The late Jack Lemmon, the straight arrow rookie flic in one
of the red light districts of Paris, asked the bartender why so many couples
are going into the Hotel Casanova next door.
“I have a very definite idea. They’re making love,” which
the cop, Nestor, denounces as vice.
He earns the retort from Moustache, the bartender, “petit
bourgeoisie. It shows the kind of world we live in.
“Love is illegal but not hate. You can do that anytime,
anywhere, to anyone.” Lovers must hide in the dark.
Irma La Douce was a hit as a musical on the stage in Paris and London before it was a film smash in the U.S. Life Magazine called the musical "a French fairy tale for wicked grown-ups who want to believe in love.
"France has always been the artistic and fashionable center
of the profession in the West. It also has been common for Frenchmen to have
mistresses.
And when the disgraced head of the International Monetary
Fund, Daniel Strauss-Kahn, resigned after being accused of raping a New York
City hotel maid many prominent French leaders stood up to publicly defend him.
Although he was able to escape prosecution, opinion quickly
turned in France, egged on by American and French bloggers and other feminist
leaders.
Combined with a series of alleged rapes and sexual harassment
of world-famous politicians, athletes, gays and celebrities, around the world,
one could sense too many of these incidents were happening to be mostly
inspired by gold-diggers. The FBI of the U.S. has reported for decades that the
vast majority of sexual assaults are for real. And most involve people who know
each other, not someone jumping out from behind a tree.
An investigation of rape at the Air Force Academy came too
late to result in much prosecutorial action, but it made clear the leadership
had been mostly ignoring the problem.
But recent scandals in France and elsewhere around the world
seem to harden. San Francisco and Canada have supporters for decriminalization.
This week the right and the left in French parliament passed
a resolution condemning prostitution. It clearly was going to be met with strong
resistance.
But this time, as in Sweden and some other countries, and
U.S. states like Colorado, the proposal is to arrest “johns.” As the name
implies most of the perpretrators will be males.
Assuming all the technical difficulties of proving money
changed hands, it seems about as likely to succeed as Prohibition in the U.S.
Most people just don’t care. They may not want to see them standing on street
corners but overworked and understaffed police forces won’t make it a priority
unless some public scene occurs. Such arrests will have to compete with the
cases against political candidates for one.
Whether some of the more recent sex cases, such as Penn
State, will make the entire subject sickening is unknown.
Much of the traffic has already moved to the Internet. While
they are being pursued aggressively around the world, unless there are underage
or slave-like prostitutes the appetite for nailing cyber sex artists also may
not have the after-thirst for police agencies as rapes, murders and such.
So there will be the occasional big bust such as occurred in
Polk County, Fla., where at least 60 were picked up in a sting.
A crackdown that seems likely on the Web will have to
overcome opposition by those who support free speech. The record of law enforcement
in the U.S. on abiding strictly by laws that guarantee free speech have a mixed
history at the very best.
As far controlling the crime, if it is one, societies have
had little success for the thousands of years it has existed. In America, at a
certain level it is a violation of privacy.
It wasn’t until 2003 until the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed
the remaining laws against sodomy. Clearly it was unlikely where could ever be
a conviction without violating the defendants’ privacy.
Would judges be asked to personally review the activity, to determine whether it was legal, as
portrayed in a Saturday Night Live skit.
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