The government stupidly created the opioid crisis that kills an American every 12 minutes by instituting wrongheaded drug policies that drove addicts into the waiting arms of street dealers who lace their product with deadly fentanyl from China. Now the same blue-nosed bureaucrats — aided by know-nothing law enforcement agents — and urged on by holier-than-thou evangelicals who have proven with their support of Trump (in spite of his alleged multiple sexual escapades) that they are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites, just made another mistake that will— sooner rather than later— hurt people.
Not too many years ago you could drive down Prospect Avenue between 14th Street and Huron Road and you’d see “ladies of the evening” plying their trade. There was another “ho stroll” on Central Avenue around 71st Street for the more economically-minded trick — sorry, I meant “client.”
That changed with the advent of sex ads on an online site called “Backpages” that allowed sex workers to connect with their clients without having to stand out on a street corner, which lowered the quality of life in communities. The sex work thankfully went out of sight, out of mind.
But obviously not out of mind for everyone: Backpages was just shut down by government agents at the behest of pretend Christians (who, as a demographic, probably used the site more than anyone else). Now these fake evangelical pastors, phony politicians and backward government agents are all patting each other on the back as they celebrate the end of prostitution.
Yeah. Sure.
What they actually have accomplished is this: Put more women and children in danger from sexual deviants who now will be deprived of safe outlets for their base and dastardly desires. Numerous studies by researchers at major universities have documented a stunning discovery: When the Rhode Island legislature inadvertently decriminalized indoor prostitution for a number of years, that state saw a 31 percent decline in reported rapes and a similar decline in cases of gonorrhea. A later Dutch study found “much the same causal relationship between decriminalizing prostitution and reducing crime.”
Researchers at a public research institute in the Netherlands discovered “that when major cities in that country opened tippelzones, or areas where street prostitutes could work legally, reports of rape and sexual abuse declined by as much as 30 to 40 percent in the first two years after the zones were opened. In cities that licensed the prostitutes permitted to work in these tippelzones, rapes and sexual abuse dropped by as much as 40 percent, while the reductions in sexual violence were slightly lower in zones that did not enforce the licensing of sex workers.”
Dutch researchers “concluded that legalizing prostitution in these areas led ‘to a decrease in sexual violence on women more generally by providing an anonymous, appealing and easily accessible outlet for sex to otherwise violent individuals.’”
As Elle St. Claire, a sex worker from Massachusetts, stated to researchers, “Sex work is a healthy release for people who don’t feel comfortable getting help any other way. This is why you have sexual predators and stalkers. Unhealthy sexuality manifests itself in all of those crimes.”
But we citizens need not worry; the government is protecting us by putting an end to all prostitution by taking down the Backpages website. Remember that the next time you drive by a group of women standing on a street corner downtown selling sex.
But also remember this: The government can no more regulate consenting adult behavior than it can stop the sun from coming up in the morning. Some folks are going to continue to try to get higher than Charles Manson, and others will attempt to sate their sexual desires and impulses no matter what anyone else thinks, says or does. And the sooner we do what enlightened and progressive European countries have done years ago the safer our country will be for all citizens.
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.