Legal prostitution soon —woman's view

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33096, 11 December 1972, Page 12

Legal prostitution soon —woman's view

Ts IBs

PAUL ANDERSON,

I, of United Press International, through N.Z.P.A.)

SEATTLE.

Dr Jennifer James says that it is only a matter of time—perhaps no more than a year or two—before prostitution is legalised. Support for the move will come not from middle-aged men —“the users” —but from women and younger men.

Dr James, aged 29, a researcher at the University of Washington and instructor in psychiatry is a strong advocate of legal reform in' the area of all “crimes without complainants,” and especially prostitution. She has spent three years studying streetwalkers in Seattle.

“My contention is that ' sexual relations between con- ! senting adults should be out- . side the purview of the law,” ’ she said in an interview. "The support I’ve got from the community leads me to feel there is a movement , and it is only a matter of ■ i time — maybe a yeur or two ■ ! —before we recognise that it I is ridiculous to overload our| I courts with crimes such as: 1 these.

WOMEN UNITED “Support comes fromi ; women across the board, I except for a few people that I’m afraid I would have to : classify as Bible-bangers, i Other than that, many women have been in full . support, no matter what their • age. i “Men is where you find the : difference. Among older men —6O and older —you find a . certain amount of support; ■ younger men — under 25— ;| overwhelmingly support re- • pea! of such laws. “But the middle-aged,

white male group is dead set against any change in the legal position of prostitution. And it is very interesting that these men should be concerned with protecting womanhood when they, statistically, make up the bulk of the customers. “I’m not saying that the same man who speaks out ! against legalising prostitution lis also a customer. But I am saying that it is the same age-group, the same occupations, etc.,—the same group that opposes women’s liberation in general.” ‘PROTECTIONIST’ VIEW Dr James said that legalisation of prostitution would threaten the traditional protectionist attitude many men hold toward women. “Men don’t like to believe that women would choose prostitution or to be promiscuous.” she said. “They prefer to think that she is forced into it by some evil male. Their conception of women would have to be drastically revised if they thought women opted for this sort of thing because of the need for money, or because of a preference for the occupation.” Miss James said that interviews with prostitutes for her doctoral thesis on streetwalkers had convinced her that many men saw' the illicit nature of purchased ,sex as adding to the excite- ! ment.

sex as adding to the excitement. “TRICKS ARE FOOLS” If men held prostitutes in low esteem, the feeling was returned, she said. “The atti-l tude of most prostitutes is| ‘There are two kinds of men in the world—pimps and tricks (customers). Tricks are; fools. Any man who would pay for it is a fool.” Dr James said that her first real contacts with prostitutes came when she moved to Seattle in 1968 to begin work on her doctorate. “The daughter of a colleague at a college where I was teaching was a prostitute in Seattle,” she said. “The daughter came to live] with me to try to change her life style, and that was my

first real contact with prostitution. “I met her friends and we had long talks. I began to feel in my own mind that what they were telling me about their lives was not what I had read in sociology books or in works by psychiatrists. “A lot of the work on prostitutes has been written by males with a very specialised point of view. In other words, a man’s view of promiscuity is a different view than a woman’s view of promiscuity.” Streetwalkers did not fit the stereotype that society had given them, she said. Most in Seattle were high school graduates, were not drug addicts and did not engage in other crimes. “The crimes associated with prostitution are not associated with it because of the inherent nature of prostitution, but because of the fact that prostitution is illegal,” she said. “When you make a crime out of what is basically a service, you force those providing the service to define themselves as criminals and work in the criminal environment.”

Shfe said many prostitutes in Seattle were black and entered the occupation because it was the quickest—and sometimes the only—way they could hope to make money and establish a place for themselves in the world. Prostitutes were different from the rest of American society because of their occupation and general lifestyle, she said, but as people i they often were likable and ■ not unlike other women. “If they are white they are more likely to have psychological problems. If they are black they are for the most part well-adjusted women ;who see themselves as ; making more money and doing better than most of the girls they graduated from high school with.” “NOT A DEVIATION” She predicted that the legalisation of prostitution, at least in Washington State, would cbme through initiatives from the people rather than from legislative action, because of the touchy political nature of the issue. “Perhaps the only way I we’re going to view prostituItion in a reasonable perspective is if we recognise it not [as a deviant, outrageous kind lof thing in our society, but really as an exaggeration of the way the rest of society lives,” she said. “It is an exaggeration of the male-female relationship we see in the large society. I don’t think prostitution is a good profession and I certainly wouldn’t encourage any voung girl to become a prostitute. But I think we have to face the reality that prostitution exists — that women are going to become ■ prostitutes no matter what we do. “It has always been that way and the least we can do is relieve some other abuses. If you relieve them of the criminal label there is more of a chance they will be able to get out of prostitution when they are ready. The present system leaves them very few outs.”