Legalized Prostitution? Beware the New Campaign to Solve an Old Problem

Early one morning I caught the opening salvos to a new battle in the old war for sexual values while I was watching NBC’s "the Today Show". Host Matt Lauer interviewed Dr. Alexa Albert the author of a new nonfiction book entitled, "Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women." The author is a medical doctor who was allowed to study the former Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada to find out why its incidents of sexually transmitted diseases were so low. She published that study, but separately researched and wrote this book about the lifestyles of the prostitutes and their customers. The interview featured most of the cliches that we have all come to expect in the war for sexual values. If you are familiar with those cliches you could have written the book yourself.

Responding to Matt Lauer’s ’probing’ questions, Dr. Albert recounted that she entered the study with the preconceived idea that prostitution was "a dehumanizing, objectifying business that did women real damage". Of course, once she got to know the prostitutes she realized that these are actually hardworking women who support children, sick parents or were working their way through medical school -- blah, blah, blah. Then she told a ’touching’ story of a father who brought his son to be sexually initiated by one of the women. The teenager had a confidence destroying experience with her due to performance anxiety and inexperience. The doctor said the prostitute blamed herself and felt very guilty. Matt knowingly smiled. Dr. Albert smiled back. Ah, the prostitute with a heart of gold.

Great cliche. Testosterone laden-control freak dad meets heart-for-gold prostitute and produces sexually dysfunctional teen who will grow up to be -- a) an internet porn addict who avoids sex with his wife because he can’t maintain an erection; b) a guilt ridden homosexual in search of a father figure or; c) a serial killer of prostitutes whose crime spree gets featured in 2015’s TV movie event of the year. Way to go.

Dr. Albert went on to describe a clean, disease free workplace where the prostitutes are relatively safe from violence, exploitation and drugs. She also came to appreciate the sexual predilections of the customers or "johns". When Matt asked her what she thought about the "johns" she said she was surprised by the "diversity" of the clients and their sexual "needs".

I’m sure that you get the script by now. Dr. Albert asserted that this exploitive, dehumanizing sexual practice is not really that way at all if we would just get over our old fashioned notions. If we would just see these prostitutes as hard working women and their "johns" as men with "unmet sexual needs", then we could all move forward to a more diverse culture that no longer stigmatizes "the world’s oldest profession".

You can be absolutely sure that you will see Dr. Albert making the rounds of all the talk shows in the near future to promote her book. And the script will remain the same.
I wish that I could get a shot at her. I would love to ask some of the questions Matt failed to ask.

Dorn: "Well Dr. Albert, I started my career as a counselor to runaway and homeless youth in Times Square, New York City. A few years later you did the same thing for a summer internship. In my experience the prostitute who comes from a stable two parent home and is working her way through college is by far the exception to the rule -- an exaggeration of the media and not the real picture. Over a three year period I counseled a couple of dozen prostitutes and erotic dancers and nearly all of them claimed they liked what they were doing. Of course they were just rationalizing. And surviving. We knew that these young girls were kicked out of their homes or were physically or sexually abused. They dropped out of high school and had virtually no marketable skills. Our job wasn’t to pat them on the back and say, "you go girl!". Our job was to love and challenge them -- to expand their life options -- not limit them. In the end your book ratifies the lifestyle of legalized prostitution. Are you sure that you are seeing things for what they really are?"

Dorn: "Dr. Albert, your book advocates legalizing prostitution in brothels, as opposed to "street walking", for the safety of the women and the low rate of STD’s. However, your book details that many problems surrounding prostitution still exist in brothels. For example, you spent an entire chapter exposing the fact that the majority of the women you met still had "pimps"! Many of the women call them "boyfriends", but they still give these men large sums of their money. You reported that the police have busted a prostitution ring from Oregon that placed their women in the Nevada brothels. There was even a case where a girl’s mother "turned her out", as they say, just to support her. Finally, you report that the brothels knowingly support pimps because "a girl with a pimp works harder". With all this evidence from your own book, how can you assert that women will not be exploited in future brothels across the country when they are presently very exploited in Nevada’s legal brothels?"

Dorn: "Dr. Albert, your book is now a argument for a significant change in public policy, namely to legalize prostitution like they have done in the Netherlands. However, a recent investigation of international prostitution by journalist Christine Dolan for the International Center for Missing & Exploited Children found that illegal prostitution is flourishing in the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. Third world women are being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery in European brothels. Although it is illegal, young teens and even children are being prostituted in the Netherlands, and child pornography is flourishing there as well. Are you sure that we should get on this slippery slope? Despite all the best intentions, the proof is coming in that the Netherlands haven’t been able to stop the black market for prostitutes; haven’t stopped international pimps from exploiting vulnerable women; AND they have become a de-facto international safety zone for the trade of child pornography. Do we really want all that? Is it really possible to clean up this dirty business?

Oh well, fantasies work better than real life. I’m sure that Dr. Albert would have perfectly plausible answers to my sharp questions. And why shouldn’t she? In a culture that exalts diversity and self-styled morality all answers are equal.

So why do we at "WholeHearted" think that prostitution is still wrong?

Prostitution is wrong first, because sex, like love, can never be truly bought. Sexual pleasure is either mutually given in a state of marital love, or it is a cheap imitation of the real thing. Of course the proponents of prostitution argue that johns and prostitutes are not so naive, but here again Dr. Albert’s own book undermines her case. She spent two chapters detailing anecdotes about johns becoming emotionally attached to the women they buy and seeking romance that inevitably fails. Some men swagger into the brothel with a cavalier attitude and a calloused heart to buy a good time, but find the very act of sex engenders emotional attachments they did not anticipate. Other men are tragic lonely hearts seeking to buy the intimacy and love they have been unable to find in real life. They are destined to never be truly satisfied. Why should society allow sex, an act intrinsic to human love, dignity and family, become a mere commodity?

Prostitution is wrong secondly, because it undermines marriage. Dr. Albert’s book fails to examine this consequence at all. Sexual disease is a problem. Forced exploitation is a problem. However, in Dr. Albert’s moral universe the consequences to marriage and family don’t seem to exist. Legalized prostitution will proliferate and gain legitimacy, just like pornography has, but legal and social acceptance will never ameliorate the negative consequences to marriage. Libertines can talk a good game, but no one really likes to be cheated on and no one really likes sexual competition. It will always hurt at a deep level. And the consequences of broken marriages have profound ramifications to society. We don’t need any more negative pressure on marriage in our culture.

Prostitution is wrong finally, because women, men and sex are degraded by it . No matter what law is passed or propaganda campaign undertaken, prostitutes will always be exploited second-class women. Don’t believe the utopian dreams of the sexual revolutionists. Believe thousands of years of ’the world’s oldest profession’ and the nature of humankind. We are not going to change our natures. Men and sex are just as degraded. When sex is divorced from love and marriage, and bartered like a commodity, men will descend to savagery. Or at least to the Peter Pan syndromed, marriage allergic, porn-addicted facsimile that passes for millions of men today. We desperately need to elevate the value and dignity of sex right now and not lower it any more.

Why doesn’t Dr. Albert ’get it’? Dr. Albert’s key deficiency in analyzing brothel prostitution is that her compassion lacks a moral framework. Underneath the bizarre lifestyle and the attendant evils of the business she found the prostitutes’ humanity. That’s very good. Jesus did too. When he allowed the "sinful woman" to wash his feet; when he "saved" the woman caught in adultery from unjust stoning; when he consorted with tax gatherers and prostitutes -- Jesus saw past their sin and found their humanity. But He went further than Dr. Albert seems capable of doing. He also told them to "go and sin no more."

Jesus fully embodied a characteristic that does not come easily to us mere humans: He was compassionate and just at the same time. He understood prostitutes, He demonstrated compassion towards prostitutes, but He did not excuse their behavior. Some Christians are full of condemnation for the sin, but show no compassion for the sinner. The Godly way is to demonstrate both. It is one of the deepest manifestations of love.

Prostitution as an institution is evil. It doesn’t matter if it is the "world’s oldest profession", it is still wrong. However, prostitutes themselves are not evil and neither are their johns. They are usually broken and needy individuals seemingly trapped by the circumstances of their lives. Ultimately, to accept and legitimize prostitutes and johns is not compassionate, it is lazy. Not to undertake the difficult task of leading, encouraging and calling them to the higher way is a failure to love as Jesus would have loved them.

Dorn Checkley, Director
Pittsburgh Coalition Against Pornography & WholeHearted.org
100 Ross Street, Lower Level
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
412-281-4565
dorn@wholehearted.org