stand by your man, stand by your politician?

Another politician is involved in another sex scandal. The story hits the media and we are distracted from the real issues facing us. While the story of Governor Spitzer's sex scandal hit the news, the Iraq war waged on, the price of oil rose to more than $110 a barrel, and pollutants were discovered in the U.S. water supply. Titillating stories of sex scandals divert us from the issues that impact us (like the safety of our water supply). To top it off Heidi Fleiss was interviewed on Nightline about the Governor Spitzer scandal. Are you kidding me?

I feel for the wives of these politicians involved in sex scandals. Much has been commented on about the wives "standing by their man" in public at a press conference. If she is standing there by her man are we supposed to feel like, "gee we should support him too?" Personally I would be so flipping pissed off that there would be no way in hell I would "stand by my man."

Here is something I might be thinking if I was her; (this is purely fiction just thinking out loud)
He should meet my knife "Lorena." He spent how much on a prostitute? (You expletive, blank expletive, bleep bleep expletive.) He wants me to stand by him at a press conference as we face the press and discuss our marital problems in front of the world? ......He made is own bed and he can face the press by himself. I wasn't there in the room with him and the prostitute. It wasn't a three-way. Fuck it.....let everyone think I want a divorce. Who wouldn't want a divorce if their husband spent $80 thousand on prostitutes? WTF

But I'm not her and I have no idea what she is going through. I hope she will be strong and do what she needs to do. It is impossible to put oneself in her shoes and say what she should do. I do know that prostitution affects all women. It degrades and hurts women. In college, I knew a woman that worked with former sex workers (strippers and prostitutes). From her, I learned that the women she worked with didn't want to sell their bodies. Prostitution was a means of last resort. Most women, engaged in prostitution, had been sexually abused as children and entered prostitution in their early teens.

Radical feminism sees prostitution as rape, "Radical feminism opposes prostitution on the grounds that it degrades women and furthers the power politics of the male gender." I see prostitution as putting a price on a woman's body. Seeing her as a commodity to be rented bought or sold. He can buy her and use her how he wants because he has "paid for her." She is doing it for survival. Poverty and abuse forces women into prostitution.

Prostitution has affected me. I have never sold my body for money. But, when I worked at a casino, a man walked up to me and flashed a $100 bill and said, "what will you do fit it?" Implying that I would fuck him for it. I thought, I'll slap you upside your head with it. Instead I said something like, "Yeah, go fuck yourself." When I worked in a bar I waited on a table of men. They rang up a huge tab. When I closed the tab the man paying said, "kiss me and I'll give you a tip." I said, "keep it." I wasn't going to kiss him, touch him or anything else for a tip. When I waitressed I didn't stand for being groped or grabbed by anyone. I dumped a tray of hot coffee on a guy who groped me, I hit a guy with a tray when he tried to grab me. As a cocktail waitress, in a bar or casino, you are often viewed as one step away from being "for sale." Anyway, the insinuation was there. What will you do for money? What's your price?

Prostitution is illegal in most of the U.S. and the law is often skirted. In an article in Mother Jones Magazine, and reprinted on Alternet, "What a Choice! Sex With a Sleaze for $100,000 or Writing for Peanuts" by Nicole McClelland. She exposed the world of "sugar daddies." She said,

"I learned about SugarDaddy.com when an acquaintance I'll call ‘Kim’ recommended it to my friend, who's had trouble finding a job despite (or because of) earning her master's in media arts several months ago. Kim collected $900 every time she went on a date with one of her sugar daddies; another gave her $3,500 in less than a week before announcing that he had to quit her because his wife had found out."

McClelland's entry into the world of "sugar daddies" was easy. She created a profile at SugarDaddy.com. The day after she created her profile she had received “13 emails and 6 kisses, whatever that means, and been checked out by 36 older, wealthy men." McClelland talked about her "dating" experience with a man she met online at SugarDaddy.com. During the date he offered her $500 to, "get in her cooch." She elaborated, “My friend of the disheartening post-graduate-school job search initially scowls when I tell her what Daddy No. 2 offered me. When I point out that it took me two days to get two offers that pay more than my job at Mother Jones, that I could make $9,600 a month -- $115,200 a year -- and the average starting salary for someone with humanities masters' like ours is $39,808.”

I don't know about you but this is very sad to me. I hope that this scandal will open a conversation about the abuse women face as prostitutes and sex workers and how and why they enter the world of sex work. Not to mention sex trafficking, which is another topic. The woman who was identified as the prostitute that Gov. Spitzer sought "services" from "Kristen" doesn't want to be seen as a monster. The only monster I see is Gov. Spitzer. He degraded two women, Kristen (the prostitute), and his wife. And that is a politician I can't stand by.

Resources
http://www.breakingfree.net/
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/factsheet.html
http://www.prostitutionrecovery.org/prostitution_timeline.html
http://www.rapeis.org/activism/prostitution/prostitutionfacts.html