Good God, this 20/20 special on prostitution SUCKS

Alright ... a first for me, live blogging TV!

"Some are lured by the dream of a flashy lifestyle and fast money, others to feed their drug habit and just to survive, but almost all struggle with the challenge of how hard it is to get out of the profession ... Whether the women are making $20 in five minutes or $20,000 in one night, the program follows the grim spiral of dependence these women often fall into ..."

(Online story link here)

They're conflating prostitution with trafficking and childhood sexual abuse. They're saying that it's not a choice. New York Times columnist and "expert" on (any and all negative aspects of) prostitution Nicholas D. Kristof is on here who's saying that, if it is a choice, it's a contemptible one. They're saying the average life span of a prostitute is 34 years old. They're equating streetwalkers with "high end" girls -- b/c they're *all* prostitutes, ya know.

Diane Sawyer is going to soon talk to someone who helps women who "dream of a way out." She calls CraigsList a giant red light district.

Of COURSE some girls in the business were abused as children, are controlled by pimps, are assaulted on the job, are drug addicts, and may be forced into it, and of course many aspects of this business can be quite scary or lonely ... But what about the other side? Let's have some objectivity here, people!

"Statistics on these girls are hard to find, but we're told most come from broken homes ..." "Many girls have bought into the Pretty Woman idea, that it's glamorous ..."

Blah blah moralistic bullshit ... At least they're interviewing real working girls ... but, they're all "survivor" type stories ("I was raped by a boyfriend at the age of 12" "Many turn to drugs to numb themselves to the exploitation and degradation" (this from an ex-hooker)).

Sigh ...

OK, back for more ... Diane Sawyer says that ordering an escort off the internet is as easy as ordering take-out food (uhm, not if the girl SCREENS! That "food" oughta take a couple of days!).

They're doing a ride-a-long with a vice cop in Reno, who busts a lady for solicitation and gives her 180 days in jail ... holy SHIT! I missed this while typing, but my husband said that the cop said that people without residences (i.e. the homeless) in Reno don't qualify for citations, so they get jail time. (Don't quote me on this, I missed it and my husband wasn't exactly sure). A john got caught and walked free.

SIGH again ...

Reno has a "John's school" for 1st offenders, where LE scares johns by telling them about how they can get STDs and that many prostitutes walk around with razor blades in their mouths ... (never heard of that one) ...

I like a lot of 20/20's reports, but this one, URGGhhhh ...

The story online also links to a site filled with trafficking/explotation links, titled
Online Resources to Help End Sexual Exploitation -- Tips on Escaping the Industry, Advocating for Different Legislation and Raising Awareness. Among the links are Children of the Night, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women-International and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Now, they're talking about pimps ... Diane says that one guy took in $2 million a year with just 8 girls working for him (uhm, I seriously doubt that). She talks about how "The idea of pimp as folk hero" culminated two years ago at the Oscars when the song "It's hard out here for a pimp" won ...

Well, I'm no fan of pimps, so no sympathy here really ... but big sympathy for girls who end up working for one ...

Diane reminds us: "Remember the statistics -- 60 to 90% of the girls on the streets have been molested."

Diane just said that 20/20 spent TWO years working on this special. Hmm, seems like they could have gotten some opposing viewpoints on here ...

OK hour two, looks like they actually got an "opposing" viewpoint, though Diane had a hell of a time dragging anything negative out of the "courtesan" they interviewed in silhouette ... The courtesan told Diane that she has about 7 long-term paid relationships going. Diane kept pushing her, not believing she could be happy in her choice, digging for that "aha!" "But don't you ever feel bad, that you're selling something that shouldn't be sold?" "Were you molested as a child? As a teen? Did drugs?" No, no and no. "Do you have emotional problems?" The courtesan said, "Well, yes, I'm afraid of being vulnerable. It's easier for me to have several superficial relationships than just one deep one." Diane asked, "What would it take for you to leave?" And she said, "Love, and the desire for one monogamous relationship."

"It seemed unbelievable to us that men would pay thousands at a brothel for conversation," Diane says in the next segment at the Bunny Ranch. Geez ... how long have you been covering the news, Diane? Why is this news?

"But who was Sam before prostitution, when sex was still a feeling and a gateway to love?" Diane asks a Bunny Ranch employee, trying to get her to cry over something. Come to find out the girl is divorced. Oooh, *there's* the smoking gun! "Another tale of a crushing divorce," Diane said. OK, so, now bad divorces drive you into prostitution too.

"Captain Save-a-ho" -- how the girls and the cashier at the Bunny Ranch refer to the guys who come in there thinking they'll find a wife or "rescue" a girl, b/c they'll find a girl who will fuck them every day. Ha ha, yeah, those guys are stupid.

"A lot of the girls here do do drugs, coke or ecstasy ... or xanax or valiums, just to get through their day," one girl says. Yeah, a lot of people WHO AREN'T HOOKERS do that too! "Drugs, she says, to numb you," Diane explains -- in case we didn't understand that you MUST be drugged up to do this job. Plenty of people will have a bump or a roll on the weekend to party and take xanies and valium during the week for their stress (perhaps they hate THEIR jobs) ... it's incredibly common, really -- as if this "bad behavior" is unique among working girls.

Now Diane is talking to homeless prostitutes living in abandoned houses who have sex for $5 or $10. I gather they are drug addicts b/c the camera closes up on a spoon on a table with crusty residue inside. Not much of a comment here; this is a sad situation. I mean, I DO know that they're not making this shit up, as far as just filming real people in real situations ... these ladies ARE addicts and they do what they can to survive, since their addictions keep them from being able to work "real" jobs. It's just the context, or suggestion, that this is the end result of prostitution, that you've gotta be a drug addict to do it in the first place, and that you'll end up homeless.

Again, just *one* "positive" story and 50 sad ones. A "cynical" older veteran of the brothels was shown giving negotiating tips to the new recruits at the Bunny Ranch and she seemed really funny -- why didn't they interview HER I wonder? There isn't a broad brush you can paint all escorts with!

They *did* ride around with a vice cop in the first hour who was out busting "criminals" and letting their customers go. An even MORE balanced show would have shown how many resources are wasted by LE going after these girls.

Diane says that the nation is "in denial" about how widespread prostitution is, and "its dangers." Most people are just hypocrites, like Spitzer -- most johns are normal guys that you know, pillars of the community who work respectable, straight jobs with suits and ties and may very well go to church. PLENTY of people know about prostitution -- at least, the men who see them.

Diane says that the Netherlands' openness with sex work has made it a haven for traffickers. Traffickers have left Sweden b/c the country has made it legal to sell sex but illegal to buy sex ... eh, I don't like this either. The johns get to "pay the legal price," Diane says. But, apparently the girls who are caught apparently get pushed through "exit strategy" training.

Kristof said 50% of men saw prostitutes in the 50s and only 20% do now, that, in addition to there being more "promiscuity" all around nowadays, that men now see it as demeaning and embarrassing to go to brothels. (Maybe true ... at least, if the documentary film "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" [snicker] was any indication, men "back in the day" had the approval of their wives ...)

Diane wraps it up, after looking down her nose for two hours, by quoting Jesus, who told a group of guys stoning a prostitute to call it off. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

OK, well, show is over ... you can post comments on the story on the website. I agree with one comment already: "she started by saying the overwhelming number of women are black and latino...and they are spending two hrs talking about the blonde white women" -- too true!

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ADDENDA (03/22/08): I just remembered how Diane worded her question to the "courtesan" now -- she asked her, "Do you ever feel like this violates the sanctity of your body? That you're selling something that shouldn't be sold?" And you could tell that the girl, though in silhouette, kind of rolled her eyes. "Well, I don't look at it as violating the 'sanctity of my body' ..."

While trying to drag negatives out of her, the girl did say that she feared being outed and being blackmailed. She also said that she had been spied on by a client/put under surveillance (I think so she wouldn't talk about HIM or blow his cover), and that having these one-sided relationships was stressful, because since these men had wives and families, that if anything were to happen to her, they wouldn't come to her defense (b/c she's a secret); I would say, really, though, that this kind of drama isn't unique to prostitution; it's bound to happen in any relationship where you're "the other woman" and the man wants to keep you secret, or, on the other hand, if the man *knows* you see other people, but he starts getting jealous of your other relationships, falls in love with you, and decides he wants you all to himself. She did mention having unstable clients, and, well, that is indeed part of the territory. But that is part of the territory in dating, really.

(Of course, the problem with prostitution being illegal is that, if this unstable client decides to beat the shit out of the girl or threaten her, she really doesn't have much legal recourse, as LE would just be like, "well, what were you DOING in that situation in the first place?" I wonder, though, how legalization would affect a situation where the client himself would put intense pressure on a girl to not turn him in if he beat her -- "If you turn me in you'll ruin me and I'll kill you" etc etc. ... food for thought ... I guess it's a risk in ANY relationship with someone unstable.)

This "courtesan" really has what I would call multiple "sugar daddies." Unless you *label* yourself as a courtesan/prostitute, however, I think that looking for/having a sugar daddy somehow ISN'T exactly conflated with prostitution in our society -- the site SugarDaddyForMe anyone??? I seriously doubt that LE trolls this site, but, if anyone knows that I am wrong, please let me know!

One of my ex coworkers at a restaurant told me that it's really not that uncommon for some girls to have sugar daddies, at least in his experience. He said that he knew a girl who had one guy she'd fuck for her house payment, one guy she'd fuck for her other bills, etc etc ... and she somehow wasn't considered a "prostitute" -- she just had "sugar daddies."