Get Herald RSSIn a recent column for The Herald ("Behavioral monopolies and Sex Power God," Nov. 24), Boris Ryvkin '09 wondered why Sex Power God is so popular. He concluded that it's the old Puritan morality rearing its ugly head, preventing American students from getting the kind of no-strings-attached sexual gratification that Europeans enjoy on a regular basis.
I'm going to be one of those feminists that makes Ryvkin feel "gloomy and guilty on a 24-hour basis" and say that his musings on prostitution show a blinding disregard for the human tragedy of sex trafficking.
Prostitution is not sexy or glamorous or empowering like on Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Most prostitutes are not like Ashley Alexandra Dupre, who used her affair with disgraced New York governor Eliot Spitzer as a launching pad for MySpace celebrity and what I'm sure will be an illustrious musical career. Spitzer, meanwhile, will not face any charges, because he has "atoned for his private failings."
The idea that Spitzer's crime was not a crime but a sin, a personal matter requiring personal penance, fits nicely into the perception of prostitution as a victimless offense. Spitzer broke the New York anti-trafficking laws that he himself signed, but apparently, the loss of wealth, power and status is a proper substitute for impartial justice when it comes to prostitution.
What about those who have neither wealth nor power nor status, the "losers" that Ryvkin fears will be cut out of the mating game? To them I say: Cry me a river.
Exploiting women who are victims of poverty, drugs, racism and abuse that can include childhood molestation and incest, in order to correct "horrendous market disequilibrium," ignores the reality of prostitution. In addition, assuming that those women want to be in the sex trade is like saying a rape victim was asking for it.
Ultimately, Rykvin ignores the fundamental matter of choice. I think Sex Power God is silly, so I choose not to go to it. It may not be your scene, but you can be sure that everyone who goes to Sex Power God wants to go and goes with full awareness of what to expect. That is not true of a ten year-old girl forced into prostitution or sex slavery, whether in Calcutta, Sarajevo or New York City.
People say that prostitution is the oldest profession, one that will never go away. This makes sense because sex is natural. It's the most natural thing in the world, along with nudity, urinating outside and hurting people who annoy you. We moderate those instincts with this great new thing called civilization.
Sex Power God is the one crazy night a year when everyone who wants to discard the conventions of civilization can throw off their clothes and their inhibitions. During the rest of the year, there are frat parties, naked parties and, if you're truly desperate for physical human contact, BURP.
No one is forcing you to do any of these things. There's no compulsion and no shame.
Prostitution features both compulsion and shame, though the shame targets the wrong people. Most states follow counterproductive laws that criminalize prostitutes while allowing pimps and johns to escape punishment. Women make up the vast majority of prostitution arrests even though claiming to combat prostitution while letting pimps walk free is like cracking down on drugs and ignoring dealers.
Ryvkin advises American policymakers to emulate the less restrictive Western European approaches to prostitution in order to correct the horrendous market disequilibrium.
They might instead look to northern Europe, specifically Sweden, for a model that acknowledges the reality of exploitation and violence involved in sex work. In Sweden, selling sex is not criminal, but buying it or facilitating its transaction is. The number of prostitutes has dropped 40 percent since that policy came into effect.
Americans should treat pimps and johns as actual criminals rather than mere sinners - or worse, the heroes immortalized by Three 6 Mafia. As a result, we could reduce exploitative prostitution drastically without clogging our already overcrowded prisons with small-time offenders as we do for drugs.
According to a study by the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, nearly 80 percent of men who buy sex said they would be deterred if their families were notified. Nearly 90 percent said they would be deterred by being publicly exposed to their communities. If a man molested a little blond girl, you can bet his face would be in every paper and on every news show. There is no reason why anyone caught pimping or patronizing an underage prostitute should not receive the same treatment.
Just because Sex Power God and prostitution are both outlets for men's sexual needs does not make them equally acceptable. Take care of your sexual needs, but not if your freedom to do so entails someone else's enslavement and degradation.
Sarah Rosenthal '11 thinks the U.S. should adopt the Rhode Island model - prostitution is legal, but only indoors.
