Criminal Sex

I've had enough of people who insist that men who pay for sex are bad. On the contrary, if a man wants meaningless sex he should pay for it. I would much rather find a couple of bills on the bed the next day than settle for the promise of a phone call that never comes. At least if I'm left with cash I can buy a new pair of shoes. If all I get is the brush off after giving it up, frankly, I feel cheated.

So if a guy feels he needs something different, new, strange, that's between him and his partner—not him and the rest of the world. John Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer and the like didn't fail the American public; they broke a promise to be faithful to their wives. It's nobody else's business.

You might say that, as representatives of our country and enforcers of laws, our elected officials should know that breaking laws is wrong regardless of the law in question and regardless of the reason. But why are there laws criminalizing sex between two consenting adults anyway? How can we be so backward that we believe sex is healthy and beautiful if we're making a baby—even one we don't want--but bad and nasty if we're just enjoying it for its own sake? God made the clitoris, didn't he? It is not necessary for reproduction, so what's it there for?

The twisted logic that causes people to say prostitution should be criminal, but it's okay to have sex to make babies, may still be part of most organized religions, but isn't the state supposed to be separate from all that?

If it's not a crime to have sex, why is it a crime to pay for it? If your girlfriend blows you weekly and you present her with a diamond necklace, is that criminal? Maybe Spitzer really liked his $1k/hour call girl. Maybe they developed a relationship that satisfied them both. Maybe his wife knew about it and didn't care. We just don't know—nor is it any of our business.

But what is our business is the business of Congress. What we should be trying to do is convince Congress to pass legislation that decriminalizes sex between two consenting adults—regardless of whether or not money changes hands.

In addition to saving us all from being subjected to yet another sex scandal instead of real news, decriminalizing prostitution would improve conditions for clients and service providers alike. We could follow the Dutch model. We could regulate the medical check-ups of sex workers to make sure they are healthy. We could pay reliable business people to manage them to ensure they have fair working conditions and are paid a living wage. It's working quite nicely in Holland. Why not emulate their system?

Never mind, I already know the answer. If prostitution were legal, Eliot Spitzer's enemies would have to find something substantial to pin on him—and they don't have anything else. The one thing all powerful men have in common is that they want and expect great sex. What's the point of all that power otherwise? Men are not any different now than they were hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Sex sells for a reason.

As long as prostitution is a crime, the rich and powerful will always have a way to bring down whomever they choose to target. As the Spitzer scenario proves, yet again, even the best and the brightest are, at the most fundamental level, just looking to get laid. Let's admit it and move on instead of continuing to punish otherwise law-abiding citizens for simply being what they were born to be: horn dogs.