Posts with the tag prostitution

Randolph College Students Visit Brothel

Kayla — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:38:12 EDT

Via CNN:

A dozen Randolph College students visited the Chicken Ranch, a legal brothel ouside Las Vegas, last week as part of a course on American consumption.

The brothel tour was a natural fit for a class that tells students "don't just study America -- live it," said Julio Rodriguez, the director of the college's American Culture Program.
Each semester the course examines a strain of American culture and ends with a class trip. Past destinations included post-Katrina New Orleans, Walt Disney World and the Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery, Alabama.
This year's focus on Nevada started with a professor's interest in water rights and conservation. It grew to include discussions of the wedding and entertainment industries and, inevitably, prostitution.

The most scandalous field trip I ever made was a trip to the local waste management facility.

Spitzer's Emperor's Club Still Just Prostitution

Kay Steiger — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:07:03 EDT

I'm not totally on board with this column in the New York Times today (i.e. that all women in prostitution are total victims), but it does make a few good points about Spitzer's particular situation:

The Emperor’s Club presented itself as an elite escort service. But aside from charging more, it worked like any other prostitution business. The pimps took their 50 percent cut. The Emperor’s Club often required that the women provide sex twice an hour. One woman who was wiretapped indicated that she couldn’t handle that pressure. The ring operated throughout the United States and Europe. The transport of women for prostitution was masked by its description as “travel dates.”
Telephone operators at the Emperor’s Club criticized one of the women for cutting sessions with buyers short so that she could pick up her children at school. “As a general rule,” one said, “girls with children tend to have a little more baggage going on.”
Whether the woman is in a hotel room or on a side street in someone’s car, whether she’s trafficked from New York to Washington or from Mexico to Florida or from the city to the suburbs, the experience of being prostituted causes her immense psychological and physical harm. And it all starts with the buyer.

The point here is that no matter how much a John pays for a prostitute, she's still a prostitute, which means people who handle the business get a large cut. She still is at risk for sexually transmitted diseases and rape. And, most of all, we tend to target the women who prostitute themselves while the pimps and the Johns usually go charged with nothing.

Spitzer's Scandal is About Prositution

Kay Steiger — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:20:23 EDT

The real issue we're talking about when we bring up the latest scandal with Elliot Spitzer is the uncomfortable place of prostitution in our society. Our current model of outlawing it mostly ends up hurting the women that sell the sex than the men who buy it. After all, Spitzer wasn't actually charged with a crime. Samhita over at Feministing purports legalizing prostitution -- something that at best makes me uneasy, mostly because I think the majority of women are coerced into the sex industry. The number who voluntarily sell their bodies are fewer than I think many prostitution legalization activists like to admit.

Senator Vitter (R-LA) and Gov. Spitzer (D-NY) introduce bi-partisan Prostitution Legislation

JWDelano — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:18:26 EDT

Senator Vitter (R-LA) and Gov. Spitzer (D-NY) Prostitution Legis.Share12:49pm Today | Edit Note | DeleteI was on Ringside Politics with Jeff Crouere and Steve Sabludowsky this morning talking about David Vitter and Governor Spitzer being good drinkin buddies, and now they should team up for some new bi-partisan Pro-Prostitution legislation....lol. Hope you enjoy the article below.

Behold the many hats of Republican David Vitter.

By:Joshua W. Delano

(written September 2004 and sent to every Louisiana and DC News outlet)

First Vitter, now Spitzer (www.nytimes.com)

Maybe the Louisiana Republican Senator and the New York Democrat Governor can work on some meaningful bi-partisan pro-prostitution legislation since they are the poster boys on their respective sides of the aisle.

Crusader for family values. Champion of Louisiana?s anti-gambling lobby. The conservative who will put Louisiana first, stop corruption in its tracks and put an end to business as usual in Washington.

Yet as Vitter, who represents suburban New Orleans in the U.S. House, seeks the Senate seat abandoned by Democrat John Breaux, a quick look at his campaign financing and other associations reveals a picture as muddy as the mighty Mississippi. When he says he?s conservative, he?s on the level. He runs on a traditional conservative platform with healthy dollops of family values, support for the war and overall patriotism.

But when he claims to be a crusader against gambling in Louisiana, his story doesn?t hold water. He claims to be a champion of job creation ? just not casino jobs. But on June 1, 2001, he accepted a check for $2,000 from casino interests representing the Coushatta Indians of Louisiana, whose much larger contributions to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, have led to ethics investigations in Washington.

Vitter returned the check on Feb. 18, 2002, but he later accepted checks from two political action committees that represent the Coushatta tribe. On Dec. 24, 2001, he took $2,500 from the Bayou Leadership PAC, which had just received $5,000 from the Coushatta tribe, which seeks to build casinos on its properties in the state. In 2002, he took $1,000 from the Committee for Preservation of Capitalism, a group headed by Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Shreveport. This came shortly after the Coushatta tribe had given McCrery?s group two contributions of $5,000 each.

Vitter told the Press Club of Baton Rouge that the climate of doing business in Louisiana has to change from ?who you know to what you know, from who you are and what connections you have to how you can most effectively get the job done.? But who Vitter knows has benefited his campaign war chest to the tune of more than $2 million ? more than all three of his general election opponents combined.

In addition to his arms-length flirtations with the Coushatta tribe?s checkbook, he has brought in big-name Republicans such as Vice President Richard Cheney and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to speak and raise money for him in Louisiana. He has attempted to associate himself with C. Ray Nagin, elected mayor of New Orleans in 2002 on promises to end the city?s reputation for massive graft and corruption. Vitter spoke glowingly of the sign on Mayor Nagin?s desk that reads: ?Be honest or leave.?

Vitter said the mayor?s sign was a ?great model for leadership around the state, including our next governor.? That was during his bid for the state?s top office, which he cut short because of marital problems said to stem from an extramarital relationship with a prostitute from New Orleans.

Louisianans have a sense of humor when it comes to politics. They apply the same joie de vivre ethic that governs so much of life in the state. They don?t demand squeaky-clean government, though perhaps they should. They don?t demand accountability in the traditional sense, though, again, perhaps they should. They have no compunction about electing full-on rapscallions such as Huey Long and Edwin Edwards so long as they can be convinced that what they see is what they get.

What they won?t tolerate is a man who misrepresents himself. Who holds himself up as a vanguard of family values when he?s not. Who opposes gambling but accepts campaign contributions from those pushing gambling interests.

If Vitter wants to win the people?s trust, he needs truly to embrace the words on Mayor Nagin?s sign. He needs to be honest or leave.

This picture says one thing to me....
Guilty!

there is forgiveness yes..but we all pay for our sins as well.