Prostitution not victimless

First, it’s true the number of women sexually abused as children who are in prostitution, as this op-ed notes.

Re the Eliot Spitzer debacle which has reignited the issue of legalizing prostitution, it’s a very valid question whether women trapped in sexual self-hatred aren’t victims, indeed.

“Kristen,” the prostitute of Spitzer’s choice, says she came from childhood abuse, without saying whether sexual, physical, emotional, or some of multiple types, and that she left a broken home at age 17. Like many other girls/young women in similar situations, she also admits to drug abuse.

(Read her story here and see her MySpace page here.

Second, as the authors note, prostitutes were financially victimized just as much in the ultra-high dollar Emperor’s Club of Spitzer’s choice as in cheap street arrangements. Pimps (still the only word, right) at Emperor’s Club took 50 percent off the top.

Oh, even in the Nevada counties where prostitution is legalized, women can’t work as “free agents,” either.

And, requiring sex twice an hour, except if one man had the woman “rented out” longer than that, is certainly physically damaging.