The headline on this news story makes it seem like everyone involved in prostitution in Atlantic City, New Jersey and elsewhere have chosen to play a dangerous game, but for many it isn’t a game, but a trap, one that benefits pimps, Johns and other exploiters.
Selling sex on the streets of this gambling capital is a dangerous pursuit: Streetwalkers have been strangled, smothered, slashed and set ablaze. […] Atlantic County Prosecutor Jeffrey Blitz said the Atlantic City cases were sufficiently different from the Egg Harbor deaths to make authorities believe they were carried out by different attackers. He also resists speculation that the four ditch bodies were the work of a serial killer, noting that autopsies could not determine the cause of death for two of the women. No arrests have been made in any of this year’s attacks in and near Atlantic City.
In any case, the attacks illustrate how dangerous it is for prostitutes, who are statistically 18 times more likely to be killed than other women, and 40 times more likely to die from other than natural causes, according to national studies.
These stark statistics are aided by the disdainful attitudes many people have toward those trapped in prostitution. The girls and women become something less than human. If something bad happens to them, they either brought it upon themselves or it’s no great loss.
The nation’s most notorious prostitute killings were committed in the Pacific Northwest by a single attacker who came to be known as the Green River Killer. In pleading guilty in 2003 to the murders of 48 prostitutes, Gary Leon Ridgway told a judge he targeted street walkers “because I thought I could kill as many as I wanted to without getting caught.”
Unfortunately, the view some people have of other people as a commodity contributes to people like this. Whenever someone says about a crime victim or alleged victim, “she’s just a hooker” they are robbing her of her humanity and they are revealing a lack within themselves. At its worst, this perceived lack of humanity can cause a person to rationalize committing crimes they otherwise wouldn’t commit.
It can cause teenagers to think of attacking and murdering the homeless as nothing more significant that a little fun.
Like many prostitutes in similar situations, Spazz, who said she was beaten by a “trick” two years ago, didn’t call police when it happened. Like all four hookers found dead behind the motels in Egg Harbor Township, and like 85 percent of prostitutes nationwide, Spazz has a drug problem.
I suspect that many of these women who are at the highest risk have a long history of problems that drugs keep at bay. For some it is childhood sexual abuse, for others drugs may be their only coping mechanism. Any drug treatment program that doesn’t deal with suppressed issues sets most participants up for failure.
Unfortunately, those who don’t break free of drugs and/or prostitution are usually given all the blame for ineffective programs and the cynicism of the program drop outs. If they fall victim to the ultimate preditors, too many of us are unwilling to call them innocent victims.
(crossposted at my blog, Abyss2hope)
This post is a feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly only thread.
If you aren’t sure what that means, please read this before commenting.
This is really sad. I know in Germany in many areas prostitution is not
only legal but its a respected profession from what I’ve read in the literature.
I wonder what things are like for porn stars, as well. I have always wondered
what happened to a porn star professionally and personally once she passed
her prime.
Everytime I see horror stories like this one, I have to say that criminalization itself is a large cause of the conditions that allow for vicitimization of economically marginalized and drug addicted prostitutes.
It is not enough to paint “pimps and johns” as the villians, if we do nothing to protect the legal status and economic conditions of women involved in prostitution.
There is nothing “leftist” in continuing the prohibition of sex trading, along with the radical right and their crazy christian allies. The English Prostitutes Collective and others have carefully documented the harm brought to actual prostitutes by the focus on prosecuting johns (it increases danger to streetwalkers, who must make hasty decisions about customers in fear of the police). Brothel “rescues” have a similarly bad result, where women flee from the self-appointed rescuers who have thrust them into worse conditions than they found them, imprisonment and deportation typical.
We would do well to pay attention to the experience and ideas of working prostitutes, instead of imposing ideology upon them.
Howard, your suggestion thrusts ideology onto those in prostitution just as much as any other suggestion does. Especially notable is your position on the “rescue” of those being held as sex slaves.
Abyss2hope, I only wish that it was only sex slaves being rescued, but the truth is not so simple, and labelling things does nothing to make it so. See mother jones this month here: http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2003/11/ma_570_01.html
I note also the same crowd banning condoms, exacting “anti-prostitution” pledges (more accurately anti-prostitute), denying reproductive choice and promoting abstinence only for HIV prevention–is the same bunch reunning around the world claiming to rescue brothel slaves. Watch the company you keep.
You are quick to label my observation of reality as a “position” rather than respond to the simple statement that we would do well to listen to women/men in prostitution themselves. Now there’s a radical idea for you. Interested?
In fact, you can listen to a street prostitute explaining how great her relations with law enforcement are here:
http://streetwomen.org/Cathys%20page.htm
These are the true costs of prohibition.
Howard, I have listened to ex-prostitutes firsthand and am familiar with a couple of programs in my area designed to help them build new lives which have really helped their clients. The solution to ineffective help isn’t to stop trying to help, it’s to work to provide effective help.
Since this post is for those who are feminists and those who are feminist-friendly, it doesn’t sound like you qualify to comment here.
Even though I have said nothing ‘anti-feminist” you want to exclude my comments. I don’t see anything identifying this thread as “feminist” so the moderation policy indicates I can comment.
** deleted **
Then please read the footer again where the restrictions are laid out.
ADMIN: Future comments advocating for the legalization of prostitution are off-topic and will be deleted at my discretion.
I see the footer now. So you may feel free to hide this from public view.
I object to your characterization of this post and site as pro-feminist. In truth, it is only pro-prohibition, pro-criminalization and views the women involved in prostitution as irrevalent to the discourse. You lack the integrity to admit a feminist can (and many do) disagree with prostitution criminalization. So your moderation is nothing less than pure censorship of anyone who disagrees with you.
There is, dare I say, a paternalistic element in upper class ideologues telling poor women/men prostitutes what their lives are. Here’s an idea. Give a prostitute a job she can earn a living with. I have.
Criminalization of prostitutes and their customers (exploiters in your censored world view) has the same wonderful results as criminalization of drugs and alcohol.
We know how wonderful that worked out.
Having vented some steam at the idea only certain ideas are “allowed”, i’ll add this and wish you happy holidays.
If your view is a world without prostitution, you can only hear “ex-prostitutes” and exclude ‘prostituted women/men” from the discussion. By definition, you don’t actually care what heppens to them, since you think they shouldn’t exist. But they do. They are exactly who needs to be listened to. Your dream of a world without “sexual exploitation’ (as defined by you) is a utopian fantasy. Like most utopian fantasies, it works by locking people up. Gee, thanks.