Paying for
sex is common. The U.S. should follow Mexico's lead and accept that.
March 13, 2008 Los Angeles Times
Eliot Spitzer paid a woman for sex. And got caught. Depending on whose
statistics you choose to believe, more than one in every 10 American adult males
have paid for sex at some point in their lives. What's more, in 2005, about
84,000 people were arrested across the nation for prostitution-related offenses.
In other words, it's not terribly uncommon. It's a part of our culture, and it's
not going away any time soon. Perhaps Spitzer's resignation will help convince
Americans that it is finally time to decriminalize prostitution across the
country.
Recently, I spent a year working at a legal, state-regulated brothel in Mexico,
a nation in which commercial sex is common, visible and, in one-third of the
states, legal. I was not working as a prostitute but as an anthropologist, to
study and analyze the place of commercial sex in the modern world. I spent my
days and nights in close contact with the women who sold sexual services, with
their clients and with government bureaucrats who ran the brothel.
Here's what I learned: Most of the workers made some rational choice to be
there, sometimes after a divorce, a bad breakup or an economic crisis, acute or
chronic. Of the 140 women who worked at the Galactic Zone, as the brothel was
called, only five had a pimp (and in each of those cases, they insisted the man
was their boyfriend).
The women made their own hours, set their own rates and decided for themselves
what sex acts they would perform. Some were happy with the job. (As Gabriela
once told me: "You should have seen me before I started working here. I was so
depressed.") Others would've preferred to be doing other work, though the
employment available to these women in Mexico (servants, factory workers) pays
far less for longer hours.
At the Galactic Zone, good-looking clients were appreciated and sometimes
resulted in boyfriends; the cheap, miserly and miserable ones were avoided, if
possible.
To be sure, the brothel had its dangers: Sexually transmitted diseases and
violence were occasionally a part of the picture. But overall, it was safer than
the streets, due in part to police protection and condom distribution by
government authorities.
Legalizing and regulating prostitution has its own problems -- it stigmatizes
sex workers (mostly by requiring them to register with the authorities),
subjects them to mandatory medical testing that is not always effective, and
gives clients and workers a false sense of security (with respect to sexual
health and otherwise).
But criminalization is worse. Sweden's 1998 criminalization of commercial sex --
a measure titled "The Protection of Women" -- appears not to protect them at
all. A 2004 report by the Swedish Ministry of Justice and the police found that
after it went into effect, prostitution, of course, continued. Meanwhile, prices
for sexual services dropped, clients were fewer but more often violent, more
wanted to pay for sex and not use a condom -- and sex workers had less time to
assess the mental state of their clients because of the fear of getting caught.
New Zealand's 2003 Prostitution Reform Act is perhaps the most progressive
response to the complex issue of prostitution. The act not only decriminalizes
the practice but seeks to "safeguard the human rights of sex workers and
protects them from exploitation, promotes the welfare and occupational health
and safety of sex workers, is conducive to public health, [and] prohibits the
use in prostitution of persons under 18 years of age."
Furthermore, clients, sex workers and brothel owners bear equal responsibility
for minimizing the risks of STD transmission. In 2005, a client was convicted of
violating the act by slipping his condom off during sex.
And this brings me to clients. I have met hundreds of men who have paid for sex.
Some seek any kind of sex; others want certain kinds of sex; a few look for
comfort and conversation.
Saying that all sex workers are victims and all clients are demons is the easy
way out. Perhaps it's time to face this fact like adults (or at least like
Mexico) -- with a little less moralizing and a good deal more honesty.
As for Spitzer, if he had walked into the Galactic Zone, my questions would have
been these: Was he respectful? Was he safe? Did he pay well? If the answer to
all three was yes, then, well, I voted for him once, and I'd vote for him again.
Patty Kelly, an anthropology professor at George Washington University, is the
author of "Lydia's Open Door: Inside Mexico's Most Modern Brothel," due out in
April.