Sex In The Public Square - Eliot Spitzer - Comments

Secondary effects of sexually-oriented businesses

Elizabeth — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:33:39 -0700

The assertion that sex-oriented businesses are linked to such problems as property crime, drug dealing and other illegal activities is often made as support for isolating such businesses away from downtowns and high traffic areas. The problem with this strategy is that it is the isolation away from Main Streets and downtowns that facilitates the illegal activity that is used to justify their isolation. Examples of sexually oriented business that are integrated into neighborhoods and mainstream commercial districts do not in fact find such effects. In other words it is the isolation and not the sex that is the problem.

Strip clubs and sex clubs that serve alcohol may be associated with fighting and rowdiness and public nuisance offenses but that is also not a product of the sexual nature of the business. Rather it is typical of bars and clubs more broadly, especially those that attract large numbers of younger people who are more likely to fight than are older drinkers. Cluster enough such establishments together away from other kinds of businesses and of course you have a recipe for all kinds of trouble. Again, not because of the sex but because of the combination of alcohol and the isolation of the businesses away from where others are watching.

I've written at some length about this problem before. You can find some of that writing here and here.

Sex oriented businesses,

feliduca — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:59:18 -0700

Sex oriented businesses, although protected under First Amendment guarantees, can facilitate and support undesirable and detrimental patterns of activity in their vicinity. These secondary impacts are incompatible with activities and uses in residential areas, or near educational, recreational, and religious facilities. They also have negative impacts upon local businesses in their immediate neighborhood. When combined with additional sex oriented establishments or establishments serving alcoholic beverages1 the evidence indicates that there are additional increases in undesirable and harmful patterns of activity.

It is important to point out that secondary impacts of sex oriented businesses is not a recent problem. Secondary activities associated with sex oriented businesses have historically included personal and property crimes as well as solicitation for prostitution, gambling, organized criminal activity, illicit drug transactions, shanghaiing/kidnapping, disorderly conduct, and other public nuisance activities. The work of many municipalities in examining the impact of sex oriented businesses buttresses the historic record providing ample evidence in support of regulation and restriction of the location and concentration of these types of business enterprises.

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I agree with profesor Alan

daniel — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:38:00 -0700

I agree with profesor Alan Dershowitz that a 4000 dollars/hour escort is not a slave coerced with prostitution, but there is many people obliged to work that way.

Ashley

Susan — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:19:41 -0700

Hello Elizabeth,

People assume that when Ashley Dupre is saying "I know what it's like to have everything and lose it", they think she's talking about when she left home at 17. It would never occur to them to think that when she "had it all", she was working for NYC Confidential, and when she "lost it all", it was when NYC Confidential was shut down.

For a different perspective ...

Elizabeth — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:11:05 -0700

For a different perspective on that same New York Times article see this piece on Bound, Not Gagged. It was posted by Amanda Brooks on behalf of Faith O'Donnell, one of the women profiled in the Times piece. Briefly, she felt like the journalists (Cara Buckley and Andrew Jacobs) wrote what was essentially a fluff piece, omitting any discussion of her political analysis of sex work, while providing too many possibly identifying details (which were provided to them only so they could confirm her identity for the story, but not for inclusion in the published piece), and that details attributed to her actually came from one of the other women. It seems like the Times, whether on its opinion pages or in its news pages (the Dominus piece was on the front page of the Metro section) has a hard time reporting about prostitution, or sex in general really.

It is a disheartening observation about what is reputedly a liberal newspaper.

Yeah, Dominus' article was

Iamcuriousblue — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:59:21 -0700

Yeah, Dominus' article was pretty bad. Thankfully, I grew up on the opposite coast from Upper West Side society, and so generally don't have to deal with quite such elaborate codes to show that one is born into the right class.

I'm somebody who often falls into the "little visible means of support" category, but I can tell a bottle of good Pinot from plonk, rattle off at least a few of the better declared years of Vintage Port, and go on about the remarkableness of a good Spitzenberg apple. That comes with having traveled in some quite varied social circles in my life, not to mention raised by a restauranteur. I imagine Ms Dupré is somebody with similarly eclectic tastes who travels in a few different social circles, too. Perhaps Susan Dominus is miffed because Dupré doesn't seem to "know her place"?

To be fair to the NY Times, they did do a much better article than the above a few days later, "The Double Lives of High-Priced Call Girls ". While it does play up the headline-grabbing "high-priced call girl" shtick, it does at least provide a realistic portrait of many middle-class sex workers, and certainly is in keeping with one's I've met. The NY Times is generally on better ground when doing actual journalism than with their op-ed pieces. But op-ed idiocracy is why we have blogs as an alternative.

Dupré and the new petite bourgeoisie

Lisa_M — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:23:34 -0700

Great post, Elizabeth. Dominus (whose name incidentally means “lord” in Latin) makes some horridly classist assumptions. When I read Dupré’s remark that she knew, at 22, what it was like “to have everything and lose it,” I first pictured a middle (or perhaps upper middle) class kid who ran away from an abusive home, like some of the homeless kids I used to run into on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. (Of course I don’t know Dupré’s background, but I find it annoying when people assume a “broken,” abusive family is lower class, as if the elite are always responsible, loving parents.) In her book Temporarily Yours, Elizabeth Bernstein considers how sex work not only draws people from the lower classes, but increasingly attracts people from what Pierre Bourdieu dubs the “new petite bourgeoisie”—composed partly of those who haven’t earned the degrees required to pursue careers their class background promised them (doctors’ kids who don’t go to med, law or business school, for instance). Again, this might not apply to Dupré, but most mainstream media sources don’t even consider this possibility because they’re so intent on depicting her as down-and-out, or as an aspiring star who’s about to strike it rich because all publicity is good publicity.

It’s worth noting that the “new petite bourgeoisie” (also called “the creative class” by Richard Florida) includes a sizable chunk of artists and intellectuals (some of whom are also sex workers), and many of us opt out of lucrative professions and shirk exclusive restaurants because these patterns of consumption are based on exploitation. Fuck the salad fork!

Your Blog: Maybe not required, but certainly available

sweLL — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:41:37 -0700

Elizabeth, you missed Alix Olson's performance on Monday 3/10 at the college. I met one of your students there at the bookselling table, who told me you recommended Alix to your class. Your young student was beaming when she spoke of you (explained to me you were out of town; therefore could not attend). She had never heard of A.O. before, and decided after the show to buy one of Alix' books.

There are ideal professor's out there whom we sometimes just can't get enough of. I'd bet this student of yours would be most interested in hearing more of what you have to say outside the classroom.

That would be a lot of pressure.

Bonnie — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 19:48:30 -0700

Mmmm...If I were a teacher, I think I'd be scared to make my blog required reading (even if my blog were a serious one & relevant to my course material).

It would make them a captive audience, and one of the reasons I started my blog was because I'd considered myself to be an overactive member of a certain local listserve & decided that I preferred writing on a blog because then people would only read it because they wanted to.

Some of those students would doubtless resent it. I'd just know that anything I wrote there was going to be scrutinized by people who'd just love to catch me in an inconsistency or an airhead moment, or even just a series of uninspired posts (or nonposts) if I had a case of writer's block, or just was too busy to write as well as I'd like to. That would really ruin some of the spontaneity of blogging for me.

I might well end up incorporating some of the material I wrote for the blog in my lesson plan, or vice versa, but as far as making it required reading - I don't think I'd want to put that pressure on myself, my site, or my students.

Assigning one's own website as required reading -- thoughts?

Elizabeth — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 08:29:26 -0700

Thanks Amanda! I'm glad you like the post. I was so angry about the article that I was afraid it might have come off as too much of a plain old rant.

You know, you raise an interesting point of discomfort for me: I'd love for my students to read the site and to participate, too. I've been very hesitant to make it "required reading." So far I've only gone so far as to mention it as an interesting source of info about the issues.

What are people's thoughts on faculty making their own web sites or blogs required reading? Is it different from assigning one's own textbook or article? (My college has a clear policy on the assignment of faculty-authored textbooks that is designed to prevent faculty from making money by assigning their own books when those books aren't adopted by other colleges as well, but in this case making money isn't part of the equation.)

clients don't care

Amanda — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 07:26:46 -0700

"High-class" or no "high-class" it's never stopped clients and never will, regardless of how society reacts. To me, that's the REAL hypocrisy that needs examined.

Great post, by the way. Hope it's required reading for your students.

Evidence based policy

Michael — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:30:44 -0700

The subject of prostitution produces instant 'experts' and this column is no exception. It is frankly polemic and only refers to 'evidence' when it suits the argument. There is no ‘overwhelming’ evidence about prostitution in the US. Kristof relies on Farley as his sole source of information, a writer whose work is very problematic and self-serving (1), and ignores mainstream academic work.

In citing a 2004 epidemiological study Kristof adds padding, describing this as ‘meticulous’ without stating the scientific criteria he used for such an assessment. The study is in fact quite misleading, taking women in trouble with the police, and who were in clinics getting treatment and admitted to having been involved in sex work (which few do) and then comparing them with the general population. Apart from problems with misclassification in studies using self reporting, there is a failure to control for all the other factors likely to affect mortality. If they had compared these women to other women of a similar socio-economic group with police records and in treatment, the results of the study would have been very different. These women represent a subgroup of women selling sex on the street, which in itself only represents about 10-20% of all women selling sex. To conclude that this data is typical of sex work in general is a very serious error.

Interestingly it never seems to occur to Kristof that selling sex on the street is dangerous, not because selling sex is in itself dangerous - it is not, but because of the criminal law (that he champions) and social stigma which we impose on these women. One wonders just how many countries Kristof did look at - did he look at Finland or New Zealand, and why did he assume that the approach of Amsterdam’s mayor is some sort of proof that a more liberal approach is a failure. What exactly does he know about Bulgaria other than its plan to liberalise the laws came under attack from some US radicals?

Kristof seems a fan of Sweden, a country radically different socially and legally from the US. In fact there is no evidence whatsoever that Sweden’s approach achieved any benefit, including a recently released report from the National Board of Health of Welfare (2). No country has succeeded in changing the extent of prostitution through legislation, indeed it is difficult to see how they could, but many have succeeded in creating a good deal of harm.

Kristof’s intemperate vocabulary - “rape a 13 year old” “pubescent flesh” does not suggest he is interested in an objective analysis of evidence, as opposed to pursuing moral ideology. Calmer minds might realise that such things as human rights and public health deserve equal consideration rather than waging war on something one decides one does not like.

Michael Goodyear, Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 2Y9

References
1. Weitzer R. Flawed theory and method in studies of prostitution. Violence against Women 2005 11(7) 934-949
2. Kännedom om Prostitution. Socialstyrelsen Artikelnr 2007-131-48. Stockholm

Thanks for the reminder.

Lisa_M — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:27:36 -0700

Thanks for the reminder. When prostitution makes headlines, I’m generally overjoyed to hear voices in the mainstream media defending it as a “victimless crime”—a phrase which masks a number of complex issues, including the fact that criminalization produces victims, and that some people are in fact coerced. It’s sad that more positive rhetoric about sex work rarely makes the news.

Sex Workers Spitzer Speculations

Lisa_M — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:12:44 -0700

Elizabeth, I see your point. Spitzer certainly has access to the best legal defense, and clients are rarely charged with solicitation (though there are increasing precedents for arresting and charging johns). Sex workers—both individually and as a group—always take the fall in this kind of media blitz, because the overwhelming chorus of commentators assumes that prostitution is evil.

“Kristin” and the other workers certainly don’t deserve to be arrested and interrogated, but I’m hoping they get off easy. There are several reasons to be optimistic. First, these particular workers seem well connected and can probably afford good lawyers, if they need them. But more importantly, as it turns out, investigators weren’t initially after the Emperor’s Club. They were eyeballing Spitzer’s banking records, and the trail led to the escort service. (NPR has a good story about this and some very important information about post-9/11 banking surveillance: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88116176)

The point is they’re out to get Spitzer, and the sex workers are the casualties (a common position for sex workers to be in). Fortunately, “Kristin’s” real name isn’t in the news so far—because she isn’t being targeted. I’m not a lawyer, but I think it’s fairly common in a case like this for the prosecutor to drop the charge (which would be a misdemeanor) in exchange for “Kristin’s” agreement to testify against Spitzer or her employer. (Sadly, the name of Temeka Rachelle Lewis is in the news, and as you say, she and others running the Emperor's Club are being charged under the Mann Act.)

I suspect that Spitzer will be charged with money laundering, not solicitation. But this probably won't matter as far as the media is concerened. (Note that Al Capone is not remembered for tax evasion, though that was the charge they finally pinned on him.)

In an NPR interview, Spitzer’s Harvard law prof, Alan Dershowitz, points out that no client has ever been charged under the Mann Act: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88104105 This interview is really worth hearing. Dershowitz asserts that prostitution is a victimless crime, a $4000/hour escort is not a “slave” coerced into prostitution, and Spitzer should not resign because politicians sex lives have never adversely effected their ability to govern (except when they’re taken as grounds for impeachment and broadcast 24/7). Finally a voice of sanity in this mess!

Spitzer and the Mann Act

Elizabeth — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:52:35 -0700

So much is not known in this situation, and the details seem to change/emerge from hour to hour. At the moment (Tuesday night) it seems that the only people likely to be charged under the Mann Act are the people are the ones who have been charged already: those who were running the daily operations for the Emperor's Club. If Spitzer is charged do you think it'll be a prostitution related charge or a fraud charge or both?

So much seems up in the air right now, but I fear that the double injustice here will be that a law that has historically been applied unjustly will be yet again used to target a group of people -- sex workers -- while allowing another group -- elite men -- to remain shielded.