Chickens: Home. Roosting.

By Cornelia

So are you all sick of talking about Spitzer and the hookers yet? Tough.

I just want to point out a few things that have been really pissing me off in most of the news coverage since the story broke. They're things that HAVEN'T been mentioned, for the most part. Or not mentioned nearly seriously enough.



Sure, there's been a ton of coverage about the different reactions of male and female talking heads, and thousands of inches of copy generated on whether or not his wife should have stood next to him during his initial statement, and how tired and drawn she looked, and whether or not women have sympathy for her based on whether or not they've weathered infidelity in their own marriages.



Can we just stop with all the touchy-feely blathering about what this means to his wife, already? She's a grown woman. She can stay married to the man or she can dump his ferretty ass. I don't care, because THAT, folks, is truly a private matter.


(Plus, by the way, it's NOT comparable to Bill Clinton's dalliance with an intern, no matter how long Rush Limbaugh wheezes and huffs and guffaws about same, on air--but that's a whole 'nother blog post.)

But how about the PUBLIC matters this whole thing has dragged out into the limelight--public matters that to my mind are not getting nearly enough air-time and serious consideration.

Let's start out with the biggie: it's against the goddamn law to pay for sex in this country, barring strange outposts in Nevada. Doesn't matter whether you're in New York or DC, it's against the law. As in illegal. Just ask this guy:


It's illegal if you're picking up an ill made-up tranny in a PVC micro-mini and leopard thigh boots in the meatpacking district from the window of your primer-splotched Camaro JUST AS MUCH as if you're paying $5000 an hour for some nookie delivered to your Washington hotel room. In fact, if it's delivery from NYC to DC via Amtrak, as Spitzer's nookie was, you're also violating the Mann Act and the whole thing goes federal and pear-shaped on you. Or it should.


As the BBC recently pointed out:

Mr Spitzer may well reply that he was acting out of state pride when he reportedly bought what court documents describe as a 5ft 5in brunette called "Kristen" a train ticket to Washington.

In his surreal post-scandal press conference he did, after all, refer to the "importance of ideas in politics" and his desire to keep building New York's future.



Unfortunately, outsourcing hookers to a rival state is not just an insult to the local guild. It also happens to be a federal crime, written into law in 1910 to prevent forced prostitution and protect women from being trafficked across state lines....

Funny how we're not seeing any mug shots of Spitzer, unlike those of Hugh Grant. Nope, Spitzer stood up and made a 64-second statement for the cameras, during which he characterized getting caught patronizing a prostitution ring as "a private matter," then going on to say:

"I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my, or any, sense of right and wrong. I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public, whom I promised better."

And let me just say right here "private matter MY ASS." You broke the law, dude. In a big bad hardcore way. This is not a broken promise, this is criminal activity.



But of course, as the New York Times put it rather nicely in a recent edtiorial:

...Few clients of prostitutes face criminal charges, law-enforcement affidavits raise at least the possibility of criminal charges based on transporting a woman across state lines for prostitution. Mr. Spitzer’s own record of prosecuting such cases gives him scant breathing room. As state attorney general, he prosecuted prostitution rings with enthusiasm — pointing out that they are often involved in human trafficking, drug trafficking and money laundering. In 2004 on Staten Island, Mr. Spitzer was vehement in his outrage over 16 people arrested in a high-end prostitution ring.

And Spitzer was right to be vehement in that outrage, even if he was being a big fat hypocrite at the time.

Prostitution is not, nor ever has been, a "victimless crime." The only ones who aren't routinely victimized are the johns, and it's about goddamn time law enforcement stopped treating them with a wink and a nudge and a slap on the back.

Let's face it, sometimes these guys get way more than your basic snigering "attaboy!" Take Republican Congressman David Vitter, for example, who was greeted upon his return to Congress after being exposed as a man who frequented prostitutes with a STANDING OVATION from his Republican colleaques.



Here are some stats from the Prostitutes Education Network :

-- Average prostitution arrests include 70% females, 20% percent male prostitutes and 10% customers.(2) In the 1990's some cities initiated client arrest programs which raised the percentage of client arrests.... 85-90% of those arrested work on the street though street work accounts for approximately 20% of prostitutes. (Figures vary from city to city.)



-- Violence is one of the major problems for women and prostitutes. Figures vary, one report citing 60% of the abuse against street prostitutes perpetrated by clients, 20% by police and 20% in domestic relationships.(9) According to one massage parlor owner, over 90% of abuse against prostitutes (she has known) takes place within domestic relationships.(10) Between 35 and 85% of prostitutes are survivors of incest or early sexual abuse. (Figures vary widely for different populations.)(11) In a sample of clients from St. James Infirmary, a sex worker clinic in San Francisco 53% of their sample experienced "past or current occupational violence" including 32% by customers, 20% from employers and 15% by police. Only 3% reported incidents to the police.... Some prostitutes are raped between 8 and 10 times a year or more. 7% seek help (e.g.., from a rape crisis center), and only 4% report the rape to the police.(14) A study in Toronto showed that, in cases of (non-domestic) rape and abuse, 5% of the perpetrators identified themselves as police officers, often producing badges and police identification. (This does not include actual cases of police misconduct and rape.)(15)

(see website for citations)



Here's what a renowned legal authority had to say on the subject:

“The only thing that forces [these johns] to change their bad behavior is shame, and by this I mean, the shame of a perp walk in front of the cameras….seeing their picture on the front page of the papers.”

That renowned legal authority? Then New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.


This is the guy who went after Martha Stewart for a $45,000 stock trade, in which no wrongdoing was ever proved.

Yes, Martha did jail time...




...For insider trading, right? Nope, not at all, as Michael McMennin wrote in Reason, back in 2004:

The Securities and Exchange Commission's civil insider trading charges against Stewart are flimsy, and [as such] the Justice Department has decided against pursuing criminal charges of insider trading....

Ms. Stewart has been charged with criminal securities fraud because she and her lawyers publicly declared her innocence in connection with her private sale, in December, 2002 of a small amount of stock in another company, Imclone. This exercise of pure free speech, [the] Justice Department contends, was a "material false statement" made to influence the stock price of her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, in violation of SEC Rule 10b-5.

So Martha did fifteen months for proclaiming her own innocence.

The Empire Club VIP 's Client #9, on the other hand, who, according to Slate:

...was caught on a federal wiretap last month... may have violated any number of federal laws. If prosecutors do go after him, they're most likely to focus on the Mann Act (18 U.S.C. § 2422), federal structuring laws (31 U.S.C. § 5324), and federal money-laundering statutes (18 U.S.C. § 1956).

is in all likelihood never going to have the experience of wearing a state-issued orange jumpsuit, much less the fed version.



In that, Spitzer will no doubt prove the truth of his favorite Club's VIP motto. Yeah, he's not the governor any more, but when it comes to the possibility of jail time:

"Every Client is an Emperor."

And does that go for the employees, as well? Not so much.

As a final note on all of this, author Eric Stone is working with an NGO to help stop child prostitution in Cambodia. Click on the banner below for more information: