In Defense Of Prostitution
By Heidi Fleiss as told to Nadya Labi
TEN YEARS AGO, I WAS ARRESTED AT MY HOME IN BEVERLY HILLS for pandering, which
the dictionary defines as acting as "a go-between in sexual intrigue." In
other words, I was a madam. After a jury convicted me of three counts of pandering,
the verdicts were thrown out, but the government didn't give up. It made me
the Al Capone of prostitution. I spent three years in a federal penitentiary
in Dublin, Calif., for conspiracy, tax evasion, and money laundering. But
it was the sex that got me in trouble.
When I was a Hollywood madam, I had between 20 and 70 girls working for me
and once made $97,000 in a single day on commissions. My take was 40 percent
of whatever fee my girls received and of any tips over $1,000. (Compare that
to prison, where I made about a dime an hour cleaning pots and taking out
the trash.)
When I was in the sex trade, I ran an 85 percent cash business. I dealt with
the richest people on earth-men who run countries and this country's top businesses.
Most of them preferred to pay in cash. The actor Charlie Sheen was one of
my few customers who wrote checks, but looking back I now realize he was a
class act. He paid his bills, girls liked him, and he was well-endowed.
I didn't get involved in prostitution because I needed money. I had the kind
of childhood that everyone dreams about, with five brothers and sisters, camping
trips, pillow fights, and marathon Monopoly games. We weren't like the Britney
Spears generation-the girls today who look like they're ready to have sex
at 9. I started a babysitting circle when I wasn't much older than that and
soon all the parents in the neighborhood wanted me to watch over their children.
Even then I had an innate business sense. I started farming out my friends
to meet the demand. My mother showered me with love and my father, a pediatrician,
would ask me at the dinner table, "What did you learn today?"
At 19, I began dating a 57-year-old multimillionaire. The relationship was
good, but when it ended I realized that he had won every fight we had because
I had no career, nothing to stand on. So I got a license in real estate. But
before long, I was wrapped up in an entirely different world. I began going
to Helena's, a popular nightclub in Los Angeles run by Jack Nicholson's former
housekeeper, and met a bookie who later introduced me to Madam Alex, a "businesswoman"
whose employees were known for their good looks and popularity. (I didn't
know at the time that I was there to pay off the guy's gambling debt.) I was
expecting a sexy glamour queen like Faye Dunaway in the TV movie Beverly Hills
Madam. But Madam Alex was a 5' 3" bald-headed Filipina in a transparent muu
muu. We hit it off.
My first john-I was then 22-was gorgeous. I would have slept with him for
free if I had met him in a bar or on a blind date. We had a great night, and
I made $3,000 after Madam Alex's 40-percent cut was deducted from my fee.
I'm glad I learned the business in the trenches, but my career as a hooker
was short-lived. I'm not the California dream girl, and sexually, I'm lazy.
The profession didn't play to my strengths, which lie in business, not bed.
After Madam Alex and I had a falling-out in 1989, I decided to leave prostitution
altogether and go back to college to become an art curator. (I had dropped
out of junior college during my first semester when I was 17.)
So why did I become a madam? I had tons of beautiful friends and lots of great
connections from traveling the world with my ex-boyfriend. One day I just
realized that I could run a sex business better than anyone else I knew. My
first client was a Swiss businessman who was in Los Angeles with six acquaintances.
I set the men up with some girls I knew and all of them were very happy. The
word spread and demand snowballed after that. I tried to stay in college and
run the business at the same time, but it was too hard skipping out of class
to arrange get-togethers over the school's pay phone.
I would fly girls to meet clients in St. Tropez, London, or wherever they
were in the world. Just from talking to a man, I knew what kind of girl he'd
be interested in.
I made sure never to send a prostitute into an unsafe situation or one where
she felt humiliated or degraded. I was always conscious of how prostitution
could lower a woman's self-esteem and I didn't want anyone who worked for
me to feel that way. My clients were some of the richest men in the world.
They wanted to look the best and live the longest. They were at the doctors
regularly. I never had one girl come down with an STD, not even crabs. But
I told my girls that if they ever felt uncomfortable with a client, they should
call me and I would get them out of there-no matter where they were. I made
my first million after only four months in the business.
I wouldn't recommend prostitution as a career because it doesn't have great
long-term prospects. Still, a woman should have the right to do what she wants
with her body. She might have a fantasy about becoming a prostitute; why shouldn't
she act on it? Or she might need to do it for a month or two because she has
no family, no money, nothing. The money could help her to do something positive
with her life, like start a business or go to college. I remember a girl who
came to me with choke marks around her neck. She was in an abusive relationship
with her boyfriend and wanted me to help her get out of it. I recommended
that she work at a restaurant for six months, but eventually I let her work
for me. She made a quarter of a million her first time. She turned one more
trick and then retired from the business to get a master's degree at UCLA.
Prostitution should be legalized throughout the United States. The laws are
currently written by and for men. I've been out of the business for 10 years,
but I still hear stories of men who hit women, walk out without paying, or
write checks to hookers and then stop payment. It's outrageous. Here's a woman
who has performed a service to the best of her abilities and to her client's
satisfaction. But nothing will happen to that client because he knows he won't
be prosecuted for refusing to pay for sex. They go after the women in those
cases, not the men.
There is no downside to legalizing prostitution. The government would benefit
by collecting taxes on the industry. And regulation would clean up a lot of
crime and help to protect women. Now, there are hotshot guys who beat up prostitutes
and smack them around because they know they can get away with it. I remember
some girls who approached me after working for illegal sex houses, "pussy
factories." You wouldn't believe what went on in these places. A girl would
stay at the factory and have sex with 5 to 10 guys every day for anywhere
from $300 to $700 a pop. Some of the people running the factories would threaten
the hookers and force them to stay. One girl told me that some guy gave her
crack every morning so that she wouldn't make a fuss.
Prostitution doesn't have to be like that. I never ran a brothel in the traditional
sense. I bought a one-story ranch house in Beverly Hills from Michael Douglas
in 1991, and no sex for money took place at my home (except for one five-minute
blow job given to a client in the bathroom by one of my girls-without my permission-for
$5,000). My home was a place of comfort where the girls could talk shop. My
front door was never locked. I had an Olympic-size pool and the girls would
swim and sunbathe and fight about who gave the best blow jobs. They took pride
in their work.
IN AMERICA, I WENT TO JAIL FOR SELLING CONSENSUAL SEX. In Australia, I was
asked to be an international ambassador of the first bordello to go on the
stock exchange. The Daily Planet, founded in 1975 in Melbourne, went public
last May, at 35 cents per share. One of the men who runs the Daily Planet,
Andrew Harris, contacted me after seeing me on a late-night talk show and
asked me to act as the company's international ambassador.
Prostitution was always technically legal in Australia. And since 1986, the
State of Victoria (where Melbourne is) has become even more forward-thinking.
Prostitutes can work in brothels, as long as they're not working in a residential
area and the town says it's okay. And the law takes the pimps and the underworld
out of the business. It prevents anyone convicted of a crime in the last five
years from owning or managing a brothel. Employers can't employ prostitutes
with STDs. And they can't play dumb. They have to make sure that the hookers
test clean. They also have to provide condoms which, as we all know, can get
kind of expensive.
The Daily Planet, initially valued at $5.5 million, has 150 working girls
on its roster. Its stock has nearly doubled since May. The company supplies
protective devices (condoms and dams) and makes sure the girls pass a blood
check that shows they are healthy and free of drugs before they can work.
The girls, who pay for their subsequent health checks, have to produce a certificate
from a doctor each month guaranteeing their good health. Any sex that occurs
inside the Daily Planet (even blow jobs) must be done with protection.
The Daily Planet, which operates out of an 18-room building that resembles
a motel, does not directly employ the working girls and does not take a cut
of what they make. The girls negotiate their fees and tips with their clients.
The company makes its money by charging $115 per hour for the use of each
room. Up to four girls can use a room at once, so on a good night a room can
generate as much as $4,000 for the Daily Planet.
I met with about 60 of the girls when I was in Melbourne this past May. The
girls ranged in age from 19 to about 35, and the best ones made about $6,000
in a week. I told them that if they wanted to get good tips, the most important
thing to stroke was a man's ego. I advised them not to support their boyfriends
and not to buy drugs. I said that they should figure out their earning capacity,
set a goal, meet it, and then move on. There's always someone younger and
prettier who will come along and take their place.
The turnover rate at the Daily Planet is high. A handful of girls leave each
week, but four times as many apply to take their place. You can't stop sex.
And sex for money will happen no matter what. Why make it a criminal experience?
Heidi Fleiss recently published Pandering, her memoir. Nadya Labi is a senior
editor at Legal Affairs.
Source:
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/September-October-2003/feature_fleiss_sepoct03.html
Article shared with full credit and no commercial purpose under the fair
use educational provisions of the U.S. Copyright Law and International treaties.
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