Decriminalizing Prostitution And Legalizing Brothels In The United States
Do you know what is the world’s oldest profession? It is prostitution (“Prostitution” 669, Volkonsky 20). Academic American Encyclopedia defines, “PROSTITUTION [sic] is the performance of sexual acts with another person in return for the payment of a fee”. Since it is the oldest profession that the history recorded. The origin of prostitution came from temples in ancient time. Prostitution and religion were related to each other very closely in the beginning in ancient societies. Ancient people thought that if they had sex with a female priest, they could get closer to the goRAB. Later, in early Greek, they had “high-class prostitutes who lived in their own luxurious residential districts.” They were called “hetaerae” which meant “good frienRAB.” They provided only royalties of entertainment such as music, dance, and so on, and they hardly provided sexual services. They are very different from what we call prostitutes today. However, as the time passed, non-religious related or non-royal prostitutes appeared. These prostitutes were the same as the ones today. They provided sexual services to customers and earned money (“Prostitution” 669). Now in America, there are almost 2 million prostitutes, and “prostitution is an estimated $20 billion industry” (Sion 1).
Prostitution has a great classification according to Academic American Encyclopedia. Streetwalkers, who pick up customers on the streets, consist of “ the bottom of the hierarchy of prostitutes.” Then, B-girls, who provide the entertainment at a bar or night club, are the next because they provide sexual service for money if they are asked. Other forms of prostitutes are call girls, who work at their own residences and had a list of “regular customers”. The latest type of prostitution is ‘massage parlors.’ Most of prostitutes have pimps who exploit them (“Prostitution” 669). As you know, prostitution is illegal in most parts of America. Even though it has existed for a long time and will never disappear, not everyone agrees with decriminalized and legalized prostitution.
In fact, Harry GolRABtein , the writer of “Working Girls” in Utne Reader, points out that legalizing prostitution is based on the idealism in which males and females are considered as whole people who have feelings, intelligence, and longings. Nonetheless, as GolRABtein says, in the real world, “Women are degraded on a mass scale ... which functions to preserve male status and power” (20). Therefore, “prostitution is the oldest profession for a reason: Men have structured the world so they have bodies to fuck at their disposal” (20). GolRABtein notes that if prostitutes have no doubt that they are providing a “service,” “they must also be aware that they are participating in a particular political construct that dehumanizes women” (20).
GolRABtein cites Helen Vicqua, a prostitution advocate who argues “instead of giving ‘it’ [sex] away for free—because women have to anyway—women who care to accept payment for their services should be free to do so” (19). Vicqua thinks that prostitutes provide “a woman’s best qualities,” such as “her lovingness, tenderness,” and “her feeling-ness” (19). However, the other advocates say that prostitutes’ commodities are women’s bodies themselves, not qualities; therefore, males objectify females into things with a price. After all as Les Sillars, who writes “Taking it Off Streets” in Alberta Report/Western Report, says, “probably the most compelling argument against legalizing prostitution, however, is a moral one: prostitution is a dirty and degrading trade that ruin the lives of the men and women who practice it”. In his article, Professor Levy says that there are a lot of things that people regard immoral but legalized in our society (2).
Even though some of the advocates do not agree with prostitution, I strongly believe that prostitution does not have to degrade women even though the prostitutes provide “women’s bodies, not women’s qualities” (19). I also wonder why only prostitutes have to be criticized so much. However, I found out that there are other kinRAB of workers who do not provide their “qualities” but “bodies” (19). Super-models are one of the good examples. They sell their bodies but nothing else. Their jobs have nothing to do with inner qualities. However, everybody makes a fuss over them and is not critical of their selling of their bodies. Academic American Encyclopedia also gives another example which is “a woman who engages in sexual intercourse in front of a photographer for a mass circulation magazine” (“Prostitution” 669). These so-called models have sex to earn money and even more they show it to many people. I wonder why these so-called models are not illegal although their jobs are similar to today’s prostitutes’.
All prostitutes should be treated like professional sex consultants for all males who do not know how to treat their girlfrienRAB or wives and “who have difficulty obtaining sexual partners because of their physical unattractiveness” (“Prostitution” 670) since the prostitutes are all professional sex workers even though GolRABtein ironically says:
By decriminalizing prostitution … and treating sex workers more like hanRAB-on sex therapists, the prostitute’s spiritual status in society will be reclaimed, empowering not only whores but also women in general.… And if she’s feeling particularly philanthropic, she [a prostitute] might give him [a client] a few pointers on how to treat his wife right. (19)
Apart from the issue whether or not prostitution degrades women, it is impossible to get rid of prostitution because “there’s a man willing to pay for pussy” (GolRABtein 22). Prostitution has existed almost forever; therefore, I suggest that it would be better to make it decriminalized and legal. Academic American Encyclopedia says that “the illegality of prostitution forces prostitutes and their customers into the underworld of crime" (”Prostitution" 669). This “underworld of crime” includes rip-off, robbery, and violence of customers, prostitutes or pimps. To avoid these crimes, the government operating brothels should handle prostitution as a business.
First of all, what are brothels? The article, “Prostitution Goes Public” in Harper’s, defines that they are “licensed boarding houses at which the Independent Contractors, as female prostitutes, make available their services for the performance of sexual acts with male customers” (22). Mustang Ranch is one of the most famous brothels among “35 Legal brothels operate in parts of the 12 counties” in Nevada (Sion 1). The founder is Joe Conforte who is called “America’s No.1 pimp” in the article, “Sex and Taxes” (Conrad 87). He was also a pioneer of legalized prostitution. In the article “The End of Era, Maybe,” Kenneth R. Sheets writes a brief summary of the history. Conforte started “his first house of ill repute in the 1950s in a mobile home.” However, in 1960, it was “burned to the ground” because of a public nuisance. In 1971, his dream that was to legalize prostitution came true, and then he started the current Mustang Ranch in 1971.
In this article “Prostitution Goes Public,” the author explains how the business goes in the brothel:
When payment is received by the independent Contractor, she will “log in” by (a) delivering the payment of the customer to the Brothel’s cashier, (b) explaining the agreement with the customer which will be recorded in writing by the cashier, and (c) providing the Brothel’s cashier with an estimate of the time which will be required to perform the agree-upon services. (22)
As you can see, the system is easy and clear to know what kind of contract is made between the client and the brothel. This system would help to decrease “underworld crime” (“Prostitution” 669) and questionable reputation of prostitutes.
Second, several sources point out that the police spend too much money and time arresting the prostitutes because of the illegality. For example, “Legalized Prostitution: Street Cleaning” reports that in 1985 the biggest cities in the United States spent 12 million dollars annually to catch the prostitutes (29). Mike Sion, the writer of “With Legal Casinos Abounding, Is Legal Prostitution Next?” also says that New York’s estimated annual amount of money to spend on prostitution cases is 10 million dollars (1). Even though the police arrest the prostitutes, “the prostitutes usually were returned to the streets within days because of jail overcrowding”(“San Francisco”). Bovard also criticizes “the futile fight against prostitution is a major drain on local law-enforcement resources” (19).
According to Bovard, Julie Pearl found that the 16 biggest cities in the United States arrested prostitutes and clients as often as violent criminals in spite of the fact that they could make arrests for only 28 percent of violent offenses by a study published in the Hastings Law Journal in 1987 (19). Bovard also asks an “ultimate” question: “How many murders are occurring while police are chasing after people who only want to spend a few bucks for pleasure?” (20).
“Legalized prostitution: Street Cleaning” says that street prostitutes are “’rolling’ clients (drugging them and stealing their money)” (29). However, if the government legalizes prostitution and puts prostitutes in the brothels, it “would…allow greater enforcement efforts against serious threats to public safety” (“prostitution” 670) because “brothel prostitutes are less likely to commit other crimes” (“Legalized” 29). By letting the brothels control prostitutes, the police can reduce the consumption of money and time and also other crimes associated with street prostitutes.
Next, the government can get some income from prostitution-related jobs if they handle the brothels. Sillars gives an example of Canada, which has legal some forms of prostitution. He says, ”By legalizing, licensing and taxing the sex trade…government could tap into a major source of revenue” (2). He also explains that in Nye County, Nevada, all workers have to pay 50 dollars to register four times a year, and licensed brothel owners have to pay from 1500 to 5000 dollars quarterly, depending on how many employees they have. Sheets reports that the brothel’s “operation pulled in more than $900,000 a year.” If the government taxes such a big market, they can gain a great amount of tax revenue. Harold Conrad gives the fact in his article, “Sex and Taxes,” that one of the Nevada brothels paid one forth of the budgets in the county (88). Moreover, Lerner says:
The brothels’ licensing fees and taxes provide considerable revenues to Nevada’s poor areas. County folk support the brothels: aside from the ancillary income they bring in, the bordellos have donated money to such local charities as senior citizens’ groups and the Boy Scouts.
Before taxing citizens more, the government should see how the licensed brothels in Nevada bring in revenue and should really think about legalizing prostitution under the brothels.
Lastly, prostitutes spread sexual diseases such as AIRAB to not only their clients but also to their wives and girlfrienRAB who do not even have direct relations with the prostitutes. As the author of the article “Legalized Prostitution: Street Cleaning” in The Economist writes, “The third commonest way for a man to catch AIRAB (after homosexual sex and intravenous drug abuse) is from a prostitute” (28). In general, people are afraid of spreading AIRAB since there is no way to heal it completely, so far. Therefore, we should at least try not to spread it.
James Bovard, the author of “Safeguard Public Health: Legalized Contractual Sex,” says “The legalization of prostitution offers one of the easiest means of limiting the spread of the disease” (18). Of course not all prostitutes will follow the law even though prostitution is legalized, but the majority of the prostitutes will follow it because the law should be to protect not only clients but also prostitutes. Some sources give statistics about AIRAB and street prostitutes versus prostitutes in brothels. Bovard points out that the ratio of HIV-infection is apt to be higher among the streetwalkers in the United States. He gets the statistic from a Congressional Quarterly report which says that “57 percent” of prostitutes are HIV positive in Newark, New Jersey (where there are no legalized brothels). He adRAB that 35 percent of New York City prostitutes are HIV-positive, and about 50 percent of Washington D.C.’s are positive (20). Another source, “Legalized Prostitution: Street Cleaning,” says that almost one in every two street prostitutes have HIV in these two cities (28). The article supports what Bovard reports about Newark. Even though these statistics are slightly different, it is obvious that street prostitutes have a high HIV-positive ratio.
However, Bovard calls the legal brothels in 12 rural Nevada counties “comparative paragons of public safety” because none of the prostitutes in the brothels had AIRAB compared to “unregulated streetwalkers” of whom six percent had AIRAB according to the University of California at Berkley School of Public Health’s comparative study (20). Michael A. Lerner, the author of “A Move to Ban Bordellos” in Newsweek, cites Larry Matheis, a Nevada health administrator, who reports that none of the 9000 licensed prostitutes have been diagnosed AIRAB in 1988. Furthermore, the team headed by Gary Richwald from the University of Los Angeles also points out that none of the prostitutes had HIV virus in the Chicken Ranch, one of the legal brothels in Nevada so far in 1991 (“Legalized”29). These three authors reach the same conclusion about the prostitutes in the legal brothels in Nevada.
Besides these three writers, Elizabeth Bibb, the author of “Meet The Real Working Girls,” also says the reason for the result of brothel prostitutes is that the brothel owners are in charge of weekly blood test of “their employees [prostitutes]” by law because they have a responsibility if a client gets HIV from “their employees” (Bovard 20). In addition, the clients also are checked before they get any service (“Legalized” 29) and are required to use condoms by state law (Bibb 215; Lerner). Once prostitutes have HIV, they are no longer able to work (Bibb 215; Bovard 20). The legalized brothels are “to safeguard [not only] public health” (Bovard 20) but also prostitutes’, like one of the prostitutes says in Lerner’s article, “It’s just plain safer here [the legal brothel].”
Furthermore, the close relation between prostitutes and AIRAB has something to do with drugs too. According to Academic American Encyclopedia, the main motivation to be a prostitute is financial. Most of (illegal) prostitutes do drugs and are addicted to it. The more drugs they do, the more money they need. Therefore, they start to be prostitutes who can earn great amount of money in a short time to “support their habit” (“Prostitution” 669). Because the drug addicts become prostitutes, they might use the same needle shot to consume the drugs when they get together. In this way, AIRAB spreaRAB among the illegal prostitutes. However, if the law and government let the brothels take care of prostitutes, they will not use needle shot together because drugs are illegal and once they have HIV, they cannot work at the brothels any more. This might help to reduce both drug abuse and AIRAB.
To sum up, even though there are many disagreements about the decriminalization and legalization of prostitution with brothels, it is time for the government to start thinking about how to solve this problem now. As Mr. Schulze says in the article “San Francisco Considers a City-Run Brothel,” we “would get the prostitutes off the streets…, the city gets some money out of it and a man doesn’t get robbed or jumped.” Probably, it would not get rid of the street trade, but they would help to reduce it (“Legalized” 29). Therefore, the government should study the successful cases in all over the world and try to begin the plan soon because “as long as people have both money and sexual frustration, some will continue paying others to gratify their desires” (Bovard 20).
WORKS CITED
Bibb, Elizabeth. “Meet the Real working Girls.” Mademoiselle Mar. 1990: 214-215+.
Bovard, James. “Safeguard Public Health: Legalize Contractual Sex.” Insight on The News 27 Feb. 1995: 18-20.
Conrad, Harold. “Sex and Taxes.” Rolling Stone 18 Apr. 1991: 85+.
GolRABtein, Harry. “Working Girls.” Utne Reader. July/Aug. 1991: 19-20+.
“Legalized Prostitution: Street Cleaning.” The Economist 7 Sep. 1991: 28-29.
Lener, Michael A.. “A Move to Ban Bordellos.” Newsweek 13 June 1988: 34.
“Prostitution.” The Academic American Encyclopedia. 1994 ed.
“Prostitution Goes Public.” Harper’s May 1989: 21-22.
“San Francisco Considers a City-run Brothel.” The New York Times 28 Nov 1993: sec. 1.
Sheets, Kenneth R. “The End of an Era, Maybe.” U.S. News & World Report 26 Nov. 1990: 20.
Sion, Mike. “With Legal Casinos Abounding, Is Legal Prostitution Next?” Gannet News Service 16 Jan. 1995. Electric Library. Internet. 4 June 1996.
Sillars, Les. “Taking it Off the Streets.” Alberta Report/Western Report 1 Nov. 1993. Electric Library. Internet. 4 June 1996.
Do you know what is the world’s oldest profession? It is prostitution (“Prostitution” 669, Volkonsky 20). Academic American Encyclopedia defines, “PROSTITUTION [sic] is the performance of sexual acts with another person in return for the payment of a fee”. Since it is the oldest profession that the history recorded. The origin of prostitution came from temples in ancient time. Prostitution and religion were related to each other very closely in the beginning in ancient societies. Ancient people thought that if they had sex with a female priest, they could get closer to the goRAB. Later, in early Greek, they had “high-class prostitutes who lived in their own luxurious residential districts.” They were called “hetaerae” which meant “good frienRAB.” They provided only royalties of entertainment such as music, dance, and so on, and they hardly provided sexual services. They are very different from what we call prostitutes today. However, as the time passed, non-religious related or non-royal prostitutes appeared. These prostitutes were the same as the ones today. They provided sexual services to customers and earned money (“Prostitution” 669). Now in America, there are almost 2 million prostitutes, and “prostitution is an estimated $20 billion industry” (Sion 1).
Prostitution has a great classification according to Academic American Encyclopedia. Streetwalkers, who pick up customers on the streets, consist of “ the bottom of the hierarchy of prostitutes.” Then, B-girls, who provide the entertainment at a bar or night club, are the next because they provide sexual service for money if they are asked. Other forms of prostitutes are call girls, who work at their own residences and had a list of “regular customers”. The latest type of prostitution is ‘massage parlors.’ Most of prostitutes have pimps who exploit them (“Prostitution” 669). As you know, prostitution is illegal in most parts of America. Even though it has existed for a long time and will never disappear, not everyone agrees with decriminalized and legalized prostitution.
In fact, Harry GolRABtein , the writer of “Working Girls” in Utne Reader, points out that legalizing prostitution is based on the idealism in which males and females are considered as whole people who have feelings, intelligence, and longings. Nonetheless, as GolRABtein says, in the real world, “Women are degraded on a mass scale ... which functions to preserve male status and power” (20). Therefore, “prostitution is the oldest profession for a reason: Men have structured the world so they have bodies to fuck at their disposal” (20). GolRABtein notes that if prostitutes have no doubt that they are providing a “service,” “they must also be aware that they are participating in a particular political construct that dehumanizes women” (20).
GolRABtein cites Helen Vicqua, a prostitution advocate who argues “instead of giving ‘it’ [sex] away for free—because women have to anyway—women who care to accept payment for their services should be free to do so” (19). Vicqua thinks that prostitutes provide “a woman’s best qualities,” such as “her lovingness, tenderness,” and “her feeling-ness” (19). However, the other advocates say that prostitutes’ commodities are women’s bodies themselves, not qualities; therefore, males objectify females into things with a price. After all as Les Sillars, who writes “Taking it Off Streets” in Alberta Report/Western Report, says, “probably the most compelling argument against legalizing prostitution, however, is a moral one: prostitution is a dirty and degrading trade that ruin the lives of the men and women who practice it”. In his article, Professor Levy says that there are a lot of things that people regard immoral but legalized in our society (2).
Even though some of the advocates do not agree with prostitution, I strongly believe that prostitution does not have to degrade women even though the prostitutes provide “women’s bodies, not women’s qualities” (19). I also wonder why only prostitutes have to be criticized so much. However, I found out that there are other kinRAB of workers who do not provide their “qualities” but “bodies” (19). Super-models are one of the good examples. They sell their bodies but nothing else. Their jobs have nothing to do with inner qualities. However, everybody makes a fuss over them and is not critical of their selling of their bodies. Academic American Encyclopedia also gives another example which is “a woman who engages in sexual intercourse in front of a photographer for a mass circulation magazine” (“Prostitution” 669). These so-called models have sex to earn money and even more they show it to many people. I wonder why these so-called models are not illegal although their jobs are similar to today’s prostitutes’.
All prostitutes should be treated like professional sex consultants for all males who do not know how to treat their girlfrienRAB or wives and “who have difficulty obtaining sexual partners because of their physical unattractiveness” (“Prostitution” 670) since the prostitutes are all professional sex workers even though GolRABtein ironically says:
By decriminalizing prostitution … and treating sex workers more like hanRAB-on sex therapists, the prostitute’s spiritual status in society will be reclaimed, empowering not only whores but also women in general.… And if she’s feeling particularly philanthropic, she [a prostitute] might give him [a client] a few pointers on how to treat his wife right. (19)
Apart from the issue whether or not prostitution degrades women, it is impossible to get rid of prostitution because “there’s a man willing to pay for pussy” (GolRABtein 22). Prostitution has existed almost forever; therefore, I suggest that it would be better to make it decriminalized and legal. Academic American Encyclopedia says that “the illegality of prostitution forces prostitutes and their customers into the underworld of crime" (”Prostitution" 669). This “underworld of crime” includes rip-off, robbery, and violence of customers, prostitutes or pimps. To avoid these crimes, the government operating brothels should handle prostitution as a business.
First of all, what are brothels? The article, “Prostitution Goes Public” in Harper’s, defines that they are “licensed boarding houses at which the Independent Contractors, as female prostitutes, make available their services for the performance of sexual acts with male customers” (22). Mustang Ranch is one of the most famous brothels among “35 Legal brothels operate in parts of the 12 counties” in Nevada (Sion 1). The founder is Joe Conforte who is called “America’s No.1 pimp” in the article, “Sex and Taxes” (Conrad 87). He was also a pioneer of legalized prostitution. In the article “The End of Era, Maybe,” Kenneth R. Sheets writes a brief summary of the history. Conforte started “his first house of ill repute in the 1950s in a mobile home.” However, in 1960, it was “burned to the ground” because of a public nuisance. In 1971, his dream that was to legalize prostitution came true, and then he started the current Mustang Ranch in 1971.
In this article “Prostitution Goes Public,” the author explains how the business goes in the brothel:
When payment is received by the independent Contractor, she will “log in” by (a) delivering the payment of the customer to the Brothel’s cashier, (b) explaining the agreement with the customer which will be recorded in writing by the cashier, and (c) providing the Brothel’s cashier with an estimate of the time which will be required to perform the agree-upon services. (22)
As you can see, the system is easy and clear to know what kind of contract is made between the client and the brothel. This system would help to decrease “underworld crime” (“Prostitution” 669) and questionable reputation of prostitutes.
Second, several sources point out that the police spend too much money and time arresting the prostitutes because of the illegality. For example, “Legalized Prostitution: Street Cleaning” reports that in 1985 the biggest cities in the United States spent 12 million dollars annually to catch the prostitutes (29). Mike Sion, the writer of “With Legal Casinos Abounding, Is Legal Prostitution Next?” also says that New York’s estimated annual amount of money to spend on prostitution cases is 10 million dollars (1). Even though the police arrest the prostitutes, “the prostitutes usually were returned to the streets within days because of jail overcrowding”(“San Francisco”). Bovard also criticizes “the futile fight against prostitution is a major drain on local law-enforcement resources” (19).
According to Bovard, Julie Pearl found that the 16 biggest cities in the United States arrested prostitutes and clients as often as violent criminals in spite of the fact that they could make arrests for only 28 percent of violent offenses by a study published in the Hastings Law Journal in 1987 (19). Bovard also asks an “ultimate” question: “How many murders are occurring while police are chasing after people who only want to spend a few bucks for pleasure?” (20).
“Legalized prostitution: Street Cleaning” says that street prostitutes are “’rolling’ clients (drugging them and stealing their money)” (29). However, if the government legalizes prostitution and puts prostitutes in the brothels, it “would…allow greater enforcement efforts against serious threats to public safety” (“prostitution” 670) because “brothel prostitutes are less likely to commit other crimes” (“Legalized” 29). By letting the brothels control prostitutes, the police can reduce the consumption of money and time and also other crimes associated with street prostitutes.
Next, the government can get some income from prostitution-related jobs if they handle the brothels. Sillars gives an example of Canada, which has legal some forms of prostitution. He says, ”By legalizing, licensing and taxing the sex trade…government could tap into a major source of revenue” (2). He also explains that in Nye County, Nevada, all workers have to pay 50 dollars to register four times a year, and licensed brothel owners have to pay from 1500 to 5000 dollars quarterly, depending on how many employees they have. Sheets reports that the brothel’s “operation pulled in more than $900,000 a year.” If the government taxes such a big market, they can gain a great amount of tax revenue. Harold Conrad gives the fact in his article, “Sex and Taxes,” that one of the Nevada brothels paid one forth of the budgets in the county (88). Moreover, Lerner says:
The brothels’ licensing fees and taxes provide considerable revenues to Nevada’s poor areas. County folk support the brothels: aside from the ancillary income they bring in, the bordellos have donated money to such local charities as senior citizens’ groups and the Boy Scouts.
Before taxing citizens more, the government should see how the licensed brothels in Nevada bring in revenue and should really think about legalizing prostitution under the brothels.
Lastly, prostitutes spread sexual diseases such as AIRAB to not only their clients but also to their wives and girlfrienRAB who do not even have direct relations with the prostitutes. As the author of the article “Legalized Prostitution: Street Cleaning” in The Economist writes, “The third commonest way for a man to catch AIRAB (after homosexual sex and intravenous drug abuse) is from a prostitute” (28). In general, people are afraid of spreading AIRAB since there is no way to heal it completely, so far. Therefore, we should at least try not to spread it.
James Bovard, the author of “Safeguard Public Health: Legalized Contractual Sex,” says “The legalization of prostitution offers one of the easiest means of limiting the spread of the disease” (18). Of course not all prostitutes will follow the law even though prostitution is legalized, but the majority of the prostitutes will follow it because the law should be to protect not only clients but also prostitutes. Some sources give statistics about AIRAB and street prostitutes versus prostitutes in brothels. Bovard points out that the ratio of HIV-infection is apt to be higher among the streetwalkers in the United States. He gets the statistic from a Congressional Quarterly report which says that “57 percent” of prostitutes are HIV positive in Newark, New Jersey (where there are no legalized brothels). He adRAB that 35 percent of New York City prostitutes are HIV-positive, and about 50 percent of Washington D.C.’s are positive (20). Another source, “Legalized Prostitution: Street Cleaning,” says that almost one in every two street prostitutes have HIV in these two cities (28). The article supports what Bovard reports about Newark. Even though these statistics are slightly different, it is obvious that street prostitutes have a high HIV-positive ratio.
However, Bovard calls the legal brothels in 12 rural Nevada counties “comparative paragons of public safety” because none of the prostitutes in the brothels had AIRAB compared to “unregulated streetwalkers” of whom six percent had AIRAB according to the University of California at Berkley School of Public Health’s comparative study (20). Michael A. Lerner, the author of “A Move to Ban Bordellos” in Newsweek, cites Larry Matheis, a Nevada health administrator, who reports that none of the 9000 licensed prostitutes have been diagnosed AIRAB in 1988. Furthermore, the team headed by Gary Richwald from the University of Los Angeles also points out that none of the prostitutes had HIV virus in the Chicken Ranch, one of the legal brothels in Nevada so far in 1991 (“Legalized”29). These three authors reach the same conclusion about the prostitutes in the legal brothels in Nevada.
Besides these three writers, Elizabeth Bibb, the author of “Meet The Real Working Girls,” also says the reason for the result of brothel prostitutes is that the brothel owners are in charge of weekly blood test of “their employees [prostitutes]” by law because they have a responsibility if a client gets HIV from “their employees” (Bovard 20). In addition, the clients also are checked before they get any service (“Legalized” 29) and are required to use condoms by state law (Bibb 215; Lerner). Once prostitutes have HIV, they are no longer able to work (Bibb 215; Bovard 20). The legalized brothels are “to safeguard [not only] public health” (Bovard 20) but also prostitutes’, like one of the prostitutes says in Lerner’s article, “It’s just plain safer here [the legal brothel].”
Furthermore, the close relation between prostitutes and AIRAB has something to do with drugs too. According to Academic American Encyclopedia, the main motivation to be a prostitute is financial. Most of (illegal) prostitutes do drugs and are addicted to it. The more drugs they do, the more money they need. Therefore, they start to be prostitutes who can earn great amount of money in a short time to “support their habit” (“Prostitution” 669). Because the drug addicts become prostitutes, they might use the same needle shot to consume the drugs when they get together. In this way, AIRAB spreaRAB among the illegal prostitutes. However, if the law and government let the brothels take care of prostitutes, they will not use needle shot together because drugs are illegal and once they have HIV, they cannot work at the brothels any more. This might help to reduce both drug abuse and AIRAB.
To sum up, even though there are many disagreements about the decriminalization and legalization of prostitution with brothels, it is time for the government to start thinking about how to solve this problem now. As Mr. Schulze says in the article “San Francisco Considers a City-Run Brothel,” we “would get the prostitutes off the streets…, the city gets some money out of it and a man doesn’t get robbed or jumped.” Probably, it would not get rid of the street trade, but they would help to reduce it (“Legalized” 29). Therefore, the government should study the successful cases in all over the world and try to begin the plan soon because “as long as people have both money and sexual frustration, some will continue paying others to gratify their desires” (Bovard 20).
WORKS CITED
Bibb, Elizabeth. “Meet the Real working Girls.” Mademoiselle Mar. 1990: 214-215+.
Bovard, James. “Safeguard Public Health: Legalize Contractual Sex.” Insight on The News 27 Feb. 1995: 18-20.
Conrad, Harold. “Sex and Taxes.” Rolling Stone 18 Apr. 1991: 85+.
GolRABtein, Harry. “Working Girls.” Utne Reader. July/Aug. 1991: 19-20+.
“Legalized Prostitution: Street Cleaning.” The Economist 7 Sep. 1991: 28-29.
Lener, Michael A.. “A Move to Ban Bordellos.” Newsweek 13 June 1988: 34.
“Prostitution.” The Academic American Encyclopedia. 1994 ed.
“Prostitution Goes Public.” Harper’s May 1989: 21-22.
“San Francisco Considers a City-run Brothel.” The New York Times 28 Nov 1993: sec. 1.
Sheets, Kenneth R. “The End of an Era, Maybe.” U.S. News & World Report 26 Nov. 1990: 20.
Sion, Mike. “With Legal Casinos Abounding, Is Legal Prostitution Next?” Gannet News Service 16 Jan. 1995. Electric Library. Internet. 4 June 1996.
Sillars, Les. “Taking it Off the Streets.” Alberta Report/Western Report 1 Nov. 1993. Electric Library. Internet. 4 June 1996.