — and you don’t have to work in one to benefit, as he probably knows. Bartenders, cooks and other support staff are also employed by the bordello industry.
What is Reid’s game? Can he really be serious about closing legal brothels in a state where so much illegal prostitution also occurs? In the rest of the country, we often forget that prostitution is illegal in, say, Las Vegas and Reno, where so much of it goes on. Licensed brothels represent only a portion of commercial sex earnings.
Reid says he’ll create new jobs by turning sex workers and their managers into criminals. One outcome I foresee is the creation of extra work for police officers. A likely side effect is criminal behavior on the part of the police. (Where prostitution is illegal, police corruption and abuse are common, along with overtime.) As a scheme to enrich police officers, this almost makes sense, but it’s hard to believe a senior figure like Reid is that petty. Prosecutors may also be kept busy dealing with the creation of new criminals.
There is something hateful about turning your constituents into parasitical adversaries while claiming to help them. Reid’s morality campaign plays better to the nation (where his newfound zeal can be experienced as a sideshow) than it does to the state where his ideas may have consequences. Could national ambitions be driving this ugly display?
It’s not that legal brothels are uncontroversial among prostitutes themselves. American sex workers have a love-hate relationship with illegality. Many believe that commercial sex needs to be illicit to remain profitable. Or they subscribe to an outlaw code that rolls its eyes at those who want legal status. (In this respect, they’re a bit like gay people who don’t buy into marriage.)
The birth of the U.S. prostitutes’ rights movement in bohemian, feminist San Francisco coincided with the 1971 debut of licensed bordellos in rugged, macho Nevada. These brothels were seen by activist hookers as paternalistic and oppressive, not much better than the anti-prostitution laws.
The prostitutes’ rights movement, though, has evolved since then. In 2011, a regulated brothel looks like one option among many, there to choose or reject. Many prostitutes still feel the Nevada system is unfair to brothel workers, but that doesn’t mean they favor Harry Reid putting them out of business.
Whether they secretly identify with that quintessentially American outlaw Billy the Kid or publicly embrace legalized prostitution, sex workers can see Reid’s move for what it is. A seasoned politician thinks he can improve his uncertain status with voters by scapegoating some very hardworking ladies who earn every dollar they take home.
Tracy Quan is a frequent contributor to The Daily Beast and the author, most recently, of "Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl."
Stop scapegoating sexworkers
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