For Their Own Good
The Results of the Prostitution Laws
as Enforced by Cops, Politicians, and JudgesNorma Jean Almodovar
This essay may be cited as Norma Jean Almodovar, “For Their Own Good,” in Liberty for Women, ed. Wendy McElroy (Chicago: The Independent Institute, 2002), pp. 71–87.
Page numbers appear in blue: 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87
On May 25, 1998, headlines in the Los Angeles Daily News declared, “Mexico blasts in rape response”:
Sexism and apathy have hindered Mexican police investigations into the cases of more than 100 women raped and killed in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, the federal human rights panel said Sunday.
The frequently grisly assaults, dating to 1993, have terrified residents of the industrial city south of El Paso, Texas. They fear a serial killer—or even copycat killers—may be on the loose. . . .
In an open letter Sunday to Chihuahua state officials, the National Human Rights Commission said the assumption by local officials that some of the victims were prostitutes had slowed investigations into the killings.
Anyone concerned with human rights should be outraged as they read the preceding article. It is unconscionable that there are law enforcement agents anywhere in the world who do not investigate the rapes and murders of some of its citizens because they may have been prostitutes. We, in the United States, are of course more concerned about our marginalized citizens and have passed laws against prostitution so we can protect our women from exploitation.
The laws that prohibit prostitution are enacted to protect our “basic [72] human rights” and “preserve our dignity” for “our own good,” and to prevent women from being exploited, are they not?
That is the purpose of the laws, asserts Dr. Janice G. Raymond, co-executive director of “Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.” In the Report to the Special Rapporteur she states:
There may be a small number of women that ‘choose’ to enter prostitution. We do not doubt that some women say that they have chosen it, especially in public contexts orchestrated by the sex industry. In the same way, some people choose to take dangerous drugs such as heroin, under conditions they did not choose originally and might not choose now, if offered something different.
However, even when some people choose to take dangerous drugs, we still recognise that drug use is harmful. In this situation, it is harm to the person, not the consent of the person, that is the governing standard. We cannot allow the ex industry, or even non-governmental organizations, to rationalize the existence of prostitution based on this opportunistic use of consent and deny the harm to women and girls. . . .
Some treat prostitution as a personal choice, ignoring the sexual exploitation of prostitution while at the same time announcing that the worst thing about prostitution is stigmatization. But the worst thing about prostitution is its violation and violence against women and children.
While emphasizing the harm that is done to actual women and children in prostitution, we must also note that the sexual exploitation of prostitution is harmful to all women. The sexual violation of any women is the sexual degradation of all women. . . . Prostitution is a practice that violates the human dignity and integrity guaranteed to all persons in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This Declaration proclaims that all human persons are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Any form of sexual exploitation, including prostitution, abrogates this human dignity.
But what about women who, ungrateful to their more knowledgeable feminist sisters such as Dr. Raymond, do not accept the premise that their work in prostitution is a violation of their human dignity? As Broward County, Florida, NOW chapter president Shayna Moss so poignantly interpolates in the article below, it is the opinion of some feminists that prostitutes lose all rights if we continue to allow ourselves to be exploited.
[73] She calls herself “Jane Roe II” and says she was a prostitute for the rich and famous. . . . Now the Palm Beach County woman wants . . . to make prostitution legal. . . .
She cites Roe vs. Wade and argues; If a woman has the right to an abortion, should not she also have the right to sell her body for sex? . . .
Asked about Jane Roe II’s argument linking abortion and prostitution, Shayna Moss, president of the Broward County, Fla. chapter of the National Organization for Women, says, I don’t see a connection between the two. I don’t think a hooker has rights.
It is widely accepted then, in reputable circles, that prostitutes are without rights or standing before the law. It is therefore not much of a stretch to conclude that our deaths are meaningless and it is not necessary to expend the energy to investigate our murders. The following quotes make it chillingly clear that those of us who choose for whatever reason to engage in commercial sex are no longer considered a part of the human race.
These were “misdemeanor murders,” biker women and hookers . . . sometimes we’d call them “NHI”—no humans involved.
Since 1985 at least 45 women have been sexually assaulted and brutally murdered in San Diego County. These women, designated by law enforcement as prostitutes, drug addicts and transients, have been associated with the police term, “NHI—no humans involved.” NHI is an in house rhetorical discounting of crimes against individuals from marginalized sectors of our society. This nonhuman classification, as well as the personal involvement of police officers with a number of the victims, has hindered public awareness and a full-scale investigation of these murders.
If this is truly the conviction of our own law enforcement agencies and feminist upholders of our human rights, how could we expect our neighbors to the south to be more empathetic than we are toward raped and murdered women who were probably nothing more than prostitutes? The Mexican police who appeared negligent in their duties toward the one hundred or so women raped and killed in the border city of Ciucad Juarez are looking less and less culpable and barbaric, and more like our very own police.
Articles chronicling police abuses toward prostitutes appear with [74] alarming frequency. If viewed individually, it is easy to dismiss each abuse as an aberration, perhaps out of character for the police. However when viewed with other such incidents occurring nationally, it is impossible not to see a pattern of abuse. And it is impossible not to draw the conclusion that the laws that are supposed to protect women from the “exploitation” and degradation of prostitution are abused by those who are supposed to uphold them.
Exactly what behavior is requisite to nullify a woman’s rights so she is no longer considered “human”? In most states, prostitution is “any lewd act for money or other consideration.” “Lewd” is defined as the touching of male genitalia and buttocks and female genitalia and breasts for the purpose of sexual arousal and gratification. Early American case law had a much broader definition of prostitution. A woman offering her body for sexual intercourse for hire or for indiscriminate sexual intercourse without hire was also legally a prostitute (or non-human).
Of course it is no longer an exclusively female crime; men can and are being prosecuted for prostitution, although the number of arrests of male prostitutes is disproportionately less than female prostitutes. There are several reasons for this. First, because it is considered less of a social problem than female prostitution, and second, because male police officers are reluctant to pose as homosexuals and potential customers of male hustlers. These law enforcement agents have no similar compunctions about posing as customers of female prostitutes and, in some cases, having sex with them prior to arresting them.
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Prostitution (and pornography) must be considered the same issue for feminists as abortion. It is the right to choose. The right for a woman to control her own sexuality, with whom she will have sex, when, and under what circumstances.
The concept of “self-ownership” coincides with the concept of liberty (ostensibly the underlying principle in the formation of our country), and seems to fit the bill as a suitable foundation for making such an argument. If you “own” your own body, certainly you can choose to do what you will with it, and since slavery was abolished in this country, no individual or group can claim that somebody’s body (life) arbitrarily belongs to anyone else.
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In a letter dated October 10, 1997, responding to an editorial piece in the Los Angeles Times written by COYOTE attorney Edward Tabash, Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks argues his case for the continued criminalization of prostitution:
In response to your article in the Los Angeles Times regarding the legalization of prostitution, I would like to address some issues that are of concern to me. . . .
It is estimated that 95 percent of all prostitutes who work in the City of Los Angeles are working for a pimp or madam. These individuals (the prostitutes) earn only a small part (approximately 20 percent) of the income from their prostitution activities. Those who exploit prostitutes prey on the young males and females who are vulnerable to the controlling influence of drugs and physical/sexual abuse. The average age of a person—male or female—who becomes involved in prostitution is 15 to 18 years old. By the time these individuals read the age of 25 to 30, they are of marginal use to their pimps or madams and are no longer employable. With no skills, they often become involved in other illegal activity or survive on the largess of society. . . .
It has been shown statistically that there is a direct correlation between prostitution and other serious crimes in areas where high levels of streetwalking prostitution are allowed to occur.
I would like to point out that laws prohibiting prostitution are not merely . . . to protect women from being exploited by pimps and panderers. Laws are generally enacted to deter people from certain behavior whih society seems contrary to its quality of life. . . .
Whether one advocates arresting and incarcerating prostitutes to protect them from exploitation or because their conduct is offensive to society, the undeniable fact remains that the act itself is indicative of a greater problem that will not be solved by approving the practice.
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Most prostitutes do not want to get arrested and go to jail. But as long as prostitution remains illegal, for whatever reason, the police will continue to take away our freedom. That is why the laws must change. Most activists within the prostitutes’ rights movement favor a decriminalized system rather than a legalized one. Legalization is a system whereby the state regulates, taxes, and licenses whatever form of prostitution is legalized, and often involves the establishment of special government agencies to deal with prostitution. It means that the government enacts new laws that put the control of prostitution in the hands of the police or the state. The police department (or criminal justice system) has no business running or regulating prostitution, any more than it should run restaurants or grocery stores or the movie industry. These are all businesses, subject to business regulations, and under civil authority. Prostitution is a business, a service industry. It should be run as a business, subject only to the same kinds of business laws and regulations as other businesses.
Decriminalization would allow this to happen. It would repeal all existing criminal codes from noncoercive adult commercial sex activity, and related areas, such as management and personal relationships. It would involve no new legislation to deal with prostitution per se, because there are already plenty of laws which cover problems such as fraud, force, theft, negligence, and collusion. Those laws could be enforced against anyone who violated them, just as they are now, when force o[r] fraud is used in any [87] other profession. As Priscilla Alexander points out in “California NOW, Working on Prostitution,” “decriminalization offers the best chance for women who are involved in prostitution to gain some measure of control over their work. It would also make it easier to prosecute those who abuse prostitutes either physically or economically, because the voluntary, nonabusive situations would be left alone.”
A woman’s body belongs to her and not to the government. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and we believe that the Constitution protects the individual’s rights to own, use, and enjoy his or her body in any manner that he or she deems appropriate, as long as the rights of others are not violated. Everyone has a right to make moral decisions about his or her life and property (including the use of his or her body) that others may find disagreeable, disgusting, or immoral.
Until we return the control of all individual choices to the individual, the presumably unintended consequences of protectionist legislation will be the continued victimization of those the laws were designed to protect. The devastation to the lives of those unfortunate enough to be “protected” by the law enforcement officers charged with upholding the law is enormous and should outrage anyone who claims to be concerned with the well-being of the “less fortunate.” As Peter McWilliams said in his book, Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do, “What the enforcement of laws against consensual activities does to the individuals is nothing short of criminal. The government is destroying the very lives of the people it is supposedly helping and saving.”
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