Prostitution Crackdown in Las Vegas

The Las Vegas Now site has an article about the crackdown on prostitution taking place in Vegas.

With little fanfare and no public announcement, Las Vegas Metro Police have launched a crackdown on repeat-offender prostitutes in the Strip resort corridor. So far 29 suspected prostitutes have been arrested and are being processed through the criminal justice system.

Metro says the economy is just one of the reasons it is launching this enforcement effort now. With tourism numbers down, the department says it wants to keep visitors from being victimized by crimes related to prostitution. That means cracking down on repeat offenders and making sure they get tough sentences.

"To keep visitors from being victimized by crimes related to prostitution." It seems to me it would be hard to come up with a more ridiculous story than that. The "crimes related to prostitution" mentioned in the article are basically stealing from the clients. I seriously doubt that happens very often. I would think the working girls in Vegas are happy to turn tricks and generally don't ask for trouble by ripping off the source of their income. So, if we rule that out, the question remains, what's really going on here?

Las Vegas has been known since the time of its inception as a type of sin city. Prostitution is actually legal in Nevada outside Clark County, which is where Las Vegas is. In the city of Vegas, gambling is encouraged of course, drinking too, prostitution is generally tolerated, although technically illegal. So, it's difficult to reconcile the nature of Las Vegas with this type of initiative on the part of the Metro Police. If it's some kind of moral crackdown, in a place where folks are encouraged to be morally uninhibited, it's just absurd.

It does bring up some interesting questions though. What about the clients? Are they not being targeted? If not, why not? In an encounter between client and prostitute, are both in the wrong? Is one more in the wrong than the other? Is neither? What's your opinion?

Working girls in Las Vegas are often women who come there because they think it's "a proper venue to make an easy buck," as the police spokesman said. As such, they would seem to be operating with autonomy and agency and calling their own shots, at least more than your typical teenage hooker in a Tijuana brothel, let's say. What do you think about that? Is it possible for a woman to work as a prostitute without being a victim of the system, economic or otherwise?

In the article I linked to there is an amazing "slide show." It consists of photographs; I suppose trendy new color mug shots, of the girls who were arrested in the sweep. The amazing thing is that under each picture there's the number of views, the same way Youtube shows you how popular videos are. Combined with the fact that there was no mention of the clients except as poor victims of being ripped off, this vulgar display of the arrested girls along with their popularity rating made it clear in what low esteem this article, and perhaps Las Vegas itself, holds these women. What's your opinion? Is there another take on that slide show that I missed?

Please leave a comment.

Cleaning Up Amsterdam

CNN has been reporting over the last couple days that Amsterdam is undergoing some kind of clean-up.

Amsterdam unveiled plans Saturday to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafes in its ancient city center as part of a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven.

The city is targeting businesses that "generate criminality," including gambling parlors, and the "coffee shops" where marijuana is sold openly. Also targeted are peep shows, massage parlors and souvenir shops used by drug dealers for money-laundering.

"I think that the new reality will be more in line with our image as a tolerant and crazy place, rather than a free zone for criminals," said Lodewijk Asscher, a city council member and one of the main proponents of the plan.

I'm not sure if I understand how this initiative is going to make Amsterdam more in line with their "image as a tolerant and crazy place." Is the Councilman talking about keeping the tolerant and crazy places limited to certain areas of the city? Or is he just giving lip service to the tolerant and crazy idea while his real agenda is something else?

Besides, I thought closing businesses like these is what generated crime. Isn't that how it works in America?

What do you think? I've never been to Amsterdam, what's it like first hand? Does legalizing things like prostitution and drug use take some of the pleasure away? Isn't part of the thrill the fact that it's clandestine?

Over on the Kickin' and Screamin' site there's a post entitled THE PRICE OF MORALS-FREE LIBERALISM. I guess his opinion is right there in the title.

What's your opinion? Is Amsterdam an example of failed liberalism? Or is something else going wrong over there? Prohibition against alcohol in America failed, does that mean that other prohibitions fail in the same way? Are they all manifestations of liberalism?

Please let us know what you think.

Bartering for Sex

CNN reports on the fairly widespread phenomenon of bartering sex for something desired.

A recent study of 475 University of Michigan undergraduates ages 17 to 26 found that 27 percent of the men and 14 percent of the women who weren't in a committed relationship had offered someone favors or gifts -- help prepping for a test, laundry washing, tickets to a college football game -- in exchange for sex. On the flip side, 5 percent of the men surveyed and 9 percent of the women said they'd attempted to trade sex for such freebies.


Now, I realize these types of statistics are the least valuable. In fact, I'm not so sure that description above even makes sense. Nevertheless, it strikes me as credible enough. Do you think it's a sign of age that I shake my head at this and ask what's the world coming to? In these stats, 27% of men and 14% of women have actually done this. Is it the advertising that for decades has been using sex to sell? Is it rock and roll music and MTV? What is it?

Tell us your opinion? Feel free to link this question to the other threads, like, would you trade sex for a gun? Are college kids doing this because they never learned about evolution in high school? Or for you more conservative commenters, should this behavior be severely punished? Is it tantamount to prostitution?