prostitution

Sugardaddies, Pregnancy Tests and Nigeria, or “If U.S. Culture Is More Ethical Than The Rest Of The World, The Rest Of The World Is In Big Trouble”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments
Our surprisingly ethical U.S. culture on display...

Our surprisingly ethical U.S. culture on display…

Aniruddh Khachaturi an is from Mumbai, India, and has been in the U.S. for the past two years, studying  computer science at Carnegie Mellon. For some reason his observations about what surprises him about American culture are newsworthy, according to Investors Daily, as opposed to, say, anyone else. They are thought-provoking, however, especially this : he is impressed with the nation’s “strong ethics”:

“…everyone has a lot of integrity. If someone cannot submit their completed assignment in time, they will turn in the assignment incomplete rather than asking for answers at the last minute. People take pride in their hard work and usually do not cheat. This is different from students from India and China as well as back home in India, where everyone collaborates to the extent that it can be categorized as cheating.”

I happen to think he is right, and that this is probably the reaction of most foreigners who spend much time here. Compared to almost everywhere else on the planet, the population of the U.S. is more ethical, and the U.S. culture is more concerned with ethical values, as one should expect in the only nation expressly founded as the expression of ethical ideals.

Nonetheless, our culture has shown alarming signs of growing more tolerant and even accepting of unethical conduct, and that is worthy of more than merely academic concern. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Economist Paul Krugman

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

“…The prostitute thing is embarrassing and painful to think about, but not a disqualification for public office. David Vitter is still in the Senate, and in internal LA Republican politics is apparently squashing the very pious Bobby Jindal like a bug…I know that opinions differ about just how effective Spitzer’s confrontations were. But at least he tried — which is more than you can say about almost anyone else in our political life. Basically, the malefactors of great leverage were bailed out and went right back to being bad guys again, and everyone in public life pretended that nothing had happened. That, I think, is why there’s a surprising reservoir of support for Spitzer; people remember him as someone who showed at least some of the righteous outrage that has been so wrongly absent from our national discourse. It’s a useful reminder, and it’s why I regard his entry into the race, win or lose, as a good thing.”

–— Inexplicably revered progressive economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, discussing the re-entry of Eliot Spitzer into New York state politics on his blog. Spitzer, despite having to resign from office as governor because he was caught partaking in the services of a prostitution ring—the same kind of enterprise he aggressively prosecuted as state attorney general, is now running for comptroller.

Explain, please: How can anyone rely on the judgment of someone whose ethical reasoning is this miserable?

Explain, please: How can anyone rely on the judgment of someone whose ethical reasoning is this miserable?

I do not understand how anyone can read or take seriously Krugman’s opinions on budget management and national affairs—he thinks that the national debt is no big deal at the moment, a position that is essential to Obama-enabling—when the favorite economist of progressives and Democrats can write something as indicting as the quote above. The post is appallingly irrational, irresponsible and unethical: it suggests that the author’s judgment is miserable, that his ethics are negligible, that his biases rule his intellect….and that, apparently with justification, he is confident that the Park Avenue liberals who quote him at dinner parties won’t lose an ounce of respect for or abandon an inch of reliance regarding a champion who believes such rot. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Month: Washington Post Book Reviewer Patrick Anderson

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

The_Best_Little_Whorehouse_in_Texas?????????????????????????

“The moral I draw from this richly detailed, terribly sad book is that, since prostitution will never be eliminated, it should be legalized.”

—-Washington Post book reviewer (and former Jimmy Carter speechwriter) Patrick Anderson, in the conclusion of his positive review of “Lost Girls,” a non-fiction about a series of prostitute killings.

Read that quote over and over again, as I have, and if you can tell me how an intelligent human being reaches the point where he (or she) considers such a statement logical, rational, responsible or ethical, please enlighten me.

I know there are people who think like this and applaud such sentiments, though on its face the position is utter nonsense. Substitute murder, or child porn, or incest, or wife-beating…official corruption, bribery, kick-backs…drunk driving, water pollution, cruelty to animals…any persistent blight on society and human interaction, and Anderson’s idiotic formula applies as well to it as it does to prostitution. Continue reading →

James Lipton: Proud To Be A Pimp

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
James Lipton, circa. 1951

James Lipton, circa. 1951

James Lipton, he of the most pompous interview show in the universe, Inside the Actor’s Studio, has decided to celebrate that franchise’s 250th episode by cheerily revealing that he worked as a pimp in Paris in the 1950’s. This was apparently legal there and then, and Lipton, he tells us, was out of a job, so why not earn your money by recruiting desperate women into accepting cash to have sex with strangers, and take a cut of their proceeds for your trouble?

Lipton tells Parade:

“I had to be okayed by the underworld; otherwise they would’ve found me floating in the Seine.The great bordellos were still flourishing in those days before the sheriff of Paris, a woman, closed them down. It was a different time.”

Oh…you mean there was a time when dealing with organized crime was good? There was a time when it was admirable to trap innocent young waifs into the sex trade because of their poverty? To facilitate adultery and infidelity? To tell women who they had to have sex with, and accept a percentage of their fees for doing so? There was a time when doing all of this didn’t mean you were an exploitive, venal, amoral, low life?

I don’t think so. I don’t think there has ever been such a time, no matter what France may think. Continue reading →

Unethical Trio: An Ambush, An Incompetent Diagnosis, and Partisan Journalist Hackery

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Doctors and Kurtz

There were three notable unethical performances last week from professionals who should know better:

I. Dr. Benjamin Carson, neurosurgeon. Carson was invited to give the keynote speech at the National Prayer Breakfast (don’t get me started about why there even is a National Prayer Breakfast, and why the President should feel obligated to attend it) last week and turned what is traditionally understood to be a non-partisan, non-political speech into a direct attack, without explicitly designating it as such, on President Obama’s policies. Yes, it was a well-written, well-reasoned and well-delivered speech, but it was an ambush. Many conservatives were pleased to have President Obama  subjected to an articulate complaint that “spoke truth to power,” yet the objectives and specific content of the speech doesn’t matter: that wasn’t what Carson was invited to do, and it wasn’t what he should have done. Dr. Carson has subsequently justified his actions in self-congratulatory terms as an act of courage, but in reality it was an instance of a citizen seizing an opportunity to grab national attention and a prominent soapbox that weren’t his to grab. His actions made the President of the United States a captive audience to his amateur analysis of national affairs. It was disrespectful, and because it was given under false pretenses, dishonest. Continue reading →

Musings on the Strange Case of the Call Girl Olympian

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments
Favor Hamilton, Olympian, call girl. in a recent promotional shot for browsing johns. "Faster, Higher, Stronger!"

Favor Hamilton, Olympian, call girl. in a recent promotional shot for browsing johns. “Faster, Higher, Stronger!”

The Smoking Gun, in what has to constitute the most ready-made plot for a cheesy movie in history, has obtained documents showing that three-time Olympian runner Suzy Favor Hamilton spent the last year living a secret life as a Las Vegas call girl. The entire story is jaw-dropping, including Hamilton’s comments about it once she was confronted with imminent exposure. It also raises some vivid ethical issues, as you might expect.

Beginning last December, the 44-year-old Hamilton  started working under the fake name “Kelly Lundy” with one of Las Vegas’s premier escort services, booking what the Smoking Gun terms as “scores of ‘dates'” in Vegas, where prostitution (I was surprised to learn) is illegal (though it is legal in other parts of Nevada), as well as Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and other cities, where it is also against the law. She apparently was outed after she told one of her clients who she really was, and he couldn’t keep a secret.

Hmmmm.

A few observations: Continue reading →

The Zumba Instructor’s List and Public Shaming In Maine: Choose Your Ethical System

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

What those Zumba ads never told you…

Kennebunk, Maine’s popular Zumba dance instructor Alexis Wright and her “business partner” are being charged with solicitation and prostitution. Now the Maine Supreme Judicial Court is about to decide whether  Wright’s substantial client list should go on the public record, as it will unless the court agrees to put it and its names under seal.  Defense attorneys will argue that the harm that will result from allowing Wright’s “johns” to be outed to their families, employers and neighbors is too great. “We think there’s a really important principle at stake here: These people are presumed innocent,” defense attorney Stephen Schwartz said. “Once these names are released, they’re all going to have the mark of a scarlet letter, if you will.” Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: “The Video Vigilante” of Oklahoma City

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

The Video Vigilante

Brian Bates, or “The Video Vigilante,” has spent 15 years exposing and documenting street prostitution in Oklahoma City. He lurks around an area of south Oklahoma City known for frequent prostitution, waits for a prostitute to get into the car of a customer and follows it to their destination. Then, videotape engaged, he opens the driver’s side door and shouts, “You’re busted, buddy!”

Then he places the video on YouTube’s John TV channel, Bates’ website, JohnTV.com, or his Facebook page or Twitter feed. He sometimes send the links to the guilty men’s spouses. Sometimes, knowing this, his prey beg for mercy, which is never forthcoming.

A two-part Ethics Quiz:

1. Is this admirable behavior? Ethical behavior? Continue reading →

The Tricky Ethics of Trading Sex For Tuition

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

 

It's not generally known, but Anna Nicole Smith initially hooked up with billionaire husband J. Herbert Marshall so he could pay her tuition at MIT.*

Seekingarrangement.com is undoubtedly an unethical website. The question is how unethical, and that is why I’ve taken longer than usual to write about it, and the social phenomenon it and other websites are fostering.

The site is per se unethical because it facilitates adultery, infidelity and improper workplace conduct, by definition and unequivocally, convicted by its own words:

“Rich and successful. Single or married, you have no time for games. You are looking to mentor or spoil someone special — perhaps a “personal secretary”? secret lover? student? or a mistress for an extra-marital affair?”

Based on this alone, Seekingarrangement.com is Ashley Madison (the adultery website) all over again. Case closed, no appeal. A website is unethical when it endorses, encourages, and assists in dishonest conduct that is guaranteed to cause harm to third parties. The “consenting adults” argument doesn’t work, and doesn’t apply, when the adults are consenting to something that violates commitments, agreements and promises made to other parties who don’t have the option of consenting.

Seekingarrangement.com, however, became the topic of much debate this month for another reason: its use by desperate students, aspiring students or indebted graduates to pay their college tuition. In this it is like the more specialized Seektuition.com, which is solely devoted to matching horny, rich, developmentally retarded and presumably repulsive older men who can’t find real relationships to hot, poor, young women willing to exchange their bodies and dignity to  “help sponsor” their “ dorm rent, books, or provide assistance for tuition.” (“Perhaps even take you shopping for those new clothes you want to impress your sorority sisters!”). The Huntington Post broke the story, telling the tales of both students who “hook up” with wealthy, older men over the internet using Seekingarrangement.com and similar sites, have sex with them, and get tuition money or tuition loan repayment funds in return, while the wealthy men gladly pay big bucks to have an evening of passion with a co-ed and some Viagra. Continue reading →

Planned Parenthood Gets The ACORN Treatment

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Taking its inspiration from James O’Keefe’s infamous ACORN stunt, and anti-abortion group called Live Action videotaped actors as they asked Planned Parenthood staff at a New Jersey clinic for advice while disguised as a pimp and one of his prostitutes. Sure enough, just like in the incident that helped destroy ACORN, the eager-to-please Planned Parenthood staff member cooperated, advising the couple how to get abortions and other services for the “pimp’s” prostitutes, some of them described as illegal immigrants and girls as young as 14.

The episode raises several ethical issues: Continue reading →