Head
Strong: It's time for prostitution to be legalized
3.16.08
By Michael
Smerconish
Inquirer
Currents Columnist
I
want to get three things out of the way up front: Eliot Spitzer violated his
marriage. Eliot Spitzer is a hypocrite. And on the surface, it would appear
Eliot Spitzer broke the law. (The Mann Act must be the most ironically named of
laws.)
Spitzer's a bum.
Now, let's have the real
conversation.
It is ridiculous that
governance of the nation's third-largest state is changing hands because two
consenting adults swapped sex for money instead of the conventional
cosmopolitan or margarita.
When the dust settles over
this brouhaha, I hope we'll be ready for a long-overdue, realistic, adult
conversation about prostitution. It's time to bring the world's oldest
profession aboveboard in communities willing to allow it, clean up the trade,
and clamp down on the exploitation. Let government share in the revenue, but
otherwise stay out of the private affairs of consenting adults. Beyond the role
of the tax man, prostitution doesn't warrant the involvement of federal
authorities.
Instructive is the way in
which Spitzer was caught. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the financial world has been
required to alert the feds when evidence arises of conduct that could be linked
to terrorism. Spitzer's suspicious money transfers were the thread that led to
his discovery. Some functionary or other recognized that this was a case of
titillation, not terrorism, yet nevertheless committed the resources that
brought about Spitzer's public crash. What a waste of time, expertise, and the
people's money.
Alan Dershowitz once taught
Eliot Spitzer at Harvard Law, and Spitzer worked for him as a research
assistant on the Claus von BŸlow case.
With regard to the
investigation, Dershowitz told me that "they used 5,000 wiretaps. They
intercepted 6,000 e-mails. Every hour spent on going after prostitution is an
hour that could have been spent on going after terrorists and going after
people who victimize.
"People say 'hypocrisy'
because he was the sheriff of Wall Street. When he was the sheriff of Wall
Street, he was going after people that hurt you and me and that go after our
money, or people that go after us physically. There's a big difference between
that and these kinds of sin crimes that we've always had on the books and
mostly don't have on the books anymore."
Which is not to say that
Spitzer should emerge from his escapades unscathed. But the discipline that should
be meted in this case should come from within his family. It ought to get
resolved the old-fashioned way - beginning with his clothes being thrown out
the second-floor window of the governor's mansion.
Dershowitz also said:
"You have to remember that 30 years ago, it was a crime to masturbate or
fornicate or commit adultery or to engage in homosexuality, and these stupid,
stupid prostitution laws are a remnant of that old approach to private
morality.
"Twenty years from now,
people will look back at this and say, 'What? Somebody had to resign or be
indicted because he went and paid for an adult prostitute who was making $5,000
an hour?' Where's the victim here?"
Well, by my count, there are
four victims here: Spitzer's wife and three teenage daughters. His need to
answer to them will probably be the private equivalent of capital punishment.
And private is how most of this should remain. Aside from the fact Spitzer is a
prominent public figure, a case like this should not be the public's business.
(Note to reader: Go back and
read the first paragraph lest you think this is a defense of Eliot Spitzer.)
There's another argument in
support of legalizing prostitution. I call it the Quasimodo Theory. Some among
us are never going to find companionship for a variety of reasons. And their
solitary existence is accentuated by the constant barrage of sexual stimulation
we see every day on television and billboards, in our mailboxes in the form of
fashion catalogs, in the ring-card girls at boxing matches and halftime dancers
at a Sixers game. Even in the midst of campaign coverage, it's there: in the
below-the-desk shots of gloss-lipped and shiny-legged cable TV news anchors.
It can't be healthy for some
people to feel the amassed pressure of such images, such expectations, and have
their personal expectations go unfulfilled.
And again, some guys just
won't have the opportunity to find happiness, even short-term. But who's to say
they don't deserve a chance?
What this campaign for
legalized prostitution lacks is someone to champion the cause. I know a
well-qualified man who'll soon have time on his hands.
Michael Smerconish's column
appears on Thursdays in the Daily News and on Sundays in Currents. He can be
heard from 5 to 9 a.m. weekdays on "The Big Talker," WPHT-AM (1210).
Contact him via the Web at http://www.mastalk.com.