Chapter 45: Political Colloquy
In bed that night, Kaitlyn said, “I could have been her, Davie. You know, Chanel.”
“Is that why you did it…why you took an interest, I mean?”
“Yeah. I don’t suppose you get it, how a good looking woman can slip into that life when under financial pressure with no better prospects.”
“Is it really so bad? I mean, in an ideal world? It seems to me that the main problem with prostitution is the very fact that it’s illegal, Kaitlyn. It pushes the women to take risks they wouldn’t for a regular day job, and then if things don’t go properly, there’s no one to turn to. They can’t complain to OSHA about unsafe working conditions, citing the neck sprain they took in a pile-driver bang, there’s no unemployment insurance program for college barflies, and they can expect little police protection if they get slapped around by a client or worse. You spoke to her of your old scut-work BLM job, but you had dozens of societal protections that Chanel simply doesn’t, purely because your old college job was legal, while hers isn’t.”
“You’re in favor of prostitution?” my wife asked, carefully keeping any judgement out of her voice.
“Oldest profession, they say,” I observed. “No matter how the civil authorities, churches, and self-appointed morality squads try to restrict it, it persists. It’s therefore not useful to talk about whether it should exist, but instead what we’re going to do about it given that it does exist.”
“So more like nuclear waste, then,” she joked.
I laughed and continued, “Those against prostitution like to speak from a moral high ground, but what is society’s moral obligation towards those in the life, whether pushed there or there by choice? It’s clear from the way the laws are drafted that we think the women are the problem, when they’re filling one of society’s clearly-defined needs. I don’t like to use the word misogyny — I think it’s too often conflated with simple sexism, which dangerously dilutes the word’s power — but I think it entirely applies here.”
“It’s misogynistic to be anti-prostitution?”
“To be anti-prostitute,” I corrected. “They’re people, just as deserving of society’s protections as any other class. Here’s a hypothetical for you, Kaitlyn: I’m world emperor for a day, and I sign a decree that prostitution is now legal. What happens next, as a necessary consequence?”
She thought for a bit, then said, “We start learning how many of them there really are, I suppose.”
I grunted assent but said, “Yeah, probably, but I think what happens before that is that the job market for pimps falls apart. Stripped to its essentials, the role of a pimp is advertising, enforcement, and banking. What does a prostitute need a pimp for when a mainstream advertising outlet will take her money, when the police will earnestly investigate charges of battery or robbery, and when the banks are willing to give her a merchant account so she can take credit cards for her services even after she fills out the application form honestly?” I repeated, “Pimps, as a class, go away,” flicking my fingers like tossing a soiled tissue into the trash. “And good riddance.”
Kaitlyn thought for a while, then said, “The girls start paying their taxes, too.”
I was certain it wasn’t just ‘girls’ in the game, but I just said, “I suspect some of them do that already, Kaitlyn, they just don’t put ‘Prostitute’ into the job title field of their tax return. They make up some BS job title so that if prosecuted, they only have to face one set of charges, not tax evasion on top of it. The thing is, Kaitlyn, they pay and then don’t get full use out of society’s services, only getting the ones available anonymously, like use of public roads. Anything that requires that they honestly disclose their source of income is blocked to them. Thus pimps, unchecked STIs, violence, drug abuse, human trafficking, and worse.”
Kaitlyn was quiet, and I let her think on it. In the silence, I heard a teardrop hit the bed sheet, and she sniffed, hard and ugly. Then she pounded the bed a few times. I pulled her tighter into my big spoon and smoothed her hair.
In a quavery voice, she said, “We’ve got to make sure this works for her. Chanel, I mean.”
I silently agreed, just continued soothing her for a time.
Once I sensed her breathing settle, I said, “You know, my love, there are places in the world where prostitution is legal, regulated, protected. It’s still not a great job. It has terrible long-term prospects, but for a few years to get a person through college or whatever… What’s the harm?”
“Are you disagreeing with me, Davie?” she asked, sounding hurt, like I’d rejected what she’d done.
“No no, you misunderstand. You did do the right thing for her, Kaitlyn. Absolutely you did! But it’s only the right thing in the context of the current legal structure, where the dangers stack up so highly against young Chanel. Go back to my hypothetical: prostitution is legal, reasonably safe, and well-paid. Do you still try to get her out of it?”
Kaitlyn thought again, then said, “At her age, no, but if she’s thirty…”
“Sure, of course, but there’s probably dozens of jobs with that sort of profile. Modeling, waiting tables, camp counselor…”
Kaitlyn was silent, so it was my turn to think.
I’d nearly fallen asleep when I said, “You know, you really could have been a great prostitute. You’ve got the looks, brains, and drive for it.”
“Don’t even joke about that!” she huffed.
“I wasn’t. Back to my hypothetical again: you’re a college junior, prostitution is legal, and you’ve got a choice between that and your old scut-work BLM job. Which do you pick, given that sex work probably pays ten times better?”
Before she could answer, I said, “No, scratch that. If it’s legal, the market changes drastically. Lots of people enter to service the market who otherwise wouldn’t have, so the price drops. The risks drop, so the overhead drops again. We took out the pimp layer, and there’s no need for bribes and such, so the service price drops further.” I thought a bit, then added, “I’d expect prostitution in this hypothetical to pay about the same as any other self-taught labor-intensive blue collar job: back-street mechanics, budget plumbers, unlicensed electricians, tree trimmers, that kind of thing. Several times the take home pay per hour as your old entry-level BLM job, at a guess.”
“All right, Davie, if you stack the deck like that, sure, I might’ve chosen that career. It’s a pretty ridiculous premise, though.”
“But you see, my love, that framing sets up the moral landscape we need to properly evaluate our choices. If the profession is only bad because society is currently structured to treat prostitutes badly, we have only two moral choices.” I paused to let her fill them in.
“Lobby our congress critters to make prostitution legal…” she began tentatively.
“Yeah, or get them out of the life, like you did for Chanel, same as you’d do for anyone else in terrible danger. And since lobbying the Utah state legislature or the Moab town council is highly unlikely to work…”
“What’re you saying, Davie, you want to make this a new mission?”
“Yeah, I do. Use the massage and PT businesses to build contacts in the community so we have a network of jobs ready to shunt these young women into, and use Chanel as a lever to pry into this world, to find those who want to get out. Maybe get Poulsen in on this, too; it’s right up his alley, using our position and power to strengthen the social fabric and reduce crime.”
I wasn’t trying to pander to Kaitlyn’s own preferences, but I saw that I’d just painted her a sweeping landscape, tonight’s single good deed done in grand style, so I wasn’t at all surprised when she said, “I like it, Davie. Who wouldn’t?”
Who indeed?