Cunts Are Still Running The World

On this day in 1934, bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd was gunned down by Feds in East Liverpool, Ohio. And on this day in 1962, Kennedy informed Americans that Cuba had Soviet Weapons. And did you know it's National Stuttering Awareness Day?

Anyway, on the 22nd Day of the Tenth Month in the Year Of Our Dollar's Terminal Sickness, Things Done Changed, and the world feels like it's falling apart more than it did last Wednesday, which is nothing new, but worth noting nonetheless. End Times or Wednesdays always call for Desperate Measures to suite the Desperate Needs of a Desperate Populace; in this case, getting your Fuck on.

One city - the same city that was Tony Kushner's vision of heaven, which means it's devoid of any straights or gentiles - is finally starting to get it right: call the oldest profession in the world what it is and make it legal. I'd make a taco truck joke here, but if you've ever been to Cisco, you know the food in the Mission District isn't to be fucked with, though apparently, the whores are.

Now I've n-n-never robbed a bank, been to c-c-c-Cuba, or paid for s-s-sex, but people do always ask me if I've ever been to a whorehouse or if I know any prostitutes, because, you know, I'm from Vegas ("Did you grow up in a hotel?" is a question I still get sometimes. I don't know, you're from Chicago, did you grow up in a deep-fryer?). Truth be told, my friend's mom was a dancer, but no, I've never known a prostitute. We once took a family car ride up to Pahrump (yes: Pahrump, Nevada) which is outside of Clark County, which is where, in Nevada, the vag-for-money trade is legal. My cousins from Atlanta were visiting and wanted to buy a t-shirt, and so we'd have to pile into the car to drive into the middle of the desert, so they could walk in, buy said shirt, and leave. I don't remember seeing any of the product, but I do remember a report of the women working the front, and back in '97, when the economy was kinda robust, it still was, at best, a sour deal (pun inten...whatever, you get it).

Anyway: it's a woman's right, right? But how do we draw the line between subversion and entrepreneurial ventures? I have no idea. It's trick-y, 'specially as someone who has almost nothing to offer in the Cock-For-Sale dept (I'm Jewish, get it?).

But Amsterdam seems to have a good model, and I guess the Nevada system works (insofar as we know). Bottom line, everyone knows that regulatory bodies protect sex workers more than making victims or criminals of them. Nothing more needs to be explained here: it's common sense. If our government had the same oversight of the sex worker industry as they did, say, Silicon Valley (unintentional pun whatever), a significant, safe contribution to our economy could be made through an only slightly-fucked-up-but-mostly-inevitable part of civilization that we're inept in not having come to terms with sooner. This is just how it goes.

'Cause at the end of the day, a guy named Dick Fuld is fucking all of us eight ways to next Wednesday, and goddamnit, I want some of the hard action, if any at all. Next time I see you, I'll have flowers in my hair.

Obligatory Links:

The Sex Workers Project (Donate here.)

Stuttering Foundation of America

Obligatory Song Encompassing Theme:

Jarvis Cocker, "Running the World"

UPDATE - Sac notes in the comments: Prop K is an awful idea in that it doesn't actually legalize prostitution (because state law still trumps municipal law, even in SF), it merely forbids law enforcement from policing the skin trade, basically throwing sex workers to the wolves.

Per the usual, I didn't do my research; sorry. Decriminalizing it is the first step, but the proposition - or the eventual aim of this movement - should be amended to provide health/municipal services to sex workers in San Fran. Also, it's worth noting that prostitution isn't legal in Reno, either - it's mostly rural counties in Nevada (but not rural enough so that they can't be reached in an hour or two).